Regular School Board Meeting 6/17/25

001Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome as I call to order the June 2025 meeting of the Escamia County School Board. Whether you're joining us via our live stream or in the audience, we appreciate your interest in education of our students of Escamia County. The mission of Escamia County Public Schools is provide equal access to quality public education that embraces the uniqueness and potential of each student. We are united in our mission. At this time, I ask that you silence your cell phones or electronic devices. As a reminder, there are two public forum options. There will be a public forum for agenda items only, including the consent agenda and student and employee discipline at the beginning of the meeting and then a public forum at the end of the meeting for any items pertaining to

002school district business or public education. Additionally, if you are to speak to either one of the items public forum, you will be called to speak during the agenda public forum time. If you wish to speak to either of the forms, you must complete a form located on the table at the rear of the room and bring it forth to Miss Harris or tonight is going to be Miss Payne, Deputy Superintendent Payne at the front table. If you wish to speak at both forms, you must fill out a form for both. All speaker forms must be submitted prior to the start of agenda public forum. This meeting was properly advertised in the Pensacola News Journal legal notice number one 324151. It is tradition of Escami County's school board to begin each meeting with an invocation or

003motivational moment followed by the pledge of allegiance. This month, Mr. Harold, District 5 will lead us. Thank you, Mr. Williams. That would help, wouldn't it? What I was saying is we're going to have a moment of silence uh for our invocation this evening. But uh I would hope that you would during this moment of silence would keep the following things in mind. We have 37 wonder 37,000 wonderful children who just started a summer vacation. Please keep them in your thoughts and in your prayers as they go go about their activities during the summer so that they will all come back to be refreshed for a new school year. Keep our principles our and school level staff, keep our teachers and and also the the school board members and superintendent in your thoughts and prayers. We're

004wrestling with a lot of difficult decisions right now and we need all the help we can get with it. So would you please stand for a moment of silence? Amen. Please join me with the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You may be seated. Thank you, Mr. Harold. At this time, we'll move to the adoption of agenda. Mr. Superintendent, are there any additions or deletions to your recommended agenda? Yes, sir. There's quite a few for this evening's meeting. Under section 16, consent curriculum, student services, item F, under section 17, consent, curriculum, title one. Item A has been added under section 24, consent, finance procurement. Item GG has been added

005under section 27, consent, human resource risk management. Items B and C have been added. Under section 32, consent operations facilities planning procurement, item one has been added. Under section 40, consent superintendent student discipline, item C was deleted. Item D has been added. Under section 42, consent superintendent other item B was deleted. Under section 43, items from the board item B has been added. And under section 44, items from the superintendent, item A has been added. Thank you, sir. State statue and schoolboard rules require that changes made to the agenda after publication be based on findings of good cause determined by the person designated presid over the meeting and stated in the record. Do I have a motion to adopt the agenda? So moved. I'll second. It's been moved and second. Any discussion? No discussion. Please

006vote. Not coming up. Yes. Can we vote by show of hands? Approved. Five to zero. Moving to into committee and departmental reports and special recognition. Mr. Superintendent, we will start with PTA update. Miss Gamble is not going to be here tonight, so we get to move straight into um special recognitions. Okay. You good with that? Yes. All right. So, we have Mrs. Harper from the Retired Educators Association of Escambia County. Looks like she's got Miss Edwina with her for a very special presentation. Thank you ladies for being here this evening. Thank you. I keep saying one of these days I'm going to outlive everybody and there'll be nobody up there that I recognize, but I still see. Uh we are more than proud from Escambia Retired Educator Association to present a check. And I'm going

007to turn it over to Miss Edwin Williams. She is our scholarship chair. Thank you, Donna. Well, I know that you thought you were getting rid of us, didn't you? As we retired, but it's not true. To become a teacher, you often realize you were inspired by one of your own teachers. Our teachers build our communities by advocating for students to realize their dreams and become the leaders in our community. Educators realize our students are so much more than just numbers on a spreadsheet. We pour our hearts and our knowledge into enabling them to acquire their goals and their dreams. As a retired educator, we are not done with encouraging students. Today, we're here to award our Escambia retired educators 2025 scholarship to a very promising young man, Nicholas Mom. And I would like for Nicholas

008to come up and join us and his parents. and would like for his parents to come up too because I think they help inspire this young man. We're excited to welcome him into our amazing profession and begin his future as a teacher. After college, our dream is for Nicholas to return to Escambia and teach in our own school system. However, wherever Nicholas goes, he will always take a piece of our heart with him. Nicholas graduated from Tate High School. And on another bright note, we have already awarded two other scholarships, one to Matteline Garman, who is also at Tate, and Tegan Privet from Washington High School. And that was through um ADK. So many of our ERA educators here tonight also belong to the ADK chapter. And we're very dedicated to investing not only in

009our students and in education, but in our community. So, we have a little check. We've already explained how difficult it is to get this through the uh ATM machine. If all of you would come greet the board. [Applause] on behalf of era. Thank you for supporting our children in this community and loving each and every one of them as much as we do. Thank you so much, Mr. Superintendent. I might like to make an adjustment in the agenda at this time. Moving item 5A uh before we go into public forum agenda items if that's okay with you. Okay. Yes, sir. Asking for a motion to approve the entire slate of our administrative appointments. So moved. I'll second. Go ahead. Somebody make an amendment or how does that work? I need to approve the administrative appointments

010with the exception. That's that's the reappoints. Uh reappoints. Okay. Next item. Yeah. We're going to leave uh the reappoints in that spot and we're just Okay. We're just moving up administrative appointments at this time. So it's been moved in second. The new one, right? Any discussion? No discussion. Please vote. Did it show up for you? It did. Yeah, mine did. Mine showed up. in the red where it says change. Yeah. Let's Let's just vote by a show of hands. Sorry guys. Vote by show of hands, please. Approved five to zero. I'd like to introduce to you our new administrators for 2025 2026. I am a little bit immobile this evening. So I think my board members are going to come join me over here. Our first our first appointment is Miss Briana Cooks. She's moving

011from curriculum coordinator at Jim Allen Elementary to the new assistant principal at Jim Allen. Come on up, Brianna. [Applause] Congratulations. [Applause] Good evening, superintendent, district leaders, and board members. Thank you for the opportunity to stand before you tonight and entrusting me with this great responsibility. I am truly honored to accept the role of assistant principal of Jim Allen Elementary. This opportunity is a blessing that I do not take lightly. I would like to say a few thanks to those who have been a part of my journey. To my husband, thank you for your unwavering faith, your constant support, and the quiet strength you bring to every step of this journey. To Audrey, thank you for always reminding me to be brave and resilient just like you. To my sisters, my family, and my church family,

012thank you for every prayer, every tear, and the strength you've poured into me along the way. To my papa, Pastor Davis, thank you for the constant the countless times you've shown up without question to support me and my students. Thank you for believing in every wild dream and every vision that I have been that I've had and thank you for being my propeller. To my Jim Allen family, thank you for your patience and your dedication and for growing with me and embracing change and ultimately doing what is best for students. You inspire me every day and I'm excited to continue this journey with you. To Miss Cross and Miss Gilmore, thank you for believing in me and yes, for stretching me even though that word makes me twitch. You have taught me to lead with

013grace, to stand in confidence even in the face of adversity, and to value my voice. I am beyond grateful for you. As I step into this new role, I am excited to continue to use my passion for education to serve the students and families and staff at Jim Allen, and I am honored to help carry on its legacy of excellence. Once again, thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to the journey ahead. [Applause] Next, I'd like to introduce Mr. Rodney Dish, who's coming from out of district to being the middle school assistant principal at Ernest Ward Middle School. Congratulations, Rodney. very proud of the amazing first of all I would like to say I would like to uh thank Mr. Leonard superintendent also Dr. Roberts, middle school coordinator. And also, I'm looking very forward

014I am looking so forward to working with Mrs. Bouander over at Ernest Ward. Go Eagles. I'm excited to um work with the staff. I'm very excited. I can't wait to meet the students and also connect with the community because I believe we're going to take that school to great heights. So once again, thank you all for having me and I'm very excited to be a part of Scammy County Schools. [Applause] Latrice Garner, moving from curriculum coordinator at Navy Point Elementary to the assistant principal at West Pensacola Elementary. First giving honor to God whom I attribute my career to. It was his small still voice that's been guiding me through all these shifts. to Superintendent Leonard, Deputy Superintendent Payne, and all the board members. Thank you for the opportunity to lead West Pensacola elementaryaries, the students,

015parents, educators, and stakeholders. I'm a product of the public school system, and I believe all students can achieve academic success regardless of the challenges that they face. To my family, my church, friends, colleagues, and leaders, I say thank you for being my driving force. To begin, I want to honor my mother for always answering my calls and being my soundboard. You have carried me through various learning curves, but buckle up because we gaining momentum. To my father, thank you for speaking my greatest blessings into existence. Your fervent prayers have proven that hard work paved the way as my gifts made room for me. To my best friend, Tara, you have been encouraging me since the days that I was a substitute teacher. You're my greatest fan, but most importantly, you're my support system. Next to

016the Eltho PC church family, thank you for teaching me the importance of operating in the spirit of excellence and most importantly the power of a spoken word and a sown seed. To the friends and colleagues that I've gained over these 18 years, please realize my work site is changing, but we are still united in the same purpose. we can continue collaborating from afar. So it's not goodbye, it's I'll see you later. To my mentor Denita, I'm grateful to have met you during this journey. On our collaboration with Early Learning on Wheels, you open the door um so that leadership can become a reality. I want to acknowledge my principles who cultivated my talents along the way. In 2007, Sandra Russ took a chance on a firstear teacher despite her challenge of having to lead Montlair

017Elementary out of a turnaround status. Concluding that interview, Miss Rush said these exact words. Pooky, you going to be a good little teacher. Cassandra Smith, thank you for allowing me to spread my wings at Lincoln Park Elementary School. You never missed the opportunity to bring our district leaders to my classroom, and I never understood the why behind it. In hindsight, I learned that putting a face to a name is the foundation for building those positive relationships and stepping into leadership. Finally, Dr. Harris, the 2020 pandemic till now, it's been a joy working at Navy Point. My most memorable moment occurred during the summer of 2023. You asked me to share my goals and identify what I needed to continue my professional growth toward leadership. My simple reply was, "Teach me the data." I enjoyed every

018moment sitting at your side. That conversation brought life to my future goals. The effectiveness of my personal growth is the direct evidence that your tailored support was the bridge to closing my learning gap. You will forever be a human calculator in a walking calendar. To my AP, Mr. Freeman. No matter the challenges that we faced at Navy Point, we always took a moment to laugh. Working alongside you, I gained a brother in education. Then finally, to my new principal, Miss Baker, I say I'm all yours, and I'm ready to do the work. I vow to be a good steward over the students, parents, and educators of West West Pensacola Elementary. People first. To the board, this snapshot of my path illustrates that I'm a lifelong learner. I love my community, but most important, I'm here

019and I'm united. Thank you, Stephanie Gilmore. She's moving from being the elementary principal, assistant principal at Jim Allen to being the principal at MacArthur Elementary School. Congratulations, Stephanie. Superintendent Leonard, school board members, Deputy Superintendent Payne, and Mr. Wilson, Wilson, thank you for the incredible opportunity to lead MacArthur Elementary School. I would like to take a moment to recognize the people who have profoundly shaped my journey. I am deeply grateful to my family and friends who have been a constant source of support and encouragement. I'm especially thankful for my husband Matt and our three boys, Tyler, Will, and Parker, who have always supported me. Their patience, understanding, and love make it possible for me to fully invest in the work that I am so passionate about. I also want to express my appreciation to my former

020administrators who have provided invaluable learning opportunities and guidance along the way. To the teachers, students and families. Thank you for making this career in education so me meaningful and rewarding. Most importantly, I want to honor my grandfather. He shared my passion for education and inspired me from a very young age to pursue the career of my dreams. He dedicated his life to education, serving in various roles before retiring as principal at Century High School. This past April, he went to be with the Lord. But I know he is celebrating this moment with us today. It is my sincere goal to lead MacArthur Elementary with integrity, compassion, and a steadfast commitment to doing what's best for every child. I look forward to working together as a united school community to create an environment where every student

