001being the board has participated in a closed attorney client session and a risk management session at the risk management session one of the cases was trent jurick versus palm beach county school board mrs mcquinn recused herself from that from that meeting because of a potential conflict we'll now call the regular board meeting of the school board of palm beach county uh for february 17 21 2021 to order at 5 05 pm mrs bass please call the rule district one barbara mcquinn here district two alexandria ayala here district three karen grill here district four erica whitfield here district five frank ferrari here district six marcia andrews yeah district 7 deborah robinson here we have quorum with all seven board members present also joining us on our day as the superintendent dr donald fenoy and joining us
002here at the tables in front of us until they can once again join us on the diets are no longer necessary for social distancing purposes are general counsel sean bernard inspector general theresa michael and board clerk carol bass palm beach county student council president santiago alvarez will be joining us virtually through google meets 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 two three four two three five u-verse channel 99 or by using the youtube link on our web page at palm beach schools.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 the meeting id is 1-561-880-1124 pound sign this meeting is being transcribed by a closed captioner
003so remember to speak at a reasonable pace well everyone please stand for the pledge to be led by superintendent fenoy the united states of america for which it stands 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 mindful 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 now have to take action we have three items we have no
004minutes to approve we have three items to be added today p2 p3 and pr1 good cause exists for adding p2 to the agenda that some employees can begin in their new positions as soon as possible as to p3 good cause exists to enable timely processing of staff employment actions item p ir1 memorandum of understanding with department of emergency management good cause exists for adding item pir1 to this agenda as it will benefit the health safety and welfare of the glades area community by providing a convenient location for eligible residents to receive covet 19 vaccinations on january 10 2021 the florida division of emergency management requested the use of the parking lot and certain indoor areas of the anquan bouldin stadium at pahokee high school so that they could make covet 19 vaccines available and more
005convenient for area residents this facility was identified by the florida division of emergency management as a result of a previous vaccination event attended by governor ron desantis on february third twenty twenty one board approval of the memorandum of understanding is needed now because the florida division of emergency management would like to begin providing vaccines to eligible residents of the glades area immediately the superintendent you have any items to withdraw mr chairman i have nothing to do with drive this time board members we have one item that's been pulled from the agenda so far brd1 is there any other items you wish to pull at this time which one pc9 pc9 pc 9's also been pulled before we approve the agenda i'd like the board to consider reordering the agenda to move com1 to the first
006item of business right after the student government report com1 involves the city of boca raton's donation of land to the district and we have the mayor here tonight um so i'd like to give give that get that one at the beginning of the meeting so we can get him all back where he's got to be back in the city of boca we have a motion motion by mrs whitfield second by dr robinson any discussion all in favor all opposed motions carries 7-0 with moving that item up we now need a motion to approve the entire agenda motioned by dr robinson second by miss ayala any discussion all in favor opposed motion carries 7-0 any disclosures or abstentions seeing none mr superintendent comments thank you mr chairman we're closing in on one year since the method
007by which our district educates students was forever changed by the pandemic who can not forget how on march 13th we pivoted on a dime to distance learning for the remainder of the 2020 school year the challenge of educating our students digitally from the safety of their homes uncovered widespread disparities and presented an opportunity to greatly reduce the digital divide from a technological perspective the advances we as a district have made are nothing short of remarkable we immediately learned that thousands of students didn't have a computer in their home wi-fi or both to ensure access to google classrooms we quickly began distributing tens of thousands of computers to students by this past fall we achieved a one-to-one ratio student-to-device ratio to make learning more interactive the district also installed a smart panel in every single classroom
008all of this is just the beginning of this remarkable journey as i mentioned the other challenge was providing internet connectivity to students who for many reasons did not have access to affordable or free wi-fi at home and so the district's digital inclusion initiative was launched the goal is to provide all students regardless of zip code access to reliable internet access in their homes this is all part of a 50 square mile wi-fi mesh network that is generated through a partnership between the school district the county local municipalities and james gavralos and his team at the education foundation this project is primarily funded through federal cares act dollars and supplemented by donations from our wonderful community partners without getting too technical a wi-fi mesh network is created by connecting fiber optic cables to radios many of
009which are fastened to tall poles the radios provide the wi-fi signal to users within the municipality identified families will be provided a wi-fi extender to capture the signal and broadcast the internet connection within their home although the wi-fi network is not running yet many installation components are well underway you may have noticed the polls and radio equipment already being erected in many communities or maybe you've seen yard signs indicating that a wi-fi network is coming soon once this phase is complete about 25 000 district students will have free high-speed internet access at home and even more as a result of the future phases i will update you on once that service begins speaking of building a brighter future the cornerstone of post-graduate success is preparing students for the career path that fulfills their dreams february
