001Let's get started here. Okay. Call to order. Welcome to the workshop for the Manatee county school board May 10th, 20, 20 to 1:00 PM. And we are, we're going to have a legislative workshop. Yeah. Legislative update. And we'll be under the superintendency of Ms. Kevin Chapman. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just here to introduce our hate to call them Mobius. But our government affairs team who are Sean Foster and Andrew, who were from the sunrise consulting group who are going to present kind of an overview of what just took place in Tallahassee. They're going to run through a PowerPoint presentation in the beginning. They're going to touch on the budget where we'll have Tim bars. Ron also come up and, and add his expertise when it comes to a specifics of Manti county. And
002then kind of once that's done, we'll do an overview of most of the legislation that had to do with schools. We'll kind of run through that and then Mitchell title mom, and I will come back up to kind of walk you through three key bills that are under that parental bill of rights umbrella, and kind of walk you through that. So I'll introduce now Sean Foster and Andrew Kollel, and I know they're going to touch on it, but we, we really owe them our appreciation for working very hard on getting our appropriations requests. It's rare to have an appropriation request get through the legislature. Now I know we're a little, the governor has yet to sign the budget where the appropriation crest is in, but to not only get a request through the legislature, but
003get it through Sean and Andrew's work to get the full amount of, of $5.5 million is, is, is pretty incredible. So these two gentlemen did that, and so we have a debt of gratitude to them, but Sean and Andrew now microphone, jury. So Mr. Chapman now, are they, are they going to be able to get all this done by one 15? I Covered a lot of ground there. I'm just wondering if we gonna get it all done by one. Okay. All right. That words, thank you yet. If I would've known what I was coming to new and lunch, I would've brought you no doubt, but thank you all for letting us be here for today. And it seems like every session we come before you and say, this was one of the toughest sessions and
004it was, you know, we were on the phone with your team many, many times when it came to some of the policy items we reviewed. But I want to tell you right off the bat, you've got a great team that really got us in information quickly. And I can not tell you how important it is when we're working with Kevin and Paul and Mitch and your whole team. And we get information not back in a day, but sometimes back within an hour. And I appreciate that the total team effort, I like to kinda just set off real quick here. 3,700 bills filed 285 passed. That kinda tells you about the process at it should be that way. Maybe even less bills should pass. Sometimes we'd probably be happier, but less than 8%, but I'll have
005to kind of give you an overview because what we saw was a very contagious, you know, fighting type of type of session. But when you see this for a minute, I want you to kind of look over this and you'll see it. We only saw the big, big stuff, the cultural wars dominated session, but only seven bills passed, had a bipartisan without Bart bipartisan support. So the other 98% passed unanimously or bi-partisan support. And that just was, and that was also in committee where they were really dig into it. So when you look at it, 285 bills that passed and almost 4,000 that was put through there only seven had passed with a partisan divide. And that kind of gives you more of an idea that it's really, the divide is not as big as
006we think, but it's the, it's the newspapers that I'll say it. The don't say gay bill, that kind of, that, that hits and dominates the, the, the sound waves I've come to you year after year and say, this is the largest budget we've ever had. And I'll say again, this is the largest budget we've ever had last year. You may recall when I was before you, I said, if it wasn't for the federal dollars, we would have been in education. Number one would have been hurt the most. If we didn't get the support that we got from the federal government, we still have a little of that support. And it's going to wean out into years, three, four, and five. But the huge increase that I'll go over is $112 billion budget from March of
0072019. When we had the COVID hit in April and may, when the numbers started coming out, sales tax quickly went back up and it knocked, gone down one time, meaning every single month. I mean, and when w when I put it in here, 12.3% over projections in January, when the revenue estimating conference met and they gave projections for the next six months, they were off by 12%. We literally had 12% more come in in February. It tells you how many, I don't know if you've been to Disney world, or if you've been to a theme park, you've been out, people are coming back to the state of Florida in droves. And so sales tax revenue is up greatly. I'm just going to go over real quick. These are some of the big, big things, $2.3
008billion for the Everglades. A 5% increase in per student education, the revenue that they're putting towards the inflation, I'm sorry into, And not the inflation fund, but our, what we owe for our debt service. Also, we, they put millions and millions, and I just want to compare five years ago, we had 30 billion. We are now down to 14 billion that we owe and debt service, one of the lowest state in the nation. So we're, they're pretty happy about that. And of course, state employees got an increase. You see some investments in nursing education. Also the next one's really right here in this area, oyster and clam restoration was funded us 41, pedestrian overpass, the fishing peer replacement, and a 21 million airport terminal expansion highlights of the FEFP digital classroom allocation was removed 20
009million for pay compression issues, a 40 million increase for reading allocation and 56 million for transportation, which we know is yes, we can get going, but a huge, huge need. Go ahead. And if we have questions, you know, don't forget, we're also going to go deeper dive with the CFO, but go ahead. Yes. Thanks, Sean. I just had a quick about the pedestrian overpasses that that is planned to be between Lincoln middle school and Lincoln park, or now, now Eddie Shannon park. This One again, The 41 pedestrian overpass is that He'll get it for you. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Very good question. And I just want to go on to the next one again, we're just going to do a deep dive here real quick, and then let you guys go into a
010little bit more specific, obviously with the schools with a Manatee county school System. I didn't want to, you need to go back. Yes, sir. I can do that. I, one finger Bought a million dollar increase for reading allocation Allocation. Are you going to do a deeper dive? And then how much of that comes to Yes, we are. Absolutely. And that was a large part of speaker Sprouse made a big push this year to get Hampton textbooks and breeding books in the hands of more children. So that was one of his priorities was to increase reading dollars that were spent. You'll see some of these are ones that are going straight to their home too, but we'll, we can talk about that program in Indiana. You can see the numbers on the top. I'm just going
011to do the highlighted. If you say 5.2, 9% increase in total funds per unweighted, but we'll talk about how that really impacts your school system. 181 million for the required local effort, 37 million more and a discretionary effort, 3.6 millions in safe schools allocation. When you see here, the teacher salary increases, there was two, two items here that they kind of divided it. And those last two numbers evenly at the 4.2%, I believe 2 million going towards the classroom teacher, minimum salary increase that was committed. And then also now trying to make the increase for our veteran teachers. There is such a divide to have the have nots that it was causing. So I think this will help quite a bit and we'll start right. Have y'all come up next. Yes, sir. Unless you want
012me to, is this yours, right? We're going to use the next one And the next one, and this is something we talked about last year. So this is the Florida education finance program, the first calculation. And by the way, I would say there's only about three people in the whole state. They probably know how to absolutely operate it as such a right for three and a half Or So this is, this is the statewide document and you can see yes, every year we hear that's the largest education funding bill. One thing we want to add is this also includes 70,577 more students that's at the top row to the right third column. But also I like to always point out, can you guys can see this right over there on the, on the far, right?
