001i'm here for pro-choice for masks my name is greg labot i've got two young kids in palm beach county school going into first grade and third grade and they hate masks just as much as me uh so i just wanted to come here and personally tell you guys again because it's like the second time i've had to do this and it's really boring uh barbara you can't tell my kids to wear a mask anymore who else is here alexandria you can't tell my kids worry alexandria you never listen look at her she's right there with the pink cup she's not even looking alexandria all right go ahead what's up just continue listening every time i come up here you don't listen man alexandra you can't tell my kids that they can wear masks anymore karen
002you can't tell my kids that they have to wear masks anymore erica you can't tell my kids to wear masks anymore frank you can't tell my kids to wear masks anymore marcia you can't tell my kids to wear masks anymore debra you can't tell my kids to wear mess anymore and donald you can't tell my kid to wear mass anymore and all these people in the green shirts over here y'all can't tell me or my kids to wear masks anymore it's ridiculous we need to know now like today or soon whether or not we're going to need to wear masks or not because we're going to pull our kids out of the school i'm sure there's a lot of parents just like me we're going to pull the kids out of the school we're going
003to start homeschooling my wife is a teacher in palm beach county she's going to quit if you guys force her to wear masks so how many other teachers are going to quit and then how the heck are you guys going to find enough teachers to replace the people who quit because of your bad decision-making in time for the school year to start so it's like it's really important that you guys make a decision on whether or not you're going to change your mind because you're going to lose half of not half i'm sure there's less than half going to pull our kids out of school how many teachers are going to quit who are you going to replace those super qualified amazing teachers with are you going to replace them with less qualified teachers who
004are willing to listen to whatever you want to tell them to do and dictate their lives alexandra is still not listening that's a serious question i'm not joking i will seriously pull my kids out and what are you going to do with the teachers that quit so then when we quit and when we pull our kids out of school we're going to homeschool them and we're going to teach them about everything that you have done we're going to teach them about being strong american patriots we're going to teach them about being good citizens of america and we're going to teach them like the opposite of what you're teaching them now with all this crt and anti-american mumbo-jumbo uh it's really great to hear that dr fenoy with all the respect man you seem like a
005pretty cool dude but it's kind of awesome that you're leaving because everything was horrible for the last two years so shout out to you man um and just you know f around and find out like you want to put mass on the kids around again and and let's see what happens you'll have a good night thank you josie mackevek sean barnes cynthia taylor and dagmar are gone good evening this is josie makovic and uh contrary to what someone stated we actually all do have a lot of other things to do other than be here on a regular basis many of us have found babysitters i've taken time off of work we're here because we're concerned about our children and the future of our of our county what's your name ma'am i said my name is
006josie makovic thank you um so can you all hear me i feel like okay all right so uh mr barbieri last meeting you stated that you get so much conflicting information the different reports it's really hard to know what to believe well i'll make it really easy for you your responsibility is not to decide what to believe for me and my children your responsibility is to decide curriculums and manage the school district when it comes to my children's education oh and i do have three children for someone who stated that they think that we're just all showing up without kids i have three kids school aged children and um so just to make it simple my children and i get to decide my husband and i get to decide what is best for our children
007and um and then on top of that i see that there's very this really interesting trend to insult parents like me who do a lot of research who ask a lot of questions i've been as someone else stated i've been called all kinds of names to my face in the paper on social media for the last 20 months simply because i question things which is what we are supposed to do as responsible parents and i find it incredibly hypocritical that we are told that we are being bullies and that our opinions don't matter as much because they conflict with other people's opinions and so i would ask you to put the noise aside we're not noisy parents we're parents who are bringing our questions and our concerns to the board for the future of our
008children and so i would ask you to just step the noise aside and go back to what we've elected you to do which as i stated before is to decide curriculums and manage the school district when it comes to our children's education and not their health the reason that that arctic that that that study from jama was retracted wasn't because there was conflicting science to take it down it was because some people didn't like what the science said so instead of actually doing a study on how masks work with children and how they impact children they just pulled the study down so i would question that that's basic science is when there's a conflicting opinion you do a study and you find out why that wasn't done it's just retracted and we're told don't look
009at that information it's wrong that doesn't sit well with me that's not how i was educated when it came to my science learning you know we have a hypothesis have questions and so on and so forth and so the last thing that i want to say is last time i was here i stated that we're coming for your jobs it was stated earlier that we are four of you are up for re-election next year next year is redistricting so all of you are going to have to have the opportunity to make the case for why we should keep you in your positions and the decisions that you make tonight will go a long way to helping the people decide if you have our best interest at heart and if you don't so i suggest you
010choose wisely [Applause] good evening my name is sean barnes i have three small children one of which is in the palm beach county school district two of which that are coming right down the pipeline um i'll second the notion from the previous speaker i do not have a lot of time as i just heard i have three small children a full-time job and i do my darndest to do my best to work hard to put the food on the table to close on my kids backs to teach my kids right from wrong please and thank yous yes sir no sir yes ma'am all the things that as parents we strive to make our children better visions of what we are by you guys mandating the masks you are taking that liberty away from me as
011a father this is my first time here i don't have a ton of time but i will fight for my child i know this is the last time that you guys are meeting before you make the decision the decision needs to be made just like the others i will pull my child out of palm beach county school i will not put my other two children in palm beach county schools if this is what's going to go on it is not fair i do appreciate the kids or the parents that have kids that have you know uh disabilities or or different um you know ailments that cause covet 19 to be detrimental to them but again wear a mask you know there are other options we cannot make the one percent the majority the majority is
012that our kids are healthy and they need to see their friends smile and their friends cry and they need to see being happy and sad i can't breathe [Music] we need we need our kids to breathe we need we just need our children to be children it is so important for their mental stability my child i see it first he is the happiest go luckiest kid you'll ever meet in your life and this past year has changed him luckily with summer and him being home and not having to wear masks he has changed and got back to the kid that we love and that we know he is but the ability or the lack thereof for him to see his friends expressions and to know when to show compassion and to know when to cry
013with them or when to tell the teacher that they're being mean with that ability taken from them by wearing these things over our over their faces it has changed their mental well-being and as parents not only do we have to worry about their physical well-being whether they get sick or not we have to worry about their mental well-being that is the most important thing these children are our future and if we ruin them now there is no coming back so i hope all of you with children who can appreciate where i'm coming from i don't have a political agenda i don't have facebook or twitter or read any politically driven magazines or nothing i have life experiences and i know in my own life experiences that my children are not affected by cover 19. so
014i hope you do what's right and just take the masks off because i would love nothing more to send my three children to a palm beach county school but i am willing and i will take them out if you choose not to thank you for your time have a good day good evening uh to the comrades on the school board fastest wannabe this is takamara oregon palm beach county karen bill you are lying saying you are listening to all mama and papa birth you actually doing exactly opposite to the blonde woman who called us uneducated i have five colleges from three countries you based your speech on a fast propaganda media talking about basing your speeches on a false propaganda media instead of facts does not make you educated this is why they have blonde
015jokes you are a perfect example of it you are a brain washed sheep news report there is a lot of disinformation about the virus and vaccination facts in 2003 u.s patent was assigned to the sards virus on the nucleic acid sequence of the sarcophagus genomes there are three patterns to this one on a disease one for the detection kit and one for the waste to measure it a patent means no one else can look at the virus measure it and develop the testing for it that is why we have seen no proof of the virus patents exclude competition since the virus is proprietary or protected intellectual property according to david martin a medical doctor a phd and a spouse felt spokesperson for a global intellectual property accountability and quality reform he reports that cdc and
016non-guava agency and dr ralph parikh from university of north carolina from the department of microbiology and immunologic immunology and dr anthony falci among others we're at the hub of developing the virals and yet the wuhan is in it from pathogen to profit during 2003 to 2018 and the apartment is owned by cdc just follow the science and the money the question to the comments on the board how much did you take who sell the safety and the well-being of these children in this county how much did you take why did you do it three vaccines are approved only for emergency youth and authorization this is experimental injection causing heart inflammation blood clots nervous system damage and deaths currently mrna vaccination is considerated a gym therapy by fda stop your passing step down you committing crimes
017against time's up ma'am time's up cynthia taylor elizabeth murray michelle mitchell julie damsker any of you here elizabeth i already spoke thank you i can't i can't hear you i'm elizabeth murray i already spoke okay thank you well remember that's the end of the [Music] public allison rampersad is a non-agenda speaker we normally would take those at the end but since she's the only one we didn't get to uh we'll take her at this point rampant said please come up to the podium i'm here i know thank you go ahead okay um here i am again this time i'm talking about something different parents listen up the federal department of education was created under president jimmy carter in 1979 and from that day the quality of education in the united states is on the decline
018i might add that nowhere in the united states constitution is the federal government authorized to establish an educational curriculum to dictate how it will be taught or to mandate how education will be evaluated u.s news and world report released the following national proficiency stats from their best high school report u.s news calculates these values based on student performance on state exit exams and college-level coursework like the ap and the ib exams and the schools must test 95 percent of the students florida on the other hand uses its own self-serving proprietary system for grading high schools so parents when you hear the school board or even the governor rave about how florida schools are doing so well let's take a look academic year 2016-17 palm beach county high school students rank as follow reading proficiency 48
019math proficiency 40 college readiness 35 academic year 2017 2018 reading 49 math 43 college readiness 33 and the most recent academic year 2019 that we have reading 53 math 47 college readiness 28 now are you ready live and direct from the florida department of education's website the florida schools grading scale f 31 or less d 32 to 40 percent c 41 to 50 53 sorry b 54 to 61 and a 62 or greater unacceptable 62 percent is an a are you kidding me there is an obvious disconnect here florida's proprietary formula grades on the low curve so that the school grades can be made to look much better than they actually are so parents do not take it at face value when your school claims to be an a school look at the newest u.s
