001Good afternoon. Today is Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025. The time is 4:34 p.m. And at this time, we're going to call to order the school board meeting. In just a moment, I'm going to ask that you stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance followed by the national anthem. The um pledge of allegiance will be us tonight. We don't have students for tonight. Okay. But the national anthem will be on the piano by Dr. Terrence Lane, who is a music teacher at Sunrise Elementary. Following the national anthem, please remain standing for the moment of silence. So, at this time, will you please stand and join me for 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
002liberty and justice for all. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Now for a moment of silence. Thank you. You may be seated. It's hot in here. At this time, I'd like to introduce you to those that are here with me. On my far left, we have Mrs. Donna Brosmer representing district 4. Then we have Mrs. Christa Goodrich representing district 2. To my immediate left is Dr. Gilbert Evans, our schoolboard attorney. On my far right is Mrs. Celeste Gilmore, our agency clerk. Next to her is Mrs. Jesse Thompson, representing district three. Next to Miss Thompson is Mr. Ruben Clone, our vice chair, representing district 5. Then we have Dr. Carmen Balgaban, our superintendent, and I am Jamie Haynes, your chair, representing district 1. Items for approval this evening on
003the agenda are items 1.03, 2.02, 6.02, and 17.01 through 17.06. Public participation times. When we do the consent agenda, you may fill out a green card if you wish to speak about anything on the consent agenda. That's a public participation time. Then at 6:00 p.m. or shortly thereafter for any items of general interest pertaining to public education in Valuchia County, a total of up to 15 minutes will be provided for public comment. At that time, you will fill out a yellow card. Then time will be provided for public comment on any action item before a board vote is called on that item. Our action items this evening are items 17.01 through 17.06. We will take green cards individually for each of those action items. Then there will be provided at the end of the meeting
004for public a time for public comments for any items once again of general interest pertaining to public education in Valuchia County before the board superintendent or attorney bring any topics up for discussion or announcement. So if you are here or you're listening from an overflow area, you just need to see Mrs. Danielle Johnson here on the far right and she has the yellow and green cards if you wish to fill out a card to speak. We are now at item 1.02. Our district vision statement and we'll also then hear from schoolboard members comments from them. But our district vision statement is to create lifelong learners prepared for an everchanging global society. At this time, I invite my board members to share. Mrs. Brosmer. Thank you. Uh, after our last meeting, I had been invited to
005go up to visit a um a Palatka Junior Senior High School. I think it's um I want to say it's 5 through 12. but maybe 7 through 12. And uh and the reason I was invited to go there is because they have had a very successful outcome from um the program they've implemented to calm their school. They were having trouble with gangs and and general chaos and were losing uh enrollment because of that. Uh but a couple of years ago they got a new principal who implemented uh something that that I thought was really interesting because it doesn't cost a lot of money and um Putnham County is one of the poorest counties in in Florida. So that fit for them. But as my principles who I visited have said they could use uh it
006it would really be helpful for them to have more inschool suspension. Uh what she did was she implemented a um an eight it's actually a two-tiered eightstep um inschool suspension program. And at the end of that I if if the situation isn't resolved then they do have an alternative school on the premises um and and the students can go there and they have another set of requirements uh for that. Uh but the the end result has been from from this consistent enforcement from the new program and the this consistent enforcement uh they have calmer classrooms. I walked all through the school. It was it was wonderful. And um their seventh grade enrollment in two years is up by a third and their fights have dropped by 68%. So, I thought that was a really good
007um template that we could look at that might be useful in some of our schools uh to address some of the needs that that the um principles have mentioned to me. And so, I wanted to share it with everybody. Is that all? Thank you, Mrs. Goodrich. So, uh, myself and Miss Thompson had the pleasure of going to the AB art exhibit over at Art House. It was amazing. There's a video and pictures, um, on my social media, possibly on yours as well. So, check that out or go by the Art House if you haven't. And then the following day, there was the Artsfest, um, Daytona Beach Artsfest where many of our students competed in the Chalk Art Festival. So, that was also fun. And right before that event, I was um able to run in
008the 5K, the Valuchia County Schools 5K. And we had so many teachers, students, administrators, people in this room that ran it, walked it, had their families in it. It was a great morning for Valuchia County. The camaraderie was incredible and it was just a really good event. So, I believe there's another one in November. If you get a chance, come on out to that one. Um, super fun event. So was glad to take part in that. Thank you. Next, Miss Thompson. Thank you, Madam Chair. And Miss Goodrich didn't mention that she ran extremely fast in the 5K. I was there. I did not run. I'm not a runner unless there are tigers involved. That's just my practice, although I did say I will walk the one in November. You told me, you challenged me and
009I will. Um, but my son did run in the 5K and there were so many people. How many people? I mean, hundreds and hundreds of people. I think it was like five or six hundred. Yeah. It was fantastic. Um, and then there were prizes afterwards and schools got money, so that was fun. Um, we also had the chicken wing challenge. I was there with um, Chairwoman Haynes and that was exciting. I know my kids tore through those chicken wings and then they couldn't tell me which one was the most delicious because they were all delicious, but Galaxy Middle School won that. So, congratulations to them. Uh, they all looked delicious. We had also the VCC PTA end of the year celebration that many of us were at and per their usual, they did a fantastic
010job. There were so many people there and thank you to all our PTAs for everything you do. I feel like we see pictures and videos of all the events that get put on at these schools and it's phenomenal. Um we also had the futures uh tomorrow's leaders graduation. So thank you to everyone who showed up for that. All the principles that was amazing. All the principles were there supporting their students and there were so many great students and they each I think were allotted 60 seconds to talk about their experience. Um they made it through very quickly but so many great speakers. We really have some fantastic speakers. I would like to see some debates and talks amongst these kids. It was great. Um big thing that I was at all day because I had
011a child competing was the Battle of the Books. And if you've never been to Battle of the Books, it's phenomenal because we have uh elementary, middle, and high school students all competing against each other. It's very cool. They've read these books, these novels, and the questions are just so indepth, and these students just rattle them off. I mean, I think at one point in elementary there was like a 19-way tie, and they had to break it down. IC narrowed it down to four and they're in there. It was insane. Um but everyone was having a really good time and that was just another great thing. Um we have our turnaround awards currently going on at each individual schools which is always great. Um we do it with futures and there's a lunch and some of
012these kids have just really turned uh behaviors around, their grades around and it's just great to see uh what that encouragement can do. And then I also want to give a huge shout out. Last night in New Simra Beach, we had our state of the city address and Mayor Fred Cleveland took the time to acknowledge all of our state champions from New Smyrna Beach High School. And there are a lot of state champions at New Smar Beach High School as we know um Mr. Clone. So, thank you everyone who showed up for the packed house. Thank you to all of our student athletes and thank you to everyone who's putting in so much effort whether it be teachers, parents, PTA students as we get towards the end of the year. And that is all for
013me. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cologne. I can't speak as fast as she does, but I certainly have plenty to cover. Um, had the privilege and honor of uh attending the uh military awards, the JOTC awards at Deltona High as well as their military ball uh with my beautiful wife Alisa who joined me for that. That was exciting. Had the privilege of being a I guess they call you a screener. It's more like a judge. it's uh mission impossible of our amazing FFA students that were going for district positions. And so these were the best of the best students uh from across the district. Uh shout out to Seabbze. I know they're former FFA. Uh but um I I will tell you those kids are their leadership skills, their way of coming in front of
014folks. You know, most people would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy. And so to see these kids come up and just be passionate for uh agriculture was uh amazing. And so we were able to uh somehow get through 15 students and um again they were applying for district and federation which is a combination of semolution flaggler county. So that was uh really exciting turnaround students as you as Miss Thompson mentioned we have started I was at uh Deltona Middle and Heritage uh where they uh celebrated total of six amazing students uh who uh had turned their uh lives around and made better choices. Uh I normally wouldn't say this out loud but it's one of my favorite because I was a turnaround student. Now, I know you guys don't believe that, but
015um and so it is very, very near and dear to my heart because I, you know, I was one of those kids. Let's see what else we have here. This kind of goes into Miss Thompson's area, but uh Chisum Elementary shared an amazing photo. you know, we Advent Health donated the uh vending machine and so they uh showed all the kids who were going and getting uh through their PBIS programs uh able to get books there. So that was exciting. Uh we recognized them the last time, however, they have since gone, which was uh Garrick Spencer from Deltona High and Ava Henderson from Atlantic. uh they went to the state STEM best of the best conference. It probably has a fancier name than that. And they represented Valuchia County there. Uh and they were also
016recipients of scholarships uh from that state organization. So shout out to them. You talked about the PTA. That was again an amazing event and we're grateful to all of our parents who do that. And I think that takes me to oh one more thing I had the honor of judging hosa competition in Orlando. And so that's where all of our state it was the state competition where students from across the state came to compete in different healthc care topics. Uh I can tell you the future of healthcare is bright. These kids uh are amazing and they're going to take good care of us when we're old uh and need them. So, uh that was also an honor. Shout out to um actually one of our students who's here who's part of the superintendent salt group
017came in second place, third place in the state for athletic training and will be going to nationals uh representing Valuchia County. Let's give him a round of applause. And I think that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. So, it's it's been a very busy two weeks and this is a time of year where everything gears up and we can't even make it to every location where events are taking place. But, as Miss Thompson said, we were at the ultimate chicken wing challenge and she mentioned the winners. But I want to mention the high school that came in second because they did a great job also. And along with there were five schools there that got knocked out in one of the previous rounds, but they still served as chicken wings. But Dand High, it
018was Dand High and Galaxy. And listen, they were both good. So it was really a tough decision. But I loved the fact that for the judges, they included students to judge the wings because they're going to be serving the wings next year on our campuses. And so the students got to judge the wings. And I thought that was very important that the students got a part in judging. And we were several of us were at the um VCC PTA awards celebration which was nice. I also attended the Deerry talent show. Now, a little different from the Freedom Elementary talent show that I talked about where Freedom Elementary it was the teachers that performed. Well, for the Deerry talent show, it was the students and it was about two and a half hours long. There were
019that many students that signed up and I've never seen such confidence, especially in little, you know, elementary students. The first one up there was a kindergartener and she just got up on stage and performed like there was nobody sitting out there in the audience. And yes, yet the entire cafeteria was full. But that was wonderful. And then um I was on the coalition meeting for the Central Florida group. We got a lot of great updates on where we're at with legislation. And then Dand High helped out at Woodward Elementary. Woodward Elementary received the Danny Ganon Academic Excellence Award for raising their school grade. It's the first time that this year when we're handing out the awards that the principal brought all the students out to the pavilion. So, we had every child out there and
020Dand High came over um with their percussionist and they played and the dancers came and danced and the kids got all excited. And what we learned is there are some of us that can calm children down because we've taught before and then there are some people that we probably would not hire to teach because they can't calm them down. They just get them excited even more. But it was a lot of fun and it was just to see the kids honored for all the hard work that they did and the fact that Dand High was supportive and took time out of their day to come over to Woodward that was wonderful. I also got to walk Stark Elementary um along with Eli from the Beacon and a and um also we had um Al Buouie
021Al Buouie, Mr. Al Buouie there. We had a few other people from the community and we got to take a walk through. Now, we had to put on hard hats and they even made me put on steel toaded boots, which that's really not my thing, but I did, and vest. And we walked it, and it's coming along beautifully. And it already is a point in that community that people see and realize. And just the the kids, they take the kids out to walk along each week to see the progress that's being made. And the kids are so excited about that school. And then I went to Congressman Mills um service academy nomination. So because he and and I see Dr. Sparer back there. He was there with me. We had one student from university. We
022had four students from Spruce Creek. And I see one of them is here. and he actually was the student that had the largest group with him there to see him get his nomination and cheer him on um that they've ever had show up. But we went there, it was held in Alamont Springs because Congressman Mills covers Valuchia County and also Semino County. And so we went down to Altoont Springs and we were there to see the students get their nomination for the different militarymies. And then Dr. Evans and I had a unique experience last week and um he and I were sitting right here in our chairs, but we had University High School government class come here to the boardroom and we did a mock school board meeting with the University High School students and
023even Miss Gilmore, she set somebody up. So, there were students in your seats representing the different districts that you represent. And Mr. Clone, I have to tell you, the young man that sat in your seat, he we they couldn't have picked a better person to represent in your seat. Is there a video? Is there a public record? There's not a video. There's a video. There's no video, but we represented you well. Yes, he represented you very well. And um I don't know what that means. That is scary. Either went on forever and ever or But what was so interesting having them here in the boardroom is they had no idea of the behind thescenes stuff that has to take place. They learned how to use the screen and and tap in so that we knew
024where to call on them. Dr. Evans was great that if they didn't do something quite right, he stopped them and he said to them, "You need to do this." But they brought they even had um students that came up to do public input on issues on their campuses which I have the list for you of the things they would like to see corrected. But I will tell you they kind of went on one topic that was a little interesting. They brought it up. They thought we should institute corporal punishment. And we were a little surprised. We were sitting here like did they really say corporal punishment? But this is what they said. They said sometimes things are happening on their campuses where they feel maybe someone just gets a slap on the wrist or they
025may get a day or two of in school or out of school suspension but that it doesn't correct the behavior and they want the behavior corrected. And so then they had to ask Dr. Evans and he shared with them that no in Florida there is no corporal punishment. So then they were coming up with other solutions and they thought maybe a boot camp might work. I mean, it was it was a very enjoyable conversation to see what was important to them and what they wanted to see changed on their campus. But I told them we would work together on the issues that they have and share them with the superintendent. And then I went from there. I went over to Blue Lake [Music] Elementary. Um Mr. David Finkele is a teacher there and each year
026he takes on a project with his creative writing students along with some of the lovely students that are artist at Dant High and they basically interview first graders at Blue Lake Elementary about things that they'd like to see in a story. And these kids go back and they write stories for these children and they illustrate them and then they are bound into a hard copy of a book and futures helps support this and then they walk from Dand High over to Blue Lake Elementary and they the children are there and they hand out there's two copies of every book. They hand them out their own copy and they pair up with them to read their copy and then the extra copy goes on the bookshelves that stay there. So there's a book that was designed
027for that child and it stays in the media center for other children to see. And of course they have cookies and snacks and all of that. But while they're there, they actually have the kids give them elements for a story and they write a story with them right there while we're in the media center and then they go back and take that and turn it into a book and it's it's just one of the most enjoyable things and I love that the high school students do this. Then we did have um the futures um tomorrow's leaders and that was wonderful. There's actually um a young gentleman at Dand High. He and I have been in three places lately. Woodward Elementary to judge science fair projects. He's on the tomorrow's leaders and he and I were
028at last night's event which Mr. Reer and Dr. Castelli were with me and um Mr. DJ Alamo, if he's in here, we did Dand High's government class last night here in Dand at the city commission chambers and they ran a mock city commission meeting and it was outstanding. And I just have to tell you, being with these kids that are in the government classes and watching them learn about government and schoolboard and and do these mock meetings, it's just fabulous. And it and it was great, wasn't it? We we had fun. But that's a lot of what's going on. And um but the young man from Dand High is Tim Dobbins. He and I have ended up in three places right now. And um I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him and hearing his story
029about coming to Dand. He's only been here five years, but he's learned a lot and he knows that he really loves Valuchia County. And that's nice to hear. So at this time, we will move on to item um 1.03, approval of minutes. Board members, do I have someone that would like to make a motion to approve the minutes from the last budget meeting, workshop, the workshop itself, and um the regular meeting? Motion to approve. Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Clone. Any discussion? Okay, hearing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor of approving the minutes, please say I. I. Any opposed? It passes unanimously. We are now moving on to item 2.01. Are there any agenda changes for this evening, Dr. Balaban? No, Madam Chair.
030I have no changes. Okay. You've heard that there are no changes to the agenda for this evening. We need to approve the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the presented agenda? Motion to approve. Thank you, Miss Goodrich. Do I have a second? I'll second that motion. Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor of approving the agenda for tonight's meeting, please say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Then it passes unanimously. We are now moving right along to item 3.01. This is the opportunity for Dr. Balgaban to give us some announcements. Thank you, Madam Chair. Board members, those of you in the audience, I see Dr. Sparger has fierce competition back there with University High School as we can tell team spirit. Um I
031would like to welcome our salt students that are here. We have 40 that serves on that committee. I don't know if we have 40 here today but these these students are why we do what we do. So and I would would agree with you Mr. Colonia and what you talked about the leadership that they exemplified it's it's beyond you guys have us in awe every single day. So welcome to our salt team. This is your first physical appearance to our board meeting but definitely will not be your last. And for all staff members that are in the in our audience, those of you listening at home, thank you for tuning in. So you have actually all of you have shortened my announcements. We took some away because you were all very very busy. But battle
032of the books, I would like to congratulate our high school division. There was 43 schools that participated in Battle of the Books last week. And the winners are for our high school division. First place goes to Dane High School. Second place to University High and third place goes to Spruce Creek High. Amanda, tell Dr. Sparter Middle School division, first place Orman Beach Middle, second place Southwestern Middle, and our third is Valuchia Online. Elementary division, first place goes to Cypress Creek Elementary, second place to Tamoka Elementary, and third place to Westside Elementary. So, thank you to all of those of you who have participated in this event. Florida School Book Depository, thank you for sponsoring Valuchia Association in Media Education, thank you for sponsoring Prima Bound, thank you for uh Learning A through Z Publix, McGra
033Hill Futures Foundation and Do the Doda Family, thank you again for sponsoring this event. It was really fun and most importantly engages our students in a very essential skill which is the more you read, the more you learn. Also, I would like to do a shout out to our um Mois Museum of Arts and Science, the Mois Foundation, but also in particular to Mr. and Mrs. L uh Lman because for four years now they have sponsored for us they have actually sponsored six years so far um a total of over $600,000 and what we do is that that every fifth grader and every eighth grader in our district they they get an opportunity to experience a field trip at our MOAS um Museum of Arts and Science. ience. So last week uh the Lmen's Dr.
