001[Music] well good evening everybody and uh welcome to the Orange County School Board and merry Christmas to everybody and happy holiday i'm sure this is where you'd like to be rather than out Christmas shopping at least I'm glad I'm here um tonight we're joined by a number of elected officials i would like to recognize them before we do our our pledge of allegiance a moment of silence uh I know that I saw uh Comproller Marty Haney out there marty where are you will you stand up and let us recognize you and city commissioner Patty Sheen commissioner Sheen and state representative Joe Saunders [Applause] [Music] and state representative Victor Torres represent Torres all right thank you for joining us tonight um we're going to jump right in members of the audience who are here on items
0023.01 and 3.02 um if you haven't picked up an agenda we'll first go through the pledge in the moment of silence just so you know and then we have a number of recognitions that we do at the beginning of board meetings that we have to take care of uh then board members if there is a a motion to do so it would be my suggestion that we take a motion to approve the consent agenda and hopefully pass a consent agenda so if there's anybody here just for that they can go ahead and leave and then we've tried to clear our agenda tonight uh so we can go right into the issue that I think overwhelmingly most of you are here for uh this evening which are items 3.01 1 3.02 uh on our agenda uh
003tonight we've invited a special guest from transportation to join us she is Vicky Creech miss Crereech is a transportation training representative for our district and she is here to be honored after receiving a national award and we'll explain more about that award in a moment but first Miss Creech if you could please come to the podium to lead us in a moment of silence and the pledge miss Creech good evening good to everyone thank you for allowing me to be here if everyone would please stand please for a moment of silent meditation please bow your heads and now if we could all say the pledge of allegiance to the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible
004with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone thank you Miss Creech if you could stay there for a moment we're going to brag on you for a moment we are so proud to have you with us tonight miss Crereeach works in transportation as a training representative and she is a recipient of the 2012 Sirlo Special Needs Transportation Award an award given each year by the National Association for People Transportation miss Creeche's knowledge and skills have been most valuable to the programs and services that Transportation Department provides she is highly regarded for the assistance she provides in the areas of transporting medically fragile students and wheelchair securement procedures her extensive knowledge of the exceptional student education program regarding the safe and efficient transportation of ESSE students is described by her colleagues as second to none
005and for the past 17 years Miss Creech has also been instrumental in presentations at summer conferences for the Florida Association of People for Transportation miss Creech thank you for making OCPS look so good and for all your work on behalf of our students thank you thank you yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] we would also like to recognize one of our principles for a recent state award that you may have read about that he received for his leadership at Fern Creek Elementary dr patrick Gadoich could you come to the podium patrick where are you dr glad is somebody who is certainly well known to this board because he has been a superstar within Orange County Public Schools for years uh he is one of three principles statewide honored this year with the 2012 Leonard
006Miller Principal Leadership Award each year the award is given to education leaders who show increased student achievement the ability to empower and develop staff members and a commitment to working with business and community partners to better their school dr gadawitch leads a school with one of the district's highest homeless student populations and yet for the past eight years Fern Creek Elementary has been rated as a high-erforming school by the state department of education [Music] dr galado's commitment to partnerships in our community includes working with Rollins College the Fern Creek Foundation and Valencia Community College and for this award and words are nice but this is even nicer dr galadoich received $10,000 well earned Dr galado dr dr gadich uh congratulations on yet another outstanding achievement and I know the board members would like to shake
007your hand and it pels in comparison to the check but we do have a small certificate for you thank you [Applause] [Music] and we have one more special recognition tonight and we usually don't have this many but this is a very special one as all all three have been and that is for State Farm Insurance state Farm Insurance recently awarded Boone High School with an unrestricted $100,000 grant for the school support amen thank you for the school support of its celebrate my drive initiative held in September as part of this program State Farm actually awarded 14 participating schools with $100,000 grants and Boone was a winning school in the Orlando area and I believe the only one within Orange County Public Schools joining us tonight and representing State Farm and I'd like to ask them
008to stand and allow us to or come up to the podium so we can recognize you are agent Terry Marshall terry where are you public affairs specialist Julie Smith and agency field consultant Olivia Triana if you all could please come down and also from Boone High School principal Margaret McMillan [Music] and the strapping students of Boon High School i'm an averagesized man and I felt like a compared to these guys and they're freshman and sophomore some of them um Boon was chosen based on an online voting process that took place during the six days leading up to celebrate my drive the event and at the event at the Florida Mall high school officials safety advocates local law enforcement and government leaders joined with more than 1,400 State Farm agents and tens of thousands of teens
009and their parents for a celebration of this year's class of new teen drivers and as a father of a soon to be 15-year-old you're the only one celebrating that boon certainly has big plans for the $100,000 dr mcmillan is planning to upgrade technology throughout the school and I have to share with you I insisted on dragging them down here for a school board meeting and I'm actually glad they came to a meeting where there's a couple hundred people in this audience because this was announced at halftime of a Boone football game and it was a surprise and there was stunned silence in the crowd and it wasn't until I stop sat down I heard people whispering "What did they get what did they get?" When people heard $100,000 we get excited about a school getting5
010or $10,000 so State Farm thank you very very much we don't Okay uh we have dispensed with the strategic plan update board members um uh I think that everybody in this room knows this but anybody who would like to address an item on the consent or the non-consent agenda may do so by completing an appropriate yellow form at the board table uh that Mrs mcill the lady at the far left hand side of the dice from your seat uh is is uh I will call you to speak uh when the item you have signed up for is before the board you will have three minutes to address the board i'm going to go through the process in that in in just one moment before we get to that though um I do want to ask
011board members if you'd be so willing Mrs mcill do I have any speakers on the consent agenda okay board members so we can dispense with that can I entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda it's been moved by Mrs robinson seconded by Vice Chair Moore is there any debate or discussion on that seeing none all those in favor yes mr rodriguez mr chair there were some amendments to that so I think you need to take a motion to amend okay thank you thank you i was rushing through to get to item three dr jenkins you're right thank you Mr rodriguez for reminding are there any changes to our agenda mr chairman there are as you indicated item 2.01 was withdrawn item 3.03 was withdrawn item 4.0 for our personnel agenda has two changes one
012is employee AB of the instructional is changed to a resignation second employee SG of the transportation department is removed from the agenda all right there are no other adjustments mr chairman thank you Superintendent miss Moore I I actually want Mr chair I just wanted to in a minute make a motion that we could take the two policies that probably don't engender any conversation so we could move them along if if it is the pleasure of the rest of the board to do so that's a good idea as well let's take up a motion first to amend the agenda i find cause to amend the agenda as requested uh there's no objection can I take a motion to amend the agenda as requested boom by Mrs robinson seconded by Miss Flynn all those in favor of
013that motion please signify by saying I i all oppose nay show the agenda amended let's get back now um let's go ahead and take care of the consent agenda if we could first if nobody has any objection can I have a motion at this time to approve the consent agenda it's been moved by Vice Chair Moore seconded by Miss Gold all those in favor of that motion please signify by saying I i all oppose nay show the consent agenda adopted all right board members does anybody on this board have an objection to me taking up 3.04 and 3.05 05 uh first before we get into the speakers on 3.01 and 02 okay seeing none um Mrs mcill I don't see any speakers who have signed up to speak on those issues is that correct uh
014let me make an announcement and ask is there anybody in the audience who has come to speak on 3.04 or 3.05 which either of those issues all right seeing none then uh board members uh I'd like to entertain a motion to approve item 3.04 04 which is approval of modifications to board policy eh forms management and board members I can have staff give an explanation of it if you'd like but it's pretty Would you like to hear that first no okay superintendent do you want to let me turn it over to you to make give us an explanation for vers 3.04 4 mr chair we've got uh Associate General Counsel Barbara Whitten she can speak on item 3.04 uh and just give you the background a case with with both of these policies they have
015been properly noticed and there's a workshop that's been held and today it's before you as a public hearing to approve those final changes miss Whitten yes the purpose of policy eh which is forms management is to implement amendments to update reports and forms management control system generally functions of the management control system authority forms and reporting requirements in compliance with applicable Florida law as well as to make corrective and grammatical modifications of a nonsubstantive nature to provide consistency of definitions and form with other board policies please all right board members any questions on uh the amendments to board policy eh seeing none and again I don't believe we have any speakers on that we'll now entertain a motion to approve agenda item 3.04 it's been moved by Mr roach seconded by Miss Flynn all those
016in favor of that motion please signify by saying I i all oppose nay show that adopted will Miss Witten be doing new superintendent 3.0 05 thank you Mr chairman this is an annual um document that comes before the board of education it is regarding our pupil progression plan as we discussed in workshop uh there were uh uh there was a two-page document yellow document that summarized the changes they are all in response to cleanup and uh preparing that document to make it more userfriendly and in compliance with state statutes that is your pupil progression plan all right uh there being no members of the public to speak on this issue either um board members are there any questions on item 3.05 changes to the student progression plan okay seeing none it's been moved by Miss
017Flynn to adopt agenda item 3.05 is there a second in that seconded by Miss Moore all those in favor of that motion please signify by saying I i all oppose nay show that adopted all right thank you Miss Whitten um and I don't know if Mr fritz is here this evening but I want to thank you again superintendent for the changes on the student progression plan i thought it was extremely well laid out this year so thank you all right we're now on agenda item 3.01 and um I'm going to turn this over in a moment to will it be doing the explanation you superintendent or will it be you Mr rodriguez to Mr rodriguez to do that but let me first if I could lay out some ground rules uh for tonight and they're
018similar to the ground rules that we uh entertain at any board meeting in which we have issues of great concern to the community um as I've already announced uh if you want to speak on the issue you need to fill out one of the yellow cards that looks like this um thus far we have I believe Mr progress 70 70 speakers roughly lined up to speak on the issue and they are fairly evenly split uh individuals may speak for 3 minutes on the issue uh typically if you've come to these board meetings before you know that I don't have a heavy hand on the clock and but tonight as a courtesy to the speakers following you I will have a much heavier hand that I typically have just because if you go past that time
019you'll be eating into another speaker's time um now if you need 5 seconds to wrap up 10 seconds to wrap up go ahead and take that but please don't take liberality with that and go for 45 seconds or a minute a minute and a half if you could please um we do not allow and we will will not be allowing the yielding of any time to another speaker tonight so if you use one minute of your time you cannot yield the remaining two minutes of your time to the next speaker so they can go for five minutes everybody has three minutes uh and only three minutes i can promise you on behalf of this entire board and I know this board well that we will treat each and every speaker who speaks tonight on this
020issue which admittedly is an emotional issue to folks on both sides of this issue with the respect that you deserves as citizens of this community i would ask though that you please do the same and that in your comments you also speak with respect to both your opponents on the issue and to members of the board i would also ask that consistent with parliamentary procedure please state your position on the issue do not use names keep it professional and not personal um this is always the hardest part of this message to deliver but this is a government proceeding hence it is a formal proceeding uh you are here to give testimony uh your testimony tonight is no different than if you were up in the Florida legislature testifying before a committee if you were before
021the county commission testifying before the county or if you were testifying before the city council or even before Congress this is not a discussion nor is it a debate a board member may ask you questions but as an individual test giving testimony and you of course can answer those questions but as an individual giving you giving testimony you will not be permitted to demand answers from board members okay and this is also uh not a debate meaning that after you sit down a board member and their comments may say something that you may take exception to you cannot get back up and rejoin or object to what that board member said that is their right as a board member to speak on an issue when they have the floor uh without having uh any interruption
022the last part is always the hardest part to deliver but it's one that we take very seriously at the school board and from my observation so does the city and the county and I know there's a lot of folks in here experience at speaking before those groups uh this is not a pep rally this is a government proceeding so please no cheering booing whooping or hollering i always feel a little bit foolish saying this but if you particularly like what a speaker has to say and you feel the great compulsion to express your support by that you can either stick your hands up and give a thumbs up or some groups like to do this and it's not my style but you can wave your hands like that okay if you particularly do not like
023what a speaker has to say you can stick your hands up and give a thumbs down as well or you can do some other uh uh type of Well let me let me stop there but I'm so glad y'all have a sense of humor tonight [Laughter] so that is it for the ground rules thank you all for being so understanding about those i will warn you as well that um um if we get too late in this process a board member may move to limit debate or cut off debate i can't predict that they will we like to hear everybody but with 70 speakers we're going to get to four hours four and a half five hours on the issue um I intend one last thing I should say I intend to take the speakers
024in alternating order those in favor of a proposal or those against the two proposals I've also and if any of the speakers has an issue with this um we've also lumped 3.01 and 3.02 together so because we're not clear from all the cards if you're here to speak on just 3.01 3.02 and O2 they're very similar analogous issues if you and I would ask that we do it that way you can specify if you're just speaking to one of the board policies that one that policy when you get up here all right um Mr rodriguez at this time let me turn it over to you sir to explain excuse me a point of order Mr kel um would it be possible to break every 90 minutes if it looks like we're going to be here
025for a long time because I don't want to miss somebody's testimony but I'm supposed to move every 90 minutes definitely um this is not an endurance contest we will take frequent breaks uh we will take breaks for folks to hit the restroom i don't want anybody not just board members but members of the audience to miss anything either so board members just give me the high sign when you're ready and you know it's time but uh without any I'll probably do it every hour hour and 15 minutes or so take a five or 10 minute break okay board members do you have any questions on the process or procedure before we jump in okay mr rodriguez I would suggest what you do is uh in your explanation that you go through the delineation of both
026item 3.01 and 3.02 okay board members uh members of the audience um what you have before you tonight is uh two different policies the first of which is item 3.01 uh that's policy JB it deals with the non-discriminatory admission of students the non-discrimination respect for the individuals as well as uh other aspects related to students um the central changes to this policy are the inclusion of the following language um that the school board of Orange County Florida uh referred to as the board shall admit students to district schools and programs without regard to race color religion age sex national origin marital status disability and then added to this particular policy are the following terms sexual orientation genetic information gender identity or expression and then the policy continues with language spoken homelessness or other or any
027other reason prohibited by law those four key terms sexual orientation genetic information gender identity or expression are then replicated throughout policy JB in other locations there are also some significant uh changes to policy JB as has been previously explained at our two prior workshops and those changes are procedural changes that the office of legal services felt uh in compliance and how we address this policy uh would be reflective of our current policies and procedures with regards to policy GBA this is our equal uh opportunity employment policy uh the title for the first section is non-discrimination equal employment and affirmative action and once again those four terms sexual orientation gender identity or expression and genetic information are added uh throughout the policy and again we've also incorporated some changes in this uh policy in particular to
028address some procedural issues that the Office of Legal Services has identified they both have uh forms that have been updated at the back of each policy and those uh while the red lines may appear to make the form longer they're actually in an effort to streamline the form and capture accurate information uh Mr chairman and members of the board we have duly noticed this policy uh it was brought before the board on September 20th uh with some changes that were incorporated it was readvertised and properly noticed and another public hearing was held in November uh on November 8th I believe and then uh this board meeting of December 11th has also been properly noticed uh in accordance with uh Florida law thank you uh Mr rodriguez board members are there any questions or comments before
029I go to the speakers mrs robinson i just felt it would be helpful possibly for the audience to hear something before we get into our testimony so you're all aware um Orange County Public Public Schools already has a policy in place it's policy ADD and it currently is our bullying and harassment policy and it protects our students and our employees from sexual orientation from being discrim I mean from being bullied harassed or discriminated against for sexual orientation or gender identity expression so just want to let everyone know we currently have a policy that already protects these two classes this is not something new just wanted to put that out for you okay i I would also like to to recognize one other elected official I understand has joined us uh tax collector former representative Scott
030Randolph has joined us scott where are you thank you for being here sir [Music] all right our first speaker on the issue and I'll tell you what I'm going to do um I will announce uh speakers in segments of about five so you can start to move your way down towards the front you don't have to get up and line up or anything like that but so you know you're about to come on deck and can be uh can be prepared to do that um I intend to go uh in this order first uh Commissioner Patty Sheen then Mr roger Ganam and if I mispronounce your names I apologize then uh Comproller Marty Haney then Mr dan Harris then Mr patrick Hal and then Mr louise Caster I believe uh when you come up to
031the podium so I don't have to say it each and every time please begin by stating your name and your full address please otherwise I'll have to interrupt your testimony for that commissioner welcome to the Orange County School Board thank you Mr chairman thank you for the professional courtesy my name is Patty Sheen i live at 1213 Minnesota Street i think everybody knows where I live right outside the beautiful Octopus car wash um I'd like to thank the school board for your consideration of this i've been a champion for uh GBT equality for many many years as many of you know it seems to be the only thing I ever get on the news for but I think it's critically important to protect from discrimination for gay lesbian bisexual and transgender employees since we've done
032this at the city of Orlando it's created a very much uh more easy environment for people it's just it's done nothing but good things for our employees um transgender seems to be the the uh the sticking point and gender identity expression in this situation um these protections are already protected under ADA but I think it's very important to be consistent with federal policy and recognize that it's important to protect everyone from discrimination um transgender people actually go through significant counseling and for the most part want to just assimilate so they don't you don't see a lot of transgender activists out there because they just when once they they change they just want to be accepted in the community so you don't see a lot of activism in that degree so that's why you're probably not
033going to see a lot of people here today um there seems to be concern about protecting children and sexual misconduct i have to tell you something anyone anyone who is who does any kind of sexual misconduct I think should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law that's not what this is about um people who engage in that kind of that conduct should be could be definitely dealt with very strenuously um I've learned about this issue by educating myself and I think that's what we're all here to do and I think we should learn study and make educated decisions and I think discriminating against people for gender identity and expression is wrong um I know there's a lot of things about protecting children i say well would you protect children from me as an
034openly gay city commissioner i've raised money to provide over 900 bicycles for children to ride to school when their bus service was cut 700 backpacks of school supplies for the children at Ree Terrace a computer lab there as well dr glad which was just sitting with me we've raised money to I've raised $5,000 to feed children at Fern Creek Elementary School and send them home with food in their backpacks um I'm an advocate for fair districting in schools and they wanted to take my children to Reese Terrace and take them out of their community school i advocated for them you all have seen me here on schoolboard issues um nobody needs protecting from me or from my community all we're asking for is fairness a fair shake and a chance to serve and I know
035that these openly gay teachers that these teachers that they're horrified about losing their job or possibly being discriminated against um that's just certainly it's a matter matter of fairness and they shouldn't be and children should never be bullied because of who they are i was very strenuously bullied when I was a kid it affected me i got beat up on the bus cuz I was different and I think we should do everything we can to protect our children thank you very much thank you Commissioner Sheen and thank you for your support of our schools you do certainly do a lot for CPS and we recognize it next an opponent on this issue Mr roger Ganam mr chairman members of the board thank you for having me my name is Roger Ganham uh 12276 San Jose
036Boulevard Jacksonville Florida 32223 uh I am a an attorney from Jacksonville i practice in various areas including constitutional law uh specifically first amendment and religious liberty law uh I supplied the memorandum uh the legal memorandum that was given to the schoolboard members uh yesterday uh addressing laws like the proposed changes to GBA and JB before you uh I urge you to vote no on these uh policy changes uh they're bad for students and they're bad for employees and uh in in the most specific area is in the area of free speech and religious liberty uh under current law a student or teacher during non-instructional time may express their sincerely held religious beliefs of course not in a harassing or a bullying way but they're able to express their own beliefs about the morality of homosexual
037conduct if these policy revisions are passed uh the ability to do that the ability to exercise that right of free speech will be directly affected uh and assaulted uh students who want to make an expression of their of their beliefs uh will be have their their speech policed and silenced and particularly as it relates to students uh what's deemed discrimination is some anything that might be deemed offensive to the person who hears the statement uh so there is no definition of uh no adequate definition to protect the free speech rights of students who who simply want to express a a religious belief and aren't out to to bully or harass anyone uh another note is is about the existing anti-bullying law uh that the policy adds to anti-bullying does just what it says it only
038deals with a very specific type of discrimination bullying and harassment it's there to prevent harm to prevent stresses to people um it does not address in the same way that these new anti-discrimination provisions address uh sexual orientation and gender identity uh discrimination uh another big problem is that gender identity and sexual orientation are not adequately adequately defined there's no consensus even in the scientific community of people who study these things just what exactly is meant by this so uh a an administrator or a teacher isn't going to know exactly what they're dealing with when trying to to police and monitor whether this type of discrimination may be going on uh in the employment context uh whereas employees now under current law would have the ability to again express their uh religious beliefs during break time
039uh in in a nonh harassing or a non-confrontational manner uh they will now have to be in fear of having anything they say deemed discriminatory if they make a statement having to do with the morality of homosexual conduct even making a statement about the uh support for traditional marriage which is protected by a constitutional amendment in Florida is often deemed discriminatory speech by LGBT activists and others so finally I'll address gender identity uh facilities uh women's facilities girls facilities and schools will be opened up to any man or biological male claiming a female gender identity or expression this has happened in places where these laws have been passed thank you thank you Mr ganham uh our next speaker is Comproller Marty Haney and as you're going up through Comproller Heene we're also joined tonight by
040State Representative Karen Caster Denton Dental excuse me karen where are you thank you for being here uh good evening it's a pleasure to be here before you i am Martha Haney i use Martha in public uh Mr chairman um um so what happens when you know somebody 22 years what happens um I live at 1262 Lake Bulisar Circle just south of the beautiful Boone Blankner campus I'm happy to say um and I am here to speak in favor of your um uh 3.01 and 3.02 um I'm wearing red to indicate that support and I'm also wearing a protect children sticker and there is no irony in that at all because I'm speaking to you as a parent uh the proud parent of two Boone High School graduates um and I hope someday and while they
041have graduated and they're fully employed I'm so happy i'm so also hoping that one day my grandchildren will uh likewise be students in Orange County Public Schools i believe that our children deserve to be protected um they need to be protected not only by your policies but by their parents children need to be protected from those who would do them harm sometimes they need to be protected from football coaches and sometimes they need to be protected from troop leaders and sometimes they need to be protected even from members of the clergy they need to be protected from bullies they need to be protected from those who would do them harm but I do not believe that children need to be shielded from people who are simply different than they are and I believe that people
042who may be different than they are deserve the same protections from discrimination as the majority the strength of this country has been that we have protected minorities and we've often done it through very painful um and passionate debates but every time the rights of a majority has been strengthened in this country we have become stronger as a country and I believe you have an opportunity to make a clear statement on that tonight and I encourage your support thank you Miss Amy um our next speaker is Mr dan Harris mr harris after Mr harris speaks we will hear from Patrick Hal then Luis Kostas and Michael Slaymaker then Allison Carvana then Reverend Kathy Schmidt and then Larry Gdon mr harris welcome good morning i'm Dan Harris i live at 4753 Stony Brook Lane um I I
043did have a question and it was just it's just a point of order that I understand i believe that uh Mr rodriguez said that the second word workshop was in accordance by law when he was introducing it right does that does that imply something was wrong with the first workshop or did I misunderstand something there mr in fairness if you want to get with council after you're done speaking I'll send No I was just curious you just need to give your testimony in the time it just it just was there was some something there I just wanted to find out about um actually I'm a little confused about the um need for the wording i really the um attorney before me really said a lot of my concern if we have pretty clear law right
044now why do we need to change that law if we just need to implement that law um I've been certified in Florida and Alaska i worked with Georgia and school districts i've worked I've taught at the University of North Florida the psychology of learning and the more confusing we can make things it really becomes gray a lot of areas become gray we have very good right now law we need to implement them and right here in Orange County it's tough to do that for the teachers and to make those decisions to follow through with them i'm confused as to why we want to mess with something that really we should just go ahead and implement what's there does that make sense i mean really um when you start turning around and talking about gender identity
045well what are we actually saying if the person is physically one way or another it's actually going to work out better all the way around even for him or her if they just go and use the facilities that they need to use and the kids already understand a lot of stuff that's kind of going on and I don't really see a lot of bullying in that arena a lot of it unless the kid's just drawing it out and actually trying to bully or pick a fight with somebody else who is of a who who the guy who has an opposite gender say a young man feels like he's he identifies more with the female and he may actually be picking at somebody else those kind of things we don't want to protect i don't see
046why we need to you know it's just a reverse thing and then all of a sudden now we have a guy who is standing up with a different gender identity i don't have any problem with that but he may be the bully and I've seen this in action i've seen it and that's kind of what we're starting to protect and change around i like the idea of hey if the guy's bullying somebody or picking a fight or out of order in his words or against someone that person should be you know dealt with not the person when he's trying to draw somebody into it and all he has to do when he gets before you know an administrator say "Ah I have a different gender and he was picking on me." That that's that can't
047be correct that is not a right thing make it equal for everybody and thank you for the time like I said the attorney before said pretty much everything I wanted to say anyhow thank you thank you Mr harris our next speaker is Mr patrick Hal mr how was Okay folks folks I'm sorry members of the audience cannot raise points of order we operate by parliament and let me suggest this if member any member of the audience has an issue or a question we have staff in the back row of tables um Dr diaz could you raise your hand back there so they know so you can get up and go back there and I'm with that ma'am you're out of order if I've never had to remove anybody but you did not answer the man's
048question he asked when did it go into law ma'am I please I don't want to remove you let you speak to Mr but if we have any more outbursts I'm going to have to remove you i'm sorry okay our next speaker is Mr patrick How mr how thank you Chairman Selette members of the board patrick Howell uh 132 Abbleton Avenue Orlando Florida here in Orange County i'm here to voice my support for the proposed anti-discrimination provision uh to protect students and teachers and I do not support any amendment that would water down the current language this provision as currently written will bring Orange County in line with the largest school districts here in Florida including Hillsboro County and Miami Dade County this isn't new language we're not forging ahead with uh into any area that
049hasn't already been uh covered by other counties here with regard to their school districts it also brings us in line with Orange County with the human rights ordinance that's current currently in place there was some confusion I think among some of the board members about whether that's in place it has been uh for the last three years and that includes gender identity within that language there's no good reason to have one set of standards for Orange County and one set of standards for our public schools and please understand that the reasons raised by the opponents of this measure are dishonest they use scared tactics they propose scenarios that have never come to pass in the hundreds of school districts that have adopted this very similar language they are unable to present a single news article
050or any evidence to back up their dire predictions and I know some of you on the on the school board have requested that information from them they just can't provide it so please don't be misled this language has been debated previously and the reason we are here today is because the school board saw fit to require a fully inclusive policy i was at those meetings uh and there were public hearings this was a fully bipartisan vote in a public hearing there's no good reason presented to change the language now send this policy back for more workshops and subject everyone to more emails and voicemails over the next three months i'm sure you would instead uh enjoy like to enjoy a peaceful holiday season instead go with what the schoolboard attorney has explained is required by
051the law go with your gut and go with what you know is right for the the schools our kids and our teachers thank you very much thank you Mr how uh our next speaker is and forgive me if I'm mispronouncing him Mr luis Casta mr caster or Casta are you here lives on Skidmore Avenue okay um our next speaker then is Miss Allison Kurana miss Allison Corana and folks when you're saying your name and address please also say your city yes thank you Chairman Sublette and board members my name is Allison Carowana my address is 6885 North Witch Drive Windmir first off I'd like to say that I'm very disappointed in the fact that the parents were not given proper notification of this very significant issue i found out through friends of mine who are
052attorneys who were informed of the different legal issues that are going on in the state not through any of you and for that I'm very disappointed um in regards to this I have four children who are in the school district two boys and two girls i for one find it very bothersome at the concept of this whole ordeal the potential of a child walking into my daughter's locker room because they have changed their sexual identity and appearing in my child's locker room or in my child's bathroom where is the line drawn at what point do you guys say that this is a discrimination matter versus a preference of what it is that they choose to do where does that infringe upon my children and our rights to protect our children from coming in contact with
053stuff that we oppose to there's there's maybe in this instance a discrimination a reverse discrimination against us we are a majority not a minority but yet our views are not being seen and by the mere fact that you guys chose not to inform us is very disconcerting ver I'm just absolutely appalled by this we have the right to be notified and you guys failed to do that and for that you don't have the proper representation in this room because I spoke with many who were not able to take off but so badly wanted to thank you Miss Corana our next speaker is Mr michael Slaymaker mr slay Maker my name is Michael Slaymaker i live at 4101 Fairview Vista Point uh Orlando Florida 32804 thank you very much for having me here this evening um
054I'm here representing two organizations this evening uh one I'm the board president of the Orlando Youth Alliance um this 501c3 nonprofit organization was founded in 1990 our mission is to provide a safe space for lesbian gay bisexual transgender and questioning youth in Central Florida we have held a peer-to-peer um youth support group uh every Tuesday for the past 23 years we are known as the Community Gay Straight Alliance i have volunteered for this organization um uh because students um that are GBT are three times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual classmates and so I'm working to change the statistic so if you ne need to hear the stories of discrimination and bullying um uh all you need is to do is talk to me because I listen to their stories every Tuesday but
