001And boy, these are following up this morning, the cold temperature in here. see if I can navigate without those. the largest of our budget is salary and fringe benefits. and so we developed this, we use the, staffing allocation plan to identify the number of instructional units. Those are the largest percentage of our employees. And so really that’s the first big rock in budget development that we put in the jar. so we wanted to talk to you about the process. The process really hasn’t changed. since last year, we, there are some highlights and some things that have changed, the biggest point I’d like to make those at the only thing, the only certainty with this information is that it will change. So, things that have affected our ability to project enrollment, we have the change in
002the kindergarten, option parents can choose to hold their kids out a year, previous years, we would look, we would look at births five years prior and we would use that data to, to complete projections. Having parents have an option to hold their students out and other year really throws a wrench into that estimation. We’ve had significant changes in the interest in the, the family empowerment scholarships had a significant increase in those last year. you can see on this slide, the second slide in the presentation, historically we’ve had a pretty steady trend in enrollment growth. We had a, you know, going from 2018, 19 to 1920, you see that trend plus five 83, we’re on the second slide now, for 20, 20, 21, the current year, we actually had a decrease of six 22. And you
003know, that’s almost certainly COVID related. And then, the next projection plus three 15 compared to the current year, that’s what DOE is using. And what’s unique about, 21, 22 is they pretty much mandated what our enrollment projection was going to be. We didn’t even really get an opportunity to adjust that next year. Yes, sir. Could you talk about that a little bit? Cause I was just going to ask you, does that come from the final survey that next school year, first calc is the final survey of the school year? No it’s taking, the current year data and applying and I was listening into this state level enrollment projections, and they were just talking about the different assumptions that they’re going to use. What do they think is going to happen with kindergarten? It’s a crystal
004ball that they’re using that we don’t have access to, but they decided what model made most sense for the state and they’ve used it. And they said, this is what you’re going to use. Typically we can pick from one of, I think it’s nine different models. And if we think a model, you know, model three works better than model two, we can submit that to DOE and there can be some back and forth on adjustments, you know, whether or not they agree with it. because everybody’s goal is to have the most precise number. the danger is if at the state level they underestimate and they fund a total dollar amount. If the enrollment exceeds that dollar amount, they don’t kick more money in, they, they adjust our funds downward on a per student basis. It’s
005called a per rated holdback. We experienced that in the current year, we lost about a million dollars. with February survey information, you know, they were holding us harmless, but then they didn’t, they didn’t hold us harmless. Ultimately. I mean, they did with the big, you know, the, the big enrollment drop, but, but we did have a prorated hold back of about a million dollars in the current year, Tim, one second to a board member since we don’t have the software up, if you could just, if you have a question, just get my attention. since we have no buttons. Sorry. So, again, we just want to talk about the process of developing the, the first part of the budget, the biggest part of the budget, and, we will make adjustments on the 10 day count. That’s
006really when the rubber meets the road for the four instructional staffing. The issue is if we, if we waited until, you know, we had perfect data, we would be behind the eight ball, with regard to hiring capable our hiring of teachers, because everyone is out there trying to hire from the same shrinking pool of teachers. And so we have to just come up with some assumptions and act on those assumptions so that we can have adequate staff in place at the start of school. And the 10 day count again is when we, when we make adjustments based on the enrollment at that point. Yes, sir. Given the uncertainty with respect to the manner in which we calculate for budgeting purposes, what is the, what is the margin of error that we allow or that, that
007we are going to look to to make sure that we aren’t caught by surprise in terms of I’m more concerned about, underestimated, because what you say is that if you underestimate, they’re not going to adjust the figures out. Superintendents owners will us. You want to address this as well? Reverend golden, I, monitor myself and Mr. Sours department monitor the enrollment all through, from the time we do our draft allocations until the board finalizes, our allocation, plans and our budget. So we do make adjustments. What happens on the 10 day count? the state receives all of that data. And then, in addition, we have our first survey in October survey to, well, it’s not the first survey, but it’s the one in the academic school year. We will get the money for survey two in the
008calculation around December, around Christmas time. So they do make adjustments and funding. If you are, do have an increase, they, they generally do increase you to some degree. However, you will have to have already hired and staffed for the first half of the year, without that adjusted increase of budget, you will get it, but you, you, you will have had to operate accordingly because why we have a class size amendment, we need to make sure that all the schools have the appropriate staff. So you want to be pretty close in your projection as you can. It doesn’t do you good to over project because yeah, you’re going to get more money than you should, but guess what happens? They take it all away from you. So, they never let you just keep the dollars. If
009your, if your staffing plan does not meet what they funded you at. So they do make an adjustment, but there is a gap of how those funds really can help you. in, in, Mr. Margarine is a hundred percent correct. Many people we saw during the pandemic chose not to enter their child in kindergarten this year because of, of that allowance. So that really is an area that we gave our best guests based on trends and so forth. But that could be an area that we will see a change of an increase more than what we had anticipated, but we do monitor along the summer. We will give out additional units if need be knowing that we’ll capture some of that money on the back side. But that’s why we, you really, it is a bit
010of an art to project enrollment and it comes with time. this one will be a little bit odd just like last year was because of the pandemic because our normal trends are not applicable. but you do, you don’t want to under project and you do not want to over project cause neither one is favorable to, to the district’s finances. Maybe I’m not, I’m probably being too subtle here. We are having this conversation amongst professional educators and the school board. I’m concerned with how do we express the changes, the, the uncertainty in lay Language, because I, I just see it, that we’re going to approve. This is not going to be enough money. the projections are going to be off and that’s going to be our fault. I don’t know that’s going to be our fault.
011And so what I’m really trying to deal with here is how do we say this now? So that when you say it’s my fault, I can honestly say no, because we told you these uncertainties existed. They are from the state level, this is what’s happening. And this is why. And we’ll reiterate that throughout every workshop. I did want to a couple of clarifications, while the superintendent was speaking one, I think I used an acronym. FEFP that’s the Florida education finance program. That’s the primary funding vehicle for districts in the state. and really student enrollment is what drives our funding. Student enrollment is what that, that formula uses to determine state funding. If at the state level we’re, we’re no greater than the statewide allocation to the statewide enrollment number that was used with the legislative
012statewide appropriation. Then we will be adjusted based on actual, because we’ll have losers and winners. You know, if we grow more than Hillsborough, some of those dollars would flow to us instead of to Hillsborough, because it’s all based on enrollment, the prorated holdback I was talking about, doesn’t come into play unless as a statewide level, the enrollment is excessive and that’s when you know, we nobody’s gonna benefit. We’re all going to take a hit. So hopefully that makes sense. No, it, it, it does. And I’m, I’m hoping that we can keep talking plainly, The biggest thing is enrollment drives funding and, you know, for us to plan for the start of school next year, which we have a tentative budget hearing in late July, the final budget hearing will be in early September, the first
013meeting in September. So we have all summer to continue to refine, use the data that we’re seeing through the choice enrollments and those types of things. and that’s why at this point in time, we’re not saying, Hey, this is what the staff, this is what we are going to budget on. We’re, we’re building it. And it is going to be a fluid process throughout the summer, as a, as more data becomes available. It’s a data-driven process. but as I mentioned earlier, we, we don’t have perfect data right now. So we’ve got to make some assumptions so that we can get out there on the street and hire the teachers that we’re going to need it to start a school. Right. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Continue? so school staffing
014plan goals of the model transparency, and you’ll see that, we have a couple of different documents that we share with all schools. We also provided, in addition to the PowerPoint, we provided a notebook and this has a lot more information, really school level staffing, every school is in here. but we do cover everything that’s in the notebook has covered in the PowerPoint, but there’s a, you know, a lot more, lot more information in the, in the notebook. If anybody in the public would like to see a copy of this, I have one available in my office. so transparency, we want it to be easily understood, represent all schools and departments. We want to be consistent from year to year. It is formula driven. So enrollment drives as it drives our revenue. It also drives our
015teacher allocations. And of course we had to be focused on the class size, maxim ratio requirements. it’s a proactive staffing allocation plan. We want to make sure that we have staff on site at the beginning of school and, you know, hiring decisions. As I mentioned, we’re, we’re, we’re out on the street right now, trying to hire teachers. We will make adjustments when we get to that 10 day count. Now, we have just a little over 100, which is, probably the best we’ve ever been at. do you think that our salary package, in many factors have contributed to that? we started before we did the virtual job fair at close to 150. So we have hired, which means we’ve gone through the whole process. I think you all have 20 or 30 on this agenda for
016the next one, but that means we’ve done the reference checks. The applicant has accepted the position in the system and being processed. So the job fair, which we knew had about 550 people participate, I think has really benefited her nothing but great things with participants, but for us to be in may and only have a, a bit over a hundred vacancies for teaching positions is probably the best I’ve seen since I’ve been here in eight years. Okay. That’s, that’s the good news I was hoping to hear, and I thought that number would be 200, but it’s 100, so fantastic. Thank you, Virginia. Yes, sir. And this is actually a page out of the allocation report. The goal is to, is to transition, to using this, to communicate allocations to principals. It allows us to track
017from year to year. Each position has a unique number. I mean, there, there are lots of benefits from implementing this, and we’re pretty, pretty darn close to rolling it out completely. it’s an 830 page document right now. We’re working on getting a summarized version, but just wanted to share with you that we are continuing to attempt or continuing to work on improving the process. And we were, very confident that once we get to the rollout of this, it’s going to be very beneficial. the, this is just the formula that’s used for the allocations plug in enrollment by grade level. And it’s just so, as I said earlier, it’s formula driven, the, K through three 18, one 18 to one 22 to one. Those are the class size maximums per the constitutional amendment. additional staff are
018allocated, you know, based on enrollment school size type of school. And this is very similar to, what’s been presented in prior years. Number six. Sorry. It was, it’s really a question for the superintendent. It says assistant principals. I’m sorry. I’m so far away from the turn into, assistant principals, one per school, and then this is the L 300 schools. You get little more by need. How many L 300 schools do we have? we have right now because the state changed it to a three-year average instead of an annual, it used to be just each year. So many of our schools would have come off. And then of course we didn’t have the data last year, but we have about 10. So, many, what we’ve done to support our most needy schools. Of course there are
019tie titled one that, that makes up our big 10 group. many of them either have an extra AP or an extra coordinator, for that administrative support in addition to, extra staffing that we use title one funds for. Okay, thanks. Okay. I have a, not a question, but, well, a request for information and, this is across elementary and, and middle, but I’ll just use elementary as, as the basis of the question I’m looking at support staff and under council, it says a counselor, one per school, over 650 students. And then in the title one it’s if one per school, and if it’s over 650 kids, then you add one. If it’s a title one school, you add a counselor. If it were over 500 students, my question is what would be the budget, the effect of
020the budget if we lowered those thresholds, for example, for a school counselor, if we went to 500 students per school, and then in title one, for example, we dropped it to, you know, 300. And so maybe you can just kind of play with those numbers a little bit to, Well, actually Leslie will she’ll readjust the formula. And what it’ll do is if I changed the number it’ll show, how many additional people you need when we, when he builds the budget right now, he goes off of an average salary until we get actual people hired. So, if I can give you what that net change ends up being, then you can, he, what he does, his team plugs it into that average, salary formula. And that’ll tell you what that net change. And, we, we, we’ve
021done that a number of times, a couple of years ago before the pandemic, when I really thought we were gonna hit the jackpot financially. And, life was really on a high note. We had lowered that formula across the board. Now we, we, we did with that and we’ve added counselors. What the threshold was better, as well as some other areas. But, tell me what your number you want to be at. You want non-Title 500 and you want, Yeah, I can sure you can, we can easily give you that net change of money. and Mr. Are Ron, we’ll be talking about a couple of things in there. We have not received, , information. So there’s still different pockets of money that could be coming that with, certain priorities or expectations from the board. Things can easily
022change. And I think that’s why he emphasized that at the very beginning. Th this is where we’re starting based on all the information we have today, but it is fluid because there are different funding sources that could change things to an improved status, but how we have to build our budget and meet the HR timelines. We have to go with what we know today and then adjust up or down as the funding and resources. Yeah. And I, and certainly we have plenty of data on, you know, the, the mental, the mental health aspects, absolutely over it in the pandemic. And the other thing we’re spending extra money everywhere, and we haven’t even received it yet. Sorry. The other, the other point of emphasis, I will tell you, and this is when we were receiving, as
