04.12.23 Board Workshop and Special Meeting

001[Music] The closed door attorney client sessions have now concluded and the board has returned to open session. In the closed sessions, we discuss possible settlement negotiations and your strategy related to litigation expenditures and although the staff out here thinks we had dinner in there. We really did and we were working. Um, so we need a motion to adjourn that meeting. Motion by Mrs. Andrews, seconded by Miss Brill. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. 70. I will now call the workshop to order at 3:27 p.m. Miss Belotto, please call the role. District one, Barbara McQuinn here. District two, Alexandria Ayala here. District two, Karen Burl. District three here. Eric Wfield here. District five, Frank Barbieri here. District six, Marshia Andrews here. District seven, Edwin Ferguson here. We have corn with all seven board members

002in attendance also joining us. Superintendent Michael Burke, General Counsel Sean Shawn Bernard, and Inspector General Terresa Michael, as well as our board clerk, Tony Balota. Senior staff members will join us periodically as directed by the superintendent. Viewers and listeners can access the meeting today by either watching on Comcast channels 234 and 235, Iverse 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 posted 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 1866-9307015. The meeting ID is 1561-881124 hashtag. Would you all please stand for the pledge to

003be led by Superintendent Burke? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. Burke. All right. Well, this afternoon we have a a budget workshop uh led by our chief financial officer, Miss Heather Frederick, our chief operating officer, Mr. Joseph Sanchez and our chief facility chief of facilities management rather Mr. David Dolan. Uh before the team jumps in um I wanted to just a couple opening comments. You know the budget process is playing out uh in conjunction with the legislative process up in Tallahassee and uh there's been some developments that could significantly impact our budget thoughts and plans. Uh mainly we have now uh the governor has signed HB1 into law

004which is allows for universal vouchers. Uh, so we know we're going to have expansion of vouchers. The how fast that's going to grow here in Palm Beach County remains to be determined and that rate of growth could also be impacted by the budget which is not finalized yet in Tallahassee. And Miss Frederick will go into more great more detail, but there's considerable difference between the House's approach to the budget and vouchers in the Senate. Um, so that's that creates some uncertainty looking forward. And then the other item of concern as relates to our capital budget is legislation that would potentially require us to share our local capital outlay improvement mill which our primary source of capital funds and uh the imp impact that could be quite significant to our five and 10ear capital plan. So,

005you're going to see a recommendation embedded in this presentation that we kind of take a pause on what we'd like to do is kind of we have a balanced capital plan if we do not add any major construction projects to it. Uh given the uncertainty around our revenue streams and the enrollment, uh staff's going to recommend that we maybe forego and and take hit the pause button and and delay any conversations on any significant uh uh new projects that would alter that budget. And uh there was a few things that we had hoped to bring in today. We were looking for maybe to uh improve upon or expand and uh the staff has even kind of stopped short of doing that because we feel like the uh financial forecast is uncertain and it's a good

006time to maybe you know take a step back and let this play out a little bit more till we have a better grasp on what the next 5 to 10 years is going to bring us financially. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Miss Frederick. All right. So this is our third of four budget workshops and I can say that normally at this time I would be giving you a comparison of you know that detailed line item of all the different categoricals between where we are right now and what the governor's proposal what the house proposal and the senate proposal all looks like what that potentially means for us as a a bottom line but I can't you know at this point that the house and senate are so far apart it's

007a bigger difference than ever I've ever seen in my career. So, I'm going to be giving you a higher level overview of where they are because, like I said, I just don't have enough information to actually give you a dollar amount as to to how much we think we're we're going to be at when comparing the House and Senate versions. So, I'm going to give you an overview of the legislative um bills that are out there that have a financial impact. Um there's going to be a legislative update I know um at a future board meeting, but these legislative updates are specifically the ones that have a financial impact. Give a a brief budget update of where we are. Uh we've already uh released school budgets. We've now completed the detailed review with all the

008departments. So I'm going to present uh uh what we're proposing for the changes within the department budgets and then we'll give an overview of where we are with the the capital budget. So, starting with the legislative update, uh, Mr. Burke already mentioned that House Bill one has already been passed and signed into law by the governor that created a universal voucher program, pretty much eliminated all eligibility requirements other than being a K12 student. Uh, there if there is if there are more people who apply for the vouchers than vouchers that are eligible, then they will be prioritized based on income level. Um, but that's only if there's not enough available. Um, there was a a a bonus added within this bill that the there has been a waiver of the cost per student station requirements

009um just for the next couple years, but we want to still be very conservative in our approach and we need to since funds are limited um at least from a budget perspective, we have told Mr. Sanchez that's not a blank check. So we still have to stay as close to those costs per student station amounts as as possible. Uh when looking at um the two conforming bills um so we have the house and senate which work in conjunction uh slightly with house bill one because I mentioned that house bill one there is a cap um on the the number of vouchers that are eligible. The way the house and senate are approaching that cap very very differently. So even though the universal voucher program has been approved, the cap on on the vouchers has not

010been and that those uh the caps will be approved uh when we have the the final um conference bill between the house and senate. So the house is still keeping and maintaining how the current cap works which is based on a percentage of FTE of statewide. The state's cap is based on a dollar amount. So, it's looking at the dollar amount spent on vouchers in the current year and then it's applying a percentage increase. Uh what's also different is that the House uh education uh bill is setting aside $und00 million in for an overage in vouchers. So, if vouchers come in higher than what's anticipated, the House is setting aside $110 million in a reserve and the Senate is setting aside $350 million in reserve. Uh the major difference between um the two uh uh

011budget proposals is the House is doing really a fundamental change within FFP where they're taking a lot of those categoricals, those state restricted um set aides and they're rolling those up into the base student allocation. So when I show you an overview, it's going to look like the base student allocation in the House proposal increases significantly, but that's because the categoricals decrease. All it's doing is just shifting them from the restricted categoricals up into the base student allocation. And what the House proposal is also doing is it's still saying you still need to spend this money the way that you're supposed to spend it. They're just not breaking it out within the certain categoricals. So, it's really not as much flexibility as as what you would think. The Senate proposal is using more of a

012traditional. They're just keeping the FFP model um the same. Um, the other difference between the House and the Senate, and this is one of the the biggest reasons why I can't compare them, is the funding is pretty similar between the House and the Senate, but what's different is the number of students that they're taking into consideration. The House proposal is considering that the the vouchers are going to be 40,000 less than what the Senate is proposing. So what that means is it's the same amount of funding. It's a whole lot less students and uh than when you're comparing it to the Senate version. And if that means that most likely we would have a pro-rated holdback when looking at the House proposal and if I were to adjust the House proposal for the number of

013students that I think would actually be accurate, our district would look be looking at an actual reduction in funds. And so that's why I can't show you a comparison because I just don't have enough information to do that because I'm doing it all based on on assumptions. This is just a quick overview of the FFP just to show you all the different changes within the house. So all those little red circles that you see, those are all the categoricals that the house is proposing get rolled rolled up into the base student allocation. The House is also proposing that we change the district cost differential to what's called the comparative wage factor. Uh which is not much different for our district. Uh but what it's also doing is right now with the district cost differential since

014that's the cost of living adjustment. There are some districts that are below 1.0. So they're their cost of living is so much less than the district they're not they're actually getting a reduction in their funding. What the House is proposing is no district would go below one. So it would be you'd only get more. So that's just adding more money to um some of those smaller districts uh in the central and northern part of the state. And there's also a proposal to um change um or or add an additional way to calculate the ESSE guarantee and then also proposing um two new categoricals. So pretty fundamental changes within the state funding model. So, we're waiting uh for uh the conference to get a better idea of where we stand when we're looking at the budget.

015You know, I have spoken to a Senate uh representative who is working on the budget and they also said we've never seen such a a discrepancy between the House and the Senate when we're going into conference. I want to now move on to House Bill 401, which is sovereign immunity. So, our current sovereign immunity cap is 200,000 uh 300,000. The House initially was proposing no cap at all, just removing it alto together. They're now at 2.5 million and 5 million per occurrence. The Senate is 400,600,000. U last session, you know, it pretty much died. Uh we're not sure uh what the chance of passing is. Um but this could have a significant uh impact if it were to get approved. House Bill 633 and 1236 is related to class size. It's pretty much eliminating the

016dollar penalty to comply with class size. So, you still have to comply. You still have to say you're going how you're going to comply, but there would no longer be an actual dollar penalty for non-compliance. House Bill uh 837 and Senate Bill 236, civil re remedies, a tort reform that actually has been passed. Um there's a lot of positives within that bill um for our district. Um so hopefully everything that has been passed will actually stay in place. There were thousands of of trial cases that were filed right before the passage of of this bill. So now this is House Bill 239 and Senate Bill 7024 could have a significant impact on our our district financially. Uh this is related to the Florida retirement rates. You know, the legislature sets our rates. The Senate is

017saying let's just keep everything status quo the same. Um we just need to continue to fund that unfunded liability. So, they're proposing a.7% increase, which is a $7 million impact to our district. The House, on the other hand, is proposing a 5.7% increase. And the reason why it is so significant is they're proposing to put back into place the cost of living increases that were taken away in 2021. So, it would be retroactive, putting back in place um the the 3% increase in cost of living. Um, it would also would make some changes in drop and add um, uh, going back to 2011 also for some special risk categories in terms of years of service. As CFO, I'm not supportive of this bill. It's extremely expensive. I don't know that it's sustainable. As an employee

018in the pension plan, I I mean, you have to like it, you know, to actually it it would help for recruiting. we're gonna have, you know, how can you not have a pension plan that doesn't have cost of living increases? I know that there are uh but you know I but as CFO I have to stick with that it is not truly sustainable and it is expensive. I mean $57 million that would take whatever money we have and then some. We would have nothing available for raises. Um, House Bill um, 733 and Senate Bill 1112 is related to the middle school and high school uh, start times where they they would um, dictate um, middle schools could not begin before 8:00 a.m. and high schools um, before 8:30 a.m. You know, so we could add

019buses, we could add drivers. We don't have enough drivers now, so we wouldn't be able to do that. So I know I don't know if Mr. Sanchez would like to mention and talk to this, but it it would be extremely difficult to implement. Right. Yeah. Our buses currently current car carry students from first in the morning from high school and then elementary school and then middle school. If we had to have two of those at the same times and had to double up that have significant negative impacts on us because for several different reasons. One, as uh Mrick said, we have to have more bus drivers and more buses and we we we already have over 100 vacancies of bus drivers right now. Not only that, but um it would shorten the amount the day

