School Board Meeting September 24, 2024

001Welcome everyone. Good evening to the Metis County School Board meeting for September 24th, 2024. I wanna officially call us in to order tonight. We're gonna start off with the reading of the district's vision by Ms. Spray and then we'll have the Color Guard invocation as well. So, Ms. Frank, take it away. The school district of Manatee County will be an exemplary student-focused school system that develops lifelong learners to be globally competitive. And I'd like to welcome up Dr. Luke's Stockland from First Baptist Church of Bradenton who I met right when he moved down to Florida from I believe Michigan. So welcome. Oh, Missouri. Sorry. Thank you. Thanks. You guys will stand the vacation and the color guard will be coming in just after that. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we acknowledge your presence with us

002in this room this evening and we thank you for your presence. You never promise that this life would be free of difficulty or free of disagreement, but you did promise your presence to never leave us nor forsake us. And so we honor you and we acknowledge your presence tonight. I thank you for the important work and the important decisions that are made in this room by this board. And I pray that you would guide in the decisions that are made. We're reminded in your holy word and the book of wisdom and Proverbs, it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So God, I pray that, that we honor you as we seek to, to make sure that the next generation, the students are, are being trained and prepared to be adults.

003That that contribute to our community, to our, our county, and to the world making it a better place. And so, God, we thank you again for your wisdom and your guidance and we acknowledge you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Alright, we can welcome in the Palmetto High School color guard Mark. Time Mark colors. Oh colors. Join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all order. Color center a vote word. Marge Down. Thank you. You may be seated. Palmetto color guard was cadet major cadet sergeant Major Sanchez cadet, captain Limus cadet, captain Hernandez Cadet first, Lieutenant Campbell. They're accompanied by Sergeant First Class Baez. Thank you all very

004much. Palmetto Color guard. Appreciate it. Alright, move on to item number six on our agenda, which is the approval of the agenda. The chair has found good cause to amend the agenda to include all items listed under the agenda amendments on August 27th, 2024, updated August 23rd and posted to the district website mane schools.net. I moved. We have a, A motion on the floor. I'll second and a second and I need to log into Granicus. Yeah, I was gonna say talk slowly and so we have a motion and a second. I don't see it on here. Ready to vote yet. There it's, there it is. Alright, let's go ahead and prove And it is approved five to zero. Moving on to approval of the minutes. Item number seven, superintendent we song. Thank you chairman and

005good evening board members, I recommend approval of the minutes of the August 27th, 2024 school board meeting. So moved. I'll second. Alright, we have a motion and a second. Any corrections on the minutes board? Don't see anybody lit up to correct anything. So let's go ahead and vote on the approval of the minutes recommended by the superintendent. And that passes five to zero. Alright, item number eight on the agenda. Mr. Barber coming up for some of our student celebrations and recognitions. Thank you Mr. Board Chair, board members and Dr. Weiss Long, I don't know how your day's been. Ours has been a little bit hectic so it's good to be here this evening where we get to recognize some of our students and also some other things that we have to celebrate. So I guess

006the best thing I can say about this first recognition is the students you're about to meet are not winners of a district competition or even a state competition. They are national first place winners and CTSO competition. So to tell us more about that, I'd like to introduce Dr. Paul Ganser, the Executive director of Adult Career and Technical Education. So thank you Mr. Barber. Chairman Cho, school board members, superintendent Ong and staff. Thank you for having us here tonight. I'm coming to speak to you about something that's really awesome beyond belief and that's students who have won national level competitions. We had many students go to the national competition and get second, third, fourth, whole bunch of different placements. But we're just bringing to you tonight the winners of the national levels. So with Korean technology

007education, we call our CTSOs, which is the career student technical Student organizations. And if you look up on the screen, you'll see that we have seven different organizations that we have in our district to be able to have student leadership, student competitions, demonstrating skills and workplace skills that they can demonstrate that they can take into the workplace. So we have FBLA, which is typically business. We have FFA, which is agriculture, we have hosa, which is our health sciences, TSA, which is our technology. But it does include sometimes other things such as culinary and different things in there as well. We have Skills USA, which again, that can include culinary and technical as well. We have S-C-C-L-A, which is typically family and consumer science. And DECA, which is for marketing. So not every school has all

008of these CTSOs, but we do have all of these CTSOs in our school system with our secondary, with our post-secondary, we have Skills, USA and we have hosa. So tonight we're presenting to you our national winners. So the first school I'd like to bring up is our Dan Nolan Middle School principal, Carl Erman. And we're gonna have Mr. Nu Nu, so our advisor, Mr. Nu, go ahead and slide down a little bit. And then, so our students that we're presenting tonight, they have their trophies. Guys if you wanna show their trophies. First place national. So we have Max Alpert, we have Harrison Kennedy and Colton McGill for video game design. Wow. So we can clap down. We're told we're not really supposed to clap in here, but come on. This is like, this is national

009winner. So we, we will clap for him. Our next school we have up tonight is our Braden River High School and Braden River High School. We have Wendell Butler, the principal, and tonight we have Mike Welding Supr supporting as our administrator. We have TJ Lehi as our advisor. And we have two groups that we're presenting to you tonight. They're still filing and if you notice, so we have with animatronics, we have Kyler Wade who has graduated and is not able to be here tonight. But we have Shera, Boggo, pu, there she is. And we have Chai ula. So they did animatronics and they came in first place. So congratulations. Our second team is a larger team and I heard from one of our leaders, well I didn't know we had board game design. I wanna

010go check that out next time. So we'll make sure we let everyone know what's going on, what they're doing. So we have board game design, first place with Kera Wright. There's Kera, we have Riley Harris. We're going side to side here. We have Moksha Patala, we have Jason Eggleston, we have Aya Culp, and we have Shira boa Pu. So let's congratulate them on their first place as well. At this time, I guess we can all silence our emergency alert. I guess that'll come up later for the meeting. So thank you. Brighton River High School. As we got the announcement there. Our last group we have is our post-Secondary and this is at EE Technical College. My goodness, that's me now at t was second obviously. Yeah, there you go. Rising is first. So we have

011Manatee Technical College and we have Doug Wagner who's our director. So thank you Mr. Wagner. We have Abby Tool Plumber who's our advisor, and this is for television video production. We have Ricardo Campbell who's here. He has graduated. So he came back especially for this. Alejandro Hernandez S also graduated and we want to let you know that he did enlist with the Marines. So he's off with the Marines right now, probably doing bootcamp and all that. And we appreciate him for his service to our country. So let's give a round applause for Ro for first place. And of course our last slide says, thank you so much for your support. There's a lot of things that we do with our CTSOs, a lot we do with the travel, a lot we do to support them

012at their schools. If we had $18 billion, we probably couldn't support all of them. So we support as much, much as you can with what we're allowed to have. So we're excited about this. I also wanted to mention to you that it's not only our team that does it, but it's all the teachers and all the principals. And we have our assistant director here for ct. We have Kelly Kennedy here tonight as well. So thank you for your support and thank you for allowing to do this. And I think Mr. Barber wants us to do a picture or something. Yes. So if you can get over there, Paul stand. Just look you, you can see where you fit in. Oh, ready? Alright. You very much ready a picture for you. There's two there. Yeah, take

013one. Paul. My those two. Congratulations y'all. Thank you. Thank you. Cool stuff going on here. When did you say November? November 8th and ninth, is that what you're saying? Alright. And I'll send out a link because you, your reservation again gonna stay. Yeah. Alright. Thank you very much. You're welcome. This next recognition, I know that the superintendent says whenever he goes around and talks to groups in the community, he always mentions what a tremendous community we have in terms of support of the school district, the organizations that support us, whether it's like the Chamber of Commerce, Lakewood Ranch, business Alliance, the Bradenton Area Economic Development Council, or you know, nonprofit organizations like the United Way or the Patterson Foundation. Today we have Beth Duda here from the Patterson Foundation. She's also the director of the

014Suncoast campaign for grade level reading. And now I, I'm sure all of you know Beth real well. She's been around the district for for years. So I thought I'd try and tell you a couple things you might not know about Beth. She, yeah, she spent 20 years working with students and educators as the director of education for the Florida Studio Theater. That was, she spent 23 years doing that. Ah. So in addition, she's also an award-winning playwright, so, so you can think about that while she's telling us about one of the most key elements to the Suncoast campaign for a grade level reading. So that Great. Thank you very much. Well I'm delighted to be here. I do have a slide presentation that I am told I can bring up. Let's, okay. You got it.

015I hope so. Yes, do it. You can do it. Okay. Okay. She'll, she'll do it from there. Just tell her window. I will. Very good. Well, and I'm honored to be here tonight, chairman board members Dr. Weiss Song. I'm, I'm thrilled to be here to talk about one of the very important pillars of the campaign for grade level reading, which is school attendance. We can go to the next slide. The Suncoast campaign for grade level reading has been here locally since 2015. That's when Sarasota County and Manatee County realized they were both working on the initiatives of the campaign. And the Patterson Foundation stepped forward and said, what if we were a regional accelerator for the campaign for grade level reading while each county could do their county specific work. And both Manatee County and

016Sarasota County said yes. And in a short time, Charlotte County came knocking and then we went knocking on the door of DeSoto County. And we are now a four county initiative serving Charlotte, DeSoto, Manatee, and Sarasota Counties with a goal of fostering widespread community participation to achieve shared aspiration for the success of families and children. We work to support what's happening in the schools and we work mostly in the community to do that. Next slide please. We are very fortunate in Manatee County to be supported by a tremendous coalition of organizations that have come together. You might know of it as the big plan, but it's a partnership with United Way Suncoast, the school District of Manatee County, Manatee Community Foundation, the Early Learning Coalition of Manatee County and Step Up Suncoast. Through the the

017That coalition, many important things have been happening in the region Breakfasts with a purpose led by so N four and Dr. Sheila Halpin. We've been able to support that work and since 2016 we have supported the important work of attendance. Next slide please. Attendance is one of the most important things that we, we can help support in the schools. A, a child can't learn if they're not in school. And through the campaign for grade level reading, we partner with Attendance Works, which is a national think tank about attendance. They have many, many programs as well as information that schools can use to promote attendance and to make sure that chronic absenteeism doesn't exceed 10%. When a child misses 10% or more of the school year, regardless of it's excused or unexcused absences, it can lead

018to academic decline. Missing 18 days is all it takes to be 10% of the school year absent. So we are working to make sure that families are aware of that, that missing just two days a month could put their child in academic danger. We know that having different tiers of intervention is necessary. Next slide. Attendance Works recommends a three tier approach to attendance. Your first tier is just encouraging better attendance for all students. Tier two interventions are designed to remove barriers to attendance. Tier three interventions are for our families who are struggling the most, who need more supports. We've been very proud of our tier one intervention for the last several years. Next slide. It's the attendance awareness poster contest. I've had the pleasure of standing before the board before honoring the children who created

019unique pieces of art where they have internalized the message of good attendance, shared it through their artwork, and then taken that artwork home to share with their parents. This year we have 33 elementary schools in Manatee County that are participating in the attendance awareness poster Contest posters are due to be turned in on January 30th. We go to each school and we collect their winning posters. They select a winning poster for each grade level. We collect those posters, duplicate the posters and return them to the school framed. So the school keeps a copy of the winning poster for the grade level and the child receives a poster. In addition to that, we have signed certificates for the children's certificates of Achie Achievement and thanks to the generosity of the Patterson Foundation, a $25 gift card

020for each one of the winning students. Next slide. This is just an example of some of the artwork that has been shared over the years. We look forward to the poster collection day at the Patterson Foundation. We are looking forward to having more than 400 winning posters come into the foundation. We're very excited by some of the plans. Manatee County this year has asked us about using some of the posters to wrap light boxes by, by traffic signals. And we share these posters with the schools on an electronic drive so they can use them throughout the year to continue to promote outstanding attendance. As I mentioned, that's a tier one intervention, but ever since the pandemic, chronic absentee numbers across the country have risen and they've risen to very concerning levels. And we have been

021working with our school district partners to come up with ideas to help promote better attendance. And this year we are introducing a new plan called the Motivating Improved Attendance Plan or MIA Next slide. The MIA program simply is that we are asking schools to pay attention in the first 35 days of school to students who have missed three or more days in that time. And then for the schools to make a concentrated effort to reach out to those families to establish or affirm the relationship with the families to try to identify any barriers that might be in place to attendance and work with the families to mitigate those barriers. The Patterson Foundation is going to check back in with those cohort cohorts of children right before Thanksgiving break. And any child who has not had

022more than two days absence between the end of September and November 22nd will be eligible to bring their families to a celebration at the school to celebrate improved attendance. We are hopeful that this investment in working with the schools, we are providing them with toolkits, with materials that they can use with families, training materials for the school professionals, as well as this incentive for the children and families to have a little celebration celebrating their commitment to improved attendance, that we will see even more of a change in chronic absentee numbers in the coming years. So that is my presentation for today. We are so grateful for our partnership with the school district of Manatee County through Soren for the work of Dr. Wysong and all of the, the administrators that we're able to work with.

023We find great opportunities for partnership, not only in attendance but in family engagement work and of course school readiness and summer learning. So thank you very much. It was a pleasure to be here today. Thank you. Thank you everything. I think that's it. Any questions? Boden? Any questions? I don't think, no. Yeah. Appreciate, appreciate you guys. Great. It's really nice to be here. That's wonderful what you do for the community and our students. It's important work that we're all involved in. Yeah. And we accomplish much more when we work together. I think it's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Alright. Yep. Do we want a photo with her? You didn't want a picture with her? Excuse me. Photo, I, I took photos of her while she was speaking but that's fine. Okay. Alright. Okay. Our

024last, our last recognition is Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from seven September 15th to October 15th. It is meant to recognize the contributions, history and culture of Hispanic and Latino Americans to the United States of America and to the world. And we have some special representatives to on to help us celebrate it. And Deborah Estes is here. She's our director of ESOL, migrant and Dual Language Program. So Deborah, thank you Mr. Barber. Good evening. Thank you so much for your time. Good morning Mr. Cho, chair Cho, I should say, and the rest of the board members and Dr. Weiss song. I appreciate your time this evening and I have to say one of the most exciting things that I ever get to do is bring some of our fabulous students to, to our board meetings.