021can thrive. Thank you. [Applause] would like to introduce Joshua Jackson, who's been the middle school assistant principal at Bailey Middle School, will be our new principal at Ferry Pass Middle School. [Applause] Superintendent Leonard, Miss Payne, Mr. Wilson, thank you for this opportunity. Dr. Roberts, thank you for your support in all this. Schoolboard members, thank you for this opportunity to go back to my home at Ferry Pass. I will miss my home at Bailey. We had a great team there, but I'm looking forward to our new adventure of going back to Fairy Pass Middle School and leading them. And I would name names of people. Thank you, but my family and everybody that I've worked with. Thank you. There you go, John. [Music] Holly Shumpert is next. She's moving from a curriculum resource teacher in title

022one to being the coordinator of IB program at Pensacola High School. She couldn't be here tonight, but we will recognize her in July. So, um, and then our last individual uh this evening is Miss Emily Watford. Emily was the specialist in the school transformation office and she's moving to be the the new elementary assistant principal at SIMS. [Applause] Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. I would like to take this opportunity to say I am honored to be joining the OJ Sims Elementary School team. I've had the privilege of serving with a team that is dedicated and passionate for the success of every student and family that we serve. I would like to take to thank take this time to thank Superintendent Leonard and the entire school board team for this opportunity. Please know that I am

023fully committed to the vision and mission of our school district and I am united for the success of every student. Our students, family, and community deserve the absolute best. I would like to thank my family, my children, and my husband, Tyler Watford. As a fellow educator, he understands and values the importance of education. His unwavering support and dedication is a constant reminder for me to walk in my purpose. As a product of the Escambia County Public School System, the list of individuals that deserve thanks and gratitude is enormous. The beauty of both learning, growing, and leading within the same district is the way that the people we serve with get to intertwine with each other along the trajectory of the time that we serve. The number of individuals that have reached out to offer support

024and encouragement is the reminder of the great district in which we all get to serve. I would like to say a special thank you to both Holly McGee and Holly Wilkins. The time I spent at CA Weiss under the leadership of Holly McGee taught me the importance of servant leadership and the essential characteristics that she embodies. Courage, humility, and vulnerability. The time that I have spent under the leadership of Holly Wilkins in the school transformation office and with the leaders of all the schools that we serve was transformational. The importance of whatever it takes. In the end, your legacy is not about your personal success, but it will be about the significance and the impact on the lives of the students and families that you serve. It's that willingness to take whatever it takes. Thank

025you. [Applause] Congratulations to all of you. Uh please feel free to leave and celebrate. Yeah, we will now begin the agenda public forum. All forms must be submitted at this time. The purpose of the agenda public forum is allow members of the public to address the school board regarding any item on tonight's agenda including items for public hearing. Speakers must adhere to the guidelines out guidelines outlined in the policy and posted on the agenda. You are expected to be respectful in your address to the board. You're also asked to use titles and not individual names. Personal attacks against school board members, superintendent, staff, employees will not be tolerated. Please direct your comments to the chair. Personal attacks against other speakers and outbursts during another speaker's times will all will also not be tolerated. If you

026fail to follow these guidelines, you'll be warned by the chair and subject to be removal if violations continue. Each speaker will be allotted three minutes. Miss Odum will serve as our parliamentarian. Miss Boswell is our timekeeper and will start the timer with your opening remarks. The buzzer will sound when your time has elapsed. When the timer sounds, please bring your comments to a close. The first speaker tonight is Victoria Knight. You have three minutes. Mike's not Mike's not on. Can you Hello. There I am. Okay. It's a hint from God not to be speaking possibly. Okay. My name is Victoria Knight. Um I am a product also of the Escambia County school system. Went to uh Warington Elementary and Middle and Escambia High. My son went to uh MB Cook Bailey and West Florida High

027School. And I'm here to talk tonight about the library committees that we have on the book reviews. Um it is a very important committee group that meets on these things. Um the library for me was a refuge and helped shaped my future. I'm a district 1 committee member and we have a cross reppresentation of parents, community and Escambia County school personnel. These meetings we do follow the state of Florida statutes contrary to what may have heard from previous schoolboard meetings. We all are responsible to read those statutes and follow them. We all read the books and we report out on what we find from the books. Not everything is agreed upon in the final decision. It is a very lively discussion, I will tell you, but we all agree to agree on what the final

028representation is on that. Um, the school library may be an only resource for a lot of children in Escambia County. from a socioeconomic standpoint, they may not have the resources to get to the public library or to purchase other books or books out there. It is very important that we provide this to our children. And I think these committee members, we are out there ensuring that they all have access to books in the library. Parents have the option and the right to remove restrict their children's access. However, they do not have the right to restrict access to other parents' children. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Next, we have Allison Sparks. You have three minutes. Allison F. Okay. Gonna wing this because I didn't really actually write anything. This is my second time

029coming up here. Um I have also been on the book review committees and like this lady just said, I had a great experience with it. Um I do feel like it's a waste of money for the district because this feels a little pointless. Um, I'm not sure if this is just because of the Hillsboro County issue that's happening right now that we're at the point tonight that we're at, but it does feel a little bit like Big Brother. It feels like us parents aren't given a choice of what we can have our kids read and what we can't have the kids read. Um, like she said, not all children have the resources to go to the library, the public library, or buy books at Barnes & Noble or go to Amazon. It's very important that

030they have access to these books there. And as a county that struggles with their reading grades throughout the state against the rest of the state, do we really want to start limiting the books that they have access to? Is that really the best plan? Is there something that we can all do together to come together with this? Can parents decide for themselves with a list? I know that I access my children in for books. Do other parents not have that ability? Pretty sure they all do. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Rachel Bismar. You have three minutes. Good evening. Um, I have been informed of another proposed change to the district challenged uh materials process. Currently, the process sends any flag books to a book review committee that

031represents the full community of Escambia County. I want to thank those who are on the book review committee for your hard work. Um, in addition, the policy at school libraries across the district is to have parents opt out of library services for their child if they want stronger oversight about what their child reads. This policy gives all parents this option. Um, there has been a proposal to not only eliminate the book review committee and to change the policy at school libraries from opt out to opt in. These are both bad ideas. My family doesn't support these proposed changes at all. Um, first of all, the book review committee protects the community in very important ways. It allows the community to have input on the value of challenge books in a systematic way. Um, if the

032book review committees are done away with, then anyone can have books removed for all students with a simple complaint. This control with what is available to the district as a whole by a few people is not acceptable. In fact, it excludes any meaningful discussion of books by community members. I want my children to have a wide variety of books to choose from with a diverse set of characters and experience within those stories. Um, second of all, having parents opt in to receive library services will just hamstring learning across all levels. Um, in this day and age of smart devices and social media, teachers and parents have a hard enough time successfully getting students to read books as it is, and we're going to make it harder for students to access independent reading materials. Um, in

033addition, we're going to require families to take the added step of opting in their child in before the child can use the school libraries. This is an illogical solution. It doesn't take into account working families needs and habits. Um, besides, this method has been proven to be disastrous in other districts, one being Collier County. um they started off with opt-in at the beginning of the 23 24 school year and by the end of the first semester almost half of their student population still didn't have that paperwork completed. Um do we really want to risk something like this happening in a Scambia County? Um that would put our students at a great disadvantage that a Scambian County school district would have to work to overcome. Um besides experience shows that the vast majority of parents want

034their children to have full access to libraries across our district. One person or small group that isn't elected to represent the community should not be given the power to decide what these students have access to read. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Next we have Shannon Nicholson. You have three minutes. Thank you for the opportunity this evening. I too have served on uh up to four book review committees and um establishing these committees was a very trying task and as someone who has been in the room where all the action happens, I'd like to share a little bit about how the process works. Our committees are absolutely representative of the community as a whole. I have served as a parent with pastor's wives, retired teachers, retired military personnel, grandparents raising their grandchildren,

035and engaged citizens. It does not get much more Escambia County reflective than that. There is nothing dysfunctional about our work, but there is something deeply dysfunctional about the effort to stop it. Because a committee does not reach the challenger's desired result, it doesn't mean the whole process should cease to exist. I have sat in committees where the group's final decision did not reflect what I felt about the book. I did not demand a doover until everyone agreed with me. Not getting the outcome that you want is not the same thing as being ignored. As a parent, I have all the opportunity in the world. To have input into the books that my children have been able to have access to. The opt- out process for library materials is very very clearly explained to parents and

036it reinforces that students, parents or guardians are the ultimate and appropriate gatekeepers of what they can have access to from the library. It is not my place to tell another parent what is okay or not okay for their child to read just as it is not okay for that other parent to have the same influence on my family. The committees I have served on reviewed books that are not part of classroom instruction. are totally voluntary. I just want to remind you no one is making anyone read these books. As a citizen, it concerns me this argument that if a book is challenged anywhere in the state, it should be removed from libraries everywhere. What is acceptable or not in Miami date or Calhoun County or Klay County or anywhere else is not really gerine to

037what's acceptable or not in Escambia County. In our committees, we all read the same book. We have to and we all take away different things from it. We deserve the chance as parents to weigh in on these challenged books for ourselves. The world is a big place and they're full of a host of images and opinions and ideas that are pumped directly into the pockets of adults and young people alike faster than any of us can keep up with them. Books require you to spend time. They ask you to sit with an idea or a character you may not know who might be different than your family and see a part of the world or a perspective that didn't occur to you before. You can't get that on TikTok or in a YouTube rabbit hole.

038In a book, context matters. Questions matter. Every book my kids have ever read, we've talked about with them because we've always told them that questions are the way you learn. That's what our committees do. We sit and talk to each other in a room of people who don't maybe all appear at first to think the same way. We talk about how the story we read, how it moved us, and what we learned. We ask questions of each other, and we want you to allow us to still have that same opportunity. Thank you. Next, we have Next, we have Mickey Price. You have six minutes. Uh, donated three from Steve Mack. Okay. Thank you. Hey, good evening. Good to see everybody. Uh, superintendent, chairman, board members. My name is Mickey Price. I'm a member of Marcus

039Point Baptist Church and the men's group, Micah 68. 7 years ago, my daughter passed away. A year ago this week, my wife and I adopted her daughters. My youngest is here tonight with their earphones on. Um, my responsibility is to protect my children. I do not take this lightly. Your job as educators is to teach and protect the students of Escambia County. By the way, Judge Gary Burggosh was the adoption judge. I I I am internally grateful to him. I have a unique inside view of the book review committees. I have served on two committees. They have failed the parents and students. They're a waste of time and a waste of taxpayers money. The teachers are paid to be on the committees. In almost all cases, they side with the media specialists. The book I

040read that they approved to keep in the girl girl in pieces. It was voted to stay in high school for 11th and 12th grade only. I did all I could to warn the other members that this book was harmful to all who read it. I read the book. This book promotes and is a training manual for the following. It glorifies these things. Mental illness, rape, self harm, sexual assault, violence, suicide, suicidal thoughts. This is a evil book. This book has no moral theme or compass. The f word is used over 209 times. Effing is used 138 times. Total almost 400 times. Is this what we want our young girls to mimic? I don't think so. This book is dangerous for teens and young women. Again, your responsibility is to protect students. The boyfriend in the

041book, Raleigh. He's a drug addict. Uses the underage Charlie to get his drugs. He's a thief. He's an abuser. He's a user of young girls. He's having sex with Charlie, an underage girl. This is a section of the book. You could drink, slice, do meth, snort, coke, burn, cut, stab, slash, rip out your eyelashes, or f till you bleed. And it's all the same thing. Self harm. She says, "Whether someone has hurt you or made you feel bad or unworthy or unclean, rather than taking a rational step or realizing that person is a blank or a psycho or should be shot or strung up, you should stay the f away from them. Instead, we internalize our abuse and begin to blame and punish ourselves weirdly." Once you start cutting and burning and effing because you