013It says total funding. It's a 7.5% increase. So that statewide FEFP, and that's a number that I have seen year after year coming out of Tallahassee, we gave 7.5% new money to education, but what's under what law what's underneath that 7.5%. Well, number one, the 70,000 new students. And so we'd like to go to a that doesn't have the next, yeah. This one. Yeah, we got It. Well, there's another one in this document that I'm on a per student, per student basis. That was on your presentation. I think it was 5.2, 9%. There you go. Yeah. So that first bullet talks about, and for Manatee county, our total increase with 7.5, 6%. I showed you the state average. There's another page like three in on the FEFP calculation passed that first summary page that provides
014all the district information. So we got 7.5, 6% in total new funding, but our enrollment increase is 1092 students. So when we convert the 7.56 to a per student funding amount, we dropped down to 5.29. Very important, because a lot of times we will only hear the 7.5%, 7.5%. Well, we have to use the additional funds to hire teachers and bus drivers and all those additional, all those additional resources. Now, if we, if we dig down a little bit further, which is what this document does, and that should be a handout. Yeah, we got it. I don't know. Do we have this on screen? It's kind of hard to see. There's a lot of numbers here. I thought it Was in here. I emailed them to the, yeah. You want to pull it up and
015there's nobody in here. There you go. There it Is. Okay. There it is. So this is comparing this year, current year, 2020, 20 or 2122 to next year's first calculation. And you can see the 1000 increase in enrollment on the far right. And I don't get, I wasn't planning on getting into too much of the specifics with this. This is like the first, the first chunk of the revenue budget. You know, some people refer to it as chunking things. We're building, you know, building a house. This is the foundation of the house. So we're focusing on revenue at a very high level. Today. We have a workshop Friday. That's going to dig into the staffing allocation and workshop in June. I think 16th is what we were talking about. That's going to dig a lot
016more into the expenditure side of the general fund. So this is first pass at revenues. The, the rows that are highlighted in red, those are categorical funds. And you can see over the far, right. They have some pretty significant increases and I'll get to that in a second. But Reverend golden, you can see right there as you're reading allocation, going from 2.1. So out of the 40 million increase that we saw earlier, our portion of that increase is 6 81. So it went from 2 million, 180 to 2 million 8 62 is 681,000 increase. The June 16th workshop we'll dig into, okay, what are we going to spend these additional resources on just to reiterate, this is a resource availability conversation. So what I like to do though, is any place where we have an
017increase in a categorical teacher, salary increase being the largest. This year, that's a $4.4 million increase. All of these increases are included in that 5.2, 9% number, but all of these increases are non-discretionary. We have to spend them they're categorical, non discretion, a non-discretionary that strings attached. We have to spend this money in a very particular way. So this is not available for negotiations or employee raise is very, very important. And so that's why I really like to highlight this at a very early time in the budget preparation negotiations. Last year, we sat down with union leadership, shared the same information with them, and we were all on the same page. So we're all going forward. We know exactly what this translates into and I'll, I'll come back in a second, cause I do want
018to hit rows 31 and 32. This is slow paging down. But what we do is we remove those categorical calls from that percentage calculation. And so we get a net or a more discretionary per student funding amount. And when we compare what the change is in that number, now we're down to 4.08%, 4.4%, still a nice increase. And what I'm going to mention now, these are the things that we'll get into more in the next workshops. There was a, an increase in the Florida retirement system. And they'll the legislate legislators will say, well, we funded that what's funded by the 4.08%. So FRS went from 10.82 to 11.91, which the difference is only 0.0109, but that's a 10% increase in that expense line going from 10% to 11%, we have to bring anyone that's beneath
019$15 an hour up to $15 an hour. So we have FRS. We have the new minimum wage. We have a new charter school that starting in Lakewood ranch, close to 800 students. I think that's a big number. Of course we have to, as I mentioned earlier, we have to hire staff to help with those 1070, 77 new students. Oh 1092 new students. And then one of the biggest unknowns going into next year is, as I mentioned earlier, 31 and 32, those roads, we don't have anything in those rows yet because we don't know what we're going to see in the way of scholarships for next year. But this year we had more students go into elect for family empowerment, scholarships than ever. I mean, the numbers were way beyond what anyone expected and we're trying
020to get clarity on how those are actually funded, because information has been very difficult to get out of. DOE the numbers are big. I won't get into those details yet. We're going to provide you with a lot more information on that, but that's a significant unknown going into, into next year. And that's really all I wanted to the main point for this conversation. Was we? Yes. We have a four point. What was it? 4.08, 4.02 in 4.0 in new money per student. But there are things that we have to do with those funds and I've, didn't mention employee raises. So that's negotiation. I read, how do we come up with the amount of students? Is that our projection? Yeah, It's a projection using a DOE software. Okay. Yeah. Last year they actually told us what
021to use. They didn't even allow us to provide a projection, but everybody uses the same software and it's usually, it's pretty accurate. It looks at childbirths five years prior and applies mortality rates and all kinds of interesting. So, and just so this is make sure it's on the record. One more time. My 20 teacher salary increase that 4.4 million argument can't be made saying, well, why do they need the milk then? Because they're getting extra 4.4 in their pockets, right? Whatever that has to be used for what Teacher raises it's for that 47,500 initiative and something that I'm digging into that a little bit deeper, something that is not really mentioned is there is a greater cost than the first year of implementation because, you know, two years ago, our starting teacher salary was in
022the 39,000 range. So Well before, Before this initiative started, right? So we, we got it up to 47 5. So, you know, $8,000 increase for every new teacher we hire now. So if we have teachers experienced teachers leave and know there's some attempt to, to say that those new teachers are funded, but last year, you know, the second year end, we saw much greater costs that we had to pay out. And teacher salaries then was calculated in the prior year because, you know, we weren't just moving teachers that were below 40, 75. It was every new teacher. Now the tire is at 47 5, right? So there's just some kind of a hidden cost in that whole initiative, but wanting to just quickly hit on some of the revenue highlights and really emphasize the fact
023that some 0.5 is not what we're not what we're using for, you know, new non-discretionary unrestricted money going into next year. It's 4%. Thank you, Tim. I appreciate you saying that because what legislature is told over and over again, I know I used to think they used to do this on purpose. Like, oh, we got, we gave a 7.5, they'll be fine, but they truly don't understand. Obviously, everything. We just went down to an on to what you're committed, what you're not able to even to move what is in the general revenue budget. And I will say, because in Tallahassee, they are able to move dollars from trust funds from here to there. And they don't have, you know, they could be a trust fund for manatees. No, not just joking, cause I'm here at
024my T, but it may have to trust fund. And all of a sudden it's pulled out and it's put into general revenue dollars just right at the last minute. So they kind of don't really realize that the restrictions that you all have and what you do on impact dollars and different dollars. So I just wanted to preface that, but I do want to say, I mean, the governor made a, a huge emphasis. He was going to, you know, help. It felt in his mind schools with the dollars that they needed with veterans teacher also. And so that's why you saw a lot of that support coming down. And also there, there were a lot of dollars. There were obviously $112 billion. You know, the next one we were talking about, obviously there's some good news
025shared earlier the aviation school at SRQ airport. This just obviously didn't happen in a vacuum of something you all have been working on for awhile. We were able to get Mr. Piccolo on the phone. Even last summer. I'd actually got to spend a couple of nights with him at an, at an event or in Orlando. And we started talking about this and we got them on the phone the next week. It actually, I've known him in his family for, for 25 years. And I can just tell you everybody that we explained this to Senator greeters and represent McFarland was really excited about this project. I mean, we really, we got calls from Reverend McFarland. She's asking us, how's that funding doing? How's it working over in, in or in the Senate? And, and Gruder is
026asking me how it's going over in the house. And I will say 5.5 million is through the appropriations process is big, you know, a big number. So, and to get it fully funded, I would, if I was standing here last year and telling you, we were going to get the 5.5, I would have been lying. I just did not know. We think we'd be able to get the full amount. So we are very, very, very fortunate. And I will say, we originally were told the governor would sign the, we were really surprised because he did the tax, the tax package on Friday on Friday. And we were expecting the budget. He had actually announced in a meeting. I was with him on Wednesday that he was planning to sign the budget on Thursday or Friday.