010is career and technical education month in our district cte is designed to empower students today students by setting them up for success whether they choose to further their education in traditional college technical school through industry certifications or pursue careers in the military thank you to all of the cte instructors preparing our students to be competitive in a global economy i'd also say that february is also love the bus month this annual month-long celebration is held each february the district's roughly 600 bus drivers are the first to greet our students in the morning and the last to say goodbye in the afternoon they certainly help set the tone for the child's day to our drivers i say thank you for your continued dedication at this time if i could have mr oswald come forward i'd like
011the deputy superintendent to come forward and introduce one of our new principals mr demetrius perminter thank you dr fenoy good evening board members it is with great pleasure that i introduce you a new principal who's taking on a unique role working with our department of juvenile justice which there are locations throughout palm beach county working with some of our most neediest students doctor demetrius permenter to the board chair boardman fabreri vice chairwoman brill to dr donna panoy to everyone in their respectful places thank you thank you very much as you allow these nerves to settle just a little bit my name is demetrius d'angelo perminer i am the husband of that lovely young lady and young man in the back dr kiesa lashon pimenter and carter pimenter i am excited excited to be the principal
012of alternative education under support services i don't know if any of you remember um back when i was in the pmp pool we uh we marketed a professional uh growth with growing your own we are growing our own i'm a product of us growing our own and i've been planted i've been planting in a lot of places in palm beach county but they all work together for my good i started out as the guidance counselor at lakeshore annex in belgrade then i was moved over to pahokee as a guidance counselor with dr reed bain royal palm beach high school sheila henry was the principal at that time as a young man i was excess and i god knows i just thought that was the end of the world because i was excess and then after
013that i actually became a part of alternative education where a lot of things were ignited in me where i saw a lot of young men that looked just like me that needed a cheerleader needed somebody that would encourage them to be more than what they could see with their natural eye i i then moved into being a member of the courthouse as a court liaison and and then i found myself as a assistant principal at forest hill community high school which i believe miss ayala is responsible for and i spent majority of that time with mr chuck shaw and and there was the diamond in the rough because as i said i was planted in a lot of different places and what we have to do and what i appreciate it is that we grow
014where we're planted and i thank god for the opportunity to grow in palm beach county for the past 20 years i'd like to say thank you to a few people if you'll allow me i want to say thank you to ms hubbard williams my director at support services thank you very much i want to say thank you to my former principal miss esther rivera at forest hill community high school also miss karen west so the central area instructional superintendent and these are the people i want to name a few people that watered me along the way we call them mentors but these people watered me as i was planning mr eddie lee rhodes dr lee dr anthony lockhart dr angela best dr vavancia haywood dr reed bain miss christie ragsdale miss alma horn miss ethel
015randolph with kathy perry and miss vicki corman and i want to mention someone right now that is that i i have to say if you asked me this question uh three years ago if she watered you i would probably say no and that is miss that is dr mary straddles and dr mary straddles i want to say thank you to her for removing my training wheels because sometimes we think it's supposed to be easy as we're growing up just going up this ladder and not only does she make it tough you know how when you plant a a um a palm tree in a new in a new establishment a new home you have to put the wood planks on it to prevent it from moving that's what she did with me she put those
016wood planks on me and i heard things that i didn't want to hear but i needed to hear and because of those things i believe that i grew but last and definitely not least my wife my wife and my son my wife helped me god knows with those targeted selection questions she would not allow me to go to sleep without asking me the star format and i'm and i'm very grateful i know it might not be the politically correct thing to do but i just want to say i love you honey i thank you i appreciate you i thank all of you and i am going to do my absolute best to to present a well-grown uh tree in this this um department i thank you i thank you i thank you [Applause] just keep
017remembering who your rock is sir you'll be all right board member comments miss mcquinn yes thank you we are still in february seems like a very short and a very long month certainly i can't speak to um in terms of black history month i cannot speak to the experience of being black but i do want to tell you something that i've learned that i hope i can pass on to others being of i was explained to in a training that i had recently a racial equity training not here it was through families first but saying that sometimes like myself i bristle at the term white privilege because i didn't grow up privileged but i certainly grew up advantaged and so i've learned that there is another term that i think every one of us who
018is white can agree that we have the advantage of a skin color here in the united states but another thing is i was invited recently and in fact i will be sworn in saturday to a national organization not as a school board member but as an individual i would never six months ago have thought to look at the organization first and at and number one what is the diversity of the organization i was happy with that and the other was does the organization have a statement regarding lgbtq and this organization does and welcomes the inclusion so that was something that i know my eyes have been open to in terms of something i wouldn't have known to look at before so there's my contribution thank you thank you mr quinn miss ayala thank you mr
019chairman i also want to give a huge congrats to dr pimenter i'm so excited for him and i had the great honor to celebrate with him and the team at forest hill on the day when he would be leaving to go and do this great work congratulations i know you're going to make us so proud dr p over the last month i've had the pleasure to visit pine dog elementary forest hill high coniston middle benoit farm elementary everglades elementary hope centennial elementary and my very own school palm springs elementary and i want to give a great gratitude to the principals and their teams for opening their doors up to me welcoming me with open arms and showing me all of the amazing work that takes place in our schools every single day within district 2.
