001oh good afternoon and welcome to Volusia County School Board today is May the 9th 2023 and it is 4 34 p.m we are going to start the school board meeting and we will in just a moment I ask you to stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance and national anthem which is going to be presented today by Stark Elementary for the pledge and in an adult Choir in honor of teacher appreciation for the national anthem The Anthem is going to be sung by 135 Performing Arts teachers and accompanied by Angie Monahan and then following that we will have a moment of silence and reflection and so please stay standing so at this time please join me for the pledge thank you good evening I'm Eileen R the proud principal of Edith I Stark
002Elementary and I'm here with Miss Katie zinzi's class fifth grade class and we are going to recite the pledge for you tonight 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 and with liberty and justice for all we'll always tries [Applause] [Music] and those [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you you may be seated at this time I'm going to introduce starting on my far left we have Mr Carl purses representing District 4. next to Mr persis we have Mrs Jesse Thompson representing District three then we have Aaron Wolfe who is our school board attorney I'll move over to the I'll move her to the far right what did I do say right earlier and I should have said left
003I apologize um I started on write for the workshop so on my far right I have Miss Celeste Gilmore who's our agency clerk she keeps it all together and organized then we have Mr Reuben cologne representing District Five then we have Mrs Anita brunette representing District Two and she's our vice chair this year then we have our wonderful superintendent Dr Carmen balgeban and I am Jamie Haynes representing district one in your chair for this year so at this time we're going to take a moment for that items for approval today on this agenda are items 1.03 2.02 4.01 7.02 19.01 through 19.18 um there are several times in which we give public participation and I'd like to state that if you've never watched another school board meeting across the state I would encourage you to
004do so because we have one of we probably allow the most public participation of any of the districts in the State of Florida but each speaker will have a total of three minutes to speak please respect the time clock we had some difficulty at the last board meeting and so when you come up to speak there is a time clock that you can see when it runs out your time is over and also a buzzer goes off if for some reason you cannot see the timer or you cannot hear the buzzer if you'll please let us know then I will make sure that you know when your time is up but I would appreciate you not going over your three minutes you will be allowed also to speak for public participation for the items located
005on the consent agenda prior to us voting for anything on the consent agenda then not before 6 PM but it could be a little after we will have items of general interest pertaining to public education in Volusia County a total of up to 15 minutes will be provided for public comment at that time tonight if you're here to speak on policy 320 you will not be speaking at 6 PM you will speak when that item comes up for a vote so if you turn in a card please designate if you're here for item three policy 320. also time will be provided for public comment on any action item before a board vote is called on that item and so those will be the items starting with 19.01 and going through 19.18 you may fill out
006as many cards as you like if you wish to speak on more than one of those items and you will have three minutes time will also be provided at the end of the meeting for public comment for items of general interest pertaining to public education in Volusia County before items from the board superintendent or attorney are up for discussion announcement or approval we are moving now to item 1.02 which is our district vision statement and board member comments our vision statement is to create lifelong Learners prepared for an ever-changing Global Society I would like to invite board members at this time to share and I see Mr clone is ready to go you may start absolutely so since the last time we were here Ms Thompson and myself had the opportunity to attend leadership day
007at Sunrise Elementary are only if I'm correct if I remember correctly Leader in Me School in Volusia County also had the opportunity to attend The Adams Family production that was put on at Pine Ridge and we had the honor of having one of our County judges who actually mentors one of the students uh judge I'm going to say his name wrong feigenbaum joined us at that celebration of course we had the job fair which I'm sure somebody else will speak on Council for exceptional children that was an absolute blast to be there in honest and honor our ese teachers who were nominated teachers and parents who were nominated um by their peers to be Award winners of course I have a feeling we're probably going to talk about the first year teacher of the year
008just want to point out that the in secondary uh Miss Victoria Flynn from Heritage Middle School yay D5 was selected as the uh first year teacher of the year so that was super exciting uh vll graduation I'll let Jamie talk about that one Heritage Middle School had their football basketball all-out family engagement barbecue yes we had barbecue at 10 30 in the morning and so that was a great event that was also in part coupled with students from the high school who came over also to play the varsity football players were there as well we had our FFA banquet at Deltona High this past weekend which was amazing and last but not least a Galaxy just wanted to give you guys an update there are about five thousand dollars off of meeting their uh 25
009000 goal of uh reaching uh the Science Olympiad in I believe they're going to Kansas I think believe it is and so um if anybody wants to know how they can contribute to those efforts in order for this to be a a free trip for the students who've earned that opportunity uh please feel free to reach out to Mr Gomez and he'll connect you with the right folks is that okay Mr Gomez yes yes amazing very good thank you so much and I've got nothing else I think Mrs Thompson so Reuben hit a bunch of highlights um and I just wanted to say great work to all the schools I know we have testing it started today and quite a few of our schools did pep rallies and I was able to go the one
010at Spruce Creek Elementary in I made a statement asking the kids that if they were excited to go to bed early and wake up and get ready for the test of course the answer was no really loud no but when you asked him who is excited to you know go out and do their best and do tests and they all screamed it was the end of the day I'm not sure they knew what they were screaming for but um it was a really great experience also at Coronado Beach Elementary they had their end of the year music program that involved all the different grades it was awesome they did story books and then they Incorporated music and I know when my children were there they didn't have a music program and just to see in
011the very short amount of time how much it's grown it really shows how much one teacher who is passionate about what they do can really turn something around so great job to all of you and thank you again to futures for the first year teacher of the year which we had one from Edgewater Elementary who won so that was fun but that's it thank you guys Mrs Burnett thank you um well it is the the season for celebrating and it's always nice to celebrate all the good that goes on here in Volusia County so um and I know Futures I see shamina there they help us with a lot of that celebrating so thank you I had the opportunity to attend the law and government end of the year celebration at Atlantic high school and
012the kids there went to a different um conference or competition this year it was called the Florida Public Service Association first time they've ever been there I want to explain the whole dynamics of what they felt when they walked in the door but they won first place in two different categories first time attending the um the competition so they were excited and they hope to continue that process again for the next year so thank you thank you Mr persis thank you madam chair uh yes it's a definitely a week of celebrating definitely a month of celebrating and I know we'll all be very busy as will the superintendent and staff trying to attend all of these events sometimes it was five in the same day but anyway we'll do it the best the best we
013can I want to give a shout out to the uh again to the Ormond Beach Chamber of Commerce today for uh I was with them in the morning before the work workshop of recognizing teachers of the quarter and I know that the teachers are always happy when we go in there and and and surprise them in front of their students it's a it's a good good time I want to give a shout out to Stonewood Stonewood Grill Restaurant They're going to provide a luncheon uh May 23rd for all of the teachers who have been recognized as teachers of the quarter uh as well as their principals so it's a real nice Affair there at Stonewood on A1A in Ormond Beach just an again just the real sincere thank you to all of the teachers that
014are out there and working so hard each and every day we value you and we appreciate you thank you um Dr balkman do you have anything at this time I can do it when I do mine okay so a few other things that went on last week we had our job fair at the Ocean Center for new teachers coming in and there were several of us that were there at different times and the excitement in the room when they announce you know someone has taken a position is wonderful and several of us also did attend the Volusia County Exceptional children banquet with Mr cologne mentioned but we also had some teen job fairs since we were here last so we had a team job fair over at Mainland High and we had a lot of
015different people coming out to interview and meet the teenagers to go ahead and offer them employment as some of them are graduating and maybe haven't decided what they're doing yet what was really nice that Mainland highs is we had our military also there so we had our different branches of military that came but then we also then flipped over to the west side of the county and we held a job fair at University High so I would encourage you if you're at home listening and you're a parent or you're here tonight and you didn't know about the job fairs you may want to go ahead and go to the Volusia County website because all of the information is there and there's actually it tells you like who came and you know maybe what age they're
016looking for or whatever because it's never too late to help your child find a job for the summer or if they haven't made up their mind what they're going to do when they graduate later this month or the beginning of June a few other things that happened is I went to DeLand High's academic Signing Day which that's a great day because and they did it inside this year in the auditorium and what was really neat I felt was they put up a picture of the student in which college or university or branch of military or trade school that they were going to and their parents got to be there and they had a beautiful backdrop set up where they could get their photos taken we did that quickly though and then we bounced over to
017Blue Lake Elementary because Mr David Finkel who is a teacher at DeLand High did he's done this for a couple years now he got a wonderful Futures Grant where his students actually go over and interview first graders at Blue Lake at the beginning of the school year and find out about things they like and everything and those students come back and they write a story book for the child that they interviewed and this year they paired with another class to do the illustrations and they actually have those books printed in hardcover well that Friday we went over there and the kids came in and the kids the kids were coming in before the high school students got there and they saw everybody setting up cupcakes and cookies and Juice because Futures was there doing that
018and they're like why are we here and I'm like it's a surprise you're going to see them they're like well did our parents give permission for us to be here you know and I said we've got permission you know for you to be here and everything well then when the high school kids came in they recognized some of them and and so they said do you remember when we came and interviewed you back right after school started and so then they got to be paired up with a copy of the book that had been written for them and Illustrated and they got to take that book home and then there's an ex they had two copies of every book made and there's an extra copy that's left there in the library so other kids can
019check out the books and see them but we did do the Futures first year Teacher of the Year Awards and it was just amazing because we had we had first year teachers this year that came to us straight out of a college or university we had people that you know came through a different path we we even had a doctor in the audience that had done his career and then decided I want to teach and he was a first year teacher this year and so we had a room full of people that made a commitment and they came to Volusia County this year and they signed up to be a first year teacher and then their principal selected them to get this honor and it just it was it was overwhelming to some point like