020news and world report data and see if it supports the claim we need to know the true academic performance of florida schools and we need to move away from the highly manipulated florida department of education proprietary grading system if we are going to effectively judge the efficiency of florida schools board members the next item on the agenda would be consent uh to approve the consent agenda does anyone want to pull anything i pulled p1 so if you would all refresh your computers it'll move under new business we need a motion to approve the consent agenda motion by mrs whitfield seconded by mrs mcquinn any discussion all in favor posed motion carries 7-0 that will take us to b2 mr superintendent i recommend the board approve the advertisements of the fy 22 tenant of district summary
021budget and the appropriate tax notices in accordance with florida statute 200.065 most of my mrs andrews seconded by dr robinson any discussion all in favor posed motion carries 7-0 board members um would you consider a motion to reorder the agenda to move the superintendent search to after the other one so that staff members are here for those will be free to leave for the evening all right we need a motion to move br d1 after the other items that are right there on the motion by dr robinson seconded by mrs whitfield any discussion all in favor pose motion carry 7-0 that will take us to ci4 mr superintendent yes sir i recommend the board approve the agreement with ingenuity inc effective august 1st 2021 through june 30th 2022 and authorize the superintendent or does he
022need to sign all documents and contracts related to the terms and conditions which are required for implementation motioned by mrs andrews second invite dr robinson any discussion all in favor posed motion carries 7-0 fmpa 2 fmpa fmpa2 i recommend the board approve the consultant agreement with latinos in action inc for the period of august 1st 2021 through june 30th 2022 i think that's the type of guys that authorize the superintendent board chair to finalize all signed necessary documents wishing my mrs andrews second and by miss ayala any discussion thank you so i just wanted to take a moment to highlight this fantastic program that i've gotten to see in person and how excited i am about this um i'm really grateful for latinos in action and for the partnership that we've established over some time
023now latinos and action is an organization that enhances our students personal and cultural assets in our schools and develops the leadership skills of those students as well as their community service making them lifelong learners and lifelong public servants to their communities we continue to enjoy a lot of success from this partnership our missions align and our students are clearly receiving benefits and thriving a lot of our palm beach county school district lia students received awards and scholarships this past year for their service leadership talent and academics two of our very own high schools hosted the latinos in action national conference during the pandemic which was a big feat to put together and together lia and our district have produced a memorable successful hybrid leadership conference that six states around the nation participated in so i
024i have to thank dr enriquez and his entire team for everything they do in partnership with us for this program that is so dynamic and includes not just latino students but all students in understanding their fullest potential um the progress that we have had with them and of each student that's been inspired to learn and to lead through this academic program would not be possible without this partnership so i know that together we'll continue to provide access to students and empower them to become leaders and empower them to reach out for service opportunities in their communities and their futures and make a better future for themselves and their families so i can't wait to see the continued results of success from this enhanced partnership and i want to thank every staff member that worked on
025putting this together for us thank you thank you mrs andrews and miss aiella said it well i'm just so proud of this program uh it makes the difference and this is exciting to see this on the agenda so i think the school board is moving in the great direction with actually uh providing more access for more students thank you any further discussion all in favor oppose motion carries 7-0 fmt-1 yes sir mr chairman i recommend the board authorize a resolution to issue cop series 2022-a and 2024-a to refinance the 2012 c and 2014 c-cop issues motion by mrs whitfield seconded by mrs mcquinn any discussion all in favor opposed motion carries 7-0 takes us to p1 i recommend the board approve the personnel agenda has submitted motion by mrs whitfield second by mrs anders board
026members i would like somebody to make a motion since i can't to separate the mrs ocampo from this agenda item so she can be voted on separately motioned by miss brill second by mrs whitfield so under under that motion go ahead mr barbieri i think the motion really should be to separate the non-reappointment from it because she's not named on it yes and then we when we vote on it it's fine to mention her name right so my motion is to separate the non-reappointment all right so all in favor of that motion posed motion seven zeros so mr penton you want to read the recommendation for p1 yes um for p1 i recommend the board approve the personal agenda is submitted all right so now that's the motion on the floor without the renewal of
027mrs ocampo any discussion all in favor pose motion carries 7-0 superintendent would you read the recommendation that you're making then for the non-renewal of the principal atlantic high school uh we don't i don't have that in front of me we don't have one it's on the on the p1 agenda she's a number in it and the number is for non-renewal for the principal atlantic high school she's she's what we just pulled off she's the same agenda let me see general counsel correct she's been separated out so the recommendation would be for the non-uh reappointment of uh miss ocampo so i'm so i guess what i'm saying is i recommend the non-reappointment of the contract for miss ocampo motioned by mrs whitfield second by dr robinson i'd like to discuss it briefly i don't believe that
028the that the punishment fits the the offense and that it should have been a lesser punishment than non-renewal of a a long-time principal in this district who's done a fairly good job of being in the schools that she's uh she's been assigned to over the years mrs whitfield mr chair for me before we get into the discussion of this item i just want to caution the board members there's already threatened litigation with respect to this so i would caution the board about discussing this matter if the board is inclined to vote on this this is one thing but my recommendation would be that if it is a question of you need more information you may want to ask the superintendent to bring it back until such time that you've been briefed and can be provided
029information outside of this meeting what's the status of the con of her contract i believe she's already off the payroll and i the superintendent suggests that to me but i i believe she's already off the payroll and if we post push this off it's do you tell us well if hr can speak to what what her current status is is there someone from hr who can speak to her current mrs o'campbell has been non-reappointed her three-year multi-year contract has come to an end and it ended doctor lacavette ended at the end of june i mean when does it end june 30th okay so she's effectively off unless something is done yes mrs andrews sorry i'm sorry but we have not taken the official uh action tonight is the action correct okay so that's what we're
030talking about that's bro thank you and i have spoken to staff and i have been briefed and i will support uh voting down her non-reappointment any other discussion mrs whitfield i i've i've been having this conversation all week i still don't know what the reasoning is behind it and i thought that we weren't supposed to know so i've been trying not to ask too many inappropriate questions until we receive a lawsuit so i don't i don't i right now my trust is in hr that they've done the appropriate work to make this happen but i'm right now i would vote to non-reporter because i believe in our in our hr process but um i feel like if you want to bring it back that's fine we can have a better discussion but i would need
031to be briefed more on it to keep her thank you mr barbieri yes we did the non-reappointment process with the legal team as well and it was legally sufficient to non-reappoint her and that's why we move forward with this understand i just don't agree with the legal reasoning on that and that's why i pulled it i don't think that the punishment fits i know that the general counsel doesn't want me to say it but the punishment doesn't fit the offense in my opinion based on the information that i have mrs andrews because everyone hasn't been put in the loop on this and when it comes to us as a number we don't know i mean i received the call to say a few things but i mean i really don't know what happened here so
032i mean this is the official night for it to be actually approved and i can't approve anything that i don't truly know all of the answers to i have read all the comments from people from her school from her community and i do know her she's a long time employee within the school district of palm beach county so i really want to know what this is before i cast a vote tonight mrs mcqueen this just is a very short answer back because i'm listening to miss bernard so my question is was just the regular non-reappointment process followed or was it for cause so mrs mcquinn just uh confirmed with our legal team her contract came to an end her multi-year contract and the district chose not to renew it thank you so i want to
033make sure we all heard that carefully because some of our comments have leaned another way and so i when when i hear the punishment does not fit the crime i'm hearing there was no punishment this is andrews i'm sorry miss bruhl miss bro was first then mrs andrews thank you and so i don't want to sit and wait for a lawsuit to do the right thing and so i agree with mr barbieri i won't go into any more details but i i agree that it it does not fit and so and i don't want to wait until we get sued and then we have to pay back pay and then we have to rehire and i just don't want to go through that process mrs mcqueen she was non-renewed for something that the district believed
034she did it warranted a non-renewal so it was basically for cause and this is the way they ended up doing it it's just non-renewing instead of firing her so follow up but i'm hearing from dr lacava that it was the non-reappointment i'm hearing from dr lacava that it was a non-reappointment through the non-reappointment process so we're not being okay but that's not what i'm hearing you guys say general counsel i'll just state and i think it was stated by dr lacava that for the non-reappointment process when the contract comes to its natural end the superintendent can make a recommendation to either renew the contract or not renew in this instance the superintendent is making the recommendation to not renew or not reappoint the contract that is in place and i think again i'll state if
035there are questions and i believe some have stated that they have questions if there are questions or about what happened additional background that is needed that's something that can be done this this matter can be asked of the superintendent to be brought back just as it's it's past june 30th this this item was brought today it can be brought to the next the next meeting if that is the pleasure of the mr barbieri i think we should call the question and see if we have the votes at this point he'll pull it off until next week dr robinson so i heard you say the superintendent's going to take it off to the next our next meeting then my request would be that yes i'm sorry yes okay so my request would be then that that
036hr and legal reach out to each board member to schedule to walk us through because some of the things that i've heard seem to be contrary and are more inflammatory than the things i think mr barbie here is heard so it'd be good for us to all hear the same thing one at a time thank you thank you mr superintendent so we'll pull it off and we'll bring it back next week and if legal and they tried to get what each board member and run through and and also the principal supervisor as well who brought the recommendation to me that takes us to p2 we voted on v1 correct missing okay p2 i recommend the board approve the personal addendum submitted that is p2 motion by mrs andrews second by dr robinson any discussion all
037in favor opposed motion carries 7-0 pg-1 pg-1 i recommend the board approve the annual updated florida educational equity act implementation plan motion by dr robinson seconded by mrs whitfield discussion all in favor post motion carries 7-0 i just been reminded that on the we did we didn't recognize the employees that passed away when we were in that section of the agenda so at this time um we'd like to recognize the the three employees that passed away rudolph brown he was a school police officer he was born in 1959 passed away recently in 2021 tina rittenhauer manager in food service at ho watkins middle she was born in 1959 and passed away recently in 2021 and laura laurel of behavioral physical needs assistant 2 title 1 palm springs elementary she was born in 1957 and she
