001Welcome to today's school board workshop. This workshop at the School Board of Broward County, Florida, is now called to order to ensure a safe and productive environment. Please note the clearly marked emergency exits do not block exit doors, and all attendees must be seated except for media. Once the room reaches capacity, attendees will be directed to the overflow area. If the fire alarm sounds, exit the room calmly continue outside the building and remain there until authorities give clearance to return. Thank you for your cooperation. Board member DR. Holness will now introduce his school to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. DR. Holness. Thank you, MADAM Chair. It is my pleasure to introduce the students of the William Dandy Middle School Pre-Med program as they lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
002Students in this outstanding program participate in engaging hands on activities, laboratory experiments, field trips, guest speaker presentations, and academic competitions designed to inspire future careers in medicine and health care. Recently, I had the honor of visiting the program and witnessing students participate in an exciting, hands on team building experience that showcased their collaboration, leadership, and enthusiasm for learning. William Dandy Middle. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under GOD, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. Thank you. As we begin, we reaffirm our strategic plan goal 100% proficiency for all students, guided by our vision. Educating student. Today's students to succeed in tomorrow's world. As an a rated district, we
003remain committed to sustaining this achievement while empowering every student to reach their highest potential. Our theme this year is believe, empower, Achieve one Broward. We will soon hear from our registered public speakers. We ask that decorum be maintained and civility and respect be shown during public comment. Our General Counsel will assist the chair in maintaining decorum during this period. We also want to remind public speakers of the rules and expectations regarding the agenda, public comment portion of the Special School Board meeting, as well as board policy attorney Dupree Bruno, please explain the rules of public comment. Thank you and good morning. Public comment is governed by School Board Policy 1020 and is intended to provide input on the board's duties, decisions and the overall operation of the school district. The school board is viewpoint neutral
004during public comment per school board policy, 1020 public comment procedures are as follows. Speakers must state their name, city of residence and whether they are lobbyists. Before beginning their remarks. All remarks must be directed to the board as a whole. The board will not respond to or engage with speakers during public comment, and no action will be taken unless the item is on the agenda. The time for speaker will be three minutes. Speakers must limit their comments to matters related to school board business, and for agenda items must remain relevant to the specific item. Comments MAY not address matters that are pending litigation. Quasi judicial proceedings, active investigations or administrative hearings, solicitation and lobbying activities must comply with applicable school board policies. Abusive language defined as profanity threatening or name calling is prohibited. In addition,
005clapping, hissing, booing, shouting, yelling or other disruptions from the audience are not allowed. Speakers who fail to follow proper decorum in the chambers will be ruled out of order by the board chair. Failure to comply MAY result in the microphone being turned off or a recess being called after a warning. The chair MAY also direct removal from the meeting by law enforcement or the Sergeant at Arms. MADAM Chair. Thank you, Attorney Dupree. Bruno, the board wants to hear from you, and we appreciate your cooperation in maintaining a respectful, orderly and productive environment. We will now proceed with the agenda. Today's workshop will operate in accordance with School Board Policy 1020, and the board will review the items as advertised and presented by the superintendent. So I would like to take a moment to recognize and
006thank Microsoft for its continued investment in Broward County Public Schools. As a global leader in innovation, Microsoft has committed more than $11 million this fiscal year alone, helping. Oh yeah, let's give it. Helping elevate what is known worldwide as the Broward model, a holistic approach to achieving measurable fiscal gains while innovating across all functions, from back end operations to the classroom. Their partnership extends beyond technology through licensing, concessions and funding for district wide ai training, district events, ai recognition programs, student internships, project subsidies, and global exposure, including the recent bk customer story in film. Microsoft has also supported key initiatives through the Broward Education Foundation. More on that from Biff after the video featuring Justin Spellerberg, PRESIDENT Of Microsoft Elevate. Beacon role. The video. Hey everyone, it's Justin Spelhaug, PRESIDENT Of Microsoft elevate calling you
007from a hotel room here in Valencia, Spain, where I have the chance to meet with some pretty cool schools, doing some great work with ai, but I just wanted to take a moment to pause and highlight that. Over the past two years, Broward County Public Schools and Microsoft, I think, have built one of the most forward thinking public education partnerships in the country. The work is already being recognized from our shared sponsorship and the Community Involvement Awards and the Caliber Awards, and to Broward County's historic adoption of 2000 m365 copilot license. That's the largest k-12 adoption in the world, the Broward model. Sometimes I say the Broward Way is now being showcased internationally through Microsoft's success stories in video storytelling as a blueprint for other schools, how they can save operational costs, build teacher capacity,
008apply that to the classroom, and drive differentiated learning outcomes. Broward, at the core, was not just about adopting technology, it's about shaping what responsible, impactful ai and education really looks like. Through initiatives like the ai recognition program, you're setting the standard for how districts empower educators and students responsibly. At the heart of this partnership is, of course, skilling, ensuring that every educator, administrator, and every student has the opportunity to thrive in an ai powered world. This mission directly aligns with Microsoft Elevate and our commitment, alongside Brad Smith's vision of ai diffusion to ensure the ai benefits are broadly and responsibly distributed to everyone. What's happening in Broward is not just transformation at scale, it's a model of how technology, combined with leadership combined with community, can come together to drive real outcomes for students. And
009we are just getting started. On behalf of Microsoft, thank you for your partnership, for your leadership, for setting the bar, for defining what's possible in education, inspiring so many other organizations like the organizations I'm about to talk to here in Spain. Thank you. Thank you. This collaboration reflects a shared commitment to preparing our students and staff for the future, and we are truly grateful for their partnership. I would like to ask James Knapp from the Broward Education Foundation to speak about other events sponsored, sponsored by Microsoft as part of the broader investment in Broward County Public Schools. MR. Knapp. Thank you. This is a a momentous day in a lot of different ways, but one of them being this shows exactly what it means to partner with Broward County Public Schools and what it means
010when companies, organizations, people truly want to invest in the greatness that is Broward County Public Schools. The two time aid district isn't just isn't just words. We continue to live it every single day. So I want to say a few. Thank you. Thank you to to the school board. Thank you so much to cabinet, but also to my board. And thank you to Trey Davis specifically, and Adam Hall from Microsoft, who I'll ask to come up and say a few words. This this is not a this is not a one off. This is an investment. This is intentionality that Microsoft continues to step up and, and do what they know is right with the district that they know is the best district. And we're excited about that. They believe in us. Obviously, you guys heard
011from Justin himself. He's he's the big dog. And he's letting everybody know around the world what this Broward model looks like. And for us to be a part of that is a really big deal. The investment that they made in the in the Community Involvement Awards and the caliber awards. And as we move forward, some other really exciting opportunities that we have that I'm not really sure because Justin didn't say them because I don't I don't want to say them. So we've got a few other a few other things that, that they're investing in, but in this district as a whole and what they want to do here, not just in our district, but now within our community. So now we're starting to bleed out and continue to help the rest of our community with
012what it is that we can do with each other. So I wanted to say also that just a little bit ago, that there was an amazing presentation by Microsoft continuing to give back and doing what they could for some of our, our students and our student government folks. So that was really exciting. But with that said, I would like to invite Adam up to say a few words because he's been instrumental in this entire process to continue on. But the one last thing is also the innovation zone piece that we're going to continue to discuss and continue to move forward. Them being at the forefront of that is excititg. So thanknkou so m much, Adam. G ahd.D. Good morning, chair. Board members. Superintendent Hepburn, cabinet members, and especially Chief Information Officer Trey Davis and his
013team. And thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I'll be brief, but I do want to say what an honor this moment is for me personally and professionally. Over the course of my 25 plus year career in education technology, I've had the privilege to work with school systems across the country. But I can say without hesitation what we've built together here at Broward County Public Schools is truly historic. This has been some of the most rewarding work of my career, not because of the technology, but because of the people behind it and because of the passion, vision, competence, and creativity that drive those people. Trey, your leadership has been exceptional, steady, visionary, and grounded in what matters most outcomes for students and teachers and to your entire team, many of whom are here
014today your directors, your staff, the level of competence, commitment, and forward thinking mindset you bring every day is what has made this partnership real and sustainable. This didn't happen by chance. It happened because of intentional leadership and a willingness to think differently. I also want to recognize my team at Microsoft, some of whom are here today, and many of whom are watching the hours, the travel, the problem solving, the skilling work alongside Broward's exceptional educators. It's been a true partnership in every sense of the word. I'm incredibly proud of what we've all poured into this, and while today is a moment to reflect on what we've accomplished, I would say this we are still early. These are very early days in the age of ai, and Broward County Public Schools is truly leading the world.
015We have built the foundation for something very special, and the runway ahead of us is both long and challenging. The opportunity to drive real transformation for your students, your teachers, and your community is still very much in front of us and very much within your reach. We are grateful to be on this journey with you. Let's continue to make history together. Thank you. Thank you so much. Do any of my colleagues have any remarks? Thank you. I think you all get the sense of gratitude from from this dais. So thank you so much for for all of this investment and hard work to prepare our students and our employees for the future. And we will do a brief recess to do the check presentation. They're following you. Yeah. Sorry. Down, down. All right. We're back.
016So this next presentation is the transition plan for our student advisors. So I'll turn it over to Doctor Hepburn for the presentation. No I am. At this time. I'm going to turn it over to Doctor Wanza. So as MR. Knapp is entering the. Room thank you, MISS Leonardi. School board members, Doctor Hepburn to colleagues all across the organization, as well as everyone viewing the meeting, both here in the chamber as well as online. I'm Valerie Wanza, I'm the chief strategy and innovation officer for the school district. And on behalf of the superintendent and the board, it is certainly a pleasure for my division to oversee and foster and work with the work of our student advisors. This is something, while we do it annually, the transition of student advisors and every single one is special.
017And it was an honor to see many of them. Today at the Alumni Breakfast. I will say that this one, I think is probably ranks right up from probably the top two that we are transitioning. We always joke all the time. How did we let Landon leave without his bachelor's degree and a job? Same thing with Jay Cyr. How did we let him leave without a degree and a job? And we're certainly, while we wish them well in their next phase of life, they have left a mark on this district. That is probably unprecedented, and we certainly want to honor and recognize them today, as well as do the formal transition from this, these two student leaders to the student leaders who have been elected by their peers to serve in the upcoming school year.
018So with that, I think MR. Knapp should be in the room. I think I gave you a long enough runway and he is here. Sorry, sorry. We're still taking pictures. With the check and it's on now. So everybody's still out there. Thank you so much, Doctor Wanza. I appreciate it. For the second year in a row, Broward Education Foundation has partnered with the Department of Student Athlete, Department of Athletics and Student Activities to host a breakfast as as was mentioned, and we were extremely excited about it. The Foundation is excited to support and highlight all the good work that our student, our students do, but also the impactful legacy that they leave. So last year, we welcomed former student student advisors to the school board, and this year we extend to all former officers and
019student leaders in Broward County, also known as bk, a Esq. Today, we welcome 30 plus alumni leaders, student government advisors and district staff to celebrate the incredible accomplishments that continue to that continue to come forward from these amazing students on the screen. I think that would be the q, but on the screen, you you will see the names of hundreds of student leaders who have contributed to this legacy. It was on the screen and now it's on the screen. But now I'm on the screen. I am not the student legacy, I can promise you. DR. Zeman stand up. Yeah. So we're going to we're going to let this scroll because it's meaningful to continue to show the legacy that's been built at this district and how it just didn't happen overnight. The individuals that you'll
020be seeing on the screen will also be posted up on our website, and we're excited about that. But thank you to Landon for putting this together and making sure that every single name and an individual is recognized for the hard work and effort that they put in during their time here when they were students. We're also especially grateful for the support and partnership of the Broward Legislative delegation and our local officials who share in our same mission, empowering the next generations to be engaged. I'd like to I think Robin is still here. She just walked out. Okay, so this morning we were joined by Robin Bartleman, Senator Rosalind Osgood, State Representative Marie Woodson, and many other former student leaders, as well as the Commissioner Beimfohr. I thought beam was still here. There he is. All
021right, we got one still beam for. Thank you so much for your support. Everything that you continue to do on a daily basis, day in and day out, even behind the scenes, we know how much work goes into it, so we really, really do appreciate it. Finally, I'd like to recognize the district staff who supported these student leaders. MR. Mike Roland. Yes. Clap it up. [Applause] Played a long standing and instrumental role in support before and MISS Jennifer Hamilton. [Applause] For her continued support. And MISS Xenia Santiago. [Applause] She's been practicing that way for a week. [Laughter] It did work. It went well. These individuals are are the talent behind what goes on every single day that we that we get to witness when it comes to landing and some others in the preparation and,
022and the effort that goes into it is by individuals such as them we're incredibly grateful for, for their mentorship and their impact and their legacy, as well as their leaders who allow them to do that. So obviously, with Patti Brown being here and so many others that allow them to continue to, to pour into our students this way. So just wanted to say thank you so much. And congratulations again to all the student leaders, to all of our, all of our team who allows our, you know, others on our team to continue to pour in these students because that's what it's all about. Thank you so much. Thank you, MR. Knapp. Now, we'd like to recognize our outgoing student advisors, Landon Spellberg and Jesse. Early on, Landon Spellberg has served as a student advisor to
023the school board since MAY of 2024 and is the only. Is only this the second student to be reelected by his peers to a second term? Throughout his time in this role, he has worked to build a culture where students are not just included, but truly valued in the decisions that shape their education. While he has been proud to help expand opportunities for student voice across the district, the numbers and initiatives only tell part of the story. For Landon, this role has always been about the people who make bcc so special. He is often honest that his favorite moments are not just school board meetings, but the time he spends in schools, sitting with students, listening to their experiences and learning directly from them. Those conversations have shaped his perspective, grounded his work, and reminded
024him why this role matters. From day one, he believed this was never his position alone, but a shared responsibility to represent and uplift the voices of students across Broward County. Serving in this role has been more than an opportunity. It has been something he truly, deeply loves. Landon will graduate in the top 1% of his class. [Applause] Earning an Ace diploma, the ap Scholar Award, and the ap Capstone certificate while completing more than 21 college courses. [Applause] This fall, he will attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he. [Applause] Where he plans to double major in public policy and human and organizational leadership development. Thank you, and congratulations to Landon. [Applause] Jesse Leon has served as the alternate student advisor to the Broward County Public Schools School. The 2025 2026 school year.
025As a senior at the South Broward High School. He is a two term Student Government Association PRESIDENT And a proud member of the South Broward family, led by Principal Francois. He is also grateful for the support of Broward County Public Schools, Department of Student Activities and Athletics. Throughout his journey, Jesse is believed that leadership is a choice to him. Leadership is not defined by someone else's limitations. It has no race, no background, and no single mold. It is rooted in action, voice, and the willingness to stand for others. Serving in this role has been deeply meaningful. He has always viewed the position not as a title, but as a responsibility to represent students whose voices are often overlooked or dismissed. Jasper believes there is no such thing as an adult conversation when students are directly
026impacted, and that students deserve a seat at the table whenever discussions or decisions are being made about their lives. One of his proudest accomplishments this year was helping lead a county wide mental health summit, bringing together over 120 students to focus on mental health awareness, resources and self-care. [Applause] For him, moments like these reflect the true impact of student leadership students creating change for other students. Jasper will graduate with honors, earning recognition from multiple organizations. After high school. He plans to pursue a degree in public administration and public policy with aspirations of becoming an organizational leader and one day returning to serve his community as a school board member. [Applause] Serving Broward County Public Schools has been an honor. He carries with pride and a responsibility that will continue to shape who he is becoming.
