School Board Meeting @ CSH 06-24-2025 @ 5:00 pm - Jun 24, 2025

001Mrs. Kahn, we're ready to start our meeting and we're going to start with reports tonight. Yes. Thank you. And just so the public knows, we're starting with reports so that anything that somebody wants to speak to or hear from us directly, that part of the meeting won't start until after 5:00. Thank you. Excellent. And so we're going to start with Heidi Roberts and she's going to give us an update on our assessment data. Sure. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair and school board members and everyone else. My name is Heidi Roberts. I am the ELA coordinator for Monroe County School District. Yesterday I was given the unenviable position of being able to present our PM3 data today. I want to point out that our Assessment Accountability director did retire May 30 and our new one

002assumes her new role on June 1. So in the meantime, you get me. But we do have some great PM3 data here to present to you. And before we begin, one thing I do want to make very clear. The data that we're going to see tonight is the raw data. It's unfiltered. So our state next month will be releasing the data that has taken into account students, for example, whose due state is less than two years. They've been in the school system in the United States for less than two years. They will be filtered out of proficiency data. For today's data that I'm showing you, they are included so that you know, as we move through it will come into consideration. I'll mention it to try to make it a little more clear. Excuse me,

003Heidi, just to give you a heads up, I'm going to be asking a lot about PM2 versus PM3. And so I know the numbers aren't up there, but my purpose is I want to know what the growth is not just from year to year, but from what we were doing at two to now. Sure. Thank you. Okay, so I guess as I outline what we do have presented here, this data was compiled by our Assessment accountability director and it shows grade level comparison data. So what we're looking at here, the first box is your ELA data for students proficient. And then the left box, your right box, is the third grade math proficiency data. The first column is showing students from last year in third grade. And then the second column is showing students from

004this year in third grade. So what we are looking at is grade level comparison, not cohort growth. What I do want to point out on this third grade slide here is that both in ELA and in Math, our district has performed above the state in terms of proficiency. Another thing that I do want to point out and celebrate are schools like Gerald Adams here, who's, you know, performing at 55% proficiency right now. And when I had mentioned that concept of the raw data, they're going to have a large number of students that will be taken out of that population, and those numbers are only going to rise. So there is a lot to be proud of. Another thing to highlight is that our ELA data is above the state. And in third grade, ELA is

005very important. And oftentimes we see ELA prioritized over other subject areas. And what we're seeing here is that our teachers are doing a phenomenal job of making sure that they are doing everything that they are expected to do. So, our math proficiency, our science proficiency, et cetera, are not suffering just because we are prioritizing one over the other. They are really making sure they're addressing the whole educational experience for our students. So to address, I guess, that cohort data, here's how we can look at that. If we look at HoB, for example, 44% proficiency in ELA for PM3 of last year, if I click to the next slide, you're going to see that HoB now this year has achieved 48% proficiency. So if we're trying to compare cohort data or last year to this year,

006I guess it's not necessarily PM2 to 3, but it can show you that last year on PM3, Hobs 4th graders performed 44% less proficient than they did this year. So there's 4% growth. So I guess as we're trying to look at the data that way, that can kind of help us to interpret it. Other things, if I'm talking too much, please just let me know. Otherwise I'll continue to highlight on our slide. Do we have an idea of like this may be more you, Mrs. Exer, but the number, if there's been an increase, decrease, stayed about the same of the number of third graders requiring summer school, do we know? Actually it's down. Christina can. She's really running summer school.I'm going to ask Christina to respond That's we're definitely seeing smaller number district wide. So,

007that sort of accounts for that. Also the two years and the ESE and that sort of thing. Those kids would not be held to the same standard for retention. Correct. Thank you. Something that is unique this year is that there is the third grade test that will be offered in July as an opportunity for Promotion, it's not a good cause thing. It's kind of like the 10th grade retake. So that's another opportunity that our students have to demonstrate proficiency to move to fourth grade. And that is different. That opens July 14th, I believe. Okay. So as we look at some really significant shiny things, I can't help but point out that PKS is performing over 70% in both ELA and at 76% in math in terms of proficiency this year. KLS, if we notice, is

008at 72%. When we're looking at the grade year to year 53, 722. Obviously there were instructional changes that were made at that grade level within the building that the building should be proud of and continue to develop. I'm going to go now to our fifth grade. What I would like to point out here, if we look at the math proficiency, Poincien elementary is at 67% proficiency, which is 10% higher than the state. Again, going back to this unfiltered and raw data, they have a large population of EL students that will likely be filtered out. So that number again is only going to continue to rise, which is very exciting when we talk about why that is. The curriculum lead for math has really been sharing, you know, back to the teaching, to the rigor of

009the standard teaching, to the big M. And so we'll continue to look at other improvements in data there as well. Here we have our fifth grade science scores. We can see here that PKS again is achieving at 70% proficiency. SIGV was at 72. Another way to look at this raw data. I know that Poinciana, when they filter their students out, they're expecting to come in at about 54% proficiency. This raw data is showing 44. Just again, to kind of really impress upon you how these numbers can change. So as we get that new data, we will really be digging in and unpacking what it all means. Look at those big, beautiful green bars. So in sixth grade, we are above the state in terms of proficiency for both ELA and math. In conversations with our

010math curriculum coordinator, when we talk about why we are seeing such great success here, she really attributes that to the curriculum teaching, to the rigor of the standard, both in ELA and math, and really being in touch with what it is we need to do to get our students to the level they need to be successful. Some things I want to point out here, it's hard to overlook that PKS is at 89% proficiency in ELA and 90% proficiency in math. They deserve tons of shout outs. When we look at Sugarloaf's cohort data here, Sugarloaf students last year, since last year improved by 12% in ELA and 13% in math. Kudos to them. Excuse me, quick question. So the numbers look great. I guess my first question is when we're looking at PM3 for last year,

011it's the sixth graders, right? Last year to sixth grade this year. So, I guess the first thing I'm wondering is if the staff change, the information change or did these students do well last year, for instance, in fifth grade and then what's the growth from PM2 to PM3? Because that's also very telling. Yes. Speaking from fifth to sixth in both ELA and in math, we are seeing it's a curriculum thing. In fifth grade, we're noticing that we've been running some gap analyses to see what it is specifically in fifth grade across the district, even at our higher performing schools, PKs in fifth grade last year they were at a 70%, whereas now they're jumping up to 89%. What we've noticed is district wide and fifth grade, we're seeing scores dip there. And we think we

012can attribute that to a curriculum gap. To address that, we're really prioritizing standards based instruction. So regardless of what curriculum we decide to adopt every cycle that we have to do and go through all that fun, we want our teachers to know exactly what standard it is that they need to be teaching and to the extent of the rigor that they need to be teaching. In sixth grade, we switched to a different curriculum for both ELA and math. And we think that that sort of helps balance that if we're using the curriculum, it does target those standards. So that is something we're seeing specifically from fifth to sixth. Now, to address your PM2 data question, I don't have the PM2 data readily available. Ms. Axford. No, that would be me, Ms. Acevedo. That's okay. And

013I apologize that it's not up there. We can and will do the comprehend again. This is what Dr. Reed left to present as her out of the door 530. But we do have that PM2 data and I'll just give you a couple of examples. In sixth grade, which is the same cohort in PM2 for their ELA, for example, at that point they had 33% proficient. So you can see that they raised it to 41%. And we do have that data. It's just not on that tablet. But I've already talked to, as we speak, to the rest of the curriculum team, who are kind of doing double duty, and we can have that and make sure we send it out to the board so that you do see everything from the year before and then the

014progress between two and three. You referred us back to science. And if you refer back to the actual sixth grade ela, it's even more important. Sorry. Yes. Thank you for catching that. PTS went from 64 to over 70. Much more significant. And even too, after PM2 data did come out, the superintendent, Ms. Acevedo, and the curriculum team had data chats with all the principals, assistant principals and coaches and really targeted specific areas for improvement in math. Amy Stanton, who's our math coordinator, really believes that the work that was done that there was targeted tiered PL delivery for teachers based on need. And then for ELA, we targeted reading across genres in vocab and offered strategies to support that. And overall we saw success. That ended up being our highest strand based on the PM data.

015So can you go back to. For me, back to the fifth grade. The one I tried to go through really quickly? Yes. Yeah. I'm sorry, the thing that I'm curious as. Do we know how many Mason students are in fifth grade? Because those numbers don't look very good. And if it's just one or two students, then that's one thing. But if it's a significant number of students, that's concerning. Anyway, you can go on. We can get that in Mesan's, for example, in the fifth grade ELA, I don't have the exact number, but I do have highlighted at PM2 that Big Pine Charter and Mae Sands Montessori both had low cohorts, meaning for those eligible, again, that were there from the beginning through those two schools were highlighted. And so when we see that, that means

016that cohort data is usually 10 eligible or between 10 and 12. And so again, the data that Dr. Reed presented at PM2, she did have those highlighted. This it wasn't. No, that's all right. It's a small cohort. That kind of makes seven. So, they have seven currently. Thank you. I think I left off on seventh grade. So, if we are looking at seventh grade, it's important to point out that we are 10% higher than the sixth. And our math proficiency. I'm just going to keep shouting. PKS's horn. 86% proficiency. Ocean Studies was at 89 KLS, achieving 78% proficiency in math. And then across the board in ELA, 71% proficiency. SIGSBE at 78% proficiency. Other things that maybe we can't tell from here, but. So the cohort data from Key Largo score last year achieved 60.

017I'm sorry, 47% proficiency. And saw an improvement up to 71% proficiency in ELA, which is significant. And then Sugarloaf last year, 39%. Same group of students now scored at 52% proficiency. All right, eighth grade PKS coming in again right below 90 at 89% proficiency. KLS at 64. Here we are looking at our ninth graders. Coral Shores coming in above the state at 64% proficiency. All you Coral Shore parents, kudos to you. And College of the Florida Keys at 77% proficiency. Our algebra students. This is going to include both high school and middle school cohorts. So that data can be chopped up in that way when we look at civics here, we've got HoB. If we look at the grade level comparison, so not students, but last year's grade level, HOB went from 45% proficiency last

018year. This year they've achieved 53% proficiency. Marathon High School or Marathon Middle School, 55% proficiency to 58 this year. Excuse me again. Can you go back to 9th grade ELA? Sigsbe is there. Are they taking 9th grade Language Arts? I don't know the answer to that, but I can find out and I'll get back to you. Yes. Some of their 8th graders are on an advanced track. So, then if they do take the English one, they have been doing that for approximately five to six years. Then they take the ninth grade ELA assessment. Thanks. Our eighth grade science scores as a district are coming in above the state average at 52% proficiency. PKS again at 80. Sigsbee 81. Treasure Village, 89. KLS coming in at 55. Here we have our US history scores. Our district

019is on par with the state. And Coral Shores above the state by 11% proficiency. Our 10th grade ELA data is showing Coral Shores again above the state in terms of proficiency. When we compare our Key West High School cohort from last year, they were at 39% proficiency to this year now at 46% proficiency with great improvement. Here are our biology scores. Key West High School grade level comparison again showing from 57 last year, four biology courses to this year at 65% proficiency. And our geometry scores. So here too is where I want to point out that Coral Shores, for example, last year achieved 58% proficiency. This year is showing 42% proficiency. However, that group of students last year in algebra achieved 30% proficiency. So in terms of growth, they grew from algebra at 30% proficiency