038died recently in 2021 if we could have a moment of silence for those employees and their families please thank you very much that'll take us to the superintendent's contract it's um brd brd1 i recommend the board discuss and take any action as needed to begin the process of expeditiously finding a replacement for the superintendent who tendered his resignation on july 13 2021. go ahead mrs whitfield well i guess i should ask what what process you guys would like to go through should we start talking about interims first yeah we need a second one second was mrs andrews so we're under this discussion um lacava would you and mr mitchell please come back and help us go through this who wants to go first on this mrs whitfield so is it all right if i make
039a motion on who i think we should pick for interim is that where we're at no we're on the first all right dr robinson thank you i think before we get to the who i think we need to talk about some of the process questions um that if you know if you disagree just like tell me but so um first at the question about um can the interim apply i think we need to come to some decision about that if the interim can apply for the permanent position and i don't know if you want to do this one motion at a time or what yeah let's do them one at a time um but mrs mr mcqueen so it can i give input at this time about whether the interim can apply for the permanent
040yeah but i think we need a motion first on the floor so we can discuss it is dr robinson i'm going to make correction okay so i'll make the motion that the interim be able to apply for the permanent superintendent's position for a second second by mrs mcquinn okay now we're in our discussion i i would certainly not want to see us not allow an interim to apply i would like for them to be able to apply okay other discussion mrs anders just before we go further i know in the other meeting we said we wanted to do the interview so do we need to vote on that sort of the discussion we had earlier that we wanted to do it interim do we need to have a vote on that before we start talking
041about the other stuff i think we need to vote i guess that's important yeah so let's pull that motion back and i will okay so can i i can do a twofer can i do a two for my so my motion would be that we appoint an interim and i'm going to say for the sake of the motion that will start some before the start of the school year um and that that such interim can apply to be the permanent superintendent okay we have a second on that motion second by miss ayala discussion this is mcqueen does that limit us from doing that tonight no no thank you before the start of the school year thank you any other discussion all in favor o's motion carries 7-0 we've got that one uh dr ilkava so
042the next issue then would be [Music] so i'd like to make a motion that the interim um be uh would serve until june 30th 2022. motion by dr robinson seconded by mrs anders mrs whitfield you have discussion i think we can say up until that point but if we find somebody a little bit sooner than that and they're willing to start i'd be willing to take them sooner than that but can we just say that at least that hopefully they will stick around until june of 2022 and then if somebody comes earlier you know we can if the process moves faster than that we can actually have them come a little sooner miss brew thank you i would offer and a substitute motion that the um the interim superintendent serves until the the new superintendent
043the permanent superintendent is begins begins working and that does not preclude that that person wouldn't be the same one but until we make a decision and the person is starting okay so that's a substitute that do i need to accept it i won't accept it so i'm i'm pretty clear that we need stability now and and i guess what i'm trying to do is to create the situation where our expectation would be that the new superintendent will come on at the end of the school year things can always change when the contract gets negotiated with the interim it's going to be an exit clause every contract on the face of earth has one right and so if some fantabulous person walks up then then we can change things but i want to set an expectation
044i think as our schools need it i think that they just need to know that we're going to be like have some degree of cruise control almost um and so i don't i don't want to i don't want to do it that way um i'm pretty clear that i think doctor i think dr robinson the problem is if you're suggesting there's a provision in the contract that allows us to terminate it early then if we find somebody that's exactly what mrs brill was saying so i mean the contract's either gonna say he's got a job he or she has a job until june whatever the end of the school year or it's got contracts got to say in june third or sooner if if the board determines the or hires a new superintendent in the
045meantime my concern would be that we find somebody that's really great that wants to come here but they don't want to wait so they'll go to one of the other districts and say i've got a job opening you know i got a job opportunity la and the la district they want me now if you guys will take me i'd rather come to palm beach so i hate to lose lose the opportunity to get somebody that applies that's really good that doesn't want to wait until june um to come to us so so i oh i'm sorry man go ahead so um but every every contract has it as a clause so dr fennoy's contract we expected him to stay it had an exit clause i mean every contract has an exit clause what i'm saying
046is to set the expectation and i also i hear what you're saying i understand those words i don't think that that is the um the state of affairs with superintendents across the country that that will happen like but i you know i just i want stability so miss bro thank you and i want stability too but i will not accept just putting a date on it because again someone fantastic can come we can try and see if we can get someone for the end of the year but i think just saying that we're going to have the interim serve until such time as our new superintendent begins gives us flexibility i mean there may be we may not find somebody even by june who knows but i don't want to be boxed in i do
047want to have stability and i also don't want to rule out that superstar who may actually land here in palm beach county mrs andrews yes miss brielle i can live with that i just don't want us to rush again i just remember when we rushed before and we had lost a whole lot of people and then we ended up with just that little just that little group that we had and we didn't have everything that we needed i just know we do need stability here and i see us looking at a year it may be before then i doubt it because i you know i work with a lot of these school big school districts anyway so i do believe it's going to take us a year anyway but i'm open to leaving that there
048but i don't want any rush i just really want to feel that we're going to get the input from our stakeholders we're going to do this job right this time it's going to be thorough and if we're going to really do it the way we say we're going to do it we're going to need a lot of time to do it and certainly a star might shoot down to us and say hey i've got to have palm beach county and i've got to have palm beach county tonight that's right okay we'll jump to that but i just want to make sure everybody knows that we're not going to eliminate all the pieces of the puzzle so that we can really build the airplane that we truly want for this next superintendent before we uh just
049just do it yeah mr sanders remember the board will have the opportunity to approve a timeline so we can make sure that we factor in all of that time we need i don't want to rush it either i just don't want to limit us to somebody shows up in march and says they want the job and but they they don't want to wait till the end of the school year because they want to come here sooner i just don't want to lose the opportunity by then the word will be out that palm beach county is looking and somebody may show up i'm not suggesting we've rushed the process i just want us to have the flexibility to to move on it if somebody shows up general console we can put something in the contract but
050it would have to say that the board on what 30 days 30 days notice can terminate the interim superintendent without cause and so if we just i mean can we put something like that in the contract you can put some flexible language and mr littlejohn can you speak to what we've done possibly with other interim contracts if it's the vor if it's the board's pleasure i think you can put in a date for through june 2022 and also have a early termination provision at the option of the board okay all right so dr robinson you okay with that what the early early early termination absolutely so can i um who seconded my motion you did it alexander ken mcqueen made the motion and i amend my motion because because actually i would i would like
051it to be instead of june 30th 2022 the last day of school whatever that date is may something or other because i don't have a calendar so is there a second on that one mcqueen will you agree to that change in the motion clarification is that the last student day of school okay well i'm just simply getting clarification to her motion before i try to second her mother that is that's what i intended thank you for the clarification okay miss pearl thank you so dr robinson if i was to follow your logic you're saying that you feel that and this was in our previous conversations that superintendents look at a whole school year you have to remember that most districts around the country don't end in may they end in june because they start later
052so you know i i'm still i'm not comfortable with that language at all i understand the intent is to try to get through the school year um i you know i just i am afraid that we may be i do want to make it a very thoughtful process but i also don't see any problem with us we can put the parameters in our ad but i would rather leave it open-ended in terms of the date because state of new york they may be ending the middle or the end of june and just because we're ending in may doesn't mean that superintendent is going to abandon their district to come start down here so mr pearl what you're suggesting is the the interim would serve until the superintendent's found whether it's in earlier than the end
053of the school year or later than the end of the school year well that's not the current motion on the floor mrs andrews and once you begin to do the search process as you said mr babier the timeline all that stuff's going to be in there people will understand these board these superintendents are very uh unique in knowing exactly what's happening around them so they will know what you're talking about because as we begin to work through the process they're working through their own process as to what they can do based on their contract so it can be open-ended mrs brill as long as we just know that we're going to be tight on what we're doing i don't believe there should be a time limit on the interim i think working until we identify
054who the individual who is permanent is going to be we can make so that there's a timeline for that identification and the transfer of title i think that gives us more flexibility with everything that we have to go through with the national search and options in the process so it's my two cents on that okay very other discussion so the current motion on the floor would be dr robinson's motion to end the interim position on the last day of student enrollment in the school school district for the next school year and have a provision in the contract suggested by mr littlejohn that the contract can be terminated earlier if we find a superintendent in the meantime is whitfield in that contract can we also extend if we want to mr letterton well there's no we
055extend it as well or is it just a provision to terminate early the parties could always agree to extend i mean if you want to write in there that that you have some unilateral right to extend i don't need unilateral but i just would like the option to be able to you know if what if everything falls apart we can't find anyone you know the parties could always agree to you could have a prison contract extended it's mutually agreeable to the parties that okay the contract can be actually i can live with this i mean this is fine all right is everybody okay with that motion then okay we're going to vote all in favor opposed um i'm trying to decide [Laughter] save your tiebreaker for a better vote i think there's enough flexibility in
056dr robinson's motion to allow us to end the contra and end it earlier if we find find someone so mrs bro i still just don't understand why we have to put dates there because we know what our intent is and why bother with having to extend or having to shorten it i mean if we just put the words in where it's going to be when they begin in their position it just leaves it's just so much cleaner than going back and extending or i'll vote with the other three and against the recommendation the the current motion on the floor miss bro you want to make a replacement motion motion fails turn your microphone on mr bass was missing miss ayala mrs whitfield no uh miss brill and me i was a nay right okay thank
057you five two four three four mrs whitfield voted in favor of it dr robinson and so did mrs i'm good thank you okay it's brill so my motion would be that i'm getting tired sorry um that we that the term of the interim superintendent shall be until the new superintendent begins in his position right yes in their new position all right do we have a second on miss braille's motion by mrs whitfield discussion all in favor post that one past 7-0 next next uh next issue the um you want to talk about contract second day dr robinson you want to go with the next one um yeah i think um if i'm checking this off in the correct order then my next motion would be that we accelerate the effective date of the superintendent's resignation