027Thank you, Jasper, for your incredible service to our school district. [Applause] I now turn it over to MRS. Hixon for the presentation of the flags. Thank you chair, it is my pleasure. On behalf of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to present flags to Landon and Jasper. So if they'll both come up to the to the well right here. These flags were flown over the United States Capitol and are being presented to both of you in recognition of your outstanding service to Broward County Public Schools. [Applause] And your dedication as student advisors. Congratulations, and thank you for your leadership and commitment to our students and community. So the first certificate here says commemorating the nation's 250th anniversary, the flag of the United States of America. This is to certify that the accompanying flag was flown over the
028United States Capitol on APRIL 8th, 2026, at the request of the Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz, member of Congress. This flag was flown for Landon Spellberg to honor his service as student advisor to the School Board of Broward County. The second one says the flag of the United States of America, commemorating the nation's 250th anniversary. This is to certify that the accompanying flag was flown over the United States Capitol on APRIL 8th, 2026, at the request of Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz, member of Congress. This flag was flown for Jasper j. Leon to honor his service as alternate student advisor to the School Board of Broward County. Thank you, MRS. Hixon. Jasper and Landon, stay up there for a second, please. On behalf of the school board and the district, we'd like to present these two plaques
029to land in and Jasper. [Applause] Doctor Wanza. [Laughter] All right. And we will recess for a brief moment for a photo. To get closer this time. What's going. To. Bring to. Thank you. And I also want to acknowledge COUNCILMAN Lewis Reinstein from the City of Plantation, who's in the audience. Thank you. And I would like to, most importantly, turn it over to our outgoing student advisors to provide some remarks. Who I was not expecting this. So before I begin, I want to acknowledge something very important. There's too many people in this room, especially the person sitting next to me and across this district, to fully thank hundreds who have poured into me in the group closest to me, who have shaped me. I can't do justice in the limited, limited time today. The impact you
030have had on me and I shared many of my thoughts in a message last week, because one speech could never fully capture the impact this community has had on me, and I truly didn't think I could get through it without crying. While that personal reflection was going on, I've had the opportunity to think about what the past two years serving as student advisor in the past seven as a district student government leader have meant to me. There have been many memories, many laughs, many smiles, many hard conversations. Moments where I felt grateful to be there. And as I reflected on all of those moments, I realized something. The word that best describes this district is whole, not perfect because no community is but whole. It's very easy to sit in this boardroom and focus on
031challenges. It's easy to focus on perceptions, headlines, narratives, and stereotypes. And I know some people MAY think that I'm too positive, but I don't think I'm too positive. I think I've simply had the privilege of seeing what our students actually experience every single day. A school district filled with opportunity, compassion, and resilience. What I've seen over the past seven years is a district that continues to show up for students, even in imperfect moments, a district that continues to evolve, and a district that's on the right path to success. Today, I want to share five moments from the past two years that defined that wholeness for me. The first was my visit to our nontraditional schools. I will never forget the young middle school student who looked at me and said, what can I do to
032stay here? I feel valued, I feel loved, and I feel accepted. This student was in one of our nontraditional expulsion programs, and I said to him, what makes this school so special to you? And without hesitation he said, they see me. For me, that moment has stayed with me ever since. I felt a student who finally felt seen. The second moment is our annual play Like a Girl event, watching 2000 student athletes from across Broward County, students who days earlier had just competed against each other come together screaming, dancing, cheering and celebrating with one collective purpose reminded me how powerful this community is. That's what makes Broward special. The third moment was our yearly student government convention. Just a few weeks ago. I was sitting on the patio and I looked over at the Pompano
033Beach High School security guards, who probably they were seeing the most action they have ever seen in their career at that school. And there they were in front of them, seeing students from Nova, Western, South Broward, Blanche, Ely, Dillard, Cypress Bay across the county, students jumping on tables, dancing, laughing, using fans, and making memories together. In that moment, none of them cared about their school labels, rankings, and perceptions. They simply saw each other as students, as leaders, and as friends. They built their own community. The fourth moment was serving on our employee of the year award panels, listening to employees share their stories and their why changed me. Hearing someone say, this school board saved my life, and hearing another employee explain that they were distraught. They had to MISS A single day of work
034to attend their interview. You can't fake that kind of passion. That's what makes Broward special. In the fifth moment is the one that will never appear on an agenda, in a report or in a headline. It's the unspoken moments the student who gives their friend a ride to school because they know they have no other way to get there. The student who quietly pays for someone else's lunch, the peer tutor who gives one final push to help someone graduate, and the student who finally speaks up in a speak up, speak out session. Because for the first time, they felt like someone was listening. Those moments MAY seem small, but they're not small to the students living them. And in many ways, those are the moments that define a school district more than any data point
035ever could. And that brings me to my challenge. As I leave this role, I challenge all of us to continue paying attention to those moments, continue listening to our students, and creating spaces where they feel heard, valued, and connected. Because student voice matters. Every student in this district has a story that deserves to be told, including the students who. It MAY not be easy to reach or convenient to hear from. Their story deserves to be told by them. Their voice pushes us forward and it makes us stronger. So in closing, I want to say thank you. Thank you for creating those moments every single day for our students. And thank you for allowing students like us the opportunity to share our stories. Serving in this role has been one of the greatest honors of my
036life. And while my time as student advisor MAY be coming to an end, my belief in this district and its future have never been stronger. Because after two years of seeing this district up close, I can confidently say this our greatest strength has never been our programs, buildings, or titles. It's always been our people. Thank you. I'm going to try not to cry on this one. [Laughter] My mom always says, all I do is talk about is land and land and land and land and land. Good morning chair. Oh, GOD. Okay, okay. Oh, okay. Good morning. Chair. Board members. Superintendent, staff, students and community members. My name is Sierra Leone, and today I stand before you for the final time as alternate student advisor to the Broward County School Board. Serving in this role has
037been one of the greatest honors of my life. Over this past year, I have had the opportunity to sit at the tables where decisions are made, advocate for students across Broward County, and witness firsthand the dedication that goes into shaping our schools and our futures. But more than titles, meetings, or presentation, this role taught me the power of student voice. I've learned that students are not just the future of education. We are a part of its presence. Every concern shared with me, every conversation in the hallway, classroom, cafeterias, and campus across this district remind me that students simply want to be heard, respected, supported, and believed in at the same time. Throughout this year, I have sat in many of these board meetings and watched people come before this dais, speaking to staff, board members,
038and one another in ways that wouldn't even be tolerated inside of our own classrooms or school buildings. And it makes me ask myself, what message are we sending to our students when disrespect is displayed publicly and normalized, and in spaces that are meant to model leadership, disagreement is healthy. Accountability is necessary. Advocacy matters, but dignity and respect should never be optional. I believe this chamber should remain a place where people can passionately express themselves while still honoring the humanity of others. Because our students are always watching, they are learning not only from what we teach, but from what we tolerate, to the students of Broward County, thank you for trusting me with your stories, your frustration, your ideas, and your dreams. You gave this position meaning I MAY have to hold the title, but I
039carry your voices into every room I entered. To my fellow student leaders, thank you for providing the leadership and. And it's not just about popularity or recognition, but it's about service, sacrifice, and showing up even when no one is watching. To the educators, administrators, and district staff, thank you for the work you do every single day, often without enough credit. Behind every successful student is someone in the district who chose to care. And to this board, thank you for allowing a student to have a seat at the table. Representation matters when students are included in conversations about education. Strong decisions are made because the people most impacted are finally part of the discussion. As I prepare to graduate and begin the next chapter of my life, I leave with pride, gratitude, and hope. Pride in
040what we have accomplished together. Gratitude for every lesson this experience has had on me, and hope because I know the next generation of student leaders is already rising. No matter what life takes me. Broward County Public Schools will always be a part of my story. This district helped shape me into the young man I am today. So today I don't say goodbye. I simply say thank you. Thank you for believing in students. Thank you for believing in me and have a wonderful day. You guys have us a emotional this morning. Thank you so much. And now I'd like all of us to to join me in recognizing our incoming student advisors, Lily Reed and Mikhail Suko. [Applause] Lily Reed is a rising senior at Western High School. She has worked to represent Broward students in
041the past, serving as the Broward County Association of Student Councils Middle School vice PRESIDENT In her eighth grade year, and the PRESIDENT During her sophomore year. During her presidency, she pushed her project to county connections through through Bcac in order to better connect high schools with their feeder schools. She has remained an active community member within Broward, working as a Harvest Drive co-chair in the fall to feed over 360 local families. Additionally, she recently went to Tallahassee to lobby for student needs by pushing state legislators to provide more funding to public schools, to work mental health days into state law, and to ensure every single school has a nurse available to students. I personally got to see Lily speaking to legislators in a public forum, and she really held her own. So that was really,
042really exciting to see. Lily is incredibly excited to take on the role of student advisor in the 2026 2027 school year to yet again serve all Broward County students in not only being a voice for them, but to ensure that opportunities are constantly provided for students to be their own voice. Congratulations, Lily. We look forward to working with you. [Applause] Mikhail Suko is a rising sophomore at Fort Lauderdale High School and comes from a background of more than three years of student advocacy. He was one of the participants in the first ever student and school board feedback session, and has stood at that very podium on numerous occasions, advocating for his peers, his beyond grateful to have been elected to do so. Now in a county wide level at Fort Lauderdale High School, Mikhail serves
043as a member of the principal's advisory board, working closely with school leadership to bring forward student perspectives and strengthen communication between students and administration. He is also a national finalist in speech and debate at the middle school level, making history as the first student from Bear Middle School to qualify in place for nationals. In recognition of his leadership and service, he was named the 2026 Martin Luther King Junior Trailblazer Award recipient and is currently a nominee for America's Favorite Student. Congratulations, Mikhail. On behalf of the school board, we look forward to working with you both. [Applause] Now, I'll go to my colleagues to see if anyone has any remarks. MISS Hixon. Thank you. I'll be quick. I think I just want to say thank you to both Jasir and Landon for being brave enough to
044speak your mind. I know sometimes it's difficult when students are in the room with adults to feel as if they have a space to to say what they think, and you have shut us down a few times. And in a professional and respectful way, but really gave us a perspective, I think, that sometimes gets lost when we get deep into debate and into our, our adult pieces of things. So thank you very, very much for being brave enough to, to represent all of the students in this district and for being true public servants. It was never about the title. It was about what you could do to make things better. And as Doctor Wanza said, you have left such an impression on this district. That will be your legacy and we really appreciate it. And
045to Lily and Mikhail, congratulations. I don't know if you know what you're stepping into, but we appreciate you being willing to also be public servants for the students of this district. And we look forward very much for with. We look forward to working with you in the upcoming year. And thank everybody for coming. And I would like to also thank the adults who allowed the students to spread their wings and and to be brave enough to have those conversations with us. It's a lot of work in the background, and oftentimes you don't get the recognition. So thank you so much. MISS Thompson. Thank you. There's not enough time in our meetings are already very, very long. But first, Jacir, thank you so much for giving your advocacy to the district. I think you hold your
046own with us all the time, and I thank you. Clap back and let us know that we're off topic and off focus in the most responsible and respectful way. I think you have brought an energy to the school board that was needed and a perspective that was needed. And I think your focus on mental health has just benefited the whole district for years to come. Landed. I don't even know what to say. I think you have transformed myself. I think you have transformed this district for the better for years and years to come. I think you are the most genuine and kind person that we have ever. I have personally ever met. I think if we could be half the leader you are on this dais, we will thrive for years to come. Shelby. You're
047amazing. I ask her all the time how I can make sure my kids are like Landon. And she says, I don't know. So not helpful, but I, I just truly think you are an amazing person and I'm so glad you are here. I'm so glad the district got to meet you. And we will make Sure that we incorporate students for years to come. Thank you. MRS. Alhadeff. Thank you both for your passion. Thank you for being such a positive role model for the students of Broward County Public Schools. And thank you for using your voice as your power, and I wish you both so much success in your life. DR. Holness. Thank you, MADAM Chair. So I will say, London, whenever you're in the break room, I always joke around and I said, you know,
048he's going to be a great lawyeye you know,nd and I said, h he' g gngng to a cacaring politician.Oo w whenou talk abouteiei tooosositive, I hopwhwhen you become governor of this great state of Florida, that you'll remember the small folks up here. And so also, Jessica, I look forward to transitioning my school board seat to you when you become school board member after you finish college and all of that. Okay, so London, you spoke of hope and, and I can tell you when I look at both of you, I see great hope for the future. And when I look in the audience and I see the young people, that gives me hope. So I, I appreciate you talking about hope because I think that is really awesome. And you two are certainly hope in action
049for a better future. So I'd just like to to really thank both of you. And I don't know if you had brief Lily and Mikhail about what they're coming into, but I assume you did not, because they're they're here. But thank you both so much, and I appreciate both of you. Good luck. Thank you, MISS Rupert. Thank you. Welcome to Lily and Mikhail. I'm looking forward to working with you. I didn't start with the two gentlemen sitting over there just because I really wanted to be in this moment without getting too emotional. I already hear it in my voice. You took opportunities. Where somebody else could have just done the job or done the work, but you made it your own. You actually filled up every single bit of space and that opportunity for the
050district to grow, to be a voice for the kids, our students, to see them and make them feel, actually, that somebody saw them, listened, and there was change that happened with it. That's beautiful and remarkable. And you both have such great hearts. I'm really looking forward to following your story of your life because, gosh, you know, I didn't even get into the education business until I was in my 40s. So I've been, you know, kind of growing as we go here for you guys, heads and shoulders above wherever I could be. And thank you for that. And really thank you for giving our students role models, but also opportunity and hope. Thank you both. DR. Zeman. Thanks, chair. You both have grown a lot. It's been fabulous to work with you for two years and
051for a year. I want to say thank you for your growing appreciation of data and data informed decision making. And I appreciate the debates about topics and data and and going forward, I will tell you, there's a legacy that you have in Broward County that came out two days ago. The Washington Post ran a front page story, and it said school board should have students in key roles in forming or even participating in school boards. And everyone in Broward County that read The Washington Post said, doesn't everyone do this? But here we know that it works, and here we know that without that voice, the decisions we make wouldn't be fully informed. And so I just want to say thank you for everything that you've done for the past year. Thank you. MISS Bulman. You
052guys, I'm just so grateful to be able to have worked with you. You guys taught me more than I probably have learned from anybody else doing this job. And I just particularly appreciate your positivity and the way that you present yourselves. And you present the district and you present the students to us and to the public. I mean, we couldn't have better representation representatives. And so I'm going to MISS You. Thank you so much. Thank you, MR. Cervera. Chair to Lily Mikhail, welcome. Looking forward to having you guys be a part of the team here. And it's going to be an exciting adventure that I will promise you. Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, I want to first start off with a very simplistic. Thank you. Thank you for the hours, for the time and the commitment
053that you put into this. I feel like there have been there's been maybe weeks and months where you guys have been here every single time that we're here, right? Fully engaged, fully participating, right? Literally being part of the team, fully invested. And I cannot say thank you enough for the perspective and for the input that you guys have provided over the years. You know, your your collective leadership, your dedication, your commitment to representing the voices of your classmates has really made a meaningful difference. Doing this job is not easy, requires responsibility, patience, a lot of team effort and a lot of courage. And both of you have shown all of those qualities with with grace, you've stepped up, you've led by example, and it is very obvious that you care very deeply about your fellow
054students and about this district. You two, in my opinion, are sort of the gold star of what happens when we send our students to bcc, right? Look at what you guys have been able to accomplish. Look at where you guys are going and your future is both of you is just so bright. And I'm going to I'm going to echo with with DR. Holness said, please don't forget about us when you guys are like super, super important people in, in, in a couple years. Don't forget us about a small guys here in Broward County. So the both of you, I wish the best, the best of luck just here at Nova. You're going to kill it. I'm glad you're staying local. Glad you're staying local. Maybe you'll pop in every now and then just to
055see how we're doing. Right. And landing. The only piece of advice I can really offer you at this point that you don't already know, is get very familiar with the term Duke, and you will be very, very fine in Chapel Hill. So thank you both very much. Thank you. And I do have some just some parting remarks. I often think about Landon and Jacir, and they are always the smartest, most mature, most thoughtful and kindest people in this room. And I think the way you have led with vision and grace. And the way you've built a bench and a succession plan, is really instructive to everyone who is choosing to lead in this district. And you both said it in in your bios, but this role was never about the two of you. It was