023her money and the emphasis from the state was for mental health and so forth. it it’s when you’re adding a bigger increase to a certain segment of our allocation plan, sometimes it is very difficult to even hire or find the staff that meet the qualification. I added a lot of Paris last year for support. I could have given people 20 more. It wouldn’t matter. You could not, you couldn’t find enough people to hire. So it is always better to have kind of a staggered, increase when you’re doing things because of finding, appropriate people. I will tell you right now, we do have guidance openings in the district. And that is one of the things that we’re working on recruiting. and, Mr. Wagner is working with HR on a plan for, you know, just some areas
024that we know we struggle with ESE, secondary math, secondary science, of course now reading endorsed teachers and guidance counselors. Those are our high demand areas that, we we’ve got to do more than just the average of job fairs to, to get, appropriate hunters. Yep, sure do. Yep. But we’ll, we’ll run the numbers and, report back what that differential is. That’d be great. And as long as we’re on the topic, I’m just curious, where, where are the, school psychologists They’re not in, they are in the, department budget. They’re under, Nikki Cox under ESE, and then she has signs. Well, there’ll be, they will be in years, but it’s under a department instead of the school. And then she assigns them to the schools from her district, allocation. And I just want to add, with the Sr
025funding uncertainty delays, we’ve also had a similar delay with the IDE allocation for next year. So once we get better information on that, yeah. We’ll be able to, you know, to address some of the ESE, needs, as you said at the top, this is a work in progress. Absolutely. Sorry, before we go, I heard reading mentioned, but I want to get a little bit more specificity as to what particular, efforts are being made to address, the, the reading levels that are climbing. But I think we’re still right at about 50%. So, I’m, I’m looking at particularly the elementary school staffing, and I know we have probably a paid obese sense to this in terms of getting reading specialized people. but is there specific particular programs with last year? We said that we were trying to
026get people involved in, in increasing reading scores. I don’t know whether that’s more power professionals. I don’t know whether we need more teachers. How do you, how, how are we addressing that either, particularly with this uncertainty now. And I, I, I don’t want this to be a title one problem. Cause I don’t think that only the title one schools have reading level problems. I think that this is something that’s kind of wide. So how do we do that? Well, that’s a great question. And I can tell you we’ve done, many, adjusted things for this upcoming school year. First of all, the state has recognized that third grade reading is not, from a state perspective where it should be and Manatee County is not where we think it should be either. So, they did put in
027a statute, and it’s, they’ve treated it differently than what they’ve done in any other case. But every teacher, if you’re teaching tier three students, whether you’re elementary, middle, or high, it’s a C K-12 statute, you must be either certified or reading endorsed, which means you have to have a special specialized courses. And the state has to give you a certificate or an endorsement to meet the statutory language. They do not allow for this year, any out of field. So in the past, they would give people an opportunity, maybe a year, maybe a little longer to work towards a certification. It is time certain. So there is no latitude this year. They’ve recognized that if we don’t have experts, specialized people in this area, we’re not going to move the needle. You’ve got to have people
028that know what they’re doing. So, I worked with a team and modified the elementary master schedule, built in a tier three across the board, whether your title or non title, if your L 300, built it a little longer, but are built in that tier three intervention block. And we are going to require that certified teacher to be in there, those students to be assigned to them. And they will have a smaller number than what the class size amendment is. So they may be a homeroom teacher with 18 kids in a K to three. But when you go to this reading intervention block, you may have a different teacher that has that expertise to teach those students. We’ve also bought additional curriculum and we’ve done non title as well as title in the past. We’ve allowed
029non-Title to have a little bit more flexibility on picking curriculum. We would give them a menu, but each school could kind of operate a little bit on their own this year. Ms. and the curriculum department, along with, input from principals and teachers, they had a team, they came up with the appropriate curriculum for the tier three intervention, not the tier two tier two. We know we’re using iReady, et cetera, but this is tier three. And we’re doing specialized training all through the year, starting in the summer to make sure that the teachers are adequately trained. They are endorsed, they’re certified, whether they’re K to 12 and that’s how we’re addressing it coming up. So I’m real excited about our plan and, hopeful that we’re going to see a lot of progress in the future. How,
030what percentage of those, I don’t want to say success, but what percentage of, activation have we accomplished now? We, in this uncertainty, are we certain about that? Or do we, are we about 50% there? The certified teachers? Yes. We have enough certified teachers to apply to what, what we need for our schedule. Okay. Okay. Now that doesn’t mean every teacher is certified or endorsed. The hope is that they’re all going to get there, but we also know that in a school, not all kids need tier three intervention. So the statute requires it. If you’re in that intensive class, if you’re in middle or high, or you’re in that reading intervention block in elementary, if you’re on grade level, your teacher would not have to have that specialized endorsement. So I, I don’t want to misrepresent,
031but, I know that our teachers have been working tirelessly. Our curriculum has made a, plan, a PD plan, or they can get the endorsement within our organization. And it doesn’t cost anything it’s free. So they have been working on it, even with COVID, it’s been very challenging, but I do feel confident that we will have the appropriate staff needed to fill those positions and to staff, for our students. Now, remember, you’re making your schedule kind of like the budget you’re making your schedule for next year’s needs based on the data you have right now, they will have to adjust it in the summer. After we get the data from the state, because we may w w we are going by who we think is going to be tier three, but they could end up taking
032FSA. And some of them could end up being out of tier three needs. Some could draw back and need tier three intervention because of COVID. And that is why it’s so essential that we have some accurate data on where those kids are, because if they’re not properly placed and getting the right intervention, we are not going to get them proficient. I don’t want to get into a dialogue here, but, and maybe this might be better set offline. I felt that the legislation that they passed with respect to third grade reading levels was specifically designed to deal with the statewide challenge of children not being able to read. does that mean that that particular statute and the money is devoted to, that are exempt from the ordinary budget process? Or is this just another category? No,
033it’s a category everything’s category. We’re calling those. He’ll tell you when you get to his, we’re not ahead. So we, But we, we are getting Sr funds and other additional resources, even though they could be a one-time, application to help with bridging the gap, closing the gap and addressing those reading deficiency. So once again, what we have is another unfunded mandate from the legislature to improve, to improve reading scores and reading levels. And we have a statute that requires us to do that, but I don’t see any setting aside of any specific funding to accomplish that They did put money in Essar to, and I believe there will be money also in Sr three. So in the short term, there will be funding that will be applied in use to help these initiatives. Absolutely, but
034it is categorical. All right. Thank you. Madam superintendent. I have a couple of questions That kind of stemmed from that. I do remember when the, the training program to get this done came before us. And I remember talking to you about that. the, the reading endorsement, I guess my concern is in a title one school it’s very possible. You’re going to have a significantly more correct children in the tier three, and that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to have more teachers that have that. So my first concern with what I heard was I’m concerned that we’re going to overload teachers because I have this, that they’re either the class is going to be really big, or they’re going to be teaching this more than once, rather than dealing with the rest of their class during
035this block. So that’s my first concern. my second concern is how will this affect their teacher scores? Because now they’re being given this, there, they are going to be pretty much required to take this because the other teachers may not have it. And now how’s that going to affect their evaluations. and, my third thing is, is there a way, and this is probably a bargaining thing, so, but is there a way to incentivize more to get this, You know, this is coming from an elementary teacher and you can tell it is because all the questions she asked were all the right questions. the wonderful thing about title one schools is they do get additional resources and they are able to purchase additional supports. Yeah. they are required to have a coach they’re required to have
036intervention teachers they’re retaught, required to have additional supports. Would that mean stated some of those people, if you’re an intervention teacher, you could be teaching, teaching a block of L three of those tier three kids all through your day. That is what your job Is. That’s what I’m imagining. That is exactly How that’s, how we have it, because those classes have to be small for those interventions. And the other thing that those people are going to get or Paris. So in that class, that’s already for that block of time, that’s already going to be small. That’s where the pair of support comes. That’s where the certified teachers come and they are scheduled because as you know, if it’s a statute, they, and you have to have certain certification when they come to do your audit,
037that is what they’re going to audit. Their chief got a block of time. You’ve got the tier three kids scheduled and you have the appropriate teacher assigned to those kids. So it has to be done in that fashion. so they are scheduled. Those students are a part of that teacher’s evaluation. So if I’m a teacher, I’ve got a class of 18, but my reading block could be a different group of kids. Those are assigned to be, so it is a portion it’s not the bulk of your whole day, but it could be a portion, but I will tell you, from a remediation type they’re evaluated on gains and improvement. They’re not evaluated on proficiency in many cases, those end up making higher marks than those that have level five Kids, hundred percent. I understand that
038have to Keep a level five kid, in order to keep that highly effective rating. So I, yeah, so, so that’s that part. And, so that’s the evaluation. They are able to hire and get additional staff in order to require those, reading blocks not to be overloaded. And there was a third question that are, did I, It wasn’t about incentives. It’s incentivizing it so that we could get more teachers to get this endorsement. I mean, we are offering it. I remember the board approving the, have that as a Oh, so we can have that and have the teachers get that endorsement or the, or whatever they choose, but I don’t know why you would choose the certification instead of the endorsement, but maybe there’s a job difference there. But to me like the endorsement, you don’t
039have to get as Well. It’s the process Is different. Yes. That’s what I’m saying. I don’t know why you would choose the certification instead of the endorsement, because to me, the endorsement is easier to maintain and easier to acquire. Right. But maybe there’s a, there’s a job difference in, in the district. Cause what I’m saying, but to me, Oh, well that, I don’t know why you wouldn’t get the endorse, get the endorsement people. Thanks. Sorry. We’ve taken over Tim’s presence. That’s okay. I was gonna, I was gonna say, as long as we’re at a break, Tim, the goal, if we can, is to be done by 10 15, cause we have two more items that are pretty, very dense. So I can go. I mean, and that’s not just for you that’s for all of
040us, like that’s just our goal too. And no more questions off topic, sort of just saying I can’t talk Well and we can, we can go through the rest of the PowerPoint very quickly because really the point was, as I said earlier, just the process and here we are, this is first agent budget, budget development. So we wanted to share that with the board. so elementary allocation model, middle school model, and again, very similar to prior year high school model, we do have a slide that talks about changes. So here we are highlights. And let me see if my glasses will, maintain the basic ratios. 1822 and 25, PE teacher allocation methodology, methodology changes elementary school, which resulted in a minus six, EAC Perez minus 28. And again, we don’t have some Ida funding, finalized
041yet, so that if we were able to fund ESE Perez out of Ida, I’m sorry. I have a question about, I noticed that there was some changes here and they concern me because there were a lot of ESE changes and I understand what you’re saying about the Ida funding that doesn’t change, how many ESE students we actually have. so I want to make sure that we eat. I understand that schools have a very difficult time hiring certain ESE teachers. For instance, I’ve known schools that had an EBD option opening the entire year and never were able to fill them or they’d fill in. And then the course person would quit and they’d fill it again and the person will quit. So I understand that part, but I’m concerned that we’re not going to give the
042schools the supports they need for these ESE students. I will address that. Yeah. I can tell you, as soon as their budget comes in, this number will change because there will be funding and resources and all the information that now they already have staff. This is, this is kind of some above and beyond numbers. from what I heard, both of those S or buckets we’re supposed to really be emphasizing and adding a lot of funding for ESE and, and students of need, we’ve just not received it. So, it’s mid may surely we’re going to get that by the end of the month. I mean, it will be coming. So all many of these things will be adjusted and the, and the swing could even be at a higher rate than what you’re seeing from the
043deficit right here. But Mr. Bars you’re on is a pretty conservative. And if the money is not in the bank, he doesn’t write the check. I appreciate that. Except for the fact that the students are still going to be there. Well, we will, we will staff whatever we need and pull from another source if we need to, but we’re right now trying to build it on information we have, it’s still early. We’re going to get it. I just want, I just want to make sure the schools have that because I know that’s one of their issues. I’ve gone to lots of schools and almost, Oh, there’s custodians and there’s ESE. And those are the two things that I hear a lot at the schools I go to. And so I just want to make sure
044that we supply them, at least, even if they can’t fill it, try, you know what I mean, have the ability to even try. But, but I believe you’re really wanting to build such an important part of our, curriculum around federal funding. That’s a short term strategy. And I mean, we, and that’s where you, you will start hearing the cliff. It’s just like, it was back in 2010, 11. but you know, it’s just, let’s develop a strategy is going to get us through the next couple of years, who knows what the state’s going to do in two years when the Sr funds dry up, hopefully we’ll have additional K-12 funding. but you know, we’d have to build a budget one year at a time. We do look, we do look out more, but the legislature each
