001e e e hey good afternoon ladies and gentlemen welcome as I call to order the March Workshop of the scami County School Board the purpose of this Workshop is an open discussion on items brought forth by the board and the superintendent along with a review of the agenda items for our regular board meeting next Tuesday please silence cell phones and other electronic devices at this time if you wish to speak at public form you must complete a speaker request form located on the table at the rear of the room and bring it forth to Miss Harris at the front table first item of discussion is the North View High School Agro Science Academy Mr superintendent yes it's Mr kinek and his team will come forward glad to have them here with us today good afternoon
002Schoolboard members and guests thank you so much for having us today um and giving us the opportunity to highlight some of the special things that our students at norw specifically the ones that are in the AGR technology and FFA um Academy and co-curricular organization are doing at our school um I would like to introduce you to our members that'll be presenting to you today so we have Miss Anna Spinx our FFA President we have Miss Olivia Hall she is our chapter reporter we have Miss Jordan Ford she is our chapter secretary Grace Oliver she is our FFA vice president and Jack bwell is one of our committee chairs agriculture education programs are based on a three Circle model that develops the whole student through classroom and laboratory instructions student leadership and work-based learning experiences also
003known as supervised agriculture experiences there are currently 180 students enrolled in our agricultural technology Pathways and all 180 of these students are FFA members due to the financial Governor help this program is a planed sequence of instruction cons consisting of four courses and a planned and supervised agriculture experience must be provided this um sequence starts with agroscience which broadly covers all aspects of the agriculture industry in the United States students can then take AGR technology 1 and two and these courses are more specialized into the principal skills and Technology of the agricultural system once students complete an industry certification and three courses of an agriculture class they can apply to be a directed study student and help other students in our program while doing this they are also exploring their interest in a and honoring
004their technical skills in animal husbandry mechanics welding plant systems technical writing and career Readiness agriculture isn't just about farming it is a diverse industry that includes plant science animal husbandry AGR bus and sustainable practices as we Face Global challenges like food security and climate change careers in agriculture are crucial students in this pathway can explore Fields such as Agronomy agricultural engineering and environmental science by developing skills in technology data analysis and resource management you can contribute to innovative solutions for sustainable Futures so whether you're interested in growing crops raising livestock or advancing agricultural Technologies the agriculture pathway offers a world of possibilities let's cultivate our future together career Pathways in agriculture are essential for several reasons they create important job opportunities in rural areas supporting local economies and sustaining Family Farms our agriculture professionals ensure
005a steady supply of safe and healthy food uh healthy food for the well-being of our society these careers promote environmentally friendly practices to protect natural resources and ensure a healthy PL planet for future Generations agricultural careers often involve working with close local communities for fostering relationships and enhancing overall quality of life Professionals in agriculture influence policies related to food production and stain sustainability to help tackle natural challenges like climate change and food storages agriculture career path pathways are vital not just for Rural communities but also for the health of our ntion nation and society as a whole they drive economic growth ensure food food security promote sustainability and and encourage Community Development students Begin by taking the the agriculture associate certification and agroscience Foundation class that is a 0.1 in value then the students in
006the AGR technology specialist then they will take the agriculture specialist certification which is .2 in value then students have can choose one of two um can choose one of two ways that they can continue they can do the animal science the a animal science or the agriculture mechanic certification last year students passed a total of 64 associate and specialist certifications we are on track for similar results this year currently all but one of our Juniors and seniors in act Tec are set to be program completers northw Agriculture and FFA continue to rank the in the continue to rank highest in the state and the nation in the last year our chapter was recognized as a national three star chapter and one of Florida's finest chapters North was also selected as a premier chapter in place
007second in the state for agriculture advocacy from our freshman Florida advocacy program which we held just last week we had over 600 Elementary School students from six different elementary schools across the county as of last week we have three students receiving the American degree which is the highest award that a student can earn in in the FFA uh three students will also be receiving the state FFA degree which is the highest award that the state can bestow on a student four students in this room are a part of our first uh North Paro team to be able to compete in the state contest in the month of June one member in this room is uh a part of our state horse evaluation team that will compete in the state contest next month after com after
008placing second at State preim I participated in the extemporaneous public speaking lde and was a state finalist in the Farm Bureau youth speech contest while engaging in many different public speaking activities I gained many qualities that will help me exceed in my future career and college experience After High School I plan to attend University of Florida for an aeronautical science and engineering followed by completing grad school at Embry Riddle University to become a commercial airline pilot where I can put these skills I've learned in FFA on a day-to-day basis being in FFA has helped me become the person I am today I have participated in horse judging and parliamentary procedure being in the CD and ldes has made me has helped me overcome fears that I didn't think I would be able to overcome FFA
009has helped me to become who I am today I've taken part in the Parliamentary procedure forestry and livestock evaluation team as well as cre speaking and O demo these contests have made me a well-rounded individual and taught me to become more of a leader as well as teaching me to work well with others efficiently throughout my time here with the North FFA chapter I've competed in horse evaluation and parliamentary procedure I was once told that FFA wasn't just something I would do in high school just to pass the time and that couldn't be any more truthful this organization has helped me grow as a person and taught me leadership teamwork communication and efficiency FFA has truly shaped my life for the better in so many ways through my involvement I've competed in several CDE and
010lde um competitions which has helped me grow my leadership skills like never before I've learned the importance of teamwork communication and perseverance each compet each competition has pushed me through my com through my comfort zone allowing me to connect with amazing people and develop a passion for agriculture FFA has given me the confidence to lead and Inspire others I'm so grateful for the experiences that have molded me into the person I am today as we continue to do great work in our community and state we want to say thank you for the continued support of our schools and Community Partners including the Escambia County School Workforce Department Ernest Ward and West Florida FFA chapters and as well as the school board for helping make all of this possible thank you and I open up for
011comments from the U school board I want to congratulate you for coming today and all you do for the community um I was uh sitting here thinking as you named off all those things that you do in the community what a great asset the program is the teacher the school to the Community because schools work best when they're Partnerships and you certainly have a partnership for your uh for your group and thank you all for coming and what a great job you did with public speaking I know that several of you said that you had had some training in that area and uh that will serve you well later on in life thank you for coming okay Mr Adams yeah great job great job I am a big fan of FFA program you'll go far
012with it it's great I even like to see us expanded a little bit more especially south of 9mile road but uh but it's great program we got the one at bua and it's great and it teaches a teaches a lot more than just the chickens and the Hogs and all that you learn a lot about citizenship in there so appreciate what y'all doing Mr fesco and I want to thank you all for coming today and sharing your experiences glad to know that you there are things that you've had in the program that you know that you're going to take forward in your future endeavors I wish you all the best of luck I've always enjoyed visiting uh the program up there uh coming to the breakfast uh you know the and to the uh fresh
013Florida fresh um and the activities there I like what you all do with your neighboring schools when you have the elementary school students come in and see what's going on um it it's always tremendous so I thank you all for what you're doing and taking the time to help everyone in the community and I wish you the best in the future Miss buros yes I I would like to say thank you so much for coming today the skills that you're learning the leadership the teamwork the perseverance is so valuable for our future and thank you very much for being a part of that and before I turn over to the superintendent you look good I just want to com comment you on how well you look and the presentation you look sharp and you represent
014your school and yourselves very well Mr superintendent yes thank you Mr Williams one of the things that struck me was I think every one of you said what FFA has made you into today and then also you said more importantly what FFA is going to make you in the future and that's really what our school district is all about to you Mr cranek thank you for what you do day in and day out for these students and with these students and students I am very very proud of you hey one more round of applause for these [Applause] students Mr Harold did you want to say anything okay any parents here from with these students supporting these students just in case we want to recognize the parents are are there any parents here with these students
015please [Music] stand thank you thank you moving on to the next item on our agenda the calendar if everyone get your calendar out let's review the months of March the rest of laun in in April we understand that next week we will be attending the uh fsba and Tallahassee as well as the day in legislation in additions are any corrections for the month of March from the school board hearing none if you turn over to the back to the month of April and spring break is next week is [Music] correct any corrections or additions for for the month of April heing none let's move on to the next item the next item is um public forum update Mr superintendent I just wanted to update on one item um so we had at the last board
016meeting we had six or seven individuals come forward to talk about um law enforcement agencies and having some type of writing Proto in writing protocol I wanted to make sure you knew as a board because we usually don't say much during the actual public for a couple of things we have student code of conduct has a lengthy explanation for all of our students um parents and also our faculty and staff and administration as it relates to what we do when law enforcement is on campus that doesn't change dependent upon what law enforcement agency it may be it is how we respond when any law enforcement agency is on our campus so I wanted to make and in fact uh on the first Tuesday in February we had our principal's meeting and that information was shared
017by your good attorney with each of our school-based administrator so I want to be sure you knew that I'm try not to say a whole lot when there's the public forum going on but I want to make sure I updated you on that today thank you thank you next item we have have the Mr Adams legislative update Senator Cory Simmons had that uh Bill 202 I think it failed at the end where they were going to try to let it be more of a competitive situation for these school districts where our hands wouldn't be tied so far that that that's what I'd like to see if that's moving again I I know we got some uh some some real dooy Bills going through I won't mention one of them uh because it might make somebody
018mad but anyway the um um that that whole deal um we got full Choice kids are getting vouchers it's time to not punish a school district if they do a preparatory school and they bring kids in that are have an achievement Gap okay we got alternate education for those kids that have dis problems we don't have an alternate education site if kids are behind and they don't have a dis problem okay now the first thing I'm told is by some people is that well Kevin we create that they state would close it in two years you know so and so that's what I'm looking for this is they they've got to get to a point that they let the school district go ahead and compete and we can compete don't tie our hands we all
019know that um with the poverty rates of these school districts across state of Florida you can almost put it in order in a spreadsheet on how much poverty and crime they have and uh we know what works for them these Community Partnership schools we're kind of moving that way ourselves we you know with the children's trust and and what we're doing we've added on but we should the state should allow these children to stay in their Community bring in the proper wraparound services so they're not being busted for an hour or two a day that's not the solution and so they know what works and I hope they'll they'll do something about that cuz it's time to go ahead and let us compete fully instead of us having a math scientist up here worrying about
020four kids going here and there you know and these uh grading uh the grades they got which is very complicated but that's one of the issues I'm going to try to get with Senator Simmons myself because me and him talked at the Excellence and education conference two years ago and he was telling me he was pushing that but Keith and Paul we need probably not going to be the school districts that are the top in the country and they have zero poverty they're not really worried about this issue as much as us and other school districts that got same demographics so uh but that's that's one of the things I was looking forward uh to is um on that I I know they got the cell phones I think they're doing another bill on it
021right my understanding yes sir there's a couple bills related to social media and cell phon yeah social I think I think uh inst salsman got one on social media right so and we all know that with these children with these cell phones especially K through 8 it's proven how high the grades pop up if you do not have the cell phones on during the school day and um that would help I I would still caution parents do not give your child one of these cell phones that's got access to Internet and everything if you do anything get a flip phone put some text minutes on there you're giv you might as well just hand them a a gun if you're going to hand them one of these because they're gonna they're gonna have access to
022all the bad people in the world whether it's pornographic material sexual predators don't do it I I I I unfortunately sometimes I get parents that contact me after something's already happened okay I didn't do it to my kids we we made sure they only had a went back in those little track Bon you know with some minutes on there but anyway I was just curious if any of y'all heard any other bills that may be impacting our school district besides I know the one I'm talking about where they allow us to compete Keith do you know anything else or there is a couple of bills that I would ask you to pay close attention to and advocate for and that is the continuation of the deregulation of what we can do locally um so far
023that's been filed in the house and in the Senate um there is also a bill that's been filed in the house and the Senate as relates to I cons I consider it to be uh a gap in competition as it relates to municipalities and Charter Schools those Provisions that allow for that to occur I think that's something that we should make certain we're in tune to uh and then I would make certain that all of you know that each Friday um I know we have the call tomorrow with our lobbyist Rin incendia Jessica will lead that call and they play pay very close attention to those bills and as they are going through committee some of the bills you're talking about have been heard in committee have been filed on one side and have yet
024to be filed in the other house Andor Senate and um you can look for those if they are popular to find their way at the end of the session in what they call a train bill yeah the other thing that I think we need to always advocate for is the base student allocation and what our legislature plans to do with that um because you know really that's how we fund our education system here in Escambia County other than what our local citizens do for us with property tax well I also think they got a bill that might help St SE aren't they going to try to U not use this as pass through on those vouchers I I think I saw a bill on that one too that uh some are pushing for us because
025some of these kids going to voucher they've never been in the public schools anyway so uh I know that they're probably going to separate possibly going to separate the voucher from the regular ffp that means we wouldn't be in we see currently we get all of the voucher information FTE and the revenue and then and in the calculation and then it's pulled out and I'll show you that in a little while um but that's what I know of I and I know they're working feverishly because I was on a call little while ago Suzanne pridon was they were working trying to identify who was who that's why our third ffp calculation was so late is because they were working through all those scholarships and so I don't know if they are completely um have identified
