001Good evening. It is Monday, March 24th, 2025. I'd like to call this regular school board meeting to order. Uh please stand for a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good evening, board. Um any uh changes, amendments, additions, or deletions to the agenda this evening? M uh Madam Superintendent? Um yes, an HR addendum was added today to item 901, and the board has a copy. Um, also this evening we have an emergency item that's being brought to you to be heard before the discussion agenda. This is the final proposed scope of work from RSM. As you know, we workshopped this several weeks ago and then um last week the
002board members individually had a chance to meet with RSM for some clarification about the scope of work. Um there were no substantial changes to the document um following the clarification um except for the one item to competitive procurement. Um there's one bullet that was added regarding um the dollar amount and percent of um purchases coming from piggybacks and as well as those off of state bids. So you'll see that referenced in there. Um as they mentioned when they spoke with you individually um they meet once a month with Mr. Brandyberg. They also will be meeting once a month with me. So, we'll be monitoring the scope of work and then bringing to you monthly updates or as often as you um feel the need to meet with them. They'll be happy to circle back with
003any further clarification. So, um I the reason why we're declaring this an emergency is because of the timeline. Um we were already a couple of weeks delayed on that and we know we're anxious for them to get started and um so and they are ready to go to work. So, we wanted to go ahead and rather than delay this to the next meeting, go ahead at the um chairman's approval um declared as emergency item tonight. Um also, I'm pulling item 8.05 for no action this evening and it will be back on the next agenda. All right. Board, do we have a motion on those items or for the move agenda? Second. All right. Got a motion by Mr. Mthi, second by Dr. Luke. All in favor? I I passes 50. Um, superintendent, do you have
004recommendation on the minutes? Recommend approval of the minutes from the regular school board meeting February 24th, 2025. So, moved. Got a motion by Mr. Matias, second by Mrs. Cunningham. All those in favor? I I passes 50. Um, representation tonight, we have none. Um, we do have a couple public input cards this evening. Uh, first up, Mrs. Gwen Chambers, uh, Lifewise Academy. Is this okay to sit here? Sure, ma'am. Absolutely. Perfect. Good evening. Um, yes. Good evening, school board as well as superintendent. Thanks for having me here. I just came to kind of talk a little bit about Lifewise Academy. About two years ago, roughly, um, Lake County School District decided to approve to actually allow Lifewise Academy to come into some schools here in the entire Lake County school district. So, um, for those of
005you who are not familiar, Lifewise Academy is a program that actually started in Hilliard, Ohio in 2019, and it's a release time, um, instruction. So, essentially, it's a Bible-based character education course. So, we have now started at Lost Lake Elementary School, which is the first school in the state of Florida, and we currently have roughly 14 students. We serve as third, fourth, and fifth graders at that school and they meet during lunch and recess. We actually take them off a school campus and take them to another location where we actually teach them um character-based education. And from there, we bring them back to school. So, we actually allow them to have lunch, which they bring themselves. It is a fully donor sponsored program. There's no cost at all to the school or parents. And most
006importantly, it is parental approval. um in order for a student to participate in the program. Um the other thing that I wanted to kind of just update um the board as well as the superintendent on is there's roughly a total of five to seven program coaches similar to myself within the state of Florida that are also looking to launch programs. Um, so they range as far as Miami date all the way up to, and forgive me, I'm a northerner, so I don't necessarily know all of the state of Florida, but I'm assuming it's going as far north as like I'll just say Daytona Beach, but it's probably further than that. Um, so that's pretty much all I wanted to take your time for and just kind of give you guys an update on that and
007then just ask if there's any questions or anything like that. Perfect. Forward, any questions? Y'all were reaching out to Treadway. Has there been any movement there? Not a whole lot. That is actually Shelley Martin. Um she's responsible for Northern Lake County and she has not had much tread much much treadway there. No pun intended. She hasn't had much um movement there. Um but she's also started looking at a couple other schools as well just in case. But her thought is she won't do anything with in that area until next school year. Thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Chambers. Appreciate you being here this evening. Thank you so much. Next up, our good friend, Farmer Banks. Farmer Banks Hellfrick, Clayo District, South Lake County. Um, farm tip of the day. There are two different types