056always about your service to the students and to this district. And I think this district is forever changed because of the work you've done, and I'm very grateful for that. Thank you. Doctor Hepburn. Yes, thank you, MADAM Chair. First of all, I want to welcome Lily and Macao. Looking forward to the work that you're going to do in the future. You got some big shoes you're going to step in. I'm familiar with some of the work that Lily has done and her robust ideas from the superintendent student advisory meetings that we meet with monthly. So looking forward to the wonderful things you two are going to do to two of my favorite, MR. PRESIDENT and MR. Vice PRESIDENT. And I think people finally realize why I gave them those two names, the leadership that they've
057displayed. One of the things as a superintendent coming in, you know, many of us right here in front of me, they've been principals, they've been teachers, assistant principals. You know, we service students for our whole entire career. And one of the things that we've seen over time is a shift in truly embracing a mantra about being student centered in your leadership style. This is not the 70s, 80s, or early 90s where you teach a kid, if they didn't get it, they continue to move on regardless of the knowledge they've actually embarked on or not. And even just the disregard of the student experience in the past. We can't operate like that anymore, right? We have to be very student centered in our approach. Our bus drivers, they serve students, our food and nutrition staff. They
058serve students, our facilities workers. They serve students to make sure our environments are conducive to learning. Everybody knows what a teacher does. They serve students every day and probably are the hardest workers in our classrooms. Our our assistant principals, our principals, they serve students, myself, my cabinet, we serve students. So why wouldn't we listen to our students? There are there are our customers, right? We're changing lives every day, changing trajectories. And for a superintendent to transition from doing that as a classroom teacher, being student centered to a leader of a school, being student centered, to leading a district to be student centered is one of the most difficult tasks. As a as a young, snotty nosed assistant principal, I used to come home to my to my young wife and my young daughter at that
059time, she's always asked me, how does. How's it going? I say, we don't have student problems or kid problems. We have adult problems. You say that all the time. Landon and Jessica has helped Broward County Public schools at scale become more student centered. Right? So there's one that was one of the charges personally to myself, how do we transform a system to become more student centered, to relish in the accomplishments that we've had the past two years as a back to back school district no. D and f schools, people having more pride in their schools. I bump into folks in certain communities that were d and f schools for a very long time, and now they are a schools and b schools, and they have so much pride in their schools. They actually talk about
060their schools by name. I go to a school such and such and b school such and such, and now we're actually trying to get rid of all of our c schools, which we cut those in half last year. Right. And so that's the power of actually listening to our students, understanding the student experience. Their world is way more complex than mine was ever as a kid or anybody in this room who's an adult as a kid. So many distractions. How do we ensure they're getting the best learning opportunities possible day in and day out? How do we ensure that they receive the experiences to really understand what they're capable of in the future? And how do we create engagement opportunities so they can flourish? And outside of our classrooms and internships and all those wonderful
061things? And Al Jazeera London did an amazing job there. They actually became part of our cabinet. Seriously, coming into our cabinet meeting, going over data that they've collected from student voices and speak out, speak up and speak out sessions and all kind of other student engagement sessions and bringing that information to us as a cabinet so we can truly understand how we can impact the lives that that, you know, people trust here to Broward County Public schools every day. And I can tell you, we are on the right path because of the work that those two young men have done for Broward County Public Schools this year and also last year. So, Landon Garcia, thank you very much. Like I said earlier, you guys have really created a new path for us, and we're going
062to continue to follow that and continue to be student centered leaders in Broward County public schools and really listen to our student experiences day in and day out, so we can continue that continuous improvement process. Thank you. Looking forward to what you guys do. In the future. Thank you. And I'll turn it over to Doctor Wanza. Thank you, MADAM Chair. So we know that we're a little over time. But for the kids it's okay to be over time I'm as I close it out, I would be remiss if we didn't thank the board. Thank the board, because not only do you talk about. And you live and you breathe student advocate, advocacy and student feedback, you were bold enough to codify it in policy and ensure that these positions have the prestige and the honor
063that they deserve. So we certainly thank the board for that. We would like to thank MISS Brown, MISS Santiago, MISS Hamilton, MISS Garcia, even MR. Gillis. He's retired and the entire team at athletics and student activities for the work that they do to support these roles. Certainly want to thank the schools, all the schools that these students have come through. Right. I know that MISS Hollingsworth MAY not be here, and she's probably beaming. She has been Landon's principal since he was in pre-k at Silver Ridge Elementary School, but certainly want to thank all of the principals, the teachers, the school staff who partner with us to give the student advisors and alternate advisors the time and space to do what they do. And then we certainly want to MISS Hixon said it briefly, but I
064give a little bit more voice to. We want to thank their families. We want to thank their families for not only choosing us to educate their children, but also for sharing them with us and for giving them time and space with us to do what they do. We are thankful to Landon and Jesse. Welcome, Lily and Michael. And then lastly, we know that this is the last public board meeting or workshop before graduation, and we did something special. The superintendent MAY not even know about it, but we did something special. We want to thank the legislative affairs team. We did something special at the last Superintendent and Mayor's roundtable, and they want to join the board in congratulating the class of 2026. So, beacon, if you could kindly roll the tape. Just want to say
065congratulations on surpassing an over 90% graduation rate. And over a quarter of a century, we want you to keep shining bright, and we continue to cheer you on from the city of Dania Beach. Thank you for all you do and congratulations! Congrats, graduates from the City of Hollywood. We wish you the very best in your next endeavors. Graduation is coming up. It's exciting time for quite a few people. I do have one tip for the valedictorian, so do not use the phrase well. We made it. To all of the graduates. I am so proud of you. Remember to soar. Remember to keep going and remember to always come back home and help your city. I want to say to each and every student, keep up the good work. The numbers in Broward are up and
066it's only because you are trying harder and you will make your life easier in the future. The harder you work today, the easier it will be for tomorrow. One simple message stay focused, know what you want and pursue it and you will do good. You'll succeed in life. Thank you very much. Great job. I'm here with a message to congratulate all of this year's graduates. I'm sure you had a fabulous year. I want to wish you continued success from the City of Hallandale Beach. As we. Have graduation fast approaching. Not only do I want to wish all those seniors graduating this year in Broward County. Most importantly, I want to recognize those seniors from Cypress Bay High School. We wish you much luck and success in your future. Congratulations for being through 12 years. It's
067time for graduation. I want to wish you well in your future endeavors. No matter whether you're going to college to be pursuing some other vocation. The City of Lauderdale wishes you well, and Godspeed, graduates. Congratulations. You worked so hard. And from the city of sunrise, we're proud of you. [Music] We look forward to hearing about your stories in the future. Thank you. At this time, we'll take a ten minute recess for a photo with our alumni, guests, and student advisors. [Music] [Music [Music] All right, we are back. Our first item is the rural development for 2secssep policies. Do my colleagues want to go to a presentation or go straight to discussion? Discussion. All right. We'll go straight to discussion. Does anyone have any questions or comments? MISS Rupert. Can you. Give me a second here?
068Sorry. Okay. And actually, while we wait for MISS Rupert to pull her comments up, since we're not doing presentation, is there a public comment on this item? No speakers. Okay. Pull it back out. I guess. To make it simple. Instead of finding the exact verbiage in here would be the background screening and the disqualifying offenses. Right now, I don't see a an opportunity to be ineligible for. We have an eligible for employment and we have it for new hire background screening. So my question is, will we you know, in light of some recent news, will we have the ability to make sure that or opportunity if the board so believes that someone on any of our committees that has committed a felony? Et cetera. Et cetera. Would be also subject to this rule or not.
069And would we want to? Because I know it was a conversation that we've had before and it went before dac. So I really wanted to understand from the superintendent, you know, what, what we're looking at here. No, that's a great question and comment. MISS Rupert, based on some of the recent events, I was actually going to make a recommendation to the board in writing that for committees and advisories that you that you do level two background checks, just like we do for our volunteers. Because one of the largest concerns for me is that we do have some of the committees or advisories actually visit our schools, you know, albeit that they're escorted and whatnot, but they do have access to our schools, which means they have access to our students. So I think it's important
070for the board to know for members that there MAY be appointing to their advisory advisors advisories or committees, that they have gone through a level two background check. And what's the what's the response from or information gathered from that background check, just like we do for any volunteer? Yeah. Thank you. So where would you want to do that process? Is that maybe it's a question for the the attorney? Is it, is it better to have a, you know, memo in a different system to move through those? Are we are we planning on adding it to any of these policies that we're looking at today? I don't know if that should be added. Go ahead, MISS Sullivan. I was thinking more. Of I don't know if when we consider I know the 1070 is coming back
071to the board and that governs committees and that structure. So maybe it's more appropriate to put it in that policy. But until that policy, if it's a will, the board, we can just make it a standard operating procedure. I'm I'm okay with that. If my if my colleagues are that that and when would we be we be expecting 1070 to be back to us. I'll have to work with general counsel because through we're bringing back all the policies. So we just got to figure out. I believe that's going to be part of the. One of the first set of policies being prioritized. So through the general counsel. Yeah. So my recommendation would be that you definitely add it into the policy to make sure that it's a rule by the school board. In the meantime,
072if they want to go ahead and start using that practice, they're free to do so, but definitely needs to be brought forward. That is one of the policies that we're looking at. There are some policies that have been given priority to me to be able to review, so I'll wait for the direction of the board. Okay. As one board member, I would think that this would be a safety issue and I would like it to be more it would be more appropriate to to actually have it sooner than later. But I, I would like to see what my colleagues feel about it. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff. Yes. So I have two questions. One is if someone gets the background check in the beginning of the year and then say, does something in the middle of
073the year, how do we catch that part? Go ahead. Chief Gregory or MR. Lozano or Doctor Lozano? I don't have the answer for that one. Mike Gregory Chief Safety and Security Officer So once we enroll them through the clearinghouse and then do the level two background check for new employees, their records stay in that database system. So we will be we will be notified if once they've been enrolled, if they commit a felony act, and we'll get a notification of that and we take the appropriate actions and next steps. But what if there are volunteer. a volunteer that had the level two background that would be once they're enrolled, will be notified. Okay, so it works for volunteers to. The same clearinghouse. Correct. Okay. And then my next question is how do we communicate? If
074someone wants to become a volunteer with Broward County Public Schools to be able to get their background check? Where does that live? Is it on the individual school website is on the district website. You know, maybe their grandmother and they want to volunteer with one of our schools. So they're not exactly affiliated with the school directly. Go ahead, MR. Sullivan. It's on the district website under the community tab that they can apply to be a volunteer. And then once they apply, they have to do a level two background check. Under I'm sorry, what tab? Community tab. So just go to Broward schools.Com. And then on the lower right, blue, the last blue tab on the right. It looks like almost. Like, okay. And then volunteer services. On the left. And then you'll see an application
075process. Two clicks. The suit makes everything two clicks. Otherwise we get in trouble. It's more than two. Clicks. Two and a half. Okay. I see, no thank you. MR. Bruno. And the only thing I will add to this discussion is that you also have a board policy 2409, which specifically addresses disqualification of volunteers based on some of these criterias as we go through Neola, this will be enhanced, but you do have a policy that addresses that now. Okay, so then that brings me another question. Does. So then is that how does that work with if someone just signs up? But now you're saying that there's these other rules. How do we identify like there's no nothing slipping through the cracks. It'll go directly through the chair. It'll go directly through what the chief already indicated
076through that level two background screening. So they will be flagged. In addition, the law does require mandatory self-reporting as well. If there's some type of illegal activity. And then you also have your policy. So they all kind of work together. Okay. So you're saying the level two background check will catch everything? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you. I just have a question about the fingerprinting or I guess they don't call it fingerprinting per se. They just say background check on the thing. But so we recently got an email. I know we started with a new company, but when there are issues and I it doesn't have to be in policy, but it appears that there are some hiccups with those fingerprinting issues. So just wanted to point that out. While we were
077sitting here. They're not in this particular instance, they did fingerprinting three times and for whatever reason didn't get in the system. And they've had to pay each time. So I just forwarded the email to Ernie and I mean Doctor Lozano and MR. Gregory. So if you could just check that out, because i also had issues when I went to have to do my fingerprinting. So I know it's a newer system n n companyny w we ju s started wiwith. So t if someone could just circle bacack on that. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else before I have questions? Do the background checks, are they only for in-state or do they, you know, so if I've committed a crime outside of this state, would that be flagged? Mike Gregory Chief Security Officer Yes, the level two
078background is national. Great. And then I know that I brought this up a good time ago about including the link to volunteer on our school district, on our school websites, not just the district website. Is there is that on our school websites as well? MR. Sullivan is checking. I will just say again, I'm going to probably this is going to be an issue that I talk a lot about, but parents and community members, I think they find the information coming directly from the school to be much more salient. So, you know, if I, you know, if I'm a community member and I want to volunteer at my local school, I'll probably go to that school website rather than the district website. So if, if we do not have it on the school websites, I would
079encourage us to put them. It's there. On the main page. All right. It's on every page. Great. Anyone else? All right. Our next item is district budget update. Do we need to. Oh, MISS Thompson. Okay. Thank you, MADAM Chair. So before I turn it over to our Chief financial Officer, MISS. MISS Johnson, I just want to take a moment to recognize and thank her for the tremendous work she's done since joining Broward County Public Schools. And as everyone knows, we continue to face some significant financial challenges, driven largely by declining enrollment and the resulting loss of revenue. Despite those pressures, MISS Johnson and her team has been working diligently to maintain the district's financial stability and ensure we remain above the state's required 3% fund balance. And not just this year, but also last year
080to I don't a lot of people don't know the inside work that her and her team do. And also for myself and MISS Johnson talking on the phone and wee hours of the summer, trying to make sure this this budget continues to be stable and try to isolate many of our concerns so we can actually have that continuous improvement process for, for such a large and complex organization. And it's required a lot of difficult decisions. Being disciplined with our financial management, having to tell folks internally and externally no, but also protecting classrooms and essential services while positioning the district for long term stability. Her commitment to fiscal responsibility has been instrumental through this process, and I want to personally thank her and her team for the work and the dedication. And at this time, I'll
081turn it over to MISS Johnson, cfo, and her team. Good morning, board members. Chair, superintendent. We will give a brief presentation on the budget for 2627, and we're going to give an update on the projection for the fund balance for fiscal year end this fiscal year 2526. I will start with the presentation and Budget Director, Jeff Whitney. He will be finishing off with the next year projections. So this presentation is to educate constituents on the development of fiscal year 2627 budget. Amidst continuing enrollment decline, rising operational costs, and ongoing uncertainty about the state funding level and legislative actions. The purpose to provide the board with an update on the development of the fiscal year 2627 budget, including financial projections, enrollment trends, expenditures, pressures, operational adjustment, and key planning considerations prior to budget adoption. Also, we
082want to make sure we align the budget with the district's strategic goals, and also we review this fiscal year 26 budget update and provide guidance and feedback regarding budget priorities and operation strategies. As development of the tentative budget for the upcoming school year continues. First, I'd like to start with month end APRIL 30th, 2026. Our amended budget. As you can see, our estimated revenue is at $2.3 billion. Our estimated expenditures is at $2.4 billion. We're currently operating in a deficit, so we're spending 41 million more than our budget. So the beginning fund balance at 205 million, with a reduction from the overall expenditure deficit spending of 41 million. We're estimating an ending fund balance for JUNE. This is for APRIL 30th only, currently at $164 million. So there are pending entries that we have not
083just impacted the overall budget with. And that's going to happen in MARCH. So we're closing out this year. We're going to do additional capital transfer of 25.8 million to the general fund to support expenditures from the capital that is occurring on the general fund. Pending year end expenditures. Always do a detailed analysis of our finance as far as our salary. So with the salary and benefits. So this the personnel piece of the puzzle. So our budgeted for salaries is 1.3 billion. Our benefits is 541 million. And then we do a projection. I do a projection of based on our base salaries and our base benefits, and those giving you the cost of 1.1 billion of our salaries for fiscal year end JUNE 30th. Then I do a projection of our benefit cost. And it's this
084our base salaries, only 522 million. Then our project on the salaries that impacting from the referendum. So we have base salaries on the referendum. And also we have supplements that we pay on a referendum. And the benefit cost there is 168 million and then other wages. This is through JUNE 30th. Now, this is based on projections where we see ourselves falling out. It could come shorter. I'm trying to be very conservative and project more that the extreme case. The worst case scenario that we'll have to spend 155 million. But and that's showing us a total deficit in salaries and benefit of 56 million. The next page I'm these pending items. Gallagher give us a projection all the time with our benefits. So we have to burn a certain amount. So overall we do board contribution.
