Marion County School Board Meeting 11092021

001[Music] good tuesday evening everyone the november 9th 2021 meeting of the marion county school board is called to order board member campbell would you please read our commitment statement i will our commitment statement reads we are the marion county school district leadership team when we come together to work we are efficient effective and productive our three most important characteristics are dedicated transparent and individually responsible to work well together we must demonstrate respect confront reality and be accountable we will always put students first we will leave a legacy of success thank you board member campbell for the courtesy of those listening to the meeting i'm requesting everyone in the audience to please turn off your electronic devices or put them on vibrate later in the meeting up to 30 minutes will be provided for individuals to

002address the board on matters concerning the operation of the marion county school system or the school board only presentations to the board are limited to five minutes and are televised if you wish to address the board regarding a regular agenda item or matters on which the board customarily takes action you must first complete a peach form located on the table in the hallway if you wish to address the board regarding a public hearing or a student discipline matter please complete a lime green form these forms must be fully completed and received by the board secretary no later than 5 40 pm the procedures applicable for each or on a separate sheet madam secretary please call the roll this is allison campbell district one here mr don browning district two here mr eric cummings district three

003here mrs nancy thrower district four here mrs kelly king district five dr diane gullett superintendent here mr jeremy powers school board attorney here thank you we will now ask miss gay street principal of spa elementary school to please come forward with her amazing student and provide us with the inspiration and the pledge good evening chair thrower vice chair king board members mr powers mrs martinez lopez and dr gullet it is an honor and privilege to be here tonight thank you so much for the opportunity i'm here with an inspiration mary ann and travia she's an inspiration not only to our students but to our staff and to the marion county school system so marianne is a student she's a fifth grade student at sparrow elementary she's a safety patrol she's an honor roll student she

004is also a person who has earned a perfect score on her fsa math last year not only did she earn that she helped other students and she did this in a pandemic wow hello currently the cub scout 563 that meets at the spa methodist church and so she recently participated in a cleanup project at indian lake national forest and so they cleaned up around the lake and then they enjoyed nature currently she is working on earning her arrow of light and she will probably do that by the spring may i introduce to you my inspiration marion and travia [Music] thank you you can probably put the microphone down a little bit there you go please stand for the pledge yes ma'am [Music] pledge allegiance to the land of the united states of america and ensure

005the father for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice marianne just wanted to say thank you on on behalf of the whole board for really doing your best and doing such a great job i mean to get a perfect score on a big math test like that is really an accomplishment thank you for having me today well it's our pleasure to have you and we see your mom back there and sure she's really proud of you too and your principal ms street is there anyone that you want to thank thank the teachers i had thank all the teachers i had throughout my school years and i did thank my mistreat and my mom miss and travia and thank you for having me today absolutely congratulations thank you for everything you

006do [Applause] it sure is it sure is we have such great kids thank you miss street always a pleasure to see you too marianne if i may tell you 563 was my pack 40 years ago so so uh yeah i'm an alumnus too so so you'll you'll go far in life i'm sure that's right she's going to be an architect maybe an attorney i already tried to talk into being a teacher awesome elon musk thank you [Laughter] sorry take good care of you guys thank you pleasure all right it's always a great way to kick off the night it is good evening madam chair members of the board and i'm i'm certain she will be successful whatever is chosen i recommend approval of the agenda for the november 8th i'm sorry november 9 2021 school

007board meeting with the materials in the board packet those materials distributed to board members at the meeting and the audio recording included as part of the official record of the meeting with the exception of item c 7.1 that has been pulled and placed under discussion thank you dr gullit we have a motion on the superintendent's recommendation so move in move by board member coming seconded by vice chair king all those in favor say aye aye aye motion passes unanimously may i have a motion to approve the minutes for the august 24th 2021 school board meeting so moved moved by board member campbell seconded by board member cummings are there any additions or corrections to the minutes hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye motion passes unanimously may i have a motion to

008approve the minutes for the september 7th 2021 special board meeting public hearing for final millages and budget move by by sure king second seconded by was that you board member browning okay seconded by uh board member cummings are there any additions or corrections to the minutes hearing none all those in favor say hi hi aye the motion passes unanimously now have a motion to approve the minutes for the september 9th 2021 administrative briefing and work session so moved by board member campbell seconded by vice chair king are there any additions or corrections to the minutes seeing none all those in favor say aye aye aye motion passes unanimously may i have a motion to approve the minutes for the september 14th 2021 school board meeting so move moved by board member cummings okay seconded by

009board member campbell are there any additions or corrections to the minutes hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye aye the motion passes unanimously may i have a motion to approve the minutes for the september 23rd 2021 administrative briefing and work session [Music] second seconded by board member cummings are there any additions or corrections to the minutes hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye motion passes unanimously moving on to persons requesting to address the board i will now ask the school board's attorney to explain the rules governing persons who wish to address the school board tonight good evening attorney powers good evening chair thrower in compliance with section 286.0114 of florida statutes the school board has adopted uniform procedures for public speakers who wish to speak at tonight's meeting either

010regarding one of tonight's agenda items or a matter relating to the operations of the school district these procedures will ensure the public has a reasonable opportunity to be heard on school board and school district matters a written summary of these procedures is available from the table in the hallway public speaker forms are also located on the same table the completed forms were due to the school board secretary no later than 5 40 p.m tonight's speakers will be called prior to the business portion of school board's meeting in the order of receipt by the school board secretary before you begin speaking please state your full name and address for the record and spell your last name each speaker will have five minutes of time however if there are more than five persons who wish to speak

011the board may seek consensus to limit each speaker's time to three minutes when the speaker has one minute remaining the speaker will receive a visual notice to complete his or her comments speakers may not yield their time to other people speakers and meeting attendees are expected to conduct themselves in a respectful manner therefore verbal attacks and profanity are strictly prohibited pursuant to the procedures for public comments item 6 speakers are not to identify specific individuals other than themselves or their child unless the statement is provided 24 hours in advance the board is here to listen to your comments only you may be directed to an administrator staff member following the conclusion of your comments for further assistance to address your concerns if there are matters dealing with students discipline including expulsions they will be scheduled

012at the conclusion of the televised portion of this meeting parents may address the board regarding a discipline matter at that time to ensure student privacy only a parent or guardian may use a student's first or last name identifying references to or identification of other students and or their families is strictly prohibited a public speaker's speech does not reflect the endorsement sponsorship position or expression of the school district thank you for your attention to the board's requirements madam chair that concludes my explanatory remarks thank you attorney powers miss martinez lopez how many community members do we have tonight we have two this evening mr loris hill welcome ms hill good evening good evening to everybody and thank you for having me here i would like to thank the school board for this opportunity to speak my

013name is dolores annie hill hill i live at 790 southwest 135th paris my granddaughter goes and i am the legal caregiver of she go she is an 11th grader at dunnellon high school go tigers and um the issue i have as we houston we have a problem there is a problem with the bus transportation and i understand with cobit i understand the issues i understand we have a certain amount of budgeting to do but i am asking on behalf of the children that need to make it to school my daughter she'll stand out there at the bus stop and these and stand for an hour and a half now we do get calls in the morning in the morning and we'll get calls in the evening maybe if we get good cell service but the

014problem is excuse me the problem is is that we're not giving incentives to our employees our bus drivers our bus drivers i feel that the money that we have needs to be cut up at the table just like when you pay your bills and do what's best for the children we've already had a death and i would like to say at this time my heart and love and sympathy goes out to the family the little boy that died trying to go to school this is unacceptable we can't leave our children out in the elements we can't leave them standing there out for an hour and a half for dogs to attack them and and predators to spy on them people know that the you know children are standing out there it's there it's rumored everywhere

015they're being stalked this is just it's not us we're a family marion county researched it before we moved here and i am grateful that i have all of you to help i am grateful we moved here we need more incentives for bus drivers we need either sign-on bonuses or or more money or versatile employees just put it back into the school system but why would somebody want to come and drive one of our school buses why because they can go over to fedex and get paid more and it's sad because our children will be taking y'all's jobs one of these days they're going to be running marion this is a big city we have what 300 lifestyle checked is 350 maybe 380. you all are the smart people up here we need your help and

