School Board Workshop April 30, 2021

001Okay. good morning, everybody. Welcome to our workshop of April 30th, 2021. we have a packed agenda today. a lot of work to do this morning. I appreciate everybody’s here, with us just a couple ground rules. if you could please put your phone on vibrate or silent, and as I’m sure everybody knows, we do have a mask policy, so please, while you’re in the room, keep your mask on. Thanks very much. first up, is, are, we’re going to have two strategic plan updates to start. First is curriculum and instruction goal two, and I believe superintendent Yost is going to start us off here. Thank you, sir. Yes, we will be focusing on curriculum instruction, goal two for our strategic update today. Oh, wait, I, I, one technical matter, I forgot the chair has found good costume

002and the agenda to include all items listed under agenda amendments on the April 30th, 2021 agenda updated April 29th, 2021. Yeah. And posted to the district website, Manti schools.net. You’re on, sorry. No problem. As I indicated, we were focusing on curriculum and instruction today, which is gold to all of our strategic plan will be addressing MTSS multi-tiered systems of support and SEL social, emotional learning. I feel like we need to disseminate an acronym, glossary of some sort, because we were trying to make certain that everyone is very well aware of our content. We are fortunate to have Larissa Bennett with us today. She’s our school climate coordinator for the base grant and base stands for building amazing schools of excellence. And our base grant is funded through the federal government. It’s $2.7 million and it’s

003a five-year grant. So this is built into our strategic plan as well. So we have 30 minutes to present this morning. Each of you has been given a card or two. We would like you to hold your questions until a few breaks in the presentation so that we can move along swiftly. So Larissa Bennett. Good morning. Good morning. How are you today? Excellent. So I am going to, I’m going to talk to you about, parts of two different goals. So as Mrs Yost said, I’m going to stop about halfway through. We’re going to switch from MTSS and then I’ll get to SEL. So I’ll kind of stop in the middle to wrap up MTSS. So if you have specific questions at that time, that would be great at that point. So MTSS is multi-tiered systems

004of support, and that is, one of the main goals that we have in our strategic plan in the past manta County has had two separate MTSS frameworks for our schools. They were separated into MTSS a which encompasses everything, academics and MTSS B, which focused on behavior. The purpose of our work was to take those two frameworks and marry them together so that they are encompassed into one larger framework that actually follows the main tenants and components of what MTSS is designed to do previously. Our MTSS B framework only focused on the behavior, but as you can see, it actually takes on attendance, behavior, social, emotional, and student, mental health, and wellbeing as well. So we’ve put all of this in a recomplete rewriting of our framework, and we’ve put that in with an implementation guide

005as well. So this is a rather large and robust document that we have completely rewritten, which our schools will be able to utilize to, highlight and, use as their planning and implementation guide to create their MTSS at their school sites. The document that we have created is in its final review stages. At this point, it will be housed in our new SharePoint system. So schools will have electronic access to it. As we’ve designed this document to be a living, breathing, working document, especially as the state continues to come out with new requirements, especially in the area of reading. So we can easily modify this document moving forward. It also has active links. It will have videos. It will have resources that schools can easily capture and use in their employers. Many years ago, the state

006of Florida adopted MTSS the MTSS model as our main support system for our schools and our students. We have updated our district MTSS visual. So you can see at the top of the screen to include a black outer ring, which encompasses those main components of both MTSS a and the MTSS B. So if you look at this, we’re looking at basically the whole child here, going into the circle we’ve, we’ve implemented in the sarcoma, the state adopted problem solving model. So the state of Florida uses the four step problem solving model. So we’ve made sure to include that as that’s a pretty critical component to an MTSS framework in the center, you might be familiar with our triangle that is always attached to MTSS or RTI. We have elected to invert this triangle as many

007States and school districts in Florida have already done to make sure that our focus is on the supports and instruction that all of our students need at that tier one piece. So bringing our focus and attention to the foundation below the circle, you’ll see six terms in white. These are part of the, again, the state adopted components of an MTSS below that in the gray are just examples of different departments that make up a district. MTSS is not designed to be school-based only, it is also meant to house at the district level to provide supports and work for every department. So at its core, MTSS is about leadership. It’s about building capacity and communicating with all stakeholders. While you engage in a problem solving process, providing multiple tiers of support or instruction, and then evaluating

008the data to make sure that what you’re doing is actually working. Those are things again that go beyond the school site. Those are good for all of our departments in our district. So in writing our framework, starting from the Two frameworks that we had, we created a district leadership team and you’ll see, the, the, positions that are listed there created, our leadership team. Now, this group created the main general components of the MTSS framework. This is the part of the document that provides structure to our schools to work on their teaming, their problem solving and their data review components. From there, these leadership members led sub committees. You can see in the middle of the screen, these subcommittees make up the main components of the MTSS, the D the positions listed under each of those

009headings. There are again, the sample of the positions that were involved in the subcommittees. These subcommittees worked to write the subsections of the framework to ensure that our schools have accurate information on how to problem solve, implement, and respond to their data. In each of these categories, you’ll notice that we included members of the district diversity committee. We also have a cross sampling of departments, grade levels, district support and other, support, especially from our outside resources for our behavior section, to make sure that we are capturing as much perspective as we possibly can. Finally, When most of the document was complete, we created a rather large review committee. This review committee, worked to go through the document to look for clarity, to look for ease of use and ask any questions or provide comments, feedback,

010to the leadership committee. we got about half of our committee, like I said, that was about 60 people were asked to be part of that review. We got about half of those people to respond, and you can see those positions are listed here as well. The leadership committee met back again to review the comments we updated and modified in areas that were appropriate. And that final document is with Mrs. Saunders waiting for review from her and her cabinet. At this time To go home Along with a massive document, we have a massive training plan that needs to occur. This is a type of training plan that’s never going to be done. So we are starting this summer working with our administrators and our instructional leadership teams. So our I LTS instructional leadership teams. For context,

011if you look at that, that is our tier one support system at our schools, they’re going to be looking at. And they presently do looking at the systems of their school, the data of school-wide information and making plans and adjustments at their schools. So we’re going to be working with those teams to ensure that we’re following an appropriate MTSS model and, really trying to make more robust, team structures there. We will also be working at the other end with our intensive support teams. So again, for context, if you look at that as more of our tier three, our intensive support teams are going to be looking at the new framework and how they fit in and, have a better alignment with the work that the tier one teams are going to be doing. So you’ve

012seen I’ve left off the tier two, that middle group, which is a very important component. It’s an area that we lacked a lot of support and system for. So how we’re going to address that is by designating an MTSS facilitator at each school site, that person is going to be trained in a fidelity, a monitoring tool, but they will also have monthly training sessions so that they can go back to their teams at their schools and help the framework flow from tier one, those tier two teaming. So they will provide more we’ll, we’ll provide a train, the trainer type of model so they can support those tier two teaming structures. Those tier two teaming structures might be your grade level teams, your department chair, your department levels, and any other type of problem solving team

013at a school site. Okay. So that’s it for the MTSS in a very small nutshell, Any questions, or I didn’t get logged in. I do have some, just a couple, is MTSS required before we do an IEP. Yes. So in all cases, yes. How long is a period of time? Does an MTSS Take? There is no set period of time and the answer is always, it depends. there, there are some general guidelines, as far as how long an intervention should occur, should occur six to eight weeks is your should. However, it certainly depends on the student. There are times when that could be condensed. If the data collection shows an intense need, it could take longer than that. There are situations where students just need tier two supports and that’s really all they’re ever going

014to need, and they can go in and out of that, it is not a process to get to an IEP, but it is part of the structure that we look at, if that should occur. MTSS is about supporting all of our students and their needs. So if they are struggling in a certain area, let’s say in math, they might need tier two supports to get them back to where they need to be, to be able to access their tier core curriculum. Is the reason or the goal for this to create uniformity. Yes. Okay. I can’t help, but think about, you know, you talk about a big manual. I can’t help think of when I call it, you know, on a, on a computer problem and they go, well, do this, and then I give them

015an answer. And then I go, I’ll do this. And that’s a little concerning when you’re talking about, So it’s not a step one, step two, step three. Right? So the manual is designed. The general component is first describing what an MTSS is and what your overall teaming structure and process should look like when you’re problem solving from there, it’s broken down into those subsections. So if I have a student or a group of students or a grade level that I’m struggling with their attendance, I can go to the attendance section and it highlights what I should be doing at each stage. Step one, problem identification. I want to define what the problem is. And it’s going to walk me through how I go about doing that, which again, at its core is problem solving, looking

016at what the problem might be. Why is it being caused and wow, where are we going to respond to that? Will there be an evaluation of this after it’s implemented? So that MTSS facilitator position there is a, there’s, there’s lots of different, fidelity measurements. the state of Florida typically uses the self-assessment of MTSS. So we will be using that as our guide to identify if we are implementing this framework in the appropriate manner. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. there’s been, I see the department alignment, matrix here has diversity committed representatives across the board? Yes, sir. But when I turned to the review committee of the work, the only membership at the review level is a middle school assistant principal, a middle school assistant principals, and a high school principal. And I guess my question

017revolves around how does this realignment, overcome, I guess my first question ought to be, if you believe that they have systemic racism that exists in the Manatee County school system, and how does this help us, reduce or eliminate that particularly at the review level, when it just seems as if you only have principals, which would help on the academic side, which we all know really, translates into the B side, if you will, of, of the behavior, the attendance and all of that kind of stuff. So part of that is the structure of the diversity committee presently, but then the second part of your concern and Reverend golden is there were about 60 people who were invited to be part of the review committee. We cannot make them review the document. So part of that is

018just who responded to those concerns from there. However, sir, I did present this information to our diversity committee specifically so that they could ask any further questions from there. and I have not gotten any back from them. Yeah. That then is, a problem that I’m having because to the systemic racism, that has to be some extra effort other than just asking. so is there a way to ensure that they feel included, not just that they were asked to participate? So I think more of the work comes back into the subcommittees that drafted the document. Those are the committees that really, have the, they have the influence over what those sections include and then spreading that message out to others. And there was great representation on those committees as far as looking for that diversity component.

019as well as on our leadership committee, we have several members who are on the diversity committee who are driving this work. What is the function of the review committee then Strictly looked at, the sections of the document. So they were broken up into kind of like an a and a B section, and then they were assigned the different components of the document. If they wanted to review the entire thing they could, it was over a hundred pages. So that’s a big ask. So I sectioned them off into different sections, and then they reviewed those sections and provided their comments and feedback and questions from there. So it was strictly to look for things that maybe didn’t align our flow and the clarity of the document to make sure that it made sense to. And were

020those review comments incorporated into the final product? Yes, sir. Okay. Which is my point that at the review level of this process, not withstanding all of the input that was made by members of the diversity committee at the review level where the changes were incorporated to make it better. The only consideration that was given at that level was from assistant principals and high school principals who were funded, the diversity committed. And that is a concern for academics. My question is, since we’ve decided to adopt this model and make it inclusive, how do we get input at the, how did we get input at the review level regarding attendance, behavior, social and emotional and mental health for those black and Brown children that might be impacted by the, the, the, the systemic racism that exists. So

021again, I think it might go back to a little bit of the structure of our district diversity committee. What I can assure you is that that committee and job is mostly made up of our administrators and district level administrators, the committee, all of the committees here. do you have representation from diverse backgrounds that are not necessarily represented on our diversity at the district level? So that was also an intentional, I did not indicate that here, but I did make sure that we cross sectioned different races and backgrounds in our committee that are not necessarily on a district level diversity committee. So those perspectives are still welcomed and were part of the entire process throughout, including the review person. And we need to remember that this is still a draft, so it is still under review.

022So we will continue to work with the dryer by our city committee, as well as outside representatives, such as agencies that we collaborate with to make certain that diverse needs of our students, all diverse areas of diversity are addressed. We will make certain that we document and share with you Reverend golden, as well as board members. Those continued efforts to be inclusive, and we need to be inclusive for this document. Let me, let me just be clear here. What I’m concerned with is that at the review level, not that folk are not that their input is considered. The input is invited, but at the review level, the commitment that we have made to diversity equity and inclusion is that there will be people involved at that level. I’m looking here at a dropout prevention specialist

023and school psychologist and ESE space. And maybe that might point to a deeper problem. Maybe we don’t have any minority representation in those areas. And actually we do. Okay. And when you say review, you and I, I think might have two different definitions. There is a formal review committee, but when this is still in draft form, it is always under review. So we continue to review the contents and the categories to make certain that we are including the input from others and addressing and modifying as appropriate. All right, that’s fine. I just want to bring it out because from what I see, that’s not the way it looks okay. And we’ll try and make it clearer than in the future so that we are all inclusive. That is our goal. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you.

024Ma’am Yeah, I just had a question. Mrs. Farman brought up the word uniformity and that kind of made me a little nervous because when I was a teacher MTSS really allowed for problem solving, if a student really needed the additional supports in the additional help, it allowed for, even creative solutions, if the child really needed it and the word uniformity doesn’t necessarily align with that. And so I just want to make sure that when you say uniformity, what you mean is not that you will use uniform supports, but that it is applied uniformly. And it is in a, specific process. A system Uniformity of process would be, would be clarity of speech. That totally makes sense, because I agree in anything you do, like in a classroom, you have to figure out, okay, why, why

025is the child behaving this way? Or why is the child missing this piece? Or you as a teacher, that is what we do. We say, okay, what, what is the problem? Why is it happening then go, what can I do? So I understand that. I just want to make sure that when you’re saying uniformity, it is not necessarily uniformity in the supports that are going to be used because every child really may need something different and we need to make sure that that is available. Okay. I just want to make sure Find that in the document, there are supplemental guides that we’ve included for behavior to provide an outline of what that could look like. We know that schools are looking for some more of those resources of what can I do, but that is

026not, you’ll find that is not included in this document. There’s strictly uniformity of process and systems, But those types of tools will be given to the schools yes. As links as they can research and use on their own. Okay. No more questions. Okay. Larissa, if you need a few extra minutes, don’t worry about the clock. So I’m going to get into the next step, Which actually encompasses a couple of goals. So it, the main objective is under the safety goal, but it absolutely crosses and is sits in our MTSS goal as well. And that is about our social, emotional learning. as, as the school climate coordinator and as my heart is a school counselor for many years, this is an area that is interesting and exciting. So I might start to talk really fast. I,

027because this is really where my passion sits. and I’m excited about the things coming from this. So really as an educational institution, we have to address our student achievement. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re reviewed. That’s what the state looks at, obviously. However, in order for a student to make those achievement gains that we’re looking for, they have to have the behaviors in order to access that we know that, right? We, you have to be a good listener. You have to follow directions in order to get the most out of our instruction. I take it a step further and say that in order for us to access those behavioral skills, students have to have basic social, emotional skills in order to access appropriate behavior. For example, when we have negative behaviors, we intervene with

028them using social emotional strategies. If you are constantly blurting out, we’re going to use self-management strategies to help you modify your behavior. We’re going to use blurt counters. We’re going to use social stories. We might give you visual cues. Those are part of self-management, which is a social, emotional learning skill. if you will indulge me just for a moment, I take every opportunity I can to teach about where these things come from. So we can empower our students to know more about them. If you would hold up your hand, like the number four, anybody can do this. We’re going to do a little bit of a brain model here. And this is powerful tool for our students to understand where things are coming from and why we need to teach them. So I teach my

