Regular School Board Meeting - Apr 07, 2026

001Welcome to today's regular school board meeting. This regular school reading of the school board of Broward County, Florida is now called to order. Our primary focus is to create a safe and productive environment for all participants. Please be reminded of the exit doors that are clearly marked for emergency exiting. While in the boardroom, refrain from obstructing the exit doors. All attendees must occupy a seat with the exception of media. Once the board has reached a seating capacity, attendees will be directed to a designated overflow area. Upon activation of the fire alarm system, please exit from the room in an orderly fashion and continue to exit the building and remain outside until the authority that has jurisdiction has deemed the building safe to return. Thank you for your cooperation. Board member Bulman will now introduce her

002school to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. MISS Bulman. Thank you, chair. I would like to welcome the Hollywood Hills High School jrotc, who is led by First Sergeant Edward Hampton, to do the presentation of colors with with our cadets, Leah Edri, Andrea Ferrer, Samantha Rivera, and Kelly Montgomery. And then followed by the pledge being done by Pasadena Lakes Elementary School. Under the guidance of Principal Williams. Thank you. Forward 1005. Colors. Hope. That they. Read that on. 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. Order arms. Right! Straight. Forward! MARCH! Thank you. Board member Cervera has requested a moment of silence as he is not here at the

003moment. He is asked that MRS. Alhadeff share her condolences. With profound sympathy. We pause to honor the life of Sandra Hernandez, a student at Falcon Cove Middle School, who passed away unexpectedly in far too soon. Sandra was a joyful and caring student, an active member of the school's drama club. She will be lovingly remembered by her mother, Yoselin Hernandez, her stepfather, Edward Paul Lara, and by the many family members, friends and teachers who lives she touched. We extend our deepest condolences to Zander's family and to the entire Falcon Cove Middle School community. MAY they find comfort, peace and strength during this difficult time. Please join me in a moment of silence in her memory. Thank you. Thank you. I have requested a moment of silence. The loss of Nancy Mateo is immense beyond words. She

004was one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. She was a transformative figure for Broward County. She was a leader who exemplified why public service is a worthy endeavor. Even faced with long odds and difficult issues. She was a nationally recognized leader on the environment, an outspoken voice for women and children, and a tireless advocate for her beloved and beautiful Coral Springs community and places far beyond the reach of the city. She was elected to serve. She also happened to be a substitute teacher for Broward County Public Schools. Beyond all that, she was my friend. She was one of the kindest people I knew. Someone who would always show up for me. Someone who inspired me and many others to believe in the best parts of ourselves. Every part of my life, not

005just as a school board member or an elected official, but as a mother, a friend, and just a person taking in the natural beauty of this earth. Every part of my life is better because I knew Nancy, and to know her was to love her. Nancy was a singular figure in politics in so many ways. She was a. She was historic in her election to the Coral Springs Commission as the first Haitian American and the first black woman elected to serve there. Yet it was the way Nancy conducted herself in service to her community and in her political endeavors that was so powerful. As many have remarked before, Nancy was a dedicated climate change activist, a fierce advocate for reproductive freedom and a tireless fighter for the rights of immigrants. She remained committed to those

006causes, even when the political winds would shift, and even if it would cost her an election. Nancy knew who she was and was unapologetic about it. Rare qualities today and ones that we should all try to live up to. Even though Nancy MAY be gone from our physical world, I know she still leads us. The result of this heartbreak does not need to be hopelessness. The product of our grief does not need to be despair. The torch Nancy carried is still out there. It is not extinguished. When times are dark and we feel we cannot find our way forward, I know that her spirit will still guide us through because her strength is still here. Her calm, her love, her joy, her inspiration. They're still here. The things that made her such a radiant beacon

007still live within us. Nancy has entered, entered GOD's light far too soon. But her light. That light is still here. And I know that it will shine for an eternity. Nancy will lead us to a place where the beautiful world she worked so tirelessly to create has finally become our reality. I know that future generations who live in a better Broward, a better country, and a better world. I know that they will one day learn of how Nancy Mayataylor got us there. Please join me in prayer for her family, friends and community and let us honor her legacy with action. I know that Nancy was very dear to many of us on this dais, and so I would like to open it up to anyone who would like to share their condolences and their remarks

008about the incredible woman that she was. MISS Hixon. Thank you. Nancy was a wonderful public servant and a talented environmentalist who was always advocating for equity for all. She had a gift for uplifting everyone around her, maybe making people feel heard, seen, and most importantly, valued. That is a rare and beautiful quality and one that leaves a lasting imprint on all who were fortunate enough to know her. We are all better for having known Nancy, and we will honor her by keeping her legacy alive in the way we wish. We support one another and show kindness in our daily lives. She had the most beautiful soul, something you could feel immediately through her radiant smile. And because of that, people had strong feelings for Nancy. You will not meet anyone that just said they liked

009Nancy. Everybody loved Nancy because that's who she was. My thoughts, prayers and deepest condolences are with her family, her friends, and the entire Coral Springs community during this very difficult time. Thank you. MRS. Alhadeff. Nancy's light touched every person. She believed in educating every student so they are prepared, aware and empowered. She believed in making every school a place where kids feel safe. The best way we can honor her memory is to keep going louder, stronger, and with her name in our hearts. Let's carry her forward. Thank you. DR. Holness. The reason many of us are wearing green and orange today is because those were Nancy's favorite color, and I encourage the public to celebrate Nancy's life this week by wearing green or orange. At some point. When Nancy ran for election in 2020. I

010was also running at the time, and I saw her at the Coral Springs Library. And what I saw, and I distinctly remember, was someone who was energetic, motivated, and wanted to serve. I remember there was a large number of volunteers at every part of the Coral Springs library, and they were chasing down every voter to deliver Nancy's message of how she will serve her community, which is Coral Springs. They were also folks who tried to taint her image. But Nancy's genuine and good natured character could not be distorted or covered. She resonated with people. Her light shone brightly that no force could stop her. I was campaigning too, and Nancy let me realize that I needed to step up my game. I had two people out there. I remember campaigning for me, but Nancy had

011like 8 to 10 people running nonstop to meet voters and deliver her message. They had fire in their bellies. They were committed to her success. And even so, I distinctly remembered that she didn't take anything for granted. She also, regardless of so many people supporting her out there, she chased down every voter possible to deliver her message. She was very kind to me and others out there offering water and would talk to everyone. I remember saying to my best friend who was out there with me that day, that this young lady right here is destined for greatness against so many odds. Nancy won in 2020, becoming the first black woman and the first Haitian American to be on the Coral Springs Commission. Then recently, she was selected by her colleagues to be vice mayor of

012Coral Springs. Then I learned, but not surprised, that she was going to take the next step and run for Congress. Nancy was elected to the Coral Springs Commission, but Nancy was so committed to serving Broward and Florida that it felt like Nancy belonged to all cities in Broward County. Every elected official, community leaders and others who knew her. Nancy was like by all groups, all religious groups, all ethnic groups, all races, nationalities, orientation, gender, whatever it MAY be. Everyone loves Nancy. There were no boundaries to her circle of association. You might coral Springs. You might have elected Nancy, but I can tell you Nancy belonged to all of us. I am so sad. Still so sad. My heart has not waned. My heavy heart has not waned. This has truly impacted me and so many

013of us. It certainly defies all logic. What happened to Nancy? It leaves so many questions of why it is incomprehensible, and there's no words to describe. This was so senseless. My condolences to Nancy's family and everyone who knew her. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Thank you, MISS Thompson. Thank you. Chair. It's hard to put into words, and I think my colleagues did it so well. But I think Nancy truly embodied what a public servant is for so many. I think as a young person. Sorry. MISS Bulman. We've all said such eloquent things that I don't. I can't match that, but I, I just want to honor Nancy and her. For being such a brave person in so many aspects of life. The leadership that she's provided to all of us is that generational talent that I

014don't think we're going to see again in a in a long time. And I particularly admire her ability to see a place for everybody. There's always a chance for everybody to improve their lot in life, no matter where you came from. It didn't have to be at the expense of somebody else. And her fighting. I mean, I know her from environmental causes, particularly where I really admire her work, not only as an environmental scientist, but also fighting for e eirononmental ststee because. The challenges that we're facing really are impacting the most vulnerable among us. And that was who she always fought for. And so I just again, extend my condolences as well to her family and to all of you that are such good friends with her. And I really admire all of you guys,

015all of the young people that came up with Nancy and really have set a high bar for all of us to follow. So thank you. Thank you, MISS Thompson. Thanks. I think as a young, elected Nancy was incredibly inspiring to many of us, especially when people told us to sit down or tonight fight, not fight for our causes. She was there basically telling them to screw off and to keep going. And I think she really is someone that we should all look up to because when she talked, it wasn't about political posturing or headlines or how to get her name out. It was truly about her community and doing what's right. And I just think we should all strive to be like Nancy on this dais and be on. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Rupert.

016Thank you. I, I only knew Nancy briefly, and that's my loss. She was an incredibly kind person. Gave willingly of her time. And as a as a young elected as a as a woman, she stood fiercely and. I'm so sorry for her friends and family, because she was a tremendous light. I mean, she lit up the room when she was there. So here's here's Nancy. She won't be forgotten. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take a brief two minute recess. [Music] The superintendent released a revised agenda with certain changes for this meeting and published it on the school district's website. The chair finds, pursuant to section 120 .525 Florida statutes, that good cause exists for such changes and accepts the revised agenda. MAY I MAY the Chair Have a motion and a second to close the

017agenda. Second move by DR. Zeman, second by MISS Hixon. All in favor of closing the agenda, say aye. All opposed? Say no. The agenda is now closed. MAY the chair have a motion and a second to approve the minutes for the following meetings. MARCH 10th, 2026. Special Meeting Expulsions. MARCH 10th, 2026 regular School Board Meeting MARCH 20th, 2020 fourth 2026. Special School Board meeting. So moved. Moved by DR. Zeman. Seconded by MISS Hixon. Is there any discussion? All in favor of approving the minutes as listed, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no. Minutes passed unanimously. As we prepare to begin our regular school board meeting, we are reminded that our vision is 100% proficiency for all students. As an a rated school district, our vital task is is to sustain this achievement. We will continue

018educating all students to reach their highest potential. Our theme this year is believe, empower, achieve one. Broward. The Chief of Staff and Communications Officer pulled the board of any agenda items they wish to address in advance of the meeting. The following consent items have been identified for discussion. H1, h2, a1, b1, b two, f two, and j one. At this time, MAY the chair have a motion and a second to pass the consent items that have not been pulled for discussion, which are h three, f one and o one. So moved second. Moved by DR. Zeman, second by MISS Hixon. Are there any registered speakers on the items that have not been pulled for discussion? H three, f one and o one. No speakers. All in favor of approving the consent items that have not

019been not been pulled for discussion, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no. Items passed unanimously. Could I get a motion and a second on h one. So moved. Moved by MISS Rupert, seconded by MISS Hixon. Public comment on h13. Registered speakers. When you hear your name, you MAY approach the podium. Sheila. Denny, Ashley. Giles, Sherry. Anderson. Welcome. Good morning. My name is Sheila Denny. I'm a retired health care professional, and I stand before you today to speak on behalf of an extraordinary educator and leader, Cynthia Woods. For 31 years, Cynthia Woods has dedicated her life to the Broward County Public School system. 31 years of showing up early, staying late, and doing whatever was necessary to support students, teachers and families. 31 years of service across elementary classrooms, middle school classrooms, and at the district

020level. As a math coach, 31 years of pouring knowledge, encouragement, and compassion into the lives of others. Cynthia Woods is more than a leader. She's a facilitator, a mentor, a preceptor, a team leader, and a team player. She's purpose driven, hard working, and accountable. She creates environments where educators feel supported and where students feel seen. She builds bridges between staff, families and and leadership. She encourages creativity, collaboration, and professional growth. Most importantly, she believes deeply that every child deserves the opportunity to succeed. Cynthia understands that education is not the responsibility of one person alone. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes that same village to educate one. Today, our educational system is facing unprecedented challenges. Educators are being asked to do more with less, to solve problems beyond the classroom,

021and to carry the weight of an ever changing society. Yet through all these challenges, Cynthia Woods has remained steadfast in her commitment to excellence. She continues to lead with professionalism, positivity, and perseverance, even when obstacles seem overwhelming. Cynthia Woods is a visionary leader. She does not run from challenges. She works through them. She does not create division. She fosters unity. She does not lower expectations. She inspires others to rise. 31 years. That is 372 months of dedication, service and proven leadership. 31 years of measurable impact cannot fairly be overshadowed by six months of subjective interpretation or limited perspective. A career built on integrity, results, and commitment should not be reduced to a brief moment in time without careful consideration of the full body of work. There MAY be challenges at Clarkdale Elementary, but Cynthia Woods

022is not the problem. Cynthia Woods is part of the solution. Thank you. Next public speaker. I am reading this letter on behalf of my mother, Cynthia Woods, who is unable to be here today. In JANUARY, I reached out to the district because I believed I was being targeted by my first year principal, Nadine Fairclough. I cited inaccurate statements and lies from summary memos I received and the letter I stated. I strive every day to perform my responsibilities with diligence and professionalism. I feel compelled to address the ongoing situation that is now affecting my reputation, future livelihood and the sense of well-being at work. A bullying and harassment complaint is still being investigated, where even MISS Fairclough's mentor, retired director MISS Heywood, conveniently showed up at the school, hanging out in the hallway outside of the

023room where witness interviews were taking place. Please, please stop for a moment. Under advisement of the General Counsel. There is an open investigation and I was advised to cease the. This conversation. Thank you. So if you have any other thoughts to share. But there is an open investigation. I could continue. MR. Bruno. So you can continue with your comment, but we can't talk about anything that deals with an open investigation. It's not I mean, it's the letter my mother wrote for you all. She wrote, she worked here for 31 years. So I think you should hear what she has to say. MISS Fairclough often does not tell the truth, even lying on the director, MISS Beaver, saying that the harsh criticisms and concerns she made regarding leadership decisions from the previous principal and myself were

024not of her concerns, but that of the director, only to find out in a later meeting with MISS Beavers that she never had those concerns nor said those things. The lies continued in summary memos. Enduring a due process meeting with MISS Fairclough stated that teachers came to her saying that I had changed referrals without her knowledge or authorization, altering their original content so that they no longer reflected the teacher's intended reporting. Even saying said that teachers would be willing to stand before the district and repeat it all. But one statement was verbal. Each teacher stated they never had a conversation with MISS Fairclough regarding behaviors, let alone referrals, and that she was lying on them. MISS Ferko submitted a notice of corrective action recommending my termination, and she lied on teachers to do so. I

025chose to retire rather than put my fate in your hands. Yet at large, thousands of dollars are unaccounted for for the sale of t shirts that never went through the proper bookkeeping procedures. A teacher assistant on several occasions was allowed to bring her son to work while he was suspended from his own high school, freely roaming our campus. Id students have not been receiving their services since the beginning of the school year. Even when a substitute is sitting in that position, I received a due process letter for failing to complete a bta for a student with with referral for fire starting. Yet MISS Fairclough knew about the referral and the need for the bta and intentionally withheld the information from me. For 17 days, though, we met five times and it was never brought up

026until I received the due process. Letter three points away from a. A is now the lowest in the county, with more than three times the number of behavior referrals than last school year. Risen. Fair close accountability in all of this. As the leader of the school, it's never been about the students. Her fixation was on me. These are the behaviors of a brand new principal and without completing a full year, has written lies again and again and recommended my termination. A 31 year employee with exemplary record. If this is the kind of leader Broward County Public Schools is grooming to lead our schools, I hate to see the corruption. In a few years, we will not only continue to lose students, but staff will flee to districts or other careers where they will be respected

027and judged fairly for their work. And to MISS Fairclough and her mentors who assisted in fabricating these lies this year. Proverbs 616 through 19 says there are six things that the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an abomination unto him a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devious, wicked imagination. Feet that be swift in running mischief, a false witness. Thank you. Any other public speakers on each one? MR. Hill? That concludes our public speakers. Thank you, MISS Rupert. Thank you. My leave is on this item, so I'd like to move that. My. My leave. I'm sorry. I'd like to move that. My name Norah Rupert be separated from the rest so I can recuse myself on that vote. Second. MISS Dupuy, Bruno, could you provide some advisement. So those

028individuals who are on this item, if you could just state your name and then explain why you are recruiting yourself from the vote, and then we'll go ahead and those who are not can go ahead and move forward. So I think, MISS Rupert, what she's saying is we just the three of us, instead of separating our names, we just recuse herself from the item. And that's okay. That'll work. Okay, so MISS Rupert already stated her name and why she's recusing herself. MISS Hixon. Deborah Hixon. And I'm recusing myself because I have additional leave. And I'm Sarah Leonardi, and I'm recusing myself because I have additional leave on this item. Anyone else? Anyone else on the item? All in favor of h one say I. I all opposed say no item passes with three Recusals MISS

029Hixon, MISS Rupert and MISS Leonardi. Thank you. Could I. Oh, go ahead, MISS Hixon. Okay, we passed h one, so I don't know if you want. Or did you want to speak to. I just wanted to say congratulations to the 39 retirements that are on the item of h one. Thank you for your service to the district and good luck in your new journey. Thank you. Could I get a motion a second on h two. So moved second. Moved by DR. Zeman, second by MISS Rupert. Public comment on h22. Registered speakers Sherry Anderson, Joy Robinson. Have you heard your name? Please approach the mic. Sherry Anderson, joy Robinson. Okay, seeing none, that concludes our public speakers. All right. Board member comment, MR. Cervera. Satisfied. All in favor of h two say aye. Aye. All opposed?

030Say no item passes unanimously. Can I get a motion? A second on a one. So moved. Second moved by DR. Zeman. Seconded by MISS Rupert public comment a one. No speakers. Board member comment, MISS Rupert. Oh, I just wanted pulled up for a comment. I'm 100% for it. So any other board discussion? All in favor of a one say aye? Aye. All opposed? Say no item passes unanimously. Could I get a motion a second on b one. So moved. Can we move. b two at the same time? Sure. MISS Rupert requested that we move b1 and b2 at the same time. So could I get a motion a second on b1 and b2? So moved. Moved by MISS Rupert, second by MISS Hixon public comment on b1 and b2 or b2. One to register speakers

031for b2. Doctor Trudy Germanovich. My name is Doctor Trudy Germanovich. I actually was pleased to see this item. I'm hoping that you can actually look at how much, especially screen time is for kindergartners, first graders, second graders. Give me a break. That's where the problem is. And you really need to focus on using the screen to do projects, not to test. Thank you. Thank you. Any other speakers? No other speakers. Board member discussion. I'll just briefly you know this. These are two board items that I brought. I think they're pretty self-explanatory. I wasas actualal ableo useseicroroft pipilot t to, to comlele se e of mymy findings. So, you know, I think as we, we heard from a public speaker, there is a way to use these technologies that is safe and responsible and productive. I

032think, again, you can you can read the findings in the report. I plan on meeting with middle schools in the coming weeks. And I found the conversations to be really enlightening. And I think, you know, this for me is, is the first step in a series of actions that I think we as a board can take to protect public education and the way our children learn in our schools. And for b2, this was a request that I heard over and over again from parents, a way to monitor screen time. I did speak with the superintendent about this. He said that he could work with staff. I don't know if he wants to to speak to that even more, but we do have a lot of technology available to us to help monitor the way students

033use screens. So I'd really like to translate that into information for our parents to, to be able to have the necessary information about what, what their children are doing in school. MISS Bulman. Thanks, chair. Thank you for bringing these. I was very happy to see this pop up on the agenda, and I fully support b two. I think it'll be very telling to see what the results of that are. And I, I just really appreciate you doing the, the legwork to talk to people and to consolidate, you know, the findings here, because there's definitely a better way for us to be making sure that everybody is fluent in technology while also. Having a holistic education. And so I think this is a first step in the right direction. I think it's our responsibility as a

034board to make sure that we're doing the best for the kids. And I think this is going to be a great starting off point. So thank you very much. Thank you, MR. Cervera. Thank you chair. I too like MISS Bulman was was happy to see this come before before this board and I will be supporting this both items, both b one and b two to touch on some of the things that that we heard from from the speaker, you know, screen times, especially with our with our smaller and younger students is, is a real issue. You know, I see it when I go into my schools and quite frankly, I see it in my house, what the effect that these constant, constant computers and iPads can have on our young kids, especially our k through

035three kids. You know, sometimes it it turns them into zombies and it just puts them in this, in this funk. That, quite frankly, is a little scary. So I urge the superintendent, I urge the district, when we're going through these exercises, to make sure we're implementing responsible practices for this. I do think we need to pump the brakes on some of the testing, as we've as we've been hearing from a lot of our constituents, a lot of our parents, we do test these kids way too much, especially the little ones. And that with a combination of the constant screen time, I do think is an issue. Also, I'm happy to see on b two implementing the parental rights aspect out of this and giving our our great parents more access to the information regarding their

036their kids use of screen time during the day and specifically what they're doing. So happy to see this come before the board and I'm fully in support. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you all. I'll echo what my colleagues have said already. You know, I pulled it because I wanted to say thank you for doing all of the work and sharing the results with us. Really appreciate that. I, I do have gone into the schools across the district and we're actually, we actually stop and comment to the principal. We're so glad to see them not on computers when we walk into a classroom and see them doing things that don't require them being on a test or, or, you know, on the computer, although they have a place, I think it's really important that

037we balance it. And so I also, I think it's important to share the information with the parents, but I also would like to see this go another step and see what our action plan will now be on how we reduce the screen time for the students. And really, I would say based on feedback from parents, once they see how much time their students are on the screen. But I think we have to, as the speaker said, delineate how much of that time is actually because they're testing and how much of it is instructional time and figure out how to how to balance that. Just like we're working on how to balance the testing because we know the data is important, but we also know that we want our students to love learning in the computer

038doesn't necessarily help them engage like that. So thank you again for bringing these items forward. Thank you, MISS Rupert. Thank you. I was I pulled b1 and b2 to support them. Thank you so much for bringing them forward. I also when looking through this and I already have I witnessed this and it happens to me all the time. We get spotty Wi-Fi, so I'm looking forward to that being also a part of making the ai and our our students and our teachers make it easier for them and also to, to provide funding, hopefully from the state for resources to provide teachers and students with training and info that need to be successful users of ai tools. And I think it's extremely important for us to count the time, the screen time that they have at

039school. But I believe that this item will also kind of highlight how much work they're getting from schools to doing at home. So that's an important part aspect of it. So it's it's a big issue. Thank you so much for coming forward with this and I definitely support it. Thanks. Thank you, MISS Thompson. Thank you chair. Thank you for going out and collecting this this data and having these town halls. I think it's important to get this feedback. I am supportive of of exploring this issue more. I do have some concerns about implementation of how we're going to track screen time, mainly on what potential blowback this might have to our teachers of parents, or one parent is okay with the amount of screen time their child has and another wants no screen time. So

040how are we as a district? This is for the superintendent. How are we as a district going to analyze this data? And then also, how are we as a district going to support teachers when there is a diverse amount of feedback about screen time, with one parent being okay with it and one parent not? Thanks for the question, MISS Thompson. The first part is actually collecting the data and analyzing it and making sure we can actually get it to parents in a way that they can understand it. I've talked to MR. Davis and his team and they are looking at mechanisms. We have what we call line wise, a tool that teachers are using in their classrooms that where they can monitor students while they're on a on a device, on a computer. And so

041that's most likely going to be our avenue. And there's a parent login for that actual suite too, where parents can actually get certain information. So we're going to leverage that tool and come back with better information on how we're going to leverage it and implement it to monitor screen time and also communicate with parents about the screen time. And hopefully being able to, like MISS Hixon, say, delineate between if it's instructional, if it's testing things like that, so we can provide the best data possible. So we're in the works. We saw the b item when it, you know, was being developed and we started spinning our wheels and figuring out how we can implement this and make it easier for parents and also also students and also the teachers too. So I think I would

042like to include. When you come back with this plan, how we're going to support teachers because we're directing them to use a lot of this technology. So it feels counterintuitive to me. If we're buying all this software and encouraging them to use it to then not allow them to or restrict it. So I think it's a larger conversation once we get that data. Absolutely. Thank you. And just to to speak to some of the issues that you raised, MISS Thompson, this item, the b2 item is not about restricting use of technology. It's just giving parents access to the information about how, you know, screen time is used in in school. And so just the same way we give parents access to the curriculum that we teach in, some parents MAY object to that curriculum. So