020to now 42% proficiency, which is factored in as learning gains, too, according to the state's metrics. So another way for us to look at that data, although it might not look great, it actually is growth in terms of that cohort of students. So that being said, we have this raw data, and as we look forward on Thursday, we're meeting with the principals, we will use the raw data that we have here. We'll also use the progress monitoring 1, 2, 3 data, our strand data, to sit down and workshop with principals to review their needs in terms of SR, their subgroups that are targeted, does their data indicate specific areas of need? And through that, we will workshop goals that they're going to set for their upcoming school year to help them develop their school improvement

021plan. And through that then also sourcing, what kind of needs might they have in order to achieve those goals? So what sorts of professional learning do you need? What departments do you need to call upon? Are there resources that we need to get you, et cetera, so that we can start the next school year ready to do what it is that we need to do in order to support student achievement? Any questions that I can help you with now or get back to you on? It seems like a lot of our school improvement plans were focusing on math this year more than in past years. Is that not right, is it? Anyway, it seems like it worked, you know, like, in particular, we've, in particular the math side. There's a lot of green on the

022right today, so we don't often see. We see that we improve the school improvement plans, but we don't necessarily get a report back to see if the successes lined up with the plans. And that would be interesting, I think, you know, this seems to be, especially for middle school, big curricular change, which is great. And I think we had delayed our curricular purchase so that we could get extra information. And so, you know, it's like, it seems like it's really paid off. But for some of the school improvement plans, it might be nice to find out, you know, just, you know, who reached their goal on those plans, what their goals were. I don't want to put a giant, you know, another giant summer project, but we can do, looking at this, like a lot

023of schools hit their targets. Yes. So, we can definitely suggest to Mr. Tierney that we look at those plans and do some kind of Presentation in August for you on how that aligned. And we'll have more information from the state date as well. Thank you. Thank you so much, Heidi. Thank you. And back to our regularly scheduled board meeting. Thank you, Mrs. Kahn. We are going to call our regular board meeting to order and we're going to ask if. How about if, Mr. Ron Saunders, would you be interested in leading us in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you for that impromptu leading us. Thank you, Mr.

024Saunders. Mrs. Kahn, the agenda is as presented. I have had no requests regarding the agenda. So if we can approve it. So moved. Second. Motion to approve the agenda by Dr. Woltanski. Second by Mr. Horan. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I recommend approval of our June 10, 2025 school board meeting minutes. So moved. Second. Motion by Dr. Woltanski. Second by Mrs. Talbot. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. Back to you for citizens input. I'm going to actually read our little citizen input paragraph today so that everybody who's here maybe for the first time, understands. Presentations to the Board are limited to three (3) minutes for each individual speaker and five (5) minutes for the representative of a designated group. Transfer of time between individuals and/or groups

025is not permitted. Letters submitted to each Board Member and/or the Board Secretary prior to a Board Meeting will not additionally be read into the record at the meeting. All statements must be directed towards the Board; no person may address or question Board Members individually, and Board Members will not engage in a dialogue with persons making public comment. Furthermore, all speakers agree to abide by the Code of Conduct for Citizen Input (School Board Policy 0169.1) and will begin their presentation by stating the full name and their city or town of residence for the record. If you have not already registered to speak during citizen input, if you could please do so. That would be appreciated. Thank you. First up we speak, we have Mr. Tony Hammond requesting three minutes. Thank you. It's an honor to be

026here. Tony Hammond, 246 Jasmine St. Plantation Key Colony, Tavernier. A bit of trivia, 1968. I was working on the 8910 program as a teacher's aide here at Coral Shores and teachers went on strike and so all of a sudden I was the sixth grade teacher. I was 17 or 18 years old but that started a fire in me to become a school teacher, school administrator, went to college, University of Miami, came back and started here at Coral Shores, was the baseball coach in 1972. Then in 1974 I started. Well, yeah, 1974, I started out on the Christian school And then in 1975 started the baseball program and coached baseball all the way through till the end until I thought I was retired. And then a few years ago, two years ago, Coach Holly and Coach

027Russell asked me if I would be the head coach of Coral Shores baseball again. So I agreed for one year, which I did. And last year I was the assistant coach. You are going to hear, perhaps if you go to the meeting in an hour or so, you'll hear all sorts of comments and opposition about the field. Mostly old information, old data. The only practical way to move forward is for this field to do exactly what you have planned. I supported 1000%. I was an old school guy for a lot of years and said SOD only until I started interviewing coaches that have artificial turf on their baseball field. It makes all the sense in the world to do that as far as the information about office space, et cetera, down there or concrete, there's

028no place for our equipment, there's no place for our trainer, there's no place for. There's a portalet down there that we have to use as our bathroom and so we can go on and on and on. Why we need that? We have to carry the AED around with us just to make sure that. We have it available in case we have a problem. So thank you so much for. For your timeliness on this and for your plan. I support it 100%. Thank you. Next up to speak, we have Ms. Jamie Engel requesting three minutes. Hi, Jamie Engel. 102 Milano Drive, Isla Mirada, Florida. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. First, I want to sincerely thank the Village of Islamorada and the Monroe County School District for finally signing and recording the interlocal agreement

029last Friday. This agreement formally allows the Coral Shores High School baseball team to use the field at Founders park and in turn frees up the Coral Shores campus for other important athletic programs like track and field, soccer, lacrosse and more. That's a win for everyone. But before the board takes any action on the conceptual design for the baseball complex, there are a few critical points I respectfully ask you to consider. First, the design team has been working on plans for the Founders park for years without a legally binding recorded agreement in place. That interlocal agreement was only recorded last Friday. Were you all aware of that? Second, there is currently no use calendar or formal agreement between the school district and the village to outline how or when this field will be Used. Third, there

030is no baseball license agreement in place, not even a draft. Nothing has gone before the village recreation and parks department, nothing has been publicly reviewed, and nothing has gone before the village council for approval. The property owner, the village Viola Morada, has not agreed to any construction or even basic terms of use. So I ask, why is this on your agenda tonight? How can you approve or advance conceptual plans when the fundamental agreement 6 simply do not even exist? At this point and at this very moment, just across the street, village residents are reviewing the results of $175,000 master plan study for Founders Park. The survey results available on the Village of Islamorada website clearly show that residents overwhelmingly prefer improvements to existing amenities rather than new construction. In short, they want to preserve the

031park and not develop it. If the village council truly listens to the people, this baseball complex on village owned land may not even move forward. Dr. Woltanski recently reminded me that the interlocal agreement has positively impacted thousands of student athletes over the past 25 years. Especially track and field athletes. That's really powerful. If the school district has $5 million to invest in Coral Shores athletics, shouldn't it go towards a project that supports thousands of students across many programs for decades to come rather than a few hundred students over 20 years who play 13 home games each year in one sport? And shouldn't this investment be made on land that's owned by the district? I urge this board to pause. Please do not move forward with any approvals tonight, conceptual or otherwise, until the village and

032its residents have had a chance to decide what's right for their community park. Let's do this the right way with full transparency, formal agreements in place, and input from the people who live with the outcome. Thank you. Next up to speak, we have Mr. Richie Russell requesting three minutes. Actually, I was requested. I cannot speak on behalf of the Florida Keys History and Discovery Center Foundation, I'm honored to chair that board. I'm a resident of Almorada 52, rustling North Almorada, and I should start out by thanking each of you for your service. I'll share with you that I've been inundated recently by people apologizing to me as some of the truths got out. As most of you know, there was a lot of misrepresentation that's taken place, which I guess is a euphemism for lying,

033but a lot of misrepresentation that took place. And I'm just going to go through a few of them. It was reported that Rich Russell is going to bulldoze 82 mahogany trees. It was reported that they showed you a picture of a three story building and said this is what they're going to build. You guys spoke in unequivocal terms. 5, 0 said this is not a rendering. This was just something that they put out. Two days later I'm the vice chair of the park and Recreation Committee. They show up and they doubled down. Look at what they're doing. So we were told it was I was going to have a three story palatial office. For what it's worth, I have not been to the baseball coach for 25 years. I won't have an office there. We

034were told that the water used for Astroturf would be allowed to flow to the Florida bay. And I'll speak to that momentarily. We reported. It was reported that I was a paid consultant for this project. As most of you know, I have been a teacher in the system for 46 years. The last 20 years I've served as a teacher on special assignment. It was also reported there would be a restaurant at this facility that by the way has a nugget of truth. And I'll tell you how it happened. One of the park and recreation board meetings, recording secretary. As I was discussing it, I was talking about restrooms. I was also talking about concession stand with hamburgers and somehow or another that got transcribed and became restaurants. That is so far into my nature. You

035know, we might as well put a gas station in a strip mall in the outfield or something. It was mentioned that Governor Gavin Newsom and this condemning astroturf, which is a 1960 term that Governor Newsom has banned artificial turf in California forever. The truth is 2023 Governor Newsom signed legislation that reverse a previous ban on local governments restricting the installation of synthetic turf. This action effectively allows cities and counties to ban artificial turf in residential areas if they choose to vote to. And the other thing that is now a narrative that this is going to be for 25 or 30 kids. May I respectfully suggest to you that if we do this correctly with artificial turf this can be a venue for the 140 kids that we have playing flag football. All of them Monroe

036county school kids, 250 kids that are playing youth league on up, T ball on up in baseball, boys and girls soccer, boys and girls lacrosse. I don't want to call this a baseball complex anymore. I want to call it an all purpose, not complex, but a field. It can serve so many needs and I truly believe that it is the panacea As I said, hundreds. These are the truths. One of them pertains to you. If we'd started this two and a half years ago when the $5 million allocation was made, we'd be much further along, obviously. But I don't have anything to calculate the cost of construction. I know it's gone up exponentially. But just in simple interest, it will now take $520,000 or 10.4%. And that's just inflation rate. Other things that municipalities about

037artificial turf. In the past 20 years, artificial turf sports fields have increased over 400%. So we're not doing something strange here. In the past 10 years alone, there's been a 160% increase. In other words, just two and a half times as many fields in 2015 as around 2015. The projections are now saying that figure will double once again in the next 10 years. We currently spread 1.5 as much as 1.5 million gallons of water on our grass every year. And that's covering fertilizer, pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and all that is going to our near shore water. So playing the ecology card is just a little bit crazy. In my mind we're talking about. Nothing was in place, guys. On May 7th, there was a meeting. 5-0 vote. It is recorded by video that the entire council

038supported that movement. Just as on a 4:1 vote, you guys supported it. So this idea of it not being in place or not being approved is obviously false. And I'll stop there. I could go on for a while. But needless to say, I appreciate your support of this. It's something that's long overdue and greatly would appreciate any and all consideration you give to the conceptual design that we spend a ton of time putting together, like four years. Thank you. Next up to speak, we have Mr. Steve Walker requesting three minutes. Hey, good afternoon. Steve Walker, 205 Plantation Drive here in Tavernier. Been here 30 years. My wife Susan's over there. We raised two kids. And I'm retired and totally embracing it. And I want to take this from a different side, if you will, because

039Tony Hammond I know well, not only was my pastor, but he helped raise my kids and was a baseball coach there, by the way, best baseball coach I've ever seen. And from my direction is I was a home plate umpire. I ran Monroe County High School umpire Association for 10 years. So I did a lot of home plates at Coral Shores and a few at Island Christian. And so let's talk about that. And I forgot who the coaches. I don't know the current coaches. I have no idea who you guys are. You know, I hope you had a good season, but your predecessor did a pretty good job. And I remember during a playoff run that I called up Jeff Barrow and the principal of Coral Shores and I said, you guys got a problem?

