001Good evening everyone. Welcome to our April 27th, 2026 regular school board meeting. Before we begin the work of the district, let us stand for a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Deputy Superintendent Farnsworth. All right, good evening everyone. Um, standing in for Superintendent Corner G this evening. Uh, you have any uh, any new address changes, amendments, additions, or deletions to the agenda? No, sir. >> Okay. Item 9.03 was added to board docs on Friday and two addendums added today to item 9.01 along with a revised HR list. The board has been provided copies. Board docs was having technical issues today,
002so the attachments added are available on the table if anyone would like one. That is. Um, you ask if there are any objections? >> You ask if there are any objections. Mhm. You what now? You ask if there are any objections by the board to the agenda. Yeah. No objections. >> No objections. No, sir. Negative. Okay. Okay, uh, recommend approval uh, of the minutes from the regular school board meeting April 13th, 2026. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, we've got representation now. Uh, starting off recognition recognition of the Academy of Construction Technologies, ACT. Uh, Chair Marta Ramirez, the director of college and career readiness will present. Good evening. Mr. Farnsworth, respected school board members, and community partners. Tonight, I am proud to recognize an outstanding partner who's truly
003making a difference in the lives of our students and in the future of our workforce. I would like to extend our sincere appreciation to Jason Litz, executive director of the Academy of Construction Technologies, for his exceptional leadership and unwavering commitment to our construction academies. Through Jason's partnership, our students are not just learning, they're launching careers. His work has been instrumental in expanding access to state registered pre-apprenticeships, opportunities allowing students to begin meaningful employment with industry partners as early as the summer between their junior and senior year. Many of the students continue working throughout their senior year, and even more impressively, many go on to grow within those companies, advancing into leadership roles over time. This is what real-world, future-focused education looks like. Because of this collaboration, we are strengthening the school-to-work pipeline right here in
004Lake County while direct addressing the critical need for skilled trades professionals in our community. Jason's visions ensures our students graduate not only with knowledge, but with confidence, experience, and a clear pathway into high-demand, high-wage careers. We're also deeply grateful for the generous donation of DeWalt tools to our construction programs. This investment brings our classroom to life, giving students hands-on experience with the same professional grade equipment they will use in the field. Jason, your dedication is building more than structures. You are helping build futures. On behalf of Lake County Schools, thank you for your partnership, your generosity, and your steadfast commitment to developing the next generation of skilled professionals. >> [applause] >> Okay. Next up, we've got item 4.02, recognition of media specialist. Uh, Dr. Feltner, executive director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment will present. Good
005evening. In recognition of school library month, we're proud to celebrate the vital role our media centers and media specialists play in supporting student learning across our district. I have with me tonight, um, I'd like to introduce and recognize our manager of instructional materials and media services, Bridget Marsburn. And, um, she works tirelessly to support the school media center centers, their specialists, and our students. Our media centers are far more places than to check out books. They are dynamic learning environments where students explore, create, collaborate, and develop a lifelong love of reading, which you know has a very special place in my heart. These spaces provide access to both print and digital resources, ensuring every student has the tools they need to succeed. This year alone, across our four 44 media centers, students have circulated over
006383,000 print books. We maintain a collection of nearly 488,000 items, and our digital catalog has been accessed by more than 35,000 users, generating over 74,000 searches. Students also benefit from a robust digital library providing 24/7 access beyond the walls of the media center. Behind each of these spaces is a highly skilled, certified educational media specialist. In addition to curating collections and fostering literacy, they teach digital citizenship, support instructional technology, collaborate with teachers, and lead school-wide reading initiatives. Many also serve in critical roles such as technology contacts, testing coordinators, textbook managers, and club sponsors, often without additional support staff. Tonight, we are honored to have some of these media specialists with us, and I just want to personally thank you for your dedication, your innovation, and unwavering commitment to our students. Please join us in recognizing
007and celebrating our media centers and the individuals who bring them to life. I'm going to let Ms. Marsburn, um, call them up one at a time, or if you wouldn't mind, I'd love for them to be able to come by and shake your hand as well. Thank you. We have Ms. Patricia Perdomo from uh, Seminole Springs Elementary. >> [applause] >> Uh, we have Savannah McMenemy from Sorrento Elementary. >> [applause] >> Shelly Meneses from Aurelia Cole Academy. >> [applause] >> And Amanda Lamanna from Grassy Lake Elementary. >> [applause] >> Hey. We have no public input, right? Um, no public input? Perfect. Okay. So, now we're going on to the the Superintendent's Advisory Committee. We have Carolyn Cute and Catherine Mizelle, both from Lake Minneola High School, Go Hawks, and give us a great presentation. Hi. I'm
