001okay all right well um let's go ahead and get our meeting meeting started good morning everyone it's uh it's another monday and it's may the 9th i hope everyone had a great weekend and for all the moms out there hope you had a fantastic mother's day yesterday and hope everyone treated you well uh all of your uh spouses and children and everything it's a fabulous day would love to be in the restaurant business yesterday right it's just an incredible day so uh anyway once once again glad that everyone was able to join us this this morning having a little bit of technical difficulties with nothing uh too major i'm not really sure if i can tell who is on and who who was not so i may have to ask at at times uh so
002uh abby i'm not sure whether you're signed on yet uh abby sanchez are you there i don't hear her so i'm just gonna go ahead and say uh good morning again and we're going to just go ahead and get right to our our meeting with the first item on our meeting of course is the pledge of allegiance so please join me with the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone for joining me with that our next item of business is approve the minutes from the april 11th meeting do i have a motion to approve the minutes so moved uh thank you and do i have a second
003second second thank you you have those names captured karen all right that thank you we have a motion we have a second all those in favor of the motions signify by saying aye aye like what and the emotion is approved thank you all so very very much uh uh as far as the roll call and taking attendance karen we're doing okay with that everyone understand oh do you want to make an announcement karen okay so uh so we can capture your attendance please type a little uh a message over there on on the side in the chat room so we know that uh you were in attendance this uh may 9th morning we would greatly appreciate that hey you know uh the legislative session is is over the governor is still uh signing bills uh
004into law he he does a few of those every week it appears now and we're looking forward to our big annual conferences coming up in the first week of june and we have the chief executive officers for our favorite associations florida school board association in the florida association of district schools superintendents we have those uh wonderful people with us this morning so we're looking forward to hearing from them and i know everybody out there you're all excited about your high school graduations uh coming up probably most of us are doing them at the end of this month if not then probably the first week of june and uh from what i'm hearing uh from around the central florida area looks like everyone is getting back to uh high school graduations in the way we used
005to do it a couple of three years ago so uh i think that's good news for all the parents and the students of course and their friends and family so let's get right to our our our first speaker this morning that is our dear friend andrea messina executive director of the florida school board association good morning andrea and thanks for joining us well thank you it's a delight to be here and too bad we're not all in the same room that's always a nice dynamic but it's great to see smiling faces on a monday morning yes yes it is so carl you asked me to sort of provide an overview of the conference and so i thought i'd start uh with a segway based on what you just said about the legislature is that okay
006sure go for it okay so on friday morning of the conference typically we have our legislative session summary as you all have come to um uh expect and this year we did our session summary on one of our friday webinars we recorded it it's a two hour recording and it's on our vimeo channel so if anybody wants to watch it they can watch it prior to coming to the conference or they can watch it anytime between now and then it doesn't matter it's it's up and it's available and our uh session review materials are linked so because of that we wanted to have the friday session be uh a roundtable discussion a deep dive into the new assessment bill so that we could really ask some questions and get some information on it we've got
007the people who have confirmed but you know things can come up so it might change but we'll we are expecting the new commissioner of education former senator manny diaz who you all know uh was very integral with the um assessment bill we're also going to have representative chris latvala who was the chair of the house education and employment committee representative renee placencia who you may know has had to resign from or he didn't have to but he chose to resign uh from the legislature for his full-time job but at the time when this bill was passed he was chair of the house higher education approach committee and we'll also have rep friend fentress driscoll who is leader designate we're expecting that conversation to really go deep into the assessment bill sort of what were they
008thinking what are they looking for when can we expect it they're going to want to hear your questions comments and concerns earlier in the week as you know the conference really will start on thursday so we have a full day planned our keynote speaker on thursday is aj crabill he's a governance coach he works out of texas but he does a lot with the council of great city schools i think a lot of you know aj and his topic is improving student outcomes the board's influence on instructional quality so he's actually backed by popular demand he had done a breakout session for us at the last conference and we got such positive comments about him everybody said he should do a keynote he should do a keynote so we listen to you and we now
009have a keynote some of the breakout session topics are on trying to attract and retain education talent in your district there's a surprise using your compass to navigate instructional materials there's a surprise uh fldoe updates and priorities crisis communications new legislation about the district authorizing for for charter schools when we want to talk about quality charter school authorizing and then aj's also going to be doing a breakout on the board's influence on culture and climate so we've got a lot of really interesting um topics and then on friday morning first thing in the morning you all have told us time and time again how much you appreciate time with your peers and that you'd like to have structured opportunity to talk to your peers so we're we have a little bit over we have hour