020for the bus drivers because now they most of them work eight hour days um by having double up. They would reduce down to six or seven hour days and our bus drivers can't barely afford to live in Palm Beach County as it is. So if you reduce their hours, reduce their pay, you you will probably have even more bus drivers leave us. So this is um we still need to keep whatever they we do we still need to keep the three tiers in order to make sure that we maintain the bus drivers that we have and increase the number that we need we need. Question Mrs. Whitfield. Thank you. I just want to ask a quick question about this because I've been thinking a lot about it. It's similar to you and your uh retiree

021versus CFO issue. I'm in the schoolboard parent issue. So, um it would be lovely not to have to get up so early um and take my daughter to school, but um would we then have to switch sports to the morning because we don't have fields that have lights? That's been a concern that I've been I've been thinking about. Our high school fields have lights on them, but our middle school fields don't have lights on them. So, uh, we would have to figure out how we address the the middle school during those hours when now that at the same time the state is talking about, you know, keeping daylight savings time, too. So, that could that could possibly change things as well. So, uh, depending on those two things, we may have to make some adjustments

022to this recreation times. So maybe if we're talking to our lobbyists, we should explain that that's going to be the challenge going forward is that if you do shift school later, then all the extracurricular activities are going to have to accommodate that new change and it may actually not end up with a a net of children getting to sleep in. So thank you, Mr. Ferguson and Vice Chair Bro. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure who to direct this question to, but in regard to House Bill 633 and Senate Bill 1236, are charter schools required to adhere to the class size requirements? Maybe I can answer ask general counsel or Yes, they are. They are. All right. So, if this bill is passed, then it would not be. All right. And secondly, in regard to

023a 4-day school week, um I've been having thoughts about that and I I overlooked House Bill 733 and Senate Bill 1112, but you say that, Madam CFO, you say that middle schools, if the bill is passed, if either bill is passed, middle school cannot start before 8:00 a.m. and then high school cannot start before 8:30. I guess hypothetically speaking, if we had a 4-day uh school week, so instead of having the the current the current school day is what is it, six hours? Is it six, seven, seven hours? Yeah, that would be question. It varies a little bit by level. Yes. Elementary schools typically go from 8 to 2. Yes. So, 6 hours. Um, middle schools go from like 9:30 to 350 or 4, you know, 405 or something like that. Yeah. Oh, and then

024middle and then high school is normally around 7:30 to 2:30. 2:45 2:45. So that's about 7 hours. So if we extended the the days by say 2 hours, um might that give us the ability to spread out the bus pickups as well? I know I'm just throwing this at you right now, but I am thinking that we might need to consider some cost-saving measures based on what you all are saying. And I think a 4-day school we can work with might be something. I know it's happening in other areas of the country. So, it's not like I came up with this idea, but it's working in other states and communities. So, we may want to look at that as a cost-saving measure. And it also might serve to give us some relief on some of

025these things that we have historical shortfalls and bus drivers and things of that nature. That's something. Yeah, I mean I think there's a lot of things that that have to be considered in there, including, you know, a lot of a lot of students work after after school. Um, a lot of students, a lot of parents have child care issues. So, if we were only open four days a week, they would have a struggle with that that fifth day. So, I think there's a lot of things to factor into that. Um, and from my perspective as a as the COO, how that affects um our employees, you know, a lot of people love our 4 day work weeks during the summer and some people don't because it's a longer day. Um, and uh, you know, I

026think there's there's a a balance that you have to factor out there. I think there's just a lot of things that we've got to consider included in that that I I probably haven't given enough time to think about. Let me give you a decent response at this point. I I would like is it appropriate for me to make a request of Mr. Sanchez in regard to bring this back to us at a later time. Mr. Superintendent make the request. I'd like us to have a workshop on the possibility and the viability of a 4-day work week and a school week in light of Mr. Mr. Superintendent and Mr. Sanchez and Miss Frederick. all have represented that you anticipate there being a shortfall. So if there are shortfalls then that means we can't continue doing business

027as we have historically. So I would like us to do a deep dive into the viability of of possibly having 4 day work week and 4 day school week. Mr. Ferguson, the board in the past has decided before we asked the superintendent to schedule a workshop that we get a consensus from the board that there's a majority of us that want to do it since we have so many workshops that are already in the works. So, um, the other board members want to weigh in on having a workshop on 4day work week. Mr. Whitfield, I'm very interested in the concept, but I'm wondering if it's really the number one priority. So, maybe we could have a workshop, but like maybe make it later in the fall or when it really becomes an issue. Mild and

028Mr. Anders. Okay. I I'm going to be making some other comments that would impact maybe that suggestion. So, I think that it's premature to ask for it. I think we need to talk about some other things first. Sanders. Yes. Uh I think we need to kind of get some more data of what's going on around the country. actually uh checking in with the Council of Great City Schools as well as in Florida, looking at the times uh and the bus situations at all of our other counties and bring that information back together so that before we begin a workshop, let's see what's out there first and then we'll kind of know exactly what might fit, what might not fit because this is impacting everybody in the state of Florida and maybe others around the country

029are doing some of these things. But if we can pull this information together first and kind of know where what's out there, then I think it would be a better uh time to talk about what we would need in the workshop. So, Mr. Superintendent, can you just get us some information on the 4day how it's working in other districts if if at all and and how they how large districts deal with the buses? Broward and Miami date must have the same shortage as us. Do they still have do they have the three tiers like we do for and can you just get us some information on the other districts what they're doing? Yes, absolutely. I think you know we want to be up to date on whatever innovative things are going on. The 4 day

030week depending on how you do it doesn't necessarily save money. Uh some districts, I think in other states have used it as a recruitment tool where it may be attractive to teachers that want to sign on for a 4-day week, but uh I've seen uh a couple schools in Broward run a 4-day week. Uh but then they on that Friday, they usually use it for some type of like tutorial program or something. But there's a lot of different ways it can be done. A lot to consider both with our employees, our parents, everybody. So we'll we'll start gathering of information and we can report back on like preliminary findings and see if that leads to a workshop. Okay, Miss Bro, you were next. Thank And so all these comments play into what I was going

031to talk about, but it's interesting. I just remembered that I did see something that there there's also a proposal, a pilot for year round schooling. So I mean it's it's all over the place. My comment actually was going to be that the House Bill 733 and Senate Bill 112 from what I understand is going to pass. Um even our senator supports it. Um but I was in Sarasota and I mentioned this to Mr. Burke a couple weeks ago I was in Sarasota and they to deal with their bus shortage now have I believe it's three staggered start times for middle school. So we may ultimately in addressing it rather than a 4 day week we may have to have you know staggered times because there's not going to be enough drivers. Um there's no way

032we're going to be able to do it. So I think that may creatively help us is having staggered school start times. We've had some in the past. Um, but I think that hearing from what the other districts, as Mrs. Andrews said, um, other districts, other large districts in in the state of Florida are going to be dealing with the same thing. So, I I would like to hear what they're doing. I'm really not sure that I would buy into the four days. Um, only because as a single working parent in the past, I would have found it extremely burdensome burdensome. And I also think that it's hard even when we shift to those extra hours for employees, but imagine a student, a young student spending more hours in school. They're going to burn out. So,

033um, I look forward to more discussion, but I do think we have to plan ahead. I believe that it's a fed plea. Would you like to continue? I think there's more hands up. I had my hand up. Go ahead. Thank you. I fully agree that we want information, but I'm hoping regarding the issue of shortened work, whatever. Um, I do think though I'd like for the superintendent to have the flexibility to determine how much staff time we want to spend on that. Now, that could even be part of a help us all a calendar workshop at a later date. But I know that staff are getting ready for so much as we end the school year. So even in terms of staff time, I'd like to suggest that we give him that flexibility for when

034he gets that information to us. Mrs. Andrews and Miss Ayella. Yes. And just like we did during the pandemic, how we actually got the community, the parents involved. So when we began to get this information, uh, just listening to them and what their ideas are. Some of them have wonderful ideas about how we need to do it. They've been talking about the times for a while. I don't know if this is going to pass, but if it is, we want to make sure we include uh our community, our parents, uh involved in their ideas about what we're discussing once we get all this information together. Then we can kind of come back and kind of hear the views of just a lot of different segments who will be impacted by this change if this passes.

035Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Question for the superintendent through the chair. Has there been any conversation you've been able to have with other large districts like Orange County already has places where start times are different for their schools? Have you spoken to their superintendent about the possibility of this legislation and how that's worked for them? Because in speaking to my colleagues from the Orange County School Board, this has created a lot of issues not only with transportation staffing, but also afterchool programs and just the overall day for parents and students. So, I have not had a recent conversation on this topic. Um, I recall Orange County a few years back attempted to change the start times and it wre havoc and they had to caused a lot of disruption and then they had to like

036I think go back to their previous times. But we'll we'll do our homework. This is a, you know, fortunately this legislation, uh, if it does pass, it affords us until 2026 to prepare and we're going to need that time because it's it's going to create some sizable challenges. Just a followup, this is 99.9% going to pass. It's a priority of the House Speaker. Okay. All right. You want to get back to where you were at? Okay. All right. So this is where I normally would have done the detailed line item review of all the different budget proposals. I'm just not able to do that at this point. You can see the difference um when you look at the the first uh three rows, that's the unweighted FTE. So between the House and the and the

037Senate, you can see the difference in the FTE is um 40,000 students. Uh the other difference between the house and senate proposal is the senate is actually pulling out um the vouchers students u from the FFP and why that would be and the house is keeping the u the vouchers within um the FEFP and and within the district FFP. When you look at our unweighted FTE, I always tell you, look, there's a growth, it says, of of 6,000 students, but that's district operated schools, charter schools, as well as FES. If the Senate's proposal prevails, it would only be district operated schools and charter schools. FES would no longer be part of our FTE. Why that would be beneficial is if the number of voucher students is higher than what's anticipated when we had a pr-rated

038holdback, we wouldn't have that same reduction within our district operated schools and charter schools because the the vouchers would be a completely separate line item. So that's why we are um supportive of the Senate proposal. it's just cleaner um by keeping and and breaking out um the vouchers um from um the the student population. Uh within the the next uh when if you go down to the the gray bar, highlighted bar is that's the base student allocation, you can see under the house proposal, it looks like there's a 16.5% increase in the base student allocation going up $761. That's not really accurate because all that's doing is taking money from the categoricals and pushing them up into the base student allocation. So you can see the categoricals under the House proposals is down by almost