034Vaya and I we had the pleasure of joining Reed Patello Elementary. They were there um visiting the planetarium and I will tell you that the um Lman's they are very excited about this project and they're here to support this for the long term. So very appreciative. Also Danny Ganon, you talked about that chair and several of you Woodward Elementary University High School in Valuchia Pines. Congratulations. And I would like to thank the board along with Joe Hearns for recognizing these these schools. They have been recognized because of significant improvements that they have shown in the past year. So congratulations to the leadership to all staff members and especially for our students who they are the ones engaging the work day in and day out. Congratulations to all of you and congratulations on that $500 check
035that each of you have received. I'm sure you will put it to good use. The chicken wing challenge. The only thing I'm upset about is that I couldn't be there. But I did hear that it was lemon pepper. That was the flavor that that one. So, um, we do have a video that we will show at the end. Are you guys ready with the with the video? Do you have it? Is it ready? But I will tell you that while they're um accessing the video, they are delay high school. They are considered the first to win um this a challenge like this. So schoolway cafe will be recognizing them and celebrating them. And this will be served next year on our menu. They're actually, I think, going to serve galaxies. Galaxy one. Galaxy. It's debatable
036who you ask. Oh, they Okay, that's right. Sorry. The land was taken out of the race. I'm sorry, Miss Chair. It was a difference by Galaxy. Listen, they were taken out of the race. I'm sorry. There was a difference of a dry wing with lemon pepper or from district five a barbecue kind of with a little spice to it wing that was a little messy. I will tell you I was sitting with a table full of men and the barbecue one with the spicy they ate in a heartbeat. But I think the kids were more interested in the dry lemon pepper. And remember we had students voting. We're here for the children. We're here for the children. They They They just had me continue talking until they accessed the video. But yeah, the land was
037taken out of the race. They were for this this time next year they get a chance to participate again. You guys are ready? Okay. [Music] Well, I visited a high school and they were doing chicken wings that day. Okay. So, I decided to do a short video and post it on social media. We have the best chicken wings in all of SWC and we serve it with different sauces, sometimes teriyakis, sometimes cows. The kids are really loving it. Out of over a thousand kids that we serve a day, 700 of that are our chicken wings on chicken wing day. And so a lot of our managers took offense to that and said like basically no she didn't. And so uh once we put that out there a lot of the managers started um trash talking
038and said no you don't. I have the best chicken wings. And so over the course of a few weeks we we thought about it and said well maybe we should do a contest and actually find out uh who the actual winner is. So here today at University High School, we got to partake in a ultimate chicken wing challenge where Valuchia County schools use our Tyson chicken wings to see who has the best wings in the county. And it was super exciting to see this. All of the passion and all the heart that goes into school food from these school nutrition professionals. Being able to be a part of it is something that Tyson K12 is all about. We're all about serving the mission of our schools and getting good food into our kids and into
039our future. We're super excited to be able to showcase these wings um on our Tyson K12 website going forward and share them with other school districts around the country. Well, I love it personally because uh Valuchia is one of my customers and so now I get to go around and tell how Valuchia is a trends setter and started this competition that we can carry on nationwide. The winner of the first wing cafe ultimate wing challenge is down [Music] I was extremely not expecting that. Um I'm very proud of my team and all their creativity, but I was very much shocked. Thanks for everybody that did participate. It was fun and team every team deserves a not being noticed in their abilities and stuff and we all had a great time and it's all for trying
040to get the students to eat our wings. So, we thoroughly enjoyed it. Well, we're uh looking forward to maybe do something like this again. It seems like other districts are very interested in what we're doing, and we actually had another district called us today and said they're willing to compete with today's winner. So, it seems like this might go uh statewide. So, we're looking forward to that. We're ready for the challenge. [Music] [Applause] So, I need to add that Dr. did get to be one of the judges also, and he gave the most interesting descriptions when he described You could tell he was taking it all in. Oh, no. It was We enjoyed his descriptions of the wings. Um, but I think it's Orange County that maybe has thrown down the challenge. Oh, really? That
041wants to challenge us. Oh, we're ready. I think so. are ready. Now, how many flavors were there? We did seven different wings. Okay. So, there was the five that got knocked out in the first round. Those schools were all there with their teams, and we got to eat theirs first while the judges were eating the other two. Then, we got to eat the other two. Well, I will tell you, I was very upset that I couldn't be there. But next year, the land gets to participate again, and we will be there. I will be there. Well, I I think Miss Wilds didn't mind hosting it at her school because she got to be there. She got to be there. That's smart. That is smart, Miss Wiles. That's it for my announcements, Mr. Chair. Okay, then
042we are moving right along to recognitions. And our first recognition is item 4.01, the Superintendent Student AI Advisory Leadership Team. Dr. Balabin. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. As you know, we're extremely proud of our um student advisory leadership team referred to lovingly as salt. uh this this salt started in 2023 basically as an initiative that we were it's important to include our student voice in our part of our strategic plan but most importantly as our way of work right uh so through this program I will tell you that the team for the past two years salt brought many many great agenda items up also provided solutions to some of those item those topics that were presented to us some of them were instituted. Uh Mr. Cologne, all of you heard quite a bit about Salt
043and the incredible work that these student leaders have been doing with our school system. And I know you've asked if we can have them come and do a presentation. So, you're going to see here today some senior juniors and seniors, but I will ask at this point that Mr. McCallif, our executive uh director for grad assurance and student services, along with Miss Tamara Baker Drayton, um Dr. Drayton, executive director for secondary schools, along with Dr. Joe Castelli, director for secondary and William Reer, director also for secondary. They're going to come up and do a presentation and enjoy invite our members, salt members to join as part of that presentation. And Mr. Macall, we also have a surprise, I believe. Yes, ma'am. We do. We don't have a presentation, but we are going to recognize and
044honor them and just speak about what Salt did and give you guys kind of an overview of what it was and everything they did. So, good evening, Madam Chair, schoolboard members, uh superintendent, uh Dr. Balgabin. Uh we're here to recognize the superintendent's uh leadership team, advisory council. Uh these are exceptional students as Dr. Balgabin stated that provide leadership skills with us. They met monthly with us um in person and also a few of these meetings happened through Teams. Uh we had uh a few of these individual meetings. We covered a lot of basics uh talking points such as campus beautifification uh Dr. Balgabin's number one priority which is safety and security. We also had a training from Captain Smith who came in and answered uh thoroughly a lot of their questions and gave them a
045lot of clarity on some of the new rules like House Bill 1473 so they had a better understanding of why things are in place for them to understand. We discussed uh mental health and the resources and stuff uh program awareness uh how do we increase communication and branding throughout the district and schools and also chronic absenteeism. Uh the students met monthly with a purpose to engage student voice, work collaborative collaboratively with each other and to address critical issues and identify opportunities for growth in our schools. They also worked alongside our district personnel Dr. Drayton, myself, Dr. Castelli and Mr. right researcher in areas of our school to help meet goals in our strategic plan. They've gone beyond discussion and even delivered to action. They collaborated with each other and their peers and developed PSAs and
046they ann they gave presentations of their PSA announcements last month to their peers on mental health uh campus beautifification and safety and security were the three main topics that they chose to select from and they presented those all with powerpoints. Did a heck of a job. None of them showed up. I would have just kind of winged it and just talked. They were very well spoken, very well detail oriented. They were wellprepared. So have to give them congratulations. And we have videotape of that. We just don't have the video presentation right now to show you. So I do apologize for that piece of it. Um so their insight and perspective of everything has been very invaluable to the work that we do and the way the work that we're going to continue to do. So
047I want to thank them and the opportunity that we had to work with them this year. And Mr. Cologne, I do believe the gentleman who was in your seat with University High School government is one of our salt members. So you'll get to meet him as well this evening. So I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Drayton right now. She's going to introduce uh two student speakers, Luc L Lucas and Riley, and then also let them come up here and share some words. And I too would also like to say that it was truly a pleasure and an honor to work with and collaborate with our intelligent bright students um of salt. They provided what was working, what wasn't working, and just some enhancements and improvements that we can do within our district from
048a student perspective. And so it was an honor to work with them. So we have two of our salt students that will come up and present in one minute kind of share their experience and their involvement within our program. So our first um speaker will be Riley Babcock from Atlantic High School and Lucas Gibbs from Dand High School. [Applause] Hello. Okay. Um, so as has been stated, my name is Lucas Gibbs. I'm from Dan High School. Um, I got the opportunity to be on Dr. Bagabin's salt team, which has been wonderful. Um, so they've spoken a little bit little bit about what salt was. I wanted to talk about what it meant, uh, as a student on the council. Um, and obviously, um, it is a leadership team that represents the different schools. Um but
049it also allows these students to feel more included in the activities of the their district as a whole. Um and it brings different students and district personnel together to collaborate and meet on goals together. Um throughout salt we were working on PSAs, we had mental health, campus beautifification, uh spirit, things of this nature as uh Mr. McCaff has already stated. Um my project was I was on the mental health team. Shout out to that wonderful group that I was a part of. Um and there's some very important um aspects to each of these PSAs that we um presented in this very room. Um for example, in mental health there uh as a statistic for you, there's been a 69% increase in student mental health issues um since 2022. So different we collected statistics, we presented
050our concerns um overall and we were able to highlight resources to fix these different issues as well. Um, obviously Dr. Bagaban's uh priority is safety and security as we all know which is uh comforting as a student. Um, every time I've met Dr. Bagaban, she's always asked what keeps you up at night and I think that's something that's stuck with me and uh allowed people on the salt committee to voice what is most deeply important to them. Um, and we've allowed we've been allowed to give feedback to what makes us feel the most safe. Um, so that's been wonderful as well. It's provided overall a platform for us to influence the decision-making process in our district um and feel included and represent each school and the concerns of each school. So, thank you for the
051opportunity. Thank you, Lucas. Okay. Uh I'm Riley. Um uh one little fun fact, I just moved here for my high school career. So, this is Florida for four years and coming to VLA was amazing. It's super cool to see how Salt is like bringing all of these students from different schools and districts and we can all share all these challenges that we somehow it's very alike. Um and it's um we have monthly meetings and we develop uh problem solving skills that benefit us and it'll benefit us past our high school careers and that's awesome. Um my team created PSA uh PSA on um program awareness and making sure students are aware of all the opportunities that we have within all of our schools. And the other group made a PSA on campus revitalization efforts. So,
052making sure we build up our school pride and feel good at our schools, which is awesome. Um, Salt provided us with the opportunity to offer student perspectives on different safety things that he mentioned, and that's awesome because it's important that each student feels heard and gets to feel comfortable where they most of their time. Um, and it also we emphasize the importance of following all of the safety procedures and making sure we um report our concerns and all that through Fortify, which is awesome. Um, being recognized today reflects not just our individual contributions, but the collective impact we've had in student leadership through Salt. um we've developed communication, teamwork, and advocacy, and it's prepared us for meaningful things for our future education and career. So, thank you so so much for this opportunity. [Applause] So,
053we do have Will you do the other part? We do have a surprise. I will tell you that there was a very important guest that we invited at our last salt meeting. Oh, the one that didn't show up. Well, you know what? He was keeping the world safe, Mr. Col, the world safe here in Valuchia County. But he is here today. So, we couldn't have done the work that we have done so far or the work that we're about to do in the upcoming years without the commitment from this individual and that and and his organization. So, Dr. Teresa and Dr. Castelli, do you prefer for that introduction to be now Dr. Balgabin? I think we should do it now. Okay. So, joining Dr. Balgabin and Mr. McAuliff to present each of these tremendous salt
054students with their commemorative certificate as Dr. Balgabin mentioned. Okay, wait one second before we do the certificate. So, let me do this part, okay? Because again, it's about keeping the world safe. So, we have to get him in and get him out. Our sheriff and his entire team. Sheriff, I want you to know that it has been truly truly a pleasure to work with you and the entire team. We have encountered so many challenges. As we know, safety and security is paramount in any system and including our school system where you're serving about 62,000 students, right? The sheriff and his team, they're only a phone call away. Very, very responsive. They have worked with us in depth in and out in keeping our school system safe to the point that I have other superintendents when
055I go to fads and other you know we're part of that organization they will comment about Valuchia County and the great things that are happening here and they have been incredibly uh commentary of of the work that you do sheriff. So, at this point, before we continue with the um certificates here, I would like to ask our sheriff to come on up because our students would like to present [Applause] you. Our students have a presentation for you. They would like to thank you, Sheriff. So guys, if you'll come up, can we do take a picture now? Yes. With the sheriff. Absolutely. [Applause] And sheriff, you'll see that our students have really good taste. They got your really nice Thank you. This is our salty right here. I brought my glasses so I can read it.
056I got you. Okay. So, in order to do this picture, oh, no, no, no. You're doing a good job directing traffic. Get some on my side. Yeah. Any parents that want to take photos, come up to the center. We're going to bring them back out and go by school after. [Applause] I'm gonna ask everybody but Atlantic High School to come with me over here. All of our friends stay You want to leave them up here? That way we got them up here. Yeah, let's do that. You guys come to have them. Okay. Are we Are we taking them by school though? We had a really good conversation. We have 10 pictures. This is better. This is better. Okay. As long as everyone's okay with it. Cody Brook here. Cody here. Yeah, Maddie Murray. [Music] It's
057not here. Correct. We're the ones that work. [Music] I got you. So do my All right. Well, the principles are coming up. So yeah, then yeah. You guys come this way. principles are coming up all the way to Atlanta. [Applause] If you're not at keep coming down, keep coming. Keep coming. Keep coming. All right. If you're land high school right here, you two um if you can get up close, you're going to be next. have anyone from Deltona. Okay, next up Dand. All right. So sharp [Music] clip Saturday. No Deltona. Mainland. Mainland. Right. There's no one here from Deltona. Mainland. That's beautiful. Congratulations. All right. Advantage. Cudas. Advantage. All right, go ahead. All right, High School. days last. That's the only one I can take. All right. Seb, go for it. Sebastian. Okay, beautiful. Bruce
058Creek. Bruce Creek. Nice. Celeste. Celeste, are we taking a break or no? Taylor High Wildats. V let me know if you need to hold it down. Okay. University. [Laughter] All right. Everyone ready? Text me. [Music] We are also Sorry. Sorry. Next time. Are you ready? Excellent job. Nice meeting you. I'm trying. I heard that anytime you need anything, you know, you guys, see you at the next event. Busy. My wife cooks a big meal. Okay, board members, we're going to take a fiveinut break while we switch groups for recognitions. Okay, so a five minute break while we move this group out and move the next group in. In order for us to fit everyone in for this next recognition, if you are here in the room and you are not part of recognition 4.02, I'm
059asking that you give up your seat to those individuals that are here for part of that recognition. So, we're going to be recognizing the future support staff of the year. If you're not here for that event, I'm asking if you'll please go out to the lobby area so that we can get everyone in that is here for part 42. It freed up a few seats. I've got a seat on both sides on the front row. Do we have any seats over on the side? We want to get everyone in that's being recognized for that part. Okay, I've got two more seats up here. I have four seats over on the far wall. If you're here to be recognized or you're here with an individual that's being recognized, I want to say thank you to those
060that have given up their seats for those that are here for this recognition. We've got two up here and three on that side. [Applause] I'm going to talking. Ready to start? Yeah, we're ready to start. Waiting on Jamie. Ready, Jamie? Welcome back. We are now moving on to item 4.02, our future support staff of the year. We are so excited to see all of you here and we appreciate the jobs that you do every day. Dr. Bagaban. Thank you, Madam Chair. We are excited about this because we always say that what makes this instit this institution great. One of the secret ingredients is absolut it's by far it's definitely the exceptional skill set the dedication and teamwork that's exhibited by our staff members. So this type of uh dedication and commitment also is has earned
061the admiration and respect by their teammates their their and also members of the community. So, Futures Foundation is proud to present the future the nominees for the Futures Foundation support staff of the year award. And I would like to ask Miss Shamine Shepard, our executive director for Futures Foundation, along with our president, Mr. Eric Fra, they are going to present this recognition and share a few words with us here. Welcome to both of you. Welcome. Good evening, Superintendent Balgaban, Chair Haynes, and board members. As you shared, my name is Shamine Shepard, and I am the executive director of Futures Foundation for Valuchia County Schools. And tonight with me is our board president, Eric Fra. We are really thankful and grateful for the opportunity to publicly celebrate this year's support staff of the year nominees. As
062the direct support organization for Blush County Schools, we have a long track record of providing valuable services and programs to Blush County Schools employees and students. While we are celebrating our 2025 support staff of the year nominees tonight, I want to take a moment to remind those watching and listening that Futures is celebrating 40 years of impact this year. Wow. We are celebrating the fact that since 1985, we have distributed 2.4 million in classroom grants to teachers. We have graduated more than 300 take stock and children's scholars, providing thousands of hours of mentoring and investing 2.5 million in scholarships. We have mentored over 10,000 students through our tomorrow's leaders program and we have celebrated hundreds of teachers of the year, principles of the year, firstear teachers and support staff of the year. We look forward
063to doing even more in the next 40 years and hope we are invited back to share more details of what we have accomplished since 1985. So tonight we will celebrate 18 support staff of the year nominees. In addition to receiving a certificate, we will provide each nominee with a $25 gift card. At this time, we are going to call names by district starting with Chair Haynes in district 1. As we call your names, please stand and remain standing until the whole district has been called and then we will applaud. All names. After all names from all five districts have been called, we will take photos with the superintendent and school board members. My team, well, Stephanie Stephanie Parks is on hand to assist in helping us get organized by district. Eric, you're up. Okay. from
064district 1 with chair Haynes. The nominees are Joanne Smith from Citrus Grove Elementary, Jennifer Barber Deberry Elementary, Sarah Dawson from River Springs Middle, Elizabeth Knight, Student Transportation and Dand, and Rachel Johnson online learning. All right. from district two with board member Christa Goodrich. The nominees are Melody Foley of Beachside Elementary, Paul Morrison, Mainland High School, and Theodora Teddy Drager of Sugarmill Elementary. [Applause] from district three with board member Jesse Thompson. The nominees are Alicia Blumicker, Chism Elementary, Kelly Harbor from Cypress Elementary, and Randy Parcell from Sweetwater Elementary. All right, from district four with board member Donna Brosmer, the nominees are Pete Cochran, Maintenance and Operations, Cecilia Papa from Pathways Elementary, Nicole Bukata from Steuart Marchman Alternative Residential Education. And finally with district five with school board vice chair Ruben Cologne. The nominees are Elizabeth Vila
065Deltona High, Lisa Greenwood Spirit Elementary, Dorene Cook from Sunrise Elementary, and Crystal Lavale from Timberrest Elementary. So, let's give all the nominees a big round of applause. [Applause] Congratulations to all of our nominees and a special thank you to the principles, administrators, and other leadership who nominated these stellar individuals. We are excited to surprise the winners over the next few weeks. Stay tuned. Okay. All right. Ready to do pictures. Take it. Tell them to come up. nominees transportation in and their principles. That's fine. Congratulations. She's helping [Applause] [Laughter] my soul. [Applause] [Music] That's a great deserved We need a little bit more on this side. Come this way. That's what happens. Yes. Look at that big count. Everyone, please exit with me over here. Congratulations everyone. You need it too. Congratulations. That's not good. I
066will hand him out [Applause] because there like Jesse, you just look [Laughter] up this There we go. No, I think everyone please exit with me over here. [Applause] history right here. We're going to take some pictures. Okay. Oh, that's mate. One day at a time, right? Yeah. You [Applause] guys are accommodations. These [Applause] accommodations [Applause] Congratulations. How many years? [Laughter] All certificates are up. You see everyone and [Music] Please be over here. I know. [Music] [Applause] You're doing all right. No, I'm good. I got you. I got you. How are you? Sorry. [Music] All I see is the top. Oh, come on. Go ball. Go ball. [Music] this way. Okay, thank you. [Music] Hi, how are you? Yes, I have Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm the attorney. [Music] Get in that hole where Danielle
067is. her family. I got you this. Oh, this is awesome. Thank you. Mr. Tim, just a little bit. Skip lucky. Okay. Ready? And Three, two, you're good. Yeah. Yeah. Send it to me. I would have got on my tiptoes if you were wasting Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you guys. Right. Oh, I have a good dress for that. Let's do it. One more. You want to do that and then take this one. Thank you and congratulation once again to all of our support staff. We are now moving on to item 4.03, the addition financial presentation. It's a recognition to Dr. Bakabin. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. And at this time, I would like to ask Dr. Kristen Pierce, our wonderful coordinator for CTE, along with Denise Rivera, our specialist for CTE. They are going
068to share this presentation with you. We have some guests in the audience. And I just want to give a shout out to um Additions Financial, an amazing partner with VCS, but they will do the presentation. Good afternoon, Chair Haynes, school board members, Dr. Baligan. Along with their generous financial support to Valuchia County Schools through the debit card program, Addition Financial has also sponsored our first state of the schools event and they provide guest speakers, classroom activities, and resources to help our students learn about in demand careers within Valuchia County. So in Valuchia County, the financial sector is growing with numerous opportunities for the high-skll, high-wage careers for our students, including financial planning, financial analysts, bookkeepers, accountants, loan officers, the list goes on. This partnership with Addition Financial plays a vital role in guiding our students
069toward success in both college and careers. Please help me in welcoming Richard Barbari, director of community engagement, and he's here to say a few words in support of our students and schools. Thank you, Kristen, and thank you, Dr. Balaban, school board members, um cabinet. We are um a credit union that is founded by educators. So, for programs like this, tonight is an exciting night for us because it gets to continue our mission of giving back to school districts in Central Florida and Valuchia. This is our first year of having this debit card program where anyone who has a Valuchia County School District branded debit card and makes a transaction addition financial give three cents back to the school district. So, it's a great way for students, um, faculty, staff members, alumni, anyone in the community
070to give back to the school district without it coming out of their pocket. It comes from addition financial to be used to further programs and support of those in uh, Valuchia County Schools. So, we're really excited in this first step in growing our partnership and supporting the students in your county. Thank you everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you. Oh, and I don't even think I I'm sorry, Dr. B. And this year, we're able to give $10,000 back because of that program. I forgot to leave that little nugget out, but yes. [Applause] But it's not just the $10,000. but also themies. Some of themies that we're looking at, you are working in making sure that we get some additionalies and our school systems. Thank you for that. You have hosted several of our meetings for cabinet
071members. Thank you for that. Thank you for sponsoring our very first right state of the school address. But most importantly, thank you for being such a valued partner. I I will tell you that I joined Central Florida Credit Union many many years ago. that's back in in those days because of of you know it's teachers it's it's really supporting our instructional team and in having all these different type of services that's customized to their needs. So I want to thank you for having that educator lens at all times. So thank you for your support and everything that you do for our school system. Thank you. A big check. Any questions? Yes, we do have a big check. We have a big check for photos. I'm going to do the presentation. Yes. [Applause] Yeah, that's it.