010and 15 minutes friday morning three different rooms you don't have to go to the room of your district size but we did break it up so that it's meaningful conversations and collaborations with small school districts medium districts and large school districts and throughout the day before you'll be submitting topics that you want us to focus on there as well as talking about the politics of advocacy so we've got a lot going on and we're excited to see everyone registrations looks really solid we recognize that we're headed into qualifying as soon as our conference is done you guys are going to be qualifying typically in an election year we'll get a few people at this conference who maybe haven't gotten all the signatures yet and so they end up saying they got to stay home and
011get the rest of their signatures that sort of thing but um we're excited happy to see you guys and looking forward to it of course the most handsome gentleman on monroe street will be joining us and that would be uh the good senator who's also here with us this morning yeah he certainly is he certainly is uh thank you so much andrea just awesome job uh any any questions for andrea before we uh invite senator montford to give his message this morning questions for andrea see a chat or anything popping up here right at the moment so let's just yeah let me say one more thing yeah just so people know we have um final interviews for the pinellas superintendent search this week we have three finalists they'll be interviewing on wednesday and thursday of
012this week and orange county right now the window for accepting applications is open you all should have received an email that had that advertisement so we're excited to be working on two of our really large districts in their superintendent search helping them to find their leaders wow that's exciting news whoa whoa yes indeed uh i can certainly um relate to that uh so uh yeah so we uh we're all anxiously waiting to see who our new leaders will be uh in uh hillsboro in orange and i gotta say volusia county as well so uh let's just move right on from there into uh the man who's uh the chief executive officer for the florida association of district schools superintendents none other than our senator bill munford uh senator munford are you there yeah thank you
013yeah yeah well welcome this this may be your first time for you uh at least first time at least i haven't seen you around the central florida school board coalition for a while so we are just glad to invite you to share your thoughts with us this morning go ahead uh thank you and that's what i said i thank you for the invitation to participate um uh and you know this is what first time i i got an invite so i'm glad to be here and uh hey glad to uh glad to be a part of it ed uh but but uh i want to start by thanking uh andrea i was having a discussion this morning uh with the staff a staff person from another organization that recently had uh their own conference and
014uh and i made the comment he said well you know all about how hard it is to do a conference i said no i got a good staff and and i said if i knew how much work went in it went into planning a conference uh i'd probably be shocked so i want to thank andrea and her staff for for the great work they do uh my staff does mine here and i just show up and i just show up in andreas and everything that works runs like clockwork and it's not easy so uh andrea thank you and especially your staff uh it's always a pleasure to have a joint a joint conference uh let me uh let me give you a couple of thoughts and um just just for your for your thoughts and
015i andrea touched on the results of this uh just a moment ago uh you know we uh we're charged by the department of education to do what the training for all for all new superintendents and uh this association had been doing that since uh i guess the early 90s so uh we've got a pretty good track record there uh but interestingly i paused the other day and i asked the staff i said go back and uh tell me how many superintendents we've had at some some period of time so they went back five years since 2016 we've had 67 new superintendents so if you pause for a moment and think about it you know some districts like pinellas and pasco and orange and then a lot of the other ones have only had one so
016if you look at uh there's been a tremendous amount of change in leadership in this state uh from from the superintendent's level and i don't know the data on school board members that uh they're probably much much harder to get uh because you got there's so many of you but i would dare say that you would have a very similar percentage of turnover and board members again someone asked me this morning locally here one of our board member d.d rasmussen is resigning a couple years early and they said why is she leaving i said well why not it's no secret she has some health issues but she's got those under control but my comment to this person was you know it's real simple uh the question has always been why would anyone want to be
017a superintendent or school board member and that that is profoundly uh more apparent today you know why why would you subject yourself and others to that especially especially what you what you encounter from the public and quite frankly what you've encountered from the state legislature as well uh you know i when i my 10 years in the senate you know quite frankly i was always you know fighting back issues uh you know to me to the detriment of school board members you know it's always the salaries it's always why are we paying them anything anyway um you know to the term limits which you know got got passed this year so you wonder um you wonder what you know what is it what is the ultimate ultimate goal of the leadership of this state when