085That's all our employees. They contribute the board contribute on their behalf. This is the board actually paying the benefits on the behalf of our employees. Then we got employee contribution when they have dependents or they Cobra payments that also go to our health care costs. So that's 25 million. So our total contribution there as a district is 355 million. So we get rebates also from Aetna. We're expecting pharmaceutical rebates of about 42.8 million. That's what we have received to date. The d. S subsidies and other income is 39,000 investment income. So we always investing all our revenue. So this is what this investment account earned around $2.9 million. So our total revenue in our benefits is around $401 million. And our spinach. So we have claims. We get claims come in every month. Our claims
086is burning at 373.9 million. This is projection through JUNE 30th. Right. It could be over projecting, but based on the burns, I had to project the last two months. So this could even be lower than the projection. So we did what the glp we had. They project we're going to get 5.5 million before we close out this fiscal year for, you know, terminate the glp one administrative cost is additional 8.5 million. That's actual payments to Aetna and other fees was 95,000, showing our total expenditure of 37.1. So when I project we're going to have a gained in our benefit cost. That's going to offset some of those actual costs of salaries of $24 million. The next page is showing additional fund balance transfer transfer based on requests that came to the board. There's additional 12
087million that we're going to be allocating out. We have already we just haven't recorded yet that the board have approved from the items that came to the board. That impact the fund balance is about is approximately 12 million additional expenditures that we're going to be taking from the fund balance transferring. So what does all this say. So how does it impact. So I start with APRIL the 30th. And you'll see all those transactions. How are they going to impact our projected budget for JUNE 30th. So that 25 million that capital transfer will increase our overall revenue from 2.36 billion to 2.395 billion. And our our overall expenditure from 2.4, we got our salaries increase. And then the offset of the benefit cost and the 12 million that impacts the fund balance for increasing expenditures is
088an overall, from 2.4 billion to $2.454 billion. So overall, our district for JUNE 30th, the last column is operating 58 million in deficit projection. So I just want to make sure you guys know this is our projection. It could change at any time. Anything could change that caused this number to change. So impacting the fund balance by 58.9. So our estimating any fund balance is going to be around 147 million. And how does that impact. So we start looking at the adopted budget on this page. So the first column is the adopted budget right. The total fund balance. That means what everything was 8.6 because we were at $205 million in our fund balance when we start this open up this fiscal year. So that was 8.66% of our revenue. But our sign and unassigned
089fund balance with this is what the state is monitoring. We were at 4.85%, which is 115 million. So with this budget amendment, you're going to see in your packet that's coming up, you're going to see that we're currently at 3.27, our sign and unassigned for APRIL. But with the JUNE 30th projection we at 3.36. Even though our fund balance is. We're going back up because all those transfers and those expenditures are offsetting each other, that based on projection, we should be at 3.36. But I have some high level concerns. For one, I can't control the narrative. Anything could happen in these last couple of months and that can impact. We did receive survey three data and that showing we lost 1209 students. Fte would impact the district by $11 million. That means if that happened,
090occurred that the state implement that and they give a survey. I did reach out to the state. They said, wait till we decide if we're going to implement that. That means we'll have a reduction. And we definitely would not meet the 3% of the fund balance. If other things are happening too. If they restrict those categoricals, there's categoricals like ap, ib, they never was restricted. They fall out into our fund balance to help our unrestricted and restricted. That's our sign and unassigned fund balance, unrestricted portion. If they don't fall out and they restrict those that will cause harm to the district, and we will not make the 3%. And then there's just overall revenue pressures and expenditures. We're closely monitoring those as we close out this fiscal year to make sure and then also that
091fbp, if we get hit with that third survey last year, they pushed it to the next fiscal year, which was still a surplus for us because they had issues with the family empowerment scholarship. They was resolving those issues, and we got a 5 million surplus when we open up last year. But this will be a reduction to our overall budget of 11 million if they push it to next year budget. So I'm going to have Jeff go over the 2627 budget outlook and savings update. Good morning. Jeff Whitney, director of the budget. So as we begin looking at the 2020 627 budget, right. We know that at this point in time, this the state has not completed their budget process. And so that gives us some continuing fluctuation in how things are going to going
092to be looking based on what's going on now, we kind of expect the state budget late next week. So we'll should know a little bit more as they run, do their final ffp runs on, on those budget decisions. We're currently working with the the Senate's budget more than the House is just because it seems to be the one that's that's worst case for us. And that then gives us some ability to, to work the other direction if they move towards the house a little bit. So again, we're just waiting on final, be it the bsa, the base student allocations, categorical funding decisions, and those district allocation amounts from the state. This next page and the page after it kind of goes through what the state projections look like. This is the official state document. The
093next page is reorganized more so we can kind of focus in on what the district looks like in the right order. So the virtual number, the traditional number, and those two numbers make up what the state's state's numbers are, what we're looking at based on these right now is a total of like 174,579. We kind of look at the next page. This will show us what that means to us in terms of funding. I also wanted to point out that that's, you know, between the 1209, the MISS Johnson mentioned earlier and the additional 8000 808,086 reduction, we're looking at we're looking at a total reduction from sometime in this year's point before survey three to next year, when the budget rolls out to a 9295 student reduction, that that is going to equate to 75
094to $76 million for what they're projecting with next year. And that 11 million added to it would bring us to a total reduction of around $90 million. So we all know that we've been through some some really robust discussions around the organizational chart and those those alignments. What we've seen that was approved so far is the 1000 position reduction. That's a total of approximately $58 million district wide. When we zero that in on the general fund, that's about a $45 million reduction in about 705 positions. We're still going through the school staffing allocation, working with the with the schools and through their meetings. A lot of that work wrapped up last week. And so now we're trying to do all the final analysis and get everything tied out, deal with any concerns, any, any special
095situations that might need adjusting. So we'll have some some more information on those numbers in the near future. But just wanted to point out that as we've gone through this change with them, there were some changes made. We met with all the principals in person back in FEBRUARY with the superintendent, kind of rolled out what some of the bigger, bigger changes were to them. We also met with them again virtually before we started having the individual meetings with the schools to, again, kind of reiterate what those big changes were. And we'll go through some of those here in the next next couple of pages. So right now, middle schools with fewer than a thousand students are no longer being funded for a separate registrar position. They are increasing the days of the administrative assistant to
096help deal with some of the the, the more clerical functions of that, you know, taking people in as they're coming in during the summer, not necessarily doing the work of what a registrar would be doing or what the EMTs focus on. But that was a change that was made. We've also in in the model, every school is funded for a media specialist. If the school does not have a media specialist and has a clerk instead, we're no longer leaving the difference in their budget. That one helps bring some money back into the district if they're not doing that, and two, it encourages them to bring in a media specialist instead of the The media clerk, right? If they're not going to get the funding for it, they've kind of lost the carrot for keeping a
097media clerk instead of a media specialist. And that's been a priority of the board. And this will help move them in that direction. We look at what we've done with the assistant principals. Really, the biggest change on this page is that the middle schools are no longer funded for a fixed three. They have to reach a unweighted fte of 700 before they get their third assistant principal. So if they're below 700, they're only going to have two assistant principals. And there is also an increase to the enrollment required at a high school for them to receive their fifth assistant principal. And if there are above 4000, then they would receive funding for a sixth assistant principal. So like I said, we're still going through some of the actual staffing allocation results as we tie up
098the work meeting with the principals. So we'll have some more here. But we know that as we as we go through and look at this, when enrollment declines, the instruction allocation, so the numbers of teachers in schools is going to decline. Along with that, it's the enrollment, the unweighted fte, that really drives the funding. And so there will be some reductions we're expecting there. And then the final thing we're looking at here is the savings is that, as you all know, we've been working on having some, some some work done where the employees would be contributing to a portion of their health insurance premium costs. And as the collective bargaining process wraps up, we'll know more exactly how that lands. But it looks like right now, because it's because of the way that the open
099enrollment follows the calendar year, we would get about half a year's worth of savings beginning in JANUARY. That would generate about a $2323 mlion reduction in o o expected costs, bausese ee boaouldldn't have to cover tha p portion since plployees would be coveringt.T. And then as we move forward into further future fiscal years, there would be a more of an annualized cost savings from that. And that with that wraps up the our presentation and we're ready for the board's discussion and any questions. Thank you so much. So we'll go to registered speakers. Jackie Luscomb. I got you. Hello. Good morning, Jackie Luscomb. And kudos to MISS Romania, who must have sleepless nights, as I'm sure you all do. I get the difficulty here. I want to make a suggestion though, about communications and the integrity
100of messaging around this budgeting process, which is currently playing out in a very damaging way, damaging the district's image at exactly the moment. We should be competing aggressively for families. The public optics are all about cuts, loss, instability and now in the staffing allocation process at schools, we're seeing our schools struggling to hold on to or having to compromise the very programs that attracted students in the first place. Families will not stay in districts they perceive as shrinking, chaotic or in preservation mode. I live in the North. Last week I received this mailer from Palm Beach County School District advertising open seats at a-rated schools for Palm Beach and Broward residents. They are actively trying to poach your students. We need to fight back aggressively with strong, distinctive, future focused messaging. Instead, the messaging currently
101reaching parents is that schools are cutting some of the very things that are dear to their children and supports that their children need. It is not the case that the district is getting rid of music, for example, but there are perceptions that you are, because actually there are some schools that have announced it. Yet parents understood that those pieces of bk s operations would not be affected. And it's not okay for now, the board to say, well, those cuts are the schools, not us. We're one. Broward, right. We were told at Esq advisory that Broward intended to expand v programing vocational exceptionalities at varying exceptionalities, and in some places it still is. It's been commendable. Yet some schools are now being forced into choices between doing so or preserving their existing programs and others. We
102need both. So I, I want to draw attention to your greatest problem being communication. It's a weakness that Doctor Hepburn you acknowledged a few weeks back in this boardroom to. Right now, rumors are spreading faster than facts. In the absence of clear communications, families assume the worst. When there are rumors about cuts that are incorrect, the district should be getting on in front of them. And when promises are going to be broken about not touching programs at school, such as band and music and arts, let's fess up and be straight with the public about what's going on and find compromises instead. Too often the public conversation is being driven by fear, speculation, screenshots, and word of mouth, and we just see silence out of the communications department. Broward needs to get into active damage control
103now. Managing the message needs to get as aggressive with communications as you are with budget, and the overall message from your parents is going to be that you're going to lose more students if you're going to start cutting anything out at schools, or if schools cut electives and the things that are dear to their hearts. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Luscomb next speaker, Brooke Bordi. Good morning. Brooke Bordi plantation. Ditto to all that. MISS Luscomb said. I am zooming in on a little bit more of a particular issue this morning and that. Slide 17 of the presentation you just saw, which states that principals were told about the staffing allocation model in both FEBRUARY and in APRIL. Dak has been asking for the staffing allocation model not for fun, but because we are responsible for
104training staff chairs on what the budget should look like, how it can affect their school before they sign off on the budget, which is required by this board's policy. Additionally, state statute requires that schools budgets be made in collaboration with school advisory councils. That also requires that school advisory councils be trained on what the budget looks like, and particularly this year, the staffing allocation model looks a bit different, which means there needed to be new training. And during committee reports to the board, Dak has repeatedly said we had to cancel our training last month. We had to cancel our training again. We rescheduled training three times and our staff chairs and sacs have still not received training. But over the course of the last couple of weeks, they've been asked to sign off on the
105budget. So when I saw this presentation posted just in the last few days, I was really surprised that principals had been provided a staffing allocation model because Dak had not been provided the staffing allocation model. I actually submitted a public records request back in FEBRUARY, and that was the beginning of FEBRUARY. It was closed out, and I requested either a draft or a final version. Either one would have worked. We just wanted something to give to our staff chairs. And that request was closed out. On MARCH 25th. I resubmitted a public records request at the beginning of MAY, and I still haven't heard back. And it's not for fun. I am a soft chair, and I did have to sign off on the budget, and I wasn't comfortable doing that. And my son is here
106with me today and we had changes at our school. We lost a guidance counselor, we lost a front office person. We're having to reshuffle our specials. So there are real effects and the transparency is an issue. The staffing allocation model used to be a public document. If you go to the budget page for bcc, there is a budget resource center and you can see the staffing allocation for the year 2425, but you cannot see it for this school year. 2526. And we haven't been able to get a copy for the upcoming school year. So I don't come here to nitpick about public records laws or to diminish the board or the school district in any way, but our staff chairs are out there lost, and we have area advisory council meetings this week, and we
107would really appreciate getting a copy so that we can train our staff chairs this week. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I believe that's it for public speakers. We will go on to board member comments. Board member Thompson. Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on the public speakers comment about staffing allocations and how it used to be public facing. Can we get some explanation explanation on that? Yeah, absolutely. So for the 2627 staffing allocation model, that document, which is pretty lengthy, is being created to be posted on that, that budget center, for lack of a better term, on the website, the the 2425 and the 2526 staffing allocation model, there is absolutely no changes in between the two. It's the exact, exact same thing because we didn't make any changes to
108the staffing allocation model last year compared to the 2425 year. But there are some slight changes this year, which I just went over, which mostly impacts assistant principal allocations and that the middle school for the registrar for schools under 1000 unweighted fte, and also the requirement for a media specialist when their media clerk actually leaves or or is vacant. And then a little bit ago, maybe a month or two, we talked about doing more budget communications and like having videos on what the budget is like, like what is our communication plan? And we also used to have a Citizen's Guide to our budget. And I don't believe that's been updated in quite some time. Yeah, I'm not aware the Citizen's Guide, but we're because everything's been a moving target right now and then ready for
109the legislators to complete the budget process. We didn't want to put something out that's not final and then have to do an update. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks, once we get some some finalization from the state legislature legislator, and then we can put all of that information out. And then when the staffing allocation is put on the website, can the board also be notified? Because we've also been getting a lot of emails about cuts to schools and didn't I particularly we knew they were happening, but not when they were being shared. And so then we have community members angry about changes at their school, and we don't know how to answer them. No, absolutely. We will update the board. I think for the most part, what you're seeing the presentation is the
110only changes in the staffing allocation model. I think most of the concerns you're getting from probably parents and probably a few students, is that a majority of our schools have a decline in enrollment for the upcoming school year. And when you talk about 9000 students projected to decline, if you divide that out by all of our schools, that's about about 39 students, 39, 40 students per school. But some schools have way more and some schools have way less. And so as a student enrollment declined, the revenue declined. So, you know, this has been since the dawn of time. You make those adjustments at the school level based on the number of students you're receiving or the number of students you're actually declining by or reducing by. And so I think some of those are some
111of the concerns because there's positions that are impacted when a school experiences a decline. And that's the majority of our schools for the upcoming year. Go ahead, MR. Sullivan. Yeah, I just wanted to add to the budget discussion. We have done some work to educate the public. Specifically, we did the parent university, so that was well attended. And we also have a dedicated landing page that we pushed out through a parent link. Broward schools.Com, future ready. And then our, our principals. So I know the, the enrollment impacts our specials. That's one of the reasons I talked to my community and encouraged them about school consolidations, because that means you get more specials because the number of enrollment goes up. But have our principals been taught that rationale or how to communicate that to their community?
