06.04.25 Board Meeting

001The closed door attorney client sessions have now concluded and the board has returned to open session. In the closed door sessions, we discussed possible settlement negotiations andor strategy related to litigation expenditures. Before I take a motion to adjurnn, let the record reflect that Miss Branch recused herself in the case of Terren Hart versus the school board of Palm Beach County. I'll now take a motion to adjourn the meeting under Florida statute 286.0. 011 motion by Miss Saviedto, second by Miss Whitfield. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. This meeting is now adjourned under Florida statute 286.011. And that's now going to bring us into our regular board meeting. So, good afternoon or good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'll now call the regular school board meeting to order at 5:00 p.m. Mrs. Sinclair,

002please call the role. District one, Matthew Lane, present. District two, Virginia Saviettto here. District three, Karen Burl here. District four, Erica Whitfield here. District five, Gloria Branch here. District six, Marshia Andrews here. District 7 Edwin Ferguson here. Also joining us is Superintendent Michael Burke, General Counsel Sha Bernard, Inspector General Terresa Michael, and board clerk Tony Sinclair. Senior staff members will join us periodically as directed by the superintendent. Tonight, the national anthem will be performed by Kendra Williams, the library media specialist at SD Spy Elementary School. Will everyone please stand for the national anthem, followed by the pledge of allegiance led by our deputy superintendent, Mr. Tierney. Oh, say can you see by the dawn early light what so proudly we held at the twilight last gleaming who brought stripes and bright stars through the perilous

003fight or the ramparts we watch were so [Music] glying and the rockets. The bombs bursting in gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does thy star spangled B [Applause] away. Or the land of the free and the home of the brave. [Applause] To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Viewers and listeners can access the meeting today by either watching on Comcast channels 234 and 235, Iverse channels 90, channel 99, or by using the YouTube link on our web page at palm beacheschools.org. In the event that the link is interrupted for technical reasons, please switch over to the TV channels. All board meetings are recorded in their entirety and

004posted on the district website within 24 hours. We also offer a listening only option which the public can access by calling 561-357-5900 or toll-free at 1-866-9307015. The meeting ID is 1561-8801124 pound. Board members, we do not have any um any minutes to approve. I am pulling two I I added two items for good cause. Item added LR1 modifications to the collective bargaining agreement with the SPE service employees international union Florida public services unit that's SEIU FPSU good cause exists for adding this item to support the operational planning for timely implementation in the upcoming fiscal year and demonstrates the board's commitment to fulfilling contractual obligations in a timely manner. Also, I've added P3, personnel addendum, good cause exists, for adding this item so that employees can begin in their new positions as soon as possible. Mr.

005Superintendent, do you have any items to withdraw? Yes, I'm withdrawing PIR1. Okay. Thank you. Board members, we currently have four items pulled. We have BRD1, COS1, FM015, and PC4. Do any of you have any other items that you wish to pull? Okay, seeing none, I will now take a motion to approve the agenda. Motion by Miss Savayto, second by Miss Branch. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. That brings us to disclosures and abstensions. Does anybody have any? I don't see any. So, that's now going to bring us to superintendent and board comments. And we'll start with the superintendent. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, during the month of May, we wrapped up our graduations for the class of 2025. And it was a very impressive class. We had 79% of the

006class of 2025 take at least one college level course. So that includes advanced placement, ACE, international balorate and dual enrollment. And we're also if if you're on social media, please check out our senior spotlight video series. This is a chance to highlight highlight some of the unique talents and accomplishments of our students. And I just want to brag a little bit. Our graduates are were accepted into many prestigious institutions including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Florida State University. I also want to thank Mr. Eric Stern who works yeah as as we all know uh Mr. Eric Stern works tirelessly to coordinate all the graduation ceremonies. He does a masterful job. It is physically demanding and mentally demanding. Uh he's there from before sunrise to p you know till to late in the evening every night making

007sure everything goes flawlessly. So I want to thank him for that. And then he's joined by uh Sergeant Augger and of school police along with Chief Mooney the whole school police team does a great job. And then our communications team led by Mr. Sean Culie and Miss Amy Johnston, their their team also is there, you know, making sure that we it's really nice thing I think we're able to do where we broadcast them and keep them available on YouTube for YouTube for the families to see. And we know we're having viewers from around the world uh watch those ceremonies. And I've got a short video that just kind of recaps the class of 2025 ceremonies and I'll share that with you now. time. It's our most valuable asset. And over the past four years, we

008invested it in ourselves, in our futures, in our dreams. And today, it pays off. This is the class of 2025. Ready for the road ahead because we made the best choice with our time. Graduates, you are the future. Cherish this moment. Learn from the past. Invest wisely in the time that lies before you. We aren't just graduates. We're future doctors, educators, engineers, and service members. We spent our time wisely, and it changed everything. Yale University studying ethics, politics, and economics. Florida State University studying sports medicine. University of Florida studying computer science. Harvard University studying mathematics. University of Notre Dame studying mechanical engineering. How will you spend your time? Will you build? Will you lead? Will you serve? United States Air Force. The Citadel Military College of South Carolina studying English. Duke University studying economics. Florida

009International University studying medical biology. Dartmouth College studying computer science. Princeton University studying neuroscience. Independent electrical contractor. Stand tall. Be proud and leave knowing that the best is yet to come. Continue to take chances and embrace difficulties because you never know where they might lead. Things are no longer just happening to us. They're happening because of us. It's our time to dream, our time to inspire, our time to explore. Our time starts now. On behalf of the entire school board, congratulations. We are proud of you. We wish you all the best in life. The school district of Palm Beach County was my best choice. My best choice. My best choice. My best choice. The school district of Palm Beach County was my best choice. All right. Thanks. I also want to thank the school board. You

010all attended many, many ceremonies and I appreciate you suffering through my speech numerous times. Uh but thank you. Just it was a a great time of the year and we're really proud of that class of 2025. And you know, we got to get to work bringing in the next uh class of 2038. So, we've been of course welcoming our incoming kindergarteners and I just want to share that again uh that if you h if parents have not yet registered, please do. We you can start that process online. It's very easy and we'll be quick to send you two kindergarten readiness kits which will help you get ready over the summer so that your kindergartenner hits the ground running in August. Uh I'd also again like to thank or recognize uh Mr. Ed Tierney, our deputy

011superintendent chief of schools. We're very proud of Mr. Tierney. He is heading off to be the new superintendent of Monroe County Schools, which is the Florida Keys, and I know he will continue to make us proud down there. Uh, at this point, I'd like to turn it over to our new deputy superintendent of Chief of Schools, Miss Jamie Wyatt. Um, you know, with the new school year coming up, part of the process of getting ready is making sure every school has a principal. So, we've been busy uh interviewing and we've got three new principles to introduce to the board tonight and the community at large. So, Miss Wyatt, Good evening board members and superintendent Burke. I am pleased to have the opportunity to introduce three new principles. The staff and community at Rolling Green Elementary

012are looking for a principal to invest in parent and community partnerships, communicate, collaborate with teachers and staff, and have an understanding and passion for the dual language program. And we believe we have found the perfect candidate in Miss Shaqua Walls. Good evening, board chair Braille, Vice Chair Andrews, school board members, and Mr. Burke. I am incredibly honored and humbled to step into this new role at Rolling Green Elementary. I want to begin by sincerely thanking the school board and Mr. Burke for trusting me with this opportunity. Your confidence means the world, and I'm committed to living up to the responsibility you have entrusted to me. To my mentors, Mr. Jeff Peg, Dr. Camille Long, Mrs. Jamie Wyatt and Mrs. Rhonda Smiths, thank you for pouring into me your wisdom, encouragement, and belief. Each of you

013have played a vital part in shaping the educator and leader I strive to be. To the staff, students, and families, and wider Bo Beach school community, I am thrilled to continue on this journey with you. This is more than a job. It's a calling. I believe every child deserves to feel seen, heard, and empowered. Let's work hand in hand to make Rolling Green a place where every student succeeds. Thank you. Okay. Windbrook Elementary seeks an instructional leader with a vision for sustaining academic excellence in continuing to promote and m and maintain a positive culture and climate as well as embrace the school community it serves. And we believe we found the perfect leader in Miss Gina North. Thank you. Board Chair Bril, Vice Chair Andrews, School Board members, Superintendent Mr. Burke, and Mr. Tyranny, and

014Miss Wyatt. I am deeply honored to have been selected as the principal of Winbrook Elementary. Thank you for giving me this incredible opportunity. As a proud product of Palm Beach County, having attended public school here from kindergarten through 12th grade, it is meaningful to serve in the district that helped shape who I am. This coming year marks my 29th year as an educator. A meaningful milestone that fills me with gratitude and renews my commitment to inspiring the next generation, supporting our educators, and giving back to the community that gave so much to me. I would like to take a moment to express my heartfelt appreciation to my family. They have stood by me through every personal and professional challenge, always encouraging me to prioritize my career even when it wasn't easy. Their unwavering support and

015belief in me have been my foundation. From the beginning of my journey, I have been fortunate to have extraordinary mentors. Thank you to Pat Kalp who gave me my first teaching opportunity and to Anne Clark who inspired me to pursue leadership. Working alongside Anne for 13 years profoundly shaped the path that I am on. I also want to recognize Valerie Haynes who believed in my leadership potential and hired from me in my first assistant principal position 14 years ago and now for my f first principal. Her encouragement and constant motivation to Anmie Dilbert. Thank you for continuing to grow me as a leader during the nine years that we were together. You've taught me the true value of building strong relationships within our community, advocating for our students in every way possible and fostering a

016sense of family within ourselves with our staff. To our entire win community, staff, students, and families, thank you for welcoming me so warmly. From the moment I arrived, I felt that I truly belonged. I am grateful for Robin Brown for her guidance and support during the transition. Her efforts ensured I had everything I needed to step confidently into the role. I'm incredibly grateful for all the support I've received throughout my journey. From colleagues and students to family and community members, you've all played a part in making me love what I do. I am thrilled to officially become a Wildcat and look forward to continuing our work together to make Winbrook Elementary the best it can be for every student every day. Thank you. [Applause] And last but not least, Miss Jamie Evans, the 2024 assistant

017principal of the year. She has brought consistent leadership experience to the Glades region. She has served as an elementary teacher, a single school coordinator, and most recently an assistant principal, and we believe we have found the perfect candidate at Miss Jamie Evans. Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Wyatt, for that beautiful introduction. First and foremost, I would like to thank each and every one of you on the board for providing me with the opportunity to serve as the new principal of Belglade Elementary School. I am a product of the Glades region where greatness is in our DNA. I was born and raised in Belglade, Florida. I attended elementary school at Belglade Elementary. I also served as a single school culture coordinator at Belglade Elementary. So, this is really a full circle moment. I am

018so excited to go inside and lead the work. I would like to take a moment to thank my mentors, the instructional leaders in the Glaze region, Mrs. Angela Moore and Dr. Mon'nique McTar. Also, I would like to thank Mrs. Marsha Marshia Andrews, our board member. Each and every one of you have poured into me and you have always supported me and you have pushed me to reach my maximum potential and I greatly appreciate each and every one of you. I would also like to take a moment to thank a few more mentors. Mrs. Melinda Springman Herrera who is my coach in the principles academy. I appreciate her so much for coaching me oneon-one and helping me helping me to improve my leadership skills. I also would like to thank Dr. Presley. He was my coach

019in the assistant principal program and he saw the potential in me and he would not allow me to give up on myself. So I greatly appreciate him, Mr. James Bokeikio as a math specialist. He was the one to teach me all the math strategies that you see doing so well in all of these schools that I have served. I would also like to thank my AP coach, Miss Jennifer Torado, for being there for me every step of the way as an assistant principal at Glade View Elementary School. I am so grateful to have served the best staff in Palm Beach County and that is Glade View Elementary School. the staff, the families, my principal who has taught me so much, Mrs. Shandra Dowers, who worked side by side with me to help me elevate my

020leadership skills. I have worked with a staff that made my job so easy because they have supported me every step of the way. And I will always have a space in my heart for Glaiew Elementary staff, students, and families. I will be just a phone call away because I am down the street at Belglade Elementary School. Last, but certainly not least, I would love to thank my family, for always listening to me. Every phone call I made, they were there for me to listen, to support me, to make sure I had everything that I needed. My family believes in me wholeheartedly, and that is why you see me here. I have a mother that raised me as a single parent and she has never given up on me. She has pushed me. She's been hard

021on me. And I appreciate my mother because she is the reason why you see what you see in front of you. I am an impeccable leader because I had a role model to set the example for me. She taught me integrity. She taught me how to lead. She taught me how to have a heart and a passion for raising student achievement. I would like Glade View Elementary School to know I will miss them. And Belglade Elementary School, thank you for welcoming me back home. I am a soaring eagle coming from Glade View Elementary School. And Belglade Elementary School, we're going to continue to soar and do that great work Rier Walker and Adele Sumner has put in place. Thank you for accepting me and I'm ready to do the work. Thank you all. We look

022forward to great things. Also, just want to lastly acknowledge uh we held a celebration last week for our retirees and we're losing about 485 members of Team Palm Beach to retirement, but they will always be a member of Team Palm Beach and we want to thank them for their outstanding service over the years and that may create some openings. So, if you're interested in joining team Palm Beach, please check out our website at palm beacheschools.org/careers. Madam Chair, that concludes my comments. Thank Thank you, Mr. Superintendent. So, we're going to begin our board comments and we will start with Vice Chair Andrews. Thank you and good afternoon to everyone. It's a pleasure to be here this evening. I would like to uh say a few words before we show my slides. I do have a few

023to share. First of all, it was so nice to be at the summit on yesterday to see everyone come together, all of our principles, assistant principal, district leaders celebrate a successful year we've had here in Palm Beach County School District. It has been great and to say thank you for everything you do. It's time now for you all to take time to rest and relax and enjoy some you time. taking the time to pamper yourself because you have done a great job this year with our children in the district. You know, we have those 10-hour days, but you're going to take those three-day vacations and you're going to take some extra time, too. Take care of yourself because we do expect for you to be rejuvenated when you return. And today, we said goodbye to

024Ed Tierney, Mr. Tyranny. He's sitting in here front in front of us now, but you're leaving us, but we send our love to you, Ed. We know you're going to be great in Monroe County. You've done great things for our students. You've helped us to regain the A right here in Palm Beach County, but we know you're going to bring great things to Monroe County. We love you, Mr. Tyranny. We're going to miss you sitting right there in that spot, but we know you're going to be taking care of kids, and that's what it's all about. And I want to say a few uh words about some of the activities that I've been involved in over the last uh few weeks. The Hispanic Education Coalition Awards. I want to thank uh Dr. Diaz and the

025Hispanic Education Coalition. Uh Mr. Aero, the principal at the Dr. We Garcia High School. We we were together with the board members. I think almost every board member was there that night where we awarded 12 scholarships to students from Palm Beach County School District. They were so excited. They told us about their future. They're going to college. They're excited and it was just a wonderful time celebrating at our new Dr. Wim Garcia High School, but celebrating our beautiful students and the wall of service uh ceremony at Western Pines. We just celebrated uh Memorial Day, one of the most uh touching times that we have to say thank you for those who lost their lives. Western Pines, you do it. Uh the wall of honor there means so much to me and all of us here

026in Palm Beach County. And I was there with you to celebrate. And yes, West Technical Education Center celebrating all of the adults who graduated. Fred Bart, Dr. Ford, Tri Cities Education. We were all there to see all of the graduates get their tools and get their diplomas as they graduated from West Tech. And yes, Mr. Burke, I was there with all of the board members to the retirement celebration. It was fun to shake all the hands of the people who are going out to have a great time. I think it's bittersweet for them. They're going to miss the children. They're going to miss all the work they've done with us, but they're going to have a great ball as they move to another level in their lives. And tonight we welcome Pierce Hammock Elementary School.

027You're out there in the audience somewhere. You are great. You have the school's Odyssey of the Mind team at your school. You just went to Orlando representing the school district of Palm Beach County. You're the only school in Palm Beach County with an Odyssey of the Mind program. You're awesome. I can't wait to shake your hands and tell you congratulations. You're superstars. Everyone have a great summer as you move through and rest yourselves and know that we'll be waiting on you rejuvenated in August. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. [Applause] Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a few comments for this evening. Uh firstly, I want to uh recognize the Solomon Leadership Academy. Uh specifically, a young man named Charles Kramer. He's a class of 26 uh student at Sun Coast High School. Um if

028you uh you see his photo up on the screen now he uh graduated from the Solomon leadership program and the Solomon leadership program um is a is a group that um has eight tenants character tolerance communication vision empowerment persistence strategy and judgment that they try to espouse to the mentees. And this young man moved me. He I have a snippet of of his uh commencement speech, if you will, from last week that I want to share. And it it was based on a speech that I gave to the group on perseverance earlier in the school year. So, if we can run that really quickly, I'd appreciate it. Someone could have gone through similar struggles to the ones that I've gone through such as research papers and college courses and college exams and just the basic

029struggles of high school. Someone to go through that and then achieve so much success after that. Um and then also he had some points about how we needed to do everything at 110%. And how we needed to try different things in order to find our passions. And that really stuck with me because up until this program, I've been doing things in my comfort zone. I wouldn't do anything that I didn't think I would enjoy or that I would didn't think I would succeed at. Um, but his words really spoke to me and they really changed my perspective. So, this young man is just again he's indicative of all the students and all of them share similar experiences. In fact, I believe I see Mr. Kyle Feeman, uh, uh, Pumpy Central grad, future Hampton University grad,

030and hopefully member of Omega Sapphi in the audience as well. We see you, young sir. Um, you will see the Omega spirit in full effect uh, this evening. But again, if you're interested in in joining the Solomon Leadership Program, the incoming class will be roughly 25. Gentlemen, if you could show the flyer, the QR code is there. There's still some openings. I strongly endorse this this program. Um, again, it's just an amazing company and event all around. Um, also I want to recognize a gentleman who passed a few weeks ago. Uh, Mr. William Wilson. Uh, he was a graduate of Roosevelt High School, class of 1960, the best class, uh, for this evening. Uh, FAMU grad of class of 64, member of the marching 100 band, which is unquestionably historically the best marching band in

031this great country of ours. But specific to me, he was the father of a young man named Senica Wilson who passed away on December 17th of 1992. A friend of mine at Sun Coast High School. Uh Mr. Wilson, I remember him being just a loving man. Uh Senica was also a chip off the old block. He is missed. I think about him often uh when we are, if you will, doing battle up here. But to Mr. Wilson, I say rest in peace. I hope you're in heaven now with Synica and your oldest son, Eric. Uh lastly, I want to take time to address I know we have a number of people who will be speaking tonight on this issue of DEI. Um I salute you all for your for your perseverance. Obviously, DEI is not