03920%. Uh when you move over to the Senate proposal showing a 4% increase in the base student allocation of $182. Um the categoricals um are up slightly. Um overall the Senate uh proposal is up nearly $388. um per student almost 5%. Um the House proposal it says it's up 5.5% but they don't have enough students included um within the total FTE. So if you take that into consideration it really would end up resulting in a reduction. Um so we keep monitoring you know on a daily basis you know to to get updated budget information. We haven't stopped our budget process. we had to proceed, you know, so we are now building our budget based on the governor's proposal and then we will make adjustments um as uh we get closer to the the conference. Uh

040this is shows our historical enrollment of the district. Um the blue bar is for district operated schools. The orange is for charter schools. The gray is Mccay that morphed into family empowerment vouchers. Uh the uh voucher program started in 2020. Um so you can see that we had um an increase from 2020 to 2021 of um 600 students approximately within the or a little more than that within the voucher program. And that's grown um to nearly 8,000 in FY23. When you compare the three different proposals right now between we'll just leave the governor's proposals off, but and looking at the House proposal, the House is only proposing an increase in vouchers to 12,000 students, whereas the Senate is proposing that the increase in vouchers in Palm Beach County schools would be 17,400 in 2024. And

041and the reason why there's a difference between the House and Senate proposal is the the Senate um there was a survey that was sent out to all the private schools that are currently not participating within the voucher program asking if they would participate this upcoming year and 30% more said that they would participate. So the Senate that's why the Senate has a higher amount of vouchers than the House proposal. We are are expecting them to somewhat align when the conference report um comes out. Um that would mean that you know by 2025 that vouchers would exceed the number of charter school students within our district in five years when it took uh charter schools over 20 years to get to over 20,000. So it just shows just that exponential um increase in each year. And

042these voucher students really are students that most likely would not have been public school students. So it's just increasing the number of students that are being funded uh within um the FFP formula. And so it's going to dilute that funding. So we have to make sure that the state continues to fund education at the current level. Did you say that um 30% of the charter the private schools responded that they would participate? 30% more of the ones that were are not currently participating would participate next year. So in order to participate the money goes to the chart goes to the private school for that particular student. It doesn't go to the parent first. No, it goes directly to the the private school is my understanding. So I can't imagine that all the kids that are

043at St. Andrews and the other schools, especially down in Bokeh, their parents are not going to say, "Listen, headmaster, we want to part want you to participate because it's reduces our tuition from the $30,000 to 28 or whatever, 22 or whatever." So I think that's, you know, we're being very conservative if we just think that it's going to be just at a 30% increase. I I know you were just gone by what you were told, but I think it could be disastrous when everybody starts figuring out that, you know, their $30,000 tuition is now being reduced by a fourth because of the additional money available. I do agree with you. Um and and I do expect, you know, over everybody's not going to be aware of this in the first year of the new expanded

044u or the release of some of the restrictions. So, it is going to just grow exponentially. Mr. Mr. Ferguson, thank you. Mr. Mr. Frederick, did you say that the Senate proposal would have that that that voucher to the to the private school se as a separate line item so it would not necessarily or more directly affect the the dollars that go to our students? Did I hear you correctly? Yes, it would be broken out as a separate line item with a set a dollar amount um set aside. Um and then as well as an additional reserve of um it was $300 million if the the number exceeds whatever was estimated. So they would also have a set aside reserve to cover that increase as well. So under the Senate proposal, the voucher program would not

045be as debilitating to the district as the House proposal would be. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The education is funded in the state of Florida through state sales tax as well as property taxes. And uh just wanted to to give an update as to where the projected uh school taxable values. We're looking at another double-digit increase um in the upcoming year of 13.6%. This has not been certified u but we are looking at another um large increase. That doesn't mean that we're getting it our funding per student funding from the state does not align to the increases in uh school pro uh property values, but it does impact our referendum as well as our discretionary mill as well as the the capital budget. Um so it is uh beneficial to see that

046we are continuing to see an increase in property values because there were some concerns that property values might dip. Um but after um 2024 we are looking to just get back into nor more normal increases of two to 5%. I mentioned that we went through our department budget reviews since there is so much uncertainty within the budget. Uh we wanted to be um very um restrictive and conservative in in what changes we were looking to make within our departments. Uh the most significant changes are around uh behavioral supports um to the students. Uh we're looking to add uh 21 positions, additional SLPs, family counselors, resource teachers, uh school psychologists, behavioral analysts, behavioral health professionals, and threat assessment um specialists um to provide additional um supports for the students, help with um compliance with the state

047mandates as well as during COVID COVID, we've as a result of the pandemic, we've seen a a lot of the students coming in, the younger students just need have additional needs and so we do need to add some additional supports to to help um with those um identifying those those younger students. Uh we're looking to expand the middle school after school program that we currently have in place to our K8 programs. Um it's something that it's kind of always been a mix as to some have the program and some don't. We we feel that it's important to expand it to all the K8 programs so they're treated equally. um adding a library media services um uh staff member. We've had there's been so many state mandates of changes with the classroom libraries and the instructional

048materials, you know, that just adding one person is conservative. They they the department needs the additional supports. Um looking to add a purchasing manager as well as insurance um tracking software. We've had significant increase in volume in our purchasing. Um, so we need some additional supports within the purchasing department. Um, we're looking to add a HR specialist to assist with training with all the additional state mandates. Um, that department is producing all of the um online trainings for all the the school sites and so they need an additional uh staff person to help develop and um continue to update those trainings. um adding a communication specialist um because we need additional supports with recruitment and retention of um uh students um as well as our um employees. And then we had overall just increases in

049normal uh operating costs, increases in our software, increases in career costs. We pick up money have to pick up money at each of the school sites. We're seeing a increase in the cost to the vendors, record storage. Um so just general um increases. So next Mrs. Andrews, then Miss Burl, I'm pretty excited about the middle school uh after school program. That's a that's a great one. I love them all, but that's a great one. But I want to go back to um the vouchers again and and the the private schools that I did. I know of the big private schools out there, but there are a lot of small private uh religious schools and do we have a list of all of those places across Palm Beach County because now with the monies that's coming

050in from the state and then I I would just like to know where they're located because I'm sure we have children already attending these schools, but then many parents will be looking at this now as a possibility to maybe move their children to some of these smaller uh private uh schools that are within our district. So, do we know all of them where they are? Because there are a lot of them all over. Sometimes I'm riding around and I look up and I say, "Oh, this is a private school or a church school." So, do we actually do some level of recruiting to know where those schools are in what neighborhoods? And now that this money is flowing, are we going to be able to do some marketing to help us out with this? So

051there is a list on the uh department of education website of all the private schools and which schools are participating um because there are um they can a a private school can participate in just part of the vouchers, not all. So they could accept it for regular students but not um special needs students. Um so they it the list does tell which schools participate and which vouchers they're accepting. Could Could we get get what it is for Palm Beach County? Yeah, they do have it by um by county. They have it throughout the state. Yeah, if we could get that printed and and just maybe uh through the chair to the superintendent for marketing purposes and explaining to parents who are talking about the vouchers now and their children and how this is impacting them.

052Do are we going to have a plan to help us out because we want to keep our children in our Palm Beach County school district schools? They're the best. Absolutely. We agree with you. And I just wanted to we shared this with the board uh earlier today, but this was just a publication put out by the uh business development board that highlights our A-rated public schools and uh you you'll see more of that along with our kindergarten uh roundup that's taking place right now. Thank you, Vice Chair Bro. Thank you. So, Mrs. Andrews mentioned the key word that I was going to talk about, and that's marketing. And so to the superintendent through the chair, um I'd like to see us figure out um additional money for communication for marketing because we've been talking about

053how in order to counteract what's going on with the vouchers, we need to market ourselves as the best choice. So I do think we need to beef up the communication department budget because it the burden's going to fall on them and I think we need to think about some creative ways to do it. So, I am asking um the superintendent through the chair to take a look at that budget and if there's more funds that are needed to push into the communications, I think now is the time to do it. I I support that and I would be happy to do so. We'll bring that forward. You know, I I was at the leadership bokeh at West Bokeh High School where where all the business 40 business people came in and they were totally shocked

054by the academy programs. They had no idea what we do in our schools. So, I mean, I don't know how we're missing the mark on this, but um when you have 40 business leaders in the room that have no idea that we have medicalies and you know, all these differentmies in our schools, there's got to be a way to get that message out there because I go to that leadership bokeh breakfast every single year and it's always the same story. They have no clue that we have these academy programs. So, again, we need to we need to figure out a way to get get to the business community, let them know what we're doing. maybe television ads for I know we I don't think we've ever done that but maybe that's something we should take

055a look at just as a followup if I may is just you know perhaps we need to create a new position called marketing manager so just throw that out there as something some food for thought um yes and you know I would say that it's not due to a lack of trying right we I think our communications team does a wonderful job pushing out videos weekly you know we got the Friday five uh we're putting tons of material out on social media, but that's that's only reaching a limited audience that's already engaged with us. Uh I'm out and about in the community. I actually had a conversation with the economic council yesterday where they they lended they had an interest in maybe trying to help us with some of this marketing. Um so I agree

056the time has come and uh we'll make it happen and it's it's an investment at this point that we will get a return on when we you know recruit and retain more students. So I don't incur the wrath of Claudia. Um, I didn't mean that that that department is not doing an excellent job. I just think there's something we're missing somewhere that we're not getting the message out. So, I think the communications division does a super job. So, me, too. I think it's the media buys that we've refrained from doing just because we're costconcious, but you know, uh, it's it's not all that expensive and we're, you know, we've done some of that with the kindergarten uh, transition program and it's seems to be successful. So, we're keep going. Mrs. Whifffield. Thanks. This actually um

057gets to my discussion item later, so I'll just mention it now and then, you know, if you want to still talk about it later, we can. Um the reason I had put an idea for a school dashboard was because I was kind of wondering, you know, what is it what is it like when a parent wants to move here? How they decide um which school to go to, where to buy their house, you know, whether or not they want to participate in our system or if they want to be in a charter private school. And so I was looking up and down the state at different communities and I would go and I'd look for house prices and then I would look for what school you'd end up in. Um it just cuz I wanted

058to see what it would be like. And then I did it for our community too and I wanted to see what what information is out there. Um, and if you are a parent and you have a medium amount of knowledge about what you're looking for in a school, um, and for me that would be, I think, you know, reading scores, math scores, you know, what what do people think about that school? Um, the best place to find it is actually the USA Today website that they have. Um, if you look at that, you they actually put together a dashboard for each one of the schools in the country. Um, and you can see things like um, you know, reading scores, math scores, number of people who are minority, free and reduced lunch percentages, things like