042feel so bad blank and unworthy, your body starts to release these neat feeling blank called endorphins. And you feel so effing high. The world is like cotton candy at the best. And the most colorful state fair in the world, only bloody and stuffed with infection. But the blank part is once you start selfharming, you can never be you you will never not be a creepy freak because your whole body is on a scarred and scarred battlefield and nobody likes that on a girl. Nobody will love that and so on. Everyone is messed up inside and out. Wash, rinse, blank, and repeat. Is this the kind of book we want our girls reading? I continue. In a rush, it happens again. Only this time, it's remembered what it's like to cut and cut hard. The way

043you have to dig the glass in deeply right away and break to break the skin and then drag and drag fiercely to make a river worth drowning in. Oh, it hurts to make that river. The pain is sharp and blurry all at once. Curtains part and shut over your eyes. Bull breath your nostrils. It's blanking hurts, hurts, hurts. When the blood comes, everything is warmer and calmer. Again, I ask, do we want our little girls, our girls to read this book? I had to pray to God for protection as read this book. Do you think these teenage girls are going to pray before they read the book? Superintendent Leonard, I know you're a good man. I tell you all the time to do the next right thing. You have the power to take this book

044and take it out of our school systems. I want you to do the right thing and remove the book. I pray you do. I commend the board. Last month, I wasn't able to be here, but I watched it on YouTube and y'all did a great job of realizing what these books do and how they affect our kids. And for me, I have two young daughters now, seven and 10. I have a 15-year-old goes to Booker T. Washington High School. And my job is to protect them and I want you to protect the kids of Escambia County because they need a lot of them need somebody to fight for and I hope you do that. Thank you and God bless you. Next we have Neil McDonald. You have three minutes. Chairman and the rest of school

045board. Good to see you tonight and we thank you for this opportunity that we can all share tonight. And as most of you know, I've been a regular attendee of schoolboard meetings for a little over three years now. And I try to make all the meetings I can. And sometimes I'm able to make the workshops. And yesterday I attended the workshop here for uh this yesterday morning. And uh I was just so excited tonight to be able to be here tonight because I believe there's huge breakthroughs coming for our school system. And I'm so thankful for the leadership of our district 1 rep that uh has shown so much leadership. And I was so pleased to hear the comments from each and every one of you school board members that show and tell me that

046you want to follow the law and you want to follow the lead of the Florida Attorney General and the Florida Board of Education. So tonight, you have the opportunity to remove hundreds of pornographic books and to keep any new pornographic books from coming into our media centers. And I encourage you to vote yes on that proposal coming up later on. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. Next we have Britain Goodman. You have three minutes. Hi, good evening board members. My name is Brenton Goodman. I'm a parent of two who lives in district 4. So I'm under your Miss Bgosh. uh as well as I've been a member of the commi community committee since 2022, which is crazy to say. Now, I will be up here again. Uh but I think it'd be best to address what

047was just heard. Um I think it's wonderful that the two individuals who spoke before me really have an idea of what they'd like for their children to hear and not to hear. And I think it's wonderful that we have a district where they are able to provide the list that the Florida Department has given us to say that these books should be removed and that their child should not be able uh to have access to them. What I'm afraid of is that when some of those books that might have legitimacy and if I want my child to get them, I have to go buy them. I cannot ask the school board to put that book back in so that my child on their own time when they're not being instructed can go and get those

048books. Now, what I want to do, we talked about the numbers. I heard you guys talk about the numbers yesterday. 236 books have been challenged, 48 have been resolved. Of those 48 that have been resolved, only 10 have been removed. That's only 20%. So 80% of the books that this board has looked at only 20 or have been allowed either through restricted means or just completely allowed to stay where the community has impacted only has one has been removed. In fact where this gentleman was maybe that was the most contentious one whereas a 5 to3 vote that means five people felt that that book should have remained. Now yes does is he does he have a right to his opinion? Absolutely. But when the community has spoken, when we've looked at these books have been

049up, we've said they should be restricted at least or just saved. When you guys have looked at it, 80% of the time you've elected not to remove them. So if we decide just to take these books from another county, from other places in the county, in this state, uh, and say that they don't like them, so we should just get rid of them. Well, the numbers don't track. We haven't agreed with the books that have been set up so far for why they should be taken out. Why should we think that we would agree with any of these other counties? We wouldn't rely on them to determine what our emergency personnel should do. We wouldn't rely on them to pick our superintendent. We wouldn't rely on the other counties to determine who our schoolboard members

050are or who should be feeding our children or anything like that. So, why are we going to let them choose what books we should allow our children to have access to? Again, I'm going to highlight what everyone else has said here. We have the ability to be able to take down whatever book we want for our own child. We can fill it out in a form. What we don't have the ability to do is for the parents that can't afford hundreds of books to be able to go out and buy them. They rely on the school system, the public school system, to give access to that book. That's what you're doing by allowing these books to stay in here and you're not taking the rights from them. They can get those books away. We can't.

051We can't get those back. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Miss Linda Fussell. You have three minutes. This is the item agenda public forum. Yes. Okay. Thank you. 43B. 43B. Yes. Thank you. Um, and I'd like to address uh this motion that directs the superintendent to eliminate all pornographic or age inappropriate books as identified on the state department of education's book removal list without further review as well as a couple other things uh that are also on this motion. It seems that this motion is a solution in search of a problem. There's not been there has not been there has been no notice to Escambia County specifically by the state department of education to indicate that the district's statutory authority to judge challenge books is in any way deficient. This motion appears to be

052to be a knee-jerk reaction to as I have heard to satisfy Judge Weather's opinion to speed things up. Y'all never mentioned in the same breath that nothing was done about the challenge books for 18 months. The books sat on the shelves and do you think maybe he meant to start moving the re view process along the Department of Education's book removal list has 600 books on it right now. Many of those books have been voted to be retained by our book review committees. In addition, there are dozens of classics on the DOE list such as The Color Purple, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher and the Rye, Christian, The Hugging Lion, all which have not been challenged in Escambia County. No review. Guess these books will be removed. What about the books already reviewed by

053the book committees and retained by votes of 8 to zero where community and district members voted to keep Slaughterhouse 5 and The Kiterunner available to students. There are no procedures in place right now to address these questions. Many of these books are also used in AP and IB literature classes and to not have them available to students will impact their ability to success in these classes. Do you seriously mean to stop all media center book purchases? Do you really believe that there is an avalanche of obscene, pornographic, and age inappropriate books pouring into Escambia County School District? Book orders need to be made now in order to get the library materials to schools by August for the opening of schools. This motion will stop that process and add another burden for the employees to bear.

054Maybe just close all libraries. This motion is not well thought out. This motion is not a good one for this county. Please table this motion. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rich Holes. You have six minutes and you donated Mayor McDonald. Three minutes. Okay. Good evening all. Isn't it great to live in a place where we can discuss things in an open forum like this? Um, it's interesting how we uh how we analyze a problem and uh and come up with different solutions and look at it from different points of view. I want to share first um just uh a a snippet from Corey Timbo's The Hiding Place. Um, most of you, if you're you're readers, you've heard the story, but I'm gonna just spend a minute on this. In her memoir, The Hiding Place, Holocaust

055survivor Corey Tambbo tells a story of a conversation she and her father had when she was a young girl. While Corey and her father were on a train ride, she'd asked him a question about sex. Rather than answering her directly, her father sat quietly and then reached above his head and hoisted down a heavy suitcase. "Will you carry it off the train, Corey?" her father asked. After a brief struggle to lift the suitcase, Corey confessed her inability to lift it off the ground. "After um is confessing it's too heavy." Yes, said her father. It would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corey, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you're older and stronger, you can bear it. Second,

056recounting the story, Corey said, "And I was satisfied, more than satisfied, wonderfully at peace." So, here's the deal. You are entrusted with our children. And contrary to a lot of the stuff we've heard tonight, every one of you up here is elected. The governor is elected. The attorney general normally is elected unless he has to uh be filled with an appointment. Um, we're looking at elected officials like the stars are in alignment right now. This is not about banning books, burning books. It's about protecting our children. It's about protecting their innocence, their identity. Uh there are classics. My my wife, my first wife was a high school English teacher. Loved the classics. We used to read aloud in the cars uh as we were driving. She was always reading. There are options. If you've got

057a good classic and it's got a snippet in there, there are bridge versions. There are PG, you know, versions of that classic so kids can still get to know the characters. Um there are workarounds and uh and and and there are books also in public libraries, not public school libraries. So this is about enforcing the law and we've had very specific guidance now from our attorney general. When he directed Hillsboro County um superintendent to remove certain books, he said, "And others like it." And when he addressed classroom instruction that these books were to be removed from the classrooms, he said, "And not just the classrooms, but from the libraries." So this is about protecting our children, protecting their innocence, protecting their identities, and enforcing Florida statute. Now, if you don't like the statute, change the

058law. If you don't like the representatives up here or elsewhere, vote them out. I'm very thankful for the leadership of this board. I've never seen such unonymity and agreement uh and and supported by elected state officials. We are on the 2yard line. Now, we're not on the 2y line at the end of a game. This is the first quarter. This is the first quarter. Let's get back to the business of educating our children without indoctrin doctr without indoctrinating them. Educating without indoctrinating. Give them books. Find more great books. You know, in fact, I would say this. I know everybody in this room is concerned about the kids. When I had all four of my children at Scenic Heights Elementary School, we would have reading uh conferences where everyone would come to the library and they'd

059have donuts for the adults and coffee and we'd break out piles of books and the kids would come in and adults would read to them. There'd be members of the school board, Malcolm, Thomas, Squint, Stutter, people came from everywhere to read. We ought to do it more often. We ought to encourage reading. We ought to bump up uh I know that we can do better on reading. you just saw yesterday at the workshop. Okay, mild progress. We got a long way to go. We need to encourage reading, but we need to have good books, good material in there, and we need to make sure we're complying with the law because if we don't comply with the law, then all of you up there are at risk. They're not at risk. You're at risk. And you're

060doing the right thing right now. I applaud your leadership across the board. I said it yesterday at the workshop. You're you're on the right track. Take it into the end zone. Uh and and you're going to again, Mr. Chairman, you have the the the possibility right now of affecting the vector and the and the direction of this school district for many years to come. You're doing the right thing. Punch it into the end zone. [Applause] Next we have Manley Eubanks. You have six minutes and you have three minutes donated from Cynthia Carol. Thank you board members and Mr. Leonard. That was quite a workshop yesterday concerning obscene pornographic age and an inappropriate books. It's very encouraging to know that you want to implement implement policies to safeguard our children. Thank you for caring about parental

061rights and getting in compliance with state laws. It is nice to know the state attorney general, commissioner of education, and the board of education has taken notice and are backing you up. God give you continued strength to stop the influx of inappropriate materials from flooding our classrooms and our media centers. It was encouraging to hear phrases like for prevention for decades to come. From this point forward, media specialists must put their name to it. If they violate these policies, there will be consequences. Not only purchased but donated books. The ideal of the matrix disappeared, but we cannot let this disappear. The books do not need to go through a review committee. The committees have failed in my opinion for many reasons. There is a real disconnect between them and the board. This summer, there have

062been unannounced committee meetings that never showed up on a community calendar. How was the public to know they were even taking place? As a matter of fact, one was yesterday. The book Scars number 79 on the spreadsheet. Who knew? Today, The Music of What Happens, book number 58. Who knew? Tomorrow, book 26, Gracing. Who knew? Most of these books are on the state list and they need to be removed. and we need to remove books that are not on that list if they contain sexually explicit material and are pornographic in nature. The state attorney, he referred to books like these. Um, I also experience my my time on the committees that it's not a true cross-section. They are set up to be handpicked to have the majority vote in the favor of obscene and pornographic

063materials. It was very important that the phrase in its entirety was addressed. I have said on committees where everyone agrees, oh, it has questionable material and it is sexual, but if you take it as a whole, you can overlook breaking the law and it and you can allow obscene pornographic material and I think we can do better than that. I also saw camaraderie among certain people on the committees, teachers that were representing theirel as a parent also and other people that were that are employed by the school. And you know, I think it's time for us to have a defense not to allow feal matter as was mentioned yesterday to infiltrate our children's mind. It may not be far-fetched to say fire every media specialist if that's what it takes to enact this new policy