043it's, you know, it's a similar vein in what we already do, but this item is not about necessarily restricting, it's just bringing awareness to and giving parents access to information about what's going on in the classroom. DR. Zeman. Thank you. So many things all packed in one item, but the first is one of our colleagues. Our chair spent a lot of time not just having town halls and listening, but trying to come up with a synthesis of the outstanding uses and the risks associated with technology. So to our chair, thank you for putting in all those hours and bringing this this item. I will kind of point out something in my work in ai, which is a little bit alarming to me, but there's a lot of cool information available out there about kids and

044technology. Something that caught my eye in the last week is that a majority of students in public schools would prefer to have been born before ai. So marinate on that a little bit. They see it, they watch it, they use it, they're given it, and they wish they didn't have it. They wish they didn't live in that world. And that tells you a lot about the balance of the advantages of advanced technology and some of the risks that our kids wish they had been born in a simpler world. Chair, I'm curious, though, about two things. One, what are the anticipated financial implications, including, I think something that MAY be implicit in this, which is the need for age appropriate training. We've talked as a board about this a number of times. There are great uses

045of computers and ai and other technologies, and there are very risky uses of the same things. Seems like there's been a pretty consistent talk on this board about trying to help teach kids about how to have a great relationship with technology, but we haven't seen anything come before us on that topic yet. So kind of a two part question, what are the anticipated financial implications of this item, including the need for age appropriate training on the best uses and risks of advanced technology? Yeah, I mean, I think that's something well, there's two pieces to this. I think the superintendent can give us a better financial picture of what that would be. But I know that that work has been ongoing already. And I was hoping and to to MISS Hickson's point about wanting an action

046plan, I know that we did request a workshop that will be coming to us in the summer where we can really delve into these, but I wanted to start taking action on small things like easy, easy, reachable things that we could take action on right now and have those larger conversations for the workshop in, in the summer about, you know, an action plan and how we're dealing with all of this. But I'll let the superintendent speak to the financial implications of the age appropriate training and things like that. But thanks. DR. Zeman. Leonardi for, for the the actual item, I don't see any real future financial burdens because we have Lyme wise already. It's something that we're leveraging and scaling out appropriately throughout the district this year. So we already have the tool and the

047resource. And also then Segway in that mechanism to parent use for login so they can see the information. It's just making sure we go in there to identify what information we're collecting the data, making sure it's easily understood by our parents, students, and teachers. As far as age appropriateness for technology resources, I know there's going to be a workshop later, but the team doctor and academic team and also MR. Davis with it have been collaborating with a specific task force of educators and also piloting certain resources with with students who are real savvy in our computer science programs and things like that to, you know, lack of a better term, really beat up on the technology and, and see if they can identify anything that's not appropriate for students before we actually scale out across

048the district. So there's a lot of moving parts, and I'm pretty sure there's going to be a very robust presentation and discussion when they roll out all that information from doing all this work during the year. And if you don't mind, just a follow on to that, that work is aimed toward implementing age appropriate training on the use of good uses and the risks associated with technology by the beginning of next year. Correct. Also applicable policies for ethical use, things like that. So a lot of things are coming forward just to make sure we roll this out and do it appropriately with ethical use in the forefront as well. I appreciate that second question. Then, chair, we've also talked extensively about assessments and the amount of time, and we directed the superintendent to bring us

049an option that would reduce elementary school assessments by 50%. Do you know when we're getting that back to us? Yeah, that will come later in spring or early summer before the next school year. So we can educate all of our parents, all of our students, all of our teachers of what to expect when it comes to our assessment strategies. And will that also have a planned implementation for next year? Correct? Yes, because we always roll out a assessment calendar or schedule. Thank you. And I don't want to MISS My first point. Chair, this is a lot of work. I really appreciate the amount of time that goes into planning town halls, doing town halls, collating that even with copilot, you know, summarizing the results and put it together in such a balanced approach because technology

050is exciting. I mean, it's really exciting. I mean, I agree with Silicon Valley that the world needs more technology. It's an amazing thing. But then there's also a lot of inherent risk. And we see those every day in our children. And if we can grow a generation of people that understands the balance of those things here in Broward County, we'd be doing a great service. Thank you. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff. Thank you. My first question, Doctor Hepburn, is in regards to so on your your cell phone, you can go to your settings and you can see how much screen time you've been on your cell phone. Do we have that ability to do that from our district devices, computers? That is a MR. Davis question. I'm pretty sure we do. Can go in there in

051the systems and see the length of time a person's use that computer. So. Trey Davis Chief Information Officer So are you specifically referencing connected devices to our network that are personal, which we hope is not happening? Or are you speaking of employee devices. Student devices that they're using in the classroom? Oh, not cellular devices, but but laptops, laptops. Okay, okay. Yeah. And the answer is yes. This is so so we have a series of technologies that we use. And part of our line wise suite, for example, class wise used to manage applications in the classroom, digital use laptops. And my team and I just discussed the aggregate data of that, that line wise is working with us with on to produce around screen time and application usage in those statistics. So the answer is yes.

052Okay. So the answer is yes. Then a parent can already go on the computer and find that information. No, it wouldn't be local to the computer at this stage. It would be via a dashboard. On our side, however, there is a a line wise for parent option that's specifically for use outside, but we also are looking at enabling it for internal screen time as well, which is part of our our application suite that we have, which would denote the screen time used on our network. Okay, so where I'm going with this is that if we can enable that, then we're already answering the requested action is we're allowing parents to see how much screen time their child is using in the classroom during school. You know, my thought process as a parent would be then,

053okay, well, if they were on the computer for four hours during school, then I'm going to limit their time, possibly when they're home with me. I think that's where we're going with this. So yes, we can enable, but I think there's making sure it's the right information that we're providing the parents. So we just don't want to turn it on. And then, you know, you see four hours. What does four hours mean? Is it three hours instructional work or is it two hours of that structural work on a project and then an hour on a test? So we just want to make sure that we're communicating the right information to the parents so they can make the best informed decision for their child when they're home. What I am concerned about, and maybe this is

054something MISS Thompson was talking about, I am concerned about. Then it kind of going back to the teacher and the teacher being questioned or pushed or like, why are they on the computer for this amount of time? And I don't want to handcuff the teachers to be able to use the technology that we're providing them in their classroom. So I think there needs to be some sensitivity and proper rollout and communication to parents on. Exactly. Thank you. And to speak to that, MRS. Alhadeff, as well, one thing I heard over and over again in my conversations with parents was a desire for more information on like how to navigate the apps and the technology that we are giving our students. A few parents shared some best practices from, I think it was Bayview Elementary that

055they have like a parent technology night at the beginning of the school year, where they walk the parents through how to sign in to everything and what each app is for. Not every school does that. And so I think that's those are the kinds of things that I think are like an easier lift and help bridge the communication gap that MAY exist with, with our parents and what's going on in the classroom. So just, you know, if b2 does pass, you know, which I hope it does not just, you know, implementing this, this access, but also educating parents on how to, to access that tool and also how to interpret it, I think will be really important. And then I juju, I h h a few queueioio and w wted t tmamake aamamdmdmtt toto b2

056actually to ilulu a a deadline. But Doctor Hepburn, I know we've we've talked about this and you've talked about this with the board and the student advisors, but I know you've been. The district has been working on a framework for digital and ai use in responsible ai use. Where are we with that? And when, when can we expect that to be rolled out? I'll have Doctor Cohen tackle that question. So that will be rolled out on JUNE 5th. I believe that's the next board workshop on ai. So it's part two of our workshop. That would include policy considerations guidelines. It's similar to what was shared to most of the board when we brought forward the Wiener agreement, where we, I think I was able to present part of that deck to most of the board

057members that were able to be part of that. So that will be part two with an expansive version of that around JUNE 5th. JUNE 16th. Thanks. Thank you. And to to MISS Rupert's point, the Wi-Fi reliability was something that students regularly flagged in our conversations. So I hope that that can can get addressed as we move forward into the next school year. And I just want to highlight the fact that students really are hungry for or this is what I heard in my conversations with them. They're hungry for like real explicit instruction on how to use ai responsibly in each class. So I hope that that, you know, again, in the coming months, we address that. And just to speak to, I think this is such a big issue, and I think a lot of

058policymakers are struggling with how to address it, and it's so fast moving. So I think it's going to be a conversation that we're going to continue to have years in the years to come, especially as it relates to like, how do we prepare students for a workforce that has been altered by ai? But I do encourage, you know, all of my colleagues to have these conversations with parents and with students and with educators and figure out like little ways we can take a bite out of the elephant to, to make sure that we're using this technology responsibly and productively in, in our schools. And just last, before I make my amendment to b2, I would not have been able to conduct these student roundtables without our student advisor. He was very helpful. He attended a

059few. It was just. He really walked me through how to how to have those round tables. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, since since I was elected. And he really enabled me to do that. So thank you, MR. Spielberg, for that. And I didn't know if you had any comments or questions. Nope, nope. Thank you for involving us. Cool. Doctor Hepburn. When would be a reasonable timeline to implement b2? Well, the goal would be definitely by the beginning of the next school year. So I would say probably by that JUNE workshop, if we can fold that all into it with the whole ai pathway and guidance. Go ahead. Go ahead. Doctor Cohen. In that JUNE 5th date that came across, we are actually having a major teacher convening on JUNE

0605th that will also have a parent track. So parents will be facilitated on ai as well as teacher, all of the Ala zones. On that following week, JUNE 8th, all administrators will also be in ingested with some of the ai in their leadership track. We have some new ai leadership standards we'll be rolling out as well, so that following week in the previous week will be rolling out a massive rollout on ai, ai, vr, and then that following week, JUNE 16th, is when we'll bring to the board our culminating piece of how we bring it all together to give principals, teachers time enough to plan, plan for the summertime, and then to roll it out during pre-planning week. Go ahead, MR. Davis. So I want to echo in line with what Doctor Cole mentioned. We

061also have an impending launch of Broward Schools dot ai, which will complement the effort, and b, for example, training resource as well as things like ethical use of ai for parents, students as well as our staff. So. So midsummer around that workshop time, if we can roll it all into that workshop. Okay, so we can expect by midsummer, I mean students won't be in, most students won't be in school, but we can expect by midsummer that parents would be able to then access that that information about screen time. And we can roll it all out to parents with the welcome back to school information. Okay. Do we I mean, do we need to include a deadline in the Or? We're good. Okay, cool. I feel good about that. All right. Any other board discussion? All

062in favor of b1 and b2 say I, I all opposed say no items passed unanimously. We will now go to committee reports. We will start with b e f. Came in with the whole crew today. Good morning everybody. Just want to say thank you for the opportunity again to speak. As we get an opportunity. Every single board meeting today is a really special day for us as Broward Education Foundation, but also a special day for Broward County Public Schools. Today, we're going to have the opportunity to highlight a $1.1 million gift from the Helios Education Foundation through Broward Education Foundation to come back to Broward County Public Schools. Unprecedented gift that we were able to actually foster the relationship over years. This initiative itself. Let me just mention some numbers. It's it's post-secondary success for

063all. It'll serve over 24,000 students annually across 80 different schools, directly aligned with the priorities that you as a group have set. So it's nothing intentional on our side that we're trying to go outside of the parameters of what you're doing. We're very intentional about doing what it is that you guys are trying to do, because you guys are doing the good work up there, and we appreciate that. It's designed to strengthen college and career readiness, expand access to opportunity to all schools that it that it impacts. And we're really, really excited about and grateful for the Helios Education Foundation to be able to partner with us in this initiative and understanding the the power of the strategic investment. So you guys get to hear from me every single time I'm up here. So the

064exciting part is the individual who actually got to fly in from Arizona for this specifically, and this presentation, which is Paul Luna, Paul Luna, excited to now call him a friend. We've known each other for over 20 years. When I was doing work, when I was at the university level at fiu, he's a true titan in the education space due to his continued efforts and impact in spaces like ours, that that he understands what comes of that. Just having a little bit more conversation with him in the back of the intentionality that he has around everything that he decides to fund. Coming to Broward County was a really big deal for us to get. Helios Education Foundation here in Broward County has a hasn't necessarily been the easiest road, I think, in the past, but

065I think some of the things that we're doing and where we're headed and the leadership that we currently have is, is a, is that benchmark that we hopefully can set for others to come and do the same. So it is my pleasure to introduce to you Paul Luna, the PRESIDENT And ceo of the Helios Foundation, and let him say a few words. [Applause] Good morning. I want to begin by thanking our partners at Broward Education Foundation and Broward County Public Schools for the opportunity to join you today. We are honored to be here, not just to make an announcement, but to mark the beginning of what we believe will be a meaningful and lasting partnership for students across Broward County. Before I share more, I'd like to briefly introduce who we are and why this

066work matters so deeply to us. As James said, my name is Paul Luna. I serve as the PRESIDENT And ceo of Helios Education Foundation. I'm joined today by my colleague Stacey Beyer, who is our senior vice PRESIDENT For community engagement and oversees our Tampa office. And for more than 20 years, Helios Education Foundation has worked to support post-secondary attainment for all students with a focus on those from low income and historically underrepresented communities across Florida and Arizona. To date, we have invested more than $350 million in education and community partnerships because we believe education is one of the most powerful drivers of individual opportunity and economic prosperity. Everything we do is driven by four fundamental beliefs. We believe in community, that education changes lives and makes our communities better. We believe in investment, that education

067is an investment and not an expense. We believe in equity. Equity in terms of every student deserves the opportunity to succeed in post-secondary education, regardless of where they were born or what zip code they live in. And we believe in partnership because we believe that it's only through partnerships that we're able to accomplish the student success that we're looking to drive in Arizona and Florida. Our approach is supported by lasting change in education, grounded in research and data, supported through strategic community investments, and focused on driving long term systemic change through policy and strategic communications and partnerships like the one that we're announcing with all of you today. Last year, in an effort to expand our work across the state, we took a deliberate step to open a proposal process to identify new partners in

068Florida positioned to drive meaningful, measurable improvements in student success, especially at the college going and attainment levels. Among many strong proposals we received, Broward really stood out first. This partnership represents what we believe is the right model for impact at scale. Broward County Public Schools, as you know, is the sixth largest school district in the nation. And paired with Broward Education Foundation, you have a structure that brings together district leadership, community voice and philanthropic support that matters because real change doesn't happen in silos. It happens when partners commit to shared goals, shared learning, and shared accountability over time. Second, this work is intentionally focused on closing equity gaps in education. The reality is that not all students have equal access to opportunities that lead to college success. We were particularly encouraged by the district's commitment

069to ensure that all students, and especially those from traditionally underserved backgrounds, are supported equally. And third, this effort is grounded in what the research tells us works. We know that students who engage in accelerated coursework are significantly more likely to enroll and complete post-secondary education. Just as important, every student needs a clear plan for what comes after high school through the Bridge to Life Local College Access Network and the Broward Education Foundation, students are getting the support they need to be ready for college and careers. From test prep and Fafsa completion to advising, mentoring and family engagement, students and their families are supported every step of the way. This alignment between data strategy and execution is exactly what we look for in a partner, and that's why the partnership we're announcing today is so important.

070With a shared goal of closing equity gaps, increasing college enrollment, and strengthening post-secondary outcomes, the Post-Secondary Success for all initiative represents a bold step for Broward County. Helios is proud to support this work with a $1.1 million investment to be paid over three years, and we have a check to prove it. [Applause] So I'd like to end by just saying to James the full Broward Education Foundation team, Superintendent Hepburn, and you, the board and all the leaders of Broward County Public Schools were grateful for your leadership and look forward to seeing the impact of this partnership and what it will have on students, families and the entire Broward community. We thank you for the opportunity to be here and to share this great news with all of you. Thank you very much. So just one

071more really quick thing. Thank you so much, Paul. I appreciate that. And this type of work doesn't get done alone. As we all know, our partnership and with Bridge to Life and Colleen Lockwood and what she's been able to do within this grant, but also Gabriel and the team here at Broward County Public Schools has been the the exact thing that we needed to continue to have projects like this, not stall out and actually get get through that finish line and continue to get these dollars into the place that they need to get into to affect the students that we all serve every single day. So I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you so much to the entire team because it's not a one person thing, but we, we couldn't be happier. So

072I'd love to get up there and take a photo with this check. No, you cannot cash it. But we, we would love to still take a picture with you guys if that's if that works for you. Thank you guys. Thank you. We will briefly recess the meeting for a photo. [Music] This this regular school board meeting is now reconvened. I will continue with our presentations. Broward County Council, pta, PTAs, ptsa. We received a report, but I want to make sure no one's in the audience. And we have employee union groups btu, B.P.R, Esmeb, Copa and pba. So if your union group is here, btu, bpa, Esmeb go ahead. Sure. Copa and pba. Good morning. My name is Pete Cunningham and I'm the executive director of Esmeb. First of all, I'd like to just comment on

073the fact one of our members actually wrote that grant and secured it for the Broward County Public Schools. The current financial status of the school board is where we're at. Nothing can change the past pay raises and all compensation for all employees needs to be equitable. Some groups have been left behind in the past. Pay schedules are chaotically organized with multiple calendars and workday variations. I think there's 31 different calendars in the system. I think the support for schools is more common with the groups than it is not common, and it makes no sense pitting one employee group versus another employee group, which causes division, dysfunction and demoralization. This is an issue where a lot of times one employee group will be pitted against another. Concerning a variety of items. There are very important things

074that are common to the Broward County Public schools. One is the policy makers, that is the elected school board, and I know it's a high priority for mental health and Esq services to be met. To give you an example, we have 40,000 Esq students and simple tasks, I suppose are not that simple. When the redefining of schools took place, Esmeb employees took a heavy role in that, and one of the small tasks or tasks they had to do was identify where approximately 140 or so Esq students would have to be placed with the closing of schools next fall. That function again was performed by Esmeb employees. Another thing is, I think it's important for the school district to maintain its aa rating. I think all of you want to continue to have that a rating,

075and the support staff that gives you reports, gives you direction, implements county, state and federal policies all come from the support staff of the Broward County School system. I mean, it's no different than a an off site custodial worker or an off site cafeteria worker supporting the schools in ppo and those other areas as it is to provide you with information and information that you make policy decisions on. I also know that the school based people are very important, but also many of the people that support school based people and do curriculum. I don't know if you realize they spend up to four days, five days a week out in schools supporting people do again, implementing the policies of the county, the state and the federal government. I think there is a lot more common

076purpose, and we can accomplish a lot more if we don't divide ourselves into different groups trying to win over more or less pay because of the different groups we belong to. And I encourage the school board to take a look at the pay schedules, to notify, to notice where there are inequities and what has happened in the past, and to move forward with a common purpose so that we can be an a district in the future. Thank you very much. Thank you. Btu. Good morning. And our teachers union PRESIDENT. I know today's a sad day. I was listening in and I just want to send my condolences to everyone up there that no matter how you knew Nancy, I know some of you were great friends. Some of you were amazing colleagues with her. She

077was an amazing individual. I was not a friend of hers, but I knew her through the world of helping her. We endorsed her for the City Commission of Coral Springs, and not only was she an amazing commissioner, she was an amazing human and amazing woman. And let's just keep mentioning how amazing she is. And the the unfortunateness of the scumbag that did that to her. Let's forget that. So I'm Anna Fusco, you know how I am. I say how it's real. And I truly have sent messages out to some of you that I knew the closeness of you. And I truly, truly mean the condolences because it's made me sick to my stomach. It's the second female that I've known that has been shot by their husband. One was a friend of mine a couple

078of months ago, and it's just horrible. And we need to stand up for each other, speak out for each other and everybody. And I don't just mean women on women, I mean everybody as a human. So that's part of my speech today. I just wanted to make sure you all know that I'm deeply sorry for your friend's loss. I want to puddle jump into business. We know that it's coming up in a couple of weeks for the referendum. We are very serious and committed Broward Teachers Union of knowing that there's a lot of things that need to come into play, but we're asking you to support the 100% and listen very carefully. When I'm trying to have conversations with you. We're not negotiating. This is not that's not negotiating. This is talking about the spread.

079We know it's 75, 25 now with the 25 piece goes to mental health and safety and security. We are nowhere in shape, form, saying lessen or take away safety and security or mental health. What we're saying is that with this component of 100% going to help with compensation for the largest group in Broward County public schools, which all of your educators and their support staff, which is well close to 20,000 people that will open up your budget to give what needs to be given and set without any problems for safety and security and mental health. So I'm asking you how strong conversations with the staff that be that can help you get that guidance toward that, that piece. Wouldn't it be great to show the community in your budget solid look at what we have

080budgeted for mental health, look at what we have budgeted for safety and security, and that we know that the the community loves and supports educators, that the referendum dollars will be earmarked to move compensation for first year teachers coming in. And we can get great quality from the College of Education around the country to come into Broward County public schools. These are things that we're asking you to listen and have fruitful conversations. We're also asking you to we're going we're going negotiations tomorrow to talk about insurance. I'm taking it very seriously. I'm having extreme conversations with our insurance experts and our attorneys and so forth of where we want to be part of the solution and Broward County Public Schools. But I have to ask you guys again, to somebody up there today, talk about

081giving back medicine. It is not about a particular health concern. It's about multiple health concerns of bringing back the medicine of glp one for multiple reasons. It helps people get off a lot of other medicines, and it helps them fight other addictions, and it helps them be happy. And when you're happy, you're able to perform, you're showing up more to work. I keep hearing that we have some possibly educator absence situations. We people are going to be absent if they need to be taken care of themselves, because nobody wants to stand in front of their students and be unhappy or hurt or sick. So there's multiple reasons why. There's also another avenue that you guys could have been bringing in $78 million. It's the school bus stop arm camera program that is sitting, I hear,

082on attorneys desks. Superintendent had said it. We've got our new hired attorney for Broward County Public Schools. Let's move that contract and start bringing in 26 to $30 million to the Broward County Public Schools. Obviously, with somebody who donates $1.1 million to get a lengthy, lengthy time to speak, you've got an organization that has proposed money and also a safety concern with people that are driving out there that with the arms that go down, they want to bypass it. It is a very lucrative possibility of saving lives and bringing money to the Broward County Public schools. So there are multiple ways that we have brought solutions. And I want you to strongly look at the office of Academics and bring in academics back into the schools. We can't keep having principals begging to have programs

083in their in their schools. $1.1 million is coming. It should be talked to in the schools with the principals. You guys all have your own schools. I think you should be having those rich conversations with Lisa Maxwell. On bringing academics back into the schools for individual students. That's what needs to happen. Thank you, bpa. Soapy Copa, pba. Okay. This is the time of the agenda where we have split the general public speakers to incorporate a morning session. Each registered speaker is reminded to present their agenda comments in accordance with policy 1020. And as a reminder, per our policy, we do not go back and forth with speakers. First, we have Trudy Germanovich. My name is Doctor Trudy Germanovich, and first of all, I'd like to point out I wear these shirts all the time and

084you might wonder what this little symbol is. Here. It says b a t and that stands for bad a teacher. I want you to know that everybody in this district that teaches is a, b, a t, and I want you to know that that's where we have to start focusing where we put our money, because that's the only thing that matters at this point, especially with the referendum. But I'm going to talk about some other things first, some good news. Sex education is alive and well and on the website for parents to peruse. Unfortunately, we are using the same program last year from Cholera Collier County. I urge every board member to look at the curriculum which is posted on the website. Look at it carefully. It does not reflect what this district used to

085provide, which was a comprehensive sex ed program. In fact, it is so similar to what I received in 1960 at Shortridge High School that the only difference was that we studied STDs and this program discusses ai des. We should start early in the next school year to find another district sex ed program, since we can't seem to get it together to develop our own. Which makes a more comprehensive approach to sex education for the good of our students. Next. I'm still concerned about how the referendum funding will be presented to the public. This is the most important thing we need to do in the next few months. We know that when the public doesn't know what the various people in the organization make, you can't estimate how anybody how much money anybody's going to get

086right now, no one should receive far more than the highest paid teacher receives from referendum money. One simple solution is that on that organizational chart you're going to present, let me see the salary of each of those people. We need to see that right there on each box. I feel strongly that the referendum dollars should only go to supplement salaries of school based educators and others who work directly with students in a school setting. This was the initial assumption for going to the local voters through the referendum just to fund a living wage many, many years ago. Now. This is how school districts around the state and in places like North Carolina and my home state of Indiana have provided salary enhancements since the implementation of charter schools and vouchers. We need to provide a

087monetary enhancement, which will shock everyone with its large monetary benefit. Thank you. We have Natalie Lynch. Walsh. Good morning, doctor Natalie Lynch, Walsh plantation, Florida. I'm not sure where the letters of the alphabet will fall today. So real quick, if I'm not here for p4p7, please pay attention to the media ban. It used to say you can't have a media entourage and now it says media period. So think about what that means and why. Anybody what do you have to hide at a school that you don't want the media there? If I'm not here for f2, I'm just going to put it this way. I'm waiting for a public records request so that I can recalculate where the projected fund balance assigned and unassigned is at year end. I can't do it without the details.