045year establishes what the funding is going to be. We have no idea what that’s going to look like for 2022, 23 or 24. So, it’s an annual challenge. The landscape has changed dramatically from prior years. And, and so we’re just trying to, you know, develop for 2122 as best we can at this point. And we talk about the cliff. Often the cliff being when the federal funds go away, you know, we’ll have to bring positions back into the general fund because some of the positions are just critical. You know, we find that some counselors with the first phase of the cares money, when that goes away, we have to have the counselors. So, you know, we’ll have to address that in a general fund at some point in the future, Let, let let’s change our
046metaphor. Let’s stop talking about a cliff and let’s start talking about a wall because of the federal funds dried up. We were at a, we had a brick wall unless we get more money. I just used the term cliff because it’s nationally used. And Yeah, but the reality is that in Florida, that’s a wall because we do not have a income tax here in this state. And we do not have the liberal fiscal policy as it relates to public schools. So Side note, I can tell you, we looked at, sales tax collections for our local capital fund and, taking, information through the, through the mock through March the ninth period of the year, extrapolating that through June 30. we’re up more than the estimate is we’re going to be at more than 10% of our
047adjusted numbers. So the sales tax revenues at least locally are definitely on the recovery at a very dramatic pace. So statewide, if that’s occurring, you know, the, the general fund budget statewide could really improve quickly. So who knows what’s going to happen two years, three years down the road. So that’s why we’re going know right now we’re focused on 21, 20, but we are not losing sight that these federal funds will dry up. And we’re going to have to be ready to address that when they, when they do Continue, sir. So this is just a sample We’ll of the current, communication to schools, principals on what their allocations are. You can see on this, this is the same elementary school we picked last year. on the, on the left side, there there’s a column that
048says 10 days. So we’ll go in there and populate that when we have that data push the F nine recalculate button and we’ll get a new staffing number, but this is something schools are accustomed to receiving the green box. Those are notes that are, that are made. And Leslie, Baker’s our allocation person. Thank you, Leslie, for this work. And also Gina, melanova our budget directors here. I want to thank both of them for, I don’t want to forget to thank them. So we’ll just do it right now. a lot of work goes into, into this document. This is what feeds into the budget. And, you know, we’ll have, additional workshops throughout the summer. This is a multi-page document. you can see on the left, it has, current year numbers. It’s just a tracking method for
049us to use, to, you know, to look at the data by school. and these again are in the notebook. Each school is in the notebook, but we just wanted to share a sample of what this looks like and what schools see. So it’s a pretty involved allocation process. So then we take at a very high level, all the information from all the individual schools, we roll that into the cost estimates, using updated, salaries, and fringe benefit costs. We did get some information on FRS changes, the tail end of the session. I, we may, we may need to make a slight adjustment in the fringe benefit costs, but that’s just, you know, routine, with information that comes out of the legislature, they did increase our FRS contribution requirement at our next workshop. When we talk about
050the revenue reduction, we’re also going to talk about that unfunded mandate. So we have a mandated increase in the employer’s contribution to Florida retirement system. along with the funding reduction, we will bring you those summaries at the next workshop. It’s a, the regular Membership class. So whoever falls into that and, it’s, I believe it’s the unfunded accrual liability portion. That’s driving the increase, which, you know, the Florida retirement system, investment returns tank, like everyone else’s, Founding just like everybody else’s too Slowly. so just the cost summary. So this is what’s being built into the budget, you’ll see the general fund budget changes, and we will be using this data to build a budget. So, unless we get other things to change, this is what we’re going to be working with throughout the summer. And we
051focus on, yes. Okay. I’m sorry, just before we move it to the next one, I just had a question about a unit cost per position. And let me just use, I’m on page, it’s page 22. It’s a secondary, well, I’m sorry. No, it’s not. It’s 22 and we’ll just caught my attention was the administrative, cause the unit, like, let me just start at the top unit cost for a media specialist is 59,000 a fringe benefit costs, almost 19,000. Is that our current average or is that just our, is that a spot on the salary range for the position? Like what are we using for unit cost? Yeah, it is listed, those are average costs. That’s our current average employee costs Today with our, this past year compensation ruled in. Okay. And what happens after the
052board finalizes the budget in September, they go back in and put actual costs when you’re building, what does that mean? That means we could hire people at say some veteran people retire. we only allow eight years in it. It could change. but when they, when it’s built at this phase, that’s the easiest way to do it is an average cost based on current employment. Yes. And the underlying population. Yes. Okay. Thank you for each category. And We usually, you know, and I’m accustomed to working with union leadership to say, okay, we’re going to take a snapshot on this date. And this is the data that we’re going to use for negotiations and for budget. And we all agree on what that average number is, here’s the dataset. And so that takes away a huge, potential
053disagreement down the road, you know, Oh, well, hold on a second, you’re using a higher average than what we currently have. Let’s just agree on the number and move forward because it will change as the SuperNet said, if you get, you know, churn in your, your employee group, the average is certainly going to change. So, now we’re getting into the departmental budgets. As I mentioned, we focus more on the instructional initially. I know we’ve had, is since this was prepared, we’ve had some requests from departments to add additional positions, additional support positions. And, you know, as the budget is developed, we will evaluate the capability of funding those or not. So, you know, again, it’s a work in progress. The focus initially is on making sure that we’re funding our instructional or our school-based S
054in classroom and support positions school-based is the priority. and these just, you know, provide the, the number of units compare year to year by, department when they live within each division. no significant changes. This is also in your notebook. I don’t know if you want that. Just wanted to provide this information. I don’t know if you want to discuss any of the particular slides, but I think any questions you could stop us. And I think this gets us to the end of the presentation. Can you repeat your question? I’m sorry about that. No, I’m sorry. With respect to the, the new position of diversity and inclusion director. Was there any staff and support that went with that, or is that going to be from existing staff? They will have, an assistant to help them, but
055it will be part of it within our HR department. So there is a team of people that will be helping this person. Okay. Oh, it’s not okay. But I’m just trying to figure out when you bring in someone at that level, There will be, there will be people working with that person that’s already in existing jobs, in HR, on staff that do some of those roles and functions. So there are already classifications that we’ll be supporting, that, that team and that individual to execute the work. Who are they working for Right now, they report to the director of HR. So, some of those duties will change and some of those folks would be working directly with the diversity, director, Not working for both, not working for him, But they won’t report to both, but they
056will be collectively working together because they, one is in support of the others. Right. If you’re trying to look at recruitment and retention, you’ve got to work hand in hand with HR because it’s a staffing situation and getting the data personnel, et cetera, but correct. Yeah. You, you only have one person that you’re reporting to the same thing with curriculum. Exactly. You got work with them. They’re part of the team and the table and conversation, even though they’re only in one department. All right, thank you. Yes, sir. Sorry, I don’t want to drag this on, but actually he brought up that position and that position, I just pulled it up reports to the executive director of administration, which has that job title. I think that we all retitled and whatever. Right. and that person does
057report to you. Correct. And what I had noticed in this presentation is there isn’t any that I saw, miss Yos and I saw Mr. Wagner’s, but I didn’t see your staffing. I didn’t see like this job. Didn’t see. I didn’t, I didn’t see the communication. I didn’t see the executive director it’s in the notebook. Okay. It was, because it’s a smaller, department and individual names. It’s more easily associated with individual names. It’s in the notebook. It wasn’t in the PowerPoint last year. And so just trying to be consistent from year to year, we just stuck with it. It’s in the notebook though. Okay. I had the notebook in front of me. I was just, I had reviewed the presentation. So I’ll review the notebook too. Ooh. We debated. And we just stuck with no, I’ve
058stuck with last year’s format. Yeah. I just want it to be transparent. So to me, like I see these other two, but I don’t see that one. And I, if I recall last year, I don’t think it was put in there because I don’t know if it was all completed at the time, but I could be wrong. I don’t recall. That was, that was my first workshop last year. Oh, Oh, Hey, look at you. That’s almost a year. I know what to say. Happy birthday. I don’t know what the right title is. Happy. Congratulations may 26 for a year. A couple of million dollars along the way. So thank you for that. And we didn’t really go, I think we did Last year. So, you know, getting closer to two marches, the goal, but crazy,
059you know, crazy. It’s crazy. Things happened last year, March, 2020. Yeah. So anyway, that’s it. Yeah, that’s it, man. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, sir. So when do we get to do this again? We’ll be doing it all summer. Oh, well, you’ll get the final, complete budget that this is part of in September. So Tentative budget is July 27th. I believe the public hearing. Okay. And then you vote on the actual inception. Yeah. That, and just as a reminder, the tentative hearing is primarily to set the millage rates that then the tax collector sends out. And then the final budget adoption That remember ours is in July, which is big Important conversation with the millage question. Sure. So we’re talking about the millage at the end. Well, not withstanding
060the millage though. We do want to get some type of information out to the public about the budget process. Some so that we don’t hear that we didn’t, get input from, from, from the public. If this is coming back to us in July, the 20, is it 27th? We’ll be on the phone. And so we are here already at the, this is the first meeting in may. So maybe we can start putting the notices out so that people can comment respond, or at least know that it is a work in progress and probably won’t be completed until, until July. but we are open to comments, I guess. Well, we could, communications office could certainly help us with that with through the connect ads. We are in the process of workshopping now budget for the next
061year, open for comments, open food recommendation. We certainly have our personal platforms as well to get the word out to our people too. So, no, that’s a good idea. Red and gold. we certainly seem to hit a, we are, we are hitting an apex of public input or the past couple of weeks, so let’s ride the momentum. okay. superintendent Yoast. Welcome. And thank you to Mr. Bergeron and his staff starting us off today. Yeah. Thank you. Chairman Kennedy, board members, superintendent Saunders, and members of the audience and exciting time of year that comes annually and that’s to address our student progression plan and the proposed changes. This is always a lofty cask and I want to thank, miss, Shirley Hurley for chairing those efforts. She is with me today and will be co-presenting as well.
062So as we get started, I want to make sure that I’m operating this properly. There we go. Thanks. I’ll maybe I’ll let you, I’ll let you navigate. That’s fine. So as we move forward, you have some things in front of you. One is the PowerPoint presentation and the other is a summary of changes and this is color coded. And I want to point out that the things in red or legislative changes, but they have not been signed by the governor yet. So they are bills. They have not been signed off by the governor. We are including them. We’re preparing for future. However, they will be removed if they do not become a reality. So we want to prepare for them. They are very important and our process takes us through July and felt it was
063important to include it now to make certain that it’s comprehensive because many of the bills that you’ll see when we get ready to review the, PowerPoint. Yes. There’s an exciting part in here. Yes, sir. Reverend golden and that refers to voting cause so we’ll get there in a minute. He’s busy. He can’t contain himself. So as we move through, we’ll point those out in entirety, but we wanted you to have it on the summary change and I will address those as part of the PowerPoint. No, sir. You never know. Allow me do not. It was a bipartisan support. We do not anticipate having the funding resources that we’ve been allocated or the laws that have been put into place. So we walked away with some positives this year. We feel that they’re all going to
064go through, but until, until it’s done, it’s not right. It, the, the character education piece passed both the Senate and the house unanimously. So he should probably sign that one. We don’t see a reason, a reason not, But we’re cautiously optimistic. We’re trying to, Yes, sir. That is correct. So as I proceed through, we have some breaks built into the PowerPoint presentation. So hopefully you’ll be able to ask questions at that time so that we can move forward more rapidly Here, that we are referring to breaks. Thank You. So the legislative update summary in the PowerPoint presentation, which is the next slide, summarizes all the bills we received these Friday of last week, May 7th. So Mrs. Hurley has really done a yeoman’s job of reviewing the information conferring with general counsel, as well as
065making certain that we pull out the components that are applicable to the progression plan and education. So the summary of the bills are listed in front of you at this time. As I mentioned before, they’re all pending everyone on this list right now is appending. The governor’s signature. The summary of the legislative changes is as I mentioned in this full packet of, of summaries. So as we move forward, the presentation expectations for today, we have the update process, which includes today’s workshop the 25th. We hope that you will approve to advertise and notice the public hearing in the newspaper, which would occur on May 27th and then the public hearing and board approval, what occur in July, July 27th. So that’s what the SPP update process looks like. We have formatted and edited changes in
066here. Each time you add or delete it, then certainly throws off the page numbers and all of that. So that meant addressed changes pursuant to policies and procedures. And then next steps, we will be taking notes as we proceed today and addressing, information that comes from you as well as the public, as we move forward towards the July date. So the SPP committee, we had 45 members comprised of, school-based principals and assistant principals, counselors, coordinators, specialists, and district leadership that came together and focused on the various components of the plan. they were charged with updating the current student progression plan and aligning it with any new state and local policies and to ensure a pathway for seamless articulation and for our students. That’s the most important component. This document is referenced throughout the entire year.