026who and where they're from but I know that is a a huge effort right now so I wouldn't be surprised with anything uh coming down that related to scholarships and trying to track those separately from the school district yeah thank Paul anything on fsba or no um I will not be able to go to fassy but Mr Williams is going to go and represent us and he'll do it well the one thing that I remembered when you said D regulation that that's not the word that the legislator on legisl legis lers want to hear they want to hear administrative efficiency okay and and that came from the FSB conference uh some people have their uh been aggravated by this this thing D deregulation so that being in mind there there's a lot of things that
027are getting talked about uh I did meet with the legislator leg our legislators uh at wsre back earlier this year I in January and gave them about nine different things that that we had talked about here um they're aware of them I know that they were especially Michelle salsman was a little bit shocked when I talked about you know making sure that the uh the thing about hiring the veterans and then giving them the five years you know that that gets reinstated um so we we were listened to but what happens in from that point on I I I don't know at this moment but uh I'm sure that you all will get more information on that now fsba does send that stuff to us each uh Friday and there's usually stuff from Dr Danielle
028Thomas who is the uh lobbyist for fsba and she gives updates along with what we get from Jessica and uh our lobbying people I have three items I'll take to the legislation next week uh administrative efficiency gaping um competition and base student allocation okay Mr Adams I wanted to let you know that Mr hell and I will be in Tallahasse for the new school boards meeting but we to warn them down there first or yeah you can warn them but we're not going to be at the D legislator but Mr Williams will be I'll be I'll be done if I could ask you sir to put one more thing on the list and that's the IDE of the full day prek yes uh I mentioned that then and uh we really would like Statewide that
029they fund a full day not just a half day for VPK okay thank you sir next item we have from Mr Harold uh Memorial Legacy and historical items thank you Mr Williams um I'm bringing this before the board because I want to see if there's some interest in amending in our current board policy uh which is uh listed under uh uh operations 7,000 and the specific number subsection is 7320 and it deals with memorials and gifts and uh I would like for us to uh talk about maybe amending that to include Memorial Legacy historical and gift items to the school in the policy it says that we own these items but yet there's no protection for these items and if you go back uh in the history of our school district we've had numerous incidences
030where these items have not been protected now I'm not saying that a school needs to keep all of the Legacy Memorial historical items forever but I am saying that perhaps we need a policy with in our policy that says there's a procedure or guideline that you use for disposing of them this happen I'm not going to mention any names of any schools any individuals or anything like that but we'll go through some instances here incidents rather we had a high school to close and there was no guidelines these these policies had I mean these items have no protection there was no guidelines for disposal of these items for who gets these items now ultimately it turned out all right we had a middle school here a number of years ago that Halls were lined that
031go that went all the way back to Junior High School years which is a number of years ago were lined with these items and uh these these items were disposed of because there was no policy and it created quite a stir in the community and just a year and a half ago in my district we had an incident that just brought the community alive at the southern end of District 5 over if we hang a picture on a wall we paint a murial like I was at a school the other day that had two beautiful brand new murials a new principal can come in there and say to maintenance I want to have this painted over and there's no guidelines to go by with that it could be it what could happen overnight you know
032uh as it has in some schools and in some instanes now again do we keep all these items forever again is this a reflection on anyone not doing their job or anything absolutely not I think it's more that we need to look that and I'm not talking about something elaborate right now uh under that section we have a one-page thing uh that uh facility used to talk about the uh you know when we remodel a school the architectural historical architectural that was put in place in 15 what I would like to see and propos to the board is that we amend uh our that we go through the procedure to amend our policy in this area to include some protection and disposable procedures that would cover not something elaborate just a one-page thing to protect
033these items our policy says these items belong to us you know once they're donated once they're put out there once they're built once they're attached they belong to the scam County School District and so uh all of these items also come back to people and individuals we're not in the business of building things we're in the people business and in the people business when we honor people there needs to be some guidelines to before we can just take pictures off the wall and and throw them away or discard them or do something else with them so but I'd like to get some feeling from the board and then I have uh put some pencil on paper here that I'd like to give you an item to look at maybe there a possibility now I realize
034there's a lengthy process and all uh and altering our policy you know and so what I'm saying to the board today is let's think about this let's get some feedback from the board and then if the board uh wishes then we'll I'll get with the superintendent we'll proceed forward with that about amending our policy and and the proper procedure to do that and so forth I'd like to give you a little handout here um and I can tell you this having uh having been through this in the last year and a half there can be a lot of feelings get hurt there can be a lot of people in our community that are movers and shakers that do not like things that happen so and this you see scratch through what the current policy says
035in 7320 and I'd like to see that change to school memorials Legacy historical and Gifts the first part of a that you see there lists uh how the policy reads now and I would like to see something like the following added to it and it says something like this the superintendent the board recognize the intrinsic value of Memorial Legacy historical items and gift items therefore the superintendent is directed to develop and maintain board approved guidelines to ensure that these items are protected these guidelines would include but not be limited to remodeling repairs school closures new construction and Disposal and under no circumstances shall these items be discarded without the written consent of the superintendent and board now a beginning point you know uh so that we're not seeing trophy cases hauled off uh and that
036has happened in the past yeah uh we're not seeing feelings hurt in our community and we have a logical way that if if we're going to dispose of something that we do it if we're going to remodel a school we've got a large high school and uh that's going through renovations right now you know we've got uh an elementary school in my district that's about to re be remodeled it behooves every administrator to know what are the historical Memorial items in their school uh we've got things out there like trees that have been planted with marble plaques we've got hangings on the walls we've got pictures uh uh you name it is I visited the schools uh uh in District 5 just about every one of them have some of these items out there and
037some of these go back to we even have items in District 5 multiple buildings named after individuals again this is no reflection on the wonderful job our facilities department is doing it's nothing to do with facilities it's us putting some uh finishing touches on a policy that we already have so I'd like to get some feedback from the board on this Mr chair um one thing I wanted to add in is even the films oh excellent is um I know I took a stab two or three times and trying I don't have no video from me playing football at skiny high school MH and I tried through two different superintendant to try to see if I can get a film or make a copy of it I failed both t so I I agree with
038this it'd be great that they could you know cuz those you got EMT Smith that played football I mean you got a lot of great athletes that played in there but I agree with this I just like to see that added too to it is to make sure these historical films and basketball games I don't know if David they have uh movie cameras back when you were playing basketball well 8 mm when I was at C we couldn't pour those things you know so barely a pitcher so uh but anyway so I I I like what your what your suggestion so for me I'm I'm for it anybody else on the board I just want to say something I like your suggestion um I think it's very important that we have a policy written down
039specifically uh so we know which direction we're going so thank you for bringing this um I'm going to PCO yeah um I like the idea that we need to to Value the the people who've gone before that they they need to be honored and they need to be remembered I get concerned when we look at volume okay I'm I'm going to go back I'll use Kevin as example if we kept film from all the games that scam be high school ever since it opened where would it Go who would monitor it what would happen how would you get to you have to have somebody to take care of all that it is overwhelming and and I'm I'm looking at what we have had to do in the last couple years with going from microfish records
040that we are required to keep for a hundred years and and trying to get that digitized and all the things and then what do you do with it okay I I'm um maybe a little defensive because I remember the closure of of a high school um and and my my role at that point um there was a lot of effort made by a couple people to get items of significance um given to either the families of the people who were there or to other groups who might be involved um the the U booster clubs and different things like that because there was nowhere to store everything it it is an over overwhelming feet and then what's the relevance if we have something that's 50 60 years old and and I'll go to PHS my father-in-law
041LED PHS to state championships in football basketball and baseball there's nothing there on that but why should there be at this point okay God love him God bless him he's gone we're here as family and we would appreciate that and if they had something if they reached out to us fine but I don't know that there's a whole lot of current PHS students who would want to say oh yeah keep that forever there there's got to be a a balance to this I think that we need to go into this and do a lot of research I the the basis is here the intent is clear and I'm not opposed to that but how we do that is going to become very difficult um and and and I could I I will say that I
042know of a a then administrator at that high school who went above and beyond to try to get items to people and finally the last day came and had to be cleaned up and he discarded them and then the people who didn't respond to any of the requests do you want this went up in Flames like you know let's be reasonable if you're not going to do it then then don't don't make this into some drama thing I'm I'm stepping out on some stuff there but that that's old scabs getting ripped off um but I do like the idea that we need to have set up that what happens and and how long it would stay and things like that you know is that a 10 year or 20 year whatever because you do need
043to refresh hopefully you know the these schools are getting new awards and achievements and things that would be be replaced EMT Smith I'm not so worried about because he has the resources to take care of his own you on the other hand Mr Adams I think they burned them as soon as you left what or they used them as a demonstration as oh this is why we use crash dummies no no um okay but but you see where I'm going with this I I think we need to look and do a hard look and I'd like operations to kind of weigh in if if they would about the intent and what they had gone through in that those processes well I do want to say one thing one of my last acts as principal at
044princi high school that we started a legacy museum at psol high school and so your family is probably in that M um that section and I and I took it in-law okay and uh and so I think it's important to preserve those historical facts and in a moderate situation I think we can do that um U because like so many schools high school has such a rich history and I want to make sure that students that came to pen school high school understood the great people that were there before them and I think it's important for them to to to study those items and to see those items now the massive trophies that we had at pencas yeah we had to probably discard a lot of them because there were thousands of them uh but
045I think the information can be housed in a in a way that can be preserved for generations to uh to read and to understand so uh I'm in part of uh of doing it in a in a situation that is respectful I'm I'm glad to hear the board say that and we can we can work on this we can tweak a policy we can do things that uh sets time limits on it the thing that I having been an administrator for so many years the things that I do not want to see happen is we get bogged down in all of the minuti stuff that goes with it we it needs to be something simple that says that we offer these to the community after a time period then we get rid of it if
046it's something that uh that that should be kept according to the principal and others that we find places to store that so not something that overwhelms our Administration but something that sets GE clear guidelines so if you have an incident like I had in my district when the entire history of the school practically was discarded uh then uh and the memorial pictures were taken down in a cabinet where boxes on top of them that they couldn't find and Legacy pictures uh then uh uh what happens then is that the community gets an an uproar and then phones begin to ring and I have been through that and I don't want any of you to have to go through that cuz your phones are going to ring anyway but a a simple policy that we can
047say when you are remodeling or doing something in your building then these your legacy Memorial historical items uh things should be special care should be given to them and if you want to discard some of these things there's a procedure in place so if someone comes to us and says what happened to the trophy that was out here we can say well our policy is and we discarded it after that date and it was made available to the community that gives us uh uh a I won't say an out it gives us a a way of soothing the community and so forth I think this is something we need as we begin to move schools and and take care of things this is something that that's going to come up again ladies and gentlemen it's
048not something that's going away so I would like to see this happen I'd like to hear from the superintendent operations also how they feel about it yeah M Mr superintendent we'll we'll get to operations another meeting down the road and Mr Harold will tell you that when he presented this to me um one of my comments to him was I don't know how we can make certain that we adhere to it you read the very last sentence under no circumstances shall these items be discarded without the written consent of the superintendent and board you you gave an example where you as a principal had to make a decision about thousands of trophies and what you would do um that is just one example nobody wants to end up having something that is special to them
049cental to them or to a group of people to Simply end up being discarded I don't want that but how can I as your superintendent guarantee you that before that happens I'm going to bring you something in writing so that you can consent to that um we do have a procedure it's probably can be tweaked and be worked upon uh but we have tens of thousands of procedures so one of the things that I did uh tell Mr Harold that I would take a look at is the writing of the last two to three sentences to see if he could better represent what you as a board would like to see occur but I don't want to get in whether it be me or 23 superintendents from me get in the habit of every time
050you change what is your Schoolboard policy that before you can actually enact your Schoolboard policy that we're having to bring you a procedure on how we're going to adhere to your school board policy um it takes you a little bit longer because of laws and rules and regulations to change your policy I think you should Workshop this um make decisions as it relates to policy and then once you've done that it would be my charge to go back to our staff and make certain that we do the best we can to develop a standard operating procedure that protects the Integrity of what you're requesting did that pretty much say exactly what I told you okay so I wanted to be certain that I conveyed the the right message um 49 to nothing um is how
051bad we beat a scambia in 1980 so I remember it well I don't want that video I remember it well um oh my God but y'all get where I'm coming from and I hope you would continue to allow your staff to to write procedures that will adhere to your policies but if y'all put it on an agenda when that's up to y'all to decide when you want to put it on your agenda I'm hearing good stuff but I also want to make certain that if if you write something that we can adhere to it and then quite frankly what happens if something goes a and it's no fault of anyone's yeah that's that makes sense I made sense with what I'm trying to convey well I just do you have a procedure in place that
052if we get in a similar situation and it obviously didn't prevent things from happening oh okay and that I don't know that you can write a procedure that prevents things from happening Mr Harold told me a a story about something happened when he was an administrator um it was no one's fault it just happened um is he anybody know where the most spirited school in America trophy is if she hadn't taken it we don't know what would have occurred to it so and that goes back to 19 that goes back to 1986 so I get 85 excuse me that that that and that just hit me right here while we were sitting here U so yeah we'll work we'll work to help you get where we need need to be but I want us to
053be sincere and know that we're trying to get something done um but that was the one what was the other part of it uh yeah the wording you were saying I said uh uh something oh yeah you don't have to direct me to do anything that was it I mean that's already what my responsibility is if you feel like you need to put in the board policy that you going to direct me to do something go ahead on but you don't have to do that it's what I'm telling you when you you write a policy am I okay thank you Miss I I do think it's important to um keep in mind that policies belong to the school board but procedures belong to the superintendent and I will say and I I've shared this with
