Special & Regular School Board Meeting 09/16/25

001[Music] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, as I call to order, the September 16th special meeting of the Escami County School Board. This meeting was properly advertised on September the 1st, legal notice 1583541. If you wish to speak at the public hearing regarding the budget, you must fill out the appropriate form found on the table at the back of the room and bring it forward to Miss Harris. All public comments regarding tonight's agenda will be addressed during the budget public hearing. Since all items on tonight's agenda are regarding the 2025 2026 budget, all forms must be submitted by the start of the budget presentation. At this time, we will move to the adoption of the agenda. Do I have a motion to adopt the agenda? So moved. I'll second. Moved and second. Any discussion? Please

002vote. approve five to zero. Thank you. The first item is the presentation of the 2025 2026 millage and budget. Uh Mr. Superintendent, please proceed. Yes, sir. Uh we're prepared this evening to move straight to the public hearing to have the opportunity for our citizens to speak and for our board to be able to make comment. So we're prepared to go straight to item B. Oh, thank you, sir. Next, we'll have a public hearing of the 2025 2026 millig and budget. Each speaker will be allotted three minutes. All comments must pertain to the budget presented this evening and speakers must adhere to the guidelines regarding public comments. Our first speaker, Mr. Jacob Rockwell, you have three minutes. Are we doing the buzzer? All righty. Can y'all hear me? Awesome. In 2019 to 2020, the school board

003budget was $493 million. In 2024 to 2025, the school board budget is now $797 million. This is a over 54% increase in just 5 years. Over that same time, the consumer price index lists the rate of inflation at 26.36%. This means the Escambia County School Board budget is already overinflated at a rate twice the national average of inflation. Another math fact for you studious bureaucrats. At $797 million and having a student population of 34,943 students, it means that the taxpayer spent $21,772 per student to send them to an Escambia County public school. Nearly $22,000 per student. [Applause] To contrast that, Florida State University's in-state tuition for an entire academic year is only $5,600. And for an out ofstate student, $18.5. It's cheaper to send your kid from Oregon to FSU than it is to send

004a 7-year-old to the first grade here. We'd be better off and actually save money if you just shut it all down and wrote everybody a $20,000 check for private tuition every year. At least that way, we wouldn't have to pay so many unelected bureaucrats in this overbloated government. So, I'm going to ask you what I asked the county commissioners last week. WTF? Where's the funds? You your excuse for this increase is, well, people aren't enrolling in public school. But if you have less students, you should need less money and fewer bureaucrats, not more. Especially not no 866 million freaking dollars. Saying you need more is some George W. Bush fuzzy numbers garbage. The math ain't math. I angrily oppose any tax increase with all the other tax increases we've been getting from all the other

005blood sucking bureaucrats in this tonedeaf local government that refuses to listen to its constituents. Please don't make me vote you out too. Will the real conservatives please stand up? Thank you. Next we have Michael W. Wor. You have three minutes. Oh, I'm here to speak because I looked over my proposed tax assessments and I saw the local school board had a proposal of a 50% increase. Like the other gentlemen, I went to the county commissioners and I was appalled with what I learned about how things are done. It's my understanding that this group proposes the new potential increase and then after brief public hearing this meeting, the same group gets to actually vote on it and decide it. I suspect most people would find it apparent and unethical for the same group to propose the

006changes and then vote on their own proposal. Unfortunately, what he and I saw last week at the county commissioners, 45 people spoke two and a half hours and they didn't even address the four or five concerns out of vehement objections. They they didn't matter. They had already made up their mind what they were going to do. Vote on what they proposed. Hey, if you all are going to do that, let us know. Save us some time if what we're do saying here is waste of time. Sorry for my venting. Last week's meeting was a bad education. Now, I assume that you know what the current uh prices are for the public and what the OMG increases people are seeing in their own personal finances. Almost no one is getting a 50% raise in their income.

007So, for this board to approve a 50% increase, that's a gross impropriy by the board. rather than gloss over and ignore the voters what you think is in the best interest of the school system. In addition to that, you have an obligation to consider what the taxpayers actually say about the increase. And to ignore that obligation and only consider what you think should be accomplished, you're doing a bad job. So, I say that I'm speaking against the 50% increase and I can't shout that out loud enough. I'm sure that you can and would offer justifications, but people I'm sorry, but please tell this group for the record what specific cost reduction ideas have come from the various departments that gave you input that we need more money. If they haven't given you suggestions, then basically

008both they and you voting for such an increase is irresponsible. Now, if by chance they given you reject some suggestions, hey, here are some things we've done to reduce cost, put it in a public spot, easily find findable on the schoolboard website. If they haven't given you any, if you haven't come up with any, then you're doing a bad job. Next speaker is Larry DS Jr. You have three minutes. Larry DS Junior Plumbing LLC because feal matters. That's a catch line there. I figured since y'all are budgeting, you know, I told this to the county last week. I was the only one who spoke on the budget meeting on the budget. only speaker, one speaker showed up and then they called me and despite my uh you know my uh unhappiness with uh you know

009with with what they budget you know they're budgeting our business uh they like lock step all voted five in favor like lock step and I go I've done the same thing over over the Santa Rosa County meetings, the school board meeting over there, locked step. It's It's weird when you don't get a one dissenting vote. Not one. I mean, surely out of did the same thing at the city council meeting uh last Thursday night. Same thing. Lock step all 70. Every item was 70. Seven approved. Seven approved. more government, more taxes, seven approved. So, you know, that budget is huge. That's a huge budget. And I know I hear it all the time. It's for the children. It's for the children. It's for the children. Uh-uh. No. Uh it's not a good deal. We're not

010getting a good deal. you know, uh, any anytime we have to, you know, basically what taxes do has taken is taking our our liberty away. Y'all know that, right? It's our time. Time is liberty. Time is freedom. So, if we have to work more to provide more taxes, that's taking our time from our family, from everything. So if we have to work one, two, three days a week to cover all the taxes, local, state, and federal, that's two days a week that an unlimited government is stealing from us in our freedom, our time. That's the most precious thing we have in this life is time. It's fleeting. None of us were born, you know, all of us were born with to die. We we none of us are getting out of here alive. So, our

011time is important to us. And whenever each government agency, I mean every government, I'm not just talking about y'all. I'm talking about all of them. You just keep a little more, a little more, a little more until we're working for y'all. And that ain't the way it's supposed to be. Y'all supposed to be working for us. You know, y'all get elected, you run that campaign, and uh and then all of a sudden, well, we got to have more money. It's for the children. We got to have more money. It's for law enforcement. We got to have more money is for roads. We got to have more money. More money instead of finding a way to reduce it. Unlimited government is unacceptable. Thank you. This concludes our public forum. We'll move now into item C. The

0122025 2026 millage required local effort. Is there a motion? They're moved. I second. Any discussion? Please vote. Mr. Williams, I'd like to say something. I've listened very attentively over the last couple of months about the uh increase in millillage rates and others. And I want to say this before we uh get too far along in this process. Um uh when we originally started this process, I voted yes for the uh um increased millig rate. Not a single person showed up here for the public hearing. Since that time, I have received a tremendous amount of push back in my district. District 5 is mine. And in that district, people I I I've heard from our senior citizens. I've heard from those young couples that have have just bought a new home and have their budget set.

013I've heard from the small farmers out there and all of them I've only had one or two people tell me they're in favor of a sales I mean not a sales tax I keep say a property tax increase. All the others are telling me that Tom we don't need to do that at this time under these economic circumstances. Tonight I will be voting against the uh increase in millage rates for that reason. I represent the people of district 5. District 5 has told me overwhelmingly that they do not want this. They were kind enough to give me this seat to represent them and I'm going to represent them the way they indicate that they would like for to be represented which will be a no. So any of the votes that are taken here pertaining

014to the millillage increase or if it comes back to a portion of that for another budget I will be voting no. All right. So that's what I wanted to say to begin with. Thank Adam. Mr. Chair. Um, and I, as everybody knows, I have never voted for a property tax increase on this board ever since I've been elected. And what I have told my constituents over and over again, if you support that half cent sales tax referendum, I'll never raise vote to raise property taxes way. We're one of 19 school districts that have that. And that's a very special thing to have. It's done a lot of good work. Um, but the other reason is some this is a tax that we're putting on our own employees, our own retirees. I've walked in the teachers

015house when I was campaigning. She said, "Mr. Adams, 10 years ago when I retired, I thought my retirement check was big." But now I got everybody in in Skini County asking for tax increase. I don't care if there's water, garbage, you know, electricity, county commission, school board, you know. So, their checks are getting smaller and smaller. Now, people that can write a $1,000 check, extra $1,000 check check and not even think about it is no big deal. But, um, we have a lot of people that getting squeezed tight, particularly from that last administration with that 9% inflation we had. It's gotten better now. It's not it's not all the way, but uh, for that reason, I'll be voting no. I think I misfired on this one because I thought it was I think it's a