020i want to give a special shout out tonight to everglades elementary and principal ross's team whose t-shirt design contest winner i'm proudly wearing up here tonight and it says color everglades with kindness so on national random acts of kindness day and every day everglades elementary is coloring their school with kindness under principal ross's amazing leadership yesterday we celebrated 100 days of learning it was a treat for me to be able to come together with local elected female friends and colleagues community leaders organizations and others to various sponsor treats for our elementary schools yesterday seven district two schools were included i visited five and had help for the other two and county wide it was over 20 schools that we were able to provide with a little treat to show our appreciation and gratitude for the
021work that they've done for these last 100 days and 80 to go thank you to every single generous sponsor for recognizing the hard work and commitment of our schools during our hispanic education coalition meeting last friday mrs patricia trejo administrative program planner for hispanic and latino studies at our district provided a thorough presentation of the hard work being done to ensure that there are lessons infused with latino history and culture within all content areas at the elementary level as per state statute this work is a huge undertaking for anyone to do and let alone one person so i wanted to commend mrs trejo in her efforts to help increase cultural competency around not just during hispanic heritage month and let her know that we are so proud of her for this work finally i want
022to congratulate two of our very own district superstars here in palm beach county once again mises patricia trejo and dr patricia ordonez feliciano who were selected to serve as co-facilitators for the association of latino administrators and superintendents linking latina leaders network both were chosen from nationwide applicants hundreds of them and they are the very first latinas from our school district to receive the honor of serving in such a capacity at the national level so let that sink in for a second what a great way to have palm beach county school district represented as well as the state of florida it's a national network thank you both for your continuous focus on internal leadership for yourself so that you can be better developed to serve our children better every single day thank you mr chairman thank
023you miss ayala mrs whitfield thank you so much and this has been actually a pretty great month and week for me um on monday i went to my very last of my school visit so i've visited all my schools now and i just such a pleasure to be able to see the students and the principals and get to catch up with all of them and see how their years going i've also completed four of my state of the city addresses with dr robinson attending the boynton beach one so again thank you for that we just finished del rey's a couple weeks ago that was one of my last ones lantana boynton and lake worth i've had the opportunity to go to um i really loved getting a chance to communicate with the um the the
024representatives that oversee their cities and get a chance to talk to them and share you know the difficulties that schools are going through kind of prepare them and then also ask for their assistance in going forward and having our cities be involved in our schools just means the world to making really great schools so i'm really glad i was able to do that and finally one of the things that i have just been so proud of for this past week last week dr fenoy and i were able to do a little meet and greet virtually with the students that participate um in the compass group the the transgender students they have a kind of a social support group that meets twice a week and so dr fenoy actually was able to speak to them hear
025their stories which was amazing they actually put it out to all the gsas in the county so we had 39 people on the call over 30 of them were actually students that called in on a week night at 5 30 on this virtual call just because they were so excited to get a chance to tell their story to the superintendent it was truly a historic moment for our school district um i think you know it opened up a lot of eyes and really it was amazing just the terminology i know dr fenoy got to learn a whole lot of new words which is really interesting and and exciting for us to be able to do it's something we're going to try to continue to do and so i'm looking forward to that continuing on and
026the additional ability for us to have communication with our lgbtqa and i students thank you so much for for attending and being a part of that dr floyd really meant a lot to me thank you thank you miss whitfield mrs andrews and thank you and good afternoon to everyone as we continue to celebrate black history month i would like to celebrate coach eddie lee rhodes i just heard his name called by the new principal a pahokee hero an educational legend for over 50 years a teacher administrator mentor and historic coach for pahokee high school blue devils he is an icon in the glades region everyone knows coach rhodes on yesterday coach rhodes was honored in high fashion with the renaming at grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony of the new eddie l rhodes pahokee gymnasium
027many dignitaries from the tri-cities region the county the state they were all present for this big honor we heard special reflections from his student nfl hall of fame star ricky jackson students adults and the entire community will enjoy the beautiful new eddie l rhodes gymnasium so as we celebrate black history month which we should celebrate every day because there's no history without black history we celebrate one of our local leaders eddie lee rose i also want to say congratulations for two schools who are increasing the number of women in stem congratulations to park vista community high school and pahokee middle senior high school for earning the college board's ap computer science principles female diversity award this honor is one way for schools to celebrate to celebrate and be recognized for their commitment for increasing the
028participation of female students in science-related fields pahokee middle senior high school park vista community high school you're awesome and lastly i want to congratulate the city of west lake the newest city in the county of palm beach west lake sitting right in the heart of district six you to be commended for starting your new educational youth advisory committee your first inaugural meeting in january was a great success and we know that you will be a partner and a participant with the school district of palm beach county as we work on the best success for all of the students in the loxahatchee acreage and west lake area congratulations thank you thank you mrs andrews dr robinson um thank you it's so it's february black history month i will not be giving a black history fact in
029february but i will um starting again next month and i will move my data presentations to my discussion items in the end um so just get ready so and i actually wasn't going to make any comments but i was inspired by dr pimento's um testimony right um and really and his acknowledgment of those that as he put it watered him where he was planted and so reminded me that i am truly looking forward for us resuming our summer internship program next year so we can water some young people as they grow in the fields of their choice now just relative to black history month though i do feel the need to to quote james baldwin who i hope you know this author who was once described as saying his education in the american public school