032a pjorative. It is not a synonym for a quota. Uh the whole concept of DEI is a means of optimizing the experience and voice of the greater number of our students here in Palm Beach County and across this country. Um, so I would say this to you all. Be bold, be resilient, be assured that ultimately victory will be yours. And I ask you all to continue to use your voice for the upbuilding of of this public education system, not just here in Palm Beach County, but across the state of Florida and across the US of A. Um, so again, Madam Chair, I said I didn't have much to say tonight, and I'm done. Thank you for the time. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. Miss Branch, thank you. I just want to again say congratulations again to

033Mr. Tierney on your superintendentship in Monroe County. Thank you for all you've done for Palm Beach County. We appreciate you for your dedication uh to Palm Beach County School District over the last 23 plus years. Uh we will miss you, but we know you'll be doing great things in Monunroe County. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Branch, Miss Whitfield. Thank you very much. Um just a couple of topics I wanted to share with you all this evening. Um the first of all, I want to talk about the media center um redo at uh Banyan Creek Elementary. We have a couple of pictures that we can put up from that. Um this is a wonderful event. It's just something that I I can't wait to see happen in every single one of our schools, but um you

034can see the children, their smiling faces, the brand new media center. Um it is going to get painted. I was really excited about that when I was in there. I was like, "Okay, so we're going to do some new paint in here as well." So that's going to happen. It really is an amazing partnership with the Orange Bowl Committee and the College Football Playoff Foundation to contribute to our schools in such an amazing way. So very very grateful for that. Um the next slide is um some photos from I was able to be the uh keynote speaker for adopt a families annual meeting this year. As you know that's one of my favorite organizations here in Palm Beach County that serves our homeless students and families. And so I wanted to bring greetings from the

035board and really thank them for the work that they are doing. So, I wanted to share that with you all that I was able to do that. Um, the third item is one of my favorites from this time of year. I have to thank Mr. Eric Stern for his work um this past graduation season. It is Yeah, please help me congratulate him. It is, I think, one of the hardest jobs in the district to really just keep going for such a sheer number of hours. I know your feet are always swollen, you're always exhausted, but you do it all with a smile on your face, making sure that every student feels recognized and that their moment is really something that they can take home and we can all see in the work that's done. So,

036I just want to thank you so much for that work. Um, I know it's a big ask of your family every year. So, please send our thanks to them as well. And then finally, I just really want to continue the torture of Mr. Churnney because he does not enjoy all this attention. And so I figured I'd just bring him up one more time again and say thank you again for all your work here um in the school district and I'm looking forward to hearing all the great things that you do as superintendent of Monroe County. Thank you very much. Thank you Miss Whitfield, Miss Savetto. I attended the governor's hurricane conference. Always so educational to hear from main speakers and expert panels. This year's theme was enduring together, persevering with purpose. Featuring emergency management directors

037from Florida, Florida's West Coast counties impacted by the three major 2024 hurricanes. They share valuable lessons learned and challenges faced to better prepare us for the future. I think it would be very beneficial to for Mr. Burke to attend next year. People come from all over the United States and abroad. I was glad to be at the housing heroes lunchon hosted by the housing leadership council of Palm Beach County celebrating the businesses and partners advancing affordable and workforce housing in our community. For over a decade a decade the council had led efforts to fund projects, conduct critical studies, advocate for policy change and remove barriers to housing um access. Thank you to all the leaders uh working to ensure safe safe stable homes for our workforce and neighbors. Together we're building a stronger more equitable

038future. I was happy to to join the ribbon cutting at west westgate recreation center for the new library to go vending machine. As a member of the Palm Beach County Library Advisory Board, it was exciting uh to see this free convenient service bringing books directly into the community. Just um just a library card is all you need. So, Palm Beach County um and recreations, parks and recreations joined in and kids had a great time borrowing books, returning them, enjoying story story time in the gym and meeting Dewey the owl, the library m mascot. Big thanks to the library director Doug Crane for making this innovative program possible. I had the pleasure of attending last week's Chamber of Commerce of the Palm Beach's breakfast where CEO Michael Zev share exciting updates that reflected the momentum and

039share purpose building across our community. It was inspiring to be surrounded by so many committed leaders from both the business and nonprofit sectors. As a schoolboard member, I I'm especially excited to bring to help bring an education component into the mix, bringing bridging local partnerships and innovation directly into our schools. Grateful to be part of what is ahead. Over the past few weeks as we spoke um before, you know, I've been had the honor of celebrating students across the district from elementary to high school, dual language to adult education. Each ceremony was a powerful reminder of why we do this work. I joined celebrations at Bur Birkshshire, Pine Jo, Liberty Park, Conniston, Okihily, and Palm Springs Middle for its first international Spanish Academy graduation. At the high school level, I attended Forestdale High School and

040John Learner and Take Stock in Children. I also witnessed the resilience of our adult education graduates prove it's never too late to follow your dreams. Thank you to the school bands who brought these um these amazing moments. Very, very good work. A special thank you uh thank you to Eric Stern and his team for the incredible coordination of three ceremonies a day at the fairgrounds. Your dedication made every moment forget unforgettable. Thank you, Eric. Last week, I had the joy of attending my son's Luca's eighth grade award ceremony at Palm Springs Middle as he moves on to high school. Luca received two honors. I didn't even know, but uh that was awesome. One for STEM and another for being in the top five% of the class. And of course, I cried. I'm so proud of

041him. Thank you. um to his teachers, coaches, and friends who made his three years at Palm Springs such a meaningful journey. Huge thanks to my dad and stepmom for their constant support. I couldn't have done it without them. Um Papa Gracia Porto and uh to all of our incredible educators across this district. Enjoy your summer break. You've earned it. Felis Felis Felis Felis Verano. Happy summer. Congratulations to the class of 2025 and wish the best to Mr. Tierney and congrats to Mrs. Wyatt. and I made it. Thank you, Miss Savetto. You got it all in. Mr. Lane, I also want to compliment uh our superintendent, Mike Burke, Eric Sterns, Sergeant Augur, uh Sean Cooling, the communications team for the exceptional job they did conducting 33 beautiful graduation ceremonies. They're very meaningful to me, and I

042note that they meant a lot to the proud families of our graduates. As was said, we also held a retirement ceremony for some of our longest serving members of our team. The longest serving teacher had 43 years. The longest serving administrator had 37 years. The longest serving staff member had 38 years. The fact that we were able to retain team members for this length of time is a tribute to our superintendent and our leadership team. They truly make the school district of Palm Beach County the best choice for students, families, and our team members. I also attended the Hispanic Education Coalition led by Dr. Carlos Diaz, Mabel Meltton, Eduardo Grooveman, and Natalia Powers. They awarded generous scholarships to a number of exceptional students, and I was very privileged to be invited to attend this event.

043Finally, I visited the Dwight D. Eisenhower School in my district, District 1, which is led by principal Dr. Debbie Battles and assistant principal Maren Groner. DDI is actually three schools in one. They have a prek program with over 200 students in an elementary school and a middle school. This also the school also has an environmental choice academy and a technology program where students earn technology badges and industry certifications. They have outdoor hydroponic and and an indoor hydroponic gardening, an outdoor classroom under a hut that's built by members of the Seminal Indian tribe and a gopher tortoise preserve. Now, this year, DDT implemented the house system to develop student leaders. Each student and staff member is assigned to a house and this creates a tight-knit environment where students build friendships across grade levels and relationships between

044students, administrators, and faculty. Now, during my visit, I was inducted into the House of Protos. And I'd like to share a video of my induction with you. So, come on over. Give them a hand. All right, let's all do our cheer cuz we want it in our house. [Applause] Bear's coming through. Bear's coming through. Come over here. And that ends my report. Thank you, Mr. Lane. So, I don't usually repeat anything that said all of you know I want to thank all of those that have been mentioned previously, but I I can't let this meeting go by without just wishing a world of happiness, much success to our deputy superintendent. We'll be watching you. We look forward to seeing you at different meetings, but we just I wish you from the bottom of my heart

045all the happiness in the world. You deserve it. And also want to wish everybody a good summer. As um Vice Chair Andrews said, take some time out to to breathe, to relax, stay inside. It's awfully hot out there and stay dry, but we hope you have a nice break. So, at every regular board meeting, we do remember the employees that we have lost. And so, tonight, I'm going to ask for a moment of silence for Jessica Reid, who is a music teacher at Diamond View Elementary School, who passed away on April 14th, 2025. Thank you. So that's going to bring us now to our presentations and I invite all of the board members to the floor where Miss Nika Nolan from the communications and engagement department will join us for the June board recognitions. Good

046evening, Chair Bril, Vice Chair Andrews, board members, Superintendent Berg, staff and community. And this evening, we have four recognitions on the agenda. We begin with a recognition for Mr. David Law, a PE teacher at Boca Raton Community Middle School and the coach of the school's boys basketball team. During his tenure, he has led the boys basketball team to more than 300 wins. Mr. Law has been an educator in the Palm Beach County School District for 35 years. Not only does he educate his students, he mentors and coaches in addition to being a community leader. His other accomplishments include one county boys championship, eight division boys basketball titles, one boys county track championship, 12 division titles for girls track, and he has also coached students who went on to become professional athletes and compete in the

047Olympics. Congratulations to David Law for leading the boys basketball team at Boca Middle to more than 300 wins. And we also want to acknowledge the principal of Boka Middle, Miss Lisa Lee. Let's give them a round of [Applause] applause. There you go. Perfect. All right. With the knee. One, two, three. Perfect. Stay looking here. One, two, three. Big smiles. Thank you. [Applause] Next, we are recognizing three district students who received a Florida prepaid superintendent scholarship. These outstanding students will receive a 2-year Florida college plan, which covers tuition and fees for 60 lower division semester credit hours at any of the 28 Florida public colleges. The scholarship can also be applied to outofstate public or private colleges around the country. Congratulations to the scholarship recipients, Nat Nurgadali Pierre Louie from Boon Beach Community High, Chelsea Perez

048Perez from Palm Beach Gardens Community High, and Nashika Sees from Glade Central Community High. Let's give them all a round of applause. And if the students can please come forward at this time. [Applause] Beautiful. All right. Look at me. One, two, three. Beautiful. Hold it, please. Look at me. Big smile. Thank you. [Applause] Next, we are recognizing the Pierce Hammock Elementary School Odyssey of the Mind team. They achieved first place at the Palms Odyssey of the Mind regional tournament held in February. They competed against teams from St. Lucy County and Martin County. Odyssey of the Mind competition is a two-part steam program where students are taught skills, then must use them to solve problems and think outside of the box. At the beginning of the school year, the team was given a variety of problems

049to solve. They selected a problem involving classical literature. The students were responsible for all aspects of the solution, including creating a skit, set, and prop construction, costumes, and production. The competition also required that they propose a solution to a spontaneous problem without any prior knowledge of the problem. They successfully offered solutions to both parts of the competition and took first place in the region. They were the only team representing the school district of Palm Beach County and this program has been offered to students for two years at Pierce Hammock Elementary and both years of competition resulted in regional champions. Congratulations to the Pierce Hammock Elementary School Odyssey of the Mind team for earning first place at the Palms Odyssey of the Mind regional tournament. To the students, coaches, and staff, please come forward as I

050call your name. Congratulations to Clara Alway, Michella Carissio, Bella Hadloff, Aurora Mcne, Charlotte Oand, Maya Paul, and Leah Rizzo. And congratulations as well to the coaches Cindy Meyers, Courtney Pek Nagon, and Allison Shuink. And we also want to acknowledge Reagan Fitch, Palm's Odyssey of the Mind, assistant regional director, and Diane Relli Shriber, the principal of the school. Let's give them all a round of applause. All right, students in the middle, please. All right. And the teachers, you guys scooch in, too. They'll scooch around you. There you It's okay. It's okay. They'll scooch around you. Perfect. There you go. All right. One, two, three. All right. Stay there, please. Look at me, please. Big smile. Thank you. Congratulations. [Applause] And finally this evening we are recognizing this year's recipients of Palm Beach School Administrators Association scholarships.

051The scholarship recognizes seniors whose parents are school district administrators. The award is given to students to commend their hard work, dedication, and drive for success as well as for demonstrating a steady commitment to academic excellence and community involvement. Congratulations to the following students for earning a Palm Beach School Administrators Association scholarship. Please come forward as I call your name. And would everyone please hold your applause until each name has been read. Congratulations to Belle Brooks from Drifus School of the Arts. Garrett Bjinsky from Park Vista Community High. Tiffany Davis, Atlantic Community High. Abigail Dugos, Boca Raton Community High. Isabella Frell, Wel Wellington Community High. Kyle Feeman, Palm Beach Central High. Corey Fulmar, Jupiter Community High. Bodie Hatcher, Seol Ridge Community High. Jabari Henry, Atlantic Community High. Bryson High Totower, Glade Central Community High. Sydney Jones,

052Drifus School of the Arts. Uh, Ava Kee, Sun Coast Community High. Hunter Callazer, Wellington Community High. Nicholas Martinez, Dr. Wen Garcia High, Addison Morphesus, Drifus School of the Arts. Simon Pierre Louie, Atlanta Community High, Atlanta Riddle, Wellington Community High, Alexandra Riddle, also Wellington Community High. Dylan Ro, Sun Coast Community High, Jack Sanford, Jupiter Community High. Nina Simone Simmons, Palm Beach Lakes Community High. Bryce Smith, Palm Beach Gardens Community High. Anthony Wakowski, Wellington Community High, and Ethan Ziggler, Park Vista Community High. Let's give them all a round of applause. How are you? Congratulations. All right, students. I'm going to have you all stand in the middle and the board members will stand around you. Scoot and all the the teachers. Perfect. Congratulations. Board Chair Bril, Vice Chair Andrews, board members, Superintendent Burke, staff, and members of

053the community. This concludes the recognitions for June. Thank you everyone for your attention this evening. board members. That's going to bring us to our committee reports. Academic Advisory Committee, Laura Felman, chair, are you here? Okay, I see you there. Don't worry. Don't rush. Come right up. Good evening, board chair Bril, Vice Chair Andrews, school board members, Superintendent Burke, and staff. I am Laura Felman speaking to you as chair of the academic advisory committee. First, I want to congratulate all the recent graduates and wish them more successes and achievements in their future. Congratulations also to their families and all of the school district staff for their support and guidance for the students. I also want to thank the staff for their support of the academic advisory committee and their diligence in helping to corral the volunteer

054committee members each month so that we can have a quorum and hold our committee meetings. This school year we met in August, September, December, February, March, and April. We were unable to hold a meeting in October, November, and January since we did not have a quorum to accommodate graduation ceremonies and end of year commitments. We also canceled our May meeting. During our meetings, we discussed and gave input on a variety of topics, including school grades and curricular responses to the data AI in the classrooms and training for AI related careers. discussion included suggestions to expand academic programs to further support students future careers in AI, advanced coursework and opportunity gaps, the lasser and phonics initiatives, legislative and policy updates, graduation rates and progress monitoring which included discussions and requests for more information regarding the comparison

055of title one and non-title one schools, students with disabilities performances considering new rulings and enrollment and and support in accelerated coursework, data and progression of gifted students, math interventions, both the scheduling issues and solutions which are customized to accommodate each school schedule and understanding the root cause for the need of the math interventions, applications used for reading and math supports. The committee members also continue to support the book review process. Our next meeting will be August 18th, 2025. Thank you. Thank Thank you, Miss Feldman. Okay. The audit committee report is attached to your agendas and the construction oversight review committee report is attached to your agendas. Um district diversity and equity committee Charmaine Postal Chair come right up. Thank you. Welcome. Good afternoon board chair, vice chair, board members, superintendent, staff, and everyone in your

056respective places. Charmaine Postol, chair of the DDEC and uh oh, I lost my notes. Highlights from the May 15th meeting which was led by Vice Chair Cassandra Oliver in a hybrid fashion online and here in the boardroom. We are pleased to welcome Ovian Gordine as the new representative for the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council pending approval today. We heard from Kiwana Howell, director of extended learning department who shared updates on afterchool and summer programming. The district serves over 20,000 students at 93 elementary sites, including a new site at Saddle View Elementary. Through 17 federal 21st century grants, we're reaching 2600 students across 38 sites, offering onetoone laptops, robotics curriculum, new reading and math platforms, a free learning program through Charity for Change. The department is also running 51 summer camps with registration open for

057a small fee. Those camps are first come, first serve and highly sought after, so you probably missed it if you haven't signed up. Additionally, the 21st century program grants are threatened by federal cuts that would harm undeserved harm access for undeserved students. We also heard from Dr. TWA Taylor with Palm Beach County Youth Services, who shared free trauma-informed services for youth and families, including counseling, parenting classes, and autism evaluations. The committee received legislative updates from Mr. Oswald. Some of these updates included new laws restricting cell phone use during school day for K through8 students and the need to continue to monitor final legislation as the legislative session extended until June or whenever. Mr. Oswald also provided additional academic supports will continue this summer through the summer bridge program. Finally, our subcommittee is analyzing FAST assessments,

058growth data, cross- refferencing it with survey and demographic information to identify effective strategies. Congratulations to the class of 2025, and best wishes to Deputy Superintendent Ed Terranny on his new role as superintendent in County. We also celebrate our very own general counsel member who was our representative Jolanda Morgan to her promotion as chief of staff and all other leaders rising to continue the mission of the district. Our next meeting is June 12th at 10:00 a.m. This concludes the report for the DDEC meeting. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Posal. Okay, General Counsel, do you have a report for us tonight? No report. Thank you. Thank you. an inspector general. Do you have a report for us? No report. Thank you very much. That's going to bring us to our speakers who are elected officials and delegates.

