Regular School Board Meeting - Jan 21, 2026

001testing testing one two three. Once the board has reached a capacity, the guests will be directed to an overflow area. Continue to exit the building until the authority who has deemed the building safe to return. Thanks for your cooperation. And just a separate note, we have a lot of participants, today which is very exciting. I want to be clear that, if you do not fit in this room, you'll be directed to an overflow room. There is a few, but for safety reasons, we have to keep the hallways clear. I don't know if chief gregory, you can speak to that a little bit. It's not that we're trying to keep people from our room or building, we're just trying to keep the area safe. good morning, that's correct. We do have a lot of people this

002morning. There is a number of folks in the lobby area but we need to ask everybody's cooperation to keep the main hallway open in the event that we fire rescue personnel for some medical emergency or some other incident, we have to make sure that the first responders are a able to navigate the hallways. Everyone's cooperation will be greatly appreciated. again, we'll be doing a lot of public speaking, so if you don't hear your room, please come to the room. We're just trying to keep the building safe for everyone. Board member bulman will now introduce her school to lead us to the "pledge of allegiance". thank you, chair. our colors will be presented by the hol en dale high school, army rotc color guard under the leadership of sergeant finely and the "pledge of allegiance" will

003be presented by collins elementary school in daily beach. I want to welcome principal ians and our tigers. Thank you. ready, front. Colors. MARCH on, MARCH. Right return, MARCH. Forward, MARCH. MARCH on, MARCH. Left return, MARCH. Color guard, halt. please stand for the "pledge of allegiance". I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under GOD, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. MARCH. Choose the best. choose bcps. Tigers. MARCH, color guard, halt, color. thank you, board member rupert has requested a moment of silence. MS. Rupert. thank you, MADAM Chair, I'm requesting a moment of silence for three students that were killed in an accident during the winter break. Here's what their principal had to say about them. As we

004reflect on the lives of ruben, miguel and richard alcazar are hearts are heavy yet gratitude for the light brought to our branch ely family. miguel's vibrant personnel and uplifting spirit had a way of brightening every room he entered. And richard a proud resent graduate was a natural leader who's strength, loyalty and guidance shaped the friendships around him. Their time with us, far too short. We honor their memories, we hold their memories close in our thoughts and we remain committed to support one another. Their legacy will continue to live on in the halls of blanche ely and all that knew him. Thank you, MADAM Chair. thank you, the superintendent released a revised agenda and published it on the school website. Pursuant to -- that good cause exist for such changes and accepts the revised agenda. MAY

005the chair have a motion and a second to close the agenda. so moved. second. moved by MS. Hixon, seconded by MS. Alhadeff. Those in favor of closing the agenda, say aye. aye. those opposed say no. MAY the chair have a motion a second to approve the minutes of DECEMBER 16, 2025 special meetings expulsion. so moved. second. moved by MS. Alhadeff, seconded by MS. Hixon. Is there any discussion? All in favor say aye. aye. all opposed say no. The minutes are approved. as we prepare to begin our regular school board meeting we're reminded that our vision is 100 percent proficient. We will continue educating all students to reach their highest potential. Our theme is believe, empower, achieve one broward. Our chief communication officer pulled the items that board would like to address. H1, h2, b1, b2,

006which has a 11:30 special order. 3:30 and companion item to oo6. At this time MAY the chair have a motion and a second to pass the agenda, -- -- . so moved. moved by MS. Hixon, seconded by MS. Thompson. Are there any speakers on the items not pulled for discussions? no speakers. all in favor for pulling the items not pulled for discussion say aye. aye. those opposed say no. Do any of my colleagues have any remarks on any of the approved items. At this time MAY the chair and have a motion and a second on h1. moved. second. moved by MS. Rupert, seconded by MS. Hixon. Are there any registered speakers? DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh. Speaker: good morning, DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh, plantation florida. So if we're going to be saving money on the backs of students,

007let's first save money on the backs of the adults. You already heard, the cabinet level people already got close to 450,000 this year for referendum supplements nobody voted for. And that's on top of last year bh they got a full year. So there is been a hiring free but no task assignment freeze. It will be very interesting to see how many task assignments there are out there and what they're costing and whether you're getting any kind of return on your investment. Now having been on the facility task force since 2011, I have my own recommendation about how you can save the 9,000 that you're trying to give to MR. Doreset. Now I understand I have an business background, I have a masters and Ph.D in business. That does not mean that we put our friends

008into positions that they are not going to be affective at. And this is not even necessary at this point. Because, on the ork chart, you don't have a facility chief. You have two executive directors in the facilities area. You have one over capital programs and you have mark who is over ppo. So this would be duplicative. You can give the chief fire official posititi or somhere se and ththe ilding department cago right to the superintendent and now you have segregation of duties which is what you need because all of these things being together is how you end up with ice rings boulderson. ceremony against the 9,000 task assignment, 9,000 dollars is less than half of a graduation at broward performing arts center. Tt about the costs of some graduations at the loter hill performing art

009center. Tightening of the belt should begin with the adults. And I did notice bb1 and 2 which is like 2600 that the board chair wants to ask the taxpayers to pay for so she can go to tallahassee. So I am against this. It's not necessary, it's not personal, he's already the executive director. You can have two executive directors go find a facilities chief because if you think of all the facilities caulk ups and the handy building which could be 2.6, the failed p M.O. R, solicitation, you don't have a long-range master plan. Save money, it's 9,000, say no. thank you, any other public comment on the item. yes, PRESIDENT Frisco. Speaker: ana fusco ft. Lauderdale resident, broward public schools educators. So I'm speaking a couple of different ways on this item about how and all

010the separations that happen. I've seen, the school board take a direction to a rational of saving money of releasing people sooner than later. Not giving people the appropriate time to be able to take a leave or get some type of training or corrective action we're also watching probation airy teachers be released. Ary teachers be released. our classrooms are without trained credential certified teachers. Not that I'm taking away from the substitutes that come, they do amazing with what they're dealt with, okay. So I'm asking you guys to stop rushing through an agenda item like this to just be okay because, your staff that thank you guys always so diligently want to trust which that article that came out, is a tell-tell so I ask that you read between the lines. It was not written by me.

011Definitely somebody in this building is feeding something to somebody that wrote that article but we want to rush through the rank and file to just dismiss them. Now I know you have a rational why people need to be task assigned to get a job done and it's quite interesting that thu quickly, want to approve their extra payment but when our teachers are covering, which is the most important piece in this school district of teaching our students, and I hear about our specials teacher in elementary that have, 40-50-60 students because they're doubling up, you don't want to offer them the what is in the contract an extra 55 a day. So I'm going to ask you to do more diligent on what you're voting on and who is really being harmed. You have 13200 teachers, 3000

012ESPs and every other employee in this broward public schools that are in schools that work hands-on with students and they don't get the respect and decency when they do the extra work to get the extra pay, pay attention to that. no other speakers. all right, MS. Hixon. thank you, I just wanted to, give a shout out to a couple of the retirees so mary lee baxster is part of the bef. She has been instrumental in getting a lot of the work done, especially backpacks for title one schools and she is retiring, so congratulations to her. We have two principals, principal hotagain from piper and principal kisstin from broad view elementary that are retiring and also director professional angela brown is retiring. So I just want to say congratulations to them as well as to the

01332 instructional retirees and there is a total of 44 non instructional retirees so just constructions to everyone. Good luck on your journey and I hope that you take the time to ten joy the ride. Thank you. thank you, MS. Rupert? thank you, MADAM Chair. I had a question about the 55 dollars a day. It was actually not part of this particular item. But it was brought up by the speaker and I'm going fob speaking on it when we do the substitute teacher contract. But I would like to know, are we paying that 55 dollars a day when our teachers are asked to have more than the amount of students that they, that they're suppose to be required? So and if it's not, then, make sure that, moving forward, that we do that especially since it's

014in the contract. thank you, for the question MS. Rupert. Yes, we do pay teachers and in the secondary level, it is $55 per period, if I'm incorrect, DR. Lozano you can correct me. what about elementary? what is elementary? $55 a day. But when they cover for the teacher that is out and the position still exist, they do receive per contract, $55. I spoke to a quite a few elementary teachers over the last week or two and they were not receiving that money. So maybe staff can take a look at it, via the superintendent and when the item comes up later, we will have an answer for that. So I give you the opportunity to do so. any other board discussion, DR. Holness? thank you, so I would like to thank MR. Dorset for taking on

015the responsibilities as we, as we look forward to fill the position but thank you for stepping up and you've always done great work. I appreciate you as an employee as well. I want to recognize MR. Lewis from pipe per, thank you sir. [Applause] thank you very much, what I can tell you about MR. Lewis, he's a competent guy, my son graduated from piper last year and he was instrumental in making sure that not only my son but all the kids at piper do well. And I want to recognize ms. heartagain who is a phenomenal person that MR. Lewis has worked with her and the two of them were such a great team. Thank you MR. Lewis, I appreciate you and I look forward to great things at piper. any other board discussion? All in favor

016of approving h1 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Item passes unanimously. We would like to congratulate each of you with your career at broward public schools. We value you and your families. If we can give the appointees a round of applause. [Applause] Do any of my colleagues have any additional remark? DR. Hepburn, can you please share a few remarks and introduce the new leaders. yes, thank you. I definitely want to congratulate these team members for stepping up to the plate, continuing the work and the continuity that our students deserve and our employees deserve that you're going to be supervising. When I want to call your name and then a quick board photo. Terry glassford acting principal at broad view elementary school. [Applause] Math' lewis acting principal piper high school. [Applause] Mark dorset task assignment

017chief operating officer. [Applause] Marlene salter, task assignment for professional learning and development. [Applause] and with that, we can move to a quick board photo. yes, at this time we'll recess for a brief photo with the new staff appointments. this regular school board meeting is now reconvened. Just a housekeeping note for everyone here for public speaking, please make sure to register online or at the desk at the entrance because at 10:00 am, we will close sign up per power policy. Please make sure you sign up ahead of time. Okay, we're going to recognize national school counseling week. National school week is celebrated each year during the first week of FEBRUARY and highlights the essential role counselors play. School counselors are trained mental health professionals who support students and their families academic achievement personal and social and

018life skills development and college and life readiness. In broward county schools, nearly 3500 counselor, they partner with families to help students throughout their education community. Promote responsible citizenship and prepare for success beyond graduation. We're proud to support data driven programs that benefit students across our district. Please take time this week to thank our school counselors and the impact they have op our students and the district. DR. Hepburn. thank you, MADAM Chair. It's with great joy that we celebrate our school counselor during school counseling week. we recognize these professionals who's dedication supports our school community and student success, each day they -- personal development and overall well being. Our school counselor and brave advisors remove barriers to learning and supporting students success through comprehensive data informed programs. These programs contribute to improve stud ept outcome including

019promotion rates. Attendance post secondary readiness, life skills and development of responsible citizenship. As a district we remain commit today increasing service soz each and every student has the support need today reach their full potential. The school counselor of the year and brace advisor embrace compassion, resilience and opportunity. These honoree exemplifies the meaningful comprehensive programs. Today we honor our school counselor who's work has shaped the success in countless students. Congratulations to our school counselor of the year, darrel wilson for elementary. [Applause] Christina nista for middle school. [Applause] And anthony jackson for high school. [Applause] And congratulations to the denise cruz our brace advisor for the year. [Applause] We thank you for the great work you do for our students every day. Thank you. thank you. All right, can I get a motion and a second on

020item h2. moved. second. moved by MS. Thompson seconded by MS. Hixon. Public speakers on h2. yes, we have three public speakers. First is jodana haas, followed by laura ca pe lo. Followed by benjamin buchanan. public speakers, please approach the mic. jordana, laura, benjamin buchanan. if your name was called, please approach the mic and begin. Speaker: should I start. yes, welcome. Speaker: good morning, I'm lori capello carrying the title of highly educated educators for 12 years serving public schools and dana community. I have been educators for 27 years, I also have a son that a dentist and lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and went to an ivy school. I'm here hoping today for a fair and just decision that is based on evidence that is investigated with fidelity and totality, I'm concerned about my record. I'm

021interested in a leadership position and I want to be recognized for the integrity that I earned. All should be consistented with past and current marsano, so if there was an issue, it should have said I needed improvement or satisfactory, I have nener ever earned those types rks.S. I have alwa hahad professional marks collaboration with colleagues and administration and the facts are evident in the packages I provided to each of the school board members. There are no patterns. Each scenario had a background in diverse. Educators receive no monetary compensation. I have highly affective over 12 years, never paid a dollar. A five-day suspension a mortgage payment for me. I never even received a one-day suspension, jumping to five days is not appropriate. My principal was asking for it to be reduced because she deemed it harsh.

022It would be best for students to be taught by their accomplished taeper that's right an a stub for five days. I have 180 students in my school which is the lowest performing school in the country. We have no internal suspension, we have delayed consequences, we're under enrolled, under stapped, high class numbers, no ese support or lep support. I go over and above every day. I'm being highly affective educators does require motivating, pushing students with rig or to perform -- riger. You have some parents who are grateful for the courtesy call and many that are annoyed and push back. I've had an administrator tell me that her favorite thing about me is I don't let the students off the hook. I'm concerned that my students make progress in a safe environment. I take responsibility that my

023escalated voice offended this student. It's been going on for five months. Thank you. thank you. georgiana haas, benjamin. please approach the mic if your name has been called. Speaker: you called jordana haas. Like she mentioned, I sent to the board packages as well. Thank you for allowing me to speak and for reviewing the documents that I submit sd. I'm here to address the allegation of unprofessionalism, I have been teaching for 14 years and been told I'm highly affective -- professional commitment to this district. On JULY 23, roughly two months before the incident, my child's father chocked me and I got a restraining, this affected my sense of safety. On SEPTEMBER of 13th, a student entered the classroom and refused multiple times to leave. Refused multiple requests to leave and I could not determine who he

024was or whether he was authorized to be there. This occur during a documented safety issue of students sending students to classrooms not assigned. And security prior and post this incident making the risk foreseeable. When the student refused to leave, I attempted to access security my land line phone were inaccessible and the button around my neck was not functioning. At that moment, I experienced fear. My heart, my heart was racing. Sorry. My heart was racing, I was sweating and I was focused on protecting the students from unauthorized intruder. After repeated requests failed and no functioning way to reach security. I told the student to get the bleep out of here. I acknowledge this language was not ideal however it was a fear base response during a documented safety failure, not out of anger or disrespect. Sorry.

025In that same period I emailed faculty that no unauthorized students be sent to my classroom and I had sent emails. No action was taken regarding the unidentify students and similar concerns have continued despite repeated request. I raise these concerns and ask administration what I should have done at the moment when all safety measures failed and I was given no answer. I informed administration and that administrator cursed at me minutes before the incident and weeks later another cursed me in front of another class no action was taken for either. This is documented in relevant to the allegation I bring before you. All of this documentation including emails from teachers, security myself and all the records regarding non functioning emergency button have been provided for your review. I care deeply about my students and school, I reflected

026on the incident and sought fro if hesing al support to ensure that I respond more effectively if placed in this situation again. However, I feel three day suspension when similar conduct by other faculty goes unaddressed and unauthorized student was not disciplined is not equitable and does not improve school safety. For these reasons I ask you to vote against my suspension. Thank you for your time. benjamin buchanan. Speaker: I was unjustly disciplined without going the procedures of discipline, I would like to have the three-day suspension lowered. On 10-14-25 I was sitting in the break room waiting for my supervisor to assign tasks. While wait withing I used an e-cigarette. At 10-24-25, me and my immediate supervisor metaphor a due process meeting which resulted in me being issued an three-suspension, and this being my first offense while

027having no other verbals and write-ups. Since this incident has happened, I have made multiple attempts to request a meeting with my immediate supervisor to repri manned the situation. I have received no response from them, on three different attempts. Sorry, that's all I have. okay, thank you. Any other public speakers. two more, patricia followed by PRESIDENT Fussco. patricia hill and PRESIDENT Fusco. Speaker: good morning, I'm patricia hill, I was notified that I would be getting terminated from driving school buses as of today. They told me that I can come in and try, I guess to stop me from getting terminated. I was removed from driving a school bus because somebody used my identity in another county. So I was arrested for that. And, they removed me from driving the buses and they told me once it's

028the case is over with, that I can come back and drive buses. They didn't give me a time frame like you have three or four months to resolve it. They didn't tell me. I've been out of work since the second week of school today. So I'm just here trying to fight for my job back. I have two kids, a special ed child, I cannot lose my job, I know you have consequences behind things you do but I didn't do it. Yes, I'm just here to fight for my job, because I'm not going to be able to afford my lawyer once I lose from driving school buses. Yeah, basically, that's what I'm here for. thank you. PRESIDENT Fusco. Speaker: ana fusco, broward PRESIDENT. So you know how I feel about this agenda item. Even though I

029have to say that we're working forward and collaborating with hr team, fopi and copa, we appreciate that initiative and know there is work in progress when there is changes being made. I want to puddle back on the georgiana haas situation, I don't know if anybody has been threatened or mugged, I'm sure you've heard my story several times, I've been mugged four times, I ask like I'm a bad ass until you think somebody is going to kill you. Things happened, you react in a different way unless possibly if you're armed or not. I don't know but the point is, is that every time that I was, mugged, I looked back at it and I acted differently and the first time, it was in fight, that didn't weather well with me. I got my butt kicked with

030by three men and it didn't weather well. And the last time it was begging to don't kill me or hurt me because you want pocket change. I need you to understand when situations, it's not like I woke up in the morning as an educator and let me come be and be egregious to a student. We know that there is something happened, there is context and obviously there will be some type of, you know, corrective action. Corrective action does not mean to be punitive. You heard from MS. Haas saying, what I should have done? How can I handle it? Which is the number one thing we say in all our meetings when the committee or the hr team, or professional practices, or the principal, or you guys decide you're guilty. You have yet to ever come

031back and give a rational on what to do or how to handle it. You want to go bam, right to the punitive. Certain things, deserve punitive measures. I stand before a lot of my members and I believe in due process. But if they have been egregious and they've done it purposefully, I make them take the corrective action and then move on and learn from it. And broward teacher's union, and other groups help them understanding on the trainings and what to do. You know who does not come up with it, you guys. You do, so I'm asking you guys to think really hard on her ask on the 3-three suspension is quite harsh. And I'm going to keep telling our employees to put the panic button. By the way, you've got admin out there saying don't

032do it. any other public speakers? no other speakers. board action, MR. Cervera. thank you, chair. Two issues, one, actually for two of the three speakers. I would like to hear from staff. We'll start with MS. Hill, I think I heard her say that her identity was stolen and individual who stole the individual did something wrong in a different part of the state and she got arrested. I would like to know if that is what our investigation uncovered from taking the speaker's comments at value that seems a little unfair for me but I have a suspicion that was more. our records reflect that she was arrested while working in a department store and many individuals that were permitted to get their items without paying. When we bring a case before you, we have the arrest and

033we have the document, the charging document. So we have to comply with the state and the requirements of the state that if somebody is arrested for dis qualifying offense they cannot work for our district. did we get a affidavit that was filed by the city municipality department? And if so, was there anything in those charging documents indicating that, MS. Hill, had told the officers or told the detectived that her identity had been stolen? MR. Cervera, we have the documenting you are mentioning but we can find out if there is any details about identity. We would have flagged that file if we were aware of that. So having the charging document at hand, that's what we're required to do for our employees in the district. But we can follow-up on that. thank you. Next, if I

034MAY chair. On MS. Haas, we heard the educator, we heard her side of the story. I would like to hear more from staff what was described in her explanation of the incident, was that unidentified which I believe she was a student entered the classroom, refuse today identify himself, presumably didn't have any id badges or anything like that on his person. and she in a panic, and in an effort to protect students, used some profanity and instructed the individual to get out of her class. I would like to hear staff's position on the incident in question. so looking at this case file, we have priors, starting in 2018 with a verbal reprimand where she was screaming and shouting towards staff and students. Then a second verbal reprimand for violating hipaa for a student in front of

035others and allowing students in her classroom for not being in roster and a reprimand where somebody parking in her parking lot and her stating who is the mf in my parking spot. So reading the corrective report, she did tell a student get the f out of my classroom and indicates that multiple students again were in her classroom which were not to be there, they were not on her roster and according to student's statements, she allowed to be other students to be in the room on multiple occasions specifically seniors. She told others not to return without a pass. And when a student arrives with a pass, she said you can stay here next time. And she said to the student, yelled f-no. And stated that she would have to write another angry email. During the due

036process meeting, she did accept responsibility for denying students for saying, get the f out of her classroom. And the disciplinary record reflects the reason for the recommendation before you for this suspension is not only based on this and the profanity, but also behavior unprofessional behavior that is on going with staff and violation of the code of ethics. thank you, I'm satisfied. If you can get me on answer on the hill issue on the stolen identity. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So DR. Hepburn, regarding individuals that are given certain consequences for their actions, such as what has been described for example jordana haas, does the district also provide an addition to these kind of consequences where an employee used profanity or in front of students and so o and so forth, is there anything else

037that we do to help that employee seeing that there could possibly be other underlining concerns that would cause such a reaction? Do we have any sort of staff development any kind of a, you know, I don't know, anger management whatever it is, do we go beyond just the con sequence of punishing something in how they react to students and staff. MS. Parenta. employees are aware that e a pe is always available and many times they refer, I would not go into any specific cases because I don't want a hippa violation. There is other courses which is decalation, better ways and strategies. And in addition, annually and beginning this year, there was mandatory presentation that all staff had to watch which included the opportunity to seek additional training for deescalation and other things, that's where we

038brought forward the policy and conduct and military training about the standard of ethical conduct. I understand. So when an employee is given a consnseqnce, does your department ke those recommendations or reiterate those recommendations to better help the employee to function going forward? I'm sorry, can you please repeat that? so when an employee commit an offense and they are consequence with whatever it MAY be a three-day suspension, whatever it is. In that process, because I'm interested in how we make that employee better going forward. I understand the punishment but I also, want to understand how we as a district ensure that it's a better employee going forward. Because there could be underlined issues why people react the way they do. Even though they should be aware of these programs that we have, when consequences are given,

039are they reminded, is it reiterated, the options to help them? Do we have that, do we normally include that as part of the process? yes, sir, we absolutely do. So in every corrective, in the back are directive and expectations. So in this particular case, we have 8 different expectations that were shared with employee to conduct to yourself in a professional manners to refrain from inappropriate behavior, to refrain from embarrassing and disparaging students and ensure that everyone is treated with respect at all times and if you don't understand any directives and guidance to seek further clarification. okay. So. Thank you MS. Brandt. I'll meet with you because I have some additional questions. Regarding hill, in the event that what was stated is true, for hill, for MS. Hill, I don't remember her first name. And there

040is in fact some sort of a case where a false identity was somebody committed a crime use her identity and that is going to be true and the case is over. And tt, it wasn't her, where do we go from here as a district with that employee? through the chair, iemes he esmeralda, I wanted to address both MR. Cervera and MR. Holness's concerns harding the hill mat per. Under florida statute 435.4, the continuous the screening standards for employment. They're not only for hiring but also for continued employment. We wait to see what happens with respect to the charge. Once the charging document which florida calls for whatever reason the information, that's the official filing document of the state of florida. Once the filing document is charged, the mere arrest and the filing of the charge

041is cause to remove the employee and to disqualify them from employment. In terms of facts and circumstances in a probably cause affidavit, the charging document does not list anything about. Investigation that would be the probably cause affidavit and then whatever discovery happens in the criminal trial. However, in terms of moving forward, if and when, the employee would be ex -- exonerated, or plea to a lesser charge, then they can be reinstated. That's the state of florida and it's statute. It was not willy nily, it's a charge that unfortunately dis qualifies the employee. As I stated moving forward, if the employee is ex soj rated we can address that at the time. But the employee cannot remain employed while the charge is pending. I understand that the employee cannot remain until the employee is exonerated. I

042guess my question is, if that happens, and the employ other is exonerated, is it our practice that the employee is retired. I cannot speak to practice but I can speak to law the employee will be qualified to be rehired. If they were exonerated. so MADAM Chair, I would like to make a motion to remove -- chair, if I MAY, before you call on your colleagues. This is a item that I wanted to pull but I can't because the agenda has already been rendered, so board member would have to make that motion. So DR. Holness, graciously made the motion cause we're going to exercise a different option for this employee. Just as clarification. second. motion made by DR. Holness seconded by MS. Leonardi. Public comment on the motion? DR. Holness, can you repeat the name that

043you're asking to pull. the name is shawna forester andrews. thank you, any public comment on the motion? I guess I'm a little bit confuse by the motion itself. But, because I'm not understanding why you would not have also, well you have a due process problem, that is clear. So whoever you separate on every day, I'm going to have to sign up for this item. I keep thinking that every time you see things going wrong, you learn from that and don't do the same thing to people. People should not be crying on you airing their personal business when you're in denial that you still threaten and things have never been worse. You're not destroying the place, it's not being rebuilt. While I support saving at least one person, if that's what this done, you need to

044question all of these due process issues. Because the process is still broken. Thank you. any other public comment on the motion? Speaker: hello sarah climb, dear field beach florida. I saw the name but I don't understand the motion either. i just wanted to say, watching school board meetings for so long, I have never been so embarrassed for these people like begging to work here. It's already hard to work for you guys. Ask them, they know. It's hard to work here. I used to. But to have to stand here and beg and cry, they have nobody to talk to. I don't understand what is wrong. I never used to see board meetings so bad with everybody airing out their business and what about the people that can't come here? They don't get a chance to speak?

045They have to email you maybe? This is all wrong. The whole thing. Looks really bad. Thank you. any other public comment on the motion? Speaker: ana fusco teacher's union PRESIDENT. I said it before, there is, there is some things that are happening and it's a work in progress, superintendent did direct that all groups meet and we're trying to figure it out and we know that every piece is a detail that you MAY not all know. And I don't know the part that you do, in reading every little detail which I believe you should, because, you guys are the ones that approve it. So if you're signing your name to it, you should know everything. So the hr team and professional practices team and the psa team, the investigators that work with the police force and

046the other practice department, we've got some concerns that happen at the admin level. But I am asking you with this motion to, to also take out jordiana haas, because if we're going to sit here and reprimand somebody when they felt threatened, I have to go in a different direction how I direct my teachers. I have a press conference later and I'll point that out there later. any other public comment on the motion? Board member comment on the motion? MS. Alhadeff. I believe you need to clarify your motion, DR. Holness to ask the superintendent to look at the disciplinary action. okay, so my motion is to separate shawna andrews from the list. for this particular employee, it's not discipline it's probationary release, it's not associated with discipline, it's associated how to contract operate some for the

047short amount of time they've been in the role. so DR. Holness, you're asking the superintendent to? so celebrate shawna andrews from the list as it pertains to probation al airy release. all right, any other board member comment on the motion? MR. Cervera. for the sake of the public and myself, in removing this individual off the list, is the superintendent taking her currently on probation and we're now taking her off probation, is that what is being requested by DR. Holness? no. So she is currently on probation as a result of probation, she can't be released during probation, we're removing her off the agenda, off the list probationary release, therefore maintaining employment. so she is going to stay on probation by removing? correct. thank you for the clarification. MS. Hixon. thank you, that was my question, what

048does it mean if she comes off which is what MS. Alhadeff was getting at. Thank you for the clarification. any other board member on motion? All in favor say aye. all opposed. Motion passes with one descenting vote, DR. Zeman on the phone. Any other public comment. thank you, MADAM Chair, I'm done. MS. Hixon. I have a couple of questions and MR. Cervera asked, when MS. Hill came up, she was indicated that she was going to be indicated, she was going to be terminated but she could get her job back. With you again, clarify, I mean if she's terminated. There is a process that she would have to go through to reapply for the job. correct, she would follow the application process and reapply. that was the way it was explained to her. we'll follow-up with

049her. yeah, make sure it understand. Back to the question, did she ever indicate that her identity was stolen, I asking because having an issue with that right now. If she did, would we have called to ask, it just seems like a lot of steps for her to go through if in fact somebody was using her identity and she didn't do these things. so through the chair, he esmeralda negron counsel to superintendent. The formal charge against her is a dis qualifying offense. It is not the per view of the human resources department to do an investigation when the state attorney has opened a case a criminal case against an individual. That criminal case will be investigated. The person will either take a plea to a lesser charge go to trial, be found guilty, lots of things

050can happen. But in terms of the facts and circumstances, that's not something that is our, is our responsibility and our per view. I would say that we wait it out and see what happens with the disposition of the criminal case and at such time if she pleas to a lesser charge, that is not dis qualifying then the person is able to be rehired by the district. and I get that, and thank you for all the florida statute. But this is a human being with a job. So my question really was, did she tell anyone in our district that somebody stole her identity and this was not her. And I get that it's not her per view but if somebody would have said that to us, I would hope that we would have asked questions. That's

051what my question is. so not, we do not have that information. We do have a letter from the commissioner of education telling us that these individuals must be removed from their position within 24 hours and cannot be in our facility. my question was, did MS. Hill tell anyone in the district, that her identity was stolen and this was not that did it? Just in the process of whatever. not that we're aware of. okay, thank you. I appreciate that. My other question, is to MS. Haas and although I'm very sympathetic of the fact that you're having a reaction to being nervous, I have high anxiety and experience similar to what she has almost on a daily basis, so I am sim that -- sympathetic to that. But when you look at the priors, this was not

052the first time. We have we feel strongly that when the person is disparage to go students, we have reactive. Although I'm sympathetic, it's not the first situation and I don't know a two-day rather than three days, if you look starting in 2018, there were inappropriate towards staff. 2022, inappropriate behavior toward a parent and student. 22 student in class not on the roster, 23, in sub board ant towards students and staff. It's not just towards her peers, it's inappropriate behavior with students. There is a pattern here. And at some point, there has to be a punitive consequence because as we can see, just giving verbal or written reprimand is not changing the behavior. So although, again, I sympathize with the situation that brought her here, I do believe that there needs to be some kind of

053discipline. But I would ask on this to the superintendent, as MS. Haas mentioned here in the letters that we got, she did ask for direction. There were some internal issues with having students removed, her panic thing is not work withing. So, can you please look into that with the administration at ft. Lauderdale and make sure that is all corrected. And moving forward, MS. Haas should know if that situation were to happen again, bha would be the right directive for her to do so that we are giving her that follow-up in terms of what should have been done instead of what happens. Thank you. thank you, MS. Alhadeff. thank you. My question is to DR. Hepburn, I just want to make sure that we are training our teachers on how to use their wearable panic button

054that they're wearing their panic button to be used in a medical emergency or worse case in an active shooter and that administration is not telling teachers not to be using their panic button. yes, that's correct MS. Alhadeff. We've done extensive training and also when it's appropriate to use either the admin local response on campus versus the at large response. And I know, chief gregory and his team works with the schools when he sees a lot of inadvertent presses at the school just to remind the staff on how to press and for what specific reasons. We'll continue to follow-up and ensure that that continues to happen. just to make sure that we continual train on how to use it and our data does show that it's being used for mostly medical stances. any other comments? I

055have two comments. I again, invite labor lead he ship to meet with board members to discuss these matters individuals. I've extended that invitation before. And just to staff, I think a lot of us have been talking about training in response to corrective action and I appreciate the resources that are available. But to the extent possible that training being in-person, is very important because I think tt much more meaningful than you know, doing an online course or watching a video. So I know that we do some of that. But I think meaningful and training is important. Any other board member discussion on the item? all in favor of the item, h2 say aye, aye. all opposed say no. no. item passes with one dissenting vote MS. Rupert and DR. Zeman on the phone. I would like

056to turn it over to the superintendent for a national counselor week again. thank you, MADAM Chair, I don't think all of our awardees were here earlier. So I definitely want to recognize them while wewe'r they'r'rhehere. And we'll a piure.E. Once again, our brace advisors and counselor of the year. Congratulations to our school counselor of elementary, MR. Darrel wilson. [Applause] And for middle school, christina nista. [Applause] For high school, anthony jackson. [Applause] And our brace advise of the year, denise cruz. [Applause] congratulations again. We will briefly recess the meeting for a photo. welcome back to our regular school board meeting. This is the time of the agenda where we have split the general public speaking to incorporate a morning session. Each registered speaker. Because we do have a lot of public speakers this morning, I just

057want to go over some housekeeping measures. It is to the chair's discretion to allow extra public speakers. Per policy we have a lot more public speakers than we have allowed for in policy but it's to the chair's discretion to allow more public speakers. So that's what I have chosen to do. It is also the chair discretion to use a different amount of time for public speaking. It was my desire to give one minute for each public speakers, public speakers were notified of that. When they registered. And, the goal of that is so that everyone here is able to speak. So everyone here who would like to speak, will be able to speak and that was my goal with allowing for one minute. We will have to suspend public speaking from time to time and I

058will go over the times that we will suspend public speaking to go to some time certain items that was we had items scheduled in advance that we will address. At 11:00 am, 11:30, 12:30, 1:15 and 1:30 if we need to do that by that time. When those items are done, we will go back to public speaking. So we're just trying to run an orderly recognized meeting where everyone will have an opportunity to speak. Soil call three names at a time. If you hear your name called, please line up. We have two mics on either side of the room. So the first three names I have are DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh rachel daily and lilliana. Speaker: good morning, again DR. Lynch-walsh, plantation florida. I signed up to speak when it was 3 minutes and this was not

059even a topic. But apparently every week or every time there is a board meeting and I'm here to talk about the fact that I'm living proof that you hide, deny and spin and threaten and misconduct to try to spin the narrative you blowup yourselves again. I sent you an email on the 9th trying to avoid this. I sent you another email last night, because for want of, now I'm down to 450,000, you have everything up in arms. And let's be clear, the issue is not that you're putting baby in the corner, it's that telling rosa parks to get to the back of the bus. And it does not matter how you spin it. thank you. MS. Daily. Rachel daily. Speaker: good morning, I'm here on behalf of -- alumni association, we're collective graduated classes to

060have where we get together once a year to fund a scholarship. During the last month, we've received bullying and harassing, principal, MS. Rupert, we reached out in OCTOBER and we are waiting for a response from you. I'm expecting this week to hear from you. I'm not sure if the board thinks that certain organizations or groups don't have influence within the community, but I'm here to tell you that's not correct. So I'm expecting to hear back not only from you MS. Rupert but, the area office they're well aware what has been transpiring and there is been crickets. So I expect those items this week. Thank you. thank you. Lilliana. Speaker: yes, I'm asking you you should have a plan for everything that is going on right now in the broward county public school. It's very sad

061for us teachers to see that you don't appreciate the teachers because when we come here, and we are making it very loud saying, the cost of living is super high, find the fun for raise. What is the referendum money that some people in the district got some part of it. Which the taxes, the taxpayers up there, voted for the teachers to get that money. That's one thing, the other thing, I'm going to ask is, I want to ask you to really reflect on today's date, it's like an open eye and a way of thinking, let me see what I'm doing wrong and let's brainstorm like we do the teachers do in the classrooms, and let's find the piece that's are causing us not to do our job and move them out of our way. Thank

062you. ashley sua sua, I'm sorry if I'm not pronounce thating right. Ashley, and mayor james curren. Speaker: mayor james curren, cooper city mayor. I'm here today to ask the board to change its special numbers to allow for high schools su from 555 to 500, will will alleviate some pressure from you and mine side. it will provide for more reasonable parking accommodation for graduates and families who arrive hours apart from one another. It will cut back on ot black market price when the tickets demand outweigh the ticket supply. It will give your schools and your cities a grade experience for graduation. Thank you for allowing me to speak. [Applause] jet, and ashley and lisa commissioner. Speaker: good morning, I'm gabrawl I'm from northeast high school. I'm also valedictorian for the class and I would like to

063speak on behalf of students and any other schools. What you're doing with graduation is completely unfair and you guys are doing it in a horrendous way, and I don't want to be rude or anything, the students graduating from hard work and now have to graduate from pam pa no beach jim nase um. And I have a question from the board members. Two weeks, I spoke to one of the board members sarah leonardi and I heard this rumor justified, she assured me that this will be public and the parents have opinion and voted on. Few days later that the parents weren't notified, was that a blatant lie? I would like an answer, please. thank you. Ashley suasua. Ashley asua. Speaker: can I get an answer? we'll go ahead and recess the meeting. Thank you. welcome back

064to our regular school board meeting. Just so that everyone westbound clear and we can have dequorum, we do not go back and forth. The superintendent will be addressing the graduation piece in his superintendent report. There will be board discussion and direction. We do need to maintain dequorum in the audience. The next speaker is ashley and then we have commissioner liza mol ao tzi. Go ahead. Speaker: hello I'm ashley swausa, I am here to present on behalf of northeast just like jabrile, I'm student PRESIDENT And I'm here happy to here to represent the stud ept body. Unfortunately not everyone gets to go to college and not everyone wants to go to college, therefore high school graduation tends to be something amazing for everyone. I feel like everyone deserves a nice graduation, and it's, simply unjust. You