029students here that this tiny little thumbnail that you have is your amygdala. They love that word, right? This is where your feelings come from. This is where your strong emotions come from. When we put our fingers over that foam, this is our brain. This bumpy part here is the thinking part. This is where we learn. When my feelings get out of control, or they get super strong, whether I’m super angry or super stressed, or even really happy or excited my brain flip. So it turns off and we show them visuals of actual scans of what happens when I, I’m not thinking I’m not learning. We have to teach our students how to calm this part of their brain so they can access it at all times. And there’s lots of things that go into that

030component. I’m gonna, just kind of show you the five areas of social, emotional learning and where those sit inside of that brain structure. SEL is about five main components. If you look on the visual, the orange components of self-awareness and self-management are our interpersonal skills, these are the skills that we need to identify who we are, what our feelings are and where they’re coming from, how I can manage those feelings, the green areas of social awareness and relationship skills or interpersonal skills. How do I get along with other people? How do I empathize with others? How do I take action? When I see there’s a need, right? These are, are outside our relational type of skills. The last skill is responsible. Decision-making the one in yellow. I can not make responsible decisions. If I am

031lacking skills in all of those other components, I’m going to give you a personal example. I’m going to be open with you right now. Like so many people, I struggled to find a balance between work and family and all the other responsibilities of my life. When that happens, I’m having a self management problem because I’m starting to eat and not exercise and not make those healthy choices, right? So this is very surface level example, but I know because I have self-awareness that that’s coming from my self management. I have to have things done. I like to get things done. I also know it comes from my lack of relationship skills, because I don’t want to let people down, but I have the strength in my self awareness, understand what I need to do in order

032to change and make more healthy, responsible decisions. Our students don’t come equipped with those skills, especially if they’re exposed to trauma or multiple layers of trauma and COVID is a traumatic incident for everyone. So when our students are lacking skills, in order to address any of these four and five areas, they’re not going to make those responsible decisions, which therefore translates to their behavior. There’s translate to how much yeah. Achievement they’re actually going to have. It is important for us to identify that social emotional learning is a powerful tool. The good thing is I know what I need to do to better my decision-making, but I also know that we can teach all of these skills. These are all teachable skills, so we can implement. And by implementing research shows that you can gain 11%

033increase in your academic achievement scores by implementing social, emotional learning throughout the student day. More importantly, it provides our students the skills they need to be successful in the real world. Fortune 500 companies who have been interviewed and asked what skills they need from our students. It’s all about getting along with others, problem solving, being able to take constructive feedback and making decisions appropriately. Fortunately, for somebody like me, I’m super excited that, SEL has taken the front seat in education. One of your handouts, there is the reopening, the most recent reopening handbook from the DOE. And in that number one B behind student safety is student social, emotional learning and mental health. So I’m very excited that that was part of the reopening plan. I’m even more excited to share that the strategies and ideas

034that were listed in there are things that we’re currently working on, embedding social, emotional learning within our MTSS framework, talking about, restorative work through morning meetings and circles, capturing student voices through our survey process, we are already starting to implement these things for SEL. In fact, we started early this year by looking at the, program called character strong character. Strong has a purposeful people component, which is for our elementary students. Presently, we bought that for every elementary school. There are varying levels of implementation and exploration of that program. We’ve purchased it for seven middle schools, five high schools, and we’ve also purchased one leadership curriculum which we hope to expand into our safe promise clubs in the future. This program provides, books, videos, resources to teach the social emotional learning, hidden under a character trait.

035It also provides opportunities, which is where the most powerful work comes in for students to be able to question reflect and respond to their own growth in relation to their peers, which is the most powerful tool we have. As far as our long-term goal, we want to be able to embed SEL skills and instruction throughout the day, a complete marriage between our SEL competencies and standards with our academic standards is where we want to get to and making sure that our instructional practices align as well. SEL is not just a program that you do for a separate period of time. That’s where we’re starting to get that common language, but that’s not the end goal. Doctorate is one of our pilot schools who has embraced this work fully. So I provided you an example of

036a unit that their SEL team created this year to look at how they can take the ELA standards of reading and writing, embed that with the SEL standards and the work from character strong program. And they created a week long unit that the whole school worked through, including the special area, that special area teams, and they incorporated all their standards with the SEL standards. And it was a seamless, wonderful opportunity to show that cross department work and the upcoming year we’re going to be working with our curriculum specialists as the new standards come out to make sure that we’re in alignment with the work that the standards have, the books, the, lessons, all of that, to start working in our SEL standards to make sure it’s hit throughout the students day. And lastly, to ensure

037that our schools get fully trained, because again, this is part of that massive training component of MTSS SEL is one part of that. We have created a school Kermit teams known as SEL champion teams, that our schools, I am guiding them through an SEL implementation planning process so that we can start to work through how do we embed this at our school sites? An example on the screen is one of the smarty goals that the schools have created. They have a plan for next year. The smarty goal, Reverend golden includes. It’s a smart goal, which we work on all the time, but smarty and makes sure that schools are looking at inclusive and equitable, equitable practices as well. So making sure that we’re capturing all of the components as we start to embed in our

038schools, the majority of our stuff, the schools are going to be looking at adult SEL. So if you see on this screen, it says draft goal statements for strengthening adult SEL. Many of you are, many of our schools are going to be dabbling into incorporating character strong more into their schools, but really where they’re going to be starting their focus on how to we train our staff and make sure we are all using the same common language and concepts when it comes to social, emotional learning and my time. Isn’t it? The only additional comment that I’d like to make is that I’m hoping that the formal professional learning that accompanies this change. I, I don’t know whether that’s in the big book or not, but I’m just kind of trying to figure out how in

039a district that is becoming more and more diverse in terms of students. And that is lacking at that is as lacking in diversity as it is in terms of employees, particularly employees that face these students every day, what, specific measures are being taken to overcome. just the, the disconnect between the people who are doing the teaching, who are just not, re relating to, relating to, the children that are being taught. So part of that training is going to be, with that SEL training, again, that long-term massive amount of training. it’s not just about those five competencies. It also includes that culturally responsive teaching restorative practices teaching. So that is all embedded within our work. A couple of our schools are going to be diving into that next year, so we can start piloting some of

040that work to see and make sure that we are following the right track when we are looking at different training components. District-wide, And this, this may be a, a more appropriate question for the superintendent because right, foundational it to the professional learning and development that we are expecting to have here in the district. it also impacts the recruitment of who we bring, to, into the classroom who would bring into the, to the system. And I don’t know whether this encompasses a Consideration of, of the change in recruitment and that We’ve given Ms. Bennett a huge task, but her task is not recruitment and hiring of such that, but we do have that in our strategic plan. That is part of that, HR division. We do have, some new job descriptions and positions that will be

041coming forward, and we’re hoping to fill for next year to work on that piece and component. but we do know that, we are looking at what are we doing to ensure that we are diversifying our employment population to the best of our ability and, to, to make sure that all employees are adequately trained and aware of how to, deal and interact with colleagues, but also with our student population, we know that each year, things change each generation, each century, things change. And, we also know that our population in the last 10 years of our student base has changed dramatically. So we need to ensure that our teachers, our employees are adapt to deal with the different cultures that are coming into Manatee County and entering our classrooms. And that’s the part that Ms. Bennett, is

042charged with, but we are aware, and we are working at ensuring that we have diversity, where, where we’re able to. And, we’re certainly working on those aspects. Thank you, Madam superintendent. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Absolutely. Thanks, Larissa. Appreciate it. Plan update. Number two. Absolutely. Yes. Good morning. So we’re going to split it. this morning we have Kelly Kennedy, our assistant director for adult career and technical education. We have, allocated seven minutes for her talk about two goals and, eight metrics. And then myself I’ll do the MTC piece since, Dr. Ganzhorn, Dr. Vines were unable to attend and that’s two goals and five metrics. So we’ll start with Kelly, Kelly, come on up. Okay, Kelly, welcome. If you need a little more than seven minutes, there’s no gong show. When I was told seven minutes. I

043think if any of you who know me know me know that it’s difficult for me to talk about CTE and in a short period of time, but I will do my best to be clear and concise. So today I’m tasked with sharing with you, our, our goals and our metrics and how we’re doing when it comes to specifically, my area is secondary CTE. So our first goal was to implement curriculum opportunities for students to learn technical skills with a wide range of strategies through their educational career. We all know that students learn in a number of ways, and we have the opportunity in CTE to give them hands-on experiences, to give them significant, connections to business and industry. So our metrics specifically address those areas. Our first metric was offer industry certifications and all high

044school programs where the certifications are aligned and approved by the state. And we feel like we’ve gotten to about 85%. we have some ebb and flow when it comes to industry certifications in the district because the state, regularly on a yearly basis offers us the opportunity to submit new certifications. Oftentimes as happened at the very beginning of the pandemic, many of those certifications, were they decided to take off and we were in an implementation year, a transition year into those certifications not being available next year. So we’ve had to do a little bit of pivoting. Some of that has to do with training of our teachers to make sure that they have the industry certifications because they have to hold them before they can offer them to their students. So that, take some time. And

045oftentimes that puts some of our programs in transition of being able to offer the most up-to-date and relevant industry certifications to their students. Our second metric was to develop additional pre-apprenticeship and internships, including OJT. And you’ll notice that this one is at a little bit of a lower percentage. And part of that is due to, the last year we’ve been experiencing. It’s difficult to get students out into the workforce when some of those businesses are a little bit more closed. they might not be, they might actually be closed as a business, but they might also not be allowing outsiders into their organizations. And so, we did apply for a grant through the state for pre-apprenticeship and we unfortunately did not receive it, but we’re going to reapply again this year, because those monies are going

046to be available. It is our goal to partner with CareerSource and that’s who we wrote the grant with to create a position that will allow oversight of those pre-apprenticeship programs. What pre-apprenticeship does is it gives students an advanced standing when they finish high school into, toward getting into an actual apprenticeship program at Manatee technical college. And we want those students to have those experiences while they’re in high school. So that is an in-process, situation. The third metric was to grow partnerships between CTE programs, businesses, and business and industry through the development of advisory councils. I am happy to say that although we’ve had some challenges, with being able to meet in person, we’ve managed to have advisory councils now formed and up and running at all of our high schools. Not all of them have

047met. Some of them have met earlier in the year, some in the spring, and some have yet to meet. They will be meeting in may, but those advisory councils are an integral part of our CTE programs that allows the community to have a say in something that is specific to their business. So if we have a program, an engineering program or an engineering Academy, we want engineers. We want people who are out there doing the work to be a part of that advisory council, as well as our teachers and students, so that they can talk about the latest and greatest things that are happening in the community and make sure that we’re sharing that with our students and that our curriculum is up to date that we’re doing the most we can for our students,

048so that when they leave us, they’re ready to go out and be employed. And so our advisory councils, thanks in great part to our career pathways coordinator, Carol Lewis, as well as our college and career advisors at the high school are up and running and they’re moving forward. So we’re very excited about that. Our fourth metric was terrible opportunities for students to visit business and industry as well as post-secondary institutions to expose them to future careers. Again, visiting has been difficult. So we’ve been doing virtual visits. we’ve been doing, many of our post-secondary institutions are providing virtual tours, which is great. unfortunately some of that didn’t happen until later in the fall. And so we probably haven’t been able to do as many of those as we would like to do. We have had some

049success with some of our, partners, especially with our incubator program at Southeast high school. Some of our mentors, have been doing, teams with our students. So they’re still getting the, the activity with the business person. They’re just not able to have that in-person conversation. And so we are looking forward to the day when that will be able to happen, hopefully at the beginning of next year, all those, opportunities for our students. Those there’s really are just a few of the things that we do in CTE to give our students, real world connections and real time access to the folks in our community and to the curriculum. That’s going to be robust and interesting and exciting for them. Our second goal was to implement curriculum opportunities for students to learn people skills with a right wide

050range of strategies through their educational career. As Larissa mentioned, the folks in our community are looking for students. They’re looking for adults who come out of our programs. They’re looking for employees who have the ability to do, to have basic people skills, to be able to know when it’s appropriate to shake hands, to be able to know how to talk on the phone, to be able to show up on time, have a good attitude, take criticism or constructive, suggestions when they’re given. So as a, of all of our CTE programs, we embed something called career ready practices. They are embedded into our curriculum frameworks, and that’s something that our teachers work with our students on every day when our teachers talk about business skills in a, an accounting class, they also discuss what that looks

051like in the workplace. When our teachers are teaching culinary skills, they also discuss what it means to work in a restaurant or to work in a situation where you are serving the public. And how do you deal with those maybe folks that aren’t as happy about the situation that they’re in as you are. And so that’s all a part of everything that we do in all of our classes is to discuss those real world work situations and to help our students have those experiences that help them understand how important it is to be on time and to show up with a good attitude and to do what you’re asked to do in the job. So that again, that is embedded into our CTE curriculum. The second metric is to develop additional career academies, smaller learning

052communities and CTE programs. We have some very robust academies in our community. In our high schools. We also have great small learning communities that may not necessarily be completely centered around CTE, but have a, a broader focus that encompassed more, areas than just career and technical education. And our programs are wonderful programs, but we know that there are places that we can expand. So this year, actually over the last year and a half, we have expanded and started programs like our cybersecurity program at, at Bayshore high school. it’s now in its second year. And just this week, we had students who were taking their first industry certification exams in, an it certification and said they are they’re moving forward. And the goal of course, with cybersecurity is that at the end of that, hopefully they’ll

053maybe even be employed at the school district or in some other location. Cybersecurity is one of the fastest growing occupations in the country. And there are many, many jobs out there that are left unfilled because people are not trained for it. And so we want to answer that we also have a great incubator business incubator program at Southeast high school. we use a curriculum with uncharted learning, which teaches students how to not just have their own business, but grow an entrepreneurial mindset. An entrepreneurial mindset is a problem solving mindset. I see a problem. I have a creative way to solve that problem, and I can create a business out of that. And so that incubator program helps students understand how that can happen and they get to work with mentors. it’s a really exciting thing

054that we hope to expand further into more of our schools in the future. We also started an urban ag program at Southern middle school. So how has urban ag different than regular ag? Well, most of us know about farming. We see row crops, we see cattle ranches, we see dairy cows and dairy farms, urban ag takes all of that and brings it to a smaller scale so that you can now grow vegetables And fruit and Maybe even have small animals in your backyard. It teaches our students who are in a more urban setting, how to bring that large idea of agriculture down to a very personal level. How can I create a raised bed or use an earth box to feed my family? So it’s a very practical approach to agriculture. And of course, we’ve

055also expanded into robotics into most of our high schools. Our engineering programs have morphed and taken on a new dimension and robotics as well, both in, in both in high school and in middle school. And we’re seeing a lot of interest from our students because it’s a very exciting area. And some, some really cool things are happening in robotics right now. So we’ve been able to expand those programs in our schools. So our third metric was to develop additional career technical student organizations. And we’re at about a 90% on that. Most all of our programs have a CTSO. And you may say, well, Kelly, that’s a club. Why does that matter? Well, it’s really not a club. A career technical student organization is a co-curricular or inter curricular organization. Everything that happens in that CTSO

056is reflected in the curriculum frameworks. So that career technical student organization comes alongside what’s going on in the classroom. And it gives our students an outlet to show what they can do our students and add, participate in supervised agricultural experiences, where they may raise the girl plant or raise their own animal. They also do career development events where they’re competing. And that really is what a competition is for all of our students in any CTSO. It’s a career development event. They’re competing in an area that they have studied in the classroom, and now they’re going out and showing what they know. And that’s a really exciting thing because it gets kids excited about what happens in the classroom. And it helps to answer the question of why do I need to learn this English, math,

057science, and social studies sometimes sits out there kind of by itself, but our CTE programs helping answer that question of why do I need to learn this? Why do I need to know this? How’s it going to apply to me in the future? And so our are very robust. They’re very competitive. And I’m excited to say that we have several of our students this year who will be competing at the national level, although virtually, in our current technical student organizations, our last metric was to build opportunities for students to learn ethics and effective communications through our CTSOs OJT job, shadows, internships, and relationship and mentorships with business and industry. Again, this has been a little bit delayed because of our ability to get out there in the community and the ability of the community to

058come into us. We’ve made some strides. Obviously we have, you know, some ability to do some virtual teaming through teams, but our students actually going out there and doing those job shadows and those internships, have not been as, as available. We do have strong OJT programs in all of our high schools, but again, even our OJT programs have been scaled down a little bit this year, because many of those employers are not, inviting those students into their programs very quick as that can be, overview of where we are in secondary CTE. And I invite your questions, right. Board members. I don’t see anybody lit. I have a couple of things, but I let, defer to you all. First. I have them a couple of questions in terms of the career technical education. is there such

059a thing as a consideration of culture? many, many years ago, I think that there was something that I learned called business speak. there’s a language in the business place, a language in the marketplace that’s different than one’s idioms and one’s customs. And, I’m wondering if part of our goal is to, to reduce that or read the workplace so that I, I’m going to give you the, the three BS that I really have some issues with bud boss and baby. how do we, how do we get a competent professional workforce that doesn’t see the need to address many of their customers, many of their clients in such a culturally focused way. So that’s just an example that there are a lot of different examples of how this manifests itself, in our workplaces, not just in Manatee

060County, but a lot of different players. And you’re absolutely right. Reverend golden, there, there is a, an acceptable business language, I think would be the, probably a way to explain it. when our teachers are working with students on those skills, one of the things that they do spend time on is interviewing and helping students, to understand that how they communicate typically with their friends might not necessarily be acceptable when they are interviewing for a job, especially because they’re likely to be interviewing with somebody who is in many cases, significantly older than they are, who have a different background who, may not necessarily understand what they are saying. And it, there’s lots of things that Stu that kids words that kids use that adults don’t necessarily understand. And so we do spend some time discussing that.

