001We are going to restart the school board meeting now that the closed session is. Closed sessions are completed. Okay. Madam Chair, we'll start the meeting with the Pledge of allegiance led by Mr. Kaden Pitcher. So if everyone please stand. 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. I recommend we adopt the agenda as presented. There have been no requests from board members for changes. Move. Motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mr. Dick. Any no votes. Any discussion? Hearing none. The agenda, the minutes are passed or the agenda the agenda is passed. I recommend approval of the school board meeting minutes from the August 19, 2025 school board meeting. I'll move approval. Second
002motion by Mr. Dick. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The meeting minutes are passed. This time I'd like to invite Dr. White, executive director of Finance and Performance, to present our final budget hearing. Excuse me for a second. I didn't hear people for a while. Did you adopt the agenda as published, or did we move the item? Can you hear me? What was the question? Did you adopt the agenda in? And did you move item 12 to action? No, we did not. Sorry, Mindy, our audio just came on. Through the team side. As soon as the minutes were approved. We didn't hear anything of the meeting starting request. Was there a request to remove item 12 from consent? Yeah, I want to move item 12 from consent to the action.
003So, we've already passed the agenda. How do we go back? Or can we go back? I think you can even move it now. It's just a move. You're not removing, you're just moving it. So. So you can just go ahead and say, please move it. I recommend that we adopt the agenda as presented, with the exception of moving item 12 to action. So moved. Motion by Mrs. Talbott. Second by Mr. Dick. Any no votes. Any discussion? Hearing none. Item 12 will be moved. Thank you. Okay, so now I believe we recessed for the budget meeting. Right, Dirk? No. I'm sorry. Yes. At 5:02. Is it 502 yet? It is 501, actually. Should we. Wait a minute? It says 502. Anything else you want to move, go ahead. That's it. Go ahead. Recess and go to
004your budget here. We're going to recess the regular meeting and move on to our budget hearing. Dr. White. Thank you. Chair Khan, board members, Superintendent Tierney, district leadership, and everyone in attendance, thank you for listening. About our budget. We have been discussing it for several board meetings. Yes, thank you. Okay. This is the final budget meeting. These are where the advertisements were and they were published in the tentative budget book. This is a discussion of the property taxes. Oops. Apologize. There are the millage rates. This is a diagram of the property values and the millage rates. Nothing has changed at this point in time. The millage here. This is showing each millage and the change in the millages. Hang on. It isn't going. I'm hitting down and it's not going anywhere. Okay, there we go.
005Thank you. More millage levy information. Talking about housing in that part rolled back. Right. I did remove a part there that had duplication on it. That's the only change to that slide, I promise y'. All. This is now none of them are working. You want me to go up there? You got it. Okay. There's the change in the rollback rate. The calculation of the rollback rate without change though. That's right. No changes. No changes here on budget highlights. No changes here on general fund. There was one change, the hurricane reserve. We now have final numbers for 24, 25. The Hurricane Reserve on the last line did go up to 9.6 million. We had it at 9.5. So we had about $100,000 increase on the hurricane reserve. We usually try to have 10 million there. We'll
006have more discussions about it on the September 16th meeting of the Five Year Capital Plan. Next slide, please. No changes here. No changes here. This is where the additional money will be spent in the budget. Here is the adjusted net state FEFP. That is where we are receiving the 1.5 million here in FEFP in addition to class size, which is about 8 million. So we get about $10 million from the state. Next slide. Here is safety and security. And there is one addition here at the bottom that shows the row forward and the row forward. I can't read that amount. It's around $500,000. It is 560,988.36. Any questions? Well, that's where I'm going to question because see, this is the change here. You brought the carryover from the previous year. And so now you're showing
007a balance. Your estimate balance for this year is $560,000. And when we got, when we asked for that safety and security millage, this goes back, I don't know, about 10 years. We had a maximum amount of 0.065. 0.0625 was the maximum amount we would ever ask for. And we started the first year getting.05. And the following year when we saw how much money we spent and how much money we received, we lowered it to.04 because we had said that that money. The reason we asked for the money, the 0.0625, was because that was the year when the state said we had to have SROs or guardians. But we decided for SROs and we needed SROs. And the amount of money that came through the state safety and security was nowhere near enough to cover that.
