001the board has already participated in a closed attorney client session in a workshop we'll now call the regular board meeting of april 21 2021 to order at 502 pm mrs bass will you please call the roll district one barbara mcqueen here district 2 alexandria ayala here district 3 karen brill district 4 erica whitfield here district 5 frank barbieri here district 6 marcia andrews here district 7 deborah robinson we have quorum with all seven board members president also joining us on our diocese superintendent dr donald fenoy and joining us here at the tables in front of us until they can once again join us at the diocer general council sean bernard inspector general theresa michael palm beach county hope he's not here tonight um he's coming palm beach county student council president santiago alvarez will be
002here shortly in board clerk carol bass senior staff members will join us periodically as directed by the superintendent viewers and listeners can access the meeting today by either watching on comcast channels 234 235 u-verse channel 99 of our using the youtube link on our webpage at palmbeachschools.org we also offer a listening only option which the public can access by calling 561-357-5900 or toll-free at 1-866-930-7015 meeting id is 1-561-880-1124 pound sign this meeting is being transcribed by a closed captioner so please remember to speak at a reasonable pace well everyone please stand for the pledge to be led by inspector general teresa michaels of america on behalf of the board i'd like to welcome any public speakers who are joining us in person today while your attendance here at the board office is appreciated please be
003mindful of important safety protocols that the district now has in place to conform with covet 19 safety guidelines please respect this cautionary warning that in the event of interference with the orderly processes of the meeting failure to follow the safety protocols and procedures or otherwise disruptive conduct misconduct will result in removal of the person from the meeting please abide by these protocols so palm beach county school police officers do not have to take action board members we have seven sets of minutes on the agenda for approval we have a motion motion by ms ayala seconded by mrs woodfield any discussion all in favor posed motion carries 7-0 we have one item added so far for good cause p2 good cause exists to add this item to allow employees begin their new positions as soon as
004possible mr superintendent do you have any other items to add today i have nothing else to add today mr chairman any withdrawals no withdrawal sir board members there have been two items pulled so far three brd1 fmp fmp f1 and tl2 is there any other items the board would like to pull at this point seeing none waiting in motion to prove the agenda motion by mrs whitfield second by mrs anders any discussion all in favor opposed motion carries 7-0 there any disclosures or abstentions seeing no mr superintendent you have comments mr chairman i'd like to begin by thanking our students staff parents and school board members for your dedicated commitment to the development of the school board's next strategic plan the new plan like the current five-year plan that sunsets this year defines that our
005educators must prioritize what we must prioritize in order to when it comes to student achievement access and equity and overall organizational success of our district i am grateful to the 28 000 people who participated in a survey in which we solicited feedback regarding the plan your input is currently being reviewed and this information will be shared publicly as part of a live board workshop on may the 5th you also have virtual community meeting we also have virtual community meetings planned you will see a full schedule of community meeting dates and times at palm beach schools.org strategic plan development i'd also i'd also like you to mark your calendar for the 2020-2021 volunteer and business partners awards tune in this friday april 23rd at 9 00 a.m this event will be live streamed on our district
006website and broadcast on comcast channel 234 and att uverse channel 99 over the past year have watched with great pride as everyone in the district stepped up to ensure that we were able to continue doing our jobs despite the unique very unique challenges we faced our business partners and volunteers were no different for example many of our business partners recognized the demand for items specifically needed as a result of this pandemic and made a point of providing those tools and resources our volunteers recognized that in-person help was not feasible so they found other ways to provide assistance what became clear is that the commitment and dedication of our business partners and our volunteers did not waver everyone pivoted to meet the demands of the times and for that i am extremely grateful i'd also like
007to give a shout out to our media specialists april is school library month a time to recognize the program services and resources provided by our school media centers and staff school media centers are the hub of literacy resources on our campuses and media specialists play a critical role in empowering students to be enthusiastic readers and critical thinkers to our media specialists thank you again for your dedicated work particularly over this past year when you have risen to meet the challenges set forth by this pandemic we are all in this together as we work to educate our children and give them assistance and guidance they need and deserve and finally today is administrative assistance day our district's administrative assistants keep us scheduled organized on task focused every day of the year whether you're working in a
008school or one of the administrative buildings off-site or here in fulton highland please know that you're appreciated beyond measure i also want to take a point of personal privilege and thank my executive assistant ms kelly cox kelly is my right hand and couldn't be more i could not be more honored and thankful for the work that she has done every day since we closed schools march 13th herself she myself and ed tierney have been in this office every day and so i commend her and thank her for all that she's done for me and kelly have a great day and now like for the deputy superintendent mr keith oswald to come forward to formally introduce to us an outstanding newly appointed principal and i take some personal pride in this decision thank you dr fernai
009and my new same principles coming up i'll take a point of privilege and just put a shout out for theresa maloney my assistant who has done amazing job as well keeping me uh focused so a brand new principle and i think yes there's a lot at stake here uh for dr fenoy as his uh child does go to this school weinstein land is middle school and almost andrews you're pretty excited about your new miss your new principal miss lindsey ingersoll miss ingersoll congratulations thank you good evening and thank you dr fenoy and school board members and thank you mrs wetzel and mr oswald for being here to support me tonight i'm so excited and honored to be sitting before you tonight as the selection for principal at wellington landings middle school what a true honor