061I don’t know that it’s specifically around a cultural situation, but there is a discussion of what is acceptable language in the workplace and what is unacceptable. Thank you, Dr. Hopes welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. when, when we had, I guess it was the last chamber retreat when, Kevin, if he’s here, when we were interacting with the different orientation here, with a number of the business leaders and employers, and we were discussing with them our strategic planning process, and I had a, pretty enlightening conversation with the CEO of the Culver’s restaurants in our area and, and what he brought to my attention. And, and, and I appreciate the, the, the presentation about what we’re doing with those people skills, those soft skills. And, but what he, what he was saying is that he’s had,

062he’s had students that, you know, worked in his restaurants for, you know, two, three years as they’re going through school. And when they graduate from high school, not only does he need them to be ready, but for their own, professional growth opportunity to be ready to go into a supervisory role or a middle management role. And what he was saying is that, that the students at that time now were two years ago, they were not, they were, they were not at that level. and it, it was, it was his interest. And I think other employer interests that, that the, that, that are graduating high school students have those communication skills, those, those, those basic, entrepreneurship, like you had mentioned, so that he could elevate them in to like a supervisory role, a shift manager role

063or something like that. And as I said, at least two years ago, he was not seeing that in our graduates. and, and so I, the, the curriculums that you were discussing where we try to embed that all, but, but our, our employers are hungry for our graduates that are coming out of the high schools, to, to be ready to move into that role. So, Right. Dr. Hopes, and, and as much as I would love for every student on our campuses to come through a CTE program that doesn’t always happen. and so I believe we’re, you know, we’re very widespread and, and the number of students that we touch, but there are a lot of reasons I believe that that happens. And I would say along with schools, the, the businesses have to have some connection

064to that training of their, of their team members in order to be able to, to make that, And that, and that gets into as part of the strategic planning process of engaging those employers. and, and so if we need to open up those, those conduits to that ongoing communication, so that when we talk about CTE programs, we’re also talking about entry level supervisory skills and management skills, and then try to encourage that as part of our general curriculum for all high school students, to get some exposure into those programs where you pick up those CTE skills. And we worked very closely with the chamber, nearly all of our college and career advisors sit on the future of workforce education committee so that we are connected to what the local community, the local business community is

065asking for. And, that’s an important part of, of, of what we do to make sure that our students are getting those, the soft skills And then with, one more up, and then with, with our, with our instructors are our, education educators in this program. are they, are, are they communicating what the opportunities are out there like today? because I, I heard that, one of the wall was in town closed because they don’t have employees. And so they literally had to close it down. So those employees could go to other locations to staff. Those would just seem to me, we’ve got a lot of 17 and 18 and 19 year olds. If, if we, businesses are closing down temporarily, cause they don’t have employees. We got a lot of, of, of, of mature adolescents and young

066adults that we could be helping these, you know, that’s a, win-win all the way around. So, And as you know, that that issue is, is, an issue across nation of businesses having to cut hours and close on certain days because they can’t get workers, as with all workers, there has to be the, the want to, there has to be the desire to go out and, and actually hold those jobs. And so Hopefully when they’re going through our education system, we’re building that kind of attitude that they, they Then it’s difficult sometimes for students to be able to do, do we ever do everything, you know, have good grades, participate in extracurriculars and hold a job. And so, while we encourage that our, our teachers do share opportunities as they are shared with us. sometimes they’ll

067come through me. Sometimes they come through their college and career advisor. Sometimes they’ll come through their administration at school. If we’re made aware of them, we absolutely share those options. And I’m more bringing it up just because we’re moving into summer. And, you know, And I think that our, if any student wants to work over the summer, they’re not going to have a trouble finding a job. Well, we need to do something to motivate them increased. Okay. That’s a good way to put people out there doing that Too. They’re doing that too. Okay. Kelly I’ve, we’re about 20 minutes behind schedule and Doug still has to pass Because I came in. I have no that’s all right. I’ve got two for you, but unrelated first is, and Doug and I’ve talked about this before, but,

068having a certification for a solar panel builder or solar panel installer, I think it’s especially relevant for Florida. but that when we had a previous conversation about it that no such certification exists. And so I think that’s one that this market in Florida could really benefit from consumers, industry, students walking out to higher paying jobs. For example, finally, and this may draw some laughs, but I’m completely serious with this one. but the governor, to his credit got something done, which previous governor couldn’t get done. And governor DeSantis has got it done in whatever we’re in his second or third year, but he came to a, a gambling agreement with the Seminole tribe. And, so what I think we’re going to see, and we may want to have, again, a certification to do this because this

069industry is out there, but it’s mostly unregulated in training people how to work in casinos and card rooms and things like that, which, which grant we’re going to see an increase in casino, gambling in Florida, sports betting is now coming to Florida. Well, and I want to make sure that it’s clear that how the certification process works. We don’t create the certifications as a school district. Those have to be existing industry recognized certifications. Increasingly the state is starting to narrow the funnel of what is funded and they are looking more toward those high wage, high skill, high demand jobs. We’re seeing fewer certifications in what we call foundational skills, for instance, next year, the Microsoft office certification in word, Excel and PowerPoint that we have done with our students for 10 years will be no

070more. And that will no longer be funded at the state level. And so those certifications have to come from either trade organizations, actual, industry partners. that’s not something that we create. We will, if we find one that we feel like it’s a good fit, then we work with our local trade organizations, our local business community, along with career source to suggest it to the state for funding. So it doesn’t start with that piece of it does not start with that. Thank you. Thanks for that. Absolutely. You’re going to be our final word on this piece. I wasn’t, Oh, sorry. That’s my picture up there. It says Reverend Goldens in front of me. Mrs. Foreman. Okay. I’m really sorry to hear that about Microsoft office yesterday, I was at a middle school and the middle school

071kids are getting certified in Microsoft office. Just incredible, Still have the opportunity for our middle schoolers to get the individual’s certifications. Unfortunately at the state level there that will no longer be recognized for funding or school grade, which is very sad. The new replacement is something called Microsoft master, which requires expert word, expert Excel, and then two other certifications. It is when I say difficult, that’s not even a good word for it. It is extremely difficult to get and probably not appropriate even for our high school students. Okay. So we’re looking at other options in our digital information technology area. And we’re finding this year, it’s, it’s worse than probably it has ever been because many of our students, because of the uncertainty of post-secondary and what, what will be, how open things will be,

072they are delaying decisions. that really has happened. It happened last year as well. it’s, it’s definitely something that is of concern. Typically our schools, many of our schools would have in the spring, a job fair career fair for those last minute decision makers who are, have folks who haven’t made their decision. But unfortunately that hasn’t really been an option this year because of that. Most of those folks are outside coming from the outside, into our art classes. So, Right. Thank you. all right. Kelly, thanks very much. Thank you. All right. Very good. All right. Good morning. So I’m going to try to abbreviate some of this so we can stay a little bit on schedule. I want to talk a little bit about Manatee technical college. So as you know, Manatee technical college is, one

073of 49 technical centers and colleges in the state of Florida and 29 school districts have technical colleges. so they’re not in, every single school district across the state. the first one goal, number one, keeping pace with the growth of Manatee County, by educational opportunities for students and business and industry. So metric number one is offer an associates of nursing, a credential from Manatee technical college. So, we’ve listed that as delayed. this is our third year that we have pushed this forward at the, with the Florida legislator. And, we were not successful this year. last year we had great traction. We actually passed the house unanimously. didn’t get it out of the Senate, but, this year, it was kind of a strange year in Tallahassee and it, it just didn’t happen. you know, representative Robinson has

074really pushed this, really all of our, our delegation has really pushed this here in Manatee County. And, we, we feel as a state and I’m speaking for the technical colleges that this is something that is essential. I mean, we have to have this, and it’s really just for our students who are in our technical colleges. it’s not just for Manatee, across the state. And it’s a way for them to articulate what they’ve learned at their technical college and go ahead and get the credential from the technical college. And we’ve even limited it where we were not going to take new students into the program, for the AAS part of it. So they’d have to get our students in the practical nursing, and then they would continue. so we really feel like it’s a fair, a

075fair effort. we’re just gonna, you know, we’re going to continue to push it with your support. We’d like to keep it on our strategic plan. it’s delayed and our goal is to push it back again for, the next session and see if we can’t make it work on the fourth. Try. Is it? Yes, sir. Yeah. I’ll tell you, I don’t know whether they’ll pull anything out of the hat today, but this year it went through all the committees in the Senate. It went through all the committees in the house. I just haven’t brought to the floor and we got to figure out how to get around the state colleges, blocking something that is, is so important. but, yeah, no, I think, I think, I think it would keep it there. I wish I was up

076there beating on somebody’s head to just bring it to the floor and let it take a vote because last year it passed you down was still on the floor of the house. so, but, but no, it is important. Great. And Dr. Hopes went up and spoke last year as well. And this year is really that whole part of the input from the community and the school. It was really was limited. You really couldn’t get in there and have it. It wouldn’t have mattered. Anyways. It really was a, like he had said, it really was a strange, strange process this year, but next year, we’re going to hope that we have a better, a better, Yeah, right now, keep in mind around this. You know, we have university of South Florida as a dual enrollment partner

077and they can grant degrees. So we’re this, this isn’t done yet. And that’s a good point. And it could be a note. We could, we have to rethink some of those too. I mean, we may have to, okay. If we can’t get this passed, we still want our students to be ASN. They still want to continue. and that’s the challenge we have is that our students want to be credentialed. They want to be an, and they’ve they’ve maybe have tried. And then they came to us for a practical nursing program, which is 1,350 clock hours, but they want to continue. So, we want to give them this opportunity. So we’re going to keep this on. We’re going to show it as delayed. It will be delayed and we’ll change it to in progress probably in

078October of this year. And then we’ll start it back again and see what we can do have an early legislative session next year. So it’ll be January and February, so we’ll get a head start on it. Okay. Very good. metric number two, metric. Number two is conduct a comprehensive local needs assessment. So this is something that, from antsy technical college and really for adult career and technical education, we are really proud of doing, we work with business and industry. We are out there, we have business and industry advisory members, every program that we have at Manatee technical college asked to have, and they want to an advisory council made up of individuals who are in the field. They’re the individuals, many of them who hire our graduates. They’re the ones maybe who have graduated from

079Manatee technical college many years ago. So they’re in the field. They come together, they sit with the instructor, they talk about what curriculum are you using? What are you teaching? They can come in and speak to the classes. so it really is a partnership with our local community. So we have that. We also do student surveys. So, actually in the fall of 2020, and also just the spring, we’re doing survey. So you survey and when they come in, you survey them when they go out, they need to have the technical knowledge. I mean, we have almost a hundred percent placement rate from our school. it, it would be a hundred, but we have people who go through and kind of use it as an enrichment type programs too, which is fine. if you want to

080learn how to be a welder, they go through the program. We’d love for them to get a job at the end of the day, but they may just want to be doing welding for their own in their own house, or, you know, back in their own yard and coming up with just craft type, welding or whatever the content area is. So really you go through the program, you are going to have a career and we’re going to have you trained up so that you can be sufficient when you graduate. So we do the needs assessment, like I said, business and industry and the current students. And we work to have our programs meeting the local needs, metric number three, secure funding for a new main campus. So we opened our current main campus in 2013

081at the time that that was designed and built. We actually had a cost reduction, value engineered out our, our really our adult education center. and currently we’re running adult education out of Bay shore high school. mostly because it was in the proximity of our old campus, right next door. And it just seemed to make sense to have it there. The idea is to, when we built the building, we left the back part that faces Braden river, high school open, and we built the core facilities to handle when expansion. So we knew it when we, when we made those changes, we were designing this back in 2011. so it’s there. we need to push something through there. we’ve come up with ideas for maybe a 33,000 adult education center at the back of that building hooked

082in, construction costs now are running at $275 a foot. so if you have a 30, 33,000 square foot facility, you’re looking at like $9 million just for the facility. So we think with the architects and engineering fees and the FFNE, it’d be maybe 10 million in that range. Maybe 11, MTC has saved up money over the years. so we have, between five and $6 million right now. So, the goal is to sometime, and the state has helped us with the main campus. They helped us with the East campus. they have been very, they’ve been helpful with some of our facilities. So we’re going to continue to push this forward. Our goal is to have everybody who takes classes in our building, whether it be the East campus or main campus, and just have those two

083locations, Right. We’ve not done that, but that might very Well. Well, they may vary the state last year or the year before lessons in statutes may have much easier to get, an SRF exemption. So maybe what w one thing to consider is, is get a design concept and, and look at what the costs would be if we sought, an SRF exemption, because we’re going to only use it for adults and adult and continuing to Yeah. Yeah. And that, that’s a good point. And, and the reason why it’s important besides, you know, giving them back Bay shore high school they’re building is that the people who, the individuals who take adult education, who go through and get their GED, it makes sense to have them in the same building where you have your career and technical

084education programs, because they still have to walk by them. They go to the cafeteria, you know, they come in the front door so they can see it. And it’s like a, it’s a great way for them to look in the windows as they walk through the building and see what’s going on. And then that would move into more enrollments. So, goal number two, expand workforce development, education for high, high skills, high wage occupations to meet the needs of our local economy. we do think we do this pretty well by having, you know, over 60 programs. Before we got one and a half million. Yep. And that’s, what’s building the ramp and the, taxiway right now. It’s A good point. So yeah, through the partnership with SRQ, they received the one and a half million for

