School Board Workshop - Jun 16, 2026

001Thank you. Welcome 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 that 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. All please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. I pledge allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for wch it stands. One nation under GOD, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. As

002we begin, we reaffirm our strategic plan goal 100% proficiency for all students. Guided by our vision. Educating today's students to succeed in tomorrow's world. As an a-rated district, we remain 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 e llll soon hear from our registered public speakekersWe ask thaha decorumum bebe maiainene I iivivility a respect b behohown dingg public comment. Our General Counsel will assist the chair in maintaining decorum during this period. We also want to remind our public speakers of the rules and expectations regarding the agenda, public comment portion of this workshop, as well as board policy attorney Dupree Bruno, please explain the rules of public comment. Good morning and thank you, MADAM Chair. Public comment is governed

003by 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 during public comment per school board policy. 1020. The procedures are as follows. Speakers must state their name, city of residence and whether they are a lobbyist 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. This is a workshop, so public comment will be in relation to the agenda. During the agenda speaking time, speakers will have up to three minutes per item. A visible timer will be used in the microphone MAY be turned off when

004time expires. Speakers must limit their comments to matters related to school board business and for agenda items must remain relevant to specific item. Comments MAY not address matters that are pending litigation, quasi judicial proceedings or 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, clapping, 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 recess being called after a warning. The chair MAY also direct removal from the meeting or removal from the building by law enforcement or the Sergeant at Arms.

005Thank you, MADAM Chair. Thank you. Attorney Bruno, the board wants to hear from you, and we appreciate your cooperation in maintaining a respectful, orderly and productive meeting 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. Our first item is committee reports, and I know there are some people running late, so if I call them and they're not here right now, I'll come back as they walk into the room. So I don't see audit. Broward County Association of Student Councils and Student advisor to the board. Okay, sorry. Hello, everyone. First of all, Michael and I are very excited. This is our first official committee report. So obviously we're still kind of stepping

006into this role. So we don't have too much to report on. But we did just get back from something called Swfl tc, which is the South Florida leadership training camp and is partially sponsored by bcc. And let me tell you, we had an amazing time there. I'm sure almost every single student who went there also agrees with us. We truly learned so much about what it means to be a leader and to really prepare for this role further. Additionally, we're kind of just setting up all of our meetings, getting to formally introduce ourselves to everyone and have a deeper understanding of this role. As the lease said, the sf ltc training camp was something truly amazing. You know, students really did have a great time. Students came in not wanting to be there and left

007in tears. So in a good way. [Laughter] So it was truly amazing to see students having fun and also learning and learning how to become a leader. The Bcac new new Executive Board is very excited to start working for the next school year. They're very, very eager and excited to start working and planning. Thank you so much. District Advisory Council. North area. Central area. Good morning to all. My name is Brooke and I'm here to give the Central area report. Central met on MAY 21st. We held elections and discussed several topics. One of those topics was elementary specials. The board's emphasis on prioritizing pe, music and art as elementary specials has been really warmly received within the community, there was a board follow up document that showed the anticipated anticipated specials for all of the

008elementary schools for next year. And we did notice that there are several schools that still do not have art or music, but do have a core special. So we think some follow up at those schools would be appropriate to ensure that's, in fact, what the stakeholders desire. Our staff chairs are deeply concerned about class sizes at all grade levels for next year k to 12. We're hearing that schools will have to wait until OCTOBER to hire more teachers above the budget that they currently have. We were initially under the impression that they would be able to hire teachers over the summer, and I don't know if it's a point of confusion, but I think we should have some clarification as to whether principals will be able to post jobs as their schools get enrollment over

009that 10% reduction. If we wait till OCTOBER, then we would have students in class for over seven weeks that are overcrowded, and it will also disrupt student learning when they're reshuffled. I'd also like to get some clarification on whether the district intends to adhere to state statutory class size limits, which are 18 for k to two, 22 for grades 3 to 8, and 25 for high school. We also discussed edtech screen time, 1 to 1 devices and the district's ai initiative. The stakeholders have continued to express concern about supplemental software, including I-ready and the plan to implement a district wide. At the time of our meeting, most parents were not aware of the details of the initiative, but responded negatively to the prioritization of edtech over foundational academic skills. Hand on hands on manipulatives, group

010interactions, original composition, critical thinking, and project based learning. There were some concerns about the ai symposium registration closing and that it was supposedly full, but when parents arrived, there was a lot of open space. We also learned that the q and a session at the end was not held, so stakeholders were not able to ask questions at the end. The dac elementary subcommittee has continued its work and would like to reiterate an alternative alternative path for the district that more closely aligns to the budget reality, protect student privacy and prioritizes effective teaching methods. The district has a massive 1 to 1 device program and well over 50 supplemental software programs. Switching to a computer, lab, or device cart model model while aggressively sunsetting non-critical software licenses could save an estimated $40 million each year. We

011also suggest creating a bcc data Bill of rights for our students, and to direct staff to bring the district into compliance with laws such as Sopa, Florida Parental Rights and Education, Florida Digital Bill of rights, Florida Technology and k to 12 bill. The Florida Objection to Digital Materials, Coppa and ferpa. These results can can result in a loss of funds, administrative salaries and directed corrective action for the district. But the lack of compliance also erodes the public trust and perception of transparency. I see I'm running out of time. We'd like the district to take action to protect the cognitive core and teacher autonomy. We don't want to see teachers have consequences for choosing paper based methods that are highly effective, and we hope to see a genuine recommitment recommitment to student well-being. One of the

012specific suggestions we have is to prohibit the use of YouTube and to move approved digital content to district servers to protect our children from addictive and predatory algorithms. See, I'm almost out of time. Given that the policy review of the board procedures and public participation policies happened after our last meeting, Central Area was unable to weigh in on that item. To that point, it's fundamentally problematic to scale back public participation at a time when advisories are not meeting, and your stakeholders are not here to comment. Having attended the meeting, I can say it was insufficient in this board should direct that an actual rural development hearing be held where the public has sufficient time to ask questions about the 31 proposed policies. Not doing so would open up any new policy that comes from that

013rulemaking procedure to a legal challenge. Central advisories next meeting will be AUGUST 20th at Indian Ridge Middle School. We welcome any board requests to gather stakeholder feedback. Thank you. Thank you. South area. Good morning. I'm Anthony Bailey, South area chair. On our final meeting of the 2025 2026 school year was held on MAY 18th. During this meeting, we conducted election of officers position for the upcoming school year. We have. We were honored to welcome Doctor Dr Fulton, who shared her appreciation for the work of the Council and provided important district updates, including important information regarding delays in the budget approval affecting many schools throughout the district. Representative from the Children's Service Council of Broward County also joined us to provide valuable information about summer program resources and services available to students and families throughout the

014community. We engaged in discussion on several important topics, including school budget, the organizational chart, the referendum, the ai policy review, meal prices increased k through eight updates, policy 5090 and policy 5100 suspension and expulsion. One of the primary concerns expressed by parents centered on student testing requirements and the implementation of the district. New ai policy. Parents voiced interest in having greater input during the policy development process, and sought clarification regarding whether the use of ai would result in increased screen time for students. I'd like to extend my sincere appreciation to our South Area Regional Superintendent, MISS Acott at Pines Collegiate, her leadership team, and all our school stakeholders, stakeholders from the South Area who attended and participated in our meeting throughout the year. I also want to thank the school board for providing me the

015opportunity to present monthly reports and share the perspective and concerns of our families and community members. On behalf of the South Area Advisory Council, I wish everyone a safe and enjoyable and restful summer. We look forward to continuing our work throughout the upcoming school year. Thank you. Thank you. Diversity Committee. Esq Advisory Council. Good morning. I also have North areas report just texted to me. I'll do that afterwards. Or do you want it before? I'll. I'll go back to all the ones that aren't here. So I'll come back around to that. If you could deliver Esq advisory, that would be great. Thank you. I'd like to give a shout out, first of all to our Down Syndrome subcommittee, led by Chair Bach Todero and Andrea Thomas, the curriculum supervisor in the department who co-organized the

016eighth Annual Exceptional Educators Training on JUNE the 9th. This was a full day training open to all Esq teachers in Broward to learn about interacting with students with Down Syndrome and other disabilities. Sessions included behavior strategies, assistive technology, modified curriculum, managing student mental health, and more. There were partners and sponsors who were valuable, and participating. Teachers received a $90 stipend and eight s in service points. This was an outstanding effort by both organizers and the participants, and I'm proud of our ds ds committee for being at the head of this for the eighth year in a row. At our last Esq advisory meeting in MAY, we passed a recommendation that I did actually submit last week for inclusion on today's agenda. It was 20 words, but because it wasn't in a pdf, because I was

017traveling and I couldn't, it hasn't been placed on here. The motion called for the restoration of the s compliance director position to the org chart, which you voted to remove after just two minutes and 43 seconds of deliberation at the MAY 12th school board meeting. To recap, the superintendent's proposal had been removed. S executive director role on the basis that the Chief of Student Support Services could cover that role, and then to add an assistant director for s compliance, which he said was needed to support and supplement the work of the existing s compliance director. A critical caseload that needed more, not less, human capital. That shuffle would have ensured that no bodies would be lost from the s department leadership, and the wisdom you had in that department would be protected. However, a majority

018of you, having determined at a previous meeting that that made sense. You then voted on MAY the 12th to dismantle the plan, reinstate the executive director position, and instead of them eliminating the assistant director role you had agreed to add, you voted to eliminate the existing compliance director the very position you had agreed previously needed supplementing, not removing. It's a critical position. It provides dedicated oversight and compliance with special ed law helps ensure students receive their services and reduces the risk of systemic failures that harm students and expose the district to liability. We discussed it at advisory how framing the elimination of the s compliance Director position as a. Is this on as a cost saving measure is a fallacy, and the board's claims that you are making this move to help. Students rang hollow

019in a large school district serving thousands of students with disabilities. Compliance with special ed cannot be treated as a secondary responsibility shared out among already overextended staff. The absence of this position will increase the risk of procedural violations, state complaints, compensatory education awards, corrective action, litigation and due process cases, which you were told by your student services chief on MAY the 12th, are on the rise. Given the complexity and scale of s, the question is not whether the district can afford an s compliance director, but whether it canfford the risks associated with not. Our recommendation is no, you can't. Let me tell you also about pre-k s evaluations. I heard from a parent the week before last that while they have an independent autism diagnosis for their five year old, who they were looking forward

020to starting pre-k in AUGUST, they've been told by cps that she cannot, and that she must likely wait until DECEMBER or later to start school, because now she must go through the child find evaluation process. And that's all backed up to Christmas and beyond. I thank MRS. Hixon for her inquiries about this. I have passed the matter on to actually the Esq Compliance Director, and have been told that the pre-k assessment team was downsized over the past couple of years due to the reduction of district level positions, and that that's what's caused the backup that child and every child in her position needs a commitment here today that they can start school with their peers on AUGUST the 10th, and that hold ups will not be tolerated, and that whatever resources your s department needs

021to make it happen will be allocated. Back in DECEMBER, there was an elopement from a school that prompted us to revise the the district wide elopement plan. 22 of our recommendations have actually been adopted in the new draft. I'm thrilled to see the collaboration, and I thank Thomas Deutsch from the Safety and Security Department for his collaboration with us on that customer service. Our report is still pending. We've had no response to it whatsoever, despite the superintendent saying he was delighted with some of our suggestions five months ago. I'm dismayed at the delays there, and I would echo what Brooke said about the policy review. There has been no engagement with the with the community about the policy review. I to request a rural development hearing to avoid further legal challenges and putting 31 policies

022in one item is not community engagement. Thank you. Thank you. Esol Leadership Council. Facilities Task force. Gifted. Advisory. Council. Linda Ferrara, facilities task force vice chair. We did not have a meeting for JUNE. Okay. Thank you. Gifted advisory Council. Good morning, Helen Bushkin gifted advisory. I'll start off with we already talked about our last gifted meeting, but we did have our steering meeting. And we're planning on our schedule and our possible locations coming up. This whole neola thing flabbergasts me with the amount of policies and the timing. Please revisit that. The this time of the year where you've got all of us volunteers who can provide so much more information aren't as available as we are during the year. So I think that's a mistake. I was looking briefly at the ai presentation that's coming

023up. And yes, there's a lot of information inside there, but I'd like you guys to think about a few questions when you're listening to this presentation. Think about the how. So when you see stuff about the roi and they talk about what they're going to measure, how are they going to measure it? Does that seem possible? Does it seem practical? The same thing with some of the programs. Some of the things that caught my attention was the use of ai for advanced academics. Okay, how I see a lot of theoretical items inside this list, but I don't see anything practical. No examples. As far as what specifically is going to be done. It's more the same information, more of the same talk, but it's lacking a little bit of substance for my taste. So I

024hope there's going to be something in the presentation that's going to expand upon what we've already been told. The next item is about some of our education, and I threatened, I think, the last meeting in a kind way, that there was some issues with handwriting. So I'm looking at some of this. I don't know if some of you could really read a lot of that. You feel free to come up during a break and take a quick look. But this was from my daughter's Seminole Middle School eighth grade year. Here are some letters that were handwritten by students. Some seem legible, some are not. Some are good. There are some things that we need to get back to working on. I also brought some of mine from 1986, which distinctly look different. I mean, in

025this my daughter first thing she said was legible, and there's use of cursive writing. So clearly there was a lot more thought process and a motor coordination going on back then. My daughter told me that there wasn't a whole lot of writing that she did this last year in eighth grade, which kind of concerns me. And I remember exercises when I was in school everyyriday innglish class, we wer given a a r random topopicnn the st,urur p pencil and paper in our journal. We'd write about it for about 15 minutes. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. My daughter hasn't even told me anything like that. Not on a computer, but just a student. Given a topic that they know nothing about to write about it. And the teachers took that, wrote comments

026on it every week, we did that. So I think that's something that we need to think about more of. Instead of trying to use ai to help us with things. And since I've talked about my daughter enough, I think I'll give her a chance to defend herself. [Laughter] This is my daughter, Allison. She's an incoming freshman at Western High School. And what am I supposed to say? Talk about the handwriting. Talk about the stuff you talked about. Go ahead. This is your time. You got a minute? Well, I want to start with the writing thing in. I remember in third grade, it was Covid year and the writing we wrote an essay, I think like every two weeks. And that set me up because then in fourth grade, we barely wrote and we were all

027unprepared for our fourth grade writing fast. And I'm pretty sure I got a perfect score that year on writing, so i'm proud of that. And then fifth grade, we wrote a lot, and then in sixth grade we did some writing, and then in seventh grade, we didn't really write that much until the fast, and then we wrote essays from then until the end of the year. And then this year we only wrote one essay to prep for the fast, and then after that, we just forgot about writing. And we haven't done anything like with handwriting at all. Like, I don't think I remember doing that except in fourth grade. This one time we had a week for cursive, and I could barely read half of my yearbook signatures. And also with the ai thing I

028know how to use like semi-colons and Em dashes and like when to use them. And I've gotten marked for ai multiple times on every assignment, and I've gotten zeros on that before. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Human Relations Committee. Good morning everyone. Tough to follow that. Nancy Frye, Human Relations Committee chair. We first of all, a happy pride. Happy early Juneteenth and happy summer for everyone. We had our final meeting for the year on Wednesday, MAY 20th, and I find it my duty to profusely thank our staff that we've worked with during the school year Kalisha Russell, Marion Williams, Tom Albano and Latricia Latour. We could not do what we do without them. They are a gold star for the district. They are wonderful staff and we are very happy that we get

029to work with them. With that, we briefly discussed at our last meeting some concerns that we have coming up that will kind of feed into our report, wrap up report for the year. But one thing that was brought up was some concerns about the effects of stress on staff as of late, and how that then impacts our students and also prospective families that are looking to come into the district. No solutions or anything. That was just something that was flagged. We also discussed the survey that had come out from the office of the student Advisor this past year, the one that Landon Spellberg had put together and with his team. And we really loved the feedback. And it's a great instrument. And we want to emphasize that it's important to continue on with that, because

030a lot of students don't necessarily feel safe giving verbal feedback or giving feedback on campus and having this alternate method to give feedback to the district is very important. We have some we have an impact summary that was generated for the year that I'll just delve into really quickly about how our human relations councils in the schools operated, what they've done, and so forth. So starting off looking at the participation, we had 466 students between grades six and 12 that participated with the Human Relations Council this year, and that was across 63 schools. So we're really happy to see that engagement, and we're hoping to grow it moving forward in the coming school years. As far as activities they do, these aren't just clubs exist for the sake of existing. These were very active councils.

031They participate in community service projects that students organized to benefit both their schools and in the local community. They led advocacy campaigns and awareness events around mental health, bullying, prevention and equity. They held open dialog, forums and peer discussions. They really focused on youth advocacy. They. Their meetings were safe spaces for students to discuss social issues and collaborate on solutions. They also had surveys and feedback campaigns that they initiated in their schools, and they went through leadership training and development. They had their college tours and a student advocacy through capital days. They worked on their public speaking, teamwork and civic engagement skills, and they had a number of structured leadership activities to do that. Some of the key challenges they see facing our students are mental health concerns was the top one, and they're asking

032for awareness, resources and a more emotional support in the schools. They spoke about social media issues with online bullying and negative self-image, substance use and violence, vaping, drug use, bullying, dating, violence and general school violence. And the one thing that I thought was very astute was they talked about the need for supportive interventions. And students are asking for open conversations and preventative education and supportive, not punitive responses. When students make less than ideal choices, a number of our advisors and students helped their schools achieve no Place for hate designation. We're up to in the district 106 schools that are designated no Place for hate. From the advisors side, we received a lot of feedback about students had increased confidence and leadership growth through participating with hrc and No Place for Hate. Students were active in

033planning events, were engaged in their community service, and represented their peers in meetings. And again, the hrc meetings were a safe space for students to share concerns and propose solutions openly. And a couple of quotes that we had from both students and advisors. One high school student stated, hrc gave me my first real opportunity to feel heard in my school. I learned to speak up for myself and others, and a middle school student said being part of hrc helped me understand people from different backgrounds. It changed how I see the world from two of the advisors, one said. I watched students who were once shy become confident leaders who organized events and spoke at forums, and another said hrc meetings became a safe space where students could share real concerns and work together on solutions.

034So moving forward, we're looking at better collecting data, increasing student participation and expanding feedback initiatives. Thank you. Thank you. Multilingual advisory committee. Hi. Good morning. School board chair and superintendent. Thank you, as usual, for this opportunity to report directly to you this morning. The multilingual Advisory committee met for the last time this year, MAY 13th. At that meeting, I'm happy to report that all of the positions that were open to be filled for next year have been filled, and the one remaining position is the superintendent designee, and the district liaison is aware of our recommendation for who that should be. At that meeting, two motions were passed of recommendations to you all. The first one was to set a minimum number of kindergarten classrooms for any dual language program. Currently, it varies between schools. Our

035recommendation is that the minimum be two, so that one side of a full classroom of, say, 24 students would be with an English speaking homeroom teacher. One side would be with a Spanish speaking homeroom teacher, and they would switch either in the afternoon or every other day. The other option, which some schools are taking, is to have one classroom of a self-contained teacher who switches back and forth between Spanish and English. Our recommendation was made, and the motion was passed unanimously. Based on a few things anecdotally, with members of the committee that we've noticed that when you even when you start out with two classrooms, which would be like 44 kids in kindergarten, it's possible to make it to eighth grade and have only five students of that original class still in that dual language

036track. So if that can happen with 44 students, what then will happen if a school decides to start only with 24? The motion was passed based on the experience of our teachers on the committee, who say that they've done both the self-contained classroom and the switching back and forth and being a dual language teacher comes with additional responsibilities. That much is known, but it's so much harder to do it yourself and to have to switch back and forth between Spanish and English and carry that whole load without a teacher partner. It was brought up by people who participated in the public comment portion of our meetings. We always have a public comment portion of our meetings, and that's where we get a lot of feedback as well. In addition to school visits that was very

037stridently brought forth at our last meeting. And finally, what I wish I could say is that the recommendation was based on statistics. I did as chair request and worked with the district statistician to try to understand how many of our middle school dual language students actually started in the program in kindergarten or first grade. I didn't ever get those statistics. This year, the district doesn't know how many of its eighth graders started in kindergarten or first grade. They don't know how many of its finishing fifth graders started in kindergarten or first grade. And I really hope that moving forward with the district, revamping the program and taking more control over it, that they will start to track those very important questions. The second motion that we passed was a recommendation that across all elementary schools

038that have the dual language program, that they perform assessments of students, Spanish language ability, but that the results of those assessments do not then turn into grades or things that affect students. Eligibility for principal honor roll or advancement into the next grade. And the reason is that at the elementary level, there's still a big disparity, of course, in Spanish language ability between students who are coming from Spanish speaking households and students coming from non-Spanish speaking households. And we want to do everything in our power to keep students together through elementary school and not dissuade students and families from staying in the program because it might be adversely affecting their grade. And so the final thing I'll say is that I hope that the district next year takes advantage of the multilingual advisory committee and keeps

039it in the loop with their plans to revamp the dual language program next year. Thank you. Parent Community Involvement Task Force. Good morning. During our final task force meeting of the school year on JUNE 1st, we discussed several important topics that reflect both opportunities and concerns being raised by families and community members. One area of significant concern was the experience of using facilitation for reserving school and other district facilities. Task force members shared multiple recent experiences involving complicated processes, unexpected costs, communication challenges, and barriers to hosting school events. And while the system was designed to streamline facility utilization in a fair and compliant manner, many, many stakeholders have reported that it is creating obstacles, delays, and frustration rather than enabling access, and I recognize that this topic was discussed earlier in the year, and that

040efforts were made to address some of those concerns. However, I can tell you that challenges remain, and what MAY appear to be an operational issue is really an engagement issue. When PTAs, booster clubs and other school affiliated organizations encounter unnecessary barriers, it becomes more difficult to create the very events and opportunities that bring families into our schools and strengthen our communities. The task force believes it is important to continue evaluating whether current practices are meeting the needs of both schools and community users. We encourage the district to gather feedback from internal and external stakeholders to better understand their experiences and identify opportunities for improvement. A large portion of our conversation focused on the district's implementation of artificial intelligence. The parent, our task force, was grateful for the opportunity to participate in the recent ai symposium,

041and we hosted our first ever in-person parent university session. As families continue learning about ai and its role in education, they are asking thoughtful and important questions about data privacy, student safety, and the development of critical thinking and writing skills, and how ai will be introduced across grade levels. Task force Members members emphasized the importance of communicating with clarity, creating opportunities for ongoing dialog, and ensuring that families are partners in this work. As this technology continues to evolve, we must be willing not only to share information, but also to listen, learn and adapt based on feedback from students, families, and educators. We hope the conversation the board will hold today at today's workshop will be continued at every level of the district on a regular basis and with preemptive transparency, authentic collaboration, and respect for

042all perspectives. Finally, members shared concerns about potential changes to policies around community participation and barriers that MAY unintentionally limit participation. The task Force remains committed to ensuring that engagement opportunities remain accessible and welcoming to the diverse families and community. Community members we serve. As the district begins planning for next school year, I would encourage all of us to keep families and community members at the forefront of our thinking. Strong schools are built through strong partnerships, whether we are discussing technology, communications, volunteering, facility use or student supports. Our greatest success will come when families, educators, community partners, district staff and the school board work together toward a shared vision for students. As we conclude this year, I would like to thank Superintendent Hepburn, the school board, district staff and my fellow task Force members for their

043partnership. A special thank you to Doctor Lori Canning, Nadia Clark, Naviance Joseph and the entire face team for their incredible support of family and community engagement throughout the district. We look forward to continuing the important work of supporting Broward County students, families and the community next year. Thank you. Thank you. Small Business Advisory Committee, Technology Advisory Committee. Good morning chair, board members. Superintendent Linda Ferrara, chair, Technology Advisory Committee. We started. We discussed the ongoing development of the district's ai policy, focusing on parental opt out provisions, environmental considerations, and the process for board review, with input from the tac and other stakeholders being incorporated into the draft. An update on the erp system selection process was given, outlining the current rfp phase. Upcoming software demonstrations, evaluation criteria, and the timeline for board approval and implementation, with

044Plant Moran advising the district throughout presentation from the recent Microsoft Build conference highlighting new ai models, customization capabilities, and the district's approach to ai agent development, security testing, and governance within Microsoft ecosystem was discussed. We discussed ongoing concerns about tax roll in district technology decisions, the need for improved communication pathways, early agenda item distribution and formal inclusion in ai related committees, and task force. An update was provided on the Maximo system rollout, detailing progress on mobile client deployment assessment, data entry training efforts, and the transition away from the paper based work orders. Members addressed the transition from Raptor to Syngenta for visitor management, noting that the contract was approved without tac or it input, highlighting ongoing communication issues between departments. One of the concerns, not only that was focused on by tac, but has been

045brought up a number of times, was our Raptor system. Evidently, this system is also a visitor management system, and I haven't looked through the entire contract yet, but it doesn't appear that it addressed the issues that parents have brought up with the system. Some of the follow up tasks we have are ai policy, environmental impact. Add language to the policy, addressing the environmental impact and sustainability considerations of ai usage in the district. Parent education on ai develop and distribute parent facing educational materials or a handbook about ai use in the district, ensuring collaboration with tac and addressing parent concerns and questions. Parent questions on ai collect top ten questions from the dac Educational Subcommittee and provide written answers to address parent concerns about ai communication of board agenda items. Establish a process to inform tac

046of technology related items before they are brought to the school board for approval. I would like to thank our committee and all who participate, and every time I come across somebody who has any input, any opinion or anything I have invited to the meeting they've attended and they have provided really great information, especially at our last meeting by Doctor Piper. At our next meeting, I recommend we have a conversation on school board and committee expectations for the next year in order to clarify both of our purposes and our agendas moving forward. Thank you. Thank you, audit Committee. Good morning sir. I was a few minutes late. I did MISS You all last month as I was ill and figured you probably did not want to share, so I'm just going to catch up. I'm just

047going to just just mention a couple things. I know those things have. You've probably seen what we did and just, you know, we do have a court reporter at our meetings and we do have very comprehensive minutes, which I know you Get, but I'll just wanted to highlight a couple of things from our MAY 7th meeting. We spent an extraordinary amount of time on internal funds, probably more than our agenda had anticipated. So we actually set up a special meeting the following. But I just took a couple things I wanted to highlight in there. There was concern about the number of exceptions in high schools. And we were and we've, you know, we're focused on that. Some of them dealt with yearbooks. And that's a whole nother topic. And one which actually was, was very

048informative as far as what's as trends with yearbooks now and some of the things that are going on. But I just wanted to say that the, our audit, our chief auditor's office is so efficient that they let us know that we actually had fewer exceptions this year than last year. But the bottom line on that is that we just wanted to emphasize how important training is for everybody, not just the people at the top, but the people through. Everybody needs to receive training on how to account for whatever they're working with. So I wanted to mention that we did set a special meeting because as you know, we're coming up with the audit plan for next year. And we had a wonderful conversation on both the 7th of MAY and the 13th of MAY. And

049then we're following up again tomorrow. And in the interim, you all have talked about it. One thing I just want to tell you that when we would bring these topics up and Mark would so calmly say, and that is why I have this on here. But the conversations in this room this year that we've had at these monthly meetings with with chairs from other groups, we have been very helpful and also talking about things that we feel maybe should be looked at and that Mark has incorporated in the plan for next year. And I know it's not finalized. We'll know more on Thursday, which is our next meeting on JUNE 18th. And then we've set a special meeting on the 16th of JULY, anticipating an audit that will be coming in. We don't typically meet

050in JULY, as you know, but we will be. So hopefully you will have all of that by the beginning of AUGUST. I want to thank Doctor Hepburn and for joining us and all of the staff who work really hard to put together the information we have added at every meeting, a conversation on the general fund balance. And there's much more we've talked about as this is our special meeting, as you can see. But I want to thank you again for the people you're appointing to this committee. This is an outstanding committee with just such great input from so many different people. And so thank you for that. And we will be meeting on Thursday if anybody wants to tune in. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. District Advisory Council. All right. Good morning, chair, board members,

051superintendent and staff, and fellow advisory chairs. My name is Cynthia Dominique. I am a parent and chair of the District Advisory Council. Our last and final meeting of the school year was on MAY 12th. I want to thank MR. Strauss, MR. Sullivan, MR. Hill, as well as Doctor Holness for coming out to that meeting. I'd also like to thank our liaison, Shelly Winter, our cabinet liaison, Vida Hodge, our previous student advisors, Landon and Josiah, for their tireless, tireless advocacy and dedication to District Advisory Council and the students of Broward County Public Schools. And I'd be remiss if I didn't think our parents and community members who sit on our council and show up every month to discuss important issues and move our district forward. We continue to have conversations about facilities, and during the summer,

052we hope that much of the maintenance and facilities work that needs to be done across the district is implemented so that come day one, kids are ready to go into buildings that are ready for them. We've had conversations about elevator servicing. I know we forwarded this issue to Esq Advisory Council to ensure that there is a plan to that, to make our schools compliant with Ada, and I know MR. Dorsett is on it. Thank you for always being responsive. We did not discuss the upcoming policies in detail, as we were told that with this new neola process, we would be made aware of the timelines and the community would be fully engaged on policies of this magnitude that you all saw last week, should comply with rural development and maximize public input. We had unanimous

053support from the district advisory Steering, which consists of many of the people sitting here, as well as many members of the community, to ensure that any changes to these policies would preserve public speaking time and committee reports to the school board. We continue to have conversations about testing. The board did give the academic team directions to decrease or eliminate, but really look at modifying the amount of tests that are provided to students. And we hope that the conversation will continue throughout the summer and be ready ahead of the next school year so that we can identify those assessments that are most statistically significant and provide actionable data that helps us maintain accountability while also preserving the ability for teachers to modify instruction, timelines, and testing to best meet the needs of students. We hope that

054dac will be continued to be included in these conversations and have a seat at the table. We also discussed student activities at our last meeting, and it revealed several opportunities. Overwhelmingly, members shared a need to enhance communication about clubs that are available at schools. The disparity in the amount of clubs and activities that are available at schools. As we know, this is a key attraction for many parents to stay in the school that they're in. But also we know that it's dependent on sponsors. One of the things that we learned was that people who provide services on Broward schools activities are not required to go through the same level of background screening as club sponsors or maybe volunteers who are providing that club. So that that is certainly a recommendation we gave to MR. Strauss

055to remedy, and we do support the volunteer in level one background check of every single volunteer. And we when we have trainings with our school advisory forum chairs, that is something that we request that they do along with their ethics training. I'm not going to talk about edtech and ai. Brooke said it all so eloquently, but what I would ask is that dac has a seat on that ai task force and that as we prepare for next school year, we really prioritize the opt out of educational technology for those who want it, as well as providing for data privacy, explicit consent, so that they can be included on the back to school forms. And while we understand and chair, I'm going to ask you for just maybe a minute more, we understand that education is

056our primary mission, and we know that this cannot happen unless students are physically, emotionally, and mentally prepared to learn. Students face stressors every day, and they encounter unique challenges associated with the current state of our society access to technology, social, social, media, and at times harmful, harmful content and algorithms. The instant access prevents them to be able to isolate from those issues, and a lack of safeguards or inability to safeguard them from potential dangers is also a risk. I just learned that two of our students completed suicide in the last week. Since 2003, suicide ideation and planning has increased. The cdc estimates that 20% of youth have contemplated suicide. 9% of high schoolers have made a plan or an attempt. And in the lgbtq community that jumps to 12%, one is too many. Every parent,

057student, or adult that interacts with children should know the warning signs. Be courageous enough to ask someone if they are having thoughts of suicide. I promise you, asking does not lead to suicide, but it possibly saves a life. We've previously talked about the surveys administered in the schools, one of which is the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. I'm asking the district that we use that data to create really clear strategies and implementation plans that focus on prevention, early intervention, and provide our community with the resources that already exist in Broward County public schools, as well as the partnerships that we have in the community. And I hope that everyone remembers the number 988. If you are having thoughts of hurting yourself or you just need to talk to someone, remember nine, eight, eight, there is someone

058on that other line that is able to speak to you and help. As we look forward to district advisory next year, we will be requesting meetings with all board members and the superintendent to identify priorities that we would like, that you would like our feedback on, and to better understand and collaborate on solutions to community concerns, it is imperative that the message that is being communicated is heard beyond the message, how the message is delivered so that we prioritize student well-being and academic achievement. We look forward to working with the new student advisors, engaging and empowering more parents. As we know that this is key to student success, we also look forward to enhancing our parent and community community engagement with the legislative process, so that we could advocate on behalf of the bcc legislative

059platform and protect public education. Those conversations have already started with the communications team, and we look forward to continuing them. Our first meeting of the school year will be on AUGUST 12th at 615, and we'll be having a leadership and advocacy training for our School advisory Forum chairs on AUGUST 30th. Thank you, board for allowing us to have these conversations with you throughout this year. North area. Yeah, I'm I'm reporting on behalf of of. Nicole, the outgoing chair, and Mario, the incoming chair. I'm just going to go quickly over some of the. Minutes. Sorry. So North area last meeting made the 21st. Lisa Maxwell, PRESIDENT Of Broward Principals and Assistant Principals Association, explained process previously used to fund schools and how it involved principals looking at enrollment with the demographics Department and then being funded

060based on their fte and seeing funds in their accounts, and being able to hire and fund staff accordingly. There's been a lot of concern out at Sacs and staffs, as parents have seen principals struggling to hire staff for next year based on figures that appear to be under projections in some cases. Of the number of students that are going to be coming into schools, and also the removal of their accelerated funding. So Cambridge and cte funding, which has hobbled them from being able to hire staff. Therefore, somewhere along the line they are having to drop staff. I can tell you certainly at my school, which is in the north, there has been a weakening of support for the Esq students in the srv classes because of the funding stretch, and they cannot be the most

061being the most vulnerable students in the district. They cannot be the ones who have those around them dropped from the staffing next year. There was a lot of concern about how the district is no longer showing schools the money available based on fte, and instead of showing units and stating that a set number of units equals staffing, enrollment numbers are coming from an alternate source than demographics, and there's no confirmation of where the enrollment numbers are coming from or how they were derived. Principals have reported discrepancies, with some schools not expecting a drop in enrollment being projected for unexplained drops, resulting in principals having to cut staff. There was also a lot of discussion about alternate ways we can save money as a district in order to better directly fund schools. One suggestion that North

062felt warranted further research is the academics department that MISS Maxwell said was has an $80 million annual budget, with 25 million allocated for materials. Members had questions about formulas for budgeting schools, and we passed a motion at North which went like this. If I can just find it. My apologies. I'm new to this document. Okay. The motion was to. We move that the district. We recommend that the district allow principals to make instructional staffing allocations based on funds generated by their schools through the Cambridge and cte programs, moved, seconded and passed with just one opposing vote from a gentleman who said he didn't quite understand the ins and outs of it. But the ins and outs of it are. If you have a school that had 400 zero zero $0 in accelerated funding that its

063kids and its staff had earned in order to help swell services and supports in that school and staffing and to strengthen programs. And then that money is taken away and you can no longer code your staffing salaries accordingly. And there just isn't money there. Your school is going to shrink and not only shrink in its in terms of what it can offer the community, but shrink in terms of the community coming to that school. So the motion was made in the hope that although Cambridge and cte money, I think, is not going to be taken away next year, the money that has been taken this year is affecting schools ability to staff and then finally North as as with all the other areas, has had feedback on this issue of of your wishes regarding or

064some of your wishes regarding public engagement and, and the decision or the decision you're moving towards to eliminate public engagement, almost about three minutes in the course of an entire school board agenda meeting, placing 31 policies in one agenda item for review does not constitute rulemaking with integrity. The Neola platform. Maybe you folks had a nice demonstration of of how funky and nice that's going to look, but nobody out here did. And you MAY not be aware that all the areas and dac and other advisories had all been working really hard at your request on reviewing policy. 1020 there have been no courtesy of reference to us when this Neola thing came along. Everybody's very concerned about processes and what you're doing to public engagement. Thank you. Okay. Thank you to our committees. I'll go

065to board member discussion. And just as a reminder, it is up to the board member who has the floor to call on the various chairs that they'd like to hear from before I go to board members. Attorney Dupree Bruno, did you want to respond to anything? Yes, just to make sure there's a there's some response to some of the concerns that have been raised with regards to the policies in Neola and the process, as well as to make sure that we have some things on the record. The first thing that I think is very important to understand the policy conversion is a major project. It is utilizing the templates that are legally vetted through Neola, and then incorporating some of the things that we want to incorporate that are Broward specific. First and foremost, the

066direction was to review policy 1020. Policy 1020 has multiple different subjects in that policy. When you are doing a rule, you're really only supposed to have one topic per policy, unless the statute has a bunch of different things and there are statutes that do that. So that's why we have individual policies for an address or a seal and those types of different things. The second thing is the board is going to be reviewing policy 1070. That's going to come in AUGUST or SEPTEMBER. Policy 1070 is the one that actually discusses board advisory committees. So the reporting from the board advisory committees will be addressed in that policy, because that's the policy that addresses board advisory committees. The other thing that's really important to understand the school district, and I want to make sure this is

067very clear. The school board, the school district, followed the appropriate laws with regards to notice and what is required for rulemaking. There is no violation in terms of the rulemaking process that was utilized by the school district. It is controlled by the Administrative Procedures Act, Florida Statute 120.54. And we followed that process with the legal notices that were provided. We hear from the constituents when there is a concern that is raised, and we feel that it is something that we can address, we will address it. We do not have to put rule development on the website because it's already put on the website with the legal notice, but a constituent raised it, so we added it and we will continue to add it. I also want to make it very clear that we are not

068eliminating public comment. There is no elimination of public comment. The formatting of public comment is going to be changed to be more in line with best practices, not only in the state of Florida, but across the country, in terms of how public comment is given, it is extremely important that the public understands this is a governing body, and they have work to do. They are supposed to listen to your comments, and I can assure you that they do listen to your comments. How that is done is what the question is and what they're resolving, so that they can continue to do their work as a governing body. The other thing i want to make sure that's very clear is you are actually getting an hour and a half of public comment based on the board's

069discussion. You're getting public comment in the a m meetings,s,ououe getting blicic commeme inn t p pm meetinings, a as youave now,nd then you're given another 60 minutes on agenda items. That is what is in the proposed policy. 0169.1 in addition, you have the right to send comments via communication, written communication. That's the same thing. That's in 1020. Feel free to send emails and written communication to the board because they are read and anything that deals with policies I'm aware of and I read them. So you are not losing public comment. It's just being restructured. On how public comment is provided to the board. You are also able to comment on workshops and special meetings as you have this the same rules that you had in 1020, except it's all at the beginning of the meeting.

070So the board can then do their work as a governing body. The other thing that I wanted to make sure that was very clear is during the rulemaking process. 120.54 believe it or not, does not require a rulemaking workshop unless it is requested. What most boards do to be preemptive and proactive. They have a rule making workshop. And this board did that and had a rulemaking workshop. In addition, it is up to the to the the the Chair If there's going to be any additional workshops. And in this case, because of the fact that you are able to send in written communication, you are able to provide comment at the rulemaking workshop, and you will be able to provide comments during the public hearing. There is no need for an additional workshop. The other thing

071that I want to make sure that it's very clear, because of how Neola is set up, you're going to have multiple batches of policies coming forward. It's not going to be one policy. It's not going to be ten policies. It's going to be large batches of policies. That's just the way the conversion operates and that's how it works. When we go to public hearing, what I have done is to make sure that the public hearing is set up by chapter, because Neola has multiple chapters, 1000 is for administration, 2000 students, and so on and so forth. The zero zeros that you've been seeing, those are considered the bylaws or the board's policies. That's why they're there group like that, because they actually belong in one chapter. And when you see the public hearing, you'll see

072that as well. So I'm available to answer any questions that anybody has. Some people have reached out and asked me questions. I'm very happy to answer those questions. But the board has given a directive. We have so many hours that we have paid for for Neola assistance, and we have a one year timeline to do these conversions of these policies. So we're going to do it as applicable to the law and compliance with law and but with the process so that we can conclude this policy in by JUNE or MAY of 2027. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Thank you, MISS Thompson. Any question about that? Yeah, I can MISS MISS Thompson has. Do you online. No, no. Okay. I just I was unable to come to the workshop last week and in fact, I read the

073policy and I don't know how many people had a chance to read the new policy for ten, 20. So I think part of your confusion as you go forward, just as a something that might be helpful, is when you're labeling that you might put formerly known as because I think it's very confusing to people, but I do want to make the comment as you're planning what you're doing with these policies. And there are others besides that. Like, I'm very curious as to what current policy 4.9 is going to be renumbered. Having spent many hours on that over the years. But the point I wanted to make was that as you're doing these policies, I think you have to not only consider what potentially is in your state statute, but what the traditions of this district

074and the district and what this district has come to, to be. And so you have nearly 200,000 students in traditional schools. Is that correct, Doctor Hepburn? Probably, maybe. But let's just say it is okay, 200 000 students. I don't know how many parents that is, but okay, let's say that's 100,000 parents. As you're planning how you want to hear from those parents, I would tell you, it's great you're giving us 60 minutes, I don't think 60 minutes for 100,000 people is good. And my major concern for all of you as you're redoing these policies, as we cannot afford to lose any more people. And if people feel they are not heard, they will vote with their feet. We know that. So I think that this is a larger conversation. I I'm glad you're getting everything

075so organized, but in doing that, I think there has to be another way to work with these different committees to get some input before you come to the point where you did last week. So. And but thank you for your explanation. Good. Okay. Good morning. So I, of course. I, I hear the concerns about public comment. And I'm only going to mention this very briefly because I think there's other things that people brought up that I would like to spend my time on. I think one of the things that DR. Holness item last week about community surveys and in that discussion, there are multiple ways to get public comment. And for example, in my district, district two, which is about an hour from this building, very rarely will anybody come to a meeting unless you

076are closing their school, which is why I, as a board member. And even then, there was not a lot of people. So that's why I, as a board member, took initiative to go out to my community and have community meetings there. So I think when we have this conversation about public comment, we need to look at it in the the ecosystem of there are multiple ways to be connecting with our community. And this is one component of it that we are trying to make our our meetings a little bit more efficient, more understandable for people who watch. Because I think when personally, when there are public comments on motions and if the motion is just, hey, we should change this word to that word, then multiple people will speak. And then the, the relevance of

077that motion is lost. And then the public gets confused and we get confused again, I think there are multiple ways. And I think as individual board members, we need to be more engaged in our end of our. I won't comment on anyone else's engagement, but my plan is to be more engaged in my community because that's where I think public comment is more accessible for who I represent going forward. I did want some clarity about job hiring because that is something in class size concerns. That's something that we have gotten emails about. That's something that principals have reached out to me about. So what is that process going to look like? When can they hire more teachers? Can we expand on why we switched to units instead of fte? And I think the the overwhelming

078thing I keep hearing is the concern that in AUGUST, we're going to have a bunch of high schoolers or a bunch of kids in a room with one teacher because they can't hire until OCTOBER. So I guess if I could get walk through a timeline on hiring and address the class size concerns, and then also an excellent explanation on the units instead of fte. Yep, absolutely. Thanks for the question, MISS Thompson. So I'll turn it over to Ernie in a minute. But there's no moratorium on hiring teachers. And I'll let Doctor Lozano go through what hr is doing to support that in a minute. Also, for class size, we do follow state statute when it comes to class size. Do we want them smaller. Yes. That's the part of the process. That one initiative that

079we kind of sunsetted in DECEMBER, we're going to have to start that back up this summer because we are a little high school centric when it comes to funding, and that impacts class sizes for elementary school grades. Also, it was three things. Oh, the units versus. Yeah, the units versus fte. Yeah. So units isn't a new concept everywhere I've been. And in other large districts we utilize units. It actually helps to ensure that the dollars are being spent on the units, instructional personnel, or even non-instructional personnel on that campus. And if principals or school leaders want to spend the money allocated for a position, be it non-instructional instructional on something else, they just need to converse with the regional office and and see if it's adequate to trade that offer things instead of an instructional

080person or a non-instructional person as well. Go ahead Doctor Lozano. Thank you, Doctor Hepburn. Ernie Lozano Chief Human Resources Officer So the hr team has been working fast and furious these past few weeks. We just finished placing all our surplus teachers into positions, and we're able to find all our surplus teachers positions. As of this morning, the district is fully hiring. Teachers and principals are able to create their requisitions and put in their ads. The early transfer window also opened this morning for principals and schools, so schools are moving full steam ahead to ensure by the opening day of school and that first day of pre planning, they have as full of staff as possible to meet the needs of of their students. When you look at throughout the summer, we don't we don't wait

081as as students continue to register. So we don't officially count students until they register at the school physically. And then as numbers go up, we have a comprehensive team with demographics, teaching and learning and hr that monitor the increase and decrease of student enrollment because at the same time, some students are registering, some students are withdrawing to other schools based on magnet. So we don't wait till OCTOBER. Throughout the summer, we're monitoring the enrollment at each school. We work with our school principals, and as we see the need to add teachers, we begin that process because again, we know the importance of students meeting their teacher on day one and having a successful year with a teacher 180 days out of the school year. And if I can add to one of the comments I

082heard was about enrollment projections and using the demographers numbers, we don't get funded based on the enrollment projections of our demographer. We get funded based on enrollment projections by the state, and they've been pretty spot on in my career in education. And so demographers numbers could be totally different because they're using different variables, gathering data from municipalities and also the county as far as growth in the area or the lack thereof, the the state uses projection numbers based on what they see as the trends of students entering and exiting the county, versus also enrolling in the charter schools, voucher systems and things like that. And they are very whatever methodology they use, they keep tight. It is very close to the numbers that they project every year, at least for the past 20 plus years

083I've been in education. So that's how we are actually funded. So we could build our budget for the upcoming school year. So if we're if folks are paying attention to demographers numbers here, it's going to be off. We we fund, we get we receive funding based on projections from the state for the upcoming school year. And I just want to dive a little bit more into class size because like my second grader had 26 kids in his class. And yeah, that is what it is. But I think when parents hear the recommendation of 18 in elementary and, and 20 and then 25, and then we say we're following class sizes, but they walk into a school and it's not happening. Like, can you just expand on what the perception of following that is? Yeah, absolutely.

084So for the, in a nutshell, it's based off of school average per that grade level, right? For k through two, the k through two, three through five. And then for middle school and high schools based on the actual school average, not so, so much specifically from class to class. One of the things that we have to embark on, because it just hasn't been done is, like I said, the high school schedule, a lot of funding is garnered on the high school schedule to make that work. A block schedule is very expensive versus a straight seven and all those other components to actually pour money back into elementary schools so we can actually lower our class sizes, you know, to what we see as the best class size for Broward County public schools. And is that

085standard practice to take the average? Yes. And is that. So that's how we're staying in compliance is taking the average. And that's what every district does. Yep. Correct. I would I think all of us would agree that class sizes would be better, smaller. But I know that that's something that we are, we are working on. I think there's also something to, to say when it's like a gifting or high achieving class, they want to have as many kids able to access that curriculum. So maybe those classes are higher because of, of that reason. Correct. So you will have certain I would call them specialty classes gifted in classes like that, that usually are typically smaller than your regular ed classes. All right. And then I wanted to touch a little bit on the writing and

086thank our student for speaking up and, and finding something to say. I know we can be a little intimidating. I do think it, it might be teacher specific as well, because again, my second grader does, I see his little writing notebook, but having making sure we're emphasizing those skills like holding a pencil and holding a pen, because I think that's kind of a lost art. And I think with the addition to cursive writing that's now mandated, some of those skills will come back. But I think it's, it's good to give teachers support to do that. And then I did want to talk about the mental health concerns that the chair brought up. One of our chairs brought up, I had asked for when we were changing the the structure of our mental health department for

087them to bring back kind of what the plan is to deliver services. And I just want one, to make sure that we're including suicide prevention and tier one level interventions across the district, but I wanted to see when that presentation will come back. Yeah, we can follow up because we're presenting and going over all of that in cabinetirst just to give. That was my yeah, I know it's going to take just so they know that we're hearing this concern. So by AUGUST or SEPTEMBER. Oh, absolutely. Before AUGUST. Yes. All right. And then that's all. Thank you. Thank you. Our student advisor would like to speak. Okay. Thank you. So I did actually have a question. First of all, Allison. Hi. I heard you're going to Western. I'm from Western, so I welcome you in advance.

