05.19.21 SDPBC Board Meeting (Part 4)

001justin nevadas allison rampers said mary lisante w-a-n-t-e daniel called us chris morris no it doesn't look like go ahead and state your name chris morris i'm a parent of two kids that are in elementary school brings me here tonight i saw a video on brain pop which is one of the learning modules that they use in elementary school video was about george floyd okay video was about the murder of george floyd and a lot of the emphasis in that video had to do with skin color okay not only that there was also mention of structural racism in the country and that parlayed into voting and voting laws elementary school okay i don't have to tell you that's completely inappropriate material for those kids okay and it's a socio-political message okay i know what that is

002you can frame it say whatever you want to say about it so my message to you is stay the hell out of my living room okay that's my place if i want to talk about current events with my kids me and my wife can impart any kind of moral guidance and advice we want to that's our place that's our lane stay in your lane okay of course now i had to look into the equity mission okay critical race theory you know you academics and politicians play games with words we know what it is 40 minutes of the first training module okay with mary for tackles i watched it all about skin color skin color skin color skin color race are we not past this crap as a society is unbelievable okay i mean palm beach

003county is a melting pot the numbers bear that out pretty obvious okay so i'm telling you right now if you support this ideology this philosophy where skin color and group identity matters more than the substance of the individual you are a racist okay shake your head i see you shaking your head i'm saying it to your face right now i'm calling you a racist if this is what you believe okay and you know when i was watching these videos the only person that was bringing any kind of real actionable solutions or ideas to the table was mrs andrews okay she's the only one doing it again tonight so i at least want to point that out okay and in addition to being racist there's no data to support this works it's a freaking idea that

004somebody grabbed out of the sky says oh let's try this okay there's no data that says this is going to be any better than anything else and you know what miss andrews thank you for bringing up the fact that uh pahokee high school okay which i know about pahokee was you know recognized for an achievement okay how awesome is that which segues into the fact that supposedly the system is racist interesting very interesting okay and you know what does equitable outcome even mean we want every school in palm beach county to be a c school and we're going to pat each other on the back and say good job guys we did it what does it even mean you can't define it you can't say what it is and you know going back to the

005system is racist i just couldn't pass on this um mr barbara you've been here for 13 years um dr robinson a couple decades guess what you are the system how does that shoe fit okay dr fenoy you are a product of the system and you sir are in charge does the irony of that not strike you in any way what i will say is i'm gonna go back to the kids okay the kids are pure they're innocent do not try to divide them by looking at each other's skin colors and groups okay encourage them to love one another okay teach them that they are individuals they are all worthwhile okay we're not gonna stand by idly and watch you try to corrupt our kids and divide them it's wrong it's evil we're not gonna watch

006it happen like many people said tonight you have pissed people off you poke the bear okay you got somebody like me who doesn't want to be here he's here now and i'm not going to go away because it's wrong i've called every name that i have on the list i've called every blue card so if you're still in the room and your name hasn't been called i don't know what to tell you i have no name for you on the list and of course in the cafeteria go ahead so um i identify myself as allison today and i am a mother of four children a grandmother of nine grandchildren i am an unhirable nurse and why do i say unhorrible because i know the lies that have been fed to this country over things that

007cannot even be identified as truth and with that you all and the school board have taken on such criminal actions hurting our children and forgetting how you lived your life how you ate dirt how you played outside barefooted how you hugged and kissed on your friends how you shared saliva with people that you probably didn't even know in a nightclub and you know what we're still here we drank water out of a faucet but for an entire year and a half we've been telling children to be afraid for those of us that have chosen not to wear a mask and we're still here we must be walking miracles because we've been at this for like 54 weeks mass free walking around nor people my 98 year old father who fought for world war ii passed

008away the day before thanksgiving last year healthy as a just passed away from his body and guess what he called viens on all this because he couldn't understand why people were covering their face and he would call it like a facial diaper he wouldn't even allow nurses to come see him with a facial diaper because he had to read lips because he couldn't hear and he couldn't read lips of nurses that would come into the house so guess what most of the nurses had to quit because my father wouldn't allow them anywhere near them we never kept any of our grandchildren from their great grandfather great aunts great uncles from 98 to 95 to 93 to 89 to grandma over here almost 60 years old never once did we social distance never once did we

009wear a mask and never once did we get sick why because we took tonic water with quinine vitamin d3 vitamin c zinc omg elderberry and we're all still kicking it we're all still alive we're all so happy we've been together we've partied we've enjoyed life we've hired santa clauses so kids could have a normal christmas we hired animals so we could have their own petting zoo for kids to come and play with and we're still here so unmask our children and stop your bs because you know what we already got your number is over where [Music] board members the next hour and 50 minutes would be of recorded messages we have the opportunity to waive that portion of of the meeting so that we can get to the discussion item that mrs anders put on

010um with the understanding that we would suspend that portion of policy 1.03 that voice recorded messages be played during this meeting provided that those messages that have not been played or sent to all board members to listen and be posted on the website and made available for the public to listen so if somebody wants to make that motion we can suspend the hearing of the two hours of recorded messages was the motion was made by mrs mcquinn seconded by vice chair brill is there any discussion all in favor opposed motion carries 7-0 mrs andrews you can now start with your discussion item on parental options regarding mass and cdc guidelines and thank you mr chair and first of all to my fellow board members i just want to tell you that you know this has

011been heart heartbreaking to me to hear the moms and the dads tonight talking about their children and i just want to take a point of personal privilege to say that when the when the protests happened uh with the with the the moms and dads about a week or so ago and their children i didn't get a chance to go to that i was busy doing something else and i saw all those little kids out there holding the signs up with their moms and dads and and when i when and they were calling for all of us in this building all of the school board members as well as the superintendent to come down and i wasn't here and these moms and dads a lot of them live in my neighborhood and all across the district

012but they found me and they said miss andrews we're looking for you and we ask you to come down and i said well i'm not in the building today and this is when will you be in the building again i said next week and i says when i come to the building i will speak to you and so they set the meeting up and this is how we met and it was one of the most uh gut-wrenching experiences to see the the families the moms and dads with their little children miss brilla thought about you out there that day because it was a little kid with his with her dad and he held her and she had her hearing apparatus on on her head and he was saying that she hasn't been able to get

013her speech her speech worked for a whole year she was behind and then there were other kids out there babies moms with babies they were out there to talk to me as a board member looking for all of us but i spoke on behalf of all of us to say that we do care and we want to hear their voices one of the things they said and i was happy to hear you say this tonight mr barbieri that people were allowed to park here i was pretty upset when i spoke to the parents last week when they said they had not been treated fairly they couldn't park here on these grounds that belonged to them and i apologize for that so i was happy to hear you say that people were able to park over

014here because there's no reason for us to treat people who live in our neighborhood these are the the moms and dads that drive up to the uh to the schools every day to drop their children off or walk their children to school or a part of us every day at the grocery store and to the movie theater and to the mall these that's who you saw in here today and when i saw the barricades today and all this confusion over here it made me feel pretty sad i've been in this district for 40 some years i had never seen anything like i saw today because moms and dads were coming here it made me feel so embarrassed as a board member and i was happy to hear you say that the police out there were