085the facilities. And, so recently we just pushed in for an FFA, grant for half a million dollars to try to start maintenance in the current building at MTC. And we think that would be our way to dip our toe into the water and see how that works out with students and enrollments. and we put that into the, you know, the millage for the reauthorization of the local millage as well. so the bottom line is it’s, it’s something that’s, we’ve got it delayed on the chart, that’s on your screen. but we’re going to keep it on our strategic plan. We’re going to keep pushing forward, you know, we’re to see what happens with the grant, from the FFA, you know, that might get us, started, down the path and we’ll see what we do next, next

086legislative session. So it’ll switch to in progress in September. Well, it’s another suggestion on both the adult ed building and the aviation campus is to look at, you know, we bonded for the K through 12 projects, look at other financing mechanisms to get all this started. you know, we, we just did, for, the County, we just did. We approved, I think, two $40 million lines of credit and like, another $50 million line of credit. So we can get all these projects started and get the engineering done and the architectural done, while we wait to get the, you know, more permanent funding. So that’s, that’s a way to look at it because what’s going on right now, especially with commercial construction and residential construction. If you don’t, if you don’t get this stuff in the queue

087with everybody in the country, getting all these dollars pouring in from the feds, you won’t even be able to get contractors to do it because everybody’s going to be too busy. And so that be something to consider, Especially, you know, I think we can lower the cost of the adult ed building by, by do tilt law, get an SRF exemption. and then at the, at the aviation campus, a money right now is pretty inexpensive. But if we don’t get started on these projects, which is why we accelerate all our school additions and construction projects in the next three years, you won’t be getting ready to build it because they’re all going to be too busy with all the money that’s coming from Washington and the States. So you may want to look at alternatives to

088get these things moving forward are good. What the last one metric to, secure funding for, FL D O F D L E firing range and driving facility. We put that as in progress. Yep. we received $2 million. If you recall, last legislative session, not the one that just closed, but the one prior, we’ve matched it with the capital plan of $2 million. we’ve identified, a location for that. Mr. is working on the, the agreement with the entity. That’s going to help us with the land for that. we envision having a, driving pad and, range, that will be meet the needs of, absolutely meet the needs of our local law enforcement and our school. it’s long overdue. we’ve been grandfathered in at the old campus for our driving range and, you know, we have to use

089commercial facilities for the firing range. So, I really think by next year, at this time, hopefully we could be almost completed with this project. Once we get it started, it should move very fast. So, that’s our metric number two, you know, there’s so many things exciting with career and technical education as Kennedy and I could talk and everybody else for hours on it. And so y’all all are invited to see any program you’d like to see. we’re just so excited about what’s happening and all of the support we’re getting to. So that’s it. All right. Board members, anything else? Thank you. All right. Thanks very much. All right. Very good. Thank you. All right. that’s going to bring us to, the, update the audit committee charter, Dr. Crusoe is going to walk us through that.

090and while Dr. Chris has coming up board members, I just had a couple agenda things I wanted to address cause we are running significantly late, but that’s okay because this is a good conversation that we need to have. And I hate the stifle, you know, stifle this, this dialogue. So we have four items remaining on the, audit audit committee charter is, about to begin then as the review of policy 84 50, which I think is what most of, our public is here to talk about. So what I would like to do for the sake of, of the, the public who’s here is, Dr. Grosso, you’ll do your thing. And then we’ll begin the board’s discussion of policy 84 50. And then with the approval of the board, I would like to allow the public commenters

091who are here to speak after the board’s discussion, and then we’ll address our last two items and then we’ll have our regular public comment at the end. Is that acceptable to everybody? Okay. I guess I don’t hear any objections, so we’ll, we’ll go forward that way. Dr. Bruso, thank you. This is the end of about a two year process of amending this committee’s charter. So take it three 17. Okay. I think it’s a four year process. Wow. This is 2017. So it’s been a Fort, well, that was the adoption of the first one or the last adoption. Yeah. But it’s been awhile either way. Then did this to you was in the summer of 2019. There have been some edits since, but yes, we would like this to be our final draft to you. We

092hope so. I will tell you that the audit committee did meet on March 24th and did recommend, we talk about, according to the rules that are written out in here. And, we did a vote to recommend this to you as the revised draft of the charter. and so I will walk you through this. I probably will use all the time. There’s nothing there. but just, give you also some background. There are a lot of people in the district who don’t understand what the audit committee is all about. So a little bit of background as we go through, that’ll help with the changes. the section I’ll do it section by section, to begin with the mission. Our job is to help you oversee the auditing process in the school district. And so we work directly on

093your behalf with external and internal auditors. and our job is to monitor that process to make sure this carried out properly. The audit plans are developed. The audits themselves are of high quality, and that there is up on the action plans after the audits are done. And we report all of that information to you. the changes that we’d like to make in this section is to bring us up to current law. there was a law passed that requires the district to identify and approve an external auditor through a different committee, which is called the auditor selection committee. And this district is actually appointing all of its auditors through that process. So that is a separate committee. So we have taken out of this section and other parts of the charter, any reference to us, reviewing

094proposals, doing the interviews. That’s not our committee’s job. That is the external, the auditor selection committee. So we’ve removed that language and that’s what that through is all about. And then just for completeness, we added a section that says that we not only review the plans of the ordinance, but we also recommend to you, should the auditor continue for the next year? Are they doing the work they’re supposed to do for you again, that is language that is other places in the document, but it seemed it should be in the mission to make that information more complete. And that’s basically the changes that we want to see in that section. Under the composition of the committee, our committee consists of seven people that was actually expanded in 2016. Originally there are only five members. We

095are all unpaid volunteers, which I think is critical for people to understand. We are independent of the school district, which means we cannot be employees. We cannot be employees of the audit firms that you contract with so that you know, that what you’re getting from us is our best thinking based on our experiences and the audit that we’re looking at. we are appointed by the ward and the language change here has to do with those appointments. Originally, when the first committee was set up eight years ago, you set up staggered terms so that everybody didn’t leave you at the same time. So all five members didn’t walk out the door and you had to start all over again. We no longer do that because it is an established committee. When someone is appointed, they are

096appointed for three year terms. So the strike throughs in here simply reflect all terms are for three years, we did add language about appointing. If there is a vacancy, and right now we have one. And so like with a board member, if there’s a vacancy on the audit committee, you would appoint someone to finish that term. And then if that person is to continue, they would then be appointed for three year term. It has also been tradition that before someone comes before you for appointment the chair of the board, where the is liaison to the committee and the chair of the audit committee would interview that individual just to make sure they have the basic qualifications to be on the committee so that when you appoint someone, you know that they’re ready to go. We’ve

097done that since the beginning of the committee, but now we’ve put it on paper so that everybody knows that that processes. The other thing I would just remind everyone is there are two criteria for being on the audit committee. You have to meet one or the other. You either have to be a certified public accountant. Ms. Foreman was an original member of the committee. She’s a CPA, or you have to be someone who has significant, experience of employment in the financial sector of the school district. That’s me. I was a superintendent of schools, did budget presentations had balanced the budget and all of that stuff. So that’s one of the criteria that got me appointed to this committee. Also reviewed audits, had to sit like you and listen to all the, you got to fix

098this kind of stuff. So I understand that problem. the only other change we have made here is we are subject to the sunshine laws, just like you are. And so in order to do that, when we have a new member, that individual must be trained, it’s not necessarily a formal course. So we changed that language to say at training session, just to make sure that they are properly informed so far. So good. Moving on Section is the administrative section. It is how we do our business. If you’ve been at one of our meetings, you know, that most of the time we agree, we do have some lively discussions, but most of the time, all of us will say, yeah, we agree with that. And so we always did things by consensus. It has been recommended

099to us that no, we really need to take formal votes. And that is what we are doing now. So we report things to you as it was a seven Oh six Oh five three, whatever five one, probably not five, three, because I want to add up to seven. we also have language in here now that defines what a quorum is. There are seven members. So our forum is four. And the majority of who is present at a meeting must vote in the affirmative for a recommendation to come to you. So when we voted on this, it was unanimous of the members who were present. So that’s why the recommendation was coming to The One major change in this section, add some language about what happens if one of our members says, you know, I think

100we should get information about this financial issue in the district, but it’s not one of our planned on it’s. And we’ve put the language in here, not because of a current situation, but for the future to make sure that there is a process. If someone on our committee wants to request additional information of the school district, we are very aware of how that can inundate people with lots of extra paperwork. So we want to control that process a little bit. So basically what will happen is a member of our committee would bring that request to us. We would vote for it. If we agree that that would be important information to gather, then the board staff internal auditor would actually take that information to the board liaison who would make a decision and then work

101with the school district to get us that information. So establishes a process to avoid a potential problem in the future. also here, we do have a public common section at our meetings. It’s been there forever. It’s like the third or fourth item on our agenda. we wanted to make sure that when we do have public comments, we do have a process in place. And basically we’re going to follow the process that you use When we get there To the internal audit services section here, you’ll notice that whole first paragraph has struck out again that refers to the selection of the external auditor. That is cherry Bekaert at currently our, we don’t do that selection anymore. So we just took out all of that language. And that’s the only change you’ll see in that. Yeah. Internal

102audit services. We changed some language here to reflect the new concept within the district. The audit committee has believed for a long time that the internal audit services should include not necessarily exclusively, but definitely include some people in house working with the staff, building that relationship, being better, able to gather information for the external auditors and streamline that process. So it’s not so tense, it’s more, just a natural flow of the work. And so this language is in here to reflect that the internal audit function can be both in internal in-house, whatever, as well as a contracted firm. And that is what you have now on Mr. Griffin, who is your board staff? Internal auditor is here for four weeks. Now his first month anniversary is next Wednesday. And so he is starting that process

103of building that in-house internal audit function. You also contract with CRI to provide external services. And our goal is to have both of them work very close together. And over the years actually begin to shift some of the work. So more of it is in-house less is contracted out, we’ll debate in the future, whether it should be all one or the other, but right now we’re looking to have this hybrid model, which we think will best serve the school does. So quick question, is this the only question I have on the whole document? let me just go to the first section of internal audit services. The internal audit function may include both in-house internal auditor or auditors and a contracted internal audit firm contracted to internal audit firms currently. CRI is there a reason you

104didn’t use board staff internal auditor in that sentence? Yes. Thank you. That makes sense. Yeah. To put perspective, I think the County has five, four full-time internal auditors and one part-time internal auditors. They’re a lot smaller than we are. They’re County staff, where they report to the board of County commission. I hear it’s a weird thing. They kind of work over in the clerk’s office cause Corp’s a comptroller and it’s a little, but it’s for a County government that th those, those FTEs are strictly for doing internal audit functions in Manatee County government. And something similar to that model is what we think this could Expand to. Yes, exactly. Right. And so who’s, you know, what are you going to call the person who’s in charge versus the staff members? Exactly. again, the strikethroughs that

105are they’re referred to the selection of the auditor is because that has been moved to the other committee. and then the only thing that, was added at the bottom is again, to, rephrase that we do evaluate the work of the auditors. There’ll be both, we will be part of the evaluation for, Mr. Grifol as well as for CRI. And we do make a recommendation to you as to whether or not we think their contract continues. That of course is your decision, but we would make a recommendation based on the work that they have done, if we think you should further their contract. And that’s it. Excellent job. Okay. The Last piece here is of course you have asked us to take on responsibility for reviewing how the sales tax and spend. So that’s an additional

106part of our mission. We do release a report to you each year about how those funds are being spent to make sure they are in compliance with the referendum passed by the community. Yes, yes, sir. Thank you. with respect to the two fundamental qualifications for serving on the audit committee, one is that you must be a CPA. I think the other is that you must have some extensive background, or I’m sorry, the others that you must have some extensive background, in school or finances. I’m concerned about that stricture or that restriction. And, I’m wondering if there’s an appetite to make that more inclusive. I’m just thinking about people who don’t have any background in school board finances, but who have been in banking for all of their lives or who have been in other, worked

107in financing with respect to major corporations. is there an appetite to make this, language more inclusive or to at least just not require background in school board finances? I think, you know what, let me stop being subtle because I’m sitting here trying to think of any minorities in Manatee County that are either CPAs or have that background. And I can’t think of one, and I’ll be honest with you. I’m trying to create diversity and inclusion inclusion here. And I, I won’t abandon the requirement that if you are an accountant, you ought to be a certified public accountant, but I don’t understand why we can’t be more inclusive in bringing more people with more diverse, finance backgrounds. That’s all. Thank you. My response to you is you have to look at the purpose of the audit

108committee. Our job is to review audits, which are financial in nature. I mean, one of the major tasks we have is to review the annual financial statements. And you have to have some understanding of those, which is where the CPA comes in. or someone like Mr. who, you know, understands the finances of a school district would be able to really pick that up and know exactly what it says. And, you know, there’s a lot of, as you say, very capable people out there with different, but you have to be able to read an audit report. And that’s why we say the extensive experience in those areas. and you have to understand that it’s properly written. You have to understand what the financial statements mean. And that’s a very limited scope of people from either the

109CPA background or from the school district background. That’s where that came from. I mean, it was only 2016 when it was expanded. It used to be entirely CPAs. And the argument was made that there are some school district people who have worked for 40 years in finances who know the auditing process as well as a CPA, and they should be able to participate. So I understand what you’re saying. I don’t know how do we do The real issue for me is not being misunderstood. I’m simply trying to get acceptance, but even broadening that, because what I hear you say is that in the context of auditing school boards, financial situation, they own the two groups of people that can do that are CPAs or people who have a background in school district financing. And I

110just don’t agree with that. I don’t, I don’t think that that’s so, I think that that has to be other people in a community that are capable of reading audit reports that are capable of making sound and reason judgments about audit reports that aren’t CPAs, or that don’t have a background like yourself in school, board finance, capacity, Dr. Gerson. I’m sorry. Excuse me, one second. but, we’re gonna go on, I’m sure this is going to be on our next regular board meeting agenda. What I’m trying to do, what I’m trying to get at now in front of everybody is that I would like that particular qualification to be expanded and that this is the next meeting, but this is the only place I get to say that until we get to the next meeting. So

111I don’t want it to be a surprise. I don’t want anybody to misunderstand. I am simply trying to be as inclusive and as diverse as we possibly can. And these two fundamental requirements are extremely restrictive. Thank you. I wanted the public to also understand that the next step for this charter. So, Yeah, Reverend gold. I just wanted to let you know, I had a conversation with somebody recently who identified for me of two people of color who are CPAs working at a local firm. And if you like, I’ll be happy to reach out to them and see if they have an interest in specifically recruit them. That would be very, very helpful. Okay. Thank you. Okay. That still doesn’t solve the problem that I’m trying to deal with because they are, as you have said,

112CPAs, and, I’m just really trying to get more diversity in the services that we get from the volunteers in our community, Raise this issue with them at that time. Okay. So Dr. Robes, I just, I want to understand the position that Reverend golden is taking. Look, I’ve only been dealing with audit committee for four years. Ms. Forum has been dealing with, so that was created, right? And it is a, it is a very specialized focus in a specific purpose for advising the board. And so I want to make sure that your position is not that we should change the qualifications, which is a very narrow area. And it’s, it’s not even just general public accounting and it’s government accounting. And these audits are not like an audit at a bank. These audits are not like

113an audit at a publicly traded company on the New York stock exchange. These are school district audits, and it’s very different. As we know from some public speakers, they get up and talk about it. So I want to make sure we’re not talking about changing the qualifications of the individuals to do a very specific piece of volunteer work for the board in order to create diversity, rather than looking for individuals that are qualified to advise the board on a very specific area of accounting. And it, because what I, I mean, I, I hope that’s not the direction you’re trying to go. Whoa, hold on gentlemen, one second. two things. Number one, we don’t need to have this conversation right now. Every, I think everybody’s made themselves clear and we know where we each stand and

114we know what the next step is, which is the next regular board meeting and audience members. Please keep any expressions to yourself. I will fortunately, I’m I, this is everyone’s morning. If there are any outbursts, any speaking out, any clapping, stuff like that, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. So, I don’t think that will be a problem, but, and we’re going to get to public comment very soon. So, I think everyone is clear, and we can deal with this at the next regular board meeting when this charter comes up for approval. Dr. last word. It was a chair, I believe in all of the words that Dr. Holmes used. He asked me a question. If you tell me that I’m not allowed to answer, that’s fine. Could you be very brief and

115then we’ll let Dr. Gruesome have the last word. Okay. That’s fine. Thank you. to answer Dr. Hopes, I would like to see both. I would like to see not only the quality maintained by the level of, by the level of qualifications that we require, but I would like to somehow have language that includes other people who are equally as able though they don’t have the specific background in school, board, finances, they are intelligent people and they are wanting to serve. And that is precluded by the exclusive language that we have is that few enough words. That was good. Fair enough. Good. Clear. Thank you, Dr. Verso, you have the last word. I think I understand what you’re asking for, and I will bring that to the audit committee on Wednesday and see if we can

116get some language in here that would, do exactly what you’re saying, but at the same time maintain, the understanding and the knowledge base that is required. Very. Okay. Thank you very much for your time. So you and the committee, thank you for your time. The extensive time I go back online, I’ll go. Sure. we are, we’re now on the mask, excuse me, policy 84 50, which has an effect our, our mass policy. so like I said earlier, I’d like to, the superintendent, if you’d like to address this and then the board can have our conversation, and then those of you who are here to comment on the mass policy will open up a public comment section for that before we do our last two items. Yes. Mr. Chapman, in the room. Oh, there you are.