072And the check. Absolutely. It's a nice [Laughter] [Applause] That's nice. Hopefully it's bigger. Yeah, there you go. It's my third place. It is 6:09. We were go we're going to take a very very short break. We will be back in here at 6:15 p.m. And at that time we'll be taking the yellow cards. So if you are here to speak on anything that's a general interest item for education, nothing specific that's on the agenda. Please see Danielle Johnson and fill out a yellow card. Thank you. Good. You're back. At this time, we are moving on to item 15.01, which is public participation for any matter related to general education. We will allow there are only four cards. So, all four speakers will be allowed to speak during this time. What I need to remind everyone
073is please turn off your cell phone or silence your cell phone. While the speaker is speaking, we ask that you be respectful so there's no statements being made or calling out for the speaker. You can see the time clock right here. You'll have 3 minutes. When it stops, we're asking that you please stop your speech at that time so that you can see it. So, I will call the first speaker and the second speaker. So, the second speaker will be ready and then we'll continue on from there. Our first speaker this evening for a general interest item is Laura Bashard. Laura will be followed by Mary Tilford. So, please come forward, Mrs. Bashard, and welcome. Good evening, board members, superintendent, guests, visitors. My name is Laura Bashard and I'm a teacher and a steward at
074Taylor Middle School. I'm concerned that once again the district is talking about budget shortfalls. We are again losing instructional and supports positions and I've even heard talk of closing schools. My eighth graders get support in reading and math but not science. They need support in science but we don't have enough support people so that they get that support in science. So I do the very best that I can. And now I found out that we're losing even more ESSE positions. I don't know how this is going to help our students. It seems anytime there is a budget shortfall, real or imagined, teachers are always the first to go, which hurts the students. Were there any other options looked at like reducing the number of district positions? It seems reasonable that if declining enrollment calls for
075fewer teachers, it also calls for fewer positions at the district level. I am asking the board to look at how we are spending money. I mean, look at the actual numbers, not just a summary from the district. I'm asking the board to evaluate the programs the district has purchased to ensure that they are necessary and that they are worth the cost, that they provide the benefits that we are told they are supposed to provide. I am asking the board to seriously explore the idea that we have too many people at the district level. I am asking the board to be more hands-on with how the district spends taxpayer money so that our students are benefiting the most from all of the dollars that are being spent and then to publish those findings. I am asking
076the board to do something other than expecting students and teachers to do more with less while rewarding district leadership that does less with more. Thank you. Thank you, Mary Tilford. And following Mary will be Marta Pascal. Welcome, Miss Tilford. Thank you. I'm going to ask for your patience because I have cataracts and contacts and reading glasses. So, I'm going to try really hard to follow what I'm doing here. Okay. Hi, everybody. Thank you for letting me speak. I want to begin by saying thank you to Valuchia County Schools. You have given me an amazing career as an ESSE teacher for 30 years and I have many great memories. A lot has changed over the decades. I was teaching before we had computers in the classrooms before 911, before Coline. But there's one thing that hasn't
077changed even after all these years. And that is my belief that our students always come first. I work with an amazing group of people who have the biggest hearts. Shout out to you. And every day we put our multi and transition students first no matter what. Their needs are great, but they are the reason we are all here. We never forget that. Last year, some of our students came to a schoolboard meeting. They asked for their chorus classes to continue. They received no encouragement from the board or the superintendent, and it hurt to see that. Please pay attention to what our most important stakeholders have to say. As I watch the district cut so many positions of people who interact on a daily basis with students such as 200 teachers and programs that involve sub
078subjects that kids love, such as electives, I'm not positive that you are always putting these students first. Would it be possible to know if any cuts are occurring at the district level before we deprive our students of what they need? In February, the headline in the news journal was, "What is the state of Valuchia County schools?" Pretty good, actually. Less than two months later, the headline is facing a $25.8 million budget shortfall, Valuchia County Schools could look to consolidate. So, are we good or bad? I'm not sure at this point. Great leaders lead by example. Harry S. Truman said, "The buck stops here." Please remember students should always come first. They are human beings not human capital. They are the only reason we are here. Please, please remember that. Thank you. Thank you. So, next
079up is Miss Marta Pascal followed by Melanie Burton. Welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon, Superintendent Belgen, Chairman Haynes, and school board members. My name is Marta Pascal. I stand before you today as a proud retiree of the Valuchia County School System. 37 years as a teacher, assistant principal, elementary principal, middle school principal, and district administrator. I am the first two-time principal of the year for Valuchia County Schools. I tell you this not to boast but to impress upon you my work ethic and commitment to mission. I am here today as a realtor with Adams Cameron and Company Realtors. In mid-March as a real uh I'm sorry in in mid-March I learned via vendor link that Valuchia County Schools was solicit soliciting RFPs for real estate broker services. However, I was not able to work on the
080RFP immediately due to two very complicated transactions. One that I'd been working on for two years and the other for a year and a half. I won't bore you with all the time consuming glitches that I faced in trying to meet the submission deadline, but I will tell you that one of my biggest obstacles was the mandatory shity bond. I am aware that financial statements could have sufficed but neither the shity bond nor the financial statements were quickly available and it seemed that the shity bond was preferred as the RFP indicated that without it the solicitation would be denied. The insurance company struggled with providing the shity bond as it was not clear which properties would be part of the RFP. It was my intent to submit the completed RFP and all required documents via
081vendor link. the only submission option at the same time. However, I was struggling with vendor link a little bit due to a lack of familiarity. Additionally, vendor link responds to questions only via email, not in person or not by phone. Um, due to last minute glitches, I did miss the deadline. Why am I telling you this? to suggest that future RFPs include the specific sites for which the school district requires real estate broker services if possible to suggest that the shity bond or financial statements may be provided within seven days of the award of the RFP as is the case with the proof of insurance. Most importantly, I want you to know that one local broker, Adams Cameron and Company Realtor, serving the community since 1963 was and remains interested in partnering with Valuchia County
082Schools. We look forward to our next opportunity. Thank you for your time and attention. Thank you, Melanie Burton. Welcome. Good evening. I will be speaking uh but I would like to include my support if I could please. Uh good evening. We our Legacy Scholars Academy, a Valuchia County School on the Residing Hope Children's Home Campus who over the last 10 years have educated and supported approximately 500 trauma-based students. We are a combined 111 plus years of service comprised of Valuchia County certified teachers, paraprofessionals, administration and office staff paid for by Valuchia County Schools as well as campus adviserss, support teachers, behavioral and mental health therapists and a director of education paid for by the children's home. Together, we support Valuchia County students who have experienced trauma such as physical and sexual abuse, youth trafficking, neglect,
083abandonment, starvation, forced drug addiction, and much more, often too explicit to say to the public. We are a group of Lucia County educators who have chosen to serve this specific population of students, knowing these traumas have had a negative impact on their education and lives that often show up in their behaviors. We have chosen to serve them because we have had continued support by residing hope through trainings in emotional intellig intelligence developed by Yale University, adequate resources like a behavioral team, therapists, and additional classroom resources, all paid for by residing hope. We have chosen to use our VCS certifications to provide a safe, stable environment where our children can learn and transition more easily into a traditional Valuchia County school when they are found appropriate placement to live with a family. But we are now
084part of VCS's profit and loss statement which has determined that it costs too much to stay open and serve this population of traumatized students. Our students are just another FTE number, not individuals who have not made the cut for enrollment to generate enough money for the district. The impacts of trauma do not have a timeline such that as an FTE enrollment timeline, our students are placed with residing hope as a transi transitional program to continue their education while healing from their trauma until a stable home is found. When our students leave legacy, it is because they have finished their program of healing or a family has been found. If BCS had applied differentiation strategies for decisionmaking like we as educators are expected to apply differentiation in instruction when the deci when the decision to close
085our school was made simply because it costs too much and it didn't meet the FTE standards, legacy would have been valued enough to stay open. If VCS would have known their schools like we are supposed to know our students, then VCS may have realized how our school has been collaboratively serving a unique population of students with special needs by utilizing fully outside resources that VCS doesn't pay for in conjunction with our ESSE and subject area certifications. Instead of seeing that we cost too much, VCS may have actually realized the deal they were getting. DCS is only responsible for VCS staff and their benefits while the children's home your time is up pays for a majority of operating costs to ensure our students are receiving a free and appropriate education. So yes, closing our school will
086fill some vacancies, a handful. Closing our school will give you some money towards the deficit. Ma'am, our school is going to retraumatize our students. Thank you. At this time, we are moving on to the consent agenda. We have one person that wishes to speak for the consent agenda and it's for item 11.14. Terry Smith, will you please come forward? I apologize. Okay. Welcome, Mr. Smith. Sorry about that. So, yes, I just wanted to address the item regarding the robotic mowing. Uh we we rent, sell, install, and service robotic mowers, robotic line stripers, and robotic sweepers. We handle over six brands. Uh robotic mowing is an environmentally friendly way to maintain grass, which the district was looking for. Our mowers are use battery technology and are quiet and can operate at night and not disturb communities
087and students. We provide robotic mowing to various schools, businesses, golf courses, and residential properties throughout Florida. We have proudly provided robotic mowing to three of the high schools in Valuchia County over the last three years. The robotic mowing has helped to provide consistently playable sports fields and has helped to reduce costs. We look forward to helping the district improve the quality of their high school sports fields and we hope that the board will reconsider the rejection of our bid for the recent RFP that was put out. In the RFP, the bid tabulation sheet was a bit confusing. Uh we did look through that. We've done this before and we knew that the district was looking for Crest specific branded robotic mowers and that is what we provide as well as other brands. We actually did
088go through and provide two different tabulation sheets to make sure that it was clear that this was as a rental although some people might have confused that it was as a purchase. We do sell mowers as well and we also rent them. We install them and we service them. So we do look forward to the board's consideration on the rejection of the bids. Thank you. Thank you. At this time we are on item 6.01. Is anyone wish to remove any items from the consent agenda to be discussed or to be standalone items to be voted on? Madam Chair, 11.14. I'd be curious to learn more. Thank you. Okay. Which one? That's the uh the robotic mowing. So the 1114, Mr. Any other removals from the consent agenda? Dr. Bagwin, do you have any removals? I
089don't, Madam Chair. All right. So then at this time, can you please ask um the group to come forward for 11:14? Miss Batty Core, do we I see Smith and is he here? Oh, okay. Mr. Smith and Miss Thank you so much. So in the original information it says that due to the fact original bid was written to purchase the equipment and our intent is now to lease the equipment. Um will these uh different vendors have the opportunity to bid for the lease? So to answer your question in short at this time we don't intend resoliciting the service. Um I can let Mr. Smith speak to that a bit more. Um, but as it was stated by um, Mr. Tony Smith, um, there were discrepancies in our original um, price sheet that was submitted where
090we indicated 10 locations, but it was not specific as to how much equipment would have been needed at those those 10 locations. Okay. So what we have here in background it says procurement department maintenance operations has determined the need to reject all bids for robotic mowing equipment and services solicitation due to the fact that the original bid was written to purchase equipment and it is the intent of the district to now lease the equipment. So what you're saying and what is on here is not jiving. We currently already lease some of the equipment. So, our intent is to continue leasing the equipment we have, right? So, currently we have three schools that utilize robotic mowing. Uh we're not looking to add to that list. We just want to continue to use the four robotic moss
091that we have at the three schools. When we selected the companies for those three for the three schools, did that go out to a bid process where other vendors could participate? No, they did not. um because it was not meeting the threshold um for bid requirement. I'd like to make a motion that we table this one. I've got a lot of questions. Second. All right. I think we can look we could go further into the details of of of the scenario just to better understand it, but I'm not ready to make a decision on this tonight. All right. Right. So, Mr. Clone has made a motion to table item 11.14, which is the rejection of bids for robotic mowing equipment and services. Mrs. Brosmeer has seconded. At this time, I'll call for the vote unless
092there's any further discussion. All those in favor, please say I. I. Anyone say nay? It passes unanimously. So that item is being removed from the consent agenda and it will not be a standalone item. It will come back table it uh let me rephrase that. Table it uh until the next board meeting if that's sufficient time for you to answer the questions. Absolutely. Thank you. You're good with that motion? Good. Till next meeting everybody. Good. All right. So then if there's no other items that are to be pulled or discussed, superintendent, you have a recommendation. Madame Chair, I that's the cons those were the consent items. So No, you recommend for us to approve. Yes, I do. All right. So all items from the consent the superintendent with the exception of 11:114 11:14 the superintendent's
093recommendation is to approve the consent agenda this evening as presented with the removal of item 11.14. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion to approve. Thank you Mrs. Goodrich. Do I have a second? I'll second that motion. Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Then it passes unanimously. We are now moving on to item N um sorry not 19 16.01 Lucia County Schools 20 25A certification of participation cops for the bank loan. Dr. Balgaban. Thank you, Madam Chair. We have with us here Mr. Todd CE, our chief financial officer. He's going to present our guest here today and also share with you the a presentation regarding the 2025A certification of participation um bank loan. Thank you. Um and first
094of all um good evening board. This is more of anformational item. Um, but I would like to um um sorry, Laura How with PFM. Introduce Laura. And um she actually handles all of our financial adi, uh she's our financial advisor for these large debt issues. Anytime the school district goes out for debt, we work with PFM to do that. So, what I wanted to do here just real quick was just give we have two new board members now since we started the process where we were going to issue debt and now we're going to um not issue debt. So, I need to provide just a little history real quick for the new board members just to make sure that we're all on the same page. So, just a little bit of background here and then
095Laura is going to help me out and interject for some of those detailed um funding questions and more of the how they how they go about structuring that debt if the board wishes to ask any questions. The so the um background on this on October 22nd, 2024, the school district expressed its desire to work with a public private partnership P3 company to build a new enterprise K8 school. To fund the project, the district engaged with Bank of America to issue a short-term loan referred to as their certificate of participation series 2024 bond anticipation note, also referred to as a ban. So, the funding plan was that was implemented. The band was intended to be refunded in early spring this spring here through the issuance of a long-term debt. issues certificate of participation series 2025A. I
096just bear with me board, we'll get through this. Upon meeting certain conditions specified in the um resolution, these funds were allocated for the Pine Ridge High School classroom addition, Manatee Cove Elementary classroom addition, Path Pathways Elementary Classroom Edition, and Repatella Elementary placement school to a K8 facility. it as disclosed at the board meeting and in your capital section of your budget book on page 112 if you wanted to go and take a look at that. So for this upcoming resolution on May 13th, we're asking um where we'll be presenting to a resolution to the school board for consideration. The resolution will cancel the borrowing authorized provided by the previous proposed ban and cops issuance under resolutions 2024-17 and 2024-18 and move forward by issuing a direct placement certificate of participation series 2025A in approximate amount
097of 33 million for financing an 11 classroom edition at Pathways Elementary School and a 20 classroom edition at Pineriidge High School. Request for a request for proposals seeking financial proposals for these projects was issued um with the help of PFM with the responses that were due on April 3rd. These proposals were evaluated by the team with Webster Bank offering the best rates for the school district at 3.62% for seven years. and a recommendation will be included in the resolution to be considered by the board again on May 13, 2025. Future plans, a separate certificate of participation will be issued once the Enterprise Elementary School replacement K8 school project details are finalized. So I Lori, is there anything you wanted to add for clarification? Um, no. I think that this pretty much covers it. it is
098a locked fixed rate. Um, so that 3.62% up until the board approval is locked, which is eliminating any market risk right now, which I'm sure you all are aware of. Um, so that is a very positive thing for the district. We know as of today what that rate would be if the board does move forward with the approval in May. Okay, board members, do you have any questions? Mr. clone. So, let me get this straight. So, so we approved borrowing a while back. Priorities have changed and right now what you're going to be bringing back to us is uh sufficient borrowing for the 20 classroom addition to Pineriidge and Pathways. Is that what I'm understanding? That is correct. Okay, that was it. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you very much. We're now moving on
099to item 17.01, request for adoption of proposed amendments to schoolboard policy 610, naming school facilities. Dr. Balamin. Yes. Dr. Evans, anything you would like to share before I do my recommendation? I think all the changes have been prior spoken about here at this meeting and we're just now asking for adoption. Okay. And it's been advertised. Yes. Already? Yes. So, um, chair, I recommend adoption of the proposed amendments to school board policy 610, which is the naming of schools school facilities. Thank you. Board members, you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent to adopt the proposed amendments to schoolboard policy 610, naming school facilities, which has already been advertised for the appropriate amount of time. Do I have someone that would like to make a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. Do I
100have a second? I'll second. Is that you, Mrs. Goodri? Thank you. All right. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? It passes unanimously. We are now moving on to item 17.02, request for adoption of proposed amendments to schoolboard policy 702, purchasing. Dr. Evans. Yes. This is a policy that has already been discussed embedded by the board prior to advertising and now we're seeking for this board to approve adoption of the policy. Madam Chair, I recommend adoption of the proposed amendments to school board policy 702 purchasing. Thank you. Board members, you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent. Do I have someone that would like to make a motion for the adoption of the proposed amendments to schoolboard policy 702 purchasing? I'll make the motion.
101Thank you, Mrs. Goodrich. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Cologne. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, please say I. I. Anyone opposed? It passes unanimously. We are now moving on to item 17.03, request for adoption of proposed amendments to schoolboard policy 717, travel expense reimbursement policy. Dr. Evans. Yes. Thank you, Superintendent. Likewise with this policy, the changes have already been vetted by this board and advertised, and now we're seeking permission uh to make the change and adopt the policy. Superintendent Chair, I recommend adoption of the proposed amendments to school board policy 717, travel expense reimbursements policy. Board members, you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. Do I have a second? I'll
102second. Thank you, Mrs. Goodrich. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? It passes 5 to zero unanimously. We are now moving on to item 17.04. This is actually a request to advertise proposed school board policy 326 guidelines for auto auto recording individual education plan IEP and section 504 plan meetings. Thank you. Um Madame Chair, we have Dr. Evans along with Mr. McCalliff and Mrs. Copeland. Welcome. Hi, good evening. As Dr. Balgabin stated, this is to request uh to advertise proposed schoolboard policy 326 guidelines for audio recording with individual education plan IEP and sections for students with a 504 plan uh to provide students with that ADA accommodation and parents. Is there anything else you wish to add? No, we just want to
103we just we just want to make sure that we have a clear policy for parents to understand uh their legal rights in recording uh IEP meetings and 504 meetings. Thank you. And we have always depended on the guidance from the Department of Education, but now we wanted to come up with a succinct policy for Valuchia County. And this is what we have always done, but we're just trying to capitalize it in our own policy. Thank you, Madam Chair. I recommend authority be granted to advertise the proposed policy 326, which are guidelines for audio recordings of individualized education programs, IEPs, and section 504, um the section 504 plan meetings. Board members, you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent. Do I have someone that will make a motion to advertise the proposed school board policy 326? Motion
104to approve. Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Mrs. Goodrich. Any discussion? Mr. Cologne? Yes, I do have a question. So, it says, "When recording is necessary in order to comply with district obligations under IDA 504?" So, what would be an example of when recording a 504 or IEP meeting would be allowable? What does that look like? So, if we had a parent that needed an ADA com accommodation for the recording of the meeting, whether they had a a deficiency that they could only um they could only access the information through a transcript andor a recording. So, we have parents who have disabilities and so with that we may need to provide a written transcript of that, a recording of the meeting for them. So that is subjective on
105our part as to whether or not the parent has that. No, they would have to provide us with that documentation that that is a need and that would go to general counsel prior to the meeting taking place. Deaf and heart of hearing. Okay. And so I I think that's good. I just I I wonder and as you know we've been getting emails because who is to say that one family qualifies and the other one doesn't? It may be a you know I mean if I were a family I'd probably say I want it recorded too because I want to be able to reference it later. Let's say so as so as a school district. My question is how would we quantify that because we are sort of opening up I'm not going to say opening
106the can but we're opening up a can and saying that there's a process by which we would consider the the recording to be appropriate. My question is how would we determine that? So, if I am a parent of an ESE person and I say, "I want I want it to be recorded because I want it to be recorded." Who's to tell me no? I could say, "Well, I want to I I have a learning disability and I'm can't grasp it all at the moment. Who's going to say no?" Is there a cost to that prohibits us from recording all of them? It's more protecting rights of our employees. So what I'm afraid of is that subjective nature of how we're going to determine that a adult who we can't send for an evaluation. I I
107believe it's anything that falls under the ADA compliance which deaf heart of hearing or anything like that. They would have to submit that paperwork to us. It states in there 3 days prior. We would then send that to general counsel's office for him to review and then he would determine his office if that is legally allowed if that's legal paperwork that we're going to apply and say yes we will record this due to the ADA um disability that these parents have. So that's that's how it would go off of once they provide us with the documentation that they're stating they have with the ADA. That's what we're going off of. We would turn it over to Dr. Evans office, general counsel, and then they would determine and let us know. So, if I was a
108parent with ADHD, making the what? If I was a parent with ADHD and I was going to an IEP meeting, again, now that we're talking about it, it's going to be a thing. And I wanted to have the IEP meeting recorded, which will subject everyone in the room to be there. Would that be suffice? Would that meet the bar? I don't know. No. I I would No. No. No, I believe you you would have to provide medical documentation for the for the documentation for legal to review. Okay. We ask for documentation and the documentation will be reviewed. If the if the parents are hard of hearing or if something of that nature comes, we will allow it to be recorded. But we just need some documentation. And if you look at the case law that
109is provided here, the case law supports our position. Okay. I'm I'm I'm more concerned for the ability to, you know, the the folks that need these accommodations that need them. We we we know that, you know, deaf and heart of hearing, that's easy. I'm just afraid that if if it's not tight enough and of course consistent with the law, everybody's going to want their IEP meeting recorded. And our position is if they can supply us with documentation of disabilities, we will give them that right to report. And this is the parents that have to do this, provide this on their behalf, not the students, the parents. Parents, correct? Something. I'm sorry. I'm going to jump, Miss Goodrich. But from an equitable standpoint, I think I'm I'm sensing your wavelength here, Mr. Cologne. That's scary. That's
110bad. Every IEP meeting or 504 meeting, every IEP or 504 meeting, every individual that's that's present there for that meeting, two things happens before it concludes is that they would review all of the notes that's been taken with the entire committee. Copies are obtained for every single member that are there. So parents will get a transcript so to speak of all the notes taken in an IEP meeting so that it's equitable for all parents. But these are for parents that may have a physical or a disability that's beyond where to the point that if if you know the only thing that's not recorded it's taking breath in in these meetings. It's every aspect of it. So that does to your point Miss Good takes a whole lot more manpower because we have to go back
111and review everything making sure that it really truly captured the meeting making sure that it's presented in such a way. So it does take a whole lot more manpower but every parent receives a transcript meaning the notes from every IEP and 504 meetings. Did I speak out of No, ma'am. You did a great job. Okay. Thank you. It's good rich. And so without this, um, parents that have are hard of hearing or have a disability that they need it recorded would not be able to get that if we don't pass this. Correct. Okay. Dr. Bman, is there anything you want to add? No, ma'am. No, I'm sorry. That was me earlier. So, I'd just like to add it's also very similar if we have um parents that speak another language as long as they submit
112that documentation, then we work through having a translator available for them. And if you've ever sat through an IEP meeting or a 504 meeting, there's a lot of paperwork that is signed by everyone that's there where the goals are stated and everybody's agreeing to what the goals are going to be, what the checkpoints are, where the students academically at at that point as they create the goals. So, an IEP folder, I've seen them as large as this, you know, with all the documentation and everyone there is provided copies of that. Is there any further discussion? All right, we already have a motion and a second. At this time, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor of advertising the proposed schoolboard policy 326 guidelines for the audio recording of individualized education program IEP and
113section 504 plan meetings. Please say I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. It passes unanimously. We are now moving on to item 17.05. At this point, Dr. Balabin, can you bring up Yes, Madam Chair. I would like to ask Miss Patty Core, our CEO, and Ron Young, our director, to join us. Um, Ron Young is our director for planning and construction. Miss Patty Core obviously is our chief operating officer. They're going to share with you two action items. They will present. Thank you. two action items which will be 17.05 and 17.06. Welcome. Good evening, Chair Haynes, school board members, Dr. Balgaban. Thank you for having us uh here this evening to talk about um 1705 and 1706. And you'll notice that those are two separate action items because they are actually two parcels of land
114that are owned by different owners. And so therefore, the contracts are separate because we're we could possibly be purchasing from two different people. But they are when we when we talk about um and we go forward with the information, it we're considering it as one parcel, but they are two parcels. Uh so once again the reason we're here tonight is to talk about uh and seek approval for purchasing uh two parcels in the city of Deerry that we refer to as Spring Vista. Um as you may recall and in our previous conversations when we've talked about our 5-year work plan and our halfsent sales tax um Enterprise Elementary which resides in the municipality of Enterprise Florida is due for a rebuild. this uh school was chosen to be on uh the list of projects that
115came forward from the halfsent sales tax committee about almost 10 years ago now. Um that referendum expires in 2031 and the Enterprise Elementary replacement on there is expected to be built. However, the referendum does not exclusively say where that school has to be rebuilt. Um, I want to again make sure everybody remembers that when we're talking about our projects, Ron and I up I'm sorry, Ron Young is with me, our director. Um, when we're talking about our projects, these are capital funds, half cent sales tax, impact fees, cops, like, uh, Mr. CE talked about earlier. This is not general funds. So, I need to alleviate that misconception once again for the public, for everyone that is listening. This is not money that could be spent on teacher salaries. I wish it could, but it can't.