015trying to get people to park and gave them an opportunity to park because we are the moms and dads they put us here to help for their children and that's why we're in this role i've spent a lot of time in the school district of palm beach county i don't have to be a board member but i'm a board member because i care about all children i really really do and i spend my time on the road visiting schools and doing whatever i can do to help and i felt pretty pretty humiliated with how people have been treated over the last two weeks so i'm hopefully hoping tonight when we leave here we can talk about some of these issues that they're talking about because when i wrote this item i remembered what the moms

016and dads had told me about their esc children i'm on the phone right now every day when we say we're going to make sure every kid gets back into the school in august some of the esc children won't be able to go their ieps don't allow them to be able to do this part and i've already talked to kevin mccormick i've talked to keith oswald and others about what are we going to do for these children we're not running them to florida virtual or palm beach virtual when they have the right every right to be in the palm beach county school district and when i'm sitting here tonight and i know at the last meeting we said we were going to open those playgrounds and children could be out there and take their mass off

017and breathe and i'm hearing people tell me tonight that that's still not going on so when i look at all of these pieces it worries me to death and we're talking about kids who've gotten discipline referrals because maybe their mass was below their nose but they took their mass off the mass was never supposed to be something that we were going to discipline children about it was supposed to be a health issue to keep people safe and what i'm hearing people say people are screaming and and and and really punishing people and putting them in the corner and putting their heads down i think to me tonight dr fenner you have the policy in your hands since the board has elevated that to you that we can make some some rules tonight about the things

018that we need to tell the schools as to what they should be doing based on some of this stuff we heard from parents tonight i believe in choice i told them that i'm a mom and a grandma and i really want to be able to say what happens to my kids as they're working through the school district or whatever and i believe in these parents fighting for their children we want to keep everybody safe but some of this stuff i heard tonight is things that we can control right here uh and clear up just like we did with the uh kids walking around on the field and pe with a massive mass and 90 degree temperatures we stopped that the last time i was sitting here so as we i've made a lot of notes

019of things that we could stop tonight so i want to open it up to you all to find out what you all want to do since dr fennell is in control of our policy what are we going to do board members discussion mrs whitfield and miss pearl i would like to keep the policy as dr fennoy stated i'd like to keep masks until the end of the school year because i believe that we haven't had enough time for students who are in the 12 years and up age group to be able to get vaccines i said um you know that i was going to get my daughter a vaccine as soon as i possibly could and i'm very glad that i was able to so on monday she got her first vaccine i kind of

020feel like that was as fast as i possibly could do it so she is not going to get her second for three more weeks i feel like you know if parents want a vaccine and they want that opportunity we need to give them at least enough time to get through the end of this year and then i think even the summer is a really good opportunity for everyone to get vaccinated see if we can get some of those vaccines for kids 5 and up this disease scares me still and so i don't want our children to be hurt by it and i think that's our responsibility as board members so i'd like to hang on till the end of the year and then i like the idea that it's going to be optional next year

021i think that's the way that the country's going that's definitely the way the state's going i don't think we have as much say with governor desantis so i don't think it's worth fighting any longer after that so i think you know i like the way dr fedoroi wrote it and i'd like to keep it that way thank you miss bro thank you so i've been sharing with staff and shared with dr fenoy for a while i've been feeling like you know we need to to move to masks being optional first of all what i will definitively say don't get too excited because i'm not all there with you but i will tell you that when it comes to summer school i think at this point i'm really concerned about the children being in in the

022hot buildings wearing masks i'm worried about compensatory education for our esc students i'm worried you know it was heart-wrenching listening to the parents and also reading the emails from the parents on the other side i know it's scary for people to take their masks off that i know i know that you know when i first started taking my mask off it was frightening but i think that we're at a point now where we can do that so i you know i definitively don't want to see masks after school ends i'll i'll yield to the majority of my board i'm ready to say make it optional i really think that i think that at this juncture the adults are getting vaccinated i do believe that the the spread isn't there school's almost over but if we

023have to keep them in place till the end of the year as long as we can end it at that point i do not want to take the authority away from the superintendent though should there be a change with the virus should there be a change with the variants just so you know i mean i have a daughter that lives in sao paulo so i know about the variants and i know about what the issues are with them we have to have the ability to keep the students safe but i agree with you that right now we're at that point and i tr and i we have to trust each other and work together and and that's something that we need to do um but you know that's that's my opinion any other board members

024dr robinson thank you um so first let me just say um while i disagree with some of the things that were stated as fact i fully support your right to speak up and to be your mama bear somebody said it right um and there's no way i would try to um deny your experiences now i got a couple of things so i don't know where this concept of mandating a vaccine came from let me just cross that off the list now at least for me i it's that's inconceivable to me right the issues around um [Music] the services for the um children with disabilities i think the stories told tonight um painted the picture clearly right like um and so we still we have to figure out what we're going to do right this whole

025time going into this pandemic i knew it was going to be horrible i knew that we were going to have academic slide um there were some problems just in terms of day to day that i did not foresee um like i did not think that the simultaneous teacher was a good idea i now see that it was way better than what i thought at least for students maybe not for teachers right but um and so all of this is trying to make the very best decision with the information that you have right um so just a couple things so um you know i'm i'm a retired internal medicine physician so i'm sure you know my viewpoint is is swayed um for good or bad depending on what your opinion is but um somebody asks who

026are we trying to protect i'm trying to protect everybody i just have this thing in my hair where there is life there is hope right i think that the um this concept of zero deaths well is not but it's this virus is horrible it's not just about the deaths there's going to be long-term consequences in adults and children who had mild cases of this virus right i in my magical world i would prevent all cases of covet as one of the speakers over here said we're not going to get to zero risk i understand that but i still believe in risk mitigation we open schools um in september i was against that too i'm i'm more cautious than everybody else up here i think but maybe that's because of my experience as a physician in

027my conversations with my colleagues who are still practicing and the nurses who are just completely wiped out from caring for people dying or being very sick from this so okay i'm sorry i'm rambling but when we opened schools we opened we had that goal at that 5 daily positivity rate which seemed to be like this national metric we opened with mass cis-force six-foot social distancing the hand-washing improvements in the ventilation system we know now kids are going back in school kids who are virtually learning are going into school for testing we are you know some of the six schools cannot maintain social distancing at six feet um you know and and the reports that came out a few weeks ago about three feet actually said three feet or as much as possible but the headlines

028missed that rest of that part right and i cautioned in this room that we not let our guard down then um i i am very concerned about what will happen if um if we dropped the mask at this point in time i been and i rambled at this dice before about looking for a metric well as it happened i actually um listened to and then read dr scott gottlieb who was the fda director under president trump who said that we he thought we could lift precautions when we got to less than and this is a different metric less than 10 000 new cases daily um i mean i'm sorry 10 case 10 cases daily per 100 000 and then he said but if you want to be conservative and safe it would be five right

029so right now palm beach county the latest one i think we're at 13. so we're not we're not there like by his measure right and then okay so you know i had some questions about the cdc myself but um you know the we i've gotten communications from the florida academy of pediatrics the board president from the palm beach county medical society the teleroy jefferson medical society we got a letter that was signed by i think it was 20 something physicians who who all of them were saying don't end mask yet right but i hear you right so like i'm a little bit torn but i have as a i have to err on the side of caution and say that i don't want us to drop the mask mandate right now i am like prayerful