030system is wanting because quote history has been taught without cognizance of my presence and so what he was saying is what i've been saying and what others have been saying is that the african diaspora is not appropriately represented in our curriculum and so then i would just roll into thanking both diana fetterman and nolan raul for their much improved textbook adoption process which included a rubric and included a rubric that was created by the coalition for black student achievement to address that absence of the african diaspora and our representation in our textbooks so we have textbooks we are adopting um tonight and i think that we are making a move in the right direction we still have miles to go before we sleep as they say but i do want to acknowledge this step forward
031so thank you thank dr robinson miss bro thank you so i've discovered over the last few weeks since i moved my seat to this end of the dais that sometimes when it gets to me what i was going to talk about has already been mentioned so so there is a distinct disadvantage i do want to thank mrs andrews for talking about women in stem i was going to speak about that so instead i'm going to shift to something else at the last board meeting while we were here i received notification that i was chosen for the 2021 council of great city schools board cohort group and so i'm one of 18 uh school board members and i had to pivot really quick because they had us scheduled for two incredibly intense meetings fri this past
032friday and saturday they were till 8 o'clock at night and for those of you who remember what encounter groups were like that's what it felt like it was incredibly intense but i'm looking forward to it because in these nine months we are going to be intensely working on how to improve student outcomes and it will help me to hone my leadership skills so as appropriate i will share with you information that i gain um and then finally i do want to recognize somebody who i received an email about this afternoon and that is amanda ladd who has been chosen to receive the 2020 gutterman family outstanding holocaust educator award from the arthur and emily gutterman family center for holocaust and human rights education at fau every year they have a dinner i don't know if
033they'll be able to do the dinner this year but we're gonna they are gonna try to to do it in the fall um which hopefully you know by that point we will be able to all be face to face but ms ladd will be honored along with the winners from broward and palm beach counties at that event and just because i haven't mentioned it yet ms ladd is a teacher at eagles landing middle school so it's mr barbieri's school i did ask him if he would mind if i jumped right into his district and i just want to say congratulations thank you thank you vice chairwoman brill the board members my report is attached i do want to tell you that i had the opportunity today to visit a school in miss mcqueen's district i
034went to dwyer high school and uh i saw some interesting things there including some of the some of the um some of the shortcomings that um that those students um face and i've had conversations today with the chief of staff the superintendent mrs paul i'm trying to remember miss uh the deputy superintendent for some uh some action that should be taken at that school to help the children there um that that are not performing as well as we could hope and giving them the the resources that they need to make sure that they can move on the way we want them to the other thing that i need to do at this point is also do the recognition of our employees who have passed away if i can get there janice anita teacher high school
035reading royal palm beach high school she was born in 1963 and she died in january twenty twenty one james senecola the teacher elementary fort manatee elementary he was born in 1985 died in january 2021 james wally coordinator two facilities management maintenance and plant operations he was born in 1960 he died in december 2020 and todd wright a teacher ese palm beach lakes high school he was born in 1966 and he died in 2020. we could take a moment to remember these employees and their families thank you at this time is uh connie connie dta president excuse me county student government president uh alvarez on the line i am can everyone hear me okay oh you're sir all right thank you so much um hello everyone i hope everyone has had a productive month uh throughout
036this past month the county council has continued our work to keep students and teachers engaged and motivated student governments across the county are continuing to plan school and community-based projects we have done motivational posters and quotes around the schools um specifically a lot for sports teams teacher and counselor appreciation letters um hygiene drives and fun lunches additionally in preparation for valentine's day student governments across the county held valentine's day activities following cdc guidelines sold flowers across the county held valentine's day activities and kind of just tried to make it special while still being able to follow the rules additionally to remember and honor the lives of the 17 we tragically lost three years ago many schools around the district held virtual memorials um our student governments also all participated in the district 5 rally convention
037in which student governments across palm beach county st lucie county and martin county share project ideas and run for elected positions schools presented amazing school and community service projects and ran for positions i am proud to say that boko hai ran four and one the positions of president and parliamentarian 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 and college and career information the senior class executive boards are continuing to plan and organize special events for the last semester of our high school years furthermore i have continued to work and flesh out the ideas for the student committee i propose as you all already know the student committee as i have proposed it will be a student-run and
038selected committee the president of each school would be the representative for their school and the student representative to the school board as the chair additionally i have thought about the idea of allowing for the student committee to designate and create ad-hoc committees within the committee to include specific points that ms ayala had made at the last meeting and that way we can encompass everyone's idea into making this committee as successful as possible these ad hoc committees would work on specific issues and can include other students from schools who wish to involve themselves i will continue to prep to perfect this proposal and idea and look forward to working with superintendent noe and the creation of this committee um i also wanted to say um happy black history month and as ms andrews said well our