020it just warmed my heart to know that that whole room full of people was here because they care about kids and when you heard some of them speak because they read a little clip about each one of them that right there makes you realize there are people out there that they still want to do this job because they care about kids and each one of them that actually then won the overall Awards they talked about their kids and I will say the young lady that won the award from District Five Mr Collins school she just reminded me when she walked up there and remember I've taught everything from kindergarten to 12 but I thought she connects with those kids because she teaches science and she had on a dress that had frogs on it okay
021and I'm telling you right now she's in Middle School how do you get kids attention in Middle School you wear a dress with frogs on it in science class and they're going to pay attention but it was really neat and um but one of the highlights that we had this week was Volusia online learning they are going to graduate this year their very first class of seniors oh and so they had their very first senior award night and as we said to those students you're the first no one will ever be the first group again to go through a senior Awards night for Volusia online learning or to hold a graduation and their graduation is going to be held at the Ocean Center just like every one of our other high schools and just to
022see those kids you know because they've gone through that program which is online and there are families there to celebrate that it was just very awarding but I will tell you I closed up my night Friday night on I went to see Aladdin at Woodward Elementary and there's nothing better than when you go to an elementary school and you get to see a play or a program and so if your kids have grown or you have grandchildren now you probably remember what it was like but I have to tell you that Mr Jeff leader who's there is the music teacher he does a great job and those kids were in full costume and everything and it was a wonderful experience so there's a lot of great things going on and I'm going to say this
023again because people sometimes when we go to an event they're looking for all five of us we have reached the time of the year where if you get all five of us at an event that's going to be a great day because we're at the point now we have to split up and we still can't cover all of the events that are going on because we've got senior Awards coming up for all the high schools there's baccalaureates coming up there's the graduations coming up there's FFA Banquets there's military balls as Mr clone said there are all kinds of events going on out there and we try our best to get to as many of them as possible and so if you haven't submitted those yet you may want to see if you can get on
024our calendar or what's left of it but we will move right along at this point to item 1.03 approval of the minutes so this is I'm asking for a motion to approve the minutes from the April 25th 2023 regular school board meeting move approval of the minutes from the April April school board meeting thank you Mrs Burnett any discussion okay then I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving the minutes for the April 23rd 2023 meeting please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we're now moving on to item 2.01 Dr balkaman are there any changes to the agenda for this evening Madam chair I do not have any changes all right then at this time I'm going to ask for a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting motion
025to approve the agenda is presented thank you Mr cologne do I have a second second that motion thank you Mrs Thompson any discussion okay then we'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously now we are up to section 3.01 announcements by Dr balkabin thank you madam chair board members good afternoon members of the audience good afternoon to all of you listening watching good afternoon to all of you I do have a few announcements that I would like to share let's start out with last week last week all week long we celebrated our teachers in every single one of our 85 schools and I do want to do a shout out and a thank you to our leadership team at each and
026every school to our parents who lots and lots of parents believe it or not sent notes cards flowers to their teachers thank you for showing showering our teachers with so much love I was able to witness that myself last week so once again teachers you should be celebrated every single day not just one week but and we know that in Volusia County here we know the value of our teachers We Exist because of teaching and learning so again congratulations to all of you and on Monday and I would say it should not be segmented to one day only it's every single day that we should be celebrating our principles as well right because we need strong leadership in our schools because when you have a great principal in a school that's a that's a leader
027in the entire Community by itself so and I know we have a few here in our audience day but again congratulations to all of our wonderful building leaders thank you for the amazing work that you do leading with Grace and respect and being an Exemplar for our students and our communities um also I'm very thankful to all of you were there with us last week as we celebrated 56 of our very finest once again Futures Foundation thank you for sponsoring this event because we have 508 teachers that we hire this year that are brand new teachers and 56 which is the best of the best right they were there in one room and you could really sense that energy and the passion and the commitment to the point that I said are leaders born or
028made and I think the answer is both but those that were there that evening they were born to do what they do so congratulations to all of you and again to Brittany levulik from Edgewater public and Victoria Flynn from D5 Heritage Middle School all right that's right but it goes with D5 yes ma'am superintendent student advisory leadership team salt I'm very excited to share with you that we had our very very first meeting in here with 30 wonderful wonderful students from our High School Division they were right here in the boardroom um last week and we talked about the year ahead and they're very very excited to be the voice the eyes the ears of Volusia County and I will tell you that these are students that are very passionate not only about their own
029learning but also they're very passionate but about the learning of all their peers here in our district we did an activity here and I will tell you two things that came out evidently very clear that's important to our students obviously they said the Safety and Security right of in every single school they want to make sure that their schools are not just safe for them but also safe for every learner and one of the reminders I'm going to make again and say that when it comes to Safety and Security we'll have protocols we'll have systems and structures in place but it's a collective responsibility our parents our school-based staff our District staff all of us play an important role and our students and our staff deserves to feel safe each and every day in addition
030to that I will tell you they talked about their elective classes they talked about a lot of stuff so we're going to take two items and we're going to start working on those two items and we will be meeting monthly they're excited to meet the board also so I figured that we will set up a panel interview with where we will have an opportunity and our board members will have an opportunity to ask questions of 30 of our very finest here in Volusia County national nurses week and that began actually May 6th it's from May 6th of May 12th we're honoring all of our nurses on on specifically Wednesday which is tomorrow May the 10th so there will be a message going out to all of our folks that are in the nursing field we
031want to thank them again for making sure that our schools our children are safe and that they're healthy and that their needs are being met thank you to all of our nursing team virtual parent University we share today during our Workshop that that's upcoming and we're going to have two sections we're going to have one for elementary the elementary division that's going to be on May the 11th at 5 30 PM so parents please sign up if you have a child in our system attending one of our elementary schools or or if your child will be attending um and then for our middle and high school divisions that's going to be May the uh the 18th at 5 30 p.m now the Links are on our website I know that Mr Gomez has been sending
032out messages regarding these two virtual parent University now why why parent University there's a lot of great things that has transpired in each division this year so if you have a child in the elementary or you have a child in secondary so we want to share with you what are some of the things that has transpired this year but most importantly what you can expect for next year and also give you the opportunity to answer any questions that you may have so I hope to see you again May the 11th if you have a student in the elementary division or we'll be having a child at the elementary in the element in one of our elementary schools and May the 18th for secondary project search graduation is coming up I know all of you this
033is something that excites you we want to thank our part I think Halifax for our partnership with them but uh in particular we're going to be celebrating 22 graduates and that's going to be May 24 from 10 30 to 12 30 at the Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Also let's not forget that this year that Volusia County we were awarded two recognitions from Project search for 100 employment outcomes for two of our three sites so again I want to thank everyone for putting this together or ESC Division and our very own very own Senator Tom Wright will be there at the at the graduation Bill Amendment graduation and testing what is it that you need to know amendment to House Bill 1537 was signed into law precisely precisely today which will allow our 2019-20 cohort
034which is the this graduating cohort to use the previous year's concordance course so please note that this does not apply to astute the ninth graders who entered in 2021 it does not apply to that cohort the bill Amendment shows 114 as the comparative four part for math last year it was 97 so it's no longer 97 it's 114 now we're also offering two-part math administrations in May in addition to the part math students who still need to pass the FSA Algebra 1 EOC will be able to participate in best algebra 101 EOC Administration May we're going to have another Administration in May Dio has also announced that when they will now allow 11th and 12th grade students to take the fast 10th grade ELA reading PMA assessments if they haven't done so or have not
035passed this will provide an additional opportunity for retakes for ELA for the 10th grade testing requirement criteria and Madam chair guess what look the last part made me happy because I just want to make sure our kids get a high school diploma I am with you on that yes Mr cologne same thing we have a video you have a short video uh no I don't I was going to say that's it for the evening all right I was ready for the video we do have but it's not in this segment we like the videos yeah we do we do have something but it's not I will say this about the video um I took a moment to watch the one that the Mayors did for teacher appreciation if you guys haven't seen the mayor one
036yet they did a fabulous job and I want to thank the Mayors out there from our different cities that agreed um and sent in video clips for teacher appreciation they did a great job yeah we have one but it's going to be in another section I promise you okay all right well thank you Dr balquin and so just to make sure everyone did hear this at home um this year's senior graduating class gets to follow the same graduation requirements as last year's except for one little piece which at least we got the pert test back in there but they did raise the score a little because that that is helping us guarantee that 400 and some of our students that maybe weren't going to get their diploma will get their diploma so we will have
037a battle on our hands this coming year to tell real life stories so that they know that it's important that when our students spend all of this time that a single test score should not keep them from having a diploma because they've done the work and there's nothing worse than for a child to walk across the stage and get a certificate of attendance instead of a diploma so if you've got an upcoming senior or even a student in high school please pay attention to the legislation and if you've got a story to share we'll help you share it next year because we want every child that does the work to be able to walk across the stage and graduate that's what this is all about all right well thank you we are now moving on
038and you have a seat next to you could you just raise your hand because we've got some people that I'd like to get seated if there's any seats left I apologize that you're standing all right we're moving right along to item 4.01 administrative appointments are transfers so Dr balkovan do we have anything this evening Madam chair I do okay we have one administrative appointment this evening for your approval so at this time I would like to ask to join us here Mr Mike digiromo can you come on up [Applause] so let me tell you a little bit about Mr D this Geronimo he has earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Central Florida and he has earned a master's degree from Stetson University his certification are in Ed leadership and varying exceptionalities Mr digiaromo
039has been working with Volusia County Schools since 1998 when he started as a teacher assistant at Blue Lake Elementary he also worked at Galaxy middle South Western middle and is currently has been and still is to this point the interim principle at DeLand High School and just to share a little bit with you you know sometimes you have individuals that will be that will go through an interview process and they will conduct an exceptional interview and then you will watch them in action to see the correlation and then sometimes you'll have an individual where you're able to see truly who they are through a process right Mr diggeromo when he was named interim principle at the land during his tenure as an interim principle I can tell you firsthand that I visited the school several