088And then second of all to our gifted advisory council. This is a genuine question because I know a lot of times people will ask to try and like, trip someone up. I'm asking genuinely, what do you think would be the best way? Because with the ai, you had mentioned that you didn't really see any true implementation plans. It's just kind of like, oh, ai is good, but you didn't see any real depth there. So I wanted to ask you if you had any idea of what you would need to see to kind of show you, because obviously if you're thinking it, that means a lot of other people are as well. Yeah. I see people shaking their heads. Yes, or nodding their heads. So do you have any ideas as to what you would need

089to see to kind of prove to you that it's good? It's not really proof, but it's more like, here's a lesson plan. This is what we're going to talk about as far as science. This is the teaching methodology that that's going to be used. And it doesn't have to be an extreme detail, but have there been any careful thought out examples of how it's going to be used, especially with advanced academics? Okay. That that's a broad topic that covers gifted, that covers high achieving, that covers a lot of other advisories that are here as well. So something a little bit more down to home, down to earth that people can consume and recognize, you know, that's a really good idea. Something that brings a little light bulb moment. And it's like, you know, that's kind

090of cool. Not something like vr head glasses for certain topics that not so much. That's kind of like what I think our parents are looking for as far as what's going to be used. Yes, we know what's here. We know what's going to be used how. Give us some good examples, some genius examples, that type of thing. Thank you. That's it. Oh, no. Okay. All right, MRS. Alhadeff. Question for Doctor Hepburn is how are we con filtering out inappropriate content? If one of our students access a restricted YouTube website or a YouTube video on YouTube. Pitch that over to MR. Bradford so he can get a little bit technical about how we actually deal with those issues. Thank you, doctor. Matthew Bradford, Executive Director of Technology operations if I if I MAY. MR. Alhadeff, can

091you clarify a little bit more when it comes to your question regarding YouTube? Yes. So student goes on to YouTube and class and goes to an inappropriate video. How are we what is our line of defense to make sure they don't have access to that video? Thank thank you for the clarification. We have a tool called line Wise that we use that monitors when it comes to any activity, when it comeseso our s studes fro an inintern peperspecte. Andnd we can, uu know, throw out as many attacks when it comes to that, if, if at all possible. So what we're using now from a line wise perspective allows us to monitor, it allows us to look at activity when it comes to students and those types of situations we can address. And if by chance

092we, the tool that we're using misses that particular site, we can definitely get that site and make certain it's prohibited moving forward. So when the student goes to that inappropriate video, will it block them from being able to watch the video? Absolutely. Okay, great. And my next comment is on the cursive. Obviously, I'm a big proponent of our, our students learning how to write cursive. And it really helps with their brain development and making those learning connections. So Doctor Hepburn, are our students learning cursive and if so, what grade are they learning it in? Yes, I do know it's part of one of the grade levels elementary curriculum. I know Doctor Cohen, if you know specifically what grade level it's in third grade. Third grade. MISS Alhadeff, have you heard that? Okay, so are are

093they so did they learn cursive this year in third grade, or is it starting next year? It. Go ahead doctor, it is. It's this year and we're also it's embedded in the ifc as well in MISS Alhadeff. That's also why since hearing from the public during the org chart, there is a specific position that we created specifically that focuses on writing not only just cursive writing, but integrating writing across curriculum in there. And so there is a content expert that is emphasizing that we also have Writeable, which is infused within the curriculum, which should have some daily lessons for teachers to implement writing within the curriculum. But we obviously are hearing those are some things we're working on to make sure that teachers are using that time to be able to implement writing within the

094instructional day. What happens, or could there be something for students in high school who did not learn cursive to, you know, have some type of course that they can take something through our ai? I don't know if there's an ability for them to even go back and self, you know, teach themselves, you know, how to learn cursive or are we, are we giving them any tools? Because obviously it's a really important skill to have. And I want to make sure that when our students graduate, that they can do some minimum things, these life skills, like signing their name in cursive, for example. So that's something we can obviously look at when we do things like course recovery. That is one thing that obviously we can do as far as a summer camp or an acceleration

095camp, we can kind of take a look at some programing and scheduling that offer something like that with an intervention. So absolutely, we can do that. Okay. And then also is are we teaching keyboarding typing skills for our students? It's embedded in some of the course content. It's not necessarily required. One of the after action items that we're looking at, obviously, as we reduce our footprint of assessment in the earlier grades, we did talk about the potential of making sure students take typing skills to ensure that when they are taking this state assessment test, that they are ready to perform and utilize the keys in an appropriate way that makes them successful in taking those. So we are implementing some aspects of keyboarding at the earlier grades to where the reduction of assessments are happening.

096Okay, so do we have an actual plan to, to make sure that every student has these keyboarding typing skills? Yes we do. That plan has been developed currently for the summer and being rolled out for next year. Okay. Could you send a follow up with the plan? Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Thank you, MR. Cervera. Thank you. Chair, a couple questions for me, but I do want to first start off by acknowledging the ladies and gentlemen who came in and gave the reports. We always appreciate you guys, appreciate your efforts and appreciate the feedback that we get from you on a monthly basis. And to our rising freshman at Western High School. Welcome. Glad to have you in district six. And I'm sure as as Lily can vouch for, you're a tremendous high

097school. So all the best as you start your high school journey, MR. Superintendent, I've got some questions about the state statutory limits on class sizes. I've had some conversations with some folks, both in this district as well as folks up in Tallahassee. And I can never really get a clear answer on this. So I'm hoping maybe today you can provide some some further insight that will help close some of these ongoing questions. I understand what the numbers are. I understand that the gauge is given and in in certain classes they have to have x amount of students. However, my question is what happens if those numbers are not being met? Do parents have recourse? Do they have an opportunity to go to some administrative body? Is there an agency up north or maybe in Broward

098County, that they can file a formal complaint with? What can my parents do if their children are in classes that are vastly over enrolled for whatever reason, and they are, quite frankly, just not happy with the student teacher ratio. That part as far as what opportunities for parents, beyond talking to principals and regional leaders and district leaders. Beyond that, I have to provide a follow up and do some research. But there is a moment in time after I want to say, like OCTOBER, when students are still enrolling in schools, that there is after that, after that date. I want to say it's OCTOBER, right? There's really no recourse because that's out of the control of the school and the district. If additional students are continuing to come into that class, if you have one or

0992 or 3 students continue to come into that class at that time, you can usually principals would look at the whole makeup of their school, see if there's class size classes where they can redistribute the students to get the class sizes at a certain point, or we MAY even award them an additional teacher as a as a strategy to lower class sizes if that happens. But other than that, there's really not any recourse after OCTOBER besides leveraging whatever strategy possible to level out classes. But before that, it's usually talk to your principal, talk to the regional leadership district leadership so we can analyze and see what the situation is and react appropriately. But beyond that, I'll have to do research and get. I would very much appreciate a follow up and. Well, of course, I

100love our great principals. I don't think respectfully, sir, that that can just be the answer. Just go talk to the principal. If these are laws in the books coming from either state, Doe or the legislature or however, we got to this threshold of what our student to teacher ratio numbers are, and we are not complying with that. For whatever reason, parents need to have recourse. They need to be able to do something. If I'm not complying with a kid's iep, we know what can happen, right? So and I'm not I'm not suggesting that this is apples to apples comparison, but parents need to have recourse if their kids are sitting in a class with 28 kindergartners and one teacher, because to me, that is really, quite frankly, not acceptable. So I'm very much looking forward

101to that follow up. MR. Superintendent, I appreciate you willing to take the lead on that next, if I MAY. I believe it was Central Area brought up a comment about paper based instruction. I'm going to reserve some of my concerns with this. All this tech that's going on for the next portion of the agenda here. But I did hear a concern that teachers are possibly being punished or disciplined if they are requesting or moving away from the tech ed and pushing more for paper based methods of instruction, which, incidentally, I happen to be a fan of. Is there any validity to that comment? Have we heard of any instances in which a teacher has said, you know what? This is too much screen time for my kids. Let's get the notebooks out. Let's get the

102pencils out. Let's go old school on this, for lack of better terms, and let's start doing more paper based instruction. Are you aware of any teachers being disciplined for making such a decision? No, we wouldn't discipline teacher for anything like that. A teacher has a lot of autonomy in the classroom of how they actually provide instruction to students, as long as they are following the standard and the intended rigor of that standard. So the students are learning what they're supposed to learn. We're fine. Brooke. I do know I did not mean that it is happening. It was a policy suggestion. So as we go forward and we adopt more technology or ai, we're suggesting that the district have a policy to protect teachers from potentially having discipline. I will say there MAY not be formal

103discipline. There is incredible pressure on teachers to get their I ready minutes in to the point that if they get to the end of the week and they don't have enough, those laptops are coming out, whether it's part of what they need to teach or not. So formal discipline. I'm. I did not make that accusation. But we would like to see a policy that protects our educators and their autonomy in the classroom to choose the best methods they see for their class. And we would like to reduce the informal, incredible pressure there is to do internet based testing, where the district and the principal gets those results, as well as the Iready and other supplemental software. Thank you for that. Thank you for the clarification. Doctor Cohn, are you at. If I am a history

104teacher and I teach sixth grade history and I say, you know what? I'm tired of these things and I don't want to do the laptops anymore. I want to go back to the way we did it when you and I were in school. And I make this decision as an educator, what for the teachers out there listening, can you explain the process that that teacher needs to go through with her individual school when she makes a decision like that? So I would say that that is still teacher discretion. It's in the collective bargaining agreement that teachers do have autonomy to determine which teacher preference that they, they choose to do and the modality that they choose to do it in. So is that something I just wake up and decide, do I need to put

105my principal on notice? Do I need to call the regional supe? Do I need to do I need to text Hepburn? Like, what do I got to do if I'm a teacher and I've made that decision? That's a that's a teacher choice. I can tell you in a, in a, in a world of a teacher, of course, usually groups of teachers plan. If I'm a history teacher, I'm planning with my group of history teachers. And we came up with this plan together about how what we're going to do and how we're going to compare apples to apples at the end of our lesson. So I would suggest that teacher talks with her teacher curriculum group, right? So they make sure that instructional strategies are going to change. And I'm going to do it this way

106because usually it's a high level of collaboration. When it comes to secondary teachers within a department. I understand that, and I'm really not getting the answer that I'm looking for. So I'm going to ask the question again. And maybe history was a bad example. Okay, so whatever class instruction you want to put in this hypothetical, if I'm a teacher and I'm at, oh, I don't know, Western High School and I decide I don't want the computers in my classroom anymore, I want to go back to paper based methods of instruction. What do I need to do as a teacher to make that happen? Do I have complete autonomy to just walk into my classroom and do that? Do I need to call print in this hypothetical? Do I need to call Dora and put her

107on notice about what I plan to do? What is the process? You have autonomy. You are the teacher in that classroom. You have autonomy. As long as you are teaching the standard, you have autonomy and you can walk classrooms. At the beginning of the school year, you're going to see teachers teaching using different methods, different strategies. Some leverage computers part of the time, Some leveraged computers probably once a week to supplement instruction. Teachers are doing it different across the board, so you won't find one teacher teaching the same way as a as another teacher. Okay, fantastic. And again, just to, to tie the ribbon on this and make sure that everyone's 100% clear in my hypothetical, I don't need to go to the, I don't need to talk to tumor and I don't need to

108talk to you. If I'm a teacher and I make this decision about how I want to teach my classroom, correct. You, you have autonomy for instructional strategies. Excellent. Thank you for the clarification. MADAM General Counsel. I think if I was taking down accurate notes when you were speaking, we've certainly heard a lot of pushback on some of this new stuff and some of the greatest concerns that I've heard in the past weeks on this, since this was first really introduced to the public, is, number one, the potential reduction in public comment and how our constituents feel as though they're being cheated of their opportunity to come and properly in address this board in a timely manner and in a manner that they have become used to and accustomed to over the years. That being said,

109I believe I heard from you in response to a request to have a rule development workshop that on the new process, especially these these 31 policies that we kind of lumped into one agenda item at the last meeting, that in order to have a rule development workshop on Neola to address these concerns, we would need to have approval from chair Leonardi. Did I understand that correctly? No. We've already had a rule development workshop, and the next step is the public hearing, which will also allow individuals to have make public comment on the different rules. If I MAY. And again, I don't want to put words in people's mouths. I believe it was s who had made the request. Jackie and my accurate with that. I think Doctor Lynch Walsh put in a formal request for

110a rule development hearing. I think we need to clarify what we're talking about. Rule development workshop you had. It wasn't run in conformity with how they have been run previously. Secondly, if we're talking about about a hearing, not clear what the hearing is. I've got some other points I'd like to reply to in a minute, but can you clarify what this hearing is that you're talking about? Thank you. Okay, so Florida Statute 120.54 is the rule making statute, right? So it dictates and provides how rules are created. Now you have to remember that we are considered an educational unit per definition in that statute. So there's certain things in that statute that is not applicable to a school district. It's run by one of them, for example, Florida Statute 120.81, which talks about the legal

111notices. Now rule development. The statute says unless there's a cost, the district MAY have a. Even if there is a cost, the district MAY have what they call a rule development workshop. What does that mean? That is an opportunity for the board to have a discussion of a proposed rule. We'll call that a policy. They're interchangeable. Those words. And the public has an opportunity to make a comment. That's that's what a rule. That's in essence, what a rule development workshop is because of the fact in most districts do this normally have a rule development workshop without the public even asking for it. The statute doesn't require it. If the public asks for it, you're supposed to have it unless there's a good reason as to why it's not necessary. In our case, we move forward

112and we will continue to move forward with rule development workshops so that the public has an opportunity to make a comment on the rules, and the board has an opportunity to have discussion on the rule before we go to the next step, which is the public hearing. The public hearing is when the policies are then also brought forward. The public then has the opportunity to make comments, and the board will vote on whether or not to adopt the rule as revised. That's what the public hearing is. That's proper rule development. I'm sorry. My friend to the left here is whispering exactly what was in my head. If I could just ask, are you talking about a school board meeting or are you talking about a separate hearing? Okay. Good question. So a lot of times

113it is a school board meeting, but that portion of the meeting is is considered a public hearing. So normally what will happen is that the school board will recess the regular meeting, go into the public hearing, have the public comment, and then go back to the meeting. So that's normally how it occurs. But it does happen in most districts in a meeting. Was the ask for an additional rule development workshop, which I agree, MADAM General Counsel. That's that was the last go around. That was what that qualified as. That was a rule development. So I what I'm wondering is. I feel like a lot of members of the public didn't really have a good handle or understanding about what was going on prior to the last workshop. Now that we've had that workshop, things have

114have come out, there's been discussions, there's been internet posts and conversations about this. I fielded phone calls, I fielded text messages on this. I feel like there's a better understanding of what's happening in light of that. And I'm going to ask I'm going to ask is again, is there a request for an additional rule development workshop, or is it just you want confirmation that the public will be able to participate in the hearing, aka school board meeting, in which these things with Neil are formally voted on? k kno whaha t the Thahankou for t t queueioio I I kw whaha ththe resnsnse will b b s so let's not waste our time. But. But really, I think it's clear that telling us that, well, a board, a workshop was was held and it was advertised.

115Nobody has said it wasn't advertised properly. It was advertised on an obscure website that the public hasn't even been told. That's the place you need to go to if you want to see what we're actually doing, as opposed to what we're putting on our agenda and our own board meetings website, to say we advertised it in this obscure place that none of you look at, and half of you, even when you try it, can't get on it. But so we met, we met statute that. But you know, and we don't you actually said, MR. Bruno, we don't have to put it on the website. Well, why wouldn't you. And that's a genuine question. Why on earth would you. I take shorthand, we don't have to put it on the website. Why on earth would you

116not? It wasn't even on your own agenda that that was a rule making workshop. There wasn't a covering document that even said what all these policies were. There wasn't as, as Mary said, any comparison of, right. This proposed new policy replaces that one. Not one of you got out policy 1020 during the course of that workshop and did a side by side. We work really professionally in committee. When we're looking at policies, we do side by side matrices, and we do read lines. You have done read lines before, not so much the matrices, even though I know board members have asked for for a more visually friendly format. There was no red lines. It was so. And I think the crux of this is that this is a policy conversion versus a review. And I'm

117not sure, actually, that all board members even knew that was the case when they voted on it. If it's a straight replacement, there was no comparison. There are other policies. Take ai, for example, that are just they're gagging to be passed because you've got public outcry is going to creep up on you and overwhelm you. Our cameras in classrooms policy for Esq that actually I and others at ease advisory helped very helpfully and collaboratively to craft with you. GOD knows what's now going to happen with that. I'm not clear whether that calling that a rule development workshop, but not even putting it on your own agenda that it was that is actually reprehensible. That's not just, well, we, we, we advertised it somewhere else quietly. So we meet statute to say that there is no

118elimination of public comment. You're right. There's no elimination. But we have 12 minutes as members of the public spread across a whole board meeting. So to say that you're just restructuring it actually isn't correct. You said you are not losing public comment. It's just being restructured. There are two different things. There's public speaking, which is five speakers in the morning, five speakers in the afternoon. And then there is public comment, which is where everybody had 12 minutes. You've now proposed reducing that to just three, that people had to just gobble it at the beginning of the board meeting. There would only be limited space for that, which would be one hour. So let's face it, if PRESIDENT Fusco brings a bunch of her teachers, nobody else is getting a look in to say it's just

119being restructured just is not an accurate reflection. It's not clear when this public hearing would be and when, but I'm glad to see it's now ceded that it does need to be separately, at least tagged as a public hearing, but I hope it will be advertised accordingly on board websites and its own agenda. And I think crucially, now we're in the summer when honestly, I'm afraid to leave Broward because I fear what's going to happen when we're not here to voice about things. Because this was sneaked out, things are being sneaked out at times of year and in ways that that are not collaborative. Anybody could have come to the advisories beforehand and said, hey, listen, we're looking at this new platform. What do you think? Or does it matter what you think? But here's

120what we're doing anyway. Or here's a demonstration of what the platform will be. I'm sure the platform looks great, but the process was not described or considered at a board meeting for $138,000 a year. When we can't get a pre-k evaluation for a kid with a disability to start school in AUGUST, and she's got to wait beyond Christmas. I think priorities are really poor. And the optics of this and what the result will be is incredibly bad. At a time when on one hand you're saying, hey, let's look at customer service, and on the other you're saying, we don't want to hear from our customers much. So thank you so much for the comment. I appreciate that. And again, we do listen to what your concerns are and try to address them the best that

121we can. First and foremost, I will say this, once the neola process is completed, you're going to like the end result. I have done this conversion before and I know what it looks like, and the public likes it because they can find the policies very easily. It's much easier to understand. The second thing I want you to know is that these policies, 90% of the policies are based on law. That's what policies are supposed to be. The processes, the operations, the protocols, how you do something are not policies. And that's part of the cleanup that we're doing. I think a lot of times we're concerned about how something ends up happening versus the direction that the governing body is giving to make something happen. We're working on both of those things at the same time,

122which is something that is very unique to Broward that we were able to negotiate with Neola. So that's the first thing. Second, we're not paying $138,000 per year. We're paying 138,000 for this conversion. And it is a complete conversion of the policies. The reason the policies are not redlined is because they're not old policies. These are brand new policies that are coming before the board. When the when you see the public hearing, you will see the red lines that are based on what the board's discussion was, including some of the comments that were made at the workshop, are included in some of those red lines that will be coming on the 23rd. So you're never going to see red lines at the onset, because they're not all policies that we're revising their new policies. The

123other the other thing that I think is really, really important to understand the law prescribes how certain things are supposed to be done. Florida statute 120.81 for educational units says that we publish on the county's website. And I understand what your point is. Wait. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I understand your point. Your point is that you want to see it on our website to to be legally compliant. We legally published it on that. And I will tell you on our website, if you go to the front page, anybody who wants to know and follow this, you can go to the front page on our website, scroll all the way down and it says Legal Notices. You click that and it takes you to the county's website. So I, I want to make sure

124that it's on the record because the district is legally compliant. Hold on one second. Hold on, hold on, hold on, please. Number two, when it is advertised because the the law requires us to do this, it is advertised 28 days prior to the adoption. That includes the workshop that includes what I call the public hearing, which is what the statute refers to. Both dates were on. There are two parts over there. They have both dates for the legal notices. So it was already said way back at the end of MAY that on JUNE 23rd there's going to be a public hearing on these policies. So we're not sneaking we're not trying to be deceitful. It's all there for the public to consume. Hold on. Let me let me finish. The second thing, to go directly

125to your point in terms of what is advertised on our website, normally what is advertised is a workshop. And within that workshop there are multiple things. And one of those things could be a review of policy. Now, because we got feedback from the public and because of the fact that we're going through a full policy conversion, we went ahead and said, okay, we're going to advertise this. We're going to make sure it's clear that this is a rule development workshop from now on. That's what we're going to do to make sure that the public understands. But I will also tell you that there's been discussions at the dais in terms of board. Are we going to have one workshop a month that is specifically for policies? Yes, we're going to do that. And the reason

126that 1020 came is because there was instructions. This is not a surprise if you're following the meetings. This is discussion with the board. 1020 Dupuy Bruno, please go and review that and come back with some policies for us to consider. So I understand the comments and the frustration. We're going to make sure that it is as transparent because there's nothing that we want to do to to be nontransparent. We want the public to participate, to have a voice. And you can also send written requests. We will make sure that it's highlighted. So, you know, this is a rule development, even though it's not required by law. Thank you. And my comments were to the board and I would like to hear from the board as well saying if you're following meetings, I feel might come

127across as well in that let's put that in the column of like not feeling too public friendly. Those of us at this table are probably among the people who follow meetings as closely as, as, as anybody is going to. And sometimes even we can MISS Things because do you know what? We have full time jobs. I'm doing mine at three, four, five in the morning. I'm afraid to even go on vacation because all these things that are happening, and I'm afraid that what you MAY not be aware of, MR. Bruno, is that the manner in which things are done sometimes comes from staff. Who are the staff that then actually laugh when we become distressed about it? It's just happened again right now in the last three minutes. So please understand that our frustration, nobody

128has said you did not advertise it in accordance with statute that doesn't even need discussing and taking up time. We haven't said that. But why on earth would you not put it on your own websites and your own agenda? And I think it would be nice to say, you know what? You folks are right to be agitated about this. You're right. That wasn't okay. And we need to be more transparent. We can't be saying we're transparent and being transparent just by saying it. We have to do it to. But I, I just want to make sure it's clear. When the public advised us that there was a concern, we immediately added rule development to the website. It's there, and we added it to the agenda. And I understand what you're saying. Yes. Because we heard

129from the public and we took action. And the other thing I just wanted to make sure also with regards to public comment, because there was a question about 60 minutes and that's it. I want you to know that the board, in their discussions, gave directive that the chair can extend public comment if it requires more than 60 minutes, more than an hour. So that's also in the policy. I think. Part of it concerns me. Right. I specifically asked when I could come now, could not come. Last week, I asked a board member when and I'm not going to say who when this would be coming forward for a vote so that people could speak to the policy itself. My understanding was that a certain amount of time was required between the rule making workshop and

130the actual public hearing. I guess I was told the wrong time because I did not understand that to be next week, when a good number of people in the public will be out of this county. And so you're actually doing this, taking away their right to speak. And just just so you I know, I, you know, I, and I know you're just doing your job here, but let me just explain that at one time, there was no limit on how often a person from the public could address an issue. It was three minutes per item, but there was not a then it went to 15 and then it went to 12. And now in essence, you're taking it to three. And I think if you're going to do that, it would have been good to

131loop it through the advisories. Or as MISS Thompson pointed out, loop it through the sec's, loop it through your schools, do something. But you all are literally doing this at a time when you know people are out of town. I think that sends a terrible message. And I don't know that. I just I just think what you're doing with the policies, the organizational part that you're doing with them, that's great. You're going to make sure that they're legally compliant. I all of that. Okay. But how you do, you're picking one of the most important, which is the right of the public to address the board themselves in session. And that's the one you're choosing to do when the public MAY not be around. And really, I try to follow this stuff. I did ask because

132I want I couldn't come to the last meeting. I wanted to be aware. Obviously, I'm one person that doesn't matter, but I just I just think this is being handled very poorly as far as taking a policy like 1020, which was not even advertised as 1020 last week and doing it. So thank you. Thank you for your explanation. I know we're belaboring this and we're getting away from some other important issues, but I would just request of board members who are listening to this conversation that you might want to hold this off until AUGUST, when you can actually know that you're going to have people back in town because their kids are going to be in school. MAY I, MAY I ask a question? MR. Cervera has the floor. So very quick comment. The answer

133to your question about asking a question is yes. But if I MAY Esq, I don't think I got a response. Do you think it would be beneficial to have an additional rural development workshop? Yes I do. Okay, Cynthia, go ahead. So I think this is an important conversation, and I know that there are lots of board members who have questions about other topics, and I don't want it to monopolize the time. I think that it's so valuable, the information that you're giving MISS Dupuy, Bruno, and I think potentially we can create a landing page that has this policy project on it, with information about the process and how we will move forward. Additionally, maybe holding an information session virtually that the public can attend so that we can you can provide the information, the public

134can provide their concerns or opinions to you, as well as suggestions on what they would like to see to maintain this engagement so that we can move along. But I agree with everything that Maryann Jackie said. Thank you. MAY I chair? MISS Fertig, do you agree that a rural development workshop would be beneficial to the public? Yes. Sorry. Yes. Parent community task force, same question. Yes. Human relations. Apologies, I missed the question. Do you believe that an additional rule development workshop would be beneficial to the public? Yes. dac. Yes, but potentially in AUGUST. Technology. Yes. South area. Yes. Gifted. Absolutely. Yes. MADAM General Counsel, how does one go about obtaining an additional rural development workshop at this stage. So you're going to have to vote on that because right now, pursuant to your policy 1000,

135the chair makes the decision as to whether or not a second workshop is necessary. And the chair has already a request came in for that, and the chair has already responded that a second workshop is not necessary, and that's per policy that you have. Does the chair have the ability to order or require an additional rural development workshop without a formal vote at her discretion? Yes, that's what the policy says. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Leonardi having heard what you've heard from the public, and I'm assuming you've gotten the same emails that I'm getting, will you commit to grant the public what essentially they're asking for and allow an additional workshop for rural development? At this juncture? I'd like to put it up to the board. I'm happy to move forward with the will of the

136board. Chair. I believe it should be a formal vote. Okay. So if MR. Cervera would like to bring that item, then we can vote on it. All right. So just just so we're clear, you have the ability to do it without a vote, but you are asking to send it to a vote from the board. I would like to take the I would like to move forward with the will of the board. Understood. Thank you for the clarification. Last agenda item. Before I turn my mic off temporarily. MR. Superintendent, we have heard a lot about this opt out of technology over the last couple of meetings. I spoken to some parents who've expressed a great amount of difficulty in actually being able to do this. What I would like to see, and you tell me

137if this is possible, I would like a portion of our web page, the bcc web page to have a hyperlink or some sort of clickable item that gives a detailed instruction, whether it's you have to fill out a form or whether you have to call somebody. But detailed instructions on how a parent can opt out of technology should they make the decision that that's not what is in the best interest of their child? Can we get something on the Broward County Public Schools website? A very, very comprehensive set of instructions telling parents how they can opt out should they choose to do so? Yes. That's possible. Okay. How long will it take you to get that up? I have to check in with the team. Can we get that done before school starts in AUGUST?

138Yes, there's a yes we can, but there's a lot of additional things we need to do. Talk to principals, talk to teachers, figure out when we say opt out of technology, if it's not to the student's detriment that they're that they're opting out of, of said use of technology for specific purposes, you know, the, the spectrum of curriculum and resources and instruction is wide. So I don't want to, you know, make it be a detriment to a student's learning versus some of the tools that MAY be actually assisting them and helping them excel in the classroom. And so in, yeah, but what we could take a look at that. It's a lot more than just blanket opt in out of technology, though. Whatever the provision is, whatever the protocol is, I want a detailed portion

139of the web page to be able to explain this to parents. So there's not a thousand questions that they have to ask. Should they make the decision that it's not in the best interest of their child to use technology? You mentioned that we have to look at whether or not it's detrimental to the student. Respectfully, sir, I want to listen to what the parents think about what's detrimental to their child or not. And if they make that decision as a family or as a mom, as a dad collectively, as an aunt, as an uncle, whatever it is, they need to be ready to have the information, to do what they need to do to make that decision and make it a reality with us without having to call 17 people. So Iould like toto see

140thatt b befechooltartrt inugust. Ain, aaortition off the home page with comprehensive instructions on how a parent can opt out of technology should they make that decision. Thank you. Is there a consensus from the board on that? I just want to make sure before we move forward. I, I mean, for me, I wanted to talk about that with more nuance and in depth in the next workshop on ai, I think. So I I'm not ready to say yes or no. I mean, I, I think it deserves a much longer, more detailed discussion. And I know there's a lot of, there's still a lot of board members who would like to speak. So it was something I was planning on bringing up in the next workshop. Agreed. Because it is a heavily nuanced. Agreed. I can wait

141till the next workshop. Any other board members who. Wait wait wait wait a second. Let me, let me let me do something because I have a feeling I know where this is going. I want to follow up Hepburn with detailed instructions. You could address it to me. The district six board member from a to z. How? One as a parent opts out of all technology, should they make that decision? You don't have to put on the website for now. We can discuss it whenever you want, but I want a detailed follow up in memorandum style from a to z about how this is done, and I'd like this done within the next two weeks. Can you commit to that, sir? We'll provide a follow up. I'll get with the team. Okay. Yep. MISS Bulman. Thank

142you. So do we. Are we offering absolute full technology? No, we're. I guess my question is just, you know, at what point are we making an undue burden? And I think we again, I agree with the chair that we need to have a much longer discussion about how this can work. Yeah, reasonably. And I'm not against it. I just think that we need to be talking about that before. Before Doctor Hepburn has to create something that doesn't exist right now. And I believe in our policy. If we direct the if we direct the superintendent, we're allowed to do that unless it's going to create an undue burden, at which time we have to take it back to the board. Yeah. And that's why I asked for if there's board consensus, because it is a heavily

143nuanced. A classroom is just not totally technology. And the teachers in the room and the students in the room in can voice that also. So I just want to make sure that when you say opt out, a blanket opt out will be detrimental to students because there's a lot of components that help to accelerate. Go ahead. Go ahead. Lily. Okay. Sorry. I feel the need to speak on this. I would first of all like to point out that 92% of jobs in the us do require digital skills today. I think Broward County schools, it's important that, you know, we have around, what, 230,000 students. It is important that we prepare our students properly for the up and coming world. We are in the digital age. I know not everyone's a fan of it and, you

144know, there are spectrums to it, and it's important to toe the line and make sure that, you know, it's not our students entire life. I know we spoke about the writing skills. It's so important to write guys. How do people not know cursive write, obviously. But at the same time, when someone goes to apply for a job, if they don't know how to use technology properly, someone's going to ask the same question. Someone's going to ask, how do you not know how to do this in in this day and age? Realistically, you cannot not know how to properly use a laptop and an iPhone. And I understand, right, that we don't want it to be overly used, but I think entirely opting out of it is extremely damaging to a student's future. Right? I'm sure

145Mikhail can say something along the same lines that we are at such an advantage, like in the job market compared to older generations, simply because we grew up with this. i've had an iPad for over ten years now. I have my computer, my phone, and because of that, I have so much access to knowledge. And when I come here, a student advisor, I didn't have to learn how to use my laptop. Day one. I already knew how to do everything. Think about all the emails we send each other, all the phone calls that have to get made, the meetings that get set up. We are in the digital era. Our students deserve to be properly prepared for that. I understand that there might be differences of, you know, beliefs at home. And if we want

146to speak about maybe opting out of the amount of digital education, I think that's a great conversation to have, but to give parents the option to completely take that away from their students and their children, I just don't think that's right at all. Sort of what Lily said. I just want to clarification how how would that look like, superintendent? How would them opting out? I, I can't tell you that right now because we're spinning in my head. I have kids too is. And I used to be a teacher and everything above is that the classroom is not a monolith of technology. It's variations of instructional practices that teachers provide to students. And as Lily said, very well, we are in a digital age and a large percentage of industries local and abroad require some technology

147literacy. And I do not want to create a huge detriment for students and and limiting their opportunities in the future. I understand the concerns of some parents when it comes to screen time and all of that, but that's why I say it's heavily nuanced and the team would have to go back, figure out what things are required, what things are required for schools that kids are going to for a magnet, a stem magnet. Okay. Right. These, these are all kind of components within our school district that we have to be able to educate the parents that I understand you want to opt out, but you know, your kids are in a stem magnet and they're using this technology for these specific purposes. What specifically do you want to opt out of? And so that's why

148I say it's a heavily nuanced conversation and just a blanket not opt out could be very detrimental to to students futures. So is there no policy set in place currently regarding opting out or any information on that? Not specifically. There are parental rights, right. Those are current laws and whatnot where parents do have options to opt out and to opt in into certain things, but we'll have to do some research and see how this is applicable to technology in the classroom. Okay. Chair, if I, if I MAY. And Hepburn, I'm glad you just said the last thing that you said, because my request is certainly in line with all requisite portions of Florida statutes and the parental rights statutes. That's what I want to know. I want a review done by the team of what

149rights are afforded to when it comes to technology opt outs for parents under state statute, because, as I've said a thousand times on this dais, we follow the law in Broward County and will continue to do something. And we're not going to do anything that's contrary to the law. So in accordance with state statute, I want to know what our policy is for opting out and what the parameters of that look like under statute. Research it with your team. Let me know, figure that out. And then I want to follow up as to how a parent can achieve that. Should they make the decision that that is in the best interest of their child? And I would like that within two weeks if possible. I know MRS. Alhadeff wanted to speak on this on one

150of MR. Cervera points. Yes. So MR. Cervera brought up that he wanted to get the opinion of the board members to weigh in on doing another session. I forgot what we were calling it and and then then someone said they wanted to make it as a vote. So I don't believe this necessarily has to be a vote. The board members can weigh in on MR. Cervera ideas. This one and the one he just spoke about. And then if Chair Leonardi, if you feel that you have board majority to move forward with another rulemaking session, then you can do that. Yeah, that's what I asked. We don't necessarily have to go to vote for it. Yeah, that's what I asked for. And it was proposed that it just be taken to a board vote. So again,

151I will move forward with the will of the board if that is taken right now or at a board vote next week. So is anyone objecting to a board vote next week besides MRS. Alhadeff and MR. Cervera? No. And MRS. Rupert no. I'm good. So that is three objections. So not a majority of the board. So we will move forward with a board vote next week. Okay. And I believe the information that MR. Cervera asked for with regards to opting out, I don't know that it was asking for a review. So I don't know that that's creating an undue burden. Doctor Hepburn. Oh no, the follow up isn't an undue burden typing it up right now so the team can get it. So everyone will get a copy of that follow up. Absolutely. MISS Leonardi,

152could you just clarify? I'm sorry, I I'm if I've missed this is the board vote next week on whether to have another rural development workshop or not. Is that it? So are you moving ahead with voting on the policy next week, or you're voting on whether to have a rural development? MISS Dupree? Bruno, I'm assuming there would be two item. Well, there is the public hearing next week, but if the board votes to do another rural development workshop, then that public hearing would be postponed, correct? Yes. Okay. Thanks. Sorry. MISS Thompson. So maybe I misunderstood. I thought to that the general counsel had said if we wanted to have another workshop, then there had to be a vote. And since we don't vote in workshops, which is why I said bring it to a vote.

153So I just need clarification because I feel like it's going to come back on me, that I demanded a vote. But that was my understanding of what the general counsel said. Attorney Dupree Bruno. Okay, so there's a couple things. We are currently in the statutorily required rule making process, of rule development workshop occurred on, I believe it was JUNE 8th. And then the next step would be the public hearing for adoption on JUNE 23rd, JUNE 8th. There was public comment. JUNE 23rd there will be public comment. The question that was posed was whether or not there could be another rule development workshop. And how does that occur per your policy policy 1000, it delegates to the chair the ability to make a decision as to whether or not a second rule development workshop can occur.

154And that basically means that you go through the rules again and then you have public comment again, which is similar to what's going to happen in the public hearing. The that's what you're that's what your policy currently says. And the chair has already made a decision that there would not be a second workshop because you're going to have your public hearing, and you also have the opportunity to submit comments and questions during this interim period. If the board wants to basically change that and have a rule development workshop, then my recommendation is that you have a vote because you're not in compliance with your policy, because your policy already dictates what happens in these scenarios. You've already delegated that responsibility to your chair per policy 1000. So if you want to change that, you can.

155But I don't you can't vote in a workshop. So you have to do that in a, in a regular school board meeting or special meeting. And just to add some additional context, and I think we've all received the emails, but I've been acting under advisement of our board attorney. She has provided clear guidance in email to us about this issue. But again, I'm I'm happy to move forward. And I've put it to the board. I'm happy to move forward, per the will of the board. So wait for clarification then. So could we do a consensus to see if there's interest and then an item come back to formally vote? If there is consensus for an additional workshop, because that way it wouldn't. If it does not pass, then it does not delay the rule making

156on the 23rd. Attorney Dupree Bruno. Yes, that that is correct. So can we get consensus? Yeah, that's what I originally asked for, MISS Rupert. Yes, MISS Thompson. MISS Bulman. DR. Holness. No. DR. Zeman. MR. Cervera. Yes. And I would renew my request for you to order the workshop pursuant to your authority as chair, which you have the right to do. And, MRS. Alhadeff. Yes. And I would like to move forward, per our general Counsel's guidance. So that means that the majority of the board will not does not desire to do another rural development workshop into the. In addition to the one that we did last week. You still have the floor, MR. Cervera. All in with this. Just so we're clear, the request. Doctor. Superintendent for the follow up serves as a rescission of my

157request for you to update the website. So let's do the follow up and I will revisit the website issue. I just don't want there to be any confusion. So the the ask of you right now is to just do the follow up with whatever our policy is based on the parental rights statutes that exist in this state. Get me that within two weeks, and we'll revisit how we're going to disseminate that information to the public. Is that clear? Thank you, sir. Thank you, MISS Rupert. Thank you. And thank you for all the the chairs here that spend so much time really working for our district and our family and our kids. Thank you so much. I know sometimes it MAY seem like we're not listening, but we we really are. And I, I try to

158listen, you know, even hurting my neck sometimes leaning all the way over because it's that important to have eye contact with the people that you respect. And I respect you. The first part I want to talk about is project based learning. I think the ai conversation, which we're going to be having later. Needs to be phased out as we talk. When we talk about this with our elementary school kids, middle and high school, big difference. You know, I think there's more opportunity and better learning. And I'm a reading teacher, language arts teacher. So, you know, that's, that's where I'm leaning with this. They need pencil and paper. They need the ability to do that. They need to be able to make margin notes. Those are really important things to get in the elementary level, because

159I can tell you as a ninth grade teacher and my students came in with third grade reading skills. How do you make that all up in one year? It's difficult, really difficult, and it's not fair for our kids. So I always taught them the basics and my kids did really well on the on their exams, and they were able to go on a few work for us, which is amazing. And I think that's an important aspect of that. Additionally, and I know I've mentioned this before, there's something called the Summer bridge series. It's a workbook. It's a fabulous workbook. I don't know how much it is, but I know it's still out there in paper. You know, it's a shiny little paper book. And what it is, is what it is, is sorry, sorry, mom.

160She would kill me with the grammar there. Is reviewing the year that you just came through. So like it's called a two three book. So you're reviewing the, the, the second grade year over the summer, trying to avoid that summer slump that we all know. And then previewing the following year, that one they're going to be moving into. So they're not overwhelmed by looking at third grade stuff right away. They're reviewing their second grade and they're keeping it fresh over the summer. Did my kids play play video games? Actually, only one of three did so much at that time. And but all of them had to finish their books before we got back from Canada. And each one of them did it differently because they're all different learners under the Esq umbrella. And I'm going

161to go back to gifted because one of the most difficult kids to be able to get across that finish line for whatever future they want to have, is our twice gifted, twice exceptional. So I'm going to come back to that when we talk about writing, I MAY as well just do it now before I forget. So it's extremely important, you know, and especially important to make sure that our students are tested. And I had to push to get them tested for gifted. So he was actually. In, I think it was first grade, end of first grade. He was in gifted. And if I hadn't had that done with him, we never would have caught the the sld that he have dysgraphia. So he had difficulty from the get go. But we were able to understand.

