ECPS YouTube - September 11, 2025 - Regular School Board Meeting and Workshop

001of the September 11th special meeting of the Escamia County School Board. This meeting was properly advertised on September the 1st, legal notice number 11583541. ask that you silence your cell phones and electronic devices at this time. If you wish to speak at an agenda form, please fill out the appropriate form found at the back of the room and bring it forth to Miss Harris at the front table. All forms must be submitted prior to agenda public forum. Now, at this time, we'll move into adoption of the agenda. Mr. Superintendent, are there any changes or deletions to your agenda? >> No, sir. >> Okay. Do I have a motion to adopt that to adopt the agenda? >> So moved. >> I'll second. >> It's been moved and second. Any discussion? >> No discussion. Please vote. >>

002Prove five to zero. Thank you. At this time, we'll amend the the agenda um for just a moment and ask Miss April Griffin to come to the podium. Uh representative from FSBA, and I'll let her tell you what she's doing here. >> Well, good morning everyone. A long time no see. We just walked across the campus. So, um, Superintendent Leonard, Chairman Williams, board members, I'm here today to congratulate you for finishing your distinction to become a certified master board. This training is very important because we know there's a direct correlation between how well the superintendent and the board work together to student achievement and district culture. and you are putting the hours in and listening to me and having great conversations and um the what we've been through the past few times I've been here

003really proves that you are dedicated to your students in your district and I wanted to thank you for having me and thank you for your time and the energy that you put into this and I have a plaque for you um that will just you know you can pres put it somewhere [Music] somewhere important so that you can be reminded of the work that we did and your dedication and commitment to the students and the people that work for you. Thank you. >> I do want to get a picture also. [Music] We go now. This one. and safe travels. April, thank you so much for what you've done. And we've adopted the agenda. We will now move uh begin the uh the agenda public forum. All forms must be submitted at this time. We have

004uh one form and Mr. Larry DS Jr. You have three minutes. Oh, Larry DS Jr. Plumbing LLC because feal matters. Righty, that's my bag right there. My package insert sheet for the vaccines. vaccines. You believe that? Corporate chemical injections called vaccines. Hey, I just wanted to uh and I even had one of my buddies say, "Hey, don't talk about vaccines today." But we got to we got no choice. Our uh Florida Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Latapole, I'm sure y'all might have heard this, but let me repeat it for others who haven't. Uh major breaking. >> Mr. DS, Mr. DS, this is a >> Yeah. >> with last year's budget. >> Yeah. Yeah. But it's still a public forum, right? >> No, it's not. The purpose of today's forum is just to speak to items on

005the on today's agenda. >> Really? >> Yes. >> Huh. That's interesting. >> Because are is any of our >> is any of our budget money spent uh on vaccines on on propaganda for people to get them? >> Mr. announc this is discussing items having to do with the financial report that is being submitted to the state board of education. >> So, it's not a public forum. >> It it it is the purpose of the forum that is being held right now is to afford members of the public the opportunity to weigh on the item that is being considered by the board. It is not it is not a limited public forum in which you can address any matter related to public education. That will occur next week at the regular business meeting. >> I got

006you. But isn't a budget, isn't the money that y'all spend related to every single thing that y'all do? >> We we don't vaccinate. >> Could I speak about teacher pay? >> Sure. Absolutely. >> Well, that's not, you know, I mean, what's the difference between that? Anyways, uh I guess I'll shift gears here and talk about uh you know, we have less uh students, right? We have less students than we have in previous years. Uh but yet our budget stays the same or goes up. Should shouldn't it come down when we have less students? You know, I'm just saying in general, uh you know, my budget in my plumbing company, uh it's set for a certain amount of customers. If my customers go down, then my budget must go down. I can't I can't I can't

007operate any other way. So, the budget that y'all are working with, it should come down if y'all don't have as many students. It's just that simple. So, I would like to see that the budget be budgeted in in, you know, in accordance to the amount of students y'all have. So whenever we lose students, when y'all lose students and y'all are losing students from homeschooling to private school to everything else because they are not interested in many many parents are joining the awakening. I'm not saying the the three Ps, the piss poor parents aren't because they don't have much choice. If they had a choice, they might, but we should be lowering every every step of the way. We should be lowering the amount of money we are giving to government organizations or government departments based

008on, you know, based on the amount of customers y'all have. So, you know, that's one of the things. The other thing is is my wife works, I did the math, she works 450 extra hours every year. She's not getting paid for it. She just works over. she stops getting paid at 245 or whatever and she ends up working to 430 every day. I said, "Why are you doing that? Stop doing it. That's an extra $15,000 a year you just given to the school board and the administration and everything else." I said, "Stop doing that." I said, "It's stressing you out. She's probably not going to teach a whole lot longer because she feels like she has to do this. Y'all need to do something about all the overhead that they have to do, all the

009extra work, but this public forum should be for anything. Next, next we have um the item finance first resolution to amend the 2024 2025 district school budget. Can I get a motion? >> So moved. >> I'll second. >> So moved and second. Any discussion? Please vote. >> Approve five to zero. >> Next the super next the superintendent annual financial report. Is there a motion? >> I'll move that report. >> I'll second it. been moved and second. Any discussion? >> No discussion. >> I would like to have a little bit of discussion myself. Okay. On this um and I will tell you um our CFO sent us a wonderful document. Not the whole 168, but if you go to the start at page one, skip that, go to page seven. It's got a lot of stuff

010that I didn't even know. Okay, that's in here. And um and you know, I was on this board with an earlier board. I I believe at that time Linda Moltry was in Davis's position and Mr. Boom was in Paul's but we had a school district of Florida that got went past 3% on the financial condition ratio went way down below and that time the board was worried Malcolm Thomas was the superintendent and he even agreed that we needed some type of safety switch which we made 5%. Well, if you look on that first page right here in this one paragraph right here, the financial condition ratio decreased from 9.7 to 5.5 of the total general fund. First time I seen that 5.5 is on this piece of paper right there. So, what I'm looking at

011because this meeting here is on the past and we got the meeting on the future on this. Um, looking at the CFO's reports where he moves this money here and that money there and all that every month. Can't really hardly tell anything about it. I tried look like for I tried to look for a correlating number to find it. But if you go to I think page seven um he's got a wonderful place there where he lists at the general the fund balance right here right there. Now I'm not ready here to make a proposal today but at a future workshop I think it'd be good for the board members. Every time he hands us one of those things where he's moving money we get the financial condition ratio and we get this little chart

012he did right here. And that'll tell you the big stuff. So, uh, so that's, so because it went the fund balance only dropped to 5.5, then I was unaware of how much overspent was done, you know, and uh, I had talked to Ellen about this yesterday. This is one thing I'm not really feeling good about right now on how this happened, but it happened. So when looking to the future, Tom, you're big on accountability, you know, and um where the board can instead of getting down to the end cuz you know, I start worrying about, okay, how much money we can give the teachers and different stuff and then you find out uh fun's been drawn down, you know, and it gets a little bit dicey. And uh I was department of fence for 38

013years. We didn't have that little that little fund balance. Ours was you the user, you gave it back. School district accounting, I know it's a whole lot different, you know, but um and we have talked about this in the past. You know, the only way I could talk to you about this is uh in the open because we can't do it bargaining because I'm really getting off the bargaining session. But I I think this needs to be looked at to where we can get a report each month. I know they know the numbers. the whole time and uh if we got those two to go along with that moving money from here to there and you know uh that I would know the overall picture may not be down in the weeds but at least

014we know the on the top half we we're get but anyway that's my discussion and I may wait till another workshop and and propose a motion on that to um see if we can have some more transparency >> and and Miss Adams I'm Maybe I'm mistaken, but I I thought Miss St. S maybe you can clarify this. I thought you always kept us informed of the fund balance. I and where we where we were throughout the year. Our intent is always to provide an update and I do that most of the time. We'll provide a budget update. Last time we spent 30 minutes talking about the overspend. Um we've done that throughout the year. We've talked about how we have had teacher salaries, support salaries, um that were going to be at least $20 million

015over and above what they were in the prior year. That was the case. We were able to do some end of the year things that I always tell you we're going to try to fix at the end of the year. There were some transfers that we that were eligible, namely school bus drivers that we were able to bring in capital millage from about $11 million to cover some of that deficit. So instead of $20 million over spend, we were about $10 million over spend. But we didn't do that till the end of the year because we didn't know exactly where we're going to land on some of the things that are going on towards the end of the year. Now we also had a bunch of u categorical programs, state uh projects, all that that

016doesn't give us the clear picture on how we separate the fund balance, how we carve it up, carve it up from restricted to committed, assigned and unassigned. That is never done until the end of the fiscal year when we know what our roll forwards are going to be cuz those are all attached to roll forwards. So what we try to tell you is how much the total overspend is going to be, what the total fund balance is going to wind up being, and we can give a pretty decent picture of what the financial condition ratio is going to be. There's never been a time this year that I can remember given an optimistic picture of the fund balance. I don't remember doing that. We came in here and the superintendent has been an advocate for

017trying to maintain uh some consistency and our uh spending programs and various things that we do to try to keep the general fund up to the level that we want it to be. Now, we do have in our board policy a minimum fund balance ratio >> 5%. It used to be 8%. But we lowered it down to 5% on this last go round uh with um the Neola company. Um I'll be glad to walk anybody through anything and we can go back and look at some of the old tapes where we discussed some of this. So um that's that's my that's my take on it. But there's never been a time that we didn't say, "Well, we had an executive session that we talked about financial condition a couple months ago." >> That's what I

018heard then. Okay. So, he's happy with how he presented it and that's fine. But I am going to be looking at this pretty hard. I'm not going to wait till the end of year and sooner or later. I mean, the county commission really got tore up about this other night. There was over 150 speakers there and we may have a few here Tuesday night, but we got people out there that are hurting. We got the the halves are doing well, but the have not $100 extra $100 out of their out of their budget is u you know, these people worry about making their tax payments and their medical payments and all that. So, we owe it to people to know the situation. Now, I would tell you if you think you got something you got

019to spend extra money on, then you got to pull it from somewhere else. That's how I look at it. You got to find places where you're going to cut to pay for something you think is more important. But that's something for the board to figure out, not wait until the end of the year, you know, and then bam, there you go. You got to go full 1.5 >> in my discussion. Yes, Mr. The only thing I want to make certain of, and I think I've said this now five times, I know I said it earlier this morning, one of the things that makes this even more difficult, and I'm not casting blame anywhere, is as far as I know it, unless Mr. Saints here and his staff got it this morning while we were in