040And they're like, what is it? And I go, well, your field is not up to par. I go, in all honesty, as the head up, I don't want a playoff game here. I don't know if you remember, there was a big. I think it was a mahogany tree in left field. You guys will never trim it. And so it was always a variable. Did it hit a branch? Did it not hit a branch? Is it in play, out of play? So that was always in a special assessment during the game. And there were some fence issues and so you could probably find it in the archives somewhere. I sent some pretty aggressive emails going, I'm canceling this game. I'm recommending the FHSAA that they not host it because the fields just flat, not up to

041par. And so to Jeff Barrow's great credit, he did fix those things that needed to be fixed. Except for trimming the tree, they never did that. So I'm for it. You know, I don't know if that's gonna make my wife happy, but you guys need to upgrade this facility. Every college sports program there is uses the, I'm gonna say artificial turf because I don't know what else to call it, you know, synthetic something. It's just where it's at and the product is really good. And I think it would be a great state of the art picture, if you will, for Almorada. You know, I raised a family here and retiring and dying here and make it great. That's it. Good luck. Next up to speak is a Mr. Joe Szymanski requesting three minutes. Hey, good

042evening, guys. Joe Szymanski, 9 Miami Drive Key, Largo, Florida. This year I had the honor of being the head baseball coach here at Coral Schwartz High School. I've only lived here one year, moved down here, love it. My wife and I, this is home now. We don't plan on going anywhere. I don't know all the technical issues with the park and everything. All I know is these kids deserve a good place to play ball. I've coached all kinds of sports in my career, from softball to girls weightlifting, boys weightlifting, basketball, football, it doesn't matter. All the kids, no matter what the sport is, deserve a good place to play. I can tell you one thing, and it's a tribute to you guys. Been doing this a long time. Probably the best school district I've worked

043for so far. The school here is amazing. You take care of your people and we just need to take care of our kids. The only issue I have is when you look at other schools in this county and the facilities they have compared to the facilities we have, not even close. There needs to be upgrades. This school needs to be be as well as any other school here in the county. The facilities be upgraded, whether it's there, whether it's here, whether we buy a piece of property. But there needs to be a field for these kids to play ball. Thank you. Lastly, we have a Mr. Jason Richards requesting three minutes. Good evening, Boardmembers. My name is Jason Richards. I live at 193 Hibiscus street here, right across the street. Having two young athletes that

044came through this program. I've been coaching from T ball on up to high school, got them where they needed to be. They had some great coaches along the way. But I can tell you in our tenure of playing there was a lot of maintenance issues with that field and you know, with the split, being with the county and the city, who's gonna maintain it. I can tell you there was a lot of volunteers that spent a lot of blood and tears of digging up the infield to get rid of dangerous lips, redoing the dirt, maintaining it. So it just makes sense to go artificial. I know more about turf than I care to. I took a program through Kyle Ripken on sports management of turf to help the little league fields and our Coral Shores

045baseball fields. So, I know there's a lot of work that goes into it and it's very expensive. The turf is going to be probably take you a couple years to see your return in money, but your maintenance on it is going to be way much better. You know, I have some. This young lady spoke about this. Only 13 games, but let me tell you about 13 games. It only takes one to change one of those kids lives. We had a great young man came through our program and one night, sorry, I love this game. So he was at practice and an Arizona scout, Arizona, Arizona Diamondback scout was on his way to Key west to watch a game and he seen us practice and he stopped and that kid got an offer to go play

046triple A ball by that one opportunity. So that changed his life. You know, a lot of people say about the impact of the environment. You know, I did some research on it. I have artificial turf on my side yard. I have a little putting roof. But in 2002, the synthetic turf Council did a review that was confirmed by the US Federal agencies that US produced synthetic turf contains no harmful chemicals leaching in our soil or water. So I know there's some no sayers about the artificial turf, but I'm a big supporter about artificial turf. You need to give these kids a safe environment to play to let them get to the next program. Thank you. That concludes citizen's input. Thank you. Let's move on then, please. Mrs. Kahn, our next order of business is to

047approve the consent agenda. All items listed as consent agenda items are considered routine and noncontroversial by the School Board and will be approved by a single motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items. Prior to this meeting, Board Members have had the opportunity to review each of these items and may request that any item be moved to an Action Item for individual consideration. I recommend approval of the consent agenda as presented. So moved. Second. Motion by Mrs. Talbot. Second by Dr. Woltanski. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. You know, I'm a little mixed up because we changed by Sarah Adams. Yes. But we also have an additional report which we're going to do under my report. So, Mrs. Goins, I'm going to talk to you under my report. All

048right. And yes, this report is from Sarah Adams and as requested by the board. And she's going to talk about the efficacy of our instructional materials that support the efficacy of our instructional technology that supports our curriculum. Well, good evening. I'm here tonight to talk a little bit about how we determine the most effective solutions within our infrastructure. So there was a question brought up about whether or not our programs align to our results. And there's a variety of measures that we can use to make those determinations. This is in alignment with strategic one, strategic goal one. Excuse me. And it's missing the very end that says academic success fell off the slide. So what I'm going to go through tonight are a few exemplar programs. It's not every program that we have, but some

049examples of programs we've evaluated, how we've evaluated them and what types of measures we've used to determine whether to keep or toss them. And this is where we are now. We've done a lot of consolidation this school year. It's substantive. So I'm really excited to see what's going to come after this. So the left column just names the program. The middle column is talking about evidence for ESSA, which is basically the research that says this is a program worth using or not. It's a major consideration. And those that do not meet the criterion often do their own internal studies. And so you'll find studies out there that say, oh, but it says it works and it's aligned to ESSA. This is directly from essa. That middle column, it's not an independent by the actual publisher

050study. Then the right column are some quantitative measures that we've used to determine whether or not we're going to continue with the products. And again, it's a small sample, but I think it gives a good idea of how we do things. So the first one is Amira, which is actually a new product. So we have yet to use the new Amira. I am very excited about it. We have had both the existing version of Amira and ISTATION in our infrastructure for about a year and a half, and we've been with ISTATION for a very long time. I had a flashback of Andy Griffiths asking me if I was Istation police when I was delivering a presentation years ago as the ELA coordinator, because we were so serious about implementation and the principles were constantly sending

051things out. So when FAST started and moved from FSA ELA, we did an internal predictability study with the ISIP that's part of ISTATION, and you'll see the results there. I reran them just because I was learning all this math in doctor school. And it's solid, it's a valid predictor. With iStation, the data is being collected every day. So it's a very subtle measurement when you look at assessment. And with Amira, Amira is able to give suggestions and bring students in to lessons right away rather than move them along a continuum. In other words, if a student is reading very well, it's going to move them up. If a student needs help, it's going to bring them into the ISTATION curriculum. So I'm really excited about this merger. On Friday, the Florida State approved it as

052a K4 reading intervention program, and the Lastinger center has it listed for funding available for districts. So that just happened on Friday. So it's a very exciting product. We have yet to use the new product, but that gives you a little bit of background. What it's going to do for our students is really reduce screen time. What it's going to do for our teachers is reduce operating two different programs because now they're into one and I would describe it as it took the best things in both programs and put them together. And then finally you'll see a note at the bottom. There is another program, IXLEA, which will come up later that was just duplicative in what we're trying to do with this instructional technology. This is another example of a program we've decided to

053move forward with and expand upon its exact path. We did a small pilot at Marathon High School. It was targeted population of 50 students. They were vulnerable students. This was something that principal Christine Paul, she was very worried about. This subgroup of students, they didn't have an actual core curriculum. They were in these courses designed to support all the other courses. So we did a field test with students grade 6 through 10 and basically their own internal efficacy studies in which many districts use this program with fidelity and see very good results concerning that alignment to fast say that if a student completes eight or more skills per quarter, they are in alignment to show growth on their state assessment. So we did this starting in March and there's so much interruption between spring break

054and testing that I would not say we had a full quarter certainly since we started since March. But that group of students, which again is a vulnerable population of students, 78% of those students met that criterion. So what that proved to us is that we can definitely meet that eight skills a week. The other thing that was going on is that the teachers were burnt out in some of our intensive reading courses and support courses with another program. So we've decided to expand the use of that. Earlier today we talked a little bit about our fast results. They're very difficult to interpret. Even as a parent, you get this beautiful individual report, but it basically is trying to give you criterion and normative data so you'll get something that says the student did about as

055good as everybody else on this standard or the student did slightly below everyone else on this standard. What exact path does is it integrates the fast results and it actually gives you a standards based plan for each student. So it's highly individualized and for teachers, they can look and see where exactly are my students on the standards. So very excited about that. So that will effectively replace some of those items that are listed down there as duplicative. I did feed this data in and I'm still waiting on a few scores because again, this is a population of students that may be retesting, but I will be doing a rapid cycle evaluation on this program as well. So this is an example of a rapid cycle evaluation. We have a partnership With Learn Platform, which is

056Instructure. It houses our library in terms of what we use. So the public can easily audit all the programs we use and what we use them for. But it does more than that. I'm able to give basically our usage data and what the implementation fidelity metrics would look like and our fast results and run a correlative study. So IXL Math was extremely impressive overall. This is probably the best example I have. Although the numbers might be a little different to look at. The biggest thing to notice is that this is a positive line for every single grade level and it is used at mixed ways as described on the left side of the screen. But every single grade level had a positive correlation and then some grade levels had very strong correlations. So this is

057like the number of skills, this is the actual correlation. So those numbers look a little different. I would suggest that the variability in the line you see and the actual rate, efficacy rate is instruction or curriculum. I mean, but overall, extremely positive, extremely highly correlated. The more you use this program, the better the students did on their fast assessments in math. We are beginning a partnership with Khanmigo. We've actually been using it a long time. If you've got students in our system, they have maybe talked to you about Khan Academy. Khanmigo is the AI that's been added to Khan Academy and it's actually been used across the country for a while. This is a program that again, Lassinger and the Florida Department of Education decided to adopt and fund four districts to look at high

058dosage tutoring and for 612 students, AI tutoring. So with the partnership, we're going to have a lot of things we did not have before within the courses of study that students may have been assigned independently or supplementally. They'll be able to work with Khanmigo. It's a very exciting thing. It also has some writing, a writing coach in it. And basically we are entering a research study. So I don't have quantitative stats just yet. However, we are going to be fully supported by the University of Florida and the Lasinger center with that. And so I just, I just put some studies that have been done nationally over there. I'm really excited about that and I talked with them on my way up today because Amira was at it on Friday and I said, can districts have

059both? And the answer I got is it's going to depend on the budget. Right. Because we're still waiting for everything to get cleared. But the short answer is yes, they could and it's an affordable thing and it's a lot easier to measure variables with program implementation if you're just looking at software. So I'm crossing my fingers because it would be nice to have the university support K12. It's just an extra layer. Here are some non renewed programs and I'm reticent only because I'm sure in some places and cases these programs are working for people, they're just not working for us. And so some of the reasons that we had to consider and why they wouldn't be, overall, we did have duplicative functionality. In other words, we had programs doing kind of the same thing and

060nobody can implement anything. Well, when you've got multiple programs that are aiming at the same goal, alignment to the rigor of our standards, you heard that come up a few times. And there's a misalignment with some of these programs that are mostly working on facts and then whether or not we can easily measure it. So I mentioned earlier that our teachers in intensive reading and some of those support classes in 612 weren't really satisfied. That's the feedback marker there on that chart with what they were using. And so what happens is you have no fidelity. So if you're not using it right and you have no fidelity, you really can't say whether or not it worked or not. And then again, you'll see over there we had some differences between skills versus standards based in