010to have been selected in this role at the place that i already consider my second home the support that i have received well wishes and kind words from the community my amazing staff and most importantly my students has been humbling the support that i have felt at my first sac meeting my first village council meeting and my other first as principal experiences has been so heartwarming and my journey to this moment has been full of many supportive mentors who have trusted in me and helped me to become the leader that i am today but there are two women who have taught me so much and have always had absolute confidence in my leadership journey mrs ann clark and miss blake bennett there is no way i could ever thank them enough for seeing the leadership
011qualities in me and always encouraging me and building me up along the way it is you too who pushed me to go out of my comfort zone and to continue to grow i have made it my personal goal to be the ann and to be the blake for other aspiring leaders working with me i know that i have huge shoes to fill but i am over the moon when i think of the opportunities that lie ahead to build on the amazing initiatives that are in place at wellington landings my focus will be on collaborating with all stakeholders to ensure that students have access to reach their highest potential through our academics technology our arts programs and through social and emotional learning thank you again so much for this opportunity congratulations board member comments mrs mcquinn
012i had the opportunity to attend another thank a teacher tour at yeager middle school i think it was last week amazing how the time flies and three teachers were selected from parent and student nominations to be to be recognized patricia brandine ricky brown and tiffany scott they're representative of teachers across our district i just wanted to share with you that one of the teachers brand new this is her first year teaching and she went to yeager middle school as a student and is back there teaching now and when our news crew was interviewing her after the awards ceremony the question had to do with well how has it been adjusting to this new world of teaching that we've had this past year and she answered i don't know anything differently but this year has reminded
013me that i went into the profession that i was meant to be in and i get the same chills right now saying it that i that i felt at the time so it was just a great testimony from one of our brand new teachers thank you miss ayala thank you since our last meeting i've had the opportunity to take my visit to winbrook and co taylor kirkland elementary so i'd like to thank principal berry and principal dr lucas for their warm welcomes and for showing me just how many amazing things happen in district 2 schools every single day we had an esa leadership meeting that discussed the successful expansion and exciting partnerships with the international spanish academy my colleague ms whitfield was in attendance as well where we got to talk about where there are
014eases in the district the exciting new programs they're offering to students including one with the norton museum in west palm beach and different opportunities for students and educators alike to get additional professional development so that was very exciting last friday i had the opportunity to visit the guatemalan maya center in lake worth beach that does incredible necessary work for our most needy populations they remain ready to assist with any need and it was very relevant after our discussion on the workshop regarding our summer student progression plan they have available people who speak not only spanish but also dialects of different languages from south and central america for those ell and migrant students who will have those needs i'm very honored to be asked to serve on the latinx advisory committee with compass community center um
015they are building that community to start building additional trust and comfort for our community um who faces gender identity um questions and gender gender identification and in our community it's sometimes not the easiest thing to say as latinos so we want to make sure that they have they know they have a place where they feel comfortable talking to others and getting support and outside of that compass offers many community services to our families this morning you may have seen that the mayor's task force in the city of west palm beach gave an update on our progress and our plans i just want to remind everybody that as co-chair of the education and workforce development subcommittee i want to hear from you we all want to hear from you so our meetings are the third thursdays
016of the month at 5 30 pm and they go for about an hour and a half we would love to have your input on how we can make the city of west palm beach and especially our schools more equitable for all of our students and for every single student later today in the meeting we'll be approving a donation we received from kira labs a generous donation of what was it 000 bottles of sanitizer that will go directly to our schools and our systems and our facilities and our buildings to make sure that we stay safe as we continue on facing the pandemic and finally i want to tell the community here listening today that i will be having my virtual community meeting for district 2 and anyone else who would like to join next wednesday
017april 28th at 6 15 pm the eventbrite link to sign up for that meeting which will be virtual like i said will be online on our website and is also on all of my social media so i look forward to seeing you there and hearing from you on how we can make the future of our district the best it can be thank you so much thank you mr allen mrs whitfield thank you so much um i'm very excited to share um the event that we had last week um at um highland elementary and i want to say a huge thank you to highland elementary for hosting us and to miss fulani for all the work that she did to make this event happen we had our question and answer session with the superintendent and the
018parents and families and children from guatemala maya community in the area we were able to come the guatemala maya center was an amazing partner on this we brought in quite a few families there was a really rich robust discussion a lot of it focused on choice which we thought was really interesting of all the questions that they could ask they really wanted to know how they could get their children into our choice programs and they wanted to make sure that their children had the best education possible and i thought that was just a wonderful thing how concerned they were and how engaged they were and they wanted this this opportunity to reach out so hopefully we'll be doing it again soon um i want to take a quick second to thank ms valerie haynes who
019took on a big section of translation that we did our translators there who did an awesome job as well translating into khan habal and mam and we had quite a bit of spanish so they tried my spanish translation skills out to the best of my ability i listened and i paid attention it was it's just such a wonderful evening and i just want to say a huge thank you to them also thank you to dr fennoy for coming and spending that time with the community it was it meant so much for them to see you there and then also i want to say a quick thank you to dr arsey the principal from south grade who also was able to attend i know the families were very happy to see their beloved principals show up