008So we asked the community, the people to say, if we do this, you know, we will show you every year how much money we spent and how much money we got from the state and added in with our millage, the.05 that we took the first year and whatever if it came, we had a balance, we would lower the millage. If we needed more, we would raise it, but we would only use that money. That funding was earmarked only for the school safety offices and go into the school safety budget, nowhere to use it anywhere else. So when we have a balance now of $560,000, we cannot use that money on anything else. And I guess some people might get confused because when they see the big sheet with the millage and you see 0.5, 0.55,
009the reason we, it used to show as a separate line, but because two years, or what was it two years ago when we had a. We were going to renew two other things, they wouldn't allow us to do the third separate one. We had to put the point five and the.05 together. That's why it used to be separate. But still we have to account that money as separate. That point is separate. Now we get from the, from that safety and security millage that we add on, we get $282,800,000. Well, if we divided that and take one fifth off of that, that would be around $566,000, which is almost $6,000 difference between the balance and what we have. So I say, I mean, I think what we're required by the statement that when we started this,
010that we now have to lower that millage and we should take.04, not 0 5.04. And the fact is, I won't vote for this budget unless we do 0.04. This is the statement we gave to the public and we have to hold to the public because this is, you know, we guarantee that that's what we would use that funding for and nothing else. So I propose that you lower that millage from 0.55 to 0.54. And the 0.01 that you're taking is from the safety and security, not from the 0.5 part. Any other questions? What are. Is it too difficult for me to ask you to calculate what all the numbers would be at 04 to see if we'd be at a negative or a positive? Well, it's about $6,000. Negative. 6,000. Yeah, it's close. Is there
011anything to stop us from moving the 123 to next year's and then being able to lower the.05 to even lower than.04? Like, is there a way to keep the 123, 786 aside for safety and security for next year? That's what happens. Basically what happens is that's in your fund balance. So when it's carried forward like that fund balance or in a safety and security fund balance, it's in the overall general fund balance that we calculated here. It should. This should not go into the general fund balance. This is. This is what we wrote. This is what we promised to the public, that we would use this money only for this. So when you shove it into the general fund balance, it can go anywhere. This is safety and security money that we asked the public
012and we said we would not do anything else with it. And for $6,000, you don't know exactly what all the costs are going to be. So if you. I would not worry about $6,000 to. Any of these costs Include the people we have to games and everything else that we pay. Yeah, whatever we pay. Costs that are on here, do they include the money we pay to the people we pay to be at all of our games, the law enforcement? It does, yes, Ma'am. So the numbers in our expenditures include the extra money for like two people at a football game and two people at a baseball game. Because that's the sheriff's charges. That's in a separate file. Because this is. Can I interject? Yes, Madam Chair. The. Officers you're talking about, the schools. Hire
013from their own budgets. And so it does. This does not include those. Those details that they do for all their games and their events. It does include the line for the Safe Schools officers, SSOs that are at our three charter schools. But there are other additional costs not accounted for for safety and security on this slide that more than exceed what the.05 would levy. And I guess that's kind of where I'm coming from, John. Well, if there's other costs, why are they not on this? Why are they not on this? So where are you putting it? In the Budget. If you have safety and security costs, they should be on this budget. If they're not on this budget, where are they? I kept it consistently. How it was reported previously is why it was not
014included. And you're showing a balance here. Is it real? Is it not real? It sounds like it's not real. Well, then it's. Then the whole thing is a waste of time. If that's not real, then what is it? Is it? I mean, I. I don't understand. How could you not. If you got other costs in safety and security, they should be here. What did you say? She's saying that the. I just repeated what Pat said, which is we don't give money. At this point, there hasn't been money to give to schools. So when they have details, they use it out of their internal accounts. Nothing comes from the district because when you don't have ro forward, you know, it's never been done that way. So it's not a number yet for this year because we
015don't know how much we're going to spend on. And usually we do not give from the district general fund to the internal discretionary, they raise it themselves. So it's from a different pot. So the question about details, you know, like for games you asked, that is paid for at the school level through discretionary funds. Thus it's not a line item in the general fund at this time. So in other words, what you want to do now is because we made a deal with the community and now you want to renege on it by saying we got other costs that we could shove into here. Well, they should have been here in. The first place to renege on anything. I'm saying safety and security. Security includes safety and security at after school hours, fields, games and
016events. It's a different. What you don't. All right, what. Maybe you don't realize they didn't put the balance carry over here. This just. They just put it on because I was questioning where was it. So they've been taking the balance every year and. Well, I don't want to get too far into that, but there's. I mean, either you're. Either this is real or it's not real. And if you've got other. Of course. Well, where have you been charging them to? I mean, if you've got other safety and security, who are you charging it to? The schools in the district, they're paying those costs right now, but there's still safety and security costs. But they're school level and they're paid out of internal. As Mr. Lafiere said, it's two separate. As it has been in the
017past, school level pays for details, all of our SROs and that. That Dr. White has described in the budget hearings that are district level salaries are paid there. So that's just a. Again, a clarification on the details. Secondary. That's not what the state says the safety security funds go to. Right. They Talking about having SROs in the schools and also the whatever safety measures you're doing, the locks and the gates and the wall, they're not talking about the details because that's something that each school has. So it looks to me like we're trying to put on money that would come from elsewhere to use up this balance. Pat, does the state not require that we have any kind of details at sporting events on school property? If there's not instruction going on, then there's no.
