Superintendent's Workshop 12 p.m. 9-9-24

001e e e 12 noon I wish to welcome everyone to the superintendent's workshop being held at the Joe and Idol at Junior Tec I ask that out of respect to everyone please silence all electronic devices also you have any material you wish to share with board members please give that to our executive assistant Mrs Mor we'll take a break at two hours if we need that and I'd also like to welcome Miss barenborg on our team so thank you very much purpose of the superintendent's Workshop I would like to recognize the superintendent to explain the purpose of the workshop the floor is yours Madam chair sorry point of order I'd like to add something to discussion please for us okay just under the board discussion go ahead yes ma'am just board discussion sure um The

002Joint work group this is what I'm calling it joint work group school board appointee thank you and uh the second item is um the superintendent contract thank you okay that's right I have a discussion make sure I don't forget those one appreciate it B and C thank you very much okay I'd like to recognize the superintendent to explain the purp Pur of the workshop the floor is yours thank you madam Madam chair uh the intend of this Workshop is to present items to the school board um that will ultimately come before the board for approval in an upcoming business meeting the first two items will be presented by Miss Shields hi good afternoon I'm here to present on the purchase of the knowledge pillars certification exams knowledge pillars provides IND indry leading practice and certification

003exams for both k12 and college level students as well as industry professionals several of our CTE programs utilize knowledge pillars exams including digital information technology digital design business management computer science promotional Enterprise and web development the quote includes unlimited practice lab access and curriculum for each student the curriculum is tied specifically to the industry certification test only the purchase allows students to take any test on the cape list provided by knowledge pillars if students are unsuccessful in their first attempt they are allowed two retakes through the career and professional Education Act otherwise known as Cape the CTE program earns approximately $500 for each student who passes A.1 one test and approximately $1,000 for each student who passes a02 test knowledge pillars has been um pivotal in our uh industry certification exam success for 2324 between

004the two high schools we had 1,63 knowledge pillar industry certifications earned thank you very much board members any questions or comments just one comment missel first of all thank you um this is great information and I don't know if this ties in exactly but Mr Ericson just got a a grant working with our our nursing programs if you will at the high schools for their career Pathways do you know anything about that or can you explain that a little bit more I do uh so we were recently awarded two peacock grants and those are for two pre-apprenticeship programs that we've embedded at Vero Beach High School and Sebastian River High School for for our nursing assistant programs so this is going to allow those programs to purchase some new equipment that they've much needed um

005and it also creates another pathway so that those students who finish the nursing assistant program will also leave with a pre-apprenticeship certification from doe and it will allow them to articulate into a practical nursing apprenticeship thank you very much I'm looking forward to that and I love the last line on this presentation there's no direct cost impact as funds used are from Bonus FTE dollars earned by students passing the exams always love that as a high school principal too that is correct thank you very much any other comments board members okay all right so I also have the next item this is a very exciting item and I will be presenting on the purchase of a Tesla Model 3 electric training vehicle and high voltage safety trainer for the Sebastian River High School Automotive program

006uh this purchase is being funded through the Workforce Development capitalization incentive Grant the grant was awarded in April of 2024 for approximately or a little bit over $1.9 million to upgrade and renovate the Sebastian River High School automotive shop and classroom the trainer that's being purchased mirrors what is found in today's electric vehicles minus the risk so it allows students to test and diagnose critical safety features and reinforced Concepts um the interactive demonstration electric vehicle has a cutaway hood back doors roof and seats so students can see the vehicle's working components uh they it has transparent covers and lights and there is no lithium cells present so it is safe all of the 12vt systems are fully functional um including electric steering accessories systems lighting the model 3 touchscreen interface and as well as the

007Tesla Service mode is functional and that provides technician level data um it also includes a touchscreen tablet with EV operation simulator which allows the instructor to set up simulations for what he would like to demonstrate and then finally this trainer will help students prepare for the National Institute for a motive service excellent electrical electronic systems and light duty hybrid electric vehicle specialist certification tests thank you any comments board members Miss Rosario I'm super excited about this I I don't I don't think you I think you needed to hype this one up a little bit more this is a great this is a great thing and um to my knowledge we are one of the only high schools in Florida who will have one of these I think there is one other High School who's in

008the process of purchasing one like that's that's what I was kind of getting at because um we really need to highlight um that we are two uh in the State of Florida you just mentioned um that received this Grant and H are going to have this Tesla car Tesla right yes Tesla Model 3 I got to make sure I get it correct um and that this model is really a simulation um to allow students to actually do electronic work with it right totally not in my wheelhouse but I'm so excited about it I mean um I know board members received the I guess the handout the packet that you gave us it would be fantastic if we had it on the screen um to be able to show and highlight to the community because this

009is an opportunity for kids um in this particular field uh I'm not sure that they would get it any place else uh and so um it's really really I I just can't wait so when are we expecting to actually have it in and set up and ready to go it will probably be delivered in April oh it does take some time to produce so will it be fully implemented next fall or will there be it's possible in May once once the the vehicle is delivered it's it's expected in April or the beginning of May Miss B's gonna allow us to use hers yeah exactly but yes this is a big deal and and um I think we should celebrate this and maybe have some type of welcoming ceremony for the electric vehicle when it arrives

010so I I I didn't know when you first presented it what to ask because I'm just like I don't even know what to ask with something like this but one of the things that I understand is a real um issue in this particular area is that there aren't enough technicians around to fix the actual Standalone what are they called Chargers uh Chargers that are at specific locations like at you know charging stations when people go on long drives you look for the charging stations if those charging stations uh if there's something wrong with them there aren't enough technicians who know how to fix it um and so my question to you is not only are the students going to get hands-on experience with the car but will they get training for those types of things

011too or is that separate in a part that's separate they will not get training on the Chargers this because there is no lithium batteries present there is not a charger with it right so that is that's a separate training that might be something to look into for the future too because that there is certainly a need in the IND industry and this industry for that um so maybe we could be the first High School to actually give students certification in whatever that is called right okay thank you thank you for that mcdonal yeah I would like to Echo that actually I think it's uh as I said before we don't have a lot of big corporate headquarters here so those kinds of jobs if we train kids to go to college they may not be

012able to come back here but this is an excellent kind of job that fills a need here in the Treasure Coast particularly there are a lot of Teslas here in our County and in the surrounding counties and to provide those services are important to provide those job opportunities for for students to be able to stay in the neighborhood I think is important and I didn't know it was the one of only two in in the state but that's that's uh particularly impressive um I think that uh we basically are going to service the whole uh East Coast of Florida it sounds like all right let hope so if I can piggy back off of that if I could piggy back off of that I mean um this might be something that we can tap into

013to Elon Musk send him an email phone call or something you never know if out of generosity being the second School in the entire State of Florida he might actually show up with a nice check um or some other kind of Grant to help us implement this fully you never know thank you that would be amazing Dr PKA yeah I just want to uh point out and and and draw you know attention to the fact that this is a a continuation of our um commitment and ability to provide cutting Edge education with less you know and if I think if parents have been walking into schools and seeing the changes in their their libraries and their uh technical stations and and now this new Automotive uh certification they can get um I think it it

014really shows to them our commitment and dedication to providing the best education we can and then on top of that doing it with less resources than most districts thank you Miss barenborg so I just want to make sure I connect with you if you hear uh thank you no I got an update on it and it's a awesome program that I I'm excited for our students thank you thank you very much uh Miss Shields I remember the natef certification for automotive before but what was the name of this certification one more time please so this one is the electrical electronic systems and light duty hybrid electric vehicle specialist certifications and when we look at our students who may choose go on to college or technical school or anything this kind of certificate will help them

015get a good position 100% thank you very much okay all right the the next item is an update regarding the last year of the fiveyear district strategic plan there's a very brief presentation if they could bring it up now and as this item comes up I'll remind the board we are in the final year of a five-year strategic plan this was a a very bold and courageous plan that was approved um going going on five years now it is a system that we have really used to drive the work of continuous Improvement this strategic plan the board strategic plan has yielded a result for the last three academic years uh the school district of Indian River County has been the most improved uh school system in the State of Florida so we continue to outpace

016all other 66 districts um and this is the blueprint in which drives my work in cabinets work we are in our final year of the Strategic plan and this has become for us a fluid document although we want to finish out this specific plan there are key initiatives that we're working on this specific year that we want to in incorporate into our strategic plan additionally not in this presentation but you um recall as we go through this annual process each year we modify some of the targets we have shifted away uh for the most part from State rankings and going to overall growth from the previous school year so there are different examples as we take the board's feedback to incorporate into what will be the last year of this plan today's is the opportunity

017to get some feedback regarding this final year uh and to give you an update on what strategically we're doing in order to ensure that we hit our outcomes I'm going to speak in three basic buckets today the instructional and programmatic Innovation sustained instructional improvements and then a major Initiative for us this year which overlaps the entire organization which is creating a culture of service when you're looking at instructional program Innovations we are in the last year as I've said but under the leadership of this board we've pushed out some very strategic initiatives that we believe need to be incorporated into the fifth year of this strategic plan uh that is around Innovation very very specifically a Dodgertown Elementary School creating the Steam and steam Park initiative really beginning to take a school choice initiative that

018we've put into place four years ago and provide a great deal of support and development so as a School of Choice it can attract students to go to that school both students outside of its boundaries as well as families who currently reside within that boundaries uh we are bringing to the board next month which is October that is has arrived very quickly October but this is the Pelican Island classical Magnet School K8 we're very excited to bring that information back to the board ultimately seeking approval uh to take the next steps around that area of innovation uh great deal of Buzz and energy at the school site in the community and we'll be excited to bring that update but because we're doing it uh and we weren't thinking about that four years ago this is

019something we want to incorporate into um this fin final year of the Strategic plan meaning we'll create metrics and monitor and evaluate the impact of both the Dodger Town Innovation as well as Pelican Ireland we want to continue to grow the Gord Middle School Advanced academic studies that program has naturally taken off it has drastically shifted the reality at Dodgertown and it really has for me proven as a proof of concept regarding if you very specific and you focus in on the areas of innovation at a specific School schools of choice app absolutely work and then job embedded professional learning to support initiatives so we just don't create these initiatives and on board them and say here you are good luck school we create a way of work over the course of this specific year

020on training these are very intentional uh methods of instruction that we will be providing support and development so we need to hold ourselves accountable to ensuring it's just not opening or changing a school name or opening a new initiative but we've done the the four work in order to ensure when we open we will in fact be successful so Within These specific areas as the Strategic plan comes to you for final approvement you'll see shifts and modifications around this these areas of innovation embedded into the plan uh also around sustained instructional improvements so as we celebrate the rate of improvement over the last three years we have been extremely intentional in communicating to our community that we need to expand uh The Innovation the choice and really work from the Forefront around what innovation in

021SCH the State of Florida honestly looks like meaning we were going we are going to as we create the next strategic plan question Bell configurations qu uh question the configuration of uh grade levels that we put together uh start stop times you know that's coming but the length of time uh or the integration of different curriculums who says you have to teach math then teach reading then teach language arts uh can you integrate those things uh which is more representative to the real world in which students we preparing students for as we move into that we want to continue to sustain the instructional practices uh that we've already be uh have developed we want to make sure that we can sustain those while at the same time move some energy uh human capital over to

022the Innovation side some of the things that you'll see coming into that plan uh shifts from teacher assignments from con uh teachers on assignment to content special that is an intentional um shift within Miss B's area of responsibility looking at teachers on a special assignment they are content experts they are Master coaches and really using them to help build the capacity within specific content areas for our principles and assistant principles really transferring some of that key knowledge and expertise to our school site of leaders in order to continue to see that to grow uh empowering education in seventh grade mathematics we do our we're two or three in Middle School acceleration which is basically algebra and geometry High School courses in the Middle School experience we want to continue to grow that we want to

023grow the number of students who are participating in those particular courses uh that initiative will allow us to do that micr condensing for algebra teachers you have experienced significant improvements in Algebra 1 in ninth grade those are all level one or level two students walking into algebra one based on the initiative of accelerating our three fours and fives in the Middle School space you've seen drastic improvements but we want to continue to be uh very very specific in those areas of algebra focusing in our high schools because those students need to grow so much in order to pass that assessment the growth in uh algebra in high school has been absolutely tremendous but we want to continue to to grow we're right we're not where we want to be yet although we are growing uh

024Leaps and Bounds uh job and professional learning for our Civics teachers uh we have a team going to Martin County next week or is it this week tomorrow okay um really to look at what they do that's the only area in which they outperform us one of the areas reasons for that is they have eighth graders taking uh Civics which I think is absolutely uh not acceptable at all you want to expose those students to it when they're supposed to be exposed to it and not game the system and that's gaming the system our students take Civics in seventh grade so really enhan ing that experience uh more debate more discourse more interaction uh really bringing Civics to life in those uh classrooms is a key area and then a big initiative is the art

025of problem solving which is really focusing how we as a system support principles and ensure that the problem solving is happening as close as kids as possible so a big piece of our success over the last four years has been in fact the art of problem solving how we as an organization from my office problem solve identify what is the biggest barrier that has the most influence on solving all other barriers or obstacles and then problem solving that creating strategic plans and holding everyone accountable for the implementation uh those are all skills that I learned as a principle and and had very similar results as a principle so ensuring that we have that system in place all of this really is Readiness as we move into next year's strategic plan so ensuring all of our

026leadership teams are problem solving at the absolute highest level will continue uh our success that we've experienced for the last several years we should have changed the batteries before oh I'm not even really and then a service of culture and this is something that's been very near and dear to my heart leading into this upcoming school year so we have challenged the entire system in their kpis uh how they're evaluated will be around service we have a program Wednesday in which our district leaders our district leadership team will come in and they will hear the initiatives of all of the cabinet members area of service and it is holding ourselves accountable not to an outcome but to ensuring the service that we're providing is building capacity it is limiting the amount of time that a

027school site principal or system principal is away from being in a classroom it has just in the last three months that we been focusing on it drastically shifted accountability to the service that we're providing and you want to move the speed that we want to move as as a school system uh this is a key initiative to ensure that we're are holding ourselves accountable we're evaluating ourselves around that it is seeking input and feedback from our principles from our instructional coaches uh in terms of what we are doing and is it having an impact and if not in real time we have to modify it or change it in order to ensure continuous Improvement um those are key areas that we are incorporating into the Strategic plan really strategies uh some of them will include

028targets that I discussed at the beginning um this is the opportunity to get some feedback from board members if there is any uh as a reminder we will begin coming in the coming month no next month no November a monthly conversation around the creation of what will be our blueprint our driving force um for the next 5 years which is the creation of the 2630 uh School plan uh School Improvement ah what do you call this thing strategic plan uh which is absolutely going to drive us and ensure that we solidify ourselves as the top performing School District in the State of Florida thank you thank you very much Dr Moore start with Dr PCA any questions or comments I I thank you for the presentation I mean we've had many discussions about this privately