030and hopeful that that the metrics will be such that we can drop it in the foreseeable future i actually did not like dr fennoy's letter because i wanted him to say we'll see later what we'll do in august but i can live with i'm hoping lord knows i'm hoping that the numbers will be low enough so we can be optional um but you know right now right now i have to err on the side of caution and so i'm not yet um i'm not yet willing to drop the mass mandate i've been i hear people quoting studies i'm like pulling up studies myself trying to see if it's something i miss i read i think i read every email that came in i think i clicked on every link right many of the emails that

031i received that had links summarized the links differently than i would have summarized them some of the links didn't work so just i mean know that you know as far as i'm concerned it's not an easy answer um and i'm just i'm not comfortable with dropping the mass mandate yet i'm i want to see those numbers come down i think um you know i want to see what the health advisory committee says but you know i've talked to enough physicians um and epidemiologists that i just i can't make myself your the stories were um impactful i just can't make myself do it because of what i know about disease transmission so thank you go ahead mrs andrews i'm sorry mrs whitfield i had to bring on your name you already spoke right yes mrs andrews

032i i think the superintendent needs to send something out to the schools because these parents and moms and dads that's talking here tonight about how their children are being treated at the schools it needs to be addressed if we say the playgrounds are open and children can go out without their mass and be in the playground just like that one lady said put a sign out there to the playground and say no mass at the playground especially if you're six feet away or whatever we need to make sure our playgrounds are open last week i had two kids that uh had a feigning situation the principal was really nice the parents called me and i called the school and they took care of the children but kids are still out there wearing masks at the

033playground now we can do better than that we need to we need to send something out to the schools there should be no discipline referrals if someone has a mess below their nose or if they forgot it or if it's after school and they put it in their pocket you know we're sitting up here we've been sitting up here for hours and you know i'm ready to take my mass off and i'm sure you all are too and these children are doing the best that they can when we heard tonight and this is what i heard when i was standing out there how kids were running to the bathroom just to get a a breathing break it was interesting i read from one principle and i'm not going to call the name because i sure

034don't want there to be a problem but that principal in that school gave their children a few minutes to have a breathing break i don't know why we can't do little things like that i know we have to keep the mass on but you can tell when your children are in anxiety and we talked about that here tonight children and anxiety wearing them and not having a minute to take a breather and so they have to ask to go to the bathroom i heard it from all of these moms and dads that were with me and on the emails they run to the bathroom just to get a breathing break something's wrong with that and we can do better than that and this is where i talked to dr fanoa you're the administrator of this

035district that something needs to go out to the schools we only have a few more days left for this year that can encourage the principals to use common sense and good judgment you know if a child is in distress or some kind of issue is there work with them the masks were never supposed to be a discipline tool if they didn't follow through and we know when you can get outside and get some air we've been stuck in this building for the last few hours we need to get out of here okay and get some fresh air let these children get some air and if the teacher has to take her class out for a minute to get some air if it's some kind of situation they should have some kind of autonomy working with

036their principal and their school to help these children we should not have any more cases of bullying and discipline referrals and mental breakdowns because kids are frightened if they just touch their mass and it goes down for a minute to get some air and they get called on it that you need to do something mr superintendent to let the principals know let's have a good year for the rest of the year since it seems like we're going to be sticking with what you have said in your letter to help these children and these families make it for the next couple of weeks that's my my my thought on that i don't know what you all think but i think something needs to go out miss ayala thank you okay so i'll start by saying that

037i want to thank everybody who came out tonight and took time out of their night to speak i don't think there's anything more important than these kinds of conversations with your public officials so i'm glad we have this ability for discourse and to hear everybody's perspective that being said i know that this is emotional and has been difficult for everybody involved parents students everyone here everyone in a school everyone who has been involved in education has gone through a year that no one will forget up here i know that this is emotional but we can't afford to make decisions on emotion we are overseeing the health and safety of the largest employer in palm beach county as well as nearly 200 000 students who are depending on us for safety recommendations so when i'm look

038i'm speaking so please wait until you're called upon if we look at what i have and i'm looking at the science first of all recorded speakers haven't been listened to yet and i have a feeling they might feel a little bit differently than those who came out tonight in person in a large crowded room they'd have different things to say second of all there are still highly contagious variants out there and that's combined with the fact that we don't know the long-term health effects of getting covid19 have we thought you know that that was said by i know that you all don't like dr alonzo but that remains a fact third cdc recommendations for schools have remained the same and this has been based on the fact that option and choice and i know we're

039all fans of choice here to vaccinate students is not yet available for every single child meaning those who want to get vaccinated and have every right cannot yet do that and they cannot feel safe sending their child into a school system without that choice we will have updated information from the cdc and other medical experts that are not just within our county within the coming weeks i cannot support in good conscience moving what we have already decided changing the rules in the last month of this school system without all of the facts and right now we do not have all of the facts so i will support what the superintendent sent out we will end the year we will look forward to getting out of this pandemic and coming out ahead of it and we

040will stick to the facts and we will stick to protecting kids and teachers and adults who work for our system because they have kept it running so i cannot support removing the mask at this time board members i need a motion to extend let's try a half an hour at a time let's extend to 12 30 a.m do i have a motion mrs mrs andrew seconded by vice chair brill all in favor opposed the motion passes the meeting is now extended for another half an hour dr robinson i believe you were next nope no okay um so i just want to circle back um thank you um mrs andrews for talking about the brain breaks but what that means to me is how afraid our staff is right and so i think part of this

041has to be some circling back around and educating the staff the viral load in the community is starting to decrease you know i don't have the same level of anxiety as i had in september right um you know some of our adults have been vaccinated some cannot get vaccinated but uh but i think we need to tell the prince explain to the principles and the teachers that they don't have to be quite as hyper vigilant right just because i mean kids are kids we we knew this going in one of the arguments in the beginning was kids won't keep their mask on okay so you can encourage them to keep their mask on without screaming at them or some of these things that were just completely inappropriate but i think that that's out of their

042own fear um so i think that we just need to make sure that we're educating them but the other thing i wanted to lift up that was said that is really on point that i think got lost in some of this is we do need to and ms whitfield is going to love this we really do need to push the proper nutrition angles right um and the whole like be healthy state stay healthy thing right um not that that is a substitute for for i'm still with six feet y'all um and or mask but um but i think that that that we we need to be proactive that way um so i'm done thank you mrs whitfield i just wanted to tell the parents that are here tonight um if you feel your children are

043being bullied at school please tell us like we don't no i mean send us an email about the specific incident okay please please just let me finish speaking okay please what i'm saying is that we don't believe that anyone should be bullied i actually would prefer if you wouldn't bully us i think that would be great i feel that your children are really important and i want them to feel loved and welcomed in school and i if they are not feeling that way tell us the specific incidents of what happened who said it and we will look into it we are very good about this we have staff that will come out and they will they will make sure that this doesn't happen i don't want any child to be yelled at ever not by

044a teacher not by a principal not by a person on campus those stories really hurt me to hear from you because it's very important to me i think if it would help people to understand um you know in the district we can continue to send out communications and i would support um sending out as ms andrews was talking about communications to really emphasize that when you're outside kids don't have to wear masks i think that that was a very prudent thing that this board did last week or two weeks ago and so i would like to really emphasize that i'd like to say you know give your children an opportunity to have breaks and i'm sorry you can't ask questions anymore you guys are done um so we are i think that that's something that