116Um, we have categoricals in the in the world of education. Money comes to us from different places and DOE determines how and when we can spend some of our money. So, this is not money that can be used. Um, and I don't want that to be confused with uh some of the other financial discussions and the presentation that Mr. CE made at the last meeting. That was the general operating budget. That is not what we're talking about tonight. So, I want to make sure everyone understands that. Um, so what we do in our department, of course, is we're continually looking at where the growth is for our students in the county of Valuchia. Um, people have asked us questions like, "Oh, but we heard you have declining enrollment." Well, we know we have 44 out
117of 67 districts in the state of Florida that are experiencing in some degree or in some areas some enrollment decline. That does not mean that the whole county is declining across the across the county evenly. So, we have neighborhoods that have aged out that were um you know uh single family homes and the kids went to school, they've graduated, they moved on, the parents are still there, but the students aren't anymore. And we have continual you drive anywhere in Valuchia County, you're going to see new building projects and the building projects are moving on the east side of the county further west near the interstate. So now we have more students there than we do maybe on the beach side. So we are constantly looking and reviewing that on an annual basis. That's what helps
118determine some of our attendance boundary changes when those come up. It also helps determine where our building projects will be. So in the case of what we're speaking about today is that we absolutely see based on our enrollment and what we call our reservations which are um future students that we know are coming based on more building that is happening in the area that the city of Deerry is is woefully underschooled to be uh frank as compared to the other municipalities we have and the number of students that reside in those municipalities. So, as you know, there's currently only one school in the city of Deerry. Um, however, we have more than what can fit at that school. So, we have students that are being bus or transported or driven by their parents in some
119cases out of the city of Deberry to other surrounding schools. Um, the current enrollment at Deerry Elementary is 766. And it's only that number because last year we had to do a a attendance boundary change and we had to reszone about 260 students out of uh that dear elementary because it can't handle over a thousand kids. So those students are going to either Enterprise or Manatee Cove. There are 276 students currently leaving Deerry every single day to go to Enterprise Elementary. There are 459 students leaving the city of Deerry every day to go to River Springs. There are 750 students leaving Deberry every day to go to University High School. However, that does not include the students that live in Deerry that are not in Valuchia County schools. And there are a number of them
120um that are going to private or charter or home school. And I'll share those with you in a moment. And that's only the ones we know about as well because if a student never enters our system, we don't know they exist. So if there are students in the city of Deerry that went to a private preschool and then never entered our system anywhere, we don't we can't account for them. So the question that we've been asked multiple times is can that city support a second school? And it absolutely can. In addition, these would be students for the majority of the school that would be within the two-mile non-transport and that is the standard across our entire county. If you live within two miles of your zone school, we don't bus you. You get your own
121transportation. Um so currently in the city of Deerry we have 281 elementary students who are not in Valuchia County public schools and 120 that we know about that are not in Valuchia County public schools. Anyone want to guess how much that equals in FTE and I know they're students and not numbers but it's significant. It's $3.2 million. Okay. Um based on the US Census Bureau, um from 2023, we are estimating about uh 3,000 a little over 3,000 school age children in the city of Devi. Um not including again the new construction that's happening out there and the new developments. How does that compare? Well, the closest uh municipality to de um to Barry on the north is Orange City, and they only have a few hundred more elementary students, about 400 more elementary students. Yet
122they have two elementary schools, one of which is one of the largest if on any given day it can be the largest elementary school in the district and that's Manatee Cove in Orange City. And that's because there's a significant number of our students from Deerry going to Manatee Cove. So by opening a second school in Deair, we can write that and rightsize that. And although we know we want a certain number um financially, it does put a strain on um schools when you start getting creeping closer and closer to that 1,000 uh for elementary school. That's a little bit high. So of the 2676 students from Deerry that are zoned to Enterprise, 145 of them are taking advantage of our transportation. That means the other parents are choosing to drive their students. Um that equates
123to about $162,000 annually just for the four buses that go from Deberry to Enterprise. Um 459 students that are zoned to River Springs, 421 of them, so the majority of them do take the bus. It's nine buses every day that leave Deberry to go to River Springs. That costs approximately $365,000 annually. And so for the between the two that's about a half a million a year. What's really significant about that is that of course we will transport students. We do transport. You're eligible for transportation if you're beyond that two-mile non-transport vicinity for your school. And we do receive some funding from the Department of Education FTE like we do for schools but only at about 48 to 50% of the cost. So the reason that's significant is we don't rec we don't recoup that money
124back. We do get some money but we don't re we don't get it at a 1:1 ratio from transportation and about 450 um students are transported to University High from Deerry again nine buses $365,000 approximately annually. Um, at this time I'm going to turn it over to Ron to talk a little bit about the timeline and how we got here today with looking at this purchase of this property. This all started in June of 23. uh we went to a neighboring county to look at a school there for a K8 because we felt that we had a need. Uh in we've we've met several times uh many times but in October the board met and voted on moving forward and in You got the top one and where we at? Yeah, go ahead. All right,
125I'll do it. Thank you. Okay, so some of these items preceded this administration. Um, when we're looking at uh especially construction projects, sometimes that's many years in the making. Um, so some some of these items did pre predate or preceded us. Um but um in October of 2023 uh Ron and had a conversation with the city manager from Deerry. Uh there was a piece of property that we were looking at. Someone else had purchased it. Let me also preface this by saying uh this is not a city where there's a lot of pieces of property available. There's very little property left. That's the size that we would need and in the condition that we would need to build a school. Um and so that makes things more difficult. We're we're not trying to be difficult.
126We can go to other places and you could have, you know, 500 acres to choose from. That is not the case in the city of Deerry. It's almost built out. Um so, uh there have been several times where our operations staff has met with the city. Um we also have meetings with the city planners where we talk about growth and and confer. And we do that across the district. That is not unique to any one city. We we have those conversations ongoing. Um and there was a discussion about um where could a school possibly go in the city of Devi. Um on February 21st of 2024, we received we the school district received an unsolicited proposal from a company called Building Tomorrow Schools who said, "We see a need." And that's what they do. They're
127private public private partnership, a P3. Um, I sent the information to all of the board members, um, especially those who weren't here back when this occurred, so you guys would have the information because our team brought this to the school board meeting on February 27th of 2024, which we are required to do because we received an unsolicited proposal from Building Tomorrow Schools. They said, "Hey, we see that you have a need to build a school in Dear and we have the means to do so, and would you like to enter into a contract with us?" When we brought it to the board on February 27th, it was to ask for um the board's permission to move forward with investigating the P3 proposal and putting it out to bid, which is our general um process. And
128the board unanimously voted yes. So, we did that and we followed our our um construction project and what we do for any project we build, which is we put it out for bid, companies can bid on it. Um there's an evaluation timeline. They have to submit documents. There's a presentation. They get graded vendor link. Miss Marta Pascal. It all goes through there. We follow state statute. We follow our SREF requirements as we always do. That is what happened. We came down to two companies who came in and presented and one company won. And the company that won was BTS, Building Tomorrow Schools. Um so at that point they won the bid. Um we had further meetings including our superintendent and the city manager and attorneys were in meetings that was in June of 24. Um
129in July of 24 um Ron and some of his team team went back to the city of Deerry for a meeting at some point once Dr. Evans was on board he was involved in a meeting out there. Um, and then in October, well, concurrently while that was happening, we were working on the interim agreement with Building Tomorrow Schools. That came to the board on October 8th of 2024. And it was an interim agreement um to enter into this interim agreement with Building Tomorrow Schools, which included in the interim agreement language that said that we would be purchasing the Spring Vista site for 8.4 million, which is what is coming to you tonight. that was unanimously approved by the board on October 8th. Um December 20th at our office in UL or I'm sorry, December 20th,
130we went to a team of us went to um city hall in Deerry to meet with the uh meet at the commission meeting. I'm sorry, December 20th, you guys went to city hall with your attorneys and met with um Carmen Rosunda. On the 20th of 2025, January 15th of 2025, we went to the city commission meeting. Um, and I'll leave that there for right now, unless you have further questions about what happened at that meeting. Um, but the city um declared that this was not in um in alignment with their comp comprehensive plan. Um, and then we went met with the city manager at Olsen with the superintendent on February 6th of 2025 in which he brought a couple of team members with him. And at some point after that, we were asked to meet
131with the city council because what did happen at the commission meeting, which is very unfortunate, is we were limited to the information that we were allowed to supply to the commission. Um, at one point we were told no, we couldn't share any information about a different piece of property that we had previously bought. Um and then um we had representation from DOE there. Uh Miss Violet Brown was there and they did give her three minutes to speak on that, but it was part of our overall presentation and we were not allowed to speak on it. So we wanted just to make sure everybody had the same information. Um why we weren't moving forward with the alternate piece of property after after we had done our due diligence and we realized that um it was cost
132and time prohibitive to continue with the the original site. It would cost a lot of money to remediate it before we ever could even put a footer in the ground or lay a foundation. It just was not good use of our taxpayer money. Um, and so we decided to not use that site. Um, so we were asked to explain that. I was asked by several board members actually to meet with the council members and because of sunshine we can't meet with them in a group. So we invited them and we were going to Deerry Elementary so they wouldn't even have to travel and we invited all of them individually and all of them declined. So at this point we still have not had other than the short time we were at their commission meeting we
133have not had an opportunity to explain all of our documentation and why we you know we had to do what we had to do. So um one of the one of the misconceptions that has come up and we want to clarify again tonight is that the school district has not done their due diligence in meeting with the city of Devi. I can forward this my document to you if you choose to have it. That is absolutely not true. That is a misconception and it's not true. We have had multiple meetings. What's very unfortunate is we work with municipalities all the time and this is the first time we've encountered this um kind of um opposition if you will. They agree they need a school in Deberry. We agree. What's happening here is that we're not
134agreeing on where and that's as simply as I can put it. We need a school. I I can't worry about unfortunately their feelings. My obligation is to our students and our families in Valuchia County Schools just like they have their obligations and they'll probably speak to you when they do their public input. But it's just very important that everyone understands that, you know, we are going to make the decision that is best um for our kids. Ron can speak more specifically to why one site over the other. Um, we cannot throw good money after bad. And it's not in our best interest to spend an additional 15 million or $20 million on a piece of property that we bought just because we already bought it. That that doesn't that's anyone with common sense would know
135that doesn't make sense. Um, we also have everything we do runs through the Florida DOE and we have a department that we have to report to and we have to answer to and we have to follow state requirements for educational facilities. You guys hear me say SREF all the time. We can't bypass that, nor will we break the law. We will not do that. Um, and so the recommendation that we received from the person in charge of of the facilities department at the Department of Education listed why that original site was not conducive nor was in our best interest to put a school there. And one of the most simple things is it's because it's on a highway. Um, and there's laws about that about the speed limit. And we have our state statute 1013
136that says that schools districts should make every effort to build their schools within communities and neighborhoods to be focal points and to be a part of the to the be a part of the community. And that's why we're trying to what we're trying to do. And that's why you could go now and look at any of our existing schools and you could see there's houses all around them because that's what the statute tells us to do is to build our schools within communities. Um where is the funding coming from was another misconception and question I kept getting. And I believe I already answered that at the beginning, but let me say it again. It is not general funds. It is capital funds and they are categorical and they are earmarked only for certain things like
137building of schools. Okay, now you can talk about the site because now you got me going. Okay, so let's just be clear that the state of Florida did not say that we cannot build on Buckley. They simply did uh their comparison uh the same as we did with our engineers and they concluded that Buckley was not a site conducive for a school. That the better site obviously was Spring Vista. And some of the reasons that Buckley is not conducive for a school is that as Patty mentioned, it is on a four-lane um highway and that road is currently above its LOS. In other words, if anybody that drives that road in the morning going into Sanford, you will be waiting for quite a while because of the congestion down by I4. That traffic backs all
138the way up past Buckley. I've done it myself. So, some of the other considerations on the property, there's an artisian well on the property. There are wetlands on the property. Uh if you visit the site, you can stand on the property and look up to the road and the road is probably in the neighborhood of 5 to 6 feet above your head when you're standing on the property. The water table on the property is about 12 in. So, we would have to dewater the site and raise that 20 at least 22 to 25 acres of the site above the crown of the road. And that would take about 1,600 dump load trucks of dirt. So to fill that site, so between the fill and u the fact that u there would have to be considerable
139changes to the fourlane out front and there has to be the ability for the kids to walk in a two-mile radius around the school. It's been estimated that it would cost the district about $20 million just to prepare the site to come out of the ground. We're not out of the ground. it's just to prepare it to come out of the ground. Um, conversely, the Spring Vista site, the water table is about 15 ft below the site and um the existing road in front of the uh property is not above LOS and the traffic study said that even with our traffic, it would not be above its LOS. So, the cons for the Spring Vista site is that uh we have opposition from the city and it is located near some industrial um businesses. We
140think those can be overcome. Um but yeah, that's about it for those for the positives and negatives. I could I could drill down into the engineering report, but it's a lot of pages. Ready for questions? We can take any questions or do you want to do questions first or public input first? Do you guys wish to ask questions first or do public input first? You can do public input first. What? Public input. We're going to do public input. As we did earlier, just want to remind you, please have your cell phone turned off or on silent. There is no calling out while people are speaking. If you are in agreement, and I do apologize that I forgot to say this earlier, you can do a thumbs up or a jazz hands. If you're in a
141disagreement, you can do a thumbs down. Um, but there is no one speaking from the audience while the people are coming forward and while they're speaking. Each speaker will have a total of three minutes. Please adhere to the time clock. I will call the first two speakers and then we will move on from there. The first speaker this evening is Miss Karen Shaz, the mayor of Deerry, followed by Carmen Rosamondo, the city manager. Welcome. Good evening. Karen Shaz, mayor of Deerry. I would like to step back a bit and express my regret that on the critical issues of having appropriate school capacity and operations for dear students that had been that what had been a productive partnership between VCS and Deerry seems to have dissolved several years ago. The city and VCS helped largely by
142the efforts of Chair Haynes addressed critical issues that had arisen at Deerry Elementary. Parental behavior had changed since the school was built. School threats had led to new rules to secure schools. School traffic was forced to stay on adjacent roads, except for drop off and pickup. The traffic in our neighborhoods and the arterial road on which the school sits had become unworkable. Our residents were up in arms. They expected the city to do something. Although the causes for the now impossible situation were outside our control. VCS and Deberry split the cost for improvements needed to get waiting cars off the arterial roads sole westbound lane. After the project was engineered, the school advised that the portion of queuing designed to be on school property could not be used prior to gates open as had been
143planned. Adding capacity to the road lane cost us all more, but it was accommodated. This partnership to address problems was, we believed, a model that could be used to solve some of the same issues that are now seen at other neighborhood schools. Every week, I see pictures on social media with unsafe parental behavior at school drop off and pickup, as well as unsafe student behavior as they try to get to and from school on devices including electric scooters and more. I see the photos of roads blocked by waiting cars just as the situation had been in Deerry. Fast forward, the city council after hearing facts and evidence for 4 hours in January found the proposed school site under consideration for purchase this evening to be incompatible with our comprehensive plan because of many of the
144same issues we saw at Deerry Elementary and had to pay to fix. But with the spring spring Vista site, there were many more. As the area around the site is completely built out with not just homes, but businesses that have heavy traffic during the same hours as the school traffic, we would like to be a good partner with VCS. I believe we have shown that over the years. In my view, when the Spring Vista site came to the four and the developer began assisting VCS in the planning, the partnership that existed began to fall apart. Deberry stood ready to help with addressing issues VCS had with the site in the south of the city, which VCS purchased in July of 2024. remember the timeline. After lengthy due diligence, but the procurement process used to engage
145the potential developers put a cone of silence over the southern property as well and ended productive engagement. All of this is truly regrettable and has led to financial choices for VCS that are fraught with problems in my view. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Mr. Carmen Rosamondo followed by Kurt. Is it Stonehill? Thank you. Thank you, board superintendent. Madame Chair, as you know, the city council conducted a quasi judicial hearing while relying on substantial and competent evidence decided that the use of the school at the Spring Vista site was inconsistent with the city's comprehensive plan. Normous enormous cost of road improvements, the need to eminent domain residential front yards, business front yards, and the adverse effects on adjacent properties, homes, and businesses were too devastating. The school board did not appeal this decision, making it
146final that the Spring Vista property could not be used for any type of school. Under Florida law, a comprehensive plan governs land use, not ownership. Your ownership, and I'm sorry, your ownership does not supersede the city's comprehensive plan. Florida law requires local governments and school boards to enter into interlocal agreement on how schools are to be implemented in 2003, amended in 2007. Our interlocal agreement was executed by the school board, Valuchia County, and all 16 cities. It was approved by the Florida Department of Community Affairs and approved by the Florida Department of Education. Under this agreement, all parties agreed that the local government shall determine whether the potential school site is consistent with this comprehensive plan. This requirement is consistent with and supported by nearly 50 years of attorney general opinions 1979-37, 1989-31, and 2004-42
147to be exact. A yes vote tonight to buy and build on this property will purposely and intentionally violate this statutory required in a local agreement. Lastly, in 2018, there were hundreds of acres available in Deerry to build a school. And year by year, as developers purchased the property and gained your capacity approvals, the school board sat idally by and did nothing to plan for another school in Deerry. In fact, in 2022, a perfect 30 acre piece was sold on Fort Road. It wasn't until 2023 when we learned about your closing of Enterprise Elementary that did that the city even become aware that you were interested in building the school in De Berry. Yet today, this organization continues to criticize the city even though you have all the same information to proactively plan for schools. The
148city will vigorously defend our residents, our businesses and commerce uh from all threats. We are confident that the city's comprehensive plan and quasi judicial decision will prevail. Yes, voting yes will senselessly cost Felucia residents significant tax dollars in legal fees, damages, and as we as we will be in court, which includes discovery for a long, long time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is Curt Stonehill followed by Emily. Is it Denon? Thank you. First, my sincere thank you uh for your service to the community, your investment in children, and thereby the future of Valuia County. As I mentioned in an email that I sent to you, I've heard a lot of pros and cons about these two sites. I'm disappointed that some of the talking points that have been refuted are still being
149discussed as major obstacles and that certain theoretical solutions are that are clearly not realistic are being considered as options. a contamination area that apparently is only 10 by 10 by3 that would not be near a building. A two-mile loop for traffic, which in this day and age of instant gratification, no parent is going to wait in, even if it's one mile or even half a mile, to drop off their children. The fact is, parental behavior will result in young children being dropped off at various businesses and walking to a school past numerous moving vehicles. If this is about the children, then the children's safety should be a primary concern. In speaking to the congressman's office this morning, uh they noted that it took years and significant expense to address traffic issues at Deerry Elementary School.