025So I feel very honored that these students gave up some of their time to be here this evening because they all look heartbroken that they're not gonna have to go home tonight and do a lot of homework, but maybe they'll get some rest. So just as of today, the school district of Manatee County has over 21,000 Hispanic students in our district, which represents over 41% of our total population. This information, when parents are registering their, their children are self-identified. They get to pick if they're Hispanic or Latino. And this number is growing immensely in our district. So we love to celebrate the diversity and recognize and celebrate the diversity in our district. We're pleased to announce that National Hispanic Heritage Month is September 15th through October 15th, as Mr. Barber said. And this year's theme

026in Florida is honoring Hispanic contribution to Florida's success. So during this Hi Hispanic Heritage Month, we recognize the contribution of Hispanic and Latino Americans to the United States and celebrate their heritage and culture. Hispanic Heritage Month is a time for our school to celebrate with all students the contributions that the Latino community has had in our schools, society and community. So what I'd like to do, we have a proclamation that'll be read in a moment, but what we did is we invited a high school student from each of our high schools. One of our high schools was not able to send somebody because we know there's a lot of extracurricular activities happening and I don't know how these young folks do it because I get exhausted hearing about some of their course loads and some

027of their extracurricular activities. But I'd like to invite each one of them up just to introduce themselves, tell you what school they came from and a little bit about themselves. So I'll start with this young lady right here who looks so dapper in her uniform. Hello, I'm Cadet Catherine Ashley Cholet. I'm from Manatee High School. So a little bit about, about myself is that I came to this country when I was seven years old and I am proud to say that I've made the best of it. So my plans after high school are to attend a four year university with an ROTC scholarship and BA and graduate with a bachelor's degree in forensic science. Wow. Thank you. Down the line. Hello, my name is Nael Peralta and I'm a senior now in at Paris Community

028High School. I've been, I moved here just four years ago and I've been taking a lot of hard classes and doing the AP capstone research diploma and certificate. So I've been trying my hardest just to stand out outta the crowd and just do my best. And after school I ju I wanna, I'm not sure to which college yet, but I wanna be, I want do major in law. I I I wanna be a criminal lawyer 'cause it's, it's, you know, it's, I really caught my interest so I'm really interested in just law and just the US government. Good for you. Hi, my name's Isai Palacios. I'm from Brain River High School and I come from Mexican and Guatemalan descent. And what I wanna do after high school is go to college and be an entrepreneur

029because I like business and I come from a business family. So it's pretty much in my background and so I like doing Good for you. Good afternoon. My name is Caza. I come from Bay High School and I moved here two years ago from Cuba and my mother land and I wanna study is dentist, my majoring dentist. I wanna be a surgeon and dentist Mac Faso. My progress is pretty good because I'm part of EOP program. I did more 150 commercial based hours through the process only two years and in part my teacher helped me through the English to learn English a lot of things and trying to get my scholarship for go to USF next year because I'm senior right now, I want a part of the progress of dentist program in the United

030States. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Alexa Jamie and I'm a junior from Lakewood Ranch High School. Some things about me is I'm in six AP courses currently and in six extracurriculars and I'm from Nicaragua descent. Both my parents are from there and I would like to be a child psychologist when I go to college and do a master's in that as well. And I just really, there's a big issue with mental health among students and I just really wanna contribute to helping those kids and help them persevere through everything. Thank you. Hello, my name is Isabella Pena. Both of my parents are from Columbia and I come from Palmetto High School. I am planning to study journalism. I feel like there is a decline in that career at this moment and I feel like I

031could attribute to our society in a lot of ways. Thank you. Now it's time, proclamation time. Yeah. Ms. Foreman has the proclamation. Hmm. Whereas during national Hispanic Heritage Month, we recognize the contributions made by Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States and celebrate their culture and heritage. And whereas Hispanic Americans have had a profound and positive influence on our country, the state of Florida and Manatee County, through their strong commitment to family, faith, hard work and community service. And whereas generations of Latino Americans have served in the armed forces to defend liberty and advanced democracy around the world. And whereas there are more than 18,000 Hispanic and Latino students in the school district of Manatee County who comprise over 41% of the student population and Hispanic and Latino employees who serve at every level

032of the school district. And whereas Hispanic Americans have worked diligently and have successfully embraced the opportunities of the American dream. Whereas together we recognize the Latino community in Manatee County whose willingness to share their heritage and traditions have made our community a better place to live. Now therefore be it proclaimed by the school board of Manatee County that the month of September 15th through October 15th, 2024 will be known, designated and set aside as Hispanic Heritage Month adopted with a quorum present and voting This 24th day of September, 2024 signed by Chad Cho, chair and Jason Ong superintendent. Yes. And has become our tradition when we do our proclamation, we always invite one of our Spanish speaking employees to read the proclamation in Spanish as well. So tonight we have our amazing dual language specialist

033for the district lawyer Za, who is going to read the proclamation for our friends and family in Spanish. Oh, okay. Good evening Es. I came from Cuba 22 years ago and with a small suitcase. And look at me now standing in front of you so I can tell all of you that you can achieve all your dreams. And I'm going to read the proclamation in esp consider arm. Thank you. Thank you. A picture if we could get the students in the middle, maybe you on the outside and you on the outside and alright. Okay. Alright. Very good. Great. Thank you for coming down. Thank you. One of my favorite programs. One of my favorite programs. Yes. Okay. All right. Good stuff. Thank you Mr. Barber for leading those student celebrations and recognitions. Appreciate it. Yep.

034All right. Moving on to item number nine, public comments for this evening. We do have several to get to. So when I call your name, come on up. You'll have three minutes at the podium. You're up, up. If you look up to the screen, above will be your timer. And just aware public commenters. We haven't really had some in some while. It is board policy we don't actually interact with, with the public comment if you're, if you're asking questions. So just be aware that if we're mute and silent, we just, we just don't respond to pol. That's our policy. So it's not that we don't like you or don't agree with what you're saying. Alright, so let's jump into our first one is Virginia McCollum, followed by Mag Pots Williams. Hello, my name is Virginia

035McCallum. I reside in District five and today I am representing the Legal Women Voters Manatee County Gun Violence Prevention Group. So thank you all for your expression of grief and support at your recent board meeting for the families of the four people shot to death and nine injured by gunfire at Appalachia School in Georgia on September 4th. We share your sentiments and we want to support your efforts to prioritize school safety. The League of Women Voters Manatee is dedicated to helping spread the message of gun violence prevention, hardening facilities, and providing rules and close oversight of students. Excuse me. While at school is important, but there is more we can do. We as a community need to come together to send a strong message to our school parents and guardians that they also play a

036critical role in keeping kids safe in school. It is a sad fact that over 75% of school shooters under 18 get the firearm they use from their own home or the home of a close relative school. Safety begins with gun safety at home we hope that you'll join us to advocate and encourage school families to keep firearms safely secured at home. We are available to collaborate and provide you with resources and information to support this effort. Safe Gun Storage at home is key to keeping kids safe at school. Thank you. Thank you. Mag Pots Williams, followed by Ardella. Danielle Joana. Good evening. I am Dr. Mag Pots Williams. I am a general dentist who lives and works in Manatee County and I was pleased to hear the young man wants to join my profession. I'm

037here to support the naming of the New East County K through eight school after Lynette c Edwards. Mrs. Edwards is a daughter of Manatee County, having graduated from Lincoln Memorial High School and returning after college to serve as a teacher dean, assistant principal, principal, director of personnel and assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for Manatee County Schools. She demonstrated commitment, compassion, and excellence throughout her career. Lynette c Edwards continues her commitment to the community as a leader on boards and public service organizations in Manatee, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties that address the educational, physical, mental, and physical health of its citizens, including the underserved and low income residents. She is actively engaged in scholarship and mentoring programs that provide hope and help for the many talented students in our community who want to further their education

038and training after high school. Many of those students have returned to become strong, contributing members of this community and they look to role models such as Mrs. Edwards to thank for their success. I hope that you will take my words to heart and recognize the importance of a legacy such as that of Mrs. Edwards and how her story and her passion for education can continue to inspire young people long after all of the people in this room are no longer here to share her story. I look forward to seeing her name on the new school in August, 2025. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sorry, I pronounce any names wrong. Is it? How do you pronounce Art is correct Ardella. Danielle Jones. Oh, Jones. There's an A on

039the end on here. So sorry. Ms. Jones, maybe that was my typos. I apologize. That's okay. Jacqueline McNeil's following. Sorry. Okay. Again, my name is Ardella Danielle Jones and I am also here in support of the nomination of Ms. Lynette Edwards to have the naming of the New East County K through eight schools scheduled to open in August, 2025, named after her. As you heard before, Ms. Edwards is a native of Manatee County. She has contributed to this community in so many ways. Just to kind of summarize some of the contributions that she's made throughout her career. Again, she started in Manatee County. She is a graduate of Lincoln Memorial High School. She worked as a teacher, dean, assistant principal, principal, director, personnel, and retired as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for Manatee County.

040Ms. Edwards continues to demonstrate her commitment to the advancement of educational opportunities for all students by actively serving on relevant committees and boards in Manatee, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties. Thank you very much. Thank you. Ms. McNeil, followed by Diana Smith. Good evening. Good evening. So obviously there's a running theme here. My name is Jacqueline McNeil and I am here to voice my support for naming the New East County K through eight school that is scheduled to open in August, 2025 after our esteemed Manatee County resident, Lynette c Edwards. Mrs. Edwards is a product of this county and this school district and a graduate of Lincoln Memorial High School. She has dedicated much of her career to the students and staff of this school district. Her compassion and expertise as a teacher dean, assistant principal, principal,

041director of personnel and assistant superintendent to for curriculum and instruction has shown that she has a passion for education and for this district. Even after her retirement, she continues to demonstrate her commitment to the advancement of educational opportunities for all students by actively serving on relevant committees and boards. Please accept this endorsement of the nomination of Mrs. Edwards for this prestigious honor. I look forward to seeing her name on the new school. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. Diana Smith, followed by Harriet Moore. Good evening. For the record. I'm Diana Smith. 50 years ago I started my career in education as a teacher at a K through eight school in rural South Carolina. But today I come before you to support the naming of the New K through eight school in Manatee County after

042or for Lynette Edwards. Ms. Edwards, as you heard, is a product of Manatee County Public Schools. She enrolled at Lincoln Memorial High School in the ninth grade after moving here, moving here from Georgia and graduated from Lincoln Memorial High School after completing her bachelor's degree in home economics education from Tuskegee Institute, which is now Tuskegee University. And she had a short stint in insurance and then she returned to a formal high school, which had become a middle school to become a teacher, a dean of students. And finally assistant principal. She went on to become the principal at Bradington Middle School and Johnson Middle School. She received her master of science degree in curriculum and instruction, followed by certification in educational administration and supervision from University of South Florida. She was employed with the school district

043for 36 years and that was as a teacher, dean, assistant principal, principal, director of personnel and assistant superintendent of curriculum. It's my understanding that at Ms. Edwards Retirement, she reminded the board that every child, every child deserves a quality education and that new teaching strategies and techniques will be needed to meet the new Florida standards. So as the district's moves now to this new brick and mortar era, it is most fitting to name the first K through eight Manatee County Public School built from the ground up after Lynette Edwards, who is an educator, a youth advocate, and a transformational leader. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Harriet Moore, then followed by Kimberly Albritton. Good evening Chair Trout board members. Superintendent wise song. I see you everywhere now, right? This is like coming home for me.

044So I think I've been recruited since I walked through the door, but good evening. And of course I'm Dr. Harriet Moore. I've worked in Manatee County sometime back. I'm here tonight to speak regarding the naming of the new K eight school. I strongly believe that the individual chosen for this honor should be someone of exceptional moral character, integrity and unwavering passion for the education of all children in Manatee County. That person without question is former superintendent Lynette Edwards. I had the privilege of working with Ms. Edwards when I opened a charter school in the district many years ago. I was immediately struck by her leadership and dedication, not only to the education of children, but also to addressing the needs of the entire community. Her approach was always about caring for the whole child. Throughout

045her remarkable career as a school administrator and later assistant superintendent, Ms. Edwards demonstrated an unwavering commitment to our students, families and this district. Her servant leadership has been an inspiration to so many, including myself. I was so inspired by her that I pursued an opportunity to work directly under her as the charter and contracted school liaison here in Manatee County. The first one I might add under her guidance, I grew tremendously as a leader. Her influence continues to shape my growth even to this day. And I regularly seek her wisdom, which she generously shares without hesitation. Ms. Edwards has dedicated her life to serving the children and families of this district, whether through her professional work, her church, her sorority, or through the countless former colleagues and community members who still turn to her for

046guidance and support. I think we don't feel like she's retired just yet, so we wanna get all we can for these reasons. I can think of no more deserving, no one more deserving of this honor than Lynette Edwards naming the new K eight School after her would be a fitting tribute to a leader who has given so much to this community. And I just wanna say very quickly that last week I was named by the Boys and Girls Club of Sarasota Man and DeSoto Counties as at the Leadership Breakfast. And who did I look out and see in the audience to support me was one and only Lynette Edwards. So she just has such a great reach and I just hope you will consider this as you're moving forward in the naming of the new

047K eight School. Thank you so much. Thank you Kim Al? Yeah. Reading. Hello, my name is Kimberly Reten and I am here as well in support of Ms. Lynette c Edwards to be named for the New East County, K through eight school. Ms. Edwards has been an inspiration to me. I guess I won't tell my age, but even with me growing up through Bradenton Middle, going on to southeast and high in college and then even now I speak, I seek her advice and her wisdom. She is a great beacon of success throughout her career in Mane County School District and even now. So she has not really retired. She helps on countless boards with scholarships and mentoring programs for the youth today with her 36 year career in Manatee County, as everyone else has said,

048from teacher to dean to assistant principal to principal, she has a proven track record even going to director of personnel, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. She is a worthy, more than worthy candidate to have the new school for K through eight in her honor. Thank you. Thank you. Alright, that concludes our public comment. We wanna thank everybody coming and, and giving their public comment. Appreciate your time. Moving on to item number 10, which is reports and presentations. Mr. Jensen, you want to come on up? 24 25 Fast progress monitoring PM one. Thank you very much. Chair Choate, board members, superintendent Whiteson. Good evening. Over the past 12 months, I've had the absolute pleasure to stand before you a number of times to talk about the progress of our students and teachers throughout the district

049in a, in a number of data presentations from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year to the end of last year. And now we're starting that cycle over again with our baseline data for the 25, our 24 25 school year. Before we, before we jump in, and please feel free to, to stop me throughout the presentation with any questions or comments you may have. I wanted to introduce kind of the man behind the, the machine that makes all of this happen, which is Mr. Evan McCarthy. He's our, he's appeared, he's a real person. He's a real person. I was thrilled to invite Mr. McCarthy to be here. As you know, he is, he leads a small and mighty team of just very talented, very knowledgeable people in our school district who

050really are our school leaders and our teachers and our district leaders rely on to make all the decisions we do to operate the school district and do what's right for students in their education. And Mr. McCarthy and his team have a really incredible set of technical knowledge, but they also have an incredibly creative way of looking at data. And I think him and his team are able to provide us with insights that other other school districts don't get because of the innovative ways they look at data and their commitment to, to creating whatever we can dream up, whatever we wanna see. So we appreciate him and his team and they obviously play a huge role in, in all of these presentations that I give to you, he's also, he's normally texting me to bail me

051out whenever you have, you ask me questions I don't know the answer to. So today he can just come up or, or shout. So as you know, fast is the Florida Assessment of student Thinking. That's our very unique kind of first in the country set of progress monitor assessments that make up the, the assessment system here in the state of Florida. And there's one that happens in the beginning of the year that's called PM one Progress Monitor one. And we just finished administering that and that provides us with our baseline data for the year. Then in the middle of the year, and you see that testing window there December of 2024 to January of 25. That's where we administer PM two for our mid-year data to see our students' progress. And then PM three is

052that culminating data at the end of the year. And that's what the state's accountability system is based on. And that's the Progress Monitor three data, our K two students test in the Renaissance Star platform. And you can see the different assessments they take there on the bottom left of the slide. And our three through 10 students take the Cambium fast assessments and you can see those listed on the bottom right Mr. Jensen? Yes, sir. Since you did say we could ask questions as you go along. Absolutely. On this slide here, what, what are the factors that determine whether we test before Christmas or after Christmas, so to speak? We like to break up the test so that we're not overburdening schools and students with, with too many assessments at once. You know, we wanna make

053sure we're getting good, good results from our students. So the state sets testing windows for us, and then annually Mr. McCarthy's team creates an assessment calendar that is brought to the board and that kind of locks in those testing windows. And then we kind of map the, the windows of assessments to different weeks and the schools administer those. And in addition to all the data desegregation and processing and the things he does there, Mr. McCarthy's team is really responsible for ensuring that we have quality testing throughout the year. So our schools are testing to Fidelity, you know, going through all the state processes, we're collecting data appropriately from students. And so that's how we set it. So typically in December, we'll test math January, we'll test ELA, something like that. Great, thank you. And as