020to this event finally i do want to make a quick promo as well my community listening session is actually tomorrow night april 22nd at five o'clock i get to be first so hopefully i don't set a bad tone for the rest of everyone else i'm very excited to do it though i've promoted on facebook and instagram and twitter and so you can find it there or on the district's website but i'm looking forward to hopefully a good turnout and we will have you know any questions that anyone's interested in having i'm very much looking forward to hearing from the community and talking about our strategic plan thank you so much mrs andrews thank you and good afternoon to everyone we have come a long way but we're not there yet please get your vaccine if
021you have not done so we all need to get back together as soon as possible to the new normal when we can be close to one another and be a family again the way we always are but the way we need to be i want to take this time to thank everyone for everything you do each day for your gallant work your work that you do remotely the work that you do in person as a school board member and a member of the school board you're appreciated our goal is to keep everyone safe the real work is done by you the custodians who keep the buildings clean they keep everything clean this is why we're sitting here today the maintenance department you keep us operating you fixed and repair things you are on call from
022early in the morning until late at night and yes food service you're feeding us day and night feeding all of our children our staff and the community and buses i see you i see you as i'm driving alone you're everywhere you have never stopped you are unsung heroes school principals teachers and staff you kept the learning a top priority for our students you are our heroes district office from superintendent fener to every member working in this big organization the 10th largest in the nation you are our heroes thank you as we move forward in the new normal we will succeed because of you and guess what you have never stopped and the education foundation and red apple supplies you never stop you never stop as i see your new red apple 14 foot truck servicing
023teachers with supplies for the classroom the big red apple truck with 10 000 scholastic books headed for the glades the other day on the inaugural run thank you to the bachelor foundation the frederick de luca foundation the honda classic for getting us that big new bus thank you to kids in need foundation for getting the books for our children and golden globe elementary school golden grove a green school of excellence winner of the trek challenge you've been winning this challenge for the last three years in a row you're awesome to win it in the elementary category your continued commitment to collect plastic wrap and bags are making a huge impact on the environment keeping it clean keeping it safe for all of us to live every bag recycled is one less in our landfills and
024to the media specialists we love the work you do it truly is all about the books and the technology and helping our children grow and develop congratulations on your month thank you for all you do and to my rock finally angela santa cruz my executive assistant who keeps me on track everywhere i go every single day thank you all for everything that you do thank you mrs andrews dr robinson thank you so let me start off by thanking maria baez who keeps me on track and lord knows i need help staying on track so let's go to the black history fact for april 21st did a medieval african empire invent human rights that is the title of an article at big think dot com now i think that i was taught that the magna carta
025was the first document to encapsulate any sort of human rights however the kurukan fuga charter also known as the mandan m-a-n-d-e-n charter is its contemporary and according to at least one scholar may even predate the magna carta in 2009 the madden carter was added the mandan charter was added to unesco's representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity unesco of course is the united nations educational scientific and cultural organization per unesco in the early 13th century following a major military victory the founder of the mandingo empire and an assembly of wise men proclaimed the new mandan charter the victorious leader sundiata kita also included his his um adversary who he had just defeated in creating this important charter this spoken document has been referred to as a constitution and contains a preamble and seven
026chapters it speaks on social peace the sanctity of human life women's rights the right to an education food security and freedom of expression and trade as well as the abolition of slavery the charter gave equal rights to citizens including women and those that were called slaves which were really more like indentured servants the aim was to provide peace and social stability although the mandingo empire disappeared the words of the charter and the associated rituals are transmitted orally from father to son in mali there are annual local and national ceremonies in mali commemorating this historic assembly so remember the mandan charter which outlined foundational human rights principles before or at the same time as the magna carta i hope our children learn this thank you miss bro thank you so i'm going to start off by
027thanking the administrative assistants who've worked with me over this past year angela santa cruz and now tiffany ritzel thank you both for making me look better than i am i thank you for everything that you do to keep me on track so this is national volunteer week and the volunteer business awards is very timely this week because of that but i just want to take a moment out to thank all of our volunteers it takes a village and we could not do it without you in a normal year but in this year especially thank you thank you thank you for everything you've done to help us and help our students now all of you hear this from me very frequently although miss aiella you might not have heard it before district three only has one
028high school and so i would be very remiss although we're voting later tonight i would be very remiss if i didn't welcome dr vela to cobra country and i'm looking forward to having you meet the community cobra country wants to welcome you with open arms and so i look forward to working with you and then finally with regard to the listening sessions you can find them posted on the school district's website as virtual community meetings i just want to let everybody know that if you're not available on the night that your school board member is hosting you can go to any of the meetings so just take a look at the nights that they're being offered and feel free you can go to one or more um you can listen we need your input this