020another meeting, we have yet to receive the fourth calculation from the state. Have we received that yet? >> I don't think we'll get it. That's right. for Tuesday night. Um, and I do remember as we were bargaining last year and the different things that we have to do in order to end up getting to resolution with the bargaining units, having conversations with our board about what we were going to end up doing from an overspend standpoint. Yet, we all felt as though that was a priority to be able to reward our employees with um a compensation improvement and we were able to do that. Um I can say this, this is not a secret. I do understand that you have to be able to have a budget that meets your needs. Um, and sometimes when

021you have we don't we're not making widgets, I guess, is how I I should say it to be polite to everyone. What we're doing is educating students. So, I can tell you a little bit about some of the things that we've already done. And then, of course, this board will have to help us make decisions as we move forward. I can't tell you that each month because of the way the money flows from an FFP standpoint and or a state budgeting standpoint that you would know I guess you would know dayto day what's actually cash flow how much you have and how much you don't have but that might paint even a bleeaker picture at one time during the budget year because you don't always have all the the cash in the bank. Um, but

022one of the things that I put together because y'all talked about it a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago really, um, just in the time that you've had me, you've had this crazy guy doing what he's doing for you day in and day out. Um, from the grids and the, um, staffing allocation, it's 370 positions. It may be a few more because I'm not certain how exactly how the staffing played out um early September. So, it's probably more than that. Um so, that does equate to less students, less staff. Um I think the other question that was asked, I'd rather go ahead and do this tonight or this afternoon. Is it afternoon yet? Morning. Uh why we're here today because I think if public does show up, we need to let

023them say everything they want to say. I believe they deserve that. Um, one of the things that was asked of us to be able to figure out from an enrollment standpoint and an administrative staff to student count to look at like size or close to like-iz districts. Um, in Escambia it's right at 224. Then we looked at 1, two, three, four, five other school districts that were close. Uh the lowest number that we were able to find was 143 school-based administrators and um the highest was 309. So it's a pretty big disparity. That lowest number was Okaloosa and we all know they label their administrators a little bit different than other districts. Um pay for administrators because I always hear about taking it from the top and I thought about it. It's probably today's not

024the best example. Um, but when we have our workshops and a lot of people present, the last time y'all talked about it, I looked out there and thought, "Okay, early today, I feel like I'm killing half of them with the workload we're putting on them now." But the school uh, excuse me, district level, high school administrators, um, you wanted to know about the pay. We're a little bit over 105,000. Uh there was one school district um I'll just say that's close to our size. It was 153,000. Uh one near the state capital is 123,000. Another one just below Orlando is 153,000. So I I felt pretty good about telling you about that. Trying to remember if there was something else you asked me to look into. Um, so I looked at the grid and I

025looked at the staffing allocation. Um, some of the things that you've done, you know, Esser went away as well that happened in every school district in the state of Florida being able to overcome that. And what we did is we entrenched those positions within their base stu, not base student allocation, but in their staffing allocation. Um, as you know, transportation is operating on a four tier. um transportation routes, doing those on four tiers um with less less drivers, but it's it's really the way we need to be able to do it. It's probably more efficient and effective right now than it's ever been. Thankful to those individuals that are doing that. Um one of the things that we have talked about looking at is contracted services. That's always contentious, but we'll make certain that we've

026reviewed that. Um, last year we did a hiring lapse days when you had to do a hiring lapse at your school. What we didn't do last year was an actual hiring freeze. Dependent upon what the uh answer is from our school board, you may very well have to see a hiring freeze. But what I don't want to do, y'all, what I don't want to do for our school district is anything that interrupts the momentum that you've been able to help us create from an academic standpoint. Really going to have to pay close attention to what we do um from a budgetary standpoint where we're not impacting schools. Now, where I do disagree with some of the comments that have been made and I've answered a bunch of questions, I know Mr. Saints Sears entertained a

027few phone calls. I probably have had more than him. But um I say we're not making widgets doing being a educational institution is a little bit different. Um because we're going to make certain that every school that we offer them an they all get equal access to high quality education. We're going to make certain we do that whether they have 210 students or if they have 2,14. That's a wide disparity within our school district. Um this board has been very firm uh in the past in maintaining those special services that we provide, art, music, PE, orchestra. Um I think the more that we can do to help have a well-rounded student is important. that is not something I want to be able to entertain. So, uh, as we go further down the road, regardless of

028what happens Tuesday night because we got about a $90 BSA, uh, increase this year, if you read the article yesterday, you're seeing everything from 12,000 students, less in some pretty large school districts. For us, uh, from last fall to this fall, it's like,00. Um, Mr. Adams was with me the other night at the legislative delegation and I I could have asked our delegation for a lot of things, but I didn't. The one thing that I pointed out is they have to help us fix from a school district standpoint, all 67 school districts to know where students are going to school. Mr. McFarland sent us a report. We've submitted that to the state. We're within our own school district. This year was just a little bit less than 300. right now that students are within your

029school sites but have received voucher funding. Uh you're educating them and yet they have received a voucher. I really believe that our our Senator Gates and our local delegation are going to work to get that fixed. Uh >> what was our traditional uh count the traditional schools? >> Uh we project >> how much we up or down? >> I just do the uh elementary, middle, and high, >> right? We were 32,421 it projected and do the math. Yesterday when I ran the report, we were minus 68. Yeah, I I don't think us looking at those voucher numbers even worthwhile anymore. Um it's just corrupt data. It don't show the proper numbers. And I think Keith using that traditional count of the traditional schools is probably the best way to track it because you don't know

030if those kids have ever been to a public school. They might be still at the private schools and you don't know if u like he said they're in our classrooms but they got the voucher. >> 287 of them and that was as of a week and a half ago are in that number for us but they're not in our funding number. 2.8. What I wanted? Yes, sir. I won't talk anymore. >> No, no, that's fine. >> I just want to make sure I give Mr. Fesco a chance. >> I talk too long. >> I just It's going to come in here together. >> This goes back to one of the things that was said actually by the public speaker that our budget hasn't shrunk. The reason for that is something the state has does even

031though our numbers in the traditional public schools have declined. The funding for the students who get vouchers are included in our budget. Although we do not see that money, the money is more of a flow through. So even though those students are not in our seats in the traditional public schools, they are the money for their vouchers looks like it's coming to Escambia County when in fact it is not. It goes to the charters, the private schools, parochial schools, wherever they go. But it looks like it's part of our budget. That's where our actual budget, what we get and what we have control over has reduced according to the number of students who attend traditional public schools, but it looks like we're getting the same amount because that voucher money is included in that. That's

032smok and mirrors. That's the thing that people don't understand and and really wouldn't unless you delve into it specifically. thing the superintendent just said took us all by surprise that we have 300 students who are in our schools who got vouchers who are paying someone else at this time. So we're $2.8 million went somewhere else but we are educating those students. This adds to the things that become budgetary and things that don't get ironed out until the very end of the budget cycle because if the state is going to make us whole for those 200 300 who did that we don't know when we don't know if or how long it might take. So, I I'm going to leave it at that, but thank you, >> M. Miss. >> Yeah, I just want to follow

033Keith. One item you did not mention what you're looking down your list is our under capacity schools and consolidation and repurposing schools. I don't know if we need to get a doze team in here. Okay. But I think we might cuz people kind of been part of this process forever. Sometimes better for somebody from the outside to take a look. But uh and some of these schools are closing to repurpose and have and compete in areas of Pensacola where people have reason to voice back in in that particular area. >> What I what I want to make certain that I relay and have no problem with any of things that you just you just said. The key word is make certain we repurpose those buildings. Miss ODM can talk to you about the legalities and

034of the new laws. Uh we want to make certain those buildings are our buildings. Maintain them as our taxpayer funded buildings um and that they don't go somewhere else for free. So yeah, don't have any problem with that. >> Any more discussion? >> That's where your money. >> Yes, sir. >> Yes, Mr. Bos. >> Um you know, you mentioned about 286 students leaving our district and or still in our district but receiving the private school vouchers. So those are students that we are ed currently educating. Then on top of that we have the students that have left our district and I understand people are saying well you're you have less students you don't need the actual increase. My concern is I do not want it affect our studentation. you know what what what the programs

035the resources the careermies the many the plethora of um and you know good things going on in our district I don't want that to stop and you know when we talk about so many students leaving it's not a chunk at one school it's 10 here it's 20 here it's you know throughout the county so when yes I I do want to I welcome welcome doge to come in to look. It's always good to have a fresh set of eyes to come in and look to say, hey, you know, have you thought about this? So, we can look at other ways. But I do want to make sure and make certain that they understand that we're not cutting our academics. We're not going to put this at the expense of our students. We need to keep

036them first and foremost. Mr. >> I think it's important to draw upon several things that the superintendent said earlier. One of them is that the budget has been adjusted along the lines with the uh uh over the years uh we've lost 377 employees uh in the process. I believe that's correct. >> All right. Uh that those adjustments have been made but the situation that we're in now where where they can take the scholarships. We've lost 4,200 students to that to that in charter schools. And then when you you factor that in now that there's 277 more or could be as many as 300 that we're providing services for that we can't identify. You know, well, we can identify them. There's 277, but we're not getting any money for them. All of those things that uh

037uh that have been mentioned are, you know, are true and we need to make the any if there are any other adjustments, we need to make those in the case. But we also need to keep in mind the things the superintendent said while ago about uh uh those things that I just mentioned to you. Uh this is a difficult situation and it's like a spiderweb. It's not going to be any solutions to it. We need to listen to the public, see what they have to say. Uh it's um uh it's one of those that uh that's why we're elected to make those tough decisions. >> Mr. Chair, >> and um I I agree with part of what you're saying there, but the um when you said the 4200, you know, that's a high school, that's

038a middle school, and that's three elementary schools, you know. And I was on ZAC. He's been part of ZAC action. I was on Zack. I was his chair on Zack and we went through and we we closed quite a number of schools. Yeah, Carissa, we we lost 50 over here and 20 over there, but that man right there is the best I ever seen at drawing maps, you know, and making bus routes better and all that. Um, but if you tell the public that we're at our most efficient rate, you're going to have a hard time cuz we all know that's not possible. There's there's ways we can become more efficient and that's what we need to look at. What can we do? Even during all those school closures and everything, we didn't let teachers

039go because we were always short teachers. You know, they they either moved to the new school or they, you know, whatever they did. So, um, I just want to say that because, you know, we can always find a good reason for the government never to become more efficient or cut funds. I was part of the government 38 years. I know that good. Okay, you know it too. You've been part of it. And and matter of fact, the ones we were poor, the only way they did it because they got a cut and and we had to let people go and we had to do the this. But uh I think we can find ways of increasing student enrollment by those extra magnet programs and repurposing schools and consolidating. But we can't wait another year or

040two years. Ain't no way. >> Mr. I I just wanted to respond to something that Mr. Adams said and yes, I've been part of the the consolidation and closure of of more than 14 schools during my career and we have looked at efficiency and we will continue and when we first had discuss this discussion with budgets and what was coming up, we said at least two months if not three months ago that yes, those are the things that we were going to look at. Those were going to take at least a year to 18 months to implement. In the meantime, we have the 2526 budget year that's going to have to be addressed and and that would leave us with even a greater shortfall that would reduce our our uh financial ratio that to zero.