054a reminder, FAST is also unique from some of the, the old paper-based tests we would take because FAST is computer adaptive, which means when a student gets an answer correct, the next question they get is a little bit tougher, a little bit higher level standard or, or higher depth of knowledge on that, on that same skill. And if they get a question wrong, then it kind of backs it down. And then over the course of questioning it kind of triangulates, you know, where it believes a student is on, on the particular set of skills. Again, one thing that's unique about FAST is that it can remember year over year. And so kind of base where a student ended last year and may start them in a particular window of of question difficulty to, to begin

055this year. One of the other really fabulous things about the FAST assessment is that it is, it provides a lot of insight for our parents and for our families. So DOE provides a number of resources online. This is an excerpt from one of their parent guides on understanding the number of reports that are in the platform. And just as I did last year, I wanted to highlight this section because we administer three progress monitor assessments over the course of the year. This is the baseline, this is where the students are starting. So if I'm a seventh grade ELA student, I'm taking seventh grade English, I'm getting all of the seventh grade year content, but I haven't really been exposed to that content yet. So this is setting the baseline and then the next two assessment

056assessments are gonna determine kind of the progress I'm making in, in that learning over the course of the year. Yes, ma'am. Is it that that student that you're taking the ELA test, the, when they are doing PM three in sixth grade, let's say they're just knocking it out of the ballpark, does the data from that test go so far as to take them through seventh grade ELA? No, ma'am. So the, the assessment itself is based on just the standards for the course that are being assessed. Good. Mr. McCarthy's nodding at me. So they don't, so they don't move into another grade levels content. They, it becomes more complex in, in the, that grade levels content, but they don't move into a, a different course or grade level. Thanks. So one of the tools that our

057families have access to is the family portal. So when we do start getting results, and again, one of the interesting and exciting things about the FAST assessment is we get that data back instantly. It used to take us a month or longer in order to get that data back from the state teachers get it almost immediately. Our families get it almost immediately. And so parents can log in through their family portal and focus and access their students' reports, get important contextual data from the state and, and, you know, learn about how their students making progress in their, in their courses. So the next couple slides are just examples of what parents can see in that system. You see kind of at the top of a report, you might see kind of the scale score for

058your student, what level that was. You can see at the bottom left kind of how that compares with peers at the school district and state level. Some notes for families. You can also see more detailed reports that are, that are aggregated by category or domain. So like, how is my student doing on reading pros and poetry? And then even better, what are some next steps in achievement level descriptors? So like what, what can I take away as a, as a parent to support my student with on this particular set of knowledge? In all of this Progress monitor testing factors into our end of year school grade components. So this is the, the buckets of of assessment data that, you know, informs our, our school grades and our, our district grades. And as you know, we've

059gone over these in all of our database presentations. And this is for the 24 25 school year. All of the different school grade components that will factor into to the different school and district grades. And as you can see this has not changed from last year. So what we'll do to get started is jump into our ELA and reading results. Okay. And this first slide is K one and two, which is focused on the STAR assessment. And last year I don't believe I was able to show you this data at the beginning of the year because the system was so new it wasn't able to break it out into performance levels to start the year like we were able to in three through 10. So this is exciting that we get to start the year

060with that kind of baseline for our students. And you can see that we've remained relatively consistent as far as kind of the baseline where our students are starting the year when it comes to their, like the number of students who are already demonstrating proficiency or on grade level content. So you see kind of that one, that two and then that three plus the three plus represents all the students who've already demonstrated that they're on grade level with the content for that, for that course or grade level. The other thing I think it's really important to, to remember as parents and as educators is this is a baseline and it's really expected that students don't know the content at the beginning of the year. And so when you look at, we also, in addition to getting

061a scale score, we get a percentile rank. You know, as a parent or a teacher, you can see like, oh you scored at the 90th percentile or you scored at the 35th percentile on this first progress monitor. You can score all the way up to almost the 70th percentile and still fall into the level one range. We would not expect a student scoring at the 70th percentile to be level one at the end of the year. We know that student is gonna have demonstrate remarkable learning over the course of the year and score very well by the end of the year. But by far most students fall into that level one bucket to start the year. The other thing to point out on this slide is you can kind of see we're consistent with the

062state and kindergarten and second grade, but it looks like we're not performing well in first grade. That is kind of an illusion because there's two tests that students take in reading in star, there's Star reading, I'm sorry, there's STAR Early Literacy and there's star reading. And early literacy is the test that kindergarten students take and some first grade students take until they score a certain score and then they switch to STAR reading at the, by the end of first grade, all students are required by the state to take star reading. So what we do in Manatee is we just start all of our first grade students on star reading, we start them on the harder test because that's the test they're expected to take at the end of the year. Some districts actually you can

063see 61%, when we pulled this data, 61% of students in first grade actually were still on the star early literacy assessment. So our scores here are taking a harder assessment than a lot of the comparable students in the state, which is why you see that discrepancy, which is also sometimes why this data and isolation isn't a good per a good indicator of how our students are performing relative to their peers. A lot of context needed. Also why I try to add footnotes to slides as as often as possible, then through third through fifth grade and we move into the fast assessment. And again, you can see kind of where our students are, are starting on level one, level two, and then level three plus, which is all the students that scored on grade level or

064higher. So this would be students who scored three scores or fives. You can see again relative consistency relative to the state on across all grade levels with, you know, improved performance consistent with the state. And fourth and fifth. And again, you can see some variance across the grade levels between district and charter schools. But again, kind of district students keeping up with the state across most domains in most areas. And again, as a reminder to everyone, this is a baseline. So this is where we start. This is before our teachers work work their magic and our students are working hard in our classes every day. The other thing to point out about the third grade exam is it's a very transitional exam for our students because the last exam our students took in second grade

065was the STAR exam. The first exam the students take in third grade is the fast exam. There's two assessments are very different in their format and style. And so for our third graders, I'm I'm sure on that first progress monitor before they're used to what that new assessment looks like. It's kind of a learning experience for them, which is I think why we also see some lower scores in third grade across the board. Mr. Jensen, would you educate us quickly? I think I know what I wanna make sure I understand on the process. If, if someone, if a student is not able to achieve the level three on the grade three ELA test, then what happens at that point? How do we try and help them to get them to the next grade? Or what

066happens if they can't achieve that? I'm just curious. So we have a state statute that requires that students to strip display some mastery of grade level content in third grade before being promoted. And the state defines that in a number of ways and has some concordant tests and other opportunities for including a portfolio that students can use to demonstrate mastery or, or some mastery. So if a student doesn't score a level two or higher, they may be considered for retention. That's when a student might be invited to summer reading camp and will do a lot of intensive work in, in ELA over the summer and reading over the summer and then reassess that student. One exciting thing about the 24 25 school year is historically students had one shot at the, at the third pm

067and then we, we try some other tests like SAT 10, et cetera. The state has actually opened it up to where now we can do a summer retake of PM three for our students who are, who may be retained because they scored a level one at, on their first attempt at PM three. And so we'll do summer reading camp like we normally do, do that extra instruction with students and then we'll be able to reassess them on PM three and if they maybe still struggle with that, we can try one of the other concordant exams as well. Additionally, throughout the year when a student demonstrates that they're, they're not performing well on that exam and they're at, they're at risk of being retained or need intensive interventions, we begin those interventions as, as soon as

068we're aware of 'em, we notify families and we also will start, you know, a portfolio process with that student and all the other things. It's very governed by Florida law, that whole process. And Ms. Nichols and the curriculum team do an excellent job working with schools to ensure that we're, we're supporting students through that process. Okay. And then what can a parent do if the child doesn't achieve proficiency on the PM three test at the end of the school year? What or what is the process? Do we notify all those parents about their options, summer school concordant tests or what? I'm just curious, what's the process at that point? Correct. I mean, those parents have received communication typically from schools, from their school prior, unless for some reason, you know, maybe things are going on

069in that child's life when they took that exam and they, they performed far worse than we expected them to. But in general, the students already, the parents have already been working with the school through a series of, you know, interventions. Those parents receive an invitation to summer reading camp requesting that they, those students enroll and participate in that extra month, a little bit longer than a month of instruction over the summer. Let them know about all the additional opportunities that their students have to, to demonstrate mastery, such as taking those additional assessments that the state specifies. So like stat 10 star third grade is one we use as well as now retake of PM three. And so we've provided kind of a number of windows for students to demonstrate mastering and we work really hard

070with students to try to put them in the best possible situation to, to be successful. Great. That was informative for me. Thank you. Thank you. A question, so you're saying on the K through two it's the STAR testing? Yes ma'am. And we do the more difficult level of star, the star one, star two you said? Correct. So the, the easier one that you start off with in kindergarten is called STAR early literacy. Okay. And then the, the harder one, which is the expectation that all students are using that exam by the end of first grade is star reading. Okay. And that's the one in first grade we start all students on. Okay. So if we have a student at level one with the star reading in second grade or, or even, well let me back

071up. If we have a student at level three in the star reading, but they're gonna struggle with the fast reading in the third right? Third grade, they go into the FAST instead of star. Correct. In third grade they Right. If they're struggling, say in the Star, do we put them in the summer reading program in the start or the best testing? So the, the summer reading camp is only for third grade. Students who've completed their third grade year are at risk of retention because they scored level one at the end of the year. Those students, you know, go through the summer learning process and then they'll take the fast third grade exam, they take fast third at the end of the year. Then, we'll, if those students aren't successful on that, we'll actually use the

072third grade star assessment and allow those students to try to take that. And if they score a certain state cutoff score and the state determines those scores, then they're eligible for a good cause promotion. And then we do the same with the SAT 10, which is another alternative assessment. You can kind of think of it like high school concordance, where we have like PSAT and SAT exams that students can use instead of the state exam to demonstrate what they know. That's what we do at the end of summer reading camp for our students. I think it's great that we have K through two data, but my, I guess my question is if we can see that they are not demonstrating progress at the second grade, we don't hold them back there. We promote them onto

073third according to what your assessment was. But if we see that they're struggling in second, do we have a reading program for second graders during the summer? So a a lot of those, it's not as structured as something like summer reading camp. A lot of that tends to be more individualized and happen during the school year. We are required by state law going as early as pre-K when a student demonstrates that they're in need of urgent intervention in, in reading or math, we have to immediately start the process of delivering those interventions before we get to the third grade, before we get to the third grade. And so those students are already on our radars. Our schools working hard with them. We're doing a lot of small group work, we're doing a lot of evidence-based

074intervention systems and programs with those students. It's, it's definitely a labor of love for our, for our elementary schools who just do an amazing job of grouping students, of doing intervention, of differentiating instruction. They really work very hard and are, are quite expert at it. Okay, great. You said that if a third grade reader couldn't pass the fast level one, then you would give them a star level, higher level star test to see if they could pass that. Is that what you just said? It's at the end of the third grade year. Right. We've moved on to the fast test, right. They've taken PM one, pm 2:00 PM three, and it's really all about that PM three. So if they get a level one on PM three, that's when we have summer reading camp, that's

075when we'll give them alternate assessments like STAR for third grade or not. Everyone takes star in third grade. It's just one of the state's. Many options for a student to demonstrate that maybe they know the material, but they for some reason aren't doing well on the fast test, but they can show it through that STAR test. I see. Okay. Alright. Good to know. Thank you. My pleasure. Yes, ma'am. How many students you may not know actually ended up taking Mr. Star test at the end of summer reading? So how many, how also, how many students have we retained? I don't wanna misspeak on that data. So what I can do is put together some charts for you kind of showing retentions as well as the students who took the different alternative assessments and then the

076number of students who demonstrated proficiency or grade level standards through one of those alternative assessments and how many students we had. Good cause promote through them. Wonderful. Thank you Mr. McCarthy. Get right on it. Absolutely. He makes, he, he usually sends me like a list of all the things he's gonna create after these meetings, which is fabulous. He's, he's very on it. So here you see our middle school data sixth through eighth grade. Again, consistency and growth from last year. I think we were attributing this to, we're seeing increased, you know, reading improvement across the state and also familiarity with the exam and benchmarks across the state. And our, our teachers are just becoming much more knowledgeable about the standards, how to prepare students for these assessments. And I mean now we're in what year

077three of implementation on this. So this is really where we're hitting the ground running. And again, you can see kind of variants, small variants, grade level to grade level. But again, we're getting there very consistency and again, baseline for us to, to work from to start the year. And then finally, our ninth and 10th grade students also take the, the ELA fast. And as you know, the 10th grade fast is a graduation requirement. And you can see we've made progress and closed the gap with the state in that grade. Okay. So you said that 10th is a required require to, what did you say? Graduate to graduate. Okay. That's all I needed. I'm sorry, I just, I'm writing as I'm thinking. Go ahead. I'm good. Go ahead. As you all know and you know, we

078appreciate your support in, in helping the curriculum team and our school leaders with all the resources they need to support student. We have a, we have a constellation of, of curriculum and, and human beings supporting our students and reading. And so you can see we just have a number of, of fabulous district adopted materials, materials made by our curriculum team. And Ms. Nichols, we have our Lexia program, which students work in for, for reading and reading intervention. We do a lot of writing in our classrooms and I hope that as you visit schools, you've seen our students actively writing in their classes. We're expanding our UF Lassinger Center Professional Learning for literacy with our K two teachers to, to build that science of Reading foundation in those teachers. And we're always working with systemic volunteer

079programs for, for coordinated and school and after school support for our students. Really, like Ms. Juda said, we have an amazing community that's really focused on this mission of supporting student reading. And we, we feel a lot of that support in our schools. And as I've shared with you a number of times, we really triangulate all of those around our district look for is what we're looking for as a district when we walk into classrooms and what we work with our school administrators on, on focusing on just three very key things that we think will make a huge difference in ensuring students are successful by the end of the year. Our school leaders are visiting each other's schools a lot this year and giving each other peer feedback on whether or not they're seeing these

080things at each other's schools and then sharing best practices on, on what works and what's been most effective for them. And so we're seeing school leaders walking each other's classrooms, we're getting the pleasure of walking classrooms with our principals and I, I think it's gonna be a, a very instructive and powerful way of building their skillset as instructional leaders. Alright, so now we're gonna transition on to math. Math. I'm gonna front load you a little bit on, because math has undergone the most changes this year. As you know, we have traditionally accelerated in math in middle school and Florida. You can see we have columns that represent our most accelerated pathway, our accelerate accelerated pathway, and our traditional pathway. And really in middle school acceleration, the key is what grade do you take algebra in?