059I'll first start off with Terresa West, chief engagement officer for the Education Foundation. Good evening, uh, Superintendent Burke, board chair Bril, Vice Chair, Marcia Andrews, and all schoolboard members and staff. I wanted to share a few exciting things that are happening with the education foundation in supporting our teachers and how your continued partnership makes this possible. First, I'm thrilled to announce that applications for our Go Teach Classroom grants for the 2526 school year are officially open. From science labs to literacy corners, special needs and skills for learning and life programs, these grants ranging from 1,000 to $5,000 bring teacher creativity to life while achieving student learning gains. The deadline for uh district teachers to apply is August 8th, and we hope every teacher with a great idea submits a proposal for consideration. Our team is

060conducting free information sessions as well and webinars to support the teachers with their applications. Details can be found on our website at educationfoundationpbc.org. Second, we're proud to highlight the stepping up STEM program in Pokei uh in Pokei, a transformative program designed to build a pipeline of computer programming, computer science, robotics courses for 6th through 12th grade students in collaboration with the Ventus Charitable Foundation in the state of Florida's school district education foundation matching grant program. POI is not just stepping up in STEM, they are soaring. Our students are immersed in a rigorous curriculum that not only challenges them but also propels them to remarkable achievements and prepares them for their futures beyond high school. Among the standout participants are several students earning full ride scholarships to prestigious universities and one remarkable student who secured an

061internship with Google. These successfuls are a true testament to the boundless potential that flourishes when a community rallies together to support its public schools. And for the past eight years, we have been honored to partner with Pokei Middle High School, celebrating each victory and each milestone along the way. And lastly, as we look ahead to the new school year, hard to believe, but our team is working hard to prepare for one of our largest efforts, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with, the back to school backpack and school supply drive. This year we will be providing, drum roll please, over 30,000 students with backpacks filled with essential school supplies, serving the needs of students in district operated Title One schools across the county. We're actively seeking new community partners to help fund it,

062fill backpacks, and distribute these backpacks as well. Whether it's through sponsorships, volunteerism, inkind support, or hosting a school supply drive, every act of generosity helps ensure our students walk into school confident and prepared on day one. In closing, thank you for your unwavering support of public education and for your partnership with the education foundation. Together, we are building a stronger future for every single student in Palm Beach County. Thank you, Erica Hen, Vice President of Junior Achievement of Palm Beach and Treasure Coast. Good evening, Chairwoman Bril, Vice Chair Andrews, board members, and Superintendent Burke. My name is Erikica Hen. At Junior Achievement of the Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast, we equip students from kindergarten to high school with realworld skills in financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship. With the support from our local businesses and

063educators, we've had over 1500 volunteers and we're building a stronger community by preparing tomorrow's leaders for our year-end impact. Junior Achievement proudly served 157,53 students, counted them all, across Palm Beach County this year through dynamic hands-on programming in 3D. Our we had a senior celebration night at Lakew Worth High School. Congratulations to Tessa Cattle and Natalie West. Each one of those students were awarded a scholarship from Junior Achievement for their outstanding growth and participation in the 3D program. Looking at career readiness highlights for the fiscal year of 25. We hosted 19 elementary career fairs. That's a lot of volunteers. Students learned from a wide range of careers from professionals including scientists, NASA representatives, first responders, and even an ice cream truck owner. We also hosted seven JA inspire middle school career exploration events. These um

064included a blend of classroom curriculum and interactive career fairs which helped students to explore their futures and understand the wide range of possibilities ahead of them. Additionally, we had 15 JA high school career exploration fairs. These were hosted at Palm Beach State College campuses as well as the local college campuses. Next year, all of the high school career exploration fairs will be held right on campus for our high school students. And we already have six schools booked for next year. So, you can see we have already been busy with the calendar planning for next year. In the area of fundraising, we had a successful laugh your assets off event. We hosted this comedy night fundraiser with strong support from the community and Palm Beach County School District. A huge thank you to Miss Mahias, Miss

065Schneider, Dr. Lee, and Dr. Charles for attending and showing their support. Special shout out to school board member Erica Whitfield for her good humor and participation in Are You Smarter Than an Elected Official Challenge. and we are very happy to report that she is in fact much much smarter than a fifth grader. Thank you, Mrs. Whitfield. We do appreciate you. As far as exciting district partnerships and part of Superintendent Burke's uh community experience initiative, we are very very excited to serve all 15,000 middle school students next year for our JA Inspire. This will be held at Cacti Park of the Palm Beaches. So, we are already in the planning sessions for that and that's for all of our eighth graders. Also, looking ahead, we are just planning all kinds of wonderful events for our students.

066We are actively recruiting community and business partners to help students explore possibilities and build brighter futures. We are so incredibly grateful for our partnership with the school district of Palm Beach County. We hope that you find some time to rest and relax this summer. We know all of the hard work that you put into what you do for our students and you know I have three of them included at this district. So thank you so much. Have a great night. Thank you. Sylvia Hall, PTA, PTSA president. Hi uh good evening um everybody. Thank you. I would like to start with the stating the mission of the PTA. Please just state your name. Oh or Sylvia Ho, Palm Beach County PTA president. Sorry about that. I would like to uh start with the stating the mission

067of the PTA that is to make every ch every child's potential a reality uh by engaging and empowering families and communities to advocate for all children regardless of gender, ethnicity, race, religion, etc., etc. just a reminder that we are advocate for all the children not just a few. Um I would like to mention uh we just had this like a month ago a few weeks ago we had our award celebration where we we uh we award local units for their work in their schools. And I it will the list will be too long, but I would like to say that our county PTA principal of the year was uh Christine uh Merchel is the principal of the Sunrise Park and uh and the princip the PTSA principal of the year was the Eagles Landing um

068principal Dominic P uh Pisati. Also um June 30th is the end of our school year. we you know start July 1st up to June 30th of the following year. So we are all the local units will be um finishing closing the books and getting the books ready for audit and we'll be doing that as well to follow the compliance that we need to do with the IRS. Um we also we have a convention coming in June National PTA convention will be virtual will be June 25th to June 28th. Um also uh coming in July will be our Florida leadership convention with it will be held from uh July 10th July to July 13 at Odney Championship in in Orlando. The theme this year is back to basics and it's all about amplifying the core of

069what really means to be a PTA. Some of the seminars and the workshops will be artificial intelligence boot camp leadership uh development institute president's academy uh k uh this will be a kid exploration zone and uh and also a coaching and council connections so many of their cont PTA and members can get some uh more experience uh one of the things I would like to mention too is that we are we closing the here we're going to be planning a board retreat for Palm Beach County so we can plan the calendar for next year. Um and one of the things we are planning is our first enroll meeting and I would like to invite the superintendent B and all the school uh board members when we decide on the date if you can make it

070you will get an invitation for us. Um, another thing is I would like to say is if anyone wants to volunteer with PTA or wants I will I will tell them to please join PTA, join your local unit. Having a power and a PTA at your school makes a difference in the school's life and your children will appreciate that. And if you want to know more about what PTA is all about, please reach out to me. I will be more than happy to go to the school and do a presentation for all the principles and all the schools at Palm Beach County. Thank you. Thank you. Mabel Melton, vice president of the Hispanic Education Coalition. Miss Melton, are you here? I don't believe you are. So, we'll move on to Dedric Strong, president of the

071South Palm Beach of the South Palm Beach NAACP. Good evening, Dedric Straw, president of the South Palm Beach County NAACP. I'm here tonight to again plead with this board to stop your measures of rolling back your DEI policies. You know, I I sat in this conference room last week. It was a very contentious meeting. Uh, board member and attorney Ferguson, I I I applaud you for the way you stood and you fought for the minorities, for the women, for the LGBT plus community and you met with a lot of opposition from your fellow board members. It bothered me because something as important as DEI should not meet with opposition. And I understand the whole $300 million hold back from the federal government, but that's a red herring. That's a red herring. And and I agree

072with you, uh, Attorney Ferguson, that's not going to happen. What bothered me about what transpired last week and the actions that you all are looking to take because you're doing it based on a letter that has been deemed unconstitutional by the federal courts. There's no law behind the letter. And we all know the letter is what prompted this call to roll back these DEI policies. You can sit there and and say that's not the case, but again, I can't find any agenda where there was a discussion of rolling back DEI policies prior to you all receiving that letter in February of this year. I heard a lot of excuses about why you all were voting. I heard things such as, well, the other 67 counties are doing it. Which takes me back to when I

073was a kid. My mother would say, "Well, if all your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you do that?" Then I heard and and honestly, it's probably one of the most ignorant statements I've heard, that is, well, we don't need to have these things in writing. Attorney Ferguson, when I say ignorant, I know it means you don't know. But that's not why I'm saying it. I'm saying it because I just found the statement to be very stupid and asinide. That's a very dangerous statement. And here's why. When you when you make a statement like that, it's disrespectful to organizations like ours who spent years working with the federal government to try to get anti-discrimination legislation passed. It's disrespectful to former members of this board that sat and worked with community stakeholders and organizers to

074craft the very DEI language that you all are voting to roll back. Yes, this school district has grown, Miss Andrews and Miss Branch. It has grown, but there is still a need for equity across the board for our students, for our teachers, for our vendors, and for any of the independent contractors that try to get jobs through this school district. to sit here and to somehow think that well we're just going to do the right thing anyway. No, you're not because you haven't in the past. You needed those policies to keep you in line. And if you're going to say that you don't need the DEI policies cuz you're going to do the right thing, get rid of every single board policy that you have because according to you, it doesn't have to be in

075writing for you to do the right thing. Thank you. Hazel Lucas, Coalition for Black Student Achievement. I don't know if you heard me. Hazel Lucas, Coalition for Black Student Achievement. Are you here? Oh, there you are. Okay, thank you. Good evening. My name is Hazel Lucas. Um I was a parent of three children who went through um the schools in Palm Beach County. Um three elementary uh four high schools and uh two middle schools in Palm Beach County. And I was also a schoolboard attorney handling education and personnel. Um, I can tell you that I was involved in the creation of a lot of those policy and a lot of those procedures and they were needed and I'm asking this district to um follow up. I speak today on behalf of the Coalition for Black

076Student Achievement. And at the April 23rd, 2025 schoolboard meeting, the coalition requested that the school board not move forward with making permanent policy changes in response to US DOE's dear colleague letter. As a reminder, the letter falsely claimed that Palm Beach County School District is engaging in racial discrimination and threatened to strip 300 million in federal education funds unless the district dismantles DEI. During the April 23rd, 2025 meeting, representatives from our coalition asked that the administration and board not um not follow through with what is being threatened by uh DOE and that you stand strong and not bend the knee to the administration, the federal administration that's requiring or demanding that this district engage in rolling back our DEA. We know that the letter was a generic letter that was sent to school districts all

077over this country. And we are asking that you also um support the MWBE um businesses so that more children will have resources and role models to help them to navigate the obstacles they will face as they work to become productive and successful citizens. It's been shown time and time again in this nation's courts that the racist policies being implemented by this country's administration are unconstitutional. Help us to make sure that Palm Beach County falls on the right side of history. Please delay any attempts to dismantle Palm Beach County School District's DEI policies and objectives. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, board members, that's going to bring us to our consent agenda. I'm sorry. I apologize. Apparently, we have agenda item speakers and I skipped right over it. It's what happens when I don't wear my

078glasses. So, on behalf of the entire school board, I apologize for skipping over you, but I'd like to welcome any public speakers who are joining us today. Our policy provides that we do not respond to or engage with our speakers. However, we do make note of your issues and we follow up with district administration regarding them. As a reminder, agenda speakers comments must relate to the subject matter of the agenda item which the speaker has requested to address. Additionally, all non-aggenda speakers comments must relate to educationally relevant topics or the operations of the school district pursuant to schoolboard policy. speakers whose comments do not relate to the topic that the speaker indicated or are otherwise educationally relevant as required for non-aggenda topics, including any mention of a person's candidacy for elected office or whose comments

079disrupt or interfere with the order of the meeting may be subject to removal from the meeting or having the microphone turned off and forfeiting the right to speak at the remainder of the meeting. You will have three minutes to address the board. In accordance with schoolboard policy, the microphone will be turned off when the time limit has been reached. When you speak, please state your name for the record and thank you for joining us. So, we do have two agenda item speakers. I'm going to call both names now. Um, we'll start with Donald Pearson, followed by Alcena Falcon. Uh, good evening. Uh, Don Pearson. I'm just finishing my 43rd year in this county and uh, I'd like to talk about the P1. Uh, just a wrapup of what I've been doing this school year. Um

080looking at it my the first meeting uh August 21st I was uh always questioning we have separation of employment uh 1,993 but that also includes temporary employment separation of temporary employment so I separated that so really in August there were 370 that were separated in September the September meeting there were 6,749 separation of employments again including the temporary. So I subtracted those and there were 400 that were separated. And what I've always asked is it's not real clear how are they happening. So I you know I looked at here's where some of our teachers or staff uh get uh terminated. uh use of discriminary language, misuse of time, uh ethical misconduct, inappropriate behavior, failure to exercise best professional um judgment. So, they've been terminated or suspended, mostly terminated, and there's more egregious things obviously. So

081I just want to know the the whole year if you took the separation of employment including the temporary there's 16,536 when I subtract that there are 2351 tempor uh separation of employment now we know 485 were retired so that still leaves a lot of them that were removed for some reason. And what I want I I just want to be more clear. So what I did, which is kind of funny, you have new AI in your um on the district website. So I put this in AI and asked them to ascribe uh to to separate and give me a summary of this. And what AI said was there's not enough information to give you that information. It looks like there's separation, but there's not a real reason behind many of them. So again, um these

082reasons, like I said, ethical misconduct, failure to exercise professional um judgment, those are real and people have been uh terminated for that. And I just want to these should be a little more clear which you'll understand later when I talk to you. Thank you. As Elsena Falcon, are you here? Okay. So, that's now going to bring us over to our consent agenda. Board members, you know that we have the items that we've pulled. Are there any other items you want pulled? Are you ready to approve it? Take a motion for approval. Motion by Miss Branch, second by Miss Whitfield. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We don't have any unfinished business. So, that will bring us to new business. The first item is BRD1, ratification of the membership lift list of

083board advisory committees. That's a board item. I recommend the board ratify and approve the appointment of the committee members as shown on the membership list of the board advisory committee as submitted. Motion by Miss Whitfield, second by Miss um Vice Chair Andrews. I believe that Miss Branch, you pulled the item. Yes. I wanted to divide the question regarding BRD1 as in two separate votes. One for technology and one for the district diversity and equity committee. So, you're making a motion to do that? Yes, I'm making a motion. Okay. A motion by Miss Branch, second by Miss Whitfield. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Motion. I'm sorry, Mr. Ferguson, are you in favor? I oppose. Okay. So, um we have six in favor with Mr. Ferguson in opposition. Okay. So, that now we need a

084substitute motion or are we good? With that, me with that motion, we can go in and take them one by one. Okay. So, that's going to bring us now to um I recommend that the board ratify and approve the appointment of the committee members to the technology advisory committee. Motion by Miss Whitfield, second by Vice Chair Andrews. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And the next one is that I recommend the board ratify and approve the appointment of the committee members to the district diversity and equity committee. Motion by vice chair Andrews, second by Miss Whitfield. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries with um six board members in favor and Miss Branch opposed. Okay, that will now bring us Mr. Superintendent to COOM5. I recommend the board proclaim

085June 6, 202025 as National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Motion by Miss Branch, second by Miss Whitfield. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. C6. I recommend a board proclaim June 19th, 2025 as Junth. Okay. Motion by Vice Chair Andrews, second by Miss Whitfield. Mr. Ferguson, I believe you want to read that proclamation. Thank you, Madam Chair. Proclamation Junth, June 19th, 2025. Whereas on June 19th, 1865, General Gordon Granger and Union Army troops marched to Galveston, Texas to free the last enslaved black Americans and enforced the Emancipation Proclamation that had been issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1st, 1863. And whereas enslaved black people in Texas had remained in brutal bondage, immorally and illegally deprived of their freedom, even though it was two years after President Lincoln declared that all enslaved persons

086shall be free. And whereas black people who were finally freed from slavery celebrated their long overdue liberation on June 19th, thus beginning a tradition of annual commemoration. And whereas all Americans can learn from our nation's history and participate in the righteous work of ensuring fairness and equality for everyone, allowing us to grow stronger as a country. And whereas we commemorate the centuries of struggle and progress led by abolitionists, educators, civil rights advocates, lawyers, activists, public officials, and ordinary Americans who have worked tirelessly to bring this country closer to fulfilling its promise of liberty and justice for all. And whereas the school district of Palm Beach County acknowledges Junth and its significance as part of the district's efforts to uphold its mission to educate, affirm, and inspire each student in an equity embedded school system. Now

087therefore, be it resolved that the superintendent and school board of Palm Beach County do hereby proclaim Thursday, June 19th, 2025 as Junth. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. Not done. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm not done. Okay. and urges everyone to honestly confront the nation's past injustices and work together to build a better future for all Americans. Done this fourth day of June 2025 in West Palm Beach, Florida. And now I'm done. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Ferguson. Ms. Branch. Miss Branch, you your buttons pressed. Oh, I didn't mean to. Okay. Okay. All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Mr. Superintendent COS1. I recommend the board approve the second amendment to the contract between the school board of Palm Beach County, Florida and Rita Solnet for the period of July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2027 and

088authorized the superintendent and board chair to finalize and sign all necessary documents. Motion by Miss Whitfield, second by Miss Savayto, Miss Branch, you pulled that item. I did uh for a couple reasons. First, I have a question because on page two of the contract um Roman numeral 4 section consultant evaluation within 30 days of the it says within 30 days of the effective date of this contract, the consultant shall submit to the board a recommended evaluation form format and process including time frames and the board and the consultant shall meet to discuss and agree on the recommended form format and process. The eval the evaluation form shall provide for written evaluations by the school board as a whole and individual schoolboard members. The evaluation instrument shall include methods of assessing consultants effectiveness in preserving, protecting,

089and furthering the school board's legislative positions. Also under section Roman numeral 4, it states, "The consultant shall provide the school board a self-appraisal of her accomplishments and attachment of agreed upon performance objectives and goals, which will be a part of the consultant's evaluation. I haven't received, it says specifically days. Um, other contracts do not, but this one specifically said 30 days. Um, I haven't received any evaluation form. I I have how how can I approve this without so I have questions before I go on Mr. Superintendent. So tonight's item uh as noted is an amendment to the original contract which was approved in May of 2021. Um you know it called for an evaluation to be provided within 30 days. I I'm not aware of that ever occurring. Uh I became superintendent a few months

090later in July of 21. Uh, I will say it's somewhat unusual to have a consultant contract that calls for an evaluation directly by the school board. Typically, that type of public evaluation is reserved for the school board's three employees. You know, myself, the general counsel, the inspector general. Um, so I guess I don't have a real good answer here. Uh, but I don't believe we've provided that evaluation. If it pleases the board, I could I could work on coming back later with a contract a subsequent contract amendment maybe that provides some new language to address an evaluation process. Um, that's okay. Yeah, it doesn't have to be a public um evaluation, but I I kind that specifically says this and I don't know what she's done and it's a lot of money. We're, you know,

091we're talking about budget costs, etc. So, um, I'd like to postpone it to a later date, but I'm not sure how that works. If would I need to make a motion or Okay. So, before you would make a motion, why don't we allow the other board members who would like to speak and then if you would like to, you can make a motion. So, we're going to go to Miss Savetto. And um I've been involved in the community for over 25 years. So I know Miss Rita Solnet um at a business um level and she's done an amazing work and job. She's u tasked with the congressional side of lobbying and representing us. Um I'm very very um aware of what she does and how she does it. um the people that she represents us

092uh her work in Tallahassee with our committee and members of the community. I feel very confident of her work. Um like I said, I've been very involved. Uh this is not my first time around, not my second, but my third, and I've been in politics and government for the past 20 something years. So, um I can attest to her work and her qualifications. Thank you. Thank you. And so I I was also I can't press my name there. So I'm going to go on next and just say that um my understanding is the consultant is a consultant who works directly with superintendent and his staff. So us receiving an evaluation maybe um we need to make a change to the contract. But as Mr. Burke said, I don't think it would be appropriate for us