016required local effort. That's fine. But, uh, but I will be voting no on my camp. I got the same old card when I first ran and I got on here and never once voted to raise property taxes and never will. Now, what's important is at this meeting for the next year, if there's other board members thinking the same thing, you need to let that superintendent know so don't walk in here the last minute. But I hope Dantis wins. I support Dannis about removing property taxes for those that homesteader properties. Okay? And if that don't work, then there should be a legislation acted enacted to where the county and the school board and city cannot go above the roll back rate every year. If they want to go above that, they got to do a referendum,

017go a countywide vote and let the citizens vote on that. But I think that'll be the solution if the Sanders don't come through. I hope he does come through. What he has, but for that reason and more, I'm going to be voting no. MCO. Yes, sir. Um, like Mr. Adams, for seven years, I've sat on the board now and I've never voted for a property tax increase. This year is the first year that we got money. The state gave out the uh budgets. The budget for our total increase was $1 million over what it was last year. And Mr. Saints, if I misspeak, I need you to correct me. $1 million. In the meantime, everything has gone up. As you talked about the rate of inflation, 20ome percent. Not only that, the big things that

018hit us have to do with retirement rate that we have to pay into, insurance that we have for employees and everyone else that we do. Those are millions of dollars as it is. our our uh financial cost differential the the the money that we have in the reserve went down by about 11 million I believe or 12 thing that the reason that becomes important there's a lot about the FEFP the Florida education finance program that people do not understand during the workshop last week we had a speaker Mr. DS. Mr. DS said, "You have 5,000 less students than you had. Why are you still getting the same amount of money from the state?" And I explained to him after that meeting. That's the same amount, but that's money that goes to vouchers. $50,000 comes off

019the top that goes to vouchers. kids who aren't in our seats in our schools, but the money looks like it's coming to us because the state passes it through us. We don't know who those students are. We don't know where it's going, whether it's going to private, parochial, or homeschoolers, but that money looks like it's coming in to us because it's in our budget, but we don't get a scent of that. The other thing that happened is we were alerted that we had nearly 300 students who are now in our schools who took a voucher but the money didn't come to us. What did they do with it? We don't know and we don't know if or when the state will make good on that because when things go through other entities, they don't come

020back, oh, oh, we made a mistake and we're going to send you the two and a half or $2.8 million that those students are costing you. No, we may see that. We may not. If it shows up at the end of the year, that'll be part of the fund balance that that we need to have. But those things go into to to what happens with Florida education finance program. We have 5,000 less students, but our costs haven't gone down. If we have our 77 passenger buses running and they're filled, they still don't pay for themselves because we transport kids who are in unsafe walking areas. We take money out of the general fund to pay for those because the state won't do it. So we could we could say, "Oh, it doesn't matter. You know,

021the state says they're good to walk and so we'll let them cross across major thorough affairs and highways and everything else." No, because the students do come first. But that's just part of it. Our schools are not at capacity. Students have left, but we still have to air condition them. We still have to pay the electric bills. Those haven't gone down just because we have less students. The other thing that happens that people don't realize, one of the uni uniquenesses of us is this. If we don't do something and and let it be known, the only thing on here that the school board can make a difference in is the local capital improvement. That's the only one we get a vote on. Everything else, required local effort, prior funding, discretionary operating, that all comes from

022the state. I know that we had somebody speak about how appalled they were that the school board would be looking at raising the tax rate anywhere in here. What wasn't said by that representative was this. If we didn't raise it 1 cent, we would still be advertising a tax increase because the state's portion went up. The stuff that they control went up before it gets to us. Everything in here is prescribed by law and regulation and it comes to us. So the required local effort, the prior period funding adjustment, discretionary operating, that's all set by the state. The only thing we make a difference in is the capital improvement. Why in the first time in seven years am I looking at doing this? Because if we don't do this, then we will take every penny

023out of the fund balance that we have and we will start next year millions of dollars in debt. Two years ago, Hillsboro County had to borrow $und00 million to start their school year. Why would that happen? What people don't realize what that fund balance does. That fund balance gets us started. The state doesn't say, "Oh, you're going to get $400 million. Here's your money." No. Just like your paycheck comes in chunks if you have an annual salary. You don't get that all at one time. You get it as you work it. The state sends it to us. But at the beginning of the school year when we need to be do payroll and everything else, we have to rely on that fund balance to be able to make our our payments so that we don't

024have to borrow millions of dollars that we're going to pay interest on in order to start before we get the first scent from Tallahassee. That's a difference in in school finance versus general accounting finance. They do very different things to us. The reason that I'm voting for this local capital improvement to go from 1.004 to the 1.5. I am voting for it because if I don't, there's $52 million that we're going to depend on to be able to operate and to be able to stay and have that fund balance there. So, we don't go in the red. We as a board will go in the red and we will start off next year so far in the hole that we won't get out of it and then we'll have the state take over our entire

025budget and they will do with it as they please. In the last two years at least going on three, our academic improvements have been on a trend that continues to improve. If we don't do something to make sure that our employees get some type of increase in their salary, some type of compensation for the work they do, we will lose the people we have trained that we have in place that are making those academic differences. and we're going to celebrate kids who are doing well academically. Well, we won't be celebrating in the future if we don't because we won't have the money to retain the good staff that we have. I'm a little bit riled up. I I I realize that. Do I want to increase the tax on anybody? Hell no, I don't. Do

026I have to? Would I be irresponsible to let things go into the red and tank because I have the opportunity to do what is hard and what is right to keep the district afloat and the kids going in a positive direction. I don't want to do this. and the minute that things would change financially from the state and why the state all of a sudden this year and they're projecting next year and the year after to do less and less and less for the traditional public schools. Why? I don't know. I don't see that Disney has less people. I don't see that we have less people moving into the state. I don't see that they're to collecting less taxes, but they're not doing it to education. They're holding us where we were probably two years

027ago. They're continuing to fund kids to leave our schools and making it look like we're still getting that money and we're not. So, I don't know where somebody got something about a 50% increase because I didn't see anything like that. and and a four a4 is not 50%. Public 1.0. Okay, it's close. You're right. It is close, but that's in one section. That's the capital improvement only, not the entire budget. That $52 million it's estimated it's going to generate will make the difference whether we stay afloat financially or not. And I'm sorry. I really am because I do not want to raise taxes. But I am also here because I I devoted 38 years of my life to this school district and the kids who are in here. And I don't want to see it

028crippled and go down the drain over what's what seems to be on the average 25 cents a day or two Starbucks coffees a month for the average taxpayers. So, you know, that's where I am. I'm going to vote for it. My fellow board members could stand on whatever whatever they want to, but I will not let it go down. I'm sorry. Yes. Uh, thank you, sir. Um, I'm going to also vote for this. You know, you elected the school board members to make tough and hard decisions. And yes, just like Fesco said, we do not want to raise your taxes, but we look at the increasing increasing cost of our district operational funds. For example, we were talking last month about buses. We have 250 of them. 10 years ago, a bus 77 passenger bus

029cost $19,000. Today that same bus cost 168,000. So think about that and that's 250 buses that we ensure the safety of our kids going to and from home. We also have to think about schools and air conditioning and heating our schools and our facilities. That's increasing. We know that's increasing. We still have to ensure the safety and well-being of our schools, our students, and our our faculty. You also think about the cost of providing breakfast and lunch for all of our kids. And also the last and most importantly is we want to keep our highly skilled teachers. And I get very emotional too, but this is something I I uh was raised in the Scami County School District. I taught in the school district. It's very important and very passionate about it. Wanted to do

030well and continue on that upward movement. So just like um Mr. Fedsco, I do urge my fellow board members to think about that. Yes, thank you for all the comments and I'll make mine brief as well, but I take it from a different aspect. I've been able to be in the school system as a teacher, a coach, and administrator. And I often told Mr. Leonard that we don't do a good job of telling the public of what a great job we're doing. Uh I can I can tell you we've been cutting our budget uh since I've been in the system. I was administrator for many many years. Every year my budget got cut. Uh and I can remember years ago uh I had 15 custodians. It was cut down to eight for a 36 um

031acre uh facility. We have been cutting and right sizing and doing what's best for years. And so I when I when I ran for this position, I promised I was going to do the best for teachers, administrators, and and ed support workers. Those are my first concerns. Uh the people in district three has confidence in me to vote up or down. Uh and so I listen and I I stand here and vote what I think is best for the ones who actually got to do do the work. I admire what our senior staff has done, but our decisions have a great impact on how hard we make their jobs. It's very difficult for Mr. Saints here to do the job when we don't vote this this budget which is going to affect human resources which

032is going to affect the curriculum which is going to affect operations. Everything else is going up but we want the same type of service for for nothing you know and and also I think some people don't understand how it affects academics. I I worked at a school where the high level math and higher courses probably only had 10 or 12 students in that course. we will lose that possibility of those students taking high level achievements uh courses if we don't do what's right by the budget. It directly affects students. It directly affect uh everything. Uh so I'm voting in favor of the budget and so please vote. Yes. Item items we we vote on item C. Item C is the 2025 2026 millillage required local effort. We've already had a motion and a second and