081So in the most accelerated pathway, you take algebra in seventh grade if you want to be accelerated, but still, but not on that most accelerated path pathway, you end up taking algebra in eighth grade and then if you're on the most traditional pathway, you end up taking algebra in ninth grade. And that's kind of how the, the system's been set up for a number of years. And that acceleration also factors into our school and district accountability. This is that traditional pathway represented going all the way to grade three. Now with the transition to the best standards, the state added course codes for grade three, accelerated math, grade four, accelerated math, and grade five accelerated math, which is really just sixth grade math. And we teach it in the fifth grade year. Hmm. The big change

082this year and the, the piece I, I need to front load you within this presentation is are the, the data in math looks different because we have changed the grade levels at which those students are testing in those accelerated courses. And that's indicated off to the right, that was based off of teacher feedback. It was based off of speaking with our, our school principals and administrators and also looking at other districts throughout the state, their data and where they're, where they're testing students and how successful they're being. And so you can see that if you're a grade four accelerated math student, you're actually actually taking the fifth grade fast assessment for math. If you're a grade six, if you're a fifth grader taking grade six math, you're taking the sixth grade fast. That makes sense

083because you're taking sixth grade math, you spend the whole year learning sixth grade math, I do something like that. Why would you take a different, different course? Right. And then are a grade seven students, which are really learning pre-algebra or grade seven accelerated students are learning pre-algebra. They're taking the eighth grade fast, which is pre-algebra content. So this year, based on kind of getting over the hurdle of the initial implementation with our accelerated classes, we've now moved to those three classes to test in alignment with the course standards that are being taught. And you can see Mr, in addition to all the data, Mr. McCarthy creates beautiful graphics for us. And this kind of aligns the, the courses to the standards being taught. So for example, you see in third grade accelerated, you learn third

084math standards and you learn the first half of fourth. And then when you get to fourth grade, you learn the back half of fourth, and then you learn all of fifth. And that's why we do the, the fifth grade exam at the end of that course. And you can kind of see how the standards map to the courses so that students aren't missing standards as they're going through the accelerated pathway. And we're also supplementing their learning with summer prep courses and other tutoring and prep opportunities within the school day and eventually students based on how, how much they want to accelerate end up in algebra one and geometry, et cetera. So this is a, I think, a really nice representation of the impact that's had. On, on the data you're gonna see, you can see

085these are basically the number of students who took each test last year to this year. So for example, you can see in grade four we've had over a thousand fewer students take the grade four maths math assessment because those students are our fourth grade accelerated students. They're now starting on the fifth grade assessment and it kind of cascades up from there. So we've had fifth grade students taking the sixth grade assessment and sixth and seventh grade students taking the eighth grade assessment because they're accelerating. What this does across the state, it's not exclusive to Manatee County, is it makes the math progression a little bit fuzzier because we accelerate, but the state calls all the courses by grade. And then because you have different students testing above grade level, it makes grade level to grade

086level comparisons between districts and across the state. Very, very difficult. So that's just something to keep in mind. Almost like we've traditionally seen that our eighth grade math scores have seemed very, very low, but that's because all of our eighth graders who are proficient or taking algebra or geometry, we're basically seeing that multiplied across a number of grade levels now. And so that's the context. I just wanna make sure, you know, it's something we've worked with our principals on and working with our teachers on just making sure that as we are testing our students above grade level and, and appropriate courses that they view the data through that lens. I wanna make sure I understand. If you're taking Algebra one in eighth grade, what test are you taking? You're actually not taking any of these

087tests. Okay. Which makes it even more confusing. You're taking the algebra EOC and that doesn't have a PM one or a PM two. Okay. So we use district progress monitors to help us chart those students' progress towards being successful, but they're not represented in this data. Thank you. Does the state have any guideline on, do they want eighth graders that are taking algebra to take eighth grade fast? Like do they The the guidance that we've, we've received is we've interacted through a number of professional development events and with, you know, DOE have said that the expectation is that it's most appropriate for students to test at the grade level of the standards that're learning. Sure, okay. So yeah, that's what we're following and we, we see it in other districts and we've seen other districts

088be very successful with this. And we know our students excel at math here in the school district of Manatee County. And to kind of contextualize this before we jump into kind of the rolled up data, which is kind of again, difficult to parse because of all the above grade level testing. This is just those students broken out and it kind of shows you how well equipped they are already to be successful in those courses. First of all, you can see that in something like our fifth grade accelerated classes, 50% of those students already demonstrated on that. They were on grade level with sixth grade content on PM one. So those students were extremely successful on that exam. And you can see that kind of across the board in general, we have students equal to, or

089are far above kind of their state peers, which represent both accelerated non-accelerated students all mixed together across the state. But even kind of drilling back beyond that, you can see how many students we have on PM one scoring in that level two group in the accelerated that even represents students who are 70th percentile or higher who are going to be very successful in these courses. And you can see how many of our students who weren't yet on grade level fell in that level two bucket. So this is a starting place. I mean this is exciting to me. Even students who scored level one, you know, we're looking at those students individually, but those were students that scored a high percentile rank on that first exam. This is above grade level content for them. And as

090they learn it throughout the year, we're gonna see their, their growth just shoot off. So I'm looking forward to bringing this chart back to you on PM two and seeing the growth of these accelerated students on this above grade level content. Yes ma'am. I had a question about the percentile rank. Sure. So if someone, if a student is in the accelerated and they're taking the fifth grade test in fourth grade or the fourth grade test in third grade or whatever it is, their percentile ranking is all students that took that test. Correct. So it's not just whatever grade they're in, in the accelerated, but all the, of the, the, if they're in third, it's all the fourth graders that also took that test. So yes, like a fifth grader in taking sixth grade math, it's

091actually being compared to all sixth grade six, all students taking that sixth grade assessment, which could be fifth graders or it could be sixth graders. It's gonna be a majority of sixth graders with all your fifth grade accelerated kids thrown in who are that exam. Okay. So you're gonna see, again, these students excelling with, you know, compared to older peers who are taking that exam. Right. And other accelerated students who are taking that exam. Okay. But you are correct, it's based on grade level, not on based on whoever took the test. Yes. Based on whoever took the test. Okay. Thanks again, this is the, the math results for the whole cohort of students now. And again from K two, this is the star data. So you're seeing star results, consistent little motion up and down

092between grade levels. It's exciting that we get this data to start the year. This is something that our K two student, our K two teachers have not had access to in the past. And again, you can see stable performance across the grade levels to start at as a baseline. This is where the data becomes difficult to parse and do comparisons about, which is why we've kind of narrowed it down and not done a prior year comparison on this slide. I've added the note for anyone who've used this deck after the fact that any of those comparisons aren't displayed because of that implementation of above grade level testing. When you view, view the data like this, it's just all these different groups of students rolled up into those different grade levels. And so it's difficult to

093to compare, but again, you can see some of the impact on fourth and fifth because a lot of those students are taking higher level math exams. And again, you're gonna see variance between district and charter schools, district operated and charter schools in a lot of ways based on which schools are accelerating students, which, which schools are doing above grade level testing depending on the charter, et cetera. Again, you can see the impact of this six through eight because some grades look better than other grades. But again, that's because of which grade levels are you're testing on. So in th sixth grade, you're gonna have some of your five accelerated students factoring into that, whereas a lot of sixth and seven students might be taking that eighth grade exam or beyond for algebra or geometry. So

094it's just difficult to make comparisons in math because of the state's commitment to math acceleration in our district's commitment to it. It's so blended. It is very blended across the grade levels. It's so blended that that is so difficult to measure when it's so blended like that. Absolutely. In my opinion. And that's why when, you know, our teachers, our teachers see kind of the big picture data, but what our teachers are doing every day in the classroom is focusing in on student by student what those students need. Grouping them, delivering interventions, using we, we get amazing standards based reports out of fast now. So Mr. McCarthy creates really amazing dynamic Excel tables that show how our students are doing by standard and then teachers can reteach on those standards. So we really, beside this rolled

095up data that we get, we get some very granular student by student data that our teachers are using to, to actually move the needle every day for our students. And I think honestly that's the, that's the secret sauce for this first pm It's not necessarily the big picture data, it's what we're doing instructionally in our classrooms to support students. And what we're doing every day to support students is listed on this slide that focus on math, those high quality resources, professional learning through the math micro-credential through lassinger evidence-based intervention and core materials using those DOE resources. If you ever walk into a math classroom in the school district of Manatee County and you see whiteboards kind of up all over the walls and students standing up doing math, that's one of our thinking classrooms in

096math. And that's a initiative we continue to expand. And then of course we're doing those K 12 instructional rounds to build our capacity as leaders throughout the district. And that's it. If you have any final questions around that's, I get a, I get a, just a simple question of when we are giving the test to the students, are they in their own normal classrooms with a laptop at their own normal desk? Or are they going into a computer lab and kind of rotating in and out? You know, I take mine from eight to nine, Ms. Foreman takes her class nine to 10, that sort of thing. It's probably gonna depend on the exam. Okay. And on the grade level. Okay. That it's being administered out. Right. So different different grade levels. Yes. Elementary almost need

097to come up. You gotta come up at this point, since we have so many Chromebooks and laptops everywhere, elementary almost exclusively test in their classroom. Okay. And we, and in general, we push all of our schools to try to test with a familiar face. 'cause you don't want a student going and testing with somebody they don't know at all. Middle schools also tend to be really classroom test. They tend to test in a lot of their homerooms first thing in the morning. And then high school, we still tend to do a little bit more of that pull out to kind of preset up areas where they can test large groups without disrupting the rest of campus because we have 11th and 12th grade that aren't testing at the same time. Okay. Thank you. And, and

098has there been any, with that many laptops on the network, et cetera, have we seen any dropping in the debt where, you know, we're, we're, I mean I just can imagine a a kindergartner, second grader, first grader, you know, spinning the spinning death of, you know, buffering the wheel of death and you know what I mean? Like I just have, we have, we experienced a whole lot of that. This is I think a testament to both Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Hanson and his team in our information technology department. First of all, you know, we, we kind of designed the testing calendar. There's, there's make days, makeup windows. So for instance, if there was a, a network outage, that may not even be the school district command county's fault, right? It could be someone was doing

099construction and severed a fiber line or whatever. We're able to say, you know what, this isn't the optimal day to be doing testing and we're gonna reschedule it for another day. We have, like Mr. McCarthy said, a pretty robust technology infrastructure on our campuses. It's something our school administrators look at as they're preparing for testing our testing coordinators. You know, what, what is the capacity in different areas as far as those wireless access points go, as far as our bandwidth goes. And so in general, we have very few issues, I'd say with the actual technology infrastructure that good X testing. The other thing that, and I think Dr. Weinstein and I talked about this in our walkthrough at Abel, is with, it's great that we've got the Chromebooks, it's great that we have all these

100laptops, right? But the, i I don't know what age to say this and like given an age of 10 years old and below or whatever, but the majority of our kids don't use a mouse or, or even a, a, a track pad on the iPad. Like it's touch. Right? So we're already moving them to and using an object that they don't know how to use or not. No, I'm, excuse me. Not knowing know how to use are are just, they don't use it all the time. Right. And the com the, the being comfortable with that item that you're using, I think is, is important. Have we thought about, is that an issue like iPads and I'm sure teachers are the ones, the boots on the ground that could see if kids are interacting wrong with,

101you know, they don't know how to use the, the track pad and things like that. I mean, I, I don't, I don't know if that's even an issue. It may not be 'cause they're smarter than us when it comes to technology. So maybe they just don't even worry about it. I mean, as a, as a, as a former classroom teacher who used to administer assessments, I would say that, you know, early on and you, there's a, there's the content you're teaching students, but there's also the test and the test environment you're teaching students. So I would say our students are, are learning those skills as they go on too. And I think as you see, as you, as you walk our classrooms and you see learning happening in our classrooms, you'll see teachers giving sample

102test items online in an online environment. Our writing test is administered online. And so I was at Palmetto Elementary the other day and those fifth grade students had done all of this amazing annotation on paper and done a, a matrix to capture, compare these different sources and then they were typing their five paragraph essay into the computer so that they were building practice on, on typing. So that when we reach the end of the year, that's not a Yeah, it's a familiar experience. And so I would say early on, I guess part of the progress monitoring as well is like the progress of, of learning to use the computer. Absolutely. Instead of going like this and splitting your sheet open, like, you know, open up SAT. So, and as someone who administered AP and SAT

103test, I can say that students also struggled with that as well. Yeah, yeah. They don't have to open up the, the sticky anymore. Feel like where's my face enabled deal? Okay, thank you very much. I don't board, I just wanted any other questions or comments. I just wanted to say I'm, I'm glad that you are, that we're migrating into the best practice model of sharing what works at this school may work here or what's not working. Let's go to a school to see how they're doing it. I've always been a huge person to say best practices doesn't matter what area of of of business you're in, it works everywhere. I wanna say thank you to Mr. McCarthy for doing all of the, 'cause I know how, how tedious that can be. You know, looking at

104the screen and doing all the data and even all the way down to what you said, granular to the student to where the parent can even see. And I can't even imagine having a student in today's world. I can Oh, but like to your point, we are slowly migrating from the paper to the computer. I mean, kids are doing things that we never did when we were in school. I didn't anyway, but they are, when I walk through the schools, I'm amazed at how good kids can navigate with And some of 'em I think do have a mouse, if I remember right. I think I saw a few, maybe not. But they do the finger touch pad and they do a lot of the touching on the screen. So it's no different than trying to,

105some kindergartners come in or pre-Ks with don't even know how to do the pencil. So imagine we're taking 'em from a pencil to a tablet. So I think it's a, a multi multifaceted approach that we have to take. And I'm just glad that we're able to capture the data because I think in some testing environments, and I've been a testing proctor before and we're in a confined space and you have to do it this way. It's in a higher level of course, but I don't know, are we testing students when they don't even realize they're being tested on a screen? It's a game. Okay, can you recognize this? Can you say this word kind of thing. That's to me, when you make testing fun and all grade levels up into where we really start, have

106to start diving deep into your brain. But testing can be fun too. It's nothing to be afraid of. And that I think would be the best message to share with teachers and I, from what I've seen until I haven't been in the classroom when they're being tested, but from, I could see they make learning fun. And that's what it's about too. So anyway, thank you. And it's nice to actually see the face behind the name. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Great presentation. Alright, board, we're gonna take a quick two minute recess since we're an hour and 40 in, we'll be back at six 50. Alright, welcome back. And let's go ahead and jump into item number 11 on the agenda, the consent items. And Superintendent Ong. Thank you

107Chairman. I recommend approval of the consent agenda for the September 24th, 2024 school board meeting. So moved. I will second. Sorry, we got a motion a second, I believe on the floor. I don't see it on Granicus. Maybe because I'm not in the right spot. There it goes. All right. There we go. Consent items. Let's go ahead and vote on the approval of the consent items. I'm not getting it. So are you a yay or a nay? Oh, I'm a yay. Can you please vote for Ms. Foreman as a Yes, I have to go out. I'm perfect. Thank you. I will take our time on the rest of the agenda as you log back into Granicus. Okay. Moving to item number 14.1, new business non-consent items. You wanna start us off Dr. Weiss song with

108item 14.1? Yes, thank you Chairman. I recommend approval of a new job description of high school student intern. So moved. I'll second Dr. You wanna inform the public? I'm, I'm, I know why I'm excited about this. I'm sure other board members are as well. So yeah. Thank you chairman. Board members, this job description provides us the vehicle, if you approve it, to hire our own high school students into paid internship roles to complete projects for the district. And this has been worked on for a a, a long period of time just to make sure that we've taken care of all the details. The original use case for this was for MSTV to perhaps employ some of our TV production students. And as you know, some of them hold professional industry certifications in their field and

109to use them to assist our, our great MSTV team with some of their game of the week broadcasts and, and, and other of the special projects that they do for us. And as we talked as a leadership team, we see some other opportunities, particularly next summer with the opening of the next two schools and the tight timeline that we're on to get that done. We may be able to use students to assist the IT department, the facilities department in, in getting those things open. So we see this as a, a, a, a great future opportunity to tap the talent of our own students when it's appropriate to do so. Thank you. Yeah, I I think it's great. I think it's something too from a career standpoint. You know, you, you've got a senior that jumps

110in and and starts interning. You never know that, that it could, it could become a career and Yeah, it's exciting. We, we, you told me about the speech yesterday. We were at the speech contest and the teacher wanted to be, or the student wanted to be a teacher. We're like, intern, sign her up. Let's go. Yeah. Alright. Thank you very much Dr. Wyong. Any other board members announce anyone lit to speak on this item? 14.1. So let's go ahead and vote on the approval of a new job description of high school student intern. Okay, vote for me please. That's a yes and gonna totally log out. All right, moving on to item 14.2. Dr. Wesson. Thank you Chairman. I recommend approval of resolution 2 0 2 4 dash 0 1 1 authorizing a tax anticipation

111note series 2024 pursuant to Florida statute 1 0 1 0.13. So moved. I'll second if somebody else name. Yep. Got it. Okay. Ms. Foreman and then Ms. Messinger. And if we want to give it to Ms. Sellers, go ahead and explain again to the public. I know that we know, but, and Dr. Wetson, did you wanna add anything before Ms. Sellers? No, Ms. Sellers is the expert. Okay. So the inta, this tax anticipation note is something that this district has issued for the last 15 years. It is designed to empower the, or authorize the school board to enter into a current loan to pay obligations to cover expenditures within the operating budget. This is the general fund until the first property tax distribution is made. That is around the end of November, beginning of December.