065denying to answer jebriel is you denying one of us, you denying one of us is denying all of us. Thank you. thank you. Commissioner lisa? And then we have lower' capelo and then jacqueline guzman. Speaker: hello commissioner cooper city, thank you for the opportunity to speak on graduation venues. I'm against this, but statistics are from cooper city high class of 25, they have worked, 15 silver knight nominees and 98 scholars, 200 bright future scholars, 60 had 3.5 and over 9 million dollars in scholarship. These children have worked very hard and deserve to feel special as they are. Some schools are having a graduation at a rival school. If you have a child that has felt that rivalry, that graduation is not so special. With approximately 3 tickets per child. Give the students, student government, parents

066pt a or municipalities the opportunity to pay the difference so the students get to shine. Thank you for your time. Speaker: hi I'm deputy mayor from the see of sonrise I'm a product of this district and have three children in this district too. Not only am I representing my constituents but standing here as a mom to a senior at piper high school. The school board sarah leonardi wrote public confidence is earned through openness and results. After today's public comment I'm hoping to believe her statement. Graduation is a once in a lifetime mild stone, these students have worked tirelessly to make this district a a-district. Some are delegated. District leaders are trying to convince the public that students will have the same experience but for a gym nasium and professional venue is not the same. Cost

067cutting should not come at the student equity. We hope you ensure. thank you. Rebecca, sebastian and brandon herrington and just so we keep moving smoothie. We do a wave of hands like this, instead of clapping. Go ahead rebeck a. Speaker: good morning, I'm rebecca at a senior add -- high school. I have compiled da from U.S. Census boor and U.S. Report, what I found leaves me disappointed and enraged. Higher median incomes. This pattern is not accidental. The district says graduation venues are based on class size and cost cutting. Low income and minority such at hollywood denies and blanche aly. Why aren't larger schools split into multiple ceremonies. The ease that we're being sent to gyms that we're convenience rather than he rit quitity. Do not tell us to keep graduation quiet, do not escort us

068out of meetings. The community is here and the community is upset and we should be dedicate today upholding graduation he quit aity across the district. -- equity. Speaker: good morning I'm sebastian and today I'm speaking on behalf of the students and parents who are overlooked in this decision of graduation venues. These plans were made with almost no community input and many families found out late some even told to keep it quiet. that is not transparency. Additionally there is a clear equity, higher salaries graduate in professional venue like hard rock or nova while others are placed in high school gymnasium. These aren't equal experiences that you were talking about and they send the wrong message. This concern is real and widespread. Over a week ago, I started a petition a week ago and over 1300 students

069and parent have already signed in support of graduation venues and I know parents have started another petition that is at 2000. My graduation should not be diminished to a rival school's gymnasium. Thank you. Speaker: good morning, I'm brandon I'm haoen on behalf of my daughter who is graduating this year. I'm concerned about the venue change in plantation and how it's unfair. In previous years, plantation graduations were held at broward center for performing allowing families up to four guests. This year the venue is much smaller which is down to a high school gymnasium and families are now limited to two tickets. Graduations is a lifetime milestone, limiting attendance limits, grandparents which is emotionally difficult and unnecessary. This is compounded by facts that other schools in the district are graduating at larger venues with more guest access

070creating an uneven experience for students based solely on the school that they attend. I ask the board to reconsider the ven decision to ensure accommodations across all schools. Thank you for your consideration. thank you, melody, kie la and then sabrina. Again, if you heard your name, please approach the mic. Speaker: hello my name is melody from davie florida, I am a school social worker and I've worked for this district since 1999. I'm here really to speak about, the dedicated professionals who keep our schools running, every day we see the gap widening between our rising cost of living and our current conversation. In 2026, doing more with less is no longer a sustainable strategy, it is a recipe for burn out and turnover. I'm excited that broward schools has been back-to-back that we have achieved our

071highest graduation level, but, I also want to remind you that, those of us that are working in the schools to ensure that our students are successful and our families are successful, need a livable wage. The fact that we've been, not had much of a raise and the fact that the tsi -- . thank you. Thank you, kiela, sabrina and then melissa. Speaker: I'm the proud parent of two seniors at fort louder high school. What families are seeing is a equity, and lack of transparent and senior access concerns. i have questions on the board that I will follow-up later in the email. First what is our school's graduation allocation compared to some other schools. Not some get venue and some don't. I'm talking about per allocation and the full district break down. What is the accessibility

072plan? Graduation will be over two hours, many parents including mine, and grandparents cannot climb steep bleachers or sit in hard plastic if grandparents and dis abed members cannot safety access seating, it's not acceptable for any public school district. Lastly, if you expect 2500 people in the dill ard gym what is the park ing plan? thank you. Sabrina and me lissa and then deidra. Speaker: hi I'm employee for the city of ft. Lauderdale I love as a lifeguard. A lot of people are bringing up class size. I would like to bring up that after a child took his life at my school's campus, dill ard high school students and teachers were making fun of my school. I would like to say that it's ridiculous that I have to graduate at the gym at a school where

073they were making fun of a child taking his life. And if whatever schools like cooper city who are a little bit bigger and just under that capacity, that goes over the capacity of dill ard's gym and it would be unsafe. You say you care about students and parents but you're allowing us to graduate in gyms that are not enough which are not fire hazard. melissa. Speaker: melissa hollywood florida. Our students and our families are not naive, they understand where you spend your money, reveals who and what you value. You have some money for some families to have the graduation that they envision, a handy lease, referendum fund missagement bonuses for employees who should not received them but yet for some, you decided that gymnasium is not enough. You're not just implying that some students are

074worth spending less you're saying so by your budget choices. If you gamble away all the rent money, you don't leave your children hungry. Please don't accept other students while having others accept less. Restore equity to graduation and dignity to the end of our journey, for some of our students, this is it. thank you, deidra, nicki and then diane bishop. Speaker: good morning, my name is deidra and I have two children at ft. Lauderdale high school and 13 years as a public school parent. I never felt the need to speak at school board meetings until this year. Yet, here I am for the second time in a mat per of months. Because once again, decisions are being made that diminish our children's experience in the name of cost cutting. removing graduations from venues into gymnasium, while

075some still graduate in world class venue with six tickets while others like my daughter will graduating in a gym with four. Had families been aware sooner we could have explored other decisions. But this was kept from us until now. And that lack of transparency is unacceptable. You say you want our trust but actions speak louder than words. thank you. Nicki watkins, diane bishop and then lilly gonzalez. Speaker: good morning, chair and school board members, I'm nicki and I'm a parent and school advisory chair as well as the legislative for the district advisory council as well. My concerns are two-fold. Number one, district class size is only on OCTOBER 10th ep rollment and classed over at the 800 should be at the hard rock live. 50 students that will be walking please correct the count and

076restore western hard rock venue. And secondly, cutting off while others receive upscale venues creates unequal experience for the same milestone. Graduation is a lifetime experience, many have celebrated a historic 4 percent graduation rate. That deserves dignity for every student. Fairness does not steal from you, justice strengthens us all. isaac, yocolo. thank you so much, for letting me speak today. My name is diane bishop I'm a parent of ft. Lauderdale graduate and we adopted my daughter years ago to bring her to the united states to give her a good life and education and her graduation is one of the things that she looked forward for. She is top of her class and manager of the soccer team but one of many many kids at this school that has worked so hard and worked on cambridge program

077and done really well and to be put into a gym knauss -- gymnasium, the least we can do is give them a decent graduation on their way to college or where ever their career is. The war memorial is a great place to have it. If we have another option, we would really really appreciate it. And thank you for your time. Have a great day. thank you, lilly gonzalez and I think kathelyn. Speaker: hello my name is lilly gonzalez I'm a senior at ft. Lauderdale high school. Last OCTOBER when graduation was discussed, there was little community input. We could have better prepared ourselves and searched for venues, generated donations or whatever we needed to do. It was bad to see this from wanza paul to keep this quiet. How can one feel dis pageder. Despite promise

078that's equal experiences will be delivered, I'm sure you know why trust in the board is difficult right now. Of course ideally, every student should have been at nsu or hard rock which gives the city dignity. Before covid ft. Lauderdale had a graduation, we're asking tort same dignity in larger venues will have and allow us to move forward with the city donating space. Thank you for your time and thank you for listening. thank you. Speaker: hello. I am isaac socklove, you have clearly shown your biases for specific high schools with some of them going to proper venue while mine and 33 others are forced to go to gymnasium how you dictate the venue sizes are based on faulty numbers or numbers that are arbitrary. Stu tore your time. thank you. Speaker: I don't need the mic,

079I have a very loud voice as I was a theater kid growing up. I have two things for you, your hat says, listen to your parents and MR. Hollins, you said your son graduated from piper last year, where was your gratdation. I graduated in 2003, not only did we have baccalaureate back then but we graduated from memorial. If you cannot afford a venue for every high school senior graduated who put 13 years, 14 years, into broward county, stayed with the county for your numbers, put it on the football field, open it up to parents to buy tickets so they can have a venue that they can look back and say wow, I graduated from there. This is not right! take the money that you get in stupid stuff and put it back to the kids!

080thank you. [Applause] helen and then terry price. Helen shifm and terry price. terry lopez price. It's interesting because I'm always here talking about the malfeasance of what goes on when teachers and/or bargaining cannot get raiseds and here I am with the students, they're saying the same that I think this teachers do, demoralizing. This is what happens when you spend money on junk we don't need. I constantly tell you, people over product. You approve millions and millions of stuff we don't want! They used to ask me what do I want for my classroom, now you decide we need. We don't need. We need decent graduations with dignity. We need decent pay for our employees, we need to appreciate people. I talked to an officer that used to work at dade, and ne say they're not disrespected

081and now it's the students not being respected to. while they make their way to the mic. Mary karr, patricia, carolyn harvey and kimberly jefferson. yeah, it's mariecar, we've got a minute on clock. I'm a proud teacher of 26 years and I'm proud, to make broward an a-district, so you're welcome. I'm not proud as how we're treated as a district and how you're treating us. this raise, it's an insult, it's an absolute insult. Grandfathered teachers teachers that their dedicate their entire life, it's wrong. Our experience as educators is being devalued. You're killing the morale and retention. Florida is at the bottom for decent salary. Accountability needs to happen. And when it comes to this eye ob zebation, when it comes to us wanting to get amazing scores, I've got to say, when you it comes to

082thank you guys, the lowest is needs improvement! thank you. So again, helen, patricia hill, carolyn, kimberly jefferson. Speaker: good morning, helen shism from pen brooke pines, 0.555 percent. Remember that number. This is average of 380 a year for teachers, teachers who serve and teach your children all the children of broward county every year. So what does this mean? Not much. We as teachers need a living wage, we cannot afford to teach our children and live on these wages. Not to mention, we take our own money from 380 average and we purchase things for our students. Please what is a school board willing to do for us teachers? Thank you. thank you. Patricia hill, kimberly jefferson. Speaker: hi. I'm carolyn harvey. I'm proud member of broward teacher union. i'm a citizen of louder hill and I

083am here to speak on behalf of the pay. And the rising costs of living. Our educators and staff are not asking for luxury, we are asking to keep up, rent groceries, gas, healthcare, have all gone up! But wages have been kept at a pace. When pay falls behind, talented teachers leave and positions go on field and student ultimately pay price. We're tired of it. We cannot handle this. We are often to hear that there is no money, but to budgets are about priorities. Money is found when something is valued. Therefore I'm asking you to find the money, find the money! We often hear, we don't have it but I'm telling you, find the money! thank you, kimberly jefferson. And then we have mira and rene rogers. So again, patricia hill, kimberly, myra and renee rogers.

084If your name was called, please approach the mic. Speaker: good amonger, I'm with her, find the money, quiend the money for the teachers find the money for the students. My son graduated last year and hi to come because I would have been very upset if you guys had tried to pull this last year. So I'm here to help the parents that could not make it. You need to reevaluate this situation and make sure that all the children all of our children, graduate from a venue that they graduated at least from last year. 95 percent of graduation rate and this is what they get for 95 percent graduation rate. Please reconsider and this year the graduation rate is 100 percent. thank you. hi, my name is renee rogersment I'm here on behalf of my stepson who

085is a graduating even yor, he voluntarily took online and ex selled academically and earned the honor of being valedictorian. Along the way he saw his friends and classmates graduate from the broward center looking forward to the day he would do the same. Now he's being told that his graduation will be held at pompano at the same location where he had his middle school graduation. Graduation is a once in a lifetime mild stone, this last-minute change is discouraging and the message that some are not worth the ceremony meaning. Our students deserve to be celebrated equally and this moment should reflect the hard work that they have put in to get here. Thank you. thank you, mira at therend, vicente. tt just funny to me that everybody bragging about being called a a-district, we have press conference

086after press conference. If you're going to be called a a-district, act like a a-district not brag about it and decide when to put the a on our chest. I just find it funny, I wish that some of the dads come out here unless women, I don't think all of you would be talk to go us dads, it would be a different situation, understand. So for everyone up there, I want to think about, if the fathers come down here, because if the dads have to come down here, it's going to be a total different environment around this county. So please MR. Superintendent, I see you turning around, hey, I'm talking about your a-school district. Let's show everybody that we truly are a a-school district. again, everyone has the right to tb heard let's have dequorum. So

087again, lenamoheen and also felicia alvarez. okay. first I would like to encourage the board to please revisit and hear what has been said by parents, by satisfy, by the students regarding the apparently some have hazard. I would also like to encourage to continue investigating the MISS Appropriation of referendum board. And what they voted for in order to ensure that it does not happen again and to entrust the vote of broward voters. And ensure that these investigations receive through prior there is no reason to advocate our autonomy for a private school being pursued. Thank you. thank you. So again, I'm manacheca. you've got to get through order. Speaker: richard judd, 26-year teacher in broward schools. It seems like I spent most of my career dealing with big crisis, like economic meltdowns and covid and housing crisis

088and all of these years, there is always been some reason where the district is in a position where they cannot afford to pay teachers, that's pretty distressing over the years. Teacher union's get blamed for a lot of issues, but they don't stir contracts, they don't make purchasing decisions, they don't make real estate decisions beinger those decisions are made by other people. And yet it always falls on us, the employees when it comes time to balance a budget. I applaud the chair leonardi for uncovering the resent issues with referendum money and I applaud the members to following up. And look the people who constantly come up broke. Pay the staff. Thank you. thank you, felicia alvarez, ana fusco. Speaker: hello felicia water hill, teacher for 30 years. Don't reflect what happens in the classrooms, they offer

089judgment and support. Student behavior differently, teacher adjust lessons they normally wouldn't because they're being watched. Classrooms are being rearranged unbe known to students. Help the environment feels staged. Classrooms are nuance and checklist does not capture teacher impact. They're not a one size fits all, and issued certification and sat and all the quizzes in between, it's just way too much. Students are exhausted. Testing fatigue, more behavior and effort than test scores alone. Teachers know their students and diversity and what actually works for them. You have hired, and know what students need more than a checklist on a clip board. and just in a reminder, in three minutes we'll go to a scheduled item and then back to public speaker. So we have, we'll suspend public speaking right after delvin. Speaker: I'm minsca and I'm the nurse

090director resource center and also 2021 teacher toyota teacher of the year. That was an awesome award. However the things that are going in our school it is sad. I know your slogan says, see something, say something, that's not the case for most of us, because when we speak up, we get blacklisted and passive aggressive, and bullying, I'm just saying like it is. We need to look that. Teachers have a right to speak without being bullied and passive aggressing in a school setting. Thank you. thank you. Delvin. Speaker: ana fusco. I have this young man, I don't have is the camera on me, don't start my time. Go back to a minute, please. ana fusco teacher union PRESIDENT. You don't respect the public coming in and speaking. Remember your place, this gentleman is about valedictorian, this

091is who they spoke about. And somebody up there cued music and had him escorted out. I'm a child advocate, I have advocate for my teachers. A lot things to say. Funding that we got for the point 55, so my teachers can speak before 115 was wrongfully ignored by several people. Also, not coming in with gracious and fair negotiations, coming in with zero at the backs of our teachers that is wrong too. And let's go back to the graduation. Again, we know that there is money. Having the proper people find it is what I'm asking you to do. Have the people who work for your district, find it, listen to everyone and get these graduations back on track. thank you. Do we have delvin king. I asked you to start my time again. You didn't. okay,

092go ahead delvin. Speaker: good morning. I just want to speak to the speaker that spoke before rachel daily, she spoke about. Del beach high school, when you had your event at the school or tried to have one, you had age restrictions conflicts, security and staffing risk, administrative oversight, you didn't follow them. And you had prior lease and concerns. So I beg you not to meet with her because she is costing the district a lot of money. And again, rachel daily is going to take broward schools take me through this, rachel daily is just giving it out. thank you, we will pause public speaking to go to item dd2 which was a scheduled item. Can I get a motion and a second to bring dd2 to the floor. moved. second. moved by MS. Thompson and seconded

093by MS. Hixon. Do we have board member comment on dd2? We have MS. Bulman. thank you, chair. I just had a couple of questions about this item. The audit was completed in 2024, so I'm wondering why we're just getting this to us now? DR. Hepburn? thank you, a question for MR. Rodes. sure, through the chair. I have the auditors in the building, I don't know if they're able to make their way in with the folks out -- okay. But, what happened was, there was an audit that was completed. At the time it was scheduled to go to the audit committee, at the 11th hour, there was some documentation that was brought forward to us by some of the staff that was their intent for to us look tata information to ensure that we got the

094information correct in the audit. At the same time, the staff member who had begun the analysis, she took medical leave. So when they got back, we got back to and completed the analysis, and had the conversation with the firm who performed the audit. And we came to the conclusion that the information that was in the audit was incorrect, and accurate and it was not necessarily flattering, but it was correct and accurate. And one of the most important things was the difference between how, the, the contract was, in interpreted by auditors during the field work and their sharing g ofofthat formation of staff f duri t the course of the fifid d workthat wanonot questioned at the time. The very last page of the audit was responded by management. And so I have them here so

095they can answer any specific questions that they have, but that helps you understand why the timeline was so expanded. thank you. And so I guess my follow-up question since this was a 2024 audit, have changes been made since the audit was completed to improve the controls for, you know, to address the findings in this audit because now we've got, we're in 2026, hoping that's case. they, the work was done to take a look and ensure that the work that was completed and reduced to writing was correct and accurate. There have been no changes made to the audit. so I guess the question is to DR. Hepburn, if we've been implementing controls to address the findings in the audit. yes. So I'm going to, first of all, I just want to praise the audit first off.

096This as far as the team and I, these are the things that are continuously discovering from an affective bad practices that having plaguing the district for sometime. Thank you for the audit, I went through very thoroughly, hence our collaboration from the state also to come down and help us find ineffective practices. Because we're a large system. Our team have been doing a deep dive in every faucet. But we cannot get through as quickly as we want to. You know, some of the resent changes and moving forward, also, procurement is now under, MS. Johnson where you one of the things that we talked about and discovery throughout the year that she has been here is about lack of controls. I know we have an item later on that we will talk about too about substitute and

097inaffective practices and those are the things that we're trying to isolate, have better operating procedures and better accountability measure. I'll let MS. Rowe talk about some of the controls so we can remedy some sft issues that were found in the audit. through the chair, chief financial officer. I did study what some of the things that we found in the audit findings and we're putting corrective actions in place. We're working with procurement and a p department to make sure, if the system can't track them, we're putting things that are manual in place. We're looking at every audit finds that we have and putting things in place to make sure the control is in our system and that people are following the process. Most of these audits are due for invoices going through the proper procedures and

098we're trying to put those in place. So hopefully, this fiscal year, then we get audit for 2025, there will be minimum audit findings in these areas. thank you, and that's great news. And I, I appreciate the audit and MS. Johnson's follow-up with that, because I think it's very important that we're addressing these issues as soon as we find out about them and I'm very confident that MS. Johnson is putting those controls in place. I know that's been a point of concern and concentration so thank you very much. thank you, any other board member comment on the item. MS. Alhadeff? thank you, and thank you MS. Bulman. I think we need to go another step in regards to DR. Hepburn reporting back to us. Accountability measures and controls that this audit found that had a high

099level heading. And whether it's on a monthly basis or every three months, but, but I get it, we're working on it or we've put things in place. But there needs we need to have a stronger understanding that it's, it's fixed and that we're not going to fall into these issues in the next audit. thanks for the comment, MS. Alhadeff. Absolutely, we're planning on doing board briefing for many issues that the auditors have not dove into and how how we're going to reconcile some of those things. We have several issues, number one, revenue processes that has been with enhanced technology system. So we're trying to use our enhanced technology such as copilot and gain greater inside on some of the issues. Some of the technological issues that we have in resource don't match our needs. I

100know we talked to the board individually about the er system, these are our results to make sure that we're efficient and affective and people understand the roles so we can make sure that we are held accountable. But we can provide some issues on this too. any other board member comment on the idea. MS. Bulman. thanks, MS. Alhadeff, I appreciate that. Taking it a step further. Can we have a follow-up at a time certain when we would get up dates on the controls that are being put in place? yes, we can do something every other month or trying to create a good cadence of briefings. I don't want to do every quarter, we can create a good frequency so get you guys some information. okay, that soupsed great. thank you. any other board member discussion on

101the item? All in favor of dd2 say aye. aye. all opposed say no. Item passes unanimously with doctor zeman on the phone. It looks like our public speakers have left. Oh we have a few. Cindy burdenis, kenneth blake. Esther rodriguez? Speaker: hi, cindy verdict, I would like to thank the broward -- can you start her time over. If we can get the mic. Speaker: I'm sorry. it's not you. They turn it on automatically in the back. hold on, there is an issue with with the mic. Yes, go ahead and start over. Speaker: cindy verdict, pompano beach. First of all I would like to thank the taxpayers for the referendum which has allowed me to stay in broward schools to help make this an a-district. Thank goodness for the taxpayers and because of them I was

102able to stay. In spite of the fact that I pulled my children from broward schools because you failed them! And you failed, they were in an unsafe situation and you all sat there and did absolutely nothing! You failed my children. But I am not going to fail the children that I work with and the students that I work with because I care about them in spite of the garbage pay that you give me. Whenever we talk about the pay, you say I don't know. It is your job to mine the hen house. And if you cannot mine the hen house, then broward voters get out there and vote all of these people off the school board because we deserve better and your students deserve better and the children deserve better. thank you. Kenneth and DR.

103Vervich, the last three. Speaker: hello, thank you hear me all right. My name is candays blake, I have a proud parent three of them to graduate. Also a proud teacher that works within broward county schools and I'm a proud student from broward county schools as well. So you have one of your finest standing here. Okay. So I am also a proud btu steward in broward schools, and as gentleman said, he stole my thunder, we are a-rated district. We are not operating as a-rated district. Years ago, desantis put his people he want today have on board for our members. He ends it up, let me, I didn't notice the time, let me do this quickly, on behalf of all the teachers and the staff and fut staff and students insulting raise of 5.5 for teachers is

104atrocious. I cannot live here on my own. With the raise and multiple others. And I have multiple degrees some I went to school in front of me. i'm almost finished. This issue of loss of funds is not something new. Just as we have to put it together our own personal budgets, the schools -- ma'am, thank you. Please yield the mic. Thank you. The next public speaker we have on the list, esther and then DR. Trudy dramonovich. All right. We will now go to the superintendent's report and I have a list of board members who would like to comment on the report. So if you would like to comment, please flag me down, thank you. thank you, MADAM Chair. Members of the board, broward county community, I want to begin by sharing some outstanding, as many

105of our speakers shared today regarding our graduation rate. Our federal graduation has reached 91.9 percent the highest. This belongs to the -- from our teacher to our bus drivers, security staff and nutrition team. From tt moment the child enters our system to when they walk across the stage, this mild stone reflects your collective dedication and commitment to your students. When you remove charter schools and look solely at our district high schools, our graduation rates rise to 97.5 percent. Demonstrating our schools. Also had the opportunity to share this accomplishment beyond our district, i highlighted our historic graduation rate with our business leaders and with our municipalities leader at the broward cities. Both response was overwhelming. And in the future of our students. Also want to provide an update on our graduation venues. This item was discussed

106as a potential cost saving measure at the OCTOBER workshop, consistent with the direction provided, we have strategic leveled our district owned facility for the majority of our ceremonies this year. All students will receive a minimum of 4 tickets. 33 of 44 graduations will be held in district owned facilities. The remaining of the 11 largest will take in nova university and hard rock live. Class sizes are assigned as of OCTOBER 10ing student count including graduation up to 425 students at blanche ely high school. Classes blof 550 and classes abovele00 add hard rock live. From 2016 to 2025 the cost has increased from 300 to,000 to 8085. Last year the district spent 478,000 at revenue rental costa loan for just 17 graduations ceremony with a cost of about 28,000 per ceremony. This year, they have slightly reduced

107the cost per graduation to 25,000 approximately 25,000 dollars per ceremony which totals for 22 2000. This year, we're saving approximately 500,000 annually which allows us to reinvest those dollars back into classrooms programs and student supports. Each graduation ceremony at blanche ely cost about 3000 per ceremony with 29 ceremony in total, the overall expense amount to see 87,000. These costs are mainly attributed to police detail fees. I recognize that this change has raised concerns for some families. Regardless of where graduation is held this year, we're fully committed to ensuring that every celebration is special for all of our students and families. Our team is working closely to create a, a, so much Ms, create a memorable experience that honors all of our graduates and their achievement. And I'm going to ask becon to roll the tape

108we have brief high school graduations to give people a bird's view of graduations from that facility. Becon if you can roll the tape. thank you, MADAM Chair and my team is here and happy to answer any questions, the board or even the public MAY have. all right, go ahead MS. Thompson. I was not expecting to go first. Our students mostly left but just in case they're listening in the back. Soy wanted to first thank them for coming in and then before I go into my comments, I wanted to clarify what happened with staff, what happened to the student speaker, because, I think there is some misinformation happening. DR. Hepburn? yes, absolutely. That student was not being escorted out or removed. We have a policy that everyone has to remain seated for security purposes. And that

109student was being asked to have a seat outside because there was no seats in here and graciously MS. Ana fusco gave up her seat and the stud ept was able to remain in the room right now. thank you, I just think a narrative is beginning to be spread and for people listening at home or listening, what actually took place. I also wanted to thank the students who came out for speaking and I'm glad that many of you are thinking about your civic duty of voting. Once you're 18 you have the ability to vote for those who advocate for you. We also serve the will of the people. But that being said while we're in this role, it our responsibility to make sure the district thrives and work hard to find cuts to pay our teachers

110and make decisions based on what is best for the entire district it is our job as a board, to do what is right for the district, and not just what we think will get us reelected. I want to state how unacceptable I have found some of the comments about one our campuses online. I'm not going to repeat them here today. But I want to remind the community that these are our students, they are proud of their schools, of their community and to hear many of multiple disparaging comment about this community is disappointing and extremely disheartening. The supepentendent already addrdressed thmiminforortion th I inink was beg purposelely spread bysome adults and I thank you for that. And I want to remind parents that our children are watching us. They're watching how we respond to change, how

111we process new information and how we speak about others in our community. The way we monthed pel -- model adopt ability. Hosting graduations are outstanding. The principals of these schools take immense pride in their campuses and in the honor of hosting these sore -- ceremonies and I know that they ensure that every graduation is conducted with prestige and excitement that our graduates have worked so hard to earn. Thank you, chair. thank you, DR. Zeman, are you on the line? I am, thank you very much. go ahead. I appreciate where we're at and the truth of the matter is s sometimes, no matter how many times you say, florida is the 50th of fifty states, these things do not become obviously to people until something that is valuable and maybe even precious to them can't be

112afforded anymore. And I, I acknowledge that. It's a major disappointment that we cannot put the types of funds that we want for ceremonies that would be even better. And MS. Thompson is correct in her approach that says, there are, very good facilities that are availability that are a lot more affordable. I have a question for the superintendent, because there MAY be kind of truth on both sides. That yes, the funds that we get when we prioritize them go to thipgz in the classroom, they go to things that matter for delivering the, the things that we owe to the public. And that the parents would like to have, you know, different venues than the ones that we can afford to do. So to the superintendent, if we have 500,000 gap between the funding that we have

113and the prioritization that we have to fund our traditional venues in broward county, is it possible to have broward education foundation and parents work together to raise the $500,000 that they need to raise in order to have the traditional venues? yes, those types of things are possible we'll be working with parent groups. so I, it would be curious chair about what my colleagues think about their -- it would be, an interesting thing to do. If my math is correct, there is $25 per graduate. $500,000 would be 25 dollars per graduate, that seems like a reasonable way to do it. I know there is been a number of online parent groups that have been talking about raise -- raising the money. We should do it for broward county wide rather than one school to avoid any

114kind of equity issues. But I would be curious from my colleagues whether or not they would be willing to try that for 45 days and see if we can get to the $500,000, hopefully that will give us to the go to the nsu or hard rock or war memorials that I hear becoming available and try to work it out. Tt a little bit of a splitting the baby. And I think the parents would like to have a better venue. I would like to see if that's something that had the board would like to try and I will help the superintendent, I'll work with bef and I'll doo whatever I can to ep courage people to contribute to the graduation fund for class of 2026. thank you beinger MS. Jacque-adams. so with regards to getting a

115path ward, this is a decision that was left to the superintendent. I believe that he shall opine whether ideas that are mentioned are viable. It's not a direction, it's whether or not there is a feasibility and a process for that to be done and the superintendent has will be opined on that and I think that it is within his per view to decide on that. thank you, MS. Jacques-adams. My only reservation is the amount of time. We don't have a lot time. And then when you do, have a agreements made with these facilities there is contracts involved, I don't know if there is specific deposits that we have to secure. So time is of the essence when we talk about raising money versus just going ahead and having it and being able to go ahead

116and pay for the venues. So raising money, I know takes time. thank you. Is that it for you DR. Zeman. yes, ma'am, thank you. go ahead, MS. Hixon. thank you. And, thank you to everyone who came and does not look like they're here today but I really appreciate the students and community coming. There is a cup of things that I just want to point out first and I don't want anyone to think it is an indication of how I feel. I gist want to point some things out. First of all, we had a workshop in OCTOBER. To discuss this but prior to that, we had a budget hearing, where it was discussed in that budget hearing that maybe we should look at ways to reduce the costs of graduation. And I bring that up beinger

117because it was a public meeting, held at 5:30 in the evening so everyone can come. And you know how many people were here to talk? Zero. Zero people came then. And I hope this is an eye-opener for the community when we're doing workshops on things, we do want your input but when nobody shows up, we go by things that we think. And honestly at a dill ard graduation during covid it was lovely. So when it was introduced to reduce costs so we can find money to pay our teachers more. Here's where we land. So with that being said. We could have done a better job of advertising and giving out the graphic that came out later, could have come out beforehand so people had a clear message of cha changing graduation will look like. I

118will take ownership to the fact that we could have done a better job for asking for that input. But I just want to encourage and ask people to come to those budget hearings because that's how you give your input. No, we don't need this and that. And with that, I want to point out something. Our total budget minus charter school money is 3,367,000. So 2.3 billion dollars to average it off. We pay in salaries and benefits supplements and referendum money, 1 billion dollars,21 million dollars, 641,000, 247 hundred. So when people say, value. 81 percent of our budget goes to paying our staff and benefits. So I don't have a break down of teacher specifically but I think those things are really important. So we have asked the superintendent to look for money, to be able

119to give raises to the teachers and to be able to do all of these things we want to do. But we are very under funded as DR. Zeman said, 50th in the nation and how we get funded for our students. We get 9,000 a student. If you lived in the northeast part of the country, they get 30,000 a student. There is a big disparity there. With that being said, it really does feel to the public that a lot of cuts that we're asking for are falling on the backs of students and teachers. But I will also say that if you just keep saying no to the things that we're trying to find ways to cut money without helping us to look at different solutions. And if you keep saying no to everything, we land where

120we land. So just a cup of things, so si did, first of all, DR. Zeman, I appreciate the suggestion but I don't think that it would be equitable to ask students to pay for graduation when we've never asked them to do that before. I personally have a problem with that, even if it was every single graduate. Because then you say, I pay $25 but they're still getting it in hard rock, I don't know that it would necessarily solve is problem. We did look, one of the teachers gave a suggestion about war memorial because the city of ft. Lauderdale is able to have that facility a cup of times a year for free so I did reach out to mayor and I know, MS. Williams contacted the superintendent. But some of the concerns is war memorial

121is still not big enough. DR. Hepburn? correct. and so people have asked us how have you looked at some of the performing arts, we have, we know their capacity. And they don't fit most of our graduating classes and people don't realize what a performance art center, versus an arena or slash gym where the kids are seated in the floor. In the performing art center, they're seated in the audience, so inherits the seats for the those available. We have quite awe few performance art centers in different centers but it does not really accommodate the amount of guests that people think. I know the city of son rice there was a mention about the face center which is my son graduated when he graduated from south broward. Because lion king was playing. Can you give us, what

122happened with the phase center, is that something that we have looked into? we recently got the email from one of the commissioners in son rice, so we have not really peruses through that and even if it's cost, accommodates what we're trying to do as far as costs. So we haven't really had an opportunity to check it out yet. okay and my other question is, what if, if we were to, to give direction, I know, guess give direction is not the right answer but to give direction to go back to the venue that's we had before. Can you speak to whether we would be able to do that at this point? yes, I have DR. Wanza answer the question. good morning, still morning? Yes. If I MAY DR. Hepburn, I want to go back to the

123faith center question, MS. Hixon, if that's okay. Like your son, many moons ago, I graduated from there it was musical theater. Some feedback that we received over years, we did have to use faith center what it is now, we thanked them for graciously, times that we have in the past. We did receive feedback from different families while they were thankful about the venue, they felt concerns about being in a place of worship and they had different faith believes. We'll look into the availability and, but there was another question you asked me. how likely is it that we can get the broward performing arts for for days? so the broward center for the performing arts did start to book events. So they MAY not be able to accommodate all of the days. That's one. No voluntary

124would work with us and you know, it's, we would have to, there will be a lot of logistic kal that we would have to do, but revamp scheduling. But the broward center would be a challenge for one or two of the days; because they have already booked events on those days that we have for our graduation window. And then I'm sure that no vo would accommodate. thank you. and also the latter hill performing art center. thank you. i also like to say if you sat at nova, I don't think that those seats are padded. People were giving, saying being in a gym, because the seats are not comfortable at a particular school, I just want to be clear if you've never graduated before when you get to nova, you'll find a stadium, it's basically their

125gym. So you would have those similar concerns. So my thought, we don't have enough time to get more of the input that I think we should do moving forward. Because we donough that graduation is a challenge in terms of costs factor. Tt MAY and JUNE in florida, that's why we don't host them there. But there were a cup of people that gave those suggestion south side, I want people to know we hear what you're saying. I, I didn't vote for this the first time or give consensus the first time with the thought that it was going fob disparaging to anyone. So I want to be clear on that. It was a suggestion because we're looking for cost savings. We have encumbered a lot of lofts. We find ourselves in a place that is uncomfortable. You

126can't blame a school for this and pull out all the good things about a school graduating there. That was very disheartening there people explaining about the individual school and their performances can and why they would not want graduation there. So was very hard to hear. But I do, understand now that you know, this is a bigger deal, than I expected it to be. So I'm willing to change my thought process on it. I would like the superintendent moving forward that we start, now for graduations next year to talk to the communities and to the the students to find out how that would be acceptable. But it is too late to do that now. So my suggestion is to go back as much as we can to what we have done in the past and then

127if we have to move things around, do that. Thank you. Not email that says here what we have, it's not finalized and we don't want to give out bad information. We want to be clear that that's what that email was. We get it every single year. This is not the new year that we got that information. So I don't want this to come off that staff was trying to do something behind somebody's back. We did this in the open and I would hope that moving forward, people would give us the information as it's coming through and we as a district need to do a better job in getting that information from the public. Thank you. Thank you MS. Rupert. thanks so much. You're right with the ability to communicate effectively. Tell us what you want

128to see at your graduation. That's a conversation that should have been discussed in the OCTOBER workshop. Those types of up front situations for that. And I think counting on our great our great students and their voices is important. And so I appreciate landyn, both of them were, were extremely forthright and telling us what they were hearing. We need to make sure that it's amplified their voices. If we can fundraise, I'm in 100 percent on that. It's a lot of time that has gone between OCTOBER and now. And, I'm afraid if we, if we don't continue this way, or at least side by side, MR. Superintendent, do you think that it's absolutely, there is, there is no opportunity for us to change anything? Or at least we can research on best practices what we can do

129better next time. so if we're talking about funding and fundraising, like I said, time is the issue.E. Also I knkn, mamanyfamimilies that see arnonogogoing to be able to afford even that small amount that we're talking about. That's a reality. And so, we'll work with the board after this discussion is over. We already did some due diligence and research to see what is available and what is not. Waiting on the final direction sxz then we're just going to move forward, you know, based on final decision. I appreciate that. Can you tell us if other municipalities and other organizations besides some that you mentioned and my board members colleagues have mentioned, have many of them stood up and said how can we help? yes, a few. I talked to a few that are saying, how can we

130help? You know, some have venues but some are too small for our graduations, even if it's 500 or 600 schools because they have to sit in the audience. Some ask how they can help. People will learn more about how much all of this costs and see if we can continue the monetary support is what we need because, we have if so, working in other school large school systems in the state. And then you have orlando, all the graduations used to be amway arena, the magic place. And this is, those two venues work tremendously with the district, you pay little or nothing. That's the thing. Our venues here that we have access to, the cost is tremendous and it goes significantly every year. And I get it, we're competing against all the tours, some of the

131convention that's MAY be coming in facilities, the cheerleading competitions, I'm going to chair that, I know how much that stuff costs. We're just a competition with a lot of other entities. I walked to the PRESIDENT And ceo of nova, and they brought it down a couple of thousands but still tremendously expensive. I'm hoping and I'm sure you have already made a list of things to do for next year. What we do moving forward. Right now if you're here, you want to actually help public education in the state of florida, please reach out. Public education is starting to be, mighty lowly in the wilderness, let's just put it that way. It's important that we make it special for our students. I'm one board member who is still, will share everything that you reach out to me

132or any of us or our staff about how we can make this better. Also financially that we're being good stewarts of our dollars. thank you, MS. Bulman. thank you, chair. So I know, that this is very disappointing for a lot of people. And it's, very disappointing that we're in the financial situation that we're in due to being 50th in the nation and funding and various other potential MISS Steps that MAY have been made internally. But I think, you know, I think that this board has been very dedicated to addressing those issues, right-sizing this district. Making sure that we're financially healthy going forward and we've had to make a lot of really hard decisions. I think that we've been united as a board doing that. And it's not easy to be up here disappointing families and

133stud ept. The other is equity. We keep using the word equity talking about graduations. And I think when you're looking at equity, the graduation is a day and it's very special and very important but we also have a lot of inequity across the district that is happening every day. So for my classes, classes that others are not experiencing. So it's hard for me to kind of reconcile one day versus what we're trying to achieve right now by being financial responsibility trying to pay our teachers and our staff more by making the hard decisions right now. If we react to every disappointment that we create, then we're never going to be able to get on the right track. And so, you know, later today, we're going to be talking about closing schools. And that's, awful for

134every community that that is impacting. So you know, I hope everyone can look at the big picture. We are here in a very difficult time in the history of this district but we're here to make it right. It disturbs that there is an inequity in the graduation venues but to MS. Thompson's point I'm confident that the staff will make these graduations wonderful for anyone. I was impressed last year to see how everybody was organized and ran in time. It was beautiful. I cannot imagine that's not going to be the case this year. But I just, I just hope that everyone can think about big picture. We want every kid in this district to have the same opportunities, I want the same opportunities for my kids in district one that as the opportunities for the kids

135in other districts. And the only way that we're going to be able to do that is if we come together and make these hard decisions right now so we can move forward as a district. So, I, I hope and will expect that every kid's graduation is going to be awesome but I have to stand, with making hard financial decisions right now. So that we can have a future. Thank you. thank you. And just a reminder, please let's keep dequorum in the audience, we got to hear from many speakers today, now let's hear from. Board members. MR. Cervera. first I want to thank all the parents and students that came out in this very important topic. I also want to thank mayor jamie and melissa from the great city cooper city, your presence was noted and

136very much appreciated. We clearly got this wrong, what should be the pinnacle has now plagued our xhirn and students, with unnecessary stress and anxiety and despair. Our students have watched older siblings, friends, family members graduate from prestigious venue. Venue that's our high school have used for decades for these graduations. And now, when it comes to the class of 2026, our seniorsy turn to graduate and walk those, they're told no. You have to use a high school gym at another school that you have no affiliation with. now, I want to make this very clear. I think the facilities into nr high school, pompano beach, all of these gyms, these are quality gyms, I have attend basketball games and events and these are high-quality gyms. However, graduation has to be special. Now, to make matters worse, due

137to quote unquote capacity issues, we're trying to limit friends and family that can watch our seniors walk down the stage. For this once in a lifetime experience, the culmination of your academic journey, you have to tell grandma, stay home. You have to tell grandpa he has to watch this on a live feed or go somewhere else. Last year, our seniors were getting 7, 8 tickets, maybe even more. This year in some of our high schools, they're lucky to get four. This is not right. This is not just. And this is a slap in the face to our seniors and their families. Don't even get me started on these number computation whether it's 500 kids, 550 kids, I have high schools in my districts that are missing these thresholds by two or three our five kids.