018it comes to public education traditional public education and school board members and superintendents um so i i uh we're facing uh and i'm not a pessimist if anything i i would be i think most people say i'm an optimist but i'm very very concerned about the tone of public discourse towards our traditional public school system uh it just amazes me i've been in this business for over 50 years and i've never seen the attitude uh as as openly uh critical as as it is so i i that's a long way around saying that i think it's it's crucial that we continue to meet especially meet together jointly uh watch each other's back if you will we've got to somehow get a higher level of decent conversations among those of us who have different opinions that
019brings me to to our new commissioner [Music] manny diaz i'm excited about many uh being commissioner of education uh before that decision was made i had a lot of people ask me you know who's going to be the commissioner of education and of course uh right now it is very very difficult for for us to uh predict uh appointments uh you know that's that's it's a little difficult and uh but what i had what i said consistently was the logical choice considering everything that's going on there would be man it is will he be appointed i said i have no idea but i was able to uh i was fortunate to serve with manny in the senate i was fortunate enough to be advised chair for the senate education committee for two years and we're
020real fortunate that i was able to recruit our staff director from the senate education committee to join us here at uh at the association and uh uh david sykes is the name and he uh has a long distinguished history in government and especially in his role as being manny's right hand in terms of his health director and he and i discussed manny's appointment or possible appointment now appointment uh and we were both king had similar feelings and that is you know you might disagree with with uh you know with some of manny's positions i mean i don't i don't agree with myself sometimes so uh but uh i have known him for years and on his he's open to have serious discussions about differencing of opinions i do know and i think it'd be fair
021for me to say that david and i both worked at work very closely with with manny and we have seen him head off some some uh ideas and and suggestions that that we felt would be uh detrimental to traditional public education and so he was able to to uh deflect some of the ideas quite frankly that we thought would not be healthy for for for our school district so i'm excited about manny being uh you know being with us and uh you know i think he'll he'll prove to be one of the best commissioners that we we've had he's uh i believe he's a man of integrity uh he's he'll listen to the issues or he may not agree with you uh but you won't be surprised uh you won't uh he won't blindside you
022and he'll he's willing to give his reasoning for any decision that he makes so i'm excited about that we have in terms of issues that are coming up you know this is i mean i know you're painfully aware of the issue about books you know it's interesting that you know this law goes into fact july 1 training for media specialists in january 1 of next year so you know the question well what do you do then the question is we've we've heard from superintendents and i'm sure you've had the same question about what do you do with the existing book that you already have in your in your schools i mean do you have to go back now and i mean look at the amount of time that takes uh who pays for that one
023more time we we as a state have passed something that's going to be more difficult to implement than than some would realize and of course that burden falls on on you uh when you have a board uh when you have someone shows up at one of your board meetings and says help me understand how you're going to do this and you don't have the answer because i'm not sure anyone has has answered yet is that exactly how you would take it the assessment issue i think one of the problems i know we're going to face because i heard it from my own grandchildren hey we don't have we don't have any more testing anymore the governor said he was doing away with all this testing we're real happy and basically that's uh as i explained
024to my own grandchildren that's not exactly uh the way it worked well that's what he said and uh yeah but your principal and and uh and your teachers know they're gonna have a have a different uh a different message for you so we've got to work through all all of that and uh but you know the nice thing is uh we've we've got and i truly believe this we've got one of the strongest group of superintendents we've had now in quite some time uh we've got i believe too we've got some of the the best school board members we have especially those of you who are willing to stand up and take a position uh and so whatever whatever we have the challenges we have uh as long as we stick together and work together
025uh you know we'll we can climb out of any ditch that we get that uh somebody shoves us off into we can get out of the ditch uh as long as we hold on each other you know and come and come out um i would um i think um in terms of what what's in the future uh i think i'm i'm very optimistic at least in the senate very optimistic about the next two presidents past uh senator president to be paso domo uh and then ben albritton after uh after president pastor i know both of them very well senator albritton was my vice chair on a couple of committees we worked i still do work very very closely together i have to be careful because i can't lobby for another six months uh so he
026and i both are very careful but we do have good staff that talk um david uh mentioned again uh we he has a very good working relationship with the uh with the senate staff they came by one day last week they asked to come by and speak we expected a couple of people we had six or eight or maybe more than that we had a room full of people so those lines of communication are open uh and i sense that the the direction uh of the next two four years in the senate leadership my sense is uh how do we how do we really deal with some of the things we've we passed and that is exceptionally encouraging uh now what will happen we don't know you know you get of course you got a