093to be evaluating an employee of the superintendent. Our direct employees are the superintendent, the inspector general and general counsel. So those are these the employees that we would um be be doing evaluations for. I can tell you that we are in a very unusual state right now with with federal government and Miss Snet has been extremely good at updating us on everything that's happening with the federal government. She's also been available for meetings locally and at the and in Tallahassee. So, um I think that it personally I think it's money very very well spent although you know that's you know my not my decision totally. Um but I just wanted to say that I feel that this is we're in a landscape where we need boots on the ground someone who's knowledgeable who can take

094the items that are and things that are going on and bring them to a level that we all understand. And so with that I'll call on Mr. Ferguson. Thank you, Madam Chair. There are thousands of contracts that we pass or approve on consent, at least in my three years. Definitely hundreds. I believe thousands at this point. Um, and I would imagine that we don't necessarily have a whole lot of verifiable evidence that these parties are are doing, you know, optimizing the school districts and specifically the students experience. But with Miss Snet, I will represent to you that I've seen her at a a number of events across the state and country, and she is definitely an asset to us here in Palm Beach County. So, I echo everything that you've said, Madam Chair, and also

095board member Saviieted. I'm not quite sure how this eval evaluative language was placed in her contract. As Superintendent Burke said, it's out of our purview. Um, but in any event, Miss Son, in my personal opinion, speaking for myself only, I think she is one of the best, if not the best, consultant that we have. She does not have the large group backing her that some of our other consultants have, and I I think other consultants do a great job for us as well legislatively, but there's no one who is more effective and more concise um, in that regard. I think we have some that are as effective and concise, but there's no one who is more effective and concise. So even though she may be small in stature, she's very much mighty in terms of

096her understanding of the of the political landscape. Um, and I think again she's been a huge benefit. So Miss Soden, I'm sure you're watching this. Wherever she is, keep up the great work. I understand uh board member Branch's concern, but again, speaking for myself, I think she's done a great job in my limited time on the board, and I hope that you are here for many, many years to come. Keep up the great work. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. That will bring us to Vice Chair Andrews. Yes, I would concur with Mr. Ferguson on that one as well as Miss Savietto. Uh I just know uh I was here when uh Miss Soulnet took over from uh Vernon Crawford and we have restructured how we actually work through our legislative processes in Tallahassee as well as

097in Washington DC. I'm here to say that I have worked very closely with her at the federal level as well as the state level and she has done an impeccable job and I do know that every superintendent including uh Superintendent Burke has relied on Miss Soulsnet uh ability to bring home the bacon for Palm Beach County uh as it relate to legislative uh effects where it comes to funding Palm Beach County. Uh I just know we have uh in Tallahassee uh she is there even though we do have a base in Tallahassee. I don't think we could have gotten the funding that we've needed for Palm Beach County School District if we did not have Miss Soulnet on the ground. So she's been on the ground in Tallahassee as well as in uh Washington DC

098over and over again. So, whatever it needs to structure that con uh contract to make sure that it really works to what the school board wants and the superintendent supervision of her work uh needs to be. I think we can do that. But I'm telling you, I've seen both and we have come a long way under the leadership uh from our legislative perspectives under these years with Miss Soulnet and I've been here to see several different options here in Palm Beach County and we are doing a great job. Thank you, Miss Branch. Thank you. Um, I've also been involved in this community since 1983 and in the political process. Um, during these budget shortfall times of 40 plus million dollars that we've been discussing for months now. Uh, I I cannot approve a two-year contract

099for $50,000 per year consultant. So, that's a $100,000 over two years for the following reasons. Um, we need to give a decent raise. You know, we have a $40 million shortfall and the desire to give decent employee raises along with other expenses. We need to cut in every every area that's not a necessity. For $50,000 per year, she's paid. All I get is an email here and there telling us exactly what I heard in the news or in the education slice emails and the pineapple report emails that I receive. And they're all free. And we also have an employee that could do this job. So, in these grim budget times, I'm looking at these based on uh on the needs based of on helping all our students. Number one, we absolutely need it. Number two,

100it would be nice to have. And number three, we don't need it. And in this case, and during the budget times, I I get the exact same information in the email. I've never spoken to her. I have no idea what she's done for the school district. And I don't know um if um our IG can offer some contract information that specifically says to meet to have a form to do her evaluation. Um how does that work with the contract? Are you discussing about a template for a well the contract specifically states to have an evaluation? So is it a breach of contract or how does it work? Can we postpone the contract so we can get an evaluation or change the language? That that should really be general counsel answering your question. So, um through

101through me question Oh, sorry. Sorry. So, through me to general counsel, she will general counsel will address your question. Okay. Do you want me to ask it again? I think I I think I caught the gist of it. So, you want to know what are the next steps? Is it a is it a breach? Um it's an a what's on the agenda is an amendment. So we the board hasn't taken any action so there's nothing to breach just yet. Okay. Um if you're talking about the prior contract um again as I understand it was from 2021. I I can't explain to you why it is the way it is but we're we're now past that point. And so the only thing I guess at issue is the amendment. And I guess the question I would

102have there's one of two ways of approaching it. the superintendent, which I couldn't tell, could either withdraw it and we bring it back at a later time um with, you know, based on the conversation here today and with the correction. Um the understandings I think are have been stated. Um um there could be a substitute motion um put in place. Um so there's there's a couple of different ways the board could could do it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So that's going to bring us to Mr. Ferguson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, board member Branch, question to the chair. Um, board member Branch through the chair. So, board member Branch made a point about essential areas. So, that made me want to follow asking for No, I'm just asking is Miss Branch able to answer him

103because he's going through me to to to board member. I have a question for the board member, but that's why I'm asking this. Okay, that's fine. Yeah. Just trying to be uh compliant with uh policy 1.03 03 and I'm trying to follow it too. That's why as I was not speaking you on that one, Madam Chair. I was just speaking out in case anyone's wondering why I did it the way I did it. I was trying to educate any and all. Uh but in any event, question to board member Branch through the chair. I just would like her to identify what she deems to be essential areas of the budget for my own edification so that when we come to the budget process later, I'll have a better understanding of things where we may be

104able to find consent. So, Madam Chair, I would like board member Branch to articulate expressly what she deems to be essential areas to the budget. Miss Branch, um, I believe the shortfall and the desire to give raises. We're we're shortfall of 40 plus million dollars. So, teacher raises. Are there any other areas, Madam Chair, that board member Branch can articulate? That's my number one. Okay. Are there any other ones? That's my one and only number one. Thank you. Thank you. I have a question to Superintendent Burke through the chair. Approximately, Superintendent Burke, how many employees do we have? School teachers, actually. School teachers approximately nearly 13,000. 13,000. Okay. And so, all right, that that's a simple math equation. 100,000 split up amongst 13,000. All right. Thank you. I don't have any additional questions. I've already

105stated what I said in terms of my support for Miss Sonet. I respect my board members branch's position, but I still believe that Miss Sonet is a is a huge asset to this school district. Um, any modification to her future contract to remove the part that Superintendent Burke has already stated probably shouldn't be there, I think would be prudent just so it removes any confusion that any of us as board members may have in our minds. I definitely understand board member Branch's position. Um, and I definitely understand Superintendent Burke's position as well. And I support this asset remaining an asset for the betterment of all our children, teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers, everyone. School bus drivers. Missin is definitely an asset to this school district and we'll be lucky to have her for an additional two

106years. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you. So, is there any other discussion? Okay. Seeing none, all in favor of what? In favor of the motion to renew the contract. All in favor? So, are we renewing it the way it says without doing? There's been no motion to change anything. So, can I make a motion to change that language? Yes, you may. Okay. So, I'm making a motion. What is your motion? Can you need to state it for the record? I'm sorry. My my motion is to change the evaluation process and how she's evaluated, taking the school board members out of it if that's not how it's supposed to be. And within 30 days, we have a it says within 30 days and we've got nothing. So, taking the language out, the 30-day language out

107within 30 days of the effective date of this contract and also uh the consultant shall provide a self- appraisal of her accomplishments and attachment of agreed upon performance objectives and goals which will be a part of her evaluation. So, is your is your motion to amend the to bring back an amended contract with those items being addressed? Correct. Okay. Motion by Miss Branch, second by Miss Whitfield. Any discussion? Okay, Miss Woodfield, you're first. Thank you. I just wanted to ask um if anybody knows how this is addressed in our capital city consulting. Do we have an evaluation piece in there as well in their contract? They don't have the 30 days. Mr. Superintendent, I believe there is a component, but it's it's not this different type of language. And I see him get some help

108here from Miss Patricia Morales. It doesn't say general counsel. Miss Moras, thank you if you could help us out. Hello. Uh, good good evening. Um, in the capital city consulting contract, there is actually an evaluation instrument that is exhibit D to that contract. Um, so it is addressed somewhat separately. Um, the evaluation instrument in the original contract contemplated it for uh 2021. uh the current um addendum just adds two years to the contract. So the evaluation issue is really up to the board whether they want to redo it. We can certainly do another contract if that's the desire. So just so I'm clear within Capitol City, are we receiving evaluations from them as well or is that going to Miss Wyatt? No. No, I don't. No. No. I think, you know, you could almost argue

109that just the approval of the contract is an evaluation in itself. Yeah. Because I know that with both lobbyists, they work pretty closely with the senior staff and the board members. We we go to Palm Beach County days, you know, they're providing reports periodically and providing us access to our representatives. So, um I'd like the board to consider maybe just deleting the reference to an evaluation. Yeah, I think I was just thinking that it would be nice if they aligned both contracts. Whatever they say should be the same across the board. Um, but I think that that is a a great idea to just take it out so that it's not a piece of this and whatever evaluation that staff is doing to oversee these consultants, they should continue to do. Okay. Okay. Um, we're

110going to go to Miss Andrews. Yes. We don't really need to throw the baby out with the water and all of this. I mean, really, when we think about this contract, we have to think about our superintendent and our leadership. These are the people that work closely with the superintendent and the leadership team. As a school board, we've actually worked with uh our consultant, our lobbyists, as well as uh participating in in many activities, but we kind of work together to have them bring the information to us so that we can do what we need to do. So, I really don't want us to uh damage anything here. I've never seen uh an evaluation from Capitol City Cons uh consulting, but I do work with them every year through the superintendent and the administration. So,

111whatever we're doing here, we need to keep that because we do have good people actually at a critical time right now when funding is uh at a at risk for our children and we don't want to mess it up. So, I really do know that Miss SNET has brought the money, the bacon home to Palm Beach County. And whatever we're doing here, I think we need to take some uh advice from the superintendent who is the person who will actually uh be the evaluator of these two people, the uh Capitol City Consulting and Mrs. Snet. So I would like to refer now to the superintendent through the chair of what he wants so that we can maybe get this right so that we don't uh create uh some confusion here when we have great talent

112already on board. I think with this type of work being a legislative liaison it's it's hard to quantify or gauge the impact like it would be hard to put it to a scale because we're dealing with maybe stopping legislation that could help you know that harm us. Uh this year our big issue, one of the big issues was getting some flexibility on the school start times that would have come into play for next year and we were successful and you don't know who to give credit to, right? We had our own representative an Gerwig that sponsored the bill. I know our legislative leaison worked hard to support that and ultimately that was really one of the one pieces of good news we got this out of this year's session. Um, so I think it would

113be kind of challenging to try to create some matrix or rubric that's going to say, "Yeah, this this legislatively is I was able to do X, Y, and Z." Uh, I think it's more the experience that we all have in working with these individuals. So, if the board would consider maybe a a motion to just strike the requirement for an evaluation, uh, that would be my preference. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Superintendent. So, general counsel has advised me that if we amend the contract, it would have to come back to us because Miss SNET's already a signatory on it. However, what Mr. Burke has suggested um is what we really could do is approve the contract as it is right now and then bring it back later with amended um amended language. I do agree

114with Miss Whitfield. Um, and I think this comes down to what I've spoken about when we've looked at policies in the past where we get confused between school district and school board. And I think that might have been what happened because we used to always cons we used to always refer to the district as the school board. And so I think there there is some confusion in the language. So, um, at this point, we can go through the rest of the comments and then, um, see if Miss Branch wants to withdraw her, um, amended motion or we're going to vote on that and then go back. So, um, I'll move on to Mr. Ferguson. Madam chair, my thought was that if anything, there should be an evaluation by the superintendent of the consultant because how

115else then will we have a way to to make an educated assessment of whether any subsequent contract should be renewed. We have evaluation tools for the IG, for general counsel, and for the superintendent, and they're somewhat ambiguous. Respectfully, I've never seen an actual term to say, for example, in the superintendent um evaluation from 2017, operations management. What does that really mean? Might mean one thing to me and it might mean something different to the board member from district 6. Um but in any event, sticking to the issue at hand. Um, I do think that would be helpful in terms of guiding our assessment respectively in the future times of any any consultants if our CEO superintendent and through his staff can give us some sort of rubric I believe is what superintendent Burke used. I

116think that's what he said. So, I'll use it for now. Rubric, evaluative instrument, what have you, so that we know in the future to board member Branch's assessment. Our main point of contact believes this is a good consultant or not, and this is why. And then we could say, "Superintendent, we agree with you." Or, "Superintendent, I don't agree with you, and I don't think that we should renew." That would be a very helpful tool moving forward. We should run this like a business. Everybody gets assessed in most businesses that I've been involved with. Um, and I think everybody should be assessed in this business as well because this is a business, public education. Um, so irrespective of how I feel about Miss Sonet and how I assess her performance, I'm not the superintendent and we

117do rely on superintendent and his staff to give us some direction in regard to the myriad of consultants that we have. So to the point that board member Branch's um apprehension in regard to this um particular uh contract based on fiscal responsibility has led us here, I say thank you for bringing us here and I would like to see us amend this contract so that our staff through the superintendent is giving us some evaluation that we can pull in say two years to say okay yeah we'll renew Miss Sonet if she chooses to work with the district in two years. um we'll we'll renew her because our superintendent and his staff believe that she's very very effective in these respective metrics or you know what maybe we won't renew her because superintendent Burke and his

118staff has apprehension and concerns about her performance over these next two years. Let's run the lack of business and board member Branch, thank you for getting us through this point. Okay, Miss Woodfield, thank you. I just want to briefly say I think this was a very good catch by Miss Branch. um this piece on the self-evaluation that we haven't had. Um so I think um this is a great opportunity for us to amend this contract so that it is appropriate for the status of what we're actually doing. So I'm very glad for that. Um I also wanted to throw out um that Miss Snut, I just want to thank you for the work you've been doing. I don't want us not to approve this tonight because I believe that we can't interrupt her work. We

119have to make sure that she can continue with the work that she's been doing in DC. Uh this is very vital at this time. um we need to have representation of this very large school district um on federal level and local level as well. So um I'd very much like the idea of approving the contract tonight, coming back with this amended piece just to make sure that we are accurate in the representation of our contracts. Thank you so much. Thank you, Miss Branch. Thank you. Um I agree with what board member Ferguson just said. I also agree with Vice Chair um Andrews on the Capitol City. I've worked with them. I've spoken to them. I know what they do. I get a whole lot of information. Um, so I'm I have no problem with Capitol

120City. I just wanted to agree with what Vice Chair Andrew says. Um, it's an evaluation as easy as and mostly most evaluations are done yearly. So this is two years. Um, it's an evaluation as easy as how much money have they brought back? Like what one, two, three, what have they done? Um, so again, you know, most evaluations are done yearly. This happens to be two. I don't know why. Um but um that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Burke. So, if I understand general counsel correctly, it sounds like the board could approve this amendment to the contract tonight and then I could come back with another amendment subsequently that will address this issue of the evaluation. That'll give me some time to work with both the consultant and our chief

121of staff and we'll uh we can bring something back that works. And I we can certainly create an evaluation. I was just trying to speak to the reality that the legislative results we get, it's very hard to pinpoint what made the difference, you know, and success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. So it's it can be challenging, but we can we can create a tool that is based on responsiveness, you know, communication, that type of thing. It'll be more qualitative qu uh qualitative metrics than quantitative. Okay. So, that's Miss Sevayto. Yeah. I'd like to move forward with I don't have the number in front of me, but as is. I mean, if you want, we can bring the amendment later, but I just I make a motion to move it as is. As

122it was. Well, we have a motion on the floor, so we're going to get to that in just a moment. U Miss Andrews, this might be off topic, but if we're going to do what uh Mr. Burke is asking us to do, I really want us to be doing this for Capitol City also, you know, cuz I have not had that kind of uh discussion with anybody about Capitol City. So, if we do amend this and bring it back later and we've already gone through Capitol City, we need to go back and kind of do something with them so we can be on equal footing. Violation. Okay. Thank you. So, we now have a motion on the floor by Miss Branch to The motion, if you want us to vote on it, is to amend

123it, is to um do the amendments now, which would mean that there's no contract that it would have to come back. Um do you want us to vote on that amendment or do you want to withdraw it? I I would want to see the contract before I voted on it. So, I would not vote on amending and passing it tonight. So, I would vote amending it and bringing it back. That's my your motion. Do you want So you want us to vote on your motion and then we'll see how that goes and we can go back to the original. So there's a motion on the floor by Miss Branch um that would require us to amend the contract, not vote on it tonight, but bring it back. Okay, motion's on the floor. All in and

124we've had our second by Miss Whitfield. All in favor? All opposed? Okay, motion Mr. Mr. Lane, how did you vote? support Ms. Branch. You're supporting Miss Branch. So, we've got um all in favor, we have Miss Branch and Mr. Lane. All opposed. In opposition, we have Miss Savetto, Miss Whitfield, Vice Chair Andrews, and Mr. Ferguson, and myself. So, the motion fails. So, that's going to return us now to the original motion to and with the understanding that the superintendent knows what we're looking for. All in favor, well, that we've had our motion. So, all in favor? All opposed. Okay. Motion. Mr. Lane, you're in favor. Okay. Motion passes. Six in favor with Miss Branch opposed. Mr. Superintendent. Yes. FMPO5. I recommend the board approve the award of bid 25-55K for demolition of the pool at

125Lakeworth High School and raetball court at Palm Beach Lakes High School in the amount of $417,043. Okay. Motion by Miss Branch, second by Miss Whitfield. Mr. Ferguson, I believe you pulled this item. I pulled this specific to Lakew Worth High School and the pool that we have, I guess, put put the wheels in the motion in regard to demolition. Um, I know that it hasn't been used um in in some time and it's in disrepair and I know it will be a cost to the district. Um, but I would ask the board and I would ask the district to consider the loss, the opportunity cost of not having that pool in terms of the benefits that would endure at minimum to the residents of Lakew Worth, particularly on the east side of Lakew Worth, which