055I'm very glad to see that you've updated the anti-bullying policy to include LGBT that was very important i'm also the founder of the Orlando anti-discrimination ordinance committee um after being denied a fundraising job back in 1997 um because they found out that I was gay or they assumed I was gay um I gathered together some community leaders um and formulated OADO and the mission is to educate elected public officials about LGBT issues and to work to update policies and ordinances to protect LGBT people from discrimination um some of the different um issues that we have worked on um have been updating the language um for the personnel policies for the city of Orlando and Orange County we worked with the sheriff to update the personnel policies and the profiling policies and we've also helped to
056uh craft and pass um policies and ordinances for Orange County and um the city of Orlando chapter 57 and the human rights ordinance for Orange County and as um Patrick Cowell said earlier I think you might have been receiving some information that the Orange County Human Rights Ordinance did not include sexual orientation gender identity or expression and it actually does i was there with the county attorneys writing it so yes I know it does um with the passage of the Orange County Human Rights Ordinance in 2010 um I thought that the Orange County Public School employees would be uh covered under this law but it was only um a little while ago that I discovered by talking to some local teachers that the Orange County public school um system has sovereign immunity over local laws
057so the way we're looking at it right now is that every employer in Orange County has these protections except for Orange County Public Schools to remain a competitive employer we need to get caught up with the Joneses orange County Public Schools needs these protections in their policies i have met with teachers over the past decade who did not get their contracts renewed because their employer found out they were gay when we talk about drugs in our school we hear the phrase "We have zero tolerance for that." This is my school district i am an Orange County taxpayer unlike many of the people who sent you emails over the last week and I want my school to have zero tolerance for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation gender identity expression please vote yes for the
058amendment thank you thank you Mr slaymaker all right uh our next speaker is Mr larry Gaton as Mr getting comes up I have a note that um Mr jack Butler put in a request to speak and wanted to express or clarify that he was speaking in a certain position on this for against but I don't have a card from him so Mr butler you need to come out and fill up a card up here cuz I was looking for it john Butler I filled it out as soon as I came in okay Mr but well I'll look for it again and we'll find it okay you want me to fill out a new one all right Mr get thank you sir um if you don't mind Mr butler Reverend Book John Butler book yes once
059again my name is Larry Godden i live at 4837 Hayne Circle in Orlando 32822 the Conway area i appreciate the time and the opportunity to speak my biggest concern is we already have great laws in place why must we mess with them why does this need to be an issue that is forced down upon young children who haven't set their mind straight yet on issues why push this on top of children and you're also hindering the freedom of speech of the majority of people it is not truly an anti-bullying law it's a thinly disguised attempt to grant special civil rights to people because of their sexual choice sexual choice is not a civil right it's a personal choice civil rights are what you're born with if you're black Chinese American Indian whatever and you will
060have the children and the grandchildren of this this is civil rights to try to create special civil rights because of a personal choice is totally wrong exodus Ministries in America reports they have over 10,000 people reformed changed from the LGBT lifestyle back to normal back to what we consider normal every year so the whole point is why does this become civil rights it's a personal choice they claim I was born this way well I am the son and the grandson of extreme alcoholics 22 years old i said no sir I will not drink i made a personal choice that's what this is personal choices were confusing it with civil rights it is not i personally have known through my ministry as I work with 12 former homosexuals one is the local pastor with a wife
061and two kids my daughter babysit for him for years i do not know one former Chinese one former black person one former American Indian do you that's why it is not a civil rights issue they're trying to sneak it in as such then every private Christian school must hire him every Boy Scout troop will hire him and this is the danger of it so the whole point is it's not a civil rights issue we're trying to make it into we have good adequate laws already in place to prevent bullying you are in effect bullying the majority of the kids who can't say I support marriage suddenly that's hate i guess as the word said in the final days they'll call good evil and evil good we all will stand before our maker one day and
062we'll give account thank you and God bless you and God bless save hey folks I'm Mr as I said it's not a civil rights issue it's a personal choice and it can be changed at any moment so why try to legislate morality my time isn't quite up yet i have a neighbor who regularly cheats on his wife do I dare pass a law forbidding him from doing that no i pray that one day he'll strike change and if he does I'll welcome him but I can't force him by law to stop doing that you can't force people to accept and you are hindering the majority of the people when you're doing it you will give accountability to God for what you do tonight all right thank you Mr gaton you know folks free speech is
063really easy when you're hearing what you like to hear it's a little bit harder when you're hearing something you don't like to hear this applies to both sides it's extremely hard when you're hearing something you don't want to hear but I would just ask that everybody keep that in mind that everybody has a right to their opinions no matter how favorable or distasteful to you and that applies to both sides excuse me Mr sublack could we um ask someone from audio to maybe move those microphones closer together it's it's very difficult to hear the sound is not good this evening yes we can do that um Reverend Schmidt give me one second ma'am if we could um do we have anybody from audio who can address that is anybody Can you hear them because I
064don't have a Okay all right let's Let's do this oh yeah let's just stand down for a couple minutes to see thank you Mr pomerini maybe it's that simple all right Reverend Schmidt forgive me welcome ma'am thank you i am Reverend Kathy Schmidtz i live at 1500 Mount Vernon Street in Orlando and I have the honor of serving as the pastor of First Unitarian Church here in Orlando thank the board for taking up this important issue i speak to you today as a member of the clergy and in that capacity I ask you to do what is right and to adopt these changes that include sexual orientation and gender identity protections as we seek as a community to inspire health and wholeness in our children it really matters what kind of climate we are providing
065for them and all of our children I want to say that all of our children are special and deserve to be protected and we do this by affirming and respecting each child as well as each staff person and each teacher as the unique individual that they are i have in my ministry too often needed to sit with people who as children did not have these blessings in the school system that they were in they still carry as adults the scars from the bullying but not just from the bullying from being silenced and not silenced about their religious opinions or their opinions at all but silenced about their very being they cannot be who they are we do spiritual damage when we prevent people from being who they truly are when when our children come to
066school they expect to be protected and they also need to see that the people that are caring for them are protected it's hard work as you know to care for our children but our teachers and our staff people have committed themselves to this work they're called to it why would we dampen the experience the inspiration the excitement the energy of people who want to do right by our children by having them by diminishing their humanity this is about people's humanities and it's about how each person is able to be fully who they truly are this is a matter of respect what do we tell our children when we tell them that we do not respect the humanity of their teachers when we diminish the humanity of their classmates this isn't about some children this is
067about all of our children i ask you to do the right thing and make our schools a place that we can be proud of that is respectful safe and nurturing for all of our children thank you very much thank you Reverend Schmidz um our next speaker is Matthew Frasier and then I have Representative Joe Saunders then Reverend Marie Sandos then Mr jack Jordan then Mr rick Adams then Miss Sarah Yolinski [Music] thank you for your time i'm also a member of the clergy and I respect everyone's humanity but at the same time I am worried about this better oh I'm sorry matthew Frasier 8823 Beexil Boulevard Orlando Florida 32817 but at the same time I'm worried about this policy because it has no procedures concerning the restroom privileges of the transgendered um the job of
068the school board is the safety of the children that's the number one thing obviously you know that you guys do a very good job protecting our children but in this area I think that because there are no procedures laid down in this policy that this could lead to the transgendered being able to go into our children's restroom facilities and while yes they're good moral people but at the same time um there are those and I myself included who I would not want my children to be in the same to be in the same restroom as if they were a girl as a man or if they were a woman as a as a um as a woman um and so I think that seriously needs to be addressed before we even con you even consider
069um allowing this to be put into effect the procedures that would be set down for this and if there is a need for this and those procedures are not properly taken then maybe there is a need for a third bathroom so that they'll be able to have their shower facilities because yes I respect the humanity of that but at the same time because they have the humanity we also need to have a protection for the children to also um be able to respect themselves yep thank you very much thank you Reverend Fraser uh next is Representative Joe Saunders um Representative Saunders I apologize as a courtesy I try to take the elected officials up front i didn't see your card in here thank you Representative Saunders uh hello hi uh well I'm my name is
070Representative newly elected Representative Joe Saunders and I represent Northeast Orange County uh the UCF part of Oh I'm sorry my address is 2491 Lancen Court thank you very much um before I got into politics or really my path into politics and into this career I now have uh I came from the nonprofit sector and I was a founding member of the Orange County Safe Schools Coalition uh an active participant in the Florida Safe Schools Coalition and I worked for the Civil Rights Organization Equality Florida so I have experience on these issues and in fact have worked with school districts across the state to create policies that look a lot like the one that you're talking about right now and well first of all I think it's important to say you'll hear this from some of
071the people in the room tonight but it's important to just remember how this process started teachers uh some of whom are from my district came together and said "Not only do we not feel safe in our in our school system right now but more importantly we feel like we don't have what we need to protect students in our classrooms because there are students in our classes who are bullied because of who they are and uh what they look like and the way that they speak but if we come out and uh try to voice our concerns for them try to prevent uh what's happening to them we might be judged and we aren't protected so we might lose our jobs that was the beginning of this process and that process began 2 years ago and
072I just have to say out loud I'm really concerned about the challenges that we've heard to the integrity of the board members here i I don't know all of you i know some of you but I've watched you all for a lot of the time that you've been up here and I know that you share my commitment to making sure first and foremost that we're providing our constitutional obligation as a school district to provide a quality public education that everything begins from that point every vote you cast every decision you make comes from that and creating a safe space for our kids and as an extension of that creating a safe space for our teachers is part of that obligation so I I can't I can't come up here and give you long diet tribes
073about leadership and how important uh uh what you're doing is because you know it better than I do you've been there longer than I've been in this role but I can tell you that I already feel the incredible weight of of what I've taken on this incredible responsibility to represent people in District 49 and make not easy choices but the really really hard choices in the legislature and I think you all are about to make what is probably a hard choice for some of you but in the the moments when I go up there and am forced to make a hard decision I'm going to do what I'm going to recommend to you right now cast a vote based on your principles cast a vote based on your constitution constitutional obligation to provide a good
074quality public education and cast a vote that says that you're never going to you're never going to force a student to make a decision about whether or not they should come to school or feel safe and you're never ever going to make a teacher feel like they'll lose their job for being who they are please support this policy thank you Representative Saunders uh our next speaker is Reverend Marie Sandos reverend Sandos is Reverend Sand here oh there she is welcome hello everyone my name is uh uh Margarite Sandos uh Reverend Marie Sandos uh um 13309 Muspect Ridge Drive uh here in Orlando uh I represent a very large group of uh parents of the Christian community as well as many churches that could not uh did not know of what was going on today um
075but our Facebook is um filled with parents from all over uh the state stating how they were you know they wanted to know uh and I agree with someone that said how come this was not out there for us to know decide and vote we as parents have the right to know what's going on in the in the education of our children they are our children and I believe that we should be involved in any type of decisions that involve their future their emotions because nobody has uh looked at that how are they going to react to this i mean we are putting something out there hope there it is and uh you have to accept it uh a lot of things are being pushed for our children and for us to accept uh but
076nobody is considering a lot of things around this thing we know that uh in Gainesville um now um it is it is possible um for and it's legally for um uh for them to use the uh restroom male or female like someone was saying um and this will we know that it will make a restroom that says um is that half your gender identity uh um something that could uh uh a restroom made for the for for them and Nobody again nobody uh or I would say for the first time nobody is attacking anyone's uh sexual preference here nobody is attacking we're not attacking that what we're saying is uh we're our children should not be just accepting uh somebody's personal thing i mean it is their personal life and nobody's it's after their jobs
077nobody wants them to be fired but they should not just come in and say this is who I am i mean uh what's going to be next like in California you know where where drugs are legalized okay guys well I'm a drug addict too and uh uh you can uh buy from me anytime you want uh I mean what is going to be next we are very concerned for our children and we should be involved in the in in the decision making of what's going to take place in the future of our children thank you for your for your time thank you Reverend Sandos um our next speaker is Mr jack Jordan mr jordan welcome sir sir thank you members of the board my name is Jack Jordan i live at 1306 Salon Drive Orlando
07832806 i come before you as the president of the Central Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sometimes described as freedom's watchdog and as freedom's watchdog certainly means that everyone has the right to speak and express their opinion at this public forum but more importantly we define freedom as being that people have the right to be who they are people have the right to be treated equally and people have the right to the protection of laws we have come through an evolution of history we protect people on the basis of race it isn't a special right it's a human right we later became became known that people with disabilities were not getting access to an appropriate public education there were laws and policies to protect people with disabilities it was not a special right
079it's a human right and people who are lesbian gay bisexual transgender deserve the equal right to be who they are to be protected from discrimination in employment and students have the right to be protected and to have the opportunity to engage in every educational program as every other student does i am struck by something else i am struck by the extent that opponents focus on bathrooms what would Sigman Freud think if he were alive there is nothing in the policy that somehow conotes the idea that unlawful activities are going to be going on in public restrooms and school facilities some have even suggested that this policy may protect pedophiles such policy such statements is outrageous in that it perpetuates fear it has no other purpose than to ex perpetuate fears of people we know what's
080happened in other cities it's been testified to the world has not ended education has not collapsed in fact education has been enhanced i am grateful that the board is considering voting in favor of this policy and I hope at the end of these hearings that you will cast a vote yes for the change in policy to protect all from discrimination thank you thank you Mr jordan uh our next speaker uh is um Mr rick Adams mr adams welcome my name is Rick Adams i reside at 8220 Willowwood Street in Orlando Florida and uh before I begin I want to thank um Mr chairman I want to thank you for this opportunity uh Superintendent Jenkins I also want to thank you for this opportunity as well as the entire board and before I address the board
081I'm a proud parent of a former uh West Orange graduate who went on to graduate from UCF and I'm also a father of a individual who is a senior in the district right now and also a father of a young man who uh plays football and represents Orange County and who's also a sophomore so thank you i want to address the board by saying the following and I am not in favor of this particular proposal and I wear blue as a representative of that um to set a precedence that is both unnecessary and called for is to create the division and separation that this proposal is attempting to avoid as a parent a clinician a professor of psychology and as a pastor if the board wants to approve a proposal for students approve a approve
082a proposal that will allow fathers to be better fathers approve a proposal that will help principles and deans be able to protect our actual our students approve a proposal that will be able to give teachers who are overworked and underpaid better security if you want to approve a proposal approve a proposal that will allow parents to be more involved in the lives of our students if the board wants to approve a proposal approve a proposal that's going to help our children who have learning disabilities approve our uh help our children who have not only learning disabilities but behavior problems i've worked for 20 years in the law enforcement and worked in in the judicial system as well as worked uh right now counseling youth in our school systems and they need help our families need
083help individuals are suffering and this board is doing a very good job but to create a proposal that is unnecessary unwanted and unprecedented does not do the justice that I think our children really need thank you thank you Reverend Adams okay folks what I'm going to do at this time we have three speakers who are not either in support or opposed to the issue um they're they're going to express their opinions and I'll try to intersperse them so I'm going to take up Miss Diana Moore and then after her I'm going to go to Sarah Yalinski and then after that I'm going to go to Benjamin Banks and then board members I think would probably appropriate time for about a 10-minute break after that would you agree because we'll have sat here for about an
084hour and a half so Miss Moore welcome and then we'll go Miss Yalinsky and Mr bankson diana Moore 1020 Webster Avenue Orlando Florida i'm here to address you as the president of the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association my purpose is to ask for your support of the policy before you we believe that your employees should never face discrimination in any form or fashion because of the color of their hair because of their accent because they use a wheelchair or a cane to get around because they don't have the same political beliefs or because of their religious beliefs my point is I could go on listing every category in the world including the new language you're adding tonight but we believe the language should read "We will not discriminate in regard to our employees." Period yes
085I said period if you continue to add new categories we'll be here again and again two years from now and maybe 10 years from now i was asked about how we would answer a question about a transgender teacher if a child should ask "How would you explain to a child that their teacher was one gender and then changed to another?" And I simply replied I would respond the same way I would respond to a child who asked when they came home about their teacher who was in a wheelchair or possibly missing a limb because they had returned from war or possibly because they were bald because they had just returned from their chemo treatment that week they are human it's part of what parents and teachers do ladies and gentlemen prejudice is and discrimination is
086a learned behavior it's not innate i'd like to share a poem by Martin Neimler in Germany they came for the communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't communist then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up when our constitution was written our forefathers thought they had addressed everyone and then we realized we had laws that neglected other groups from voting and we needed to fix that women couldn't vote until tonight we ask that you write your policy
087in regard to our teachers and our employees to say we will not discriminate period thank you very much thank you Miss Moore next Sarah Yalinsky miss Yolensky welcome hi good evening i'm Sarah Yolinski i live at 9811 Deanacre Drive Orlando um I'm a teacher at Howard Middle School and my husband and I are proud parents of two children that attend Hillrest Elementary i'm in I'm here today to support the adding of the language um sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to our non-discrimination policy when I first heard a few years ago that this language was not included in our current policy I was shocked i was baffled i was misunderstood i couldn't understand how this was happening um how in 2012 could we actually have an entire population of faculty staff and students who
088are not protected against discrimination i've heard many statements over the past few years especially in the last month regarding what adding this language could mean most of these statements were based in fear and a lack of education about what the these people are going through i'm here to say that I am not afraid i am not afraid as a teacher i am not afraid as a parent as a parent I want my children to attend a school where all of the members faculty staff and students are protected and have equal rights i want my children to have teachers who are supported by their administrators i want my children to understand tolerance and equality i want my children to be safe in their schools to be who they are and to express themselves freely as a
089teacher I want my students all of my students to be protected from discrimination i want my fellow teachers to feel safe in their workplace i want them to be the very best people that they can be therefore being the very best teachers that they can be i want my administrators to support our faculty and staff members and protect them from discrimination the only real thing adding this language to our current policy actually means is that faculty staff and students will be protected from discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity schoolboard members I urge you as educators and supporters of education to take this opportunity to vote for equality for all of your employees and students thank you thank you Miss Yilenski uh the last speaker we'll have before taking a break is Mr
090benjamin Bankson mr bankson welcome thank you Mr chairman Mrs vice Chairman and members of the board um basically what I want to ask and it's more of a rhetorical question of course oh my name is Benjamin Benson i am from 230 West Magnolia Street in a Popka Florida and so uh basically what I wanted to ask and again it's rhetorical in one sense is why is this issue something that's appropriate to uh bring upon our children um an earlier person stated you know our minds do not fully develop till the age of 25 now I'm not saying that you can't address larger issues before you're 25 um but what I am saying is there are very formative years especially in the elementary and middle school and these type of issues quite honestly there are issues
091that we need to deal with as adults when when there's a point where our minds we can actually take in all the information and make informed decisions when you're a child like that there's a lot of information out there people can say whatever they want and get you to believe it when you when you don't have the capacities to know that's what school is about it's to teach about learning is it to teach teach about reading math about items that are going to help them make better decisions lar later on in life you know in middle school high school we learn critical thinking skills by that time we're we need the time to be able to learn to to make those types of informed decisions um you know earlier it was said it's already been
092clarified that there are already anti-bullying laws uh especially even in regards to these types of languages that are being used tonight these anti-bullying laws are already in place and yet a lot of the statements being said tonight are that you know we need this to protect our children from bullying people there's bullying going on bullying it's already a law so why why this extra thing you know we're a modern society you know many people will say "We're modern society why don't we do this why don't we do that?" Well as a modern society one of the things that we do is we believe in science and we all those different types of things in this type of sissue this is a social issue and there is still the science is still out the jury is
093still out as far as just the gender identity in these types of things as far as what it stands right now it is still a behavior there is no gen there is no genes that prove it they they have genes for Alzheimer's they have genes that can prove if you might be likely to have cancer but there are no genes that anybody can find people are trying to find the gene and they cannot find it in regards to homosexual behavior and things like that so why are we bringing this type of social issue onto the level of children who still aren't ready to be able to address these issues in a real adult manner this is something that belongs in the arena of adults discussing this and is not something that we need to force
094upon our children to try to make these decisions when really it's up to the families to be able to train up their children in the way they should go thank you all right thank you Mr banks um members of the audience I want to thank you all very much for your courtesy we're going to take a 10-minute recess here and we'll reconvene at 7:15 here's a question for every parent out there if you could fast forward 20 years to see how your kids doing in life would you do it well we can't time travel yet but we can see the future better with the new Common Core State Standards in our schools they set clear goals for every stage of learning and they're the same for everyone no matter what zip code you're in so
095you can be sure your student is really grasping what she needs to know to get to graduation and beyond find out how it all works at commonworks.org [Music] don't be quiet all right if everybody could uh come on back in and grab a seat [Music] all right um you know I am going to do something that may take a minute but I think the audience may appreciate it i'm going to tell you where you are in the order so if you want to get up and move around or whatever and go outside and take a break while other folks are speaking you have the ability to do that without feeling you'll miss your spot also I will I will share this with you and and please take this with um um a little bit of
096restraint if you have a special need you know I had one gentleman that had to be at the hospital 11:00 i had one gentleman who had to be at work at 3:00 a.m and some students and we'll try to accommodate that i don't want anybody to not get a chance to speak just so you know the order that we've put these in is purely in the order in which they were submitted to us with the exception of a few special exceptions so we're going to pick up with a supporter it's going to be and I'll just read through these quickly so you can know how far down you are on the list and um um let me do this put the undecideds in here or not the undecideds but all right we've got I'm going
097to go Mr jimmy Dale then Mr clyde Fabretti then Miss Christy Wick then Mr rachel Esler then Mr jay Yellen then Miss Vicky Mullins then Miss or Mr alex Ortiz then Reverend John Butler Book then Thomas Gilliam Baber then Mr miss D hammet then Randy Ross then John Stemberger then Reverend Brian Fulwiter then Jan Wheel Hill then Douglas Bankson then Clinton McCracken then Kylin Newire then I'm going to throw in one of the folks who are not for or against Mr brian Benty then M O Harland Mr is then Vivian Rivero then James Burbornne then Keith Morrison then Carol Brockman then Mary Meeks and Kelly McNair Lee then Vicky Nance then going to throw in another neither for against Katherine Carpenter um then I'm not sure I said this one right Vicky Lanson Peter Lee
098then Michael Farmer Maria Hagens and Scott Hwitt Carrie Hagen and then in fairness I'm going to take at at some point there and if I forget I you know forgive me all but I'm going to try to take a couple opponents in a row because there's more of those so at the end that we hear equally from both sides Mr paul Barry Mr james King Mr scotty G and if I don't go in the exact order you get the idea christopher Hikkins and Jerry Krill Carlos Renan Mary Better Lisa Mendes and then if I haven't called your name Mr rodriguez tried to warn me against this he was right i should listen to my counsel more often but that's as far down as I go that's about 80% of y'all if you if you haven't
099heard your name that means you're sorry in the bottom 20% of the of the speaking order which may be a good thing sometimes uh last is primacy so without further ado let me go to Mr jimmy Dale as a supporter and then it's going to be Mr clyde for Bretty Miss Christy Wick after that to Mr miss Rachel Lesler mr dale welcome sir hello okay my name is Jimmy Dale i reside at 2538 South Conway Road number 306 Orlando Florida 32812 good evening i come today to I come before you today to stand for the students and teachers of Orange County Public Schools the policy under discussion is one of fairness and equality and one that should be approved many people come to this issue with strong emotions and with many life experiences that frame
100their opinions while I am not transgendered myself I have firsthand experience that drives my view that this policy is not only fair for our students and teachers but it is overdue and necessary to ensure a safe learning and working environment for our schools this past year I was honored to be part of history i worked as the campaign manager for the first transgender candidate in Orange County my experience on Gina Duncan's campaign gave me firsthand experience of not only the challenges that transgender persons must face but also the willingness of the citizens of this great county to accept a person on their merit and not their gender identity the results speak for themselves over 9,000 voters chose Gina based on her merit and not her identity she was even endorsed by the AFL CIO and
101other major organizations 40% of the voters in District 5 of Orange County looked beyond her gender identity and voted to give Gina an opportunity to participate and be judged on who she is and what she has done surely we owe it to the children and teachers of this county to ensure that they receive the same fair treatment my most memorable moment from the campaign occurred at a spaghetti dinner in Bithlo bithllo is a community long forgotten by their government they face challenges today with polluted drinking water and lack of basic services such as transportation and healthcare as Gina sat and ate with the residents she they began to share their stories with her the people of Bithlo were not concerned with Gina's gender identity they were only cared that someone running to represent them was
102deeply concerned with their plight and had a strong desire to change their lives this illustrates the fundamental principle at play here we are all human beings trying to contribute to the betterment of our community fairness is a human value an American value and one that should be championed here today thank you thank you Mr dell next is Mr clyde Fred mr fred [Music] I know Clyde Mr chairman uh distinguished members of the board my name is Clyde Ferretti i reside at 650 Duff Drive in Winter Garden Florida on the registration form this evening there was a question who do I represent i represent a 7-year-old second grader by the name of Bella my daughter and I want to make clear that an expectation of appropriate behavior and decorum in the education of our innocent children
103is really not discrimination we've confused a lot of issues here as I listen to the various arguments from both sides but mostly from the proponents of this the assumption that is made is that we do not have sufficient uh regulatory and legislative uh uh authority to uh protect those in uh in the quest in question here uh an an interesting uh problem for me is that the ambiguity of the phrase gender identity and expression allows for a very broad and creative interpretation by the proponents of this rule and by those that might even seek uh the uh uh protections for potential misguided or indiscreet behavior under this rule um I don't oppose uh uh anyone's uh sexual choices or or choices of gender it's really their lives their business it's none of mine and and
104frankly uh what I'm most concerned about is how those large issue those large adult issues are dealt with by children like my daughter who has no grasp of the possibility of one day having a teacher who is uh one gender and on the next day having a teacher who is of a different gender same person or being exposed to the various uh adult situations and adult uh uh uh uh areas of activity that are above and beyond her ability to comprehend and that leaves her mom and I the responsibility to try to explain it all that we ask i stand in opposition to this rule change there is plenty of legislation in place plenty of regulations plenty of rules in place to protect discrimination of the parties that are seeking this special dispensation through the
105rule uh we don't need additional or or more specific definitions one of our speak one of the speakers who spoke and said what we need is no discrimination or we need no discrimination period uh has great merit there should be no discrimination period i ask that you vote in opposition to this not because of some uh concern about the uh uh uh the the the issues at hand but mostly about how will ask yourself how will the children who are exposed to these adult circumstances react and respond and how will that leave the parents relative to how they have to explain themselves thank you so much [Music] thank you Mr febetty uh next we have Miss Christy Wick miss Wick good afternoon my name is Christy Wick and I live at 2134 Churchill Down Circle
106Orlando Florida 32825 um I am speaking in favor of these policies and I am a student in the Masters of Arts and Mental Health Counseling Program at Rollins College i also work for Rollins and I volunteer for Equality Florida um I own a home and live in district 3 in Orange County and I am here to stand up for all of our county citizens and children who deserve to have their dignity dignity preserved by allowing them to be who they are in Orange County public schools as a future counselor I believe in advocating for the health of my future clients who will be lesbian gay bisexual and transgender people the American Counseling Association's code of ethics states in section A6A that one of my roles as a counselor is to advocate at individual group institutional
107and societal levels to examine potential barriers and obstacles that inhibit access and/or the growth and development of clients a barrier to my future clients optimal mental health might be if they are fired or not hired for being openly who they are essentially one's quality of life would increase by having peace of mind about their job security or the environment within our schools since this is a non-discrimination policy and it currently excludes sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to me it seems as though we are currently discriminating against certain people as a taxpayer this is very concerning to me i don't want my tax money going to be a a discriminatory in a discriminatory fashion um I also don't want to have any of my future children or that I raise or care for to
108be brought up in a school that is known to discriminate and not provide a safe place for all people i know some of you would like to think that gay lesbian bisexual and transgender people don't exist well they do and they are wonderful teachers and role models some of the best role models and teachers in my life and bosses have been gay and lesbian people and I've learned so much from them um and I've also been going to different places such as Province Town uh Massachusetts which is known to be a uh more gay friendly city um since I was a child and I turned out okay so I'm okay so um I'm very proud to work at Rollins College because our non-discrimination policy includes LGBTQ individuals and this creates an environment that is conducive
109to productive uh learning and working i know that I have many colleagues that are here today and you'll hear from some of them um some of our best and brightest professors and administrators identify as LGBTQ and our students are the ones who benefit from that i'm a straight ally advocating for the LGBTQ community because I feel strongly in my heart that we believe to have equal rights and protections under the law within organizations and respect within society we are all sharing this human experience together and we have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and so what I would wish for myself I also wish for others uh in this case the right to live my passion by having a career in my chosen profession for my friends I want nothing more
110than for you to live proudly and authentically and have the freedom to experience a career you love thank you thank you Miss Wick our next uh speaker is um Miss Rachel Esler miss Esler welcome good evening my name is Rachel Esler i reside at 602 White River Drive in Orlando um I'm a retired hearing officer but now I'm a stay-at-home mom i'm a voter and um a taxpayer my son goes to private school we've sat here two and a half hours because we feel that our first amendment rights are in jeopardy if you pass this proposal there's opportunity for this to spread into other arenas in our society i would like to say to students that are struggling with their sexual identity that my heart goes out to you and I'm very sad for the