039history is in history without black history 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 first priority thank you so much thank you president alvarez mr superintendent that com1 yes sir com1 i recommend the board proclaim february the 17th 2021 as a day to acknowledge the boca raton city council motion by ms brill seconded by mrs andrews under discussion i'd like to read the proclamation whereas the school board of palm beach county florida wishes to issue this proclamation and recognize the boca raton city council for its long-standing partnership with the school board as recently demonstrated by the dedication of a school site and whereas neighborhood transitions in boca raton resulting in the influx of increased school-aged children along with
040growth in the unincorporated western boca raton and delray areas have resulted in the need for a new school in southern palm beach county currently identified as boca raton area elementary o5c and whereas the city of boca raton has generously dedicated plus or minus 15 acres of publicly owned land in the countess the orleans park to facilitate construction of the new school within boca raton proper and wears in the interest of government efficiency the property has been used as a temporary campus for both verde elementary and then addison-meisner elementary while their respective schools were being modernized and whereas the new school construction will begin as soon as addison-meisner elementary vacates the temporary campus at the end of the 2021 school year and whereas construction is expected to take slightly more than one year with an opening
041date of august 22 for the new elementary school and whereas the dedication of a school site will facilitate the establishment of another world-class school within the city limits of boca raton florida now they're now therefore be resolved that the superintendent and school board of palm beach county to hereby proclaim the foregoing recitals are true correct and incorporated into this proclamation by this reference and be it further resolved that the school board wishes to honor and recognize the boca raton city council for its contributions to the school district including this dedication of a school site and for many years of partnership with the school board to provide world-class schools in the city of boca raton done the 17th day of february 2021 in west palm beach florida any other discussion all those in favor oppose motion
042carries 7-0 board members if you don't mind mayor singer is here if we could go down and get a photo with mayor singer mr superintendent yes um i chose mayor singer will be our first speaker mayor singer mr chairman school board members dr fenoy thank you so much for having me here today um while as much as i appreciate on behalf of the city your thanks of us i really came here to extend our thanks to you because this has been a three-year plus partnership in getting this across the finish line first i'm here on behalf of all my city council colleagues who could not join us today deputy mayor andrea levine o'rourke council members yvette drucker monica mayo andy thompson and councilmember jeremy rogers who's on military leave serving overseas um i'm blessed to
043work with that great team every single day and we're blessed to have great partners in the school district and this is just the latest of more and more partnerships we've had with you over the last few years mr chairman when you and i first talked about this three years ago about the idea for citing the school here because the money was in the budget but the land that you had originally cited for it over in the western southwestern part of the county fell through i didn't imagine all the work that would go through but i'm so grateful for all your leadership dr fenoy your entire team and i want to thank a few of you in particular i've had the pleasure to work with and see firsthand about what it took to get this school
044done there were many iterations of planning first it was just figuring out the temporary site then getting permission from the state to build it even though you know all of your all of the numbers show that we required it i had a great opportunity to work time and time again with ms wanda paul and your entire staff there so miss paul thank you um just to let people know there were even once we got the temporary site set um in theory uh there were more iterations and i think at one point 15 different configurations for just that temporary site once we got that up and running then there was more land different give backs of land different configurations um changing the building envelope uh traversing utility easements drainage issues lake issues um and yet we
045worked tirelessly you all worked tirelessly your staff so thank you very much chris garrison i want to say special thanks to you as well and i had the pleasure in multiple meetings to work with david dolan michael burke and just see how hard working your staff is dr fenora and school board members so thank all of you we're so grateful for what you're doing um this has allowed the rebuilds of those two schools to proceed a pace after the parkland tragedy we don't know how we would have done it had we not had a place to locate them and this temporary site came at the right time um and fortunately in the right place and i'm grateful that with everything going on those uh recon those modernizations are on schedule that this rebuild or this
046new permanent construction is on schedule and just a huge words of thanks for what you're doing every single day to keep our students educated and um in the classrooms when you look across the country and see other districts who can't come close to what you're able to pull off every single day it's a testament to how hard you work as administrators educators staff people and people who care about our students so thank you for what you do every single day and we're very grateful for our continued partnership thank you mr mayor thank you for taking the time to come up here this year thank you so much mr shaw are mr shaw here mr shaw this is a first for us i'm sure it's a first for you it seemed very strange after all these
047years to be over on this side of the uh of the room but watching but thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight last month when you made the decision of renaming the adult education center um you know how difficult that was for me to even begin to accept something like that and understand because it's never about me it's about the people that i've had the opportunity to work with over the years and i other than saying thank you i do think it's important to know that there were some things that have been done by our adult education staff over the years that are extremely significant in this district virtual education in palm beach county started with adult education roger pelser who was the manager of adult ed came to my office one
048morning and he said i've got an idea let's see what we can do with and it was to create the first online classes in palm beach county we did that with no money but just the idea that it's something we could do and it turned into what's now palm beach virtual over the years our adult education programs have partnered with the workforce alliance career source the business development board pace many many other agencies and organizations to support the education of our adults one of the programs that was extremely successful was with the guatemalan community in lake worth where we provided teachers who worked in that community with the people in the guatemalan center to provide programs for those students in the language that was very difficult for us as a school district to provide people