088I could maybe try to get an ai, but ai gets confused. So if I don't get it and I've been waiting, I'm just going to say that until your cfo produces that information, I believe your budget's being cooked. And if you want me to stop saying it, produce the numbers and let me recalculate. It's not like I don't have an accounting degree. It's not like I haven't passed the cpa exam. It's not like I haven't taught accounting. I need the numbers so that I can verify and then we can all move on on that topic. So next up, the last time that I proposed a solution to a superintendent, they took my idea. They took the word accountability off of it. And then they gave they created a chief strategy and innovation officer position, gave

089it to this annoying blond chick who then left for Vermont. All happened. So I am proposing publicly because if I don't, I fear somebody might steal this idea. I am proposing a Chief Governance and Accountability Officer for my next role to help the district. The board specifically with the function of control per state statute 1,001.32 and section four b of the state Constitution. District school boards shall operate, control and supervise all free public schools. So controlling is a management function. I know that because my Phd is in corporate and organizational management, it's a business related Phd. So controlling is one of the four core functions of management. It's rooted in the seminal work of Henri Fayol. The other functions are like planning, organizing, and leading, which is also called directing. The purpose of the controlling

090function is to evaluate an organization's performance, to assess and improve the effectiveness of the planning function, and involves four basic steps. And these are not happening. I am proposing something that you need. You MAY not want, and nobody but me can do this. If they could, it would be done. Step one establish performance standards. Step two monitor actual performance. Step three compare actual performance with established standards. And step four take corrective action where necessary. I will be setting requesting meetings with each of you to discuss the particulars of this. And I'll be starting with you, MADAM Chair, because you're the leader of the board. Thank you. Carlos Green. That's Carlos Green in the audience. All right. That concludes our morning session of public speakers. Could I get a motion and a second on f two?

091Second move by DR. Zeman seconded by MISS Hixon. Public comment on f22. Registered speakers, Doctor Natalie Lynch Walsh and Anna Fusco. Oh, good. Doctor, Natalie Lynch, Walsh plantation, Florida. Okay, so just to review, in my past life, granted, I never did public accounting because those of us who got a's and b's were aiming for either public accounting firms or private industry. So I come from private industry where I did financial reporting. So I've been trying, trying to get to these numbers that you guys have here for revenues. But the thing of interest is the unassigned balance assigned unassigned. And again, I will stop talking about your cfo cooking the budget. If she will just turn over my public records requests. You have a projected ending assigned unassigned balance of 3.08. By the way, Palm Beach

092is like 18% for us for a sign. Oh, yeah, it's high. Go. Look, I just saw something last night. I cannot follow the projected revenue. I cannot follow. Assign unassigned. You're the report format changed all of a sudden. I don't remember you guys saying, yeah, let's have it this way. But there used to be a little reconciliation a couple of months ago, the ending fund balance with the was either 144, 164 or 152. I don't know which one you guys except reports where the numbers don't the math doesn't math. And you guys accept these reports. I'm sitting here as a former accounting professional who taught accounting to people who sat on the audit committee for ten years, but I'm not allowed to ask the questions. And I can only feed you guys so many follow

093up questions to ask staff. It could be that she's not doing any snanigaga,ut I can't tell you that. C c't llysyself thahat, nor c can I tetell the pplple that keep asasking me what is the actual assign unassigned fund balance? The projected for the end of the year. We are now in APRIL, folks. At some point, your net position and your projections are going to be the same thing because you'll be at the end of the year. When I was the chair of the audit committee, we spent a year agonizing over how the accounting was being done for the charter school payments. And then there's, of course, the referendum carryover, the accounts payable accrual because of how they did it. It did not cause the fund balance to be below 3%. I believe that you

094went below 3%. You are below 3%. And there'll be some creative accounting at year end to keep you at 3.8, because you shouldn't be staying at 3.8 month to month. How are the numbers not changing? There's a whole bunch of interesting things happening with those spending hours every month, not expenditures, but spending hours is what they are around here. So please get your superintendent to direct his staff to comply with public records law so that I can come back here and tell you, yes, I reconciled and all is well. Thank you. Next public speaker. Anna Fusco, Broward Teachers union PRESIDENT. Anything that deals with budget, you know, you guys are working your magic to figure out what is it, a little over $5 billion in budget, and we're looking forward to the referendum that's going

095to be out for vote with $1.2 billion possibility of helping with salaries. So take all that into consideration. The powers that be that are your superintendents most confident people that he has tasked to get this done with our cfo? I'm going to say that work in the budget, lots of things that need to happen in our schools, because the number one piece and component in our Broward County public schools are our schools and our students and the resources. And to continue to hear these past couple months, that money's been clawed back from our schools. And now principals have to come in and ask a certain way or type of permission to have a program. When you say you guys want to have the most thriving schools in the state, if you're going to claw back

096money, you're going to claw back programs, and a principal has to come and ask. And then are they really allowed to ask? And who are they asking their deputy superintendents that are so helpful to them? I mean, every school should be thriving to its fullest with all of the upper management that we have traveling around Broward County public schools, that's something you should look in your budget about what is really happening there. We still have over class size that's happening. And then I'm going to puddle jump back to the bus arm project. We have two attorneys sitting on the board. Maybe you can ask to look at the contract that's been sitting there for over two years, and I'm being told we're waiting on a new attorney to get hired. We have one sitting here.

097I have no vested interest with that company at all. All I know is that it could have brought in $78 million to this district in the last three years. And it's been sitting and people have been feeding you a bunch of bs of why it was sitting. It's thriving in a certain counties that have it. It's a no brainer. You arm the busses with cameras, people run through the arm, money gets generated into the school district and what else does it do? It helps with safety. I don't know who's all out on the road at 4:00, 430 in the morning, I am I see kids starting their day on those e-bikes. I see busses out there and I see cars that are reckless. This would be a great safety measure to help with our budget.

098So anybody that wants to jump up, nine board members ask where we can bring in more revenue. That concludes our public speakers. Thank you. Board member comment I have DR. Zeman. Before before I go to you DR. Zeman. I just want to make a statement under the advisement of our General Counsel, that we will be more stringent with our enforcement of policy. 1020 specifically as it relates to defamatory remarks or personal insults against individuals, as that is not permitted to policy. 1020 and that is not directed to any speaker in general. That is just a statement that I wanted to make under the advisement of our General Counsel. Thank you. DR. Zeman imagine that will. Apply to all speakers. Chair, thank you for doing that. We're on item f2, the monthly budget amendment, and there's

099some things in here that are really worth thinking about as we get a lot of information as we move toward budget season. Of course, between now and the end of the year, we'll be spending a lot of time thinking through the budget. This is those one out of every four years where we have referendum funds to think about, both in terms of ballot language and and the policy that we adopt on the allocation of those funds. But this report does something that's really notable, which is it points out that we have collected 82% of the revenue this year. We're two thirds of the way through the year. We've already collected 82% and we've only spent 70. So I just want to kind of compliment the superintendent and our chief financial officer and all of our

100department heads for keeping an eye on the prize. This does project that we'll end the year above the 3% minimum, which is terrific, I appreciate that. There are urban districts, and I went and looked at the top ten who are going through identical problems as Broward. This is not new here. A tremendous amount of pressure on getting the infrastructure right, tremendous pressure, you know, on dealing with declining enrollment. And Broward County is at least focused laser like on how we're going to allocate these funds in order to, to, to achieve our strategic goals. And I want to compliment the superintendent and staff for doing that. I also want to ask a few questions. There are departments in this report, MR. Superintendent, that are exceeding the. We're two thirds of the way through the year. Some

101of them are over 90% of their budget already expended. Throughout the year. This board has talked to you numerous times about, you know, correcting the mistakes of the past, you know, which included pretty heroic overspending by department. Are we are we tracking? I mean, we've talked about this, but I always have to bring it up again, because here's a report that says two thirds of the way through the year, we spent 90% of the money in it and 90% of the money in, in maintenance of our of our physical structure. Are we at any risk, MR. Superintendent, of of spending $1 more than is budgeted by department in Broward county public schools this year. Not at this time. There's a lot of tighter controls and many things MAY have been encumbered for the rest of

102the year. As we're closing out the books on APRIL 15th. So the team and budget can do all their reconciliation and all of those other tasks. So you MAY see some some expenditures based on things that have been encumbered for the rest of the year. As we close out our books this month. If in fact, you run into situations where there is going to be a department that spends more than they were budgeted, how quickly can you report that to the board? We can report that fairly quickly after we do our discovery and see what if that is the case, the reasons why and what was the oversight that caused that dynamite? And just to connect a couple dots, it's really hard to go to the public in NOVEMBER and ask for their trust in

103a major referendum that we fundamentally need in this county to, to keep making great progress. If we can't prove to the community that we know how to manage the money we already get from federal, state and local sources. So my view is overspending by $1 is $1 too many. And we'll see what the board thinks about that as a group. But I'm very concerned about making sure that every step that we make is not another self-inflicted wound, and that we continue to do great things like collect 82% of the money and only spend 70 across the board, across all of these budget reports. There is a very healthy management of funds going on in Broward County public schools, and that's demonstrated by our continued projection to exceed 3.3. The minimum on on fund balance. And

104by the way, the Palm Beach County Fund balance numbers you MAY have heard are not accurate. Palm Beach County is in the end of a Doha hearing. They decided, I think, Monday of this week, not to pay 3.5% because they don't have the money. That's correct. And they're arguing very persuasively. They don't have the fund balance to do it. They have the same kind of enrollment declines, the same pressure to actually close schools, which is shocking. In Palm Beach County, we were always used to Palm Beach County being the fund balance of 9%. And we were kind of, you know, trying to stay between three, three or higher. But that gravy train in Palm Beach County has ended, and they do not have the funds to, to pay traditional wages that they would like to.

105So thank you, MR. Superintendent, for keeping an eye on these department budgets. We want to make sure that the news that we report every month to the school board is positive news, that it's about about excellent management of other people's money. And so that's exciting. One other just kind of minor point, but in reconciliation, we made $6 million this year. So some great news. You never know in reconciliation whether you're going to add a little bit or take a little out. We added $6 million. So there is no clear signs of fiscal health in Broward County and great signs about fiscal management. And so I just want to appreciate and express that appreciation to you, MR. Superintendent, and to your staff. Thank you very much. Thank you, MR. Cervera. Thank you, chair. I just want

106to talk about some of the comments that that I heard. I'm not going to do too much of a deep dive into the substance of the report, but I'm very concerned when I hear people come to these meetings or reach out to us via email, or stopping us in the supermarket to hear delays with public records requests. I don't think it's any secret what my position is about transparency for everyone in this district, especially the nine of us who sit up here, as well as the superintendent. We owe it to the public. We owe it to our constituents to be as transparent as possible. And that's in all facets, in all areas of what we do for Broward County Public Schools. But perhaps most importantly, with issues dealing with budgets and finances, because one of

107the great responsibilities we have, obviously, in addition to educating our students and keeping them safe, is to properly manage the tax dollars that are entrusted to us by every tax paying citizen in Broward County. And when I hear things from speakers about making public records requests to get information in regards to budgets and not being given that information in a timely manner, I get a little upset. Information like this needs to be disseminated as quickly as possible when these requests come in, so we can make sure that we maintain the trust of the public so they can see what we are doing. We have to be 100% transparent on all aspects of this budget. I don't want to ever be in a position where people think that we're hiding the ball, or that we're trying

108to get cute with numbers, and if the only way to deflect that is by giving them all of the information that we have access to as a district and as a board, then so be it. MR. Superintendent, when it comes to public records requests on anything dealing with budgetary items, what is our standard turnaround time to make sure that people are getting the requested information. I'll transfer the question over to MR. Sullivan, but and also, MR. Sullivan, if you can be very specific about creating records, which we don't do, public records are things that we already have. Go ahead. Sure. So we try to get it within a reasonable time. So reasonable time for us would be between 7 and 14 days. But like the superintendent said, a lot of our public records requests aren't

109actually records. If we have to create the record, that is not a public record. I appreciate that, MR. Sullivan, and certainly I'm not suggesting that you make more work for yourself. I'm just very concerned when I hear people come to this chamber and make comments like we heard from one of the speakers earlier that they make public records requests in regards to the budget, and they're just not getting the information that they need. As a follow up, MR. Sullivan, in the in the event that a request is made by a member of the public in which it actually requires us to create a record, which I understand under the statute, we're not specifically mandated to do that, as opposed to just turning something over. How does that information get relayed to the individual public, member

110of the public who made the request? We email them that there's no record. It's non-responsive. You just tell them that there's no record. Correct. Okay. And is there any guidance that's provided to this particular or any member of the public when it turns out that they were asking for maybe a record that doesn't exist, do we explain to them perhaps other areas or other records that we can give to them, or do we just tell them we don't have this that's non-responsive? Too bad. So sad. We stick specifically to the requests. We don't add to it. Edit it. If the record doesn't exist, that's requested. That's how we respond. Okay. And MR. Superintendent, I understand that obviously, it's probably not my role to direct how certain departments handle certain things, but I do think we

111need to make sure any public records request that comes into that deals with anything dealing with this budget. We need to make sure we are getting a timely response out to members of the public. We are not playing games or we are not doing anything that makes it look like we're trying to hide the ball, because we know the financial difficulties that we face in this district. And whenever we are preventing the free flow of information out to the public, that's how rumors start. That's how innuendo starts. And certainly I want every single member of the taxpaying constituency in Broward County to know that they are entitled to every single record that we have under our records law. When it comes to member issues with this budget. If I MAY, I also want to jump

112onto another topic that was brought up by an additional speaker that we had. I've had this conversation or I've made comments on this in the past. This school bus camera program with the arms on the school bus, and for people who are trying to go around it illegally is very lucrative. My understanding for our, our, our sister in counties, I don't have the stats committed to memory, but last I recall, this is generated from Miami-Dade County, millions of dollars. And I understand that they've they've hit a snag in one of the facets of the program. And it MAY be on pause. I'm not sure if if Sheriff Cordero has implemented that program, but I know that it was very lucrative for the county down, down south. And I am a little frustrated to hear that

113we as a district are potentially losing out on millions of dollars in revenue, not to mention the safety facet of this, because a contract is, quote unquote, sitting on somebody's desk. So perhaps to our our, our general counsel, what is the status of this? How long has it been sitting on somebody's desk? And what are we doing to get through this? To either make a decision as to whether or not we're going to utilize this program or not? I'll jump in for general counsel, because I know the status of this issue right now. It's not sitting on the general counsel's desk. It is. This isn't just a Broward County public Schools strategy or implementation. It takes other entities, law enforcement entities, and the particular law enforcement entity that has jurisdiction to initiate this program across

114the county is choosing not to. So we have to look at other strategies that we possibly can implement, but we are very, very limited in our ability to do so. In addition, I do want to give kudos to the general counsel's team, specifically MISS Jack Adams. She she did do a yeoman's job to make sure that she's gone through every sentence in that contract to ensure that as a district, we avoid the same issues that other counties across the country have encountered that have caused many of them to either suspend their program or have a lot of issues with the constituents in their county. And so kudos to them for doing that. But it's it's not sitting on the general counsel's desk. We have to exercise other options if we can, but we're very limited

115as a school district and what we can do, because we just don't have jurisdiction across the whole entire county. Let me let me let me ask some follow ups, MR. Superintendent, if I can. Is it the school? Is it the is it this district's position that the reason that we can't get this contract off the ground because certain law enforcement agencies are not willing to cooperate with us? I wouldn't say cooperate. And. MR. Bruno, I know this is still code of silence, so I don't know what I can and can discuss. Just if you can provide some guidance on that part before I. Continue, let's not talk about the specifics, but I can share with you what the statute requires, why we need to have law enforcement, because they're the ones who have to make

116the decision as to the violation itself. So there's a whole process that's outlined in the statute, and we have to have law enforcement as a really they're one of the main people who are involved in determining whether these violations have occurred. So I believe that is what the sticking point is. Without going into the specifics. Okay. Well that's correct. I'm going to dance a little delicately here because I'm not I'm not okay with that answer. Are there certain departments who have not signed off on this program that have schools within their jurisdiction? Go ahead, MR. Sullivan. Just cut me off when I'm crossing the line. So generally speaking, it's citatatn. So it woulul have to b b a jurisdictioio that has the j jisdidictio of ththe whee c cntnty. Okay. So is that one law

117enforcement agency that has jurisdiction over the whole county? Not on board with our proposal yet and. MR. MR. Bruno, if I'm stepping over a line, please let me know. Let me let me give you an example. The Lee County Sheriff's Office has entered into an agreement with the school board and with bus patrol to be able to monitor the citations to the utc's, the notice of violations. And there's a whole process that is outlined without having the law enforcement agency responsible. They we would not be able to move forward with that. So you need to have that law enforcement agency. It is part of the statutory requirements. Understood. And this particular law enforcement agency has not yet approved our proposed contract. Is that where we're at? But can I answer? Yeah. So they have chosen

118not to participate. And I do want to say that this particular law enforcement agency has been great partners with Broward County Public Schools. But maybe their priorities are, you know, for for something else right now, because it does take a lot of manpower to review videos of thousands upon thousands upon citations that could possibly happen. So but they're choosing not to participate at this time. Okay. Well, first of all, I appreciate the clarification. And I will caveat by saying I love all of our law enforcement agencies in every city and municipality in Broward County. I think all of them do a great job. And if that's their decision not to participate, I certainly respect it. I don't know that that would have been my first choice for them to take that position. But certainly they

119know law enforcement a lot better than me. My second question on this is, is this doa? Then if we don't have that particular law enforcement agency's desire to participate, is it even possible to do this program? So there there is a dim glimmer of hope that we're exercising, that we're exploring where the school districts, police department MAY be able to implement this program. But it's a very we're researching that based on the current legislation and the law enforcement entity at. Question would have to come to an agreement with us for our capabilities to do that. But we're researching that to see if we have the capabilities of doing that in partnership or with an agreement from from law enforcement entity to be able to do it. Okay. Do we do we know just for the

120benefit of the public, a proposed ballpark timeline about how long it's going to take us to figure out whether that our internal Broward County Public Schools Police Department can take lead on this with the other agencies, perhaps blessing? Do we have a timeline on this? Is this is something that we could maybe figure out by the summer time, or maybe by the end of the year? No specific timeline, but we're we're hopeful we can figure something out by this summer. Okay. Yeah. Either or we come back to the board and let let you know why we can't or how we can. But if we can, there's going to be additional negotiations with the company because there's a lot of expenses to in manpower to be able to do this. Okay. Thank you for that, that

121information. MISS Thompson. Thank you chair, I'll make my comments quick. Do our public records process, follow all state statutes? Yes, yes. Have we tried to implement any changes to the public record process to make it quicker or more efficient? Yes. We've implemented a few changes, reporting structures and things like that that actually come to cabinet to ensure that we understand what the request is and to be able to facilitate getting the information to the requester if it is a record. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that narrative that we do comply with all public records requests, and we do not make up records if they are not available. And I appreciate staff. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you. I, I want to thank MR. Cervera for asking all those questions. I think it's been

122a year that I've been asking the superintendent about this particular contract. I do also want to thank MISS Jack Adams, because she's fielded a lot of my questions about it, and I think it's important for the public to know where we stand with that, because there is a perception that it's just sitting on someone's desk. But we have been actively trying to figure out how to maneuver through and make sure that we're covered in the process. It is a great program. I look forward to when we have it, but I think it's important for the public to know that we we hit some barriers and we're doing our best to move through them. But it's not for lack of trying. So I was going to ask all the questions he asked. So I appreciate the

123information. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff. Thank you. So along those lines, I would request if Doctor Hepburn, if you can go back to the law enforcement agency, maybe there can be some collaboration with our law enforcement staff working at that law enforcement agency to To do the work that needs to be done. Therefore, there isn't. A requirement for. That law enforcement agency to fund those staff members. If we're providing the staff members to do the work, then maybe there can be a collaboration to move this forward. Thank you. Any other board member discussion? I just have a quick comment. I would say, you know, I'm all for collaboration. I do my desire as one person is that our law enforcement are in our schools doing safety work in our schools. Not doing paperwork. So I'm not

124saying that that's what anyone was requesting. I just, you know, I do support the the ask of the superintendent to see what we can do collaboratively, but I would not support something that takes our law enforcement out of our schools. Any other DR. Zeman? Yeah. This is complicated because there's this board has not even ever opined as whether we would be in favor of the overall program. That's number one. Number two, the amount of revenue to be collected is substantial. If it was a handful of law enforcement people we had to hire in order to collect these revenues. It's it's 20 or 30 times the cost of five law enforcement officers. So if in fact, to the chair's point, this isn't taking from current inventory, but adding inventory of law enforcement officers, in order to

125do this role, we might even hire people who have some experience in this. It would be working. It would be worth exploring. I personally am in favor of this program. And MR. Superintendent, if you come back to us ever with an idea, you know, might take 4 to 6 months to to staff up and to do the critical law enforcement work that's required, you know, the revenue that comes from this is substantial. More important to me, the safety in our county. I do walk to the school bus every morning still for probably a few more weeks before I'm told I'm not allowed to go anymore. But. It's alarming how many people fly by the bus while it's sitting there. It's almost once a day. And you know, we need to make sure that our kids

126are safe in this program does enhance safety quite a bit. It could be that we run it for a year and the tickets go down to a dribble. We just you know, that's been the experience in some other districts. But that would actually be a great outcome, which means cars aren't passing our kids getting on a bus. And if we have to, you know, collect some money and they have to pay a fine in order to get that message. That's kind of the general nature of the way we enforce things in Broward County. Things that get enforced get done. So I look forward to hearing back, MR. Superintendent, if there's a way to to add staff to take care of that burden on the law enforcement side, the difference between five full time law enforcement

127salaries and what here could be, you know, 20 to $30 million first year revenue is pretty substantial. And the safety impact that they've had in other districts with with this or other vendors is pretty substantial. And I love that that effect at the end of the day. Thanks, chair. Any other board discussion on f2? All in favor of f2 say aye. All opposed? Say no item passes unanimously. Could I get a motion a second on j1 moved by DR. Zeman, second by MISS Bulman public comment on j1. One prejudice speakers. PRESIDENT Anna Fusco. j1 utility easement agreement and bill of sale, Sawgrass Elementary. She withdrew herself from it. Okay. Board member comment MISS Hixon. Thank you. I had asked a question because I'm not. Used to seeing that there's a bill of sale for an

128easement. So I did get the response this morning. I just since I pulled it, I'll read it out loud so everybody can hear the answer. The city requires a bill of sale to document that the work has been completed, so it can maintain the utility lines within the easement. A memorandum of understanding or. I asked what the difference was between this and the mou that we traditionally do for easements, but. So the m I u m o u, by contrast, is. Contrast is used to show intent in a sign before the work is performed, the $10 amount, because the bill of sale is for $10, is simply a nominal legal requirement to make the document valid. So that was the question I had, but I didn't receive the response until this morning. So thank you

129very much. Any other board discussion? All in favor of j1? Say I all opposed say no item passes unanimously. Could I get a motion and a second on. Oh, wait. Hold on. Sorry. This will be the part of the meeting where we will consider all the open agenda items. The following open items have been identified for discussion. Ff1jj1mm1mm200100300600 ten oh oh 11 oh oh 12 oh oh 13. Double p three and double p seven at this time. MAY the chair have a motion and a second to pass the open items that have not been pulled for discussion, which are gg1j, j234 and five m m3 and m4 000245789. Double p12456 and eight. Move by DR. Zeman, second by MISS Hixon. Are there any registered speakers on the items not pulled for discussion? No, no registered

130speakers. All in favor of approving the open agenda items that have not been pulled for discussion say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. Items passed unanimously. MAY I have a motion and a second on item f one. So move. Move by DR. Zeman. Second by MISS Hixon. MISS Rupert public comment on ff1. No comment. Board member discussion. MISS Hixon. Thank you. As I like to do every month, just thank the grants department. There were just three grants this this month. The first one is from Florida Department of Education for cte for $406,000. So that's really exciting for the workforce. As we hear that often, that we need to increase and do more with the workforce. The second two are going directly to schools, millennium six through 12 in Central Park. And both of those grants

131are going for something towards hydroponics or gardening. And that always makes me smile, because it's such a great way for our students to learn science and math and, and things of that nature when they're growing their own food and gardens and, and learning about all of that. So thank you to everyone who wrote the grants and thank you to the partners who awarded them. MISS Rupert. Thank you. I also wanted to highlight that atc is receiving a Florida Department of Education of almost a half $1 million, 406,000, and money from this grant will be used to renovate the lab space at atc ash campus to accommodate on Hvac lab. This will include upgrading electrical, plumbing, adding a bay door, creating a tool room, and fencing to create an outdoor space. Additionally, a cap grant will