027house uh group over there that uh we're not as close to them as we are the senate uh but you know that's one of our jobs to to cultivate that relationship so uh mr chair if i might uh just pause there for a moment and and uh see see if any of you have any questions again i want to thank you for for inviting me to be to be a part of part of this absolutely absolutely bill thank you so much uh let me just start with with one uh you mentioned our new commissioner uh coming in and i'm and i'm very happy uh to hear that uh that you are very supportive of him that that gives us a little bit of comfort going in since you appear to have a a good relationship
028with manny diaz is there you know how everybody has one or two things that they're just passionate about uh want to get something going is is there something that you could tell us that you believe manny is really really gung gung ho on and and we should expect to hear some new policy or legislation uh coming in the next year i would uh i don't have to remind you of this this this group but uh sometimes you have to remind the general public that manny works for the governor uh make no mistake about that and uh so he'll be taking and rightfully so he'll be taking his directions from the governor so if we look at really what his priorities will be uh he'll be looking across the street uh he's a smart man then
029he is a smart man we know how that works now manny has a history of being uh very supportive of choice um i think that we can we can use that as a positive what people really don't know and it's our own fault uh we've got some of the best choice programs in traditional schools anywhere in the state for some reason uh we've we've we've lost that that battle if you will in terms of of uh patting ourselves on the back uh you know when you talk about choice people automatically think well this is a way to get out of traditional public school and they're better elsewhere that's not true we've got some of the best uh uh choice programs in traditional schools anywhere in this country anywhere uh all you and and y'all you've
030got them in your district uh we just somehow we we as superintendents and board members uh we we've got to be able to get the message out of just what we offer what always just amazes me and it irritates me sometimes and i said this last week in the meeting with the senate staff uh i said you know some of our some of our politicians if you will uh you know they get up and they want they take credit we've got the best scores in national and math and we've got this and that they brag about you know how well we rate it and then they turn around almost in the same breath and criticize traditional public schools and make decisions that uh are counter to that so we we've we've let we have lost
031that that battle if you will so we've got to be uh i'm a firm believer in reaching across the aisle and especially uh engaging in conversation with those who don't agree with my with my position you know it's nothing there's nothing there's no nothing wrong with disagreeing i mean it was healthy but it's how you deal with it so i i think in terms of manny his he believes in choice i do too uh i believe in choice but now let's make sure we have equal footing uh let's make sure that that we treat everybody the same regardless of whether a child goes to a traditional public school or charter school or private school you know they're all children of this state uh you know and it we have finally put together a pretty exhaustive
032list of of uh what had what is required of the state for traditional public schools versus uh charter public schools uh and and you know it it's time for us to say you know if if it's really really important for for children in this state then public schools whether or not you're traditional or charter why would you if you have two children in the same family one going to a traditional school one going to a charter school if we really believe it's important why is it important to both children why it's not important because they go to to a to a charter school or something and so uh those are the kind of discussions that that i think we will be having in the next at least the next four years uh and i think
033they'll be very very healthy discussion now but quite frankly we've we've got to start at home uh when i say start at home i've got six or seven school superintendents uh their opinions and and their positions vary just as much as the general population out there make no mistake about it let's talk about mass for a minute you know i've got one superintendent said you know we didn't fall into that trap we didn't require a mask we're not going to require a mask and we're doing fine and he said i've got a gun on every every floor of my school and i carry one on michael and uh and so you go from one extreme to another but that's healthy that's okay because they reflect their their community what we have to do i think
034is school board members and superintendents would be able to have open frank discussion among ourselves uh you know and then we can agree to disagree which is okay uh but if we go in a direction that disagrees with what we're doing at least we've had the chance to say it but we still just keep in mind you know what why are we really here i sound like i'm campaigning and i'm not but if we if we just focus i used to tell when i was a principal i tell my teachers you you can make hundreds and hundreds of decisions in a week most time will be good but if and then i would tell when i was superintendent tell the principal's same thing you'll make a lot of decisions but if you keep in mind
035you make your decision based on what you really truly believe best for your students you'll make some some bad decisions but your good decision will far outweigh that and i'll be there to help you when i was superintendent i said i'll be there to help you uh and defend you so i think we as as as the leaders of public education in this state school board members and superintendents uh we need to air our our opinions and that's what the joint conference is about and and truly listen to uh different viewpoints i don't see it letting up uh public schools being asked to do more and more and more take on more and more responsibilities um financial literacy you know i'll eat i'll stop this one but you know financial literacy i was known as