029um and um you know I'm looking forward to discussing kind of how we can continue to build on our our prior strategic plan and move forward thank you Mr McDonald um just uh always impressed with with what you um produce and provide very happy to see you uh showing flexibility in uh changing and adjusting um in the way we look at things and and the things that we we try and Achieve and what you're focusing on the skills you're focusing on particularly uh happy and pleased to see the focus of culture of service that we don't lose sight of the fact that we are sort of a business in the in the position of providing a service to parents for their through their children and if we don't lose sight of that we will do

030a much better job at achieving that so I'm very happy to see that and look forward to seeing you very successful at it thank you thank you miss barenborg any additions yeah thank you for this update um and asking for board member feedback one thing um that I want us to look at and consider is you know um sometimes we lose a lot of students when they progress from fifth grade to sixth grade because of moving from elementary into middle school or people choose charter school because it's K8 instead so that's uh something I want to look at is that um that Middle School um you know are we losing kids and what can we do to to fix that and also the concern parents have about you know the number of problems kids have

031in middle school and that that comes from kids coming from different elementary schools kind of mixing together so I'd like us to look at that as well so just a real quick um so we lost 47 students from fifth to sixth grade um this school year and we lost 49 students going from 8th to 9th okay that is a a validation to the work that we're already doing which is k8s we know as we we are starting with one K8 but we come back in October we need to have additional conversations uh need the support and Leadership of this board but there is a key opportunity really to look at the gray configurations to to stop some of that particular bleeding and same thing with that Boutique High School uh losing 49 students from 8th

032to 9th we really as we problem solve that are looking at just the opportunity to have small learning environments and unique learning environments in the 912 space is something something that we know we need to fill overall in in terms of enrollment although I'm saying we lost 47 and 5ifth to six and uh 49 from 8th to 9th our enrollment uh we hit almost perfectly the number of students that we anticipated having so unlike Martin County who had nine I'm sorry 700 fewer students show up than anticipated that's tragic because you have to justify or rebuild your schedules because you're only going to get funded for the students that show up not the ones you project to show show up uh so we are able to go through that process and balance uh with enrollment

033or we're maintaining enrollment from last school year to this school year uh which doesn't seem to be the norm across the state thank you Miss Rosario so um Dr Moore is this a presentation that you're providing for us as an informational session the what you're wanting to do or are you or is this it is are these the final recommendations for the Strategic plan so this is the those are key areas that we have been working on over the course of the Year annual targets may be modified for those uh overarching everything I spoke about are actually strategies how I'm going to hit the actual Targets in order to conclude the plan but the intent of this is in fact feedback okay so um this is one of those examples that I have talked about

034about preparing board in advance before so that we can come with questions so seeing this for the first time um doesn't allow the board to have detailed responses to all of the things that you've provided which seemed great uh but the Strategic plan should be the board's strategic plan working in collaboration with you um so I would ask that we have a follow-up Workshop where we can actually have time to digest this and maybe there are other things that we can actually come to the table with like you mentioned the boutique High School I didn't see that on their alternative I didn't see um Tech or vocational education you know a focus on on that like I didn't see some of these other things that we have talked about over time and um and I'd

035really like to have more conversation something else that we've talked about is like more of a College and Career kind of prep um something or other I don't I'm again not having these in-depth conversations or not allowing us the time to have them uh we can't actually get there until we do so I just think that we need to have a workshop for just this where the board is prepared to ask questions and maybe provide more feedback um to add to the development of the board's strategic plan in collaboration with you and your team so I think most of of what you said is the what we will be doing on a monthly basis to create the 26 through 30 strategic plan this strategic plan was created five years ago it it drives my work

036uh in terms of the day-to-day operations and the specific strategies to hit those annual targets that's the work um that the team does and what I'm asking for here is in this final year is there anything El that I have not captured to close out the 2024 strategic plan 2425 strategic plan now I agree as we create the new strategic plan the great configurations that is um significant conversation that needs to take place um all of that needs to take place I didn't want to be disingenuous and not include the two initiatives that we collectively literally under the leadership of this board which is the K8 uh classical school as well as the Dodger toown not to include that or hold me accountable for implementing those two board initiatives would be disingenuous so that's why

037I Incorporated those two things some of the service initiatives really is how I'm going to make sure uh that the totality of the system hits the target so I I I I think we're saying the same thing so what I so some of the things that I didn't see up there were things like communic ation reaching out to uh parents having more parental um uh workshops and training sessions for parents I didn't see some of these other things that we have in our current strategic plan and so that's why I was asking is this an ongo is this going to come back to us again because discipline discipline wasn't on there you know uh some of the things in terms of reaching uh we have to do much better in terms of closing the gap

038specifically with our um a with our African-American student population and our um students with disabilities population I mean there's a tremendous academic Gap there some of these other things were not in there I see you're shaking your head and so I'm kind of wondering I see that you're presenting it but I'm not sure where all these other things come in so we're saying the same thing completely different way okay I wanted to present the information that would be different to avoid oh my gosh Dr Moore I haven't seen any of this I can't approve this this is the first time we've been T this strategic plan is in its fifth year and we haven't spoke about these initiatives in which I just presented right those other initiatives every single one you said the discipline um

039the safety all of that the way of work has been established and we're going to continue those structures so as you look at that you're not going to see anything that's going to say well wait a minute we never spoke about that it's just a continuation of of that plan got it so now I understand yeah so now I understand so these are the new kind like the classical like you mentioned the classical so the classical is going to be added for this particular year closing out this year and then going into the following year we'll still work on that correct and the the second part of your question is we could this comes back in October uh for a workshop and then final approval by the board at the end of October so just

040in closing out this specific year we'll now go back incorporate this feedback with the other things that we have been doing for four years that the board is fully aware of that has that is very very successful and then present that Workshop it with you get some final feedback bring it back in October okay and then thank you for that clarification and then when are we going to approve the final recommendations for the classical uh October board meeting as as scheduled October board meeting as scheduled yes okay um and will we we receive I I don't know what you're planning to present is it going to be is there going to be a plan it is very it yes ma'am it'll be very much aligned to the last time the board presented following that specific

041timeline uh looking at the attendance boundaries the facility changes uh that would need to take place as well as a update to the board in in terms of the Year by phase in Year bye and grade level uh as well as some of the impacts to potentially the 5-year capital plan to fund some of the needed initiatives in terms of space at other locations and then we will take an additional step and which we're collecting this information now is and this will be part of the the bigger plan we have to look we're looking specifically at K8 in the north side of town we've collected that data but we need to look K8 on the south side of town as well um so there there's impacts that we have to have we have to collect

042that data get feedback from the board uh and that will help fuel the 26th 30 School uh strategic plan okay so looking at that right planning ahead um the surveys that we uh put out into the community and we received feedback on we received the information at at Workshop several months ago on on the results will that also be mentioned again in the new presentation of the new plan oh absolutely as well as meeting with the faculty at the school uh conducting professional developments and listening tours all of that is in process or has been completed to make sure when we come back to take the next step we have everything on board and ready to go listening tours listening we in that item was to go out and meet with the faculty at the

043impacted school to make sure they understand what's happening uh I feel as if they're 100% on board and excited so what it's listening to any concerns or issues that they may have had because ultimately that will affect them in that plan can you please put in their um town halls with community members parents and community members at large because this is going to be a school of choice so you can have you know parents who live students who live on the far south side um wanting to know how they can get into this classical school I think it needs to be a countywide there needs to be a countywide effort for more Town Hall uh presentation so I think that needs to be also included in there can you also include and though I know

044that we still have a little bit of time we don't have much time because I believe the timeline that you're looking at is to start next year um what in that what what are the recommendations for potential curriculum that is going to I I'll tell you I I will not vote on anything regarding classical unless there's a clear understanding or at least a tentative understanding of what curriculum is going to be recommended because that is the Crux of classical it is the curriculum that is taught um so I think that needs to be in the plan uh please as well um want to make sure I didn't forget anything else I think Transportation would need to be in that I'm not sure if you caught that the things that I I would be uh wanting

045to hear um Okay so we've got that classical uh we talked about needing a separate workshop for the future strategic plan and I think I'm good on this topic so thank you thank you thank you Dr Moore and to the team um I don't know who is a part of the 2025 strategic plan but it was written well it really was written well and um you giv us this information this update on the last year I think is very important you know we have to come out of the box the numbers losing middle and then High School those are pretty good with what we're going through as far as vouchers and so forth so this public school system I believe is doing the job we need to do to make sure that um you know

046we are serving our students and our parents and if we don't do that we're going to have a low number in this public school system but I like the service of culture not just looking at the outcome but how we get there and how we get there is with our teachers and making sure and our parents being aware our teachers being where so so very very important and the community meetings um I think will very very be very important in this 2530 strategic plan probably be the most important one we ever write as far as what we're going to do in our public school system because there's a lot of talk out there you know our K8 magnet how's that going to look in North County what are we doing to keep our kids you

047know these are the things we need to listen to our community our teachers our students and see what you know what is interesting to them what Miss Shield just brought up that was something looking toward the future those are things we have to tap on and Mr Ericson's doing a great job with our grants and trying to keep getting these things moving forward so thank you for adding what we need to add uh the sustained instructional improvements that's not easy to do to have it sustainable it's not easy to do so thank you very much but um looking forward to being part of that 2530 strategic plan anyone else on this topic just makes me feel old um so next item Dr mcmah will be presenting our assessment calendar good afternoon I am presenting an

048item on the 2425 uniform Statewide assessment calendar this is a requirement by Statute that each district post on their uh website as well as get District approval of this uniform Statewide assessment calendar uh this is is an item that is an annual approval um and so uh what this does is it details the uh state required as well as District required assessments um you're looking at a multi-page PDF I will tell you that most of this is a template that is uh written by the state uh it's not until you get to item four that the district can actually um enter data and in item four on that calendar it's just the dates the windows and then item five is where we detail any of the district uh required assessments board members any comments or

049questions how much are we testing any less than we did five years ago with everything five years ago yes drastically yeah the state uh rule is less than 5% per grade level and we're not even at 2.5% of the time M Rosario yeah I remember um uh when I first became a board member I mean the the testing the amount of testing was I don't know if Kelly if you remember I mean it was just astronomical it was crazy um so we did in we did drastically reduce the number the amount of minutes that a student is testing but you did mention in our briefing that we are adding um these benchmarks for science I believe they were I was thinking about that can you talk a little bit before I ask my question about

050and just kind of refresh our memory of what that looks like that's new it is um so I would characterize it as a replacement rather than an addition and the idea is that both the fifth grade and eighth grade science state assessments actually cover more than those two grade levels the fifth grade science state assessment covers third and fourth grade standards in addition to fifth grade uh similarly the eighth grade assessment covers both sixth and seventh grade standards on that eighth grade uh so to provide uh some more meaningful data and to your point over the last five years we have been very strategic in uh understanding the purpose and roles of Assessments and we have reduced them uh trying to get more strategic and efficient with what we are doing to assess so in

051this um uh in this endeavor uh we have added um unit well topic tests in both third and fourth and then seventh and eth grade or sixth and seventh grade um and these are meant to replace uh what would you traditionally see as a chapter test so instead of taking and this is where I'm going a little bit off of just making up to explain um instead of taking chapter one's test you would as a teacher administer the topic one science test in those class so it's a student is not going to see an additional test so it's not like they take chapter one test or science on a Thursday and then on a Friday they take these uh topic tests if that makes sense um so yes there is on this calendar the addition

052of um those science topic tests in those grade levels um but in terms of the student experience they will not experience additional tests so one of the uh questions or you know what I think about when as you explained it um what I worry about is if we're taking away a chapter test that a teacher can get immediate results on how the student learned and applied that current chapter learning right whatever they learned for that chapter chapter three how did the student do and then they take that chapter test it's very specific to the information that was given to the student during that chapter if we take that away and replace it with something else how does that provide specific curriculum you know information informing the teacher so that they can you know adjust instruction

053which is really what's supposed to happen so there's a great question um I will say these actually provide more immediate feedback if that makes sense because a chapter test that as a teacher would give they would have to grade it themselves in this case this is uh administered through the computer and so the results are right then so as soon as the kids take the test they have access to those results um the other part to it is is that these tests were written by teachers um and it was written through the context of the curriculum Maps uh which is again the content specialist and missp ser probably speak a little bit more to the actual uh procedures of this but um teachers are involved in creating that curriculum map and then in collaborative planning

054those teachers are working together to understand what is required of that chapter test and so what this will do is it will provide more uniform structured data for those teachers because this is actually it's a state assessment that we're trying to get kids to pass and so um that that teacher how they they teach it should be aligned with the content in the standards going to the depth of that structure and so these assessments help our teachers understand um how well the students did in context of the state assessment rather than maybe their own opinion of what they should know not that there's any you know differences here but it provides that uniformity to the data that comes back to us I I mean in my head I understand exactly what you're saying cu but

055but what I hear in application is we're teaching to the test we're going to teach and test to the test that's the main focus is the state assessment not the gaining of knowledge and information that a student would get on a regular basis I know you're going to say no but in my what I'm hearing is that that these replaced um progress monitoring T I don't even know I don't remember or what you're calling them what these required monitoring tests replace the chapter tests so that we can better equip the students for the state assessment which is important but then how are we actually gonna I don't I don't it's just too it's too complicated for me could probably just maybe it's I understand I mean it's not and it's and I'm and it's really

056not a complicated subject it's just I I don't mean to make light of that but it's it's kind of like I don't want to teach to the test like we eliminated all these minutes for years to avoid teaching to the test to gain a love for Learning and now we're going back to that for the science area um or it seems like we're going back to it for that science this particular subject area and so I'm I I think I'm just hoping that you all can convince me otherwise may I yes you may all right through the chair through the chair we teach to the stand standards and so this is standards alignment across the system and I think what Dr McMahon was uh really trying to hit on is that for us to have

057a system of supports we have to be able to see across the system how we're performing and when you pars it out one class at a time it's really independent and individual versus us being able to look across the system and say we are struggling with nature of science across the system what can we do to so this is systematizing that work it is not taking taking anything away from what the classroom teacher can and should be doing with the data and it is certainly not you know picking up a test and saying we're going to teach to this test it is we teach to the standards so are these going to be strategic to the standards that they would particularly learn in that chapter exactly okay and are are these tests supposed to be

058longer or shorter than the chapter test shorter shorter they're they're much more specific to the standards okay any other comment I remember when we did that when I was here in secondary and our teachers would use that once in a while their testing instead of their chapter test it just helped them I think say am I am I teaching to am I teaching the standards appropriately and then it also helped with the pacing because we all know we have now we have the three test throughout the year to just help them keep up with it um I remember that any any other comments miss barenborg anything still miss barenborg I'm I yes thank you I'm good um I already discussed it all with the superintendent thank you all righty thank you m still has the

059mic with items andf so through the chair I'm very excited to present to you today our school Improvement planning process I think it's very timely that it comes on the heels of the Strategic Plan update um because this is essentially driven by the work in the strategic plan let me see if we can get it up here I think we are beginning our fourth year of a school Improvement plan process that is unique to us at in SDC most districts in the state do the traditional State template where they they do a beginning and an end review of their school Improvement planning process um we however go through a process of continuous Improv Improvement throughout the year so we essentially go through these Min cycles and beginning year four of this what I can say