112Because what I'm hearing is they're basically saying, well, the board did this and this. The board hates art, the board hates music. And that's what's happening. I think it's easy for anybody to to say that, but that's not been the process. There's been budget conferences, budget meetings with principals. So there's been a there's been a cadence of meetings with principals ever since FEBRUARY when I myself and the deputy got up and talked about what the budget changes are going to be and what they look like, and they started cascading from there. And so the principals are aware of the changes in their budget. It has nothing to do with the board. It has everything to do with your enrollment numbers for the upcoming school year. And so we and, you know, if there's specific unique
113needs that a school has, they go through their regional office and we've been able to fulfill them or not based on if it's not a compelling reason to do so. So that sounds like a conversation between our district staff and the principals, but what are the principals taught to educate their community? Like Chair Leonardi said, most of the time they're going to go to the schools about budget changes or impacts. So what are we how are we helping them have these hard conversations? That's actually a great point. It's like you're about to say something. Go ahead. I was going to say we can work with the budget team, MISS Johnson and the deputy and create a toolkit for the principals. Yeah. And I know MISS Doctor Fulton has met with the a core group for
114different high level challenges and concerns to create more of a robust path of communication from that group to the principals and then to the principals, to their community and stakeholders as well. Because you're that's a great question because everything's different, right? And this this is it's not just going to be one year, it's going to be multiple years of doing things different because that's those are the current challenges and demands. And I think once the community understands the process and why specials are changed, then there might be opportunity to for them to encourage their friends to come and etc. I also, I know last, we have too many meetings. I think last week we talked about art, music and pe being a priority for our district, and I was. And I got DR. Zeman follow
115up and I think I requested one to include middle schools and high schools as well. But I want to explore a way that we can show that that's prioritized in our district. And so is there. And I, I understand the financial situation right now. I was wondering if there's a way to put a line item in our budget that's for art, music, art and music specifically so that the district can either aid or fund schools so that we make sure that we keep these specials, especially in elementary, but continuing on to middle and high school, because when people are deciding where to put their kindergartner, they want art class, they want music. I think we legally have to have pe now that I think we legally have to have pe. So I was a little
116concerned because on the spreadsheet there's some of our schools that don't have pe. Not legally have to have recess. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. So how can we ensure that we communicate to the public that art and music is a priority for us? Is that a line item in the budget? Is that a board item to put a specific amount in DR. Zeman follow up? It's $1.2 million, I believe that's to cover the schools that don't have. It, don't have it. So I guess, can we walk through what that would look like? Yeah. So we will have to budget for it. And as we do with any budget asked, we will look at the balance, right? We're prioritizing something and what do we want. Don't want to prioritize right any further if this is the priority.
117So we'll have to look at that. One of the things that I do want to express a little bit of concern about is for the schools, where it is a very unique, innovative program where a parent is not sending their kids to their school for music or art, or sending their kid to that school for a specific Stem program. And so I don't want to infringe on those type of unique opportunities. But I think if I interpret it correctly, to ensure that the school has the opportunity, if if because we give principals a lot of autonomy on that to, to ensure that they have the opportunity to offer music and art, if those are the two high priority areas for the board. So how would we make that happen? Then we would have to sit
118down with the budget team, as we often do when somebody has an ask, not just the board, but also my team and go through what are we prioritizing and what can we actually not do anymore to take those cost savings to be able to do that? So would that discussion come back to. The we can bring that back. And then I think that's also something to be communicated with the community is that the principal gets to decide what specials are chosen in their school. So if there's a desire for science and art more than a desire for music, that's because the principal has met with their community and looked at enrollment numbers, because I think that's something that I could be a parent who desperately wants my kid in art, but the rest of the
119school only wants music or only wants science or something like that. And we, you know, that's their, their responsibility as their district, as the principal leader to, to decide that. So I would, I would love for us to continue exploring how we can have either a fund for the schools that have lower enrollment. So maybe not cover it for every single district, but maybe something like that, so we can make sure our schools still have an opportunity for art and music. And then my other question is there are school districts that are really analyzing their student enrollment and comparing it to the registered students in the voucher system. And so Escambia County actually found that 300 of their around 300 of their students that go to their schools were actually in the voucher system and
120the money was not going to the school district. So are we doing any kind of comparison or analysis? Because Escambia is real small? Yeah, no, we have all of that data. We are aware of the amount of students that take advantage of of the voucher or the, the, the scholarships. So we have all of that data just. So it's not the data of who's taking it. It's the data of like I'm attending Silver Trail middle, but in the voucher system, I'm taking a voucher. And so the money is not actually going to Silver Trail. It's going to whatever the voucher. Yes, yes. And that's what the reconciliation of the state reconciled that for the whole entire state last year to, because that was the complaint from us as district leaders, is that we were aware
121of kids that are taking the voucher money. And so that Ft be recorded as a voucher or home school student, but they're sitting in our classroom. Right. And so we and so that was the complaint for many of us. And that's why they reconciled it. So yes, we have that information. We know we compare enrollment if they're sitting in our building, but the fte is being counted somewhere else. And then we add that information up and the hopes that we actually get that money. Last year, they actually did pay out the districts across the state. I don't know if it was the full payout, but they did give us money back for that reason. So that's something we're consistently tracking. Correct. Okay. And that's my questions. Thank you. Thank you. DR. Zeman. Thanks. I just
122want to remind folks as we go through this budget stuff that, you know, we're downstream and we're reacting to, you know, how do you take a couple billion dollars of operating money and spend it in a way that gets a community and the students and the schools the greatest outcome? But I'm never going to talk about the budget without talking about the upstream problem. If we were funded like Alabama, Broward County would have $3.3 billion of operating funds. That's the problem. At the end of the day, the legislature in Florida does not value public education. That's why we're 50th in the nation. And it's got to guide our efforts. We're 10% of the state of Florida. We should be talking about this all the time. We should make it a litmus test for people to
123serve in the legislature, and we should hold people accountable that are in positions of authority to do something about it, because I think Floridians would like us to fund public education, and we're not doing it in the right way. Instead of 1 billion, and we're fighting over how many people to let go. And a period of declining enrollment, 3.3 billion. Sounds like it's a much better investment in our community on music, art and pe. MISS Thompson brought up some inquiries that we started last week, and I think it's a really fascinating policy question for this board to consider. You know, up to this point, we've given principals the authority to have and to choose with their parents, with their community what specials. But if you look at the data that we got back to my
124question, there are actually enough positions, Doctor Hepburn, to make sure that we do music, art and pe in every school, every elementary school, and still have posisiononleft over t to other on athe principal discscreonon. And so tMiMiss Thomps's's question about how do we move? How do we how do we create an option for moving to guaranteed music, art and pe, which I believe parents believe is fundamental part of elementary education. And it would drive people to reconsider and to rethink about what Broward County elementary schools really mean. If we had that everywhere. I think it's going to make this board reconsider the autonomy of principals, and also to make this board consider how many schools get included in repurposing. Because one thing that we've learned through the repurposing process for the past few years here
125is a small school is an expensive school. And MR. Whitney and some others have given us some data last year. I think it's still reasonably good, but we pay between $8,500 per student and $16,000 per student. Is that still roughly correct? Yes, sir. Yeah. So so that's almost 2 to 1. And what is the distinguishing feature of those schools? The 16,000 are the ones with 3 or 400, you know, dramatically under-enrolled very small schools. And so as a board, we have to think about it because if those are the schools that we choose to repurpose, that not only takes off a school that's dramatically under-enrolled to capacity, but it also eliminates a very expensive school per capita. And therefore the remaining schools, there would be funding left over $1.2 million on a $2 billion base
126is not a lot of money. It's less than half of 1,000th of a percent. But at the same time, to MISS Thompson's questions, we can do this without money. We just have to be thoughtful about the positions that we have and the policy that we give about the autonomy of principals to do it. I will tell you right now that I don't think a principal should have the autonomy. Say no to music, art and pe. It's fundamental to elementary education, all three of those. A librarian is fundamental to elementary education. It ought not to be optional in a place like Broward County. So I'm anxious to learn about it. I don't think we need $1.2 million to to pay for it, though. MISS Thompson, I think I think as part of our repurposing, if in
127fact, again, is the smaller under-enrolled schools that are the targets for repurposing. If we do follow, some numbers have been thrown around from up here to do more than ten this year. One of my colleagues has said we ought to do it once and get on with it. I love that, I think it'd be nice to take a two year break and get back on a cycle where we can come back and actually try the programs that we've put into schools and see how they're working, and then come back and look at it another time. MR. Superintendent, with next year's projected enrollment, we've talked about three years of losing 25,000 students. How many students will we lose over the previous three years plus next year, given the projections that we have. Previous three years plus
128next year, 35,000, 35,000. So on a base, we were around two ten, 35,000, 17 ish percent, right? Reduction over a very short period of time. I pray and hope that the state gives us a little bit of leeway on how we account for the changes. I do want to talk about the fund balance first, though, because that's certainly something central. I think we're going to be projected right now. Again, we're at the end of APRIL with these numbers. So ten months out of a 12 month year, we're projected to be at 3.36. If I'm correct, MR. Whitney, that's about $8.6 million over the 3%. Is 7.9 million. Okay, well, your calculator is better than mine, so just say eight for fun. If the $11 million correction isn't available, we're down to 3 million that we
129have to find. Doctor Hepburn, is it within your authority to find $3 million over the next two months so that we stay over 3%? Yes. Oh, great. All right. So that takes the big risk out of this. So let's talk about the other big risk. We overspend our personnel account by a lot of money every year. We have talked about it from this board. There's no organization in the world that can operate perpetually overspending their budget. That's why this board has the authority to set a budget. What's the point of having a school board approve a budget if no one follows the budget? So it's a very serious matter, and we're over by $56 million, I think, on the personnel account, which is our largest account, Doctor Hepburn, I, I would like to know, I
130understand how overtime and double stuffing and things like that can cause, you know, us to say, hey, the budget we had for 1.3 billion of personnel should fund this many positions 25,000. But if those positions get more expensive because people are working two full time jobs for Broward County schools, boy, that spirals things out of control. If overtime happens because of a natural emergency or forecasted event. I understand that happened too, but $56 million is a lot of money. What can you do next year, Doctor Hepburn, to bring that to zero? So one of the great things there's two folds when you approve a budget. I think for the past decade or so there has been no decline in personnel and staffing. Right. So the good thing is we're going into a new fiscal year
131with 1000 less positions. So we've reduced our personnel expenditures, which is what you're talking about. The other thing is to like, like you mentioned, we have positions that we have Broward County public school employees working full time during the day, and they're also working full time the second half of the day because they're in hard to staff positions, I.E. Workforce education positions at the tech schools, bus drivers doubling back and expressing more routes. The thing that we're going to have to do is really closely monitor that it is because by law, we have to pay them time and a half because they work for us already. Really monitor that and, and really force the system to say no to some of those positions and, and see and analyze the reasons, which I know off the
132bat is, is salary and then come back to the board. It's going to be cheaper for the board to say, all right, so we approve increasing that salary for that position, then paying time and a half over time because it's impacting us tremendously. It's, you know, a slight increase in salary is going to actually save us money than just paying over time. So those are some of the things I'll be bringing back to the board as we as we move forward. Terrific. Could you please bring us things that equal $56 million of change? We we as a board, I don't think would ever feel comfortable setting a budget and then having applications of double digit millions of over spending. So if you could bring us the ideas that look at that 56 million over execution
133and and allow us to help you. I love the idea. I think our bus drivers MAY be, you know, having a compensation issue. I think our fans, people, if we're double stepping those might. I think we we have to think about the jobs themselves and the pay. I think working in education is inherently exciting because you get to grow the next generation, right? But are we creating jobs that are exciting enough to people and pay people well enough that we get, get, get folks? I think it would be interesting. Also, doctor Doctor Hepburn, to consider a board sponsored policy that says you MAY not work two full time jobs in Broward County schools, period. Which would force the system to either pay people better or create jobs that are more attractive to people so that
134we get applicants. But to have somebody working two full time jobs where one of them is paying time and a half seems like something we just can't afford any more in Broward County. So I look forward to seeing those $56 million worth of changes between you and Doctor Lozano and everybody else that works in this in this field. Last big question about the budget I think that the board needs to consider is next year. We're looking at a 86, 87, 90 ish round number reduction in revenue. Therefore we have to reduce by the same on expenses. We've got a half a year of health care changes. That's roughly 23 million through Doctor Hepburn and MISS Johnson and everybody else is unbelievable efforts. We've reduced by 1000 positions. I think DR. Holness still has an item
135out there about further reductions in positions. But that won't save us money next year because that will be for the following year for savings. But am I right that 23 plus 56 is roughly 80 million, so we still have roughly 20 million if the projections come in at this point, Doctor Hepburn. Go ahead. What, MISS Johnson with the projection. There's going to be additional reduction with the allocation model. We haven't brought those forward yet because we haven't we haven't been able to identify all the cuts. So we want to we want to bring any numbers to the board. Right. Is the number you're targeting roughly 20 million. Those still board has to help you find Doctor Hepburn. Fine. So that we're balanced for next year. I mean we will be in balance for next year
136but we just haven't allocated we haven't analyzed the numbers from the allocation model yet. I'm just trying to set the workload for the board though. Do we as a board have to help you and approve $20 million of reduced expenses? So it's a it's a natural. Yeah. Reduction because of the decline in enrollment. You are not going to need a certain number of teachers because you don't have the students for those teachers. So this is something that naturally happens every year and more so in larger chunks last year. And this year, because of the large number of students that are declining. To the mix for a minute, what is the savings and expenses if we lose 9000 students next year? As far as the reduction in personnel at the school level that's needed, what's that?