041>> Okay. and and it would it would if we don't do the things that we can do at this moment, we will be at zero at the end of this this coming academic year. We fix that in future years by doing those closure consolidations, doing them in a mindful way, knowing that we don't want to close something that's going to end up being opened by somebody who takes over that building and then we'll draw additional students away from us. Do it. We have to do it in a manner that's going to serve the students first, district needs and the budgetary needs after that. And and so I am not opposed to anything that comes forward in the future. Timing of it is what's going to give us a problem at this moment going forward. Thank

042you. >> Any more discussion? Let's vote. I I just wanted to say this uh Mr. Adams, I agree with what you were saying while ago about how we need to be more efficient and so forth. Mr. PCO, I understand what you're saying in links. We were also elected by constituents out there in our group. And I will tell this board right here today that I have received a tremendous, and I use the word tremendous push back on what we're proposing for the coming budget year. I mean, it has not been a little bit, it's not been a few. Uh, I mean, it has been tremendous that push back has. And so, I'm having some second thoughts about that. So, just wanted to let the board give heads up on that. >> Please vote. Approve. Five

043to zero. Okay. Where am I at? Next superintendent annual financial report. >> That's what we did. That's what you just wrote. >> We we through that. Okay. I'm sorry. Our discussion got me confused. >> Meeting is adjourned. Got about 40 minutes. 4050 maybe. No, not [Music] >> good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, as I call to order, the September workshop of the Escambia County School Board. The purpose of this workshop is an open discussion on items brought forth by the board and the superintendent along with a review of the agenda items for our regular meeting. Please silence your cell phones and other electronic devices at this time. If you wish to speak at public forum, you must complete a speaker request form located on the table at the rear of the room and bring it

044to Miss Har Miss Harris at the front room. Our first item on our agenda is the West Florida High School Pre-Professional Nursing Academy. >> Yes, sir. >> Superintendent Christina Stanley will introduce our guest. >> All right. Good afternoon. Afternoon. My name is Christina Stanley and I'm the workforce education specialist that has the pleasure of working with all of our health sciencemies within the district. I want to of course thank the superintendent and the board for letting us present each month and just show you guys all the great things we have going on with workforce throughout the district. Today I'm excited to present to you the West Florida High School pre- Nursing Academy led by Miss um Gail Ewing. Before the students begin their presentation, I just want to share and brag a little bit about

045the program and about Miss Euing. Um, Miss Euing sets the bar really high for her students and the West Florida Pre- Nursing Academy continues to have the highest number of health certifications each year throughout the district. Additionally, Miss Euing is the regional director for HOSA, which is Health Occupation Students of America. and the students are going to tell you a little bit about that as well. But she works to organize the regional competition, so the whole Northwest Florida region. Um, and they host that every January at West Florida High School. She puts in countless hours to make this happen and we just really appreciate all she does, not only for the West Florida Pre- Nursing Academy, but also all of our healthmies in the district and region that participate in HOSA. So, thank you. And

046now we will present the West Florida Pre-Nurs Academy. I have the honor of being their instructor. And they're each going to introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about their plans for the future. >> Hello, my name is Kaziah Walker and I'd like to go to USA, which is University of South Alabama, and be a pediatric registered nurse. Hello, my name is Alyssa Towns. After high school, my plan is to go to FAMU and get a degree in nursing and then in the future become a labor and delivery nurse. Hi, my name is Hannah Win and I plan on going to Pensacola State College and I want to become a pediatric nurse practitioner. >> Hi, my name is Isabelle Kurtsburg Bosow. I plan on going to the University of Florida and um sorry furthering

047my career as a pediatric nurse. >> Hi, my name is Christian Stokes. I plan to go to PSC and pursue a career as a ICU nurse. >> Tell you a little bit about our program. Pre- N nursing is the foundation for any career in healthcare, including registered nurse, nurse practitioner, and physician assistant. Pharmacists and physicians are the most common careers pursued. Many graduates from the program have become successful RNs, MPs, PAs, and pharmacists, as well as those in medical school. Nursing is one of the most important careers in healthcare, requiring compassion, knowledge, and dedication. According to the American Medical Association, the US is already experiencing a nursing shortage, which means the need for new nurses has never been greater. Our generation has the opportunity to step into the role and become the future of nursing.

048The program offered at our school gives us skill, experience, and the foundation that we need to succeed in this career. With these opportunities, we can prepare ourselves to meet the growing demand and make a difference in patients lives everywhere. In our senior year, we spent 40 hours at Baptist Hospital in West Florida Hospital under the supervision of our staff RN. We are able to step into this environment with the skills that we have learned in the classroom and apply into real life. This opportunity provides us insight or provides us insight to determine what we want for our desired career. HOSA which stands for Health Occupation Students of America is our student organization. We perform projects, community service, and compete statewide, regionally, and internationally. There are about a total of 115 students in the pre- N

049nursing program at West Florida High School. Over your high school career, you will take courses that will help further your medical knowledge and skills for clinicals during your senior year. During your ninth grade year, you will take anatomy and physiology. 10th grade foundations of healthcare. 11th grade electroc cardiogram technology. And we also complete our capstone project which is exclusive to Westwater High School. During 12th grade, you will complete nursing and obtain multiple certifications such as the patient care technician certification, the medical assistant certification, and the home health aid certification. After graduating high school, most people in my class have plans to pursue a nursing degree or premed at schools such as FAMU, Emory, FSU, UF, USA, PSSE, and UWF. Thank you for giving us this opportunity and thank you for listening. And if you have

050any questions, please ask. [Applause] >> Any any questions from the bullet? >> Yeah. Um um my son was at West Florida High School and the medical program and uh went up to uh Lincoln Memorial University, the Cumberland Gap private school. It's got all the medical and graduated as a PA and he's in Gainesville right now. Um working a nurse that's also down there. And uh my wife's a nurse. My two sisters are nurses. I've got cousins that are nurses. You're always going to have good paying jobs with people like me and Paul Pesco around. Okay. So, uh, great job. I mean, you're going to take it a long way and, uh, you're going to make pretty good money. So, congratulations on what you're trying to do. >> Miss Bos, >> I want to say thank

051you so much for coming and I'm so impressed. We had five students and all five of them want to continue in the medical field and they show their excitement and their dedication. They know exactly what they want to do right now. So that's great and I wish you the best of luck in the future. >> Uh I want to congratulate you. uh what a good performance you did today in outlining your program and telling us about it and I was extremely extremely impressed with the fact that all of you are going into the medical field as Miss Bgosh said and also that uh you have definite plans of exactly what you want to do. So uh u congratulations I'm proud of you. I thank you all for coming here today and sharing. You all seem

052to be very well prepared. You all present yourselves very professionally. I think that uh that you will go far. Proud of you. Proud of what you're doing. You are a great example for Escambia County. We are proud where you will take us. Unfortunately, none of you are in the psych program. So, you won't be able to help Mr. Adams. Um geriatrics maybe, but okay. Anyhow, but I do appreciate it and and I I know that you uh really have a great support with your teacher, a great program and I wish you well in the future and if you ever see me in the hospital, please be gentle, okay? >> Thank you for coming out and appreciate the the presentation and wish you well in your future endeavors. Thank you so much. Let's give him a

053round of applause, please. Mr. Williams, I think we have a couple of parents that are also here. If the parents would stand so we could recognize you and your involvement with your child. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, we move to our calendar. If you if board members will get your calendar out, we'll look over the rest of September and October. Mr. Williams, I noticed that uh a couple of us are going to be going to the workshop. Uh oh, I I do see it on there. I'm sorry. I didn't notice that. >> Where's that workshop, Mr. Har? >> It's in >> Gainesville. Okay. Any additions or deletions for September? The rest of September? hearing. None. Let's turn over to October. >> M. I'm sorry. Yeah. October. >> Dr. Williams. Um, Miss Cross

054Tag, you want to talk to them about what we need and when we need it? >> Sure. We uh need to schedule our out of field meeting uh to go ahead and and so for you can vote on the last phase of who we bring to you as uh out of field. And we need to do that at the last minute almost right before we start FTE week. So we we're looking at either October 2nd or 3rd. Uh the later we can have it the better so we can make sure we get everybody on the list to bring to you to approve by the by the date. So um October 2nd or 3rd in the morning. >> Okay. >> We can do it anytime, but you usually like to do it in the morning. >>

055Good with the third. >> I'm good with the third. Morning is better. 7:30. >> Not that early. That's >> October the 3rd at 7:30. >> October the 3rd. >> Yes, sir. >> There is >> at at 8:30. >> I mean, I mean, y'all do it whenever you want to. >> Um, you can have 7:30, you have 4. >> 8:30 is what you decide. Not. >> So, and then there may be, just so you know, and I want to make sure I say this so Miss Ellen can help us if if it's okay. We may also end up with another item on that agenda. It is HR related. The union will not conduct the ratification vote for the changes on the health insurance plan and dental plan until after Tuesday night. So, we're we're keeping it

056up on the agenda until we delete it. Um, but I know they will not have the ratification vote in until after Tuesday night. So, there is a good possibility that also on that October 3rd meeting we would have the health insurance plans if it is approved by our bargaining units. Okay. Thank you. >> Is that 8:30? 8:30 a.m. >> 8:30. Yes, sir. >> Okay. So, we're we're scheduling a special board meeting for October 3rd at 8:30. >> 8:30. >> Okay. >> And Elizabeth will meet here in >> anything else in the month of October. Okay. Thank you. hearing. None. We'll move on to Mr. Superintendent public forum update. >> I really don't have one. Thank you, sir. >> Okay. Next item is Bergos discipline update. >> This is the second time I talked about discipline