027That didn't happen today. We're sitting here Tuesday. We've still been told it should be happening shortly. So they do have that happen right before I believe the next special session on homeowner's insurance or it'll happen right afterwards, depending on that. So I would say they they're already ready because here's why I'll tell you why they're ready. We usually, we get phone calls weeks up to the point from when they're going to be tow or our vote on the budget. All that was done during session, the first time it was done early, we gave them all our, all our information. I followed back up with the governor's office two weeks ago to make sure that it had all the information on our project. And they were absolutely satisfied with everything they had gotten. So we were
028in a good spot. Next one, Andrew, I'm going to let you start on this. Oh, you have an answer for, Yes. I do have an answer for you on your pedestrian bridge. The pedestrian bridge is going to go. It was at U S U S U S 41 and 17th street east in Palmetto. Okay. That, and there's a little more detail about 'em there's next to a community park and pool. And then perfect. If it's going to go over 41, right. Have some, no, that's okay. Really weird. Cause that the tunnel is there. There's no need for an overpass. There's already a tunnel, but whatever. All right. So we're going to go into some of the policy bills. And of course there's some of these that are very, you know, highlighted in the media. And
029there's probably a lot of questions when we're done. Kevin's gonna kind of dive into how some of this policy applies specifically to the Manatee county school district, but I'm going to start with house bill seven. As we see in the legislature, a lot of times you'll see bills with lower numbers tend to be more of a priority or, or more of, of a, of a statement position that they're trying to work on. So house bill seven, individual freedom publicly in the news, this bill is the critical race theory bill and this bill prohibits school districts from, or really any employers for that matter from teaching certain concepts about race and trying to not teach someone to feel guilty about a particular way that because of their skin, what's important in this bill is that there
030is some allowances for objective concepts that can be taught. And that also the attorney General's office can bring a civil suit against anybody who is in violation of the provisions of the house, bill seven. Like I said, Kevin, we'll get into a little bit more about that, but that's the critical race theory bill that you guys may have may have heard of the next is house bill 1557, parental rights also colloquially known as the don't say gay bill districts must create. And what's interesting about this bill is all we hear about is the, the, don't say gay portion of this bill, but there's also some more objective school board, procedural changes in this bill. And so I want to make sure y'all know about that. And on this bill in particular school districts have to
031adopt procedures. Anytime they make changes to a certain health services that are available at the school to notify parents. So the schools offer certain health services and I may not know what those are, but if you make changes to what's available to the students, parents have to be notified of what's available. And there has to be a procedure adopted on how you're going to notify parents about that. And then the more well known part of this bill prohibits classroom instruction on any kind of topics that relate to sexual orientation or gender identity. There is a grievance grievance process that is provided to the parents in this bill that of course starts with the school principal. And if the school principal is unable to satisfy the parent's concern about what's being taught, it can be taken
032up to the school district. Once it goes past the school district, there are two options for the parent. The first option is to take it to the circuit court and petition to have the school district, you know, rectify, whatever it's been taught to the student or to stop seek them to stop teaching whatever that may be. If the parent is successful in the, in the judicial side of this grievance, the school can be on the hook for attorney's fees for the plaintiff parent, who's had to go to the school district, the other side, the other option, the other option for this parent would be to actually do an administrative appeal to the department of education. I can't remember what the sanctions are, should the department of education find in the parent's favor, but with the
033availability of one way attorney's fees, I feel that most parents would likely go to the judicial side of that. So I want to make sure the school district is aware of any implications that could come out of that in the, in the court system and the cost for litigation. Yes, sir. School districts required to defend against an accusation of impropriety or are the parents who make the allegations required to establish. And I get some talking about probable cause. Yes, sir. Who's who has the burden of proving and who has the burden of going forward? I don't know that, sir. I know you're an attorney, Reverend in a civil, in a civil case, is there an automatic presumption that As a preponderance of evidence in terms of proof, but someone has to state a cause of
034action for which relief can be granted. And I guess what I'm asking is who determines whether the cause of action has been stated? Is that something that is not able to be determined except my proponent by proving each case as you go along or do the, does the language of the statute provide the probable cause that you need just the accusation? Is he you? What you're saying to me here is that there's a statute that says the attorney general may bring a civil action for violations of HB seven. Any one person is morally superior to another race. So who, who determines, who decides whether that happened, the child, the parent, or the T w what, what, what, what requires that teacher to come back into court or come back and say, no, I didn't teach
035it a Marlin superior concept or who decides that it is morally or that, that, that that's what the impact was. It's do you wanna jump in or do you want to see Mr. Chair? Good afternoon, bill seven has a different remedy than house bill 1557. The remedy for hospital 1557 is escalate to attorney general. Whereas house bill has hospitals, seven hospitals, 1557 has a long drawn out process beginning with notification at the district level, a response period than potentially escalate to the state commissioner of education to appoint a special magistrate, our expense. And then from there a declaratory judgment in court. And to answer your question, Reverend, who has the burden of proof, those who bring the, the allegations will have the burden of proof. Must we be forced to defend? I would tell you
036yes, because of the one to clear the districts name for any, any appearance of impropriety. And secondly, to ensure that a sanction is not imposed against us. That didn't answer my question, but that's all right. I tried. No, I'm not because you can't really answer it. I don't know how, yeah. I don't know how you have me in a classroom teaching the kid and then next day I'm in court because I taught that kid. What was the magic word? Right. I talked to kid something about another kid being Marlin superior. That, that, that I'm sure you realized. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. So as you know, I Had lunch and now I'm ready. It's still hangry to HB 14, 14 67. You all were aware of that when you were up there. And I appreciate
037you coming up to Tallahassee and you kind of saw some of the discussions on this and even about the salary part that you know, you and I engaged in quite a bit with some of the members there starting in 2022 school board member terms are limited to 12 years. The salary part, as you know, and well aware of remained. I'm thinking about going a couple of questions. I'm thinking about going for 12 more years, not in 2022, or does it all do my years already? Do they count? I Thought it was eight. They start with the election cycle. 2022. Yeah. So my four years already don't don't count against me. No, I can go 12 more years. Whoopee. You Say what? Now? She had the same question you did. Oh, okay. I have a question,
038please. Of course, a lot of the, that bill wasn't just on this, but increased transparency for instructional library materials. As you see here, a lot of the information that we could also provide in this bill, we have the bill analysis. I know you were looking at one there on HB seven and the other, we can provide that information for your, for your staff. We're going to do a little bit more deeper dive, right, Kevin, right after this, on some of these issues and how it will impact the school and then 7 58 Before you leave 14. Yeah, we can go Back The, can you go back to your first slide on this panel? Keep going Two slides There, you know? Yeah. Prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K through three.