049who could who were in a position to be able to speak that language in addition we created one of the programs that was called parent and a pac time parent and child together this was an effort that was created by the creativity of some of our adult education staff who spent their time at a school working with parents for a period of time up to a half day then breaking and their children who were in child care at the same time the parents and the children then worked together the parents were given instruction and support on how they could work with their children that became a model that was used statewide all of those things happened not because of anything that i did but it was by us giving those adult education leaders and instructors
050the opportunity to be creative to take risk and do challenging things for the benefit of our community i hope that as adult education continues to grow in this county that we see the real opportunity for it to serve this district and to be able to come to this board with more and more really creative really challenging programs that can help our adults learn to speak english to be prepared for a career to offer programs that are not available in many other parts and do it at a cost that's tremendously tremendously less than what they would be paying in some of the career technical programs in the private sector so again thank you so much it was an honor please take time when you have to go visit the adult ed center because it is a
051wonderful facility and the good thing was they're about an on-site enrollment of about four about 900 students out of the 24 2500 that they have enrolled so thank you again so very much mr shaw the board is pleased that we were able to name that building after you for recognizing the 50-plus years of service that you gave not only to the children but to the adults of palm beach county so we're happy that we could create a legacy for you that will last all of our lifetimes so thank you very much have a good night and good luck [Applause] president cabrillo's our education foundation thank you chairman bravery dr fenoy and members of the school board it's a great set for what i wanted to discuss tonight teachers are an interesting group teachers and principals
052they offer high quality education to their kids but it's just not about that moment that program it's it's the legacy that they leave uh we honored the principles of the year last week and you see the the pride the principals take when they see their students going on to to greater success i say that to set the table for march when we hold our annual distinguished alumni award now it's the same group that we were going to honor last year and coronavirus had other ideas so we've moved it to this year we will be honoring two graduates of our palm beach county public schools who have gone on to great success zach gottsagan an incredible young man a graduate of the dreyfus school of the arts who started that film the peanut butter falcon was
053also a presenter at the academy awards last year and also brian ray who's the ceo of garden of life supplements and i use this as an illustration of my earlier point we are in some meeting many of you knew artie falk artie was an administrator and assistant principal i think for about 173 years at palm beach gardens something like that and anytime something comes up and we mentioned you know senator bobby paul one day an argument he's one of mine we were in a setting talking about the distinguished alumni awards and i mentioned brian ray he's one of mine he's a palm beach gardens guy dr fennoy your teachers and principals love these children so much and they take so much pride in their success later in life when they go on and become these
054amazing community people so on march 10th at 11 30 we will have a virtual event where we will honor both these two graduates of our schools as well as mr alexander dreyfus as our business leader of the year and i encourage anyone who would like to participate virtually to go to our website and you can register for that event and i'll pay our respects that day to these three incredible people again that's on march 10th we have to prepare our people for success in life and so tonight the good news report that i get to share we have entered into a partnership and received a grant from the florida lottery no frank i did not win the billion dollars last week i was just just six numbers off but i was i was close but
055we have entered into an agreement with the florida lottery for a new program miss andrews this one's for you we are calling it the raiders rock the preparation it is a program for roughly 400 young people at glade central high school these are 11th and 12th graders all of whom many of whom are going to be first generation high school graduates where they will be prepped for the a.c.t and the sats they'll be given special tutorials they'll be given special methodologies to learn again high quality instruction to help them prepare for their college exams those students who attend eighty percent of the sessions and can demonstrate measurable increases in their test scores will have their s a t fees waived so this is an incredible opportunity for these young people at glade central to not
056only get prepared to take the sat but also then actually take the sat in a way that won't bring economic hardship on their families so this is what we do we prepare our kids for college and life we rejoice when they have fenoy your education foundation is honored to be a partner with you and just to be there and to support these programs that are doing such great work ladies and gentlemen we are your education foundation supporting the high quality work of our teachers schools and principals in the finest school district in the state of florida thank you thank you mr president president katz cta thank you my name is justin katz i'm president of the classroom teachers association i reached out to to everyone the board and district leadership to make sure that we
057begin discussions and subsequently negotiations regarding uh instructional and working conditions for employees and students next year as as soon as possible i think if there was a lesson to be learned last year is that communicating more than you think you need to cannot possibly hurt you um and that's where we're at the reason being the existing blended learning mou that governs distance learning and blended learning this year expires on june 30th of 2021 it will no longer exist the district will have no contractual ability to conduct distance learning or blended learning at that point so we need to reach out as soon as possible to begin this dialogue ideally for me and my teachers these discussions and negotiations over a new mou would conclude by the end of this school year so that they know
058what to expect before they go into the summer break and before they come back there are some variables that we might not know until much later in this school year we don't know what the legislature is going to do we don't know what the governor or the commissioner of education are going to do but we do know a lot about what we can start to prepare for your educators almost 13 000 of them by the end of this school year will have worked 20 million contract hours under these current conditions their opinions are critical to informing the next version of the mou and distance learning and whatever blended learning version comes to to bear in 2021 2022 the most pressing concern that they have and i'm sure most people could guess this is simultaneous teaching