018There's no requirement. All of the requirements from the state are as. When we've got instruction going on in. Any of our schools or locations. So, no, not after a after school extracurricular events or activities. And how often at the extracurricular activities are the law enforcement people doing more than just, say, walking around? Like where we have an issue that we're very glad to have somebody from law enforcement at an event, whether it be a football game or a baseball game or a basketball game or a lacrosse game. As I understand it, and some of. The other administrators, executives can assist me, It's. They're there for presence and up. And until a event occurs to where they need to respond from a law enforcement perspective, they're not there for anything. On behalf of a law enforcement
019perspective. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? I have a question. Can you hear me? Yes, Ma'am. On the categorical allocation, is that the number from the FEFP or is that the number? I mean, does that allocate for the percentage that leaves due to vouchers? That is a dollar amount from the fefp. Okay, thank you. Yes, Ma'am. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. This afternoon we're going to celebrate some really impressive students. Ms. Acevedo, if you'll help us recognize great moments for students. Yes, I'd like to invite the superintendent and the board chair, Mrs. Conn, to the front. And the first student I would like to call up here to be recognized is Caden Pitcher, who did our pledge of allegiance. There you go, Ms. Khan. So Kaden is an outstanding junior at Marathon High
020School, and he exemplifies what it means to be a gem. He recently achieved the remarkable accomplishment of earning a perfect score on the Math sat. This is a testament to his academic excellence and dedication beyond the classroom. Caden has accumulated over 250 community service hours showcasing his commitment to giving back to his community. He also serves as the Football Tech Football team's Tech manager, is the chief editor of the School News Channel and contributes as a member of the varsity golf team. He is awarded this gems not only for his perfect score but in recognition overall as a top student in his class and one who has admired for leadership, service and well rounded involvement across academics, athletics and extracurricular activities. Congratulations, Kaden. I'd like to call Ms. Paul. Principal. I apologize for not calling
021her up sooner to join in the picture. Thank you and congratulations again, Kaden. Next, I would like to call up Marathon High School students Lillian Wiley and Cindy Augustin who are participating in the Special Olympics Florida's Youth Activation Committee. Come on up with Principal Christine Paul here you two, get in the middle. The Special Olympics Florida's Youth Activation Committee is a leadership opportunity with Unified Champion schools and is made up of an athlete and a partner to help make Special Olympics and their school the best it can be. While promoting a powerful culture of inclusion and acceptance in Special Olympics. This selected Unified pair will focus on that leadership, awareness and increasing exposure to Special Olympics Florida within their school. Lillian and Cindy attended a conference at the end of last year in Orlando, as
022you can see by the lovely picture on the screen. And they will be assisting in promoting and helping with the Monroe County District Spring Area Games. As active leaders on the Marathon Dolphin campus. We are proud to award them these gems for creating great educational moments for their peers. Great job, ladies. Congratulations. We look forward to your work. Okay. Next I'd like to call up Stanley Switlick Elementary's principal, Ms. Linda Shaffer, and also Ms. Jaden Douglas, a young leader with a big heart. Please come forward. Right here in the middle. Holmes. Jaden. At just nine years old, Jayden is a student at Stanley Switlick Elementary. She's already making waves in Key Colony beach with her extraordinary blend of kindness, creativity and community spirit. Her lemonade stand, now a beloved summer tradition, is more than a
023place to cool off. It's a symbol of generosity and purpose. From hand squeezing lemons each morning to offering treats for both kids and pets, Jaden pours love into every detail. Her commitment to giving back, especially through her donations to the Florida Keys spca, shows a heart far beyond her years. Jaden reminds us all that leadership isn't about age. It's about compassion, dedication and the courage to make a difference. We are proud to recognize her as a shining example of what it means to serve with joy and give others great educational moments. Congratulations Jayden. Thank you all so much and all the parents who have attended in support. Moving on to citizens input. Maria do we have anybody here today? As a matter of fact, Madam Chair, we do. I've got two speakers on the list.
024Today and I'll call up the first one, Mr. Louie Gonzalez from Middle Keys Boosters. He'll get five minutes and have you. Read the paragraph or do I need to read it out loud? I'll admit I haven't read it. Presentations to the board are limited to three minutes for each individual and five for the representative of a designated group. Transfer of time between individuals and or groups is not permitted. Letters submitted to each board member and or the Board Secretary prior to the board meeting will not additionally be read into the record at the meeting 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
025of Conduct for a Citizen Input school board policy 016 9.1 and will begin their presentation by stating the full name and their city or town of residence. For the record Perfect Good evening Superintendent. Tierney, Good evening School Board and good evening Chairman Kahn. My name is Luis Gonzalez. I'm a citizen here of the City of Marathon and I am the representative of the Mid Keys Booster Club. The purpose of my attendance today is we're looking for some field improvements here at Marathon High School. These improvements became evident in our season of 2024 when our district playoff game was cut short. We had a rain delay in the fifth inning and after about an hour of rain delay and multiple we had our team. We had volunteers dragging and lining getting the field back in what
026we thought were playable conditions. The umpires ruled the game a complete game. So at that point the game was called and our kids did not have the opportunity to have a seven inning game at a district playoff. Fast forwarding to the year 2025 again our team went to the district playoffs. We were successful at the district playoffs and we hosted a regional game here in Marathon. The regional game was attended by many of you guys that you know you were here in attendance and you saw. That. There was really not many places to sit. So at the conclusion of our season we got together a small committee. We had coaches, we have several community members and we met with our principal. Then we had a follow up meeting with our principal in AD and we
027came up with a game plan of things that could improve, be improved at our complex. We understand that our complex, we're going to be starting our eighth year on the complex and at the field. And having said that, you go out when you leave today, hopefully the sun is still up and bright and just take a look from the railing over to the baseball field and it kind of looks like a field that's 15 years old just because of the condition. So along the lines of upgrades, one of the items that immediately popped up was our attendance at our games has improved significantly and we have not much bleacher space. When the complex was originally designed, we had a terrace sitting area which is a safety hazard. It cannot be used. So we're requesting additional
028bleachers. You'll see in the booklet that you have in front of you with all of the upgrades that we're requesting. Not only are we requesting an upgrade, we put together a PowerPoint that has been sent to you as well. And in the upgrades we're giving opportunities or suggestions on what we could do to improve. We're just not saying we need this without a solution. We're proposing a problem and a solution we are. With the upgrade of the bleachers, many of you probably saw that our press box is a gentleman and a table off to the side tucked in a corner with cord stretched out throughout the complex for speakers. So when we upgrade the bleachers, we're requesting that we have a press box placed somewhere in the center of the bleachers. Field conditions. Field conditions,