057and I appreciate that. Uh we're willing to come together and and listen and look for avenues to help with discipline. As you know, discipline is very important to our community, to our teachers, to our parents, to our teacher, I already said teachers, to our uh you know our support staff as well. And um we are talking about numbers of kids leaving our district and I think part of the issue they may the parents are looking at discipline and bullying. So, I would like for the superintendent if he can just bring an update with what's going on disciplinewise. Um, what are some techniques, traits that we can uh focus on? >> Yeah, I talked to Mrs. Regosh as she put this on here. I'm glad she has. What we what I'll do for you today is

058just briefly talk to you about the improvements that we've made and where we are. But is my desire and we'll ask Mr. Tommpkins. Not today, but as we get into the end of the nine weeks where there's more time that is elapsed, we'll bring you a full speed update uh at the end of the nine weeks. So, every Friday I um submit to our principles. It's really an email called principal plus. So, there's a lot of people that receive it and it's everybody. I don't mind. I can send it to you as well. So, this year short period of time that we've been in school, a little bit less than 2% of our students have received a referral. 98.2% 98.3% of our students are sitting at zero referrals. Now, so far this year, we have

059not included tardies or late check-ins. Uh I will have those numbers as well when we get to the end of the nine weeks. Remember, we did those last year and it kind of skewed the numbers. We want to make certain we're talking about children that are being disruptive, disobedient, not following our rules. Um, sometimes those t I don't know about you, but when I was in high school, I got I got licks for being tardy a couple times, but I never got a referral. So, I don't know if there was any documentation of it, but I certainly felt it. Um, but we'll make sure we bring more of that to you. I can tell you that I've been very impressed with what our school leadership teams have done. Um, also our teachers, the one place

060that I've been disappointed and it's not been in in employees, uh, but where I've seen an uptick in disruptive behavior is on our buses in particularly in the afternoon. So, we're going to work with our school-based administrators. We're going to work with our deans and we'll continue to work with our partners in transportation because that's got to get better. So, I'll also bring that to you uh at the end of the nine weeks. And then attendance has been around 90 93.5 94% uh each and every day which is a a big improvement. As you know last year we ended the year with a 91.2% attendance rate. Um we talk about the ABCs all the time. Attendance behavior coursework performance and stability. So we'll make certain we bring all that to you at the end of

061the first nine weeks and um look forward to be able to make that presentation because you're right Mr. for gosh, that does make a difference. We talk about perception and perspective all the time. Um, we need the perception and perspective to be that we're doing the right things. And that's all 32,318 of our students. Um, behaving right, doing good in school, and loving where they are. And I think we're making headway as it relates to that. So, thank you for that opportunity today. >> Thank you. >> Yes, Miss Adams. >> Follow up. Uh, and actually I just was talking to Keith about this before because um, during the prior administration I had the BA fight club at out there at BA and all different kind of troubles all through and I'm kind of board member.

062You know, if I got parents calling me alerting me there troubles and I know there's troubles going over there and if I don't hear anything then I think it's all going good. But, uh, one thing I've been impressed talking to some of my principles is um, is superintendent allowing them to um, do what they need to do. If we got a child that's come in as violence on the bus, violence in the classroom, violence in in school suspension, they're removing them from the school and sometime removing them from the district. Okay? And I have told Keith, Tallahassee is not giving us any extra points for keeping a child that does not want to learn and just wants to disrupt everybody else's learning. So um so it is much better and I think that's what has

063cushioned some of the drop on the traditional students. I think that because if parents believe their kids are going to be safe at that school and and and it's going to be okay. Now that's not saying there might be a hot spot somewhere, you know, but now it also don't stop. There's always going to be two guys that getting a scrap or somebody that's been going on since the beginning of dawn, you know, but I'm I'm just talking about the major out of control. But uh at that one school I was telling you about I had parents call me. We actually found them places to go to, you know, charter school and another private school to get out of there. And uh and their enrollment now has bounced back pretty good. So I think it's

064a major uh u offset to that that voucher. As long as we we have a wellmaintained and good and school in good order, um it's going to help a lot, you know, in my opinion. and I appreciate superintendent allowing these principles to take care of that matter. >> Okay. Anything else? Next item is is my item that I brought forth and I know many times we're already celebrating our students, but I'd like to celebrate some of our employees, especially our administrators who just going above and beyond to improve themselves, which improves our district as well. I I invited three uh administrators that I know that recently received their doctoral degree and uh one could not make it and that's Dr. Jennifer Su, that's the principal at Brentwood uh elementary uh school. But I wanted to

065read the title of her dissertation and and maybe a little bit of a abstract. And what her dissertation was on, a case study on Brentwood Elementary, a historical perspective from 1877 to 2010. And in her research, she was exploring the uh sustainability of a community and family engagement at Brentwood Elementary over the last 100 years. So, it's pretty interesting read. Uh she could not make it tonight because uh she has a lot of employees out with sickness, flu, and things like that going around. So, she felt it uh better for her to stay on campus. But we do have two others here. First will be the the outstanding principal from P from Pleasant Grove Elementary. I introduce to you Dr. Nicole Owens Braggs. [Applause] All right. Uh good afternoon. Thank you board school board for

066having us here today. Um and thank you to my former classmate uh Dr. Williams. Okay. And so my study focused on analyzing strategies that second grade teachers use to raise the reading literacy of underperforming students. I chose this study because as we know when students get into third grade uh they're not reading fluently. They are not um is who's clicking? Oh, okay. All right. Thank you. All right. So, they are not reading fluently and um they cannot comprehend at second grade. And some of the national data is here in the slideshow. I'm not going to read each slide, but I'm just going to give an overview. Um the significance of the study is that this study focused on the strategies throughout the tiers. So, I looked at level one, what are teachers doing uh intensively

067to improve the reading literacy of students, tier two and tier three. And so the practice for this study, it can clearly define the RTI framework and then it can help us with policy uh making decisions. In my literature review, I created this uh analysis criteria. I looked at what are the practices that have been proven to raise the literacy rate of students and then what are the key components of reading development and also what should go on at each of the tiers. So I use this analysis criteria to analyze five teachers interviews and 10 to each lesson plans. some of the conclusions and recommendations and you can read this and I'll just um highlight a few is that uh class-wise strategies we need to implement classwise strategies to improve students reading literacy and I have

068to say that is something that the district does focus on. Another thing that um I noticed is that orthographic mapping was not used and we use that when we're when we're teaching spelling. A lot of times the students are just memorizing the spelling words. They're not understanding that the um the sounds in this word. I need to make this visual representation of the sounds in this word so that I can use that information to make meaning of other of other unknown words. Some recommendations I had in which the district does some of these things is that we need to focus on explicit and systematic instruction when we are planning for our questions. They also need to be systematic that they need to move from a basic level to a more a deeper level to help

069students to begin to think deeply about um the text that they're reading. And then once again ongoing professional development with the interventions for tier three because a lot of um teachers were not comfortable with intervening at such a an inint intensive level. And then just providing specific feedback and independent practice for our students is another thing that our teachers can um can do within the school as well. So I I really enjoyed my dissertation. I really felt like it grew me as far as the theories were concerned and I can see the app the application of it within the school and I've actually used a lot of this. Um so it became an action research as well. >> Thank you. Any questions from the from the board? Y'all afraid to ask doctor? >> No. We

070we thank you and thank you. Keep up the good work at Pleasant Dr. Williams. All right. Thank you. Next, we have a a young man that I'm very familiar with that made me look extremely good when I was principal at Pensacola High School, and that's Dr. Al Marsh, the principal of Ransom Middle School. All right. Thank you very much, uh, Dr. Williams and the board members and superintendent and executive staff. Certainly appreciate being here. Yeah. And I am Al Marsh, Dr. Al Marsh, their proud principal at Ransom Middle School. So, um I'm not going to show the PowerPoint presentation that I had because because I it took me about uh what five years to do this doctorate and 200 pages. I don't think you want me to go over all of that stuff and it's

071hard enough trying to get it down into five minutes. So, I'm going to try to work with it on that. But, uh my dissertation and doctoral degree was on exploring eighth grade and ninth grade performance on the algebra test along with self-efficacy. And one of the reasons why I chose that because I used to be assistant principal at Pensacola High School along with Dr. Williams right there. And um I oversaw the algebra performance of our students when I had to evaluate the teachers and I noticed that there was an issue with our high school students when it came down to taking algebra and along with um because working with with Mr. to Bob if he's back there. uh I think Miss Green um who was a mass specialist that was there at the time um

072worked together on trying to figure out what the problem was and we gave a test item analysis and uh that analysis showed that our students couldn't multiply very well and if you can't multiply in algebra you can imagine what's going to happen when it comes down to the upper level equations you got to work with as far as factoring for instance a lot of difficulties there So we took that and we worked on multiplication and the scores right at PHS that one year went from a 15% proficiency or satisfactory performance to 30%. It doubled just like that in in one year. So but then I got transferred over to Ransom Middle School. So I had to take some of that knowledge that I got over there. And the question and the problem that was I

073was faced with was eighth graders, they outperformed ninth grade students by an average of 40 percentage points. Um the ninth graders, again, they were at about 45%. And this is across the state. So I want you to understand that that's pretty significant when you look at how well our eighth graders are doing. So in other words, if our ninth graders were about 40% proficient, our eighth graders were 80% proficient. So I wanted to look at that to see why were they doing so well so I could work with, you know, high schools. Well, we looked at some information as far as or I looked at some information as far as their self-efficacy with Vander's theory on on self-efficacy. When I'm talking self-efficacy, I'm talking about their um confidence, the level of confidence when they're performing

074performing those um tasks. Also, I looked at the sources of self-efficacy. Looking at the master of experience, obviously, how well they are doing in math, their successes and their failures because there's a direct relationship with their self-efficacy and the performance in algebra. If they had a high level of self-efficacy, their algebra score was high. If it was a low level of self-efficacy, then they didn't perform very well. So, you can imagine um what I found out with the eighth graders. eighth graders had a high level of self-efficacy and all of the um all the resources or the sources of self-efficacy which was master experience. We're looking at the social the um social aspects for social persuasion um looking at the um test anxiety in that area also and vicarious experiences. They had a high level