059that. And I thought it was a shame that the people that are speaking best on our data is a news organization that has nothing to do with us. Um, and I know a lot of people like to look at that great city schools thing, too. So, um, the idea that I had, which we can talk about later, related to this is that we should be putting our own information out there. Um, if you go to our websites for every school, you just don't get the quality information that I think we need um to be able to make uh an informed decision about the schools. And when people call me, it's like I can't can't really blame them for not understanding that the school in their neighborhood is a great school when the information that's out

060there is really either provided by a third party or really scant um you know, not it's not really telling you what you actually want to know. So that's the discussion item I had for later basically related to this. But as we're talking marketing, I think we need to put money into selling our schools ourselves um on our website or on some sort of a dashboard. Vice Chair Bro, thank you. So speaking as a realtor, please don't tell people to buy a home based upon the school that they're zoned for. I spend all my time when I go to realtor meetings telling people, "No, there are choice options. There are other things you can do. You don't want to have a person buying a home in a community and then we do boundary changes. So, we

061we can talk more about the dashboard later, but I I just wanted to add that I'm sure I'm not the only one that gets mail pieces all the time. I get mail pieces from private schools, from charter schools. I know there's a cost involved and I know that's why we haven't done that, but putting things on our website, um going to the meetings that we go to and talk about our schools does not reach everybody. So, you know, I think we're going to have to maybe, you know, leave it to the superintendent definitely to come up with some strategies, but I think we need to put the money into the marketing that there's going to have to be mail pieces. There's going to have to be newspaper ads for those that read newspapers. There may

062television ads. And so, we're going to have to really put some money into it because we're not reaching the average citizen. And the average person doesn't go to our website. So, we need to find another way to reach them. Mrs. McQuinn and Mrs. Whitfield, just want to piggyback on that. The average person does not go to our website. So, we have to reach them some other way. I'm sitting here thinking exactly what Mrs. Bril just said. The other thing that I just would say related to marketing and I know this isn't the conversation but it is definitely pertinent to the idea of spending money on a position um within the budget is um I really want to see us giving vibrant amazing tours to parents who want to go to a school. I think gone

063are the days where we can just assume that people in the community know what's great about a school or it's been talked about and I think we have to be willing to show it off. So, like every school I've gone to visit, I always ask the principal, "Have you um is this something that you show on your tours?" And the general response I get is, "Oh, we don't do tours." And I'm like, "Why not? How are people going to know that this school has these great facilities like you're talking about in Bokeh, the the things that they haven't seen if we're not setting that up as a as a time for, you know, a parent to feel comfortable going in?" Um, I was telling Mr. Burke this the other day when I was deciding which

064high school to go to, cuz I went to a choice school. It was a magnet school at the time. Um the school district actually put me on a bus on my normal bus route to each one of these schools and I spent the day um this is as an eighth grader shadowing a ninth grader at three different schools. So I went to Hollandale, I went to Boyd Anderson, I went to Elely and Broward and I spent the entire day with a student getting to know the school and seeing how it felt to be in that school. And that's how I made my decision was based on which school did I feel most comfortable in. So, I wasn't showing up on the first day of school in a community that I didn't know with people that

065I've never met. I at least felt some sort of connection to that school. And I think that's the kind of things that we need to bring back is those experiences. So, when a parent saying, "Am I ready to send my kid, you know, 30 minutes down the road to a choice school because of this amazing program? I've been there. I've seen it. I've met the teachers, you know, I've seen other students and I have that comfort level so that they because they're getting that at the private schools. they're getting the tour. They're getting the opportunity to to meet the other students and and see that. And so I think that's the kind of competition that we that we have to be ready to fight too. Okay. So now um getting into the the capital budget

066um there is uh House Bill 1259 and Senate Bill 1328 related to sharing our um capital outlay funding with charter schools. Shows sharing the 1.5 mills. Um there's two different proposals between um the House and the Senate. Um so the House um continues to offset and use the the PICO dollars um to offset the amount that we would pass through. Um the Senate does not. Um the Senate is proposing to limit charters operated by nonprofits, although they don't really define what operated by nonprofit means because there is a degree as to how involved management companies are. And then it would the Senate proposal is also only for would only impact initially large school districts for those school districts with enrollment of over 100,000 students. And it would be phased in um over a a 4-year

067period. Um so depending on which version passes and and what ends up um within um you know what what they actually can compromise and agree on can range anywhere from $189 million to $427 million loss from the capital budget over a 10-year period. Our construction projects um for FY23, you've seen this before this slide before. These are the projects right now that are in the capital plan. And so it's just an overview to show we always um start with what we have within the plan. And now I'm going to pass it over to Mr. Sanchez to go over the next two slides. Thank you, Mr. Frederick. So, as um was pointed out by the superintendent early on, um there's some major construction projects that we would like to add and we try to add every

068year when we do we update the cap the five-year capital plan. But as Miss Frederick has pointed out with the pending legislation which may impact the 1.5 mills that we currently get and could possibly be siphoned off and go to charter schools um and plus the impact of enrollment um we which we don't know because of the vouchers we we recommending at this point that we hold off on um these uh these projects. Um first one is the phase two for historic Roosevelt and historic harbor. I know that these are two uh historically African-American communities and we want to do something at those those locations. We already have phase one projects going on, a phase one project going on at historic Roosevelt, the center of design. Carver is just about wrapping up now. Um but

069we want to do more. Um they are working with the the city of West Palm Beach and the city of Delray Beach to um expand the programs um and also recognize the historic significance of those facilities. um the warehouses, Australian and um McKessan, we want to do something with those. Uh both of those are over 40-year facilities that need ma massive work, but again, there's not we don't have the confidence in the the funding that get to get those done. Um Westlake Elementary School is a project that or Westlake Area Elementary School. We're looking to uh add to the the program. um that community is continuing to grow, but it's not growing as fast as as the Ardan community is um where we are looking to do an elementary school in that location. So, we're

070going to hold off on that one. And then River Beach Area High School as well um an area that uh we we we don't have the justification for the number of students at this point. I know there's a a big interest in providing some equity to the students, but uh again because of funding concerns, um we're looking to to hold that one off at at this time, too. Um so, we just feel that um um you know, working with our finance team that uh just adding more debt is just not a wise decision at this point because every all the debt the debt payments that we make takes away from our ability to pay for roofing projects and painting projects and security projects and stuff like that. So um at this time we're talking we're

071looking to hold off on those. There are a number of um smaller projects that we are looking to move forward with at this point. Um see the demolition of old PMOSA site that school we relocated Pimosa years and years ago. Um the old buildings there um we we need to demolish. We can't demolish all the buildings because there are some buildings there that are I think less than 15 years old that we can't demolish. Um but the majority of them we can and we want to make sure we reduce that the liability for the district there. Um looking for artificial turfs. Um we have some equity issues there. Um baseball and softball lighting. We only have a couple of schools I think three schools that do not have lighting and for equity purposes we want

072to get those digital mares. There was a lot of talk about marketing just a few minutes ago. Um this is a good way for us to reach um um the communities. We already have in our five-year capital plan for secondary schools. Um but we don't have it for elementary schools and we we're going to do those roof replacements. We can't give up intercom replacements. This is both for this is really a primarily not just communications issue but a security issues um that we want to replace our older intercoms with Epic systems. um painting and waterproofing again just to extend the life of our facilities by making sure that we don't we we prevent water intrusion from getting into them. electrical upgrades. Uh again, safety security issues and our um and our security projects we're going

073to make sure we address. We've talked about in close session some of these projects already, the BDAS, metal detectors, uh security vestibues, um and the window film that we want to put on our first floor windows to provide additional uh protection for our school. So all those things are looking that we're we're going forward with as well as the instructional technology um positions we're looking to add right with adding the um the EP epic uh intercom replacement as well as uh we have the touchcreens um in each of the schools. Our warranty has service has now expired and so now we need to bring that service internally. Um, but we're going to crossrain the individuals from Epic um to be able to work on Epic as well as the the flat screen maintenance. May ask

074a question back on I think it's slide 13, but it's not numbered, so I'm not sure, but it's the one you have construction projects from the fisc year 23 capital plan after the south intensive modernization. It's the only one in that list that doesn't have a date. When when is that scheduled to be done? That's next summer. Uh yeah, it'll be be done next next summer. Uh 2024 opening, right? 24 opening. Yes. So it will not be available for the 2024 August August 2024 school year. Yeah, it will be. Yes, it will be. Yes. So it's going to be done this, right? August 2024 be open. Okay. Mrs. Whitfield, I just want to ask a question about South Intensive as well. Um it's actually more of the old Southtech part. You know, when you go

075kind of to the south of the buildings between the um bus area and the um main buildings that we're currently using, there's that what used to be, I guess, like an automotive bays and things like that. When I went by there recently, it was it was like a kind of a dumping zone for a lot of our old garbage and all of the glass had been broken, I guess, vandalized. Are we trying to close that? at least seal it. Yeah. To try those are going to be closed off uh by the end of next week. We've already had a project well underway. I'm so glad to hear that. Thank you so much. Let me go go back to my question if I might. Um you can't get that done any sooner than a year from

076now? Yeah, we we've made commitments to the school that we would make certain improvements so that we can improve what what they currently have, including uh a portable restroom um and some other I forget the other things that we're looking to do. But that those priority issues, we're going to we're we're tackling those um as quickly as we possibly can. So So you but in terms of renovating that space and getting it back to where it needs to be so it has another 25 years life to it. Yeah, we need we need a year to do that. But it was being used until the day South Tech moved out of there. I mean, was it in that bad a condition that the kids weren't even not safe while they were in there? It was it

077was one of the worst condition schools. Um, still viable, but uh it's it's also uh in some disrepair. Now, the other thing you got to point out is that the the utilities that are servicing the building that we're going to save have to be completely rerun because we're demolishing a bunch of buildings. So that whole process takes takes some time to do as well. All right. I mean, I was inside that building when I was over there at South Intensive and I mean, the place has been destroyed inside. I mean, there's stuff turn deaths turned over. It looks like it looks like it's been used for gang wars. I mean, I don't know what the security is for those buildings, but they certainly don't look like they were when South moved out of there. So,

078something's going on there that inside those buildings because they're a wreck. Insulation's been ripped out of the ceiling. It's laying on the floor. I mean, it's a mess in there. Yeah. We do all we can to preserve our buildings to keep people out of them for safety reasons, but you know, we we can't if somebody's determined to get in, they're going to get in one way or another. Okay. All right. Mr. Ferguson, what's what is gained by putting a project on hold? What financial benefit is that to the district to put a project on hold? Well, if we don't have the money to do the project, then we can't afford to do it. That's simply point. Yeah, I would I mean Mr. Frederick can probably help me out, but I would just see the some

079of those projects are predicated on the district borrowing money to pay for them. And um we're questioning if the ability to take on more debt if there's a chance that we're going to lose a chunk of our revenue stream to charter schools. At what point is the money borrowed in relation to when the project is expected to be completed? We have to be getting pretty close to uh we need to have the contract executed and start incurring the expenses that go along with that project. And Miss Frederick, you want to it would be, you know, it's not immediate, but it's in pretty short order once the project gets underway. What is guys, I don't want to take this like we're in court. Help me. What does that mean? Because that means something different to me.