029is all about getting input on our on the direction with equity the direction of our strategic plan so don't feel bound if you can't make it on the night that your representative is hosting come to one of ours thank you very much thank you miss brill i want to echo what the other board members have said thanking everyone for the hard work but of course if i don't say something about maria baez in the board office i'm sure she'll remind me about that tomorrow morning i guess i'm i guess i'm very needy because i want to thank maria carroll angela and tiffany because one of them has always helped me with something especially carol getting ready for the board meetings and tiffany to sign volumes of documents as board cheer and angela always helping when
030maria's away from her desk for a minute and of course maria has been a true treasure to have as a secretary administrative assistant in the board office so thank you to the four of you in the board office for supporting us all so very well uh i've added my chairman's report to the agenda tonight um the uh we have an in memoriam so i'd like to take care of that now um so cecilia henderson she was an assistant food service one at marsh point elementary she was born in december of 1960 and she passed away january of 2021 brenda laster lead custodian olympic heights high school she passed passed away november 1916 she was born november 1965 passed away january 2021 wanda lee a teacher reading coach support services she was born in march 1960
031she passed away february 2021 thomas miller teacher secondary math grades nine through 12 at the palm beach regional juvenile detention center he was born in february 1956 passed away in march of 2021 and bonnie rowe teacher elementary 3 elbridge gail elementary she was born april 1958 and she passed away march 2021 if we could take a moment to remember these employees and their families thank you very much board members you all been advised that there are 71 recorded messages for this meeting relating to non-agenda items the vast majority of which involve mandates on the wearing of mass the total total listening time of these speakers tonight will be just under two hours so tonight unless the board meeting ends prior to 7 pm we will hear non-agenda speakers for 30 minutes starting at 7 pm
032and ending at 7 30 p.m pursuant to board policy and will take up the remaining non-agenda speakers at the conclusion of the meeting unless the board votes to suspend the rules our general counsel has advised that pursuant to policy 1.03 the more made by two-thirds votes suspend the rule requiring the playing of recorded non-agenda messages so long as the board also provides that the messages that have not been played are sent to all board members to listen and be posted on the website and may be available for the public to listen to this end at the end of tonight's meeting at uh or at seven o'clock whichever comes first and prior to playing of the remaining recorded messages i'll entertain a motion for this purpose should it be the pleasure of the board to do
033that general counsel do you have any further comments on that i think you covered it mr chair i just add that this particular outcome is only appropriate for not i think you stated it for non-agenda items that would not be appropriate appropriate for agenda speakers okay okay thank you um student government report president alvarez i'm sorry i have a comment or question about your chairman's report sure man so in your um report and and actually you know i do appreciate the reports you work really hard meet with everybody on earth it seems like but um and it says that if we had any questions to bring them up publicly so my question is when you're meeting with these people are you representing us like because like from here i don't know what you said sure
034right sure and and so and i don't know what the solution is um but um and there have been times i think that there may have been issues particular to a particular area um that you might have gotten pulled into as a board member without having a full background right and then you know we have to discuss things in public and so i i just i just want to ask that you and maybe general counsel give some thought to how we communicate that because since it's the chairman's report i infer that in all these meetings you're representing this collective body um but i don't know and i don't know what different people's interests might have been and what the ass might have been it's just sure that's i i understand the question what i'll do
035is i'll work with the general counsel we'll we'll figure out a way so i can identify when i'm actually meeting because they've asked me to come as board chairman and when when i've gone to meet with them as a district five representative okay you're welcome mr alvarez thank you uh hello everyone i hope everyone has had a productive month throughout the end of the year student governments across the county well they will continue to plan school and community-based projects as always the majority of student governments are still doing posters and quotes i mean trying to keep motivation up around schools fun lunches spirit week centered around spring to keep students involved and motivated exam season is definitely proving to be a fairly stressful time for students especially seniors over this past week many student governments
036across the state of florida and a few other states actually attended the florida association of student councils convention virtually as boko hai is the district 5 president we attended the meeting and we were able to share ideas and participate in different activities and breakout rooms i would like to give a special congratulations to gainesville high school who is the new florida association of student council's president student governments are continuing to get through election seasons as they elect their new student government and class officers to serve next year additionally student leaders have continued to keep all our students informed on school-run social media accounts they have been providing up-to-date information about school events sports college and career information the senior class executive boards are now focusing a lot of their time on senior events including passing
037out clean your senior class shirts and other events such as graduation and senior spirit weeks that follow new cdc guidelines for covid i attended a meeting with superintendent fenoy in which we discuss my finalized idea for the student committee to the school board as you already know the student committee as i proposed will have a student-run and selected committee the president of each school will be the representative for their school and the student representative to the school board will be the chair the committee will be run under the superintendent and his office and i look forward to the committee's first meeting lastly i would like to thank each and every one of you for the opportunity to serve on this incredible board it has been one of the greatest experiences and honors of my life