111turmoil that you're going through um I would be very irate to know that a student would inflict any physical harm on you because of your sexual choice this is wrong and I can tell you that if any of my children did this they wouldn't be able to sit for a week okay but my first amendment right supersedes the right to feel accepted because someone is bald or disabled or because they're a minority we live in a great country and as the man from Freedom Watchers mentioned everyone has the right to be heard my first amendment rights are in danger if this proposal proposal is approved no disrespect to anyone on the board but I'm confused as to who I let me just say this i don't remember giving authority to the Orange County School Board
112to define what is se socially or sexually deviant and what is not i thought the school board was in place to make sure our children were focused on issues of math history and English if someone chooses to display their sexual tendencies there are plenty of opportunities outside of the educational arena i just want to say this situation has potential to become very messy and if um certain people are allowed to give their beliefs and others are isolated from giving theirs that many lawsuits will eventually have to be filed um and then someone mentioned that the students not feel safe and I say if there is any validity in this then the school board is failing why propose another um issue to be voted on or to be determined if the first one's not being enforced
113um lastly I just want to say the room keeps going back and forth on issues of bathroom privileges versus feeling safe but the hidden issue is the protection of the First Amendment rights thank you for your time thank you Miss Esler our next speaker is Mr jay Yellen and after that will be Miss Vicky Walls mr yellen welcomes thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Jay Yelen i live at 730 Noddingham Street and in Orlando 32803 i'm a professor of mathematics at Rollins College my wife Elizabeth Min and I have many family members and friends who are part of the LGBT community and we believe that they should have the same rights we do and yes we should protect our children from hatred and discrimination we urge Orange County Public Schools to
114join the city of Orlando and Orange County in recognizing that all of us deserve equal rights please do the right thing thank you Mr yellen our next speaker is Miss Vicky Mullins after Miss Mullins will be Alex Ortiz then John Butler Book then Thomas Gillum Bar Bab and then Mr or Miss D hammet welcome Miss Mullins thank you Mr chairman thank you board members um I'm Vicki Mullins 10953 Arborview Boulevard Orlando 32825 i'm a graduate of Orange County Public Schools a small business owner a voter a taxpayer and mommy to two precious daughters um discrimination of any kind is wrong we all can agree to that our teachers should not fear for their jobs our children should not be bullied so I'm glad that there are already protections in place it actually seems like there
115are a lot of protections in place if this policy in question if the policies in question this evening had the power or contain the language and the provisions to actually end bullying and discrimination and ensure the fairness and safe treatment of all the other students then perhaps many of us in opposition would feel differently but they don't um you've got policy but no procedures um including sexual identity and genetic information when they are still gray areas they are still they are still areas that we're not all familiar with that science doesn't agree upon um it gives me pause the unknown as it relates to these policies and the procedures that would follow gives me and the people that oppose this pause uh those of us who oppose this policy have been hatefully and mockingly called
116fear-mongers small-minded and extreme but you tell me what is hateful fear-mongering or extreme about expecting public schools to teach reading writing math science and history and not circumvent my parental rights or the inv or my involvement in my children's public education my opposition to this policy is not born out of hate i don't think that LGBT teachers or students are going to personally harm my children my opposition to this policy is based in my role as the only person tasked to be the mother of Reagan and Avery the only person who was their first and will be their most consistent teacher in life i take that role very seriously i'll stake my reputation on it public image of me on it i'll even stake my own safety you see over the last six days I've
117received hateful calls hateful emails and three threats because I stood in opposition to this policy so you tell me where the fairness and equality is in that um I'll take it for Reagan and Avery the problem with the policies as proposed is the unknown like I stated uh that which has not been spelled out several have stated that our concerns over restrooms and locker rooms etc are unfounded or false or they're brought to incite fear or that we're lying well show me where they're spelled out and what we're lying about and perhaps that would be valid but they're not spelled out so this is bad policy because it involves no procedures to protect everyone um give us resources exactly like you're giving the group that is going to be specially protected here and perhaps we
118wouldn't stand in opposition but those haven't been provided ultimately it's not the public school's place to guide my child's beliefs or frankly even their tolerance that's my job uh so don't discriminate against anyone not even those of us who stand in opposition for whatever reason faith morals just policy whatever reason we oppose don't discriminate we're asking for the same tolerance fairness and equality as our opponents please don't use our schools as a political tool and please don't use my children as one my desire to expose my daughters to topics Excuse me i don't mean to interrupt you can you wrap up in about five seconds five seconds you got it thank you sir my desire to expose my daughters to topics uh of gender identity sexual orientation and acceptance at a time and in a
119manner of my choosing is my right as a parent please don't take that right away i ask you to vote no on this policy as written and involve parents if you choose to move forward thank you thank you Miss Mullen um our next speaker is Mr alex Ortiz miss Miss I'm sorry Miss Ortiz i have an Alex who's a miss herself so I should know that hi I'm Alex Ortiz i live at 1948 Tropic Bay Court Orlando Florida um I am a student at Winter Park High School i'm a senior i'm a member of the GSA uh it's kind of hard to really grasp why people think they know what it's like at high school nowadays it's a little bit different than 20 years ago i will say that um I would like to point
120out that this issue is the decision accommodating students by letting them use a genderneutral facility no one is trying to cause harm to anyone everyone has an equal chance at life no matter who they are or what they believe in i witness people my age every day suffering bullying and discrimination i get discriminated against in my AP government and economics class like just because I'm a liberal there's a Republican kid who is just just so against everything that I have to say and I will listen to him and he will just make me feel like a pile of nothing because I believe in something and I will totally respect you for what you believe in but listen to me too I guess um I now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to
121all children now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice and the solid rock of brotherhood it's just one of those things where everybody should have an equal opportunity like I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the meaning of its green you know like I just it's really not okay to have like these rooms for separate people just because of they're transgendered it's not what I feel is equal isn't that what we're supposed to be equal you know if I was transgendered I wouldn't have to want to be in a different bathroom just because of what I am that's not what I feel is right and just because I am transgender doesn't mean doesn't mean that I'm going to go and like
122try to be a like look at your children in the bathroom that doesn't mean that that doesn't mean that just because I'm transgendered means that I'm going to do those types of things it that isn't it and we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that all of us are created equal everyone that's just all I'm saying thank you thank you Mr ortiz um our next speaker is Reverend John Book thank you Mr chairman i felt like Red China at the U and I was here but I wasn't sure I'd ever be recognized so it's good to be here i've heard an awful lot of dialogue diet trap maybe heard tonight about those who are unjustly discriminated against i I find that those who are opposed to discrimination are not
123opposed to discriminating against those who they feel are discriminating against them there's always some discrimination when I married my wife I discriminate against all women but her and I've been married happily for 50 years you know Abraham Lincoln was once asked "How many legs does a horse have?" And the man said his debater four he said "If we call his tail a leg how many legs does he have?" He said "He has five." And Lincoln responded by saying "No even if we call his tail a leg it doesn't make it a leg we can take that which is abnormal not nice natural and normal and call it nice natural and normal guys it as a civil right which becomes fast the right to act univil it doesn't change the position that God has taken on
124this subject." Several years ago I received a message from Dan Webster Secretary that Richard Crowy in the Senate was going to support the hate crimes law i called him on the phone and said 'I want to know how you're voting Richard because I'm going to expose whatever it is on my television program he said 'Jo we want this hate crime because we don't want to have crosses burning in front of people's houses i said Richard that law is already on the books i said this involves that which includes what you're including sexual orientation i said sexual orientation in the hate crimes law of the state of Florida just like here has not been defined that could be heterosexuality homosexuality lesbianism it could be warriorism it could be necroilia it could be rape i said "Senator
125Karate let's suppose you come home and there's a man raping your wife and you shoot him." I said "As a result of that that could be his sexual orientation you can be sued by him for treble damages." So I sent the law to William Bentley Ball a constitutional attorney and I wish I had time to send this one to him and he wrote back and he said "It is unconstitutionally vague it will hamper hamstring free speech freedom of religion because you see orientation has not been defined now you know what really bothers me so much is when I came in here tonight we used to open this session with prayer when I was at Boone High School and I lettered in basketball at Boone I um I remember when we began the school day with
126prayer we could pray in Jesus' name we opened the school day with a Bible reading now when someone finally says we don't want one nation under God in our pledge of allegiance will we then come to plate and please the atheist who don't want that there and will we cave into them the truth of the matter of the fact is this has nothing to do with civil rights Dr masters and Johnson Isidor Ruben Lester Kirkandall all members of Seikus the greatest clearing house for sex education your public schools under the titles of secondary and elementary education title three three and four all agreed that homosexuality was all right but they never believed nor did they teach that there was any genetic connection between the two since there's no genetic connection and since there are those
12740% of masters and Johnson who council them were able to persuade them to become heterosexuals so we're not dealing with a civil rights issue but the right to act univil and I hope that you will benefit as I wrap this up with James Unwin that studied 88 civilizations and every last one of them that embarked on what you're embarking on collapsed from within and I don't believe God is going to make this an exception i hope you'll vote no on it thank you thank you Reverend Book reverend Book can you state your address for the record sir we didn't get that at the beginning i thought you had it written in stone john Butler book 230 West Ventress Maitland Avenue 32751 and u I'm going to teach reading writing and arithmetic in my private school
128not romance reproduction and revolution reverend I hope you have a sense of humor even God didn't write your address in stone all right the next speaker on this issue is Thomas Gilliam Bober thomas Mr gab Mr gillian Bab [Music] hello um good afternoon thank you for allowing me to speak tonight um I am my name is Thomas Gillian Bab and uh I live at 2864 Plaza Terrace Drive Orlando Florida uh 32803 and I am a student at Winter Park High School um I am vice president of my school's GSA and um what we are trying to do in our in our school and everywhere is is to create equality because we feel like that is something that's really important and that needs to be stressed um we um I was I just I there's an
129experience that I had going to my school that where a transgendered student um she uh was discriminated against and she felt so uncomfortable in her situation that she had to leave the school and I think that that is completely that's just not okay because I am very thankful that we have this anti-bullying policy that does um that does help um to stop discrimination against um people of stranger people of um of because of their sexual orientation but obviously that wasn't enough because the student was still had to leave the school because of the way that she felt discriminated against and um I just I also would just like to say that transgender people are simply going are when they go to the restroom they're going to use the restroom and not for any other reason
130thank you thank you Mr gilling Ber um next we have Mr or Miss Hammet d hammet mr or Miss Hammet yeah dennis H 32 Lake Crest Drive of Papa Florida i hear people talking about the restroom and oh that's really not going to affect you and so forth um you know we're talking about legal language here we're talking about the law and the law will have to be provided for it will have to be obeyed and we're going to make our other children uh whether they're homosexual or not homosexual abide by these new laws in this new language we better get it straight first number one uh you know I've heard all this talk tonight about um my rights or this person's right and that person's right and uh you know we've got to face
131all of this u all of this from a non-religious viewpoint as it were it seems to be seems to be that seems to be the boogie word out there today that the First Amendment has been turned on its head from the Supreme Court that we're not allowed to think like that i've actually met students that have told me that they weren't allowed to have their Bible carried to class with them or they were stopped from praying in the lunchroom this does go on out there evidently for what they've told me you know I hear talk about rights but I don't hear anybody mentioning about what God's rights are you know it's used to be okay to make our decisions based upon what we felt we were supposed to do that there was a morality that
132guided us about right and wrong and since this country has gotten away from that morality that has been the guide of it into whatever goes and whatever feels good and well if as long as it doesn't hurt me or hurt or rather hurt anybody else and done in the privacy own home well it's okay well you know I'm sorry i don't think that our public school system has been doing that great i'm 57 now and I have been shocked watching it through my life is what's happened in this country and I mean it's going downhill slicker than it's not on a doororknob as far as I'm concerned um I mean we've we've got now we've got um since we've taken prayer out of the school and the Bible there is no morality there is no
133more right and wrong everybody's got a different opinion uh marriage is crumbling beneath us we're having a uh we we teach the children how to put condoms on bananas and we uh now we've got uh teenage illegitimally illegitimate child birth going on where it's becoming the norm in America we're providing daycarees at our schools to provide for the children rather than oh it's all acceptance it's all okay and the more we say that these things are okay the more they become accepted you know my wife and I have been married 35 years but that's going out of style you know the more we accept these things the more we just give into the change in our country we talk about judgment well you know God doesn't need to judge us we're doing it to ourselves
134and I'm afraid that we all will give an account for the decisions we make thank you Mr hammet our next speaker is Mr randy Ross mr ross are you here mr randy Ross our next speaker then will be and let me give you the order upcoming we've got Reverend Brian Fullweider next reverend Fuller are you here okay okay and then after Reverend Fullwater we'll have John Stembberger then Shelby Hill then Jan Why then Clinton McCracken then Douglas Bankson reverend welcome thank you brian Flighter 670 Postto Circle Altoont Springs 3271 dietrich Bonhofer was teaching in the safety of New York when World War II began he was a professor of Christian theology his landmark book one of them is on ethics and in the chapter on Christian ethics Bonhaofer says that the most important question for
135Christians is what would God's love call us to do he said in all other ethics conversations we ask what's right or wrong what's good or bad what's proper or improper but in terms of Christian ethics the question is what does God's love dictate for us to do bonhaofer would leave the safety of New York and he would go back to Nazi Germany he would become part of the resistance movement and he would die at the hands of Hitler's supporters fighting against Nazi Germany he put his money where his mouth was but he believed that love was the designing and deciding factor of the decision that he would make with his life we are called upon in this time in this age to make decisions that are dictated by that kind of commitment to love and
136care and compassion for others and if any group has been mistreated in this nation it is the LGBT community they have been summarily discounted and dismissed and abused summarily over and over again you have before you the call to a moral decision and the moral decision has to do with how we protect each one of our students and teachers and this policy provides an opportunity to do that dr martin Luther King Jr said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere this is a matter of justice it is a matter of deciding where the moral compass of Orange County Public Schools will be in terms of those students who are often most vulnerable and those teachers who are often most vulnerable and so I ask you to search your hearts in terms of that
137call to love and to stand for a kind of justice that protects all of our students and teachers in a way that leads us forward into a greater and better community that is built upon understanding acceptance and cooperation and compassion thank you very much thank you Reverend Fider uh next is John Stemburgger welcome Mr steinberger thank you Mr chairman members of the board mad madam superintendent john Stemberger 4565 St bride's Court in Orlando Florida i want to present to you three reasons why I think this proposal is really bad policy and at points outrageous policy first of all um as Mr ganon said in the front end uh you are regulating speech it's right there in the statute no one has seemed to cited the statute or the proposal but you're pro prohibiting all verbal
138or written conduct verbal or written conduct whatever that means but words and writing that is offensive in nature now I spoke to Boone High School for three hours i spoke to their law magnet program three different classes along with Larry Smith i spoke about homosexuality and about arguments against gay marriage can guarantee you that my arguments were offensive in nature written that I handed out and orally to students in that class yet a core first amendment value of freedom of speech and religion is being burdened by what interests that are not constitutional they're speculative and in many cases just fabricated number one number two just last Friday we learned that the United States Supreme Court is hearing cases to overturn DOMA or perhaps evaluate DOMA and evaluate Proposition 8 the marriage amendment in California all
139of these cases the proponents of same-sex marriage you know what they're doing they're arguing this statutes like the one that you're considering now are being used as legal authority to say look at the totality of protected classes you are creating a protected legal classification it's a very important legal distinction and these are being used to advance gay marriage laws and overturn traditional marriage laws throughout the country my pledge to you members is this if you vote for this provision I pledge to you I will guarantee that your voters will be reminded that you voted against traditional marriage a vote for this proposal is a vote against traditional marriage our proponents now have realized this in Vermont the state supreme court in Baker versus state said to the extent marriage to gay persons is quote a
140logical extension of Vermont's policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in Ohio I'm sorry Iowa where the court struck down by judicial fiat marriage laws that's exactly the argument that they used they said "Look at the totality of school boards and counties and cities that have these protected classes let's now extend it to strike down uh the marriage laws finally there's been talk that well this is the same policy that Orange County has i debated Joe Saunders on thoughts this morning is it the same policy Fortune 5 Fortune 500 companies have well guess what they don't involve children you are the stewards of the children the students and it it shouldn't be everything goes it shouldn't be the lowest common denominator of human behavior it should be a higher standard it shouldn't be
141whatever goes on in society this is not college it's K through 12 that you're overseeing where parents should have primary rights this matter in closing would not pass a vote of the students of this county it would not pass a vote of the teachers in this county it would not pass a vote of the staff or the voters in this county my question to you is this why are you then considering it tonight thank you Mr stenberger our next speaker is Miss Shelby Hill miss Hill welcome hello my name is Shelby Hill i live at 259 Hargll Drive Orlando 32806 i'm in the eighth grade at Howard Middle School and I'd like to share some statistics with you from this year's National School Climate Survey from GLlisten the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network this is
142about how safe students feel at school six and 10 students in schools with comprehensive policies heard homophobic remarks like and dyke often or frequently compared to almost 3/4 of students in schools with generic non-enumerated policies or no policy whatsoever students in schools with comprehensive policies were more likely than students in schools with a generic policy or no policy to report that staff intervened when hear when hearing homophobic remarks or negative remarks about gender expression 63.5% of students felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation and 43.9% because of their gender expression 81.9% were verbally harassed in the past year because of their sexual orientation and 63.9% because of their gender identity 18.3 were physically assaulted in the past year because of their sexual orientation and 12.4% because of their gender expression the high incidence of harassment
143and assault is exasperated by school staff who rarely if ever intervene in on behalf of LGBT students 60.4% of students who were harassed or assaulted in school did not report the incident to school staff more often believing little to no action would be taken or the situation would just become worse 36.7% of the students who did report an incident said the school staff did nothing in response i want to go to a school in a safe place a place where my teachers are protected and treated equally and I am free to be myself i would like you to approve the non-discrimination policy update it should include sexual orientation and gender identity and expression it is time i have copies for of all the surveys for you thank you for your time thank you Miss Hill
144right our next speaker uh is Miss Jan Whe'll have Clinton McCracken Douglas Bankson Brian Bout I believe Kylina Newire Vivian Rivero OA Harland welcome Miss Whe hello um thank you um board members I'm sorry 1218 Berwin Road Orlando Florida um I am a wife i'm a mother i am a small business owner i am a taxpayer um and I'm very um happy to be a mom of five children i have children from that are in kindergarten middle school high school and college and my family we've been a part of the the private school community for many years but we are now in our second year of public school community and um and first of all I'm I'm here to ask you to vote no on this policy and um or at the very least if
145this is not sure how this works at least give more time for the community to get involved and to know what's going on i just found out about this yesterday and it's something that concerns me and my family obviously because we're part of that right up there that Orange County public school system um I personally know hundreds of parents who don't know about this and they would really appreciate knowing about this um and I know that there are what 250,000 people in Orange County I don't know i could be off on that but there are many there are thousands of parents it's safe to say that would appreciate knowing about this before you just vote on it something about that just seems um not right and it and um many of the points I had
146I've heard some people articulate very well um but just being a mom and um thinking about this I am trusting my children to go to your school system to be taught um the academics to um and and to get the privilege of learning some of the um electives and maybe part of the sports programs or drama things like that but um I'm I'm hearing words like sexual or expression and gender identity why is that even necessary to be on a school forum um it we already have law policy for um anti-bullying and maybe we need to address that to make it better um and I'm sure you could do that um but it sounds like a special interest issue and I'm not sending my children to school to be taught listen every minute in that
147classroom needs to be on the education everything in that time needs to be on education i think Florida can even come up higher if I'm correct and where we're at on education across the nation if all this energy was spent into that how much better of a stronger community and and maybe better future for our children who knows but um I just I please vote no um I don't want anyone to be bullied no one does um but this is something more than just that and there are parents that are really upset by the way this has been handled and so this needs to be done differently thank you Miss Whe all right our next speaker is Mr clinton McCracken mr mccracken my name is Clinton McCracken i live at 2413 Center Avenue Orlando Florida
148i'm a teacher and I've worked for OCPS since 2000 good evening members of the board almost 3 years ago I sent an email request to this board asking to update our non-discrimination policy to include LGBT people i want to share what brought me to send that first email and keep asking for a revision over the past three years a few few years ago I helped lead a support group for LGBT teachers and school administrators in Central Florida we met monthly to talk about our experiences in the field of education and the challenges that we faced every day the vast majority of this group of nearly 50 individuals were closeted at their workplaces because they were afraid of their co-workers reactions they weren't afraid of just being fired however they were also afraid of being treated
149differently of being ridiculed or of being judged on something other than their performance as teachers and administrators at almost every meeting someone brought up the fact that our non-discrimination policy did not protect them i do my best to be good at my job i've been named a teacher of the year i've received my national board certification and I do a lot of extra work to make sure that my students are getting the best education I can give them i take pride in the job that I do every day and and of being a good teacher i am also comfortable in my skin and I'm just as out as a gay man as everyone else is out as a straight person at work i happen to work in a school surrounded by many supportive co-workers who
150I also consider friends but not every OCPS employee has my experience and I know this because I know these people i've met with them i've heard their fears and their frustrations many of them aren't here this evening because of that fear at issue tonight is whether to include gender identity expression there is a lot of misinformation being thrown around trying to make what we're asking for sound far out what we want is really simple and it certainly isn't scary we want everyone to be treated with dignity and respect it is always difficult when sitting in a seat of the majority to know what it is like for someone in the minority it is also difficult for those with power and privilege to recognize that not everyone enjoys the comfort that comes along with those hidden
151privileges some of you may think that since gender identity and expression is already protected at the federal level there's no reason for us to include it here but what you don't say can speak much louder than what you say what we don't include this evening can speak volumes about who we are as an organization including gender identity and expression doesn't mean you're a proponent of a particular way of being and it certainly doesn't mean you are pushing an agenda it simply means that in I can wrap it up real quick it simply means that in our schools all people will be treated respectfully and not discriminated against lgbt employees aren't asking for anything that straight employees don't have we don't want special rights we just want equal rights and equal protections in the workplace i
152urge you to vote for this tonight thank you Mr mccracken our next speaker is Mr douglas Bankson mr bankson welcome thank you board members my name is Doug Bankson i live at 585 East San Piper Street in Apopka Florida and I'm a pastor a husband a father of four blue darters which we're really excited for them right now um my son actually spoke earlier which I didn't know he was going to do that he's his own man i raised my children to know and to understand the foundation of what they believe in and to make those choices and I many have said so many things that I almost have to just summarize to not just reiterate certain things but uh let me also state that I'm representing the Apakka Christian Ministerial Alliance a number of
153pastors that I found out at 4:00 this morning an email about uh this today and uh shared that with them at lunch uh our our normal monthly meeting they asked me to express some of the things that we discussed there um let me say this i don't believe there's anyone of you that are here because you don't care about children and I believe that's everyone's effort as someone said earlier there's these badges are on both sides of the issue tonight because I believe that is the heart of people the foundation of what we believe differs and uh that's where the struggle becomes but uh let me just state this on behalf of the alliance it is based upon the same desire for well-being that we respectfully state our corporate position that we're profoundly against the
154incorporation of such proposed policy changes for the following reasons ocps already has in place policies that protect from bullying for any and every reason and therefore it is unnecessary to make these changes the only purpose for these changes then can be that sexual expression is unhindered the public school setting is not the venue for such expressions therefore it is it is appropriate to limit those expressions i can't reiterate this enough because this is an issue that really is settled if we enforce the laws that are already there i grew up in Joplin Missouri joplin Missouri is the highest gay per capita in the nation higher than San Francisco i didn't know that when I was growing there uh but as a teenager I had a car pull in behind a group of my friends and
155they got out with a crowbar up to my window and begin to threaten us because they wanted us to follow their homosexual beliefs this was back in the 70s so you know intimidation can come in any form and many of the statistics that have been stated tonight there are many many young people well I worked with young people for 10 years and there are many young people that could say I felt intimidation because I'm a Christian because of what I believe and so intimidation shouldn't be on any form i would defend anyone in this room if they were being attacked because that's not right let me go on to say the proposed changes broaden the scope of personal expression beyond that which is the healthy and accepted norm for sexual exploration in a public school
156setting it is inappropriate to practice such a social experiment upon children and against the majority of deeply held beliefs and concerns of their families like ratings at a movie theater it's the parents job to decide what to expose their children to and when and it's not the school's position teachers are hired to educate oh my can you wrap up in 10 or 15 seconds Reverend let me just say this decisions are like doors we make those decisions based upon our values but those who follow after us can still go through those doors these doors are throwing wide open uh an issue that many could come through with things that you might not even agree with so I ask you please to consider this and understand that your laws our laws are already the state standard
157and they protect those who are being bullied so please vote against this thank you thank you Reverend Bixon bson all right uh we now are going to hear from um someone who has not ex is is neutral on the issue I guess is the best way of putting has not said they were in favor of against Mr brian Benty did I pronounce the name right mr benty all right thank you welcome thank you my name is Brian But I live at uh 3146 Loun Drive in Winter Park Florida uh I am an educator uh there are many other tags that I could uh go ahead and describe as many have this evening but I must say I am very discouraged that this issue has come up and has divided this community i am very discouraged
158i have many friends who have different persuasions who are of different color i'm a musician and I'm a Christian and I receive at times in certain communities and certain groups castigation for my positions so I do understand I work with many musicians who have different persuasions the fact that this is coming up in a public forum is deplorable this you you represent the community if you're not careful you're going to put yourselves and our community at risk and the national forum i would ask that you slow this down and that calmer heads would prevail we should be talking about the education of our children including children who have spoken tonight and are disgusted with the discrimination that they've gone through ladies and gentlemen we do have plenty of laws but we need to seek clarity
159i'm appalled to hear people coming from the pulpit saying that certain activities that are by Christian constitution against what Christians believe yes and on the same from the same position as well i am disgusted when my fellow Christians who are supposed to love people maybe not their activities i'm appalled by that behavior as well we do not have to go down this road and I recommend to this board that you be very careful i do not want my children living in a community where they have to look behind their back to know which side they're on this is a public and free education thank you for what you do thank you Mr but um our next speaker is Miss Vivian Rivero pardon me Mr vivian Rivero i'm sorry Mr rivero welcome sir okay uh I'm
160Vivian Rivero i live at 104234th Street um Orlando Florida 32805 i just want to let you know beforehand I'm actually a transgender person i'm a trans man and I'm actually a pro product of Orlando Public School i used to be a student i graduated in 2009 and this is proof of me being here i'm conceived born and raised in Orlando i've been with you guys to the very beginning um I'm a product of what happened with your policies and I'm here that there should be an improvement like improvement and an approved for sexual orientation and gender identity uh there are many things that has happened throughout my years in the Orange County public schools and I'm not really um happy to state them but unfortunately they happened and I'm more of a qualitative um speech
161not quantitative um in middle school I've had issues ever since I was transgender and I knew deep down I was uh like my teacher actually took away points dropped a grade level like a letter grade off of my project because I did not feel comfortable dressing as like some female Roman uh citizen i didn't want to be a nogga i did not want to conform i felt like I wasn't the right person i wanted to be more of a man but she took off my points and I don't think that justified me that did not show like the merit where I'm being judged as a student not judged as like I'm not conforming so that was one issue to happen in my middle school year that I lost a grade because I was different and
162also I've had situations where I've seen students actually make fun of uh certain teachers that actually were of sexual orientation they were gay and nothing actually went up to them and said "Hey this is wrong." Because everyone was afraid no one could understand there was no education understanding what is wrong to say about sexual orientation what's wrong you know saying about gender identity and even in high school like I've had countless times that I've been bullied ever since being trans um one time like one of my teachers started talking about how like sexual orientation was wrong and it was actually unfortunately I must do this and say this it was gay people would end up in HWE hockey sticks an actual teacher said that when me and some few students were actually promoting an awareness
163that um you know people were different of the LGBT community and we were just being silent and we were just doing our work and being silent and that was one other issue a teacher actually violated our right of free speech and then another issue happened where a teacher she knew that I was being bullied countless times by so many students in her class and you know what she did she did nothing all she told me was "Oh stand up for yourself." And I couldn't i was just a regular student and with this policy it gives us more power and also for the students and to have their individual statement of who they are and know more about themselves after college I finally knew who I was thank you thank you Mr roberto all right our
164next speaker is um Miss Kylina Newmire then after that we'll have Keith Morrison Otha Harland Mary Meeks James Harborn and then I think we'll take a break well hear a few more speakers well we'll take a break after um Mr harborn welcome Miss Newire hi my name is Kylin Newer and I live in Kingston Court Orlando Florida 32810 um I didn't know about the issue until last week on emails and I was involved with family actions and liberty council that's how I linked to and I just listening and most people just say everything what I need to say so and only thing one thing I had thing to say about that a lot uh people were very sure say that fear what God didn't give you fear only Satan gave you fear in your life