061ELA With IXL ELA, although we saw those great correlations in math with ELA, it's really more of a skill level thing. And Amira and other programs get at that where we really need to look more at standards in ELA. So I think I went over everything here. What kinds of questions do you have? I just want to thank you for bringing this together because, you know, we knew you were doing it, but we didn't know how you did it. And it gives me confidence on when a program comes to us that it has been looked at, it has been reviewed. So I really appreciate your presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Adams. Next, Mrs. Kahn. We have a report on our Founders park baseball FIELD Improvements from Mr. Patlifeer. Bill Horn or Tyler

062Kirsch. Can you hear us? Outstanding. Oh, yeah, you don't need to see me. Okay then. Good evening, Madam Chair, board members, Madam Superintendent, we're happy to come to you with a couple of project updates this evening. The first one being the Founders park baseball project. We're happy to report completion of the conceptual design phase for Founders park and our team who I've just already kind of introduced of architects. Bill Horn from our own local Key west area and Tyler Hirsch from MFA Sports are going to walk you through the conceptual design a little bit and then I can speak to the rest of the stuff that I want to talk to. We'll let Tyler and Bill get through their kind of pitch on the design and then we'll pause to see if the board has

063any specific questions with regard to the design. Before I go any further into what I've got to present. So I'm going to kick it over to you, Tyler. I think you're going to take the lead on this. Yeah. Let me share my screen, please. Let me know when it comes. Give me just one minute to get you on full screen. Okay, you're good to go. Thank you so much. So again we're talking here about Founders park here. And so really through the conceptual design phase, we came with this conceptual site plan to provide and show to you all tonight. So with taking the existing field dimensions for Founders park, right. Trying to not necessarily change the playing field itself in the fair territory, we started to look at opportunities primarily in those foul territory areas

064around and behind home plate to find if there were opportunities for potential heard already. As well as two brand new dugouts, one of those including a multi use building connected to it, as well as in a two story press box and concession building that would sit directly behind home plate, as well as two elevated grandstands for viewing sight lines that do include ADA seating as well. One thing to point out here would be that the backstop is the major change from the existing field. The existing field has a very significant amount of foul territory. We did work with the school as well as the coaches to ensure that the backstop clearance would still suffice for their playing needs. And so I will zoom in. Some of the other opportunities are a digital scoreboard that could

065be placed in the existing location for the regular scoreboard as well as then the opportunity for a covered hitting and pitching facility that would be located roughly in the same exact area as the existing batting cages are in the outfield. And so I will move to more of our conceptual floor plan just to give you all a little bit more of a sense of what we're looking at. I'll start with that concession building, right. Obviously looking at an interior concession that can be used during games. And then as well as four brand new individual restrooms that would be ADA accessible that are directly behind home plate. There's no longer a need to go down to the existing building that's further down the first baseline in order to use the restroom, that plumbing would then be

066accessible to the public right behind the games field. And then again with those two grandstands being elevated, we do need to have some sort of ADA ramping in order to ensure proper visibility for all ADA spectators in the facility. And then as far as this multi use building, we're looking at just a little under 1700 square feet that would include a players lockers area, a coaches locker, and then what I'm calling an umpire flex locker room. Whether that be for umpires or for event staff that need to have a locker space during events and game days. And all of those include their own restroom facilities. Those dugouts that you can see, both also include storage opportunities as well as the home dugout. Then having a small satellite PT room that could hold a taping station

067as well as an ice maker. And then in case of any kind of heat emergencies on the field, a dunk tank for potential cool necessitating as needed. And then that backstop clearance, I'll point out once again, we're at 22 foot clearance from the backup home plate to the new backstop fencing. That then allows us to have our concession building sit behind home plate without interfering with any of the existing trees that do sit on the site today. Then you got the press box over it, correct? Yes. And then there would be an exterior stair that would lead you to the press box above. Bill, do you got anything more to add? No. Tyler is, I don't know if you know, but you know, he's with MSA Sport and they specializes in sports facilities nationwide. But

068he specialized particularly in baseball. He played in college baseball as well. So this is his thing. So kind of letting him run with the whole concept here for this. But yeah, so it's pretty much where we're at right now. Looking to proceed. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Tyler. I'll turn it over to the board for questions specific to the design itself. So, the current restrooms that are there, they're good to go for this conceptual design, we don't need to add new bathrooms. We are adding bathrooms to this right? But as the conceptual design, we're not going to find out, you know, a couple of weeks from now that we need to add more bathrooms because of parking and all that kind of stuff. So, what we have right now meets the current standard based on how many

069people we're going to have in the stands. I've got to verify that with the building Official based on the number of the 300 spectators we currently have planned, we're good. And we don't expect that number to increase plus that existing building that's to remain. That is bathrooms. I have a few questions on this one is just full sensitivity synthetic turf plane surface. Does that mean full or does that mean you run on dirt between the bases and on the warning track? It's completely artificial. One of the biggest concerns of the current baseball parents is that foul balls are prone to go into the highway. This doesn't have any elevations. By moving the field towards home plate and having a tall enough. Whatever that's called. The fence. The backstop. Backstop. Yeah. This will take care of

070that problem? It will significantly improve the follow ball issue that we have at the current field. Significantly improve it. Because you know you don't want to park there. Yes. That came up multiple times during our design team meetings. And then the other question these. So the bleachers are raised. What's the level above the ground that we're thinking about for the bleachers? That's still a little bit in work. I'll let Tyler speak to what we currently have depicted. But it's been a point of discussion at the design team meetings. The concern being the I'll step away line of sight of the line of sight for the spectators sitting on the lowest bleacher seats to be able to see the field. And we're trying to kind of balance that. Yeah. What I would tell you right now

071from our conceptual, we're right now looking at about two and a half feet above grade. So really part of this goes as we get deeper into the design looking at some of those sight line studies, the major concern is unlike with the existing field location with so much foul territory, it really does not create as many sight lines. Problems with the dugouts, with the fact that we're kind of squeezing that all together, there is potentially a factor that these new dugouts, because they're on grade, they are not buried into the ground that you could potentially have an issue. So that's one of our key elements moving forward is ensuring that we are raising the grandstands high enough to not have significant sight line issues down the first or third base lines. Great. And then I

072mean obviously the multi use facility, you know, you wonder about that one as well for the people who are on the back roads, but. Correct. And these bleachers have. If you're sitting on the top of this, the bleachers that you imagine you have railing behind you. What do you have behind you when you're on a bleacher on the top? Yeah. Let me go back to the enlarged here. If you guys can see my mouse. So yeah, you would basically have a railing system that would follow you up the stairs, over the back and then back down. So that would be at a guardrail height to ensure that nobody could fall off from the backside of this bleacher system. That's great because that is like 100% needed. Like tomorrow there. Because there is nothing behind you

073when you sit up on those. Those are my questions for now, I think. Any other questions specific to the design that. I do have a couple of questions. The first is Richie Russell talked about using the field for more than just baseball. So I'm wondering about that building at the back of the field. It seems like that would interfere with its use for anything other than baseball. Which building are you speaking? The purple one at the back of the field. That's a conceptual batting cage, bullpen area. But you also have bullpens designed on each side, first base and third base. It's essentially hitting pitching facility is what it is. So training facility. So we don't need the bullpens. Bullpens are separate from this, this batting cage, essentially hitting, pitching facility. But depending on the size

074of that building, then the baseball field really can only be used for baseball. That's outside of the fence line of the baseball field. Okay. And then it says bleacher coverings. But anytime we talk about coverings in any of our schools, I'm always told coverings are a problem because of hurricane winds. So why are we putting that here? And what is the covering that we can have here that we can't put over our playgrounds at our schools? Go ahead. I think someone from the staff from the school wanted coverings, but that is an interesting issue. And is it something that can afford, is it something that's buildable, you know, without undue huge structural expense? I think that has to be looked at the coverings. We haven't really gotten that far on that yet. Yeah, I would

075agree. What I will say is some of these metal bleacher grandstands, they do come with built in coverings. Now granted, those coverings are more, more slight awnings. They're not fully covering the whole grandstand itself. If that's the direction that we end up going. I think we're still at this phase. I Think that's going to be one of the items that we're going to continue to look at, you know, especially considering, especially this grandstand down the first baseline. Right. There's a lot of tree line behind it. So based on where our sun is going to be typically hitting people during game times, it may not necessarily be required all the time to have it covering some shade. So I think as we get further on, we'll develop, we'll see just the necessity for that. And just

076to note, right. The training facility that's outside of the field, that's a proposed thing for later. Right. That's really not part of this phase of work. Well, I'm glad you brought that up because that's actually my next question. We have a conceptual design here with an estimated cost of over $66 million for a piece of property we don't own. And while we do have a licensing or an ILA for the school to use the baseball field, that's a giant chunk of money. And in our five year plan, you had given us 5 million for this field, and this is over 6. So I guess first of all, where is the extra money coming from? Second of all, I love it in concept, right. If we could build everything we wanted on every field, nothing would

077make me happier. But what are we approving today when we approve a concept? Are we approving that we love the way it looks? Because I do love the way it looks. Are we approving that this is the basic design we're going forward with? I don't know that I'm comfortable with that at this point. So that's what I'm trying to figure out. Primarily what we're doing is asking you to approve what is depicted here in design. Conceptual design. With your approval, we would then take this conceptual design to the village staff and help them walk this conceptual design through kind of some of their preliminary policies, processes. So then we could, we could then move on to the schematic design phase. There'll be at least, there'll be three more times that we have to come in

078front of the school board and the, and the village with, you know, updates to this design, moving farther along in the process. So by approving this on the action agenda item today, we're saying this is what we want Founders park to look at when Isla Mirada looks at it? From a conceptual design standpoint, yes. There'll still be opportunity to change all the way through about schematic design. I think that the next plan, next time we come to you with a Final schematic design. That's when we get a little bit more concerned about any major changes. But this is essentially what we want to move forward with to bring you on conceptual design. Assuming we can get the village support to move forward on it. And it would come back to us if they had significant

079changes that they wanted still as conceptual, right? Yes, absolutely. If there's any significant change at the village level that changes what we're presenting here, we would have to bring it back to you in a conceptual. I'm still not clear because I don't want to commit today to a six over $6 million project that we set aside $5 million for and give the understanding that this is just a go ahead for us as a school board, that we're not worried about anything added that we're not worried about anything on the design. Because as per usual, both sides have a point that is constantly something that we deal with as a school board. It's true, we don't have the use agreement in place yet. We don't have the license agreement in place yet. Those things are those

080items, Mrs. Kahn, are waiting for some of these details to be decided that we're standing by to finalize a license agreement because the what is in the license agreement is the details on how the field will be maintained. Those details vary significantly on whether it's an artificial surface or a natural surface. We are, once we get moving forward further into this design process, we're going to start the licensing agreement process too. We can't start using the field until all those agreements are ended place. But it does not make any sense to draft them yet because we don't have enough detail on the design that will need to be included in those agreements. I guess my question to you Dirk, is what am I bound by if I vote yes on the conceptual design? It's conceptual.