058to be the date that the interim starts that's a recommend that's your motion that's my motion second by mrs mcquinn discussion this is whitfield i think we should i should offer an amended motion where it is uh to end on the date of the new superintendent with an option for consulting should the new superintendent choose the interim superintendent choose i really think that they are going to need that option in there so that would be my amended motion here in a second on mrs whitfield's amendment this mr okay so with robert's rules of orders we don't vote on the first one we're doing another amendment right where are we the motion is that the superintendent dr fenoy's contract would end when the interim takes over the amendment would be if somebody seconds the amendment the
059memo would be that at the option of the interim they could ask for some additional time with with dr fenoy so dr fernando would be moved into a consulting type arrangement with the interim until the interim felt that you know so we take divi you know we take some consideration of what the interim would like that that's got a second okay okay discussion miss mcqueen well i haven't been able to say this yet and i just have to we all know that during dr fenoy's time on this board i have been a very strong supporter of him so when i advocate for it and i'm going along with this transition in terms of what an interim would want although i don't want any confusion about whose voice is whose but it is not that i
060don't value dr fenoy's input clearly i have been very supportive who knew what he would have to deal with when he came on board so i just want to make it very clear that i am pleased that he has taken us to where we are thank you any other discussion all in favor on the amendment all in favor opposed motion carry 7-0 now in the main motion all in favor opposed post effective motion carries 7-0 okay okay we got that you don't think so okay so the original motion was that the interim superintendent that's dr fenway's contract would end when the interim superintendent starts the amendment is that the dr fennoy's contract would end based on that the request from the interim superintendent that dr fenoy stay in a consulting type arrangement until the interim
061based on what the interim would like the board to do that one passed 7-0 they both passed yes dr robinson okay so i would uh i offer motion that the scope of the search the search method the search timeline the position description qualification salary range and implementation all be postponed until i don't even know where are we yeah not tonight um until our i'm september board meeting okay doctor come on cover did you want him back no the only thing that i wanted to mention that mark brought up is that we need an effective date for the start of the interim superintendent just hang on just hang on okay hold on very good we'll get there eventually no problem all right so dr robinson has a motion that the september board meeting the regularly scheduled
062september board meeting would be the meeting that we discussed the timeline and adopt the timeline and all that other you're seconding that motion mrs andrews any discussion on that one all in favor post motion carries 7-0 you're on a roll doctor mr chairman could i ask for a point of clarity for a minute thank you i wanted two questions um on the motion we passed to allow the interim to select to keep dr fennoy on as a consultant um i'm curious if that's something dr fennoy is even interested in yeah so it is when i sign my contract that language is in there about a transition in an event of an interim i am more than prepared to do that as the will and pleasure of the interim superintendent yes ma'am second question was should
063that power to assign that be with the board or with the interim i think the board will take recommendations from the interim and then make a decision based on the recommendations okay thank you this is mrs whitfield for sure is it time now to uh pick an interim all right i'd like to nominate mike burke we have a second second invite ms brill any discussion all in favor opposed motion carries 7-0 mr burke is the interim superintendent miss dr robinson i think we need to put some time a timeline a start date on that that's the next thing okay and i'd have a another recommendation to add to that that the item be brought back perhaps for next board meeting to allow time to negotiate a contract so the board can make a motion to
064that effect as well and you'll see that the motion would bring back his contract next at the next board meeting for discussion and adoption by the board yes as well as an effective date if you as well as the effective date miss pearl thank you and i think that we do also have to ask mr burke um if first of all if he's willing and second of all um how much time if next week if we were to appoint if we were to make it effective next week if he would be prepared to transition his office to his person who would be acting who we all know but i she who shall not be named this time yes i am prepared and we can pull that off in a week and whenever it's appropriate i'd
065like to thank the board so i'm going to so quick with that thank you i don't know if that's a good thank you so don't get a musical reference i'll follow up with a motion i'll follow up with a motion that we bring back the contract for our interim superintendent next week and that our chairman will work with legal to to put that together dr robinson if i may i'm seconding but i will also if i may chair i would recommend that um the chairman if that is the pleasure of the board that worked with legal and hr okay that's okay with that motion so amended okay she changed the motion dr robinson and to if i may um add to that most emotion that um that he would take the interim position effective immediately
066after board approval after board so if it's next to next wednesday it'll be at that time general konsta have any issue with how we're doing this immediate i missed the telling of that immediate after the contract is that what you said what i'm trying to say is if the negotiations take place and it comes to the board next week the board approves it boom he starts immediately you can make a motion to that effect yes that's what i tried to do okay but we have a motion on the floor i think having to work on that okay so will you agree to that okay so carol you have that okay so is that whoever seconded the motion miss frills motion do you agree to the modification dr robinson was the one okay any go ahead
067mrs mcqueen going to miss bernard though she did say um i don't know if we got it in there that um general counsel and hr would be working together yeah okay okay any further discussion on favor opposed motion carry 7-0 mr burke you would like to make a few comments before we move on here i would yes uh i would like to thank the board for entrusting me with this responsibility uh i am honored and i promise i will work hard to make you proud of this appointment i'd also like to thank dr fenoy he shouldered a huge responsibility in guiding our school district through the most challenging times in modern history and i always appreciate that it was i know it was tough you know the strength of our school district is our people
068it's our dedicated teachers school administrators bus drivers custodians food service workers you know police officers maintenance crews and i could go on and on we've got in the full list of support staff and they always rise to the challenge i think they proved that last year with the pandemic opening our schools in the midst of all that and it's going to take a concerted effort again this year to to meet the heightened needs of our students you know coming off well the pandemic's still going but we know with a full return to brick and mortar the needs of our kids are great you know let me just check i did have some notes i thought i had it memorized but the uh anyway i i am excited to work with all of our colleagues 23
069000 strong to move this district forward and to make our schools a place where all students feel welcome and have the opportunity to pursue pursue their dreams you know i know this is a tough job i i wouldn't be able to do it without the support of my beautiful wife kristen and our three children our children are grown now and i feel like i'm at a good point in my career to take on this challenge and i just look forward to working with the whole team and once again i'd just like to thank the board for your trust and support thank you miss brill then mrs andrews then mrs whitfield thank you so i i just want to thank you mr burke for all the years that i've got come to know you that you've
070sat through these meetings and are still willing to step up into that position i think that says something to your character and just a point of personal privilege i want to once again thank dr fenoy because his leadership has been very strong and steady and he does have a vested interest in our continued success because his little babies are going to be are going to continue to be students in our district so i know that you two will work well together i'm going to miss my meetings with dr fenoy um because i and i just i want to thank him again for for getting us through such a rough period of time so thank you this is it certainly well i just want to say first congratulations mike and to the whole team um you
071know it's going to be really great to just be a regular citizen and you know i get to come to the meetings and voice my opinion without the filters of my bosses being next to me but more importantly i just asked you mike and the rest of the team you know my both of my babies will be going to school so i just ask that you take care of them thank you yes sir mrs anders thank you and congratulations mr burp we've been together a long time i was your daughter's your wife's teacher so i know you and we know each other well so it's great to see you in this position but i want to say that we're doing well here in the school district of palm beach county we had about four great
072names of people and i'm excited to see you here in this position but i wanted to tell you something that just happened right before the meeting i was very pleased to see the board unified on your selection so this is something that we have to continue to do as we move forward for our permanent superintendent i like this collaboration that i saw here tonight and we're all on the same page but i got this email from mr oswald and i just wanted to read it because i think the team out there it takes more than just mr burke we know we know who you are and we know your hard work ethic and that you're going to do the best for our children but it takes all those people sitting behind you mr burke and
073we know how great they are because they do good work but i received this email from mr oswald and i just want to read it because i think we got superstar people everywhere and he said good good afternoon board members he said i know the most important decision for the board is hiring for the superintendent position i would like to provide my support for mr mike burke in the position mr burke has an outstanding track record with the school district he is trusted and on an honest employee of the school district and will lead us well during the transition and it said thank you mr oswalt and i thank mr oswald and i thank the team the whole team back there for standing with mr burke because we're going to move this district and i'm
074pretty happy tonight yes tonight i'm just so glad you met shared that and it means so much to me mr oswald's a class act and you know i think it's no secret that my uh my strength is on the finance and operations and you know the business side of the district and i am going to it's going to take all of us our whole team here working together and uh i'm very fortunate to uh to have these colleagues and when you know anyway thank you mr burke don't leave it mrs whitfield and mrs mcquinn thank you well let me just first of all say thank you so much mr burke for stepping up um i truly love you guys everybody who who's willing to do this job just means so much to me um huge
075thank you to mr oswald um for that that email um it just it just fills my heart i you guys i feel like we're all in a foxhole sometimes and y'all are are really there for us and uh support us so much so um in my tradition of picking a song for the superintendent i got you one let's see if we can hear it [Music] hold on it went away i know it's an awful song i love it i'm not really good at music but i really really think this is it was simply to read mr oswald's email which was already done for me and thank you mr oswald that made this easier thank you miss miss brew thank you and i just want to acknowledge the other people in this room who i know
076i've spoken to a couple um who are very who made it very clear to me that they either chose not to want to take the position because they cared about the stability and had also said that if they didn't get the position that they were going to do everything they could to assist and make sure we continue on this track so we have dr farnoy put together a great team here who and everybody in this room has pledged that they're going to work together so i want to acknowledge all of you and thank you all for your very hard work on the for the benefit of our students and our employees so thanks all right miss ayala congratulations mike and thank you for stepping up at a time when our district really needs steady leadership
077i want to echo some sentiments and thank anyone who was willing to do that dr likada mr oswald all of you for steady leadership recognition of your role in our continued success we can't do it without you and i'm excited for the future of the district and for some time to get to know you a little better mr burke in this role and um thank you everyone for just wanting to stay committed during a time when public education is getting beat up left and right and stay in the fight and do what's best for kids who are our number one priority so thank you everybody thank you finally mr burke i'd like to throw in my my congratulations um you know i've always been amazed at the fact that you can balance a 3.8 billion