165but God gave you love and son might in in you when you study the scripture and most someone come and say "Well I graduate from this school." Well I just want to let you know I graduate from Pensacola Christian College and I got my degree in theology and that's my belief strong belief and with a gender change or sexual orientation try creep in the school is allowed to pass a bills a law you want to call it to impose personal belief um what I was taught in school is that communism and socialism is same common goal what's the communist does by force that's what t ho does socialism by what passing bills and manipulating i want to get this your your own opinion i have my own agenda let me do this and pass all
166the bills I could find that's what socialism is and that's why our country headed for it and it's God say it's wrong it's sin that man is supposed to be man woman supposed to be a woman not cross each other that's what the scriptures say so that's all I need to say thank you Miss New Meer um our next speaker is Mr keith Morrison welcome Mr morrison while he's coming down I'd like to recognize com uh Representative Linda Stewart has joined us i understand representative Stewart thank you for coming tonight hello my name is Keith Morrison 2131 Cascades Boulevard CMI Florida um first a statement from um Reverend Terry Steed senior pastor at Joy Metropolitan Community Church she asked me um to voice her fervent support of the school board's consideration to end discrimination in
167schools for myself as everybody else has told I'm a human being okay parent and all other but I'm a human being what I'm asking you today is to not only support these issues but later on do not consider leaving anybody beside as we were talking about we heard our constitutional scholar talk about well um this is going to be trouble that's going to be trouble simply the Constitution already includes all we swore to for justice for all but over the years we've had to put commas in there and when you stop putting commas then you start eliminating people i would prefer that we just ended discrimination someone today's talked about reverse discrimination there's no such thing as reverse discrimination discrimination is just that what I'm going to ask you to do today is to save
168the lives of children and teachers understand if you had a child if you were a child who was transgender or LGBT and you're in school and you're being bullied you have nowhere to go okay if you were African-American person of color different um national origin when you were bullied taunted discriminated against in school good chance you would go home and talk to your parents about it and you would I would get a chance that you would have them coming to school and fighting for you however we've heard some discrimination or people who are not I'm not going to say discrim not quite um understanding yet the discriminations out there this child has no place to go if they don't have a safe school if they don't have a teacher that will support them and watch
169out for them when a teacher who does stand up and fight for and um protect this child then they face the discrimination or possible discrimination just for the support without regard to their sexual orientation this discrim this policy does not say special rights for gays or lesbians it says no discrimination based on sexual orientation whatever your sexual orientation is it's a simple law please pass it finally what I would ask for you to do is please do not separate once again and pull apart later down in this evening after you know well it'll be easier to put LGBT in there but Q is just not where we're at yet do not propleate discrimination please do not go any further pass both bills i urge you and beg of you for the sake of our children
170and the employees of Orange County Public Schools thank you thank you Mr morrison next um OA Harland welcome Mr harland thank you uh OA Harland Hatcher Circle uh Orlando Florida i have sit here tonight and I have been on a roller coaster ride my emotions have been here and there uh but yet I ask myself why am I here as a parent I find it ironic that we're in a public meeting uh for a public school forum but yet I feel I was not properly notified of this public issue i found out at 5:00 this morning I have two children in school and I have three grandchildren in school and I have a great interest in this matter but I also feel very offended that I'm hearing this issue what I say is a choice
171a preference continually equated to race blackness in particular my blackness is not a choice that's right someone who grew up in Mississippi and had relatives ran out of town because of their blackness i understand my oldest brother who was the provider for the family after my father left home lost a job as a sanitation engineer because of his blackness me myself I have been threatened on my job 10 years into my job at a well-known company here in Orlando I was threatened and when I stood up for myself I was told "This is the way it is." I didn't go out and seek to change policy to fit who I am and my preference to stay at that company i learned to work within the guidelines and the laws that was already on the book
172no one created a special law for my blackness within the company at that time and I'm happy to say I've been with that company for 30 years and went on to be the one of the first black managers in my segment you know we talk about these things but we're talking common sense boundaries when is it so wrong to have boundaries in society i don't want my children to be confused i have a special need child Down syndrome are we going to keep moving the boundary where we don't know what's up and what's down how can I explain to a Down syndrome child his teacher of one day a male the next day a female boundaries is it so wrong that I have boundaries or or I feel that I have a right to close
173my bedroom door from my children and not feel I'm discriminating against my other children when I pull my curtain so the community can't look in to my house is that discriminating every one of us here have a car tonight and our doors are probably locked is it wrong that I lock my door am I discriminating it against anyone else because I want to set boundaries let me just say this as I close thank you jesus Christ Jesus Christ said his father house was a house of prayer and he wanted boundaries set up and when he found people within that house that church doing something other than prayer he exercised his right to stop that so I'm asking you as a school board you're here to educate our kids operate within that parameter and not do
174the social experiment on our kids you're not qualified for this thank you Mr harland okay at this time we're going to take another 10-minute break when we come back just so you know we will hear from Miss Mary Meeks then James Harborn and then I'm going to take some opponents in order so we can try to keep it equal towards the end um in fairness to the supporters so after that will be Mr brockman then Miss McNair [Music] all right let's go ahead and get started again all right next we're going to hear from Miss Mary Meeks and Mr james Harborn then Mr scotty G then Miss Vicky Nance and Mr carl Brockman and then Miss Kelly McNaron Lee miss Meeks welcome and I've had a board member request that every speaker please make a
175point of saying not just your street address but also your city and your zip code that matters to some of the board members thank you Miss Meeks welcome to Try again try that again okay um yet again my name is Mary Meeks and I live at 13712 Blue Lagoon Way Orlando uh and I am a constitutional and civil rights lawyer for a long time here in Orlando so as an attorney um I want to start with talking about um a very compelling reason why this board um I believe would be recklessly irresponsible if it does not adopt the proposed anti-discrimination policies for gay and lesbian uh and transgendered individuals those protections are now mandated by federal law uh that is not an excuse not to pass your own policy if it is an excuse it's
176a very poor excuse i believe that your own attorneys um will confirm to you that the failure to adopt these policies could subject the district to legal burdens and liabilities if the district were to be sued by a gay lesbian or transgendered individual so voting yes would be the responsible thing to do to legally protect the district i cannot help but comment um that those parents here who do not want their children exposed to gay and lesbian and transgenders in school are no different than those parents who did not want their children exposed to blacks in schools 50 years ago with regard to their First Amendment arguments I would note that they do not argue to preserve the right to harass and denigrate blacks and Hispanics and the disabled only LGBT now I attended the
177school board hearing where this board voted to proceed with these anti-discrimination policies and I know that every single one of you knows that this is the right thing to do chair Sublet you spoke very powerfully and personally in September in support of this policy for gay lesbian and transgendered individuals you said and I quote "It says a lot about who we are as a community that the school board do this." And you were right and your vote tonight will say a lot about who you are as a leader and as a human being and I hope that your vote and the votes of every member of this board will say yes to fairness and equality and no to hate now I know that the anti-gay extremists have bombarded you all with false dishonest and hysterical
178emails and phone calls there's nothing new in all of that we've heard it all before their scare tactics and propaganda have never been true and they're not true now and you know it and they know it they make a living by attacking gay and transgendered people and it is a proven and published fact that they do it dishonestly fortunately their lies have always been rejected by the leaders and citizens of Orange County you will note that there are a number of elected officials here tonight they are all here in support of this policy i would ask the Orange County School Board not to be an exception to that rule the question tonight isn't what is the right thing to do the question tonight is whether you will have the courage to do the right thing
179i am asking you to be strong to stay true to reject the lies and the hate do not cave do not be cowed stand up and stand with your students and your teachers gay lesbian and transgendered they need you do not fail them do what you know is the right thing protect your children and your teachers thank you Miss Meeks all right our next speaker is Mr james Harbour followed by Mr scotty Guys mr harbour welcome and again uh City and Zip if you could please uh my name is Jim Herborn i live at 1744 Crown Hill Boulevard Orlando Florida 32828 i think it's important when you speak before a crowd that that crowd understand where you're coming from um I'm the father of six all have been through OCPS except one who's still in
180um I'm also the father of a gay son so I oppose this and I might come from actually a bit of a radical difference from most people who are speaking tonight let me talk why I oppose this from the position of my gay son we talked about this and he said "I'm sick and tired of people asking for special rights do they think I'm inferior that I can't compete?" And I think that's a really good point but I I also have other of my own issues as well here and one of the most disturbing things I've heard here tonight is that the very advocates seem to be the architect of all these policies they brag how they've been up here and secretly meeting with you guys to draft these policies and yet over the course
181of all the years I've been at OCPS I get innocuous emails where it's car wash day it's this why weren't we noticed about this so I I think that's a little bit of an issue too um OCPS is sovereign you don't have to comply with other laws and I've actually had two prominent law firms this week a former federal prosecutor and a retired federal judge give me a legal opinion on this and they would say you're wrong that there is no existing federal law that gives these people protected class and there is no state law in fact the state law as it exists today defines gender as birth certificate or post reconstructive surgery um when you ask your legal sightings I had all those rules read there's nothing in there that supports your legal authority
182there's not one thing that names those classes of people nothing so I'm trying to see how we're talking about legalities and those types of issues here when there doesn't seem to be any legal authority for you to do this and finally in closing I want schools to be androgynous i don't want them to be politicalized i don't want them to be culturalized i don't want them to be in any sort other than education i don't want with this rule to happen what happened to my son where he was forced to write to Governor Scott for a week as a grade to say why are you hurting our teachers over union issues or how he was also pulled out and the police were called that he committed a hate crime because he caused somebody a racial
183name but it turned out he just had the same first name this is the unintended consequences of what you're doing here today and it was brought to the school board on both those occasions and nothing was done about it so I ask you to consider what you do here because there's a lot of people out here that if this moves forward we may have no other choice but to ask the courts to resolve this issue i thank you for your time [Applause] thank you Mr herborn uh next is Mr scotty G and then after that Vicky Nance and then Carl Brockman and Kelly McNair lead and in fairness to the audience I want you to know what we're going to do is take one proponent and two opponents because that will balance us out so
184we'll end with an equal number of speakers on each side so Miss G welcome thank you um Chairman Sublet and board members I'm Mrs scotty G of 14044 Ithaca Way Orlando Florida 32826 and my husband and I are um residents and taxpayers and voters um in Orange County and we represent the majority of voters in Orange County many of who we know personally and others who we are aware of who will be watching to see how you handle this proposal and we will vote in the next election accordingly and um we ask you please do not make this a political exercise of power um with your chums who you've known for years and you've all been in office together for a long time it is much more than that god has placed each one of
185you god Almighty has placed each one of you in the position that you are in right now you would not have gotten here without him allowing you to be here he has placed you here in your position of authority for a reason and one of the responsibilities that you have is to as stewards over the hearts and minds of the children in our schools and I want to say to you that I like many other of the individuals um elected officials people in the school board who are adults teenagers who have spoken um as a child I was sexually abused by women and men teenage boys and girls and so was my best friend Connie from she was my best friend from age two to this day she thinks she was born gay because of
186the things that the women and the girls did to her and my heart goes out to her because she's had much turmoil in her heart and her mind it's only because of the Lord Jesus Christ and God himself that I am a uh stable sane um functioning adult because my abusers counted I've counted them and they number over 27 people and the only safe place for me as a child growing up was in the public school i grew up in the 60s and 70s in the Florida school system i was I'm I was born in Florida and the only place that I could go where no one could touch me was at school so my concern is that the language in this the I understand your concern about people talking about bathrooms and locker rooms
187but the thing is is that a child can be alone and she has no clothes on in the shower and if someone who wasn't sure because the way this language the language in this proposal is written if a man is not sure at any given time whether he is a was uh is gay or a man or a woman like my girlfriend Connie my friend Connie then he has a right to go into that shower and if he has other issues you know I know that um people who've been abused abuse other people and I don't I I don't condemn them because I understand all of that i come from generations of abusers and I've been an a victim and I know what it's like to experience all of this and I just implore you
188to please give this very sober thought judgment prayer you cannot be sued as a school board i have spoken with legal counsel and even though I was told so by a board member you cannot be sued for not protecting legal rights of the people in this um proposal because they are already protected by our laws we need to enforce them and I just want to say that love always protects and I just pray that the basis of all of this that we would all come together in love and respect for each other thank you Miss Guys uh our next speaker is Miss Vicky Nance followed by Carl Brockman Jr and Kelly McNair Lee miss Nance welcome i am Vicki Nance i live at 13712 Blue Lagoon Way Orlando 32828 i am in Daryl Flynn's wonderful
189district i'm here tonight with with my wife yes that's right i have a wife and she's a wonderful wife and I love her and I don't think that my marriage has in any way affected John Stimberger's marriage i just wanted to go on the record my orientation is also not a choice and it was not prompted by any kind of sexual abuse i was born this way and I'm perfectly happy with it so I just want to set some things straight here so to speak i I hope that you will adopt the policy with gender identity and expression intact tonight um I go to a Orlando P Flag meetings occasionally it's a wonderful organization you all should check it out you should go and I've met transgender kids there transgender youth are the most bullied
190and demonized kids at school it's a fact and you have the power to make life better for them they deserve a safe environment to thrive and excel at school like every other kid you have the power to make school safer for them so why would you not do that lgbt teachers and employees they deserve a work environment free of harassment and filled with the same advancement opportunities and rewards as any other employee why would you not provide that i'm always amazed by people who favor discrimination it boggles the mind i'm happy to say it boggles my mind churches are free to discriminate against LGBT people they do it every day there are many preachers here tonight who do and that's their preference that's their choice that's the God they choose to worship but civil government
191and public schools are for all of us all of us so I ask this board to please do the right thing tonight don't let the anti-gay theater on display here tonight keep you from doing the right thing for all of the students and all of the employees and one last word for any young LGBT person who is here tonight for the first time to experience this public condemnation of who you are don't you believe it don't you accept it for a second thank you thank you Miss Nance our next uh two speakers are Carl Brockman followed by Kelly McNair Lee mr brockman welcome sir i'm Carl Brockman from 12041 Walker Pond Road Winter Garden 34787 i've learned an awful lot here tonight and for that I'm very very thankful i've learned that the overwhelming majority
192of the people in this room are against discrimination but I've heard all kinds of arguments about how the people that have spoken against this particular rule change are somehow prejudiced against gays and lesbians against people who are transvestites transgender i don't understand that that isn't what I've heard what I've heard is a concern from these people about an agenda which is being pushed pushed to its extreme let me give you an example we started the evening with a moment of silence i'm sure that most of the people in this room found that absolutely offensive yes because what we should have started with is a prayer that's right a few people have pushed an agenda over the history of our nation and have turned this country so that instead of standing up and praying before an
193event like this we have a moment of silence well the majority is discriminated against and that's what we've heard tonight that people are afraid that when we pass this explicit language which isn't needed you have a policy already which takes care of folks who are discriminated and bullied against it was mentioned very explicitly early in the evening you already have that policy gives 18 or so different explanations or 18 different categories of discrimination that people should not be allowed to bully folks over so you don't really need it what we're finding out though is that because it's not enforced you want to add all this language as if that's going to change anything but what it does change is consequences in the future how do you know how much it's going to cost what about
194all the frivolous lawsuits that are going to be submitted because this person defines this particular term this way you don't have any idea what the impact of this is the people in Hillsboro County adopted it no they didn't it was adopted in Hillsboro County and voted twice out but by technical some technical means some te technical uh uh uh technicality the vote of the people was overturned we are not Hillsboro County and we're not Dade County we're Orange County and we ought to do the right thing which is enforce what we already have in place thank you Mr brockman next is Kelly McNairly miss McNair hi my name is Kelly McNair i'm a little afraid to give my address because of my voter registration activities we've already been posted on a leftist website to be
195targeted for intimidation so I'm really concerned about this but it's 14501 L Castle Orlando 32826 thank you for listening i'm an Orange County resident and I'm an eighth grade teacher in a neighboring county i've edited down my remarks to hopefully fit in your three-minute limit so I'll do the best I can there's a few facts I want you to keep in mind in Frederick versus Morris the Supreme Court already upheld limits to free speech in public schools so as to maintain a classroom environment conducive to learning to prevent disruption i checked Robert Marzano's sound familiar the art and science of teaching book to look for any guidance on sexual expression and as well the evaluation system set up look familiar by the state of Florida this is our evaluation guys never saw such a thing
196in my life in private industry on any information on sexual expression and here's what I found nothing absolutely nothing there's no domain there is no indicator that evaluates a teacher on sexual orientation or expression it's not part of education nor should it be your county already has an anti-bullying policy my heart goes out to when I intervene anytime I see bullying i don't care what the situation is i'm not going to put up with it in Kagan's brainbased learning we learn in the 3-day class every summer that the adolescent brain the amydala the portion of the brain responsible for fear responses and anxiety is enlarged and engorged and overactive in the adolescent years so of course the surveys are going to say "Oh yeah we're scared the brain data shows this." You know this as
197educators this is brain data this is the facts kagan's win-win discipline a five-day course you pay to send us to talks about the seven positions that students operate from one attention seeking four control seeking three angry too much teaching now is managing behavior freedom of speech is now freedom of expression is limited in the school system for a reason it's to prevent disruption i have a rather flamboyant student and whenever he feels like acting up or acting out that day it's 21 students whose educations are impacted in my reading class because I got to spend time squishing him down to make him fit into classroom behaviors that are appropriate like the kid but it steals from my other students sexual orientation and expression are not problems to be solved in public education i have a
198family member who is gay and 53 and hasn't told his father yet this policy would do nothing to fix the family relationships that make him confident enough he'll dress up like a stage dancer from Laaja Falls on gay pride day but he still won't tell his 75-year-old dad that he's gay your policy is not going to fix the issue that lives in people especially when they don't want to disappoint anybody so once again public education is no place for this kind of expression my personal opinion is when I drive onto that campus I am no longer a female i'm a person sex doesn't have any place in an eighth grade classroom or a high school classroom it's just not appropriate and if you're worried about me feeling safe at school as the newly elected state
199representative I'm not sure where he is then I look forward to you working with proun groups to let concealed carry permit holder teachers carry weapons on campus and I'll feel a boatload safer when that happens so I'll see you at the meeting in November thank you thank you Miss McNair Lee all right next we've got [Music] Next we've got Mr michael Farmer F followed by Peter Lee and then Marsha Hagen mr farmer welcome sir michael Farmer 225 East New Hampshire Street Orlando 3284 uh thank you so much for allowing me to address you all this evening um I'm actually a proud graduate of Apakka High School i'm a proud blue darter i'm a product of the uh great school system that we have here um and I just have to say before I say anything
200else uh our friend who said that she wanted to squish a student into uh normal behavior uh is the exact reason why we need this policy um students should feel free to come to school and be who they are and get an education without a teacher with a rogue ideology trying to squish them into her norms uh that being said I think I heard Mr stemburgger try to uh threaten all of you uh in terms of your elections there are 10,000 Equality Florida members that live in Orange County and they're going to remember this vote just the same way the Mr stembburgers will but I'll tell you one thing we had Karen Caster Dental Joe Saunders Victor Torres Linda Stewart uh Scott Randolph every single elected official in this room has taken votes on these
201issues and has stood up on these issues and they've been elected by the voters here in Orange County and they we're all here tonight because they know that doing the right thing is not a bad thing electorally they know that um and I would just urge you to you know put aside any electoral sort of worries that you have and understand this is the right thing to do and because it's the right thing to do you'll be rewarded by the voters for it um you know I hope that you will uh not entertain any amendments to weaken this policy it's great language you all saw fit in workshop to put together this language and I just encourage you to to keep that uh language intact and uh to vote for it tonight thank you thank
202you Mr farmer uh now we have Mr peter Lee followed by Maria Hagen mr lee mr peter Lee welcome sir hello i'm Peter Lee um address 14501 L Castle Circle Orlando 32826 um you know I I I think you guys have all forgotten what the purpose of a school is we're teaching the for you know reading writing arithmetic um there is no place for sexual identity or sexual the conversation about sex even to come up you know I I also happen to be a disabled individual now some folks were been quoting you know oh well you know this is just like you know when they discriminate against blacks or you know the ADA when they discriminate against discrimin against disabled people well you know having been through this process all my life um when I
203go to a job if I cannot do the job due to my disability I am not qualified to do that job unless there's a reasonable accommodation and ladies and gentlemen I can see no reasonable accommodation that would have a teacher talking to the students about their sexual identity that's entirely inappropriate but you're protecting this gender expression whatever that means so however this is being expressed I think really needs to be qualified here um you know my wife also mentioned you know this you know we have rules in schools you we have dress codes you know we have appropriate behavior you have to raise your hand when you're called on you know if Robin Williams came down here and started doing a comedy routine you would say that is not appropriate now he's just expressing himself
204he's just being who he is you can't be who you are in every circumstance sometimes you have to use a little self-restraint and I think this is where we draw the line at least here if not anywhere else when you introduce this into a classroom you have one person who's being a disruption you have one person who's wants that attention to be focused on their gender in the meantime you lose the attention of all the other folks because that attention is being drawn to them and the education is lost you I'm a substitute teacher and I tell you it is difficult to manage a classroom it is really difficult to manage a classroom and especially when you have a few students that are disruptive the more disruptive students the harder it is to to teach
205that class it's amazing when you actually get to a classroom when the students are attentive and you actually can actually teach you can actually deal with the subject matter which is what we're all supposed to be doing instead of being bothered about what this person's sexual behavior is in my classroom so ladies and gentlemen when you think about the education of our students think about how these single-minded selfish individuals whether it be par uh teachers who want to selfishly impose themselves upon the students or students who want to selfishly impose themselves on other students this is not a conversation that should be going on in the classroom at all it's no place in the school room thank you very much thank you Mr lee our next speaker is uh Miss Maria Hagen welcome Miss Hagen
206hi I'm Maria Hagen i live at 13838 Blue Lagoon Way Orlando 32828 and it is my son's first year in public school he's a freshman at Timber Creek this has been an eyeopening meeting um I suppose some of you might suggest that if I'm offended by what you're proposing that I pack up my child and spend $10,000 a year to put him in private education i ask you who is being discriminated against we are basing this decision on what is offensive what is not offensive whose feelings are getting hurt who needs to be protected i feel like if the policy that is in place right now is not being enforced in an effective manner we have no business crafting more complicated legislation policy until we get what we've got right now right someone urged you
207tonight a little bit earlier to do the right thing do the hard thing and approve this but I challenge you tonight that maybe the hard thing is the right thing and the right thing is to turn it down and go back to square one where you sit and look at the proposal we already have on the books and re-educate our educators to enforce it appropriately we should be protecting our staff and our students we should be honoring them respecting them as individuals and just so you folks know as a parent I have never taught my child to hate anyone who is homosexual we have loved ones in our family i am so torn tonight because I love them but my allegiance is to my child and as a child of faith I want him to
208have the freedom to disagree with an authority figure who may be homosexual and to not fear repercussion of being suspended disciplined for disagreeing but you allow an authority figure to pose a an obvious conviction like this and you will intimidate children of faith and it may seem like an opinion it may seem like oh a piece of clothing that they put on and they choose this and they choose that but for many of us families of faith it is a conviction that we would die for and I would die to make sure that you guys are safe and protected and respected but not at the expense of my child's freedom i am his advocate and I'm asking you to turn down this proposal to not support it and to work harder on the ones we
209already have thank you Miss Hagen all right we now have Mr scott Hwitt followed by Carrie Hagen and Paul Barry mr scott Hwitt okay we now have Mr christopher Hopkins and let me give you the order again it's going to be Christopher Hopkins and Carrie Hagen Paul Barry then Katherine Carpenter then James King and Jerry Krill i'm Christopher Hopkins 10204 Eastern Lake Avenue Orlando we've heard a lot of rhetoric tonight um mostly about protecting children that's what a school board is here to do it's to guide and protect children the question becomes of course protect them from what in order to protect something you must fear that there is something to harm that thing that you're protecting but what's to fear i suggest that the opponents of this are afraid of the inspirational teacher who
210talks about his husband the same way that my female teachers did when I was growing up i suggest that they are afraid of the kind guidance counselor who might be seen with her girlfriend at a mall i suggest that they're afraid of the transgender classmate who just wants to use the bathroom between classes and doesn't want to have to fear that they will get beaten up if they go into the wrong one they're afraid that evidence that LGBT people are not miserable and abnormal will reach their children now I've heard tonight's opponents say both that they re that they recognize the humanity excuse me humanity of LGBT people and that they're like drug addicts i've heard that they respect LGBT people's dignity and that they're abnormal i heard one person say that she doesn't like
211being called a fearmonger and shortly thereafter somebody say that homosexuality was like rape these are not compatible opinions what opponents of this change are protecting is an idea and it's a bad idea it's one that dehumanizes and demonizes it's one that convinces otherwise good people that they can use a secular institution like a schoolboard in order to promote their faith that fear is that quite frankly this idea will not continue another generation and it's a justified fear in that case but that fear is not sufficient reason to vote against this proposal on the contrary it is exactly why this proposal is so incredibly vital thank you Mr hopkins all right we now have M uh Mr mr forgive me Carrie Hagen believe Mr carrie Hagen i'm sorry Mr hagen then Mr paul Barry welcome sir
212thank you Chairman Sublett and the board uh my name is Carrie Hagen i live at 13838 Blue Lagoon Way in Orlando Florida um I'm here to represent all the parents that couldn't be here uh that would encourage you to vote no and so I'm encouraging you along with their voices that couldn't be heard because they were not notified of this meeting um Chairman Sublet you um in all due respect you said this is an issue of great concern but apparently it wasn't great enough concern to let um our parents know about or the teachers know about i served as a president of of the HOA um at um uh Andover Lakes Phase 2 off of Curry Ford for a couple years and then on the board later that's where I met John who also served
213on the board um at the HOA we had a a requirement to notify the neighbors two days in advance of a meeting or we could not even hold the meeting and I would suggest that this meeting is not this is not a fair representation of the people who have children um in Orange County schools or the teachers the phrase any other reason prohibited by law is sufficient to protect those needing protection we have 11 pages of bullying and harassment um that I feel is sufficient there there is one thing that that I felt was a mystery and that is it it seems that you're removing the sexual harassment definitions and examples of what sexual harassment is um in the 3.01 and I'm not certain why that is happening i don't see that being added anywhere
214and it seems that that would be uh show a lack of concern for potential victims and maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture there but I would take issue with that you know we um we we pay you all um and I'm a taxpayer to oversee the teaching of our our children in a non-distracting environment you know we have dress codes as one mentioned you know you can't have your pants on the ground uh there's a language code you can't wear colors that are that are gang related there's rules to aid the learning environment and my concern is if we open the doors to any kind of expression you know do you need to open the door to let gang members wear their colors do you need to um you know if the g if
215the goal is for teachers and students to feel comfortable in their true selves you know should we not let gang members let people of all faith express their true self at school is that the place for this i know that um you know there's a lot of teenage boys that I know that would probably love the opportunity to go in the girls locker room that's not appropriate but you're opening the door and how do you know what's in their mind you're saying "Okay if I decide that I'm a woman today I can go." Now can you prove to me whether I decided that do you know what's in my mind i think you're you're treading on dangerous territory and I would encourage you to vote no on this thank you thank you Mr hagen our
216next speaker is Mr paul Barry mr barry welcome sir thank you um I'm Paul Bry 1548 Crosswind Circle uh Orlando 32825 and I I applaud you guys uh desire to make schools more safe and more fair i I think we're all for that but I'm not quite sure that this policy update actually does that um I'd like to start with some definitions of of some things we've been talking about because it's not really defined in the policy and uh the definitions are for gender identity uh these are from the American Psychological Association i really couldn't find a good definition uh except for there uh gender identity refers to one's sense of of oneself as male or female or transgender when one's gender identity and biological sex are not congruent the the individual may identify as
217transsexual or as another transgender category uh gender expression refers to the way in which a person acts to communicate gender within a given culture for example in terms of clothing communication patterns and interests a person's gender expression may or may not be consistent with socially prescribed gender roles and may or not reflect his or her gender identity so I'm I'm kind of assuming that as you add this into the policy that these are the the the definitions that you're using so for gender identity if a person's gender identity is transsexual that means they identify themsel as being of the opposite sex so what bathroom or locker room do they use if someone identifies themselves as transsexual is OCPS discriminating against the proposed gender identity clause by not allowing them to use the opposite sex's bathroom
218what clothes do they wear to school does OCPS allow a male to come to school dressed as a female what sports team do they play on what physical fitness standards are they measured against what school clubs can they join does this mean the end of boys and girls choirs it seems like we're kind of we're merging everything together um and this is not just for the on the homosexuality side it's on the heterosexuality sexuality side for gender expression what if a female decides that she communicates her gender by displaying a lot of cleavage is OCPS violating the gender expression clause by telling her that her clothes are too revealing so then what wins uh the gender expression clause or the the dress code uh what happens if if the person who wants to express their
219gender that way is a teacher what's going to happen to the boys learning in that classroom it it seems that there's some large practical considerations and um have the ramifications really been deeply considered um gender expression includes communication what if a male teacher verbally flirts with girls um under this rule of gender expression do you have recourse to to keep that from happening um here's a real life example that these are real real issues because of the same gender identity clause last month at Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington a transgender male was allowed in the girls locker room and was seen naked by girls he was allowed to use the girls locker room because of the same gender identity clause that you folks are voting on that's that's kind of the slippery slope that