008Carolyn Cute, the vice president of student government at Lake Minneola, and I'm going to talk to you about what's kind of going on at our school right now. So, it's senior legacy week, so varsity club and SGA came together and we came up with spirit days to kind of show off our seniors. Um, our principal, Mr. Roberts, every morning does trivia questions about our school, and he does a countdown with all of the senior songs from previous years to kind of like show our song at the end as a big surprise. And then, we end the week on Friday with our senior uh, pep rally. All the seniors run out and then we have like a big video that we're going to show of the four years. Then, next week is our last day of
009school on Friday, so we're going to have a senior sunset. This is a new. We normally just do senior sunrise at the end, but we decided that we're going to do senior sunrise in the beginning and then senior sunset at the end. We're going to have college and career shirts to kind of show where everyone's going. Um and then students in SGA were supposed to go into our community and get donations from local businesses. We'll have them on the back of our pamphlets for our banquet to show their support and we're going to use their funds to support the event and also support our raffle. So every student that comes in will be put into a raffle and we have gift cards, hats, shirts just to do something fun during the event. We'll have a
010big flat screen with the High School Musical movie, games, and all that. And then the last thing we have is our SGA just got recognized nationally by the National Council of Excellence. So we just wanted to bring that to you guys and um if anyone here is with any SGA, definitely get nationally recognized. We didn't know we could do that. So first year I like Minneola we did that. That's all I I have. Good evening. Uh my name is Catherine Myrick. Well, I'm the student government president at Lake Minneola this year. Um I just want to talk to you guys a little bit about the Superintendent Student Advisory Committee. Um it really is such a blessing. I know you guys probably hear from each of them every week. Um but it really provides such a
011unique opportunity that kids uh we don't really get or we wouldn't have that opportunity if it weren't for that group of kids that are able to learn from new perspectives and new schools that we just don't really hear from if it wasn't for that opportunity and learning new things and implementing those on our school to just make Lake County's uh education just stronger overall and just help each other out. It's really awesome and uh one of the big things we've been working on recently is uh some sort of hub or group of resources. I don't know if they've talked about it at all, but to get people more college and career ready. Links and resources to things like Common App and FAFSA. And once you get accepted into college, housing and deposits and all the
012stuff that is very complicated especially for kids that maybe are first generation and haven't gone to college or maybe don't know what they want to do with the career. Just getting a space uh where they can get all those resources and links. So we talked a bit about about today about kind of a rough draft that uh Ms. Francis was working on uh that has a bunch of links and different resources for them to use and just kind of going through and finding new resource resources to add to that and kind of just tweak it to maybe make new additions for new things that happen and new deadlines and new resources and apps that come up that just help students a lot with finding a career and getting into college. So Yeah. Great job. Thanks,
013guys. Thank you. Attorney's report? No report. Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent? Um any unfinished business? No. No, sir. All right. Uh for the consent agenda, uh I recommend approval of consent agenda items 8.01 through 10.04. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. I vote. Any discussion? Mr. Clerk >> Okay, next we have a public hearing. So at this time I will open the public hearing for tentative approval of policies 8405 School Safety and Security, 8406 Reports of Suspicious Activity and Potential Threats to Schools, 8407 Safe School Officers, 8415 Emergency and Crisis Management, 8420 Emergency Management, Emergency Preparedness and Emergency Response Agencies. At this time I will open the meeting for any public comment on these uh policies. Seeing none, the public hearing is closed. Mr. Parnsworth, do you have a recommendation? Yes, sir. I
014recommend tentative approval of the policies as presented. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. I vote. Next we have another uh public hearing. So we'll open that at this time for final approval of policies 2111 Parent and Family Engagement in the School Program, 2215 Program of Instruction, Title 1 Services, 2261.02 Title 1 Parents' Right to Know, 2410 School Health Services, 2417 Comprehensive Health Education, 2450 Audit and Community Education, 5223 Absences for Religious Instruction, 5330.01 Self-Administered Medication and Epinephrine Use, 5330.03 Administration of Epinephrine by Trained School Personnel, Rescinded, 5350 Student Suicide Prevention, Awareness, and Screening, and 5780 Student Parent Rights. Does anyone like to Would anyone like to comment on these policies? Seeing none, the public hearing is closed. Mr. Parnsworth I recommend final approval of the policies as presented. So moved. Second.
015Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. I vote. Here we have no letters of condolence this week. Um but do have Superintendent report on behalf of Ms. Courtney. Uh I want to congratulate our student entrepreneurs who participated in the recent Incubator EDU event. They pitched their business ideas and competed for funding. This is always an impressive event where our students' creativity really shines while they learn real world skills that could help them launch viable businesses. Thank you to our college and career readiness team, judges, and all the sponsors who made the event possible. Um also I had the pleasure of attending a a great event that might get mentioned in comments for Lake Sumter's elementary education celebration. So I won't I won't elaborate on that too much. Um looking ahead, we're excited about the Lasting
016Legacy celebration that the Education Foundation is hosting on Wednesday to celebrate our newest retirees and congratulate our inductees into the Alumni Hall of Fame. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone there. Then on Friday, May 1st, we will attend our first graduation ceremony as the season of the season as we celebrate our Lake Hills graduates. Congratulations to this very special group of students. The schedule picks up again in a couple weeks with most of the other graduation ceremonies taking place the week of May 18th. We are excited to celebrate the class of 2026 and wish them well as they move on to this next chapter of their lives. And lastly, please remember that the week of May 4th is Teacher Appreciation Week. Every day our teachers turn curiosity into confidence and challenges into triumphs as they
017prepare our students for the amazing future that awaits them. We are grateful for them every day, but during Teacher Appreciation Week, we want to show our gratitude in special ways. So please take some time next week to thank the outstanding educators that make a difference in the lives of our students. Thank you, sir. Okay. Board members? Uh ditto. Um in the interest of time and Dr. Luke getting to a uh softball game, I understand I'm going to keep my comments to a minimum other than go Lady Panthers. I have nothing. I would like to defer my comments uh to after Dr. Luke if I could. >> [laughter] >> Okay, we'll hold the meeting open then. Okay, yes, we do have a very important beginning of postseason. I think that there's a lot teams that are
018in that situation. So 7:00 if you don't have plans, come out to the Panther Den. But now I feel like I can't say anything else because I told you guys I had to go and I do want to I do want to acknowledge that we have um 23 graduates from our very first elementary education Bachelor of Science program for Lake Sumter State College and they have set the bar high. I We had a celebration of great magnitude. Um Deputy Superintendent Parnsworth came and spoke on behalf of Lake County Schools and was um just a proud representative of all the work that's been done in that program and what we're going to contribute to Lake County Schools and the work that's still to be done and we just appreciate that partnership. It is such a monumental
019thing to have the first inaugural graduating class of Lake Sumter State College. I said it really fast. Go, Mr. Dot. >> Yeah, so I didn't want to steal that thunder. I figured it was on your list. >> of you. And and and I had a chance to attend that event and and I am just so thankful for you, Dr. Luke, and what you have done in building this program and thankful for the partnership from Lake County Schools and and Sumter as well that um when I saw the smiles on those students' faces knowing that they're about to about to be teachers. They are they are ecstatic. They're absolutely ecstatic. And and I think that you you made that possible for them. You're making dreams come true and so um that's that's my comment tonight. Thank
020you for that work. I appreciate it very much. And >> [laughter] >> I have none and so And I have none. >> Okay. So we're tied. >> [laughter] >> If there's no objection,