132also be used to purchase new Hvac equipment, tools, instructional technology, and computers. This is much needed and also will benefit the district and the community as a whole, because we will have more people in those those fields where we desperately need people right now. So thank you. Thank you. Any other board discussion? All in favor of f one, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no item passes unanimously. I will now turn it over to the superintendent for his report. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in parent University, where I joined several advisory committee members to discuss our budget realities driven by declining student enrollment. During the session, we engage directly with parents and community members, answering questions and providing greater insight into the challenges we are facing currently and

133in the near future. This is part of our ongoing commitment to transparency and ensuring our community is well informed. We've also launched a dedicated website where stakeholders can learn more at Broward schools.Com. Forward slash future ready? Here's a video we plan to share on the website. I think the video is already on the website, which is available to us right now. Beacon can actually roll the tape. Broward County public schools exist for one reason to serve our students and our community. Every day, nearly 200,000 students walk into our classrooms with hopes for their future. And because of the dedication of our teachers, staff and school leaders, our district is delivering. Broward County Public Schools is an a-rated district. For the second year in a row, graduation rates are at record highs and student achievement continues

134to improve across our schools. [Music] That progress is real and it matters. At the same time, it's my responsibility to talk about the challenges we face. Over the past decade, our district has experienced significant decline in student enrollment, a loss of more than 38,000 students because public school funding is primarily driven by enrollment, fewer students means fewer dollars, even as the cost of operating a district this size have continued to rise. Today, Broward County Public Schools faces an $80 million budget shortfall. We are taking action through Broward County Public Schools Future Ready, a strategic realignment designed to stabilize our finances while protecting classrooms wherever possible. These changes will happen primarily at the district level, not in schools. Positions for school based employees and frontline personnel are tied to current and projected enrollment and are not

135the focus of this effort. Our goal is to preserve high quality instruction, support frontline employees and bring our operations back in alignment with today's reality while positioning our district for long term success. These decisions are difficult. They affect real people who care deeply about this district and the students we serve. Throughout this process, we are committed to transparency, accountability, and responsible stewardship of public resources. Future ready is about more than balancing a budget. It's about ensuring Broward County Public Schools remains strong, stable and focused on what matters most student success today and in the years ahead. Thank you for your trust, your partnership, and your continued support of our public schools. It's also been a busy and productive month at bcc beacon. If you can roll the next video. [Music] Thank you, MADAM Chair. That

136concludes my report. Thank you. Could I get a motion and a second on jj one? So moved. Moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MISS Rupert public comment on jj one. No speakers. DR. Zeman. Thank you so much chair. I asked to talk about this just a little bit today. This project at Virginia Schulman Young is according to this item, if we pass it today, is going to be delivered 3.6 years behind schedule with an expected substantial completion in JANUARY of 2027. I'm curious about two things that the public is reasonably frustrated about, which is this change order was initiated in 2022, and last I checked, this is APRIL of 2026, and we're now getting an item to correct this. That's a long time to wait between a contractor raising their hands and saying, there's an

137issue with this ductwork. Can we get it together? Chair, are you aware of any explanation of why this took so long to get to the board? Doctor Hepburn. Yes, we can have that explanation given to you right now, if you don't mind. I see MR. Mike McIntyre back there. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mike Mac, Michael McIntyre, ecom through the chair. I don't have the background on when this change order started. Originally, the documentation I have, it was supposed to come to the board in SEPTEMBER of 25, but we couldn't come to an agreement with the contractor because they refused to give a credit back for the original pricing of the work. We were able finally to get that resolved. The pricing for the work went down and we were able to get the full credit

138back, and that's why it's here now. It will not be completed until JANUARY due to the the availability of the space. We can only do it either during summer or winter break. The original goal was this past winter break, so now it would be this summer where we could do the work because we there's no swing space, so we can't move students around and we would have to actually close the school to do the work. So that's why it's out till JANUARY. There is a mistake in the document. The final completion is not JUNE, as the document says, the contract is a 30 day from substantial to final. So that is that is something that was missed in the write up. So it would be a final completion in FEBRUARY per contract. Terrific. And chair,

139are you aware of when substantial completion will be achieved through this after we pass this, if we pass this order today. Doctor Hepburn. MR. McIntyre. As of now, it's showing JANUARY of 27 to to achieve substantial completion, which would be all work complete, all inspections complete, everything finalized. And we would achieve the 110. Thank you. I appreciate that, chair. Do you know if Virginia Schulman young is has students on campus this summer? Doctor Hepburn? Doctor Dr Fulton. So it's not a district summer school site, but please know that some schools offer camps by the local cities. So I don't have that information to see whether camp is being operated out of that school. Right. But, you know, just kind of spitballing this a little bit from a guy that's not in this in this fight,

140but there is no time between AUGUST 10th and Christmas where there's two weeks, you know, to do this work. And so I'm hoping that they're aiming to get it done this summer. Is that the case, chair doctor? Yes, that's the case. Terrific. I always hoping that we figure out ways for the longest delayed projects to get kind of the highest priority. It's really, really difficult. And, and what's frustrating to this board, and I'm going to speak for everyone because we get these calls all the time is there's no one left to hold accountable for the decisions from 3.6 years ago when this change order started. And because of that, you know, we're going to be way beyond and way at much greater cost for what we promised the community. This is not a big project,

141but I am hoping, chair, that that the prioritization can be to get rid of some of these embarrassingly long projects off the books so that we can, you know, remind the community how much we care about our students and how much we really want to get these things done. Thanks, chair. Thank you. Any other board member comment? All in favor of jj one say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no item passes unanimously. Can I get a motion and a second on mm1. So moved. Moved by DR. Zeman, second by MISS Hixon. Public comment on mm1. No comment. Board member comment. MISS Thompson. Thank you chair. I know we had a conversation as a board about graduations and we and moving them onto our campuses. And then with community pushback that that plan changed. I do

142want to highlight the fact that today in this board meeting, we are going to be approving over $232,000 in leases with the next set of graduations being over $500,000. I would like to know the superintendent's plan to engage the community in providing opportunities to move graduations to venues that are both cost effective and supports the prestige of the event. Yes. Thank you for the question, MISS Thompson. So first, we're going to engage with some elected officials that MAY provide a pathway for us to use some of the larger venues in the county. So we have all the data of, you know, past and current graduation classes, the amount of space we would need for graduates and also attendees. So we're going to start with elected officials first, and then also some of the private sector

143people, specifically Seminole Tribe for for hard rock. Once we exhaust all those avenues and figure out what they're able to support, support us with, we can bring back that information to the board in a memo and then exercise the other options if it's still unaffordable. So we're looking for affordability. And, you know, the the great, the greatest amount of time for the largest amount of spaces. So we can actually do more graduations in 1 or 2 venues versus being all over the county. Thank you. And I. Appreciate that I do. After talking with my community and students, I think the issue of how we rolled it out previously was the lack of notice and community buy in, but giving them an opportunity of choice between venues that are affordable. I would also like to point

144out that all of our top 10% in our Cambridge celebrations and our sporting event celebrations are all typically held on our campuses. And I was recently at Dillard for something that I don't remember, but our student advisors got awards, student leaders, and it was beautifully executed, and I don't think any family walked away thinking anything negative about that space. And I also think there is an opportunity to bring this home and district, and I would like to explore that to to exhaustion. Thank you. Thank you. DR. Zeman thank you so much, chair. I actually just wanted to praise the city of Lauderdale Lakes. It's wonderful to to have a municipality that works so clearly on behalf of public education, district run public education and provides discounts when we ask them to. And so I just

145want to point out to to mayor and city manager in particular. Thank you for for leaning in with us and to your staff, MR. Superintendent, for asking for those discounts and and negotiating with Lauderdale Lakes. This is a $4,000 per event. I apologize. What did I say? Well, there's so many Lauder cities. It's hard, you know. Gosh darn it, Debbie, I don't know how you keep up with all these things. Lauderhill. I apologize for for them leaning in on this because this is really great to have a partnership like this, $4,000 per graduation, you know, given the prestige of this event and how excited the parents and the kids are for this stuff is really a drop in the bucket compared to what impact it has on the community. So thank you very much. Thank

146you, MRS. Alhadeff. Yes. Thank you. I just was wondering, Doctor Hepburn, if Doctor Hepburn, if you could give an update, as with the supplemental graduation sponsor book for this year's graduation to bring back money. Yes, absolutely. So Doctor Wanza and her team are in discussion with bff to talk about graduation book and also graduation kind of sponsor banners, which would be district so separate from the high school's graduation pamphlet. So it won't interfere with their traditions or they're used to in their communities, but having a separate book. So she's in discussion with with bff to see if we can have that come to fruition and see how we can maximize that to help support future graduations. This year's graduation. I don't know if it's going to happen for for because it's right around the corner.

147So, but definitely future graduation. But we're trying we're trying for for this year too. But I know definitely for next year. So they're in discussions and bff has the connections and, and you know, they've implemented certain, certain things similar with past events that they do. So we'll see what we can come to fruition to support for this year and definitely next year too. Okay. Because I, I know this has been a huge conversation. We're trying to offset the costs. So whatever we can do, this year's graduation, I think will be extremely helpful. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff, for asking about that. And I think it's important in that conversation because I've had a number of conversations with the superintendent about it. I think some of the issue is because the

148district covers the cost of graduation, making sure people understand if they're going to do an ad that it's not going the money's not going to go to like Cooper City or Western, it comes back to the district. So it was important to keep it separate, if that makes sense. Because, you know, if you have it on a flier, they think they're giving money to Cooper City High School. But Cooper City High School is not funding the cost for graduation. So I think part of the the issue is being able to to shake all of that out for people to understand that it's not going to their school, it's for the whole district. In terms of the conversations that we've had, but which was why they were going to just do like banners to say thank

149you for our sponsors and put that up. But if I'm not mistaken, some of the venues had some concerns with doing things like that. So it hasn't been as easy as just going out and asking for sponsorships. According to the conversations we've had. All right. And I wanted to jump in because MISS Thompson raised some interesting points, and it reminded me of a conversation that I had with our cfo. I think it was last week. She's not at the table, but I do. I wonder if anyone else on staff can clarify. Is our food and nutrition department currently operating at a deficit? No, unless you're talking about the collection of. That's what I'm talking about. Yes, yes, yes. That part. Yes. Doctor Wanza, could you speak to that? Yeah. So thank you. Good morning. I

150want to make sure. So you're talking about the student charges, right, that that piece. Yes. And I believe the the last memo that we provided to the board did indicate that it's somewhere in the Food and Nutrition services staff is out here for another item, but it's somewhere around 4 to $500,000, I believe was the number of student charges. I'll have to look at the exact memo, but that is the the charges that students, you know are eating but they cannot afford have not paid for the price of a lunch. Okay. And I recall in a previous workshop, it was requested of the board to fund that. And we chose not to. Correct. So what I believe was the board did allow for a certain amount to be allocated for each school, and I think

151it MAY have been like $150,000. I have to look to see what the exact number was, but it was a certain amount that that the board did a lot did approve. And outside of that, the rest of that debt has been allocated to student obligations. And that that that several hundred thousand that we or 150,000 that we approved that's been eaten up now, correct? Yes. Okay. All right. Any other board member discussion? MRS. Alhadeff? Sorry, I just need to circle back to my graduation book, our graduation book, because I feel like I'm being pacified. And I don't like that I. This conversation isn't just something that is happening today. This has been months has we have talked about this and and making this happen for this year's graduation. We are trying drastically to get money

152back to our district. This is low hanging fruit. This is about creating a separate pamphlet to market these companies where we give millions and millions and millions of dollars back to these companies that we approve on our agendas, and so they can give back to us and sponsor this district wide. It does not have to necessarily it's not connected directly with each specific school, every high school, all 32 high schools within this district will get this sponsorship book. It will be the same sponsorship book with the companies for all 32 high schools. We have the opportunity to bring back money to Broward County Public Schools. I think this is such low hanging fruit. We do this for the smallest programs in our district, and this is graduations and companies have the opportunity to market district

153wide for the sixth largest school district in this country. And we are not taking available of this opportunity. DR. Zeman. Yeah, thank you. I agree with MISS Alhadeff general comments. You know, we need, you know, to pay for Broward Center for Performing Arts, for example, we would need 25 sponsors to pay $10,000. That's that's a lift. But it isn't the heaviest lift. We just had a donor walk in today with $1.2 million for or 1.1. Sorry, I don't want to exaggerate. You know, for a really, really wonderful program that's going to pay off. But I would encourage either somebody here to make such a motion that we make it, you know, a real effort to try and do it by the end of the year, because I think it's doable. I think it's entirely feasible

154to pay for graduations with sports, largely because it's such an amazing event, which is why we don't want to do it sometimes in in venues that don't kind of comport with that excitement. So. Let me just ask if you could chair, what's the chance that we could engage our staff in Broward Education Foundation to raise the cost of Broward Center for Performing Arts, just the $250,000, the biggest actually, that's not the biggest cost, is it? The biggest cost is Seminole Hard Rock, right? How about this chair? What is the total cost of graduations for Broward County School Board. Doctor Hepburn? So the collectively it's just it's around 800,000 just north, just south of that maybe. And I got to look specifically the largest contract is Nova Southeastern because we have the largest number of ceremonies

155there. I think we have 17 there. And that contract, as well as the contract from hard Rock will come to the next meeting. But the largest is Nova Southeastern because they're there at 24 that are about 24,000 a ceremony. And if I'm correct, that's one of the venues that has the 8 A.M. In the morning graduation, right. So we can get them all squeezed in. Is it Nova one of the 8 A.M. Schools? I think so, but yes, it would be interesting. 800,000 is a lot harder to raise than $250,000. I just feel like this is a real tremendous opportunity because of the excitement around it. I don't think that it would diminish the excitement of the of the event to have sponsors. But I do think it would be nice to get some off

156site when we can in the future. I'm going to pause on that issue for a minute, chair, if I could, because my information about faz is a little bit different than what has been shared here. You asked whether or not faz is operating at a deficit. When they came to a six months ago, they explained that they charged less than they get reimbursed and what the total cost of meals are every day. Now that our chief Financial officer is back, I wonder if we can get clarification on whether faz is operating at a at a at a a same year revenue deficit? Are they are they taking in less money than they are earning? Doctor Hepburn. MISS Johnson. Currently. Based on their projections, they operating in the green, which is not a deficit. But overall

157we only report monthly. They don't do the projection out. So that's going to have to come from the food service department. I'm sorry chair we have them coming in later today. They're here. They're here now. They're gathering them. Yes. I love the new category that we don't have red and black anymore. We have green. They're updating the green. I think that means we're making money. Right? Good. Hello. I don't know if I can help you out at all, but. Mark Mills, Food and Nutrition Services, we are operating at a loss for the last four years and we continue to do so this year. This is our transition year from Sep onto the back to the National School Lunch program, where we expect to be able to turn that loss around. Loss has to do with

158many things like we don't earn enough for per meal for reimbursement. So that pulls down a little of our funding, the lack of enrollment that the decrease in enrollment, the decrease in participation are all factors that come into play with that, the rising costs of products and rising cost of electricity, rising costs of trays, all kinds of things play into that as well. Food costs rising, but we're doing what we can to control that. On our side, we have noticed what has taken place in our transition year. We're looking to make sure that we look at every avenue, every cost, every amount of product that we purchase or a school purchases to be served. We're making sure that the products that we buy are actually being served to the children anywhere. There's a lot happening.

159We cut back on that. So we ensure a tight inventory. Terrific. And chair, could I just ask what is the expected operating deficit in faz accounts for this year? So we budgeted at 19 million. So chair I think that means that we're going to collect 19 million less than it costs us to run faz. Their f fd balance is important foror uto trara as well, but it works thehe oositite way.Y. If yoyohahaveooooucucmomoy,y, yoyorere in trolele n Notf f you have too little, but if you go below zero now you're hitting the general fund. So chair, one more question. After that $19 million loss this year, what will the fund balance be in dollars by roughly the end of year? Again, projected. We started out at about 33 million, I believe, this year. So we would

160take off 19 from that. 14. Yeah, yeah. And just to my board members is important. Don't lose track of this one because it's federally funded and huge subsidies come for, for school lunch programs. If that 14 million is eaten up next year, if we run another deficit of 19, that's 5 million out of the general fund to pay for lunches. So we're now at that that point where fns, if I'm correct, I don't want to speak just for the for the staff, but now it's a board issue because I can't imagine having to go find 5 million next year for fns out of general fund and then the next year finding 19, because now we're burned through the funds that are available. So I hope, MR. Superintendent, we can track this and start to think

161a little bit about all those variables that are great. Treasurer for the program talks frequently about the biggest one I believe is utilization. And it's a way to like with FTEs, we can increase revenue to Broward County public schools by doing such a great job like we're doing now, and keep doing it so that more people come back. And I can see more and more people from Palm Beach and Miami-Dade starting to think about Broward schools, which is terribly exciting. But the same is true of food nutrition services. The more people that eat, the more people, the lower the average cost per meal. And so you can keep the charges the same. Otherwise the alternative, if we don't serve food that attracts people to eat, it is we're just going to have to jack up

162the price. And then that's a bad thing as well, because you jack up the price, economics kicks in and they buy less anyway. So we're in a real pickle on on how to do that. And I hope that we can tackle that going forward. Thanks, chair. Thank you, MR. Spellberg. Thank you, MADAM Chair, and good morning, everybody. Landon Spellberg, senior Advisor to the school board. I don't want to reopen a settled matter, but it has come up again this morning, and I think it's my duty to share it again. The points that were brought up about fundraising are well received. I said this in JANUARY, and I will say it again today, that in a way, it feels like that is missing the point of what the biggest issue is for our students. We continue

163to do school visits and we are not hearing about graduation. We're hearing about a desperate need for investments in programs and a desperate need for investments in food service. So we you know, I just want to, you know, reground that issue, you know, that it is important to do consistent fundraising in a variety of areas. But if those resources are going to be put into fund raising, I don't believe it should be for graduation or nor do many of the students that we represent. When there is a beautiful facility that the district can operate graduations at at a low cost, which has been proven by banquets and events being held at Dillard over the past few weeks, with incredible feedback from our community about those events. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you. [Laughter]

164Now, I hate to say what I'm going to say after Landon just said that, but I just, you know, to the superintendent, because it is it is on our weekly, I mean, our monthly chats that we have where I ask, how are we doing with the fundraising and how is it going? So, you know, kind of concerned that the answer was, I didn't get the sense in our conversations that it was not going to happen for this year. And then when asked about it, that was the answer today. So can you, because I know we have a department that works on on this. And I, I guess I if you could just give us an update, how many people like, you know what not to Landon's point, I don't want this to be their sole

165job, obviously, but there are things that I think would be low hanging fruit that they even in conversations that I had with people were like, yeah, we'd be happy to sponsor. So and I shared that information with the department. So I'm, I'm just a little. For lunches or for. No, for, for the graduation. So we're in discussion. We're in discussion with bff. Bff has a little bit more expertise because they already have partners that print that can print out banners and all those other things. So we'll, we'll follow up with where we are. And they also have the connections, the better outreach than we do. There MAY be a start for this year. I don't think it's going to be as robust as we would like. I think to everybody's point, start somewhere and then

166as people see how we're engaging and how we're leveraging that, it should get larger over time, right? So you start small this year, have have some sponsors that are engaging. They understand the value to them and being exposed to, you know, thousands of people that attend our graduations. And then that starts resonating with other folks. And we should see something larger the following year too. But we're leveraging bff as one of the main partners because they do this all the time, right? When they have when they are finding sponsors for certain events and fundraising and things like that. And they already have some of the mechanisms where they can work with as far as printing banners and, and working with us to print the booklets as well, because we have our own printing shop too.

167Okay. So and I would say just, well, I'll just say it's, it's a bit disappointing, but I, we can't say no. I mean, we have to do something. And if there's not enough sponsors to make the book printing valuable enough, you could still do those. A banner, even the board that, you know, as people are walking in, say thank you to our sponsors because I originally had asked about doing a slideshow with it, but that's where the snag came in with some of the vendors. They didn't want it on there. But, you know, to, to Landon's point, this isn't the huge piece, but it was something that we asked about. And there should be different buckets or different efforts of fundraising where we're still continuing to try to fundraise, especially for the lunches, because that's

168where we started off at. And, you know, it's easy to say, well, we, we just we just didn't get any sponsors. But I, I don't think the effort is matching the, the expectation of the board. I guess that's the best way to put it. Thank you. MRS. Alhadeff. I'd like to make a substitute motion. I move to create a graduation book for all of the graduations for this school year, for this graduation. Is there a second. Second? Moved by MRS. Alhadef, seconded by MRS. Bulman public comment on the motion. Doctor Natalie Lynch, Walsh plantation, Florida. I think the reason people aren't thinking about graduation is everybody's focus on whatever is an issue right now. Trust me, the second they found out that you guys were coming for their graduation venues, you had a huge backlash.

169It booklets have been used since the beginning of time since printing presses to advertise, so I think it's a good idea. It sounds like you guys need to figure out the particulars. I think people that can would pay more for graduations. Basically, the venues were taken away without giving people the opportunity to figure out how to fundraise. So any and all avenues for fundraising should be addressed. Now, it's not like graduations aren't around the corner, so you don't want to wait until graduations. We can't expect kids to plan for the future. They're thinking about, you know, what's happening today, not necessarily graduation. When they get their gown, they're like, wait, we're going where? So I think I support the motion and I hope you guys will continue trying to fundraise. Do not take away the

170venues. Any other public comment on the motion? MRS. Alhadeff, could you please clarify the motion? The substitute motion is to create graduation sponsor books for the 2026 graduations. District wide sponsor book. Chair. Could that could I just make a point order? Because if that were an amendment, it would add on to it. If it's a substitute, it does away with the allocation of the funds. Okay. Amendment. MR. Bruno. So my understanding from the motion is that the prior motion was to approve the contract for use of facilities for Lauderdale Performing Arts. And then you wanted to add amend that motion to include the graduation book for this year. Sponsorship book? Yes. Sponsorship book for all, all graduations. Okay, so we have to do a vote on the amendment. And board member discussion on the amendment.

171MISS Hixon. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify, because every graduation does have a book because every. It's separate. It's a separate book. So you clarified that when you amended that. So. DR. Zeman I'm sorry, chair, how many days do we have? Like just just for fun, let's say we have a week needed to print these things. How many days left do we have between now and a week before the first graduation? When's the first graduation? It's late MAY. Correct. The first graduation is MAY 28th. So by MAY 21st is a month and 14 days. So 44 days or so. I'm just curious about the feasibility chair. Is it possible to ramp up our staff for what they could do? Superintendent, staff and Broward Education Foundation to raise to work toward raising $800,000 in 44 days.

172So if I can chime in, DR. Zeman, I don't think we're focused on the amount, but we're also focused on, right, just finding sponsors to start this journey, right? There's an amount gold that that's wonderful. But I think, you know, as we go out, we have conversations with folks and we have conversations with folks about sponsorship and what and creating that framework about what sponsorships look like on the page. A full page is whatever amount, quarter pages, whatever amount, right? And seeing how much we can bring in, it's a start, right? It'll supplement the cost. You MAY not be able to cover the entire cost the first year, but that's always the goal. So I wouldn't tie it to a specific amount. I would tie it to the effort of, of, of creation. Terrific. And

173to the make of the amendment. Your, your, your intent is consistent with that. It's to try to raise 800. But if we raise some, it's great. If we don't raise 800, that's okay. Yes. All right. Thank you. Chair. Any other board member discussion, MISS Thompson. I will not be supporting this amendment. We heard from our student advisor that we need sponsorships to go towards lunch and school activities and programs, not towards this. This is not the right direction that we are going in. Thank you. Any other board member discussion? I have a question. The money raised from this sponsorship book, Doctor Hepburn, can it be used for other means with lunches or programs or something else. At the will of the board? We can use it for several. I would suggest adding to the motion

174to give us guardrails around use. If it's graduation student lunch debt. Could we please silence cell phones? Or at least share. Sorry Doctor Hepburn. No problem. So if you want to add some specific guardrails around use of the funds, right. I guess my question is, you know, I know that when money we have certain money can only be used in certain in buckets. So if we have that ability, I'm open to using it to programs or to the lunches to go to that. I just was trying to get money back to Broward County public Schools. So for my intent is not specifically say that it has to go into graduations, it can go into lunch or it can go into a specific program. I leave that, you know, up to the board to decide. I'm

175just trying to find funding to come back to Broward County Public Schools. DR. Zeman. Oh, sorry. MR. Spellberg. And then. DR. Zeman. Thank you, and I certainly appreciate the intent. Absolutely. You know, with you, MISS Alhadeff, I just want to also provide some operational concerns with this. Like was mentioned, we're very close to graduation. There's a considerable printing cost to booklets that would also take away from the money that can go towards a sponsorship to cover a venue cost, plus a considerable operational cost of getting the booklets to venues, passing out those booklets, you know, there is with the budget restrictions this year that is causing for restrictions and staff and graduations and overtime costs. So there's a considerable cost that would be associated with this that, you know, in my eyes, I don't think

176would be matched by the the sponsorships raised over the next two, three weeks. DR. Zeman. Thank you so much. I just wanted to point out that if we raise these funds and put them toward anything, it's really up to the board on how to spend the other funds. So even if just just for fun, say we raise half $1 million and we put it toward graduation, it frees up a half $1 million in the general fund. And so we can use that money either to increase the fund balance or to pay for some of the pending debts that that students are concerned about. I also think, you know, the data that we have about students concerned is being collected at a time where the the graduations have been taken care of. So it it's always

177interesting to use recent surveys. I think they're wonderful. It's more, you know, the better, but it's still the data is gathered based on kind of what they have right now. And maybe it's not a concern because it's something that we've said that we're going to address and do better on. I just, I feel I appreciate the the idea. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Bulman. Thank you and thank you for the motion. I, I guess in the with the considerations that MR. Spielberg brought up, is there are we bound to a book or is there are you willing to look at alternative delivery methods that might be more feasible given our very limited time period for this year, that might be more cost effective, that we can actually pull off. MRS. Alhadeff. Listen, I'm I'm flexible.