138There is a lot of funky math going on and I'm not okay with it. I'm not okay with it in district 6 and any portion of broward county. This decision, should not have been made at a quote unquote board workshop, okay. we know what happened at that workshop. We talked in generalities, we didn't talk about specific stools, we didn't talk about ticket allotments. And let's be honest, with everything that has been happening in the district for those of you not paying attention, OCTOBER was a lifetime ago. A lot of things have come to light. This should have been brought at a regular school board meeting and decision voted by everyone sit ising up on this dais. Now for those paying attention, I tried to get this item today to the amended agenda. And because of

139the timing, I had to seek permission which unfortunately was denied to me. I asked. Now, unfortunately, that we allowed all of you folks to come, our students to come in, our teachers to come in, our parents to come in. So at least you got to participate somewhat in this process. I'm happy for that. However, as you can see, there is no real change unfortunately, that is happening today. But if you stopped me at the supermarket and called me, I hear you. Why did it have to come to this? From the very beginning, we should be working with our cities, our elected officials, our PTAs our parents to make sure that our kids got the best graduation possible. We can work together to find this money. I know we're in financial trouble. And I will fight

140every day that I'm up here to cut wasteful spending that this district par takes in. But this ain't it. We cannot cut expenses on the backs our students. We have to find the money for this, one way or the other. We cannot cut tickets, and we cannot shut grandma out of going to see her grandchild graduate. Our kids deserve the best, and we need to deliver. Now, this isn't going away. We're not voting on this today unfortunately, because it couldn't be brought back as an amended item. However I want to put this on the FEBRUARY 10th, agenda. And in speaking with, I cannot give you a directive today. However, here's what I would like to see happen and I urge all of my colleagues to pay attention. We need to immediately engage the venues to

141discuss booking options and collaboration and partnerships, hard rock live, nova southeastern, university, broward college, broward center performing arts. We need to be picking up the phone now and work withing these folks to see if any deals can be cut, to see if any arrangements or any partnerships can take action. We need a plan of action in place to have our 2026 graduations in the same or similarly situated venues that our 2025 take placement we cannot treat our kids differently. I'm all about looking to the future and I want to do what is best for 26, 27 and 28 but right now I'm focused on our seniors. Internally, we have find this money, we owe it our students, parents and we owe it to our communities. We made a mistake! And now is the time to

142fix it. Thank you. [Applause] thank you, MS. Jacques adams. I would like to follow-up on MR. Cervera had indicated with regard to process and procedure within a policy. Policy 1020 requires that for directing the school board direct reports of which the superintendent's direct report there are certain procedures that need to be followed internally with the school board. I wanted to ensure that the school board was in compliance with their own policies. So in keeping with that, that is, that is a follow-up with regards to what MR. Cervera had indicated. so for the benefit of the public, I'm correct that based on our conversation I cannot direct the superintendent to do anything right now, correct? based 1020 procedure for directing the school board direct report and that's 1020, sub paragraph 4, sub paragraph c, sub sub

143paragraph 6, the process and procedure is to bring up a b item, that's correct. which in this case, MS. Jacques adams as we discussed when I tried to do that, pursuant to the statute, the only one, because of the timing of all this, the only one that could have approved would have been the chair for quote, unquote cause, correct? that's correct. for purposes of today. pursuant to florida statute. -- am mistaken that a b item was denied. that's a issue that I cannot respond to. thank you. MS. Alhadeff. thank you and thank you to all of my colleagues. You know, as leaders of this district, we have to own it when we made a mistake. And to now rectify that, not next year, not tomorrow but today. [Applause] MADAM Chair, quorum. Thank you. Please let's

144have dequorum in the audience and MS. Alhadeff, finish your comments. thank you. I think we're missing a huge opportunity to bring funds back to the school district. The school district, we every day our agenda items we have millions of dollars of companies that we pay for services. And every graduation has some type of graduation book that they have. In the missed opportunity that we have DR. Hepburn but opportunity that we do have is to create sponsorships on the front cover, inside the graduation book and on the back cover. And I think this is a really strong opportunity for ache of our high schools to bring, you know, possibly 20,000 a high school to bring funding to support the graduations. So that's, that is one opportunity. And, you know, we are in hard times, we all

145know that. And hard times also causes for drastic measures. And so trying to bring solutions forward and options to DR. Hepburn is one those options would be to furlough district staff. I know that that is not something that is going to take like to however, it's an opportunity to help with our fund balance, as we move forward not only with this item with graduations but for the ideals that we have to figure out. So I do have a motion and that is. A more graduation plans that combines non gymnasium for any high school that does not hold to wish a ceremony in a gym nauseam. I'm asking for consensus. MS. Jacques adams. so in NOVEMBER of 2025, the policy 1020 was very riced to remove the consensus. The policy is, if there is a requests

146to direct any direct reports of the board, school board members are to bring a b, or bb item. So seeking consensus is outside of the process that was established by the revised policy 1020. okay, so that to me does not make any sense because we get consensus in workshops and we are now in a school board meeting. so I believe, the chair can ask for consensus to ask the superintendent to bring back a revised graduation plan to next school board workshop or meeting or he can bring it as a memo. so I would like to just reiterate that the provision with regards to consensus was in policy 1020 and it was revised in NOVEMBER of 2025 to change the process. So, each of the board members are allowed to state what their thoughts are on

147matter and then timely bring an item each of the board members have already indicated what their thoughts on the matter is and you stated yours. So if you wanted to move forward with that, you could add a b or bb item in the future and your statements with regards to your thoughts have been heard by the superintendent. okay, well, I hope that all of my colleagues opine on this as time is of the essence. Our community wants to know how we're going to move forward with graduations and superintendent can hear collectively, from all of my colleagues how they want to move forward and then, a board member can bring an item back to the next school board meeting. However, knowing the consensus of the board and their opinions on how we would move forward can

148be done today so it could be executed in a more timely fashion. Thank you. thank you, DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Choir. so si like to mention, and this is to sort of echo board member hixon's comment. I don't believe this is necessarily set in stone. I think this is in response to our budgetary concerns. And among areas that the district is trying to see how we can become more stable financially, this is one of them. Among many other areas that we have explored or the superintendent has explored. But before I give my comments, I just want to have MS. Jacques-adams restate because I, I spoke with MS. Jacques adams before I came and I want to make sure that as a board member, I am not violating any state statutes. District policy as it

149is written on this, we intend to amend the policies. So MS. Jacques adams through the chair and the superintendent actual three through the chair. Directing the superintendent as a board, as the chosen specific venues on locations, would that be considered getting involved with operations and violating possibly any state statutes and board policies? directly, the answer is yes and I would like to point to two particular statutes. The superintendent has general powers and duties and responsibilities pursuant to 1001.49 and 51. The school has general powers and duties, pursuant to 1000 had the 42, there are powers of the school board and the powers of the superintendent. So in, with powers superintendent his responsibilities over the school district itself. So, giving him a generic, I will recede from what I was about to say, it was not

150going towards to answer your question. But in terms of towers of superintendent, it's to direct the day-to-day operations of the district. okay, so MS. Jacques adams couple more questions, if this board or any board member, chooses to get involved get involved with consequences what are consequences for violating such state statutes. so I would advise against infringing the statutory rights of the superintendent, as stated. so MS. Jacques-adams this board a few months ago, directed the superintendent to bring back cost saving measures in different areas. Does the board have the right to do that? Does the board have the right to direct the superintendent to bring back soft saving measures? So I believe in the past, the superintendent has been directed to reduce costs. I understand, but about the question is does board have the right to

151do that? to indicate to the superintendent to reduce costs? correct. in school district, yes. DR. Hepburn, I know that you brought back several measures to us in the past including, as recently you had brought back blocked schedules and so on and so forth, is this one of the costs saving measures that you're bringing to the board in terms of the specific locations that you've chosen for graduations? yes. So this was one of several costs saving measures that we brought forward in OCTOBER. It included several things reduction of vacancies that were not filled. Getting rid resources that we didn't need anymore. This is also one of them as far as transitioning graduation venues to our own district among some other things that. okay, so would it be fair to say that this is one of many

152measures that you're taking to save the district. ? correct. so DR. Hepburn, I have some questions with you. Please bro vieed the reasons for changing graduation venues this year as oppose today resent years. yes, there is a budget shortfall, extreme budget shortfall from day one to day one we lost about 10,000 students and we continue to lose students during the school year for various reasons. understand. This is solely based on graduation class numbers. and thank you for the sake of the public, reiterate what the requirements were that determined which venue schools were a siepd for graduation. yes, I will let DR. Wanza do that part. Go ahead, DR. Wanza. thank you for the question. It was not requirement what we did and we explained, or at least I did in OCTOBER and I explained specifically

153that we had received referrals from the past dill ard high school being the highest venue. And then the fact that blanche ely has a si similarly high school we talked about for our largest classes and at the time I used the number larger than 500 and that was prior to us going out and, determining how many, students can actually fit on the floor because that is, the mainl or difference, obviously in using as the superintendent using the arena style gym gnaws -- gymnasium. I understand, I don't mean to interrupt you. There is record that that was mentioned publicly, ely, pompano. yes. and dill ard. okay and the question that I have is if you can, I do have a few questions. What are the criteria or the requirements that determine which school go where? the

154size of the class. can you explain those in detail? sure. So one of the things that we know is historically we always provide every graduate with a minimum of four tickets, that's been a historic practice, right. So when you start to look at the size of the size of the class coupled with the amount of seats available for guests, that kind of gets you to the number. So when you look at dill ard high school, in essence when you have a seating capacity of 2500 and divide you that by four, I'm not a math teacher, it's 600. so we looked at the size of the graduating class coupled with the amount of seats available for guests capacity . I'm so sorry to interrupt because I have a lot of questions. so if you're in the

155400 range, you MAY, you more than likely be at pompano beach ot blanche ely, we took the number up to 555, there are some classes, I believe stran han was assigned to dillard because when we did the schedule. So there were 13 available, ceremonies that can be held at dillard 9 at another and 11, I have to look at the paper and I'm not looking at the paper. We took the number up to the maximum graduate enrollment to ensure that we would have enough ticket capacity. So, enough tickets to distribute. So I know you have more questions but I will say, the, the final amount of tickets that a student will get, we know that the minimum is 4. But the final is then based on the size of the class, the venue assignedment and

156the availability of tickets at the discretion of the school's administration. I understand, I guess what I'm getting from you DR. Wanza is based on the number of students, that determines which of the venues you're assigned to the number of given. yes. I have a few more questions, chair bear with me. Are the chairs comfortable to those used in the past whether it's hard rock, would you say that facilities condition, the gymnasium because I graduated from nova western university myself. Where we have it at nova, appears to be the gymnasium. that's correct, it's a gymnasium. yes. is it comfortable? yes, and remember we're renting a space, we are the ones as far as the staff that actually creates the commencement environment with the declarations and all of that, because we're just renting a shell. I understand.

157What is the cost at reach graduation at nova and hard rock. the last year the graduations at nova were approximately 28,000. I spoke with the PRESIDENT Of nova and coo, and they were DR. Wanza were able to negotiate better terms. They knocked it down a few thousand this upcoming school year. so woo is the cost for the hord rock. all the tangible 15,000. so when we have the graduation at our facilities. How much are we saving compared to last year? so the hard rock venues as for the large, we cannot accommodate at cypress bay. But for the saving for utilizing schools that would normally be at nova, it would be 21,000 savings. Because we estimate 3000 maximum to conduct the ceremony. I understand. So would it be reasonable and a fair statement that parents will

158be provided with similar number of tickets that as they were in the last couple of years? Similar conditions at a fraction of a cost? correct. would you say that this is a responsible use of our taxpayer's money, while maining a similar quality of service. yes, I concur with the statement. MADAM Chair, I want to thank the parents for your feedback and input. And I also want to thank our teachers and staff for all of our hard work. It is your day-to-day effort and as a past teacher, it's your day-to-day commitment that lead our district to being an a-school for two consecutive years. And I appreciate you. Decisions made by superintendent and staff are not meant or intend today hurt families and students. It's opposite, we have serious financial concerns and working diligently to remedy the

159issues. I am one that confident that we will get there. We met with serious opposition in almost everywhere the district tried to make cuts. We did, superintendent rather to look at block schedule and that was a concern for our residents. It will be irresponsible I believe if we continue to operate the way, we are without adjustments. And it can put our district in financial risks. As a small business owner, there were times when I had to cut my staff, during covid and other times when I had to hold my award ceremonies at my facility than other places. There MAY be disagreement, but the goals are the same. The goals are the same to ensure that our students are successful and live a successful life. I am honored as a board member to work on this

160board with most of my colleagues, that have a depth and long history of community service. Many were also in classroom as teachers, I believe of us here and some of us are still certified including myself. Many serve on sac committees and go beyond the call of duties. Most of us were elected because parents appreciate that we listen to them but to make decisions even when we disagree and they're in the best interest of the community. I think that is courage. I made decisions including decisions I've made on the broader states closing that was met with great push back. I proceeded because I believe it was in the best interest of the district and the community. Most of our board will make those tough decisions and will agree many times and disagree many times. Leadership is

161not about being popular and winning elections. I believe most of the board members here, that's what they're doing. Board members have done that today. In their comments, we're not always going to agree but we have a common interest, a common goal, although our path will be different. We have acknowledged our concerns and we all acknowledged that we are one broward. I am a proud graduate, and proud graduate of dillard high school. I actually don't quite remember my location of graduation, I believe itwas ththe son rice musical, iwawas inthe 80s but what I can remember is my dillard experience. What I remember the teachers who supported my success, my family, my friends and staff who came and supported me. They were all there. DR. Wanza, I know dillard high school, I asked for the gym knauss

162nasium and MADAM Chair, I'll be finished. If you can put a picture of gym knauss nasium -- gymnasium. And I believe our students will have a great graduation experience. In the future when our budget concerns become better, I am sure that we'll make different decisions. But DR. Wanza, do we have na image? beacon do you have that image that you can pop up? okay, that's fine. okay the last part of the video. That's fine. it's okay. I appreciate it. MADAM Chair, thank you so much. And DR. Wanza, you were a teacher at dillard at one point? Good. So I appreciate all of our comments and thank you to the public for giving us your input. Thank you MADAM Chair. thank you. I too want to thank the students that came today. And I want to

163thank MS. Thompson for correcting the record about how public speaking went. You know, student feedback is vital so I want to start with that. Yesterday, I had the privilege of doing a roundtable with students. And it was suppose to be about, the role of technology and education and something that I'm doing at each high school. But I know that graduation was going to be a topic that students wanted to discuss. So we spent the majority of our time discussing those concerns from our students. And I kiepd of highlight some of the feedback that I got because I think, you know, the way we've communicated about this, hasn't been great and I think there are some lessons to move moving forward. So some of the first questions on ada accessibility and grandparents being able to attend

164the graduation ceremonies that dillard and ely. So I want to hear for the record, will will they be accessible for these graduations? DR. Wanza? yes. Could you elaborate on that for the accommodations being made for? so I can, if you go to pompano beach high school, right now. they have the lift regard lts of where you come, it's elevated and then there will be floor seating available, same thing at dillard high school and same thing at blanche ely, so there will be definitely be floor seating for individuals, who cannot obviously, you know, walk upstairs or go upstairs. thank you for clarifying that. So our facilities will be accessible to people in wheelchairs or who have other physical disabilities? yes. And MR. Dorset keeps nodding, absolutely yes. thank you, MR. Dorset. Thank you, DR. Wanza. Other

165concern that was raised. Again I had the privilege of being in the room with salutatorian and valedictorian. Will that be case. each school gets as they do for where ever, they go, they get an opportunity to look at the layout and how they're going to situate the logistics for their specific ceremony, but there is definitely opportunity and we can put that, that's a part of the graduation manual that we provide to all of our high school and non traditional principals. Around not only reserve seating but for the parents of the valedictorian and salutatorian but also to recognize them as they introduce the students who graduated at the top of the class. thank you. Another concern raised by the students, would they be walking across a gym floor or a stage at each of these facilities?

166so, we, we do have the portable stages if necessary. We know that blanche ely and pompano beach have stages in them. And pompano beach, even though they have their own stage, for their graduation, they use their portable stage. And if you saw the video from dpildillard graduation, we have the portable. Thank you. I did know the answer to that, you know, but I did want you to hear it from sfwr our district staff. And like MS. Hixon, I think we were at the graduation together. It was a stage, it was beautiful. But I want us to be clear about that. Another concern that was raised by the students is that they like to have, every year they do a slide show on a big screen. Will there be a big screen at dillard? yes, ma'am.

167okay, so they'll be able to do their photo slide show? yes. and I do want to be on the record that tt tone at yesterday's roundtable was great. They communicated productive and respectfully, and were giving ideas to make this transition really positive. So I was really proud at how our students, you know, how they advocate for themselves and communicate their concerns and also solutions. So effectively and I'm really grateful for that. I want to kind of go into some specifics about different venues. How long have we been doing graduations at hard rock live? we started at hard rock live, I'll tell you exactly. MS. Jacques-adams? I have the answer because I legally signed off on the hard rock live and it started in 2023. yes. okay so almost three years now. right. so not decades.

168correct. I want to go over the costs. not 2020, because that was the covid year. yes, 2021. so I'll start with 2022 because 2021 was where we had had the majority either out in the high school football fields or. oh that's right. I'll start with 2022. Nova southeastern in 2022, the cost was 13,143 per ceremony. And I want to go back and, where ever we land is where we land, right. But what I want to be clear is these are not numbers per day. These are numbers per individual ceremony. So it was, in 2022, the costs was 13,143 per ceremony at nova southeastern. And then in 2023, that number went up to 17426. In 2024 that number went to 20,087. And then last year, the number went to 28,1 19 per ceremony. so three years

169ago, it was 13,000 and last year, it was about 23,000. So from 13,000 per ceremony to 28,000 per ceremony. yes. were there any instances where like a graduation at nova went overtime? so, yes, we did have one school cause it's like a, they do, MS. Brown is in the back. I think we have slated for two hours, I think it is per ceremony and there was one that went over and they do have language in the contract that speaks to if we go over, what additional costs we MAY incur if we go over the allotted time. MS. Brown? Patty brown. If they go over 2 hours. We do have one school who did over, we were not charged that fee. That fee would have to go assessed. I want to go over. To 28,000. I

170just want to us to be clear about that. Can we go over the cost performing arts. so after broward center performing arts in 2022. The cost is 9950 per ceremony. Up to 15300. so the cost went up approximately 5,000 in the span of three years. correct. and what's the costs, the 3000 for ceremony to deal with staff. And for police details. That we will for police detail. so thaoz something that we have not been talking a lot out loud about today. Can staff elaborate on like the efforts that we've engaged in to lower costs with the venues? great question. so especially, nova, I met with the PRESIDENT And the ceo I went to one of the cabinet meetings and that was the primary discussion I wanted to have with them. For the most part, they

171said the venue kaofts just shell is, is not that much. It's the operation of the venue where a cost are going up. Their costs are going up, so they pass the costs along to the renter. Also, for hard rock, I've tried to leverage some of my relationship with some people that are executives up in that area, of hard rock and you know, we're competing against events that they're charging significantly more and making more money so that's right now, that's the best they can do for us. To and we negotiate with, the performing art center and, and the ceo is a great partner and it tries to help us as much as possible. Some of the smaller venues, they would give us at a very discounted price but I know, performing art center especially known as

172spring is a high performing center with a lot of things going on, that's the best price they can do but they're great partners. thank you. And before last week, did we reach out to cities to try to source venues? go ahead, DR. Wanza. no, and I have MS. Brown come up. But I don't know, we didn't before last week reach out to cities, per se as a concerted effort, no. okay, so I think in the future, like now that we know our cities care this much about graduations, hopefully, you know, like the city of ft. Lauderdale is working on offerings but that we know that our cities feel strongly, moving forward, I think it would be great if we can work with our cities and reach out to them to see if they're able to

173assist. And I do want to speak to, the city of ft. Lauderdale, DR. Holness and I were there yesterday. I've gotten some kind of, well we were, we were told that they were offering war memorial for several high schools but that it would not be big enough for ft. Lauderdale high school. Can staff speak to doing graduation at war memorial if the capacity allowed? What that would look like compared to dillard? so, I'm going to have MS. Brown come up as well. What I will say is, is I'm not certain what all we would have to bring to the facility, right and they didn't necessarily say that it was 100 percent free. So is the conversation would be, I know that they're willing to look at some of the costs and work with us on

174the costs and we can certainly have that conversation but we know from that meeting, MS. Leonardi, you are correct you were speaking specifically about stranhan and helendale. And whether the seating can even accommodate the class first off of ft. Lauderdale high and then couple with that, ensuring that there are a minimum of four tickets. I know obviously before it was renovated, that was not an option for ft. Lauderdale high school. okay, MS. Brown. there is not too many to expand on that, other than expressing when the cities offer these various venues, it's phenomenal, but we have to make sure that we take in the cofs for their security and center staff to work the event. We did, we did talk about looking at different venues in our various cities. However, once the board stated they

175wanted us to cut costs and we decide today look at our schools, then we did not proceed further with that. okay, and can we speak if we were to do a graduation at war memorial instead of dillard what will the seating look like for our guests? I don't want to MISS Speak, we would have to physically go in and walk. I'll use cyprus park, our largest graduation, and having it at the convention center. And there is concerns of not having raised seating and then conversations around parking not being waved so that then parents would have to incur a fee for park ing. We have been looking, we acknowledge that we can certainly always work with our cities closer but we would have to walk the facility and see what they are this is what we're

176offering now do what you do to supplement. okay. And I think that's important too for us to talk out loud about the nuances of finding these venues and it's my understanding that we were to go to a graduation at war memorial, it would be flat seating, not stadium seating, so there would not the same visibility as there would be at dill ard. So I think it's alsosomportata for me to say and d I I think k hed d some my y colleaes say this,, that wewe e electeted to rerepresent the desires of our community. So, if the community prefers that, and the city of ft. Lauderdale is willing to fund that, even if it is an inferior experience, as a opposed to going to dillard my role is to represent and support that desire. So

177as we move forward, it is important to work with our cities, if cities are willing to finance these so we're incurring costs similar to that of dillard which would be around $3000 a ceremony, I'm not going to stand in the way that. But I do have concerns about an interior experience. I do want to explain the reasoning for discussing this issue, way we have. I've heard, some complaints about me using my discretion as chair to not accept an item due to the timeliness of it. The board gave direction to the superintendent on this in a workshop. So we never took a formal vote on this initiative. We have two unlimited opportunities for public speaking today and I think we've demonstrated that and we heard from the public. And the superintendent addressed the issue in his

178superintendent report. And he can hear everyone on this dais, giving him the direction that they would like us to go in. DR. Holness raised some important concerns around operational versus policy that I think are important to consider. And I'll just end with, you know, some of my colleagues have said this as well, I am disturbed at some of the rhetoric around this issue and specifically how people have talked about some of our schools and like MS. Thompson said, it's important for us to remember that students attend those schools, they are proud of those schools and when we speak in a disparaging way about those schools, it is really hurtful. With that said, I know that the student advisor would like to speak on this issue and then some additional board members and then we'll take

179a brief recess. MR. Spellbergh. thank you, MADAM Chair and I was deciding whether or not I wanted to speak today because I'm not prepared to speak on behalf of all students. I have not had the opportunity to receive feedback from all students which has been and continues to be my practice. I respect the conversation that we've had today and my comments are not diminish anyone who came here today. The students who have sent me emotional pleas and those who weren't able to be here today. I'm frankly in the same shoes as you, my graduation will be reduced to 4 tickets per family, it will not a fun conversation to tell my grandparents that I love that they cannot be there in person. But all I can turn back this conversation is this thought. There is

180students who I already represent who are not eating in our districts because they cannot afford to. I respect that everyone deserves dignity but so do those students. There are students who I represent who will lose their elementaries school today. Kindergartners who tonight will be told by their parents that they will not return to their school next year. Unfortunately we're missing the point here. This discussion on what is dignified has not been had when there was no virtually no district comment, last year and this afternoon when we discussed closing schools, and certainly when board made the difficult decision to reduce school base funding where students are now sitting in over packed classes. I'm disappointed that this is where we are. And largely part, I don't think it's by the fault of our board or by our

181staff. By the end of the day today, there are students behind these decisions. There are students from hollywood hills, south plantation, monarch, coconut creek who have reached out today with the same exact concerns but not the same opportunity. We can talk about war memorial and other venues but not every city is in a position to support those students. To me, that achieves the removal of inequity for some but not for all. And I know this has been addressed time and time but I would be wrong if I didn't say it t.I also represent the students of 6 through 12 who have reached out to me who are pained, pained, by what is has been said about their school community both in the board room and online. The way they speak about their school and all

182schools matters. Every one of our graduating seniors have worked hard, take pride in their community and deserve to be spoken about with respect. Thank you. thank you, MS. Hixon? thank you. And thank you, landyn, you always speak to eloquently about everything, so thank you so much for that. And I want to be clear, based on the questions that I have. I do believe that graduation, at the I've been to pam pa no every year, it's a beautiful graduation. During covid tile, people were just happy to have a graduation, they were so happy to be in a room. So, you know, let's put all of this into context, right? We -- where you have it is not as important as who you share it with and what you bring to that day. With that being said,

183I do understand the concerns that are being brought here. So sil again say to the superintendent, I would hope that you would look to the faith center to war memorial, to other places to see how they can help reduce the costs. I love the idea of fundraising, maybe bef could help to do that. The cities could help with fundraising, with respect I do did not agree with charging the students. I says move forward with putting it back in venues, maybe it will not be exact venues from last year maybe let's try to find some with cost reductions. I love MS. Alhadeff's idea about ads but I have a cup of questions. Do schools cover their own cost of graduation? no. we cover that. no, we don't. so is the corn is if each school was

184doing their ads, how would that money get transferred to the district. My thought would be if the district reached out and if company x did it, they would be in everyone's program. We have a partnership department that works on all of this. I think that that is a wonderful idea to do. And whatever we can do to reduce the costs of schools but at this point, I agree with landyn, we cannot do it for some and not for all. So if we're going to look for that, we need to put them all in a venue, but as I mentioned, for next year, let's start this conversation early and see how we do it. But I am very, very adamant that, we need to look at doing this differently for this year. For everyone but with

185all of those pieces in tack. Soy know it will take a little while and people MAY have to be okay before they know exactly where their graduation is held because the district is going to do that. But in terms of the faith center in light of everything that happened, you will not have a comment about it being a place worship if they're able to get in there for that. Also, MS. Alhadeff mentioned furloughs for the staff so si ask the superintendent, does our staff, not all of our staff because we know not teachers, but the higher level staff, do they are, are they expected to work during spring break or other holidays? so based on calendar, yes, we actually explored furloughs ourselves as a cost saving measure earlier when we were talking about cost saving

186between OCTOBER and DECEMBER. At the time, MS. Batista toll us that at the time we were unable to do that. I cannot remember you will the details but we'll work with MS. Jacques adams to see if if that has changed but that is one of our tragedies that we were exploring with concern groups of employees at our 12-month. thank you. We have heard that everything that we've offered seems to be affecting schools and students. I think it's important that we're looking into ways that there are cuts in this building. So can you also some of the questions that came up, were approval from the fire marshal to host the graduations in dillard that have we cleared with the fire fashl that if if we had 555 graduates and four tickets per person that does not

187go over capacity? yes, fire marshal actually walked the facilities. thank you. Again tell us that everyone is guaranteed four tickets. that's correct. we heard that piper was told only two. that's correct. Everybody is guaranteed four tickets at minimum. We posted it on social media and on our website. I don't know why we keep hearing something here and there, we posted it two days ago on social media, it's on uh website, we sent parent link with a link to the graduation website that details all of that information so we can, you know, get the information out there. and if the schools are hosting at the hard rock, do they get six? everyone gets a minimum of four, we can guarantee that. As far as the size of the venue and the school that's left up to

188administration how they devy up if they have extra seats. dequorum in the audience. and that's always the standard, the dit is four minimum and depending on the size of the venue or graduation class. Exactly. or it gets bigger. so, one more question, DR. -- I guess to DR. Wanza, you mentioned that it's 3000 at dillard can you be specific at what that is? Does that include security? Setting up like beacon all of that stuff that includes? yes. that's what that is. it's mainly the staff overtime costs that it's going to take to operate the ceremony. okay. so I'll, just say this, and, one of the things and it, regardless of where they are, what we know is graduations are held pretty much during final exam week. The schools dismiss at 11:40 in the morning. The

189first graduation is at 2:00 o'clock, right. So -- don't we have a morning one. no, that's one of the things that we did. People did not like the 8 am ceremony. got you. so we don't have 8:00 am ceremony. There is police detail fees regardless in our ceremonies. thao is included in the 3000. that's included in the 3000. based on what MS. Brown said, would we have to use, let's say at war memorial do we have to use the city of ft. Lauderdale's police there? we would probably have to use the city of ft. Lauderdale police department. Not different from the ceremony we would work with bso, it's whatever the local policing agency law enforcement that covers. Chief gregory can speak, I don't do police he does. I don't want to give the wrong answer.