036a wet blanket of financial literacy uh senator um uh you call you yeah it bless her heart i loved her dearly uh she came down to my office one day and she said bill i got this one wonderful wonderful bill that you're not going to like and i said well i knew what it was what if financial literacy i said i saw i support it you you go and support it this time i said yes i sure will because i know as a part of that one or two things you're going to you're going to also have in the bill that we will extend the day by an hour or you're going to have the courage senator hickle to step up and say we're going to teach this but we're not going to teach this
037anymore and the point is and i got to be known and you know senator brockton who's uh should be chair of big approach this year you know um i explained him i said there's seven hours a day for example and if you require something something's going to fall out the other side we used to require four years of physical education then we kept whittling it down because if we're going to add financial literacy and yes my goodness these kids need it but you tell me what they don't need that we're required okay i mean do we need to one less pe oh no uh art music you know we all know how important those programs are so but if you add something something's gonna fall off um but anyway uh there's more and more being
038required to talk you know it's you know remember the discussion we had about uh recess remember that you know and some of my my good friends down there they won't talk about when they were in elementary school they'd go out and climb a tree and you know have fun well that's true but first of all now you know everybody will be after you because you climb the tree and then you fall off you're gonna get sued and it's not like it used to be and uh but you know we we passed that uh the two minute you know the thought for the day you know all of that's good stuff but we we don't we don't have the courage as a state to add another hour uh because it will cost tens of millions of
039dollars but you know what look at money we spend elsewhere i mean look at the tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks that we give away all right you know but anyway i'm i'm sorry uh mr chairman i don't know i i wanted i want you to just uh i'm going to ask one more question then i certainly open it up but uh would you elaborate a little bit more on uh on the uh on the charter aspect now the way charter schools can be uh approved by the state and how you see that changing yeah it's real interesting that's an interesting question and uh but let me let me uh let me be uh up front with you in 1996 when i was running for school superintendent here in leon county i supported
040charter schools uh and i still do by the way uh and i was called everything from a communist to all kind of things uh but the the philosophy of that time remember was that if if if the if the school district was having really difficult time with a particular school why wouldn't we go the charter school route which meant we relieved that that school of some of the burdensome requirements if you will in other words turn them loose uh yeah because you know and i had a couple of schools here leon that no matter how much money you spend no matter what happened we just couldn't get it over the hump and if somebody else if you know why not try give these give these kids a chance so i supported that now it it
041it evolved into far more than that uh and and i think there are some inequities out there that we we need to address that's one of the reasons we're putting this list together and and it's uh i don't think it would pay us to uh you know to have a fight you know with the charter school industry i think what we need to do as professionals and as the true leaders of public education state including charter schools is to step up and say you know these are the where these are the areas that we need to change this is what we need to change now there's some thought now let me give you an example we were talking about last week for example you know if if uh i'm making this number up if a
042student gets eight thousand dollars a year you immediately you give your charter schools the eight thousand dollars now if you come back later in the year and say well enrollment didn't come up so we've got to cut you back to 7 800 traditional students i mean the district then loses that 200 for that for that child but the charter schools we don't reach out and bring that back in so our argument will be if if we're going to do it then let's do it across the board and i i think i think that so far in very informal discussions we've had people nodding say well that that makes sense you know and it does so i think there's some areas like that that we need that we need to uh we need to take a
043take a look at uh we also uh the turnaround schools that issue what do you do with turnaround schools uh we're working on that for for next year as well i think we all know what happened in jefferson county uh up here in the panhandle we've got to make sure that that doesn't happen again uh we can learn from from that experience we we can learn a lot from that experience uh so i think it's more of a uh of a you know it's not less let's have a uh you know a civil war or something let's let's let's put people to the table and say you know can't we agree that these are the issues of the charter versus charter public versus traditional growth these are the issues we need to address and let's
044make some adjustments in it i think we get far more uh we'll get far more done that way and i i think i think the time is is right for that to happen really all right uh thank you thank you so much andrea did you want to weigh in on that i thought i saw you your hand no i was just saying that's encouraging i mean i i um we've been trying to have some of those conversations for quite some time so the fact that the senator's encouraged that they may actually start to take place i'm encouraged by that yeah all right all right uh well i am too then uh so uh board members superintendents out there any any questions for uh either of our presenters as we move forward let's go ahead and