126tends to be slightly less affluent than the western area of Lakew Worth tends to, not as an absolute, but tends to be. And I wanted to know what the board's appetite would be for I guess potentially a workshop to kind of if you will do a SWAT analysis on the prospects of constructing a new pool at that site because I recall in the past meeting I think maybe last month I think it was last month um board member board members Whitfield and Savo spoke about um the pool um and whether the city might be constructing one. Um, but we really didn't kind of delve into that. So, again, I I would just want us to if we approve this this bid, I would like us and I think I know that it's on topic. I

127would want to know what we're going to do with the new newly made hole on Lake Worth High School's campus because it was a benefit to so many students and residents in times past and I would like to see that benefit renewed for the for for use by all residents of Lakew Worth and other surrounding cit to to make use of the pool. That's what I wanted to talk about. So, Mr. Ferguson, my understanding is you want a point of information um that we're going to be voting on this item, but you'd like as a point of information to see if the board has an appetite to bring back a workshop. Correct. The point of information? Yes, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you. So, board members like to see any response from you. I'm sorry, Madam

128Chair. I'm asking the board members to to give some kind of indication of how they feel. Miss Whitfield. Thank you. Um, so as we talked about last month, um, this is something that I've really tried to keep up on, um, in the community. Um, we are at a place where the city of Lakew Worth is amending their policies right now to accept unsolicited bids on this item. um because they have received um two different companies now who are interested in redoing the beach um the golf course and providing the city with a municipal pool um that would be hopefully something that could replace um the Lakew Worth High School pool and be something much nicer than what we currently have. um that uh I believe that vote occurred in May with the city of Lakew

129Worth and now they are going to be going through a process of figure I think you know they have to do like us two votes. Um so I think they're going to be at a place where they're going to be accepting some unsolicited bids um for this and then processing those. So I'm not against an idea of a workshop. I think a workshop could be appropriate, but I feel like we should probably be waiting quite some time before we have that conversation. Um, again, the other issue is it is very very expensive to build a pool. Um, the quote that I got from the most recent pool that's being built at Lake Lidle was 29 million from the county. Um, so this is not a a small a small fee. So I would say a

130workshop would be great, but I believe it should probably wait at least a year. um because I don't think that we're at a place where we could um where we could make any real action that would make any sense right now. That's what that's where I'm at with it. Thank you, Miss Whitfield. So, I will tell you that that actual that pool is is a hazard as it is. So, we do have to demolish it and there are discussions with the city of Lakew Worth Beach um over what to do going forward. So, I would say I agree with Miss Whitfield. I think it's premature to have any kind of workshop having to do with it. Let's let the city work with the school district um and see where that goes. But um tonight we

131need to vote on the demolition. So we do have a motion on the floor. Um all those in favor? All opposed? Mr. Mr. Ferguson, how did you vote? I almost never raised my hand, Madam Chair. Well, so if you don't raise your hand, then you you vote in favor of it. That's how I was always trained. So motion motion carries unanimously. Mr. Superintendent. Hello R1. I recommend that the school board approve the modifications to the collective bargaining agreements with the Service Employees International Union/public SL Florida Public Service Union SEIU FPSU pending ratification by SEIU. Okay. Motion very eagerly made by our vice chair Andrews, second by Miss Whitfield. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. I recommend the board approve the personnel addendum as amended. A motion by Vice Chair Andrews, second

132by Miss Branch, and that was pulled by nobody. Okay. So, all in all in favor, all opposed. Motion carries unanimously. PC4. I recommend the board approve the RFP and associate contract with REG Architects, Inc. for design services for historic Roosevelt phase 2, existing building renovations, and new building construction. and authorize the superintendent and board chair to finalize and sign all necessary documents. Motion by Miss Andrews, second by Miss Branch. Mr. Ferguson, you pulled that. I pulled it, Madam Chair, just to give the board an update in the community at large on where things stand with the African-American Museum and Research Library. So, um, Reg, I think I said that name correctly. Hope I didn't. Forgive me if I didn't. Yeah, REG Architects. they were appointed to to um construct give us a design for the

133exterior of the museum and research library. Um one thing that I worked on early in in my time here on the board was to kind of move forward the work that Dr. Robinson had um started in regard to seeing this through through fruition. and things had kind of gotten stagnant for one reason or another. And I was fortunate enough to to get uh then county commissioner M. Bernard on board and many other parties as well, Mayor Keith James and others. And ultimately, Community Foundation was brought on as basically the point person or point entity for securing an architect and ultimately a general contractor for the actual buildout of the museum. We have contributed, we're contributing, I believe, Superintendent Burke, correct me if I'm wrong, but in my head I have $30 million. Is that about

134right? Or is it 20? I thought it was 30, but well, over both phases. So, this one, this specific phase two. Yeah, it's uh let me just make sure I get the right number because I think it's in here, sir. Yeah, 30 is correct, Mr. Burke. I I thought so. 30. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I've said it so many times in so many uh town halls, but in any event, 30 million. So, that's not a small amount of money to uh contribute toward this most worthwhile endeavor. Um, but I wanted you all to know that I'm actually on the board as well on the community foundation and I'm happy to let you all know that we've selected an architect. Bora Bora um is going to be the architect of choice to to help design the

135interior and I have to tell you they did a master class in terms of presentations. I've yet to be in front of any entity before having a chance to listen to Bora Bora who had the foresight to anticipate questions of a very diverse group and have substantive answers for us not opposed to the kind of invagant ambiguous things you get from a lot of persons who are who are seeking contracts and then you say what the heck did they just say? They were very concise, um, very anticipatory, um, and ultimately although we had a, everybody was good in their respective ways, but respectively, at least in my opinion, Bora Bora stood head and shoulders above the rest. So, I'm so happy to say that um, we're going to have, I think, one of the better

136African-American museums and research libraries here in the country. And it will be in no small part to the design that Bora Borea is going to present us. I don't know what it actually is going to be. I did see one that they presented to us uh during the um discussion process, but that will be the ultimate design will ultimately rest in the hands of the community largely. So, persons who are interested in having a say in that, please be on the lookout. We're going to have sharets here over the next 12 months that we invite you all to participate in. But again, I just I pulled it just so I could converse with you all and update you all on some things, a very important thing that's happening happens to be happening within District 7.

137And again, I we don't mention her name very much. Um, but I want to thank Dr. Robinson for picking up the baton to even get us to where we are right now because without you and many other people in the district advocating for this, this would not be a reality. So, thank you and all the others as well. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. Miss Andrews, we are now time certain for non-aggenda item speakers. So, if you will forego speaking, we can vote. Otherwise, we have to postpone the vote. I'm sorry. Okay. So, um, all in favor, all opposed. Motion carries unanimously. That's now going to bring us to our non-aggenda speakers. I just want to let the speakers know that we our policy calls for 30 minutes for you to speak. Then we we're going

138to pause, go back to our business part of the meeting and finish up with the remainder of the speakers. Um, with the time 30 minutes, we're probably only going to get halfway through all of you. So, I just want you to know that we will get to everybody. I'll start reading two names at a time and um hopefully I I don't mispronounce any. Carl Muhammad and then Officer Ald Adolf. Go ahead and state your name. Carl Muhammad. I want to say that as we prepare oursel in our community, uh speaking as one of the children of the slaves of America and you know that we had a state law that was passed in order to give us some guidance as it relates to trying to retrieve the knowledge that had been kept away from us

139through the educational process and as we prepare oursel for um the summer. We we haven't heard from you as of yet as it relates to the positioning of uh Brian Nos with his um removal and we haven't heard any information as it relates to the data as it talks about how much money has been spent to try to fulfill the Florida statute 3.42H and where are we located as it relates to that kind of data because we haven't heard a word from any one of you. But then we also understand in the community that we have a a resource problem and that was the reason why when we met Miss um with different board members. We was asking you if possibly we could probably get some of the black black people that have um some

140wealth inside of Palm Beach County to start putting together some resources so that we don't have to come to you and ask you to do what is necessary for us to do in our community. And I'm hoping that as we talk um our community is maturing to understand that there's a tremendous need for them to invest in in their own children. And as we move forward um you know during this month we celebrate Junth and we celebrate Father's Day. And I'm hoping that the fathers that are listening um right now you would take an interest in trying to uh attach yourself to what is taking place um inside of Palm Beach County. And as a result of having conversation with the board members, we understand that many of you didn't know who Carter G. Woodson

141was and we've been all been celebrating Black History Month um throughout the years, but we never knew who uh fostered that. And when we go through his memoirs and the reason and the purpose for him uh establishing Black History Day, we understand the direction that is necessary for our community. So, we starting a book club, the Carter G. Wilson book club and we're hoping that many of you would come and enroll yourself in such a class because we can give you some quantitative knowledge as it relates to how to deal with our children inside of your system. And before we leave, you know, during um Junth, we always do libations and I wanted to um call out a couple of names um who've been very essential here in Palm Beach County. Alc Hastings, Ma Ford

142Lee, uh Mandy Dawson White, and these were the people that helped us to establish a relationship with the school district. I know that we need a new contract with the community. So, I'm hoping that as you um do your research and everything that you will come back and we would have some kind of real community meeting where we could re uh rev reinvent what we've already achieved and and I'm hoping that we would take the time to look at it. and happy Junth and happy Father's Day here in Palm Beach County. Thank you for your time. Thank you, um, Officer Adolf and then Donald Pearson. Okay, I see Mr. Pearson coming up. After Mr. Pearson, it's going to be Roseanne Brown. Good evening, Don Pearson. Uh, Palm Beach Central High School. Um, I watched the

143uh last last week's um board meeting and I just want to you know with the district um lacking state a state budget and the high schools absorbing half of that which is around 20 million. Um my question is going to be about OJT since we're talking about u as a matter of fact um Mr. Lane, you spoke uh to the legislators about uh talking about the add-on FTE and since OJT is an FTE brings in FTE funds. Um you know, like Miss uh Andrew said, it's not a good time to play around with any money. Why would we take that off the table? Even though it's a dagger in two years, we're my school is the only school that's taken it off the table. And it's not because of any other reason except uh targeted

144at me and the kids or collateral damage. So, we're taking money off the table, especially in a budget crunch. And they plan to replace it with uh executive internship where there's no class and no there's no accountability and no FTE funds. Now, that's okay until someone's not checking to see if those students are working. And not to be morbid, but until someone drowns at the beach when they should have been working, but no one checked on them. I've checked on my I'm one of those teachers and a lot do that. They check to make sure the students are working. And this year, I have had four of them that were fired and didn't tell me. and they won't until you get uh you check on them. Well, what if you don't check on them in

145a month and something happens? Then we have a problem. Um anyway, the other thing I want to talk about is um uh policy 3.14 and the policy established it was established in um uh 2010 and it's for procedures on reporting um if there's abuse or harassment, things like that. And you the board has been good when I sent you that stuff. you're checking on that, but there's been no um nothing's been resolved yet and I'm still working on that. And the reason I'm saying that is I've worked for 16 principles since in my 43 years. Five of them have been at Palm Beach Central. And because of the attack on me, which I will give you like I did before, not an email, so we don't have to worry about that. I just want you

146to look at that. We're hurting kids if we get rid of that program. Thank you. Thank you, Roseanne Brown, followed by Karen Matroni. Please come up. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Good evening. I'm a cisgender white woman. I live in the suburbs of Boca Raton. So, my name is Karen. Of course, my name is Karen Matroni. Thank you. There you go. All right. So, I come here today imploring you not to get rid of DEI in our school system. Did you happen to know that DEI provides opportunities to black people, people of color, LGBTQ people, and women? Did you happen to know that? because getting rid of DEI gets rid of all these uh policies and these procedures in place to help these communities. Did you happen to know that the majority of your teachers and

147your staff are not straight white men? Because that's who people DEI helps. It's not the straight white man. It's the people that don't look like him. We need those people in our schools. As Florida is dead last in our teacher pay, why are you making it harder to recruit teachers by eliminating DEI? Diversity, equity, and inclusion work. They reflect the diversity of our student population and those inclusive policies help that our Palm Beach County School Board contracts go fairly and equitably around and aren't just reserved for those who have special relationships. In addition, when you support DEI and those policies, you are supporting your teachers and your staff who don't look like straight white men. You are supporting them by telling them, "We stand with you." Political pressure should not be the reason to eliminate

148DEI. DEI policies have proven to lead to stronger academic outcomes and healthier school communities. I hope you know and I know you know because it's been said here many times before tonight that these policies, this letter that you got from DOE has been challenged and found lacking in court. There is no legal standing for it. Do not comply. Do not bend the knee until they make you. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Charles Ridley, followed by Deborah Walker. Are either of you here? Okay, Mr. Ridley, come right up. My name is Chuck Ridley. I um am the chair of Unifi Palm Beach County. I wrote a speech. I'm not going to follow that script. What prompts me here tonight from being here last week is two things. So, if this was only about eliminating

149DEI, I would have a problem there. But it's not. This is about a letter that makes the false premise that white men primarily and community are being discriminated against because there are DEI policies. There is nothing more ludicrous than that statement. And what troubles me is that you know it. You know this is a false premise. Second part that I want to share with you is I do recognize that you are being [Music] extorted by a letter from an administration that feels that it's appropriate to abuse their executive rights. You know that. And I get the concern about um the 300 million that can be taken away. No one has fought harder for the children and families that benefit from that than I. I'm in this district. But what you're asking me to believe is

150the same administration that would extort you. even if you comply will not find a way to come and take the same resources and more away. These are not the the um I'm trying to filter my words and I'm trying to do it in 30 seconds. Board stand with this community. allow us to show you how to fight. We are not afraid of what is coming down. Some of you say you're not afraid either, but I don't think you know how to fight because if you do, you would understand the importance of standing now against this very policy because if you don't, we're abandoning the children that Thank you. Um, if Deborah Walker is here, come on up. Followed by Eric [Applause] Vanderale. Hi. Hi. I'm Deborah Walker. And before I start, I want to give

151a shout out to General Counselor Bernard. I see she has a CAU lanyard around her neck. We went to the same university. Yay, Clark Atlanta University. I am Deborah Walker. I am the daughter of a school teacher of 30 years in Palm Beach County, Lucille Davis Bane. I ask to speak this afternoon because I can no longer control my exasperation. I am here to express my frustration with this school board because the decisions emanating from this body will have a direct impact on people I love and care about. Besides, you are visible to me unlike what's happening in Tallahassee and Washington DC. I can directly confront you with my concerns while being consumed by the overwhelming sense that the country is going off the deep end, one government program at a time. Perhaps you don't

152realize, but just look around at the people in this room and outside. They aren't buying what you're selling. We've been down this same path before with other issues, but what brings me and others here today goes beyond any expectation of being silenced. Food is essential to life itself and particularly to the growing bodies of the young. We're talking about healthy, balanced, hot meals. Whether it's breakfast at Head Start or cafeterias of K1 through 12, we expect to take some hit somewhere if the Secretary of Education follows the playbook laid out for her. What about those kids with disabilities from poor families who have no alternative to the care they are currently receiving? The cuts to Medicaid show a callous disregard for those that already struggle against the odds. My fellow community members and I know

153that the recommendations are not yet set in stone. Why must this school board lie down and accept the intimidation, fear, and outright repression these last minute efforts of Tallahassee to get on board with the crippling effects of America eating its young spewing out of Washington DC. Y'all need to understand that this generation has enjoyed what is now threatened to be taken away and that is none other than a thorough understanding of our history. We will not stand by and let the hard one gains of DEI vanish from our textbooks or our corporate boardrooms. We have not come this far without the inherent understanding that we had to fight to get to where we are and we know we'll have to fight. Thank Thank you very much. So, Eric Vanderell followed by Ray Whitley. [Applause] Good

154evening. I'm Eric Vanderell. I'd like first I'd like to wish everyone a happy pride month and a meaningful Junth. I'm here once again to speak out against the removal of rewriting of policies that include the essential principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. I truly believe that most of you care about creating opportunities for minority groups and women in both education and business. So I have to ask, why are we spending time and energy trying to erase or dilute that mission? You say your last meeting I heard you're saying you simply following the law with policies, but you're not breaking any laws by resisting these demands. In fact, you have legal precedent and the courts are on your side. Across the country, courts are pushing back against uncaution unconstitutional overreach. This administration may ignore the Constitution,

155but we shouldn't. As I review tonight's agenda, I was reminded of your mission statement, which reads, "The mission of the school district of Palm Beach County is to educate, affirm, and inspire each student in an equity embedded school system." Should I ask, will you be rewarding that too? Words matter, and I reject the idea that saying or supporting these words is somehow wrong. diversity, equity, inclusion, equality, and even neurodeiversity. I'm proud of my gay family and our resist resilience. I'm proud of my son. I care about equity for minor equity for minority communities and I care about equality for the LGBTQ plus community. And yes, I'm proud to be woke because to me it means I have empathy. I believe we will get through this dark time of history because democracy is stronger than fascism.