008of bamboo. Uh, clumping and running. Uh, running is actually very invasive. Um, madame superintendent board, which bamboo handed. Uh actually both types. Okay. Yeah. Um madame superintendent board um 248 years ago our forefathers came together in PA uh Pennsylvania um to uh representing 13 different colonies u a total of 55 delegates from um authoritarian homelands. uh and they came uh worked together to uh create the longest serving government charter in our history um our constitution. Um it was no easy feat. Um they argued, they bickered, they disagreed. However, they did come together finally uh and form a government uh with three branches uh which check and balance each other. Uh they also formed a government where the citizens freedoms were front and foremost uh and balanced that with government control. Um they used a word
009that nowadays is looked down upon actually. Um the word is compromise. Uh it seems uh today we look down upon it as in weakness or as insecurity or vulnerable but back then constitutionally they came together. In fact, that compromise was the bond which formed our government, formed our um our society that we have today. Um it would be great if we went back to that to work across ideological divides to work together to look at that that bond and to also um reach across the aisle. My name is Farmer Bank Selfrick. Thank you for your time. May you all be blessed. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right, that is the end of public input for this evening. Um, next up, item 6.01, Dr. Elizabeth Johnson with the Education Foundation report. Good evening, superintendent, school
010board members. I hope y'all are all doing well. A few updates for you all since the last time I was here. The Night of Stars celebration was a success on March 4th. We announced the winner of the rookie teacher of the year who was Taylor Emanuel Caspbury from Aurelia M. Cole Academy. Our volunteer of the year was Mike Degrall and our business partner of the year was the Lake County Sheriff's Office. Additionally, on March 7th, we held the Scott Strong Clay Shoot which was sold out with 35 teams. The event um raised a net revenue of $33,344 surpassing our goal of $23,000. Those funds will go towards the Scott Strong scholarship. Our ladies for education event is scheduled next month on April 25th and we're excited to share that our presenting sponsor will be the
011Marian S. Shuk scholarship trust. We are also getting ready for our stepping out for education event in July. We will have our celebrity dancer meeting um and greet next Tuesday, April 1. And so I'm excited to share who our dancers are. Ariel Roland of Wharton Smith, Justin Allander of First National Bank, Weston Germarov from Lake Jim Farms, Erica Wright from Additional Financial, Allison Barry the Leburg City Commissioner, and from Lake County Schools, Marlene Straw, the region one director. Hey, I was waiting for the excitement over there. We have scheduled um had to reschedule a handful of our New World's reading programs. Um, one was scheduled for tomorrow at Triangle Elementary School and so we're going to get that rescheduled. But we do have three upcoming in the month of April, including Thursday, April 3rd at
012Groveland Elementary School, April 8th at the Villages Elementary School, and April 29th at Futland Park Elementary School. Some take stock and children program updates for you all. Um our staff is underway with the interviews for our 48 applicants that uh met the requirements for that program and we will identify the selected students by the start of April so that they will be a part of our 25 2025 cohort. All of our staff will be participating in the amazing race fundraiser for the city of Eustace this upcoming weekend and so we encourage you all to come out and then our senior breakfast for our take stock and children graduates is scheduled for April 22nd. Other than events, some good updates for you all is that we are at 725 Apple Mart visits across the county, which
013equates to $112,420 of school supplies. I was able to attend the Rocket Day event at Umatella Entry Elementary School last week with two of our staff members and so that was great to see. Our scholarship applications are currently under review and that'll be solidified by the end of this month. And then last but not least, our education foundation staff have four employee giving presentations over the next three weeks. Are there any questions? Great. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Great report as always. Chairman, may I let Dr. Johnson know something? I did. I think I've shared this with you um just as far as Taylor Emanuel Casper coming from UCF and the program that I was in, but I'm not sure that you knew and I wanted to share this with you in my board