067This is not a document that gathers dust throughout the year. We reference it frequently as we address parent concerns, curricular concerns, promotional concerns throughout the year. So as we proceed, the formatting and editing the cover page of course, was updated footers reflect the new school year. Grammatical typographical errors were addressed the regular, formatting and editing editing that would occur. So we moved to the next slide, which is general information for K through 12. And the first section has to do with admission and enrollment. And, enrolling parent will not change unless both parents agree, unfortunately have faced dilemmas where I enroll my child, my spouse, and I separate. And then my spouse comes in and wants to change their address, their name, their location, and school site. So we, we are adding a component where they
068must agree to the changes so that especially during disputes family disputes, this is the child is not moved in and out. So this applies primarily to our secondary students. We will no longer accept the Perth. That’s a state requirement. So it’s now the PSA T a C T S a T. So that is a change that is addressed in the document. Moving forward to page 12, we have edited language to remove specific, specific subject areas. And now it refers to the core academic areas. That’s the way the statute addresses it. And so we are aligning our verbiage to this statute. this change is also in the elementary section, under promotion requirements, and that’ll be on page 25 of the large document. So we’re trying to tie everything together for consistency. As we move to page
06913, it talks about the student’s citizenship and behavior, and we edited language to reflect current grades and marks for each grade level. So as you can see, it says for kindergarten and first grade and we’ve, whited out the first grade and then made certain that the, grading system that we are using is consistent with our report cards and everything that is in practice. We was in to the next page on page 15, where we talk about our multi-tiered systems of support and TSS, as we addressed in our last workshop, language was added to include other supports in MTSS in the framework continuum. So this aligns with the MTSS handbook that we reviewed during our last workshop. So we’re trying to make certain that the MTSS handbook, our reading comprehensive grant, our student progression plan, all
070align. They should be, aligned with one another. There should never be any gaps in the process. The language is the same. The process is aligned as well. Moving to page 16, we talk about, language again that was edited to correct names of problem solving teams. that’s the only difference there. This is what we refer to when we were at the school-based level, the teacher collaborator, instead of the grade level, the content area. So those small changes have been adjusted. So there’s consistency that only in practice, but in written documents then on page 17, which addresses intervention, remediation and progress monitoring, we have edited the language to identify specific grade levels impacted. And we removed requirements to flag a course. It is, as it is not required. So that language, talks about the early warning system
071and the elementary reading decision tree, which once approved gets inserted in this document, as well as part it’s an appendix, right? So then we move to page 17, which is intervention remediation and progress. Monitoring continued. This language changes to reflect the intentions of the state regarding requirements for students to exit remediation. We don’t want them to continue for life. We want them to close the academic gap and to then exit the program so that they can work in, in the mainstream. This language aligns with the district decision tree as well, pages 20 and 21. This is new legislation. This has to do with character education. We have been providing character education for years. The thing that is new is the final comment that excited Reverend golden so much. It talks about the curriculum for grades
07211 and 12. It shall include instruction on voting using the uniform primary and general election ballot described in statute. So this is exciting as a matter of fact, prior to the passing of the bill, and I’m not sure that berberine golden knows this. We’ve been working with the league of women voters, and we’re trying to work with a high school to create a video and help with the education process of our students. So we were a step ahead and I’m sure that it will come to fruition. The students will create the video themselves. We’ll be working with, Southeast high school. And we thank Mr. Schreier for his involvement in that process. Congratulate, you’ve been talking about this for a year. He has been thank you so that we’ll get back to focusing on the SPP.
073Yeah. As we move to pages 21 and 22 parental rights, this bill is massive and there are only certain components that really apply to education and specifically the progression plan. So we’ve taken those elements from the parental rights section. The entire section is new in legislation and in our document. And we’ve also worked with general council to make certain that we include we’re inclusive of any of the information that would be aligned with our educational process. This comprehensive bill, does fit in and many times with the SPP. The things that stand out to me are the fact that you need to have parent support in many areas. One of them is the videotaping of students. We’ve always asked for permission many times at the beginning of every academic year, the schools have a general form
074that is sent regarding videos and photos. We have interns who are expected to come and work in our schools and then videotape or record the process. We’ve always asked for parent permission, but this makes certain that we are aligned with statute. And I can see there’s a question there missing. It’s not a question. My understanding was that we had an opt out system where it’s not a paper that’s sent home. And instead it’s, if you want to opt out, you need to notify the school. And that is the one that goes at the beginning of the year. But for example, the urn intern situation I was mentioning, we then send it to every PA every parent of a child who may be considered to work with me as an intern, during that videotaping for video
075of photographing the audio, or, Yeah. So in the beginning of the year, are we now going to send home something because we don’t, we don’t necessarily go above and beyond what we normally do, right? They have the opportunity by the student code of conduct to opt out. But in these particular special circumstances, they’re getting extra permission to advise them, Hey, we have an intern that they, in order to graduate this program, they’re requesting the opportunity to videotape the lesson. So it’s above and beyond. You can get both, this is an extra layer, okay. As a parent, I like that. I’m just, I want to make sure like Parents overall will appreciate that additional level of, And, and just final note, because I deal with the internship agreements for them to be evaluated. They’re not onsite.
076So the, the need is to be able to show their lesson plans and we ensure confidentiality to the extent you can not imagine. And in section E it talks about promptly notifying parents. If there are incidents that occur involving the state, and the only time we would not promptly do that is if law enforcement became involved first, and then we followed their direction. So that is outlined in section E on here as well, the right to notify promptly, if an employee of the state, or any other governmental agency suspects that a criminal offense has been committed against, his or her mind find her child. So the exception is when law enforcement enters first, we follow the law and proceed with the law enforcement efforts Wrinkled this just yet. I bring this up because, I’m involved
077in a situation right now in Pasco County where, law enforcement, has been granted access to the, records of children that, are suspected of being possible criminal future possible, future criminals, possible, future criminals. And I just, I wanted To make sure that in this County that, nobody has access to Always consult legal counsel when a question arises where we are in doubt. So, no, sir, that does not occur here. And I’m glad to see both of our attorneys are shaking their head, asking the question golden. I understand that I’m glad the team is in agreement today. Reverend golden, that is an, this, this is a very big issue in the, in the state. And I, it was brought to my attention as well. And we’re ensuring only those that need to have access will have access.
078Yes, sir. Yes. That’s fine. And passcode has seen the Irv the way isn’t it as well, but to see the problem is that you got a whole lot more Pascoes then you got manatees in the state six 67 pounds. Oh yeah. Yeah. So, it’d be kind of embarrassing for me to be an accountant there. What they do in Pascoe is what we do here. So, but, seriously, I just want to be sure that the parental consent, even though there may have been, it does say consent. It says notice. So even though law enforcement may have a valid reason for whatever it is that they’re trying to accomplish with prospective certain student. I don’t think that that obviates the need to notify the parents, that, that, that, that child We’d prefer to err, on the side
079of caution and notify them more frequently than not. Yeah, That’s the thing I’m concerned with is that the parents know that this child may be under investigation for whatever it is that the law is that is proper to them. We’re aligned with law enforcement and can do so. Yes, sir. Yeah. All right. So once we move to the next page, it focuses on health education. And once again, health education has been a part of our curriculum for years. The new components are H which is the education of prevention of child, sexual abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. And actually we have been full force focusing on that. We’re gathering data right now to make sure that we’re honoring the mandate primarily at grade six through 12, but as the top line indicates appropriate content. So we
080make certain that it is aligned with the appropriate content for the age group that we are serving. So our curriculum maps and all are very specific. The last two sentences are also new, link to access and review. The instructional materials is available as well as a parent may make a written request to the school principal and exempt. So it’s an opt out for any discussion on reproductive health and disease, including HIV AIDS, and then To follow on health education. Oh, remember, they’ll, they’re changing all of the assessments to align with the best standard. So we really have no idea what things will look like for a bit as of today on health education, right? And then the final two items in elementary education, the first one deals with academically challenging curriculum to enhance learning and
081that’s XL. And this change was made to include the principal and the parent in the recommendation process for moving a student up a grade level, it’s a team approach. And so you see that the classroom teacher and the counselor have always been involved. We added the principal and the parent for input, as well as in, see, this change was made to remove the approval responsibility from the school principal in, in, in isolation, but to a district committee to review those recommendations. We take these very seriously when you were promoting a student a whole grade for promotion, the final one has to do with good cause. And this language was changed as the set 10 is no longer used and to provide for other assessments approved by the state to be used for good costs. So
082this concludes the general section in elementary. You’ve asked a few questions along the way. Yes, sir. Any others it’s okay. I just have one of the set 10, are we, are we taking that out because it’s not being used it’s legislative or data does not rarely do we have any students past that, that haven’t received good calls from portfolio or other? We are, our other elements, tend to be far more effective for students than that. So by giving that assessment, in addition to the other, it’s, it’s another test, but it has not been very effective at all for our students, for those that need to take it that are on there or yeah. Or more successful. Okay. Any other questions on elementary or the general sector? That is part of our curriculum maps. It was
083not in here, but we will go back and review to make certain that we haven’t missed something that should be added to this document. Okay. And, this thing that came up the other night, my mind is, is, is failing me here. the issue of, that we, that there’s some notion that, that we’re teaching cultural, not cultural competence, critical race theory. Yes. That’s it, this is said things that don’t make sense to me. I try not to put them in my mind to begin with. So when it’s time to talk about them, I can’t remember them because they never made sense to begin with. That’s why we’re a team. Yeah. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, because I am concerned that, that critical race theory, is somehow being injected in, into this consideration for character education.
084It is not, sir. And then that is taken one step further with the curriculum maps, as well as the selection of resources that are approved for implementation to reinforce the curriculum. I’m not quite so sure what critical race theory is because race isn’t a theory. It’s an, it’s a thing. we do have different races, different boxes that we check. So I’m just trying to make sure that the character education that we are supporting here in the state, is a proactive approach to in enlightening, everybody inclusiveness. Yeah. That’s, that’s the main. Okay. And just to be very clear, as long as we’re on this topic, critical race theory has become like a, a boogeyman and a scare tactic for some. And, but, but let me be, let’s be very clear. And the superintendent said this in
085an email last night, that critical race theory has absolutely nothing to do with K through 12 schools. So if anybody out there here’s this, or like, it has nothing to do with K through 12 education Florida. So just take a deep breath and move on to the next Facebook post. Any other questions on general section or elementary before we turn this over to Ms. Hurley for middle and secondary. None Ms. Hurley. We’ve got Bayshore high really? Well-represented in here tonight or today. Excuse me. Hello everybody. It’s been a while since I’ve been up here. Welcome back. I’m nervous. Don’t be, it’s just Ash. I now. Okay. So I’m going to start with, the middle school section that be slide 13 in your packet, in case you flipped around looking at the others to, ask your
086questions. And so we’ll start with the new legislation for health education in middle school. It’s essentially the same as it was for elementary, but it does add, the component. it’s the first sentence under the, numbered lines. The health education curriculum shall include an awareness of the benefits of sexual abstinence as the expected standard and consequences of teenage pregnancy. So that’s just added clearly that would not be appropriate to teach K five. So that’s added, starting with, sixth grade, on page 34, we’ve, changed some language, to align with our district reading plan. Of the student’s final grade is made up of the end of course exam. That’s correct. And if they get a 0%, what does that do to the final grade? If 30% of the portion of the grade is zero, you’re basically failing the
087student, correct? Well, if the student doesn’t take the course or doesn’t take the exam, that’s the grade we have to include. Now, if a student comes back and makes up the exam, we will do a, a grade retaliate. I’m just assuming, I mean, I’ve, I’ve, I haven’t run the calculation, but if somebody comes in with like, an, an a on 70% of their grade and they get a 0%, they fail the course about, okay, Because that is in state statute, the end of course, exams. No, I get it. I just want to make it clear. Everybody understands if you get a 0% and then of course grade you failed the course that’s true, right? It is probably mathematically impossible to, to pay us, which is why it’s essential for, for them to take it or
088ha or come on a makeup day. We have makeup in the summer, and then we go back in and change it. But, but it is a requirement. It may not be clear to everybody unless I pull out a calculator, I have graded a lot of papers. Right. And remember, this is for next year, right? This year, the state has given us waivers of consideration. So I do want to make sure that people don’t misunderstand, this is our student progression plan for next year, which reenacts back on the statutory language. and we do have a process that is posted on the waiver. If a student doesn’t take it this year, there’s a way that it can be waived and that zero is not applicable for their final outcome. Well, I guess if they have a hundred
089percent going in at 70% of the grade, then they could eat it out. I guess I Prefer they take it. We don’t want the meeting. Yeah. Yeah. That’s not the 60%. We really want them to take it. Yeah, I get it. I get it Tunity for retakes on the summer and the fall. The state gives them multiple times throughout the year. And the EOC testing is a graduation requirement. The only people waiting from it are this year, seniors, when they don’t have to take it this year to get their, credit grade, they can take it later to me. Well, if I want to go to college in Europe, you’re great is the end of course, exam. And I mean, in graduate school, it’s, it’s the very end of everything. So it’s kind of good to
090get used to that. Okay. So that was kind of it for middle school. Not much change there, mostly new statutes, but let’s move on to the high school section again, we’re addressing the same, such a, I’m sorry. I apologize. So I’d like a point of clarification. This may already be in our, in our policies, but, when, when we talk about prevention of child, sexual abuse, exploitation and human trafficking, there are some specific legal parameters that attached to these types of conduct, but there’s also, and I don’t know quite how to say this, but that there is also conduct that the child may not be aware of that falls within these areas, that the child should not be subjected to. How do we, without violating the rights of the parents, how do we encourage children to
091report or to disclose? And I’ll just use inappropriate conduct by adults, toward children. Yeah. That I would say this, as children get older, they get a little wiser and they start to understand the system a little better. So we have a little bit harder time addressing that when we get to like the high school kids, the older middle school students, younger kids will pretty much tell you. but we, that we work closely with the school counselors work closely with the school nurses and the teachers. And if there’s any, behavior that seems out of the ordinary, there are certain signs that we’re taught to look for, like strange tattoos or, all of a sudden a student is coming in carrying like expensive things that they didn’t have before. So there are some clues that we can
092look for to see if a student might be in jeopardy of being trafficked or, or something else. and we, you know, we work closely with the rest of the school team to try to identify that and work with the students and the counselors get involved in that. And a lot of that is through the human trafficking and some of the other education that we provide to our students, those things are, taught to the students, but you’re right. Sometimes it is difficult to get them to disclose. I don’t know that I’m not really talking about, the, the economic or pecuniary things that happen that disclosing. I’m talking about uncle John who lives next door upstairs or downstairs, who visits? How do we, if it’s not being taught in the home, how do you teach the children?