064to keep our children for to keep from doing our children a disservice. They have a big they have been a big holdup in our district and keeping these books. We need to remove these books and one fell swoop, not a few at a time. This should not be political. We should do the right thing before God and mankind. As one of you said yesterday, we can offer our children good and positive content and that does not have to be sexual in nature. Please be careful who writes these policies and how they are written. Follow through, obey the law, and get rid of the feal matter. Thank you. and um I hope that it'll be written in a way that it will be in effect for decades to come. Thank you. [Applause] Aaron Snider's next. You

065have six minutes. Three minutes donated from Pashant Pashana Snider. Thank you. Good evening board and superintendent. Um like to pray real quick. Father in in Jesus name we just ask that you would help us Lord God. King of kings and lord of lords. Thank you Lord. Amen. Um when when we're praying we we need to pray in the name of Jesus. We we don't have prayer without that. So, um, as far as this subject goes, we need to go beyond the state. I don't know why we're cowards beneath the state in Escambia County. And I appreciate some of you are wanting to turn this a different direction. I do appreciate that. But the Bible says it's appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment. So, who cares? You have a you have a

066lot of people that come and say, "I want my child to have pornographic, sexually erotic books." So, why listen? I mean, the they're not looking out for their own children. So, that's sin and they need to repent. We evil is not something that we should tolerate. We shouldn't even listen to it. I don't know why we're so friendly about it. I really don't. I don't. Someone's gonna say something disgusting to me sexually, I'm not going to let them sit there and keep going. So you you have a lot of uh school boards all over the nation. Someone starts to pray and say, "We don't pray." Oh, really? So um I just want to encourage you all go go the direction that you know is right before God and the the way we know that is

067from the scriptures. We don't have an opinion poll so that we have to take the temperature of a room and be afraid of people. We just do what's right according to God. So thank you. Next we have Miss Vicky Bagot. We have 6 minutes. 3 minutes donated from Gary Bagot. Good evening board, Miss Odum and Mr. Leonard. I want to start by addressing the fantastic things that I heard yesterday. First and foremost, kudos to you, District 1, for having the leadership and gumption to move forward and do something about the inappropriate books in our county. I love your comment about how our district needs to make it very clear to parents and others that we are not in the sex business. Your idea of removing books that have already been removed in other districts within

068our great state makes so much sense and is a smart way to save time and money. Something that we have been instructed to do anyway. This will remove so many books waiting to go through the review process and some that are sitting on our shelves right now, paving the way for potential lawsuits from parents or legal directives from our state board based on our inaction. This is a brilliant suggestion and I know for a fact that many counties are following our lead. District two, your idea about changing our policy to include the same guidelines for library books as we have for classroom instructional materials makes total sense. Librarians are paid from instructional funds. Therefore, they are instructional units and their libraries are their classrooms. If a student or teacher can't read a book from the

069library out loud to other students, then obviously it's not appropriate for the school. District three, thinking about the future is what good leadership is all about. Your comment about handling this correctly for the benefit of years to come is excellent. We should all be in agreement about this. District 4, I had not even thought about donated books, but you are so right. Donated books need to be vetted as much as books that are freshly ordered. What a contribution that idea will be to the policy. And then to my own district rep number five, your idea about pausing new book orders until we come up with the policy, but furthermore holding librarians and media specialists totally responsible with their own signatures is a winwin. If the librarian is not sure of a book, don't order it

070or don't put it on the shelf until he or she has read it. It's that simple. To our superintendent, I commend you in moving forward with removing some books. I know that you are surrounded by those who feel that children need to be exposed to all situations because they might be going through these things themselves. Thank you for remembering feelings are irrelevant. We must follow the law. Our wonderful attorney general, James Umer, our former commissioner of education, and our state board of education members have now made this abundantly clear. Read between the lines. You do not have to take a book as a whole in order to determine if a book is inappropriate for minors in a school setting. The taken as a whole concept is part of the Miller test which is used for

071adults not children and it is used to determine if a book is obscene or pornographic. It is not even considered if a book is being challenged for age or content inappropriateness. A book does not have to be pornographic in order to be inappropriate. Please make a note of that. I was surprised to see yesterday our neighboring county, Santa Rosa, is even removing books based on our great state board of education committee. Klay County just removed another 27 books today for a total of 693 books overall. It is obvious that the committee's message is making a difference. I'm hopeful that things will change with our review committees since we are just now moving forward with these committees. Again, we have had one book removed as a result of their efforts, and it was because of a

072tie. That's inexcusable. As a matter of fact, if you remove books from our resolve challenges list that have already been removed from other counties within our state, there will be 25 additional books removed based on inappropriateness. Here is a book that our committees just voted six to two to keep. It's called 10 things I can see from here. Sailix took her shirt off too and then we were getting naked. And then we were naked and I wasn't thinking about anything other than the weight of Six on top of me and the blood rushing to all the right places and Selix's tongue on my nipple and their hand between my legs and the electric buzz of the two of us together. Is having a book that contains passages about nipples and blood rushing between her legs

073while her partner's hand there educationally suitable? Other districts have said no. As district 2 said yesterday, if one piece of that pie is defective, it alters the whole taken as a whole pie. So yes, board, you are making a difference and our district's actions are more in line and will be more in line with both state and federal law law. You are right to have to realize that our librarians and our review committees need to be retrained. We do not need to base things on feelings, instead on the law because ultimately you are the ones who will be responsible, not us and not the review committees. Thank you very much. Next we have Cheryl Henning. You have three minutes. Hello board. So happy to be here with all of you because I get to represent

074the parent perspective. One of the things I've noticed is there don't seem to be many people here with children in the Escambia County School District. And I stand here with an incoming third grader and fifth grader. I also was a product of elementary, middle, and high schools. One of my teachers has already spoken tonight. And I am here to say never once in my educational experience in the Escambia County School District did I feel like I was handed, forced to read, or picked a book off a shelf that I felt like was pornographic or age inappropriate. Now, the things that I have read have stretched me. I can say that my children, I believe, are both reading above grade level. So, yes, they pick books off the shelf that are above their level. you know,

075if my third grader picks something up that's on a fifth grade level, you know, I trust our librarians. So, I've come here tonight as a parent just to say I know that you are here for the children. I believe in that. I also believe in our educational system. That's why my children are in it. But the one thing I was going to say tonight is that I did have concerns over eliminating all pornographic or age inappropriate books without further review. I trust these review boards that we've put into place. And the other thing is I as a parent have the ability very easily at the beginning of the school year to acknowledge what my children can and cannot read. And most important, I trust our librarians. On the way here, I asked my children, they

076they asked me why I was going to a meeting because it really is a very difficult time to rush children around to get to meetings like this. I said, "Because mommy believes that your librarians are fully fully trained and equipped to do their job." And so I ask you tonight, consider the librarians. I come from a family of librarians. My mother-in-law was just just with my children today. I trust that the librarians that we have in their seats can make these decisions. So when books come before you, remember these librarians have chosen which books to put on the shelves. And if we can trust our educators and our systems, then we don't need to be here tonight. Thank you. Thanks. We have Lindsay Durki. You have three minutes. Good evening. Thank you for having us.

077Um, our libraries bear the responsibility of providing a comprehensive collection of reading materials for our students that support a broad background of information in all areas of knowledge. You know that I'm not telling you anything new. Obviously, pornography isn't one of those areas. I agree with you on that. I also want to say I've never once asked for my grade schoolers to read pornography. Never once. But let's revisit what pornography actually is. It's obscinity and nudity for the purpose of sexual arousal. It's not just the parts of the plot that you or another one person don't like or don't get or don't understand. So, I would ask that you let the community know what books in our public school libraries have been found that meet this actual definition of pornography. What books has the state

078asked you, the Escambia County School Board, and the superintendent, to specifically remove? What is it that you feel you're protecting our children from that our trained educators can't protect them from? And lastly, who gets to decide what makes a book good? I recently sat on a book review committee. It was a very honest and thought-provoking experience. We determined to restrict the material at the high school level and it was done in a very democratic way. No one left the meeting upset or unhappy with the results even though we didn't all agree because that's the beauty of democra democracy. This is the due process these books deserve and until now has at least remained intact through this process. Book review committees like this consider viewpoints from across our community and support our local control of education.

079But from what I understand, the state now wants to be in charge of what's considered appropriate, what's considered to have literary and artistic merit while stripping parents and educators input. So again, what are you trying to protect our kids from? I think the danger is censorship, not the books. May I also add that not every book is written for every audience. As far as I know right now, there's been no direct threat to Escambia County. Um, no direct threat to you, no letter written to you. And if there has been, I think that if there's been a letter written to you guys saying remove these specific materials, I think the community deserves the transparency to know what those materials are. What are those books that you're pulling from from our libraries? Um, lastly, Yale history

080professor Timothy Snyder, acclaimed American historian known for his expertise in Eastern European history and the Holocaust, warns us, "Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given." In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want and then offer themselves without even being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. It feels authoritarianism is dangerously close right here. Thank you. [Applause] I may speak Jacqueline Monttero. Montreal. [Music] Hello members of the board. My name is Jackie Martell and I am a proud graduate of Pensacola High School right here in Escambia County. I'm also currently five months pregnant with my first child who will who I am pleased to know will be educated here in Escambia County. Amongst other

081things I'm really excited about is the opportunity to parent my child and to learn with them and guide them as they navigate our world. which is why I am strongly and vehemently opposed to your attempts to take the responsibility and privilege of raising and educating my child in the way I see fit and instead giving it to the loudest reactionary in the room. To paraphrase your statements in today's news journal, Mr. Adams, no parent wants someone else to indoctrinate their children and parental rights should not be undermined. But motion 43B does exactly that. You are proposing to allow the loudest people in the room to indoctrinate everyone else's children against whatever they believe to be sexually explicit, which absolutely undermines parental rights. Parents, as others have mentioned, have the right already to monitor what their

082children take home from the library. You're trying to solve a problem that has already been solved. You have a review committee. You've heard from members of the review committee. They are here to help those of us who do do not have the time or perhaps those who do not have the literacy to read all these books for their own on their own and decide for their own children. All this motion is going to do is not only undermine parental rights but undermine the rights of students to learn about the world that they are growing up in and preparing to face without the assistance of trusted adults such as school librarians, teachers, and their parents. I do want to um just respond to a few things other people have said. Uh someone mentioned Carrie Tenboom's fabulous

083book, The Hiding Place, mentioning the quote, "Some knowledge is too heavy to bear for children." What they didn't mention is that Carrie Tenboom and her family hid children from Nazis during the Holocaust. Do you think that the knowledge of humans inhumity inhumanity to other humans, the knowledge of torture and rape and other things that occurred in concentration camps was too heavy for these children? Of course, it was. Everybody would agree on I would I would stand to say that everybody would agree on that. But those children had to face that anyway, just as our children, no matter what books they read, sometimes have to face horrible things in our world. Isn't it better if we allow them to access books that can assist them to recover from these horrible things to speak with trusted adults,

084with counselors, with therapists about these things rather than just close our eyes and cover our ears and pretend they don't happen? Because they do happen whether or not your children read about it or not. Thank you for your time. [Applause] We thank everyone for participating in our public forum. Um, this concludes our agenda public forum at this time and I'm going to ask for a fivem minute recess at this time. Five minute recess. bar. Next on the agenda is approval of the minutes. Item A, May 15th, regular workshop. Uh, can I get a motion? I move the minutes. I'll second. Been moved and second. Any discussion? No discussion. Please vote. [Music] working. Did yours come up? My name came up. There it is. Did it work? approved five to zero. Thank you. Uh, next item,

085item B, May 20th, regular um, regular meeting. Can I get a motion, please? I moved. Go ahead. So moved. I'll second. There's been moved in second. Any discussion? No. No discussion. Please vote. You come up for everybody. We're having some dig digital. Yeah, let's let's just do the remainder of the meeting. Uh, by show of hands. Show of hands. Please vote. Approve. Five to zero. I'm moving into administrative appointments. Item B, administrative reappointments. Can I get a motion, Carissa? Is this my motion? Now, if I can find it, I approve the slate of administrative reappoints with the exception of Shane Fesco and Steven Harrell who will be voted on individually. I'll second. Okay, let her let her try to type the motion. [Music] Okay, ready? Please vote with the exceptions. Who was who second that