059does not work for the majority of students or the majority of teachers so it is not serving either party we need to do everything we can and any future mou regarding blended learning needs to address the fact that virtual students need to be clustered into virtual class periods and physical students need to be clustered into physical class periods it will make all the sense in the world for anybody who's seen this work to segregate these groups to make it easier for the teacher to do their job to make it easier for the students to learn as president of cta that that is something that i can't stress enough the master boards cannot be created absent consideration of what i just said uh it's something that last year once the master boards were made the principals
060had a valid concern to gut the master boards would have been very difficult for them it is february we can plan for this there will be no need to gut master boards because we can create them the way that they need to be created while simultaneous instruction might be the most pressing concern for educators in terms of their working conditions there are many other concerns relative to the existing mou and other responsibilities that came along with it we talked about during the calendar discussions the value of an extra week is summer to mental health for students and teachers and you can't i don't think you can necessarily quantify a week but i can definitively say that 180 days of instruction and the learning and working conditions that take place far exceed one week of summer
061in terms of their effect on the mental health of our students and our teachers so we need to do this right and again simultaneous instruction it simply needs to become the exception to the rule the rule needs to be to separate these students and if it can't be done in certain circumstances then we deal with simultaneous but again that's that's my biggest concern and that's one of the reasons why i want to start these discussions as soon as possible so uh please make sure that the district the superintendent reach out to us so that we can get this going i think it'll do a lot not just for your employees and students but the community to know what to expect as best as we can expect it given the variables that we know so thank
062you all very much for your time and have a good night thank you president katz president laura feldman pta ptsa for the county it's recorded good evening chairman barbieri school board members and dr sonoy and staff my name is laura feldman and i'm honored to speak with you tonight as the president of palm beach county council of pta's ptsas this month i had the opportunity to share information with the academic advisory committee from florida ctas and the florida department of education's know your schools campaign also known as from reports to results through the review of the data and information in the edudata.fldoe.org website we are bigger we are better able to understand the state of our district and schools and to focus our advocacy on helping all students meet their potential in other pta news
063last week we enjoyed county council's virtual celebration for the reflections art program we love seeing the enthusiastic students in their wonderful art dance music and poetry submissions thank you all for putting in the time and effort to participate in this program we are 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 ranked for more information please contact sharonmovinwellness.pbccpta gmail.com on february 20th florida pta will be hosting their howdy pta today leadership summit this exciting opportunity is for everyone to enjoy learning more about topics such as virtual engagement virtual meetings tips and tricks vpks in early childhood the baker act pta 101 101 and
064information for presidents treasurer secretaries and much much more also please join county council for upcoming coveted safe scavenger hunt to celebrate pta founders for more information please check out palm beach county council of pta's facebook page there is also still time to register for florida pta's virtual legislative conference march 21st and 22nd this year the event will be held virtually and has a very low registration date for more information and to register please go to florida pta's website thank you all for your time board members before we start the committee reports i direct your attention to the cupcake on the table there to my left and then the beautiful lady sitting behind it that our board clerk carol bass will be celebrating her birthday this week so happy birthday carol [Applause] our committee reports the
065academic advisory committee report is recorded and our lobbyists are on the line so let's go with the academic advisor committee report please replay the recording good evening chairman barbieri school board members dr fenoy and staff my name is laura fellman and i am honored to speak with you tonight as the chair of the academic advisory committee during our february meeting we heard updates regarding the student academic support plan as well as more specifics regarding the outreach intervention and professional development efforts it was emphasized that the interventions are being put in place for all students who need the interventions whether they attend school face to face or virtually we also discuss the phases of the academic support plan this month's presentation during our meeting was from reports to results and was given by the palm beach
066county council of pta's ptsas during the presentation we reviewed the data in florida department of education's website edudata.fldoe.org and safe schools for alex.org we learned through these sites we through the information in these sites we learned that we can better understand the state of our district and individual schools our discussions focused on the education gaps graduation rates specifically the gaps based on race and ethnicity as well as for foster kids discipline disparities based on race and ethnicity the out-of-school suspension rate for students with 504 plans the disproportionate enrollment of students in the esc program or students who have 504 plans based on race and ethnicity meaning that the disparities that this proportional enrollment is based on race and ethnicity professional development and the information on the safe schools for alex.org website which lists the schools
067with the most suspensions in the state the information from this presentation these websites brought up many questions which we plan to discuss in future meetings thank you for your time mr leface are you on yes sir mr chairman i'm here glad if you'd like to go ahead and give your report to the board that'd be great yeah certainly uh good evening mr chairman members of the board um superintendent fenoy ron laface with capital city consulting i appreciate you uh allowing me to participate in the board meeting today to give you a legislative update um as you are aware on monday we did record a comprehensive legislative update for the executive cabinet that i know was distributed to board members i believe yesterday so i won't rehash all of the details of the items that we