033we had discussion. I think it's time to vote. Am I correct? We're in order. Uh it's approved 4 to one and chairman I asked Miss Payne to go out to let them know we might be about 5 to 10 minutes over. So take your time and vote as you need. Thank you. Thank you sir. Uh item D, 2025 2026 millillage prior period funding adjustment. Is there a motion? I move to adopt the 2025 2026 prior period funding adjustment of 0.007. Then moved. It's been moved and second. Any discussion hearing? None. Please vote. approved five to zero. Okay, thank you. Item E, the 2025 2026 Millis discretionary operate operating. Is there a motion? I move to adopt the 202526 discretionary operating at 0.748. I'll second. Any discussion? Please vote. approved 5 to zero. Item F 2026,

034Millage Capital Outlay. Is there a motion? I move that we adopt the final adoption of district well F F sorry sorry um final adoption of the millage rates for fiscal year 2025 2026 local capital capital improvement I'll second Mr. Chair any discussion Mr. there. Yes. Yes. For the for the public, this is where the 1.5 mills is. I kind of misfired on that other one. It was a required local effort and that's state requirement there. But, uh, I will be voting on no on FNG. Any more discussion? Hearing none, please vote. Approve 3 to two. Next we have item G 2025 2026 millage total total millage. Is there a mo motion? I move the adopted 2025 2026 total millillage at 5.359. I'll second. Any discussion? Please vote. Approve 3 to two. Item H 2025 2026

035budget general fund. Is there a motion? I adopt the 2025206 general fund budget in the amount of $400,486,66051. I'll second. Any discussion? Yes, I'll be voting no on it. We got salaries that are tied in going back to capital services and stuff. So, I'm going to vote no on general fund. I also will be voting no. Thank you. Please vote. passes 3 to two. Yes. Next, we have item I, 2025 2026, budget, food services. Is there a motion? I move that we adopt the special revenue uh food service budget. I'll second. Any discussion? Please vote. approved five to zero. Uh, next we have item J, the 2025 2026 budget, other federal programs. Is there a motion? I move that we uh uh adopt the special revenue uh budget f for federal programs. I'll second. Any

036discussion? No discussion. Please vote. Approve five to zero. Item K 2025 2026 budget other CR RSA act relief. Is there a motion? I move that we adopt the final adoption of district school budget for fiscal year 2025 2026 special revenue other CR RSA act relief. Second any discussion please vote. Come on up. Hello Wi-Fi. Okay, ma'am. Five to zero. Thank you. Thank you. I believe that brings us to item L. Item L 2025 2026 budget debt services fund. Is there a motion? I move that we adopt the debt service funds budget for the uh 2526 school year. I'll second. Any discussion? Please vote. Five to zero passes. Item M 2025206 uh budget capital projects fund. Is there a motion? I move that we adopt the final adoption of district school budget for fiscal year 2025

0372026 capital projects fund in the amount of 223 million 823 thou,462 class 4 cents and 4 cents. I'll second Mr. Chair. Yes sir. I'll be voting on this tied in that 1.5 millillage. So I'll be voting no on it. Mr. Chairman, I also will be voting no on this because of the 1.5 millillage. Thank you. Um, any more discussion? Please vote. Passes 3 to two. Item N, the 2025 2026 budget internal services. Is there a motion? I'll move to adopt the 2025 2026 internal service in the amount of 57,99,831.50. Any discussion? Please vote. Ma'am passes 4 to one. Thank you. Item O 2025 2026 budget total budget. Is there motion? I move the adoption of the 2025 20226 total budget at 857 million $164,775.73. I'll second. Mr. Chair, any discussion? Mr. there. I would not

038be voting uh with the B total budget with the uh roll back not being used um in the 1.5 being used in the capital millillage. Mr. Chair, House will be voting no on that item. Okay. Thank you. Any more discussion? Please vote. passes 3 to two. Item P, the resolution 2026-03 adopting the revenue and millage rates for 2025 2026. Is there a motion? I move that we adopt the resolution number 20 a resolution determining revenues and millage rates. I'll second. Any discussion? Mr. Chair, I'll be voting no on this item. I also will be voting no on this item. Any more discussion? Please vote. passes 3 to2. Thank you. And the final item, item Q, resolution 2026-04, adopting the final budget for 2025 2026. Is there a motion? I'll move the adoption of the resolution

039for 2026 04. Um the uh resolution adopting the final budget for the fiscal year of 2025 2026. I'll second. Any discussion? Mr. Chair, I'll be voting no on this item. Any more discussion? Please vote. passes three to two. Thank you. Uh this concludes our agenda items. Lad ladies and gentlemen, we are journed. Gentlemen, and welcome as I call to order the September the 2025 meeting of the Escamia County School Board. Whether you're joining us via live stream or in the audience, we appreciate your interest in education of the students of Escamia County. The mission of Escami County Public Schools is provide equal access to quality public education that embraces the uniqueness and potential of each student. We're united in our mission. At this time, I ask that you silage your cell phones, electronic devices. Uh,

040as a reminder, there are two public forum options. There would be a public forum for agenda items only, including the consent agenda and student and employee discipline at the beginning of the meeting and then public forum at the end of the meeting for any items pertaining to school district business or public education. Additionally, if you are speaking to any of the items for public hearing, you will be called to speak during the agenda public forum. If you wish to speak at either of the for forums, you must complete a form located at the back table and bring it to the front to Miss Harris at the front table. If you wish to speak at both forum forums, you must fill out a form for both. All speakers forms must be submitted prior to the start

041of agenda public forum. This meeting was properly advertised in the Pensacola News Journal legal notice number 11583541. It is tradition of the Escami County School Board to begin each meeting with an invocation or a motivational moment followed by the pledge of allegiance. This month, uh we will have Dr. Henry Roberts will serve as our bring invocation. He served for 25 years as senior minister at the first United Methodist Church and then as president and CEO of Sacred Heart Hospital Foundation and since his retirement supporting community organizations and supporting the work of Escambia County School Board. Dr. Henry Roberts. Everyone please stand. Let us pray. Almighty God, thou who art ever present in all that we are and hope to be, accept our prayers in this night of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for our school system and those

042who are our teachers and administrators and workers on the front line of service this and every day. We pray that you will guide us in this meeting and guide us every day using our attitudes and our actions to create a future where our children learn better Ways of living together in security and openly respectful of others. Watch over, we pray thee, the most vulnerable and neediest of our people, and use each of us, we pray thee, in unique ways to serve your divine purposes. Make wise the decisions made in this committee tonight. Hear these our prayers. In your most holy name we pray. Amen. Amen. Please join me 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,

043indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Roberts. At this time, we will move to the adoption of the agenda. Mr. Superintendent, are there any additions or deletions to your recommended agenda? Yes, sir. Just a few. Under section 9, consent curriculum school transformation, item A has been added. Under section 24, consent finance procurement, item H has been added. And then under section 27, consent human resources risk management, item A has been deleted. And item C and item D have been added. Thank you. State statute and schoolboard rules required that changes made to the agenda after publication be based on a finding of good cause determined by the person designated to preside over the meeting and state and stated in the record. Do I have a motion to adopt the agenda? I

044move we adopt the agenda. I'll second. It's been moved and second. Any discussion? Please vote. passing five to zero. Thank you. Moving into committees and departmental reports and special recognition. Mr. Superintendent, we'll start with PTA update. Miss Gamble, thank you for being here tonight and I really enjoyed two Saturdays ago. Had a good time. That was two Saturdays to go. Good evening, superintendent and schoolboard members. Thank you for allowing me time to speak on behalf of PTA and Escambia County. It has been very busy for our PTAs as they kicked off PTA membership month and support for their schools. We are proud of all of our PTA volunteers for their commitment to support our children, families, and schools. If you remember last month, I announced that we were planning to reinstate the MacArthur Elementary PTA.