190But yes, we'll probably have to utilize whatever is the detail and rate and what they would require as security. correct. for their facility. And I think the other part p sorry DR. Hepburn, I didn't mean to cut you off. We'll do whatever the direction is, but we have to realize that when we spread out to multiple sites, we're going to compromise certain things that will be guaranteed. And we'll bring that back, depending on what the final, direction is. So. thank you. Yes, I would love for this to come back to us so that, we've exhausted all of the things and then, let them, have an opportunity as MS. Leonardi mentioned to pick, right. Maybe give them some choices. And I know that that will cut things short but, you know, we have heard from a

191lot of them perception is reality. We MAY not agree with it. I know that dilladder is going and pompano and blanche ely will have fan fantastic graduations for our students, but not how they will feel. I think it's important that we, we hear that and we look at this a different way. I know it puts us in a precarious position. And equity as MS. Bulman said, is a big concern and. I think it's important this is really important it hits home as it was as the 8th period. Think about the 8ing period, elementary and middle school don't have that opportunity. The teachers don't have that extra opportunity to make that money. We wanted to change it to make it equitable throughout the school and we were told no. At some point, we have to come

192together and make the hard decision to see we can right size the district. Although I don't agree that changing the venue is the best for our budget and that I think your perception is is not correct. I do understand it and I like the superintendent to bring us back some other options. DR. Zeman? That does not matter that you understand them. Most important thing is MS. Alhadeff asking about making a motion. It. the last point is I kind of made a misstep talking about $25 per student, I wasn't insinuating students would pay, I was trying to give a scope of how much money we would have to raise and it's roughly $25 per student. We would have to raise through vendors, through parents, through community partners and through other groups, but thanks very much. I

193appreciate your time, chair. thank you, MR. Cervera? through our general counsel chair, is it appropriate or do I have the authority to make a motion to reopen the agenda so this board could vote or give direction to the superintendent rather than just listening to the ideas that were floating around? so moved. yes, you can make a motion. chair, I would like that motion. At this point, I make a motion to reopen the agenda to allow this board to vote and give the superintendent directive on how to handle this debacle. second. Er motion made by MR. Cervera to open the agenda, seconded by MS. Al has daf. MS. Jacques-adams, do we take public comment on the motion to open the agenda? yes. public comment on the motion, please put one minute on the clock. Please go

194ahead. mel -- melissa sherman, hollywood, I don't think we object to the idea of ham buggers and he iser holidays, if you tell us some people get steak and lobsters, it's not okay that the rest of us have hot dog and is ham bulling but we would be happy that everybody would have the same thing, the issue sit's not equitable. You can't tell our kids they should be happy with hot dogs and ham buggers iser when we know other people on the other side of town are getting steak and lobster. Because our kids know that they're getting ham buggers and he -- hamburgers and hot dogs. That's why we're asking you the intervene to give our kids the experience they've been looking forward to. Thank you. DR. Natalie, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida, so just

195to be clear, the motion is to reopen the agenda so that presumably MR. Cervera's item could be add -- add today the agenda for good cause and give direction to the superintendent or something along those lines like what MRS. Alhadeff was trying to do, and for those of you who are already here, they'll be discussing policy 1020 which is school board meetings. Ipg I had a time certain of 11:30 and we're way past that. Obviously I'm in favor of the motion. This shouldn't have to come to this. We could have avoided a lot of drama. There's been a lot of confusion, you guys need to look into the details of these venue budgets, venue costs but i support the motion because, yes, you are losing weeks and weeks but you can still do the right

196thing, there is time to o the right thing, by my count, I MAY be up to five of you who know what the right thing is. Thank you. yes, I'm in agreement with reopening the agenda. Thank you for it, MR. Cervera, for the motion, and thank you, alhadeff, for supporting the motion. hi, so I had an opportunity to reach out to the center and bishop hernandez immediately agreed to help the school board and open up the date for piper high school's graduation. He offered to help the other graduations as well. And he was charging 0 for venue fees, the only cost he was asking for was the basic operation which is audio and visual, police detail if you will. So, I'm hoping you guys do consider opening up this decision and reaching out to the

197center because I believe in OCTOBER when this was addressed, many of you should have been doing the negotiations and not me having to do it for you. please keep decorum in the audience. I'm amy shield, I support reopening the agenda to add this. People need to go home today understanding what's going to happen and not push this off for another month of uncertainty and rumors going and incorrect information. We need to know today what you guys are going do -- to do about graduation, please do the right thing and put it back the way it was. lisa, cooper city, I support reopening the agenda item and I would also like you to consider that while I appreciate all the venues that you're looking at, if we can stick to the original ones and give schools,

198ptsa's, sponsors, etc., the opportunity to take some of the cost and it's not an entire cost because there are still several schools that are having the venues in a larger item, so the amount of students is much smaller. And also the difference between the two, I have no problem, if there's a school that needs lobster on a chicken budget, I have no problem going to that school and helping them raise money because I think all students should be celebrated and should have the opportunity to have the graduation that they have been working for, for over 13 years, thank you. hi, my name is rebecca sherman, a senior from fort lauderdale high school, i support this motion. The school board has the opportunity to show the students of broward county that you can say you're listening

199but now you have the opportunity to prove it. I appreciate those of you who have supported this motion and we need to go home with the clear understanding that you support all students across broward county. Thank you. james, mayor of cooper city, I came to this podium in full support. I want to be part of the solution. I'm also a grandfather of a child that's graduating, my ninth child from cooper city high school, but I want to make sure everybody understands something. We talk about haves and have-nots, we put ourself ins this position pretty much years ago, I'm not here to tell you anything that you don't know except for one thing, we're noted talking about ticket sa el sales being $10 a piece or parking at $10 a venue and having that money being

200pulled back into the total graduation fund but I am here as the mayor of cooper city that we are open, receptive and ready to go work with you guys to make this year's graduation a reality, not next year's, but as going forward, we will work as a team as we do with our sro's and everyone thaels are heavily involved and our security guards and anything else that you guys see, we are a partner with the school board of broward county, thank you. I am terry lopez poise, I want to say thank you to those of you who are listening to the public, making that effort and that intention. It is well noted and I'm grateful. Because I sat next to that student, the one who spoke before me and it seemed to me like refiner

201student said had gone in one ear and out the other, like please, please, give us a real graduation and then it was like, wem, how are we going to do it at the high schools. It is an important thing and it's sad that the community and the students and the parents and everyone is now seeing laid bear the kinds of decisions that are made and how sometimes you can't hear us or you don't listen or you don't want to or what your priorities actually are. That there would have been mistakes made as the mistakes that have been made with people getting money from the referendum they shouldn't have gotten and that in itself could have solve problem. And I've been coming here for ten years and sometimes I have seen money being taken from one

202place to another because it's needed like let's just take from pete tore pay paul, take from peter to pay paul today. sorry, before the next public speaker e I have a point of order from MS. Jacques-adams. there are currently three time certain on the agenda, one for 11:30, one for 12:30, and one for 3:30, so I wanted to point out that there are court reporters, attorneys, etc.. we will finish public comment on the motion, and then we will go to the 12:30 and then come back to the motion. yeah, we're paying court reporters and attorneys right now, I would like the finish the public xhen on the motion and then we'll go to the things that are financially -- go ahead, next public speaker. good afternoon now, my name is nikki watkins, I am as

203you all know a parent but I also live in davie, I serve as the staff chair as well as the legislative representative for the dac, just to be very quick, I will say that thank you for the opportunity to offer a final comment. I understand the motion is to reopen the agenda to give the superintendent direction on graduation venues. I support giving direction but i want to be clear about what the community is really feeling right now. Graduation is not just a ceremony, it is an identity, it is community, families want venues that represent their students in their neighborhoods, not a solution that sends them to another high school and makes them feel displaced on the most important day of their k-12 journey. Let the schools decide what works best for their students in hawker

204community within clear district guidelines, protect school identity, refuse confusion and center the students. Seen we also want everyone to win. Prioritize this community, representation and school level choice. Thank you, ser reer -- cervera. I support the motion, thank you so much for it and the opportunity to speak. I think it would have been a great idea in OCTOBER or whenever to loop it through your advisories. I know there's a little bit of contention as to which advisory should be and not be, but if you would have gone through that process, everybody would have known what was going on and what the ideas were and we wouldn't have to all be here wasting time. thanks. shafizi, task assignment to the broward teachers union. I want to stress how important it is to have an equitable celebration.

205I do not understand why a graduating class of 1100 equals to 50 or up to 80 thousand dollars but the graduating class of 500 equals to only 10 thousand dollars. The math is really not math at all. In regards to our students, they all truly deserve to be celebrated by all of their family members. Let's be real, in order for our students to be successful, it is not only the responsibility of the parents, it's also the responsibility of all the important people in their lives and everyone who celebrated and encouraged them to get to this point of graduation should have an opportunity at the very least, four to five. Thank you. hi, sarah, coral springs, I am a product of broward county schools as are both of my children. One ofp the proudest moments to

206me was watching my son as the 2022 valedictorian, it breaks my heart at the thought of my parents not being able to have attended that which in this career, they would not. Not only because of the limitation on the tickets but because of the venue, it would not be accessible for them. I appreciate that you are opening the agenda and revisiting this because all of our students deserve to be celebrated equally. They all deserve too have their family there to celebrate those successes with them and for some of them, it might be a memory that is very precious that was one of the last things my father was able to attend with our son. Thank you. liliana, I am here saying thank you for reopening the agenda. First of all, I want to say it's

207good for you to hear the input of the students, the parents, the community, our input too and I think graduation is something so memorable, it's something that you look back and remember how it was and I think you should make it very extra special for the students and make them feel that they are valued and appreciated by allocating them in places that they can feel valued, respected and loved. i will say again, I think they deserve a good graduation, an unforgettable one I will say and find the area or find a place to make it unforgettable again. Thank you. melanie, davie, florida, school social worker. I support reopening this item. I think I said it right. And I think most importantly, I really implore the district, the school board, the superintendent to please stop trying

208to save money off the backs of our shunts unt -- students and our staff, really all educational professionals and all employees in the district, we deserve our ray raises, our students deserve the graduations they have worked really hard to achieve and I would like to thank you for considering that. Thank you. hello, I'm carolyn harvey, I am a proud broward teacher. Also a broward parent who had two wonderful children, my personal kids that graduated from great places here in broward county where I sat there and I was so excited about my kids graduated. One graduated at nova and nova high, another one at deerfield high and they graduated both at the nova university arena. And I'm also asking, could you please let our children the this year graduate from such arenas so the parent can

209sit proud like I did and watch my kids. Thank you for opening up this item. hello, my name is candace blake, I'm coming to you once again and I want to share that I am thankful that you guys are going to open up the agenda, that you gies spoke about it and that you are going to do what is right for our students as well as for every student and I want to say as a teacher, we work with human capital. You cannot put a price on human capital because we love them and we want the best for them and we treat them as our own, okay. And we just celebrated mlk's birthday this past week, so I want to remind you, in his words, now is the time to make justice a reality for

210all GOD's children, so make justice and equity available for every child because it is not right to give two tickets, four tickets, or six tickets and not have everyone celebrate. Thank you. hi, my name is angelina, I'm a high school student would's graduating in 2026. Thank you again for the opportunity to open the motion. I'm from piper high school. As our school is graduating at dillard high school. woe would have taught that.We were doing this financially, we could have at least separated the graduation into like alphabetically like a through g and then g to z. And then that would lower the budget costs and then if we didn't have to do it at hard rock or nsu and then proudly done it at the faith center because I know we didn't make the student amount

211limit for the graduates and that's why our venue is a little smaller than others, and then for the higher venues, we could have done it at the faith center and it would have all been very good for capacity. Thank you. good afternoon, county [Inaudible], broward teachers union, I support this motion and thank you for bringing it back. Our kids worked hard for it. We're in a district because of our student and is our teachers and I encourage you to give these young men and ladies in their lives a great graduation that they can remember forever because they truly deserve it. Thank you. nicole morris, coral springs. I support the motion, it sounds like many of you felt like your hands were tied and this will essentially untie your hands. I will say that perception is

212reality. While you all I think made the decision in good conscious, I feel like the optics of the same week finding out that the highest paid staff was overpaid in referendum bonuses and then cutting graduations, the optics of that was really bad and I think also the conversation around the facilities, dillard, it's tough because dillard has a beautiful gym, we were just there a couple of weeks ago. We've seen pictures. I think it would be a beautiful graduation, but I feel like the perception in the community and for the students listening to them on social media, listening to them here today is that they don't matter as much and that the cuts are coming on the backs of children first. So I hope we can revisit this. Thank you. hi, I'm amy edleman, a 20

213year teacher, I do teach in westin, this comment was for the young man who made comments before about how he was so offended that we were talking about another school. Well, I work in westin. I would never be offended for a young lady to be talking about an area where I work because I feel she had the gumption to come here today and speak up about her feelings and I think she did the right thing and she represented a whole wonderful skao. I am not offended that she mentioned westin's name. It's all about money in this district, not only have you disappointed the teachers, not you guys, well, some of you, but we've been disappointed about money. I've been disappointed about money and now you are disappointing the students of broward county. ana faous koe,

214teachers union pr t PRESIDENT, I support that you open this agenda item. It should have come forward anyway, you spent hours talking about it and quite disappointing that some of you took a political platform to talk politics instead of talking about what's going on. You have a group of students tla want o graduate this year and then you're talking about skipping this group, we'll revisit it next year. Your budget is a living, breathing budget, mover budget items around that money is not being spent on which you know is happen, which has always happened. Your former junior [Inaudible] Made that clear, while we know you're in a financial crisis, the money is sill there. You can approve money for substituting and other thing that is are happening, the money is there and a rated school district

215because of the students, because of the educators, let's show them they need to be celebrated in an a rated venue. Our gyms are capable of other things but that's not the place for their graduation sos move this agenda item to be open, please.. Er any other public comment on the motion? okay, we will mover to attorney-client, we have some time certain, when we are done with that, we will come back and vote on the motion. Could I please have decorum the audience. Board meerers, I amorti lorirized the general counsel would like to request an attorney-client session, I am requesting all persons not scheduled to attend the attorney-client session, exit the room at this time. General counsel? thank you, MADAM Chair, I would like to request the school board convene an attorney-client session in order to

216discuss litigation pending before the 17th judicial circuit in and for broward county florida MR. The following matter, number 1, ohl building mincer, nka, ohla building inc. Versus the school board of broward county, florida. The school board of broward county, florida versus zyscovich and zyscovich, llc versus nutting engineers of florida, inc., collectively under case number cace-22-008804, the following persons will attend this attorney-client session, school board members sarah leonardi, chair, DR. Jeff holness, vice chair, lori alhadeff, maur ra mccarthy bulman, adam cervera,esque, debra hixon, nora rupert, rebecca thompson, DR. Allen zeman if present, DR. Howard hepburn, superintendent of schools, oscar e.Soto,esque, thomas c. Cooney, esq, ask kathleen jacques-adams, esq. In anticipation of this request , the attorney-client session was properly advertised for today, JANUARY 21, 2026 at 12:30 in accordance with section 286.011, subsection 8 of the

217florida statutes. The purpose of the attorney-client session is to discuss settlement negotiations and/or strategy regarding the to the pending litigation. A certified court rioter will record this session, only those include nrd the advertisements will be permitted to attend. Thank you. . Inger at this time, the school board of brourpd county, florida will recess the regular school board session for the attorney-client session, it will be held at the board raonl at the kathleen c. Wright administration session, the attorney-client session will take approximately 20 30 minutes at the conclusion, the regular school board meeting will reconvene. All people who are not attending the attorney-client session, please exit the room at this time. (Meeting in closed session). thank you, the school board meeting is now reconvened. T to the public for being flexible with our time certain item

218estoday. So, we are on the motion of reopening the agenda. Is there board member comment on opening the agenda. All in favor of opening the agenda, say aye. All opposed, say no. No, roll call. MS. Jacques-adams, am I able to do roll call if staff isn't available? yes, you MAY. MS. Rupert? On the motion to open the agenda. I said yes, sorry. MS. Thompson? no. MS. Bulman? no. MS. Hixon? yes. MS. Leonardi is no. DR. Holness? no. MR. Cervera? yes. MRS. Hall deaf? yes. and DR. Zeman? Is DR. Zeman on the line? yes, I am. so, on the motion to open the agenda? no. motion fails. Alright, we still had more board member comment on the superintendent's report. MS. Thompson? thank you, chair. I just wanted to kind of explain my no and my stance

219very quickly because I recognize that also redefining is a little late as well. But just to emphasize, we are closing schools. We are telling elementary schools that unfortunately due to the financial situation we're in, they will no longer have their home and I recognize that graduation is an amazing celebration, however, the only way for us to move forward is to make hard decisions like this. And I stand by my comments that I think any venue we have our graduations in will be done respectfully with great celebration with the pomp and circumstance which is now my favorite term. And also we're not giving up our teacher and staff raises because of the financial situation. We had a press conference last week talking about our financial situation. We talked about fundraising, 500 thousand dollars like it is

220the easiest thing in the world where we have students that cannot eat at our schools because bef and our strategic parts ner ship department was not able to fundraise enough to pay for their lunches. So, I'm sorry for raising my voice but this situation is incredibly frustrating. please let's have decorum in the audience. Er we've been going to the community esspshlly about redefining and letting them know we're doing this to make their experience better. So if every time we make a hard decision as a board that we direct our staff as a board, we then walk it back because of blowback? What kind of leadership are we showing our staff right now? What kind of leadership are we showing our community? If we continue on this path of trying to make hard decisions and then

221have people blow back at us, we will not have a financially strong future. We will not have a school district. Shocker I -- so I would just encourage my colleagues to show leadership at this time. Thank you. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, once again, I will say that the three locations that are chosen, dillard, eli and pompano, they're three wonderful gymnasiums. I've been in a couple of them myself and they're in impeccable condition. I personally know that our students will have a wonderful graduation and experience with their families. You know, DR. Wanza gave me a short history this morning which I wasn't aware and, you know, from these three venues, they have produced really great people and there's a long history of significant individuals coming out of pompano beach high, eli and dillard.

222In fact, three of our board members came out of these locations, tory came out of eli, myself out of dillard and kathleeyc. Wright, and DR. O r-r was the first graduate. I am looking forward to a great graduation experience. What I'll say is this, some people -- some of our residents sent me some derogatory comments to explain students and schools, while we MAY differ in opinions, we must be cognizant of the collective feelings of all communities. It is important for us to be kind to each other as one broward county public schools while embracing our differences of opinion. It was made clear that this board has to adhere to state policy and board policy regarding what is our role and what is the role of the superintendent. The superintendent brought this to us as his

223recommendation. The board based upon legal advice, it has to be careful in how it interferes with the operations of the superintendent because the board will put itself in a position of violating state statutes as well as board policy. These are the recommendations of the superintendent which is an operations issue. Now it is important as a board that we are financially responsible and that we make tough decisions. This is one of them. Now will this continue? I believe this district will eventually upon making tough decisions be in a much better place many the future where we will be able to make decisions and not worry as much about how we finance certain things. The state of florida, the average per pupil funding for the state of florida is 5 thousand dollars less than the U.S. Average.

224We also when you look at broward county, the average per pupil funding is somewhere between 9-10 thousand dollars per pupil. The state of new york is over 30 thousand. You know, we talk about martin luther king and the dream and board member hixon and chair leonardi and I, we were at the parade for mlk and I believe board member bulman, she had pictures about being in the parade in hallandale. When you look at mlk and the celebration, you know, it is important that we embrace our differences, it's important that we proceed in a manner that we're living in a way that we're kind to each other. And so I will say that this is a tough decision that we made, that we have to make and there are many more tough decisions but we have

225to be financially responsible and there are things that we are going do that will be met with opposition. I believe if we don't act, that too will have consequences. So I want our parents to know that this is not against you, this is working for you and I do pray and hope that in the future, our schools will be properly funded by the state, so we don't have to be placed in these positions. And DR. Hepburn, I appreciate you bringing recommendations to cut costs because that's what we've directed you to do because the district is in a position of financial crisis. I think that we will be in a much better place in the future and I look forward to that time when this district will be able to move forward in a manner that

226we can support our teachers, our students, our staff fully. Thank you, MADAM Chair. thank you, mrs.Alhadeff? yes,s,so I am jujust trtrely disappointnted right w. This waouout stst adding something on to the agenda and allowing this board to vote. You either vote it up or vote it down. If it happened today or if it happens in a couple of weeks from now, it's going happen. The fact that we cannot move forward today because this board is not allowing us to put it on the agenda, shame on us. We always say students first, students first, well, this is about the students and them graduating and having an equitable opportunity to graduate. But you're not allowing this board to even have that decision. thank you. [Applause]. can I have decorum in the audience, please, you can wave your

227mands, thank you. Before we go to a third round, I would like to just reiterate something that we heard from our student advisor and from MS. Thompson, and then I'll go to the superintendent and then we'll go to a third round. But it has been brought up several times, I believe it was a month or two ago, we had a workshop on student lunches and, you know, this year we lost federal funding to provide free lunch to all students. The board has dealt with and grappled with that issue a few times now and at first our direction was we will continue to offer hot meals to our students and redirected bef and we directed the superintendent to try to fundraise for that. So, we are then trying to fundraise to pay for graduations, that's just

228not something I can support, fundraising from bef to do garageraduations and take money from school lunches. So, when we ask ourselves, you know, where our priorities are, I understand and I am in no way trying to diminish the disappointment that people are feeling and I would -- I think we'll probably have some more discussions on this in the future, if the issue is that some schools have outside venues and some schools have internal venues, I would like to explore having all of our graduations at internal venues if that's the issue. But that's not -- I'm not making that motion today, but we are again faced with a lot of financial realities we're having to deal with and I first and foremost think about the needs of safety and wellbeing for our students and again we

229heard from our student advisor, we heard from MS. Thompson, flooded being looded ood -- food being one of them. I do want to go to the superintendent because I think we've had a pretty extensive conversation today. If I'm koundbacker counting right which I think I am, there's a majority of the board that either wants to put the graduations back to how they were, whether that's funds raising to make that happen or funding different vennues but what I heard a majority of the board say and I'm not in that majority and that's fine, but I'm hearing a majority of the board say that they want to find other avenues than what we've committed to publicly. DR. Hepburn, do you have a response to that? yes, my team and I after this meeting or tomorrow because after

230this meeting is probably going to be bedtime because we have a lot of additional work to do that we're going to do a lot of discovery. We heard the feedback from the board and the public also and look at all the options available x we will provide that to the board asap, some we already know and some we need to do some discover from entities that have contacted us or people that have contacted us about certain venues that MAY be available so we can see if it fits our needs, fits within our budget and we'll provide a comprehensive detailed memo to the board and to the public. bh can we expect that? hopefully -- what's today? today is wednesday. hopefully by the end of this week. by friday, we can expect some new answers from

231you? yes. and I think one sentiment that has been expressed multiple times today is the need for parents, student, community input to be taken into account as well as better communication around this, and I meant to say this earlier, part of the problem I believe was that we just put a memo out and we didn't provide enough information and dlfs a vacuum of information. Is there a communication plan? I know this has transpired in real time, how do you plan to communicate anything differently this time around? as soon as we confirm and obviously we'll probably have to meet with all the board members one on one just to see if there's any consistency if -- on agreeing to some of the things we find in our discovery that will accommodate these graduations and we'll inform

232the board piser and we'll see how we can communicate that out to the community. I don't there was consensus for that o go through. let me tell you what I have a note on. I have MS. Hixon, MR. Cervera and MRS. Alhadeff saying that they want to go back to how it was before. I have MS. Thompson, MS. Bulman, DR. Holness and MS. Leonard -- leonardi saying let's stay the course. And then the others figuring out more creative options. Ment the majority of the board was saying let's not stay the course. If I am incorrect in that and again, you know, this is a conversation with the superintendent, so, I don't know, do you understand that differently? I understood DR. Zeman's points differently, but if he's -- DR. Zeman, to reiterate and then I have

233MS. Hixon. yeah, my point is that it's worth not spending general fund money on this, but to do something that I think is like imminently sensible which is let's just see if the community can help us fund these amazing events. There's a tremendous outpouring from dozen and is dozens of people, hundreds if you count all e-mails and texts. is that sufficient to raise the money that we need the do it, so that would be my preference. we're on 3. I was going to say I have a general part around 3. Er MR. Cervera and then MS. Hixon. again, to all the folks that came out and spoke and participated in this process today, thank you. I'm sorry we couldn't get this done for you, I really am. Rebecca, I see you and I'm sorry. This

234is not how I envisioned it, this is not how I want it. My constituents have reached out to me, this is not how they want it. My elected officials reached out to me, this is not how they want it, but the will of the board controls this afternoon, so it will be what it is. That being said and while I would have preferred for this to come back so I can give the superintendent a directive and an instruction to do some of these things as opposed to what is being proposed now, I hope MR. Superintendent and to my colleagues tla we've been listening today because the messaging coming over there is a lot different from over here is a lot different from what's coming over here, and the last time I checked, we're in this

235seat to represent those folks. So I'm really hopeful superintendent, you come back with a list of some real world suggestions and some viable options to give the public and to give our kids what they want, what they've been asking for, what they've been begging for and what they've watched happen for years upon years upon years. I don't want my seniors being treated differently this year. They've worked too darn hard to get different treatment than last year and the year before, so again, I want to thank everybody in the audience who came out and spoke. I apologize we couldn't get this done but I'm going to hope and pray has MR. Superintendent, you do what needs to be done here so we can can present some other options and look at some other avenues to give

236the public what they're asking for. Thank you. thank you, MS. Hixon? thank you, and I just want to reiterate what we've been saying over and over, no student is going to have a less than experience inside the venue. It MAY be -- the venue MAY look different but as staff has already said and we have seen it at the different schools, it is a regal, wonderful opportunity for students to celebrate graduation. Once you get in there, it's about celebrating yourself and your friends, and I just want to say that however this ends, it doesn't matter where you're at, you're graduating high school and that's such an exciting time of your life, so I'm sorry that it got muddled in here, but I do want to say to the superintendent that I hope that you will

237look at those different venues but I also hope you'll go to the schools and maybe ask the principals to -- in their real-time to have some kind of meeting or something with their students to get feedback on what it was like for them. Some of them might want to go. For example, when we mentioned will memorial, only strat hanh, but dillard is in lauderhill, my discussion with the mayor was with all three of those schools. Maybe dillard wants tos stay and graduate in their high school. I think what people are asking is please let us be part of the conversation, so I would hope that however that works out, that we're allowing them -- besides what we've heard here, but we're going into the school and having a conversation with the seniors on what they

238think that experience should be. I'm open to any of the suggestions. I said go back to the other venue because I think it would be easier for staff to do that. However it works out, I think it's important that we've heard what they've said and we're trying, we MAY not get there but I think we have to at least try but I also would like to reiterate what MS. Leonardi said and I think the biggest complaint we've heard here, I think the perfect example was hamburgers and hot dogs and steak and lobster and although that's not how we view it, it is how you view it and so if that's the case, how do we -- it either has to be all or nothing. I think it's important to figure out if some of them

239can't have it in venues, then maybe nobody should have it in venues, and what does that look like and how does the school view that, you know. People said how to graduation, so I don't think logistically that makes sense, you have people speaking and they would have to speak more than the one time. But anyway, I hope when you bring it back to us, that's part of the conversation, so thank you. MR. Spell -- spellberg? thank you, MADAM Chair, I want to provide a little bit of the implications of this. We are -- it's JANUARY 21, there are families who are planning actively for this. There are families who are planning travel for out of state family members, international family members. So, I just want to caution the board, I respect any decision that you're

240making but caution the board that they is a time crunch here. There has been dates announced to tens of thousands of student and is families and these are confirmed dates. Many do not follow what's happening here today. I would argue most don't follow what is happening here today, so it's important that everybody understands what the status is because I think we'll get some equal blowback the if dates are changed later on. So I just want to caution that and to MRS. Hixon's point, we stand ready to support in terms of the student engagement efforts on this which I also equally caution. I think it opens another door to some other logistical challenges, but please keep that in mind in making this decision. thank you, MS. Bulman? thank you, chair. Thank you, MR. Spellberg, that was

241the question that I had, what our timeline looks like, asking DR. Hepburn, but seeing if it's even feasible for us to explore other options at this time based on all of the logistics. Like what that's going to look like and if it's something we can pull off. difficult, it's within our timeline because we have o do outreach tomorrow, today we won't have the time of day because we're here, I have to do outreach tomorrow and see what the cost is, see what the feasibility is and report back by end of day friday of the engagements we were successful with. is that going to involve us voting on anything? Does it have to be on an agenda? I don't think it needs to be on an agenda unless somebody brings a b item to direct us

242to do otherwise, we're just going to do fact pieing and present the options to the board via memo and then have a conversation with you guys one on one probably friday afternoon, friday evening. Like landyn who I finally called MR. PRESIDENT, he's absolutely right, there's lots of families not paying attention to this and they already booked nair tickets and ready to come down and see their loved ones for graduation, so it's also in the back of our minds too. and I agree with MS. Hixon's comment too. You know, when I spoke earlier, we were talking about equity and I agree that if we're going to make it equitable, we should make it equitable for everybody. If we have to make a tough decision and this is a financial crisis we're in, we have to make

243tough decisions for our budget, then I would like to look at having everyone have the same experience because clearly everyone's upset that some people are getting what is per received as a better experience nan others, so I would not object to looking into that either. just to clarify, that's having everybody b in district on facilities. yes. DR. Hepburn? yes, go ahead, DR. Wanza. so, as I said on OCTOBER 21, we have to be very clear, we do not have a district owned facility that can accommodate cypress bay high school. We don't have a district owned facility that can accommodate marjory stoneman douglas, western, and, you know, that's why we had to go externally. Could we potentially fit more -- a few more of the high schools that are at nova into dillard, yeah, we can

244go that way but we just have to be very clear that we do not have a district owned facility that can accommodate 1100 graduates. yeah. and I understand that, I mean, listen, I appreciate the work that you have done and I support that but I also understand the objection the people have of the fact that some people are going to the hard rock and people are going somewhere else, if there's a way to reconcile more of that, that would be great, if not, we continue with the plan. and I mean, I think really that's a conversation for next year, so we can deal with that not today. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. I did hear a student mention to board member bulman's point, I believe I heard a comment where a student mentioned --

245and I don't know if if this has ever been done in any school district, but for large schools like cypress bay or msd, there was a comment about letters a through a certain letter, m, whatever it is graduate at one time and then from n through z, has that ever been done, I leader a student mention it and I'm wondering if that is -- I know that's not a practice of broward county schools but is that a solution and has that ever been done if we're looking to have graduations at our facilities. so, I don't recall that being done here. MS. Hixon, I'm not putting you on the spot, you're a little bit older than me, by one year, but I don't recall that from being a staounts, being a parent, being an employee, listen,

246you all, I have to break the air some kind of way, but I don't recall us doing it here in the district and what I will say for families, that MAY be, you know, something that MAY not be the best option for families, particularly when you have family members that have different letters in the alphabet of last names and now you're asking the family to come back once or twice. I've never seen that done in any system either. If you do it like the colleges, colleges graduate specific majors, yeah. the reason I mention it, I heard a student said it -- one of the students earlier i believe, so I thought that was something I needed to ask. So, MADAM Chair, what I will say is that -- and I just want to clarify my

247position, I believe we should stay the course until we're in a better financial position to do otherwise or until another entity chchses tofit t the e diffffences in ststs. Hope w wwiwill be a a beerer position inin e e future d do differently. I am optimistic that we can and that we will. I just believe that if we don't act on saving now in every way, that we won't be able to be saved in the future. You know, the month of JANUARY, and I wanted to mention this earlier, we look at mlk and what I would say in terms of my dream because he talked about a dream, for me, I dream that one day our school districts in the state of florida will have comparable funding that at least matches the average funding the

248schools in the country and I dream that our districts in the state of florida will one day rise from the bottom of funding to a better place, so MADAM Chair, that's my position and I hope we're in a better place in the future. thank you. Alright, we will now move on to our time certain for 1:15, could I have a motion and a second on hh1? so moved. second. moved by MS. Rupert, second by MS. Hixon, we have several public speakers on hh1, memorandum of understanding between the school board of broward county and the broward teachers union ep, the three public speakers we have are mary ann, melanie and helen chisom. So, if your name was called for public speaking, please approach the mic.. MADAM Speaker, I had to go to the restroom earlier when

249you called my name and I wondered if I could -- I am speaking on this item anyway, and I was on for a public speaker. item hh1. yes. alright. My name is -- wait a minute, I don't remember my name. My name is DR. Trudy jermanovich, I'm wearing my red stop blaming teachers t-shirt. The district has directed funds to the highest wage earners in this district even at this very meeting. Whether the voters approved referendum monies, teachers were to be the main been fisheries of this money so they could have hopes of making ends meet. This money was not to be youths used for upper level administrators, the board should make sure that all school based personnel return the referendum fun money they received. There were many teachers who had to return money immediately when

250the district made a mistake in their paycheck. Upper level administrators should not be able to keep this money. The teachers and the public lose trust in the actions of this board when persons making well over 100 thousand dollars are still keeping these funds. Other places to save money. Stop the purchase of one to one computers right now, especially for preschool and primary students. These students should not spend the endless hours on a computer just so the district can feed the data machine for testing companies. I'm sorry, you've got a lot of places you could be saving and you're not saving anything really with the things you're doing right now. Start finding real places to cut at the upper level. Thank you. next public speakers, again, we have mary ann, mel flee -- melanie and hell

251lean d helen on hh1. Board member discussion on hh1. We have MR. Cervera. chair, MAY I be passed to gather my notes? there's nonetheless who signed up to speak on this item. If anyone else on the board would like to speak. all in favor of hh1, say aye. you have to ask for approval, you're doing it all wrong. I'm asking for decorum in audience. We will recess the meeting, thank you. (Meeting in recess). this school board meeting is now reconvened. I would like to take a moment to again reiterate there needs to be decorum. I was given a list of registered public speakers. I was not informed that there would be any hr staff speaking to this item. MISS Fusco, you are not on the list of registered speaker, however, since we have not completed

252the vote, I will give you the courtesy of speaking but we have had plenty of public speakers who have come to the mic., who have been respectful, who have kept decorum, imeding like to maintain that today. You have my number, you can reach out, but I did call for public speakers, so again I will give the courtesy to people who want to speak on this item, no one came to the mic. Aside from a few people so please go ahead, let's keep decorum and let's be respectful. so, on this item, what we've always done when we ratify, broward's teacher union stands with hr, not timed, I don't have to sign up as a speaker because we're explaining how we got there to ratify and then asking for you to join in the ratification and approve

253it from the school board. So, again, I can't keep reminding you how you keep get ting misled by staff on how things are being done. And if you're going to change the procedure, let me know because I've been doing this for a decade as a union PRESIDENT And before that as a teacher when I sat on the executive board of the broward teacher's union and the negotiations team, so I know the process. You changed it but you didn't tell anybody and I got people telling me you have to sign up to speak and you're just racing through it. As much as I appreciate that you want to approve it to give the.55 amount percentage into all of our teachers that voted, the 13 thousand 200 had an opportunity to vote, we had a 97% success

254on saying yes, we would like to have that, we understand how we're going to get it. It's going to be retroed and distributed the rest of the school year in their paychecks, it's not going to come in all one lump sum. Through the hr team bringing in, it's explained that the ratification was happening in great success. Tla's how this is done. If other people in the audience want to speak on it, they can. But this is not an item I have to sign up for, I'm the broward teachers union PRESIDENT And by way, I do have decorum and I have professionalism, it's called being a strong advocate when I see a lot of bs political stuff going on up there. Taking food out of kids mouths to have a graduation, I'm sorry tha,'s ridiculous. You

255guys should be ashamed of yourselves, you want to throw it on the backorder students, one group wants o do one thing, another group want tos do another thing. We donated hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure kids get places and if they need to be fed, we'll join in helping with that. Just let people know, broward education should let people know so I ask you to approve this item but I also ask you while we're getting -- stop whining that you're in a financial bind and do something about it and stop putting it on the backs of teachers and student and is your employees, that's what you need to do, elected officials. Stop it. Stand up and do something, come up with some solutions. I am very upset I had to hear

256from jeff, sarah, rebecca, on the backs of students, I am insulted and so are the teachers and so are the students and so is the community by the way. We had a 500 thousand dollar blunder, you're not worried about fixing that. Aproved this mazy am of money and move in to bring some money to teachers salaries so I don't have to work two or three jobs to make the district an a rated district that is what it's rated today. are there any other speakers on this today? I agree with MADAM PRESIDENT. okay. Now that we've had all of the public speakers tla have wanted to speak, I do have a question before we vote to staff, was there any indication because that was not shared with me that anyone from -- that hr was going

257to come speak today and stand with our labor representatives. through the chair, david azzarito, exec tier director of professional practices, normally we're sitting down and the union is speaking about the topic, so it wasn't on our agenda da to stand next to them but we stand with them and hope you guys approve the .55. okay. And n the future, if you could keep me abreast of how that would go next time. absolutely. thank you. Any other board member comment on the item? MS. Rupert? thank you. I just want to put a little bit of history into the conversation. The union after ratification comes to the board meeting, stands up at the podium, they have all their union members beside them and some years, I think we've all been together, some we haven't, the point is

258usually it's a large congregation of people celebrating that the ratification happened so I just wanted that to be on the record, you know, a lot of things have happened over the years and any disrespect that we've done because we've forgotten, it's a hectic time, but you know, it has been done before and like MADAM Chair said, if you want to go forward with that again, let's staff mow and we'll bring it back, so thank you. other board member comment on the item? All in favor of hh1, say aye. aye. all opposed, say no. item passes ewe nan nosily. I will now mover to the redefining items, so could I dwet a motion and I'll take them individually because of any motions that board members might want to make individually on the individual items. So, could

259I please get a motion and a second on the superintendent's recommendations for sunshine elementary stool, m m-1. Can I get a motion and a second on m m-1. so moved. where in the line is the 11:30 special order? I wanted to get through the mm items because it is redefining and people are are here for that and that has a significant impact but if it is the will of the board to go to b2, I will do that. Do you want to go around and get consensus on which item we want to take next? b2. MR. Cervera? [Inaudible]. DR. Holness? I'm fine with b2, MADAM Chair. okay, MS. Hissing son? b2, but I have a question, we also skipped the bf, pta and the union groups. I'm aware of that. . Inger I'm good with

260b2. MS. Bulman? yeah, that's fine. MS. Thompson? alright. we'll go b2, can I xwet a mroetion and a second on b2. moved by MS. Rupert, second by MS. Hixon. Wefrjts have four registered speakers, natalie lynch-walsh, nikki, DR. Judy jermanovich and [Inaudible]. good afternoon, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. Good thing I knew to pay attention when I went to wash my hands. Okay. But we're not on f2, we're on b2 which is MRS. Rupert's item which is on policy 1020 which is school board meetings and rules of order. So, there's a lot of things whereas this policy kept coming back to the board, it started reading like staff was trying to control the board and the board is supposed to be in charge of the district. There are tons of statutes that say this. You're also supposed to

261make sure your superintendent, your direct report ares following policies and state laws. So, like if you have a diversity committee policy, they're supposed to follow that. If you have a lawsuit settlement, they shouldn't be engaging in activities that are the opposite of that. For example, equity. If you have a strategic plan, they should be following that. So, anyway, on 1020, I think the item reads to help the board with governance because you definitely need to take control of what your functions are. You just changed the policy recently to include a follow-up log from the superintendent and it's one of the things I'm paying attention to but within 48 hours, it's not that the things are due in 48 hours, it's that you're supposed to get the log and coming from a business background, I know

262my definition of log might be a little bit different but what I want to explain to you is that based on the public records request I had to do, your superintendent appear today have flunung the tata to his seetary to do ineaead ofof getting with bibinet level people keke in it and coming up with a mak daddy of follow-up logs that's interactive and could help you better govern this distributes. That's what you got out of that change to policy. And then the other thing on this policy and I totally support cracking it open and looping it is the definition of good cause. When is it good cause and when is it not good cause? Because there doesn't seem to be a laundry list of a definition of good cause but ai totally disagreed with the

263board chair in turning down MR. Cervera because MR. Cervera's request would have been like a textbook definition of good cause because of the timeliness, public interest and all of these other things. It should have been on today's agenda and then it should have gotten on there again and, yes, shame on the four of you that caused it to be voted down. It's going to come back to bite you, I guarantee it. Now would be the time, you need some guidelines, you're supposed to state what good cause is and define it, not just say you found good cause. thank you, next speaker. good afternoon again, MADAM Chair, board members, superintendent hepburn and staff, nikki watkins here again, parent, baby resident, staff chair and legislative representative. Thank you to MS. Rupert for bringing this item forward. Policy