040times and I can see the climate and culture there at the school how he engages staff in decision making the students how much he's loved by his students and his parents I have personally received so many letters of commendations emails of commendations regarding his leadership traits and um so when we we opened up this position Mr dijorola along with a few others applied but I will tell you that the committee told me that single-handedly he just stood out in his interview because sometimes you know when someone belongs somewhere so with your approval here tonight I'm recommending for Mr Michael diggeroma as the principal of the land high school and if you approve his effective date will be very very early tomorrow morning we're not even going to give you a day off all right before
041I call for emotion in a second I want to say this I had the honor and privilege that when you started out your very first year as a teacher at Blue Lake Elementary to be right there when you got hired and watch you teach at the elementary level and then move on up to the Middle School level and then on to the high school level and I just have to tell you how proud I am of you because you have been at all three levels and you took on this job and really it was your job to either earn or lose and the turnaround that you've done on the discipline onto land Heist campus is phenomenal it is nice to walk on that campus and students are in class which is where we want them
042to be and so I'm looking forward to the vote for tonight so with that being said do I have a motion I really want to pass this pass it I don't want to pass it I was waiting for you to do that do we have a motion I'd like to make the motion you have a second I'll second that motion so Mrs Haynes is the made the motion and Miss Thompson made the second let's call for the vote all in favor say aye aye any opposed passes thank you good afternoon chairman Haynes Vice chair Burnett fellow school board members and Dr Baldwin it was not long ago I was sat here and was named the interim principal to lay in high school humbly yet confidently speaking I know that I'm the best person to lead
043this school a school rich in Tradition and unshakable in the community that loves their Bulldogs this is a bar this has by far been the hardest and most stressful job I've ever had but it's also the best job I've ever had every day is an opportunity to change someone's life every day I get a chance to make someone smile who didn't want to on their way to school students parents and staff float in and out of my office all day and they trust me to help them with their problems and concerns I cannot adequately explain the deep and meaningful honor it is that they trust me to serve them during such an impactful time in their lives Fred Rogers once said there's a world of difference between insisting on someone doing something and establishing an
044atmosphere in which that person can grow into wanting to do something and I wait to return to school tomorrow and embark on this new Journey as the principal of DeLand High School I do not take lightly to confidence you have it still to me in this role and I promise you I'll make you all very proud thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] any of the staff from DeLand High come on forward foreign come on Gage it's okay all right come on everybody that sounds awesome let's get all those green shirts around I'm short I'm always impressed yeah foreign [Applause] oh [Applause] God [Music] [Laughter] foreign [Applause] it's always fun all right we are moving right along to item 5.01 on tonight's agenda this is recognition of students we're going to start out with the
045All-State musicians Dr balkova Yes Man and chair board members are forced recognition tonight is that we would like to Spotlight some of our Volusia County's schools amazing truly amazing Performing Arts students 44 we have a total of 44 from 19 schools who have received the All-State honors this year in various categories the categories are Orchestra chorus band and Elementary music this year in various uh and Elementary music also we have with us here John Depew and is John is Craig here Craig's radio Okay Craig upper Q also will be joining John take it away all right good afternoon Miss Haynes school board members Dr balgeman I'm John Dupuy Performing Arts specialist and it is my pleasure today to introduce our talented and hard-working All-State band Orchestra chorus and Elementary music students these students were selected
046among thousands in the state for being the top performing musicians their placement was determined by a rigorous audition process these students participated in numerous rehearsals culminating in several performances with their peers from across the state congratulations to all these students and their teachers for their hard work and dedication as I call each name students will enter the room and receive a certificate and will remain there for a group picture any principles and attendance may also come up when your school is called all right here's our list of names from Beachside Elementary Amaya mafen and also from Beachside Elementary Adele Kavanaugh Foster from Spirit Elementary School Jalen lesniak and from Osteen Elementary School Lillian lafise [Applause] from Deltona Middle School Olivia bebout and from Seabreeze high school Gavin Martinez from from Deltona High School corollani Yamato
047Toledo [Applause] from Silver Sands Middle School Mila so lazy [Applause] from Spruce Creek High School Emma Smith and then from DeLand High School Logan butcher DeLand ferentino Linux the land Gracie Holland [Applause] from Atlantic High School this is Yasmine Garcia [Music] in the next few are from Ormond Beach Middle School Wyatt Moore [Applause] Ava Nielsen [Applause] ree Johnson Harley Higgs kawazawa [Applause] then from Spruce Creek High School Alex kajon [Applause] New Smyrna Beach Middle School Marley Wilson and the next two from Creekside Middle School Colin Ahmed and Caleb Finley from Henson Middle School Chad booth from River Springs Middle School Serenity Mojica [Applause] from Mainland High School Caleb Lanier [Applause] from University High School Dylan agard the last fourth all from DeLand High School Tyler okanor [Applause] Daniel burrow [Applause] clay and Jewel [Applause] and
048Evan Nazario [Applause] we have a few that couldn't be here today but in total we had 45 students make the Allstate honor ensembles this year which is incredible I think one of our biggest Heroes so far so one more big round of applause for all these students well we give the students ready for a picture parents are welcome to come up to the edge right here and get your pictures we may have to take turns but first we're going to let our district photographer take the picture and then she'll get out of the way for you okay foreign [Laughter] [Music] we have an orchestra teacher please coming up yeah we don't have we need to create a bigger boardroom absolutely it's more common Angel get in here no more common all right they're taller there's
049people over here [Laughter] thank you okay Paparazzi time I think this is the largest crowd we've had the largest that's a good thing I know we really dream big here in the Performing Arts here's the chair he's back there somewhere there's a chair and the vice chair [Laughter] oh very good [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you congratulations you're doing all right here so I made sure I appreciate everything about you oh thank you [Laughter] wow that's good I really did that was wonderful yeah yeah that was a lot we couldn't wow that's what I'm saying yeah I agree all right we are now moving on to item 5.02 The Early Learning Garden at DeLand High School Dr balcoman yes Madam chair we're going this is something fun and heartwarming our DeLand High School students in
050particular Hannah dudiak she recently helped some of the bullpups in the Early Learning Program to create their very own garden we would like to show you I promise you a short video so that you can see for yourself what Hannah did single-handedly single-handedly with our bull pops all right this program is where you can get high schoolers involved with Early Childhood Program it's sometimes one period two periods a day and we work with the children so it's just beginning of Spring and our theme was gardening actually this box in the corner has just sat there empty and it's been kind of just deteriorating away and so you know one day I just asked this writer I was like can we do something about it and she's like go ahead Hannah had taken the initiative to
051get the garden started this box has been sitting here for all year she said Miss Ryder I want to clean out the garden and I want to fix the Box and I I'm planning on going to Lowe's and I'm going to ask if we can get donations I picked out a bunch of flowers and then I asked them if we can get just a small donation because the price was a little high and she looked at me and she said Merry Christmas and she gave all the supplies the soil the flowers everything that we needed for us so unique got to plant her yellow flowers we have pink flowers out there we have red flowers and we have white flowers so always donated by Lowe's she is a student that takes the initiative to get
052things done if she sees projects that need to be done around school here in our classroom she is the one that gets it accomplished I find a mushroom here all right it's important for me to see them have these types of experience because you know most kids may never ever touch a garden but it's it's crazy to see these kids take care of something that's their own good job I love my garden [Music] [Applause] Anna can you please come on up Hannah is here with her teacher Miss Ryder principal digiarolamo is here and some of our very own little bull pops are here as well I believe so come on up so we may recognize you okay [Applause] come closer right here hi guys what is it okay we're in the wrong side look at
053mommy and daddy's oh anybody else out there oh don't be afraid come on guys The Gardener's here everybody looks over here yes ma'am all right [Laughter] who's the one that found the Martian congratulations are you excited [Laughter] you are amazing it's always precious we want to say thank you to Hannah her parents Miss Ryder and our cute little bull pups that came today with their parents and Mr Digger Alamo it's a great program at DeLand High for some of our little preschool future Volusia County School kindergartners and we're happy they came to see us today all right we are moving right along to item 7.01 for any removal of items from the consent agenda do I have Dr balkaman do you have any items to remove from the consent agenda no ma'am not from my
054end board members do you have any items you wish to remove from the consent agenda or that you would wish to have discussion about Mr Gomez do we have any cards on any of the items located on the consent agenda all right then at this time we're going to I need a motion to approve the consent agenda that is on tonight's main agenda move to approve Mrs Burnett has made an emotion Mr persis is seconded any discussion all right then we'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving the consent agenda all the items on it please say aye aye any opposed all right it passes unanimously then we are moving now on to item number 18.01 the new teacher Academy thank you madam chair board members it is my pleasure to invite
055Miss Tiffany Fuller who is our coordinator as you know for recruitment support and retention Mr Mark West our chief of HR along with Miss Meg Roa who is our specialist for Recruitment and Retention and LaShawn Troutman lashon Troutman will be introduced by Miss Tiffany Fuller but a couple things I want to share with you actually I I'm here to exceed your expectations because it's not just one video I have another one for you but it will be at the end of the presentation but before I share that couple things we have been having conversations as you know as it pertains to our new teacher Academy what are some of the things that we need to do when it comes to recruitment so that we can have retention so in the middle of it all it's
056that support piece and you're going to hear some of the restructuring that will be taking place for next year in terms of how we want to be more targeted with that support piece for our new teachers um where's Miss Fuller she she's walking over right now from DeLand please go ahead I wanted to make sure that I'm yes ma'am you're doing all right so take it away Mr West yes so first of all good evening ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for giving us this opportunity we're very excited to be talking about uh the the teacher Academy this evening um you're going to notice on the on the PowerPoint that we have here before you that our our focus is on recruitment support and retention we're very excited about the opportunity that we're going
057to be bringing before you we've been talking and and you all from the diocese for over a year now about of course recruitment but also our focus on retention and the the um some of the structure that we put in place to do that additional part of support so I'm very excited tonight to be able to about time they got here uh introduce my recruitment support and retention team uh our newest member this evening is uh LaShawn Troutman which I'm going to let Tiffany talk about but also in partnership with um our futures foundation with Miss shamim and did you want to speak for a moment or you want to wait until the very end good so I'm going to let her talk a little bit at the very end so I'm going to let