029I mean, they pretty much speak for themselves. When the complex was originally designed and put together, we tossed back and forth the idea of turf. It did not materialize then, but we are requesting that the field be turfed for multiple reasons. One, we won't have rain outs. Two, we won't have field conditions like we currently have. And three, there's weekends that we play between middle school JV and varsity, three or four games on the field. And the expense of having somebody here all day for lining and dragging is just, it doesn't happen. So with a pre lined turf field, our field conditions will be pristine 365 days a year. Along those lines, the drainage at our field is horrible. The dugouts, any little rainstorm, both dugouts flood. We have our equipment, we always, we have
030storage sheds in the dugouts currently that house some of our equipment because the next item is we're lack of storage. When the original Storage was built next. To the existing concession. It was built with the intent of a baseball team and a softball team. The baseball team has evolved into three baseball teams. The softball team has evolved into two softball teams. And we share the locker with the maintenance department, which has all of their hurricane shutters in there as well. So we were desperately asking for storage along those lines. And the one last thing that we are asking for is the batting cage. The field is eight years old. We've changed the cages twice because of the condition, the element, the sun beating on them. We're requesting that we have a covered barn, something of
031that nature that would cover both the girls and the boys. And a lot of the things that we've asked for, we have taken into consideration Title. So not only will benefit boy sports, it will benefit girls sports as well. Having said that, we. Sam. One of. The things that. Way of Collier and the Keys and the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, resulting in us being designated as an Ocean guardian district. The second report will be presented by Ms. Ballard on the student progression plan. Good evening. I am happy to introduce the presenters that will share with you the excitement and the energy that went into obtaining our Ocean Guardian District status. Thanks to science coordinator Donna Desco, who is on teams for leading the efforts. We have had four schools with five or more years
032as Ocean Guardian School status, including Stanley Switlick with seven years, Sugarloaf School six years, and Plantation Key and Key Largo School five years each. So I'd like to welcome to the podium United Way of Collier and the Keys Revitalization Project liaison, Jessica Dockery and the Noah Marlise Tomolo leader for education and outreach for the presentation. Okay, thank you everyone for inviting us to speak with you today. Chair Conn, members of the board, Superintendent Tierney, we appreciate your time. My name is Marlise Tumalo and I lead the education and outreach team for NOAA's Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. And I am Jessica Dockery, the Reef Revitalization Project liaison for United Way of Collier and the Keys. I can't get it to shift. There we go. Florida Keys National Rain Sanctuary, as many of you know, protects
033the waters surrounding the Florida Keys. Our boundaries go from outside of Key Biscayne all the way around the Florida Keys. And basically we say, if you step your toes in the water in the Keys, you are in the sanctuary. And we are co managed through noaa, the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the State of Florida. And I wanted to add. I'm going to go back one second that I am joined here today by several United Way of Collier and the Keys staff members, including Channing Gofier, who is our boots on the ground for Ocean Guardian School District, as well as Tiffany Mensch, who is our United Way CEO down here from Naples. So United Way's mission is to respond to community needs by uniting people and resources to create lasting change for a bigger
034future. We focus on four key areas which are building community resilience, strengthening financial security, supporting healthy community and expanding youth opportunity. And the Ocean Guardian School Project is the perfect example of how education and youth opportunity are central to that vision. So to give you a little background on the Ocean Guardian School program, an Ocean Guardian School engages K12 students in the protection and conservation of their local watershed national marine sanctuaries and our one shared ocean. Students participate in this conservation through leading stewardship projects at their schools that addressed a issue in the local watershed. Through this program, they're able to receive funding over a five year period to implement their stewardship projects. Currently, last year the Ocean Guardian school project reached 98 schools across the country, in 18 states and across three US territories.
035And as mentioned, in Mumbro county, there are quite a few Ocean Guardian schools that we have had here since 2018 and we're very proud of their accomplishments. The Ocean Guardian School program has been assessed at a national level and the assessment showed that participating in the program increased students commitment to the environment, their sense of community, their desire to volunteer and their experience working with a team. Recognizing the success of the Ocean Guardian School program in Monroe county, we wanted to take it to the next level by working with Monroe County School District to become an Ocean Guardian School District. To become an Ocean Guardian School District. A district commits to sustained projects across the district level over a three year period. The first year of the program they identify the shared project that they
036will execute across the district. They establish a district team to execute that project and then they complete the project at three schools. One in elementary school, one in middle school and one in high school. For the second year of the district project, the district works on district wide opera operations. This includes implementing the Stewardship project at 35 to 55% of the schools across the district and and in at least one district office or area. In the third year, the focus is on pedagogy and curriculum. At least one ocean or environmental literacy outcome is implemented at each school level, elementary, middle and high school and then at least one environmental themed board policy is implemented. All right, so let me give you an overview of what the kiddos have been up to and I'd just like
037to reiterate, there is only one other Ocean Guardian school district in our nation. It's in California. It was completed years ago. We are blazing trails over here in the eastern half of the United States by becoming the second Ocean Guardian school district in the nation and with a bigger district than that California district had as well. So our students chose a project pathway called School Garden Habitat. And the issue that they are wanting to deal with is stormwater runoff and pollution that is going into those drains on campus and then eventually out into our Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary waters. So their solution was to design rainwater filtration gardens and bioswales and use native plants to fill those gardens that will reduce stormwater runoff, capture those pollutants, and filter them out and reduce flooding as
038well. So to start the project off, we had three pilot schools. Poinciana elementary, Sugarloaf Middle School, specifically their. I'm sorry, Sugarloaf School, specifically their middle school students, and Key West High School. Each of those students at those schools in the program did their own research. They designed their gardens, picked out the plant, and then installed those gardens on school property. And in year two, as we recruit the rest of the schools, we'll use these pilot schools as examples on how. To complete the project. I will just mention there, my favorite here is the picture on the right there. That's a Sugarloaf School's rainwater garden. They were pretty creative in taking that and modeling after their mascot, the shark. So that's a shark fin right there, which I think is a fantastic addition to their garden.