086motion? I second it. Okay, I second it. Thank you. Carissa Carissa did Carissa. Carissa did the motion. I second. Yes, sir. Chair. Okay. Okay. We're ready. We are going to vote with the uh two names being withdrawn and the two board members abstaining from voting. Oh, that vote that everybody vote on this one vote. I understand. Thank you. Please vote. It's approved. Five to zero. Now we make a motion for the ones that have been removed or pulled from the uh from the item. I make a motion for the approval of Mr. Steven Harrell. I'll second. Any discussion? Please vote. Can't vote. Tom. Oh, that's right. I'm abstaining. Mr. Harold. Mr. Harold. Excited. Mr. Harold. Yeah. Mr. Harold, you are required to state on the record uh the reason you are abstaining. I'm abstaining from

087voting for this because the person named is a relative of mine. Okay. It was approved four to zero with Mr. Harold abstaining. Next we have make a motion for your relative. What's the name? Oh go. Thank you. Get together. Can I get a motion please? I approve. U make a motion to approve the administrative appointment of Shaina. That's go. I'll second. Let me just repeat that for Mrs. Harris. They're making a Oh, did not come through. Okay. You want to fill it in later? Okay. Go ahead. Okay. And I will publicly say that I'm abstaining from voting because Shaina Fetsco is my daughter-in-law. Okay. You already have a motion and second. Any discussion? Please vote. Approve four to zero with Mr. Fesco abstaining. Next item we have first read item A 2025 2026 student progression

088plan. Can I get a motion to approve? Make a motion to approve that. I'll second. There's been motion and second. Any discussion? No discussion. Please vote. Approve five to zero. This brings us to the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I'll move the consent agenda. I'll second. It's been moved and second. Are there any items to be pulled from this agenda? I I will be pulling items 10B and 31B due to serving on the boards of both of those um organizations. And I'll be pulling um 17A because I'll have to abstain from that one. And I'll be pulling 25D as in delta 25D. Okay. Any others? Please vote on the consent agenda minus the pulled items. Approve five to zero. First board item is item 10B, contract with the YMCA,

089which I will be abstaining from because I'm on the board of directors. Can I get a motion, please? I'll move the item and I'll second. Any discussion? No discussion. Please vote. Okay. Approve four to zero. Mr. Williams abstaining. Mhm. Thank you. Keep me straight. Next item 17a, contract with early learning coalition. I'll move the item. Has been moved and second. Any discussion? I will be abstaining because I serve on the board of the early E early learning coalition. Please vote. Prove four to zero with Mr. Fesco abstaining. This moves us to item 25D, resignations. Can I get a motion, please? I'll move the item. I'll second. Moved in second. Any discussion? No discussion, please. I'm sorry. Yes. I would like just to ask um our HR department just to explain the exit interviews for any

090any individuals that are with our district that resign. Our um process currently is online. We have exit interviews. They can get those on the HR website or they are directed um to that when they resign or they retire. We get our most response from retiring because they come into HR to retire and so we can we can get them on our computers. We don't have a lot of people that respond to it because really when they're ready to go and they the exit interview is not something they're necessarily going to fill out. We are working towards that though. We had in our strategic plan development, we had subcommittees. So, we've created a new one that's uh 10 questions instead of 25. Hoping that'll help them to to answer those because 10, you know, I have

091time for 10. I might not have time for 25. And then we're trying to now navigate how to get it out to to the majority of the population that is retiring or resigning to get them to respond. So, we're welcome to feedback for that. uh if you want to call me about that or we're just developing that. We're going to roll that out in the fall. Right now, of course, our job is focused on getting the new people in and getting them hired and ready to go by August the 1st. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And the reason why I bring that up is it's always very important for as a district to look at what are some ways that we can improve of the reason they're resigning. Maybe something was going on. So,

092we need to look at this and get feedback from them. So, I want to make sure that we're on the same page with trying to get information from our employees. Okay. I believe it's been moved and second, has it? And that was a discussion. Please vote. Approve five to zero. Takes us to items from the board 31. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Um the port item uh item 31B contract with community action. I will be abstaining from that vote. Can I get a motion, please? I'll move the item. I second. Any discussion? Please vote. Move four to zero with Mr. Williams abstaining. Now, now we go to item 43. Uh items from the board. First we have item A FSBA advocacy represent rep representative and alternate. Can I get a motion please? I make a

093motion that uh we accept this with Miss Burggosh being the advocacy representative and Mr. Fesco the alternate alternative second alternate. Any discussion? No discussion. Please vote. Approve five to zero. Uh, item B, board directions to the superintendent. I move that item. I'll second. Any discussion? No discussion. Please vote. Approve five to zero. Now we move into items from the superintendent. Item A, media media center, materials for removal. I'll move that item. And I'll second it. Any discussion? No discussion. Please vote. Approve five to zero. Next item. Last, we have internal audits. Item A, reports. I will move the uh adoption of the reports of the 54 cost centers. I will second that. Any discussion? I just wanted to make one comment on that. Yes, sir. I think it's remarkable uh that we have the amount

094of materials and equipment and so forth out there that's covered under this and we the loss is just absolutely minimal nothing. So, uh uh congratulations to all those involved in that, the schools and centers and so forth. Having been a principal and had to keep up with all of that, you know, and have a staff to encourage them to keep up with is very difficult. So uh uh uh congratulations to all those centers for uh for keeping up with all the assets of the district in a proper manner. Yeah, please vote. Approve 5 to zero. We will now begin our public forum. The purpose of public form is to allow members of the public to address the school board on any matter regarding education and administration of our schools. In this setting, we as board

095members are not compelled to answer questions or respond to you and typically will not engage in back and forth dialogue in this venue. However, this board and superintendent will note your contact information for response if appropriate. As always, we invite you to contact any of us by phone or email for followup. Our meeting times and locations are posted on the Escamia County School District website. Speakers must adhere to the guidelines outlined in the policy and posted on the agenda. You're expected to be respectful in your address to the board. You're also asked to use titles and not individual names. Personal attacks against schoolboard members, superintendent, staff, employees will not be tolerated. Please direct your comments to the chair. Personal attacks against other speakers and outbursts during another speaker's time will also not be tolerated. If

096you fail to follow these guidelines will be warned by the chair and subject to removal if violations continue. Each speaker will be allotted three minutes. Miss ODM will serve as parliamentarian. Miss Buzzwell is our timekeeper will start the timer for your opening remarks. The buzzer will sound when your time has elapsed. When the timer sounds, please bring your comments to a close. The first speaker is Anita Smith. You have three minutes. Good evening. I am here to lend my voice to others who have spoken before me to implore you to retain the book review committees. In reality, I would prefer there were no committees at all and instead members of the school board trusted the judgment and expertise of the educators who work in Escambia County. But unfortunately, some folks in our community have chosen

097to disparage these fine professionals and paint a picture of a typical classroom as one I do not recognize. I have sat at the these meetings in the past and wondered what in the world these concerned parents were talking about. I was privileged to teach in and retire from Escambia County elementary schools. In my classroom over the years, I had the following students. Children from devout religious families of all denominations. Children from families that belong to no church family at all. Children whose parents were single gender. Children who were orphaned. Children who were dropped off on their parents' front stoop. Children who had been physically abused. Children who were prone to self abuse. children of very high IQ and sometimes autistic as well. Children whose parents were politically vocal and others who were politically ambivalent. Children

098whose mothers wore hijabs. I could go on and on, but this is a snapshot of the kind of wonderful diversity that sat in those chairs. And I loved every one of them. I as their teacher tried to teach treat each with the same kind of respect. I wanted them to be proud of who they were and to see the same potential, same level of potential our education system offers them. I taught the prescribed curriculum and enhanced their experience with advanced opportunities as they were able to manage. We did history fair and science fair, battle of the books, spelling be writing competitions. We held mock elections. I never indoctrinated them in any way. In the school library and in my classroom library, they were able to seek out stories to which they could individually relate, characters

099that looked like them and had similar life experiences. This is not indoctrination, but nurturance. I always gave the parents of my students the option to refuse any book for their own child. The professionals in this county bring all their advanced education and extensive experience to selecting these books for the good of the students and for the community. In this time of too much suspicion and too much misinformation, please retain the book review committee. Thank you so much. Next, we have Miss Doris Hayes. You have three minutes. Good evening. Good evening, Deputy uh Superintendent Leonard and Deputy Superintendent uh Payne. uh school board members, you know, I look around and I see everybody that, you know, I remember some of you and as I've served on the uh on the committee and the school uh for

100a long time and I am a grandmother and a mother and uh I'm here to represent the library committee. Uh, you know, I was at the meeting uh at the uh monument down at the downtown uh this morning at 9:00 with the mail and everybody and and I woke up this morning be when I woke up this morning I started thinking about uh you know the spirit led me all I can say is he was saying what profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul or woman to gain the whole world and lose his soul And I, you know, I was on the news this morning. I thought it it was something that I needed to say. I said, "Well, what do I need to say? Do I need to say

101this to uh I didn't say it there, but I I guess I needed to say it here." So, that's why I'm here to to speak to you all today about the library committee. And I said what we believe we should use the uh parental rights to to provide the library access to all students. Not just one person or a small group cannot be allowed to decide for the entire school district what can be in the library for students to read. So I, you know, I listened to the other the preacher that was up here, the minister about sex and pornography. We, you know, we we got you all here for our children, you know, and we just we want you all to do the right thing. And I know that there's uh when when you

102put books in the schools that these children read on sex and and all this kind of pornography, we we don't want that for our children. I have grandchildren in the schools. I had children that attend Washington High School and graduated a honor role and and they didn't have these kind of books in the schools and and the young man that came spoke earlier, he was the minister. He was talking about uh the books that he read about sex and all this other we we don't have that. We shouldn't have all this in in the schools. Y'all, you know, we you all are parents. I'm sure all of you all are parents uh of some child or children and you you think about it. You don't want your children to read all this kind of garbage

103in in the school. So, if we let this pass then, you know, we we might as well like they said, we going to put prayer in the school. What about the president Bibles? Next thing we going to have president's Bibles in the school. So, we don't want that in the schools, y'all. We just want to do what's right. You all should do what's right. Okay. For all of the children, thank you so much and God bless y'all. Thank you. Next, we have Brian uh Sethstein. You have three minutes. Okay, Francis. Um, Henley Hinley. Okay, you have six minutes. All right. Thank you. What knowledge do you have to say what a book will mean to a child you have never met nor know anything about? Sure, you have met a lot of children, but not

104all of them, not even most. That is why we have specialists and comm and community members to help find what is acceptable in school libraries. You have an opt out option. You have a review process. This is a problem that's already been solved. If you're looking for a definition of pornography, well, the Supreme Court at one time said they knew it when they saw it, and that was the legal definition. Y'all, I've spent more than a year going back. I've actually lost track of time. I think it's now three years um going back and forth on a process to remove these books. We still do not have even 50% proficiency reading levels in this county. I'm a product of this county's education system. We've not improved and I graduated in 2007. But, God forbid a

105child read a book about a same-sex penguin adopting baby penguin. You remove the books, you get sued. You leave the books, you get sued, is what I'm hearing. I also hear you are considering making the library an opt-in service. Teachers have trouble getting parents to do basically anything beyond sending kids to school. And even that, sometimes you have to get the police involved to make them do that. In what universe do you think that parents will not just lose the the form or not bother signing up for the library? Do you think that removing the library is going to help education? A book can save you or harm you, but you but no one but the person reading can ever know which that book is going to be. The Harry Potter book showed me how

106to read when I barely could at age 11. But the deeply religious tried to block those books from being read in class as they are now with LGBT books or their definition of sexuality. I have an anxiety disorder. So things that seem common to y'all can cause a panic attack so bad I literally see tunnel vision from it. But that doesn't mean that I want these things that hurt removed for everyone. Each individual has to learn how to navigate reading the world, how they're going to live their life. People in these committees are not removing these books. Perhaps there is a reason for that that does not involve conspiracy. When negotiations happen between people with differing opinions, they often come up with conclusions they would never have otherwise. We are supposed to have separation of