081So, it's just nothing essentially and you're not even bound to the money yet and as far as the ownership, it's a 50 year lease essentially. So, reference this $6.2 million estimate that it's really the first true estimate. The $5 million we've been carrying in the five year plan was a planning figure because we had no scope of work, no conceptual design when we first came up with that. And this, this is truly using what we have here in the conceptual of designing, putting some numbers to it. So it's the first real true estimate that we have. So Keystar gave us this estimate. How did we get this estimate? This particular estimate came through the architects, through Bill and team. No. It's Keystar that came to Keystar. The 6.2 came from Keystar. I'm confusing the two

082projects. Rex came from... Got it. Thanks for the correction. Bill, essentially working for Keystore on this project. Thank you for the clarification. Okay. Well, the design's beautiful, guys. I'm happy conceptually to approve this beautiful design of the field. I just have some concerns, just so you know, going forward about a property we don't own. The price. I want Coral Shores to have something beautiful and well kept and that meets their needs. But as in each area of the Keys, we have different properties that we own, different spaces for all different schools. And it just makes me really cautious to spend a million over what we've been setting aside for property that will never belong to us. And that is not a you guys problem. It is an us problem but that's where I'm at right

083now. Thank you, Mrs. Kahn. If I may, I think kind of the highlights that I think we're looking to move forward with the village are the approval for a full synthetic turf field, the approval of a multi use building that includes a concession stand and a coaches referee umpire changing area separate from the student athlete locker room. Just out of curiosity, do we have one of those at Rexweech? There's a coach's office at Rexweech. I know, but do we have the umplockers and the other stuff. Stuff that you were just mentioning? The football locker rooms are available for that purpose. The multipurpose Hume visitor restrooms are available for that purpose. Why aren't we using that for the purpose on a field we don't own, but for that purpose on a field we do own. I'm

084sorry, can you clarify the question? The other existing restrooms and the restrooms we're building, the ones out? The existing restrooms here on this site. Yeah. And we also shrunk down at one point, offices and locker rooms and stuff at Tommy Roberts. Again on property we do own. So I'm just slightly concerned about the scope of this project and again, love the conceptual design, but there are definitely things in here that I just think is incredible and I'd love to do it if this part of the field was ours. The lease helps make me more comfortable, but what I don't want to see is us throwing just whatever we can at it because everybody's been waiting a long time. I Love the idea of turf. I think all of our fields should be turfed at this

085point. I absolutely understand we need to raise up the bleachers. Concerned, as I said about the canopy for the bleachers. Every time we build a building, construction costs get higher and higher cement square footage. So I would be leaving looking to make those areas smaller in order to save some money on a property that's not ours. And that's just where I'm thinking moving forward, we can take that input back to the design team. But again, first step is engaging with the village and seeing if we can get across the goal line in that regard. Okay, thank you. One of the things we're just doing now is trying to see if we can could fit all the things that the coaches and the school staff wanted here in. And it looks like we're able to, although

086it's very tight, especially with the trees. Now obviously, as you look at the budget and develop it and stuff like that, and if we end up being limited at five or whatever, things are going to get chopped. But I don't think we're there yet. Right now, at least we're showing that we put most of the stuff in and that was the main goal here right now. We weren't sure at the beginning if we could fit it. Gotcha. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. So where we are now is this is going to go back. Assuming we approve this, this now goes back to the village. They look at it, they say yes, no, or they're indifferent, or they make some modifications. But we're still many steps away from this actually coming to fruition. Yes. And

087I'll get into that a little bit more as I go through my slides. So the one thing that I want to make sure, I guess to touch up on chair Khan, is if this becomes something where there's change orders coming left and right and up in the middle and down the sides. I want to make sure the villages are, are willing to kick in some money on this as well because again, I don't want this to be an endless money pit that the school district's putting out when the whole time we did this in, you know, with the best of intentions to make sure the district, this team, especially up and coming great baseball team, has a field that is up to par with where they are going. But we don't want this to be

088a constant drain on the school district when this is something that we should share, you know, costs going forward. To this point, there's been no agreement or even interest Shown from the village side and cost sharing there is. We do cost share on the maintenance side of the field. They do it for seven months of the year for the existing maintenance of the field. Reduce cost share. Right. But assuming this conceptual design comes to fruition, as is just hypothetically speaking, and we have a budget of X amount of dollars, but it comes in 2 million over it, are they going to consider coming back to us for the extra 2 million? There's been no conversation put that out there in either. Know that, that's something this board is going to have to consider. Loud and

089clear. Sometimes we may want to go out for a named building through a grant or something. I mean we're building. Nothing in this design that I can tell except maybe the locker room was not in the original 2000 ILA that was supposed to have a press box, that was supposed to have a concession stand and it was supposed to have bathrooms which were built at the entrance to the park which everyone who goes to that park have taken advantage of I mean, for 25 years now. So, you know, I think just like the bathrooms that are near the amphitheater, those are going to become multi use bathrooms. They're not going to be locked, they're going to be used by a ton of people on the gigantic flea market day because it will be at the

090exit and entrance of the field. It's where the car show is. Otherwise people have, I mean, I think there are going to be a lot of use and the other thing. So just to put that out there, the budget cuts cut it back from what it was supposed to be initially. And I'm not saying we should just pour money at it, but I think we should. What we have always done, what we did for Tommy Roberts is that we work with that. We have the people, people who are going to be using the field, work with the design, people come up with what they want most and we present a budget and then we find a budget and then it's like, is it a budget we can live with? Do we need to cut back

091on some of those things? But we're not anywhere near that place where we have an agreement with the village as to what needs to be cut back. Because some of the things, they may come up and want something that we don't want or want to add something or take away and that could fix our budget so we don't have to worry about the budget right now. Because we are, I mean, because we're not vowing, we're not voting to build the park today. And I think that is what has been happening at the village council with some of the public commenters. It's like we've got the bulldozers, we've gassed them up, and we're ready to destroy the park. No, this is the initial conversation and it wasn't done in secret. This is the first time we're

092hearing it. We're really seeing the design. Up to this point, we've been going off the 2000 ILA pretty much. And then the school itself in the program with people from the village all sat together, not the school board. We did not sit in on any of those meetings. This is our first time. And so I think there's a lot of confusion there. And then as for property, as I understand it, no property at this point. They're building a publix on it that might have been big enough to put a baseball field. It's going to have affordable housing and a strip mall. That's what's left. We don't have the property. And some of the property that we do have has incredible value to the people of Islamorada, like the Ross Medical center and our health department

093was an old school. And the Islamorada library that's on our property, and the outbuildings in the parking lot for the fire station and the hurricane monument. Those are all things that we as a school district, over as long as Islamorada or longer than Isla Mirada has been around, have been sharing shared use. And I feel confident that when people understand what's going here, you know, that it's not going to be this massive AAA baseball field. I mean, if you go to a game now you sit on what looks to be ready to break down wooden bleachers that are on wheels because originally, I guess they were going to be moved around. You have the batting facility is really hardly usable. If I can interrupt here for a second, I'm not saying things don't need to

094be fixed. I understand it's broken down. I understand it's got to be fixed, and I'm looking forward to fixing it. My concern is simply that this is a lot of money for a lot of work on a piece of property a we don't own and baseball only uses for a very limited time of year. So I just would like moving forward with discussions with the city if this is going to be something that the city is going to make great use of when our baseball team isn't using it, that we need to consider A, if they're going to help with the costs, not just with the maintenance, and B, how much money as a school district we're willing to put in. Look, I love kids. I want them to play on it all year long.

095I love that they're going to be doing that at a park on a field that we've upgraded. Nothing that I'm saying here right now is changing any of that. Just for the record, I was not trying to convince you. I'm trying to convince the public. I think that there's been a lot of miscommunication about this project and I don't know where this disconnect came that the school board was trying to, I've heard it multiple times, shove this project down Islamorada's throat. We are not shoving this project down Islamorada's throat. And for one of the things this made more I don't know if you want to do your presentation, but we have to be super careful that we dot all our I's and cross all our T's. That fact that the thing didn't get recorded until

096this past week, I mean, I don't think. I don't know how the ball got dropped, but we can't let that happen. We have to be doing everything on the up and up. You know, we can't be discussing the project amongst school board members and members of the community at the same time. You know, we can't be violating sunshine. We have to be right on the up and up for the rest of this project because there is a lot of. There's a microscope on it right now. But what I meant to say is if you go by there while you're sitting on the rickety terrible thing where you either have a choice to go to the porta Potty or to miss half the inning by walking out to the other bathroom. There is now a trailer

097there that holds the equipment. I mean, it looks like a dump. And this is at the entrance to to the park and it is going to make that park. It's going to make more people scouts driving up us one stop to watch the kids play ball. Right now it looks it's the worst field at any of our that our middle schools have. Our middle schools have better fields than this without the amenities, of course, nearly. But their fields are in better shape. Both PKS and Key Largo School. And so we need to get through this so that we can start having the conversation with the village council. If we need a group meeting, I would be all for that if that would be helpful at some point. But we have not been hiding this. We're

098seeing it for the first time. And so right now, if we want community engagement, I think it's great. Let's get the community engagement. We've had people come in and talk about the field every time we've been. We've presented it. So we've had community engagement. Now it's their turn. We haven't given them the project yet. They're just hearing from rumors and innuendo and whatever. So that's what I think we have to move forward on this. But nothing is set in stone. Conceptually. It looks great. Thanks. I think we've covered just about everything. Just to wrap it up process wise, we're at the very start. We're at conceptual design. The village asked us to get a school board approved conceptual design with all of the pieces that we just discussed in it. So they can now start

099engaging with Parks and Rec committee and the village council on how we're going to proceed. And we're not going to move forward until that's done. We're going to help support that. Probably need to be at the Parks and rec meeting when it is presented. We'll be at the village council meeting when it's presented. I may need to even stop by the session that's going on tonight on my way out of here. But assuming we get through the village, then we will start working our way through the rest of the schematic design, development and ultimately into construction documents. Once we get a final design, it will then be put out to bid for subcontractors to bid on it. And that's when they'll put together a final guaranteed maximum price which will come back to the board.

100That's when the financial commitment happens. In between now and then, there'll be plenty of time for us to speak to the board with regard to capital project planning and what we want to consider for this project, for the rexweech project and for the other ones that are foreseen in the five year plan. Hey, Pat. Yeah. So to kind of go back to Sue's point, I think because we are doing like 100% of the work moving this project forward at this point, with the exception of going back to the villages and stuff, saying, do you look at this? Do you approve this? Do you approve this? At some point, I think we probably need to take a step back that way. It looks like we're not kind of running this show entirely and let the villages

101take kind of a lead at some point, because it looks like we are, to a certain, trying to shove this down someone's throat. Well, to be clear on that point, we're moving at a pace consistent with the timeline. I'll speak to in just a second here. Kind of requires. And we're from the village staff. We are sensing that same desire to keep this project moving forward from the village staff. Not the. Not the village, the taxpayers, but the village staff has an interest in moving this project forward. So, yeah, we don't see that part because, again, we don't attend those meetings. So if we had, I guess, recordings or something that could be presented to us, that way we can kind of see what's going on. The communications, we'll share the minutes from the design

102team meeting. If you can present those at a village manager, we can see them that way. Again, the village manager was part of the last two design team meetings, and he's lockstep with us on this and very, very anxious to start the engagement process with his community, with his community and his boards. I think his goal is to get it to. They've got a village council meeting in July that he'd like to engage with them on and get this thing approved. Just want to make sure that everybody sees there's an ebb and flow to this. It goes one. The ball's in our court one time and the village's court, then it goes back and forth. And this is a mutual. It's not just the school board pushing this. We're literally lockstep with village staff on

103this one. Right now. We spoke to the estimated cost timeline. Really the desire is to kick this thing off at the completion of the 2026 baseball season to be completed before the start of the 2027 baseball season. So we've got a lot to get through, but we can't really give you a detailed timeline until we get this first step kind of through the village council. Once that starts rolling, then I think we'll be able to move forward a little bit more systematically. That's all I have to present on founders, if there are any questions. So, Mr. LaVere, you're going to move on to Rex Weech? Yes, ma' am. Okay, so next, as the superintendent indicated, we move on to the Rex Weech field renovation project. We have received the final design for this project and