112Now in the past the district has issued the tax anticipation note and it's been for the past few years, it has been a private placement with an institution that has put in a group of proposed bids. But this year, because of the good financial statement of the district and its credit ratings, the financial advisors and bond councils suggested that we pursue this public public offering statement to go to a competitive bid. Instead, this will give us a lower borrowing rate for the year on this. So this resolution is to designed to give delegate authority to the chair, the superintendent to be able to authorize us to go or this particular TA tax anticipation note to go to sale for those notes. It is not to exceed 48 million and the sale would be, the competitive

113sale would be October nine. The issuance is expected. October 22, that's the anticipated issuance date. And the maturity date would be on or before February 27th, 2025. Thank you Questions? Yep. Your board members, I just question on, on Yeah. When you say you're putting that out to like a bid, right? So the private placement, you had instant financial institutions provide proposals, but this one you have financial institutions submitting to be able to sale, sell these notes for the district and they compete one another to give a, the lowest rate. And so it's designed to go with whoever provides the lowest net interest cost. Right, right. So they're, they're bidding for our business. Okay. That's all I had. Thank you. Okay, well thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to say I, this is a good

114example of how far we have come in this district for financial stability. I mean that 10 years ago, this, you know, I think they, it was pulling strings for, to get somebody to lend us the money I think. But, so this is just wonderful and also the fact that we're borrowing less this year, which means that we have a higher cash to work with, you know, in our, of our own resources. So, so two, two spots of really good news. So thank you. Awesome. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Alright, so let's go ahead and vote on the approval of the resolution 2024 dash 0 1 1 authorizing section 1011 point 13 Florida Statutes Tax Anticipation note series 2024. And that passes five to zero. Item number 14.3. Dr. Wesson, thank you Chairman. I recommend

115approval of the proposed opening plan for the East County K eight School. So moved. I'll second you have a motion and a second Mark DW song you wanna explain the opening plan of the East County K eight. Thank you chairman Board members, you'll remember that on Friday, September 13th. That seems like so long ago. We, during your workshop, my team and I walked you through the plan to get the K eight open. But again, just to recap, we are on schedule with construction to have the elementary school portion of the campus open for August of 25. And then the middle school portion of the campus will be completed for August of 2026. So the plan calls us, calls for us to populate grades K through five for August of 25 and then add grades six

116through eight in August of 26. The key component to the plan is that we will not draw an attendance boundary or zone for August of 25. And that's because with the elementaries opening the following year in August of 26, anything we draw for 25 would have to be redrawn and you risk having to have students move twice. So we will use what we call a voluntary reassignment plan to identify families who are currently in the gullet zone and either attending gullet or who this year were reassigned to Freedom McNeil or Braden River because Gullet was completely full. We will give those families who are in that bucket and who also are in geographic proximity to the K through eight, the opportunity to be reassigned their as a founding family for the 25 26 school year.

117And then from there, a a, we anticipate an attendance zone being drawn during calendar year 25 to take effect in August of 2026. And so board, if you approve the plan as presented, we would begin that process in October with meetings for targeted families who are interested in learning more. Those meetings will be run by Principal Richardson and Director Clark from Office of Student Assignment. And our goal would be to wrap that process up by Thanksgiving and then turn to the staffing plan for the school so that we are totally ready to go for August of 25. And board, just a reminder that part of the opening process, part of this approval is filing for a master school identification number with Florida DOE and then the board still has to select a name for the

118K through eight. We are accepting nominations from the public through noon this Friday, September 27th. And then those names will be presented to the board at the October 8th meeting at your October 8th meeting for further consideration. So no naming is part of this plan that processes separate and the board can make that decision either October 8th or October 22nd. Thank you. I just wanna say first off, I know we did this two weeks ago, the the workshop, but I, I want to commend you and the team. I, I think the plan for this and, and, and even the North County one, I think the plans have are fantastic. I think you guys have thought every avenue out possible and and I, and I commend you for that, I commend you for will be tackling

119this here in the next several months. I know, but there, there needs to be some adjusting of lines and zones and things like that. It's never easy. But, but the plan that you guys have for this I think is great. So we obviously have had some public comments the last two meetings about this naming of this school. Did you say we will, it closes, you said Friday the 27th at noon? Yes sir. Friday the 27th at noon. Okay. And then will we as a board get that information and then obviously you'll present it on the eighth. So my, so our intention is to compile that list after the nominations close at noon on, on on Friday 27th. We will, we will publish the complete list for the October 8th board meeting. So the list will

120be publicly available by 5:00 PM on Tuesday, October 1st. And then at the October 8th board meeting, that is the board's first opportunity to talk about the name and board members. Really at that point, it's your decision whether you want to select from the list that night or narrow the list down and put the narrowed list back out for probably seven days of public comment. And then you could make a final decision at the October 20, at the October 22nd board meeting. And of course we don't want to go past that because we need to order signage and start designing letterhead and all the fun things that go with opening a new school. So that's why that we're on the timeline. We're on. That was my next question on the timeline. Thank you. Thank you.

121I have a question. Yeah. First of all, when you're talking about, you know, when students are gonna be there, that's less than a year away. August of 25, that's less than a year away. And I just wanted to make note that from the public commenters, all of them, I would encourage if they want this school to be named after Ms. Edwards to put the name in on the system, like I said with naming a, a ball, was it a basketball court? I think it was. I'm just not in favor of naming after individuals. I'm just putting that out there right now just because it's just my position. So although I, I understand this individual's a very stellar pillar of the community. Actually I probably would still be a no on that, but I encourage everyone

122to put their names in. I'm only one vote of this board. So, but yeah, I just wanted to point out that that's less than a year away of having students there and I think that it is probably gonna be more having to turn people away. 'cause everybody likes the new school. That's what I see happening, to be honest with you. So that's just a little bit I had on that particular item. Alright, thank you. And I, I found the, on the website I found where to name the school pretty quick and easy right there. Yeah, it's easy. So I agree. Everybody who's public comment in the past couple meetings right on the name, please go on there and, and express, express reviews inside so we can get that data in. So, alright, let's go ahead

123and move on, John, see any anybody else requested to speak? Let's go ahead and move on to vote on the approval of the proposed opening plan for East County K eight School. And that passes five to zero. Moving on to item number 14.4. Dr. Weiss. Thank you Chairman. I recommend approval of the proposed opening plan for the North County school site. So moved. I second, do you have a motion and a second? Dr. Wean, you wanna explain this opening plan as well? Yes, thank you Chairman. And again, as we discussed at the September 13th workshop, these schools are on parallel tracks for timeline and opening, but then the, the dimensions of the plan are different because there are just different variables at play. And so as a reminder, originally when this site was considered, it

124was viewed as a traditional middle school campus to relieve Buffalo Creek. However, relief of Harvey Elementary became the higher priority. And Mr. Rinaldi in a, in a workshop prior to my arrival, indicated that, that it might be necessary to use the middle school site temporarily for grades four and five at Harvey. And then we started working on that as a staff and landed on a slightly different concept of moving the fourth and fifth grade and, and then not having them come back. And from that we have an essentially a plan that proposes an expansion of Harvey Elementary through grade eight with one school occupying two campuses. And so the proposal is for the 25 26 school year in construction will be complete on, on the full campus. By that point, we would open with students

125at grades four, five and six in 25 26. Again, not drawing an attendance boundary for the same reason, because we have to address that for 26, 27 because of the opening of the additional elementary schools. We would then add either grade seven or grade seven and eight in the 26 27 school year after an attendance boundary has been drawn. And, and that would be effective for 26 27. The plan calls for all current Harvey Elementary, third and fourth grade students, then to move to the new campus to be fourth and fifth graders and to do a limited sixth grade. And by limited we mean that some fifth graders will be able to move to the upper camper to the new campus for 25 26 that will also use a voluntary reassignment plan. So families currently

126at Harvey for grade five or at mills right now because they were reassigned due to being out of space at Harvey, would be able to apply and we'll use a combination of geographic proximity to the new campus, a sibling preference related to having A-A-A-A-A sibling in grades four or five their next year to identify those families, any remaining seats to be selected by random draw. So again, all of that is permitted in, in policy 5 1 2 0. So board members, if you approve the plan tonight in a similar process to the East K eight, we would convene information meetings for those families that are potentially impacted. We would hold those meetings in October, accept applications for voluntary reassignment with a goal of completing that process by Thanksgiving break. And again, that then allows us

127to build out the staffing plan. Again, a very important part of this plan is that because we're only opening grade six, it will be a limited middle school staffing, which means that there will be limited electives in 25 26. And so that'll be one of the key messaging points to families making a decision about whether to go on to their, wherever their assigned middle school is or to apply for the voluntary reassignment opportunity. And again, we, we hope to get all of that done in October and November so that we can build an accurate staffing plan and start that hiring process. Again, the the naming piece is not part of the opening plan. We did briefly discuss that. So currently if the board approves the plan, we would apply to DOE for the update of

128the m of the master school identification file to show Harvey K eight. But the board has certainly naming options available. So one final point, and this applies to, to both of these new school sites. In addition to the naming webpage for the K eight that the chairman mentioned, we, there is a new schools information page which summarizes all of the information about both schools from the workshop. And then there is a let's talk tab there so that families can submit questions if they have them. And then we've been routing those to the appropriate department because again, there are four or five different departments involved in this process. Thank you. Thank you. Alright, so real quick, I I have a, a question for the superintendent and also for the board. So for, for the naming of

129the school, the Barbara Harvey K eight, we talked to some people in the public, et cetera. Been some sentiment about maybe making it at North River Ranch because of the location, kinda like a Terra Elementary, things like that. Is that something that has to be done for the MSID to move forward? So we need to submit to DOE whatever the official name of the overall school will be. So if you, if you want to formally change the name or add to the name, then I think that falls under the board's facility naming policy, which just says that, that that's for the board, not the staff. If you, if you take no action, but direct us to update the MSID file, we, we would just simply indicate Barbara Harvey k through eight. Again, as we discussed

130in the workshop, you have multiple options. You can, you can certainly name at the school level. You can also add names to the, to each campus because we do have two, right? We'll have a K through three campus and a four through eight campus. So you can attach names to each campus if you'd like to do that Again, that, that's really the board's prerogative. As I explained the workshop, we did not open the process for public comment because, or, or public submission because I didn't want to get ahead of the board. But if you, if you want to go through a process that the policy actually doesn't require the, the input piece in terms of public nomination. So either the, the board can take action or we can open up a, a public comment or

131really whatever, whatever the board's prerogative. Okay, thank you. I like to see what, what the board's comments are about potentially saying Barbara Harvey K eight at North River Ranch and before making any kind of motion to, to do anything, see if there's any kind of thoughts from board members and, and go from there. I just wanna make it clear. So it would be the Barbara Harvey K eight at River Ranch Upper School, the Barbara Harvey put a mouthful at River Ranch. I'm, I'm losing my train of thought here. There's too much Barbara Harvey for each campus. Hmm? For each campus for, yeah, so you would have have that name. We're adding River ranch and the upper camp as we discussed the ca upper c upper campus or the upper school and the lower school. So

132that's a awful lot. Okay, good thoughts. So that's what it would, it would be Barbara Harvey. K like what would it look like on the Barbara Harvey K through eight upper campus at North River Ranch? Is that how it would, is that how it would read or? I don't know how the Ms ID looks the, I mean the, again, we're talking about an if with regards to the m mss ID file, you're talking about an overall name for the school. Okay. So whatev what, and again, that's w we will input whatever the board directs and so you could do it that way. You could just call it that and, and just have one overall name for the school. And then that's the, that's gonna be on the signage for both campuses, if that's the overall

133name of the school. If you want to, if you want to attach a name to each campus, then that's just signage, right? The overall name could simply be Barbara Harvey, K through eight or again, whatever, whatever you direct us to put into the system. I mean, I'm okay with Barbara Harvey, K through eight at North River Ranch, fine with me as, as the name. That would go on the, real quick on what you just said, said though, when we, when you do name the two campuses, that does not have to be on the MSID correct? In in the same way that you mean North, south, east, whatever we wanted to call it. In, in, in the same way upper that you, you know, can name a football stadium, a field, a BA because you're, your,

134your overall, your overall name is covering the full K through eight school. Thanks Ms. Brett. Hold on. I'll come right back to you. Right. Okay. I don't necessarily think we need campus in the name as you indicated. I think you're, it is two different sites. So it's first through, well K through three at one site, is that correct? And then we're going 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 at the second site. Am I correct that that's what the opening plan Right. Calls for keeping in mind, and, and we talked about this at the workshop as well because the, the, the staff's position is this is one school on, on two sites, right? With the same leadership team, the same attendance boundary, the same instructional themes, the same mascot and colors. Right? And so, you know, as

135demographic trends change over time, you could see grade levels on the move between the two campuses, right? Right. So we're gonna open as a K through three and a four through eight, but Sunday it might be K through four and five through eight, right? That right. It just depends on, it could someday end up being a K through five and a six through eight, which is a little more traditional. It just depends on the growth and the needs of the community. That's why I'm not, I'm not sold on the K through eight thing. I know we have to list it as a K through eight, but I wouldn't want that on the sign necessarily. I think having, I mean you already have Barbara Harvey Elementary, correct. That's what's out there right now. To me, the

136second campus that we're doing could just be Barbara Harvey at North River Ranch. I don't see why we have to do K through eight anywhere, to be honest with you, other than the legal side of things, I just think this would be more definitive of its location and it would separate out the two. That way you're not putting K through three at one school and four through eight at another where you just indicated it could be a, a blend later of putting K through four at one campus and five through eight at the next campus. So I, I don't think it's necessarily needs to have K through eight on signs or anything like that. We already know the, what the grades are. I just think that the, separating the two campuses, I don't like lower

137upper or that kind of thing. I like the Barbara Hurry at North River Ranch kind of blends in with the community anyway. And I just, that's where I would go with it. Not include the K eight kit. No, my so my question no is do we, do we have to have the K eight in there? I think we have to express what, what type of, it's gotta be the elementary or middle or K eight. Right? So for high school, again, right now it's Barbara Harvey Elementary, which traditionally implies K through five or some grades in that span. And so when you add a middle school component, you have a K through eight and, and so that's the, you know, that, that, that's the thought of calling it what we're trying to create again, one school

138on two sites. Okay. Okay. First of all, yes, we have the K through eight distinguishes. What is special about this school is that a family can put their child in here in kindergarten and they will go all the way through eighth grade. So that K through eight is very important. The second is, is the confusion, the identity of two facilities at different locations. You've got to be able to identify, is it the north campus? Is it the south campus? Is it the upper schools at the lower school? Because otherwise people are gonna, where do you go to school? My kids go to Barbara Harvey. Which one? At North River Ranch. Well, there's gonna be two of them. And the North River Ranch. North River Ranch is nowhere near the size or scope of Lakewood Ranch.