078dollar budget and we still you know you know it's it's it's it's must be monumental tasks to do that and you you've done it great and all of our outside audits have never found any findings so i mean it's just and you've won all kinds of awards for that um when i thought about who is best suited to be the interim um in the district right now your name came to mind first because although you are heavy on the operations side i don't think there's any decisions ever made on the academic side that you're not part of those meetings also because you have the checkbook so i would think that you know that whether they're academic uh meetings or their operations meetings that you're involved with those meetings so when i was trying to think
079who best has the in the district at this point has the knowledge to do both the academic side and the operation side and i understand you'll have to have your the academic we have an excellent academic team with with mr tierney and mr oswald and mrs dr sheffield and i'll probably miss somebody and then get shoot out tomorrow but there's an excellent academic team here that you'll rely on but i just believe with your experience all the years you've been here you've been cfo you've been ceo you've been the chief financial officer for years and and and won all kinds of awards for the work that should help keep this district solvent and uh so i think he'll do a great job for us until we find our next superintendent who may be you but
080um let's uh thank you very much you're welcome all right board members we have four discussion items for barbarian i think we should just say a huge thank you to heather canoose too because she's going to be taking over um mike's job and so big thank you to her for stepping up into that work yeah taking over some of the heavy lift during your time you have a strong finance team that makes it possible for me to kind of step out of that role for a while and do this it's an exciting time you know i'm excited about the the stimulus funds the esther dollars we we actually now have an opportunity to to do some great things with those dollars and look forward to the challenge thanks again thank you mr burt board discussion
081item bd1 miss ayala thank you mr chairman um so i also want to thank dr diaz and dr samore from the hispanic education coalition who came and um thanked me for putting this on it really was just curiosity and wanting to circle back to a process that we're in the middle of now with our strategic plan um when this document was brought to my attention when i came on since i obviously was not on the board at the time of it um being conducted i we found clear inequities right that they listed that exist in our district and i think as a board we've collectively decided that a priority for us moving forward is how we address those inequities and begin to make changes in academic achievements for our students who are left behind and
082for students of color so i wanted to bring this up to ask um you know how when the study was done to now what things have been implemented from the recommendations provided by this study um if someone the superintendent or a staff member could speak to that mr superintendent that'd be great and then just what we're thinking of using this for in terms of our current strategic plans as i think it's really valuable well this you know even though the study was done prior to me coming to even coming as the ceo uh it's a valuable instrument for us to use i started reading it again last night after i saw your discussion item it seems that most of the approp it seems that the most appropriate field for addressing these important issues is the
083strategic plan you have copies of the draft strategic plan we the team worked diligently it is ready to be presented to you next week um definitely look at page five i want you to pay attention to page five where the nyu equity audit is referenced while we have focused our efforts on the highlighted findings we recognize the need to continue to improve in these areas and we have structured our draft plan accordingly so what that leads me to this question however in light of my resignation the appointment of a new um superintendent i would like to know what the board's wishes are on voting on the adoption of the strategic plan next week when we we can start re-looking at this nyu study so i just kind of put that out to the board on
084whether or not you would like me to bring the strategic plan forward next week for adoption or for vote by the board or to or i just like to hear your winning pleasure that's all mr superintendent by may first um board members we've got a lot on our plate with the opening of school in a couple weeks if we can push this off a little i'm not suggesting we forget about it but let's push it off for a while until we have an opportunity to spend the time we need on that because there's just not enough time to get everything that's important done when we're opening the school system back up in a couple weeks mrs andrews i agree with that mr babier and i thank mrs ayala for bringing this uh item up because
085we really do need to uh uh have this in conjunction with our strategic plan but i was traveling just recently and i had a chance to read thoroughly each one of the focus groups and most of them talked about the new york university equity audit and and they had really some concerns all those groups we talked to a lot of different groups and they really do want us to go back and look at that and make sure it's embedded so that we do the things that we said we were going to do this it's not just a uh a lightweighted document this was an audit of us okay and the people are saying you didn't do what you said you were going to do with that and they want that included in the strategic plan
086to make sure that we answer those questions and get busy and uh and correct those deficiencies that were brought up in the audit so it was all over the uh focus groups comments as to why hadn't we done what we needed to do and and the suggestion that we get busy with it but i do agree that we are really busy right now and so i do think that a little time away from this before making a decision is is good mr bobby with you thank you um i just want to say we are always busy there's always something happening there's always a crisis something else is always is already going on every minute and every time i think that we're about to get out of whatever thing we're in we end up at another
087thing so i personally don't want to lose the progress we've made with the strategic plan i'd be fine with putting it off until after school is started before we have our next meeting on it but i i mean the work that kathy villacencio has done with the strategic planning team over this past year is valuable and we've gotten focus groups i think she's done i can't even imagine like 60 something focus groups during this time i think we should respect that work that's been done and not put the strategic plan off um much more than into the fall it very much concerns me as far as the nyu audit i'm right there with you miss ayala i was very proud when we did the audit the suggestions that came out of it meant a lot
088to me and so i would love to see us incorporating more of that in there hopefully we are incorporating some things already but i do think a second look at it would be great some of those things are still going on and so we really do need to make sure that we do what we said we would do on that but i would i would like to at least plan for the strategic plan information we brought back after the first to school thanks mrs andrews i do want us to take time and talk about uh what the focus group said i mean i don't want it to be just an agenda item and we're doing a major meeting and we're just approving this we need to we really need to delve into it when i
089had that time to read all those comments the focus group had said about us and what we keep saying we're going to do and we don't do it we need to have a concrete amount of time to go through some of those uh discussions that came to us from our stakeholders these are the ones we're talking about the superintendent search these are the people that are telling us what we need to be doing what we said we were going to do and we didn't do it and now we're saying we're going to do something else we need to go through those and i don't want it to be just an agenda item and then we get ready to approve it we need to have some discussions and then maybe we come back and approve it
090when we're ready but i don't want us to rush to do it if we're and i know we're busy all the time miss whitfield but i think we need to stop and slow down and take time to kind of understand what we're doing and not just saying we got the strategic plan let's pass it and move on we had a lot of discussions about where we were going to go with the strategic plan on a lot of comments so we need to go back and digest that and take the time i think you almost need to kind of workshop before you're talking about passing it you know coming back to bring it to the board to approve it dr robinson then mrs mcquinn thank you um i agree i um you know i remember the
091council of great city schools said that the strategic plan is the superintendent's implementation plan it is the almost like the guiding document of the board's vision in conjunction with the leadership team on how you know where we go and then you know kind of the intent is that we step back and and watch them take off right so um you know i think that we should um slow slow that down and actually my the next discussion item is relevant to that um the other thing is i think that there's there's this impression that soon as we and this is in the community as soon as we approve the strategic plan then all the priorities in schools will change like and it's just not like that i think it um when we approve the strategic plan
092i think we all and i don't know if it's in there already and whatever you were gonna bring to us but what would be phase one phase two phase three in terms of change um because i think that we also need to weigh in on the cadence of change what we think um what we think are priorities for changing first and and whether or not the system just can't if we think the system can't tolerate that must change that fast or we think it should move faster so i all that's to say is i agree with mrs andrews to maybe we workshop this in a month or so after the reopening of school settles and and we can take a deep breath and and work through it so thank you mr superintendent if you're still
093with us would you schedule that if not mr tierney's got it in his notes there and he'll make sure that we get it scheduled yes sir we'll take care of that for you is mcqueen go ahead so i would not have been ready to just say yeah we're going ahead with strategic plan and i did read you know i i love strategic plans so um i did read all those and i think now we do need i don't know if we need a workshop but we certainly now need to have discussion to make sure that i feel like there was a step that we missed there after reading all that i loved the groups that were we got the feedback it was very representative and i what one thing i would appreciate from staff is
094to make sure because i just came on the board when that equity audit was given to us well you know what when i'm talking about so um i'd like to see how they are integrated now i don't i didn't read that carefully enough to see that it's integrated or not we can make that decision but i would not like to see us go too far into september without doing it because remember schools don't have a choice from the state about their school improvement plans and they are to be looking for guidance from us so i don't want to see us put it too far into september okay any other discussion on that all right that'll take us to the next item which is dr robinson thank you so um because it appeared to me that
095the strategic plan process was at least paused i wanted to bring back up the issue again of the board discussing at some later date maybe when we had this workshop about the strategic plan but the portrait of a graduate because again it still seems to me i wish if i could turn back the hands of time i would have asked that we did the portrait of a graduate first so we could share what we think the uh we want all of our graduates to um their skills and competencies um and experiences you know above and beyond what is uh what are the graduation requirements so for example i would like every student to have had the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument and i would like every student to have learned another language
096i mean and i i do understand that there's no magic wand to make these things happen right away but if we can set that that vision that north star i think it will help guide um some future decisions so i just asked it as the board that we we dream that dream of what we want all of our graduates to um what skill sets we and experiences we want them to have all right so we can make that part of the workshop discussion okay all right your next item is yours this is dr robinson all righty so here we go so all right so first let me say this um somebody one of the comments was that i i think it was that i referred to um the anti-mask um parents as ignorant i have
097never said such a thing and i actually appreciate you digging into the issues and speaking your truth i mean i just you know i do respect that i think that um and you'd probably be surprised um the overlap of the venn diagram of what we would agree on but but other things we interpret information differently so this might be a bit much i need to get this off my chest um and and so i can leave it on the table so this past school year has been hellish in the face of the pandemic we moved to virtual only education in two weeks then created a simultaneous teaching learning environment with new safety protocols that changed every operation at and related to schools despite all this the educators and school communities of palm beach county managed