075in everyone compared to the ninth graders. And there were two areas that I noticed in my in my studies. And again, I studied the students that were here in Escami County. I looked at about 25 students. I took 13 students from various uh middle schools and I took about 12 students from high schools and compared their compared the results. And what I found too is that when it came down to vicarious experiences, that is and when I'm talking vicarious experiences, I'm talking about observing others. Observing the others who are around you. what are they learning? How are they learning from those other students in the classroom? And looking at a survey, looking at the interviews that we did also that I did also, I found some pretty interesting facts or some comments that came from

076my high school and my um middle school students. And a couple of the um middle school students shared with me when it came down to their social or their their classroom environments. The classroom environment was was nice. He said it was quiet. The teachers and the students got along very well. The students were very respectful. The um the students were very engaged in the classroom in the eighth grade classes. But I had a couple of comments um or mixed comments from the high school level. And those comments were well some of the kids in the classroom were not really paying attention. they um questioned the need or why they were doing the algebra work and I know that was in middle school also but uh they managed to have a pretty high aptitude for it

077and would would would do it. So when I was wondering then what is the issue with um the high school students again. So now I'm looking at the tracking or the placement of our students. This was very interesting when I got to middle school and I found that the middle schools what we do is the students who perform at a level three satisfactory score on the FCAT, excuse me, on the PM scores and back then it was FCAT what not too but um those level three students were placed in advanced math classes. So now you have your seventh graders who again have scored level three were placed in algebra. Those who scored below a level three were in regular math. Now, when we get to high school, what you'll find is those students who took

078algebra in ma algebra in um middle school, they go and take geometry in high school. And the lower level students, the lower performing students, when they get to high school, they're placed in algebra 1 A, algebra 1 B. So, you would find that you have again your lowle learners. You're also going to have your students who are um who have disabilities. You're going to find more in those classes. So, when you have um some issues when it comes to learning, you will also have some issues with behavior. So, I wasn't um surprised when I saw that. Um couple of things that that I noticed also when it came down to middle school students, if they fail the EOCC, they still will pass algebra on a middle school level. I'm not going to hold them back.

079They're not going to fail. If they fast, if they fail the EOCC, but on high school the level, if they fail the EOCC, they won't get the math credit. So, it's a lot of stress when you start thinking about the anxiety that our high school students are faced with. So, some things that I learned overall, which is basically what I expressed to you already. I learned a lot of things that I have already initiated and implemented and where I'm at right now. for said ransom middle school because one of my issues um or strategies that we use because I wanted to improve my scores in middle school. So we're looking at um for instance acceleration because those students were placed in algebra because they scored in level three. They had to be placed there and

080they were placed there because well the state mandated that we had to um give those students a high school equivalent course. Had to have that and the only one we had was algebra. Now this year we have biology. So they have another high school equivalent course that they can take. And so our students who were barely level threes and they were struggling in reading. We're able to place those students in biology. And biology is a little easier I think because they're, you know, have project based learning in there, hands-on learning. So you have a different um avenue that they can take to be a little bit more successful in a high school equivalent course. And which made our scores go up considerably. And so I can stand here right now and say it's worked very

081well. That's why Rance Middle School is a school right now. So and that's again giving giving a lot of credit to uh Mr. Bobby coming over with the with all of the data reviews we've had and the executive staff certainly appreciate that. So with with all of that said um I think I've probably gone a little bit more than five minutes. I thank you very much. Give me the opportunity to stand up here and present the information to you. Um I hope you guys have a great Tiger Day. Any any questions? >> Yes, sir. Did you see on the math that um for some students did they have a lack access to t extra tutoring or tutoring services or do you think that was the impact to the resources? No. No. Um I I don't

082think so. Um what I saw and I didn't really go into um break down everything as far as with self-efficacy. A lot of it was was just lack of interest when it came down with the high school students. Um they all had positive uh influences as far as with at home from parents. They had positive influences from the teachers. Um but with from the peers they are at a big disadvantage because when you're looking at vicarious experiences they were a disadvantage because they did not have upper level students in the classroom that they could learn from. Everyone knows that our kids nowadays they learn a whole lot from other students. I learn from them a little bit. If you look at uh my gosh, I was just thinking about uh cell phones and whatnot and

083the communication that they use on the cell phones. IDK I don't know and other things they write on there where they communicate with each other. So um they were the big advantage for for learning from not learning from their peers. >> Anything else? >> Thank you so much. Thank you. Uh >> Dr. Marsh, >> thank you very much for having me. >> All right. And this moves us to uh comments from the superintendent. Uh item three of the agenda, Mr. Superintendent, and additional comments. There's >> three things I want to make sure I made you aware of. So, we have the memorandum of understanding with our EA bargaining unit for the teacher salary increase allocation. That will allow us to be able to submit that uh in time prior to the October 1st. Miss Caroline

084Gray and Mr. Saints here. We'll get that taken care of. I did talk to Jessica Janice Witch who is our lobbyist uh from Insignia Rutled. She's given me a couple of options to talk to you about as to what you would prefer in us setting our legislative priorities. She would be more than happy to come over and assist us uh in going through that. I guess it could be either octo could be at that October 3rd meeting if you want it to be or we can just at our own um own meeting we can take down the information she'd be more than happy to accept us and if you wanted your chair to call and talk to her or if you wanted me we'll be able to get everything to her that we need y'all

085just let me know today how you would like to do that and I'll handle it for you. If you don't know today you can let me know Tuesday. You know, they're starting their committees. I think it's next week. So, okay. So, you want to I would like tiebacks. [Music] You'd like for those I understand exactly. >> I I know exactly what you're saying. Um Okay. I will talk to her and just see. Um I'll try with the October 3rd meeting if we can do that. Um >> yes, >> the um and then in October, you remember last I can't remember if it was March or April, we had um several of our administrator and administrators and district level personnel come and present to you those things that we've already put in place. Big ideas is

086what we call it. Um, so we're going to bring that back to you in October and uh talk to you about what's happened this year. I handed last year at Cordova Park sixth grade, West Pensacola sixth grade, this Longleaf sixth grade that's going to go to seventh the year year following and then the eighth grade the year after that. Um, also we'll have Miss Gordon from Pensacola High School here. We would have the administrators from Helen Cro and Bailey and talk to you about that collaboration. Um, we have the automotive. I always have trouble with this. Uh, automotive technology, not mechanics, automotive technology, uh, Trump grant, triumph grant. We are really excited about it at Tate. So, we'll have as many people as we can here at the October workshop talk to you about where

087we are and where we plan to go. So, looking forward to that. And that was that concludes my comments. Dr. Williams. >> Thank you. Moving to committee and departmental reports charter school quarterly report. I know Miss Co Coups was able to get that to you last week. You have any questions on it? Looks like everything's in order. Um, thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Now, moving on with our agenda. Mr. Superintendent, are there any additions or deletions to this month's agenda? >> Yes. Yes, sir. Uh 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 C and D have been added. And that that's all we have. Dr. Williams. >> Thank

088you. It's my to bring the invocation and pledge. Make sure we have that covered. And next we have um the minutes from August. There are two items for for advertising this month. Policies 2520 and 2522. Any comments? Okay. Moving on to the uh consent agenda. Moving into the consent agenda, are there any items that um to be discussed starting with curriculum 8 through 19? >> Yes, sir. >> Item six, proposed additional revisions. Uh or >> Okay. I'm sorry. >> Yeah. >> And uh administrative appointments also. >> I'd read that, but I'm waiting for response. Proposed addition and revisions. Two items for advertising this month. policy 2520 and 2522 >> the light on first go first. >> Yeah, you can. >> Okay. Um and what I want to talk about is the changes on our library

089policy. Um and I I think it will serve us well. And I when I talked to Keith about it and I talked to Ellen about it, Keith, I decided we better probably do a like a motion deal because of how it is. And um cuz Keith tries to read whether he's got three board members with us on a certain agree on a certain matter or more, three or more. And it gets but this is the motion I'm proposing for us to vote on on the board agenda for Tuesday night. You'll pass that down. and then pass this down. This is Judge Weatherall where he had that post. I highlighted the two statements on there and um and one thing Judge Weatherall was discussing in that quote um it's coming to you should be what he

090was discussing in that quote was speeding up the process and that we did not need to have book review committees. I apologize >> that the board could take care of this on itself. So, the motion is simply and I think with the motions that Tom's already done and I've done, this is going to probably be the clean up and we're going to be done because I'd like to put this to rest, get on the regular order on this on what's being submitted in our media centers. But the motion, proposed motion, school board direct superintendent eliminate citizenbased book committees. This change is intended to expedite the book review process just exactly what the federal judge was saying in his quote. Um I am big supporter of citizens being on a lot of our committees. Uac myself

091hat sales tax but this one the governor the state attorney the board of education the commissioner education is not going to hold a book of review committee responsible. They're going to hold us five here responsible for if we have age inappropriate obscene or pornographic material in our schools. I think it's so important that um if something comes up, we can move very quickly to get these books reviewed and out as a board. So, that's my proposal and I'm interested to see if uh what other board members got to say on it. >> Mr. Williams, Dr. I >> I don't want to but in front of anyone else. I know the light on. Okay. Thank you. Um when we first started this uh the intent was to uh make our policy as smooth as possible to

092make our policy one that was easy to understand and also to add some accountability to it. Uh the policy that we had gotten to the point on it that uh we had agreed on the accountability the smooth process of flowing things the purchase of books and so forth. we uh the reading the tea leaves I'm I'm I'm presuming that we all had agreed on that and then we got to the point where the book review committees uh in my opinion the book book review committees in their current state uh were not well they were functioning and it wasn't that they were functioning it like one individual or another and uh uh felt was important. I think that they I think that they were too cumbersome. Uh that they were costing us a lot of money

093because we were having to order every one of those books. And I am one that firmly believes in parental uh involvement. I believe I said it at the last board meeting that parental involvement always enhances the academic program. But uh I've over the last month, the two months we've been working on this, I have decided that uh I think it's best that we just do away with the committee and move on. So that's I will support your resolution. Thank you. Any other comments >> uh along these lines? Uh I think I've made comments that would be very much aligned with this. My only question is more for the attorney that in doing this we don't do anything that violates statute laws or requirements. >> There are other school districts that do not have um citizen

094review committees. They do it all internally >> and I know that initially when we started everything about book challenges, book reviews and and whatever was very new. Uh the laws were just coming out. We had challenges and things that came out before there was any guidance from DOE or the state. Um we thought that we were doing the right thing to try to to in to involve citizens. I think that it probably has muddied the waters in many cases and so uh I uh I look forward to uh things coming forward. At the very beginning of this discussions that we've had in the past, I've always been one to one encourage our community support and encourage our parental support as well. I'm still on the fence and of review committees. I'm still researching them and