2641020 for those who MAY not know spokes to a larger issue because it governs how this board kits its work because it shapes meetings, motions, public parts icipation and committee reporting. It's not a policy we can treat as re f routine, it should be updated deliberately with one goal, stronger governance that earns public trust. I appreciate that the executive summary says the purpose of this rule making is to strengthen board governance, that is the right decision esspeshlgly given the recent lessons our community has experienced, lessons that will ultimately land in students and land with student and is taxpayers. As you refine policy 1020, I urge you to align with policy 1070 which governs advisory committees, policy 1020 includes committee reports and policy 1070 defines how committees operate. If these policies are not clearly connected, we

265risk gaps, confusion and inefficiency. If this are aligned, advisory committees can better support the board with consist consistency, thank you for your time and your time to continuous commitment, accountability and customer service. my name is DR. Trudy jermanovich, I was looking back over my notes and it was in JANUARY of last year when we started on this process. JANUARY of last year. And the reason why we're here again to do this is because you didn't take it through the looping process that it always -- has always been done. Now, you have a chance to do something similar. youz ear doing that with the dac, looking at 1070, 1070 and 1020 go together. They should be brought together, so please just start doing things that are sensible. If I ran a classroom like this, I wouldn't

266get anything done, so please, a year, a year you've been trying to change a policy. Can you believe that? I just belief you need to start listening as the hat said, MR. Cervera, to your teachers, your parents, your students, you really need to listen and I think that unfortunately this is going to be a new process. You think you're listening but you're not because obviously we wouldn't have o come back to these meetings over and over again. Also take off those armaments, I must have said it six time ins the last year, take off those attachments, you don't put attachments on a policy, that's called a procedure. You don't put attachments on a policy, thank you. good afternoon, jackie lescom, I came to support MS. Rupert's motion and a special order was set for 11:30

267A.M., to get to 2:45 P.M., I have been having to fight that the intention was to skip over it for a few more hours is somewhat disappointing. I didn't come here cross like i am now. I've been sitting here this long for just three minutes and that was rude. There were four speakers signed up. I support this because the board has not been looping policies through advisories as policy 1000 allows when there is relevance and potential benefit to doing so. It has made it harder for community to provide comprehensive feedback other than getting it into three minute speaking time increments. Staff kept bringing errors and making tweaks that nobody asked for and the policy draft is a problem that I fear is making the board look bad and using the same script I've used before,

268you have to fix some of the deficiencies in this policy which we have flagged a number of times. One would be to just do what you did with policy 1070 which iss throw it back to the dac policy subcommittee, I know MS. Rupert has proposed putting it back through rule making all together. But I would like to flag that some of the deficiencies if you're wondering pertain certainly in the view of various advisories to the segments around committee reporting about how you deal with and hear and consider recommendations from advisories. We had flagged the appendices b and c are entirely unworkable and reflect a lack of understanding of best practices, the advisories strive for and go against the goal of purposeful recordkeeping and good time management. Making us use those forms would go against against

269the policy's purported goal of having consistency and efficiency. Again, as well, policy 1020 intertwines with policy 1070 which is now under review as well that you sent it back to us on dac policy subcommittee. So, the idea of just breaking open policy 1020 again so that that can be reviewed is a sensible one. I would also like the make an observation that you might want to consider in policy 1020 setting some rules around your attorney-client sessions. These are lawyers wlo are paid three if not four figure sums to be in your board room. Those of us who are here as volunteers or as parents could use that time more purposefully, thank you. any other public comment on this item? I mean, I'm not going to stand up here for three minutes and repeat what everybody

270else said. I think you know as a board what's the right thing to do about policy 1020. You see what those types of changes have created and i have to give it to MS. Les dr, om, she's right, people who pour in the money and pay, they get to have their time and so forth, but your parents and the constituents and volunteers and other groups, they're just going to get pushed off o the side or you guys use them, oh, they're here all the time anyway. I watch you guys faces, don't you watch me taking pictures and videos, youb talk about decorum. You know what good decorum is, that people spen the time to stay up here and paying attention to us. Instead of how we're presenting it or the messaging is not what you

271guys want. There's a lot of things happening, a lot. And when you have a certain policy that has become crippling and you've got a board member that's presenting it that needs to be changed, I'm asking you guys to look at it and do it for the good of the community or do you want to keep what the good is of you, you all made it a point the clearly sit there and talk about what's good for you about this graduation bs. When I graduated -- where did you graduate, MR. Holness? You certainly gave your little stand up there, you want to rub it in that kids are not going to eat breakfast, that is not going to happen if you allow students to graduate, and why I'm coming back to it, if you guys have

272allowed it to be on the agenda, you wouldn't have spent three hours to hear yourselves talk and blow hot air. Some of you guys don't know what you're talking about, you don't get it or you don't want to get it or you don't care. Not okay. Again, you have a group of people that work for this district that put you in this financial bind and yet they're still here. You haven't changed that. But you want to change everything else that stifles the group that pours the money into the broward county public schools, it's called your pax payers, your constituents, the actual ones that want to continue to keep coming and attend broward county public schools, your students. I have a young man here sitting in a hot bear suit so you guys can listen to

273him. I'm going to sit around and watch and see you you treat him. We already know f know how you treated a senior value lick tor yan. Work on changing this policy, work on doing bet and her stop blowing hot air, it's about the student, and start showing it. Yes, I did take my three minutes. any other public on b2? We'll go to board member comment. MS. Rupert? thank you, MADAM Chair. And I strictly brought this so we could formalize it and it goes to the -- into the looping process and it initiates rule making for revisions to our policy today. That's it simply. MR. Cervera? thank you, thank you to MS. Rupert for bringing this. Chair, I've got some questions for our general counsel. We heard from the speaker, the little dilemma here about

274what can and what cannot constitute "good cause", we all experienced it firsthand this morning with my proposed agenda item and I would like to know pursuant the paragraph 3, subsection b, under the policy that's at issue now, what, MADAM General counsel, does actually constitute good cause? Is it matters of great public concern or great public importance like, I don't know, high school graduations, is it newly discovered evidence like what I deal with under the rules of civil procedure in a legal context like when pta's and elected officials from your cities call you and say, hey, listen, if we would have known this was coming, we would help with the costs with this. What exactly constitutes good cause that we can put into this rule so we don't have to sit here next time and scratch

275our head as to whether or not our amended agenda items can be added. Thank you. MS. Jacques-adams? so, through the chair, we have a policy process, so for me to craft language on the spot with regards to a particular definition is not appropriate at this time. I do want to say, through the chair, that good cause in the context of chapter -- let me see -- 120. -- just one moment. Yes, 125252 which is good cause I believe that you're speaking to does not have a definition within 120 and the way that the law handles that is when a phrase is not defined, it takes on its ordinary meaning under florida law and then also the ordinary meaning has been construed as like a definition meaning. Now, depending upon the underlying facts and circumstances, like

276for example you can't use just one scenario that is considered good cause, it's different depending upon the underlying facts and circumstances, like, for example, when a board member wants to deviate from the superintendent's recommendation with regards to discipline, that's good cause as well but that good cause has a different underlying fact than good cause is under 12525, so just to finalize, it takes on its ordinary dictionary definition with regards to good cause. so, I guess two questions, number one, is it your professional legal opinion that we should maybe look at the case law and see if if there's any guide dan on that in regards to chapter 120, specifically 12525, subsection 2, that's my first question. My follow-up question on that is what do you think we can do to beef this up within this

277policy so we're not in a similar situation later on down the road where nobody can figure out what constitutes good cause. so, my definition of good cause came straight from case law, in particular, school board of palm beach county versus survivor charter schools. And I can provide you with the citation. It indicated what I just referenced which is if good cause is not defined in the statute, it takes on its ordinary meaning and its ordinary meaning can be the dictionary meaning of the word good cause. So, the -- what I told you was based upon florida statutes. In terms of trying to take a look at the policy to figure out what language should be -- what language should be included, that's not something that should take place on the dais. Whenever a policy is

278reviewed, it's reviewed by staff and then it's legally reviewed by our office. are you satisfied with paragraph roman numeral 3, subsection b. with regards to any paragraph in a policy, it's not whether I am satisfied with it, it's what the board approved. So, if the board does not -- wants to change it for any reason, then the board is following proper procedure to go ahead and revisit it and then it goes through that same rule making process and our role is to lonely review what has been sent before us. do you believe this is legally sound, if perhaps it can be beefed up for lack of better terms. to opine upon whether a paragraph is legally sound or not is not my role right now. It's to legally review the policy to ensure that it's

279in compliance with the enabling statute. So, I don't have any opinions as I sit here with regards to this particular paragraph. Like I said, that's not the process we follow. It is reviewed by staff and legally reviewed by the office of general counsel. thank you for explaining what your role has been in this process. MS. Hixon? thank you. First I just wanted to clear up something that a couple of the public speakers mentioned about, so attorney-client session, it isn't the attorneys here in the school board building, it is our outside attorneys and we have to pay them hourly, so when we're trying to stay close to that timeline, it isn't to disregard someone else, it's just that we're paying for them so we're trying to keep that to a minimum. And to another public speaker,

280we passed this policy in NOVEMBER of 2025, so we went through as another public speaker mentioned, almost a year, 11 months of having workshops, more than one, and going through this process and then we voted on it the way it stands today in NOVEMBER. So I am not for opening this up again right now. I think we have a lot of other really important things that are on our agenda, mostly repurposing our schools, and looking at how we make our budget better. I just think there's a better use of our time at the moment, so maybe possibly when 1070 runs through it websinger would know what hips but we did a lot of changes over the last 11 months, so it was updated in NOVEMBER of 2025. We're in JANUARY of 2026 so it washers

281update and had a lot of effort went into that so I'm not going to be able to support this item today. Thank you. thank you, MS. Thompson? I echo MRS. Hixon's sentiment. MRS. Alhadeff? thank you, soto my colleaes poinwith MR. Cervera with good cause, we end up talking not on the item for four hours, so that was good cause to have an item and to have been able to open up the agenda to have a vote but I think we got to a good conclusion regardless. But what I would like our general counsel to do is to reach out to the florida school board association and ask them to opine on the good cause and what is written in our policy just o get another perspective. And then to the maker of the motion, MS.

282Rupert, in the recommended action, it speaks to initiate rule making but you talked about looping. Can you clarify the corrected action. I had it as rule making, so we would give the superintendent the recommendation to rule make for the policy, but I know the other one is going through looping. I do not believe the conversation we had for four hours came to a conclusion because there were still many community members that felt they hadn't heard enough and their voices wasn't counted enough, that's what I remember, I don't remember as coming to consensus. I remember -- not just me, other board members said let's bring it back, so I was trying to do that. I know it really sucks in timing with everything that we're doing, but it was going to be a few weeks sxag

283the timing was terrible then as well. I figured let's put it on here and let's just do it, it's a sifl thing, we don't have to discuss it to death, it's an easy yes and I don't understand the pushback. okay, so, I guess DR. Hepburn, within the rule making, there will not be looping. I just want clarification. MR. Sullivan? yes, thank you. so, again, just to remind the board, 1020 is how the board governs themselves, but just speaking in normal policy, it would go to a workshop, there would be proposed changes to the policy for this one, I would suggest those changes come from the board because again it is how the board governs themselves and at that point, the board can decide if they want to loop it. You wouldn't loop it before it

284came to the board for that rule making. I'm sorry, rule development. DR. Zeman? thank you so much, chair. I'm not in favor of doing this largely just because as MS. Hixon said, we have some other things to do and this board is unpredictable I think about how long something might take in terms of discussion and workshop and then how many different groups would loop it and things like that. We just have to be thoughtful. We have 253 different policies covering 1700 pages and this one we just finished up I think if I'm right chair, was it roughly two months ago? that's correct. so, I just think we have to be a bit judicious about this, I respect the interest in changing some things or maybe some individual pieces of this but we have to spend

285our time on things that make sense and I think there ought to be some amount of time to let this policy as we just passed it in NOVEMBER settle in a little bit and maybe next NOVEMBER, we can bring it back up, something along that pace. The last thing I would like o do, chair, is call the question, please. so, a motion has been made to call the question. All in favor of calling the question, say aye. aye. all opposed, say no. Calling the question passes unanimously. All in favor of item b2, say aye. all opposed, say no. no. Roll call, please. roll call on the item, school board members alhadeff? yes. Er bulman? no. cervera? Was that a no? Hixon? no. holness? no. leonardi? no. rupert? of course it's a yes. thompson? no. zeman?

286no. fails 2-7. alright, before we mover to the nester item, I would like to ask what the will of the board is in turnover the rest of the schedule. So, we have presentations from broward county council pta ao, ptsa and the employee union groups. We also have the mm items for consolidating and repurposing our schools, we also have a 3:30 time certain where there will be a court reporter and like MS. Hixon said, we are paying people to be here so, nr the interest of being financially responsible, I do think it's important we take those time -- the 3:30 time certain at 3:30, but I want to know what the will of the board is in terms of the presentations and the mm items? MS. Rupert? I would rather do the mm items because those

287are school related and community related. MS. Thompson? is the court reporter here now? Could we start it early? MS. Jacques-adams? doi want to remind the board the underlying facts with regards to the 3:30 has to do with insurance with the school board's property. can we do it now? It is time certain for 30 3 :30, so I aop not sure whether the court reporter is here right now, if the court reporter is here, let me check. I mean, one thing we could do is -- I guess I was wondering, does anyone want to go to the presentations right now? MS. Hixon? they've been here since 10:00. let's go ahead and do our presentation, bef is not here, correct, MR. Hill? that is correct. broward county council pta, is ptsa -- they sent a report to

288us. Employee union groups, btu, bppa, copa and bpa, anyone from our employee union groups? you thought I left. No. Ana fusco, broward teachers union, I was informed I used up all my minutes so they won't let me speak for bear. So I'll do it now. First of all, I'm going to get it over with how you guys have come in egregious in wrongful negotiations. You don't come into negotiations and demand negotiations to come in with no money, just saying, go find some labor attorney and is ask them, that's wrong. And then ask for people to pay on the backs of employees, everybody, for their insurance, that's called a pay cut, so I would like to know where the land of labor and law negotiations that that is called good intentions of negotiating, so that's that

289piece. With the redefining schools, there's a lot of components of it and I'm glad you guys took the opportunity to separate each group. I was a little nervous that you were going to put them all together and vote one. Because you guys have been bamboozled, snowed, whatever other terminology I could come up with that that's the only way you're going to save money in this district. That's right, and the graduation, and taking teachers can't take extra classes, personalization course, I can name a whole bunch that you want o the put on the backs of the people that come to the schools and then the ones that work for the schools. Does that make any sense? I don't know what business world that you guys are in but not in my business world. Teachers union has

290the a pristine bujts and auditing and a bhoel group of people that do their work or they get out. That's it. I'm not calling in people to come and check my book and is make sure I'm more accountable and getting more efficiency like you guys did. I spoke out at a press conference, I don't agree with that either. I believe ushds have your staff that has been hired to get their job done. That's it. Now let's talk about a particular school bear, I personally spoke with city commissioners and the city manager bho they're sitting in the audience by the way, so again you want to continue to keep get thing story from the staff that by the way has shown over pattern over pattern over pattern, year after year, history keeps repeating itself. They tell

291you one thing, show another and another thing happens. But you don't want to keep that going. Jeff, this is for you, this is in your district. You're one of the ones that insisted that the city was the problem. Where did I see cities need to come in and save broward county schools. Is there a policy that I missed? Is there something written somewhere? I think that that is noble that any community entity, any constituent, any city or the county wants to step up and help. You know you should be giving a big fat thank you. You got kids in this audience right now that have been waiting, that are saying don't close my school because particular staff did not go with a great plan. I'm not talking about a plan, it should be a great

292plan. I'm asking, board up there, baoez do not move forward on closing bear until you have every single staff member that was involved that meets with every one of you that shows this particular plan this -- that they went to the city and asked for help. Why did the city show up at redefining meetings, they did but they don't have to. So you, ear saying because the city doesn't show up, they're the problem, do you hear this? Does that even sound professional? Does that sound business-like? Ish z I wish the broward teachers union could come in and save it all. Wez ear in a great place but we can't but we're still going to continue to donate where it's needed to help schools that don't get the proper materials so those kids can continue to

293get greatness and keep this district a rated because of the student and is the teachers, so I'm asking you to hear me now. do not move forward with bear. It is not done, it's not set in stone, you have the city manager and commissioners and family and kids sitting here that are going to tell you if you give them the one minute or the three, who knows, I hope you give them three minutes, have some courtesy, that they're willing to help make it work for bear and west pine, that is a fact and I believe them, they have not ever led me wrong but you have a group that have always led you wrong. Keep that in your hats and don't forget. bppa. DR. Holness? MADAM Chair, I would like to clarify a comment because

294my name was mentioned. As a resident of the city of sunrise which I am and love the city of sunrise, I was the board member leading the efforts as well in our prior workshop discussion to keep bear open. And I continue to stand that ground but what I will tell you is that there is no casting of blame of who's the problem. What I did do is I went to the city of sunrise commission a couple of times to indicate to them that due to enrollment concerns at bear as well as west pine middle and other schools in broward county, that if the city would be to occupy z pi a reasonable percentage of the empty seats, there's a possibility that could result in the district not considering closing bear along with other options. So,

295there was no casting of blame to say the city's the problem or anyone's the problem. What is an issue for broward county schools is that we have significantly underenrolled schools. If we don't have corporations by municipalities or different entities we klaoz to occupy space in these schools, theb the district is forced to make certain decisions. No one is the problem, we are part of the solutionfinger all of us as a district, so int to clarify, MADAM Chair, that as a city of sunrise resident, there is no no way that I would say the city of sunrise with the closing of schools in sunrise, the city of sunrise can be part of the solution, so thank you for the opportunity to clarify. bpaa, asmat, fope, copa. Pba. Alright, is it the will of the board to

296go to our mm items? Alright, could I get a motion and a second on m m-1. so moved. second. moved by MS. Hixon, seconded by MS. Rue intender, public comment on m m-1. no registered speakers. board substitution on m m-1? That's for sun sao iz elementary. I was not given an item by an item polled list, I want to make sure, go ahead, MS. Thompson? thank you, chair. And some of my questions are applicable to all of the changes. For transportation, how are we going to determine whether a walking route is considered hazardous and if a parent feels that their home in particular is hazardous, how should they notify staff and then does an actual person physically walk the route to assess safety concerns? yes, so as the transition after this vote, we will start

297communicating with the school and the parents, explain those detailed information like we did with the broward estates closing in consolidation into mlk and I'll have DR. Wanza talk about any specifics in terms of detail of what the saf does as far as walking routes. good afternoon again, the transportation department works in collaboration with environmental health and safety, so specifically we know that those directors, executive director, as well as directors, they go out and travel if you will the routes that the students will take to determine if there is hazardous walk condition. We know there are opportunities where the city of mere ra mar MAY produce crossing guards to address that concern, if they do not, that is where the district entertains the actual transportation routes and things of that nature. And as we've had in

298previous discussions, I know the area of major concern as it relates to these two schools is right there at island drive where one school is on the north side of mere ra mar parkway, the other one is on the south side, miramar parkway at that island drive intersection is where the greatest concern is, obviously it's the crossing of miramar parkway. what does that timeline look like for parents to know? as soon as the board takes action, between transportation and safety, they will firm up what that looks like and we start to communicate with parents I would say within the next month and that's the long shot, but yes. thank you. And then what is the timeline for after these decisions are made that in-person parent meeting will be made at the school and what is

299the communication so that all parents know it's happening? so, the first thing depending on whatever action the board takes today, we have a meeting set with the principals tomorrow. So tla the school leaders know and understand what action was taken by the board. We have developed an faq communication type tool kits for the school leaders so they can have something there on campus. We as a district will send out mass notification but that is message specific, you knower, based on the individual decision that will go out from the district to the families of the individual schools that action is taken and what we are working with our colleagues and teaching and learning to identify some specific dates that we can meet at the schools to have the conversations with parents and we're trying to get

300all of that nailed down so parents will know either by the end of this week or early next week when those actual meetings will take place so they can come to the school, ask questions and get assistance as needed. I don't know what other questions are going to be asked, what I will say is that last year, it was one school, so there was obviously more hands on approach where all staff can go to that one school depending on what happens today, it could from z fa 0 to 7 depending on what happens, but we are still committed to ensuring that we provide our families with that personal touch. It MAY look differently meaning the choice office, there's so many people, instead of four of them going to one school, there MAY be one person

301and I MAY be that one person. thank you for that, I think there's a lot aof questions about leadership at all the proposed schools and I would just like the district to kind of explain the principal selection process and I know preferably families would like to know who's the principal at their new proposed school, so what does that look right and is there a way for an accelerated timeline? S, leadship dedefitely mamaers, we ow families a are concernened about the ececific leader of the school. I have DR. Fulton go over the process that we usually use and then kind of weighing in on a more accelerated process because it is a domino effect on the whole entire district for faye va I -- vacancies we have, we have to task assign, so I'll turn it

302over to you, DR. Fulton. thank you. Through the chair, angela fulton, deputy superintendent, so DR. Hepburn, you said it correctly. After whatever decision that is made today by the board, then we go and start that process. It will be a process where like DR. Hepburn mentioned, leadership does matter. We want the make sure we match the correct leader with the right school and with the right community it will be a very transparent process. Once we know what schools that are a part of the mix, we'll be able to have a clear process delineated and smarted with the community and also with the board. is there a timeline on that. everything is contingent on what happens today. assuming everything passes, do we have a timeline on that. so tomorrow as was stated earlier, we are meeting

303with the principals tomorrow to start moving everything forward and once we determine what schools are in the process websinger will have a timeline probably by the end of the week for you. typically I think principal assignments are announced in MAY or JUNE. Will it be before that? absolutely, yes. and thep one of the issues that we encountered last year when we changed some boundaries is that when you go on the school website to find out where your assigned school is, none of that was updated until JUNE, assuming everything passes especially because this year you will have schools close, so what steps are we taking to make sure our new families either to the area or kindergarten know what school they're actually going to? so, we're going to look to see how we can work the

304website so it will have pop-ups to educate our families and the community that if you are -- if you're right now today based on your residential address, sunshine elementary school, however effective JULY 1, this area will be boundaries to fairway elementary school, so really the family probably would want to start at fairway to start getting acclimated. Wez ear going to work on the process to see if we can work with the website that way but we will definitely make sure schools to help with that conversation and with that messaging and work to make sure that we can make things as transparent for families so that there isn't confusion when it comes to what school they're selecting. and will principals of a potentially closing school be notifying parents if they come to tour sunshine? that is

305a part of the communication process, so when we meet with the principals tomorrow . that's all my questions for sunshine. Dofrjt we have any other board discussion on this item, m m-1? Alright, all in favor of m m-1, say aye. aye. all opposed, say no. Item passes unanimously. Could I get a sxhoetion a second on mm2? so moved. moved by MS. Hixon, seconded by MS. Thompson. Public comment on mm2? no, ma'am. board discussion on mm2? This is on panther run. No? Alright, all in favor of mm2, say aye. aye. all opposed, say no. Item passes unanimously. Could I get a motion ask a second on m m-3. Moved by MS. Hixon, second by MS. Rupert, public comment on m m-3? no comments. board member discussion on m m-3? All in favor of mm -- sorry,

306go ahead, MS. Thompson? when will we be announce tog the community what's going to happen with the closed school spaces? go ahead, DR. Wanza, I knower we've been in discussion about next steps about all of our spaces. The only one that's probably hasn't been finalized is norfolk which we'll have the proposers be able to talk to the board in an upcoming workshop. Go ahead. thank you, DR. Hepburn. ? MARCH is when we're going to have the board workshop to discuss the proposals for norfolk as well as we will need to have some conferencing conversation with the gourd around the seagull site as well, at that time we can give ke fin stiffly what is transitioning or happening with the schools that are being officially repurposed. So, at the MARCH workshop. We do know we have

307some district staff maybe moving into some places. We know we have some community agencies that are interested in leasing space. We know that we have some governmental agencies that are interested in leasing space as well, so that's why I said around the MARCH workshop is when we can bring some definitive conversation around what would be going into each space. and then the city of pembroke pines had expressed interest in [Inaudible] With had this new move, is there capacity for that? there MAY be still be an opportunity, we have to look finally because with the schools splitting going to two different schools, there still might be an opportunity for that. thank you, chair. any other board member discussion on m m-3? yes, ma'am. go ahead, DR. Zeman. thank you so much, chair. A question for the

308superintendent. The process we have used up to this point, heavy on workshops, light on school board meetings is what it is but I just want the make sure we have a commitment from you that before any disposal decision is made that you're going to bring an item back to the school board on that. yes, that is confirmed, DR. Zeman. thank you very much, chair. any other board member discussion on m m-3? All in favor of m m-3, say aye. all opposed, say no. Item passes unanimously. Could I xwet a motion and a second on mm4? Moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Hixon, public comment on mm4? no comment. board discussion on mm4, DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. DR. Hepburn, regarding norfolk and the closure and the kids going to these surrounding schools, just

309for public information, what's the next step regarding norfolk. I know we were taking proposals, can you brief us on how many proposals yu eve received so far and what the public needs to do, the they wish to submit a proposal and when will these propose sags be discussed? we'll have a workshop? MARCH for people who submitted those proposals to have a discussion with the board and officially present them so we can get some direction from the board. I have DR. Wanza giving detail about the number we received thus far. thank you, DR. Hepburn, just so everyone -- for everyone's edification, it's MARCH 24th, the workshop date. To date, we have received pour proposals and they have been transmit today the board so the board has all four proposals. I did have a conversation last week

310with one more entity that MAY be interested and it's an entity as it relates to marine science and marine oceanography or something of that nature, I have not received the formal proposal yet. Individuals who are interested in submitting a proposal MAY submit it last month, they can submit it to him or submit it to me directly at our district e-mail addresses and whatever we receiver, we transmit to the board in a timely fashion so the board can see them as well, but received officially today are those four proposals. DR. Wanza, I know that recently, we met including my office and you with members of the leaders of that community and the surrounding community I believe is the PRESIDENT Of dors s I river land hoa, as well as the naacp PRESIDENT And others to answer

311questions for the community. I believe we wanted to to go into the community in that specific community to also get additional questions but they elect to have the leaders come out and speak to us and from that conversation, DR. Wanza, would you -- are you comfortable that those leaders that we spoke to, they understand the next steps and what is involved? I am. okay, great. Thank you very much, madam chair. any other discussion on mm4? All in favor of mm4, say aye. aye. all opposed, say no. Item passes unanimously. I just want to check in with the will of the board, do we want to continue with the mm items or go to 3:30 time certain. MS. Jacques-adams, you will like to say something. I would like to reiterate that the 3:30 time certain has

312a court reporter, it has counsel for another party that's here, counsel for the school district and it has to do with property and casualty insurance on behalf of all the property of the school board. so, is it still in board's interest to go to mm items? mm. do we want to -- so, do we want o go ahead and do the time certain then? Alright, we will take a break from the mcer m items, could I get a motion and a second on oo -- I believe it's oo3 and oo6. so moved. moved by MS. Thompson, eked by MS. Bulman, we will come back to the mm ie steps. -- items. Er through the chair, I would like the ensure the court reporter starts typing as you begin to discuss o3 and oo6. sit okay

313-- is it okay to take them together? it should be taken separately, o3 should be taken first. can I get a motion and a second on oo3. moved by MS. Thompson, second by MS. Hixon. Is there a -- I believe it's 03. sorry, 03. yes, there are six public speakers for o3. and through the chair, the district attorney is online through teams so I wanted to ensure he was on the line right now. yes, that is correct. thank you. first public speaker is joseph gold staoen esquire followed by paul murphy. is this on? Good morning. Good afternoon, my client, paul murphy is going to yield his time to me, so do I have six minutes sm na's no longer in our policy. Joe goldstein on bemaf of gallagher, we oppose agenda item o3 and oo6.

314This is another example of receiving an incomplete picture of the facts. We filed a bid protest and once you file a bid protest, the district should override the mandatory stay of a contract award only in the most compelling circumstances and those come pemingopening circumstances do not exist here. The legislature created the stay process to preserve the due process rights of protesters, any perceived emergency here that MAY exist was created by your staff. Gallagher's the incumbent contractor and 2025, you extended their contract to MAY 15, 2026. Gallagher provides the super majority of its services prior to that time and then it receives payment on MAY 15 when the insurance is placed that would go through 2027. Thus under our original contractor would not be any actual emergency if you kept our original termination date. However what

315happened, after the district submitted an rfp on SEPTEMBER 2, originally the award date was going to be MAY 16 or later, but an addendum was issued that shortened that to being FEBRUARY 2026. In that addendum, it specifically says if there's a bid protest, that the district reserves the right to change that. Gallagher three times brought it up to your staff, the hardship that changing from MAY 16, 2026 to this FEBRUARY date would cause to your staff, first for two months, they ignored them. This then on NOVEMBER 13, they got back to them and said we have the right to terminate you, we're going to terminate you as of JANUARY 31, thank you very much. One day earlier, you all had passed an agenda item terminating their contract for convenience on that JANUARY date. When the

316award came out, we timely filed a formal bid protest under the law, a formal bid process stays the contract process because you reserve the right in the solicitation to exchange the start date, gallagher is ready, willing and able to have its contract extended either to the original lend date which would be MARCH 15, 2026 or until the protest is completely resolved. It's the way to preserve their due process right and is to ensure they're paid for the services they perform throughout the year. Thank you very much. We sent you an e-mail this morning with backup. thank you, next speaker, paul murphy followed by benjamin buchanan. hi, paul murphy, PRESIDENT With gallagher j. Insurance. I want to reiterate what joe said, there is no emergency and any perceived emergency that MAY exist was created solely by

317staff changing the award date and the procurement and recommending early termination of our contract. You were not in hitched of hardship as joe mentioned that gallagher would realize as well as any of the mwbe's that serve on this contract. You were not informed that gallagher rejected to such and was not given notice of the meeting or the vote that you all took in NOVEMBER. And you were not properly advised of your options to avoid this override. Entering into a new contract with this new vendor at this time would require sbbc to pay them a fee of 500 thousand dollars on FEBRUARY 1 in advance of rendering any services. Fortunately you can rectify this situation. Preserving gallagher's due process rights until the bid process is completed, you have two options. First withdrawal the notice of the

318early iteration and restore the original termination date to MAY 15, 2026 or extend the contract that we currently have until the completion of this bid protest. We believe case law is clear, if the urgency is created by the agency's actions, an override of the stay is not proper. Not only is such inconsistent with the law, but such is unfair here based on the repeated lack of fairness given to gallagher since it has brought this issue to the attention of your staff since september. Please vote no as to this agenda item o-3 and oo-6, thank you. and before we move on, what is the procedure around indicating lobbyists, MS. Jacques-adams or MR. Hill? through the chair, I can go ahead and begin and staff can go ahead and continue. If if there is a lobbyist, a

319lobbyist has to properly be registered with the school district and I'll go ahead and turn it over to staff. that is correct, the lobbyist must put on the agenda cards nae are lobbyists which they have as well as they need to state it whether they give their name and that they are a lobbyist. do you need to file forms or not because this is a public meeting for everyone to see. swiller refer to legal's opinion on that. when you say forms, can you be more specific, forms in terms of conflict. having conversations with lobbyists. It is my understanding, I want to be clear that we do not -- for this instance because this is a public meeting. you are correct, you do not need to file a form for a lobbyist appearing during a board

320meeting. thank you. Next public speaker. next, benjamin buchanan followed by tony, followed by elaine followed by mike sharkovic. so, if you have heard your name, please approach the mic.. good afternoon, I am ny abella, areaea seseor vice-preside with gagallagher company out of south florid as the current broker for the district's insurance, I can refute the assertion there's an immediate daing tore the public safety or welfare. Additionally, I can assure you that a no vote does not jeopardize the district's ability to update and maintain property and casualty insurance coverage. All of the insurance coverage the school board purchases are currently enforced and shall remain so through MAY 15 when they all renew. My team and I were recently awarded the stit of florida's insurance program through a competitive bid process. The award was finalized on NOVEMBER

32114, we were successful in obtaining the renewal terms for the entire program between the award date and JANUARY 14. In less than 44 weekdays, including thanksgiving, hanukkah, christmas and the new year holiday, we were able to negotiate a renewal program for a program three time it is size of broward skao nt school board's program at a significant premium reduction. Clearly the immediacy is not being driven by the MAY 15 renewal date. My team stands ready, willing and able to renew these coverage on MAY 15 without any lapse under the terms of our current agreement. The assertion that there's an immediate and/or serious danger to the public safety, welfare appears to be more aligned with a preference rather than any factual circumstances. Our team has continued to live up to all of the obligations under our

322current contract and will gladly do so through any extension period that MAY be required to accommodate the final adjudication of the protest. There is no need to bypass the standard procurement procedures including the bid protest. We feel very strongly that the responsible thing to do and in the district's best interest is for you to vote no on the matters of overriding the statutory stay and entering into a new contract before the entire competitive process can be completed. Thank you very kindly for your consideration this afternoon. last call for benjamin, elaine and mike. That concludes our public speakers. alright. I believe MS. Jacques-adams would like to speak on this item. so, through the chair, I would like to refer to MR. Vik -- vik knoll la, he's the deputy counsel. good afternoon, first of all, let

323me say there is a statute that governs bid protest proceedings and what it says is in the event of a bid protest, the agency is to halt the contract award process until the subject of the protest is resolved by final agency action. What does that mean? It means the protest has been referred to dila, dila has issued a recommended order and the reck edged order has been considered by the board resulting in a final order. However, the statute provides an exception to this. If the agency had which is the board sets forth in writing particular fatsoes and circumstances which require the continuance of the solicitation or contract award process without delay in order to avoid an immediate and serious danger to the public health, safety or welfare. Let me tell you that I'm only aware

324of one other incident where the school district invoked this exception. For the public safety, welfare, it was in 2001 and it was concerning another insurance matter. The school district's decision to override the stay was challenged and taken to the fourth district court of appeal and the fourth district court of appeal upheld the override of the stay in that instance. The other -- and staff has prepared for you in the agenda item a list of reasons why to grant the override to avoid an immediate and serious danger to the public health, safety or welfare. There is items in the agenda item, our facts, and the best persons to speak to those facts would be personnel I think from your risk management department. I will let them set forth what they feel are the facts and circumstances

325that would enable the board to do the overriding in this instance, and I will say in advance, whether the facts and circumstances set forth in writing are sufficient to constitute the immediate and serious danger to public, health, safety or welfare is in the first instance a determination to be made by this board. If someone were to attempt to challenge the override as someone attempted to do in 2001 and the next person is to judge whether the facts and circumstances in your agenda item are sufficient to meet that standard would be the fourth district court of appeal. I would say without addressing the individual items in your agenda item that I believe they provide a basis to support an override decision if it were made by the board today. With that, I would suggest that you

326hear from risk management and that they go through the circumstances that they feel has provided this predicament for the board. So, you can better understand the reasons this override is being presented to you today. Thank you. so, through the chair, the person that is here to represent the school district is the director of risk -- of the district's risk management department, MR. Austin henry. good afternoon, austin henry, director of risk management. I did list six items that I thought were of concern for the district to move forward. In addition to that, I have other items that I have also noted here and I haven't listed them. If the board would like, I'll go through the six items. if not, I can add to the six items. It's up to the board. so, through the chair,

327MR. Henry, I would like you to indicate any and all facts and circumstances that you have. okay, so the first item is number 1, failure the timely secure brokerage services which would jeopardize the district's ability to obtain and maintain property and casualty insurance. The reason I say that is because right now, gallagher's contract will expire at the end of this month. A new contract would go into effect FEBRUARY 1. That new contract is going to require a broker to gather data, to take to insurance carriers and syndicates in order to put together a program and that program is your insurance prapt is your property and casualty insurance program. Number 2, we want to make sure we have the insurance in place, we're getting ready to go into hurricane season, come JUNE, right, JUNE 1. So,

328the second item it lists here severely impacts the district's ability to have insurance in place, to be able to do the necessary repairs or rebuild should our facilities get damaged. Number 3, how does that impact employees, students and broward county residents? We want to make sure we have the insurance in place if damage occurs as a result of a storm, we wan to make sure that the insurance companies are going to respond quickly, right. Number 4, I talk about operational and claims management risk. That's resolving claim disputes, potentially impairing the school district's ability for recovery efforts. We want to make sure that is also in place. We talk about the need for adequate preparation time for renewal. I mentioned that earlier. We have to put together a package to take to the insurance carriers in

329order for pricing to be put together. And number 6, we talk about public health, safety and wellness. And that's primarily tied to any delays in the award process jeopardizes timely insurance placement and continuity of the delivery of essential public services. One thing I want to note also. We currently have insurance in place, both property and casualty, okay. It expires -- the property expires on MAY 15, 2026. Your casualty policies expire JULY 1, 2026. So, if we were to stay with the same broker and the policies expire on MAY 15, 2026, the current broker -- no, the new broker rather will not be able to provide the services tied to the rfp. What do I mean by that? We have to take into consideration some of the hicks d thing that is are tie today this