098to prevent a drop in the third grade ela scores which amazed me and they are to be praised i'm also thankful to the palm beach county department of health the health care district the superintendent's health advisory committee as well as the other health professionals families and community members that pitched in to prevent disaster so we have vaccinations now to protect against covet and life is starting to open up but there is a delta as we know and covet cases are climbing again cases are climbing because of the increased infectiousness of the delta variant as well as that we've been letting our guard down um it would be much worse if not for the vaccine so let me just give you some numbers because they blow my mind so this is per covert act now um
099which is one of the few places i've been able to find that keeps data for the entire pandemic so so as it happened on june 18 2020 which is the date that we approved our covet 19 emergency powers policy 2.3816 the daily new cases in palm beach county were 18.2 per 100 000 right today is 23.7 per 100 000. so it's higher than when we when we enacted our emergency covet policies on june 18 2020 the positive test rate was 13.3 um on june 24th of this year it was 4.2 that was good right today the positive test rate is 12.7 percent almost as high as when we enacted the emergency policies so everything is not back to normal it is as bad as it was in june of 2020 we should not let our
100guard down life and quality of life hangs in the balance hopes and prayers are not enough now you've heard me say it before as a physician i believe we must act in an abundance of caution because more than 200 000 lives could be negatively impacted if we keep our heads in the sand as as has been well outlined by numerous health and public health experts we must create and maintain layers of protection because nothing is a hundred percent effective we must find a way for students and employees to feel safe and be safe as possible i realize there are obstacles i realize it's not easy but you know if you needed surgery and your surgeon decided after two hours that their feet hurt when it actually takes four hours to complete the surgery what would
101you say so my quote for the day is from reverend dr martin luther king jr who said the true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges i think that applies to women too so there's 10 layers of protection i want to bring up i will try to not keep you too long so first is messaging and education we need to use our communications resources to use their messaging techniques to teach students and other members of the communities that we're still in a pandemic so take your precautions to stay at home if you're sick that vaccines are available i'm not pushing the vaccines on anybody and then the other topics is you know as seen um seem to
102be fitting then of course the the mask now masks do prevent infection they're most impactful for source control and this is this is an important point or as i would i would really agree with the choice um perspective masks are most impactful for source control meaning that they prevent an infected person who has on the mask from spreading it to someone else they also provide some protection for the uninfected mass wearer to keep them from getting it but it's they're really more effective at source control so you know i was trying to figure out a way for everybody to have what they wanted so that people who want to wear masks could wear have their children wear masks and if they didn't that they didn't have to and somehow that magically turned into this word
103called segregation fine i'm just trying to figure out how to keep people safe and and have people feel that their their voice has been heard um so anyway um if you compare it though to driving laws this issue of source control so if you don't wear your seat belt you put yourself at risk right so that's not the correct comparison it's more like texting while driving because if you text while driving you put yourself at risk and others at risk you're not safe if somebody else is texting while driving even if you're not that's the comparison next layer social distancing so we know this is important with so many students coming back we absolutely six feet out the window we know that but we must do everything possible to maintain three feet and we need
104to monitor it the way we monitored six feet additionally we must provide the option for students to eat breakfast and lunch outdoors whenever the weather allows and it's not enough to say we will try we need to work on this the way we worked on six feet back in september hand washing of course you know we've known that since we were children right hand washing should continue to be encouraged and we need to make sure we provide what's needed for the frequent hand washing improved air quality so from the recommendations of the council of grace city schools we must document and report to the school board each of the safety measures taken including but not limited to which schools have the merv 13 and if we can't do the merv 13 filters to follow the
105recommended options included but not limited to operating return air systems with 100 outside air portable hepa filtration units and consider the uv treatment of air testing in addition to in addition to continuing testing of symptomatic students by school nurses with parental consent we must ensure that employees can be tested with as little delay and disruption as possible we must also resurrect the effort to make regular screening testing available to members of the community contact tracing this remains critically important and i thank the department of health for their work in this area to expand the effectiveness of this important follow-up public health measure the school district could work with health councils southeast florida and others to provide training opportunities for our recent high school graduates to become community health workers not only would this increase the
106effectiveness of contact trait tracing but it might actually be a pipeline to future medical professionals the vaccine research shows that the most important step to decrease covert transmission in schools is to vaccinate the adults however vaccines are truly medical therapeutics that break the protective skin barrier i would not ever mandate covert vaccines for anybody but i do want to educate people and i do want people to evaluate their own personal benefit risk equation but that it's not for me to say that they they should or must have a vaccine we must continue though to work with healthcare district and department of health to make vaccines very easily available and accessible to all eligible members of the school community that want it the monoclonal antibody cocktail so to we to expand on the work that the
107school district and united health arrange we should work with department of health health care district palm beach county and the palm beach county and taylor roy jefferson medical societies as well as insurance providers to make the monoclonal antibody cocktail available to all that meet the criteria and desire to have this potentially life-saving therapy one model program exists in imperial county california so we need to use our important positioning in this community to help uh save lives now i'm going to say this studies on ivermectin are really pretty convincing but as a licensed physician i cannot broadly promote off-label use of any medication so i didn't really say that okay the last thing is waste water surveillance as an added layer of monitoring to prevent the spread of illness we should work with other county entities
108to look at a wastewater monitoring system that was described very clearly in the june 18th time magazine so now i am clear that all of these recommendations do not and should not fall on the shoulders of the school district alone but we have influence and we are part of this public health network whether we like it or not so what can we do so i agree with the american academy of pediatric statements stressing that i quote school plans should start with the goal of keeping students safe and physically present in school in addition to encouraging vaccines aap has stated clearly that quote all students older than two years and all school staff should wear mask at school unless medical or developmental conditions prohibit use now the florida department of education website says the fdoe is
109working closely with the florida department of health and centers for disease control and prevention to monitor covet 19 and is actively working to ensure that the most up-to-date guidance is quickly and accurately disseminated fdoe understands that concerns about health and safety are paramount for all education communities in response to such concerns we encourage you to access up-to-date information and resources and they give you the fdoh and cdc's website they also say school districts and colleges should work directly with their local county health departments to establish protocols to reopen florida's educational institutions control the spread of covert 19 and educate the public on prevention yes that's what i'm asking so here's my request so in addition to all the things that i've listed in terms of messaging and so forth i ask that we follow the
110recommendations of the florida department of health cdc and aap to work with our local county health department to institute covet safety plans and establish protocols for the start of the school year and i ask that legal determine if the current health crisis meets the criteria for an emergency policy with regards to covet one if so that emergency policy be developed with input from our local county health department as per department of education that is in alignment with the cdc and aap recommendations if it's legal determines it does not meet the criteria for emergency i ask that the superintendent reinstate covet protocols that were recently suspended and we proceed to update our policy under the usual timelines and that is my attempt to try to help thank you mrs mcqueen and miss ayala i think that
111several of us last week or the week before met individually at the request of a group of parents that included healthcare professionals and their wish was for universal masking but they had some pieces that came out of that that i talked to dr fenori about and some of you saw i sent a couple of board questions in so if i could just bring two of those up because dr fenoy said that he would address one of them and one of their questions was were schools allowed could parents provide really is what they said but we know that becomes an equity issue all can't do that the portable hepa filters in classrooms so i know that dr fenoy said that he would address that yeah so mr burke and uh wanda paul and i talked with
112earlier this week so they're in the pro we're in the process of purchasing for the all of the entire district hooray and then just one more follow-up from that meeting i mean there was a lot more but i i tried to be good about this well actually too stay so that's that's handled the other piece is they are advocating being able to eat outdoors and i read somewhere i don't know if it was public or to us but that it was a school center decision i'm telling you principals should not have to make that decision on their own because they are going to create a mess among their teachers and we can't afford that with our kids so i'm not asking for a statement about that tonight i am asking that our our schools get
113very clear direction and that our public know what that direction is and finally they just wanted to know like i don't even know how we got here tonight i didn't wasn't aware that we were changing anything and they said i have a big star here they just said where are we i didn't know that we had made a decision to do anything differently thank you miss ayala then miss pearl and mrs whitfield and mrs andrews thank you mr chairman um my colleague covered a lot of what i wanted to ask basically i wanted to understand what layers the layered approach that's recommended by the cdc can can the superintendent or staff walk us through what layers we have in place or how are planning to have in place going into the school year yes some
114of that information can be shared with you tomorrow and then we'll be available to walk walk you through it individually okay thank you brielle thank you and i'm just asking for some clarification um all of you received the response to my questions i did put out two questions about the hepa filters and the option to eat outdoors and so the response that i received from miss ms paul is that as dr fenoy said and this is where i'm going to need to get clarification it says the district is working with two constit consultants to determine the best short-term and long-term solutions as recommended by the consultants operations is working with purchasing and finance to secure funding and order sufficient numbers of hepa filtration this is it for school clinics as well as elementary classrooms and
115the intent is to have it in place for the start of the school year so i just want clarification is it only for the elementary schools or are we looking for them for all of our schools so this if i may dr fanoa this process is the initial um items that we think we're able to deliver before or right at the start of school we do have consultants working on the short-term solution which is uh the portable hepa filters the long-term solution is in terms of construction related things that we can do and so we have another consultant that's looking at that portion of it and so we have a definite timeline that we have to be on to utilize the esser funds that we intend to use to pay for this and so again