038to get to represent the students across palm beach county and learn about your world on the school board the position of student representative and county president is truly a very unique privilege and opportunity however it is all about how much you want to involve yourself and how much change you want to see i have been lucky enough to get to attend equity workshops planning committees and even had the opportunity to leave my mark with this incredible student committee i will take all the lessons i have learned on this board as i continue on as a university of florida gator and don't worry i know you guys will be seeing more of me in the near future additionally i have one more last and final announcement the county council intent to run applications were due and
039finalized and the position of president was completely unopposed i am excited to announce that boko hai will once again be the president of the county and student representative to the school board for the upcoming school year all the schools were given the opportunity to run for this position and bokeh high had intended on running for the vice president position however no school stepped up to run for president and boko hai seized that opportunity i am sure and hopeful that the board will embrace the new student representative from my school logan harrigan the same way you did me and i look forward to hearing of her success as always i would like to thank everyone on this board for your efforts to better our education opportunities and for making our students your very first priority thank
040you for such an amazing year and for all the opportunities and lessons you guys have provided me and all our students with i leave this board today thankful and a better and more knowledgeable person because of all of you thank you thank you mr president are you saying that you're not going to be here for our may meeting you're not coming back you're not yes it's a requirement you know we talked about it he's gotta get ready for graduation mr chairman oh he's gonna be at graduation he's getting close okay we'll figure out something to get you back here that will take us to uh committee reports academic advisory committee is there a representative here it's recorded good evening chairman barbieri school board members doctors knowing staff my name is laura feldman i am honored
041to speak with you tonight as the chair of the academic advisory committee unfortunately the academic advisory committee was unable to hold a meeting in april since we did not have a quorum presence in person without the quorum we were unable to listen to any presentation and unable to hold any discussion thank you for your time construction oversight review committee is attached so there won't be any report other than what's attached to the agenda district diversity and equity committee recorded or someone here hello there she is go ahead go ahead ma'am it's oh there we go i was beginning to think you guys don't like me anymore good evening board chair board members dr fenoy and everyone in your respective places charmaine postal ddec board chair the last scheduled gdec meeting was march 24th was short
042one agency to make a quorum i publicly would like to thank the agencies that and staff that attended and traveled um some ways i traveled from boca raton florida to attend those meetings and we did not make a quorum unfortunately while we could not conduct a meeting we determined the following vacancies still remains aspire of florida division of blind services of florida department of education haitian american solidarity center are all three that has vacancies and just so you're aware as well because i do know at the last um at last week's equity workshop this was a question for staff and it as it relates to that district diversity and equity committee the following agencies are still without alternates or may have not attended certain sessions but i would say without alternates because some of these
043agencies do attend the meetings regularly iit akis young coalition of black student achievement which attends meetings economic council of palm beach county esau jupiter for the children gold coast down syndrome guatemalan mayan coalition of palm beach county hispanic chambers of commerce hispanic education coalition palm beach county human rights urban league of palm beach county and black chambers of commerce so these agencies again as i said let me be very clear that they do attend some of them attend i will send a list out to those who have not attended at least two to three meetings um i will attend i will send that list through staff after the gdec meeting that is scheduled for tomorrow um but every the 12 agencies that were just listed do not have alternates and we could use alternates for
044them as per the ddc policy thank you thank you i understand the lobbyists both mr laface and mrs sawnette or online start with mr leface good evening mr chairman can you see me yes okay perfect perfect you need a shave yes yes i heard that uh this morning as well um good evening everyone uh as you all are aware uh we're approaching or we're in the last week and a half of the 2021 legislative session and at this point bills and and the state budget are starting to take shape based on where things stand today i do anticipate an on-time finish of the legislative session next week i did give an update on bills and budgets monday in the executive cabinet which i think has been distributed to everyone but miss faye and i do
045have a couple of bills we did not discuss and we wanted to report on today because they have uh they have moved or or things have happened to them that i think you all should be aware of um the first one is a bill that we've been tracking um the union bill which would require unions to revoke memberships for members upon their requests without asking for reasons and restrict which unions can uh can require payroll deduction of dues but that bill appears in the last day to have really hit a wall um it is stuck in its last senate committee and is not uh and that committee is not meeting again um and it was postponed on the house floor uh yesterday so certainly sessions not over but that bill is looking unlikely um the
046other issue that i know that we've been following are board member term limits um as you'll recall the house initially proposed a bill that would put a constitutional initiative in front of the voters that would eliminate board member compensation that resolution was then changed into a board member term limits resolution to put in front of the voters and uh and that bill has been sent over to the senate by the house but at this time we don't not believe the senate is intending to pick up that piece of legislation and pass it um but the house does continue to add school board limit the school board term limits to uh to some bills they've got some language on a charter school bill that they're planning on sending over um so that issue is not resolved
047yet but at the moment it appears the senate is not having any interest in school board term limits uh i did want to give an update on our advisory board virtual meeting authorization uh the bill that we have that language on was heard about 15 minutes ago in the final appropriations committee on the senate and we actually did an amendment to our language we've been working with the department of education as well as the house professional staff to make certain tweaks to our language which still gives us the authorization we need for advisory boards to meet virtually but does it in a way that the professional staff is okay with so that we can um make sure that the house will pick up this language when the senate sends it over um next week and