016i'm asking you not for my child not for hayley jade hicks 11th grader at at dunnellon high school i'm asking please for all the kids let's put this money to work to good use the schools need more money put into ask for funding ask for ask for it go to a higher power we got two of the greatest men in the world living right here and the great sunshine sun excuse me sunshine state desantis and donald trump we are a great state this is a great marion county's big huge and we got it going on let's just do a little more if we can just pull a little more in for our children for the the busting transportation it's dangerous to me for a bus driver and and my view for a bus driver to

017do one route and she's picking up the junior high children and she unloads those children and then the high school kids are waiting they're waiting for their ride excuse me but the last time i checked i paid taxes and in this area if i could address it and nothing personal but i think well without looking i just paid it there's five areas that we pay into the school district and i was just we can do better than this this is ridiculous our kids mean more and it's just not mine it's everybody's you see them little children standing alongside the road and here comes somebody you know staring them down and the and the girls will turn to the woods they're afraid we need some help i don't know how you can do it you are

018the smart people not me i just i come to ask you please please address this matter and see that we as a team as a family can put our heads together and work harder i'm not talking about a bake sale i'm talking about working harder working harder for our children and i thank you all for listening to me tonight i wish you all a very good evening thank you so much thank you ma'am thank you really appreciate you coming out tonight thank you for having me it's been a pleasure you do have my card right yes ma'am i got it right here i have several cards thank you thank you mr robert schmidt good evening sir good evening madam chair good evening board members my name is robert schmidt on one schmidt 11488 southwest 82nd

019court road ocala florida just to take just a moment i do agree that probably bus drivers are probably some of the most underappreciated um you know members of our school system and i i must admit that i remember the days when i was taking the bus and um they faced a lot of challenges back then and my guess is those challenges have done nothing more than amplify themselves in today's environment so anyhow so my comments tonight are regarding uh covet and i'm just going to go ahead and read through them so i don't stumble through my speech okay um so our basically we've all become aware of the recent availability of the covet vaccine to our youth okay i think that there's sufficient medical science for parents to be the ultimate decision makers all one

020has to do is look at the real figures to determine the actual risk to youth under the age of 18 and in my opinion americans have been hoodwinked regarding the efficacy durability and the risks associated with the shots too many parents will not will not be this will not be an issue to many parents and to others uh this is going to be a big significant issue okay and may take and want it to take a different action on vaccines okay my question is um what is the school board doing and the administration doing to ensure parents and the students and doctors maintain the sole authority for what happens in their decisions what will be done to assure parents they have the primacy and the medical decisions for their students does the school board and

021school administration take the passive approach to vaccine administration or is there going to where they consider attendance to be um attendance to being consent or will the school board take more of a forward-leaning active action to consent okay um is there any risk that a student one day will walk home vaccinated even though the parents and that student have not made that decision is there going to come the opportunity where that student comes home and says mommy daddy guess what happened to me today i got vaccinated and then his parents are there and horror sitting there looking down the end of their what happened today what went wrong okay has the school board thought through my guess is that you probably have given this some consideration this is not something that you're being caught flat-footed

022on okay so my comments are probably nothing more than amplifications of things you've already thought about so far okay so um have you thought through how these vaccines will be rolled out what is going to be the process and procedures for keeping those individuals that make that decision private or decide not to do it what is going to be the privacy that's involved with that so that we don't involve we don't get to this two-tiered system within our school system that's what we're trying to avoid here okay i think we can see how all this can be very divisive and we don't want that to be in our school system that's the last thing we need in our school system will the school board sanction sanctioned vaccination campaigns within the school system those are all

023good questions that parents are going to want to know those are things that i think of and i'm certainly i'm certain that i'm not the only one thinking about these things as we start to approach these issues i realize that the school board and the school administration comes at the comes at these issues from different vectors okay everybody's got a different approach to the same issue and so i want to make sure that there's um that there is a assurance to parents that regardless of what their decision is that that decision is theirs and that it is going to be private and that it doesn't become a political or any other kind of football okay that's what that's what we're after here [Music] so in closing um i i can honestly think of no issue

024that will probably divide our student body more than parents being caught flat-footed with the with these vaccination issues okay and we want to keep that out of the school system and so this is nothing more than to get you thinking that get you thinking along those lines of what potentially we're going to see we've seen it in other parts of the country not suggesting that it's going to happen here but it could happen but let's be proactive and let's avoid those issues all together okay thank you thank you sir any further okay thank you i didn't know if we had any last minute i have a motion to adopt the 2021 2022 student progression plan moved by board member campbell second seconded by vice chair king dr gullit thank you madam chair the 2021-2022 student

025progression plan will reflect the changes in legislation in order to be in compliance with florida statute 1008.25 and to clarify language concerning student progression in marion county i declare a public hearing is there anyone present who wishes to address the 2021 2022 student progression plan seeing none board is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye motion passes unanimously may i have a motion to approve consent agenda items c7.1 through c20.1 with the exception of item c 7.1 that has been pulled and placed under discussion mu by vice chair king seconded by board member campbell all those in favor say aye i'd like to have a discussion of madam chair what we're getting to that this is just to approve the motion to pull it over to pull one we will

026be discussing yes yes thank you all those in favor say aye aye aye motion passes unanimously um board member campbell i believe you pulled this item yes ma'am um so i as we look at the tentative board preparation calendar there and this was item c 7.1 there were a couple of notes that i made on it and was curious to know if we wanted to make some adjustments so the first thing is indicated in our schedule that february 2nd through the 4th are fsba days in the legislature and currently we have in this schedule a work session on february 3rd because last year i know the capital was not open for visitation but it will be this year so with this being my first year that the capitol is open i didn't know when traditionally

027our school board goes to tallahassee if we go during fsba days or if we go at a different time and so if we do go during fsba days i would like to see if we could potentially move the agenda items on the february 3rd date to another date and potentially cancel that february third work session so that we could go up over fsba days but again that's i'm not certain when we typically go up as a board but i know that's something that i think we would like to do again yes being bored in the past we we went up yeah we usually do go up i don't know when those state it's the second through the fourth it's exactly there's like a tuesday to wednesday or something like that that's when i remember it

028is the second through the fourth that we're scheduled to go and this has happened before i am fine with that i would just want to ask dr gullit to review the items for that work session and then please get back with the with the chair about which items should be moved where uh based on uh any deadlines that may be embedded in those items and and uh things of that nature but and i did have one other thing in the in the calendar as well but that would be great if we could figure out the february third thing so potentially we could all be in tallahassee as much as possible are we all good with that yes i am okay you're good okay um and the only other thing in the schedule that i noted

029was in june actually because of the way the month of june falls with the first happening at a strange time and so our second our board meeting and work session actually happened a day apart on the week of june 14th with june june 14th school board meeting june 16th uh work session so i didn't know if we wanted to move that june 16th work session to the 23rd so it does put us on that off schedule so we have a work session one week a board meeting the next week and and vice versa that was that's the only one that i saw like that and it just happens to fall where we have a board meeting at a work session within a day of each other you know it also comes to question is is

030when is the fsba summer in summer june 8th right so it's the week before right my calendar must be incorrect because i actually show that we had work sessions on the 9th and 23rd well this is the schedule that we're going to be approving tonight um so that's why i pulled it for discussion because with we haven't i don't know that we've actually set the full schedule for the 2022 year um so just if we were wanting to potentially move the june 16th work session to the 23rd then that would again put us on that off schedule and keep us at fsba the week before and then have a board meeting on the 14th and a work session on the 23rd and then a board meeting again on the 28th makes sense i don't have

031a problem with that in in theory um i am looking at the different items and just something that i'm reflecting on is that that is getting us towards the end of the fiscal year so i want to make sure that whatever presentations and again um you know statutory deadlines and requirements that we're meeting those and not leaving things till the last minute and having anything be rushed so that would be my only thing other than that i'm fine the only thing on the the calendar right now is just school planning update on the 16th is what's so elena does a pretty good job of showing us what we need to have when and so the only thing on that particular work session date is just school planning update but i don't know if that is

