Superintendent's Workshop 12 p.m. 4-14-25

001Hey, good afternoon everyone. I'd like to call this meeting um of the workshop to order. The time is 12:00 noon. I wish to welcome you to the superintendent's workshop being held in the Joan Idollet TEC. I ask that out of respect to everyone, please silence all electronic devices. Also, if you have any material you wish to share with any board member, please bring that to our executive assistant, Mrs. Mo, who's not there. All right, we'll take a break every two hours if needed. Before that, welcome to Pink Day. I'd like to recognize the superintendent to explain the purpose of this pink workshop. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. The intent of the workshop, pink or any other color, is to present items to the board that will eventually come for approval um for you in

002an upcoming meeting as well as any other items in which I need feedback from you. So, it is a very very busy time of year. We are all hands on deck in schools. Um, as I reflected through where we are today, I came to the realization that we've been all hands on deck from the very, very opening of schools, really, really intentional around the level of support that we're providing to students. Um, and speaking to other superintendents, they're in this reactionary spot. They're doing this last final push. Um, and I feel like, well, golly, why am I not doing that? Because we've been doing it all all year long. So, very, very comfortable with where we are at. uh pretty lonely to be in this district building because everyone is pretty much in school supporting

003our teachers and principles. Uh and our first presentation and to get back into schools is Mr. Tis uh Mr. who? Mr. Tesy uh with our quarterly update for safety and security. Thank you, Dr. Moore. I knew who you meant. It's all good. It's all good. Uh good I'd say good morning, good afternoon, board chair, board members, Dr. Moore, and cabinet. Uh today we'll be briefing our quarter 3 update which is a requirement of rule 6A under house bill 1473. The board receives quarterly updates from the school safety specialists any deficiencies that were reported to the state as well as Dr. Moore and myself and then any best practices deficiencies that we have annotated at our schools as well too. I apologize for my voice. The pollen and the allergies have gotten the best of me

004over the weekend. So I will do my best to move through this quickly. Um, our reinspections occurred uh, successfully. Kate Zyel is our regional inspector from the office of safe schools. Uh, she was very impressed with the binders that we have put in place at the schools that are located uh, in the office area with the administration to assist with those walkthroughs and for the documentation. Uh, excellent reinspections occurred at uh, Gford Middle School, Oyola Magnet, Indian River Academy, Oslo, and Dodgertowns. they were perfect uh as far as the walkth through perimeter checks as well as the document inspections. So, wonderful job to those schools for being compliant and uh rising to the occasion for that walkthrough, unannounced, I must say. These are unannounced reinspections. So, in quarter three, we did have four schools receive

005documented deficiencies. Two of the schools were charter, two of them were public. Um, one of our charter schools uh did not have Fortify FL, the app loaded on a computer such as your device that would be in front of you. If it is issued from the school, it must have the ability to have Fortify on it. So, when she inspected that classroom, that random student, it did not have the app. Now, that was corrected immediately, but unfortunately, they were uh issued a deficiency for that. another charter school had a door found open in the front of the school. Um they feel it could have been an air pressure issue um or a mechanical issue, but at that point in time, she did find the door open. The school did uh submit a work order and

006I did reinspect it on Friday, so it is closed now. two of our public schools, uh, one of our custodians left a rear gate open and we, uh, so this is a human error component of checking what you open and close, listening for the slam, pulling on it to make sure it's locked and a mechanical issue where the aperture of the arm, the pressure had to be adjusted because the weather here is just wreaking havoc on our fences, gates and locks, whether it's being rusted um, or they're uh, faulty. So these are going to require weekly inspections, but um so this gate was left open that she did witness and see. So one of our schools was cited for that. Um the same school an open door was found in a band room area. So

007we have as of this morning installed new hardware on it, what we call a store room function to where it cannot be unlocked. It uh will stay in the locked position to prevent this from h happening again. Uh our our schools have hundreds and hundreds of doors, but it doesn't matter. It only takes one. So, security sweeps, custodial checks, and teacher reminders when students come in and out to make sure that that door was closed. But like I said, we did uh add hardware to it to where it's going to automatically stay in the locked position. and our second public school. One of our hard corner signage uh requirements for rule 6A that a hard corner in a safe area be labeled conspicuously and consistently throughout the school. Uh one of the gym locker room

008areas did not have signage. So they were cited for that. That was corrected immediately that afternoon and then reinspected by me. So once again, four schools received noted deficiencies, two charter and two public. We'll move on now to the best practices deficiencies. The best practice deficiencies are not reported as far formally to the state. Uh the superintendent is not alerted to them, but they are annotated because they could lead to a deficiency if uh some type of resolution is not uh you know brought upon the school to correct them. So that is my job as I visit the schools to let them know that this would be a best practice deficiency. And some of those were hard corner safe area signage not being consistent in schools. For example, if uh we choose an eagle here

009and then we move into finance and they chose a a lightning bolt, that's an inconsistent type of signage where our schools will use their mascots. So as I visit every room, I say, "Well, that's inconsistent. It must be the same." Uh the hard corner safe area signage needs deeper labeling. So if we direct people into this boardroom, we still need to push them into one of these closets or one of these hardened areas. So we need deeper signage. So we say follow the breadcrumbs into deeper signage. So as I visit each area, we work very hard to add more deeper signage. Um some of the hard corners and areas in our schools had furniture in them, had clutter, teacher materials. Um so we work to move them. we walk in and inspect and ask the

010teachers and the principal and AP, the deputy, the officer, hey, we need to move these out of that hard corner area, uh, you you could be cited for a best practice deficiency where students couldn't get into that area if there was an emergency. Um, outdated maps, color-coded charts, the the flip charts that you might see in rooms that you go in, I'm finding some of them that are uh dated back to 17, 18, and 19. Uh, those need to be updated. They need to be reprinted. The schools have to put in orders with the print shop. We need to we need to know how many they want. Um then they need to reinspect those on their own which covers fire code and compliance as well as emergencies. So they do have something posted. It's just

011outdated and it needs to be updated. And our afteraction interviews that occur after real world events and emergencies and drills. They need uh plain language. You just can't list something as a code red or a code yellow anymore. you have to be very specific as to what it was so your stakeholders can react to it. So as I inspect those binders, we're making those corrections with those afteraction review reports. Quarter three improvements uh across the district. We're seeing increased Raptor alert usage for real emergencies, which ties into my second point. the code blue severe weather, code blue tornado drills. We had schools use their Raptor alerts successfully, letting everyone know that lightning or they couldn't dismiss students and we had to alert transportation. So, great improvement with Raptor Alert on the phones and then of

012course the protocol that follows afterwards. Uh, each office has been required to create Raptor Jessica Lunsford sexual predator and offender protocol. They all do. They all have it in their binder and uh some of our guardians or parents are registered. Uh so they do have to check in like everyone and they are uh registered through Raptor and then the protocol has to be put in place for them to be escorted or held in the office or state their purpose as to what they're doing. So before I get the alerts, I call the front office to double check. They're already on top of it. they're already referencing what's in their binder with their law enforcement representative to do that correctly. Uh for those guests that come in that are registered um afteraction reviews uh that involves

013the school safety team as well as the deputy or the officer. Um we were not uh we didn't receive a deficiency in quarter 3 for not having them. So, every single drill, even the ones this morning, there is paperwork uh backing it up that that actually occurred by time, by location, and by school. Uh our physical plant department has done an outstanding job. Once again, I mentioned this last time, anything related to safety and security, it's usually done that day, if not the next morning. So, it it is fast and efficient. Uh thank you, Mr. Green. Your department's doing a great job. Anything with genses uh fences and gates and door locks are being addressed immediately that day uh to ensure security. House Bill 301 was the emergency response mapping grant that we participated in

014all last year. We worked with the vendor. It was successful. It's actually been used in some of our events that we've had where the digital blueprint uh comes to life in the real time crime center at the sheriff's department and that real time tracking is occurring. So, House Bill 301 very successful with law enforcement and us. And we've seen an increased number of home visits and welfare checks by law enforcement to our students homes after hours. We want to thank all of our law enforcement agencies. Um, we have given them access to high-risk alerts. So, we're seeing an increase in people knocking on doors at nights and on the weekends and that's a good thing because that's saving lives. So, we I just want to give a nice shout out to law enforcement for doing

015that those welfare checks. That concludes my quarter three update. I'll stand by for questions. Board members, anybody have a question? No. Okay, I do. Um, I was on a charter school campus last week and I was shocked at how easily I could access that um campus from any direction because there was no fencing around the school. Um, so could you go over why that's allowed and when we're sitting here worrying about how high our fences are and that we have fencing everywhere, why is that allowed? So, the state is aware of this one particular school. Uh, the state uh the office of safe schools director made a personal visit back in 2018 to this school. Um, House Bill 1473, rule 6A states simply, if you have fences or gates, you must close them. If you

016have a gate, you must lock it. If you have an access door, you must close it. It doesn't state anywhere that you have to install, build, or purchase gates or fences. So since that school's been in existence for several years with that open campus mindset, uh they are not held to the standard of having to put fences and gates in. They do lock their exterior access doors and they do lock their classroom doors, which is part of my checks, but they are not required nor any school, public or charter, to physically put in a fence or a gate. Wow. I mean, it was funny because we had to check in the front office, which, you know, required everything that we do. Um, but you could have just walked around it. That is true. We I

017have had several meetings there with the principal, with the sheriff's department, with the deputy. Um, we have discussed uh what what a best practice would be. Uh, their mindset is different. Uh, they feel they have a open campus mindset and they feel they are compliant with rule 6A. uh we we do feel that it it rises to a higher level of safety and security there. But um I will tell you that the state has been there three times and uh has inspected them and uh you know who I report to at the state level says we cannot force them to put those in but uh they're meeting the requirements for what is in statute. It's pretty scary. All right. Um, I'd just like to say uh commend Sebastian River High School for um what happened

018last week. Was it last Friday? I can't remember. The Friday before. Yeah. Um, a lot's happened since then. But, you know, what a great job because they could have just taken care of it, not alerted people. And because they did what they should have done, which is alert people and communicate, um, that became a whole, you know, thing that came out there. And we did learn though that they tried to put out calls to their parents, right? And then the calls didn't go out because of a technical issue. So we have addressed that technical issue. Chair wasn't our technical issue to correct, but it has in fact been been corrected. Whose was it to correct? It was the city and the county had lines that were intermittent going in and out the wire, the Wi-Fi

019or fiber, whatever it was. Yeah. So that's concerning that our parents um didn't get that communication right away. And so they need to have the parents now been communicated as to why that happened? Yes. Okay. Yes. And I I think in response to that and and it is a reflection of the board's leadership uh as well as Mr. Tesky's leadership and then our partner our partners uh with the sheriff's office. The additional fencing that was purchased by this board and put in place uh helped that student not get into the school. Um the additional security monitors we have how many security monitors now? 32 total. 30 32 total where we had like four four years ago. Uh which is uh new. The protocols that Mr. Tesy put in place to ensure that we just don't

020have security monitors laying or standing idally around but in constant rotation of the building. uh identified where the student was coming in the second the student came in following uh the protocols that were created. Everything happened. You don't want it to happen, but you add these safety systems and personnel uh and resources in place in order to ensure you know what was a scary incident because you took every protocol to make sure kids were safe. It just ended up being a student who had vapes that he was trying to sell and and fled from law enforcement. Not a good idea. uh they did the they followed the exact protocol um and things were done. We insisted that in the midst of it you know parent students take out your phones call your parents let let

021them know. So in terms of what we received on on on email and returns of what we saw at the school significantly different because we're going to hedge our bet as much as we can in order to ensure that we're communicating with with parents as to what happening. Um but just proud of the protocols, the structures and everything that was in place. Uh and we were able to get back to learning, teaching and learning quickly as possible. And I know the principal was off the campus of course that day um for a personal matter, but um it was nice that you allowed students to do that because there is a bill by the way when I get to that that's being proposed that students would not be allowed to do that. So um they would

022not be able to take their phone out for any reason. Okay. So that's kind of interesting that that's being proposed. U Mr. Rosario. Yeah. Um I think part of the issue that day, I mean, I'm I'm grateful for the response that um our staff and obviously law enforcement had in this particular situation, but I think part of the um concern um wasn't so much that there was a um an issue with the communication. I think it was more the timing of it. So the incident happened at like 7 something in the morning and then parents didn't get their first notification until about 2 something in the afternoon. I think that time um I might be a little bit off on my timing, but the fact that parents were getting the information from social media and

023from the sheriff's office uh Facebook page, which is fine. Um but I think that was a cause for a lot of concern with several of the parents that they shouldn't have to get that information from there. So I do agree that uh you know I think that there has to be a plan B. What would be that plan B almost immediately as soon as we find out that there is a communication issue? How are we going to get that information other than telling parents in light of this new u bill that might pass? you know, you know, text your mom, call your mom or whatever. Um, for some kids who have their don't have their phone that day, they're not going to be able to do that. So, what would be that plan B? I

024think that's the part of the communication that needs to occur. Action review, Mr. Tesky referenced a number of times. I don't know if he's had it yet, but we'll we'll go through and make sure there's a safeguard in in place and a protocol to make sure the volume of parents that are typically it always works, but when fiber goes down, what is plan B? And that's part of what the work we always have in play in order to ensure regardless of what scenario it could be, we're connecting and engaging with parents. I I think also if I can just finish with this, I think we should write this down, this incident down as you know a perfect example of things going wrong when you least expect it. Like who would imagine that fiber would go

025down right at the same time that we needed to access communication to parents? You just you can't make this stuff up even if you wanted to. But if we wrote it down, you know, those are the kinds of things that we have to kind of think about, you know, in terms of what could possibly or potentially go wrong. And so, thank you for that that response. So, that was the the point I was trying to make is that um I think there were calls that were going out and they look like they were going out in a timely manner way before 2:00. Correct. Way before. Yes. And the frustration was the parents weren't getting it until around 2:00. And so that wasn't the fault of the district, it was the fault of the fiber breaking

026down. So, um, just so that was been clarified to the community and to the parents that that's what happened. Okay. And yeah. All right. Anybody else? Yes, Dr. Jones. Dr. Pos. Um, yeah, thank you for the update. I always appreciate your excellent updates, Mr. Tesy. Um, and I mean, I think the the biggest kind of flags I think from the the report for me were like continue this is a problem everywhere. It's just kind of the human element of kind of leaving doors open and gates open and stuff like that and the environmental effects. Um, and I know you very much understand and appreciate that and are working very diligently to improve it. And I we're doing way better now than we were in years past. So, I appreciate the work you're doing. Um, and

027yeah, the incident I think you guys handled it excellently. So, thank you to the security monitors who did an excellent job. Um, I think the biggest thing from that incident that I learned is that our security protocols worked. The changes that we made worked. I think two years ago, we wouldn't have even known that kid was on campus until halfway through the day after he was gone and sold all of his vapes. And we might not have never knew he was there. He might have been doing it every week selling vapes in our school. Um, but we improved our gates, we improved our security monitoring, we improved our cameras, and we improved the response time to address any kind of issue. So, I think the biggest thing is that uh we immediately noticed uh the

028breach of security and we addressed it appropriately. Um and to me that's huge. It tells us the changes we made were worth it. The money that we put into gates and fencing was worth it. Um and it's concerning piggybacking on what you said, Terry, that there is a charter school, I guess, just doesn't think it needs fences. And I I think that's a mistake. Um it's a mistake in, you know, the leadership there. I'm just going to that's my personal opinion. Um, but I'm I'm very impressed with how that incident was handled. Um, and I know uh there's there's some concern about the communication. Obviously, there were logistical issues, but the uh the issue of the security breach was handled perfectly. Um, so I appreciate that and thank you to everybody. Um, and that's I

029mean that's basically all I want to add to that. Dr. Johnson, thank you Mr. Tesky for this um very detailed report. Um I was with Dr. Moore and Sheriff Flowers at the taxpayers when this happened and Dr. Moore explained to the audience right away how this worked, how we had all of this and you know I go back to that information where the teacher reported a child doing this. So all the staff members are very aware and I'm I'm very glad for that. Um I hear about your afteraction reviews but I al have se also have seen your table talks. What's the difference? Is that pre I know you do those at the beginning of the year. Dr. Jones, I apologize. I'm not familiar with what a senior Oh, the tabletops. Oh, yes ma'am. Table

030talk. Table top. Table talk. Tabletop. Yeah, we do talk at the tabletop. So, the the tabletops are an annual requirement for the DARP training. And it may it takes us a year to work through every school because some could be two to three hours. So, the most recent one um at Sebastian River High School dealt with athletics. It dealt with the stadium and it dealt with the driveways. So it immediately tied in because it was in the rear of the school. So our tabletop drill that we had with administration, the monitors and law enforcement, it focused on that back area, not knowing it was really going to happen. Um, so each year we pick a different theme for the tabletops. One year it was a bomb threat. One year would be hurricane sheltering. Um, so

031this year was more of intruder, active asalent. Next year the theme will change again, but they could happen at any time during the year and they will happen again. such as tomorrow when I'm returning to Sebastian High School to do a more redefined tabletop drill with just the administration. We've had the afteraction review with the staff. We had the afteraction review with law enforcement. Now I'm going to be working with administration tomorrow to do a well-defined detailed tabletop uh afteraction review. So we have a theme for the year basically. So for this year, yes ma'am, it was active asalent intruder. Uh next year will be re reunification. Reunification. Okay. Yes ma'am. Thank you. All right, next item. The next item is the strategic plan and budget update. I just want to as a point of

032reference at one o'clock, we do have an attorney joining us for Miss Invol's item, which is item H. So if depending on where we are, we'll just pause hear that item and then return back to the regular scheduled agenda. Mr. Green or I'm sorry, Dr. Jacobs. All right. Good afternoon. Today I'll be sharing the April update of our district strategic planning process. And as you know, we've been actively engaged in the listen and learn phase for district strategic plan. Essentially, we've been engaging and gathering feedback from a variety of community members and stakeholders within uh our district. And um also since we last met we had a town hall session in which there were approximately 150 participants in attendance um had a lot of questions that were shared by the participants and a lot of

033u information was able to be shared in relation to those questions. In addition which we haven't discussed quite as much is we have aligned work groups that are really already working on these ideas of leadership and innovation. And if we are going to build a strong foundation for us to really engage in this work as we initiate the 2025 to 2030 district strategic plan, it's important that we have uh sufficiently developed staff capacity to think around these issues as well as expose those um ways of thinking as far as innovation is a very different way of thinking about things. Um so we have three different structures or workg groups that have been working concurrently with this listen and learn phase and the first one is the Indian River Leadership Institute. This is funded by a

034grant through the Indian River Education Fund. It's a cross- sector leadership institute that involves um both private sector and public sector leaders that are have been identified as high potential from banking, law, um aviation and um as well as our public schools. The topics that have been covered through the institute are things such as um the design thinking process, uh branding and culture. Mr. Dyer actually led one of those sessions for our participants as well as change management and um leveraging data ecosystems. In addition, we have a strategic innovation and leadership work group. This is comprised of district leadership and really thinking about the way we um talk about and and create a framework for innovation and leadership throughout our district. And so this is really to help us understand and align um thinking around

035this and start that initial identification of needs. And then finally our design ed workg group. This is another grant that's been funded through the Indian river education fund. This involves secondary high potential teachers who in which um we're gathering information to really fully understand the teacher teacher experience as well as the student experience at secondary schools. Um that's the first step in creating any kind of innovative work is really empathizing with um those people for whom you're working. And so that work group is still actively um going and we just completed our final feedback um session on that and have been gathering just ideas um for our K through8 schools on what possibly um could be incorporated into those spaces. So, here's just a review. Last time I provided some of these data points we've

036increased since um I last shared with you, we have almost 6,000 data points generated through our listen and learn phase. 450 plus contacts with our community members. We um as we always do, review the achieve 2025 metrics since 2018 2019 to identify um where we've been and uh where we are now. And then all the data was collected that was collected was analyzed, coded, and summarized. So we're really looking at a qualitative analysis of this data in which we identified data trends and themes from the various um focus groups and the town hall that was um held. All right. So let me make sure I didn't skip something there. All right. Focus group data trends. So you have this information in both the executive summary that was attached with the item as well as here.

037This really um is based upon the collection of all the different data from the focus groups. Through that we were able to um identify different themes that each of the focus groups brought up. And then you can see on this particular chart, it shows um which focus group endorsed or brought forward that particular theme to identify kind of the priority data trends that were identified through the focus groups. So to make it easier for you to see, I have the percentage um of groups identifying that particular trend um by the largest number that have endorsed it. So 90% endorse innovative learning and pathway development. 90% collaborative student and family um and community partnerships. Next, academic growth and instructional impact. I know that board members had asked about that um last time we met and whether

038those focus groups had identified that particular trend. And in particular in this area, focus groups were overwhelmingly positive about the academic trajectory of the district and the progress that has been made and the need to sustain that over time. 80% with technology and process innovation, 70% safety, security and wellness, and then 70% the leadership development and succession pipeline. So um I've taken what each one of those areas and really why is this would this be an important part to consider um for our upcoming strategic plan those innovative learning and pathway developments. This really talks about student pathways um to career um or college readiness and these really prepare students for future success. We talk a lot about equipping students with those skills of the future jobs including critical thinking skills and problem solving skills as

039well as those careers that do not yet exist. Next is collaborative student, family and community partnerships within that those focus groups. Um there was really this idea that the district has done a lot to over the last few years to increasingly engage families and community organizations in the community with the district. Um and this is really the idea that we need to have collective ownership for the education of students and the outcomes that we all collectively expect for our students. And then finally, academic growth and instructional impact. Um really the focus uh moving forward according to the feedback data really needs to be in that area of sustained improvements and student achievement but also making sure that the learning experiences that students get are meaningful and attached to their interest. The last three areas technology

040process and innovation. Um really the whole reason why this is important is to improve and streamline learning processes. It prov prepares students for a tech- centric workforce. Um we have made a lot of prog progress in the area of providing access to technology but um in particular our staff uh indicate that they want to streamline those processes look at how we use that systematically across schools and ensure that there's consistency across schools in the use of technology, safety, security and wellness. Obviously um this is just fundamental to any kind of optimal learning environments is that students and staff feel safe and supported. Um and then leadership development and succession pipeline. We have the um leadershipmies for both our principles and our assistant principles. We talked a lot with our secondary teachers about this idea of

041an opportunity culture for teachers on how can they show leadership in various ways that maybe we haven't thought thought of before and also um there is an interest in developing a district leadership pipeline for those who may be interested in district leadership or executive leadership within the district. So in with regard to the identified trends and this is just a draft theory of action that there really needs to be these four aspects in which we sustain the high quality instruction and responsive responsiveness to student needs. We've done a great deal of work in that. Data comm is one of the I think pinnacle examples of responsiveness to student needs and ensuring that we're leveraging data to the maximum extent to get students exactly what they need and not only sustaining that instruction but innovating instruction.

