001mission to approve the consent agenda motion by ms brill second by dr robinson any discussion all in favor all opposed motion carries 7-0 mr superintendent that'll take us to the first item on the agenda which i guess is ours and that's brd1 is the hr department going to handle this is this how this is board members are being handled the results of the superintendent's evaluation with the final um valuation category that he was rated as effective unless anybody has any comments if you were to prove that evaluation i will and authorize me to sign it i will sign it and have the superintendent execute it also anybody want to speak please put your miss mcqueen [Music] i just want to are we speaking to the recommendation right now yes ma'am we have the evaluation in
002front of us so yes i recommend the board accept and approve the superintendent's annual evaluation so we have a motion to that effect by ms whitfield's economic vice chairman show under discussion ms mccoy go ahead thank you i have not written any comments on the copies that my fellow board members have in front of them i met with dr fenoy today for a one-on-one meeting and he is aware of the scores that i gave him and also the positives and the opportunities for growth that we talked about i do i told dr fenoy that i was going to quote him sometime during the beginning of this pandemic he had said in the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity and i am simply asking that as staff is working on a new strategic plan i
003can't quite remember when ours is up 21 i think but that we talked about this at the beginning what have we learned what best practices have we developed since the pandemic that we're going to promote innovative ways innovative ways of providing high quality instruction for all students and we will get to that talk about equity i just know we will at some point and then how have we responded as a school system to be even more responsive to the needs of our students our staff and our community thank you any other speakers miss peru thank you and so um you know i combed over the metrics and i also you know kept my thoughts focused on the period ending the end of june um surely and if the evaluation was to today there were certain
004areas that i might have had more concerns but i will tell you that i did speak to dr fennoy i feel very confident that he takes our comments very very seriously but i do want to say to my colleagues if we expect dr fenoy to be able to perform we have to allow him to make changes to his staff that he deems impo that necessary we cannot there was a speaker that said we can't micromanage him and so i ask my colleagues on this board to allow our superintendent to do his job to meet with us to discuss our concerns and i look forward to us being able to let him do what he feels needs to be done thank you mrs andrews thank you i spent a few minutes with dr fennoy on yesterday
005but i'm just really concerned i'm certainly not interested in micromanaging dr fennoy that's not what i'm here for but as i sit here and look at what we're dealing with tonight this is due to not resolving conflicts and having issues to escalate this is the second year in a row that i've had that conversation with dr fennoy after his first evaluation and this evaluation i'm talking about the same thing being proactive discussing resolving issues before they escalate tonight we're involved in a situation that has escalated that just cannot be that's not micromanaging we want him to do his job so that we don't sit in situations as we're sitting in right now and yes i know that dr fennoy said we could not evaluate him after june 30th but i see the problems that's existing
006right now with us started before june 30th and if we had been working on the front end of situations back in march and april when the pandemic started when we got into distance learning i talked to mr tierney i know he hates to hear me call his name as i talk to dr fenoy and i continually press on them to take the leadership get the work done so that we won't be in these kinds of places and i'm hoping that as we move forward that i won't be saying this another year that we're still in the same boat and as you looked at his evaluation and i'm sure he's looked at it some of these same issues we talked about a year ago any other comments we'll take a vote all in favor of the
007evaluation opposed motion carries 7-0 superintendent i think on com1 um mrs andrews wanted to read that one but if you want to go and read your recommendation mr barbieri man i'm afraid i'm a little bit um late at the draw here i think the appropriate thing since we just voted on that is the motion to reconsider because i would like to amend um the vote we just took so i would like to offer a motion to reconsider accepting his evaluation please i have a motion by dr robinson to reconsider second and by i couldn't hear what she said she i i didn't realize she wanted to speak so we we voted and she didn't have a chance to speak so she's made a motion to reconsider so we can reopen it so that she can
008speak who's seconded by mrs mcqueen go ahead dr robinson thank you um so i'm gonna keep my my comments to a minimum here but because i think the document would speak for itself i can just tell you that i am um sad and very much disappointed about a number of things but when i compare my evaluation from last year to this year i realized that some things have not changed they have not gotten worse i mean they have gotten worse and so and part of it has in my opinion has to do with leadership and taking responsibility as the ceo i don't like the games that i see getting played i would like for us to focus on our mission statement and work on behalf of children the motion that i want to offer is