039I, I was trying to pull up the bill, but I believe that there's further wording in that bill that says, or age appropriate, you know, which, which, so that's going to be great, but that's that's so it's not just K through three. It is K through 12 for us, Based on what you determined as, or whoever makes the determination of what's age appropriate. I understand what you're saying. Yes, yes. Cause they could say that we go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, no. If we have something in middle school that probably shouldn't be talked about until high school, that's not age appropriate And your exact question is being legally challenged. So that, that is the basis really of the court challenge that's happening right now. Now that's not going to do anything. There's no stay in this as
040of right now. So this is still the law of the land. And this is one of those circumstances where Mitchell and I are as every other Mitchell and Kevin and every district is going, please DOE send us some guidance on this, but, but we are with, and we'll get to this. When we get to our slides is we, we are reading these three bills in a very broad sense. So, so we are going to view it the way you're suggesting, which is all grades and really all our curriculum and all our instructional materials and books should be age appropriate. So, so, but that's how we're viewing it right now. And we're going to wait for DOE guidance on this specific paragraph, because that is really what's being legally challenged is some of the suggested broadness
041of that paragraph. Some are saying it's broad, too broad. So that's why it's being legally challenged, but we're going to view it as what we should always be doing, which is everything should be age appropriate. And, and certainly within that paragraph, we don't teach here Manatee county. And so, you know, we're, we're in a good situation, but we're viewing it as all grades. Well, if would you consider library books to be part of classroom instruction? Well, again, that's DOE guidance. We're going to, we're looking for that guidance. Cause it, it, when you read the bill, it doesn't mention that, but the superintendent and the district leadership is viewing it as any materials in a school should be, should be age appropriate, should be based on curriculum and, and based on our standards. And so that
042is what we're reviewing at this point to make sure all our schools have appropriate materials, whether that's in or outside of the classroom, when it comes, when it comes to that, that 1467 does talk about instructional and library materials. But what I want to ask you, I know that HB seven has been attacked, but has 67 been attacked in court and 57 1 5, 5 7 has been challenged and HB seven have been challenged. I have all of them asked for preliminary injunctions. I, I, I would expect so, but they have not been granted that. So Not yet the problem that I'm having and I just need to be transparent here. Right? Problem that I'm having is you're telling me that there's a statute that's going into effect in July. And there's a commissioner of
043education or department of education that has not done the, the, the policies and the rules that, that make this, that would allow this to be enacted, not inactive, but to, to be brought to life. And basically we are winding up being asked to abide by three statutes that might be declared unconstitutional Well that's could, could happen. And these, these are, these have been signed into law and are effective July 1st, 2022. So Mitchell and I and, and leadership are busy working to review our procedures and create new procedures where needed and a pair for that July one date, Oh, you going to give me a procedure that you have not gotten direction from the commission of education about you make an upper procedure that you think might pass constitutional muster, gift the stack to this
044constitution. And we're not going to happen to that. You know, You're hoping to get it before you give us. Yes. As we, you know, we're, we're, you know, as we, as we lean on YOLOs we lean on fads and we li we lean on and BA we lean on these guys who just left me. Yeah. And the legal beagles between all that force, 67 other, again, Kevin and Mitchell's are trying to do the same thing. So I'm gonna say that within each, if you re I know Ms. Foreman, you had the opportunity to read the statute itself. We also have had the opportunity to statute, and you will see that within each statute, they tell us certain things, which we know if it's held constitutional Reverend, that these are the are going to be the
045procedures to be followed. They're not completely defined as Ms. Former points out, what is age appropriate? We don't know. So as a conservative, a, we would look for what is age appropriate in this bill for an look at our literacy bill as well for books within that must be approved by media specialists, going forward books that are in our media centers, that we use our textbook adoption, which doesn't change terribly. So, but we do have guidelines. We don't have concrete pathways. We know what we're supposed to do. However, it's just not fine tuned to the extent that we have uniformity throughout the state of Florida. It's Mitchell's interpretation, it's Kevin's interpretation. We want the policy experts like new Yola who writes the policies the board will have to adopt, should they decide to do so
046to get greater information. That's why we're part of fads. We're far to, or part of FSB. We're talking to our colleagues, Mr. Dynein are on our list, serves for this very reason. We're not going blind into it, but it's a matter of comfort level. So as we go forward, we will err, on the side of precaution each and every time as a conservative, we will be conservative as to interpretations as for preliminary injunctions. Not granted. I've seen litigation on two of the bills And Mr. Teitelbaum, Thank you. Well, so just real quick, I know we're kind of, I don't want to beat this up, but in our curriculum and you can tell me if I'm wrong. At least it was when I was growing up and my wife taught fourth and fifth grade and hated
047this week of talking about human reproduction, et cetera. Did we, or did we not always have to have a written permission for your child to be a part of that or not? Like I remember taking it home, mom, dad said, yes, you can be there, bring it back. Yes. I'm not the ones who weren't had to go to the library or whatever. So we Do have opt-out procedures. Okay. Or for many things, but are our standards that we're required to teach by grade level are set by the department of education. Right. So if they're not even in K through three previously, right. Then what we're doing now is fine. Right? So you mean you so And soon come June, probably the board will be presented with health education instruction, materials to approve and, and have
048public comment and all of that preferred. So again, as long as we stick to statute standards, you know, procedures that in place, which we do, we are, we are in accordance with what is, what is what the legislature does pass. And in all seriousness, what you are experiencing now is a legislative process. That's going to take the six to seven chaplains and, and title bombs, and it's going to divide them based upon where they work. And the title bombs that work in Manatee county is going to have a different perspective and attitude than the title bomb that works in Dade county, or that works in Escambia county. And that doesn't do public education. Any good cause I'm two plus two is four. I don't care whether you're from pure out of Pensacola. And all of
049this happened is that these kinds of things that are being put in that have nothing to do with education, but have everything to do with socialization is going to be tearing us apart. And, and I, I, I don't mean in, at home, but I don't want to hear from the title bomb and the chaplain here until I have something in writing from the state of Florida that we can rely on. And that has been determined to be constitutional because this to me is you, you wind up wasting time. You waste energy, you create divisiveness because I disagree with what you think and you disagree with what he thinks. None of that helps us. So I let's just go on and get the update as to what they did, because whether or not what they did
050was constitutional or not has yet to be decided. And I appreciate all of the effort that you all are putting in trying to get ready for that. But I've already had one federal judge that said what this is, is unconstitutional in Blake Mueller. So I know that the governor thinks that his tone is up there on this 11th circuit is going to make a difference and they made, but I don't think so because right. It's still right. Even if you don't do it Well, you know, I'll just leave that before we go into Senate bill 7 58, I mean, these are the challenges that you see your administration tackles every year. I mean, some of these bills are still, haven't been signed and we're sitting here in the middle of may and some of them