156And I urge you to be on the right side of that history. Reject the false narrative that DI DEI policies are harmful. They are not they are not only good for schools, they're good for business, for government, and for the kind of future we all want our children to have. Thank you for listening. Thank you. So, Ray Whitley followed by Alfred Fields. Good evening. Uh, my name is Ray Whitley and I represent a growing coalition of committed praying faith leaders across Palm Beach County. And as my wife, she corrected me last time and she reminded me that we don't have 10 grandchildren. We have 13 grandchildren that are in that is in Palm Beach County school system. So I have to make that correction. Last time I I joined urging you to reconsider your vote

157on the so-called dear colleague letter. Today I come not to rebuke but to reflect on the implications of this decision. We understand that you face an impossible dilemma. The threat of losing $300 million is challenging. However, this challenge transcends a mere policy debate. It represents a spiritual crisis and a moral test. Your decision, possibly rooted in fear, has significant consequences for the children that we serve. We cannot allow federal threats to drive us into moral retreat or to erase the experiences of those who fought hard to be recognized and heard. All for political survival. Today I affirm that the black church will not back down. In the face of fear, we choose faith. In the faith of pressure, we choose spiritual rebellion. What's happening in Palm Beach County is about more than just a board

158vote. It's about whether we will uplift our belief in justice even when the cost is steep. We have launched a resistance campaign rooted in no rooted not in partisanship but in principle guided by four pillars. legal action, strategic strategic communication, community mobilization, and steadfast commitment to moral integrity. We stand on the shoulders of faith warriors before us. Those who preach, prayed, and protested. We will not stand idly by while injustice is disguised as compliance. Not when our children's future are at s are at stake. As it is written in Micah 6:8, "What does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before your God." That is exactly what we intend to do. Thank you. Thank you, Alfred Fields. Followed by Reverend Dr. J.R. Thicken. Good evening, Alfred Fields, president

159of the West Palm Beach NAACP. Uh good evening to uh the board and I want to first by say stop and say thank you. Thank you for your service. I want to let you know we're all on the same team. We're working for our children. So, we stand with you. But I want to say we have differences. All of us have different ideals and different issues. That's what makes us diverse. And so, we're here talking about diverse policies that are about to be wiped out. that were put in place so that we will learn how to love just a little bit better. So that we will learn how to get along just a little bit better. So that we will learn how to share the pie just a little bit better. So I I'm standing

160before you to say don't take away the work that was done by your predecessors who were just as astute as you are. What they put in place was just for someone that's being a bully. They put policies in place so that we don't accidentally get a bully to try to change our diversity, try to to try to take away the love that we've developed for each other. And last week when we were here, you spoke about how we've grown as a district and a school board. And a lot of that growth is because of the policies that were put in place to force us to walk hand in hand. Those policies were put in place to direct us. And so you are the policy makers. As I stated last time I was here, you are

161the policy makers. We cannot allow bullies. And this school district has a policy on bullying. And if you haven't read that policy, I would urge you to go back and review it because you're setting examples for our very own young people about the policies. Bullies should not be allowed to continue to bully. Stick with the policies. Don't give in to bullying. We're here to work with you. And again, the NAACP is here to work with you. Thank you. Thank you. So, Reverend Dr. Jr. Thickland, followed by, and I hope I have this name right. I'm having difficulty reading it, but I believe it's Jamante Brown. So, if either of you were here for Jamante Brown, the the comments, in case I'm messing up this name totally, um it says that you want to discuss um

162uh Riviera Beach students. So, okay. So, you can come right up. I apologize for not being able to read. All righty. Good evening board members and Mr. Superintendent. My name is Sammy Brown. I proudly serve as the chief of staff to the Riviera Beach City Council chairperson Shirley D. Laneir. Uh she would be here tonight but instead uh we had a closed executive sessions closed executive session so she was not able to be here. I'm here this evening to share some exciting developments taking place in the city of Rivier Beach that strongly align with the school district of Palm Beach County's educational mission. Most recently, the Rivier Beach City Council voted unanimously to establish to reestablish the Rivier Beach Education Advisory Board and committed $200,000 in funding in funding for the academic instruction during the

163summer. These funds are also designated to support local educational service providers and summer camps through a grant solicitation opportunities that focus on learning enhancement. A major part of this effort includes the launch of the read program, an initiative focused on increasing literacy and academic engagement spearheaded by the council chairperson Lenir and approved by the full council. Rivier Beach is distinct in the fact that it is represented by two board members, Mr. Edwin Ferguson and Mr. Matthew Lane. As a former city council member, I'm sure Mr. Lane understands the nuances and challenges that municipalities like Riviera Beach face, particularly when it comes to supporting youth development outside of the classroom and community- based resources and wraparound services that often are necessary to close learning gaps in communities where opportunities are historically have historically been limited. We

164are looking forward to the future construction of a new Rivier Beach High School uh for the Rivier Beach community. This long-awaited project will not only provide a modern state-of-the-art uh learning environment for our students, but will also help restore a sense of community pride and identity through the return of a true home school. For too long, students in Rivier Beach have been bust outside of the city for high school education. A dedicated community school in our backyard is more than just a building. It's a symbol of investment, belief, and hope in our youth and our future. That said, I want to uh be clear that not everything is about funding. While the financial investments made by the city are significant step, what's what we're really advocating for is a seat at the table. We want

165to open the floor for conversation, for collaboration, and for consistent dialogue around how we can work together strategically and intentionally to improve support systems for children in communities like Riviera Beach. Sometimes the biggest impacts comes from not from a dollar amount but from listening, sharing and working side by side uh towards a common goal. Uh following following tonight's meeting, I will be sending additional information to each of you, the board members and district administration regarding the reed program instituted and other potential partnership opportunities the city is exploring to further support our growth and equity. And I'd like to thank school board member Edwin Ferguson and area superintendent Dr. Coleman. Thank you very much, David Rodriguez. And after Mr. Rodriguez, we'll return to our agenda per our policy. Go ahead, sir. Good evening. Want to say

166thank you to the superintendent, madam chair, and members of the board. My name is David Rodriguez and I'm here once again to voice my opposition to the recent emergency vote on eliminating hiring practices and other uh other policies that promote inclusion and equal opportunities to women and minority owned businesses as well as professionals working in this district. These policies have helped the district recruit a professional workforce that is reflective of the students that they serve. These policies have fostered a culture of respect, of acceptance, and making employees and students feel valued and included. These policies have created more equitable opportunities for local businesses have and have ensured a wide range of diverse voices are included in important decision-m. The community has been showing up for weeks now, urging you to reverse uh to not reverse

167all of this progress. Having our professionals reflect a diverse community of students in Palm Beach County goes a very long way in making sure the students feel seen, heard, and supported in the classroom. As a former educator in Florida, I know that when students feel like they belong, they thrive academically and personally into their full potential. I know I don't need to remind anyone here, but I must again state it for the record that Palm Beach County is one of the most diverse counties in Florida. By removing these policies that that promote fairness and equity in contracting businesses for the district, we are reducing opportunities for minority and womenowned businesses to compete for bids on a level playing field. These policies support the wider community of Palm Beach County by ensuring people from all backgrounds

168have an equal opportunity to partake in serving the school district and building prosperity in the most marginalized parts of our community. It's frustrating for It's frustrating for this community to see a board that is usually so proactive and doing the right thing for all members of the community suddenly shrugging off policies protecting equity in our schools. We appreciate you holding the line in other spaces. For example, the policies relating to bullying and the student handbook, but we need you to continue to hold that line and ensure that that energy is brought into other spaces like what we've been talking about here tonight. We understand the enormous amount of pressure you are all under in facing such politically charged threats from the federal government. We know that it isn't an easy position to be in dealing

169with a bully of such magnitude. But is it but it is in these difficult moments where decision makers like you have the powerful opportunity to stand tall and defend the community against political bullying. The courts have ruled against this policy uh enforcement threats that this school board is responding to. And like Mr. Ferguson said last week, "You can't be afraid to do what's right." Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. So, that's going to bring us board members back to our agenda. It's going to bring us to our board discussion items. The first one, BD1, is my my discussion item on the cork policy number 1.093. And this is pretty simple. Um board members, we appoint 14 members, two each, to the cork committee. And historically, we've had long periods of time where we've had

170vacancies because it's so prescriptive our policy. So, all I wanted to do was see if you would all agree for us to have the superintendent when he brings back the next set of policies for us to bring back suggestions on how we can massage some of the categories so that it's not so impossible. We shouldn't have any policies where we have vacancies for a long period of time because of the policy. So, it's it's pretty easy. I'm not asking right now. We have a full deck. We've got everybody in place. It's just that, you know, I I need to ask whether you agree that we should bring it back and and let general counsel make some recommendations on how we can massage this policy that's been there for a while. So, is everybody in agreement

171in bringing that back? I see a nodding of a heads. So, Mr. Superintendent, when you bring back policies, no urgencies, the seats are filled. next time you bring it back. I know the general counsel already has given some thought to it. So the next one is BRD3. Mr. Ferguson, metal detectors. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um metal detectors. This was something that I was um shall we say pretty adamant about in my first couple of months on the board. Um and ultimately uh the district and the board came around to the fact that there is a need um for metal detectors. My understanding was that we would be doing it in a layered approach starting in high school, then middle school, and then elementary school. Um but then I went back and watched all the board

172meetings in which we spoke about metal detectors. And at the board meetings at least, we didn't actually we never actually said we're going to put them in all high schools, then middle schools, and then elementary schools. But I'll represent, particularly to the new board members, that there was a conversation, a representation that we would start in high school, then go to middle school, and then go to elementary school. In fact, I reached out to former chair Barbie and and essentially had a conversation with him saying, "Am I am I missing something? Am I forgetting something?" and he said, "No, we definitely had that conversation that well was a representation at some point that we would do it at all three levels." There was a qu a conversation I guess at future a past meeting uh

173in regard to the number of detectors that we would need um people power and things of that nature. So, you all saw the request that I submitted to staff to get an understanding as what as to the average high school population here in Palm Beach County. And the email that was sent to all of us indicated that the average high school has 2,83 students. I'll also represent to you all that the largest elementary school, which is not actually an elementary school, it's a K8. It's known as a Verie Verde DE. It has 1357 students. And I'll also represent to you all that the largest middle school, Eagles Landing, has 1457. I say that to say we have the people power at these middle schools and these elementary schools to install these metal detectors. And also,

174you all know because I'm pretty confident that you all read your emails um definitely to a greater extent than I that we only average about three detectors per school. I say that because there was a statement um that you know we may be using more than that number at our schools but we know that all schools use the three metal detectors. What we haven't seen since the installation of metal detectors at our high school what we haven't seen are guns in any of our high schools. And if you all, this is for the members who were here when I was the junior member, I represented to you all a situation that was very troubling to me where there was a youth, I believe it was Palm Beach Gardens High School, um, exited the bus and

175three young youth, young men were waiting for him with guns. They shot at him. That's terrible. And that really made me nervous hearing this story. The problem was the young man then pulled his own gun out and shot back at them. And so it doesn't take one to extrapolate how that could have gone horribly wrong in terms of some other incident happening on that campus, which is why we need to have this deterrent. I'm not representing to you that metal detectors will eliminate all threats related to firearms. I mean, we just had a situation at Wellington High School. Uh not a firearm, but things that would go into a firearm. And I'll just leave it there. Um, and I'm sure staff is working on how to close that loophole moving forward. But what we also

176have seen since the implementation districtwide at the high school level is a handgun at JFK Middle School. It didn't have bullets, but it could have. And most recently at Panther Run, we saw a child, apparently unknowingly, bring a loaded handgun onto the campus and self-reported it. But what happens if that child decided not to self-report it and just wanted to show and tell to some friends and then the gun goes off? Or I've said to you before and I'll say it again, thoughts and prayers just won't do it. If something like that should happen and someone is shot, maimed, and or killed, it would be inexcusable. We have the means to implement these metal detectors at our middle schools. We have the means to implement these metal detection devices at our elementary schools. And I

177think that we are skirting our responsibility to make our schools as safe as we reasonably can by delaying implementing these detectors at our middle school and our elementary school. So again, we don't have to speculate as to whether they work. We know they do. Again, I have not heard of one gun at a high school since we implemented it districtwide. And we contra and on the other side of it, we've seen firearms at middle school and elementary. And I said that to you all before. Don't just fixate on high school. Evil can come at any school at any time. And apparently can be brought in by any any person, whether adult or a child. So I think the prudent thing at this point is for us to revisit this conversation. um or this issue. And

178madam chair, I'd like to ask a question of general counsel. I would like to direct the superintendent to as soon as possible implement a plan for the installation of metal detectors at our middle school and elementary. What would be the appropriate way for me to to make such a request? Did I just do it or is there a more effective way to do that? Uh you actually can't um direct the superintendent to do that. Um you can as during this discussion item you can uh with the consensus of your uh colleagues you can uh ask for more information to be brought to you. Uh you can request that the superintendent um bring back a workshop, but those are the limitations for which you can um um seek um additional um um action on the part

179of the superintendent. Well, we my recollection is that we directed the superintendent to install meta detections devices at our high schools. So tell me how this is substantively different than that cuz it was only by way of frankly this board member's advocacy for it that we got the metal detectors at the high school. So tell me as you recall what mechanism ultimately led to that coming about other than a consensus and now we know at least as we define consensus pursuing the 1.03 it just meant four of the seven or more thought this was something that needed to be implemented. So help me with that. Sure. My recollection of how that came about was there were there was discussion. Uh the board through its discussion um represented what it would like to see and the

180superintendent um uh proposed or brought forward a recommendation uh that we start with a pilot program if I remember correctly. So it's through the superintendent bringing it to the board by way of recommendation. That's how we get there. But discussion and uh the the superintendent hearing what the pleasure of the board is is typically what gets the superintendent potentially to a place where he brings a recommendation to the board. So I probably implicit in me saying what I like means that I'm hoping that three other board members agree with me. I understand that the superintendent does not follow any directive simply from the board member from district 7. So I apologize for not being more precise with my verb my language my verbiage. Having said all that, board members, and I've kind of laid out,

181I think accurately, what has happened since 2022 and where we currently stand, I I would like to have a conversation with you all as a board to find out if at least three of you are in favor of us giving a directive to the superintendent to implement these metal detection devices at our middle schools and at our elementary schools. And thank you, Madam Chair, and General Counsel for uh the conversation. Thank you, Vice Chair Andrews and Mr. Ferguson. I do want to say thank you for talking about the metal detectors, but I've always been an advocate for metal detectors. In fact, the uh Tri Cities area of the Glades had spoken with not just this superintendent, but several superintendents prior about metal detectors and there were different uh different thoughts about it and we finally

182got to that point. But I'm sitting here listening to you and I just know we had a closed door workshop with our chief of police and went through a lot of issues as it related to metal detectors, how we could do it, how much they would cost, and we uh actually worked through uh through the chair and and the and the superintendent for uh us to get some additional information because the metal detectors are advancing because they can do different things at different times. So, I just believe it's probably uh a time for the superintendent through the chief working together with us to have maybe another uh conversation with the budgetary uh issues that we're in right now. Do we have the money to do it? and also what's out there that's going to be

183effective because we are the 10th largest school district and yes all over the country uh many of the uh school districts have the metal detectors but they're looking at different ways on how they can save money and also save lives. So I do believe our superintendent is really updated on that just from the council of great city schools and working with uh superintendents from across the state and nation. So, I just really believe that we need to work closely with the superintendent and the chief and maybe have another discussion about we know we need them. We need them at every level. That's for sure. Do you have the money? What's out there now? And how can it happen? I mean, it takes a lot, not just the manpower, but it takes a whole lot of

184elements to be able to be effective. And luckily, we took our times before we did the high schools. I mean, it was something that was out there before your time, but we finally got there. And I'm so pleased that we haven't seen any guns on our campus, but we really need to kind of work through a a collaborative process with the leaders who know what's out there through our superintendent and chief uh in a closed door session and looking at our budget and being realistic as to what we can and can't can do, what we can and cannot do at this point in time based on availability and everything else. Thank you, General Counsel. Yes. So, I just want to make sure um that um my clarification to your question, Mr. Ferguson, is because uh

185the way you summed it up to the board, you you indicated that the there can be a consens consensus to direct the superintendent. I just want to make sure that we're clear that the policy states that on discussion items, you can get a consensus to have from the board to bring back um an item for a workshop. Okay. I just want to make sure that was okay. Thank you so much. I just want to make sure I understood as well what you were asking. Thank you, Miss Savetto. Well, even if we had all the money in the world, I would not implement um metal detectors in all the schools. Um this is my background, right? Um, so that's the wrong perception. When you see some something like that and you walk into school with all

186this metal detection uh detector, you don't think, oh, how safe is the school? You think, why is the school has a metal detector? Um, so we can't really divulge too much about our security. That's why these sessions are in close um, you know, closed workshops. But I would love to see maybe a workshop about all types and levels of security, right? because I've been pushing for ebikes education about to our kids to the parents. We've had way too many accidents way too close with where kids have passed away, right? And had accidents because they're riding away in ebikes and they're bullying or they're playing and they fall and you know, we know the story. It happened to me three weeks ago. The first person I called was Mr. Burke because I could have been the

187one, you know, um, hitting this little boy that fell on on Hill, but he was quickly to get up and there I was coming, right? Um, and he was way outside the school zone. So, it would have been our fault, per se, but you can't live with that. So, I would love to see a workshop maybe where we can analyze all the types of security and and safety levels that we have. I would never go for any more metal detectors um at any other schools. Like I said, it's is all about perception. I know that we have a lot of levels uh and then we don't talk about them too much because that's we keep them secret. But I mean we could have a a very you know another workshop just to talk about all

188the levels and what we could do moving forward including campaigns to educate our children to educate um the parents and you know when children know because they will tell you. So, Luca, um, growing up, you know, in in elementary and even middle school, I would say, "Luca, you know that you're not supposed to, you know, talk to strangers on the phone or you're not supposed to um, you know, talk to anybody online." And at one point, he said, "No, mom, I know. I know because they've been talked about it so much at school that he already knows." But I don't think the schools talk to them too much about how to uh conduct themselves when they go home and they walk or they take, you know, they ride their bikes and now with the ebikes.