045We accomplished that on September 4th with an initial 36 members, including MacArthur's very supportive principal, Miss Gilmore. We are grateful for the parents who volunteered to be officers to renew the PTA. We look forward to seeing all the programs and events that the PTA will provide for all the students at MacArthur. And as Superintendent Leonard just mentioned, on September 6th, ECC PTA held our 2025 fall leadership training event at Marcus Point Baptist Church, where a hundred of our parent volunteer PTA leaders and approximately 40 community leaders spent the day networking, learning about running a nonprofit, and interacting with businesses and organizations that will help them have a successful PTA year. Thank you to Superintendent Leonard and District 5 board member Mr. Harold for attending our event and sharing words of encouragement for all of our

046parent volunteers. We were also honored to host the Florida PTA president-elect Jude Bruno and Florida PTA's vice president of regions and councils Shelley Padza who assisted in the training and brought greetings from Florida PTA. It was the first trip for Mr. Bruno and he commented that he was very impressed with the Escambia County Schools as represented by the parent volunteers and he would most definitely be coming back. We would be remiss if we did not thank our event sponsor Walmart's Neighborhood Market 4357 which is located on Mobile Highway for their support of this event. Manager Kim Walker attended the event sharing the different ways Walmart supports our schools and families. Additional sponsors include Freddy's frozen custard custard and hamburgers um the high foundation infree the Pensacola chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution Code

047Ninjas Skater Choice Dreamland the Mahoney team of Keller Williams Realy PJ's coffee okconor McDonald's and Domino's Pizza we have a lot of support in the community we are grateful for each of their support from these businesses and organizations. PTA is continuing to grow in Escambia County. We currently have over 2500 members, which is quickly closing in on last year's total of just over 300 members. We now have 31 active PTAs and on September 23rd, we are planning to activate our 32nd as we reinstate the Pine Forest High School PTSA. We have a group of interested parents and teachers along with principal Miss Mc Mhaney who is excited to have a PTSA at the school. I look forward to bringing back the news of that reinstatement next month. We want to thank all of you for

048supporting PTA in Escambia County, allowing us to be vital partners in our schools, fostering collaboration between our parents and educators to enrich the educational experience and help create supportive learning environments for all our students. Thank you for this time. Thank you. Thanks for our recognition of student achievement. Yes, sir. We're going to ask all the board members to come to the front of the dis the maximum going to do the honor. [Music] Jackson Albano. [Applause] Dling Butler. [Applause] Lydia Coward. [Applause] Donald Crawford III. [Applause] Skyler Depri [Applause] [Music] Abigail Fuches. [Applause] Skyler Gibbons. [Applause] Jackson Helmig. [Applause] My kind of guy. My kind of guy. Reagan Hillis, [Applause] Garrett Johnson, [Applause] Nathan Johnson. [Applause] [Music] Lucille Kennedy [Applause] Aaron Larson. [Applause] Delia Marshall. Oh, [Applause] you Kirby Mcool [Applause] Harper, Miss you. Bradley Nelson. [Applause]

049Ava Pope. Ryan Rogers. [Applause] Christopher Shy. [Applause] and Connor Stewart. [Applause] If we have any students that we missed. Didn't fail to call any names. Good. [Applause] I did [Music] I did not change. [Music] I'm in [Music] for a long time. You know what? [Music] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here. Friday's our last day. Oh, I forget. Whereas National Bullying Prevention Month is observed during the month of October and its goal is to encourage schools and communities to work together to stop all forms of bullying, cyber bullying, harassment, discrimination, and put an end to hatred and racism by increasing awareness of the commonness and impact of all forms of bullying. And whereas students who experience bully experience bullying are at an increased risk for depression, anxiety, lower academic achievement levels, misuse of drugs and alcohol, and sleep

050difficulties. Bullied students indicate that bullying negatively affects self-confidence, relationships with friends and family and physical health. And whereas more than half of bullying situations stop when a peer intervenes on behalf of the student being bullied. And labeling an incident as bullying can be important because it influences whether students tell a trusted adult as well as how adults respond to the students report. And whereas students who are repeatedly bullied often fear such activities as riding the bus, going to school, and attending school, and community activities. And whereas Escambia County Public Schools supports board policy on anti-bullying to encourage positive behaviors in creating and maintaining a safe line learning and working environment for all students and to protect all students from all forms of bullying, harassment, hazing, discrimination, or intimidation for any reason. Resources are available for

051students in the community on the ECSD website under alternative education. And whereas Escambia County Public School remains committed to equity and offering support to schools and districts regardless of their students abilities and/or disabilities, ECPS works diligently to assess the implementation of bullying prevention efforts and positive behavior supports throughout the county. And now therefore, be it resolved that the school board of Escambia County, Florida, does hereby recognize the month of October 2025 as National Bullying Prevention Month, with the intention that the issue of bullying and its prevention be discussed by the Escambia County Public Schools and Learning Environments, and to encourage organizations to share information about their bullying prevention resources. ECPS will work with a broad spectrum of local community partners, parents, students, teachers, and staff to develop, implement, and monitor programs that foster and support

052a positive school climate free from bullying, harassment, discrimination, and violence. Be it further resolved that a copy of this proclamation be spread upon the minutes of the regular meeting of said board, and a copy be tendered to Connie Ferish and Sabrina Cunningham, directors of elementary schools, Dr. Michael Roberts, director of middle schools, Mrs. Lisa Morgan, director of high schools, and Miss Carrie Coots, director of alternative education, adopted this 16th day of September, 2025. Whereas alcohol and other drug abuse in this nation has reached epidemic stages. And whereas it is imperative that visible unified prevention education efforts by community members be launched to eliminate the demand for drugs. And whereas the National Family Partnership is sponsoring the Florida Red Ribbon Campaign offering citizens the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to drug-free lifestyles, no use of illegal

053drugs, no illegal use of legal drugs. And whereas the national ribbon red ribbon campaign will be celebrated in every community in America during red ribbon week. And whereas business, government, parents, law enforcement, media, medical, religious institutions, schools, senior citizens, service organizations, and youth will renew their commitment to healthy drug-free lifestyles. And whereas schools and school districts throughout the country along with the national programs are among those with innovative answers. And whereas the state of Florida and the school district of Escambia County commits its resources to ensure the success of the red ribbon campaign and the national theme, life is a puzzle. Solve it drug-free. This theme emphasizes how positive choices contribute to a brighter drugfree future, much like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Now therefore, be it resolved that the school board of

054Escambia County, Florida, does hereby recognize the week of October 23rd through 31st, 2025 as Red Ribbon Week and encourages it staff and students to participate in drugreion education activities, making a visible statement that we are strongly committed to a drug-free school district. Be it further resolved that a copy of this proclamation be spread upon the minutes of the regular meeting of said board, and a copy be tendered to Mrs. Connie Ferish and Mrs. Sabrina Cunningham, directors of elementary schools. Dr. Michael Roberts, director of middle schools, Mrs. Lisa Morgan, director of high schools, and Miss Carrie Coots, director of alternative education, adopted this 16th day of September, 2025. Thank you board for recognizing both of these proclamations for National Bullying Prevention Month and for Red Ribbon Week. It reminds our community that we as a district

055stand committed to help our students make healthy choices and live um healthy lifestyles. It also reminds our community that um we as a district want to provide a safe and caring environment for all of our students. Tonight I have with me um a lady that you've met years ago, well a few years ago, Miss Stephanie Shephard with Hope Above Fear. I remember sitting in this boardroom, the first time that Stephanie spoke at a board meeting and shared her story about um her passion for working with our community and um substance use and and I remember how it touched me and I am thrilled tonight to say that with Stephanie's help and her board one of her board members here, Miss Lindsay Feist, We will be um growing our partnership with Hope Above Fear to provide

056our students and our parents resources to um combat the the issue of drug use in our schools and community. Thank you very much. a resolution designating the first two weeks in October of every year as disability history and awareness weeks and supporting our schools to provide instruction on disability history, people with disabilities, and the disability rights movement. Whereas there are approximately 480,482 students with disabilities in Florida's K12 education system and approximately 6,236 students with disabilities in Escambia County. Whereas research has shown that students with disabilities experience greater academic and social challenges than non-disabled students. And whereas the Escambia County School District finds that in order to ensure the full inclusion of all people into society, there is a need to increase public awareness of the history of disabilities and the disabilities right movement. And whereas

057the Escambia County School District finds that recognizing October as disability history and awareness month and supporting schools to include instruction and events focusing on disability history, people with disabilities and the disabilities right movement will increase respect for and acceptance of people with disabilities. Now therefore, be it resolved that the school board of the Escambia County, Florida of Escambia County, Florida, does hereby observe the first two weeks of Esca of October as disability history and awareness weeks. Be it further resolved that a copy of this proclamation be spread upon the minutes of the regular meeting of said board and that a copy be tendered to Mrs. Sandre Hill, director, exceptional student education, adopted this 16th day of September, 2025. [Music] We will now begin agenda public forum. All forms must be submitted at this time. The

058purpose of of agenda public forum is to allow members of the public to address the school board regarding any items on tonight's agenda, including items for public hearing. Speakers must adhere to the guidelines outlined in the policy and posted on the agenda. You are expected to be respectful in your address to the board. You're also asked to use titles and not individual names. Personal tax against schoolboard members, superintendent, staff, employees will not be tolerated. Please direct your comments to the chair. Personal attacks against other speakers and outbursts during another speaker's time will also not be tolerated. If you fail to follow these guidelines, you'll be warned by the chair and subject to removal if violations continue. Each speaker will be allotted three minutes. Miss Odin will serve as our parliamentarian. Miss Boswell as the timekeeper

059will start the timer with your opening uh remarks. Your buzzer will sound when your time has elapsed. When a time timer sounds, please bring your comments to a close. Our first speaker, Mr. Larry DS, you have six minutes. Larry DS Junior Plummet LLC because vehicle matters. I'm just trying to get some practice. Hey, uh what is this one on public forum? No, no, this is just this is just for agenda items. Yeah. Yeah. What was the agenda item? Oh, then I get to pick. I get to pick. No. Okay. Okay. Anyways, uh well, I get to talk on anything I want, right? Is that right? No, Mr. Downs, at this time, you could talk to an item on the agenda. So, any item on the agenda that you've registered to address. Hold on. Hold on.