178And again, this isn't the first time that this is being brought up. This is we we talked about this months ago. It just never was executed. Right. And, and that's upsetting to me because we are leaving money that can come back to Broward County public schools. If you want to put a. Create different sponsorship packages. Wonderful. You want to create a book. I leave that up to the superintendent to be able to execute, but it needs to be executed. You need. We need to start somewhere. I don't know why this hasn't been done for years. There's so much sponsorship opportunities through graduations. You know, you are reaching thousands and thousands of people in the sixth largest school district in the country. So I believe we start this year and then we just improve year after

179year moving forward. And I, I agree with that too. I just, whatever vehicle that we can deliver it in, I think should be explored. And every dollar that we can get back through this particular venture can, you know, be applied to these other places where we have deficiencies, I think that's really important. So. I, I support I support the motion in terms of advertising in some format. However, we're going to do it. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff. So I amend my motion to allow the superintendent to bring back sponsorship opportunities for this year's graduation and that he rolls it out the best way that he sees fit to bring money back to Broward County Public Schools through the sponsorships. Second. MR. Bruno. Let's make this as clean as possible. Let's make that your substitute of your

180prior amended motion. Substitute of the prior amended motion. Thank you. Second. Can you restate that, please? I give Doctor Hepburn, we give Doctor Hepburn the opportunity to bring back sponsorship opportunities for this year's graduation as he sees fit to bring these sponsorship dollars back to Broward County Public Schools. And MISS Bulman, do you second that? I second that. Okay. DR. Holness. MADAM Chair, since the motion has now changed because my concerns were similar to London in terms of the the the funds generating from sponsorship donations being less than the cost to distribute. But I think the new motion will now give the superintendent latitude to make the best decision for for us as far as bringing back. Funding that would be generated. That would be more than the cost of distributing any any type of

181exposure to these companies. So I'm good. Thank you. MISS Dixon. Thank you. I the wording sounds kind of messy, but I the intent I appreciate because that's what I was going to say. The motion maybe should be that what we shouldn't be spending more obviously than we're taking in. And at the very least, to have a board that has sponsors on it. And if there was enough sponsors to make a booklet, then to make the booklet that's the motion has that intent. The wording, MISS. So, MISS Bruno, when you read that, would that because it says the superintendents. So what I have, MADAM Chair, if I MAY, what I have as the amendment is that Doctor Hepburn seeks sponsorship opportunities as he sees fit to bring back to the board for consideration. Yeah. I don't

182think we need we're not asking for him to tell us who the sponsors are, particicarly.. We'rereust sayayg ge s spooror a makake aooookr a board, whichever makes the most sense based on what you have. So I don't think it needs to say to bring back to us. We're just trying to kick start and move into motion what we what has been said, as Missus Alhadeff mentioned months ago, we want to make a motion because then you can blame us for having to do what what we've asked in a form of a motion, as opposed to just a discussion, because it doesn't seem it's gone where our expectation was for it. So I don't know if it needs I don't think her intent was for it to necessarily come back to us. No, it's for him

183to execute it. So I just want to make sure that I'm clear from the board, because I also heard the board say that we will have a discussion in terms of how those funds are utilized. So are we just asking Doctor Hepburn to move forward with seeking sponsorship opportunities, period. Yeah. And then bring back the the earnings after graduation. Speaking and bring back the earnings after graduation. So board can decide what to use the funds for. Yeah. MR. Spielberg. Thank you. And I think this is landing in a better place. The other point to add to this is that we have a considerable audience of graduations that don't attend physically, in person. They attend online. So something with a qr code that can be at the bottom right corner of the live stream, right, that

184will allow the thousands of people who attend virtually to be able to do, to be able to go on see the sponsorship booklet. The other point on this is I think it's a wonderful opportunity for us to also market our schools, right? We have people who will be in the audience, whether virtually or in person, who are looking for school opportunities. It's a great place to stay. Schedule a tour. It's a great place to have student spotlights. So we're happy from a student advisor perspective. You know, if the superintendent is is open to this, to be able to help contribute to something that really creates a cohesive sponsorship booklet that also allows us to market ourselves. Thank you. Any other board member discussion? MISS Thompson? I think with the super the student advisor's approval, I

185will change my mind. But I do have concerns that if we are marketing as a sponsorship, that it's the language is carefully written so that people who are donating know that it's not just going to graduation, that it could go to anything. Thank you. Any other board member discussion on the amendment or the substitute? All in favor of the substitute, MR. Bruno? Yeah, I just want to make sure that we all know what the actual motion is, the amendment to the original. So it's Doctor Hepburn. Seek sponsorship opportunities as he sees fit to bring back the earnings after graduation to the board. Yes. Is there anyone object to that? Okay. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no. Amendment passes unanimously back to the item. Any other board discussion on the item? All

186in favor of motion, say aye. All opposed? Say no, as amended. All opposed? Say no. Item passes unanimously, as amended. Can I get a motion in a second? On mm2 move by DR. Zeman. Second by MISS Rupert. Public comment on mm2. No registered speakers. Board member comment. MISS Bulman. Thank you chair. I chose this one instead of mm1 just because my my kids are graduating in this facility. So I have. A question about the increased costs. And then I know there's some kind of an offset and I wasn't sure how that works. Are we paying the increase or are we paying the same that we paid last year? As long as we follow all the rules and follow the lease agreement? Doctor Hepburn. Wanza I'm going to defer that one to MISS Brown. Patty Brown

187Director of athletics and student Activities. And I just want to clarify what you're speaking about. nsu now, this is the Broward Center. Broward Center. I'm sorry. That is actually, from my understanding, the same cost from last year. It's 15,300 per ceremony. It was originally going to be higher, but working with the ceo, Ty Sutton, he was able to keep us at the same amount from last year. Okay. Because well, because the the executive summary says that the there's an increase from 15,300 to $17,868.06 per graduation, but that there's this $36,000 sponsorship credit. From p a, c a. So which brings it down. I'm just wondering. Right. That brings it back down. But there's a but. Brings it back down. Okay. But there's a caveat in there. If we have any kind of violation of the

188agreement, then we don't get the $36,000. The violations are typically in terms of time, each venue would like for us to stick to the two hour minimum for graduations. They have a union as well for their staff and workers and are required a certain amount of breaks. So if we go beyond the two hours at both Broward Center and nsu, then we would be fined potentially. So potentially. To our maximum, not minimum or. Maximum big difference. So okay, well, thank you for that. And I, you know, I think as we're looking towards the future with the graduations, you know, the, the, the main takeaway that I had from our prior discussions was the perceived inequity of the venues. And so I will look forward to having a plan for next year that addresses that. So

189that everyone is graduating in a similar venue, if that's possible. While we're saving money, because I agree, I think our facilities, the way that we have been able to put on different ceremonies in our facilities, has been very adequate. It's just a matter of making sure that everybody's having a similar experience. So. But that will be for next year. So hopefully sooner rather than later, we'll have a plan for that. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Cervera. Sure. I'm excited to support this item and allow these 14 ceremonies, including Mcfatter Technical High School in District six, to to go forward. I think this is a big win for our students, a big win for our parents. And it's also a reminder of why it's important to listen to parents and to listen to your constituents. When

190the news initially broke that our seniors would not be graduating in the great venues as some of their prior graduating classes over the years, I was proud to take the lead and be one of the more vocal proponents of giving our seniors the venues that they deserved and making sure that they were not shortchanged. While I certainly understand the financial difficulties that face this district on a daily basis, I'm not in favor of trying to dig out of this financial hole, if you will, on the backs of our students. Very excited to support this. I'm also excited for our seniors, and that they're going to be able to experience this tremendous venue at the Broward Center. They've all earned this graduation, and I'm thrilled to be able to deliver top notch facility at the Broward

191Center to host this very, very special day for our students and their family members and make sure they have adequate tickets, I might add, to also attend and share in on the festivities, the festivities. Looking forward to the graduations. Looking forward to the venues. I will be there on MAY 31st with Mcfatter. So I'm very, very excited about that and overall big win for our students, big win for our community and going to be a great, great couple ceremonies that we have at the phenomenal Broward Center for Performing Arts. Thank you. DR. Holness thank you, MADAM Chair. Doctor Hepburn, we had discussed previously the city of Lauderhill, and it ties into what I have to say here. So did Lauderhill reduce the cost as it compares to last year? What they're charging this year? MISS

192Brown or Doctor Wanza. If I MAY. Go ahead. Lauderhill Performing Arts Center did not reduce the cost. What you're seeing in terms of a discount is actually only for Lauderhill six through 12. The cost for each graduation. The other three are 5092. It's a discount because obviously Lauderhill six through 12 is within their city, so their cost is 2383. Okay. So the cost we're looking at is the average of. Yes. Okay. Yes sir. And and that average comes out to be less than the average of what it would have, what it was last year. Correct. It is, I. Believe because last year i believe we had six ceremonies there and this year we only have four there. Understand? So regarding the Performing Arts Center, board member Bulman raised similar concerns that I have. And I

193know that the Performing Arts Center Authority is sponsoring 36,000 doctor Hepburn. Are we. It was this a part of the negotiation? Are we looking to have those credits in subsequent years, or is this just possibly a one time part of this year's negotiation? Go ahead. Wanza. So every year is an annual negotiation. And, MISS Brown, you can correct me if I'm wrong. When we went back to them because we needed to, of course, have or reach out to last year's entities, they then understanding, you know, what we're going through as as a school district worked with us. But every year it's an annual process. So as the superintendent said, moving forward, trying to work with some of our elected officials and other municipal leaders to look at maybe can we do long term? When I

194say long term, 2 or 3 year type negotiations for 1 or 2 venues across the county, then that is something that we seek to do. But right now it's been an annual process. And MISS Brown, if I misspoke, please correct anything. You are correct. Okay. So I'd like to thank the Broad Center for Performing Arts for continuing to work with us. And I'd like to encourage all of our municipalities, Broward County, to be to continue to be a partner with us and to provide amicable sort of agreements with us that that takes into consideration the financial constraints of our school district as we move forward. And I'd like to also comment that when this board supported cost saving measures regarding graduation, it has always been in the interest of our students, but at the same

195time simultaneously being fiscally responsible considering our financial constraints. So the majority of the board who supported and looked at ways in which we could save on graduations, it was in the best interest of our students while being fiscally responsible as it pertains to the financial concerns that this district has. So thank you so much, MADAM Chair. I just want to make that point. Thank you. DR. Zeman. All right. Any other board discussion? All in favor of m2, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no item passes unanimously. Can I get a motion and a second on 001. So moved. Moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MISS Hixon. Public comment 001. No comment. Board member comment. MISS Bulman. My questions were answered about this I actually. Was I talked to MISS Formosa regarding whether or not we

196were having duplicative programing, and she confirmed to me that not only had she already addressed this when she first took the position, but that she had eliminated $1.4 million in duplicative platform, or in the past two years. So my questions have been answered. Thank you. Thank you. Can we please have decorum in the audience? I can't hear my colleague. All right. Any other board discussion? All in favor of 001 say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no item passes unanimously. Can I get a motion and a second on 003. So moved. Moved by DR. Zeman, second by MISS Hixon. Public comment on 003. No comment. Board member comment. MR. Cervera. You said. No other board discussion on 003. All in favor of 003 say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no item passes unanimously. Could I get

197a motion and a second on 006. So moved. Move by DR. Zeman seconded by MISS Rupert. Public comment. 006 no comment. Did you mean five chair. Sorry. Did you mean five? No, I pulled 006. It's not on the list, but I pulled it that we didn't approve it at the beginning of the meeting. Public comment on 006. Sorry no comment. Board member comment. I had some questions for staff on 006. My first question is how long have we been using this this software for dual language. Doctor Dr Fulton. Oh go ahead. Yeah, I see she's in the back. Okay. And I do want to flag. I did pull this late. I was reviewing a follow up that I had received. So I did try to I asked my questions ahead of time, but I had

198some additional questions that came up after I received the follow up. So I wanted to address those concerns. Right here. Good afternoon. Vicky Sagala, director for bilingual Esol. So just to be clear, Amira, learning, which is what we're adopting today for approval, we started using it in NOVEMBER of 2025. Previous to that, we had Ice Station Espanol, but they merged with Amira learning. So Amira learning per se is a new product. Okay. Got it. And in the executive summary, it doesn't it maybe I'm missing this. It doesn't identify this as an ai software, but in the follow up that we received, it says Amira, learning is an artificial intelligence platform that listens, assesses, and tutors in real time to help every student become a proficient reader. So I just wanted to flag that because my

199other question would be around like, have we thought about what what measures we've taken to make sure that students can use this safely? Or do we have any ethical use standards around using this ai platform that we've implemented for both our, our educators using it and our students? I think Doctor Cohen was going to. So the answer is yes. So just like that in magic school, we went through the same safety protocols to vet those those resources. And on JUNE 5th, we'll also be sharing those guidelines around clear ethical guidelines for both the students and the educators that will also be rolled out during pre planning week for all teachers through the ai liaisons. And so there have been an intense vetting process. So all of our suite of ai resources will go through that

200process. And on JUNE 16th, we'll come back to you not only with the draft of what we consider the policy, but all of the suite of resources that really come with both the teacher and the student usage. Got it. My other, I guess in that vein, I would hope that we like overcommunicate with parents, the the ethical use and all of that, those guidelines that we, we are developing or have developed. Yeah. So I heard clearly when we did the boardwalk around with the magic school in on JUNE 5th, there's a specific parent track that will be inviting parents to go through around literacy, ethical responsibilities. And if you recall, even in the agreement with the wieners, they set aside over $100,000 just for parent training. So because there is a commitment to make sure

201parents are informed about all of the uses and what we do from a student perspective. Got it. My other question is around maybe, and maybe this is a question for the general counsel. To what extent do we need parental consent for for students using ai in ai platform? That's a good question that I'll have to research. And I'll also have to look at if we have a policy on it, what's our acceptable use policy is as well. Okay, I would I would really like the memo. And then if I can add. Sure. A lot of previous software that we've used always had components of ai. We used to call it adaptable software. And so I think you see these companies be merging or enhancing their language. They're now using the term ai instead of adaptable,

202but it's very closed loop. Like if you can't access, it's not pulling information from the World Wide web, it's only pulling information within that software based on the student's current capabilities and giving them insights on what they should do next to master a craft. So I think we're seeing more of that when you talk about this type of solution, then copilot and things like that. So we're seeing a, a name, a name change on certain things just to make it more desirable by to purchase. Got it. It's just, you know, in the follow up, it says that this is a platform that listens, assesses, and tutors in real time. So I would be interested, like offline if I could kind of use that, like do a test use to see what that looks like. But

203if I'm a parent reading that, like it makes me think that this ai platform is something that is going back and forth, communicating with my child. So I just want to be clear about what that actually looks like. That's not a problem. We can get you a demo license for yourself. And again, just the same way you read it, you know, we're using it for our dual language classrooms, actually, per the request of many parents, because we were eliminating ice station Espanol. And that's what we're being what we're using, not just the teacher in the classroom, but a lot of our students go home to a monolingual, monolingual home, and they have no one too practice the langugue wiwi.Oo just like d Dtorr h Heber sai they practicee touough tutoror ogogmm pt t of it

204where they will spe in Spanish, it will listen to them only and give them feedback in Spanish around their oral language proficiency. And it is aligned to science of reading as well. Got it. And just as a side note, like in my student roundtables, I heard over and over again from our English language learners that they use ai to, to, to help them. So I'm not just, I'm not opposed to it. I just want to make sure that we're doing it in an ethical and safe way because they have found it very helpful. My other question was related to the follow up. You know, I asked for data to support that this is successful in delivering results for students. And I saw comparative data like students who didn't use it and students who did from

205other counties. I didn't maybe I missed it. I didn't see that for our for our school district, I saw that like, you know, the performance of our students was increasing, but I didn't see that necessarily tied to the use of this platform. So I'm wondering if we have that information. Not yet because it's new to us. Got it. Oh yeah. Because we started in NOVEMBER of 2025. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. I know DR. Zeman you had a question. Yeah. Just one small point. And then maybe a larger point for the board's consideration. It's so important to have data that kind of justifies this is $100,000. This isn't anywhere near our most expensive software. But to the extent, MR. Superintendent, when we approve these contracts, I don't want every time to say,

206oh, and by the way, let's gather some data so that when we're done with six months or a year, we can come back and show. And sometimes it's really hard to do that. Like you don't want to deny students the right to cool software just so you have a control group, right? So I know that there's implicit difficulties in getting that, but there's just, you know, an incredible need. And your response to MISS Leonardi's questions? I had the same questions. You know, she asked a question and it couldn't be answered because there wasn't sufficient data. I suspect that that answer isn't going to be working in six months from now, when contracts come back, when the money gets tighter and people are looking to, you know, kind of the default will be a no rather

207than a yes. I just want everybody to know that we're going to need more data to be able to say yes going forward. Second point, which is much more global, is there's no software that's being made that doesn't either create itself with ai or have ai components in it. And to the superintendent's point, whether you call it adaptive learning, whether you call it large language models or neurolinguistic programing, the the time that has it takes to write software over the past three months has fallen by 80%. And the reason you can make software in four weeks instead of four months is because ai is writing the software. And to MRS. Leonardi's very appropriate point, that scares the hell out of me, because there's no human being anymore. Writing and coming up with like normal safeguards

208for tools. And so virtually all the software we make is going to need some kind of review to make sure that the machines that are doing the coding have the same kind of guidelines that we've always assumed that human based programing would do. And I don't think we can assume that. I think we really have to think hard about putting some guardrails in, given it's great that the speed of processing and the amount of software that comes out is better and faster, cheaper all the time. But it doesn't mean that it's safer. And because the human is no longer in the loop of writing code, and because there are. Changes in what the implicit code even does. So you write code. It's got some ai in it that's not stable. It changes. And so every

209time chair, we we look at software, the test is going to be incredibly difficult to come up with, with, with, with making sure that it's not just ethically appropriate and non-risky, but it stays ethically appropriate and it stays at an acceptable level of risk. So this is a big challenge to school districts in the whole nation, because the world changed about six months ago and there's no code that comes out anymore that doesn't have ai components, and there's no code that comes out that wasn't augmented by ai tools to write the code. And so it's a whole new world, and I hope that we can figure out how to make sure that we're operating safely. Thanks, chair. Thank you. Any other board member discussion? All in favor of 006. I, I all opposed say no

210item passes unanimously. Could I get a motion and a second on oh oh ten. So move. Move by DR. Zeman second by MISS Hixon public comment on oh oh ten. And Natalie Lynch Walsh. Good. Oh just afternoon, doctor. Natalie Lynch, Walsh plantation, Florida. MADAM Chair, you're speeding through the agenda so fast. I keep adding items to speak to. So on this item, which I think is the biggest ticket item on today's agenda at 36 million. I know we get desensitized to some of these numbers. First thing that stands out for me is the word piggyback. That's like a four letter word and should be to everybody else. We heard earlier that food nutrition is operating at a loss. One of the things we looked at at dac for, and I think actually Facilities Task Force

211because it started with Stranahan is meal participation rates. So in terms of having standards for how information is brought to you, data is just data. There's a lot of data dumps. I didn't see any here. But when they say return on investment, it mentions providing meal service, which is not quite the same as increasing meal participation rates. So you're about to approve 36 million for food that is fed to kids. And I haven't looked at the food in a while. My kids tended to pack a lunch, which was kind of telling, what are you feeding them? You've had discussions and at the next workshop, you're going to be talking about meal benefits. Don't know what it is because there's no backup yet on the item. But it's always interesting to me how sometimes the contracts

212come to you, and then you have a discussion at a workshop that seems to be related. Don't know if that's happening here, but it tends to happen a lot. So I'm not saying that it's through any fault of food nutrition's that the food MAY you want to make sure that you're getting food that the kids are eating, and the way you know that they're eating is the meal participation rates, which I did not see mentioned here. Yes, they can, they can provide x number of millions of meals annually, but how many kids are eating it versus the ones that are not do? Are there things that are preventing kids from eating like long lunch lines because you made the cafeteria too small and now there's only two serving lines when you needed three, do you

213have two lunches when you should have three? These are all things that impact whether kids are eating the food or not. So you could also be spending money on food. That's perfectly fine, but people aren't eating it because they don't have time. So I would like to see these are the types of standards that are missing from these board items. And what are the meal participation rates for the past few years? It can't, just like with the referendum, don't just show what's currently being proposed. Show what you did in the past so you can compare and the board has something to work with. And again, starting with piggyback and it's 36 million. That's a lot of money. And I hope you have some discussion about whether the kids are actually eating it. What are the

214meal participation rates? Because they did differ. They were very low at Stranahan, which had an old cafeteria, so that partially explained it. But there were other places where the meal participation rates were kind of low, and that was surprising. So I hope we'll see what happens. No other speakers. Thank you. DR. Zeman thanks, chair. Chair. If we don't act today on this, is there any impact on our ability to deliver food next year to our students? Doctor Hepburn? Yes, that's a correct statement. Just to be clear, this contract starts on JULY 1st. So if we do not act today, is there any impact on the school delivery to students next year. For next school year? Yes. I apologize. Today is APRIL 7th. If we took this up two weeks from now. I think, chair, we

215have a school board meeting on the 21st as well, a special correct. If we pass this on the 21st instead of the seventh, would that impact our ability to deliver food next year to our students? Well, let me have the food and nutrition staff provide that information. I don't know if this impacts the membership or the prices that we're securing on the on the piggyback, which is significantly lower than otherwise going out a different way. Good afternoon everybody. My name is Casey Maggio and I'm the current coordinator for Food Nutrition Services. So to answer your question for two weeks, it's not going to impact whether we deliver on JULY 1st or not. Thank you very much. But I would like to not wait any further than that, if that's possible. Please. Are you done? Yes,

216sir. Thank you. I cannot do this anymore. And I hope you guys think hard about this. You are saying that you're going to spend $36 million on a contract, on a piggyback contract, for which there is zero analysis in this package, that this is the best plan. So, chair, do we have any evidence that this piggyback contract is better than the hundreds of other piggyback contracts that are available to buy this supply? Doctor Hepburn. Yes, I can have the food and nutrition staff provide some details. So currently the power buying group is the largest buying group for food for school districts in the state. We have almost 600 schools that utilize the power buying group. Two years ago, we utilized us foods using our own contract and we were for 25 a case to be

217delivered using the power buying group. It's now reduced to 355. We save over $600,000 just in delivery fees using power buying group. In addition to that, I have a lot of savings, about 2 to 3% reduction in the bulk buying, utilizing almost 600 schools using the buying group. So overall, we do see a reduction in our budget utilizing the power buying group. Terrific. And I'm glad to learn that. Have any other pig have any other piggyback contracts been assessed this year to see if that's still the case? Well, at the pirate buying group does a market basket every year evaluating our food prices on other manufacturers and distributors. They do that once or twice a year to utilize and make sure that we are getting the most cost savings possible. So this one extant contract