045we can do as a as a board and really make sure that we're getting our communications out there and i think we can look into what's happening during the summer but i i just really i don't want to get rid of them until the end of the school year at this point i just don't think it's smart and i want to make sure that we take care of our kids and that's that's where i'm sitting thanks please please no more questions let the board discuss board members the sorry please please stop talking or we'll ask you to leave we have to get through this meeting so stop talking mr superintendent you need to get something out to the schools to tell them that we don't discipline the children if they take off their mess just

046encourage them to put them back on like it did tonight with grown-ups and they most of the time they listened when i told them to put them back on the children will too there should be no more penalties no more detentions no more bullying children to put the mask on just please get something out to the schools let's discuss the playgrounds now there's i thought that you said that the kids wouldn't wear masks on the playgrounds but when i talked to a couple principals they were told that the kids have to be six feet apart in order to take them well god knows that these kids are going to be out there playing especially elementary school kids they're going to be closer to than six feet together so what is it are we going to

047let the kids play outside together without their mask on are we going to say they have to play together but they have to be six feet apart which is not going to work in the elementary schools because those kids want to sit down next gesture and play in the swings next judger next to each other and go down the slide next to each other i mean what are we doing with the kids on the playground so on the play so this is this is what i say to the board what do you want just tell me exactly what you remember the policy is very clear i can make it happen but just like with the letter i didn't send out the letter without talking to you first so if you want no six feet in

048the playground if you just tell me we'll make it happen in the morning at our direct report meeting so just give me the direction and we will make it happen board members show of hands of who would like to see the kids play outside without mass on on the playgrounds i would like to say something first go ahead mrs mcqueen i haven't said much you didn't raise your hand i would have called on you ma'am well i didn't know you're going to call for a vote yet anyway i have something to say about this um it really didn't occur to me now and i heard dr alonzo tonight that when kids go outside that they would be six feet apart even when they're playing um soccer they're not six feet apart and i realize about

049the expelling you know spit and all that stuff but to me it's unreasonable to be six feet apart and i'm going to go back to my very first principal um luke thornton and there was all this i remember i'm really old and there was all this debate about the length of girls skirts and you know like we're going to measure fingertip length and he said you cannot legislate common sense and i think we have to do that when we're outside um you know let's not have the kids join hands and do ring around the rosie or something but they ought to be able to go out and play with one another um so that having been said yes i do support that we don't have the six feet social distancing on the playground and that

050we not try to legislate common sense okay so i just want to remind you all we're not allowed to vote at a on a discussion line but we can take a consensus to give the superintendent direction go ahead dr robinson okay so let me tell you i when we had that conversation before i did not really foresee that we were going to say they had to stay six feet apart now i do that's that's the answer on the test okay that's what the public health experts would say i do think it's it's hard to enforce and it becomes just more room for harsh activity how about that um but they're outside and so that gives me some level of comfort now you know will i be encouraging kids to be close to each other even

051if they're outside no but i also do want us to start stepping back to like some degree of normal and and that's the one that i thought i was supporting before right but i just want to acknowledge that the answer on the public health test remains six feet even though you're outside so i i'm just you know but first of all i just want to tell you all that are still here i have three grandchildren to school so you know what you can tell me to drink the dirty water if you want to but you know i care about the my grandkids and the and the kids that are in their classrooms with them so you know criticize us all you want to we got more big people up here and we probably can take

052that criticism but you know i don't understand how and you know we are lay people other than dr robinson we have we have relied on cdc guidance and the state health department the cdc changes its guidelines as often as i change my stocks so i mean it's difficult for us to make a decision when the experts are telling us something different than what we really think maybe in our own hearts what we should do we also get hundreds of emails some from doctors that are telling us like the ones that dr robinson mentioned that god help us if we take the mass off the kids and other doctors doctors medical doctors are telling us to take the mass off the kids because it's safe so you know you all need to understand that we're not

053up here making our own rules we're trying to figure out what the medical professionals are telling us to do and they're not consistent so at this point the district has been following the cdc guidance and the state health department what i don't understand is how we can have kids playing on the football field and on the basketball courts without mass on but we're required we were requiring kids to wear masks on the outside i don't know how we came to the decision that we were going to allow that to happen on the football fields and the basketball courts but in the meantime kids can't take their masks off outside so certainly we've tried it and it seems to be working we have no infections in the schools where the kids been playing basketball together we

054have no infections where they've been playing football on the football field together so we've got a test out there that shows that we haven't had an infection so we should get rid of the mask mandate for any kids that are outside playing whatever they're doing outside they should be able to take their masks off once they get out of the building with respect to summer school i think that we should probably start taking the mass off as soon as summer school starts and make it make it voluntary you need to understand we made a deal with the parents that send their kids back to second semester we told the parents they were willing to send their kids back that we would require mass if they sent their kids back to us and they did it

055is not fair to those parents whether there's eight thousand or two thousand or a hundred thousand kids that came back to school with their parents thinking that the kids were gonna be safe because everybody was gonna wear a mask can you just give us 20 more days till the end of the school year well it's not your decisions i shouldn't have said can you give us this board can make the decision that we're going to wait for the 20 days for the school year to end and then at that point we make the mass voluntary for for the summer school stop talking i'm not asking you for your opinion i'm sorry i ask you to you know can you give can you give us 20 days i think at this point we made a deal

056with the parents that send their kids back that we would keep their kids safe they believe the kids are safe with their mask on we need to honor that commitment we made to those parents because at this point for those parents to try and pull their kids out that are afraid now for 20 days of school when the kids have to take tests and everything else is not fair to those parents and the kids can can deal with it for 20 more days let's take the mass off during the summer school and see how that fares before we have thousands and thousands of kids back in the school system back in the classrooms so mandating vaccine dr robinson mentioned it nobody on this board has ever mentioned that we're going to mandate a vaccine and

057i certainly would never ever mandate that i have two granddaughters and my daughter said she doesn't want to get them vaccinated until she's sure that there's no effect on their reproductive system so we're not going to mandate that for anybody parents you make the decision whether you want to get your children vaccinated the school board is never going to make that decision for you we've been doing things that the the cdc has has given us guidance on and that was the mass policy that we put in place there's been no recommendation from them and i certainly would not vote even if they did recommend that we mandate child vaccines i would not vote for that and i i don't think that my colleagues on this board would vote for that vote for mandating vaccines in

058any event so that's my position on all of this i think we should keep the mask in place at the end of the school year they'd be optional for the summer school program no math for kids outside whether they're playing or they're leaving the school to go home for the day once they walk out the door of the school building they take off their mask and they walk to their cars to the wherever they're going next and they take their mass off i believe there was a couple of other hands miss brill and mrs andrews wanted to go after me thank you and i agree with you mr barbieri but i do want to say that there are teachable moments that come out of all of this and in speaking to the parents on both