009to ask that dr fennoy be bring us back within the next 30 days a 90-day plan to address all the issues that the board has outlined in his evaluation general concert we have a motion on the floor remind me of robert's rules what we do we have a second motion being made by dr robinson in the middle of a motion that's already there yes i'm gonna call on uh attorney bruce harris to chime in on this one okay um good night or good evening what should i say um on the motion to reconsider i heard a motion that seconds but i didn't hear a vote we haven't voted on it yet mr harris when we're in discussion okay then the motion to reconsider dr robinson you know what mr harris dr robinson was correct just
010now she i just realized what she said we had him we had a motion and a second by dr robinson we didn't have a vote on that yet all right so okay all those in favor of dr robinson's motion to reconsider opposed motion carries now dr robinson wants to make us another motion at this point yes right so we have the motion to accept the superintendent's evaluation is what's before us correct that's what is before us again correct so i would like to amend that to ask that the board direct the superintendent to bring us back within the next 30 days a plan over to for the next 90 days to a corrective action plan to show how these issues he was going to correct these issues that have been noted time and time again
011him address it because i'm sorry we hold the ceos accountable not everybody underneath them we have a second on dr robinson's motion second by mrs anders discussion on dr robinson's motion miss mcquinn yes if you look at the individual scores from board members i i don't think we're at all in consensus about what exactly the 90-day plan would look like i'm for one not ready to go there yet i'd rather he spend his time doing the work that we have to get done rather than a plan to improve his evaluation mrs dr robinson thank you let me clarify it's not a plan to improve his evaluation it's a plan to improve the work getting done that has been reflected in the evaluation so it's about the work it really is about the work and about
012the work for children one follow-up please thank you so again if you look at the individual scores they are very skewed i hate to say this to the left and to the right um but you've got to have a little levity here tonight um anyway so we're not i'm kind of in the middle we're way high we're way low so i don't know that we are in agreement on what he needs to work on mrs sanders yeah i i really think we we really have to look at this because um we've had some serious trouble uh with our superintendent and with the leadership here and i tried to reflect that in my evaluation and i certainly have never tried to micromanage dr benoit but we've said we're sitting through something right now that should have
013been handled when i look at the kinds of things that i know need to be done it starts with the top it really does he's got to be able to lead he's got to be able to do those pieces of the puzzle that gets the rest of his team involved so that we can be where we need to be as it relates to student achievement we're in a big time right now with with testing uh the state of florida says they're not giving us a waiver so right now academic achievement is something that's on the line right now and i do believe that the superintendent has staff excellent people who do a lot of good work when i ask him and when i'm looking for him to lead i'm very disappointed that i don't see
014that leadership and i was really a poll that the superintendent would tell me that i could not write down something on my evaluation after june 30. that was just very disrespectful to me as a board member i know that he should have been working in a different way early on and if he had we wouldn't have had the problem so we would not be having the problems that we're having right now as it relates to the school district and if this board doesn't take ownership even though these scores may be different from different people we're going to be back here again if we don't take a look at ourselves and our leader here to try to help him to get where he needs to go thank you mrs whitfield then miss bruhl thank you um
015i am a little concerned about the idea of giving dr fenoy more work this past six months i mean i went across and i made sure to give him an effective rating i don't think it was the most stellar job done by any human um but i really think in the given circumstances he's done the best job he can and i i really think that asking for additional work at this juncture is just a bad use of our superintendent's time i get the idea of having to respond to the criticisms and i i've written some things in there that i haven't had a chance to speak with him about yet and i plan on doing that at our meeting next week so we can have a conversation about some of the things that i think
016that really need to be done but as far as this district right now i don't think i really just don't think it's a good use of his time um it's a it's a very stressful job to be superintendent in this country right now um it is more stressful than i think our jobs and our jobs are hard i think it's more stressful than most positions in the world at this moment um and i i think we have to give him some grace i really think that that's that's what i want to take away from this moment is a little bit of grace for us for him for everything that's happened thank you miss pearl then mrs andrews thank you so first of all i do want to recognize there are some things that have really