032a time frame i'm comfortable leaving it that week because also it's the end of the month and our employees start taking vacation time and it's the four you know and with the fiscal year they're i'm comfortable if we just leave it alone as it's presented to us just for those couple reasons you know i don't know i'm sure yes sir uh we we're able to adjust this along the way too uh if we do set if we do adjust it as uh miss campbell is indicating and then we want to make say add an extra work session and we're able to do that right yes yes we are able to do uh many things um it would be my preference rather than move it to consider moving it back that since we're a long way

033from june that we consider uh holding fast for now and seeing how things unfold and a little closer to the time we can make that determination um if this last couple of years has taught me anything it's that anything can happen so we may want to just be mindful again this board has done an amazing job being proactive and and making sure that we are fitting in everything and and taking plenty of time to discuss and and come to agreement so uh i'm fine with uh leaving it for now but i appreciate you pointing that out and i think that we do need to to keep that in mind as a as an option um as we get a little bit closer to the time um anyone else have anything else i'm happy with uh

034with uh miss campbell's i'm playing with changing the first one but leaving the other one living alone mr king i think i've heard that you would like to leave it as it is for now okay all right um well it sounds to me like um we will be definitely uh canceling the meeting out the work session on february 3rd to accommodate fsba and that for now we'll leave it as presented on the agenda so attorney powers do we need to vote on february 3rd and then the other item separately or uh yeah we would have to have each individually treated that way because otherwise the second one's going to fail right i don't understand the motion exactly now so if we could re-clarify so we know what we're voting vote on it and then make

035an amendment and would that make it easier if we just voted and then the dates yes and then amended the february date that is an option that might make it easier okay maybe so the the motion on the floor is um to amend or or to approve the motion as presented um and then look at amending uh all those in favor of proving the motion as amended say aye aye those opposed like sign this is tricky well i think we vote for our motion yes then we make an amendment yes we need to say the amendment and then we vote right okay so i'll move that we do it the other way around so we already have a lesson on the floor so we let's hear from our attorney yes as ms king stated that's

036the appropriate way to go about it we that we we vote on a motion then you state the amendment and vote on the amendment to the motion okay so i'll i'd like all those in favor may i may i uh asks just why i'm clear so we're saying don't change then we're saying change after with the amendment [Music] remember it would be that what we're saying we right we because we're needing an amendment so okay adapt it without a change then adopt it with the chain or then vote on amending it a change okay i got it we already have a motion on the table so we just have to vote on it as presented and then we are going to have a separate motion to make the changes yes okay okay okay all right

037now i understand all those in favor say aye hi hi can i get a first first and a second didn't we have a motion and a second to start the discussion i believe i'm not sure who that was did we maybe no we didn't i don't know that we did now that i'm thinking about it okay uh may i have a motion so i moved who bad boy member campbell second seconded by board member cummings all those in favor say aye aye aye okay the motion passes unanimously chair i would like to make a motion that we amend the calendar we just approved to cancel the february third work session uh for fsba days in tallahassee with all of those items to be moved by the superintendent and the chair to coordinate those and that's

038my motion so thank you second ahead by board member cummings all right all those in favor of the amendment say aye all right all right motion passes unanimously we did it all right and i won't make the motion to move the june 16th date to june 23rd based on the for right now right okay all right yep and we covered that in the first one so i think we are good all righty moving on may i have a motion to approve the 2021 through 2026 strategic plan achieve 2026. [Laughter] so move by four member comings seconded by board member campbell is there any discussion dr gullit yes thank you madam chair members of the board good evening again i am very pleased to present the strategic plan for your uh review and consideration this evening

039as you know it's attached and you have a hard copy this this process began really a year and a half ago it's been quite a process began when i was first appointed and listening to our stakeholders and then once here on the ground i'm having listening tour surveying our staff having round tables and reviewing of course the feedback and the the data with you as a board and so we're going to start with page three i'm just going to highlight a couple of pages with with your collaboration of course the board set goals and the foundations for our success so if you scroll down to the bottom if you could i'm going to start with the bottom the foundations for our success that we established are right here in front of you that we believe

040in high expectations we believe in trusting relationships transparent communication responsibility and accountability we are going to be looking at continuous improvement and acceleration and innovation and we all agree that this is critically important for our district to move to the top third among districts in the state of florida so if we scroll back up we're showing page three on here again in those conversations of course you remember that we talked about what is our vision what's that going to look like and it was through those conversations that we established that our vision is helping every student succeed it's that simple that everyone in this community and on our district community is committed to making sure that every student is successful wherever they come from whatever their needs are everyone has a role in a place

041i think that's very powerful it's very simple but very powerful and then we re-examined our mission and we landed with together with families and the community marion county public schools creates diverse and enriching pathways for all students to achieve intellectual and personal excellence helping every student find their their personal goals meet those and and and thrive so i'm very excited about that um again appreciate all of your involvement from the beginning you each are assigned a goal but also as a board you're involved and have been involved from the beginning with giving feedback to this plan so it's again a collaborative effort that i'm very excited about we also had a steering committee and i wanted to recognize and thank all those members a diverse group of thinkers from our district and our school teams

042really appreciate them thinking outside the box and appreciate their input honest feedback and so together we established and formulated metrics for how we'll hold ourselves accountable we established priority strategies which is all in the plan this this big document here and key activities and so it's really important that we focus in on our five goals so if we can go to page six i'll show that on the screen that's on your page six so these are our goals this provides really our north star for where we're going as a district at the center of all of this it's important to remember our students while we have five if you think about it in terms of a circle the students are our core so first goal being student success or increasing student achievement their opportunities their

043access and equity too again wherever students reside in our district they have access to those choices for them to thrive in goal two safe and positive learning and working environment important for our students to learn in a safe place but also important for our employees to be at a place that is that is conducive to learning and working together to support our students goal three is talent management how do we ensure that we're providing support to our team we can't have students in a position of learning if we do not have staff that are capable and have access to the resources they need that again goes back to and extends to what we heard earlier tonight about bus transportation and custodial services and lunchroom everyone part of a talented team and supporting them we're focusing

044very intensely here on retention and recruitment of high quality and dedicated team goal four fiscal and operational efficiency ensures that we're creating key performance indicators known as kpis for our operations and making sure that throughout our operational team that we are providing measures of success that we're evaluating our progress and holding ourselves accountable that we're good stewards of public funds we want to make sure that we're transparent how we do that and last but not least is goal five our community engagement and communication we strive to provide stellar customer service not only to our external stakeholders but our internally we need to do that as well so we're going to strive to do that but also involving and enhancing our wonderful partnerships that are in place already and how that extends beyond what we're doing

045in the classroom across the district and so we appreciate the partners already in place around the community i want to make a couple of notes on this plan i think it's really important to for everyone to hear that we will be very flexible this may be a document that's in writing right now fluid and flexibility right fluidity is fluidity is important to make sure that everyone knows that it's not a document that sits on the shelf that we established all of this from everything i've just described as um as an indication of where we are and where we need to go and it's very strategic but that we know that there will be changes that as we look at our metrics and we look at what's happening and changes that happen sometimes externally to us

046for example our statewide assessment is going to change we will change and adapt to that so we will continue to use this as a guide but we will address and change as needed i also want to share that we will provide a very comprehensive review on our plan on our progress of our implementation and our metrics we'll do that two times very in a comprehensive manner two times a year so we'll do that each year in february and in august and those months were chosen because of the results of the student achievement data that comes back so everyone will get to hear and see where we are what we might need to consider changing what's working and provide a very transparent report to the public so again i want to thank everyone including the board

047especially the board for thinking outside the box and for being authentically engaged in this process the work really just began i mean this is this is ongoing and so providing discernment in prioritizing our strategies and what we need to do for students but the goals are very ambitious i know they are but i firmly believe and i'm confident that we can meet those goals if we do those together hence the name for the plan achieve i'm confident that we can achieve if we work together so i thank you and i look forward to any feedback you want to provide tonight thank you dr zelit board feedback i love the idea of somewhere somehow uh i was raised under reading writing and arithmetic you just gotta nail those things you know and and uh it's just