117I thought you were in the backdrop. I’m looking for you and you’re right in front of me. So yes, I would like to bring Mr. Chapman forward so he can give some details first. Okay. Jennifer Bensi our, our head of our, health department here in Manatee County and her team, Carol Peters and Dr. Hernandez. So, I’m kind of signaling them in case they’ve been watching for a while to kind of know that we’re, we’re now up to this topic. and so what, you have, in front of you here to, to handle here at this workshop is to, is it two documents? one is a suggested, change or edit, two, two 84 50, two to essentially talk about how to, set up the policy on face coverings and other issues that involve the pandemic as we

118head into summer school. and as we head into the next school year that begins in August, and also another document about, you know, procedures that, could remain in place or be edited so that, that essentially a balance can be struck right between, the, the, the, the role that you all have a school board members and us as employees to, look over the health, welfare, safety, welfare of employees and staff, here in the district, and to create that balance between what we’re seeing here in the pandemic and, and what our roles are as, as, as school school district employees. So, maybe that’s a good way to just stop and let you all maybe discuss, what to do next here. as we, finished the school year one, and as we look to graduation ceremonies, two, three as

119we head into summer school and perhaps for, as we head into next year, as we get to August, so that parents, families, students, employees, can, can better understand, where, the school board of, would like for the school district to be here and those kind of four areas. and, knowing that, you all voted to, to, at the last board meeting this week, to give a 30 day notice, that, you intend to perhaps edit the policy. and then in that 30 days from this week till, the next board meeting, which is May 25th, is when you will make a final decision or vote on any, updates, edits policy changes to that 84 50. So, so this workshop’s a good time. Uh it’s in that 90 day, Mark, it’s in that 30 day period of public comment, heading

120into that May 25th board meeting. Okay. Both their whole Carol Peters And their whole team. Okay. board members while we’re waiting for, while we’re waiting for them to get connected or to join, join with us via video or audio, board members. Would anybody like to address this first? I’d like to hear what they have to say first. Okay. Sure. Sure. All right. yeah, just as a reminder as doc, Dr. Chapman, as Mr. Chapman said, this is all part of our process of the meeting for leading up to the meeting of May 25th, that regular meeting, where we will actually, potentially amend this policy heading into the end of the school year. I can see this Peter’s name down on the corner, miss messenger, While we’re waiting. How does the proposed changes in the documents that

121you sent to us? Have they been produced? They’re not attached to our agenda. Have they been produced for any other printed it out in the room or anything? I don’t. Yeah. That’s I was going to ask that too. Thank you. Thanks, Mrs. Maister if we could, the two documents that we, that we got this week, which are the, the draft, safety plan for next school year, and then the, proposed revision, Mrs. Messengers is right there. They’re not attached to the board work. So, I R Kelly, could we get some copies for the, for the public that’s here? And then we can kind of enter them into the, to the minutes And I can hand them out. And the reason too is, they were, they’ve been, been editing, I’ve been editing and then all the way

122up until this warning, because even the surgeon, General’s health advisor, Probably looking at the memo from Last night. So yeah, We got one yesterday after five, we got another update, right? Yes. I’ve got another update yesterday evening. So I, I, Okay. So, and what, we’ll print it out most recently. Yes. Yes. And I’ll, I’ll, I’ll start handling. Can I, can I read it, can I read it so that everybody can hear what the proposal is since we don’t have copies? Okay. So the, these are the proposed changes. I’m not going to read the whole policy. I’m just gonna read the proposed changes. The proposed changes are a face covering slash masks are optional unless otherwise required beginning on June 1st, 2021 face coverings for all employees, students and visitors will be optional, which includes summer

123school programs and the 2020, 2021, 2022 school year. However, in order to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of all employees, students, and visitors, the school board authorizes the superintendent to require face coverings. If the 14 day rate in Manatee County of a said, communicable disease reaches 10% or higher in Manatee County or a high concentration in a specific school or group setting like athletics slash clubs, activities, face coverings will be worn at all times for at least 10 consecutive calendar days or more. If the positivity rate remains above eight above the 8% threshold. So those, those are the changes. And then, for the safety plan, I don’t know if they’re up there yet, but the safety plan, the draft, essentially says, there’s several bolts and points if you don’t have them. the first bullet

124point is face coverings are optional for students and employees. However, it keeps beeping. However, in order to protect the, I don’t know if I’m too closer, I’m loud, I’m very loud. however, in order I can do this without a microphone. I taught kindergarten. However, in order to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of all employees, students and visitors, a school board authorizes the superintendent to require face coverings. It’s the same exact language that was in the policy. I will skip over that. The next bullet point says social distancing at all times is strongly encouraged and possible. The next bullet point says employees will continue to have their temperature check as they enter the school building D employees will no longer complete at S attestation questions, classrooms and schools will continue to be thoroughly cleaned every

125day hand washing and sanitizing will be strongly encouraged. If a student is sent home sick for, from school, or is home sick from school, the student can return to school 48 hours after being symptom free. This is the change from the current policy of 24 hours, no physical contact during physical education classes or recess, the district operations center, the doc, which is Mr. Chapman’s Homebase, will continue to operate to answer questions and concerns. school nurses will continue to monitor six students and we’ll continue to look for signs of patterns or outbreaks of severe illnesses. Employees and students must continue to stay home if sick or having COVID like symptoms. So I just want to read that just in case people don’t have it so they can see it. Okay. Okay. That was actually my, my

126biggest question. I didn’t understand what was the difference between the 10% and the, Yeah. Again, that’s an example of me editing it, yesterday. Exactly, exactly. So the 14 day positive, and I don’t believe the 14 day positive positivity rate. and again, the experts can come correct me. has, I think has been close to 10% at some point in this pandemic, but I don’t think they’ve ever reached 10% right now. It’s about, just under 7% it’s in the high sixes. I know Dr. Two days ago, according to mandatory kind of government two days ago, 6.36. Was it? Yeah. Yeah. So, so this gives the public an idea of, of where we’ve been hovering for most of the time has been in that five, six, 7%. There was a little bit, there were in after the holidays,

127when we came back in January, it was in, it was in the low eights. but now it’s back down. and, and I think Dr. Vinci said yesterday, she’d like to see it below 5%, you know, and that’s with testing and vaccinations and things like that. But, just to give a public an idea of what, what, you know, 10%, but that’s a threshold that the department of health again. Okay. Yeah. Let’s thank you. thanks, Mr. Chapman. Let’s go to, Dr.. can you hear me? Hello? Can you hear me now? This is Carol Peters, and hopefully everyone can hear me doctor. No problem. Carol, we can hear you just fine. Go ahead. Thank you. So thank you for having me. I, Kevin had Mr. Chapman had sent over a proposed draft and was asking for some comments

128on it, you know, and looking at, the, the, kind of the trigger point positivity rate and trying to look into the existing CDC guidance to try to get some direction on, you know, discussion points, things to consider. recently the CDC has released some updated guidance for schools and really two key pieces of guidance. One looking at, operational strategies for schools through phase mitigation, and then another looking at, phase prevention strategies. So in that first document, they kind of stratify the risk of COVID transmission in schools based on community positivity rates. And, they look at it and the premise being that, the positivity rates in the community are, you know, reflected within the schools and, and again, related to the risk of transmission in the schools, and they stratify into four different groups, one being low

129risk, moderate risk, substantial risk and hybrids. So for example, if the goal was to keep the risk of transmission in schools low, then based on the way that the CDC is recommending that we stratify risk, we would look at, 5% positivity rate, the seven day positivity rate of buyers that are lower. I wanted climbs above that that would be the trigger point that we would Institute, increased mitigation efforts. One of which might be, going back to wearing masks on a universal basis. that being said, we would keep that in place for seven days. because again, we’re looking at a seven day, positivity, right? So that could be, that’s the guidance that we’re seeing when we look at what the CDC has, related to this. Okay. Thank you, Carol. I thought there was a question, but

130you were just leaning on. No, I did have a question. I’m sorry. And this is doctor speaking with Peter. She’s an LPN. Okay. Ms. Peters. Hello? Yes, yes. To see this, that I’d like to ask a question about the, I think you said low moderate, and then high levels of, positivity rates. What is, what is the level that is now closest to the current level of positivity in Manatee County? Yeah. So in the last week or so we’ve been running it and it’s showing a slight decline. we’ve been running at about six and a half percent. Hi, what is the highest of that? This positivity rate has been in Manatee County since we began the mandatory mask policy. Can you tell us I, yes, I would have to go back and check. I don’t know

131that it’s ever actually gone above 10%. I would need to go back and check, you know, historically where we’ve been with that, you know, our positive activity rate was lower than 5%, back in September into early October, and then it started climbing up again. It went to, above 8% to 9% in January when we came back from the holiday break and, that triggered some, changes in the clinics, when children would come into the clinics, how with any type of COVID system, you know, how we approach them in the back to school guidance that we gave to parents, related to that. So more recently, you know, we are starting to see some trending down in that rate. Would it be fair to say that that an 8% positivity rate would probably be about the highest that

132we have experienced in Manatee County? How am I again, I would need to go back and specifically look at all of the data to confirm that That’s fine. the only other question that I have is that, who officially determines and decides the positivity rate is that the school board, the superintendent, or the department of health. So the department of health collects that data every day and then reports that data to the administration at the school district on a daily basis. All right. my last question is what is the, what is the, positivity rate that is associated with the seven day, required, separation? So looking at the risk categories that the CDC has in their guidance, low transmission would be considered a seven day positivity rate of less than 5% moderate risk of transmission would be

133less than 8% substantial risk of transmission would be less than 10%. And then high rate of transmission would be greater than 10%. Yeah. If we talked about less than 8%, what would be the, the, would that be a seven day time frame or would that be a 10 day timeframe? So that would be looking at the seven day positivity rate. Okay. So it’s, there’s a seven day positivity rate with an 8%. That’s a seven day isolation period that accompanies an 8% positivity rate. And the 8% positivity rate is the top of the, what is the CDC category for that? That would be moderate risk of transmission. Alright, thank you very much. Okay. Well, Mrs. Warren, I just have a couple of questions. has there been an official change in the tolerance, the threshold, recently from

134the 8% to 10%? So the, I, you know, we’re kind of looking at two different things, back in January when our positivity rate was high and we were experiencing the large number of cases, we, there is a, kind of a decision tree that, that a lot of this that are in place in the schools, the school nurses are following it. And it had to do with the 8% had to do with, students that are symptomatic and they present to the clinic. And of course, a lot of the symptoms, general symptoms that students might present with are very general. You know, they might have a stomach ache, or they might have other indicators of infectious disease, but how do you determine, you know, in our typical clinics and in the school system, we see 300,000, provide

135300,000 visits per year. Yeah, it does. But I just, I’m wondering, has there been a shift in the CDC position on, what’s acceptable for mitigating COVID in schools? No. I mean, I think it’s, it’s been pretty consistent. I would say that it’s been clarified, you know, as more and more across the country have opened up. So, and that, and they’ve updated guidance, you know, as they’ve got along, they actually originally had other risks categories. they had very low, low, you know, multiple risk categories and they eat that folded them into these four general categories. And it becomes a question of, you know, weighing what is, the pluses and minuses for each community. is, are we looking at, you know, the tolerance low risk versus a moderate risk versus substantial risks? And then, what mitigation factors

136do we want to put in place, you know, based on how much exposure there is in the community. Okay. Thank you. And then my other question was, and, I read that the CDC is saying that face masks are required for public transportation, including school buses. Is that still the case? I haven’t heard that. It isn’t the case. So, you know, we do constantly monitor those, directives and those bulletins as they come out. And I haven’t seen anything, changing that to this point. All right. Thank you. You’re welcome. I’m sorry. I did have one additional question. how difficult, I know you said you don’t, you don’t have the, the, that, that the absolute numbers. How difficult is it for you to construct for us, the average positivity rate from the beginning of our order up until

137now? No, it actually would not be difficult at all because we have that information. we’re looking at yeah. The seven day positive and break. We can certainly actually, I think I just found something that, kind of summarize. So it looks like back in June and then through about the middle of July, we were above 10%. and then we dropped, you know, in September, as I said, in October, we did drop to, you know, below 5%. And then we started bumping up again, in early January where we were again above that 10% and we’ve kind of slowly but consistently been dropping. since then we, we did go down, as low as under 6% in early February, then it kind of bounced up again. No we’ve been staying in that six to, we did go up a

138little bit, in early April to around 7%, and now it seems to be kind of trending back down. Now we’re in about the six and a half percent range right now. Would it Be an accurate statement to say that over the last year, the positivity rate within the schools, within, within Manatee County has ranged somewhere between six and 8% as an average, because I’ve heard you call 10% and I heard you say six, Well, I guess I would really have to, you know, lay all of the data out. So I think without a little bit more, study on that, I don’t know that I could accurately answer. All right. I understand we, we are trying to craft the policy for a year going forward. And the only, the only empirical evidence that we have from

139the health department, all the statistics that you can provide for the last year. And, it is very important to me that I understand, who have been before I unilaterally make a decision about where we ought to be in terms of changing the, in terms of changing the, the mandatory requirement of masks. If we’re going to concede to the request that they be, that they be optional, we all did at least be able to have a realistic understanding of what they have done for us up until this point in time, we didn’t get here by accident. And we, we do, the reason we got here is because of the positivity rates that we have experienced and that’s because the mass had been mandatory. And so I think it’s important if we’re going to move from mandatory