042So creating a robust portfolio of school choice options um that is broader than what we currently have so that students can engage in more personalized pathways um for instruction. and then lead for safety and wellness and sustain continuous improvement in skills for the communities of tomorrow. And really the purpose of sustaining, innovating and leading is to preserve the quality and the values of the Indian River way of life. And so many of us have selected um to make this our home and we want to ensure that we are providing an education that continues on the traditions of Indian River County. So when we look at proposed focus area structure right now in the district strategic plan we have five focus areas. Academic success, safety, culture and climate, community, communication and engagement, talent development and support

043and then organizational and fiscal responsibility. This is just one example. So as you can see academic success is the first of our five focus areas. And we had talked about really embedding innovation and leadership into those focus areas. So the thought as we were looking through this data and there was a small group of us that um actually did additional processing of the data um after identifying the themes but really number one there's a pillar in which we need to sustain the current academic trajectory then innovate lead and then finally the achievement for all. So, our current um strategic plan has um essentially the core of our strateg strategic plan and also an infusion of the African-American achievement plan. Um really we had thought about reinvisioning that as achievement for all which embeds also those

044strategies for the African-American achievement plan which ensures that the work that we are doing is in complete alignment and prioritized in a similar way. Then finally, what are next steps for us? So we'd like to get your feedback on the trends that um have been identified through the listen and learn phase. Then we will begin drafting strategies aligned um with the feedback. So really looking at those strategies um interfacing with the content and area experts. So not everyone of us are experts in all areas, but we certainly across the district have experts on the full gamut of the work that we do. So really developing those strategies that are evidence-based and that we know um are effective in addressing the areas that we've identified. Then finally, we're um now open for feedback or any questions

045that the board may have on the presentation. Okay, board members. And just prior to that, I just want to a acknowledge the the work that uh Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Began are are doing. Um really it's a collect they're leading it but it's a collective effort of many people who are sitting up here. Um it really has been a seamless process. The opportunity to engage and connect with staff and community to receive feedback has not been something that feels forced or un something that was not authentic. Very very very real. So that is extremely encouraging to me. And I think as we push the the district forward, both the board and myself, we're just not regurgitating a strategic plan here. The last strategic plan was implemented and yielded a very, very successful result. Uh we're

046very proud of that result. We expect that result to continue to grow as we anticipate results from our upcoming assessment. But that work, as Dr. Jacobs was referencing really was to sustain what good quality instruction looks like. But my desire is to reinvent what public education looks like. Um I was being asked over the weekend, but you you put a survey out to homeschool parents. Yes. Because there is an opportunity uh for us to engage and connect with them and provide performing arts or high level mathematics. So why why why wouldn't we? uh looking at grade configurations, the length of time students spend in uh school. Um we want to be the answer. We want to establish the blueprint for all other public schools to look like, which means we're going to be recommending some

047things that do not yet exist. Um but it is in response to what we're learning from our community. Uh the classical school would be another example. Took a lot of heat about why why would you do that? because the data says there's a segment of our community that would be interested in returning to our public schools. Um being extremely strategic in focusing in on our kinder our prek parents. We had last weekend it was the weekends are blurring together. It feels like we work nine days a week even though there's only seven. But the decay cruising in decay uh event was was just absolutely outstanding. But we still need to be more strategic in connecting with those parents where they currently are. And the days of us saying, "Hey, you come to us." That's got

048to end, man. We got to go to where parents are. If it is the prek that the parents are paying for, that's where we need to be. If it is in their church, that's where we need to be. uh we need to reinvision how we are selling what is a darn good product and just not sit back and say, "Oh, look, we're innovative or we're offering this kind of shift of a model." Um we're going to recreate how we do this work to connect and engage um with our community. I'm very very excited about how we've been able to connect in this process and also very excited about the push that our community is giving to us. So this this is an exciting exciting time. Thank you. Hey board members, Mr. Dyer. Yeah. Uh I'm

049just trying to understand a little bit when you when you talk about the uh theory of action the four areas you're not trying and then I look at the next one where you have the uh pillars. So these theories of action have now become a pillars but you're not trying to force this back into the seven or nine things that we had in the last one. as a innovation stands on its own, right? That's one of our key. So that's an excellent question. So our thought is and we we went back and forth um as a team on how this structure would occur. So when you look at the feedback, the five focus areas that we currently have, we're abundantly clear in the feedback that participants wanted to still focus in on those areas. So

050that academic success um safety culture and climate, communication and engagement, organizational and fiscal responsibility and talent development and support. We had discussed maybe eliminating one of those talent development and support because of leadership, but we felt like then we were still missing a big piece of what we need to do um for talent de development and support. specifically for example support staff talked a lot about training um for job for their particular jobs and that may not be leadership per se but that is um definitely talent development and support. So that what the thought is is that the strategies would essentially each in each of those focus areas the strategies would include strategies that would sustain academic achievement. Um would innovate academic success um how do we build leadership to lead academic success and then

051preserve is just that would not be in the particular focus areas. That's just the outcome of all of this. That that's kind of where I was going from. I thought in the last workshop we talked about innovation and if I just heard what Dr. Moore just said, you know, when he says that we're we're reinventing public education, I don't think that the innovation part comes across as strong as it needs to when you bury it down under everything else. It's just a you know, it's just another check mark. Uh innovation is not in itself. And I think that that is one of the key things that we have to do is we have to compete and we have to to compete we have to innovate and it just doesn't seem to me that is jumping

052out as clearly as I thought we' discussed in the last workshop. So that was so the theory of action in in that conversation it was almost like you were in the room is to ensure that innovation is everyone's responsibility. So if it was a standalone focus area uh across the organization, who leads innovation? Oh, Dr. Shaffy leads innovation. She t she takes care of that. As we create KPIs moving into the next year, regardless of who you are in this organization, you have to be innovating within your specific role and responsibility and it's not something that stands alone. It is the responsibility of of everyone. So as I envision it, I see the focus areas uh creating areas of sustaining the outcomes. It just becomes the behavior of the organization. We we we know it.

053I I think it was a conversation with one board member where we're talking about the areas in which we get 100% on those things every year. Yeah. Okay. So how do we sustain that, condense that, but then increase the level of innovation? So, as I would look at it, the the paint or the or the brush that goes across the entire strategic plan is innovation. And within that focus area, you know, the accountability piece for the board is is holding me accountable to how is how are we innovating within each of those um specific areas. Growing the totality of the organization versus doing it in in a silo siloed approach. a silent approach is is we will not move as fast as as we would like to. Um, in that theory of action, I I've

054just sometimes found that if everybody owns it, nobody owns it. I mean, everybody can own a piece of it, but it needs to be specific what they own. Oh, uh, and I think the idea is a whole as a whole, maybe you and Dr. Doc, maybe Dr. Shapi's got to drive, but you've got to uh you've got to own. And somehow it just seems that that needs to be based on what I'm hearing needs to be more of a uh focus uh in the strategic plan than kind of amorphously hid underneath all these other things that are more ethereal to me. Yeah. Okay, I'm done. Okay, Mr. Rosario. Um, I couldn't agree more with Mr. Dyer. Um, all of my notes here, it's almost as if he was reading my notes. Um when I was

055preparing for today, yeah, when I was preparing almost when I was preparing for today, um and I was, you know, reading through all of the the PowerPoint and the planning and all of that, I kind of compared our current strategic plan with what is now being proposed, and they look the same. there doesn't seem to be anything um that looks different or as as Dr. uh Mr. Dyer pointed out um it the innovation part doesn't it doesn't show it doesn't rise to the top of okay this is what our focus is um I will add though uh Mr. dyer that it is up to the board. It's the board strategic plan as we work with as we receive all this information um and we work with um leadership on the strategic plan. You know, if

056if the board agrees to make sure that innovation kind of pops out in the strategic plan, then then you know the voices here um will need to share that that message uh clearly. So my thing, a couple of notes here. My thing is I don't see anything about K through 8. That's a huge change in our district that will need a focus in our strategic plan that I don't see anywhere here. I didn't see it in the in the presentation or in what is being recommended. I also didn't see the classical model. That's also a huge change. Big on innovation. It's one of the reasons why we are doing it so that we can offer school choice. I don't see that as a priority for this board in this strategic plan moving forward for the

057next five years. Um the word sustain um I'm not I'm not crazy about that word. I don't like sustaining because sustaining to me means keeping the same. it doesn't show that we are um doing something above and beyond or out of the box, right? Stepping out of the box and being um uh challenging in any way. And I think that's where the innovation should come in. Some of the words that I kind of like better than sustain um would be uh I don't know I just wrote down rigor uh rigorous or mastery for sure with regard to high quality instruction. I mean you have to think about where we are academically because sustaining is regarding academics right high quality instruction and responsiveness to student needs and interests. Um, we currently have as a district uh

058our English language arts um overall score or or percentage we're at 58% right overall. Um that was as of 2024 and our math is at 61%. If we're sustaining that then we're not doing well. I don't want to sustain that. I want to go above and beyond. I want to challenge us. I love the word innovate. But if we can give it a different name other than sustaining um 58% and 61, how are we going to do that? Right? What other words can we think of um to replace those? Um excellence is another one. efficacy, resilience, um academic, I think anything else other than sustain. These are just my little notes here. What is interesting um that I found there isn't a in all of these I'm looking at the focus chart the the data

059trend if you want to go to that um that uh um screen yeah thank you uh as I was looking here what was interesting is and and this is actually a compliment. Um let me just preface that the discipline now when I was when Dr. more came on uh uh to join our school district. Um discipline was a big issue. And if you look here, discipline apparently community members and um everyone who has been a part of all of these focus groups have identified discipline as only being a 10% um in terms of you know an interest area or something that needs to be focused on which is great. So that's a complement to the work that we've been doing. Uh what I also don't see is a need for organization and financial responsibilities. Now

060I heard you say we're going to keep that in there, but I don't see it here. So why would we do that? I actually think we don't need it in a strategic plan. Not that it's not our focus. In other words, not that it's not important to us, but we've already shown for the last five years that we have been that it isn't a need for it. There isn't an identified area or need for us to focus on in that particular area because I think we are, you know, we're excellent in all of our audits. We get, you know, what 90 95 100% on all of our audits. Our finances are in the green or or, you know, whatever that the the color is nowadays. Uh we're not in the red. Um I just don't

061think that it's necessary to, you know, add that in the strategic plan. I'm not going to die on that hill, but it's just something obviously if the community sees that it's not um a huge issue. Um I don't see the need to add it in there. Something else. Let me see. Um I think that's part of my only and then I have some other things with the legislative, but I'll I'll keep that um for later. So something else that I think is um uh a strategic part of the strategic plan that I think is important, it is a focus on offering our students more uh opportunities for dual enrollment, more opportunities for career and technical education, vocational education. um especially increasing that those opportunities with our own Treasure Coast Technical College. Um we received the

062numbers all the board members received the little you know chart of dual enrollment. I think we definitely need to do better there for sure. Um but I don't see any of that in what is being proposed. So, um I'm going to end my comments there and I and let me just say I think this is all great. I just think we need to tweak the wording and the way that it's being presented because it's it it doesn't sound like it matches, as Mr. Dyer said, what the board and all of us collectively have been talking about all this time. Anyone else? Dr. Costa. So, thank you for the update and the presentation. Um, I appreciate the uh the data plot um with percentage goals and all the different data there. It was very helpful. um

063some areas of kind of innovation and uh leadership and sustainability that I guess would be kind of important to me just to give that feedback. Um and some of it was said already. um but to to continue to kind of uh encourage and increase um kids to take AP classes and dual enrollment and just trying to get more kids involved in that um to help better their future and improve their educational outcomes. Um something that I think would be fascinating would be to try to find uh curriculums potentially like such as science curriculums. I' I've mentioned in the past that I wasn't a fan of a lot of the ones that are available. Um trying to find curriculums that are a little bit outside of the normal public school box and maybe even going to

064publishers and asking them to give us an edited version of their curriculum uh to try to find better curriculum so kids can enjoy learning uh and make it more fun again. Um continuing to improve safety and security. Obviously I always bring that up. Um it's a constant ask. Uh but just trying to get those safety projects done faster, right? Because we know we need to do them get them done faster um in the foreground rather than later. Uh and then, you know, setting us up for success later is trying to train our best to be leaders to take over after we leave. Um which is uh very important. Um and you don't you don't always know who you're training. you know, you can do everything right and they may not turn out to be the

065best leader. Um, things can change in their lives, but um, we we ultimately do want to try to find people that are going to be our best leaders and train them. So, those are kind of the four of the things that are most important to me. U, but I appreciate your update. Thank you, Dr. Jones. Thank you very much, Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Began. This is excellent formatting and very easy to understand. I appreciate those green charts when I look at all the percentages. um what Dr. Moore said earlier, I'm going to be talking about a little bit of my topic with marketing and branding and you know what we can continue to do to make sure our students come here in the in River County. Very proud of the school system. Um as far

066as u I believe our guiding principles, our areas of just focus, I think we're spot on with those. I do agree with innovation but whenever we do innovation we always have to remember that there's support you know we've talked about systemic we've talked about sustainability and so forth whenever we start something new we all know as educators if we don't support it just kind of goes by the wayside and we'll try something new next year so doing our best to continue with that with innovation if we bring something in new how are we supporting that not only in the classroom but our district how are we supporting our district um I happened to be here one day when you had one of the focus groups, faith-based, and it was absolutely wonderful. It's interesting um because

067I think I wrote down here where we talked about what are our local needs, what is it that we're all looking for? Um I think that's the only one I really stopped in on, but um talk about a group of concerned people in this community. So, those and I forget how many you had. How many packs? It was quite a few. I I just 25. Okay. 25 meetings that you had. Um it's great to see what everybody is thinking and what is the priority. So I love those charts. Um you know when we look at the future we talk about innovation and leadership. Dr. Pusca had a good point. Um training our future leaders is something that we must do and I think we're doing a good job with that. um you know, assistant principles

068wanting to become principles, teachers wanting to become assistant principles because as Dr. War said earlier, we need to invent things that aren't even there yet. We don't even know what we're inventing. What's going to be the next thing that we need to do for our students? So, if we keep that open with innovation and and leadership, I think those tie together and supporting the people because I've I've been in the school system where okay, we're going to do it this year, it didn't work. Okay, let's try something else. No, we've got to keep working. So, I appreciate that as far as we're just going to keep going with these. We don't need to write 10 new focus groups. We don't need to do this. Keep it on that academic achievement, which is our core, and

069then the supporting material. But anyway, that's a heck of a lot of work. Thank you. All right, my turn. Um, so thank you for doing this for the district's strategic plan. It's not the board strategic plan, it's the district's strategic plan. And so I appreciate all the work that you guys went into it because this should be feedback from everybody um because everybody's going to um have a part in it and everybody has to kind of know what their part is. I agree with that part. Um you know you can put innovation out there all the time but unless people say well I don't know what I'm my I have to do or what my job is. It's kind of like giving your kids chores and if you don't tell them what their chore is

070they're not going to do it right. So same thing and I have about seven points. Here we go. So uh I came to the session that was uh in the tec that you had here. I was so impressed with the questions that were asked by the community. They were point blank, very knowledgeable, very about how it's going to affect their family and how it's going to help their children be innovators in their future. So I thought that was really impressive. Thank you for reaching out to all the different varied groups. And that one was open up to the public. So it was nice. That's why I went to that one. Um, the second thing is returning scholarship students. So, um, I've heard, you know, when we have family empowerment scholarships and people are going out

071there and they're getting the funding, right? They're I've heard that some of them are coming back to us and I've asked that question. Um, Bruce is going to get me some numbers. When they come back to us, though, do do the dollars are the dollars following them back to us or are they coming back after the February count? Do you know? Um, I think in the budget workshop, I'll give you um, okay, an overview of that because the reason I bring that up is because with these innovative programs, I actually heard a couple of comments from people that said, well, you can take the money and have innovation stuff and then come back and sign your kids up for some of these programs. So, the question is, if you want your child to be in

072one of these programs, wouldn't you want them to be in it for the whole year? And if so, are they able to come and go into some of these programs or not? Because I wouldn't think you could get a certification in something if you weren't there the whole year. Right. Okay. Um, so I want that. I think PE people are not understanding that part. So they need to know that part. Um, third, Boutique High School was in here somewhere. I can't couldn't find it. I was just looking for it somewhere in there. And I know uh it would be nice if we looked at funding for that and um appropriation bill going forward about um funding for a boutique high school that into the future for thinking about innovation. We're thinking about what it is

073our kids need. Um that's a way of looking at it. Um boutique high schools are typically smaller schools, may not have football, may not have all those other programs, but yet focus on a need that's out there that our kids might need for their future. So, um that's exciting. um PIIE enrollment. So, where are we with their kindergarten and their sixth grade enrollment? How are we doing? Because that was something that we looked at for innovation. You mentioned classical school. So, how are they doing with that? Both grade levels are um recruiting just as we anticipated based on the demand. So, um we're filled absolutely to the brim in element and in the kindergarten grade. Um we've that went up since last week. Okay. Okay. And then a few seats available still in sixth grade,

074but we anticipate them filling with without issue. Good. And then um Cruising and Decay. Kudos to that team. Kudos to Brook Flood and that whole team, whoever put that together. That was amazing. I came as a grandparent. Um of course, the theme for cars and racing was right up my grandson's alley. And uh they absolutely loved it. He was so excited about kindergarten and getting to get on the bus and off the bus and learning the bus driver's rules. And she told him about, you know, putting on a seat belt, taking it off, and how we do all the rules on the bus. Thought that was really great. We didn't have that before when my kids were going to school. First time they got on a school bus, first day of school. So, um it's

075nice that we have those opportunities out there for kids. So, we appreciate that. Um prek centers. So, my daughter got a flyer from um a charter school through her prek and she asked she said, "Well, my son's going to go to a public school. Are you putting anything out about that?" She said, "We have not received anything from the school district, so it it would be nice if we put a flyer out to all our prek centers in the area saying this is what is offered at all of our schools for kindergarten choice." Okay, that's just a suggestion. Oh, I like it. And then um so it's interesting. I agree with you all about the funding for dual enrollment and for um all these wonderful programs that we have, but there is a bill I'll

076talk about that when we get to legislation um that is going to cut all of those programs by 50%. And that is going through really rapidly. So um we might not be able to do as much as we're hoping to do because of that. So, it's interesting what's happening and uh I think that's all I have. So, absolutely great great feedback. We're going to pause right there and come back to Mr. Green's presentation. Um and I'll turn it over to Amy Envol for item H, uh potential social media litigation for an overview of that item. Yep. Thank you, members of the board. Madam Chair, uh the purpose of this workg group discussion is to present you with the opportunity to explore whether the board wishes to join the mass action multi-dist litigation. It's called MDL.

077Uh brought forth by over 1,700 school districts nationwide against various social media companies in order to recover financial reimbursement for expenses incurred because of the youth mental health crisis. I believe there are around 45 school districts in Florida who have already joined us as plaintiffs in this lawsuit. As you know, there's a series of laws that have been passed in Florida restricting the use of smartphones and social media. And I imagine that this lawsuit may help and even accelerate those efforts. The more school districts that join, the argument is the more likely it is we're to obtain not only a successful settlement of verdict, but also require the social media companies to make permanent and lasting changes in their methodology. Uh the goal of this litigation is to fundamentally change how social media companies operate.

078For example, the vaping litigation against Juel uh and Juul agreed to stop selling all flavored vapes except Mint to stop advertising on social media and to not use models under the age of 28. So in addition to financial compensation uh for the costs that social media has imposed on school districts, we would like to see a number of changes in how social media operates. Some of the changes being suggested are banning the use of social media entirely until a child reaches a certain age, the ability to promptly restrict the use of social media, um remove content that promotes fighting and bullying, and give parents and children the ability to control their algorithm and block harmful uh content such as health self harm and eating disorders. I've spoken with Dr. Moore and uh about this litigation.