048good old homespun you know get it done we just had that scholar in here lord have mercy uh a hundred percent you know just getting the arithmetic part down such genius so i i applaud you for thinking ahead like this and laying out a plan when you have a plan you can work your plan you've got to have that so i'm i i get very excited about things like this thank you board member browning and if i could highlight goal one what's critically important to understanding goal one is it's not about programs it's about effective teaching and this foundational knowledge we have focused very keenly on what we call tier one instruction and that is making sure that all those core subjects are covered intensely for all students and so that's a really key part

049of goal one very important wonderful i 100 agree uh board member browning you're spot on with this one the role of the school system as i see it in the public schools is to create citizens and citizens that can that will be functional and and contributing and really have a solid solid foundation so i believe that we will achieve so thank you very much for taking the lead on this what else i i would just like to say how excited i am i know this has been a long time coming and and i personally like that each one of us as a board member is assigned to a different pillar of this goal of this plan you may have already guessed that mine is goal five community engagement and communications but i know that each

050one of us is going to serve a different role on this and just how while certainly we don't delve into the operations side of things having an outlook from a board perspective i think is engaging and impactful i know there that in community engagement they're already working on survey language and uh because that's part of my wheelhouse and expertise i i'm grateful to be able to weigh in on that but again all of these metrics that we have we have to have some baseline data so we can show where we're going to move and how we're going to make that movement so we have to start with that initial information and a lot of this we have student success we have test scores and things but when you're talking community engagement and communications we don't

051really have baseline data just yet so we're i know that the team is working on putting that together uh right now we have it for title one but not for the entire district so i'm super excited and so grateful that we're getting this approved we've been talking about it for so long and it's going to be done we're moving on with it tonight right yes i agree too the board has really done its part i'm especially proud i believe that our community members feel welcome and comfortable coming in here and i think the gentleman that spoke earlier uh hit the nail on the head you know there are so many different inputs and opinions and everyone has been so respectful and and accommodating and really listening and i believe that every single board member sitting

052here listens intently and and and thinks hard and and carries it you know uh with us every single day so uh that's been wonderful you know to see that evolution and is there any other discussion okay hearing now we already have a motion on the table so all those in favor of approving the 2021 through 2026 strategic plan achieve 2026. all those in favor say aye aye aye motion passes unanimously thank you okay moving on to a great part of the night uh donations may i have a motion to approve the following cash or tangible donations that have a total value of sixty thousand nine hundred and eighty four dollars and seventy two cents one thousand dollars to bellevue high school from their business partner bradley blessings state farm insurance clothes shoes basketballs sheet sets

053core supplies and markers valued at 1998.71 to emerald shores elementary school from cc's wish list shoes valued at two thousand eight hundred and eighty nine dollars and forty two cents to emerald shores elementary school from cc's wish list clothes shoes sheet sets and folders valued at one thousand six hundred and eighty two dollars and forty five cents to pheasant elementary school from cc's wish list three thousand dollars to forest high school from daniel and christina i hope i said that accurately seven thousand nine hundred and sixteen dollars to fort mccoy school from michael and kathleen smith four thousand fifty dollars to fort mccoy school from cactus jack's two incorporated clothes shoes basketballs and markers valued at one thousand ninety one dollars and fifteen cents to greenway elementary school from cc's wish list one thousand five

054hundred dollars to hillcrest public school from jeffrey l saylor cpa pa gift cards valued at four thousand nine hundred and sixty two dollars and four cents to hillcrest public school from rack room shoes children and adult clothing shoes bed sheets pencils and glue sticks valued at fifteen thousand two hundred and nineteen dollars and thirty four cents to marion county public schools from cc's wish list two thousand dollars to marion county public schools food and nutrition services department from gen youth incorporated shoes sweatshirts and jackets valued at four thousand nine hundred and fifty eight dollars and eleven cents to oak crest elementary school from cc's wish list shoes valued at three thousand five hundred and seventeen dollars and fifty cents to reddit collier elementary school from enchanted backpack one thousand two hundred dollars to stanton weirsdale

055elementary school from bailey trail villagers four thousand dollars to vanguard high school from marion county hospital district may i have a motion please move by board member cummings seconded by vice chair king is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor say hi aye motion passes unanimously board member cummings would you give us the pleasure of the thank you tonight sure listen we are always appreciative of all these donations we have a giving community uh marion county is a very giving community and we see the value you see the value of education and making sure that our kids and our schools have the things that they need so we always and truly thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of these donations keep them coming keep them coming and we look

056forward to thanking you again thanks thank you board member cummings all right moving on to meeting reminders the following administrative briefing and work session is scheduled for november 18th 2021 at 9 00 a.m the purpose of the work session is to discuss stop loss and enrollment update self-funded health plan marion county hospital district presentation 2022 2023 instructional calendar and covet 19 updates the next administrative briefing and work session is scheduled for december 9th 2021 at 9 00 am the purpose of the work session is to discuss covid19 updates i feel like there must be more [Laughter] i'm sure there will be by the time we get to that okay moving on to committee uh reports concerns and comments um ms martinez lopez anything for us tonight yes um board members you were given um an

057email that i forwarded to you from jennifer leeds regarding names for committees for the textbook adoptions please know that those are due by november 30th back to me so that i can forward them on to her they will not be accepted after november 30th so please if you do have any names um fill out the form send them back to me i appreciate that thank you thank you very much dr gohett thank you madam chair members of the board i do have a few um celebrations really i'll start with the first one um vanguard women's volleyball team if you didn't already know this is playing the state final four so we wish them the best of luck a fantastic fantastic news there this saturday is our first parent partnership event so we would try to

058get the word out um nine to twelve and so we look forward to having folks come out at forest high school we're gonna talk about canvas we'll have canvas for families elementary secondary reading second language learners how to help support them i ready library media resources a lot of a lot of resources there are a lot of folks there that are really excited to help our families to help the students so look forward to seeing folks out there and there will be door prizes giveaways and food saturday saturday the 13th from 9 to 12 at forest high school absolutely and i'll be happy to leave that with you if you'd like yes sir uh we are recognizing this is holocaust education week 8th through the 12th and our secondary students in particular are doing a

059lot of work research and presentations around holocaust education week so i want to share that i also want to share that it is national school psychology week with the theme of let's get in gear so we're recognizing and appreciating our psychologists and all the work that they do all year long to support our students so want to say thank you to those folks and and sometimes they i know that's a very uh specific role they have and we appreciate uh with all of our other team members the work that they do so uh thank you so much appreciate it thank you dr gohan many great and exciting things happening it's it's great to be able to get back to more typicality yes indeed good stuff welcome our parents back and all of our volunteers is

060great all right anything from legal sir nothing from legal thank you all right sounds good thank you remember brownie yes uh let's see board member browning okay um we had a uh we had a great meeting yesterday it was yesterday wasn't it these days run together with the marion county board of county commissioners and it was a chance to kind of pull everything together uh and collaborate in the interest of efficiency and one of the things that came up that i was it was on our our presentation uh and it was dave uh hurlihi made a an excellent presentation and and by the way he had a just an addition to the family and still came out and got that job done errol one of the neat things that came up and i thought it

061was worth uh celebrating a little bit or at least acknowledging and that is the one of his slides has birth rates and this is projecting out future in terms of of dollars and um i i've been digesting it since then and and it's it's incredibly important to look as you project out your costs and this is costs for facilities with with uh children birth rates being being projected is flat and uh the there is revenue associated with with students but still i'm just looking at it from a from a um the number of students in the facilities will need and the increased number of permits building permits so we've got an ad valorem um build up evelorum tax buildup and we have a flat expense uh zone if in fact we really pay attention and

062they offered and that is the idea of having a collaborative effort to move things around and and to really manage where we put assets where the student populations are to get the biggest bang for our buck in terms of facilities so i thought that was really encouraging flat lines and increased revenue lines say wow we're going to be able to make things happen and how that works out in terms of capital expenditures and what have you we'll we'll have to work through those but it's kind of nice to see that taking place uh second item that i have is uh ocala domestic violence with the i've been associated with these folks for a number of years and dr judy wilson is now going to be involved heavily with our superintendent on a couple of things