051could be even longer. So as you remember, even last year's budget was signed the day before the fiscal year, but you had to start planning way before that. So Senate bill 7 58, Right? This is another two slide bill Senate bill 7 58 addresses charter schools. We have much proposed charter school legislation this year, as we seem to have every year charter school review commission is created within the department of education. And what that commission will do is review and approve charter school applications, essentially that were denied by a school district. Originally, however, folks who want to create a charter school can also go directly to this charter school review commission within the department of education. If the commission Yeah, I was going to ask, Go ahead. Yeah. Starting to do, is that, and is
052it retroactive? So someone did it before I can look up the start date for that director activity. I'm not sure about, but I will tell you start date on that. It has not been signed yet. I don't believe so. So What was the second question when it is an, that It was retroactive. Alright, so it has not been presented yet. And the start date is seven one. So if he signs it next week, July one is when the last should take a fact. Now, when the language actually takes fact, they still have to put the commission into place and all of that. So the commission may not be alive until I don't know, however long it takes them to implement that the school district. So if the commission approves it, then the school district has
053to accept this charter school charter. The school district may not impose any additional reporting requirements on charter schools, unless the school is under some kind of dire financial emergency. W an interesting change is legislators will be able to visit any public school in their district in the same manner. Now that they're able to visit any correctional facilities, They do that for years with the correctional facilities. And so they felt a need to add that to this. That'll be public schools they'll be able to. Yeah, so they sh I don't know if the school district, this is a Kevin thing, so I'm not going to touch on this, but I don't know if the school district will need to implement some way that your local legislators have. So you've got to pass, or you'll need to
054let school principals know that these, these people may show up at any time and it allows central to visit the school. What's also interesting in this bill is a create essentially a kind of a think tank at the Miami Dade college for charter school innovation, moving on a school district can not withhold any of the TSI allocation from a charter school under most circumstances. So the standard will be, you cannot withhold it. There were a few exceptions provided within where this school district could do it. If a charter school receives this is interesting. If our school receives a great grading of the school of a or B of a or B, they can be granted a 15 year charter, charter renewal, 15 years. Yes, yes. Board member chose a 15 year renewal. If the charter
055school receives To it By the well, by the state. Yeah. By the state, I guess. Yeah. By the state, I think by the local school district as well, if they received an a or B. Okay. Yeah. I was the school district. Maybe Mitchell, tell me a school district. Yes. So by the school district, if they received that a or B, they will be granted a 15 year renewal. I believe that we'll be granted a 15 year readers. No, may it's Wilby. I think it might actually be, shall yes, sir. In that language, is it talk about like, if the school has CEO changes or principal changes or some kind of board directors change, nothing like that, I will have to go do sign up. No. And the biggest school boards can, I mean, the charter
056schools, as you know, they can do it overnight. They can change every teacher, every principal board numbers overnight Is full. I have a question. The charter schools that we have approved, we have a contract. Did we draft that contract or is the state, did the state drafted? And what's going to happen? Thank you, Reverend golden. It is a state template. It does get updated from time to time what they're doing now, if this, if this Bill's in fact signed, they'll expand the years of, of the renewal period. So that's going to be an effect in regards to, to everything else. And 1002 point 33, it remains in effect. These are just the substantive changes. We're just doing a real quick Review on that's all. Y'all keep it up because I'm, I'm concerned that if you
057get a grade of a or B and I grant you a 15 year charter renewal, what w what does that do in terms of your providing me financial information to show that you're going to last for 15 years, or do I just Know that You, I just give you the 15 year renewal, I still have to show that they're going to be able to be fiscally sufficient. You know what I mean? All, none of that changes, Right? So based on this bill, if there's some kind of financial issue, the school district still has a mechanism by which they can, you know, repeal shut down the charter school, if there's a dire financial situation. But, but to answer your question, it is must be granted And there. Yes, Sir. Yep. And just so you know, they're
058revising a lot of statutes and actually changing shouts to must. So it was a shell for a three-year and now it's going to be must for the 15 year. This is even a little bit more important If you want to. Yes. Okay. So the next thing is actually, if they receive a B, or, or, sorry, it lifts the C receive lower than a B, then they must be granted a five-year renewals, as long as they're not failing. Go ahead. Which Is standard at this point in time, This one here, it re okay. So yeah. I have a question. Yes, sir. It says on your document that they can be granted a five-year charter, but you're saying, oh, the PowerPoint, it says they can be granted a five-year charter. I Apologize. It's not can it's we
059must. So what they did Hold on. So like, if they get a D we can S we have to give them five years. Cause that's a lower than a B. It doesn't say D or F or like they can get an F five years. The language is the, the charter school of the charter charter school that meets these requirements and has received a school grade lower than a B pursuant to section 1000 chapter 1008, section 34 in the most recently greatest school year must be renewed for no less than a five-year term, except as provided in paragraph nine, which I Charter school go into turnaround status. Like we have to Make, If they have a failing grade, they still Have to get a Subject, but a D is not deemed a failing grade, an F
060or financial problems. But remember they do not, are not held to required fund balance that we are right. They have to just be at zero at the end of the year, right? Not at a deficit, right? So if they're at zero they're in standing and unless they have an F they're not academically insolvent, they will get state support for a D status. But that right now, based on the terms of legislation, a D would not cause them to be closed. It here's my problem. That is that we want to know that until the end of the year, long after we've started budgeting for the students that we think that we're going to have the next year, if a school closes, if Lakewood ranch, preparatory school closes with 800 kids there, how do we prepare for
061that? If we don't know that they're going to close until June, you see, I see. So in any way, but we're not gonna solve it here, but th but it's interesting to know, because I guarantee you, we're going to hear people come through that door, telling us what we've got to do, based on what these statutes say, which will not allow us to properly plan and prepare to meet the needs of all of the children in this county. I, that that's coming. And that's why this is so important because, you know, we make light of some of the things. But the reality is that public schools are literally being crushed to the ground in Florida, because I haven't asked you the question, and I want to ask you the $7,779 per student, where does that