104want to review that with the school board tonight in hopes of getting your approval on the as it's included as part of the action agenda tonight. So once Again, I want to turn it over to the Tyler and Bill show to walk us through the design. And what we have new that you haven't seen yet is we got some renderings in yesterday that will will be able to share with you. So that will be something for you to see. Good. All right. Want me to take over now? It's Bill. Yeah, go ahead, Bill. Yeah. Okay. All right. So the last time we saw you we had the design development and now we've just been. We got all the working drawings done, technical drawings and specs. And we met with the design team at the high

105school two weeks ago, two Wednesdays ago, and went over everything and they were all on board. They, they love everything. Obviously they'd like to get some more funding, but that's a separate issue. And so then the contractor was there too that you got on board through the annual contract. And he has had the drawings now for a couple weeks and he's working on it as quickly as he can to get some pricing. So we'll really get to see what kind of numbers he can come up with for this. And so what I did here is with, with Tyler's great help on the renderings, we just have a little presentation. We kind of spiced up the 3D drawings so you can sort of see what the building will look like more realistically. So Tyler maybe just

106go to site plan. So in case people aren't familiar, this is the whole rec big field, including the football field, the baseball field and where our work encompasses, that bottom area that's got the limit of work thing around it. And it's basically a covered metal building for training center wait area. Then we got a concessions building with a history museum room in it. And then a bunch of different site work. You can go to the next page. And I know you've all seen this before, but if there is somebody that didn't. So this is kind of a blow up of sort of the site plan. Down at the bottom you can see on the top, top left you got the weight area, about 1,008 square feet. Then you got this multi use, four tunnels for

107batting and pitching. And a lot of stuff is going to happen in here that's going to be kind of the heart of this for all of the baseball players basically. And then over to the right of that, just before the bleachers, the existing bleachers, is our concession building. We got the kitchen, we got the baseball museum room. Then we got a big covered walkway that goes around it all where you go and pick up your food and order it and pick it up and you can sit. There's some benches and stuff. And then a bunch of different site work there where it says where the existing building to be removed is right below the bleachers, that's the existing concession building that's going to get removed. So all that land becomes more plaza and we're able

108to get that new pedestrian entryway in. And yeah, so now we got a couple of renderings we can could sort of show you what kind of looking like playing around with some colors to kind of see what it's like. This would be from the parking lot. We've got on the left we got the training center. It's about a five and a half thousand square foot metal building. And then you got the museum room. You got the Kong Cafe, we're calling it. That's what they wanted the name. Tyler, you can go next. This is kind of from that plaza where the existing concession building was or will be. No, it's there now. You can sort of see the order. You know, you're coming from the bleachers and you're going up the stairs and you're doing your

109order and then you're picking up. You can go back down. There's going to be benches up there and we've got some potential room for picnic tables or other tables down below too to eat out there on that plaza. You can go there next. This would be further back in kind of where the bathrooms are right now. And you'll at least get to see the weight room off to the side. It's a smaller metal building, but it's the same 1008 square feet. Then the training center and the museum, you can go to the next. And this would be like from the field looking back where you can see the training center, then there's the dugout to the left. And then you get the big backstop fencing that's existing. And I think that's the next one. Something

110that you've already seen, right, Tyler? And what I would say too on this one, the reason you do see that this middle building seems a lot longer. Right. On the other side, if I go back was basically for that weight area, it's kind of stepped in, obviously because it does not go the full extent of the batting cage area. And so from this side you have this nice break in the facade. Obviously from the field side it will feel longer, but that does absolutely give you an opportunity for any sort of graphic display as well as a couple other variety of options. Yeah, and again, all that fencing that's in there for those cages is all slidable and removable. So this could just become. And it's got synthetic turf on the bottom on the grade.

111And it'll become just a big open area that they could have meetings or whatever in a nice covered area. And we've got some exhaust fans that turns over the air. I don't know, it's like five times every minute or something like that. So we can keep it a little cooler. But yeah, so that's where we're at. And we are waiting for some pricing anxiously. And that'll be our next meeting when we get some pricing. We'll all sit down with the design team, see where we're at, where we're not, and, you know, see if we have to do any value engineering or whatever or whatever it takes to get this done. We're all ready to do it. That's it. Now, questions from the board specific to the design? I have two comments about the design. One,

112the concession. The staircase that leads off of the concession there next to the existing metal bleachers. There's no scale here that I could see, so I wasn't exactly sure but based on the existing dugout, I can kind of guess, it concerns me that that's going to be a bottleneck area as many baseball fans know, that is a very popular spot for a lot of our fans, where they gather to watch the game from there and then people exiting the bleachers to try to get over to the concession and so forth. That just concerns me that that's going to be a very tight area and perhaps not very safe for a quick exit if necessary. And the other thing that concerned me was the aesthetics of the backside of the concession museum building. I noticed that

113you have your three AC systems up there, which sit, you know, considerably higher than the dugout. And it would just seem to me that if those AC units were placed in between that building and the training center, perhaps those walls could be used for sponsorship, signage, kids, photos, you know, accomplishments, whatever. And it also faces the stands and the fans. So, I mean, I get it, they're just ACs, but just seems like we could find a better place for it and better use of that wall than placing it there where it's so visible. Tyler, you want to speak to the space or Bill, the space between the concession building and the existing bleachers. And if we could. If we could change the graphic that Tyler's presenting to a better look at that speed or even

114there. There you go. So that turn to a page that I have here, that area, it was discussed at length with the team. And right now, there it is. Right now there's a little ramp that I'm saying remove ramp and it's like a four and a half foot ramp. So you're coming out of the bleachers and you're going down that ramp and we're proposing to remove that and just level everything out so that'll be a little more easily flowing. And then the distance from the stair to the metal bleachers is 13 and a half feet. And then it widens out to 17ft when you pass the stair and then it widens out a lot more. So, you know, that whole area there wasn't there before because that's where the existing building to be removed is.

115And we tried to get this building as much as we could behind the dugout, you know, so it was kind of, you know, because that's blocking everything. But we are a little bit bound just so you can understand our constraints. Right there by the weight area and then multi use tunnels is one of those big Musco lights right there. And then we basically just off of that by a foot and a half. And then we've got this kind of required distance for the covered metal building, for the batting and pitching tunnels. And then we just have like four feet between that and the concession building for the footers that are down below so they're not hitting each other. And then we're pretty minimal on the baseball museum and the concession in that direction. But one

116of the things that happened is I actually had this covered walkway, it's 12ft wide now there, the one where the pickup window and the order is. And I had it at like 10. And then the design team wanted more space there, so they didn't have a problem moving two feet into that space to get more room up above. So you, although it looks like you're losing some down below, you're gaining 2012ft up high up about three and a half feet or three feet or so up. So that's an area too that's going to come pretty important. And so I don't have a lot of flexibility there to move, but that's what we have. Tucker Finney, the building official, was fine with that dimension as far as exiting. And that's kind of where we're at with

117that. Let me just answer the AC thing. Hold on, Bill. Yeah, okay. Let me see if Mrs. Talbot has any follow up to that. I don't know how much my opinion's worth, but for someone who attends many all baseball games, I should say 13ft is okay. But I think most of us know that that's an area where people tend to sit behind. I'm not sure what that area is there next to the existing seeing dugout. This kind of outline there. Is that where they currently have a cement slab and chairs are there? Is that going to remain? Yeah, it's not going anywhere. We're just removing the ramp and making it all level so it actually could get a little bigger. I'm actually showing that little gate right there that actually I don't need to have

118stick out like that. I could actually just go right from the edge of the dugout right back to our covered walkway and we can actually gain another foot, five feet right there that you presently don't have for that sitting area. Like I said, it's just my concern that with people exiting the bleachers and the people that tend to just congregate there behind that seating area, that it's going to get very congested and people are going to have trouble getting in and out of that concession stand staircase there. But if that's what the design team wanted, I just wanted to point that out. Yeah. And you know, we're going to meet again. And I can certainly take these concerns back to them and just say, hey, there were some concerns. Can you just look at this

119again? Do we shrink the covered walkway? Like maybe where the stair is? It shrinks back a little bit, but not where those bar stool seats are that are up high where people could sit and eat and kind of look at the game from there. Other than that, there's not a whole lot of flexibility as we move the stair. We can move the stair down to the center bay, but it kind of makes sense. You coming out of the bleachers and you go right up the stairs, you order, pick up, you either go back that way or you go down to the other stairs of the ramp and go back around. That was the design flow that everybody seemed to want. Okay. I was just commenting as a fan. Yeah, I don't have a problem bringing

120it up. I can't say I'm an expert at baseball games. My kids didn't play baseball. So the other question with the AC is I got that five foot alleyway between the existing concrete dugout and the building, and that's kind of up on the walls where I had it. I wanted originally to put the AC Units on the roof. Whether it's what it is now, a split system where we have the air handler in the room and the condenser unit outside. Or originally I wanted a package unit just plopped on the roof on a curb. But the staff or the maintenance staff is kind of not wanting to have ACs on roofs. You know, one, there's some penetrations in the roof but you know, we could handle that with the proper waterproofing. But I guess it

121was just getting up there and the access. They just wanted them on the wall. And although I can understand why you could think it would be nice to put it on the four foot gap, the metal training building and our building to get it away from. It's not where the concrete. So you could see it in the field. Not quite enough space. I need five feet there. Can't really shrink the tunnel building and I'd have to shrink the covered walkway some to get another 5 foot. But then the ACS would be shooting off heat and I didn't want that heat to get into the covered metal building and then just, you know, make that more hot and the noise. So we were trying to get that away from that area because they're going to be.

122They would be underneath those things because that whole area right there where that four foot strip is, is part of that tunnel area where they're going to be, you know, having things and meeting and walking and so forth. So the one thing I thought about because I was told you have these concerns. So I looked before the meeting so I could see one of the things we could do is put on top of the dugout, the back wall of the dugout. We could put some sort of a louver wall that just bolts to the back of the thing and that could actually screen those two. I can drop one of them. It's just the two big ones have to stay up high and we could screen those. It really wouldn't be much. I've already got

123louvers in the design and you can put banners on that and it would essentially just screen it. That might be the simplest solution because we kind of got limited where we could put those condenser units. Can't put them on the front of the building. I assumed you were going to say that and that it wouldn't fit in the tunnel. I already knew that the district doesn't want them on the roof. So I figured that louvers were going to be your suggestion. It's just it seemed like such a valuable wall that had so much potential for sponsorships, naming opportunities. It just seemed like some. Some great real estate that could be used for something that's more purposeful but not that ACs are not important, but, you know, I guess it is what it is. Well, I'm

124going to bring it up again. I started thinking, I still like the idea of those condensers. At least the two big ones. Maybe getting up on the roof, we can get a ladder access for the maintenance guys. I think it's going to be easier to maintain them on the roof than on that wall up so high because those two have to be up really high because they're essentially four feet out from the wall. So, I can't lower them because you got to walk under. I have them on my commercial building. And you know, we haven't had any problems with roof leaking and they're actually easy to maintain. The guys get up there and take care of business but you know, whatever you decide is best. I just wanted to bring that out because that just

125seemed like some great real estate to do something with and it showed in the rendering. Yeah, it did show the rendering. Yeah, I agree. Thank you, Mr. Horn. Any other questions or comments from the school board? Okay, with that, we've got this final design on for approval on the action agenda along with the contract. The initial pre construction contract for the construction manager. Same type of situation as we discussed with founders. With approval of final design, this design would be put out to bid for subcontractors to get bids into the contractor to the CM and they would put together, start putting together a C, a guaranteed maximum price GMP for us to bring back to you in a final contract. Estimated cost currently at $4.88 million. Again, that's an estimate. We'll know more once they

126start going out to bid and working towards that guaranteed maximum price. That estimate is from the architect, correct? That estimate is from the architect, yes. Okay, just wanted to clear all that. Thank you. Yes, I'm sorry for that confusion. When I talked to him, he was at about 4.2 to 4.3. So where's the other 600,000 coming in from? I just think more fidelity in the design. As we continue to get more fidelity in the design, we identified more cost billiard. Any comments on that? Yeah, I think Doug was saying, you know, mine was at 4.2 something and it should be part of the package. But that didn't include like say my fees or the other soft costs, maybe impact fees and other things. And that's where Doug was kind of a handling that part. I

127actually haven't seen that 4.8, but it. So there's, you know, some money in there, I guess, for soft costs, which are not construction course costs, which you would call hard cost, which is what I'm showing. And I did have a contingency in there, 10%. But again, we'll know more, I'd like to think sooner than later from the contractor where we stand. So the soft costs wouldn't be part of the contractor stuff. So what are you guys including in that? They will be included in that. It's all the fees and various other costs that I don't have identified right in front of me right here. But that we track from a district standpoint because they ultimately get brought into the contract. Bill's estimates was specifically on the construction itself. Thank you. With regard to timeline a

128little bit and budget for that matter. 4.88 is our estimate currently, as the board is aware. We've got. We've got $3 million in some change identified currently with a application into the TDC for another $1.5 million. That meeting is tomorrow. The TDC is having their review meeting for their grants. We will participate in that and hopefully come forward with success in that effort. But what we've got going, we've spoken a number of times at the design team level about kind of having options to proceed forward with or without the TDC approval. The priority for the program is to get started on the training center regardless of where we get funding from the TDC. If we get funding from the TDC, and we think that's a less timely evolution to build than the concession museum building.