140to optional, we know what mandatory got us, and then moving into optionally can logically and rationally express why we were able to do that, that, and that’s important, man. So how, how that, that, that the only way that I know to do it is by averages. Maybe there’s another way, maybe there’s a rolling average. I don’t know, but I think from a health department standpoint, if we look back over the year, that is an average for Manatee County and that’s, that’s what I’d like to know definitively. Can you help us? Yes, ma’am Yes. I mean, we could certainly do that. It’s important to keep in mind though that the positivity rates, you know, hopefully will be affected by vaccination and that’s, the nation really came into play, you know, looking into January and February. So

141the averages, if we look at the entire year, you know, could be skewed and hopefully, you know, we’re going to start to see a strong impact on those rates as more and more of our community vaccinated. You know What, that is an excellent point. And thank you. I had not considered the impact of the, the vaccination. So I’ll modify my request. Can I get two averages, one pre vaccination, and the other, even though it might be incomplete one post vaccination opportunities. And I’m concerned about that because I don’t think that school children are mostly affected by vaccinations. Now, I think we just got to eight 16 where it’s available to everybody. So, you know, I agree empirically it might be skewed, but that might skew it in terms of the, of the, employees. And I’m

142sure we can’t break down that kind of percentage. I don’t know, we can separate between employees and students, but as much as you can give us the data of what masks have done, I think that will help us to inform what our decision should be in terms of whether we make masks optional. So to the extent that you can help us with that, help me with that. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Yeah. We could certainly do that, you know, but of course, keep in mind that the positivity rate is affected by more than masks. It’s, you know, all of the mitigation efforts that, you know, we hopefully have been, getting the word out to our community, the social distancing and the hand-washing and yeah, All of that, all of that’s in the policy that we are

143about to modify. So I’m not, I, I’m not, abrogating a concern for all of the other aspects of, of this virus mitigation policy that would have, but what is before us is whether it’s what all of that has done in terms of the, of the rate that that’s the, that’s the key I’m looking here at a policy that says reaches 10%. if we’re going to have a policy, just to say, we have a policy that makes it optional, then we can approve this and be done with it. But if we’re going to have a policy that is consistent with what has brought us thus far along the way, then I think we need to begin with what the, what the, positivity rate has been along the way at that time. Good morning. reverence golden, Carol,

144my apologies. I had some technical difficulties. this is, Dr. Jennifer benty good morning, Dr. Benson. I do have some information for grapes, if you would be interested based on what we present to the County every Friday morning. So I have those numbers, if you would like to hear them. Yes, I would like to, if it’s all Right with the chair. Yeah. I just, I know you think I’m in charge Dr. Vincent, but that was just between you and me that we didn’t want to tell everybody. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. And Carol stated there’s many different rates that we can look at and we continue to look at, there is the, one of the positivity rate since we started, monitoring the, virus in our community. So that was last year. So, as she said, that’s

145over a year and a half almost of that. And now, so that rate in Manatee County is 15.53 as of yesterday, the goal is to bring that down under 10%, but again, there’s, I don’t know if that’s the best one to look at because so much has happened over the last year and a half. If we look at the last two weeks, the positivity rate is 6.76%. If we look at the past seven days, it’s 6.4, 9%. So again, those, we would like to get a daily rate consistent of 5% or lower. So we’re not there yet. And we know that we’re still seeing some of the effects from spring break. if we do also consider, the, testing, this morning, the, incident commander at the Bradenton convention center said that, the rapid tests are still

146at 12% as of yesterday, at the convention center. So, a lot still to be done regarding being vigilant and trying to get our positivity rates down. It’s fortunate though that we are testing a lot of individuals. We have tested almost 58% of the population in, Manitou. So, kudos that we have had a lot of efforts through, these testing sites and MCR health. if I could also just tell you about vaccination rates, to date. So the population, total population, all ages, in Manatee County vaccinated to date is 40.8%. Those 16 and above who are eligible right, are 49%. And our rates by age groupings, which are every five years starting at 16, going up to 65 plus in the County have been act or better than the state rate in each of those groupings in the

147last week. So we continue to, reach out, but, like we saw with, the students coming back to school, it really depends on what’s happening in the community. We can’t just look at the school system as a bubble. So what happens to the community happens in the schools. And, and, and so at that point, I would say, we need to continue to push for vaccine, for all in the community. There are plenty of places to get it. There are some faxa, Oh man, a T campaign now leadership, my team, the, County, leadership. So the goal here, the message here is to continue to vaccinate, to improve our, fight against the virus and to lower eventually those positivity rates in the County. Thank you very, very much. You’ve been very helpful. Okay, Dr. Betsy, this is Charlie.

148Thanks for joining us. I, if you could, if you could stay on the line for a few minutes, just in case we have some questions from other board members. Absolutely. And again, thanks so much Mrs. Messenger. I, I have a question. you gave, average, you said that, 49% of people that are eligible for the vaccine age-wise eligible for the vaccine have gotten it in Manatee County. Does that include, individuals that went out of County and does that include individuals that are going to private providers in Manatee County? Like if they go to Publix or whatever, I guess, I don’t know how late, how you get all that data. So, Great question. So, in all infectious diseases or diseases that are reported, in the state of Florida, regardless of where they’re found, they are sent to

149the health department where that person resides, where that person lives. So it is regardless of who they went to, where they went to. And even beyond that in, in, the other parts of the country, we work with the health departments across the country. So it always goes back to where the individual resides. Okay. Yep. Yep. Okay. Dr. Betsy, if you could, I think the numbers that I’m looking at on the County government website are a couple of days, a couple of days old. So I just want to get your updated numbers as of this morning. you said our seven day average as of today is 6.49, correct? Correct. Okay. And then, their numbers show that we’ve had in the County, we’ve had 37,000, 29 positive cases. Is that mostly accurate? I have lost her Dr.

150Benson. Okay. I’ll keep going with my question. and then again, this is as of, two days ago. Okay. Dr. Betsy, we’re losing your cell signal, 38,028, with 661 deaths. It was yes, 38,028 and, 661 cause as of two days ago. Okay. And then, the total number, just one more number from you, please update it as of this morning. total Manatee County residents who are vaccinators, was it two days ago was at the 28th, was it 167,067? What does that number as of this morning Who will have completed the peer review? And won’t Dr. Benson, could you try that again? Your signal is really getting stepped on 2000 plus it’s just a few hundred over that number. So 122 have completed their series and, Oh, I’m so sorry. No, you’re okay. 2000. Okay. So just over

151122,000 as of this morning have completed their series, whether it was the two S two dose or the Johnson and Johnson and almost 170,000 individuals have received at least one dose. Okay. So, okay. Gotcha. So 170,000 of the total between complete vaccination cycle or if would have had one shot Over just over 122,000 are completed. Okay. I just want to make sure we’re clear that that 170,000 number is both completed plus have had one shot. Correct. Okay. Got it. Thank you for confirming. Okay. So we, board members, I just had a couple of comments. I just want to make sure, I think we’re good. let me just speak to the policy for actually let me speak in something general first. And number one is that, there, you know, everybody’s in a much different space than

152we were a year ago. we’ve all learned a lot. I think we all carry ourselves differently than we did a year ago for the most part. but I just want to kinda start this out with a little bit of a reminder of that. Like, there’s a lot of passion on this issue. and, I just hope that we all respect each other’s differences of opinion or how to handle this. Has even been vaccinated or has already had COVID and it has passed unfortunately 661, didn’t make it through. and that’s kind of weighs on any safety, policies we, that we implement are we, are we talk about, So a couple of things about the policy, let me go to the draft policy. the first suggestion I would make so that our data is consistent with DOH Manatee

153and the County is that, in line four it says the school board authorizes the superintendent to require face coverings. If the 14 day positivity rate in the County of a said community, Well, disease reaches 10% or higher. I have two suggestions for that line. I would suggest we change that to seven day seven day positivity rate. And, And that does, I think in Dr. Benson, you can back me up on this, maybe I’m wrong, but that enables the superintendent to act more quickly. If there is a rapid outbreak of some sort in the community, I’ll come right back to that promise. it seven day rate instead of 14 day rate, cause that’s seven day rates gonna move. it’s going to be more, sensitive to movement. And the other suggestion I would make, and Kevin, this

154may not have been a typo. Maybe you were thinking the same thing. but the said communicable disease reaches 8% or higher because by DOH manatees own metric, that 8% is there. Is there a cutoff? the, so, you know, make both of those consistent at 8%. This is just me thinking out loud. We have another month to talk about this policy room gotta come right back there from us. I can talk in terms of graduation. It is at Lee com facility. So even if we make a policy, we have to adhere to what Lee com regulations are in terms of our graduates on the field, out, outside, we can control their distance. We can space them six feet apart. So, I know, as I called district Chapman real early this morning, when that new change happened

155yesterday, I would imagine Lee calm is probably readjusting their policies as well. So, but because we’re entering another facility, we still, regardless what we say, we will have to be respectful and honor what they say, but we certainly can control. I will tell you, and we’ve been there. you’re talking summertime, you’re outside. It’s hot. If we can’t in our own policy says that if we’re able to socially distance, we don’t have to have a mask. So if we’re able to provide that at graduation, I think we should. I think when you’re talking about our own school board policy, it’s regulating our school, areas, our classrooms, our buildings, our buses, et cetera. So I think in my opinion, we should just, you know, concentrate on that. And when we’re entering other locations, if it’s differing than

156what we have, we will communicate that to individuals so that they have to honor whatever another agency is requiring. Thank you. That’s all very good points. Reverend golden, Mrs. Messenger, and then Mrs. Warren. Well, Mr. Chair thought that we had modified the order of the agenda as you had requested so that after the presentation was made in terms of what the proposed order was that we would hear from the public in terms of that comment. But if we are going to maintain the same order, we all going to express what we think about the proposed, then that’s fine. But I thought that we might’ve, it’s 1130. We said we were going to change it so that we would allow these people to speak. And I, and I said at the beginning that the board would

157have this conversation and then the public could comment on the board’s input and the health department’s input. So we I’m ready to go there. I don’t, I don’t have much else to say, but, this is a messenger and then Mrs. Foreman, and then when board members, when you’re ready, we can get to public comment. Yeah. I think almost everybody was here last summer. And that was how I felt about, I said, I don’t know if everybody knows how I felt about this policy when it was put in place. and so I really, like, and support the changes that have been put before us. I agree With Mr. Kennedy. I think that there’s some, reasonableness because there is a threshold there. I’m not sure I agree with 8% of the 10%. I, I, I think that

158would have to be, you know, discussed, but I think that that at least is, is it easy, reasonable measure? I, I do think that whatever data that we’re going to receive about Manatee county’s positivity rate and trying to attribute that to the use of mandatory masks in our schools versus not, I don’t think that that’s ever really going to give us an accurate picture because masks aren’t mandatory in Manatee County. So any positivity rate we’re getting is with masks already not being mandatory and Manatee County. And so I don’t think that there’s going to be any type of metric. That’s going to be able to show, well, this is what masks are doing, because they’re not necessarily doing that because we’re getting the positive fee rates in Manatee County, and it’s not mandatory. I go,

159lots of places. I drive by a softball field on a Saturday morning and there’s lots of people and there’s nobody wearing one. And so I don’t think that that going to be reflective of it, not, that’s not me commenting on its efficacy, that’s me commenting on the data that we will get and whether that will truly give an accurate picture. so I, I think, you know, I’m, I really would like to hear from the community. I know we have up until May 25th, I really welcome that conversation. I really do wish that the conversation was constructive. Like you said, and respectful. I think we’ve gotten a lot of, there’s been a lot of things shared on social media saying that we’re going to do one thing or we’re going to do another thing. And, and

160I really appreciate when people reach out and they say, Hey, is this true? Because a lot of it’s not been true. and that’s very frustrating as a board member to sit to being told, well, you want to do this or you want to do that. And it’s like, I’ve never said those things, not once ever. And neither has, I heard anyone on this board wanting to do certain things that we’ve been accused of. And so I really appreciate when we get that constructive, conversation of, Hey, is this true? Because I saw this and this has been shared, and this is being said here, this is being said there. And, and we have the opportunity to respond to it because I think, you know, that’s the best way to get accurate and true information out to

161people. and I think this is a great opportunity for that to be able to say, you know, this, this is the proposal and you know, the board will vote on it on May 25th. Thank you, Mrs. Foreman for Reverend golden. You’re going to have the second to last word. I’m going to give Dr. Betsy last word and then we’ll go to public comment. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I support the, seven day time limit and the 8% positivity rate being incorporated into the policy. I would support the policy going into effect upon the exploration of the current policy, which I think is June or something like that. Maybe does anybody know when the current policy it’s about the exact date? You’re right. It’s somewhere in early, early to mid June. Yeah, exactly. and maybe if

162you want to have a date so that we could, you know, keep this consistent, maybe it would just be the beginning of the fiscal year, which is July one. And, I also wanted to make sure that we have the opportunity in the new policy to review it every 90 days like we have in the current policy. Yeah. So that, that in the new year, every 90 days we’ll be doing this, I’m not so sure we’re going to get much information over the summer. Don’t have a whole lot of kids in school, but certainly by the time we get through all this September and October, I guess that’s the first computation or whatever you call it, then we will, we’ll know what we need to go from there. I don’t think anybody wants to see, an

163uptick in infections or hospitalizations or anything, let alone deaths, cause there’s a lot that happens to you, even though you don’t die. This is the kind of stuff that really is interfered with. So I, I hope that every 90 days we could do that, but we would start in July and we will start in July. That’s that’s all. Okay. Thanks for your input as a messenger a little bit. Yeah, I did. I had a real quick question for the superintendent and really it’s because we keep discussing when this would begin is what is the first day of summer school? The first day of summer school will begin in early June? I do think, that Ms. Foreman had very good points about the mass for graduation only because we do have two different locations. If we

164have a district policy that’s differing than Lee calm, it’s going to be problematic. So I think that would be good. but I am concerned about July one being the start date because we do have summer school. I do think the advantage of us in acting this new policy during our summer school. And it would be very difficult to have one policy going on now and then in summer school, we change it. But the great thing is, we can see the effects of, of the policy even before school begins that we have summer school activities for all levels elementary, middle high. So by making this, in effect and, possibly optional, it really will give us a kind of a pilot to see if, what we think is going to be the reaction when school starts is

165truly the reaction. As I stated on Tuesday, there is no playbook. We get advice from medical experts. We look at trends of what’s happened and we make the best decisions with what we know. And we do feel pretty strongly based on all that evidence that what we propose to you really will be a good way moving forward because of the vaccinations, the immunity that students have received up until now, as well as employees, as well as we did not see the infections spreading in the schools like we had anticipated at the beginning of the school year. So, I would say in my opinion, starting right after our graduation date, which is the first week of June, see summer school starts. Right, right after that, I think that would be probably the best time to begin

166it for that reason. Okay. Yeah. I actually think you had a really valid point and I, and in order to, just to keep it the same for all our students, I think that’s really valid. That’s why I was just curious what date it started, because graduations are from the 31st to May 5th or June 5th. I apologize. I’m trying to graduate them a whole month early. so maybe we look at just June 7th or whatever. I just, I mean, I just was curious like what day that was. but I think that there’s, there’s some merit to that, so. Okay, great. Summer school begins on the 7th of June. Okay. Oh, there you go. Thank you. Superintendent centers. Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you so much to the board members, superintendent Paul Demicco, Kevin

167Chapman, really understand that and a wonderful example, how to gather, to make the best decisions to keep our students help. Right. Thank you so much, Dr. Vinci. you you’ve been with us. You’ve been with us since day one of this pandemic. So Education. So we appreciate your reaching. Listen, if there’s many more that we can assist you, please call. Thank you so much to everyone. Certainly be in touch. Thank you, Dr. Bensi and your team. okay. folks, we appreciate your patience and we appreciate you being here, in agreement or disagreement. and I will, now that you’ve had, now that you’ve heard our discussion, hopefully that informs your input, one way or the other. We don’t know, we’ll find out, Reverend bold, vice-chair golden. You were, you’re on. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair, public comment

168is not an open forum to discuss matters, unrelated to education, to support or oppose candidates for public office, or to engage in commercial speech, attempting to sell a service of product to the school board. All public also public comment is not a forum to attack individual school system employees or board members, and its such complaints should be submitted in writing to the superintendent, the appropriate handling. Finally, this is not a forum for addressing issues involving individual students because of privacy concerns, such issues should be submitted in writing to the superintendent to appropriate handling. Each speaker is allowed three minutes to address the board. Speakers must stand at the podium and not approach the diets. If a speaker has a handout to present to the board, those must be given to the agency clerk for distribution.