107church and state for the very simple reason we have over a 100 religions and about 40% of Americans are non-religious. When you remove LGBT books, you spit on everyone who doesn't follow your religion on top of spitting on the children who are LGBT. They hear you one way or another. Even if that is by bullies laughing about how those books Even if those bullies use the book removals as ammo, these committees are literally your legal defense in any court case if it was be brought against you. You are showing that not only are you doing due diligence having these committees, but you also have multiple community members involved with vetting these books. If you remove committees, you weaken your legal defense. Meaning, if the state actually comes after y'all for sex crimes, you will have

108very little way to argue against it. The threat of that has been used a lot tonight. I'm not threatening. I'm trying I trying to give you a reason that we should not be afraid of the government coming after us for having differing opinions. [Applause] We have Kathy Vaughn Vonner have six minutes. Um, three minutes donated by Beverly Stag. Good evening. I had a lot planned to say, but after listening to some of the conversations, I'm going to limit what I say to one very specific thing. I heard someone say that we should not be considering feelings when we make these judgments. And I don't know if these people read. And I don't know if maybe I'm the only person in this room who has sat with a book and balled my eyes out because that

109book touched me. This is what we're talking about. This is called bibliootherapy. And children and adults can benefit from reading for this very reason because it speaks to them. What I'm hearing tonight is you want a little formula that does not include anything about the actual person involved. And that scares me. I had the opportunity to serve on a committee finally. And so I wanted to share with you that particular um experience. And it's kind of odd that my book was referred to this evening. So, um I'm going to go through what I had already prepared and I may stop and put something else in it. I have had the opportunity to serve in a capacity as a community member even though I'm a retired teacher and librarian. Um mine was a good experience. I've

110heard that some others a little contentious, you know, but mine was a good experience. We had a wonderful group of people who who truly were uh dedicated to doing what they were charged with doing. I was required first to attend a training session and to pick up my materials which included information, pertinent terminology and statutes. So I was trained. Okay. Then I read in my case my first young adult literature book um and made my notes on a form that I used as a guide for our discussion in a single one and only one review meeting. I'm giving you these specifics because I don't think a lot of community members know that it's not that hard. You just have to commit. Okay. Um that review meeting lasted maybe 90 minutes. Okay. Um some reviewers were

111in person and others were on Zoom. So that's an option. Everyone had ample opportunity to discuss the content, to address the complainant's concerns, to express their opinions to the questions that would determine the book's fate, if you will. Reviewers are required, this is important, reviewers are required to read the entire book because passages lifted out of context often distort the intention of the author. And I heard that tonight my book that her that I heard that from the person who spoke about the book that I reviewed and I can tell you that that piece of information that was excerpted from the book was almost 3/4 of the way through the book. The book was not filled with that kind of stuff. The book was about two homosexual girls and that was not even the issue

112in the book. It was just an accepted fact. The book was called 10 things I see from Here. So, if you mind the topic while you're reading the book, what you'll see is that it had nothing to do with sex. It had everything to do with a technique that is often used in uh psychiatry and and sociology I mean and in psychology um that helps people who have panic issues or um you know just anxiety kinds of things. They ground them in reality and that's what this book was about. And I thought to myself, What a pity it would be if that book were not on the shelf because there are lots of kids who suffer with this kind of thing. My heart just hurt for this child in the book. It's a fictional character.

113But but I could see children who had this kind of problem. And that book would have been removed from the shelves because somebody picked out three sections of a book that made reference and some of it descriptive to a sexual event. But if you read the whole book, you would see that that was not the important part. It was not the significant part of the book. Taken in total. taken in total that book deserves to be on the shelf and that is what our committee came up with. Um according to the law to remove a book um because it is harmful to minors requires meeting three criteria and the third one has to do with the overall intent of the book. What what value does the book have? And that's the one that I'm struggling

114with when I hear somebody say, "We don't need to be taken feelings and things into consideration. We just need to follow the part about the sex and the pornography. You've missed the entire point of many, many books that are valuable in our school district. That's why the books are being put back on the shelves. That's why because people who read understand that emotion is a part of life. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Next, we have Haley Mosset. You have three minutes. Oh, hello. Impressive. It's fine. Hi, everyone. Um, I'm Haley Moriceet. Uh, I'm a proud product of the Escambia County School District. Uh, went to Brown Barge, went to Woodham before it got closed. Maybe I'm not proud of that part. uh but also went to Washington High School and graduated

115proudly from there. Um and went on to get a master's degree and do amazing things. I believe I think I turned out great from this school district. Um and I'm raising two wonderful children, two boys, sixth and eighth graders um at workmen right now that are going to go far and are avid readers also, but also love Tik Tok. So, we're balancing that out. Um, but for the most part, I'm really here uh cuz I do believe in the power of education and critical thinking and what it means to open minds with books. Um, I represent a lot of mothers that probably couldn't be here tonight. Uh, mothers who have to work overnight. I'm a mother who had to run, drop off for football, do a lot of other things, get dinner, and then make

116sure I was here to be able to speak my part as a representative of other mothers in the community uh that don't have the time to really make it to a lot of schoolboard meetings. I want to be real. Um, taking away the review board and not believing in them is a precedent that we really shouldn't be setting. We shouldn't go along just to get along with what's going on with the rest of the state in that way. uh we should actually be stepping up to say that we trust the people who are appointed who have had the time to do this who have spent their time to do something in order to enrich our children a part of the public school system here. And the other thing is that these books that keep coming

117up, some of the older ones especially, are ones that helped me open my mind and learn a lot more and be a critical thinker and be able to come up here and say, "I don't think that's right of what it is that we're doing." And I think some of y'all had the same things, right? The books were on the shelves. Did our school districts in the past and our school boards, did they fail us? Did they fail to protect us? I don't think they did. I think they did well by us. So why are we setting the precedent now that they did something wrong by not believing in what their review boards had or what they decided to do or what the librarians at the time did? Um, as a parent, I really want my

118children to be challenged. I want them to come ask me questions. I want to be able to go up to the school and say, "Hey, I'm going to sign this paper because I don't think that they should be reading that." And if somebody else's parents think that that's okay, that they're okay to do that. I want to be able to have this process as an involved parent. and instead of being that being just taken away from me to go straight to someone else who doesn't live in my household, we should be able to have that. And there's a democratic process already in place to make sure that that happens. So, I'm really asking you to stand with the parents who care, the ones who want their children to read, the ones who want to balance

119it out with Tik Tok uh and reading and what that means to be able to have conversations even if we can't afford the books that we want our kids to read. Thanks. Thank you. Next, we have Mr. William Griffin. You have three minutes. Good evening. When I came in, I heard the mission statement for Scambia County being read and it included, I believe, a phrase of equal education. Well, I'm here to let you know that there's been a failure to meet that mission at Booker T. Washington and the superintendent office. I've contacted both in regards to their failure to bring equal opportunities under Title N to the boys basketball program. I'm here to tell you that my reaching out to those administrations came back with numerous excuses. The first one that I found appalling was

120that we'll have problems possibly finding staff members who are willing to teach the boys. I find that appalling that teachers may not want to teach a certain group. The second one, being from the great state of Mississippi, I recognize an answer that is the opposite of education, the opposite of enlightenment. An answer that comes back with the statement of this is the way we've always done it. It's rooted in ignorance. That's all. So, I'm here to tell you that I propose some simple answers for this problem. Give those gentlemen class. You have 30 PE classes. Offer them one. You can't do that. Split the one that you offer to the young ladies. Two simple solutions. If those two solutions are too difficult to recognize here at the school board, that's fine. I can also contact

121attorney le Lisa Ross who's a very strong EEO uh attorney out of the great state of Mississippi and she will be h happy to provide I'm sure a class action solution to these problems. Thank you. Next we have um Leila Eubanks. You have six minutes. You have three minutes donated from Erica King. Erica King. You donate three minutes. Okay. Thank you. We are now in our third year of having a small handful of people making complaints about books in our school media centers, getting those books pulled off the shelves and sitting them in storage to wait for their fate to be decided by a book review committee. In our third iteration of how to deal with these complaints, we are finally making some progress. book banners wanted more community members on the committees instead of

122trained educators and media specialists. They felt that having more community members would mean that the decisions made would better reflect the standards of our community. So, it was decided that the book review committees would be made up of eight members, five from the community, one from each school district, and three from district staff, teachers, media specialists, and administrators. The district even went so far as to set a policy that in the case of a tied decision about the status of a book, only the votes of the community members would count. School board members asked for volunteers to serve on the committees. The district's head media specialists worked very hard and spent a great deal of time coming up with the best methods for organizing the committees and their procedures, training volunteers, and getting the books,

123book reviews, and all the paperwork set for the individual review committees. She spent hours sending emails and surveys to organize the actual review committee set meetings. Finally, after making some revisions to the process last fall, the book review committees began their work, and we now have several books that have gone through the review process. We're making progress, and the list of books waiting in book purgatory is being whittleled away. Now when we finally have a system that is working, the main complaintant and her supporters are asking that we bring the process to a halt again do away with our with our present working fine book review committees and change to a different process. This will only disrupt and delay the review process once again, stalling the process of getting books back on the shelves. Why

124do they why do this now when we have a system that is working and making progress? The only reason I can see for doing this is that only two books of those that have been reviews have not been been put back on the shelves. Do they want to change the process again because it isn't giving them the the results they want? Could the results be getting we're getting be an indication that the majority of our community don't support their complaints and want the books that have been pulled to be returned to the libraries? Maybe the viewpoints of the complaintants are in the minority, not the majority. Please look at the decisions of the committees and see what the majority of the citizens of Escambia County want done with our library books. Don't give in to

125those who are only a loud vocal minority. When a group comprised of professional educators, parents, and community members converge to discuss a book challenge and reach a conclusion on about whether or not to keep the book in the media center. This is a reflection of community values. Eliminating the district review committees is an obvious effort to eliminate the voice of the community. The process is working. Let the committees continue to do their work. Speaking on another topic, we have been explaining for years that the Escambia County School District has a policy by which parents can opt out of their children using the library partially or completely. This allows a child's parents or guardians to decide what school materials their own child can you can or cannot use. Out of the 36,000 students in Escambia County,

126presently 97 students have limited access and 11 only 11 have no access. This system works well to allow parents to be in control of their children's education. Now the school board is discussing changing to an optin system of media center usage. This means that a parent or guardian would have to send in paperwork every year that says their child is allowed, can you imagine allowing them to use part or all of the resources in their school library. They will not be able to use the library resources unless that paperwork is completed and turned in. Can you picture what a dis ability this will be for teachers and students of our district? You might believe that parents and students will get such paperwork in. I was a middle school teacher for 30 years. I can tell

127you that it won't happen. Think think about the additional disadvantages to the students who are already at a disadvantage. Your job as a school board members are to appro is to approve our improve our school system, not it. In Kier County, they started 2023 with an optin system and at the end of the first semester, they still had about half of the student body without forms turned in. They were smart enough to start the second semester with an opt out system. Please don't give the education system in our county a worse reputation than it already has. Our opt out system works both for those parents who want to take full advantage of our media centers and those who want to control their children's use of our media centers. Keep our opt out system. It works

128for everyone. Thank you. Next we have Pamela Schwartz. You have six minutes. You have three minutes donated from Sarah Rudolph. Sarah Rudolph, raise your hand, please. Okay. Thank you. You have six minutes. Think we're only allowed six minutes. Pam Schwarz, product of Escambia County Public Schools, mother of children who are very successful people from Scambia County Public Schools, teacher of 30 years who retired with my frustrations over bureaucratic policies and politics, preventing teachers and educators from doing their best work with students when they had a calling. And teaching is a work of heart and it does take good emotions and feelings. I am appalled by my state government and my national government who is undermining public education and giving without taxpayer oversight and accountability monies to schools that have every right to exist. private parochial