054Mr Harold that when we were going through the Neola process um there were any number of times where the standard template policy contained language saying that the superintendent is directed to create administrative procedures to address this issue so it's not that kind of language is not irregular it could certainly be phrased in a different way or it doesn't um well I'm not going to say what doesn't does not need to be in there I just look at it for legal sufficiency um but that certainly is something we can work on we will when if you bring it back we'll we'll do anything that we do uh in the way of policy in this area is better than what we have now because we don't have anything to protect these items you know so uh I'm
055I'm envisioning something that would be as simple as possible and even then even then as the superintendent said there are going to be times when things are going to be thrown away and so forth but at least we have some if we can have something in writing that that protects it and says that uh that this is what we would like to happen I think that's more than what we have now yeah okay thank you very good discussion next item was my item the sunu conference tournament student attendance election I know that recently we had the sun Bel conf conference here in Pensacola and it was a great event I attended it as well and I just think this is a great opportunity for our students especially our basketball teams that's in this area to
056attend and I just um uh had some inquiries from parents and coaches of uh what was the selection process for students attending the Sun Belt Conference I know there was an educational initiative that was put forth uh didn't know if that was left up to individual principal to choose the students but uh the reason I'm concerned about it cuz you're looking at a person that probably would not have went to college or sitting here without the SWAT of basketball and the opportunity to to be exposed to division one coaches and players uh I think would be uh inspiring for some our student athletes so I'm not sure who could address that Miss Payne and I actually talked about it this morning Miss pay good afternoon I uh agree with you in that um there are
057a lot of opportunities for students to be able to participate in these type of activities and you want them to as far as the selection processes concerned each individual principle um as you and I uh are familiar with had made their own decisions about who can go in what time I think what will better serve us moving forward is sometimes when it comes around while we know that these things are going to happen the school year is still going on and so depending upon when you come and say this is what's happening and we'd like to have a group of kids depending upon what's happening at that time the principal is doing their his or her best to try to put forth and make sure we can bring students to the event so you are
058correcting that it would be a good idea that we can have um not just athletes absolutely because they have opportunities whether they play um basketball or any other sport because you can't be what you can't see the other thing would be students that don't have an opportunity to see those kinds of sports at all whether they be athletes or not sometimes you have uh principles that are trying to pick students as a reward we have PBIS and all these kind of things and so it just depends in a high school as you know I don't have to tell you there's something happening all the time when you get to this semester you're kind of putting your foot on your gas and you're pushing it until you can get to may this year May 25th and
05926th so that selection this time um has been left up and was left up to principles but I think that moving forward we've got a couple of things that happen one is We Know by watching by of news that they have an extended contract so they're going to be here for the next 5 years secondly we have a point of contact that point of contact is an educational contact with Miss Morgan and we're looking for one that could be an athletic contact if you will with Mr teing that allows us to plan early and if I can jump ahead just a little bit to your second thing and because that matters as it relates to what happens when the guests come in the city and they need a place to practice so that allows them
060two things one your educational contact and reach out to Miss Morgan early so as soon as they know we know if you tell a principal in the fall that you need something in the spring then there's really if we have the information and I say we because I was one of the wi if we have that information and we can calendar it it makes it a lot more possible to happen we can also get that information to ads to coaches to teachers who may be wanting to do certain things with their groups clubs you name it we can get more people there and we have time to plan it so other things that are happening in the calendar around that time whether it be testing Reg rtion the like cuz a lot of that is
061happening all at the same time that they're doing a sunbell conference and so if we can do that early they can even go into facilitron and plug in the time that they need campuses to practice so I think that we can do both ways but to answer your question it was principal by principal selection for students and kind of pushing at the last minute to get that in but like anything else we can we can do that better especially if we have earlier notice and now that we know it's five years out and now that they know they can go into facilitron a year out they can contact as soon as and I think her name was I don't want to say her name wrong I think her name might be Kathy King who is
062a contact from Miss Morgan as soon as she knows they just let us know so when the college says this is when we're playing they just tell us that and now we can plan accordingly because we have more time yeah well I appreciate the feedback and and one of the things I was very concerned about is just like when the SEC soccer comes to town I think our soccer programs ought to be there um basketball comes to town I think our basketball coaches and teams ought to be there it's not always that you get a chance to see a division one right in your backyard and then for us not to prioritize uh the basketball teams to go I think uh we're missing missing an opportunity there uh as I said I was five the
063fifth of six boys and only one to go to college and it's because I played basketball that's how important it is to me not to mother brothers were not successful in Vietnam veterans and and uh 25 plus years in the military uh but I uh would have relished the opportunity to see division one basketball up close and personal cuz uh I know I wouldn't had another opportunity to do that so I'm hoping in the future that we prioritize that the boys and girls basketball teams uh will be able to attend and the coaches as well so thank you Miss Miss Payne for addressing both of those issues uh because um I've got some inquiries from coaches that uh colleges want to use their facilities and just want to make sure we point them in the
064right direction to who they need to speak to about that so that covers items unless there's comments from from the board I'd like to say something Mr Williams uh concerning the soccer tournament out there the elementary schools along the strip there are invited I know I don't know if uh if Westgate and uh MacArthur availed themselves of it but I know lipom did they went to the soccer tournament uh that was out there so um just just to point information so they know so some of our students are going to that but I agree with you we need to increase that and we need to provide all the opportunities we can for them it's it's a highly congested area too yes I just thought I'd point that out to but uh we do have some
065and I do agree with uh uh we need to get more in that thank you m yeah I'm going to use this opportunity to segue just for a moment because we have some other things that come up year year to year and students attending uh in April will be the construction career Days event again over in at Santa Rosa but it's done and in the past and I'm I'm going to look at Miss Morgan even though she's busy working in the past uh some of the students who actually might have benefited the most were not the ones selected to go and and so I think that maybe we have time now before April gets here and that event to reach out to the High School principal's man when you have your next meeting to say
066um and maybe Mr Harold needs to be involved in that also these are the kids who could benefit the most now if the principal who has the authority at that at each site says no that you know this group of kids or whatever or this child student in particular is not going because of that's fine but but uh there there's great opportunities for those who are not planning on going into college colge or have any plans whatsoever after graduation to get into a field where they could actually uh do something and and be productive and get a career going that would last them a lifetime so uh I wanted to bring that out at this time thank you thank you yes sir Mr I say I agree with Paul been there and they're hiring people
067on the spot right there so I agree Paul good good I had a question Mr fesco um the career faar doesn't C or is the county or is there one in but there there are four or five of them Statewide it's the Florida Department of Transportation puts it on okay and they provide I think we send 700 students uhg is that April 22nd okay so that event okay so it's coming up right so it's very timely conversation and it's a a Hands-On type have you ever been you want to go I've heard of one in Fairgrounds at this Rosa fairgrounds okay but what they do is each day they bring in students from Escambia Santa Rosa and Okaloosa and Walton okay and we have certain numbers of slots they do a wonderful job of showing
068all of the different career paths and Fields related to constru heavy construction okay which is usually roadways and bridges and things like that and the technology involved with it so it goes from a very high end to Tech drones and other things down to mixing asphalt but there's demonstrations that are there and and uh it opens a lot of eyes but they have people there who do offer contracts that if you're going to graduate in May we'll let you sign the contract today and you'll start at 20 some dollars an hour as of yesterday we were talking about in the principal meeting the and it's outstanding if you get a chance you need to go it is in s Roosa but it's two count effort so we work very closely and we transport the the
069students there so as of yesterday Mr Harold it was we checked and because the principls were trying to plan the two day the three dates that there going to be two days but it's either the 22nd and the 23rd or the 23rd 24th and that's still being finalized it's getting kind of late for that but that we just don't have the final dates as of yesterday Mr Harold had to take a he's on a call with with an agency so he's going to be Ste back in and so he may know the as of today but as of yesterday we don't but we do select those students in career cies and then some that aren't but what we at this time of year we can't be pulling them out of the classroom if they have
070if they're behind and they or and we never take them if as Mr Williams knows if they can't behave because we're we expect that they behave in there but it is a great event so we do focus on those children that don't and that don't have those experiences and it is a wonderful event with a lot of this businesses and and career tracks that you don't think of until you you you go to a a a program or a um site like this where you can see all that and talk to these folks in the industry and and help them the students understand because it's a lot of Hands-On as well they're in big they're doing different things with heavy equipment and and and a lot of technology is involved in a lot of these
071things these days so anyway it is a good good experience but we do work hard to get the students that want to go and then the last thing they have to do which is the hardest part is bring in that signed permission slip and we're begging that day of do you have your permission slip and that's what with the sun Bel conference we were last day trying to get those in as well so but we have encouraged the schools as far as the sun Bel to uh get those athletes in there as long as they're not behind and Miss they're you know they got to keep the grades up like everyone else but we do want them to have those I agree with Mr Williams to see a division one um team and a conference
072like that is is is probably less for them to that's something that they may never get another opportunity in life any other questions on either of those two items thank you thank you uh move on to the next item item H uh update on cell phone usage initiative Mr superintendent first of all I need to tell you that the unplug day was very successful I don't know if you had the opportunity to unplug but thousands of our students took advantage of it and and there was really some quite creative um situations at schools I mean they put a lards on and you got tickets at the each period that you didn't use yourself I was pretty pretty intriguing to see what those students had come up with and they were very excited in fact there
073were several teachers that commented on the success of it which you know we don't always get that so that was exciting one of the I'll say one of the number one schools that did a really good job with it is a scambia high school no I'm telling you the truth a lot of comments from from students and teachers at that site and they really took it serious very very proud of them um and many other schools did outstanding as well um with that being said Ember Yonder Not Over Yonder but the actual pouch well it's still works but if you read and we try to keep up we do keep up with periodicals and then we talk to other administrations not just in the State of Florida but all throughout the country um they said
074it wouldn't take long for students to figure it out and they they did they're buying the magnets off of Amazon they're sharing the magnets um does it work yeah it's just like anything else somebody adheres to it it works if they don't adhere to it doesn't work um the the administrators in scamby County Alabama are still having to focus on it day in and day out so wanted to tell you that's not looking as promising as we would have liked for it to and that's the truth um we we have had conversations um we've had procurement it uh cni folks look at another product I won't give out the name it's not a pouch it's A system that allows for U it makes it to where it's very difficult to use a cell phone that
075is not being used widespread yet but we'll we will'll continue to to take a look at it the number one thing that we could do that has uh it's fail proof and it's uh all it would always be successful is if you're right if legislation was passed to overturn where you have the ability to have your cell phone on campus now what the legislature did is they said oh yeah you can have it on campus and school boards can set policy that tells students what they can and can't do with very difficult to police and those are the complaints you've heard so if we we continue to educate our students and educate our our parents about the shortcomings of cell phone uses I think we'll find more success than any type of pouch there is
076a national company that helps with national unplug day they are going to provide we'll say pouches to several of our schools we'll see if those are successful I don't know that it will be 5400 like we had talked about purchasing but if it's enough to where we could have those at one School site that would be a very inexpensive way to see if it works Cody do you remember the young I don't remember the young lady's name but we have her contact information she was very excited that we had decided to participate in the National unplug day and I think they're willing to assist us uh wholeheartedly and we will continue to do so so Mr Williams I was really glad when I saw you had put this on the agenda we're continuing to push
077uh the name of that other company is analog if you want to take a take a look at it and see what they do but it's not used used it very many places yet and we'd rather it be successful we don't want to necessarily be the guinea pig like we would have been with Yonder um so thank you for that opportunity sir well thank you for the update and thank you for being cautious about moving forward yes um M Keith a state law that they cannot use them in a classroom unless asked to by teacher right you can state law says that you can have it on campus and it's up to the school to develop policies as to how they will be used okay I thought you can use you can use a cell
078phone for instruction purposes if that's what your teacher tells you to do okay but your teacher can also tell you to put it away and if you do not then that's a disciplinary item and we've had prior to covid it was 500 electronic devices um referrals and immediately after Co we we get back full speed it ramps up to 2700 3,000 4,000 what did they get used to they got used to being on it and it's hard to overcome I mean I got two sitting on this dice right here I wish I had zero so we're going to keep on pushing and doing what we can yep so thank y'all J anything last item for discussion is item I initiatives review Mr superintendent yes yes sir thank you we we will [Music] try to be
079as quickly as we can move as quickly as we can all of our administrators are here appreciate you taking time out of your busy day um once we get to our administrators and they come up let if you don't mind let each one of them give their presentation and then ask them their questions so we can let that team leave and then we'll do the next one uh so for like 17 16 months you've asked us to put together some things uh what I want to do initially is just start by telling you about some of those successes that we have encountered and then where we'll be going from there um as you know we transitioned or did the best we could to transition all of our middle schools to one streamline schedule you don't
080have our middle schools you can't used to be you didn't know what the schedule was a day b day C day whatever it may be we do have a couple of those middle schools that are on the traditional schedule but they did keep the research class and that's from an academic um perspective that we we did so um this was our first year to have sixth grade at Cordova Park and West Pensacola Elementary School uh you know the impact that has had um that will occur again next school year but one of the things that I wanted to share with that Mr bobit gave me is if you look at pm2 Ela data for both of those School sites percentage of those students on track for proficiency at Cordova Park is 52.4% at West Pensacola