116you know i will speak in terms of layers uh as we try to increase filtration in our schools so the first phase is purchasing portable helper filters our sick kids go to the clinics first and so we want to make sure we provide that for the clinics then we want to be able to provide it for the elementary schools or the kids that are unvaccinated in elementary schools or you don't have a vaccine and then the other the other layer of it or phase of it is the structural part of it that impacts our hvac system as we're replacing new units we want to make sure that we're able to upgrade those systems in a way that prepares us if we ever have another pandemic in the future that the school district is prepared for
117that so i hope that answers your question but this is not a a one-size-fits-all situation and so we're doing what we can for the start of school and then this will be a three year project that we want to impact all schools so it's not an easy answer initially but i think we can get there and it's really nice to have money to be able to afford to do it so we're very fortunate in our district mrs whitfield and mrs andrews thank you just a couple of things first on your list dr robinson you mentioned communications and i think that that is really key in this time i think we need to over communicate if anything on the what is it going to look like when we go back to school because i think you
118know the families that have been coming to us are concerned because they don't know what the situation is going to be i i you know and obviously you know things change i get that we have to be somewhat flexible but as much as we know i think we should over communicate secondly i had a couple of things that i wanted to mention one idea to help the families out who are are nervous and are afraid for their students one concern that i've heard is about choice and some people are afraid to lose their spot in a school that they may have just been assigned to so i'd like us to consider letting just for the you know first half of the school year if a student is you know been accepted to their choice dream
119program that if they choose not to attend that we facilitate that for them and allow them to come in january i know this would be a hit for us as far as financially but i think you know this is one way we could be really respectful of people who choose to take their children and put them in virtual school we could still hold that space for them and i think this should only be available for people 12 and under who can't get the vaccine or unable to get the vaccine i think mostly because when you get into the older ages obviously they can get a vaccine if they want to but it it there's more requirements for choice at that level and so it can get more difficult to make that up but the elementary
120and early middle school years we should be able to accommodate that from my small conversations with choice so i'd love to consider that and secondly i'm wondering if it's possible for the families who choose to wear a mask that if they want to talk to their teacher and ask their teacher for the very small children to if they say you know we would like you to help you know johnny and sue to encourage them to keep their mask on because the parent chose that that we would see if we could encourage that as a school district i just feel like we want to make those families who do choose to send their children back but are concerned we give them those options so that you know they feel that real support from us um so
121not mandating the masks but um saying that if they do come back that they would have that opportunity so those are two things i really would like us to consider to really support people who who choose to come back but are very concerned right now mrs anderson thank you and i really appreciate hearing uh the things that ms paul is going to do especially with helping us to get to the next level i'm still kind of concerned about the uh the distancing the three feet and how we get that piece done but i think we're working on it with the uh the eating outside i think those kinds of things are good but i think when i hear parents come to this microphone and uh and they're they're feeling like they can't believe anything we
122say thank you dr robertson for bringing all your comments up but i just want to be clear and dr fennell you're sitting here i've been out in the community talking about your time to shine school board meeting from june to 23rd about the school reopening updates which was pretty thorough and parents do understand this especially speaking at education advisory committees and other groups and now we're getting another one probably tomorrow is that correct dr fennoy and so i think when people are sitting here i really want them to know i don't know of anything too much different from the optional piece that was in here that it would be optional for math and the schools as well as on the bus and parents are asking those questions everywhere not just at these meetings and so
123when we uh send this out tomorrow i just really want to make sure that when we send it to parents let's send it to uh educational advisory groups and some of the cities everybody needs to know what's going on for the opening of school and it looks like we don't have a whole lot of changes we're trying to make it better for our students so everybody can feel comfortable i know there are a lot of students and their parents worried about it but we heard about choice tonight we heard about the options and this is what we said we were going to do and so i don't know of anything that's different miss mcqueen as i'm sitting here tonight listening to all these parents i was surprised when they had called me and asked me
124well are we doing something different and i don't know of anything different i know what has been brought to our my attention based on what the superintendent said i'm sorry i don't have the sheet tonight to say when i can read this it's the same thing but it sounds like nothing has changed here so uh i just want to make sure you know i hear you dr robinson but it looks like this is where we are based on what you're doing tomorrow dr fenoy is that correct okay i just want to make sure parents hear that because they're saying well no that's not correct miss andrews somebody's going to change their minds and so when dr fennoy told me this week no it's it's it's similar to what you already have of what you've been
125out in the community saying and i have not there are no other changes in the decisions and one other thing i want to bring up that's not in here i'm still worried about the esc children i still work with parents who are concerned where their children based on their iep may not be able to go back to brick and mortar and so i don't know if we have a plan for them i know that we sent the uh paperwork out saying that they could go to palm beach virtual or florida virtual but based on their ieps that might not be suitable and i'm saying it again here tonight i've spoken to mr tyranny and others i worry about that i was hoping with ron leface and and his position at one of the board meetings
126that he was going to work on seeing if we could actually get some approvals because we were a high performing district but from dr fenoy's mouth just the other day that we're not going to get that so dr benoit can you talk about the esc piece uh for a minute please for the parents that's listening yes ma'am we um we we were in communication with the chancellor's office and because we were high performances we requested dr sheffield submitted a formal request they contacted us last friday thursday and told us that they would not be granting any requests in the state of florida for different modalities and so we moved forward um dr um sheffield team and mr oswald have been working with my special education department and for alternatives and so they're ready to go
127yeah and the last thing i want to say to the parents too and i spoke to dr fennoy about this and i've been checking with other school boards from across the state i know that we're under the auspices of the governor and the commissioner of education and whatever we're going to get tomorrow i think it it tags into what we've been actually been told by the commissioner of education that we have to get back to a normal school setting dr fennell can you talk about that a minute please i i don't know if there's anything else really to add to what you said yeah we're we're you know yeah yes that's all i can really say to that okay dr robinson then miss bro well okay i'll defer to miss brill and i'll come back
128thank you i just wanted to go back to something that ms whitfield had recommended because i'm just not understanding how it's practicable and that is with regard to the choice program seats um i don't know and and will defer to the superintendent for some feedback and i know that mr bhagas is here i don't personally know how you could hold the seats for a whole semester when you have wait lists for some programs and then if some students are able to have their seat held and then start in the choice program in january and then you have others who are not able to have their seat held and can't go into their program is it going to be so you know selective i mean will families feel like it's selective enforcement i want to make
129sure that we have fair and equal and equitable treatment throughout the district so i just want to you know i i got the impression that you were that mrs whitfield was told that that could be done and in my mind i just can't reconcile that so you know i don't i had i hadn't heard that so i'm not even familiar with what what you're discussing at this point dr robinson thank you so um well mrs whitford i appreciate you um creatively thinking about how to work through this um situation within so let me let me but let me add this because a lot of the conversation circles around young people over 12 can get the vaccine but we cannot assume that there's going to be real uptake in the vaccine in in our students um
130and i'm going to say that when people when people evaluate their personal benefit risk uh ratio in terms of the vaccine there's there are some legitimate concerns i mean i'm just saying so i don't want us to act like over 12 is everything's good they had the vaccine that is that's not true right it is true that under 12 they're unable to get the vaccine at this point right so i mean but i appreciate um you trying to think of of solutions which is what i'm trying to do so now um you know i think that when we look at these layers of protection so the the standard the most common to discuss of course are masculine social distancing right the the thought though of of children i hate to say it this way being
131normal children and working together closely together without mask on really does concern me and so my request again is that we ask our legal department to determine whether or not it's emergency but most importantly follow the recommendations of the florida department of health to work with our local county health department to make recommendations that's i mean you know i'm pretty clear about how things would work if i had a magic wand but i'm also clear i'm not in charge of the world so but i but i just want to stress again i just i want to stress where we are with these numbers okay again june 18 2020 in palm beach county the daily new case rate was 18.2 per 100 000. today is 23.7 so if we had all of these protective measures in
132place then we should not just turn away i get i have covert fatigue too i'm tired of this dog on pandemic right but we can't put our head in the sand and especially when when we have responsibility over you know a couple hundred thousand lives we we can impact their well-being right so you know again my best idea to to provide for as much safety as many layers as possible while respecting the parents rights who don't want their children to wear masks is to give the principals the authority to do massive unmasked classrooms if it works for their school community i'm not trying to mandate that either right but we cannot put our heads in the sand when these numbers are skyrocketing june of this year i wasn't saying anything like that the numbers were
133down i was like prayerful that the numbers would continue to go down they have not okay so i'm just asking that we address the issue it doesn't have to be what i think it should be but doggone it let's acknowledge the fact that we are still in a pandemic and we need to make sure that we provide as much safety as possible let's finish up this discussion because we have another one that i want to get to but the takeaway from this discussion tonight those people that are sitting here and the people that are going to read about this tomorrow is that this board is discussing putting a mandatory mask mandate back in place and we are not discussing that there was no vote on that tonight and we are not doing that i respect
134your opinion dr robinson but i want to make it clear to the public that we have not made a decision to do that if we can find other ways to protect the children that's fine but to suggest to the public that this board is considering putting a mandate back in for mask is the farthest thing from the truth because i don't hear any of us talking about that and i just want to make that clear to the public because tomorrow and next week we'll have another thousand people that want to call in here saying that we're voting on putting mass mandates back in which we are not doing and it wasn't even on the agenda tonight to vote on it so mr barbieri that's why i listed all the layers okay if we're not willing