045speak up if you ask a question i'm looking here seeing anything okay all right this is a question of sally mo sally mo sumter county i have a question go ahead for the good senator um could you just explain a little more on this victims of communism day that's going to be in our schools now on november 7th um i mean i i'm really not sure how i feel about it well you know i i i apologize i don't know i don't know that much about it uh i could uh i'll tell you what uh if if uh mr chair if you give me just a second david right that's i recruited him to come over here uh to uh make me look good when i don't know what i'm talking about so hang on
046just a bit you know you talk about um you know taking time away from something when something else is added to to the school day for the students you know if they're going to make them learn something then something has to be taken away because there's there's no additional time that's being put into the school year um with this bill it it's going to there's going to have to be at least 45 minutes of instruction on communist figureheads uh stalin zodiac castro lenin all that you would normally learn about i would think at least i did when i took history lessons i mean that's a lot of time adding to this and what is that taking away from well that you're you're exactly right sally that uh it's it's uh no no more hours in
047the day um let me let me digress just a minute i was david senators david simmons vice chair when he was chair of center head and that was about eight years ago and he asked me we were he said uh what is the one thing that we can do immediately to help children i said extend the school day by an hour if you go back to the early 90s we had the next hour was added to the high schools which meant it would tremendous amount of good that was done kids could make up credits they had lost and it was just really really good i said but i said senator what happened was it was really good it was very successful but the state stopped funding it uh and so school districts were left with
048a choice that we cut back to six periods or do we pay out of our own pocket the uh the seventh period some of us hung on for a number of years some just couldn't do it to start with but uh and so he liked that idea and that's when he came up with what started at the top the lowest performing 100 schools and then i think it went to 300. remember that some of you've been around and and uh and it worked but uh it's the same issue uh and to me it's so simple but i don't understand why it's one of those areas where i just don't understand why people can't agree with me uh and that is if you add something something's gonna fall out the other side that just i mean
049it's just you know common sense and all of this is good if you were to go back and look just take it and take 10 years 20 years of that matter five years go back and look at the additional requirements for the traditional school day in traditional schools limited number of hours we have added and it's all good but at some point you know you add something good it's going to push out something good on the other side uh david just walked in uh david the question was about the the uh day in november for the communism awareness day david david sykes is here with me i i'm going to turn it over to him because he probably wrote the doggone thing welcome david what's the question yeah go ahead it's just the designating a
050day for the victims of communism day um saying that 45 minutes for learning about um you know the the communist leaders in the past where all of this should be a part of history in in some way but to designate a day for victims of communism day um i'm just i really don't know how i feel about that i mean i went to high school in berlin germany so the wall was still up then um so i'm very much aware of of communist countries and everything which i think you know shouldn't be taught or would be taught as part of a history lesson but to designate a day for it in today's time when there's so many other other important things um i'm not quite sure you know that i would how i really feel
051about this and also what is going to be taken away as the senator was talking by you know giving 45 minutes to this that's 45 minutes of something else they're not going to be learning that maybe they should know even more about well i'd just like to explain to me a little bit more the good news about this particular bill was they did do a little bit of listening because what they did as opposed to what they've generally done within whenever they've added something to that statute called required instruction they just add and they add and they add in this instance we actually got a few folks to listen what they said was yes it had you have to designate this time these 45 minutes to teach these victims of communism but it starts in
05223 24 if i'm not mistaken and the doe is responsible for revising the social studies standards to include the content that has to be taught so basically they'll be teaching the k the required course standards for american government or united states government is technically what it's called and those standards will be built into that course so the doe will be responsible for adjusting it it'll be a standard specific to that course the fact that it has to fall on a specific day is obviously not going to make it the easiest to to implement into the curriculum but it's not a it's not just what they've historically done where they just add on and it's up to the districts to figure out how to fit it in at least they put the onus on the department
053to work it into the standards so that it's part of required instruction for that course for every kid regardless of if they're at a public school or a traditional public school or a charter school those core standards are taught by everybody well that's that's great but i just don't quite understand the purpose of proclaiming a specific day in november as victims of communism day uh i know that's part of the bill but how that got in there or why or the purpose being used i mean i'm it's just like it's just like everything else you've got you know elected members have things that are important to them you know two years ago it was they thought water safety was the most important thing so they wanted every school district to give every kid starting this