058a team take it away come on up Tim all right one more time I'm gonna I'm gonna say here yeah okay so we have two former little dogs here I know I think they were outside so I move this here good evening good evening it was a full audit it was a full room in here so we were trying to give some space and some seats so um my name is Tiffany Fuller I'm the coordinator for Recruitment and Retention and I am fortunate to be joined today by meguroa Shepherd and our newest member Mr LaShawn Troutman so we're really excited to share some of the work that's coming out of the recruitment support and retention office and so I'll start by just this little picture that we have here we've got um a snapshot of
059some of the work that's been going on in Recruitment and Retention so far this year and Meg and I were getting ready to actually hold interviews for our new specialist position and we started to really dive into what's the work of this office and as we're talking and we're team building and we're expanding our office and we're looking to pull someone into this work with us we wanted to be really clear about what this work looks like and so we pulled out our job descriptions and our emails we talked about all our to-do lists and we really just started to look at what this work entails and so we we're teachers and so who doesn't love a good word art cloud and so um we put it together in a visual format and it was
060interesting because it became really clear the things that we know right we know recruitment we know job fairs we know career fairs but as we really dove into what does that work entail it's really the details it's the Partnerships it's the collaboration it's the connections that we're building and so um it was really interesting to kind of look at that work and kind of give a snapshot as we started to go in and look further at the work that still has to be done so a few updates that have come out of this office just in this last month our office has facilitated the instructional transfer Fair we have held and hosted both an in-person and virtual uh job fair where we hired over 180 new teachers for next school year already we're really excited
061about that um it was a great event at the Ocean Center and with all of our schools and we're so appreciative of our school leadership that really helped to push that um agenda forward um just last week we were able to join with Futures as we celebrated our first year teachers of the year and so we're really excited I want to take a moment just to give a second to introduce our newest team member Mr Troutman who is joining us from DeLand High School he comes with such Rich experience in this district from so many different perspectives and we're really excited to have him on our team he's he Dove right in right away because that's just how we work around here so I'm gonna let him tell you a little bit more about himself
062a good evening um once again I'm Mr LaShawn Bernard Troutman I'm your new Recruitment and Retention specialist uh this is my 25th year working for Volusia County Schools um I began teaching at Holly Hill Middle School I was there for 10 years it's been two years in the Dean's office when I was granting my Master's Degree and then I was a TOA at New Smyrna Beach High School spent some time at Mainland High School five years there spend some time at Spruce Creek High School great need to be a hawk for a year as a assistant principal there I traveled back to Mainland to Heritage five years now at DeLand High School and today started my first day here at this shop so it was wonderful but it'd be a little bit of a transition
063I'm going back and forth from here to DeLand High School to help out Mr D before he takes over as being that great principal I know he'll be my buddy um I'm thrilled to join the Recruitment and Retention uh team and continue growth with bringing great teachers into this County I'm ready to work I'm just ready to work I'm so happy about this position and just ready to get into it so we're really excited and we appreciate all that he's done already and offered to our department even as he's double dipping in both worlds so with that um with Recruitment and Retention this year we've had we've hired our largest hiring group right we've had over 600 new teachers we participated in over 50 job fairs just this spring we had over 60 interns and
064extended our seat of track I have three schools now three universities working on additional Apprentice agreements with us and we're just waiting for that paperwork to come through so we're really excited to expand that program we had over 300 participants for our job fair both in person and virtual and so we we continue to increase and expand the ways in which that we're reaching and marketing and advertising the great opportunities here in Volusia County Schools but it's not just a recruitment Department it is a retention department and so um and being more intentional in that work this year we've had our retention huddles with over six different groups of instructional teachers we had over 574 of our new teachers complete the teacher induction program and its current requirements we've revised our separation agreements that we
065have more correspondence with employees as they're going through that process and in some cases have retained them right and removed that document altogether and we're expanding our parent a teacher pipeline right so we're providing those uh Pathways into teacher and and classroom employment and expansion of that so some of the things that we've taken away from the people that we've talked to and our teachers is we've had lessons as we've listened because we've looked at all that we've done but we know that there are still gaps as we look at that Recruitment and we look at that retention we do know that we're still um facing sometimes an uphill battle and so we definitely want to talk to our teachers and as we had that conversation with teachers this year uh two things really emerge
066right that area for support and that area for respect and so while they uh the seven things that are that are listed on the slide you can see those were some of the things that really emerge out of that initial conversation but was we started to work together as a team we really wanted to find what are the ways that we can immediately be responsive and actionable so with the work specifically in our office we really dove into that new teacher support right we had a lot of Veteran teachers and experienced teachers that says my new teacher down the hall they need help or my new teacher down the hall they need this they need that I'm not sure how to help them I know they need help but they never ask any questions right
067so some of those things and so we really wanted to dive in to support um that work and then we also wanted to look at how do we differentiate those learning opportunities right educators are so well trained and so well educated and how do we differentiate for all of the varieties and the strength that they're already bringing into that classroom and so as we talk about ways to improve our attention right we looked at ways to grow and so part of that was being really intentional um with our Improvement efforts with retention and so we have so many action items as it relates to recruitment a lot of times but we really wanted to focus and hone in on what are we doing to shift that improvement with retention and so that included more proactive
068approaches to addressing teacher retention so that's having more conversations at the print with our principles we have meetings with them monthly we're devising a retention committee with our principal leaders to get feedback from those that are really doing a strong job of retaining their employees and have high success in that area and we're looking to expand what they're doing well on their campuses with their colleagues and expanding that and building and growing that culture that's really strong expanding that culture that's really strong on various campuses so that it's ubiquitous across all campuses and that becomes experience for all of our teachers and stakeholders and then looking at how we can Bridge more Pathways right Bridge more Pathways between the support that's provided at the school level for teachers but also the support that we at
069the district level are providing for the staff as we hire them and so that's really the driving work and the framework for how we went about doing that work to improve those areas that teachers said they needed support with and so it became really clear for our office that while we've got recruitment definitely and we're working on still building that retention that to do that we had to bridge that Gap right and so with that we really wanted to hone in and honor the support that we're really being intentional in providing for our teachers and so we're really excited to introduce our new teacher Academy many know it as teacher induction program or tip but we are rebranding we are revising and we are improving the support that we're providing our new teachers as they
070come on and with that we're also providing our Volusia mentors program we're really excited about and that's gonna we're gonna talk more about that in a moment and so we want it to honor right that support piece that's coming out of our office and so with that we're really trying to hone in on recruitment support and retention as we move forward so we'd like to tell you a little bit more about the new teacher Academy our new teacher Academy has four components we have an induction component a mentoring component a professional learning component and a wellness component and as you see on the slides you can see our induction component covers our onboarding and our orientation a lot of that pre-service work that our teachers receive at the very beginning when they're first hired in
071August and then we have our Volusia mentors program for our mentoring for professional learning we have something that's called showcase classrooms that we're going to talk a little bit more about but what we're so excited is that it provides that job embedded learning that our teachers were really craving and then we have an optional Wellness component that's going to really speak to the the work-life balance that more and more in today's job market is essential to the employees that you hire as we went to revise our program we were really intentional in making sure that we're satisfying both ends of our house right and so we talked about with the revisions to the program we wanted our new teacher program not to just be a new teacher program it has to work on the front
072house of recruitment but it also has to work on the back half of the house with retention and so our design and our hope and our goal is that as we build out this program that it works to show new hires look what you're coming into look at the support that's provided for you look at all of the Avenues that are here for you to support you in this new process this new Venture this new career but also look at what you can grow into look at what's available as you stay with this school district look at all the opportunities that are provided once you're here as a season and experience teacher in Volusia County Schools and so we really looked at the research on that and what new teacher support programs that really have
073strong retention values they have strong mentors they recognize a work-life balance they supports for classroom management they have models and exemplars of what the good work looks like and they have a job embedded professional learning so a quick snapshot of here's what our current tip program to date has looked like right it has a two-day induction program it's had Champs training which is available after school in a three-hour Zoom session we have ethics training the Danielson framework training some of those components a lot of times were offered after pre-service in after hours many virtual settings what we're providing now is those same sum of some of the same required trainings with ethics and the Danielson framework but also we're adding those hours of mentoring right that we're going to provide that structure support we're providing
074showcase classrooms job embedded professional learning so it's not taking taking up their after hours school time and then also the wellness option as a as an option thank you okay good evening I'm Meg Roa the other specialist in the Recruitment and Retention office so I'm excited to share with you a few more details about the different components in our new teacher Academy for our induction component uh really for anyone who's been hired now right up until August it's not going to be too different we're going to run pre-service as we have but what we're really excited about this change is when we have our late hires we consistently hear yeah you're fine we consistently hear about I mean teachers who are coming in after the school year starts they're walking into schools they're walking into
075classrooms that have already begun they're behind the eight ball and then they have not only are they trying to get acclimated to their new school the new school Community their classroom parents they also have this all of these layers of the tip program of the induction piece that they missed and those often have to be made up after hours so what we're going to go back to is a full day of orientation for all instructional employees right now the way it is they have a two hour HR orientation that Emma field oversees and we're going to tag on to that day for our instructional employees and those pieces that they would miss at pre-service for example ethics the vset the Danielson framework the DPP the classroom management 2.0 and some content being able to meet