129corporate voucher for charter, whatever they're calling them, but they don't have the same rules that our traditional public schools are required to do. This means that our public schools are hurting and we have given choice over all these years and I was on committees over the years. I have sat through these meetings through the past several years and felt insulted for my career where I dedicated my life to supporting students with a caring attitude. And I am grateful for all of the educators that continue to do that in the face of today's challenges with our government that it just appalls me that academic freedom. we're not even allowed to have in our programs and grants words like we support diversity, equity, and inclusion. My greatest treasures are my faith in God. I thank God I

130woke up yesterday. I woke up this morning. And I am a woke person. Thanks to God. And I want my children and all students to have the ability to learn how to be successful citizens of the world. That is our job as educators. It is to help them be problem solvers, creative thinkers, and to learn to tell fact from fiction. And I'm sad to say that the misinformation and outright lies. But some of our elected officials is misleading a lot of people, demonizing our public schools, scapegoating our teachers as though we are sexualizing children. We are wasting so much time on all of this book censorship and what we're having to do when our real problems are. We should live united under the love of God. And my God says that we are to love

131one another as God has loved us. And that means that all God's creation who created the beautiful biodiversity of this world, red, yellow, black, brown, and white. Look at the indigenous people that our colonization sometimes in the name of religion exploited indigenous people, enslaved them, exploited them for their resources. That's still going on today in this world by some of our elected officials who talk about other countries that they're going to take over. We are should be ashamed of how we are turning some of our allies into adversaries instead of working for diplomatic peace on earth. Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. My God says, "Judge not, lest you be judged." And I'll take my chances with judgment day and facing my God when each one of us will

132be accountable for how we've lived our lives in front of God on judgment day. So, I am tired of being insulted by people who act like their interpretation of the Bible is better than mine. God. I am just an imperfect Christian, but I have I'm married to a professed atheist for 56 years. I have friends that are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and every religion that you can name. And we're supposed to have freedom of religion in this country. We're supposed to treat all human beings with dignity and respect. And I am sad to say that we the people of Pensacola, some of us demonstrated this past weekend on Flag Day. My parents on Memorial Day and all of my relatives in my family tree back to the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I and

133two, Korean War, Vietnam War. I have lost family and friends that I remembered are rolling over in their graves today because of the authoritarian oligarchy. And I have friends and family who grew up under fascism in Italy and Germany. And it was not a pretty picture on how they targeted groups of people, special needs people, people that weren't of their faith, people who they disagreed with the government's opinions were gotten rid of. And that is happening today with nepotism, cronyism. I have witnessed and experienced in my teaching career, and it's still alive and well in this community, in our state, and in our country. nepotism, cronyism, sexism, racism. You name all those isms that are not good things that my God says we should not be using, but we should exercise and be united. So

134I would hope that we the people of this community would exercise our first amendment rights as citizens of the United States of America to peacefully protest the abuse of the executive branch whether it's in our state to ex or at the national level they are allowing we don't have checks and balances anymore as our legislators are allowing the executives to rule the roof so to speak and they fall in line. Anyway, we the people must work to defend democracy and the rights of all of our children. Thank you. Next, we have Britain Goodman. You have three minutes. How I'm supposed to follow that? Um, good evening again. This won't be the first time that I lost an argument to a burgos. Um, thank you guys again for listening to all of us. Uh, I know

135that there are differing opinions and your jobs are not made easy. U, we know, you know, how you guys voted. What we're talking about is the future. Now, uh, as a member of one of the committees, I've heard individuals on this committee that I've probably served with, some that enjoyed the committees and their experience and others that thought that the committees were quite worthless. Apparently, I do believe that the committees are worth something. Uh I ask that for the remaining books that will be on the list after everything is said and done that you guys maintain these committees. Why? Because we are the community. I think Miss Picosi said it the other day uh yesterday that it's a cross-section of the community. You guys know individuals on both sides. uh the individuals that are taking

136their time to go into these committees to read these books. There are serious conversations being had and everyone's being allowed to speak their mind. Uh so I ask you trust us. You trust us to be able to inform you on what books we believe should remain in the libraries. After that it's correct. You are the elected officials. It is up to you. But we do ask, I'd say we, I ask that you do listen to us because we as a community care. Everyone who showed up tonight care. And it's in those committee forums that all these voices are heard and reported back to you about these books that are going to remain that haven't been looked at by any other county and won't be reported back to you yet. So, I do ask that you

137maintain those. Um, because I am an attorney and we've been talking about law and because I can't stand leaving any time up on the board, uh, I will say a couple of things. One, when we're talking about the instruction of sexuality and gender identity, let's remember that there's already a settlement on HB1557 said that library books are not instruction. So, this is not about instructing children one way or the other. It's just about access to these books. And I'm not going to go into the access. We've talked about parents being able to disallow access and other individuals being able to have access, but this isn't about instruction. It's just about access in the libraries. As it relates to what the Department of Education was saying in the video in June about Florida statute 847012 and

138the distribution of harmful materials and trying to say that the AG is going to come after you guys because you're distributing these terrible materials. Well, one, I don't see y'all out there giving these books to kids. I don't know about you, but my definition of distribution is actually handing them to people, not just allowing them to be in a library to sit there. Um, you'd have to be that definition first. Not to mention, you guys are board members and you're doing what's right by the community by listening to the community and putting that into effect. I'd like to see the AG try to tell you not to listen to the people in the community. That's all my time. Thank you. [Applause] Next, we have uh Julie Patton. You have six minutes. believe we have three

139minutes donated from Lynn Fr. Okay, Lynn Finn Finn. Um, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm I am Julie Patton and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. Um I think it's important to remember that just as we need to read a whole book to know what the um focus of the book is um our discussion is also happening in a context of great political and cultural unrest in which the country is divided 5050. Lots of politicians are um posturing and saying a whole lot of things that are scary, but um those may not be the people in office the next time around. Uh things may change at the midterm. And so I think it's and the laws sometimes contradict each other. And I think it's really important to decide an issue on its

140merits rather than on a threat that comes down from um the uh from anyone in state government or whatever. Um I wanted to talk tonight about a compromise that I thought would satisfy everyone in the um band books dialogue. Um and I'm going to say a few words about that. It's clear that there is no one-sizefits the whole county for how to handle the current controversies. Um if there were, we would have just done it two years ago. It's also clear that no one at all wants to have pornography on the shelves of our school libraries. We have a definition of pornography in the law. No one objects to applying that definition and removing books if they're pornographic. The problems are in the gray areas and in the fact that different parents have different ideas

141about what their children should be exposed to. U for example, most of the parents in Myrtle Grove uh might want to handle the books in a different manner from most of the parents in Cordova Park. These areas are served by different schools and I think at this point with the recent decision to return more discretion to the state um I think that these different areas can handle community preferences. I noticed on our book list that um every library does not um have every title that we're looking at right now. And my own feeling is that some media specialists already honor the um differences in their community or the community preferences when they purchase a book for their school. Um, students don't learn well, and every teacher knows this, um, or learn the right lesson lessons

142when we force them to read something that offends them or draws their school into a dispute with their parents. In addition, we now have a state law in effect that separates classroom instruction from books available in the library with the recognition that everyone has to attend to what's taught in the classroom. But the choice of library books is up to individual students. We honor the parents right to be involved by allowing a parent to say that she doesn't want his or her child he or she doesn't want their child to be able to check out certain books. And I'm assured by the media specialists that I've talked to, and I've talked to several as I've served on the committees, the the review committees, um that they're very diligent about, um really honoring these preferences. Other

143safeguards are available, too. All of the books that have been objected to have been read in their entirety by the media specialists in the last two years. That's been one of the delays. and they've exercised great care in going through and assigning age appropriate criteria to each one based on style and content. Books that violated recent state law were uh have been removed from library shelves um along with books with graphic sexual content um that have no other redeeming features under the Miller rule. Books that media specialists considered questionably appropriate are in the process of being reviewed by the Escambia County um uh review committees. As a result of the books, um some books have been retained, some books have been rejected. The entire process is taking so long because it's being done so carefully

144and so thoughtfully by all of the people who are participating in it. I understand that each member of the school board has been asked to recruit people and if you want the committees to be more fair in your for your district um recruit some people to join because some um districts have not sent any representatives um for a while and and we had to wait for that. So the committee process needs your help but I definitely think it should be retained. In addition, I think these safeguards should be enough. But recent activity by the president of the United States suggests one more way in which we can respect the differences of the two parties in the lawsuits. Um since more discretion is now being returned to the states, um let's also exercise that discretion within

145the county. And um we already are as I said I think different media specialists but why not allow the reality um that reality of the difference to dictate what each media specialist allows to um elects to purchase. If the media specialist in one part of the county, which may be more conservative, doesn't want to um Okay. But doesn't want their books returned even, don't return them, but allow them to respect the discretion. Thank you. Next, we have Mr. Rich Hosnik. You have three minutes. I won't take three. I just didn't know how this was going to go today. But let us not not lose heart in doing good, for in due time you'll reap if you don't grow weary. We did a little reaping today. We've got some very fine leadership here in the district

146right now from the superintendent and every district uh on the school board. I applaud you. um you are critical thinkers. You do uh look at uh you you consider the inputs of the community. You've done a great job in that and uh the inputs are varied. Um and uh and then you make decisions. So uh I am proud of uh of everyone. You know, every it takes a little courage to get up here and speak and and share your heart and stand in front of people and and we got a lot of input from the community today from both sides. I think there's probably more commonality than we know, but we tend to live in our own echo chambers. Uh we like to get feedback from people that think like us. Uh not necessarily good.

147Um we would do well if we would uh interact with uh with people that think a little differently. Um I got to do a little of that over the last two years. Um and uh and by and large when you can sit over cough uh you know sit and talk about deep things over a cup of coffee or a frosty at Wendy's um then uh you'll see that you have more commonality than you think. Uh super proud of you. I would say this also though uh I uh there's a lot of people in this room who are not professional educators. Not professional educators. I have great respect for professional educators. I I uh those of you who know me know that I have 10 teachers in my family. Mom, dad, two sisters, a brother, my

148wife, I mean in-laws, lots of teachers. Have great respect for the professionals. I have great respect for the professional media specialists. But I also have respect for other people because um I am not going to bow the knee as a parent or a member of the community to any uh professional expert. Not going to do it. I'm not going to entrust my children. They're young adults now, but I wouldn't not even to my own mother. They've been entrusted to me. Okay? I'm the one responsible for them. We put them on loan to you and then you're respon responsible for protecting them across the board physically, you know, protecting them, protecting them across the spectrum, including their innocence. Uh, and you're doing a great job of it. Uh, but, uh, my hats off to everyone who's

149still here right now. I'm glad this meeting will not go until 1:30 in the morning as others have, but uh we reaped a little bit today and I'm proud of you. Thank you. Next, we have Linda Fussell. You have six minutes, three minutes donated from Elma Woods. Alma, Thank you again. I'd like to speak about a couple issues. One is to address uh information presented at the May board meeting. Uh it was stated that uh we know what this improper content is doing to kids. High suicide rates, higher self harm, mental health issues. However, research supports that book bans are bad for mental health, especially impacting marginalized individuals whose stories are contained in the majority of challenged books. Research shows that people of color are at a higher risk of facing mental health issues and

150have increased barriers to accessing mental health treatment due to institutional and interpersonal discrimination, stigma, and socioeconomic barriers. LGBTQ plus individuals are nearly three times more likely to develop a mental health disorder like depression or anxiety. And some studies indicate that nearly 45% of LGBTQ individuals and youth seriously consider attempting suicide. Banning books about the lived experience and experiences and histories of marginalized groups of people only serve to increase feelings of exclusion and invisibility and intens intensify their risk of mental health issues. This is from Psychology Today, May 9th, 2024. why book bands are bad for mental health. I'd also have a couple other comments uh about uh please don't do not dissolve the book review committees. Uh there have been at least two book challenge board policies since 2022. This would be the third book

151challenge uh or I'm sorry, I didn't mean book challenge, I meant book review. Um well, yeah, book challenge board policies. And this would be the third suggested change. Each book challenge board policy change was suggested and made because the challenge book by the main complainant were being returned to the library bookshelves at all levels, elementary, middle, and high school. The communities are doing the committees are doing the job that they are supposed to do. Read the book, review the book as a whole, discuss the book with other members of the community, and vote whether to remove or retain the book. The proposal in actuality is a move to restrict the ability to have books in the library that are age appropriate or contain the presence of specific themes like sexuality, violence, or controversial topics which