039Each of the schools did slightly different gardens, slightly different, different plants. Some went more diverse, some spread out and used different grasses and plants, but all of them are native to the Keys. So we want to give a final thank you to Donna Tedesco, who has been fierce in leading this project throughout the district, as well as the teachers at the pilot schools that joined us and other folks in the community who are helping us make this happen. At this time, I would like to ask David Burke, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary superintendent, to come up and Tiffany Mensch, our United Way of Collier and the Keys CEO, to come up so that we can present. Actually, Mr. Tierney, if you would come up as well. We'll get you in a photo here. So
040I will step aside and David, step forward. [ PICTURE TAKING ] Before anybody leaves, there's a great spread over here put on by Chef and his students and it's way more than we as a school board could possibly eat. So please help yourselves. Yes, just quickly. So you're not confused. Hi, I'm Tiffany Mensch. I'm the president and CEO of the. United Way of Collier and the Keys. Thank you so much for having us today. We're so grateful for this partnership and just as a small token of our appreciation, we're also sharing in your bag some garden gloves. They're a symbol of our hands on effort that it takes not just in our schools, but in our homes, in our communities to protect both the environment and our children future. So thank you all for your
041partnership. Thank you. To lower it for short people. Good evening, madam chair, board superintendent and all our stakeholders. I'm here to present the updates to the 2025, 2026 student progression plan. As we all are aware, there's three. Oh, hold on, we're missing a couple. Okay. Well, the first two slides indicated the overview for the elementary and middle school, and the second slide was the overview for high school. It provides the bullets and then the page numbers for each of the different progression plans and what the changes were made. So to go into a little bit of detail, the first change that was for all three levels of our student progression plan is a restricted use of wireless device during school. This is an update that aligns the verbiage in our student progression plan to House
042Bill 1105, expanding the restricted use of wireless devices to K to 8 students. So as the law states, elementary middle school students are not permitted to use cell phones, smartwatches, smart glasses or any other wireless communication devices from the moment they start school to the day that they leave. So that has been a change that we had to update on a progression plan for high school. It remains the same that they could use it during passing and lunch and then in the instructional setting as directed by a teacher. So obviously if there's any exceptions for medical and educational needs, those are taken on a case by case basis. The next slide shows an update that we made for middle school and high school. So in Monroe county we promote a culture of academic integrity. And
043in this section we identify actions that not acceptable as we foster and strengthen a culture of academic integrity. So such actions include. But they're not limited to cheating, plagiarism, falsification or misrepresentation of data, defacing school property or lying to a school official. The next changes only pertain to high school. So in the top you'll see the release of students. There's many circumstances where students they need to make an appointment, make certain appointments or there's certain things that they need to go to and the parent is working and they're not allowed and they do give the student permission to go off campus. So as long as they're verified that they have the authority to make those choices for the student, either for an office desk staff or an administrator will verify. And then students can be
044released with a parent phone call. They don't have to physically come in to sign the student out. And then the other action or the other update in the bottom where it says graduation require, the state has released the new Academic Advisement Flyer. So that was updated. The changes is the personal finance requirement and also change to the number of elective credits. It's now seven and a half instead of eight to account for the half credit the personal finance requirement course. And this slide is kind of a little bit exciting because there's more opportunities for our seniors to meet concordance scores. So the state has released new concordance and comparative scores to meet graduation requirements. If you look towards your left, those green arrows are all new assessments that were added for the different assessments. So
045if you look at the grade 10 ELA, the PSAT, NMSQT, that is new for ELA. The state had previously used it for math, but now they expanded it to use the reading and writing section to meet concordance scores. For the 10th grade reading assessment, the PSAT 10, the PRE act and the CLT 10, all those have been added for concordance or comparative scores for for Both the grade 10 ELA assessment and the algebra 1 assessment. Also on the flip side, some of the assessments that have been in place, they have increased the requirements. So for instance the SAT reading and writing section, that was 480 and that went up to 490. The CLT grammar and writing for the grade 10 ELA it was at 36. The state has increased it to 39. And then for