060I like this quote because it really resonated with the fact that our school leadership teams are in the habit of continuous Improvement now where before it was we're going to write it at the beginning and we'll assess our results at the end so the four phases of our implementation process really run through they begin in the Summer where we are analyzing our data from the prior year and developing action steps based on that information that run through phase one that phase one then we we'll evaluate it through a triangulation of data and we'll move into phase two and then you can see phase three begins in our second semester and we finalize phase four going into the state assessment window and we we wrap it up with an end ofe reflection in June this is

061a graphic that really describes the continuous Improvement cycle that our school leadership teams go through um they they create action plans based on problem solving that occurred it goes through about an 8 to 10 week implementation cycle from that we do uh several points of data collection to triangulate some data we do impact reviews which is where the district team goes out and walks the school and we analyze the data that we collect we combine that with the Datacom feedback that they get that's in the powerbi um app and then we also add to that any observational summaries that the school leadership teams do we take all of that information we I say we it's really the school leadership teams along with support from my team that uh analyzes that data and then creates new

062action steps for the second phase so this is really a a vision of what a phase in each of these phases what a cycle in each of these phases looks like this uh slide uh we call it really the Cadence of accountability and this is a slide that informs the work so if you see at the beginning up there we use assessment data we go through a data analysis protocol um all of that is updated in Gold Tracker and powerbi we communicate this information we provide professional learning around this information at our principal AP and Coach meetings um we also do walkthrough data uh we do problem solving with our school leadership teams we update Gold Tracker yet again we go into what is the impact review cycle where the it's the more formalized walkthroughs

063um Datacom I think everyone's heard a little bit about Datacom and knows that well at this point um finalize that with a principal meeting as well where we review the information we do some professional learning around some next steps um that are specific to the schools and then we begin phase two so that that Circle really is comprehensive of the the way we inform our work the outside uh items is really how we communicate that work the focus areas this year are um our high yield strategies we are starting with all schools writing action steps around differentiation some schools may also be adding monitoring and engagement just depending on what their needs are and how big of a lift their differentiation lift is at the moment we also in the spirit of service we have

064written goals specifically around operations and service this year I know um anytime we can support our students and families along with the staff around the very difficult things like the cell phone policy the attendance policy the discipline policy the dress code um writing action steps and action planning around that it it's just in support of our our community this is a timeline it depicts the phase one timeline uh phase one really begins in August early August and runs through October 16th but you'll notice that we did begin this development in July when we were at engage with our school leadership teams for the three-day Retreat um all of it goes through they do they write their initial action steps they share that with the district they get feedback and reviews um they also share this

065information with their school leaders ship teams along with their school staff and then their Sac committees their school advisory Council committees must approve their Sip and then we bring it to you September 23rd for your approval and um you'll notice that after that then we have the final two points in phase one would be the impact walks and the day to come and the next steps are that this comes to you for your approval on September 23rd thank you uh miss barenborg any questions no thank you uh appreciate the hard work you guys have done to set all this up so that it continues to work and and you tweak it to make it uh best for kids so appreciate it thank you you good Mr McDonald good no okay Miss Rosario yeah when are

066we going to get them when are we going to see the actual plans I believe they were uploaded were they uploaded already Yes okay we'll take a look um Miss B just one question I had the U pleasure I was here and the assistant principles were working on their data so once they get this information does each School align who's looking at what like say in the leadership I know that's what we used to do let's say they look at their Mass first pm1 mass score need to improve it so where do they take it from there so they have identified not only the what but The Who and the when and then who's following up for Fidelity to that action step okay so that could be anyone on their school leadership team that will

067include at times uh the district support the curriculum Specialists who support them um and they teachers of course good that's good I remember um seeing miss Hiller here when she was looking at them so it really does flow it really does flow not only through the district support but at the leadership at the schools with your support this flows bidirectionally thank you very much alrighty next we have the school advisory Council and that's me as well uh these two items typically come together they are both in statute and they are both required um schools are required annually to uh create their school advisory councils and submit a composition report that includes the the membership of their school advisory councils um I have included in your documents all of the schools School advisory Council reports for

068your review any questions any questions board members I sat in on the first sack Bureau Beach High School meeting is really good really good good group all right miss barenborg anything on the school advis I just want to remind um you guys that uh the school advisory Council when they send out their notice of meetings they need to also attach their agenda so that people know what they're voting on please thank you good point all righty um contracted service for track and field bleachers a press box at Jimmy grav Sports and Community complex Mr Green thank you through the chair um this item as we've spoken about before as part of the Jimmy Graves Community complex there was a phase 1 a and a phase 1B Phase 1 a was the track and the fields

069the soccer lacrosse in the middle Fields themselves and the lighting and all of the site work as we are moving forward with 1B which includes restrooms lockers um concession stand bleachers we are bringing an item forward to contract and piggyback a tips contract for the set of field bleachers and the Press Box um those two items are at a cost of $290,700 and that does include a contingency of $1 13,845 those dollars are through the fixed Capital outlay that was uh provided to us along with Community donations we are looking to break ground hopefully um in December on the entire project but this will allow us to get these items um on a bid and purchased and ready to go at the start of that uh work thank you any questions Miss Rosario sorry no

070questions okay Mr McDonald no questions only thing I wanted to add and I talked to Dr Moore about this and Nick westenberger about um the Wilson track and I did see it on the plans that his name would be also facing 16th Street we have it on the inside but I just and he said that was part of the plan so just wanted to to double check that alrighty that's it for the superintendent next time we go next item is discussion item and we do have two added items the first one is policy 2130 achievement Gap oversight work group that's Mr McDonald's item and then we will go into the joint workg group Schoolboard employee that's Miss Rosario and then the superintendent contract so Mr McDonald the floor is yours thank you so um I

071believe you all have copies of the proposed uh adjustment just for a little history um Dr Moore and his team have been doing an exceptional job in just about every area uh far beyond what a lot of people might even hope or expect but we continue to fall a little bit short in the area of the achievement Gap and which impacts our our needest students and ultimately impacts our our district scores because those are the students that are going to who whose grades have the most impact on our scores um the goal I I think it was a well- intended and and great idea back when this when 2130 was written um and it was expected to be implemented within a period of short period of years uh unfortunately it becomes more and more apparent

072that that the conclusion uh of that work group uh is indefinite and um that's just postponing the the implementation of the of what would have been uh a group to focus on and address and hopefully um improve and help improve um that achievement Gap that we have uh for African-American students but also even for other students who are who have that same Challenge and obviously Our concern is for those achievement levels for those neediest of students um and 2130 promised to focus on this but uh the go excuse me the goal of this um revision is to uh directly address uh and help those students um the board remains free in the future as they choose to uh respond to the unity status one if that's ever achieved and make whatever take whatever actions are

073necessary um but I think that now versus later is a better time to address um this this need for our needest students um so excuse me so I proposed it I guess my question would be are there any uh suggestions recommendations or questions that anyone has thank you Mr oh go ahead I'm sorry from some context if if I can provide just a little bit of data you know what I say got to be trust all others bring data um um to help facilitate the conversation around subgroups I just prepared a couple slides and as you talk about gaps I'd like to present this information so this is um the academic performance from 1819 to 2324 um we use this because this is the time that I have been here as well as the variance

074of a pandemic so just to set up the screens for you you can see the top which is the blue is the white performance a performance of 62 in 1819 to an improvement of 65 the Orange is Hispanic it was 45 in 1819 to an improvement of 46 a 1% Improvement but you can see the impacts of what was the pandemic from going down from 4 uh5 to 42 up to 43 down to 41 and then shooting up to 46 and then the last is black this is Ela this is reading uh 33 in 1819 to 40 a 7% Improvement when we talk about the Gap we're talking about the variance between the subgroups so the gap for black would be the variance between 62 and 33 if you're looking at 1819 now this is

075math performance and you'll see here uh I'll just give you a second to digest it won't go through it incompletely but in 1819 white performance was at 64 uh all the way to 68 and 2324 and then 1819 uh Black Performance was 33 uh improving to 44 at the end of last school year Hispanic 51 significant drop down to 2122 and then shooting back up to 53 this is a comparison of our neighbors as well as the state and when you talk about the Gap you can have influence on the gap different ways one of the ways you can have an influence on the Gap is white performance going down and Hispanic or black Gap staying the same and you could celebrate oh we're reducing the Gap well no you're not your white students aren't

076improving what you want to see is the all students all students improving and where the students who are underperforming growing at a faster rate to close the gap so you want them both to be growing and here you look at Black Performance since 1819 since I've been here uh in ela it has improved seven percentage points Hispanic the one percentage point and then white three percentage points so what you're seeing is the most appropriate way to close the gap black students closing the Gap by improving while the same outperforming white students who are significantly higher you look at Bard not the same scenario you look at St Lucy not the same scenario you look at the entire State of Florida there's one school district on these on our neighboring counties Treasure Coast and Space Coast

077uh who are actually improving and addressing all students and I will tell you and the other slides will say the same we address all students we don't address subgroups and I have said that from the moment of I got here when principles would come in with their evaluations and I'm going to do this for this specific subgroups we address the deficiency regardless of the color of the skin of the student we are moving drastically different than the state because we do the work differently we do it to address the needs of a child and we do it quicker and faster than most here this is um this is mathematics same scenario you have counties who are forgetting to teach math um but in Indian River County uh black is growing at a faster Pace uh

078with the other subgroups that are higher are still growing uh rard St Lucy Martin uh the entire State of Florida uh there's a pandemic in there uh we've never used it as an excuse surrounding counties well maybe so this looks at the growth so this is looking at us in comparison to the same counties in 1819 you know this data because I shared it we were 33 we grew 40.5 and then that's a growth of 7.2 and this is looking um from growth 1819 um and this is looking at Black Performance that is the sixth highest rate of growth in the state um and if you take the five counties that are in front of us they don't add up to the size of our district we're doing this better than most yes still opportunities

079to improve because we want to grow we want to be number one you look at Hispanic uh even that 1.3 which we're not impressed with but you comparison to surrounding counties they're they're all in the negative so a grow we're 18th in the state where our surrounding counties are at 50 and and 43 this is mathematics 1819 33.3 uh growth uh to 43.7 which is 10.4 we're the fourth highest in the rate of growth in that time period look at our surrounding counties there's not much difference between us in the surrounding counties there's just not well I guess you could say the rate of growth of our black students in reading and math is significantly different same thing with um Hispanic significant growth and if I was to go back and look we were the

080with exception of in ela with the exception of Mark we were the lowest in 1819 the highest in 2324 in Hispanic same s we were the lowest now we're competing uh right at or higher with them same holds true we were the lowest in 1819 we are the highest in 23 24 um so significant growth in reading and and math that just gives you some some context to what we're doing um I'm always going to want to engage in the conversation or how we improve performance for all students I think we do that in a way that is innovative and drastically different than other states and we have a drastically different outcome um so as the board engages in this conversation I just wanted to provide you some information regarding the way of work that

081you all are leading that is producing um some some of the fastest growing rates in the state thank you Miss barenborg are you on I don't see her on the did we cut her off I am on thank you uh no comment I'm fine okay Dr PCA um so I guess um I'll start with you know I find it the slides in the presentation very helpful um I think you know objectively if you look at the data we clearly as a school district and a county um are doing great work to improve our achievement gaps and improve education for every kid I I don't think that's really something anyone can question objectively although I'd be happy to hear their objections um and questions about that um but I think the data is really clear that

082you know we're we're vastly improved um compared to most of the other counties in the state um and you know obviously we have had the joint work group I believe it is that has been meeting monthly um and that has been a big you know potential part of this growth um uh I do have one question is have is that joint workg group that currently is meeting because right now the policy we're discussing is a new workg group that's separate from the old workg group that's currently running um that would look at achievement Gap Improvement the one that is currently ongoing um does that meet monthly and it is that a court ordered mandate how does that work the current joint work group so yes the committee is in place we haven't met since I

083believe April or or or may um we have had some canceled meetings in in between don't have one during the summer we just had meeting for September um that we're having to to reschedule so in this policy because this is as it stated this is a policy that goes into effect after we obtain unitary status um that committee would continue uh with this committee and this policy would then begin that specific work to continue to have an eye on that specific area right right um and it is the current work group The Joint work group is that um mandated by court order to meet monthly is it it's not mandated to meet monthly no but it is mandated that we have it in place so it's mandated that it exists and generally meets but they

084don't regulate the frequency or timing on meeting I'll check regarding frequency but I think there's a specific initiative around um frequency that's fair that's fair you may not know off the top of your head um and what I had seen I I thought it looked like you guys hadn't met in April hadn't met in May not met in June July August and are now rescheduling September to potentially October and I just want to make sure from a district stpoint we're available all these months to meet right we were available is that true or so we had September which was scheduled NAACP rescheduled that specific meeting the previous one um I was out of town and asked to reschedule the meeting prior to that was actually um we cancel we collectively canceled the meeting because the

085work product that we were to discuss wasn't available to discuss okay you were probably waiting on new data and it was about to come out and it didn't make sense to me right yeah yes to that response and it does say once a month to meet yes once a month okay so I mean I obviously I think that we should try to meet once a month um it looks like we haven't done that well the last no five or six months um and you know I guess the question becomes uh this new policy that we potentially and considering changing to start meeting now um if the current worker group has not been meeting for you know maybe five months and it it obviously the district is doing the work daily a so I want to

086I want to say that that the data shows that you guys are doing the work um and generally have been available to me except for on one month's occasion it sounds like um the benefit I guess of another workg group that maybe we have a little more control over their frequency of meetings um and establishing somebody who who is going to be committed to me every month um would be something I would be interested in because I mean just from you know I'm not trying to point fingers at any party um but from like a Department of State or diplomacy point of view just generically if you have one or more part two or more parties meeting to discuss an issue um or a problem or a conflict and you're trying to resolve or create

087work on that and you're not able to meet for five months that alone gives me a lot of data it gives me a lot of data on the ability of this group to actually do the work effectively efficiently are they really interested in doing the work um you know if the Department of State was trying to work with another country like Venezuela and their new president and resolve the conflict in Venezuela and they're not willing to meet for six months that tells the Department of State everything they need to know you know um so just generically and I'm not once again I'm not trying to point the fingers at anybody there was some summer involved there was um you know maybe we're waiting for data one month there's some extraneous details here um but if

088I I like the idea of potentially starting another workg group now um I'm interested in discussing that um one that has Community involvement one that has the NAACP um in School District representation I don't know if I I can think of a negative um having another group of people just meet and discuss what can be done to try to improve this that being said I'll go back to my original preface my original statement is it's very clear to me the district is doing the work the data shows that we are growing um way faster than almost any other District in the state and we're outpacing the state in general so it's it's obvious that we're doing the work and we're doing it well um but it's hard for me to to say that having another