081it's 60.9% the district average at pm2 was 52.2% in ela on track learning gains Cordova Park 70% West Pensacola 76.2% I wanted to be sure in MTH which this is pretty significant as well Cordova Park on track proficiency 76.2% West Pensacola 57.1% the district average is 48.8 percentage on track learning gains Cordova Park is 85% West p Cola is 95% now that's pm2 which you know that's not part of the scoreboard um but I wanted to be sure you heard that been very successful um both of those principles are ready to go seventh grade they're ready to go eighth grade um so a lot of good things are happening next year they're going to be k6s okay we'll keep pushing all all of our good friends yep I got it it's amazing if you'll buy
082three or four houses in Cordova Park we could probably make it happen um 2526 also Mr Harold still on that call we H Jim was I correct on those numbers all right thank you um we have our first Triumph Grant so at Tade high school you'll have the automotive technology academy in place it is in one of the old auto mechanic buildings that was not being used so is that ironic that we be putting automotive technology in that building uh we're working with Snap-On Tools uh it'll be state-of-the-art um it'll have electronic Bays um it does still have a few Bays that will be you know manually raised up and down but it will get students ready to go to work at several of our car dealerships at that's what they would like to do
083now we're really looking forward to that and you know one of the things that we had talked about as well or you had directed me to do uh was to see if we couldn't figure out the way to get more trades on high school sites we do have an a program south of 9 Mile Road youa they we need they can't they don't have one one half half of that population has nowhere to go after that middle school because West Florida is on a lottery and Tate is closed to any choice yep so but anyway that's been a longterm you're my third superintendent now but I would like to see more of an opportunity a veterinarian school south of the 9mile road so give them opport certain sorry I got to plug every time I
084get a chance I just want you had made the statement I want to make sure people people knew that we did have it and we're looking to increase those opportunities you talked about how good those little kids looked great great program um they just celebrated the welding instructor at Pensacola High School what a great program so we're looking to add those types of opportunities um I think for now that's where I will stop and we will bring forward Mr Brown talk to us about Longleaf Elementary School and the addition of sixth grade there for the upcoming school year well I thought he was here for disciplinary reasons no no we're glad to have you here Mr Brown now ever since he's been in war he's been okay hey Troy if you don't mind I want
085to tell him one thing you were talking about legislative ideas and one of the things we need them to do for us in the legislative session is do away with those school start time mandates as you know this year would be okay because uh long leaf will just be labeled case six but if we are successful and we get to do it with our time frame and the next year they're seventh grade and the next year they're eighth grade they would be subject to the rules about the time that their school should start which logistically is not beneficial because we need for all of the students that will be attending at long leaf the opportunity to go to school at the same time if that makes any sense so if you can put a plug
086in for that Mr Williams we'd appreciate thank you go ahead Mr Brown all right thank you Mr Leonard appreciate being called up first um I want to say that U it's been an ex um interesting last few months as we've been getting ready for this um when this was first brought to the table we I really I have to to be honest I really thought I had had some doubts on the number of students that we of our fifth percentage of fifth graders that we have would want to stay I I really didn't think that we would have as a good a u representation that wanted to stay as we we we have so we have U right now we have a small group of fifth graders this year um moving through and about 75%
087of those students are committed to staying at longle for six grade we're looking at um mid 40s right now and there's still some that are um out there that we're still waiting on a parent to uh commit but they're unsure they're not um there's there's some that have already said you know we for one reason or another we're going to the middle school either they have another child there and they want them both in the same building or they're um a student that has a um mindset for sports that they you know they're going for a reason so or they got into another program through the lottery for a magnet Charter so we've lost a few but the majority of them are are going to stay um and I think there's a lot of benefits
088for that um I had a huge PowerPoint we not w't have time to show that today um but uh I I I I was thinking say what you know what are we going to present to the board here today I I um one of the things I wanted to tell you was that you know what a just said that we have a large group of of fifth graders staying and a bunch of parents that are very happy heard a lot of positive feedback other thing I want to tell you we that we you know my staff is excited I've got a couple teachers already putting their name in the Hat W to go to to the sixth grade and uh move up with those students one of um uh one of them's a veteran one
089of them's a newer teacher but I think both of them would do a good job um and I think that was half the battle there finding a good teacher that for that sixth grade on the elementary campus I've talked to a couple of the other the the two schools he mentioned C of a park and West pin and they both have just um couldn't say enough good things about that sixth grade on their campus so um we're looking forward to it I think um um you know we're kind of still building the bike as we're riding it there's a lot of um things we you know just it just be new for us as we um navigate those Waters but um I don't know if you guys have any questions that's about all I've U
090came to say but if y'all try to answer question if you got them yeah I have a question it might not be directed J M thought went directly to Transportation I would and maybe Mr Dennis can answer that um transportation for these students well the superintendent kind of hit it on the head when he talked about impending legislation um we obviously want it to remain exactly like it is with with existing routes there's capacity on our buses on those routes right now so we would just assume the same routes at the same time with just a few more students aboard when I had the opportunity to meet with Mr Brown last week I believe it was just to make certain we were all on the same page that was that was one of the questions
091they had we don't want to change the school start time because you could end up with a family that has three kids and two of them would be on one time and two or one of them might be on the other we believe if that legislation stays if it does not stay intact we will be able to just keep on motoring uh like we've been motoring same old start you're an early start time too we are on early start so it would be ideal what I do want to make certain when we talked to you about because Mr Brown asked these questions as well um we'll go slow because we know there's a lot of um moving part s there's a lot of activities that we want these middle schoolers to be able to have
092the opportunity to participate in and one of the reasons that this is the first site that we believe we can get to a full Ka is because of those amenities in close proximity um but if we're not ready we're going to come to you and tell you hey we're not ready what do you want us to do if we are ready we're going to come to you and say are you ready for us to go seventh grade are you ready for us to go eighth grade and it'll be in a Time fashion just like it is right now um because we do now plan on making certain that we have had all the conversations with everybody Mr Brown has done a tremendous job in doing so so we appreciate him and his team and I
093have all the confidence in Troy anybody any other questions I have a question you had mentioned um the the numbers are they're high but there do you have an exact numbers or like are we talking 40 kids yeah we're at right at this morning I got a call from a parent left me a voicemail that I had called yesterday I called the last few we've got a few parents that we have um are still just in limbo I have't and and I say yesterday it was about 6 um and I got in touch with a couple and had left a message for a couple and one called me back this morning so we're at like 45 um that are committed okay and you know and I know we've still got some time some things can
094change change but um we had a parent that was U had a that has a um middle schooler already at one of the middle schools and and they had said we're going to send our kid well just last week that child had a um something went on had an issue and now that parents like no we're going to leave him leave them at longly so we had just had one change back so um I don't know exactly um what the final number will be but I'm looking at close to 50 okay and Miss BOS so you know all of you know what we will do at all three of these sites cover Park West Pensacola excuse me and long leaf if a school's at 40 we'll open up 10 slots to choice if a school's
095at 45 we'll open up five slots to Choice our goal will be 56th graders at all three of those sites and you were 47 at 10:00 this morning because that's what Mr McFarland sent us and that's in focus and I will say um like I said this is a smaller group going through our fourth grade group's larger and so next year you know we may have 60 W this day I mean who knows so it could vary from year to year how many you think would how much interchange you get from K through five of new students coming into the area um I know most of the area around you is pretty pretty well built now um um I'm talking about somebody walking in third grade fourth grade we get a lot um uh it's
096probably not the highest in the district but by far but we're we're kind of middle of the road but we get we have um um it seems like one or two you know certain times of the year like right after Christmas break when we come back in January we'll have an influx of people coming in um but it seems like every time you're turn around somebody's coming in to register a kid um and then sometimes you know it'll balance itself out you got a couple leaving but um we do have some of that moving around Mr Brown what about your facility capacity are you okay in that area uh um unlike C of a park we have um plentiful acreage there on our campus if we ever needed it um to build but I think
097right now um you know this is 10 let's see 15 years ago uh when I was first named principal at long leaf we were in the 700s and right now we're in the 500s so we have plenty of room I think um counted it up we have um a four classroom modular and two empty Portables currently and then we have some empty classrooms inside the building that we could uh take advantage of so we got plenty of room good good the other thing that we've looked at make certain you know we we're being diligent uh it's not just the capacity but also some of the other programs that might be offered there if we see that this is extremely popular and it's classes are increasing student population FTE is increasing there are certain programs that
098we can move to other sites so that we have capacity at these sites and U we'll make certain we keep a watchful eye on that as well thank you Mr Brown all right thank you thank you the next uh team that we want to come up is where we're looking at a collaboration between Bailey and Helen Koo Elementary School looking to looking forward to hearing this group these two young ladies hi good afternoon um I'm Amy Roby and I'm the principal of Helen Koo I'm terara palano principal of Bailey and so we um have been can we hear us now they can we're short um so um Tara and I have been um collaborating over the last um couple of months and we're really excited about um working together even more in the future to
099give our kids um at both schools um just some really great opportunities um we already kind of have some things going on um as far as collaboration I mean I guess you guys know we're right right next to each other we have a fence line between us um and so we already have um Bailey students come every single morning and volunteer here on our campus before they even start their day um I have some in kindergarten um fifth grade first grade um some of them just do all kinds of jobs around the school and the teachers love having them and the kids also adore them um we also have the Bailey band chorus and cheerleaders they already come and perform for us um just to kind of get um our students to know those programs
100are available at Bailey um and actually tomorrow we going our fifth graders are going to go to um the Bailey Middle School their Showcase of their arts and so they're going to get to see all the different programs that are available um with with Fine Arts and um Also let's see so this is still ongoing so the um Kanas Club partners with Bailey Middle School they give us books twice a year and um the Bailey students come and read to the kindergarten first and second graders and so that's already been in place for many years um and then Bailey is going to have um a night where fifth graders can come on campus and see all the different um things that are available ask questions get information and um I'm going to be a part
101of that this year too just to have like my face be a familiar face that is there um showing our our partnership together um so that's kind of what we're already doing and then um we've just been brainstorming and um teachers and um we're really excited to um think about some things we can do in the future such as um fifth and sixth grade we have a um gifted cluster class um and so those two um groups of kids working together on projects just recently my fifth graders did um of it's called a wall of historians is what the teacher calls it and each of the kids dress as a historical figure and so we just talked about that would be a great um opportunity for some collaboration um with fifth fifth and sixth graders
102um we talked about having Betty classes and Bailey ambassadors will come over and work with our kro students um specifically to help with um leader and me which is a program that um Bailey's been doing for a while and we're going to start next year and so we think that's going to be a great a great tool for us to work together even more and then um we're going to also work with um doing some clubs um and um Fine Arts things um with the military Grant with Monica Willis and then also some tutoring to have some Bailey students over and so moving on with additional things that we want to start working on in our collaboration uh Bailey and Carol are both going to be leader in schools next year this is Bailey's first
103year Carol's will be next year and so there's a lot of opportunity for Bailey students to really go down to Caro and work with the students on their leadership binders helping them track their data talking to them about what is Middle School look like and how should we be conducting ourselves in middle school it's much bigger um it's a very different experience for children uh we are also talking about um in through those leader me celebrations providing Careo students with basketball tickets to our games um as a reward um or an incentive for them to be focused on those leader IM qualities having them also come to our pep rallies we don't have a lot of Pep rallies but when we do we could see where that would be a great benefit for Caro children
104to be able to experience that PE mediation is something that we really want to infuse more into our school and I feel that now that we're really being intentional and teaching leadership it's a great time to start having our students um learn how to help mediate those issues between one another so what we're going to be looking at is having Bailey students first become familiar with and um good at pure mediating with one another and then having them go down and share those skills with the elementary school children we have talked about clubs Bailey has so many clubs on our campus and we're really interested in having the elementary school students participate in our fine arts clubs we have a drama club I've spoken to them which I haven't had an opportunity to talk to
105you about our Drama teacher is very excited about how star in one of our upcoming Productions so we're talking about how to include them in our production um we have 4 on as an after school club felt like that would really be a great opportunity for Carol students to be involved in those as well we also want to be able to provide accelerated math for Caro students so we would look at working together to figure out whether or not Carol students would come over during the day and receive that accelerated math instruction or if we would put in our master schedule a time period where uh one of our teachers could go down to Caro and provide that accelerated math instruction we do want uh Fine Arts our fine arts program at Bailey to continue
106to flourish um we actually crushed it during our MPA so we're very excited our band actually swept all of our superiors it has not happened since 2013 so we're very excited about including Caro students in our fine arts program in the fifth grade so that we can continue to promote and grow that program we do want to have Carol students be able to Shadow Bailey students much like currently Brown barge does uh that would not happen until next school year we would look at having students have permission slips come for a portion of the day not the whole day but be able to come and have a buddy partner to be at at uh Bailey for a portion of the day uh we have spoken to I've spoken to my uh student advisory committee and
107I believe Miss Roby has as well uh they still Carol still has one more student advisory meeting to have this year and we plan on having my Sac committee join them in that meeting so that we can have our two sa committees together discussing what they feel is important um we have asked for the consideration of a covered walkway between our two schools which I did run into facilities in the hallway and they said that that that's going to happen so we are excited that we will be able to have a covered walkway between our campuses we already currently have a gate uh between our two campuses so it would just be a matter of extending that walkway a covered pathway onto Bailey's campus and all the way to our doorway um yes sir go
108Ahad thank you ladies stay right there just in case Keith um hel and Carol keeping their same attendance Zone and then Bailey's keeping their same yes sir okay is nothing changes these ladies will tell I I try to be patient but you cannot control what other people say like you can't control the rumors we were we were never considering changing what what they they they basically said you were closing right kro we were making at one all kinds of things yeah nothing changes other than we're taking advantage of a cation the two it's really your first opportunity to see what you see at Wallace Lake yeah but Helen Carol they're they Middle School would they all feed into Bailey on the I mean do unless they choose to go to thank you I just quick