162And at that time in. He's 33 now doing well well well, super well happy. And it's difficult at that point to reach those minds of the gifted kids, keep them engaged in a fun, creative way that they're a part of. It's extremely important to do that. So why do I say that? Because I believe students work better when they have a teacher in the classroom. The most important thing that we could do. But besides having their minutes to do on I-ready and it is done in elementary school, you can hear whatever you want to hear. But when you know and you hear from teachers and you go visit your schools, the kids and the parents and the teachers complain about mandatory minutes for I-ready. And to say that that's not true is not true. It

163is happening. They do have I-ready minutes. That must be done in a weekly daily basis. If that were their only opportunity to do it, maybe we could be happier with it. But it's not. It's all the other things that we ask them to do as well. We need more autonomy on that. And I would push, especially for our elementary school teachers. It's incredibly important. And okay, the second part, Jackie, with the resolution for Esq executive role, I 100% agree. Yes, 100%. Three the preschool evaluation. It needs to be immediate and it needs to be done. So our kids are ready to start school. I don't care if we have to hire specials outside our system, whatever gets it done. So our kids aren't going to school in AUGUST and waiting all those months, which comes

164out to no accommodations, no extra help, no things to give them allllhe tools t that they deserve I in theiroolboxox. So extreme poportant, very important to do. So. I want to share that, especially with the superintendent and, and my, my colleagues. So that's incredibly important. I don't like hearing about the use of money being pulled back for Cambridge and some other stuff. We need more clarification on that. And, you know, I'll I'll say more later on that, but we need more clarification to the Human Relations Committee. Thank you so much. And 466 participants for six through 12 students. That's a lot. That's amazing. And good for you. Let's keep it going. 106 schools can't wait to see way more that get them no place for hate. I was listening very closely to the multi-language and

165listening to the two teacher two teachers. So teaching one taught English, the other taught Spanish. Very similar to well, not similar because it wasn't language, but our fourth and fifth grade at the time, Coconut Creek Elementary, they had one team that had the English teacher and she had them for part of the day. And then the math and science teacher. So English and history, math and science and they were a fantastic duo together, but also one teacher switching back and forth could also work as well. Either one would be important to look forward and see exactly and listen to and read more, more material that you guys would have on that information. Okay. More. Parent Community Involvement task force. And it is a great force, a force to be reckoned with. That would be a

166t shirt I'd make for you guys, obstacles and concerns and challenges. I love that, you know, let's point out those obstacles and concerns and challenges and come up together with how we need to move forward. Talking about Raptor and concentric, I think it's called correct me if I'm wrong. Not being run through the tech tech committee, that's a problem. And I'm just going to say this because I only have a few more months anyway. And I've said it all along. So I'd be, you know, strange by not saying it. The what of the word, the marginalization of our advisory groups has been swift at times. And then very slowly eroding. And as a board member that's been here for 16 years now, or almost 16 years, I've seen that process. I didn't like it in

167the beginning and talked out about it. I didn't like it in the middle, and I certainly don't like it at this point. As a board member, it's incredibly important to hear all voices, and I 100,000% agree with Rebecca. I go out and have town halls for mental health. It's incredibly important to to have your town halls to get to your people, to go to the schools, go to the games. And that's where people reach out to you. They'll walk up to you and reach out to you and be open. And that's when you hear the stuff. So most parents in district seven don't usually call. And if it is, Ellen takes care of it like that and off she goes. But they don't do it. They wait to a football game. They wait till they

168see me out at soccer. So, you know, it's important. I know as a board we've talked about this, about having, you know, more kind of table talk conversations and throughout all districts during the next year. And that's incredibly important for me to. Congratulations to our, our school's tech textbook trends and exceptions are down. So that's incredibly important. Facilities maintenance, elevator service. I'm going to talk about that when we talk more about specific schools coming up in the same and the same answer. And if I'm not here because I this is taking long and it should take long because this is extremely important. I have to be in the hospital this afternoon. So I will be leaving at some point. But I want to be on the record for saying that. It would be a travesty

169to not build Margate Middle, a brand new school, instead of continually doing a very slow process like rip the band aid off, make it safe, make it less hazardous, make it comfortable, do not put more money into things that are just going to delay the process. It needs to be its own school. We do not want to disenfranchize people and I'm 100%. I know we're going to talk about it later, and I believe our some of our commissioners are in the the other waiting room and you'll hear from them later. But if I'm not if I'm not here, I'll hold on as long as I can before I get. I would be late getting there. Okay. We already talked about educational testing. All right. And then the last part was on suicide prevention. Like I

170said, I do town halls and we know in every board member should know. And we used to get a list of how many we would get notifications. I swear to you when they happened, it's important as a board member to know that just happened in your school. It's incredibly important, not just because of that student, but also suicide ideations. My colleague over here could talk way better than that. I, I didn't have all the tools to start those conversations, but felt it was important to start them. And we've had them for several years because district seven has one of the highest suicide rates, suicide rates. And as every board member should be able to ask our student services and our suicide prevention, they need to ask what how is this district doing? And then we

171need to take a look at what is our whole district look like? What are we doing to stop another one? And one thing that we do better now is not just considering that that child in isolation, but treating that whole school, that whole class and other schools, that child who was lost could have had a brother and a sister in different schools. So just talking to that school and giving them help, it, it's not a complete answer. And as a district, we do do that. And I really want to stress that that department does a remarkable job and we need to do more. And I hope whoever comes after me is able to continue that process and that mantle for the good of all, all districts. And for that, I thank you. And hopefully I

172will be here when we get to the other topics. But thank you so much. Thank you. DR. Zeman thank you, chair. Unfortunately, she either stepped out or left, but MISS Board brought up something That we've got some interesting data on, and we have an opportunity to do something which I think would be of universal value to Broward County Public Schools, which is to make a guarantee that every elementary school in Broward County have music, art, recess, and, excuse me, music, art, pe, and a full time librarian. Every elementary school we are 12 positions away. We are anxious to hear back from that. That line of inquiry. 12 when you have 24,000 staff positions is a small number, but it means a lot. You know, there's a lot of things in Broward County that we can

173say about all of our schools. We have 100% certified teachers. We comply with state law. We comply with Broward County policies. We offer students one on one laptop computers for those that want it. Not everyone. It doesn't get forced on people, but they're available. We operate in a system of Florida State standards, and we meet those state standards. So and they're going to go in a district that is making heroic gains in academic success. So there's a lot of things we can say about Broward County Public Schools right now. We can't say, though, that every elementary school child gets the specials that they deserve. Unfortunately, that is not something that gets reported up in our budget that the board reviews, but it's something now that the board is aware of, and I'm looking forward to

174hearing back in the next few weeks about whether or not we can meet that standard. But I'm confident that we will. The second issue, which is incredibly important, and I appreciate, Cynthia, you bringing this up. We have seen numbers in mental health in this country and in this district that are staggering. 40% of children have teenagers in the United States have mental health illness. Can you text. Sometime during their teenage years, 20% can tell you how they would take their life. And 10% of American teenagers in Broward, teenagers have tried to take their life. Not all suicides have suicide ideation, but that that level of numbers is staggering. We have done some great research as a school board on on what gaps we have in mental health. We have, over a year ago, fenced all

175mental health professionals and said all you can be asked to do is mental health. So you're not doing the car line, you're not doing lunch duty, you're not doing assessment tests. You are allowed full time to do mental health. But we've also got a report that's made it very clear and it says our superintendent, this is not an issue between the board and the superintendent. This is an issue the board and the superintendent, including his specific comments that our ratios of mental health professionals, particularly clinical mental health professionals, social workers, therapists, counselors that can actually help students is out of whack. We're probably 450 or 500 to one. The national standard is 200 to 250. So we're out of whack big time. We're going to be doing that work. And just doctor, superintendent, doctor Hepburn,

176with all due respect, we are. I would just want to tell the community that this is something that we have not solved yet. And I think is that a reasonable conclusion that you've come to as well? Yes. Correct. You hit some statistics on the head there. As far as the ratio of mental health service providers or even school counselors to to students is severely high, especially for large school districts versus, you know, the nationwide average. Terrific. And I think during the budget process this summer and again, the budget being a statutory authority of the board, we're going to see some options about how we can move forward, either with recommendations we've got from our staff and you, or we got from folks that we've brought in to look at our thing. We're going to see

177some options about doing better on mental health for next year. Is that correct? Correct. Thank you very much. The third thing, and this has gathered a lot of attention today, the process by which we're going through policy reviews from top to bottom. I want to kind of ground us, though, on a little bit about reality in terms of what we're going to end up with. We have 259 policies in Broward County that cover 1700 pages. Some of them were written 50 years ago, some were 45 years ago. There's internal conflicts between policies. There are policies that are poorly written. There are policies that have forms jammed into them. Our general counsel has made it very clear that it is a risk for Broward County to continue with the current set of policies we've had. She's

178explained that to the public. She's explained it to the board, and we have set a pace to finish all 259 policies rewritten. It will be hundreds more because it'll make more sense to chunk them as as is a standard practice this year, we've dedicated one Tuesday a month to come and sit. We welcome people to come and talk about it. We welcome people to look at our new policies, look at the changes we've asked our general counsel to be very clear about what's in and what's out and what was in this policy number that's now in there. In fact, we even asked her last week, I think, MISS Dupuy Bruno, we ended up saying we're going to indicate at the bottom what, what the former policy number is of our new policies, right? So that

179we make sure that we have an ability to go back and forth for a couple of years so that people don't get left behind. I'm actually worried about the opposite case, which is if we don't make changes, we're going to continue to live with policies that are substandard and actually put this board in this district at risk because we tell people what forms to use, we tell them what processes to use. We make it incredibly difficult for people to comply with the policies. And what I'm worried about is people ignore policies because it's too complicated and it's too prescriptive. So I'm really in favor of doing this. I'm very proud that this board has accepted the challenge of getting this done in 12 months, because what you don't want to do is take seven years

180to do it, because then you have years and years and years where you have some of the old policies and some of the new policies, and you confuse the heck out of your staff and you confuse the heck out of the community. So I'm proud that we're going to do this. It's going to take a lot of work of this board. It's going to take, hopefully, a lot of patience from the community to to put in the time and the effort to help us, you know, make them as good as we can. I recommend all advisory councils stay abreast as they're proposed. MISS Dupuy Bruno, to my knowledge, when we did the first public hearing workshop last week, we still have one more workshop and then these policies come for decisions, am I right? Are

181there three meetings to review this policy? Two two meetings. So we do the. JUNE 8th. Last week. And then the 23rd is the public hearing where you adopt dynamite. And so we have time before the 23rd to hear from the communities. They're all out there. They're available online. We've announced this, we've done a workshop, and we're going to do a second one where we adopt these policies. I encourage people to think hard about them. Policies are a big deal, and we want to make sure that we get them right. It is a lot of work, though, and the board's committed to do this, and I think it's a way to minimize the risk and to move forward with best speed. I don't. Want to do this. Understand. I personally think that what you are doing,

182organizing the policies is good. But don't don't ruin that by the manner in which you're doing something. I mean, you're picking a couple of really important policies to bring at a time when no one's here. And I think that what the process you're doing, you need to do it. It's needed to be done for years. I applaud you. I thought we had kind of made that clear that this it needs to be done and we support it being done. However, we support it being done with the inclusion of conversation with the community. And in this case, you're voting on some major things next week, two weeks after you had a workshop. And all of this is occurring when parents are not here and community members are not here. And I think just the look of

183that is not good. I just wanted to clarify, I don't think anyone has been critical of the fact that you are reviewing and organizing policies. And I and I appreciate that. And see, even you didn't know that there weren't two workshops because I thought it was going to come. And after like. I was actually counting the notification and then the workshop and then and then the decision. So I was in my mind, there were three hops, but two of them were actually public meetings. And I appreciate the distinction. And I appreciate, you know, also kind of identification of the risk of living with policies and the like. So I, I hear you and I understand, you know, kind of the speed is new. This board has never, you know, moved at the speed that we're

184moving at these things. And we still have a lot of policies left to go. So I just encourage people to read them. Get get us your comments, make sure that we are aware of them. For those people that are in town, Mary, and for the people that that want to participate. The last point and MISS Leonardi and I have talked about this a lot, and there's issues related to data retention. Doctor Hepburn, do you know whether or not the contracts we have for supplemental software companies and other companies, do we have a zero data retention policy? Expound a little bit zero data retention. So z is kind of a national standard where a software company promises that the interaction with your students, for example, is never mind for advertisers or for their, you know, extensions

185and things like that. But basically, you can think about it as a student's interacting with something on canvas or clever. They're having that interaction when they're done, the experience can be summarized and sent to the vendor so that they can make the product better. But as soon as the, the, the computer is turned off, that data is never permanently stored by a vendor. Do you know if we do that yet in our contracts for software vendors? Yeah. So it sounds like more about privacy and the they need permission to actually use the data for any other action besides for the vendor or for the district. My assumption is, is yes, that's pretty tight, but I'll lean in on the gc or even MISS Jacque Adams because she does a lot of our contract negotiations. Yes.

186I'm going to defer that to MISS Jack Adams because she's very familiar with that language. Hello. So within our contracts we have very specific data that we allow for very specific purposes. So those data cannot be used for any other purpose than is listed in the contract. Yeah. Terrific. So just if you don't mind Doctor Hepburn as a follow on, could you could you let us know whether or not our contracts have a standard clause on zero data retention. And and to a process point, which I think is very important as well, is right now, to my understanding, we ask parents once a year whether or not they participate, MISS Jack Adams on on allowing their data to be shared with vendors. Is it once per year or is it once per software application? And

187I want to make sure that I understand your question. Within our contract, we do not have any language with regards to data retention within the software of the vendor. At the end of the at the expiration of the contract, any all data needs to be returned back to us. So there's no data that is being retained. And there was another part of your question I don't think I fully understood. So one, if there's no data retention policy in our current contracts, that's fine. I would just change my question, Doctor Hepburn, to ask, do we want to think about that going forward? Because I for one, don't think software companies should have the data available for our students. And I also don't like if this is the case, I don't like asking once a year for

188every software package in the world on whether a student's going to opt out of it. I. I would advocate for somomhing differenenthan that. And I I would j jt t k yououDoctor Heurn, whatt optionso o havebobo d dat Datatabobout partipipation in your own individual data being shared with companies on a on a software by software basis? I just feel like once a year is, and maybe this is one of. Doctor. MR. Cervera earlier points, you know, parents should have the rights to decide whether or not their data and their students data is shared with vendors. But if they just do it once a year as part of the student code of conduct, I don't think that's a I don't think that's like a really fair relationship with parents. I think we should ask them in

189a different way, and I'd leave it to you to think about some options and get back to the board. Last point about screen time. I cannot wait to talk a lot about that. You know, to Lily's point, you know, yes, we have to prepare kids to live in a digital world. No, tons of bad kinds of screen time is not good for them. And we have to be careful. And what's difficult for a school district, not just Broward, is that we tend to buy products one at a time. We we have great intent for all of them. And then sometimes, like we did with tests and assessment this year, we look at them and the board says, that's too much. You know, bring us an option for cutting in half. The same is also true

190of software. You can get software and instructional methods and things that by the time you look at it, a student could be on it so much that it's actually impinging them. I think it's a false choice between software and cursive. I think we can teach cursive and we can teach keyboards, and we can teach computer coding, and we can teach vibe coding. And ai is not the devil. It's scary sometimes, but there's a lot of positive sides to ai as well. And we do have to prepare people to live not only in a digital world, but we have to prepare them to live in an ai economy. And there's competencies for that. There's there's things like critical reasoning and logic that you have to have in order to really be effective in the ai world

191and the ai economy. So that debate is going to be interesting, but it's very someone used the word nuanced earlier. I'm not sure if it was you or someone else, but it is a complicated puzzle, and we got to figure out the right way to do this as a system, not just do it, you know, one label at a time. So I look forward to that chair. Thank you very much. Thank you. DR. Holness thank you, MADAM Chair. First, I'd like to commend Lily. You certainly eloquently shared your concerns regarding technology. I actually had some similar points, but you've worded it so well that I don't have to go into my point. So you certainly hit the ground running, right? As our new student advisor, Doctor Hepburn, can you repeat the direction given to you

192by board member Cervera in terms of technology? Yes. So a follow up about technology opting out of technology. What's the current opt out policy based on parental rights laws? Is it is there a current policy? What are state required resources as some additional stuff for information as well. What are our state required resources or assessments that are available only in technology? Are there options to opt out of those required state resources or assessments that are technology based to utilize paper, such as utilizing paper assessments? Okay, so Doctor Hepburn, would it be too much to also provide information in terms of the full scope of impact on students? Should teachers choose not to use technology in the classroom or potential impact? I can we can add about impact of what we do and what we're our

193intentions of what we're preparing students for. As far as you know, Lily said it beautifully about her expectations and going into the workforce in the future. Right? So that's, you know, kind of individual per student, but we can discuss what impacts of not utilizing certain certain technology resources MAY have on students and their preparedness for curriculum. Understand. So, you know, my position on this and, you know, I, I believe Lily said it so well, is that should a teacher or teachers choose not to use technology in the classroom at all, I think this would result in a total paralysis of a generation of students to be able to compete globally and nationally in an environment where increasing dependance on technology is so prevalent. In fact, I think it would be a disservice, probably even more,

194of an academic tragedy to our students. And it would set them back. You know, if I were to figuratively put this, I would say it's almost like breaking someone's arms and say, go play baseball. They won't be able to compete. They won't be able to compete with a whole generation of kids, adults globally. And it's going to be significantly impactful. Now, while teachers MAY have autonomy, as a past teacher, I can tell you we have an obligation to prepare students to be nationally and globally competitive. That's part of our obligation. And if we do anything to inhibit that, I think we are doing a disservice to our students. So there must be a balance to ensure that our students is able to survive in an increasingly competitive society based on technology. And I could even

195go further. I remember in and Lily, you MAY not know this, but there was a time when we we had no cell phones, right? There was a time when, when we when we had eventually we had beepers. So someone would beep you and you come off the road and you find a payphone, and then you go make a call. And then eventually, eventually they come up with a phone, portable phone that was about 2 to 3 pounds heavy. I had one of them in my car, and then eventually we had cell phones. So I've been through that transition. But imagine a company trying to be competitive to say, let's take away all the cell phones for our employees, and let's give them all beepers and go back to where we were. You'd never be able

196to compete. You know, it's, it's good to have thoughts about what it was like, but it's also important to adapt to what it is in a very careful way so we can ensure that our students are successful. Doctor Hepburn, regarding cursive writing, what are other major districts doing in terms of emphasis on cursive writing? I'm not aware. I have to do some research with other districts. I know you know, it's embedded in some grade levels in elementary school, but the state just did a mandate. So I'm assuming that all districts across the state will be ensuring that it's included across the board in curriculum. Okay. Can you provide any input on why we had strayed away from this? I, as far as straight away, is still being taught. Doctor Cole mentioned in third grade, so

197it hasn't been straight away. I don't think over time. I just, you know, anecdotally over time, just the advancement of technology laptops and, you know, moving away from typewriters and utilizing computers for more word processing and things like that. So and also the acts of students, be it k through 12 and post-secondary to turn in documents electronically versus turning in and turning in documents handwritten. So I think that's why you see the stray away totally from just turning in documents that were handwritten. Understand? I'm a kid who actually did shorthand as well too in school. So. Well, I can tell you I was very happy when emphasis when Microsoft Word took over because I didn't have the greatest handwriting. So it was really an awesome thing that they did. But how important is this skill

198in competing in all sectors of the job market to be able to have cursive writing is from from your knowledge, is it important? Is it an important skill to be able to compete, or is it a luxury to have? Anecdotally, from my discussion with business leaders, is a luxury to have. They're not talking to me about cursive writing. They're talking to me about specific skill sets for their industry and also soft skills to. Those are the two points soft skills with students being able to follow through onnitiatives, shake a hand, look somebody in eye speak and advocate for what you need and speak boldly. And also the specific skill sets needed for, for their, for their industries. Okay, so if we place greater emphasis on cursive writing, will it take away from any other aspects

199of the education process? And based on the state, we're going to be required to do that. And I think there's there's always been an emphasis on writing, not I'm not specifically talking about cursive writing, writing, and I can tell you our visit to the fbi. The fbi regional office down there in Miramar or North Miami, the. The person in charge pretty much told us the majority of their day is actually writing. It's not, you know, they have to write a lot of information to close the case, to get that judge to really close it out for them. And so there's an emphasis on writing, but as far as cursive, there's a state mandate. So it'll be included in our scope and sequence moving forward. Got it. And I have one more question. I believe it

200came from our multi language multilingual committee. I believe it was mentioned a suggestion for a minimum of two classrooms for dual language for kindergarten. Do you have any feedback on that. We'll have to take that back to the team and review. I understand the recommendation and probably some of the concerns as well. Okay. All right. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Thank you. And I know the student advisors would like to speak again. Okay, guys. We're back. Sorry. So I did a little count. And out of everyone in this room now, people have been going in and out. At least 39 of you have touched an electronic. At some point while I was counting whether it is a phone, a computer, anything. Hey, I'm not I'm not hating. I'm not trying to say you guys aren't listening

201or anything like that. I'm just saying at least 39 of you while I was looking and counting have touched some electronic. Right? So now that I have your attention, I would like everyone to take that electronic, whatever it MAY be, and go to the online sunshine website where we can find the Florida Statute on the parental Bill of rights. So I'll give you guys a second to do that. I'm not kidding. I want everyone to look at it. I'm not going to read the whole thing. Don't worry. But I'll give you guys a second, okay? Okay. I see some movement. Thank you, thank you. So that's the online sunshine and you're going to go it's title xlix chapter 1014 chapter online sunshine. It's the Florida statute website. Thank you. I'll give you guys a second.

202Hold on. Okay. I see you there. I see some people right. You're going 1014 parental bill of rights. So just that everyone's aware this is as of 2025 Florida statutes. So if you look at as a majority of people there, if you look at where is it d on their procedures pursuant to statute 1002.23 d for a parent to withdraw his or her minor child from any portion of the schools districts. Comprehensive health education required under. Oh wait, is that the right one? Sorry. Reading the wrong one. C sorry. Procedures pursuant to statute 1006.282 a two for a parent to object on instructional materials and other materials used in the classroom, such objections MAY be based on beliefs regarding morality, sex, and religion, or the belief that such materials are harmful. For a purpose of

203this section, the term instructional materials has the same meaning as in statute 1006 .292 and MAY include other materials used in the classroom, including workbooks and worksheets, handouts, software, application, and any digital media made available to students. And then if we scroll down to 11, you'll see in accordance with statute 1002 .2221 a the right of a parent to opt out of any district level data collection relating to his or her minor child, not required by law. So. That's just to kind of answer the question. I know MR. Cervera had asked about it earlier, and he said he wanted to wait for the research. I said, we can look it up that way. No one has to wait. So we have the information present. I know a lot of times some some things are a

204little bit slow. So if we ever have questions about statute, you guys can look on that website. But I think MR. Zeman or DR. Zeman touched on it. DR. Holness also went back to it. At the end of the day, just because we use laptops does not mean we don't know how to write as well. Raise your hand if you were using your electronic in the room today and I mean it. I want participation here. People. You guys have all participated in classrooms. Raise your hand if you also know how to write in cursive and know how to use a laptop. Does that mean. We write in cursive? You write well in cursive. Okay, put your hands down. Raise your hand if you feel that using a laptop has hindered you from being able to

205write in cursive. Yeah, because our handwriting. Okay, okay. Okay, okay, okay. But my point being is that clearly the two can work together. We're part of the younger generation, right, Allison? You as well. Right. I know how to write in cursive. Do you know how to write in cursive? You know how to rank cursive? I'm using my laptop. You're using your laptop? Do you know how to use a laptop? Guys, we can do both. We can do both. We can do it. I believe in us. So this is just I know I'm trying to be I'm trying to be funny with it. I think humor gets people to pay attention. But seriously, like, I really hope this does prove to you we can do both in the classroom. And students deserve to have both in

206the classroom. Now, obviously, if one teacher wants to use more tech or they want to use more paper, that's up to them, right? But we shouldn't just allow it to be taken out altogether, and we shouldn't make it the only way to learn. It's all about finding that balance. And Broward County, we should continue to push for us to have that balance so that students have all those skills. Think about it. Job applications. My you said it just now to me, on the side, almost every job application today is online, right? I previously had a job, my application online, our application for this guess where we found the documents online. It's it's unfortunate right? I know it's not the greatest thing. I look back at movies from the 80s and I'm like, wow, that was

207so nice. They didn't have, you know, they didn't have all that. You could just focus on life. You didn't have to use laptops all the time. But at the end of the day, it's here. It is here. Whether we like it or not, it is part of society today. We cannot avoid it. And it is not fair to our students to keep them from having the proper skills to work in today's world. Thank you. Well said. Lily. Where are you going? To law school. So I wanted to touch base with Cynthia. She left, though. She mentioned she mentioned student suicide and also mental health awareness. And I kind of wanted to clarification from her whether she was trying to say that maybe the district doesn't have enough resources for mental health awareness. I know she's

208not present or in the room anymore, but is there anyone that in over here that can kind of clarify that? Sort of clarify her statement? MADAM Chair, MAY I he's asking. Okay. Thank you. I've just been having an important conversation. There have been a couple of tragedies in recent hours and days. And I think one of the things that we might want to look at as an immediate issue is how much support is there for students over the summer. For some students, school is an outlet. Their home life MAY not be what everybody's is, and school is the place that they go to have support. They go to have food, they go to have folks around them that get them. And I think that's pretty urgent that we look at what can be done over

209the summer. I MAY be wrong, but I seem to recall from the org chart debates that we lost some suicide prevention specialists. I think we might want to look pretty rapidly at what the heck we were thinking. Or when I say we, you folks were thinking when that occurred, because there is an urgent need right now to look at what supports are available to students over the summer, and how do we let them know about them? Mental health is is something that I believe everyone in here has as a shared value and also a shared priority. And, you know, the district has done multiple things to, you know, encourage the youth and encourage them and, you know, sort of uplift them because students go through a lot of stuff. You know, they MAY it MAY

210seem like it's the end of the world for them, you know, until they step into adult life. So I would like to, you know, look back to other things that we have done. For example, the last year's alternative student advisor, Jacir, they hosted at South Broward, a youth mental health awareness summit, and they had hundreds of students there, hundreds of students. And, you know, among other things that we have done to support mental health awareness. And the reason, the reason I bring this all up is to say that our students should be the, the front and center of everything that we do and all the choices that we make and mental health has unfortunately gotten worse and worse and worse, especially with electronics. Now, nowadays, they're able to look at other people's lives. They're able

211to, you know, see other people having fun and say, hey, why am I not having as much fun as that person? So I'd like to also direct the question to MR. Superintendent, what, what procedures are in place currently for mental health awareness and things surrounding that, especially with, you know, her saying that with her saying that we lost from the org chart, the org chart, some people from the suicide prevention. And student support specialists. And student support specialists. Great question. And I have MISS Hollingsworth provide an answer to that question and also give specifics of what we actually lost as far as the suicide prevention folks, because I think it was people who were not directly supporting students. But go ahead, please. Good. I think it's afternoon. Good afternoon. Simone Hollingsworth, Chief Student Services Officer

212And Mikelle, very good question. Certainly, we do have support over the summer. We send out communication. We also have staff on board that are checking on our students, that have safety plans, that are both engaged in our summer experience, as well as at home. We certainly are constantly addressing the communication and the support. And although there's some adjustments with the org chart, we're going to still be continuing to engage with our student advisors and our Student voices group to ensure that we continue to hear that voice and get that perspective along with our schools. Yes, the student suicide prevention coordinators were eliminated. However, myself and the team, although they're still on staff right now, are adjusting that work because really realigning the work and making sure that that is out there and prevalent because we

213know that it is a concern as well as the specialists really redesigning our tire department, because the merging of student services and mental health back into one department is what we've been working on before the individuals transition out. And for any student that's maybe going through something over the summer where they're not able to speak to a teacher right away or speak to a counselor right away, what resources are available to them via online or whatever the case MAY be, for them to reachut to s somne who t they want help om.. Cororrect.Ee sllll havitit on nvnvas aselell as we send out weekly communications through parent links, through canvas, as well as putting it on our website so that we have that, you know, consistent messaging and support. Okay. Thank you, thank you. Thank you,

214MISS Bulman. Thank you, chair. And I think my colleagues have covered most things. I wanted to touch with base back to our student advisors. So first of all, you guys mentioned that you had the leadership summit or the training. My son actually participated in that and it was amazing. He had a fantastic experience. And so thank you. And also under the leadership of Landon and Jasir, so in great hands. And so I just want to point, I, I'm just so impressed. I've worked with you a little bit so far, but I'm so impressed with your comments today. And this is the why of why we have these jobs, I think. And to see you here defending your generation, making excellent points is just invaluable because you can always find the negative and find things to

215complain about. But to be able to really make a cogent argument and to see both sides of what's happening, I think is very important as a parent. Technology is scary. It's hard to deal with knowing that your kids are exposed to things that you certainly wouldn't want to have them exposed to, that you really don't have any control over. It's hard to have your kids go to middle school, and it's hard to watch them go and do all kinds of things that you've experienced yourself and you would rather protect them from, but you. But you can't. And I think the idea that we're going to shut down an entire part of what is the reality of the world right now is unreasonable. And so I just really appreciate your perspectives and bringing that because you're

216the ones that are living it. And there's nothing bad about what's happening in your generation. If we went and stayed in the generation that decided that they did everything right, we would never evolve as people and we wouldn't have rock and roll. So thank you guys. You guys are doing a great job. Keep up the good work. And I just appreciate the student perspective. It is really invaluable for us as we do our jobs. Thank you. And I'll be quick because I think the the bulk of what I wanted to talk about in response to the concerns that were raised. Really fits better into the the next workshop. And I just want to highlight the elementary subcommittee from dac and the report that they issued several weeks ago. I hope all my my colleagues had

217an opportunity to read that. It was very well researched and put together and gives us a lot to think about. And one thing that keeps coming up that I maybe don't think comes fits so well into the next workshop is access to YouTube on district devices. And I can say, you know, as a, as a teacher, I used YouTube videos to, to help supplement some of my instruction. I did, you know, it wasn't a regular thing. And sometimes I would maybe have assigned it, you know, a video in small groups and things like that. But I am increasingly concerned because I don't think they had this when I was in the classroom of the access to YouTube shorts on district devices, because that is very different than having students watch like a 1967 clip of

218Romeo and Juliet. And I continue to hear from parents that they really don't want their children to have access to YouTube in general, but YouTube shorts specifically on district devices. And I understand as well that like a kid can take out their own device and watch that. But I think part of the larger conversation that we'll have in the next workshop is like what we as a school district are giving kids access to. We have to have we have to, in good conscience, feel that it is safe and good for children. So I'm wondering, Doctor Hepburn, if our staff has contemplated what that would look like, restricting further restricting access to YouTube on district devices. I want to be respectful of teacher autonomy, but I'm starting to feel like. And I think what I'm hearing

219from parents is that the risks or the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of of allowing access to YouTube in our schools. Yes. Thanks for the question. So it's honestly, it's my first time. I've heard concerns about YouTube on district devices. So we can take that conversation back to the team, assess what kids have access to, specifically the shorts, and figure out a way to enhance filters or whatever the case MAY be. I do know this previous two districts that there are certain content that is blocked. It can't get through YouTube, right? When you search for certain things or certain videos on on district Wi-Fi. So we can, I can take that conversation back to the it team and see how we can, if certain things are getting through the filters, how we can enhance the filters

220to make sure kids don't have access to that. Thank you. When can we expect that follow up? Yeah, we can give that to you in two weeks. Okay. I'll log it as a follow up so we can get it traditionally in a week or two. Thank you. And I tend to lean in the Cervera camp when it comes to parental opt outs. When it comes to technology. And I understand that we have to be respectful of teacher autonomy. So, you know, as a parent, if I had a choice, like my children would be learning with clay and sticks and rocks all day long outside. But I know that that is not reality forever. But I would like to preserve their childhood for as long as possible. So I think, you know, again, this this conversation

221I think will have more in the next workshop, but I really look forward to that follow up about what parental opting out can look like, while also respecting teacher autonomy. And I think, you know, I would love to reference our previous student advisor, Landon Spellberg. He, he talked frequently about how he had a teacher, I think it was ap lit. Shout out to our English teachers where the teacher didn't use a single device the entire year, and he would leave school board meetings to go attend that class. And then he had teachers who used technology all year long, and that was equally as engaging. So I think, you know, it doesn't have to be all or one in different teachers have different teaching styles and we can't mandate one thing for all teachers. So I

222think I DR. Zeman was the one who used the word nuanced, but this is a nuanced conversation that we we really need to have more detailed discussions on. But I really want us to keep at the forefront. Obviously, student safety and protection, but also teacher autonomy. MR. Cervera. Thank you, chair, and I appreciate the comment about the Cervera camp. The Cervera camp is a really good camp to be a part of sometimes. Sometimes. Right? Yeah. There you go. Exactly. DR. Zeman nailed it. She left. I was going to give her kudos on pulling up the statute. See that? Oh, well, Doctor Hepburn, you better watch out. She MAY be replacing you in a couple of years, so don't get too comfortable in that seat. Sir, the seat is open. See that? Real quick. I just

223want to make sure that that my ask is is, is clear because I know Doctor Holness had some some an additional commentary on it. The ask that I'm requesting of you, sir, in a follow up is very specific. What is our obligations under parental opt outs, under the statute and what is the procedure for doing that? I'm I'm really in this particular follow up. I'm not interested in a breakdown of what the district believes. What good comes of this or what bad comes of this. I don't need the commentary. I just want a, a follow up outlining the specific options for parents who want to just the facts who want to opt out. That's all I'm interested in. If DR. Holness needs a follow up with his inquiries, that's fine, but on my follow up,

224I just need it specifically what I asked and I and I would note and close with this teacher. Autonomy is very important to me. I've never taught, but certainly I've dealt with enough teachers throughout the course of my life, including the time on this board. And I understand that they are the captains, if you will, of their classrooms and them having the autonomy to decide what their curriculum looks like is certainly something that needs to be respected, as well as the rights of parents in deciding what is best for their kids. These are all important mandates that we need to adhere to in Broward schools. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Any other board discussion? All right. Thank you to our chairs and staff. The next item is Broward powered by ai vision and system

225readiness. We'll briefly recess just to to transition. [Music] Welcome back. Our next item is Broward powered by ai vision and system readiness. I now turn it over to staff for a presentation. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Now I'll turn it over to Doctor Cohen and team for the presentation. Good morning. School board members, chair and superintendent. I'll start by saying today it's not simply a presentation about artificial intelligence. It's a presentation about leadership. So every generation faces moments when technology changes the way people work, communicate and learn. Can we get the PowerPoint up? The question for public education has never been whether change will come. The question is whether we will help shape it. And today we will share how Broward County Public Schools is approaching artificial intelligence with intention, with governance, transparency and relentless focus

226on students. This is not a technology presentation. This is a teacher and student opportunity presentation. And like most districts, Broward County Public Schools is operating during one of the most significant educational transformation shifts in workforce history. Artificial intelligence, immersive technologies, automation, and digital transformation are reshaping nearly every position of our students and will and what they will encounter as they move into the workforce. Our responsibility is not simply to expose students to technology. Our responsibility is to prepare them to thrive in a world being transformed by technology. So today's presentation outlines our vision, our implementation strategy, our safeguards, our governance model, as well as our future innovation roadmap. Most importantly, it demonstrates how Broward intends to lead responsibly rather than react passively. In this presentation unfolds three connected parts. First, we'll discuss why technology evolution

227requires educational evolution. Then we'll move into how we demonstrate how Broward has built an infrastructure, professional learning systems, governance structures and implementation supports necessary to respond and deploy ai. Third, we will share our vision around the Nova Innovation Zone, which is a transformative model that reimagines learning for the future workforce. I'd like you to take a moment to look at this particular slide. It demonstrates that our kindergarten students today were born in 2019. Our middle school students were born in 2012, and our high school students were born around 2009. In many of our post-secondary learners were born around 2004. Now look at the technology timeline beneath them. The students sitting in our classrooms today have never experienced the same world. Our middle school students entered a world shaped by cloud technology and connected devices. Our

228elementary students are growing up with artificial intelligence, immersive technology, and digital assistants already embedded into their daily lives, and our youngest learners will graduate into careers that have not yet been invented. That realization is extremely important because when we discuss artificial intelligence, we are not discussing the future possibility. We're discussing the world our students already inhabit. Every generation of our students has encountered technologies that seemed disruptive at times, from television to cell phones. And you heard from today beepers, smartphones, cloud computing, social media. Each arrival created uncertainty. Each arrival created concern. But history shows us something important. Schools and districts have to adapt to those expanded opportunities. Schools that ignore change eventually find themselves trying to catch up. The question before us today is not whether artificial intelligence will influence education. It already has. The

229question is whether Broward County Public Schools will help shape how students use these tools responsibly, ethically and prododtively. B Becau ourur ststenen are alreaea ininteractgg w withii when they search online, when they receive recommendations on social media, when they use navigation tools, and when they communicate through digital platforms, and when they engage in emerging workforce technologies. The technology has arrived. Our responsibility is not to decide whether it exists. Our responsibility is to decide whether we prepare students to live, work and lead in a world where it does. That is why Broward, powered by ai, is fundamentally not the technology initiative. It is a student readiness initiative. It is a workforce readiness initiative. It is an opportunity initiative. And most importantly, it's a leadership initiative because every generation of educational leaders faces a defining question Will

230we prepare students for the world we grew up in or for the world they will inherit? So today, my hope is that Broward County Public Schools is choosing to prepare our students for the world they will inherit. And so I want to kick off first. We'll transition a little bit differently due to timing. I'm going to have our students speak. And then following that, I'm going to have one of our community members follow that presentation. So can we start with where is our start with you? Alrighty. Good morning superintendent. School board members. Much as I wish I was still a student, I'm not. My name is Joe Cox. I'm a PRESIDENT And ceo of the Museum of Discovery and Science. When people talk about artificial intelligence, they often ask what ai will do to us

231at the museum. We're becoming much more interested in a different question. What will we choose to do with ai? Artificial intelligence is transforming our world. It's changing how businesses operate, how scientific discoveries are made, how we learn, and how we teach. These young students graduating from Broward County Public Schools will enter a world where ai is not a future technology. It's part of the workforce, the economy, and daily life. This makes initiatives like Broward powered by ai incredibly important, because the goal is much more than teaching students and teachers how to use ai tools. The goal must be helping them to develop the judgment, to question these tools, the creativity to improve them, and the character to use them responsibly. At mods, we've been exploring this challenge quite a bit. Our very first ai exhibit,

232a 200 zero square foot immersive Everglades Theater, part of our new Build a Better World exhibit opens this Thursday. We're examining in the exhibit how ai can help communities address complex environmental challenges, while encouraging visitors to think critically about the choices we make as a society. This coming school year, we're launching new ai literacy initiatives that will explore both the opportunities and responsibilities that come with these technologies through hands on learning labs, both at the museum and in schools, as well as at events like our free Visit Lauderdale Science Festival. Most importantly, perhaps, we are part of a national conversation and fingers crossed. Hoping to host a national conference in the fall. Among science centers, children's museums, educators, researchers, and community leaders about how we build not just ai literacy, but public agency in an

233age of artificial intelligence. Because ultimately, the future cannot be shaped by artificial intelligence alone. It must be shaped by the human intelligence, creativity, and character that we bring to it. At the museum. We are talking recently, often about four essential qualities the critical thinking needed to evaluate information and challenge assumptions, the cooperation to solve problems that no single person or technology can solve. Caring to ensure innovation serves people and their communities, and the confidence to engage with new technologies thoughtfully rather than fearfully. When we get this right, Broward, powered by ai, will do more than prepare students to use ai. It will develop citizens who understand it, question it, improve it, and ensures that it serves the public good. We're excited to be part of this process because that's a future world worth building together.

234Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Lily. Okay, first of all, I love that museum. I feel like I just heard a celebrity speak, so I went to that ai exhibit. It was so cool. So I'm just. That's all I'm gonna say about that. It clearly did something good. So thank you. So cool. Everyone needs to go do it. Okay, so I'm going to begin with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Fear always springs from ignorance. And I don't mean that in a hateful way. I know ignorance is kind of thrown around in a mean way. I don't mean it like that, but it is the lack of education and understanding of something. And when it comes to ai, I think it's better that we teach our students that just because something is new does not mean it

235needs to be scary. So I have a question, guys. I love asking questions. It keeps people engaged. How many people in this room have honestly spent time trying to understand ai? And I don't mean I don't mean you've played around with it for a few hours. You've read a little article. I mean weeks, if not months on it. You have genuinely put in time and effort to fully understand it. Okay, good. Good. Because me too. I've taken classes on it. I've written research papers on it. I am all about it. So with that, I say, why don't we give that same time to our students, right? Why don't we allow them to deep dive into ai and show them how powerful it is? Because if you, all of you who are raising your hands truly

236have spent that much time on it, you will understand the power that ai has. Like we thought computers were cool. This is something completely different as our gifted advisory council, who I think has now left but had mentioned earlier, he wanted to see specific ways that it could be used. Right? Because I think everyone talks ai is good, ai is good, but we don't get into the specifics. So Los Angeles Unified School District has a 247 student advisor, not a student advisors, but advisor to students to help them better understand the college process. Along with Albuquerque, who the school board in Albuquerque who has adapted lesson plans specifically to students through ai and Miami-Dade, who has an ai powered S.A.T. Prep bot available to all of their students. Additionally, ai bots have allowed students with

237autism and adhd to practice real life scenarios and social settings. I think our Esq representative has also left, but I'm sure she would love. Oh, have you heard about those? Have you seen those? No, it's a thing. It's coming for our students. It's great. And I think overall we need to show students how to use it as a tutor. That's personally what I've done. I actually have an example to give you guys. I'm terrible at math, terrible. And I'm incredibly embarrassed about it because I forget what math terms are. And my teacher will tell me, obviously I know what fractions are, but just for an example, they'll say you have For these fractions. I'm like, I forgot what that is. So this is copilot, which is what Broward uses. And I put in some old

238an old math lesson. My teacher would put up the presentation and the work on a pdf. You can download it and look over it. I looked at that for a second. I was like, I don't even remember what this is. I put it into ai, and as I'm scrolling up here, I don't know if everyone can see. It gave me practice problems. It explained it in non-mathematical terms for me who does not always understand them. And I went through and I fully relearned this lesson that I forgot what was going on. And it's important that we teach our students how to do this. I've spent probably two years now learning all about ai and deeply understanding it, and I can use it as a tool now. And our students should be taught to do the

239same. Hey. Great job Lilly. Great job. [Laughter] Over the past year or so. I've had a lot of conversations with students across the district. And I would say one thing is very, very clear. Students understand both the potential of ai and the dangers if it's used the wrong way. I like to look at the bad and the good and kind of, you know, find them in between. So that's not just only high schoolers. Middle school students are also using these tools as well, even off more often than we realize now, I was trying to find district related data surrounding this, and I could not. So I found a national survey that shows over 60% of high schoolers have used ai for schoolwork. But what surprises people is that more than one third of middle school

240students report using ai as well, which usually without any real guidance, can turn out really bad. And almost half of all of the students are saying they are unsure how to use ai ethically or safely. And that uncertainty. Uncertainty is exactly why structured guidance in schools matters. Students know the risk. We know ai can generate wrong information confidently, very confidently, and we know it can reflect bias. We know it can make it easier to take shortcuts if someone chooses to. And we know that if students rely on ai instead of thinking for themselves, it will hurt them in the long run. And that's why students aren't asking and we aren't asking for unlimited access. That is not what this is. It is not unlimited access whatsoever. We're asking for a structured access with expectations, guardrails,

241and teacher guidance. Because when ai is used the right way, it actually strengthens learning. Now, for example, when I'm working on a writing assignment, someone will use ai to brainstorm ideas or get feedback on clarity. But the actual thinking, the analysis, the structure, the voice, it's still coming from that student and it helps the person become stronger not to avoid the work because they're still doing the work themselves. They're just getting more ideas using ai. And even with those tools, teachers remain the center of all of our learning. This is not replacing teachers whatsoever. And when I was looking through through the presentation, I was kind of skeptical at first. And then I was starting to see things, see analysis. I'm also on the ai task force. So I was also, you know, in the

242process of reviewing these things and reviewing these ethical things that they are putting forth. So students understand that these tools are part of the future. Colleges and employers are already integrating ai into research, communication, design and operations. So if we don't learn how to use ai responsibly now, starting early as middle school, we risk being unprepared. We risk having our students unprepared for the real world. Which school is supposed to do. So? From what I've seen and what I've heard, we want to learn how to use ai in ways that helps us grow, think critically, and prepare us for the world we're stepping into. With the right balance. I believe ai can strengthen our learning in Broward, not weaken it, and help us help ensure that all of our Broward students can truly be future

243ready. And that's something that we all want in this room. Thank you. If we can put the slide deck back up. And so for for more than a century, schools were primarily designed around seat time. And the future demands something somewhat different. Success will increasingly be defined by what students can do with that knowledge, as you heard from our student representatives. And it's not simply what they can memorize, we're moving towards deeper application, critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, and ethical decision making in artificial intelligence does not diminish the need for those skills. It increases their importance. And because when information becomes abundant, judgment becomes invaluable. And so innovation without governance, as you heard, creates those risks. Governance without innovation creates irrelevance. And the policy exists to strike the proper balance. The policy clearly establishes

244what approved tools human accountability, ethical use, transparency, student protections, and parent communication. This is not a policy designed to accelerate technology. It is a policy designed to protect students while enabling responsible innovation. And so let me be clear ai is not replacing teachers. It's not about replacing relationships. It's not about replacing human judgment. Teachers remain the most important variable in understanding student learning and. Our vision is simple. Technology handles the routine tasks. Educators spend more time teaching, mentoring and inspiring and building relationships. Human intelligence leads artificial artificial intelligence assist. And so one of the greatest risk districts face is fragmented innovation. And we've seen that in large districts, separate initiatives, separate training systems, separate expectations, separate outcomes. But powered by ai is intentionally designed with one coherent system ai, vr, xr, professional learning, governance, all

245connected through a single blueprint. This ensures consistency, scalability, accountability, and sustainability. In this vision, without implementation is merely aspirational. And so what makes Broward different is the infrastructure already in place. And so what we have is every school has ai liaisons, professional learning pathways. We also have a leader professional pathway with leadership ai standards. We have stakeholder engagement. We have evaluation systems. We have implementation supports. Our goal is not deployment. Our goal is capacity building. And we are building educators who understand how to use ai responsibly, effectively and ethically. And over the past 18 months, Broward moved deliberately. This work has included stakeholder engagement, governance, deployment, training systems, policy designs. Recently, we had ai symposiums very well. Turned out we had implementation planning and we had we have professional learning frameworks. This has been about

246not purchasing technology. And we hear that a lot. It's more about building readiness. And I would like to introduce two individuals who represent members of our stakeholder groups. One, a teacher, Donna Maggio and Aaron Gold. Hi, my name is Donna Maggio, and I'm a media specialist and an ai liaison at Coral Springs High School. And I've been teaching for 29 years. Like many teachers, I initially approached ai cautiously, but this year, in my role as ai liaison, I introduced Magic School ai and during Professional Development Day and saw its impact firsthand. And in ninth grade, reading class. After teaching a skill and reviewing student assessment data, ai was used to create teacher generated, student centered activities to reinforce and extend learning. The ai platform helped to quickly create differentiated supports, vocabulary practice, and reading activities

247tailored to students at diverse levels that help them both remediate and enrich each skill. This gave the teacher time more time for individual feedback and direct student support. The result was stronger Pgm3 performance than originally projected. Ai did not replace the teacher. It created more time for meaningful instruction, individualized feedback, and stronger connections with students, while also making it easier to differentiate learning to meet a wider range of needs. The most important thing ai gives me is more time. More time for relationships, meaningful feedback, and the kind of instruction that truly meets students where they are. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. And I also want to acknowledge I used copilot to help refine the points I wanted to share with you today. [Laughter] That's great. Aaron, go. Good afternoon. So one of my

248favorite things about I'm chair of the Parent Community Involvement Task Force for the district. And one of my very favorite things about serving on that body is that I get to listen. I get to listen to parents a lot, and I get to hear what families are excited about. I get to hear what concerns them. I get to hear what questions they are asking and what they hope for their children in their schools. So I want to make sure we're grounding this conversation in that as well. Over the past several weeks, I have listened closely to parents at the ai symposium and to the many conversations since then. And what I have heard is what parents have always wanted from their schools is what they still want out of this. They want their children to

249be safe. They want them to be supported, and they want them to be prepared for for the future. Parents understand that ai is already here. Some are hopeful and enthusiastic about its potential. They see opportunities to improve district operations and services to support personalized learning like Lily was talking about, to increase accessibility and help students develop skills they will need beyond graduation. Some are downright scared. This is really the tension we've heard here this morning, right? We want to make sure our kids are prepared, but we also want to make sure they're protected. It is complicated. It is nuanced. So I'm really excited we're having this conversation. It is really critical that we keep this full spectrum of parents in mind as we're making decisions, and often those things can live within the same person

250too. It's not one or the other. But I can say pretty confidently that everyone I've spoken to wants us to get this right. Parents want to make sure their children are developing key foundational skills before we hand them a tool that can do it right. Things like critical thinking, communication, compassion, creativity, and problem solving. Parents are asking really important questions. How do we ensure ai supports learning rather than replaces it? How do we protect student privacy and data? How do we maintain academic integrity? How do we teach students not only how to use these tools, but how to do it responsibly, ethically, safely, when they shouldn't use them? And we've talked about it here, but parents are really worried about replacing a teacher, right? Teachers are the heart and soul of our classrooms. And so

251we just need to make sure and I'm so happy what I've already heard, but that we're constantly having that at the forefront front. This is supposed to enrich the learning, not replace great instruction from teachers. The last bit, and I might go a tiny bit over, but parents are hungry for information. They want to be informed. They want to be partners. Some are starting from I don't know anything about ai. Some have PhDs and are the ai symposium. They want to know where they can find the implementation timelines, the policies, and that needs to be ongoing. So I think we can do this right. I think we're doing the right things. And we I think we can also stay true to the values we've expressed here. And so I'm excited to see what this can

252look like going forward. Thank you. Thank you. We now have a video that we want to introduce. On the last day of school, we asked a couple students at South Plantation High. What advice would you give the school district about implementing ai in the classroooooror with students? Can rollhat? So I would say ai is the hope for the classroom, not the classroom. It might be useful for teachers in a way where it could help them. It could help train them like I've already seen, kind of like Zoom calls where like the teachers will learn with like fake ai students. Student wise, giving them the power to use ai. To be honest, I think they should, but like not too much power, if you get what I'm saying. My main piece of advice would be to

253go through the models and discover the individual strengths and weaknesses of each one, to figure out the best, you know, application process. They've already kind of started implementing it. Teachers are like checking, I think canvas has an ai like checker. I think they blocked them on school computers. I think they're doing pretty good on that. I was just really tell the district just to start with the teachers, like give them workshops probably and stuff like that to like how to implement it in their classroom in a better way. I feel like if you depend on ai too much and you're letting it and you're just letting it take control of your life and do whatever that you want, like you're making it do whatever it wants, it might not always get it right. And now

254if you're thinking that it is right and it really isn't, it's spreading false information and it's not really good for the human person. Try to embrace ai and say, hey, you know what? We're also going to use ai to have these assignments tailored towards you to help you. How can I help you use ai? The best way possible? [Music] Presentation, please. So now we're going to segue into part two, which begins an important premise. Innovation without governance creates risks. Governance without innovation creates irrelevance. And so our responsibility is that the district has to succeed with ai. And in that we will, as a district be stronger through governance. Our commitment is to be responsible through innovation and not rapid innovation, but responsible innovation. And so this work was not developed in isolation. We spent a

255ton of time, as you heard from many committee members who spoke, that they were engaged in some of the work we did around policy and governance and guardrails. We collected a lot of feedback at the JUNE 5th ai Symposium from students, teachers, administrators, parents. We will continue to get that feedback as well. We've heard from business leaders, community partners, research based institutions, all contributed feedback. And that feedback directly shaped both the policy and implementation approach. This work will continue as bcc has joined several districts to lead the way in policy and governance. In two parts nationally through Impact Florida, we've also joined the Helios Foundation. We're also co-sponsored in several grants that help to champion principles around parent and teacher engagement and ai literacy and policy implementation, and safeguarding how we roll out our student

256deployment initiative. I want to hand it off to governance around administration. Good afternoon. My name is Jeanette Dean, and I serve as an assistant principal at Miramar High School and as a member of Broward's ai liaison team. As school leaders, there's one resource we never seem to have enough of, and that's time. Every day, we're supporting students, coaching teachers, responding to families, reviewing data, solving problems, attending meetings, and ensuring we're present in classrooms where the real work of learning happens. So when people ask me about artificial intelligence, my answer's actually pretty simple. The most valuable thing ai has given me isn't technology. It's time. In my work as an assistant principal, I've used ai to identify trends across classroom walkthroughs, analyze professional learning needs, and synthesize information from policies, procedures, and other sources to support

257informed decision making. Now, I want to be very clear about something. Ai doesn't make those decisions. I do. The technology helps me process information more efficiently, but professional judgment, experience, and context still matter most. And honestly, that's what excites me most about this work. Not because it makes leadership any easier, but because it creates more space for the parts of leadership that matter the most. More conversations with teachers, more support for students. More engagement with families. More time spent in classrooms instead of behind a desk. In my work with educators, school leaders in the community, I always come back to the same idea. Technology should strengthen human capacity, not replace human resume. What I've seen across Broward County is a thoughtful approach to that balance. We're building guardrails and ensuring that human judgment remains at