189So we can be a little stronger in our campaigning uh to like I said, educate our parents, educate the kids at start of school, you know, around Christmas too much is is is not enough, right? But definitely um I would never go for metal detectors even if we had all the um the money in the world because uh we can't put metal detectors in some high schools and not in other schools. And I know that um it just would not be right. And that's not the message we're sending. We are an A-rated school. We have great schools um with great children. Yes. out of 180,000 kids, we're going to have one or two or three or five that are not going to be the greatest unfortunately. And I've seen it right in this past six

190months when we go through all this closed doors um expulsions. But anyways, um again, I think we do a great job. Could we do better? Definitely. And we have to include our community to help us. Uh again, drop off when parents are dropping off their kids in the middle of the road. We need the city police. We need more PBSO, whatever. But that's the type of security and safety that I want to do and see. And I'm gonna keep talking about it until I see some improvements, especially in the schools that I drive. And I um you know, I have to deal with it all year round with Luca. Now, let's see how my experiences dropping him off and picking him up at high school. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Saviato. Just as a point

191of clarification for you. So you're new to the board, but we do have closed door as M as Miss Andrew said uh mentioned sessions that do go through with the chief on our security. We will not be sitting in an open workshop going through security like that. And also the sheriff's office is working on messaging having to do with ebikes. Uh ebikes. You may want to consider the board may later when we do our legislative platform may want to consider a bill to you know to ban them in on school property or to work with the county and work with the sheriff on that or you could bring back a discussion item on that. I will weigh in just saying that I am in agreement um with vice chair Andrews and also Miss Savetto I

192don't really I don't feel comfortable right now bringing back a workshop or taking action on more metal detectors. The technology is changing every day. I know I have cameras on my home. Well, my cameras are hardwired and everything else has changed since then. So, I think we need to wait. As Miss Andrew said, um I trust the superintendent. He knows that our priority is keeping our schools and our and our employees as safe as possible. So, um I'm I'm just not going to add my consensus for a workshop on that at this time. Mr. Ferguson. Oh, sure. You're next. Uh, board member Andrews didn't say that she wasn't in in support of having a workshop as to all safety measures. What I thought I heard you say, board member Andrews, and please please correct me,

193is I thought you said in addition to metal detectors, I would like I'm speaking as if I'm mute. I would like to hear about other safety measures that could be utilized. Did I not hear you correctly? Did I hear you incorrectly? Through me to Miss Andrews. Sure. through you to Miss Andrews, Madam Chair, but I'd like to be uh it work through the superintendent and the chief of of school police, not here up on this uh de uh with them uh actually because they do have the knowledge of what's going on. Things have changed. So, I don't want to have a workshop up here because there are some things that we um are not going to talk about up here. We need to talk about it uh with our superintendent and our chief. So yeah,

194I would love to have more information and I know we need to keep our kids safe. So I there's so many uh avenues out there, not just the metal detectors, but you know, I believe in them because we know that it it's a deterrent, but we have a lot of deterrence and we are doing a great job here in Palm Beach County. We're 10th largest and other districts are doing great things and this is where the chief has been out there with the council of great city schools as well as the superintendent on what's out there and I don't think we're behind on anything. I think we're ahead of the game here. So, I think we have to go back to the source of uh understanding where we are, what we can do, what we

195can afford to keep our children safe. And I think we've done a whole lot of great things to keep them safe and we will continue uh through their leadership. So, yes, you're in favor of a safety a workshop on safety. Not here, not up here. This is not a workshop, man. Well, we're just having a discussion right now. I'm saying when we get this information, I'd like that to be done behind closed doors. Okay. Yes. So, just to be clear, so are you or are you not in favor of Mr. Ferguson, you cannot address Miss Andrews directly? Madam Chair, I'd like like you to through the chair to vice chair Andrews. I'd like to get clarification on whether she is in support of us having a workshop at a date to be determined by the

196superintendent in regard to possible safety measures to be implemented at every school, elementary, middle, and high school here within our school district of Palm Beach County. So, Miss Andrews, yes, you can answer. I keep saying it's not a workshop. I am in favor of a closed door session with the superintendent and the chief of police to give us an update of where we are as it relates to metal detectors, other techniques out there as we work to keep our children safe. All right. So noted um I just want to follow up on something board member Savioo. So most schools I think do a good job of letting students know that they're not to bring bring vape pens to school. But nevertheless, Madam Chair, I'd like to direct a question qu I'm sorry, madam general counsel,

197this is a discussion. So why do I need to direct my communication through the chair at this point? This is so that I'm not in violation of sunshine. So this moment, why would I need to just procedurally? Why do I have to direct procedurally? um the in the sections that deal with special rules, it speaks generally to directing questions at board members. And so that particular sections of the special rules isn't just pertaining to motions. It's across the board directing questions directly to um board members. It needs to go through the chair. That's fine. That's not a problem. There were there were comments made in regard to ed if we educate as I heard it. If we educate students and their parents in the community more then contraband won't come onto our campuses. But I

198will note that we've been at a number of of explosion hearings where persons have bought brought vape pens on the campus. And it's my opinion that at all levels of schooling here in Palm Beach County, staff has done an excellent job in my opinion of educating people on the fact this is contraband. This is not to be brought on campus, but yet and still we find it. We see so many vape pins in some of the the drain traps that the water can't even flow through it. Um similarly with tasers, it's been identified that tasers are in fact weapons. This is contraband. But yet and still we find more than one, more than two, we find quite a number that come on the campus. So we can educate all we want, but it would seem

199to indicate based on past behavior that the community is still going to do things that we've asked them respectfully and educated them against doing. And so just as a matter of safety, I think it is important for us to do this close session that Vice Chair Andrews just mentioned to really verify, you know, what more can we do? I think the the detectors, I've been clear on that, are a great starting point, but I am not opposed to other other safety measures being used. But the fact of the matter is those measures need to be used and they need to be used like yesterday because as I've stated now, we see proof just in this last school year of persons bringing things deadly instrumentalities on the campus. And I don't think any I know no

200one here wants a child to be maimed or some anyone else to be maimed on our school campus. We do have the means in spite of the restricted budget um that's coming down from DC and Tallahassee. We still have the monies uh to do these things. It's just a matter of the will to do these things. Uh, so Madam Chair, I know it's getting late and so I you know I so we we've had Madam Chair, we've had four board members say yay or nay as I keep as I'm keeping track of it. Madam Chair, you and board member Saviedo have said that you don't want to have metal detectors. Can I ask you a question to you and then ask you to direct the question to board member Saviedo and then also I'm asking

201you to ask board members Branch and board member Lane to weigh in. Are you all amendable to us having a close session? Help me with that, Vice Chair. Close close s closed session on on the issue of safety measures at all of our schools. Okay. So, I'm just going to actually call for the consensus on that. I Well, actually, M Mr. superintendent, you bring them back periodically the conversation. So, um, if you're asking for them to to move it up, we just had one. So, I I think at this point I'm going to ask for consensus. Your your question then is not on metal detectors, but to have consensus for a closed door session. Correct. Yes. And I'm and my hope is that we will discuss truly discuss the issue pros and cons of implementation

202of metal detection detectors at our middle school and elementary schools here in Palm Beach County for the reasons that I've stated and of course many many more. So So I'm sorry I was speaking to general counsel. So you're so we're getting consensus on a closed door session h including the metal detectors. Okay. Um but it would be closed door not a workshop. Yes. And Vice Chair Andrews, thanks for finally saying it and me hearing what you said. I know sometimes I will say board, I feel like sometimes we are not as active in our listing as evidenced by me just now. And I'm not afraid to say sometimes where I messed up. I wasn't quite grasping what you said. I do understand it now. So, thank you for continuing to speak to me until I

203finally heard it. And I think I'll continue to do that as well on a number of issues. But thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. So, I was asking for consensus, but we have some board members who haven't spoken who want to make some comments. So, I'll go back to the consensus and go right now to Miss Branch. Thank you. Um, I think security is ongoing. We all agree. Um, and I think the chief and the superintendent keep us up to date. It's always changing. I'm I'm certain there'll be in the future more workshops on it. Um, I know as a substitute teacher, as I taught, there were more than one entrance that these little kids came in in elementary and K through eight. There were like three bus, car, walkers, bikers. So, that's three entrances in

204one school. Um, so the cost like Mrs. Andrew said, um, but I'm not looking to do a workshop again. I I think when um, Chief Mooney and Mr. Burke say, "You know what? We have more updated information. We'll have a closed door session." Thank you, Miss Whitfield. Thank you. I was just going to ask, um, when is our next security session scheduled for? Is it next year? We typically hold one in October. Okay. Before we submit the sounds like a good time for FSAT. Okay. Thank you. And so, and I will just say that I'm I'm willing to wait until the superintendent is also ready to schedule it. Um, I see some nodding of heads. Miss Savetto, did you want to add something? Well, I thought I was clear, but I when I spoke and

205then Miss Marshia Andrew spoke and I just said the same thing, but you corrected me saying that. Um, no, it is closed session. So, I knew that and I don't want a workshop about metal detectors, but an update. I mean, if I use the wrong word, but it was an update of what we know what we're doing in place, what's the new campaign going to be or what's going to, you know, that that I would be, you know, very um in agreement because I think that's great. But if it's going to be in October, I think that's wonderful. Um hopefully they will add other things that um we've been speaking about like the education um bringing parents in to educate on the dropping off and on and picking up excuse me and the kids walking

206to school and um riding their bikes and their ebikes. I'm not against ebikes. I just think that we should have some sort of training on how or you know whatever that is. I'm not the the the the professional about it, but I would I would love to see some something like Miss Marshia Marshia Andrews mentioned the update and all of that. That's wonderful. So So thank you. So that's going to bring us now to our next board discussion on BRD4. Mr. Ferguson, policy on principal tenure at school sites. Thank you, Madam Chair. So this is an interesting discussion item. So I'm kind of laughing at it now. Sometimes they say when you know better, you do better. So initially when I when it occurred to me that we should have this conversation the the goal

207was ultimately I'll tell you right now this is not my goal now but at the time the goal was to implement a policy that would direct specific action by the superintendent in situations where school performance does not continue to ascend. So in district 7 I think I know that one. I feel confident saying I know District 7 better than anybody on on the deis. If you look at cities like Riviera Beach, um the parts of District 7 that fall into West Palm Beach, the parts of West Palm Beach that fall into District 7, you have a very ugly report card. ugly as I define it because I guess beauty is in the eye the beholder is more often than not you have a C-grade as in cat and I I I kind of first started

208mentioning this back in 2017 um I guess to the to it it kind of agitated somebody who is not here now but my point was unless you believe that is the best that that community can do. C's just won't do. And so I know that we can't give a make a specific instruction to the superintendent and speaking with general counsel actually she showed me the policies in the statutes more specifically like is it would be illegal to tell superintendent Burke you must remove Edwin Ferguson from school X if the school's grade does not go from a C to a B in three years. You legally can't do that. That's fine. So then I started looking at what we can do and so I was, you know, I was looking at the different I guess they

209call evalu evaluation instruments um that we use for our superintendent. So that's funny that we were talking about evaluation instruments for for um Miss Soulnet and Mr. Leface at Capital. Um I forgot the name of his company now, but it doesn't matter. You all know who he is. So, I remember I'm looking and I saw back in FY17, these were the five, if you will, metrics that were used to evaluate the superintendent, student achievement. That's important to me because I think everything that we should do should be about student achievement, board and community relations, human resource management, financial resource management, operations management. Now, I didn't see where anything was actually defined, but I will say the student achievement was seemed to be less ambiguous than the other sections. And then in FY18, it changed. And

210so then the five things that we used to evaluate with the superintendent were effective and relevant instruction, positive and supportive climate, talent development, high performance culture, board and community relations, and it stayed that way until more recently in FY23 where we now use academic excellence and growth, which I guess is student achievement. I mean, we need to define it, but it's not as obvious to me what academic excellence and growth mean. Uh, student focused culture, mental health and wellness, committed and impactful employees, and then board and community relations. So, board and community relations seem to be the only thing that kind of transcends from year to year. And I would argue that we really should be focused on on the student achievement. So since I know that we cannot give directives to the superintendent to

211take certain actions, what I would like is and this is directed to you madam chair actually to be honest because I think you determine what the metric the evaluative tools of the instrument are. Correct. We vote on that as a board. You think? We do. Okay. When do we next vote on that or when will we next have a discussion that madam chair? on what specifically whose evaluation I'm lo you're losing me in your conversation I'm sorry I guess this goes back to active listening I said the superintendent evaluation in instrument the what I just read up read off to you are the superintendent evaluation instruments that we've used in FY17 FY18 all the way up through through now and so I'm going to turn to general counsel but just so you know you lost

212me because I thought you were still somehow involving principles in that conversation So, you just lost me. So, general counsel, if you could please address that. Where are those subtitles? I think I can only help in part because I don't have the superintendent's contract in front of me, but I I believe the contract outlines the parameters for the evaluative tool when it comes back to the board. So, I I believe, and I'm really stretching it, kind of going off the top of my head here, I read I read the contract. It doesn't necessarily say that the I don't I didn't see it and Superintendent Burke can speak because he knows his contract better than I I would imagine. I don't recall seeing in it these five these five metrics if you will and I didn't

213see in say for example uh former superintendent Fenoi and former superintendent of contracts the five metrics that I mentioned to you in regard to FY17 and then FY18. So that that would be true. It wouldn't be an attachment to the contract, but if memory serves me, the contract outlines the parameters on when when to bring the evaluative tool to the board. Um, and I'm I'm speaking generally because I believe all of the report the direct reports to the board have similar language to that effect. would um you would bring your evaluation to the board um if you were um you know contemplating making changes to the evaluative tool and then upon either myself you know I don't want to uh IG inspector general Terresa Michael and I assume not having the superintendent's contract up in

214front of me that it outlines the parameters on when to you know when and how to bring the evaluative tool to the board. All right. But not the tool. The tool itself is not attached to the contract. So So to that point, Madame Chair, my concern is the kids at all times. That is the business that that we are to be carrying out here. So if we have situations where leadership is unable for whatever reason, to move students, unless you believe that, again, what I said to you before, if you believe that all the school can ever be is a seat, then by all means, business as usual. But I will represent particularly to the newer board members um and you all will develop your own experience just as I did as you spend more

215time on the board. I've seen schools in my not so short time now on this board where we've moved a principal out who was was not able to kind of move the overall performance of a school and in less than two years we've seen schools go from D's to B's or C's to A's or whatever the case may be. So it does seem to be an issue of leadership. Um, and and seeing as we can't force or direct would be the better term to use, can't direct Superintendent Burke to remove Edwin Ferguson from school X. I would like to see there be some sort of evaluative instrument in place where we can communicate to superintendent our um support or concern for his ability to move his respective chess pieces around the board because everybody may

216not be good for school X. Board member branch or principal branch may be better than principal Ferguson at at school X. He and his team have to be able to identify that, call a spade a spade and be f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f focus on the main thing which is to make sure that these children are moving into a position where they can be critical thinkers and supportive of themselves when they graduate because I will represent to you that although this district is now considered a a district. It wasn't an A, we lost the A, got the A back and

217you know got back up here at A district. I can represent to you that in district 7 we most certainly are not an A district and that's the data. And so if anyone is um perturbed by what I say, I'm going to always speak truth um in that regard. We need to do more. And there are other pockets in the majority of your districts. I've looked at them um that need to be improved. In fact, I'll give you this little little nugget of data. 49 of our 180 or 182 I heard different numbers at the different commencements that I that I was at but irrespective of whatever that number is 49 of our schools have had C ratings for three or more years that's 26 to 27% of our schools that have C ratings and

218if you really want to become studious about it start pulling the layers back and looking at the aptitudes in terms of English language scores science scores and math scores that won't be so cutie either. And so persons always talk about what they don't have. Some people always talk about what they don't have. And I have said this before, we really need to be focused on what we do have. And I think we need to have leaders at all these schools that historically have kind of been middling who speak life into a community. And so Chair Bril, you I'm going to interpret to say, hey, your point is convoluted. Maybe if you're not looking directly into the into what I look at every day, it is. But if you walk around on the streets of District

2197, what I'm saying is is gospel. The community wants more. And I'm not going to speak for other members districts. Although, like I've said to you before, I represent all districts, but I know for a fact their pockets in just about everybody's district. Board member Branch, I was looking at your schools. I don't think I didn't I didn't see three C's at any school in your district. And I would want all of our district to be like board member Branch's district in that regard. We have children our in communities to have the aptitude for that. And so we really really really really need to be focused on the main business which is development of these students to make sure that they can be entrepreneurs and gainfully employed people in our workforce. And so I appreciate

220I may be stepping on a tour too right now but this is something that maybe needs to me maybe needs to be done. Maybe I need to prod in this regard. So this entire time since I've been on this board, I've been trying to figure out how best to navigate these levers. And so I see now I need to just be clear that I don't like mediocrity. I wouldn't want our children to want to emulate mediocrity. I want them to push for a higher mark. And to the extent that we have persons in place who are comfortable with the status quo, superintendent, I would ask that you and staff identify those people and maybe reposition them, repurpose them, whatever the case may be. But we need to have the optimum person at all of these

221schools because every year is the most important year. We can't afford to have bad years. So again, board, I ask you all to look at your own data. Don't just rely on what I'm seeing here, but if you if you do, I'm confident that that you will see that we have in my mind too many schools that are kind of just kind of going alone. And that's no good for us as a district. And this is the reason why I was saying to you all last week, one of the speakers left, micro schools are going to start popping up around and in some of our lower performing parts of this county like River Beach. That's happening right now. And that whole thing of economies of scale is going to start to manifest in terms of

222our our our machine our our company is going to get smaller and smaller and smaller, which means our dollars won't go as far as they go now. So just as a matter of self-preservation, you all should want to have the optimum principles at each school. Even if it hurts that particular principal's feelings, that ain't the main thing. The main thing is to educate and affirm and inspire to make parents and students want to be part of our school district versus a charter school or a private school, home school, or whatever the case may be. So, however you all need to get there, I'm just asking you all kind of look at the data for yourselves and I'm confident that the greater majority of you will see, hey, we need to do more um in that

223regard. So, I just felt as we're going into our I guess what effectively is our summer break, let you all know that's something that I've seen now year after year and I can't sit idly by um and just let us continue doing what we're doing. on the definition of insanity because it's not working for pockets of our district and it just happens that the greater majority of district 7 is not working for and many of my constituents to have me tell you all this and so I'm having it this conversation with you all in this space. Okay. So I'm going to jump in first and just say there are a few points that have been brought up. One of the points that I would like to make first of all has to do with the

224principles by statute. We do not hire the principles. We do we approve them. If they're if someone is recommended um and they don't qu have the qualifications, we can vote against them. But statutoily the principles report to the superintendent. It's completely under his authority. Um second thing having to do with the superintendent's contract. First of all, the evaluation tool, as I recall, was created back with the prior board. I'm perfectly content with the board be with the evaluation tool because there's other ways to address some of the issues that you brought up. The tool um to the superintendent. When was that approved? Was it back in 2022? Yes. The uh my contract called for not later than July 1st, 2022, Burke shall submit to the board a model evaluation instrument. And then not later than

225August 17th, 2022, Burke and board shall meet to discuss and agree on the instrument to be used for Burk's evaluation. And that's that's the instrument in instrument. I I feel like the instrument gives you enough latitude though to evaluate me in pretty much all areas. Thank you. So So then but your comments are not lost on me. I understand where you're going. So my thought was during the when we will look at the strategic plan when we have our workshops on academics um you know it's there's many factors it's not just the principle there's many factors in our schools it has to do with socioeconomics it has to do with attracting teachers into our lower lowest performing schools it's not one person's responsibility um if the school is at a C a level C. So

226that's my thought. I'm going to move on to the other board members, but I do think that it's an important discussion and I do believe that we can have those discussions, but we have to make sure that we address all the factors and the factors are it's not the school leadership. There are other factors that we have to consider. And when there is a school leadership problem, the superintendent addresses it. So I'm going to go to Vice Chair Andrews. And thank you, Mr. Ferguson, for bringing that up. But I was sitting here listening to you and it's certainly not about the principal per se. I know that we have a superintendent uh a deputy chief of schools that visit all of the schools and work with the leadership. So that can be changed and I

227think the superintendent can can do that you know and the deputies that we have here in place. But it's about the individual student. It's never about the grade. Those grades came down from Tallahass to state. There's a a mechanism as to how they have graded us. We've got our children at different levels. Every child has their own individual need, and we have to kind of levy it back down to where the child is coming from, what their abilities are, and the growth that they have each year is big time to me for great teachers that we have here in Palm Beach County School District, as well as the principles. All of those components are together, not just looking at because it's an A-rated school uh uh school. I mean, I have urban as well as

228rural and in the Glades at one while we had a lot of low grades. We have moved up because we are improving and we've got to look at improvement. We've got to get our parental involvement more uh robust because it has to start at home. I was happy when Deputy Superintendent Tyranny put the kindergarten roundup in place because we are going to get better because we're starting early. A lot of parents don't even have those particular components in their lives to get their children ready at those early ages. And when we get them in and they haven't done the things that they need, it's a constant uh drive to kind of catch them up. It's harder to catch children up when they're already behind. So when we start talking about a grade, I don't look