109question what's your current enrollment at k um about 58 and what's your capacity a lot more than that I remember being around 1,00 at one time okay and it at uh Bailey your enrollment 920 and capacity a lot 1,400 1500 so that yeah if things change in one way or another there's a lot of opportunities to do things but collaborating and working together now just makes that easier in the future and while I have the thing in my Minds here that meeting for the 31st is confirmed okay but that only happened on my way here yes sir thank you m m b I have a quick question and you might have mention this but um thank you for sharing all the collaboration ideas um collaboration of teachers teaching like um individual courses algebra things like
110that academics is there any collaboration of that definitely hoping so we're definitely hoping to offer some to students at Ko um through collaborating with the Bailey teachers um and go further I mean I had a teacher come to me and say she would love to teach Spanish so I mean I don't know if there's something that we could do with that so I feel like this is just the beginning of just more and more ideas um coming and more opportunities daily teachers are very very excited to be able to work with Carol as well thank you Mr I want to talk to you a few minutes about the buddy system you know if we listen to the boys and girls and then they go home and talk to their parents then it builds a positive
111attitude all the way around have two grandchildren that attend uh or one of them is going to attend uh uh Brown barge and you said the buddy system that y'all are looking uh to Institute that uh talking to my grandchildren they tell they they just came home so excited about it after spending a half day there or a day with them and then that goes home and transfers to the positive of of those parents so i' encourage you to do as much as that as you possibly can because that that will build uh positiveness out in the community will help you with the the collaboration it it'll just help you in so many ways that buddy system it works you know because uh I've just had two grandchildren that they they got in the car
112with me just all excited about you know the buddy system that they had so please please do as much of that as you can in that area and thank you you know it's hard when two schools work together because they're so many issues is that as we said you know those issues and sometimes the tiniest issue becomes the biggest one out in the community and you try to keep all of that as positive as possible so thank you for your hard work in that area because that is very difficult and uh pleasa please consider what I said about the Budgy system because it will pay dividends for you thank you absolutely thank you thank you Tara and Amy thank you thank you have a good afternoon enjoy your spring break so that's everything we talked
113about basically a year and a half ago and where we are now what's coming to fruition to begin for next school year there next items are in the future so miss Gordon Pensacola high school and a seventh and eighth grade Scholars Program good afternoon school board so pensacol high school is very excited um about the opportunity to add a seventh and eighth grade magnet program to our PHS campus um we currently are referring to this program as the middle school scholar program at PHS and it is a program for talented and um academically accelerated middle school students um we have been in the planning and preparing um stages of this Edition um we have been listening to our community and their needs and concerns um we have also created a school-based committee to assist with
114planning and implementation we've included Mr bobit in those meetings as well um to help guide us and and um provide us with additional details and information we um collectively we are working to design systems and routines that create well-defined areas for Learning and we are staying in communication with our PTA our IB booster club and our faculty and sharing how the planning and process is proceeding and taking their input as well and their guidance um so facilities wise logistically um we currently have what is we refer to as our West Wing it's the newer addition to Pensacola High School's main building um and as many of you know we've been on a renovation for the past several years um and we are currently renovating that West Wing of the building when it is completed um
115actually it will be completed it's completed this week um we will have 12 empty classrooms on that section um that section also houses our RC program so between ROTC and then the the 12 classrooms that is where we are are planning to implement our seventh and eighth grade classrooms as well um that will provide our middle school students with their own Wing as well as access to their own entrance and exit their own stairwell and their own restroom facilities um the bell schedule would be the same as our high school bell schedule and um I know we've talked about Transportation we'll be coordinating with them uh for trunk routes we have currently we have three lunches on our campus um and we have the minut that we can add a fourth lunch that would provide
116us with the opportunity of having a separate middle school lunch during the school day um we are also planning a staggered release time so that middle school students would release first at the end of the school day get on their buses or go to their parent pickup location be released first and then um we would proceed with releasing our 9th through 12th graders in terms of curriculum and acceptance criteria for our magnet program we are still having those conversations um we plan to schedule upcoming meetings with curriculum Specialists as we Define our curriculum offerings um our IB coordinator and our APO curriculum are also working to establish criteria for um our seventh and eighth grade students um it is important for us to receive parent Community feedback as we work through this process um and
117starting in in late summer um we hope to begin hosting parent information meetings and School tours so that they can view the facilities and uh do answer and do question and answer sessions um so that we can continue to revise our plans as we move forward yeah I have one quick question um Miss G what is projected number that you're looking at um for each grade level so most importantly it's important for us to go slow and to get it right we want to make sure that we're taking our time and that we're implementing everything as effectively as possible so I don't know that we have a specific number um you're good what we were hoping to be able to do was in the first year have 100 in seventh grade and 100 in eth
118grade okay if it could be a few more than that since it's a magnet we would possibly entertain it but miss Gordon is absolutely correct the most important thing is for it to be successful and it provides the opportunity and Amy did you mention the other thing that we would look at at was if you are successful in this program the admission to the IB program so yes so one of the things that we are looking to offer is priority acceptance into IB so those students who want to continue on a PHS um that they would then have the opportunity to have priority um enrollment in our IB program Mr fesco well two the things that I had written down you both asked so that that makes that quicker um with the recruiting how are
119is this going to go about because there's you didn't have the opportunity to do this when the Career Academy and all the other things with choice and magnet was going on uh are you reaching not to each one of the middle schools somebody doing that um or there's certain ones there could be potentially a conflict between those who were quote going to Brown barge may now want to Pivot and say wait a minute long-term plan is IB let's do that instead so so our so we are starting sth and eth grade at PHS in 2627 which gives us opportunity to then um attend the school choice Expo this upcoming fall okay so this isn't for the fall this not for this fall let me these next items are the earliest they would occur would be
12026 27 and Miss Gordon will tell you we've had the conversation that if it needs to be 2728 for to be successful we'll do 2728 the we were going to have a new international backal art program coordinator at the beginning of next year and it's important that that individual has the opportunity to assist in this going forward um the Mr Williams invited me to a town hall there were several legitimate questions concerns Miss Gordon is amazing she answered each of those she will do everything she can along with her team this is you talked about us getting with it this is a way for us to get with it and make opportunities for students but we will go slow we'll be deliberate and we will be right when we finally act the the goal is
121to allow them to continue to work on those admission requirements getting a pulse in the community I can tell you I've already had teachers asked and parents why can't you start it right now so this one this is a really good and important initiative but we will come back to this group after the summer months more than likely we would wait until September board meeting come back this does not require any seac action or anything like that but we would want to be able to look at each of you in the eyeballs and say hey are you ready for us to keep pushing Andor for M Gordon to tell you why we've got to be on pause and go forward in 2728 in 20 instead of 26 27 this is an initiative that y'all heard
122about for 18 months so you did really good Miss Gordon and I I just like to add this Mr superintendent somewhere along the line in the next whatever months that we can have a town hall meeting at pen High School to answer those questions because I get those inquiries from a lot of parents of with their concerns about the seventh and eighth grade so I'm hoping that we can do that the future we'll get with Miss Gordon figure out what would be the best one we'll be that we'll make it available okay you are you thinking are you thinking about like after graduation yeah after graduation nothing before good school thank you all right thank you iiss you got I have a question I just want to ask about ex extracurricular activities so again we
123want to go slow and get it right and so our main focus at the moment is academics um making sure that we can offer accelerated coursework in Math Science World languages CTE courses um the extracurriculars will come um we have had conversation about if we do offer extracurriculars making them middle school specific they wouldn't necessarily co-mingle with our high school extracurriculars um I know hypothetically Odyssey of the mind is something that's very popular in middle schools that might be an opportunity for us to offer something at the middle school level that is extracurricular for our students we know that when students are involved in extracurriculars in athletics they're more inclined to do well in their academic so we want to make sure that we have opportunities for students to get involved in our school um
124however we haven't finalized what that might look like yet there's also some Provisions in Florida High School Athletic Association about how many years you can participate depending upon what type of school you go to so we need to make certain we have all of that in place we would want to tell students most importantly Andor their their parents this is what we're going to do until we know what that total impact would be um and you hit the nail on the head when you talk about the academic this is a Scholars Program and that should be the focus that's where we are chair um have you heard anything from the parents that I guess it it'd be a great thing for kadova park that's K through six because they can go right straight over because
1257th eth what about the the other parents they'd have to go to another school for one year and then Reon we started and 8th I wanted and this is again this was just an ie thing but we got a lot of smart people a lot smarter than I am I wanted to start just 8th grade and then you would trans trans transition into the high school but from an academic standpoint we had to start seventh and eth because of acceleration and those I hate to say you know testing and assessment and accountability did play a role in starting with seventh and eighth grade more than likely however we didn't get a lot of feedback about Age and what the age of the students were we did consider and might consider in the future going sixth
126seventh and eth but just not initially okay would this be a school within a school is that are we naming it separately a school within a school you want to talk to the name yeah yeah so Middle School Scholars Program at PHS uh it we want to be able to Foster schol spirit because we want them to feel like they are part of the PHS family it's really important that they have that sense of family and Community being on our campus um however it would be separate in terms of how we are um scheduling students now I will tell you this I want to say that if it's like advanced math or science you know they might have to go out and be in a class with high school students like for example if you're
127an eighth grade student who's qualified to take Algebra 2 honors for example um depending on how many students we have we might need to put those students in a high school class but the but predominantly their coursework will be within that Middle School Wing this it's a magnet program we don't know where these students will come from and how it will affect those schools uh and of course we're going to be monitoring that Mr L yeah definitely yes sir um I like what I'm hearing and and you've done a lot of work on this and I really uh I commend you for it and the superintendent and others that are involved with this but I agree with the superintendent we have to move slowly and be sure everything is in place before this happens because
128it's going to affect a lot of lives you know and it's also has the potential affecting some of our other schools and their school grades so we have to be be very careful and diligent into that but I really like what I hear so far thank you um Mr chair and and when I was receiving concerns from constituents on you know uh I had to remind them I said this is not a Zone attendance where you're going some parents going to be forced to go to school these are this is a full Choice Lottery these are parents choosing to go to this program and uh I think that made a difference cuz I think in the very beginning of was some confusion they thought that it was a a Zone thing and was going to
129force kids to go to a high school but in this situation it's uh High highly High scholar students have become com in the program so I think the more you that gets out the better it'll be thank you Miss go right thank you okay so we have spent a lot of time working together to collaborate the idea of um Sims becoming a K3 school and us sharing a similar Zone and cook becoming 46 which would keep more students in the district for rather than leaving for Middle School um we've talked through many different things like how would we we would have the same exact families we just have the younger students and the older students so we've talked through the coordination of every single thing that we would do openhouse orientation school start times and
130end times making sure that that staggered performances um the K3 model would be modeled after cook and would also be performing arts um so that would be included it would still be uh some of a Zone but also some Lottery too to potentially move us both combined to 1100 students which would serve about 300 more kids than what combined we're serving right now now so um we've talked through many things with the Performing Arts part and how he shared with how they've done their performances now and how we would pretty much mirror that but it just be different grade levels um and like I said with family nights those would be some shared like alternate campuses because it is all the same family unless it's grade level specific then we would make sure they're at
131different times right and just think that it's what one of the things I think think since already mentioned earli of course that this will remain a you know we still be a magnet school we still be an Arts Focus go none of that will change is it that with this opportunity that we have this great opportunity we have at at MB cook to do this wonderful things it will be shared across even more students uh and that and that's kind of our goal we have uh one of the things we when we were talking about that uh open edit up to a small attendance Zone we have a I have a lot of parents I I get calls every uh year around around this time when when we have that open enrollment and those who
132are in East Hill area who wanted say hey uh what can I do to get out know it's that time I I have a grandparent who lives right who lives right who lives on on our street that back her house backs up right to our um to our to our car rider line she has her grandson there and she's for the last two years have tried to get into the lottery and hasn't been able to get in and her child hasn't I think she's probably trying again this year so we'll see what happens but uh and it's like it's it's it's and I I live right across the street Mr night why can't I bring my grandson and hasn't been able to do that so hopefully open it up that some of those opportunities for
133some of those families there who who living nearby in our neighborhoods and open it up to them and I think it's a great opportunity for our students at SIMS uh to uh be able to rise up uh occasion I think uh with some of the things that we have going on you know as you as many of you know I was a principal at SIMS many years ago so I'm many years ago so I'm very familiar with with uh those students have a heart for the uh for those kids in that school and uh we're I'm very excited about this possibility and taking this on and so I'm not sure if I missed anything else I think so all right one of the things that I did want to add is um we wanted to
134make certain we brought this to you today they have done a lot of work they both talked to parent groups they both talked to uh faculty and staff and the miscommunication you know I'll take the hit for that I wanted to make certain that our principes had the opportunity to talk to their people first but this is not something that's happening next school year this is something that we are considering and I want to make certain that you have the opportunity to take a look at we will also be back in the fall because these groups will continue to meet make meet and make decisions told you ever how many months ago when you charged us to go take a look at stuff we would always make certain that we talked about the academic impact