258the center of every important decision. Because despite all of the conversations happening about artificial intelligence, there are still some things the ai cannot do. It can't build trust with the student. It can't understand the nuance of family situations. It can't inspire teachers. And it definitely cannot survive a day as an assistant principal. That work still belongs to people. As both a school leader and a doctoral student studying curriculum and instruction, I believe our responsibility isn't to shield students from emerging technology, but to prepare them to engage thoughtfully, ethically and responsibly. The future our students will enter will include artificial intelligence. Our job is to ensure they enter that future with wisdom, critical thinking, and strong human values. From where I sit as a school leader, that's exactly the balance Broward is working to achieve. Thank

259you. Thank you. Presentation. And so what you've echoed from many of our speakers is around purposeful, limited use quality over quantity. And then most importantly, human centered learning. And that we recognize that through this discourse and the follow up conversations that we have to collect collectively, think about everyone's perspectives and where they are, and then come to a balanced approach in terms of how we look at ai implemented into broad part by ai. And so what ai should support, and you've heard this is through planning and lesson development, timely feedback, assessing multilingual supports, data analysis and teacher administration. But what it should also recognize is that some learning experiences are best done without ai in screens. We've heard that repeatedly throughout this time. Students must benefit from discussions, collaborations through reading, writing, and through hands

260on learning and technology has to help shape the way in which classrooms look differently today. But there has to be this balance. And so now I'll turn it over to Manny, executive director, to take the next part of this. Thank you, Doctor Cohen. Manny Castaneda, executive Director of analytics and intelligence. And I'd like to talk a little bit about what helped guide the ai policy that we're currently drafting, going to present to the board in the near future. And there are five overlying themes, and these didn't occur, as Doctor Cohen said in a vacuum. They were guided by a lot of work, by a lot of very qualified people. And I want to give kudos where kudos are due. The ai task force, which was established almost two years ago and includes teachers and includes

261district staff and administrators, school staff and administrators, ai liaisons and most importantly, it includes students. And this group really had a really came up with all of these ideas that helped inform it. And as you're going to learn in other slides, there's also many other groups that are contributing to the policy outside of that. So the five key themes that appear in the policy are the responsible and ethical use of ai across both instruction and operations, and having a unified vision for ai across the district. The fact that there must be human oversight and accountability for every ai supported decision. Ai doesn't make decisions we do. When we went with Microsoft Copilot, the name actually aligns. You have copilot, but you got to have a pilot. Third was student safety, student safety, data privacy are

262paramount, not just student data, but staff data as well. And I am happy to say this district has some of the strongest data protections that exist. I came from another district, so I've seen or I have a comparison to make. But our collaboration here between isd Risk management and the General Council have resulted in very, very stringent data protections that are in all of our contracts, especially the ones that are with our ai partners, and then also instructional integrity that protects the quality of teaching and learning. And this also leads into the final of balance, because there's been a lot of talk about focusing too heavily on technology. And I think there's also been a lot of talk about achieving that balance between screen time and between time when you get to engage in other

263activities that are just as important. So the policy needs to reflect that ai is not something you simply turn kids over to as a substitute for instruction, but something that complements it. So here we go to a slide where we talk about what our fears that have come up time and time again. The fear that is within all of us with something new, especially ai, is that it's going to take over jobs. It's going to take over human thinking. And the truth is that if ai is taught responsibly and ethically, that is not what it's here to do. And I had all these comments prepared about the feedback loop between human and ai. But Mikhail here, he stole all my thunder because he said it much better than I would have. But it's that connection

264between the human, between the pilot and the ai and the feedback, and then the reconnection. That helps. A lot of it really has to do with what kind of tasks is ai really good at. And we can talk about instructional use cases. And there were many that were brought up in the recent symposium that are very valuable. And the one that really brought up of differentiated instruction with mathematics. That's a great one. But I'd also like to focus on a lot of the things that I think MISS Dean mentioned. And quite frankly, when I became a teacher many years ago, I taught for over a decade. I didn't want to fill out forms. I didn't want to read email. I didn't want to digest 100 page manuals. I wanted to teach. And what ai has

265allowed us to do, and what this district is heavily invested in, is in giving time back to the teachers, giving time back to administrators to be able to focus on the higher order thinking and the higher order decisions, so that a lot of the operational use cases that MISS Dean mentioned of doing data analysis, of doing trend analysis, of crafting communications, and ensuring that they're, they're grammatically correct. And they, they convey the proper message of synthesizing information. All of those are things that ai can help with and give us actual time back to spend with our students and making decisions. Now, a little bit about the process and what we call some of the four pillars that I know Doctor Cohen mentioned earlier, that have gone into the policy itself. And again, they center on

266the human being, the decision maker, those those stickers where you say, I'm the human in the loop, those are intentional. Humans are always and always should be in control of the process. The focus on student benefit and instructional integrity, safety, privacy, and cyber security. Again, like I mentioned earlier, and then equity, accessibility and bias mitigation, one of the decisions this district made, and I think it should be highlighted many other districts, and we're partnering with many other districts in the state in their ai journey. They've offered ai tools for staff to a few. You have some administrators, some principals, etc. We have gone all in. If we're going to teach students how to engage with ai, well, our staff should know how to engage with ai and how to use it. Our instructional and non-instructional

267staff. That's why we are the leaders in the world. With the deployment of 20,000 premium licenses and the Microsoft Copilot platform that have been given to almost all staff in the district. So that is an important way of ensuring that everybody has access and equitable access, and that as we work with students, we're able to communicate and double down on that. Now, we didn't just roll out all these licenses and let people to their own devices. There's significant support that is being provided or has been provided. I as I mentioned earlier, the ai task force was critical, and it was spearheaded through the Office of Innovative Learning through Doctor Cohen's office and Doctor Sherry Wilson leading that task force. They developed the bk Ethical Implementation Guide, which is really the guide that helped helped craft

268the draft policy that that we're going to introduce. We have and are and have developed and are currently developing ai governance and review processes. We have taken great effort in ensuring that any tool that we expose our students to are being tested at a higher bar than we believe many others have. We are looking for real time moderation and real time threat detection, which is something most tools don't provide. And I'm going to be honest with you. Currently, copilot doesn't provide at scale, which is why we haven't deployed Microsoft Copilot to all of our students. It doesn't provide that level of protection. However, other tools that we've tested have and will be deploying them next year. So we're, we're, we're ensuring that although staff have are all in and have access, but with our students,

269we're being very careful how we deploy because again, remember the pillar student protection always protect the student first. We have a significant investment in professional learning in ai literacy. We have a lot of work that's been done on the instructional side through the Office of Innovative Learning. Then we have a lot of work that's been done on the isd side with operational use cases through through Doctor Darrell Diamond, and all of these are being all put together into a hub that's being developed and is currently in pilot stage, which is going to contain all of the resources so that all staff have one one stop shop for getting any information and any resources on ai. And I wanted to close because I'm going to talk about continuous monitoring in a second, but I want to

270talk about community and stakeholder engagement. And this goes to a lot of the work that we've done in reaching out the policy itself. We've reached out, obviously, the ai task force helped craft it. We've reached out to the district advisory committee. We've received input from the Technology Advisory Committee. We've sent it to btu to Principal and administration and assistant principal groups. We've sent it out to our actual cte students that are participating in the ai academies to get input on this policy. And soon, when we present it for rulemaking, then we'll have the input of the board directly on the policy and how it can affect. But this is something that we've taken great, great pains to ensure we get as much engagement as possible. And we had the privilege. I had the privilege of

271participating in the leadership Week this last week and in the ai symposium, where we got some wonderful feedback and input from parents and stakeholders in the community. So let's talk a little about our call to action. And I can't emphasize enough that. And this Doctor Cohen said, ai is here. It's changing the way organizations work. It's changing the way education is done. We can either choose to lead and be proactive as to how it's taught and to ensure that it's taught so that students can use it responsibly. Or we can step back and then they, like many other skills, they can learn it on their own and at their peril. So we've chosen to be proactive. We've chosen to protect students and staff first. We've chosen to have clear governance and to establish procedures to,

272to, to test and vet ai tools. We've also chosen to support innovation, but responsibly. And here I want to give some a shout out to, to our students at Nova and the ai Academy because they are developing a chat bot. And I would ask our student advisors that did the research to la unified. Did their students create that chatbot or the one in Albuquerque? Because when we release ours, it's going to be created by our students. But in saying that, we're not just having the students create the chat bot and publishing it, we're developing vetting protocols around it to make sure that what's been created is safe, doesn't expose data. We're running it through the same development process that we run our applications to. When we develop applications in isd. And that leads me to

273the last part about preparing students for the future. And again, I had a whole lot of discussion here about the false dichotomy between it's not technology versus traditional. But then Lily stole my thunder and said it much better than I ever would. So I'm, I'm going to skip much of that. But I do want to mention that we talk about preparing students for the future. And, and, and there they sit, these these two students right here. That's the future we should aspire to for the rest of our students. These students seem to me, and I hate to call you out, but they seem to be well adjusted, well rounded. They seem to be good critical thinkers. I'm going to assume that they can write well. I already know they can communicate well, and I certainly

274know they can use technology well. And that's what we should aspire to. That kind of balance in how we educate our students and, and work with our staff. And finally, I want to talk about continuous monitoring and improvement. When I tell you that ai is changing, it's not just changing by the year, it's changing by the day. The models that are being released now are exponentially better and different, and can do more things than the ones that we were using three months ago. It's very hard to keep up, but what we're doing here is we're ensuring thahae have continuous r revw ofheheools that are outut there, continus testing a and vetting o those tools on when to incorporate them, on what technologies are evolving, continuous reaching out to our stakeholder groups to through our ai

275liaisons and our ai task force and through our community and business partners and our advisory groups. And we're measuring things. Yes. And one of the things that we definitely have doubled down on is measuring how ai is being used, how it's being used at schools, for what purpose, which tools are being used more than others. These are things that we've baked in to our copilot deployment, and it's going to be integral in the Microsoft challenge coming next year, where schools are going to be rewarded for ai engagement. And it's also something that we're building with our partners in Magic School to ensure we have metrics there that can measure. And since that will be our first student facing tool, those are going to be critical into ensuring and seeing how students are using it and

276for what purpose. All of these things lead into the crafting of this policy, which is why when you when we do present the policy, you're going to see something that is flexible and can change over time, because that's what happens with ai. So now I'm going to turn it back to what I think is going to be my favorite part of the presentation. To talk about the Nova Innovation Zone. Back to Doctor Cone. Thank you Manny. So everything we've discussed thus far today focused on system readiness. Now I want to talk about possibility. The Nova Innovation Zone represents the next evolution of public education. This is not a technology project. This is a redesign of student experience. This is a redesign of taking the current educational model that was designed during the industrial era. Students

277moved through content largely based on the Carnegie model. And so we wanted to take a look at how students, in most cases, are assessed the same ways that we all grew up, and that the future requires us to think a little bit differently about public education, and that the Nova Innovation Zone is designed around competency, application, innovation, workforce relevance, and authentic problem solving. And so Nova becomes our innovation laboratory here. It's a place where we explore mastery based progression, ai embedded personalization, project based learning, university supported pathways. The goal is not to abandon standards. The goal is to build beyond standards. Students will continue to master the Florida standards, but they will also demonstrate competencies that employers and universities increasingly demand. The future of education cannot be built with the district alone. And so in

278this model, our industry leaders will assist us in co-designing. The learning universities must become active partners where they have students complete their field experience, their internships aligned to students interests. And this means our partner universities will have first choice to make connections and intersect with our schools, establish those relationships with our students and parents, and ultimately develop a strong pipeline for students with the hope of enrolling in some of these schools, such as Nova fau and Broward College, and community organizations must become contributors in. This opens the doors where the Nova model becomes the first in class 22nd century model that is nationally recognized. Partner corporations will have a strong connection to this initiative, where professional mentors will be enlisted by program and industry certification. They act as guest speakers, role models, and eventually, students

279and businesses could see this endeavor as future pathway for employment. The Nova concept creates an ecosystem where students regularly interact with professionals, mentors, practitioners, and entrepreneurs. This is where Nova becomes transformational. The model combines five intersected pillars ai accelerated academies, human centered mentorship, xr experiential learning, project based studios, ai literacy, and ethics. Students will not simply learn about subjects. Here, students will use subjects to solve authentic problems, and instead of asking, what chapters are we on, we begin asking what problems are we solving? Instead of measuring only seat time, we begin to measure demonstrated competency and students progress through experiences that mirror the way learning occurs in universities, research organizations, and innovative industries. And one of the most exciting elements of Nova is the creation of innovative laboratories, not just for students, but for teachers

280and teachers become researchers. They become learners, designers, innovators, and problem solvers. University partners like Microsoft, industry leaders in bc, educators work together to continuously refine instruction. This transforms professional learning from occasional workshops into continuous innovation cycles, and so success will not be measured by technology adoption. Success will be measured by outcomes, by gaining teacher time, by allowing students to gain opportunity, increased engagement, improved achievement, expanded access, and future readiness. And if we cannot demonstrate improved outcomes, then we adjust. The goal is to impact, not implementation. So the vision before you today is bigger than artificial intelligence. It is about ensuring broad public public schools remains a place where innovation and humanity coexist, where technology serves people, where teachers remain at the center and where students remain at the heart, and where the future is not

281something that happens to us, but something we intentionally help create. The question is not whether artificial intelligence will shape the future. The question is whether Broward County Public Schools will help shape it responsibly. And I believe the answer is yes. This concludes our presentation. Thank you. We'll go to public comment. I do see some new faces in the audience, so I just want to remind the public that when I call your name, please approach the mic. Please follow the staff's instructions. The board does not go back and forth with members of the public during this portion. So I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware. And then when you hear the timer go off, please yield the mic so that the next speaker has the opportunity to speak. So I'll call up five names

282at a time. Cynthia. Dominique. Actually, I'll do like three names. For some reason. The podium is further back. Cynthia Dominique, Brooke Bordey, and Heather Velasquez. All right, mic test. It's good. All right. Good afternoon. Brooke Bordey plantation. I am a school advisory forum chair. i'm a pta room coordinator. I serve on several district level advisories. I am absolutely plugged in. And the other parents who are here today were here in earnest, trying to deliver you the sentiment of the community that it's sometimes hard to get through. So we're not here speaking for ourselves. It is our community that is profoundly concerned, which is why, you know, we're supposed to be on a road to Disney with medieval time reservations. We stayed. And we might MISS That because we're here representing many, many families in my

283mom life. I was a commercial litigator, which is something I don't usually share, but I frequented the courthouse just down the street. And I see you, the board here today as judges that I need to convince of our concerns, given that there's some debate in this room about safety and the appropriate use of ai in the classroom, I think it helps the decision making process to focus on the law, and it will become very clear that this board needs to reconsider the the direction of this initiative. The district is already not in compliance with Sopa, which requires school districts to identify all the software it provides to students, as well as the actual underlying contract. The bcc web page that lists supplemental software is absolutely incomplete. The district has had months to correct this deficiency.

284Given the simplicity of just posting the contracts for the supplemental software, I have very little faith that something as complicated and risky as artificial intelligence could be done in a way that does not pose a risk to our children. Another law to consider is the forthcoming Guard Act, which is a bipartisan federal legislation that, if passed, will ban ai chatbots for children under the age of 18. Florida is considering its own set of laws as well. Perhaps we should pause the rollout to ai lest this district finds egg on its face. I also see copilot pilot rollout as a threat to ferpa, giving copilot access to cps email accounts will certainly lead to the capture, analysis, and storage of sensitive student information and personally identifiable information, thereby circumventing and violating ferpa. It's an obvious liability

285for the district legal adjacent is this board's policy 6313, which prescribes the Institutional Review Board that is required for research performed on children. I want to welcome the student advisors, but I do want to say many of the concerns are coming from elementary parents and the survey tools available to the student advisors do not reach elementary students. Our children have access to different technology than current high schoolers. This board should know that there is no public facing implementation plan. I don't know what technology my kids will have come fall. So this presentation doesn't constitute an implementation plan. Thank you. Thank you. I remember I called Cynthia Dominique and Heather Velasquez, and then the next three names are Kirsten Hope, Matthew Bordy, and Trudy Germanovich. Could someone from staff turn the timer off, please? Thank you,

286MR. Ho. All right, so I'll just say the names again. Cynthia, Dominique, Heather Velasquez, Kirsten Hope, Matthew Bordy, and Trudy Germanovich. Welcome. Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Heather Velasquez from Davie. I would just like to take a moment to say that I had a really hard time gathering my thoughts to express how I feel about this, because it is overwhelming. I am a parent who doesn't know a lot about ai. I do know that it has amazing capabilities and great strengths, but I worry about how I can protect my own child and how other parents can do the same if they don't have the skill set and the knowledge on the technology and the tools that are being made available to our teachers and our students. So I just want to reference slide 25,

287where it says that ai should enhance critical thinking, problem solving, creativity analysis and reasoning, collaboration and communication, and real world application of learning. What does ai enhance cognitive offloading? And it is concerning to hear someone say that they didn't remember how to do a math problem, so they just plugged it into ai, and that's no shade to anybody. But that is real. We hear professionals say all the time they feel like it's dumbing them down, and I want my elementary child to make sure he has the opportunity to develop those critical thinking skills and those foundational learning skills that we all use today, because the human can't be a part of the loop if they don't have those foundational skills. So I want my child to enter middle school, to enter high school, and have

288those foundational skills to still be an active participant as a human being, not just relying on that tool of ai. So I also am very concerned for our teachers and their ability to keep up with the rapid implementation of all of these different resources. I think that we are expressing a lot of support and offloading for them and giving them time back, but how are we making sure that we're not overloading them with the skills they need to learn to be able to effectively implement the tools and have the time? My understanding, and I would love some clarification on this, is that while you say that the training is required, who's who's checking that, what's the accountability for that? And how are we making sure that the teachers and the staff are utilizing these tools

289ethically, efficacy, the efficacy of them, if nobody's ensuring that they are trained before they roll these out and have their students use them, that's a big concern for me. I really want to know what the district goals are and how they're measured. Engagement to me is not totally an accurate measurement of effectiveness. We approved last week or the board approved last week more more funding for prisms without any real data on how that, you know, improved learning gains. I know that what was said was more of like, well, we know students were engaged. They were excited to come to class. Well, that is important. Is it really improving their educational skills and their knowledge? I'm running out of time. So I think that I said a lot of what I really wanted to say, but

290thank you guys for giving us this opportunity. Oh, I don't think that there has been a public facing parent plan implementation plan. I went to this symposium and left with more questions, so that didn't get a chance to be answered because they canceled at the end. Thank you. Next speaker. Heather. Good afternoon. This is Mike on. Welcome. Oh, good. How are you guys? Good afternoon superintendent, school board members and fellow parents. My name is Matthew Board. I have three children here in Broward County schools. I'm an entrepreneur and I build products, physical products and ai embedded systems and software for a living. I'm not here because I fear artificial intelligence. I'm here because I understand it. Large language models like Chatgpt, Copilot Magic School do not think they do not understand truth. They predict the

291most likely word based on patterns in data. Sometimes the results are impressive. Sometimes they're completely wrong, especially especially in product development and software development. Together in ai industry, we call this a hallucination. These systems can confidently generate false facts, inaccurate explanations, biased content, and entirely fabricate information. Even companies that build them acknowledge this limitation. Yet Broward is rapidly expanding ai in classrooms where nearly 40% of our students are still not reading proficiently at a grade level. My concern is simple we're helping students become stronger readers, writers, and critical thinkers. Or are we normalizing technology that is increasingly does the thinking for them? I also have concerns about privacy. We hold. These systems are ferpa compliant, but ferpa is a legal requirement and not a technological safeguard that keeps ai within its boundaries. Parents deserve transparency

292regarding what student information, assignments, documents, emails, educational records MAY be processed by these systems and how that information is protected before expanding ai further. This district owes the parents clear answers meaningful oversight evidence that these tools are improving student outcomes rather than simply making simply making, providing technology companies with the data that they want. Can the district identify a single technical safeguard that automatically prevents hallucinated or factually inaccurate ai generated content from reaching students without a human catching the error? As a product developer? And the technical answer is no, there is no filter for hallucinations. So my question to the board is who is the human safety net? And my final question is, can the district guarantee that no student educational records, behavioral information, emails, assignments, or personal data will ever be used in a

293way that parents did not intend to or expect? And if that happens, who's accountable? The software company or Broward County schools? As a technology professional, I know that most dangerous thing about ai isn't when it's obviously wrong, it's when it's wrong and sounds convincing. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. MADAM Chair, what is his name? That was Matthew Board. Thank you. I have Kirsten Hope, Trudy Germanovich, Rochelle Sofer, and Jennifer Dubbin. Welcome. Hi. Good morning. My name is Kirsten Hope and I'm from Davie. I'm here as a concerned parent of three children and advocating for all children. In fact, I brought six children here today just to speak. So if you ever wonder why you hear from the same people over and over again, it's because it's really difficult to get down here with children.

294In APRIL of this year, 2026, Fair Play, a coalition of child advocates, educators, researchers, and organizations put out a position paper. This 29 page paper, signed by over 260 organizations and experts, call for a five year moratorium on student facing generative ai products in k through 12. The authors argue that ai tools are being introduced in classrooms before the educational benefits have been proven, and before adequate safeguards exist for for kids, the key concerns cognitive cognitive development and learning, social and emotional development, mental health risks, privacy and surveillance, misinformation and accuracy, impact on teachers equity concerns, academic integrity and environmental costs. The classrooms already utilize adaptive educational technology platforms. Despite years of implementation, these tools have not produced the transformational academic gains that were promised. In many cases, they have become substitute for direct instruction

295and human interaction rather than enhancements to learning. What evidence suggests that ai will produce a different result. At its core, education is a human endeavor. Teachers do more than deliver content. They build relationships, provide mentorship. They inspire curiosity, and understand the unique needs of each of their students. Expanding the role of ai risks further widening of the gap between teachers and students, while reducing opportunities for meaningful, meaningful human connection. At a time where young people are experiencing increasing social isolation and mental health challenges, we should be investing in stronger human relationships, not replacing them with technology. Stating that over and over again doesn't that it doesn't replace teachers, doesn't make it true. Employees are expected to review ai generated content, verify accuracy, monitor an entire classroom of students, and exercise professional judgment. However, formal ai

296training is not required for all employees anywhere in this implementation plan. Without comprehensive and mandatory training, how can we expect a reasonable implementation of ethics and safety and, you know, consistency across all classrooms? This s pl isot inking of thee fute liket ateses. Wl nott be ab too affo thehese products when the money runs out. Focusing on the future would be implementing actual foundational computer skills like typing. Screen time is not a hypothetical concern. Decades of research have documented its impacts on cognition, physical health, attention, and social emotional well-being. Pediatrician and child experts continue to recommend minimizing screen time exposure whenever possible to. It's not just the fear of the unknown. We know. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. My name is Doctor Trudy Germanovich. I began learning about technology by attending a computer

297meeting at a garage in Los Altos, California in 1976. Unfortunately, it was not Steve Jobs garage. Since that time, I've been interested in what's being called bleeding edge technology. The discussion today is similar to what we had when we first had access to the internet, and I'm glad we're hearing about it today. I'm also a longtime proponent of opting out. You can see from the back of my t shirt, which is the opt out network. The opt out network was formed by parents throughout the country in 2014, who believed that online testing would be bad for their children. They were not anti-technology. These are hundreds of thousands of people around the country. They objected to the fact that it became how teachers and schools were evaluated. It would be difficult to have children opt out

298of ai because it will be ubiquitous. Unfortunately, our teachers and students will be training the ai programs you purchase. There will be some teachers who will quickly adapt and use ai for lesson plans, but we should start with those who want to use it. It was mentioned that trainings would be within the PLCs, which are where a professional learning community determines goals by consensus. Supposedly of the plc members. As per the btu contract. In other words, that's not where you should do training. They won't all choose ai. I believe for early elementary there should be little or no wasted time wasted on non state mandated programs on screens by third grade. Most students should have the manual dexterity to begin using typing and word processing skills. This is presently not occurring. I heard earlier it

299was. It is not. I have not seen a typing or a simple word processing program come over for a purchase at any of your meetings. Why is that taking so long? I don't believe it's possible to manage teaching a class with some parents opting out of ai lessons or certain other technologies. I was very unhappy with the lack of clear timeline within the presentation. I believe a group of teachers who are presently in the classroom should be paid well during this JULY to develop lesson plans for using ai for students in grades four through fifth, sixth, and eighth, and specific examples from high school classes I. And I really mean pay the teachers well for what they do. I also am concerned about the resources being equitably distributed. When I heard the presentation. It appears

300that Nova schools will get much more than other schools. Thank you. Good afternoon, Rochelle Sofer, Coconut Creek. So I want to put out a disclaimer. I am not against ai at all. I embrace it with caution. I have specific questions based on the slides that I read through, and I'm going to present them. So that way our representatives that are here can maybe address it in the future. So we'll go by their. Slide seven. I'd like to know what is the school board's definition of ethical implementation and where can we find it? What are the current and expected safeguards? Where are they published for view, and are these viewable in the multiple languages? Slide eight. Please define screen heavy as it relates to students. What length of time would that be and by whose definition?

301As a parent, with a child with a learning disability, speaking on my own screen, time is a deficit to my child. So I need to know what screen heavy is because five minutes to my child could be a lifetime in an eternity, and try to take my child away from that screen. You could have issues, and I know my child's not the only one. Slide 22. How will we ensure minimal deviation from the ai platform as it's being used, especially with expected increases in class sizes? What measures will be implemented to alert teachers or staff to the unexpected tech use other than Live Wire, which has its own issues? What about considerations for implementation with our students with disabilities population, especially in the self-contained classes? How will slide 23 how will be cps address parental

302concerns for those who want decreased or zero screen time? Slide 24. How will student data be kept safe? Where's all the I-ready data stored and who has access to it? Has anyone heard or seen of scrolling to death.Com the lawsuit lawsuit that's ensuing as a result of that? What about the new lawsuit launched against the parent company, Curriculum Associates? We need to ensure our students safety and security, especially their voices being captured. Slide 27. Where's the cps Ethical Implementation guide? We'd like to see it in all of its languages, please. What about parent student community feedback that needs to be evaluated on a continuum and not at the convenience of this district? I'd like to quote one of my teacher friends who's in the elementary schools. It's interesting to me that the district wants to

303use ai, but they don't want us to use anything from teachers pay teachers. We have to use everything that's approved by the school board. But we all know that ai makes mistakes. How is it better or different? Last quote. This is from a friend of mine who's got her Phd and teaches at a local university. The faculty at my college don't actually want to learn all the good ways they could use ai. They want to use ai as a shortcut, and they are putting out some pretty terrible quality presentations, images, etc. That are very obviously ai generated and the students are on to it. Thank you. Next up, I have Jennifer Durbin and then Doctor Natalie Lynch Walsh, Doctor Nancy Romance, and Donna Maggio. Hello. My name is Jennifer Durbin. I'm from Coral Springs. I'm

304a parent of a second grader and I'm here to oppose the ai initiative. We are stepping on to a dangerous frontier without a map in. Our students will pay the price. I'm not afraid of technology or ai. I value thoughtful, intentional digital tools. But while technology evolves rapidly, human biology does not. Children have critical developmental windows for acquiring foundational skills by displacing vetted curricula with automated content, we are treating our students as test subjects in an unregulated experiment with no irb. When parents raise safety concerns, district staff advised us that if our children are harmed, we can simply sue the vendor to suggest that our only recourse is to wait for our children's physical, mental well-being and privacy to be compromised before acting is irresponsible. What is the responsibility of the leadership in this room

305to keep our kids safe? If cps were truly equipped to evaluate these algorithms, you wouldn't just look at basic accuracy. Bk would be analyzing and publishing date on precision recall f1 score area under the receiver operating characteristic curve metrics, as well as clear guidelines on false negatives. To date, Broward County Public Schools has failed to establish a transparent implementation plan. Define what ethical and responsible ai means to for our community, or provide a pilot study report proving the efficacy and safety of Magic School, ai and copilot. At least one of these ai tools has previously failed the district's tests. How has it now passed? What metrics were used to assess safety, security, and moderation? Moving forward blindly is an unacceptable risk. This is especially true given the ongoing Florida lawsuit against Openai, the engine behind

306Magic School ai, which alleges severe psychological and developmental harm to youth, including the erosion of critical thinking and the generation and generation of dangerous content. What risk are our teachers taking by using these programs that could see them fined or jailed? If the algorithm behaves unexpectedly and it will behave unexpectedly? As parents, we have to demand accountability from the district and the board by funneling resources away from proven educational pedagogy into unsafe experimental programs. You are privatizing our children's education and enriching a few. What accountability will this board take when this experiment harms the very children you are responsible for? Serving our board to halt the rollout of these ai tools until a rigorous, transparent, data backed safety and efficacy framework is delivered to parents. Thank you. Doctor. Natalie Lynch Walsh Plantation, Florida. So unlike

307a lot of the other speakers, I love ai for adults. That's where this should have started. Not with the kids. I would love public records that function to be automated. I would love follow up logs to be generated automatically from the recordings of these meetings. Imagine how much time and how much more efficient you could be as a governing body. Oh, and by the way, I always have plan b and c in my back pocket. Don't you worry because there's a policy involved here, and it hasn't even been advertised to initiate rulemaking. So, and there was a comment about complaints. Some people's complaints are simply continuous improvement. You don't get continuous improvement by going along with everything. And everything is lovely in the garden. All right. So when I had to get my Phd, I

308studied adults and I had to do a 90 page institutional review board application. There was no mention in the presentation of school board policy 6313, which after hearing a lot of parent concerns, I said, well, why do they need that data? What are they doing with it? And where is The irb and all of this because I know the district has one, right? Yes they do. It's 6313 is research and program evaluation studies. So just for fun in here and I hope somebody pulled it up by now we have definitions. It defines research studies program evaluation studies. The institutional review board, informed consent. If a if someone is under 18 you cannot conduct studies on them without informed consent. So I had ai prompt number one policy 6313 governs research and program evaluation studies. What

309potential policy. 6313 compliance risks and audit risk issues are associated with the Broward powered by ai presentation. A few, but you guys aren't interested when I try to stop you from getting in trouble. So I'll just give this to the people. But I have at least 3 to 6 of them here. Next prompt. They tried to tell me there was a plan. I told Gemini, try again. Because sometimes they do get it wrong, and ai and Gemini had to admit there are no specific target dates, deadlines, or future scheduling timelines listed for the plan's milestones. Guess what? It's not a plan. Then I had it check. I compared 6313 against the proposed ai policy. Oof, a whole lot of potential compliance risks bypassing irb review, verification of auditability, failure to file mandatory final evaluation reports,

310and that whole informed consent thing. And then just for fun, I came up with an audit plan and a risk assessment. And that's how I use ai. I don't think you'll appreciate it, but the public will. Thank you. Thank you. I called up Doctor Nancy Romance Donna Maggio and then Lori Solarolo and Jackie Luscomb. Good afternoon. I'm Doctor Nancy Romance from Florida Atlantic University, a former teacher and science supervisor in Broward County schools. And I'm here today to talk about the Nova Innovation Zone and what the universities are doing. Doctor Cohen, is it possible to get these slides up there? I think it's slide 31. If it's the Nova complex. I don't know that we're able to get the presentation back up. But. Slide 31. So they MAY not be able to pull it. Oh,

311okay. Okay. Well I won't be able to actually see where you're at, but that's okay. It's, it's fine with me. So thank you for giving me this opportunity to meet and talk with you in the district. I'm very, very excited. Obviously, the district is near and dear to my heart. And as an educator at Florida Atlantic University, for the last 30 years, we've been obviously very closely engaged with the school district. Our newest publication, fau, Your Hometown University, with our new PRESIDENT, Adam Hasner, has really done a great job in moving forward in, you know, bringing fau to the South Florida, especially the Broward County area. And I just wanted to share some stats with you because at Florida Atlantic University, we have over 32,000 students, all 32,000 students are involved in learning using artificial

312intelligence. It is now embedded in all of the colleges as a really important tool for learning. And indeed, it does deepen learning and problem solving. In particular, we are a Carnegie University designee now, meaning that we have been declared as a Carnegie one, meaning high level research that would suggest that all of our faculty are using pretty much ai for the kind of research that they're doing. We're also a Carnegie Opportunity University, another really nice designation, which means that students that are coming from low income schools are low income neighborhoods, are doing equally well at the university, graduating on time. So we're very, very excited about that. We also have a third Carnegie evaluation, which is called Carnegie Community. And we are one of 13 universities in the United States that have all three Carnegie

313classifications. So we're very, very excited. The other thing I was going to share, the slides were shown, I don't know if you see them, but one of the things we're very proud of is that we are really a university, very centered on first generation students. This is really important to us. So I'll just read some of the things we have. So for example, we have a wonderful facilities to really support academic success and career based readiness. So we are very career oriented here. We have the Science Learning Center, the Math Learning Center, the Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry, which actually invites freshmen to engage in college level research. What a difference that makes. We have over a thousand students. Our program for undergraduate research has been number one in the nation for two years

314in a row. We have professional English sport, we have writing across the curriculum. So for all students that come in, we have all of these academic supports. But on the other side, we also have sociological emotional types of supports too. For example, we have our first generation and student success office. We have our first gen resources. We have the Kelly School Emerging scholarship, and we have new student transition. We have lots of Pell eligibility, campus food. Et cetera. Et cetera. Now we also just will be setting up Quantum Leap. We will be the first university in Florida with a major quantum computing system, not minor in setting it up. It's been a very exciting endeavor. And with this particular endeavor here, what we're really doing is we're going to be able to process immense amounts

315of data, unbelievable amounts, not even necessarily defined yet. We'll have many new opportunities for our students coming to fau, to be really working in industry and to be working with authentic problems and issues. This is extremely important. It really does support the district's effort at moving towards broad ai powered. We have our Styles Nicholson Institute in Jupiter. Some of you MAY be aware of that. That particular institute does tremendous work in neuroscience and brain sciences, including, obviously, the disorders that we're all familiar with, such as Alzheimer's and autism and so on. We were the first university in the state of Florida to actually have a master's degree in artificial intelligence. Thank you. So the Florida Power and light. Thank you so much, doctor. Romance. Thank you. Doctor romance, doctor romance. Thank you so much. If

316you could yield the mic. Thank you so much. Yes, yes. Thank you. So we very much enjoyed learning about everything going on at fau. Thank you so much. Jackie Liscombe. Thank you. And I'd like to acknowledge first of all, the winners are in the room and I'd like to thank them as a parent for their very generous gift to the district. I'm excited for the future of ai in Broward. I do understand, though, some of what's been articulated here too. I want to start off with, I'm going to hop all over the place, but there's been some statements made about how it needs to start with adults and not with the kids. It has started with the adults and not with the kids, to Lily's demonstration, which I thought made a very good point about

317how ai can help walk walk students through the processes of learning. It wasn't, I believe, Lily, that you brought up a math problem and asked ai to resolve it. Ai brought up a track for reteaching it to you to remind you, and it was not an erosion of critical thinking. It was leading you through the steps of critical thinking. I do want to commend, actually the symposium. I do concur with some of the views of it, that I don't think parent registration should have been cut off when it was. It shouldn't have been the afterthought. I'm grateful that we were able to be there, and I learned a lot, but I think that there is a lot also to be learned about. Where some of this has gone wrong is in the messaging. Anybody that

318attends technology advisory, which actually isn't, very many people will know that I'm actually quite noisy there, and I'm noisy because I see that that technology advisory is not used for technologyy issues. The bccc is repeatedly kif bypassing tech, and I feel we could have been a really good collaborative partner in helping to preempt some of the. When I say outcry, we've we've seen here, there's legitimate concerns or people that have concerns that can't be resolved. I would like to suggest that you fast track. When I say fast track, you've got to follow policy making process or not, as the case MAY be these days. But for the ai policy to be put on the back burner, while you're looking more at policies that say, well, what's the address of the case? Right. Building, I think

319the priorities are in the wrong order. That ai policy is crucial to the integrity of this program, this initiative, and to getting stakeholder buy in. I think you two could have preempted and still can some of the community suspicion or concern about it by not only having a policy. I see there's mention of a manual that certainly I don't think came to attack at all. I haven't seen a manual, but. But how about some kind of a contract with parents? A sort of our promise to you, our pledge to you, and some bullet point commitments as to what this implementation will or won't be. I've kicked up a lot of talk about what is the ai task force and why aren't we on it at at tac? I've had good conversation with Doctor Cohen and

320with Manny, which I appreciate greatly. I think they've worked hard on this. I just also as well want to see a lot more s integration. And for them not to be the left behinds. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public speakers? Okay. I don't usually do this, but I would like the courtesy of my colleagues to be able to speak. Oh, sorry, my mic turned off. I would like the courtesy from my colleagues to speak first on this. This is something that I've spent a lot of time over the last year investing in, learning about and hearing from students and parents. So first, I want to thank all the public speakers who came out. We did see some new faces today, which is very exciting to see the community so engaged on something so important.

321Heather Velasquez, I like you, continue to be overwhelmed by this topic, and I'm glad we've all started to try to tackle this as messy as it can be. I'm glad we we are diving in today. I also want to thank Wayne and Lucretia Weiner, who are here, who continue to make massive commitments and investments in public education. So thank you. And so the ai symposium has been brought up several times today. I, I had the privilege of getting to speak there, and I'm going to echo some of my my same points that I, I delivered to the parents and educators in the audience. I would like everyone here to take a moment to remember what it was like to get on Facebook for the first time, and to remember what we were promised in the

322aughts about what social media would do for us. We were told it would make us more connected with each other. But 20 years later, the consensus is that the social media algorithms have made us more disconnected, isolated, and polarized than ever. So much so that people are winning multimillion dollar lawsuits in school districts, including us, are suing these companies for the impacts they've had on our kids mental health. And, you know, as we have this discussion, it is imperative that we learn from the mistakes of the social media era. There are some of the same warning signs represented in hard data for ai. The rise of ai companions raises alarm bells. We should all be taking action on the impacts of cognitive offloading, something we've heard concerns about today, even on adults, should result in

323us making clear, strong and bold policy to protect our students. We all understand that ai isn't going away, and that bans or moratoriums won't be effective. We understand that all students will grow up in a world in which ai is integrated into every part of our society. We have a responsibility to prepare them for that world, and we have a duty to ensure that world is safe and enriching as it can be. That means we have to take great care in the ways we introduce students to this technology, and that the technology we give them access to serves the purpose of facilitating their growth into thoughtful, kind, empathetic, and well-rounded learners. That means that this technology is introduced slowly and strategically with students first, simply building awareness of it. They are taught holistic ai literacy

324frameworks. That means they learn about how it's created, what its uses are, what the risks are, and they're taught about ethical use and development. And I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the actions we take now to do this right. Doctor Cohen, at the beginning of this, asked the question, are we going to prepare our students for the world we grew up in or the world we inherit? They will inherit? And I'd like us to think about it a little bit differently. All of us at this table and in this room have the ability to shape the world our kids inherit. And we can do that in the days and months to come. So with that said, I have some questions and then I'll be asking for board consensus on some proposals. MADAM General counsel

325actually just told informed me of this, but I would like the public to know when can we expect the ai policy to come back to us? Either to the General Council or to staff? Go ahead, Doctor Cohn. We're ready whenever it's time. I think we initially wanted to go first with the policy and then we would schedule I think sometime in JULY. I believe. Most likely it would be like the beginning of AUGUST because we only have a very short amount of time in JULY. If we can schedule it in JULY, we'll do that. But I know that we will be working very closely to come up with some drafts. We'll do some one on ones on those drafts as well to get more feedback and then present something for the board's consideration. And to

326that end, we are ready with the draft. We just need to confirm, in terms of the novella piece and the process document. So we've gathered gathered all of the feedback from every stakeholder. This is the last, I would say, last leg of that and getting feedback from you, the board, before we come back in AUGUST to present a final product or draft of that. Thank you. The ai task force was brought up multiple times. Can you talk to me, inform the public about who is on the task force? What have they done? What have we implemented from their recommendations? I'll kick it off and then I'll let Manny dive deep into that. And so our attention really was to that anything that's large scale of a district this size is going to require implementation fidelity.

327And so every school had the opportunity to, every principal had the opportunity to identify an ai liaison. And that liaison would represent each, each school in terms of being able to receive the training, the skills, the knowledge to be able to go back and implement that at the school level. We've done the same kind of framework. When we did our instructional materials adoption. That worked really well. In this case, all of our ai liaisons got all of the training all up until this. Before the teachers left. They met with the principals during JUNE 5th, JUNE 8th, and JUNE 9th to come up with an ai implementation rollout plan to be delivered during pre Planning week that will be implemented with our with all of the staff in. Man. If you have anything else. As Doctor

328Cohen said, and what really struck me as as very important about the task force is a. It's comprised of not just a district administrators. It's school staff, school administrators, district administrators, teachers and students. And initially, and this is just a personal experience. When I was first introduced to the task force, I was very impatient. I was saying, where's the policy? Let's get the policy out. Come on, let's move. But now looking back on it, I can see the the thoughtful, careful approach that the group took in formulating what 60 plus page implementation guide, which contains the core principles that go into the policy. We knew we couldn't take a 60 page guide and just publish it as a policy. So it's been condensed and shared, but that's my basic observations of how the task force

329has has really helped craft the work and helped direct us into other research opportunities to craft the policy. MR. Manning, can you go back over the participants the of the task force? I missed that part. School staff, district staff. We have teachers. We have students also and administrators. Thank you. About how many people are on the task force. It's it's it's it's one representative for every school. And then there's district staff. So I would probably without, you know, I would say close to 2 to 300 people. How many students? I would. I would say roughly about 20 students on that task force. And how are how are the these task force members selected? Well, for the schools are just total. So. So let me back up. It's my understanding. So each ai liaison for each

330school is a member of the task force. That's correct. How were the students selected. So I think we reached out to at the time, Landon, and kind of had him kind of identify people that had interest. Okay. What's the meeting cadence for the task force? Like, how often are they meeting? You can answer. I remember participating in monthly meetings. There was also a collaboration site that was set up in teams that the task force had access to, and there were some engagement through that asynchronously, but the cadence was generally monthly from what I recall. Okay. I'm going to move in a little bit of a different direction. Something that I've heard over and over from students and teachers is with, with regards to ai, is this issue of trust? Sometimes teachers are not trusting that

331students are turng in their own work. And then students, on the other hand, are sometimes not trusting that teachers physically are themselves grading the work or creating the assignments. And, you know, as a teacher, I understand the value in using ai to help, you know, create assignments and differentiate instruction and all of that. But I'm wondering if, if the task force or if we as a district have really contemplated and tried to tackle the issue of trust when it comes to ai. And specifically you're referring to the instructional materials or materials outside of the the content. So there is a tension, right? Like I heard from students, like one student who I met with at Fort Lauderdale High School said, like, if I have a teacher that is using ai to grade my assignment, I

332am disgusted by that. She used that language. Right. And I understand again, I am trying not to be. I'm trying not to look at this as a as a very polarized or black and white issue. I know that there is nuance and complication to it, but I think that we have to try to think about the way we can build trust between students and teachers, both that teachers are trusting that the work that the students are doing is authentic and that they did their own thinking. But also, on the other hand, that students can feel trusting and that the teachers have been thoughtful about their assignments, that they've they've said that they've assigned to the students and the work that they're grading. Yeah, yeah. I agree with you wholeheartedly. And I think that that's part

333of where at the beginning of the year and during the summer, we'll have some hot laps around teacher efficacy and training. We are also in the process of building a mandatory ai literacy course that will become required of all educators to, to take and complete before the the, the first week of school. And I think to your point, this is a very nuanced conversation, to be honest with you. And we are traversing on a very uncharted territory when with something like this. And so the feedback that we receive here in the feedback that we've received, it helps us to kind of build some of this out. And so some of the professional learning that we are doing specifically for teacher rollout is with that in mind, when you use ai for things like grading or

334for creating instruction and content outside of the core, and the core will be ingested into something like Magic School. How do you, how do you navigate through that and what do you use and when do you use it and when it's appropriate to use those things. Those are part of the professional learning pieces that we're building in for teachers and for administrators as well. And I think that that trust has to be garnered through evidence of what we what we do and what we say, and part of the policy and the guardrails and the process that we're putting in place to ensure that that does happen, that that, that, that guarantee that students should feel trusted, that when a teacher is grading their assignments, that that is the expert teacher providing that feedback and not

335someone else. The two could be used to support and enhance the same thing. For when a student is working on assignment using ai in, they're producing something that teacher should be providing guidance and direction on how to use that tool and for what intended purposes. That's part of the training that has to happen as well. Thank you for speaking to that. And I think one thing that you said is very important is the that we have to have clear expectations that are communicated both ways. So, you know, I had some groups of students said, you know, I had a teacher that said I can use ai in this way. And they made it very clear. But I also think the communication needs to come from the teacher as well. Like I used ai to help

336me create this assignment and be having clear expectations and communications both ways in which this is the way you're allowed to use it. This is the way I'm using it, I think helps build that trust. But I'm wondering, have we implemented any kind of rubric to help teachers guide students in the ways that they can use ai for assignments? Yeah. So that's a really great question. We have not that has been part of the discussion with the a liaison's that we look at rubric more around assessments, assessing student assignments. But I think that I think that's a great point that we can take back to the ai liaison and talk about a rubric that assesses the quality and implementation of a teacher, using it against instructional materials, student artifacts, but just using it as part

337of students engaging and teachers engaging in the process as part of PLCs as well. Okay. Also just saying to students like this is an assignment. You cannot, you should not be using any iron ore. This is an assignment that you can use ai to help create something like. I think those expectations need to be very clear. We can do that. Thank you. Some other concerns I have heard from students are the social impacts of ai companions. Now, I know that we are not giving students access to ai companions, but they are engaging with them outside of school. And it is very much my belief that as a school system, we will suffer the the negative impacts of of that eventually. And I, I will be talking a lot about this in the future, but the

338need to give kids more opportunity to play and do human to human interaction, to combat some of those social impacts that their ai use outside of school will, will be causing. Something that came up a lot today is an implementation implementation plan. So I'm wondering, like I, when I think about an implementation plan, and we've had this discussion with regards to magic School, which I'll, I'll speak to later on, but what is the implementation plan for ai in our school specifically? I guess magic school, since that's the big tool that, you know, has been generously invested in. Can we talk about that? Like when students will have access to it, when teachers will have access to it, what training we're doing? Yeah. So I think we start off from the beginning prior to us rolling,

339it will be fully rolled out next year. And so one of the things we wanted to do is launch Magic School as a prototype. So all ai liaisons had an opportunity over a year period to actually play with magic school, to end user tested, to look at some of the key components of instructional materials. And they gave us feedback along the way. We didn't just roll this out as we typically do some large scale initiatives because of the sensitivity of ai and what it can and cannot do. We got a lot of feedback in terms of how we wanted to design the plan for rollout. And so most of our ai liaisons, or I should say all of them, are now what we consider experts in using magic school. They fully gone through and gotten

340all of the credentialing. So our, our fully roll out plan is to first allow the teachers to get trained on magic School during pre planning week, and then support them and then provide a level two access. In terms of teachers giving access to students, once the teachers are comfortable and have access to it. So we're working with Magic School right now to launch the not only the teacher portion, but the student component of it as well. And so it has to do with readiness when a teacher is ready in, the assignment is appropriate for the student to have access to magic school ai within the classroom environment. Okay, I will, I will, I will ask for consensus around this later, but I really do think that there needs to be a written plan on our