080What is the timeline? So if a project is expected to be done by say August of 2030, let's look at the West Delray area elementary school K8, August 2030, presumably the district is going to borrow funds for that. Presumably, uh when would those funds be borrowed month and year? What I would say was when you're looking at our capital plan, the capital plan has to be balanced. We have to have we have to have a 5-year capital plan for uh state regulatory purposes. we actually build out a 10-year capital plan. So, we have to have a revenue stream sufficient to cover what the expenses are going to be. So, we can't just add a project in without adding in how we're going to pay for it. I appreciate your answer, but you're not answering my

081question. I'm asking you specifically as to West Delory area because I'm just going to say staff, sometimes you all kind of talk around things. I'm asking the question that I actually am insisting on having answered. So in regard to West Dory Area Elementary School K8, for example, it's is scheduled to be opened in August of 2030. So when would the funds be borrowed for said project? We can go back and look at that particular project, but it's going to be prior to the start of the construction of the building. And the construction based on my communication with Mr. Sanchez, please correct me if I'm wrong, most of these projects are roughly two years in in time, right? So, we would probably then borrow the money sometime in 2028. Would that be a reasonable assumption on

082my part? Yeah, correct. All right. So, in regard to the monies that are supposedly lost, House Bill 1259 and Senate Bill 1328, we estimate, we're estimating, we don't know yet because we haven't actually seen what drainoff there is, but we estimate that the loss would be somewhere between 18.9 million and 42.7 million per year. Correct. That's that's what the I mean we'll know it's it's going to be based on the chart school enrollment and our tax role. Um so currently chart schools represent about 11% of our population. So that's 11% of the of the revenue. And then depending on what the tax base does each year. Sure. That tells us how much 1.5 mills generates. But I I do just want to re reiterate what Miss Frederick said. The difference between the Delray project and

083some of these other things that we're talking about let's hold off on is that was part of the plan. and we're trying to honor the current capital plan. And u I'm going to get there. Okay, I don't want to make this a deposition, but if you all keep saying that, then we might be here for a minute. I'm just really trying to get up to speed, speak the same language that you all are speaking, because clearly we're speaking a different language. Now, as far as House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 202, what do we estimate the loss to our coffers to be once in and starting next school year? It's really not we're not in a position to answer that just yet because what plays out between the House and Senate budget is going to

084have a major impact. But it's But you told me that I I want to put it on the record though. There was a number that was expressed to me that we estimate that it was going to be a certain number over the next 10 years. I'm asking you all to say it on the record now. I'll say it on the record right now. Currently, we have about $80 million in Palm Beach County going to vouchers. Okay. Uh that could grow by 40 to 80 to $200 million. and that this the rate of the speed of that growth is indeterminate right now and the action that the legislature takes to craft their budget is going to be a driving variable in this and um so it's really we're doing our best to estimate the what we

085expect to happen and this budget this budget will come to you for adoption we'll t of adoption late July final adoption in early September and we'll continue to like refine our estimates and projections on the base based on the best information available. I appreciate that. So if we say every so over 10 years 40 to 200 million my math says that's about another 4 million to 20 million potentially coming out of our coffers because of that. No, that's per year. I didn't know that. No, no, that's No, the up to 200 million is a year. Oh, 200 per year. Thank you. Yeah, I know. That's that's where if you look at the Senate proposal right now, it's $80 million being passed through for vouchers. The Senate proposal is that's going to double to $160 million.

086And as Mr. Barbieri said, that seems low because that's just assuming that 30% of the private schools are now going to participate. That's the uncertainty that we're looking at. I appreciate that. Now, questions in regard to Scripps Garden Area School, which is scheduled to be built in August of 2028. That was put on the construction calendar presumably back in 2018. I'm assuming it's the 04A means it was originally conceived of in 2004. 2004, right? All right. And so that what area of gardens is that school intended to support as far as what population of gardens? That is um it's the donors community. Yeah, it's it's Yeah. Uh um uh Alton Alton. Yeah. Cuz I recall um board member McQuinn saying, "Hey, we're talking about building this school, but we could easily house not easily, but

087we could house the students that we anticipate housing at Scripps Gardening area." I'm sorry, I'm looking at the high school. I apologize. It's not even on here right now. I thought we were discussing a a school being constructed in Gardens. I apologize. That's a fraudian slip. I thought we were talking about a Gardens High School, but it's not here right now. Let me move on to the Western Community High School 16A. Where where is that anticipated being built? That's in the Lockahhatche area. In the Lockahhatche area. And then West Boon. I think I know where that one is. I've read this book before. This is the same book um that the notes from meetings back 101 15 years ago were saying that we have a short financial shortfall. Let's shell things. Um and this Riviera

088Beach High School was one of those very same things. So when I hear someone say that on the slide 1421, we want to hold off on this uh until future years based on enrollment need. Well, the board, a duly constituted board of of colleagues said over 20 years ago that there was a need for this school. Mind you, River Beach and Lake Worth are effectively the same size based on my internet search um as far as that goes. So, I still struggle um with this narrative that there's no need for if the standard is that the school is to maybe have a population of 2500 or more. Okay. I I don't know what to tell you about that. Um I don't believe late worth currently is going to have a population that large next year

089and I'm only picking late picking on Lake Worth in that regard if picking is even the right word because the population of the cities are fairly comparable and also the number of high school age students who live in those cities based on the information I received from staff which again I appreciate you all for always doing such a good job of answering and providing that data. Those are pretty comparable. So when you talk about equity and things of that nature, Rivier Beach High School needs to be on the budget, be on the construction calendar. Now, Mr. Sanchez and I had a conversation just to share with all with all the board. Realistically, it's not something that would even be completed until sometime in 2030 or 2031 because there's there's some moving chairs that would need

090to happen in Riviera Beach in order to make that that feasible. Um, so that's that's something that speaks out to me. Also, what you also should know is that the vultures, which are prospective charter schools, are hovering around in Riviera Beach. Now, I'm representing this to you all. You all are welcome. As I've said before, I don't own the city, obviously. So, if you want to kind of query the the families and things of that nature in Rivier Beach, you can. But if you continue to be souful with this thing, you're going to actually cost this us the district much more money in the future because you're going to see a large siphoning off of I'm representing this to you. going to see a fairly large siphoning off of our students going to charter schools

091and things of that nature because people are, for lack of a better term, tired of being sent all across Palm Beach County to go to school. So when you tell me that there's no need, my day-to-day interaction with the constituents in Rivera Beach flies in the face of that. Also, when I look at the data that's that's here in the district, it also flies in the face of that. We can't. This is a challenging job. You all have very challenging jobs. Our jobs are not as challenging as yours, but it's challenging nevertheless because we're, you know, elected officials and obviously, you know, we have voters that tell us that haven't told me that yet, but I'm sure it's coming at some point. We voted you in, we'll vote you out. But I think we have

092to be bold in our action. I think more lost from indecision than wrong decision. And I and personally I feel that this district was indecisive in the decisions that were made to shove TripleM some years ago. And as a result you now have a cost what is Mr. Sanchez somewhere between 60 and 75 million if the school were constructed under under today's construction cost when before when if it were if it were built 12 to 14 years ago. I'm pretty sure I thought I saw somewhere in the 30s maybe. So, we're costing ourselves by constantly kind of kicking this can down the road and we're not serving the parties who we should be serving, which are those students. They happen to live in Riviera Beach, but they need this school. Also, I would tell you

093that this business about shelving Roosevelt, old historic Roosevelt and historic Harvard, I also would represent to you that that really should be a non-starter because the reason that those schools are in such a dilapidated state is because again, year after year after year, we ignored those schools and now they're almost imploding and falling in on themselves. And so, I applaud Superintendent Burke and you, Mr. Sanchez and other staff members for for having the discussions with the community stakeholders to get things done there. We can't go back and just put it back on the shelf again. I think that's not equitable. Um I think that would be us dropping the ball in terms of what our responsibilities are. And so even if you have to borrow and with due respect Miss Frederick I recall back in

094December you mentioned to me that um the whole concept of borrowing to construct that's something that we we've been doing. So to have to borrow more money now that's not really a particular game changer or something different from the system that we've been utilizing. So I'm concerned that we're using that as a shield toward against doing something that that needs to be done um as far as that goes. And then lastly in regard to Well, Mr. Sorry. No, that was me. While you were looking for something, I was ask if I could be recognized, but that's okay. Yeah. Last thing, board member McQuinn, and then this visit about Opamosa. I mean, you recommend that we move forward on that. Those of you who had a meeting with me, you know why I represent to you

095that failure to construct a high school in Riviera Beach um the need for a school in Riviera Beach is as if not more more immediate than the demolition of old Pamosa. I would submit to you that constructing and renovating um renovating the old Roosevelt High School and also the old historic Carver High School are equally more important than the demo of Old Plumosa. But we seem to see that as being important. Um I just think that's interesting. I think you have a question about something I'm saying, Mr. Sanchez. demo yet. I'm just saying the the the price difference between demoing over and building new high schools. The demo is not but the demo is because of the nuisance and liability. Correct. And it's something that you obviously believe needs to be done. We don't need

096to air all that out right now. But those of you who were in the meeting with me, you know what I what I expressed you and showed to you. and it it wasn't was not even on the on the on the list for to be demoed until it was brought to your attention. So, you followed my rep my representation in that regard and I'm representing to you and I'm asking you cuz obviously I'm just one vote of seven. We need to construct the school in Riviera Beach. We need to do a deep dive. Stop kicking the can down the road workshop after workshop after workshop. It's not rocket science as far as that goes. And you all are highly intelligent people. you're really good at what you do, you can make the numbers work out.