046the algebra, the CLT Quantitative Reasoning, that was at 11. The state has raised it to 14. So we are excited with the addition of the PRE act and the CLT10 addition because that will provide additional opportunities for at risk seniors to meet concordance scores. The next change is beginning with the class of 2029. So the valedictorian solution eligibility criteria. So the current freshman. We have made a couple changes. The first one, transfer grades is designed to level the PL field by accepting credits from an accredited private school. So the accreditation component provides assurances in their curriculum to be included in the gpa. The grades earned while being either in a private tutorial program or at or a homeschool program that remains the same in which it will not be taken into account for that GPA
047calculation. And the honor code compliance was also added again to foster our culture of academic integrity. So any students that have a verified violation of a district's honor code would not qualify for valsal. And okay, there's some missing slides. The last one that is not on there is. The state has changed the verbiage of certificate of completion so there's no more certificate of completion. It's receipt of transcripts. We should know by January 1st of 2026. Further guidance as far as how we need to move forward with that language right now that also gives us a little bit more oomph to offer those opportunities for our at risk seniors with the addition of the Preact and the CLT10 and any questions? Okay. All right. Thank you. I have a question. Yes. When I looked at the
048student progression plans for middle and high school, I don't see what the PSAT 8 and 9 are used for. What is the purpose of Those? So the PSAT 8 9, it's a segue to the PSAT 10. So with the 8 9, it does provide data for AP potential, but it also provides students with a continuous exposure to those assessments in which as they get into the nmsqt, they qualify for scholarships. They qualify for, you know, the National Merit Scholarship. And also is a segue to the, to the SAT in which we know that's required for or not required. But a lot of colleges look into those scores. So it kind of gives the students that exposure as they move through as well as also provide when they go into high school, AP potential data to
049ensure that they're provided with the adequate opportunities as they go through their high school career. Okay. Because that's not mentioned in the student progression plan at all. That we have a whole pathway for middle school math that tells what scores you need for this or that. And if you have a score on this, you can go on this path. But there is nothing that talks about what qualifies you to be an AP student. Okay. 0 Would that be revision you would like? I don't want that as a revision. I want us to be using the psat. I mean, I want us. I want to clarify why we are doing a half day PSAT test so many times. I mean, I know the National Merit Scholarship is a very great honor, but for most kids it's
050not even. I mean, they get more scholarships from our local community. So. Practicing a test five times so that you could get that scholarship, you know, that's very. There's very few kids in our district who are going to get that. And I'm just, that's. I mean, we have pathways based on test scores in there, but we're not. You know, I want to assure that those PSATs are being used and that we're not just using it as test practice. We talk about this with the principals at our last meeting, Dr. Waltansky. And the National Merit Scholar is a very small percent of the student population, the precursor to the sat. In some practice. I think there is value there. But we are going to spend more time studying how we accelerate students and looking for ways
051to get more students into advanced coursework. Both apartments, dual enrollment, potentially another program. And this will be a tool to allow administrators and guidance counselors to find students who might not. Anyway. What are they going to. What are they looking to do? Everybody's going to have to get a regular diploma. We're not sure yet. That's why I said January 1st is when they're going to release some guidance for that. You don't hear anything though? 0 Nothing yet. Be interesting to see what happens. Any other questions? Thank you so much. Thank you. Legal, do you have a report for us? Yes, I do. I'm going to cover two things that have been somewhat fluid. The first is Tommy Roberts testing and schedule for mediation. And the second is going to be Trumbo. And I'm going to
052turn that part over to Hunter. I've taken the time to review our progress on getting to mediation with Ajax. Relevant history is the demand for mediation was made July 16th. We agreed to allow an extension until September 19th for the inspection and October 6th for this required statutory response pursuant Florida Statute 558. As recently as today, we have received a request for an additional extension of time or enlargement of time due to heavy rains that have occurred on the premises. And they would like to have that subside before they do their inspection. I will say this. At this point in time, we are going to be reasonable with that. But we also want commitments to dates for mediation and for inspection absent, which we can move forward if our statutory deadlines are not agreed to.
053We have the option of proceeding with litigation. I don't think anybody wants that. Everybody wants mediation. We've gone ahead and suggested mediators, and I think everybody's there willing to be there in good faith. The wrinkle that is in front of us now is originally they needed to find their lawyers, which was part of their commitment to the people they answered to. And the next thing they had to do was find someone to do their own expert work for the fields. They have done those two things. Now they want to get out there and do their testing and inspections. Unfortunately, we had a lot of rain, so they do want some additional time. Again, I'm inclined to be reasonable about that as long as indeed we get date commitments for both the inspection and the response.