139And Lakewood Ranch, actually they didn't name it after an individual. They just named it Lakewood Ranch High School and Lakewood Ranch Charter School. So if we want North River Ranch on there, maybe we should just get rid of Barbara Harvey's name. That'll make it a whole lot easier. I am half, I am joking, but I'm trying to make a point here that we, we were all approached by someone from North River Ranch asking how we would feel about this. And I said, and for these reasons I said I was against it. Said the happy thing is that I will be gone in November. So maybe you're better off putting that out there, you know, to the board after I'm off. But I think it's an ego thing. It's the public, let's face it, the developers

140are not getting a lot of love these days. Okay. So if you're gonna do something like this, you've got to let the public weigh in on it. We're just popping this in tonight. We don't have a motion. It wasn't on the agenda, so it would be totally a railroad to vote on it tonight. Okay. So I, you know, I I am totally, I i it totally against it. It, it, it confuses it, it, it, it denigrates Barbara Harvey. Sorry Mrs. Harvey. I was only joking, but, but it just makes the name actually impossible to work with. And I think we also need the opinion of Mr. Richardson. He's the principal. He's Dr. Richardson. Rio. Rio, okay. Dr. Rio. And saying, have I got the schools mixed up? Yeah. Richardson, east County. Okay. All right. It's

141okay. Ours ours, okay. But we would need the opinion of the people who have been working on designing this thing. So I, you know, if you'd wanna postpone it po postpone this, make a motion to table it, fine. I, I would support that. But, but no, I won't vote on it tonight, Ms. Ger. So, I have a lot of things to say. I feel like I've been through this before, number one number, but, but really my first thing I wanna, I would like for this board to consider is just the nomenclature that this school district and this board has historically used when naming schools. Because that has something that this board's gonna need to consider when naming any school in the future. And we don't have any name of any school set up in this

142same format. We don't have any school that's a person's name at a location that's just not ever been a construct that this board has ever entertained. Mostly because in the past when that has been suggested, because it's been suggested before to put North River Ranch in lots of titles of things that we as a board have always felt that made it too wordy and confusing a lot of what's already been said. I've also been through this where something was named North River and Parish got incredibly upset. So I'd love to know what community members are espousing this to you. You can provide me a list. I'd love that. But in general, the feedback I have always received is the words North River are pretty insulting to the majority of people that live in parish. Because

143if you look at a map, there's not much river left By the time you get to Parish that the North River Fire District is in Palmetto, not parish. Because generally that is where the river is. And so I just think this is, this is a mistake to do this for a whole lot of reasons. I also think it would behoove this board to have K to eight in the title because that is a huge selling feature to families. That's a huge, like even my own daughter who's in fourth grade, she, she wants to go to K to eight for the exact same thing. Like she wants to be in school longer with her younger sister, surprisingly. So, it's a selling feature. It would be a mistake to not put that in. Plus it signals to

144the community. Our intention is this is one school just in two locations. Whether we call it north and south, if we don't like upper and lower, I don't really love upper and lower either, but I think there's a lot of ways you can make it north and south or other things like that because they are like, they are pretty, you know? But to name it or add to it after this board has already said, no, no, we recognize this as one school, it is going to be a K to eight. That is our intention. If that's really what this board wants to do, then I'm with Mrs. Foreman and you table this and you put it out for the public to give feedback because it's wrong to do that tonight. That is not what this

145board said they were going to do. If that's really what you want, then you put that out there and you hear what the community really says about that. We can run out the convention center again if you'd like. 'cause I've lived through that one as well. Hundreds of people showed up because they didn't want North River in the title of the school. So I would like to move forward with what's in front of us, because I believe that's the right course of action for the community. Naming it Barbara Harvey K to eight is signals. This is one school. It signals we have this great reputation at this school and we're gonna continue it on and build on that legacy. IT signals that we are going to make this one community. That's what this signals. It

146does not signal, I won't go into that. It also does not move into something that's off of our traditional nomenclature. Like I said, like this is not to do, that would be something very different than what we've done before. Not opposed to doing something different, but it's important that we signal to the community, the purpose of the school and, and keep that legacy that's already there. So, you know, it's either you table it or we vote for what's on this. But I, I could not be in favor of adding anything or changing anything tonight. And I think that's a mistake and it's just so dishonest to the community. I don't think we can, can we, if it wasn't on the agenda, I'm, I'm sure you could amend it and try question. And typically if we

147amend the, we've already approved the agenda. There's no name inside of this opening plan now anyways. This is, that's not true. It is, it absolutely is. It says you're gonna put the MS ideas Harvey Elementary, it's gonna amend that. It's not Harvey Elementary. It's gonna move to, yeah, it says Harvey K through eight, but it doesn't say we're gonna actually do K through eight. Don't, don't parse words. I mean, it makes it clear it's going to be amended. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. No, of course. The gist of it is, is that yes, you would be amending changing something that we've already discussed and, and, and if you try to put it up for vote tonight. Okay, go ahead. Bad Mr. Dye. Go ahead. Purely legally, I think you could vote for a name just

148because it's, you could say it's part of the opening, but I think it's better form if something that important is a agenda item. So that would be the recommendation that's on the agenda. But legally I think it could get voted on. It wouldn't be illegal if you voted it. Gotcha. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Can I ask superintendent if, if and when, I guess the two campuses are somehow labeled, is that something that you feel from your staff you guys want to do and bring to us or us do in a meeting, et cetera, down the road? And I say that, I say that and prefacing that if Barbara Harvey K through eight is, is the entire both campuses combined, does North River Ranch be the north one and whatever the name is,

149can we incorporate that campus being called North River Ranch? 'cause it's gonna be sitting right smack in the middle of North River Ranch. Is that something that you need from us ever? Or is that something that you, your staff would go with and names would do, whatever? So the, so the item tonight is to approve the opening plan. And again, the, the, the, the reason for bringing that really is so that we can get going on the voluntary reassignment part, the K eight naming of course again, we're, we, we've planned all along for that to happen as late as the October 22nd board meeting. So, so one option is to continue with this item and then if board members want to continue to discuss the naming of the overall school, the naming of the campus,

150that that can certainly be scheduled for the next board meeting and we can get going on the other parts of the voluntary reassignment plan. If, if you wanna take the entire item and, and table it and bring it back October eight and, and, and, and, and keep talking about the name, the, the, the only challenge is that I can't really start the process of meeting with those rising sixth grade families about their options. So we're just kind of constraining the timeline on that part of the plan. And it started to run up against the other school choice window, which is a little problematic. So that's really the, the, the, the purpose tonight. But again, I i, I also think as with any facility naming that can come up at any time, you know, because we,

151we've done those regularly in terms of specific parts of a campus. I know this is a little bit different, but I don't, so I dunno if that answered your question, chairman. But the, the, the, the, the reason this is coming tonight is really so that we can get all of this going. If the board needs more time to talk about naming, that's not a problem. We have a policy on naming. So if we name the new building, even though it's a Barbara Harvey element, Barbara Harvey, K through eight River Ranch, we're naming it. So we've got to follow policy. We gotta put it out there for the public to, to, to weigh in on and give it a period of time. You know, we, you're talking about doing this changing. I don't think that's true.

152We, we don't have to, we don't legally have to follow that policy. Right. That's my understanding of the naming policy. We, if we want to, here's the policy, but we can just vote and call it guys whenever we want. You guys are being so disgusting. I'm sorry. Well, no, you know, it really is. No, I'm asking about the legal aspects of what you just said because what you just said is not legally true. Okay, fine. I, I think, and that's what I'm asking our legal counsel for. We have a policy and usually we like to follow our policies. So chair it, it's a confusing policy. I just re-reviewed it right now. The, the board does have the power to name a school without putting it out to the public. The putting it out to the

153public's mandatory for when you're doing a part, a part of a property, when you're naming like a building or, or some a field, it, there's a process for that. But the board does have the ability to, to name an entire school just through the through board action. It, it's written where it, it, and the superintendent probably won't like me pointing this out, but the, it's written where it says the, the superintendent shall submit proposed names to the board and then the board decides. But anyway, for, for naming an entire school, the board can do it without putting it out to the public. But certainly the board can put it out to the public like it's being suggested. Can I just ask one question? Sure. If this were to be added on, would that constitute as

154a renaming? Because then that's a six month wait. If you're adding new words onto the title of a school, does that count as renaming the school? Because that is a six month wait, can you miss Messenger? Tell me where you're Yeah, I'll find it. Citing that it's right here. Okay. Well they're looking, if I could, during the workshop, I remember saying, I don't want campus one, campus two lower upper, it needs to have a definitive name to it. To me. I mean, the other campus is in a, the original, I mean, first of all, Ms. Harvey's gonna have two sites with her name on it. I'm just trying to be more descriptive of where those two sites are. And the other site is at Copper something, I don't know. But it's still gonna be the

155K through eight at North River, at Copper, whatever. I don't know if it needs to be legally in the description or just on the concrete sign at the school. I don't know that. But to me there needs to be a definitive description of each campus. And that's why I'm more in favor of doing at North River Ranch because it's giving that definitive location. To your point, it's in the middle of North River Ranch. Who knows when a river might pop up through there and and stand out, you don't know. That's a joke people. Anyway, I'm just trying to, trying to appease somebody. No, I'm I I'm, I'll call a spade a spade on that. You're trying to appease somebody. Go ahead and go ahead. I mentioned, I mentioned before in the workshop that, well Lakewood

156Ranch was named after Lakewood Ranch because of the area it was built in Southeast. Used to be Southeast Manatee County. Now it's Central. This is just North River. Call it North River Ranch. That's where I'm landing. I don't know if we need to table this, if we're gonna have such a dispute over it. I don't know where the rest of the board members, I think we have probably three votes to do it. That's where I am with it. I don't, I don't think really a whole lot of people. I don't know. I legally I think that we could probably just add on at North River Ranch for this particular campus. I think then we need to take Barbara Harvey's name off of it. I wouldn't dis I wouldn't, I would not disgrace Barbara Harvey by

157doing that. Well then I you're, I think you're disgracing her by putting North River Ranch on there. It's underneath the at. How about at, how about we take time and ask Barbara Harvey, miss, Ms. Foreman ho a second. We got legals. Alright. That was a great and interesting point. Ms. Messenger made offices of die. That's right. Penley and Messenger. The firm is back. Back. Alright, because we've been talking about keeping Barbara Harvey, it, it didn't occur to me, but if you change the name of the existing elementary school at all, I think it does trigger the six month weight on it. 'cause it says it's permanent. So, so if, if it's changed, but you could name Barbara Harvey K eight and that school is no longer elementary anymore. It's a six month window. That's, that's

158what it says. Okay. I didn't, I didn't So we're gonna have to do it regardless. Never, I've never liked this policy and but the give that to Mr. Chapman as an, as the next one to look at. But you can name the new school Right. Without waiting. Right. But but the, the, the entire reason to have it K eight was to keep it under one MSID as one school rather than having two campuses so that we can have not just six through eight on a campus. Correct. And I, I guess I viewed it as element to me the word elementary as a classification of grade span, just as middle is as high, is as junior high. Right. Once signified seven through nine as middle school one, you know, signifies six through eight. So I, I

159didn't view the change in the classification as as a, as a name change. But obviously I'm, I'm not a lawyer. Yeah. Well, since we have, I was gonna gonna say, can I add something? I can see that argument Dr. Wysong. My, my point is not the K to eight. My point is to add anything additional to that. No, I know, I know. If you're just maintaining the name Harvey and expanding the school, I don't see how that is a name change. But when you add additional words onto that, that is a significant name change. That's my argument to me. Keeping the name, whether it's elementary or K to eight, that I don't, I don't see that as a name change, a name change. But I think if you add a location, I'll just, I'll just

160go legal. No, I would, I would agree with that. The, if you left it Barbara Hart Law Office of Dye Penley Messenger, all you're doing is changing it from elementary to K eight. I don't think that's a meaningful change. Thank you. Okay. But if you start adding at North River Ranch and all that, I think that definitely, so from a legal standpoint as well, is that policy the same when you're gonna name the campus? I mean this is the first time we've ever had any, we had to do this, right? Two campuses separate. Right. So there is going to have to be something how we do the campuses, north, south, upper, lower, whatever you name 'em. Is that, does that fall under that same policy? And the reason why I say that is because then

161we need to put that out for six months from now. And I know, but as we open up the school, that has to be, if that's the policy we're following, then I am, I don't agree with changing and waiting six months. 'cause I do think that changes the game that Mo makes it till March, April, may, et cetera. But my question is, if we're gonna name campuses, do we have to do something six month or is that something we can do immediately? Because it's not a school id, it's a campus. I think you can name the whole both campuses. Barbara Harvey, K eight, Dr. Weiss song earlier said you can for almost directional purposes name the two separate campuses. Something that tells the public where they are. Gotcha. I mean, I think of back when

162Manatee High was North campus and South campus. Sure, sure. Yeah. So that wasn't two schools, it was one school, but you knew where to, what building to go to. Right. So as long as you're not substantially changing and it's a more of a directional informational, I don't think that would you have to go through this process. Gotcha. Thank you. So, so that's exactly, thank you for picking out my brain because that's exactly what my whole point is. Is directional not legal. Everything has to be legal and it's gonna be Barbara Harvey K through eight. But on the signage at this location, it would say at this and the other one, it would say at this board you're talking about naming the campuses. Yes. The campuses only not the school. That's not directional Directions are north,

163south, east, and west. And you could name one north campus and one south campus. They're two miles apart, but they really are north and south of each other. I mean, like, I don't really think we need to get into this debate. It sounds like in general we agree with Barbara Harvey K to eight, if you really wanna add the other words, you can trigger that six month wait. But it sounds like at least we agree on that and the discussion about the campus names, that seems like that can arrive later. The whole point of this is to get this going so that we can, so we can notify families so that we can move forward. Oh, I thought you had something. No, no, I agree. I I did not know about the six month rule,

164so I'm glad that was, that was pointed out. I don't think it's worth us waiting for six months. I think we can name the campuses, the what we want North River Ranch to north one, south to South one, do it whenever we want. But I don't, I don't, I'm not willing to wait six months to go through DOE and then on waiting the six months and then on top of that, having to apply for the MSID, et cetera. I don't, I don't think that's right. I, I'm fine with naming the campuses later. I wouldn't hold this up over this, but I think that we do need to name each individual campus as a tagline, not a legal name, just a tagline. Sure. I I understand what you're saying. Okay. Like a North cow, like Mr.