063that have come to four and that is in in the past year or two things have there's a kink in the hose in terms of tokens for transportation uh and this is a city issue and i did talk with the mayor about it but i'd like to get that kink out of there so that flows properly so that that the transportation works and then tutoring for some reason a couple of years ago it it got a kink in that hose and we we stopped supplying tutors to uh families uh in this environment so uh i'd like to see a report come or you know some real progress and that's how we we kind of make emergency action there uh next item i have no no a report back yet on guidance on the sunshine law

064hopefully that's coming stanton wearsdale this this item is um got a lot to report i think we we uh we had personnel out there our safety people they found uh uh they found issues and especially in the light of recent situations with children crossing roads and having problems and and signs signs coming out [Music] in every location within that walk-in zone signs are equal signs are the same so a person driving knows that there's a student likely possibility foreseeable future of a student popping out and this is something uh i've asked for emergency cones being placed and i think they're in right now been reported i haven't seen it with my own eyes but they reported that they're in normal signs normal cross crossing all of that at that the mouth of that school in

065those first two roads which are really just long driveways so that's my soapbox on that on that little item uh uh next uh mr schmidt i was really taken and i like that i hope we have a workshop or if we how do we pull that in if if something pops in on us on this vaccination idea because i know nationally there's a lot of political movement and i just don't want us to get caught up into that where we haven't had a chance to really discuss in it we never get caught up putting any anything into anybody's body that we you know that that we haven't absolutely uh really thought through um and finally the item of uh consent agendas and now this is a good example like tonight's con consent agent i had

066several items but i didn't pull them and i wanted to talk about it during discussion on them but even that got way late a little bit because uh miss allison had that had her item pulled but i would like to see some real that was we've had beautiful discussion and we have to have discussion for everybody in the community to know and even i need to know what eric has to say i just need to know it and with the sunshine law and with blocks in briefings and with you know just a lot of obstacles we don't get to talk that much about these things and i think it's critical i don't care if we have uh workshops you know it would work for me as long as we're being stewards in this set a

067criteria for amounts things should not that's that's a handy little robert's rule thing a consent agenda but to have major things go rolling through there in a group effort without discussion to me is a bit of a travesty in terms of the value of the items i have this is the one i was going to bring up tonight um i don't know if everybody can see this but this was in one of the one of the items as a businessman stewardship and that's part of our plan is to be great stewards item after item after business after business look at two pages of businesses that we're we're continuing to send out bid requests for example i would like to get in you know i'm a businessman i know how to run a railroad i would

068get into the middle of that and and if we have 700 million dollars 750 or whatever it is i i have a goal automatic goal of 10 percent uh that i can you know call me houdini i can i can through stewardship i can pull that off on almost anything it's almost like sales tax in some places so i would like to see that just get things that are automatic renewals and go into this consent or things that are they've been going along i mean this is this is like somebody's doing an awful lot of work we're paying an awful lot of postage we're talking to the wrong people if they these are all people that have not responded in previous years and we're doing multi-year renewals uh just just it good it's not good

069business so that's uh that's the end of my uh particular rants for this evening uh and now unless somebody wants to name me in something uh like last week and then i would like chair i would like to be able to respond thank you since i go first so i would like to be able to respond thank you board member browning remember campbell sure so i have a couple of things first of all on all of the donations that we approve this evening very very grateful for all of the things that our community does for us however i am looking forward to the discussion that we can have on policy that requires us to approve those donations because i i know we can't talk about this but we're going to be talking about it in

070neola policy review but right now our policy says that we have to actually approve them before those dollars can get to the places they need to go and i don't want marion county public schools to be known as the hardest place to give money to and i've heard that banter in the community and so while i definitely appreciate the fact that we need to continue to acknowledge those gifts as we do but for our approval frankly i think that there's a lot of unnecessary red tape and that's a policy we'll be able to talk through when we get to niola i'm just making that point tonight just because when we're approving thousand dollars here and thousand dollars there that in my opinion that needs to get straight to the location that it needs to go

071we need to set a different threshold now that we have an uh an appointed superintendent a few other things uh dr gullit already stole the thunder on the vanguard lady on the volleyball team heading to the final four so i'll mention that we have four football teams heading into playoffs we have four football teams heading into playoffs this weekend also um and just to mention a few other sports i know our middle school volleyball teams are playing even this evening because i missed my own son's game but their slow pitch softball seasons have ended and fast softball seasons have started basketball teams and wrestling teams are practicing and warming up for their seasons and there are plenty of others i didn't mention those just happen to be the ones that were top of mind so

072scholar athletes and athletics in marion county alive and well and we're very excited about all of the advancement that they are making and moving headway i also wanted to mention how much i appreciate the new artwork that we have displayed in the boardroom and people can't see it necessarily but every year we get new artwork and we have some beautiful photography this time around and there's different artwork displayed all throughout the district offices and for those who never are able to come in and see it we have some amazing student artists as well so while i'm talking scholar athletes i want to talk about our student artists too and we get to enjoy it while we're sitting here but others don't necessarily get to see it unless they went to fafo and got to see

073the wonderful artwork that they had displayed there but i'm just grateful for the folks who always change this out for us and it allow us to see a wonderful artwork of our students i also wanted to say i'm grateful for the county commission for welcoming us to the intergovernmental meeting yesterday i do feel that there were lots of good things that came out of that meeting and i believe that potentially we could try to get on a schedule of having one of those once a year obviously it will be at their invitation but hopefully that will be something that we can move on school choice window i wanted to make note of that i know i've been speaking with mr ayres today school choice window does open next week and it will be open until

074january 31st so that actually will be magnet programs and choice middle and high school programs so if there are any families out there that are wanting information on that all of that comes out next week and i know there will be a lot of ample communication about that with the window opening next week and going through january 31st hopefully the anyone interested can receive all the information they need to make wise decisions and to apply accordingly also grateful to mr hurley he and mr powers who are working with supervisor elections wesley wilcox about our board member residence areas i believe we've all seen emails about that and the issue that we brought up during the work session last week and it does appear that we do have some adjustments that need to be made and

075so i my hope is and i'm grateful that we can get those made before december 31st deadline so thank you mr powers and mr hurley he again he's been mentioned a lot tonight uh working with supervisor elections wesley wilcox on that i know miss king mentioned the other day that she had completed her ethics training so i completed mine last evening however i don't have my handy dandy little certificate because the person who i was supposed to send and get that information from is on vacation for 10 days so i will have that but i did and i wanted to mention that i believe some of the sunshine questions that have been brought up in the past are a part of that four-hour ethics training so perhaps going through that whenever we all have to

076do it it has to be done by december 31st but i remember i think there might be have been one or two scenarios one or two discussions that may answer additional questions potentially that might have come up on that and the last thing i'd like to mention in wearing my community engagement and communications pillar hat if you haven't already anyone in the community watching this if you haven't already liked and followed our marion county public schools facebook page at marion county k-12 please do so that will be a one-way communication channel so a lot of these things that we're talking about tonight will actually be put out on facebook as well on at marion county k-12 that's it thank you all right thank you board member campbell board member cummings good evening everyone um just

077a few things we heard this afternoon this evening from some community members concerning two issues one being the timeliness of buses and being on time and and getting our kids to school on time and making sure that they are getting all the academic instructions that they're entitled to get and that they need to get i can assure you that as a board we are constantly working to try to rectify the situation it has not been moving as fast as we would like to get it done but um as a district we are addressing those issues and hopefully um i think we had a few drivers that were on board a couple of days ago last week i think am i right superintendent a few were on board last week so that's going to start alleviating

078someone but we need more and we this is my appeal to the community if you have if there are folk out there in the community that want to drive a bus that can drive a bus that have those those skills that skill set please reach out to us there's there at every school we have signs at almost every school saying that we are hiring for bus drivers and we're looking for ways to get these kids to school because we understand that it's important that every minute that they can get they can be in front of the teacher that's vital so we don't take that lightly and please don't think that it's off our radar that is on our radar i'm sure every one of us is probably getting emails daily concerning the timeliness of buses

079being there so i just wanted to let the community know that if there's someone out there that you can drive a bus and you can get through the clearances and stuff please please reach out to our transportation department and we'll try to get you through that process because we want to get these kids to school on time and then i heard we heard from a community member that also mentioned about covet vaccinations and removing parental consent i this is me i i don't since i've been on the board i haven't heard of us as a board restricting or taking away parents parental rights for kids we didn't do it with the group that was able to take the shots from 12 to 18. i don't anticipate that ever happening with this board so i don't