135and that's what we want to do um so if you took the K the cook score and you just look at overall from last school year and just look at the overall points you can take all those different sales math Ela learning gains lower cortile science look 70 points congratulations to Sims with their performance last year they Rose to 43 if you had just said that cook and Sims was one school what do you think the score would have been think it would have been better or do you think it would have been worse okay the kindergarten through third grade would have been at 82 points that's all the students the fourth through 5ifth would have been at 55 if you had added sixth grade they would have been at 59 I just wanted to
136put that out there because I I am a country boy but I'm not a dumb old country boy the other thing is um so there are too many students that attend and that's that sounds terrible but there are too many students that attend Sims for it's just to use one big attendance Zone you couldn't use it cuz there's currently in the 50s that or in the attendance zone for Sims you were asking do we keep up with where the kids go so there's 34 kids last time I checked they're in The Sims attendance Zone currently that are 10 cook 51 51 excuse me thank you check behind me there's 50ish that attend sudor that're in this Sims attendant Zone and there's 40 something that attend Cova Park and I could tell you there's different kids
137that go a lot of different places as well we couldn't do it because then the school would no longer be a lottery so that's you everybody can take that out of their mind what we are considering and that's why we would have to come back in September or October because it'll take some work um you know how we're we're having to prepare for Success one of our charter schools and we're also having to prepare for them to not be successful so we've got to be looking and it's seac so this would this would be a situation where if you said yep today let's keep looking at it do some work it would be a small small attendance Zone because you can't do the entire attendance do you know what school is in The Sims attendance
138Zone cook the cook school is in The Sims attendance Z what you couldn't and there's a bunch of kids that go different places so what we need to do is at least take a look at Sean is the walkability a mile now is that what we do locally that's our local standard yes sir you could look at a zone that did one mile and one mile at each place but they would have to be the same for both schools that makes any sense or you can tell us no that's not what we want to do as a board you have that that is your responsibility but I do want you to do this and y'all can decide what this is what whatever it may be you would still have to convene seac because you would
139have to look at what you're going to do with the students um that's the same thing and I'll just go ahead and use the term if Warrington prep is not successful we got to do that for nine elementary schools and hopefully three to four middle schools you've got that work ahead of you but I wanted to make certain that our administrative team had the opportunity to come to you today talk to you a little bit about where they are uh do you have any questions for them I wanted to make sure that I also shared that with y'all I have I have a few here go ahe okay um you had mentioned IND cook 4 through six and Sims K through3 so what would happen I know it's not next year the year after that
140what would happen to those students that are not in those grades what would h i mean see I'm saying like Sim students did not apply for lottery and so what would happen to those students does that make sense if let's say that there ended up being 110 students that were in one zone and 110 students were in another zone so it's 220 they would all be I don't believe all 220 would be in the same grade level they would all be scattered out and they would go to whatever their new grade level is so if they were in second grade is that the question you're asking like for example if you have a a second grader at Cook and or you want it to be at SIMS you want it to be a student that
141didn't apply for the lottery yes they' go to third grade what happen to the go to third grade if it happened next year they would go to third grade s or at SIMS okay if they are in that small attendance Zone that y'all end up drawing for that Sims attendance Zone and that's I wasn't on say that it's a pretty long process have I think that my question goes along with this so as I my concept of it is this the Sims attendance zone is there and so that attendance Zone will be K through six two different schools correct and then there would be a lottery for the other half of each school well it really would be a lottery for the incoming kindergarteners because there's not a lottery to get into cook at first
142second third fourth fifth there is yes there is there is oh there is yeah okay so each year but it's based on the numbers available those who leave or what attrition right but a a student who currently would be a magnet student for cook and they would be in the magnet the number would be let's say 100 I don't know how many you accept each year for kindergarten but that number would be accepted but they would attend at the site right okay so so you have a attendance Zone you have two and a magnet mag but it's for one site right it's for for one program at two sites correct yeah did better than me it would be easier to understand it as a split campus with one attendant Z right I agree with you
143at one attendance Zone and magnet well I received various communication from families concerned about this marriage um you know I think it goes to Lots because we we have so many questions we want answers and so I think giving us time to work through the system to see if this the best idea or see if we need to look at something else I think it gives time for families to understand what's going on the community and also the district as well but I've another question what about those sixth grade students at NB cook that the families want to go to round barch they can they stay at in be cook is there a path for them to get to Brown bar in seventh grade I don't think so I think it's probably Mr L so
144this is why we wanted to make certain like any other school like Cova park or west Pensacola right now those students apply to get into Brown barge in sixth grade MH and Larry if you want to go ahead and tell the story about when you are currently beginning to lose students yes because yeah we are that plays into your question you're asking yes because we are curing now it's getting the H racket is getting lower and lower for it used to be uh you know eight years ago when I got there it was probably fourth maybe mostly but mostly fifth grade is when we begin losing losing families to to going into the private sector they need to get those spots it's starting now at second and third grade and this past summer I lost
145uh at see I lost a total of 30 at fourth and fifth grade I lost 15 at third grade and under 10 at second grade and those were all going to private schools they came and talk most of them came and talked to me or I got an email saying hey we really wanted the thought we we really wanted to stay here through the through fifth grade Howard things are just uncertain at middle school and we're just really unsure about about middle school so we are going to so we're going to have to take the shot now because the slots are filling up because of the Step Up vouchers and things like that that people that they're that they're getting so they so the it's getting competitive for them to for middle school so my
146concern is to we look at middle schools in that area and not necessarily Elementary but middle schools to give families more opportunities to look at see what's out there for options Mr chair yes sir um and this has nothing to do with y'all you're going to do a great job whether whatever the superintendent tells you all to do but uh me and Keith's going to agree about 99% of the time and he he's been the best guy ever seen in that position but he knows I'm going to vote no on this I consider West Florida Brown BGE and MB cook to be our flag ship schools the only thing that we have that we know is going to compete against it's not broke I mean I I come from the world if it's not broke
147don't break it okay what he's mentioned about the the vouchers is true it's happening in every one of our schools but MB cook brown barge and West Florida IB program Direct competition with the best schools in skim County and there's no way in heck I'm when it comes to those magnet schools that I'll vote for anything cuz if this turns into a mess we have seen hundreds and hundreds of our parents walk away we've had instances of 760 parents walking out of the middle school which the charter companies hoping they'll get a c also OJ Simmons has got a c i I just don't if he's saying there's people leaving they got capacity I just don't see this but for me um I'm too afraid of what we might do to one of the flagship
148programs and I I just can't go down that rabbit hole no problem um what's your current enrollment Miss Sanders at SIMS 357 and uh Mr Knight 530 500 so we're talking about a total of 900 students there but that would be different uh under the New Concept there would be 11 to 1200 students that would be in the cook curriculum but we cannot do all of the students that are currently enrolled at Sims and increase the lottery that that would not be wise um so that's why we've had every group come up here today uh in particularly for those that will be in the future because you need to tell us what type of work we need to do nobody's feelings are going to get hurt um and Mr Mr Adams is correct y'all do
149a great job and you will continue to do a great job what we're trying to do is provide more opportunities whether and we are through the middle school and the elementary school um for all of our students I I mean this I mean this respectfully you you I have to say that all of our schools are Flagship schools you've you've made it my responsibility and our team's responsibility to take care of all schools 36,000 652 students and that's what we're going to continue to do every day I had a very I get emails too I get mean ones and nice ones and my responsibility is to make sure I I try to communicate back to them and ultimately uh I had one the other day it was straightforward and it's the kind I like tells
150me where they are what they need what what they don't need what they what they don't want but I could truly believe by the way I what I had read into the email that that's what they believe to be best and I said that's that's why we're here that's why we're going to work together and I got a response back it was exactly like that doesn't mean they agree with what we're trying to push and trying to make certain we get accomplished for our students um there's nothing to vote on uh what we do need to know is we're going to have to convene seac because we've got to prepare for Success Andor not being successful in another program if you say this is something you want us to be looking at we can be
151looking at it and we can tell you what the combination would look like if you took 250 out of those two small pocket zones we could take tell you what it would look like if you took 150 John and them Mr Dennis and his team has a formula that tells you in so much of a radius how many families living there and what that equates to Elementary age students or you can tell us if you are with Mr Adams you can say don't do anything start chasing some other start going somewhere else you're not going to hurt anybody's feelings and if you're not ready to tell us that today that's fine this team is going to continue to work they're going to continue to work with their faculty and staffs and their families I know
152each of them has met with their families they've had multitude of questions they've done very good in asking me what those answers may be if they weren't certain because like the sixth grade question is critical I was surprised at the number of students that had left cook in second and third grade very surprised I'm not so I think we've got to do something and y'all keep telling us to do something so we just got to make up our mind what's the best something we can do that impacts all students and that's what I'm for I talk to know Mr Williams I wasn't quite finished but when with the superintend uh uh I'm not I'm I'm joining Mr Adams I'm not quite there yet on this one you know and the reason is this I remember
153years ago when we started testing we started testing some districts around the State of Florida uh they redrew their district line so that every they they wound up they had a bunch of A's a bunch of B's C's and D's and they redrew their lines to where then they had a whole bunch of C's you know I don't want us to do that with a particular segment of our County you know I want us to and I'm getting emails that are are deeply concerned about that so I'm I'm not saying that I'm a I agree with the superintendent 99% of the time uh uh just like Mr Adams said uh he's doing a great job I support him on uh 99% of the issues that he throws out there to us but I have deep
154deep concerns about this one you know that uh uh I I'm I'm just I'm not there on yes vote on this one yet so okay I'm done all right I I know the superintendent's not here I really kind of like to have him hear what I have to say so uh I do want to say this I commend both the principles who are here Miss Sanders you have been a savior at Sams with what's gone on and I know it's very hard work and you've done a great job Mr Knight you continue to to shine wherever you are you're like Polar Opposites with with the populations you serve and I say that from 38 years in the school district and and work you have the parents who you can't drag in with horses and those
155that you can't keep away with lions and so you know it's two different things there Mi mixing them together can be a very good thing I go back to my education 101 okay if you want students who are struggling to do better you put them with students who are achieving better absolutely and they pull that one up so I I understand philosophically where that's coming from and and I think that's a very laudable thing to do I'm feeling the same way that that Mr Harold and Mr Adams and probably others are at this moment because one of the reasons that I made the big push over two years ago to look at the K8 model was to keep from losing parents okay you losing parents right now Mr Knight is a bad thing and and
156I think that rather than looking at joining these two schools I'd rather see you become a K8 and then the and then the parents would not leave exactly um cook at all exactly even if we had to expand cook but where yes I well again again I I understand you understand the logistics but what I'm also trying to say is this my whole reason for the k8s and and some of the other things that would take we can't afford to keep losing our students okay and that's why I'm pushing for the k8s that's why I you know I I want to use my sense of humor and it would be the wrong time to do it okay this is the wrong time on on how to get Capac how to get acreage at Cordova Park
157okay but what I'm what I want to say is we need to find a way to have rova Park Scenic Heights and suor is K8 and cook and we won't lose any to private schools that's right we will increase our enrollment by thousands of students and and that was the big push for me at the beginning I understand philosophically why it would be a good thing for leveling enrollment and then giving a real boost to the students who are struggling by having good Role Models but I don't think that that's going to work because I think we have too many parents who are at current Curr ly at NB cook who just won't apply they'll just go straight to the to the private school in kindergarten yeah and and that's biting off our nose to
158spite our face with that so you know I I if if we're not voting at this point but I if we were voting I'd say I'm not that's not one of the things that I really want to look at and I don't mean offense in any way I appreciate the work and time you've put into it and the thought and I really understand the why but I think that the consequences of that why will just do harm to enrollment and only thing I want to make certain I I tell you that we are looking as you've seen we've got a K8 going in next year that didn't cost you $78 million right so what you've got to be thinking about is well if that is truly the direction this board wants to go and Susan
159and Larry you're good you can sit down you relax I think I have one more thing I'm gonna say Let me let me say what I want to say then you say whatever you need to Sir you've earned that um you've got to be prepared to convene seac and make some very tough decisions on schools to close and you just need to be prepared to do that um if that's where you tell us to start working that's what we'll start doing because those are really tough yeah and you don't you can't back up from those once you tell us that's what you you think we need to do we'll go to work and we'll be prepared to provide that to you by September or October I I know that we're kind of roundt in it
160here and I I just want to make sure that I cuz I I understand completely what you're talking about um what I what I think is that if our enrollment and continues to decrease the closure of schools is is it's going to happen there's no way around it I you know and and it will happen and we were elected to make these decisions and guide and and do the things and and so I'm still saying we need to do everything we can to keep every student who lives in Escambia County in the Escambia County Public Schools and and and that will mean some things will change changes in all always bad okay and and and I remember saying to to somebody who in Tallahassee you say you're going to close it close it we've closed
16117 schools in the last 20 years 24 years you know that's not a threat because every time we've closed a school we've put students in better situations they they better facilities better um learning environments and things like that when we do it as long as we have the parents and and people understand why it's happening and what's coming you know it's hard to say okay this school is closing and all they see is death but this is where you're going you know when they see the vision of where we're going then then that's the thing that that we don't want any you know it's like you want somebody to run to something not away from something and and so if we give them something to run to that's what our purpose needs to be uh
162not to avoid which at this point there are people again we're all getting the emails and and know that people are going to want to avoid having this mixture yeah and that's that's what's disturbing to me that when you say that that choice is because of Association evidently um and that's disturbing that we are not willing to help every student in this County to be successful that I'm going to take my child out because I don't want them to be associated with a certain group absolutely that's insulting and I think that if we're in the in the business of educating and lifting everyone we wouldn't make those statements um CS has worked extremely hard to get that c and we can help them to go further than that so I understand the parents are threatening