093This is not appropriate. It’s not appropriate for your uncle to be kissing you. w w w French kissing you, that’s not appropriate. Does that make you understand what you’re saying? And, and, and I, I don’t see, I see us addressing overt criminality, but I don’t see us addressing covert inappropriateness. I can’t think of it. Think that comes with education, Reverend golden, starting in elementary, you do stranger danger. You talk about appropriate, inappropriate touching, and then it enhances, awareness for students. And that’s what this health education is about. So that hopefully a child, if there is something, inappropriate in a home, they would then confide in a teacher or in a counselor, someone that is on the campus, who they feel is secure. Okay, that’s good. Cause I looked at the elementary, I looked at the
094K through 12 part. I didn’t look at the elementary part, but what you’re saying is that in the elementary part, they are specific With that information. And that’s in our curriculum maps. It’s not detailed in the plan per se. Yes. So we use two, we have two things that we use, the elementary level. We use a Manatee children’s services and we use the Monique Burr foundation curriculum. And both of those things, have information built to teach students to recognize what abuse is because you’re right. Sometimes they don’t know that if it’s uncle Joe, who’s doing something inappropriate, they don’t tie that to it being abuse or sexual abuse. So those are the things that through their curriculum we try to teach the students, make them aware that, those really are abusive things that, that you
095should talk to somebody about. Okay. Thank you. You’re welcome. Okay. Any other questions on the middle-school section before I go into high school? We’re good to go. Okay. So in the high school section, we again mentioned the using the zero for a student who does not take the EOC. And we’ve also, put in here a deadline for making up semester one exams. this, many of the semester, one exams are secure exams. And, if we drag that out too far, we’re kind of compromising the security of those tests. The other thing that we wanted to make sure is that, 10 days after the end of first semester is when we locked down class rank and we want the grades to be as accurate as possible at that time. So that our class rank is correct. And
096so that as students are sending transcripts out for colleges, their grades and all of that stuff is correct. So putting that deadline for getting those, makeup exams done is very, very important to making sure that we have accurate information at that 10 day Mark after the first semester ends. we’ve got some civics legislation, that we are pretty sure the governor will definitely sign this. Yeah, we’ll see. and as you know, Charlie or Mr. Kennedy who taught high school for most optional exams for there’s no, if there’s no benefit, whether you get an acceleration, you get a certificate, you, it’s a requirement. It tends not to have the best reasonable. I was thinking more of the post-secondary credit. Like, but yeah, I mean, if, if it would be awarded as, like you said, th there tends
097to, it’s very hard to motivate students to take the Nate test when it doesn’t apply or translate to any tantric benefit. Right. It would pass this. You don’t have to take the FSA, you know what saying? But just to stand alone. Yeah. We’ll see what happens, see how it goes. We’ll roll it out this year and see what happens. Piece of the civics. Literacy is a practicum that the commissioner of education is supposed to design. We don’t know exactly what that’s gonna look like yet, but it does say that it could be incorporated into the, us, government class. And, if that hap, if, if, if that is incorporated into U S government course, any, volunteer work or service work that a student does as a part of this outside of the classroom can be applied
098toward bright futures. So even though it would be a part of the class, the community service, typically when it, when community w typically, if it’s an assignment, we don’t include it as bright futures, but if it is a part of this practicum for civic literacy, then we can include that for bright futures, which is definitely a bonus for our students. back to, more health education at the high school level. Again, it’s basically the same with one addition, and that is that, we are required in grades nine through 11 to teach first aid. it’s going to be a one hour component. The statute also says we are encouraged to do it at the middle school level. we did not include that in here, but if we feel like we need to go back and make it
099a mandate for middle school, we can, but it is mandated for ninth through 11th grade. first aid. I did have one question that I didn’t understand what is a non hour is training must be based on a non hour. I think that’s supposed to say one hour at the, okay. Yeah. So one hour. Yeah. That’s definitely a typo, right? Yup. Okay. Thank you. Okay. If they’ve met certain benchmarks, we don’t want to keep them in there. If they’re showing progress towards meeting those benchmarks and being able to be more successful on those state assessments, there’s no sense in keeping them in there if they, they are meeting the benchmarks. so we are going to remove them out this semester, which is our natural schedule change situation. the thing in the high school section is some
100ESE information. I believe it was last year or maybe the year before the state passed the, bless you an opportunity for, ESE students with disabilities to defer their diploma so that they could stay in school for, you know, another year or two, they’d all the state did this year. It was just kind of changed the timeframe by which a student has to identify that they want to defer their diploma. and so it has to be, it has to be in the IEP. The IEP has to be updated and including include this information, for the IEP that would start at the beginning of their senior year. So they can’t just make the decision any time. It has to be in their IEP at the start of their senior year. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. I mean, we’re ready
101for the end of their senior exit. I mean, some of them are probably done, but they do them toward the end of the year. They give them those opportunities, The language prior, prior to the new language you said during their senior year an IEP team meeting during their senior Year. So I just want to make sure. Thank you. So, any questions on high school, Does that, have you concluded the part about the virtual education? Oh, okay. Let me make sure you don’t have any high school questions. Okay. And I want to thank, Doug Gordon for sending me the information on the virtual education. basically there are about two pages in there that are being removed pages 87 and 89. when we first started, when the legislation first came about offering virtual school options, we were
102required to offer three. my understanding is now we are only required to offer one. So we have eliminated, one of the Florida virtual school options that we’re still using Florida virtual school in many ways. And we’re also removing the K-12 Academy option and we’re sticking with our Manatee virtual school and then leveraging, Florida virtual school where it’s appropriate in ways that we can. and that is that, is it for virtual school? It was, it was, it’s a big change because we’re removing a lot of information. Yes, ma’am if, if there, if there’s a reduction in the options for virtual education, and now we are dealing with returning next year to, brick and mortar, as a primary delivery system, does this, is this a modification of the 20, 21 year, or does this return us to
103where we were in the 1920 year? I’m going to, if it’s okay, I’m going to defer to Ms. Saunders because she’s had some conversation with, the virtual office that I have Not been a part of. she has way more information on it than I do. There’s a little, there, there are some changes, but what those statutes said is we only have to have one contract within our district. It doesn’t mean that parents don’t have a lot of options, but because they do, but in terms of what we support, we promote, we give information and we manage, we only have to have one prior. There was a requirement years ago that you had to have three. So we would have to have contracts with a multitude of agencies to make sure that we met the statutory
104requirement. You’re saying we only have to have one, but it does not limit the choices parents have. They can easily be a homeschool student and go into a multitude of virtual or online platforms that they seek out themselves. We just only have to manage and partner with one. So that’s, that’s what we’re doing. And ours is a subset of Florida virtual that we manage and hire our teachers would then Manatee County. Is it fair to say that in Manatee County, if we develop a policy with respect to how we want to, conduct the next school year, that there is a capacity in statute that says that if you do not like our policy relative to in house brick and mortar training, we have made this available to you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So it’s not a,
105it’s not a, you must do this or you don’t have an opportunity to go to public school. It is, this is what we have decided is in the best interest of most of the students on the, your parental rights, in the same statute, you have a right to participate in the public school system virtually. So that is still there. Yes, It is what they’ve done. And they probably had a lot of feedback. It was very difficult for districts to staff and manage a multitude of platforms. So they’ve now said, all you need is one option that you’re referring people to. So we give brick and mortar. We also give this that’s under our domain, but it doesn’t prohibit prohibit parents from picking other avenues or other choices. There are just not ones that we’re managing
106or we’re partnering with. I understand. And so basically what I’m, what I’m trying to make sure of is that, that our policies do not have to be limited, in the context of all children required to come in brick and mortar. This statute says that if you don’t like the policies that apply to children who come to brick and mortar schools, we have a policy. We have a statute that requires us to accommodate now last year, because of the pandemic circumstances, we, we had, we had to offer this and we then had to go back and apply for a, an exemption from how we, how we counted heads, correct. Is that still in place? Now? It will divert back to the, statutory language of funding and FTE counts. So they will either be an, the enrolled
107school of Manatee virtual. if they’re enrolled in Manatee County, they’ll either be that if they want to stick with our organization and being an online platform, or they’ll be in a brick and mortar school, there is no waiver. There is no different funding. The funding will go back to the traditional statutory language that we were accustomed to before the plan. And so, and so that’s my question is that there’s no need for a waiver because these children in this process will still be counted toward our FTE as students in, in Manatee County. Yes and no. They do count for our FTE. However, when they’re online, here’s the caveat. They do not fund it at a hundred percent because it’s online. The state funds, online schools at about two thirds of what they do, brick and
108mortar, because you’re not paying for brick and mortar. The other thing they do is we get the funding for those students in the rears. They have to complete, we have to pay up for it. The money goes out upfront. We get reimbursed if they complete and pass the course, the virtual course. Yes, sir. Okay. So then my last question is, is that one of the contingencies that’s being built into the budget process and what levels are we expecting today, that, we’re going to have virtual participation next year. We, we do think it will diminish greatly from, where we were, but we do, feel that there will still be a number of students choosing virtual until they feel more comfortable as the year went on, we saw more and more comfortable coming back. our traditional schools
109had more students, brick and mortar than actually the charter schools did. but we do think we’re going to have between one and 2000 students. That’s what we’re planning, that Could still choose the online option. That’s a lot of money, a lot of figuring 5%. And, and right now our Ft calculation per child for brick and mortar is going to be around 7,500 give or take. So remember the FTE for all those over there is a less after the fact. so that’s why when you see our staffing plan, if I don’t have money, Todd two things, it, it’s not budgeted. It’s, it’s not shown yet. We do think we’re going to get a number of resources though. Of course, we know we are, we’re going to get an ESE budget. We’re going to get an Ida
110budget. We’re going to get an answer three budget, but until we see the numbers, we’re very cautious of putting it out that this is what we’re doing, because it’s got to have the money to, to staff. and, and we’ll adjust where the needs are recording. Thank you, Madam superintendent. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ruth. You other questions for me? I think, that, that was, I just wanted to comment on that Reverend golden beat me to it. So I think we’re, I think we’re good. Thank you, Sean. Thank you guys. Great. Josh, Charlie, I remind you I speak MEF at 12. So if we’re still running late, I just, yeah, I’m on their agenda. That’d be on there. Okay. All right. gentlemen, our final and I would say most, some of the most dramatic changes
111we’re seeing in the district is, is up next. So I’ll let you guys take it away. Thank you, sir. Good morning. Board members, Ms. Saunders, I’m George Sharen, director of student services with me today is Dr. Skip Wolf who chairs our code of conduct committee. he’s been doing so for over 10 years. He does the heavy lifting. He does a magnificent job. So I want to publicly thank him at this point in time. Our purpose today is to present the proposed changes, only proposals, the code of conduct for the 2122 school year. We do have a PowerPoint we’ll go through Dr. Wilwood will read the changes, our offer, some information we’ll answer questions that need that you have. the theme this year, much like the past couple years that we’ve been doing this as a
112team, it was to look to reduce exclusionary practices as much as possible, with all the legislators legislative change that was going on this year. Do you want to know what I’m reading? I’m just working off the red line Copy within the pages. Won’t be too accurate, but if you want to go ahead and look under a important policy section, it’ll be right after you see the medication policy. so w wherever that might be on the red line, edit copy towards the end. I’m going to guess on your redline copy. It’s going to be somewhere around page 62 or so, is what I would guess, but you’ll see a little box that has got your, your medication policy information on it. It’ll be right below that. Okay. Yes, sir. Any questions on item, number one with,
113and again, what that does is in case that we need to reenact policy 84 50, again, that gives a latitude for us to be able to do that and cover us in the code of conduct. Basically a contingency plan. Yes. Ma’am. Yeah, of course. Go ahead. Yes. Ma’am, we’re just talking. So I, if I remember correctly, this insert had rules about what could be on the masks and other things like that. If we do make it optional, I feel like we’d still need something. Maybe you’re going to put that somewhere else. We already had that in the code of conduct. It was more of a point of emphasis that you’re not going to get away with things that are distracting in it from an educational perspective or inappropriate. so those are already contained within the,
114the code of conduct under our dress code area. What’s allowable, and what’s not allowed. Okay. I just want to make sure that that’s still like I get, I get that. I just wanna make sure that’s really clear cause I could see that being yes, Absolutely. But we have that covered this map, the second point or the second item on the agenda is that we added a new equity, diversity and inclusion statement on page one, a and this replaced our prohibition of discrimination statement that was previously in there. And you can see the old statement in the red line, copy, that’s this lined out. And again, that speaks to us being consistent with existing district policy. but also when you look at those terms, those are near and dear to us when it comes to student
115behavioral support, that’s what we try build our practices about moving forward. Make that change as you know, it’s not a problem at all. Yes, sir. Thanks. Change the wording around. Yes, sir. Thank you for pointing that out. We’ll do that. You said you’re in touch with that community though. And what I like about attending, we all, it goes from prohibition discrimination, that negative statement to phrasing things in more positive statements. So, you know, along the way, we were able to do that. And I think that that’s always something that we like to do is be more positive and things that we state. Number three, we reviewed the existing middle school and high school discipline matrices that we developed last year. and we revised the prescribed action for several incidents, particularly the ones that were on