059sides just looking ahead down the road we are going to have to teach the students especially the younger ones there are going to be students that are going to need to wear masks when we make it optional and parents on both sides were telling me they were concerned about bullying of those students and that we're going to have to teach them that you know that every child has different differing needs so just putting that out there for down the road um parents on both sides were very supportive um the parents of that want masks to be optional have said how they've talked to their children about how some of their friends may have to wear masks but we're going to have to look look to do that in the future mrs andrews and this is

060the last thing for esc um these children have suffered so much so many of our children have suffered but our esc children with their ieps not being recognized this year have truly suffered and now that we're saying that everybody has to come back to brick and mortar i'm worried about some of the esc children whose iep tells them that they may not be able to do that now i've been talking to uh mr mccormick and i guess we have to get some kind of uh okay from the state as to whether some of these people can do a little bit of virtual as well as brick and mortar but these parents are suffering because they feel many of the uh the esc parents the special ed students parents and the children feel that the district

061is just pushing their children aside not giving them information in a timely manner whether you're going to be able to honor their ieps and the 504s and things like that so we really need to make sure that we're answering the questions and miss dr sheffield they said you're a part of that too with whatever you all are writing up to to make sure that we meet each child's individual education plan and it may call that they cannot step back in the building and i don't want to see any parent having to leave the school district of palm beach county to go to palm beach virtual or florida virtual because we couldn't honor their iep and the parents are really nervous they call me every single day asking me i've called mr oswald so i really

062want you to get it done whatever it is you need to get done from the state to take care of these children the special ed children and their parents have been suffering so much and they need help so let's take a consensus on a couple things so the superintendent knows whether whether he has a consensus of the board summer school mass optional yeah see a show of hands for consensus on that yes no why don't you start with the easier ones first sorry can we do that one last can we do that last okay um outside no mess once once a child leaves the building no mass whether he's playing or he's gone home coming to school in the morning doesn't put it until he walks in the building we okay with that no okay

063so let's see a show hands that are yes show hands that are no mr superintendent the board by six with dr robinson not agreeing uh would would like you to make sure that the schools know that effective as soon as possible once the child steps out of the building the no mass are required on school mr barbier unless they go on a bus if they're on a bus i'd like to know whether yeah they go on the bus because they're all confined on the bus they should have the mass on the bus but otherwise when they're walking outside in the fresh air they should be able to take their masks off yeah could just put that on the list for our conversation tomorrow please mr barbie you want to make a comment on that go

064ahead dr robinson my only comment was i was i was going to suggest soon as they get off of the school district property i mean at parent pickup there's a whole lot of movement um and so you know i would just have that little the qualifier i appreciate the sentiment i'm not 100 against it i just think i would put it like the moment they get off the school district property it's all good just because of parent pickup because when we when we said before we were talking about the playgrounds and i think we said outside i got a lot of concern the next day about parent pickup and the potential for mingling right so that's all mrs mcquinn you had your hand up mrs mcquinn okay thank you in the board's defense dr fennoy

065we i can tell you that when i agreed to to um that we would keep the masks and at the time we didn't even know about the cdc saying in schools but through the end of the year and i at the time i really wanted to um i think we need to relook at summer school i mean who knows what can change with summer school so i think we all agree on that but honestly it never occurred to me that outside we would still be six feet apart so a little bit of defense on our part because then when the actual clarification went out to schools it had the six feet so that was something that we had not discussed felt the need to defend ourselves there um so for me i would like to

066see us revisit summer school i think there's plenty of time to do that um there's plenty of time for us to do that no mask outside and and i hear dr robinson but let's when the kids when they're out let's just let them be out it it gets so hard for all those teachers to uniformly enforce what they need to do so i think we don't make that complicated and i all of our elementary schools that i see have very organized dismissals so i don't see that as a too big of a deal all right how about not no discipline for children to take their mass off where they're encouraged to put them back on so no more no more detentions no more penalties no more putting them in the corner show of hands yes

067show of hands no that one's 7-0 on that one so we can take care of that one um summer school so mrs mcquinn has suggested that we don't deal with summer school tonight we wait and see honestly i have to interject i i actually would prefer the boy givers direction tonight because the decision is going to impact whether or not we can get the teachers to come so i need to know that now if we have to downsize summer school because we can't get staff mrs andrews we've already lost 6 000 students here in palm beach county that we're trying to find and people are saying each day that they're going to move their children out when we think about summer school i don't want someone not to come to summer school because we have

068the mass mandate you know we're trying to get all these children back i think dr sheffel you said 52 000 children that you've already identified pretty much who have some unfinished learning and we want them to participate and so when in a lot of the districts right close by us they're opening summer school with an option right here in our neighborhoods right in this tri county area so i believe that we need to not do that because i think we're going to lose some summer school children and we're trying to move these children back to get the learning that they've lost the unfinished learning so i think that we are doing better and i would love to see us make sure it's optional for summer school ms ayala and dr robinson thank you going back

069to the outside masculist conversation are we talking about what teachers are going to be able to do or not do or is this just about students board members i'm just trying to clarify for our administration they're included i mean the risk is low so i think teachers should be sorry mr whitford what'd you say i'm sorry i didn't raise my hand i think teachers should be included and they can take their masks off as well mcqueen i've gotten a few emails from teachers asking when when the guidelines came out it referred to the student policy and they wanted to know if they were allowed to take theirs off too so i think that it does need to be clarified and i have no idea what the intent was i just assumed what students could do

070teachers could do but i don't really know that so i think we need to make that clear yeah i did not i did not do that for adults because we had not discussed it so i only put in the letter of the things that we discussed as a boy so if we want the adults to take the mass off and i have no problem with it but i would need direction from the board because what i don't want is my staff being yelled at by the board for doing these things so let's be very clear today what we want so that we can put that in writing and we can get that out that's what i'm trying to do dr noah that's why we're taking a consensus so board members let me see a show

071hands that the adult when the kids can take their mass off the adults that are with them can take their masks off also that's 7-0 dr fanoy so the teachers when they walk outside the assistant principals or principals people in this building when they go outside the building they can take their masks off while they're in school board property as long as they're outside outside the building dr robinson you are next go ahead so you know i don't know i feel like we are making decisions without explaining the why right so i just want to explain my why why i supported that for the adults because the adults could have been vaccinated right the other thing i want to just mention that i intended to mention before is the masks are really about um source

072control meaning when i wear my mask i'm actually protecting you more than i'm protecting me right and so um yeah it is clear but and so it's kind of like um texting while driving we have laws that say you can't text while drive because driving because if you do you can harm yourself but others too it's not like the safe seat belt where if you don't wear your seat belt you just harm yourself and okay i know that's a bit much it's late but um my point is instead of just i just i'm just trying to get you to understand my train of thought because i have to process this around the public health thing so we going to summer next because i mean has asked us to come to a consensus on what we

073want to do with summer school with respect to the mass being voluntary or not voluntary okay so my issue can i walk through this too so this is um so first off because the numbers are lower the expected number of children for summer school is i would hope that we can maintain six foot social distancing i am not comfortable with the concept that we would make masks um voluntary and and questionably be questionable on social distances but the other thing the other reason i'm really hesitant about summer dropping the mask is just statistically it's more likely that the children that would need to go to summer school are in higher risk conditions right higher risk or maybe have family members and higher risk and so you know i have to think about that so it