089group that's willing to meet monthly um would be a negative especially if all concerned parties are there I don't you know I'm not interested in leaving out any party um but that's kind of where I'm coming from right now thank you Dr PCO I have just a few words um policy 2130 uh was approved by the board in 202 to with a 50 vote and a lot of work went into this policy we are doing the work our African-American achievement plan is part of our strategic plan we're doing the work and this policy's main purpose is that we will continue to do the work after unitary status one of the reasons and I was part of this um I thought it was important is that we have districts who have received unitary status they put

090everything on the Shelf nothing there and and then they were sued again because they were not doing the work so it's just a commitment to our community to our school district that we won't let down we'll continue to push forward with our students you know when you have an action item at the end of a meeting on changing words in a policy you know obviously I was blindsided um I just show it just shows to me that you're not giving the respect you need to give to not only board members but to our public and for those people who stayed and talked about it that was fine but there would have been a lot of other people who would have stayed and made comments when you look at this policy um it has a lot

091lot of information but when we received this right before it was discussed there were words crossed out that's still bother me and this is public record anybody can get this but when you look at the superintendent's achievement Gap oversight committee the superintendent was crossed out NAACP was crossed out giving feedback dispar disparities crossed out and then we had the work group crossed out quite a bit change to committee but anyway just not having this ahead of time it was very very hard to to get through this so I I did study it um what Dr PCA just said is you know we are doing the work that's a given we'll never let down on that but again this policy depending on who's who's on the board we want to make sure that the work continues

092we had a federal court order in 1964 and then right now we are under the 2018 joint plan the most recent order I've gone to court a couple times with the group um I just think number one it's a terrible precedent to really really bring an action item that the board members are not aware of that is policy that took a long time to work that's number one issue I had with that and then not having the time to really look at it review it and discuss it had a real issue with that but um when you look overall at everything and the last one is board commitment the board in all schools in our system will shall take active measures to maintain high expectations for students and to eliminate persistent I'm going to read

093as it was disparities and underachievement in the academic performance of individual students subgroups based on race as ethnicity and economic class active measures shall be defined as those which promote Equitable inclusive and supportive educational environments that are free from discrimination and then the last part on this policy right here the board shall evaluate this policy at the close of the 5-year validity period to determine the terms of the renewal cycle but any changes any changes in this achievement Gap oversight work group the original one must be adopted in accordance with the administrative procedures act and by a super majority vote by the board so that would have to take four people to have any changes in this and obviously I I would not agree with it I think there's a lot of history here that

094we really just can't sweep under the rug I know Dr Moore is committed uh in this District to closing the Gap we did well on the last test we can do better we can always say that but these are the kind of things I just don't think we can throw out to our public and our school board without having a real discussion I just think this should have been put on the the workshop agenda that day Dr Moore is very am meable to that Miss Rosario added two things today you know that's fine this is a time we can discuss but when you look at this achievement Gap policy and where we want to go it takes a super majority thank you Mr Ario can I just provide a little bit of just to provide

095a little bit of context the last meeting was March 7th uh we had a meeting scheduled for April and then based on that agenda you all recall uh we had a Clos session possible litigation and at that time mediation for we requested to go to to go to mediation the attorneys had the opportunity to to speak and the agreement is that you have to have two continuous meetings to establish the need for for mediation uh the intent of that I'm not oversharing is my desire is to get to the point in which the work group is evaluating the the work evaluating the outcomes that were just there um that was determined so there's been a great deal of work between the attorneys in terms of working out that that mediation and it was determined that

096we need to have the next meeting um that next meeting once was scheduled as as i said information wasn't available the um June meeting I was unavailable and then the last meeting uh we are in the process of rescheduling right now M Rosario um okay so a few things but before I get to those uh what was voted on at our last meeting as a result of all of the um um the talking back and forth was to ensure that this would be vetted for legal sufficiency before today's meeting at least so that we can get that feedback I haven't received any feedback on the recommendations that Mr McDonald has put forward so I'm going to ask Miss Shad if she can um provide you know you know the vetting of this recommendation and um

097does it pass um for legal sufficiency um to see you know if they want to make any particular changes or revisions to it um and uh if you have any specific questions about it I'd be happy to answer them in terms of the case you know I spoke with my colleague Matt Carson it it would not affect your case so that would not be an issue but you may you know just having this first chance to look over it and discuss it as a work group may want to discuss it make some changes to it thanks and uh thank you for that I'm glad to hear that you you vetted it um the other question that I had was um if we if this does move forward just to be clear on the timeline for

098public hearing um is that 28 calendar days because in the past it's always been 28 calendar days and not 30 or 28 work week days or business days can you clarify that for us please yes so when you adopt policies you adopt them in accordance with your policy um I know the policy name is legislative making I think but it's in accordance with the administrative procedures act which does require you to give public notice at least 28 days in advance so when you have it at a meeting where you um advertise it for public hearing that advertisement is what needs to go out at least 28 days in advance of when it's going to be heard at a board meeting so depending on the timing of your meetings you know it's usually not the next

099meeting I would say um just because it needs to get put in the paper at least like I said 20 days in so it's 28 business days calendar days sorry 28 calendar day 28 days is 28 calendar days calendar okay correct um and I think um to respond to Dr Moore and the slides that you provided I think you made the case perfectly for what Mr McDonald is asking to do the work is being done this this one of the things that I even mentioned I think I don't know what was it a year or two ago when I brought this forward and said why are we holding off you know and I was told well that's what we're doing now and I knew that we were doing doing it but the language in the

100current policy um confirms the complete opposite which is well not the opposite but it confirms that this policy is was created with the intent not to be implemented until after we reach unitary status but because we are currently in litigation it is so fluid no one could determine when that could be I mean at this point if you go all the way back to the original desegregation order how many years has that been now I mean we this could take another five years this could take another 10 years and we have a policy and this one of the issues and yes at the at the onset of this I did vote for it in 2022 but you know like most things you kind of think things over and you realize that the purpose of a

101policy is not to make a statement for something in the possible future the purpose of the policy is to drive the daily work of the superintendent and the daily work of the school board I mean yes the school board and and the school district um but I have yet and I have asked many attorneys have you what what is the the is the practice of create and any CEO could answer the same question you create policy to drive the daily work current daily work you don't create policy it's a bad precedence to create policy including the current litigants that are suing you because it's so fluid you don't know which way the wind is going to blow you know look at what we have now we started out with the joint plan that established an

102equity committee and then in 2022 that was in 2018 and in 2022 it was approved by the courts to no longer have an equity committee but to then have a workg group a joint workg group my point is that it it it changes it's fluid and to create policy without knowing what the end result may or may not be um just it it's just not good to do now to address an end I'm glad that Miss shatak actually confirmed that this is not going to make or break it's not going to hurt our case um it's not going to make or break anything because what the judge is going to look for are the the uh the sections I'm thinking of the name the sections that are required of us within the joint plan that's

103the data that they're going to look at um what we could do is create a resolution stating that we resolve to continually work past um unitary I mean unitary status whenever we get there we can resolve that at that point we are going to continue the work moving forward in XYZ you know way however way you all want to write it um that might help you know but I just don't think that it is smart for us to have a policy that includes the current litigant uh it just now I do like Dr pca's idea of having a current uh achievement Gap work group and I think that's what I heard you say and the members or the membership of that current achievement Gap work group could be members of the end daacp could be

104members of our community could be parents could be business work could be pretty much anybody um that we deem to be on this or that even Dr Moore would recommend and in that case we're getting that feedback to ensure what was that what's that I thought I heard you say something oh no no no oh and in that way we could actually you know we could see that the work is currently being done um the recommendations that I see here are establishing what I understand it is as I mentioned when it was first brought uh to us it's establishing a a committee not a work group just kind of identifying some of the differences um if there is a committee it needs to work in the sunshine um right now our current work group serves

105in the sunshine but again that's because it's court ordered right we it's not a work group I mean it's not a committee it's a work group and so the Assumption for that is because there is litigation in involved in that and our attorneys are involved that work group has to work has to serve in the sunshine whereas any other work group doesn't necessarily have to work in the sunshine because they are providing information to the superintendent um but committees do committees that are assigned by the school board have to serve in the sunshine so there's a difference there so I think that you know that needs to keep that in mind as we move forward and Dr Moore if I say anything that is not correct correct me please um one of the things that

106I see with regard to disparities I don't understand why everybody likes that word we want to get away from using disparities I mean the real definition of disparities is a difference in the level of treatment between unfair economic groups which is which is which we do have um um but but achievement gaps you mentioned it at the very onset of your presentation Dr Moore when you said you do not look at achievement gaps in subgroups you look at achievement gaps for all students you very clearly said it you you made the case in your presentation so you don't look at disparities based on economics or any other unfair groupings you look at all students and where they are academically right that's what you that's what you stated that's what you mentioned we provide the intervention

107based on the deficiency so we address academic Improvement for all students regardless of social economic status we're addressing the deficiency when it comes to academics and then we problem solve around whether you need free and reduced lunch you're addressing um the data that's in front of you based on on the defici the need or deficiency yeah that's thank you you're you're you're making the case um the school district uh I'm looking at the recommendations um the one thing that I would recommend as I mentioned before um is that the school district or in this in this policy in the recommendation and in the current policy they both say that the policy shall remain in effect uh for 5 Years From implementation or from whenever we reach unitary status I have always been in the mindset

108that this work is currently happening As We Know by your presentation and it there should not be an expiration date there shouldn't be an end date it should be Perpetual it should be the the daily work that happens naturally we shouldn't have I recommend the changes I recommend removing that all together there shouldn't be an end date um it should be something that is ongoing um which is currently happening so to create a policy that actually mirrors what you are currently doing Dr Moore makes sense to create a policy that actually says that you are indeed addressing academic gaps that you are currently closing those gaps that you are doing this same work it just makes sense and you don't have to wait until we reach unitary status again which could be 5 10 15

10920 years from now who knows hopefully not but who knows my last thing sorry sir you want to talk to no it wholeheartedly believe we are doing the work right now the policy is I and I don't need this policy to continue to do that work um the structures that we have put in place the engagement of conversation with board members both individually and collectively um is is the work or the interaction that our community needs to continue to move the the needle forward this is an additional body of of work it it is creating a committee um that I don't think that we need because this is the priority of of the board that I I just think we do this work and if I don't do this work then fire me um find

110someone else to to do the work um this committee isn't going to change isn't it's it's just one additional thing um that we have to do um where I think we're already doing I think we're all doing it at the absolute highest level the variance between the the current work group um and the continuation of this work group there're two different work groups they're two different they're two different work groups but at the end of the day I believe we have a unitary school system the agreement that the board the system agreed to in 2018 is this structure which still stays stays in place which is to have this committee uh to prove it just don't put some numbers or some data on the screen which is very very encouraging uh and it shows a

111great deal of growth over the last 5 years and I'm extremely proud of it and I'm sure everyone in the room is extremely proud of it but it's that and then some and the data is one indicator but when you look at the green factors and the green factors are the factors that need to be evaluated to determine unitary status it's more than just academic outcomes it is looking at Transportation it is looking at extracurricular activities it is the sub groups of each of those different areas of the joint plan that group The Joint work group is to evaluate the district's progress towards unitary status I feel David more that we are there but we have to a create the relationships uh to and the structures and the protocols which have taken a great deal

112of time um to get to that specific point the creation of this policy and it is it is not typical to have a policy that says this will go into effect after uh you you do something but it was an insurance that we to provide to the court to say that the district the school board is committed to continuing that specific work so I see them as um and we've communicated that to the court so I see that the The Proposal of this committee which is to evaluate um the efforts of the system for continued elimination or reduction of the Gap I see that as the school board um responsibility and my responsibility um so I I don't know that we need an additional committee to do the work that we are collectively already doing

113um and then this committee is looking specifically uh the current committee at the work the work group I'm sorry the work group around the green factors uh so we can go to court at a certain point certain point sooner the better uh in which the entire committee says we collectively as a community um think we have gained unitary status that's that's the desire of the court and and the court and um Doc Jones has has been there I I have been there um it has been made abundantly clear to me that that is the expectation of the judge who is Williams who's over seeing the the case is that the parties come together to say that you have unitary status and and she's going to be she's going to hold True to this work group

114being successful to reach the outcome that was agreed in 2018 so a little all over the place but I hope that's think I think you said it perfectly you don't need the policy to determine the current work this particular policy to determine the current work that you're already doing correct again you seem to just keep adding to support Mr McDonald's recommendations in that in that sense I would say then do away with the entire policy because you're doing the work Al together you're you're currently doing it now you also said that the the and and this is where I think it's very confusing and it it presents as controversial so I'll be the one to say it the joint work group is separate and apart because that joint workg group based on litigation right based

115on court order is supposed to happen to accomplish certain things right we have those sections that we have to address the joint work group that has been meeting had been meeting has not met in many months but had been meeting before they were they are required to meet on a monthly basis to address the items in the joint plan in in in the partial unitary joint plan right from 2018 that work is still going on this work group committee is different this work group is saying at a future date God knows when you the superintendent will create an achievement plan achievement Gap work group to close the gap for all students that's the the gist of this which is exactly what you are currently doing so you don't need it for a future date because

116you're currently working on it what becomes controversial was that in this policy current policy it includes includes the words or it includes in the purpose the current litigation case it also includes in there at the end that this policy won't begin until after unitary status so those two things in this one policy make it very complicated and assume give the impression that it's going to be controversial because if we don't approve it we don't we're not in favor or we're not in support of reaching unitary status or addressing the issues within the black uh student population and the Gap closing that Gap you know it's just going to seem like we're not in favor of any of that work which it could couldn't could be couldn't be further from the truth because if we want

117to address the achievement gap for all students that would include of course and I would think as a priority for this board which I know that this board has already said many times it is a priority to reach unitary status and to reach every single area that is required of us in the 2018 joint plan which Like You on face value I would say we've probably already gotten there at least on many of those areas so this plan that Mr McDonald and and and after talking with you Dr Moore this plan or this policy that Mr McDonald's is recommending just seems to make sense to either make it a committee that happens now or do away with it all together and then we can come up with a resolution or we can even come up

118with a policy that actually just very simply says we are committed to reaching unitary status and doing going above and beyond all that is required of us P even past unitary status I mean that simply in a policy will be exactly the same thing really um so I I see those two opportunities my last Point okay is on the issue of super majority so in doing the we have other policies that actually have super majority in there and in thinking about that I'm going to pose this to um to our attorney there is no definition of super majority super majority doesn't even there's nothing in Robert's rules that addresses super majority haven't found anything in legislative uh in in legislation that address the super majority only 2third you can see two-thirds in there um there's

119nothing in our policies that actually Define super majority uh you would think that super majority would be 50% plus one or the majority simple majority plus one but it's not been defined so can you please address the super majority right now there are four board members and it's supposed to be based on the Quorum if we were at a su a special meeting and only three board members showed up the simple majority would be two what would be the the super majority yes through the chair so you do have it in not many policies but you have it in a few policies as you noted so I was looking at the policies that you do have it in and it appears that I thought I had them pulled up in a couple of policies that