060It wasn't I might have called him wrong. That might have been my mistake. I called I used a white phone. We Yeah. Yeah. No, Mr. Downs. We're not to that point. We're not in public form. Okay. We're on agenda items. My mistake. All right. No problem. Mhm. I've made one. Okay. Okay. My mistake. Mr. Bo Bowie Buoie, I'm sorry. Main, you have three minutes. Well, I'm here to absolutely commend you. As I understand it, you are looking at uh disbanding the book review committee, which uh the last time I was here in May, we had discussed how it had some problems. Uh and I I sat down uh and worked out some of those problems. But since then, I have not been notified is that I am on the book review committee, but I have

061not been notified of any more book reviews. Uh, and I guess they were disbanded over the summer or I got replaced with someone else. Either way, uh, I never heard back from any inquiries whether or not the book reviews were still going on. But the problem with the book reviews is they're very one-sided. uh because of of the equivalent of jury nullification. You have the uh the three people from the school board or from the school district and then you have four or five people depending on what shows up from each of the district, one person from each district. And at the end of the the day, regardless of what's in the book, I believe we only had one book that got disqualified. Even though that there's a lot of very bad language in a

062lot of these books, and they do uh enter into sexual cussing, I mean, just you you name it. These books really don't belong in the public school. I'm not, you know, they they they can be available with the parents consent and such, but if I understand it correctly and you are going to let the superintendent make the decision on on the number of books because we have way more than what we're going to be able to go through and filter through and read. So, I'm here to commend you if this is the decision being made that you really do need to disband the book review committee. It's it's dysfunctional and it's basically jury nullification. You have multiple people uh uh people that are sitting on multiple reviews uh which is unfair and and and I

063know this is particularly the case uh in some of the reviews in which I sat on. But anyway, I I just want to commend you. I hope that is the decision we're looking forward to and that we can get away from the book reviews. There's way too many books that can be decided and filtered out. So, thank you for your time and I appreciate uh your attention. Thank you. And now, Mr. DS, we have you for three minutes for agenda item only. Books. There we go. I caught back up. All right. Uh yeah, I I I would like for y'all to uh you know, I I I agree with him, but I do like jur jury nullification, but only in jury trials, though. Not not with these books. I even go every now and then

064down to the courthouse and kind of preach about jury nullification. Uh cuz we got too many laws in this country. Uh but anyways, yeah, there shouldn't I don't know how what kind of process y'all can do, but just any books like what we've been through the past three years, that's just ridiculous. I mean, there should be some way to say, "Hey, librarian, whoever's over her, whoever's over her, and then to the superintendent, uh you know, if it's got sexually explicit material in it, don't buy it. I don't want my money uh providing any type of material like that to children even if it's on a optin basis because it's kind of like those you know that's actually I mean just think think about that I mean what what is that adding to the academic excellence

065of the kids you know I mean give them some trades books to look at you know we need some we need some tradesmen we don't need them to be uh uh to be experts at pornographic sexually explicit materials. That's not going to help them in their life. But I heard everybody come up here for, you know, for probably close to two years straight telling you how great the students are going to be if they just have this, you know, this uh this this pornographic material. How How can you How can you wrap that justify that in your own head? That's it's I didn't have it. Y'all didn't have it. Y'all seem to have turned out okay. you know, I mean, I don't want to I don't want to, you know, project I don't want to

066project anything on y'all, but y'all seem to have turned out all right without some books teaching you how to do uh, you know, dirty nasty things or how to uh or how to how to become gender confused or, you know, or confuse you on your sexuality or whatever. Just don't do it. uh get get rid of whatever whatever purchasing agent whatever y'all have there should be some key words and and any I mean with with AI now y'all should be able to do that easily. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next um Mr. Mickey Price you have three minutes. seem to always follow Larry. The hard act to follow. Mr. Chairman, board members, and superintendent, my name is Mickey Price. I'm a member of Marcus Point Baptist Church and a member of Micah 68, and

067also I live in district 3, Mr. Williams district. The book committees are not working. I have served on two committees. The first lasted four months and we only reviewed one book and um it just nobody could meet and it was just a waste of time. The last committee I served on reviewed two books. I had no issues leaving the first book in 11th and 12th grade only. No issues at all. The second book, Girl in Pieces, is pure evil. I had a hard time reading it. Um, the book had adult minor relationship, a 30-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl. It is loaded with mental illness, rape, self harm, sexual assault, violence, suicide, suicidal thoughts, trafficking, suicide attempts, and other toxic relationships. I read portions of the book a couple months ago. I thought this book

068was a slam dunk to be removed. I was wrong. Our committee, as all the committees, had a teacher, an administrator, and a media specialist. Our administrator was a principal of a high school. Highly recommended high school principal. The school employees will not go against the will of the media specialist. They just won't will not do it. The results of these committees don't really mirror that of the community. They hardly ever vote a book out. This girl, this book, Girl in Pieces, is harmful for all ages. It was harmful for me to read it, and I don't want to read any more of these books, and I will not be on another committee. It is harmful, and I will not do it. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:22, "Abstain from all appearance of evil. This

069book is evil. Save the money. Do the next right thing. Ditch the committees." And how many books do we have in the libraries? Hundreds of thousands of books. And we're talking about getting rid of 250. Let's do the right thing and get rid of the books. Thank you. Next speaker is Aaron Tola. You have six minutes. You had three minutes donated from Alicia Mo Moses. Can you raise your hand? Okay. Thank you. Good evening. Uh my name is Aaron Toller and I'm here this evening to talk about books. Uh before I get into that though, I just want to tell you all a bit about myself because I think the context matters. I have a long history with this school district. I uh started school at Lipkcom Elementary in 1995. I graduated from Tate High

070School in 2008. I student taught at Fairy Pass Middle School in Escambia High School. I subbed all over this district and I served as the band director at Woodam Middle School from 2014 to 2017. So, I've seen this district from many different perspectives. Now, when I was growing up, my parents instilled in me strong uh strong values rooted in Christianity and conservatism. And they would have a difficult time drawing a border between the two. As a result of that, among many other things, uh there was no queer propaganda in my life growing up. The only propaganda in my life was exclusively cisgender and heterosexual. And so I'm sure you can imagine how difficult it was about three years ago when I had to come out to my family and the rest of the world as

071transgender. Amazing, isn't it, that someone with that pedigree could turn out to be queer. But that's the thing about it is that I was queer from the day I was born. I just didn't understand it. I knew that I had these feelings that made me different and other. But the real thing that I was scared of is that I would lose everything if the world ever saw the real me. I'd lose my family, my friends. I would be unloved and unlovable and unworthy of love. And so I buried those feelings deep inside me for a third of a century. and they sat and festered into depression, anxiety, self-loathing, and thoughts of suicide. I should be clear though, I never actually attempted suicide because I'm one of the lucky ones. Let's talk about books. Let's specifically

072start with the board's decision over the summer to ban over 400 books from our schools without review. a disproportionate number of which elevated queer identities and history along with those of many other disproportionately uh suppressed minorities. Little me would have given anything to get my hands on some of those books to finally feel seen and heard and represented to begin to understand myself. See, when I was growing up, we didn't have queer characters in books and movies and TV. or if we did, they were there only to be ridiculed, never aspired to. Now, I'm not about to claim that queer kids today have it easy growing up, but at least they have that representation, that lifeline. Well, they did, and then you voted to take it away from them. Banning books is wrong. Censorship is

073wrong. And I should not have to explain that because history has shown us time and time again that the people banning books are the bad guys. And how there are adults in this room who haven't yet learned that lesson is beyond me. You know, you try to claim that all you're saying is that these books are inappropriate for school. But the message goes further than that. You're really saying they are unfit for public consumption and that they have no value in our society. And that would be bad enough if it stopped there. But it goes even further the second you start thinking about the students who see themselves in these books because the message you're saying to them loud and clear is that you are inappropriate for school. You are unfit for public consumption. You

074have no value in our society. You ought to be shoved in a box and stashed away in a cold, dark warehouse where we can leave you to sit and rot. As duly elected members of this board, you took a solemn vow, a most sacred oath to protect and promote the best interest and well-being of our most valuable assets, our students. But you've abdicated that duty and instead have opted to engage in this political theater. And it is wrong and it is shameful. But you can correct course. You can write your wrongs. You can begin to undo some of the damage you've done by rescending your bans and returning these books to our schools where they belong. By refusing to engage in further censorship efforts and by issuing a well-deserved apology to the students you've harmed.