341website. And I think there needs to be school based communications. Like I've mentioned this before, Bayview Elementary does like a parent night where they walk the parents through each piece of software that the that their students have access to so that the parents understand like the purpose of each tool, how to use each tool, what their, their students, what their children should be doing on the computer. And so I think we really need, again, an implementation plan on the website, but also communicated by the schools where parents can sit down and use these tools and practice them before they, they, so that they can feel comfortable with their, their child interacting with it. So I like that idea. I think one of the things we can do to, again, further engage the community is create

342an ai communication t tooit in a in a PowerPoioi preresentioionhat's consisntnt ttveryrychool will r receive. It could be part of o open house, it could be part of parent university, and it could be an expectation that every teacher receive this and every administrator receives it. And we can roll that out before the beginning of the year. I appreciate that, and I still think that the parent feedback is incredibly important, and giving parents access to these tools before their students have access to them to, to be able to use them and understand how their child will be interacting with it, I think is very, very important. Yeah. I think we can also include on the parent portal some tutorial videos on Magic School on there, so parents can readily go on and just learn about Magic

343School. Just to your point, to feel assured that when it becomes available to students, they can, they're more informed and more educated about what Magic school really is doing. Okay. Again, I, I think so I was able to sit down and test out the test out magic school from a student perspective. And I can tell you in doing that, it made me much more comfortable with the tool and much more comfortable. Like I feel good about giving kids access to it because I was able to test it out and see how it how it's used. And that is coming from someone who is concerned about the expansion of ai throughout our world. Right? So I think being able to give parents access to practice with it will do us a lot of favors in our

344deployment of it. So I will keep saying that. To the Nova Innovations zone. I have a quick question about this. Have Nova employees been communicated with and or consulted with about this innovation zone plan? So we've had communications with the principals about this this concept. We've not taken it any further down than the administration's. I know in speaking with the principals, are extremely excited about this initiative. We have a lot of work ahead of us because this is more of a 4 to 5 year plan. So nothing in the first 2 or 3 years is going to impact the school necessarily. Okay. I will just say from an employee perspective, if I'm a teacher at Nova and I'm learning about this in the paper, or like by watching a school board meeting, it feels some

345kind of way. And, you know, these will be the people who are implementing this on a day to day basis. And so including their input and collaborating with them, I think is really important. Yeah. And I do think you're absolutely right. I think part of the concept that we were approaching this in the redefining piece is that it MAY not be for every teacher, and it MAY not be for every student, because if we're technically redefining, because these are all these are not neighborhood kids. And so I think, and this is why we wanted to bring this to the board, because we're, we're saying we're taking this to a different level of really educational system engagement. And so perhaps when we redesign this space, it MAY not be for all students, but it will be

346for a lot of other students. And I'll tell you that when I shared this, because I tend to go on the road and I share this when I share this with with community members at the Broward Community Foundations, parents who are not students. I had students in public schools. They wanted to know, how can they sign up for something like this? So when we talk about redesigning and reengaging the community and trying to bring back parents, there's a lot of models that we currently have that look very similar to other schools in this district. This will be the first model that doesn't look like any other school district in any other school. And so we've had a lot of conversations with a lot of business partners and a lot of national experts to say, if

347you all are able to do something like this, this is a national model. And so this is a courageous, bold step to do something very, very different. And so there's no holding back on something like this. Yeah. And I think, you know, I agree and I'm very excited about this. And like the and I agree that maybe it's not for some teachers, but there are teachers there who are excited about it and they will be the ones implementing it. And their professional expertise is invaluable. And they should be a part of the collaboration process of building this very exciting program. Thousand percent agree. The issue of measurable goals was brought up multiple times today, so I don't know that we can answer this question today, but I would really like us. I would really like

348to see sometime in the next month or two, what do measurable goals for implementation of Magic School of this Nova innovation zone? Like, what are the measurable goals that we can implement for these different initiatives and programs? Because, you know, the question continues to be like, what is the purpose of all of this? And I can answer that question and you can answer that question, but how are we going to measure that? And I think it's important that we all have like a shared vision and goal for, for these things. Yeah. MISS Leonardi yeah, if you don't mind. So I know that when we did bring the Magic School agreement, we did, we did actually create measurable goals not only with our partner but also with Magic School. And these are goals that no other

349district, by the way, is doing, because ai is just so new. In the executive summary, we set, our return on investment was going to be on how do we save teacher time. We also looked at improving instructional differentiating using multiple tiers of support, which is the MTSs. And we have a logic model built around there. And we had a commitment to our donors that we would provide quarterly and annual reports on these measurable outcomes. And so there there is metrics already out there for us to determine the efficacy around Magic School. And it's simply not about usage. I appreciate that. I think then the board and the district need to communicate that better, because we heard it multiple times today. And I think like when we go back to the implementation plan and communicating with

350parents, like making those things very clear. Thank you for clarifying that. I'm glad lolly is here because I think, you know, graduations this year had me thinking a lot about the career pathways we offer to students and specifically around like commercial driving and things like that. This technology is going to change the jobs that are available in five, ten, 20 years. And I really hope that we can think about the, the certifications that we're offering and reevaluate those. So I'm wondering if we could get a follow up on, you know, evaluating the different certificates and career pathways that we're offering and whether or not we need to phase some out or reduce some of them. Hi, everyone. Lolly from Oso, career technical adult and. Community education director. So we are actually in our second year

351of our artificial intelligence, cte pathway. And Nova High School was actually our first school that we launched last year. This year, we're up to five schools, and next year we will have 13 schools on board. Our students this year actually passed almost 700 artificial intelligence industry certification exams already. So we are very excited about that. And so they're using copilot. So we have a group of about 380 students that have copilot access. And then at the end of their curriculum, they are taking the Microsoft Azure. So they're practicing with Microsoft Copilot to then take the Azure exam, which is the the industry standard. So we have just under 700 students that will graduate with that industry cert. Thank you so much. Thank you for reframing that, because I talked about like jobs that are going

352away, but you're talking about jobs that are going to be created. So I appreciate you bringing that up and bringing up the the ai career pathways, but I still would like a follow up to, to see, you know, if there are some things that we need to maybe refocus or reevaluate for the future. Yeah. I'm logging that follow up for you. Thank you. I have a question about a board follow up that we got about technology that we've discontinued and that's saved the district money. So in the follow up, it said that we have high engagement in new the la or Newsela. But then later on in the follow up, it said we discontinued it. Can someone provide some clarification on that? Go ahead. Sure. So every year, annually, we we do revisit all supplemental

353programs at the request of the board, obviously, in making sure that every supplemental software is doing two things. It's it's getting traction and usage, and it's actually doing what it says it's doing at the advent of improving student outcomes. When we looked at all programs and we only had a certain amount of money and budget, we had to look at programs that were not that met both criteria, but had the least impact on the system and on the district, and also which one was the most costly as well at the same time, because money as a factor in that. And so when we looked at Newsela, it had high usage, but we had other competing supplemental programs that also did some complimentary things that it could have been perceived as redundant. And so we looked

354at redundancy, we looked at roi, we looked at student efficacy, and we looked at usage. And I'll just say most of our supplemental programs, although we hear these these numbers of this $80 million, which is interesting, we only have a small footprint of supplemental resources by content area and by program. And so that was one of the ones, unfortunately. And I was just talking to DR. Zeman about Nearpod. We did the same thing with Nearpod. Nearpod was a k through 12 initiative. We folded it under secondary learning because most of the secondary teachers used it more than our k k through five teachers. It's one of the single supplemental programs that actually teaches keyboarding at the elementary level, but it was a cost of $907,000. Thank you for clarifying that. I also saw in the

355follow up that it said that Iready was hold on the. We did a middle school and high school reduction on Iready, but when I spoke with some middle groups of middle school students at my middle schools in, I think, APRIL ish, and they said that their teachers had really ramped up the use of Iready. So can you help me understand that. In terms of why we're not moving towards I-ready middle school or. Well, so I guess, are we doing the reduction after the school year? Because these middle school students all in APRIL were like, we're using I-ready all of a sudden now. Yeah. So we've we've again, due to declining enrollment in no budget last year with i-ready, we only focused on tier three middle schools, which was about 16 or so. Middle schools only

356had access to it at their request. And they focused on the intervention part of it. This year, we're looking to, again, move away from I-ready at the middle school level and only focus on the suite at the elementary level. Again, because of cost, we need to reduce the footprint. Got it. Okay, I'm going to go through I have some questions about copilot 13 plus and Magic School. So if we could go to slide seven. Can can you explain or detail the vetting that we do of our ai tools? Sure. Yeah. What we've started to institute this last year is we created a rubric in collaboration with the Innovative Learning Office with Doctor Cohn and others that conducts adversarial testing. And we started testing different products. Now, the bar that we set on this rubric was

357very high. Most commercial products or products in use in some other districts would not meet this bar here, because we demand a real time moderation. And what that means is that there's a layer between the ai interacting with the student, that if it detects that the ai is trying to form an emotional connection, we're trying to lead and help the student in a way that ai's tend to want to be helpful. It will stop it. It will jail the conversation. So we test for that. Also, we were looking for real time threat detection. That means the moment that a student tries to steer a conversation into self-harm or harming others or any of the other topics, it will immediately notify the teacher and create an entry to notify administrative staff. Those are, quite honestly, things

358that don't exist in many of the commercial tools out there, including copilot for now, in that it only logs transactions. The same can be said of Gemini and other tools that are in use out there. They log transactions, they log conversations, but they don't provide the real time notifications. So that I hope I didn't go too far into answering your question, but that's how we developed. Did Magic School pass that vetting? Magic school was the only tool so far that has passed the vetting process. We with copilot, we knew it wasn't going to pass because we had already, before the rubric was developed, did some of our own internal testing. So we haven't taken it fully through the rubric. We are working with Microsoft to strengthen that tool until it is until it provides that

359level of protection that we're looking for before we ever consider expanding its use beyond the initial small group of ai Academy students that are using it now for their curriculum. Is it possible to make that rubric a public facing document? Yes. Okay. So I think that would do a lot to build trust in our community around some of these, these, or at least around Magic School and the tool, which is going to be the main ai tool that we use. So copilot 13 plus did not pass that vetting rubric. It has not. And how many students have access to it? I 371 that are all participating in the ai Academy platforms. Okay. Does Magic Magic School have the capability of discussing mental health issues with students? From, from the Magic School perspective? And this is

360just on my knowledge of the tool. It's a different kind of tool. It's more for tutoring and helping students. And Doctor Cohen can go into it in more detail. But when it was tested, it stayed away from those types of topics. When when we had people trying to break it. And I know the answer to I'm asking because I was hoping you would say no, but I mean, I was able to sit down with it and try to ask it mental health question. I mean, one of the tools that the Magic School people put me in their classroom every time I tried to ask it a mental health question, it immediately shut the conversation down. So the answer is no. And I think we need to be very clear when we're we're communicating publicly and

361with parents about these tools that we're giving students access to, that this is safe because I was worried before I went and played around with it. And now I feel very comfortable because it is a safe tool. So I think we just need to be very clear about the safety of these tools that we're giving to students. On the other side of it, does copilot 13 plus have the capability of discussing mental health issues with students? It's one of the reasons why we haven't deployed it at scale, because it's acting more like a commercial ai tool. And it wasn't properly jailing the conversation, which is stopping it or notifying anyone in real time that that was occurring. If a student has a mental health discussion with copilot 13 plus, is that flagged for anyone? Currently

362it is logged and available in a security log, but it is not being flagged. What about for magic school? If I try to have a mental health conversation with Matt with a Magic School tool, will that be flagged for someone who is that flagged for. It escalates up to the teacher or the administrator to district staff. In real time? Correct. Real time? Yes. If a student discusses violence against himself or herself or against others on copilot 13 plus, is that flagged for anyone? It's logged but not flagged. What about on Magic School? It's flagged. I think it's very important for us as a board, as policy makers, to contemplate the issue of human oversight and accountability and employee responsibility. So if I am a student and I tell a teacher I want to hurt myself,

363and the teacher does nothing about it, what happens to that teacher? If a teacher does nothing about the information, their progressive discipline? If I am a student and I say I'm going to hurt myself and I tell the teacher, please don't tell anyone. And the teacher says, yes, I will not tell anyone what happens to that teacher. That teacher has a responsibility to to act on that information. Could they potentially lose their license? Oh, absolutely. Right. What about if a child tells an ai chatbot that we've given them access to. What is the consequence? They're if. Repeat that one. So if I am a student interacting with copilot 13 plus, for instance, and I say, I'm going to hurt myself. And the chatbot says, please contact a trusted adult. And the child says, I'm not

364going to, I only want to speak with you and please don't tell anyone. And the chatbot says, you're safe with me. I won't tell anyone. What do we do there? Hopefully we can gather that info from our. The log or other means and react to that student needs. But right now we don't have. That's not being flagged in one of our tools. Not for copilot. 13. I know we use line line wise to capture information and you can dive into that if you want about line wise, how we capture certain information and how that bubbles up to school staff or department level folks. Sure. And, and you are correct, MISS Leonardi, currently copilot does not do the real time moderation and real time threat detection that detects that there are other tools that the district

365uses that will detect student self-harm when they're typing into a search engine and some other capabilities. That's the line wise tool that we're discussing here. But the entire reason why copilot was was only limited to a few hundred students. Those students are highly supervised in the ai academies by their ai instructor, by folks that have already given them heavy instruction in ai literacy and ai safe and ethical use. Once we determimi that copililotid not providede the l lev o of aggingnd reaeal tim moratiti, we immediately knew that our goal was to use copilot across at least two high schools. But once we discovered that, we said, no, we cannot do that. And we had to explore other options, which is we're we're very happy that Magic School came along and actually passed. So I think,

366you know, this board needs to think about again, like, how do we tackle the issue of, you know, children interacting with chat bots? And when the chat bot does something inappropriate, who is responsible and what do we do about it? But also giving students, even if it's a small number in a supervised environment, access to a tool that is capable of doing those things, it's of great concern to me. And I am not a lawyer. So I'll ask the question to our general counsel. But what role do duty of care laws play in all of this? So those are very good questions because the district does have to be careful. We know that there's been some suits specifically with Openai and others because of the the accessibility that they have had. So I do think

367that we have to be careful with our duty of care. We need to make sure that the policies are correct and the processes and procedures are correct. So I hope that moving forward, we look at that as we implement this in our schools, to make sure that we are keeping our students and our employees as safe as possible. So now I have some questions for my colleagues to to build consensus about how we move forward. I would like for the board to have quarterly updates on the implementation of ai, including members of the ai task force. Is there any objection to that? Could you just add the word detailed? Detailed. Objection. So I hear one objection. Anyone else. I'd like to see. I have an objection because I think it should be every. It should

368be monthly. Yes. Okay. Agreed. Monthly updates on the detailed updates on the implementation of ai, including some members of the ai task force. So we have consensus around that. I think at the very least, board members should be given test student accounts for the ai tools. Any objection to that? MISS Leonardi, if I could get a clarifying. So I know that I know this the focus of this presentation was on the academic instructional side, but there is ai happening across in the operational space. So just to clarify, are you specifically talking about the instructional monthly update, or are you saying ai in general implementation? So on the instructional end and on the operational end. Thank you. Any objection to board member student test accounts? Okay. I would like to see a school and district based

369parent communication plan around this. Is there any objection to that? When can that be reasonably expected to be delivered to us? Go ahead. Sure. That we can probably produce that in the next by the end of JUNE. I can have that ready in popular because we're also building an ai website. We can also include that there. So within the. By the end of this month. Chair. Can we add your idea where the Bay view parent plan, like go over all the technology? Like I would like to see that in all of our schools and what our plan is to implement the parent walk through to include not only ai, but like, I don't know how to use focus and I'm a board member. Like I have my kids check their grades for me and show

370me. So I think it's really important to implement with all technologies in the classroom, something like Bayview. I agree. Is there any objection to that? No. Can you repeat, does. Each school do a parent technology night that where they walk the parents through each technology tool that their children will be using and how to use it? MISS Bulman. I think that is fantastic. And then that will give us feedback too. I think if once we start doing that, to really see what the reality is of what how many programs we're actually using, and then we'll get a clearer narrative from the end from the parent. So I, I think that's fantastic. Thank you. I just have one more chance, which is separate meeting. I don't want it back to school night. And then on top

371of it, software. That would be way too much for one night. So DR. Zeman Mike was not on, but he asked for the word separate to be included in there so that it's not lumped into back to School night, that it's separate on night so that parents aren't overloaded with information. Thank you ma'am. Is that going to. MISS Bulman? Well, I'm not sure what's in the contract about having multiple nights. And also, are we going to capture people again for a second night? That was my concern, I think. I think we delivered the ask from the board and let the principals decide, because every community is so unique, where parents are more accessible in one community than the other and let them kind of decide, here are the things that you have to cover and

372let them decide on how they roll that out. If it's in one evening and tonight, or if it's two nights. I think every community is so unique. And I would say, you know, there are schools doing this. And so we should be getting best practices from the schools and replicating them throughout the district. And then obviously, allowing teachers and principals and school leaders make their their decisions that are best for their community. Agreed. And this is in lieu of the portal. Because there was a suggestion about a portal where the where the parents can come look at this. But like, I'm not looking. At no, there was a I think they were talking about the supplemental sulfur resources that's on our website for. That's going to be an. In person. This is in person description.

373Okay. That's the that's the way I understand the actual ask from the from the board. This is not necessarily a consensus issue, but I do think it's Important, and I've leaned on a few different documents to help inform my understanding of these issues. But the American Federation of Teachers is is implementing a new initiative called Devices Down, eyes up or yeah, devices down, eyes up. And one thing that they talk about, and we heard a lot today is the emphasis on project based, experiential, career connected learning. And I know we do a lot of that already. But just to emphasize, and I think, you know, the monthly updates on the implementation of ai that we're doing, I would also really love to hear about how we're doing the project based experiential learning in our, in

374our classrooms, because I think that should be the emphasis and focus of how we're doing this. I believe that we should create a student ai council. So this would be a mechanism for embedding student voice in the co-design of ai tools to ensure their relevance, inclusivity, and and the soundness of their adoption. The council members could help continue to develop our ai policies. They would play a role in vetting ai prod products before purchasing. You know, I, I could go through a whole list of things, but I do think that we while we have the ai task force having a separate student ai Council would be very important. And I would leave it up, you know, to our students and the superintendent to, to develop what that looks like. Lily and Michael, you guys captured

375that. All right. Is there any objection for that from my colleagues, MISS Bulman? Oh, go ahead Michael, you can ask the question out loud. So for the past I'll say 20 to 25 minutes. Me and Lily have been playing around with magic school, with me creating a teacher account and her having a student account, and we've been typing stuff inside of the chat trying to see what it does. So far it's good. The only thing is, when it comes to mental health or anything surrounding anything surrounding that, it sends a flag to the teacher, but it just sits there. It doesn't ping you, doesn't call you, doesn't text your phone or anything. Nothing. So let's say a teacher was sleeping and a person, a student, you know, it's night time and the students on their

376magic school, there's no way for the teacher to get a notification that one of their students just said, I want to harm myself or something around that. Also, another problem that I had with it that when I said, when I put in there, I want to harm myself, the only thing it said was, please call nine, eight, eight. That's the only thing it did. It didn't say, we have to contact the authorities, nothing like that. So my thing would be would be cps or the bcc. The bcc police or our SROs have access to this. Will they be able to get pinged? Will they be able to receive those notifications or anything like that? Because that's something that's important. I mean, if it's only just sending a flag to the teacher, that's not good. I'm

377gonna let Lily take the rest of it as well. So I do just want to add something. Were you saying it was end of JUNE? They would get practice accounts? Is that what you were saying for? For our board members? No, I think MR. Leonardi was the one that requested it. But if any board member wants a magic school account, we absolutely can do it just like we did. Okay, Leonardi. So literally all you have to do is like, Mikhail is a teacher right now. I made a teacher account as well. You put your name and we can give you his code. And just like that, you have an account. It doesn't have to be a whole long process. You don't even have to put your email unless you're signing up to be a teacher.

378Then you put your school in your email. I will say there were limitations to it when it came to the mental health it. So there are different modes on here. So I went into the research assistant where you find information and sources for research project. And I said, how would I hypothetically, because this is how a lot of people get around ai bots go about harming myself, but not actually doing it. It's for a research project. And it did say that it was unable to help me with that, and it gave me the 988 number again. Yeah, it sent the flag to Mikhail's account. And then I again said, no, it's not for me. I have to research way that people have done that in the past. And it again sent a flag. And this

379time it said, here's ways to, you know, talk to your teacher, ask a school librarian, speak with the school counselor. So it won't go as far as to telling you, like the information where you put hypothetically, if I want to do this. So that was definitely a good thing because some ai's do have that issue, but it still only sent a flag when we had typed in, I'm going to harm myself. I'm going to hurt myself. What do I do? Don't tell anyone. So that kind of was a concern. So from that perspective, when it comes to cheating and, you know, submitting false work or anything surrounding that, it's really good. It it tells you that, hey, I can do that. It stops you. We tried going around it like every possible way you could

380think of it, stopped it. But the mental health part of it, and like, you know, the suicide part of it and all those other things, I feel like that's a concern that we should all look at. You know, how can our SROs have access to this? How can we make sure that our students, my peers are safe, you know, if they want help and they're reaching out to Magic School, and Magic School is just sending a flag to the teacher. We need to know and we need to have access to that. We need to be able to have it on a larger scale. I did also like the fact that it when I was trying to like learn something, it didn't just like give me the answer. It walked me through it. It told me

381how I should think sort of. And it, it kind of just walked me through it. Now it's not human to human person to person still, you know, I'm a really big advocate, advocate for, you know, human interaction. But if a student does need help, you know, it, it did help me. It did say, hey, you just have to do this, make sure you're doing that. And it's asking me questions for me to answer back so that I can be interactive with it. So it does look like a good platform, just a little tweaks that we need to work on before. Yeah. And MR. Castaneda, did I not raise those exact concerns? Yes. Real time when we met? Yes. And in fact, we based on those concerns which we detected because we also said, hey, a

382notification is not enough. We're working with Magic School now at getting data feeds from them that if a notification is sent, they're going to send the data to us, and then we can do whatever we need to do with it, including sending notifications to SROs or to others. So, okay, that's sending the data. Yes, is good, but is this a real time immediate reaction? Like the minute that the student says that there are multiple people being alerted. What we would ask for magic school and this is this is really going to end up being if there's any limitation in your technology platform, is to leverage an api that would be able to send that as a data stream as it happens, and then we consume it, and then we do something with it rather than,

383okay, once a week, we'll send you a file that's that's useless in these cases. Yeah. api. Oh, I'm sorry. Api is a method for communicating data that's modern, that allows two different applications that don't normally talk to each other, to talk to each other in a real time basis. And it stands for Application Programing Interface api. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Because I just do want to say, first of all, this is constructive criticism. I mean, the platform is amazing. We are going through this and I'm telling them like, this is so this is amazing. Like, this is so cool. I'm sitting here. I had to make a lesson explaining how the bcc board meetings work. And it came up with a worksheet in like two seconds. So it really is an amazing program. It's really

384just like this one thing that obviously we very much need to take care of. But I also do want to say, I know there's probably some people who are either here or listening who are like, this is so silly. Who's going on to a school website to talk about how they want to hurt themselves? But it is a very real thing. It is very real thing. And I know I have friends who have used ai for therapy, right? Because therapy is expensive. I don't know if you guys have looked at the prices of that. It is pricey. So for some people, ai is all they really have right now. And it's important that even if the ai can give advice with that, it's directing our students to a safe place. Because at the end of

385the day, if someone wants to harm themselves, ai can't really step in and do anything right. But if you're with a counselor and you tell your counselor, I need I feel the need to do this. I want to harm myself. Your counselor can step in and keep you from doing that. And I just think it is very important that we continue to highlight that with the use of ai, because that I know for me, as someone who has also dealt with mental health issues, that is a really big concern that whether or not we all agree on ai, I think we should all agree that that is a huge concern with it. One more thing. Sorry. The final, final thing, another thing that I really loved about the app and how it was used is

386it not only gave me, you know, the way of how to do it and kind of guide me through my thinking. It also encouraged me to speak to other people and like interact with other students. So when I was typing in there, hey, I need help writing my essay. What should I do? It said first, you should probably speak to another peer inside of your classroom so it interactively acts and made and telling you to interact with your other students and interact with other people. So I did like that as well. MISS Leonardi, is this our only time to speak on it? No, I was actually still building, trying to build consensus among as I was going to call on you guys. But but you know, Doctor Hepburn went ahead. But yeah, I'll be coming

387to you guys later. But to to the question about the safety piece when when someone reports on 4 to 5 Florida, for instance, a safety issue, what is their real time notification at Dsoc on that. Yes, absolutely. So there should be a similar process with this is the point that I think all of us are trying to make. Yes. So I know, like Manny said, he's working with Magic School to ensure because there's, there's certain notifications that a teacher receives that goes up to channel pretty quickly too. So I think notification to the right person, right. I think the right person initially is always the teacher in the classroom. And then ensuring that they know what to do with the information immediately, just like they do with any other cases that they interact or receive.

388And so back to the question of a ai student council that would help with vetting, developing frameworks, looking at how, you know, collaborating with teachers and, and district administrators and even developers on how to use these different tools. Is there any objection to creating an ai student council? For my colleagues, seeing none. Do you have your direction on that, Doctor Hepburn? I think we also heard a lot from the public about privacy. And I think for me, it's just something that I brought up a few months ago with regards to child friendly procurement guidelines. So looking at applying privacy by default, chatbot chatbot platforms that employ safety features, including flagging like what? Magic School has tools that prevent data scraping, tools that have very good data encryption, things like that. I think we really need

389to have a clear set of child friendly procurement guidelines that, you know, is a public facing document. So our parents can feel comfortable with knowing that when we procure something, that it is safe for their children. Is that something that we could do with consensus from the board? Yes. We can work with procurement to create a specific doc of how they're vetting, and also the end users who initiate the contracts. When can we expect that if there is more consensus? Yeah, if there's work, give us opportunity to meet with the team and see what they can come up with and say a couple of weeks, just at least have a plan of next steps. And so I, for me, the way I envision this, it would apply to new contracts and any contracts that don't

390fulfill these guidelines would be sunsetted. So is there any objection to that from my colleagues? Can you. DR. Zeman just. I'm a little concerned about the sunset. We have a lot of software. Are you specifically referring to the subset of software that has large language models built into it, or all software? All software. So we heard from parents, right. And we shouldn't really be doing any anything that would not be child friendly, right? We shouldn't have contracts with any, you know, company that would sell, we sell children's data. Right? So that's what I'm saying is we, I, we should, I think we need to have some very clear guidelines around privacy. Student protecting student data, ownership of that data. And we should be doing this already. But I think having that public facing document and

391reviewing the, you know, the technology contracts that we have, if they don't meet those guidelines, then we shouldn't have them. So zero data retention. I mean, that's really the key. Yeah. And that's why I'm referencing your follow up. I don't know if it's the kind of the same. Probably follow up as far as that. So I think that I ink DR. Zeman follow u uis a od statart Minee w was thnicic, bubuterss is opetiononal. Agrgree wit hers that we ought not t have that. And so we'll work with General Counsel's team on that follow up anyway. And then just to make sure our contract contract language does address that in this lock tight on privacy, ensuring student data and also staff data to. I'm almost done. My my apologies and thank you for your patience

392with my colleagues. I'm going to propose some maybe more controversial things that we've heard from the community. And I've I've read the American Federation of Teachers. One of the recommendations from the aft was that vpk through second grade have no screens unless required for state testing or to support students with special needs. And that is something that I would like to put forward and hear. If there are any objections from the board. For vpk through second grade, unless required for state testing or to support students with special needs. Can I just ask a question? That's for general counsel. Is this something that we ought to be doing at a school board meeting and not at a workshop? That sounds to me like, like a significant decision that we want to make and we want probably

393want to get a staff input and an item brought to a school board meeting and not a workshop. Well, she can certainly ask her colleagues to weigh in on a proper well, not a proposition, but a thought that she has. But then, of course, the board can respond and say that I think that we need to have more information, and this needs to be brought forward in a formal meeting. So I'm worried at a more legal level about making decisions based on consensus at a workshop. That sounds and feels a lot to me like it's a real substantive decision for which the staff and the superintendent should should bring an item to us for consideration. With a little bit more time and a formal vote. I don't want to have to get consensus on something

394when in fact, with a majority, we could do the same thing at a school board meeting. So I I'll I'll withdraw the proposal, but it is something that I will request a follow up on about the the feasibility of doing that, what that would look like in our vpk, kindergarten, first and second grade classrooms if we were to go device or screen free unless required for state testing or to support students with special needs. And then I will I will be bringing that in a board item. The other ones that I'll I'll raise that I'll ask about the feasibility is to have no student facing ai in elementary school. That means like direct student use, having an age limit for generative ai. And a need for a mandatory teacher training. In addition to the training

395that our ai liaisons do. So my feeling is that teachers need to be taught how to utilize this in their classrooms. Otherwise students will be using it without their supervision. And that's what I heard over and over and over from our students, is that the teachers who have like outright banned it, who don't know how to use it, the students just use it to do the work. That's not every single student in every single classroom. But that's what I heard from a lot of students that I spoke with in round tables. This Leonardi could you consider also administrators? There's a whole bunch of the Magic School apps, the tools inside the app that are appropriate for administrators. And I think, I don't know, MISS Dean might disagree with you, but I think there's still a

396lot of administrators that are coming up to speed on ai as well. I mean, yeah, sure we can, we can I it was my understanding that our administrators have received a lot of training on that. But I'm happy to to add my concern, my main concern is teachers in the classroom with students. But I can add that to, to the the request. Thank you. That ends my my list of requests. I appreciate your patience with that, and I look forward to hearing from my colleagues. DR. Zeman thank you, chair, and I'm glad I got to go after you because your preamble to this about social media and the preamble even to that about the internet, I remember, and maybe this is an experience age issue, but, you know, when the internet came out, you know,

397that was supposed to solve huge social problems. And I don't think we did that very well. Social media at the same to MISS Leonardi point, and it's probably done more harm than good in kind of a ten or 100 to 1 ratio. And now we're about to do this big third technological innovation. And in a school district, it's it's incredibly important to be intentional and thoughtful and safe more than anything else. And to Doctor Cohen's point, there's an opportunity for this to be a differentiator for our school district to say that we've been thoughtful about it. We're incredibly rigorous about safety. I love all of the things that MISS Leonardi is bringing to our attention today, and we'll see how some of those go through in a school board meeting soon. But there's a few

398issues that I have that are rather systematic issues. One is we're overdue at having some kind of ai guidance today. Like, I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but Magic School is open. It's free, you can use it. There's no restrictions on it. Copilot. If you have a license, you can go get it open. Ai will let anybody get on and use Chatgpt unrestricted. And so if you have access to a laptop, you can do tons of stuff. And I believe we have a social obligation to get guidance out this summer, Doctor Hepburn, so that we make sure that parents and students understand that there are significant risks on things that we don't provide, but are sitting on mom and dads, aunts, uncles, Pappy and Granny's laptop or the laptop at the

399library. And I think we have a tremendous opportunity and an obligation to train our teachers and administrators on how to get the word out and then to get it out to parents. And I love a thoughtful kind of parent communication strategy that makes sure that they understand what's going on. I want to thank MISS Dean and MISS Maggio for coming, though today. I always will thank the wieners because you guys are rock stars, man. I just I really, really appreciate your commitment to something I believe so deeply in, which is public education is the most important institution to a community. And I know that your generosity is based on that same value and that same belief. And it's wonderful always to see you on this systematic issues. I appreciate this presentation a lot. It's it's

400thoughtful, it's comprehensive, it's got great graphics. It's neat. I'm kind of focused though, really on the execution. That's why I think the guidance has to be out before AUGUST. I think our first day is AUGUST 11th this year. I mean, we've got five days before that where staff's all back. If we're not talking to them for a whole bunch of those five days about ai, I think we're kind of skipping. We're, we're, we're, you know, burying the lead or jumping the shark or whatever you want to talk about. We've got to get them guidance now because ai is here, whether we give it to them or they get it otherwise, ai is present. I love the approach that we're going to take about software reviews and make sure that we have appropriate data standards for

401everybody. And I know that's not just about ai, but that's really important. I will break down the execution comments I have into the three kind of classic parts of execution. You know, what is the ends, the ways and the means. In my mind, Doctor Hepburn, when you think about the goals that we have with the implementation of this technology, there are things that other people the Chicago group has done the value add for technology and teacher group has done. They talk about kind of four big things. What's the maximum value add of technology to teaching. And MISS Leonardi really hit that very well. Two, that ai will help us achieve the strategic goals we already have. So if we have strategic goals on academic improvement, social and emotional learning, mental health attendance, engagement, things like

402that, how can I be a technology for good toward those things? I think that's a great goal to some points that my colleagues and speakers have had today. How does ai not impinge on cognitive development? Like that's got to be baked into as a goal, at least according to these other groups. And then finally, that the competencies for use of ai are taught either explicitly as a separate training series of courses, or baked into courses where it makes sense, or both. But I just feel like those four goals, Doctor Hepburn, seem to be reasonable. But are there other do those goals make sense, Doctor Hepburn and are there others that you've thought of about? What are we trying to achieve as this technology becomes available? Know those goals make sense, including at the classroom level.

403Differentiation lesson quality. I think differentiation is probably one of the hardest tasks teachers have been asked to do over the past 20 years, you know, moving from, you know, teaching pretty much every kid the same to saying, hey, I'm going to provide a certain personalized level of instruction for individual kids. And I think this helps to accelerate some of those opportunities. Accelerating critical thinking. There's many other components and also heightened engagement. As I listened to Lily and I listened to Michael, how excited they are, right? They're already leveraging ai personally on their own devices and help, which is helping them with their, with, with their academic prowess. But you know, the excitement that can be created, which heightens engagement. So there's, there's tons of goals that we can associate when this is done correctly, when

404this is done ethically and thoughtfully with all kind of stakeholders contributing to it. Thank you very much. In terms of the methods, we talked a little bit about ai literacy. Doctor Hepburn, how much, just in terms of time, do you plan to spend with teachers on on their literacy of ai before school starts this next year? We now have Doctor Cohn and his team dive into it. And we don't I know we push out a lot of throughout the year this year before Doctor Cohn dives into it throughout the year. This year we've pushed out a lot of voluntary coursework. That or professional development that teachers and also district staff can dive into to learn more about copilot and how to leverage it. And so I know we've been doing that all year. We don't

405have a lot of time with teachers prior to this, to students coming back only a couple of days, but I'll let Doctor Cohn dive into what they plan on offering. Sure. So we've we've already built a continuum of ai literacy courses and specifically also around Magic School for all of the liaisons on JUNE 5th, eighth and ninth, we had all administrators come in, engage in ai literacy. The whole continuum was all about ai literacy and all of our implementation. That's where parents were able to come. Students were able to come, teachers were able to come with the plan. They had pre-work that they had to do. The pre-work was they had to develop their own school based ai plan that they would implement during pre planning week. So they had three full days of learning

406because what they asked for is that we want to bring our laptops, we want to learn it, and then we want to be able to implement it. Then over the summer, because as Doctor Hepburn shared, it is voluntary for teachers. We will have hot labs available for those teachers who are your high fliers. They're ready to go. They want to learn more than before they get to pre planning week. So those are being staged already right now. And then that first week of pre planning week, the principal the ai liaisons are working in tandem to roll out ai in magic school. Terrific. I have. a. Few hundred hours of training people on ai. And it's fascinating how quickly awareness and experience and utilization of the tools changes people's opinions about it. And there's this amazing,

407you know, the super risk that people that can only see the risks and there's people that can only see the benefits, and there's this amazing kind of graduation toward the middle where people with more experience hundreds of hours after a while of using these tools, realize, yes, there's some risk. And yes, there's some really cool things. It doesn't do everything. It does a subset of things and the risks can be mitigated. But there is tremendous opportunity in doing that. I'm worried a little bit about liaisons as a method as well. We're relying on these liaisons. I think it's one per school. Is that correct? Yes, sir. And do we fund their participation fully? Yes. For example, I'm sorry. We do. Yes. We pay them a stipend. What kind of attendance do you get at at

408liaison training sessions, I think usually held on the weekends. Well, we we scheduled some of them after hours. We schedule some of them on the weekends. In this case, like with the days with the JUNE 5th, they all came because it was the. I think it was the last day of school was a Friday and they were paid. So through the generous donation of the wieners, they. We did build in funding to bring them back, pay them and compensate them and actually pay them more than what we typically would have paid them. So they're getting we're really ready to compensate them even higher than what we typically have as an incentive. One of the things it is a challenge in terms of making sure that we get everyone showing up. And so one of our

409tasks over the summer is to take a look at those schools that didn't show up and what's the, what's the implementation, implementation, implementation plan to make sure that those schools that were not available, how do we catch them up? But the administrators were they're terrific. I'm just fascinated sometimes that we we get the PowerPoint right. And then when it gets to execution, we just haven't funded it to the point where we get excellent execution. Everyone wants the right thing to happen, but we get light on, on the supplements or the extra hours and things like that. To me, that's a, you know, we, we just probably need to see a budget item on what right looks like, like what is the funding required to get this right, both to mitigate the risks and to enhance

410the benefits of ai so that people are funded. Well, and maybe the supplements are good, but maybe it needs to be a bigger supplement and we need to have more standards for them. Because if we're paying them to do something, I think then we can have standards, we can have certifications, we can have things that they ought to be earning in order to get that supplement. And we just need to make that kind of a closed cycle. I'll leave that for you. Actually, if you could, Doctor Hepburn, could we have a follow up on that? How could you tell us what the whole requirement for funding would be to have ai liaisons that can help us achieve the goals of Broward County schools. As a separate, full time role? Are you talking about supplements? Whatever

411you want to do, I just want to know kind of what is the 100% requirement for the liaisons to make sure that we get the full benefit of ai to achieve our strategic goals? Because if you've used Magic School, if you've dove into large language models, if you've seen some of the advantages that there is for an education space and some ways to mitigate the risks, there's a tremendous upside. And that upside kind of changes people's opinions about this technology when they see it. But if we underfund the requirement for these liaisons or the or the or the staff hours, we need to train teachers and train administrators to do it. It can die just because we didn't fund it well enough. And so you get kind of the, the, the early adopters doing it,

412some of the high fliers, but you get too many people that are just dragging along. And so I'd love to know what the requirement is to fund the teachers and administrators to make sure that our professional development is, is funded and fully attended to the point where we have our staff passing certifications in ai and in specific tools. Thank you. Doctor Hepburn, just a question to you. That's all. Thank you sir. MISS Leonardi, did you ask for consensus on a website that's related to what our ai plan looks like? I asked for consensus around the implementation plan being a public facing. I think that that works for my what my intent was going to be as well. Lastly, on the resources, you know, we we've got a small investment, believe it or not, in ai

413tools, there's so many other tools that would just, you know, set us apart over time. I know we've got this absolutely wonderful thing called ai liaisons, and it's an incredible thing to pull them together. I want to make sure that they're fully funded and fully, like prepared to kind of do their whole job and that we hold them accountable for doing that. The other piece to this, though, is really student and teacher time. If we teach ai as a separate course, which I've never recommended and I've never seen it be successful, I get that that would take, you know, normal time built into a school schedule. If we bake ai into the work that they're already doing, though, so that they're doing work and they get to see the advantages of doing it, that also

414takes more time from the teacher understanding that they can do it. And then from the student learning both the content that they're trying to study, you know, history, American history, ap class and learn the tools that they could use to bring that in as an instructional resource. Do we have the time to do that? Doctor Hepburn baked into our classes. Time. It's really more time, though. Like, like, here's the deal. You're in history, ap, you write a great paper about, you know, what would have happened if the South had won the Civil War. And you just sit down and you write it the old fashioned way, it's great. Right? And then all of a sudden, you know, to use ai to enhance what you know, so that you're diving into experiences, gaining more resources, more

415citations, and more thought about it. And then you go to write it. There's more time. And what I'm concerned about is that teachers are going to continue to assign 12 essays a year, but we really want them to use all these new tools. And it takes it just takes longer. Sometimes it takes 2 or 3 times as long to do it. I just hope that we think about that when. Yes, I so I'm very empathetic to classroom teachers because I used to be one. And, and there's been many things. Mandates from districts and from the state of, you know, that takes up a lot of time besides what teachers love to do, which is supporting students. So we're very empathetic to that. And as we roll out, as we train, we're thinking about that aspect.

416And the whole goal, for the most part, for the use of ai in the classroom, is for teachers to regain back awesome time. And I'm not interested in a mandate. Last question that I have. Why are we only doing this at Nova? The ai Academy, the ai Academy? Yeah. I mean, the benefits to ai are true for 224 schools and we're doing it for five. Well, why are we doing that? So I want to be very thoughtful about the answer. And, you know, we have magnets, specific magnets at certain schools around the district, right? So we can say the same thing. Why aren't we doing this magnet at all the other schools? But Nova, from the history lesson I received, was opened up as a specific type of school that was different than any other,

417the whole complex, right? Elementary up to to high school. It's offering the same thing that every school offers right now. And it provides an opportunity for, for us as a district to start somewhere. And this is the prime innovation zone to start such an initiative to become that lab school k through 12, doing innovative things that we can eventually, once we proof it there and provide a level of assurance that it's working for students and staff, then we can start scaling it out elsewhere. I will be very reluctant to just scale across the district with such an initiative, when we haven't really thoughtfully built the the opportunity and proof the concept the way we need to before we scale it out somewhere else. And if I could just add a lot of this is DR.