062rank with the other 50 states? Are we still in the forties and 45 and 46? I thought we had come up, but I don't have that in mind. We haven't come up. All you got to do is go look on the national websites. We haven't come up. And all these things here are designed to facilitate the agendas of people who are not particularly concerned with quality public education. We just need to admit that, Okay, we're just going to finish this last two items. Okay. Also in 7 58. So, and I'm not going to know this specifics off the top of my head of what the other causes that are currently available, but there's a list of causes by which a charter can be revoked. And we are not, we, the legislature is repealing other good
063cause shown as a grounds that can be used for termination of a charter. I am, I am speculating. I do not know this, that other good costs shown may be too broad for school districts to use, to just repeal charters. And so they are repealing that as an option for school, there are still some base causes that were there that can be repealed, but that Th the, the, the main major language that is still there is we will revoke your charter, a Nora, you knew your charter for your failure to protect the health and welfare and whatever it is, what is the other magic word? Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. But they got that up a book curriculum, but we still can close you down if you're not protecting the health and welfare and something, another, it's
064always a three word thing. And then one final thing to Mr. Kennedy's conversation earlier, I heard some conversation about land use in this bill. They are allowing charter schools, charter schools can no longer be required to be held to any kind of land land use restriction that a public school was not held to charter schools will also get the same exceptions that a public school would get when doing any kind of maneuver, you know, change is really the land use. The charter schools will now be shielded under the school districts, public entity shield, if you will, for land use zoning issues. That's one more thing of that bill, as well As that wasn't already, But it depends on whether you're, whether you're creating the prohibition or whether you're creating the permission in terms of how
065you read the statutes. And what we've seen here gradually over the years is more and more language prohibiting things without regard to whether there's constitutionality involved in that or not. They just agenda driven that you want charter schools, and we're going to give them these kinds of, and they still haven't said anything about the standards to which charter schools need to be held with respect to curriculum. You want to talk to me about space and just talk about dollars and all that other stuff. But what really matters is if I send my kid over there to that charter school, are they going to teach that child two plus two is four? And if they aren't required to do that, and they're just trying to make money off of having my child over there, we are
066building another generation forward where we're going to have trouble. And I just see it. I see it in my spirit, and I know it's true. The next one on here is a school safety HB 1421. As you can see a school district shall adopt as you have in the past, but in a plan that unifies families with public schools are close, or what to expect in the evacuated due to disasters, law enforcement is required to participate in the assailant, drills and new training for both sworn and non-sworn school, safe officers. This new part here districts must annually certify that at least 80% of school personnel receive the mandatory youth mental health awareness training. Well, as you know, are probably aware, a lot of the mental health issues have been a high priority that the governor
067and his wife. And so you can see some of that emphasis here, Senate bill 10 48. So T also want to talk about certifying about 80%. I didn't mention earlier in the budget for the $15 an hour changes, the superintendent will be required to certify to the state that there is no employees and they less than $15 an hour. And I think that's like in the fall or something like that, you'll be required to send that up. Senate bill 10 48. So we got rid of the F cat. We had the replacement for the F cat. The, I can't remember the name of it, the student assessments. Now we are replacing that annual test with progress monitoring and a final end of the year tests. So effective next school year, we are going to replace
068the current system with a coordinated screening and progress monitoring system. There'll be three exams to, I don't want to call them lighter exams, more of a periodic exam. And then one final end of the year, a comprehensive test for the students. It will require school districts to administer the exams and communicate the results to the teachers and parents, but also school districts have to publicly provide to the parent what the results of the tests mean as in, so if you just put some grades up there, parents need to know where's my child. What does this that great actually mean? It's my child do well to my child, not do well. So that will be required of you to post that it provides to the DOE to study this new testing tool and directs the study
069to look for how the tests could be more efficient over the next coming years. There is a, and I don't want to use the word hold harmless. There's like a dampener in here. So we are going to implement a new test. Teachers have to learn to teach this new test students have, this will be the first time they've taken this new test. There is a level that a school district, if it'll be kind of weighted. So if more students fail because it's a new test and they've never been to it before, and teachers are not teaching you to have to change their teaching styles, right? It's different tests. As far as like your performance scores go, you won't be held in the same manner that she'd be held right now. So that's a one-year period,
070I believe, to kind of under, to be able to prototype this test, if you will. This is a transitional year, Transitional year. Yes, sir. That's a good way to say it. I know it's a transitional year and we can still use these use the scores that we did last year under the old standard. That part I'm not, I'm not aware of, sorry. That may be correct It to administer the exams. And I'm sorry. You're right. You don't have the, but SB 10 48 was supposed to be the replacement for the standards that were in place. Am I am I saying this right? Not a superintendent. I want to make sure I'm saying this right, because, And there will be a new assessment. It's, it's lined to the new best standards. There will be great. There
071will not be an accountability tied to those such as if you were to receive an AF grade, your school would be held harmless that ear, but they will be issuing grades. Okay. It is a preliminary year. Our first understanding was there would be no grades issued. There will be grades issued, but it will not be on the whole set of spectrum as we're accustomed to now, because they cannot develop a growth measure until you have two years of the new test. So grades will be established based on proficiency alone, because that's all that they will be able to gather in the first year. So it's a tentative metric held harmless in transition. We'll wait and see what that looks like. Or that exactly means yes. Ma'am. How will this impact evaluating the teachers That is
072a different legislative bill that still in place, teachers still are required to be evaluated based on outcomes. They did not change that legislation. No, the hold harmless in this outcome does not The hold harmless means in terms of turnaround status or effectiveness that way. But it does not have you still will have to meet the graduation requirements. You still will need to meet the third grade promotion requirements based on this test and teachers will still be required to be evaluated. And not only that, none of the supplies to charter schools, No, it does private schools. It does not charter schools Assessments. Yes. They are required by statute to take the same test. Oh, so we did manage to get some, Well, no, no, that, that that's that's in place that that's been in place. All
073right. Oh, legal notice is when I came here last year, this was probably what should have probably been a pass, but there was some opposition to it last year. And this has been around for 10, 12 years. When we finally got to really getting some law into this, it's going to give you now the government agency, the option to publish legal notices on the county website, instead of a print newspaper, the savings statewide. I don't know what it is going to be for the school, but statewide. It was 240 million for cities, schools, and counties. So just think of that money. Yep. And we track what bills they get every day, what he does. And he just got this, this bill today. So he had asked for this, I expect him to sign, sign it.