080think that's going to be an issue i don't foresee that ever being an issue with us removing rights from parents and mandating a kid to get a shot and they come home and they've gotten a shot at the parents didn't know i just can't see that one of the things that has been mandated through the state is that that parental consent is necessary i speak with the the health department on a daily basis matter of fact i just got a text from them because they heard that comment and one of the requirements for the health department is that a parent has to be there if a kid gets their shots so that will not be an issue for marion county public schools then moving on to the strategic plan i held my comments when we

081were talking about achieve 2026 strategic plan because i am truly delighted to see where we've come with the strategic plan from our superintendent when she came on she knew that some of the priorities that we had as a board was to get the strategic plan in place to correct those things that were wrong in the strategic plan to to make sure that the strategic plan did not fit just certain kids but all kids and it was effective for all kids and and i want to um one of the things when i when i when i was running originally i saw the strategic plan and i saw the priorities of how we had listed our goals and when i looked through that list i didn't like where i saw students at on that that ranking and

082kids were not top priority this board has made sure that the number one goal for these students is to students we're in the business of dealing with students and they have to be first everything that we do has to be centered around what's going to be best for the kids so i wanted to tell her thank you and the team for making sure that that student success is the top priority on page six you'll see as goal number one and then um the other thing and i'm i'm gonna i'll normally i'm a pastor i'm a preacher so i look at words words mean a lot to me and when i look at the words that i kept seeing jumping out when you when you when you're reading scripture and you see certain words that jump

083out in scripture and it jumps out more than one time it's called the biblical principle second mention well i read everything and i read every word so i was reading this and there was a word that kept jumping out to me in this strategic plan y'all read it too i'm sure you'll see it on page six the word all it jumps out more than one time so this tells me that this strategic plan is not just for certain select groups of students is for all this strategic plan is not just for certain select groups of employees it's for all and even when you get into page 8 of this strategic plan where it talks about the priorities of our student success it goes a little bit further because it says to engage all so again

084the goal of our district is to make sure that all students succeed and we're going to get that done i believe we have the staff that's able to get that done i believe that we have the people right people in the right places that will get that done and even to make sure that all the students get to school on time as well so we're going to make sure that happen so i promise you that that's that's the that's the goals of this board and then just to move a little bit further um we do want to um the second goal on that was a safety we know that we know what happened last week with the young man and then there was also i think the next day someone else got hit by a

085car but they they survived we have to understand that safety has to be a top one of the top priorities as well and and that safety goes beyond just our bus drivers just the students paying attention we need the community to pay attention to their surroundings to pay attention when they're in the areas of schools to pay attention when they're driving through school zones because um kids are going to be kids kids play kids run out in the streets kids i did it i thank god i didn't get hit but it happens so we have to as as a community be more conscious of where we are when we're in the midst of these kids so please i'm i'm pleading with the community to please be conscious of your surroundings and understanding that when kids

086are in the area anything is liable to happen a ball rolled out anything is liable to happen so please be conscious of that because um we don't we don't want to have anything else happening like that that tragedy that happened last week we want to make sure that our kids get through the school year and then closing up my last comment is on next week at 5 30 on the 16th howard academy the black history museum is going to have a another reopening i want to encourage everyone to please go out and join in this event you would be surprised the artifacts act actual artifacts that are there that our county is rich in we have some great things i know some of the stuff had to be moved and and boxed up and archived

087because of space however we have some some history here and i want to encourage everyone to please um take the opportunities from 5 30 to 7 o'clock next tuesday the 16th and that's at the howard academy community center thank you board member cummings um miss martinez lopez we may want to put on the website advertise that because there may very well be more than one board member there for howard academy thank you all right vice chair king yes well um it was hit on a couple of times tonight about us uh meeting with the county commission yesterday which i found to be pretty very good conversation uh for the two uh for us to be working together and you touched on transportation a little bit and one of the highlights that i took from yesterday

088is um you know i think michelle stone is working on a she's chairing a transportation initiative and um you know there was some discussion about us working you know collaboratively also with um you know buses and and and maybe we could work together on getting a good message out and um that was one of my highlights and over it was an overall great meeting but transportation really stuck out with me yesterday um also i as you guys know i am on the rookie teacher of the year committee and now we have our finalists so i'll be visiting some schools in the next couple of weeks and i look forward to that because that's always kind of fun just to see what's going on out there also dr gullet you mentioned the holocaust that they're going

089to do that and i'm glad to hear that our students are learning about that and studying in it my husband and i we have taken students on tours overseas and probably one of our most memorable trips is when we visited docow and to this day when i can think about how i felt when i was there is just haunting and it is something that no one should ever forget so um i'm appreciative that you do that and that is all i have this evening thank you my chair yes thank you ms king you reminded me i did also want to say something about the golden apple i'm on the teacher side of it so i will to be going to some schools so to con congratulations to all of those that have made it thus

090far and thank you for miss king for that reminder thank you yes dave hurlehe's name has come up multiple times tonight but there's a reason for that he just worked so hard to get that intergovernmental communication going and and get it scheduled um working with dave and monir um from the county commission and the rest of the staff the agenda that was presented yesterday went through four iterations before it was finalized and so there was a ton of thought that that went into it and hard work pays off and again mr hurley if you're listening in congratulations being a dad once again i i hope your wife and little errol are doing really well i think that they're home now in fact he left the meeting um to i believe to bring his wife home

091so and a new baby so that's dedication i will tell you that and everything really went off without a hitch so it was a great start off to hopefully a future of meeting more often i i think that when the can gets kicked on the road then you just have that much more to talk about and i'm sitting here looking at our policy notebook down on my left and you probably can't see it on the camera so i guess i'll just show it to you because it's a pretty impressive young lady do not hurt yourself thank you good thing i'm a horse girl this is our policies that we will be reviewing over the next weeks yeah and it's been many years since that has happened and it's another example of how proactive this board

092really works to be uh when we notice things we we bring them up and and i think that part of the best things some of the best things about this board is that we all have the interest of helping every student succeed at the core of our hearts but we focus on different things you know and then we come together to move everything forward you know we all have our passions we all have our interests and they all tie in to helping every student succeed and and i love that vision statement because i'll be able to remember it helping every student succeed you know some of these vision statements are 12 sentences long and if i walked up to to an employee and said what is our vision statement they'd be like a deer caught

093in the headlights and it and it reminds me of of the big three you know do what's right do your best treat others the way you want to be treated couldn't be more straightforward than that and and that has stuck with me through these years so helping every student succeed i i think is a a wonderful vision and and i know that that we're going to get closer and closer to achieving that for each and every child all does mean all um moving on to bus driver appreciation i had the the pleasure of getting down to liberty middle school uh last week and got a chance to get there early and and visit with with the principal and she is just amazing comes from a family of of educators and i think three generations um

094she was sharing with me so that's special um in and of itself and she even has i think it's her grandmother's uh principal's bell on her uh shelf in her office and i guess when someone becomes a new principal dr goat they get a bell that's correct the the new the bells are going to be distributed to the new principles but we're going to keep that a surprise and not tell them when okay i've been trying yes well good recovery good recovery now together good recovery oh what bell okay i'm sure that they've it's probably already been leaked well it's it's easy to just be excited of all the good things that are happening in in our school system and that warm family atmosphere is something that i continue to hear about over and over

095and that's what's been the most missed you know during the shutdown and during the times that we had to be so separated our our staff is is is yearning you know to get back to that feeling and with that in mind i was on the health department call yesterday and when we started school we were at in the community a 30 positivity rate it was really traumatic because after a great summer very low covered numbers we really thought we were past that and then to have that acceleration right before the start of school just was so difficult but um you know we we buckled down battle tested not battle weary and did what we needed to do and thankfully we due to everyone's you know hard work and and just the way that delta virus

096has gone you know big spike and then down quickly we are at a 3.3 percent positivity rate um as of last week and so the trend continues to go down and so it's an acknowledgement but also um i would say that it's time to get the band back together and let's get the board uh back up on the dais and make it easier for our tech folks i i think that that will make life much easier for them to have us all uh where we've typically been and i'd like to propose that we you know think about that we've had several weeks now of really good success and it is important for our board to reflect you know what is happening um in our schools there is still the the need and the mindfulness as