076our curriculum folks are going to be implemented into that full day and one of the things that we are excited about is that is really a direct answer to the comments that we've heard throughout the huddles and just informal conversations even here that we you know we're starting to build connections we're giving a face to the people who are going to be sending your emails that you're going to need support from so we are really starting to build those relationships from day one when they come into our when they come into our district one of the areas from going to a variety of conferences and really reading digging deep into the research attending webinars Tiffany and I have learned about these four levels of onboarding and this this slide really just resonated with us when
077we thought about our current tip program we really thought about it as compliance very much so for those late hires as well because they're going in there and they're kind of just making sure they get it done right so that we can and we're following up and saying you're not done yet right and so where we want to move to is that building that culture and building those connections where they are really feeling connected not only to their schools their communities their classrooms but to the district as well and that we're able to work and collaborate with all the different district offices TL our ese folks HR to onboard these folks so they immediately feel like we've heard so often and I know people who've come up here and have spoken like family right Volusia
078County's family and you guys were got to hear from our Volusia leads folks like back in April about our mentoring program so as you already know that started the mentoring piece started as a true Grassroots teacher leadership idea that has grown into becoming a major component of our new teacher Academy and you you know when we support our teachers they're going to want to come back but one of the major pieces that we recognize was missing we weren't really growing our mentors right we needed to really find like how are we going to build a Common Language how are we going to provide support to them and so through this Mentor program we are really focusing on building their skills and so that we're building a community of Learners who are mentoring our newest colleagues
079uh and three of the major pieces of the mentoring training are listed on the screen the first is our mentoring and action book study of which we are currently in the process of doing where we have our Volusia leads teacher leaders who are leading approximately 130 teacher leaders across the district and those folks were all we partnered with our schools and principals and said recommend people who wants to be a part of this who are those teacher leaders who have a passion for supporting their colleagues and that's who we have we're super excited about that group and they're engaged in that the first the next layer that we're going to go a little bit deeper is the Volusia mentors Summer Academy a two-day Academy June 6th and 7th we'll really talk a lot about how
080do you work with adult Learners what's the how do you schedule what are we what are your expectations as a mentor so we're excited about that of which we'll invite you and hope you can pop in for a visit and then to continue the support throughout the year we'll have our monthly Mentor meetups where that mentoring group will come together to grow their own practice around around being a mentor support one another make sure that we are monitoring the effectiveness of the program through surveys and and feedback so that we can adjust and make changes as needed the other component to our new teacher Academy is our professional learning piece so where that professional learning currently is in our tip program occurs during pre-service it will occur through some classroom management components that are after
081hours and then we have professional learning institutes which is a two-hour after hours event that they'll that they attend so coming from the professional learning world after 12 years my strong belief is that we grow our practice through job embedded professional learning so that we can really show them these are the things you're already doing like what are you doing well where do you need to improve and how can we help and grow you so our showcase classroom will do showcase classrooms will do just that and those are the areas of focus with the classroom management piece curriculum the Danielson framework and also digital tools will come into that so some of those pieces that we're saying um are no longer with me like how they were outlined on the tip program come into this
082job embedded professional learning piece so where do we start with the Showcase classrooms obviously we need to identify teachers veteran teachers across our district who will be able to open their doors be willing and able and highlighted to open their doors to have people come in and visit so our ultimate like if we think about end in mind step four our goal is to build and continuously build a database of Veteran teachers who meet those goals and we want to that's this is where we're truly going to partner with the schools principals and all the district offices in particular tll to identify those teachers we want to make sure that those teachers understand what their expectations are and so we'll share that information and so then they'll have that decision to make do I want
083to be a part of that and one of the groups in our the Fiddlers group has demonstration classrooms that they already they're currently been doing for quite some years and we're gonna we've partnered with them and we'll model that they update their database every year add to make sure people still want to be a part of it and so we're going to continue that as well so when we begin to do our class or showcase classroom visits we just wanted to let you know that this is a true full day of professional learning where we will work with protocols templates make sure that we're collaborating with one another where we'll have observations we'll be able to debrief and then we'll also be able to have professional learning added on to the end of the day
084as well as some action planning what have you learned what's something that you can Implement in your classroom what do you expect to get from that and then the final component of our new teacher Academy is the wellness and we listed this as optional uh work-life balance number one we need to help one another ourselves our new teachers we want them to know that we're here for you we really see this piece as that component another component of building relationships and connections across the district so we teamed up with Dia Goff right and we have already designed and she actually brought in uh Halifax Health and we met and had a meeting and we designed uh one activity a month for wellness that has that runs the gamut yoga music therapy art therapy Us guest
085speaker we really were very intentional about looking at the phases of a first-year teacher and said what would they need at this point what's happening to them in October what would be a good strategy we could bring in so we have 10 activities for wellness to bring in that again will be optional Diaz had this on her list of goals and so she sees this as really this we're using our new teachers as the target audience but we're really it's we want it to spread and bring in our veteran teachers into that as well and I'm going to pass it to shamin foreign good evening I'm shameen Shepherd I am the executive director of Futures Foundation thank you for all the love tonight guys it was great um so as the support organization we are
086always looking for new opportunities to support the district and one of our Dream projects for years has been to open a teacher resource store and I guess this is sort of our soft launch we're really excited to let everyone know that we are going to be bringing that to the district next year and very excited to work with Recruitment and Retention on getting it I guess up and running a little bit we're first going to be working with the new teachers so we are going to be part of that support opportunity and being able to bring them some supplies as they're starting their new careers and then as the year progresses next year we were going we're going to be expanding over the spring and fall of next year and bringing the resource store to
087more teachers within the district so I guess stay tuned for more information thank you foreign so hopefully you're able to see from um that we've been busy in our office we've been busy we are growing and there's newness but there is experience right there's newness to positions but there's a lot of experience to the team and um Meg Shawn and I are all Volusia County teachers and Volusia County parents and we've been district and school leaders and so we've had the privilege of sitting in a lot of different hats and so this work is is personal and we're invested in it and so um what I hope that you're able to see is that we're building and we're growing because this work is important we want the very best Revolution County Schools we were trying
088to bring the very best of Volusia County Schools and we want to retain the best of Lucian County Schools but we know that that starts with a really strong support system so we're really excited I I have to just give so much credit to Meg I have to give so much credit because so much of the the vision and the birth of what you see now the new new teacher Academy really comes from her genius and her passion and her experience and so it's been a match made in heaven that we get to do this and we're excited for the work that's going to come from our department going forward so you can see on the screen this is the work to come right these are things that weren't listed before but we're still expanding
089things all the time and so um what I hope that this board understands what I hope that teachers and families listening um on at home understand is that we are um Relentless in our pursuit of what's best for our teachers and our district and we're passionate to remember that heart is necessary but we got this and no no oh you got to say it so I heard John Hattie speak one time Professor Hattie visible learning research and one of the things that he said that resonated with me and I believe it to my core he said you have expertise all around you do you have the courage to go out and find it and exploit it and I really believe that this new teacher Academy does that for our veteran teachers for our principals for
090our schools for our district and our new teachers are going to see that and they'll see that pathway that they can take when they join our family thank you Mr cologne so that was amazing and the first thing that came to my mind is for me this is this work is a budget priority and as a board we can't continue to have them do all these great things and not think that it won't cost and so I think it's important that as we examine the work that you're doing the work that you're setting out to do that we as a board as and budget wise support the work that you're doing you can't do it on you know everything you're describing here can't be done on last year's money this is innovative this is exciting
091and I'm sure Mr cease is excitingly listening to this since he's got the money another thing I want to encourage you is let's work with our stakeholders in order to ensure this is a success as you know we have several groups that we work with so let's make sure that that they are also a part of the planning I have a question for teachers who are returning I had a teacher who retired she was gone for about a year she taught in our district for 30 something years and ended up having to do the tips program again and I was surprised to find out that she had to do it again because I didn't think she would have to but it took up a lot of the resources you know we've got a lot of
092hires and so if you've got a teacher that has been you know retired and came back that's one less person we would have had to expend some of that on so I do have some questions as to the criteria for the tip program which we can talk about offline another Point as you mentioned mentors and mentors are very very important in this manner so once again this is Mr cease is back there counting uh everything that we just got uh as far as funding I'd be curious to see if there was anything we could do to incentivize our amazing teachers and these are the ones we pick not the ones that sign up to be mentors and to Mentor others I don't know what that would look like and um last but not least I'd
093like to volunteer Miss Joanne Miller for one of your uh amazing classrooms she's no longer in D5 but she's doing an amazing job and she is over the top amazing but I can tell you that anybody who's had Miss Miller will never forget Miss Miller and so she's now at DeBerry not that I'm a little heartbroken about that but that's okay and so that is all that I have as far as comments go thank you Mrs Burnett thank you thank you all for your um for your presentation obviously the right people are in this job because you all are so positive and upbeat and um that's what we need and of course with shamin too everything that Futures does is always very beneficial so thank you for that um I just had a question and
094a number of teachers have reached out and asked me about the old and I'm not asking to do any of this please don't think that but the old pars program which I know it just they seem to have um it's it's very highly regarded and so I didn't know if you were able to kind of reach out to people who were Incorporated in that from the past and get some ideas to to build into the new program that you have thanks so yeah so um thank you because we we value the the part it was a great program when we when we had it and so um we tried to build out with our mentoring program that's school-based approach and um we really thought that that was important to have a school-based hand you know