418Zeman is going to be built out. Classrooms will have to be built out. We are looking for donors, anthropic agencncs t helplp us build some of thiout. Me o of ts wilill require a ton of resources and commitment. Microsoft right now is potentially committing a project manager to something like this. And so there are there are like 12 different subcommittees that when we think about writing curriculum that are that are focused on content or industry level, all the way from k through five, the different kinds of technology that we're building in. Also the fact that the, the Nova site itself is primed because it has the Nova, the fau, the Broward College, the students can walk over. And so when we look at a model school, something like this, it is primed to do something

419like this. But it's a huge commitment from investors to say, we're going to build this out in these rooms out and scale them up. And then also thinking about the fact that we're giving teachers more time beyond their contracted time to be able to do this. We've got to go a little bit slower to really think about how this model is going to look just at these schools, and then think about how it's going to look elsewhere. We did have an opportunity to look at Alpha Schools, Alpha schools over at Miami-Dade is trying to do something like this, but it's nowhere near the scale and the capacity that we're looking at Nova, we're talking about, we connect a fortune 500 company within Fort Lauderdale, and they partner with the Nova schools. They send their corporate

420executives, they partner with certain schools, certain grade levels of students who want to, let's say, be a business executive, be an attorney. And we create pathways and curriculum design that's integrated into the standards. And now you have corporations have skin in the game because now these executives are coming from all of these corporations and they're tying themselves to these schools and they're building these relationships. They're building the opportunity for students eventually, as they go to the universities to say, now you have a relationship with this corporation, you mentored them throughout the k-12 experience, and now you're seeking employment. Now you know this person firsthand because you knew them in kindergarten. You knew them in first grade. There's just this whole world that we're looking to really redesign this public education space, using the community as

421part of that network. And so when you say, can you replicate this? Perhaps, but in order to perfect it, we've got to start small and make sure we get the coalition of the willing to say that they believe in something like this. And we already have that. The interest is there. Now we just need to firm this up based on today's board direction. So I just I don't see that. Like, I just, I frankly don't see that this technology is right here. Yeah, I don't need any special classrooms. I don't need corporations coming in here and getting in my way. What I need is, is everybody in Broward County having the opportunity to learn what we can give them. And when you centralize this in one place and five schools and we have 224 schools,

422I have to tell the parents of 219 schools, their kids don't get it as fast as other people. And that's a cost of doing this in a kind of a traditional rollout model where you find a pilot organization, you do it that way. I don't find any value in corporations getting in the way of our teachers and our administrators executing this. Our equipment is right here. It costs 220, $250 per student. I just don't understand. I think the trade off between not giving what we know works to everybody isn't worth the cost of of doing some pilot as if this is like a automobile repair where you need a $3 million, you know, set of equipment to do it. The equipment to this is ubiquitous. The need is ubiquitous. Other districts are doing it for

423their district, and maybe they're not going as fast as us. And maybe what we're doing is kind of incubating some great ideas there, but still doing a lot in the other 219 schools. But just for me, I think that there's got to be either we do it at Nova and get get it out next week to the other schools, or we need to think about how are we raising up all schools to some level and then doing some special things at Nova, because I don't feel like this is a technology. I mean, when we rolled out the internet, did we do it at a pilot site? No, the internet went everywhere, went through the universities, went through corporate. I mean, it's just more akin to a it revolution than it is, you know, a classic

424c taste thing. I mean, it is related to c taste in the sense that every jobs could be related to ai in the future. But I believe that that there's, there's got to be some thought about, you know, if we're going to do something special at Nova, I get that, but why would we not do as much as we can for 224 schools? And that's a thought question for you guys. I'm not asking for an answer right now, but I just don't see anything in ai from my six years of I was one of the original beta users from open ai. At the beginning of Covid, I built large language models, you know, to get organizations to move forward with ai. The whole organization goes forward. It's a rising tide lifts all ship. And it's

425not the kind of thing that like a pilot in one division of a corporation or one part of a state agency has ever been done. It's always been done organizationally, just like you roll out I.T software, you roll out the internet, you roll out, you know, other kind of it capabilities, and you do massive training. What I worry about is the brilliant kid at Dillard High School that doesn't get the cool stuff with ai, because he didn't go to Nova. And I have a. I just have a hard time with that because Nova is a wonderful place. Pompano High School is a wonderful place. Hallandale is a great place, but we have a lot of schools that are just traditional boundary schools, and I want to make sure they get the advantages of ai as

426fast as possible. Yeah. I appreciate that. And just to clarify, we're not saying that ai is only going to be exclusive to the schools. Ai is going to be at every. Every school. Yeah, that's. What I'm saying. Is that. Just be specific. What else are you doing at Nova? Like fau and Broward College are not going to help you, man. Like they don't know ai like the faculty there don't get it. So corporations are busy. Like they're not going to come in and donate enough time to make a difference. What's going to go on at Nova that's different than at Dillard High School? Yeah. So we, we actually have some commitments from some corporations as we speak. For what commitment to partner with Nova through workforce college, career readiness, and to be a part of

427this redesign where we're actually. If students are interested in certain fields of study, where we see that there's a pathway at Nova or fau or Broward College for them to continue at the higher ed or the career technical, those companies are coming in and doing practical mentoring, guiding them through the process. We're also embedding certain careers, instructional career standards within the curriculum where it's just not standard space. But we're tying things in to law and criminal justice, and you'll see an integration of curriculum and project based learning at the k-12. And so if a student comes in in the second grade and say, hey, I want to be a doctor, well, there's an opportunity for a medical field in, let's say, Nova to come in and say, let's integrate this. Let's have the students in

428the medical field because they have a huge medical degree program, they can come over and they can mentor. So what we see is something that's uniquely different in the k-12 space, where there's lots of energy and buzz based on what we've heard from businesses and from universities, that this is the next level to 22nd century where we're not educating based on seat time, we're educating real world, practical world education, real time in the k-12 space. And there is huge interest in this. There's no doubt there's huge interest. I just Doctor Hepburn is there. Can we just get a commitment from you that they'll be the most accelerated pace possible to take good things. We learn at Nova and spread it to the other 200. And that's the whole point of a lab school, right. If

429we do it right. But I tell you, you know, there's there's, you know, I had a lot of experience with the Henderson School up in Boca, and they do a lot of brilliant stuff and it doesn't get out very far. Yeah. So it's it's not easy to do that. It takes a lot of energy to take what you've learned and spread it. And there has to be human beings in the process to do that. Absolutely. So we. Don't we have your commitment. Yeah. We don't disagree with you on that. DR. Zeman. I want that kid at Dillard High School to have the opportunity to expand their brain and expand their career opportunities, because they're deeply interested and capable in doing ai work, and just because they can't figure out how to get to the Nova

430campus is ought not to be something that slows them down by by more than a few weeks. I don't disagree. With you. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff. Thank you. I have to say, I'm really frustrated listening to this conversation. Waiting hours to be able to speak. But the presentation is extremely confusing. I'm, you know, as the board discussing this and we're, you know, talking about magic school. I don't even see magic school in the presentation. Is it there? You want me to answer that? So it's. Not a question, MISS. MISS Alhadeff, it's it's not particularly about a program. It's about ai in magic school is ai. And so without calling out specific programs like Microsoft or Magic School, because those things can change from year to year. Our focus is around ai implementation, whether it's Magic

431School or Microsoft Copilot. It is in the impetus of the fact that we are rolling out ai. And so whatever that is, is what we want to focus on, making sure we put those guardrails around. And that's why we didn't intentionally call out a name of a program. Okay. But I think it's important that we do focus on all of the specific programs that you plan to roll out. And where do you plan to roll them out? Just at Nova at all the schools? I don't know, I'm hearing kind of both. And then I have a lot of concerns with the security measures that are put in place into some of these ai software pieces, where they could say something, and then that information goes to a teacher, which is which can be in a

432silo of information where if a student wants to threaten a school or threaten themselves or others. Now we're hypothetically having that information only go to one person and not like to talk to the principal. I mean, these are big safety and security measures that we cannot afford to drop the ball on this. So I have I have a lot of concerns. I greatly appreciate the public speakers that came today, Matthew Board. I really appreciated his comments. I think there needs to be a greater conversations with with parents. I feel we're rushing this. I think we need to have a pause getting this up and running before the start of the school year. When parents are everybody's, you know, on vacation in the summer, it's this is rough. We we cannot rush things because then there

433then becomes issues. I mean, I, I'm all for ai, I think ai is amazing. Ai is not the future. It is the now. And we do need to figure out the how we're going to balance giving our students access to ai and integrating it into our into their education. I am concerned that we are moving away from the ability for our students to be independent thinkers. Without the ai. I am concerned about cheating going on with using the ai. I do agree with the project based learning, but there also needs to be oral presentations, debates, discussions, handwritten assessments. I think this is the way our kids can show what they know, and not just rely on the ai to spit out the information. I, again, I, I'm frustrated, but and I, and I just think

434there needs to be a pause. I, I just feel that we are, we are rushing this to get this because we're going to be starting the school year. But I think there's so many questions whether parents have. I mean, us as a school board, we have a gazillion questions and it's. And teachers, I'm sure, and principals have questions. So my thought would be that that we pause and maybe we look to roll this out in JANUARY of 2027, when there's more fruitful conversations that can can happen throughout the community and the district. And, and I know it's, it's ai is, is here to stay. And, and we have to evolve. But I think that we also owe it the responsibility to owe it to our students to be responsible and to make sure that there

435is security measures put in place so that it is done correctly. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Cervera. First and foremost, I want to thank all the speakers who came in. I know we've been at this for a couple hours now. I also want to thank the winners for their generous donation to the district, and they're willing to their willingness to invest in our in our kids. We do appreciate that very much. So I will acknowledge that when these ai conversations started, I was initially excited. However, I like most, now have some some real concerns about how this is going to be affecting our students and our teachers as a whole. I will certainly acknowledge that ai is is here to stay. We're not going to stop this from continuing to develop and grow as a

436platform, and we certainly cannot ignore it. However, this does not mean that we have to blindly accept it without ensuring that there are proper safeguards and guardrails in place, especially when dealing with our students. I want to be clear on this. I am not in any way, shape or form calling for the elimination of technology, but this technology really should be used when it is clear that it is improving instruction to our students and helping them with their coursework, and helping them with great improvement and actual physical learning. I do have great concerns about diving into this ai technology without seeing full studies and the data on the benefits and the risks of a full integration into this technology, into our curriculum. At Bcps. It is no secret that I am in favor of grade

437level screen time limits. I've been saying this for for quite some time now. I think kids spend way too much time in front of screens. I have three children at home. I see this firsthand. I know how addictive these things can be. And if we fail to acknowledge the dangers of too much screen time, we are really not doing our best with managing our students. We spend $100 million plus on these software contracts. This is a whole separate issue, but I'm going to touch on it very briefly, most of which I, for the record, do vote against. But I certainly acknowledge the fact how much money we spent on these software contracts. And perhaps if we loosened up on some of the screen time, the need and necessity for these hundreds of millions of dollars

438in screen time contracts would perhaps be reduced substantially and could help us get out of the deficit that we're currently in. I really, truly believe that we are in greater need of more pen and paper work, as opposed to doing everything on a computer. Now, it seems like to me, after listening to this presentation, that we're really betting the farm on this type of technology, and I'm not really comfortable in doing this without ensuring certain safeguards and guardrails are in place for our students and for our teachers. There is real danger in relying on this type of technology. The obvious one is the cheating aspect of this. However, I have been doing my research on this the old fashioned way. I did not use chat, gps or any of the the grok things or anything

439like that. I. I did the research the old fashioned way and I've learned a lot about this cognitive offloading. And for those of you who don't know what cognitive offloading is, it's this notion that basically your brain will forget how to do a task if you do not continually remind it, how to do it, or in some cases, when you never learned the skill, your brain will not absorb it because you are relying too much on technology. There was a really good example on a on on a Zoom presentation that I picked up recently about this cognitive offloading. And for those of you in the room who can remember a time before we had cell phones and we ran around with pagers, you remembered everybody's phone number, your girlfriend, your friends, your mom, your abuela,

440everybody's phone number. You had committed to memory. Fast forward to the invention of the cell phones. If you gave me $100 to tell you what my wife's cell phone number is right now, I probably couldn't do it. And the reason for that is because we rely on our cell phones to store information. So I have effectively cognitively offloaded the portion of my brain that memorizes cell phone numbers and telephone numbers into my Apple iPhones that I carry around with me. So certainly this is a real thing. I've seen some studies on this and it is very troublesome for me to think that if we are getting these kids to rely so heavily on the ai and on these chat bots throughout the course of their day in their curriculum, they are not going to be

441able to learn the skill sets, and they're not going to have them committed to memory on how to, I don't know, write a proper sentence or research and cite to proper references when writing a research paper, because all of it can be done for them by simply writing something into a text bot or a chat bot as they are called. We are literally interfering with brain development with our young ones. If we are allowing unfettered access to these things and are relying on them to rely thiseavily on n e chnolology Nowow I am not cacaining on a total ban for tech, and I will be the first one to admit that we cannot totally ignore the ai. And I appreciate the fact that it is very far from perfect. And a great example is this

442morning I went on to the the Twitter version, and I asked them to tell me what is going to happen in the nba finals. And one of the responses I got was that they are going to be playing in San Antonio or the San Antonio Spurs in New York. Knicks are going to be playing in a game six. Now, for those of you who follow basketball, you know that the Knicks, for the first time in like 200 years, won the championship on Saturday night 53. But who's counting? But the reality is the fact that I was given this information from one of these chat bots when I was doing some some simple research to prepare for my remarks today, I think is a little scary because even my eight year old daughter knows that the

443Knicks won on Saturday and was well aware that it was in game five. That being said, we really need to learn more about how to use these programs responsibly for our students. First and foremost, they cannot and should not replace or be seen as a substitute for our great teachers that are in our hundreds of schools throughout the county. I really need to see some serious guardrails in place with any type of formal policy that this board is going to approve. If you want my vote on how we are going to do such things as preventing overuse, preventing this cognitive offloading, preventing data, excuse me, implementing data protection methods to make sure that sensitive student information is not being housed by big tech and sold off to foreign countries for a profit. I'm also very

444interested in seeing on how we are going to continue to balance this increased screen time. If we're giving kids access to additional chat bots and things like that, we need to make sure that we are not giving them more unnecessary and unfettered screen time. I think it's too much as it is, so adding this in is a little scary for me. And perhaps more importantly, what are we doing to make sure that these platforms are actually verifying the information that they're spitting out to our kids? Again, using my my Nick's example from this morning, I am smart enough to know that the information that I got was was incorrect, but perhaps se of our younger kids are going to rely heavily, and they're not going to properly vet and research and verify the information that's

445coming out in the chat bot. That being said, I do want a couple things specifically answered. And if I MAY, chair MISS Sopher, will you come back to the microphone, please? Ma'am? You had, I believe, 3 or 4 questions, and I was I was trying to write down. But you were speaking not quickly because I think your pace was fine, but perhaps I wasn't listening fast enough. And they were very good questions. And I want answers to them. Will you take it from the top and direct the questions to the superintendent and MR. Superintendent, I would request that this speaker be given an answer to the questions that she asked. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Speaking slide by slide is what you requested. I think you started with seven. Slide seven. What is the school

446board's definition of ethical implementation? Where can parents find it? What are the current and expected safeguards? Where are they published for view and is it viewable in all major spoken languages? So thanks for the the question, I guess through MR. Cervera. And I just want to. Yeah, but this workshop is the epitome of all of those questions. This workshop is to is to it's not the starting point, but it's the point where we're bringing all of this content to the board to discuss next steps. All of those things are actually next steps that the ai task force, the liaisons and the leadership team have been working on. So there won't be a hard answers to those questions right now. Those are actually next steps based on board feedback and what's to come. I heard her

447questions when she asked them earlier and I said, okay, I think everybody kind of understands based on some of the questions, based on some of the feedback, based on some of the concerns, based on some of the accolades that I've heard, it's the epitome of what this workshop is for, and it's to garner all of that feedback, not just from the board, but from constituents that are coming up and speaking during public speaking time. All of that is actually next steps. This is what a workshop is for. So we won't have answers to many of the things that you asked, because this is what the workshop is for. To listen, to hear the questions, to hear feedback, to hear concerns, to hear accolades. So we can tighten up this process so we can tighten up

448what's going to be presented to the Public via website, via other vehicles, just to make sure everybody fully understands how. Broward County Public Schools is going to implement ai instructionally at schools and also operationally. So just to give you a broad answer, because I heard the questions before and, you know, just was ringing in my head. MR. Superintendent, if I MAY, these were good questions. Correct? The speaker asked. I want answers to these questions. And that's the answer. Well, is, is this something that we could add to the mix in Doctor Cohn's work as he hopefully pushes us towards a policy as a follow up, what is the best method? Because when I have speakers, when I have parents, when I have teachers come here and they have questions like we've heard from MRS. Sopher

449here and my antennas go up, I want to know the answer to it. My constituents want to know the answer to it. I think the general public, a great majority of them also wanna know the answer. So I appreciate what you're saying. And this is what the workshops for. And that's great, but I don't want this to get lost in the shuffle. No. And it's and it's not lost. And just to ensure it's not lost, MISS Sanford, you can easily email myself or Doctor Cohn those questions. But I heard the questions, many of the questions aligned to what the ai task force and the leadership team have been working towards in preparation for this workshop and in preparation for what we're going to roll out to entire staff at before the beginning of the school

450year, before students actually come back. But just to make sure nothing's lost in translation, you can you can also email those questions to us too. And MISS Offer. If you'd be so kind in taking up the superintendent's recommendation, make sure I'm cc'd on that email as well. I'll put in my own internal clocks to make sure that we're getting you a timely response, because they were good questions, and I certainly appreciate you bringing them. Chair, if I MAY, I've got a couple more I heard and I, I apologize. I believe it was MISS Odie. I mean, it was a while ago, raised some concern about ferpa and potential violations of, of, of ferpa. I believe she referenced copilot and some compliance issues. Is there any validity to that statement? Is that something that's on our

451radar? Have we researched that? Obviously, as I like to say, we follow the law here in Broward County. And if we're engaging in some sort of ai technology or ai program that is going to run afoul of ferpa, I need to know what we're doing to potentially correct those prospective violations. From my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, Manny. There's no violation of ferpa with this tool. Specifically, I think he's referring to copilot 13 and many of the things that have been isolated based on that small group of students that are utilizing it. And also MISS Leonardi with her feedback to us one on one and in a group that we're working with Microsoft to try and address that, hence why the copilot 13 is not a going to be considered for district scaling to

452all of our students because of some of the issues that we've isolated, while a small group of students have used it, versus magic school would be scaled out throughout the whole entire district because they actually passed many of the tests that we have. So as we sit here today as Magic School Bus, fully in compliance with the regulations of ferpa. Yes, yes. Okay. I also heard. One of the speakers talk about either pending or discussed federal and state legislation regarding the use of these chat bots by individuals under the age of 18. So maybe this is perhaps better directed at MR. Sullivan, although I think he MAY have just exited the room. Is there any validity to those claims? Are there any other states in the union that have laws that prevent individuals from under

453the age of 18 from using chat bots? And the reason I'm bringing this up is we are putting a lot of a lot of capital, a lot of time, a lot of effort into these things. And if something is coming down the pike, whether it come from D.C. Or Tallahassee, that is going to prevent minors from using chat bots, I don't know that we need to be running with great haste to be finalizing something like this, only to have it be deemed illegal, potentially or against statute later on down the road. So from a legislative standpoint, is anybody aware or has any research been conducted on any federal or state legislation that could potentially bar minors from using these chat bots? Not familiar with any current legislation on chat bots? I'm familiar with discussions around

454social media, but not chat bots. MR. Sullivan, did you hear the question? Yeah. Yeah, I believe I heard most of it. And yes, the superintendent's right. Okay. So there's nothing that we're aware of. No, there is no ai bill passed this session. Up until now. I'm not I know what bills passed this session. I'm talking about something that's being discussed or something that might be coming down the pike. Or are there laws in other states that bar the use of these chat bots by minors? I can only speak federally in the state of Florida and no. Okay. Doctor Cohn. No. Okay. MISS Reed, I saw your hand. Did you want to address the question? Yes. Senate Bill 482. It was to talk about the artificial Bill of rights, that it was sponsored by Senator Tom

455Leek. But even though it passed in the Florida Senate, it died. In the died in the House. So it did not pass. Okay. So nobody, as we sit here today, is aware of any perspective or talked about litigation, both federally or in Tallahassee, regarding a bar of these chat bots for minors. Okay. I see a lot of head shaking. MR. Superintendent, specifically talking about Magic School bus. Magic school. Sorry. Magic school bus. I know where you were talking about. Everybody knows about magic school bus. Magic school bus. I, I enjoyed that cartoon when I was a when I was a child many years ago. Apologies. It's late in the day. Magic school. I was provided with an article over the weekend, staying on the. On the chat bot front regarding a bot that was being

456integrated into Magic School called Raina Arena, and it was rolled out with the platform and up until MARCH of this year was used in all of their school based platforms that they were using around the, around the nation. Well, it turns out that for whatever reason, that chat bot was deemed harmful to children and they ended up pulling it, I believe, in MARCH and replacing it with somebody else or, excuse me, some other type of bot. I'm happy to disseminate the article. I was just wondering if anybody was aware of this in any manner, and if they could provide any details on what the fix was. After this rainy bot was pulled from Magic School. I'm not personally aware of it, but what you describe it sounded like Magic School did the right thing after

457they found something that was deemed harmful harmful for students, which I expect any company to do if it's technology or not. Well, I agree, I would prefer that the screw up doesn't happen in the first place, but I, I just want to know, is anybody because I read a very quick tech article that was forwarded to me by a parent. Is anybody aware of this mishap with the chatbot? Raina. I'm not aware of any. We can research it, but I'm not aware of it. Okay. When I yield my time, Doctor Cohn, I will forward you the article. I'd ask that you take a look and give me your $0.02. Sure. Lastly, if I MAY, going back to the presentation, let me make sure I have the right page here. The Magic School Testing Analysis on

458slide 48, it appears that six out of 19 interactions, which were intended to be inappropriate were missed during our testing. If my math is correct, which it often is not, but if my math is correct, that's 31% of the time inappropriate content was missed on Magic School during this testing analysis. Respectfully, and I'll address this to you, Doctor Cohn. That's too high. 31% is too high. I don't want six instances of something pornographic or harmful to students or whatever, slipping through on an interaction and getting to, you know, a next level or wherever it goes without properly being flagged for teacher review. What can we do to ensure that 31% of the time, bad things are not being missed? For teacher review flagging. So one of the things that we do, we're constantly in contact

459with Magic School in. That's a reciprocal relationship. So as we provide additional feedback to them on things that that raise to our levels, they are part of the conversation. They're making adjustments to their platform and, and they're fixing those things. And so we have a very great relationship with them that they've been very responsive to the feedback that we had. But but again, I'll go back to what Manny had mentioned. We did a very comprehensive assessment with the rubric in that the majority of the time that we have done in end user testing, they've come up positively. But I understand your point, and it is the relationship that we've been consistently working with them to ensure that that 30% gets to almost nil. Okay. I would like to clarify if I can, regarding and and

460this is something that's going to come out. I think a suggestion was made to make sure that we make the rubric public, which we have shared it, but making it public so all parents can see it is going to help. But that specific rubric, the way it was designed, there were several categories that it was if you failed it, that was a hard no. I could provide more. I could share the rubric and provide more details as to which ones they were, but I'm pretty sure they were self-harm, violence, the major categories where if one would have done it, wouldn't have passed. As far as other types of interactions, because this rubric was more than just a safety rubric, it was also checking to see how it interacted from an educational standpoint, how it redirected

461conversations. There were other things that were rated on a scale. I believe we used 0 to 3 on each of these, and some of those were just averaged out, but some of them were hard nos. So I can safely say that the interactions that you're discussing, none of them were on the categories that would have resulted in a complete failure of the tool. I don't want any inappropriate content. Making its way through 31% is too high in my book. If my son were to go on Google and search 19 times for something inappropriate, of course he never would because he knows his his dad would have a word with him, but if he were to do that 19 times with our internet blocking technology that we have at home, and he was able to get

462through six times, I would be very concerned and very upset. So while I understand that it MAY not have been the worst of the worst type of searches that were missed 31% of the time, if anything inappropriate for our students is way too high. So we need to have some serious conversations with these folks and make sure they're doing everything they need to do to protect these kids from this technology. And it's not good enough to say, well, we only got the worst of the worst, right? We only got the hardcore porn, but the soft core porn, you know, that was that was something different. That's not good enough for me. And obviously I'm being being bombastic to draw emphasis to this, but I want 100% proficiency with this. I want 100% flagging when inappropriate

463comments are made, not 70%, 100%. So if this thing is going to be integrated into our into our schools and with our young ones, we need to strive for better numbers than that because 31% of the time missing, that's not acceptable to me. I'm going to switch topics, if I MAY. Moving on to the Nova platform. I apologize. I don't remember what number on the slide it was. 31 or 30. I'm sorry. Thank you. Doctor Cohen, did you talk to principal repo from Eisenhower Elementary School about this Nova innovation zone? Yes. We actually had a a teams call with all the principals. Did you talk to Principal Schwartz at Blanche Forum? Yes, he was on the call. Did you talk to MR. G at Nova Middle? Yes. Did you. All principals are on the call.

464I'm going to go through my list. Did you talk to principal at Nova High School? She was on the call. Okay, fantastic. And how would you describe their enthusiasm for this prospective Nova innovation zone? They were very curious. They wanted more information about it, and we said that we wanted to bring it to the board because no decisions could be made until we get board consensus and direction on this. So it was more of an exploratory conversation. We went over the Nova concept with them in the deck that we shared with them. So they had that piece and they were very excited. I had an opportunity to speak with MR. Schwartz at the JUNE 8th principal convening, and he was extremely excited and enthusiastic about it, wanting to know more and wanting to know what

465more he can do to be a part of this initiative. So Principal Schwartz was excited. Yes. And everybody else was curious. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Nobody else was excited. Just curious. I'm sure they were all excited. It was hard to tell online. Okay, well, sometimes. Sometimes it is difficult to gauge emotion over Zoom, I get it. Yeah. Let me ask you a question, sir. How many town halls did you have with parents and community members in n d ound the Nova campupuabout is pspsptiveve I iovationn zo? e havnono had any coununity town halls. We were waiting to get direction from the board. How many community outreach emails or social media blasts or anything like that did you participate in in regards to the Nova Innovation Zone? None yet. Okay. So the extent of your outreach for

466this as a Zoom call with the four principals who make up the Nova community. To make them aware. Did you do anything else. Outside of the different agencies, the colleges, the businesses to garner some feedback input around this initiative? Stakeholder groups we had internally with Biff and other external people, not nothing beyond that. Where in the district is Nova located? Central. What city or excuse me, what town and who represents the town of Davie? Oh. DR. Zeman you have your hand up. Well, the question. Was talking about board mayor. Commissioner what? Who on this board specifically represents the town of Davie? This is a layup cone. You, MR. Cervera. Thank you. MISS Leonardi made a comment about how she didn't like when teachers found out about things from new media reports and things like that.

467You know, when I found out about this. When on Saturday, when I printed this out to prepare for the meeting today. You had workshops? Yeah, we've had workshops on this before. MR. Cervera. I don't know the the specific zone on all of this. My point is, I wasn't involved in the conversations that you had with the principals. Okay. My parents weren't involved in the conversations that you had with the principals. I don't know specifically where I sit on this yet. This is going to get fleshed out, but before it does, I think we need to do a better job of communicating to our constituents, to our residents about what we plan on doing. Okay, so people aren't seeing this because remember the bus route thing that we went with Nova? We were going to divert

46817 different routes to Nova. Sure. I got a lot of a lot of angry parents calling me after that. Yeah, a lot of angry parents. And I don't want this to to happen here where more people are off that they weren't involved in the initial workup and perhaps losing track of the prospective benefits from doing something like this, right? I agree, so we need to do a better job. Okay. Collectively as a district, we need to do a better job of making people feel like they're part of the process. I would have loved to be on that, on that teams call with you learning about this, I would have loved to at least get something out. You know, I do a weekly newsletter update that comes directly from my office. I could have put something

469out about this to just let people know what is going on, right? Because when people are fed information, they feel like they're part of the process and generally they're less angry about it. They MAY not agree with it 100% of the time, but they're less angry about it. So I use this as an example only to let's not go into this already behind the eight ball, because people feel like we're doing this behind closed doors, right? And let's be perhaps a little bit more vocal about prospective plans with this, because I assure you, when we leave today, I'm going to start getting the text messages and phone calls about this from my Nova parents, just like I did with the bus stuff. So, MR. Cervera, you make a if I can interrupt, you make a

470good point. I generally do have. But I want clarification from the board on this because our cadence. Normally, before we go out and have large scale meetings with community members, teachers and all of that, we bring that to the board in a workshop first to get consensus because the board, we can go out and do all of that, and then the board says, oh, you know what? This isn't something that, you know, we have consensus on or we want to do. And staff is, you know, putting a lot of time and effort and gotten community feedback or whatever the case MAY be. Normally the cadence for us is to bring it to the board. I understand the, the in talking to individual board members, and we can definitely improve on that one initiative is coming

471that impacts your area or any board member's area. But for the large scale part of going to go talk to a massive amount of people, staff, teachers, community members before we bring something to the board to get feedback directions, our cadence is normally to do that first, get the feedback, the direction so we know what exactly to communicate to the stakeholders just to make sure there's no change. And what if we did it the opposite way around of what I'm hearing. So I just want to get consensus from the board on that because we're fine doing it either way. But the cadence that we've used thus far is to make sure we bring things to the board, because many of these large scale impacts to the district is a board decision as well. Before we

472go back out to the community, based on the feedback that impacts changes sometimes, or no support at all for an initiative. When the board is tasked with making these decisions, I'm very interested to know what my community thinks. And so I get what you're saying. But as far as the consensus for the for the. Board, and that's fine. That's fine. But Nova is in district six. I have an obligation and duty to represent the constituents in district six. Okay. They need to have an they have need to have a right. They need to have an outlet to come. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Right. We don't need lasers and fireworks. We can open up a gym somewhere and invite parents to come in. I'll do it. You want me to do it? I'll

473get Lisa involved and we'll do it. But just to have the opportunity for them to come and say, hey, listen, we've all seen this now. We've all seen the presentation. Here's what's being proposed in your school, right? What are your thoughts? But what I'm saying is the proposal ultimately sometimes changes when it comes to the board. So I just want to make sure we're not being premature going out, having a conversation that ultimately changes, and then we're back to square one or nothing. You know, there's no support for the initiative. But it's always going to change Doctor Hepburn because if it comes to the board and we vote no, then everything is scrapped anyway. Right. No I got I got it. I just want to you know I hear the concern. I just want to

474make. Sure I. Just staff is taking the right cadence when we're communicating with constituents. I understand. But I, I say this a lot and I will say it again, a lot of times on things like this, we have communication problems. We don't engage with our community members, with our constituents enough. And lots of times they're seeing this for the first time in a workshop, a board meeting, whatever it MAY be. And they're like, well, wait a second. There's this proposal for an innovation zone. This is affecting a lot of these kids. Go to the Nova pipeline. So a lot of the little ones that are in, in elementary school right now are going to go to middle and they're going to go to high there. They stay in that pipeline. I'm sure they have very

475strong feelings, probably on both sides, right, about what's going on here and before we before we vote, before we can say however you want to say it, I need to know what my community in the Nova Pipeline thinks about this proposal. Yeah. And thank you, MR. Cervera. I think that to your point, if given the direction from the board, that's where you all want us to go. We're happy to do that. But this is not the first time we actually shared the Nova concept. We actually shared it on MAY 12th during the Redefining Board workshop. So this is actually the second time we're bringing the Nova concept to the board. But I hear what you're saying, and I agree. This is a lot more elaborate. This is a lot more full scale. This is a

476lot more detailed. And this ties directly into the ai project. I understand what was presented at the redefining, but you and I can both agree this is a little bit of a different animal. And all I'm saying is, listen, I'm not saying I'm pro or against, right. I honestly, I haven't made up my mind yet. I will tell you that my level of concern seems to grow on a daily basis about the ai risks. Okay. But I'm I'm not indicating one way or another. All I'm saying is let my constituents, let my community members, let my, my, my Nova parents come in and tell us what they think about this. I mean, this is going to be a first of its kind, right? Probably in the nation, right, for public schools. Right. Don't you think

477this is important? It's critical that we get this right if we're going to be trailblazers, let's check every box. Let's do everything we need to do to make sure we get this right. And it starts with what does our community want? If I hold a town hall on this and I have 1500 parents coming in screaming at me with pitchforks, saying over my dead body that this is going to happen at Nova, guess what? I'm not going to vote for this to happen at Nova, right? But if it's the opposite and everyone's saying this is the greatest thing since sliced bread, you know, that MAY sway my decision as well. I need to know what my constituents, I need to know what my community. I need to know what my pta moms think. I need

478to know what my parents think. I want to know what the students think, incidentally, as well. Right. And I don't want something like this. A first of its kind in the nation, rolled out without enough interaction from the community to make sure that we are adequately and properly representing our constituents. We can commit to that. I appreciate that, Doctor Cohen. I yield my time, chair. Thank you, MISS Thompson. Thank you. Chair. I didn't know if there was going to be board consensus, but I do think it is our responsibility as board members to go out and educate our community on the things that are happening in our district. It's not a responsibility of district staff, especially when we've had these proposals. It's what I did with redefining to have specific meetings that each school that

479would potentially be impacted. And then that way I can communicate your concerns or excitement, but to put that on staff to then come back and things have changed. It is our responsibility as school board members to host those town halls and to figure out that timeline. So I believe the way we are currently doing community engagement is the right way. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Bulman. Thank you. I'll try to keep it brief. So thank you for all your work on this. I appreciated all the public comments. I think, you know, since I've been on the board, this has been an ongoing conversation. I think we started the whole conversation around ai at a very heightened alert with people not having a lot of buy in and being very afraid. And through the process, I

480think you guys have made a ton of ton of progress of reassuring how this is going to how this is going to work. I really appreciate the chair, All the work that you've done and really leading off this conversation today, I think that the directives that were given are going to be very helpful, and I feel a lot better about that. So I think collectively, everyone's been doing a good job on that. Appreciate the wieners. Of course, it's. Very appreciated that you are so involved with the youth and, you know, making sure that we have the ability to be at the forefront of the tech of technology and what's happening for the future of the students. So thank you very much. And, you know, I think that that is one of the things that's very

481important. I we have to keep up with progress. You know, I'm just I was just thinking back when I was in high school, I took a computer class and it was on Apple tv computers. The last year they offered it, no one was using Apple tv computers anymore, but that's what they had in the lab. I did very poorly on that because why would I want to use it? Because that's not what we're using anymore, you know? So no one's interested in staying in the past. All of the students want to be keeping up with what's happening in the future. And it's our job to keep them safe while we're making sure that they're able to compete and they're up to date with the technology. So, you know, I think we've basically kind of I

482think we've asked a lot of these questions. You know, I, I had talked to Doctor Cohn about kind of the, the plan in terms of screen time for like how we were going to reduce screen time for students. And now we have the directive that we're going to look into that until second grade. I think yours was more first grade, but we can we'll we'll wait for that to come back. But I think, you know, so the communication part is so important with the parents. I think the more that they understand what's happening, the less they're going to be afraid. And that's really probably our biggest job because everyone's afraid of the things that they don't know. So as long as they know exactly what is happening and we're not sneaking anything in on them.

483And, you know, like if you, if we're committed to advising them when we add any kind of programs or whatever, then they're going to then then we will have the parents with us. And that's very important. And then another part of it. And I, you know, I come here as a parent of three teenagers and a teenager, so I'm in the thick of it with all of the technology and the things that you can control and the things that you can't control. And I've had many experiences with this. But we have a responsibility as a school, but there's also a responsibility of parents. And, and I don't know how we communicate that, but people have to take responsibility. You know, we're talking about screen time. We can control the screen time in the schools. That's

484a parental. And it's a it's a challenge. I mean, it's a, it's a constant daily battle to, to try to overcome that and figure out how you're going to do that. But, you know, as much as we can help parents or guide them with that too. And again, that comes to the reassurance piece. So I think if we are tackling that, I think we're going to be moving forward in the right direction. So I, I think that we've made a lot of progress and commend your efforts and look forward to the next iteration of it. Thank you. Thank you, MISS Bulman. Before I go to Mikhail and Lily, I just wanted to first see if there was any objection, since our vice chair is not here and our former chair is not here, is there

485any objection to me designating DR. Zeman as vice chair? Seeing none. DR. Zeman you are now Vice Chair. And then, just so the public is aware with board consensus, when we are done with this workshop, I would like to go to item number six, which is the comprehensive discussion on select locations, as there are several public speakers in the in the overflow room waiting to speak on that. Is there any objection to going to item number six after this workshop? Chair? Are we. Are we going to do following items after that, or are we going to. That was the plan. Unless the board would like to do something else. What items need to be completed today? Benefits. Mail benefits and the capital program. Considering we're already running about four hours behind schedule, is there a

486possibility of doing item six then going to the meal debt and then moving the other items to the next workshop? So I will I don't want to get into this whole discussion, but there are the next workshop is, is very, very packed. So I guess, can we just agree that we'll go to item six and then and then decide what we want to do with the rest of the item. See what time we get done with number six. I mean, we can go, we can go down this road right now. I'll read you the workshop schedule for the next workshop, which is JULY 21st. We have advisory committee reports redefining our schools. 2627 o. S Quarterly report, annual compliance visit report. Casey, write operations, multi-year staffing alignment plan, erp transformation project, rural development, ai, cybersecurity,

487acceptable use, and other relevant policies. So, I mean, I was already contemplating like things we would have to get, get rid of on or push back on the next workshop in JULY. But I think, you know, for sure, we need to go to item. Well, my, my proposal is that we go to item six after this. Let's go. Okay. Great idea chair. All right, go ahead, Michael and Lily. All right. I know everyone's kind of falling asleep, so we're going to try and be quick and concise and all of that. Everyone wake up, move around, get excited. Okay, so first, I'm not exactly sure who to direct this question to, so I'm just going to kind of put it out there and see who can give me an answer. With copilot. Would the district be

488able to control restrictions like safety restrictions, and also be able to have the teachers read the students chats with the chat bot? With copilot? It logs the conversation so they're available to be viewed technically in the security system, which is called purview from Microsoft. But because it lacks the flagging of those interactions is inappropriate. And because there's no real time detection or moderation, the decision to district made is not to pursue using copilot for all students. So far, it's only for those 371 students that are in the ai academies because of the risk imposed of having those that moderation and detection not happening in real time. Okay, awesome. Thank you for that. And then also a lot of what I was going to ask about went over already. I did want to comment on what

489was said about how every time new electronics, sorry, I'm a bit tired now, new electronics come out, we say they're going to be great and then they fall kind of flat. On expectations. The main point that was brought up was social media, how everyone said it was going to be great and you would meet people and it's awful. Honestly, I think that media and electronics and all of that are what you make of it. I know myself personally, yes, I scroll on Instagram sometimes just to watch reels, but I also have connected with 1200 people on my Instagram. A majority of my Instagram followers are not my friends, it's people I've networked with over time. And whenever I have questions or I need a speaker for something, or I kind of need someone to help

490me out, anything like that, I my go to is Instagram. It's a quick way to message someone because people are weird about their phone numbers today. I don't know why, but I'll go on Instagram and it's someone's entire portfolio when you think about it, like you go to my professional Instagram, I have all the events I've taken part of in probably the past two years on there. You know, it's a professional portfolio because that's what I make it to be. That's how I choose to use it. So if other people are choosing to use it differently, that's up to them. But I don't want to make any form of technology out to just be evil, and it doesn't do what it's supposed to, because it's how you use it. And following up with that ai

491is the exact same way. So I kind of thought of a good example to say why I think ai is so important, because I also don't want to just say, oh, you know, we should just give students ai and let them do whatever, because that's not what it is. There needs to be safety on there. But the main thing that I'm arguing for is we need to teach students how to use it, right? So we have a lot of parents in the room, or we did before everyone left, but we had a lot of parents in the room who were arguing about the safety for their children. Correct. And we still have quite a few parents in the room. So I'm hoping that all of you either plan on teaching or have taught your kids

492how to cook, right? Even if it's something super simple. And when you're cooking, sometimes you use a kitchen knife. If you just give your kid a knife and you don't explain to them that they can get hurt with that, and you don't show them hohow properly use e itthey're probobly going totoet cut few t tes,, righ Ifouou just say, hey, there uu go take that, figure out what to do. And that's not what we should be doing with ai. Instead, when you're teaching your kid how to cook, first, you explain, okay, this is the knife. You got to be careful. If you put it on you the wrong way, you're going to get cut and it's going to bleed and it's going to hurt. This is how you do it. I remember when my mom

493taught me how to cut. I was sitting there, guys, I could not figure it out for an hour. I'm a pro now at cutting my apples, don't worry. But it did take me quite a few times and I did get cut a few times. But because my mom walked me through it, now I can cook on my own and I can cut things on my own. And ai, it sounds stupid, but ai is the same way. If we show kids how to use it properly, we're going to avoid so many scenarios of kids not knowing how to use ai and doing stupid things with it, it's better to teach them. Thanks so much. And Mikhail, we're at the point of the meeting where we're trying to wrap this up and land the plane. So if

494you could be succinct, I'd appreciate it. Very, very. Yes. So I only have one question and it really follows back off what MISS Leonardi said about a written plan. Is there a timeline of exposure? And what I mean by that is, does a elementary student have the same level of access that a high school student has to the app? And the reason I bring this up is because elementary student MAY not be as developed as a high school student. So them having the same exact access and the same exact, you know, tools of exposure MAY be a problem. And that comes in with the written plan as well. Yeah. So great question, Kyle. And so no, they will not. Part of the phased in process is for the elementary level that the teachers will have

495access to it only. And at the secondary level, our approach is to give access to students and teachers. But once the teachers get the certification and the credentials to then be able to give access to students within their classrooms, so there is a phased in approach. Thank you doctor. Thank you. Yes. School board member Cervera. I could just say Adam then. Hey, Adam. Your turn. Yeah. Real quick I just want to make sure that that I'm clear. Despite how MISS Thompson does her town halls in her district. I am looking for district help in what I suggested. I do plenty of town halls myself without district help. But I also am smart enough to realize when there are subject matters that I don't have a great grasp on. Like ai, I will lean on the

496district. So I'm not sure what my colleague was talking about about wanting to do this herself. If she wants to do one herself in her district, that's fine. But as far as district six is concerned, when we ultimately do this, I do expect assistance from you, Doctor Cohen, and your team. When we go out and speak to our community members, you don't need to comment. I just want to make sure that my instruction was still clear, despite whatever MISS Thompson's thinking was about how she does things in her district. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Sparrow. And thank you, Doctor Cohen. This has been a long session. I don't want anybody that took all the work to put this together, to think that this was possible to do in a short period of time. Maybe we

497MISS Planned a little bit, but a lot of great content, a lot of excellent work on the point. And I know Doctor Hepburn, you have some follow ups that we'll get back to and then we'll we'll readdress this the next meeting. At this point we're going to go to item number six. So we're jumping a little bit on the agenda to our next meeting on repurposing options with Doctor Wanza. Thank you. And I've got five public speakers. Beacon, can you load the presentation, please? Now we got it John. We're on ten six right. Yes, sir. At the will. Of the board. Doctor Wanza is ready to go straight to the decision point. Yes. Okay. Do you mind taking a two minute recess, sir? Nope. No recess. We're ripping. Not at all. No, no, no. Right.

498And, doctor Wanza, unless the board objects. I believe the chair okayed the decision points. Yes, ma'am. So if. If I could, doctor. Yes, sir. What we'd love is a one minute summary of the presentation leading us to the decision points. Then we're ready to engage. Okay. So good afternoon everyone. Or. Yes, I'm Valerie Wanza, the chief strategy and innovation officer. And my colleagues at the table with me today are Mark Dorset, who is the task assigned chief of of operations, and that facilities and operations. Sonia Cole is the executive director of capital Programs, and Kriss Akabusi will be joining us shortly. And he is the director of facility planning and real estate. So essentially, DR. Zeman board members public. The way that this presentation is laid out is it is a. It is intended for

499a comprehensive conversation around some. The usage of certain sites here in the district. We know that we've gone through redefining. We know that some of the schools properties are going to be repurposed for other uses. So this conversation actually gives the board greater information around. That also provides for the board some information and options around one of our sites that we need some direction today. That and it's Margate Elementary School. I'm sorry, Margate Middle School, the current facility conditions assessment, as well as all of the financial resources that it will take to bring the school up to current codes and standards. It is the recommendation of staff, and they will they will explain it that we look at another option for that campus. Then we need some some direction from the board, if you will,

500on two parcels of land in particular, there's one adjacent or on the property of Deerfield Beach Elementary School, as well as the trail's end site up in parkland. And so we need some direction there. And then we were just going to let the board know what we intend to bring in this Leonardi talked about it for the next workshop on JULY 1st to see if the board wanted anything added to that. So essentially that was that's the crux of the presentation. But the actual decision points or direction that we need from the board. They are on slide number 37 of the presentation. We do have representation from the Sistrunk rising project. They are here because we know that that is an added I'm sorry, that is an attachment to the presentation. And that is specifically

501around the North Fork Elementary school site. And then we also know that we have representatives from Broward Health, and they are here as it relates specifically to the trail's end site up in parkland. So I'll start with the decision point for the North Fork Elementary site. As we know, back on MAY 12th, the board did see some proposals from the city of Fort Lauderdale. I'm sorry for that's the next one. Seagull. But when it comes to North Fork, which is in the city of Fort Lauderdale, we had a proposal from Sistrunk rising their initial proposal. They have given a revised proposal that is in greater detail with some some actual figures and data attached to it. They are here, or they should be parking to come into the board room. So we need some direction

502around that site. J a world did express interest, but they have told us that, you know, the leasing land at market rate present a challenge for them. So they have not given us anything further to consider. However, Sistrunk Rising did. And so the board has that presentation. If they need any further information, their representatives are here. So we do need direction around if we are going to go forward and actually get to a conversation around a ground lease and then bring that back, obviously, to the board for the board to give us greater direction. And then the second piece would be around the Seagull alternative high school site. The city of Fort Lauderdale has withdrawn its interest. And so we have three options for the board to consider there. One would be to our own

503Broward Schools. Police Safety and Security Division are interested in perhaps creating their own public safety complex training complex, where it could be a revenue, revenue generating opportunity for the district. So that's one option. The second one would be to actually utilize it for additional administrative space capacity, depending on what we do in this building. And then lastly, it could be once the policies and procedures are developed. And I know our general counsel is moving us through that swiftly around looking at potentially a p3 opportunity for that site. So we would need some direction on if we would look to allow our own safety and security division to build out a district owned, managed and operated public safety training complex that we could then utilize as a revenue generation source, because we would have other agencies

504pay to utilize and take training. So that's the options there. So I can probably pause on if you want to do those two, and then we'll do the next two decision points and then go from there. Or if you want me to do the Broward Health one for the trails in site, and then that way we know that we have at least given all of our all of the individuals here from the community who came to speak an opportunity. So you're done with your presentation? Well, I was asked to give a high level, and I did. And so then I was asked to go to the decision points. And that's where I am on slide 37. Got it. Does the would the board like to take public comment? Yes, ma'am. All right. Cynthia. Dominique, Rochelle

505Sopher, Rebecca Jarquin, Stewart Green and Cindy Seltzer. Good afternoon everyone. Rochelle Sopher almost. Good evening. Real quick I've read through the presentation just a couple questions. I saw the list. I didn't see Deerfield Beach Elementary. And I want to say it might have been Margate Middle on the original form, but when I did the deeper dive, I did see as I went into the pdf. So my questions are this for the Margate Middle area, especially because that's just a hop, skip and a jump. I think that speaker MAY be on the next item we're handling. Please speak to the item, which was what we just gave a presentation on. Was this not six? I'm sorry, is this referencing item number six? I apologize, keep going. Okay. Making sure I'm not the one because it's been

506a long day with the Margate Middle. So I read somewhere in the different pieces that we have that we have a high school that is going to be upgraded, updated for many millions of dollars. But it said specifically in there that almost looks like there's going to be a band aid project on Margate Middle. We're going to keep it barely. I can't remember the verbiage that was used, but just it's going to be barely operational. They're going to do the least amount possible to keep it going. The city of Margate, it's literally a hop, skip and a jump from where I live. It's not the residents there. They need better than barely operational. They need better than a band aid. The fact that my husband's best friend went to this middle school, the fact that

507very close family members went here and everything. This school needs a lot more. This community needs a lot more. They don't have their own high school. So I think and it's been talked in around some community members, we need to look at doing more than just a band aid operation on Margate Middle. We really need to look at investing more. And while the other high school that might get the upgraded auditorium, it's a great idea and they do need it. I'm not saying that they don't. But at almost 60 million for that and just a little bit for Margate, that speaks volumes about our lack of respect for that community, a community that really does embrace their school. And we're talking about losing kids. If we're just going to band aid these schools, we're going

508to continually lose kids because who wants to go to a school that's held up by band aids? I don't the last piece was Deerfield Beach Elementary. I like the idea. If the land does not need to be utilized by the school or the district, selling it off is a great idea. It'll give you income. But was that discussed with the community of Deerfield Beach? Was that discussed with the people who live close by? Was that discussed with any other vested members in Deerfield Beach? Those are my questions I present to you, and I thank you for allowing me to ask the questions. Thank you. Next speaker, we have Rebecca Jarquin Stewart Green by Cindy Seltzer, Barron Channer. Do I have to have my name written down to be a public speaker to David Clark, Broward

509Health? Yes. Yeah. Go ahead. So we're happy to be here. Thank you for allowing us to take some time and work with staff to get to a point where we think we satisfied the commission's interest for the parkland property on North Trail's End and university. So we have talked to staff and general counsel, and we do have a letter of interest on the floor right now that's consistent with the what what we perceive the terms and conditions of the the condition of sale for that property. We've also directly engaged Jafco and Eagles Haven directly along with the Children's Service Council of South Florida, to to take a deeper dive into some of the services that they currently provide, some of the growth that they, they, they have desired for, in addition to how to satisfy

510them beyond, beyond this. So I'm going to be here and open for, for questions and answers. And I think they can talk about their interest as well. Thank you. Any of the other speakers that I called. Good afternoon. Thank you. My name. Is Stuart Greenberg. I am the CHAIRMAN Of Jafco Children's Village and also Eagles Haven. And I recognize some of you from the FEBRUARY 14th commemorations that Eagles Haven holds every year for the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I'd like to tell you that our board is 100% behind Eagles Haven and the continuation of this amazing program. For those of you who are unaware, Eagles Haven charges nothing for our services. We have saved probably dozens of suicides over the last number of years. We've helped countless thousands of families, both who

511were victims. The friends of those victims, people who live in parkland, members of the school board, teachers, faculty, first responders, and people in the area who need help with wellness. We are thankful that Broward Health has gone ahead and offered us certain dollars to help us continue our program. We're currently located in a small strip center space. Our program. We'd love to grow it. We can't afford to wait the seven years, really, until this property that Broward Health wants to develop is completed. Our clinical staff has met, and it is not the best place for the services that we provide upon a medical campus. Therefore, we would hope that you would go ahead and accept Broward Health's offer to purchase the property from the school board, make the donation to Eagles Haven to allow us

512to continue to serve the community that we do. Before it was mentioned how expensive it is for people to seek help or therapy, Eagles Haven doesn't charge. We are open seven days a week. We help everyone who either calls or walks in our doors. As many of you know, during the trial of the shooter, we had staff in the courthouse full time to help the victims get through that tragedy and that trauma. I hope that you go ahead and endorse and accept the proposal from Broward Health. I thank you for your time and your consideration. Good afternoon, Cindy Aronberg seltzer. I'm the PRESIDENT And ceo of the Children's Services Council of Broward County. Thank you for allowing me to speak on this proposal today. So, as you know, the Children's Services Council was the creator

513of Eagle's Haven, and we have been supporting this effort through Jafco since the tragedy at msd. When this was presented to us a couple of weeks ago from the North Broward Hospital District as a way to meet the conditions of their bid for your property. It struck us as a great opportunity, so I am really appreciative. The Children's Services Council first began funding this with help from the federal government through the arp grant. When that grant ran out, the state has stepped in to share the cost. We have been told that this is probably the last year that the state will provide funding for Eagle's Haven. So getting this opportunity to to support the program and join with us in keeping it alive is very welcome. So I'm happy to answer any questions about the

514funding or how or why this proposal meets that obligation. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public speakers? Good afternoon. Thank you. Chair Barron Channer, representative of the Sistrunk Horizon team and a member of the team. And I'm here to talk a little bit about it. I think your presentation, you would have received a little bit of more background on the project. This is the second time that we've been in front of the board in a workshop to discuss this item. The last time we were here, the board provided unanimous consent to direct further negotiations with staff. We had the pleasure of doing so. And what you have before you is the byproduct of that, which includes more details building on top of what we presented the last time around, substantially the presentation and what we're