229at a grade grade that much. I look at the leadership because I do know what mediocracy looks like. I've been here. I was trained uh under Dr. Johnson and Mr. Mills and I was a teacher. So I know what it looks like to have great leaders. And that's why we have Superintendent Burke and the deputies and the chiefs here to make sure that we have the great leaders. But we have to kind of look back at the communities, uh, the parents, the programs, the curriculum. This is why we have monies to put programs in place to help try to bring these children up. But the early preschool that you hear us talking about over and over with the legislature, if they don't get this money in place to help us help these little ones before

230they get to the point where they can't read by third grade and we're trying to bring them up, this is what happens. And we've been in real bad situations in the past where we weren't even at a C level, Mr. Ferguson. I think the reason we're an A-rated school is because we're continually showing growth. Our district is continually showing growth in Riviera Beach, Belgade, Lakew Worth, and all of the pockets because we do have pockets of poverty in Palm Beach County. And it takes all of us working together. And certainly I don't want to penalize a principal who's struggling to to move the students to get them to where they want to be. And I think we have to continue to look at what each one of our leaders are doing. But I surely don't

231want to highlight them as the only reason that a child is not moving. I want to look at the data, the curriculum, the teachers, and all the things that Miss Bri has spoken about tonight. That's the big deal when we start talking about what we're going to do. And if you're thinking about changing a leader, all of those components need to be in place. And we need to give a check off for all of our leaders, our principles, assistant principles, and everybody else, our teachers that are doing their very best overtime to help bring our children together. So, I wanted to say one more thing. When we put a discussion item on, and you know, I love you, Mr. Ferguson, but I like to stay to the point because we kind of veer it all

232out to the superintendent's evaluation and how we're going to change this and that. When I look at the board agenda, I want to do the discussion item that you have because I do a little research to try to figure out what are you talking about because we don't know until we get in here. But I do know when you talk about uh a C, I want to look deeper than that. I look at the individual children where they're coming from, the programs we have in place, the leaders there, the teachers, and we comp we put it all together to help help make us grow. And when we start with the C, hopefully we're going to be at an A soon. And I've seen that happen. General counsel. Sure. I just wanted to address that to

233to help for clarification. So yes, the discussion items are designed um to help the board and preparation and um understanding what the you know what the discussion will be. Um because it is your individual discussion item, there is a little bit of latitude to develop it. um but you you do need to tie it back in and weave it back to the um to the the discussion item. So yes, there is some latitude um to you know bring in some other factors because naturally things can develop in discussion but yes to your points Andrew you do have to bring it back to the original item so that everybody knows what what's being discussed and and just to for the board to know I did that was why I was speaking to general counsel to ask

234if we needed to veer it back in the last item just to the specific item of metal detectors. So, um there is there is some ability to add in other factors. Um my my iPad just went totally out. I believe here it came back. So, I believe Miss Whitfield. Thank you so much. Um I appreciate it. I I just wanted to address this a little bit because I feel like um you know that we're talking about a lot of the same schools um in my area as well as yours. Um, so every school, obviously we want them all to be an A, but I think that the A is a measure of what a school is. It is not the measure of what a school is. And so I sent my child, who I got

235to say is freaking brilliant. She's one of the smartest people I've ever met. She went to C schools from kindergarten to 8th grade. It had nothing to do with the grade. The school was incredible. We had amazing principles, amazing teachers, teachers that I would say when you are working in a title one school are working twice as hard because they have to they have to deal with all of these other issues that students are are coming in with and um all these other challenges. So these teachers are amazing teachers. These principles that take on these challenging schools are brave. They're heroes. and to go in there and turn these schools around and and try to make a school be an A school sometimes a C is is a is a win. So, I just don't

236want us to sit here and talk about um mediocrity when it comes to our schools when we have people that are rising to the challenge and really becoming um really being there for our students on so many levels. I think that u Miss Andrews mentioned about parental involvement. I think there's a big piece about developing community within schools that make a school a great school. So if a school is reflective of their community and there for their families and children, I say they're a great school. And so that is um you know, it's something I've really thought about for these 10 years I've been on the board. What makes a great school? And the letter grade is not it. And so I don't want to change. And I also really don't want to micromanage a

237superintendent or staff when it comes to who's hired to be a principal or staff at a school. I think that is something that we pay these people to do and they do a great job at it. I think our policies need to remain on the high level and ask them to implement it. If you want to work on uh changing his evaluation obviously there is a time for that. He will be evaluated this year on the evaluation he has had to work with for the entire year. We would change it for next year. So that is something that we can work on when the time is right. But um I want to be real careful when we talk about uh what is a good school because I am ferociously proud of these schools um and

238the work that they do with our students. Thank you. Miss Branch, I just wanted to say before the staff falls asleep um we're trying to hurry. I agree with Chair Bil, Vice Chair Andrews, and board member Whitfield. Okay. So, I I believe it looks like Mr. Ferguson, you wanted to say something else, or do you realize that there's no consensus on that? Well, it's still a board discussion and hopefully y'all don't fall asleep, but if you do, I'm not really speaking to you anyway, so feel free to nod off. Um, yeah, obviously there are many factors that go into a school's performance. Um, as far as that goes to that point, um, when I said so, what I said was very nuanced. So, I I see now that sometimes I sound like I guess apparently

239I sound like Charlie Brown's teacher. Um, Ed probably got that one. Uh, so yeah, so maybe there needs to be a greater uh focus as well on our various superintendents as well the as far as instructional, regional, and what have you. But the ultimate the ultimate thing that the community sees oftentimes is the principle um in terms of that and I have heard what was said. I understand what was said and I agree that the sea is not everything and that there's much more nuance to it. But I will also tell you that many people who are not as informed on the various the seven buckets I believe it's seven I got seven buckets in my head seven different things that factor into I think at a high school level and I may be wrong

240with that but I know as there are many there are many factors that go into the ultimate letter grade that a school gets but perception is a reality and so again I don't come here with ideas that I make up myself. I listen. I I I I travel inside of my district and some of yours as well. And I start to hear sentiment and consent in that regard. And this is an issue. People perceive C's and definitely D's. I don't know how many great D schools there are, at least in that given year. Um something generally is off in that regard. But people, many people who I've spoken to perceive schools that make C ratings as not being optimal schools. And we have an inordinate amount relative to some of the other districts of those

241type of schools and specifically schools that make CCC. And right now with what's happening in Tallahassee with the expansion of the voucher program, this is something that is germanine to whether a principal should stay at a given school. We can't afford to string a bunch of seeds together. You all know that there's statutoily a mandate um to remove to to kind of have additional oversight at the state level if you have a school that makes two DS in a row. You all know that. I'm sure you all do. You all read more than me. Um I guess but in any event, I'm just trying to be proactive in that regard. And so, yeah, I'm I'm I'm putting it out there that I want to see more oversight by the superintendent um and his staff. And

242the majority of you that I've met, I find that you all are exceptional, but we have to keep the main thing the main thing, which is optimizing each child. It's not about social economics because I remember Roosevelt High School being comprised of predominantly impoverished people and these people are leaders of the industry now. So it's not necessarily about where you start, it's where you finish. And so that, if you will, implicit bias, we need to call ourselves into account on that and not say, okay, affluent schools, we expect you to be affluent students, we expect you to be top of the class. Impover students, n do the best you can, kid. We understand you got a lot of things that hold you down. We have to be better than that. Again, we have to model

243the behavior that we want in these students. And so this is relevant to the issue of principal tenurship and things of that nature. Again, what I said to you all in the beginning, wah wah wah wah as Charlie Brown's teacher, is that I understand that we can't put a policy in place legally. But it did get me to thinking after conversing with Superintendent Burke and General Counsel Bernard that we do need to be much more proactive in our assessment of each leader. There are people who can take that same set of facts and as a matter of fact in July I am going to show you as such school that was failing making D's taken over by the state in one year the principal pushes it up. How does that happen? The parents were not

244necessarily in any different state financially, but these principles leadership got them to be more engaged, got the students to believe in themselves and then the school performs better. We need to be making sure that Superintendent Burke, you and your team are doing that and all 180 or 182 schools. I know that a greater majority of them are doing great things, but again, I'm speaking to my reality. When I when I peruse through district 7, I see too many schools where we have CCC and when you pull it back, cuz I agree with board member Whitfield wholeheartedly, it's not just about the letter grade, but when I look at the aptitude, I don't see that really growing by two and three points a year, that's problematic. And when I speak to certain people at the school,

245it seems there is a little bit of a bias that I think could hopefully be eradicated by different leadership. It's all about the culture a lot of times. And so to me this is gerine and this is the only reason why I'm going on this far. Uh attorney Bernard general councard you've done a good job in educating me over these three years in that regard. I think it is gerine to this issue of policy on principal tenorship at school sites. And so again I'm doing I'm going to do this more and more often because I know I can't speak to you all on these issues save for here. So if we have to be here longer then we have to be here longer. And by all means, staff, feel free to go to sleep. If

246my voice is so smooth and mellow that you fall asleep, which I don't think it is, just don't snore too loud. But for you seven six up here, we have to do the work of the district. And I think again, this is something that we really need to look at. I know I'm stepping on toes, but hey, I got big feet, but we need to do what we need to do for these kids. And that's what I wanted to impress upon you all. Um, so over this next 30, 45 days, however many days it is, take a look at your own district's respective data and see if what I say is true or false. I'm pretty confident that the greater majority of you, again, I don't think board member branch has many schools, any schools

247that fall into this particular area that has me all up uh in a in a tizzy, but most of you do. and we need to be figuring out policies and and initiatives to help increase and improve sustain excellence throughout these schools in our district. Thank you. Thank you. So, we have one more person that wants to speak, Miss Branch, and after that, we're going to move on. I do have diversity in my schools. Thank you. Okay, so that's going to bring us to Mr. Super. For the record, I'd like to report the entire senior staff is wide awake and they would never fall asleep and they're hanging on every word. Madam Chair, Mr. Ferguson, we're we're we're done with this item. Point of information, there's no rule that prohibits how long we can go for.

248I just spoke to the general counsel and we can end the conversation. We're not getting anywhere with it. So, you can keep speaking, but nobody's is responding to it. Madam Chair, I'd like to direct a response to the superintendent through you. So board member branch through yeah board member branch represented that staff was falling asleep. So I was simply making a joke saying if you want to fall asleep then by all means fall asleep because the people who need to hear it are the people up here. So that's what the conversation was madam chair. So, just to make sure, again, back to the active listening thing, I think it's important that we all listen as actively as we can less we do things or say things that we need not say because I was not

249taking a ri or anything at anybody that's out there. And I can clearly see that all 12, 13, 14 of them are brighteyed and bushy tailed as they always are at our meetings. Yeah, I just they're not on camera, so I thought that might be good for the audience at home not to get the wrong impression. And also they cannot accept a directive to go to sleep from a board member direct staff. I'm being cognizant that they've been here since very early in the morning. Okay. So So we're we're going to move on. I think everybody's getting a little bit punchy. It's going to bring us to BD5. Mr. Lane, career and technical education programming. Yes. I placed this item on the agenda and this is why. Based upon historical data, 40% of our students

250are not going to college and they need to find jobs when they graduate. At the same time, there's a severe shortage of workers in the trades because workers in the trades are aging out. Now, I've spoken to many, many business leaders in our community about this issue. And one business owner told me a story. He needed 150 employees to finish a project, but he only could recruit around 85. He had a deadline to finish the project, and he didn't have enough skilled workers to do so. And this is a standard problem in the industry. And by the way, these are very highpaying jobs. The highest paid crane operators earn upwards of $100,000 a year. Now, we have excellent career and technical education programs in our district and the business community would like us to focus

251on enhancing these career and technical education programs. Now, from my research, one of the biggest complaints that I found was that when students across the country graduate, they've only taken one or two courses in the trades. So, they don't possess the skills that they need to immediately go to work. Now, my vision is that our students who are not going to college leave with the skills that they need to become immediately employable when they graduate. My goal is to create an internal pipeline for our local skilled workers, for the businesses in our community, and to create a pipeline for our students who might not otherwise have jobs to change the trajectory of their lives. Our education foundation generously sponsored a comprehensive study of our career and technical education program and it's my proposal that we

252hold a series of workshops to study the education foundation's report and to determine how we can become a district of future ready schools where all of our students all of our students graduate with career readiness skills. Thank you. Madam Chair, thank you. So, um, my understanding is that the and I actually have a print out of that report. Um, I think you've got all of us on board with that. Um, the superintendent is going to get back with the succinct points from this and I believe we will have sometime a workshop coming up on the career programs also. So, I don't know that we need how I think I would leave it to the superintendent for how to progress with that. But, Mr. Superintendent, um, it aligns with our strategic plan. We have an initiative

253to grow our career technical education programs and the career pathways. So, uh, with the benefit of this report, as you said, board member Lane, it was generously sponsored by the Ed Foundation. That is our plan. We're we're kind of going through the recommendations and findings now and then what I want to do is distill that down and bring back staff and the superintendent's recommendation on how we move forward from here. So, that that'll be uh in the months ahead. Madam Chair, I I we just asked the superintendent by when do you think we can hold our first workshop on on this subject? I would say this fall, first semester, September, October or so. Great. Yeah. I mean, u is is that the consensus of the board that we have a workshop on this topic? Absolutely.

254I think you're preaching to the choir here. Um but I am going to call on um Miss Savayto. She's she would like to speak. Yeah, I definitely like this topic. I've been talking about it um since I um I've been here because I know that the community needs it. And um I al also actually um invited the Boore uh what was it last month to visit, you know, the Chuck Shaw um education center. They do amazing work under Dr. Aila Thomas. Uh you'd be surprised. I was there for two hours and I didn't want to leave. So, um, board member Lane, I would, you know, you would love the experience. I would, uh, invite you to visit, uh, Chuck Shaw, uh, talk to Fred Barge. They do amazing work, of course, that, uh, we can

255do probably a lot more. And, um, I'm excited, yeah, to to talk about it and, you know, to be a support, bring business people that can help, you know, tell us what they need. I mean, all that is just amazing. So, I'm excited and anything we can do to support, you know, the school district, um, I'm for it. Thank you, board members. I'm going to call on the other two that have put their names out there. And just to remind you, we do have some non-aggenda speakers that are still hanging in to to speak tonight. So, with that, I'll go to Vice Chair Andrews. Wow, Mr. Lane, I knew there was something special that I loved about you. This topic is a big deal, and I have to commend the superintendent and the team. We've

256come a long way. Back in the in the day, we really had some heavyduty technical schools and we closed them all down. So, we have really come back. Mr. Ferguson, you know, your Delray full service center is awesome. If you haven't been there to see it, get out there to see it. I mean, uh, North Tech is going to be rebuilt. I mean, lots of good things are happening. Every child that crosses the stage for graduation should have a skill set and that's what they do at Inlet Grove. I always go over there and I listen to their graduations and I speak with Dr. Banks and every kid that's graduating. There's a path for them and so we're trying to get back there. We we were behind. Thank you, Fred Bartch. West Tech, we opened

257it up. It was closed for 11 years. So, we're getting things done. And I'm so proud of our superintendent because he's on it and we're on it and we've been to the state and the state's giving us the money because we know that we've got to get these children trained. We know in the middle school who it is that needs to get into these programs. I think everybody should get a skill set, but for sure there's some kids that we need to identify early as possible to get them something that they like to do that they can actually leave Palm Beach County School District knowing that they have a great career. It's a great day for what you're talking about, Miss Branch. I agree. Uh, recently I introduced Fred Barts to a large nonprofit that

258raises money for scholarships and they want to um raise money and donate to um hopefully our school district, which was the point of the meeting, um to pay for these kids that after high school, if they can't, they can go to technical training and they get a scholarship and um it would be fantastic. So, I'm really happy about that. Okay, Miss Savayto. Yes, I wanted to um to invite Mr. Lane next year for adult um education graduation. It it was very touching. We shook hands of kids, right? They look like super young, maybe 19, 18 to the elderly that could have been our parents. And it was so emotional, right? The resiliency. That's why I I mentioned it last board meeting and this board meeting because you saw people of all ages. Some of them

259would come and say gracias, you know, in Spanish. And it was so sweet and you know, in all different walks of life, people from everywhere, right? I mean, that was so emotional. So, please, Mr. Lane, you would love that graduation next year because it's very special. And then you get to see the whole team that works behind the scenes or not behind the scenes, but they work with the adults there. So, you would really appreciate it. Okay. Thank you, Miss Savayto. So that's now going to bring us back to our non-aggenda speakers and we thank you for your patience and indulging us. I'll call you two at a time. Julie Potell and Jenna Remal. I'm just going to do this. I know we're all really My name is Jenna Rem. Hi. I know we're all

260really tired, so thank you genuinely. And I hope you'll give me your ears for just three minutes. Um, I know we all want the best for the students. We're all working from the same place, even though we're not always in the same time and place. I appreciate that and I want to say that. So, um, I'd like to set the stage a little bit. I'm talking on the DEI, of course, which I know you've heard at length. So, again, thank you. Um, the stage is, uh, it's 900 p.m. last week, and I'm looking on the CDC's website for information to present to you all. I've collected the reports from 2023 when the CDC found that one in four high school students identifies as LGBTQ plus in the United States. I go to open that page

261yet again and I'm greeted with a new little yellow box. Per a court order, HHS is required to restore this website as of 11:59 p.m. ET February 11th, 2025. Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female, the Trump administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harm it causes to children by promoting chemical and surgical mutilation. And now putting aside anyone's feelings on gender and sexuality, sitting in my bed last week um I cried. mutilation. I thought, imagine for the first time in your life that you could look in a mirror and truly think that you were beautiful. Imagine that. And then imagine you look and your government is calling you mutilated. In 2024, uh the Trevor Project

262found that 37% of LGBTQ plus youth in the state of Florida have seriously considered committing suicide. Take that statistic out of your head for a moment. Uh taking that information we have about the CDC and one in four students. Um let's let's take the population of Spanish River. That's 2345 students approximately. 1/4 of that 586 students. Let's take 37% of that. Uh that's 223 students. 223 students that could have seriously considered committing suicide last year at Spanish River. This county has approximately 30 high schools for high school age students. 35. If you use the board's own website, at a conservative estimate, that's about 7,85 students that may have seriously considered killing themselves last year. So, this is why we need this proiversity policy, that we need to openly protect these students. I know the changes

263are minor, but they mean something to these kids. And they say that we're beyond this because even if we feel this way, there are 7,85 children in this county that don't. And it's not me that you need to convince that diversity matters and that you care. It's them and they deserve that. So I thank you for your time and for listening. I know that it's been a really long night and we're almost there. I know we're going to get there. Have a good night. Thank you. Thank you Diane Schneider and Kenna Brown. Are either of you here? Miss Brown left. I'm sorry. Brown. Okay. Thank you, Kendra Spence Wester. Okay. Ira Thomas Bush the the fourth. That That's the end of our non-aggenda speakers. So, I'll take a motion to adjurnn. Motion by Miss Branch,

264second by Miss Whitfield. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Mr. Tierney, you're going to be the so thankful that you're going to be down in Monroe. Take me along.