163us to take their child out I've dealt with that as a principal but I'm going to do what's best for every student not just students in District 3 but for every student in esamia county and for you for us to say we don't want certain groups associating with another group if that happens I'm taking my child I think that's the wrong message that we give it is in B cook is is it 48% on they got a good diversity there right is in like 48% or what's your diversity yes we yes we do we it's about almost about half and half I thought it was half and half or so but I think uh that's not but I don't think that's where Williams is going with that at all what is here we are this
164is this is and that's is what I was going to say is that you know we we District we are when we look at our schools and we look at our schools that are mean our schools that are um struggling we look at the segregation that really that exists there that we are 50 60 years Point past the point of but we look at some of these schools and we look at some of those and look at some of those issues there I served at principal at Sims for six years there and let me let me say this well let me I'm going to get all over the place in a minute a little little bit cook when it was when it was first formed uh 30 plus years ago was for those inner city
165kids that is what it was for for those students there who were in poverty things like that I don't know what happened over the years when it when it changed and it became what it what it became what it what it is but that was the initial that was the initial that was the initial thing of how the school started was to give those students something different I as one of those students when I was uh I told my talked to my faculty a little bit about this yesterday or actually I told them over the years as I'm talking to them about our students as a little uh African-American student student comeing here and living house I can tell you all the houses the many houses I lived in around the the Villers and Belmont
166those areas right there as we kind of rent hopped around and because when one place gets demolished or one place the rent thing and we would just go from place to place me and my two younger brothers of my grandmother and my f five uncles and one aunt that we lived in the 11 of us living in uh usually in a two or three bedroom house as we get there and so the things that we saw we're not always the things that we want to see seeing a drug deal going over down on the Viller Street seeing those sort of things that are happening and seeing something different for me maybe because of my love for reading I my love for reading I kind of saw something different for myself and didn't and kind of
167just didn't know that my two brothers were it's a whole lot different unfortunately for them because what we saw is just what we saw they came into the drug World they came to those different things it didn't see something different one of the things I think when we were putting this this program together one of things that one of the special things we have in in cook is the many opportunities that our students have to see something different whether it be the chess club that we have or the dance after school dance club or the Key Club or the kids uh that we have in service oriented sort of thing or the uh the realtor coming into our classroom like they did today and and talking about selling planets and uh all the different things
168the dance club those me many of those students I would have never stepped into a seen a dance studio many and many and my brothers and my aunt and everything would have ever would have ever seen those sort of things many of our children at Cook wouldn't see those things if we weren't there but I know those students at SIMS those students who were at um uh arrogant Court that's that back in that day would have ever seen those things and what and I think about my my brothers who went through such a difficult time going to prison uh multiple times the things that they if they they've gotten their lives together doing fantastic now uh one's a pastor at a church the other's Deacon there with them and so they're doing great things now
169but unfort see that didn't happen until their 30s to the light came on their own heads but I often wonder about what could be different for them had they seen something different as we were growing up those different things as we as we're looking at it's because we as Educators as I talked to my teachers yesterday we're not here to educate just these these these children here we serve her at cook that is great who whoever walks with that door at Cook they're going to get that cook experience and they're going to get the things that we're that we're trying to serve them that we're that they're going to get those those opportunities that's that's what we that's what we need to do we're not going we're not here as tell them because I there
170are some misgivings for some of them as well and I've had to have a conversation with some of them because of how things are presented and and language that it's used that I'll be kind of honest with you um and I've said and I've told about things like uh are we here to protect a program or we here to serve students through that program and how many students can we serve with that program if we're looking at we're looking here now trying to serve uh 1100 1200 students with this with this program as opposed to the 500 that I'm serving that we currently Serv every year so as you all are discussing this or what as is these months to come anything I like you to keep those things in mind I hear what it
171says when I because I I've talk with my parents and I hear from them and many of them you know have some concerns many of them also have are also on board and and ready to explore this further I at my school advisory council meeting I was so very proud of my parents there who when they began talking when I began talking to them about this and their immediate response was hey can we start doing some things now do you think we should invite them to the carnival do we think and looking at different ways that they could go ahead and start this process now starting some type of partnership now as we're going along here so many times I'll say this many times when we you know and I know you know we we
172serve the public we serve these these are our parents here they're they're voters they are they're the ones they are they are our customers here but as you know also how many times do you those of you who have been in the business World you've been in other places who do who are the people that you hear from when when you you hear it from the people who are upset unfortunately we don't hear from the people who are happy with things or or who are happy or who want to go in another place so it's I think it's very important that you that town hall meetings are had as we go forward and looking at things and that you're talking to everyone not just the emails that you were getting and here because those are
173that that's who you're going to hear from by and large that's the majority you're going to hear from so I this that's my um that's same that I want to piggy back off of him if I can after coming from lipsum for 11 to 12 years um we received close to 300 out of District kids at that school and many of them came from high poverty areas and I would say close to 100% Rose to the occasion we're talking about 300 kids being given an opportunity to have a brighter future and see more opportunities for them they will rise to the occasion we see it every day they they are capable of Performing even higher than they are when they're immerse with other students that are performing hiring you're talking 300 out of 11 to
1741200 and the increase the concern of losing families if you're including more of East Hill into the zone for what would be a k6 cook Model school you're increasing enrollment and I I think that answers the question about being afraid of losing enrollment and kind of and then talking again about the students rising up I think about the students who have come to my school I I've had this conversation with many of couple of principles I've had this conversation with principal white Global and a couple others there about students who about Behavior students that were kind of be some behavior issues that have comeing students who you would not know you would not know that s walking into my class walking into my classrooms today because of just they roast to the occasion they were
175not in an environment where everyone where many of the students are are behaving in this in a similar way I've had an opportunity so I mean we have our problems at MB cook we have our behavior issues however they're not all in one class that sort of thing and so we've and teachers are able to manage that and and students are they're able to see uh the students are able to see a different they able to see something different and seeing other people seeing children that are and me seeing a classroom full of uh other students who are rising to ucation who are doing things and that's just becomes not the thing to do because that's not how we get the attention of the adult there in charge those sort of things so it's other
176questions I think Mr Harold you had comment uh yes uh a while ago when I was talking I didn't commend both the principals here for the excellent job that they do and for the vision that they have for their schools and the vision they have for this program and I think that's very important and both of you just gave some very heart felt uh you know uh information to us uh it it definitely came from the heart this board has has some difficult decisions to make in the future you know uh uh and uh as I said uh I'm just m superintendent wasn't in here when I said this while ago but uh I'm not there on this on this program yet it doesn't mean I won't get there but I'm not there now you
177know uh and I think uh at least at least three or four of the board members have have shared that but U uh we we'll we'll talk I'm sure it's uh it's one of those things where change is difficult and and I hear what you're saying and I I've heard what Mr Williams said what you've said and the other board members but I'm I'm still not quite there here M buros yes I want to say thank you both for for you know coming up here and sharing your experience and sharing your collaboration ideas I'm really uh U I do believe that we should have high expectations for our kids um what we said you know shoot for the moon and if you fail you still land in the stars but I know we need to
178look at ka8 and that's what I want to focus on our Middle School opportunities for these families so in second grade they don't have to look at going elsewhere they have a place to go yes I I'm going to I'm I'm going to say that I am not making any decision at this point I agree with the things that you've said I value both of you you you are professionals you have always done what's best for students and I know that and for families I know where your heart is I agree that that's been my thing what's best for kids okay I didn't understand or I don't have the whole concept apparently OJ sem's attendance Zone as it is now is going to change correct it would have to okay so it you're not talking
179about taking the whole of OJ Sims and just combining it with there's students that currently live in The Sims District that go elsewhere okay over park sudor there all right Susan was telling me there would not what you would do is you would dilute the lottery if you took the entire he and that's that's not the intention here at all yeah that's not the intention here at all the intention here was to be really really small and targeted right around the two uh sites uh and that's why seac would be critical right uh what I'm hearing is uh and you're entitled to have your own opinion that's why you were elected uh and you should have the opinion that you have and you should listen to your constituents I told somebody the other day that
180y'all don't pay me to be popular you you pay me to go to work so we'll continue to work I'll make certain that I talk to these two and their teams and we'll talk about other plans other options but we won't just throw this one out because I that is not what you've charged me to do and you have charged me to bring you things and then you you vote I don't vote I do not want to throw anything at I want to explore much in much more detail so I will be by to see both of you at your schools and and if you're having any kind of town hall any kind of parent get together explanations this please invite me or we to invite all of us is difficult because then then we
181get into advertising and stuff you can advertise it but but when you have those I'd like to be there to see everyone in the meantime the people who have reached out to me I will continue to have conversations with people and and and go from there my initial thought on what was happening is not what I've now come to understand so we'll talk thank you yeah and I thank you for your I also want to tell you y'all do a great job and if Keith told you to do this you're going to do it with all your heart and everything else uh I was going to tell you I my mom worked at clubs she was a math teacher I must have painted that second floor classroom that's where where MB cook where they tore
182it down every summer she had to have that classro painted before school started again so I know there's a lot of history there but uh I'm having to look at it in a different angle because we're losing students and I'm worried about the magnet programs West Florida MB cook brown barge I would love I would love to have a MB cook of the West that we have talked about many times haven't we superintendent and we are working on that unfortunately you got to wait I know you don't want to wait but you got to wait to see what happens with the other site from a facility stando y'all did really good behave yourself right thank you a good spring break Larry and Susan yeah I know I took up a lot of time I'm so
183sorry yeah I know we've been going for a while we need to take a break and let's take about a 7even eight minute break and we'll come back thank you e e e yes sir um Miss cous do we have anything for the charter school quarterly report other than what's already been submitted any questions on the charter school quarterly report okay um I was going to ask Mr Ingram to come forward but I'll go ahead and make certain or is there everybody on the board aware that we will have to move from board docs to the new program called diligent okay that is supposed to occur Tom you want to give them a brief [Music] timeline yes sir I'm sorry I was late um so board docs uh is the program that we use for
184managing our our board agenda and meetings the parent company for board do is diligent diligent has made the decision to discontinue the board do product at the end of this calendar year they have established a timeline for us to migrate to their new product diligent community that migration period will begin in late May and will take approximately three months so if we are on schedule with the migration the migration would conclude in late August and our September meetings would be done in the new product diligent Community uh diligent Community does not have a policy manager feature like board dos does therefore uh we will continue to use board docs until such time as diligent finishes uh producing their policy manager within diligent Community um we will continue to use board dos for our policy management
185and um I would expect that will be done by the end of the calendar year but I'm not certain um because I haven't I haven't seen any information about that um diligent will be migrating all of our data from board docs to diligent Community uh but our staff will be heavily involved in setting up the new platform and um training ourselves and using the new platform um things of that nature that that work is going to be done by the staff uh primarily in Late July and August uh not an easy time so um I would just encourage you to uh to be patient and understanding with the staff during that period of time is they'll be working very hard to get ready for the new platform does anybody have any questions so you not
186you don't even know if the the diligence is going to be a better program than what we have right now so I'm not going to get to see the new product until uh July uh so that'll be early July when we'll get to see the new product we have seen some videos um the videos look like it's a a a more modern uh easier to use product but um but no I'm not going to not going to really know that for certain for some time so um does our contract we have to renew a contract when it's diligence that's correct uh so our current our current renewal date is May 20th and you'll know how the software runs before we do the contract that's that's you know that's what I'm trying to get at right
187I mean I don't want to spend Millions on something that's terrible you know um so side un scene yes sir um so the um as I said the the videos that I've seen have shown it to be a a cleaner user interface easier to use um but I'm I'm not going to I'm not going to get to use the product until until July so I really can't is there anyone currently using it as a p in somewhere in Florida so my understanding excuse me is that Sarasota County has already transitioned to diligent community and I I have seen their website uh so if you wanted to see from a public perspective point of view um Sarasota County School Board is using it currently M thank you Mr angram I did want to let the board
188know that U some of us have done uh We've attended a webinar to kind of introduce us to what it looks like and it does look like some of the um some of the things that make it difficult to navigate back and forth between like board agenda and backup item uh would be resolved they would all be on the same page and it's also my understanding that since this is a more modern platform they have a lot more security and I would defer to Mr Ingram on this but a lot of the um security protocols within diligent are more up to date than what's currently in board [Music] docs good thank you uh the last item from us is Mr Saint Seer and budgeting okay thank you I'll make this as brief as I can
189I just wanted to go over you touched on the entire subject which is the um declining enrollment situation I'm showing you I'm going to show you the split on all of our school I try to do this from time to time the uh first thing I'm going to go over is the FTE comparisons and we'll go over and along with that will be the revenue that's generated 2024 25 and then we'll briefly touch on a component a couple components of the governor's budget and once and I didn't I didn't want to get into the governor's budget too much because they're using numbers that are not our realistic numers so I'm not giving you big numbers I'm giving you per pupil numbers on the governor's budget so let's go ahead and look real quick at the