079He's confident the district could demonstrate the impact that social media has had on our students. I know you have seen that and you've heard from parents um and your families. Um I've also been speaking to Mr. Joel Wright who's with us tonight. He's uh today he's an attorney involved in MDL. A couple of weeks ago I forwarded his email to you along with three attachments including the social media school district litigation and FAQs which is attached to this agenda item. an October 24th, 2024 article containing a summary of the litigation and a copy of the complaint that was filed on behalf of the school board of Pulk County, which would be similar to what we would file in Indian River should you decide to move forward as a plaintiff in litigation. Um, the FAQ's explanation

080is that the lawsuit would come at no cost the district. I think that's a really important part that you share with our community so it doesn't look like we're spending district resources to sue social media because that's simply not the case. Um what that means is that all the attorneys will front all expenses associated with pursuing the claim and if compensation is recovered and only if it's recovered on behalf of the district the attorneys will be inversed for their re expenses out of that recovery. If the case is not successful the district will not owe any legal fees um or expenses and this eliminates the public perception that the district is expending those taxpayer resources. um because I want to make sure the board is aware of this and I recommend that you consider joining

081it before rather sooner than rather than later. Um and Mr. Wright can go into that um the methodology used for the recovery and the jewel litigation. Um I wanted to make sure that he was here to answer any questions. Should the school board uh arrive at a consensus to move forward as a plaintiff, I will prepare an agenda item for subsequent regular business meeting. And I have provided you with a copy of the agreement similar to the one that we'd look at for that Santa Rosa just recently um entered into. In full disclosure and transparency, it's per it's proposed that our firm sniffing and Spellelman serve as your local council so we can be involved in the progress and and we can keep you updated. Um, most of this multi-litigation is not here in the

082state of Florida. So, you need someone that's going to um evaluate the settlements offers and things like that and keep you informed on what's going on. Um, under that agreement, any work that I would do would not be part of your retainer. That would be I would be just keeping track of that in the event we recover. So, that um kind of I just want to make sure that that's clear for for you all. Um, I do have experience with this litigation in another district. Um, I actually prepared the plaintiff fact sheet, which I also attached the agenda item. Um, I I know it's supposed to take 10 hours. I spent considerably a little bit more time on there because I wanted to make sure that it was clear. Um, I will have to work

083with all of your various cabinet members to discover um those uh pieces of the play, the fact sheet that has to be filled out. Um, Mr. right could probably explain to you a little bit more, but it's almost like a similar to a grant application at this point because we will not be chosen as a bellweather case that's already been um taken care of. Um and I think I discussed some of it with most some of you individually. Um and I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Wright. He can give you a little bit more and he can answer your specific questions. Hello. Can you all hear me? Yes. Excellent. I am so grateful to be here today. It looks to me like we are in closed session. Is that the case? No. No.

084Okay. Until unless we're pending litigation that we'reend presently a party. So, this is an open workshop. So, the public is here. No problem. That we we usually don't do it in closed session, but I didn't see anyone here. Apparently, you're making all the voters in your uh district happy right now. Well done. I like this guy. Um, I am I'm honored to be here. I think Amy has done a superb job. Um, I it's been a pleasure working with her. I've worked with her firm with several other districts and hold them in high regard. Um, Amy also has a very strong understanding of of the obligations that the district would undertake if they did join, you know, the district with the completion of that point of fact sheet. So, I'll just maybe briefly um uh

085uh say a few things and then I would love to dive into your questions. Um, I am not gentle in any way and and that's actually why I'm here, you know, to get your your toughest questions and have this discussion. Um, I think you've had some great materials to review and I think Amy has reviewed it thoroughly and and explained it. Um but our team had well just going back briefly it with starting with the opioids litigation a number of local government entities realized they had claims separate and distinct from their state in the opioid litigation which was also a mass tor litigation and and they brought claims separately from their attorneys general and they did quite well. Um attorneys general really just has limited resources to represent the state. Sometimes they have a bit

086more, but it's it's hard enough on on these big cases to prepare and bring them. So, with that precedent, a number of school districts are very unhappy with vaping um a few years back and we brought that lawsuit and it was very original for school districts to join it. Historically, school districts have only been sued and haven't um um brought proactive litigation, but this was so egregious and so terrible and the costs um they were imposing on school districts. It went very well. you know, we went just through uh Jules settled before we even went to trial and Altria, their parent company, settled after a few weeks of trial for all of the districts, you know, with the very first district. Now, many districts also were very frustrated with social media and started talking to

087us. And we kind of pushed back initially. We said, "Look, they have a law called section 230 that really protects nearly everything they do." Back in the Federal Telecommunications Act came out in 1996, they passed section 230, which you know to summarize says all the content that third parties put on your internet platform, the internet platform is not liable for it. And many of you might be old enough to remember the internet back in 1996. It was chat rooms, which are sort of like very long email chains, which I'm sure all of your students would find uh hilarious and somewhat primitive today. So that law um was the law of the land and I'm very proud of how we brought our lawsuit and said no we agree with section 230 but the algorithm is a

088product it is addictive and it is controlling and there are people behind it who know what they are doing and so this algorithm has wre havoc on many of our school districts from Tik Tok challenges to bullying to swatting incident um uh to the the general uh degradation of distraction and time and attention. Um Florida has been to their credit I think at the cutting edge of trying to restrict the the the cost that social media and so and cell phones are imposing. That cost is real. I mean we have real data now on what it takes to remove social media and the impact of social media from classrooms from you know literally many school districts now. And so, um, the the lawsuit made it past the motion to dismiss, um, last year. That's a

089huge moment, um, to get kind of simple. So, whatever you could sue me saying, "My beard is ugly." And it would go to a judge and the judge would say, "Sorry, case dismissed. Even if his beard is ugly, it doesn't matter. There's no remedy under the law." So we brought this case against social media companies and said and they said very forcefully we are protected under section 230. That is all the content that's harmful is the content of third parties not us. But the judge said no there's enough meat on the bones here to proceed. That's huge because now we going through discovery deposition and we have a right to trial by jury and we are very excited to take this case to a jury. Um, specifically though, it's very important to understand that we

090have now chosen the cases that are called the bellweather or test cases. Those cases are going through discovery and depositions right now and they will line those cases up and take them to trial starting in January of next year. There could potentially be further delays, might delay in a few more months, but most likely in January of next year. And then we will try those cases until there's a pattern. we could simply lose all the cases in which case it' just be game over. You guys wouldn't be out anything. Um uh or there could be several verdicts or they could decide to settle. We're also going against four very large and powerful defendants, you know, and they might decide to settle on different terms. Google or or litigate on different terms. Google, which is YouTube,

091Meta, which is Instagram and Facebook, Tik Tok, which is Tik Tok, and Snapchat, which is Snap or Snapchat. There are other social media companies now popping up. We had the resources to go after these four at this time. Um I think Amy sent me two good questions. Um I wanted to dive into those right now, but feel free to interrupt me at any time. Um what is the timeline? So I'm going to start with the macro kind of case timeline and then uh what Indian River's timeline would be if you decided to join. So for the case, you know, most of the school districts are joining. There's still a few uh joining now. Would recommend districts join by no later than um uh early this summer, maybe May or June um to be at the

092front of the line in in case something happens. Um uh we anticipate that um it will go to trial, like I said, in January or February. Um maybe they'll try and settle before then, maybe they won't. Um, we don't know, but we will keep trying those cases until we develop a pattern. In most scenarios, it seems likely that by the end of 2026 would have a resolution. Either we would have lost or we'd have a series of verdicts that result in something that indicates a settlement opportunity. Um, this is not a class action lawsuit. This is a mass action lawsuit. So, Indian River has to decide to join and we have we'd have to bring any settlement back to you and you would have to decide to accept the settlement. So, if we did a

093settlement that was unacceptable to you, that imposed too many restrictions or was not good enough, you could simply say no and continue to litigate that if that's what you wanted to do. Um, and then if you decided to join, like I Sorry, was there a question? Not yet. If if Indian River decided to join, you know, we'd recommend you join here in the next month or two and then um you would start working on that plan of fact sheet. um with your team and hopefully have it done by the end of summer and that's it. And then we would get back to you if there's a settlement. You would not be, you know, one of the bellweather taste cases that have to go through discovery or deposition. Um you would simply wait and see if

094there's a settlement. If there's a settlement, you could decide to accept it or reject it. So I believe that's the answer the first question. Um the second one is does this mean the district will not be permitted to use social media? No, you are are allowed to use social media. For better or worse, social media is free and it is ubiquitous. Um uh we haven't seen any uh repercussions taken by any social media companies against school districts who have joined the lawsuit. Um if anything, they've been trying to to become better uh citizens as they know that that that their products are causing tremendous costs. I mean, for example, if one Tik Tok challenge, you know, in discovery, we might be able to discover how much they made from a Tik Tok challenge in a

095certain county in Florida. They may have made over, you know, the period of March 2022. Let's say they made $17,000. Great. And the damages from that Tik Tok challenge to the bathrooms in the school district, you know, exceeded, you know, $300,000. Plus um one school district in North Carolina due to such challenges had to shut down all their bathrooms and the kids had to use a portaotties and the teachers um for several months causing tremendous disruption. So we're very excited to take this case to a jury and say how can you justify this you know on the public nuisance level you know you're causing such things and you're profiting from it. Um I think those answers those two questions. Um you guys have paid great attention. It's kind of fun seeing myself here looking like

096the Wizard of Oz. Um, so please don't be respectful. Uh, as Dorothy wasn't afraid of the Wizard of Oz either, so please ask questions. That's kind of true. Thank you for not hiding behind a curtain. I appreciate that. Yeah, we have lots of questions. So, thank you for that. Um, we're going to start with Dr. Pusca. Thank you, uh, for your presentation. And I was yeah I was excited when I saw the email um from Amy about this topic. Uh this is something back in residency. I remember reading research articles on I think it was specifically Facebook and Instagram at the time. Um and how the algorithms were basically structured to trigger the drug reward system in the brain pathway. Um and additionally were were causing significant amount of mental illness in our children. Um

097so I I was very fascinated by it and uh a few years after that I think there were some significant um congressional hearings. I remember watching some of those. Um so this was a fascinating topic to me that I think is extremely important. Um especially when you look at what is basically large corporate and government abuse. Um and I I just want to kind of the nexus and basis of this issue I just want to talk a little bit about is the neuroscychiatric basis of the drug reward system. Um and I'll I'll explain it. So that basically if you're if you're using nicotine or in this case getting likes and comments to your posts um and you set up the algorithm so that you're getting hits on these likes and comments in such a way

098that it acts like a drug which is what they did and they did it purposefully. Um that causes a dopamine release and encourages more use. And that's why they did it is they wanted more use. They wanted more ad revenue. So they created algorithms to get people to use it more using that drug reward system. And the problem with that is that over time the brain remodels um numerous neuronal pathways such as the misolyic system, the amydala and the prefrontal cortex uh to strengthen this behavior to get more dopamine. Um, and if if you pull back and you don't get that drug, which in this case is, uh, getting your likes and comments and hits, um, this causes the brain then to crave that dopamine and leads to a compulsion to go use that social

099media. Um, and that's why they they constantly have their phone in their hand and they can't put it down. Um, and this is it's it's the identical pathway that gambling, nicotine, and other drugs use. Um and I and I believe these compulsions to use social media um are pathologically affecting many people in society especially our children who are more prone to becoming addictive uh due to lack of brain development which is achieved around age 25 26. Um, so you know, the fact that these social media companies are not only targeting children with a drug reward system. Um, and you know, the there's a s significant amount of data that showed that um, teens that were using social media were much more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, and suffer from suicide. Um, and the the

100population that was most affected were young women. Um, and this is something they've known for um, I think they the first studies were coming out maybe seven years ago or so. And you know, if anything, social media has just taken off and flourished more. They've continued to do it. Um, and I I think that their defense, and I'm not obviously an attorney, but their defense that they're not a publisher and this is other people posting stuff, really falls apart really really quick when they're sitting there manipulating everything you can see with an algorithm and downvoting and upvoting content that generates them revenue or hurts their revenue. Um, so I I think that I fully support being involved in this lawsuit. Personally, I think there's a lot of kids whose lives have been ruined and adults

101whose lives have been ruined from it. Um, and I don't think financial restitution is really sufficient. Um, I think that there should be criminal charges ultimately and and limitations placed on social media companies uh before this continues. Mr. Rosario, be careful. He might call you to be a material witness. I'm not available that day. Um, and just in case you weren't clear, Dr. Pasca is a legitimate doctor, so that's where his uh his expertise comes from. Um, hi, I'm Jacqueline Rosario. Um, and I have a few questions obviously. Um, I'm going to start with the question a question about uh something you mentioned regarding the Mass Action lawsuit. You said even and I I I may have missed what you said so I'm actually asking for clarity. You said even if we decide to join

102we can choose not to be a part of the settlement. Did I hear that correctly? Correct. um you have to decide to join and then if there is a settlement we would bring the settlement to you and your board would need to approve that and if it follows the precedent of the jewel lawsuit I I I appreciate that Florida has some of the strongest sunshine laws in in the country then if it follows that precedent then that settlement would even be public and and and and you guys would would decide whether to formally accept or reject that settle Okay. Um, let me see. So, what is the ultimate goal here? Is the ultimate goal to re because based on everything that I read, it seems like the ask is to prevent social media access for

103children under the age of 16. Is that part of the ask? No, I would go at a a higher macro level. The the the primary goal is to reduce the negative impacts of social media to the greatest extent possible on our on our school districts. I mean, as you appreciate with with gambling, you know, some states have banned it entirely and um and had good reason to do so. Um we tried banning alcohol entirely for 10 years in our country. um you know and and we've developed a series of regulations and other things that that most people find reasonably acceptable. But I I'll tell you the country of Australia, which isn't too different from us, recently looked at this issue very seriously and had overwhelmingly bipartisan consensus. They banned social media entirely for everyone under

104the age of 16. You know, the social media companies offered a number of parental controls, restrictions, other things. They said, "No, it's all a Trojan horse." No, you have to be at least 16, you know, to before we're going to do it. I mean, the surgeon general of the United States recently compared social media to giving children the keys to a car and telling them there's no speed limit, you know, and and no traffic rules and they're supposed to figure out how to drive wherever they want, however they want. So, there there are a number of of good steps um that we can take. Absolutely. Financial uh penalties change how these companies behave. They're very responsive, you know, to their stock price and their profit. And in fact, you know, many of these companies say,

105look, if you make rules or you make financial penalties, we will change until you do that. A meta has basically said, we have to compete with Tik Tok and we will compete with Tik Tok, you know, and so it is somewhat of a race to the bottom. Um, I like what both you and and the and the doctor said. You know, we most people understand alcohol and nicotine and gambling and opioids and we're starting to now understand the algorithm and social media and the motives behind them. And I think that that public understanding is a huge step in the right direction to holding them accountable. Um Jonathan Hike wrote, you know, the the the anxious generation um a year ago and that book is still a year later number four on the Amazon bestseller. Um

106interesting. I mean, it's extremely nerdy kind of academic book. Look at social media and I'm ecstatic to see how interested people are in how social media works. I if you haven't had a chance, I'd really recommend listening or reading to that book um uh on any if you work with kids at any level, the book will be be very helpful. Um, so the the the most the so the attorneys general of your state and and and and over 45 of the states in the United States are also in this same lawsuit. They're all in the same court trying to get a kind of a a macro settlement on how to change how social media operates. So they're individuals, there are school districts, and there are states, you know, and we're all pushing this hard. As

107you appreciate, uh, Florida's passed a number of laws and and those laws have not been able to be enforced to some extent because of of litigation. If the social media companies agree in a settlement to make changes, they can't litigate them. I mean, they they've agreed to that through a contractual nature and they they can't challenge it, you know, under the law. So, there are a number of things that we are are are are open to and going to be pushing along with the attorneys general to change fundamentally on social media. Absolutely financial is a part of it but we will be looking for some fundamental changes beyond that and that's when we come back and explain to you the settlement we'll explain that to you know what changes they they have um hopefully agreed

108to make that are are very serious changes. Yeah, I um I think that this is incredibly important and I would agree um that we certainly need change in this particular area especially with um children and social media. Um, I have some concerns though, uh, because if what I read was one of the things that we are seeking, um, or the that these case, this case is seeking to do is to end the use of the algorithms to promote addictive engagement. uh the timing of notifications of third-party content in a way that promotes addiction and failing to institute blocks to use during certain times of the day such as during school hours. um if that is the case uh and then I read somewhere else about the um up until the age of 16 where children

109would not have um access to it until 16 at least you know in part I believe those were parts of uh the goal at the end of the case if that is the case I could be all on board with that um my issue though is and certainly during school hours I think it's very very important that we prevent vent it from a school district standpoint prevent social media access, you know, 9 to 3 after 300 p.m., you know, after school is over. Um, a as as much as I would want those preventions for my son, it's up to the parent to make that decision. And that's where, you know, in the state of Florida, we are pro parentental rights. Um, and I think after three or after school hours, um, I want to be

110very careful that we as a school district do not enter into a court case that might, um, prevent a parent from having that right to decide whether they want their child to be on social media or not. Um, and whether, you know, however I agree with that is off the table. my opinion after 3 PM shouldn't matter um to a parent's right to decide that but between you know school start time and school end time official school start and school end then yes as long as you know I think all social media platform forms not just the ones that are listed in this um in this case the major ones anyway I think they they we should all have that ban during school time we shouldn't have any distractions from the focus of academics. Um

111and certainly we don't want you know to expose children to bullying or to any of the other things. Um certainly um as Dr. Pusca put it. Um, but again, that's my concern is it doesn't seem it says in in based on what I'm I'm looking here in one of the um handouts that Miss Enville gave us um it says to institute failing uh and we're c we're accusing the other side of failing to institute blocks during certain times of the day such as during school hours, but it doesn't necessarily li seem to limit to just those hours. It seems like there could possibly be some other hours and that's where I don't want to get involved. I don't want to get involved in a court suit that's going to end up having unintended consequences against

112parental rights. Um, and and that's my concern. So, I have some other questions, but if you want to chime in there, I wouldn't mind. I I share your your concern for parental rights. I I do think that the parents are the first step in um uh decision-m and and government only assists the parents to the extent the parents want or agree to to such assistance and and I I appreciate you recognizing that that that's where things start. Um uh this is a very much fluid negotiation. uh in in lawsuits, you ask for the sun, moon, and the stars. And if you get um to make the case as strong as possible, if we are able to ban it simply during school hours, I I I I would be it would be quite an accomplishment um

113to say the least. Um given you know, right now uh Facebook has and Google have more lobbyists than there are members of Congress. um the chances of of it getting banned 100% even like they have in Australia I think are are distant uh to say the least and if that's what happened you could you know certainly reject it when it came back um you know I I I think it's sort of like alcohol we tried banning alcohol for about 10 years in our country and it didn't work you know but there are some reasonable restrictions um that most people are are very comfortable with and um with the rapid advent of art artificial intelligence Um it it is it does make sense to put some restrictions on it for children and and you know maybe

114that's the default. There are restrictions and then parents can opt out of those restrictions. You know that's what we've seen uh in in some places with some things. So uh you're right and I I respect you know that and um but um it's it it would be quite something if we were able to to do um to that extent. Um so thank you for that. um that response. Uh right now this case is against Meta, Bite Dance, Tik Tok, Snap or Snapchat, Google and YouTube. Um from what I understand and something that you mentioned was you said for now. Um so if this is a social media case against social media platforms, clearly these are the biggest ones that we know. There are other social media apps and platforms um that are just as prevalent

115uh but some of them are actually pretty good for kids. Um there's, you know, one called Frank Town Rocks. Um I know one that is used by school districts, quite a lot of school districts is Ed Moto. Edoto is one that's used by school districts um as a social learning platform and it allows students to communicate within our school district structure and the platforms that school districts have. Um there's another one called Zigazoo. Um and I see Twitter is not even on or X I don't even know what their name is anymore. Um they're not on here uh as part of the lawsuit. But if they're not on there, does that mean that students would have access to those other social media platforms? And are we just looking to restrict or limit as much as

116possible for only the ones that are in the case? Um, we we have to we have to draw the line somewhere. Okay. And and our team has limited resources. um we're probably, you know, getting outspent 10 to 20 times in this lawsuit by the other side. And so we had to choose, you know, specific companies. I would hope that this would set a precedent, you know, that would allow for for further legislation and and other things that would create, you know, a fair and equal playing field. With that said, you know, there are a number of different laws and restrictions that um uh apply to you based on your volume and and size and different things. So, um I don't know. One thing I mean the social media landscape has changed so quickly just since

117we brought this lawsuit um that I I I I I guarantee you that I mean as as soon as we we we get a handle on social media, artificial intelligence may have already taken over. I mean it was fascinating. I mean, I Tik Tok, you know, was was kind of the last uh defendant added, you know, in some ways to this lawsuit because it seemed kind of small and and now it is the the probably the the most uh significant platform that teenagers use in the United States right now and how quickly it's moved from a more textbased on Facebook to a more videobased uh content on Tik Tok. So, um the world I mean I'm 52, the world is changing so quickly. uh you raise a number of of good questions that will I

118think will require a a constant readjustment. I mean what's fascinating is smoking was pretty much the same thing um for for almost my entire lifetime. And then a company named Juel um created these very clever little devices and added flavors to them and started advertising them on social media and Juel held the record for the fastest company to a10 billion valuation in the history of venture capital you know for that invention. So I I am confident that there will be other you know social media, internet, artificial intelligence platforms coming along that will require constant uh changes and and adjustments. And I think this is a great discussion to have on what is fair and and to what extent parents uh should have control. I mean but but one thing I I want to press out

119is my dad is actually old enough he remembers when they allowed smoking in um on airplanes. Yeah. and smokings even at he went to University of Wisconsin and kids would smoke in class and even in studies and libraries and how difficult it was to resist smoking in that environment. I would I would say that social media is in some ways as contagious as as smoking around you. No, I you you don't have to convince me of that. I completely agree. Um, I just in my role as a school board member, um, I'm not just limited to the work that comes before us here. And I certainly would not want to enter into this, um, lawsuit for just the financial reasons. If we were seeking to change the algorithm and have the algorith algorithm, whatever, however

120way they do that completely changed, um, that to me would be very interesting. That would be something I'd be very uh on board with supporting because then we're looking at um not repeating the same thing. We're going to be in this hamster wheel forever. So, we can sue them and win and get money, but if the algorithm stays the same, the kids are still going to be addicted. You know, at 16, they're still going to be addicted. At 17, they'll still be addicted. At 18, they'll s So, we're still going to be in the same cycle. I mean, obviously, we'll have more limitations for those under 16. uh based on what I've read um which is great uh but it it's not a a whole fix. So if we had a whole fix um I'd