054year that every kid who enrolls in k through 5 or k through 8 i don't remember the district has to provide every student with a list of low-cost swimming lessons in their area these things are important to specific individuals and if they've got enough political clout they pass it through that's i mean i can't i can't help you any more than that in terms of what's important to folks if they're elected they've got it they've got a leadership position in the house or the senate they've got an issue that's important to them that members agree with they can get it to become law but at least this time they didn't just throw something randomly out there for people to teach they're requiring it to incorporate be incorporated in the statute so the department will be
055will determine where it fits in in terms of what's required for any kid to take united states government let me tell you the 45 the women the 45 minutes then will come some other time it's not going to be just on november 7th all of a sudden that's going to be the day of celebration or of of of teaching about it on on november 7th but november 7th still will be known in the schools as victims of communism day yes it's still going to have that designation yes thank you uh lunford did you want to say something yeah another example is um is athletics okay now i've never been a coach but i know how important i know how important athletics are programs are in districts and i know how important they are to parents
056and grandparents it's not unusual and y'all seen this too i mean somebody some parent got upset about something okay that happened to their child a grandchild in athletics and so whoever that senator is a representative you know they truly believe that and they heard these horrible stories so they uh they show up with a bill and uh you know it can get passed uh and you know it's uh you know one of one of the issues that's that's always passed up you know something that's always been sacred is the 19 years of you can't play if you're older 19. that pops up all the time and we've been able to head it off it you know but this you know for a particular uh young man that or young lady that was ill or something
057and he'll he or she will turn 19 before the deadline you know uh it's it's you know somebody will show up and say this is wrong we're treating a child wrong but you know there's there's all kinds of special interests out there and it occurs more now that i mean i am all for you know the teaching about communism and the leaders and the destruction and how terrible it is i think the issue that i don't quite understand is designating a day just like we have veterans day november 11th we have memorial day i mean for for you know our country and our soldiers but to designate a day called the victims of communism day um you know that's i think is is is where i was coming from it's not not the teaching of
058it but it is none of these other things whether it's the swimming lessons whether it's the athletics and the age they don't have a day that is designated like this is that's the only thing and i was just wondering if that could be explained a little bit more but you know i understand you know what you're saying and that's just the way it is so well let me let me tell you the the position that uh i would dare say that there's there are a number of senators i can't speak for the house that would agree with you but you know when you the way the system works if you if you if you were to take a position that's not important enough to designate a day like we have veterans day uh there's a
059there's a price to pay for that i mean it's hard it's hard to uh it's hard to argue against something that appears to be mom and apple pie you know when you have members of the of the legislature whose immediate families have suffered under under some uh regime like this and and i think you said you grew up in germany and uh so you know first hand so it's it's hard uh it's hard to make an argument against uh something that's that some people fear i feel to be really really good uh and it's hard you know because they'll tell me what's wrong with that isn't it isn't it important enough to designate a day uh november 11th and so uh that's i mean and that's not you i mean that's that's happened many many
060times uh but i think your question your question is a good one it's a good one let me let me just interject here and we got to keep our our meeting moving along here so let's so let me just ask anyone else uh anyone else have a question for uh andrea bill mr chairman one position yes mr chairman thank you it's teresa jacobs uh not a question just just a quick thank you to both of our guests today and senator manfred i especially want to thank you for your leadership role um this conversation with you has been extremely helpful i think giving us some direction of how to move forward it's for me it's been very interesting i spent 16 years on the county commission eight of those years as county mayor um always being
061able to go to tallahassee and i'm i'm a republican um and always well received and changing gears and being on the school board it's been just astounding to me um the lack i i mean i kind of knew it was there but no you don't really know what it feels like until you're here so god bless you for being where you are um we we appreciate you enormously we appreciate your time here today and we look forward to continuing to um work with you and your sound advice to us well thank you teresa i i i was i laughed because i served on the county commission two terms here in leon county in the 80s and uh my goodness i mean uh when we we had it was when it was when the state passed