116level three. If you wanted to look at the secondary matrices that we have in there, we wanted to make a consistent, So what’s your clean copy page number on this one? E Well, not in the same, but it approximately the same area, in the clean copy as well, but it’ll be the low twenties and we review our matrix as a yearly. We do that for accuracy. We do it for consistency. We’re always striving to improve our practices. so that that’s normal standard procedure for us. Okay. So you all, you really have recreated this matrix. You’ve struck the whole thing and created a completely, I mean, I want to say rebuilt it from scratch, but if you could talk a little bit about the specific, It’s been a two year process of, you know, we spoke
117last, should we spoke two years ago, actually three years ago as a committee, we realized that our exclusionary practice policy was, was a bit high by, by our standards. So we worked as a group to minimize what we’re doing with out of school suspensions, any type of exclusionary practice and this, as we move forward, we’ll, we’ll be the continuum of services will always continue to review and try to minimize those type prices as much as possible and, and, and replace them with, reflective practices, restorative practices, you know, the MTSS process, those type things relate to counseling services that we do now. That’s, that’s our mission in, in, in our department moving forward. Okay. George, if you could talk about that a little bit, because I remember when you presented at the CSPB, earlier this spring,
118you talked about this in a little more detail, and I thought it was interesting that wheat, in the matrix, there were a lot of disciplinary functions or actions that, you know, went from a week or two down to three to five days, as you said, in the interest of reducing that out of school time for the student. So, if you could just, if there’s like, if you could just give us maybe a case study so we could, you know, Well, there’s, there’s an enormous amount of data. I mean, it’s all, it’s all over that shows that students, when they are out of school are not going to be involved in education. They’re not going to receive the same services. even an in-school suspension. as much as we attempt to provide equal services for them, if
119you’re out of your English class and a teacher’s aid or a coach or whomever is, is helping you with your English, it’s not the same level of services as a certified qualified English instructor is. So we work diligently. We have worked over the past three years to minimize those as much as we can. Likewise, on the flip side, we know with what’s going on in today’s society, students are in crisis. Students are in trauma, students have needs for mental supports, emotional supports. So we tried to replace the exclusionary practices with social, emotional learning, restorative practices, trauma informed care. So you see that reflected in our matrix is, and if you looked at a matrix from three years ago and you look at a matrix now you’ll see that you you’d be able to see the
120difference now used to be seven or eight days. Exactly, exactly. Oftentimes when you speak to people and I, I, we talked about this before. I’ll speak to school administrators and they’ll take me to task for what you changed from 10 days to seven days. Well, in our world, the world we live in with our students, three hours is critical. Three minutes can be critical in some of the neighborhoods where our students abide in some of the, some of the worlds they live in much less three days. So to us every hour, every minute is, is crucial to not only their academic well-being because for us, it’s way more than that. It’s about their, their overall wellbeing and many cases, their physical wellbeing can be affected by being at home. And one of the greatest correlations
121with dropping out and predictors of dropping out in the future is tied to the number of suspensions, particularly the ninth grade year. so it was critical. And last year, although COVID 19 and the insert that we had dominated the headlines of this workshop, we made an intentional reduction of about 50% in the matrix last year that we reduced our out of school suspension as it was prescribed. So we’re proud of that and everything, Mr. Schreyer said, it feeds into that well, Well, and while we’re proud of it, we’re not content with it. You know, it’s, it’s a work in progress. It’s a living, breathing document that we were going to continue to try to make better and more user friendly for our students and our families. Yeah, I guess this question is more for the
122superintendent, but you know, we, you know, we’ve had conversations, we’ve had some conversations about this specifically, the board has talked about in public. The public has given us input about horizons, for example. And so, one of the pieces of input that we’ve heard is that, you know, different principals, different administrators handle their, handle their campuses differently. And so you’ve got some principals who just, to use a phrase that was said to me, I forget by whom, but said like some principals that can handle their business on their own campus and other administrators might be a little quicker to yank somebody. So is there a way that we have, this is totally your department. I’m just curious if it’s out there. Is there a, is there opportunities for, for, kind of like peer and peer review,
123but like peer training or support for principals that are administrators that may need, you know, some strategies on how to, keep kids on campus? Well, absolutely. First of the thing, part of the reason why, the department went in and changed the matrices is so that we at least do have a consistent lens on how we’re disciplining students based on infractions that it’s not, even though there is some latitude, they have to meet the criteria of the infraction. We also know that different campuses, different students have different kind of elements, of need. I will tell you, these two gentlemen run data each quarter and we’re able to see areas, that might look a little higher than, compared to their peers with like five schools. So you, you were looking at size and number of students like
124size our review, the data, if I, or they by themselves. But if I see something that looks off, I will contact them and they go and they develop a plan with those teams of leaders and teachers. In addition, when I go visit schools, sometimes principals will tell me directly that they’re having difficulty. They need some assistance, with discipline. And, I contact George immediately. He is out there the next day. They develop a plan, put strategies in place, to make improvements. I will tell you that principals definitely how the philosophy that, it’s better for those students to be on their campus, the not on their campus. However, there’s a context of rules and expectations or regulations for the good of the whole. So there is a balance there, there’s no doubt there’s a balance, but, just
125like, for anyone, special assistant, sometimes looking at a schedule, looking at the makeup of a class sometimes can be the change that’s needed. Maybe just randomly put a group of students together. That’s not the right group of students together. And we can make schedule changes to kind of balance it out and help in that way. So they’re very instrumental of going, whether parents contact me with concerns of aggression by peers, then usually skip is out there for individual students. But, as the whole George goes out there and works with the administrative staff, and I can tell you, he, he gets very, both of them get very good reviews from support, quick responses and helping to put interventions in place. No, that’s really good to hear. And, just to tie it back to the start of
126the workshop, that’s kind of where I’m going with. And I, and I hope to convince my board colleagues to support this when we get to budget approval is that if we can lower those ratios with counselors, school, psychologists, students, sports specialists, that that can also reduce these. Absolutely. And we do know that this next school year is going to need even more support of mental health counseling and interventions and service and evaluation than we’ve ever had. So, I do feel confident with all of the budgetary information comes in. We are going to be able to provide some more things. And I know this, I don’t know if this is part of George’s presentation or not. I know you wanted us to find a way to keep a toss at some level. And I, I do
127believe we have a little bit with ESE. I don’t know that we have as many as we expanded it to, but I do believe Ms. Cox found a way because we do have to be able to provide ESE support services and so forth. So I do think there’s a little bit, and the staffing Michaud says naughty that we were able to do in a couple of locations, even if we can’t do as much as we did, we’re able to do some Wonderful, that’s wonderful that, that that program is saved so many days and, and keeps students instructionally motivated. And it’s just, just a wonderful program. So I appreciate anything that could be done would be so bad. Yeah. We pulled some ESE support staff and her resources and so forth. So I don’t know that
128they’ve got it all done, but it, that they are working to have, because that is also a piece of the interventions being used. That’s wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you. That’s wonderful news thing. We talk about the reduction of OSS. It’s not just impacted through the matrices or through tier one instruction That we have in the prevention that we have. It’s also done through a toss. And so rather than them being at home on supervise and exposed to more risk factors in their community, we’re talking about connecting them, not just with their academic work, but we have some outstanding teachers and teacher assistants in that ATS program that dive into the SEO world with these kids and try to help them out. So it’s beyond critical that we continue to support them in that way. I love
129that. Thank you. That’s great. Really, really great. Really great news. Yeah. thank you for, for all of the, the work that you put in to develop, the matrices for student conduct, but I, I’m trying to be very clear in terms of where these rules begin to take effect and where they end with respect to quote students. I don’t think that by any definition, a child is defined as a student 24 hours in the day, for sure that child is a student. Once they come on to the property of the Manatee County school system. Is that a thing? Yes, sir. That is odd. It’s defined bus stop school activities before school activities, afterschool activity, anywhere that is part of our maintain school board property or activities is when they’re defined as a student, but there are
130exceptions and our jurisdiction over students and control the students is extended by state statute in several areas, a one zero, zero 3.3. One extends our jurisdiction over students from the time they leave their home until the time they arrive at school, the nexus of school is what puts students sometimes on the pathway to bullying or fighting as they travel to school or sit at a bus stop. Even when that bus stop is unsupervised. So through statutory, jurisdiction approval, we can do that cyber bullying as well. And in this day and age, when kids attack other kids online, our jurisdictional control extends 24 hours a day, seven days a week to investigate that and act appropriately if we need to Good, because what I want to ask you is where does our authority begin with respect
131to children who defy the school system or the school board or the school district It’s greater when safety isn’t play on the welfare of our students. So our jurisdiction can be extended further based on, on that concern of safety and welfare. Okay. Okay. Because we, we have been, confronted with something that I’ve not seen since I’ve been here. And that is with, collaboration between parents and children with respect to the issue of mass glaring. And I want to be very, very clear that Our policies and our procedures are very direct, very forthcoming in terms of what you are allowed to do own school, board property. And I want to make sure that whatever you do before you get here is up to you. But once you get here, whether that’s on the bus, whether that’s
132in the classrooms or whether that’s, walking down the hall, I want to make sure that we are on solid ground by saying in our jurisdiction, this is what you will do, Clearly defined story in our code of conduct those areas and exactly what their responsibilities are and what our responsibilities are. Okay. So is it bad to say that this code of conduct that we are adopting makes it very clear that there is no right of protest own our property, right? It is a section in our code of conduct. This speaks to that, and it speaks to what has to be done. It’s the principal’s responsibility. The principal controls anything that goes on his campus. He has the right to do that. It speaks to time, place and manner of a protest. It would have to
133go through a principal and then it would go through legal before any of that was approved. And that’s clearly stated, also, I believe it was last year. I had the occasion. I can’t remember exactly what the actual occasion was, where we wrote guided policy and procedure and gave it to our principals concerning just what, you’re just what you’re talking about now. And that also went through the legal office. So they’re very clear. You all remind me of the discussions that we often have in the legal system about domestic disputes and how that piece of paper, that injunction will not stop a determined person who is going to violate the law. What I’m asking you is where does the point of violation begin with respect to violating our student code of conduct? Because I’m either going
134to come on the campus with a mask or I’m not. And I guess what I’m really asking you is when I step off the bus, I step on the bus or step on the sidewalk to the school. Is that where the jurisdiction begins? Yeah. Assert that disruptive behavior. That is where if, if we want to talk specifically mask yes, sir. School bus, school, ground. Any part of it, if you put one foot on the campus, or if you’re a hundred feet into campus, if you put one foot on the bus step to get up, or you’re seated at the back of the bus, it’s, it’s all, it’s all the same. The expectations are the same. There there’s, there’s no, there’s no giving ground that. And it’s very clearly stated. Okay. And so at this point,
135the jurisdiction that we would rely on is the jurisdiction around the school, because what we’re saying is that they have left your jurisdiction where they can dress any way they want to, and they’ve come into our jurisdiction and they have not abided by our rules. Yeah. Yes, sir. And local parent, this is where we serve as school board folk. We are the parents when they are on our school property. And that’s clearly stated, I believe it’s page one or two of our student code of conduct. So who is, and where is the first level of response to that? Is that what the school resource officers is it with the principal or is it with law enforcement when someone is not, Principals are tasked with controlling their schools? I’m the school aspect of that from what
136is in our matrix, from what is in our administrative guide that we use to help the school administration guide and make decisions. They, they are the leaders. They are, they are the first feet on the ground first wave of defense against any sort of disruption or defiance or in the case that we’re talking about mask. And I, and I, and I want to follow up on what the chair alluded to earlier about the disparate response between principals. And so I want to know what is our policy with respect to what a principal is required to do, whether he’s in, or she is in Manatee elementary or in, Anna Maria Island elementary. The number one thing a principal should do at he’s required, or she is required to do is provide a safe learning environment for
137all stakeholders. That’s the number one responsibility, Which includes now on our policy wearing masks. Absolutely, Absolutely. It does. So if you’re not wearing a mask that principal’s job is to make sure that you’re not wearing a mask, doesn’t impact the safety of the other children in the school, any employee on it. And there has been very clear guidelines that were sent out actually this week that I actually was a part of drawing up to principals to diagram the exact steps or what to do. If a child comes on your campus, not wearing a mask in perhaps protest, there’s very clear guidelines that has gone out. It has been, shared with every principal. Parents sent them to me last night. Oh good. Oh, it was great guidance personally. I looked at that and I was like,