220that we're coming down so I thank you for having heard having your hearts in the right place but I'm just afraid that this is going to cause much more confusion and make our schools less safe and fair thank you very much Mr barry our next speaker is James King then after Mr king we're going to hear from Katherine Carpenter and Jerry Krill Carlos Raina and Lisa Menddees good evening james King 504 South Oxales Orlando two and a half years ago the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ sent me to the middle of a swamp to rescue a little girl that same spirit has sent me here on a similar mission tonight the difference is I'm not alone i have a science degree from the University of Central Florida i'm married with seven children i'm a scientist
221i'm not a social engineer i deal with objective truth gender is created by God defined by chromosomes at conception and it remains with a person until death the possession of an X or Y chromosome is not a matter of choice by anyone except the creator people do however have a choice with whom they have sex same-sex attraction gender confusion and other sexual disorders have been proven proven to often not always but often lead to increased promiscuity depression drug use self mutilation disease and suicide when not properly treated there is great hope for those struggling with sexual brokenness but it is not found in affirming the problem as being an acceptable lifestyle choice this Saturday I will pick up a convicted pedophile from having served a prison sentence longer than any of my children have been
222alive fortunately this person is now free of the homosexual lifestyle that that had led him to consensual sexual relations with a minor his freedom came after receiving help through materials provided by Pure Passion which is a partner of Exodus which you heard about earlier this evening earlier this year I learned about the embarrassed school district that had girls complaining that a guy was in the uh PE locker room in Olympia Washington showing his privates that was not mentioned uh it turns out he had proclaimed himself a female and by state law of the state of Washington they were forced to honor his confusion and not expel him from the locker room at my alma mater in Cresview High School a man with whom many students trusted and respected Mr nelson eventually was discovered to be
223a homosexual who had molested several boys i wish this was an unusual situation when we entrust our children to the public school system we need not fear that they will fall victim to those suffering from sexual confusion and brokenness research and treatment by people like Dr francis McNut Dr david Foster and others prove that homosexuality bisexuality gender confusion can be healed thank you Mr king all right our next speaker is Katherine Carpenter followed by Jerry Krill Carlos Reena and Lisa Mendes miss Carpenter welcome ma'am hello my name is Katherine Carpenter i live at 1112 Weinberry Court Okcoi 34761 i was hired as an Orange County school teacher in 1988 i am currently teaching at Metro West Elementary and I love what I do for a living i love my school my principal and the wonderful
224talented people I work with i love to teach partly because I think teaching is a unique profession that can open up new worlds to children and make them productive individuals who enrich our communities but unfortunately my career almost came to a screeching halt back in 1990 as a secondyear teacher my contract was not renewed since this was not due to a shortage of positions and prior to this my performance had never been in question i knew in my heart that it was no coincidence this decision was made at the same exact time that I was outed i was devastated that I may never teach again just because of blatant discrimination after much soulsearching and great advice from others I decided to challenge the decision and with the help of great people at our county's employee
225relations department as well as the teachers union I got my job back this conclusion was made after over three months of the case being handed up the ladder all the way to the superintendent and lawyers for six or for three months I was in limbo wondering if I had a career in the field that I loved my story of discrimination ended with with a positive outcome but it makes me wonder how many others have not i would not wish this experience on anyone and this should never happen again in Orange County public schools in some ways I have worked in fear for 22 years that this kind of thing could happen to me again one way to help ensure that it wouldn't is for this board to include sexual orientation and gender identity into our
226county's non-discrimination clause talented and innovative people come in all shapes sizes colors and believe it or not orientations i wonder how many outstanding teaching candidates never considered our county as a workplace because they felt they would not be protected and went elsewhere to exercise their talents i think we can all agree that times have changed since 1990 thoughts on this topic have progressed minds have opened awarenesses have been made i think it is beyond time for us to get this protection on the books here in Orange County Public Schools unfortunately as long as there are people who oppose a minority there has got to be protections in place to prevent discrimination i don't think any of us believe that all discrimination stops when laws are passed or words are added to clauses but by adding
227this to our non-discrimination clause we are announcing that in this state in this county all employees will be treated with respect and discrimination will not be tolerated it would have been so much easier for me to have come before you speaking on this issue without getting into my personal experience but I feel it is important for people in power who can make change happen such as yourselves to see the real faces of discrimination i am one of many others behind me thank you thank you Miss Carpenter all right we now have Mr jerry Krill mr krill is he still here or is he left okay um Mr carlos Rea mr rea rea welcome sir and I understand Mr raina has a translator is that correct ma'am thank you bless the nation bless be the nation
228who the God of them is Jehovah what I feel in my heart with all respect to the honorable chairman and all to the members okay excuse me avenue 4692 Hoffner Avenue Orlando 32812 okay we have a compromise as pastors and we know the sense of our youth and what our children are speaking what youth are feeling right now we also have to um consider with our youth and with our children and we we consider that Orlando should be better we're working for Orlando because we love this city hundreds of people working with us and these people chairman and I am before you i ask with love that the city of Orlando without no gender of people of of sexual is counting on you orlando has to be better let's work for Orlando without taking the
229values and the principles of Jehovah God has determined there's a community that has has not been informed of this which is the major majority of community the fathers of the families the mothers of families those people that have determined that their children go to schools and I believe without the children without the youth without those parents without those mothers There can be no school and those values and principles that those parents have sacrificed with those children today a group cannot take determination and damage our children we are not against of community a gay community we are not against as pastor i work with them and I love them in the name of Jesus Christ there's a base be blessed the nation who whose God is Jehovah thank you amen thank you Mr raina [Music] next
230we have Miss Lisa Mendes miss Mendes welcome amen okay my name is Lisa Mendes and I uh live in 5005 Magical Court Orlando Florida 32825 and I just want to address that um to the chairman and to the members of the board that I was not notified of any of this this was going to happen um just this morning by my brothers and sisters of Bram Church i am a youth leader i am I have a currently an associate on theology and I am working on my master's degree on that and um I am very happy to be here and I just want to say that um I am against um this um this this this purpose or whatever you're saying i'm not too fond with letters but I'm going to try my best i'm
231against it um I want to speak about my two daughters i have two daughters in Union Park Middle School and they are honoral students um they were homeschooled for two years and um and they just went back to school i was they they were bullied and they just went back to school because they wanted to go back to school and they see they see all these situations and they ask me and I just tell them to love one another and respect one another um like the Lord Jesus Christ has told us in our hearts we should love one another we don't discriminate people we love the people we show the love of Christ in our hearts to everyone and um just um just just watch and pray and um just let the Holy Spirit just
232guide us we we don't want our children to be persuaded right by the world's philosophy the world has its own philosophy and and I think children should u make their own choices in these things they're too small to make these choices this has been brought up to their faces just like to us we we we were not notified of any of this so I think that um um this is more about values and I think that um we should be respected in our values like they they don't want to be discriminated i don't want to be discriminated also for speaking what I what I what I feel in my heart right and this is all about values and what is morally correct right and I think um you should consider um not what are everyone
233says just what what um what is morally valuable to this world and to to Orlando and to the city of Orange County right what is correct and we should um think about our children's future right and we don't want to discriminate one no one we just want to love one another and um I just want to say that um it's it's just think about the choice that you're going to make um I I'm against bullying i don't think we no one should be bullied cuz my daughters were bullied and um I just think that um just think about this um answer you're going to take on this and um be blessed god bless you all right thank you Miss Mendes all right the lineup coming up and we're going to take another break in about
23410 minutes but let's uh I'm going to hear from Susan Arlene Williams next then Mary Veter then Jack Boyce Boer Linda Burer Burer forgive me folks and Judy Bartlett so first Susan Arlene Williams miss Williams she's still here miss Williams welcome Miss Williams hello i'm Susan Arline Williams and I live at 1218 South Conway Road Orlando Florida thank you for allowing me to speak as a retired Orange County Public Schools teacher of 21 and a half years I'm so happy to have my First Amendment rights here and and address this board i want to ask you earnestly to consider the development of children during their most impressionable years those are the years we have them from grades preK through 12 every age during every grade each child is developing and forming boundaries and establishing their
235own identity they form aspects of their identity from not only their home environment but also from their school environment the impact that just one teacher can have on one child is tremendous our children deserve stability in an educational environment that will provide them a safe place to develop their boundaries without threatening their own developing sexuality with questioning and ongoing identification issues i think it's unnecessary to know anyone's sexual preference isn't it most important that teachers teach well no matter what his or her sexual preference growing up here in Orange County I'm sure I've had teachers of various different sexual preferences in fact I'm sure of it there is no history of discrimination here the teachers earned our respect we grew up loving and endearing them dearly however boundaries were established unlike today where pressure groups
236are muddling the boundaries and children are faced with adult issues on a daily basis now even in the safety of a classroom children are faced with adult issues on a daily basis shame shame shame none of this needs to be in our classrooms or our schools they're they are places of learning they are for no one's social agenda teachers can and do teach by keeping their personal lives personal students can deal with their questions their hormonal issues with concerned adults in their lives that is the only safe way for all children not everything has to be a social agenda or the subject of social engineering and you wonder why America has such poor education standards when held up to the rest of the world let's just get back to educating this is not about equal
237rights those are already in place in in our in the hiring agreements the language of the proposed policy is not specific and it is so broad it will allow it litigation for years to come so let's please let's ensure the rights of everyone let's vote to ensure that our students are guaranteed a good education and let's pursue a policy that we already have in place and guarantee that this district will be competitive on an educational basis and stay within our boundaries that we have already established thank you Miss Williams all right we're going to hear four more speakers and we'll take a break uh Miss uh Mary Better is next miss Veter welcome and then after her it's Well I've already said their names mr boyer is next hello members of the board thank you
238for hearing us and thank you for your time tonight my name is Mary Veter i live at 525 East Jackson Street Orlando Florida i began teaching for OCPS 13 years ago i am proud to call myself an employee of this distinguished community i am a national board certified teacher i was voted teacher of the year by my colleagues i was voted Miss Eagle by my students i am currently working on my master's program in educational leadership and I'm learning quite quite a lot about what you guys have to deal with on a daily basis and again I just want to say thank you again for um having an open forum tonight i have been fortunate to experience teaching at the middle school level and at the high school level in several different work locations i
239have developed close ties with parents students and community members throughout this time a few years ago at the middle school level I taught a transgendered student Jane in my classes although I was her teacher she taught me much about the importance of human dignity some of her classmates knew about her gender identity transition and they did not treat her kindly to say the least yes there are anti-bullying policies in place and yes OCPS employees work to establish and follow those policies but there were not policies that adequately protected this student some of her classmates treated her disrespectfully in subtle and subversive ways ignoring her during after school activities ostracizing her on field trips and physically isolating her during lunch simply because she was transgendered her teachers addressed these malicious behaviors when and if we saw
240them however the repeated negative experiences with her peers led her to develop self-esteem and confidence barriers which then led to severe depression as well as her choosing to leave the school system in Jane's case when she first started at our school she was fortunate to be surrounded by instructional staff and administration who were willing and able to sit down and develop a plan to address her unique needs there are students and teachers who continue to experience discrimination on school campuses this sad fact demonstrates the need for the addition of inclusive language in the policies i believe Dr martin Luther King Jr stated it best in a letter to his fellow clergymen from a Birmingham jail moreover I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states i cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and
241not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly never again can we afford to live with the narrow provincial outside agitator idea anyone who lives inside the United States or in Orange County can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds the addition of fully inclusive language to conclude in the employment and participation policies would quite simply protect students like Jane and allow them to feel safe in their learning environment after all if a student doesn't feel safe how can we expect them to learn thank you thank you Miss Better all right uh next is Mr jack U voyager forgive me if I'm mispronouncing
242it i can't quite read the writing mr jack Voyager is he here still next is uh Miss Linda Bure Burner miss Burner I'm sorry welcome there were a couple of issues that began earlier my name is Linda Bernett of Apopkco i live in Apopka 2211 Rock Springs Road there are a couple of things you guys didn't bring and now you you over there Superintendent you might listen up some of these things i've noticed you don't pay attention Superintendent Jenkins to a lot of this miss Miss Bernett Miss Bernett can do what Miss Bernett I'm going to stop you right now you're out of order under our rules of Miss Bernett under our rules of decorum okay well what did I say wrong this time is that what the student would find with you guys i'm
243not sure you had the position to do this this should be in referendum now also but of course since you sprung it on everybody we don't really know that this is really general uh this is really uh uh United Nations business you know it's just been uh twisted around with some of that's why the suits are here you know they're analyzing the the opposition get it straight all of you back there get it straight we're all being led down the road but as far as what you're proposing here it's not only vulgar and out of place but unless you've seen real discrimination you guys don't know what you're talking about now every soul that is born the condition on that is a self-will now I get to choose how I'm going to live my life
244i'm not going to live it by your standards and I would pray any child would not either the standards that require a young boy to hold the hand of a male teacher is outrageous each one of them should be miss Bernett I need you to stay at the podium ma'am please miss Bernett I need you to stay at the podium thank you thank you community you don't represent Orange County you're representing the United Nations this thing was passed how long ago how many years ago sir four years ago is that correct you wouldn't answer the other guy's thing but this has already been passed you didn't have all the words right don't you understand they come against you through your children it's a prison system these guys you're going to hand your children over to
245them this state is 44th in the nation and you're going to hand the minds of your children to this discernment of these people who have been paid off by the general the general world new world order the United Nations listen just get up all of you i'm not against any of you but I want to tell you something they learned these practices in Africa and I happen to be over there you think I'm angry now i was i was very angry with what I saw by people who proposed things like this that they could not control on people that they decided they would rule i say to you whoever votes for this votes for the shame of Orange County and whoever proposed it was a delivery bag man thank you Miss Bernett okay we'll have
246one final speaker and then we'll take a break um Miss Judy Bartlett welcome Miss Bartlett good evening thank you so much for this opportunity i greatly appreciate it my name is Judy Bartlett my address is 1908 Dean Road Orlando 32825 this issue tonight is not about bicycles and backpacks this is not about freedom fairness equality or preventing anyone from being who they really are we do not fear you but we don't agree with you we've been accused of being not loving well God's true love demands truth and honesty policy is already in place as has been stated over and over again this evening minorities are already protected under the law teachers unions protect teachers from unjust firings as one of my opposition has aptly explained um I would exhort you with these final words wo
247wo woe unto you who call evil good and good evil thank you Miss Bartlett all right why don't we do this let's take a 10-minute break when I come back so you can be prepared we're going to hear from Miss uh Anna Ecommani then Miss Aydah Gonzalez Mr raymond Hadley Mr james Hicks and then Miss Crystal Rich thank you here's a question for every parent out there if you could fast forward 20 years to see how your kids doing in life would you do it well we can't time travel yet but we can see the future better with the new Common Core State Standards in our schools they set clear goals for every stage of learning and they're the same for everyone no matter what zip code you're in so you can be sure your
248student is really grasping what she needs to know to get to graduation and beyond find out how it all works at commonworks.org [Music] okay board members um or members of the audience I should say right now I believe cuz I moved to the back of the list some folks who weren't here earlier and I don't think still are here as of now we have 26 more speakers to go an hour and a half so um [Applause] I know this is an important issue that everybody wants to speak on um I don't know that a board member will move to limit that at all but I don't believe they will but I also think you get to a point sometimes in discussions where um most board members know how they're going to vote on an issue
249mr um if there's someone out here who has signed up to speak and they feel like their point of view has already been given is there a way to just stand up acknowledge that because I think when I saw some heads when you all heard there were 23 more speakers um so you know I sometimes when we've gotten in resonings and we've heard a lot sometimes people just stand up and say that you know I agree with what's already been said so that might be an option for some of our speakers if they'd like that's a good suggestion so if you'd like to say that or if you um feel free to just stand up in your place and say "I'll wave my time and and I'm in opposition or in support." Um all right
250i'm going to pick up with Miss Christy Griffin Green miss Griffin Green welcome ma'am all right my name is Christy Griffin Green um this is Susanna and I live at 3426 Grant Boulevard Orlando 32804 and I'm speaking in support of this measure we've got a lot of stickers out here saying to protect children um and I'm very much in favor of that but a lot of the comments that I've been hearing have tended to support protecting some rights of some children at the expense of others why are we have why should children in our schools have this conversation because children in our schools are lesbian gay bisexual and transgender we have them in the schools now we have transgender children in elementary school you may not like it but they're there they're having this conversation
251already and when they don't have someone to talk to when straight teachers can talk about their spouses and their families but gay and lesbian teachers are afraid to do so that harms children when they're bullied and they don't think they have anyone who will have their back that harms children and we what we've seen is that can lead to self harm and it can lead to children taking their own lives that we've had a lot of talk today about the bathroom issue so yeah let's let's talk about it let's talk about the fact that the fear that's been brought up that men or boys will pretend to be transgender to get into a girl's bathroom is something that does not happen it hasn't happened and there's no reason to think that it will happen what
252does happen is that when transgender children are forced to use the restrooms of their assigned sex rather than their gender they're at a much greater actual proven risk of being physically abused or sexually abused so just to reiterate in attempting to to protect children from a boogeyman that doesn't exist what you're actually doing is putting real children in risk of real harm i understand if it makes you squeamish to think that a transgender child may be in the same restroom as your child but your squeamishness does not override that child's need to be safe i understand that you don't want to have uncomfortable conversations with your children neither do I but it's a much more uncomfortable conversation to have to tell a parent that their child committed suicide because they could not get help from
253the bullying they received at schools uh this is very important to me um because this one's going to be in the schools soon and I want them to be a safe place this measure needs to be passed it needs to be passed to strengthen and to reinforce the current laws because as we've heard the children and the teachers in our school do not feel safe under the current laws yes they exist and it's wonderful that they do but we need to do more to make sure that they are going to be able to get the help that they need that they're going to be able to have the role models that they need and that no one is going to be afraid to speak out when the when the risk of not doing so is
254putting children at risk so I'm asking you to vote yes i'm asking you to protect all children in our schools thank you thank you Miss Griffin Green all right next is Miss Ida or Ada forgive me gonzalez miss Gonzalez are you here okay my name is uh Ida Gonzale i live in 1946 Tberry Court Orlando Florida okay now I'm going to speak in Spanish zip codes oh zip code 32 4324 i forgot i'm nervous don't worry about it okay okay um good evening and God bless you all um we have spoken a lot of things the same thing i am here i'm a minister of the Lord and I am worried my first worry is is there's a meeting almost being hidden and I asked myself why I just found out a few hours ago
255and and a lot of parents don't have the idea what's happening here and that worries me why i would like somebody to answer me is very important important things are not being to be hidden must be brought up to the light i worry this sense it is involved our kids our grandchildren and the word says we must take care of the principles of the word of God the American nation must keep the principles of the of the word when we don't keep them the principles of the Bible the judgment of God comes over the nation and that's very sad we love everyone even if you don't believe it it doesn't matter but we get directed by the word we want the values of the family be maintained like it has been maintained all the life
256we've talked about discrimination but I don't understand too much about discrimination but like a Hispanic I've been discriminated and a lot of Hispanics been discriminated a lot of people I'm a former other have been discriminated with but my right of citizen I can reclaim if I've been discriminated but If we don't have a law or or biblical base why are we talking about discrimination we can't talk about that when it's not in the word and the law i tell you to all you people to meditate and what you're going to do nation family But can you wrap up is being affected by the public school this is going to be chaos i need to ask thank you thank you have a good evening thank you ma'am all right our next speaker is Mr raymond Hadley
257mr hadley thank you for staying thank you for keeping your eyes open it's awfully late almost past my bedtime i'm Raymond Hadley i'm living at 133 South WA Springs Road in Apopka 32703 i'm a parent i'm a grandparent i'm a pastor and I'm a resident of Orange County and a proud citizen of the United States of America i am one of those that believes in freedom i'm one that preaches freedom i'm one that uh uh is completely satisfied that this country is unlike any other country in the world it is an exceptional nation and one of the reasons is because of the freedoms that we ex enjoy and I want to say a few things first of all because I want to be recognized as understanding uh the opposition from those of us who don't
258agree with homosexuality and I understand understand the struggles uh in my lifetime I've had some friends a neighbor across the street from us at one occasion uh left his wife and went into that lifestyle and as a testimony to realize that uh there is a change and there can be a difference uh left that lifestyle became a Christian and trusted Jesus as his personal savior and totally changed and came uh for the glory of the Lord there's some principles I think that are based that we need to understand and what I have to say may be uh not aware of some of the younger people because I understand that in 1962 the Supreme Court of this country uh sort of throughout the Bible uh as a textbook or as a a source in the public
259schools and I quote from uh actually you can find this on the Library of Congress but John Adams our second president said the general principles upon which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity i will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God later he agreed with John Hancock and said we recognize no sovereign but God and no king but Jesus it's interesting that throughout about 150 years this country recognized the word of God as the basis and the the source the foundation of finding our principles for the country and also for even the schools in fact it was Thomas Jefferson that approved the Congress funding the printing of a Bible that was specially printed
260for the classrooms in our country well one of the reasons for that is Noah Webster uh 1758 to 1843 he was an American lexographer textbook author and that clock must be wrong um he says all the miseries and evils of men suffer from vice crime ambition injustice oppression slavery and war proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible i want to encourage you to base what you're doing on the principles of the word of God and I believe that if you put this regulation in force it's only going to open the floodgates of greater regulations and greater problems in this nation and especially in this this county public school system thank you thank you opposing it thank you all right our next speaker is Mr james Hicks mr hicks all right
261our next speaker is Mr claude um Cassamun welcome me have right written down what I'm going to say right to the point to make sure I didn't forget to say my name uh my name is Claude Casagnol uh I live at 9542 Hullbook Drive Orlando 32817 um we've already talked about that there are already uh anti-bullying laws and it really is a matter just of enforcing those um I believe that your job is not to legislate but to educate um if this meeting was so well noticed then how many how come so many people didn't know um I am involved in situations where I have to provide notices um and there's noticing and there's noticing and if the school one of the schools was changing its system of how the car line was going to
262operate every parent would be notified it wouldn't be put in the back of the Orlando Sentinel somewhere um we're letters this is a very divisive issue a very important issue to a lot of parents were letters sent out to all the parents that's noticing um all you did was follow the letter of the law and plot something in the back of the paper to say that it doesn't grant special rights well we wouldn't need this meeting if that weren't the case and that's what some people had said earlier but instead there's an agenda to try to silence anyone who has an opposite viewpoint as weird as bigoted anyone who does doesn't agree is not educated um not wellinformed not even entitled to their own opinion i've heard about protecting our children almost as if it's
263the school's job to raise our children um it's not the school's job to raise our children and it is our job as parents to raise our children it is your job to educate our children and I've seen um in other people that I know that their kids growing up in the public school system they have faced intimidation if they speak out against um anything against that the school is trying to forward especially when it comes to homosexualism they are intimidated they are intimidated into believing that what they believe is wrong i want my kids to feel safe not to feel that someday they'll get fired from their job because they have a different opinion i I think not only should you vote no tonight I think you should continue this meeting and properly send out
264letters to all the stu to all the parents of this county of this school system not just bury a notice in the back of the paper that is not noticing that's just fulfillment of the the requirement of the law thank you thank you Mr kazimol um our next speaker is Miss Anna she just told me how to pronounce and I already forgot i'm sorry anna Miss Anna Eskimani esani all right how's everyone doing tonight i'm a little tired so I'll keep this brief my name is Anavia Kamani i reside at 857 Spring Oak Circle Orlando Florida 32828 and I'm also a proud veteran of Orange County Public Schools i graduate from um Bonville Elementary Coral Lake Middle and University High School so go Cougars if there's any Cougars in the room um basically you know
265I'm a little confused because for me when I first heard about this issue um I thought it was pretty simple of what steps we should take um there's been a lot of emphasis on academics in our schools which is really important um I you know always consider academics first but you cannot deny that students are going through social experiences on campus especially as they get older it becomes more than just you know going to math class reading class and so forth it really does evolve to these are my friends these are the clicks these are people I hang out with and and you know every day we see different people i mean this image right behind here um shows a very diverse group of students and we're surrounded by diversity everywhere and it causes us
266to ask questions why am I different you know why is this student darker than I am you know why is their hair color different and and I think we should answer them and I and I really you know applauded um this provision because I I really think it is a a step for a cultural difference where we don't deny that there is a difference between us we actually accept it and and not everyone's going to fall into those categories but I think it's important that we start you know emphasizing that there is a difference between us and that's okay it's okay if you're transgendered it's okay if you're gay if you're lesbian i think that's what it comes down to is that it's a cultural shift and unfortunately um we are we have we as
267humans are evolving faster than our culture is and so that's where government steps in and acknowledges that change and and passes laws and passes provisions that um complement the way that our society is moving and so that's why I support this provision and um you know when I was at University High School I um had a homosexual friend um we are still friends to this day and I can tell you that it was very difficult for him in uh freshman year he would harm himself with a razor and um you know this is not an isolated incident he felt like he had nowhere to go and looking back at that you know I was there for him fortunately he had someone but a lot of students don't and I'm asking everyone here today to stand
268with our students to stand with our teachers and to really support this provision so um I'm not gay i am just a woman of color who has been through a lot of discrimination her life in her own way and I think it's time that we stop that and if we all rise each other we will rise together so thanks so much for your time and happy holidays thank you Miss Eskimani uh our next speaker is um um Miss Lou Langston miss Langston miss Langston okay our next speaker is Mr louise um Castro mr castro mr louise Castro or Casta our next speaker is Miss Melissa McDonald miss McDonald welcome um I'll be real brief my name is Melissa McDonald i reside at 100030 Lali Pine Circle Orlando Florida 32827 um first I would like to
269um thank the school board for the opportunities that you've given my children um I have three enrolled at Lake Nona High School and I would say it is without exception the best school in the county um with the opportunities there that children have i really wish that every child in the county had it with a dual enrollment with Valencia and um just the last couple of years we've taken in a lot of kids from failing schools and just watching those kids excel and stuff and I really applaud you and um believing on us parents out there and listening to us last year when we had a change in administration and just what a smooth transition it has been um the only question this has opened up it's been an interesting discussion in our home because
270you know kids see things a little different and when you look through it through the eyes of a child their big question is and I know it's been glossed over is is the bathroom that was really their only question is what about the bathrooms and are you going to put an extra bathroom on the floor or what are you going to do and that is just my question to you is um what about the bathrooms because that was my kids concern um and we have a wonderful school out there and um I would hope that if any child is bullied that they can go to any administrator um I know we have teachers I don't I'm not sure with all the my children have given me a big education this week on all these acronyms
271and everything and um you know I just that's their question and I I would just ask you to take that into consideration and answer it for the children not from us parents but I mean that's their question thank you thank you Miss McDonald our next speaker is Miss Laura Gent miss Gent miss Laura Gent after that will be Brian Bradock then Crystal Rich then Gigi Wonderly then Virgil Jones then George Collins welcome Miss Jent thank you uh my name is Laura Gent and I live at 3132 Mchuan Lane Orlando 32812 i'd like to thank you for this opportunity to speak um and really I I will try to be very brief and just reiterate a few of the points that um have already been probably touched on i think at the at the core you
272all have two jobs to do one is to protect students and staff and the other is to educate and you have laws in place to protect if those laws don't work then you need to figure out why if students and staff are not safe why because the language already exists to protect them so changing language isn't going to make them any safer if it's not working right now the second issue is is education none of these issues factor into how a child learns math a teacher their personal life whatever they're going through and and as adults we know we carry a lot of responsibility we show up at work with a lot of burden and it it it doesn't factor in to our our executing our day-to-day work um so it really none of this
273should be an issue your job is to educate does this change the education system that Orange County provides these issues don't the social issues do not they should not be our country has worked hard and has tried to pull out all kinds of things out of the education system every it if if you're going to be about educating be about educating be about reading and math the state of Florida's education has risen in ranking over the last few years in the United States i actually looked that up and I was fairly surprised this year for 2012 it has fallen from number five to number 11 it has risen from 30 we were 30 I believe 10 years ago so great strides have occurred in this state regarding education because you're focused on education and not
274the social indoctrination on whatever opinions anybody else has and that is uh so that is why I urge you to say no figure out if it's not working why is what you have not working and fix that and thank you very much thank you Miss Jen our next speaker is Mr brian Bradock mr bradock welcome sir thank you my name is Brian Bradock i live at 7880 Autumnwood Drive Orlando Florida 32825 uh I stand here today to oppose the addition of 3.01 3.02 uh I do not think that it is necessary given what I've heard today about the the existing language concerning anti-discrimination uh also based on what I've heard I do not feel that this movement to change the language is really about preventing uh to or rather to ensure non-discrimination that doesn't seem