097You're estimating you're you're anticipating taking a loss. So maybe that's the problem. I don't generally anticipate losing in anything. So we're estimating that people are just going to kind of the money is just going to run out the front door. I get some of it's going to go to private schools. Um it's going to run out the door to charter schools. And if that money runs out, then we won't have the money to comfortably and safely construct. Well, maybe we need to stop trying to be so safe. Maybe we need to be out there in kind of a uh an uncomfortable space. Maybe that's what our people or our society is asking us to do because otherwise, like I said, in Riviera Beach, you have persons that are positioning themselves right now to set up

098this little charter school, charter school here, charter school there, and then you're going to find you're going to see that we're going to start losing population. And I would not be surprised to see that moving south into West Palm into Delray and Boon. So that in 10 years when you think that you would be ready to construct and do right by these communities, there'll be no need there. Well, there been there truly would be no ability there because you won't have the money and we know that the money tends to follow with the students. So I'm asking uh you superintendent Burke and staff to really take a to reconsider what you're proposing because most of the board members here are going to take this take this as pretty much gospel. If you say we need

099to shove something, then we'll shove it in these in these areas. They're not familiar with these areas. I am. And I'm saying to you that we're doing a disservice to our overall school system if we continue to kick this can down the road. It's already been kicked down for 15 years. We're going to kick it another 15 years. We'll all be long and gone in rocking chairs. And I think that's not that's not right and we're not doing right by our students, which is the party that we should be most concerned about. We keep kicking this down. I'm sorry. I know that I went long. I I didn't ask a thousand questions, but this is something that's serious and you all really need to kind of take a look at these sites. They're just names

100on paper to you all. Maybe that's the problem. Come and see. Come see these areas and then you might feel a certain way. You might be kind of riled up the way I am too. And I sorry about that, Mr. Chair, but this needs to get done. We can't keep kicking this down the street. I don't know how many times I got to say it before somebody really looks at it, but it's not just it's not just numbers and projections. These there people's lives that are at stake here. and we're doing them a huge disservice by just saying we're going to shove this until another day or workshop it sometime down the future when it's not too inconvenient for everybody here in the in the in the room. Mrs. McQuinn, is it time for me

101now? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Don't think this slide too long. Almost lost track of what I wanted to say, but it's coming back and I refuse to be insulted by the fact that some of us don't know Riviera Beach. Um, I was going to ask the question, um, and I've spoken to the superintendent about this. The Western Communities High School 16A, I kind of referenced this some time ago. Um, and I don't want that to be that's the point I was offended at is assuming that we just take what's given to us like we're dummies and don't pay attention to it. We do given the opportunity to speak and so I referenced again and I was being a little facicious about Green Acres but not really. I would not be comfortable with us saying, "Yeah,

102we're going to build a western communities high school for the Lockahhatchee area without looking at what is the distance they would be on a bus to I'm Dwire, then bumping kids to Palm Beach Gardens. I don't care how it goes. I'm just using examples right now. But what would be the difference in that commute with what we're sending from Riviera Beach? Let's say the southern part of Riviera Beach to William T Dwire High School. Let's let's not totally put the burden on Riviera Beach students. Why do I want to know that the numbers are right to have 16A of Western Communities High School? We've done it within Garcia. what have we gone through and getting students to want to go there. So, let's let's not look at just where the population is. Let's look at

103how can we be creative rather than just oh wait, we said we were going to build this in 2029. Is that really the best thing to do? So, I would like to look out of the box at that. So, I'm hoping that by putting this here on this page that we're not committing to that because I'm if we are I don't commit to that. I realize we're not voting tonight anyway, but no, I won't commit to that in the future without more information. So, um in respect to my colleague, please know that there are other ones of us looking carefully at that issue. Mrs. Andrews, thank you. Um, and I think we have to look at everybody in every area. The land has already been uh decided for the Western Communities High School 16A. Uh,

104when we look at the overcrowding at Wellington High School and you're talking about uh the Western Communities, even with the Garcia, we're still many of these high schools that are in District 6 are already over capacity. We saw this with all of the demographics years ago. This is why that school site off of North Lake, West North Lake Boulevard in the acreage area was set aside. It's not going to nothing's going to happen before 20 uh 20 uh uh 2030 or but we knew that that whole area, you look at the Ardan area, you have so many houses, so many people moving almost west to 20 mile bin. I don't know how many of you drive that way, but I drive that way almost two and three times a week going to the Glaze region.

105So, we are growing. We're Palm Beach County School District. We're the 10th largest school district in the county in the in the uh country and the bottom line, people are moving here left and right. So, the western communities is exploding and this is why that land uh was set aside. Certainly, I don't have any problems with us looking at the the sizes, the demographics, the needs. This is why we have two elementary schools coming. Uh I was just going to mention to uh the the the team here, the staff that with the Ardan, I mean, you know, we the land is there for that elementary school. We don't have the money yet, but you know, the people are asking me every day, when are we getting our elementary school? I was just meeting with the

106mayor of Westlake because the land is there, but we have to look at the big picture. The children are there. a lot of their children in art and almost every last one of them are being busted to to Wellington. Uh the Wellington area binks Wellington landings is overcrowded. Wellington High School is overcrowded. So when you look at that Western Communities High School 16A, it's because of the the growth in the area. So I don't have any problems with anybody going back and reviewing that again and talking about the need because it is a need. But one of my questions I wanted to bring up through the chair to the superintendent and I work closely with Chris Garrison. I'm working closely with the mayors and these communities and we're talking about communications as we speak. We

107need to as we look at our budget and look at the plans for the future for schools for where we're going within the growth of Palm Beach County School District. Uh to communicate with the mayors. I would like for us I don't know if we have representation at the League of Cities. I brought it up once before, but when we go to the League of Cities, especially when we're talking about, you know, House Bill one and where the money and the vouchers and all of that, I hope that we can get a line item on the agenda just to talk about the Palm Beach County School District as it relates to budget, as it relates to new schools and where we are. And the uh League of Cities uh meet once a month. And I

108think Chris Garrison and her team is there. And so we really need to kind of educate these mayors because the mayor uh of Westlakes asked me just recently, a month or so ago, when am I going to get my elementary school? And I said, not anytime soon because of finance, because of where we are. It's not going to happen. But I think the dialogue and communication uh has to be uh addressed. And I hear you, Mr. Ferguson. I do know Riviera Beach. I live there. You know, I still have property there. My family lives there. And I know the needs everywhere. But we're in a tight situation now that's coming out of Tallahassee. So, we've got to kind of look at what we can and what we cannot do. But I'm I have no problems

109with going back to review any school that's scheduled to come up in District 6 to talk about the needs and how we have to relieve the overcrowding. We know where those children are. This is why we have a lot of schools overcrowded in District 6 and uh we're trying to relieve that over the next few years. Thank you, Mrs. McQueen then Woodfield. So again, and I'm not advocating for or against a high school in Riviera Beach right now. I'm simply saying that when you build a home out toward Walking Garcia, where again, we built a high school based on population, but we've had a lot of trouble getting people to commit to going there. So when you build a home somewhere west, you don't get to assume that we're going to bring you a school.

110We have enough kids in Riviera Beach High School, excuse me. We have enough high school aged kids in Riviera Beach to fill a high school. We've got kids who could then come from wherever to Palm Beach Gardens High School or Dwire, not Jupiter. And I'm I'm not tackling Jupiter, so we're not going there. But at least they're kind of built out. Um I just think that we can't just say people are building homes, expensive homes west, and we're going to have our schools follow you. No, you may have to get on a bus like we're doing right now with Green Acres going to five different high schools and Riviera Beach going to three different high schools. And when you're coming from Riviera Beach to Dwire, you're on bus a long time and you're paying a

111price with afterchool activities. Even don't even put athletics. Take a cheerleader. Their their moms and dads aren't going to let them be at on a Dwire cheerleading team and have them come home after dark because they don't have an activity bus. So, we're not just talking football players. So, I just I just want we said we were committed to equity for all students. We cannot just cater to the families who are building homes west. Mrs. Whitfield, thank you. Um, so I just I think maybe what we need to do is we need to formalize the process through which we create um deciding if we need a new school. So um the the only experience I have is through the you know the the few that we've done in the last 8 years that I've been

112here. So uh walking Garcia um Blue Lake when those schools happened it was brought to us that there was clear and convincing evidence and data that showed that we desperately needed schools in those areas. So, if we need to have that presented to us in some sort of a a lineup that says, "Okay, you know, we're having this many schools in the area. It's not feasible to move children and boundaries on this many times. This is why we need this. We have the funds available to do it. The community also wants it." I think there's a lot of a lot of things that go into deciding um when and how we need a new school. And so I think that that needs to be clearer in this process that there is a defined logical way

113that we decide whether or not a school needs to go into an area. And and I I would welcome that from staff to understand, you know, all of the components that go into your thought process so that we can understand. you know, I I obviously trust you all and I believe that you are, you know, doing the best thing for the district um and telling us when we need a school, but maybe if you defined that better for us, we could decide um up here if you know the weight is appropriate that you're giving to data and community need and all of that. Um and then, you know, show how if we agree with it or not. Um does that make sense what I'm saying? Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Miss Bril and Mrs. Andrews. So 13

114years ago, West Point showed the need for a middle school. We didn't build it with GL Homes gave us the land, but we didn't have the money, so we didn't build it. And the parents in the canyon communities got a charter school developer, Somerset Canyons. Charter school was built to fill the need because we did not build that school. Similarly to as to what Mrs. McQuinn just said about students traveling. My district is primarily zoned for Boon Beach High School. It's too far away. The boundary changes that were made did not address the fact that these students can't participate in after school activities because Boon Beach High School needs the students. It's a good school and they need the students. So, I understand all of that, but at the end of the day, money is

115going to drive the process right now. We can get all the land we want, but if we don't have the money to build the schools, it's not going to happen. And one school board member cannot ask that we put something onto uh our list of the capital plan. It has to be consensus among us. We have to see the need. And so, and we can't vote at a workshop. So, I think at this point, we're beating a dead horse. We all understand where everybody is, but I think it's time to move on. Mrs. Andrews, and I want to say this, too. You know, District 6, when you look at the map, it's a wide area. A lots of people have moved in the District 6 area all the way to the Glades region. I mean,