169This is a business meeting of the school board and the public expects that we conducted in an orderly, efficient, effective, and dignified manner. We request the speakers, keep this in mind when making your comments. We also request that the audience keep that in mind and not demonstrate approval or disapproval of what a speaker has said by clapping a bully. The board appreciates the public’s input and will listen attentively, consider each comment. And usually they will not respond, enter into debate or answer questions during comments on agenda items or during the public comments section Mr. Chair, we have 12 names that have been submitted to make public comment. Nicole Lynch. Good morning. My name is Nicole Lynch and I have a third grader And a kindergarten are enrolled in the Manatee County school district. I am

170extremely proud to live in Florida, especially during this pandemic. Thanks to our governor. Florida has led the entire country in so many ways that I’m certain that Manatee County school district can continue this trend as stated by Ms. Saunders on Tuesday evening. We’ve never closed a single school since the beginning of the school year. And now we know through data that there would not be a need to my kids alone are involved in three different sports. Those kids are in school together. They play together during extracurricular activities. They have birthday parties, play dates, sleepovers. These kids are not wearing mastering any of those activities. Other than in school, there is no mask mandate in Manatee County. So I greatly appreciate all that has been done by this board teachers and staff, to get the kids

171back in school. Thanks to operation work speed. We have three vaccines available to anyone that wants one. We are in a different place today than we were a year ago in regards to this virus. And I’m here today asking you to please end the mask mandate for the students and staff for the year of 2122. We know that the date from the data that’s kids are not the driving force of this virus. And we also know through contact tracing that when a student test positive, it’s not being spread at school, we know from the CDC that this virus has a 99.7 survivability rate. And for most of our population with 50,000 students, 7,000 staff members, that brings our total cases to less than half of a percent. At the end of Tuesday’s meeting Mr. Kennedy’s

172closing statements, he addressed the public’s request to change public comments to an earlier time in the meeting. He also suggested moving meetings to 4:00 PM. Thank you for hearing the public and being willing to accommodate this request. However, a change to 4:00 PM start time would make it absolutely impossible for a large majority of working parents to ever attend a future school board meeting. And I’m certain that’s not your intention. So many parents are already struggling to get across town after pickup to get here on time with the current meeting, start time as it is. So please consider having the meeting state it’s current time. So all your constituents have the opportunity to take part in these meetings. I also wanted to say, that maybe making, each school have the ability to enforce the mask

173mandate when necessary, because I know in Northwest Bradenton, we shouldn’t be affected by something that takes place over in Lakewood ranch or Oh, Nico or perish. If they’re having an outbreak school’s over on this side of town, shouldn’t have to enforce the same mass policy that’s taking place in an outbreak situation. so if we could just maybe move some responsibility to our great principals and let them make those choices rather than the school board enforcing it for every school across the board. So that’s all I have for today. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you, Ryan Bray. Thank you. I had a prepared speech. However, after watching you still try and codify masks and it gives the option to be able to put them back in when you deemed fit, I’ll just tell you where

174I’m at. About four months ago, I started writing the complaint short and plain statement to be filed in Manatee County. And it’s going to be filed well, I’m not saying it’s going to be filed. Let me rephrase that. On May 17th, I’m sending my daughter to school without her mask, as a protest, a peaceful protest that you guys all support, anybody that would like to join in that peaceful protest are more likely or more than welcome. You suspend my daughter or The action against her chair. I have a question because I’m noticing that this person we’re not going to take away from your time, but I noticed that you have a t-shirt on the cyst Flynn law. That’s just a of mine. Okay? So you are not attorney Flynn and you’re not here advertising on

175behalf of attorney plan. That is correct. This is the thing clients on behalf of attorney plan, because I just read that you can’t do that. I can’t do what you cannot solicit. Andrew. You Andrew. You’ve got to go. You got, you got gotta, I’m sorry. You have to leave. I can’t let what the warning was for. I’m not going to listen to it. You just turned. Do you want me to have it read back? You just turned and said to those, anybody that wants to join? No, no, no, no officer not him. Miss Ms. Griffin in the pink shirt. What speed. Oh, that’s that’s what I talked about the warning an hour ago. Please don’t speak it. I’m sorry. Give me one minute. Please. Don’t disrupt the meeting. And if you do, you’ll be asked

176to be removed. Can have an outburst in the middle of the meeting. We’ll tell him to put insulting people that are taking their time to come here to speed. You know, I’m activists in this community. That’s no reason to assault that man or his shirt, a shirt. Okay. We, we hear you. Mr. Martinez, Clarify to clarify Reverend, I’m going to file the lawsuit. Pro se don’t discount. My ability to file pro se. You can ask the man sitting right next to you, my qualifications to do such, but enough’s enough. You guys aren’t following science anymore. You’re following the CDC. We haven’t followed the CDC as a County, as a state the entire time. In fact, our government governor last night stated that he doesn’t follow CDC. And the reason why is they’re continuously wrong and

177they’re wrong on this? You’re wrong on this. The science says these children should not wear masks. So I’m going to give you two weeks, 10 business days to change your tune on May 17th. My daughter’s going and peaceful, protesting, not wearing a mask. Thank you, sir. Cassandra Prince Sandra Prince Cassandra, Prince Sondra. Prince does not respond. Paul mellow. Mr. Miller real quick. this is my fault. I don’t know if you want it that projected, but our projector is not working this morning and that’s not, it’s not from Virginia, just for the, for the minutes. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. Data scientific data. You got it. Okay. Welcome again. Board members and superintendent, from listening to what we were, you guys were just talking about, your, your testing data. I feel, that should not be a standard

178baseline testing data. I’ve got some, printed material from the CDC that I pulled up, from January 1st to, to, 2020 to February, 2020 of 21. The CDC reports ages less than one years old to 17 years of age deaths from COVID-19. We’re 184. That’s 184 student aged children have died in a year from COVID nationwide. The flu rate of flu deaths in the United States for the flu seasons have decreased. We had one pediatric death, 2020, 20, 21 season reported to the CDC. So what has happened is they’ve skewed the numbers on the testing, what these kids are dying at an average that has been consistent since 2004, other than the, 2009 pandemic where 358 pediatric deaths happened from 2009 to 2010 reported by the CDC. No mass mandates were issued to students in 2009

179that I know of. Did that ever happen? Okay. More than double the deaths happened in a pediatric setting. So now that I’ve got that out of the way from the CDC, and I left the data there for you to read, let’s discuss why you guys and all the political power hungry are authoritarians took it upon yourselves to mandate what our children do with their bodies. While a state government stayed out of personal lives. What happened to my body? My choice. I have a question I want answered. Now, if you could, how long did it take the school board to draft in an act that masked mandate for schools and students? How long did it take to be informed Mr. Miller, your comments about the end. I’ll be happy to answer that. If you just want

180to finish your sentence, I request the same time. Be allotted to remove the mask mandate and make it optional to students, parents, teachers, visitors, and employees. Thank you to answer your question last summer. We probably, I think the first time it was discussed was a workshop on July 25th and then we mandated it probably three weeks later. We put it in right before school opened, I believe so about three to four weeks, roughly. So thank you, sir. Joe Gula. I hope I’m saying that. Right. Joe, G U L a Joe G U L a Joe G U L a. There is no response, Mr. Chair. Paula loaners. Yes, sir. Okay, thank you. Ma’am afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Paula lonas and I have a son that is going to be entering high school, this

181coming school year, last year, like a thousand other parents. I had a student that was graduating high school last year and had that year stripped away from her all of those years of hard work and determination waiting for that day that we still all remember whatever age we are. We still remember our high school year and graduation. They were denied the prom and that graduation at the stadium was no substitute. It was a nightmare. It was terrible. And I don’t want that. I don’t have a child graduating this year, but I don’t want that for these students this year. It was terrible. My son started this school year and I very reluctantly sent him to school and a mass, even though I don’t agree with them and our family never wears them ever. And we’re

182all completely healthy. On the third day I contacted the school and I said, absolutely not. That was a mistake. And I brought him back home to do school virtually, to put a muzzle on our children is outrageous. And I understand at the end of the last school year, it was a little different because the pandemic was new. Even though most of us knew we didn’t need to take those precautions. But a year later we have vaccines. We have three types of therapeutics, at least that will cure people that go in the hospital. They have a 99 point something, a survival rate or a cure rate for these children. And they are not the ones that are impacted. It is outrageous that 15 days to slow. The spread turned to 15 months of just pandemonium. I’m

183grateful for our governor that has had a clear bind through this. And it’s just insane to do this. the gentleman who was just up talked about the rate, the number of children that have died through COVID in a year, over 4,000 children under the age of 18 die in car accidents. And yet we put them in cars every single day, we wear a seatbelt and they still die, but we still do it. I asked that we remove these mandates right away, take these muzzles off of our children. They are breathing in toxins every day. They’re getting headaches that you’re having lethargy their school, their reports, reporting scores are down. It’s just a nightmare. And when our founding fathers came to this country, they left their homes. They left everything behind families because of the tyranny

184of their government. And they came across the ocean to a land. They had no idea what was going to be over here, but they knew it was better than being oppressed by a small group of individuals. And that’s what we’re experiencing today. It is constant and it is unnecessary. Our children. Another speaker said that COVID has been devastating to our children. And you know why? Because we have done that. And we have sat here and allow them to be terrorized, to be fearful of people walking down the street, to walk around them in a circle, six feet distance. So we are vehemently opposed them ask, and we ask them that they get taken away immediately make it voluntary. Thank you. Yes, Aandra Griffin. She’s not here wearing a gold Wallace. She is on teams. At

185least she ready to go. Okay, great. Hello. This is well, you’re on your three minutes. Okay. Good morning, Heather Wallace. I want to thank you for Tabling. The requirement quest for $800,000 made at the last meeting, because the discussion that ensued was just embarrassing. the first concern I have is that it’s being presented as a crisis when it should come as no surprise to anyone. I, myself had brought the issue to the board multiple times, both the foreign after COVID and the pandemic was in full swing when the budget was adopted last year. I wasn’t able to hear the conversation that has happened today cause I was working. but any explanation should be seriously questioned because there’s really no excuse for that. That said, I did appreciate Dr. Hope, the sentiment that the request should

186have been a hard, no, because he wasn’t willing to bail anybody out. But I might add that teachers should not be expected to bail anybody out, either the contract allows for emergency coverage, but an emergency is an unforeseen circumstance. Like a teacher having a heart attack. This is not an unforeseen event. The district has known for a very long time that they did not have sub, but to feign concern now and say, Oh, you know, we gotta have this money. Or our teachers are going to be left high and dry is insulting. There are way more than two options here. And it doesn’t require too much critical thinking to figure it out. And I appreciated Ms. Foreman since your offer to cover, but keep in mind that most people are housed at the two district

187offices still hold valid teaching certificate. And as current employees, HR doesn’t need to put them back in the system. They can just, you know, get on the list to cover. But another thing Dr hope said is the importance of using leverage. And he really took Mr. Wagner to task about not using it. But that’s exactly why I asked you on April 13th, three weeks ago, to vote down the new administrative position, the one formerly known as chief of staff for $140,000 salary. I asked you to use it as leverage. I said, not tonight. I want you to use it as leverage to encourage the superintendent staff, to get this issue fixed. But instead Dr. Hall went with the majority and you guys voted unanimously. So while I appreciate that, he teaches leverage. I need them

188to employ it. I need them to use it. on another note, I got, a survey from the district last week that define trustworthy as acting believably. Now I would argue that it’s not the definition of press worthy, but even if it were, this is not believable, it’s not believable. And this crisis is not an emergency. So I want you to not give them the money. Okay. But I also don’t want you to allow them to make teachers bail them out. my time’s probably up, I do like to be positive. I want to thank Ms. Collins for getting me into the meeting. She did a great job, and I’d be happy to offer my suggestions because I, I do like to work on solutions, when I offer constructive criticism. But again, the conversation that is due

189Tuesday night was bizarre many levels. And this is basic. This is a basic need. We’re talking about the coverage of supervising Children and you guys don’t have it. Thank you, Mrs. Catherine Burns. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Katie burns. Thank you for the opportunity to speak the international journal of environmental research in public health compiled data from 44 studies and 65 publications. The aim was to find, test evaluate and compile scientifically proven related side effects of wearing masks. The literature revealed adverse effects, effects of mass numerous disciplines, including but not limited to mask induce exhaust syndrome, respiratory impairment, headache, temperature rise, fatigue, increased heart rate, psychological neuro neurological issues, mass green, people release smaller particles than less than masculine people. Masks act like. Nah, nah, I’m sorry to mask act as nebulizers and

190contribute to the production of very fine cells, smaller project Coles spread faster and further than larger ones. A test subject weighing a single layer of fabric mask was also able to release a total of 384% more particles of various sizes when breathing a person without a mask overall 65% of healthcare professionals. And as many as 78% of the general population use masks incorrectly everyday master even considered a general risk for everyday use is considered a general, I’m sorry, general risk for infection and the general population. And it, because we do not follow the intimate strict hygiene rules of hospitals and doctor’s offices. The who commissioned a study, which found no effect of masks in the context of influenza virus, pandemic prevention that could be demonstrated. Additionally, a Danish study compared mass squares and non mass

191squares in terms of their infection rates of SARS. COVID two could not demonstrate any significant differences between the groups. The masks currently used for children had neither been specifically tested or proof of this purpose. Mass block, the foundation of human communication exchange of emotions, hinder learning, deprive children and positive effects of smiling, laughing, and emotional mimicry soft-spoken or duck children, teachers and peers may rely on reading lips to understand or fill in the gaps. This cannot be done with most masks. Mortality rate is low for children. Studies have shown that child, child to adult transmission is minimal. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1820. I know no safe depository of ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves. And if we think then not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, that is

192freedom of choice. The remedy is not take it from them, But to inform the discussion by education Thomas Jefferson States, that we are to have freedom of choice. Individuals should have the right to do their own research, to be made free, to make their own decisions. Forcing Americans to wear masks is the complete opposite of free. We need to make the mask opposite optional, regardless of positivity rate allow individuals to make their own decisions, including students, teachers, and staff. Thank you for your time. I’ve cited my points in greater depth in my email. Thanks very much. And thank you for taking care of your basket while you’re here. Now you’re fine. We appreciate it. And we’re from Baltimore. We’re calling up the next, I just want to say thank you to everybody. I know many