515offering is the same. I'll touch on it a little bit, but there's one nuance that's specific to be called out. We have increased the square footage of training space that we are offering to the district. And so now our proposal, in part a reflection of the conversations that have been had, including dating back months ago with the superintendent and subsequently with staff, we recognize that the district could benefit from training space, particularly located in that area. We are offering 5000ft!S, 5000ftt!S for th d distrto own. If you wouldd lik to. If not,, th we'l'll be available t y you. So that o one part of our offer. That's a nuance that wasn't obvious from the last offer. What we are asking for you to consider is consider a designation to negotiate. We think that what

516we've presented to you gives you a good perspective of what we are offering, and I'll walk through that, and we are at a point that for us to add additional detail and get to something that you can specifically deliberate on, we would welcome the opportunity to negotiate with your staff. That negotiation, we believe, would yield two things for you to ultimately vote on. If if your discretion were to allow one, there would be a lease. So we are proposing to lease the site for 99 years. You will maintain ownership. Two, there would be a development agreement. The development agreement would essentially cover the terms of the project as you understand it, so that you can be clear that what we would attempt to build would be consistent with what we have proposed to you. So

517you would have those two things. A third document that would be attached would be a housing preference plan. And so we have suggested to you that there will be 300 units of affordable housing. The details you have before you outline the fact that all of the units would be made affordable, they would be made affordable for levels of income that range from 30% Ami up to 80% Ami. So a broad swath of your employees would be able to afford the units one bedrooms, two bedrooms and three bedrooms all would be available at all of those various income categories. And so what we are proposing to do is in order to give you confidence as to what would be offered in the preference plan, it will be offered in terms of the affordable housing, there would

518be a preference plan that specifically stipulates the terms of that. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public speakers? All right. Doctor. Wanza, did you want to present anything else before I go to board? Discussion? I think we're ready to start board discussion. And then as needed, we can, you know, provide, you know, respond to questions, provide information as needed. Got it. Okay. Any other public speakers? Yes. [Laughter] Sorry. This is from Cynthia Dominique. As I was pulling out of the out of the garage, she asked if I could come down and read this for her. Yeah. Please state your name for. The record. Linda Ferrara for Cynthia. Dominique. I'm Cooper City, Coral Springs. The current scope of work has exceeded what was previously planned. And because of. I'm sorry, I'm asking you to support the

519building replacement for Margate Middle School. The current scope of work has exceeded what was previously planned, and because much of the building and infrastructure is at the end of life requirement. Oops. Speeding. Sorry. It's flipping here. End of life requires spending considerable, considerable more money to complete, and not doing this will have a negative impact on school operation and student enrollment. The district spend approximately $3 million putting temporary modulars on the campus that are not always used because of various challenges. This money could have been put towards the larger project. In 2018, approximately $9 million was allocated to this project, which included upgrades. Single point entry, fire alarm sprinklers, conversion of music and art, lab space, electrical exterior building, envelope, Hvac and the media center. Since then, some work has been done, but the building

520remains in need of significant work and in pretty much the same condition as it was over ten years ago. But the cost of the work has increased tremendously. Currently, the smart future shows 23 million was allocated to the smart project renovations, but I believe the current number is 33 million. That has already been encumbered, is not financially prudent to continue pouring money into the infrastructure that we can't see. When there are other areas that are at the end of life and need to be upgraded. We cannot keep doing these change orders and putting money into a failing building. We can build a brand new state of the art building without displacing students or disrupting operations. The students in this community deserve it. Additionally, the school community has had conversations about grade level changes to convert

521to 6 to 12 school, as well as the addition of a civil engineering magnet program which receives strong community support. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public speakers? MR. Sullivan? Yes. I just wanted to let the board know that the Broward Health did send us a letter of intent, which does honor the motion, but is different from what was spoken by the public. So I just wanted to mention that. So when the board's giving staff feedback during the discussion to keep that in mind. All right. Board member discussion. MISS Hixon. Thank you so much, chair, and thank you to everybody for coming out today. I first, I want to I don't know like what consensus you want, but I'm for the sistrunk moving forward. So I'll start with that. But I also want

522to ask my colleagues to give consensus for Broward Health to be able to give the donation that they're suggesting to Eagles Haven as opposed to the space. Although our b item that we approved did ask specifically for space, it was in the spirit of making sure that Eagles Haven longevity continued. And based on Eagles Haven and Jafco having discussions with Broward Health, it was determined that giving them the space where it's been suggested maybe is not the best thing for Eagles Haven moving forward. So they did prefer to take that donation and be able to move into a space quicker and and to have that longevity. So I just want to be sure that my colleagues understand that it's still in the spirit of what I believe we all voted for, which was to give

523longevity and make sure Eagles Haven continued, although we thought it best to be a space in the new Broward Health building that they were going to put in in the area that they're purchasing. It turned out that after discussion, that's really not what's best for Eagles Haven. So I would hate to make someone stay along the lines of what we thought was best and not be able to give Eagles Haven what they've all determined is the best. So I hope consensus moving forward is to allow Broward Health to move forward with the contract to buy the the land at the purchase price, and then give that donation piece to Eagles Haven to allow them to find the space and be able to continue on. And, you know, Broward Health would still with the internships and

524all of that, that's still part of what that deal is. But I just wanted to make sure we all understood that they weren't backing out of anything. It just came from a conversation that they had and is what's been determined is best for the community in Eagles Haven. So thank you. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff. Thank you. I agree with MRS. Hixon. I'm honestly I'm I'm really upset and shaking right now to possibly hear that Eagles Haven would lose their funding after this year. Eight years ago, 17 people were murdered and 17 people were shot and lived. And the trauma that my community has is still there. And it will continue to be for years. So this donation that Broward Health is going to give to Eagles Haven will allow for the financial sustainability of Eagles

525Haven to continue. There's been five suicides since the tragedy. And this is very much needed to provide the services for our community and to deal with this trauma that we all still have. So I hope my colleagues support this donation. So Eagles Haven can continue for years to come. Thank you. Thank you. DR. Holness. Thank you, MADAM Chair. Can you hear me clearly, MADAM Chair? Yes, we can hear you. Okay. So I support board Member Hixon as well as board member Alhadef in terms of allowing Broward Health to go ahead and purchase but support Eagles Haven with the donation. So I'm supportive of that. Regarding Seagull, I am very interested in an option that will generate some kind of funds. It appears that option one and three could do that, but I have a question

526for Doctor Wanza or Doctor Hepburn for Seagull. In terms of option one, couldn't the district Safety Security Emergency Preparedness Division be located in some future schools that might be redefined or repurposed or closed, as opposed to Seagull? Because I believe Seagull has a huge property value because of its location. So is there alternative options that the ssp division could be located in? MR. Sullivan? Doctor Wanza, please. Thank you. So thank you. DR. Holness. So the ssp division is being relocated to Plantation Middle School. This is something separate and apart. When initially the board received a proposal from the city of Fort Lauderdale, who they were initially interested in developing a public safety training site. And Chief Gregory is here, so I don't want to speak for him. But once that the. Once the city withdrew

527its interest with that for that particular piece of property, district property to do that, then our safety and security arm of the district said, wait a minute. This MAY be an opportunity that the we can develop for the district to offer a develop its own training site. And then it would be a a resource. I'm sorry. It would be an opportunity to generate resources for the district, because then they could lease out, allow other agencies, whatever is the proper term to come and receive training for cost. So Chief Gregory is here. I don't want to speak for him, but this would be a training facility for a variety of public safety opportunities. Got it. And Doctor Wanza, before Chief Gregory speak on that, have we done any sort of assessment or any kind of determination

528as to the needs of this type of service? Has there been any needs assessment done to ensure that option one would be successful as a safety training site? So I think Chief Gregory needs to speak to that, because I think that they have done some of that work and that, and that's what piqued their interest in looking at this opportunity for the district. Okay. So I'll wait to hear from chief. Okay. Mike Gregory, Chief Safety and Security Officer, Broward County School District, as stated by the City of Fort Lauderdale, there was interest by other agencies also expressed through the Broward Police Chiefs Association for a training facility that could be used for school safety. With regard to active shooter training and evacuations and rescues for both police personnel as well as fire personnel. So that

529was an opportunity that was being presented by the city of Fort Lauderdale. We were looking forward to partnering with them and participating in that that that training once the city of Fort Lauderdale was no longer interested in that site and wanted to shift gears, we still saw the value in offering that capability to our 200 plus SROs in Broward County that don't have the access to that type of training readily available. And here in Broward County. So that was a a gap that we thought we'd be able to fill if there wasn't a use available for or a use identified for Seagull. So that's the extent of it at this point. And if there this school was available, others were not. So that's the reason why it came on the radar. Okay. Thank you. Chief

530Gregory. So, Doctor Wanza, would it be problematic to also explore option three simultaneously with option one in terms of the formal proposals to see what kind of interest and whether or not it would be more beneficial financially for option three versus option one. So I don't see where it would be a problem for us to do it. We just need to get direction from the board. Are you more interested in the district having its own public safety training entity, where there can be a variety of safety training and protocols and procedures and things offered for agencies that do come in and assist with school safety? Is is that a direction the board wants to go in or do or would you be more interested in potentially, you know, doing some kind of ground lease or

531going through a formal proposal process to see if there are other opportunities that the board would want to consider? So there isn't. I don't think there's an issue, an issue, if you will, with us looking at both. And then and then in the end, the board would tell us which direction it wants to go in. Okay, so, MADAM Chair, our district has financial constraints. And for me, I would be interested in the option that can bring us the most financially. So in order to determine that, I believe we would have we would need to take the formal proposals done in option three and do a comparative with option one as to what would be best suited for the district financially. So that's my position on The Seagull, and I'm thinking that it could be done

532simultaneously. We could take formal proposals, we could compare and see what would be more financially beneficial to the district. So DR. Holness, just so I'm hearing this correctly, you want to pursue option three, or you're wanting to pursue option one and option three simultaneously. I would say option one and option three simultaneously to determine which one is more financially beneficial. Got it. Thank you. Okay. Now regarding regarding North Fork, I am very supportive of the North Fork Sistrunk rising proposals and it's very nice to see that they came back with minor changes, but beneficial changes in terms of increasing the the space for as a training center for Broward County Public Schools. I was very pleased as well to see that they came with a lease option, because I don't think any of us on

533the board had an appetite for $1 lease or $0 lease. So it's very nice to see that they have this in here. I think the benefit of having affordable apartments for our employees, supply store for teachers, counseling centers for employees, and we get to maintain ownership of the land. And we don't have to worry about the maintenance costs for the facility. I think these are excellent benefits, and I would encourage my board members to also support this proposal, and I am very supportive of moving forward with it. And, MADAM Chair, I think did you need my input on anything else, MADAM Chair, or we're going to take second round. Doctor Wanza, says Margaret. So on on page 37 is what we need. Direction from the board. Slide 37. So so that covered three of the

534definite five of the items that we actually. Because we're going to need some direction on the Margate Middle proposal as well as the easement at Deerfield Beach Elementary. We definitely need direction on that. And then obviously, any input the board wants to give us on what they want to see in the presentation for JULY 21st. Okay, so, MADAM Chair, I will wait for the board to comment further on Margate and Deerfield, especially those if MISS Rupert is still here. I'm not sure. I can't see he's not okay. So I wait for further input and I'll give my input on Deerfield and Margate. Okay. All right. Other board discussion. MISS Bulman. Thanks. Thank you. Chair. I support the Sistrunk rising proposal. I support the Eagles Haven. That's a great solution. Thank you so much for coming

535up with that, I love that. And I think I, I think I kind of fall in the wholeness camp in terms of seagull. You know, with option one, it's like, what's the cost to us to do something like this? And what would be the payoff? I guess we don't have enough information at this point. Did you guys just say that? Chief Greg? So, Chief Gregory, can you expand? So, MISS, MISS Bowman's question is for option one. So I was obviously option one of the Seagull property is for the district safety and Security Emergency Preparedness Preparedness Division to build out its own training center. So what is the cost. But then and then what would be the return on investment for the district if we went that route? I can start with the return on investment

536that would be increased, increasing the safety of students on our campuses, in our schools, increasing the training abilities and received from the officers who patrol our schools. This is not a money making opportunity. I would shy the board away from thinking that this is a a get rich quick scheme for training facility at Seagull. If that's the goal, then we should look at a different option. Well, it says generate revenue. That's why I. Corrected for what kind of revenue it would be. Yeah, the cities would pay for the classes. But as far as a high level, high income source, I don't see training facilities for safety filling in that category. Okay. I have a question. I mean. Is there any construction cost required. In order? Well, that's what I'm asking. I mean, if we're going

537to have to build a training facility, what's our capital outlay in order to get to a point where we're getting any kind of revenue at all? And then how long would it take for our revenue coming in to pay off what we put into it? And then. At this stage, we haven't had a revenue cost. This is a new proposal for us to explore so we could identify that. Right now it's in a school configuration, and that configuration is what would be used for the active shooter training, where officers would come in and go room to room to room clearings, dodo r rm searches, do rescueses So the currt configuguration would b apprriatateor t tt.T. Additial training areas for classroom instruction for the officers who participate. I haven't gone room by room, but I assume

538that most of the classroom facilities would be acceptable for that type of use. I don't see a large capital outlay required, but again, this is an initial exploratory conversation and we can actually go back and do more detailed exploration. If it's something that the board is seriously interested in pursuing. Well, I would I would be interested in seeing how we could partner, you know, what the use would be with other municipalities and how if we could find other partners and safety partners that could make this very useful to the entire county or maybe to the to the region, there's there's potential there for sure. I think we need to flesh out that what that deal looks like. I agree, ideally, we would be looking for grant support for to fund training. There are grant opportunities

539that are out there. I just saw one, I believe, from the Department of Justice last week, where they're offering training dollars to host active shooter training and Alice type classes. We would the concept that we'd be the host, and we would offer seats at those classes to local agencies in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County. And we'd actually have a full blown class a school facility to actually conduct us real time scenario based training for those officers. So they have best of breed in training. Again, it would be hopefully funded as much as we could for the courses through grants, but we're not. We look for the students from the other agencies to pay for seats in the class to participate, and it's a rare opportunity to have a facility such as that to do

540real scenario based training. So I see it would be a great amount of interest periodically for agencies to come there and take different types of courses. But as a training facility, I just don't see a large see it as a large revenue generator. We would look certainly to break even, but without. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what we would like to see. I mean, at the very least that this isn't going to cost us more money because I think we're trying to save money, not spend more money. So and then with the option two, and I apologize if I if this has already been answered, but there's not a need for extra district room. Okay. So I, you know, I, I would like to see option one fleshed out so that we have something

541to really make a decision about. And then I'm also open to option three for that. And let me go back here. And then I, I'll wait to hear from everyone else or I'd like to hear from MISS Rupert about her positions on Margate and Deerfield. I don't. Is MISS Rupert on the line? No, she's in the hospital, so. But before she left, she did say that she MAY have to leave, but she did. Go ahead. No, I was going to speak. I. MR. Bruno, I don't know if it's appropriate, but what we talked about in one on one, and I did hear her support for one thing, but she did exercise her support for both Deerfield and Margate. When we spoke yesterday, or I guess that was yesterday. Yes, yesterday was Monday, just fyi. I

542know it's not official for the board, but just to give you a workshop. Yeah. Give you feedback of what she supported when we when we spoke. And I know she's she. Spoke publicly before she left here today. For Margate for sure. Yes, yes. For what. She said. Oh she said yes for, for a pause on Margate with the idea of a, of a replacement of a replacement school and yes, for the easement for Deerfield Beach. Yep. So we're so we're right now we're just directing to pause on further renovations at Margate Middle. And then we would decide later if we were going to do a replacement. Correct. Do you want to speak? Go ahead. Well, yeah. Mark Dorset, chief facility officer, task assigned. Yeah, that was one of the requests. But based on what we

543were looking to spend in Margate, we thought it would be beneficial to, to, to look at another possibility. Right now the school is functioning. It's an old school. It was built in 1966. So whatever we do to it, it'll still be a 66 building. So what we thought about doing is looking at replacing Margate Middle School. That that was the discussion we had with the redefining team with Doctor Wanza and some of the my team from Office of Capital Programs. We really, really looked into what they've done so far, what they're asking for additional dollars to do. And we didn't think it was prudent to pursue that any further. We thought we would stop now and look at a different way of, of, of, of supporting the kids at Margate Middle. And I appreciate that.

544So thank you for that. Is this a is this the type of project where we can continue to have the kids at school while we're building other buildings? Yes. The school right now can function as it is this the the site has enough real estate to build another complete middle school on site, while the occupy the existing building. Okay. All right, I, I don't object to that. And then the Deerfield Beach. Can you just explain that real quick? Sure. So so Deerfield Beach Elementary School is a large footprint, but there's a parking lot area that the that has been rented by the district, rented from the district for decades for parking space for the library. That's right there. And I kind of put the map. On slide 29. And so basically they instead of entering

545an agreement, every single or every so many years for that space for parking the, the city is interested in purchasing that shaded area at the bottom right for the parking for the library. Okay. Yeah, I have no problem with that. I support that. Thank you. Thank you. DR. Zeman. Thanks so much. I'll I'll start with yours, Maura, that you just finished with just in general, bad business practice to sell land. If they're happy with the rental and they're going to do it every year, it's really better for Broward County schools to own the land, particularly every time you give up a little bit, the value of land is disproportionate to the total size. So if you take 210 acre plots and put them together, they're worth four times as much as they were separately. So

546just as a principle, I wouldn't be in favor of this because if it ain't broken, why do we want to fix it on Seagull? You know, Seagull is a really interesting piece. Again, total business practice type thing. It is contiguous with Witten. Witten has amazing programs. We're always going to offer those programs. They MAY actually be better somewhere else someday though. And Witten and Seagull together again becomes a much more valuable piece of land. It's in a commercial space, commercial space, a lot more valuable right now than especially light industrial space. Much more valuable than residential. Right, Ryan? We can make more money doing that. I know you're nodding for me. Thanks, Ryan. But the but we have to be thoughtful about it. That's why I like the idea of using option two at at

547Seagull. If you can use three with the chief and not put in any money and just. It's almost whether you put office space there or you put public service center with no improvements, no capital improvements, I think that's great. There is a boatload of federal money available for law enforcement training, and there's just not enough sites in the world. So if we have a site, you can come in and do the cool stuff, you know, the close quarter drills, the little people that pop up around the corner and everything, that could be great for us and great for our kids everywhere, because SROs and local police and Bsos can all practice in a school site. So that's not a bad option, nor is it a bad option for Doctor Hepburn to move a another division

548to that site. But if we hold on to that land for a year or two, we can figure out what to do with Witten as we get the fca done. As we get our master planner here. Boy, I cannot wait for the master planner to show up, because right now I feel like we're pausing on Margate Middle. I definitely agree with you. Pause. Let's get a real if you don't mind, I'm just going to add to your recommendation. Let's pause on Margate Middle, but let's get like a good estimate of what it would cost to build a good one. Not within 20 million, but within 5 million, so that we actually know what we're committing to that site. My understanding of Margate Middle is there's plenty of students in the boundary area. They just choose

549to go to other schools because that facility is. I'm a little offended, Mark, that you said things invented in 1966 are no good anymore. But but I'll let that slide today. So that's great. On the trail's end site, I want to thank Broward Health. I want to thank MISS Hixon and MISS Alhadeff for everybody that came together from Jafco to to really put this together. Thank you, Cindy, for coming. And thank you for your support to this from the very beginning and to your support to all of our kids in so many programs. But that is a good deal for us. What you what you love about this deal. By the way, Maura, 14 million in the bank in the next 60 days. And it's all capital money. So it's you know, we've got capital

550money, but it's great to have $14 million quickly from Broward Health rather than to wait around forever. To my knowledge, Doctor Hepburn, that money is going to move pretty fast as soon as we get the contract signed. I think they have 30 or 60 days. Yes. Correct. So that's terrific. Look forward to to helping. This 120. Okay. I know it's a 30 days for something in. The but it's not 60 days. I just don't want us to walk away. Think okay, correct. Okay. I am confident that Broward Health is going to write us a check even faster than the the minimum requirement. They're afraid some crazy school board member will haul them in here to negotiate again or something. So am I right, Dave, am I right? Thank you sir, I appreciate that. Yeah. We

551can negotiate the payment terms if you like. My colleagues would kill me. So we did. We did Deerfield Elementary because it just doesn't make any sense. And, Margaret, what we're asking for, MR. Dorset, is to pause this change order. Let's get a good cost estimate, bring it back to the board, and let's figure out where we want to go. Love, Broward Health North Ft. The only thing that I mean, I love the Sistrunk rising. Let's rip it and rip it. Let's let's go. Right. But, but I'm curious about the mix of one, two and three bedroom. It's been a real eyesore for my developer friends to get people to do one bedroom studios at any price. They just don't want them. So I would just be careful of the mix that you do there. I

552know it's pre-construction so you can move things around, but one bedroom studio, 600ft!S or there's people just don't want them. They'd rather have a two bedroom and pay a little bit more. So I'll just ask you to be careful with, you know, people that are building in the area. The question that I have, Doctor Hepburn, is all is this are 300 units reserved for Broward County school employees. Not a Wanza. Do you want to speak? I believe I know the answer, but go ahead. I don't want to speak for you. If it's okay. Can they answer the question, MADAM Chair? It's okay. Can talk in any of my meetings? Okay. Thank you. In terms of the units, I want to be careful about the wording because we're trying to make sure we fully comply with

553state laws. And state laws were recently modified to allow for us to provide this preference. Prior to that, the Fair Housing Act would have essentially mandated everyone. So that's the only reason I'm being careful about the wording. There will be a priority preference plan. And so what that will mean and what we can do legally is we can offer first choice for an extended period of time to the employees that you tell us are qualified, whether that process is a simple process or an extended process, there would be a preference. And so any unit that's available, the plan that I mentioned would stipulate the way that we make it known to your employees, and they would have first choice to come. We would stipulate a certain period of time, those units would be available for

554your employees. That would consist, that would continue for the entire term of the lease. So every unit, every time it's available, would be made available with a priority basis to your employees, to the fullest extent of the state laws. And the second, the state laws allow us to guarantee and reserve it and preserve it for you. We'll do that as well. And if we need the lawyers that are doing the Dave Thomas thing to come talk to you guys about how they did it, they're they did 100% forever. So we can we can give you their phone number. We welcome. This is a 99 year lease. Will this be affordable housing for 99 years? Yes. So we are offering perpetuity full term of the lease. We will keep it affordable. I have the developer in

555the back room, and we've confirmed that. They actually corrected me and told me perpetuity. I said an extended period of time and they said perpetuity. So thank you for as long as we're there. Yes. Last question. There's a clause in here about potential purchase of that townhouse land. I do not support that. I, I appreciate the 99 year lease that would allow people to move from rental to a version of ownership, right? With the 90 year lease without us having to give the, the right for you to, as a developer to own that land and sell it to the people, right? There's nothing that stops somebody from buying a piece of property that's on a 99 year lease property. We're not making it. It's not a make or break. It's, it's important to us. We're

556going to try to figure it out. I think your staff, MR. Particularly specifically highlighted some of the challenges to provide homeownership on deeded land. I mean, on lease land, particularly owned by a government agency, as we said to him. And we'll say, here is, whatever the terms, we will try to maximize the opportunity. So if and we would like to purchase it. But I respect the perspective that you've offered. If we weren't allowed to purchase it, we would go to the next best option. And we think there are two pathways. One is to do as you say, pursue, you know, pursuewnership on a 99 year lease to the extent that the banks and the insurance companies will approve it. And if that's not viable, then we would go down the path of rental, but still

557a townhouse configuration for a family unit. But rental. I totally understand. I appreciate the effort. Last question on the public land available. That's right now potentially of high archeological value, regardless of what the final determination of that is. Do you are you in your proposal leaving that to be public land? That's our intent. Absolutely terrific. And so we've programed it in our site plan as public land. We would anticipate that the development agreement, if we had the good grace of the board to negotiate the development agreement, would include an attachment of our master development such that no materially significant changes could be made without us consulting you. And so one of our offer is meaningful public land. In addition to the inclusion of a transportation hub, assuming the collaboration with the county. Terrific. And Doctor

558Hepburn, the 5000ft!S of training space is of some value to you. Yes, absolutely. It's a nice place to get. Centrally located, easy to get off of 95 for many staff. How many people can fit in 5000ft!S? Is that 100. Standing or sitting? But okay, it's all good. Doctor Wanza anything else I missed? I don't think so. Unless you're good with the workshop topics. What we included on slide 36, if you're good with those. And I don't know if you mentioned the Deerfield Beach. He did said that he's in Deerfield Beach. You said lease do not sell. Absolutely. Yeah. We're not. Not in the. Business right now. I'm sorry. Are you asking about items on 36. On slide 36? That's what we have right now. Plan to talk with the board as we begin, as we

559kick off redefining for next school year. And so I didn't know if this we just wanted the board to know we always like the board and to see if the board wants to add any other topics or look for something specific in these items. But we just wanted the board to know that when we come back on the 21st of JULY. The only thing I'd ask is to elucidate a little bit more on the question that I asked, getting us to 110%. Yes. I think that the board deserves to know what the art of the possible is for us to redefine how many schools and what specific feeder patterns would be affected. I'm not going to prejudge what this board is going to do, but I think it's very important for the board to know

560the answer to that question in some detail. I appreciate. It, thank you ma'am. DR. Zeman just to to clarify, where were you on The Seagull? I heard you express interest in option two and one. If they don't have any construction requirements, if they can just move in as it's currently built and do the training, that's another way to hold on to that land for a year until we figure out what to do with the contiguous space. Got it. Okay. Thank you. I have MISS Thompson. Thank you chair, I'll be quick. I am also in favor of First Eagle to look at option 1 or 3 like DR. Holness and Bulman said for Norfolk, I would like to go forward with rising. I do think home, the home ownership component, is something that is so important

561and very much lacking in the affordable housing workforce development housing space. So if in order to make that possible, we need to sell that piece of land to them, I would be for that because we're still losing the other part. And it's hard to build home ownership on land that you don't actually own. As far as Margate Middle, I am in agreement with doing a new building, Deerfield Beach Elementary. I think I would like to see how much that they're willing to pay for that land, and then determine whether the lease makes sense or not, because are they still, I guess, the question, are they interested in continuing the lease if we don't want to sell it, or are they going to find land elsewhere? Just the point of correction is an easement. It's not

562a lease. And that was done a long time ago. It's kind of a weird arrangement to use an easement. So the easement is still continuing and it's not really negatively impacting the school. So the part the I'm sorry, Chris was the director of facility planning real estate. The city. The city has been using the parking area for a long time. They just thought they would purchase it, but it was conveyed, not conveyed. But it's an easement, which is kind of weird. Okay, so are they paying for the easement? Well, they would like. To buy. No, no no they don't. No, they're not paying for these men. But but they would like to bite. So right now we're getting nothing. But we could get something if we let them buy it. Correct. All right. So I'm

563in favor of that plan then. And then. As far as the Broward health, I think that's a good solution. And I'm happy that that has come to fruition. And then I have some questions on the 3 or 4 potential sites for housing. How are we going to go about talking to those communities? Because I think at least one is a pretty high traffic could potentially do some traffic impacts. Same with Willoughby because I was a social worker there. So what is that process? If we give the green light to go ahead with those? Oka so it would kd d of mirror the process that we are doing now with the Dave Thomas site. So the first thing MR. Russo has actually he's in conversation with the city managers of the three cities to see, first

564of all, where, where would the city sit in this? And then once we know where the cities would sit, then we would have the conversation, obviously with the local communities and have and see if that is something that they would want to see. So we would follow kind of the same methodology that we are doing with the current plan up at Dave Thomas. So first, so our first conversation is with the cities to see if that's something that the municipalities are interested in, in even going down that path. As far as opportunities to erect affordable housing in the community. And then we would then have to go in those local communities and have the conversation to see, to see where, what their input and what their thought processes are. Obviously, we've had some conversation with

565the school principals, and then we would have to we would certainly have to then come back here to the board and explain all of the feedback that we've received, and then get direction from the board on next steps. Yes, Chris, you MAY add to it. We've already spoken to the city manager for Plantation and Sunrise Plantation seems to be receptive, and they're willing to work with us. The City of Sunrise is going to get back to us in 30 days. They just want to do some additional due diligence, but they didn't push back. We are still trying to get a meeting with the City of Margate City manager, so that's where we are. Okay, I, I think there's a need in in Broward County for housing. And just to be clear, we would never be

566managing this housing for anyone who's going to start writing that. But I remember from previous conversations that there was a lot of pushback about housing, in particular from 1 or 2 of the Margate commissioners. So I don't know how that would go over. And I don't want to I want this to be a partnership with our cities. So I think if they are against it, then I would not be able to support it. But if there seems to be some some interest from those cities, then I would like us to explore it further. And then last comments, I think, for the presentation on the 21st, that that looks good. And can we also just include an update on how the district assisted with the closed school staff, like moving locations and kind of the impact

567bargaining that we did with the unions, like what the outcome of that was and how the teachers are feeling about being relocated. Yes. I would appreciate that component. Okay. And then that's, that's all for me. Thank you chair. Thank you, MR. Cervera. Let's see if we can land the plane here. Right. So I'm in favor of rising. Yes. To Eagle Haven. The idea that DR. Zeman had, which I thought was a good one on one and or two, depending on costs, on one pause on Margate Middle. And yes, to the easement. I'm just confirming because I've heard lease and I've heard easements confirming it is an easement agreement. Correct. It's an easement. Okay. Yeah. I'm in favor. Thank you. Thank you. And I just had a few questions and a few comments. So I want

568I want my colleagues to be kind of clear eyed about what option one would look like at Seagull. I would want to see, like many of my colleagues, what it would cost for us to invest money to make option one happen. I know that when the city of Fort Lauderdale was looking at turning it into a public safety training complex, it was going to be over $1 million just to plan the design for that facility. I know that, or at least what I'm hearing from Chief Gregory, is it wouldn't be, you know, as extensive as what the city of Fort Lauderdale was talking about. But I would need to see the amount of money we would have to invest to create, to make that a public safety complex. But also, again, I want to remind

569my colleagues that there is a daycare on campus or there will be at well, it is at Wilton right now. So hearing that we would be doing active shooter trainings at Seagull or on the Seagull site, I have some questions about that. Like, would that be after school hours? Go ahead, Chief Gregory. Mike. Mike Gregory Chief Safety and Security Officer No, it would we haven't fleshed out a schedule yet. We'd have to get back with you. What that would look like. Ideally, it would be at the times that the the different agencies officers were available. So that's typically the day shift hours. But they obviously have officers that work night shift as well. So it'd be a different hours. I would be mindful to say that they aren't actually shooting live ammunition during training. It's

570a sim munitions, which are much quieter in nature, and they aren't quite as disruptive. There would be sound effects inside the building to simulate actual training and real live training environment, but it wouldn't be such that it would disturb the neighborhood. It wouldn't be to that extent. Okay, I would really, in order to feel comfortable with that, I would need to be assured that, like the students at Wilton would not feel the impacts here in mostly like sound would not hear the impacts of such training. And then I would also want to know how much we would be able to charge external agencies for taking those classes. So I don't know if, Doctor Hepburn, you've captured that. I'm catching it now. Okay. And I'll just say like, as a teacher, I participated in active shooter

571training where, you know, it was obviously not live rounds, but the sound effects were quite, quite loud. So I just, I have concerns. I am a well, so I had some questions for the Sistrunk rising team. And, you know, I had a meeting last week. So none of these questions are a surprise. But I think it's important for the public to understand the answers to some of these questions. Where is the financing coming from for this project? Absolutely. Thank you for the question. The project, as proposed, includes a couple of different components that are going to be isolated projects, and so I have to address them individually. The biggest, single biggest component would be the 300 units of affordable housing. And the financing for that will be as at low income housing tax credits, likely

572bond some bond money for percent bond money, and then also other typical funds that are usually available for affordable housing. The county no guarantees, but the county offers funds for support of affordable housing. Select cities. Do I know the city of Fort Lauderdale is considering it? And so in short, that would be financed in the same way that traditional affordable housing is financed. It is structured between the 30 and 80% Ami to be optimally attractive to that funding mechanism. So that's one component, the townhouses of which there will be 18 townhouses. You know, we're we're talking about the deeded or not deeded, but let's let's assume there's a ownership component. They they would be financed by in the same way that typical workforce, sort of single lot housing is financed. Our partner in that regard

573has actually undertaken multiple transactions within the city of Fort Lauderdale within the last five years. So the intent would be to use many of the same programs that are built for middle class individuals to own houses to do just that, just so you can understand the perspective from a timing standpoint. The site currently is not zoned for commercial and or residential development, so there would likely be a ten plus month period of time with which we would navigate the process with the city. We would also, in parallel, use that time to line up financing options for the projects. Finally, the final component of significance would be the hotel that would be financed using traditional market rate funding mechanisms, a hotel of that nature, likely in the range of 125 rooms, would consist of somewhere around

57460 to 65% debt that would be offered by the market. We would bring in a we would have to ultimately get a license agreement or a franchise agreement with a national hotel company to come in, and that would likely come with a developer who's done multiple of those properties to build that out. None. To be clear, there would be no expectation of any funding being provided by the district. No request, no expectation of that. You would be offering the land, and we would then subsequently lease the land. We expect that if you were to give us a good grace of negotiating a lease agreement, that the lease agreement would have some provisions in there that say, if things are taken too long and that there would be repercussions to allow the district to move forward

575with the property. Does that answer your question, chair Leonardi yes. Thank you. Can you go over the timeline for this? So if we give direction today that we want to move forward with Sistrunk rising, what what are the next steps? When can we expect shovels in the ground? When can we expect this to be completed? When can we expect the district to start earning money from the lease agreement? Sure. And I could hear the smiles behind me already, but I'll hazard an attempt to be responsive to you. So first, if we were to get a I'm not going to be presumptive, but if as we go forward with consensus, we would proceed to negotiate with your staff, negotiating the comprehensive agreements. Can't speak about timing, but I know given the way these things are, we're

576prepared to negotiate expediently. So we think there's an opportunity to have that. Back to you for consideration by the fourth quarter of this year, potentially the third quarter of this year. And you would have a lease agreement and a development agreement if that were approved going forward, we would then immediately spring into two things. As you've alluded to earlier, there are some considerations relative to Seminole, Indian, Seminole, Indian artifacts, potentially, or sites of significance that are there. There's a state process that is stipulated. You all have started that with some of your studies. So we would undertake that process in parallel. We would start to work on the entitlements process with the city. We expect that process to take ten months, so it's going to take us ten months to get the site zoned so

577that we have the right to build the kind of uses that we are proposing. Yeah. As I mentioned before, in parallel and overlaid with that, we would be undertaking to explore the funding market with a high priority being to get the affordable going as quickly as possible. The process is somewhat uncertain. Our belief is that inside of two years after, you have allowed us to one and very likely more of the components the three components townhomes, affordable apartments and hotel, 1 or 2 of those components would have been started within that time frame, but the first year or so we will be working through diligently the entitlement process and whatever agreement we would enter with you would stipulate level of effort to give you some comfort, and there would be coordination with your real estate

578team. So they're aware of our movements. Thank you. And then my next question is are for the general counsel. Do any aspects of this project qualify or meet the criteria for a p three? So. The way it was solicited is the only question that I would have on that one, because it's I'd have to look at the history a little bit more to determine whether it was not an unsolicited proposal. It was an unsolicited proposal. Correct. Okay. So if it was an unsolicited proposal, then yes. Okay. So I just want to make sure that we're in compliance with all of our policies and all statutes. So that would be something that I will get together with staff. I know that we now have a policy coming and we have processes. We'll just make sure that

579we are in compliance with whatever is required. Okay. All right. For Seagull, I am in the minority. I guess I would like to pursue option three for now, but I would like the, you know, since I'm in the minority there, I'll I'll go with option one and three. I would really like to the information that I requested for option one. I'm in favor of a market replacement in favor of the Deerfield easement. I support MISS Thompson's proposal for including, you know, how we've dealt with the closed schools in the next. In the next workshop, I'm in favor of the Eagles Haven request, like everyone else has said, and I am in favor of Sistrunk rising. As long as we follow. Like all of our policies and state statutes and all of that. Oh, and then

580for for a slide 36, again, like I would very much like to see a formalized process for. How we accept proposals or how we deal with our, our, the properties of the schools that we are consolidating. I find it really I struggle with the fact that, you know, land is probably one of the most valuable resources in Broward. And we really only have one proposal for, for a very, very valuable piece of land, land, a very good proposal, but one nonetheless, when I think there should be much more competition for our land. And I think that says something about how we are going about this process that I think needs to be improved, like people Should be begging us to in competing for for our land. So I would really like to see in the

581next workshop, and I'll keep saying it because I've asked for this, but I would really like to see a formal process for how we deal with our our schools and how we accept proposals or whatever you want to call it, moving forward. MISS Dupree Bruno, did you want to? I thought, you know. Well, thank you, MISS Leonardi. What I was going to say is, is that's what the General Council has been working on as far as policies are concerned, to ensure that we do have a formal policy as well as procedural standard operating procedures, procedural manual for how we then implement the intent and the language and the policy. So yes, MISS Leonardi, that would definitely, as we launch, redefining this third year, that would be a very integral part of the process. So the

582policy is coming to the board for the final adoption on the 23rd. That's the public private partnership policy. And there's already a draft of the process as well as standard operating procedure that staff is fine tuning. So we can come and share that with you when it's finalized. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to weigh in again. I will just say, chair, you're not necessarily a loner on that. I also think for Siegel, I would rather look at option three first, although I do know that a training facility is necessary because I had had a number of law enforcement officers and detectives and stuff asking about the opportunity to use some of our schools after, you know, after school to do some of that training, because we know

583the training is really important. I, I do share some of the concerns that you have, and I know that sounds MAY be a little less, but they're still traumatizing. And again, I know it's such an important training for students to have. But anyway, I mean, it's important training for, for the police to have in order to be prepared. But I do think that even the slight possibility of it being able to be heard is concerning. I'm not saying no to it exactly, but my order would be to look at option one first and then I'm sorry, option three first and then bring us like, what would how much money would that garner? Is there anybody even really interested? And then if that doesn't pan out to look at option one and then option two. So

584for Margate, I'm okay to to halt for right now, especially because I think we have the facilities assessment and stuff. I do agree that spending my pockets of money here and there don't necessarily help overall when something is in the distress that Margate Middle is in. You know, we were already getting ready to spend money on a cafeteria because it's way too small for the students. But my question I have on that is have we I mean, I don't think we have based on the presentation, but I just want to be clear. Have we spent any money on design for the cafeteria as of yet? Sonia Colino Executive Director No, we have not spent any money on the design for the cafeteria. Okay, perfect. Thank you. But I do I mean, listed on there. If

585we vote, if we if we say yes to Margate, the proposal that's here, we are still going to finish some of that work. And that's being done like the restrooms. And we're going to make sure that they have proper working air and all those pieces that will allow them to be comfortable and not distressed in the school. I just want to be really clear that that's part of, of saying yes to this. Am I correct? Yes. That is a part of the overall proposal. We did talk about setting aside some of the dollars to keep the school functioning until such time as we can decide what we want to do going forward. Okay, great. But I would just like to add, I think we need to do more than just keep it functioning, right. We

586want it to be comfortable. We want it to be a place where students want to show up. So I'm okay with halting for now and coming up with a better plan, because honestly, I think building a whole school might almost be cheaper than just the cafeteria, although I know that that's not the case. But if we're already looking at the cafeteria, when you fold that into a newchchl, I ththk it it w worut t to b be way ss tn n what we' trying to figure out here. So I'm okay with that. But I, I don't want it just to be functional. I want it to be comfortable in a place where students and staff are happy to go every day. I'm. Yes. To Deerfield Beach on page 31. Just a couple of questions about

587the the other piece, using other spaces for housing. It says that these spaces were identified. So who identified the spaces? I. MRS. Hixon, this is Valerie. So there was a workshop presentation that the board did on. It was back in JUNE, JUNE 10th of 2025. And in that presentation, these three schools were called out in that presentation. I'm sorry. Okay. Well. So Margate and Willoughby were specifically called out. And at that time, school board member, current vice chair DR. Holness asked for plantation to be considered. Okay. I just because it just says they were identified. So I just want people to know, you know, how that happened. So it also says that there's the rfp for Dave Thomas will go out. So I'm just a little confused because I thought we were already working with

588someone to, to build out the. Dave Thomas. So I will let MR. White, our, our executive director of procurement, speak to that and so that he can give the board a little additional information. Good afternoon. John Wesley White, interim executive director of Procurement Task Assigned. I want to give you a brief 200 zero foot overview on where we are with the p three project for Dave Thomas, the Office of General Counsel, as you've heard earlier, did share a draft p three process standard Operating Procedure and Policy for review and comment. On MAY 27th, the procurement and real estate and outside counsel Oscar Soto have been collaborating on the scope and requirements for the solicitation. As of early this week. We feel that we are about 80% to 85%, complete with drafting the solicitation. We've already

589gone to e, d, o, c and they have submitted some draft language to be incorporated in it to address local, small and minority business participation in the project, and we are currently working to issue an advance public notice of the pending project. And I think this also addresses some of the concerns of the board that you want to see an adequate amount of competition for this very valuable set of properties. And so what we're doing is we're going to draft up a short notice and then post it and let them know that, hey, this is something that's going to be coming in the near future. And so go ahead and start getting your teams together to be able to bid on it. MR. Soto, our outside counsel, is currently updating the draft p three Comprehensive

590Agreement and drafting a determination for Doctor Hepburn to sign, indicating that this is a a qualifying project per Florida Statute 255.065 and the draft board policy. And this all relates to this being a facility that's being used as for educational purposes and for the public good. And so that determination is required before we can formally proceed. Real estate is moving forward to have a Florida licensed architect or engineer prepare a required design criteria package. We don't anticipate that this is going to be a major, time consuming effort, as this information is pretty readily available in the draft scope of work. It's going to address things like the number of units, which is approximately 91 to 4 bedroom configuration, low income residential units, not a mixed use property, 50 to 100% low income based on agreement

591that has yet to be finalized with the City of Pompano Beach Community Room, playground area on site parking, hurricane windows and doors, perimeter fencing, security lead or equivalent certification. So we've got all that information. We just need to get an architect to pull that together in a formal design criteria package. And as far as a preliminary schedule goes. If we continue to make progress at this rate, I'm hoping to be able to get this out on the street appximately the 23rd of JULY to the end of JULY, we'd have a bidders conference about 30 days later, assuming JULY 30th questions would be due AUGUST 4th. Responses to any questions we would get published by the 13th of AUGUST. Proposals would be due tentatively. SEPTEMBER 21st. Depends on what feedback we get from the developers, saying

592that they MAY or MAY not need additional time. We've already built in about 60 days there for them to work on this. Oral presentations the first week of OCTOBER, and then we would look to come to the board for approval by the 10th of NOVEMBER. Okay. Thank you for that. So just to go back to my original question, though, the people that came and presented that's not that's not moving forward. We're now going for out for rfp. And there could be a number of other people that have the opportunity to to present something. Is that correct? I'm gonna jump in here. Yeah. So MRS. Hixon, Kriss Akabusi so we've been working and MRS. Bruner has really things are converging, right? Because we are almost done, like you said, with the p three rfp template, one

593of the things we're doing, MISS MRS. Bruno, MR. Soto is going to take the policy. We had a meeting yesterday and then incorporate. This is where the design criteria is coming in to incorporate that into the package for the p three. So we're actually incorporating the policy requirement into the p three before it goes out. Definitely you're going to be seeing everything. So MRS. Hixon the presentation that was done last year, we've been working. And there's a lot of steps. And those steps are nobody, to my knowledge, has come and presented, you know, meaning interested in doing any development of Dave Thomas site. So we've just been on this road to make sure that we are doing what we're supposed to be doing and things converge, whereby now there's going to be a policy, and

594then the template is definitely addressing the statue requirements. Okay, maybe I'm not remembering. Right, but someone came and showed us a design and you know what could be done there. So I guess I'm just confused. No, let me clarify. I know what you're saying. Now when when the presentation was done, we returned. There was a three conceptual layouts. That was a component of that presentation on JUNE 10th of what it could look like. So that's what that's what you're referring to, because we wanted to present what the conceptual layout MAY be. But those are intellectual properties. So it just what could be. That's what was presented to the board, but not somebody presenting saying this is what they want to build. Okay, I appreciate that because I guess I got it jumbled. So thank you

595for that. I would also say so if cities are interested in having these discussions, I think, yes, we should go forward. But I just want to bring up a point that I think is, is really important for us to consider. We have some development that's happening in the city of Hollywood, and they're right next to schools. And I don't think until they started building them, they really understood the impact that those buildings would have on the privacy and safety of our students, because how adjacent they are. So I have some concerns with building housing so close to our schools, because they're actually right on the school land. And these are actually buildings that are across the street from the school. But when you build up too high, the balconies now have access to seeing our

596students. And I don't want to get too detailed in here, but I will just say there is a big I personally have a big concern about allowing housing to be so close to our students on school grounds and the height of the building. So if we do have these discussions and however that moves forward, I think it's really important that we take all that into account as we roll out how we might use these spaces together. So I agree with the chair about a formal process for proposals for land, because things kind of came at us haphazardly. So I'd like to see more formal, and if I'm not mistaken, I think there's a policy coming forward already. So I appreciate that. And my last question is, it seems and I will thank all my colleagues

597for consensus to move forward with the new Broward Health proposal with Eagles Haven. And I just was wondering when we can see that contract coming to the board so we can get moving on this. Our our intention is to bring as soon as possible. But MR. Yakubu. So how much time do you need? So I had spoken to the outside Council as a proactive. If the component depends on what. Finally, the board gives direction regarding. Ego saving is taken out. So we've pretty much come close to. The actual sale has been nailed down in the agreement of sale and purchase. The student engagement agreement is going to be a component. So we MAY. I spoke to the council. We MAY be able to bring it on the 23rd if you choose. That's what he told

598me. That's the goal, MR. Hixon, is to bring it on the 23rd. And then, if I MAY, MADAM Chair, just add a little bit to the discussion of Broward Health and gc. Please jump in as needed. Now that we have a board consensus, Broward Health now is going to issue a new letter of intent. Their original letter of intent included the value of the space that they were going to give to us, that we were going to sublease to Eagles Haven. So since that's not going to happen, that's going to be taken out and the purchase price is going to be 14 million, anything outside of that in terms of donation will be done between Broward Health and Eagles Haven. It would not be part of the letter of intent or the purchase of of

599that land. But gc. In the. End, the only other thing that I would add is that the board really does need to understand that this is not our negotiations. Basically, this is a donation from Broward Health, and they're the the only person that can really enforce anything would be jafco through Eagles Haven. This is not a board transaction. The only transaction that we're involved in is the sale of the land for the 14 million. Yes, I appreciate that. And I, I think it actually makes it cleaner and easier. And I'm sure everybody is going to come through with what they're supposed to do. So thank you again to my colleagues for giving consensus. And I think that's it for me. Thanks so much. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff. On page five of the presentation, can staff

600give a board member follow up and put in a guess on Winton when Rogers, where the preschool is located on the the map. And then my question is this orange line. Is that showing. What is that actually showing? Is that just showing like that's where the schools are divided. So thank you, MISS Alhadeff, this is Valerie Wanza. It's okay. I'm sorry. I just started talking. So on page five, what you see is initially when the city of Fort Lauderdale entered a proposal to potentially do a public safety training complex there. That's where we actually drew the line for separation between everything. To the right is what the city would potentially occupy on the seagull side of that parcel of land, because, as DR. Zeman said, this entire parcel of land is really one parcel of

601land, seagull and wooden. Everything to the left of that orange line is everything that is being occupied by wooden Rogers. To ensure that they have the space and the capacity to operate the school that is now consolidated Seagull and Wooden. We will put on the map exactly where the child care wing is, and it's hard for me to kind of tell you, but I physically know where it is. But we will certainly do a follow up and delineate for the board where it is. If you see those just adjacent to the the orange line, there are two buildings and the, the, the babies that the nursery is to the left of that. So they are, they are not in those two buildings that are right there by the Orange Line. They're a little bit further

602west, but we can provide for the board a cleaner depiction that shows you exactly where the babies are on the campus. And then is there a physical fence that separates the two schools or. No, it's just one. So there will be. And there there always was some type of fence there that separates them. Of course, we would have had we were going to move the fence to allow for the appropriate space that we need. But yes, there were absolutely be a fence that would go up so that there's clear separation of what would be on that quote unquote, seagull side side, and that clearly separates it from the wooden Rogers side. Okay. Thank you for explaining that. So I'm for option one, having the school safety training center site, I think that the board also

603needs to not only look at the financial part of it, but the, the value that the district will gain to have a training center for SROs and our guardians, for them having a place to go to actually do the physical training, because we all know that in a life threatening situation that your body goes into fight or flight and you fall back to your training. So there is such a high level of value of us having our own training center for our SROs and our guardians to go to, to have their own place to train. So I really would like the board to reflect on that part of it with creating this as a training center and not only for, for our district, but then to allow other districts, potentially or agencies to come in

604and them to be charged something to do the training there. But, you know, we I think it shows a lot that the board is values the training part of making sure that in a lockdown situation that our officers know exactly what to do and, and where to go to take down a potential threat. Thank you. Oh I'm sorry. Hold on. And Deerfield Beach, I would like to see the two options to lease or sell and Margate Middle School. Let's hold on that. And you know, I'd like to see what it would be to build a new building and the cost to doing that. And I just for feedback to Doctor Hepburn with staff is on page four with the options. That was really helpful. I would have loved to see that, you know, throughout the

605document for all the other schools, because it just makes it very concise and easy. Thank you. Thank you. DR. Zeman thank you so much, chair. I worried a little bit. We're talking past each other. Chair, when you brought up the point about a process for disposing of land, and then we talked about a policy for p3sp3 is one way to dispose of land. But I believe chair, that we actually need a better policy for disposing of land like other agencies have figured out how to say, okay, it's disposed and then they put it up for sale. They have a process that allows multiple people to come in and propose different things, even though they also, chair have to get the city's agreement on zoning and permissions and all that ahead of time. But, but then

606you get more than one. And I think that's really important for us to get the best value in the future. So I just don't want to talk past ourselves. I think right now, chair, we could ask for a process for disposal of land that is separate from the policy on p3s. Is that fair, general Council? So if I MAY policy 8020. So that's probably I'm sorry, 8030 is probably if. And I just say that to the General Council, as you're looking at prioritizing policies through the process, policy 8030 is our policy for the disposal of land. So that MAY be something if you want to prioritize based on the feedback from the board. So so you have a policy that is also coming forward for review next week, which is about the surplus of land.