095studying them and talking with my constituents about it. So, at this time, I I can't really say yay or nay, but I'm still reviewing the review committees. Um, I do believe they do need to be streamlined, but at the same token, they are kind of muddy in the waters like one of my board members said. And is that in the best interest of our students? I don't think so. So, I'm still thinking. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other comments? >> Do you want to make >> I'll let you know Tuesday, >> sir? >> No, I'm not going to speak to that. I'll let you know Tuesday when I vote. >> Okay. >> Well, do we have to vote now? >> We good. >> No, no, no. This is just discussion. >> He We

096got at least three board members who want to put this on the board agenda for Tuesday night. >> Okay. So, we'll vote on it Tuesday night. >> Okay. reason I wanted to uh to speak on this at the very end. We had talked about just including this in our policy. So my question is do do we really need a resolution if we're going to do if we pass if we pass a resolution the next board meeting becomes effective immediately. Am I correct in that? >> No. No. Um >> I go through >> our current policy contains the language regarding there there is nothing in our policy that requires the use of committee. Um there is uh there are provisions that provide for the option of the coordinator of media services to use a book committee

097if it's deemed appropriate. >> Um but that language is still in our policy. I do not think that you can undo >> um the existing provisions in the policy by a board vote. I would think that you would need to remove it through although I guess that could technically be considered a partial repeal. that that's something I would need to look into further. But um I would say that if it is the board's will to go down this road, you can certainly take a vote on the proposition, but then I think it would require further amendment of the board policy in order to make that effective. >> That's where I was headed with that. That it it's a current board policy and so and we were in the process of amending that. So, we can

098we can still pass a resolution, but then we're still going to have to remove that. We're going to have to vote to remove that from our policy because we're this would be the LA this would be the first reading of that policy. So, what I'm saying is for the next uh for the next board meeting, we we can remove that and vote on the policy with that removed. >> Oh, yeah. I guess you're right. >> Is that right? Is that right, Mr. >> Could you Could you restate what you >> What I'm saying is it's current board policy that we have the committees. All right. And we're in the process of amending that board policy. Uh so in the workshop, it was scheduled to be discussed today and which we're doing now. So if if

099we go ahead and say uh you know there's at least three of us right here, three board members reading the tea leaves as as people say uh that want to do that, we can go ahead and rewrite that policy that excludes the committee does not have it in it and have it ready for us for the first reading for next. That's where I'm headed with that. Okay. Am I correct in that? So we still have to have it on the board agenda plus have the policy changed? >> Yes. Okay. >> Uh because we we were in the process already and it had been advertised. >> I don't think that you need to have a separate vote if if what the board is directing me to do right now is to revise the current draft in

100order to eliminate reference to the committee, then I can do that. This has not been advertised. It's kind of like adopting the tenative budget. It's not done until >> it's done. And then and then there would be two more readings for that for it to become effective. But uh that that's where I was heading. >> Thank you, Tom. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. >> You in agreement, Paul? That's my three votes right now. I don't know if I gain another one, but yeah. So, you okay, Paul? >> Okay. All right. >> The the bottom line the bottom line is this. The policy is going to be amended, you know, uh and that'll be brought to us next time as a first reading and the committees will go away. Yeah. >> Okay. Is that that am

101I reading that correctly? Yeah. Yeah. >> The the one thing I would be very hesitant about is um we need to make sure that we've got something to replace it. Um right now um it it's >> I think if I can interrupt and I think Tom's alone with me, me and Paul, we got people that do it should do it. They're employed by the school district. >> And and that and that is my point. Yes. And that is my point. If if we take this away, what is going to replace it? >> How many media specialists you told me you had other day? >> Okay. I I think we got plenty. >> And and then >> and Mr. Adams, excuse me for interrupting you, but then we have given the superintendent the authority to review

102those. Then after so the logical progression would be media specialist, media specialist coordinator, superintendent and then if there's an appeal filed it would come to the board >> agreement. Yes. Boment. Yes. >> So the board the board's going to make the final decision on that anyway. >> He's going to do what he's got to do on his exe executive side. >> And I would suspect I would suspect Mr. Adams that what we're going to find is that after after you go through the process uh with the superintendent so many uh any books that come forward the superintendent and his committee is going to get those before they >> before there's going to be I'm hoping that there will be only a few that come to >> tell me tell me who's on the superintendent comm

103the good the good news is the one person that's finding all these books actually gives you everything in it >> you don't have to search too just super. >> So, let me make sure I ask these these questions I need to ask because I tried to talk to all of you about this at least a little bit. Uh, is it your expectation that I read each book that's been challenged? >> No, not mine. I wouldn't if I >> Tell me about who's the the committee because I if I'm in charge of doing something, you can dog on rest assured I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. Um, so I get that the language currently says may and I get you get to make those decisions as to what you want in

104that language or not because it is your policy. It's my responsibility to make sure we adhere to it. I think I can't speak for Miss Odm, but I'm thinking why she's asking the question is we need to make certain like today remember we talked about in the master board train clear and concise policy. So, uh, let's make certain that either today or when we get to Tuesday night that we've made certain that we've taken our time and read through both 2520 and 2522. And what you have in place is what you want. Yeah. >> Cuz I don't know. I'm glad who Elizabeth did you put this on the screen for us so we can because I want to be certain that there is a clear path to getting books to you to either be vote

105well to be voted on because I can tell you there was I've got a lot of media specialists who also have uh a good number of new books, library books that need to be purchased. They have their list, but we were waiting till we had a clear version of what we were going to do from a policy. Because the way I read it right now, before those 52 librarians, media specialists, buy one new book, that's got to be put on an agenda and brought to this group, but I don't know if that was truly your intent. That's why I appreciated the fact that you said, "Hey, we need to make certain that we vote because it's hard to read tea leaves sometimes." >> Right. That's that's and and and this discussion you're having with me

106right now after all the discussions I've had with you. >> Yes, sir. >> You start wandering around on me. But if you're you're a superintendent, >> right? >> Okay. You have you have how many employees? >> 5,000. >> Okay. No, I don't want you reading books. You if you're media director and your other people can't do it. Um >> The reason I asked that question, >> we have a problem. >> The reason I asked that question is because Yeah, >> ran here to Yeah. Don't say committee. >> And recently he told me that he knew I had a lot of things to do, but we do have a lot of people that have and he didn't want me >> having to read a bunch of books. Yeah. >> What I envision is your media director

107would come to you with a recommendation of whether to approve the challenge or deny the challenge and you bring it to the board >> and uh and because you you along with David is the ones going to be standing down there in Tallahassee. >> Been there before. >> Yeah. you going you can be there again like the Hillsboro guy but um but this don't need to be complicated but make it as easy as you want for your side >> what the fence >> what I'm saying you're I get it >> but that's not what it says now and if that's what you want it to say that's how we need to write it >> that's that's the way I want it to say >> okay so >> what is the can somebody kind of give

108me a example of a book's been challenged in the way that you want the language to be written what would be the process You you've already we've already discussed about school districts that already do this. >> Correct. >> Okay. That would be my first stop right there. We're just saying on our side. >> Okay. >> We're going to vote on removing the citizen based committees and then you do whatever process you got to do on your side to make sure it all comes out. >> You want me to develop the procedure? >> Okay. >> Well, Ellen, she Yeah. Yeah. >> I mean, I'm detecting >> I get it. You and I get along good. We argue all the time. >> We do. >> What do y'all What do y'all >> We do. >> Yeah. >>

109What is the group? >> All right. So, >> what I'm looking at and I'm I'm jumping in here. I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. >> No, go ahead. >> Right. >> What we have before us right now >> being shown on the screen will have to be amended. >> Right. So this get pulled >> stays in there with something getting struck before Tuesday night. So anything that has to do with this review committee here will be struck. >> What what I I think that at at this point what I would probably recommend doing is seeing if we can come up with some sort of language and add it as an additional item. not not replace this one because I want to make sure that the board has the option they have maximum options to do what it

110is that they want to do. Um and then that way if both versions are on there then the board would then be able to vote which they want to go with. If they want to go with the proposed revisions for as as they are now or if they want to go with proposed revisions with whatever it is that we come up with. One one of the things that I've talked to at least two of the board members about was similar to what they did in another school district like Clay >> and there would be >> I was thinking about Clay >> there would be a three member district level group that would take the challenge take a look at it and they could say no it's a that challenge >> isn't worth the paper it's

111written on frivolous we deny it or it is a challenge uh it's got merit and we're going to make a decision. The three of us are going to make a decision and then whatever that decision is would come to the board for approval. >> That's right. >> That was what at least two or five have told me. >> But that's got to be something that three of the five >> well >> in a public meeting decide. >> That's why I I wanted to vote on this motion. >> I get it. >> And then we could work on implementing it. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> I understand. >> That way you know you got three sir >> or four. I really uh when I look at this and I've struggled with this over the last two

112months because I I am one that believes that we need to have some parental involvement but I'm at the point now over this that uh I've looked at it every angle you can look at it and I've decided that we need to just do away with the committees. Now if the superintendent if we want the superintendent to have three three district staff members look at it. But the bottom line is I always want to see it come to this board. This board needs to have the final responsibility to that where >> he goes on next year. >> And I'm I'm in favor of your motion there, Mr. Adams, and I'll I'll support that and I'll support it if if if you think that a three member committee, the superintendent can get anyone he wants to.