150Let's not repeat that mistake by creating a similar situation. This is just to mention a few time few items due to the restrict time restrictions. But there are cons as well. Negative impact to the Springview community that would not exist at Buckley. People bought homes on Shell Road not expecting a portion of the yard could be taken and that therefore the hazard of a car at their roof level being a very real threat. People bought houses in the neighborhood that is intentionally set back from 1792. Please do not bring that 1792 traffic to our doorstep. As mentioned, there's already a very viable piece of property that was purchased for this purpose. I refuse to believe that in all respect to the comments earlier, the due diligence was so lacking that there are suddenly now egregious
151reasons why that property is uh unusable or not likely to be used. We hear a lot about waste and abuse these days and I do not believe the Buckley site falls into that category. Finally, I do not believe that there are I do not believe that there are any pros to putting the school at Spring V Spring Vista in comparison to the Buckley site, but there are many serious cons. Let's make a decision that is a win for everybody that is vested uh in the and reside in the community and not just one that has consciated with it. The city of Dear unanimously voted no. Please respect their decision. ask that you vote against the site at Spring Vista location. The wrong answer cannot be the right solution. If the motivation is anything other than
152the children, then it's the wrong motivation. If the motivation is the children, then please build on the Buckley site as soon as possible. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Emily Denon, followed by Kevin Stevenson. Welcome. Good evening. Um, so I was at the meeting on January 15th and Miss Haynes called in a traffic analyst and he did a great job of explaining that there will be miles worth of school drop off line to put into this potential school because the surrounding roads cannot accommodate the traffic that this school is going to bring to our neighborhood. Um, he noted that there's only one car every 45 seconds exiting our neighborhood, but when you add all the traffic in, it's going to be more than that. There's going to be a line of cars trying to
153get out of our neighborhood every morning. We have two exits, but they both exit onto Shell Road because our neighborhood is small. The second exit isn't viable because there's no stops. There's no four-way stop. You're just going to sit there and wait. Um I I grew up in Deltona. I went to Sunrise Elementary School. I had to I lived 2 miles away from the school. It was a 7-minute drive. had to roll out of my mom's driveway at 7:15 every morning to make sure I was out of my car at 7:55 because we waited in neighborhoods for over half an hour. Excuse me. These lines, people would not let people um residents out of their driveways. Residents were getting angry. It was atrocious. keep saying that it's okay to have this traffic come through the
154neighborhood and stop uh the flow of traffic leaving or coming in is just ridiculous. That being said, e if there's that much traffic, emergency services will not be able to get to our neighborhood efficiently if there's this much traffic during school um drop off and pickup. It's just not safe for people if they get hurt, they have a heart attack, something goes wrong. Um, again, it's going to be mentioned that there people are not going to want to wait in this line. They're going to come into our neighborhood. They're going to drop children off. That is going to completely skew that one car every 45 second statistic that you guys have. It's going to be way more than that. Uh, they were Shell Road and Spring Vista were not built to accommodate this much traffic.
155People are going to lose their front yards. People in my neighborhood are going to lose their backyards. And how are the taxpayers going to make this happen? Like how much is the cost for that? Um also you by building a school you're creating an impervious service surface. The it is already on higher ground and the new areas that have already been approved for development are on lower ground. So this is a complete risk of flooding. What is when the hurricanes come? So, how is that going to be handled? Can it hand can it handle that? Can that land handle that much water uh being excuse me handle that much water not being absorbed anymore. Um also with in increased traffic flow and child traffic pedestrian traffic and increase in pedestrian accidents are bound to happen.
15625% of child- related pedestrian fatalities occur after school lets out. Okay. Thank you, Kevin Stevenson, followed by Best. Welcome, Mr. Stevenson. Thank you. Good evening, school board members. Ruben. Um, I'm not much for prepared words, so I'm just going to stand up here and give it my best shot to you. U, I've lived in the Spring View neighborhood since 19, well, sorry, 20 uh, 2001. We're about the fourth house built on our street. So, we saw that whole area develop. The site on Buckley is roughly what, 46 acres, I believe, right now. you're looking to buy for $8 million, roughly 19 acres. There's no reason that that money, that $8 million can't be used to develop 19 acres on the Buckley site. If you look at what happened at Deerry Elementary, it's landlocked like so
157many other um schools and and uh municipal buildings that build within the cities, they get landlocked by other developments around the area. So, what's going to happen when this new school on the Spring Vista site meets capacity? You're not going to have any room for expansion like you will have on the Buckley site. You don't have to develop the whole parcel at one time. You can build your 19 acres for your school now and then develop as you go forward. You would also have room for possibly even another school such as a high school or um a different uh you know another school in that area. It gives you so much more flexibility to build on that Buckley site than it would in Spring Vista. You are landlocked as I would say uh on that
158Spring Vista site. Um so I know the money comes from a different account. Okay. But my dad served on the school board in California for many years and one thing I learned from him is perception is everything. Okay. people don't designate different pots of money coming for different um projects. When people see that this school district is facing a $25 million deficit next year and they want to spend another $8 million on a piece of land and then they already own 46 acres down the road. Perception is everything. Okay? I I'm just putting that out there. People are already up in arms about the $25 million shortfall and I don't envy you at all trying to have to figure out how that's going to work. Okay? I'm just saying don't add to the misper misconception
159misperception out there among all of your voters and your constituents that will see that this money is being spent on a site that doesn't need to be spent. Thank you. Thank you. Best followed by Brent Muse. Welcome Dr. Excuse me Dr. Bman. Madame Chair, board members, I wish to illustrate the plight of Deerry school children through this tale. Once upon a time in the city called De Berry, the town's folk live quite merrily with one school, churches, and city hall. simple treasures that made them all proud. Citizens cheered as parks and trails unfurled, given family places to play in their world. But then our city borders seemed to shrink. Where open fields stretched as far as one could think, now houses multiplied and cars clogged each road as Deerry struggled beneath its growing load. With
160these home came children, so many bright young faces. But our single school ran out of classroom spaces. Bust them out of town became a simple call. A temporary fix that soon would hit the wall. This band-aid worked until neighboring schools filled tight. No more room, they said, creating quite a plate. But dear leaders focused on their gains, envisioning only businesses filling Deberry's lanes. Let's build downtown with shops and restaurants bright with apartments above and commerce left and right. When the school system came with concerns for our youth, the manager pointed to the edge of town, saying, "Far from the truth. That swampy land by the railroad tracks way out on Buckley. All it needs is fill to fit the bill." The city council quickly said yes. The state firmly said no. This location fails our
161safety test, as you should all know. Now our city stands divided on priorities quite clear. Parents plead our children need a school that is near. The council answers coldly. We've already said no. While the manager warns of traffic in endless shows. Move them out to Buckley Lane. They continue to insist claiming state objections can somehow cease to exist. So now school board members, the choice falls to you. Will you stand for our children and do what's right and true or follow the political path of least resistance supporting a schoolless comprehension plan that keeps education at a distance? The future of Dvar's children hangs in the balance today. Will business interest trump educational needs or will you plant for our children's future the necessary seeds? Thank you for hearing our community's urgent call for a school
162in Deerry that can welcome one and all. Thank you. Next up, Brent Muse followed by Allan. Is it Gear? Welcome. First of all, I'd like to tell y'all thank you. My son goes to school here. Y'all do an amazing job. I am 40 40 years here in Deberry. My mom moved me here when I was 5 years old. Born and raised here. Sorry I do say Deberry, not Dubberry. I've been here longer than all them over there. Uh I was also one of the ones that they spoke about that my child was kicked out of Deberry Elementary because it was too packed. We live 1.7 miles away. So my son that had been dropped off every single day is now busted to Enterprise Elementary causing a financial burden on the county. the $52 million. You
163talked about the deficit, all of that stuff. I do believe we need a new school. I was against anything commercialization in Deberry. I did not want it. I was not a fan of it. The way that it's going, you cannot fight it. I'm all for it. It's one of those things that I believe that they're doing the right thing. You have to add schools now. They're adding more neighborhoods. They're adding more everything there. So, we have to do that. So, my inclination is the Spring View is a perfect place. It puts my son back in Deberry. It's hometown pride. It's where we belong. And you know what? The Buckley site might be a great place for a school. What about Deber High School? Let's look in, if we talk about looking for the future, let's
164look to the future. We're going to need more schools. They keep buying up every piece of land out there. Rivington, all those different places. It's the writing's there. Don't look at it as a thing that something can't be built there. Look what can be built there in the future. So, I am in complete support of Spring View. So, thank you. Thank you. Next up, Alan Gear, followed by Darren Lockwood. Hello. Thanks for having me. Um, I know that Deberry only has like maybe one more chance to get another school in the city and this is probably your last chance. So, I think the Spring Vista is the site to build on. Um, I know I wouldn't want my kids walking down 1792 to go to school any day of the week with 50 mph speed
165limits and one pop tire and all it takes is a trailer to go off onto a sidewalk, kill one kid, and that Buckley site won't be any good for anybody. Anyway, I support the Spring Vista site. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Darren Lockwood, followed by Andrew Lockwood. Welcome. Uh, good evening again. Um, just to reiterate what everybody else has said, thank you all very much for your time and your hard work that you put in. I'm a local civil engineer. I've designed over 50 schools in uh, Orange County, in um, Pulk County, and in Ocola County. Um, this is this is a great place. It's a great location for a school. Um, and I yield the rest of my time. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Andrew Lockwood. Hello. Thank you for allowing
166me to speak. And to all of you, I support the school. I the the need for a school for the children of the Berry is something I would love to see, especially since I'm 22. I go to Stson. I would love to live in Deerry to allow my kids to go somewhere to have a beautiful education. and I would love that. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Kelly Wright followed by Alexander Lockwood. Good evening. My name is Kelly Wright. I live in Valuchia County. As a retired school teacher of 30 years and currently a school crossing guard, this project, if approved, will help alleviate the disrupt the discipline and many behavioral problems that arise while riding on the school buses for long periods of time as a result of busing children from one community
167to another. It will provide the kids and parents of the community who walk to school to form a bond and create friendships and relationships. This school will also provide a much needed solution to the overcrowding of classrooms. These children will then get the necessary attention they need to be successful in the classroom. I support and thank the superintendent and the school board in the purchasing of the land for all the reasons that have been stated. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Alexander Lockwood, followed by Ashley Milan. Good evening. Uh I would like to thank the school board for their uh consideration and purchasing this purchasing this property, excuse me. Uh I am a recent Embry Riddle uh graduate and my girlfriend and I are looking to settle down somewhere in Valuchia County and we have
168been looking at schools in or I'm sorry houses in Deberry and we both sorry she couldn't be here tonight uh support the board in this decision and purchasing this property. Thank you very much. Thank you Ashley Melon. if I'm pronouncing it correctly. M I L L A N. Then it's Jane. Is it Damaco? D- A M I O. All right. Taran, is it Jen Mei? Say it for me, please. It's uh Jen Major. Welcome, Taran. I want to say um I'm appreciative of um of this opportunity to speak up here. I'm currently a Stson at uh I'm current sorry I'm currently a student at um Stson University. I just want to say I support this project and I yield my time. Mary Joe Couselli followed by Maria Bordanga. Welcome. My name is Mary Joe Cararaelli.
169I have been a resident of Deberry for 41 years and I just want obviously we've already established that a school is needed for the children. I raised my family here and my daughter is now raising her family here. So, I do have some skin in the game. I've got two grandchildren who attend Deberry Elementary and I uh don't really have enough background on the pros and cons of the two different sites. I know what I've heard in the news and I did watch the city council meeting that happened a couple of months ago from home and uh I'm not really sure what the sticking point is on the part of our city council that they refuse to allow a school on the spring Vista site. So quite honestly, I would have to educate myself more
170on what is prohibiting them from approving it. Personally, I'm in favor of that site more than Buckley simply because I commute to Lake Mary every day. I still work full-time and I leave my house at about 5:20 in the morning and the traffic uh the traffic is dangerous on 1792 and I4. I don't think I even need to explain that to anybody here who's been on the interstate. But uh you know in the interest of the children of Deerry I hope that you can come to an agreement with the city of Deerry and do what's in the best interest of our children my grandchildren and you know the future families who are building homes in our community. It's important and I hope that you can work together to come to the best solution. Thank you.
171Thank you, Maria Bordanga. Followed that will be all for um this is a group that's been talking about 1705 and 1706 and I have some that want to speak again. Go ahead. Thank you. Welcome. Good evening. Um, I'm just going to read a letter that I wrote um and emailed the Valuchia County School Board members as well as the city of Deerry. As a mother of two elementary age daughters, I am in favor of a school being built in Deberry. I was so relieved when I heard the news that there were talks of a middle school coming to our very own Deberry. knowing I would no longer need to worry about my children going to River Springs Middle School in Orange City, a school where trusted friends of mine have warned me for years to
172never send my children for various reasons. I was great grateful that I wouldn't have to apply for private middle schools in Stanford or Dand that would require a long commute and separation from friends our children have made all throughout elementary school. Not to mention the added financial burden of private school tuition and with no guarantee of admission. The proposed K through8 school in Deerry would give families peace of mind and make us even more proud to be deary residents. It would bring a greater sense of camaraderie and would also boost morale. I have lived in Deubberry my entire life and I also attended Deerry Elementary. I have watched the city change and grow. There are so many more activities for children now than there were when I was a child and for this I am
173grateful. However, our growing community needs more. This is a familyoriented community that is big. It is a big reason why people want to buy homes here. Families who need um families need schools that they can feel good about sending their children to. Our city needs this school. If this is our last chance to build one, please do what's right for our children and our families and make it happen here. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. I want to um repeat the two names that I called earlier that did not come forward just to make sure they hadn't slipped out. Ashley Milan and Jane Dikia. Okay. Then their cards are going on over to our agency clerk. So, at this time, my next set of cards, um, some people wanted to speak twice
174in reference since there were two items. So, we will start back with, um, the mayor. Are we doing one at a time? Wait until after we vote on one piece. I wait I wave my time. I only intended to speak once. Thank you. Okay. You want to vote on one piece and then hear the rest of the speakers for the other piece or do you want to hear them all at one time? Shouldn't we hear them all at one time since I mean one property if you vote on one it's kind of gonna be the same for the other? I would imagine. I agree. I don't think there's Yeah. So, next up is Carmen Rosamondo. All right. So, you're waving your time. Then we have Austin. Is it What's the last name? Welcome. Uh my
175name is Austin Klein. Uh I'm a current student at Stson ask you to speak. And my middle school in my backyard. My elementary was maybe 5 10 blocks away and my middle school was just across the road. and the crossing guards were very certain of keeping the children safe. For my high school, which was Paul J. Hagerty, uh Paul J. Hagerty High School, uh which held around between 3,000 to 4,000 students, it was a good high school. The only issue in being it was somewhat overcrowded. In my freshman year, uh, second semester of my freshman year, our bus driver had quit because she retired. Uh, which then I was put on to a new bus in the county and the crowding was a bit much to say the least. It made both my mornings and
176my afternoons a little bit more stressful. and I can see the issue. I can understand the issue of the crowning issue as well as having an elementary school in the back in your backyard. Um, I'm full support of the Spring Vista location. Um, I understand how important it is for children upcoming, you know, who want to pursue education, who their parents want to see them succeed, how important it is to have a school close. because I know in my own elementary school, having it in my neighborhood, it brought the community together. Um, yeah, I am in support of the Spring Vista School and thank you for my time. Thank you. Next up is Justin Ray Young. Hello. Uh, before I start my time, may I present the board with a exhibit of a visual? Yes.
177Will you please hand it to the agency clerk and welcome? My name is Justin Ray Young. I'm a student at Stson University studying pre-law. In the visual you're going to get in front of you is a heat map not only of the location of where the school is supposed to go, but the surrounding area. In this heat map I'm showing you at the town hall meeting, there was 18 members of the of the resident that denied it while 300 wanted it. In the 18 members that denied it, 14 of the 18 were direct neighbors to each other with three of them being in Hickory Springs, five being in Cedar Springs, and six being in Oak Springs. Why I bring this up to you is that there is you can see here in this um example
178that there is neighborhood bias uh as 17 of these 18 people do not have kids that are going to be going to elementary school and have no real influence on why this would affect them. Uh, as you can see at three different areas on Shell going away from all the homes um on Spring Vesta and on Charles Beal, you can see three different roads that connect to this property that could that could help traffic that could help uh lead traffic and also with population and getting kids out and having possible locations for people to go. The reason why this is important is I am a sophomore 19 years old and I got a job at Clear View Geographic which is a geographical analytical company here in Dand or in Dand and in that company we
179research water levels and different prospects of land that is eligible to be built on. The issue with this is Spring Vista is above that water level. That would help uh the population not only in Deerry but in Florida. While the other property as said you have to put many loads of dirt, many loads of you know construction material and biodegradable material to even make it habitable to build on. Uh all these factors play along with also the aspect that people are forgetting to think about the children. Uh, as a 19-year-old, I went through public education. And I know what it was like to be overcrowded and overstimulated and over, you know, influenced by where I had to travel to. And you know, I think having a place in your backyard, having an opportunity to grow
180with your friends and family in your community, as said, is once in a lifetime opportunity and should be fully taken advantage of and is, I think, clearly detailed in this map. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I have one um final speaker, Jared Parker. And that will conclude then when he finishes public input for items 17.05 and 17.06. Welcome. Good evening, Madam Chair, board, superintendent. Uh I realize this decision carries a lot of weight. Um so I won't I won't give you a long speech. I I just want to give you something to consider tonight. Um, and that's that's the fact that this approval uh if it's approved would be a multigenerational blessing uh to this community. Uh it's not just about the students today that need the school. It's about the students of
181tomorrow as well. Uh the school site and consideration you've heard tonight is uh the only developable school site in Deerry currently. Um I hope to live a very long life. Uh but this school will outlast me. uh and it will outlast everyone else in this room. Um Mr. Stunkle that spoke tonight was absolutely correct in the fact that this this school decision is all about the students. Uh and your decision tonight doesn't just affect the students of today. Uh but it will affect the grandchildren of tomorrow. Uh I all I ask you to consider is the weight of that blessing for tomorrow's students. So thank you. Thank you. So at that time at this time that concludes public input. Um Miss Core and Mr. Young, do you have anything that you would like to add?
182If you don't mind, I would like to add that, you know, I have spoken I speak to the state and my contact at the state often and not just about this situation, but her name is Violet Brown and she is the senior program director at the office for educational facilities and some of the U statutes that we have shared with one another throughout this process And I'll just name them. Obviously, I won't read them uh all, but uh 10133 talks about the need for schools and neighborhoods. That's where they should be located. And from there, we go to 10137. And that's starts talking about the building codes for our schools. 1013 takes us into the 500s and a lot of that in the 500s is enforcement and the four the 500s take us into the
183400s and the 400s. Some of the things talked about in the 400s are public schools and Florida colleges and general requirements spot. So if you don't mind, I will read 453.2.2. Sorry, there's a lot of information here, y'all. 453.2.2 exemption for local requirement from local requirements. All public educational ancillary plants constructed by a school board or college board are exempt from all other state, county, district, municipal, or local building codes, interpretations, building permits, and assessments. fees, uh, building permits, ordinances, road closures, and impact fees for or serviceability fees. And I would just like to clarify one thing. We have never talked about taking people's front yards or backyards. We have never talked about easements on anyone's property. Um, thank you. We're going to take a 10-minute break real quick. Um, I've been asked um for
184a quick break and then we will come back in here and at that time I um believe all board members will have questions for you. So, we will be back in here at 8:14 p.m. Thank you. At this time, we're going to start back the meeting. It is 8:15 p.m. and we have Miss Patty Core and Mr. Ron Young. And if anyone has any questions now is Oh, it looks like it's filled up. I gave you a break and everybody filled it up. All right. We will start with Miss Sprmer. Okay. Thank you. Um, thank you very much for your presentation and and I want to thank those who came and expressed their opinion too. I know this is a very emotional issue for everybody who lives in the area pro and con and um
185and I appreciate that very much. [Music] Um, my approach to this, uh, in part because I wasn't on the board when all of this got started, was to go back and try to try to, um, get a full understanding of how we got here. And so, um, my approaches probably compared to to the the, um, more, uh, personal and and emotional approaches, u, mine may appear to be kind of clinical, but I'm not looking at this from the standpoint of one property versus the other or even need. Mhm. Um I only looked at it as the agenda item was titled which is about the contracts themselves and how we got to this point. So um I had because of a an agenda item back in February, I I had started to look into this and
186I did look at both of the locations at the time. Um, and I also, just so you know what my own due diligence has been, um, I watched the February 27th, 2024 board meeting, um, that discussion, um, which was quite extensive and, um, I watched the presentation. I think that was when you did the P3. Yes. um PowerPoint and um read the transcript of the October 8th meeting. Um I I watched all four hours of the Deerry quasi judicial hearing. I thought it was only three then my memory was refreshed tonight. It was four. Uh I have read the local in um the interlocal agreement between uh Valuchia County Schools and the other 17 local governments. I've read through all of the contracts that you have attached for us to review and I even uh
187called Violet Brown at DOE and spoke with her um just to have a a better understanding. I think some of some of what she had said had in conversation um was unclear to me. So I I wanted to find out from her exactly what her the nature of her role is. So if if you'll allow me, I have a lot of questions and and I've broken this into segments because it was the only way I could make sense of it. Um so I want to start with February 27th. Um you mentioned that you got the unsolicited offer on February 21st, so I was kind of surprised that it made it onto the agenda that quickly. Uh but it did and um um Miss Core I recall that you made the comment that this was the
188first time we had ever received an unsolicited offer. So it was really uncharted territory and the board generally sounded like they were approaching it that way too. Um, it was also unique because the builder had to own the land. Um, in in the context of that conversation and um to to his credit to his great credit, Carl Perseus was the one who picked up on how that complicated everything. uh and and he went into great detail about how that would complicate the uh RFP process which was what you were talking about at the time uh that became an NITN and we can talk about the differences. He mentioned that the 21 days as as a minimum response time might not be enough because there were so few developers who might be able to meet that
189criteria. uh and and he said there was no way this was regular because of of that uh unique stipulation. Um so I I I guess first I want to ask you what the difference is between an an RFP and an ITN just for my own information. There's an invitation. ITN is an invitation to negotiate, right? So, you would put out an RFP and we go through the selection process and let's say out of the RFP process, you select two that you're going to go into negotiations with. So that would be um we did bring both of the companies in through the RFP process and we went into negotiations with both intended to go into negotiations with both until we figured out that the other company the property that they bought was brought was right down
190the street from Deberry and the road was so yeah on the same road and the road was so narrow there's no way that we you could do buses back and forth down there. It would be akin for your in your area to Pathways and Pine Trail, like two schools a mile apart on the same road and you know what that's like. Okay. Yes, I know that. I know those two. Uh thank you. Um so when you did the RFP, it did include the need for the developer the the respondents to own to be bringing a location with them. Is that correct? Is that correct? So, we just had the two um Okay, thank you for that. Uh now, October 8th, uh was the agreement, but that was on the consent agenda and there was really
191no discussion about it. Uh the only comments that were made according to the transcript I have were um uh Mrs. Thompson wanted to make sure that nobody forgot about her district. she had need down there and um and of course um uh Mrs. Haynes talked about the need where she lives. Uh and and then there was a unanimous vote. Um it was but the terms of the agreement were not discussed at that meeting. So that's where the gist of my the bulk of my questions are um on on the terms. So, if you'll let me walk through that a little bit. Um, uh, I I think I found out today, one of my questions was whether the land had been appraised, but I think I found out today that it has been It has. And,
192and what did the appraisal come in at? Are we talking Spring Vista? Are we talking Buckley? Oh, I I should say I'm confining all of my comments to Spring Vista Vista. Yes. I'm not asking about Buckley at all. I have it here. If you'll give me a minute to find it. I believe it's 8.4, but let me just make sure. Yes. 8.4. Uh the 23 acres was at 72 7.2 million and the 6.5 acres is at 1.2 million. So a total of 8.4. Okay. Thank you. Um I'm sorry. May I may I say in your administrative content? It's in your administrative content. So I can't see it. It's the appraisals are in there. Oh, I'm sorry. Say that again. The appraisals you were asking for on the spring Vista are in your when you log
193into board docs, they're in your administrative content. Oh, okay. I must have missed that. So, thank you. Um, paragraph 3.2G says that BTS was going to have it appraised. Did they do it or did we do it? No, we did it. And what did we spend on that? I don't know if there do you know. I don't either. I'll see if it's on here, but I don't think it is. But usually they're around 2,2500 for the market study and the appraisal. Okay. Uh ballpark's fine. Average. Yeah. I'm just trying to get a sense of what we've spent on this. Um, and the par the paragraph at the top of page three says that they were supposed to have closed on this property on December 9th, 2024. So, is it safe to say they did not?