129So the thought would be as quickly as possible, get started on the construction of the trainings center while we work together to put together a plan on the concession restroom based on funding. A lot of unknowns on that as I stand here tonight. We'll know more tomorrow and with what we find out tomorrow or sometime thereafter with regard to the TDC decision process. With that decision made, we can put some more fidelity down on a timeline and bring that back to the school board for consideration. So tonight, asking for approval of the final design and the initial pre construction contract for the CM. Any other questions? Thank you. This is exciting, Mr. Lafierre, both of these projects and we are going to continue with our reports and Mr. Russell is going to give us an

130update on hiring. All right, well, thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Great job. See you next time. Thank you so much. Madam. Chair, School Boardmembers, Madam Superintendent, always a pleasure to have an opportunity to update everyone where we stand right now in the hiring process. Please keep in mind as I work through this presentation, got roughly about six more weeks to go before the start of the next school year. So I guess you could say in the interview hiring world, that's a lot of time to still make some headway as we continue to fill open positions. The majority of this, this presentation will focus on our teaching vacancies and kind of what we've been doing as an HR team over the course of really an entire year and our efforts to recruit hopefully some of the

131best teachers around that we can get our hands on. So as always, I always like to begin with our strategic plan and how it ties in from a recruitment standpoint. So for Gold Area 3 premier workforce, the first sentence, develop a premier workforce by recruiting, retaining and investing in personnel. So obviously we're focusing on the recruitment of our staff. So apologize for a very busy timeline slide here. But the message behind this timeline is that recruiting is a year long effort. Labor Day weekend, we open up what I call a Catch all ad on Frontline where we start to grab potential candidates who are looking to teach here for the following year. So for example, this upcoming Labor Day we will start advertising for 26-27 teaching positions. So back in September of 24 we started

132to grab candidates who were interested in working from Monroe County. In November, we started our third year of what we call get to Know MCSD. These are teams invites to the candidates who have applied for that Catch all teaching position. It allows these candidates to speak with an HR team member. It's either myself, an HR generalist or Daniela, our certification specialist. A lot of the questions that typically get asked do center around certification. But more importantly, we spent about an hour educating the group on the Monroe County School District and we spend a little bit of time talking about making sure they give themselves lots of time to secure housing if they don't already have a housing solution here in Monroe County. So those meetings, what we've learned have been very impactful. It's sort of

133a proactive way to interact with these applicants versus applying. They sort of sit there and nobody touches them until you get into an actual interview process. So it's been very well received. At our new teacher orientation this last year, I had a lot of unsolicited feedback from those teachers there that they really enjoyed those meetings and opportunity to learn about the Monroe County School district. So then as the year, as you can see in the Timeline journeys along. In February, myself, Dr. White and Ms. Acevedo do one on one meetings at each of the schools, meet with the principals. At that point in the process, we have collected our intent to remain data and principals have a pretty good feel for who might be coming back or who might not be coming back. And it

134sort of starts to frame up and paint a picture of the type of openings that we might have, specific subject areas, grade levels and things like that. And then this year, it was kind of an interesting year because we had of course a legislative session that ran long. So it caused sort of a natural pause in the process a little bit. So we're still kind of recovering from that sort of a little bit as we go through the hiring process. But as you can see right now, this slide here is dated 618 and we've done a lot of hiring at the various schools, but we still have work to do. As you can tell, Key West High has the most needs right now, but has again several weeks ahead of them. Every one of these

135schools that have openings are actively interviewing right now as we speak, and we do anticipate them hopefully starting off the school year 100% filled. So we've hired right now roughly about 30 teachers and we're looking to hire about another 30 teachers. If you break it down by month, you can sort of see March. We started to get some trickles of some hiring done. Melissa also Brooks hired a couple of teachers in March at Gerald Adams. She was able to identify some definite needs and knew she'd have the budget there to accommodate that. Then April, not as busy. Then May picked up quite a bit. And then of course we're in the month of June right now. What ultimately I'd like to see the district get to a point is early hiring and do more hiring

136in the month of March. It gives us an opportunity to hire the best talent before they land in other districts. More time for them to find and secure housing. If you get somebody in March, they roughly have about five months to secure housing again, if they don't already own something. And the keys will have a solution. March is not as busy per se for a school leadership team. If you compare to the month of May, you've got state testing, graduations and all those end of the year events. It's super busy, much more challenging and difficult to put interview teams together and do interviews. So in my opinion, the earlier that we go, it's just a little bit more efficient for the hiring process in general. And then last but not least, A couple years ago,

137we've worked with legal counsel. We've developed a contingency letter that basically, when we hire folks early, we can rescind if we have to. Whether it's for difficult economic times or whatever the cause may be, the contingencies are there and gives us some of that latitude. Spending a little bit of time on bus drivers. Kudos to Jason Thomason, who's really been working hard with us as an HR team to make sure we have our drivers for the start of the school year. So looking at this chart, you can see Key west has 10 positions with no vacancies and two in training. Well, that helps us because then you have sort of substitute drivers if somebody's out sick to fill in, or if you want to use drivers to help with maybe sports trips out of town

138or things like that. It just gives us a lot more flexibility. So that's where we're heading there in Key West. Sugarloaf, again, one vacancy, one person in training. So once that person finishes up training, we'll be at full capacity in Sugarloaf. Right now in Marathon, we're down one driver with no one in training. And in the Upper Keys, we have one vacancy with two in training. So overall, compared to where I presented about three years ago, we're doing really well with our bus drivers right now. We're just about full strength with that. Yes, ma' am? For the upper keys, two people in training. Does that mean that one of the people or both people have to work in the upper keys? Or can one of those people in training be used in marathon if still

139short a person? Like, how does that work with the bus drivers? I'm going to defer to the guy sitting right behind you. Mr. Lafaire is ready to answer that one. Those positions are hired specific to that area. That said, both the Sugarloaf, the Sugarloaf Marathon and Upper Keys drivers throughout a school year, when there's a shortage in one area, the other can cover routes on any of those. Unless we do a lot of that covering other people's routes when we're more healthy in one area than the other. And it, you know, it ebbs and flows with regard to which area is higher or lower in the plan there. So as of now, we look pretty darn good in buses. Yes. Knock on wood. Yes. Again, kudos to Jason. Mr. Thomason's been outstanding helping us to

140recruit and train up those drivers. And last but not least, I had my HR team go back and do a little history Lesson here. And we went back to the 0607 school year, all the way through now to this last school year, and took a look at the number of teachers that we've hired. And I always get asked the question in any given how many teachers do we hire? And my standard response has always been about 100 teachers a year. And as you can see from this historical graph, some years is less, some years is more. But if you add up all those numbers, you divide by 19, you get 99. So we're just about at 100. And over that time span, you've hired 1,889 teachers over almost a 20 year period of time. So

141in the best of economic years and in the most difficult and challenging of economic years years, we're always hiring teachers. And I will end by saying to you, we know from research, doctoral research and the studies that are out there, the number one thing that impacts student achievement is the classroom teacher. And there's nothing more important that I can do to help the district in my efforts to recruit. So when we talk about year round recruiting, it is year round recruiting. Back when Ms. Axford and I, 20, 30 years ago, if you went to school some of these recruitment fairs in Orlando, you have upwards of seven hundred and fifty one thousand teachers running around the convention center from district to district looking to get hired. Now you go to one of these things, you're

142lucky to see 100 teachers there. So it went from a talent pool this big to about this big. And in Monroe county it gets even smaller. Right. We got roughly 200 or so applicants that have applied over the course of about a year that we have to pick from. And we're also competing with charters locally as well, that same talent pool of applicants. So the earlier that we can go again gives us the opportunity to grab the best talent. And that's my message. Any questions for me? Can you go back to the teacher vacancies? How many? You know, obviously Key west is a challenge because of everything, but how many of those positions were emptied this year? Are any of those like recurrent empty, unable to fill last year? I don't believe so. Off the

143top of my head, no. We started off last year almost 100% full at the start of the year. I think we had three or four positions that were vacant at the start of last school year. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. What do you think is going on at Key West High that we have so many teachers leaving, we have paras leaving, we have coaches leaving Key West High. Specifically, we Typically have a lot of people that live here already just trying to get a feel for why those numbers are so high. I think some of it's timing and let me explain myself. If I did this presentation a month from now or a month and a half from now, the numbers would be a lot, they look a lot different. So you may not have

144that concern per se. But that being said, Key West High number one, you had again, the delay in the legislative session. So that created a natural pause. We typically like to wait for the legislative session end, have a good feel for budget, let each school, you know, do the school budgeting process. And then once principals know what they have, then they start creating the positions, you know, the recs to hire and opening up the various ads. So the delay in the legislature, I think delayed some things. Then you had change in a couple of system principals there. So like Jeronica, for example, left, I think about the middle of the year to be the principal of the college of the Florida Keys High School program. So she was a valuable key tool that had been

145there for long enough to understand the needs of the school, was part of the hiring process there. So she left. So then you have a new AP come in. Then you have another AP that is taking on the role of director and assessment and accountability. So some of that change, along with the perfect storm of the legislative session being delayed, it just creates almost a natural pause in the process. So I think that's contributed to some of that. Yeah, but the numbers are 13 as opposed to the 16. Same tally concern for all the other schools. And then we have five coaches. That's not uncommon right now. That's sort of seasonal. So as coaches come and go, you'll like if you look at the open positions and say December, you'll see positions that have been

146advertised for your spring sports. But it's only a Key West. So what I'm trying to understand. Excuse me, both of you, but I know Mrs. Acevedo is working with the principal on a daily basis. Can you comment on this, please? Yes. Part of the not hiring for those that early indicated they were leaving contributes to the 13, but they also had, I believe three or four in the last 20 days determine that they were leaving, retiring, moving to another position. So that's the teachers and the other aspects of that number were again, people that moved, left, chose different things, and they didn't jump on hiring right away due to what Harry said. The Paras are a status of the economy at this point, and they've moved out of town. The coaches, they have chosen not