014member comments, but um the Ed Foundation, that was the very first year that we did the Educators Plus program and we put two interns into a classroom and made them the teacher of record. That was the first year that we did that and Taylor was one of those participants and the Ed Foundation gave them a scholar um tuition reimbursement upon successful completion. And so it was really rewarding. This is her second year teaching to see her earn that accolade for the district. So I wanted to make sure that you knew that that the Ed Foundation was a part of her success as well. So thank you for that recognition and for celebrating her and thank you to this board for that for that opportunity for her. So thank you bringing that up. Yeah. Thank you,
015Dr. Luke. Uh, Mr. Cole, any report this evening? All right, easy enough. No unfinished business either. Um, consent agenda. Superintendent, do you have a recommendation? Recommend approval of consent agenda items 8.01 to 8.04 and 8.06 to 102. So moved. Second. Got a motion by Mr. Matias. Second by Dr. Luke. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Passes 50. All right. Moving on to discussion. Um, looks like we're going to do the emergency item first. Um, as the superintendent mentioned earlier, um, that I approved this as an emergency item for tonight. I went back and looked, we held that workshop on January 6th and had some really good conversations since then getting this ready. And at our last um, my last meeting with RSM, their monthly check-in calls, they were eager to get started. I was
016excited to hear that after the meetings on Thursday of last week with you all that we didn't have substantive changes. So, we had a finished product available for this evening. Um, superintendent, do you have a recommendation on that item? I recommend approval of the internal audit plan statement of work as presented. So, moved. Second. Got a motion by Mr. Matias, second by Mr. Dodd. Any discussion? I just have a question. Sure. So, with the governor's initiative of doing this doge thing, does that have any impact in your mind whether we should how we proceed or full steam ahead and see what happens? I I I think there's so many unknowns that it would be hard to answer that question. Yeah, that's what I thought too. Okay, good question. Yeah, I think at this point these
017items um should be full steam ahead and we'll keep working, but I'll just focus on the audits. You know what I mean? Agreed. No, I'm with you. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if we want to pay for it if it's going to be done free. Yeah, that's a good question. Any other comments? All those in favor? I I passes 50. All right, moving on to item 11.01. 01 um instructional materials recommendation for advanced placement biology, advanced placement chemistry, advanced placement environmental science, and advanced placement physics. Um recommendation on this item? Yes. If you'll recall, you um had a workshop by our wonderful CIA team and um they presented to you these materials that have been selected by our teachers. And so I recommend approval of the instructional materials recommendation for advanced placement biology, advanced
018placement chemistry, advanced placement environmental science, and advanced placement physics. So moved. Got a motion by Mr. Mthi. Second by Mrs. Cunningham. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Passes 50. And item 11.02, public hearing, Mr. Cole. Yes, sir. At this time, we're going to open a public hearing for tenative approval of the following policies. 01000 Definitions 0131.1 Technical Corrections 1362 Anti-harassment 2120 School Improvement 2125 School Advisory Councils for School Improvement and Accountability 2371 Hope Scholarships 2432 Driver Education 2520 Selection and Adoption of Instructional Materials 2522 Challenges to Adoption or use of instructional, library, or reading list materials. 3362 anti-harassment, 4362 anti-harassment, and 8330 student records. At this time, does there anyone who would like to make a public comment on these um items? Hearing none, the public hearing is closed. Superintendent, I recommend tenative approval
019of the policies as presented. So moved. Second. Got a motion by Mr. Matias, second by Dr. Luke. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I passes 5. Superintendent, your report this evening. All right. We had two letters of condolence that were sent since our last meeting. First of all, to the family of Alfreda or Freddy as she was fondly called, Furnace, um, retired teacher from Eustace Elementary. And also to the family of Willie May Burton. She was, um, a food service assistant in our food service department. So, condolences to those families. Today, I had the pleasure of going to Carver Middle School where I had met with three amazing um community members who have just taken Carver Middle School under their wing and are doing some great things for kids there. They're part of a