120you have it um it does say like your mascot policy 97002 it does say that it requires a super majority and the term super majority means one vote more than a simple majority of the Quorum present and then you also have in policy I know it was in one more policy that you had super majority on um and you defined it the same way and so I would say that that would be how you would be defining it here um yeah I think it's in your policy no that does not look correct I lost the other policy that you had it but you had it defined the same way and if you look at just Wikipedia like what's a super majority it's you know something over a majority right so I I think that that

121is correct you have to look at what the Quorum present is and then you have to look at what a majority is and then it just has to be more than that so like one member more than that would be your super majority so but the but none of that is it's not other than that one policy which I did remember that um I actually wrote the mascot policy so I do remember that but because it's not written anywhere okay let's just say a special meeting were called tomorrow three board members show up of the three a simple majority would be two but the policy that's before us is a policy that says you need a super majority vote in that particular case there wouldn't need to be a super majority or could there I

122mean there wouldn't be because it would be two it's just two there you can't get get the simple plus one CU then that would be a unanimous vote but then that doesn't Define uh super majority so I would say that it does because it does talk about super majority meaning one vote more than a simple majority of a quorum present so it depends on what your Quorum is so if your quum is five three let's go with the three a majority and four is a super majority if your Quorum is only three then your majority is two then your super majority is three which is also unanimous but in that instance that's what the super majority is so it is dependent on what your Quorum is yeah now one thing to remember with regard to

123your Quorum too is that as long as you have a quorum um physically present you may have somebody also like like Miss Borg is today joining um the your video teleconferencing and they can vote as well but that we know that's the case anyway right I'm just pointing that out is that it's it's not just physically present it's um yes all of your board members well you need a physical Quorum you do to have so that that doesn't that doesn't have anything to do with whomever is on video you need a physical um Quorum yeah I think that we need to discuss that further because it's not clear and um it sounds to me like we need to address or talk about um defining that for this board uh since it's not clear clearly defined

124in Robert's Rules it's not clearly defined in state law um it seems obvious I agree with you that if you have you know five board members a super would be at least one over them simple um but I think we need to have that in writing because it could be what if some boards have 10 board members or seven board members and they've defined their super majority to be um six whereas their simple might be what would be their simple for would be four of the seven but they might have in their policy six of the seven whereas you know you and I might say well all you need is five anyway my point is I think we need to Define that so mam CH just just okay I got a lot to say but

125go ahead okay my recommendation is that we don't move forward with this policy my recommendation is you continue with the current policy that you have in place with the understanding that it is um not a typical policy but the intent of the policy um was to ensure that we never walked away um from from that work those are that's my recommend thank you yeah yeah I I haven't it's my turn um when you look at the executive summary of the achievement Gap oversight workg group in an effort to be proactive it is incumbent upon the school district of IND River County Board to turn its focus toward closing the achievement Gap the current provision in place eventually addresses in the distant future the achievement Gap issue uh when I work with Dr shafty Dr War

126Dr Jacobs on all of this it was simply the intent when he's not there other board members aren't there will we continue the work you're right you won't see any like this you won't see many policies like that we are making a commitment to continue the work the work group that is established by the court order is a work group established by the court order um while I was on the team we cancelled two meetings and then I know the NAACP I looked at it because it was on our meetings all of a sudden it's canceled they cancel don't know the reason lawyers whatever but of the last three cancelled we canceled two of them one the day before when you look you you just can't say I'm going to throw out this policy that's

127almost like when we had the action item oh we're going to look at words in a policy we cannot do that to our board and we cannot do that to our public people who stayed and maybe knew about it they had some things to say I know people who left early that time would have stayed had they known I go back to to what Dr PCA said we're we're doing the work we've got to continue the work with the work group that that is the most important thing to do I agree this this to me I think is just getting torn into things that we're missing the Point Let's Be The District in the state that says we're never going to let this go we're never going to put it on a shelf we're never

128going to get sued again this is a district that went to number nine in the in the state with all of our testing and so forth you saw the the growth we've had at Hispanic and black students but every one of us in here would say it's not enough we've got to do better and that's why we're in education when we look at um obviously we can't vote at a workshop or anything but I just think this is Muddy in the water this is here so that we will continue to do the work I have hope um on on the work group we had the partial unitary status I'm I'm sure every board members know you know the 10 components of the 2018 joint plan we had the partial unitary status with the last board

129good job on the facilities administrative and support staff now we've got those other components a lot of them deal with mentoring hiring African-American students the achievement Gap extracurricular transportation we were close I think on a few of them and I know the NAACP in the school district have the same Focus we want to do right by all of our kids in this particular instance are African-American students one thing that bothered me the most on these cross outs again I couldn't look at this till after the meeting that we actually cross out the NAACP in this new committee that doesn't even make sense we do not need to change anything here once we get the unitary status once we really say to the work group maybe as the board we say come on you've got to

130meet every month let's do it let's go we want this work done we want to continue to monitor it that's the key that is the key I know Mr Brown is not going to ignore him in in the audience that is the key everyone on that committee work group committee has work to do and they know it I think I told you this before when this started I wasn't with the school district I asked Mr Brown if I could be on the equity committee at that time for the NAACP I was not chosen that's okay I was at the meetings before I ran for Schoolboard because I knew how important it was we do not need to mess with this we need to focus on what is happening now we need to follow the federal

131court order and we need to support the district doing the work and the NAACP doing the work and I'm not a lawyer but in to change anything any revisions to this achievement G oversight workg Group Policy must be adopted in accordance with administrative procedures act and a super majority vote by the vard come on everybody in here knew a super majority was four out of five I know we can write it down but we knew a majority with three votes M super majority four let's not play games that's all I have so I have a followup oh Dr yes Dr Dr McDonald I'm sorry Mr McDonald I'm sorry yeah first of all you keep mentioning the time frame it should be noted that this came up what two weeks ago so we've had two weeks

132before now to to think about or address it that's correct we just couldn't discuss it until now I've got the flooor thank you um so the next step would be to move it to a a business meeting which will be two weeks from now to offer it for public um discussion for 28 days then the foll on uh follow on business meeting in October would be the final resolution so I don't think the time frame uh is too tight or too unreasonable for us to be able to to address this I don't think that that the time frame is a factor I do want to acknowledge again the great work that Dr and the team has done and really impressed to see in terms of growth um the growth uh has been most substantial uh

133for our black uh students which was terrific not so impressive for our Hispanic students who whose growth has been 1% um uh if we are concerned about about that Gap if we are concerned about there being a gap and if that's worth focusing on um The Gap should focus on not only the black but uh uh the Hispanic students and perhaps others um as time goes on that that need need that Focus um we should recognize that um well in terms of the the question of whether whether it makes sense to exclude the NCAA NAACP um it wouldn't make sense to create a committee at this point in time which basically would replicate a workg group which is already in place at this time however that work group's Focus is on working to achieve unitary

134status and it includes a number of other factors as Dr Moore stated um this committee would be a committee of the board the the the committee of the board's role would be to inform and um report to the board to help the board um make policies and make decisions and take actions so that's different than a work Group which is a result of a legal action that we're in place um there are other there are uh factors at play outside the factors that uh the school district can directly affect particularly family family uh um perhaps economic factors Community factors those are all factors that uh parents or other community members can bring to play in a discussion and they can hopefully Identify some uh challenges some issues and some solutions that uh they can bring

135to the board the board can suggest as methods to implement and further achieve and the reduction of that Gap so it this committee plays a very different role than the work Group which is currently going on in parallel um the uh uh I I guess in response to the question of um do we want to be the district to say I I think we want to be the district to say that we're focused on the kids and if we're focused on the kids kids I can't say anything that makes more sense than to take this nebulous sometime in the future uh policy and bring it forward and implement it in such a way that it can have a real impact and that can really it can really do something to inform the board to help

136Dr more and the and the staff ideally find uh some additional new ways to reduce that Gap and to serve our children so I I I I propose this because I uh I promised that I would be focused on the kids and I think this is uh one way that we can do that thank you Miss barenborg do you have anything at this point I know she's there m no I've just been listening to everything thank you okay um just to reiterate superintendent said no this committee was really not needed at this time I am in no way ready to just show throw this to the public we haven't even discussed every one of these cross outs so I'm not ready to do that and again we we have talked about what the work group

137is doing um that is established and what there they are doing if you look at the 10 components of the 2018 joint plan that says it all to me this is what we must do why would we do it adding an extra group like this this other one was talking about once we do get unitary status and I see that as flowing and doing something that will be good for this community doesn't say say add another committee right now we're just I think messing up the work because a work group when they meet regularly are doing the work they have the data if you've ever been to one of those meetings or online with those meetings that data is out there that data is given to the NAACP beforehand uh the work group has it

138so you're ready to discuss all of those components I see this as extra work not only on the superintendent but on the District staff and the Board needs to put their their support their energy behind the work group that is working under the e um the 2018 joint plan I'm way ready to even start talking about these things and there's no vote at a workshop so lot of lot of cross outs that I don't agree with Miss Rosario yeah I I think you just said it perfectly Dr Jones you just said you're not ready to implement a new work group now but there's no but there but the work is being done I mean it just seems very um it it's it's it's like you're you're speaking in circles no ma'am but you're saying the

139same thing and I understand what you're saying but then you keep coming along to this isn't work that needs to be done now and yet this is work that needs to be done now I it just I I get the sentiment um in and I understand um the I think that we should have a policy then um that actually says what the first sentence reads in this policy and the last paragraph We can very simply say we are committed to ensuring that we will never again you know um however way you we will never again um be in litigation for deseg ation uh or under the desegregation order or a future desegregation order but let me ask you this and then that actually addresses exactly what you want without convoluting it without making it complicated

140with all this other stuff in here that doesn't address black and brown students only IT addresses all students and I think that's that's the difference is that all this other stuff is an academic uh achievement Gap group for all students not just black and brown students and if we're going to work towards a future work in our district that is past unitary status addressing the issues that are in the 2018 joint plan and Beyond it should be specific to black and brown students um to make sure that we never never end up in another some other lawsuit later on down the line but you also said that you didn't have time to look there's a lot of things but you did because you knew that it would be on this well I disagree with a

141lot of the Cross outs but this is the time this is the this is the time in which we're supposed to talk about every single one of these cross outs in our work group I mean in our Workshop okay you know this is the time where it was on the agenda and it I mean to constantly bring up the fact that Mr McDonald added it at the last meeting uh um doesn't doesn't help us right now we're talking about it now and having your questions answered about each one of these now would be a great opportunity for you to do it um that's what this is all about that's what our work that's what we do okay I can start I can start with that so I mean I'm all in favor with a new

142policy that actually just very specifically very clearly and very plainly says that we are committed past unitary status to never be in litigation again okay it how you will but yeah I understand that Dr P want to say something yeah if we if we do move this forward um I would like to recommend changing um under superintendent achievement Gap oversight committee um this is on uh I like page three um I would I would like to change the membership to include the NAACP um District as well as Community representation that Community could be appointed by the board um or there could be another uh you know way to get those members but uh if you can retool the membership to in include those three groups of uh parties um that's something I would recommend and

143then you know I I think in general the biggest issue with school districts and these lawsuits that um have been resolved is that statistically they go back to doing what they were doing before um in this policy we commit to doing it for five years as currently written I I would like to change it as there's no Sunset to what the work I and I I think if you do that what we actually do is we create a better policy potentially than what we have you'd have to go through all the strikeouts and all these things but if it's in perpetuity it includes the NAACP it includes community members and it includes the district um I think we have an excellent uh committee um that can keep doing this work after unitary status is achieved

144um and you know we may find that a a different committee uh with slightly different composition than our current joint workg group they may have some interesting ideas on how to make some improvements it may it may not change anything it it may help um but I don't think it can hurt anything um so I think there is a potential Pathway to move forward here I understand your resistance to trying to change for me for many reasons um uh but if it did include U the NAACP as membership and the committee continuing the work of ending achievement gaps in all students and perpetuity I I mean I think that's something that maybe we could get your support on possibly it might take work to do it but now you said after unitary status correct you

145you just did say that in in what part what we question for the attorney before I start going through all this um it must be any revisions must be by a supermajority vote so if we don't have a super majority vote we don't think we have a super majority vote is this something we don't need to talk about I'm just asking we've been talking about it already yeah um so first of all I just want to say I was able to find that other policy um it is commemoration of school facilities is the other policy in which you require super majority and it defines it the same way um which is super majority vote shall mean one vote more than a simple majority of a quorum present um and so if you all do not

146because I am hearing a rather diverse um opinion some people saying maybe we should get rid of the policy altogether maybe we should change it to two sentences maybe we should change it to say this you know what if you can't get a super majority um to kind of have the same idea about this policy it it will die when you vote on it so it may not be worth bringing to a vote if you can't kind of feel in this work group that you're getting some sort of consensus with how you feel about you know moving forward with this policy and just something else to put out there is that the whole purpose of putting super majority in a policy is a board's trying to bind itself to the policy and make it harder

147to change so that is the purpose of putting that in there to begin with and that's what we did in 2022 with the 50 vote it was a real commitment to say when we get unitary status we're going to keep moving on we're going to keep moving on whether we're here whether the superintendent's here we're just going to let not let that go um for five years though yeah we said yeah that how about we just keep doing it I'll say I would go with perpetuity but again if we're going to take the time to go through this and I'll start I'll do it right now I mean but um do we have a super majority because that is in policy but that but that we discuss yes ma'am yeah I I don't think it's

148appropriate for you to ask if we have a super majority now because we're not taking a vote now that's true and right now we're just discussing and we don't want to have any potential violations of anything we certainly don't want to hear how board members will will vote but it does seem like he has some support for some consensus Dr I mean Mr McDonald I keep saying doctor okay um uh begin Dr Jones I have a question for you you mentioned before something about um uh something to the effect of if this is not voted on or if we don't keep the current policy um the the inference was that the the board doesn't care about the work that was not my inference well this is how I understood what you said and again I'm

149not quoting you exactly but um you made some sort of infer inference to that when you said um this is what the board should think is very important and if we do away with it it would so my question to you is if this entire policy did not exist right now are you saying that would you interpret that to mean that this board doesn't think that the work towards unitary status and Beyond is not important I can't answer that for every board member I don't know General I'm saying I'm just saying in general when we did this and again you know you were part of the board with that and this took a lot of time that we committed ourselves even though we may not be here to make sure that work would continue to

150me it was pretty simple we will continue the work and within the policy we had the board commitment the superintendent commitment um the summary the purpose so I thought it was pretty clear that we would continue the work and as someone has been in this District a long time that that meant a lot to me so I just thought it was saying hey this is really cool this board's going to continue the work that was the main purpose on that and being on the um the work group uh I felt that was important for the judge to know we did share that with the judge I thought it was important for the NAACP to know and I thought it was important for our community to know I know we're getting into a lot of details