330new rfp that we put out, we want to make sure someone that's available to do fema recovery. I say that because these are items that are noted in the rfp . If we don't have those services, yes, somebody can place the insurance, but if they're not contracted with the school district, they're not going to be able to provide the services. I talk about fema recovery, I talk about reconstruction, cost appraisals that are done, we do 8-10 every year to make sure has we are aware of what it's going to cost to rebuild should our buildings get damaged. We do loss prevention services, that's part of the rfp, not only for property but also for casualty. We do certificate tracking which we have to have in place because we want to make sure our vendors and

331our contractors that are doing business for the school board are up to date on their insurance policies because if not, then it's going to be our dime that's going to have to pay for any damages or liabilities that occur, right. We want to make sure that this new broker is tracking the insurance carrier's financial status and the am best rating to make sure should a claim occur, tle ear able to pay for damages and then I'm just going to say the last thing I'm going to 2340e9, we want the make sure there's claims assistance being provided to the district. All of these items are tied to this rfp, the new rfp. Now, if gallagher goes ahead and renews this contract, or not this contract, our insurance on MAY 15, 2026, and they are no longer

332the broker, these services that are tied to this rfp, they're not going to be able to provide those services because they're not -- it MAY f they MAY be the broker of record with the insurance carrier but they don't have a contract with the district ask -- and that's my main concern. I want to make sure these services are available to the district ask these services that I mention have a fnszabler impact on our organization. thank you, MS. Jacques-adams, is that it? I would like to turn it back over to MR. Vik knoll la. thank you, I want to note one thing that was mentioned by MR. Henry that he mentioned hurricane season is forthcoming but the problems that the district faces, hurricane season starts JUNE 1, that we MAY have other problems that would

333occur prior to that. We have had flooding issues in broward at times that I think were not within hurricane season. We had fires, we could have other times of calamities that would require us to make a claim on our insurance. And I would also ask that if the board were to approve this item, that it would approve it along with any additional grounds that MR. Henry has cited today and if so, then MR. Henry, I would ask him to provide a revised agenda item that the board chair could execute that will add those additional elements to the list of reasons to exercise the override. Thank you. thank you. MS. Bulman? Go ahead, MS. Hixon? thank you, I just have a couple of questions. So, one of the public speakers mentioned something about a 500 thousand

334dollar payment that we would have to pay on the first day of the new contract if I heard that right. So, can staff talk about what that was. yes. That's primarily -- what we're talking about here is the brokerage fee, flat fee that we pay to our brokers. It's not going to be 550 thousand the first of FEBRUARY, actually, it's going to be -- I forget the exact figure, about 238 thousand dollars because we broke it up over fiscal years. So, for this fiscal year, it would be 2 something, then the following fiscal year, the balance of the 550 would be paid. okay, great, thank you. And I know we're in a protest. Is there a projected date of when the protest will be over? we would have to advise on that. Er labeling for

335MR. Have you beening knoll la bho is the attorney that's handling the bid protest to answer that question. thank you. Bob vik knoll la here. What the status of the process, if the board were to approve agenda item o-3, a that overrides the protest and the protest will be no more unless there's appellate proceedings and what have you. If the board were to deny o-3, then what would happen is the parties would go through the bid protest procedures. We would have a meeting of the bid protest committee and if the protestor requests a referral to [Inaudible], we would go to goa, usually a big protest takes upwards of 6 months to go from filing of the protest to this board issuing a final order on the administrative law judge's recommended order. okay. And we haven't

336done any of those steps yet. When did they file the bid protest? I can't say what the date was, but it was before the winter break and at any late, we would go through those steps and -- but that would be if the override is not granted by the board. thank you. My last question, so we have as has been stated, we have actual insurance coverage through MAY of 2026 regardless of what happens here today? MAY 15, 2026, the property insurance comes up for renewal on that date. this is just about if we had a claim to have someone who would process that claim for us, is that correct? well, that's primarily -- my main concern is primarily hurricane season. Yes, right new york city -- right now you have insurance in place. If thereafter

337claim on record, the insurance company has to provide us with service. and my last question, they also mentioned if we pass this item that there would be work that their company did thatat thth wowouldn't be getting paidid for. N u u spspk k to that. Because I'm not okay with that. I'm not sure exactly what work. They've done work up until the date of expiration. I'm not sure because they're no loping doing loss prevention services. What they MAY be speaking about is that they MAY have been preparing for the renewal but yet they weren't notified via a letter and general counsel sent them a letter about termination of the contract, but yes, that's a possibility, they MAY have been preparing for their upcoming renewal. okay. MADAM Chair, if I could, MR. Henry I believe was

338talking about how with the rfp that's pending, there are a certain amount of steps that need to be taken by the new awardee in order to be able to deliver services, it's not simply looking at we have a plan, we have the services through date x, tlas fair amount of work I believe that needs to be done by the awardee prior to the conclusion of our current insurance. Is that correct, sir? yes, it is. and through the chair -- can you e e rb late. please relab rate. it's a matter of the carriers -- not carriers, the breaker collecting late ta from the district in regards to our total insured values, those are all of the assets we have in this district and they're gathering that data, they're gathering information on our buildings, on our

339vehicles, things of that nature to give to the insurance carrier so that they can underwrite the risk. Tle ear evaluating our risk, building structures, roofing replacement, things of that nature. ask through the chair, I would just like to state that the expiration date of arthur gallagher's agreement expires JANUARY 31 and the new contract's commencement date would be FEBRUARY 1, so the items that MR. Henry just described would be services that the new broker would provide beginning FEBRUARY 1 and those dates are critical. okay, thank you. Those are all my questions. MS. Bulman? thank you, chair. I see MR. White there, were you handling this procurement, MR. White? this was prior to my arrival. okay. but you have reviewed it? Have you been working on it? I've been reviewing the solicitation, everything that's gone on and

340I did the preliminary preparations to respond to the protest, yes. okay. Thank you. I spoke with general counsel already, so the rest of my questions have been answered, thank you. and I just want to -- does anyone else want to speak on this item before I do? MADAM Chair, I apologize for interrupting but can I have an additional minute to respond to some of the statements so far, please. I would like the make a statement and then I do have some questions for you, MR. Goldstein. thank you, ma'am. if my colleagues look at the companion item under broker compensation for oo-6, it says committee members negotiated savings on broker compensation annually of 282 thousand dollars. Broker compensation has been reduced from 832 thousand dollars annually to 550 thousand dollars over a three year period, these

341savings amount to 846 thousand dollars. Additional slavering were garnered with a percentage reduction to intermediaries, compensation has been reduced for london and U.S. Wholesalers. U.S. Based wholesale compensation has been reduced from 3.75% to 3.50%. And london drop from 5.15% o 4.25%. That's all a lot to say that it says the total savings in brokers and wholesale compensation amount to 1.2 million dollars. So, I just -- you know, money has been thrown out there a lot today, this is something that if it passes could save the district over a million dollars. So, I guess MR. Goldstein, I saw you shaking your head when counsel said you received a letter before the winter break, so could you elaborate on that. yes, if I could -- aisle answer that question and if I could have an additional minute.

342The client first learned that our contract was going to be shortened from MAY 16 down to JANUARY 31 by the first addendum to the current solicitation that came out I believe in early SEPTEMBER. They immediately filed a letter describing why that would be a hardship to gallagher. That was never responded to. We followed up on NOVEMBER 10 , three days later websinger got a response of what was happening and we were told it happened the day before. Tla's what I meant, we never got -- the first time we got a response about our concerns about shortening our contract, it was a day after this board already terminated our contract early as of JANUARY 31 coming up. And the reason why it's important, members, is unlike your intended awardee who wants to be paid on day

343one for services they're going to do throughout the year by a direct payment from this board to them, we're paid on day from the insurance company from the premium. So, since MAY 16 of 2024, we've been diligently working for you during that time but we do not get paid for the property policy until MAY 15 when the new policy would have been placed if our contract had never been terminated earlier. MR. Vig knoll la talked about the one case in 2001 x both he and I were involved in that case. The key difference of why that case is different and that case, you had two health insurance carriers souring your employees and the teachers and one had gone bankrupt and the other one said they were not going to pick up the other insureds from

344the bankrupt insurance company, so you have no one to provide insurance. Here under our contract, it should have never been shortened but put that beside the fact, under our contract, you can extend us for up to 180 days and in the addendum in this specific procurement, changing the date to FEBRUARY 1, it says it's in paragraph 3.4 of addendum number 1 that changes the solicitation, it givers the school board the ability to grant due process and once a formal protest is filed, to allow the process to go through. There were 100 pointers scored, they beat us by less than one point out of 100, we have serious issues were were raising, we file ted protest on DECEMBER 1, we were supposed to get a a settlement meet ining 7 days, that settlement meeting is scheduled

345for next week because of the convenience of the school district so, we could have had that settlement meeting, if we couldn't settle, it could have been sent to doa and we could have had a trial in JANUARY, instead of coming here, we learned about this yesterday, not in SEPTEMBER, not in OCTOBER, not in NOVEMBER, not in DECEMBER when we filed our protest, not in early JANUARY, but luckily MR. Vig knoll la had the courtesy to send me an e-mail, joe, this is on the agenda tomorrow, that's why you haven't heard from us sooner about this, so we have a right to have our protest heard, the statute presumes there should be a stay. We're willing to extend. All our services that we will do for you are the exact same services under the new potential

346contract. More importantly, our price, the price savings, MADAM Chair, that you talked aboutfinger that's the price savings from the original proposal that they were able to nobilitybacker noeshtd during negotiations which in its sense is a violation of the stay. It says you stop the contract award process, so the fact they've been negotiating with them since DECEMBER 10 is a violation of the statute. This is unfair, it's violation of due process, extend our contract, let us have our day in court and then if we lose, they'll get their full contract, you'll be absolutely protected by allowing us to continue, thank you for the additional time, saying mo to both ofz these agenda iteming. thank you, DR. Zeman's on the line. MS. Jax -- jacques-adams, would like to say something. in this, I don't respond to the

347comments of people who are speaking. I'm just speaking to the item itself. So, some terminology was utilized ending earlier shortened and I wanted to refer to the contract section 3.05 of the arthur j. Gallagher contract which indicate it is school board has a right to terminate with or without cause. So, I understand there MAY be statements that have been made by arthur j. Gal ere >> -- gallagher, I'm speak toing the fact the contract allows for termination within 30 calendars day and the school board at its school board meeting did exercise their right to terminate without cause and the processes that were followed, the letter that was mentioned by MR. Henry was that letter that is given after the board decides to terminate, then a letter signed by the superintendent goes out to arthur gallagher,

348so I wanted to clarify that procedure that is based upon section 3.5 of the then existing agreement between the school board and arthur j. Gallagher. thank you, DR. Zeman? MADAM Chair, can I just drop one more thing there. can you please let my colleague speak before you add anything else. thank you so much, chair, although tremendously uncomfortable interrupting bob vik knoll la, I want to make sure we follow bob's advice and when it's appropriate, if you could ask me to come back, I want to make sure we have an amendment to include the additional conditions we got from our staff, the director of risk management. Thank you, chair. . Er MR. Vik knoll la. I wanted to also add in, you heard some statements regarding information that was presented in the procurement with an addenda,

349gallagher was speaking to that. And whenever you file an addenda in an rfp, there's the opportunity to protest the revised specifications and there was no protest or specifications in this procurement. MS. Hixon? thank you. if you could clarify that. So, the protest was not -- is on the new rfp, it doesn't -- I'm getting confused with all of the talk, so, the termination is JANUARY 31, there was an rfp that went out, both people, both companies bid on it, one company won and now there's a bid protest. Am I saying that information correct? yes, and I wanted to -- MR. Vik knoll la to clarify the distinction between a protest of the specification versus the protest and then to state that timeline so that you're clear. MR. Vik knoll la? yes, whenever you issue an

350rfp or an itb, when it first hits the street, the bidding world has the opportunity within 72 hours to file a protest of the specifications, the terms and conditions that we're asking people to bid upon. And if no one files a protest of the specifications, then they aren't able to challenge the specifications later. Whenever you issue an addendum to those original specifications, that opens another 72 hour period that people can file a notice of protest of specifications. There were one or more addenda in this matter, you heard some mention and some aspects of one of the addenda that no one filed a bid specification protest. So, when you get to the point where protaourment are proceeding to where we received proposals, based on the specifications that no one challenged and then we had those proposals

351evaluated and stored and we posted a recommendation for award of this rfp, now you get into where there's again another hour period where people can file a notice protesting the recommended award. And that's what we're looking to override in this case because what we've heard from MR. Henry about the urgent matters that need to be attended to and the pertinent timelines and what have you, so at this juncture, we're asking for an override of that stay of the proceedings which will keep us from putting a new provider in place for I would say roughly upwards to six months, certainly 4-6, and so that's what we're asking the board to do based upon the strength of the grounds for override that are in your agenda item o-3 as supplemented by MR. Henry during this meeting. Thank

352you. thank you. So, we've terminated one company. If we don't do something come the end of JANUARY, we won't have any insurance broker until the protest is over, is that correct? kathelyn? that is correct. thank you. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, with regards to board member hixon's question, so, if we should vote no and the -- we don't have any -- the bid protest should take a certain amount of time, there is an option for some sort of emergency agreement contract throughout the period of the bid protest, is that correct? through the chair, the existing contract expires JANUARY 31. The new contract under the new rfp is set to commence on FEBRUARY 1, however, there was a bid protest, so if you vote no, then the existing contract will expire on JANUARY 31

353and the bid protest will take approximately 6 months. so, there would be no new agreement in place to begin to gather up the information as MR. Austin henry described so that a new property insurance can commence mid MAY and a new casualty insurance can commence. so, MS. Jacques-adams, in that time period of the six months or however long it takes, the district would not have an option to have a brokerage firm in an emergency situation? Would that then mean, if that's the case, we still have insurance but we do not have a brokerage firm? that is correct. And the emergency situation that you reference, it's not like the procedure that you are familiar with, an emergency that was set by the superintendent earlier this year for another matter, it would not be in that way,

354so there is no -- this is the situation to continue even though there is a bid protest, normally you would commence and complete the bid protest but pursuant to florida statute, there is an exception and this particular agenda item, o-3, is the agenda item that allows for us to continue with the new contract even though there's an existing bid protest d MR. Vig knoll la, you u want to a anytythi toto th sie e you'rehandng ththe biprotest anththis time, I would welcome that. again, as I indicated earlier, the override if the board approves it as a practical matter brings an end to the protest. We wouldn't be going any further. If the protester wished to challenge that, you would do it the same way the protester challenged it in 2001 which is by going to

355the appellate court and the appellate court is going to either uphold the board action today if the board approves the override or the appellate court MAY give some alternate ruling. That's where it would go. The protest would be over if there were no appeal and if there were an appeal and it was foupd in found in favor of the district, again, bid protest would be over. okay, so MS. Jacques-adams, just for my understanding ask the public, if the majority of the board should vote no, can you expound on the consequence to the district in not having a brokerage firm even though we do have coverage of insurance if something does happen? I would have to defer to MR. Henry in terms of the actual factual consequences but I can tell you the legal consequences in

356terms of the contract. The existing contract that is in place right now would expire JANUARY 31. There would be no new contract for brokerage services that commences on FEBRUARY 1 and the bid protest would continue to completion and the completion of the bid protest MAY be after the expiration date of the existing coverage and then I leave MR. Henry to talk about factual circumstances. MS. Jacques-adams and I, I believe MR. Henry will answer this, let's say tl fs there was an issue of say flooding or whatever MAY happen and we don't have a brokerage firm, how is that handled? so, let me leave it to MR. Henry to talk about it because it depends upon whether that happens before or after the expiration date of the existing property insurance and casualty insurance, I would leave

357it up to MR. Henry to describe the facts before and after to answer your question. okay. First of all, if a flood were to occur, you currently have insurance in place, so it's a matter of contacting the adjusting firm and the insurance company, so you have coverage up until MAY 15. Now if you don't have a broker after MAY 15, we run into a problem. The problem is we're going into hurricane season, we have to be able to procure the insurance prior to expiration, and the expiration is MAY 15. So, what we need to do is make sure we have an insurance broker gathering the data that is necessary for the underwriters to underwrite the risk so that we can have a policy effective MAY 15. Same with the casualty policies, we have to make

358sure we have a broker in place to be able to procure the insurance on JULY 1 as far as the casualty policies are concerned. If there's no insurance broker, you're not going to have insurance. okay, so MR. Henry, I guess what I'm hearing you say and after -- up to MAY 15, right, even if the bid protest should be completed before then, up to MAY 15, we would not have a brokerage firm that would be able to gather all of this data that would be necessary for on-time payment should a casual occur? correct. If we don't have an insurance broker, that's correct. so, it would delay the district's ability to respond to casualties even though the money would later be forthcoming? if there is no brokerage in place, is that correct? It would delay --

359I'm trying to understand, it would delay because of the inability for a company to gather data to be able to provide, so the companies can respond to claims, right. So, if there is no broker and the bid protest occurs and finishes within the period up to MAY 15, we could run into a situation where even though we're covered, we MAY not have the response time to get the coverage amount in time to respond to casualties without a broker. I'm just trying to understand. no, that's fine. Let me clarify it. Let me say it this way. We currently have coverage up until MAY 15, right. Gallagher's contract expires on JANUARY 31. After JANUARY 31, we do not have a broker unless we enter into the new brokerage agreement on FEBRUARY 1. So, if you do not

360enter into the new agreement, technically you don't have a broker. Your property insurance expires on MAY 15, right. This new firm is going to need time to gather the data to give to an insurance company so that they can evaluate the risk to underwrite it so we can have coverage after MAY 15. I'm not sure -- I understand, I got you, okay. Thank you, MADAM Chair. DR. Zeman, would you like to make a motion? yes, ma'am, I would very much like to. I would like to make a motion that the additional supplemental grounds that were written -- that were spoken into the record by MR. Henry be included in this item. second. motion made by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Rupert. Public comment on the motion to add the supplemental items that were spoken into

361the record by MR. Henry to this item. thank you, MAY I be recognized, joseph goldstein in fort lauderdale on behalf of gallagher. I think we're missing the point of our position on the override. You only can do an override if an emergency existed that cannot be avoided. Here we're not asking you to go without a broker. In our contract and in the rfp, everyone was on notice that if there's a bid protest because it takes some time to resolve, sometimes 60 days, sometimes 180 days t existing contract that doesn't expire until JANUARY 31 can be extended for 180 days. In the case where the stay was put in place, there was no existing vendor to extend, gallagher is here ready, willing and able to extend so as not to mood out the protest rights. There

362is no emergency, thank you. is there any other public comment on the motion? Any board comment on the motion? DR. Holness? MADAM Chair, so the comment that was made and I just want the verify whether or not those are factual because I was asking about an emergency type contract and the speaker mentioned that contract can be extended to 180 days. Is there -- is that factual? Is there any relevance to that statement or that is not possible? through the chair, I would first like MR. Vik knoll la to clarify the standards within the statute with regards to the override and then I would like to answer your question directly with regards to options as it exists right now. MR. Vig knoll la? once again, the override language in the statute is, it calls for the

363agency head which is the board to set forth in writing particular facts and circumstances which require the continuance of the solicitation or contract award process without delay in order to avoid an immediate and serious danger to the public health, safety or welfare. That's the standard and I would want to point out that as you've heard, the school board took action to terminate the gallagher contract and you think that's the 31st of JANUARY, the fact of the matter is what you're hearing is, you aren't in the lurch, give us another contract, extend us another contract that doesn't exist right now in order to allow you to have continuity of service as opposed to -- in order to have continuity of service under our rfp, we need to make an award to allow the successor vendor to

364come in and get information necessary so our risk could then be properly underwrite in a timely manner, although it's a different matter, think of something that we're all somewhat familiar with and that is your health care insurance, you end up doing enrollment for your health care in OCTOBER to allow sufficient time for all of the things to be done in order to have that go online JANUARY 1. You have a certain amount of the same thing here. We exercise the right we had under the gallagher current contract, former -- well, still current now, to terminate it effective on JANUARY 31 and what you are seeing is some procedural things being done to leverage against the school board to not utilize its contractual right to terminate but rather to rescind that and give another contract to

365gallagher. So, that's as far as I want to go addressing that. and through the chair, to continue, MR. Vig knoll la began with the factual part, I wanted to reimpart to you that as it stands right now, the board has already exercised its right pursuant to 3.05 aof the arthur gallagher contract to terminate for cause effective JANUARY 31, 2026. What is being asked right now is for that termination to be rescinded and under the original agreement to allow it to reach its natural conclusion in the middle of MAY and then extend which mops that gallagher would be the one to procure the new insurance and then if the bid protests were allowed to go ahead to continue and gallagher lost for example, I'm continuing the scenario, then we would have someone who procured the insurance

366and then a new person, if you can describe that circumstance where you're in a position where a new insurance begins with one broker and then because of the start of a new contract, you have to start with a new broker under insurance that was brokered from a prior one, if you can describe that, MR. Henry, so just to reiterate because I went on a little further, the existing agreement and the JANUARY 31, 2026. The new agreement pursuant to the current rfp is supposed to commence on FEBRUARY, so, what is being asked is for the termination to be lifted and for arthur gallagher to procure the new insurance, so.If you can describe -- unless you have additional questions, MR. Henry, if you can describe. this is the chief financial officer, I wanted the board to know

367we set our precedent, in our contract websinger have a 30 day out and we followed the process to do it without or with cause, if we stay in a contract whether we have something serious in jeopardy or risk for the district, we still extended this contract, we went out for bid, they protest after the bidding process, so there was an addendum in the crack, they saw that, they had a timeline to protest those addendum that was written in the language. Right now we need to start, when you go out and you have liability coverage, we're managing riskier the district, that's what we do, we are mot supposed to allow the risk to be there and not manage the risk. So I'm just saying we want to start, every contract has a day out, that's why

368we enter into those contracts and we write them up that way, the board could with or without cause exit these contracts but I'll have MR. Henry respond to the question. I think the problem that we could run into if we have a protest extend out, right, and we don't have a broker in place, let's say it extends out and it leads into hurricane season, we're really going to be in trouble because we try to procure the property insurance prior hurricane season, once we get into hurricane season, if underwriters see a storm approaching, we're going to have a tough time getting insurance. So, I don't want to get us into that type of scenario where we run into a problem like that. okay, MS. Jacques-adams, I just have one more question. Even though it was mentioned

369of an extension to a contract, the item before us is to terminate the existing contract. should any board member proceed with anything pertaining to extension of contract? That would be going against the recommendation of the superintendent, is that correct? technically there is no contract to extend. so, here's another question. Should any board member proceed with having an extension of any sort? Would the board member be getting involved in operations and in any state statutes? yes, because what's before you is to go ahead and override the existing bid protest, that's what's before you. What is not before you is an extension. That's impossible because the contract currently has been terminated effective JANUARY 26 -- JANUARY 31, 2026. it would be fair to say proceeding in any direction of that sort would be edging close to violating

370state statutes? correct, if that you're trying to consider a matter that is not before the board right now. I understand, thank you. MS. Thompson? I would like to call the question. second. All in favor of calling the question, say aye. aye. Er all o oed, say no. chair, I'm sorry, I hate to interrupt but I'm not sure that we closed out my motion. we're calling the question on the motion, correct? Yeah, MS. Thompson's calling the question on the motion. thank you, chair, sorry. all opposed to calling the question on the motion, say nay. All in favor of the motion, say aye. aye. can you repeat the motion. the motion was to add the additional elements that MR. Henry spoke into the the record to the item. okay. all in favor of motion, say aye. all

371opposed, say no. Motion passes unanimously. Back to the item. Any other board discussion? I would like to call the question on the item. all in favor calling the question op the item, say aye. any opposed, say no. Er all in favor, we're voting in favor of 0-3, all in favor of o-3, say aye. Er mayer. any opposed, say no. Item o-3 passes unanimously. Er do we have to go to oo-6 sp? yes. as amended, thank you, mrs. alhadeff. Can I get a motion on oo-6? so moved. sek. Er moved by MS. Hixon, second by MS. Rupert, pub -- public comment on oo-6z. you have six speakers. MR. Goldstein, lobbyist. I won't take up the full three minutes on this, joe goldstein on behalf of gallagher. You should reject oo-6, mover to reconsider oo-3. There are

372two factual misstatements you passed your vote on. Our contract exists through JANUARY 31, there's a provision in that contract to extend us for 180 days. There's no emergency because we can be extended. We performing all those services, we wfrnt terminated for cause, we were terminated for convenience so there is a provision to exercise our option. I want to make sure you understand that. .If you understand that and you vote against it, I understand,, but todadate, councianan bod d meerer hoholness asked a direct question, can I extend this existing contract and he was told no and that's wrong, thank you. next speaker, tony, paul, elaine, mike. I yield. that concludes our public speakers. board member comment on oo-6? All in favor of oo-6, say aye. all opposed, say no. Item passes unanimously. I would like to

373ask the rule of the board on the items you would like to go to next. I did hear from DR. Zeman he would like to do oo-5, does anyone object to that or would we like to go back to the mm items? chair, I would like o go back specifically to the one we have community for which I believe would be bear and west pine, I don't know the number. yeah, let me look at -- a motion and a second on mm7. Moved by MS. Thompson, second by MS. Hixon, public comment on bear middle school, which is mm7. Wefrjts have mark bebowski, city manager of city of sunrise, and deputy mayor of city of sunrise. good afternoon, mark lebowski, on behalf of the city of sunrise, I'm here to request that the school board vote

374to keep bear middle school open and work with the city of sunrise and our community mart ers to construct a beneficial plan. We have unique opportunity to construct an innovative partnership before you decide it is the only option. Mayor ryan provided an e-mail to you yesterday outlining the city's request to keep bear middle school open. We recognize declining school enrollment presenters the school board with the difficult decisions to ensure long sustainability. The city of sunrise has decades can long history of vong and productive partnership widths the school board, beyond recognizing teachers of the month, we have developed meaningful klab raying with nearly every school in sunrise to ensure adequate resourceser for our students. When the city became aware of the closure, we promptly scheduled towards both campus tos explore opportunities for expanded partnerships. Following those

375tour, I sent two letters to the superintendent expressing the city's interest in potentially enhancing our collaboration with respect to both schools. Rewe can niez that partnerships involve classrooms are complex and involve security, restroom access and other operational challenges. These matters require significant coordination and time to evaluate thoroughly. While I cannot formally commit to assuming the use of any space at west pine and bear, I can commit to continued and meaningful dialogue with the school board staff regarding expanded partnership, opportunities in both locations. Given the city of sunrise longstanding history of partnering with the school board, we respectfully request the school board keep bear middle school open while we continue these discussion widths the school board administration with the goal of expanding our mutually beneficial partnership in support of our children and families. Potential opportunities such

376as co-locating city programs to uptake sofm the space while complicated plan to develop and initiate can offer opportunities for innovation and preserve the middle school in sunrise. Finally bear middle school is only four schools in broward county to offer the montessori magnet program which is freedom of choice, problem solving ability and social development children while promoting academic achievement and peer acceptance in a non-peer environment. Bear middle school offers stem activity and is projects to include aerodynamics and robotics. Cad through mind craft and bridges to develop our n e next generational leaders. We have more of these programs, notes. We also have a unique opportunity on the bear middle school/horizon campus to offer a mag na program through a k-8 basis. thank you. I'm almost finished. on behalf of the city commission, please keep bear open

377as we work on a plan for our community, students and family and is work together on this new partnerships, thank you. Er the board does need to vote to extend the meeting. Can I get a motion and a second to extend the meeting by two hours. moved by MS. Thompson, second by MS. Bulman, all in favor of extending the meeting two hours, say aye. all opposed, say no. Motion passes unanimously. Go ahead, deputy mayor. hi, I'm jacqueline guzman, I'm here to oppose the closure of bear middle school. The data shows this decision creates more inequities, closing bear middle and shifting student tos west pine will result in overcrowded classrooms which research links to lower academic performance. At this time, mentation middle is also closing, increasing displacement and making it more likely families will exit the

378district all together. Further accelerating enrollment decline and funding loss. The city of sunrise serves over 97 thousand residents with multiple residential developments currently underway. These projects will increase the number of school aged children yet the district is proposing to reduce capacity instead of planning for growth. Schools directly impact property values and family retention. Eliminating a neighborhood middle school weakens community stability and discourages families from staying in or moving to sunrise. Bear middle serves a diverse student population and its closure would disproportionately affect student who is already face transportation and access challenges. Making this an equity issue, not just a budget issue. Finally the city of sunrise has proposed partnerships and program that is could increase enrollment and offset costs without closing the school. Those merit serious evaluation. I urge this board to pause this closure,

379review the full data and pursue solutions that protects students, families and&the district's long term health. Thank you. (Er calling speaker names ). hi, good afternoon, everyone, my maim is elizabeth and I'm a sixth grader at bear middle school. Imagine starting a brand new school, being nervous to lever your elementary school & it being middle school, such a big change, the fear of the unknown goes away and you quickly begin to love your new school, new teachers and your routine. Imagine you are told that it will all be taken away and you will have to face all those challenges again next year. How would you feel if that happened to you, well, that's what the students of bear middle are feeling right now, why bear middle. I am here today to ask one last time, please

380don't close our school, please don't displace us to another school, we have amazing schools at bear middle like montessori. We have amazon engineers, a coding program where after investing three years, we have the opportunity to get our certification which is something pay for in college. Along with having one of the best coding teachers anyone could ask for, most of us will have one to two years with no end result. We have many clubs and opportunities for growth outside of the classes too. Next let's talk about our amazing teachers, staff and principal. Our teachers are excellent and kind of course. They put in time and effort to make learning fun for us. I love all my teachers and would hate to say good-bye the to them as I'm sure they don't want to say good-bye to

381their students either. They face the same challenges as us, new job, new school, new routine, we have a new principal, MR. William who, has been doing a great job to make our school bet and her safer while also trying to bring back fun in learning. There have been so many opportunities to take a break in learning and enjoy being with our teachers and fellow students. Each quarter, a field trip is planned for the students who maintain good grades. Our pta has also assisted with fun act tits during our lunch periods, and more many more things to come. To wrap it up, after hearing all these positive things, who here thinks it's a good idea to close bair middle school, please don't close our school. I have gotten straight a's every quarter including my brother who

382has never gotten straight a's before and would be sad to see bair close, I know I'm not the only one. my name is dylan alan, I am a student aof -- of bair middle school. The reason why you need to keep the school open is, one, magnet program which I am currently ep -- enrolled and I'm an a student. The cambridge program, the am sao n further engineers coding program, future engineers program, sorry, which I am also a part of. And this program, it requires three full school years to successfully complete upon -- to successfully complete. Upon completion, we have the opportunity to earn a professional coding certificate. These are just one -- a few of many examples of reasons why we should keep bair middle school open. [Applause]. good evening, board member es, my

383name is mckiel, I'm here to speak if supportive keeping bair middle school open. I attend fort lauderdale high school, bair is where I learned that my past does not define my future and someone believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. I was one of the challenging students on that campus when I was in sixth grade. I was seen as a kid who wouldn't make it far. Bair did not give up on me, the teachers and staff and administration pushed me to see more of myself and when I thought -- and then I thought it was possible. Because of them, my life has changed. at bair, my debate partner and I made history as the first students ever in the school, the school's before there for 50 years to classify for an academic xetyingsinger,

384we raised 6z thousand dollars on our own with the support of the city of sunrise, thank you. We went on to complete the national level and placed 28 in the entire nation out of hundreds of thurs of students. That success did not start at a high school or college, it started at bair middle school inside of a classroom with a teacher named MS. Cohen. That is not what is at risk, well, that is what is at risk, bair is not just a builds, it is a place that changes lives, it provides structure for students that do not have it somewhere else. Closing it would break a community, disrupt families and take away a space where students feel safe, seen and supported. However, I do have to visualize the fact that no matter what decision is

385made, we must be honest with ourselves. When the district held redefinition meetings for bair, very few people showed up. The warning signs were there but we did not respond when the you are -- we did not response the moment this urgency deserved. Some fought for their schools and they are no longer on the proposed list. This moment should remind us all how important it is to be involved before it is too late. We must show up, speak out and protect the schools that shape our children's futures including mine. Bair shaped mine, please give the chance to continue saving lives, thank you. good evening, my name is erica, a sunrise resident, a proud bair parent and also a bair ptsa board member. I'm here to ask why bair, why are we choosing to close bair that

386has exceptional programs that many other broward schools don't. By doing this, you are giving parents no option but to possibly go to charter or private which a lot of parents MAY pick that as an option. Losing even more public school attendees which we're try t -- trying not to do now. You have not taken into considering the families who continue to support your public education. A lot of families that came here to speak today, their schedule and is their abilities to get nair kids to and from school, the mental health of our children and our student who is have a hard time adjusting to change. Let's do a better way to save money rather than closing these beneficial schools, levering -- leaving teachers without jobs. Why are we giving up on magnet schools? All the

387money that went into the continuing certification for the teachers, bair continue tos get better and better every day. These kids do not deserve to be given up on. Do better for our county. Thank you. hi, I'm tamara thompson, a proud parent from a student at bair middle. When I moved here, I was glad that my kid could walk to nearby schools or it could be easy for me to take the city boss to pick them up because back then, I department -- didn't have a car, I'm still in shock as to what I will do if bair middle door closes because west pine isn't the best option for me. Can you imagine being told that your kid will move from a 2.5 miles away from home to 4.2. My concern goes beyond distance. My child

388who's an iep and struggle with changes, he's very reserved and just begin to adjust to the transition from elementary to middle school. I'm afraid that this change will take my child a step back more than moving forward. You might say, well, we haven't given it a try. What I must say, I have been there before, he was just five when we moved and it impacted him greatly. In fact, he was left behind in every grade level in elementary but I had some great teachers and a strong school community that helped him to push through that phase. He struggled at bair at first but his counselors and teacher helped him to become more open. Now he's more engaged and ready to grow. Not only my child but I know all parents have the same concern, the

389gap created by moving students from bair is expectedly large, not only is that an issue but closing bair, we only are now left with one middle school to serve for such a wide city in sunrise. Our community will be negatively impacted rather than positively. Let's talk about the hardworking teacher, our working parents, our crossing guards, our security, our great programs that the school has to offer. And of course let's think about our children who is the future, the one who will represent the true work of how well this district does. I respectfully ask the school board to consider not closing bair, rome was not built in one day and I believe you have the ability to bring local children back urn the guidance of our principal especially with enhanced marketing and efforts for parents to

390feel secure about sending children back to public school just to address this underenrollment. The darkest parts of the night often comes before you reach your break through, perhaps our break through is just ahead, please don't close the door before it arrives. Please help us to protect our children future, hashtag, save bair. thank you. [Inaudible] Marcel, ray. my name is janette marcel, I'm from nobody hill, bair school and piper middle school. The citifying to close the school is going to damage the broward county public school system more than you can imagine. We have only one other middle school besides bair middle school. Besides the fact I have a student who lovers going to this school and one who is expected to go to bair middle school, she was what would be considered an average student. She

391went from being an average student all of her career in elementary school to being on honor role every single quarter without fail, without the effect of me having to be on top of her figuring out what's going on, she comes home every day excited to figure out what's going on with her friends, she's turing into a young lady that we will be proud of to be leaders of tomorrow. Ere's many things we could d tae takekeawayay fromthis,, our community needs bair mimiddle school and bair needs our community. I would like to urge our elected officials to remember they're in these seats because they have been elected by us, by the people for the people and we will continue to exercise our rights and our sifk duties to make sure the right people stay in these

392seats. We need bair middle school to continue. I would like to remind you, horseman, commonly referred to as the father of public school system did once say, schoolhouse ares the republic line for fortification, we need to maintain our schools open to all of our staounts sos we can continue to have a beneficial republic and good citizenship coming up out of broward county public schools. You asked us to choose bcps, you are taking our right away to choose by closing this school and making it an uncertainty for all of our students, our staff, our family members and our community. This is not a decision to be made lightly. I urge dwrou think of our students because you are in these seats for our students, for nothing more than our students. I yield. Real world problem solving

393that will prepare them for the future this district claims to value. Our students come from families who are the backbone of this community. Parents who work tirelessly, and rely heavily on the resources bair provides. You MAY not see every parent, present in this room today, but make no mistake, their absence is not their silence. This stand with us, they depend on this school and removing this vital resource will be a devastating blow to those families who trust this district to protect their children's opportunity. Now many of you have visited bair, you've seen the excellence and energy and potential inside those classrooms, yet often far too often, bair has been treated as out of sight and out of mind. Today I'm telling you plainly, bair is a gem in this district and it deserves to be

394supported and not sacrificed. It's disheartening that we're standing here to defend a school that has proven time and time again their worth. At bair middle school failure is an option. Not an option for our students, not an option for our teachers, not an option for our staff and certainly not an option for this community. I am asking you today to uphold that same standard. Do not fail our children. Do not fail this community. do not fail the future leaders who walk the halls every day at bair middle school. Vote to keep bair open! thank you. thank you, next speaker is leila morris involved by lena marie fernandez. Latoya clark. lilliana and I'm son rice is one of the most beautiful city in every corner, it's just, you know, goodness. So goodness comes with life. Life