121be uh even more supportive of it if if that makes any sense. Um I think my my last uh comment or question would be with regard to the evidence and this might be for for Miss Enville um for the fact sheet. What I read in the documents is that we were looking for evidence and I might be wrong but I think I read it here um increased throughout the 2018 to 2019 school years and remain problems uh significant problems today. So, are we only limited to providing for this fact sheet evidence from 2018 and 19 or from 2018-19 till today? Like what is it that we're looking for? It it is it is much more comprehensive. It it goes back Yeah. at least to 2018 uh 19. Yeah. Including including today. Yes, it comes up

122until today. Look at the plan of fact sheet and we have it's very it's broken down to all the years. So, what we're going to try to do is track back to see what those uh data points are for each of those years and to see I I think if nothing else, it's going to be reflective for us to see how it's increased or you know what what's happened. Um yeah, and and then they're going to use all of those um like the jewel litigation. I know Mr. right could probably explain a little bit more but there was when the settlement came about there was a methodology that was applied to each district to see how I mean it was a financial you know the financial aspect to see what the proportionate share I guess

123would be um to the entitlement but then it also came along with those other um things that I discussed with respect to Juel that they're no longer advertising on social media they're not using models under the age of 28 and those kind of things yeah so I asked that question because I did look at the fact sheet and I did see all the years, but then in the actual case uh description under damages, it only mentioned that one particular year. So, I was kind of confused on that. Um, and so in our district, um, I know Miss Enville just kind of joined us recently. in our district, we made significant changes to our code of conduct and our policies um to address the abuse of just cell phone use in general in our schools. So,

124our policy now um is pretty robust. It does not allow students to have to use their cell phones in um classroom settings in schools. I think we do allow it during lunchtime. I think if I'm correct about that high school what high school for high school only for high school do are they allowed to use it during lunchtime but otherwise we've sort of removed access to um cell phones in our schools in our district other districts are not may not have that policy but we do we've done a great job in that um I know it has been reflective in our in having less numbers of disciplinary issues issues based on cell phone usage. Um, if this were brought to us in 2018, we certainly would be having a completely different, you know, conversation because

125we could certainly say absolutely, we have a big issue and let's move forward 100%. But in our district right now, we don't have that big of an issue within our schools. So, my hesitancy is not to support. It's not that I'm not in support of this. I think this is incredibly important. Um, but again, as a school board member, I'm just concerned about the unintended consequences later on because things are so fluid. Anything can happen at the end of a court case. You all can settle on pretty much anything. And what I don't want is for a complete limit uh elimination of social media all social media for all students at all times because that would also put a limitation on what we are trying to do as a school district to innovate academic access

126to students. So this innovation could also if there is a an allout elimination of social media platforms that would impede let's say our our high school students or our junior or middle school students um in uh career and technical education or if they're in the business program and they need to create a business plan or you know uh show and present access to creating a I don't I don't know, a mock social media platform for advertising for their for their business. I mean, I'm I'm really stretching it here, but that's the part that I don't want at that time to then say, "Oh, sorry. We can't do that because kids aren't allowed to have any access to any social media platforms. So though I am 100% on board, I I struggle with the I guess

127the the unknowns and what it might mean for us later on if it ends up hurting our kids or not. We we won't know. Hopefully it wouldn't. Okay. Um Mr. Dyer. Oh, I think he wants to say something. Madam Chair, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Okay, Mr. Dyer. Yeah. I I just uh am very supportive of trying to limit the uh effect of social media's addictive effect on children. I think that's terrible where we are. But just to understand where we are with this case, we're just joining it in support. We are not going to influence the litigation. The strategy is already set. You're out there running the strategy now. uh the uh there's probably very limited financial uh uh financial or monies that are going to come our way from the suit. Uh this is

128a typical class mass contingency lawsuit, 33% uh fee and plus expenses. So, I mean, I think it's a good thing, but I I think if we look at it if anything other than just uh uh kind of standing up in the stands and saying go team, uh I think that we're probably uh you know, really wasting our time. I mean, we can be in support of it, but there's really I don't think there's going to be any any outcome that we're going to influence or really uh have any significant uh take in. But other than that, I think the idea is a good thing. Dr. Jones, thank you. Just in summary, kind of what Mr. Dyer said, no cost to the district. We will not be a bellweather case. We could get a settlement, but

129the board would have to approve it and then work with Dr. Moore on how we would use that. Algorithms, they are addictive, not only to students and adults. Very concerned about that. If we could somehow reduce a negative impact on our students, I think it'd be great. Just want to highlight one thing Miss Enville sent to us. I think we all know that. We've talked about it. Um, parents can not allow access to any social media or smartphones until a child is at least a 10th grader turns 16. Florida law. And appears that less than 5% of parents are successful at that. So, what do we do to help our parents? What do we do to help our students? I don't think we can ban all social media during the day because we do use

130that in a proper form in many ways. But we do need to I guess get on with this um or join this because we do know it's addictive not only with students and adults and maybe it could be the beginning of of helping us with that. So I'm for joining this and see where it goes. All right. And I'm last. So thank you. Um, I'm all for it, too, because I remember going to a Halloween parade and instead of dressing up as firefighters and police officers, kids were dressing up as YouTubers and Tik Tok influencers, kindergarteners. I I had no idea what that was at the time and I didn't realize how popular it was. Uh, shocking to me. So, we did have those um challenges, those tick- tock challenges that affected us. I remember

131having getting very frustrated as a board member because parents were calling me about bathroom doors being taken off of bathrooms and that was because kids were destroying our bathrooms and the urinals being ripped off the walls and that sort of thing. Um the vape lawsuit was something that I had asked us to join. We did not and I believe they got what $400,000. If you had joined um we would have gotten $400,000 worth of unrestricted funds which then you the as a board you decide where you want to put that money back into supports for our students, right? Um and my question was about the opportunity um to lose access to social media if we were to join this case. So, thank you for answering that question. And I appreciate that because um obviously that's

132going to change Kristen Maddox's approach to communicating with parents. Um so the after three social media part, I get that we don't want to be um telling parents what to do and what to not do, but I'm sure your bell weather cases are going to include cases of major bullying and sometimes that happens after three on the weekends um and then it comes into the school as an issue. So, um I'm sure there are cases out there where kids have been bullied to the point of unfortunately um taking their lives and things like that. I have read about those and it's really really sad. So, I know um we've been fortunate here that we haven't had any of those extreme cases to my knowledge. Um but it it is very concerning the bullying that goes

133on and it doesn't go on just during the school day. It goes on 247 and a lot of those parents of the bullies didn't even realize their kids were doing that. and the parents of the kids that were being bullied didn't realize their kids were being bullied to that severe effect. So, I'm all for it. I appreciate it. Um, anything we can do to help you, let us know. Thank you. I'll bring that back as an agenda item um when I don't We'll see. I don't know if I can bring it by the 28th, but I can try. Okay. I have a Thank you. um because we don't have to make a decision on whether or not we accept it or not until after it's brought back to us for a decision to accept. Right.

134So, I would bring the agreement with you so that we can start so we can sign up um and we can start as a plaintiff. We'll have to fill out the plaintiff fact sheet. Um, so there's a lot of little things that we're going to have to do and it's gonna there are some resources that staff is going to have to expend to capture all of that documentation for the plan of fact sheet, but um uh I beyond that I we haven't been chosen as a bellweather. So that amount of staff time that we're there is not going to be you're going to have to take that in consideration. And is it usually like 33%age? Yes. So the agreement that I attached there, you'll see uh the the fee arrangement um and it it's broken

135down. Um I don't have it in front of me. I don't it's 33% broken down different firms percentage share of the of the pot. Right. So and then I think it's plus expenses too. It is. It is. And then so so there's a very um I know in the jewel litigation when uh Orange was getting its um each settlement check it was broken down to the penny so you could see exactly where everything went. Okay. Thank you, M. Rosario. Yeah, I I have a followup. I mean um I as important as this um outcome could potentially be for uh children for parents and children for families in our community. Um, I think it it would be wise for us to be able to ask them, reach out to them. Um, I don't know if a

136town hall or a quick survey, you know, hey, we've been asked to do this, you know, are you interested in this school board um, you know, joining this case? You something to yes or no? I mean, I don't think it needs to be complicated. I just think for us to be able to make the right decision, certainly we're going to have a lot of people not know that there is no um financial burden that we are going to have to put up. Um, and we're not communicating that yet. But how would we communicate? I think you know in a in a in a oneup kind of you know reaching out we might be able to say that you know hey you know give a little summary this will not affect us it's not going to

137be um hurt you know taxpayers in our community in any way shape or form u would you support your school board in entering this you know yes or no something to that effect at least that would give us as a board you know um um better indication that our community would support us in moving forward in this. So board members, there's a board member that's suggesting that um as one person, what is the consensus of that and or would you rather wait to get that input after we see some sort of settlement? What would you like to do? Well, you can't do it after because then you're already in it. No, before we vote on whether or not to accept a settlement. That's what I'm talking about. After they go through all the proceedings. I

138personally think as a board member we can make that decision to move forward and then if we accept the money we can that would be obviously in a meeting and how it is spent. I just think I think there's a consensus that it's important and it's not costing us anything and we maybe could get a settlement because in the long run this no matter what has happened what happens during this I think it will help us in some aspect. Dr. Bosa. Um, yeah, I would just say that uh certainly we'll have media communications if we choose to join or not join and let them know what what it looks like that we're actually doing and what it means uh for the district. Um, but I I don't I don't think we need to get involved

139in it. Okay. So, you're saying we can wait on that and then do Mr. Dyer? I I'd say we could probably wait on that, too. I I think as a board we could make that decision one way or another. I Yeah, I agree with y'all. I get it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for bringing this up for us. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. [Music] Say thank you to Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate you bringing this up for us. Thank you, Mr. Wright. Thank you, Mr. Right. Yeah. And we'll resume and Mr. Green. Thank you, Dr. Moore. Through the chair. Um, if you recall last year, June 10th, we started our budget workshop updates. This year, we started on March 10th. And so now we are doing budget workshop update number two. So, I

140just like to catch you up on a few things, where we are, where we're at with legislation, and what we um some initial thoughts about what we might be dealing with for next year. So, I'm going to get the PowerPoint up and perfect. So, um, as always, we're going to go over the agenda quickly. We're going to, um, go over some acronyms, look at the budget process and timeline, review the FEFP, the Florida Educational Finance Program, compare third CL to second calc, which we did last time, just review that. Look at some projections for the family empowerment. Um, look at some projections for charter and traditional public as well for next year as far as student enrollment and FTE. We'll take a look at the House, Senate, and Governor's proposed budgets. Um, we'll look at

141some very initial anticipated budget impactors. I struggled with how to word that. I put double initial anticipated because we're very early on in this process. I don't want anybody to think these are final numbers or um any of this will come to fruition exactly as presented today um as the legislation is still moving forward. and then we'll talk about next steps, the budget development timeline, and then some questions and dialogue at the end. U Mr. Green, I have a question for you. Yes. Is this going to be a long presentation because we're almost at the 2-hour time? Um, probably 15 to 20 minutes or less. Okay. Board members, you okay with going on and not taking a break yet? Okay. Okay. Um, some frequently used acronyms. We've talked about the majority of these. I'll talk

142about calculations frequently, but after we get a survey, then we get a budget calculation. Some of the new ones down at the bottom are the staff allocation model, SAM, and the teacher salary increase allocation, TSIA. Just reminding us where we are in the process. It's a busy time of year. Legislation is happening. We're in budget and allocation meetings. We've submitted our survey three as of February. Just as an interesting note to Miss Baronborg's comment earlier around um the funding and the students going back and forth, tomorrow the corrections window should close for survey 3 and it is yet to open. Um, on Thursday of last week, we were given the task of reviewing several hundred individual students who um are on a family empowerment but might have an enrollment for us. We had staff working

143over the weekend to meet that deadline of tomorrow morning. Um reviewing by hand their enrollment date, their withdrawal date, their attendance codes, their course records to determine exactly where they um those students are. As I watched um the House and Senate preK appropriations meeting to um to quote on any given day, the DOE doesn't know where 23,000 students are in the state of Florida. So, I know a lot of the new legislation is going in place to try and address the application process, the invoicing process, so that next year they'll have a better um reporting mechanism system for tracking all of the students as they come and go throughout the year. I shared this last time, but it wasn't on the initial PowerPoint. Remember, it came out between the day the PowerPoint was shared and

144our meeting. So, I just wanted to have it up there for the public to see as we go through. Our funding is based on the number of students we have times a lot of different um categorical fundings that at the end of the day give us an overall um state budget. And I want you to look at that bottom number 165 million because a lot of times there are questions about but you're getting more money. Um, and we're going to look at that in relation to total state funding and funding that actually comes to the school district. And for anybody who does math, if you take the gross state FEFP of 123 million minus the 94 million for required local effort, it actually doesn't equal 28 million um on the net FE because there is

145what's called proration to appropriations. when they appropriate the budget that's set for the year. But then as more and more students select family empowerment, they have to prorrate the budget for the rest of the year. So that number should be $29,000, but they had to do a proration to appropriation in the budget to make up for those differences. Um, and this is a summary of what we discussed last time. If you look at total state and local funding from second count to the third count which second calc would be July and third calculation would be October. So projected numbers to actual students who showed up in October. You can see that the um total state and local funding is down and the family empowerment is up for a net effect of negative2,781,864 adjustment that we

146um have been uh mitigating. We did go through and reduce department discretionary budgets by $1.2 $2 million and we are monitoring all expenditures from now to the end of the year to ensure that um we stay on a balanced budget. The family empowerment scholarship, this is some data that came out of the estimating conference in February. If you look um as you know there's two different groups. the family empowerment equal opportunity which sometimes people will say a private school versus an a family empowerment unique ability which um in used to be the McKay scholarship students with disabilities. So you can see as those have grown over time the 2526 projection that came out in February has that rising statewide from 356,000 students to 445,000 there's roughly 3.2 2 million students in the state of Florida.

147So that's around 14% of the student population are on a scholarship in the state of Florida currently. When we look specifically at our FTE web forecasting for the year, you can see that our traditional um in October was 13860. And based on their algorithms and the data that they have, they're projecting that our traditional public school enrollment will be 13,382 or a decrease of 478 FTE. Virtual staying virtually the same, pun intended. And the subtotal um is a decline of 478 FTE rounded. Charter schools increasing by 67, which we know is a math formula. Doesn't mean they have the capacity. So we don't know if that will materialize or not and scholarships increasing from 1850 to 2310 or 460 FTE. So if you look overall our district is projected to grow by 50 FTE but

148as you can see that growth is within the scholarships. So, just taking a look at the um just the base student allocations. When the governor's budget first came out, um it was touted to have a $95 increase in the base student allocation. And if you look at that budget, we were anticipated to um increase in dollars overall for traditional public. However, the governor's budget um I pretty much will not discuss it for the rest of this PowerPoint because that budget was based on the family empowerment scholarship prediction for our district for example increasing from 1850 to 1890 or 40 students 40 FTE. The Senate and the House have both come to an agreement after they've done their data cleaning across the state and they paused. It took a while for um the third C to

149come out and both of them have settled on that number being 2310. So much much higher. The governor's budget would not um be able to realize those dollars coming with that amount of family empowerment. So we'll look at the Senate and House and that's what we'll compare. In the Senate, you have a $67 increase in the base student allocation and in the House roughly a $50 increase. There are quite a few differences between the House and the Senate. Um mainly the Senate removes the family empowerment scholarship completely from the FEFP. That formula that we showed that goes through to calculate, they remove it entirely and they create a state categorical funding for family empowerment. So instead of seeing $165 million, you would see $148 million. you would see our dollars, not our dollars plus family

150empowerment. The house keeps that in the the um formula. The house continues comingling the family empowerment with the district funds where the state removes it. Um one eliminates the educational stabilization fund, one keeps it. The conversation at the House and Senate level is they are hoping that the new legislation put in place will appropriately account for every student. And if they do that, they believe they do not need to um account for stabilization. But stabilization is when in the middle of the year we have a $2.7 million hit because more students than they projected chose one way or another. One keeps the state funded discretionary supplement, one reduces it. Both of them pro project a reduction in the add-on FTE and we're going to talk about that um a little bit more in depth. The

151House U keeps the industry certification at full funding and all others at 50% and the Senate reduces all areas by 50%. And at the bottom you'll see one increases the T the teacher salary increase allocation by about 600,000 but reduces total funds by 1.4. four. The other one increases the teacher salary by 1.3 and reduces total funds by a lesser amount of 600,000. So you'll see at the end of the day, they're going to come out pretty much close to a wash. Now, when you take family empowerment out of the equation and you look at dollars coming to us adjusted for prior year adjustments, adjusted for family empowerment, the proposed Senate appropriation, Senate Bill 2500, would be a negative $637,000. The House's um proposed bill would be a reduction of $1.4 million in funds coming

152to traditional public schools. Just to take a little bit deeper look at the um add-on FTE, you'll see the three rows. The first one is from the third calculation. You will see as we talked about earlier, our students who go on and do great things such as passing advanced placement, getting IB diplomas, passing IP, IB exams, early graduating early, industry certifications, dual enrollment. We currently are earning an additional 485 FTE for those students. That's an incentive and that those dollars go back into those programs to help support them. The Senate um you can see reduces that across the board except for industry certification and that's a negative $756,000 and the House reduces all of those categoricals by 50% for an impact or a reduction of $1.2 $2 million. Those are still pending. Um, and I

153know there's a lot there's been a lot of discussion about this at the state level. I think Palm Beach County was an 11 million impact. So just taking all of that into consideration and looking at some of our initial budget um impactors, we know that we have um teacher performance, teacher retention, um CWA, we have a two-year contract. So we have employee salary raises um 3.1 and these are estimated dollars based on next year's number of of people. We also know that health insurance um will be increasing. We do not yet have a recommendation from HITF the health insurance advisory task force. So this is just purely looking at our consultant AON's information looking at market trends and knowing how many plan members we have knowing how much the board contributes. you contribute $747 every

154month towards an employees benefits. So if that goes up by x% time 12 * 1600 plan members that get your $2.6 million in health insurance increases. Typically your um increase in funding would be an offset. In this case it's actually a budget impactor because under the house it would be a $1.4 million reduction and under the senate a $600,000 reduction. your teacher salary increase allocation which used to be a categorical. used to sit outside of the formula was then embedded into the base student allocation which means we'll go into that 148 million or whatever that number is and carve out an additional 560,000 under the house or an additional 1.3 million for that increase under the senate FRS as you've heard a lot of discussion around a point4 increase in those rates across the board

155so an additional 450,000 propane we piggyback um Hills Hillsboro or Penllis I believe and the Hattisburg rack price right now is up um for an estimated impact of $200,000. I will tell you that we are looking at some strategies to be able to um recoup additional rebates around that propane. So I have more information to share with you as we continue our budget workshops over the next couple months and hopefully be able to give some positive news there on rebates. And then you have House Bill 301, your sovereign immunity, which increases the torque caps to the 1 million, three million. And that is uh Scrim's estimate of Indian River County's portion of the premium increases if that were to happen. So currently, we're looking at about $8.5 million either way you look at it, of

156budget impactors that we will need to um account for and start to mitigate. And we have started that process. Again, we're early on, but our initial imple implementation of the staff allocation model, as you know, we have a model that allocates staff to schools based on the number of students that are enrolled. So, more students, more staff, less students, less staff. It's a formula that staffs the schools appropriately to make sure that the staff we have are funded by the students who show up and bring those dollars. So, that's an initial run of the staff allocation model. We are still working on that as um we are making sure that we are appropriately accounting for a declining enrollment to prepare. You'll notice we don't have anything set aside in this budget for a declining enrollment.