054So that is the status thus far. We do have hard deadlines right now in place of 919 for inspection, which is in about 10 days, and 106 for statutory response required by Florida Statute 558. Again, I would be willing to be reasonable in that if they really want to get out there and do their testing and now they have their expert, our experts on board to go with them, which is completely allowable under 558, then maybe a week or so additional. But we are running up against deadlines that they have to respond to. So we plan on making sure we get this done as quickly as possible. That's my update on Tommy Roberts. You and I, you and I, all of you and I speak about this on a fairly often, fairly regular basis. So
055I just wanted to bring you up in front of the. Bring all this up to your attention in public so you can answer to people who may have questions. We are under statutory deadlines which are being honored only due to whether we may need to extend them a little bit more. So other than that, I will just take your questions privately as this involves potential litigation. I think you all understand that those questions should be between me and you guys. And if you have questions like that, we'll talk about them further. That's my update on Tommy Roberts, and then we'll turn it over to Hunter to give you the good news about Trumbo. Good evening, everybody. As I wrote to each of you. Earlier, Vescor has requested one more revision to the ground lease that's
056not currently reflected on the version. That's on the all parentheses on exhibit C stating that the declaration of Affordable Restrictions will be agreed upon and inserted by the parties at a later date. It doesn't materially change the ground lease at all, but according to Vescor, it would assist them in their financing efforts. Other than that, we're happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the ground lease. And there's also a group of gentlemen. From Vescor behind you that I'm sure would be happy to answer any questions you may have. So that doesn't change our perception on the vote tonight. We can't move forward with the vote tonight, though. You. You could move forward with the vote. If you're going to approve it. Our recommendation would just be, you know, a motion to approve the
057ground lease with the revised exhibit C. Okay. Superintendent. Thank you, Madam Chair. As we approach the anniversary of September 11, 2001, our district joins communities across the nation remembering one of the most defining moments in our history. This week, we honor the lives lost, the bravery of the first responders, and the resilience of our country that came together in the face of this tragedy. In accordance with Florida's designation of September 11th as 911 Heroes Day. Thank you. Anything else, Mrs. Talbott? Yeah, I have a few things today. First off, I wanted to say thank you to PKS and Coral Shores for honoring and welcoming our veterans as they headed off to the southernmost honor flight. To all of our veterans, to our very own Mr. Dick that participated, and to Mr. Lafier and Mr. Tierney,
058I say thank you for your service. Just to draw attention to the fact that tomorrow is world suicide prevention day and September is designated as suicide awareness month. I am really proud that the Monroe county school district is a suicide prevention certified district. In a time when student mental health issues are on the rise not only nationally, but globally. Globally. I think our commitment to this issue is more important now than ever. I also wanted to say great job to the transportation department, to the staff and everyone involved in dealing with the waterline break last week on Kalkee Bridge, which turned into traffic chaos in all of the lower keys. I think that everyone did an excellent job communicating to parents and to families and to the community what was going on. Our children got
059home as quickly as humans possible, and most importantly, they got home safely. So thank you and your staff for such an outstanding job. Well done. And lastly, I want to say thank you to Hunter o'. Connor. He's one of our school board attorneys. And for hearing me with my concerns regarding our ground lease for the teacher housing, more specifically the admin lot and the timeline on the abrogation lot. I really appreciate your hard work, and I think that the result was a really balanced and fair agreement for the school district and for tvc. So I just wanted to say thank you. I appreciate it. Mr. Horan. Well, with all the turmoil and the separation of different sides and viewpoints, I think we can all agree that we're happy to have college and professional football back
060on television. So with that, I'll simply say go nulls. Yes, Mr. Dick. First I'd like to say right now out on the field there are students and volunteers from the community placing flags around and there will be 2,996 of those flags put up before the. Well, maybe not before the day is over. I know Mr. Russell is going to go out and help them for a while. So they may not get them all up tonight, but they will be up by tomorrow and they'll be there for the game on Friday. So that represents every all the people that were killed in the 911 attack. And what not everybody knows is that original start where we started doing the flags for each person that was created. It was started by a student from Marathon High School.
061He is the one that brought it to our attention. It's a program that's going around the country, but it was a student that brought it up to the administration and said, I'd like to do this. And of course he got help from a lot of people then. But it was a student driven thing and I think that says a lot. And I can tell you, you know, Monroe County School District is by far the most patriotic school district I'm sure in the country. I've seen it. And so I could also tell you that as going on that on a flight the other night, the reception that we received at the two schools, Carl Shores High School and PKS by the students was fantastic. And I can tell you being on the bus and seeing the
062veterans that were there and how they felt about brought tears to them. They were very, very satisfied. It was just fantastic. And they were all cheering. And of course I took credit for it, but you know, but it really made them feel good and feel proud. So your school did a great job. I thank all those of you that took care of that. Amber, I guess you got involved in that. It really was. And Lisa did a very fantastic job. So it was a great thing. So there's a lot of good things happening here and that was a great start. And that's all I have. Dr. Woltanski? Yeah, I just am grateful to be able to join you today. Virtually I'm up in D.C. with the Florida School Board association and doing advocacy work for
063public education and Florida schools. So. Glad to be able to actually join in While I'm gone and have appreciative of electronic devices. I too, my husband and his dad were on Honor flight and my father in law came home and he just couldn't believe the number of students and staff and just somebody gave him a bouquet of flowers. It was just he was so appreciative. He's a little bit of a crier when it comes to emotional stuff, but he did love it. And so thank you to everybody who made that such a special drive out of the Keys. It was the first honor flight where people from the Keys were included. And also thank you to Mr. Dick for coordinating parking at the American Legion on Marathon. Really, it's a group effort to make all
064of our Vietnam veterans feel special and just a big shout out to everybody who is involved in making that happen. So thank you. Moving on. Do we have anything regarding pending IC items? We've addressed everything on pending other than Coral Shores, which ties into founders and founders working closely with Iron Larada right now. We'll have some to the board next month. Thank you. So we are now going to recess our business meeting and open a public hearing for policies. This is the second reading of Policy 5, 530.01 on Self Administered medication. Do you recommend the policy? I recommend the policy. Do we have anyone in the audience who wants to speak to this policy? As there are none, we are going to recess the public hearing and reconvene our business meeting starting with our action
065items. I recommend Approval of the 2025, 2026 final millage required. Local effort 1.0470. Move. Approve. I'll second. Any discussion? Any? No votes? Hearing none. The item passes. I recommend approval of the 2025, 2026 final millage. Prior year adjustment for value reduction. 0.0020. Move. Second motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Any? No votes? Hearing None. The motion passes. I Recommend approval of 2025, 2026 final millage. Basic discretionary local 0.7480. I'll move approval. Second. Motion by Mr. Dick. Second by Mr. Horan. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I Recommend Approval of 2025, 2026 Final millage. Additional operating. Voted 0.5500. Move. Second motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Any? Call the roll. Any no votes? Yes. Call the roll, please. [ ROLL CALL ] Passes. 4:1.