075And I sincerely hope that you will. But in closing tonight, I've got a message of my own for those students in the meantime. And I sincerely hope that every last one of them has the opportunity to hear it. That message is this. I see you and I hear you and I value you because you are valuable. You are loved and you are lovable and you are worthy of that love and no one can take that away from you. I promise you that as long as I and people like me are drawing breath on this earth that we will never stop fighting for you. Thank you. We have uh next we have Pam Swatch. We have six minutes. Three minutes donated by Barbara Beck. Thank you. I'm very moved by those last remarks because I am

076a public school product. My children are public school products and I have transgender grandchildren, friends, and other family members who are of the LGBT community. And they are lovable, intelligent, productive citizens of this world. And it makes me very sad when I know that today is National Voter Registration Day. It makes me very sad that tomorrow is the day we're supposed to celebrate the signing of the Constitution of the United States of America. And it makes me very sad to hear the beautiful resolution about this National Bullying Prevention Month. to know that my government is governing this country by bullying tactics, fear, and intimidation and has changed our Department of Defense to Department of War. is turning allies internationally into adversaries with confusing policies that are partisan and keep changing and keep even our citizens

077with culture wars with trade wars that are harming American citizens, much less policies that are dehumanizing human beings with families. that you have the immigration control enforcement people chasing hardworking farm migrants across fields and they live in fear and intimidation of what's going to happen to them, their children and their families. I am very sad about the state of my government when this constitution is being violated and the preamble that says we the people that I must have been very naive to have believed that my American dream accomplishment meant all of the people and I was very proud to live in a country that I only welcomed immigrants I thought with the Statue of Liberty with the promise of life, liberty, and justice for all and the hope of pursuing happiness and the way that

078God created them to develop their full potential as human beings. And now we are dehumanizing people and we are violating the checks and balances that our founders set up in this constitution that we're supposed to celebrate tomorrow. We are having a government by executive power and our Congress has abdicated their responsibilities which is keeping our country confused and in chaos because human beings cannot afford housing. They can't afford to put food on the table. And we need to live united one nation under God who created the beautiful biodiversity of this earth. And yet we have a governor and a president who say Miss Schwarz, this is this is agenda forum. We're speaking to items on the and these policies that you keep changing whether it's book banning. Florida leads the nation in book banning. Books

079don't socialize and sexualize children. as the National Rifle Association says, for people defending the Second Amendment to have their rights to carry guns, and we have more guns than any other country and the freedom to carry them in this country and the sad things going on. I'm going to say books don't sexualize children. And yet you are spending time and money stressing our media specialists and our teachers telling our teachers they have to remove their personal libraries from their classrooms when they don't get enough money for adequate resources. many times and your time and attention. This for the number of years that we've been up here defending it against the extreme left, the extreme right. And we can't come together and agree that we should have academic freedom, freedom to read, freedom to live our

080lives as we believe God created us. And that makes me very sad. the lawsuits when you are changing your own policies, insulting our community citizens. And we have many more community people that are the silent and majority who don't know the policies that you keep changing when you don't like them. And you're putting elected superintendent back on the ballot in a primary election so that fewer people have access to vote. What about the no political affiliation people that are registered and these closed primaries where we have few enough people come out and participate in their right to vote already and our government's making it more difficult to register to vote having to prove could you please constrain your comments to the item on the agenda which is and I am saying your constantly changing policies

081from the time I taught until this day keeps us straight stressed, confused, and not able to focus on helping all of our children become the best that they can be. It's not the books. It's the people that are dividing this country, one against the other and taking away through censorship and dictatorship, all people's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hope you'll remember that school is more than memory work. It's a way of living. It's learning to cooperate by sharing, helping, giving. And I hope you will check the biatitudes. That's time. Thank you. Uh next we have uh Rich Honeck. You have three minutes. Okay, one more time, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Mr. Superintendent, Miss ODM. Um, again, Mr. Rep from District 1, this is a good motion that will

082streamline the book review process to ensure compliance with Florida statute. This is what it's about. We are a nation of laws uh and we have statutes that say certain things uh and we're required to comply with those statutes. In fact, you're the ones right up here, the five elected members of the school board who collectively represent the community standard for Escambia County. You're the ones that will be held responsible for ensuring compliance with Florida statute. Again, I no need to re really remind you. We have a nononsense attorney general. We have a nononsense education commissioner. They've given very strict guidance about what can and cannot be in our uh our school classrooms and libraries. In fact, they've flat out said that the libraries should uh have the same standard as the classroom. And that would

083include things like below high school level in in elementary and middle school. There should no be no discussion of gender fluidity, sexual orientation, um transgender, you know, options and things like this. Teach the kids in the elementary middle in middle schools. The statute says that that kind of discussion should not be um should not be involved in the education of elementary and middle school kids. you know, the high school level. You guys can discuss what's appropriate for the AP kids and the dual enrollment kids. That's another story. But it's about it's about complying with Florida statute. And concerning these book review committees, uh again, District 2, you are correct. They have not been uh they have not served us well. They've not served the kids well from district 5. They're not working. They're cumbersome. They're

084costly. They've been ineffective. And we need better accountability. Yes, community input is important. Do it on the front end, like I said at the workshop. Get members of the community to help these media specialists identify the stuff that's not appropriate, the obscene, pornographic, sexually explicit, agent appropriate stuff, identify it on the procurement end, keep it out because it's much harder to remove it once it's on the shelves. So again, I applaud everything you've been doing. We've been making great strides uh in recent months. I applaud your collective efforts, but you five are going to be held responsible. And again, the AG is not messing around. It's a good motion. I encourage you to support it. Thank you. Thank you. Next, u next speaker is Miss Linda Fossil. You have three minutes. Okay. Good evening. Um,

085I want to say first that I do find it astonishing that this board with four former educators on it would rather listen to one objector than the five citizen members of each book review committee. And I have a letter from the National Coalition Against Censorship sent to you all today that I would like to read. Dear members of the school board, the National Coalition Against Censorship is an alliance of national nonprofit groups dedicated to protecting freedom of expression, including the rights of K through2 students, teachers, staff. We are writing to express our concern over proposed revisions to the schoolboard policy manual on challenge materials. As we understand it, the suggested changes to policy 2522 would give the superintendent the unilateral authority to review challenge materials and make recommendations to the school board. Furthermore, the proposal

086eliminates the option to convene a review committee to assess any objections to materials used in classrooms and libraries. We are concerned that shifting the power of committee appointments to the superintendent and amending your current robust policy for review committees will fail to ensure a representative sampling of the school community including experts on age appropriate curricular value. Should you amend your policy, we urge you to ensure that the review committee continues to include the views of all stakeholders. In addition to better serving the Escambia community, a diverse committee which will assess the challenge book as a whole will help insulate the district against claims of viewpointbased discrimination in book removals which are prohibited by the First Amendment. Book challenges are often highly contentious and emotional and the district's existing regulations are crafted to ensure that all

087parties feel that they have been represented and respected and also to ensure that decisions are made on objective criteria which focus on the needs of students. For example, policy 2522 provides that a review committee will consist of five community members, one media specialist, one teacher, and one school administrator. It outlines a clear criteria for the committee to follow and states that material should not be removed from circulation before the committee makes a decision. This policy is eviscerated by a single administrator substituting his or her opinion for the deliberations of a committee that represents all members of the school community. Administrators are often inclined to dislike books that cause controversy and are therefore more likely to call for their removal than a committee, which weighs their literary, artistic, and political value for students. And such removals

088based on controversy and without thorough consideration of a book's educational value risk violating the First Amendment. We ask you to revisit your policy and ensure that all challenge books are reviewed by a review committee. Thank you very much. This concludes our agenda public forum. We'll now move into the adoption of the minutes. Item A, August 14th, regular workshop. Here, I move the adoption of the minutes for August 14th, 2025, regular workshop, 1 p.m. I'll second. A second motion and second in discussion. No discussion, please vote. Approve five to zero. Item B, August 19th regular meeting. I'll move the minutes. I'll second it. So moved and second. Any discussion? Please vote. Move five to zero. Thank you. We have two items for first read and advertising tonight. Item A, policy 2520, selection and adoption of instructional

089materials. I move that we uh uh list these items for first reading and advertisement. A second. That's 2520. Sorry. Okay. 2520. Yes. Okay. Uh there's a motion and second. Any discussion? Please vote. approve five to zero. It's not showing up on the screen. So, yes, Cruz is giving me the response. Item B, policy 2522, challenges to instructional library and reading list materials. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. I'm going to make the uh motion to approve the policy draft that includes um eliminate citizen Facebook committee. I'll second that motion. Moved and second. Any discussion, Mr. Chair? Yes. Um as I stay at the workshop, I gave each one of y'all a statement from Judge Witherall. uh as you some of your new guys weren't here when we were going way back trying to do it but he

090was concerned about the slow pace of how this is working out and stated that you did not have to have these citizen book committees. I think this will help expedite that process. It also um some of the board members want to have more accountability in the process. we will have that accountability with the the employees because it can't be a a routing back and forth to prove a book that this attorney general is going to say no you can't cap you know so uh so I think this will streamline move the process as they want us to move along so appreciate any support I get any more discussion miss ODM can you clarify make sure I was just going I was just going to um point out that there are two drafts um and the