074So he was disappointed in pass in this manner last year. And the last one here, this one, his house joint resolution, one homestead exemptions. The reason we added this to your slide, obviously it includes classroom. Teachers will be added to the proposed constitutional amendment to give them an additional $50,000. You can see the others who are added to that law enforcement, active duty, Florida national guard. You know, there has been a lot of discussions on this that we've talked about with your team. It says, as you can see classroom teachers, doesn't say those guidance counselors. It doesn't say those working in the cafeteria, you know, unfortunately, but they, they give it to classroom teachers Paste up. Yep. Did they ever do a, a study on what that does all those professions and giving them an
075extra 25? You don't have to thousand, you know, I mean, I said earlier to have, and the have nots, you know, when we started giving the teachers 47 5, but some of them were making more than your veteran teachers. I mean, it's just another hit. I mean, I hate to say to that, that man, I'm like, okay, here we go again. You know, these people coming in are making more than me and it can't be good. You know? I mean, so I think it's at least a start, you know, it's a positive step, not the one that I think everybody that supports those in education professional, we all know they're all involved. Those who are driving the buses, who are feeding the kids who were cleaning classrooms or anything else. So, but at least it's
076a story on it. It's a good question though. I have not seen a poll or a numbers on, but I may have missed it. And, and the last one here, I apologize as a sovereign immunity, you want to talk about this real quick kids spend a lot of time on this one. So this bill I wanted to bring up, there's a lot of bills that didn't pass as we saw on our second slide. But this bill in particular to all local political subdivisions, as we know, the state has a limited waiver of sovereign immunity. So if a school district causes some kind of tortious action hit somebody with a school bus, there's only the, what can be claimed against the school district is $200,000 per person, $300,000 per incident. Anything after that, you know, you
077have to go to sovereign the discretion of the king. You have to go to the state and ask for the remaining amount of that money and whether they give it to you or not, that's a process we see every year through the claims appeals process, we do have a lot of inflation. And so there was some talk about moving that number up a little bit from 200,000 to something else. And from 300,000 in the aggregate per incident to something else medical costs have gone up. However, I do think there is some intent to move this up as a way to stop having the state pay for the accidents of local government, send us back to the local governments for them to pay for it. So they have filed a bill initially that moved the limited
078waiver of sovereign immunity up to $1 million per person and an unlimited amount in the aggregate per incident for local governments to ensure against that, especially a smaller local government, even I wonder Manatee county, which I would call it maybe a T school district, I would call it a medium sized school board. The costume insurer is just astronomical. So ultimately through the amendment process through committees that got whittled down to $400,000 per person, and then $600,000 for aggregate of each incident. And ultimately that bill died. I do see this bill eventually coming back in some form. I just think the board should be cognizant that that was out there. And I mean work with your risk management team. If, if something like this were to ever come back and Sean and I, to make sure
079your interests are heard on this. But if this bill were to ever come back and were to pass in some form, even if we get back to that 400,600,000 where it ultimately ended up before it died, your costs for insurance, we'll go up and I don't know how much you guys are. Self-insured that may affect, you know, have you're paying out more out of your own funds. So that's all. And obviously the claims, you know, when they're Pierce, after you, as you know, they have to go through a few note, know the claims process they're filed just like a bill. I have seen claims of bills still there for as long as I've been in the process. And it's been over 20 years now. So that just tells you, they come back year after year,
080and it's just no rhyme or reason which claim bill gets picked some years to be part of the budget. I just wanted to say, thank you guys again. I think, you know, you've asked some very tough questions on, I appreciate it. And I just say, I mean, this, these are the same struggles your administrative staff have to go through every single year. Some of it they're waiting for rule authority from the department of education. And I know it creates a great challenge to get some of these implemented quickly, but we're, we're glad to give you that information and also provide them some more detail. And I know you have some folks getting ready to come up, right. To do a little more detailed. Did you have one more question? Oh no, no. I just wanted
081to ask if there were any questions so far, but we have additional presentation is that, And we don't have to cause we, we kind of talked about it a little bit, but let's see. It was, it was really more of a discussion on, on, on the parent bill rights on those three bills we were talking about before 1, 5, 5, 7, 14 67 and HB seven. But don't don't you all go now? Yeah, no. Cause I, I put what, what y'all are telling us is how you all are preparing us. And we kind of talked about it a little bit about, you know, we are, you know, we've been at length trying to figure all this out. We're reviewing procedures, trying to create new procedures. And through the course of time here, we'll be coming
082to you with, with that. Let me, let me, let me do this. Cause we've been hearing, wow. We can give them to two 30 and ask any other questions that you all might want to ask. It's about 10 after two now. And I'm just saying that that's all the way to Mr. Todd. Obama's finished his meeting. Did you all want to, because we did we have any questions now? Do we want to hear this presentation and then be done by two 30? What, what do you think? I want to be able to ask questions, but I want me to hear his presentation also. So I don't have an appetite to wrap up. Can you tell, can you tell her your quiet, can you tell me your presentation to allow for sufficient questions to be asked
083that we might be done by two 30? Yes. Reverend Goldman. Yeah. Is that that all right. Madam vice chair. Okay. All right, then let's have at it. I just don't know where that's. Okay. It's An, if it's a very ad right after Questions, it's not on here. Okay. But we'll, we'll just use this. I will say, as we go forward, we, we are discussing the three major bills. We've discussed them already in sufficient detail to tell you that we know about house bill seven. We know about at this point in time, 1557 as well. And we know about what's going on with our literacy bill. So let me tell you really what you want to know. It's how do we prepare at the district level for these changes as we discussed them already, what we
084do is we follow updates from the department of education. They'll give a legislative summary will give a legislative summary. Our lobbyists was the, they were the first ones out of the gate with the legislative summary, as well as the Florida school board association, we take all of them. We compare and contrast and we also read the bills just so you know, what we do from there is we create a PowerPoint or an equivalent of a PowerPoint that enumerates each and every legislative change. We determined the owner at the district level. If it's curriculum will be Dr. Thompson, if it's charter Oak, go back to me and Dr. Higher safety and security, it will go to Paul de AMECO and Mr. Wagner, from there, we determined the sub the substance of the new law is we
085also determine the effective date when it takes effect. And most importantly, any action that is required on a date, certain in the end, it looks something like this, but it gets more detailed as we fill it out. So it will tell us what we need to do when we need to do it. And we monitor this as a living document. We have a document that has gates that have not from previous legislative sessions that will also come forward. It creates accountability for us. It's holding other team members and the district also accountable. So we could follow up and ensure that we have full, complete compliance. That's why all I wanted to say about this. All right. Thank you very much. Why don't we start with Mrs. Foreman since she's already let us know that she
086has some questions and then we'll, we'll make you less joke. Is that okay? All right, Ms. Foreman. Oh, probably the item that I am most concerned about right now are the library books. We're seeing other districts being challenged by their community. And I, I did a search of, you know, I don't think we're a squeaky clean as we think we are. Okay. I know we're not, I know we're not. And I don't want to get into the specifics at this point. I did address a few of them with Ms. Saunders and the district has already implemented changes. But when we talk about the, what is age appropriate in a library book, aren't there standards that are given to us by library associations or whatever. So that they'll say that this is a reading level of