218between one school district and the suppliers, which is picked up by power as a buying group, is the lowest price and highest quality and fastest delivery and everything else put together that Broward County can get at this time. To my knowledge. Yes. Terrific. I appreciate that it's going to be important. It's going to be very important when we use this shortcut called piggyback. When we don't compete, we are a big district all by ourselves, and we exist in one place. And we always have an option to go out and define what we need and go out and get competitive prices and, and maybe adjust some things in our statement of work, you know, so that we can get an even better deal than consortiums can who get prices for so many people, they can't always

219do the same kind of tailored agreements. I'm really glad to hear about this, but every time a piggyback comes before this board, I'm going to ask the same question. We have got to make sure that we're picking the right piggyback. It's just too easy and everyone's stressed and we're about to lose 1000 staff. And those are the staff, the requirements officers that go out and do this hard work. But as the person that works one on one with the power buying group, they actually add a lot of value for us. They do a lot of reports and budgeting and a lot of things that help me out quite a bit, to be honest. They're phenomenal. And I that just kind of makes my point, which is it's real easy to use other people and it's

220real easy to do piggybacks that does not mean for $36 million, we're getting the greatest value in this case. I'm convinced by what you've shared today that this is a good contract, but we have to be very mindful as a board to spend other people's monies in a way that they're very comfortable with us doing that. And this is not an issue with fns or with this particular contract. But piggybacks are too easy in some ways, and I've seen piggybacks come through with no analysis and no justification, verbal or otherwise, to make sense. And that's just not a good way to spend other people's money. So I, on my own, did a tri county comparison of Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach to utilize who's using power buying group and who's not, and the price differences

221between all three. So we did do partially of that to make sure that we were getting the most bang for our buck. But thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you. DR. Zeman are you done? I am. MISS Thompson. Thank you chair, and thank you so much, staff, for for your candor and your deep research into this issue to make sure that we are providing an important resource for our students, which is lunch, which we have to purchase. So I would not be in favor of pushing this back. I only pulled this item because we talk a lot with our constituents about the quality of food that our, our students are receiving, and how we would like to pull in more local based partnerships and farmers and or even like urban gardening at

222our school locations. And I was wondering if either in this item or at some point, we can have a very thorough discussion about how we can make our lunches better at a reasonable cost. Yes, absolutely. As you were. MISS Mulder is actually retiring, so we'll be hiring a new executive director of Food and Nutrition. And so once that person gets on staff, some of the expectations I have as well, especially fresh from Florida, we want to. We're one of the two largest producers of of vegetables and, and fruits in the country. So we have a lot of upside to make sure we're utilizing some of our local farmers and vendors. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that that conversation will still be continuing. And also, I just again, really appreciate staff for all

223your research on this. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Cervera. Thank you, chair. I want to echo some of DR. Zeman comments, but before I do, I want to be very clear on the record that I'm very pro school meals, breakfast and lunch. During my entire tenure growing up in Broward County public Schools, I ate breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria at my respective schools pretty much every day. And every time I do a school visit throughout district six, I always make it a point to go in and eat in the cafeteria. So I am very pro school lunch and school breakfast. That being said, the $36 million price tag obviously got my ears to to perk up here. Doctor Hepburn, we heard from one of the speakers about this meal participation rate, and there was

224an insinuation that it seemed to be on the decline over the last several years. I'd like to hear some of the data on that to see where we are today as compared to, oh, I don't know, five years ago. Food, nutrition, if you have that data. But I would expect a decline because we've lost 40,000 students over the past ten years. So we're feeding, feeding less students as well because they're not in our buildings. But I don't know if you guys have that data with you if you can. So I'm not aware of the five years ago data, but when we were no charge for everybody, we actually went up about 7% in our participation. But this year, since now we're back to applications, we actually have been reduced by about 10%. So I'm going

225to take that. When we were feeding everybody comment to mean approximately 2020 when the Covid pandemic struck. So no, last year when it was free for all, we had an increase in participation when there was no charge for any student, we had an increase in participation. And since we went back to applications off of cep this year, our participation has decreased. Okay. But what I what I want to understand respectfully is you said there was when we quote unquote, when we started feeding everyone, there was a 7% increase. Yes, sir. From a calendar perspective, when did that start? The beginning of the school year. Of last year. So she's referring to we did not charge students to eat lunch or breakfast, probably what the past 4 or 5 years. Well, we've been universal free breakfast

226for over ten years. So it would be lunch. And then lunch. Free lunch or no charge to lunch started when. Mark was that? Last year. Prior to the pandemic. Okay. Prior to the pandemic. Okay. So, so if my, if I heard you correctly this year, the 2025, 2026 school year, we've experienced a 10% decrease. Approximately in school lunch participation. Yes, sir. Okay. In regards to the, the, the piggyback facet, we heard some of the concerns and I don't think I need to beat a dead horse about what my position on piggybacks are. I guess my question is this. And this is certainly not a knock on Highlands County, Florida in any way, shape or form. I enjoy Highlands County. Sebring International Raceway is a nice venue. If anyone ever has a chance to visit. That

227being said, that is a very small county. I believe the population of Highlands County is like 100,000 people in the entire county. I mean, I've got almost triple that in in my district. So my my question is, first off, why Highlands County number one? And number two, what other portions in the state or nation did we look at for competitive piggyback bids that we can potentially bring to this board for consideration for our students? Meal plans. So we have not looked nationwide for piggyback power buying group, as I already mentioned, is the largest in the state of Florida, as I already stated, has almost 600 schools. So yes, we are the largest school district on this piggyback for sure. The second largest district, if I believe off the top of my head, is around 60

228to 70 schools, is the second largest on the power buying group bid. But yeah, so it's not a, a piggyback just solely off of Highlands County. They're actually the lead on the contract. So that's why you'll see Highlands County. There's multiple school districts across the state that are that are part of this group currently. 16 okay. And I'll close with this inquiry. I keep hearing that this power group is the largest. In the state of Florida. In the state. Okay. Which is can maybe be a good thing, right? Largest doesn't necessarily mean the best. Largest doesn't necessarily mean the best deal. Right? I mean, Walmart is probably what the largest retailer in the country. And I would argue how great Walmart is. They still kind of sell some crappy stuff there from time to time,

229right? So are we solely fixated on this piggyback contract because they're quote unquote the largest with this power group? Was thihiore of a finananci coconsererioio t thawe tookk in whwhat made th u uimimate determination? So it was a financial decision. We were able to reduce the case count for delivery. And so as you can imagine with how large, we are serving almost 27 million meals a school year, we have a lot of cases that come into our district. And so prior to the power buying group, we were paying for 25 a case to have it delivered to each school. With the power buying group, we were able to reduce that to 355 a case. So just right off the bat, we were able to save almost $600,000, according to my calculations, right off the bat.

230Who else besides the power group did you give consideration to for this contract? Well, with the power buying group, they use Cisco, so that's how we were able to use the main line distributor, Cisco, before we were us foods. Did we consider us food in this analysis or making this determination. Yes. Okay. So you used Sysco and us foods. Anybody else. So there's only certain large enough companies, mainline distributors that can actually deliver to all of our approximately 238 schools and centers. There's other mainline distributors that are out there. But obviously, as you know more than I do, they have to bid on us. Was there no other mainline distributors that could have been considered for a piggyback, other than the one we're using now with the power group? Not to my knowledge. Okay. Thank

231you, chair. Thank you, MISS Bulman. Thank you. I just wanted to compliment the work that you're doing here. You're answering these questions. Thank you very well. And holding up to a lot of tough questioning, which I think we could probably put on some other items with this kind of vigorousness that because clearly this has been well researched and very supported by the evidence. So I just wanted to tell you, appreciate your work and keep up the good work. You're doing a great job. We work very hard at food nutrition services. We really find nutrition is our passion and to feed our kids the healthiest, best quality food that we possibly can with what we have. So thank you for that. And it shows. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All in favor of oh oh

232ten. Say I all opposed say no item passes. Thank you everybody. Good afternoon. Thank you. Could I get a motion and a second on oh oh 11 move by MISS Rupert, seconded by MISS Hixon. Public comment on oh oh 11. No comment. Board member comment DR. Holness. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Yes, I think we are back onto this item. Okay, doctor Hepburn, regarding oh oh 11. The amount that's mentioned here, has this amount already been allocated or is this additional funding just. No, this has already been allocated and encumbered. Our mission was to continue to work with schools and staff to see if we can continue to decline the amount of funds that we need. And we told the board initially, I think early spring when we came, came to to the board with a

233request for substitutes that we were going to come back. We didn't want to ask for everything right up front. We wanted to work with the team, but we nonetheless also already encumbered the amount that we expected that we would need to finish out the year. And this is what this is right now. All right, that's it for me, MADAM Chair. Thank you. And just so everyone's aware, we do have an attorney client session scheduled for 1245. So if you could just keep that in mind when we're giving our comments. MISS Rupert. Is that meant for me? No, it's meant for everyone. I'm joking. I was joking. Thank you. I actually I had some questions when looking at the, I guess the executive summary on the third page toward the bottom fiscal year, projected funds and

234spending authority requested. And then it says budgeted in current fiscal year, it says no. And then total requested spending authority. You look under budgeted and current year it says yes and no. Same thing as the bottom part. Fiscal year 23 to 26 budgeted and current fiscal year. It says yes and no. So how can it be both. Well, MISS Rupert. It's the chart. The first chart. I want to say it's page three for me. It's page four on the online. i'm sorry. I can't hear you. The executive summary. It should be. I think there's a misprint. Should be. Yes. That's. You're talking about the bottom. The bottom. If you're starting at the bottom, the second line up. Is that what you're referring to, MR. Rupert? I'm. Well, actually the third line budgeted and current school

235year. No. And then underneath that total requested, it says yes. No. And then the bottom one says yes. No. So the chart my question is really about the bottom one. The next. One I'm going to come over because I see something different just to take a look. Okay. So there you go. Online. So this is all this is all. This is. Right. We will do a two minute recess. Thank you. All right, MISS Rupert. Thank you. I my question has been answered. Thank you. But I do want to make one statement. And it's not about me receiving something else. It was. We're all we all talk about budgeting and we do the the actual amounts when they come to us for original approval, spending authority. And then they come back. However, when they keep going

236over what we've talked about and what we've agreed upon, that just is like, and I think MISS Thompson or one of my colleagues that said this before could have been you, Doctor Simon Wright could have been you. But anyways, it was, hey, you know exactly how much you're going to do for your utilities and you don't go over, you know, and when I grew up, it was my daddy ran around the house and went through and made sure we had the lights turned off and the air conditioning not so cold. So you knew what your budget was for that month? Same thing about this. I won't be supporting it. Not because I don't appreciate this, but I won't be supporting it because it's just over budget. I think I would prefer that if we gave

237our our teachers. An adequate amount of of money, there'd be less subs. So for that reason, I'm going to decline to vote for this. Thank you. All right. Yeah. DR. Zeman thanks, chair. When we look at these data, we see that the need for substitutes over the past two years is up 36%. That is a big jump. I'm curious, chair, if the superintendent has any wisdom he'd like to share with us about why the need for substitutes is up 36% in the last two years, because that is what drives this need for $5.2 million. If we hadn't had that substantial increase in the need for substitutes, we would need the extra spend authority. So I'm curious if the superintendent has any explanation about why we're up 36% in two years. No, no real insight on

238that. Every district I've been in has been for different reasons. I've been in districts where people take off on payday Friday. I've been in districts where, you know, religiously taking off a couple of days per month. So no real specific insight. I've been in several large school districts, and it's the, the same kind of pattern that you see for most of the large school districts and probably some of the small ones too. But is there anything different in 25, 26 than there was in 23, 24 that would suggest such a big increase in teachers calling out from their instructional days? Right now they have 180 instructional days and the average teacher is missing 18 days. Not that I'm aware of. So no, no particular insights into that then. I'm very leaning toward MISS Rupert's position

239on this. You know, we we as a board need to understand why we need this money, not just that we need this money. I mean, I get it, we need this money, but there needs to be a why behind this when you see such a big amount, I would love to query parents and say, hey, what do you think about your teacher missing one day every two weeks in Broward County public schools? I believe that there is some underlying drivers to this. I think we need to understand them. I think we need to explain them to the community. I think we need to address them and change whatever is causing this massive amount. Increase one, because it's expensive, but two substitutes generally don't provide the same level of educational delivery that you get out of

240traditional, you know, full time teacher that's aware of the syllabus, aware of students needs more aware of of things like that. So I'm worried about this. We are a double a district. We're doing great job in so many different regards. This seems to be an Achilles heel to us though, and I would like to learn more. Would it be okay chair then to ask the superintendent, just as a follow on maybe to look into this and give us an answer about any kind of good theories about this increase over the past two years. Doctor Ibrahim. Yes. I appreciate. That we have to do some research. I would just like to learn again, to MR. Cooper's point, it's a lot of money and it's just an unforeseen need. This is not a utility increase of 3.2%

241that everybody in the county pays. This is this is a substantial increase over the past two years. I don't want to blame the vendor. This is not a comment about the vendor or. It's about, wow, I'm glad the vendor could could kind of meet the dramatic increase. But I do worry about as our substitute load grows, not only is Instructional time with the full time teacher going down, but we're dipping further and further into the talent pool of Broward County to get more and more substitutes. Something else that just doesn't sit well with me. Thank you chair. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you, Doctor Hepburn, can you tell us if this wasn't a pass, what would be the consequences of that? I think everybody and every volunteer that we can pull out of the county

242would have to go cover classes upon the teacher being absent. So it's it's very important. I mean, as we've mentioned, it's an unforeseen issue. And, you know, we get change orders that are unforeseen and we pay them without asking a whole lot of questions because we say it's unforeseen. I actually wanted to ask the union PRESIDENT, but I don't. Is she still here? If she could maybe give us a little insight as to I mean, I'm sure that they they collect some information to find out as a teacher. I could give you some thoughts as to, you know, why that possibly could be true. And, you know, we hear it a lot over and over. So, MRS. Fusco, if you could come up. Anna, if you could come the. I missed a question. Yes. So

243the, the discussion here is why are we seeing such an increase of needs of substitutes this year? So I'm just wondering if, as. B2, what you've heard from teachers or are you doing any kind of study that. Absolutely we are. But MRS. Rahman would like to say something and then I will chime in. Okay, great. Thank you. I would just like to point out Susan Rockman, talent Management that remember that we provide not only substitute teachers for our instructional classroom teachers, we also provide substitutes for our ESPs, our teacher assistants and classroom assistants while they're absent as well. So this is a combination of both. Our esp vacancies have increased as well as our teacher vacancies for s because we have been. Our Esq population has been going up. So those are the ones that.

244Those vacancies take us a little bit longer to try to find and fill. So hence that could be the reason part of the why DR. Zeman. But we'll definitely research more in depth. MISS Fusco. Even though you know our support. Susan Rockman her in her department, I believe the Kelly Subs is very costly, but there's multiple rationales of why our educators are taking more time off, which I started at the beginning of the school year when I told you the impact that has grown in the schools of the pressures of these walkthroughs and the testing and the downbeat of the data, instead of letting them take their planning time to plan its data chats. It's meeting after meeting, you're doing it to the principals, and then the principals have to do it to them because

245you want to keep an a-rated district on the by any means necessary. Soeople are feelingngtressed and anxiy, and thehe wanant to be thrr fullndnd fullff energy. And and like me, Anna Fusco, I never MISS A beat because I don't let people beat me down and I try to get it through to the nine of you to stop it while all of them sit here creating their ways on how to walk through schools and in classrooms and make the teacher feel like they're just not doing it good enough. And that's a fact. So they need to take time. I deal with sick leave bank, I deal with fmla, I deal with the leaves department, I deal with benefits, I deal with early retirement, with multiple educators and our support staff of the rationale on making sure

246that they're taking their time off properly. And if they realize that they're in plv status, how to get out of it. And it's it's a big weight on them that where they just want to come in and teach, they don't need an entourage of this type of group walking through their classrooms all the time. And then you're doing it to our coaches and then you're doing these, this group here has their people going and doing it. Their teachers that are facilitators that are going into the classrooms. Doing this. It's, it's just, it's just a big, big, big pressure on them. Imagine an Anna Fusco on their backs all day, every day. You think they're not going to take time off? Of course they are. This is teachers and educators getting it with a group of

247people walking in. When you guys walk in, they're pretty much happy to see you because they know that you're here for the good of them and you're not here on I gotchas. Even though some of our admin are pressured that the school board members are coming need to do this, and you better not. I told you this, you're not seeing the testing when you're walking in. You think it's not planned? Of course it's planned. Those are things. That's pressures. I had this now I've got to change my my planning and my schedule because we're getting these walkthroughs, because we're getting this pressure. And what do they need to do? They need to take time off. And then let's talk about medicines that are taken away. Medicines are important to people. It keeps them sane. It

248helps them. That's why we have great people out there creating medicines and great doctors that decide on what we need to do to keep us healthy. Again, I'm not a person that has medicines, but comes the day that I MAY need it. If my doctor says take it, I'm going to listen to the doctor and not board members that decide that it's not important enough. So that's the rationale of why. And we're always trying to work with our us members of preventative measures that we worked hard to keep in our insurance. And GOD, I pray you guys don't take that away to help prevent. It's nice to not have to need meds with. Through acupuncture and different techniques of meditation and mindfulness. That also helps with cutting down absences. So here's where we sit with

249that. Those are the truths. This is not the first time you've heard me say it. We're going with six weeks left of school and they're still walking through our schools pressuring them. So usually towards the end of the year, when we're out of holidays and you're going to see, you're going to see absences go up. But I'll give them this. They are very conscious to not be absent during testing because they care about our students and they want them to succeed. i would like you guys to take that into consideration. Let's not consider that you're not giving them a raise. They have to work two and three jobs. So sometimes they might take a position that I need to take some rest so I can go make more money so I can support my family.

250Those are the rationales. Thank you for letting me speak. Yes. Thank you so much. And just, you know, base based on that, I had a feeling that was going to be the answer. I would hope that we look into how we can support teachers in a way that doesn't require them. So I don't think you have to vote no on this to get us to to study that and be able to do better in that respect. Because at this point, if we don't give the extra money, students are going to have nobody. They're going to put them in in an auditorium. Sarah, Norah and I, we've seen that before. There's no subs, five classes going to auditorium with one teacher because they don't have subs. So I understand why you might want to not support

251this in terms of other things, but you really have to understand what the consequences are if we don't have funding for substitutes to to go out the rest of this year. Thank you. All right. We're going to pause the conversation because we do have to go into attorney client session. So we'll come back to this item. I know I have several board members who would like to still speak. So board members, I am advised that the general counsel would like to request an attorney client session. General counsel. Thank you, MADAM Chair. I would like to request the school board convene an attorney client session in order to discuss litigation pending before the Circuit Court of the 17th Judicial Circuit. Can we please have decorum in the audience? We need to read this into the record.

252And in Ft. Broward County, Florida, and the following matter, Florida international consulting engineers design versus the School Board of Broward County, Florida, a Technical Services Inc. And Kathleen Langan, the school board of Broward County, Florida. Versus Heery international. Case number 23020213. The following persons will attend this attorney client session. School board members. Sarah Leonardi, chair. Doctor. Jeff Holness, our vice chair. Lori Alhadeff. Maura McCarthy Bulman. Adam Cervera. Deborah Hixon. Nora Rupert. Rebecca Thompson, doctor. Allan Zeman, doctor. Howard Hepburn, superintendent of schools and outside counsel. Edward Lauer of the law firm of Becker. And Polikoff Thomas Cooney, assistant general counsel. And myself, Cathy Dupuy Bruno, general counsel. In anticipation of this request, the attorney client session was properly advertised for today, APRIL 7th, 2026 at 12:45 P.M. In accordance with section 286.011, subsection eight of the

253Florida Statutes. The purpose of the attorney client session is to discuss settlement negotiations and or strategy relative to the pending litigation. A certified court reporter will record the session, and only those persons noted in the advertisement will be permitted to attend. At this time, the School Board of Broward County, Florida, will recess the regular school board meeting for an attorney client session. The attorney client session will be held in the 10th floor conference room at the Kathleen c Wright Administration Center, 600 Southeast Third Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 33301. The attorney client session will take approximately 30 minutes. At the conclusion of the business of the attorney client session, the regular school board meeting will reconvene. Substitute teachers, I know. I mean, still, that 5,200,000 would be we would be allocating it, but it would in

254turn increase student learning engagement and teachers possibly staying and then also getting paid more money. Now, I like the theory, but you got to remember, there is a large portion of teachers that don't take off, right? So you're rewarding the teacher that that is taking off to stay. But what about the teachers who are already in the building who never take off? And then there's and we're providing an incentive for teachers to to not take off. I think you will blow through your the $5.2 million in probably a week. Right? Because if I'm a teacher, that doesn't ever take off, I'm going to take off now. Right. And with the incentive of staying. And then and then the money's just done in short order. So it's then now I'm concerned about the teachers who never

255take off. That's, that's the first thing that comes to mind. If we're going to provide incentives for teachers that are taking off. Okay, what if we flipped it and reward it from this? So say we don't say we take half of this money, we put it to substitute teachers, but then we reward the teachers that are not taking off and give them the other, you know, millions of dollars. No, I like the idea. I just don't think it's enough money. So you have a you have a expected amount of teachers that are going to take off for the rest of the year. And that's how they're budgeting based on the trend. And so this is what the dollar amount is for. And so it wouldn't be enough to give what I specifically saying attendance, attendance

256incentives to the rest of the teachers. You would eat through your money real quick. So you got about about 13.5, 13,000 or so teachers. And so you would eat through that money at rapid pace, probably in one week for attendance incentitive Iffou rereo gigi e every t tcher a ininntivivoror, fornn attendance rate. How much for the 5 million, $200,000? If we were to divide that by the number of teachers, how much money would that be per teacher? Right. One six. Me take out my abacus. $4. Three $384. $384 per teacher. Correct. All right. Well, maybe some of my colleagues can jump in. This is where my thought is going. Just trying to figure out if there was a way that we could incentivize teachers to continue working, not take the days off, and then, but

257also giving money back to them. So I'll hand it off someone else. DR. Holness thank you, MADAM Chair. So, MADAM Chair, I can comment on board member Alhadeff and then my comments as well. Okay, so Doctor Hepburn, I and I hear you. Board member. Alhadeff. But my concern is would that be considered double dipping, sort of like an employee who is working and then substitute at the same time and getting pay for both? Wouldn't that be double dipping? Technically, unless you do an attendance incentive, this is back like a bird term. Back in the day when we had actually a little bit more robust budget and, and, you know, matched inflation. A lot of school districts did give attendance incentives for teachers. If they took off, you know, only a certain amount of days, they

258were being incentive at the end of the year, monetary incentive for them at the end of the year. Just we're not in that realm of that type of budget that we were used to about 20 years ago. Okay. So, MADAM Chair, maybe this is also a legal question. If an employee is scheduled for a particular day and they are good employee, they show up for work all the time. And we decided to have that employee take some of the substitute hours. Is that legal? Or is that double dipping? That's something I can't answer on the days. I'd have to look into that a little bit more. DR. Holness. Okay. All right. So yeah, I'd like if you could give us a follow up. It just sounds like there is some kind of gray area to

259that. That's concerning. Although I like the idea. I just it just doesn't sound like it would be legal or even I don't even know if it would be ethical. You know, I'm not sure. So I'll wait for your response. Okay, so I have some comments I do not suggest, as board member Hixon mentioned, not supporting this item because I think if we don't support this item, it will be significantly consequential to not only to teachers and staff, but to students. I mean, I can't imagine Doctor Hepburn if this item doesn't pass the kind of chaotic situations we would have in scrambling for staff to educate our children. And then at the same time, the consequence on students in terms of not receiving appropriate instructional from certified teachers on a frequent basis, I think it would

260be significantly consequential. And at this time where we're winding down to fast pm3 and and these sort of high stakes testing and so on, I, I would be very, very opposed to not supporting this because of the consequence of it. But at the same time, I understand board member Rupert's concern, 36% is very high. That's a high increase in in subs. And so, you know, our teachers union PRESIDENT Mentioned that she believes part of this might be as a result of the walk thrus or. You know, testing and so on and so forth. So Doctor Hepburn, I know board member Simon mentioned to do some research, but here's my question. Right. The teachers know why they are absent. They, they, they take off for many different reasons. So I know we have a company that

261does surveys, right? So why can't we simply send out a survey to all of our teachers who are absent as to the reasons they're absent? And we can provide a list of possible reasons and other. And so it can come back to us so we can understand why do we have this significant increase in absences, right? 36% is is very high over. Is that over a two year period? DR. Zeman the. The increase. From two years ago to this year? Yeah, 36%, 36%. That's very high. So I, I would like in instead of just research and, and coming back with possibly subjective data, I want to hear from the teachers directly. So if we have some sort of objective way to gather that information through a survey, so we know for sure these are the