157So if what happened this year happened next year, we would want to make sure that we've accounted for that um additional decline. and then um going through each district department's budget. Um Miss Copman and I have sat with every single senior leader, every single director and gone through every single line of $13 million of discretionary budget and reduced it to the absolute bare minimum. Um we have to cut the grass. We have to pay the electric bill. So that's a reduction of $1.6 million in the discretionary budgets. So that's $4.4 $4 million worth of offsets when you compare that to the budget impactors of eight and a half. So we're around $4.1 million that we are working towards and that's what we will be working towards over the next few months as we continue to

158update the board and share that information. We will continue workshops through April um this through May, June um moving into the actual formal process over the summer in July and August and then a final adoption of the budget in September. And with that, we'll open it up for questions. Okay, Dr. Jones, Mr. Green, would you say what you said at the very beginning about the third CL open closed? You know, the very first statement. Um, so what happens is when we have surveys, so surveys and calculations, surveys are what I call the musical chairs. The kids are moving around, stop in October and count them, right? Then calculations happen to determine how much money we get from the students who sat down in the chair. October, survey 2 happened. The third calculation, we need to

159um we adjusted. Survey three then opened in February. We send all of our student data and we get a period to correct the data. That period should be ending tomorrow. We would submit of all of our corrections. Yes, this student was really here. No, they were in St. Lucy County. We call counties and we mitigate. No, we had so I mean down to the student we are validating that data that as of unless it changed as we are sitting here. Um I spoke with Kelly Nagra this morning and that correction window has yet to open which should close tomorrow. Um and that is because the state is trying to reconcile where particular students are that may be on a family empowerment scholarship or enrolled in a traditional public school or in a charter school to

160ensure um accurate reporting of that data. And that's where we were we uh by tomorrow have to report several hundred students with all of their enrollment information um attendance records to the state so they can help reconcile that. Okay. So could some of those students be in our schools or are they on family empowerment or what is the issue? Um yes to both of those. Those students are absolutely in our schools. That's why they're asking us to do that data. And I can only assume the reason they're asking to do that is they have received some sort of family empowerment scholarship. I don't know another reason they would ask us to validate those students. So if a student starts with family empowerment and decides to come maybe second semester, do we then get half of

161that money or how does that operate? Well, we get funded based on who's in the survey. So if we report them in February, in theory, we should get the FTE for February. However, as you saw, there was a one on the one slide, it wasn't 28 million. It was really 29 million because there was a proration to appropriation. So, when more students show up on a scholarship than anticipated, they don't change the state's budget, it's already appropriated. Instead, they prorrate districts. So, um, at the end of the day, there's a net loss to that. Even though we might get the FTE, they're spreading the dollars over more students across the state, right? So, we would get the FTE and I I used to do FTE. We would get it um for the February account. Let's

162say they came back, but would then they have to return the money that they received originally or they're getting that quarterly. How does that work? I get a lot of questions on that. And that is what the state is working through. And I'm not sure their collection process to get those back from those two scholarship um foundations. I'm not sure of their procedures on how to do that, but um I'm sure they that's what they're trying to recruit. Um, what when you talked about the family empowerment now being categorical, does that make it easier on us so it doesn't look like we have those kids? How do you feel about that? Um, it it would be more transparent as long as we could see the other budget. It would be more transparent. There's one version

163that has it in and one version that has it out. If it's not in the FEFP, then we would actually see the dollars coming to us. Um, and I think that would be a more transparent way of seeing the budget. Seems like it would be more transparent. And just one more statement. Um, as a principal, I used to run an IB school and bureau is very successful in AP. We both have dual enrollment. I just hope parents are aware that 50% cut, what would that do to us, Mr. Green? How would how would we operate that? Because I know it's very expensive to operate IB. The 50% cut would be across if it was across the board in all categories is about a $1.2 2 million hit. So those go to pay for extra teacher

164salaries. It goes to pay for supplies and materials. But um on the higher level, the one that takes the 50% across the board and doesn't and including industry certifications is about a $1.2 million reduction in that um 485 FTE. So 242 FTE would be lost at 5330 and that base is going up. So okay, one last question. What would that look like in our schools? Let's say Vero and Sebastian River High School. What would that look like as far as AB teacher, IB teachers paying for these tests? They're very, very expensive. Um funds would come out of our traditional general fund budget to be able to meet any obligations that we we would have to meet under statute or um it would come out and and that's what I keep saying, the 148 million. I'm

165using that as a round number instead of the 165. That's what we have to work with. The 165 shows going up, but at the end of the day, what's coming to us will be going down. Thank you, Mr. Rosary. Um, can we go to slide six? Let's see. Okay. Um, on this slide, it it does this slide represent the school district of Indian River County's budget. Okay. Because slide seven, on slide seven, you said these numbers were statewide numbers, correct? Slide six is um our budget second calc to third cal and the family empowerment numbers there are for the district. Right. Slide seven is a trend analysis of statewide and then slide eight is specifically to Indian River. Again can we add that on these slides? Can we indicate um that at least seven is

166statewide? Absolutely. Because the impression is it's kind of sandwiched in between two district um slides. And so then you have this one here that shows a history um and the total um FT F fees and FTE data. So, we'll make that kind of throw it throw it out throws it off a little bit. Um, another question that I had, let me go back to the slide. I think it's 13 for the anticipated budget. No, I'm sorry. 15 regarding the anticipated budget impact and uh versus offset. So we are essentially we are short what I'm understanding is the remaining reduction amount of 4 million32,000 approximate or 133 uh or 4.1 let's just say together because house and senate have different numbers let's just say 4.1 um million that's what we are short is that how I

167understand this to be for 2526 six and anticipated, right? And the legislators are going to come together, House and Senate, they'll have to come up with the conforming bill and then that will be our our budget based on proposed House and Senate budgets. We would um have 4.1 million less dollars um that we would without reducing fund balance that we would need to mitigate through um reduction in expenditures. So, how does this number here reflect, if at all, maybe it includes the Florida empowerment scholarships? Does the Florida is the 2.7 million of Florida empowerment scholarships included within the 4.1? So, this is a so this is already taken into account. Um, if you go back to slide 11, I'm sorry. No, that's okay. Dr. more is making these faces. If you go to slide 11,

168the numbers that we're dealing with here, that's why I said pay attention to the 165. The 165 has family empowerment. From here on, we're talking about us, no family empowerment. So without family empowerment, taking out those adjustments, that's the the 149 on the third calculation is our current budget to us. and the Senate would propose a 148 or a reduction of $600,000. So as we go through all of these things that will impact us, it is out of the amount of money that comes to us after family empowerment. Okay. So our we would be approximately um short 4.1 not including family empowerment. Yes. Not and that is assuming that family empowerment stays at 2310 2310 students. This year it was 16 something and came in at 1850. So those numbers assume that they have gotten

169no in that it will go to 2310 and no extra. If we come to October and the number is really 24.90 or 2511 then that would be an additional mitigation that we would have to to plan for. So if we are proposing um or if we are planning for the proposed 4.1 million less dollars um other than you know tightening the budget in each department or in all of the departments, where else are we going to find um a way to make up the difference? and and as you've seen, I think every year for four years, the district has brought forward um different organizational structures that create efficiencies um throughout the organization and those have resulted in typically you're averaging about a million dollars a year that you're able to save through efficiencies. We are

170having frequent meetings. I think we have two to three per week on the budget through cabinet and through leadership. Um, and we are looking at every one of those opportunities to ensure that we provide a balanced budget to the board by the time we get to the summer. Um, and again, these are prop proposed House and Senate budgets. So, I know there's a lot of people lobbying for various parts of that, maybe not to end up where it's proposed at the time, but um we are working through every single option that we can work through to ensure that we will by the time we get to June and July and you're in the formal process that we are bringing you a balanced budget. And that's what we'll be showing you at each budget workshop moving

171forward. So if potentially um we have less students in school A and we want to potentially move um the alternative school right IR prep into a particular building or you know that whatever that building is if there's space would that co with the cost of running the portables as it is now would that help I think well I'll answer that globally I mean any reduction in expenditures we can't that we can't and I think Mr. Dyer said this most eloquently a few times ago. Um we have no control over very limited control over revenue other than you know grants. So the only way we balance budgets when it's um less is through reducing expenditures. So anytime we can reduce expenditures across the system whatever that might be that helps us align to revenue. So that

172would be a yes. And then for those people practically speaking if you are retiring we're leaving potentially that position would not be refilled to see about unless it's needed you know but to see about as we have every year um we would mitigate any type of loss in staffing through the staff allocation model through retirements and through vacy agencies and um instead of having to basically hire people back, we're able to um fill those holes as we move forward. Okay. And I have one last question. Um this time last year, where were we in terms of our predictions? Can you remind us? You may not have that offhand, but at about this time last year, did we predict that we might be at a loss as we are predicting now? And if so, what was

173that prediction? Um I can go back and get it. We didn't do that until June 10th at our first workshop. So, we are doing it early and I keep putting a caveat because we are early in. Um, there was a reduction, if you remember, there was a reduction of about $12 million of budget impactors. However, we did have $5.4 million in ESSER funds that we still were able to leverage. there were some mechanisms and at the end of the day we were and through the staff allocation model and through other department reductions um in budgets we were able to provide a balanced budget. Um as those areas tighten as you said um we will look to all areas to ensure that we are as efficient as possible um to bring you a balanced budget. Okay.

174So, it's possible because last year, I think if that was the case, 12 million versus now 4.1 million. Yeah. It it it's not all doom and gloom. No, it's not. Unfortunately, we've every year that I've been here, the district has has shrunk and we've become very efficient at creating um the efficiencies ultimately to fund this this system um aligned to the number of students and the philosophy that we all have had to adopt because what I said so um is that we start at the top and we work our way down and we make decisions as far away from kids as possible in terms of how we are going to staff this this school system. The unfortunate thing um is the easy moves, the easy things. Ah, we no longer that we we did that

175three years ago. We did that two years ago. So when you look at you know what's the easiest thing to do, people oh just take the lowhanging fruit. There is no low hanging fruit. So as we're looking at allocation models and we're looking at you know the you know what is an absolute need and then where are the efficiencies in the change of of behavior. I I think one of the things that gives me a sense of comfort is the ability for us really to define uh different ways of doing this work and embracing change and that change ultimately makes us a little bit more nimble, a little bit more efficient. Um and at the same time it allows people closer to kids to be empowered to make the decisions that they need to make

176and not rely on this bureaucracy of what decisions need to be made. So as tough as this is because it is um the school system becomes leaner and more aggressive closer to kids to make decisions. You know, you look at some of the advocacy um and those of you that have been on the board for or lived, the advocacy was was pounding pounding. It was so loud three three years ago. Um the advocacy is so much smaller now because principles have been empowered to solve the problems. Uh and the expectation is you solve the problem in the best interest of parents and students uh and everyone involved. So it becomes where are the efficiency as we've become more skilled at at leading and educating kids in our community in our schools where the efficiencies to

177keep to protect that while at the same time addressing um what is an annual uncomfortable situation of thinking how we're going to reorganize or or shift ourselves um to to make sure that you have a balanced budget. You guys you can't approve a b you can't approve a budget that's not balanced. So, we have to bring you one that is balanced. We're not Congress. Exactly. Anybody else? Yeah, I'd like to chime in. Yes. Go ahead. I thank you for the update. Uh it's definitely concerning that uh we're going to have to try to find a way to make up potentially 4.1 million. I I understand this is all early projected. um it could be much better depending on if they just pass a different budget where they don't cut uh significant amount of funding. Things

178could get much better. Um al alternatively there is a possibility it could be slightly worse if more kids take the scholarship than projected. Um but either way we have to prepare to uh meet these reductions. Um which you guys are very capable of doing. And I I would like to I mean at least consider I I know we do audits. We do an excellent job with audits. Um have we considered uh potentially even investing in hiring an outside agency to come in and do an aggressive forensic audit and see if we can because this may be a natural time to do it. You know, I I don't think that these scholarships and our state congress are really going to change the direction they're going uh monumentally. I think we will continue to have to shrink

179a little bit. Um the for for for one thing, the scholarship, it's still growing quite a bit. I don't think we've reached a point where the growth is slowing down really because there's so many people that don't even know how to do the paperwork. Um so more people are leaving. a lot of people who are already homeschooling, they don't even know how to fill it out. So, as more people fill out this paperwork and actually choose or choose to homeschool their kids or or pursue uh private schools, I think we will continue to see a growth in that scholarship that's significant. We're not near a point where the growth is leveling off and plateauing yet. Um, this may be a natural point where we take a second and see every possible place we can really

180drill down into fraud is a dirty word, but just waste and unnecessary spending. I'm not trying to imply there's any bad stuff going on. Although, if you have an organization that's big enough, there's always going to be some minor uh things going on, but this may be an opportunity where um a forensic audit could help us in the future, especially doing it really getting ahead of where we see this kind of projection going over the next few years. Uh we might be able to recoup lost revenue over the course of several years that could make significant impacts. Um, so that that might be something that's worth doing. And obviously I'm not a financial expert like you guys are. Um, but I I would uh just put that out there for the board and the cabinet

181to consider. This might be a natural point in time where we go through and we really try to drill down and uh look at where we're losing money kind of in between the couch cushions because it uh I mean any organization this big, there's going to be some of that even if we're doing an outstanding job. And I'm not trying to point fingers at anybody. Okay, Mr. Rosario. Um, yeah, I was just gonna uh I'm pulling up here um two policies that I I was just able to get um to support Dr. Posca's um suggestion for an audit. Um one is policy 6830 regarding audits. Um and then the other one is an audit committee. The school board may create an audit committee uh that reports to the board through the superintendent and shall direct

182and monitor the internal audit function. The committee shall be governed by rules and procedures set forth herein. And of course there are um there's a description of the purpose, the responsibility and the organization of such a committee. The committee will be composed of five community appointees. Um, I think before I was a board member, there was an audit committee. Um, and there were a few, um, financial advisors that were on there, I think. Um, so it's not like you're getting someone who doesn't understand how to do audits. Um, the highest level uh, district administrator other than the superintendent responsible for business and finances. Um, and of course there's so much more there that will give Miss Enville time to kind of read through them. Um, because I see that she's looking through it. But I

183certainly, you know, with a budget as big as we have, um, um, it certainly wouldn't hurt. Um, there might be some things that I think an an audit committee or an auditor uh, might be able to to provide or or suggest um, considering the um, climate that we're in today. um that maybe our fantastic team may not have seen. I certainly don't see any any harm in it. Um I think certainly it would help if anything. It's a smart thing for us to do um to be fiscally responsible um at a time when we know that our, you know, we're we're we're completely um unsure about what the future will hold for public schools. Um and certainly um I could support that. I could support, you know, an audit of some kind. Certainly. Yeah. Mr.

184Dyer. Yeah. Uh I'm not sure an audit is exactly what uh what we're what we're doing. What we're really describing is with the schools are really under siege from a lot of people in Tallahassee. I mean, it's the Kabuki theater that they do every year where they say they're going to give you something and yet they take funded programs and then put them into the B base allocation. So, by the time you're finished, you're worse off after after they're finished than you were when you started. But I I think that what you're talking about more is really like a you know, like a traditionally in a in a in a a company, you would use somebody like a Bane or a McKenzie or a private consulting firm. And honestly, we're at a we are at

185a very good period that I agree with right now because we're looking at the strategic plan. And I think that, you know, we talk about what is nice and what is necessary. I I agree with Dr. Pasca in that, you know, it's probably not going to get any better. So, I think that we got to go ahead and plan for it. And I do agree that um uh that that we need to and that's goes back to the innovation again. We've got to innovate. And many of the things that you're doing are terrific, but I think we've got to do them faster and maybe anticipate a few more years out than we are budget cycle to budget cycle just to, you know, just to kind of get caught up in every year's budget without really

186looking out and deciding what's nice and what's necessary. What do we want to be? Where do we want to go? How are we going to grow? How are we going to get from here to there? How do we anticipate what's coming out over the next three years and maybe take some corrective actions now uh rather than uh rather than uh you know waiting and I think that that is both an internal discussion I mean outside consultants to help you do what you if you really go after it you could do yourself are very expensive uh but uh and you know a forensic audience really is looking for fraud I don't see that here. I think that the excesses that I thought I would find, the state's done a good job of taking them away. There

187may have been some there, but they have now cut the muscle, you know, a little bit, unfortunately. And as I'm seeing it, I was hopeful that we were going to find, you know, 10 or 12 million dollars to go out to help teachers salary and administrative and all the good people in operations. I mean, we look at our bus drivers. uh they are uh underpaid by about $3 from what you can get uh in the marketplace. I mean, we've got all throughout the school system, we've got people that are not being paid probably what the what the market would bear. And I think that we we need to look at that and understand well if we have to be a smaller smarter organization how do we take those steps now so we don't die by

188a thousand cuts every year what do we go ahead and do to position ourselves for the future and realize the environment that we're in my other soapbox is is you know go having gone to Tallahassee in the in the last few weeks and going through that again. I mean, to me, it's it's it's it's pretty remarkable. And one of the things that I that I see the most is when you've got people that are trying to do it right. I mean, we met with Commissioner Diaz. We met with uh the Commerce Secretary, Secretary of Commerce, Alex Kelly. Uh we met with some other uh people, Dr. Moore and I. And I would say that it's very interesting what is going on in Tallahassee. They're very quick to take away and assume, but they do everything

189with one broad brush. You would think that when you have whatever high-erforming districts there are in the state that you would say, you guys are a role model. We're going to give you a little bit more so you can add, you know, pedal to the metal here to get really get going and show the state what we could do. There's no incentive really outside of the accolades re that I have seen for being a high performing school district. And that to me is kind of a crime. But it is what it is. We've got to deal with it. But I would suggest rather than again death by a thousand cuts that we really do innovate. And I know you're looking at reinventing education. And I would think sooner rather than better to come up with

190a with a strategic plan that is going to lead us to a place that we want to be uh in the future so we can not do it by reaction but do it by action. So that's my two seconds. Anyone else? All right, Mr. Rosario. Yeah, I just um I don't know, Mr. Dyer, if M if Dr. Pasco was suggesting a um a forensic audit, I don't think that that's what that's what he said. Is that what one of the things you talked about? Uh because the audit committee would be different. The audit committee would be um volunteers and that wouldn't cost us anything. And so you'd still kind of get some of the things that you were suggesting in terms of, you know, some um guidance for, you know, how to plan for three

191years in advance or five years in advance, which is what our strategic plan is supposed to be um for five years. Um but we might still be able to create an audit committee because there are two different things, right? Uh we can have either I see Miss Anvil shaking her head. we can have either a forensic audit or and or a an audit committee based on what our policies indicate. Um, and you still kind of get the the best of both worlds. Uh, but the audit committee uh would not be a cost because we would recruit, you know, volunteers. Yeah. The the audit function really looks at policy and procedure. It's not looking at anything other than that. uh and you know the financial integrity you know I I guess that that's that that's what

192it's looking for is not going to answer the questions that you're asking because the questions that you're asking are strategic uh and that that are the strategic again supported financially but the audit is a whole different thing on policy and procedure and it seems much more bureaucratic than really helpful at this point and I'm not sure if you get a community uh audit council, unless you have people that have huge audit background or consulting background, which may be in this community, who who knows? But I I think that it probably adds another layer of comp complexity where some simplicity may be uh a better way to go right now. But you know I obviously uh so so um interesting conversations in my office is very similar to the conversation you all are having now and

193then creating within our strategic plan around the the finances not being the compliance driven 100% on xxx I I mean we have auditors who basically live here um all all year round but creating a three to five year strategy um that is transparent that does offset what we know will continue to be decreases and I think the good news is the projected decrease will become more accurate than it currently is which allows us to create a plan that goes out three and five years but I I agree we need to have a strategy that says as we continue to shrink what are the defined efficiencies and how are we going to reduce because ultimately at the end of the day it's just not about balancing the books, right? Um it is but at the same

194time it's about maximizing salaries and it's creating a a strategy to say we want to be the highest paid. We have to create those efficiencies. So moving beyond just a one-year right um balancing of of the books which is the way things are designed that's how it's supposed that's that's ultimately one of the disadvantages but as we strive to innovate and be something very very very different we could be creating what we anticipate to be our three to five year goals that we want to hit or our benchmarks that we want to hit around innovation around reduction and efficiency to grow the overall stab stability of of the district. So, I think that's something that will come um wi within the plan. Yeah. For instance, maybe you need to cut $20 million next year rather

195than than 4.1 or 4.2. So, then you guys can execute and you know what the plan is and you know where you're going. So I mean that's the type of thing rather than every year coming more and more and more and it just takes a little bit from everywhere and rather than prioritizing what are we really going to be what are we going to do what are we going to believe in h how do we uh how do we go from there so Dr. John. Oh, so basically we're saying what can we how can we plan to do what we're doing for our students and staff and parents each year when we know there'll be a reduction. You know, how can we continue to look at what we're doing now? How do we keep that

196integrity? How do we keep that transparency when we know what we will continually have cuts um or most likely will for a few years? Um, and it kind of goes back to the strategic plan. Remember when Dr. Jacob said this as far as looking at our community and the values that we have and that we need for our students. So, and that could whether it's an audit or you know how many audits do we have during the year now Bruce? I know some of them. How many do we have internal operating? I mean, how many audits do we have? Yes, several. And actually, we just finished um and it cost us almost $100,000 with Jerry Beckard for a forensic um complete financial and federal audit that they were here for 12 months. It was an

197eight-month audit and we just got the results of that forensic forensic audit. Um it was an audit for a financial audit. Financial audit. A financial audit. That's a different type of audit. Um, and we are currently the auditor general um, every few years does that there. We currently have five uh, members from the auditor general's office here for the next four months doing the operational audit. So, I think we're smart and looking ahead. I think we're one of 16 states who has the scholarships and they're look I was just in Texas with my daughter-in-law who works there and um, what they're looking at school boards are saying, "Okay, this is where we are. This is what we need to do. How do we keep the best for our students? So, if we're looking at an

198audit in that respect, because listen, you you go over the budget with us almost every month. You know, you've got your capital, your operating, your food service, um your afterchool program, but you know, we know what's there. We know what's being sent. We know that salary takes up about 75% of operating budget. So, what can we do? And I think this would be a great one where we do have some parents come in and say, "Listen, this is what we want to make sure we keep." and again our branding. So thank you. Um couple things just thank you for that and all the you know answering all the questions board members have. You know I like the fact in talking about audits because when I first came on the board that was a huge problem

199our financial situation. Um there was no indicator as to where money was going to each schools. There were numbers that were being thrown into school budgets that should have been up at the district level. So, we've improved a lot there and um we've gone through two of us have gone through all of that. Um where we went from being very unstable and not sure where the funds were to now we have a pretty good idea of where our funds are and what situation we're in. Uh it would be nice to know and predict what the legislature is going to do, but I don't have that crystal ball. So, um, when we get to the legislative updates, you know, I'm going to show you how severe it could be. And it's it's really shocking to see,

200um, how they ask us to do all these great things like dual enrollment, IB, dual, you know, all these really cool CTE programs and everything and then they're saying, "Let's cut it." So, um, you know, those programs also affect kids that are in homeschoolers and all these other schools that don't have the programs that want to get in those programs. So, I don't understand what the thinking is there, but that's another whole whole thing to discuss later. So, thank you for this update through the chair. The next item is your legislative priorities. Within your bylaws, you have policy 0131.3 that this process will convene by April of each year. This is the initial conversation and we will make note of it to bring back final adoption honor before June of each year. Attached to this

201item is backup documentation outlining your 2025 legislative priorities. They are sorted under the headings or buckets of school safety and student well-being, educational achievement and innovation, recruitment and retention and funding. Uh so uh chair I transition this conversation to you and we will take note of your priorities for the upcoming year. The only thing I'm going to say is um one pager. I can keep reiterating how important it is to have one page. Um because legislators don't want to read all that and the one page with a significant asks is the most important thing we could do. Um if we're really thinking about we want people to pay attention to this and listen to us. We need to make it as simple and high priority as possible. That's my suggestion because, you know, having gone