137What's the expected less need of teachers? Doctor Lozano for the upcoming year? That could be between about 250 to 300 teachers. So average of about 75 fringe and salary. So that's 22.5 million. Yeah. Right. So so we're we're looking like we're closer to balance than we've been for the past three years. I would like the folks that are talking about narrative here today to think a little bit about that, because I can tell you the narrative I hear about is Broward County schools took a bold step and reduced outside of schools by 1000 positions. And that was part of a of a strategy of protecting the positions that are at schools. And it's not easy. Out of the 3000 positions, 1000 went away. I think it's a 22% reduction of administrative positions in one year.
138There are more reductions in staff, no doubt coming. I don't know if we can get to DR. Holness level. That sounds, I think, impossible, but the board will have to think through that. But we're starting the year in balance because of the decision that Doctor Hepburn and the staff brought to the board and the board approved. And so I think that ought to be the narrative that unlike other school districts that are just constantly shooting behind the target, Broward got ahead of the target, made the hard decisions, board approved them without a lot of. A lot of doubt. To be honest, I think this board stood tall and said, we got to do this and we did it. But to me, that's the narrative that's out there. That's what I read about. That's the feedback
139I get is that Broward is focused on academic excellence. They're focused on doing the things that are best for students and schools, and because of that, they fence those positions and they took cuts elsewhere. I'm very proud, Doctor Hepburn, of what you brought to the board. I'm proud of the strategy that you put together. I hope that we can fix some of these technical issues. On cost overruns on the personnel side. Look forward to seeing your ideas about that. But how amazing is it that Broward County is starting the year in balance with the budget? That is a big deal, and I think that narrative ought to be the one that we put out as a secondary issue. The primary issue is will still short to Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas. We are 50th in the
140nation in terms of core funding, and that at some point, you're going to run out of the ability to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Thank you very much, chair. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you. And I want to first say thank you to MISS Johnson and the whole budgeting team. It has been a difficult year plus, and just some of the some things I'd like to point out because I know she's taken a lot of heat for a lot of things. So Doctor Hepburn, at the end of the day, who decides what the staffing allocation is? Yes. It's not the budget team the budget budgets. It's it's the rest of the system. It's mostly tnl and reacting to what budget says, hey, here's what the numbers look like. And then we.
141Make who's at the end of the day, who's responsible for who's final decision. Is it that this is the staffing? That's me. Thank you very much. So it is the superintendent's final say that changes the staffing allocations. And I think it's really important for us to say that out loud to the public, because we have people that work in the district that give recommendations. It goes to cabit, it comes to the board, but operationally it is the superintendent who makes those final decisions. So, you know, thank you to the superintendent for taking the recommendations that budget has brought forth in, you know, putting them into place. But I think it's really important for people to understand that the staff just makes recommendations. So appreciate that. And the last conversation that we had, as has already
142been brought up, we were really clear that the arts and pe were important, not just to the board, but what we've heard from the public that they want. Those are things they want to be protected. So I I'm not sure who the right person to ask this of, but often when we go into schools and I ask about electives because it is really obvious when you go to different places that some have three, some have one, some have five. And I, I know it's based on the number of students that are at the school, but when I asked the principals, how do you decide what's special? You're going to have most of them say it's with community input. So I just would like to ask, I guess the superintendent and then whoever answers that question,
143is it a policy that we have? Is it a practice? Do all schools do that where the principal sits down with either the staff or or pta or maybe has a family night where they say, okay, we have enough for this many specials. What are the specials that you want to see in the in the school, in the upcoming school year? Can you explain that to us? Absolutely. And I have Doctor Fulton help me out, but I'm not aware of a policy unless Doctor Fulton is. But i know in practice is that does the school leadership works with their with their sac to finalize what their specials are going to be for the upcoming school year. So is that practiced in every school, or is that just something we hope is going to happen? Because.
144And the reason I'm asking is because we've gotten emails. As board member Thompson alluded to, that people were shocked that their school is losing this particular special and it's really, really important to them. So it gives me the impression that maybe that conversation was not had with the community. Go ahead, Doctor Fulton. You're correct, Doctor Hepburn. It has been a practice. All schools go through their budget with Sacs. What MAY have been probably the challenge this year is budgets and not because of Broward have been rolled out lately. So right now schools are just we just finished budget conferences and usually it's held in the MARCH sac meeting or the APRIL sac meeting. So we didn't have that opportunity to have those upfront conversations because we just finished budget conferences last Friday. Well, I get
145that part, but the part I'm saying is, I mean, the principal had to make a decision. So is it consistent that before the principal makes that decision, they have conversations with their community? So they do. And I think in some of the unique cases this year, the decision sometimes was easier because maybe my music teacher was retiring. So that made it an easy position to have to cut if you have to, because that means I didn't have to cut a person. That person was retiring. So that position made it easier to cut and that happened. That happens most in most cases. Right. And that's your decision. Actually a good point, because this is a particular for one school that MAY be true, that the the person retired, but the community really wanted that special. So
146to just make a unilateral decision that because the person again, you know, we do boxes, not people. The community really wanted that special to stay, but it was cut because the person was retiring. That's not really fair either, because I understand the other, you know, if the community didn't get opportunity to say, well, we still think music is what we want over the art in terms of, you know, what or whatever. I don't I don't want to pick on anything in particular, but it doesn't feel to me, based on the emails we're getting, that that was something that was done this year. So I would tell you, for a principal, it's a difficult decision to determine which one do we do without? But you have to take the unique needs of the community and into
147place. And then when you have attrition happen, it makes it an easier decision because it's a difficult decision. If I have five specials and I have to go down to four, those conversations are always held in a sac meeting to say, this is our budget for upcoming school year. We're reducing enrollment because we're reducing. Our enrollment is reducing. We have to go down from 5 to 4 specials. And then you kind of look at it as a totality. The demands of that community, the evolution of the student population, what is it that we want? And in some cases, I've seen principals do a survey with students, you know, what are the specials that you like? And they sometimes use that data to determine the least desired special. Because when you talk to students, specials is
148something that's very dear to them. You know, when you go home as a parent, they don't talk about music. They don't talk a lot about what I did in reading class or math class. It's always about those enrichment opportunities. So getting the student feedback is another option that schools do as well too. I think that's actually the best option, to be quite honest, because, you know, the students or parents. But I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I don't think that it's happening in practice. And I say that based on the speaker that came today to say that, and we've gotten this also, that the staff chairs are being asked to sign off on a budget that staff had no input on, and they feel for whatever reason, they feel very uncomfortable having to
149sign off on it. And if that's a state law or our policy, I understand that we roll things out a little later because we were waiting for the state who still hasn't passed a budget. So it makes it very difficult for us to do. But I don't know if we maybe need to, to do a policy where there's some kind of consistency across the board. And if we already have a policy, I say it all the time. Why have a policy if we don't follow it similar to what Doctor Seaman just said about if you have a budget, why can you go over it? Yeah. And we can research if we have a policy. But one thing I want to express is I don't want the whole entire system of 230 something principals where we
150probably have a school or two. So if there's a school or 2 or 3 that is having that concern, let us know who those schools, what those schools names are, and we'll dive into those situations because I getet ththe samemailil youou guys do. And, a and when we're talngng about 180 some students that equate to possibly 500,000 parents, right? I've only received very few. So it tells me there MAY be a certain instances where, you know, I'm the dad who loves art, fine arts, right. And but everybody else MAY not like the fine arts, right? Which is why I'm saying it should have been a community. And, and to that point, I appreciate you saying that, but the concern. So we're getting a couple emails, but as one of the speakers mentioned, it's blowing up
151all over social media that we are getting rid of all of the arts programs. And that's going to hurt the principals who are implementing it, you know, the schools that are there. So we have to figure out how to be a bigger presence in terms of, you know, we hear your concerns. We want you to know that this is not true. I love the chart. Thank you, DR. Zeman, for asking for that information, because that's a factual piece of information that we can share. And I think it's important. I think we should be emailing that out, you know, or putting it on social media to say, here's the facts. You know, there, there are some that are going down. But I also just think that to be consistent, I don't know whether that looks like
152just something you do as a standard operation procedure, or we need to do a policy to make sure that the staff is involved or the community in some way is involved in making the decision on what electives are there. Because we did say publicly that the arts are important to us, and we're getting emails from even staff members saying, why are you eliminating arts in Broward County public schools? So I, I don't know how to answer that. So I appreciate that. And I do appreciate the media specialist part. I have a little bit of a concern, though, because listening to the presentation, it said if the principal decided to keep a media clerk as opposed to a specialist, I, I think we're really clear that we wanted media specialists. I don't think that that should
153be a decision. I know they keep the clerks until they don't, but I don't think that there should be an option for them to to make that decision. We've been very clear that there needs to be a media specialist, which then allows them to have a media special, right, because they can't really do it with the specialist. So that was an issue. I also saw the flier from Palm Beach. So can you tell us, are we going to be doing something to try to keep the poaching and maybe do our own poaching back? I don't want to tell the public all our secrets. Well, that's okay. I just want to know. But we have a response, okay. And a proactive response to. Market to our students. Okay. Beyond Broward County Public Schools. So. Okay. Thank
154you. I just have a couple other things. I know Mike is listening. Yeah. Well, yeah, I don't want to give away our secrets, but I want to know that we're also going to poke back on that. Okay, perfect. That's affirmative. So back in SEPTEMBER, when we had our public hearing, we did. We passed some motions. And one of it was to decrease overtime by 40% by JANUARY 2026. And I asked for a follow up. And I appreciate the follow up, but it just looks like we've only decreased it by 24%. So that's a little over half of what we asked for. So can you kind of explain to us why we didn't reach the 40%? Yeah. So month over month, it fluctuates between 3025. We even have one month. That's like almost 60%. So on
155average today is 27.9. Call it 28% reduction in overtime for the whole entire year, up to up to this point. So we've been monitoring it there. There are some situations, you know, that we closely monitor really push back, I.E. Transportation, things like that, that that because you don't have the staff, there has to be some overtime in order to get the busses to, to pick up the students to do what we need to do to transport them to and from school. But we've been closely monitoring it and really challenging the teams and also improving the process just to make sure we continue to reduce. But to date it's been 28%, but each month it's higher or some months it's slightly less. But for the most part, we've tackled this situation robustly this year. Okay, well,
156I appreciate that answer, but very disappointed. The reason that we said 40% is because overtime is one of those huge costs that seems like we can't control, and I think we need to do a better job. And just like I told DR. Zeman to, one of the things is bringing back some of these positions to the board to increase the pay, right? So you don't need the overtime because for some of the positions, it's not a desirable position. It's high turnover. And there are other competitive factors externally where we're not, you know, being able to get those employees on board. So some situations we're just going to have to do some market analysis and actually raise the pay of some of those positions to make them more desirable to be in full time. So we
157don't need to pay overtime. So like I said earlier, it's cheaper to hire somebody, pay them a regular salary than to continue to pay overtime. Okay, great. Thank you. And that was the second question I had on that. So I asked, what is the status of the review of supplement job descriptions? Because that also affected the overtime. And so the answer said that you all were going to be discussing what happened with these work groups and all of the meetings that they had. They brought you a recommendation, and you were supposed to talk about it yesterday and then come back to us. So how did that discussion go yesterday? Discussion went well yesterday. There were some targeted areas by the committee, which is a very diverse committee with various internal stakeholders on it. As far
158as recommendations of sunsetting some supplements or looking more in detail to some supplements, we gave some feedback, and Doctor Lozano and his team will bring something to the board. As far as what we recommend fully to sunset, and also update some job descriptions already have the task in it. So recommendation to sunset and the very few job descriptions that we need to update. We'll bring those to the board. Okay, great. Thank you. Just a couple more things. So I've said this a number of times. You said it. We you know, I think it's really important to say to the public every single year, we always cut staff in schools based on the number of enrollment that had. That's not new. It wasn't anything we didn't do last year, the year before, the year before, because
159it's just based on the fte that we get. So this year was a little different because we cut jobs beyond just the classroom and in the district. But what the public heard, whether it's what we said or not, what they heard was schools would be insulated from that. And so how do we get the message out, even though we've said it here a bunch of times, even people, I think, on the board haven't understood that that that's something that happens every single year because if you have less students, you just need less teachers. So how do we present that in a different way that they can digest it? Because a lot of the things we're getting back also is you said you weren't going to touch schools, but we do touch schools every single year.