017been fantastic this past year for example getting those those computers into the hands of our students that was because of business relationships the one thing i will say is dr fenoy has made great strides in being out in the community with you know trying to get the resources for us are there everybody has weaknesses obviously dr fenoy and i have spoken about it communication has been abominable you know i you know we and we've had a lot of issues over the summer but i focused on the fiscal year and i have to tell you that um i think that the superintendent i told him last year he needs to be more visible in the schools well he took it to heart i know he has been he has been more visible in the schools so
018i guess i feel i have the kind of relationship that i'm able to speak to him about what i see i think it's incumbent upon all of us for the issues that we find that we're not happy with to speak to the superintendent and follow up with him um i don't know that i really feel the need you know i agree with mrs whitfield i don't think we need a formal plan i think we're in a very unprecedented and i know people are tired of hearing that but a very unprecedented error and face it we've opened our schools after the fiscal year we haven't had to shut any down we haven't had to shut down any classrooms do we need to do better with the teachers and remote learning and the principles absolutely but you
019know what no one's ever done this before so you know what i feel i have to give dr fenoy a big pass last year i gave him the lowest evaluation and ironically this year i gave him the highest evaluation because we are and we are surfing through a time like no other but i think it's incumbent upon us as board members to work with the superintendent to make sure that the things that we see as weaknesses get addressed have some workshops here on things that are more global like education infusing the hispanic african-american the holocaust education we can do those things here but i don't i don't believe that we need to have a formal plan mrs andrews he is a relatively new superintendent and when you're new sometimes you do need some help um
020it's easy for us to sit here as board members we're not here every single day but i just know that i'm very involved in my district and across the county and i hear voices of a lot of people talking to me about our superintendent not being able to get the job done and i don't know why that happens with him after i tell him certain kinds of things that i'm looking for for high level leadership communications collaboration and being involved and doing the things that he needs to be doing i can't make him do anything but as a new person just like a new teacher you know after three years you you kind of have it in line you get some support and assistance and that's what that plan that dr robinson is talking about
021you put some things down you can begin to start working on them it doesn't mean that you're in trouble but you won't learn to get better if if you don't acknowledge you have some issues and begin to work on them to improve and that's what i'm talking about because other people are talking about what we're talking about tonight from different angles maybe yes he's been with the business community but guess what i'm looking at the parents who call me each and every day i'm looking at people out stakeholders that i deal with every single day they're asking me how can i come in and help dr fanoa i had a gentleman just talk to me yesterday and said that the teachers and the schools they need a lot of help because it's real critical there
022the children need a lot of help and at the head the superintendent may not know what to do miss andrews would you give him my name so i can come in and help the people are talking about the need to help our superintendent he may not see it but others see it they're talking about it and this is why i had to write it the truth in my my evaluation because he really does need some help and we need to give it to him i don't want this place to break down and i didn't speak out to say that i know we need some help at the top he is the ceo we pay him great money but i know he's new and i'm willing to to work with him to see if he can
023turn it around i know a lot of districts had to go through a lot during this pandemic and i did work with a lot of districts because of the council of great city schools but some of our stuff that we're dealing with here in palm beach county are unforced errors and problems that we didn't get straight on the front end and that's why we're dealing with them on the back end and i talk about it all the time with ed tyranny the chief of staff every week and dr fennoy knows it and if we don't get this straightened out we're going to be talking about this again dr robinson thank you so maybe i should call this the room for improvement plan because this this is the problem he is capable of rising higher and
024we as a collective leadership team are collect are able to do better but we need to and as the superintendent to see oh you you will see in my evaluation i talk about lead leadership inspirational leadership and it is time for that right and so but i said similar things a year ago am i gonna have to say similar things next year like that's what i'm trying to avoid because while we are doing whatever we're doing i get it's a pandemic and we've none of us have done this before but it's in times of crisis that true leaders stand up right history will tell us that and i'm saying it it's time for dr fenoy to stand up and lean into his greatness and i need to see that soon because guess what while we
025pity patting around children are losing children are losing we we're in distance learning we know who's in distance learning i have nobody's to well no today today dr fenoy told me about a plan for post covert slide okay but we need as a leadership team to focus on where we are trying to go instead of this superficial pity pad media profile exercise okay i am i'm ready to focus on children now if i didn't think dr fenoy had the ability to stand up and lead i would have been making a different motion okay so let's be clear about that right but we are losing children we we have teachers leaving because they feel that we have failed them right it is time to lead and dr fenuin you are the ceo of this school district