152are part of life. Eliminating the district review committees is an obvious effort to eliminate the voice of the community. The policy was previously changed to increase the number of people on the committee who would represent the community by representing each schoolboard district and just providing a view of community standards. This obviously hasn't worked out as intended because all of the books with the exception of two have been voted to be retained in some form. I really do want to encourage y'all if you get an opportunity go to the book review committees uh and uh just sit and listen to what goes on and what happens uh at the book review committees. I think you will be impressed. Uh the use of parental rights to provide library access to all students. The opt into the library

153is a roose of parental rights to have parents give permission for their students to use the library, which according to information from the Florida Freedom to Read Project, results in lower numbers of students accessing and using the school libraries as opposed to the automatic opt-in the district now has for all of its 36,000 plus students. When Florida parents are given the opportunity to restrict library access for their own children via opt out policies, the overwhelming majority of parents maintain full access. This is also from Florida Freedom to Read Project. Any parent who enrolls their student in public education is entitled to all the benefits that come with public education. and that includes unencumbered access to school libraries. One person or small group cannot be allowed to decide for the entire school district what can be

154in the libraries for students to read. They cannot set the reading boundaries for all students in Escambia County. The school board seems to be handing over control over what students read, not into the hands of all parents, but to a tiny segment of citizens, some not even parents, whose overriding goal is censorship. Do not have the actions of the school board suggest that it is perfectly acceptable to read a passage out of context and assume you have enough information to make an educated decision. And I want to address the disrespect that I have witnessed towards employees. Comments such as if you have a problem with your media specialists determining pornography, they need to go to their training. They need to do their job. Employees do not need do not deserve to be spoken about in

155this manner. I believe everybody is doing their job under extremely difficult circumstances which include lack of support, lack of definitive rules for state laws and general difficulty with the educational process of these times. No one spoke up for those employees. Nobody. Y'all can do better. Thank you. [Applause] Uh Aaron Snder, you have six minutes. Three minutes donated to you from Pchelle Snider. Good evening board and superintendent. Um, someone brought up the the library being a place of refuge and and a resource for people, but like we have to have a little bit of scope on this. You know, the library shouldn't be a refuge for pornography and erotic literature and um it shouldn't be a resource for it either. So that's just common sense. And we we all have a conscience. We have to quiet

156our conscience to sin. So when we're young and we tell our parents a lie, it's very obvious that we did something wrong. We don't we don't have to go read a book about it. We know. It's the same thing with looking at pornography. We we're we're made in the image of God. God's given us a conscience for reason. And um scripture tells us that we suppress the truth and unrighteousness. So the conscience we're given, we suppress. Why? Because we love darkness rather than light. It's very easy. Is is man man 101. It's like God gave a a command to Adam and Eve concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. said when you eat of this you're you're going to die. So the devil comes along and says you you you will surely

157not die. You you he knows that you'll become like God knowing good and evil. And so I like this desire for adults to give their children pornography and neurotic literature that somehow that makes them educated. that the more educated you are, the more you desire to give young people pornography and erotic literature. That makes you really brilliant. I don't know how we all got along. I don't know how you all did. I mean, it seems like you've made it far enough without it. I I can fathom a ga a guess that no one on the board at school was reading erotic literature in school. So maybe we just became intelligent people without it. Um I want to read a a scripture Ephesians 5 1-6. Be therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in

158love. We had people talking about loving. So God describes that here. He says, "And walk in love as Christ hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor." So Jesus laid his life down for us. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idoltor, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. So you don't have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. If there's filthiness, if there's foolish talking, fornication, uncleanness, you have no you you have

159no place with God. That's what the Bible says. So then we say, "Well, we should give this to our kids anyways." Okay? So if God says they're going to this stuff pollutes us and you can't be with them, should we give it to kids because we want to educate them? I don't I don't I'll never understand that that thinking. So we're we're preparing our children for evil. and just remind you and encourage you that the Bible says, "Let God be true and every man a liar." So, thank you. Next, we have I have trouble with the last name. Rebecca Clary is Clary. Okay, thank you. You have three minutes. Okay. Thank you. Um, thank you for this opportunity for us all to voice our opinion. Um, I too am a product of the Escambia County

160school system. Um, quite a few different schools actually. I attended a private Christian elementary school through fourth grade. I was homeschooled fifth grade through 8ighth grade. And then I attended a wonderful um, public high school 9th through 12th grade. Um, and I also graduated from UBF here. Um, I was an English major, so I'm very familiar with books and um, English was my favorite subject in high school. Um, I just want to encourage you all, you have a lot of power um, here and not to give your power over to somebody else. Um, I think it's a great idea to have a book review committee to if there's an issue of um, inappropriate material to be able to have that um, information reviewed. Um, to I think it would be irresponsible to just say everything

161on this list is, you know, we're just going to follow someone else's list and say this is all bad without actually taking the time to read it, see if it's bad or not. Um, I also think a lot of books are they're um not prescriptive in nature. It's not necessarily telling you this is how things should be. This is all good. This is wonderful. This is something you should copy. A lot of books, especially that we read in school, are to warn us of problems in society, to warn us of historical events that we don't want to repeat. Um, they're not necessarily they're just describing things that have happened. They're not saying this is good. This is what you should follow. Um, so I think that's also important to keep in mind. Um, also on

162that list of books, I tried to look up the Florida Department of Education's book list of books that they were questioning. Um, some of them I was not familiar with. I don't doubt that there are probably some books that might be a little bit inappropriate for certain ages. I definitely think having an age, you know, limit on certain materials is a good idea. We have that with TV shows and movies. We have a synopsis on the back of books. we have a synopsis of TV shows and movies we can look at and say, "Oh, maybe I don't want to hear this or maybe I don't want to see this." So, we have the option to opt out of that. Um, I think also it'd be a great idea if we had that in the library

163system. We we do have the synopsis on the back of the book. We could also have different sections for different types of books. I think it's certainly a great idea to um determine whether they're age appropriate or not. Um, I will say most of the books that I ever read that had maybe controversial material in them probably did happen more so in the later years, the um, senior junior year of high school those years. Um, personally, I was a pretty sheltered child growing up. Um, I had very overprotective parents who are involved in they knew everything I did. They knew everything I read. Nothing was a secret from them. Um, I will also say that the freedom of speech and our freedom of expression applies to everybody and everything. It's what gives us the ability

164to, you know, speak our mind. It was what gives us the ability to read the Bible, to have a Bible, to bring a Bible with us wherever we go, wherever we want. Um, it would also be the same for another, you know, book of another religion. So, I think it's just important that we protect our freedom of speech and our freedom of expression and that we don't give that power over to somebody else. Thank you. Our next speaker is Donnie Wolf. You have three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, fellow members of the board, Superintendent Leonard, and Madame Counselor. Uh, first, I'd like to commend uh the residents here of Escambia on uh uh the discourse that I've been listening over the few uh past few hours, regardless of their position on the matter, uh the

165ability to state your your position and opinion in a civilized fashion. I really truly commend you on that. Uh I'm here just to quickly chat about something that is very passionate to me and very passionate to my company Bus Patrol which is student safety. Uh you know every day parents uh when they say goodbye to their children and they hope for uh their children to get the best education and to grow and to mature. They're al also uh trusting in the school bus drivers and the public uh health public education systems to get their child to and from school safely. Uh my passion for the past 2 years as a fellow Floridaian born and raised and as someone who went up through the Florida's public education system has been to do exactly that. And what

166we've been facing not only in Florida but across the country is a crisis in illegal school bus passing and drivers that frank frankly don't give a dang about school bus laws. Uh what bus patrol has been able to do and which I'm so proud of in delivering this message is we work with school districts and being able to curb reckless driving behavior. And the only reason we've been able to do that here in this state of Florida is because the Florida legislature realized that we also had a crisis on our hands. Two years ago, they passed legislation that allowed every single school district in the state of Florida to either run a program themselves or to partner with a safety partner like ourselves to equip safety technology on the buses to hold these drivers accountable.

167As of today, there are four counties that have now partnered with programs such as ours, including ours in the state, but that leaves over 60 counties left that have an opportunity to do so. And so, I I beg and I welcome an opportunity to formally present to this board. I know Superintendent Leonard has been in communication with us, and I thank you so much for your focus on that. Uh, but I will be relentless until every student in Florida is protected. uh uh because these programs truly work, especially our bus patrol program. So, thank you very much for having me. Thank you. That's our last speaker, but before I during the meeting, I just wanted to see if the superintendent or any board members had any comments. Okay, none from the superintendent. Yeah, Mr. Harold,

168I have a comment. Uh at the board workshop yesterday, we separated items for the agenda and for today, but there wasn't a timeline set on policy 2520 that we gave suggestions to our board coordinator for that. And I would just like to ask the superintendent, does he have a timeline in mind when we might be seeing something on that? Uh because I think the board indicated yesterday to move expeditiously with this. So, uh, the first thing we'll do is to take care of the items that, uh, you approved tonight. Um, from a board policy standpoint, it's been my experience, and you've had the same experience as I've had, maybe just not quite as long. Um, it usually takes somewhere between two to three months. Exactly. So, that's that's where I would tell you today. Um,

169hopefully I'm able to work on a memo tomorrow. if not tomorrow. Um I think we're back at work on Friday. I would do it on Friday. Um and then after that, it's just a matter of getting everything in line, being able to communicate what we've already done. Uh but as far as the other two or three items that I know you talked about, I would love to make certain you firm that up. Give us I don't I don't want like happen chance. I want us to be firmed up and then we'll go through the the process, but it will be at least two to three months. Well, I realize the process that what I'm want wanting is at the front end to it move quicker. So, by by having an example or something for us

170at the July workshop, is that we took the notes that you talked about yesterday. Uh I don't want to put a draft out there. I'd love for you to workshop it again if that's what you want to do. But, uh as far as the actual policy, you know, be two to three months. Well, I know the something ready for the board to uh so I'm looking at something immediately that we as a starting point for us. You know, it's not something that uh uh that we would be firm policy and vote on, but we need to start at some place and that starting needs to be soon. I thought it started yesterday. Well, it did start yesterday. But the board if there uh the next workshop meeting in July, what I'm asking is is there

171going to be something that you might have for us to look at and talk about for that July workshop? I can bring you exactly what you said yesterday. Is that good enough? Okay, I'll leave. No, I mean is that good enough or is it you want it like in the format? I don't know. I don't know what you're asking. I'm asking if you have something from the information that we I'm asking that if you have something from that you have put together you and your staff that we can look at by the July meeting. Yeah, I haven't I haven't I mean we we had the board meeting workshop yesterday and then we had tonight's meeting that we had to get everything advertised from yesterday or today we've done that. So yeah, I'll I'm not going

172to ask the staff to be able to repeat those words. I heard everything you said yesterday. I'll make sure I get that in order for you and we can talk about it at the July workshop. That's that's that's what you asked me about how long it would take. I haven't counted up the days between July and August and then August and September for a board. I think I know that it takes two months. You have to have a first reading and then and a vote on it. But what I was after was trying to get something expeditiously for us to at least to look at for the July workshop. That's what I was after. Anything else on MD? Did you want to say anything? I was I was just going to say that Mr. Leonard

173and I can get together and try to encapsulate what we have heard the board mention as aspects of what they would like to see in the policy and we can try to come up with some preliminary draft. Thank you, Miss Odum. That's exactly where I was headed with that. Thank you. Okay. Miss Burg Miss Burgos sign on. I'll be quick. First, I want to say thank you to everyone that came up to speak at the podium this this evening. I know it takes a lot of courage and a lot of grit. We talked a grit earlier um to get up there and share your opinions and we really appreciate that. Um I do want to um kind of dispel a myth right now. I know we still have the review committees. We're not even in

174discussion of eliminating those. Um I do think that we need to expedite this as was mentioned. We do need to expedite this process, but we still want to have our review committees in place for those books that are still in the process of being challenged. There's nothing for this. This meeting is adjourned.