202up there and banged my head against the wall, it's it's like, okay, they always ask me what are the two most important things on here. And so that's why I say what is what are the two most important things that we want to project out there that are important to us board members? Dr. Posa. Yeah, I like the um legislative priorities. It was uh easy to look at, easy to read. had the content in there that we had discussed. Um I I agree to a certain extent with what you're saying um chair, but uh the only I mean the problem is I don't think we could ever possibly agree on two things. So I know I think this is a really good legislative priority sheet though and whoever's hand it is they may have the

203one thing that they care most about. Um you know and at the end of the day though I think we agree on most of it. Uh, and I think this gets our our concerns across. At the end of the day, um, we need more funding for safety. We need more funding for school programs. It's it's and obviously there's minutia in between and all sorts of, uh, the lending issues, um, recruitment, but at at the end of the day, I think this gets our points across well. So, thank you, Miss Rosario. Um, I I I I agree with both um, Miss Baronborg and Dr. PUSCA in that um in in two ways but what I'm going to suggest is um consolidating what we have here and with with some of the uh recommendations that are going

204to come forward if there are any recommendations um to less words that's all because some of these things are just too wordy it's just it's you can say um the first bullet point and maybe one sentence you don't we don't I don't think we really need the rest of you know all of the other wording. Um I think if we can consolidate that, it'll look a little bit um um easier to read, understand, and um smaller font, a little bit smaller font, and we might be able to get that one pager. Um the entire top part, you know, with the pictures, if we can make those pictures a little smaller, you save up space on that one page, you know, kind of consolidate as much as possible, if that is at all possible. Um, I

205will say that with safety, I'm kind of looking at applicability. A lot of these things we have had for the last two or three, you know, maybe even four, um, legislative sessions. Um, I'm not so sure it's even done anything or or made a dent. Um, but I I will say that things specific to our needs that I've heard from this board um, moving forward is um, school safety, right? But specifically um the need for open gate at our middle and our high schools or an increase in open gate specifically, you know, having funding or some kind of avenue that we would be able to purchase more open gate um um you know, metal detectors at our schools. I think that would be that would help. Um, but that's something that I have heard. Um,

206I would say if you look at that last in safety, the last bullet point that says continue to increase mental health funding to support expanded mental health. Um, I might just reduce that to just say continue to increase funding to support expanded resiliency because we there is this push now for resiliency in our in the department of education. I see Miss Chrisa Foley is shaking her head. Um and and I think that might um tip the scales, you know, when legislators are looking at it and you know, it kind of might say, "Yeah, we want to support resiliency rather than something else, but we know that it's all part of the same, right?" Um, I might also add funding for school bus cameras, funding for external school bus camera or video. Um, if we could

207get funding for that, then we don't have to worry about that extra expense. Maybe state legislators might rally up their constituencies and see if that is an issue um, and if maybe there is support for that. Uh, oh, the journal. cameras. Yes. Yeah. We're working through a contract to to bring that to the board. I know, but what I'm saying is maybe the legislator legislature can include funding for that specific item. It's a no cost, right? That's what I meant. Did I miss that? It's a no cost. It's a no cost. Oh, it's a no cost. Yeah. Well, the person who breaks the law and has to pay a ticket is going to pay for it, but that's how we're going to fund it. Wait, what? when the camera would catch when the arms go

208out and you stop, it would be able to capture someone who did not stop or pass the bus, uh it's a partnership with the sheriff's department. They would in fact issue a citation and that citation covers the cost for the the program as well as provides additional revenue for um the food not food service bus program itself. Okay. Disregard. Disregard. Perfect. Okay. Okay, let's go to um educational achievement and innovation. I mean, all of these things are pretty important, but what I don't see is um to provide funding specifically for classical curriculum um professional development and the opening of classical schools. I know we put the opening of um let me see where is it having the flexibility. I think we wrote that here of startup funds, but we're not being specific with what that

209means. So, we might not get the support if we're being general, but if we're being specific with what it is that we need, we might garner that support better. Does that make sense? So, instead of just, you know, blanket startup funds to build and develop, let's just say exactly what it is. and K8. I would throw K8 because clearly those are our priorities moving forward. K8, classical, or anything else that you know, career, technical, education, um, okay. Uh, recruitment and retention. I struggled in this area. Um, I'm not quite sure, as important as this is, I'm not quite sure if it's a need for priorities. If we were to remove anything on both of these pages, I would probably remove that section because a lot of those things I'm not sure the legislature um with

210the exception of teacher certification. I think that's important, but that also might just be a Florida Department of Ed thing. you know, the expediting of that process might just be their procedures rather than a state legislature item. Um, and then with funding, I think all of those things are important. Um, again, I just would reduce, you know, just the wording and maybe, you know, the font. It's hard because I know that they're also really important. Um, but yeah, I think it's in order for us to be effective, we have to be able to be short and concise. So, if that's at all possible, I think that's all that I have for now. Okay, Mr. Dyer, had a question. This was what was actually the 2425, right, legislative priorities. And what we're talking about is 2526

211legislative priorities. Yes, sir. Okay. to uh to to to that end, I I think that we ought to again, why do we just rehash I mean, we're rehashing last year's list. Shouldn't we try to find out what really passed and what we're going to do for next year? And then I think that the idea of trying to have each uh board member rank order them. uh maybe we could find some commonality uh you know and and see if there are some way that we could be a lot more focused because I think that this just becomes you know lost lost in the uh yep in the ether there by the time you finish reading reading all this. I mean give me again hopefully we could find the top five or the top 10 uh and

212make them piffy piffy enough that you could understand them pretty pretty uh pretty quickly. I'd ask for additional funds for high performing school districts. There you go. There you go. Love that one. Narrow. Yes. I I absolutely agree with you. For whatever it is, funds for innovating. They innovate for A+ schools. Why not for A+ district? High performing school districts. Make it. There you go. That even narrows it a little bit. Not just an A, but just a high be high performing. I think that should be our number one. Yeah. Um Dr. Dr. Are you done? Okay. Dr. John, um I was on the legislative um FSBA team a couple years ago and and they put all these together and say and you see a lot of common things like transportation's always on their base

213student allocation. U but I agree with um Mr. Dyer because let's let's take a look at this. All these are important. All these are important. Um, but I think we could get it down to just a few that are really going to be impactful to us. And um, get I know this you're just taking notes. I bet I bet it's a lot of fun when you go back and look at these board meetings and try to figure out what we say and how do you summarize because I wanted to say with I agree with Miss Baron, Dr. Pasca, and Miss Rosario when they're all talking, but then I listened to Mr. Dyer and I liked his too. So what can we do about a summary that really always going to have transportation on there, always

214going to have base student allocation on there, always going to have safety on there, what can pertain to us? So let us, you know, you can get this back to us and maybe we can see our top three and make it really impactful. So but I like the collaboration. Thank you. How does the board feel about top priorities and then ongoing commitments and that way it's not lost that those things are important and then the top priorities stay uh at the forefront of the one pager. I I agree because that's the first thing they ask me when I go walk into a meeting. What are your top priorities? We need to know out of this whole long list. What are your top? and and it's hard for me representing the board to go up there

215and say, "Well, the board, you know," and what I do is I look at the bills that are moving and say, "Okay, these bills are moving." And they go right along with something that's on our So, I actually write the bill numbers on here that pertain to these items and tell the um representatives how that bill affects those items. That's what I've done in the past. Yep. Yeah, I like it. Um, Miss Rosario, when you say um, Dr. Shafty, top priorities and then ongoing items, what is it that you're thinking of in terms of top priorities? So, listening to the conversation, we could have the board members rank order top five and that way it's the normative language of these are the top five priorities, but then having a section that's your ongoing commitment so

216that it's not lost. If, for example, if transportation is not a top five priority, it's still a commitment that we have as this board at large that does not get lost because we haven't specifically identified it as a priority. So, are you asking board members then to send you our top three in each of these areas? I think it might be easier if maybe we generate a survey and each of you rank your top five while you have time to process um and then we can circle back around and share the results um June. But what if you do that and something that's important to us or our individual priority is not in that survey or are you capturing our items while we're talking today? Both. Okay. I'm cap capturing. So, I'll add the bullets

217that you've identified here. So, by the time you see the survey or however we release it, everything that's captured today can also go as a choice for your priorities. It's fine. That's the process which I really like. We'd have to place it back on a workshop because ultimately in June is when we have to approve this. So, we collect that information. and you as a whole would have to discuss, you know, make make three, one or one, two, whatever that would be. Um, but I do like the the strategy. You, Dr. Moore, you do I mean, it doesn't have to wait for another month. I mean, we do have a placeholder on our board agenda for discussion. Just because we haven't used that for items such as this, um, doesn't mean that we can't. So,

218just throwing it out there that we could still discuss it sooner if we're looking at a a deadline, you know, if we're looking at time um so we're not losing time, you know, that's still an option as well. I'd say the only benefit of actually coming back at the scheduled time in May is it gets us through session. So we would be able to present your priorities and if something was covered as part of session. You're advocating future focus versus historical that something could have been addressed as part of some of the bills that are passed. Makes sense. Yeah. So first of all, thank you for starting this now because um even though it is early and they're still doing session, what we do know are the bills that are kind of moving or the

219bills that have been presented and aren't moving but might come back next year. Um, the other thing is knowing that this time session is later, next year it'll be earlier. So, that's important to know, too. So, I appreciate you getting on this right away. Um, there were a couple items that were on our list this year that really weren't important anymore because of the bills that were presented for. Let me give you an example. The first one under recruitment and retention where it says re-employee personnel after one month of retirement. Well, that's great. It sounds awesome, but I was told over and over again that's not doable because of insurance or something with the um retirement FRS. So F FRS is what kind of got in the way of that. So we don't know about

220that, right? But there are powers of be that know about that. And so that's kind of something that maybe we look at our attorney also and say, "Hey, do you know anything about this?" Because um you might have heard about the FRS reason why we can't have one month sitting out and then coming back. I was told it was more like six months that could possibly happen. Um, the other one was uh transportation. So, every year we say transportation's only funded by 35%. The answer we get back, and I've heard this from lots of lobbyists that say, "Well, I can go in there and tell them they need to provide transportation funds, but what they're going to say is there's only so much money in the budget, so it's going to come out of somewhere

221else in your budget." And then we're going to earmark it to say it's transportation, you can't touch it. So, that's one of the the push backs we get when you're up there asking for funding. Um, the funding push back is, well, if we earmark that, then you're not going to have the flexibility in those dollars to move them somewhere else. So, that's that's the that's the reason why I always say, "Oh, transportation's a problem, but then they give me that one." So, I I use it as an example. You only fund is 35% of the transportation costs, but it's not the reason for a ask. Does that make sense? Okay. And it's and it's an ask. That's what we're going up there. We're asking, could you consider this? Actually, that ask needs to be way

222before we go up there. So, it needs to be that's why I'm happy that we're starting it so early because these are conversations we should be having with our legislators before they start um put writing bills or presenting or proposing the bills they want to present. These are things that we can say this is your community. This is affecting your stakeholders. We would like you to consider these things when you're going to do proposed budget bills, especially appropriations bills. That's why I brought up the appropriation bill for a projected um boutique high school because when you're looking at things like that, you have to start way early in the process to be able to do this. Anyone else? All right. All right. See you in two weeks. Dr. Shapy. The next item will be presented

223actually by Miss Bura. I'm in district five. Can we take Madam Madam Chair, can we take a quick break? Um, is there anyone else that needs a break or do you want to just take it on your own? She needs one. Do you need a break? Okay, keep rolling because we got a long agenda. If you want to take break, feel free. Okay. Through the chair. Uh, good afternoon. I'll go very quickly because we do have a packed agenda. I am excited that I get to bring uh a celebratory happy item to the board for appro for uh consideration. We are requesting approval for an out ofstate field trip. We have a student who won the international science fair bid to represent our county. And so the this year the international science fair is held

224in Columbus, Ohio. Anytime a student travels outside of the state lines, we do bring to you a request for approval. And I'd like to present that to you. So I have a couple questions on that. Seeing that I've done this and gone to it, I don't know, two, three times now. Um, do they have a chaperone from the district going with them? The parent will be chaperoning during this trip. Okay. What's the funding cost then for us if a PA if a parent is taking the child? Oh, it is covered and it is covered by the Indian River uh ed fund. Are they paying for the parent to go? Yes. Chap. Chaperon. Okay. Yes. All right. But the chaperone the parent is representing the school district. Correct. And we have all of the paperwork filled

225out. Okay. It's interesting that this district does that. Um, I guess they could stay together in the same room, so it it cuts costs, which is good. It it'd be nice in the future if we could fund a teacher going. I know it's always usually at a time where there's testing, so the teachers don't want to leave their classroom, which I understand. And this particular year, it's May 11th through the 16th. So yes, I would like to keep all of our teachers in the classroom during the sadness of that is I wish they would get that to the international fair because the sadness of that is having gone to the international fair a couple of times. The amount of information that the adult gets, I was the district's science coordinator for St. Lucy County. So

226going there and doing that, I was able to get a lot of resources and a lot of connections, a lot of information back so that my kids um down there could get opportunities for other scholarships and things like that. And it opened a lot of doors, which was really nice, especially for learning how to apply for Honda scholarship, for the Toyota scholarships, uh and grants for the district. So it wasn't just a benefit for the student, it was also a benefit for the adult and the district coming back with the adult giving that information. So it was really important I thought. Yes. Do you know what uh his topic was? What was his I am excited to share with you the topic and then after I share I'm gonna ask Dr. Pasca to interpret for

227me. No, I can do it. Go ahead. Ask me. quantifying caffeine as an anthropogenic biioarker for septic tank contam contamination in Queens Cove using HLC and GIS integration. So there you go. I got the there's coffee in this in the tanks. Holy. It's the impact of humans On the environment. Yes. And with caffeine. How long did a pop start? Interesting. Wow. So, yes, we have uh we are very proud of our students. The we did have a large contingency that also just represented us in the state science fair uh as award winners. Uh 13 out of the 20 placed first, second, third, fourth and honorable mentions. So, we had we're very well represented. That's great. So, and that's also a fun thing to go to the state fair and and they allow other people to

228come. parents are there, other people are there. It was it's always at the Lakeland Center and it's really awesome experience to go to that too. So all right ENF miss thank you Christoph presentation. So first through the chair first item is the review of the code of student conduct and we briefed uh in March on this topic with Miss Holden. Um summary of the changes just to review there were many feedback sessions with district stakeholders, community members, students um administrators um and then here we are coming to you. We did the majority of the changes of splitting the consequences between elementary and secondary which was needed and asked for. Um we added an entire section on school safety protocols which were very excited which starts on page 31. We added specific guidelines and more clarity

229in the language for ID badges the protocol for elementary and secondary. Um and let me go and then for suspensions which um was also some feedback that we received um question and answers on what happens if you're suspended what is the protocol. So we're happy to bring that and then um then there's the elementary language for the ID badges and the dress code. And then um in the safety protocol there are a couple things to note. One is um information about if you for students, we've never had this in a code of conduct, if you leave a door open or if you're you see a gate or if something you know is supposed to be in place, you have to report it, which was super helpful going in for next year. And then we addressed

230the rule 6A which addresses the Fortify Florida disciplinary requirements for if you falsify a tip for Fortify. So those were the major changes and then the next steps would be obviously to take uh once it's approved to update the training going into next year and the website and the overview for students, families, parents, etc. And I will wait for questions. Okay. So before board members start firing questions, uh couple things. There's a bill um moving about attendance, school attendance, and that probably wasn't on your radar when you were going through all this. It was not HB1367. Yes, you're there. You go. All right. So, um, have we taken that into consideration in this? It was not taken into consideration when they did the the work and it's something that we need to look that would

231do after reading through it. Although it's 68 pages. Um, basically it's instead of giving the districts the authority to govern attendance, it would be coming from the state. They would be setting the guidelines. So, we absolutely have to look at that. We do have an attendance handbook which we can put language in there. But we do have attendance language example. There's uh student attendance procedures in the appendex on page 67 and there's little minor language on page 46, but we might need to bring forth an aendum if that goes through at a later date to the board. Y So we'd have to add a this is all electronic now, right? It's not a booklet anymore. Correct. Okay. All right. So, it is a little bit we will look at attendance as a as a whole

232as we are in this final push specifically in our secondary schools. One of the the kids not in classroom he can't get the instruction and at the end of the day um we do a very good job in terms of when you're in season or your event. Um but I think there needs to be a little bit more meat on the bone specifically for for families and parents. if if you're going to be out, it impacts all the students in in that classroom and we just need to norm on what that looks like in terms of as well as what the expectations are uh to ensure everyone's showing up and doing what needs to be done. Okay. So, board members questions. Yes, Dr. Johns. Um just visiting school campuses quite often. I see a lot

233better with IDs. I mean, really, really doing well. And these are the high schools too. Um, dress code is better. And I know that um, cell phones is an issue also at the legislature right now, but Miss Chris Foley, how many students were sent to the alternative school this year so far for cell phones? Three. And how many were sent there last year? 27. Thank you. There you go. Good improvement. Talking about the cell phone. Okay. Okay. Anybody else? Miss Rosario. Uh, so I have a question about knowingly um falsify falsifying a uh report through uh Florida um forify fortify. What is the determination or who determines whether someone has knowingly falsified a report versus someone who um is not sure that there's something to investigate. But I want to report it just in case

234and let the authorities kind of check it out. So through the chair, the law enforcement receives all the fortified tips at the same time that we do and they vet that. They vet those. Okay. It's not us vetting. It's well, it's in cooperation, but they vet whether or not it's truly a false tip. But in our code of conduct, um, if they're doing the vetting, how are we issuing the disciplinary action? So, we work in partnership with law enforcement agencies. So, we we investigate it together. They would make the determination, but if you're falsifying a tip about a student, they're they're hours ours, hence the discipline. And the discipline is a requirement now in statute. Yeah. No, I I just want to clarify like how this is work, how this will work. Um, so they

235would obviously notify us. We would then contact the student or the parents and say would we then conduct our investigation in addition or would we just take their report at face value and say here is your disciplinary action. So through the chair, anytime there's a fortified tip, both are happening at the same time. Law enforcement may be conducting their own investigation, but the school is also conducting its own investigation. So they may be interviewing students, teachers, what whatever the tip was about if it's off-campus, you know, that leans more towards the SRO or or whatever law enforcement agency is governing that area. But we're doing two at the same time. That is the same for any incident that happens on campus that is a referral to law enforcement. They may they're going to do their

236own investigation, but we do ours. Okay. Um I really just wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page with that. Um because it's it's hard to tell because Fortifi Fortify F uh Florida is really it's an anonymous reporting system. So it's like how do you really know who's who? Um, so clearly law enforcement knows how to reach out to them anyway, which is a concern because if it's supposed to be anonymous, how are they reaching out? But um, neither here or there. It is important. There have been other districts where they have found um, other counties where they have found a very large abuse of reports that were made by students purposefully. And I think in, you know, my questions were really about those students who would purposely make, you know,

237these reports versus someone who's just not sure and, you know, would rather be safe than sorry um in their reporting. I'm grateful for the work that um you all have done and even in the presentation of the changes. uh very few changes in comparison to where we were just a couple of years ago and I'm I'm I'm very happy about that. Um we have done really fantastic work in terms of discipline and followup and ensuring that there is going to be zero tolerance with bullying and zero tolerance with abuse with the cell phones and so on and so forth. So, I think that, you know, even being able to sit back and and say well done um is is um it makes me happy. So, I'm I'm glad to be able to support this and

238thank you so much for the work. Absolutely. You all and just on that note, just a shout out to student services and the whole team. Ashley Davell's in the audience behind us, but you know, the meeting I I attended the meeting with with community members and parents and administrators. It was great feedback from all groups. Yeah. Dr. Basker. So, yeah, I think the um initial changes we made a couple years ago to the student code of conduct had a lot of very positive effects on our kids um including their grades, behaviors, and other downstream effects. So, um we're we're starting to reap the benefits of that. Um and thank you for, you know, your work on this to everybody um and enforcing that. Um, and I would I mean I in my much more limited

239uh exposure to the campuses, I know you guys probably tour more than I do because I have a full-time job. Um, I did see kids using phones in classrooms. I I did see that. I even saw two kids vape in front of me. They thought they were sneaky. Um, so obviously there's more work to be done. uh and just trying to reinforce with teachers to, you know, please enforce this. It is important. Um because I think I think at the end of the day, there's just certain teachers that don't really enforce it. Um that's probably what happens. Uh but uh my my one question is can you describe for me kind of in layman's terms what the um dress code would be kind of in layman's terms? dress code pertaining in general. Um, I mean,

240it's on here as a like a level one dress code infraction. Oh, and consequences. Is that Well, I guess what what would be an appropriate dress code? Like I I mean I I don't know that people understand it. I mean, it's is it nebulous? I don't know. I I think you mean like no ripped clothes, no pajamas. That's what you're meaning. That's what Yeah, the dress code. Yeah. So, in general, I mean, there are schools that have unified dress, which would be different elementaryaries and some of the middle schools. of it. I would say in general you should be covered. No midrift, no, you know, areas that shouldn't be shown, shouldn't be shown. Yes. Excessive exposure would be a good way of putting it. Yes. I I mean one one and I don't want to

241be the clothing police, but I am bringing up um there was I don't know somehow this happened I think recently is that like belly button shirts are way back in again. I don't know like even I think uh Trump was walking out to the UFC with one of his granddaughters and she was wearing a belly button shirt and I just I don't know how this is happening where this is just like normal now again and whoever people want to dress it's up to them but in a professional environment that's not an appropriate way to dress. So midruff and uh you know and I think so a that's an area for improvement and especially if we have kids that are teaching other kids as teaching assistants we should be making sure they're dressing at least to

242the minimum standard. Um so that is an area for improvement I would just put out there. Duly noted. The followup question is uh is there any change to the vape uh disciplinary measures? If somebody is found with a nicotine vape or THC vape, what would that um appropriate uh punishment be? I don't think I can look I don't believe there are any changes to how it was this year. I can tell you just from being the facilitator of cert referral possible placement at alternative school when it is the second offense and it is THC. Okay. And is there any delineation if there's more than one vape to maybe intent to sell? Is that a part of that still? So intent to sell is a different infraction than possession, right? So there would have to be