097far as the social distancing is concerned the last thing we want to do is is go backwards we're moving into a time in florida where people are going outside and up north people are having to be inside so i continue to remain very optimistic that our numbers are going to remain low so i'd like for the board to think about that and you don't have to answer me you know right now we have a reorganization meeting coming up anyway and we can decide at that time how we want to move forward um but any opportunity we have to celebrate and uh bring things back to more typicality is is a good idea um in my opinion um i'm in favor of that [Laughter] as am i okay well that's great to hear so um and

098like i said we can come to a definite decision at another time i just want to bring it forward tonight and give everybody each board member a chance to to think and re and reflect on it um getting back to liberty it was really wonderful to be with the principal and then also to go over to the bus compound again speaking of bus drivers and bus aides and mechanics and everyone involved with transportation we've been working really hard to not only help solve our transportation issues but also to lift them up along the way and our community has been incredibly supportive uh including lunches being donated by pasta fair thank you again uh travis and and kathy thorpe um incredibly generous uh what you're doing it was a chant it's been to several of them

099already and this one at liberty didn't disappoint it was a chance for a wonderful fellowship uh the bus drivers and aides were very straightforward about what they felt was going wrong and and what needs improvement areas for growth and something they said that made me feel so good and i wanted to share it with the rest of the board and and everyone that's listening it was shared with me that the the transportation is really starting to see the difference you know they're starting to feel it and it's been a it's going to continue to be a very heavy lift you know we know that this is going on all across our country i worked for burger king in in high school and the burgers have gotten a lot smaller and the prices have gotten higher

100and and you can do that in the private sector in the public sector uh you know we get the money that uh each of us as taxpayers you know pay in and from our federal sources but it is a finite amount of money and guess what we have to have a balanced budget we don't do deficit spending so my point is is that when the going gets tough for us we can't just raise our prices and make our burgers smaller and say hey kids that have unique needs we're not going to serve you anymore because it's costing us too much money and so i think that is important to keep in mind that the the public sector and the private sector are very different in in that way um that being said uh it continues

101to be our commitment on the fiscal side to always be forward thinking always be innovative always looking for ways to allocate resources so that we get the most bang for our buck and there are multiple ways to do that there's multiple talents on this board there's multiple talents of staff there's multiple talents of ideas you just have to unleash it and then i think get out of the way and let it happen so i i'm very very encouraged by all of the trials and tribulations that we've gone through and how we've overcome them we have not closed one school we got two schools out of external operation during a pandemic which is i have it written down and i did not bring that note but i will share that next time how much it's saving

102the taxpayers for that to happen and those are the kinds of successes that we really need to keep focusing on as a district as we continue to lift each other up as we continue to honor our family culture and as we continue to deliver as a school board what we said we were going to do and i'm confident that we'll continue to do that so those are my comments for tonight and i really appreciate everybody's continued commitment to helping every student succeed we're moving and we're grooving okay um before addressing expulsion matters i wish to acknowledge that board members have received the alternate placement list for students through october 20th 2021 miss martinez lopez are there any parents who have submitted a timely request to speak on their child's disciplinary matter no madam chair thank

103you therefore may i have a motion to approve the expulsion of student jd 22-018 jd 20 jd 22-20 jd 22-021 jd 22-022 jd 22-023-e jd 22-024 jd 22-025 jd 22-026 jd 22-027 jd 22-0 jd 22-029 jd 22-030 jd 22-032 jd-22 jd 22-034 jd 22-035 jd 22-036 jd 22-037 and jd 22-038 with educational services through the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year may i have a motion please i moved moved by vice chair king second second by board member campbell is there any discussion yes is there is there a reason why this is so the numbers are so large that you're aware of or any board members aware of madam chair if i may next name we have 19 19 expulsions tonight and it saddens me and hurts all of our hearts i know that you

104heard us all laboring on even making a motion in a second on this a significant majority of these are because they were multiple individuals involved in multiple different infractions and our policies are very stringent on what to do and not to do and it it saddens me and saddens all of us i know that it does that that we have this and when students make poor choices we have to uphold our policies and ensure that discipline occurs whenever those poor choices are acted upon so please students make wise choices make wise choices that's that's all i want to say and this is just too many i have to say it it's too many explosions um i i believe in discipline i believe in holding kids accountable and and consequences ms campbell mentioned about those policies

105we have to make sure that those policies the code of conduct those things are equitable and that they are not um dispensed haphazardly but it's the same across the board because this is entirely too many explosions for one night i don't condone any bad behavior by any student and i believe in supporting our staff but we need help from the parents first with this situation and then we as a district need to make sure again we our strategic plan achieved 2026 says all so we have to make sure that all these kids are able to to succeed and we got to figure out a way so thank you it's having come from the the realm of uh helping every student succeed and and especially at-risk kids it's always the the hardest part of my night

106to even see one because of of of the path that a student can end up taking as as a result of their choices one of the things that and this it was a shocker to me because we've had a good run of not a lot of major expulsion related issues and so with every number that represents a student you know and and and their future something that helps me sleep a little better at night is knowing um and hopefully this will help you board member browning as well is that if a student does what they're required to do then they have the opportunity to come before us for early re-entry and it's a hearing and the they come in front of the school board off of television and share what they've learned from the consequences

107of their choices and many times those students are then able to come back into our school system sooner and so that is something that is important i'm not sure that every single district does that but or if they do i don't know how successful uh how many kids are approved but i'd like to commend our staff for i can only think of one maybe two since i've been on the board that we did not approve because the students really did you know we don't want this to be a a life sentence for kids as you said we're member comings you know kids or kids but in this day and age you know students have way too much access to way too many things that they should never even know exist in my opinion but um

108at least not until they're way way older and and we're not seeing that so i appreciate every board member that encourages parents to partner with us because every single student matters and every time something like this happens it's it feels awful you know to to me and i'm sure to the rest of us especially when we have seniors right yeah uh uh it it seems like there might be something going on here that's that's not a hundred percent uh in in terms of the system like how how in the world is this happening i i would be glad to devote time to this to look into it so that if we if we have something this big that we have like an automatic highly encouraged way to get back in the system like whoa time

109out here and because we've we certainly as the state have as the government we have plenty of power but the individual what i'm looking for when i was in school there were only a couple of a couple of people you know that there were real problems to the other kids and and and maybe to themselves uh but never something like this i i i have i'm i'm thinking whoa could we have any insurance maybe from the superintendent that we have that it's in place that we can bring these students back into the program asap if in fact it's appropriate and it seems can i speak up right yeah okay so what you saw tonight is not a norm did you see the offenses that the students made on your there's a thing that will show

110you what happened why the students have been placed where they are so i'm not sure if you've seen that so it's important that you understand the offenses that have been taken place in these schools before we uh allow any student back into our system so i'm gonna ask that maybe you just um get with elena or someone and and show have them show you what the offenses are so you have a better understanding before we are having a workshop to allow these students that have made some pretty very very serious offenses back into our classrooms because as was stated earlier every student deserves an education every student all and you know we might have a few that made bad decisions but that was their choice and they need a consequence we have students that do

111write every day that deserve an education too and i'm just going to leave it at that so i'm not comfortable having a workshop to allow these students into this school system quicker and i would encourage you to take a peek and understand what is happening in these schools that this board tonight made these decisions and i'll just leave it at that thank you for that advisement thank you vice chair king and we have um chad frazier here and he's our area superintendent um in charge of secondary and i see you have your notebook with you so if you would be willing to um without violating any confidentiality if you could just give some examples of things that would result in something like this and and this is because he came in and you had asked

112a question so we'll go ahead and hear from him yes and then if you have any further questions uh i would like to address uh we're going to go ahead and hear what he has to say first we are huh okay thank you good afternoon board members board chair thrower vice king vice chair king all of our expulsions are level four offenses according to our student code of conduct which is board approved and looked at and revised throughout the course of the school year and end of the school year as well and so um those are some pretty significant offenses in regards to what is happening and so if there are ever specific questions that i can answer prior to a board workshop i'll be more than happy to do that or a board meeting