095someone down the hall in the building right there for you and in the current shortage we were leery of pulling more bodies out of the classroom as well and so that was a piece of the hesitation um do you want to add to that just that some of the mentors were previously pars okay so we're excited that they get to come in and we'll get their voice included as well Mr persis uh thank you uh Madam chair super job I love the energy too I love the positiveness uh um LaShawn welcome welcome to to the group I think you fit in nicely and uh you look good have the right smile let's let's see how he looks six months from now but uh anyway can we get uh can we get a photo of him
096now and then we'll like Dr West over there oh Mr Mr West over there you still look good Mr West you sure do anyway uh I just wanted to say that uh all kidding aside Your Role is very important to this District I mean it's it's all about who we hire and how our ability to Port them and to keep them and make sure they know that they're valued and make sure that they know they're not on an island and that there's someone they can go to without feeling like uh they shouldn't have to go to somebody because everybody has to go to somebody to help them uh especially when when you start so uh I hope you have a a way to just you know keep in in touch with them or or checking
097in with them every so often so that they know that you didn't just hire them and forget about them uh we want to make sure that that we made a a targeted effort if you will to hire this person and now we want to make sure that everything is going well for you during your start here and throughout your years here so uh whatever you guys can can do to kind of keep that keep that positivity and that energy and just that just that friendliness um I think that is that is so so vitally important so again uh welcome aboard great job great job great job and I think you have a pretty good team here Mr West thank you madam chair thank you so I'd like to start with the Futures piece um I
098think it's absolutely wonderful that you're going to be opening up a resource piece and starting with new teachers because whether they're fresh out of college or a university or they've been at another career and they're coming in they don't have anything and they need things and so I would I'd like to suggest that maybe we could reach out because there are a lot of groups out there that collect supplies at the beginning of the year they do Supply drives there's churches there's organizations and I think if we set this up and let them know that we because they're going to set it up out at Olson right and know that like this is the way we could funnel it to all of the teachers that they're they're putting they're putting Portables out there that they're
099going to arrange all of this in so that and and Publix already gave a donation and so I think if we can because I think that'd be the smarter way to work instead of everybody just trying to do a small amount like if we collected all of it into one area and you allow the new teachers to come in there and get the things that they need to set up their classroom I think it would be great so I want to thank you and all the Futures and everybody that's already donated to this project and those that are going to donate in the future this is the way we can help our brand new teachers because really they walk in they don't have crayons they don't have markers they don't have any of those things
100that it just takes to set up a classroom but then as far as the new teacher Academy I have to tell you I love the layout and what you're going to do I think it's a whole lot better than the tips program um because the one thing that you don't realize whether you're young or older when you walk into teaching is if you've not been in another classroom you only know what you're doing in your classroom and so that classroom with a job embedded professional learning there's nothing better than that piece I mean when you actually get to go to someone else's room and you see a trick or a strategy that they use to help kids transition from one activity to the next you may have never thought of that and yet it's a
101simple thing and you get to view it and take it back to your classroom so I think that is so important because I think that's a big part of that support but I think it's also a way to help retain people when they also see some of the same challenges I'm facing in my room even somebody that's been doing this for 10 years may be facing some of those same challenges so I I just appreciate all the work that you've put into this and I think it's going to work and that final piece is that Mentor piece um and well and I also like the fact that you're thinking about their health and wellness because I think sometimes we just get so caught up in what's going on we don't stop and take a break
102and realize that we need to think about ourselves too but you guys did an excellent job and we're looking forward to supporting you this year and so anything that we can do as a board to support we are here for all of you so thank you foreign teachers yes you know this as I'm listening to this presentation as you guys know several months back actually not several a few months back we visited Miami-Dade and we were looking into different aspects of what they're doing in terms of the new teacher Academy and so forth and we borrowed many ideas but I will tell you that our team not only took that idea but they perfected the idea and the perfected the idea in terms of what is it that Volusia County needs now as we have
103and I had a conversation with shamin the other day and she was talking about the new teacher store that we're going to have I said you have to partner up and work with this division here so it's about bringing all those pieces together now one of the things that I want to highlight and I agree with you chair our Evolution lead program began three years ago it took Inception and slowly it's been growing but the beauty of that is that those teachers were selected because they're the best of the best right when it comes to their craft they've got it they know their down pack let's put it that way so these teachers have actually volunteered their classrooms for that OJT and being able to provide these intentional field trips with our new teachers where
104they can go and watch a teacher who's been doing it for a number of years in action but most importantly they're going to have that section at the end where it's they can reflect upon what they've observed and ask that teacher a question there's nothing more powerful than that so I know Volusia leads couldn't join them today but they are an intricate process and part of this work as well and I want to say a shout out and thank you to all of them thank you oh yeah of course we're here to exceed expectations today I am here to get a job working as an ese teacher or a counselor I'm excited to be here I'm enjoying it well I actually just accepted a job for a second grade position with Citrus grows and all
105the principals are really willing to help you with anything that you need anyways so it's always a good experience she's going to do an amazing job we helped them through the certification process make sure that their application's fully vetted so when they come here today they are ready to be hired on the spot which is really exciting for them Champion Elementary [Applause] thank you thank you all right we're moving now um it is 6 14 into the 6 p.m public participation so this time is for any matter related to education for a total of up to 15 minutes but as I said at the beginning of the meeting we will not be doing anything on policy 320 during this 15 minutes because that's an actual item we're voting on separately this evening I'd like to
106remind you that when people are up here speaking please do refrain from making any comments sounds if you want if you're in agreement with someone you can use your jazz hands so I'm going to start with Miss Karen weinrich followed by Miss Elizabeth Albert you're a different I think I just have miss Karen weinrich nope I have Miss Jeannie Maddox you will be after miss Karen weinrich welcome Karen good evening Dr balgeman school board members I come to you today wearing my union shirt I want to remind everybody of View's ultimate goal which is the same as all of you to make the schools the best they can be for all of our students and that's why we're all here so today I'm speaking to you as an advocate for our students okay I'm here
107to tell you they are over tested the months of April may have been test after test after test and I understand you cannot control the fast test and the disruption that it brings and I think everyone here realizes that with the legislator and doe said was going to be less testing has turned into much more testing I personally cannot remember the last time I as an adult had to sit still not speak and concentrate for two straight hours with unlimited time some of our students take all day to finish those two tests that's a big ask for the nine and ten-year-olds I teach and in my opinion it's inappropriate but again I know you cannot control the fast test however there are parts of testing you can control you can control the amount of tests
108we give and have to scan into school City Big Ideas and Benchmark at the beginning of the the year you might remember I brought you a testing calendar and showed you the amount of tests the students have to take throughout the year and it's all coming to a head now that we're back in the thick of testing season which brings me to the reason I'm here today I'm here on behalf of my students and all the fourth and fifth grade students in Volusia County to ask you to please cancel the i-Ready diagnostic we're scheduled to give the week of May 22nd I understand it's necessary for some third graders to take its earned portfolio points but there is no reason to put the other students through this another extremely long test we already have our
109progress monitoring data from the fast test that we're giving next week we do not need the i-Ready data we have the data we need if we are simply using this test to see I already correlates to fast that is not fair to our students they should not be the guinea pigs I've not yet told my fourth graders I have to take the I ready test because I know what their reaction will be they aren't through with testing it will not be a positive reaction so I ask you please on behalf of are over tested stressed out exhausted students to cancel that last I ready diagnostic for the sake of our children thank you thank you Miss Genie Maddox followed by Shane's story good evening mtss multi-tiered systems of support the website says Volusia County Schools
110individual problem-solving teams are intervention driven progress monitoring teams at each school which assists students families and parents by generating effective research-based academic and behavioral strategies for individually targeted students mtss can easily be utilized by school counselors when assisting students teachers and families to a student behaviors because that is our training and expertise however most referrals to MTS s are for academic need so where did the idea ever come from that school counselors should be the chairperson of this team there are no classes in our master's program where we learn about using mtss and academics we get the same training any other educator in Volusia County Schools can take here at the district so why school counselors is it just because school counselors don't have a specific roster or class schedule this does not mean that
111we have the skills or an open schedule to take on the enormous time-consuming task of mtss which is very academically focused school counselors are one of the most underqualified people on campus for this academically focused job but every year dozens of school counselors are assigned or voluntold this other Duty by their administrators usually accompanied by the phrase there's no one else to do it in our recent Volusia County school counselor Association job survey we found that although the contract provides for a supplement for the mtss chair there are still counselors 18 percent who are forced to do this job without a supplement one school counselor reported being mtss coordinator is a lot to manage it should be a hard position and not just a supplement it is a lot of work for just a one
112thousand dollar supplement another said one of my concerns is that counselors are put in a position of having to say yes to doing MTS us and 504 I feel this takes time away from seeing and assisting my students and I believe there should be a position created specifically to deal with these two things there's an IEP facilitator in every school why not create a position to handle 504s and mtss even it was just a couple of people at different schools the majority of school counselors have never been in the classroom and have no idea about what delivering curriculum or providing interventions to help students who are not successful academically the students who come to mtss are students with the greatest academic needs why then are we giving the students for the greatest academic means to
113an mtss chair with the least knowledge or experience in designing or delivering academic interventions how does this Provide support to teachers who are directly providing interventions to students think about it in a recent conversation with fellow school counselors about mtss one counselor stated why are school counselors put in the position to make sure teachers are doing an intervention school counselors are not a teacher's boss and should not be telling them what to do another school counselor declared I don't care about mtss it is not my passion Mrs Maddox thank you thank you all right Mr Shane's story good evening Madam chair ladies and gentlemen on the board superintendo Bachman good to see you again uh I'm here to speak once again to the community and not necessarily to the board back in February this year