026and i expect you to lead with the focus on the children i mean and not and my motion stands but i will call it i will call it a room for improvement plan and that's fine it's a motion on the table you call the question i want to speak on this my suggestion is i was brutally frank with dr fenoy in my evaluation all of us were he certainly has the message of what we find as leadership deficiencies i see no reason to make him come up with a written plan i think that each of us should take the opportunity to sit with him now and ask him how he's going to cure the deficiencies that each of us have seen here if you are not all satisfied with what he says then you can
027bring up a motion later to do something different but i i i just don't he understands his problems he understands what we think his issues are certainly he's he's a grown man he's got the background to figure out what he needs to do to fix that i hope and i think he should we should just take the opportunity to meet with him instead of requiring him to come up with a written plan that's going to cover so many different things that each of us have issues with i mean the plan is going to have to be 600 pages long if he covers everything that each one of us have issues with i just think that's a a lot of work for that's not going to bring us the results we want i think we'd be
028better off to go over our evaluations with him and ask him how he's going to take care of the issues in each one of our evaluations and leave it at that so we'll go ahead and take a vote on it it's at this point and see where we are all those in favor of dr bonoy coming up with this plan that dr robinson would like him to come up with on the motion please say yes put up your hand those against the motion fails five to two hero brought it to my attention that there's a young man back here that i missed because his name wasn't on the list so mr creery i'm very sorry if you want to come up to the microphone and and tell us what you'd like us to hear tonight
029thank you okay we got to vote on the main motion disagree hold on for one one second all right all those in favor the main motion to accept opposed is that a 7-0 yes 7-0 mr creary go ahead good night i stand before you today to give a request an alleviation of my frustrations my anxiety is boundless but the necessity of a bold initiative grows more immediate with each passing day as tensions rise from the upcoming election each of us in this very room has a different background a history that defines and marks us to the very last letters of our names relatability however is a unifier that clusters those very names to create a shared experience that we are able to live under the civil rights protests of this summer in contrast reminded us
030of the unique isolation of american society to which we are all subjected to my skin is my stamp my accent is my marker many of the things that define me as a black immigrant are things i cannot control and are regularly discriminated against the admittance of the prevalence of this discrimination towards me and other people of color remains combatted remains taboo to the point that it incites discomfort to speak of them discomfort in discrimination confronts us all but many questions remain elusive what impact will this have on our future and is racism mutually exclusive to a political party or discomfort and questions have become tumultuous as we become more polarized efforts to relieve such changes are sidetracked due to our dependency on time to pass and resolve our problems it's time that we created our
031own initiative mine started from seeing student posts within this very district mocking the death of an unarmed black man gasping for air at the hands of police over a counterfeit twenty dollar bill the rhetoric and words that plastered these hateful posts disturbed me to the point of taking action the atlantic high school black student union is my result i believe that the students and staff of our district no matter their political beliefs or alignments should have an unbiased forum that represents all participants equally a place where liberals and conservatives of all types can feel safe to discuss current events discussions about social issues should no longer be reserved to specific races or labeled as unapproachable topics as students or generation needs to assimilate measures of evaluation in order to develop a visceral perspective creating a
032group of avid stewards and activists as a result to achieve this and a greater sense of equality is my motivation what will motivate you thank you for your time thank you and i'm sorry we kept you so long good job superintendent that'll take us back to the uh new business agenda com1 yes man i recommend the board proclaim october 2020 as lgbtq plus history month ocean by miss brill second and by mrs andrews mrs anders i believe you wanted to read that proclamation yes i did thank you proclamation lgbtq plus history month october 2020. whereas lesbian gay bisexual transgender and questioning lgbtq plus americans have made and continue to make great and lasting contributions that continue to strengthen the fabric of american society and whereas lgbtq plus history month reminds both the lgbtq plus and