116we're now bordering the 20-mi bin. If you haven't thought about how far west that is, take another, uh, take another thought to think about busing all these children east, uh, wherever you may be thinking about it. I mean, before the land was set aside for that high school, I remembered that cuz I was sitting here and I saw the growth. I'm looking at the growth every day as I drive all the way through there. Simino Ridge is already uh, getting to capacity. Wellington is overcrowded. The elementarymentaries are overcrowded. And yes, people buy homes in Palm Beach County because it is a great place to live and work and raise your families. So, it's not to be discriminatory about where anybody lives. We want good schools everywhere. And it just happens to be in the West

117where the land is, a lot of people are building homes. And this is why years ago we saw the need for this high school uh high school 16A. That land was set aside for it. And you're going to need it, folks. you're going to need it. I don't know how you want to comprise what you're going to do with looking at people from the east going to the west. We already know we have a lot of children living west because I'm in the neighborhood each and every day. And so I'm not trying to keep anybody else from getting a school. I just know the demographics, the the growth area and where we are. And this is just Palm Beach County. People come here to live and to raise their families. And in the in the

118western community, it is growing tremendously. And I think this school district way before you, Mr. Burke, saw the need of getting that land in place for that high school. The same thing for the elementary schools. The developers worked with the school districts to put the money in place for the elementary schools. And our little ones back there get on the bus and travel a long way east every day to get to their little elementary school in the middle of the traffic on State Road 80 to make it to Binks Forest, to make it to Wellington Landings, to Wellington High School. They need their schools. They've been waiting. We don't have the money to put them in place right now, but I'm hoping that they will be coming. And it's not about anybody with privilege over

119anybody without privilege. It's just truly a need. Thank you. Listen, board members, since we're not voting tonight, we need to move on. Everybody's had a chance to speak except Miss Ayala. If you'd like to say anything, otherwise we're moving on. So, would you continue with the Please continue with the Yes, I will. I'll try to speed this up. So, the capital plan is balanced in total over the 10-year period based on um the projects that have been recommended by staff. So, we have to there are funding challenges and I'm not going to rehash those related to the the capital budget. Um I do have to uh we are required by regulatory um guidance that we have to give an update on the ESSER funds at least every six months. So, we are continue to spend

120the esser funds in the same manner. Those ESSER funds sunset June 30th of 2024. Um we are always open to receiving input um from the community. Like I stated, those funds do sunset June 30th of 2024. That is a funding cliff. We are being very proactive and starting to bring some of those costs back into the uh general fund in um the the upcoming year of of um of 2024 prior to um that that um end date of the end of 2024. We're continuing to work on the budget. Uh we are just waiting to see what happens between the House and the Senate where we end up. They are so far apart at this point. I I don't expect to to see anything within it's probably within the at least the next month. It's going

121to be towards the end of the legislative session. There is a significant uncertainty in enrollment. Uh we are looking at significant potential increases within the FRS rate. Um as well as the health claims. I have mentioned that before. We've had a run of 10 years with no increase in our health premiums. We had a significant spike in terms of COVID increase in claims in our health plan. And although claims have um resided slightly, it's not significant enough um that it does it is going to warrant an increase uh in premiums. There has been one change um on the budget development timeline from the last time I presented this. The final budget adoption um has been moved up a week to September 6th. So we will have one more board workshop um as well as we

122will also have additional budget advisory committee meetings in between as well and I think we've had a lot of discussion so I'm not sure if we if I want to say want to skip that last slide I think that's a good idea so Mr. Super unless you have anything else we'll close I just say one thing Mrs. Mrs. Andrews, if I let you speak, then why wouldn't I let the other six board members speak? Say what I'm going to say. Well, maybe they will. So, let's Mrs. Andrews, please. Let's go ahead. Mrs. Andrews, thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to say to Heather Frederick, you are doing such a great job. I looked at how you had this laid out for us with with the legislative piece here to explain to us how it

123was going to impact us as we move through each piece of the budget. I know Mr. Burke has been a great uh uh leader in uh finance and doing great things serving with you on the uh budget advisory committee for this board. I just want to commend you. It's you make it clear for us. You help us understand and we know it's difficult when we're dealing with Tyler Hass, but I want to take this moment to tell you I just you rock. Thank you for the work you're doing. Thank Thank you. And it's a team. It's not just Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Take a motion to adjourn the workshop. Motion by Mrs. Woodfield second by Miss Ayala. All in favor? Motion carries. 70. Open the special meeting. Record should reflected all seven board members

124are still in attendance. We have two items on the on the agenda for minutes for approval. We need a motion to approve those minutes. Motion by Miss Ayala, seconded by Mrs. Andrews. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. 70. We have no items to add for good cause. Mr. Superintendent, are you withdrawing anything? No, sir. Board members, are you pulling anything? We need a motion. Are there any disclosures or abstensions? Okay, seeing none, we'll move to superintendent comments. Yes, thank you. Uh, last night we celebrated the nominees for the 2023 Dwire Awards for Excellence. Uh, it was a great event and, uh, the Dwire Awards, you know, have been around for 39 years. I want to thank uh the economic council led by their president and CEO Michelle Jacobs for continuing to sponsor and

125orchestrate this whole event. Uh but the Dwire awards are very prestigious. There are seven categories uh that you know elementary I'm sorry early learning ed education, elementary ed, middle school education, senior high education, special programs, STEM education, and then student advancement and career education. So with seven categories, there are four finalists in each category. Of the 28 finalists, all of them, 100% are our teachers right here in district operated uh Palm Beach County schools. So it was a clean sweep. Uh that's pretty impressive. We had uh over 450 educators nominated from both, you know, private, charter, and district operated public schools. And our teachers uh have again clean sweep there. So really proud of that. uh that will this process is playing out and it'll it'll culminate on May 1st when we have the nice

126event when the uh winners will be announced. Also just like to mention yesterday I had the pleasure of uh going to John I Leonard for the 8th annual International Spanish Academy student symposium. We we've got some pictures here that are scrolling across the screens but you know we're really proud of this program. We have uh six schools in our district that are international Spanishmies. Uh it was including John I Leonard uh Brookshshire Elementary, Greenacres Elementary, New Horizons Elementary, Okahily Middle School and Palm Palm Springs Middle School. So uh there was a meeting during the day, a nice lunch and meeting and then in the evening uh it was really the the student symposium and that's that's what you're seeing some pictures of. So another great event. Um, you know, we also have 32 dual language

127programs throughout our district and we're increasing that up to 36 next year and uh just a lot of great work in this area. So that concludes my comments. Chairman Barbarian, I need a motion to approve the agenda. I skipped over that motion by Mrs. Andrews, seconded by Mrs. Whitfield. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion carries 70. Since I always go and have Mrs. McQuinn always have to go first. Uh I'll reverse it today and we'll start with Miss Bril for comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, this afternoon I'm going to speak about one of my friends and mentors, Dr. Sandra Richmond, known to me and countless others as simply Sandy. Sandy and I became fast friends 28 years ago. We immediately realized we shared a common bond. We were both fierce advocates for students with

128disabilities in large part because of our sons. Our daughters, coincidentally, were born one week apart. What most people don't know is that Sandy is the reason I am serving on this school board today, but I'll get to that shortly. Dr. Richmond served as a board member and sometimes chairwoman for 21 years on the school board of Palm Beach County from November 1988 to November 2010. For more than 17 years, we quietly and sometimes not so quietly worked together to break down preconceived notions and the barriers for our differently aabled students as we advocated for inclusion. Over the years, Sandy encouraged me. Actually, she constantly nagged me and asked me to run for school board. She wanted more help on this side of the deis, but I was steadfast in not wanting to serve until my

129children had all graduated. Then in September 2009, Sandy phoned me to say she thought it was time for me to step up because she was thinking about stepping down. The timing was right. Excuse me. My youngest child had just graduated a few months earlier. I told her I would think about it. Then early in 2010, Sandy called me to tell me her decision was final. She would not be running and I had to take over the advocacy for our children. The rest is history. And every time I assist a parent or ask a question regarding ESC, I see Sandy smiling. On March 29th, at the age of 73, Dr. Sandra Richmond, my friend, sorry, passed away. We will honor her at a later date, but for now, I ask all of you to join me

130in a moment of silence for this kind-hearted public servant who served all of our children and indeed the entire district so very well. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. So, a couple of things I'd like to speak about. One, I had a chance to attend my daughter's kindergarten roundup today. So, uh parents, I'm not sure where the camera Oh, wherever it is. Parents, please get out to your your child's uh school that she's she or she is going to be attending kindergarten in next year. I find it to be a a very useful tool to help you familiarize yourself with the the principal, the staff, the general culture at the school. And I think that ultimately will be a benefit to your child. So if your child has not if the kindergarten

131roundup day has not already occurred at at their school and I think some of them are still to be Yes. It's playing out all week. Okay. Yeah. So please contact contact your your school and and and just go out there. It's about an hour or less, but it it'll I think it'll be very helpful to you and your child. Um also I want to congratulate those uh finalists for the Dwire Awards. I I too was at yesterday's event. Um, one of the most unrecognized professions we have here is that of the teacher, but it's also one of the most important. So, I salute all of you who have been selected this year as finalists, and I plan to celebrate with you in May as some of you will be uh awarded as as as the

132Dwire awardees for for this year. Also, I want to speak to an event that I participated in last week at Roosevelt Middle School. I'm part of a a group of black minority uh business owners known as foundation builders. We're uh our mission statement is to to engage with the community to uplift, partner with the community for the betterment of our future and our children. And Mr. Stewart invited us to Roosevelt and about four of us as well as some other uh community partners came and spoke to about 400 uh young men uh in the cafeteria. Roosevelt. It was a very uh it was a powerful event, very moving event. And I want to salute Mr. Stewart and his staff for the good work they're doing at Roosevelt. I I see gains there and I I

133see more. I know the best is yet to come uh from him and his staff. So, sir, I salute you for what you're doing. Also, residents of Delray Beach, uh residents of West Palm Beach, alumni of Old Roosevelt High, if you did not see the uh workshop meeting that we just had, I would encourage you to go back and look at it. I've been mentioning to you in our various meetings that we've had uh throughout the county that you need to be present in this board meeting. Me representing on your behalf obviously is not enough. I'm very well aware of the fact I'm one of seven board members. I did not need to be educated on that fact for sure. But I think it would be more impactful for your respective interest if you come