165Dies example. Right. Okay. Does we have a motion and a second? I actually had, okay. I did not see your thing. I'm sorry. Very good. So I just would like to make a few comments and just bring some clarity and transparency of what's going on here. So during the last week or so, a representative from the Neil community who is building the North River Ranch community contacted me and said, would you be in favor of, of adding this to the school name? And I thought about it for a while and I said, I don't have a problem with that. I mean, I've, I've toured the community. I've been given a, a visit up there by the, by Mr. John Neil, who's building the community. I think they're very proud of the community. And I think

166that they would, he's not asking to have the Neil Na, you know, Barbara Harvey built by Neil Communities or something. He's just very proud of the nice neighborhood that they've made. And it is beautiful and they have lots of nice amenities that lots of the children who are going to go to that school will actually be living in the houses that were built by the Neal community. And I thought they would just like to have some recognition that, hey, you know, this is our community. It's our community school. So that's what's going on here. It it, it does become frustrating. Is that the right word? It's frustrating is the right word I'm looking for. Hurtful is also another word that's maybe a strong word, but the insinuation, that there's something nefarious going on behind the

167scenes here. That what we're doing tonight is quote unquote disgusting. That, you know, the, remember that we can only talk about this in these meetings, right? We have to have this type of discussion. If something comes up from the community, I can't call the rest of you up and go, Hey, what do you think about that? Is that a good idea? Unfortunately we have to have it. And it's not even unfortunate. I'm just saying that that's how it has to happen. So I would, I would encourage us to not just assume there's nefarious things going on that builders and developers are trying to get their way with what they want. You know, I know they've taken a lot of beatings in the, in the past here, but when they are actually just trying to build

168a nice community and, and have some recognition for the fact that they have the school in their community and they're proud of it, I don't think we need to go down that road of insinuating that there's nefarious things going on and we're trying to appease people because that's not what is going on at all. I'm considering a request from a member of the community, just like I would consider any other request from the, from a member of the community. And I'm glad that we had this discussion tonight. For instance, based on what you might call corporate knowledge that Ms. Messenger has, I didn't know a lot about past efforts apparently to use the name North River Ranch for other schools or North River to other schools. Apparently there's a lot of community angst about using

169that name, but it doesn't. But you know, when you, when we talk about those things, you could just say, well this is something we'd like to consider because this has come up before and it doesn't have to be done with such behe and anger, I guess. 'cause it just sets a bad tone for us to try and get through this. So all that being said, thank you for letting me do a little quasi sermon there. Is that I would just want to, you know, this, I would like to move forward with what we have tonight and then maybe we have a workshop item and we talk about this, right? So that we can get some more information. And maybe I could go a little deeper with Ms. Messenger about, well what are the angst, what

170is the angst from the community that's there? So, I mean, I'm ready to move forward with this. My recommendation is that we make a, a workshop item out of naming the campuses, but we just move forward tonight with what we have so we can get Dr. Weiss song moving forward with what he needs to do. And that's all I had to say about that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, I mean there was no motion to do anything other than, actually I think we broke Rob. I don't even think there was a motion to begin with. I don't have it on my screen. I don't like there motion. Yeah, well no, we were in discussion all that time. A motion. You know, I'm, there's a motion. Second. You should have made the

171motion. I know. And I thought there was right. You, I just don't see it. Discuss You have a motion. Yeah, I just don't see it on motion in a second. And we had that already. So this is just a discussion period. And I'm, that's it. And I, and all this time, my whole intent was location and on a sign, not the legal name. We know what the legal name is going to be so we can move forward with the project. But I again would ask that this go on a workshop that we are able to get a consensus of how to name the two separate campuses. Because if you tell a student or a parent, oh, you're gonna go to Barbara Harvey, end of story. I mean what There's two, which one? So that to

172me is gonna be the question moving forward with the public. I had a conversation with more than just a builder. I had asked people out that way. What do you think? What do you think? I mean, I even discussed in the Future school out by the track, you know, with people out in that region. So there's a lot of name floating going on that's not been brought to us in an official capacity. But to me this was just a little no brainer, just a identify which campus it was. To me it was always gonna be Barbara Harvey. It sounds to me like the legal path is to add the K through eight, change it from elementary to K through eight. Am I correct in that? So we didn't advertise to change a legal name from

173man from elementary to K through eight. And by all accounts it says if we ever change a name, that's all we have to do. But we all agreed that it would be Barbara Harvey K through eight outta workshop. We didn't put it out outta bid for six months and all of that. So we had that consensus. This I think we do need outta a workshop chair if you would please, so we can at least get some clarity on the two different campuses for not only the board here, future board, future community members of that region. I'm not sure that we need a workshop because I think we've all expressed our opinions here pretty strongly. And yeah, no, I was not insinuating anything. I was saying it, you know, I mean I, there's, you know, so

174yes, there's, in my opinion there is something nefarious about it. But what we need to do though is we need the, the public's input. We need an agenda item. We need the public to come and tell us what they think of this. That's why I suggested a workshop. Well they, they, they don't come in a workshop and workshops are during the day. We can, we can discuss, we can discuss the rest of it at another time. But, but yeah. But yeah, no, I'm, I'm not insinuating or hinting at anything. So she's accusing, yes I am. Well it's okay. It's good to be direct and forthright. Nothing wrong with that. So at least we know everybody stands. That's good. Alright, so we have a motion in a second. I don't see anyone else. Nobody's using Granicus.

175I'm on here. I don't see anyone else lit up. So just go ahead and vote on the approval of the opening plan for the North County school site. What I read it right? Yeah. I'm just North County school site. Yeah, yeah. That is what it says. I know, but you saw that and it passes as five to zero. There you go. Moving on to Dr. Wyong, item number 14.5. Thank you chairman. I recommend approval of the ratified Manatee Education Association collective bargaining agreement with the school district of Manatee County. So moved. I'll second, I dunno how much you wanna get into this Dr. Weis song, but I, I'll just provide a, a brief summary. We have successfully concluded annual collective bargaining with Manatee Education Association. The two teams were able to reach agreement and then

176the terms of that agreement have been ratified by the membership of MEA. And so we, we bring this item that if approved by the board updates the con the contract language, the MOUs that have been signed. And I just, I just want to publicly thank the two lead negotiators for the district. That's Dr. Bill Vogel, a retired superintendent. And for MEA, Mr. Bruce, proud Dr. Vogel and Mr. Proud and their respective teams worked very hard on an agreement that that tackles some challenging structural issues. And, and they came up with, from my perspective, very collaborative, very creative solutions. And so we're excited to move forward if approved by the board in preparation for implementing the contract. We have already had a, a multi-department planning meeting and I wanna thank Mrs. Barber, the president of MEA

177for attending that meeting because when, when we can identify all the, the potential challenges to implementation and think about all the different employee groups, it tends to go better. So again, it's been a productive process and, and I thank both sides for getting to this point. Thank you. I just have a quick Yeah. So nothing changed from the last conversation that we had couple of days ago, I think it was. So it's basically the same of what we've already workshopped shop, it's the right, it's the, I mean the, the agreement that was reached I think was, I don't know that we work shopped the collective bargaining agreement. There was a release that both Ms. Barbara and I agreed to the language on that was sent out to employees and to the board. And so those

178that describes the terms and conditions or summarizes it and then of course the actual language changes are in the documents that, that are being approved tonight. But nothing has changed since the, since the evening that there was a tentative agreement by both sides. Okay. Right. Okay. That was basically my question. Thank you. See other board members, you welcome that up. I'm gonna comment, I'm not, I'm particularly happy this time with, with this agreement because we have been talking con the legislature when they passed so that all the new new school teachers get a bump up to, you know, we have to pay them 47 5 at that time. And it's gone up when they did that, new teachers, their salaries went up, experienced teachers, theirs didn't, you know, well just a tiny bit. So it

179was, it was really difficult for our teachers. A true de demotivator. They were, is that a word? I don't know. But anyway, that, that they were making almost as, that the new teachers were making almost as much as they were. And so we have talked about it and commiserated and I think this, this time around took it very seriously and took the first step to trying to make it, make it more equitable. And so, so I'm just really, really pleased that this is my last collective bargaining session, that it was a good step. So I thank I, thank everybody who's involved. Yeah, I can't see who's requesting to speak. I'm sorry. So it doesn't show up on my thing. So ab yeah, thank you. The staff did a great job and, and kept us in

180the loop all the way and so really appreciate it. Alright, so let's go ahead and vote on the approval of the ratified main Education Association Collective bargaining agreement for school District Man county passes five to zero, Dr. Ong, 14.6. Thank you Chairman. I recommend approval of the 2020 4 25 Florida Department of Education, classroom teacher and other instructional personnel salary increase allocation plan number. I'll second. Dr. Wyong, you want to explain what this is? Yes. Thank you Chairman. This is part two of the, of this process. We are required to report to the Department of Education by September 30th, the outcome of the collective bargaining effort. And, and in our case, since we have now an approved agreement, we'll be able to report success and, and describe how that al that specific allocation, the salary

181in increase allocation is being divided in compliance with Florida law. So essentially a yes vote here authorizes my team and I to finish that document and get it submitted on time so that we have met the requirements. Yeah, thank you. Alright. No board members are led up to speak. So let's go ahead and vote on the approval of the 24 25 classroom teacher and other instructional personnel salary increase allocation plan. And that passes five to zero item 14.7 Dr. Weiss song. And this is the last part of the, of the process. I recommend approval of the 2020 4 25 salary schedules for 11 month grandfathered teachers, 10 month grandfathered teachers, 10 and 11 month performance teachers, paraprofessionals, and the MEA salary supplements schedule. So moved. I'll second. We have a motion and a second on

182the floor. I don't see any board members but up to speak. Let's go ahead and vote on the approval of the 20 24 20 25 salary schedules for the mentioned sections of in the MEA five bypass is five to zero. Thank you Dr. Wysong. No new business with no super intended recommendation. So we're gonna skip to our updates for this evening instructional update. Mr. Jensen, I know you've given a lot, so I don't know how much more you absolutely have to give. The PM one data presentation was my primary update. I just wanna thank those involved. At last night's post-secondary education night, we hosted at MTC. We had an absolutely wonderful event where more than 70 post-secondary institutions and organizations with colleges, university universities, military branches were set up and we had hundreds of students

183and parents show up to engage with those organizations and have their questions answered. So I wanna thank Erin Chapman, our advanced studies curriculum coordinator who organized the event in our curriculum team led by Alison Nichols and Tiffany Spradling, as well as Mr. Wagner and Dr. Ganser for hosting us at MTC. And finally, as part of our personal finance textbook adoption update, there was a committee meeting that was scheduled to take place tomorrow for the selection of finalist materials with the approaching storm. And out of an abundance of caution, we're gonna be rescheduling that meeting and noticing it. So we'll just be rescheduling that and those involved who have been reached out to and, and we've submitted the appropriate cancellation. So we'll be posting updates on the district update and on the website, and I'll be

184updating you as well. So thank you. Thank you very much. Operations Mr. Rinaldi. Good evening Chairman Chote, board member Dr. Ong. Quick update, human resources. The last job fair that we had for operations was on September 19th. We had open positions for bus drivers, bus, a cafeteria managers, food service workers, custodians. There were 142 attendees. Job offers were given to three custodians at that point where all of our custodial positions are filled. Nine food service workers received offers. We had three bus attendants and we had nine bus drivers that are starting the permitting process and the training process for their CDL. So it was a very successful event. The next para and teacher job fair that it was scheduled for Thursday, but it will be postponed due to the storm make date will be identified

185and it'll be within the next two to three weeks and we'll be getting that information out as soon as possible. The next operational job fair is scheduled for Thursday, October 17th from nine o'clock to noon at the Wakeland support center Transportation. The CDL testing team attended the statewide meeting for the updated CDL testing standards. Manatee transportation was a little bit ahead of the curve. We're 100% compliant presently with all the new standards and it's actually before many of the other counties as well as the private trucking agencies. So our CDL training program is up and running and is very active. Transportation is preparing a week of activities for National Bus Safety Week that's observed the week of October 21st. Octo activities will include an obstacle course for the bus drivers and for any board member

186who wishes to volunteer. In addition to that, there's securing of wheelchairs with, with the bus aids, they actually have a competition and timing for that. And so in addition, we're doing a poster contest in the schools as well. So it's gonna touch everybody. Transportation will be moving forward with a pilot program for the school bus arm for the cameras. They've identified two vendors or multiple vendors that they've been evaluating. So we'll be starting that and rolling that out short shortly as well. And finally, just so you know, transportation is expecting delivery of seven new buses in October. We've ordered additional 10 that will be coming next October. These buses will come with enhanced safety features such as integrated car seats for the, the pre-K on all 17 buses and LED lighted school bus signage and

187fully illuminated stop arms as well. So we're gonna have 17 of the of those in our fleet over the next year. And finally, food and nutrition services. They're celebrating Hispanic heritage month and the cafeterias on October 3rd. The fruit of the day will be mangoes and churros will be served as a special treat. Cafeterias will be decorated with posters, recognizing historically significant Hispanic figures and I and the consent agenda today, there were two items that, that are critical to the operations department. First Williams Elementary School, the eight classroom edition you approved Gilbane Building Company to come on board as our construction manager. So they're doing the initial phases of that work. And Frontline technology group was also on there and we're use utilizing their location analytic software. That's the software that we will be using

188in order to do the rezoning as well. So those are two big items for the operations group and thank you. Thank you, thank you. I have a couple questions. Yep. So how many qualified bus drivers do we currently have? Mr. Naughty? Right now we're at, I believe, 92. Okay. So I mean in the pipeline training pipeline. Yeah, we, we, we've got I believe two in the pipeline and then these nine we're trying to get them into the pipeline, get them permitted. And then mechanics, remind me again of how many we Yeah, there, there we remain at 10 mechanics. We have eight open positions. We have hired two since July and we're still outsourcing two mechanics as well. But we're, we're keeping up with the monthly inspections that need to be done on the yellow fleet

189because that was much, we were down to like four last spring or something, weren't we for a while there? Yeah. We, we gained two over over the summer and we're, we're hoping to continue that trend. Okay. And while I'm talking about it, so we're gonna obviously open these two schools next fall, which requires more, more bus routes and more bus drivers. We're already having a problem recruiting as many as we need for what we have. And now we're gonna open two more schools. What's your magic plan to solve that? I mean, we're a magic plan. We're, we're working. We have, we are still in negotiations right now. Okay. We're, we're working to be as competitive, if not the most competitive in this area when it comes to bus salaries, bus driver salaries. I, in addition

190to that, we do have, we have been hiring the van drivers and we're looking to purchase another four or five van for a lot of those one-off students that we need to pick up that are either remote or have some special needs that we'd be able to take care of with the vans. Good. Thank you very much. That's all I have. Thank you. Thanks. I got a question for you Mr. Ronald, real quick. I was kind of surfing through the Florida Department of Education website and there's actually a section for traffic for transportation and for the 2324 school year, it listed how many buses, mechanics. And one of them showed that we had 16 mechanics. I thought, well, they may be showing mechanic allocations Okay. As opposed to actually fill the position. Okay. That's some

191of the things that we found out with the, the way the DOE kind of gathers their data. It, it comes from some of the financial reports, but those financial reports a lot of times do not identify filled positions. They identify allocated positions. Yeah. The budget is built to the positions allocated. So that's, that's typically what they're looking at. Okay. So it's all under the Alec. 'cause I saw where Mr. Waring. Yeah. Is that Warrington? Yeah, Warrington. Warrington. I always say his name wrong for some reason had submitted that and I was looking at the mechanic side and the driver's side and I was like, wow, we have that many mechanics that didn't realize that. But you're saying we're allocated for that. Not Okay. That's what we're working towards. Okay. All right. Thank you. Clears that

192up for me. Thank you Mr. Ti Legal. Just wanna advise the board. I'll be out next week, but Patricia Petri will be in covering if you need assistance, I'll have my phone so you can email or text me. But I'll be back the following Monday, so I'll be at the next board meeting. Great. Wonderful. Thanks Mr. Penley. Anything? Good to be back. Alright. Glad to have you. Yeah. Alright, superintendent. Thank you Chairman. Board members. I appreciate your approval of the consent agenda tonight. There were 25 items, Mr. Rinaldi talked about two of them. The other two that I'll highlight for you. You approved our submission of a computer science teacher certification grant that's available from the Florida DOE. It has been available before, but Manatee has not previously applied. We have some great plans for

193use of those funds to increase the number of teachers with computer science certification, which will allow us to teach more courses in that area, which is certainly an area of growing interest for our students. So we're excited to take advantage of that opportunity. Also tonight, you improved a total of nine clinical experience agreements between businesses and organizations in our community and Manatee Technical College to benefit their medical programs and pharmacy tech. Those partnership agreements are vital for our students to get their required clinical experiences in for their programs. And so we appreciate, of course, all of the businesses and organizations that support Manatee Technical College. I wanna just comment on two areas that, that have been of, of great interest to the community. We know that the last two weeks we faced some challenges relating