160We have for I've been here 37 years. It's happened in the last 37 years. So how do we do a better job of explaining that? Because they didn't hear that this year. Yeah. We can just continue to push out as much communication as possible. I think there's an echo chamber, right, going on when it comes to that same narrative over and over. You know, I'm just going to have to act like I'm from Missouri for and just show them, right? Show me. So when the school year, school year starts, we will show you that we. If you could, based on what you just said, give us a follow up to show how many schools lost teachers last year and how many were projecting to lose this year. And maybe it could be over the lastive
161years. And on that, do we have any schools that are going to increase in enrollment that are actually getting additional? I would have to take a look at the data. If if that's the case case, it is very few. And and the enrollment increase would be because of their magnet or program. So they're really taking kids away from another. Right. No, I get that. And I, I've said that a number of times, but if you could give us a follow up, that kind of. Because then we can also, I think visuals help a lot. Like I said, I really appreciate the chart about the specials. And I think if we push that out, we can put that. Can you repeat that follow up? I was. So a follow up over the last, let's say, five
162years, how schools that you know, how many teachers every school, how many teachers did they lose or gain for the last five years? As a follow up? And so one of the speakers points, I think it's also important that we explain that the district isn't as board members are not trying to push it back on the principal. But at the end of the day, the principals are the ones that make the decision on how they use their budget. Is that correct? Correct. So how did how did that change this year? Because we're getting a lot of pushback from principals that this big staffing allocation, which didn't look like a lot of changes on the what you gave us, that there was such a huge change that they're now their hands are tied and they're having
163to get rid of all of. This stuff. And, you know, like I said, there's minimal changes. It's a, it's a, this year is probably the year where there's a lot of changes or experiencing change because of the large amount of students. Schools were pretty much kind of held harmless a little bit from the decline last year, because it just pretty much slapped everybody in the face, not just Broward County Public Schools, Dade, Palm Beach, orange. None of us expected such a huge decline in enrollment, which is very shocking and hard to react to once the school year starts because you just can't get rid of people and all those other things. Once the school year starts this year, we're being more proactive. We're, we're we're basing our budget based on projected enrollment for the upcoming
164school year. We have the survey two information. We have the survey three information. You know what survey three, which is during that FEBRUARY time frame that the students that are not here in FEBRUARY, they're gone. They're not coming back. If they didn't, they're not here in our system in FEBRUARY. That means they've left the area. They're not going to show up. They're gone somewhere else. And so I think it's it's a hard shift when it comes to our school leaders. And and when you look at projection and the realization that you have, you're going to experience a little bit more decline in staffing than you have in the past because we just, you know, it's just coming to a head right now with a large, a significantly larger amount of reductions than any school districts
165have ever experienced in the past. You know, usually Broward County over the past, you know, early, early in the decade, probably about 1500, 2000 when you spread that out amongst 237 schools, it's, you know, not a lot of kids, but when you talk about eight, nine, 10,000, it's going to impact the system. And it's definitely going to impact school budgets because they don't have those students anymore to, to receive that revenue for the number of staff that they had before. And how do we get the projections? What department provides the projection? We get projections from the state. So the state gives us a projection around DECEMBER, JANUARY time. And then the survey three data comes in around FEBRUARY to let us know how many additional students we decline by after the after the survey two
166window in OCTOBER. So we add the projection and the survey three numbers together. We. Because we. The previous year we went through the same thing, right. And those numbers stayed solid for survey three, meaning in the spring semester, if a kid is not enrolled in our system, most likely they are not going to be enrolled in our system in the fall. If a kid is not here in the spring, that means they've left the area for the most part, or or enrolled in a another school. But most likely they've left the area. So does the state do that for every single school? Yes. Not not for school. They do that for the district. So how. But so my question is how do like school a how do we calculate their numbers for school a, b,
167c, d? And our demographers do a great job with trend data to come up with the best case scenario. Perfect. And that's not budgeting. That is. That's not demographics. Budget reacts to the revenue from enrollment. Thank you. I'm just trying to clear up some things. The last thing I'd like to just leave is as we build the new budget. I say this every single year. I think we should start with at no less than a 4% increase for our employees on how we budget, And I hope that we start a budget from scratch. As I've said every year, and build it for what we want in it, not trying to plug holes in different places. Thank you so much. Thank you, MISS Rupert. Thank you. First, I want to actually comment on our public speakers
168today. And some some things that were said on the dais. Quite accurately. No more waiting until all the information is available. That answer rebuffs the very soul and moral responsibility that public education and government agencies currently are waiting on an mgt report, waiting on hiring master planner. The public are waiting on public records request. The information is available now and it needs to be released. And I know that we're closely monitoring. But why not met? I MISS The other part of the the sentence that was we're closely monitoring, but we haven't met it. So my expectations are that we get the information. It doesn't have to be pretty. It doesn't have to be slick. If you've got data, we need the data. If public records requests are in our system and we have that available,
169it needs to go out. I I'm increasingly getting phone calls for people that are waiting on those particular answers. Employees and for, for the public. So I really needed to raise that right. That question. I do. I feel very strongly about that. And it goes back to when I first became a board member and my assistant had to start the the database of unanswered questions. That's not a good look for the board. The board. Every meeting says we need it. We need it now. It's going to be given to us. And then the the rope keeps getting further and further away, or the line gets further and further away each time. So I think as we're going into to budget and to actually talk about changes, especially with the org chart, job descriptions, reporting structures,
170that information needs to be infallible. And it also needs to be readily available and soon, like yesterday. And when we're looking at the budget, especially, I did want to talk about the reductions that are happening in our schools. And yes, they do principals. We all know that it's an enrollment. The figures. What programs can go down. But when it comes to the electives, it's absolutely non-negotiable that parents and the community have a a say in what is going on at that school, and also that principals have a say in what is going on in that school, because I'm hearing from some principles that are being told that they need to do a 15% across here, and they have to put their, you know, they're not going to be able to have art or these 2
171or 3 particular things. And it happens. And, you know, it's not a good look. You know, I wish we could actually just say, okay, we got all the information. There was a community meeting. It happened on this day. And the people that showed up for the advertised meeting at the school had their voice. And the instruments that are in the closet for the last two years are going to be coming out, and there'll be an after school thing. It doesn't have to cost us. We need to actually listen to that customer voice, because if we don't, they're going to go anywhere else, right? And it's not easy for the principal. It's not easy for the parents. And it's definitely not easy on the students. You know, they go there for those band programs. And honestly,
172I'm a band and a choir girl and a sport girl. Those things. Well, I love studying too, but let's put that aside. Those things got you excited. Those things you stayed after school or you showed up early for school. Those are some of the very important lessons that they learn. How to have your voice yet share it with a group of people and make a fantastic song, a a fantastic art piece. That is the most important thing for these students to have their voice and be part of a community voice. We have that. We need to do more of it. Instead of being reactionary, use our students voice, which we do, but also use our student voice at that particular school. They need to know that the last three years that I've been in elementary
173school, I've enjoyed music, but my last, you know, fourth and fifth grade, it's not going to happen anymore. So I am actually asking for that public voice and to go back to what the I think, MISS. Brooke Brody, that, you know, she she was right. I was a staff chair. How could you possibly sign off on something that you're not really educated about at that particular time? Because they're waiting for analysis. Those are things that we can get rid of problems that are today. Those things we need to focus on getting the students what they need and our teachers and our staff, what they need to run the school, and to make sure that we have that commitment. And I'm very nervous about the the budget. I I owhaha w we h he a a
174p pnn to goo forwa w whht,t, but. Gesundheit. But. It's it's alarming that we MAY go below the 3%. And I think we need to be ready to be prepared for that. And it doesn't have to be. I'll just say it doesn't have to be more employee related with losses. So thank you. Thank you. And I just want everyone to be mindful of the time. Our special school board meeting is scheduled to start at noon, so that will now be delayed, but I will if we are still having this discussion, I will recess this workshop to go to some time. Certain items at 1230 for some proclamations, and then we'll come back to the workshop. So I just want everyone to, to be cognizant of that and not be surprised when I do that. DR.
175Holness. Thank you, MADAM Chair. I did not realize my it's my time. So. So, Doctor Hepburn, if you could allow MISS Johnson to speak. MISS Johnson, can you reiterate the factors again? Oh, she's not here. Is she around? She's coming back. But MR. Whitney's available. Okay. MR. Whitney's available. Okay, good. All right. So can you reiterate the factors that could cause us to fall below the 3% and in a concise manner, if you could. And in a in layman terms, so the public can understand. Sure. And this goes back to page ten of the presentation, where it covers the high level fund balance concerns our preliminary. You know, our our first concern here is that the Florida Education Programs Survey three calculation could result in an additional revenue reduction of approximately $11 million. MR. Johnson
176has been in contact with the state, and they are not entirely certain how they're going to roll that out and what that would look like for us. But if it if it rolls out at that $11 million, that is a huge concern. And that would that would be based on that approximately $8 million that we're we're above the 3% that would push us below the 3% and require some additional changes. Okay. So let me ask a couple of questions on that. So the survey three calculations, that was something we weren't expecting. I mean, so there's been some recent changes in the way that the student populations behave during the school year. Right. And so over our historical view during the school year, we usually have about the same number of students at the end of
177the year. We do at the beginning, the last couple of years. And our demographers have been looking at this too. We've been losing students during the year, which is kind of a new phenomenon. And that's what's manifesting itself with these survey three numbers. It's not just Broward that it's impacting. And so the state isn't certain how they're going to actually implement that. Okay. So MR. Whitney, let me let me try to understand this. Right? So we've been ongoingly sort of losing students throughout the school year. And that's not something typical or normally that happens. Correct. But wouldn't we be aware of the student loss progressively as we move down to where we're now? At this point, we're worried about the 3%. No. If I can add to that DR. Holness, the concern is not so
178much the loss of students. The concern is actually having to pay back the money during the fiscal year. In in last year, we paid the money back. They they actually had districts pay that money back to the the state in the next fiscal year. So the the issue is if they actually want us to pay it within the fiscal year, that's the concern. Okay. So let me ask another question, Doctor Hepburn. So typically and historically the money was paid back in the upcoming year and not the current fiscal year. Correct. It it's been both with the recent large decline in enrollment that's impacting almost every school district in the state. The state did something different last year to have districts pay back in the next fiscal year. So there's not a huge financial burden on
179districts during the fiscal year, because you're dealing with the loss of revenue during that fiscal year, understand? So I guess I'm just trying to understand why we're at this point and we're worried about the 3%. So we didn't anticipate that they would ask us to pay back during this fiscal year. We thought it was going to be next fiscal year. Correct. And when did we realize that? We're just inquiring. So it is a concern if they change course. Okay. So did they indicate that they're going to have a different approach? No indication final indication yet. Okay. So why what caused us to start to worry about the, the, this current fiscal year being the year? We're just doing our due diligence to analyze all possibilities of decision making and, and also internally and also at
180the state level as well. Okay. So so this is not a situation where the rules of the game by the state is changing in the middle of the, in the middle of the game, or it's been the same rules historically. So they've changed the rules or the strategy last year, right? In response to pretty much supporting districts with this huge loss in revenue that they've experienced across the state. So, you know, we want to make sure that they continue that. Yep. Okay. Okay. So MISS MISS Johnson, and I know you had stepped away for a little bit. Besides the survey three calculations, which which I'm still somewhat unclear. And I, and I understand Doctor Hepburn, but I'm still a bit unclear as to why we're so worried about it. If they haven't definitively say we're
181going to do this, I'm just not sure why. We have sort of a a state of concern if we haven't heard anything. The reason why the concern last year happened because families empowerment scholarship was miscalculated by the state. So it impacted all the districts across the board. This year. There is a reduction that's happening in FEBRUARY. Survey three. That is not usually happen this time of the year. Right. And they usually last year, they pushed it back to the next fiscal year, which gave us a $5 million credit from the family of power scholarships. But that is not the norm. They use the levy that survey, before we close out. And if they go back to the normal behavior of levying that survey, then it would be it is a concern for the district because
182we'll lose 11 million before I close out. So that is why it changed this year. And family, power and scholarship, that has nothing to do with it this year. But the decision is on the state when they're going to actually give us our final calculation. Right? Got it. And the decision for the restricted resources is something that the state does every year, and they do it at the end of the fiscal year. They change what they start restricting. Right. And I'm asking them ahead of time. If they do, they know what they're going to restrict and they don't know yet. But they did say, be prepared that those categoricals as far as a accelerated dollars could be restricted. And if they be restricted, they're no longer unrestricted. They become restricted in our fund balance and
183they'll reduce our overall fund balance. Okay. So I believe my understanding is that the the budget hearings in Tallahassee will be wrapped up around MAY 29th. 27th, 27th. Okay, good. All right. So then we will know more. Yes. I've just informing the the board. It's my job to make sure you guys are informed because then the superintendent will have it triggers us to move forward. And I just want you guys to know based on these things that can occur, right. If possibly we won't make it. So I have to, you know, inform you. And then if we do, if if they don't, these things doesn't occur, we should be able to make. It okay. Understand? So let me ask another question, MISS Johnson. And you know, my my concern has always been the 3%. I
184don't want to go below 3%. I've said that ever since I've gotten here in 2022. So let's just say they went ahead and the unfortunate happens, right? And then we have to look at $11 million. What what are the consequences if if this should occur? With the survey, three calculations that we would face if we fall below the 3%. And what remedy do you have in mind if that actually comes to fruition? So the superintendent and cabinet members, we already been working on a plan for next year, but the state requires if you fall below the 3% we have, the superintendent would have to inform the state Board of Education and the commissioner. Right. And we project we're going to fall below. And it's about two years because two years. So we're not going to
185hit the 2%. We might hit below 3%, and we have to come up with a deficit elimination plan. And if we within two years. So we have time, we already doing that. We have a deficit, you know, fiscal recovery plan. So if we fall below the 2%, they require that fiscal recovery plan to show them that we're going to recover, right? So if we don't have a plan, if they don't sign off on a plan, that's when the even below the 2%, we got to have that fiscal recovery plan showing us how we're going to come out, right, to be above the 3%. That's when they go to a fight risk. They say we fiscal at risk, and then that's when the states start moving to initiate an oversight plan and doing what they do
186to do. Emergency takeover of the district. Okay. The district. But I've been in a situation here in Florida, and they really the state doesn't want to take over district. They want us to come up with a plan. And we do have a plan already that show us to get back to the 3%. And that's what we're doing now. Okay. So I appreciate that, MISS Johnson. And I can tell you I am a bit nervous getting even close to the 3%. And in fact, I remember when we were way above 3% and we it never seemed possible that we would be right there. Right. So going below the 3% to say, well, we'll be okay because 2% has more consequence to it. I just don't want to face those realities. Right. So I hope that Doctor