048uh and now uh miss faye is gonna update you on a couple of other bills that board members have asked us that to uh to report on if miss bay are you on the line all right mr laface let's come back to her uh mrs salnett you are you online go ahead mrs salman oh one of you go i'll go ahead sorry about that i had to press star six um thank you so much for for having us today as ron said i will uh run through just a couple of other bills that we've been tracking up here in tallahassee and then turn it over to ms solmet for her federal update um so one bill that i wanted to put on your radar it's moving through both the house and the senate house bill
049545 senate bill 410 materials harmful to minors this bill has received quite a bit of committee input throughout the process but is in a place where it seems like it's in an agreed-upon form strategy to pass both chambers the bill seeks to make parents more aware of sex education curriculum by requiring school boards to annually approve curriculum and publish a copy of that curriculum on their website it does not make any change to the current opt-out process and then moving on to senate bills 2012. this is the the senate's version of the transgender sports ban i'm sure you've probably read about it in the press and seen some coverage especially when the ncaa weighed in it certainly was picked up in the press this bill was temporarily postponed in the senate rules committee earlier this
050week but the bill would have required k-12 sports teams to be designated based on biological sex and would have put the department of education in the board of governors in charge of a process for disputes if parents or students had disputes the house bill did pass out of out of the chamber off the floor and it was sent over to the senate but based on feedback from from the bill sponsor who's also the appropriations chair um it's very unlikely that that bill will pass this session just because of all of the other issues and the budget issues that she is focused on uh working on at this point and um the last bill that i wanted to put on your radar is senate bill 590 by senator harrell this bill was previously titled until this
051morning involuntary examinations of minors so the bill essentially makes changes to parental notification process when a minor is being evaluated under the baker act and the process is initiated at the school premises the bill specifies that the school must make a reasonable attempt to notify parents before the student can be removed from campus for evaluation and it also requires in a reasonable attempt to be made to have a student evaluated by a mental health professional either on campus or via telehealth before the student is taken off campus for evaluation under the baker act however this morning the title was changed to um relating to school safety so we do expect to see um the bill amended um in its next um hearing on the floor to incorporate the house school safety bill provisions and so
052we will be watching that uh the house did pass its school safety bill it was heard on second reading today is poised to pass out of the house tomorrow so with that those are my updates and i will turn it over to miss holmen thanks megan um so congress returned this week from a very brief uh spring break and they're churning out an awful lot of work so in the interest of time i'm just going to mention two items that came out just this week and then i'm going to give you an update on the third item so the first thing is the u.s department of agriculture announced the extension of a number of waivers this is a good thing um for the upcoming 2021-2022 school year and most notably those two waivers are the
053seamless summer option and the summer program reimbursement rates um those two waivers allow school districts to provide free meals to all children through the end of 2022 so as about a month ago this was going to end on september 30th it is now uh going to last through june of 2022. so there were about a dozen waivers that were approved including um the flexibility to support the continuation of meal pickup and other meals service for virtual learners and so i'm wondering if this announcement is some kind of a signal or recognition that operational uncertainties still you know exist and that perhaps some remote instruction will continue into the next school year in some states important to note that the state of florida must officially opt for these waivers before the flexibility is granted to our
054school district the second thing that came out this week was a document to guide the maintenance of effort on code with funds what that is it's a 21-page guide that contains a really helpful chart outlining the differences between the spending requirements so let me stop for a minute there were of all the cobian relief bills there were three relief bills that contained education funding or k-12 funding so um it was the cares act it was the crssa which is coronavirus uh i think supplemental spending authorization and it was the american rescue act so this guidebook contains calculation worksheets and explains the differences in each of those bills how you can spend when you can spend what you could spend it on and i have to say and it also tells you by the way when
055to request um waivers um and looking at it um mr burke and his team are superheroes for keeping us in line with those ever-changing rules because it's um it's it's it's very complicated so those are the two items that came out this week the third item i want to give you an update on is the infrastructure bill um i just think it's important to talk about it especially at a board meeting what everybody's hears about i think in the infrastructure bill is the price tag it's 2.2 trillion dollars um we have to think of this as more than just an infrastructure bill you know it's more than just roads and ports and airports and highways and school facilities it's also a jobs creation bill they have a lot in there about internet cyber security semiconductors
056water purification systems so um for k-12 schools it's a hundred billion dollars over eight years to help repair as they call it crumbling school facilities 50 billion of that would be in grants and another 50 billion would come through bonds the only other thing i'll say about this because the monthly reports contain a lot of information of what else is in that bill but the main point of contention is the price tag of the bill and who where the money is coming from to pay for that so the administration proposes paying for this bill by increasing the corporate tax rate so let me stop for a minute and explain that in 2017 the previous administration lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 all the way down to 21 so that was a 14 percentage point