193of you here don’t agree with this policy, but we really appreciate you having respect for it while you’re in the building. So thank you, Joe. That was Alison Hanson. That was Catherine Burns early Alison Hanson, Alison Hanson. Alison Hanson does not respond. Mr. Chair, Amanda Hozier. Okay. I do have my mess, but my question is since it’s not a mandatory mandate in the state of, in the Manti County, is it? And nobody’s within six feet of me, is it okay to exercise my right to not wear it? It’s a school district policy and we’re in a school district building that we have if you’re inside that you wear a mask. Okay. I just was curious. Well, thank you very much. That’s a fair question. Well, I’m Amanda Hosier. I was here the other night and

194I appreciate the time to come to the workshop and speak to you all. Again, I do feel that our liberties and freedoms are at risk here. It may, that may sound like a dramatic statement, but I do believe that I’m assuming that each of you are here serving our students, you know, and from what I’ve seen, it’s, you know, you guys are doing the best job that you possibly can. but I’m assuming that you’re wanting to serve the students of Manatee County and the students of this school district. And so far today during this, during the bantering back and forth with the, with the doctors whom have, which I don’t believe, our communicable disease experts, I didn’t hear from any one of those. I don’t know if somebody is weighing in on this from that

195standpoint, but I’m assuming that your interest is solely in the student’s wellbeing, health and wellbeing of Manatee County school districts. I hope that to be true. So I want to encourage you during this workshop time and time, and until you vote that there’s, what science are we following exactly? Are we, are we following opinions? Are we following? cause it sounds like many of you are for voluntary changing the mandate to voluntary, which is excellent. however, there’s, there seems to be a litany of information passed that that’s gonna, it’s going to add further restrictions. So it’s really it’s there, but it’s not there. giving someone permission to do something like saying my daughter can drive the car, but I’m going to hold the keys. Right? I’m giving her permission, but not really. Right. So I want

196to encourage you to look for the actual data because there is so much data that showing that mask, what we’re wearing on our face, this is causing disease. This is causing illness in us as adults. We should be upset about that. Plus our children. Like I have the same information that the woman that just spoke on, I, I urge you to consider that like nobody’s talking about what the mask has, is do as doing to our children that is dangerous, right? We’re putting a weapon on their face that is causing illness. It’s causing psychological damage to our children. It’s causing physiological damage to our children. Why is no one talking about that science? This is, this is, this is data. And I’m not sure why Dr. Hopes is not here to hear this. that’s concerning,

197but I’m sure he’ll watch the recording, but I want to encourage you that. And I know that you’re not experts and I’m not a medical expert. and we’re not advising you to be, but we’re advising you to get the correct data. This is for we’re here for the students and to better their lives. And there is proof that the mass don’t work. Thank you for time. Thank you. Shaylin summer Shaylynn, summer. Good afternoon. I had some stuff prepared that I wanted to bring, but, I had a couple of questions, which I know you guys can’t really answer at this point, but just to consider, when you’re talking about the percentage rates in the County, is that based on the number of people that are getting tested or based on the number of people total in

198the County, because that’s going to greatly influence the number and percentage. what I could find is that no, just looking online, the information that I could find is that as a country, no country really knows the amount of people infected with COVID. It’s only based on the number of people that are being tested. Now, that being considered has the number of people being tested, gone down. Because if that’s the case, then you have a small concentration of people who are still getting tested. And Within that tiny little community, their rates are going to be different than the rest of the County. Does that make sense? Okay, so that was my first question. Also, you brought up masks, haven’t been mandatory for a long time in the state of Florida and in Manatee County. So why

199would we enforce it within the schools? If our kids are still playing sports, if they’re still playing together, literally I live in a neighborhood where the kids walking home, they get out of the school, rip off their mask, and it’s like, they’re swinging in my tree, a tree just swings. And it’s a community thing like in the neighborhood. So I just don’t know how mass in the schools is going to affect the numbers that you guys are concerned about. The last thing about, you were concerned about graduation. it’s not about the older population, it’s about the kids graduating. So as much as I would love grandparents to be there, if they’re not comfortable and they, if they’re not comfortable, if they can’t get up the stairs, then maybe look for another option. Is graduation going

200to be live-streamed that might be another option. as Sondra said, just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should. I only have a few more seconds left, but I just, you know, I am disappointed. It’s taken us this long to get this far, given the amount of information that we have. You can see and hear a lot of parents here that are very passionate about this specifically. but I don’t think that we’re here to be against you. We want to work with you. We want to work with this, but we’re just asking the transparency and that we keep it consistent. Thank you. Thank you. Ma’am okay. Roman gold. I have no more names for public comment. Okay. That’s going to conclude public comment. we do have two more items, which I would like to, kind

201of quickly dispense of. and let me, I do just want to say one thing to wrap up this topic real quick is that, I appreciate the dialogue today. and as I said at the top, like I appreciate the emails that we get that, are, are agreeable in disagreement when you get kind of those screamers and thousands of exclamation points. Those are a little tougher to read and, certainly you’re welcome to send them to us, but I just want to say to those of you and four or five of you Were in the room, thank you for the, thank you for your advocacy and doing it in the right way. One thing about, if this, if we do put this policy into effect that we make this optional on June 1st or June 7th, whatever we

202do, I do want to make sure. And this also applies to Mr. Bray’s daughter, if, if Mr. Bray’s daughter or any other, the student’s district engages in a peaceful protest, I think they should be treated with respect. And if we, if we make this optional and some students and employees still choose to wear a mask, I think they should be treated with respect. So as we move forward, this is just such a, there’s so much passion behind this issue and there’s distrust and so forth. But I just want to leave us with that reminder to no matter what your position is, please always remember the humanity in each other and, and to show each other respect, even in disagreement and let’s, as it has been said, many times we all have personal choices to make

203whatever our choices are. There’s, there’s no need to tear people down because they make a choice you disagree with on both sides of this issue that said, thanks everybody for being here. I’ll we do have the, the substitute teaching employment services item still. And then number six, we have review of the superintendents evaluation form, board members. I’m gonna have, I have two separate suggestions for these, first off, hopefully folks, could you take the conversation out in the hallway, please Sign up or not? Thanks. Thanks man. Thanks. Why do we have the doors open for air flow? We don’t have air conditioning. I mean, it just brings more air in the room, you know what I mean? Good to go. Thanks, Paul. Yeah, you can. You can’t. Thank you. Okay. board members, we were slated to

204discuss the substitute teaching employment issue, which we originally took up on Tuesday. And then we, we did, was it finally a motion to table? I can’t remember, but, we brought it back and so anyway, we, we pushed it to, to discuss today. but as we kind of figured out at Tuesday night, we’re going to need to hold a special meeting next week. I believe in superintendents honors, if you want to address this, we have probably reached our, we approved 210,000 on Tuesday night, but w w if there’s a need for a special meeting means we’re about to bump up against that. Okay. So do you want to address the need for that? Certainly, you know, the, those funds, are going to, not get us through the end of the school year. So, we are concerned

205that if we wait till the next board meeting, we could be infringing on being a bit too delayed. So, we do think it would be best to have a special board meeting. We have to notice that within 48 hours. so one of the options we could do is when we notice, which would be Wednesday morning, if we did such, we could just have the discussion about this topic at that time at the meeting, and then you could vote on whatever action you wanted to take. Okay. board members would a, would everybody be able to, or at least could we get a quorum for, Wednesday at 9:00 AM, Either teams or otherwise? Well, we have to have a quorum in the room. so yeah, if, as long as we have three here, I know I can

206make it. this semester probably probably the fifth. Yes. Wednesday the fifth. That’s fine. Okay. Reverend goal, Yeah. Take your time. Yeah. Take your time. We’ll Use this, but you said it nine. Okay. 9:00 AM Wednesday, June 5th. All right. Excuse me. Thank you. May 5th. I’ll be anticipating that this is going to take longer than an hour. It will be a one item meeting. I would say if we, if it goes over an hour, there’s An hour. Okay. well, Chris, this is going to be much longer. I just have another meeting at 10 30. I think we’re good. Yeah. I think we’ll be out of here by 10. I don’t have anything for the rest of the day, but The audit committee begins at two, so we felt like it would be better to have

207it in the morning. So that those that wanted to participate in the audit committee meeting would be able to do So school, board meeting. All right. Okay. Starts five, five at 9:00 AM. Okay. So proud of myself. So Gina, if you have to be on teams, if you have to eight. Yeah. Cool. I’ll bring a three year old. Okay. That, that would probably be the best option. Bring the kids, bring the kids to work today. okay. board members next step. And we’ve pushed this once already, but I’m going to push it again, but I do have an ask for you. the review of the superintendent evaluation forum. Let me do that one first, board members, if you could, could you submit your changes? Thank you, Mrs. Mongiello. We’ll see you once a day and, submit

208any changes or comments you have on our current valuation form and submit them to Amanda. And then that will also give time for the superintendent to take a look at it and weigh in with any suggestions or changes that she would like to see. and then we’ll, we will, superintendent Sanders. What’s the, what would be a proper timeframe to put the evaluation form onto a board meeting for approval of the new form, if there, if it is going to be new? Well, I think we’re running two things. My evaluation for the year, I believe, has to occur in the month of June. So that’ll be on the existing because not done. So I think in my opinion, we could easily we’re running into may, I would say any time by the end of may. I

209mean, I wouldn’t think any changes would take much the liberation or length of time to alter if anyone needed, so we could put it on the last meeting in may or, either one of them in June, whichever you prefer. Okay. can we shoot Would even be for the one in July. I mean, these changes to be in effect for the, for the July one moving forward. So could even be on the July one meeting or, or the, the one meeting we have in July, just, I thought it might be best for the board if it’s, if we agreed to the changes after we do her evaluation, because we haven’t used it since last year, but you know what I mean? Like, it would be a good opportunity for us to use it and say, okay,

210I could see where this needs to be improved upon, or, you know, So why don’t we just, we’ll do the normal evaluation in June, and then we could bring this back for the new one first meeting in July or the only meeting of July, I should say. Yeah. I mean, somewhere between them, we can have those conversations because I mean, we always do the evaluation prior to the meeting when we’re, but I’m just saying it might be, I just think it might be beneficial to the board if we did that afterwards, because that could, you know what I mean? I’m a rise certain things when you do it. Absolutely. Right. And I appreciate the, the feedback there. No, this is, this is not going to be a review of the superintendents evaluation. What we’re going

211to do is conduct the superintendents evaluation With, with the instrument we have in place. Right. And then this point let’s do that with instrument figure, right? Yeah. But the answer, not, not the one. Well, the current form, so yeah, the one that’s the one that’s attached to the board work. Right. We’re going to use that one as we did previously. Okay. so we’ll go through that evaluation process in June. And then in July, we’ll kind of take our feedback from going through at this time and then create the next evaluation document that will be done next year. Now I understand we’re doing this because of the superintendent evaluation is due in June while we’re doing a board self evaluation form at the time I’m coming to it in one second, it soon up separately. what

212are, and I wanted to, save the self evaluation form until our last master board training session. I think that might be just kind of a nice wrap up just the thought, but Ms. For We have until 20, 22 to complete our master board training. And I think we decided that, we were gonna wait for those until Dr. Hopes replacements here. Correct. So We, our policy calls for a self evaluation annually. So, and this has not been done Ever. And yeah, That’s the word I was looking for. so I know, I think we need to, sometime in June do our self evaluation, plus we’re going to be doing the attorney’s evaluation. Isn’t that coming up in June. Okay. I thought the attorney evaluation is cause we pushed it from December to this June. No, we adopted

213the phone and we were going to do it annually and we were going to do it at the time that we also do our reorganization. We come back, not in the, not in the, not in the fiscal year, not in July, but in November. I don’t know. I just think it, I think it’d be odd to say on and you get an evaluation and you get an evaluation, you get an evaluation. I just think that’s, I don’t know. And also a self evaluation, all of a sudden, I just feel like that’s a lot. I think I w I, I have no problem and I don’t think we need to wait until the massive we’re training to do this. I actually think we should do it. and I think we should do it. And then we

214can say, okay, well, this is, this is, this is, are presented. Some ask the board, Hey, this is what we’ve been doing. And we have on this works or this doesn’t work. I don’t think we’re gonna be able to say that unless we do it. So I think we should do that, but I don’t know if I think we should do it at the same time as I think there’s merit to breaking them up. Like if Reverend golden says, Oh, we are going to do it at a certain point. Like, I think there’s merit to breaking them up throughout the year for our sakes, for the sake, for the fairness of the evaluations. I think they should not be all at once. That’s just my own piece on that. Mr. Chair, if you’re open to

215any suggestions, I would like to suggest that the board self evaluation form, be done during the same timeframe about reorganization, what that does, because all we do is come together for the reorganization at that point in time. And it allows us to be prepared to look back over the last year in terms of what we, what we have done. W you, you have a 12 month cycle. if there’s a new person that comes on the board, obviously they don’t have to participate in that. And then you get a whole year of that person being on the board before you have to do the next one. So if we, if we tie that to our annual, reorganization, it gives everybody an equal opportunity to do that. That’s just my suggestion for some reason or another. I

216don’t know why I thought that that was when we tied the, the lawyers Feeling Mr. Dye might remember best since his evaluation. Do you, do you remember yesterday? We should probably refer to the minutes, thought it was going to be at year end as well, or in November, something like that. I see my memory and Amanda and I will go through the minutes and sort it out. But, whatever it is, it is that was end of the fiscal year. And, but we’ll, we’ll figure it out. And the interest in the interest of avoiding funkiness. I’m going to say I have no, no better vocabulary. Or, or to that point when people are getting put right on the board, they may not want to do one. So maybe it’s the meeting right before that, because that

217would be all the members that are here, But it may happen with like two hours notice. So I’m just, I’m just teasing. Yeah, no, that’s fine. I know, I apologize. But it probably, the day of the reorganization meetings is not a good time and it makes no difference to me whether we do it, the last meeting we were all together, or the first meeting that we reconvene after the election, that doesn’t matter because either in either a new person on the board will not be doing any evaluation. Cause it’s an evaluation of the year before. So which whichever produces the least degree of funkiness. That’s a young person’s worded. Okay. She’s comfortable with it. I tried it out. It’s supposed to be funky. Okay. That’s a no, that’s fine. Okay. like I said, Amanda and

218I will get the, all this sorted out and, and I will shoot an update to everybody. So we’re on the same page, Whatever it is, what it is. Oh, okay. I thought you wanted to speak. all right. I’m going to close my usual. Thank you to everybody who helped us get ready for this meeting. we had a lot and we tried, and I apologize if I know it was a little too, maybe bit off, a little more than we could chew today, but I think we got some really good work done today and I appreciate, I appreciate the teamwork and the support from him. That’s it? Yeah. I just, I hear Dr. Hopes echoing in my brain. We are not allowed to run out of money and then appropriate money to cover what we’ve run

219out of. Is there anybody before we adjourn that can tell us whether it was maybe the superintendent, whoever we have in fact, cause I thought that was why we were going to meet today. And we were really going to make some decisions to try to dig out of this hole. And I talked with, by the Wagner, you know, before we started and he had some solutions, I don’t want us to adjourn and then be out of time to, you know, to take can, that’s why we do feel that Wednesday, Wednesdays, we couldn’t have voted on the item today, regardless that was going to be conversation. That’s why we do feel that we need an emergency meeting because we would be concerned that if we waited to our regularly scheduled board meeting, May 11th could put

220us in jeopardy of just what you’re speaking of. So by meeting Wednesday morning, we should be in an inappropriate situation. Okay. Right. All right. That, that, that’s all. I just want to be sure that we didn’t accidentally do something. we’re gonna anything for the good of the cause. Some boroughs is what I’m saying. See you on Cinco de Mayo, have a great weekend.