020Kids Lift nonprofit organization. Um, and the three uh businesses are kitchen wise and kitchen kitchen wise and closet wise and house doctors and then 360 painting. And they donated uh $500 for the PBIS store there. And then they're coming back to do a redesign of the facility for that area. So they've taken an old storage closet and turned it into an amazing place for kids who have earned some school bucks to be able to go in and buy some things. And so they're going to go in and redo the flooring and painting and shelving and make it just a really great place for them to to be able to to house that um PBIS store. So I just wanted to thank them personally. Also, thanks to the Morrison United Methodist Church in Leburg. They have
021150 brand new prom dresses, sizes 0 to 18 for any of our students who are in need of prom dresses. So please keep that in mind. Um we um so will be advertising that for families um for the young ladies who want to go and shop for prom dresses for free thanks to Morrison United Methodist Church. So thanks to them and also just thanks to Eustace Elementary in the community who um had a great celebration. Their 100th year anniversary was Saturday and they had a great celebration there. So thank you to them and all those that attended that event. And that's all tonight. Thank you, Superintendent Dr. Luke. Um, I wanted to add to the celebration. Um, just seeing the costumes and the the lady, one of the ladies, the one of the staff members,
022the teachers that was giving the tour that was dressed from the hund the 1920s from 100 years ago and Mrs. Chapel's very passionate about that. Anyway, she talked about the story she was hearing because we did have attendees that were from um, Eustace Elementary School that had their children, their grandparents and their great-grandparents that attended the facility. So, they were really excited about that. And the principal an outfit from the 50s and they had tours and and I don't know it that celebration I know the mayor spoke and we were really grateful for everybody that attended. I got to attend the last half after a function at work that I had on Saturday as well, but it seemed like it was really well attended and the um the staff was all It's always fun to
023go back there. Jensen went to school there until we moved and it was a it's a it is a great school. It there's a lot of great things that happened there. Um, and it's always felt like a very small community school. And the when the teachers were like, "Oh my gosh, how how is Jace? I remember when he ran around here in his diapers." So, it's just it's it's amazing the small town feel of that building. It was nice to be back there. But, um, they did a great job. I also was excited to see Eustus High School's design services and construction management. I'm really excited about that project to get it underway. So, that was really exciting. Um, and I wanted to congratulate Justin Strait. I'm sure many of you saw the Fox 35
024news report from um elementary school and they focused rock bracket day and they showed his um simulator. Um I know I have a son that was super disappointed that that came this year, the year after he left because he loves Mr. Strait. He is such an innovative educator. Um great ideas, listens to students, and really does things to keep them engaged. And just what an excellent um example of the educators that we have in Lake County. Um and the last thing I want to share with you all is um tomorrow at Lake Sumpter State College we are doing a uh future Lake Hawk teacher preview day and we invited our high school teaching academy students from Lake and Sumpre counties and we have 157 students amazing coming to campus tomorrow. And so if that is
025any indication of what the future of education in Lake and Sumpre County looks like I couldn't be more proud. Our students are volunteering. I know we have some adjunct members including Mr. that are coming to volunteer tomorrow. And so we are really looking forward to recruiting them and um showing them all of the positive things that are happening so that they can hopefully come back and teach in Lake Sumpre County. So we're really excited about that. That is outstanding work. Exactly. Outstanding. Thank you. That's all I have. Mrs. Cunningham. Um I don't have very much. Um I also received a call about the 150 gowns. So, I just like to emphasize that uh those ladies are really looking forward to being able to give those away. And I don't know if Madam Superintendent, you mentioned
026it, they are brand new gowns. So, they're not handme-down gowns. Yeah, they're brand new gowns. So, that's really exciting. The only other thing that um I would like to let everyone know about is Beverly Shores will be celebrating Women's History Month at 8:30 on Thursday. Uh and they have a special program. So, anyone who's free and in the area, I'm sure they would love to have you stop by. I think that's quite um significant and I'm happy to see that they're doing that. I don't have anything else. Thank you, Mr. Dud. Yeah, certainly. We've heard Dr. Luke brag a few times, and I use the word few uh in the loosest sense of the term about the elementary ed program there at Lake Sumpter State College. And you know, sometimes it's hard to toot your