138that’s not very clear. It’s very simple. It’s not, it’s, it’s not the child. What I’m concerned with is that we have parents who are teaching their children to be the next generation of January six insurrectionists. Absolutely. We wrote, we deal with them. So it’s the parents and they were talking about parents being responsible and the rights of parents and all that. I just want to make absolutely sure that the child is not caught in the middle between the school and the parent being on opposite sides of an issue. I just want to be very clear that it is the parent’s responsibility to send the child to the school in accordance with the code of student conduct that we have adopted. Yes, sir. You don’t get to make the code of student conduct outside of this
139arena Are responsible for having their child in attendance at school reeducation, parental responsibility, our responsibility, when they come on our property is to keep them safe and educate them at the highest degree we possibly can. And that’s what principals do. And I want to ask our attorney has anything that we have said here, or is anything that we have said here inconsistent with what you understand our fiduciary obligation to be as a board to the children in Manatee. Kevin. No, sir. Yeah. Cause I don’t have a fiduciary responsibility to the parents. My fiduciary responsibility is to the child. Am I right about that? I just want to be clear. Okay. All right. Thank you. Mr. CIF, allowing that, I, I know that’s not us. I know that we have specific things that we’re dealing with,
140but generally what I see this code of conduct is, is delineating the jurisdiction that is general in our community and the specific jurisdiction of the school board and what they are allowed to do and what they’re not allowed to do in furtherance of their mission to help the children of this County. So, all right. Thank you. Thank you. Well, with the success of the secondary matrix that we’ve now had in place for a couple of years, we have now developed an elementary matrix. So that’s the next item on the agenda that we have. We developed an added our new discipline matrices for the elementary grade levels. We have two matrices peak pre-K through two, and then grades three through five will be the second matrix. So now there’s a total of four different discipline matrices
141contained within our code. And this, this has been going on. We’ve been working on this now for three years. again, everything we do, we look at data and what drives our data and what drives our study is practices that minimize the exclusionary out of school, practices such as out of school suspension. As we analyze data, we look, we realized, again, consistency expectations, standards, just like whatever gold is talking about. We needed to develop those for our elementary schools. So our process was we, we worked on it, we piloted it this year at four schools, we got huge rave results, huge, hugely positive reviews. I, I, we did not have one critical component or one critical bit of feedback from it. So now our proposal with of course your approval is to move that to our
142district elementary schools. It’s actually, Dr. Wilcott makes a great point is actually two matrixes because you have K through two and then three through five. And when you look at that matrix, if someone does say, well, Hey, what’s the difference between the secondary and the primary matrix? The primary matrix is completely dealt with restorative practices, peer counseling, peer mediation. I MTI multi-tiered system of support referrals, counseling referrals, check in, check out. It is absolutely minimized exclusionary practices and we’re, we’re very proud of it. And like everything else we do with behavioral support, we’ll continue to work on our craft. We’ll continue to try to get better at what we do, but we’re, we’re hopeful that that passes and that we can, we can implement that this year because we believe it’ll add consistency and guidance
143for our students and parents. And along with the development of the elementary matrix, we eliminated a section within the code of conduct that we called our district-wide disciplinary level system in response code. And basically what that did. It looked at the four levels of discipline that we had level one level, two level three level four, and that it put off to the side appropriate administrative action that can be met at each level. Once we had the discipline matrices in hand for all grade levels, it rendered the section Repetitive, right? It just, we just, it was duplicity duplicate language. So that that’s the only reason we took it out there. That’s, that’s another benefit of a, proposed elementary school matrix. And it’s smaller now. I don’t like a large code of conduct with extra papers. So
144next one, we added to conduct a threat assessment to our discipline matrices for, for threatened intimidation defenses, as well as weapon possession offenses. And then we put, consider threat assessment. You’ll see the diff delineation and the language there for weapon light contraband. if you have a weapon it’s automatic state statute that you must conduct a threat assessment. So we wanted to make sure we delineated between when you must and when you should consider, Right? Because we know that in dealing with threat situations, when we’re intervening on those situations, the threat assessment piece is to what, to, to what we do for the safety of our school. So it’s really, it really is more of a reminder when we talk about administrative duties, it’s really more of a reminder to them. Hey, be sure we get
145this threat assessment done. If you have any type of, of suspect threatening behaviors on your campus, I was just looking up the, what we define as weapon like contraband Slingshot, fireworks razorblade any knife or blade at any time, Anything, anything that anything that can be dangerous that is not covered in Florida state statute as a weapon is not a fond by Florida state statute as a weapon, but could still do one harm, potentially his weapon like contraband. Now I was like, well, if I found a kid with a Slingshot, I’m not sure I did a threat assessment, but I’m trying to find a kid with a razor eye. Well, here’s one thing. One thing that I do, one, one thing that you have to take into account with that is we look at the whole
146child. When we look at, let’s say you find a kid with a Slingshot, we’re going to take a deep dive into that tells history. We won’t take we’re want to look at that from a lot of different lenses before we make any decision. But past history is, is one of the most important elements. When you’re working with, with threat assessment, you got to look and see what, what that person has done in his past, because that’s the best indicator of what the person might do in the future and with the weapons possession, and why it’s mandated by statute to conduct a threat assessment is there’s an assumption that you have this weapon on you for a reason that you brought it to school for a reason. So we want to make sure threat assessment is
147nothing more than to ensure that future harm does not happen to any of our staff or students. And that’s what it’s all about just to make sure, We differentiate between what’s enforced a statue and then what’s not, we don’t really go into all offensive defense. Okay. I’m concerned about the protective measures that some kids have, the sprays and the well Port forest stay statue. The spray is allowed. It’s just not allowed to be out in and shown, but it’s, they’re allowed to have it. They’re not allowed to demonstrate and they’re starting not allowed to spray it, but they are allowed to have it. I think I correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s about the kids walk home from the bus and in different areas that they’re allowed to have that a couple
148of years ago, we had a lot of incidents happening, especially on the way home from Bayshore high school and, students who were walking home, female students. So because they had statute seven 90.001 exempts, two ounces or less of chemical defense spray. We didn’t, we wanted to make sure that it wasn’t specifically outlawed, but like Mr. Schreyer said, if you break that out on school campus, if you flash it to anybody or particularly if you use it on school grounds, you’ll be subject to consequences. But the mere possession of two ounces of less, it’s not a weapon as defined by state statute. And we would not treat as such, I guess that that’s, that’s a gray area to me. Cause if I’ve got it, then you’re bullying me. Then what you’re telling me is that if
149I pull it up and stop you from bullying me, I’m subject to discipline. Well, to help you is what we’re saying. That comes under the heading of that’s what we have staff there for. And we, we teach our students, from, from early elementary to get a trusted adult, make the, make the adult, or to make the staff aware we’re going to follow up immediately. I’m not going to engage you all in a discussion about trusted adults. There were in every single school that we have in nearly every single kid that we have in our schools has the trusted adult on that campus. And they’ll stand by that statement till the day I retire. that w we, we want to emphasize that as much as anything, they’re just fantastic protective factors in our kids’ lives. I
150think God, we have, Like I said, another time. All right. Yes, sir. Gentlemen, continue on Next one. Number seven, item seven. it kind of dovetails with the work that we’ve done that Mr. Schreyer has mentioned with the matrices and we’ve added a new introductory paragraph to our discipline section that focuses on the foundations of restorative practices, right? We’re very, very proud, although not consent, but very proud of the work we’ve done to reduce our exclusionary numbers. We know there needs to be more, our policy is simply this moving forward. When we intervene behavioral, or we provide behavioral support. There’s three things. We want our students to walk away with education, a chance for growth and positive personal relationships. And that’s what restorative practices allows. That’s the foundation of that. So that’s why we put that
151while we’re proposing to put that piece in our code of conduct, because we want our parents to know that we want, we want general public to know this is the direction we’re going as a district. When we provide behavioral support for all of our students. And the next item on the slide. Last item on the slide is we had to add a new section to our code of conduct regarding the daily moment of silence. That’s been required now, by house bill five 29, as Ms. Jo said, these have just been passed by the house and Senate, not yet signed into law. but we anticipate that this will be signed into law in July one. And that, that will speak to a minute not to exceed two minutes of silent meditation. First period started. Okay, First
152period, just real quick. This is interesting. Each for the end, each first period, classroom teachers shall encourage, excuse me, shall encourage parents or guardians to discuss the moment of silence with their children and to make suggestions as to best use of the time. So this requires our teachers to reach out to parents and guardians. I would Imagine that’s the conversation takes place during teacher parent conferences back to school, days and nights, things of that nature and not an individual basis, things like that. Like that’s really tough to enforce that statute, Mr. Kennedy. Yes, sir. I think the fact that it’s published in the code is a satisfaction of the requirement because our code will be, will be part of that particular publication. It will only reinforce it. And I do, I do also agree. Okay.
153So that counts as contact with, so that’s where we’re publishing that statute exactly the way it needs to be stated. Okay, good, good. Let’s take it off the first period teacher. That’s what I was I solved. So yes, sir. Number nine, We added a modified several different items to comply with, Senate bill five 90. And you can see, Hey, we have the recommendations for diversionary or intervention programs that are made in lieu of arrest or expulsion to the degree that we can, that’s found on page 55 of your claim copy. And that also SB five 90. this is that large one that was referenced previously in the student progression plan. It contains a lot of stuff. We also had language regarding the removal of students for involuntary examinations. those are Baker acts or Marshman acts
154and things of that nature. and when referring students to mental health agencies, those changes can be found on both page four and page 55, in the clean copy of the code of conduct. And this w we’re very positive about this. this aligns very closely with our collaboration with law enforcement, with civil citations, weird situation now in our district where every misdemeanor, practically, every misdemeanors met with a civil citation instead of an arrest. And that’s the direction we want to keep going. This bill would allow us to move further in that direction. So we’ve see it as a very positive thing. Yeah. Where is the book? Where does the authority lie with respect to, determining whether or not we will have a civil citations or whether we will have an arrest or an explosive? It’s funny,
155you asked me because I spoke with a resource officer yesterday to get some clarity coming here and that Spacey what they have been mandated from their superiors to do. If it’s a misdemeanor that they are to issue a civil citation. And he gave me several examples, of, in him doing so in the, and his peers doing so. So it’s, it’s been kind of a, I would call it a mandate from the top and the law enforcement. Okay. So is it safe to say that once law enforcement is called into a situation that the authority and jurisdiction is transferred to law enforcement out of the hands of the school? Well, in the legal realm, yes. Now the school still maintains their right to proceed as a school with whatever action they’re going to take, but when
156it comes to charges and how this charge going to be processed, that is law enforcement. Okay. So, so the principal wouldn’t have any say, so in recommending whether or not a child is to be cited as opposed to arrested. Well, they, they don’t have peer say. So now, oftentimes I know for me as a school administrator, I’ve vouched for, for many, many students, you know, to, to try to keep them, you know, out of, out of incarceration. I think, I don’t know a principal who hasn’t, but ultimately the decision of what the charge is going to be is with law enforcement. Okay. But the, the, the decision to Baker act that’s up to the principal, correct? Or is that still on now? Well, no, you have to have criteria for the Baker act. That’s been
157put in place and it’s been enhanced through this. And one of the sections, if you look there on page 55, when we talk about, or actually on page four, for, for conducting these, you have to have somebody from a mental, a mental health professional, and that can be done either on the telephone or it can be done in person if they respond like through the cat team, at Centerstone out to the campus. And then they can confirm that indeed the student is a threat to themselves or others, and needs to be remanded for an involuntary examination. Otherwise law enforcement it’s, it’s up to them to make that decision. And we allow law enforcement to currently make that decision on behalf of our staff, like Dr. Willhite says there’s a criteria more often than not. In
158my experience in, in the school system, that’ll come from a counselor accounts or we’ll have some concern about a student’s wellbeing then work through with law enforcement and then law enforcement will, will make, you know, make a decision. We also work with center stone, cat teams, those type thing, those type groups. Okay. It’s kind of like the superintendent said earlier, there’s, there’s that balance you want to strike between the safety of teachers and students, but then also not being, you know, overbearing with your, with your actions for discipline of Baker act, especially Right. That’s why we follow the criteria. We try not to make decisions in silos. We try not to have one person be the, the person who directs the app. We try to keep everything as a team team concept as best we
159can. Okay. Thank you. I like that for a sec. And that is kind of the last code of conduct, item that we have th number 10 gets into what we call our administrative guide. And just so everybody is understanding of what that is. It basically is the, the guy that our administrators use to carry out the code of conduct. It defines different discipline infractions. So we’re all working off common definitions and examples. And then it also gets into notes and a lot of other information that is going to help our administrators Wade through that morass. And so number 10, just delineate some of the changes that we made to this year or next year, I should say, administrative guide. and you can see a through D right there, I’ll take them one at a time.