135to lean into one layer we damn it need to lean into some of the other ones i am thrilled to hear about the portable helper filters okay thrilled but let's look at the other ones i agree i just want to make it absolutely clear that this board is not discussing a mandatory mask mandate for the fall that just we are not doing that so i'd like to get to the next board discussion item if we were to listen to all the recorded messages tonight of 2 hours and 40 minutes it would now be almost 1am we need to do something about the policy i'm not suggesting that the people that come here shouldn't have the opportunity to speak with us i'm not saying that for i'm not even suggesting anything close to that what i'm
136saying is the recordings were put in place during the pandemic so we can make sure that people that wanted to talk to us felt comfortable talking to us without having to come here that time has passed this board cannot get work done i mean we got staff sitting here that's going to have to be up in the morning back here because we're on 10 hour days they're going to be back here they're probably going to go and get five hours of sleep back in this in here in the morning it's ridiculous that we have this policy in place it says people can just sit at home and call in and we all know that this board honestly i mean when we sit here listening to recorded messages for three hours are we really listening after
137after i mean we do our best but i mean do we really sit here and concentrate every half the time we can't understand what they're saying because of the i think we should change the policy to prohibit recorded messages or at least limit them to the first hour that we get recorded message we'll listen to recorded messages and all of the recorded messages will be attached to the agenda and and will be available to the board members to listen to and the public the other thing we need to do is eliminate with comments public comments or workshops the workshops we don't vote on anything workshops is our opportunity to have staff tell us what they think we should be considering when we're going to make a decision at a board meeting at which point the
138public has the opportunity to speak to us before we discuss and vote at a board meeting so i think the policy should be changed to do away with public comments at workshops so if we can schedule three workshops for three hours and know that we have a board meeting we know we're going to get two three hour workshops and not have two or three hours of public comment and secondly we need to do something with these recordings they're out of control we keep waving it every every time we have a chance and we waive two hours and 40 minutes tonight of listening to recordings and like i said it would be one o'clock in the morning if we would have done that miss brill so i partially agree with you mr barbieri i do agree
139that we put the recordings in place because of covid and since we are open and people can come in here and can sit in the mask room or the unmasked room we should go back to having people in person however as i recall i was the one who put in the motion that we agreed on to have speakers at workshops and that went back to i remember when we wrote the inclusion policy for the district and the public was it was an integral part of it when we have a workshop we're not voting on things but there are people in the public that do have ideas that do have knowledge that we don't have i don't recall any workshops other than i mean it's the workshop today on the superintendent search is atypical we don't
140normally have that number of people in our in our meetings in our workshops so i don't want to preclude getting comments from the public at our workshops i think that we are here to serve the public and that i would still want to welcome them to be involved other discussion mrs andrews and mrs whitfield and thank you mr bobby erie i always want to hear the voice of the people but we started this because of the pandemic and i think now we are telling we're going to get this time to shine tomorrow everybody's coming back to school we're asking our children to come back to brick and mortar and giving parents an option as to what they're going to be able to do whether they're mass or massless and so we need people to come
141on to this board meeting if they want to speak you know what i'm saying uh to come in here and we have two rooms as mr bobbiery said so i think we and everywhere i go i'm out in the public all the time very few people if i want to wear a mask i can wear a mask but people are out doing whatever they want to do everywhere they go and sometimes when i find myself with the mass on i'm the only one so everybody needs to start getting back to where we need to go we're telling the children this is what it's all about as we begin to open school on august the 4th and august the 10th and i'm out this weekend doing things in the community and people are ready to move
142forward so i think this thing with everybody on the recording that needs to be changed we need to stop that this is with you thank you and thank you mr barbara for bringing this back up um i agree with you completely i think it's disingenuous for us to ask people to leave voicemails that we then suspend at every meeting so i think if we're not going to have the time to listen to them because truly i am the first one to say that this is we can't go till 1am we're already an hour past my bedtime you know i have a baby i'm like this is only so much i can do so i think we need to just realize that we're back and people can come and we'll make every accommodation to have them
143in the building and i would like to see them and have them come in and and really just i i think we we can't continue with this you know hours of recorded messages it's just it's just very difficult thank you miss ayala i agree with you completely i think that it's important to hear from everyone but there's the right way and right place and time to have those discussions and frankly i think i would be remiss for my third time on the short time on this board if i didn't address the disrespectful manner in which some of the commentary has gone in this discussion today and i think as board members as staff as chiefs that disrespect is just not acceptable we can disagree and be respectful because none of us disrespect the public speakers
144that come in front of us and so in that vein i agree with you on the workshop piece too because there are opportunities to address this in other ways in other venues for those thoughts on workshops that we may be having it actually cuts into the time we have to do the work of the district that we're trying to do and may i remind the public that these are not full-time jobs they're not supposed to be many of us up here have other full-time jobs and do this as well and it's a lot and none of us should be forced to stay here until 1am multiple times a year that's just not do you all do that at your jobs any of you stay at work till 1am so i i just i just want
145to make sure that it's understood that we work and we're all committed and passionate about what we do here but we are not subject to certain things that are out of bounds so i agree with the chairman's comments may please stop out there you know we've taken enough abuse tonight from you all can you just stop she's right i mean you know there's some respect it's due to us i mean we work hard for all of you i've been on this board 13 years and i'm tired of being called all the names you call us every night and you heard the one guy said you guys are screwed you guys there's no way you can win they're absolutely right there's no way for us to when you heard the people that said i don't want
146to send my kids to school unless everybody has a mask on doctors are telling them this and then you guys are telling us that you're going to take your kids out of school because we're a bunch of idiots putting mass on them what the hell do you expect us to do stop beating us up at every meeting we're trying to do our best miss mrs mcquinn okay go to workshops first because i'm going to talk about the the disrespect and i we have never been disrespectful back and i loved the two children who spoke spoke tonight um one of the principals texted me and said those were my kids but and even though we don't necessarily we may or may not agree with our message i was so proud of them for being prepared and
147being able to speak publicly i think i had to be a lot older before i would have had the nerve to do that i initially voted to whenever we did it back a few years ago to have the comment at workshops however we often end up without time to talk ourselves and to have staff answer our questions and since we don't typically vote at workshops then there's plenty of time for public comment before we would make a vote and certainly to um to send us emails and i know that barring these very difficult situations that everybody cares about their kids you want to mask you don't want to mask you you care equally about your kids so you're emailing us but for the most part they're not overwhelming and we do read them so i
148concur with mr barbieri miss brew so before we make a decision on the workshops because i'm thinking back on the meetings and i don't recall us really having a large number of speakers at our workshops other than when we've had the controversies that we've been dealing with recently so i'm i'm going to not be willing to make that change because i do want the input from people depending on what the subject matter is there have been workshops that we've had we've had no speakers so i do think if it's something important i i just want to be more inclusive of the public i completely concur that we don't need to have the recorded messages but i do think it's important that when we're talking about different things for example if we have a workshop on
149esc and we have parents that come in with information on dyslexia and they speak to us and they share information that we really don't know i can say that in many cases in these workshops people have brought things up that i didn't think about so you know i don't want to make decisions in a cocoon and i think that even though we're not voting i i do appreciate the input that we get from the public at the work so so will the board agree that we will modify the we'll have the administration bring back the modified policy to get rid of recorded messages we'll keep the i guess we'll keep the discussion at this point a public discussion at the workshops and we'll see how that works out for us uh obviously if if it
150works it works and if it doesn't we'll have to revisit it at some other time is everybody in agreement we bring the policy back with the recording miss bernard uh i just want to state that i know we can't vote on it tonight so vote on it tonight but the office of general counsel works on the preparations of that policy and we are in the process of doing that we're in the process of doing a complete overhaul of the policy because there are a number of sections not just the section dealing with recordings but a number of sections that over time the board has indicated that they'd like to see changes to we are in that process currently i'm so happy to hear this discussion tonight because this will certainly inform what we bring back
151to the board but i would just ask that we'd be allowed the time to do a complete review of the policy and bring it back to you in total so that we're not going through that elongated when you say complete review i don't want this to drag on for another two months so that policy on the recordings i don't care if we have to do it in two different steps you need to get that policy back too so we can get it changed because as the parents get more and more heated we're gonna i don't want to tell them to call and make their recordings and then we turn them off every night it's not fair to them to think that we're going to listen to them and then we don't so we need to
152get that policy changed so that the public knows if they want to speak to us they can either call they can either come into the meeting or they can send us messages through the email system so that we can see the emails but that policy's got to be brought back to us post haste on that change at least that changed all right mrs anders and i know it's time to go but i do want to say that what we're discussing tonight is happening all across the country uh at school board meetings because we're we're in a pandemic everybody we've been in a pandemic and we're still in it and parents and community they want to have their voice it's a passionate time when a parent is fighting for their child so we understand that and
153we know that it gets impassioned out there when parents are speaking and we've been listening we've been getting your emails your texts we know what it's all about for you to advocate for your children because you're the best advocate so as we kind of wind through this i think we're at an even point now that uh you're getting the information from the superintendent tomorrow i know i'd like this time to shine and i guess tomorrow when i get the new one it's going to be even greater in a sense that we're going to be doing more things for the children and we're getting on back to getting to school so i hope people leave here tonight to know that we spent the time listening to you and trying to work on what's best for children
154and we will continue to listen to parents because you are the best judge of what happens to your children and the optional pieces that the superintendent has put in place as i said before i'm feeling comfortable with that and the other pieces of trying to keep the children safe once they get to school and continuing to modify how we can keep them safe once they get into the school but the biggest question right now is making sure parents have a choice and we're leaving here tonight knowing that that's coming out tomorrow and nothing changed tonight so thank you all right if there's no further discussion we need a motion to adjourn motion by mrs mcquinn second in my mrs whitfield any discussion all in favor opposed meeting is adjourned thank you