262top reasons teachers are being absent over the last couple of years. And then we can look at that and probably have a plan of action in place. Or we can direct you to have a plan of action in place based upon that data. So we don't continue to have this large increase in absences. Yeah, I see MISS Doctor Lozano back there raising his hand and give him an opportunity to speak. Yeah. So anytime one of our staff calls in an absence, they also code the reason for the absence. So we have that data DR. Holness. And in our JANUARY 21st executive summary, we included that historical data from 2223 to the first half of this school year. So we will drill down further for you and updated to include spring of 2026. I do want

263to remind the board that, you know, on the current hiring freeze, we are utilizing substitutes to support our teachers with the substitutes in the special needs classrooms, and also some of the classroom teaching positions as well, are being now serviced by our long term substitutes. So this is the money that's covering our current actual staff, substitute staff that's currently working in the classrooms from now through the remainder of this school year. Okay. So Doctor Lozano, let me ask a couple of questions. So the when a teacher is absent and they indicate the reason for being absent, are they choosing from a list of already established reasons to be absent or their basically stating a reason that they're absent, if you know what I mean? Do they have sort of a list that they check off,

264or do they? So we have acceptable reasons that teachers and ESPs are allowed to take a substitute day and ask for a substitute. So they have to choose from the agreed upon reasons, which we allow as a school district for employee to get a substitute. Okay, so so that's going to create skewed data based upon what we're trying to do here as a board, right? Because you have a list of already established reasons. Many teachers MAY not want to say the reason they're absent. But if we do a survey that is anonymous, then maybe they will give us much more data. But what we what you have in place is established, acceptable reasons to be absent. What we're trying to find out as a board is what's the real reason you're being absent, because I'm

265sure one of them is not. Walkthroughs as part of your acceptable reasons, right? Correct. So so that wouldn't help us. Doctor Hepburn. So do you understand where. Because I know what you understand. So instead of a predetermined list that they have to choose from, you want to get a little bit granular about specific reasons that MAY not adhere to that predetermined list. Right. And in that survey, so teachers can be forthcoming, there should be it, it should be done in a manner where the teachers or anonymous, they, we, you, it can't be traced back to anyone. So we can really understand what's going on, you know, and I don't know how you would put together that survey. You know, I hear walkthroughs, I hear testing, I hear data chats. It could be many reasons. So

266maybe we could list some of the possible reasons and also have a section for other. So they can be free to say what it is. Then we can compile that data and come back with the top reasons outside of our acceptable reasons, so we can get to the bottom of it. Now we'll come up with the best reasonable process possible to gather the information. Okay, but but for me as a board member, I, I want to hear from teachers. You know, I want to know what they're saying. I don't want to pick a small random sample. And then it comes back to us. This is what we think. I think we really need to know what it is. And to me, one of the best way to do it is through a survey, because then

267we get everyone or we get a great a large sample that can provide us with conclusive data. That is, that would be more objective. So is that possible? Yeah, let's note it. Okay. Thank you. MISS Thompson. Thank you. DR. Holness kind of read my mind with the anonymous surveys. I do think, well, one, it's important for them to know it's anonymous because I did a roundtable with students on their student survey and they didn't know it was anonymous, even though it put multiple times that it was. But I think getting to the true reason, because when you're calling out, you're going to say, I'm sick probably 90% of the time. And that doesn't actually encompass like what we're trying to get at, because they know that there are approved reasons to take off. And probably

268I don't feel like it today is not on that list. So I do think that would be fruitful information. So we can actually address teacher concerns. And then I just wanted to go back to MRS. Alhadeff incentives idea. I think if we could explore that a little bit more about rewarding attendance for our teachers, even if it is a smaller amount than it previously was, I think I would like a follow up on the the history that you said we used to have or other districts used to have, and what the cost would be to implement something like that in our district. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Rupert. Thank you. I wanted to apologize to the Office of School Board Records because going through my stuff, I, I see that I pulled my item after

269the workshop was canceled or the item didn't go to the workshop prior to. And I popped it in the box as soon as the box got to my house. So I wanted to offer my apologies sincerest and say that it's not your fault, it's mine. So thank you. MISS Hixon. Thank you. First, I just wanted to ask the superintendent because if I. I thought we were still giving incentives like teachers or. I'm not sure if it's just teachers or if it's parents. If you have perfect attendance, do we not still give some kind of monetary incentive for that? Not at this time. Yeah, not that I'm aware of. Do you know when we stopped doing that? I don't recall us doing an attendance bonus for the traditional school year for teachers at one time for

270summer term. We did it for a few years. Okay. But there is some kind of recognition for 100% because I remember us at the end of the year. We always had one teacher, MR. Rodriguez, who got the 100% attendance. So there was some and it was from the district. It wasn't just the principal. Let me go back and I can look at some of the old contracts I don't recall. I think they got like, I don't know what it was. Did you get a certificate or a monetary. There was some I mean, he did it because he was. Yeah, there was some money. Let me look. We can go back and look. Okay. Yeah. Because I think, you know, to the point that's been made here to better to incentivize those that are, are making

271sure. And you know, towards that 100%. And I would also just mention that, you know, according to what we heard from the btu PRESIDENT, she didn't even mention money. It was about how they feel in the classroom. And I think that that's something we can do that doesn't cost us any extra money to do. Not that teachers don't want to or parents and everybody wants to be paid more. But I hear that a lot. Also. It's sometimes it's more about how they feel and whatever we can do to make sure we're lessening that burden, I think would go a long way in helping the attendance problem. Thank you. DR. Zeman thank you, chair. The I think the framework that the board is talking about is really more of a root cause analysis. If the root

272cause of, of 18 days being missed per year is there's no incentive. Like there's nobody yelling up and down, hey, it'd be great if you came in 180 days and incentive would make sense. I 100% support incentives for doing good things. It's way too easy to punish everybody that is, you know, not walking a perfectly straight line. But I if we have 12,000 teachers next year and we offer an incentive, you know, way less than half are going to get it, but it does send a signal from this board directly to the teachers that we really value you guys that show up every day. And maybe it's three days. If you MISS Three days or less, you get a bonus. But the root cause analysis would really get into this, and it would direct us

273for where we would spend more money or make changes. So they feel respected and cared for. Or, you know, if it's data chats that are killing them, maybe we have a look at data chats in the same way we looked at assessments. You know, for students, if it's killing students and parents are reporting that to us on the on an overbearing amount of assessments, maybe the teacher's involvement in data chats, if it does take up their planning periods, is a legitimate concern. But if we don't know the root causes of this 36% jump over two years, we're not going to get the. If we don't get the diagnosis right, we're not going to get the prescription right. And so, MR. Superintendent, if you could think a little bit about that as a framework for for

274what you bring to us, it would be helpful. I would think that the survey of teachers is important. I think the survey of principals is important. I think principals know a lot more than than about some of the, you know, trends that they've seen over a long period of time. They're the ones that have to deal with the substitute showing up. They're the ones who have to deal with parents that are upset about the substitute. They're the ones that have the one on one conversations with teachers about all kinds of work related things. And I think that they would add a lot of value as well. Like you said, DR. Holness about the teachers, but I look forward to learning more about this so we can get the diagnosis right and so that we can

275get the prescription right. The bonus that you're talking about, MISS Alhadeff, if even if it was $1,000 and we did a three day window and half took it 6 million, like considering, you know, what we're going to be trying to do with referendum money and things like that. 6 million is very affordable. And it would it would send a signal. I think that this board really, really values what they do. And if you come in maybe everything except three days a year, we just make a nice we'll call it the MR. Rodriguez Award, you know, for, for the teacher that year after year did that. And it's a, it's a real valuable thing in the hr space to both reward positive and to counsel against things that aren't aren't perfect. Thanks, chair. Any other board

276member discussion? MRS. Alhadeff. I just need clarification with this money that the 5 million that you're asking for, it's just for now until the end of the school year. Correct? Wow. What what would happen if the board approved half this amount in. I don't know if. We'll be coming back to you asking for the other half soon. Okay. But if I'm just wondering if there would be anything that we could put in place to incentivize teachers to not be absent. I don't I think due at the juncture of the school year, we in the month of MAY, you know, you have people pretty much going back over all the concepts and standards that we've learned throughout the year. And we have testing season right around the corner in MAY. The for the most part, all

277of MAY is, is state testing and, and ap testing and all of that. So I don't think this is the juncture to really tackle it through this item, but have us bring back and, and build upon the concepts that the board is talking about so we can initiate something for the upcoming school year. There's literally a two months of the, of the school year left. And, and one of those month is mostly dedicated to state assessments and national assessments. Okay. DR. Holness actually, I have a question from the general counsel. If you could clarify your question to legal so that they can better capture that. I'm sorry, which question was that? MR. Bruno? You had asked the question about leave and substitute time. And so we were trying to find the answer, but I don't

278think anybody captured the question properly. Okay. I it was in reference to board member Alhadeff question regarding a teacher or teachers who are working and they have great attendance, that those teachers can be provided a part of the substitute teaching income during the course of their workday so that they can get additional pay, as opposed to using substitute teachers. So my question was, is that would that be double dipping? And is that legal? Thank you. Not to have her. Yeah. Go ahead, Doctor Lozano. So when a substitute is called in contractually for a teacher, usually three teachers will take. So you take a class of 18, three teachers would take six of those students each and per contract. Elementary teachers currently get an additional $ $ aay ttake ththose aitionalltutuntnts.Oo we do have a c

279current praicice now that was negotiated through collective bargaining, where teachers who pick up students from a classroom where the district wasn't able to secure a substitute, they do receive additional funding now, as was bargained through collective bargaining. MADAM Chair, I MAY continue. Okay, so. Doctor Hepburn, well, MADAM Chair, I, I hear the concerns regarding the absences and I'm not sure. And I hear Doctor Hepburn's comments in terms of it MAY not be sort of possible for the remainder of this year to reduce the number of substitute teachers and determine if those funding can be can go to teachers or whatever the plan is. It seems like, you know, we're in APRIL next month, we're going into fast testing. So I think that there is a time constraint issue. So my concern is in the future,

280because we're we have 36% increase in absence over the last couple of years since 2023. So going into the next school year, I would more like to recommend or direct the superintendent to through research slash survey to come back with an action plan to reduce the absent rate of teachers and staff in Broward County schools. So is that should I make that through a motion, MADAM Chair, or does that need to be just a direction. That's up to you. Okay, so hearing the concerns, I'd like to this would be a substitute motion to the item. Or is this. MR. Bruno. I believe it would be amendment right. To direct the superintendent so we can add it as an amendment. I know we talked about last time that we could direct the superintendent by consensus as

281well. So it's how you want to move forward. Okay, so I'd like to make an amended motion to direct the superintendent through survey or research data, to bring back an action plan to reduce the percentage of absent, absent teachers and staff in Broward County schools for the upcoming school year. Is there a second, second, second by motion made by DR. Holness, second made by MISS Hixon. Public comment on the amendment. Could you repeat the amendment, please? DR. Holness okay. The motion is to direct the superintendent to utilize research or survey data and come up with an action plan to reduce the percentage of absent teachers and staff in Broward County schools for the upcoming school year. Okay, so motion made by DR. Holness. Amendment seconded by MISS Hixon. MRS. Alhadeff. I would also like to

282see. Added to that to give an attendance incentive. And I accept that as well as part of the motion. So. Board Member Hixon seconded. I don't know if she would. Okay. Any other board member comment? I have a concern about the incentive part right now. Without the bigger I don't want I wouldn't want to put the incentive part as a requirement. Right now. MISS Bulman. I think. I don't know if it's a two part, a two step process, but we can at least have a plan or a proposal for how we could incentivize employee attendance based on the based on the information that's collected, I, I, I appreciate that motion and the, and I think this is a good idea. And I, and I also appreciate the survey idea. I think that's really important, both

283of principles and of teachers and staff. So I, I support this. Any other board member comment on the motion. Can you repeat the motion? Okay. So the addition part two. Okay, so well, I, I am thinking about board member Alhadeff suggestion, and I believe directing the superintendent to come up with an action plan would be inclusive of incentives as well as any other measure that he wants to take. So I, I am going to exclude that board member. Alhadeff, because I think that he understands that an action plan would be inclusive of that, plus anything else he can come up with. So my motion is to direct the superintendent to utilize a research or survey data, to come up with an action plan to reduce the percentage of absent teachers and staff in Broward County

284schools for the upcoming school year. And it was seconded by MISS Bulman. MISS Thompson. I just had a question because I asked for a follow up on how an incentive program would be utilized. So is that in addition to this motion that's being made or. Doctor Hepburn, how do you view it? I recorded the follow up about the. It was more about providing history around attendance incentives for teachers in this district, or if there's any neighboring districts that could provide us some information. And what would that cost be to the district if we were to try to implement that type of incentive? So it would be an addition to this motion. So the motion is to we will give you the follow up. Right. We have a two week turnaround on follow ups, but it

285will also be included in the motion as far as building out an action plan. Right. What's the feasibility of certain things in that action plan? Thank you. DR. Zeman did you get the part about the surveys? Yes. You just didn't share that back with us. So I just want to make sure that you got that. As she was asking about her follow up, the survey pieces to. His, could I ask, could I just ask for all of the follow ups that you have for this item? So because I'm not a. Follow up of research and what is what is the cause of the increase in teacher absences that that leads to increased use of substitute teachers use an anonymous survey to collect data from teachers and principals about reasons for teacher absences, then also the

286action plan to reduce teacher absences. Terrific. Is there anything on your list that didn't include what? DR. Holness suspension. It sounds like his motion might be already included in the takeaways. You have the. Well, the motion would include all of the information that we're collecting from the based on the on the follow ups as well. Yep. So any other comment on the amendment? All in favor of the amendment? Say I. I all opposed say no. No amendment passes with one dissenting vote. Back to the item. I believe we are still with you. DR. Holness MADAM Chair, I am through commenting on the item. Thank you. Any other board member comment on the item. MADAM Chair. Oh, through the chair. Thank you. Yes. Sorry. I just wanted to say I know MR. Rodriguez. He's a really

287amazing teacher. He's always on time. He's always there. So I would love to see the Rodriguez Award actually happen. But mainly I really want to speak about the how we treat teachers. It's not what we do, it's how we do it that matters. A lot of times teachers would express that. It's not that they don't like the walkthroughs, it's how they're tooken upon. So a lot of times some students will create different initiatives to actually help teachers feel that they are recognized. So I think it's more of just recognizing that they are human and recognizing that they are people and recognizing that they're not just employees. That really matters. It's about actually being there for them and actually providing them the necessary support, not just being there to say, hey, Datacheck check next. So it's

288more of just sitting there and actually being a part of them. And staff has been doing a great job of improving that this year. I would say from my standpoint of being on the board as a student advisor. So thank you. Beautifully said. Any other comments on the item? All in favor of o 11, as amended, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no. No roll call please. Roll call. School board members. Alhadeff. No. Bulman. Yes. Cervera. Hixon. Yes. Holness. Yes. Leonardi. Yes. Rupert. Thompson yes. Yes. Passes six three. Can I get a motion a second on oh 12. So moved. Moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MISS Hixon public comment on. Oh 12 no, ma'am. Board member comment. MISS Bulman. Thank you chair I, I pulled this and I already had the pleasure of speaking

289with MR. Davis regarding this. The only. And my questions were answered, but the only the only thing I just wanted to bring to the attention the the confusing part of this and the way the executive summary is set up now, because the request is from MAY to MAY, which gets into another budget year, into another into another fiscal year, was just suggesting that we clarify that in the future so that we see what's actually budgeted for this year, and then should know what will need to be budgeted for next year if we are approving it, because it's not actually allocated for next year yet. Gotcha. Just know that. Okay. Thank you. Any other board member comment? All in favor of oh 12 say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no item passes unanimously. Could I get

290a motion a second? Oh 13. So moved. Second moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MISS Thompson. Public comment. No, ma'am. Board member comment. MR. Cervera. Thank you chair, in going through this, in my preparation efforts for the meeting. Today this morning slash afternoon now. I need this better explained. What exactly did we do to secure this near $25 million policy, if you will? What avenues were explored by the district to ensure that we are getting a quote unquote, good deal. And incidentally, if we are saving money with this premium payment as compared to this time last year, I'd like to Bennett for the benefit of the public. I'd like them to know what is going on before we improve. Excuse me. Approve potentially a $25 million insurance premium. Go ahead. Okay. Good afternoon. My name

291is Aston Henry, director of risk management. We did go out for a bid, a new bid in regards to getting a new broker. In regards to getting the new broker, we saved $1.2 million off the brokerage fee. With regards to the insurance we currently purchase, 55% of our coverage internationally. We also purchase 45% domestically. You're such a large organization that we have to go to the Lloyd's of London market in order to get insurance. When we do, we have to negotiate pricing. There is a price or an estimate rather of 24,446,000. We anticipate we will save $1 million off that premium this year. With regards to what we spent last year, the the premium will be cheaper this year as opposed to last year. In addition to that, what we've done is we've reevaluated our

292insurance program and we've been we've been able to reduce cost by $3 million last year. So if you take into consideration what we're paying this year, which will be less than the 24 million, right? It's going to be $1 million savings there. We saved 3 million last year. So that's a total of a $4 million. We also took a reduction or we reduced the brokerage fee by $1.2 million. So if you look at it overall, there's a savings of about $5.2 million. And just to be clear, $5.2 million from this time last year. Last year we we took off 3 million. So if you take into consideration what we're not paying for this year, that $3 million has been eliminated, it's it's really $2.2 million from last year. Oh, hold on. I want to make

293sure I understood we paid x amount of dollars last year, and now we're being asked to approve $25 million. How much more or less are we paying this year than we did last year? Okay. Let me let me clarify something. This is an estimate because we haven't gotten in our premium dollars or our premium billing as of yet. That will come in on MAY, in MAY, because we renew the property insurance MAY 15th. We anticipate that we will save $1 million off of this number this year. We've also reduced the brokerage fee by $1.2 million. So that's a savings of $2.2 million. What I was talking about is the elimination of the obtain and maintain insurance policy that we used to have, the elimination of the excess policy, the elimination of the excess worker's compensation

294policy with the elimination of those policies. That's a savings of $3 million. Okay. So let me make let me let's rewind for a second to make sure I understand, because I don't ever proclaim to be an insurance expert by any stretch of the imagination. Okay. But that being said, from what I'm hearing, this $25 million number is a cost estimate that we are receiving from these various carriers. Correct. From this cost estimate, you are saying that you're going to be able to save roughly $3 million off of this $25 million number. I'm going to save $1 million off of the $24,446,000. And what I'm going what we've already done is we've reduced the brokerage fee, both the retail and wholesale brokerage fee, by $1.2 million. So that's a savings of roughly $2.2 million. Okay. So

295the $25 million, give or take estimate, is really closer to $23 million in your approximation. That's correct. Okay. So we're $23 million for this year on the estimation. Correct. What was the estimation that we were talking about last year at this time. Last year at this time? The estimation, if I'm not mistaken, was $26 million. But we reduced that premium, right, by $3 million last year. So we were at 23 last year and now we're at 23 this year. No. Yeah. You'll be at 23 this year. Okay. So we've done nothing to to potentially save anything from the insurance in this 365 day period. Yes. We have. What am I missing? We reduced the brokerage fee by $1.2 million. So that's an additional savings. So we saved $1 million in a year on a $25

296million estimate policy. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Any other board member comment? Missus Alhadeff. Does this. Policy include active shooter insurance? We are currently trying to get a quote for active shooter insurance right now. So this current policy does not include it. Correct. Thank you. Any other board member discussion. All in favor of oh 13 say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no item passes with one dissenting vote from MR. Cervera. Can I get a motion and a second on double p three. So moved. Second, moved by DR. Zeman, second by MISS Hixon. Public comment on double p three. No, ma'am. Board member comment DR. Zeman. Thank you chair. I'm just wanted to ask about the entourage of media in paragraph seven. I'm sorry. pp3 double p. This is action on audit recommendations. That's not what I

297want to comment on I apologize thank you. I will add you to. Oh you're already on that list. Okay MISS Thompson. I got my questions answered. Thank you. MISS Bulman. I had my questions answered as well. All right. Any other board discussion on double p three? All in favor of double p three, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no. Item passes unanimously. Can I get a motion and a second on double p seven. So moved. Moved by DR. Zeman. Seconded by MISS Bulman. Public comment on double p seven. Doctor Walsh, but I don't see her in the audience. Board member comment DR. Zeman. Thanks so much and I want to just. If you can give me one second. Jerry you move so fast. I'm not on the right right item. Would you like me to

298go to MISS Thompson? Yes, please. Go ahead, MISS Thompson. Thank you. Chair. I just mainly wanted to focus on the campaigning aspect of this policy. It came to my attention that there was a candidate that came into one of our schools who basically was recording himself, talking to our students, talking about his their run for office. And I wanted to see how this policy is communicated with staff and teachers at the school, and also what is being done once this policy is broken. MR. Sullivan. Thank you. So I'm aware of the incident that you're referring to. The absolutely should not have happened in this time where it's. When folks are running for office, we'll I'll work with the deputy to send out to our school leaders the expectations of following this policy. s So w

299wt to go a s ste furtheher, bause t tss candidate w w s ouour s students o on their social media, is their outreach to candidates that violate our policies? Is there a request to take our students down? I'm going to work with general counsel to see what kind of communications we can provide to the individual in question about the usage of our likeness. Is it our likeness? If it's our students. Likeness, students logo school. Okay. Yes. My name. I also wanted clarification because this has happened at a few events that I have attended. Are candidates allowed to wear their t shirt when they attend school district events? My understanding is there's no campaigning on school board property, so if they're wearing any material that is, that could be construed as campaigning for their office.

300No, that would not be allowed. Our candidates are allowed to be in this room wearing a name badge saying they're running for office. No. Our candidate's allowed to have magnets on their car and park on school board property. Not for their individual. Office that they're running for. But if I wanted to have one for someone who was running for office, I'm not sure I know the answer to that question, but I could not be wearing one for my candidacy for an office. Okay. And then I think I'm gonna jump over DR. Zeman around the media request. I approve of how we've written it in the policy, but can Doctor Hepburn, you explain why it might be important that the superintendent sign off on media in the building? Yes, it's important for us to know why

301media is about to enter our school with. The specific purpose is even when we visit schools and if there's a media presence, it's very orchestrated to make sure the right students have press releases, have permission to be recorded and included in our in our media information, there is a lot of nuances when entering a school building, school building with media that we need to be aware of and concerned about so we can ensure we give them the right direction of what they can and can't do, I.E. The situation you're just talking about. And is there any time that you would say no to media presence or infringe on a media's right to be there and record, etc. Yes, there will be times where we will tell the media what they can and can't do for

302the protection of our students. Can you walk us through some of those parameters? MRS. Sullivan? Can you walk us through some of those type of parameters? I'm sorry, parameters about. Of why we would say say no to media for for a school visit? I just think it depends on the event. I hate to use this one as an example, but for we would not let media on msd for a couple a couple years. So that was there was some reasoning behind that. So it just depends. We rarely exclude media. We try to include media because we believe it's a venue for to inform the public. They come to our campuses probably, I don't want to say weekly, but quite often first day of school, they're there. I allowed, even if it's not so much a

303positive story, we still let them on. The more recent one was records. We gave them complete access to the new building they were in there. They used those photos in their stories. So it's very rarely that we deny media. I think it's more important that we have control because where they're going, right? If it's during the school day, we want to ensure each of the students have media releases. We're not sure. You know, some parents don't want their students on, on, on that type of media. So it's not more it's more about controlling who has access to our campuses than denying. We rarely deny media. And I appreciate that. Like I said, I am supportive of having superintendent oversight on that. There was just a comment made earlier today addressing that. And then one more

304thing for our media releases, if there's an elected official who is visiting our schools on official business or are their allowable visit and they take pictures with our students, do our media releases, cover their socials and their use of those photos? Our media releases would cover social, but it would not cover for them to be on any kind of campaign or campaign material. And are they made aware of that when they visit? So like, if I'm a congresswoman and I have a newsletter and I say, I visited Silver Palms Elementary, here's a picture of kids as I was reading to them. That would be fine as long as the students in the photos were had media releases, and it was an official newsletter from our office. But not on mailers. It should not be on

305mailers. Okay. Thank you. Thank you DR. Zeman. Thank you. I believe we run a government organization and i believe that the people pay for this institution. I also believe that ever trying to control the media is inappropriate, not to try and get them to write good news, not to write them to avoid bad news, not to avoid what they don't want to see. This nation was built on free media access, and this is a government operation that the people pay for. And so I think that this policy is too strict about media. I actually think we want media to come on our schools and tell stories. If you know world, if an astronaut comes to visit a school, we'd love to have media there. If scientists come to talk to a science center, we'd love

306to be there. If I want to go and show local media, you know, something that's going on in a school, I don't want to ask the superintendent's permission. And so I don't agree with this because I just believe deeply in the rights of the media to be able to see what we're doing. And I want them, you know, to believe what we tell them. Just recently, we told them we want to be the most transparent district in the world. And then we say, yeah, but not media on our campus. And I just am going to call that out for a contradiction. We should either stop saying we want to be perfectly transparent, and we'll keep this policy, or we change this policy. And we think very clearly about the amazing power that comes from a

307free and unfettered access to government property for the media. I think that there are appropriate measures, you know, like planning ahead and principals who know how to do media releases. But you know, what I have seen and what this policy represents is a step too far in terms of controlling the media. And I would not support this as it's written. I just I don't think that this gives the public access or confidence in what we're doing in our schools. And it sounds to me very, very defensive about what we're doing. And I'm not defensive about anything going on in our schools. I think there are media releases and there are good protocols, and I think our principals are fully qualified to deal with people coming on, and I want the media to understand that they

308can come on any one of our schools with the appropriate protocols, but not, you know, being cleared to go to certain sites that tell, you know, specific news on that. I mean, we have volunteers on campus, we have parents on campus. We have employees on campus. We have students on campus. We have high schools full of kids with cell phones. They're going to take videos and pictures of what's going on. If we only want that information to get out, then this policy is fine. If we want, you know, local news and Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel and, you know, chronicle of higher education to come on our campus, we should write a policy that encourages them to do that and then has some kind of local rules about how to do that

309appropriately on these campuses. But this is a very heavy handed policy in my mind, and I just i can't support it the way it's written. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Bulman. Thank you. So, you know, I. I think that we could. Find a way to protect the students while also not being as restrictive in the language I the concern that I have with this, the way that it's written right now is it gives absolute discretion to the superintendent and it doesn't provide for making sure that there's a consistent application of how you're going to determine what media can come in, who can come in, how that how that happens. So do we have an actual written procedures or guidelines that we use to ensure that we're being fair to all the out the outlets or.