243evidence that there was intent to sell. But I guess the volume of what you have is the intent and that's what's usually used in drug enforcement. For in if you have I don't know that our language specifies the okay it but the the infraction is intent to sell. So I can definitely double check that. So it would be enforceable as intent to sell if someone has five vapes in their bag because they're not smoking five vapes. Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Absolutely. One in each year. Whatever. [Laughter] Um, anybody else? Okay, Mr. Zaria. No, I was just a followup. I was going to ask, um, but that if there were an intent to sell, that would be an intent to sell Trying to think of the language because I just closed off. Wouldn't that

244be an intent to sell, um, not paraphernalia, um, restricted substance? Yeah. Substance like, you know, like marijuana or something else that would still be considered within the intent to sell, right? Correct. And enforceable by law. Okay. Perfect. Both school a school consequence and law enforcement consequence. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Um, Dr. Pasca brought up a really good point. Um, when I was a teacher and I would enforce the rules. I'm a rule follower. I'm a rule enforcer. But some teachers don't. They want to be the best friend. They want to be, you know, like some parents want to be their best friend instead of being a parent. That's a whole another story. So, um, it would get me very frustrated and, um, you know, the expectation in my classroom would be different

245than the expectation in another classroom. I still hear that from teachers. I heard it on Saturday from a teacher. I follow through with the rules and this the ID badges and then the kids get mad at me because so and so teacher down the hall does it. Um I saw a middrift belly button um recently and was standing next to a principal and said something and it was like well you know we check on them twice a day and then at this point in the day it's kind of tough to follow through. what saying that. I will talk to you later about that. So, um what's frustrating to me is that I don't know if we use PBIS system to reward kids that are doing the right things, right? We do that. Could we do

246something for our adults that are following through with the schoolboard policies and saying, you know, thank you for keeping a really strict policy on IDs. It's important because it's for school safety. Thank you for being really strict on following through with dress code because it's for bullying and school safety. There are reasons why we put these in in place and it's not the teacher's job to decide whether or not that rule is fair or not. They get hired by us to follow the rules. And so I would anticipate that it it frustrates me as a teacher and now schoolboard member to walk campuses and not see everybody following the rules because the teachers aren't enforcing it. The kids know who enforces and who doesn't. They know. And so why aren't we then rewarding the teachers

247that are doing it? Because you know what? You can talk to those teachers about not doing it and they'll go, "Uh-huh. Uhhuh." and as soon as you walk out the door, they're going to do what they want to do anyway. So, why not reward the teachers that are doing the right thing? I'm just saying through the chair, we love that idea and we are definitely going to bring that back. But on the other side of that, it is your professional responsibility to enforce the code of conduct. So, if teachers out there, if they're not doing that, then they should be letting somebody administration know. It's very frustrating though to put these policies in place knowing that they're protecting children and then still see it not happening. That's a leader's responsibility and I'm not going to

248give an award to somebody who's doing the right thing. I'm going to No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking that's a principal's responsibility to make sure the teachers are following the rules. I I understand that and I've been a principal and I I get I get your frustration with that and I agree. Um principal I because I said that to the teacher. I said, "That's on your principal." But the principal, the teachers don't want to use the term, knock each other out. And so those principles sometimes have other things going on and they don't have enough energy to put in. And that principal even said, "Well, I've already talked to that kid 15 times." And you know, what am I supposed to do? 16th time, please. And then call

249the parent and have the parent come get them. You know, let's be let's be leaders here of following through with the rules. I agree that they should do that, Peggy, but I'm telling you that that's not happening in all cases. And so making an exception like in a board in a faculty meeting thanking a teacher in front of everybody is probably award enough. Sometimes it might be putting them on the spot, but it also is, hey, thank you so much for bringing it to our attention that kids are not following through with this rule. And and then the other teachers are like, oh well, they got praised for that in a meeting. I didn't. And so I I it's the little things that count, believe it or not. Um but I think we need to

250be doing something because I see it happening over and over again. Yeah. You're saying some kids follow IDs. I talk to kids when I'm on the campus. I stopped when I was walking the other day in the morning and saw two kids at a bus stop and I asked them about their school and what's going on and and the IDs. I as specifically asked about that and they said, "Oh, well, we wear them when we get on the campus and we're in the hallways, but when we're in a classroom, we take them off, but then we're told to put them right back on when we walk around the hallways." Okay, fine. As long as they have them and they know where they are, that's fine. I get it. He said, "But not every teacher does

251that. Not every teacher cares enough to ask." That's what I was told by some fourth graders. So, it's really interesting how the kids perceive our follow through of rules. And, you know, shame on the teachers that don't follow through with making sure the rules are follow through because kids know, they can tell you who doesn't, who doesn't. Can I add one more thing? Yeah. Um, yeah, thank you for that. I I didn't go into as much detail as I probably wanted to. Um, but that was very helpful statements. And I I want to provide one little vignette. And when I was in med school, there was a classmate and I was in third year. So this is about 150 grand into med school. And uh another student, I didn't know them, but we started our

252a rotation at a hospital and uh we're on rounds. And it came about that somehow, and I I didn't realize too much what was going on, but um she had made the decision, I guess, uh to wear the white coat essentially as her primary clothing, and she was wearing essentially underwear underneath of it, and it was mostly buttoned up. Um, but she was sent home by the doctor in charge of rounds and uh he sent an email to the dean and she was expelled and now she had60 grand of debt uh because she didn't understand what dressing professionally meant. Um, so if we and this is it sounds silly to have a code of conduct with a dress code and talk about where you can have clothing and not have clothing. sounds really silly, like

253we're we're micromanaging and this is unnecessary, we're unfun, but at the end of the day, if you don't know how to conduct yourself professionally, you're going to get sent home from your job and you're not going to have money or you're going to have a bunch of debt. And that that could have ruined that kid's life. That one little mistake. They have 160 grand of debt from med school. Now, they don't have a doctorate to pay for it. So, I don't know what happened to her, but um learning how to be in a professional environment. It's more than just how you talk and behave. It is indeed how you dress yourself. Um, so it it does matter and I I think at the end of the day, I think we're doing better now than we

254had. But we we probably the root of the issue is we need more buyin from teachers and staff and and principles and a reinitiative. And this goes back to the the five-year plan presentation. The first part of that that Dr. Jacobs gave us. Um, and it wasn't the word maintenance, but it comes down to maintaining what we have and making sure it's actually happening and drilling down and doing it because just having that policy um, every year we still have to revisit it. We have to reinitiate and reinvigorate the actual act of doing these things or it just kind of, you know, falls by the wayside and things become lax and people want to be popular. Um, sometimes leaders want to be popular and that helps them get buy in for other things that they

255want and they overlook things that are unpopular and don't enforce them. Um, but we need real leaders that stand up and do ultimately what is asked. Yeah. I just like to say thank you to those um teachers and leaders that hold students accountable. Um, because if when if you don't do that then they're going to think the rules never apply to them in the future. And so what are we teaching them? I'd just like to add I think as leaders too we always have to model what we expect and from the very very beginning of the year be consistent because once you're like that as a principal or a teacher or any support staff they're just being consistent with the students and making sure that we have that communication with parents about dress continually. You

256know sometimes they will dress this way for school and change before they get there so the parents does they don't even realize it. So, it's just that constant communication and and modeling what we expect and being consistent and fair. That's why we need to check dress code after second period, too. Um because that's what they do. Any other questions on the code of conduct? We could go on and on. I'm sure we could. Uh the next item is the renewal of the Navigate 360 contract that again was already briefed in board briefings. This is for the tier 2 and for the um resiliency as um Mr. Rosario mentioned earlier, civics and character education prevention programming all bundled into one. Good. Any questions about the renewal of the contract? Miss, thank you. You're up. I'm up.

257So uh before you are the proposed revisions of zero policy 0169 your public participation at board meetings uh the three items that are connected have been revised. Um it includes the policy itself uh the guidelines for the speaker forms and the speakers form itself as long in addition to the script for the board chair. Um I did remove the ability for uh we talked about the the individual who represents groups or factions and so that's been removed. So, it's across the board up to three minutes for each speaker. Any questions on this item? We've gone over that. I'd like to just say thank you for shortening the speech. I tried. It's one minute, but it's not short enough. I know it's still not one short enough. Um, we did discuss right after that meeting a

258great idea. Thank you, Michelle. um and Amy because they came up with the idea of having a video of that so we don't have I don't have to say it over and over again every meeting which is fine. I love that. But I love your suggestion of having kids do it and having a little bit for because it reminds the adults why we're here. It reminds them that students are the ones listening. Students are the ones that are affected by our decisions. Students are the ones that are our focus. So I really like that idea. Um, I don't know where we are with that because when you said it to me, I went, "Oh, yeah, that sounds really great." So, I don't know where we are with that, but I thought that was a really

259good suggestion. So, thank you for that suggestion. It was good. Where are we with that idea? Until we have until we approve it, we there's ultimately once we get it done, we could follow. So, board members, I I thought it was a great idea. Um, good idea. It just kind of puts the focus on what we need to be on, which is the kids. Mr. Rosario, thank you so much for doing all of this. We've gone through many iterations of this policy. So, I'm glad that we are where we are right now. I would um I'm just looking at the connection because um one of the biggest things is that I have found is that we had these separate things that were all really related, but they weren't part of one policy. And I really

260wanted to make it one policy. So, I can see where on the guidelines um it says, sorry, let me go to the I've got several tabs open, not the guidelines. The um citizen input form, the speaker form at the top it says schoolboard policy 0169.1. Love that. very clear that it it is um connected to policy which I think is important because if we we have to be able to in the past what has happened is we have changed the speaker form and not changed the policy or changed you know something else and not change or vice versa. So I think having both of those together means that when we're going to review these in the future, we need to review both of them at the same time. But and the same thing with the

261guidelines. So the guidelines are interesting because the guidelines kind of just showed up one day and it they were never really discussed or presented or voted on by the board corporate. Um so I'm I'm happy that this is here. Um and it but my thing is it says uh public content the full text of schoolboard policy 0169.1 public participation at board meetings can be found using this link. There's no link there. it there will be once the policy is approved. There will be one once the Okay. And then the other thing is when I pull up the actual policy itself, I don't see um I may have missed it but what I don't see is that in the policy it says it's your last line. I is it my last line? Right. Yes. because any

262changes or policies or procedures uh regarding public participation, board meetings or workshops, speakers forms or the board agenda must be presented to the board as a proposition and passed with majority vote. Yeah, but the guidelines aren't there. I I would I would say those are any changes in policies or procedures. Your guidelines are your procedures. Well, this is the issue is that if it doesn't say guidelines, then that's not what we were discussing. And in the future, that will be the discussion. That's always been the discussion. Well, the policy or the procedure are not the guidelines. And so, can we did we used to have guidelines in here and it was either change the guidelines title to procedures or you could change the word procedures in the policy to guidelines. It doesn't really it doesn't

263matter to me. I mean, it's I just wanted to reflect in our policy that the guidelines are incorporated are incorporated. That's all. So somewhere in there if we can add guidelines in there so that this the same thing in the future if we pull one thing we have to pull the other two. That's all I'm if if that's possible maybe in that last line however way you decide I trust your judgment. Does the board have a preference with using the words guidelines or procedures or I mean we're changing everything to public input which I think is great because that's really what it is right. I don't care what you call it. Just I just prefer that it be consistent. Yeah, I understand. I mean, right now we have our policies, procedures, administrative procedures, bylaws. Yeah.

264Everything. What would be what do you think would be the better term? Procedures might be easier because guidelines to me are suggestions. Suggested guidelines and procedure is this is how it's going to happen. So maybe we'll change the title of guidelines to procedures for that's fine. If that's all right with you all. Anyone else? Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. Oh, and thank you for all the work on this. So, I have one question for clarification and that is on the speaker form, the clean edition, um the second to last bullet before it says name, address, and all that. It says individuals may not utilize any demonstrative aids when providing public input. So, we've had people pull up like show Yes. something their kid produced or they've, you know, they've turned around and trying

265to show the camera something or show us something. Is that a demonstrative aid? That would be a demonstrative aid. Yes. So, your posters, your flags, your Oh, demonstrative. Sorry. Well, I think that was I think it was demonstrative. Yes. So, um that and so that's that's that becomes the ability to enforce that. You either allow it or you don't allow it. So, they cannot show us anything on paper. Turn it around. Show it. I have to stop. Says right now, no demonstrative aid. So I I think sometimes there's a request from the public. They want oh I want to present this PowerPoint to the board that there that's not something that's permitted. They can email that to the board. Okay. And they can always that's the other thing. They can always provide you with a

266handout which that's specifically mentioned in your policy and we tell them how many copies they should provide. But when it comes to I want to show you this video. I want to show you. I mean that that's where you have we've had that happen where somebody holds up their phone and shows us tries to and and that's where you have your you may uh get a challenge because if you allow someone to do it but not someone else and so it's easier in my opinion and you all can decide to say no do demonstrative aids at all. Okay. So when anything turns around and they try to show us nope sorry you can't. Okay. But they can send it to you if they want to. I mean that they always have that ability and that's

267the good thing about social um back is still stuck on social media. That's the good thing about um being able to email you everything is they can do that now. Okay, Miss Fario. So I thought I and I I didn't pull it up fast enough um for this conversation. Um I thought I remember reading in the sunshine man in the sunshine law where they could bring and I I if I remember correctly it's where they can bring um cameras or tripods. Mhm. Um, and they could bring uh flyers or posters, but it just can't uh create a it can't distract distract someone else or uh block someone else's view. And you you might want to go I mean to me I think sometimes you have maybe they want to bring posters and they can leave

268them out there. If they want if that was their intent is to show their posters they can leave them outside. Um it depends on what you all want to do. um you could have it so it doesn't block the aid that anybody is allowed to record any of our meetings as long as it's not disruptive. Right? So that's what I thought in terms of something demonstrative. Even if it's a flyer or a picture while they're talking they can say look it's on this piece of paper is that required is that considered demonstrative? That would be but it's not blocking anyone else's view. No that those two are I mean to me they're not rel I mean they are related in a sense. I mean, you definitely don't want anything blocking anybody else's view because you

269want everybody to see your, you know, to be able to participate equally. But if you're doing no demonstrative aids, in in my mind, I'm thinking most of the time that's a PowerPoint or a whatever. I mean, are you going to say, hey, you can't show that. I mean, that that's something you all are going to have to decide. you know, please feel free to I mean, I think the chair as a chair, she could say, "Please feel free to email it to us or, you know, send it to us or if you don't have copies or See, I think we're going to have to need to we're going to need to define this because it could be interpreted as someone holding something in front of them and not blocking anyone else's view that it it

270could be allowable because it's not blocking anyone else's view, but it would be interpreted as being demonstrative because I'm showing you something. Um, I don't see any issue with someone holding up a piece of paper and saying, "Look at this." You know, this is what I'm talking about. We've had that before. Um, yes, we have. So, I think we need to kind of and I I personally I don't care if someone holds something up. Doesn't matter to me. But I think we have had also the big posters that I'm not in favor of because yeah, it does block other people's view. I get that. We had someone once try to do a um um a chart paper thing and do like a presentation. You know, that certainly is is too big and too large that

271it would block someone else's view. Uh but something small, you know, I really don't care about that. Yes. Um personally, I would personally rather if they have something they give it to us instead of holding it up because I think if we start the holding it up, it will become well that person could. And in fact, I'd rather see it myself and have it in front of my face in case I I have any questions. So, I think we should be consistent on that. And and by law, we can do that, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. I'm fine with that because um you know, we had people doing that all the time and showing all kinds of pictures and then what did they do? They started um purchasing t-shirts, right? Um so then it was like,

272okay, well, what can we do about the t-shirts? Nothing. Free speech. So, as long as the t-shirt isn't, I guess, derogatory because that's another thing. All right. Anything else? Thank you for working on this. Thank you, Mr. Green. Uh, I through N. Oh, buddy. Thank you, Dr. Moore. Through the chair, item I is our typical review of, uh, surplus property on this particular item. There's 26 items over 15 years old. old. Half of those are over 20 years old. Those are mainly old equipment um from various schools. Um we do have you will see some buses on there. As you remember when we had approved the 10 purchase of the 10 buses, these buses will be decommissioned as diesel and then turned in as a $25,000 rebate each towards that purchase of the propane bus

273that you already did as a rebate. Um, the only other item on there is a flet library system that was 20 years old. We now use insignia which is an online but back then you had to buy the software so it had a barcode with it. Um, those are the major items on the surplus list coming up at the next board meeting. Any questions? Questions? Anybody? I I have two. I always look at okay these big numbers, right? So, Destiny um, has that been replaced by Flet? Well, f destiny is flet. That was the software that was our media center purchased 20 years ago. That is gone. We now use a web base called insignia, I believe. Oh, insignia. Okay. And then um so we used it. It's not like we're throwing out 90 92.

274We used it for 20 It was purchased 20 years ago. We used it up until the district switched a few years ago. So we say we're getting rid of it, but we've used it to that point. We've used it. We're putting the number on there that was the original cost. The original cost and there's no it's been totally depreciated so there's no value left to it. It got its uh useful life used it up. Okay. And then all those um those cafeteria tables are they like dilapitated or are they things that we could sell and maybe use those funds? Those are ones that are unserviceable and I've walked through the warehouse and looked at that equipment and we still so I've walked through just recently and schools will come and take off the round part

275if it me and and reuse it. So, but the table itself is unserviceable. Okay. Because I I remember when I needed um classroom furniture, they'd say go down to the warehouse and look and see. And I was like, why are we keeping this stuff? Yeah. There was nothing really usable down there. So, um, and I can I'm concerned when I walk schools and see equipment that's not very friendly for kids to be in their classrooms and yet we're using it. So, okay. Thank you. The next item J is the review of the um, English language learner plan. Uh, state board rule um, Florida administrative code 686.095 requires that the district have a plan for English language learners. It's a three-year plan. This is an update to the existing plan which just expired. So this will

276be 25 through 28. And I can tell you there as we briefed earlier there are no substantial changes to it. These are mainly technical. So it's names of titles, names of departments instead of paper forms. It's online forms, online registrations, update to web links. Um, and there's been a committee of people working on this and it did go through a parent um, group that had to approve it and that will be coming forward at the next board meeting for approval. Board members, Mr. Rosary. So, um, I I I did a quick search through this and I have a suggestion that I think we're missing one part from this plan, which I think is is a great plan because Miss Mallet does a great job in this particular area, but I found a I want to

277say maybe a a loophole or hole in in servicing of ELL's um that I don't it's not quite captured in it's not captured at all in this plan. Um and it is the supports for English language learners when they are taking the PSAT, the SAT, the ACT or the CLT um for college entrance or for anything of the like. Turns out that um all of those students are have um there are accommodations for ELLLs that should be allowed um at the school level or wherever they're taking these tests if they are English language learners. And I don't think that we are servicing them appropriately and giving them the aotted time that they need. Now, we are whomever our coordinators are at the high schools um should be should be knowledgeable on what that process is

278and how to get the students the accommodations, but um I've come across a couple recently that um did not have any idea that they were entitled to a translation dictionary or the um directions for the tests in their native language. um which I think is a disservice and we need to I think if we can capture that it's really not a lot between this is coming to us at the next meeting right yes um it's really not a lot um maybe one paragraph of what could be uh uh I see Kelly's taking notes you know of what could be allowable for them what is or isn't I have copies directly from the SAT suite um from the CLT classic learning test and from the ACT on what is acceptable. Um, and even once a student

279registers, they can actually download the directions themselves in their native language. Um, and there is an approved list of translation dictionaries that's already on the SAT Suite website, uh, where a student can purchase it directly from, um, Amazon or from wherever else that they could get it, which is very interesting. and some of them are actually downloadable as a PDF. Um many of them could you could get could get 50% extended um testing time uh possibly more than that. And I just I think this is a group of students that we haven't we may not have thought about in terms of the accommodations for this these particular tests. And moving forward, this would could benefit the students for sure. Uh because the SAT, the ACT, and the CLT, not only would it get them into

280college, but it could also be an alternative to the PER test to get them into dual enrollment. So, if you have a 10th grader taking a PSAT, it might be beneficial. I mean, it's always going to be beneficial if they're in ELLL to get the com accommodations that are needed. Um, so I don't know if anybody else has something to say there, but maybe we can just capture that. I can hand this over to you, Kelly. No big deal. Thank. Yes. Sorry. I I agree. you know, I don't know how it is right now at the high schools or middle schools, but with the ACT, SAT, and so forth, um the person assigned to that would have the names of those students so they could help. So, if that's the same manner that we're using

281now, it works, but they really do need to have that. So, um as Miss Vizario said, as far as um ACT, SAT, CLT, all this helping them with college is so important. You Thank you. through the chair. Um, item K is a re an extension of an agreement with our landscaping company, Bright View. They had a three-year contract with two one-year annual renewals. Um, they have agreed and we have extended an offer to um engage in the first of those oneyear extensions. They do the work on the weekends. We've been satisfied with their work and it locks in the pricing from three years ago and the total um cost impact is uh around $580,000 per year. Item L is an extension of an agreement with Complete Electric and Jerelcom. Complete electric and Jerelcom do um

282electrical work. This is actually for um high voltage like 110 and 220. When we have small projects where we need to go in that our electricians might not be able to do, let's say rewiring a wing or something. The um cost impact is not to exceed $200,000 a year. The same thing. There was a um three-year uh bid awarded and this is the first one-year renewal locking in and they have both agreed to the same terms and conditions and pricing as three years ago. Item M is actually the award of a bid for a term contract. Same thing. This will be a three-year contract with two one-year renewals for tile and LVP, which is luxury vinyl planking or vinyl flooring. um as we replace carpet throughout the district. Um this particular um item there were

28320 contractors that were uh was put out to and Anony's flooring was recommended as the sole um responsive bidder and that is a $600,000 per year fiscal impact as we convert um school in the capital 5-year plan. And you have that for converting to tile and vinyl to remove carpet. And the last item in, if you remember, I believe it was on January 13th, the board approved the instructional calendar, which um tells us when students um will be in session. The first day of students next year is August 11th, the last day on May 29th. After that approval, we go back and we create what are called the work and pay calendars. So for the various pay groups, we have 180day employees, 186, 190, 196, 250, 244. We create calendars, and so those calendars have

284been reviewed by the prospective unions, CWA and IRCA, and both have um approved those. those will be coming forward and it'll just let the various work groups know which days they work out of those calendars to support that instructional calendar. Good. Okay. Um question on that. When I open up the calendars, there are a bunch of zeros and ones underneath the dates. Those are those are whether they're paid or not. Okay. So, that's not going to be what we publish out there um for parents to see. No, the instru this is on the back end. It is published but our employees know to go to payroll site to look at their work schedule. So it will have the zero and ones but it's this is these are for our employees. Okay. But that's really hard

285for a parent like parents trying to figure out okay when can I take a vacation. So the parents see the instructional calendar that's already been approved. This is on the backend for our employees. Okay. So what I'm looking at right now is the draft instructional work calendar. That's not what parents are going to see. Right. We've already you've already approved the um instructional pretty calendar like this um which is a demonstra that I probably shouldn't be holding up. No, you should have. Um um sorry sir, you're breaking law. That beautiful calendar will be posted for parents and it doesn't have those and it has nice words that say when graduation. But on our payroll site for our employees specifically, they're very accustomed to going, "What day do what days is a paid holiday for me?