194to students making frankly, bad choices. A about uttering threats to, to campuses. And we debriefed today with our principals on that experience, captured some good notes, heard from the principals who were directly impacted so that their colleagues could learn from all of that. And, and board, as you're aware, things kind of culminated last week in a, in, in an updated message to parents. And we included three resources. The first being a, a video recorded message from me that was directed to our middle and high school students. It was played during first period on all campuses last Friday. That was not something i I was ever expecting to do as superintendent, but it was necessary to have the same message across all campuses about what happens when a, when, when a student makes a threat against

195other students or against a campus, both from the law enforcement side and the school discipline side. Secondly, sheriff Wells did a, a great interview last Thursday night with a BBC seven. And we sent that to all parents so that they could hear directly from our sheriff about some of the challenges and, and the impacts of, of those choices. And then finally getting some feedback from parents as we encourage them to talk to their students. Our student services team put together a a one pager for parents with talking points and tips and resources. And so we push that out to all parents and all of those resources are also on our website. I'd want to just take a moment to thank all of our law enforcement partners who worked a lot of extra hours keeping running

196these things down and keeping our campuses safe, but also to all of our principals and their teams. And then finally, our executive directors who supervise the principals we're, we're working day and night really over the last two weeks and weekends as well. And we, we have four very talented people who are responsible for, for coaching and supporting our principals. And they did amazing work last week. So just a, a shout out to them. Secondly, with regards to the weather, of course we've made our plans and announcements and board, I know that you know this, but just, you know, for the benefit of those who listen, our number one priority is always safety and then education of students. And that's what we prefer to do. But when our emergency management partners tell us that they need

197schools to serve as shelters, that becomes our focus. And so that they, they make those determinations and those announcements and then our teams go to work. And so even tonight we have principals and leadership teams prepping to open their schools as soon as that announcement is made. And then they will work 24 7 until, until this is done serving community residents who need it. So my thanks in advance to all of our staff and employees who will work day and night in those shelters until the emergency is over. Finally, board members, we've seen each other a lot the last two weeks doing lots of great stuff around the community. Within the last two weeks I've been to Ballard Elementary with vice chair spray to Braden River High with Member Tatum. We were there on nine

19811 and got to see how teachers were providing instruction on that event. The chairman and I visited Abel Elementary. Awesome visit there, Ms. Messenger. And I had a chance to spend the morning yesterday at Williams Elementary. And then I also had recent visits to Steward Elementary. Got to see instruction or the follow up from instruction, the artifacts from instruction on Constitution Day and lots of lots of students learning about the constitution. Also got to be on campus to see the start of the Potato Olympics in the gifted resource room. And then Miss Messenger. And I saw some artifacts from that at Williams as well. So lots of great stuff happening on campuses. And then finally a lot of community events that we've all been at together enjoyed seeing the Easter Seals, happiness house opening with

199the chairman. I, I'll let you talk about that event, sir. And then we had the Chamber annual conference on Friday and Saturday and thank you to the vice chair and Mr. Tatum and Mrs. Messenger for joining me there. And then finally we had a great Constitution Day essay contest winners event yesterday. Thank you to Bradenton Rotary and the Sons of the American Revolution for sponsoring that contest. We heard from three of our high school seniors about what the constitution means to them. Very excited as the chairman mentioned that one of the three, in fact the overall contest winner plans to major in elementary education. And so we've already offered our first contract for the 29 30 school year. We're excited about that. And so board members thank you for being with me out in the

200community and we're looking forward to getting back to all of that good stuff as soon as we get through this storm. Thank you. Thank you. Board comments, messenger, Tatum Foreman, and spray myself, miss Messenger. I don't know if I have much to add other than the chamber retreat was a great event and we heard from a lot of lead leaders, but I obviously a superintendent was the best. He did a great job, he did a great talk about the district. I really did appreciate a lot of the different talks that happened there. We heard about, you know, a lot of different community needs, a lot about housing, which is to be expected. We'd hear a lot about housing, jobs, infrastructure, a lot of, just a lot of those really important topics that are about the

201community that I appreciated. And, and Sheriff Walls and Chief Bevin and Chief Tyler were also there and talked about what's going on in the community in that aspect as well. And I enjoyed going and seeing some of the potatoes for the potato Olympics was very impressed. And the constitution essay contest was wonderful too. I was really impressed by that as well. Student from Lakewood Ranch is one overall, so that was wonderful. So I don't really have much more to add other than that. And just, I hope everyone stays safe during the storm. Thank you Mr. Tatum. I'll just give a safety tip with the storm upcoming the last time around with Debbie. I, you know, it rained a lot and I had the bright idea 'cause I got a pickup truck. I think I'll go

202check things out after the storm right. You know, and even with my F-150 pickup truck, there was a lot of water out there and I actually kind of got stuck inside Lakewood Ranch. I couldn't get out. But I guess my recommendation is that, you know, let's go see what happened. Let's look at the damage. Well this might be interesting. Just stay at home. There's all kinds of first responders running around trying to take care of things. The water will go down and then you can get back to normal. But adventuring out to check things out during and after, right after these events is probably not the best way to go. And I did it myself. And it's just, even with a big truck, you know, you're gonna get yourself stuck and then you'll just cause

203somebody else to have to come get you. Or those first responders could be used somewhere else. So just stay at home or read an ice book or something to hang out with the family. Go throw a ball with the kids in the backyard after the storm passes and let the cleanup people and first responders do their job and just stay home until you absolutely need to go out. So that's my thought for the day on safety. And that's all my comments for today. Thank you. Yep. Ms. Foreman. Okay. Several things that I wanted to, to bring up. The first one I noticed down in Sarasota that, you know, Dr. Dr Wysong and Terry Connor came on to their jobs right about the same time. And Sarasota has off, has given a, an extension on the

204contract for, for, for their superintendent. And I would really like a discussion and I'm bringing it up now because, you know, I I'd like to get it on the workshop. And that's up to you Mr. Choate, to, to discuss extending his contract now. I think we've all been very, very happy and he's halfway through his contract, little year and a half of a three year contract, and especially with a board changing over, kind of want to pin him down, you know, so make sure he doesn't go anywhere. So anyway, so I'm, I'm just throwing that out there if you wouldn't mind, you know, get that on so that we can have that discussion then on the discussion that we had. Sorry, I I was not, did not keep it boring tonight, so, you know, but

205I'm on my way out. I can say what I wanna have, but just everybody don't forget to contact Dr. Rio in the next couple weeks and get her opinion. I think that's crucial. So anyway, just throw that and I, in the past couple weeks, first of all, I didn't get to go to Stewart or Manatee High. I had broken my toe and I have not been able to walk, so I didn't wanna hobble along. So I miss those. And I was really, really, I was not happy that I didn't get to go, but that's, that's life. And then y'all may have read that this is band book week, September 22nd, as long as I'm throwing stuff out. But what I wanna say is that a couple things to bring to your attention, one was that

206Nassau County had a lawsuit against them for removing books without going through the process. And as a settlement to settle the case, they agreed to put them all back. So, so it's not ruled by the court, but it's, it's still a noteworthy and there are, there was a lawsuit, and I don't even remember which one now, where books were removed from the library shelves without going through the process. And that may still be in litigation. I fear that I'm not trying to circumvent well I would if I could. I'm not trying to circumvent the state's process, you know, where it goes through a committee and so on. But I, I want us to be absolutely certain that we are following the process, which I have concerns about. And also when we talked about the policy

20725 20, we were going to re revamp it in order to make it clear as to what was, what was instruction materials, what was classroom materials and what was media centered materials. So one of the sections in there talks about what the schools can, schools are entitled to, to remove books from their, their shelves. But I'm, I would hope that when the time comes when we do this, that we more strongly define why a book can be removed. Because so many people are, so many districts are starting to look at, they're fearful, you know, that's what it's become. And fear on the side of caution, we're gonna take it off the shelf and our, we need to let kids read. We need to let the parents decide, which this also, by the way, does not

208do. And so, you know, I'm just, just a reminder we're still, we still need to talk about that policy and have a, have a revision on it. And I'll leave it at that. So happy birthday. Thanks. It was a, it's a landmark one, so I'm, I'm not saying which one, but yeah, keep it to yourself. Okay. I'm keeping it to myself, but, but yeah, congratulations and thanks. Many happy, many more. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. I was gonna skip right over it, but it's here Ms. Ray. Okay. I'm gonna tell right off of the book thing over the weekend I got a image of a book that is in our school that talks about how kids are stupid and how they can build a bomb and blow it up. So that's the book that I meant

209to discuss with Mr. Jensen. It's not a book on the shelf, it's a little comic book of nature that I think probably should be reviewed. So I'm glad you brought that up 'cause I forgot to discuss that yesterday. I have a few things. First of all, I did enjoy the retreat. That was the first retreat that I had gone to. Made a lot of connections with community leaders that I didn't necessarily would cross paths. I talked to a gentleman that owns a factory that's just not down from the EOC Center by the bells, I think it is. So he was interesting to talk to. And of course other people I've seen their faces but didn't know exactly who they worked for. And the Chamber does a great job of giving us a list of names

210and their companies. So it's nice to have that for future if I needed to reach out to any of them. And one thing that at the first night we went to a pretty nice restaurant for dinner, self-paid by the way. And one of the members that was in the last meeting at the leadership Manatee Group came to me and said, I just wanna tell you that all of the questions about the budget and how the process worked and your, my questions in particular was of interest of her. And she took a lot away from that meeting. So it might be boring for others to sit here and listen to me jabber about what questions I have on any particular item. But you never know what impact it's having on somebody inside the boardroom or outside

211of the boardroom. So I wanted to bring that up that they really appreciated that. And to the naming of, since that was the, we crossed that boring line and that was mentioned at the retreat that our board meetings are boring. We now went over that this one time we, we get that gimme or whatever they call it. Engulf. I don't know Mulligan, thank you. I wanna say to this, although people might have a bad taste in your mouth for developers or whatever, they produce jobs. I talk to people who work inside them that install cabinets, flooring, electrical, pour concrete, all of those things that, that work in our community. So it's not just the person that's putting the plant out there and have their name on it. It goes, it feathers down into a whole

212community. And it's just like the, gosh dang, I forgot her name already that presented earlier today. It takes a community and with that doesn't matter if you are the chamber, if you're building houses, if you are providing services, it's a community. And, and to that, that's what I wanna say about that North River part of that resignations. We had 18 years of retirement for a purchasing supervisor here at, at the Wakeland Support Center. A 20 year. 21 year dropout prevention. Which brings me to another topic I'm gonna bring up, Mr. Se Benjamin Se, 21 years, thank you so much for your service, food service worker. At Bayshore, 21 years. Cynthia King, thank you again for your service to the district. When we were talking about dropout prevention, I wanted to bring it up to the

213board in a formal setting, because I've talked about this with superintendent and with Ms. Kin and with Mr. Chapman about the mentorship program that Align Consulting does. I know it's a multifaceted complex program. And yeah, the student costs went up, everything went up. But this is a, basically a Manatee pilot program that we've done over the past two years. And then all of a sudden we dropped it for some reason. We're already into almost October and we still haven't seen it on the agenda. I know the governor and others high ranking people are watching what we're doing with this program and the results that it's put out. So I wanna either workshop it or get it on the agenda somehow and how we can pay for it. I leave up to the district staff to

214figure that out, but I think we need to get that back into our schools. And then the boundary lines again, we're gonna be doing that in 26, 27, and that's gonna take a whole lot of work and a whole lot of looking at where those lines are gonna be. And I think even with the new board coming on and the experience with Mr. Choate here and my start of my half second half of this, I think we're gonna be able to pull that off with Mr. Dr. Weiss's expertise as well. But other than that, I think, you know, safety over secrets is always my, I coined that phrase for a reason, because it means something. Kids please, and parents, please, I think the last week kind of proves that we take that serious. We're not

215gonna let you joke or fun about it when you say it, we're gonna believe it and we're gonna act on it. And I wanna thank the sheriff for putting out the video and to Dr. Wysong, I watched them both and that was my thing, was it needs to be a very strong stern message from leadership in the district and with the sheriff. So I think you guys did a fantastic job with that. And I think it resonated. I know it would've me if I had a student, I'd be sitting there making a watch that. So other than that, thank you Chair too. Thank you. And happy birthday. Thanks. I'll start with reiterating what Ms. Spray just said about not only, I think Dr. Weiss song, your leadership with our staff, Mr. dco, the safety staff.

216You know, obviously a lot of parents are, will call us and, and ask, text us and write us and that sort of thing about the safety stuff. And there's one thing I know that we are doing really, really, really well and probably better than in my opinion. Yeah. Anyone else in the state, and maybe even country for that matter, is our safety of our campus campuses and our students and the training that their guardians get, SROs get and, and then the evolve system and the strategics. I mean, everything is, is absolutely done topnotch. I think we've taken every threat seriously. And you know, to be quite honest with you, you know, obviously I am a parent and, and I know more than most parents because I'm on the board, but parents don't need to know

217necessarily everything that's going on. Just let them know. Just, you all need to know that we're doing everything possible. We take every threat Absolutely. Seriously. And, and luckily nothing has happened. I think a lot of it, yeah, you're joking. And that was a conversation, you know, that, that I had with, with Sheriff and other people is, is this isn't a joke anymore. And so your video, the sheriff's video, I think were great and hopefully it does resonate and, and kids realize that, that this is not a, a joking matter anymore. And, and you will be arrested. And maybe it gets to the point where if it continues to happen, if parents all of a sudden are arrested and parents all of a sudden had their names pop up, you may see, may see that stuff,

218stop real quick. But think of the staff also for, for the, the, the weather. Obviously all the schools are gonna be shelters. Thank you very much. You know, the, the leadership there. I know you guys will be schools off, but you all will still be working the next couple days watching the, the weather. Hope everybody stays safe with that. You never know what it brings. I I, you know, you, you just, you just, you, you gotta be prepared. Some of the school visits, Abel Elementary was fantastic. If I'd encourage everybody, all the board members to go to Abel and meet with Samantha Webb, Ms. Webb, I mean a truly dynamic leader. The camp has vibe. You know, that's another, that's like a new lingo thing, vibe check. Oh, the campus vibe is unbelievable. Kids love.

219I mean, it's just, it was, it was very, it was very, very, very good. And, and I think what she's doing there with her staff is amazing. And, and I think the kids, you know, they, they, they did a, a, a opening morning deal and a breathing exercise and this and that. It was very, very unique. I've never seen anything like it. So she's done a great job. I'd encourage anybody to reach out to her and say, Hey, can I come and, and walk with you? 'cause I thought she was fantastic. Obviously other events going to Easter Shields was fantastic. That's a major place. And, and it holds a major place in my heart, my brother being Down syndrome, my to Easter Shields. So seeing the Happiness House, the community come together and, and, and

220redo the Happiness House and give it kind of refurb was, was nice. It was a great event. And Tom Waters does an amazing job over there. And then the essay winners remarkable. Those three, those three young ladies did a fantastic job with the Constitution contest. I don't know how you pick a winner, to be honest with you. I thought all three were just absolutely phenomenal. So I think both from two from Palmetto and one from Lakewood Ranch, two Lakewood Ranch, two Lake, two Lakewood Ranch, one Palmetto. So great stuff happening obviously in our high schools. And so very encouraging. Other than that, again, hope everybody stay safe and we will see you. Sorry, the Credit consortium is postponed and canceled, so we will see board October. October 8th is eighth. Eighth. Thank you. All right.

221And we are officially adjourned. You surprise nobody'll trying to get somebody with a car. We are still going. I haven't walked the parking lot. If you.