395are the kids. So, I don't know if some of you have been over or you know the story of bair middle. Bair middle is a award-winning school and the programs is amazing. I'm going to start to say that they have elected courses, they have art, music, exploration and performance for one, two, and three. They have speech and debate programs. They have global perspectives, they have spanish 1, spanish 2. They have foreign language, they have the stem programs and also if you go through the stem program, they have of course, they're nothing more than and nothing less than the engineer program that they have. They also have the technology program. By the way, I wented and visited bair middle a few days ago, and I'm going to tell you this. I'm so impressed. I'm going to

396tell you how impressed I was. I was impressed how the teachers are so passionate, they're so involved, they just want to bring the goodness in our students and their students. So for us to come here and ask you to pay attention to what we're asking you and not only asking, we are sonrise residents and we know what our sonrise needs. And we need to keep our public schools open. They have business application, they have the amazon future engineer as well and the digital diversity. They have other things like physical education as many other things. Why am I bringing all of these programs is for you to understand the amount of years, the amount of work to bring all of these programs to middle school and not only that, this is to make our students excellent

397students. Again I'm going to say it again, is an award winning school. I'm going to ask to you take every one of the factors, everyone of the information, we just presented to you today and think through it about, you know, what is going on or what you are trying to execute which no one of us agreed to close my school again bair middle school. Again, we don't want bail middle to be closed. thank you. La I datoya clark. Speaker: good afternoon, I'm latoya, I see the importance of bir middle school and,000 the parents would be affected by closing this school. I've seen how students and parents work together, they take pride. And we have zero complaints in favor in those schools. so to close those schools that have such an impact in the community is

398sending a message to those individuals that we don't really care about them. And all of all morning, we've gone through all of these financial costs and it's not come to our attention that the primary purpose is the kids, that's why we're here. If we're sending a message, let's send the right message. We already decided that we're not going to spend money on graduation, let's spend money on the students. Thank you. [Applause] that concludes our public comment. board member, comment, MR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. I want to thank all of our students who came out to speak. I want to thank all of our parents, our leaders, I appreciate the city of sonrise coming out as well. The city manager, our commissioners who I consider to be friends of mine as well established relationship for

399a long time. So thank you so much. And I would say that as a resident of sonrise, I am very familiar with bair. In fact I was familiar with bair long before I became a resident of sonrise, broward county almost 40 years. I remember when I first started in teaching and studies, I used to sub at bair. And bair has been around foe quite sometime and quite remarkable school. Now I do support that bair remains open. And I know that DR. Hepburn, we are looking at our under enrolled schools and we're looking at closing many of those schools. But, even though bair is under enrolled, there are options that bair has to increase occupancy of open seats. When we closed schools in broward county, we close schools that are not under enrolled but we close

400them because we don't see viable options to occupy the open seats. That's not the case with bair middle schools. There are options to occupy seat space at bair. Now, we have seen our city officials who offered to occupy space at bair middle and intend to explore a lot of options to co-locate city programs as much as we MAY need them to occupy as a school district. We also know that there is a new principal at bair and he's a wonderful guy. He has proven in his years in the district that he can enact changes to schools that result in positive student enrollment. I believe MR. Williams will continue to do that at bair. Now, MR. Williams who is the wonderful son of ben williams, is an awesome guy. So I've done some things on my

401own. I met with MR. Williams, I spoke with MR. Will yomz and spoke with MR. Smith from horizon elementary and I visited the education advisor board and some of the community organizations in sonrise. And what I can tell you is, that they love bair middle school. Now, they the closing of bair, which is DR. Hepburn, what is the percentage enrollment at bair currently? DR. Wanza, do you have that number? hold on one second. what is the percentage? bair is currently, MR. Beck, can you go to one of the mics, okay. Speaker: joe beck director of economics as of this year bair is at 51 percent of its capacity. okay and what is the enrollment of west pine. 48.4. okay, so, should we close bair and I absolutely hope we do not, but should we close

402bair, those students will go to west pine which means that west pine will be pretty now full to capacity. There will be absolutely no further room for growth in the surrounding community. I believe that bair middle school will experience not only increase in enrollment but that we will have a wonderful relationship with the city of sonrise as they mentioned to occupy open seat space at bair. So our concern is on under enrollment but on the case of bair is different from other schools, I as a board member have supported the closing of other schools. So I am not shying away from our budget concerns, I supported the closing of north fork. The closing of plantation middle. I supported the closing of broward estates elementary. There is a different issue. I supported those because we didn't

403see viable options to increase enrollment. In their case we see a lot of viable option to increase enrollment. And four of the members and I really appreciate your support when we had this workshop, supported keeping it open. I hope with the city expressing their intent to co-locate and the open space that we'll have at least one board member maybe all of us, because in the case of bair is different. Now with horizon elementary, I went over to the school and spoke to MR. Smith and bair has a great montessori program. Horizon can be a wonderful feeding from montessori. And MR. Smith and MR. Williams had that conversation and MR. Summit feels that that could be a great possibility and that increase enrollment. We MAY end up students come from charter and private schools to have

404that option and we have a great feeder pattern from horizon to bair. So I'm going to ask the board based on the situation with bair in terms of the wonderful opportunity of a feeder program from horizon in terms of the new principal that is doing wonderful things over there. In terms of the commitment to colocate programs and in terms of the concerns that we face later on if we combine I'm asking our board members to look at this particular case differently. And at the very least, let's put bair on hold for two or three years, let's see if these things will unfold and I believe that we will see a difference in bair middle. I'm asking for your support again as board members and I did the last time, I honestly believe that it's a

405wise division to keep bair open and if in fact we're wrong, which I don't think believe we will, we can look at this again in three years. But it's wise thing to do at this moment to keep bair open. And I understand superintendent that we need to close schools and I have voted to close a few schools in my area, MS. Thompson has to make some real decisions in her area. But in this particular case, we should not. And I'm asking you to not support the closing of bair. Thank you. [Applause] MS. Hixon? thank you. Before I talk about bair I would like to give a shout out to Mckyle suku, he was one of three students in the district awarded a trailblazer award at the mlk ceremony on monday and he received a thousand

406dollars for all the great that he's doing. So thank you for showing up and showing us why you won that award. And I have a great picture of you right here on my computer that I took while you were there. So first I want to say, you know, we don't, nobody wants to close schools. So, I want to be really clear cause there is a lot of them on this list. No one is on the list is because their school does not do great things or that their staff isn't amazing or that their administration isn't great. It difficult for all students to have to move. So I just, on a global thing want to say that because you know, everybody came and said how great bair is and it is I've been there a number

407of times when they had the old principal and great with the new principal. But we already voted to close some schools. I want to be clear to the public, that this is not about how great the school is. They're all great, it is about numbers, right? How many students are there. That being said, I voted last time, not to close bair or that was my discussion because I agree with DR. Holness, when you move bair middle into west pine you're right at the capacity and it does not give any room for growth. And although, we want to free up buildings, we also want to grow capacity in our schools. So to me it does not make sense to be at the total capacity number just like that. So I, I continue to not agree with

408bair being closed. But I want everybody to remember, we're going to have to continue this. We have to reduce our footprint because we have less students. It's just a fact of where we are, it has nothing to do with how amazing our students are. We're an a-rated district because we have great teachers and principals and a Ps, community members, that does not change when a school has to be consolidated and I don't want my school walk ago way, thinking if they had come here and share how great and amazing programs their school is. It could have been a didiffent outcome. This is aboutut numbers so t thank y.. [Applause] thank you, MS. Rupert. thank you and, I agree with what hixon just said. But I do have some questions. DR. Holness, had mentioned was very

409quickly, the name of the school so you heard horizon middle but I think it's an elementary school. horizon elementary. I thought and I was reviewing the data, I just wanted to be sure. no problem, yes. is horizon, currently a montessori school? go ahead, DR. Wanza? no, horizon is not currently a school that offers montessori program. because they were saying it would be a good feeder, I was hoping that they had one there but, and I know how tremendous difficulty to get that -- well, I think the concern or the thought behind that is horizon is actually located directly next door to bair middle school and last school year when we transitioned DR. Martin luther king from DR. Martin luther king montessori, there is no elementary montessori program on the west side of the county. So

410a thought in and it came up when we were doing in the community meetings in SEPTEMBER and OCTOBER that a thought could be to potentially adding the montessori program into horizon to that k-8 continuum continue on the east side of the county, I'm sorry on the west side of the county. now, I like that idea. Why did we not pursue that? I don't know who I'm suppose to ask? MADAM Chair? DR. Hepburn? why didn't we pursue montessori k-8. Go ahead, DR. Wanza you can talk about pursue. you can go ahead. It came here, and the conversation through board discussion really was to keep bair on the list so that was a part about one of the potential strategies and if we get direction today to pursue that as opposed to what the current recommended action

411and that's the direction we'll move in. But DR. Hepburn, you can. spu answered it. -- you answered it. so there is that option. And I did want to ask a question about the, the tremendous programs that coding credentialing, how will they continue and how children under the esc umbrella, with their iep, how will they be disbursed about? I'm looking at the equity question? so the recommended action is to transition all the students to west pine middle school so they would, you know, as one school, the two schools will combine and continue to receive services at west pine according to what is identified on their iep and MS. Hollingsworth can chime in but those services will continue to be provided at west pine middle school. DR. Wanza, you're correct, the same services will be in place.

412And I know the iec team will be working with the schools to make sure that the transitions are as seamless as possible. thank you. And to the one parent and I'm so sorry, I forgot your name, were you, you have the possibility of utilizing the bus service so you can stay within your school area and it would not be a hard ship for transportation if it stayed the same. That was a good point, made me think. And for the reasons that I just asked, and as for the possibility of the montessori for horizon program, I would support not closing the school. [Applause] thank you, MS. Bulman and please audience, make sure you wave your hands instead of clapping. Thank you for that demonstration DR. Hepburn. First of all, thank you to everyone for coming in

413to speak. I wanted to really just commend my colleagues, MS. Thompson and DR. Holness, their districts have been disproportionate lea -- disproportionately affected by the communities. And really understanding what the challenges are and coming and back with solutions and really being able to advise those of us who aren't in those communities. The best path forward while being very realistic about the challenges that we're facing. And so I appreciate that very much. I appreciate the leadership from both of you on that. And so I, will maintain my vote that I had the last time which is to go with DR. Holness's recommendation to not support this item the way it's written right now and to maintain bair as a middle school. So thank you. any other board discussion on this item, MR. Cervera? I've got some

414questions. I think MS. Rupert alluded to this, I'm not sure she got a complete answer. We heard about some of the programs at bair with the coding and the future amazon ep ji -- engineer program which sounds really cool. My question for staff is if in fact that bair is consolidated with west pine. no. No. please let's ask decorium. I want to put it on record. Will that program follow the students to west pine? yes, we don't diminish programs, actually enhance them. So if we have existing programs that have a core group of students, those programs will follow the students to the receiving school. I heard some snickering and some suggesting to the contrary MR. Superintendent from the crowd. I guess let me ask the question a different way. I apologize, I think it was

415a parent who was speaking before came up with a pamphlet and reading the programs out of the pamphlet. MR. Cervera, you can ask the audience questions if you would like. so let me ask the audience a question, are the programs that we talked about and we heard about going to follow the students in the event that bair is combined with west pine? Or are we going to lose those programs? I don't know if you want to be designated rep. hi, I'm MS. Allen, ptsa PRESIDENT, to answer question, the answer is no. It will not follow the school. It's a teach-base program. That program is licensed for one teacher and one teacher only. He holds the licensing for the python program. So if that teacher were to not move with the suggested westpine that program and

416our students will lose their progress. That means that the three years that they were to invest in that program, will be pointless. They will not have a professional python certificate at the end of their 8th grade year. Which is the reason why the majority of the parents who are in the montessori program attend that school. So again, the answer is no. That program will be lost if the teacher does not move to west pine. And I can assure you, I don't think that's going to be the case. thank you. Thank you, chair. If I MAY one last question here. The date that that was provided to us, and I'm reading from one of the attachments entitled projective enrollment and capacity use. This indicates that for the 25-26 school year, bair school is operating at a

41755 percent capacity. I heard from I think, at least, was mentioned by two of the speakers that these numbers were incorrect. I apologize there was quite a bit of you but I guess posing the question to the speakers again, is anybody in position of alternate data than that board has been presented with in regards to enrollment capacity? Somebody made the comment unless I'm going nuts. I know it's late but. Actually, I think it was fusco, did you say we're not provided with the excuse me, I believe it was the PRESIDENT Of the btu, MS. Ana fusco, you made a comment that we were not provided with the proper data for bair. The data indicates again that bair middle school is projected, enrollment number for 25-26 is operating at a 54 percent capacity. Are you in

418the opinion that is incorrect? And is there some other numbers that we should be looking at that we don't have access to? well I spoke about the plan on asking the city to help with the 25 percent occupancy that there wasn't an affective proper business plan to have that ask to help out. Now the capacity piece, pta PRESIDENT Just shared of how many students is projected. Which again, I ask that haw ask how they come up with these projections every year. I never get a straight answer, if you can, that would be wonderful. I'll challenge anyone to give that. And two t I think you heard over and over again, the capacity to help it grow and I think if the staff sitting here, actually got behind to make it grow, that we wouldn't have

419to be worrying about a closing. I don't see how any city is going to operate with just one middle school and also, coming behind it, that if it does close that a charge is going to take over and make it successful what will that say about broward schools? That's what I've been bringing forward. We have is the city managers, you asked a lot of questions on those gallager guys. We're trying to save a school and I don't see you asking him anymore questions. So I challenge that question. Thank you. chair if I MAY. And I appreciate hearing from the speakers. But what I'm trying to wrap my around as far as as everybody sits here for today for this school year, is bair middle school operating at a 54 percent capacity or higher capacity? because

420if it's operating at a higher capacity, we need to know. Does anybody have any input as to the current capacity of bair middle school as we sit here today. so we have a capacity current capacity of 640 students. And the overall full capacity of the school is 1245 students. So yes, it's more than. 736. the enrollment right now is 736? no, that's not correct. no, no, no, the enrollment is 640. that's correct. The 640 is correct. MR. Cervera, on the document that you have is the enrollment on the benchmark enrollment day which is is the district widen rollment day across the day. So on that day benchmark was 646. So what the 646, so what the public or our speakers MAY be saying and I certainly, I'm not dis crediting anything they're saying. What they're

421referencing today is the current enrollment what is the district focus information system, right. So, that suggests that if the number is 640, then from the benchmark enrollment date in SEPTEMBER to today, the enrollment has pretty much held steady at about 640, they say 640 on benchmark enrollment, if it's 646 so it's pretty holding steady at 600 for the average number of students. But still puts the capacity usage at the 54 percent. understood, thank you for the clarification. Nothing further from me, chair. anything else. yes. DR. Zeman. what is the total capacity of bair, is it 1245? so the gross capacity of the school is 1234. The permanent capacity is 1194. terrific thanks so much. MR. Superintendent why do you propose closing the school. the school is under enrolled for quite sometime and still slated to

422have a under enrollment. Combining west pine which has more space to accommodate bair middle school is the plan that is before you today. But we recommended this throughout our conversations with the community and workshops with the board due to under enrollment. perfect and if I can ask the cfo what is the expected saving from repurchasing bair? go ahead, DR. Wanza? so the, estimated savings would be 1,9 19,039 per year to the general fund. terrific, I appreciate those numbers. I support the superintendent's recommendation and to be honest with you. You know, let me just ask one more question, MR. Superintendent, is the sixth grade enrollment numbers less than the 8th grade enrollment numbers? MR. Beck, do you have the 6th grade enrollment numbers? I'm pulling it up. just a second. no problem, and the reason projections

423are often based if the 8th has a greater number. so currently, DR. Zeman, in the 6th grade there are 209 students. And in the 8th grade, 230 students. terrific and you know, I always bristle when we think through these problems, you know, one at a time. They're hard, it's a difficult to change people's lives. But I also know that the central thesis is still very important. We are in a financial crisis, two million dollars, 1.9 million dollars of savings is a lot of money and the overwhelming evidence of education in the united states is that schools that are closer to capacity are able to deliver culture, and programs and agility and when you put the two things together, I understand why the superintendent is recommending this. Our state legislature was also very clear that all

424of us on the school board represent broward county while we get elected by a district, we have to make decisions that are based on the best interest of the district. I think kicking the can and not doing what allows us. We have tortured this morning to try to find a half a million dollars for something the community is desperate for. This is one set of packages of 7 schools for this year and and a contration, in order to spend money on the things that we're charged to do, educate, and keep our kids safe. And I'm always going to vote for the things that do the best things for our kids. And unfortunately, that includes consolidating bair with west pine. It's the smart move for education and financial reasons and I hope that we continue to

425support the superintendent as he's gone through this very challenging repurposing project. The time for dialogue, was a year ago. The time for dialogue is not at the last moment of walking in when we have the item on the board that we've talked about multiple town hall meetings to get this done. I believe two or three years from now p the commmmity is going b strongnger and ededucatiol pepeormamance is going tobe hihigher and that's why I support the superintendent on this recommendation. thank you, any other board member comment on this item? MADAM Chair. I just have two questions before we go to round two, does anybody want to speak before me before we go to round two? I have a question, particular program was brought up the python program. And we heard from the audience that

426that was, that program is tied to the teacher who is certified and has the licensing for that. So, I guess my question to staff is, what happens if cause this comes up in other schools with regards to like culinary programs and thipgz like that. This happened at ft. Lauderdale high school with the fashion program. if that teacher leaves the school, does that program continue? we recruit and train. So, if na teachr was to leave bair middle school right now, we would have to react on recruiting and training. We noah cross the district. can I please have dequorum in the audience. we noah cross the district we have many programs that are teacher dependent that's the nature of the programs. And you have turnover at schools, folks retire, resign, find new opportunities, but we recruit and

427retrain for specific programs, culinary, fashion club I remember when that happened, engineering programs at certain schools that have specific skills set so we recruit and retrain. let me ask this then, if we were to close bair and that teacher decided not to move to west pine, would we still do the due diligence of recruiting and training a teacher to continue that program? yes, that's correct. if this board moves item down would we move forward with the suggestions or would we need to amend the item to do that? I don't think you need to amend the item. And MS. Jacques-adams, can correct me if. If the board votes this down, then what would need to happen is, we would look to so we could include bare so the boundary would stay the same for next year

428and look at the problematic options. We need to make sure that we amend mm12 to include bair middle school. Because that's the rest of the schools in the district who's boundaries. my question is would we need to amend the item or would you take this conversation about k-8 montessori or co-locating with the city and would you take that direction and move. yes, we will take that direction and create with whatever partners. We would have to bring the lease agreement back to the board anyway. We'll work with the city of sonrise to see if we can make that happen. 25 percent of student station have to come off the book so it can be comparable as to how many seats are left. If that does not happen, colocation is a huge option because this is one

429of the schools, we received a letter for and we can no longer push back against that when we have the space. I can't, firmly go tell these folks that, we don't have this space. So just want to make sure that the city of sonrise understand, the community understand if we move forward with taking it off the list foreclosure, 25 percent of both schools, not just one, both have to come off for us to have a comfortable, amount of capacity issues that we can say hey we're using 75, 80 percent of the capacity issues. Also I've said this several times and MR. Beck, sorry for adding onto the conversation but, but this is important. the outlook of broward county itself and not just broward county but counties with large urban areas are having severe declines in

430enrollment. This is not a broward county issue, it's a hills borough, it's a duval it's a orange county issue those are all the systems in the state right now that are closing schools or on the discussion because we're losing kids. We have a finite number of kids, we share with charter and private schools. And all of us, charter schools are having their decline too. And we're sharing with deand affordability where people are leaving these areas to find places that they can afford to live. Somebody asked the question about the mythology as a demo grapher, how do you come up with the numbers and what is is the outlook for broward county as far as the number of students today versus the number of students a few years from now in that trend? I just want

431to make sure the board understands this information. the outlook is continuing declining enrollment and what the district projected for next year was a decrease of about 5,000 students. The state initial lea greed with that. But since that estimate was created based on the benchmark, the district is continue to go lose more enrollment at a faster rate. So from the benchmark date to the 80th day, we lost about 1400 students and that's not normal prior to last school year. We didn't typically loosen rollment during the school year. So last year was the first year where we saw a mid-year enrollment loss that added up to about 3000 students before the end of the school year. So, that being said, you know, our initial projection was based on a trend that's the best that we can do

432now is the two to three-year trend. Represented average of resent years including what we were hoping was an anomalyist. It's not an anomaly, it's probably a phenomena. We use the hybrid model forecasting model which is a, a cohort survival method and we have kind of learned to adapt that especially with the pro liberation of school choice that has become increasingly unreliable, with the middle schools we have the benefit of seeing what the 5th grade cohort, we don't have the luxury with elementary school. We know that enrollment is decreasing. thank you for that MR. Beck. So I wanted to get all of that information, we'll work with the city whatever the vote is. But it is going to be important that students stay stations are taken off the books in order to make this work and

433not have to work with colocations. sorry, I was not intending to and all of these questions. Well this is a two-part question. So how, if this item is voted down and you had had the direction that had you need to implement the changes and do the colocation with the city, how soon would you be able to get that done by the 26-2 school year? yes. It would have to get done then. okay, and I then, what is the plan for west pine to fake 25 percent of the student stations off the books if this item is voted down? we would have to work with the city with a firm commitment that they're going to assist us in taking up spaces that equates to 25 percent of student stations. can somebody from the city speak to

434that? thank you, mark city manager for sonrise. Like I said earlier, we have toured west pine and bair and it's difficult for the city to go in one direction. But both are opportunities for us. West pine is adjacent to a facility, we recently entered in an agreement for the city to invest millions in the ex -- interior that we have in place for. Out and tennis courts. We cannot commit. Just like the board can't -- I have sent several letters of interest and intent to the school board but there is a lot of complicated issue, exterior is one thing interior is even harder. We cannot mix students with other programming, we have restroom issues, operational concerns but I can guarantee you is that we will continue to have meaningful dialogue if the board directs staff

435to do that. We're willing and able to have those conversations with both schools. okay. And does the city feel confident that if you have, you know, if we vote this item down today, that you feel like you could get those, you can get those decisions by the 26th 27 school year? with the if you provide direction to your staff, we'll put a priority for our staff. okayersinger, thank you for that. And then to our staff, there is been a concern about how there is not room for growth if we close bair and relocate all the students to west pine. But I guess my question for MR. Beck is, in terms of, birthrate and your projection, does it look like there is growth in that population, and a child population? In that area? Or decline? so,

436unfortunately birth rates are down everywhere. And we're an interesting county because we're not. Our growth is not just sustained by the babies who are born here. But by the people moving into the county. People are not coming here for different reasons but that is the, the state of affairs. That being said some of bair's elementary schools have as many schools as bair does. That is an unusual circumstance also. There should be a population to grow the enrollment at bair at least to a certain agree. Overall the outlook for birth rates, people moving, variety of things, doesn't paint a very op timistic picture for enrollment increase. okay, MS. Alhadeff. my question is west pine middle, what is the age of each of the schools? let me see. hold on one second. bair is from the 70s

437and west pine, is from the 80s but if you want the exact year. and my next question has an assessment been done. facility condition assessment, they details report they should be finishing up. But the assessment has been done. that's that been taken into your decision today? yes. okay. And for each of the schools is there any outstanding mart projects? -- smart projects? Or I guess specifically at bair? I'm not sure MR. Dorset if you're aware. good afternoon, mark doeredset, I'm not sure exactly but I can get you a board follow wup that answer on both schools. yeah. I really need to know that to make this decision. we'll look at the schedule that was attached to the contract last week, if it's on there. I need that answer to make my decision. And then, also,

438so we have smart projects but then you have other projects at each of the schools or specifically bair do they have any outstanding projects beyond smart? not outstanding projects, we have our defp where there is some projects identified in the defp for both schools but they're regular differed maintenance projects that we work on at every school. But if you give me a few minutes, I'll make a call to see where we're at with west pine and bair with regard to the smart projects. okay, and for bair for the outstanding, not smart projects, what is is the financial impact for that? normally, it might be some, some superficial stuff, the track at bair for instance, since upkeep. Like tree trimming those kind of projects. I'm not sure if we have any major projects like floor finishing,

439interior painting. I know it's on the books for exterior painting, I would have to check for interior. I'm not sure. for the facilities assessment report were there any red flags for bair? you're rattling them off MS. Alhadeff, I was looking at the schedule right now for just to see if it's aecome schedule. Hold on just a second there. Yes, I see a project for bair middle, program ren oration budgeted for 1.3 mill, actually the remaining spend is 127,000 so it must be close to completion and slated to be completed this year in AUGUST. For whatever, it does not -- I'm looking at the schedule it does not list the school renovations but there is 124,000 left for this renovation. and that's at bair. that's at bair middle school. If you give me a minute. so

440if we went forward with our requested action, would then that for those projects would stop and that 127,000 would go back into the budget? not necessarily. Because people will be in the building, so if it's life and safety issues and also to maintain the facilities, even if we were lease iting right, we want to maintain our property to make sure the value of that property continues to stay the same or increase. Just depends on the price, 1237,000, it could be completion in six to seven months I'm not sure what the project is, but it sounds like it's almost closed out. But there is no other project for the schedule listed for bair at all. no smart project. No other projects on the master schedule for bair. okay, thank you. all right, DR. Holness? thank you,

441MADAM Chair. So I just wanted to, respond to board member rupert's comment regarding the horizon elementary feeder for montessori. So I actually met spoken to MR. Smith from horizon as well as MR. Williams and they both had a conversation and what I gather from thth board d membmber rurupert, isththey'rthth citeted that that uld be a viable option for both schools, they're right next door to each other. You know, but beyond na, that would be staff and operations but I did have that conversation and they seem to be fully on board with believing that that would work and that would enable possibilities of students attracting students even from charter school. I believe it could result in increased enrollment for bair. MADAM Chair, I'll finish my other comments since I am now the chair until MADAM Chair

442is here. So I just want to reiterate as well that, you know, with the city of sonrise really providing options to co-locate their city programs and willing to discussion with our superintendent and staff. With very little room to grow. The only other, would be at w eft pine, I do hope the board members will support and just to, comment on closing schools. And my comment are not based on closing schools because we do need to close schools. I support that we need to close schools and I've chair lead closing some of my schools, I as well as plantation middle. I just believe that bair has some opportunities to grow and co-locate some of the city programs in sonrise and it seems that they're willing with good intention to try to work with our school district.

443I think it's premature to close bair and I hope we can get a majority vote. Thank you. thank you. MR. Cervera? chair question for staff. How many elementary schools are in the city of sonrise? i know in my portion I have sand piper and knowledge bill and sawgrass in my slice of heaven in sonrise. How many total elementary schools do we have in the city? MR. Beck? all right there is ban I don't know, discovery, horizon, knob hill, sand piper, sawgrass and walabee and village. don't forget village. sorry, I was not sure if it was in soughter hill. is that 7 or 8? 8 okay. So we have 8 elementary schools in and if wurp to take the superintendent's recommendation here and combine bair with west pine, we would essentially have one middle school in

444the city? yes. in the city, okay. I'm not a math sko sdsh -- scholar it's 6:00 o'clock at night, but just looking at that, we are going to have 8 elementary schools feeding into one middle school that is going to be at or near capacity. How is that? Do we have projections models from are the elementary schools as to what we think if in fact it's one middle school. Are we going to have enrollment problems in this case over enrollment if there was one middle school? Any projections that has been examined? is the current projection captures the elementary matriculation for both of the schools. So whatever would be shifting from bair to west pine. Na that captures whatever is matriculating up in the elementary schools. There are a couple of elementary schools that have significantly

445higher enrollment, sawgrass that's over 700 students so its bigger than bair or west pine but there is a drop off. There is a disconnect between the 5th grade and 6th grade showing up in the middle school. So the projections are the projections they have always factored in that matriculation. also, for example if you take discovery elementary, their middle school could be a split. Some spft students go to bair some of the students go to west pine some students go to millennium. So there are some elementary boundary feeders that MAY not be 100 percent pure to west pine or 100 percent pure to bair. But, there are 8 elementary in play. I heard from, I believe the city manager is he still here? yes, sir. I believe what I heard there was a comment that millions

446in investments from the city were headed to the bair middle school, did I hear that properly? it's for westpine we're investing millions for outdoor space for shared use between city of sonrise and middle school. so there is no commitment to bair. not at this time, but we're willing to explore. I appreciate the fact that you're willing to explore but has any action happened? has it come to the commission, we have two commissioners here, by the way, thank you commissioner clark and -- . We appreciate your time. if would require information with your staff. We met with each of the schools and principals and have had limited discussion with your staff in terms of negotiating and looking how that would look, the security aspect, the parking, the restroom access those are all critical component that need

447to be evaluated that would require some time. The last agreement we had with the school board at west pine that was exterior only and it took us a year. We sent two letters to the school asking to start that process. let me ask it a different way. yes. Does the city of son size have dollars earmarked to commit to bear middle school? not at this time because there is no agreement in place? okay. I assume your current budget has passed. the current one, yes. so if this item were to fail and bair middle will remain open, I know you're willing to engage with us to talk about the things that the city can bring from a financial stand point to the facility. What I'm trying to get it realistically from a timing sper respective is

448that something that will happen in six months or two years? a lot depends on the availability of your team but I'm committing to put the resources on the city side to start that process and have that mean ingful dialogue. Any type of agreement would require the board's approval as well as my commission and if there were financial dollars we would allocate those at the time of agreement. do we have a financial commitment from the city of sonrise that you all work with us in good faith to assuming, this agenda item fails and bair remains open that you will work with us in good faith to offer whatever we sources as a city that you can. as city manager, I do not have the authority to issue a financial commitment. I've got two members of my

449commission here and the mayor sends a email to each of you, so there is a number of commissioners and mayor that have expressed an interest in having that dialogue with you and your team. [Applause] have you attempted to do and gotten shot out. I'm sorry? have you attempted to have these conversations. I have with your staff however to their defense, until there is direction, there is unable to get into details at this point. were these conversations come about during the redefining process or before that? yes. I attended the redefining process I spoke on of the behalf of the city, saying similar things to what I said today, requesting coordination. and you'll continue on behalf of the city of sunrise, you'll continue to do that? yes, sir. thank you, chair. any other board member discussion on

450this item? All right, all in favor of mm7 say aye. aye. all opposed say no. no. roll call please. roll call on mm7, school board member bulman. no. cervera? hixon? yes. I'm sorry, I meant no. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I meant no. okay, pointing you down as a no. holness. member hixon you got me nervous. No. leonardi. yes. rupert? no. thompson. yes. yes? DR. Zeman? yes. alhadeff. yes. fails 4-5. remember. so that means, the item itself, the recommendation to close bair failed so that means that bair will be staying open. [Cheers and applause] we'll have decorum. Can I get a motion and a second on mm9, moved by MS. Hixon. Second by MS. Rupert. Public comment on mm9? no comment. no public comment. Any board member discussion on mm9. Sorry I thought there was

451another item. Any board member discussion? MS. Bulman? Can we please have decorum. If you want to celebrate, you can move to the other room. MS. Bulman. thanks, chair. thank you so much. Do you want to recess. we'll briefly recess the meeting. this school board meeting is now reconvene. MR. Hill what item did we move to the floor again. mm9. we already did public comment. MS. Bulman. thank you, chair. This is this is a item to reconfigure hol indale high school, which I think is a fantastic plan. I'm grateful so is my community. Last week we celebrated the girl aoets basketball championship. Me and MS. Hixon were there and patty brown. So to have this happening right now is really amazing. They also have a new band director, I saw him at the west park mlk

452parade, I saw the band at the holendale parade. So there is a lot of energy and I really really appreciate this. I just will a couple of questions with regards to the boundary change because we're going to be changing part of the boundary of the student currently bondered to hol endale high school to go to mira mar, will the students, how are we going to ensure that the students that are from that area have priority for the new programming at hol en dale school if they want to attend it. thank you MS. Bulman. So one of the things that we talked about is in this proposal and we know we have in policy, grant it it's in the school reassignments. However, one of the things that we made particular in the conversation with the community,

453was that there would be, that tht policy speaks to students who reside in a area where the bound change will occur in five years. One thing that we talked about was ensuring that there would be some kind of priority seating if you will for the students in the west park area that would now be boundered to mira marhigh school, if they applied or to attend holendale high school that there would be some seating for the students. So it's something that we will, continue to ensure that the direction of that conversation that occured and all those community meetings would occur. and so how do we codify that and make sure that that put it in writing and make sure that that is something that we can? so, so I believe in MR. Beck's correct me if

454I'm wrong, either in the bsy or one of those, one of those kind of boundaries where it talks about, priorities seating reserved are you going to the mic that we codify in the boundary description. so joe beck, again, what you said is exactly correct. What we did have virginia young in beach side montessori, we had a certain allotted number of seats that would go first to that identified community. It was 150 seats for both of these schools. It could be either number. okay, great. Thank you. as long as we have it in writing. And then, the other question I had, is that, you know we talked about the community and I think the community, first of all the community has a very deep interest in making sure that this is funded properly because there is

455been a history of not making a lot of improvement at the high schools so again they're very happy and they're happy that there is been improvement being made so they were talking about na being made. They were talking about that when we saw them. Just wanted to know how well insured that the community is properly engaged and determining like a southside bent to the program and that were given to kind, we're going to do a pompano model but it's going to be a south? so after board takes action today, then, MR. Strauss and MS. Freed, MS. Fehrmosa, the team will immediately engage with the school community and make sure that we garter their input into what the final design is like. If I MISS Spoke, I know there have been going on conversations and obviously,

456staff and the community have been waiting to see what the final action is today so they can start to determine, what final programming would look like. I know that they have some areas of immediate interest because of what is around the school as it relates to communication broadcast with channel 10 being right in their back yard and some opportunities potentially with coca cola which is right to the west of them as well as other opportunities that will make it more programmatic. that sounds great. I just wanted to mention too, that mayor joy cooper who organized the, the ceremony for the 50th reunion that we were at the other week has done a letter support saying that the entire city of hol endale city supports this and I want to thank her for her support as

457well. Thank you. any other board discussion on this item? MS. Hixon? just a quick question because in the estimated financials, actually has this costing us quite a bit of money. So one of is the transportation costs and that is a add 11 to 15 buses for student transportation. Does that take into action that some of those students MAY just say athal endale since we were going to set aside some seats. I think that's why there is a range of lower end and higher end. So depending on the number of students that stay that would impact where we would fall in that range. So I think that is item range was 11-15 and again, it's estimated it could be less than that, depending on the final design and what students elect to say. thank you. and

458if I, MAY I just DR. Hepburn if it's okay, for this, proposal as well as the one that the board is going to hear I think it's mm8 maybe. So bair middle school action has been taken on that item but when we get to like mm5, middle schools, we normally just start right then, unless the students is going to apply. High schools we typically phase in. We would want to hear from. Board is there interest to phase it in or to move all the students at once? But like I said, typically high schools we phase in so we want to hear from the board on that? MS. Hixon are you done with your comments? well we'll wait until mm8 comes to us because we're not on that item right now. MS. Rupert? I was going

459to weigh in now but if you want me to weigh in later, that's fine. okay, any other board discussion on mm9? All in favor say aye. aye. all opposed say no. Item passes unanimously. Can I get a motion and a motion on mm5. so moved. moved by MS. Hixon seconded by MS. Rupert. Public comment. yes, we have one registered speaker, nicole mothers morts. anyone else . I don't see her in the audience, that concludes board discussion. Public comment. board discussion. we talked about phasing out walter c and creating flannagan to be 6-12 I want the timeline and what that will look like. go ahead, DR. Wanza. thank you for the question MS. Thompson. In MAY, we'll probably MARCH but definitely MAY when we start to have the conversation around, gearing up for redefining for next

460year, if, if what one of the options we can look at is as a part of next year's redefining process so next year is the 2, 27, so for the 27-28 school year, I think my numbers are right. So not next year but following year westbound the option where flannagan can be transitioned to a 6-12 that is similar to the board item that transition plantation high school and items similar to that where we would, what an option can be to extend the grades so flannagan becomes a 6-12 and having the boundaries drawn into flannagan and at the same time, contemplate transitioning that campus, that campus into some type of technical education footprint that we would potentially through the remainder of the lease and then once the lease ends, or sun sets actually enter into some

461type of negotiations or some type of a modified or new lease with the city of pembroke pines as it relates to modern day costs and occupancy of the facilities. But it would be, a conversation that would be very much part of a redefining for next school year to take affect the following year. thank you. That's all. any other board member discussion on mm5? All in favor of mm5 say aye. aye. all opposed says no. Item passes unanimously. Can I get a motion and second on mm12. The reason I'm calling these is becauseists told there is public comment. public comment on mm12. yes, MADAM. MADAM Chair, I respect public speakers. But mm12 is the item for everything else. Respectfully we probably need to get through the rest of them. We do need to make sure that

462we put ensure that bair and west pine is a part of mm12. So I want to make sure that nothing changes before we do mm12. can I get a motion a second on mm6. so moved. second. moved and second. no public co. board member discussion. All in favor of mm6 say aye. aye. all opposed a no. item passes unanimously, can I get a motion a second on mm8. moved. second. public comment on mm8. no comment. board member comment on mm8? All in favor of mm8 say aye. aye. all opposed say no. item passes unanimously can get a motion and a second on mm10. so moved. moved by MS. Hixon, seconded by MS. Rupert. MS. Hixon. I have a discussion because this one did not have the financial piece. So is know we're going to have