187Hepburn, going forward, just getting that reserve up is a part of our, you know, sort of budget discussion because I, I don't like flying so close to the ground. You know, it makes me nervous when we are right there. So I'm, you know, I'm hoping we can get above that 3% or have a plan to do so as a part of our discussion and as a part of the priority, just like we prioritize, you know, taking care of our resources, our teachers, our salaries, these kind of things and how the district function, I think the reserve should be a major part of that discussion, you know, because that's where we will enter into a phase that we have to deal with consequences. And I don't want to risk going below 2% ever or even entertaining
188it, you know. So, MISS Johnson, I had asked the question besides the what other what are the factors besides the survey three calculations that put us. If that doesn't happen, that we would need to be concerned about 3% or going below it. Is there any other factor. Just those restricted. If they restrict those categorical funds. But if they don't, then we don't have a 3% below concern. No. Okay. Unless my projections are very, very conservative. I just kind of over projected based on last year burn. And we should it should fall off. We should be okay. Okay, so I have a few more questions, Doctor Hepburn, and then I'll be done. Doctor Hepburn, did we reconfigure 11 schools for the upcoming school year? Reconfigure. Go ahead, doctor Wanza specifics. Based upon the redefining of schools,
189will there be 11 schools that will be impacted or 11 school changes going forward into next year? So for this coming school year, effective JULY 1st, the board approved for six schools based on board action on JANUARY 21st of this year. That will take effect for next year on JULY 21st, when we have the conversation with the board to talk about redefining what we will do, then we will talk about, you know, potential schools and numbers and things of that nature. But but for effective JULY 1st, that will go live for the 26, 27 school year, it's six schools. Okay. So, Doctor Wanza, when you say six schools, you mean six schools that were close or six schools that were repurposed. So we kind of used that word interchangeably. And what what we know is
190we have six schools that were closed, and those campuses are being repurposed for another district use. So, you know, for example, we know that Plantation Middle School will be combined with Plantation High School to make, you know, I'm just going to use plantation 6-12. Now, we know that seagull will be combined with wooden Rogers to make one school. So that's the first two schools. And then the other four schools are elementary schools. You know, particularly we know that Sunshine Elementary School is being combined into Fairway Elementary School. Palm Cove Elementary School is going to split, and it's going to be combined into either Lakeside Lakeside Elementary School or Pines Lakes Elementary School. Panther Run Elementary School is closing, and it will be combined into either chapel, trail, Elementary School or Silver Palms. And then finally
191North Fork Elementary School, which the students will transition into one of four schools, either Crescent Park Elementary, Walker Elementary, Thurgood Marshall Elementary. And what's the last one? Crescent Park, Crescent Park. Right. So so those are schools that were sort of closed, but then used for other purposes, right. But I believe we had 4 or 5 schools that were also sort of repurposed, right? So they so Hallandale High School, there was a school model redesign, but that school will still be open and functioning, right as a, you know, as a as a district high school. We did some programmatic innovation innovations in some of the schools. But as far as schools being completely repurposed offline or going to be that campus being designated for another district use, that number is six. Okay, so Doctor Hepburn, with
192the schools that were closed and used for another purpose or schools that were repurposed as we go into next year, what savings will that bring to the district? I guess. Go ahead, Doctor Wanza. I don't have the number on the top of my head. I believe that it is calculated in what the budget team just talked about briefly. But we know that when we came to the board in DECEMBER of 2025 and with anticipation of the actions that we would bring for the board in JANUARY. So there was about out of about $13 million in associated costs as it related to support allocations, maintenance costs. But I think in the final analysis, that number MAY have gone up a little bit more. And I did see, I think, in the budget slide or in conversation
193what that final number was. But we do know when we brought the actions initially to the board for consideration, the cost savings were at or about somewhere in that $13 million range. But I think it's a little bit more in the financial analysis. When you look at everything in its totality. Okay. And Doctor Wanza, that would be on a yearly basis. That would be reoccurring because, you know, if you no longer have to have the maintenance, the instructional support, you've reduced the number of principals, you've reduced the number that would be recurring. Okay, so Doctor Hepburn, as we continue to redefining efforts, what are what is your goal or what are your goals in the upcoming school year in terms of the amount that you would or you plan to save? As we continue to
194repurpose, redefine more schools to increase this 13% ongoing savings, what are what is the goal for next year? How much are you planning to save. For redefining schools specifically. Upon redefining schools? What what what is your goal in terms of a an estimate of an amount next year that you are hoping the district will save? So that that has to come from our thorough analysis that we'll bring back in in JULY, because we're still examining the impacts on student enrollment and some some schools that aren't up for discussion yet, but MAY be part of the discussion. So that's more to come. I can't give you an exact figure on that, because it's all dependent on what schools we're able to bring to the board. As far as the discussion of for closure or repurpose, it's
195all dependent on student enrollment, understand? So so the process doesn't involve setting a financial goal. It, it, it, it's more looking at what we can repurpose and then determine subsequently what the financial savings would be. Correct. Correct. Okay. So let me ask another question. Doctor Hepburn research. I was wondering, can Broward County schools and I don't know. I'm just thinking again as to how we can attract students. Can Broward County schools do any kind of research to show how many of the students in Broward County are going to private charter in each school boundary? Or how many of. Or how many of the students in Broward County in each school boundary are going to high academic performance, entrance type required schools. Yes, we already have all that data. You have. That data and usually not
196the ones that does review that data. En she goes over the deck for redefining to show for specific schools that are within that, where those kids are, what's causing the decline in enrollment. And it'll show the percentage attending charter, a percentage attending out of boundary school, such as another magnet around the district. And so we have the majority of that data. The data that we would not have is those that are attending private school, because we don't have access to, to really know muc abt if t the l lveve out of a pupuic school system, which woululd be leaving out of charter. We have data for vouchers, but if they're leaving to go to a private school, that's the only thing. Okay, so for the private schools, we wouldn't have that data. Okay. So I
197would just again, I would, I would love to see at some future date that we have some sort of a high performing schools and additional school, maybe six through 12 that is centrally located. And I, I am sure this has to be backed up by data to show how many of the students within school boundaries are going to high performance schools. I still strongly believe the central area is lacking one of those, and I hope Hallandale is significantly successful so I can at least. My term on the school board. I can see a third one occurring in the central area, because I strongly believe we can attract the high performing students within these school boundaries that we have that are going to these high performing private schools. So thank you, MADAM Chair. Appreciate it. Thank
198you, MR. Cervera. Thank you. Superintendent. I want to be very clear about something. We cannot and we will not, as a district, uniformly cut specials from our elementary schools. We're not going to do it. Music, art, pe. These are fundamental to elementary education. Our kids need these. And I'm not going to be a part of any anything that would potentially take those out of play. The last week has been a difficult one. I've heard from countless parents devastated that art programs were being taken from their schools, and I'm not going to take that away from any elementary school student anywhere in the district, whether it's in district six or any of the other districts in this county. I want to be very clear to the public on this. This was not a board decision. If
199this had ever come to the board, my vote would have been an emphatic no. There are many areas that we can save money on. Including this building, which I still scratch my head. Why are we still in here? Why isn't this been sold or leased yet? I don't know. Topic for another day, but for purposes of today, these specials cannot go anywhere. And if you are being affected by this as a parent, as a student, I encourage you to continue doing what you're doing, reaching out to your respective school board members and trying to find solutions on potential resolutions. Because to me, this is, quite frankly, just unacceptable to lose these specials. I want to shift gears quickly, and I want to talk about this staffing allocation model. And I brought this up last week
200or the week before about how I was getting calls from principals and other administrators in which they were being told they were being given directives by this district to cut certain staff. As you can imagine, this was very disconcerting for a lot of our principals and a lot of our apps having to make these types of decisions. But I want to dig a little bit deeper on this. I want to talk about these projections and these enrollment numbers, and how much emphasis that we put on this. Here's something that I struggle greatly with. What if these projections are wrong? Now I realize that every district is different. Some of us deal with under-enrolled schools. Some of us deal with schools that are overcapacity. However, if we're making major decisions based on these projected numbers and
201these projections are wrong, we could have situations where kids are potentially being put in classrooms on a 40 to 1 ratio or higher. That's not acceptable to me. MR. Superintendent. I'd like to know the following. Why wouldn't we actually wait until the school year starts? Wait till we get to that 20 day mark when the updated figures come out, and then figure out if cuts are necessary, as opposed to doing it a year in advance. Thank you for the question, MR. Cervera. First, I want to correct the record also and encourage you to read the board response sent to the board from DR. Zeman. There's not a universal cut of art, music and pe, so I want to be mindful that we don't send that narrative out to the public because we there's no universal
202cut of those programs. We do have some schools in the situation where there's some tough decisions that have to be made by the principal in their community. As far as waiting, it's. So here's the scenario. I can tell you, my whole career in education, the state of Florida and their projection numbers are pretty spot on for the past 20 or 30 years. And I think MISS Johnson can agree with me on that one. There are very rarely off. If they're off, they're usually off by 100 or so. So whatever they're doing up there at the Capitol, as far as giving us projection numbers for the past 20 or 30 years, they've been spot on. And so it is, again, simple economics. We receive revenue based on the number of students that enroll in our schools,
203specifically those that are registered and enrolled in Broward County Public Schools, district operated schools every year. Since the dawn of time for every school district in this state, we provide budgets to the schools, to staff their schools based on projected enrollment for their schools. And after the ten day count, maybe 11 day count, 12 day count for the district. But for us, it's the ten day count. After the ten day count, we collect all the enrollment warm body counts of those schools, and then we make adjustments. We put a freeze on everything in the district and we make adjustments. If a school goes slightly up or if a school goes slightly down. So if a school goes down and this school to my left goes up, we just transfer that teacher to the school that
204went up. And it's very minimal shift in that scenario. If we were to ignore projections and just say, hey, we're going to staff schools based on the number of students on the first day, huge risk because at the beginning of the school year, you're, you would have a, a if, let's say, ignoring a 9000 decline in student enrollment and staffing our schools based on last year, at the ten day count, we would have hundreds of teachers that we would have to release, not shift to another classroom release from the district, which is very disruptive to students, to parents, to communities, and also our staff. This is this is the doing it the way we're doing it right now provides the least amount of disruptions to schools, provides the least amount of disruption to the, to
205the small amount of staff that would have to shift from one school to the next because another school went up and their school went down. So it causes the least amount of disruption versus shifting around or not even shifting. In this scenario you're discussing about waiting. That would be probably about 300 or more teachers that we would have to release, because we don't have those students. Let me tell you what my concern is with that. And incidentally, MR. Superintendent, the way I just suggested, didn't the district used to do it that way? You know. It was never done that way. No district in the state of Florida has ever, ever done it that way, because it's just too much risk in having to release a lot of teachers here. Here's the risk that I'm concerned
206about in my district. Okay, with all due respect to the numbers, with all due respect to the data in district six, my constituents have a higher probability of those numbers being wrong facing an over enrollment than an under enrollment. So what we are effectively doing to my schools, we are telling parents, we are telling admins, we are telling teachers that you are. What are we in MAY? You're not coming back next year. The entire summer. There's a great deal of anxiety that my parents, my students, my admins and my teachers are facing not knowing what's going to happen next year, whether our classes are going to be over enrolled, whether we're going to have to scramble to find teachers from the district that MAY or MAY not have any affiliation to that school at all.
207And this is something that we all have to think about for the next three months. A little less maybe. So I'm as as far as my district is concerned, this is extremely concerning to me. And I want to thank all the parents who have taken the time to call, to write, to stop me in the supermarket and express their concerns about this, because I'm very troubled by how we're doing things. And I don't want to beat a dead horse because I know it's it's over and it's already been passed. But this started with the org chart and a lot of the cuts that we made. And now we're starting to see it in real in real time, in real world practice, we are seeing the implications of decisions that this board makes, and it's resulting,
208as I predicted, in teachers not being able to come back to schools and our students being directly impacted by that. So I appreciate the explanation, MR. Superintendent, but I'm very concerned and I'm going to be very concerned over the entire summer over this, and I'm going to do everything in my power to work as hard as I can for smooth transitions in my schools, and to make sure that I'm not facing 40 to 1 capacity in any of my classrooms, especially in some of my larger high schools, with some of these cuts that are making. So I wish there was another way around it. I wish we could wait and try to play the catch up game, as opposed to the way we do it. But I certainly want everyone out there to know that
209that I hear you and I share your concerns with this, and I'm not happy about it. Thank you. Thank you. We will now recess this workshop to go to our special school board meeting. Yes. Just real quick. So hold on, hold on. MISS Bulman, do you want to go or. Okay, I just we have a time certain at 1230. So. Well, okay. Go ahead. We have to transition over and everything, but go ahead, go ahead. Okay. So thank you, MADAM Chair. You know, I want to echo MR. Cervera sentiments that I'm also disappointed. I'm disappointed that our enrollment's down and that we have less money and that we're dealing with all of these budget issues that are affecting our teachers, our staff, and our students and our families. It's it's a very difficult position that
210we're in right now. And as someone whose kids didn't have art until my fourth grader, who's my fourth child, had art this year for the first time when we did a reconfiguration of the school because of the enrollment, I am extremely sympathetic to these cuts and how they affect the school experience, and it's actually one of the reasons why I'm here, because I do absolutely agree that everyone should be getting these basics. So. But we have to deal with the budget. I want to thank MISS Johnson and her team. I know that this is a Herculean effort, that no one is ever going to congratulate you for finding those dollars to keep us afloat, and how hard you work to do that, and how you've dedicated so much of your time to helping us. So
211thank you for that. Appreciate it. And you're doing a great job keeping us afloat. So thank you. So I guess my question is, you know, when we're looking at values because you're hearing here, everyone, everyone likes those specials. And I, I come here with a belief that that's what everyone fundamentally in a public education, every kid should be getting. So and there is discretion at the school level. But can we set or workshop what we value as a school district and set that forward so that we are all working on the same page? And, you know, just going back to when I was a kid, something else that I think was employed quite frequently was like on kind of itinerant music teacher, itinerant band teacher that used to come a couple times a week and
212then the kids would have it like once a week. So everyone was getting it. But it wasn't necessarily a teacher that was dedicated to that school. Is that something that we can do? Budgetarily. I mean, I know there's like a travel. Yeah. So let's take a look. Now we hear the board and we hear the concerns. We want to make sure the value proposition to the public is one that promotes them wanting to take advantage of bk as their first choice. So let's let's myself in cabinet, go back and take a look at some things and then bring something back or just, you know, like I said, we have to sit back and see what the trade offs are. Right. And so we'll, we'll wholeheartedly go back and take a look at many of the
213things that were discussed today. You know, but we want to make sure the value proposition to the public is one that bk is, is, and continues to be your first choice. Yeah. And I think that's great. And I, you know, again, I want all the kids to have the opportunity. And, you know, we are making choices. We're making hard choices about closing schools, consolidating schools so that we can, like you said earlier, provide more to the students. And I, you know that no one wants their school closed. It is a difficult decision, has an impact to the community, but those are the tough decisions I think, that are going to get us over the hump and make the school dtrict stronger and really make us able to offer what we need to, to our students
214to make us the best choice. So I think, you know, I think we're going in the right direction. This is going to be challenging the messaging we are just continue to work on. But anyway, thank you. Thank you. We will now recess this school board workshop to open our special school board meeting.