151but that was that was a simple message for me so it's simple message and so do I think it would not continue not with Dr Moore here we'll be working on it every day but no when I'm gone when you're gone and we're not on the board we want to make sure it it it does it does continue and that was the main purpose so I just think at this time my opinion that we have the work group we continue to focus on the work group we support Dr Moore the NAACP and making sure they have everything they need to get it done and that this stays the same as far as we will continue when we get unitary status because the work is being done you know it's just this is just if you

152will a a safety net for our kids a safety net but everything that we do is a safety net for our kids now currently not in 5 years or 10 years or 20 years everything that we do now is a safety net for our kids and so I think that that's when you throw things like that out there it kind of gives the impression as if we're currently not doing it mrar I'm just going to ask you just please please don't interpret what I'm saying let me well I'm a human being who listens to you and based on the words that you say I'm going to hear what what I'm going to hear and so when I bring it up and I ask you to clarify it's because that's how I interpreted it not how

153it is being interpreted by the entire world I should more speciic is hearing it this this with status yeah so my question to you is why not consider a policy that very specifically says we are fully committed to the 2018 joint plan and Beyond Dr where it doesn't have all this other stuff in it I guess one thing I would say is none of those questions came up when we talked about it but we're talking about it now I I know but I just to me that's a little bit concerning because when we wrote this okay but but but Dr Mo just want to ask Dr Moore the question I mean as far as um what Miss rosaro just said I just I just think this is something we should let stand for now and

154then move forward with our work group and then see where we need to go even then so through the chair multiple conversations taking place all the same time creating an additional policy to address the intent here um is a different a it's a different policy but you're also changing the structure and how you've committed to to to change it so we're here you're going to continue what was the work group uh with the NAACP versus saying we are continu to be invested in the um 2018 joint plan both saying the same thing but the structure on how you've committed to it is significantly different so it the board has to determine do we want to make changes to to this policy your super majority is that you can't change it unless there are four people

155to to change it doesn't mean you can't Workshop it right which is what you're doing and make recommendation changes it doesn't mean you can't send it out to public hearing you don't need um four votes or to to send it out to public hearing but when you come back for the final you would have to have the the super majority votes my recommendation again is keep the policy don't make changes to it because the intent of it is specifically to address uh everything you spoke about and um when when the policy was created my biggest concern with it is it it is changing it is adding responsibilities to me that I think we have demonstrated collectively that we already address um and as you and if you do choose to rework the policy it says

156superintendent achievement Gap Gap oversight committee but I'm I've been removed from the committee itself so it it's there there's some workshopping that has to to take place okay I would just ask the board if we could consider waiting until the work group meets for the next few months I'm assuming we'll have at least three before December before we take a look at making any changes in this would anyone have a consensus with that what would that do I'm just asking until the work group the actual work group meets the one that is federal court order see how they're going because they haven't met in a few months see if we need to maybe even take a look at this again I'm just asking to hold on this until we get some more meetings with our

157workg group which is a joint plan on what the federal court order is at this time that's that was my question so so the here's here's the part that gets that becomes the the convoluted you you're mixing apples and oranges one thing has nothing to do with the other what the current work group is doing and whether they meet tomorrow or in two months has no bearing on the creation of a policy that is to be enforced whenever the they're two totally different things and whether that work group is working well or they're failing in their function or their purpose again has nothing to do with the creation of a new policy you know or the creation of a policy um so I I just think those are two totally different things thank you all

158right let me rephrase that would the the school board consider um accepting the superintendent's recommendation not to create this uh work group this policy at this time well that he has said that twice now and just thinking it' be more work on him and I think I know it's two separate things we do have a work group established to take a look at our data and our joint plan so I'm just asking if we consider that I going to ask Dr if you have anything to say on that um I so I just want to take a moment to I guess give my opinion and recommendation um regarding the current joint workg group um since you guys haven't met since March you know as a it's my strong recommendation that you guys meet in September

159and not reschedule that meeting um this is a court ordered work group that needs to meet monthly um regardless of why you haven't met in soon to be six months you guys need to meet in September um and I'd like to hear other board members opinion to direct the district to set up a meeting in September because as far as I'm concerned it's a violation of the plan that we've committed to would you thank you would you um agree to set this aside for now another if if we can change the memberships to allow the NAACP District staff and then some community members superintendent and we also o change it to instead of sunsetting after 5 years to perpetuity I'm interested in continuing conversation on this policy because I think um you know I mean

160right now we have a joint work group that's sole thing is to look at um ending essentially a lawsuit but I think it would help to have a committee from the board that is focused essentially on achievement gaps and to include the NAACP in that that some District staff and some community members I I don't see that as harming anything okay um Mr McDonald you want to continue Miss Rosario because then we could start with all um I I I can accept Dr pca's recommendations there I would just add um Dr Moore to make sure that Dr Moore is on the work group um the NAACP or representatives of the NAACP um I would also um add uh any other uh family or parent you know community members um on that work group I know

161Dr Moore said that it would be more work for him but it's work that you're already currently doing anyway and then you also said that it's more work for if it were more work for you now or not yet it will be more work for you whenever we reach unitary status and Beyond so you either address it now or not um then the other thing so I would accept Dr pca's recommendations if you can make those changes um also I I definitely as I mentioned earlier do not believe in the five years I think it should be um um daily work um moving forward I have a a question or not a question maybe a question or a statement on super majority so I understand what the assumption is on super majority I get it

162some policies are very clear on the what the super majority is but others are not so the other ones are not clearly written where it says a super majority in this case would be one over or two over or three over the simple majority whatever it would be um and if a policy is not clear on that but others are that would mean that that policy would need to be written to be very specific thank you so I wasn't there when this policy was put into effect I'm only aware of three policies and all of your policies that mention simple majority and the other to Define it that same way so I would say that there this one should be read to be defined the same way I would also say that generally speaking if

163you have a word used in a policy that's not defined you use the normal um like dictionary definition and so if you look at the dictionary definition of what a super majority is it's a proportion of votes in excess of a simple majority so I mean I I that proportion any it could be anything but that's what I'm saying we're using one so I'm saying that's as small of a super majority as you could possibly have is saying anything over a majority which is what we're saying we're saying one over a majority so I don't think there's any other way you could read it sure you could it could be a proportion it could be 10% over or 3% over or 4% over or5 5% over whatever that is I mean it could be there's

164a case for that also depending on Quorum and depending on how many members there are so I think that just needs to be defined I I really do the what were the other two policies I know you said the mascot one what was the other what were the other two it's the commemoration of school facilities which is 7250 okay and the school mascot one is 97002 but even if you're looking at what was the third one the third one's the one we're discussing oh okay so those two were ones that I drafted and brought forward it's probably I made sure that there wouldn't be any discussions on what super majority is for those particular policies but what I'm trying to say is that it's something more than a majority so the smallest thing we can

165have more than a majority on our board is one more than a majority so I don't think there's any other way you can read it other than and requiring even more that's what I just that's what I said could can I respond Dr P has a comment just simply on a five person board a majority would be three and then a super majority could technically be anything over three four or five depending on stated things so at a minimum it's always going to be four here yes thank you to the board a question sorry say that again so the the majority on a five person board is three um a super majority is always going to be over that so it's either a four or a five and technically we we could write down you

166know and decide what that number is but it's it's always going to be at a minimum four okay we're going to start going through this line by line but Mr McDonald you're next um thank you um through the chair to miss shadik um would do we have a legal exposure as we're currently in litigation for 60 years with one group um due to issues in the past do we have a legal exposure from another group in the future if this tremendous success that we have particularly relative to the subgroup of black students if the Hispanic students remain at 01 uh percent growth over a period of time are we not exposed to a similar complaint and potential lawsuit from another group which says that we have not focused on them and that they're uh they

167are then the the brunt of an achievement Camp sometime in the future so um through the chair if I understand this question correctly so with desegregation that was something that was passed that all school districts were under and there were um you know lots of school districts under these desegregation lawsuits um there's still a few uh in addition to us so I would say that's kind of separate from the desegregation lawsuit that we're under there's always a possibility um for lawsuits whether they are well founded or not you know whether they're going to be thrown out as insufficient or not um so there's there's nothing you can do to really stop people from from filing lawsuits in that regard um having said that I think that everybody in the room has agreed upon one thing

168which is that the superintendent already putting things in place to lower the achievement gaps and that it's it's already being successful so I would say that that is you know the most important thing is is the work that's being done okay we're going to go because this is the time to do had a follow on to that yeah so it would seem that um there is that potential to a larger extent one of the objectives of of adjusting this uh policy would be to broaden it so that other um other groups such as Hispanic in this case or other groups that um need to be addressed now or in the future that they can get that attention that they can that their concerns and their issues and whatever their challenges are can be addressed as

169well um one of the and to Dr posa's point I have no objection at all for the NCAA NAACP to be uh a participant in this it was removed from from the uh perspective that it didn't make sense to create a new committee that would do not the same work but to do similar work in a parallel um uh State at the same time it sort of didn't make sense to say we're going to have this ongoing NAACP work group and then we're going to Comm a create a committee with the same people to do similar work that sort of didn't make sense that the reason for not including them was that just didn't make sense um but I have no objection to the recommendation that we have some members of that committee specified in

170the policy and uh we might want to specify as some of the subgroup members as as parents or potentially trying to include one or two other uh atrisk subgroups such as Hispanics um but I have no problem with that it just didn't seem originally that it made sense to do them concurrently as it was written okay let's start with the executive summary um I'm just going to address these to Mr McDonald since he brought these changes up first one why did you change from work group to committee okay because a committee uh is under sunshine and a work group aside from the one that currently exists would not be under Sunshine so it would not be and also this would be a committee reporting to the board so it's a committee of the board all

171right uh purpose the school board is committed to closing the achievement Gap and you cross out the next five lines right compliance with the deseg order as outlined in the 2018 joint plan for unitary status the Sharpton for School Board of Indian River count County Beyond Insurance compliance with the requirements of the courts August 2018 order document 128 just why did you cross all that okay because the work group as it exists right now that is the CH The Challenge and the charge and the responsibility of the ongoing work Group which exists so to leave that in I'd be creating an identical group the idea of this ACH this group is to focus on the achievement Gap itself and to be not connected to desegregation order even though the outcome this is success of this

172group would and should and hopefully would um very definitely um impact that achievement Gap and impact the same objectives that uh the desegregation order began okay the next sentence was establ establishment of a Workforce representative of all students you crossed out diverse I'm trying to find that spot it's under purpose purpose establishment which line okay um as well as establish of a Workforce representative of all um right it's it's taking spec the specific um uh NCAA issue NAACP issue keep making that mistake uh out of the out of the equation and broadening it so that uh the policy is going to address not only what um the original uh work Group which is ongoing right now addresses but to address a broader um range of potential aspects that might uh be applied here okay and

173then the work group vers committee you've already answered that um make recommendations to the board the superintendent and the executive team okay board commitment you cross out disparities can you tell me why um because I think under achievement more more directly focuses on the goal and intent of this committee which is um something that's measurable and something that addresses now and and ongoing U issues where we have um individual students or groups of students who are uh falling short of that objective and we would want this committee to look at those um uh those uh the data those students and try and find um Solutions and improvements based on that under achievement um Crossing out Equitable inclusive under promoting Equitable you said supportive educational environments but cross out Equitable and inclusive yes this is not

174directed at uh um diversity equity and inclusion objectives this is directed at uh underachievement and addressing underachievement specifically all right superintendent um disparities again uh got that one and the monitoring the data uh overall achievement Gap in each state assess subject and then the initiatives within the joint plan for the achievement which obviously is court order why did you pull that out which is our now federal court order right because this is not to address the federal court order the work group exists right now and is in place if they ever meet again to try and Achieve that this is separate to achieve a similar uh outcome but not tied to the court order or the desegregation order and they will will meet again we hope so I know um you cross out the superint

175intendent the school board will create an achievement G oversight committee should we should we bring him back in here well um this the superintendent is going to do all the work this is a committee of the board so the board is creating uh this committee and the superintendent's involvement as much as he has time and availability would be appropriate I hesitated to include him because he's he's a busy person he had in this he has the opportunity to appoint somebody but if if uh if we and the superintendent feel that he has the time to be involved in this then his membership in this committee would be very valuable okay and then comprised of six members you crossed out four members appointed by the naab NAACP three members appointed by the superintendent one by the

176school board okay so you go to one in River County resident appointed by each Schoolboard member totaling five and one member appointed by the superintendent okay all right committee membership we go into committee vers I don't want to go too far that because others have made suggestions to changing this and this this has been an appropriate place to to consider uh various constructions this construction is pretty similar to many of the other uh board committees as we construct and it has the addition of uh some representation from the superintendent if not the superintendent himself but I'm open to other ideas as to what would make this effective Dr Pasa did you add something on that earlier yeah I so I I had stated that um in order to move this forward um the memberships that

177I would like to see would be membership representation from the NAACP um the superintendent's office or District staff um as well as the community so it would be comprised of essentially three different parties the uh community staff or community members could be potentially appointed by board m num yeah um and as far as the exact makeup and number I mean you can maybe retool it and propose something I I don't know the exact number on the top of my head but yeah no matter what when this is retooled yeah we need to see it presentation from everybody see it Miss rosaro did you have anybody else on that one just adding the NAACP to this um as well um that's that was the same that was the same as uh Dr PCA mentioned I think

178that's important to add them to this okay okay so what uh to get an idea of number of people so what two members of the N NAACP is that appropriate or I think that's reasonable I mean if you had two NAACP members two District staff and then what I I would prefer to have maybe two or three appointed members of the board then how do we go about having that number obviously would be the difficult part maybe we we vote on each one no you're talking about a total number of how many maybe six or seven six or seven but each School Board member having one appointment well I would actually prefer that we don't have five uh appointed members I think it would be something closer to the two from the other parties like

179three um but then how do we get five board members to pick three people you could have rotating districts you could have a vote a majority vote for each appointment um there's different ways to go about that but I think something like 2 two and three would make a lot of sense and bring some balance it's not too many people you can still have a good discussion you're not getting lost in the bureaucracy of the the committee I would be very careful not to put us on this particular committee um it apparently according to the way that it'sin this committee could make recommendations to the board and I believe that there are rules specifically in in the sunshine and in Robert's Rules where if you are an active uh member of a committee that makes

180a recommendation back to the board it kind of puts us it might put us and I don't know the the language but I know that I did read that somewhere so I would just recommend that we not be a member of this committee for I see our attorney is shaking her head just to be sure that we are covering you know dotting all of our eyes and crossing our tees I think here we're talking about board members appointing members of the community to be Oh I thought I heard us being a part of it no oh I I apologize we were actually we're discussing the challenge of how do you have less than five because you have five board members and I guess in defense of the idea of five does make a little bit

181larger Community but if if if the idea behind this is to to go out to the community particularly um uh Hispanics and AF and African-Americans and others who are directly affected by to to reach out to the community to to try and get their ideas and their thoughts and their feedback and input then I wouldn't be concerned if we have five versus three yeah I would want one board member to choose a representative okay I would all right the committee membership that's work group grou group grou okay um committee yeah provide timely feedback and evidence-based recommendation for improvement related to District outcomes review to the board and the IRC and ACP was crossed out let's let's put them back in where are you now in Lost uh the last page I'm sorry Mr McDonald the