113He's got 5,000 employees. He can get anyone he wants to to serve on those committees. But ultimately, this board needs to make that final decision once it goes through the appeal process. And >> and that's why I gave y'all the quote from that judge. >> Pardon me? That's why I gave you all the quote from the judge because we only did like six or eight books I guess in a year or a year and a half, you know, and uh and he's saying >> you don't have to have this process that y'all are doing. You can do it much faster. >> We're the ones that going to be ultimately held responsible anyway. Not this one or that one. It's going to be us >> ultimately too. We're still getting things and and I don't want

114to add more to our our discussion here, but we're ultimately getting books now that are not, you know, that >> I know read that one today >> that would not meet our policy and there is a lot of them out there. So, we may need to discuss that somewhere down the >> accountability piece. I'd >> like to get a little clarification and and I don't know whether it's the superintendent or Miss Vincent or attorney as it is now. We have we have uh titles that are going to be waiting for purchase for our media uh centers. And it's my understanding that each media center at each school has a committee, a parent committee. Parents are part of that committee that look at the reviews for the uh requested titles to come in. So at that

115point, we do have parent input. >> Good point. as to what's coming in >> and and if that's not a strong enough parent uh a participation maybe that what what's being done there that procedure could be changed or modified to make sure that there are at least one two three whatever that parents do have the opportunity to be involved in that selection before the books come in. Then when they get in, if there's a challenge, then we've known that parents have already looked at the books and and and so we know that the community has had that opportunity and then it would just go to the superintendent, his committee, and then to us. >> Can I ask? Yes, sir. Miss Vincent, I try not to ever do this to you, but will you come to

116the podium? Well, while she's on her way up, I would like to make certain that the board members keep in mind that there are books that have been in the library for far longer than we've had these legal requirements that parents provide input on library collection development. Um, and so I don't I don't think it is entirely accurate to say that if a book is being challenged, there's already been parental input on it because, you know, a book that's been in the library for 20 years is not going to have had parental input. >> Okay. >> 20 years ago, it had input. >> You don't know that. Miss Vincent, if you would uh talk to them about what we do now and will you also talk to our board members about what we're waiting to

117do from a in particularly I think the vast majority of the books are elementary and whether or not it's really what their expectation is that we wait or that we go ahead and purchase those books. Okay. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> So we did have a library advisory council at each school. That was the way that we brought in that parental input over the past couple of years, past few years. But this year, we've actually shifted and expanded to more of an online district-wide procedure. So now, what we are having our media specialists do is prepare their lists, share their lists with their principles to receive first the principal's approval for the list to be posted. And then they post those lists to their website and share with their school community by a call

118out or by an email. And it is posted for at least 10 days and we have a form available where they can provide comm anyone can look at the list. The list is available on each school site and all of the lists are compiled on the district's website. So if you go to the media services page, you can see all of the lists that media specialists have submitted so far. And we are looking at that feedback. We wait for 10 days so that anyone who would like to submit feedback has the opportunity to do so. And then the feedback is shared between media specialists and between schools. So say one school had a book on this month's list and another school was considering it. Well, they could go ahead and look at that feedback if

119they wished to. And once that list is posted, uh, anything that is a duplicate copy for that school, we are clearing them to go ahead and purchase that because that's not a new purchase. But if it is new to that school, we are asking that they wait until that that full 10 days is up and receive any feedback so that if it's new to that school, they can review that feedback. And then anything that is new to the level. So for example, if you have a book available in a high school, but a middle school YA collection would like to add it, well, that's new. And so that is one that we have understood your directive to mean that you would like to approve those purchases. And if it's new entirely to our district, our

120understanding is also that you would like to approve those purchases. Is that an accurate understanding of the board's directive? >> It was your accountability piece. Um, what I what I thought you were saying when we passed it was they would fill out a form saying they checked XYZ, we're not going to be in trouble with the state or anything else and they sign their signature. Okay, that's that's because we got here, but he can go ahead and do it if he wants to. Yeah, >> we we Hey, look, you're laughing over there, but we've done policies before where we were going through the voting, but we abided by it cuz we got an approved. >> You know, I have a great sense of humor, Kevin. >> You may not want to do it. That's a

121different story. >> I'm I'm I'm good. In fact, that would make our um media specialist very very happy. But what I haven't done is because I work for the five of you, I have not done that. We were waiting to bring it here >> because I knew I would be violating your policy, >> right, >> if I did that until the new policy is approved. >> Am I close, Ellen, to getting in bad trouble or I'm okay? All right, >> Miss ODM, I just had a question for clarification to at this meeting. What What can we do now and how do we move forward? Because I'm we're not voting on anything tonight. Are you just you're going to restructure the >> right right now? Right now, basically what's >> Mr. Adams has stated what he

122would like to see happen. He's put his finger in the air to see which way the wind's blowing. >> Okay. >> To to find out if there will be a little bit more >> uh and he's what we have discerned is that there is interest in deleting uh there is sufficient interest. There's a majority of the board that has expressed an interest in deleting the committees. Um, I'm still very wary of making such a monumental change to the policy. I I mean, at every single workshop that we've had where we've discussed this rule, discussions have been had about doing away with the committee. So, I don't think that this is coming as any kind of surprise. Um, but I I just I'm hesitant to do something of such significance on such with such short turnaround

123time. Um, I when you do things quickly, things can go horribly arry and it's um my preference doesn't really matter. Um that's you know I I advise on what the law is but um if I were to make my best recommendation to you it would be to leave the existing language as it is right now. If you want to give a directive that we are not going to send books to the review committee, I think you could do that vote and then give us time to figure out what we are going to replace what we're going to do in this policy. >> Okay. Um because I I just I when you do things quickly, mistakes happen and um there can be a lot of unforeseen consequences by doing things in haste without a solid plan

124as to what it is you're going to put in place of what you're removing. What I would like to ask permission to do today is for our elementary schools at the minimum be able to purchase their new books through the process that's in place so that we can at least get those library media materials ordered. I feel very comfortable with the books at their elementary level is ordering um without having to bring them to you night or in October on a Tuesday night so we can get that taken care of. I do believe by October, November, whenever it may be, you'll have a clear picture of what you want your policy to be. And I believe that will be part of it because I believe all five of you >> are nodding your head. Okay.

125>> Well, you want to ask a question? >> May I ask for one additional clarification? We have middle schools that have submitted lists and on those middle school lists there are books that have lower audience levels. if they have books, excuse me, that have a elementary audience level or even a middle grades audience level. >> I'm not comfortable with is YA. >> Okay. So, could we say pause and wait for approval on YA orders, but order other materials? >> I'm very comfortable with that. >> Dog Man is very popular. But I think what I was getting at what Tom was saying and I'm hearing something different from you guys. Um all we want to do is that accountability piece that when they get receive a book they signed that they being certified by the state

126that it does not have age inappropriate pornographic obscene content. Well, let me let me finish because we get off on this other stuff and I think it's a pretty narrow thing I'm talking about. We just want the accountability piece. They're signing off and they're giving you the record that they checked it. They're only in trouble is when the state comes after us and and that's what Tom wanted to be able to do is look back to see what media specialist approved that thing. Okay. >> Yeah. We weren't trying to get that far in the weeds, but challenge books, we definitely want to see them if they're if you you know, if you you're going to recommend to the board on a challenge book whether it's going to go back on the shelf or not and

127then we'll vote on it. That's a challenge. >> Correct. >> But I don't think we ever got down to all these >> thousand other books you purchasing. It's their job to make sure they're following state law. >> That's that was my opinion there. I >> I think we're books I I think we're talking about about three different topics and and what what Mr. Leonard is trying to get clarification on is that yes, there was a directive given that there be no new purchases until he >> figured out a way to get a handle on what was coming into the schools. And so what and you you use the term policy, but it's not a policy. It was it was a more of a directive. Um so it's not something that has to be done through

128rulemaking. You've been given a directive. What he is doing now is he is presenting you with his plan and and asking for permission because you've given him the directive not to do something and he's just asking for permission to to proceed with these purchases >> and that's where I'm trying to help him right >> by saying the board has already spoken of what we want >> right and that's >> go on and carry out your job but I wouldn't be doing it unless you have accountability on the media specialist and have that little form that they sign off and say yes I I'm certified. I did everything. I think that's what Tom was wanting. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. >> Exactly. >> So, uh, and I I'm a firm believer now we're gonna have to do

129motions like this on just about everything because it does get muddled a little bit. And, uh, >> I'll give you another example if you want. >> Well, no, I don't want you to because it's it's pretty simple. Let them carry out their business as long as you got them signing off that me as a media specialist trained by the state of Florida. This book does not have any age inappropriate obser pornographic material. >> I know you don't want me to give you another example, but I have to. >> You got to >> I have to. So part of my directive is to make certain that um any book that has been removed uh by another school district >> Yes. >> also be removed here. >> Mhm. And if it's been removed in another school district,

130how am I how are we supposed to know that that's state list? Okay. What we've got and that's why that's a great answer because we've got to know when that state list comes out >> because we may have a book on the shelf today, >> but state list may not come out till December. Well, you probably took action on the attorney general when he went out to Hillsboro if we had some of the same stuff and I think all the other school districts did too that was on the state list but the attorney general said you better remove it now. >> So I mean you >> do I need to watch the board meetings to know or wait. Okay. >> Yeah. I I I think the state list >> can you confirm which what what

131state list are you referring to? the state's book removal list compiled of all the school districts. They come out every so often with a new updated list, >> the objection reports that are compiled on an annual. >> If you look at my motion, I think it's in there. Okay, you go back and read the three-part motion. That's why we're asking those questions. >> I pretty well try to write that motion so that you couldn't drift off somewhere. But um but yeah, Keith um start have sign off that they check the book and it's okay. And if you feel confident that your media director say they're good to go, then do it. >> Yeah, we I feel I feel comfortable. I trust the superintendent and if he needs to order these books and they have certified

132that they're do not contain inappropriate agemen, then order them, you know, for right now. But then if they do contain that, then uh then it's a different story. So, if the superintendent says, "I'm comfortable with this," then then we trust him. That's why we hire him to do his job. And uh then let's go ahead and you know, and do that and order those. But at the same token, I want to see something that in writing that says that I'm not ordering any inappropriate books or age appropriate or whatever, you know. So, >> and I and I know we've been labored this long enough and and I think the point is well taken accountability. We will have that. We will get something in place and we want to do best for students in Escamia County.