113and talk you through exactly what we've seen and how we responded based upon each individual student infraction and i appreciate may yes sir yes thank you and my concern is that not the specific uh student and not the specific offense my concern is the enormity of this that's my concern and in any organization in any structure it can always be improved everybody does the very best they can i'm sure you're doing the very best you can but you want to see positive outcomes i'm not talking about a workshop to bring students back i'm talking about a workshop to look at this system where we could grind this out and perhaps advance for the cause of an improvement to the system uh because no system is perfect so that's that's my that's my my uh concern

114and and to me this is incredibly troubling in magnitude and that is not meant to be criticism it's in magnitude uh wow wow i'm sure um and then looking at it i'm like miss king i looked at the offenses and that's what's really really troubling to me these are level four offenses and i i go a little bit further my background from law enforcement looks at what's causing these these types of offenses i look at that and and the number of them that are showing up again they need there has to be consequences but i also look at um for instance the number of fights that we've had on buses are we are we contributing to any of that because they're sitting on the side of the road waiting so long they're waiting at a

115school for i got kids at school that's waiting in school to five and six o'clock to get picked up are we causing any frustration that causes some of those things these are valid questions that when we're looking at these situations we look at the totality of it and make sure i'm i'm in agreement they have to be held accountable they have to be held accountable parents have to make sure these kids are held accountable but as a district we just need to make sure this is a whole this is a lot and these and the stuff that they did in here are serious i'm i will vote that they be expelled because of what they're doing because they are jeopardizing other kids but let's look at try to figure out not us but look at

116some of the cause of causal factors that's behind some of this exactly this that's going on thank you uh board member cummings and uh thank you mr frazier for being available to jump right up and share that these are level four offenses um i haven't seen this many ever um i i do know that getting to the root causes of why anyone you know behaves the way they do is critical um it's not optimal when you have overstuffed buses it's not optimal when you have you know long wait times and our kids need support i think it's a reflection of the the stressors that everyone has has felt through this and then it does become magnified that being said um the best the best support we can give to our kids is to help them

117understand not only are there consequences for their actions but there's also supportive people around to help them learn to cope with their stressors more effectively so that they don't make a choice like that in the future and i would like to take my hat off to silver river marine institute and also new leaf center because when students are expelled with educational services they there's a couple of options and then also they can choose to do online school florida virtual or marion virtual i guess but it's my hope and prayer that that students will go and get the extra support that these schools offer and with the support of their parents uh learn to cope because you know life is hard and and the last thing we want to do is set up a student for

118further failure down the way and again that's why i'm so glad when we have those early re-entry opportunities because it can it can bring a student back as much as a semester early and it really then makes them feel like i conquered this i did this i now have the the skill set and the tools i need to be able to handle difficult and triggering situations better so this is an anomaly and we do need to keep that in mind but i think it also is reflective a little bit of what's going on in society today there's a lot of screaming going on there's a lot of arguing going on there's a lot of fighting going on and you know we have to look at that as adults and and how do we work through

119our our disagreements and and our disappointments yes sir let me one more final short statement and please i want those that hear us hear these this conversation to know that i've been on the board three years now i cannot think of maybe maybe once that we've expelled a student that did not get educational services so when we expel we do expel where they have another opportunity to continue their education so i want the community to think that we just kick kids out with nothing to hold on to so yeah the superintendent has we'd like to hear it thank you madam chair members the board i'd just like to add i appreciate the opportunity to add to the discussion uh a few notes that may be helpful and i know that most of you are aware

120of this that we have a process in place and my leadership team mr frazier brings items every week we review each of these cases we talk about the patterns we talk about what's happening to try to get to the bottom of that one pro what a action item that's already come from that is i asked mr mcfadden to put together a task force with different stakeholders to start to look at where we're seeing some of these issues and so we have a number of different folks involved in that because it's not just one isolated incident and we need to address root issues so that's a place that we discuss that we have some pretty raw conversation around it we look at the data to try to prevent this from occurring the other item i wanted

121to add to the discussion is on page nine of your strategic plan we have put numbers to this to say not that we're going to lighten up on the consequences but that we're talking about this being a real issue in our community and how can we address alternative placements and expulsions again to reinforce what has already been shared by you as board members we're providing a safe environment for all for all students so important thank you board member cummings for bringing that forward that is that i have to say that again out loud all students um but we are putting metrics to this we're putting strategies to this to ensure that we're trying to make sure that all of these students have access to the education they so richly deserve so and to reiterate what's

122been shared we have re-entry processes in place but i just wanted to provide assurance that we have a number of things operationally that we're doing to address this and we take this very seriously to support that environment but also to make sure that we're addressing these students needs as well thank you thank you again appreciate it and remember browning are you feeling more comfortable now oh yeah yeah i miss out uh yes i see her okay okay uh well uh especially the yeah the uh the um uh the uh conversation the discussion is incredible uh i would like to to feel uh some reassurance that that we're that this is a real anomaly and that we are going to um we're going to see meet some of these goals where we're we see less uh

123because we've got like our psychologists we've got this we've got a great superintendent we've got staff i would like to redouble that effort and not be i used to be a police commissioner we've got to you've got to bear down you've got to get the job done you've got to have public safety and a student it's our responsibility to make everyone in there feel all feel safe and where they can actually learn however with that said this discussion i think is critically important because every organization must continually question their programs if there was a gap i want to know about it and i'm i'm right there with the rest of you we get in there and we we do what we can to fix it thank you thank you sir for remembering i i just

124wanted to add i i do believe in in talking with staff about some of these that some of them were a timing issue uh that's why we we have a couple that actually were offenses in september that have hit our board packet this time and so that i had a lot of questions about that but it's because of timing and how far out we have to put them in board docs and and all of all of the things and you know if this had come in a day sooner than it would have actually been in the october uh board packet and those sorts of things but the other thing that i wanted to mention in speaking with dr gullit about this too i'm grateful that staff is going to continue to look at our processes

125because as she and i were speaking we actually have a couple of honors students that are in this that are now being expelled that won't have access to honors classes so while we have wonderful partnerships with new leaf and sermi the students who are on a pathway with accelerated learning who have made these poor decisions only have that option to do in virtual school on their own rather than having a teacher in front of them teaching and so that that hurts my heart because that's where we do have that discrepancy in the all and so i know that we're going to continue to massage that and look at how we can adjust that or provide those additional supports for those students that have accelerated learning pathways that are not going to have access to them

126in the same way because of these poor choices yes yes and when those come through those are especially uh problematic and i know that that's something that we've got a good lens on including our gifted students because gifted students can have a tendency to question just about everything and um you know we have to be prepared um is there any more discussion yes i have one more thing to say as i i agree i think we should look into it and stuff but i want us to be very careful that um in the past when things like this happen people learn real quick how to manipulate numbers and things and i want us to be careful that we do not encourage um just because what looks good on paper that we encourage manipulation so students

127are not having consequence consequences whether you're an a student on honor roll or you're f or whatever you are if you do something awful there's a consequence and i as a board member will never come off that that if you do something wrong there will be a consequence and it doesn't matter who you are you will have a consequence and i'm just gonna leave it at that thank you thank you vegetarian king okay um i guess we need to go ahead and vote um all those in favor say hi hi aye um those opposed like sign motion passes unanimously and it's been a tough conversation tonight and and you know there's always a back story and when you see these numbers coming through and thank you board member camo for mentioning that some of them

128for were from as far back as september because they got brought through in a batch and it makes you think gosh was there a riot or you know what happened where all of these kids you know from the the same uh altercation and that that's absolutely not the case between behind every single one of these numbers is an individual student with an individual issue so it's important that the community knows that and understands that there's apparently there have been a little bit of a of a backlog and sometimes that happens with investigations and all kinds of things so kind of a perfect storm as far as that goes and hate to end it like that um i would just personally like to say that each and every student that is going to come back to

129us and they'll be ready to be even better learners than they were before and and i we're committed to that so all right there being no further business may i have a motion to adjourn move by board member coming seconded by vice chair king all those in favor say hi aye motion passes unanimously this meeting has adjourned at 7 22 pm thank you very much