190FTE uh the comparison is the fourth calculation which is where we ended 2024 uh fourth calculation 2024 to current 2025 and I wanted to split and we look at this all the time I just wanted to split for you the school the categories of schools that we're dealing with FES is Florida empowerment uh family empowerment scholarships we last year we ended the year with scholarships currently there are 5,47 scholarships the growth of those scholarships corresponds greatly with our traditional schools so go to the bottom row the bottom row second to the bottom row and we ended last year traditional schools at 34 345 we're currently at 33 this is what we're being funded for 33947 that's the decrease of 397 unweighted FTE and then you and then of course the increase of 2281 you know
191that they're for the most part taking the scholarships and going elsewhere either private schools or homeschool we we don't know the numbers but a lot of them work a lot of them more but I I don't have that Mr Leonard doesn't have that well it it seems like there's it was only 397 97 different so that's what I'm figuring is and that the way this is pointing this to is a lot of them weren't at our school dist a lot of well the the the variance the difference or the net between the the 2281 change and the 400 negative for the school district the net they never were in the school district they were at they were either homeschooled they were at private schools they were never in our district because we only lost the
192400 yeah just a small amount right compar compared to what we were dropping compared to the Trad to the scholarships it's a much it's a smaller percentage but it's a massive decrease in our student population charter schools are holding about 15 to 1,600 virtual schools you see those numbers th that's those numbers are there's no story there that's that's not typically about 277 to 300 and then DJJ the same way that just those numbers hold so I really the story is from prior year to current year uh the decrease in the student unweighted FTE in our traditional schools okay I'm going go I'm going to show you what the dollars do from prior year to current year first group of numbers unadjusted ffp unadjusted Florida education Finance program the fourth calculation we ended the year
193at 33 333 million 256 that includes scholarships that includes scholarships that shows up on our ffp calculation third calculation which is current 361 uh 361 billion and then so the change is 27.7 million 27.7 million all of that growth is scholarships all of the growth the 27 million increase is scholarships uh dollars per unweighted FTE 8535 in the prior year and right now it's 8 so that's that's what the scholarship students are getting that 88 roughly that $8,800 uh to go to private or homeschool or wherever they go all right now look at the adjusted this is what we're worried about because this is our real Revenue this is what we actually get from the state uh last year was 310 million 310.50 million and currently we're working at 319 million for an increase of
1948.4 for from prior year to current year remember we had a declining enrollment there in the traditional schools on the adjusted but the the per people amount overcomes the decline by about 8.4 million so if we would have stayed flat that that increase in the uh from PRI from current from prior to current year would be much bigger than that 8.4 million so we're struggling with the declining enrollment even though we had a positive increase a positive of uh ffp dollars overall all right next slide here's how we started the year second calculation current year start we started the current year with these numbers FES is given to us by the state that number um we don't calculate that those those numbers are given to us Charter School SCH we know what they are based
195on student count virtual schools DJJ and then traditional is the result uh total is the result of uh netting all that against the 4,246 traditional schools we started out the current year at 34223 according to the third ffp calculation current we're at 33947 so that's a decrease in funding of 276 students across the Ser two Ser two uh calculations beginning and current so we're fighting again um and really the the change there the 922 FES that change is based on what doe projected for us for FES and then correspondingly we have a decrease as that inre increased the decrease in the traditional okay 276 negative all right here's what happened to the revenue with current in current year within the current year from beginning to end the top portion is the unadjusted it's got the
196scholarships in it so that change was 6.6 million 6.6 million increase and then when you take the scholarships out what we really receive is is a netive 87,000 for our traditional schools all right okay now here's what the governor's recommending and I'm giving you some years prior to it base student allocation against total funds per unweighted FTE so the base student allocation is starts off the calculation so in 2022 the base student allocation was 4372 N1 and below that total funds per uned FTE was 77 95.0 7 that's after all of the categoricals and other components are added to it it goes from the 4372 up to the 7795 that was the per pupil funding in 2022 and you see 2023 2024 than the current and the governor's proposing about a 1 Point uh or
1972.42% increase in total um um funds per unweighted FTE over the current year so the current year we were about 3.63% increase over the prior year per total funds per unweighted FTE next year is going to be very slim if if the Govern budget is close to what the final will be very slim we had a pretty good year back in 2024 that was a 5% increase over the uh previous year and then 2023 was a 6% 6.25% increase over 2022 so it's dwindled down over the last couple years significantly by the way um all of those raises are going into a effect soon it's it's a whole lot it was a whole lot harder this year to deal with that than it's been in the last several years a whole lot more and we're
198giving about the same amount out in terms of the percentage increase so just keep that in mind if we go negative this year we're struggling but we're trying to take care of the personnel as best we can all right uh that's it for the ft and the I wanted to give you a snapshot of sales tax where we're at we had talked about this in quite a while 2023 24 proceeds at June 30th last year was 40.2 million in February currently February 2025 is 28.5 million that's about a million over last year at the same time so seems like sales taxes is holding this on and growing a little bit so that's good news we'll take that the last two pages I don't have on the slide but I think it's interesting for you to
199look at um these numbers are lifted directly out of our annual comprehensive financial report that's online statistical section this is the schools these are the school student populations across 10year period School populations across a 10-year period you can see you can follow each School individually for their student population and I've added two colums which are projected for current year and projected for 2026 the numbers match what we've already talked about I want to I want to if you'll go to that La that very last page we're going to look at the Traditional School trajectory it's about middle of the page that highlighted middle of the page age traditional schools 2015 if you're with me 2015 traditional schools we were at 38,3 47 we've had a continuous decline uh 2024 we ended up at 34508 uh
200getting close to 5,000 student uh 4,000 student decline there and then as we move into the projected 2026 down to 33 489 so a continuous decline I've got the numbers highlighted right below that look at 2021 that's when the bottom fell out that was right after Corona virus students did not come back that's 1,900 unweighted FTE out of the traditional schools that's a massive decrease that real and the state held us harmless on Revenue that year um because of that that was a Statewide issue that's that's really what happened Statewide so if you have any questions let me know give me a call uh if you want to look at something in more detail and we'll have that for you thank you Mr thanks that's that's the last report yes sir okay thank you you
201did um mention concerning the charter school quar report you've already okay and that takes us to number four committee and departments we do not have anything to report there number five review of regular board meeting agenda just sever one1 know this um brings us to our agenda review Mr superintendent are there any additions or deletions to this month's agenda can't hear you yep yes sir item 24 consent Finance item a is deleted item I is added and item J is added and then on item 42 consent superintendent other item a is deleted for now that's all the changes thank you sir thank you just a remind Mr fesco this is your month to bring the invocation and and the pledge uh this moves us into the minutes for February then we have two minutes there
202February 13th and February 18th that we will vote on the next meeting moving on to unfinished business nine administrative appointments nine number six seven and this brings us to number eight the consent agenda moving into the consent agenda on any items to be discussed starting with curriculum items 8 through [Music] 19 I will be abstaining from voting on 12C uh being a member of the Community Action uh board of directors hearing none we move on to finance items 20 through 24 hearing none we move on to Human Resources items 25- 29 hearing Now we move to operations items 30 through 39 and hearing none we move on to the superintendent items 40 through 42 any any response any discussion hearing n we will move on to public forum we have um believe we have four
203speakers and just want to remind everyone that um we do have some that have been submitting late that going forth I would like to take up these forms at the beginning of the meeting after I make the announcement from the Das is that okay miss odm that we do not leave the forms out there after uh the time has permitted for them to fill them out but uh we'll read them today we'll allow them to speak today if that's okay with the board first Speaker we have Courtney Dale you have three minutes good afternoon my name is my name is Courtney Dell and I'm a resident of District 4 My Two children attend NB Cook Elementary and are enrolled in fifth and second grade today I'm here to share my concerns about the possible changes
204proposed at NB cook I first want to commend the superintendent and the board for your willingness to explore new ideas and make changes to broaden the educational opportunities for all of the children of Escambia County your position has only been made more challenging with the introdu ction of Step Up scholarships and the resulting loss of FTE the question is not whether Escambia County Public Schools should change but how nevertheless I am unconvinced that this proposal to create a joint academic program at OJ Sims and NB cook is the solution for the challenges that we face in past meetings I have been heartened to hear how you have spoken of NB cook as a success and a potential model for other schools in the district as a parent who's been involved with the school for 6
205years I can wholeheartedly agree administrators Larry Knight and Lori cin are exemplary and the teachers and support staff are exceptional this title one school consistently provides academic outcomes that are among the highest in the district each year I am approached by parents of children in VPK asking how their children can attend and be cook in large part because of the diversity of the student body the academic outcomes and the arts program as it stands now NB cook is the first choice in education for Escambia County families until they are faced with the perceived challenges of Middle School by only adding sixth grade to NB cook you have a one-year solution to what many perceive as a three-year challenge Cheng I understand the desire to expand this opportunity and this model for more children but by
206taking something that is working and realigning the grades on two different campuses you fundamentally change a community that that is built around multi-grade level plays and Productions from K through five you eliminate programs like kindergarten buddies where fourth graders Mentor younger children and you limit the opportunities for teachers and staff to really get to know a child over many years and provide them with the support they need to succeed my concern is that this proposal would undercut the very strengths you seek to expand I appreciate your time today and the thoughtful consideration that you all will take as you deliberate these changes moving forward I look forward to the opportunity to engage in this process and appreciate your service on behalf of all of the students of Escambia County thank you thank you uh next
207we have Charles Isaac you have three minutes hello my name is Charles Isaac I'm a proud parent of an NB cook student as well um start by saying I Mr Knight is probably in my opinion the best principle in the United States uh I guess so I'm I'm surprised that I'm opposed or you know not on his side with this but it's his job to to look out and I think he really just wants to help as many students as he I think that's commendable but with MB cook I think the difference between our school and other schools is every parent going in decided a year before get involved in their students education every one of us students come from all different socioeconomic background grounds it's a fantastic Melting Pot of students but every parent
208is involved and they had to be in order for your student child to go there and I think that that's I don't understand how a hybrid of zoned and magnet would work I just don't I don't get it there are certain rules that we have to abide by attendance certain things of that nature and would the other students have to with the Zone students have to attend to abide by those rules as well so I'm I'm I'm just a concerned parent um all I have thank you nor Nora [Music] M three minutes she left and Mary Flores three minutes okay the next we have is it El summer sumuk I'm so sorry afternoon members it's my first talk so I have a very little kid that just uh introduced me to uh education system and
209I'm thankful to her um you were talking about private schools losing parents to private schools I pulled my kid from private school and I was blessed to come to and be cook Mr Knight Miss cine Miss Ashley who says hi to our kids when we come in uh Miss Malone who take carees everybody I mean this is a community and I just want to tell you um the parents that has bories is legit you have a 2-year-old and you have a kid that goes to three four grade and then they're going to be separated and uh military families who has hard time just finding that Community to be able to give their kids when they're not there to be looked after please hear their problems it's not just giving the opportunity to other kids but
210also losing the opportunity that you have given to these kids that's also concern and I just wanted to say that um hear us out when we come out here and and say we want to help the other school too why don't we apply what we have in NB cook and let them photocopy that and try to help them out to come up to the same level as we are doing as a a grade level I drive 40 minutes to get to NB cook I cannot go to BU which is right across the street from me because I live on the other side of the street I drive 40 minutes I commit that because this is a good school please keep it that way please keep it that way because we as parents work very hard
211to get our kids to go to that school every morning challenging the highway problems or sickness and all of that so we are here not because we don't want to combine we just want to keep what's working that we work hard to keep there so please hear that it's not that we just say oh we don't want to do that it's not that we have issues and they're legit and I have many parents who has just wanted to say um don't split our kids to different locations cuz it's hard thank you thank you our next speaker is Carrie Sheridan good afternoon my name is Carrie Sheran and I too am a parent of an MB Cooks students I first off want to say that I have been a military officer for 22 years so I
212have seen firsthand the effect of students that have to continuously move every two to three years and it's not good you guys have instilled actual military counselors in our schools which is amazing and it's great having them there but it's already difficult enough when you have a young student that has to pick up and move a class every two years every 3 years we don't need to be doing that to the rest of our students it is amazing this program at MB cook and I feel like every student in across Escambia County should have access to it but I don't think that is by separating the schools that it is as it is let's take what we have the template for MB cook it's been proven to work and let's just give that opportunity to
213OJ Sims and let's let them establish a community I want I have two students they'll be split in one building and another building that's already a financial a fiscal a logistics hardship on my family think about that across the other families that have more than one or two students split across the across campuses Child Care is going to have to be thought of before and after school transportation's going to be have thought of before and after school and that's another financial burden on the district instead we can save costs by just templating what MB cook has applying it over to OJ Sims letting us establish a sense of community a safe learning environment if you have a student that goes from K to a grade in the same building you're already establishing a sense of
214trust in those that staff member there's teachers the actual learning environment they are so they don't have to learn something every three years when they pick up and move to another building I feel like it's very important that we just have that K through eth that establishes a much better learning environment for a kid it provides security for them it provides stability for them regardless of what socioeconomic background they come from I too had a kid in private school I pulled them and put them in public school because I believe in public school so much I love MB cook I love our staff there I love the teachers there it's amazing what it's done for my kid and I want OJ Sims to have that same opportunity but dividing it between K through second or
215third and having them pick up and move to a whole another place again for third through fifth or whatever isn't the answer let's like try to dig down to what the actual issue is and work on solving those issues through K through 8 like you said middle schools really need a chance to excel here and I feel like our time would better be served addressing those problems than trying to average out two schools to make a peanut butter spread across the board so as a concerned parent I just hope you'd think about that when you're making your decisions thank you thank you we do not have any any more speakers any more anything else for a common good from the I would like yes I would like to thank you to both Dana for uh
216re revising that resolution that's going to be um offered on Tuesday night with the military child and also the assistant superintendent for your clarification on several of the questions I have so thank you oh and one more thank you Jeremy Tomkins thank you very much for your assistance if there's nothing else we stand adjourn