160and Mr. Schrier wants to weigh in, we clarify distribution as it pertains to electronic Vaping devices that now are proliferated on our campuses. And that, that, that basically, we needed to kind of lock down our definition of what constitutes distribution, you know, previously. I mean, I don’t know if you want to get into that This, this was faced in our efforts to minimize alternative placements of students. we, in looking at, at what we’re doing in alternative placements, we realized, oftentimes it was word wrestling as a say, lip respite as to a definition of what was distribution, what was, and again, you’ve probably heard me say, it’s more than you want to hear, but for us, consistency is paramount. So you don’t want one school trying to reassign a child distribution, another school, not so clear,
161consistent. So that’s why, what to work on that language. But it was born in our mission to minimize students being alternately assigned Too many kids would have got jammed up with distribution for handing off a pen or vaping device to other kids, when it may not have met that criteria. So we wanted to lock that down. Exactly. Like you said, and related to that, the explosion of vaping devices on our campus is not just nicotine or e-juice it’s because of THC, even CBD products. So we did not have clear cut guidance in delineating between those products. And so we added guidance for CBD within our administrative ganache Speak specifically to, to the levels of THC. In some of these CBD products. We always look at cases from the current year and from experience with administrators,
162talking with them and things that go on cases they get involved in. And some of the things that were happening this year was yes, a child would have CBD products, CBD gummies are edibles. They’re never allowed in school, but many of them do not have THC or did not have a level of tasty high enough to warrant a drug offense. It’s over the counter medicine. And, and we, we do have policies procedures for that, but we want to be sure that if we’re, if w when we work with student behaviors that were consequences that were consequences appropriately, that’s, that’s a huge, huge mission for us. So that’s why we put that in there. Now that you guys should know that over the last couple of years, because of our partnership with drug-free Manatee, our partnership
163with local law enforcement, particularly the Manatee County Sheriff’s department, our, our schools now have the ability to differentiate between the substances that are found in these vaping devices. So we now know, because we can test them that this is CBD, or that this is THC. w that was a significant problem as these emerging products came onto our campuses. and, and we’re still faced with this when it comes to gummies. we w we have no clear cut way right now, but it is in the future. We do have the technology that’s out there, and we’re exploring that again with our community partners and our collaboration with our community partners has just been fantastic on this. We all have to evolve as the market evolves, indeed. Exactly, exactly. And that’s, that’s what we learned the hard way.
164The last item, Oh, excuse me, got two more items. See, we differentiated between the threats that we listed in our administrative guide for nonphysical aggression and physical aggression when there was no delineation there that was clear cut. So this is the solution. Well, basically what we came up with and what we’re proposing threats, physical aggression deal with threats to harm someone to physically cause damage to a person, whereas threats that are non-physical in nature, such as defamation of character, such as extortion blackmail, we’re proposing to be non-physical threats. Again, this is just clarity. So our administrators don’t look at something and try to write a referral for a physical aggression when it should have been non-physical aggression or vice versa. We want to try to make our data is accurate as possible and consistent, Again,
165again, the consistency where the accuracy word, that those are. Those are very, very important for our work, What to do when you’re dealing with human beings too, but I remain cool. Yeah. Do the allegations have to constitute an offense, in and of itself? Or can it be in an allegation that is false? See if it, And we, we look at everything on an individual basis. We don’t want a one size fits all. So it would depend on all the circumstances, of, of the threat of, of the action, but So, you cheated on, on the biology test that that’s policy, but, you know, cheating on the biology test is not illegal, I guess that’d be okay. Okay. It’d be an academic consequence that wouldn’t be necessarily a behavior. Okay. All right. I’m going to tell the
166teacher you cheated on and you’re, that gets into this boom that gets into that discussion. That’s the last bullet point. If you don’t do this, That speaks again to defamation of character. Yeah. Possible extortion, possibly obliging a person to do an act. I’m a tell, teach on the. If you don’t, whatever it is they want you to do there, we would be into a matrix situation or could be, could be into a matrix situation. And that offers a nice segue to the very last item, which is, we added to, under other serious conduct, which is the discipline code that we use. You can see in our matrix. we, we give examples in our administrative guide of what constitutes that infraction. And so we just added this as another bullet item threatening to make a false
167allegation. and that’s just something that we ran into when our schools this year. Exactly. That’s based off, that’s based off incidents that happened this year at school. And we always try to take those incidents and use them to better our work, clarify what we’re doing moving forward. So that’s exactly where these came from. I’m just, I’m just glad that this year, we’re not just talking for three for two hours about the COVID insert. I love it. We have come a long way since we saw you last for this presentation. Yes, sir. Because we have, and that concludes, any other questions. Excellent. Let’s all just sit here for about 10 minutes and think about whether there’s something else I’m just gonna think for 10 minutes, about how cold I am. I told him about this When
168I go home at night. So I can say 10 minutes and you know, That’s not really something that you want to let a lot of people know I have no life. I’ll tell you. Very much. Thank you. Thank you. And excuse me, Dr. Wilhoit congratulations on completing your, A year ago, but thank you for being a year late to the parade. but you know, I pretty much Finished when we, when you did the, and tech, you were a doctor when you did this last year, You were at my party to celebrate it. I didn’t realize that was a year ago. Sure does. I appreciate that. Thank you for acknowledging it then. Absolutely. That’s right. Doctor a doctor, doctor. It’s pretty cool. Little bit hit me. Yeah, actually last night. Thank you, Scott. We have one
169more item. We do. We just, I just want to talk briefly about the County, the outcome of the County commission meeting on Tuesday. Okay. Mr. Dian, the superintendent, and I have exchanged a few emails, essentially what the, to boil this down, the County commission is going to send us a letter. I think it’s going to be addressed to me, but they voted to send us a letter requesting that we move our vote to next August. So instead of doing it this November, they’re going to ask that we do it on the August primary of 22. Now they did have a conversation, with their, council that they can request things, but essentially they are, it’s a ministerial act that the County commission has to comply with. The question was asked, well, what if we refuse? And
170then their attorney said, basically the, I think it’s a writ of mandamus, which would, which I think was the term he used, that we could basically enter into a suit against them to get them, to push it through. Obviously nobody wants that. So, I just wanted to let, the board and the, if the public wasn’t aware from the commission that that’s going to be coming back to us. And then the plan was is that we, we’ll get that letter. We’ll have a conversation about it as a board, how we want to handle it. and then we could do that at the May 25th meeting. Not that we don’t have enough to do at that meeting already. Well, we’re here now and I’m hearing us say what we don’t want. Nobody wants to go to that’s
171just, But I’m just saying we can’t take any action Right now. We can only discuss it, but we got two lawyers here that we could ask. What can we do that, that would precipitate the result that we want, which is to have it in November and not have a lawsuit to get it there. Mr. D Mr. Thompson, I’m going to say to you, I completely agree, Mr. Kennedy visited ministerial laughed. And that the last thing that I think the commissioner would want, or the district would do make a motion to compel or litigation to that extent. so I, that, that is my 2 cents. And however, again, it is ministerial. It’s not discretionary. You got, gotta put another penny in. I thought, you know what, I’m losing my touch in communicating, what can we do
172short of the lawsuit to get the result that we want. We want this to be on the ballot in November. Now, if you say, there’s no way that you can get them to do it other than to follow lawsuits assessor so that we don’t look silly trying to get something. You see what I’m saying? I think, and I think I can address this from having watched the meeting. it’s really going to be up to ultimately the way that I see it and our attorneys can back me up or not the way that I see we’re in the driver’s seat here. This is our vote. They are essentially for lack of a better term, a pass through. and so the buck stops with us. And so if we want to do it in November, we can
173just go back and say, thank you for the letter, but we want to do this in November. Then that next step is up to them. Okay. Thank you. Attorney Kennedy. I took the LSAT many, many years ago. I have a question. So is that what we’re going to be voting on on the 25th? I mean, We’ll see the letter yet. I mean, as far as we’re concerned, the resolutions all already to them A hundred percent. That’s why I don’t know. What do we need to vote on is what I’m saying. I just want to expedite it as much as we could possibly expedite it. Like, I don’t want this sitting around for another month. Okay. We have to vote to, to respond and then, another vote to do this. Or like, I just want, I
174feel like sitting up here, the complaint about government taking forever. It’s true. And it’s only because we had only two meetings. So I just want to know what, what, what would we be voting on in the 24 hours? I say voting, but just to have a check-in with when all five of us are here to say, we have this letter, how would you like to respond? You’ve already said, majority, you don’t need to call me to another meeting. I want you to you. I want you to let them know that we want this in November. Thank you for your input. They aren’t even given any reasons. So whatever letter that they come up with this is, you know what? We just gotta, they gotta stop being real. Here. We are in the midst of a
175political fire storm in Manatee County. And people are trying to have that political agendas. Now, either we going to buy to that, or we’re going to say, listen, don’t play games with this. Do not play games with this millage. I don’t know who it was that made the motion. Don’t care. Don’t kill seconded. I bet my life. It was a four to three vote. You see? I don’t want to play that. I’m not to send us a letter of a seven to zero to send us a letter. Yes. Why? Can I add, well, yes, I would like to move forward. If you feel like you want the whole board. I think there is a consensus already. If you want to move forward. Can I at least ask that on the 25th, there’s already a letter
176prepared for us to vote on? Oh, absolutely. So that it’s there and we can just send it. I don’t want to wait any longer than that then. Totally agree. Okay. That’s my only request. I understand you wanting to have everybody here. There’s respect behind that. And can we just, I just want it ready. That’s all because I want to, I want this done. I was thinking that in my head, but thank you for me because I mean, they have a meeting on the 25th. I’d love for us to get it before that, but if we can’t get it before that. Yeah. Yep. Excellent. It looks like the law firm of Kennedy and messenger gotten together. Our firm has grown rapidly. I guess I should take the outside. It’s been beneficial to hear your opinion on
177it. there’s, there’s been no official communication received from the County yet. and I know the superintendent is very involved with it and wants to maintain a good relationship with the County commission. so I’m very mindful of that. I believe that they asked Mr. Clegg to write the letter, but then he went on vacation before it went out. so it’s caused a bit of a delay in what the official communication’s going to be. I agree that, the, County commission that cannot block the action, from a legal standpoint. So, but you know, I think we need to see what the official communication from them as. Okay. And then like Mrs. Messengers said, we will have a R a response to vote on, for the 25th. Is that that’s where we were getting, Yes. Whatever we need to
178do to make it as quick as possible. excuse me, got tongue tied. Absolutely. totally agree with that. what else am I forgetting? I think that was it. Thank you, Gina, for stopping me. So I didn’t forget that for a second time. Cause I meant to bring that up Tuesday night, but, we had had a long night, so, anything further, so you’re not we’re adjourned. Have a good weekend. Everybody