194Correct. Okay. And uh paragraph 42.1, I'm sorry, page 42.1 uh says, "This agreement shall remain in effect until superseded by the execution of a comprehensive agreement or unless otherwise terminated by owner or BTS." Um so do we have a comprehensive agreement? Is there something other than the one that I'm asking the agreement that I'm No, all we have right now is the interim agreement. Okay. So the So there isn't an inter uh comprehensive agreement, correct? If we had one, we would bring it forward to the board for approval. Okay. I'm trying to figure out how that It it doesn't sound like the con this contract or this agreement's been executed. Um so the comprehensive agreement wasn't brought to the board. Okay. Um because there wasn't one. Well, let me let me correct that. Sorry. So
195they were working on it between our procurement department and BTS. It's not finalized. Let me put it that way. Um we had u part of the P3 part of the statute that governs the private partner private public partnership or P3 requires us to hire outside counsel as an independent um uh objective person to oversee the process. And so we've we've met with them multiple times and there were red lines back and forth as with any contract negotiation that we have. We just haven't completed it. Okay. So, the fact that the dates didn't work out is somehow irrelevant. You mean the date for them to close on the property? Uh, no. The um Oh, the date to enter into the date for the comprehensive. It doesn't say there's a date. Oh, there isn't a date. Yes,
196you're right. Y Okay. Um extension fees. Have we had to pay extension fees? This is uh page three. the top paragraph. Um, no, we have not paid any extension fees. Um, any of the fees we've paid so far were for work that was done um while we were in the interim phase. It allows us to start the architectural design process which we did begin and so there were fees associated with that. Um, the architect on the project is Harvard Jolly which is one of our approved vendors that we use we've used multiple times for projects. Um, and so any money that we've spent on those plans, they're ours. So, we have proprietary rights to those if we were to need them and want to use them. Okay. Thank you. Um, now, paragraph 2.2, and I'm
197uh Yes. Uh, it says that if we terminate, we have to pay their costs up to 5,322,33. Uh so does that mean that if we don't buy this property we have to pay costs that they have incurred only on items that we've already paid. We haven't paid any money I don't in in quite a while. So, anything that we've paid for will be ours. And so far, that's only the architectural design and the lawyers fees um which they paid um $25,000 towards that because that's required by law that if they bring us an unsolicited proposal, that causes us work. So, they have to give us $25,000 towards that. Um which they did on the day that they submitted the unsolicited proposal. Yeah. So we don't owe any money to BTS for anything that they have
198spent to this point. Well, we do we do owe for design that we have done design with the architect, right? I think she's asking about the the miscommunication about the land uh the the late fee for No, at this point um these are two separate issues. There's there's the buying the land and then there's the building of the school. So when I started the negotiation on the property, I made it clear that we're not paying any late fees or, you know, any kind of fees. So if you look at the contract, there are no fees in the purchase of the land. There's no fees at all in there. and and if we walk away tomorrow because you guys vote one way or if we go ahead, there are no fees associated either way. Um, but
199what you're talking about is the building of the school. Okay. And and and I I appreciate you making that distinction because because all we're talking about tonight is the land, correct? Okay. Um, so that so they haven't done there's been no due diligence types of evaluations of the land. I'm I in this respect I'm probably associating it with uh what we we might have done with Buckley in determining whether Buckley was buildable. I know this is higher and drier um but um but I'm guessing then that there has been no due diligence uh types of activities that we would owe for to to them because they were initially they were supposed to have bought the property. So I would have assumed that there might have been uh some costs associated with that. There there are
200some things that have been done. There have been environmental studies done those sorts of things. So they you know we would have to pay for those things. The architecturals that we've worked on so far we would have to pay for those things. Yes. Which we would anyway. Yes. Okay. Um, this paragraph I thought was I really didn't understand it. It's um 3.2A. Honor before December 10th, 2024, BTS would assign the land purchase contract to VCS. So, is that what we're talking about now? Yes. is that instead of them purchasing the land and building the school and then we buying it from them, which is a another type of P3 that has happened in other counties where um the the builder buys the land, builds the school, and then basically turns around and sells it to
201a district. Similar to if you had someone build a house for you, you don't pay until you go to closing and then you get a mortgage unless you have cash. Okay. Um, but that's not how we that's not how we structured our interim agreement because we did not want to do it that way and then pay them. There's also part of a P3. There's a financing option where they'll finance the school for you. We opted not to do that. So, this isn't a traditional P3 in the sense that they go find the land, buy it, build a school, and then come to us and say, "Hey, we built you a school. Do you want to buy it from us?" That's not how this went. Um, so yes, the reason why we're coming now in April
202versus um earlier for to purchase the property is because we were asked to do our due diligence and we should with the city. We had those meetings. We went to the commission meeting. We met separately with the city manager. Then we tried to meet with the commissioners and um through Dr. Evans's office, his secretary sent out the invites after we were asked to meet with them. the these things all took time and so then to get the actual Ron contacted the sellers and then BTS pulled out of being having an option on the property and that left us as the purchasers of the property. So that's why he's keeps saying it's two different things. We are Valuchia County Schools trying to buy two parcels of land. That's what that's what's it's not about this contract
203for BTS tonight is about Valuchia County Schools purchasing property. Okay. Well, they're out now. They're out of the purchasing of the property now. Okay. I'm not finding very much in this agreement with them that that has been exercised. Uh the dates the dates didn't materialize. Uh they didn't buy the property. It's like the the agreement kind of doesn't exist. Um it so and it also says that they are our agent. So are they getting a fee for for the purchase of this property? No. The sale and purchase? No. No. Okay. I from us. No. Absolutely not. Yeah. It Well, uh paragraph 3.7 it says that they are our agent and will be paid a fee. So, I took that to mean a real estate trans. I saw that and when I went into the negotiation,
204I called them and I said, "There's a $100,000 fee on here. We're not paying a $100,000 fee to purchase the property. It's understood and the contract there are no fees in the contracts. Okay. Um, it also said that we're required to secure the rights of way. And I'm guessing that hasn't been done um just because of where we are in this process. Uh let me see. Some of my questions have been answered, so I don't want to I don't want to um go back over it. I I think um here's how all of this strikes me. [Music] Um we entered into a $60 million contract uh on the consent agenda. It was it was never fully the board was never fully dis um never fully discussed it discussed this agreement and and it's very odd
205to me that almost none of the terms of the agreement have even um been followed and it's almost like the agreement doesn't exist. So I I don't know how that happens. Um, and so are we still obligated to them for the for any upfront work? Um, how does this relate to if they build? Um, the agree this agreement has not applied in any detail to the purchase of the land. So would it then somehow apply to if they build? This is an interim agreement and in the interim agreement you have to have a baff and final offer. Uh you work through the numbers to build the school and that all of that information then takes you forward into a comprehensive agreement. We never got to the comprehensive stage. So what you're looking at is an
206interim agreement. We did not enter into a comprehensive agreement with them. So the interim agreement isn't binding in any way from from what you're telling me. Is that correct? No. Because we started the design on the school, we we will have to pay for and the interim agreement allows us to do that. We will have to pay those, but we we're not it's not like we're losing anything because we own that design. Okay. Um, I'm very uncomfortable with what our options are because, um, I listened to what Deerry had to say, uh, both tonight and and in their four hours of of discussion. And um I I'm also very uncomfortable with the notion that that we're going to effectively blow up our interlocal agreement um our relationships with everybody who are all of the participants
207in the interlocal agreement and and my concern is that uh by moving ahead we damage those those relationships. Um we are paying top dollar um because what we paid for for Buckley was around 100,000 an acre and this is almost three times that and and that concerns me too uh because even if we were to well that's what my math said it came to to 290 some 290 some odd uh thousand an acre. Um, and I don't want us to be in a situation where we're spending money on a lot of legal fees, which I it is apparent to me tonight that we would. Um, but if we let this I I meant to to ask you about the $300,000 option. Uh, we had talked about it on the phone. Would you clarify for me
208uh what that money was for and how we ended up needing to pay it? So the 300 or it was actually 150,000. It was 100 for the large parcel and remember there's two parcels and 50,000 if BTS did not um secure their the purchase of the land by a certain date. That was between BTS and the owner. That wasn't for us to pay. Um once we took over buying the property and they backed out, that's when when Ron had his conversation with both of the owners. And that's why on the board docs you have the the sales um contract that that is gone. There is no fee. So we that's what you keep saying there's no fee associated with this is if we go forward today then we we pay what you would pay to
209purchase the property and if there's closing costs or whatever but there's no penalty or fee for us. Okay. Um but if we don't buy tonight if we don't agree to buy it tonight um but we reconsider and change our minds then there's an extension fee. Is that correct? No. Incorrect. Not for us. Okay. No obligation. Start over. If you guys vote no, then we're back to square one. And as I said at the beginning of this, we are under a half cent sales tax referendum. We're required to rebuild Enterprise Elementary. And we would have to find a way to do that. What's the May 2nd date? Um, where did that come from? Okay. The May 2nd date is um the owner, and I'm going to talk about the the 19 acres, the large parcel. The
210owner of the large parcel at some point applied for a zoning change and he changed his zoning as the owner. He applied and was approved with the city to change his zoning to industrial. You'd have to ask him why. Maybe he thought he would have a better chance of selling it. I don't know. I I haven't spoken to him personally, but that's what happened. That expired in January and it reverts back to its original, which is what I put in the notes I sent you guys is the B4 and the B9. The owner then has up to 120 days to sign with the city that no change my mind I do want to keep it industrial. That's where the May 2nd came from. If he does if why we felt like we wanted to do
211that in time is so that if in good st we could let the owner know in good standing that yes the school district is interested. Yes, we're going to purchase your property. The board voted on it and they approved it. Then he wouldn't need the need he wouldn't have the need then to change his zoning back had he chose to do so. I don't know if he will or not. I can't speak for him, but that's where the May 2nd date came from. It's his timeline for his his if he wants to change his zoning. How long have we known about that? I've only known that what, a couple weeks. Yeah, probably since the 1st of April. Uh, I appreciate um your information very much. I will say that um I am still not comfortable
212with um moving ahead with this because I uh I believe that the legal questions uh are ultimately going to dominate and um we still have six years left on the on the halfsent sales tax. Um so and I realize it takes time to build a school but it also uh suggests to me that we don't need to make this decision right away. I I do understand the limitations in deerry but um I I don't think that that uh that's something that we can change because of past um decisions not to do anything and um and I am very concerned about um ending up in court for a protracted period having to spend a lot of money on on legal fees in addition to um paying paying um top dollar for uh this land. And so
213even if we were even if we bought it and decided to resell it because uh um because we didn't want to fight anymore or whatever the reason would be, it would be hard to recoup that money in the short term uh because we've already paid so much for it. Uh so my inclination is that this is not a good decision for us to make at this time. And so just if I may real quick a couple um because you did mention twice Miss Brosmer about it was on consent. It was on consent as you know any board member can pull anything off of consent. It happened tonight and an item was pulled for discussion and then was removed. So that reason that was on consent that night is because the prior board meeting we had
214had the workshop and they knew it was coming. So we had already had the workshop and did the whole presentation about the P3. that's why it wasn't a separate action item, but at any point any board member could have pulled that for further discussion and vote. I I do appreciate that and you're certainly correct. Um I've pulled enough consent agenda items to to know for sure that that can be done. Uh I think the distinction that I was making is that uh the based on on what was available on board docs to me um there the um that agreement was not was not available and um until that October 8th meeting. Uh that October 8th meeting coincidentally was held at 1:00 that day instead of at 4:30 because Hurricane Milton was was on the way.
215And so I don't think anybody would have pulled a consent agenda item at that point. Everybody wanted to get home. So I think that may have had I didn't remember that hurricane. I it jumped out at me when I was when I was researching. Um but thank you again, Mrs. Goodrich. So my first question is are we asking questions right now or are we in commentary as well? Just questions. Okay. Or are we doing both? Because I thought we were asking questions but you can do whatever. Okay. All right. So um just the questions that I had. We heard the city manager say um that we'll be violating something that's statutoily required and that we can't supersede the interlocal agreement. Can you just talk about that and what that looks like for us? Well, I
216I think that the interlocal agreement and and um the city's what's it called? Yes, thank you. The city's comp plan are in conflict with one another. Um if you read them, it says um school or Lost my train of thought. The It says school or public use. There we go. Geez. It says school or public use. And the state says that public use is for schools. And the if I'm not mistaken, our inoc says that public use is for schools. and dear it says public use is not for schools. So it's it they're in conflict with one another. Have we do we have any legal opinion or have we had any conversations to see what that would look like? We have asked uh DOE for a legal opinion and we have been given u statute
217a lot of them I spoke about earlier. Uh, we have not received their actual formal legal opinion. We have a timeline of when we'd received that? No, I do not. Okay. Um, are you guys familiar at all with the Senate Bill 1702 and House Bill 443 and how those are moving along in the legis legislature? Huh? Okay. Just curious. Um, so, so I'll give my comments. Um, we've already talked about the sales tax referendum and that this does have to be done by 2030. Um, there is some room there for some time. Um, unfortunately, we are backed into this May 2nd situation where the property use could change and then we are in the situation where we won't have an opportunity into Barry. So, I was very curious and as many of you know, I
218have a real estate background. I've spent decades doing it and so I needed to see firsthand what we were talking about. So, I did drive not just the Buckley property but the um Spring property as well as went into Enterprise and surrounding areas to see what that would look like if we um were to look at other options. and the Buckley property. I I wasn't here when we purchased it and I would I don't know why that happened. Um I would not have agreed with that property for school ever. Um when we pulled up to the property we're discussing now, I was very surprised to hear that there were any residents nearby against it. And I'm going to tell you my personal reasons of why. Where I come from, which I was born in Florida,
219but I did live in Georgia for a long time. And the number one way you make a neighborhood nice and improve a property value and keep communities wanting people wanting to move there and raise their families is to put a school. So much so that I've lived my entire life next to a school. Both as a child I live across the street from Long Street Elementary. Many of you guys know prior to that I lived right next to Beachside, three houses from Beachside Elementary. Um, so it it's it surprises me and I appreciated the younger gentleman that shared that the list of who was against it in the neighborhood because in the last few weeks, as you all know, we've gotten a very large amount of emails about this and right now um it was
2204 to1 last night. It was 7 to1 when I just checked. I've been checking because we we're still getting them while we're sitting here. So it's 7 to one by residents very heavily in favor. So I looked at that, too. But going back to the real estate side of it, um I believe that if we purchase the property, even if we didn't move forward on building it, I think we're sitting on an pretty positive investment. If you're looking at the opportunities of things that can come in the future, whether it's us or or I I think if it's not us, I think with the bills that are going through the um legislature right now, I think it a charter school or a public school is going to jump on that land and then we're going
221to be in another situation where they say Valuchia missed the opportunity here and now we've got 800 to a,000 kids going to a a private or charter school that was built by someone else. Um I do think that's a very real possibility. I do think to bear I looked at all the um numbers of what's in the schools and who's being moved around and we are overcrowded in the area. So that also tells me that it's desperately needed in that area. Um okay, so let's talk about return on investment. Not only do I think the land is going to be a return on investment, but we heard from many of the residents that the number one return on investment we can have in any community is in educating our children. So again, I I don't
222want to fight with the city of Deerry. I've spoke with them at events. I I like them as people. I I hate that we're in this situation. Um but my job is to fight for the kids of Valuchia County. And I hope that if this does pass that we're able to go back to the table and sit down to Barry and have conversations and find a way for it to work because I'm hoping that they're hearing from their community as well like we are that there are pockets and it's anytime there's growth or building in an area it's not in my backyard, right? You hear it for everything. Everyone knows I love short-term rentals and the same thing there. We love short-term rentals. It's not next to me, right? It's it's very impactful for the
223people right there. But we've got to look at the community as a whole and we do have to look at 10, 20, 50 years down the road. And so I don't think we have to build tomorrow. I don't think we have to start construction tomorrow. It may be that we're in a legal situation with Deerry that we have to reconsider, but I think we'd get our money back on the on the land. I actually think we'd we can't make money, but I think we'd yield more money than we spent. Um, a concern I have is I'm not a huge fan of K8s. I like K5s. So, um I hear that there's a need for the middle school into Barry. So, I'm willing to have those conversations and see why the K8 would make more sense.
224I also had concern that um that that we weren't going to have the option of us to build or someone else to build. And I believe that option is still on the table. Am I correct on that? That's correct. Okay. So, we can still evaluate if it makes sense for us or for another organization to build it. So, we're not voting on that tonight. Um, again, I wish we could delay. I wish I think after May 2nd, someone else is going to buy it anyway. So, I I don't think um we can do that. I would ask that if we do move forward, we make it a major priority to deal with um traffic. It does based on the other places that we looked both in Enterprise and at Buckley. I do think the traffic
225patterns for this area are the strongest. Um it it is certainly not fun. I lived in Atlanta many years to sit in traffic, but to sit in traffic for a school, that's part of living in a neighborhood. I every morning I have to calculate my route based on when the school zone's going. And it turns out fine. I think a great school's an asset to our community, not just for the classroom, but for homeowners, local businesses, and the future vitality of all the neighborhoods in Deerry. I think it's a good investment. If if you were asking me where I'd put my school if I were building it, it was my own personal money of the options we have. If I was a private school investor, that's where I'd put it. And so, we are competing
226against private schools and charter schools that we know we have declining enrollments. We're looking at ways to get our kids back into the schools. And I think if we build a state-of-the-art school and make it phenomenal and keep it in the community community of Debury, I think we're doing a a very good thing. And I I'm concerned about the legal hurdles that may be in front of us, but I I think the property will hold its value enough to more than compensate for that. Mr. Cologne, thank you. And so I I appreciate your very eloquent explanation of why you feel this is a good purchase because this is exactly what I went through with the Buckley property. When you tell me, and I'm looking at an appraisal dated October 16th, 2023, we reached a uh
227fork in the road where they said, "We have the option to buy this for 4 million and it's worth eight. And there's only two dry pieces of land left in Barry." Now, we don't get to make money often. We we don't sell goods and services. We there are very few opportunities to make money as a school district. We can't go up on our price. We can't that that's not an option. So when the question came, do you want to forfeit the option to purchase or purchase? I was like purchase all the way. And I was very clear and Mr. Rosamond I shared this with you. I had no ever had no intention of putting a school there ever. Ever. Appraisal dated October 16th, 2023. Worth $8 million. Now, little did I know we would get
228unsolicited appraisals as soon as they knew we weren't going to do it. Of course, they're going to want it. We have the two We have the option. We own there's two pieces of land. We own one and we have the option for the other one. Now you said it a lot more eloquent than I did. But the reality is that there is value in both. So I could understand why there would be concern with us having both. Now, mind you, we own land across the entire area. And as we know that how much land we own is being threatened, as is, and I say this as a lone wolf in this one, as is the municipality's rights to impose their thoughts on us. That's going away, too. It's very strong going through the legislature. Now,
229mind you, this is the guy who voted no because someone who didn't have the constitutional authority sent that up here and said, "You guys need to do this." But home rule is going. I have a question for Dr. Evans and because I I really think it comes down to illegal. I'll never forget my dear friend William Cell uh at the commission meeting in Deair. He said, "So, he said to Mr. Watts, who Watts is probably knows more about this kind of stuff than than I do. He's an attorney. He does a lot with land. And he said to Mr. Watts, "So, you mean to tell me that the uh zoning or the land use for this is reverting in a few months?" And he said, "Yes." He goes, "Then why are you here?" You asked
230the question and it's a legitimate question because what we knew is that if it was allowed to expire and go from industrial back to its original use, we would be able to build the school. How that exchange went, it is what it is. Water under the bridge. So my question uh to our team and and to our attorney was based on the current land use in the city of Deerry for these two properties is is our decision today subject to any land use approvals by the commission? No. So our current ask to use this for building a school is consistent with the land use that is reverted back unless this guy goes back to the city of dear and says I decided I didn't want to sell it and I want to make this industrial
231again but it's in his hands in our dealings with the land owner what and and this is subjective so if you don't know the answer That's fine. Have we gotten the inclination that he would like to sell this to be a school? Yes, I've spoken to him several times and personally um and he told me the story of his granddaughters and he wants a school there. That's why he has not listed the property. He was hopeful that we would get to this point and make this happen. um he wants a school there and so it's consistent with the current land use according to legal counsel. There's questions on whether or not the local government can which again I kills me and Mr. Rosamondo, you are the beast advocate for local control. The work you did
232with Live Local, the the alarm you sounded, all of that. Unfortunately, I think our friends in the legislature are slightly deaf. I can say that. Um, but we we know that a lot of our local control is going out out the window. And so if this is consistent with the local land use if it is now we have a constitutional duty to build schools and and we can't speak for the many years that we didn't build them that we didn't plan on growth that we didn't plan etc. I can tell you it actually I was going to pick up a chair and I drove down Fort Florida and saw all these houses being built. I hadn't been back there and I live in Deltona. We don't drive down the back roads of Deberry ever. Okay.