286Which ones are not paid holidays? If I'm 180day employee, which days do I work, when's my spring break?" So, this is the workpay calendar for our employees. Okay. I just want to make sure public facing out there. No. Okay. Yeah. Because when you look at it, it's like, um, what are all the zeros and ones? All right. Got it. Thank you, ma'am. Madam Chair, next item is your legislative priorities. All right. So, um, couple things. Let's see. I started tracking 119 bills, but FSBA has been tracking over 300 bills um that have anything to do with education. It's been unbelievable. So, uh, the Senate and House subcommittees have kind of wrapped, but the appropriations and fiscal committees are still meeting for budget work. So, um, when you see bills moving, uh, the bills are not

287going to move any more than they have unless a, um, appropriations committee brings them up. Okay? And that would be for balancing the budget or whatever else to do. The important bills right now are kind of out there are HP 123 and Senate Bill 140. And along with a a related bills, not companion bills but related bills are HB443, SB822, which are the charter school conversion bills. Basically, um, part of the things they had in there was first right refusal for charters. That has been removed from one of the versions but not the other. Um, so in other words, if we have a piece, say that again, first right of refusal for charter schools. So, in other words, if we have um property somewhere and we want to do something with that property, we have

288to give it to the charter schools to be able to refuse it first. That that's kind of been taken out. Um the other one was um question is still up there. Who votes where and when and how is still unclear in the bill process. So, what that means is right now the bill is very gray in that it says if you have an underperforming school, which still in the definition is a B or lower, which is kind of funny, and I've seen this in um not so funny. It's um I saw it in a committee meeting where uh a legislator was bringing it up and said, "Well, the um the state board says that if you're an A or a B, you're high performing." But yet, we're redefining high performing by saying this in the

289bill. And so high performing is only an A in this bill, just so you know. So if the school is B or lower and it has not been an A in the last five years, it doesn't say how many. It just says parents at a meeting can vote and 50% of that vote can be to overturn the school, make it a charter. So extremely gray still. Um there's still there I've heard there are pending amendments to that because of the greyness. So, we'll see. We've been watching that bill to see exactly how that vote's supposed to happen, when it's supposed to happen, who gets to vote and who doesn't get to vote. Um, because that part's been very, very gray. Um, so there are amendments that are being anticipated for that bill. HB 1221 and

290Senate Bill 1664, our local option tax bill that looks like it's moving. says that every eight years um if we want to put like a millillage on there then every eight years it must be a ballot initiative again. It can't keep going more than eight years which makes sense. Um five HB 569 SB 1188 is a construction and facilities bill. It's similar to an impact bill which would be 665 and 11188 which is um one of them says waving impact fees if a construction company states that they are putting a charter school on their property. They would not have to pay any impact fees. The other one limits how much money can be raised in a certain amount of time on impact fees. So those two bills probably will be reworked somehow into one. Um

291so we're kind of watching those as well. uh wireless communication schools. This is HB949 and SB1296. They're related but not companion bills. So whenever you get related bills like that, they're still being negotiated because they have to be companion. They have to match. Um one of them says, and I think that was the house version, no cell phones use on school grounds or activities off school grounds at all. So, in other words, if what happened at Sebastian River, um kids could not pull out their cell phones and call their parents. Period. Um the other bill is um a proposed pilot of six districts, a Senate bill, and that says that a restriction on required ban of use of cell phones during the school day. So, it'll be interesting to say see how those wire out.

292I think our our um I I hate say ban, but our rule that we have pretty good is pretty good. Um because it still allows for parents to communicate or kids to communicate with parents in that kind of situation. Um one thing I'm asking though is in our school student code of conduct, do we have that the ringers have to be off during the day? Because if a parent calls or a student talks while there's, let's, god forbid, an active shooter, right? You don't want conversation going on or a student's cell phone going off where that person can hear where it is walking down a hall and know that somebody's in that room. So, do we have that in our policy where they can't have their ringers on? And it also disrupts school through the

293chair. I believe it says phones must be silenced, but I'm going to double check the word. I'm just making sure because that's um this would actually remove cell phones at all all the campuses. So, that's one to kind of pay attention to. Um HB5101 and SB2510 have several related bills. No, those are the companion bills, but they have several related bills. And this is education bill on revising to funding. So these are the bills that are moving with the budget. Okay. Um they are looking at cutting funding programs by 50% and that includes dual enrollment, cape, IB, some ESSE programs, ACE which is advanced help international certificates. Thank you. And AP and early graduation programs. We're looking at I think we talked about 480 thousand Yeah. So, all of our plans to increase those programs

294would just go the other way. They would be decreased or something would have to give in order for us to keep going with those programs. So, those are those are ones to really pay attention to. And then an interesting one, I don't have the bill number because I couldn't remember it, is a school money. There is a bill that says if a school gets a school money or recognition funds, then those funds only go to teachers. They cannot go to any other staff members, instructional personnel only. That's what it says. And that's a big one because we've had that issue with our schools and the improvements that they're going through and that vote that happens and we've had issues with those votes. So, that's going to be interesting if that bill passes because that's going

295to take out all of our um aids and anybody else, cafeteria, whoever, you know, custodial, whoever else helps at school, they would not be included in those funds. Um, and then of course HP 1367, I think, was the attendance guidelines one that we already talked about. Okay. Um, so that's kind of the highlight. There are of course other bills to talk about. the Gulf of America. Um that bill has been adjusted and the um sponsor of the bill realized, oh yeah, that would cost us a lot of money because we just adopted those books not less than a year ago, I think, for social studies. So that has now been revised to a new purchase after July 1st. So any new purchase after July 1 must have the Gulf of America in there instead of

296the Gulf of Mexico. Other than that, we can keep those books um because we just purchased those until we go to the next funding time. Okay. Um that's all I have. Um I can't answer any other questions because I don't know what they're going to do. So, um the funding and the budget is now what they're doing and um we don't anticipate any action on that until after Easter. So in the next week they're they're meeting there's conversation but there's not really going to be a lot of action until they come back after that because then they have to go hard from there until May 2nd which is sin die which is the last day of session and sidai means in Latin without day which means that they um close session with an undeclosed date

297that they're going to reopen and come back. So that's what that means. every I've always been asked what sin die and that's what it means. Okay. Well, thank you very much for the update. Sure. Thank you for the update. It wasn't very positive, but that's what it is. That's what's happening. Um the second thing I have is end of year graduations and ceremonies. So, I'm going to pass these this direction. This direction. These are um Oh, and those are for them over there. Um th this is a list of all the graduation ceremony activities. As you can see, April and May are really, really busy. Um, thank you to, uh, let's see, uh, Dr. Jones and Mr. Dyer for attending Verau Beach High School uh, scholar ceremony with me. Um, it's nice when they see

298board present, board presence, and I've actually had several people come up and thank us for being there, which is great. That was at night. Um, Sebastian River High School, um, Dr. Jones, Mr. Dyer, Mr. Rosario, thank you for going there. Um, with me it was a good representation from the board. I know that we all can't be at everything. I get it. Um, what I'm going to ask you to do though is sometimes when you in when you get those invites for things, we either accept them or we say maybe or we say no. Sometimes my maybe isn't even there as an option by the way. Um, so if we want it on our calendar, which I do want it on my calendar to know that it's happening in case something h cancels and I

299can go. Um, I usually put maybe and then I try to the day before if I can't make it put no because when you put no it literally removes it from our agenda so we can't see it. Um, I will say on the other side of things the uh leaders have told me that it's very not frustrating but they want to know if board members are coming or not. Um, because it helps them they usually introduce us. So it helps them know if we're coming or not. So, if you could at least be diligent enough to accept it and if you're going or put a maybe and then decline it if you're not going um because it helps them to know if they're anticipating you coming. Okay. So, um it and also if we can

300kind of spread the wealth, I always look to see how many board members are going to be a certain thing, especially if they're all on the same day. Like you see all those fifth grade and eighth grade graduations. Yeah. Um it's it's hard if you show up at one and not the others, but um it's also there's several at the same time. So if I see another board member is going to go to one of those, I try to go to the other one. Um but that's just, you know, that way they get a board member at something. Okay? And they do love having us be there and they do recognize us. So um they just would like us to kind of let them know if we're coming or not. Okay. Best part of the

301job. It is. It is the best part of the job to see kids being recognized for things and and it's impressive. That scholar night was impressive both of them. Um so scholarship nights are coming up. Um I'm definitely going to be at both of those and um I'm not sure about IB pinning night, but um I've gone to that in the past and that's been entertaining as well. Um Dr. Jones, marketing our public school system. The last item. Sure everybody's ready. Um, I have quite a few notes, but I'm going to summarize this because I respect all of your time. And I have spoken with Dr. Moore about this, and it really tied into the agenda today, but I didn't know that was going to happen when I first brought this up to Dr. Moore.

302Um, first of all, we are doing a great job with our public information and marketing. We have two people, Chris Heiser, Kristen Maddox, who do a great job in getting the information out there to us and doing a lot of recording because a lot of parents and grandparents can't show up. I just really appreciate both of you and Dr. Moore, I don't want this to add any more to any staff member. I'm just trying to think differently because we've talked about this today. Innovation and leadership and what else can we do? You know, we're kind of in uncharted territories. We we know that we don't know how many kindergarten students will be here. Uh even now with the uh survey three, not sure what students are here, where we're going. So, it's a little bit

303unsettling. And as um Mr. Green has shared with us we have a you know close to 14,000 students in our public school system. I was thinking um last month and it it just really really came to me these last five weeks. We've had so many activities and how good we are doing, how great we are doing from cruising and decay to our scholarship nights to Wilson relays to the Oh yeah, all of these and I'm thinking what we are doing is just so fantastic and I want to make sure we get it out there. You know, um we talked about our vouchers and I think 350,000 are out there and I think the governor upped it to maybe 500,000. So, they're going to keep increasing and we know that. So, family empowerment scholarship, I'm sorry,

304family empowerment scholarships. Okay. And I think back to McKay and Hope scholarships that kind of started all of that. Um, but through all of this, think of what we have as a district because I don't think we pat ourselves on the back enough. A nationally recognized superintendent 38th to 9th in our student achievement school choice choice. We started five years ago. our graduation rate, our career and tech education certificates, all are higher each year. Transportation, we never have enough money, but we're getting them to the bus depots if they have a school choice. Agrade two years in a row about to be three and many, many accolades and gains. So, I just think we need to get a little bit of a stronger message out there. And how do we do this as a district

305and in marketing? Um, obviously, we don't have the money to go out there and say, "Okay, we want to hire this firm or do this firm." But I think we really can look maybe at our ed foundation. Um, think about what our county commissioners have done lately. They just approved more money for SEESAC. I was at the Freedom Fund Gala uh before the NAACP on Saturday night and Commissioner Lur spoke and he really brought it together for me. He said, you know, even with issues at state and federal level where people aren't getting along, let's let's develop a social contract. our county commissioners, our our city council, our school board to make sure that we no matter what mo, you know, no matter what, we're doing the best for our kids and for our community.

306I think, you know, all of our our school systems, our public school systems in the state are going to have toi continue to look at how can we work a little smarter because we're working as hard as we can. Um, what Dr. Jake was presented to us at the end about the collaboration of family, student, and community partnerships. How do we meet the local uh needs and the values of this community? I think this is all important. Do I have an absolute answer? Heck no. But I could see and I know we've talked a little bit or I overheard it in a conversation. We might be looking at a different web page on how we advertise, but and I talked to a few district people about this. Get out there about our certification. and get

307out there about our state standards, our progress monitoring, our graduation requirements, following the state statutes, you know, state tests and end of course exams, number of hours for high school credit, what we do, you know, this board is committed to these students. This board is committed to these families, but we're up against some really big challenges right now and more are probably coming. what um Miss Baron, Chair Baron just cha, you know, shared with us as far as what could happen in AP and IB. So, what can we do to make sure that in this this county because I think we could just control here better to get the message out and be proactive so we're not reacting. So, I just wanted to put that out there. I've talked to Dr. Moore a little bit.

308He's shared a few things with me and I just like to hear from him a little bit. So we are in conversations about the redesign of what that looks like because at the end of the day um we have to be much more intentional about communicating what is taking place within our schools. So if you looked at just last sat Saturday, uh we had the elementary school track meet which the entire Shark Stadium was filled, right? Um and if you didn't feel a sense of community uh in that space, um something is wrong with you. Every elementary school had their mascot. They were dressed uh in their little athletic outfits. They all had their banners uh up for their particular schools. It was everything that a community could be. So we leave there, we go,

309me and Beth, we do an introduction of a a drone competition. Then we go over to um play ball event. And once again, it just was community. You had the varsity and JB baseball team providing training or fundamentals in baseball for, you know, another group of about 90 elementary kids. Just incredibly powerful. There was an art show going on over at the um at the museum. Dr. Shafty was there. So, we we had everything covered. Um Sparro in the afternoon. Dr. Shafty was there as well. Wife had a broken foot. Had to go home. Um but it just such community. So we need to be able to market uh the great things that are in fact happening to those who are never making a choice regarding our schools. Uh I think we need to be

310extremely intentional when it comes into to feeding into uh kindergarten. We need to be connecting with those um private schools, the the prek programs. We need to be in the churches saying, "Hey, this is what we need to have." Um we don't lose a lot of parents who are engaged in our school. We we just don't. Um but what we're seeing is we're losing we're never getting a lot. Um so we need to be extremely aggressive around a communication strategy. Um we need to help support our schools which is in addition to communication plan and strategy we need to sell community and the schools should be each school should be seen as the hub within that specific community that actually pulls the community together. So part of our work that we're roll we will roll

311out next year is to you're right not to put it on principles but to align these community efforts that you see uh in our schools. You go you go to Rosewood. I was walking with Principal Faust and there's like 12 parents um one of which was your employee. I hope you knew he was there Chris. Uh okay I was looking for him to look at me just sitting there having lunch with her kids. Um I'm not from here. That doesn't happen anywhere else. It it's such a sense of community that we need to be able to take that and just push it out across the system and not doing it. And a lot of systems would do this by saying, "Hey, principles, go out and market." No, they don't. They don't have time to to

312to do that and they don't have the skill to do that. So, yes, we're we're shrinking the the system. uh we will continue to be intentional in doing so, but we got to grow how we communicate, right? Market and sell uh the great things that are happening. And we do this and I've talked to a couple PTAs and um sack parents in general and and they're there to help. I mean, even I could see a day in the summer where we get these parents together saying, "Listen, we can do this. I can do this." They are there to help because those parents have ownership to those schools. And like you said, we've got to get them in kindergarten in the first place. And I think our VPK helps with that, you know, and getting people

313there. So, you know, I just think again working a little bit differently. We can't work any harder. Um, and I think Mr. Dyer, everybody's talked about this, you know, how do we put that out there so that um, we keep our students and continue to grow. Well, I think another piece of that strategy because you you said it is parents and you look, we have some parent organizations in our school that are models across the the nation. What's going on at Beachland, what's going on at Rosewood, uh what's going on um in in Gford, it's just citrus is good. Citrus is as as well strong programs. Look at Felsmere. Unbelievable. All kinds of different. So, it's not one specific, oh, it's just a magnet school that has that parental involvement. Nope. Not not at all.

314Uh, it's just being leveraged and organized. And that's an additional layer of support that we can help create that across the entire network of schools. And I just as as committed as this board is, I mean, we're here to help on that, too, because these are, you know, I think about this these this is our school district and this is our home. So, it's got to be top-notch. It's good stuff. Just some thoughts, Mr. Dyer. Yeah, I Becky, I think that's a great idea to consider using some ed foundation funds if we could do that to uh to market and you know I I love the idea of community and sometimes when we look at it you try to we try to talk about the district but it it it doesn't mean anything. What really

315means something as you go out to the schools like the, you know, the evening of enchantment at Fels Miller Elementary or even Sebastian High School graduation. I really felt community at that, you know, and a lot of love and respect at that Sebastian High School graduation. I think that there is a lot of things that we can do to to market the community around a school. I mean, idea. I mean, how about I love my school from a parents point of view, from a teacher point of view, from a principal point of view, from a uh a student point of view even, you know, about each individual school because that's what you really see when you go out there. There is a sense of community. And I think that there's something that we could do

316to market each individual school because each one has a person personality that works for the community in that school. And it's and and it's it it's pretty interesting going out and visiting the schools and being at these events and seeing, you know, just the interaction of the of the parents and the community with the school. Anybody else? Um, I I just had one. I mean, I agree with every what everybody is saying. Um, but it's it's really a bummer because every year I plan, I kid you not, every year I plan to go to the Bill Wilson track meet every single year. And I tell you from the first year I got COVID and the next year I think I had I don't know a flat tire. I mean, every year has been something on

317that same day. And I can't make this stuff up. this year my son got sick and I had to take him to the emergency room. So literally and then I'm sitting there like I'm going to miss it again. Like I can't believe I'm going to miss it again. But um I'm glad I'm glad that it was a success and and and there is a lot to be celebrated here in this community. We have a very unique uh community in Indian River that is um very special. Um and and those I think Dr. more you said it perfectly when you said those engaged parents are fully engaged um and then you have some that we have an opportunity to grow right to bring them in um so I think that's really the ultimate um the catch

318is we we have to kind of catch them and keep them and and that's the challenge now moving forward but I have no doubt that we're going to get there I I just have to make one comment Miss Maddox sent information out on Bill Wilson release. It's for next year. And I said, "Oh, that was yesterday." She said, "It's for next year." I said, I know. I thought the same thing. You sent it out a day late. I said, "If I could just read 2026, put it on your calendar, Miss Rosario. It's been on my calendar every year. It's just the external things that happen." But let's see. Well, next year will be another opportunity. So, there are a lot of events and it's very exciting. I did get 11,000 steps in on Saturday, which

319is and that was before 2 o'clock in the afternoon. It was amazing. I had three um personal events, you know, I had to go to a a baseball game. I got to go to a baseball game. I went to visit my mother. Went to a master's event. But then in between, I snuck in the track show, the Sparro um and the art show, which meant I literally ran out of gas that night. I've never done that before. um because I was paying attention to all the places I had to go and then I didn't realize, oh my gosh, I'm out of gas. Um but I will say this that the playball event um the drone competition and the art show, the art show I found out about because somebody told me, "Oh, so and so

320is over at the art show. You should go over to that." So I ran back from Sebastian River over to the beach, which I had been at the beach for a master's event like two hours before that, so I had to go back. But those weren't on our calendars. And it's nice when I know about these events and if it's on our calendar, it's great because then I can kind of map out my schedule and maybe not run out of gas. It would be nice um to work that out. But um there are a lot of great things that are going on and we just don't know about them all. I don't know if they're not given to you or what, but um I know like I've been told that they all have to funnel

321through Kristen and then she has to tell us to get, you know, put them on our calendar. Um but it's nice if we get the calendar invites because I knew about the playball event from a flyer that um Mr. Hart gave me, but I forgot to put it on my calendar. And so H Oh, I didn't see it. So um I'm also having a problem with my phone not syncing with my computer. Yeah. So, um I don't know if it's a lack of technology issue or what we got going on. And that's alo I got locked out of my computer and locked out of the doors on Saturday. I wasn't my thing didn't work. So, I don't know what's going on with our technology lately, but it's been a little frustrating. Yeah. Thought that only

322happened to me. No, it just happened to me, too. Um before we close up, I I think that marketing is a great idea. Um, we probably could do more paid marketing and I think it would be beneficial, but uh, we do have to be cognizant of the fact that we may not increase student enrollment with the marketing. We got to be careful and we could also use those funds, put them in the classrooms and help our I want the I don't want it to hit our budget, their budget. Can't we do that with the ed fund though? Can we use the ed fund to supplement some of our losses? I mean, if if we want to maintain some of these programs, we could use the ED ed fund to help supplement some of that and

323and lessen the blow. So, we just have to be careful how much we actually use in marketing. It may not actually lead to more revenue, right? I didn't want this to be expense. I don't I know we don't have the money for any kind of big things. So, thinking all of our brains together can figure out something, but certainly I think there'd be a good idea to do marketing. Absolutely. All right. So, anything else? Okay. Um, then we're going to close this meeting. Is it at 4:25?