275to be the main agenda behind all of this since that seems to be adequately addressed in what you already have rather it seems to be just part part of a greater push in our society and culture to normalize the uh asexual behavior that is be trying to become prominent and accepted in our society uh there is a big temptation I think you perhaps you are under that is to be part of a movement that is responsible for making big cultural shifts in our school system in our society i would uh I understand politically how tempting that may be to want to be a part of that big movement but I ask you not to make uh not to mingle that with the education of our children there doesn't seem to be a need for that
276and the second thing what what this will do I believe is it's going to uh confuse the definition of words number one the word discriminate okay that word is thrown around a lot now we are all to be discriminating people matter of fact we're all here today to encourage you to be very discriminating in your decisions about this if we do not become a discriminating people we are all in for a lot of trouble in our life we must always discriminate as we go through life just to keep ourselves safe yet I know the common meaning of discriminate is to uh intimidate or discriminate in such a way as to needlessly harm another person we understand that is what's being proposed when people are saying they're being discriminated against they are being harmed unfortunately what's
277going to happen with this is that people who have a opposing point of view are going to be labeled discriminators and lawsuits will increase because people more people will become violators of a law that is inadequately defined but I do want to speak about what does harm children in the education system and that is teaching something that is not true i remember how that it was uh creationist creationism was denied a chance to be taught in the public school system next to evolutionary theory and the opponents of teaching creationism said well it's not true it's not fact therefore untruth harms children and that's very true I want you to think about what allowing transgenderism to be in a leadership position in a classroom does to undermine your authority as an educational system because you are
278presenting ing to the children uh listen Johnny I have a child named John i can say this johnny 2 plus 2 is four and Mr jones is now a girl the the student is going to be confused about that how can that be so well that's simply because he feels like he's a girl now so that's okay you cannot teach non-truth and expect uh students to respect your uh teaching ability or your philosophy of teaching one last word and and it is this when Jesus Christ stood before Pilot Pilate he said he came to bear witness of the truth pilate responded "What is truth?" I ask you to consider discriminate what is truth and teach from a foundation of truth thank you thank you Mr bradock mrs gordon I see that you've punched your button
279okay all right okay all right ma'am uh next we have um Miss Crystal Rich miss Rich welcome i am Crystal Rich i reside at 1710 Bobtail Drive that's in Mland 32751 good evening and I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you today uh first of all as a mother um I did see the notice in the newspaper i consider it my obligation to read public notices because that's what they're there for and OCPS has been advertising this meeting for quite a while as a mother of two OCPS students one a graduate and one now a senior at Edgewater i can attest that my children have had nothing but extraordinary teachers both straight and gay over the past 15 years never once did a teacher of sexual orientation come into the classroom
280and my children have been enriched by these fine instructors my husband and I could not have asked for a better experience for our children as an OCPS teacher because I wear two hats I frequently encounter other teachers from not only Florida but from around the country through pre professional development and workshops i always come away no matter where I am realizing just how cutting edge OCPS really is in almost every way and I feel so proud to be part of this organization as one of the largest employers in Central Florida I really believe we need this policy to walk the walk with regards to treating all of our students and employees in a respectful and non-discriminatory manner the rest of the community and surrounding school districts are watching us today and waiting for our leadership
281on this issue at the beginning of the meeting you gave us an opportunity for a moment of silence and we had the freedom to pray and I did and what I prayed for is that we would respond with reason and confidence not with fear and false ideas that others might have tried to convey thank you for your time thank you Miss Rich uh next is uh Gigi Wonderly then Virgil Jones then George Collins professor George Collins all right Miss Wonderly welcome my name is Gigi Wonderly and I live at 4712 Jamerson Place Orlando Florida i wish I could stay up here and chat forever hi Miss Gordon i used to teach with you um but I I'll just state something very simply um this proposal I'm against it and I hope you will be as
282well it's polarizing look at the colors the red and the blue what are we supposed to be here for all the students all the teachers i taught for about 10 years and then um I homeschooled i'm in uh about my 13th year of that so I've I've been on both sides here um this is polarizing the students and the teachers should be unified this is disintegrating that unity um all students and teachers should be cared for equally and if there's they're not something is wrong um this just opens the door for further changes that aren't needed um I agree with the other parents that are saying you know here we are i don't even know the the number where we are right now nationally ranked could be a lot better i think we we we
283have the language here in and what you're talking about it needs to just be enforced you need to focus on what really matters and um maybe that national ranking can be moved up um but right now it's just disintegrating and I'm I'm really sorry that there has to be red and blue because all of you should be all of us should be treated equally and with respect and honor and you know one last thing i know I said it'd be short i have I taught public school i loved it i'm a taxpayer but when um my and I don't get one red scent for homeschooling and I don't even want to know how much I have spent on my children's education i don't even want to know because it's been thousands but my tax money
284I don't want to have to put it to a third bathroom a third locker room a third whatever okay i don't want it to have to go to that it shouldn't have to go to that it should go to what is best for these children's education thank you Miss Wonderly uh next is Mr virgil Jones reverend Virgil Jones welcome Reverend good day Mr chairman and Mr superintendent and all the great board members of this education system um I'm going to be very brief much has been said here today reverend Jones can I get your address and your Z i'm sorry certainly is this echo okay my address i am at uh 21102 Green Ash Court Winter Garden Florida um 34 38 34787 um my children and my daughter graduated from OCPS she's at UPEN right
285now my son is a graduate graduating this year uh as well as the 27 churches that I oversee and I cover i probably counsel more people in this room than the people in this room with regards to both um sexual gender issues as well as drug addictions and since I deal with it from a perspective that is after they've been afflicted I work from there to work on what we call prevention for any type of activity that can cause harm to a person's life i have come to a deduction as I sat and listened here very arduously to everything that's been said i do have to contend with the issue of us being polarized behind this issue where I come from the inner cities and as an ex-drug user and ex-drug pusher um ex sexual
286deviant if you want to call it that um I have come to find out that when you begin to take sides of an issue you're not dealing with unity uh where I come from red and blue could get you killed and therefore we have to make sure that we are not sending the wrong message to a group of children we're telling them to stay away from red and blue now pastor what are you saying what I am saying now is I am a a father not just a pastor of several different people i also have worked with so many schools in this area to counsel children who have needed academic help we do tutoring programs and I get the chance to speak with the parents of children who are weward and need education for a
287sense of progressing in academia moving them up to grade levels from their reading levels whatever it inquires calculus training tutoring we supply it all the issue that gets me on this day is not the rhetoric of the wording which can be dealt with in another arena it's the physical component of the restrooms that is what appears to be the big elephant in the room and until we deal with that I don't believe in my mind and my consciousness that if an individual should say they feel a certain way that they should be allowed into a place that does not meet their makeup and what I mean by makeup is physical pokerude just because you have a sexual orientation if you have a particular sexual organ that needs to stay classified i don't want a transgender
288male coaching and going into the locker room with my daughter i don't want a transgender female going into the locker room with my son and I don't want students being able to go into the same restroom based on a I believe I'm this way we have to not let the lines get blurred and that's a serious issue for me keeping the restrooms is the reason I oppose this so please everything else is fine with me the issue I have is we need to address this restroom issue i stand firm in my tenants of the faith and I am Christian have a great day thank you Reverend Jones all right we now have uh Professor George Collins [Music] hey how are you uh merry Christmas Feliz Navidida happy Hanukkah it's a joyful time of year uh
289my wife said that's the topic tonight yes um hey I learned a lot tonight and I've met many of the board members and I appreciate what you do uh my name is George Collins live at 2585 Corbington Court Orlando Florida 32828 and I teach at Valencia public speaking and previously to UCF and I love that course i get to meet our wonderful 18 19 year olds come out of Orange County public schools and many of them have special needs and very proud to say that the administration at Valencia works very closely with the teachers and helping those with special needs uh one student um is blind and uh yet turned out to be a fantastic speaker and very proud of him and he's from uh another country too um and I've worked with students of
290many special needs and they I'm very proud and thrilled to see them succeed um I'm wearing blue because I'm opposed to it but I think it's not red but blue and I've heard polarization i'm more into the white i'd like to see us come together because there seems to be a lot of common ground it's like our congressmen in Washington they have a lot of common ground but they just don't seem to come together and we could solve our economic crisis so I say I suggest that we don't leave tonight without working with uh Chairman Sublet and working on committees where we can come together and come up with some solutions they've been brought up some issues some legal issues that perhaps you weren't aware of before that I wasn't um perhaps we need to
291uh invite some psychologists perhaps have it at Valencia or UCF i'd be glad to be that link um also there's been brought up to our attention about some national studies perhaps we should look at that so I'm suggesting to the board that that you consider deferring your decision for a little while i've heard some uh members here excuse me some of the audience indicate that they weren't aware of the meeting till the last minute perhaps we need to work on making sure would you not agree that everyone's well informed and well represented so I would like to join in assisting you Mr and the board and with the members here and how we can come together we have a lot of common ground there's some polarization on issues but I think we can work together
292because education after all is our prime goal is it not and by the way we got some good news the fourth graders right in Florida are second in the world well that's great we need more good news like that and work on education thank you very much for allowing me to speak at this late hour thank you Professor Collins all right ladies and gentlemen um we're going to hear about four more speakers and take another break um and then we're getting close i'm going to read the names of who I still have can you raise your hand if you're still here and are going to speak just so I can try to order up the final uh the final um um lineup is Miss Holly Fussell still here holly just raise your hand quickly if
293you're here otherwise I'm going to put you in the no-show category holly Fussell okay kathleen Van Wool Woolrich still here okay randy Ross still here okay some of these were people that weren't here earlier i put to the back scott Hwitt sarah Cena okay abby Pro okay todd Cella Stafford King Jada Williams Larry Ramirez Sharon Ferrer Carolyn Fagoro uh Jerry Krill Jerry uh Jack Boyer Jack Boyer Jr mary Joe Markle Rosalie Sandos Rosaly Sand Okay all right um All right folks just so you know we're down to nine all right um just 30 minutes let's just do this um I'm going to go with some more opponents on this because we only have two proponents left uh Todd Catella todd Catella mr catella welcome sir recognizing Todd Catella 162 Marcato Orlando 32807 um I was
294raised in Orange County uh actually went through the Oakidge area um um Judson B walker uh Pine Castle uh actually had a little time over at Lake Ko and um um the experience was u good uh and bad there was both sides there there was times when our family was stable and strong um my stepfather was very uh much a disciplinarian and kept the house in order and that was difficult with four boys that were always at each other's throats and um um but we survived it was a very lively experience uh as I was going into actually in middle school the one thing that kind of I can relate to uh very much so with some of these folks is um I'm I'm a band member and if you're a band member um in
295junior high you get picked and you're a guy you get picked on because you're not a sports guy you know and you get a little bit of that harassment i called a and whatever else but you know you're you're a band guy so you pick your sh you pick your side you stand your ground and say "I am a band guy i want to play in the band i want to play my saxophone." So um but I do remember that being being very um distinct and then also um the band guys don't always get along with the jocks you know um the jocks are a little bit more testosterone driven um and at each other quite a bit and very dominant um but you could be quietly dominant too uh as a band guy um
296so my experience though in school was um was good thank God I had music because when my parents got divorced as I was entering high school um my experience went completely different and if I didn't have the music program it would have been very very very very difficult because three out of my six classes in high school were music thank God it kept my GPA up um so I said all that to say that there's a lot of uh kids with family issues that they're having to deal with and they don't need an additional issue to have to deal with in the school let them have somewhat of a sanctuary it's your job as guardians and stewards and the gatekeepers to the public school system to make sure you're doing that and focus on that
297if you don't mind please thank you thank you Mr catello uh next is Miss Jada Williams miss Williams welcome hello um my name is Jada Williams i live at 824 Mirfield Circle 32712 Papa Florida um I'm 16 years old and I go to Apakka High School i'm a junior and um every year when we go over our code of conduct they tell us where one person's right begins another person's rights end i have a fear that LGBT rights will overrule those of other groups of people discrimination happens in many different forms and it's not right to look over one group as superior to another i have myself have been discriminated against for being biracial for being Christian for being different for not conforming to what other people believe um who is to say that sexual
298identity is a more important subject matter and should rule presidents over discrimination over Christianity poverty race etc no one should be told how to think and by making the majority conform to the minority you're telling us how to think and we're teenagers we don't want to do that thank you for your time thank you Miss Williams uh next is Mr larry RmIrez mr ramirez we've had some fabulous welcome sir thank you very much my name is Larry Ramirez i live at uh 15018 Cedar Branchway Orlando Florida 32824 i am a a citizen a father and a minister in Orange County uh we serve the community on South Orange Blossom Trail we serve a lot of the children that are in transition some have an identity crisis right now and we we work with these children
299on a hands-on basis every single day Monday through Friday Saturday and Sunday it's not a Monday through Friday job we serve at the pleasure of the king and his name is Jesus Christ and I'm asking this board I'm asking this community to stand to stand not to be right or wrong but for righteousness sake i'm asking this community not to be right or wrong but to stand for righteous and justice as a minister in this community I grew up as a Hispanic i was beaten up every single day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday i was beaten up because of the color of my skin and I was also beaten up because I didn't speak English very well i couldn't structure a sentence it led me to a a life of destruction i I
300couldn't speak to the white guys i didn't hate them i just didn't understand what they were saying my parents couldn't defend me because they didn't understand the language but my heart is not full of anger my heart is not full of discrimination i love you i stand here and I want to ask this community again not to be right or wrong but to to to vote to stand for righteousness sake it nothing else matters nothing else matters children who can't defend themselves because they don't speak the same language as you they need someone to advocate and I'm standing as a father of two in Orange County allowing my voice to be heard in opposition to this not because I want to be right or wrong but because I want to stand in justice firm standing
301in Orange County before you the board the school board of this beautiful city that I serve gladly and I will not allow myself to be pushed back by fear threats threats no there was one man whose life endured endured a hate crime and his name is Jesus Christ and he he stood on the cross for us thank you for allowing me to be heard thank you Reverend Mer uh next is Miss Sharon Ferrer miss Ferrer welcome [Music] my name is Sharon Ferrer 4636 Salvia Drive Orlando Florida 32839 good evening Mr chairman members of the board i'm here in the capacity of a reporter for 12:70 a.m news i don't have an in favor nor an against opinion about this issue but for the benefit of the citizens that flooded our telephone lines after a tip
302received this morning about this issue and airing a heated discussion about it i wish to ask you briefly these three questions how many cases have been submitted stating discrimination against gay students and employees that have provoked the discussion of this issue what was the reason for the citizens and press not to be informed of this meeting previously and to be revealed by a citizen via telephone tip and are you going to vote for this amendment tonight and for the benefit of the Spanish community can you briefly explain the process miss Fer I'm sorry you have three minutes to give testimony i'm sure board members would be happy to speak with you after the meeting if you'd like to speak to them individually thank you thank you all right our next speaker is Miss Mary Joe
303Markle [Music] welcome Miss Marle thank you sorry had to do it rick um Mary Joe Markle 2743 Aaron Road Orlando Florida 32806 hello board i've addressed you many times and I know you many many of you pam I have not met you welcome and I did watch your campaign video and you wanted to engage the community um this is it but it turned into an enraged so I'm sorry that this was your first example of engagement that's not fun um problem is here is language first of all we've hooked two things together and tried to make it one there is one um policy proposed for employment there's another policy proposed for students they got confused here tonight if you guys didn't realize that they got way confused i am here for children a proposed policy
304to allow gender oh and then there's something else neat I learned tonight we now have a Q at the end of LBGT questionable which I don't get so now I have a teenager who might be gay might not be gay might be transgender might not might be questioning of course they do they're teenagers okay I get that but we have a Q now so I don't I So I guess you need to add that into your language and then while you're adding language please add jocks goth religious rights gang bangers card nerds cutters band geeks and orc dorks because all of those labels are also in your schools to stand here and say that one special interest group should take precedent over the orc dorks or the band geeks or the goth or the cutters
305is pretty much not right for children um I also that's my first point my second point is there was an email sent to teachers today from OCPS thank you but I do have to also state that the last paragraph in it was kind of um persuasive is a nice word it it it told this teachers essentially don't research this policy yourself just trust us there are going to be people here that are going to say issues okay read it for me Nancy there are going to be people here that are going to say that issues with bathrooms and lockers are not going to be included in this now in Canada this has already become a case this has become an issue that a girl who thought she was a boy was invited into the locker
306room this is an issue this is real issue the third thing I do want to say is this is not a civil right issue as we're trying to put through as policy is not a civil right issue this is a choice my children go to see you at the poll every year and as they come out of see you at the poll because they are Christians they are discriminated against and bullied i have already approached board members this year where my son was bullied by an administration person have we not done that it was resolved but this happened so the problem is not in rewriting your language or or getting new language the problem is upholding the laws that you already have in place thank you Miss Marle okay um let's do this let's take
307a quick fivem minute break i have only four speakers left i don't want to go right into debate after a break i'd rather have speakers and then go into debate so let's um because I think folks are going to want to get right into debate at the end of that so we'll take a fivem minute break [Music] all right folks if everybody could take a seat um board members uh our next speaker is and here's the order for the final speakers Teslan Fagaro Sarah Cleina Rosalie Sandos and Abby Provop so Miss Teslan Fagaro thank you for coming and being so patient this is Reverend good evening teslan Figuro 33 South Kirkman apartment 1337 Orlando Florida i didn't have any plans on speaking tonight but the more I keep hearing Martin Luther King Jr quoted on
308both sides of the position the more my soul would not let me sit i came to educate myself on the issue and I'm not taking a particular position on this for or against it but since we have a pack house and only a handful showed up at the FCAT score meeting I must take an opportunity to speak to you what no one talks about i didn't know that there was a color code tonight and I put my red heels on to match my red lipstick and I had no idea that I may send a message of my support it seemed like no big deal to me to wear red shoes but there was a time when the color of my shoes did matter when I went to high school in the Midwest in the West
309Coast region gang violence was heavy and it still is and is a driving factor in our public schools and to the last speaker that said gang violence is just like dorks or any other group that's not true because it cost me and my friends a lot of time in prison as well as countless funerals that I've attended my neighborhood was controlled by bloods who wore red and when I visited family on the other side of town I was forced to wear blue the thumbs you raised tonight could have easily been confused with the gang sign and now what does that have to do with tonight you probably thinking well because a result of people not being involved as you sit here tonight almost at the midnight hour my generation was failed and have failed by
310the wayside i guess no one got the notice we are now dealing with the consequences that my generation has been led astray we had record numbers of teens having babies and it was the generation of the crack cocaine epidemic that as a result more black men are in prison today than those who are were enslaved in prison in in prison in 1850 let me say that again more black men are in prison today than those who were enslaved in 1850 and as a result of the drug use of the '90s the children were born with learning disabilities then the men that were provided the drugs by the CIA were also put into an alleged war on drugs and locked up and in Florida when they get out of prison we are only one of the
311four states that allow them the right to vote so where were the thumbs then from everyone on both sides these empty households were left with kids failing in school where were everyone in this room when I sat there and questioned the commissioner of education at the FCAT emergency meeting with Senator Sibling we had a handful of about 25 parents in the room and it was an embarrassment to the state of Florida and everyone said the same thing that I'm hearing now i did not get the notice well who among us was at the board meeting when we sat here almost two years ago on segregation in Orange County where were the thumbs then when we were put on a national stage that we're still talking about segregation in Orange County as they build prisons based
312upon who failed in the third grade where were you i'm wrapping up fast so I stand here as a veteran a businesswoman a mother a chairwoman of Eagle's Nest Sack Committee substitute teacher and working on my masters in education but I also stand here with stitches under my right eye by someone who was a and I stand here with stitches on my right arm by someone who was a blood so while you wear red and blue talking about equality I ask that you give your energy to some of the black and brown otherwise it is nothing more than a gimmick the young lady said that in high school things were different and that's true because at my first funeral I was 13 by my blood classmate that killed his friend so I speak for them
313the lost generation that their offspring is now failing in this school system will you raise your thumb for them will you put your hands to work for them or you are you only concerned about what matters to you and that is not equality i have no problem giving my address because like MLK I fear nothing perhaps because I've been too close to death too many times to count so I ask that you fight for all injustice year round and wait until 10:00 every time to speak for your position thank you thank you Miss Vagaro all right next we have Miss Sarah Cena welcome [Music] good evening board good evening Superintendent Jenkins good evening Chairman Sublot uh Sarah Clenna 2887 South Conway Road in the proud Conway area of Orlando Florida 32812 um thank you for
314staying light tonight because you are about to make history in Orange County and I feel like it's getting lost it's getting kind of pushed to the wayside that this we are on the brink of something amazing and you will be the catalyst to that amazing change um I have a degree in elementary education and political science a master's in marriage and family counseling an EDS in educational leadership and I'm in the last year of my doctoral program with the University of Florida so I come from a political educational and counseling psychology background in this matter um I have been a teacher proud teacher at OCPS for eight years now i've been a teacher for 10 years i teach in sixth grade over at Conway Middle School very proud to be there it's an amazing school
315i tell my kids every day that they deserve a safe place to be many of them go home and they do not have a safe place um and I feel responsible for creating a safe place where they feel safe to take risks in learning safe to take risks in their life and to be able to express themselves as who they are uh we heard a story previously about a a gentleman who was discriminated against because he spoke Spanish and was unable to communicate with people in his community but the story that he told is the story of our GBT students that we have right now um socially isolated uh fear of fear anxiety depression these this is what our students are experiencing and no one on the opposition side is a current teacher at Orange
316County we've heard from no one tonight that currently teaches in Orange County and realizes the conditions that these students are going through um I come more as a supporter of my students but of course a supporter of everyone because as adults we have gone through this process and we have developed these coping skills and our students haven't done that yet they're still in the midst of developing these coping skills um and if any way that we can help them we should help them uh some of the things that are happening due to the lack of a solid policy we have runaway students and we all know we're focused on student achievement well isn't that loss of instructional time truency leads to loss of instructional time which leads to decreased student uh improvement so if we're
317looking at it from a purely educational standpoint we have a severe problem on our hands uh we have self mutilation suicidal ideiation and social bullying uh I from the gender perspective I find it odd that we keep talking about the bathrooms because news flash our kids we already have kids that are transgendered and they are going to the bathroom as far as I know during the day i would assume they would have to um so something is happening that's right because these kids are able to use our facilities um these kids also do not live in a bubble um they do not they're not hearing about the gays and the transgenders from this meeting they're hearing about it already at school they're living it and believe it or not my sixth graders come into middle
318school knowing about it and curious about it and expressing their own sexuality and gender expression so I urge you to vote on the uh cusp of change tonight and make history in Orange County thank you thank you Miss Glenna uh Rosalie Sandos Miss Sandos welcome my name is Rosalie Sandos i live on um 13309 Moss Park Ridge Drive 32832 um I attend Lake Nona High School and my school is probably the most accepting school of gays and any other title you want to put in my school we have kids that are gay that walk around and you know they're happy to be gay or you know whatever it is my opinion personally is that I don't really agree with what they do but that is my opinion and I'm entitled to it no one can
319tell me different i am European i am Puerto Rican and I am Jewish a really weird mix yes but it works and I am happy dayto day I go by with a smile on my face because I know I'm going to a safe place and a lot of gay people or lesbians or whatever a lot of them can't say they're not safe because if you go to a school like mine they are safe um when I go to school I don't want to know about what my teacher's sexual reference is i don't care i don't want to know about the person that sits next to me what their reference is i don't care i go to school to learn to learn language arts to learn science to learn math and for my electives I go
320there to learn those i don't care what your religion is i don't care what your sexual reference is i want to go to school to learn i don't care about anything else so there is an issue yes because there are a lot of gay homosexual people that are discriminated are made fun of but what about the kids that are overweight that are maybe made fun of because they're black or me because maybe I don't look Hispanic but what does that really matter if you're happy you're happy move on you don't have to be stuck with this and I really think this is kind of an inappropriate topic because we have rules on bullying well why don't we just go forward and enforce them instead of just having them there because no one enforces them in
321my school yeah they say no bullying leave him alone they send you to the office they send you home but what is that really fixing nothing you send them home to what a broken home maybe where they're just getting beat on it's not fair so why do this you're doing more hurt than you are fixing anything so why don't we just move on enforce the rules that are already there just keep going cuz there's no reason to have this no reason for the red and the blue why don't we all wear purple cuz if you combine the two colors you get purple so why can't we be combined as a family and move on be happy stop worrying about oh he's gay oh she's lesbian oh you know the transestite no one cares move on
322please thank you Miss Sandos all right our final speaker is Miss Abby Pro miss Pro welcome good evening last one my name is Abby Pro and I reside at 1000 Holt Avenue Winter Park 32789 i'd like to take a moment to address the council and tell you that I work at Rollins College we have a non-discrimination policy that includes all of the words that you're talking about tonight we were just ranked number one by US News Report for the eighth consecutive year in a row those of you worried about ranking number one i'd also like to take a moment to address the parents and students in the room i am the daughter of a steel mill worker i was raised on a multi-generational farm i was a ballet dancer i was a popular kid homecoming
323crown and all my parents were proud of me i have become a strong Christian woman a good community member i have a master's degree i have a successful career a beautiful home and I have a beautiful wife my parents are still proud of me i am standing here to ask you to choose your words carefully those who stood and spoke about your most important role being that of parents I could not agree more with you the conversation will not end after this meeting there will be a vote but the conversation will not end you will go home to your children and you will teach them you will teach them love and you will teach them acceptance and you will perhaps be teaching them acceptance of themselves just like my parents taught me the number of
324LGBT teen suicides is at an alarming rate when we took a moment of silence I took mine for Zack Harrington a gay teen who killed himself after hearing remarks at a city council meeting much like some of the comments made tonight to the students here who identify as LGBT or questioning because that's very real you are normal you are loved and I am proud of you council members I hope that you vote tonight to approve this policy and you can join the parents in sending a clear message of acceptance to all students and teachers thank you thank you Miss Bro okay board members um Mrs gordon I'm going to recognize you first but then because she's had her button pushed for some time why don't we why don't we try to follow um more strictly
325and we usually do the parliamentary process which is let's take up questions first after Mrs gordon goes because I think there are a number of board members who may have questions and then we'll take up um any discussion uh or debate on the issue mrs gordon well well thank you Mr chairman but I think I had so much written down um I don't remember all of the pieces of paper I wrote them on but um just to clear the air I do appreciate one of the speakers um stating that they did get a notice and um it has been advertised and and in all fairness to our department we we do advertise by law the procedures in which we have to follow a public hearing uh we would be in violation and I since you
326said we we did not get the notice to you you know I don't want to just say you didn't follow through and keep up but it's on the website but you didn't follow through and keep up because if you kept up you would have known that this public hearing is here because you heard other people uh stating it i just think the shock of it and the nature of it um um I I do want you to know you're you're number one with the Orlando Sentinel tonight cuz they've already released a very long a very long story and I wish that that had not been released because all the facts are not in we're not even finished um with our hearing and my point was and in all fairness that um we have I wanted
327to comment Mr chairman on a law that we have for zoning and I think we may have the only error we may have made is that we did not make a policy for controversial hearings and hearings that would go past 10:00 we as a board had agreed for our zoning and in all fairness to the people in the audience that we would start meetings of controversial that the TV media that is still in the room so you know it's hot and they have been broadcasting also i think that's why I was frustrated because I couldn't get everything operating up here like I wanted and they are putting out what they want to put out but we are the eight board members that will put out the truth and put out where this policy is going
328to go um I I do feel that in all fairness we are supposed to allow board discussion um for a while i don't know how you all are going to be able to do that and I sit here and listen to every single one of you and which I do want to hear especially those board members that was at the September meeting uh Miss Kel Mr roach and I were not um privy at that particular time to be at that meeting because of other commitments that we had made and it was a work session i would like to make that clear since that's out in the media already and then for those who were at the meeting and um made the decision to bring the change to the board I want to thank you for
329doing that so that we would have something to work with but in all fairness um I think we need to go back and look quickly and this is not the part of the agenda to do it uh Mr chairman but you have statement of policy level issues that the board would like to agenda and I would like to agenda this ASAP for I mean and to have staff and the superintendent and the board uh immediately get uh workshop versus board meetings we already have on file JC uh resoning for public hearings we need to um even if we have to readvertise for public hearing anything that we may add tonight within our discussion it is always left up to the board chair to determine that additional time is needed and I'm going to ask the
330mercy of the chairman tonight to put uh to to uh we make statements and then I'm asking you as chairman tonight i need as a board member additional time to peruse and to go over all the comments I've written i've dumped from one side to another and I'm wearing my red because of Christmas and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ okay and and and and and I and I do have um you saw at my swearing in um and I love one person that came forward and said that they have gay and lesbians and transsexuals in their family and those of other persuasion i also have that in my family also um there were you know there were comments made about being born I'm sorry i totally have to make my statement there mr chairman
331for the lady that have the wife um sitting next to Commissioner Patty Sheen um I agree you may be a have been born like that but my daughter was born a girl under Dr james B werber in the hospital most of my friends children they have changed over to whatever they chose to be and I've learned to love my child in spite of what they chose to be but I know what's on the birth certificate i don't know what's on yours but my child was born a girl and I want the record to state that so when I speak about this I'm speaking by experience and what I've lived but that statement was made that someone said that they were born this way and I wrote it down and they did say they had a