233Okay. Yeah. No, especially not at night. Okay. And I saw all of these houses. I mean, back to back what used to be around. I don't know. There's like a big water thing there. I don't know. It looks like FPNL lines or whatever. Conservation area. I don't know what it is. But what used to be all of a sudden there's houses around it. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, what is all of this?" Like I remember going to like the trailer park. There was a trailer park off of Fort Florida. You made a left and it was really nice. I've been there before, but I'd never been. And I saw Rivington. Is that what's back there? ington. Oh my goodness, these people are buying these huge houses back there. I didn't know that was
234coming. You know, the school district keeps track of our approvals and our reservations and all of that. Not something we see. And it really helped us to realize, okay guys, we have a problem. And and mind you, it's blowing up, but we have that constitutional duty to build schools. Unfortunately, where we are right now, and yes, I wish we could have been looking at this five in 2018. I wish, but the reality is we are down to two parcels. We own one and we have the option to purchase the other. There's no more. The other one is up on that same road of high banks that's supposed to be underwater, too. That's the part they left out because that one is really low and underwater. So, these are our two options. Now, I'm all about
235doing what's right for kids. And if that means giving up Enterprise Elementary because I realize that the growth is no longer in that part of town, there's nowhere else in Deltona is not going to grow much more. Where we have the growth is actually up the street near Ostein, but there's capacity in those schools. And we just talked tonight about adding more capacity to the high school. So that that we're working on that enterprise is lined in the fabric of my community. I've had to look people in the face and say this is the reason why we have to do what's right for kids. And unfortunately the there's no more growth right here. And so when I think about a constitutional duty and and we were reminded of this and I think it was even
236you, Mr. Rosman, who said, you know, it's the school district's responsibility to build schools. You're absolutely right. But that's the crossroads where we're at right now. What are our options? Build in Deltona and continue to bus Rivington kids forever. Not a good choice. Our other option is build an orange city. Maybe we could buy some land over at the end of Saxon. I don't know what land's available. I don't I'm not a land person, but we would still be busing kids past the Berry Elementary to that place in Orange City. Those are our choices. There's not There are no other choices. We could build on Buckley. Yeah, we could. You could put a school for 10,000 students there. But how much would that cost? You could you'd have a you'd have a mitigation cost to
237do. Yeah, you can build anything, but what's it going to cost? When the conversations were happening, somebody said, "Well, we we'll put a bridge there that will allow students to go across 1792," which by the way is in plans to be expanded further down the road. Okay. Well, that's a good plan. And you know I have my dear friend chat GPT and I said what did the last five bridges going over cost? Wellif between 15 and $20 million. Okay. Well yes I think that there is a desire from the city to help us but I think I actually watched a dear meeting. The town's budget is what? 55 million. What's your What's your annual budget? 5560. It's 25 25 million. They they don't they as much as they would like to help us, their funds
238are limited to help us do this. Now, are there grants? Are there other things we could probably seek out? Well, that's great, but the cost to make the Buckley site safe and and I think that's what it comes down to is mitigating cost. Now, if we had five sites to choose from, man, this would be a really exciting conversation. And I understand the apprehension. You've got someone who's got options on your two pieces of land that are left. That that's not that's a good place to be if you're us. Not a good place. Let's talk about the school. I know I'm taking forever. Let's talk about the school. It reminds me of the Deerry Walmart. Oh my goodness. And I live in Deltona. I travel to Deerry only when there's traffic and I have to
239take 1792. Okay. Not my normal traffic area that I go to. I'll never forget, nobody wanted Walmart. Or let me take it back. Everybody wanted Walmart. Just not in their backyard. Now, I'm not taking anything from not in my backyard because I don't even know where this came from. appreciate whoever brought it, but but that was such a true statement. It happened at the Deberry Walmart. Oh my goodness. They protested. They Oh my goodness. And you guys remember it was horrible. And And everybody loves that Walmart. And so And you learn to live with it. You learn to go the other way. You learn that for those minutes of the day you go the other direction. Now there was mention of eminent domain. How many So looking at our property, how many houses are adjacent
240to our property directly connected to our property? None. None. There's no houses. So, I'm I'm not quite understanding where this thought process of taking away people's yards because there's no houses adjacent to this property. None. Not even one. Maybe the storage facility may be concerned that we may encroach on their something, but there's no houses there. So, I'm not sure where that sentiment of us going for eminent domain is even coming from because there are no houses on that property. I I I just don't understand that. And so, I've asked the question and to staff and the answer was there are no houses and we have no intention of anything having to do with eminent domain. not a need. There's no houses there. So, in the end, the question is this. We have a constitutional
241requirement to provide schools in a community. There's two options. That's it. If we had five, we could have a more lively, but we're picking out of the two and we own the two or have the option for two. So, I agree. It's the school district's job to ensure that there are schools for kids. And I will selflessly apologize to the city of Deerry because we did not do a good job. We did not do a good job at planning. We did not do a good job at anticipating that all of that back there would blow up. We did not do a good job at that. And and you know what? That's I I say that as one of five members of the school board, but to continue to harm the children in the community, I
242I can't do that. And busing kids out of your community is it's not good for the community. It's not good for the school district. It's not good for the for the for the kids. More importantly, it's not good for kids. And so for that reason I am supportive of this. Again there were questions of why did you guys buy the Buckley property? And I was very clear from the beginning and I have the option to buy something that may be worth twice what it's worth all day long. And nobody's going to be mad when you make two $3 million on a property. Nobody's going to be mad. not often we have the the the opportunity to to to make something and so for that reason I am supportive of this. I think it is our
243constitutional duty to provide schools and failure to do so may as as somebody pointed out negatively impact a whole another generation. As it stands there were poor decisions made. I ain't going to lie to you. University high school and a one road in one road out next to that elementary school that was I don't know what they were thinking but I can tell you it it's hard and now we're trying to figure out how to make it better and so I um for that reason I am supportive of this and I know that was long and drawn out but a lot of folks wanted to know well what was the thought process they bought that property They knew they want No, I never intended to use it as a school. Never. Ever. Not once. I
244am happy to hear that we are separating the building of the school from the property from the land use. That's a plus. I think that makes my decision actually a whole lot better. I think we have some other decisions forthcoming that we'll have to make. Um, but for right now, I think this one is uh to me a it's our duty to do the right thing. Thank you, Miss Thompson. Thank you. And I'm going to be focusing because what is on the agenda is the purchase of the property. So, like you just said, the school piece being separated from it makes this so much easier. Um, we're elected to speak on behalf of the people. We did get many, many, many emails. I believe we all read through those. I called some people yesterday just
245to hear what they had to say cuz I live on the other side of the county. I go through Deberry not that often and so I wanted to hear what the people said and it was overwhelmingly supportive of uh the school there at Spring Vista. I did have some questions, not many but a few um that we got in the emails and you know I just want to hear the answers. Um and these are based off the emails. Um, would Valuchia County Schools have to widen any of those roads or is there any plans for us specifically to widen any of the roads if we purchase this to build a school there? We would probably have to uh add well, we would have to add a turn lane at the end of Spring Vista. Okay.
246And that would be at our cost. Okay. So, we're not planning to go in and take people's front yards to widen the roads. No, we have again we have never discussed easements on anyone. Okay. Um the if it is a K8, will the pickup and drop off times be what will the pickup and drop off times be? So, traditionally what we've done in the past is we use one bell schedule, not separate bell schedules. And that's the elementary bell schedule. Okay. So, you're looking at one currently 750 to 230. So, one pickup and one drop. One pickup and one drop off. Perfect. Um someone mentioned flooding and that was something I heard before. Or are there plans for the property to make sure that the neighborhoods around do not have any flooding? Yes, as as
247you know, we are required to hold our own water. Okay. Thank you very much. And something that I've thought about repeatedly um because there will be buildings there will be buildings down in district three. Fingers crossed. Um we have the two properties or the options. If we don't build something there, something will get built there inevitably. It will not stand vacant forever. And so after hearing from all the emails and the people tonight, um I I am in support of building this school or at least buying the property so that we have the option to do it because if we don't, someone else will. And so for those reasons, I am in support of purchasing the Spring Vista site. Thank you, Mrs. Brosmer. Just a few points. Um, with regard to the emails, uh, it
248was very, uh, thoughtful of the developer to send, um, drafts of and of of, um, suggested emails, suggested um, communication with the board members. Um, I have I frankly have never seen a developer get quite so interested, especially since they don't own the property and we don't have a contract with them from everything I've learned tonight. Uh, it it's interesting that they took such an active interest in making sure that not only did people have something they could write, but they also uh gave them instructions about how to uh how to make sure that they turned in the right card for public comment. Uh with regard to eminent domain, it's true that there are no homes that are adjacent, but the the road is the road is relatively narrow and um and so I I
249think some of the concern about the potential for eminent domain is for across the street um because there is there's really no room to widen it without without encroaching somewhere. Um, I I think we need to be careful about being too cavalier about the the legal implications of what we're talking about, too. Because while it may be true that local control is is being weakened, and I would be the first to agree with that, um, the fact is that we still are bound by concurrency. We're still bound by the interlocal agreement that we have with 17 other local governments and we do not have the authority to override the comprehensive plans for any of those local governments. So this is really uh potentially a very expensive roll of the dice on our part despite any
250claim we make for a need. Um, I've owned real estate and and made money on it all my life and um and I would be the first to say uh grab a piece of land or a or a property if you think you can make money on it. But as as uh several of you have mentioned, that's not what we do. So, I understand that we kind of have a gun to our head from the standpoint that there's only two properties um that are available to us in the town in the city of Deerry. But I think there are con considerations that have not been given enough weight tonight and um and for that reason I cannot support this. Mrs. Good. Rich, I just want to address the volume of emails and I had some
251concerns about where they were all coming from and so I decided to do some research and I actually brought it with me. So I started going through property records and Facebook accounts to make sure they were real people because we of all the topics we've ever had, this one's gotten the most emails by far. So I was able to validate that these were actual human beings. And so then I went back to looking at um more de in depth than some of the emails and strangely enough it was someone in opposition that shared with me um where a lot of it was stemming from. It was a parent forum um in de of parents saying hey this is how you let them know if you're in support of it. And so then I went and
252found that and it reminded me of I've I've stood in front of the DAS and I've I've not here but in county and city commission meetings and been on winning sides and losing sides and I know that whatever side you're on if you're working together you say hey just like we all do for our representatives when we say hey we want to support this bill into Tallahassee or we don't want to support this bill in Tallahassee here is how you email everyone and here's the verbiage you might want to use because this is what they're looking for to share your support and so I believe that's what was done here. Um I I don't I don't know that it was a conspiracy of any sort by if if if it was developerled. I did not
253find that in any research that was I found I I found that it was parentled. So Mr. Cologne, so ironically, you know, we got an email from Mr. Evans that said, "Make sure you check your junk mail." And holy smokes, there were a lot of emails in there. And those would probably hold a little bit of weight right now. If we had five properties to choose from, I'd say they like this one versus this one. This one's a plus. This one's a minus. These folks want it in their backyard. These folks don't. The reality is, and I, Miss Brosmer, I hear you. I feel you. I I don't like it as much as you don't. Trust me, I I there's nothing and I tell people this all the time. Don't send the chain email because
254once we get it after the third time, it's a chain email. But for me, it's just the matter of facts and where we are right now. And you know, while I appreciate the community input, you know, did I tally how many said yes and no and how many? No, I didn't do that. You're a better person than I am. Uh but I think that um and you know living in the community facing these parents you know facing the principal who God bless her heart has had to show face for us with her community who's you know we we said we were going to build the school and ex you know and on and on you know this is the right thing to do and so uh while I appreciate all of the input and all
255the parent groups and Yes. I I was wondering where this all started because all a sudden our email started blowing up and then somebody sent me a message and said, "Hey, do you see this?" Oh, that explains it. And it was a parent group in one of the dear forums and you know there's PTAs and they all they all want you know and and and and it hit me not long ago that the impact is not just it really goes down to like a third grader because by the time middle school by the time the school is built those kids will be in middle school. So it's those parents that don't even know that they want it that need it. So, you know, again, I'm grateful to the support. All that's great, but I'm looking
256at it straight up from a uh constitutional responsibility. So, thank you. Any other questions or comments, Mr. Young? If I could, I would like to take just a minute, please. Um, to your point, Mr. Cologne, there is nothing in statute that says school districts cannot buy and sell property. Absolutely nothing. And I would like to talk about a couple of things that Miss Goodrich said. Um, you know, our relationship with some other municipalities. Patt and I have been in these positions for three years. Uh, we inherited some relationships that weren't so great. You might know of one, Miss Brosmer. But we've gone on we've done a lot of things to repair those relationships. Uh I'm not happy about our relationship with Deerry right now. I'm I'm not happy with where we are. You know, it
257seems personal, but I can tell you it's not personal. It's not about winning. It's not about losing. It's about the kids. And you know, sometimes that sounds like a a cliche. It's about the kids. It's about the kids. Well, it is about the kids and I can tell you that, you know, we don't we don't come to this day and make um we don't come here to win. We certainly don't come here to lose. We don't look at it that way. We provide you with information and you make the decision and you should be making the decision that's best for the kids. But where do we get our information? I had to write this down. Um, I have the privilege of working with multiple attorneys, consultants, engineers, architects, environmentalists, the Florida Department of Education, and
258most importantly, I have a staff of 12 project managers that with combined experience is over 450 years. We don't make recommendations lightly. These are the experts whose opinions we use to make recommendations to this board. We don't rely on an individual with an opinion because one opinion does not an expert make. So I just wanted to say to the city of Deerry, regardless of how this vote goes, it's not about winning and losing. It's about doing what's right for our kids. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Young. Mrs. Cord, do you have anything to add? No, ma'am. I appreciate the conversation. I think a robust conversation is always the way for us to share, you know, our feelings and ideas about things, but I would like to echo um what Ron said, and actually it's about
25914 months for me in this position, and I'm loving every minute of it. Um, but this is the good work that we have a chance to do is for our students and our families. And I think about it all the time when somebody said about our grandchildren or the future. We're we're responsible for building and and maintaining facilities that Lord knows I'll be gone and people will still be utilizing and enjoying and I we take that very very seriously. So thank you for your time and attention to this. Okay. So at this time um I get to speak. I actually have been in Deerry. I've lived there for 39 years. I actually started traveling there at the age of 10 which was 48 years ago because my grandparents retired to Deerry and an aunt knuckle
260retired to Deerry out of the military. So I was first visited Deerry when the ball field was where the Windixie is. I moved to Deerry as they took the ball field away and built the Windixie. I lived through the whole not a Walmart, but now the Walmart is packed and every time you go by it with people shopping there. Deerry was not a city when I moved there. Derry did not become a city until 1993. Derry Elementary opened in 1996. It was scheduled to open in the fall, but as you know, I've stated this before and you guys weren't there when this happened. We're not always great at opening schools on time, so it didn't open until January. We housed it at the back of Enterprise Elementary and any portable or anything they could pull
261in to hold two schools there. But I actually started my career at Enterprise Elementary because that's where all the kids in Deerry went to school. When I moved to Deerry, the population at that time was approximately 4,900 people. It was a retirement community for the most part. It just had families that were starting to pop up there. All the kids in Deberry and Deltona other than the Ostein area and Enterprise all went to Enterprise Elementary. When I started teaching there, there were,200 students there because there was an entire world of portables. I taught in a double wide portable. fifth grade on one side, sixth grade on the other. We hadn't even gone to the middle school concept yet. I will tell you in my classroom, which I was very happy to be teaching there. I
262had sixth grade. I had the old wooden one-armed bandit chairs. When it rained, we moved to the center of the room because the water came in and ran down the walls. But it didn't stop what happened and children getting an education. So, I watched the entire city of Deltona and every school that we built there. The first one was Deltona Lakes to take alleviate some of the crowding at Enterprise. Then it went to Discovery and at one time I could quote you the which school opened in which order and what year. But what was not happening at all was there was no plan for a school ever in Dear as a parent because my son was born in 1993 and my daughter in 1992. I walked the streets of Deberry and asked parents to sign
263petitions to build a school in Deair. I was just a teacher and a mom and the first school got built. I actually walked the streets to see if we and get petition signed to see if we could build a high school. No high school for Deary. The thing about a comprehensive plan is this. You can blame us and I've stood there and said that the current council did not create where we're at. the Debury Council, nor did the current school board create where we're at. We each inherited decisions that were made before us or lack of decisions. How can you have a comprehensive plan for a city and you continue and and they can call and say, "Oh, well, you guys approved it." Well, we never approve here for the building of anything. It doesn't
264come to us to build. But there's never been a plan for any schools in Dear's comprehensive plan. There still isn't a plan for schools. But there was no Deberry Goff and Country Club when I moved there. Anybody driven through there and seen how large that is? There was no Glenn Abbey when I started there. How about Riviera Bella? I thought phase four would be the end. Nope. There's another phase. Seven phases of Rivington coming in 2019 in April. You guys weren't sitting there because you weren't in these positions. I asked at that time, "What's the plan for Deberry?" Because Deberry was getting the first set of apartments because I watched and paid attention. I live there. This was my community. This is where I raised my own children. And it was like there's apartments coming
265to Deerry. Yeah. You know what? You were here with me. You remember what they said formul. Students 7.2 students would be all that would come out of the apartments. Well, that didn't hold true. And it's just been constant. And there is nothing left. Okay. But we went and did our due diligence. We met with the city manager. There was a piece on Dirkson Doyle Road, Berry Road, whichever, depending on which part you're on, that's the name of it. Okay. Um, and we asked about that piece and he said, "Nope, city's taking it." So, every time we did ask it was no. When we asked about Spring Vista, it was said you can't afford it and that's industrial. But when we did more research later on, we found out, well, each year it was being signed
266for industrial, but the main use of it had not been changed. Here's my thing. In 2020, Deerry was up to right at 23,000 citizens. There was last year a few parents in Orange City that got very vocal on social media and they wrote, "Why does Valuchia County School keep busing their kids to Orange City out of Deberry? Why can't Deerry have a school?" But you know, I have had people I've read every email except for I found some in the junk mail and that's when I told Dr. Evans, please share with you. So, there's a few I have not responded to yet that I just found there. Here's the overwhelming response on the people that want a school. I want a school because I didn't don't want my kids bust out of Deberry. This is
267this is these are the things I heard because my child was going to be bust. I chose to go across to Semino County and do a private school. I chose to go to a charter school. I chose to do virtual. I chose to homeschool my child. I've been saying for a long time, we are losing the students in Deberry out of Valuchia County schools because we haven't given them a school in their community and they don't want their kids bust out. They wanted a high school, but it was voted down and so it went to Orange City. Deerry actually has more residents than Orange City has. Orange City has two elementary, a middle, and a high. If we go up north to the Pearson area, I got an elementary and a middle high combo in
268Pearson. And there's only how many families that live in Pearson? 12. Not many more than that. My thing tonight is in 2018 when I chose to run for this seat, I ran for it and I was very clear why I was running for it. I was running for this seat to ensure that students were put first and foremost. One of the things I ran on at that point was that teachers would have textbooks and resources because they didn't have them. Someone had done away with it. I ran on being financially and fiscally responsible. But I sat right here and I took on fighting for a school in Deari. I took on fighting to bring the kids back to Tur Small in Daytona that were being bust out. That happened this past fall. I took on
269fighting for Stark Elementary because Tur and Stark are the two at the time were the two highest poverty schools in Valuch County along with McInness and they had been ignored. They didn't show up on anything. They were absolutely ignored because they were high poverty schools. Stark will open next year and it will actually help alleviate crowding and it's going to be a magnet school. A lush county public magnet school. I still have McInness on the list. I fought for Orange City Elementary to not get a patch job but to be a to have a brand new school. And if enterprise if we could build on the enterprise piece of property, I would have I could have looked at fighting. But there's no kids right there. We can't even build on that piece of property. The
270parent pickup loop, and I'm being honest with you, the parent pickup drop off loop is across the street. It's not even on the property. Talk about something not being safe. And as a young teacher, I signed up to be in charge to be out there every afternoon. And that's back when we had the gun racks in the back of people's trucks. And one day, a dad got mad at another dad and he jumped out of his truck and brought the rifle with him at parent pickup. And back then, we didn't have Fortify Florida or a way to get people there quickly. I had to make sure those kids stayed safe because the parents weren't happy. But what I'm saying to you tonight is this. Children are our future. Every one of us, whether you're you
271don't have them yet, you currently have them or you already raised yours and you're fortunate enough to have grandchildren, they are our future. And we did take an oath. We are sitting here tonight to ensure that every child has a place to learn. And it with only a 46 to 50% return on transportation, it's ridiculous that we continue to keep busing children out into other communities. Here was unfortunately one other thing that I picked up on because I not only wrote emails to a lot of them. I called some of them and this is what some of them said to me tonight. We'd like to come and we'd like to talk but we're afraid. I said what are you afraid of? We we are happy as board members to hear from anybody. We give more