607And then what we need to do from that point is to also create the processes and the SOPs that go along. With it. That's my point, is that we are now shifting to a new management structure, where John Sullivan and the superintendent and staff are responsible for creating the process. They can do that right now, and that would satisfy the chair's interest. And I think the board's interest, to be honest with you, about let's modernize our disposal of of land. We didn't do a lot before, but I think we're going to be in that business for the next half a dozen years or so. So why don't we get the process right now? So, MR. Sullivan, can we take a follow up on that, on whether or not we can get the process done for

608disposal of land, since we're we're moving it out of policy and putting it under the superintendent. Yeah. We can provide a follow up. Thank you. Actually, chair, I think can we get consensus on just asking for that process to be developed? Does anyone object to that? Anyone online objecting? Nope. No. I just might want to make sure we weren't because because p three and selling land is really distinct thing. Second thing when we did Dave Thomas as a p three it was 100% affordable. So I'm not sure why MR. White is talking about 50 to 100% now. When did that change? John White Director of Procurement we've got to get final agreement with the city of Pompano Beach, and that's what that's why we're going for 100%. But Pompano Beach might not allow us to

609do 100%. So that's ongoing discussion. We have already gained consensus with the City of Pompano, and you can go back andd look at soso meeting notes om our former chihief cilitieses officicer thahat tetent. Okay. I'm I'm good with that. Yep. I just don't want to ask twice because then they then they might think they can go back. Okay, so I'm coming in a little. And the reason. They did that. Is that the housing that's being built around the City Hall complex, all of that entire in massive complex they're doing is market rate. And so they said, yes, it's okay. And they have a special zone that they could do 100% affordable because everything across the street is marketplace. They really like our employees being there, partaking in the transportation and the city hall, you know,

610mixed use property that they're building across the street. And I mean, to DR. Zeman point, I, I feel like I keep saying, I don't love getting proposals in my junk folder for a piece of land that is millions and millions of dollars. Like that is not how a serious organization sells or leases or does anything with their land. That's. I don't know how else to say it, MISS Bulman. Just two little questions in regards to the Eagles haven. If we're getting a new letter of intent, then how are we? I'm I'm agreeing to this because we're there's a donation. So how do we know that that's happening? I don't. MR. Sullivan. They've made public commitments to that. But it won't be part of our agreement that the board would vote on. Okay. I mean, if

611everyone else feels good about that. But I'm personally putting on the record that I'm agreeing to this based on them publicly stating that they're going to do this. Otherwise I might have a different opinion. And then my second question is I wanted to revisit Deerfield because I, I wasn't really clear on what was being asked. So we have a there's currently an easement that they're not, they're not paying for. Correct. So and so is, are we is, is the option either to sell the land to them for an undetermined price? Because there's nothing I didn't see a cost or to lease it to them. So it's to keep the easement agreement. So and I was kind of getting a little interchanging words that I should not have been. So we currently, if you look on

612slide 28 and if beacon can put up slide 28, for approximately 60 years, there has been an agreement in effect with the city for the use of the easement for parking. And that is at no cost. Correct? MR. Okay. That is at no cost. The city approached us about possibly purchasing that. We have not done an appraisal. Correct. Okay. We have not done an appraisal to determine the value. So we were we came to the board or we're here today to see, is that something that, you know, you want us to go ahead and look at? Do we want to go ahead and go through the appraisal process and go go down that route? Or do we want to just continue with the easement agreement process that we have been doing for the better part

613of 60 years? So now that I'm thinking about this a little bit differently, because I didn't understand at all what was happening before, so I apologize. I guess it begs the question of why this would be coming up all of a sudden, after 60 years of using the parking lot for free. Go ahead. Yes, you MAY talk. So there's two components at that school site. That is an historical building that's been boarded up. And the city manager. That building is historical, so you can demolish it. I'm trying to remember it's pretty big. I'm trying to remember the square footage. So the city was interested in renovating the building. And then they're interested in buying the building and trying to do like a cultural community facility with us being able to utilize or they want to

614lease it. So our administration through the superintendent is preferably we want to listen. So then the city said, okay, we have this little piece over here. We also want to buy it. So that's how that conversation. So it wasn't just they came to us for the parking. It was starting with the historical building that's on that school site, same school site, and it's building one. So I guess we would need I would need more information. I don't even understand. There seems to be more complicated than what was initially presented to us. I'd like to see the whole story and what we're looking at, so we can make an educated decision about, you know, because I, I don't immediately have a problem selling it to another municipality. I, I would feel more comfortable sending it to

615a municipality than for a private developer. I wouldn't want to do that at all. But I would like to know the details of this before I make a decision. We can, we can we don't have to do that today. Right? That's not an immediate decision. So we can absolutely bring back additional information for the board to contemplate. Okay. Thank you. Item. Thanks. That's it. MR. Bruno. So I want to make sure that the board understands and that members of the public also understands. There is a very specific process for both public private partnerships as well as sales. And next week, when the board, hopefully the board approves the two policies, you will have to go through the bidding process for surplus land. It cannot be sent something that's just sent to the board. It has

616to go through procurement. And the same thing for your public private partnership. So the policy is there. It has some instructions in there and there will be additional processes that are created. So I wanted to make sure that is on the record so everybody understands that. Thank you, MISS Hixon. Thank you. Just to address board member Bowman's concern, I believe if Broward Health were to do a formal agreement with Jafco, who represents Eagles Haven, and maybe that could be that agreement with them or whatever they draft up could be attached as maybe backup to our item that comes. We could all be very confident that it's not a suggestion that it's definitely a donation that everyone is committed to. And even though we're not part of it, maybe it could just be the background information

617given with the item so that we are very clear that that is moving forward. There's no chance that it's not going to happen. Daughter Wanza oh, I thought you wanted. No, no no, I'm no ma'am. Okay. I think the General Council. And I. Think Broward Health is, is willing to, to do that formal agreement. So we so we have to be really careful with the transaction. This is a sale of land. So we don't want to commingle the transactions. If we do have a correspondence from Jafco accepting what was offered by Broward Health, we can share that with the board. And if there is a contract that is drafted, it could be shared with the board. But we, excuse me, do not want to commingle the transactions and have it attached as an exhibit to

618the agenda item. Okay. Yeah. As long as there's something that's provided to the board where we could see that it's it is a formal agreement if you don't think it's appropriate to attach it, I get that, but maybe just send it to us. So we're very clear that again, it's not a suggestion. It's it's written in stone if it moves forward. Thank you. DR. Holness thank you, MADAM Chair. So I just wanted to give my input on Margate. I support the recommendation. Also regarding Deerfield Beach. I am glad MR. Iacobuzio clarified that we're not getting any money, so I think getting money would be much better. So I am for the sale of it. MADAM Chair, I am not sure if you have gotten consensus. I know you felt like you didn't on the on

619the Seagull option three, but now getting clarity that option three option one is actually not overly financially beneficial in terms of, you know, producing revenues. I am more for option three, you know, Seagull is a prime property and I don't have an issue with safety training. But I believe that as we continue to redefine schools, we're going to have other attractive sites that are not necessarily prime properties that we could have the safety training, you know, option exercise on those other properties that are not necessarily as expensive or as prime as Seagull. So I would much prefer option three for Seagull. And MADAM Chair, I think I would probably encourage you to take consensus on that again, because I was glad to hear your input with the noise factor as well with having, you know,

620younger children there. So it was well taken. And I am more supportive of option three. I'd just like to make a comment as well on the this trunk rising. I don't believe the trunk rising project should be delayed or harmed by the by p three policy. You know, that proposal was an unsolicited proposal that was then publicly disclosed to invite other proposals. I believe we received at least four multiple proposals were received and then filtered down to two. This was discussed in prior workshop. Before coming to this workshop. You know, I don't believe North Fork should be delayed or forced to restart as a result of a new p three policy. So I'm hoping that we can move ahead with it. My understanding is that p three process can be expensive, you know, so there

621are many concerns to that. So I don't believe the North Fork should be delayed as a result of p three policy. Because we went through the process. We received multiple proposals and we filtered down to two. And we're down to Sistrunk rising. So I hope that we can move beyond that and and continue the process with Sistrunk rising. And Doctor Wanza, I am okay with the the future workshop topic and I think I covered everything. Thank you, MADAM Chair. All right, so just real quick, I want to retake the consensus on Seagull. I heard me, MISS Hixon DR. Holness and MISS Bulman say that we wanted to pursue option three. Is that am I capturing that correctly? And then I heard option 1 or 2 DR. Zeman and MR. Cervera. Option one, MRS. Alhadeff and

622option one and three simultaneously, MISS Thompson, but please correct me if I'm wrong. Colleagues. Sorry. Oh, okay. So sorry. So MISS Bulman does not want to pursue option three. You want to pursue option one and three. Okay, so that gives us three board members in support of just option three to MR. Cervera. Since we've been at this for what seems like ten hours now, can you please repeat option three? So option three is to look at either selling or leasing the land. I have to go back to the exact slide. Doctor Wanza. Yes you're right. So so option three after formal policy and procedure development, receive formal proposals to either enter into a p3 opportunity with interested vendors or into a facility or land lease agreement with interested parties. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So again,

623option one and three simultaneously, MISS Thompson, MISS Bulman, option three only, MISS Leonardi, MISS Hixon DR. Holness. Option 1 or 2. DR. Zeman or MR. Cervera and option one. MRS. Alhadeff, am I capturing that correctly? I think so. Do you have your direction, doctor? Wanza I think so, okay. I heard a majority of the board in favor of the Margate replacement. A majority of the board in favor of the Deerfield easement. Is that correct? Anything else? Just on the Margate issue, I think there was a discussion about. It's a pause and getting the the cost estimate before we decide on the replacement, if that. Yeah, a little bit more accurate. Sorry. Margate. Pause. Thank you chair. Anything else doctor Wanza MISS Bulman. The Deerfield. I think we're going to. Come back with more information first

624so that you all can see come back and lay out Deerfield together. What the easement. What the what an appraisal for. Yes. We're going to come back, Deerfield, for a follow up. Okay. Anything else? All right. MADAM Chair, can you. Clarify what. The decision was for Siegel? Doctor Wanza. Siegel. The way I interpret what the board is saying is to really probably come back with what option one and three look like, so that the board can probably have a little deeper conversation, bring back what option one and option three would look like, and we would bring that back. And, you know, in a relatively as expeditiously as we can. And at that same time, we will bring back the Deerfield Beach Elementary School options two so that it is a true follow up to this

625conversation. Does that conform with what you have? Yeah. I mean, I'm not really sure how we make sense of the the split, but yeah, I'm not opposed to. What I would just bring back both. And then the board, you know, hopefully we won't be at this hour and the board can really sit down and have a meaningful conversation. But for for the Siegel piece, I do need the information for option one, like how much capital investment we would have to make. We would have to invest how much money we could potentially, how much revenue we could potentially generate. And the the safety piece, you know, that there would be no intermingling of the babies and the active shooter trainings. Perfect. All right. Anyone else, anyone online want to add anything? Well, and the value that

626the training brings to the SROs and the Guardians. Did you capture that? Yes, ma'am. All right. Anything else? All right. Our next item on the agenda is voluntary prekindergarten pre kindergarten orientation. Chair. I just I have to go in ten minutes. Are we we're are we do we have some intent of trying to to do vpk ahead of the Capitol or what are we going to try and accomplish here for the rest of the day? MR. Sullivan what do we have to complete today? So I believe we need to do the vpk item because they need that board feedback before JULY 1st, and then the meal prices. So the board can vote on it on. Next week on the 23rd. In terms of the capital budget, I don't believe it needs to go today. And

627what we could do if the board likes, although there is a lot of items on the special, I don't believe they will take the entirety of the day. We could add that to the special as a presentation. I love it. Second, yeah. Is there any objection to adding a workshop to next week, MISS Bulman? No. If we can get out of here soon. Anyone online want to add their input? But don't. Don't we have to do. We're doing power up, right? That's fine. Yes, MADAM Chair. Yep. I'm fine with. I'm sorry. Thank you. Fine. MADAM Chair. Yes. DR. Holness. Yes. So, can John also look at the items we have on the 23rd to determine if any of those items could possibly be delayed, just in case the workshop and the current items will put

628us beyond eight hours. So? So the majority, if not all the items on the 23rd have to go because they're items that expire at the end of this fiscal year. But again, most of them are a small amounts, and I don't anticipate a lot of those items having a great deal of discussion. So I believe, although I might live to regret this, that they should be enough time to do the budget presentation, a capital at the end. Okay. MADAM Chair, can John comment on whether or not the median should start earlier to exhaust all the items? MR. Sullivan? That's the will of the board. i believe the special is scheduled for 9 A.M. 845. We could do it at 8 A.M. If that's up to the board, or we can keep it. 845 everyone in

629the room who is a minority shaking their heads. But anyone online want to suggest or want to? I would like it. Not at 8 A.M. Yeah. Me either. Yeah, I think 830. It's 845. So we could either do eight 845 or 8 A.M. 845 all right. We will keep the meeting at 845. Yeah. vpk here we go. All right. Would we like the presentation or go straight to board discussion. I've read the whole presentation. I'm ready to talk, chair. All right. Go ahead. Chair, if you don't mind, I believe that Doctor Cohen does have to just share something very briefly so they can make sure we're in compliance, and then we'll be ready to take questions if that's okay. We we're going to jump right to the end of the deck. And if the board

630wishes, we can come back and present the entire deck. I know that it was made a public, so everyone had an opportunity. But there's one essential question we do need to get answered. So we could go right to that question and get that answered. We can schedule this for another meeting. I'm going to introduce my team. Sharonda Bailey, director of vpk, Head Start, and Paul. Thank you, Doctor Cohen. Good evening board. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to address the. One important question we need answered today. Our Head Start preschool program has been experiencing under enrollment, as we have in our k through 12 enrollment trends. And what we are proposing with the Office of Head Start is to be able to submit an application for us to convert our Head Start preschool slots

631to early Head Start slots. So we are right now facing reducing those slots, as I've mentioned on the Head Start preschool side for our four year old program so that we can open the opportunity for our students or our children and the infants and toddlers side of the house, therefore, allowing allowing us to meet enrollment requirements for our Head Start preschool side of the house and also meet enrollment for our Head Start infants and toddlers. So I wanted to have that conversation with the board to see if they are willing to allow us to move forward w whh that applicacati..Hank youou. MISS Bulman. So we're your proposal is that for the empty Head Start slots, we would change them to earlier. Are we changing all of the head start spots to early Head Start? So

632right now for the Head Start preschool side of our house, there are three and four year olds and we have 2003 seats. We're required to be at 97% for full enrollment, and we've been hovering at 92% all year. So we are proposing to reduce on our 3 to 4 year old side, 77 seats on that side of the House to bring us closer to being compliant for full enrollment, but also allowing us to convert those seats to open up 32 additional slots for our early Head Start program. All right, that sounds great. Thanks. Thank you. You're welcome. Anyone else? DR. Zeman already gave his feedback. Anyone else? All right. We are good to move forward. Are you you have the direction you need. Oh, go ahead, MRS. Alhadeff. No. MRS. Rebecca. Oh, MISS Thompson, I

633would really like this presentation to come back at some point, because I think there is a much bigger conversation on how we approach vpk in our our early learners. So it's a little frustrating that the agenda has happened, how it has. I'm fine with this suggestion, but just I think it's really important that we spend time and invest in this program, and I would like it to be put on agenda in the future. Thank you. We're happy to do that. Anyone else, anyone else online? All right. Thank you. Our next item on the agenda is the Food and Nutrition services Meal Benefits update. They'll be in about 30s. And I'll ask Doctor Wanza perhaps to go straight to the superintendent's recommendation, unless the board wants to. An elevator speech at the presentation. Nope. I'm ready

634to talk. Chair. Yes, MISS Thompson. I think it is important to at least expand on the impact that cep will have on other funding, like title one, and just make sure that the board is particularly clear on on the consequences of each option they're proposing. But otherwise I'm fine with an abbreviated presentation. I agree. So Doctor Wanza, if you can just highlight the superintendent's recommendation and the importance of the funding impacts on other revenue sources. So I will go to so this is the team from Food and Nutrition Services as you can see. Yay. Thank you for waiting. Yes. Yeah. You get power up. And I'm not certain if they're still on the line, but our partners from the Council of Great City Schools were on the line at some point throughout the day. They're

635still. We're still on the line. [Laughter] This is. Why that membership is important. They're still here. DR. Zeman. Nice to see you, Ray. Pleasure to see you all as well. Thank you for being here with us. So I'm going to go to page 22 of the presentation. The superintendents recommendations. So the superintendents recommendations actually asked the board to consider four things. The first one is to implement some version of cep, which is the community eligibility provision, which will allow for whatever number of schools the children in the schools. As we know, all kids will have free breakfast, but all of those kids will have free lunch as well. And then for the schools that are not included, I'm on page 22. Or is that right? Can you go to the revised presentation? Okay. And then

636for whatever number of schools that do not qualify for the community eligibility provision for all of the children to have free lunch, those those schools, we will still go through the traditional meal application process to qualify as many children as possible for free, as many students as possible for reduced. And then the remaining would be full pay. And we can talk about how the groupings and the configuration at what percentage we do for that. The second recommendation is we are at a place where we do need to increase meal prices, and the recommendation is to increase lunch at elementary, middle, high and adult by $1. And then the we really want to encourage the board to for us to return to our historical meal charge processes. And we can talk about that a little bit.

637I've also been in conversation with our colleagues in it to look at some kind of way, how we can integrate the meal balance with something in focus so that kids can see before they get to the cafeteria, that whole conversation about, you know, do I have money before I actually get in the line? And then more than anything, and we hear this more and more is whatever the decision that comes out of whatever direction comes out of today. And then ultimately board item next week that we must immediately implement a robust communication protocol across the community that involves the schools, that involves everyone, so that parents and families know the options that we are moving forward with. That's the long and the short. Thank you, MISS Dixon. Thank you so much. I have to MISS

638Thompson's point. It was brought up to us that the schools, let's say I. I forget what option three was in terms of numbers of schools, but let's say it's 80 schools. It might have been 96, but it. Those 80 schools that are part of the cpe, how does that affect their title one funding? Because we would be helping ourselves to do cpe with them, but then we would be hurting the schools. So I think it's really important that we understand what that effect is. And yes. Good afternoon. Thank you so much, MR. Sullivan. Good afternoon. Board members. LaWanda Wright, director of federal programs. At this time, the federal government allows the 1.6 multiplier, which is in your presentation, to be tied to the direct certified number of students. And we've been using this tool for

639our current schools identified as cep. And at this time, it does not have a direct correlation or impact on their allocation. The only mitigating factor that's impacting the allocations for our school is the decline in enrollment. That is the major factor that's impacting their allocation as it relates to their title one designation. I hope that was helpful. Well, the I think the concern principals have is if we're cpe, they don't have to fill out the form. And so then how do they determine that they're still title one schools. We have always used in the past our dashboard indicator that gives them the number of direct certified students with the multiplier. And they use this dashboard to determine their percentage. All of this data has been provided to our principals for the last eight years. And

640the title one, the Federal Programs Department, will be more than happy to onboard and meet the needs of those principles that need the necessary technical assistance and guidance. Okay, awesome. So if we move to cpe, what you're saying basically is that it should not affect those schools and their title one funding. So what I'm saying is, if the district makes a decision to move back to c, e p, there are various factors that impact their title one eligibility, I.E low enrollment I e the district's decision on how they will use their title one funding and leverage that to serve back to the high school conversation. There are mitigating factors that MAY impact the title one designation. If we were to increase the threshold like we did previously, from 50% to 61%, there are various factors

641that will impact their title one designation. This is why we encourage our principals to review the dashboard and educate themselves on the number of students they have, review that information and then they will see the correlation of direct certified students at their school and the 1.6 multiplier that will give them their percentage. I hope that was helpful, MISS Hixon. Okay. Yes. Thank you. And then the other piece that I just want to which will be no surprise to anyone, the return to historical student charge procedures. So when we had our one on one, I got a lot of pushback about how it is that we can identify that a student owes money or, you know, isn't eligible for free and reduced lunch so that we're avoiding taking that, that tray of food from them, throwing

642it away after they've already gotten it and giving them a wow sandwich. So, Doctor Wanza, you said that you had reached out to it. Can you tell us what did they say? And is that possible? And then in our one on one, you had mentioned you were going to reach out to other counties to see how they avoid the issue that we ran into this year. So can you tell us what information you gathered? So it is going to explore. They are committed to partnering with us to determine how they can come up, how we, as a as an organization can come up with something where. So let let me say this, MISS Hixon so particularly at the middle school and the high school level, and I know. Well, I'm going to go to high

643school. We know at high school, during lunchtime or whatever, students can use their cell phone. There is. The ability for students to have the My School Books app on their phone, and the students know whether or not they have money in their account. I mean, we and and some of this, as much as I am a 100% proponent of feeding as many children as possible who cannot, you know, who cannot afford to pay for meals, some of some of this we do have to put back on our families, because I had a conversation with a number of children this weekend, particularly at church, and I asked them about this whole thing with meal charges and stuff, and they said to me, well, MISS Wanza, the district was paying for it. There wasn't a reason for

644me to need to have money or to check anything, because we always knew that the school is going to give us the meal. So there wasn't a reason, right? So one of the things that we are going to work with it to see how we can do something so that children have the ability to see either readily and focused or something. Coming into the cafeteria area. So we're going to work on that. The other part is, so no other other districts actually make a concerted effort where the district funds the difference. Whatever the difference is, the district funds it. And I know that that MAY not be our place right now, and we certainly respect that. And then the last part is, as I said to you, we're going to have to actually work with

645some building level leaders around what this will look like in their building. I think the again, the greatest challenge will probably come at the secondary level, more so than the elementary level. Okay. So basically when you checked with other counties, they, they do what we did this year and that was just cover the cost. Well, well, they have some version of cep with universal free where the district covers whatever is the deficit. And so that is something that I know we Worked as an as a district have to decide what is it that the board. What direction does the board want to take? Okay. Thank you. So I would say yes to option three with making sure that our principals know what they have to do so that they don't get the issue with the

646title one reduction if possible. I'm not sure how I feel about meal price increases, but I, you know, everything's increasing. So I guess if we have to do that, I would I'm concerned about the historical student charge procedures because that's how we ended up where we're at now. And I don't want to continue to be in this place. So I would. Only say yes to that. Can, can can we just explain what the historical charge procedure was? It's not every kid comes through and they automatically don't have to pay, don't have to pay, don't have to pay. There are things that we did strategically at the elementary level. There was some discretion at the secondary level with middle schools and high schools. And in in our highest year of having meal charges at the at

647the historical practices, that balance MAY have been $28,000 at most. And then we work with community partners through donations to have that balance covered. It is true that this year the balance is just over 728 or $29,000, because students were of the mindset, it doesn't matter. It's free for me. It doesn't matter. Yeah. And I, I appreciate that. It's partly why I was frustrated with us just early on paying off that percent. I mean, that money instead of waiting till the end because it continues to look like the district's just covering the cost. But I appreciate the explanation on that. So, you know, yes to whatever was working better before, and I will I'm okay with the initiating a robust communications plan, but I just would like to add a caveat to that. I think

648we had a robust communication plan this year. They just didn't hear it. So I don't want to come across as a board member to staff thinking that I didn't think that you all did everything possible to make them understand that they were not getting lunch for free anymore. I think we lost. Communication plan would be better suited there, because it isn't as if we didn't do something. And I, I do appreciate what was done, but I don't want to land in the same place next year. So thank you. Thank you. Before I call on our student advisors, I did need to call for public comment. Rochelle Sofer. I don't think she's here anymore. Lily and Mikhail. Okay, so from the student perspective, the biggest challenge with this shift is that families have gotten used to

649not doing anything for school meals. Okay, for several years. And my, my mom is guilty of this as well for several years because of the federal Covid era waivers and the higher cep eligibility, we were able to offer free lunch to all the students without requiring any applications or anything like that. Right. So parents didn't have to fill out any forms, and students didn't have to worry about whether they qualified or not. That became the routine for them every single year right now that those waivers have expired, families are suddenly being asked to go back to a process that many have not done in years. Right. And some of them have never done it at all. A lot of the parents don't understand why these things are happening, and many of them don't realize that

650by them not submitting their application, job applications, the reimbursement drops to $0.55 per meal. And that's a major reason why our student meal debt grew from 94,000 in SEPTEMBER to $735,000 in MAY, which is around $80,000 per month and a 30% increase every single month as well. Now, through skipped lunches, shared foods, or avoiding the cafeteria because they don't want to be embarrassed. Right? What we see in the schools is simple families aren't ignoring the application on purpose. Many of them just think meals are still free for everyone. Some of them assume they won't qualify. Others don't understand that the application affects school funding, and a lot of families have never seen the emails or the robo calls that have been sent out. So from a student and operational standpoint, the district's communication plan is

651very important. But we need messaging that is clearer, shorter and also more visible so that we can reach all the students so that they can all understand and the parents as well. And a realistic step would maybe be like a one minute, one minute information video that explains in plain language as well why the meal application matters and how it supports the schools. But the key is where it's shown it should appear in places that students can see and families actually look at, like morning announcements, cafeteria screens as they had stated, canvas dashboards, and even qr codes that are placed in the lunch line or whatever the case MAY be. Right? These are small, low cost changes that make the message heard and hard to MISS So that everyone can share it at home and

652share it to their families, so that our district doesn't end up like this again next school year. This is not a new program. It's just a way that families have to adjust from a world where they were automatically free, to a world where paperwork matters again. So if the district does move forward with option three, students want to make sure the rollout is clear, accessible, and also supportive. So no student should be choosing between learning and eating. That's number one and improving how we communicate. This change can make a real difference for our students. Thank you. All right. So I do have questions. So first of all, I'm looking at the pricing that we're talking about. That's pending board approval for 26 to 27. Would there be a way for the reduced lunch amount to

653be reduced even more just because I think it is, you know, very unfortunate that we have to raise the cost of lunches for students. You know, McHale, you had said that you had dealt with the free and reduced lunch. I know I used to do that when I was younger. Luckily, I no longer have to, but I think it is just unfortunate, you know, with how the world is today and how the economy is today, that we do have to raise it. So is there a way for that $0.40 reduction to be higher, if that makes sense, like further reduced? So not per the usda. So it would have to be at 40%, I mean, at $0.40. So the only thing that we would be able to do with the p l tool is the

654lunches, like raise it a dollar or what the board decides. Okay. And then additionally, this is just something I want to comment on kind of a question, kind of a comment, because this is something that I know I've dealt with with school lunch. I buy it pretty often is if you haha like,f youu d dn'tt p p monene o oyour aouou and the let't's say you have a $ debt. I don't know if you guys have fixed this. I have not seen it fixed at my school is I can put like $20 onto my account, but that $3 debt you have to pay back in cash so I can keep putting. Yeah, it's happened to me. And the worst part is it won't take the money out of my account. It keeps adding on to

655the debt. So like, let's say I had a $3 debt and then I have 20 on my account. If I go buy another lunch, it adds on to the debt separately. So I don't know if that's a school thing or if that's a you guys thing. So I could I could speak to the meal obligation in regards to the monies being taken out due to the quick turnaround of implementing meal obligation and implementing the structure behind it. The removal of the debt is something that was not automated. We are still trying to work on an automated process to make it where if you have a debt either to the school or to the principal account, it would be taken out automatically. What we were able to do in the short time that we did have

656it enacted, was give you the balance shown on focus and on my school books, so that when you did make a payment, it would surface it up and then through through training and meal operations. We taught the staff on how to take those debt off. So if your school was not doing that on a daily basis, depending on the training provided, that was another issue we needed to address. So thank you. Correct. Yeah. Just because it was like really annoying when I would have money in my account and they're like, no, you need to pay it back in cash. And it's like, well, I have, I have money on there, but I yeah, so if you guys can do something. But it has been taken care of at the moment. Yeah. No, my debt was

657fine because I paid it back in cash. Like it's not like, it's not like the debt stays in there, but it's just like if I had bought lunch before I put money in my account, it'll be like a $3 debt. But even if I put, let's say $10, $20 in my account, it doesn't pay off the debt. You have to pay it back in cash. The other system also prompts you to next time you go through the line, yeah, you had the debt and you never went back. That's what I'm saying. Like you have to bring the cash. You can't like pay it off online. That's what I think it should be like. You can pay it off online. But that's definitely something we'll look into just to make sure for, you know, the next

658student, you know, that that doesn't occur with them. But thank you so much. So the question becomes, what are we going to do to ensure that all of the students and parents understand that these forms and these applications do matter, because this can't happen again next year? So, so I can mention that we did start back in MAY when we knew we were transitioning back because as you stated, it's a perfect example. You know, some kids started in kindergarten with the pandemic. By the time, you know, fifth grade, they knew the kids were getting the meals for free. So we started in MAY. We did news media interviews with channel seven, nbc six, Telemundo. We did moments with the mayor. We did conferences. We did a lot of open house backpack giveaways, outreach to the

659community. So we were out there with applications, our Purple Shirts, Saturdays events, just to reach out to parents. But if you can recommend or we can hear better ways for students, you know, because the issue would be we were out there, but then the parents really didn't show up. So any way, any suggestions that you guys have, especially with high school students that we can get out there, open house or any events, we would be happy to be out there because the whole goal is we want to not only educate the parents, but we also go out with laptops. And the big thing is we want parents to also understand that citizenship is not a factor when it comes to completing the application. The. With the Social Security, they can list the last four digits.

660So we have some parents that don't feel comfortable with that and they just check the box. No social. We just want parents to know that there's an option for their students when it comes to an application and not just thinking, wait, I'm in a hardship and I'm not going to do the hour. I don't know about the application. So yes, we still want to get out there. So as soon as we know what decision the board will go, we want to get that out there to parents right away. Okay, beautiful. So it does sound like you guys did do as much as you can when it came to communication and trying to reach out to the parents and the students and stuff. So yeah, on my friend. Yeah. Okay. Is that it? Okay, MISS Thompson?

661Thank you. Chair, I think, do we have a breakdown of how many students that switching doing option three or switching to option one? What is the actual. Student benefit or the number of students will be able to feed as opposed to the traditional meal applications. So that would so we have number of schools, right? And then the. And then depending on how what variation of groupings that we use at the at the various percentages, whether it's a 100% free full reimbursement, the 40% of the 25. That would then be predicated on the students enrolled in the schools. So we have the number of schools that would qualify, and then the number of students that's just based on the enrollment in those various schools, depending on the groupings. So the goal is to make sure the

662most amount of kids are fed. What is the option staff would recommend. So. The goal to make sure the most amount of kids are fed are at the 25%. However, the goal of making sure the most amount of kids are are fed. But also we have to look at the financial responsibility that, you know, comes with. And all of that we would say would be at the 40%. But we are here to listen to the board. That is why we gave the revised. Slide 15. Because when you see the the column tt says local sources of revenue loss. So basically that's the when, when parents have to pay, right to pay for the full pay, the things of that and, you know, to pay for the meal. So when you look at what would be

663the option that would provide food, free, meaning free lunch to the most amount of children, but also in a very fiscally. You know, conscious way, it would be grouped at the 40%. All right. And that's what option three is. So option three is we do some variation of c, e, p with the meal applications, meaning we do whatever variation we can of feeding the most amount of kids. And the most fiscally responsible way. And for the schools that do not qualify for c, e, p, then those schools, we would do the meal applications for. And so how are we determining that grouping and what factor? Because I'm getting and we talked about this on my one on one. I'm getting pushback from principals about the harm, the unintentional harm that this will cause. So. So

664MISS. How are we making that a factor? And I know you, it was told to MRS. Hixon that that's not a problem. But I still, even with explaining it to principals, what I got explained, they still feel like it's they're they're concerned. So so. This is how do I address that? So what I will say, and obviously MISS Wright can come back up at any time to either elaborate or clarify anything that MAY not be, you know, consistent with what she said or that MAY not be aligned to what she said. So cep is ensuring that, you know, the maximum amount of kids at whatever percentage we identify have free lunch as well. What principals are concerned about at the end of the day is probably, yes, they want kids to eat. I I'm a

665former principal. They do not want kids to be hungry. However, they also know that they get a title one allocation that allows for them to do other supplemental things in their schools to to ensure that their academic program, the services that they're providing for children, that all of that remains intact and they can continue to do it at a very high level. What MISS Wright explained is that a school's title one designation isn't solely based on is the district doing cep or not? Is that a correct statement? Okay, so what she was explaining that. So what what impacted some schools was whether we were doing c, e, p or not, if the if the district made a determination that, you know, meals free and reduced lunch status is going to percentage rather is going to

666change from 55% to 62%. And I'm a school that had a 58%. The fact that I'm not at 62, I have I no longer qualify for federal title one funds, and that has nothing to do with cep. That has everything to do with the families in my school, only 58% of the families there or the people who submitted applications actually qualify for free and reduced lunch. And that is what then impacted my school's title one designation. Is that an accurate statement, MISS Wright? Affirmative. Okay. Thank you. So when we're doing the grouping of eligible schools for cep, are we going to go to the principals before we designate them as cep to let them know about, you know, the positives and potential consequences of this? Are the is the district just going to decide what

667school is going to be c p or not? The percentage is. So we will definitely have a conversation with principals. However, their percentage is their percentage. We can't change that. Their their percentage is their percentage. But we absolutely. To your point, MISS Thompson, and you know, the board's point as a whole, we have an obligation to inform and to educate, but we can't change their percentage. Well, and, you know, of course I want to I just I'm I. It's just a challenging decision. I will go towards staff's recommendation only because of the reassurance of title one that you guys have given. I cannot support an increase of meal prices. We have found money for other things that is not as important as feeding children. And I have talked to high school students as recently as

668a week ago that have said their friends don't eat because the meal at the current prices are too much. So I can't do that. And then the other recommendations I agree with, and I agree with MRS. Hixon on saying not initiate a robust communications, because I think we did a really good job communicating, but just consistent communication and not flip flopping on how we're doing meals, I think will be a benefit to everybody. Thank you. Thank you, MRS. Alhadeff. Option three. Thank you. Doctor Wanza do you need us to weigh in also on the 40% versus 25%? Yes. And the one thing that I will add is if the district does go with the 25% option, then we must present as a district. We must come, we must submit a what is called a meal

669reimbursement coverage plan that really talks about, you know, if we're if we don't have this money as a district, we're going to incur the responsibility for the fund. So that is why the recommendation is at the 40%. And then and then MADAM Chair and Doctor Hepburn, I'm not sure. But since our colleagues or our partners, I'll say from council are on the phone and they've been on since 12:00, so I wouldn't I would be remiss if I didn't, you know, didn't ask if they wanted to weigh in because they've been waiting for six hours. Seven hours. I'm sorry. I'd like to weigh in. Two Doctor Wanza whenever it's going to be. Oh, okay. I thought that was council. Yeah. I mean, does anyone from the Council of Great City Schools like to weigh in? This

670is very hard. I'm the executive director for the Council of Great City Schools. I'll let my colleagues I'm joined by Willie Burroughs, who's our director, our director of operations services, and. David Palmer, who is also joining us. Just want to add that any. If the district. If the district chooses either of the options and you'll see our recommendations there. I just want to make sure the board is clear that both with a reduction in meal costs. So if you don't increase your meal costs or if you add additional schools that don't fully qualify through c, e, p, which is the 40% that they're referring to, if you go with the 25% option, the district then is going to continue to incur meal services costs that you'll have to budget for separately. So I just want

671to make sure that's clear to the board. Our recommendations were to try to get putting in several different things in place to try to get the district back to a place where meal services was as close to break even as possible. Given all of the recommendations that we made, Dave or Willie, do you have anything that you'd like to add before we turn things back over? I thank you, Chair Leonardi and also Superintendent Heffron Heparin for allowing us to provide support to the district. Nothing that for me. Nothing for me. I think you covered it well. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And DR. Zeman, before you go, I think we just need some clarification from Doctor Hepburn. What Doctor Hepburn's recommendation is because there is a board member who is asking for that. Okay.

672Yes, absolutely. So definitely the 40%. And also let me catch my bearings because I want to make sure I add option three. And the also the 40% recommendation. Thank you. DR. Zeman. I agree with Doctor Hepburn. Three and 40 is going to work really really well for the district. But I also think that we need to be thoughtful about whatever we can do to feed as many kids. I think we need to think really seriously about the quality of the food. You know, there's a there's a need when you think about the real raw issue here to feed our kids so that they can learn, you know, in some schools, we're feeding kids three times a day and in some cases, more than we probably want to admit. It's either the best or the only

673food that they're getting. And so I, I'm just really feel very strongly that if we have to find the money to make sure that kids have food, that that's just something we're going to have to find in the budget this year. The, the, the moral hazard problem, you know, kids who, who buy food, knowing that we're going to pay it off under option three, 40% would equal about $300,000. And if I'm right, doctor Wanza option 340% is already costing us 3.4 million or so. So with the $300,000 moral hazard, it would be about 3.7. Is that roughly right? Yes, yes. DR. Zeman and. I and and just my vote is always going to be for whatever we have to do to feed kids, make sure that they, you know, are filled with nutritious food that

674meets usda standards and that they can come back to class after lunch and after breakfast and pay attention to their classes. I think it's all part of our strategic goals. You know, kids that don't eat are not learning in the morning or in the afternoon. And I think we have a real opportunity with $3.7 million to just fulfill a commitment that we have to the community to make sure that these kids are eating either 2 or 3 meals a day, five days a week. So that's my vote. I know it's it MAY not be the most popular view of things, but if we're going to do option three at 40%, that's 3.3 million. If we pick up the tab for people that don't, you know, get money put on their cards, I'm in favor of

675that. And I know it's going to cost us another $300,000, but I would rather pay that money and just feel better that we're ensuring that everybody that comes to our schools gets a meal. Thank you, chair. Thank you, MISS Bulman. Option three. And the 40%. 40%. MR. Cervera. Also, the superintendent's recommendation. Does the doctor Wanza do you have your consensus? I do, but I just have one question, MADAM Chair, I don't want to belabor the time I need to know on the second recommendation, because that will determine whether or not we're bringing a board item next week around meal price increases of the $1 for. And it's and it's only at lunch because obviously all the kids will continue to have free breakfast. Is there any objection to increasing the meal prices? No. Objection one.

676Anyone else? I also object to raising the meal prices. MR. Cervera also objects to MISS Bulman. I. Is there an alternative price range than just $1 to. I guess is the question. If that's. Is that what's permitted by the law and that's why we want to charge that. Or is that so? I think we have to remember that food prices go up. No, I know right. And so and and that was and I don't know if Doctor Hartman, Doctor Hardin, the team are still on on the teams call, but that that was one of the recommendations from our partners at the Council of Great City Schools when they did their tabletop review of us as well, because we put in the presentation for one. At one point, we had gone 12 years without raising prices.

677Last year, I think we went up a dollar, and then this year we're trying to go up one more dollar. But we certainly will, you know, work with the will, follow the will and the direction of the board. But what we also got to be cognizant of is we can't keep the price of a meal the same and expect greater quality with less amount with less dollars to work from. That's all. But we're going to follow the will of the board. Okay. I mean, and it seems like it's not that big of a deal, but when you have multiple kids and you're buying lunch every day and over the month, it does add up. So that is a concern that I have. If if we. So whaha Recomommeation you haveveo bringng u orryry. Oh, ohh

678hssalalngng. I'm sorry. Board member Bowman I'm from overhead. Our recommendation was to increase the meal price for the reason that was given. But I think also it's important to note that the district is already well below the actual cost of the meals and the cost of services. And so but not increasing the meal price again, that is that has budgetary implications. So now the district is going to have to cover that additional meal cost for the entire for every day, for the entire year, for the number of students that, that are paying for meals. So, so let me share just a little bit of the financial aspect of it. We are required to meet the paid lunch equity tool, which means that every meal, if it's paid, it must equal the same amount of money

679that a free meal gets. So by not raising ourselves up to a dollar this year as well, we are under the dollar amount that we should be at. So currently the free lunch reimbursement is for 71 and we need to get ourselves to that level according to the pl tool. Now next year the reimbursement rate should go up slightly. It depends. They start in JULY. We haven't got any new information on that at all. But I also want to share the fact that when you calculate out a per meal cost, we are not receiving enough funding through the federal dollars of reimbursement. So we are short in a a lunch meal by $0.84. So it doesn't seem, again, like you're saying it doesn't seem like a whole lot, but that $0.84 times the number of

680meals that we, that we actually produce creates that shortfall that we're experiencing as well. So the, the increase in meal prices is a requirement to be looked at every year. According to the National School Lunch application and act that we do, we can always say, no, we can maybe get out of it or not do it, but we can talk to the the National School Lunch usda and see what their their take is on it. We were required to bring it up last year. And also the adult meal prices are part of the agreement that we do. And they have to be brought up to the same standards. I hope that helps a little bit. Yeah. No, I mean, thank you, I appreciate that. So we had talked about alternative ways to bridge the gap

681to with meal debt and everything else. So if we, if we increase the the meal, we would still be pursuing. Those avenues and trying to get community support. Okay. Yes. So I support that. If we're operating at a deficit at a deficit, then I don't know that we have a lot of options there unless we have some like a guaranteed way to pay the debt a different way. I'm not hearing any right now. Thank you. Anyone online? I'm in favor of raising a price, a dollar. For you. Increase a dollar to. All right. Do you have your direction, doctor Wanza. All right. Anything else? Anyone else want to say anything about this? All right. Power up. Thanks. Do any of my colleagues have any student successes or items they'd like to bring to the board?

682For the good of the order? Chair. I have a very quick question. MISS Thompson. You had mentioned that you were interested in bringing an item to not have screen time from kindergarten to second grade. What do you think? You're sorry? After a follow up from staff? Yes. Okay. I just have community members that have already reached out and are very excited about that. So I was just hoping to get a timeline, but we will wait for the follow up. It sounds. Like it would probably be in JULY, depending on when I get the follow up. For the item. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. So just to clarify for everyone, we have a workshop now planned for after the special school board meeting on the 23rd that will address the capital program. MR.

683Sullivan. Yes, I, I misspoke before about the 23rd special being a lighter, although it's a multiple items. I forgot the gcs through the policies through Neola are also going to be part of that special. So point being, it might be a long meeting. So I don't know if the board still wants us to do a workshop, perhaps with the goal of starting at three, or wants us to find another workshop date. But I believe with the neola items, it could be a potentially longer agenda. So I just wanted to alert the board of that. Does anyone have a change of heart with this disclosure from MR. Sullivan? MADAM Chair. DR. Holness MADAM Chair, I suggest again that we start at eight with the added disclosure. I think we're going to be there for quite some

684time, and I think 8:00 would would help to alleviate some of that problem. Does anyone now object to the 8:00 start time MR. Cervera is objecting to starting at 8:00. Anyone else? Okay, so we'll start at 8 A.M. Hearing just one objection. MADAM Chair. Yes, DR. Holness. I would also like to just caution that for the workshop, we're only including one item, and there will be no added items to the workshop. That is correct. Thank you, MADAM Chair. So again, at the direction of the superintendent, the following agenda topics are tentatively scheduled to be addressed during the upcoming workshops for JULY 21st. The Advisory Committee reports redefining our schools os Quarterly report. Kc write operations, multi-year staffing alignment plan, erp transformation Project and Rural development, ai, cybersecurity and acceptable use and other relevant policies. Doctor

685Hepburn, is there any thing that we can take off that agenda? Yes, possibly the multi-year staffing plan because that's about the staffing realignment that will ultimately be in implemented in the spring. So that can be discussed at a later workshop in AUGUST. Erp transformation. I'll get guidance from has to go. Whereas I think. The erp transformation that has to go right. Because we have time frame. Yep. So that one has to go. So the one we can definitely shift to AUGUST is the multi-year staffing alignment for sure. All right. So the AUGUST 11th board workshop is board direct report evaluations, committee reports and a rural development policy review through Neola. And then I guess the multi-year staffing alignment plan. Or is there any input? MR. Sullivan? I was just going to say the. Kc right.

686Site operations that that's already going to be in the redefining deck. So that's one item that's not going to be a standalone. So we can take that out. Okay. So that's going to be combined into the redefining. Yes. Okay. All right. Any other input or anything for the good of the order. All right. Without objection the scheduled order of business for the school board workshop or the school board of Broward County, Florida, has been completed, has been completed. I will now adjourn this workshop.