066Thank you. I recommend approval of 2025, 2026 final millage. Capital LA 0.6000. I'll move approval. Second motion by Mr. Dick. Second by Mr. Horan. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I Recommend Approval of 2025, 2026, final total millage 2.947. Move. Second motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. Recommend acceptance of the fiscal year 2024, 2025 annual financial report. Move. Second motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Yeah, I just want to say that there's still. I will ask questions about it, but we'll accept it now. But I do want to ask some questions about it. Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I recommend the board approve resolution 2025.004 final budget for the 2025, 2026 fiscal
067year. Move. Second motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I recommend approval of the Monroe county school board district board meeting scheduled December 2025 through December 2026. Move. I'll second motion by Mr. Haran. Second by Mr. Dick. Any discussion? Yes. Just noting that the August meeting is on election day, and so I know that's part of the TRIM calendar, but as I spoke with the superintendent earlier, we're going to need to make sure that that's. I mean, and it's in Coral shores, so it may complicate things for people running for office. We are aware we're looking at the past practice and this will come back to the board in November. Thank you. Moving on. We voted. Yes. We voted. I think sue had to.
068Discussion. We're on 10. I recommend the board approve phase two, guaranteed maximum. Wait a second. Did we vote? We didn't vote. I had discussion and we did not. Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. Thank you. I recommend the board approve phase two, guaranteed maximum price amendment two for the Rex We Field Improvements Construction Management. Move. Second motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Any? No votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I recommend the board approve purchase of builders risk insurance premium for the Rexwidge field improvements project. Move. I'll second it. Motion by Mr. Haran. Second by Mr. Dick. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I Recommend Approval of 2025, 2026 student progression plans for elementary, middle and high school. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Sorry. Motion
069by Mrs. Talbott. Second by Mr. Horan. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion Passes. I recommend approval of policy revisions for student support services. Move. Second motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I recommend the board approve ground lease with TVC Development Incorporated for RFP 2025007 Trumbo Affordable Workforce Housing with the enclosed. Exhibit C. With the revised exhibit C. It'S actually a revision saying that the exhibit is removed and we will agree later. So we're not substituting an exhibit. Hunter, you want to explain or just. Give us the language of motion? Yeah, one moment. So it'd be a motion to approve with the additional language to exhibit C, which states to be agreed upon and inserted by the parties at a later
070date. So that action item with that language. Do we have a motion? Yes, as stated by our council. 0 Move second. Second motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. Motion is approved. I recommend the board approve the proposed 2025 Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards legislative platform. I'll move. Second motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I recommend approval of the 2025, 2026 Uniform Statewide Assessment Calendar. I'll move. Second motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mrs. Talbott. Any discussion? Yes. The reason I wanted this polled is because, as you know. You know, if I've made it a habit, I'd like us to have less standardized testing. And every year I decided I would only vote for
071a testing calendar that had a reduced number of minutes, and this one had over 300 minutes less. So I wanted the community to know that the work is being done. It was about a 3.6% reduction in the amount of time kids are spent testing. And so I applaud the people who put that together. So thank you. Mindy, I meant to ask a question about the. The legislature platform. Okay. And what I like to know under the last thing, under the operations, it said allow districts the option to participate in the state health plan. Does anybody know what the state health plan is? Is that some. Do you know it, Sue? Yeah, that's the same thing that all the lawmakers get. It would be a less. I think law enforcement gets it also. We're like one
072of the only. The school districts are one of the only state organizations that don't. Aren't participating in it. So, I mean, would it be cost effective? That's the idea, is that it costs less. And if we. And we would be able to. Instead of us as a single small district, Negotiating our price. We would be part of a very large organization getting a better price. Do you think there's any push on that? Is it going to happen? They people talk about it, but no. There's no law. There's no bit. Well, no bills have been really filed yet, but. But it's something that they're looking at as a way to lower the burden on health insurance costs. Okay, thank you. And it will definitely greatly reduce our health insurance bill because as a school district, we
073have a majority of women who are typically more expensive to insure, as well as a larger pool of people to disperse costs on. So it'd be great if they would do it. That's why they don't want us. Probably. Probably. We need to get more men then. Yes. You should get on that. You're gonna be free to do so soon. Oh, would like to pay. I can't work for the district though. You can once you leave the school. Oh, you can. Two years you can. Oh, that's true. I think six months now you can get a job. You just can't lobby. No, but I can't get a job for the. With the school district. Pretty sure you can. And actually, I have two quick questions before we adjourn. The first is, did we have insurance on
074Tommy Roberts. Builders? Risk is a specific type of insurance. Tied to a construction project that doesn't come before the board until we have a guaranteed maximum price. Right. Well, we obviously had a GMP for Tommy Roberts. We had build. There's risk for the original project. This is a separate project. The Rex Wheat field improvements are separate from the original Tommy Roberts project. So this is a separate insurance policy. Okay, thank you. And where are we at on getting a somebody to look over the construction? We're meeting with a consultant tomorrow to discuss a proposal. Great. Thanks so much. And if there's nothing else, voted on the last item. Oh. Oh. Any no votes? Hearing none. The final motion passes and we are adjourned. Thank you so much.