057drop so this administration is suggesting raising it seven percentage points up to so that will be the point of contention they'll probably be negotiations uh the status of the bill is the house expects to pass it um probably around july 4th that's debatable just because of timing but i am being told all my sources are telling me that this will pass either late summer early fall so that's where we stand oh and the last last item is west tech appropriations so as you know we've submitted an appropriation for 426 thousand dollars it is now sitting in the governor's office in the office of budget and they're analyzing the request and the money associated with it right now is 250 000 i say this with an abundance of caution um as mr lepace will i think
058will also mention that the um budget conference has yet to be held for uh for education so and you never know it's not over until it's over but right now it's sitting in the office of the governor's office of budget thanks to dr charlene ford mr oswald we responded to their questions we've had i've had lengthy conversations with them and they're now asking for letters of support so those are all good signs so um that's an update that's all i have for now thank you mr sonnet mr leface i understand you have another comment yes sir um just as miss solnet mentioned uh we began budget conferencing on friday what what paves the way for the legislators to meet in conference where they work out the differences between the house budget and the senate budget
059is agreement on allocations in each silo originally the house and the senate budgets were built on having to cut about two billion dollars in recurring funds that's why you know there were a lot of cuts to health care and in higher education but the allocations cut reduced those cuts to about 500 million so it's only a quarter of what they were originally cutting and they're focusing those cuts still on higher education and health care and not in k-12 spending but once that process began we had a few meetings of all of the subcommittee chairs over the weekend we did in k-12 education we did get a glimpse of some of the spending decisions that they were headed towards um for example uh the house and the senate traded fefp offers um where the house put
060sixty dollars into the base student allocation the senate put eighty dollars into it but there are still a lot of differences over the overall funding of these areas and basically the entire k-12 budget was was taken out of the subcommittee's hands and put into the full committee chairman's hands i think it was yesterday or the day before so we're still pending a lot of these budget decisions as ms solnet pointed out you know west tech is looking very positive at the moment certainly also is the covet acceleration initiative both chambers are recommending funding but the final decision has not been made more because the entire silo has not been been closed out and and currently there's no funding uh still for the roosevelt project but we do have a couple of budget decisions that we
061are um that we are you know supportive of um and these are kind of big picture issues the legislature has decided to instead of uh estimating there'd be 87 000 missing students in the fall they've dropped that that missing student count to about 22 000 which is consistent with what the districts believe will show up in each district next fall they've also agreed to take the full value of the required local effort as you all know this is an issue that we've been talking about for many years where the legislatures continue to roll back the rle this year they're taking the full value so we're very pleased about that and then on the frs increases um you know last year as you all recall we faced a pretty significant increase in in retirement costs for
062employees um this year we were expecting the same increase uh but with kova the legislature has kind of uh decided that you know despite some of the concerns of of rating agencies and and you know the bond agencies that they're only going to do the increase on the frs about half of what they did last year so you can take last year's number cut it in half and that should be this year's costs um the final issue i wanted to mention that we that we're working on um as it relates to the budget is certainly you know bright futures has been something that's been very important to the district that's something the district did a call of action on and it appears that that cause of action with with other um you know pushback from
063all areas of the state uh has put the brakes on senate bill 86 which was the bill that made changes to bright futures however the legislature in its budget conference is proposing to eliminate the textbook stipend component of bright futures which is the 600 each florida academic scholar gets a year for um to spend on their textbooks it's about a 37 million dollar issue it was an issue that we included in our call to action to preserve so it's something that we are working on actively and we're hoping to get the uh to continue the the textbook stipend for florida academic scholars as that issue is uh discussed during the budget conference as the chairs try to resolve all of these outstanding standing issues so with that mr chairman i think that concludes our report
064all right board members you have any questions for either mr leface or mrs solomon all right seeing none thank you both very much for your for your assistance appreciate it takes us to the elected officials and delegates we have james gorillas our president and ceo of our amazing education foundation please come up to the podium thank you mr chairman dr fennoy let me begin by introducing the new head of marketing and pr for the education foundation this is marcia andrews wow my team was uh texting did you hear what marsha said i said yeah i'm here at the meeting i'm listening but uh we do want to thank you so i actually am going to start my remarks tonight with red apple supply as miss andrews pointed out we do have the truck as we've
065shared with you and we want to thank the bachelor foundation the frederick deluca foundation and the honda classic what's the result of of having this vehicle and the ability to take larger donations mr chairman and members of the school board i stood before you back in september in the midst of this uh the pandemic and projected that by year's end we would distribute roughly 750 000 dollars in school supplies to our teachers and students as of today mr chairman we have distributed 925 904 dollars in school supplies uh to our teachers schools and students throughout palm beach county now i got to tell you something that number's driving me nuts because it's 74 short of a million it's like having a pizza without pepperoni on it and i'm a vegan and it's it's driving me
066nuts miss andrews uh we're headed back to the glades next friday with eight pallets of hand sanitizers and masks donated by lungchu and and this buddhist temple and we are gonna crack the one million dollar mark this year we will distribute over a million dollars in school supplies to our teachers students and schools and mr chairman uh this would not happen without partners like office depot and the kids in need foundation office depot continues to regularly send us truckloads of donations their commitment to this school district and to our students and teachers really is second to none so office depot we want to thank you for that school board members you can help us you can help us do what we love to do most and that's give money away we are just about to