074makes me uneasy i really want to say yes um but i can't this is with whitfield so i was just um kind of wanted to discuss this summer option more what if we made summer kind of a step down process where if they were sitting at their desks they don't have to wear the mask but just in transition times they wear a mask in the building so when they're around a lot of people or you know just to make it a little bit better so that they can have that breathing break um you know when they're when they're sitting at their desk and if they are six feet apart that would give it yeah i'm like i'm still a little stuck on summer because i really think that we're a little bit too fast um

075and i i'm okay with august but the issue with summer for me is really that the families that want a vaccine may not have had the opportunity to get one yet and and i and they need three weeks after the first shot to get the second shot and then two weeks to be fully covered i it's summer's just really close so um that's that's why i'm hesitant on it i think i would just i would vote for masks but i'm willing to give a little bit of leeway personally if you guys are okay with it to have you know when they're sitting at their desks they don't have to wear it if they don't want to this is mcqueen how do you feel about summer school yes ma'am well since i can't delay it then

076i say we um we keep it not optional however as dr fanoya said before i mean if we have information we can change that but right now if we have to make a decision right now then we we we're not going to have optional until august 10th ms ayala i agree i want to remain the course that the superintendent laid out in the letter that was sent out and i also wanted to make a point earlier that i didn't get to um i know he called me when he was sending out that letter and before he sent out that letter to gain input and i'm pretty sure he called all of us so tonight there's been some uh you know lines for applause and some political grandstanding that i don't think has been fully fair

077i just want to make it very clear to the public that he called every single one of us to ask for input before that letter went out and everyone had a chance to comment thank you mrs whitfield sorry i just wanted to clarify one little part about where we said being outside if a high schooler is in one of those big courtyards we count that as outside right yes okay i'm just checking i want to make sure that that's part of the memo this is andrews optional dr robinson miss bro okay let's go again i'll show let me see a show hands of optional for some summer school optional for summer school not optional with the requirement i would vote for optional but the consensus of the board is that they stay mandated for summer

078school okay are we done with this discussion item for tonight mrs andrews you have anything else we have other discussion items to get to okay the next discussion item is mrs brills on the equity statement thank you and i know it's i know it's late but um i've been grappling with this it's not going to take long don't worry mrs mcquinn but um but i've been grappling with this for for a week and a half as staff knows on how to handle it it's very important that we create equitable and inclusive schools and that we ensure students have what they need to be successful in school and in life and that's what i fought for for years when paving the way for students with disabilities to be welcomed into the regular education classroom and that's

079what our equity statement says i do not believe that the language in the equity statement was intended to be divisive and polarizing it should not make anyone feel disenfranchised it is evident that a few of the words are not helpful and in fact are harmful i've discussed with general counsel the proper parliamentary procedure to allow me to recall or reconsider my vote on the equity statement this board adopted on may 5th 2021 she has advised me that the time for making a motion to reconsider has passed but has also advised that there is no limitation on the time we can amend the equity statement previously adopted to that end it only takes four of us tonight to request that the superintendent make a motion to amend the equity statement to the next board's board meeting

080agenda i'm suggesting we amend the statement by removing the words that are highlighted on what was passed out and what was attached by removing those words and if i need to read them i will but by removing those words i do not believe we are in any way weakening our position mr chair if there is consensus by at least four of us i would like to ask that the following agenda item be added to the june 2nd agenda motion to amend the equity statement adopted by the board on may 5th 2021 by removing the language highlighted on the attached do we have a second is andrew's second of that so under discussion under discussion mrs mcquinn well all right i'm confused we're voting on this right now we're just we're discussing okay well you said

081a second so i want to i have a comment a second i'm in okay i'm glad i'm not in charge i'm happy that you're actually keeping this together it's getting late in fact though okay i had communicated with we need a motion to extend the meeting for another half an hour motion by mrs andrews second by mrs whitfield any discussion all in favor opposed motion carries 7-0 the most meaning is now extended to 1 a.m the reason um with mrs brill saying that she wouldn't be long is i think this is so important that i don't want to to have a consensus decision i had already asked mr tierney um to i thought this was very appropriate and i think we've all been communicated with now that we do this at next week's equity workshop

082in terms of specific words i so that was my hope so i don't have a problem with going on the agenda but i don't want to do specific wording right now mrs whitfield i'm a little curious what you guys think about uh this we had said we weren't going to socialize this at our previous meeting so if we bring it back and change some of the words do you want to have any moments where we discuss with the community what we've come up with afterwards or you know i'm kind of thinking like forward if we go we make some changes then people might come back to us with even more changes and that that worries me because it is supposed to be a positive thing i thought it was a good thing um but do

083you want to go out and socialize it and you know have meetings where we discuss it is that part of the plan whitfield are you responding to mrs mcqueen's question no i'm just saying if we if we make this change and we bring it back out and we're it's no longer approved so we have to go back and approve it do we want to like put that off and and have time to socialize it and get it out in the community it's kind of a separate question for everyone miss mcqueen okay i definitely think we need to socialize it i objected and many of us know that i objected to our individual district meetings to talk about something that um so we put it out there we've had so many hours of working together um

084you know we're the facilitator to understand we all understood but i knew the general public would not understand that and so for me it's yeah put it out there and let's get reaction we've we've had plenty i think now it is time and that's my hope was that we could talk about it more at the workshop we've all gotten input some of us collectively some of us individually we bring that to the table and then we actually have an open meeting and let people but i don't want to go out district by district because frankly it's not my neighborhood it's our neighborhoods and so i think this is something we do as a board and we let the public comment on it mrs brill thank you so i just do want to make a comment

085that part of the problem that i had when we had that workshop as all of you know i was having huge problems seeing and i was in awful pain and i could not focus at all and as my eyes improved i really didn't get a lot of feedback from my community to be honest with you we had the least feedback out of my meeting than anybody's but it's been gnawing at me because i don't want to have divisive language now i did ask if we could put it on the agenda and i don't know where for the workshop and i don't know where the miscommunication was but i was told no that i would i could call i would have to call mary to put it on but that nobody was going to put it

086on and my feeling was that i was real uncomfortable supporting the words the way they were but and so i was just going to say let me recall it because and i thought i could do that at this meeting so i'm happy for us to have the discussion at the next meeting but i do think that words like dismantling structures rooted in white advantage it's dividing the community and you know and so i do think we should get input socialize it but i also want it's so important that we have a statement that we can all move forward with we need to undo a lot of what's gone on over the years we talked about the parallel to students with disabilities in the past and how hard it was to move us forward on that

087so i want us to move forward but i don't want it to be divisive i want it to be something that we can all embrace and move forward together with yes so here's here's our options board members um hold off on the socialization for a minute because that's important that we discuss that but if four board members agree tonight we can have it on the agenda for next week we can have a special meeting for next week after the workshop so we'd have for an opportunity at the equity workshop to discuss it and then we can put i can put an agenda item on that says the board will discuss and take action if necessary on the equity statement so if you're all agree okay with that but that doesn't answer the socialization issue other

088than it gives notice to the public that if they want to come to the workshop and weigh in on the equity statement they'll have an opportunity to do that so if you're all okay with that we'll get it on we'll get honest we'll have a special meeting if i see four of you that want to do that under the under the under the board policy four board members can call a special meeting i can call a special meeting or the superintendent to call a special meeting if the superintendent's willing to put a special meeting on the next week then it's settled and we can uh put that on there for you know for the agenda item would be to take to discuss and take action if necessary on the on the equity statement and we