091board is deciding which to advertise. Um the one that Mr. Adams has proposed is the second one with the longer the longer title. Um I'm really pleased with both of these from the standpoint of where we started with this two months ago to where we are today. I think it's going to make a difference in the processes that we have in place. I think it's going to uh streamline things. It's going to give the superintendent some opportunities to move things along as well. Uh I think it's uh uh it's good and it's good what we're doing. Okay. Thank you. Yes, Ala going to be in support of this. This is unprecedented. Florida and the scammy counties had a lot of books, a lot of challenges and with the committees, it's slowing the prices down and

092that hinders children being able to read, parents being able to read with their children and we want to invite our parents to read. I uh invite our constituents cuz I know we uh were looking at maybe streamlining them, but I would like to invite them. If there's a specific book title with specific information, please let one of us know and we will be sure the superintendent gets that information. But at this time, I am going to be in support of removing the committees because we need to look at expediting this process. Miss Fesco. All right. I'll I'll vote. So I don't announcing everything before we do it is kind of redundant. Mhm. Yeah. I got you, Miss Odin. And just just for clarification, a vote yes means that we're doing away with. No, we're just

093advertising the proposed policy. Okay. All right. Thank you. Committed. Yes. Yeah. Okay, please vote. Mr. Marians, while we're waiting, please passes five to zero. Uh, point of order. While we're on this, we were talking at the workshop about uh books that uh that the schools are needing and so forth, and maybe Mr. L can give us an update on that and where if if he feels comfortable with that. Yeah. Yes. Oh, you put you you want to go ahead and answer that? Yeah. I don't I don't believe u as long as we have things in place to where it's u media specialist and the school principal, our coordinator of media services are comfortable with the purchase of those. I think it was around 700 800 elementary books, we'll go ahead and do so once those

094things are in place. Um, I think that's only fair. I think it's protected by you. I think it's insightful on my part to do that as well. And it helps our kids, which is what we're really all about. So, that's where we are on that. Um, I appreciate Mr. Harold asking me to talk to you a little bit about he did ask me that I felt like I feel as though we would need a motion. I don't. I feel very comfortable doing what you've entrusted me to do. So, appreciate it. Mr. Williams, I'd like to make one one last comment. I'm very pleased with the accountability as aspect of it. I was talking to the superintendent about the process that we would go through and he's had district staff looking at that. I'm very comfortable

095with that uh uh that uh the media specialist would check off on it, you know, and sign and so would the coordinator of media services. And I think that accountability aspect is so important so that we do not let some of these books drift that are aren't appropriate drift back into our media centers. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. This brings us to the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. I'll second. So moved and second. Are there any items to be pulled? curriculum, finance, human resources, operations, superintendent, including student employee discipline. Please vote on the consent agenda. passes five to zero. Thank you. Last we have items from the superintendent. Item A, ECPS foundation board of directors. Move the item. I'll second. There's a move to second in discussion.

096No discussion. Please vote. Passes five to zero. We will now move. Not we will now begin public public forum. The purpose of public form is to allow members of the public to address the school board on any matter regarding education and administration of our schools. In this setting, we as board members are not compelled to answer questions or respond to you and typically will not engage in back and forth dialogue in this venue. However, this board and superintendent will note your contact information for response if appropriate. As always, we invite you to contact any of us by phone and email for followup. Our meeting times and locations are posted on the Escamia County School District website. Speakers must adhere to the guidelines outlined in the policy and posted on the agenda. You're expected to be

097respectful and to address the board. You'll always be asked to use titles and not individual names. Personal attacks against schoolboard members, superintendent, staff, employees will not be tolerated. Please direct your comments to the chair. Personal attacks against other speakers and outbursts during another speaker's time will also not be tolerated. If you fail to follow the guidelines, you'll be warned by the chair and subject to removal if violations continue. Each speaker is allotted 3 minutes. Mrs. OD, Mr. Parliamentarian, Miss Buzzwell as our timekeeper will start the timer with your opening remarks. The buzzer will sound when your time elaps. When the timer sounds, please bring your comments to a close. The first speaker is Mr. Larry DS. You have six minutes. And you had three minutes donated, I believe, from Kevin Herring. Okay. Thank you. Thank

098you much, Larry DS Jr. I got enough practice. All right. Uh in uh today's paper, it's interesting. See, I I keep get to bring all these uh the corporate chemical vaccine injections up because they're still in the paper. And then I want y'all to know that there is a misinformation at that table back there. Uh there's a there's a a box of mask for it says on it for dust and pollen. I don't see any dust or pollen in here. So, I don't know who put those masks, but that's misinformation. It was at the time submicroscopic virus is less than a micron and the best I95 mask can't even stop a can't even stop anything smaller than a three micron. So even two masks like Alex Fauci said was ridiculous misinformation disinformation. So anyways uh

099I mean if I'm paying for those masks that's ridiculous. It's a dust and pollen mask. Uh anyways, in today's paper, Tuesday, September 16th, 2025, Florida doctors fighting back on state plan on vaccines. They're fighting back against our Florida Surgeon General. It's so weird. I mean, something is messing up the hormones and our little babies. And ain't nothing been increased more and more vaccine injections. It's It's evident. It's clear and evident at this point. I mean, even the books, even the books. I mean, they there's books available everywhere. Everybody's got a a $1,000 uh, you know, some type of electronic device or more. They can pull up any, you know, gender feelings they want to pull up. We don't have to pay for that. That's something that they're not being denied. This is not book banning.

100This is not book burning. Anybody can get these books. I just don't think that we should be wasting our time and our money dealing with sexually explicit books, no matter what. If it's gender affirming care, I don't care what it is. That's not y'all's job. Y'all's job should not be to provide uh materials that are sexually explicit in any manner. Just that's just what I'm saying. Uh, another thing too, I know that y'all voted, you know, in district five. I'm disappointed. You said you weren't going to vote for that that tax increase, but you changed your mind after hearing a few few of them. It do what? Oh, you did? Oh, well, it said yes up there. Yeah, on the screen it did. I I zoomed in on it. So, anyways, I apologize. Uh, I'm

101glad you did vote no. At least it's night lock step. All right. Uh, anyways, just to give y'all an idea on the vaccine uh mandates that are in in place now, there's nothing going to change other than we don't have to nobody has to go and get a a uh exemption from the health department. Right now, any kid in this school, they don't have to get vaccines. they can just go to the health department and get a vaccine exemption. But most of them don't know that. Even uh you know Jeff Bgosh came on my my podcast mission.com and after serving on this board eight years he sat right beside me and we talked about vaccines also and he said well you have to get them to go to school. Now if somebody who served on

102this board doesn't know and I said no no they don't have to. they can get an exemption. He said, "No, no. If they go to the public school, they got to get it. If somebody who serves on this board don't know, how are the parents in this community supposed to know?" They think that they automatically have to get them. And that should that should not be uh the default setting. Default setting should be school district should be out of medical procedures, period. So, if y'all do have an opportunity, if y'all have any way to to contact, you know, anybody who is who's going to be running this program, which I know they they have dates in here for the for a workshop up in Tallahassee, and I'm going to go to that. Uh, but as

103of right now, I'm hoping that y'all at least stop sending out letters telling parents that their children aren't up to date. I don't even know how y'all would even know that without diving into their medical records. I don't think y'all should be diving into students medical records to even know if they're up to date or not. That's that's supposed to be private between a doctor and a and a patient, parent, doctor, patient, child. That shouldn't be y'all's business. I'm not saying just y'all. I'm talking about the whole school district, the whole state, and the whole country for that matter. So, you know, I hate to be the one who keeps bringing it up, but they're in here. I mean, it's just it's it's it's just amazing. I wished I could I wish I could read

104I call this the propaganda pages. There's a lot of propaganda in there. So, anyways, uh also, you know, Charlie Kirk got assassinated. Some people don't like him, some people do. but to exercise our like I'm doing right here, freedom of speech, and you get assassinated. I've been threatened uh to to you know, I've been my life's been threatened a few times in and in in just a 24-hour period. It's uh it's not right. We need to get away from this. So, anyways, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Buoie. You have three minutes. Oh, still not scared. Mr. Bow, you have three minutes. Uh thank you all and I appreciate the open forums and the ability to to speak uh genuinely with you. Uh I read this article in the news journal of Scambia schools add health

105services but it wasn't clear whether the health services are children accompanied with their parents to get the health services. Right now there's a big mixup with all all of our our our health. What what is good? What is bad? And and until we get this sorted out, we don't need to be I I don't know if this is a fishing expedition because sometimes the school children are are said, "Well, what's life like at home?" That's not our purpose here. If we have something that that uh we're going to be implementing and and it's uh with the Scambia Children's Trust and it's got to do with the kids, it also has to do with the parents. So, this is where I'm not clear from the article. I don't know. But I want you to use discretion

106before you turn the kids loose on something to do with their health. This is where parents need to be involved. Just like with the books, the parents need to be involved. Uh, and and I just I I see this the schools are getting away from the prime objective of teaching the real skills that we need from our children. I mean, you right now we we've got people that graduate high school, go to work in retail, you give them a they give you a bill for $18.32 uh and you give them a 20, they can't count the change back. That's fundamentally wrong in what the purpose of the school is. So, I mean, I I love public school. My kids are all educated through public schools. My daughter went through the IB program very successfully. Um,