027own horn, so I'll back it up. Uh so I had the chance to join the group in an adjunct faculty capacity this semester and get out and uh observe uh these students teaching in Lake and Sumpre County schools as part of their practicum. And so I've I guess I've observed almost about 20 of them so far this semester and some of these people they're ready to like step into the classroom today to be the teacher of record. So, I think it speaks volumes of the type of program that you've put in place to to train these people. It's outstanding opportunity to be able to to practice the craft before you're you really are there on on day one. And um so I I really just can't speak uh enough about this program to talk about
028how how wonderful it is not only from the recruitment side of things and preparing the next generation of teachers, but also uh to fulfill dreams. you know, some of these students, it's been their lifelong dream to become a teacher and here is a pathway for them to do that and um just, you know, continue shaping young minds of the future. So, anyway, great program. Uh thanks for having me come on board this semester. It's been it's been such a wonderful time and uh you know, it's just hard to think here as we're talking about the semester how close we are to the end of the school year. You know, as here we're signing up for our graduations here at the end of the year. Um man, buckle up because last quarter goes by fast. um
029had a chance to go out and um check out the middle school steam bowl. That was a lot of fun. And it's just from here on out, I just know it's one event after another after another, one celebration after another after another. We're sending our our state science fair students off tomorrow uh to go compete. And um it you blink and you're going to miss all this. So anyway, looking forward to the ride the last quarter and uh I know many teachers are too. Mr. So, I received a phone call today. Everyone's heard about the tragedy of Xavier Williams and his death. And he attended Pinerest Elementary, a public charter school, but Fernando Barasa, who's the director for Pinerest, part of academia. He reached out to me because he just wanted me to know that
030on Sunday, the administrator, reached out to Dr. Landry and uh Monday morning that with U. Mrs. Dylan Banks and Dr. Landry and their teams, they were there to counsel these kids and the teachers. And that just shows the heart of where we are. And he could not have been more appreciative, not only this whole thing, but he he just lost a grandmother and mother and child the week before in Orange County. And in comparing the response, both were responsive. Don't misunderstand me, but in comparing the response, he said we went way above and beyond. So, superintendent, if you would please thank them. He wanted to thank Did you know anything about it? Because he wanted me to especially thank you. Me? You. Oh, I guess he just liked you. Anyway, I don't know. Okay. Spoken
031to him before, but not about that. Okay. Well, he just wants he just want to let you know, I guess. Anyway, so he was he was extremely grateful and he's such a good person and uh we're we're glad to have them as partners. We've been very lucky and they do great work, but at the same time, we're there to support them. So, I was very proud of that call today. Thank you, Mr. Matias. Um, yeah, a couple quick ones for me. Um, had a great visit in Tallahassee last Wednesday and Thursday. Got to spend some time with Representative Yaroski and Cobb and also sit on sit in on some committee meetings. U, one of which was on the middle school high school start time bill, which is making good progress on repealing that requirement for
032the start of the 2026 school year. Um, so we'll see how that one continues to progress and some other bills that positively affect us in Lake County as well. We're making some good progress. Um, also want to shout out uh, Mayor Alan Reeseman in the city of Leburg. Um, principal Andrea Piatt had reached out to him probably about a month ago with some questions about some lighting around campus. She had some dark spots either around the gym or by the bus loop and the back of campus. And within the last month, the city of Leburg has installed either six or eight big light poles around campus. really brightened it up and really show off the fine work that uh Mr. Farnsworth and his team have done to continue to clean up the exterior of that
033campus. Um so looking fantastic. Another great partnership with the city of Leburg as they continue to help all of our schools and namely that one very quickly. So just want to shout them out for that. And last but certainly not least, Miss Marlene Strong, get your dance and shoes on. You're going to do a great job. Um looking forward to watching that show. Um any other comments tonight board? No, sir. All right. Got a motion to adjurnn. Motion. So moved. We are adjourned. Thank you guys.