033wider communities of important roles lgbtq plus people have taken in creating the social legal and political worlds we live in today and whereas this month as we recognize the immeasurable contributions of lgbtq plus americans we renew our commitment to the struggle for equity and equal rights for lgbtq plus students and staff and whereas the school district of palm beach county is committed to the academic success of all youth and to removing barriers to that end and we believe that lgbt plus youth should feel safe to learn without the fear of harassment or discrimination and whereas lgbtq plus educators students and families should be supported to live an affirmative life with dignity and respect and whereas the lgbtq plus community cuts across every demographic of race gender economic status ethnicity religion and region and whereas the
034school district of palm beach county has taken appropriate measures to address lgbtq plus bullying harassment and educational equity in general through non-discrimination policy 5.001 anti-bullet bullying policy 5.002 and equity policy 1.041 and whereas community-based organizations and community leaders have partnered with the school district of palm beach county to educate support and provide resources to promote safe learning environments for all students and families and whereas the school district of palm beach county appreciates and recognizes the importance of lgbtq plus history month as an effective means of educating and calling to action the citizens of palm beach county to work together to promote equal protection of all palm beach county students and staff regardless of sexual orientation gender identity or gender expression now therefore be it resolved that the superintendent and the school board of palm beach
035county do hereby proclaim october 2020 as lgbtq plus history month done this 21st day of october 2020 in west palm beach florida frank a barbaric junior esquire board chair dr donald e fenoir ii superintendent there a discussion on this motion all in favor post motion carries 7-0 thank you mrs andrews um mr superintendent com2 uh yes sir com2 i recommend the board proclaim october 20th as national bullying prevention and awareness month wishing by dr robinson second and by mrs whitfield discussion all in favor opposed motion carry 7-0 c-13 mr superintendent clm3 i recommend the board proclaim november 9-13 2020 as national school psychology week motion by dr robinson seconded by mrs andrews any discussion all in favor oppose motion carry 7-0 ld1 mr superintendent yes sir lb-1 i recommend the voter approve the settlement in
036the matter of the u.s department of justice independent investigation and authorized superintendent board chairing the general counsel to sign all necessary documents motion by this is andrew seconded by mrs whitfield mrs anders thank you yes i pulled this and uh through the chairman to the to the superintendent as you heard we have a speaker tonight asking questions about the settlement agreement i represent you on the hispanic education coalition committee for the school district of palm beach county and i know and reading this settlement agreement i saw it on uh posted it was posted a little late i know they were trying to get this information a little earlier but i think it behooves us the school board to reach out the respect to the hispanic education uh committee and talk with them about what this
037settlement is all about and solicit their help because it's not just about the hundred and ninety thousand dollars that the district is going to have to pay but it's about educating the community and making sure that we can have them help us to get better and making sure that we don't leave any uh any applicants behind through the process and they're the ones out in the community so i'm asking the superintendent to ask the human resources department maybe legal to get with heck and see if you could go through the settlement agreement and find out how they can help us so that we can do a better job here with the school district of palm beach county to help the people of our community that we have had some issues with as related to the
038department the united states department of justice coming in here telling us that we have to do a better job in working with our own uh population right here in palm beach county our hispanic uh people right here in the community and others that have been denied access for employment yes ma'am we the um so the training has already been developed and we will be glad to to direct staff to reach out to heck to go over everything that the legal team and hr have done in reference to this yes ma'am is done mr superintendent i'd like to ask that you um that you allow the school board's general counsel to work with the hr division to make sure that all of these uh issues are cleared up and that there's a plan in place to
039make sure that there's no recurrence and that the general counsel feels that uh at that point the feels that everything is being done properly so that we don't have a reoccurrence yes the general counsel's office will do that and is already in the process of working with hr on the training and has actually prepared an extensive training um some some extensive training materials on this okay all right there any go and miss brew beyond the trainings i just want to ask council if things arise well you see we need policy changes if there's anything in our policy that's lacking i would greatly appreciate you bringing it back i think we need to review it and and adjust the pro policy accordingly absolutely absolutely thank you all right there's no further discussion what they could vote
040all in favor opposed motion carries 7-0 p2 yes sir mr chairman i reckon the board approved the personal addendum estimated motion by vice chairman shaw seconded by dr robinson any discussion all in favor opposed motion carries 7-0 all right so the next item on the agenda would be br brd2 but we have some recorded non-agenda speakers that i didn't call on at that point because we had already taken a half an hour which is our board policy for non-agenda speakers in the middle of a meeting so i'll ask the i.t department to play the one two three four five