087this, but it's appropriate for this age group. I, when I went through some of our materials online, you know, in, in looking at our library books, there are some that say it's appropriate for high school, but yet it may be in our middle school library. Well, I, I, you are correct. And there is a listserv that the media centers use to purchase books. And that's what most, for the most part I would imagine follow that's definitely what we do remember though, we do have high school courses taught in our middle schools. We offer English one, we offer algebra and geometry. We do have some science high school courses. So we do have some classes in middle school that are high school courses. So that does make it a little bit more thoughtful when we're purchasing
088things, as well as we have in high school, college level courses that are taught dual language. I mean, dual language, dual enrollment, AP IB, some of those are college level courses. So even though it does have that range of appropriateness, some of our schools do overlap. I will tell you now with the new legislation, we will go back with a finer tooth comb with a more stricter vetting process of a committee. And the principals are going to have to be very much aware of what's being purchased. And there's going to be a whole new process put in place that those things are already underway. Whereas even though we've had procedures and processes, I don't know that all parties have scrutinized the purchases of media center books, because those are not classroom books, they're books that
089are in the media center for students to go check out on their own. But we, we definitely have put in measures. It will continue on. Now, Dr. Evans and Kevin and Lori Breslin are working on those things. And all of those new procedures before we purchase new items will be in place moving forward. So we're going back and reviewing everything that's there. And then we're putting this new level of vetting procedures in place moving forward. So will they be be books that start to disappear from our list of, We have a procedure. If there are any things that are in question, it will go before a committee and then it will be deemed if there needs to be restrictions of allowing such books, meaning a parent has to give permission before the child can check
090the book out. If we find that there are books that really are not appropriate for the grade level in a media center, then yes, they, they would be removed if that were to happen. And I do want to let the public know that there is a PR procedure for anyone who objects to a book to file and that it will be reviewed. So that is the appropriate way and place to express your objections. Thank you. All right, Mr. Kennedy, I'm sorry. Does that sound good? Oh, all right. Madam vice chair. I don't have any other actually I do have one question, but it was for the people that already sat down and I may go by making them come back up. I just thought I've. When we were talking about reading, reading funding, you said
091that the reading allocation also goes towards statewide programs. Was that the new world's reading is that part of this reading allocation where they're mailing the books to the kids' houses? Yes. That was a speaker's prowls and, and millions of books. His, So that's part of that, that statewide reading allocation. I thought it was not the funding that you're getting Right. Very quick. What part is like how the state divided it out? That was 4.8 million, something like that. Yeah. I'll find out. Sorry. I meant to ask that earlier, but then we got started talking about charter schools and everything else, and The sheet that you all passed out, It was different, a different reading program. There's another reading program that the speaker brought to the legislature and it's going to be, actually, children are gonna
092be getting books sent straight to their house, do this program, and then promoted. And I forgot how many books they can get, but it's a pretty big number that they're able to get The new world. But is that part of this $40 million increase in reading allocation? That's I guess my question is, that's kind of like, here's your reading allocation, but I'm going to take that money and, you know, mail books to kids houses. Okay. So there's this specific amount of money for $29 million. It's funded in the budget specifically for grants and age. That means it's coming through an agency, new world, new world reading scholarship program. So I believe that they're separate. So that's so different than the schools. And I do remember the chairman of the Senate education appropriations committee, making comments
093about school books and how, you know, children not being able to read is a huge thing. Like them not being able to be productive in life and talking about funding, books and schools. And that was like a separate, just the way he was talking was a very separate conversation then the speakers priority. Okay. I just wanted to know if that was really like part of that, because to me it's like, I don't have a problem with the program. I think it's a nice program, But I Think it should come out of that pot is all good. Just so you know, for that $29 million, there is a further requirement that says are providing them out of up to $500 per student for each scholarship award as provided in the statute that they created. And so
094I think that $29 million and each child's only able to receive up to $500 of that benefit. And I don't know how that's going to be broken down. I am just reading this quickly that I'm sure it's like, okay, well, we're not going to mail you more than $500 in books a year per student. So You know what else? I bet you don't know. I bet you don't know who gets to decide when this child gets $500. Well, I, I don't know that I don't Need that. They were not being denied To whom do they apply Those from an out there, there was not a process. Do they apply? I think it's going to be a private. Yeah, but they applied too, but that's okay. Anything else mattered? That was it. Okay, Mr. Chuck. No,
095thank you all for the presentation. It's great. I do think though that I want to make sure I'm and I'm sure you guys know this and are a hundred percent doing this, but I want to make sure our teachers are protected and that whether we all agree with the bills does that doesn't matter if their pastor passed it's there in, in courts being C3 unconstitutional, that doesn't matter. Come August 17th, whenever school starts this fall. So, you know, I just want to make sure that, that we've got, you know, the teachers were ready to prepare them in August or has really, I would love it as soon as we possibly can have them start doing professional development on here's the new standards and don't get caught up, you know, because I just wouldn't hate to
096see that come back on, on teachers who innocently do something and, and they get nabbed with something because we didn't do our due diligence to prepare. So that's, that's my biggest concern It's being done and will be done. And I remember a lot of, a lot of what's in the legislation is what we know isn't already is not happening in Manatee county. So we can rest assured that our teachers are not doing most of what's in this legislation. But to your point, we've got, we are preparing now for our summer conferences and all our trainings with principals on down for that very reason to make sure everybody understands all the new Sasha, like we would do any year with statutes in legislative update. And just to kind of go back on to you, look at
097the strategic, the position for the strategic initiatives. I mean, this is going to be something where you're gonna have to have more walk-throughs or you're gonna have to have more, more checkpoint. I mean, you know, I, I remember what I dunno, it was like 2007 or eight, and we had to have so many walkthroughs in each classroom. I mean, I know that administrators were getting 20,000, 40,000 steps because, you know, they were going into every classroom. So many times you had to do it throughout the year. So you're going to consistently have to, to do that because again, it's going to cost some burden, but it has to be, I want to make sure our, our, our, our teachers are protected for sure. So When one benefit is we, we have new standards, right? We
098have new best standards. So as we train them best standards, we're also parallel gonna train on some of these new, you know, legislative guidelines, new legal guidelines. But again, like Superman always says, if we stick to the standards and stick to our curriculum maps, we shouldn't have an issue. So, Okay. That's it. Let me thank all of you for the update that you had brought to us and the information that you have brought to us rest assured that the, the board is committed to doing that, which the law requires, but we depend on you to help us to make sure that what the law requires is constitutional because above all else, we don't want to call this operation of success. But the baby that ultimate end here is to create children who will produce a
099better democracy than we have now. And the reality is that that only comes about, but knowledge, the knowledge that we impart, we pontificate from this DAS. But those teachers that hear that Mr. Choke was talking about, have to execute that. And I just want to make sure that when they go out to execute, they go out to execute in a FAFSA field, that it is constitutional. And then what they're doing is protected and that they aren't going to be abused in any way. So I thank you all so very much. I want to thank my colleagues for, If you all would please take some time, it's send a letter to Senator brooders and, and McFarland thank them for the support either way. And maybe even if you have an opportunity to bring them before you
100to thank them, or at least invite them, if they accept. And lastly, I just wanted to, I had forgot the new world program was a tax credit. So that was through it. It goes to a nice nonprofit, not a private company. So those tax credits what pay for it not they had those dollars over to go to education, but actual tax credits. Yeah. All right. No, thank you. All right, Ms. Choke in closing remarks, foreman, Mr. Kennedy, You said no. Oh, he said the, oh man, Bastiat we are adjourned.