089discussed it at the workshop which will happen before the special meeting okay miss ayala clarification is there a number on how many hours were invested into the creation of the equity statement as it reads where we workshop this available to the public open to the public open for changes open for conversation and nothing was done that was differently than what's written and also nothing was decided to take it out to the community i just need to clarify that because i sat in about i think 20 to 24 hours of my life collectively that there should be a blank check of my time refunded if we're not going to follow through on the words we can we said we're going to stand firm in our convictions to do so i'm just confused can someone clarify to

090me the hours that were invested in creating the statement hours there were i'm willing to say that for me i when and and we know that the um it's the white advantage i think i don't remember it's like um i think that because and again we had talked about it so carefully together that it wasn't offensive to me but i've discussed with dr fennoy it's why i wanted to come next week and talk about it this it's not to delay anything but it is to think about do i want a how you roll this out is very important do i want a pre-k or a kindergarten or a sixth grade student to say oh i am so bad my skin is white no of course we don't want that so this is not something that

091i mean i just think it's one phrase that it bears it's not stepping back from at all but is if it is we need to talk i mean we said that we were you know socializing it with the district meetings again i knew that wasn't the place for my district i want to be face to face with everybody all together so i i don't see a problem with frankly i'm irritated with myself that i agreed we would just go ahead and vote on it so i don't think that one phrase is stepping back from everything you know board members you know this isn't the first time that collective boards have passed statements or policies that have unintended consequences you know i know this board in our attempt was to recognize the challenges that many of

092our children face and to take every and all steps necessary to make sure that all of our children had equitable outcomes in their education so allocating resources uh to make sure that that happens unfortunately this situation as as ms pharrell says it's created more divisiveness and polarization you saw what happened tonight we had hours and hours of this in this community already to put this on top of it is just is it it's it's an untenable situation we need to discuss this and take out the words that are incendiary many of you have gone through the racial institute training you understood what white advantage meant in this policy it is not clear to the public at all from the emails we're getting from the comments that i'm getting the comments that some of you are

093getting that i understand you're all getting to uh the public doesn't understand that that what that white it's in the eye of beholder and when you heard the gentleman tonight white advantage to him is uh the what is that called that race theory that whatever that is that he mentioned and you know we've been you know declared marxists and communists for for putting this in here so i think we need to discuss it at the workshop next week and make some decisions on whether we can find a better way to make sure we're clear that we want every child whether they're white they're black they're they're they have struggles because of their their native language uh their esc children their gay children they get religious persecution because they're jewish children or muslim children i think

094it's important that we understand that that was the purpose of the equity statement it wasn't to make this a black and white issue which is what the what the perception now is in the public that we've all the other good stuff we had in the equity statement with that one line in the middle dismantling structures rooted in white advantage has turned it into a racial statement that is not going over well with the public this country is so divided already the country's divided the state is divided the county's divided the cities are divided and this school district is divided over this i think we need to make sure we discuss it next week at the workshop come to some decisions on what we want to do and then vote on it at the at the

095works at the uh special meeting to be held after the workshop miss brew thank you so i really wasn't looking for us to dissect the whole thing actually i thought it was an easy fix maybe i'm i'm thinking it's too easy because by taking those words out we're saying the school district of palm beach county is committed to transforming our system by hearing and elevating underrepresented voices sharing power recognizing and eliminating bias and redistributing resources to provide equitable outcomes i thought that the meaning basically stayed the same with the elimination of just those seven words so i'm happy to talk about it at the next meeting i do think we've captured all the groups but it was just those few words that i think are the ones that really incite the most divisiveness the most

096polarization and the most discomfort and you know so that i thought it was an easy fix perhaps it's not as easy but i really wasn't looking to spend hours discussing it i'm hoping that i'll be able to see it when it's up on the board next week because that'll be my challenge but you know i'm hoping that you will take a look at what was highlighted and re-read it and and maybe realize that it's not going to be that difficult miss ayala yeah i completely agree and understand that the issue was the rollout and implementation we were all in those meetings like pull the tapes pull the audio not one person disagreed with what is written on this paper so i'm just i'm finding it hard to consolidate that and the issue is that confronting

097racism is uncomfortable as soon as we get criticism and feedback folding under the pressure instead of analyzing how we could have done a better job to give clear direction to our administration is not the option so i'm interested in having a conversation about how can we implement this in a way that's appropriate within our district and do the educational and do the work to get to these standards that we're laying out that we're not even close to meeting right now but i'm not interested in a conversation where we bring this up and it's a pathway to dismantling the whole thing and taking us back to where we were i need to make that very clear because i remember the conversation our consultant the superintendent various other folks told us this is bold are you all

098sure you don't want to take it to the community and no one spoke up and suddenly we do and i'm just confused i don't think the public knew about this statement until it was disseminated that's when they found out when it was put on the district website when when the when the district sent it out to the principles the principal sent it out to the to the parents and that's when the parents in the community actually found out what we put in this statement otherwise those people that called in i didn't have the meeting because i knew that they weren't going to talk about this they were going to talk about mask which is what we saw tonight they were going to talk about social distancing they were going to talk about all the stuff

099that they're concerned about the health of their kids in the schools they could care less about this equity statement at that point that we were doing those community meetings so it didn't become an issue until it went out and everybody got to see it so you know i think the fix is i don't know why we're going to have any more discussions tonight to fixes we have a workshop next week we can discuss it at the workshop we have a special meeting thereafter if the board during the workshop wants to make some changes we'll have the opportunity to do that at the special meeting and let's just end this discussion tonight we have a whole next wednesday we can do ev whatever we want with this at that point i suggest that we make sure

100it's advertised carol the best way we can get maybe mr superintendent since it went out to all the principals to start with they should be notified that we're gonna have a workshop on the equity statement so they can get the message out that people can come and talk to us at the workshop and at the special meeting uh to give us their views on the equity statement so that we have you know as much informed uh you know as much information as we can we can get from the from from the from the constituents before we make another decision on what we're going to do with this statement miss ayala respectfully all of the meetings were publicly accessible and viewable by the public every single one of them and i also didn't agree with the

101fact that some virtual meetings were not held for the opportunity to have this discussion that was made member my member so that has to be notified of the public too because in my conversation it didn't get derailed by mass we had an honest open conversation about the future of our district and so that's the truth that's the facts thank you do we have a consensus to do this next week at the workshop show of hands i thought you were agreeing or not agreeing so go ahead i'm sorry so um actually i think that i agree with some of what everyone has said including mrs miss ayala um you know and we did say i remember i said that this is these are bold statements are y'all comfortable with all this right and i was actually

102trying to backtrack to figure out exactly like how all that got in there and i think no but whatever but but this is the point i think for me i'm gonna go back to my portrait of a graduate and i know it's late and i know we're tired but i think that if we had and it's water under the bridge but if we had had if we had arranged this so we had a shared conversation about the minimum expectations the minimal experiences and competencies we want every child to have coming out of our high school that people would understand where we're trying to go with equity right because equity is about giving each child what they need to get to this mark or above right um you know i knew when when we voted on