463to add like cribs and all kinds of things to this. So I would ask the staff when you come back in MARCH with the workshop on all the other things, to kind of fill that in and how are we going to market it to be sure we're going to, you know, have the babies in the preschool and all of that? So we dont need to answer that today but if you can add that into the workshop with what, all the different proposals so we know what that looks like. Thank you. any other board member discussion? All in favor of mm10 say aye. aye. all opposed say no. Item passes unanimously. Can I get a motion and a second on mm11. so moved. moved by MS. Hixon seconded by MS. Alhadeff. no public comment. board member

464comment. I just have a quick comment. I, you know, this is a obviously a very difficult choice for my community. I support the item but I do want to make clear that there is some serious concerns at wooden rogers and I believe staff was there the week before. So, you know, part of the conversation that we had the community was like, if we're going to move seagul because they have a lot of programs for the babies and adults and the mothers and fathers. One of the assurances that we gave that aoepg was that the facility at wooden would be very capable and ready for the students from seagul to move there. So could staff speak to the issues that are going on with the facilities at wooden and what is being done to fix those

465issues? MR. Dorset. good evening, mark dorset chief operating task assigned. We do have, sonia coley on the line. Sonia if you hear, please respond regarding wooden rogers and the projects that needs to happen? good evening, this is sonia coal'. Officer capitol programs executive director. We do some on going projects out there. There are some roofing issues out there that we do have that are being addressed. Specifically, termite, they have termite but we have the assessment report that will be able that we can share that would identify all the issues out there at the school. so I'm looking for, a guarantee in order to support this idea. I need a guarantee from staff that the facility will be ready and safe and able to help all of students at seagul flourish. Zoo will those issues be

466remediated will they will be ready for the babies and for those fathers and mothers to be there start, day one, 26-27 school year. knowing that there are some issues, I did not want to look at the assurance we have to look at the facility assessment. There are some issues out there. So they have some flooding issues as well. There are issues that, that other issues that nyed to be addressed as well. so the facility, there is a possibility that the facility will not be ready for those additional students for the 26-27 school year given the very specialized population? with the current G.O. B, the project should be completed but again, there are some other items that need to be addressed that are outside of the G.O. B that the facility continue assessment has reported. acronyms,

467if you can clarify. the facility condition assistant. the G.O. B. obligation bond, I'm sorry. I would like a follow-up on all of the facilities issues at wooden, the plan to remediate those issues by day one 26-27 school year. But without having that assurance, I cannot support this item this evening. ms. Alhadeff. yes. So, question again here, what is the age of seagul alternative high school and wooden rogers education center? I'm going to look it up, wooden rogers is is the original rogers middle school campus there have been multiple renovations and, facility and improvements done. I've got to look up and see what the actual facility condition index when rogers is 16.6 and this was as of the workshop and the workshop presentation on OCTOBER 7th and, I'm sorry, the facility condition index number for seagul

468is reported in the workshop was 20.8. if you're higher you're better or worse? if you're higher you're worse. so seagul has a higher facility index rating than wooden rogers but I'm going to get the actual date that the facilities were built. But like I said, wooden rogers has gone through additions through the facility, some enhancements over the years. And seagul has had some for example f the media center got replaced and a couple of other things but I've got t to get the te. why y wa't the domentnts inclclud I in the back up? so what I will say those documents have been a part of previous workshops where we presented all of this information and it was discussed. They're typically never a part of the actual, well this school does not necessarily have a

469residential boundary like the rest of the schools. This school is here, because the board is voting off facility usage. But all of that information was a part of the OCTOBER 7 workshop and also discussed at the DECEMBER 8th workshop. and MS. Coally there anything that is going to prevent students from occupying wooden rogers at the beginning of the fall. We have students there now. Is there anything that is going to prevent them from occupying the entire campus? not at this time, I don't see foresee anything that will prevent them from occupying the campus. cause I know, MS. Leonardi is asking some specific questions, but I know we have roof leaks all over the place and certain things. I know what she eluding to just to make sure that the space is wonderful and the facility

470look up to par for the population that's we need to serve. But you're listing a probably some capitol programs that we have going on in other places too. I just want to make sure, is there anything preventing us from having several different populations of kids from, from our babies all the way up to our special needs program for our adults? And that's for the entire campus because we'll be leveraging the entire campus. not at this time, not that I'm aware of. Again, there are still some items that were not included again, it, with regards to the facility condition assessment. But with regard to the work that is on going with the, from. Capital project, there is no reason item kids can't come there. thank you. okay, so back to the facility condition assessment, I think

471it's it would have been very important on all of these items to include this data and in the future, I would like that included. How we're coming to this decision. I get it, we're in the workshop but not everybody remembers and that's important when making the decision. I recommend that had the superintendent give us a quarterly update with the school so we know it's ready to go for the 2026-2027 school year. thank you. Before we go to MS. Thompson. I would make a motion to extend the meeting by two hours. so moved. moved by MS. Thompson, second by MS. Bulman. All in favor of extend iting the meeting by two hours. all in opposition say no. no. motion passes with one dissenting vote, MS. Alhadeff. when you put babies in the building, when she asked

472to do so, staff did not guarantee that it was safe to do so. Am I misunderstanding something? no, I think. MS. Coally is talking about larger, capitol project things, not the usual. we have these types of issues at many of our schools and I want to say the babies are on the bining side. So the babies are already on the wooden side. I know they're having some work done. When he we have a heavy rain about 25 to 30 percent of the schools flood. when she specifically asked, MS. Coally said, she cannot guarantee that. I'm with hz alhadeff. If they cannot guarantee that it's not safe. I did not say it is not safe. There kids there it is safe. There are still items that need addressed but the items should be completed prior to

473students going over to wood we know rogers cause there are some items. so then, I would like to question reanswered can you guarantee that the projects will be completed and these populations will be safe if we vote on this item? the projects that we have on going will be completed. MS. Bulman? thanks, I think so I think that clarifies but just to make sure that. When we went to the community meeting and I know the chair talked about this the last time. The, people there, the stakeholders were very gracious about accepting this solution but with the promise from the district that, people would be safe not only facility wise but also making sure that different programming and everything was going to have different areas so that, you know, people were able to go out and

474do what they needed to do and not be necessarily inter mingling with other groups. So is that part of this work that we're talking about? That remains outstanding and is that going to be done by the time? I think that's very very important that we have all of those guard rails in place. I don't think that, I don't think what has colely through is that. What the community was concerned about is ensuring that adults with disabilities remain what would be the merge campus and they wanted input on where? Right and MS. Leonardi received and she forwarded to me, DR. Hepburn I sent it to DR. Tumor and DR. Smith, input from one of the valued staff members and she gave many great suggestions on things that we needed to make certain that we take into

475consideration. Should this go forward, so that has been shared with DR. Tumor and kneesmith but what I want to emphasize, I don't think what MS. Colely is talking about is is the same things that were shared necessarily that day. I think that she is talking about the facility as a whole. MR. Dorset you can all comment on that. But to MS. Leonardi's point, students occupy the wooden campus right now, today. The babies, that are part of the team parent program are physically located on wooden's campus. So we would have an obligation to ensure that that facility operates in a manner that is safe for students as well as, you know, the entire clientele. the entire population, I know one of the parents that had an adult can disability, that her son is going to the

476restroom independently that's a big deal and she didn't want to see that kind of independence be stymied by having somebody altogether in that campus and all the adults with disabilities that are going there. That would be my concern to make sure that there is arrangements to that. and DR. Tumor can speak to that but I know that's a part, once the board takes whatever action, if. Board votes in the affirmative, that's part of the planning that will, commence immediately. I really don't have anything to add. I think DR. Wanza completely answered it. There is a plan to make sure that all parties, that will go to the wooden campus that they're accommodated and that's a seemless process. okay. Thank you. MS. Hixon? thank you. I just want to ask, I was at wooden sometimes, earlier

477last year, I think this year. And if I'm not mistaken, the area that houses the babies is, is newly renovated because there was a flood that happened and they got all new flooring and all new walls and furniture and all of that stuff. So, I just want to make everyone, if you have not been there, aware that the area for the babies has been recently, I think in the last year or so right DR. Hepburn? yes, it was during the great flood. When we got 40 days worth of rain in two days. yes, thank you. any other board discussion? yes, chair. go ahead, zeman. would I like to make a motion chair that we require the superintendent in his superintendent reports in MARCH and in MAY and in JULY at our school board meetings to

478start with an update how the accommodations are being done at wooden rogers? second. moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. Public comment on the motion? Board discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion say aye. all opposed say no. motion pass approximates unanimously. Bless you. thank you, chair with that change I can support this item. thank you. And I just want before, we vote, I just want to make clear this community was incredibly gracious has MS. Bulman said in acceptance of this change. And they came to that meeting with clear solutions. One of them being that needs to be celebration between the wooden students, the mothers and fathers at seagul and babies and adults with disabilities. another piece was that, that the facility needs to be, you know, updated for the adults

479with disability program. And, I made that guarantee to them as one of their school board members but also, as somebody who sent her son to seagul, he took his first steps there that staff is really really special. And I don't want to look like a liar to them. So thank you DR. Zeman for making that motion. And I really, I cannot accept anything other than absolute safety and accommodation for all of those students at seagul. So, I hope that MR. Dorset, DR. Hepburn, MS. Cooley everyone in charge of facilities, understands that they cannot make us on this board look like liars to that staff. DR. Hepburn, good afternoon, again, mark dorset. I will definitely pay close attention to this. I will be meeting with staff tomorrow to see exactly what is left to be done

480and we'll device a plan to DR. Zeman's point, we will provide, even if we have to do monthly updates to let you know where we are with the conditions out there. We'll do that, I think, that we owe it to the students, so I will definitely be meeting with staff tomorrow to talk about that. thank you. All any other board discussion? All right, all in favor of mm11 as amended say aye. aye. all opposed say no. Item passes unanimously. Can I get a motion a second on mm12. so moved. moved and by MS. Hixon and seconded by MS. Rupert. we have two public speakers. if you heard your name, please approach the mic. hello chair and board members, thank you superintendent, DR. Wanza, and district staff for your work on mm12 and special thank you

481to DR. Wanza. I'm a middle schooler in westinpublic schools. I respect the recommendation to make no boundaries to schools not impacted. And I appreciate the stability that this provides families. Is would like to zoom out and talk about bha mm12 symbols particularly in low enrollment. Many families including mine only discover the district's strongest programs gifted pathway, marine science classes and specialized support through our own research rather than coming from district out reach. We decided to invest our time into supporting the school district not opting out of it after three frustrating years at a private schools. Many professionals that understand that even a strong product cannot rely on reputation alone. You can, the district current financial situation is deeply disappointing but it also highlights an opportunity strategic communication and proactive family engagement are no longer optional

482they're critical to financial facility. Tonight's agenda items positive signal tools like that are significant but most affective for how we tell our story and how we reach families and how we engage with the cities where students and teachers actually live. I spoke yesterday raising two related ideas for future exploration, the first on teacher stability and cost of living incentive and the second around westin, covering the student lunch debt. Outcomes that we all care about, retention, learning and family trust and neither belongs to the district alone. Teachers and students live in the neighborhood which creates an opportunity for shared leadership. As we move forward for boupd reese for 26-27%backer I would encourage the board to consider how ep rollment challenges intersect with communication and trust how engagement strategies can support both stability and growth and how

483collaboration with local cities can amplify out reach rather than the district carrying that alone. Mm12 keeps the maps steady, now it's the time to revive the conversation how we choose our schools rather than neglecting those who have opted into this system. Thank you for your time to this item this evening. thank you. Marte. That concludes public comment. board discussion. MS. Thompson. I had a comments, when I thought we were take iting all the items. The first one is because we could not sol dated sunshine is create can go pathway with new renaissance and mira marhigh school because both of those schools have really sfrong programs and I think that's one of the tlingz that we can give back to the community is making fairway elementary a pyp program within the ib program, could I get

484staff commitment that that will be implemented? yes. school. And the other thing we discussed is glades become a k-8 and what that would mean for the west mira marcommunity, can I get a time line what would like like and commitment that that's what we're going to be planning for? yes, that's what we'll be planning for. As far as timeline, the construction of the bathroom is the biggest barrier which I think, MR. Dorset about, about 10 to 12 months I'm assuming so we can transition during next year's 26-27 to 27-28 school year, correctly if I'm wrong, MR. Dorset. no, you were spot on. The design for the those bathrooms are going to be probably about 6 to 8 months. And in, we'll roll into right into construction and the plan is to have it all dawn

485prior to the new year, 27-28 school year. and that an item that has to come back to the board to vote on for construction? yes. Also, I know that DR. Wanz said she's going to have to start the process early, we have to identify the schools that would need to close to transition over there also. so I have to probably be some form of a package just to make sure it's done correctly. understood. I'm getting to that. And I also want to explore, I want to thank the speaker for bringing up the marketing program. She walked away, but she still listening, great, great comments. We need a better marketing program. We foc aus a lot on choose bcps when people are choosing schools, they're not choosing it based on the district but based on the

486individual school. How are we supporting our schools to really market themselves in this century? So that's social media, those going to community events. That's, you know, word of mouth making sure the parents are strong advocates of those schools. What is our plan for that? great question, we do have initiative that has started called bcps advantage which I call more of a closed fist approach. We have over 230 campuses and the immediate, the social media, the individual marketing, going out to community is very sparcece itit t at ale acacss every schoolol. So the mamarketing team has created tool kits to create to ensure that they have a social media handle. If they don't, they create one. The original offices are monitoring to ensure that everyone is implementing that tool kit. the legislative office is working with

487the offices to identify any community events, we're trying to have a minimum of two events that schools go to during the spring semester, pushing associate media all at the same time. So we're taking a, a overall larger district approach but, nonetheless a very intimate approach per school so we can impact the entire district for all the families. I think time certain for like, everybody doing it all at the same time, is mid-FEBRUARY, so we're all working to monitor and progress monitor implementing their tool kits and building their social media handles and all the marketing things in identifying events that they're going to go to and have a presence at. We have a large scale initiative and we can provide a board briefing and give you step by step of what we're doing. I think that

488would be helpful. I just want to hope out that associate media handles are great but if you don't understand trends, you don't really understand what is pulling your community. There might be principal that don't know twitter or instagram is, it's great that you telling them handle but is there somebody that is going to be feeding them trends. New zen rans has a new -- renaissance. When you came back, you had great comments. that's all part of the tool kit in the marketing team. you're right, that is the reality for some of our school leadership is that they don't understand associate media, they don't use it. So that's part of the work with the marketing team and understand trends and how to push them out. Giving them actual social media stents to they can plug to

489make it as easy as possible. and are we recruiting student teams to be part of that social media because they probably know trends better than us. no but that's a great strategy as well. And I forgot also what the transition grades, especially 5th to 6th, the schools going out to the elementary or the elementary school coming out to the middle school. Whatever the best practice they're exercising that too. perfect. Nice to hear nice things today. One more thing. So next thing, I understand this is coming back for a workshop in MAY is when we're going to talk about the next phase or is it MARCH? a precursor in MARCH but really kickoff in MAY. so I really want the staff and my colleagues to consider doing an actual county wide approach to this. I think

490we've done clusters and piecemealing but the impact of every year closing schools is just going to continue to harm us. So I think the best approach is to, take a hard line of what we're going to close and then we're done with this process. because what I hear from community is okay, for this year, my school is safe but am I going to be on the list this year or next year? I understand in changes and things can change. However, we've lost 50,000 students. We're closing six schools now? So, I think if we are actually brave as a board and we actually stick to what we're going to do, we will make the district stronger and restore people's faith in us and make people trust that we're going to keep the schools open. And I'm

491not saying that we don't evaluate every year for programmatic changes or move around boundaries, but we need to be done with closing schools. And that's going to mean that we commit. So that would be what I recommend staff to bring in in MAY. Thank you. MS. Hixon? thank you. Just to two general things to piggy back off MS. Thompson. One, we, we had a program and I guess, MR. Sullivan can maybe talk to this, we had asked about it t I bugged them a lot about it to have something on social media all the time that is a student or teacher, or parent saying, here's my experience because I know when which went out to recruit for south broward magnet program, when I started, we were under enrolled and when I finished we had a

492wait list. That's because I took students with me. I didn't do the talking. nobody wanted to hear from me anyway. They had questions, how was the bus ride, all of these things. Our students and our staff can sell our schools and our programs better than anyone else because they live it. I saw one video like that and then I never saw them again. And that was suppose to be a continual thing that we were going to go out. Look all the kids that come here and speak to pus, they're amaze ing. And they would obviously get that excitement from other students. So I would ask the superintendent to please reignite that particular campaign that we were doing and it include pt a parents. The people that love their schools, the bair group right there, they

493sold us right. They would definitely be able to sell other people and it's important to engage the students, not just in making videos but where what do they see what would change their mind and help the parents to change their mind. So we need to tap in more to that. And also, MS. Thompson's point, and I think part of the problem is, people didn't address the fact that we needed to reduce our footprint for very very long time. And we're here. But I don't think it would be fair to say let's close all the schools now and then it will not happen again. As mentioned, enrollment will change, things will change. i think that yearly we just have to be honest with our community and say, every year we'll have to look at this. We

494cannot let it build ten years down the road and then have to do all of these things at one time. Once we get a good footprint, every year we have we have, this is the first year that we've actually changed any boundaries since I've been on the board in five years, being here. And when I was in when I was going to school here, every couple of years there would be shifts and boundaries because you have shifts in enrollment. So if it's the norm, then people will accept it. But we have to also be honest and say, every year we're going to take a really solid look. I have a huge issue with some of the sizes of the boundaries out west, they're very very really and have high reassignments, we should be looking at

495boundaries and that should be a yearly process and we have not done that. So I'm glad we're finally doing things, but I think to give an impression that we would close all the schools next year and not have to do it again, would be misleading for our community. Thank you. any other board discussion on mm12? chair do we need a motion to take mm7 off the list of items identified in mm12? so thank you DR. Zeman, a motion needs to be made to include bair middle school and west pine middle school current boundary into mm12. I thought mm12 was to change boundaries and if we were not changing boundaries, we didn't have to identify them, DR. Wanza. so mm12 and MR. Beck, correct me if I'm wrong, it's so adopt all the current school boundaries

496that were not in one of these individual board items, adopt the boundaries as the bound preas their boundaries for next school year. So since we did not change, the boundary of bair middle school in west pine, was not named in mm12 because they were named in mm7 because west pine boundary was going to change as a result of what MAY have happened to bair. Out of abundance of caution I would ask that you include bair and west pine that way we know that we have taken action on all the schools boundary areas for next school year. terrific, chair, I move that we included bair and no school on mm12. second. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by DR. Holness. All in favor of the motion say aye. motion passed unanimously. Any other board discussion on the

497item? All in favor of the item as amended say aye. aye. all opposed say no. Item passes as amended unanimously. Is it the will of the board to now complete the consent items? Or to go to our kind of pertinent double letter. is there any way that we can do oo5? Is there a motion and a second on oo5. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman and second by MS. Hixon. Board discussion on oo5, I have MS. Bulman. thank you, chair. I'm just trying to get myself situated and find my notes on that. First of all, I would like to think hr and staff for and DR. Hepburn, you know, this is kind of came up but for having a very comprehensive response and for reaching out to everyone, I think that was really important. So,

498I just wondering if puck give us a little, inside into the process so that moving forward we're not kind of experiencing the same surprise? yes. I know you're putting guard rails in place. excellent question that's why I praised auditors. I'll turn it over to DR. Lozano to talk about the specific SOPs or standard of operating procedures to provent from something like this happening. so you have five different departments involved in this contract and implementing kelly service south side, the budget office, accounts payable, purchasing grant management and human resources. And the biggest piece that is going to ensure all five departments are working in synch is, after the board approval of this, a wreck -- requisition and as you saw in DR. Hepburn's memo, we'll be doing weekly review and our word in hr is ownership.

499of these five departments, hr is now owning this item and we will ensure all pieces and come poen pents of this -- come poen ponent. Component. And the other piece is sub usage. I understand we're use a lot of subs. The use of substitutes and requests by teachers has increased. Each year from 2022, 2023 through our current year. One of the pieces is a the addition of our special program classes into our schools, because those programs also come with ESPs who now require substitutes as well. So this data is not just teachers but it's also our teacher assistance who support our students and our special programs so as we increase special programs, that also increases the costs of our substitutes so provide substitutes for those classrooms. You can see our teachers are a part of

500larger society. So as illness increases, sickness, increases, you see teachers need more time for family illness, bereavement, those are things that teachers have been using time for, more so in the last few years than in years past. So, so again, there are contractual pieces of substitutes that we must provide teachers through the contract and our ESPs for sick days and personal days through the contract where DR. Hepburn has put tight controls in place is for our off campus, on campus T.D. As so those additional, assignments that schools MAY have been using substitutes for, we really tightened up our sub use and put internal controls to make sure that we're, the priority of what we're using substitutes for is teacher vacancies in the classrooms. thank you. And the using the kelly services is more cost affective

501than an alternative. They're paying in-house person, I believe I read that somewhere. yes. so I certainly don't be grudge people taking time off. Hr is owning 2 then we're moving forward in a better direction. Thank you, and thank you for making a very comprehensive item for this. I appreciate it. thank you, DR. Zeman? thanks very much. And I'm going to follow MS. Bulman with maybe, slightly different conclusion. In the last two years, MS. Bulman, our substitute use is up 37 and a half percent. So no, no begrudge for being sick. But facts are facts and that's the thing with data. There is a couple of points important there. One you know, there has not been any action about this. You know, our sub use is up 37 and a half percent and this table comes

502before us, as part of a spend item, you know to pay for the contractor that helps us find people. I think that increase is huge, it's up to 1300 substitutes on average day. And I think, you know, it's nice to put guard rails on things but for me there is a systematic problem if in two years your substitute rate is 37 percent and there is no alarms, nobody trying to understand the root causes of it and trying to figure out what is going on. I look forward to learning from DR. Hepburn and the staff here in the near future. I also think that this is an item that is really reminds me of where we are. Right now we're competing this contract to award a new contract this summer. And I would propose to the

503my colleagues here and even to DR. Hepburn that we've figure out a way to get bet per substitutes. If we're going to have ten percent filled with substitute on a day, we have to make sure that the substitutes are fully qualified but can carry an instructional load. So DR. Hepburn, I wonder in the solicitation, if you were willing to think a little bit about incentive, both negative incentives when a substitute shows up, and positive incentive which is when a substitute shows up and they MAY be, retired teacher some are with a lot of teaching experience pick ing either work on the side or just wanting to tribute in the school, would you consider in the next solicitation, DR. Hepburn including incentive so that we can try to find some ways to increase the quality of

504substitute to show up at our schools every day. yes, and I have director of procurement MR. White, and if you can provide information. Is there something that we put on the table when we start to negotiate contracts incentive for quality subs or maybe they have a positive outcome from a school and it's an incentive because of that, just to make sure that they keep coming as a high quality person. certainly we're just starting solicitation, I just assigned it to somebody this week and I told them that I wanted to go through this. We'll work with DR. A lon so to address that. there you go, we can add that as incentive language. thank you, I just feel like this is the beginning of you know, some kind of strategic research why is it up m

505mh? D then a a rallel pieiece of gin n thatat 's now ten perct of our instructional staff on a given day, how can we, in other ways, how can we make sure that we work hard with the new contractor, whether kelly wins the new work or ess or better bees whoever the next vendor is that comes in to do the work. That there is more than meeting the minimum. I hate to say this this, 60 hours of college and no criminal recorded criminal events, are pretty minimum standards and if that's what we have to do, I hope we can continue to find things. Thank you. Chair. thank you, DR. Holness? MADAM Chair, my questions were answered by staff and board members, thank you. thank you. MR. Cervera? MS. Rupert? Any other board discussion on

506oo5? All right. All in favor of oo5 say aye. aye. all opposed say no. item passes unanimously. Unanimous. Is it okay with my colleagues if we can go back to the consent that we have not passed. Can I get a motion and a second on b1. moved by MS. Hixon and second by bulman. Public comment on b1. no comment. board member I have MS. Alhadeff who is away right now. MS. Rupert. thank you. Sorry. I was not ready for this. Is there anybody else or no? no just MS. Alhadeff. okay, give me a second. you know, I'll wing it t.The greater florida consortium is a wonderful organization that does our federal advocacy, program, the cool thing is that it represents 12 school districts and from multiple views. And we, those 12 districts have to approve

507the advocacy and legislative package in order to become part it. If one district goes out, that issue goes out. It's a great group, it is a great thing to go to. I look forward to seeing, them this year as well. And, I know that it's going to be a terrific because we need to have a very beefy federal advocacy program and I will be going, on my own time just for people who are interested. So thank you. thank you. MR. Hill is alhadeff on the line? we're getting her? . If you can bear one second. and thank you MS. Rupert for the history. She is on the line, go ahead MS. Alhadeff. yeah, so I just want I know, I can't make a change to this. However, I think it's vitally important that they do

508support alyssa's act for school safety which creates standards about school safety and emergency response. Has hr6809. Thank you. thank you. Any other board member discussion on b1? All in favor say aye. aye. all opposed says no. aye. item passes unanimously. Can I have a motion and a second on f2. so moved. moved by MS. Hixon and second by MS. Rupert. Public speakers? nathalie lynch walsh but I don't see her. MR. Zeman. MR. Superintendent, the financial records show that our total unallocated and allocated is 205.7 million dollars. I was going to through a series of questions and the like but I really have two questions for the board's, you know, greatest attention. which is if we're at that, which is 4.28 percent fund balance, what are we projecting the end of the year fund balance to

509be today? as of today, the 4.2 percent. I asked what is the projected end of year fund balance today? the projected is 148 million but, I really want to play close attention to the sign and unassigned portion which we're projecting around 61 million. and at 61 million what percentage of all over budget is that? 2.59. Sculpture that below the state minimum? correct. and how much do we have to cut out of our budget in order to get 3 percent? right now, based on those numbers, 10 million. and does that include the 2 million dollars that we're not going to cut that we're not going to cut on bair school. no, that's next year. does the include the costs for the schools we did close. no, that's for next school year. but the schools will save

510us money. that's correct. how much do we have to save to get to the end of the your fund balance. we have to cut additional 60 million. 60 million dollars. And last question, MR. Superintendent or C.F.O., next year we already have state projections which have been accurate for enrollment decline. what amount of loss revenue is equivalent to next year's projected decline? around 63 million. terrific, I just want to make sure that we think through these when we're making decisions about bair and contracts alike, we have to get 60 million dollars of reduced spending in the next month, MS. Johnson in order to get to the policy level that we have which is five percent. And I know we ripped through this fund balance and maybe this is not the best time to talk about but

511that fund balance is our rainy day fund. If we have greater than the state projects, this is our cushion and it's a wise policy for the state to have minimum levels for school districts to avoid getting into trouble financially. On top of that, 12 months after that, we have to reduce our costs by another 60 million is what you're reporting given the enrollment decline and we're going to have to do that by the end of JUNE of 2027, is that correct? that's correct. terrific. I just wanted to get those numbers out there. We run right past these items that we pass sometimes. We kick the can in my view, on some items but every time we kick the canon ten dollars, we got to find ten dollars somewhere else in order to meet our fund

512balance numbers by the end of year. Chair has anybody proposed any items to the school board on changing our policy related to the fund balance that we've set? not that I'm aware. no, I have not heard of that either. But, I'm just glad that when we have these reports that are relatively, reports on how we're spending how we thought that we were spending. It's always good to get them. But always a reminder to think a little bit about the whole basis of our school system which runs on money and we've got to make sure that we think about these things, at least every month. So thank you, DR. Johnson giving you a little academic promotion, thank you MS. Johnson and superintendent for putting together these documents for us. MS. Thompson. I have a quick position

513how is is the potential decision to change graduations impact our fund balance. it depends on the dollar amount. But the budget is fluid, and I can tell you every day I'm finding way to see make cuts or make, find revenue sources. So I might say this today that I we need this amount and tomorrow it will be a different number. And I'm monitoring the budget and that's if we spend within our budget can as adopted that will be our costs. But if we have surplus, that surplus benefits the district at the end of the year. I'm still monitoring the healthcare costs and all those things that possibly we have done things to make reduction to those but they have not came to fruition yet. So those things, those costs MAY impact in a positive way.

514So I am monitoring the budget weekly. I'm just letting you know, that we have not got, and that's projecting those numbers. So if that can be changed that can be positive or negative, we have to see when we get the third calculation from the state. any other board discussion on f-2? All in favor of f2 say aye. aye. all opposed says no. Item pass unanimously. Can get a motion. Hold on, I want to pass the open items that we have not yet passed. So, the following items have been identified for discussion hh1 which we already passed a a d -- f f1, mm1 24ru mm12 which we pass approximated. Oo1, oo4, oo6 which we pass approximated. At this time MAY the chair have a motion and a second to pass the open items that have

515not been pulled for discussion. Jj6, jj7, jj8, jj9, o o-2 and oo3. so moved. moved by MS. Rupert and moved by MS. Hixon zebed by MS. Rupert. Any public comment on those items? yes, bb2 DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh but I do not see her in the audience. all in favor of approving the open agenda items not pulled fm thoiz opposed say no. Items pass unanimously. Okay. can I have a motion and a second on a a 2. moved. second. board member comment I pulled this item because it was a late edition in case any of my colleagues wanted to speak on it. All in safer say aye. aye. motion passed unanimously. can I get -- same thing. Any board discussion? All in favor of a a 3 say aye. aye. all opposed? Item passes unanimously. Can

516I get a motion a second on bb1. so moved. second. one registered speaker nathalie lynch-walsh but I don't see her in the audience. MAY I inquire how many of us besides myself and you are going to tallahassee next week? still looks like MS. Rupert, MS. Bulman, MS. Hixon. MS. Rupert as well. yes, I told. are any seeking reimbursement for their travel? no. is that a yes? Oh. but I will just remind that as a board, we agreed that we would pay the cost of the chair to go to tallahassee because we wanted to ensure that one person was going to be representing us. So we agreed to that as a board. you had your hand up, I was not sure if you were seeking reimbursement as well. Thank you. MS. Rupert. your question for that

517issue, I wanted to talk about the fsba, the, the legislative package but I don't need to. That's the only reason I pulled it. Was to give, give kudos for our chair going up for our colleague adam and as well a as maura and debbie, I was not sure with that comment back and forth. Yeah, I think it's going to be very good and we'll be able to move this district forward. Thanks. MS. Hixon. no, I just want to, you know this was a discussion that we had and we as a board, we were not going to have not have anybody go and then board members were concerned that we couldn't get a guarantee somebody was going and we agreed as a board that we would cover the costs of the chair going up and anyone

518else who wanted to go would go on their own. So thank you. thank you, any other board member discussion? All in favor of bb1 say aye. aye. all opposed say no. no. item pass wz one dissenting vote MR. Cervera. can I get a motion on f f1. so moved. second. public comment? no ma'am. MS. Hix hon. as I like to work on grants, this item brings about 4.3 million dollars to the district. 1.4 million comes from the federal government to help our students with disability. 900,000 comes from fau's promised neighborhood which is an awesome grant as well. And 311,765 are a k-9 grant that impact our schools. So thank you to everyone who puts the time in to bring in extra money to our district. Thank you. thank you any other board member discussion on

519f f1? All in favor say aye. aye. all opposed says no. Item passes unanimously. Can I get a motion and a second on oo1. so moved. moved by MS. Thompson second by MS. Hixon. we have no public comment on remainder of the items. MS. Thompson. my questions were answered. Thank you. any other board discussion. All in favor say aye. aye. motion pass unanimously. Oo4, there is no public comment on o4. Board member comment DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. Just want to quickly mention that I did notice there from the five companies, one of the five companies, is mwbe firm hispanic-american firm but I didn't know that that was firm was at the bottom in terms of amount of money. They received so I would like to continue to encourage the district that we, that

520we do everything we can to attract minority firms including hispanics, blacks, women. the numbers here indicated that they were at the bottom and 300 percent award than second to the bottom. So I think, as a district we should continue to try to provide opportunities for our mwbe firms. thank you. Any other board member comment? All right. All in favor of oo4 say aye. aye. all opposed say no. aye. item passes unanimously. This is the time of the agenda when school board members will hear from our evening speakers. We have two evening speakers, on my list. MR. Hill, I don't know if you have the same. I have kristi trip and victoria creed. Any other evening speakers? At this time do any of my colleagues have student success to bring forward. MS. Hixon? thank you, I

521have three very excited things. So the first one I was honored to be able to go to the college playoff foundation education summit where they honored somebody with a handcok excellence award which celebrates extraordinary educators who have devoted their lives to education and strengthening their communities. It was in their third year, 100 people were up for their award. It recognizes teachers with 20 years of service who continue to change lives every day. So congratulations to the 202 recipient who is MR. Christopher townly who is a special education teacher at the quest center. Also corey's former middle school teacher. Thank you for the lasting difference you've made. We coach special olympics together. So I was very honored to participate in that with MR. Townly, also congratulations to ft. Lauderdale dive team, they're state champions since I

522was a swim coach, I was very excited about that. And I took a picture, the students at flannagan there are two students that also won a state recognition and my picture is not working, so I don't know, if somebody else can help us with it. But they, they want to state recognition as well for a competition that they participated in. I'm so sorry, I didn't write their names down. Thank you. thank you. DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair and MADAM Chair, this is your school actually, bennett elementary school. When I was at the bcps showcase in the bank, stadium, they provided me with nine balls s and they mentntioned that I I shouldld give each brdrd meerer one of the e as a stress releaver. So I'm going to give you one of these. Maybe

523we can use it in subsequent meet approximatesing. So thank you, bennett elementary and I'll be sure to pass these out. Thank you. thank you, any other board member discussion before I raise some sishz. So I did want to get an update from. Board on on the chief auditor search. There were a few pieces that we needed to address before staff can move forward. I have a few questions from the board that I want consensus on. Do we want to update the job description, we updated it recently but I didn't know if anyone was interested in hosting the job description. So there was no objection with the current job description? Okay. Do we want to form a committee to review the resume as the legal services did for the office of general council or are we

524comfortable with the getting getting all the resume and dealing with them in a board meeting? The second option, okay. And then do we want to mirror the pattern of interviews where we did a one on one interview and a public interview. Or did we want to do something more streamline for the auditor position. Same process? Okay. And, DR. Lozano, has anyone agreed from the office of chief auditor to serve as interim. as of right now, we have one individual who is willing to serve. would you be able to share that name? mark magly. okay, does anyone object to us negotiating an interim contract. We would have to negotiate a interim contract. correct. does anybody object for us doing that for MR. Magly. Do we need to bring an item to designate somebody to negotiate that

525contract. that's correct. okay. So I guess, would a board member need to bring that? correct. can we move to do that now MS. Jacques adams. There is not an item on the agenda? that is my concern, there is no item on agenda. okay. So I guess, my question, this is kind of interesting. So would a board member like to bring an item to direct somebody to negotiate MS. Bulman? I'll do it. okay. all right, so we can expect that next month. So does staff have the direction they need to move forward with the job posting? yes. okay, excellent. The next piece that I was going to request was an update from staff on the timeline for the referendum since it is 2026. MR. Sullivan? superintendent? Would you like me to answer that? go ahead, MR.

526Sullivan. so last time around, the board decided to go with the primary which is the AUGUST month. This time state law states it would have to be in NOVEMBER for the general election of 2026. if we follow the timeline as last time, I would have to work with general counsel, I don't know if. Timeline is different since now. We have NOVEMBER instead of AUGUST. But to follow the last timeline, we would brings a resolution to the board next month in FEBRUARY. And after that resolution, I believe it was two months after the board voted on the allocation. So is the language is very limited and the number of words that you can have. So we'll have to work if we want to keep the same language. But again, it was two different votes. There was

527a vote on the ballot language and then after that resolution, a separate meeting there was a vote on the allocation so the voters knew how the votes were going to be allocated and so health and employee compensation. is that the timeline you're recommending or you're just sharing that with us as we did last time with the caveat that that will be in the NOVEMBER timeline? yes. does anybody object to following that timeline? okay, do you have a direction on that? yes, ma'am. the last piece that I wanted to bring that. There was one item that was going to result in 1.2 million dollars in cost savings. So my suggestion to staff is I would really love to know for each agenda, how much money we're saving on contracts and things like that that are being

528renegotiated. I would be interested in that moving forward. Thank you. any other board discussion. MS. Chair. go ahead, MS. Alhadeff. to that point p I think there is one from romero the ones he snap shop of where we are with our finances so that we can cross-reference that when we're making the multi million dollars decision either and writing that number down. MS. Alhadeff, I can barely hear you but I can call you off line to get those specifics directions. okay. Thank you. no problem. any other board member discussion? Okay. Seeing, we have exhausted all of our items. The scheduled order of business for this school board meeting has been completed seeing no obligation, I now adjourn the