067open up the application process for our annual go teach grants within the next three weeks that application process will be open we would like so many teachers to continue to apply to help them we will conduct seminars on grant writing to make sure that a great idea doesn't die because the grant wasn't well written once again this year we will be offering go teach grants between a thousand and fifteen hundred dollars in addition thanks to the frederick deluca foundation will be offering the go reach grants of up to three thousand dollars and i'm going to tease you hopefully next month we're going to finalize yet another level of five thousand dollar grants for our teachers and so you can help us school board members speak to the schools in your district get the word out
068we exist to support you we exist to get money into the hands of teachers who do unbelievably creative and innovative things thank you to all of our partners to office depot to the foundations but most especially thank you to you who continually encourages dr fenoy with all the kind things you say and the trust you've put in us we are your education foundation here to serve you thank you very much thank you mr president you've done an amazing job since you've been president of the education foundation i don't know how we would have ever done all the things we've got done without you so thank you for your dedication to our teachers charmaine postal who represents the board of directors of florida pta and then mr ridley chairman of unify would you please come up
069to the podiums charmaine postal florida pta board of directors florida pta and their special committee facts was included in the florida department fox florida attendance committee for student success was included in the florida department of education waiver requests to the u.s department of education florida pta continues to advocate to save bright futures sb 86 and alert are members of upcoming legislation changes we have a team of members in tallahassee each and every week and weekend of the session attending committee meetings and hearings florida pta is currently planning their first ever hybrid leadership convention july 15th to the 18th at the innisbrook golf resort in palm beach harbor florida florida pta appreciates all of their volunteers especially during this month of volunteer appreciation doing for doing their best they can to serve the members schools and
070communities during these unprecedented times thank you thank you mr postal mr mr ridley is recorded as well as laura fellman president pta so would staff play those two recordings please my name is chuck ripley and i am the chair of unified palm beach county and a member of the coalition for a black student achievement i will be speaking under the delegate component it is my understanding that some people are suggesting that the school police department be merged with the palm beach county sheriff's office unified stands strongly against this recommendation pressure from the state or pressure from powerful interest groups do not justify such an irresponsible recommendation no matter the grade no matter the age students attending our schools our children so why would we create an environment that potentially potentially will place our children at
071risk for a permanent misdemeanor or a felony record particularly for children as young as elementary age students the district must maintain control to ensure school policing protects all elements of our child's safety the sole authority and ultimate responsibility to determine direct and supervise all elements of school policing must be retained by palm beach county school leadership authority and our final responsibility for schooling cannot be assigned to the ship there just cannot be two independent organizations with the authority to to determine school police policies and procedures unified want to make sure this board understands the following the district police culture must be laser focused on the success of all children two the definition of student safety must be inclusive of our students physical mental and emotional health three the district requires direct unfettered authority to develop
072and maintain a police culture focused equally on safety academics and the success of all students four if the chef assumes control of the district's pub policing the established policies and procedures of the sheriff's department will eventually become primarily even if the contract specifies that is this even if the contract specifies that the school district power policies will be prioritized that good evening chairman barbieri school board members dr fenoy and staff my name is laura feldman and i am honored to speak with you tonight as the president of palm beach county council of pta's ptsas last night we held our virtual hill day and met with palm beach county's legislative delegation to advocate our support for the proposed baker act senate bill 590 to improve parental notification we also expressed our opposition to senate bill 2012
073which would place discriminatory restrictions on participation of transgender athletes in school-related team sports national pta has a position statement confirming the rights of lgbtq students and is a co-signatory of a letter issued by the human rights campaign against such discrimination we also expressed our opposition to senate bill 48 which would expand k-12 voucher programs without providing sufficient financial or academic accountability and we oppose senate bill 1028 which would create a taxpayer parallel funded excuse me a tax payer funded parallel system of education outside the control of elected school boards and hence would be unaccountable to voters and we also discuss senate bill 86 regarding the bright future scholarships and our concerns about that bill as well as the school year is getting closer to an end our local units are getting ready for their end
074of the year programs and teacher appreciation and are holding elections for their officers for next year we're counting we're continuing our letters of love campaign this is a fantastic opportunity for students to write letters to help the elderly living in more isolated settings feel more connected through this project students can earn community service hours for the letters they write for more information please contact sharon lupin at wellness.pbccpta gmail.com we are looking forward to our virtual appreciation and end-of-year celebration where we will announce the awards and scholarship winners on may 21st and last but not least the registration for florida pta's annual leadership training convention at innisbrook is now open this year the meeting will be a hybrid allowing people to attend in person or virtually there will be a great many learning and networking opportunities
075all within coveted safety guidelines please go to florida pta's website for more information thank you very much board members we have four items under new business brd1 brd2 com1 and fmpf1 if nobody has anything else