103that that some people weren't going to like that statement you know i thought everybody was good with it but i think next week's the next workshop on equity is the right place to have that conversation once again all right board members let's move to bd4 mrs andrews baker act thank you mr chair i put this on and i've been spending quite a bit of time talking to the general counsel i spoke to the superintendent he didn't have anything to offer because we had been in a cone of silence i think we still are in that but i'm really concerned and i think i was concerned when it first came up because i don't want to think that we're still baker acting children here in palm beach county schools putting them in handcuffs and hobbies and

104the in the back of police cruisers and taking them to the mental health center and so i've spent quite a bit of time talking to the general counsel about what the process is as it relates to what the southern poverty law center has said to us and what are we doing to improve and she has indicated to me that she will speak on this tonight for the public as well as for me and the rest of this board on how we can get the information about where we are here in the school district of palm beach county as it relates to children being baker acted as well as what happened with the southern poverty law center and what methods have we put in place to improve ourselves so through the chair uh could you ask

105the general counsel to speak on that and i know you're with me on this item here but that's yeah mrs miss sanders i've had discussions with the general counsel on this issue and i understand that you your office is putting together a policy to bring before the board on how we deal with the with the baker act situation one of the concerns i had is you know i was told initially that we couldn't discuss it because there's a lawsuit and you know if we wait till the lawsuit's over with knowing how attorneys act and i'm one of them this could be three years before the lawsuit settled and in the meantime we've done nothing with respect to the problem so we need to get a policy in place one of the things that i felt

106strongly about is i want documentation by the principal at the school that the parents were called i want i want to see documentation i want to just hear that we try to get the parent i want to see documentation we try to get mom on the phone at 11 57 a.m she didn't answer we tried dad he didn't answer we tried again three minutes later we called the emergency contact number on the card nobody answered that number before we baker act a child we need to make sure the parents are absolutely understand that their child is in a distressed situation in the school and when we're looking for some guidance from the parents as to how to handle that before we send them off keeping in mind that we don't have a choice under state

107law when a child is baker acted they have to be handcuffed i don't like it certainly the thought of a five-year-old being baker acted out of an elementary school handcuffed behind his back even though they're not handcuffs they're the strips that you know that we're all familiar with those zip strips but i mean just the sight of a little kid getting into the back of a police car with is is sickening to me and my understanding was that we had i think mr tierney told me today was called the global wasn't a crisis intervention team it was a global something team my understanding was before a child was baker acted there was a team of people in the school that got to make a decision whether that child should be bank correct or not and

108then i find out that those people all have other jobs so they can't be called together quick enough to make a decision so it's now it's it's the fault of the police department when they keep when the police get to the school the only one that can baker act is the police officer there is no crisis intervention team that's been there because they're all somewhere else and so the police officer has no choice the principal says this kid's out of control we need to get them baker acted we need to get a policy in place so we know exactly how we're going to handle those situations before we get to the policy let me say this so i'm very proud of the work that the team has done so what we're going to do is

109that i know we're prohibited from talking about it through the general counsel and i respect that but i can schedule a meeting with each one of you with dr dr sheffield and her team to go over all of our new processes so if you're willing you can have those individual meetings that are not done publicly so that you can get all of the latest information we are willing to set those appointments up for you mrs andrews yeah that's what the general counsel had indicated that she would be willing to do that because i have not had a sit down with anyone i would like to know what happened in the past you know we are a big district i would want to know the data as to what happened if it was happening in in

110in different districts and in the elementary schools we only got the information from the southern poverty law center and we got generic information basically from us on that you know some of that was not correct and and we didn't do those things so i just really want to know what we did and and did we do it correctly if we didn't how are we trying to uh correct ourselves so that it won't happen again i'd like to know where the schools are training is a big component of it that people need to be trained general consul the only problem i have with individual meetings is we're basically the superintendent's then polling the board right he's getting the position of each one of the board members before he makes a recommendation so can't we have a

111workshop on this well my advice on this remains unchanged and so you know i would advise given the fact that we have pending threatened litigation um you know board members i can state on the record as well as district staff have been advised that they should not be commenting on this issue nothing about that has changed there's a team of 18 lawyers on the other side who have sent out correspondence my office has reviewed that correspondence after repeated requests by my office for information uh this same team of 18 lawyers has failed to provide sufficient information to my office and so with that i am unable to advise the board on the merits of their threatened lawsuit um what i can also say is that i am impressed uh by the significant improvements made by

112the district related to student mental health over the past couple of years and that we look forward as the superintendent uh has suggested to collaborate with the board and with the district on policy training modules we're going to be working up a policy that should be coming soon um and i expect there will be this opportunity for us to meet individually with board members along with the administration to maintain the confidentiality uh that is allotted uh through the attorney-client privilege and so as the superintendent uh stated we will be able to meet with you individually along with staff so that you can get the information that you all have been asking for because that information is there there's a lot of information that it has not been reported and i think that it is better

113not to speak publicly on it until you have all of the information okay so you're suggesting that we have individual meetings to develop a policy that you're going to bring before the board that we're not going to discuss the policy publicly other than say we agree to vote for it so that's not what i'm suggesting the policy piece absolutely should come forward by way of a workshop but as far as the individual facts the data that has been the issues that have been raised by the 18 lawyers and the southern poverty law center those specific facts we will have to discuss in behind closed doors individually with you with members of my team along with members of the administration so that you can get all of that information while remaining under the bubble of the

114attorney-client privilege i i i i think we're saying too some two things differently i mean marsh mrs anders and i would like a workshop on the bakerack policy on a baker act policy i'm not asking you to give us the facts on the lawsuit that has been potentially filed and neither is mrs andrews we just want to know can we have an open workshop on a policy for how we treat baker act uh when we're going to bakerack students on offer campuses absolutely and that policy work is underway okay so we can schedule that without these individual meetings now the individual meetings can you briefing us like you always do on potential litigation individually or if the lawsuit is filed then we can have a closed session correct until that litigation is filed you're going

115to meet with us individually give us information so we know what's going on so at least we have that in our mind when we're voting on the policy or we're at the workshop on the policy all right okay all right so mr superintendent if you can get that is it okay board members if we schedule a workshop on the baker act policy mrs dr robinson i'm fine with that but as part of that workshop i think i need to see the continuum of services that we have in place that should be designed to prevent a child from getting to the point where baker act will be consistent i think that could be part of the workshop where the staff you know gives us all that info mrs whitfield thank you i just i want to

116be very careful that we don't that we don't put ourselves in a position where our words are used in a in the lawsuit and and i and i'm very worried about this workshop for this reason um i think the only way we can pull off doing it is if general counsel is very clear and guarded during that workshop that we don't say and stop us if there's a way if the board can agree to stop us from talking when we're going down a dark road good luck with that there will certainly be there will certainly be parameters around the scope of the workshop because the the workshop should be limited to the the policy um with respect to baker acts um anything outside of that and and um i would imagine that we would be

117meeting individually with board members prior to the workshop so that the board members too can have an understanding of the difference between the two and the parameters of what's specific to a policy versus what's specific to the lawsuit okay all right so we're okay with that all right we uh we need a meeting to a motion to adjourn motion by mrs andrew seconded by mrs miss ayala all in favor opposed meeting is adjourned