332wife so if it wasn't you I do apologize but I thought it was because I I'm looking at my notes but Mr chairman I am going to ask if board members would like to make um their comments i'm asking you for us to go back and even um get uh get the the workshop versus board public hearings we have workshop reszonings and public hearings and we could pretty much mimic that language i had John Pomerini to look it up tonight for us he did a great job of finding file JC board members you definitely want to go back and peruse that we adopted that policy on June the 28th 11 i don't think we would be doing anybody any good tonight to try to vote on this critical issue there are some things that I
333would like to ask general counsel about i heard additional things I think of Mary Vidder and I hope I didn't get her name wrong she called me and um gave me some extra legal information that she felt that our attorney was not privileged to i did hear some of that tonight and I would like to research it to make sure that we are on the right path but Mr chairman my part that I'm asking of you you have the power in our policies at any meeting to determine additional time um if needed and for public hearings but even though it was for zoning but I feel that the language said additional time is needed for public hearing for the board or for board discussion and I feel that most of us we have children we
334have to go to work it's already another day and I do not feel that I will be any good to this audience i'm almost fast asleep on you and I took five cap naps and Kathleen said behind me that she couldn't take it she needed 2 hours i don't need but five minutes but I don't feel that if I got another five minutes from you which is so gracious it's going to do me any good i believe my brain is almost gone so if you would address that for me Mr chairman I would be very grateful thank you oh thank you Mrs gordon um I don't believe I have that power um to be candid sometimes I wish I did but I think if you would were to make a motion on that point I
335think it would require a motion either to postpone to a date certain or to lay on the table indefinitely um and that's how we would have to do it from a Robert's rules procedure i will tell you this Mrs gordon though um we will tee up a work session in the future before next summer on uh a discussion on policies work session workshop policies on controversial issues thank you Mrs gordon mrs robinson yes i have a question that um it's not really a question i'd like for superintendent either yourself or Mr rodriguez to address the comments and concerns tonight on the restroom and the use of locker rooms etc for our current transgender students that we currently have board members and and I know that some of you I've met with each of you or
336some of you individually and some have not um during the course of this discussion and yesterday this question was also posed by the media with regards to restrooms um we have had transgendered individuals students not teachers but in those instances we have worked to accommodate so that means the use of a faculty bathroom or some other means so that neither the child nor those using the restroom are in any way shape or form uh impacted by their right to privacy when they use the restroom but in our experience we've had five my two and a half years as general counsel uh I've seen five cases in our office that does not mean there have not been other cases in other uh in schools that did not rise to the level of legal review um but
337uh that's the information in terms of how we've handled it from a school district up until now i'm not aware of any instances where a transgendered child has been using facilities lockers restrooms uh of a sex in which they were not naturally born in or born at thank you so with this policy if it passes tonight as it stands you don't foresee us having restroom issues going forward based on our I mean the policy has been in place for four years to already accept these two um classes of individuals as they are and we haven't had an a concern we haven't had and and I'm also assuming if a boy went in the girls restroom or the girl's locker room regardless of who they said they're going to get in trouble for that that is
338not acceptable am I correct that that is correct and that applies to you know adults as well as children i mean you're you're supposed to go to the bathroom which you're designated to go to um again we work closely the district has worked closely with those parents that have identified their children as transgendered for a variety of different reasons that is not to say however that if a child uh registers on day one as transgendered we're not aware of it that that child would not go into a bathroom that we cannot control but this policy would neither would have no impact on that as I understand it and Mr pal Marini is there anything that to add on that particular topic okay also I want to ask um there was mention tonight of a case
339that I believe was in Michigan and I've already asked this question to to you and Mr pomarie but I'd like for you to address it um for the crowd tonight the instance I guess if I remember correctly was a male said he was a female went in the women's locker room I believe and then proceeded to sit with his legs apart and show his genitals is that um that obviously is something we would not I mean that's not acceptable and this this policy will not make that acceptable correct mr pomearini and I became aware of that information as of this morning through some correspondence from a constituent um obviously this is a situation in Washington with one individual at a state college um I'm not familiar with the laws in Washington it appears that from
340the article and the commentary and the language of the letter they're not able to prosecute this particular individual however in Florida exposing your genitalia to others whether it's of the same sex or otherwise is prohibited this policy would not in any way shape or form allow for any illegal activity to be uh ratified or endorsed that's not we don't have that authority the when I say we I say the board does not have the authority to authorize illegal activity okay so in line with that this policy also will not give anyone permission to um do any criminal act against any of our students male female um or or any of our teachers i mean it's it is prohibited by law to do any criminal act sexually there's been talk tonight of pedophiles that is against
341the law and will remain against this the law this will not alter that correct i and I think in that same correspondence there was uh reference of the lack of a definition for sexual orientation and just for the record again sexual orientation has been defined by the courts um I know of no opinion legal or otherwise that defines uh sexual orientation to include uh pedophilia or the other comment that was raised in that letter was um I think it's beastiality but it's it's having uh sex with animals that's not permitted it's not part of the legal definition of sexual orientation um it's certainly not something that the district would allow or or endorse and if an individual uh participates in those kinds of activities regardless of what the policy says whether you adopt it or
342not uh Orange County Public Schools as the employer would have every right to move for an expedient termination on that basis mr palmarini under 1012315 uh indecent exposures under chapter 800 that is a disqualifying offense under the statute for being an instructional employee within the district also under 435.04 it's the level two background screen statute and that statute says in order to be eligible for employment you can't be charged and awaiting disposition on certain enumerated offenses and one of them again would be indecent exposure under chapter 800 so if that happened in one of our schools regardless heterosexual homosexual they would be disqualified from employment and we would move to terminate them on the basis of those two statutes thank you all right uh Miss Flynn thank you first I wanted to address Mrs gordon's
343request for postponing or taking um the the discussion afterwards i I do want to say I I don't support starting this whole process again i'm I Okay i just I just want to let you I'm ready to deal with it tonight um there were I do have some questions there there were two questions regarding existing law and the first was from an opponent who mentioned that there are no federal or state laws that protect the classification of gender identity and expression so uh uh Mr palmer or Mr uh Mr chair if if the attorneys could answer that and then on the proponents they were saying that if we didn't include this policy because of existing federal law that we could be sub I'm paraphrasing here uh be subject to some legal liabilities so could you
344um u elaborate on those two i will Mr palmer he's the expert but let me let me take an initial stab and let let him fill in uh the blanks uh first with regards to the comment about the federal law I made note of that comment as well there is specifically no federal legislation that's language adopted by Congress that uh includes gender identity or expression to my knowledge however there have been courts that have interpreted some of the existing uh title 7 title 9 provisions and then based on those legal interpretations by courts those become in essence law because if a court interprets a particular statute federal state or otherwise and you're in that jurisdiction you would be subject to the requirements of that provision so that I think is a it's a modest distinction
345but the speaker I think was correct because there is no legislation most people think of legislation as the law but in essence court decisions can in turn become the law even if they're not subsequently modified with regards to and Mr palmarine anything to add on that that's um the 11th circuit which is in um Atlanta the federal 11th circuit florida's in the 11th Circuit so any decisions passed by the 11th Circuit are binding precedent upon us and the case is Glenn versus Brumy and there's just a couple quotes in that case it was an employee at the office of legal counsel in Georgia who um was uh biologically a male and was transitioning to female and he he then presented as going to be working as female and he was fired by his supervisor just
346on that basis because they thought it was abnormal or and you know other people would be uncomfortable with it and the court was very clear and succinct in its holdings and I just want to read a couple statements from the decision just so you understand how clear they got it says "The question here is whether discriminating against someone on the basis of his or her gender nonconformity constitutes sex-based discrimination under the equal protection clause." Now this was a case brought pursuant to the United States Constitution uh the violation of the equal protection clause's prohibition on sex discrimination and the court held for the reasons discussed below we hold that it does and then they further go on to say we conclude a government agent which I believe we would be included as a government agent
347violates the equal protection clauses prohibition of sex-based discrimination when he or she fires a transgender or transsexual employee because of his or her gender nonconformity so that decision in the way we're reading it is you cannot terminate an employee who's transsexual it will violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution so that's the with respect to the federal decision that's been rendered sorry the second half of your question was with regards to whether or not um the adoption of this policy would create any u litigation issues there is an affirmative defense that the district could raise if the policy is adopted uh the advantage to the district would be if we have a policy that says no discrimination and if in fact it's reported accurately and correctly and if in fact the district undertakes whatever
348investigation is promulgated or required under that policy we could then argue in federal court or wherever the lawsuit is filed and it's typically federal court that we have followed those procedures and therefore as an affirmative defense the case should be dismissed because we have followed our procedures however that's not to say that if the policy is not adopted today that um we are uh I think as one advocate put it u before the meeting that there's a strict liability in other words without the policy that the lawsuit would go forward and we would have no defenses it simply just means we would have one less bullet in our chamber to uh argue before the court possibly uh different standard uh different presumption uh different evidentiary requirements maybe the presumption would shift but in essence um
349the passage or rejection of the policy will still require us to defend that matter in court it just adds some additional protections assuming all of the steps have been f followed i will also caution that if the policy is adopted and we don't follow those procedures it could also turn around and be even more problematic for the district because now you've implemented a policy and have failed to follow it accurately and correctly so since some of the requirements are under my office I would fully expect that we would follow those procedures thank you Mr chair i know my time is up but I'll be putting the um notification back on again because I do have some other questions all right thank you Miss Flynn miss Moore Mr chair I you know we have come to
350this issue from different perspectives and we did have a work session but we didn't really get into all the specifics of this issue and I have several questions I'm not even sure staff could answer tonight that are going to require some statistics and and data because I don't think in our meeting we really delved into the data the one thing that I I've heard from both sides tonight and um was that we needed to I heard it from both sides at one point they all waved their hands at the same time towards the end and said that they would like for us to enforce the current policies that we already have whether it was bullying um I forget what the other one is now but just bullying yeah there's another one too Nancy um I'm
351sorry I just flipped off that screen so uh I could certainly go ahead and try to get all my questions answered but I think for everyone in this room it's a very polarizing issue and this district has been doing incredibly well in the last few years moving together we we've had to weather budget cuts we've had to deal with uh policies coming at light speed from Tallahassee so to me the overriding issue is that when we end this our questions are all properly answered and we can move forward together as a healthy functioning district so when I hear are we enforcing the policies already in place then that I have a series of questions that I'd like to go back to the folks in the the um with the the policy what do you call
352how I'm see I'm tired I'm not expressing myself the code of conduct and look at all of the enforcement look at the number of bullying look at have we had uh students who were denied uh educational services or opport opportunities based on their sexual orientation have we denied an any employment of our employees teachers or classified based on their sexual orientation um and I have a whole series of this type of questions that probably uh deserve and require data and I apologize because I didn't think about it before when we were at that other meeting and I could have gone and gotten all these question answered but these folks out here tonight have engendered a lot of other data and I think at the end of the day this side of the room wants to
353know that their children are not being discriminated and this side of the room wants to know that their children aren't being discriminated against so I could go two different ways but I just feel in my heart and I started off when I came here tonight I want to get this over with and move on but I almost think there's a place with the data that we can all walk away somewhat happy and we can be sure that no one is being discriminated against all of our children be educated the religious views are not being trampled on and and these other children um who have these gender identity issues are also having their educational needs met so I think that's the goal we have to move ahead as a district so I could support Mrs gordon's
354motion for us to present all of our questions to come back in a subsequent meeting that there would be no public comment this board would have all of our questions answered we'd have a document it would answer all the questions for them and then this group would debate it because I'm I know we're everyone in here is tired we're all a little bit concerned we're going to say something we shouldn't say because there's no one in this room who doesn't love children there is no one in this room who doesn't want this district to be an a district and move forward so that's where I am i can go either direction mrs gordon I'd be happy to make a motion and second it if we have to sit at the table and put all of
355our questions on the table to come back with data i'd be happy to do that as well so thank you thank you Miss Moore i do want to clarify if we come back at a later meeting it would be by definition another uh adoption of a policy and we would have to take public comment regardless we cannot come back and not take public comment on a on a on a board policy adoption am I correct on that Mr rodriguez i'm I'm researching as we speak because I do the back of my mind recall keep in mind the the board is subject to rule making under chapter 120.54 so something just tells me that it may be this may be adjourned or um moved forward it's when you make substantive changes to the proposed policy that
356you absolutely have to come back with renoticed workshop and a renoticed meeting but I will continue to look for the answer as I field your questions this evening all right thank you uh I do want to clarify to there is no motion currently on the floor uh Miss Gold thank you we didn't get a motion on Thank you both um first I wanted to acknowledge the student speakers i am very proud of all of the speakers uh that came up from our schools and um had the tenacity to not only wait this out but face such a large crowd no matter what side of the issue they were on i thought they were very articulate um I unfortunately being the newest kid on the block here I um am probably the one that has the
357most questions now and I I've tried to do some homework over the last uh you know week or so since this came onto the agenda i was not here for the the workshop um but one question is that came up is that we do have a policy and both um Miss Robinson and Miss Moore referred to that does this um why do we need to have it in this policy if we have a procedure right now for the harassment um and discrimination policy and the bullying policy what what does this do that's different or cover okay I uh I will refrain from answering the why because I think that's really a board decision on policy um I will tell you the what it does differently and that is uh the two policies before you are
358different and that one JB deals with non-discrimination admission of students uh the non-discrimination respect for the individual and the student grievance and complaint procedures so under policy JB different from ADD is the process and who you would uh issue your complaint to under ADD which is the bullying policy you would report your complaint to the principal within 10 days and then presumably the principal would have 10 days to respond um under policy JB you would report your grievance to the EEO officer which in our office is Miss Kerianne Reio and she would then investigate it in a different manner um similarly policy GBA deals with non-discrimination uh of employees and again those complaints would be filed with the EEO officer as opposed to the principal which is what the bullying policy provides for so it's
359it's a separate and additional remedy or relief for the person who's alleging discrimination um it also I think has um and John maybe can help me with this as well but I think it it it increases um the ability perhaps for that individual if they're not satisfied with the EEO investigation to then be able to pursue that in a legal uh courtroom a court of competent jurisdiction is that a fair assessment Mr palmerini oh yes okay so th those are the two key distinctions that the policies provide and um but as to the why I think you can ask your fellow board members perhaps all right Mr rodriguez uh I have two things I'd like you to to um elucidate upon um first is can you um first just for the benefit of the audience
360uh tell them a little bit about the uh notice procedure under the u administrative procedure act how many days that this policy was advertised and also how many days that we advertised the two prior the prior work session and a prior work shop and then I'd like you to explain to the audience outside of the area of zonings do we advertise or notice any of the controversial policies that we take up on this board of which there are probably a half dozen a year any differently than we did this one [Music] um with regards to all three uh there were three notices in the paper with regards to these policies and the reason that was the case is that on September 2nd we took out an ad in the Orlando Sentinel advertising uh not only
361this policy but several other policies that were up for consideration by the board that policy reflected um that there would be a workshop on September 20th and was very explicit and clear as to what actions the board was contemplating um it should be noted as well that on August 30th pres two days the Friday before these notices get published in the paper on Sundays and that's the legal requirement is that we published in the newspaper but 2 days before on Fridays our media relations department receives the notice from Miss McIll on Wednesday and on that Friday they send out a media advisory now to our friends from uh 12:70 a.m that I noticed the speaker that spoke here earlier I have confirmed from our uh media relations department that 12:70 a.m was not noticed so
362one thing we can take back is that we need to add them to the list i do know that they did contact it's a standard list of media u email addresses and so forth so they would have contacted everyone that's on their list including Spanish radio stations so I want to make sure that that is part of the record we did the same thing again uh on October 12th uh a media advisory went out October 14th it was published in the paper and that was for your workshop scheduled on November 8th and then once again we did the same thing for tonight's meeting uh a media advisory went out on November 9th published in the paper on November 11th in addition to that there is a posting downstairs in which anyone and everyone that has
363an interest in schoolboard activities would be able to see the exact notice or information regarding that information uh we also post on our website uh when the schoolboard meetings are held and 7 days prior pursuant to law we provide a copy of the proposed agenda so as of last Tuesday those that were interested would have seen the agenda would have included this item as well um I've also heard an argument that if we were to fail to adopt a policy tonight that we would be subject I'm going to go back to the strict liability issue can you take that out out of legal ease and explain to the audience and the board what strict liability is by definition and um and and this next question is somewhat rhetorical from lawyer to lawyer but I think
364it needs to be expounded upon there are 67 school districts in this state i'm not sure how many have uh this identical policy in it but I am confident that there's 40 or 50 that do not are they all subject to any form of strict liability by their failure to adopt a policy on on the issue of gender uh expression or identity let me let Mr paul Marini to delve a little bit more on the strict liability issue in terms of that but I will share with you that I think we had initially reviewed the policies of other districts as per the request of one or several board members we shared that information with memorandums to board members i think as you may recall uh some districts had uh similar or identical language others did
365not um and the short answer is no i do not believe it creates any issues with strict liability but Mr palmerini can explain that difference and and uh and perhaps uh expand upon my answer uh that's correct there's no such thing as strict liability within the anti-discrimination statutes meaning the failure to have a policy would not automatically make us liable for discrimination by the person bringing the suit what this issue goes to is what's known as in the law as the Farrager defense that springs from a United States Supreme Court decision in 1998 Farraer versus City of Boca Raton F A G H E R and I know I've just butchered that cuz it's 12:30 i'm sorry but that decision laid out a process by which and the employer can set up policies to investigate
366discrimination and hostile work environment and what that case says is as Mr rodriguez mentioned earlier we have an affirmative defense if we have set up an investigatory procedure within our policy to investigate claims of discrimination and hostile work environment and to the extent that the employee does not take the internal process to have their claim investigated then we would have an affirmative defense that would bar the plaintiff from liability because they didn't undertake their responsibility under the law to have the investigation investigated internally because what the Supreme Court's trying to encourage is maybe if the employer is made aware of this situation uh beforehand and is given a chance to remedy it it gets remedied prior to ever getting to a court system where everybody's engaged in litigation and engaged in the cost of litigation
367so there's no such thing as strict liability but what it does provide us is an affirmative defense if we have the policy and it's not utilized by the complaining employee all right thank you Mr palmerini mr roach Mrs gould you asked my question you're not doing too bad thank you Mr roach miss Flynn thank you Mr chair my other question was in regard to the claim that this would infringe upon um any person's first amendment rights could you explain that a little bit more or answer that would this or would this not i mean in the context of children being in school or employees My my sense uh Miss Flynn is um that a first amendment right first of all has a very uh difficult hurdle to overcome um certain speech is protected in certain
368instances and then in other instances it is not and the example I think uh we've discussed is uh if an employee decides to uh make a comment about his or her religious beliefs that employee cannot be retaliated against discriminated against or otherwise however if the employee turns the environment at the workplace into a hostile work environment because of repeated uh speech then the employee essentially loses his or her right to make those repeated comments um I'm not aware of any policy enactments that have resulted in litigation by individual plaintiffs arguing that their free speech has been chilled which is the legal term for saying they've not had the right to express themselves in the workplace um but u I'm sure it's a matter of time before something like that arises and someone will have to
369defend it and see if that passes muster mr paul Marini any comments on that question uh employees have the right they do not lose their right to free speech when they walk in the door and the the United States Supreme Court has made that clear but you are also while you are a government entity you also function as a dual rule as a government employer and the government employer has the right it's a balancing test employees get the right to speak on matters of public concern however if that becomes disruptive in the work environment in the manner in way in which the speech is engaged in and it causes problems and it disrupts the employer's um workforce and it disrupts the employer's um operations the courts have held that that right can override the absolute
370right of an employee to free speech when they are a government employee um you all had a case when um with an employee a few years ago who wrote a very incendiary letter to the congressman regarding various ethnic and and and racial groups that got to the media and there was picketing in front of that teacher school and that teacher ended up it was questioned whether or not that teacher resigned or was terminated but the court ultimately upheld this board's right to no longer employ that employee because she by her conduct disrupted the operation of this school of the school and you as the employer have the right to vindicate that and not have that kind of disruption based upon an employes free speech so you don't see this policy as having any effect upon
371a an employee or a student's um first amendment right of speech as long as it's being done in a manner that's not disrupting the operation of the school no I think they get to state their opinion but the minute that it becomes disruptive to the educational environment and to the work environment you lose protection [Music] okay thank you those are my questions but I also um depending on when we get to uh other parts of our meeting but I did want to thank everybody who has stayed this late and for comments on both sides i think it's been very enlightening thank you amen um Mrs gordon no I'm okay you're okay okay [Music] right thank you Mrs gordon miss Moore uh Mr chair this question will probably be directed back towards um Mr um Rodriguez
372i'm hoping he'll have the answer about uh continuing this meeting at some point here because once I hear that then I can make a motion um in the I have the code of conduct up which I was referencing last time under it's a level three uh disrespect D it says "Conduct or behavior that lacks regard civility politeness and or courteous consideration which goes beyond the bounds of acceptable student behavior more serious than level two." And so I know we've we've touched on it i'm just trying to understand if um Mr rodriguez if if you explained if I understood correctly the way we handle these types of issues now it would go through the principal so the the principal would deal with a teacher other students right there in the immediate school if we pass this
373new policy then we're sending it downtown which then has more arms for litigation so my question is have we actually um had any cases that were unable to be resolved through the processes we already have in place with in terms of a child being denied educational services or opportunities because of their sexual orientation luckily I have Miss Fernandez on our legal team as well my understanding is that our office has reviewed in the past two and a half years five separate cases uh none of those resulted in litigation they all resulted in further examination and review by our office as to the rights of those children uh I'm not aware of any cases with regards to um uh employees and that's on the issue of transgendered children so let me be clear um I'm not
374aware of any cases as it pertains to uh individuals whether employees or or or teachers with regards to sexual orientation but Okay so then were there were the cases based on bullying or was it opportunities um and services that were being denied or alleged to be denied um let let me have Miss Fernandez come up to the microphone i I really this is cases that she would have handled principally and I hate to put her on the spot but she's here and she's a I apologize for doing that as well i did not have this question till after listening to all the our Mrs mo in those particular cases what we had were accommodations that were requested by the students in order to meet their educational needs and we were able to make those accommodations
375so you were able to make those accommodations under the current rules that we already have yes ma'am okay and then a follow-up question um um this was this I I I wanted to ask about religious groups who rent our facilities uh Mr rodriguez are are there any prohibitions in that contract again I apologize not for pulling up the contract um do our policies on the books now impact what would be said in one of those meetings and then subsequently would the new policy change that in any way in terms of the rights of groups who rent our facilities for a church service or any type of meaning of that sort well this could be handled by Miss Eileen Miss Fernandez as well but in essence um when we lease our facilities to another party they
376essentially have control and domain of that room um the facility whatever area they're leasing for the limited purpose during that period of time there certainly is no ability on the school district to impose um any kind of requirements about what speech can or cannot be said during that period of time so for example we have a couple of schools in which churches actually lease some of our facilities uh the school is a beneficiary of rent that is collected during that period of time certain obligations are carried forth but there's no this would not have any impact on that if I if I understand your question correctly right so so just to make sure I understand correctly there's no impact with the policies as they are now and there would not be any additional impact with
377adopting the new policies for those renting our facilities that That's correct okay how much time do I have i've got one more question 20 seconds okay i can come back thank you Mrs gordon well I Mr chairman I I heard u Mr mo said that she would like to come back i was going to go ahead and call for the question since you've conducted yourself in such a wonderful manner tonight I cannot believe that you've heard everybody we didn't have to put anybody out by the police officer and um we're dragging along here now waiting for comments and I wanted to hear everybody's comments i did want to get the part from Mr rodriguez he answered um which cleared up clarification for me mr john Pomearini also did an excellent job and you did also
378uh bringing to front so I would call for the questions pending Mrs moore's comments well let me let me do this um unless you have additional comments okay um I don't know if you want to make a motion at this time but do you want me to go to Mrs moore first or do you want to make a motion yes sir all right um and I've and um let's do this before I go to you miss Gold had pushed her button Miss Moore so I'm going to go to Miss Gold and then you okay um Miss Gold this is not so much a question as it is a comment and I think because again I'm the newest one here and and really participating in this conversation for the first time um it is everyone's responsibility
379to understand the law or the rules of things so when no meetings are notified we as citizens are accountable to keep track of what's going on in our schools and and such so that aside obviously once the word got out there was a lot of discussion and a lot of commentary that came forth tonight it may be because I haven't been seeped in this issue as long i feel like I still have a lot of unanswered questions um more than I do a solid uh foundation on on how to vote so that that is just more of an observation and a comment not to say that people shouldn't pay attention and scold us for not noticing but at the same time once word did get out we had a lot of people here who were
380concerned and I'm afraid that we're going to still leave people in the community unheard [Music] all right thank you Miss Moore and then I'm going to go to if she would like Mrs gordon miss Moore mrs gordon I'm happy to oblige your request i'm just not sure what it is you want me to comment or finish my last question fin finish your comments because I you know we wanted to hear everybody's comments okay okay thank you i I guess I'll reiterate what I said you know especially with what Mrs gold just said mr mr rodriguez did you have an answer for our question earlier in terms of if we adjourn postpone if we can take this up to get all of the data back her questions answered if we have other committee members who'd like
381to um communicate with us can we come back and not have to go through the entire process from start to finish again um I'm looking at chapter 120.54 i'm not sure that that provision really contemplates a continuation that there is a provision here that talks about you know resuming a separate proceeding regarding rulemaking i would just say in an abundance of caution you would uh be noticing a workshop or noticing a hearing again and we would have to make sure we're we're timely in terms of the time frame because you can only do it within 90 days of your first workshop and I think our last workshop was um sometime back in what do we say November 9th so with the holiday break we'd have to do it in early January at the latest that
382being said if my legal opinion changes between now and tomorrow obviously before we notice it I would let the board know but as of right now I'd have to say that most likely you'd have to have another public hearing which would open the door up for further comment all right thank you all right uh Mrs gordon if it's appropriate Mr chairman I do know we have two items on the on the Yes um you know from a strictly and and let me get us into proper posture here we're on item agenda item 3.01 which are modifications to policy JB non-discriminatory admission of students and with that in mind Mr chairman I move that the board approve the policy changes to policy 301 JB okay it's been moved and by Mrs gordon and seconded by Mrs
383robinson that we approve the changes to file JB uh Miss Moore yes he did uh Mr chair I would like to make an amendment to um delete the gender identity or expression okay it's been moved by Miss Moore to delete the phrase gendered identity or expression were used throughout that policy JB is there a second to that motion mrs moore I don't necessarily agree with that but I'd encourage it to you i'll second it so you can voice your opinion on it okay all right everybody understand the posture we're in right now miss Moore has made an amendment to delete the language uh gender identity or expression out of policy uh JB mrs robinson i won't support adding that amendment for the um because we do have policy add which currently includes sexual orientation and
384gender identity or expression and I'm not comfortable protecting our students and our employees from harassment and bullying of those two items but then not protecting them from discrimination also so I won't I won't support that amendment miss Flynn I don't support the amendment either i think it should go forth as um written as brought to the board and we should vote it either up or down thank you okay Miss Moore I probably re reiterate some of the things I I mentioned earlier i think it's a very polarizing issue and I think if we had had more time we could have brought this to a place where everyone uh could have been satisfied with the policies being enforced because I don't support bullying i don't support harassment i don't support discrimination of any student for any
385reason and I think it's still polarizing i don't think we've had uh proper time to be able to develop this in a way that we could all walk out of here and consider it a win so I would really request the rest of the board would support me on this i realize what that would do is going to send it right back and so we can then again try to answer all the questions get the data and try and get this where everyone can support it thank you all right I punched my butt and I'm going to speak on this and and board members bear with me because I'm I think this is an important issue and one that as all of us have I I' I've struggled with now I am in support of
386this amendment and I' to delete gender identity or expression from the proposed anti-discrimination policy but I'd like to take an opportunity to explain why last year we began working on adding domestic partner benefits for same-sex partners and begin the process of amending our policies to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation we have worked on the issue through two publicly noticed meetings open meetings work sessions of the entire board and through at least two publicly noticed open meetings between board members uh I say this because it has been erroneously reported by opponents of this issue that this was done secretively this is untrue as a governmental body governed by the sunshine laws our meetings are advertised and open to the public for me this has always been purely a benefits issue for our employees