134to the board meeting and explain to the other six what your asks are um and help give u some historical reference to the needs for the different issues that you all are are advocating for i.e. renovating old historic Carver High and also Roosevelt uh high school as well. And obviously in regard to the Riviera Beach High School issue, again, residents of Riviera Beach, um it is important that you all also come out as well to let the the board members and staff know that that is something uh that you very much need um and are willing to engage with the the district to make sure that any school that is constructed at some point in time in the future will be um top tier in that regard. Um it's always good to see everyone. Miss

135Brill, I'm sorry for your loss. uh my my blessings and prayers are with you and your family. Um and that's all I have, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the time. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson, Mrs. Andrews, and thank you. And I would like to congratulate all of the DWA award winners, the finalists. You are a winner. And it was so lovely uh to be out with you last night. I want to thank the uh economic council for all the great work that you do for our schools, our teachers, and our children. And I want to say a special thank you to uh brother Carl Mohamad. Uh I just love you, brother Carl. I know that you have always tried to work for our students here in Palm Beach County. And I know you had a big program

136just a week or so ago with the community at the church and the pastors, some of the community leaders were there, elected officials. We all want to take care of all of our children, especially the children in the community. And when you said to us at the last uh meeting that you've been one of the longest uh volunteers, we appreciate you and we know you and you come to our meetings to advocate for children and we thank you for the work that you do. And yes, this school board is very willing to do everything that we can to take care of all of our children. And our community children are just as important as any other child. And thank you, brother Carl, for everything you do for all children. Thank you, Miss Andrew. Miss Whitfield,

137Miss Ayella, Mrs. McQuinn, this is again I think I'm being humorous, but remember that while I usually get to do my comments first, I also have the burden of having to vote first on some unpleasant matters. But I'm totally fine with rotating and no other than adding my um um admiration for Dr. Sandra Richmond and really bringing it very much to our awareness about what we needed to be doing. At the time, um, Dr. Richmond was a board member. I was area superintendent um, working with the Glade Schools and and I really appreciated her being an advocate for our students. Thank you. Thank you. We have no agenda items. Speakers, board members, you wish to pull anything from consent? Seeing none, we need a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion by Mrs. Andrews, seconded

138by Vice Chairwoman Brill. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries 70. Mr. Superintendent, that'll take us to the only new business item. Yes. I recommend the board approve adoption of proposed revised policy 1.03, school board meetings. I need a motion. Motion by Mr. Whitfield, seconded by Mrs. Andrews, general counsel. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, I just wanted to add that um the the uh OGC the general counsel's office is recommending um some clarifying language be added at the request of the clerk of the school board. I would like to offer up that amended language so that we could address um written comments with the permission of the chair. Okay. Thank you. Uh, I would like to recommend that the board move to amend line one of the policy relating to written comments that

139will be attached to the minutes. I recommended that the words on agenda items be added so the new language on lines 351 and 352 reads as follows. All timely received written comments on agenda items will be attached to the meeting minutes. We believe that this clarifying language uh will assist the board clerk in uh knowing what exactly should be attached to the minutes. All right. Do we have a motion to amend the motion by Mrs. Whitfield, second by Miss Mrs. McQuinn? Any discussion? Mr. Ferguson, I'm not. Turn to Mike. We're in we're looking at the agenda for the 412 2023 special meeting on expulsions item 10 or what am I missing here? No, we're on the special meeting to follow the workshop. You um that's what I thought I clicked on, but there's you have

140this in your um it was handed out by the board clerk. You have have a paper there with the uh with the language that was just uh No, I don't think so. Do you have them? Channel council, do you have copies for the board members? I thought that I put those everywhere, but um I can direct you to the item in your mine. Those words that I wrote in pen are the ones that she's suggesting we add. Yes. So, if you look at the board item and you look at the line number for 351, you should see the language in there. This is for policy 1.03. Okay. Okay. Hey, Mr. Ferguson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't have any any other discussion. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries 70. Now, we need a mo vote

141on the amended motion. Motion by Mrs. Whitfield, second by Mrs. Andrews. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries 70. That'll take us to the end of the agenda items except for board discussion items. So, we'll start with BD1, Miss Woodfield on the school dashboard. Thank you. Well, I covered most of it already. Um the just the idea was um to bring it forward to you all um and see if you thought this was an interesting idea and ask the superintendent to come back to us with any thoughts on it. Miss Bro, so I personally would want to know what the cost would be um because we just sat through a budget meetings and we know that we have to look at costs for everything and as I stated earlier, people don't really go to

142our website. I don't know that that's the best way. So I think I would suggest that we wait with that suggestion until we have a more robust conversation or the superintendent brings back other marketing ideas. But um I would not support it without knowing what the cost would be to implement that. Just like to offer I mean I think we had a really good conversation around the need to to better market our schools and what we're delivering. and let me take that back to this to the experts and we'll work up our best thoughts around that and bring a recommendation. Thank you. Any other discussion? Miss Woodfield, you want to take BD2? Yes, thank you. So, um when we were at our meeting two weeks ago, um I had gotten the letter. I'm sure you

143all got it from Andrea Msina. And so I texted her and said, you know, I really wanted to understand just for my own uh information what um had happened since our departure from FSBA. Uh so we had a very lengthy discussion about it and so I asked her if she would write it in an email because I felt that you all might be interested in it as well. So this is just for your own information. I'm not asking for anything today. Um but I I know it did come to you in email and it's also been printed out here. So, um, just as you're going forward, uh, and thinking about this, this is just some more information, um, because I felt like I wanted to know what what changes did FSBA make based on, um,

144you know, our our leaving for the last year and was there any impact at all to the um to that organization. And so that was the information I got and I just wanted to share it with you all publicly. Thank you, Miss Whitfield, Miss Ayala. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I actually have a question for the clerk first and then I have some some comments I want to read. Um, could you please tell us the vote breakdown of the adoption of our legislative platform for this year? Yes, ma'am. The legislative adoption COS1 revisions to the 2023 legislative priorities passed on February 1st, 2023. There were six board members present. The final resolution was the motion passed 6. Thank you so much, Madam Clerk. Okay, so given that we just had a discussion about the budget, let

145me start with two points I have on how desperate our legislative platform and FSBA's legislative platform has been and make my case for why the amount of roughly $27,000 a year is not worth our time or investment. Even though this email says the word equity in it about 300 times, it does not change the facts. So, number one, the Palm Beach County School Board opposes taking money away from public schools and diverting it to private school vouchers and to education savings accounts for homeschoolers. All of us up here heard the amount of money that that is going to take from our budget. Um, FSBA supported HB1. So, the loss of state funding that will be due to this bill, this organization helped make that happen. Number two, school board opposes the FRS rate and benefit

146enhancements falling on the districts to pay, which will cost our district alone roughly, I believe, $57 million a year, if that's correct. I'm getting nods. FSBA at this point has taken no position to oppose this financially devastating bill. Moving ahead from that, we all recall that we are undergoing board changes that look like changing or diminishing or abolishing salaries. We are looking at partisan schoolboard races and we are looking at term limit changes. FSBA did not include these priorities in their platform. Nor did they oppose when schoolboard term limits were reduced last year from 12 to 8. They also did not oppose salary reductions when it was on the on the docket for policy revisions in the last year's legislative session. Additionally, when we wrote a letter saying, "We have strong opposition to education that

147will be impacted by HP7 and HB1557, which were known as the Stopwoke Act or the Don't Say Gay Law." FSBA did nothing to oppose those. They did not lobby against them. No opposition. Another nice point I'd like to give here. Last year, when fellow board members in Broward County were kicked off the board, FSBA did nothing to speak out in defense of those board members. So, if that were to happen to any other board member, would there be guidance? Would there be support? At the end of the day, the facts speak for themselves. I'm happy to share this document I compiled with everybody on the board for their own information. But this email does nothing to us tell us that this is a wise investment of our taxpayer dollars or that it's worthy of our

148time. This is an organization that at every opportunity has fought against our legislative platform. And we're sitting here being told we're going to have double digit hundreds of millions of dollars taken from our budget. and we're proposing joining them again. I cannot think of a more incorrect position for the board to take at this time. Thank you, Miss Ayella and Miss Brew. Thank you. So, I actually Miss Ayella touched upon some of the things that I was thinking in a much more elaborate way than I would have been able to present it. Um, but I will tell you that the financial impact of this year's legislative session is going to be extremely painful. So, I sat back when I read the email that I first received from Ms. Msina and then from from Ms. Whitfield

149and I thought, okay, so I think Mrs. Andrews and I of all of us on the DEAS are the ones that have attended FSBA more than anybody else over the years. And I thought back on the breakout sessions that we attended and I remember as we walked out of them each time looking at each other and saying we do that already. So then I sat back and I said okay so what over the years did I gain from attending FSBA? And I realized the only thing I gained was as a new schoolboard member because back in the day when I got elected there was no onboarding. Nobody onboarded me. It was sink or swim. I came here and nobody helped me know anything. So FSBA had their their session for new schoolboard members. Um I

150came back and spoke to the then superintendent about the fact that we need to onboard schoolboard members. We talked about it now. We do that. We do it extremely well. So that was the only thing I got out of it. I found it to be more of a social activity of networking which if we want to network with other schoolboard members, we have every opportunity to do that. we can work with them on the side. Um I also opposed, as you know, for various reasons rejoining Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards. Um not only because they're not a real entity, but also because of the monies there. So, I'm going to be taking a very stringent approach to how we spend our dollars. And I also agree that this is just not a good use.

151I know that Mrs. Whitfield's not asking us at this meeting to rejoin. it was just to provide information. But I just want to reiterate that I don't feel this is a good use of taxpayer dollars. Um I thought in the past it might be, but the 27,000 is not 27,000 because if you go to the quarterly meetings, you have to pay to go to the quarterly meetings. Then you have to pay the transportation to go there. And so it's not that it's just 27,000. And so, um, I think I've expressed myself enough just to say that I would not entertain rejoining if it's brought up later on. Any other discussion? Okay. Um, if there's nothing else, we'll take a motion to adjurnn. Motion by Miss Whitfield, second taken by Mrs. Andrews. All in favor? Opposed?

152Motion carried. This meeting is adjourned. This is the tunnel towers 911 mobile exhibit. We travel the country. We bring a piece of that day, that history. That's all 343 firemen that lost their life that day. We have been here at Jupiter High School. We've had the pleasure of meeting over a thousand students. They're wanting to learn and they they want to hear our stories. He got out of his truck, put his turnout gear on and a full air pack. All that together is about 92 lbs. We never need to forget our heroes. For those of us who were there, it brings a lot of memories