310So I should have clarified this when MISS Thompson was asking the questions. I think we've gone a little bit beyond what this policy is about. This policy is about visits to schools, and all we're saying is we're letting any elected official come to our schools, and they're not allowed to bring media with them unless it's approved by the superintendent. Again, since I've been responsible for communications, I. I can't recall a time where I've denied media inside one of our schools. As long as we ensured that the kids, the students had media releases. So I think we're going a little bit beyond what this policy is. This is just visits to our schools and we're just we're just saying from guests and we're just saying the guests can't bring media with them. So it has nothing

311to do with access of media on our campuses. That's. So do we have another policy that addresses the media access issue? No. So they make the request. Most of the time it's us inviting media. It's very rare that media is asking to come on on campus, but the more recent ones we have not denied. Is this something that other school districts have a policy that's just dedicated to media access? Because I see the I see the distinction that you're making about visitors. But it does raise the question of who is the gatekeeper here on this and how. Well, I think the gatekeeper, for all intents and purposes would be as it relates to media, it would be myself as the Chief Communication Officer. Which is typically how, which is typically how it's been in every

312school district I've worked in. When media, media usually requests through the communications team, access to a school for whatever specific story or communications is calling media to come in for specific story and the communication team, these guys that we work with here in the local market, they know the routine because they've, you know, been in been doing the job for so long. They know, hey, you can't videotape all kids. You can show them from afar and make it look blurry. So you can't identify the face or, or from the knees down because you don't know if a kid has a media release or not. If it's a story such as what's the recent one? Broward reads the principles of very strategic in ensuring that the kids who are going to be in front of the

313media while we're reading to them, have media releases so they don't have to worry about blurring faces. And yeah, and I, and I totally support that. It's just, I guess the question is, if you were really looking into the way it's written, if you have the absolute power to determine who comes in and out, then you could, you know, pick and choose who you allow. And instead of having a broad, I mean, a broad ability for different viewpoints to come in to report. On the other hand, there's also the issue of who really constitutes the media and who's coming in because anybody. Anybody's the media. Can, you know, be a media person at this point. So I, I mean, I think it, it might it bears a little bit more. Attention perhaps, especially in the

314changing. Environment that we have. And to the point of, you know, that MISS Thompson made about the social media posts and those kinds of things, I think, you know, maybe we need to have a more robust policy that isn't necessarily well, I mean, it might be in this one too, but just that addresses some of these other things that are coming up and what you're allowed to publish because that is a it's even a question when I go into a school, I don't I don't really feel comfortable taking pictures of kids necessarily and doing that because I don't want to violate any of their privacy rights or. So I think we should all be very aware of what the rules are and what the guide like. We should have guidelines so that we can all

315operate accordingly that are more robust than what's just in this policy. It's a good starting point. Can we do that? Yes. Okay. Thank you. MR. Cervera. Thank you, chair. And just for the record, MISS Thompson was not talking about me in her her comments earlier. I was I was not the he in the who was visiting the schools. Just so we're 100% clear on the record. That was not. Although I visit my schools, I make sure I follow follow all the rules. So if anybody wondering out there, it was not this district six board member just want to clear that up. No. I listen, I get it, but not many of them go to our schools. So I just want to make sure that everyone is is 100% clear that that was not me. That

316being said, and in all seriousness, looking at this, I too have some issues with this language about the media. I think being transparent with all facets of of our business and what happens, how we manage from the top to the bottom, what goes on in schools. The media should be able to participate in that process and spread the word of what is going on at bc. I think it can be used certainly to get a lot of our messaging out there, all the good that we are doing in the community. And listen, let's face it, if if every now and then we need a kick in the butt because we're not doing the best things. The media should call us out and do their jobs and put that out there. Have you been to school

317in a while? But I'm pretty sure the right to a free press still exists in the us Constitution. That beautiful document that was written in 1787. So I will always be pro media as far as access is concerned, and I would encourage them to to cover us. And certainly amplify our messaging from a district standpoint. Thank you, chair. Thank you. I have a few questions and then we can go to another round. Did do we do rule making with this policy? This is rule making, right? So did we workshop this policy multiple times? Yes. Okay. I was just looking. You know, I just searched Broward County media access policy, and I'm on the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport website. And there's all sorts of, you know, obviously they provide for media access, but there are

318restrictions. And I think about like my time in the classroom and, you know, people we've been talking about walkthroughs all day today and how disruptive walkthroughs are just from district staff. And I think about like a guest visiting with a hole with media cameras. I mean, we've all been to those events at schools. It's very disruptive. So while I am certainly in support of giving media access and, you know, the the strong pillar of our society that is our media, I think, you know, we have to also be cognizant of keeping our students safe and protecting that learning environment. And, you know, there's lots of public entities that allow media access, but also restrict it to some extent for safety purposes and for functioning, functioning purposes. So I, I support the way the policy is

319written. I think having, you know, public guidelines about media access, like MISS Bulman suggested would be helpful. You know, I'm again, I'm looking at the Fort Lauderdale Airport website and they have that. And so, so just so we all are on the same page because again, it might not even be someone campaigning, but it could be an elected official who is up for election that year, that year. And they are, you know, visiting a school with cameras, not in their campaign capacity, but in their elected official capacity. And it is still, you know, disruptive and it is still self self promoting. So I support the language as it as it stands, there's lots of government agencies that again, restrict media access when it comes to, to safety and security and, you know, being able to

320run their, their organization. DR. Holness. Thank you, MADAM Chair. So, John, I'm sorry, MR. Sullivan, through the superintendent, could you clarify again or reiterate the current process for media to visit schools? Sure. So they would email myself or my office. We will consider the request, reach out to the the site leader to ensure it doesn't conflict with anything going on, such as testing. And then we want to make sure wherever they go in the school, if students are on campus, that the kids have media releases, if there's no media releases, then they can't be filmed. Okay, so if an elected official plans to visit a school and that elected official, whatever the reasons MAY be, because there are many different reasons that they come, right? Besides that, I want media to be a part of

321my visit based on the reason that I'm visiting, based upon the way the policy is written, media would not be able to accompany that elected official. Is that correct? Yes or no? That is correct. Unless the superintendent approves it. And I think it's important to consider what the policy is saying as well. It's saying that any elected official can visit our schools without any sort of notification. So if you factor that in, then add the ability to bring media with them. I think that would be highly problematic. Right? I understand John, I mean, MR. Sullivan, I'm just going through a series of questions that I have in my thought process. So, so then if, if an elected official decided that I am visitingg thihi particicar s schl becauau o o a particular r rean,n, whatever

322it MAY be like, I believe there's an event coming up for Dillard with in terms of voters and so on. And that elected official or maybe many elected officials, 2 or 3 of them believe it's newsworthy and they want to bring the media. This language currently would prevent them from doing so. So the question is, can this be written in a way that media follows the same process with elected officials as they do without elected officials? Well, so the the way the policy is written, they can do it if the superintendent allows for it. Okay. So it puts then the control in the superintendent's. In other words, if media wants to go to any school, they would go through the process you mentioned. But now if they want to accompany an elected official who said,

323look, I'm inviting you because this is important issue that affects the state. We believe that, you know, your presence would be needed in order to gain attention to whatever it is. If the superintendent says no to the media, then nothing can happen. So I'm not sure. It seems to me that we could accomplish the same issue of having the media there with elected officials. If we just follow the same process as as we do when there's no elected official, if media wants to visit, can, can, can the language be written in that way? If if I MAY, MR. Sullivan, I think you it's the same process, right? I think the key word there is process. And I don't think it. I don't think you want to bake a process into a policy. But it would

324be the same process. They would if the if an elected official wanted to bring media with them, they will still contact MR. Sullivan's office or MISS Knowles as well, which we'll get to MR. Sullivan, and then he will ask a series of questions that he just mentioned. It's the same process. Okay. So if media, if it's the opposite, media wants to accompany the elected officials as opposed to elected officials want to bring media. It's the same process we've had. We've been in events where media has accompanied elected officials. And it's the same process. We we ensure that the kids that are in the space have the, the, the media releases and things like that. So they can have a good recording for whatever purpose that they're using it for. Understand. But I think the way

325that it's written, it gives the impression that an elected official cannot bring media and there's no option to do so except the superintendent given a yes or no. So, DR. Holness, do you have an amendment you'd like to propose around that language? Well, I'm just trying to have them interpret the language for me so I can understand if I need to, if I need to vote on it. So, John, MR. Sullivan, is that what it's saying? That an elected official cannot bring media? And unless the superintendent says yes or no? And if the superintendent says no, then that's it. Correct. Okay. So, MISS Bruno, I have a couple of questions. The the media in this country has certain rights, and it appears that restricting the media and having the permission of media to be in

326any school, with or without elected officials, is that in opposition to any state or federal law? There is obviously freedom of the press, but there's also the responsibility of the school board and school district to protect children and to also make sure that there's no disruption in the school. So my experience has been that there's either a process document or something that's very clear with regards to media access, because obviously they do and can have access, but not a free for all that. Whenever you want to go into a school, you can go into, there's some parameters that are set. Okay. So MR. Sullivan, the language that exists in, in, I guess in a different policy regarding media, just so that this can be clear, can that language be incorporated within that item number under.

327I'm sorry, I don't know what line it is, but can that language be included in there indicating clearly what process we already have in place for media? Even I know it sounds redundant, but I think it would bring clarity to elected officials regarding this policy, how they would be able to bring media or how media could accompany them. So I don't believe we have a a media policy, but I'm happy to not do a policy per se, but outline a very specific rules of engagement for the media. That way there's no misunderstanding. Also, I know this language. This language appears like it's new, but this is actually from the previous policies before. I'm sorry, double p for that. The board appealed earlier today. So this is although it's underlined because it's a new policy because

328we appealed the old policy. This is not new language. Okay. So MR. Sullivan, in for items I for line I that indicated I think this is line I. Yes. Are you able to suggest a language as to the within I as to how media could be included? Sure. We could make it clear so we can say after shall not be accompanied by media personnel. After personnel we can put without prior approval from the superintendent. Okay, so, MADAM Chair, I would like to make a motion that we included that additional language. Second motion made by DR. Holness, seconded by DR. Zeman. MR. Sullivan, could you please clarify that language? Sure. So under I under it's that first sentence. So at the end of that first sentence after personnel, it would say shout out, be accompanied by

329media without prior approval from the superintendent. Okay. Public comment on the amendment. Board member discussion. MISS Bulman. Thanks. I did see that it was in the in the last one and that we're not adding anything. I, I think to MISS Leonardi's point of doing a little googling that this. I appreciate the motion and language, I support that. And then I, I see like in our marketing and communications page, I think we could probably just add like on the Broward College page, they have a page that says working with the media guidelines and procedures. So that we're covered in terms of what our policy is. So people can't accuse us of choosing or, you know, picking and choosing who we're allowing in or whatever. So we have something there. And that would be my suggestion for

330that. I don't think there's a whole lot of extra work, because we actually do have a, a page, which is really prominently displaying my colleagues. I haven't seen myself pop up on this video yet that's been playing for the past ten minutes. [Laughter] Okay, Sarah's on there. So if we just add, I think it's just a matter of putting a procedure in there so that we're covered and that people can check it and then they know what our procedure is. We're happy to do it. If I can add with the additional language that was just mentioned from DR. Holness, wouldn't that have to change the rest of I where it says, yeah, you have to. Okay. So we would have to delete the the next sentence, the school or district or portion of that sentence

331about photo opportunities or press briefings associated with the visit must occur off campus and outside the school day, because we're talking about allowing in campus. On campus. Yeah. Any other board member discussion? MR. DR. Zeman? Okay. MR. Allen's fine. I appreciate. Mike. This amendment very much. DR. Holness it is always dangerous to put limits in, and I don't think, you know, the media would look at asking permission of in the way that had been written was really encouraging them to visit, but I do want to encourage them to visit. I want them to visit all the time. I want them to tell the stories of what we're doing. I want the public to see what we're doing because I think what we're doing is amazing. And the more that they see, the better off we

332are. So this change is better. I just appreciate that very much. And I just want clarity, chair, that this amendment includes striking the sentence, starting with school or district staff, ending with school day. DR. Holness. Strike. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. DR. Zeman striking. We're. If the first sentence says guests visiting schools during the regular instruction hours shall not be accompanied by media personnel without prior approval from the superintendent. That contradicts the second sentence, which says it has to occur off campus. It also. The second sentence is really full of process steps. You know, school district coordinating. The staff must inform. That's a that's great for the website, you know, to tell people. Right. Okay. So I think that whole sentence could be struck if it's consistent with your intent of the motion. It is it

333is. Yes. Any other board discussion? All in favor of the amendment say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no amendment passes unanimously. We're back to the item DR. Holness. Are you done? Yes, MADAM Chair. MISS Bulman, I have you up next. That was easy. I support the rest of it, so I'm good. Any other board discussion on this item? All in favor of double p seven, as amended, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Say no item passes as amended. Unanimously. This is the time of the agenda when school board members will hear from our evening speakers. Do we have any evening speakers? No, ma'am. Okay. At this time, do any of my colleagues have any update or student successes to bring forth to the super for the superintendent's consideration? DR. Zeman. Thank you so much. I wanted

334to make you all aware of fascinating news. If you're an econometrician, the National Bureau of Economic Research has done a brand new study on cell phone use. I will send a link to my colleagues and the superintendent to share with the staff if you would like, but it. It is a fabulous article that follows a top ten school district that in 2023 implemented a bell to Bell School old school cell phone ban and allowed students to put their phone in airplane mode. So I don't know who that could possibly be, but it is a really, really well done paper. The results are what they are, but I'm happy to share that paper with my colleagues just for their own reading if they have time. Second point is, I don't want to. Kind of create. A

335lot of distractions around this paper. This is a paper that is great for academic research. It's great for people that really care deeply about how do you suss out the effect of cell phone use? And I look forward to people reading it if they have time. Thank you chair. Thank you, MR. Cervera. Thank you, chair. Just a comment question for me. We've heard multiple times in this meeting from public speakers regarding the desire to revisit this glp one issue. This is currently in arbitration. MISS Or MADAM General Counsel. Yes, is going through that process. And I and I hope for a quick and swift resolution. I would ask the superintendent to keep us informed of this process. This seems to be a topic of great public importance, and I want all of my colleagues and

336myself included, to be kept fully abreast of what's going on with this, sir. Noted. Right. MISS Hixon. Did you just ask? Thank you. Before I do my student things just to that point to to MISS Johnson through the superintendent. Can you tell us, because we had this discussion the other day. So we hired someone. We paid for someone who's looking at carve outs. And part of that carve out was to look at the glp one s and see how we could reduce the cost and bring that back under coverage. Is that correct? Yes, yes. That's correct. Thank you. And is that something that the union is aware of? Should they be aware of that? Is that something that's been part of discussions that you've had in negotiations with the. MR. Bruno before? Oh sorry. No,

337I was going to say that Lozano question. Oh. I know you're distracted asking if the union is aware of the consultant that we've hired to work on carve outs with the current health care contract that we have about glp ones. She is aware that we are doing some work. I'm not sure how deep she's aware. We can give them a brief update tomorrow, sir, because we're meeting with the union leaders tomorrow on the referendum, so we can include this in that update. And when do we expect to have information back from the consultant that we hired? That would include an update on the glp one. rfp are ready. Two of them, the critical disease management and the glp one weight loss. He's working with the district now. We're going to get him out on the

338street as soon as possible. We have a process that the new vendors, people who can apply for the rfp have to go through the process of registering with the district. Okay. Thank you so much for that update. On a different note, I would like to say congratulations to all of the scholar athletes that were recognized last night at the North Area Scholar Athlete Award ceremony, which was hosted at Dillard High School. And it was very beautiful. The South area will occur next Monday, but congratulations. And they also won some scholarships there. So congratulations to all of them. Special congratulations to the coach of the year from Blanche Ely High School. That was coach James Green. He is the coach of the state runner up girls basketball team. So that was awesome. Then the athlete of

339the year was from Fort Lauderdale High School. He played track football and track and field. He holds the Cambridge Diploma. He was recognized as a scholar of Distinction, Florida Seal of Biliteracy and had over 300 service hours. And that was luxurious. Tyler Junior. So congratulations to all of them. If you have time, come see the south area one just to see the students and hear. There was two students that had over a thousand volunteer hours. Doctor Fulton's daughter had over 900 volunteer hours, and she was recognized and won a scholarship last night. So it's just great to see our students and all of the amazing things. They're not just scholars, they're scholar athletes, many of them playing more than one sport. And to see them have 1000 hours of volunteer service, 900 hours of volunteer

340service shows that our students are the whole package. So that's very exciting. We also a congratulations goes out to Maya Calderon, who is a senior at Western High School. She just became a published author and her. Yes, very excited for that. Her parents sent us an email to share that. And finally, I'd like to say congratulations to the msd Winterguard. They won silver and they advanced to the nationals. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Thompson. Thank you chair. Piggybacking off of what MRS. Hixon said. So both West Broward and Flanagan place for the color Guard, with Flanagan being number one and West Brower being number three. But there are five of our schools competing, which is Cooper City West, Broward, Somerset, which is a charter. But that's okay. And msd, I also wanted to say Happy

341Assistant Principals Week to all of our aps throughout the district. Without you, I'm sure our principals would go nuts. So we appreciate you guys. I also wanted to give a shout out for the outstanding student Awards ceremony that MISS Bulman and I attended at some point last week, which I think was Thursday, Tuesday, I don't know where I was, no, we did the case. I'm getting there. But our own student advisors got recognized for outstanding students, with Jessica and Landon both walking away with some money for college. So congratulations. [Applause] i also went to the cte cte Awards. I don't know where it was with MISS Bowman. In District one at Margaritaville. And District one on Thursday when we went. Also that we are having high school voter drives throughout the county. So if you

342have a high schooler, please encourage them to attend. West Broward is having a Chicago Teen Edition performance APRIL 9th and 10th. And if you guys haven't gone out to West Broward, they're probably up there in the best drama group, I think, in the county. And then I also attended Myanmar's Bag and beyond, and I really want to give a shout out to MR. Porter and all his staff that put that on, because they're able to utilize the I can't remember what it's called when kids don't have to go to school, but they're able to utilize that time period in a way that's beneficial and actually encourages their students to come. So they had speakers that are Myanmar graduates come and kind of talk about different careers and expertise. There was a famous football guy there.

343Football guy. Geno Smith. Wow. I don't know what that means, but he was there and it was great. Everyrye was super. I n't know w wt that means eieith.Oo t that's my my student shout outs. I also wanted to give a shout out to MISS Johnson for all the work you do for our district. I think sometimes because you're the the money person, you get disparaged by some by some speakers. And I think without your help, we would be in a much, much worse position. So I just wanted to say thank you for the ideas you bring to this board, for getting us out of some some rough times, and for continuing to make us a stronger district. Thank. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff. Thank you. So first, I'd like to just make a statement that

344it's 1,000% unacceptable. If anybody is downgrading a behavioral threat assessment. Okay. And Doctor Hepburn, I like if you could give an update on vape detectors being implemented in our high schools. Sure. Chief Gregory. Good afternoon. Mike Gregory, Chief safety and Security Officer that rfp has been released from procurement, and the last update I received yesterday was that it was with the risk manager. So my understanding is once that is approved and released, it will be open for all vendors to submit proposals. And then we'll once the it's closed, we'll start the review process. Okay. And is the goal to get them implemented at the start of next school year? Go ahead, chief Greg, I want to. Yes, our goal is that as soon as we have the selected vendor in hand to start a scope,

345scoping out the schools walkthroughs implementation will begin immediately this summer. Okay, wonderful. And I'd just like to give a shout out to MISS Leonardi and Doctor Hepburn for doing a wonderful job with expediting our meetings, because we are done. 3:00 good job. And our new. Our new gc as well. Yes, and all of us. All of us together as a team. MISS Hixon wanted to speak again. Yeah. I'm sorry. When I did my list, I forgot to write one down. I, I had the as did Doctor Fulton. The opportunity. Sheridan Hills Elementary School does an oratorical contest, which was why we didn't make it to cte. But I just have to say, if you haven't had an opportunity to do that. There were three preschool students who memorized the poem and performed it in front

346of a whole cafeteria full of adults. I mean, I was just floored. It started with preschool. So Oratorical Oratorical contest is they each have to memorize a poem, but they can't just stand and say the poem. They have to do the the sky and, and, and dress up. And that first little boy stood up there in his little suit. And he just projected and he was so phenomenal as a preschooler, I just when people say that thing, great things are not happening in Broward County public schools. You just need to walk into an elementary school or walk into something like the cte or the outstanding Senior awards, but especially when you're looking at preschoolers, memorizing a poem and having the wherewithal to speak in front of people and not be afraid and so proud of

347themselves. That's because of the great work our teachers do. And so I just wanted to give a shout out to Sheridan Hills, their teachers, their parents, the principal, the administration, because those students from preschool to fifth grade were phenomenal. And I was really, really blessed to be there on Thursday night. So thank you. Thank you, MISS Rupert. Thank you. I wanted to give a little update. I met with a small group of Afl-cio people this past week, and they had some pretty good ideas about saving the district money. So one of them I wanted to bring up here at the meeting is we have and I didn't even know this. We have three tow trucks that are available for, for, for use for our white fleet. And right now currently, because, you know, we have

348the auto auto techs at several schools and those students can be working on our white fleet. Instead, the white fleet goes back to the dealership for tune ups for fixing stuff. And they could actually it was their idea. They said we could save a ton of money because we all know if you go to a mechanic that you know, it's going to be a little bit cheaper, maybe a lot cheaper than if you go to a dealership. So just an idea like that. And I really want to say thank you to these several people that had reached out, because it just shows that we're all working very hard trying to save money. And these are things that we haven't really thought of. And I know that our employees have great ideas on how to do

349so, and i don't know how to engage them in a way that would be effective, but that's more of a superintendent deal. But I really thought that was and that's just minimum with with this group. I mean, it was just handful of guys and they took time out of their out of their day at the end of the day and sat there and just really said what was great about our district and how to have these ideas to, to bring, you know, bring some more money back. Plus, it beefs up our own student's education. So I think it would be a win win. And I would ask the superintendent to look into it. I have their phone numbers I could pass on to you or whoever you you want to do, but I think it's

350a really great idea. Thank you, thank you. Any other board member discussion? All right. The scheduled order of business for this regular school board meeting of the school board of Broward County, Florida, has been completed. Seeing no objection, I now adjourn the meeting.