068covered in the in the recorded legislative update but i would like to add a couple of somewhat supplemental details or updates to uh to our monday report first of all senate bill 48 which is the expansive voucher bill that was discussed on monday just past the senate education appropriations committee about 30 minutes ago by a vote of 6-3 the bill is intact as described on monday and continues to have all of the components including the education savings accounts and the various ways to uh to spend what would be considered the voucher funds using a using a debit card on the allowed expenses there were two amendments offered by members of the democratic party the minority party on the committee the first amendment would require annual audits of the scholarship funding organization which currently is a
069step up for students right now annual audits are required but the bill moves the audits every three years as well as an amendment that would lower the income eligibility in order to be eligible to receive a uh a empowerment scholarship or voucher both of those amendments failed and so as i mentioned the the bill is continuing to move into its third and final committee in the senate um and uh and we do continue to have concerns with the bill both for a lack of accountability on how the funds will be spent um to educate children who who are eligible and receive a scholarship as well as accountability on how they are how their learning is progressing outside of the school district today a health bill has not yet been filed on this issue but there
070is one currently in the works and so we expect to see that in the coming weeks another update is that all three of our legislative appropriations requests have been filed as house bills in the house as well as the senate forms have been filed so the west tech appropriation request is house bill 2873 the roosevelt appropriation request is house bill 2449 and the post covet acceleration request is house bill 2477 so with those filed we're now working to have them heard on the house side in a committee so that they're eligible for the house budget finally i did want to give an update on a language that we were directed by the board to pursue the session that would authorize virtual meetings for board advisory councils which is something that you know has been a
071continual issue in palm beach county as well as other places but we have drafted language that would allow for these advisory councils to meet virtually and we have lobbied both the house and senate education leadership on the issue we have received very favorable responses nobody seems to have an issue with the item and both chambers have agreed to pursue it um and include it in some legislative packages that they're working on that will have other education items in them so that that that language is uh is moving as best as um we could hope at this point and uh so we will continue to to pursue that language and hope to uh to get it enacted um and finally i don't know if superintendent superintendent fenoy mentioned this to you yet or was planning to
072do in a later report but he will be testifying tomorrow in the house education appropriations committee related to how palm beach has responded to covid additional expenses as well as attempting to find lot students that the district has not been able to uh to to locate at this point and we look forward to his presentation we've had a few you know uh conversations about about uh his what he plans to cover and mr burke has been very helpful in uh helping to provide us with some some numbers that we're going to present to the committee on future anticipated covet expenses using some of the additional federal funds that will be coming down but uh but we are excited with his participation up here in tallahassee um virtually so with that uh i kind of would
073like to uh you know take it at the the will of the board how you would like to proceed mr chairman if anybody has any questions about what i just covered or any questions about the uh the items that i covered in the recorded report from monday or any other issues or directions you know i kind of i leave it open to you for however you'd like to proceed at this point let's see if the board members have any questions ms brill uh vice chairwoman go ahead thank you so i guess it's procedural or maybe just how we're going to move forward with with the um the bills that are out there my one of my concerns is we haven't had a discussion together as a group i know the district is taking a position
074against um senate bill 200 which may not go anywhere but we haven't talked about it um you know about where we stand on it or been educated on it and i get people coming to me from my community about that the other bills i'm pretty good on i'm pretty pretty and i understand them um but i would like just to have a conversation about it just so that we know that we're all on the same page about it to through this through the chair to the superintendent can you know do you want to share the position that you have sure you know right now our position and right now for me specifically the superintendent working with fads our position is that we still still would like the decisions around um student retention to be to
075rest with schools because that's something we do every year um and because of the unintended potential consequences of just mass you know retentions however um we have we i have and been very thankful that senator berman has talked with me and the commissioner and she has made some adjustments to that bill and so at this point i will be speaking with as a representative fads but i think the boards this the staff's decision or position is that we would we would like to leave it as is because this is something that is individualized based on the schools and um they can prepare for those things if if i may just follow up um on that and the only concern that i have or one of the concerns that i have is that initially the res
076you know the district was saying that we have a process in place for retaining you know students which alludes to the possible you know because the bill states that it would be parent choice just for this year for student um and i'm not saying i agree with retention but for a student between the for you know beginning school years to through middle school the parent can request retention the process that we have is basically if a parent comes to us and correct me if i'm wrong the parent comes to us once their student retained and the student is meeting the requirements of the pupil progression plan they're just denied the opportunity so um i'm hoping that whether this bill goes forward or not we as a district can re-examine i know we have a pupil
077progression plan but i think that this year in particular we need to look at mental health we need to look at other factors so if a parent does come to us that we we give them an honest opportunity to express their concerns because there are pros and cons and i won't express how i feel because it might surprise you i'm not you know but because i have seen the pros and cons having had one of my children retained um but i do think that we need to be open-minded regardless of what happens with this bill yes ma'am what i'll commit to doing is um i'll have deputy superintendent and his team um share with me our current processes and then i will i will as i speak to you on one-on-ones we will talk through
078that but i will let me get updated on our current process and see if there's any areas of improvement i'll be willing to do that yes ma'am any other questions for mr leface from the board thank you mr leface have a nice evening thank you and thank you board members agenda topic speakers we have we have none that takes us to the consent agenda