182last page under superintendent achievement Gap oversight committee it goes committee membership right before policy duration and revisions durations yeah cross out the NAACP let's I suggest we put them back in by the board well I and I guess no problem with it but I guess the terminology would probably be um the uh the board and the the members of the committee what is that right but no no that's not what you said on the cross out you just crossed out on the original one that we got that night right the board and the IRC NAACP which was crossed out and that's probably the first thing I noticed when I looked at this I yes ma'am here here's what I what I initially see here is that the committee doesn't make recommendations to the NAACP the

183committee makes recommendations to the board and so the NAACP is a part of the committee recommending things to us exct so it's kind of like a circular thing it doesn't make much sense like this so you say cross it out well well the idea is they're inclusive of the committee as we're constructing it so they would be they would have active input as well as feedback right they are giving us recommendations but the but the committee itself is a committee of the board so the report back to the board yeah I don't I'm provide timely feedback and evidence based recommendations related review to the board I mean why wouldn't you be able to give that I mean what's the issue with giving it to the NAACP I I don't think there's an issue at all

184I just I mean to specify that they don't make recommendations to the NAACP because the NAACP doesn't set policy at our school provide Tim the original policy made sense in that it was part of the the work group for the desegregation order but in this particular committee the idea is for it to function as and give direct recommendations to the board the NCAA would NAACP would have participation in that they would receive that information with the board and the public just from a terminology standpoint I don't know that how about then share with the NAACP at least have them be part of it well you can add a a bullet how about adding a bullet that says um an expectation um for from the school superintendent is to provide the recommendations back to the uh

185workg group so who's taken all these notes the video back if I can so and I I have no problem a video including the NAACP here but I really from a logic standpoint we're talking about what this committee will do and if the NAACP is on the committee it doesn't make sense they're reporting the Comm comme that they're a part of the reporting to themselves well we could share the information because they would then share with their well they're the ones sharing it with us yeah sharing with the group too I mean to that extent I belong I'm on two I sit on two committees part of my my responsibility is come back and report right to that to to this board what those committees have done and those committees don't don't report to us

186I take the responsibility of updating the board for that but that that's how I would see I would see they'd still be involved but that would be by implication I mean do you think um uh to the chair do you think that that there's a a ter an explanation here that needs to be added well I mean all of this you know I know we have the workg group the 2018 joint plan that is separate we're looking at this no matter what we have to make sure they are involved as far as a a Community member sharing with their constituents sharing with their families it's just I just want to make sure it's inclusive not exclusive yeah that's all and I'm just trying to think of how to what terminology that's what we'll have to

187think about because once this all comes about and we get it again again I have to look at the writing to see exactly what it's going to say as everybody else does okay then we go into the last part um shall we remain in effect for five years I think we did five years just to kind of move it forward but we can do in perpetuity as Dr PCA said is that what you said Dr PCA yeah yeah and I mean I think the and I'll reiterate why is that the the biggest problem with these uh desegregation lawsuits is that the districts generally go right back to what they were doing correct um and and the purpose of this policy was to say we're not going to do that we we're committed to helping every

188kid especially the kids that were historically um mistreated and there's no reason we can't continue to do that it doesn't need to Sunset I don't think it's going to be an excessive amount of work that necessitates it going away um and if it's starting to pick up Red Flags uh we're going to want to know that we're going to wish we had the committee doing the work whether it's 5 6 10 20 years from now long after all of us are gone thank you for saying that because that was the main purpose of this policy I I completely agree with the sentiments of that and I understand the necessity for it absolutely all right so then we end with um any revisions to this oversight committee policy must be adopted in accordance with administrative procedure

189act and by a super majority vote by the board I just want to make sure that's clear C so whenever this comes about we have a vote changes in policy need Super majority am I correct yes uh through the chair I thank you you are correct on that you should it's not I would say we would want to speci Pardon it's not defined in our bylaws um this question Mr Zario when you wrote that one about mascot super majority what did you mean just for my I put super majority which means means one past uh simple majority the simple majority that's what Dr PCA said that that was what I added for that particular policy we can Define for this one you might say as an example this policy um can only be changed with

190a full unanimous unanimous vote you know you can change it any way that you want if if you don't Define what that is it it it it yeah so but right now it's a super majority if if there's any changes and I think we've all talked about this again I don't want to be this have this be a catch 22 or I gotcha or a game there's no Goa so I would say four out of five would have to agree to changes in this policy am I correct Dr Mo I would my recommendation is include the same language as you have in two other places in your policy yeah just Define it majority plus one we just add that I I would be okay with a unanimous vote either that or super majority that's defined

191super majority but that's what it says already here's I have an issue with that I'll tell you why because when we have special meetings we had a special meeting I don't know there was a special meeting called last year I think it was whenever it was um and I and only three board members were there there was a it was you Dr uh miss miss barenborg and um Brian Barefoot and Brian Barefoot and when you have only three um to assume that you would have a unanimous vote on something is just I think it's unfair because you don't know about what you don't know what may happen you know what comes before you you might not agree with a particular paragraph that's in the policy or whatever it is um so I think that's pretty

192that could be tricky and that could be unfair um I just think that it it should be thought you know you should really think these things through in that particular case um and again it's not defined in our bylaws um committee policy must be I'm just looking at this policy now if you make any changes which we're we're looking to do and we've discussed some of the concerns or questions or agreement in order to change it you need a super majority vote by the board I just you know I know we could say well we haven't defined it whatever but I think we all know that it means four out of five on this board I mean alrighty um we need a just a question and I hear hear your statement I agree with it

193would we want not want to specify relative to what um M Rosario just said would we not want to specify uh a uh super majority of um majority plus one of the full board membership because that does exclude the possibility that three people in a meeting could have a have a unanimous decision but override this yeah well here's here's the thing though it's already in policy somebody help me here this is in policy we're making changes to the policy so when it comes to a vote for the changes in the policy it must be adopted within the administrative procedure act and a super majority vote by the board that's what it says am I correct Dr Mo okay all right that's all I want to say that's what it says here now in ter if

194we're looking to make changes we need a super majority vote so the question is would you want it to protect the Integrity of it would you want it to be defined as a super majority plus one of the board membership right rather than simple majority plus one vote simple majority plus one so you're talking about like if one person isn't here they can't vote or no simple majority Borg is here a simple majority plus one of the board membership means that if a special meeting of three people gathered together they do not have sufficient members to make that change it's based on the Quorum it's based on know it's 50 it's um simple majority of the Quorum present but it doesn't have to be I me saying it could be based on uh the full

195of the full membership which precludes your your issue that three people could gather together and be a majority Dr Mor so I would just I think what I'm hearing is includ language the all board members are present and it needs to be a a super majority four out of five four out of five that's what if all board members are are not present you can't vote on it then you can't vote on it you can't vote on it no if you're not present you can't vote at least four members had to be present and and you need to vote of at least four all right say that one more time and I I'm not I would look at mine looking at me all come crazy no this policy they get they're the board they can

196do whatever they want but see Dr Moore the thing is we should always make sure our Public's aware you know what I mean this is an action item this was an action item I agree and I think to me if you kept the language consistent as you did in the other items it simply replicate that language which says something three 3+ one correct majority plus one majority plus one simp okay my would be just to use the same language that you have in your other two to Define what a super majority is and that will keep it consistent against your policies and um I do think you know you can get into hypotheticals but usually you have four or five members present in which case you know it's going to end up being super majorities

197for so say that to me so I can put that down here what does it say in the other policy exactly oh yeah absolutely thank you um what it says in the other policy is that as used in this policy the term super majority vote shall mean one vote more than a simple majority vote of a quorum present what if there are four you can't vote then is that what you said four present than the super majority would be for um something else I was wondering if you wanted to Define in here is when you say um you added group based on socioeconomic status but that wasn't really defined so I wasn't sure if you wanted to Define it by like participation in free and reduced lunch and I wasn't sure if you wanted to

198also just look at the categories if you're adding categories if you wanted to look at the categories that you're adding in terms of who the group's going to be looking at um what are you Achi Gap that's under board commitment um where it says uh individual student subgroups based on race ethnicity and economic well the subgroups are defined in the state as far as I would just clean that as an economically disadvantaged which is the subgroup that we're I think we're trying to reference but economically disad you might have a student who is not economically disadvantaged and still Falls within the academic achievement Gap then you're excluding those students but you'd have a subgroup of that I mean not this is not individuals but you're talking about a subgroup no because yeah I'm talking subgroups

199I mean then you're excluding a certain group from looking at the achievement Gap Cross that out not every student is economically disadvantaged or not every student receives free and reduced lunch but still are academically challenged it really should be based on achievement under I'll let Dr Moren his committee or team look at that Dr Moore so can I Dr Pasa so it probably does make in in Molly's recommendation it does make sense to probably retool a little bit um that paragraph regarding different subgroups and the wording um I would try to leave it a little bit open-ended for room for groups that maybe you didn't think about um as well as I would try to include um a special need class as well because that's that's one of the big ones that uh across the

200country um has the biggest achievement gaps um but you could you could probably you know we want to look at underachievement in different subgroups but we don't necessarily have to name every subgroup you can say a list of subgroups including including but not limited too and but I would add um um special needs or the appropriate legal definition of that which I'm probably not stating so what so can you repeat that you would add special groups you look at under achievement in groups and you can list some including I would add special including but not limited to yeah including but not limited to you you can create a generic term that allows the committee because ultimately the goal is to empower this committee to go look and see through the data what they can do

201to improve things and they're going to they're going to find things that maybe were not realized and um maybe help come up with solutions for them so I I would leave some open-endedness to that uh directive Al righty I think we wrap that one up thank you very much board members can I ask can I can I ask if um our other board member has any comments because I it is obviously a super majority vote um and right now we we just have a no comment um I don't mean to put you on the spot but uh do you have an opinion on the on the work we're doing over here I thought we weren't going to talk about that opinion about what I mean you said you really can't ask people what no he

202saying does she have comments like when you say Dr when you on this he saying does she have any comments I'm sorry I thought you were going into the vot yeah Miss barenberg are you there do you want to add anything yeah um I Heard uh I think I heard cuz the the the volume's going up and down here um that M Rosario said when she wrote one of the policies that she talked about super majority that she meant when she wrote the policy that it meant one vote more than a majority so my question is you wrote this one or helped write it what was your thought when you were writing it what a super majority is I didn't have a thought then about the super majority until right now does that matter so

203I mean really matter I don't think it really matters what I thought about it in 2022 I think what matters is what's before us in discussion now in 2024 right well like I said it's going up and down in the volume so I'm only catching a little bit sometimes of what's been said in detail got um so I'm asking Dr Jones what was her thought on what the super majority was when this was put forward to the board before four out of five that's just four out of five okay thank you I never thought anything else all right good discussion board now we've got two more items that were added Madam oh yes maam um chair I I think it sounds like this would actually be a pretty good policy you know once it's revised

204and brought back to us but I think at that point Dr Jones I I don't think that taking off the table something else I see Dr mois shaking his head I wouldn't take off the table something else to do exactly what was is intended for us to address the desegregation order the The Joint plan if we can create something that actually just captures the work without saying things that we're going to do in the future just saying our commitment is and what our commitment is I think you'd like it I think you'd like it I would like it but it doesn't get confused with all this other stuff that should be happening right now that isn't or that is but it's not actually captured that way are you thinking there an addition to this separate

205and apart from this separate resolution SE no it doesn't necessarily have to be a resolution could be a policy to make sure that we will never end up in along those same lines if and this is October November whenever if the board board approves these changes I will bring something whether it's a resolution or whether it's another policy um to capture what the intent of this specific policy is and I don't think any one board member doesn't agree with what the intent of this specific policy it's a different path that some agree with and some don't but if we just took the action you all discussed today then by by default you you've kind of left the intent of this policy so I don't think that's the actual desire of anyone board member so goes

206to public hearing comes back I'd have the problem solved to determine what is the most appropriate thing whether it's a resolution to give the assurances uh to the community bacp that this is an ongoing um priority not to have uh a regression or going back to the way that way that it was so it is I I think you really have to do both if if that's the action the board wants to take right and and I go back to what Dr PCA said and I've said it from day one this was written so we just don't put it on the Shelf it was a lot of detail a lot of work um and and that was our main intent that's that's always been the main intent and I thought that's pretty unique for a

207school district but we are unique okay do we need a break before the joint work grp school board employee or can we keep rolling discuss that keep rolling okay uh what was that Miss Rosario Jo you have the next agenda item bre I'm okay made a face okay M RAR go ahead joint workg group School Board employee no appointee I'm sorry put employee it's okay um all right let me get mine so it's not too far off from what we're talking about um let me give you all two three take one of each I'm going to give one to the superintendent I'll I'll I'll walk through this with you I some steps we'll wait for you I think it sounds like we're taking a break I'm gonna go I'm running too I'm going maybe we

208should take a break yeah all right I think we're GNA take a break we need to Dr Moore take a break Dr Moore absence of the work group or the vice chair you have a mic yeah just we'll take a 5 minute recess got we'll take a five minut 5 minute [Applause] recess e e e item with Miss Rosario okay so I've been giving um some thought to um the position of the board assigned or an appointed by the board to the workg group committee the IRC the SDC NAACP workg group committee work group not committee work group The Joint work group and I went back to um our April uh April 22nd agenda which you have in front of you it should be the first item that you have in front of you I

209just highlighted that area um where uh we have the appointment of the latest appointment of the school board member to the work group so I just in full transparency wanted to bring that to you um this work group the next item that I gave you um is the actual court order that determines that the joint work group the current joint work group would replace the previous Equity committee so again in full transparency I'm giving that to you um this was approved adopted approved and adopted uh March 14th 2022 and the next document that I gave you was the establishment and the makeup of the workg group so the workg group establishment um which again was approved March 14 2022 um is established with the approval of the Court um the Indian River County Branch of

210National Association or the NAACP and the school district of Indian rivver County shall establish a workg group that will replace the former Equity committee uh it in indicates the purpose of the work group the uh composition of the work group here which is important because the composition of the work group is different than what was the composition for the equity committee it's slightly different so here you have four members appointed by the NAACP three members appointed by the superintendent and one school board representative um the frequency on the other side the frequency of meetings this is something Dr Moore I'm glad he um corrected the work group will convene once a month upon agreement by the parties to the litigation to shift the responsibility to monitor compliance with the joint plan from the previously established

211Equity committee to the IRC NAACP that's kind of written within 30 days of written joint agreement the parties will convene and establish a monthly meeting and then so on and so forth as you can see there the responsibilities the obligations dispute resolution and the effective date um uh it says under effective date the provisions of this joint plan workg group will become effective upon the Court's approval uh which again occurred on March 14th and related as an a a related Amendment to the 2018 joint plan but it doesn't replace all the other things in the 2018 joint plan everything else stays the same except the composition of this uh work group and so I gave it some thought because the old Equity committee I I I want to say the equity committee that was established