387and an anti-discrimination measure designed to protect gay employees from discrimination this is issue is not about allowing boys to shower with girls it is not about men using the women's restroom it is not about curriculum it is not about pushing a social agenda it is simply about prohibiting discrimination when we have faced these issues in the past we have made accommodations to minimize disruption to the learning environment and if faced with the issues in the future I am confident that we will make similar accommodations uh discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression is already expressly prohibited by federal law both the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the decision of ACV Holder and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and Glenn B brumy have conclusively held that discrimination against an individual on the
388basis of gender identity is unlawful sex discrimination protected by title 7 of the civil rights act no state or local government no any private employer of more than 15 employees may discriminate on the basis of gender identity or expression i think that's been lost tonight only Congress can change the law in this regard and those who have spoken tonight in opposition to this level of protection may wish to speak with their congressman or woman nobody on this board has the ability to change what is already federal law our process is one in which we direct staff to pro prepare a draft policy typically one which includes all options and then we vote on the policy at the board table i want to emphasize tonight's vote will be the first one by any member of this
389board on the issue addressed by the proposed policy gender identity or expression was included in the draft policy because federal law requires such protection and that language has become commonplace in local government and schoolboard policies for example four of the other large six school districts in Florida Miami date Broward Palm Beach and Hillsboro already include that language in their policies i'm voting however to take gender identity or expression out of the proposed anti-discrimination policies because I have come to realize that the inclusion of that language has become a distraction from our mission of educating children and has led to undue concern and confusion by many in our community i'm going to go off script here for a moment i'm going to make an anecdotal observation i used to coach Pop Warner football for little boys
390and one of the first things that you learn when you're a Pop Warner coach is when you see that little six and sevenyear-old all bundled up and all those pads and moving as slow as they can that it's virtually impossible for those little kids to get hurt but those little kids sometimes can be terrified of getting hit and one of the first things you learn as a coach is that while their fear may not seem rational to you to that little six or sevenyear-old boy it's a very very real fear and I only say that because I don't agree with almost everything I've heard about the fears expressed by opponents tonight but I do acknowledge out of respect for them that to them those fears are very very real and while I may not agree
391with them I do think this has distracted us needlessly this language from our mission of educating children and I agree with that expression i'm also voting to take out that language because federal law already prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression those decisions apply to OCPS whether we add this language or not and there is simply no need to sew further confusion on the issue stoke anger or distract us from our mission of providing a highquality education to our community's children i will share with you members of this board that very little of my decision and I do not mean this to be disrespectful to the speakers tonight very little of my decision was affected by the folks who spoke tonight or who emailed me but it was immensely affected by the
392fact that I've bounced off this issue off probably three to four dozen citizens who tend to be not political from all ends of the political spectrum Democrat Republican liberal moderate conservative and each and every person when I've posited this question to them or asked them about it have all had the same expression almost without exception which is uh Bill you know I don't know I just don't know if I want to go that far i don't know if I want to have that conversation with my seven or eightyear-old child i will say in closing that federal law however and and again I know I'm making a statement here it's not going to please everybody but federal law however does not clearly protect against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation which is why I support
393adding the protection and the prohibition against sexual orientation to our board policies because that is an area of law that does need to be clarified in my opinion in our policies to make it very clear and to provide the legal groundwork for anybody to ensure their rights are protected if they are gay or lesbian and that they have a solid legal basis for taking actions in the courts to prevent discrimination against them so thank you for allowing me to make that statement um and with that um I don't have any other speakers lined up does anybody else want to speak on this issue mr roach are we voting on both of them right here or just just on the students right now we're just on uh file JB and we're on the Just lost my
394um I think somebody take my my policy we're on file JB and we're on Miss Moore's amendment to delete the phrase gender identity or expression from the proposed policy we're just on the amendment right now just on the amendment yes sir that's all I need did you want to speak on that okay miss Flynn thank you i I certainly realize the sensitivity around this issue but we keep repeating that there is federal law out there i feel that this would be advantageous for us to keep this wording in because it does bring us in in line with what federal law is already protecting us to do so it would be advantageous this is an opportunity for us to explain what this means and what it doesn't mean to calm that confusion out there we're already
395bound by federal law why can't we bring it in under federal law i think there's an a a benefit for us having it in there we've already discussed what it would mean in regard to uh unisex bathrooms what it would mean about freedom of speech what it would mean um about what do we the liability the strict liability i I just believe that we can we might not be able to calm all the fears i understand that but it does give us an opportunity to explain it i like you have spoken to people when you explain what it means and what it doesn't mean there is a calming effect and it's like oh okay so I I'd like to see the wording continue to be in the proposals miss Moore Mrs flynn there's kind of
396a a unspoken thing in politics if you have to explain it you've lost we need the support of every person in this community if the rights are protected by federal law then to go this far you can see the the controversy that it's presented in the room so we know the rights of of gay lesbian and transsexuals will be protected because of federal law we understand that but it's the perception this district has enjoyed a tremendous amount of success and we've had the support of all communities i I I don't think any of us want to spend the next few years having to talk about this instead of where we've got to get with our issue with the um technology improvements with the common core standards and continuing to have enough funding in this district
397for all these mandates and so to me it's divisive with no inherent gain and I always say when there's a problem you solve the problem closest to the person the way the policy is now it's the principal it's the teacher it's the school i don't think we need to send everything down to to Mr rodriguez's office if it can be solved closest to the problem and so I I still would ask the rest of the board to please support my amendment thank you all right thank you Miss Moore mrs gordon yes thank you U Mr chairman and the board members um Mrs moore I I do understand you know what you're saying i I just didn't get clarity were Were you at the meeting when you all did the changes and I know you did
398talk about the uh sexual orientation was it a reason why you did not bring up the uh gender identity or expression cuz you were at the you were at that work session mrs gorn at that meeting I always supported just the first and not the gender identity my position really has not changed if that's what you're asking that's what I'm asking um when you said in your notes you had um that you would support but just the sexual orientation part yes ma'am right well and then for me it will be broken and it would be hard and I know you you stated that um if we take it out we will we will have to go on and on i I I'm I'm saying no you said to um if to take it out i
399feel if we leave it in then we could move on and I think I heard parents um state that tonight i heard George Collins um made a statement and Carolyn the parent from Eagle's Nest i feel that if you take that out you're just leaving out so much um I I know about the students because I work with those students every day for the last 18 years um well longer than that um but I'm talking about where everybody's made it known um I I think I admire the young lady that got up from Lake Nona and said how she just loves her school i hope my children love my school in Oyola because we let them just be themselves and I love my principal for allowing them and that's one thing I told you we're
400going to do i I I would love to support that um with you but it just seem as if it would just be broken for me because you can't take one part of it and leave out the other because um I'm I'm going to go all I want to go real back for a little while where when we had the when we first worked on this it was so much going on in South Florida and I told the general counel that tonight and the media was making a big thing out of it like they're doing tonight and we passed the very first we only and we worked with teachers that had sexual orientation and I mean it was it's not it wasn't a secret but I mean and they don't mind us even calling names
401but there were certain teachers that worked with us through the union and through not being union members that helped us and like one gentleman said to talk about getting that very first policy written and we didn't make a big deal out of it we just did what we thought was the right thing to do for a group of people and like somebody said you just can't go doing you know and say do this with this group do this with this group but then when you begin to think of rights of people like the the disabled they talked about with the wheelchairs and everybody wanting the closest parking space and then we have to walk you know even if we go to the doctor i think everybody has something but I think that this gend gender
402identity or expression and even the genetic information it means it means an awful lot and if and if I did if I voted for just that amendment and that one part I feel we're going to have to address it again later on and I do respect you and the chairman for giving us your strong feeling on it but I would really like my motion um that I asked you know once we get your motion off the off the floor to um be addressed and take the whole motion okay so I could not agree to um take it out thank you Mrs gordon uh Miss Gold um I I agree with Miss Flynn and Miss Gordon that that we probably would need to look at this again but I'm not sure putting it in the policy
403now is the best way to do that um you were talking about trying to implement it and and and try to get it behind us from what I've heard here tonight and again this is my first exposure to this but from what I've heard here tonight I think there's a lot more conversation that has to happen at the community level about this and a lot more education that has to happen i think that we would face it again um and rightfully so but I'm not sure that at least in in my area of the community that there has been enough discussion around this to even know how it is being handled now and we heard over and over again tonight the the concern about the bathrooms i'll use that as an example since that was
404such a hot button in emails and discussion we've already handled that we need to communicate that and I'm not sure after the fact those ears will be as open and that's my concern thank you Miss Golden mr rose yes I I do want to speak on this and I when I said that Mrs moore that I may not necessarily agree with you i think here's what I'm getting i'm getting a vision of of um of picking up a bunch of kids in a bus and taking off and leaving a certain segment behind saying they'll be back to get you soon that's really what it feels like to me tonight and and I'll tell you why that's like that i think it's important for people to know where I come from because I think every board
405member here votes based on who they are we've talked about who you are all night long but I love public education because public education to me is real simple everybody counts everybody gets educated and every teacher gets considered based on qualifications and civil conduct and what have you but mine goes back way back and I and I think about I think about how we get our values how I got my values and research will tell you it happens around 20 years old even though your personality happens around 0 to five your value system kicks in about 20 and often the value system at 20 kicks in and locks in and when it locks in the world continues moving and often our value system stays the same and I've you know and you think about history
406I'm thinking about the time when every woman in this room could not ever vote in this country that was a belief that the men in this country had that you weren't capable to do that you weren't competent enough to vote now we know now that was clearly wrong but then it was right wasn't it it was the right thing to do because that's how it happened so years went on before that changed and finally changed and my sister just sent me a piece of history from the family it was so interesting and timely because it was about my grandmother Kate Codddle i called her Granny Kate she was a um successful business owner in Manchester Kentucky town square owned a restaurant very successful kate's Place i had many a hamburger there cheeseburger six songs for
407a quarter and read every Batman and Robin Robin Batman and Robin book that came out in her restaurant but my grandmother ran for office 65 years ago ran for county clerk and I saw her article and her picture in the paper there and she was appealing to people because there was a belief that women could not hold these positions even though they now could vote they couldn't hold the positions that her article talked about how she was a very competent bookkeeper and manager and or and was great at organizational skills and she would like for the men in this in the district to trust her that she could in fact a woman could do this job that she was defeated but I it was interesting to go back and look at that piece of history
408and find out that now now we have women who were in high places and that whole belief changed but there was a time when we believed women could not do that and we acted on that belief i was a young boy in Manchester Kentucky and a story I'll tell you real quick about the community swimming pool we actually had one this little hick town and I remember and I'm a very darkkinned guy very dark skin and I in the summertime I get very very dark and I recall someone yelling out and management coming to me in the pool and the pool was they thought I was a black child because blacks weren't allowed to swim in the community pool in Manchester Kentucky and I remember being afraid about that and then they oh that's that's
409the one of the roach boys they said and uh and then they walked away but we believed that if black people swam in that pool that it wouldn't be fit for other people that was a belief and that's the way it worked and that extended to my junior high school year in Melbourne Florida where black sat the balcony in the movie in the balcony in 1961 and I sat in the bottom and never questioned it but there was a belief that that was wrong for the blacks to sit here and this is not a race issue i never said that tonight this is just my experience Rick Roach on how people perceive things and how we act on beliefs that really aren't based on fact they're just beliefs and we allow it to happen and
410that goes on and it and then you go to special education children in my high school we built a brand new Ogali High School and you know where the special education kids were back behind the football field in a portable the only time I knew they were on on campus was when they were in the the picture of the yearbook there was one group picture of the special education kids alto together and when I was first a board member I approached my my my superintendent and I said you know we've got to do something about inclusion you know I I've learned all these things about inclusion and I was told it's very important Rick but we we can't do it now we have to wait it's the right thing to do but we have to
411wait and that's what it feels like tonight it feels like this is the right thing to do but we want to wait because the feds have got it covered and they'll cover it but we're really saying we believe it but we don't want to say it we want to just say they did it and then kind of cover that's what it feels like to me and I don't know that I can really uh accept that position it doesn't feel right it doesn't feel inclusive it doesn't feel like everybody is on the same bus we're leaving people behind either you believe it or you don't believe it there's it's the way it's got to be so [Music] there's my story in five minutes or less thank you Mr roach all right seeing no further speakers the
412question is called uh board members I want to make sure everybody understands clearly what you're voting on there's been an amendment that to delete the language gender identity or expression from proposed policy modifications to policy JB okay so if you vote yay you are voting to take out the phrase gender identity or expression if you vote nay you are voting to leave gender identity or expression in the proposed changes to the policy i'd like to ask for a roll call vote please okay thank you Miss K miss Kel has called for a roll call vote um Miss McIll Mrs gordon against the um deletion mr roach no miss Flynn no miss Moore yes chair Sublat yes miss Robinson no mrs gold yes mrs kel no all right that amendment fails we are now on the
413main uh uh bill um I don't know why I said bill um old habits we are now on policy JB on agenda item 3.1 mr roach is it on the floor yes okay you'd like to call a question or speak to it well yeah I did i wanted to finish out what I was talking about here and and and I think we get into why did we not move on those issues years ago why did it take so long to move on women's rights and women in leadership roles and why did it take so long to move on segregation integration why did it take so long for special education kids to get what they deserve why was that and I say that the issue is fear it's fear and it's it's it's information that I've
414heard tonight and and by the way I'm so grateful for your attendance everybody's points of view i think it's important but there's been so much mis misinformation tonight uh and and I think the misinformation falls along this that if we approve these policies the bathroom issue is going to be a real problem and kids are going to go in and out of bathrooms show them what they got a kid can say "I'm this this day and this that tomorrow." And and and and I think that's that was covered tonight that and the shower issue is covered and as I talked to principles these last couple of days I said "Let me give you hypothetical situations what if this happened?" And even now our principles had a grasp on what to do they said 'Well this
415is how I would handle it unless directed differently you know we would handle this as as thea occasion came up and we have policies in place and practices in place basically is what they were saying you know we've got this do teachers will teachers sit in front of a child and preach their lifestyle whether it's a heterosexual lifestyle or a homosexual lifestyle or transgender will they do that that's inappropriate it's inappropriate for every school teacher here's what you need to be a good teacher you need to be able to have content knowledge you need to have good classroom management you need to have an array of presentation skills to meet every possible learning style you've got in the room and to get kids motivation levels up and you've got to be able to practice a
416civil code of behavior that we have for all teachers you violate that you're out doesn't matter doesn't matter if you're single male and you like to date a lot of women uh no fair talking about that doesn't matter if I'm a gay man and I have a gay partner let's keep that out of discussion we're here to teach and I heard that over and over and over again let's teach our children doesn't mean teachers can't build relationships with kids but they must be appropriate we've talked about over here uh imposing your lifestyle on others that's inappropriate that's probably an automatic firing but that's misinformation that people really believe that would happen if we pass this law that would happen so that kind of misinformation delays what needs to happen eventually anyway it delays it because
417we're afraid to do it now because well that's the same reason we didn't let women vote because they c they can't vote who would imagine i drove around with my my father my grandfather was a police judge in the same town on the other side of the family and my grandfather used to say that women shouldn't be able to talk on a telephone and drive an automobile now this is the same granddad Pap Roach who sat in the front seat of his car i'm in the back he chews tobacco spits it out this window comes back hits me in the face and doesn't even know it meanwhile he's hit two parked cars in town square and just keeps going but he doesn't want women to drive automobiles shouldn't tell on him god rest his soul
418we talk about suspending kids for disagreeing with their teachers homosexual heterosexual it's ridiculous that's would be ridiculous i I'd want to talk firsthand to something did that we talk about flip-flopping bath and today I'm Mr jones tomorrow I'm Mrs jones i don't believe that occurs and Johnny says "Today I'm Johnny and tomorrow today I'm I'm uh Sally tomorrow I'm Sally." That that's that's probably one of the toughest decisions that would ever happen to a kid why in the world would you play with that and probably the parents have been involved and the principal's been involved you can't go in and out of bathrooms on a daily basis just because you think you're a male one day and a female the next day that's grounds for suspension those kids end up right here we expel them
419so these are things that I think keep us from doing the right thing for all kids we're a public school system you can't do for some and leave these over here i I don't I don't know how to do that honestly if we were a big private school and you paid big bucks to be in here I would be at your mercy but this but this is a public school and I I don't know where we're and I don't believe and one one member said tonight that the next thing will be the cutter category i don't believe that i don't believe that you can relate a transgender child to a cutter uh kids cutters it's a symptom of something else a lot of kids cut themselves today they're not just transgender um very very good
420friend of mine's daughter very Christian family over there the daughter had big difficulties with the cutting she wasn't transgender as far as I know she wasn't lesbian there was an issue other issues going on over there and I don't think we can categorize kids and begin we got to take it like it is and the transgender kids are here they're among us uh let's treat them with respect that's how you get it back That's all I have to say about it thank you Mr roach mrs robinson um now that we're speaking to the main motion of adopting um this policy tonight I wanted to give my opinion of this and why I am going to vote the way I'm going to vote tonight um I did not come about my decision to vote for this
421policy lightly i took it with much um depth i asked many many friends and deep um Christian friends and and I met with my pastor and I had a long conversation with my pastor and upon all of those discussions with everyone um I came to the conclusion that and I'm going to read this because I wanted to make sure I said it the way I had worked on it by updating these policies tonight i'm not promoting or endorsing certain lifestyles those are decisions that are made by students and employees independent of me and of Orange County Public Schools but I am but I am sorry saying that a student or employees participation rights will not be defined or restricted based on those independent choices it's not my job to judge a person with different beliefs
422than myself but it is my job to govern and protect those individuals with different beliefs than myself from bullying harassment and discrimination regardless of those differing beliefs and so I just want to state my opinion thank you thank you Mrs robinson miss Kadel I've been really quiet tonight and um I know some of you are just chuckling because usually I'm not quiet and um I didn't come by my decision lightly i had three hours of sleep last night i was up thinking about it weighing it back and forth i had listened to phone calls over and over and over again with all kinds of suggestions um I had answered personally over 300 emails um I have prayed on it all weekend and I go back to a young boy who has been on the Today
423Show and this little boy is happiest when he's dressed as a princess and he his mom dressed him as a princess on Halloween day and the child said it's the happiest he had ever been he wants to be a princess mom has tried everything to try to make this child not want to be a princess and she said it's the hardest thing that she's ever had to do i cannot imagine if one of my grandchildren ca was that way and we continue to try to force a child who for whatever reason doesn't identify with the way he was born or she was born and I mean it goes both ways there are girls who feel like they're in the wrong bodies there are boys that feel like they're in the wrong bodies and children need
424to be protected and um this is about protecting those children who are young who don't understand why the way they feel the way they do and I know that child if we continue to force that child that child will not live to be an adult because that child the statistics on the children who commit suicide and prior to coming onto this board I did a lot of work with the search institute on the 40 developmental assets and what makes youth happy and successful and what keeps them from drinking and what keeps them from getting involved in drugs and significant adult role models are something that's very crucial for youth development and I had an opportunity to participate in an activity that's called challenge day and I knew up here 25% of the children in high
425school consider committing suicide that is a statistic that's been there since the '9s and it has not changed well when you go through challenge day and they ask you to cross the line and you see 1/4th of the children that are in that auditorium saying they have thought about committing suicide there's something that's not right and so I have this has weighed on me um I can't get I can't get the look of that mother's eyes out of my memory um I also have a family that um has someone who's gay in it and I know how she has struggled she's the next sister-in-law i know how she has struggled she's also an ordained um she's an ordained reverend in the um UC church and so she is a practicing minister in not in this
426state and I know the struggles she's had and so I want everyone to be healthy i want everyone to feel safe and that is the basis of my vote this evening but I haven't come to it lightly thank you Miss Kel uh Miss Flynn thank you you know I too have given a considerable amount of deliberate thought on what these two policies will mean to our school district and community i've talked to many people on both sides and this input tonight has been very helpful i want to tell you about my own personal experience and some of you have heard about it my sister-in-law passed away a se maybe three years ago and she was gay she died at the age of 65 and my son used to go out there he went out there
427for about three or four summers and I remember uh he was probably about 10 or 11 and Ellen DeGeneres had just come out saying that she was was gay but he I guess he knew it and we were sitting there watching the show and he goes "Oh Ellen is so gay." And my husband and I looked at each other and then we looked at Jimmy and we said "You know your aunt Margie is is gay." And he goes "Really?" We go yeah and that was all he said and never mentioned it again at the age of 25 he cried when she passed away and we miss her to this day and she was a public education teacher now the only way I can get away with this is because she's not here she told us
428in confidence she said "I knew at the age of 10 that I would never be what my dad wanted me to be." At that age many people have to live with this it's like living with a pebble or a rock in your shoe this was a very and that's how somebody else who I know a friend of mine who is gay said with her family it's like living with a pebble in your shoe she was a public education teacher she was an aunt and she was a wonderful person who toward the end of her life had students writing her on Facebook connecting and saying how much she meant to them this is all this is is a protection for our valued teachers and our valued students our employees and this includes our administrators our teachers
429and our coaches who are following the expectations of our superintendent and ensuring a safe and secure classroom if we feel that we value them and our students we're going to include this classification in our non-discrimination policies and that's all this is it's a certification that our employees and our students will feel safe from discrimination and harassment in their workplace and in their classroom i corresponded with two board members of the other districts who have this policy in place and they said the scenarios that have been feared and they are I don't want I don't I don't want many of the things that you say unisex bathrooms and being surprised by that none of us want that disruption in class but I was told that those scenarios haven't materialized and they've had this policy in place
430for one I think has been since 2008 another 2009 so we do have precedent about how this policy acts in a Florida school district and is protective of employees and is protective for our students i'm speaking for both policies i'm going to vote for both policies it doesn't come lightly with what with with my decision but it does come very heartfelt and very committed i am committed to this policy and I'm committed to giving my word that I support it thank you thank you Miss Flynn miss Moore as I said earlier I would have supported it if we had taken that language out so I cannot support it as it is um and I and my the one thing that we've not talked about my concern is about elementary school children and hopefully that can
431be addressed because it seemed like we worked through a lot of the other areas that there were concerns um and and in that case I I just think about children who are not developmentally ready they haven't even had conversations with their parents about the birds and the bees i I can still remember my neighbor because my kids knew I was Santa Claus before her kids and her begging me not to tell the children um that Santa Claus was you know the mom and dad and so I hope that there'll be a whole if this passes a whole lot of sensitivity about children in elementary school that we do not have to subject them to this whole issue at their very impressional age when they don't even know about Santa Claus and the birds and the
432bees yet so I won't be voting for either policy thank you thank you Miss Moore i will be voting for this policy i was asked the other day if an amendment failed to take out gender identity or expression whether I would vote for the policy and I said most emphatically yes again I think the gender identity or expression language is redundant and and just reiterates current federal law but I don't think that can be said of protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and I believe very very strongly that no individual who may be gay or lesbian should be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation so I will be voting for the policy miss uh Miss Gold [Music] well I guess it's time for me to decide what decide um I have
433not had the opportunity to really vet this and people who have worked with me in the community know that I am very much about talking to my constituents all constituents um I as many of the people up here have personal experience with all kinds of people gay lesbian um I was probably uh with a a friend who was very early on and had a marriage in New York City in the in the uh late 80s um uh to her her um partner and but I am going to vote no on this because I haven't had the opportunity to what I think fully hear all of our community on this issue and and that is because you know I am new but and I wasn't in the workshop and I I did not have the time
434this week um but don't don't assume that my voting no on this means that I support any affinity but fairness in this community i just feel I need to talk with with my constituents more all right thank you Miss Gold um all right all that being said seeing no further speakers the motion on the floor is to approve the modifications to policy JB regarding uh non-discrimination equal employment and affirmative action i'm sorry I mispronounced i'm sorry policy JB regarding non-discriminatory admission of students does everybody understand what they're voting for if you vote yay you're voting to adopt the proposed changes to that policy if you vote nay you are voting against the proposed changes to that policy roll call please roll call okay uh Miss McIll will you call the role please mrs kadel yes
435mrs gold no mrs robinson yes chair Sublat yes miss Moore no miss Flynn yes mr roach yes mrs gordon yes all right by your vote the policy passes by a vote of 6 to2 and Mr chairman with that in mind I'd like to move that the board approve the policy changes to policy 302 GB second all right it's been moved by Mrs gordon that uh agenda item 3.02 O2 the policy changes to file GBA non-discrimination equal employment and affirmative action also be approved I don't see any speakers on that is there anything else for the good of the order on that policy seeing none everybody understand the motion it's been moved to adopt that those proposed policy changes all those in favor of that please signify by saying I I oppose nay no show that
436adopted by a vote of six to two All right why don't we take a brief recess for those and I just want to say thank you to all the proponents and opponents tonight i don't want to sound corny but I personally thought that this was democracy at its best tonight and I'm just so proud of my community and thank you Mr sublat is there a reason why we have to recess with Can we just Well there's I think that Miss Moore I think that there has to be an announcement by our attorney so there is one thing that has to happen before we adjourn all right before I do that I put my notebook down do we have anything on the agenda that we need to take action on Mr rodriguez tonight or can we
437just adjourn after you make your announcement i don't I can't think of anything we've done the consent agenda we already did it and there were no committee reports there is one that's posted i I posted a board of directors so you can look at it there's nothing on non-consent Mr chairman but I will suggest you want to make an announcement on something Mr rodriguez i I have to make an announcement for an exceptions for and then we'll session mr rodriguez um board members as you saw uh previously in my communications with you last week uh there was a uh a detrimental decision issued by a jury in the case of Hod's versus Orange County School Board so um I'm calling for or requesting that an executive session be scheduled for further discussion um so pursuant
438to that I need to make the following announcement uh the school board of Orange County Florida will meet in an executive session on December 20 2012 immediately following a scheduled 4 p.m schoolboard work session on the 9inth floor superintendent's conference room at the Educational Leadership Center right here at 445 I'm sorry at the Ronald Blocker Educational Leadership Center this is an old draft i apologize 445 West Ameilia Street Orlando Florida to discuss Curtis Hodgeges at all versus the school board of Orange County Florida meeting will be transcribed by a core reporter and the transcript will be available for public review at the conclusion of the litigation the following persons may be in attendance chairman Bill Sublett Christine Moore as vice chair uh school board members Joey Kadel Daryl Flynn Pamela Gould Kathleen Gordon Rick Roach
439and Nancy Robinson and uh Barbara Jenkins as superintendent Diego Woody Rodriguez as general counsel Henry Skip JW as outside counsel and uh either of the following um individuals um Kim Ashpy Steven Branick Nicholas Shenine or Kathleen Scamas as outside appellet counsel and a court reporter in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act persons in needing a special accommodation to participate in this meeting should contact the office of schoolboard services at the number provided at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting i would note that this is an executive session so um uh we'll take it up immediately after the work session and just for clarification I have been able to contact three of the four lawyers and have a discussion as to their appelllet abilities i'm still waiting on discussion with one further uh
440individual Miss Scamas so um I did not want to select appellet council until I had that discussion i will be doing that hopefully tomorrow morning and then uh only one of those will be in attendance obviously all right thank you Mr rodriguez and with that seeing no objection we are adjourned oh wait a minute Mr chairman for the record I'm sorry this is very important um number 20 i I told you earlier and to the board that I did have a statement of policy level issue you already entered one i had two you entered one already for us to look into the work session versus the public hearing so that we can um and I know and we want to take that seriously and get that uh schedule as soon as possible um because of
441what's tonight but the next one deals with the code of student conduct and Mr roach and a couple of one or two other board members they are always concerned about expulsions coming before this board and looking at our policies and then you know debating uh on the significant of the level four offense so what I would like to do um I would like to extend a work session at my school coming from my principal in lie of expulsion taking a look at the K12 model in lie of expulsion looking at an alternative school run by the Orange County school board so that these children will not be kicked out of Orange County Public School but we look at a school that we can do in lie of expulsion which may be a K12 and in
442ESC it can go up to 20 and some kids by court order of the ninth judicial court we've kept them until 22 so I would like our session it would not be a session but it would be a visit and I would like for us to see we can do that in January because I'm tired of arguing with Mr roach for the last 12 years thank you and I don't want to argue the last four all right that we are journ thank you Mrs gordon [Applause] here's [Music] a question for every parent out there if you could fast forward 20 years to see how your kids doing in life would you do it well we can't time travel yet but we can see the future better with the new Common Core State Standards in our
443schools they set clear goals for every stage of learning and they're the same for everyone no matter what zip code you're in so you can be sure your student is really grasping what she needs to know to get to graduation and beyond find out how it all works at common coreworks.org [Music]