147to renew in a couple of areas. And there were some people who were coaching multiple things that have now moved to one. So those are the coaching openings that you see. One of those coaching is actually a new coach position for a freshman volleyball coach because volleyball has expanded so exorbitantly that they had over 100 kids try out. And the AD was able to arrange for three freshmen tournaments if they could have a freshman team. So because of their numbers, we were able to give them a freshman coach. So therefore, that is a new coaching position. And so that is the number of coaches. Their cheerleading coaches had a turnover. They have one position filled, they're filling another. And then, of course, the admin is the ap, which they did do interviews with final interviews

148to be done tomorrow. So I hope that answered some of your question. It definitely answers a bunch. It's just that number 13, it's like flashing at my face. It's just a lot of people to leave a single school in a single year. And so I know we do some data in terms of people saying why they're leaving. I'd be interested in what those reasons are for those individuals. And I can get that for you. When we look at exit form analysis, typically housing is number one. That is definitely our recruiting and retention barrier. Yeah, I get it. I get tally, I get housing but we have a lot of schools in Key west, and that's all very Key west high school specific and it ebbs and flows from school to school. I can reflect back

149being principal Sugarloaf. Some years I had two people leave. Some years I had 10 leave because of retirement and various other factors. You know, you can't always, you know, predict. You try, but it's with intent to remain data that we collect. But sometimes it's timing of a bulk of people. Right. Retired people leave for different reasons. And you try your best to track it with the exit forms and do analysis. Yeah. And that's awesome, right? If we've had teachers there so long that we had a giant bunch, unfortunately retiring at the same time, that'll ease all of my concerns and questions, but that's the kind of information I'm looking for. Okay, thank you. We also now have four high schools in Key West vying for teachers. And that's something that isn't happening around either of

150the other high schools. And I think that that's got to have some impact. Yeah, that's a good point. And I think the last, at least in my time in this position, the Sugarloaf north tends to be filled up pretty quick with their positions, and then we tend to spend June and July finalizing the Key west schools with open positions. It seems to be the pattern that I've dealt with the last five years. Yeah, exactly. What you're saying, though, is kind of part of why I'm concerned. So if our teachers are leaving to go to the charter schools, then we need to look at why and sort of figure that out. Because with all the charters and other high schools that we now have in Key west, hiring people back becomes a concern. Not to belabor

151it, I would just really like some information on those 13, please. Yep. I'll send you the retention rates for the district, for our new teachers that we hired last year, overall teacher retention from government from last year, and then staff and administration. They're all into the mid-80s. Yeah, I'm sure they're good because I'm looking at most of these numbers and most of these numbers, I mean, other than Key West High, we look pretty set to move forward already in June for our start of school in August. So really, my focus right now is what's happening at Key West High. I'll end with this thought. We still got six more weeks. We'll get this done. Can you let us know, too, what the positions actually are? Yeah, I can do that for you. That's not a

152problem. How's your applicant pool? Do you have a large number of people applying for this positions? When I pull each one of the positions that she said, I can tell you exactly how many people have applied for each one of these 13 positions. Okay, thank you. Overall, we had roughly about 200 applicants that applied throughout the district. Throughout the district. But Key West High School specific, you don't. I'm just wondering if you had applicants waiting in the wings. Yeah, I can pull that. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you. That concludes our reports. Mrs. Kahn. Legal. Only I have on this agenda is item four at the bottom, which I've discussed individually all of you. Other than that, it's contract season, so we are quite busy with renewals and such. Do you want to

153maybe give everybody a reminder about people who reach out? Oh, yeah. Thank you. I meant to do that. Now that it's going this direction, when people reach out to you to discuss this, please direct them to the lawyer, which would be. Meaning to me. Just direct everybody to me, because now, you know, it's important. Loose lips sink ships and all that stuff. Thank you. The mediation thing. Yeah, that's what we're headed for, Mediation. Just say, look, it's gone to the attorneys. We don't talk about anything that's pending and redirect them to me or their own lawyer. Angain, if the general public, it's unfortunately, I'm not allowed to comment. That would be my advice there and that's all I have. Unless there's questions. Terry. I'm going to ask. Going to go up to the microphone. I'm

154going to ask Daliana to join me. So, just wanted to share this with the board. We talked about it on June 10, but we had training on Friday. School safety and threat management training with the United States Secret Service as the presenters. And it was quite amazing. And what was really amazing about it was that all of our community partners attended. So the Department of Juvenile justice, DCF, the state Attorney's office, the sheriff's office, deputy, the Key west pd, the Guidance care Center, school social workers, school counselors, principals and assistant principals. So There were over 75 people in attendance at the Doubletree Resort for the training. And one of the principal speakers was Tony Montalto, and his grand wife was in attendance. They lost their daughter Gina Rose in the Parkland shooting. And so he's

155turned his grief into activism. And he is quite an inspiring person to listen to and just to be in the same room with. And, you know, he told us a lot of things. He's created an organization which is called called Stand with Parkland. And he's the president, but he's very involved on a national level with the law that has come into being, which is called the Safer Communities act, you know, as part of a congressional effort to address safe schools. So I wanted to bring Daliana up because she coordinated the event and I am so truly grateful to her for bringing this to fruition. Our principals had been asking for some additional training, but I think they were truly gratified by the level of this training. And when I say it was the United States

156Secret Service, they were just at the top level of training. And the materials that they shared with us were equally interesting. But, you know, as part of the whole training, it was threat management training and the importance of recognizing students who are in difficulties and how to react and what to do to help those students and to keep them from going in any direction other than a wholesome and good one. And so Daliana has been working for how long? Two years now to bring forward what we're going to show you tonight. And I'm going to let her talk to you about it just a little. But Tony Montalto cited us on his website because of this. So we are the first district in the state of Florida. I'm going to roll out the banner while

157Daliana speaks. So very proud to say Monroe County School District is the first school district in the state of Florida to be named, designated a suicide prevention certified district. Tell them about the banner? Each school had to go through designation certification. So we worked really hard on that. It took three years to really make it come to fruition because there were some steps to take and some board policies to make sure we had in place. And one of the things was to have it built into the master calendar and scheduling as far as the trainings that the schools need to participate in and to comply with and complete. So our schools are receiving suicide prevention certified school banners to hang in their schools. We are the third school district that had multiple schools complete because

158it's a school by school school designation. But because our schools work so diligently and we got it taken care of. We're the first one who got the certified district designation. I was able to. I was asked, the colors are specifically the teal and purple because that is the color of suicide prevention awareness. It's actually the month of September, that Suicide prevention month. And September 10th specifically is the worldwide Suicide Prevention Day. So you each received a pin for with the suicide awareness ribbon. We actually have some pins that we're going to share with all administrative staff as well, Hoping that we can look forward to September 10th being a day of awareness for all of us across the country. Keys. On a personal level, I do want to say that I first started working on

159this back on December 7, 2016, when we lost a dear child, son of one of our teachers here in the upper keys. And I just spoke to her again today because every single time we work on this project, I always have her right in my back pocket or in my hand to my ear. For good and bad. We review everything together. And because of that event back in 2016, we continue to work really hard to make sure that we're meeting needs as much as we can through training, through awareness, through staff training, which is what brought this designation on. But we also train our students, grades six through 12. We have signs of suicide as one of our prevention programs that we work on in some of our grade levels. And as you know, We've

160got the five hour mandatory mental health instruction that happens in grades six through 12 that also touches on this. It just ties so closely with threat management, though, because you're looking at the same things. Protective factors, risk factors. What are we doing to work with the families, with the students? When we find somebody that we need, that needs something, what do we do? We give them the resources. So it all has come together in the best way possible in trying to work smarter, not harder, and get our schools the beautiful designation that they deserve for the hard work that they do. So these will be ready for that December or September suicide prevention month. And they're going to be placed at every. Installed in every school. Thank you. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. That's

161it for me. Mrs. Kahn. Thank you. Before you go, can you just tell us if we've heard anything from Talley in regard to... We're waiting. We heard today that they expect the governor to go all way the, the way to July 1, which is his deadline. But we keep, we keep hoping that we're going to stay. We're on that budget. So we just have to wait now with everybody else. Thank you. We were not on the Florida tax walk Turkey list. That's really good. That's the best news I heard today. Thank you. Boardmembers. Mrs. Talbot. It really is great news. Dr. Woltanski, I'm so hopeful for that. And the TDC has a great meeting tomorrow and keeps us in mind. I just want to comment back to the Founders park thing. I had a chance

162to think about what each of you had to say and digest that a bit. Like you all kids always come first with me. And I think that there's a lot of things we need to consider here. As Dr. Waltanski said, you know, so many of the other schools have these beautiful facilities and so forth. And I feel like, although I'm new to the board, I've been quite aware for a long time the importance of Founders park and how important that is to Coral Shore's baseball team. But not only to keep Coral Shore's baseball team, but for all the other young kids who will have the opportunity to play on that field and will one day become Coral Shore students. I also heard the concern about the money. I'd like to think of myself as a

163fiscal conservative, but if you stop and you think about the 50 year lease and the amount of money that we will spend within reason, that money will serve and that park will serve generations to come. I think that we will get a great return on our investment. So I'm hoping that the council will consider this proposal and that we find a way to move forward. Because I think that I would like the Coral Shore students and community to know that they're important to us as well and that they deserve a beautiful playing field like so many of our other schools. So I just wanted to comment on that, and I think that's it. Thank you. Mr. Horan. No, I'm pretty sure everybody just wants us to vote. Dr. Woltanski. I have two very short things.

164One is the Greater Florida Consortium of School Board members will be meeting at the end of August. If we have any legislative proposals that we want to be considered to be added onto that list, those would be due by August 15th. So those are more dates maybe for Mrs. Axford and Mr. Tierney. And then another thing is, you know where you guys drove through it again, we're back to a little bit of traffic here. And now every time I drive past the high school, I notice somebody waiting to cross the highway. It's not school anymore, so it's not a bunch of kids crossing over to 7 11, but that or Payfair. But that happens all the time, too. And this community is getting ready to put another traffic signal up by the new publics. And

165if they're putting one there, I think a call button on ours here is warranted. These are the biggest, some of the biggest communities where most of the kids live to be able to walk across the highway safely at times other than drop off and pick up. I think we should pursue asking at least what the procedure for that is because kids are crossing the highway and the traffic is just getting worse. I just want to be clear because I don't feel like I was based on some of the comments I heard. I am all for Founders Park. I am all for Coral Shores baseball team, and I am all for having something beautiful for all of our residents, Upper Keys and elsewhere. Thank you. Moving on to action items. We are ready for that. So,

166number 1. Approve Conceptual Design for Founder's Park Baseball Field Improvements. So moved. Second. Motion by Dr. Waltanski. Second by Mr. Horan. Any discussion? Further discussion. Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. Action item number 2. Approve Final Design/Construction Documents for Rex Weech Field Improvements. Move. Second. Motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Dr. Woltanski. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. Action item number 3. Approval of Construction Management Contract for Rex Weech Field Improvements to Keystar, Inc. So moved. Second. Motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbot. Any discussion? Sharpen your pencil. Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. And lastly, Approval to Conduct Mediation with and Provide Notices to Ajax Building Co., LLC Regarding Tommy Roberts Stadium Project. So moved. Second. Motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Halbott. Discussion?

167Yeah. Maybe, I just missed it, but I didn't see. Is there a venue provision in that contract? Yes. Okay, just want to be sure. Just to belabor the point, Staff and Board are not to discuss the case with anyone other than our school attorney. Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes, and we are adjourned.