212um with the joint plan was created and actually indicates that the committee members on the equity committee would meet once uh would actually be revoted on it's a position to be held once a year every year you would revote on that position the workg group does not establish that there is no time limit for this work group and unfortunately this was not brought to my attention when we were having these discussions back in April and I brought um the item for us to vote on a current board member and what was actually on there which I didn't put on it probably was a superintendent or somebody from his team who actually put on there that this position would come back to us for a vote in November which is next month uh in two months

213but it's supposed to but there is no time limit so there there isn't a an indication on the court documents that actually say that it's only a six-month position or a one-year position or a twoyear position it I mean Dr Jones was sitting sat on this committee what is it more than two years and then prior to that you sat on the equity committee and it never came to us for I was never on the equity committee you sat on the equity committee I did not sit on the equity committee I was a in the audience on the equity committee um so so the the and it never came to us for a vote in six months or in three years neither did any of those come to us for a vote at our organizational

214meeting I would argue that this position is very different from any other committee position that we volunteer to sit on because this is Guided by litigation um and because it is so fluent it can end tomorrow or it can end like we've talked about in 5 10 or 20 years um and so for that matter I would like uh I was thinking about how things change so quickly and we don't have a policy um to address these kinds of changes because it is a lawsuit and because it is so fluid obviously the most obvious glaring difference is the composition of the Equity Group which Changed by court order to be the work group um so I would I recommend that we take a look at adopting a resolution that kind of addresses some of this

215doesn't tie us into a policy um but it it does kind of clarify things for us moving forward since this is all fair fairly new right Dr Jones was the only one who sat on the committee um up until we got a had a new vote in April so the next item that I gave you is a a drafted resolution and again it's just a drafted resolution that I put together um and so I I am going to ask the board's um support on this but I'm totally open obviously lead to hearing you know your your feedback on it um so the resolution actually um is a resolution of the school board of Indian River County Florida to commit and establish protocols for the appointment and this is not addressing the work group or the

216joint plan or anything like that this is only talking about board position on the work group that's it um establish protocols for the appointment of the school board members to the current joint work group or possibly renamed future committee work group or otherwise determined by the court whereas the school board of Indian River County Florida school board and the in Indian River County branch of the National Association of the advancement of colored people will work collaboratively and cooperatively towards the shared goal of achieving a fully desegregated school system under the ma matter styled and there's the very very simple you know there's the court I mean the the case whereas while the parties agree that the school district is already entitled to a declaration of partial unitary status by the way this was taken directly

217from the joint plan um in the areas of facility non-instructional staff and administrative staff other areas remain to achieve full unitary status including strategies for recruitment of African-American teachers representation of African-American teachers and instructional staff student assignments transportation and extracurricular only the items that are that were taken directly from the joint plan whereas in furtherance of this goal the school board created an equity committee that reported directly to the school board and was responsible for monitoring and documenting compliance with the 2018 desegregation order and for making recommendations to the board and whereas on March 8th sorry that should be March 14th the parties reached agreement on a plan for a joint work group so essentially just saying we were we did have an equity committee now we have the work group um and whereas the

218school board agreed and appointed Dr Jones to represent the school board on I don't have that date the length of time was not established which we know as a result Dr Jones served in this position until April of 2024 so again nothing controversial just facts whereas on April 22nd a new vote was held by the school board to appoint a new school board member me to represent the school board on the 2022 joint workg group as provided by The Joint expedited motion for clarification um and of course the court order that you have in front of you whereas The Joint work group has yet to meet since I was appointed on April 22nd 2024 now therefore I should take that and out now therefore be it resolved and this is the this is what I'm

219asking for support on now therefore be it resolved the school board of Indian River County in public meeting duly called and assembled one the school board is committed to compliance with the goals outlined in the 2018 joint plan Dr more that's probably right there you know a good resolution just simply stated two the school board acknowledges this position this position only on the work group nothing else this position is not like other volunteer community committees which renew uh appointments once a year at the board organizational meeting in November the school board affirms that this position is ordered by the court to be a full year position oh that's not true got to take that out take out number three four the school board affirms that Jacqueline Rosario would remain the school board member assigned and

220appointed to the Joint work group until November 2025 so I'm asking because we haven't met at all to to allow a year um since no meeting has yet to be held since appointment in April of 2024 the school board affirms that beginning November 2025 future School Board member appointments shall be held for oneye terms and must be made by official action at the annual organiz ganizational meeting held every November and the school board believes that the timely provision of resources support instruction and interventions based upon students individual needs as well as the establishment of the diverse Workforce represented representative of all students is critical to achieving successful outcomes so really you know in thinking about this um in order for us since so many people like Fair Equitable um to be fair in um you

221know just so that we can kind of establish some protocols on this only this position so that's what I'm asking for support on and what do you all think um if I remember correctly we we inadvertently kind of created this problem by not voting in a new member to the group in our November organizational meeting um so then you got voted in out of cycle in April yeah and then I don't know how but I I guess the the work group hasn't met yet um it certainly would violate the spirit and intent of what we are trying to do to change you out in November um the only other alternative I would recommend would be to leave you in for a year through April uh but then we're at a cycle with our organizational meeting

222I don't I don't personally I don't mind letting you just go till the next organizational meeting of 2025 I think it's reasonable um I think the only reasonable alternative would be an April change okay appreciate that M barenborg can you hear or do you have any comments I always forget her you know I'm not sure how I want to comment on this um I think that in November we choose the people that are representing us for lots of different things um I think when um we had a board member appointed by the governor and that changed let's face it the majority on the board all of a sudden we want to change things I have a really hard time with that the voters have spoken I think in November is the time to do it

223Mr McDonald how do you make that political I I agree with uh Dr PCA um the assumption is that the work group might meet before April of next year uh and having having appointed uh M Rosario she should have the opportunity to um uh serve on that committee so I agree with the the idea of the resolution thank you can I can I add something um in in response to what the other member said I I think it's a big Distortion of the facts and reality to say that another member coming on the board is what changed changed them when we forgot to follow our own policy um in changing that person in November and voting on it so we failed to literally follow what was written in our policy and then we were confronted

224with it in April at of cycle um that was the initiating factor I think it's a distortion of reality to blame Governor dantz um and in excluding those facts um thank you the policy with the reorganization with the committee and chair and vice chair you're going to have to remind me does it say this committee also I didn't think it did no okay so it wasn't in there no it it didn't exist okay right okay well um and I remember when I was voted on was 22 and I remember Mr Barefoot said something and I agreed and M Dr Schiff and miss barenborg so I was at the meetings anyway because I did attend but um so I don't think that's in our organizational policy at that time um the I agree a little bit

225with Dr P on the April time um as far as doing that and does this resolution would that affect anything through the judge I'm just asking do you think Dr Mo I'm trying to think I know we choose but I have to look back at that entire joint plan I think the judge's concern that would be is that there's a representative from the board okay we told her there would be a representative from the board right it's our responsibility to figure out how that representative is identified okay and then that beginning November 2025 whether we go April or November future board appointment should be held for onee terms must be made by official action I can agree with that thank you yeah I mean this is just internal um it's not anything that will alter

226uh you know the judge's order or anything like that I do appreciate it um um for your support um and for the fairness in it I I thank you I have not by the way just again in complete transparency I have not um handed it over to um Miss shadic yet um you know for legal sufficiency I will do that and with the board consensus um we can have that done and then posted on the next agenda and again we would have to talk about whether it be April or November oh we could do that now we can talk about it now well I agree with the April I don't know um I'm agreeing with the April to April but you know we'd be out of cycle yeah you are you also said that no

227we and so we could do that but then we'd be at a cycle we'd have we'd have a random appointment in like an have to remember yeah and you have the add add want to do it I I mean I don't know if it's worth I don't know if it's worth it you know what I mean we'll just have the attorney look at it and then we can bring it back yeah I mean I don't want to be out of cycle I think I think every board member should serve on this I really do um I think you get um a little bit more of the history a little bit more of the um if you really really go back in history how it started in Sharpton verse um the school district um 1964 where

228we've come and where we're going to go through a management perspective we we missed this timeline because it wasn't within cycle so I would encourage us to eventually get back on cycle got it well we have never been on cycle but you mentioned it wasn't it was didn't exist it did because it's existed for two years it had existed for two years prior since which is why we' a as written this puts us back on cycle going pushing it up to April is there's throws us off there's a creates the potential for this mistake to happen again because it's in April versus that so I would just encourage you get us back to no November this puts us back to November if you did it in April maybe that's that's fine too but in April

229I would encourage the board to say all right we're going to get from April to November so November 20125 we are back on cycle and we no longer have to worry about this that's the only point I'm making thank you and I see Miss shadik shaking your head do you want to add anything or it's good all good yes I'm just agreeing with everybody you know you have your policy on the reorganization meeting and that's when you make all of your appointments and so I think it makes sense to do it at the same time that your November thank you I appreciate that thank you board members all right hey Miss Rosario superintendent contract yes okay let me just put this away yeah all right so the superintendent's contract so um obviously the only time

230that we can talk is when we are in a meeting and I gave it uh quite a bit of thought the last time that we um talked about the superintendent's contract and I read his contract in full as I have in the past um I do encourage you all to to read it if you can pull it up online um it is on on board dos should be on board dos there is one place in there and it it was one of those um comments that were that was made and I just want to make sure that I'm clear as to the understanding of this one of the recommendations that the superintendent or that that paper that the superintendent I don't know if he gave this to you all um on the recommendations um rather

231the the comparison of other school districts of Martin County actually and and Indian River County here um there was something on here there's an asterisk that says on average all elected Florida District superintendents received a salary increase of 20.9% approximately $ 32,1 for the 2425 school year um but we don't have that average yet and then I started to think why would he even mention elected when we he's not an elected superintendent so I went into his contract and there is um a section here I would say it's page um 7 into 8 and it reads in addition to the base salary so really this is just bringing up for clarity and for question uh for clarity rather in addition to the base salary provided in subparagraph a which would be whatever the base salary

232he gets um the superintendent shall receive an annual performance salary incentive from the board in the amount provided for elected superintendant pursuant to sections 1000001474 and five Florida Statutes so long as the superintendent has successfully completed all the phases of the program as described in the statutory section and demonstrated successful performance as determined by the Florida Department of Education which we talked about because the superintendent said that he completed those um that certification which we haven't received the email by the way you said you were going to send us Manny Diaz's email oh I did you you mean a second time I can do that um but um so I just want to be clear that this does so and and then with what he provided what you provided here Dr Moore I just want

233to be clear that the Assumption isn't that you would in addition get the difference of last year's elected official salary and this year's elected official salary you're not getting that difference in addition this is actually specifically talking to just the certification program that you went through correct okay I just want to be clear on that because I know that we talked about letting some um conversation happen you know with regard to administrators salaries and contracts and then we would talk about your contract or you know whatever would be due to you uh by contract but um so I just want to be clear on that so this Florida statute only talks about the certification requirements and then that differential for the performance of that phase program correct okay not the difference in elected salaries correct

234okay so then why add that here because you completely threw me off just as information or well to acknowledge that the State of Florida um as it shifts statute has recognized the need to appropriately comp compensate uh elected superintendant they have the authority they're the ones who provide that compensation they have acknowledged we need to drastically enhance the compensation for elected superintendents that's the sole reason the State of Florida can acknowledge um the need to increase individuals pay by 21% that's the that's just the a a clear example of acknowledging the work of those elected super intents okay so moving forward this section is done then essentially you you've completed the program you've got the certification yes that's there's nothing nothing more to do there okay perfect thank you and um we didn't meet this

235week uh we no we'll be back on on on schedule um I will send you that specific letter I was waiting for which I should have this week or next week the because that is retro so Sheriff's got their 21% uh Tax Collectors got their 21% they're on a different pay cycle than superintendent so superintendant will as well board members get their compensation sometime this month which will be retroactive to the beginning of our fiscal year was that 21% which is July one no no no you guys are not getting 21 I don't know what you're getting at it's it's on once I have that information I'll provide that to the board for this fiscal year so you you we're no longer talking about an average we're talking about this is the specific amount all

236salary schedule yes oh okay that comes in that comes sometimes this week or next week oh I understand and then from there my intent is to engage com um board members regarding compensation gotcha okay sounds good that's it I just wanted to clarify and make sure if there were any issues then we could have this conversation here just just one little Point again conversations we've had the elected official 21% and then you said at one time you would your salary is at the bottom two of those elected officials appoint I'm sorry superintendant yes if appointed superintendents as of today I'm the second lowest but um after tomorrow and there's a board meeting meeting I'll be the lowest highest performing lowest compens okay and um you basically you will roll over you will get what the

237administrators get I mean that's part of your contract and what what percent was that I'm sorry we it will be between three and 4% three and four% okay yeah um thank you for bringing this up M Rosario we've got to meet with the superintendent and then get some get some things rolling that's because you do great with less right you do more with L getting a bargain yeah no that's what you say all the time we we do but in all honesty um I am a husband and I'm a father and I have I have to protect my family and you know Dr Moore that's again I'm glad Miss RAR brought this up because we've talked individually but um that's important to know because when I was at the fhsa the superintendent used to meet

238up in Gainesville a lot of people didn't stay as a superintendent they would rotate I think the average is three years four years maybe but yeah um we have to commit to you like you do to this District so I'm glad M Rosario brought it up any other comments before we close out my last comment is um we don't want our superintendent being the lowest paid in the state thank you um especially when you're probably unreplaceable like I I'm always interested in finding somebody better that's just the way my mind works however I don't think it can be done that's the problem so like I mean I think we do need to discuss potential I think we do need to discuss potentially um I don't know what the best strategy is but improving the base

239pay with a contract negotiation may make the most sense he's he's up for next year yeah but we could decide to do that like next week gosh I know I think that's the best thing to do I I would if I were him I would have probably already have a new job somewhere I'd find a new District that needed me that was in the bottom they'd pay me a bunch of money and I'd make that District amazing and help a lot of kids be a win-win are you asking him to no I'm just saying that want him thinking that that's the truth that's just the reality of it um there's a lot of districts that need help especially with all the board changes in the state that that have happened the last two to four

240years if if I were him I would probably be looking at a new job and I don't think we want him I I think we should consider raising the base pay um I don't think a three to 4% bonus is is appropriate and you when you think about that and a bonus also I don't know how you get taxed on your bonus but do you get a higher tax rate on the bonus or does it go straight to your salary same way no there's bonus I don't receive a a bonus but the the key is to incorporate into your base salary because that the average of your five years is is basically what I'll spend the rest of my life living on right it's all in his contract you know all the details including travel

241because he gets $800 a month in travel expensive I get I get it at the end of the day we just don't want him to be be in the lower cortile of superintendence paid cuz he's clearly one of the best and if he leaves we're not going to be able to find anyone even close to replace him I doubt it it would be it would be a miracle and when we keep him we keep our team you know that's working so hard each I I think we should have a serious conversation I'm ready put on that so anything else and uh just a reminder before we adjourn we will meet at 51 for the millage and final budget with Mr Green thank you every bu sir