062the uh um what was that uh oh my goodness um is that exemption maybe no it was when you when we had no growth management the growth management oh gosh yes yes remember that you know we had to start from scratch and i thought that was bad but i'm going to tell you what what you board members are going through now and and superintendents uh i it's just it's amazing uh what a tough job it is uh and you know it does it and it doesn't have to be that way uh i really really believe that people just slow down and and say let me let's let's really listen let's talk you know let's have some discussion about this and uh and i'm hopeful and again i'm an optimist and but i really believed under
063uh the at least the senate leadership coming in and i'm not saying that the house is not saying well i just can't speak for the my personal relationship with the house members i can't about the senate uh and i know senator albritton accepts you well i know senator pasado uh well uh you know the beauty of the senate is only 40 of you and you know you get to know each other really really well uh we had a little group senator bradley called us he was a member called the sweet tea caucus we would we would go out and and i had 11 counties here in my senate district and all rural except leon and we'd really like to eat in north florida so i would take a bunch of them we'd go out to
064places and uh people would host it just to eat with frog legs and quail and uh red horse sucker fish if you've never heard of that uh there's a lobbyist on this call that i invited him one night and he he's a lobbyist from orange county i'm not going to call his name he's on this call and i invited him to go with me he didn't believe that he he googled red horse sucker fish he didn't think i was he thought i was pulling his leg uh but anyway the senate i thought you were calling him a name uh it's well it was scott howard and uh you know scott got a lot to learn you know he's uh but anyway uh i'm i just i'm very optimistic about the next few years in the
065senate in the legislature and with with manny at doe uh like i said we don't always agree but uh i think his his leadership style will be what we need for the next few years especially uh trying to deal with what you as elected school board members and superintendents either elected or appointed have to deal with i mean we've we we've got to do something we've got to you know you remember though some of you are old enough to remember those pressure cookers we used to cook you know and let off steam and uh we got let off a little steam uh we've got to start listening to each other more we've got to be able to respect people's opinions even though we may uh we may just disagree with them uh but it and
066it's okay to disagree you know it's okay so uh i know mr chair you're trying to keep us on schedule here i apologize for talking and talking too oh no that's uh that's fine uh uh theresa thank you so so much uh as as well i uh i as you know i join you theresa and bill as a another person who has served on the county commission for eight years as well of course theresa has us all all beat with her like six 16 years and mayor of orange of orange county incredible incredible anyone else uh have questions for either of our speakers today speak up going going going going going going gone all right then uh bill i want to thank thank you so much for taking time uh out of your morning to
067spend a little time with the east central florida public school board coalition uh uh we look forward to seeing you our superintendents do and all of us are really in uh tampa in in june right that will be there before we know it uh angie i'll let you have the have the last the last word anything final comments about the conference or anything no i i will harken back to something that you started with which is graduations coming up and um i was reminded last week somebody for whatever reason i i was reminded when i was a school board member you know you have the whole 20 graduations or however many but my favorite was always the one at the special needs school where the kids can go until they're 21 and their families are
068just so excited with them and it's it's as much for the families as it is for the kids and just remember why you're there and enjoy this season because there there hasn't been a lot to enjoy about the work that we've done for a while so really allow this part of the year when you get to see the end of season um chorus and band and just all kinds of stuff just please take time to do that which will give you the fuel that you need to keep doing the work that you do yeah yeah i'm so glad that you said that sometimes we get so caught up in the minutiae and the policy and the legislation and the laws and all that kind of stress and then what you got to do one day
069is just go to an elementary school and see a kindergarten play and then you'll think yeah that's why i got in that's why i got in this business happy faces happy children parents beaming from ear to ear just so proud and yeah and that's why you just gotta love these love these graduations everyone's so happy so happy uh yeah all right uh coalition members uh uh uh any old business or new business you'd like to bring up if you'd like to please just tell me what that may may be if i don't hear anything then we're just going to say that our next meeting will be the breakfast meeting and let's all you know show up for that for that one hey it is a free breakfast how about that so uh come on down
070uh bill you're you know you're welcome to join us dude and andrea and it's uh our breakfast meeting on june 9th that's that's that friday morning at 7 30 a.m at the grand hyatt in tampa and uh i just want to say to you uh uh bill mumford you are uh you are just one of our heroes uh you are you always have been a personal one of mine and i know i speak for for many members of our of our group here uh you always have our back and you're always advocating for children and of course you're advocating for superintendents and principals and school board members but really you're advocating for for what's right for all of our kids um just a real just a real champion so we don't forget our our champions
071out here so uh so thank you again look forward to seeing you in uh tampa uh those of you who are able to join us this morning thank you again you all are the best nothing better than being part of public education you all have a wonderful day signing off bye bye