107my son uh my youngest son went went to the uh technical high school. He's also very successful. I mean, I'm I'm one lucky proud parent, but uh we've got to keep the schools on target with the prime objective. uh you know and and let me say too I I just want to give uh Paul Fesco some acclimates because he he's in a tough position having to defend the budget the way he did and I don't want to spend any more money than I have to and I don't want it to be on property taxes but he was spot on and I worked with him getting him reelected to that position and I will again in the future and the same with Kevin Adams. uh we need to have a knuckled down uh job in the

108schools and and sometimes I think we're just getting spread a little bit too thin. A little more concentration on the education. I don't know what the health needs are in this. This is very confusing, not well written. But again, we could use more English uh skills taught in schools. Thank you, Mr. Mickey Price. You have three minutes. I didn't have to follow Larry this time. So, this is going to be kind of random. So, um I again, thank you for what you do. And uh my granddaughter that goes to Booker T. Washington wanted me to suggest some things uh for the students. Uh she would like a 3-day week. Um, she wants shorter days and she wants a mandatory nap. So, um, if y'all could help me out with that, I surely appreciate it. Um,

109the Bible says in Micah Micah 6:8, "He has shown you, oh man, what is good and what does our Lord require of you? But do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." Psalms 46:1 that Charlie Kirk's wife um posted before he got shot. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. We live in a deeply divided country. Um the day after Charlie Kerr got shot, uh we I had this discussion with my my 16-year-old granddaughter. She goes to school. She text me and said that uh the kids were laughing about him being shot. Um I you know I just I it hurt me. It makes me mad that somebody that would would be shot for his Christian faith and also free speech. Um I thank God for

110my salvation. And um Terry, our schools don't need more money, they need more Jesus. Thank you. Next we have Leah Eubanks. You have six minutes, three minutes donated from Hannah Torino. Yes. Good evening. My name is Leanne Eubanks. I teach a US history at Escambia High School. I've been teaching for almost 30 years, 14 of them in this county. I'm certified in social studies 6 through 12, as well as math, language arts, elementary education. I have a bachelor's degree in history and archaeology from Boston University. I have a master's in social studies education from Duke and a master's in European history from Cornell. I feel that my training and all my Florida certifications with those I should be a sufficient judge of what books should be available in my classroom. However, district policy seems to

111disagree. I love teaching or at least I used to love it. All of the barriers and roadblocks to quality teaching that keep being added to our jobs in this district are a large reason why I like many others think about leaving the district or the profession altogether. The current barrier to meaningful and effective instruction that I want to speak to you about tonight is the specific district policy on classroom libraries. Two years ago, we had to close our classroom library so that our media specialist could scan all of our books, post them online, and approve them for classroom use, making our book list available to parents. Our librarian worked very hard to complete this. By the end of the school year, my classroom library was available to be used again. I have lots of books.

112I usually sponsor History Fair. And because history fair is an extracurricular activity in Escambia County, we work after school when the school library is closed and we rely heavily on my classroom library. That year without a classroom library, I did not sponsor history fair and EHS sent no history fair projects to the district. You need books for history fair. I teach AP US. I frequently have them use my classroom library for research. That's why I have so many books. You can't teach history without primary and secondary sources, i.e. books. We found out recently that there is a new policy. We would have to close our classroom libraries again. This time, not because the books had to be screened for content. Every book in my library, let me be clear, has already been screened by the

113certified media specialist at my high school for content and has been approved. I think many people are unaware of this as it seems to be an unintended consequence of Escambia County's changing rules about student access to books. These books have to be approved all over again in Destiny. But this time, instead of being done by our hardworking certified on-site librarian, they can only be approved by the district media specialist and one other. I understand there is currently a backlog of more than 50,000 books waiting for approval. Currently, I've had to remove and spent several planning periods and hours of my own time after school 793 books and magazines out of my classroom collection of 895 titles. None of these books are banned or challenge books. They are simply marked as pending while awaiting approval and

114destiny by the district media specialist. I know that the schoolboard rule about classroom libraries states that the books must be approved by a certified media specialist. The school media specialist at each school are certified. All of my books have already been approved by one, just like every other teacher's classroom library. Perhaps it wasn't the school board's intention to force teachers to remove already approved books from their classroom. In effect, that is what's happening. These unintended consequences are serious and far-reaching. To give you some examples, new teachers can't create a classroom library. Many teachers don't have the time to sort the pending from approved books and have given up and taken all their books home. English teachers without a classroom library can't do so style and reading. Usually when a kid is done in my class

115and they're caught up on their work, I tell them to find something else to do and I say, "If nothing else, find something to read." The last time I said that, the student looked at me and said, "I can't. There are no books." I'm trying to prepare my students to be successful on the difficult high stakes US history end of course exam and AP exam. I need every resource available. My students need every opportunity that we can afford to them. Without a classroom library, this is not happening. Just so there's no misconception that teachers classroom libraries are just frivolous or hiding pornography or inappropriate material, let me give you some examples of the books that I've already they're already approved, but I've pulled them off my shelves. All of my atlases are gone. All of

116my dictionaries, every one of these books has been pulled because it's not officially approved yet. The Illustrated Gettysburg Address Standard SS 912A21 test item specification. Gettysburg Address. The Souls of Black Folk by Web Duz Up from slavery. I can give you a standard and an item spec for everyone. A personal tour of whole house. We have to learn about Jane Adams. Fred Cororamatsu required. Cororamatsu versus United States. Rosie the Riverer. Hiroshima. Worst first day, an account of bullying by one of the Little Rock Nine. Sh. We're writing the Constitution I can keep. Because of the way the process works, it's mostly elementary school books. This is the only book in the Constitution available in my class right now. Please reconsider this policy. Please try to find a way to give us access to our books.

117Please give us back our classroom libraries so that we can serve our students the way we need to be. We're shortch changing them. I don't think this was your intention, but you need to know. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I do not have any more speaker forms. Anything else for the common good from the Yes, Mr. Chair. Um, I I did want to comment on one uh deal and I consider Keith a friend, but I tell you what, that Children's Trust is a um a very needed uh organization for the school district, those kids that are living in poverty. I mean, I met back in 2017 with Richard Corkin down in Tallahassee. the low performing 300 uh schools in the state of Florida should all be community partnership schools. It works for these poverty kids.

118Um my kids had my resources and so there was no problem with them getting what they needed, but for these other children that live in poverty, they do not have the resources to um to do a lot of things. So um I they got a holistic program. is a basically a community partnership school. They do a wonderful job and um and I would tell you we would be in a bad situation if we didn't have their help. So appreciate what y'all guys are doing on Children's Trust. And thank you. I do apologize to Miss Wiggins. I do miss you for him. We do have one more speaker. One more. I'm sorry that was my fault. Uh Laura Wiggins. Thank you. Good evening. Um, my name is Laura Wiggins and I'm speaking tonight as a resident

119of Cantol, um, a taxpayer, a public school teacher and the product of our local schools and communities. Um, earlier tonight, the board voted yes for the miller rate. Thank you. Our children deserve the benefit of our property values. That revenue belongs to students to be used to procure and retain highquality supplies, curriculum materials, faculty and staff. It is not a luxury. It is a necessity. As a constituent of district 5, I appreciate and want to publicly thank the board members who voted yes tonight. Thank you for choosing our students and educators. My husband and I are both public school teachers. I teach at Kingsfield Elementary. Um, and my husband teaches at Tate. I grew up in Brat and Walnut Hill. Went to Brat Elementary, Ernest Ward Middle, and I'm a 2009 graduate of the IB

120program at Pensacola High School, which I could only attend thanks to a school budget that covered my daily transportation. I had to get up at 4:00 a.m. to get on the bus by 5 in Walnut Hill, at Ernest Ward, or at Brat, or at Molina Park, wherever the bus picked me up to take me to school every day downtown. My sister teaches at Molina Park. My mom taught at Norwe. My grandparents taught together at Ernest Ward. Um, I share with you you share this with you because like many educators in my community, education is what I live and breathe. Student success is our daily goal. That success is dependent on educators and the board. I'm very thankful. I'm also a taxpayer with a mortgage. Taxes matter. Taxpayers matter. We are the people. But reasonable increases

121in taxes are necessary to maintain the quality of your children's education, our children's education, particularly in the light of the astronomical hit to our budget from required contributions to the vouchers. We will not have strong communities without strong schools. Our kids are more than worth it. Thank you. Thank Thank you. And I do apologize. So missing missing that I do do owe one person an apology and I knew when I did advanced degrees at the workshop that someone would be left off. So if Frank Murphy if you are listening I do apologize to you. I'm sure I'm going to hear from him. So um yeah, Dr. Dr. Murphy, anything else from the from the board, Mr. Superintendent? Anything? No, sir. Just appreciate all of you and uh hope you have a good Wednesday and a

122great weekend. All right. Thank you. No, nothing else. We're all journ.