272public input times than anyone else that I know of because we want to hear what are you afraid of? I live in Dear and I'm afraid there may be retaliation if I come and speak in favor of a school and that breaks my heart. I live in Devi. I'm speaking and I'm not afraid of retaliation. Okay. I gave up a lot to sit in this seat. I took a $50,000 a year pay cut to sit right here in this seat to do a job and live through COVID and face all of this. But every time I take a stand on this, I will always do what's best for children. In the event I find out the decision I made is not accurate or not what's best, then I will own it and say it out
273loud. So all of the stuff that keeps being spread around needs to stop. And we need to support our children. And I have always been appreciative of the city of Deubberry when they partnered with us, which we worked on together because they couldn't get people that were formerly in your positions to do it to work on the parent pickup loop. I gave them all the credit. I sang their praises to other cities and said, "Come work with us." Right now, I'm just a little disappointed because I was told that the Buckley property was perfect and it would work and it absolutely is not perfect and it will not work. And if we lose this piece of property, we don't have any other options. And we might as well just figure more of our kids that
274live there, they're going to go to other places. And now with House Bill One, parents can just request the money and they can put them in private, put them in charter, put them in virtual or homeschool them and be paid for doing that. And we'll continue to lose kids. And I I actually heard again last week from a family that they bought a house in Rivington and as soon as they found out their child would not stay in Berry, they put it back up on the market and they went to Orand. I don't want to lose any more families to Orand Deberry is a wonderful place to live. It's a wonderful place. We have 13 parks. We take our sports seriously. Kids play all kinds of sports. They have great summer programs. They make sure
275kids are safe during the summer. And I'm going to say one final thing and then I'm going to have Dr. Balamman speak and we'll call for the vote. Mr. Clone and I visited a school in Orlando, a K8 on 14 acres to look at how some of these things neither one of you were in your positions. Then I went to Hannes City to visit in June of 2023. You were in the vehicle with me. We took a truck ride to visit a K8 down there being built right smack dab in the middle of a subdivision. Why did I do that? Because I will say we messed up when we built some schools and we didn't handle the parking or the traffic. They all heard me and this plan for this site which can be done
276because in Hayne City they build it on 17 acres. Ours is going to total 26 point something if we move forward with this is for a two and a half mile double lane parent pickup parent drop off I know what happened at Deerry we got the house bill with safety and security and if I could figure out a way to fix that for deary after we did all this work I would but that's in the plans for this school this school will be surrounded by fencing then have that lane with gate gates that open and close depending on the time of day and where you want the traffic to go. So they'll Nobody should ever hang out on the street. They should pull in. We also did it as a way for when events are
277held there, you can have everybody park there. So I'm tired of hearing the stories repeated. And if you watch something and you read something or if you only read something and you don't go watch it, don't misspeak what I said. I've talked about that we have a lot of schools in in neighborhoods. Okay? I never once said we had any schools in neighborhoods here that had a traffic flow pattern built on the campuses that could handle anything. That's why I left this county and went and did my homework in other counties so that we could build a school forward thinking with the parent pickup drop off loop and a bus loop on it. And you know what? Here's the other thing I did for my homework. I invited every schoolboard member through our attorney before
278the two of you arrived and we made another trip to Hayne City after that K8 school opened and we were on that campus while kids were there and we watched dismissal to and they only had a mile and a half parent pickup loop but we watched dismissal because I needed to see it in action to make sure it's going to work because I do my due diligence. So, I'm tired of the you don't know what you're talking about. It won't work. Bottom line is we partner with the Val County Sheriff at all times. If and when we get to the point we're opening this school, if we need to have the sheriff's deputies out there and people need to get ticketed, if they can't follow the directions, then that's what will need to happen. But
279we're going to the design for this school that's already done been done by Harvard Jolly will contain the traffic on that campus. Everybody will have a single start start time and a single ending time. This has not been taken lightly and I appreciate all the work that all of you have done. I appreciate every single person that wrote an email whether you were for or against. But when you're going to write an email, make sure your information is accurate. Because when your information is accurate, not accurate, I tend to stop reading. I'm being honest. Although some of them I took the time and I wrote back and gave them accurate information. And don't pretend that you live somewhere that you don't live because as Miss Goodrich said, if I don't know you, I look you
280up. I look you up. I learned that trick during co when I got 20some th,000 emails sitting on this board during co I looked people up. Do you even live in Val County? So I'm going to stop at this point and Dr. Balcomin, do you have a recommendation? I do have a recommendation but before I make that recommendation, I'd like to echo the same that you've shared. As you know, when it comes to agenda items, our team sets apart time for each board member before our board meetings. And the purpose of those meeting is to answer all of your questions, any additional questions that you may have, provide clarification so that you can come prepared and do your due diligence. Um, with that said, I items 17.05 and 17.06, 06 our team and I would
281just to mention a few Ron Young, Patty Cord, Todd C's, John Cash, they spent an enormous amount of time because you have requested information. We have provided you with data. We have had conversations with you so that you can come here prepared and and utilize the facts to make your the the best decision that you feel in the best interest of our students. So with that said, I know that you guys even on weekends, you were working preparing documentations. Thank you for all of the time that you have invested in in in all items, but especially these two items here. So with that said, I have two separate recommendations. 17.05. Start with that one. Okay. So Madame Chair, board, I recommend approval of the contract for purchase of 6.44 44 acres of the Spring Vista
282site for Enterprise Elementary replacement school. Spring Vista. Okay. Board members, you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Thank you, Mr. Cologne. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Mrs. Goodrich. We've already had our discussion, so at this point, I'm going to call for the vote. All those in favor of approving the contract for purchase of 6.44 acres of the Spring Vista site for the Enterprise Elementary replacement school, please say I. I. I. Those not in favor? Nay. No. Okay. So, it passes 4 to one. Dr. Balabin 17.06. Thank you, Madam Chair. 17.06. I recommend approval of the contract for purchase of 18.97 acres of the Spring Vista site for Enterprise Elementary Placement School. Board members, you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent. Do
283I have a motion to approve? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Cologne. Do I have a second? I'll second that motion. Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. We've already had our discussion. I will call for the vote. All those of you in favor of purchasing 18.97 acres of the Spring Vista site for Enterprise Elementary replacement school, please say I. I. I. Those opposed? No. Okay, it passes four to one. And so at this time, we are on um are there any other cards for public input? I see a card. This is for general items. We are on 18.01. This Elizabeth Albert, you are up. Welcome. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, superintendent Dr. Balgabin, members of the audience. So because it was mentioned earlier, I thought I would come up and talk about um legislation. So
284there are eight days left remaining uh in this legislative session and I want to talk very briefly about House Bill 443 and its companion in the Senate 822. So we received this update today. Those bills reference charter schools. So before this and I'm going to read from the House Bill 443. So before the sale, transfer or disposal of land, facilities, or educational plants, the school board must notify charter schools of the proposed transaction and give charters the right of first refusal. So although we had a a conversation about potential options with any property that we would own, I would believe we need to make sure that we are understanding where the legislature would be requiring us to go, Valuchia County schools to go for all of the real property that is owned. U school districts
285um unfortunately are not in the business of turning a profit. uh we don't want to lose money either, but our first and most important priority is making sure that we are taking care of the educational needs of the children that are sent to us. So any money that we have um and any revenue that we would earn, I would I would uh hope that it is sufficient to support the educational programs that we have and any operating costs. But I do want to end with this positive note. House Bill 1267. It is uh something that seems to have just kind of risen to the top here. Part of House Bill uh 1267 allows district school boards to use real property to develop an educational village. A county or municipality must authorize multif family and mixeduse
286residential on any parcel owned and authorized by the board if they are being used for affordable housing for a period of at least 30 years. Now, we have affordable housing crisis in our community. Like many others, we have issues with our employees being able to find and maintain affordable housing. So, late in this evening, I just think it's appropriate to draw everyone's attention to 1267. And perhaps this is a winwin going forward for not only um whomever benefits from this decision, but also all of the stakeholders in Belouch County Schools. So um I know we've had some great community partners that have helped out in the Daytona area. So maybe there's potential here. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we are now at item 19.01. Any items from board members? Is there anyone that wishes to
287share something this evening? Mrs. Brosmer, I just have a couple of of quick points. Um, one is that uh I think some in in this room may have seen the um the Doge letter that the governor has sent to schoolboard members and um I don't expect us to respond to it. Um, but I appreciated seeing that some of the information that he's requesting is information I have requested here. And I my hope is that he has better odds of getting it than I have so far. I I also want to mention that uh I want to go back to some of the public comment we heard tonight um about about uh cuts in programs and and um teachers because I'm getting calls now from parents whose kids are enrolled at Tamoka or were planning to
288go into TOMO um because of the reduction in in their gifted program that that the kids are being blended into gened classes and will have a teacher who is in the process of getting certified but is not a certified gifted teacher and um and and this concerns me a lot. It brings it home because it's my district. Um, but because I'm getting these calls, I I think the po one of the points they made that has always concerned me about public comment and how we react to it or don't is that we're always very polite about it, but then as soon as they're done, we go on to something else and there isn't necessarily the kind of followth through that they might relate to or that that I might see either. So I I I
289just want to encourage us to take them seriously, literally. Um acknowledge not not just acknowledge their their concerns, but act on them and um and what they raised tonight was of particular interest to me because of what I'm hearing from my parents. And that's all I have. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Goodrich. So, I just wanted to address some misinformation um and clarify some status. So, at our last meeting, there were some alarming claims that were made. Claims that are not rooted in fact. And let me be clear, I believe that any staff member that is deliberately spreading misinformation to board members needs to be held accountable. Whether that means discipline, res reassignment, or termination, there's simply no place for that behavior in our district. It's an unacceptable waste of taxpayer dollars and time to have
290this community chasing down conspiracy theories and fake news. So, let's talk about Orman Beach Elementary. This school is not only historically significant, but also significantly over capacity. That's a strong indicator of demand. Families move to that area specifically to attend that school, and that speaks volumes. When we're looking at the budget and evaluating schools, we would be absolutely reckless to look at numbers alone to suggest otherwise is short-sighted. But at the same time, if we ignore enrollment and capacity when analyzing our budget, that would be just as irresponsible. So for OBBE, here's the reality. Four board members, our superintendent and key staff have all publicly confirmed that OBBE is not on any chopping block. The idea of some backdoor conspiracy to close the school is not only unfounded, it's a distraction from the real work
291that we need to be doing. When I speak to community leaders, my NCOs, principals, and parents, people I trust deeply, they are enthusiastic about the way the district is headed. That's something we need to be building on and not undermining with baseless rumors. That's all I had to say. Thank you, Mr. Cologne. You know, timing is everything. And so I asked the question earlier, I know earlier we had some folks from Legacy Scholars come and speak to us. And you know, the reality is that that was an organizational decision. That's not something that we ever voted on as a board. Uh, Legacy Scholars is a school that certainly has filled the void in our community that um is is very very needed. Um, and so Dr. B, if there is anyone who can come and
292answer some questions, I'd appreciate it. uh regarding why we made the decision with Legacy Scholars and and and mind you, you know, sometimes you have to weigh, you know, how long can we possibly sit here? But, uh to your point, Miss Brosmer, I think it's important that we talk about why that decision and and and to better understand why the district made that decision. Um and then I'd like to share some thoughts that I think are important uh with how we move forward as well. So, um, if you have staff who can speak to this, I'm going to ask our chief of staff, John John Cash, to come up and he will share with you, um, a brief review of legacy, but also I will share with you that this is, and I know you
293know this, Mr. Cologne, but you're operating in full transparency that this information was also shared with each board member, okay, in our weekly meetings. though. Go ahead, Miss um So, if I may also um because it's very pertinent, Miss uh Workman, if you'd come up here, too, because I want to show you how much deliberate thought went into this because Miss Workman actually helped find uh found that school. Did you not Stephanie? Yes, sir. I did open that school. So, when we were looking at um our responsibilities of running this district and making decisions, we did not take this decision lightly at all. Not at all. We did our due diligence, did our research. We went and met with the folks at Legacy. We met with their board of directors. I did that along with
294our CFO uh Mr. CE in person. That was important to us to look them in the eye and talk about this difficult decision. And one of the things we committed to them when we had to make this decision is that we did understand the needs of the students. And we were committed to continue to offer the services for those students as they transition back into their zone schools. We're not talking about any of our little ones. of the elementary kids are not at Legacy, but we're talking about our middle and our high school students. So, it was a difficult decision. We were servicing probably anywhere between 17 to 20 to 25 kids depending on the transition and the mobility of the students there and we had a staff of about 11 or 12 individuals there.
295So, that factored into part of our decision-making. But I will tell you the one thing that we focused on was the needs of the students as they transitioned. I had conversations with Mr. McAuliffe and others about our mental health therapists, um, our students with disabilities, all those things bearing those resources to bear to make sure that we pushed into those schools to support them. We are not abandoning them. We want to continue to support them. That's important to us. You want to add to that, Miss Workman? No, sir. I think you covered. And so, you know, Legacy Scholars is one was one of the best kept secrets. I tell you, it actually took me I don't even want to tell you how long it took for someone to finally tell me, "Oh, that's in fact,
296you know what? We were at Deltona Middle at a job fair. We were in the new school, so that's several years in." And there was a young lady who came and she was like a history teacher or something like that she was applying for. And I remember hearing Stephanie say, "Well, we're looking for someone at Legacy Scholars." And I looked over at Stephanie and I said, "Why are you sending folks to the charter school?" She said, "What?" She goes, "It's one of our schools." Now, mind you, they're an enterprise. I had no idea. Which, by the way, I later learned this is how they like it. They liked it to be the like nobody knew they were there kind of thing. And it's a really weird arrangement with the children's home with the the society.
297And you know, they really truly had a great, you know, and and let me let me let me take let me go back a step. These folks love these kids to death. We will never ever ever ever ever ever be able to provide that level of love, caring, compassion that they do in that school. However, with programming changes, and you probably know more about this, their their numbers just were never there recently, recent years. when you've got 20 kids and 11 adults. I'll never forget going there and saying, "So that this is one of our schools. There's no uh Raptor. Where do I plug in?" And then I thought, "Wow, so so this school doesn't have the advantage of Raptor." And then I found out there's a lot of things they didn't have the advantage
298of, but they were okay with that because they were okay with that. And so the children's home really filled in a lot of the gaps which is what you heard that yes the children's home the they the they the Methodist children home they they did a lot but then we have to ask ourselves can we continue to have a school with a principal or a director. I'm not sure how that all works. So they had a pr director. I think he's a director. It's coordinator. A coordinator. It's not a principal. So they have a coordinator and I mean it it's a full-fledged school and so Dr. B, you know, and I shared this with them earlier. I I think it's important that we consider having case workers for these kids. you know, to think that
299we can uh put them in school and that they're going to just assimulate and I mean the the the house parents at the children's home expect those kids to get up and roll out and then the traumas are real and you know what I think they're going to have a subset of challenges that we may not be used to. And so I don't know how to beg plead that we ensure that we have social workers, case managers that can follow these 20 kids wherever they are to try to close those gaps whenever possible. Gosh, if they need clothes, if they I mean again, the children's home takes care of a lot of that stuff, but their emotional needs, their counseling needs, it may mean that we have to support them a little bit differently. I
300I don't know. I just know that, you know, to the thought of them just assimulating in our regular schools that that challenge is not going to be easy. Um, and and there and a lot of them are transient. A lot of them are underprotective. A lot of them it there's this is something we have not I mean Stephanie can probably speak to it better than anybody else, but these are not the normal challenges that we're used to. Um, some of these kids are protected. As many times as we've been there for events, they say, "Please don't take any pictures of the kids." Because a lot of their parents can't even know where they are. So, that brings a whole another level of of complexity. I just want to make sure that, you know, it's not
301going to be a zero, you know, a dollar fordoll win with the close because I I think that we're going to need to support them and support the schools that are getting them in order to ensure that they are successful. And so that's my only ask um as we look forward uh to this these transition and changes. And you know what? They may not be within 2 miles and they may need transportation. And I know the children's home does good, but you know what? If they don't have transportation, they're not going to roll out of bed. They don't want to get up. They sometimes they just are having a bad day. And where now my guess is if you're having a bad day and it's an hour into the school day and you're finally willing
302to get up and go, and correct me if I'm wrong, you go. Well, now that that student is at Deltona Middle and it's not necessarily a walking distance to your from your house to your to your school. So, I think the challenges are going to be different. Thank you. C could we add one thing to that, Mr. Columbus, Miss Workman, if you would. That's one thing I wanted to mention is that many of those things that you talked about we are going to put in place. But the home also has an education liaison who currently works with our elementary schools where those students are placed. She is also committed to helping us with that transition to the middle and high school. So um with the students, not only will they get the support from the
303home, they'll get the support from her as well as us at the school. But we're committed to those students. We absolutely are. The wraparound services will still be provided to the students. The full wraparound services. Would you like to hear more more details? We can take that offline. Okay. Okay. Dr. Bman. Yeah. So, uh, Miss Goodidge, I'm glad you brought that up. about some of the the questions that we had to filter regarding closures of schools. And I think I went one of the things that I kept saying because the following day I will tell you that I was answering questions from um community members. I went to a few events. I was answering questions. I've spoken, the principal has called me from the school and what I said on record then I'm going to
304say again is that none of us have had any discussions about any schools in particular that are being that we were looking into closing. So I will say that again because that's what I said to some of the parents um the principal but also community members. But if I had to add up the amount of time that I spent fielding and answering questions, it's an enormous amount of time. And I say this respectfully here tonight. I believe in this district wholeheartedly. We have an amazing team and many of you have seen them day in and day out. Some of you understand the work fully. Some of you are learning the work. But that's the right thing to do, right? It's to learn the work if you don't understand the work. Because how can you be
305supportive of a system if you don't understand the inner workings? You're asking the right questions and I appreciate that. But note that this team here is committed to this district. They are committed to our students. I think the results for the past years speaks for itself. And we have to always I mean I I will be honest with you there is lots of areas that I'm not experts an expert in. And the first thing I do is that saying, seek to understand before you can be understood. When it comes to making decisions for our children, it is irresponsible not to have all of the facts or the full picture before we share information out there in bits and pieces. That's an irrespons irresponsible behavior. So, I say this to you. We are committed to this
306county. We're committed to our students. We have a phenomenal staff. The majority of these people in this organization are committed with their hearts, their spirit, and their intellect. And especially in this economy, the way it is in the workforce, you know this, it's really hard to have good people. So good governance along with exceptional leadership is what will propel and move this county forward. Again, I will say to you that I that I appreciate the time that you spend behind the scenes in asking the questions, disseminating those information to your constituents appropriately, but most importantly, always understanding that when it comes to our children, politics and personal agenda should not have a place. It should always be about kids first. And with that, good night everyone. Miss Thompson. But wait, there's more. Um, and this
307has nothing to do with anything we talked about. And when you were speaking on our commitment to the students, it it joged my memory. I know we all saw what happened at FSU. And I've watched the videos. You know, there were people that filmed while it was happening from inside classrooms, from outside in the parking lot. And it made me so extremely thankful since my kids are in our schools that we have a district, a superintendent, a sheriff that takes school safety so seriously. And I know that we have put um procedures into place. And we've had people come to our schoolboard meetings and complain that we're turning schools into jails. I go into schools three to four times a week. My kids are in there. I've never once felt like it was a jail.
308But I'll tell you, watching those doors that didn't lock and students stacking up desks and chairs against the doors and seeing, you know, it's it's a college campus. I'm sure many of us have been there where you can just walk around. You know, we are so lucky that we you have to go through doors to get onto our campuses. There are all these safety protocols. And so, people have complained that we're turning schools into jails, that we're spending so much money, and we're not getting all the money we need from the state. I realize that. I've talked to people in Tallahassee about that. We need more money for safety and security. But I did want to say a thank you to everyone on our team who puts this as our first priority. And I did
309want to thank you Dr. Bin because that was one of those things when I campaigned on Miss Haynes, you talked about what you campaigned on. Mine was school safety. That was one of those big initiatives. And I really do appreciate how seriously you take that and how it is one of those things that you know what we look constantly where we can save a little money here and there, but safety and security has never been that. So I want to thank everyone for that. Thank you, Miss Thompson. Anything else? Okay, then I'm going to call it. It is