114I wrote a letter to Senator Hudson Senator Wright representative Fleek representative McLean represent um representative Tremont and representative Barnaby Webster of all those Mr Webster was the only one to respond and I did have a meeting with him uh the others still have not responded um the reason I'm concerned is because I would like to ask some questions like the following House Bill one is physically is physically irresponsible as it underfunds education and perhaps you know we should take a look at the way that you structured it or you know maybe some of the parties that are involved with Charter Schools that also have a vested interest sorry that have a vested interest in charter schools but are also serving our legislation um or you know maybe talk about the fact that Richard Corcoran his
115brother lobbyist for a charter school or that his wife was involved in charter schools or that Manny Diaz's wife who you know was also involved from charter schools so we see like this pattern of all these charter schools at the top and then we see this legislation that is trying to build up Charter Schools to be the next thing we see Pharaoh hassini coming into this room and speaking who is known as a conservative but supporting Dr Fritz who was lambasted for being too liberal so you start to wonder why are these things occurring in this push towards charter schools and and instead of putting money back into the public schools that already exist we're taking more money away and we're attaching it to the students and saying oh you know you can home your
116homeschool your kid they're going to be fine or send them to a private school they're most likely going to get kicked out of or not make academic success it's just it's atrocious or maybe talk to him about progress monitoring we ended FSA and now like we just heard the lady say we have three tests a year instead of one how does that seem like a good idea or how are you claiming to reduce the testing or um House Bill 641 uh you know you said that you gave every teacher a raise but in reality we didn't because we handicapped how that funding was dispersed with a 70 30 split instead of allowing the districts to make the best financial decision that applies to their community and specifically your constituency in this area uh or how
117about house joint resolution 31 partisan elections and when in a society in which we're already so politically divided and and we find ourselves on one side of the aisle the other um I think if Stretch Armstrong as a kid that little toy that you'd have and you could pull and it would stretch and stretch and stretch and educations like that were resilient you know even when you're done stretching we come back and we focus but if the left and the right keep pulling so hard we're going to break eventually uh oh you know the last one we'll talk about was 10 12 you know the unfunded salary supplement for critical shortage areas we have legislation that provides a critical shortage of supplement for students in critical shortage areas like math and ese but it's unfunded
118why not attach funding to that so school districts can actually afford to pay those teachers maybe your son and daughter won't be sitting in a cafeteria maybe they'll actually have a quality instructor so thank you thank you Mr story um all of the other cards need my phone sorry all of the other cards are attached to items we're going to vote on at this time we're going to take a um we'll be back in here at 6 35 we're going to take a 10 minute break start on item 19.01 thank you oh not yet sorry go ahead all right we're ready [Laughter] [Music] welcome back all right we are now moving into board action items we will be starting with item 19.01 um Dr valgaman thank you madam chair I would like to call Mr
119Earl Jones Dr Earl Johnson our chief operating officer along with Mr Kevin pendley our general counsel so the first item 19.01 is School Board policy 202 establishment of attendance areas Madam chair school board members superintendent balgeben we're asking the adoption of the policy amendments to school board policy 202 establishment of attendance areas modified uh Beachside Elementary West Side Champion Elementary Pine Trail Pathways Long Street Terry T and Tomoka Avenue Tomoka elementary school zones attendance zones reference that policy has been advertised and is right for adoption thank you so board you've heard um that we're doing policy 2.02 right now which is the establishment of attendance series and you've heard which areas it's for so do I have a motion to approve this policy yes Madam chair I move approval of the adoption of proposed amendments
120the school board policy 202. establishment of attendance areas thank you Mr persis do I have a second I'll second that thank you Mrs Thompson is there any discussion Madam chair yes Mr clone so you know one of the things that I discussed with Mr with Dr Johnson and uh Dr Valle was ensuring that we as we move these students from school to school that we ensure that those educational supports are are following those students and you know since then we've had the honor and pleasure of uh actually being at Terry T learning a little bit more about their world and so I just want to verbalize out loud the importance that it's going to be how important it's going to be that those supports because you know it may just be a certain number of
121students but I think that um even some of the conversations we've had since the advertising of this policy as it relates to plus one as we've relates to a lot of those changes have kind of put them a little bit on closer to the ledge and so I want to make sure that we commit to ensuring that as we add more students to the school many of which require these additional helps that that is provided to them as we approve this change because if not we're just it's not going to be good for anybody and so that's my concern and so I just wanted to verbalize the same concern I did before and just plead that we um go above and beyond because again there's even been changes since the last time we spoke on
122this thank you thank you and Mrs Burnett thank you I I agree with Mr cologne I just want to make sure that and when I was visiting one of their Sac meetings I assured them that that's what we were going to do and that they would get the support so like Mr cologne said just because they don't meet that next level of number don't be remiss about the the extra support that they do need because that was a big concern they had and so I told them that the district had looked at that and that they were going to make sure they did receive those extra support so I I just want to make sure that it's known that I agree with with him on that thank you yes ma'am and I can assure you
123that we are with our differentiated um uh instruction that we provide which is looking at the tier of the students and looking at students holistically that's what we're doing in every single one of our schools and I think I shared in one of my one-on-one all the different grants opportunities that are there at some of these schools including turriti and many that are met pretty much all the schools that are mentioned here so we will be using a very systematic approach but one that's driven by data for each of these schools so I can assure you that the services are perhaps even more will be provided to these students thank you thank you any other uh Mr persis yeah I was just going to say actually with some of the students particularly the students from
124Tomoka they're going to gain Services because often what what you have is you have students who would normally qualify for Title One Services they're out of school like Tomoka we never had Title One services so by actually going to a school with with full service it'll actually gain thank you and I want to reiterate what he's saying and it's not just to mocha a lot of the children that are going to come back into the turiti zone are out at non-title one schools so they have not had any extra support I want to remind people of that their parents sometimes have had no way to get you know if they're at Pine Trail or Tomoka to get there for anything going on and all of that and so I still support that we're doing the
125very best thing for these students and for their families all right if there's no other questions then we'll call for a vote all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed motion passes for policy 202 unanimously we are going to be moving on to item 1902 policy 427 employee technology use I have one public input for 19.02 Mrs Elizabeth Albert [Applause] good evening Madam chair members of the board superintendent Dr bagelman and members of the audience so this is not the first time that we've seen this policy but this is the big day the moment you're going to vote on it I would like to just bring something to your attention on page seven under Section 3 the Privacy section second paragraph This section of the policy and if I'm moving too fast you
126just let me know this section of the policy talks about the public records law and it talks about access to what happens on school devices and and so forth and we're all very much aware of that but what I'd like to bring your attention to is something else it's the fact that and many of our schools we have systems and apps if you will that are highly encouraged and sometimes school-wide part of school-wide initiatives that our teachers are asked to utilize and so if those apps and those systems are utilized on a VCS device great no problem but what we find is oftentimes teachers will put them on their own personal phones their own devices and so the concern that we have here is I want when when we if this is going to pass
127which I'm pretty confident that it will a clear communication to our principals so that they can articulate it to the employees that if you use these systems these apps such as Dojo or remind or any of those communicative tools that are used oftentimes with parents that there is a risk and a liability if you're going to use it on your own device I think that's very fair and I think it's something that I'm asking for your help sharing that message because we tell our folks that but of course you have a larger microphone than we do so if you could help with that we would be really appreciative all right thank you thank you all right Dr balkman Madam chair I recommend the adoption of The Proposal man Mr School Board policy 427 employee technology
128use all right you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion move to approve thank you Mrs Burnett do I have a second I second that motion thank you Mrs Thompson any further discussion I'm sure yes since our last conversation have we engaged any stakeholders for input on this policy foreign yes there is a survey that is still collecting but it's been out now for about 10 days and it's not specifically only this policy but it is a survey of all of our technology policies that was also in our newsletter last Monday this one and the other two policies as well we have also been collecting just antidotal emails you know since the last time there have been people asking various questions and we've been answering those questions as I mentioned there
129is a survey out it's collecting information under many things about its But it includes information about the survey for anyone that wants to ask about it or the policies I mean thank you and so that was something that was very important to me and I'm glad to hear that we're doing it but we are voting on this tonight for so for that reason I will not be supporting that tonight thank you Mr persis thank you madam chair uh Dr can you uh possibly address the concern that Miss Albert just raised here at the oh so let me first explain how that section works anything going over our Network whether a student or a staff member is using it that's any SSID so that's the byot that's the Volusia County zero one four um anything basically
130going over our paid for internet paid for by the school district is susceptible to any sort of subpoena so if uh let's say a particular teacher was breaking the law and let's say they were doing it with a student those Communications regardless of what device they're using would be something we would be able to look up and have a right to see so it's not really dependent on what app they're using or what device they're using it's really what network they're on because the the communications is going over our wires I know the same thing goes for devices too but those are also on our Network so it's really what is it communicating over think of it like a phone right like in in the old days if somebody was using a phone it's like
131if atnt had those records they would provide those to the police and say yes they were using this phone and these wires and you know so therefore you can subpoena this it's the same sort of thing but um under our network instead of phone lines now as far as her concern about communicating that out certainly there has been time for people to read the policies but it could be buried that that that that part you know maybe they haven't noticed that particular part or don't think that their particular phone on our network isn't um susceptible to being monitored or or pooled for information so I think that's a pretty easy thing to be able to ask the principals to share that with their communities and and say Hey you know anything when I say communities
132I mean students as well you know I think both students and family members and teachers and staff everybody on our Network that uses it should know your your information is not private when it's going over our Network we can easily do that with our principles I don't see any problem with that I'm glad to hear you say say that I just think it's something that perhaps as far as the language you you all should craft it and so each principle can read it and say the exact same thing so I think that you know there's five different level newsletters that go out each week I could just get with the assistant superintendents get that into those and we got that done thank you so we will make sure it's included in our newsletter and as