133I'm hoping we can order those books for the elementary students and move forward and if something comes back we'll we'll deal with it. U but let's let's uh make progress. Uh >> yes, >> Bradley, it's a different tangent. >> Along with that, in the past, there had been some statement made that some books came in that were unordered that were included in shipments from the publishers >> said that that was possibly how some things arrived here. I I hope that in the order there would be a statement. and said, "We do not accept um we will not receive any materials not listed in this requested in this order." >> If you receive title specific complaints of that nature, will you please pass them along to me? >> I I don't It was It was conversations

134and it actually could have gone back to when Michelle White was still here because there's a lot of things that were said at at the very beginning. There was a lot of questions. Well, who ordered these books? How do you, you know, who trying to find or trying to identify which person requested certain things? That's kind of water under the bridge. But if that is a true statement that publishers will sometimes include additional titles just to come in with whatever is being ordered. I would hope that they would know that we are not receiving anything that's not specifically on the requested order. I don't know if we receive anything of that nature, but I will say that there are occasionally book drives or other community partners who will donate books to the school district where

135we have to vet those books once we receive them. >> Right. And and and that's a different it it's it's parallel, but it's different. This is the thing that again some publishers may have reasons or whatever to promote something and they send out one or two titles thinking okay if you see it or somebody at once then other schools will want to do that at this point in in in these processes. Um, >> I appreciate my fellow board members support to get the motion on Tuesday night and we'll let them work out the details on how to put it in. >> I want to get a clarification on one thing here and then I know we need to move on, Mr. Williams, and thank you for for for doing that. Uh, so at the next

136board meeting, we're going to get the policy with the part redacted and and what the direction of the board was today for for the policy issue. Okay. I just wanted to be sure that that's what that was going to happen for the next meeting. Okay. Thank >> you. >> Thank you, Bradley. >> Thank you, Brad. >> All right. This uh takes us to the consent agenda. Moving on the consent agenda. Are there any items to be discussed? Starting with curriculum items number 8 through 19. Hearing none, we move to finance items 20 through 24. Hearing none, we move into human resources items 25 through 29. Next we have operations items 30 through 39. [Music] your microphone >> 30 31a uh if I could please. Yeah. Uh at the last board meeting, can I go ahead,

137Dr. Williams? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. Thank you. At the last board meeting, I raised some concerns about that. I want everyone to know that I fully support this that I'm going to be uh voting in a positive manner for this next time. Uh, it had nothing to do with the very Well, let me back up a little. First of all, I had a little misconception about the land. I thought it was eight or nine acres and it's not. It's 2.15 acres. No contractor is going to be interested in that. Can't make any money off that. And that's why it set 23 years. As a matter of fact, Mr. Fesco was right in everything you said last time except one thing. You said there was one 55 year old community there and there's two there's

138two there in that thing. It uh and Mr. Fesco on a personal note here I wanted to say to you it had nothing to do with the high regard and I know that you vet things and it had to do with Tom Herrell and Tom Herrell has had some I would say not so pleasant experiences with the BOCC and as a result of that I made a personal commitment when I came on this board that anything to deal with them I would check twice and then verify and that's what it had to do with it had nothing to do with high regard for and I knew that you had done your check off list knowing you as well as I do and and I appreciate this is going to be good for the community. When

139I first moved when I first came to Pensacola, I lived right there in apartment off Lillian Highway and then my wife and I got married and we lived in one off Old Coryville Road and the community has drastically changed. It's part of a redevelopment program. But the thing that struck my attention more than anything else was the safe environment we're going to have for that new school out there because of the sidewalks. there's going to be sidewalks running all up and down there that's going to provide a very safe walking environment for those for those children. So, and uh I just wanted to say that I I support this project and also wanted to say that uh um we've had some positives with the BOCC and as personally I don't want to hold uh the

140current board accountable for things that have happened in the past, but I do want to put them on notice that they're going to get looked at closely as a result of that. and and I did that. Uh I couldn't get a phone call from them and suddenly my phone was ringing. But that's that's what that was all about. This is a good project. It's one that's going to help your district greatly. It's going to help the community greatly and it's going to be one that's a very positive thing for everything concerned. So that's all I'm going to say. >> Mr. Chair, um yes, Paul, I'm going to support you on it. I had probably an hour and a half phone call with M Mike Kohler. called me and I will tell you the truth, I

141didn't know we owned land there. I remember going swimming in that YMCA pool when I was young and and all that, but the main thing um is it it's going to be a project to lift the whole community up, you know, and Myrtle Grove needs that in there. And um and I think this will be asset to our schools. You know, they're going to put a a library in there and a community center, right, along with it. >> Is what I understand. >> The the plans are not solid at this point. We know there's going to be a library. The uh the commissioner from district 2, Mr. Kohler, had talked about having something that would would uh be beneficial and draw in in children. So whether that ends up being a semiplayground or whatever. I

142know that at one point we talked about a splash pad and that I know that's been nixed. >> Yeah. Anything to deal with water. Wendham has already vetoed it and said we can never he's trying to get water fountains out of the school. But anyhow, um but I do appreciate the support and I do think it is a great thing for that community. I know that the senior center that it's just done the other side of 57th um also was looking at some other places to utilize for things activities for seniors and that will be something available. So >> now they don't use it for that purpose. It'll it'll it'll come back to us, right? >> There is a conveyance. >> Okay. Yeah. So that was some of the people that that sidewalk is going

143almost down to Escambia High somewhere around Myrtle Grove. >> And and that is long overdue to have those things available for for those Escambia students who walk through mud puddles every time it rains. >> Great. >> It's it's a good project. It's going to be good for the community and I fully support it. >> Yeah. Thank you. Anything else on operations 30 through39? I'm sorry, Miss Burgos. >> I'm also going to support this. I spoke with Mr. Coler as well, and I look at this project is a way to build up that community. That community on that side of town has experienced a lot of blight. And so, this type of building facility will only enhance being so close to both schools, Myrtle Grove and Escambia High. And from what I understand, there's going to

144be about two 55 year old um senior centers nearby or that can also be a part of that. I think you know part from West Pensacola too, >> mentoring and tutoring. Yeah, I think there's a lot of win-win on that. Yeah. >> Okay. Uh, next is the consent agenda for the superintendent, items 40 through 42. And hearing none, any items from the superintendent? And this brings us to public forum. We have two speakers. The first um speaker is Mr. Larry DS Jr. You have 3 minutes. Larry DS Jr. Plumbing LLC because feal matters. All right, let's get to it real quick. Uh, I wanted to read that thing from Dr. Joseph Latapo. That was quite uh impressive that he put out last week if I remember right. So anyways, here it is. Uh this was

145headline news right here. Uh the surgeon general of Florida just announced all vaccine mandates in Florida will be ended. And the room erupted. Can you imagine that? All not just co Dr. Joseph Latapold quote every last one is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery. point. Who am I or anyone else to tell you what should what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? I don't have that right. Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and God. End quote. Pretty much every state has them. It's wrong. Meaning the mandates, meaning that the school school districts in order for your child to go get to go receive the education

146that every parent is paid is forced to pay for. So, I don't know if y'all are still doing this or not, but I would like, you know, my son's received several letters from y'all over the past couple of years because his daughter is not up to date and won't ever be up to date. I would like for y'all to stop sending those letters. It's uh complete nonsense, non-science. There was never any science behind it. I got the polio vaccine right here. There's never any science behind it right here. The IPV carcinogenic mutagenic impairment of fertility. Long-term studies in animals to evaluate carcinogenic potential or impairment of fertility have not been conducted. They've been poisoning these kids for years. They poisoned y'all. Any reason why you think there's so much cancer? The MMR MMR vaccine measel

147mumps and rebella 13.1 MMR vaccine has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutogenic potential or impairment of fertility. Period. Y'all imagine? Can y'all imagine what we've done to these children? Not all because not all of them got it. Not all of them are up to date. But y'all got to stop sending out letters. This is not something this is a medical procedure. You take a needle and you inject concoction made from a corporate mostly global corporations. That should not be y'all's business or the government's business as to what a child receives for medical procedures or treatments. I wished I had another six minutes or three, six, nine. >> Mr. Chair, just one question. >> Yeah. To my board attorney beside me with with Florida doing that, has that been enacted that uh as a as

148law? Yeah. >> No. >> Okay. So, when it does it is law, then we got to change our policy. There are there are vaccines that are mandated by state statute and as long as they are mandated by state statute, we are required to send out letters and notifications. >> But what all vaccines he just >> there are some that are not required. >> That's the ones that the attorney general was talking. I mean the um the medical >> he he said all but um there is >> there he he he did he said all but he does have the he does have the hurdle of the Florida legislature to get over. Maybe they'll go along with him, maybe they won't. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Thank you. Uh next we have Mr. Rich Holes. You have

149three minutes. Mr. Chair, school board members, Mr. Superintendent, Miss Odum, good discussion today. Good motion, sir. By way of reminder, uh I don't want to blabber the point. No, the committees have not served us or our children well. No, they haven't worked. Yes, they're cumbersome. Yes, they're costly. Yes, we need accountability. Ma'am, concerning your um district 4, your your desire for community input, I think that's shared by most people. Do it on the front end. Like the rep from district uh two has said, do it on the front end. Have the the the members of the community help the media specialist take a good look before the books come in or the donations orever however they're being procured. Do it on the front end. To continue doing it the way we're doing it right now

150is akin to letting a bunch of horses out of the corral, out of the barn, running all over the valleys and hills, and then trying to pull them back in. It's time consuming. It's laborious. It has not been working. So, um, again, I I uh I I just want to say great initiative. I would encourage you all to vote yes on his uh proposal next Tuesday. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else for the common good of the uh bullet? >> Yeah, we had a pretty senseless murder happen uh to a gentleman. Um and and it looks like it may be a professional hit. Uh the film I seen with the guy in the black dressed in a black up on the roof and I I was at home and my feed comes across the phone

151and alerted me there was a shoot shooting with him and I opened it up and it was that video and when you see that her hor horrific um shot they did on that guy um you know you just can't unsee what you just saw. And uh this this country has always had debates between different sides and that's good. I mean it's good and and and this gentleman that's what he would do go to co it was a big thing for kids on both sides on the in the college campus. They they like the guy coming on and uh to kill somebody just because of his political views. I mean that shouldn't happen whether it's the far right or the far left or whoever in the middle you know. um uh he he now has a

152a wife is a widow and two children. So hopefully we can have these discussions without something coming down like that. And uh we've seen too much of it here lately. But uh I I send prayers and my thoughts to his family on that uh horrific murder. >> Anything else coming good? If not. Okay. >> Yes, sir. I I promised that I would do this as your rep on the uh early learning coalition. Uh I wanted to make sure that people knew and I guess Dr. Colo probably already does and people in her department that the director of the early learning coalition is retiring um by November. So, uh, at this point there's a committee with the Early Learning Coalition looking for people to submit, uh, if they're interested in that position at all. But, uh,

153Watson is hiring and, uh, the coalition is looking for someone to replace him. So, thank you, Dr. Williams. Uh I just want to remind everyone that uh the Foundation for Excellence, the Scambia County, our own foundation is up for an well they're in the running for an award uh as nonprofit of the year and many of you have gotten emails on that and I'd encourage you to respond to that. So uh it it would be a great honor for our organization here to get that. >> Thank you. Nothing else. We all journ.