133it's going out in that newsletter team please make sure you notify Miss Albert so she can Echo the same in her newsletter as well and it becomes a joint message any other discussion okay Mr penley I just wanted to point out that the new policy 427 replaces 518 which was an existing past policy by the board section 2G privacy expectations of the prior of the prior policy also warned employee this is the employee use section that there is no expectation of privacy so this is not a New Concept and just so that everyone remembers 518 had students and staff together and we separated them now that we have one-to-one technology all right if there's no further discussion As We Know Mrs Burnett made the motion Ms Thompson seconded so all those in favor please say
134aye aye any opposed all right it passes four to one we are now moving on to item 19.03 adoption of school board policy 219 student technology use Madam chair board members item 1903 request the board's adoption of school board policy 219 which as we just mentioned is breaking out from the previous policy or I'm sorry 518 the student technology use provisions that policy has been revised as the board directed amended and those Amendments have been published in the statutory period for publication has elapsed it's now ripe for adoption thank you superintendent Madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of The Proposal amendments to school board policy 219 student technology use you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion to approve policy 219 student technology use yes I move approval of
135adoption of school board policy 219 student technology use thank you Mr persis do I have a second I'll second thank you Mrs Burnett is there any discussion all right then we'll call for the vote all those in favor of policy 219 student technology use please say aye aye any opposed all right it passes unanimously we're now moving on to policy 19.04 sorry we're moving on to 19.04 policy 527 the software selection adoption and retirement Madam chair board members item 19.04 request the board's adoption of advertised new policy 527 concerning software selection adoption in retirement this is a new policy that was requested by information technology that would detail the purposes of our selection adoption of software system-wide that policy presented at the March 28th board meeting advertised according to the board's Direction and the policy
136was advertised for the statutory period and is right for adoption thank you all right so superintendent Madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of The Proposal amendments to school board policy 527 software selection adoption and retirement you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion to approve the adoption of school board policy 527 software selection adoption and retirement uh Madam chair I motion to adopt School Board policy 527 software selection adoption and retirement thank you Miss Thompson do I have a second a second thank you Mrs Burnett discussion Mr cologne I have a question since they brought up the application Class Dojo Endo which I know are popular is that something that our district provides and do we also track or do we have a way of keeping record of the
137messages that are transmitted through Class Dojo is that who who administers that who who oversees that hastojo is not actually a district provided software it is one some teachers use on their own and have bought on their own there are software vendors who do something I don't consider very professional where they will advertise software directly to teachers and offer ways for teachers to buy that software that bypasses school districts usual purchasing processes Class Dojo is a is a similar type of vendor we have other ways for students to communicate with their teachers that are on sanctioned networks and systems now when you say do we have a way of capturing those messages or monitoring those messages we do but we don't do it regularly this this is a difficult process because as we don't have
138an instance that we've purchased that is an Enterprise System these are individual teacher accounts that they've set up on their own with the vendor so it is not something I can easily just grab but if there is a instance where something has occurred and I like from Safety and Security where they want us to look into a particular teacher's account we can call class dojo we can get the access to the messages and we can figure out what happened there but it's not something we administer and it's not something we sanction so would this policy even support the use of any app and don't get me wrong we need an alternative you can't just take something away but you know much like health care and and education and the privacy laws you know there are
139things we don't text over a text Network there are other secure ways to have HIPAA compliant messaging the thought and and I cringe as I hear you speak and mind you this is not your doing but communication has changed over the years we don't send notes anymore we send text messages we do all of that and going back to the point and mind you the part of your personal device that's not new that's Sunshine Law that's anything having to do with the business of the school district is subject to to public record but the thought that as you describe we may have these applications being used number one we don't we don't have an alternative so they don't have a choice let's start with that and number two it doesn't really sound like something you
140should be using so I don't want to pull two before we do number one because you have to have an alternative but I would think with the district our size and as communication becomes more difficult and there's a lot of ethical considerations that we would have a mechanism that is approved and that we would not allow and again that's where software policy comes in because the reality is you know are they allowed to download the dojo app on their District device or are they solely using well the problem is it's not always just an app it can be just a sign in to a website so they shouldn't be using it but they probably are using it on their personal device if they're using it because that bypass is we can track it easier if
141they go to a website on one of our devices right so I I just they're probably signing in on their own personal device if they're using it yeah because no we are not deploying it and we are not blocking it right now because it would be very disruptive to a lot of teachers but we are not sanctioning it we're not purchasing it we're not administering it we're not encouraging it because we have other ways of communication so we do encourage gotcha yeah I think there's opportunity may I interject sure uh we have PBIS in every single one of our elementary schools and there is a component pretty much where teachers can use to communicate with parents now the the issue or the difference here with classroom doge is that a lot of our teachers had
142has existed for years and they're very comfortable with it so that's why a lot of our teachers still continue to use it but we do have PBIS which is District supported and every single one of our elementary schools and it does have that component so we have a software that can do the same or like things communication yeah for communication okay very good thank you so I'd like to add what's happened is and and partially why this policy needs to be updated and this need to happen is people just bought whatever I mean really they have that you know somebody Daniels it out here and says I'll give it to you free for one year and then here's what's going to happen and so they've bought all these things now I'll be very honest with
143you I struggle because we are on the receiving end of the complaints that come in with the screenshots of texting that has crossed the line that could be inappropriate and all of that or it gets posted on social media I'd be very very careful to do anything that wasn't already pre-approved and monitored and I'd be very careful whatever I put in it because I mean there's a line that gets crossed or can be crossed when we have adults communicating with kids I agree my thing my question though Dr Kuhn about this piece um I know that this is more also about talking about the software selection of what's being used um for curriculum pieces and that in rooms and making sure that it works within our system and that we're actually getting a return on
144investment for what the students are doing if we're going to put them on the technology and so I would just like to make sure that your team Works closely with Dr Valley and histine because we need to make sure that we're not working in isolation on this because you know he is overseeing the curriculum piece now and I just I just want to see everybody at the table so like if we're looking at a piece of software that we're going to say you know we want to remove let's just make sure that we have the data to remove it or if we're looking at a piece of software we want to bring in you know testing it out making sure it's going to work and all of that because I've seen what happens there when
145we don't work together on that part so that's my thing I'm happy with the policy I just want to make sure the right groups are coming together to make the selection on either purchasing or removing I agree and frankly part of the reason that its wanted this policy was to ensure that we had support to get involved with not just Dr Vale but you know every Department every school anybody who's wanting to buy software we want to be at that table early on not just because we're trying to like have some say on what is selected but because we want them to be successful and sometimes people buy software that is not successful because they did not include its and the functionality is not there or the data privacy is not there which is actually
146what's going on with class dojo right now there are certain Department of Education rules that have recently come down about protecting student data privacy and it has to be done in a certain way some companies are better about that than others so we know these things and we'd like to be at that table every time somebody's talking about software to make sure that we don't run into these problems before we've gone too far down the road so thank you any further discussion all right then we'll call well you've already recommended we will call for a vote all those in favor of approving policy 527 software selection and adoption and retirement please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 19.05 adoption of school board policy 205 for transfer
147and withdrawal of students Dr valkovan thank you madam chair again general counsel here Madam chair board members item 19.05 request the board's adoption of amendments to exist policy 205 concerning transfer and withdrawal of students the purpose of the amendments were to clean up some language Without Really any textual changes but to update the legal Authority as the board heard on March 28th and approved for adoption or for advertising the that policy was advertised in the statutory period has now expired it is right for adoption at this time thank you madam chair board member I recommend the adoption of the proposed amendments to school board policy 205 transfer and withdrawal of students okay you've heard the superintendent's recommendation do I have a motion to approve motion to approve the policy 205 is presented second thank you
148so Mr cologne has made the motion Mr persis is second any discussion hearing none I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving the adoption of school board policy 205 transfer and withdrawal of students please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we are now moving on to policy or item 19.06 policy 309 I have one piece of public input for this so Mrs Elizabeth Albert good evening again Madam chair members of the board superintendent Dr Baldwin members of the audience before I talk about policy 309 I want to Circle back around to the technology piece just bring something to your attention you know a few years ago we had to all go through this multifaceted author authentication situation so when you take your device home and you want to get
149on there and work guess what happens it sends you a text message code to your personal phone so we are encumbering folks personal devices just so they can get on the network and work at home now I don't want them working at home to start with but we know they all do it so if there's a way Dr Kuhn we could maybe find a workaround for that I'd like their personal devices to be completely separate from everything that has to do with work and would you believe I was at elementary school on Monday and I'm speaking with Administration Dojo is part of their school-wide initiative so protecting them not keep not betraying any confidence I'm not going to tell you who it was but maybe we need to dig a little bit deeper and provide
150some additional resources that's all that I'm saying but now let's talk about homework let's talk about this policy 309. um as I read it you know it's it's great you guys did good work there uh but what I'm looking at is that it's kind of vague it doesn't list any kind of intervals for when homework would be required and since it's going to be a site based based decision what I'm looking for or asking you to consider uh perhaps is some consistency between schools we know that sometimes there are inconsistencies and that's where we get into some hot water I did have the wherewithal to go in and reference the grading guidelines which are top-notch and a lot more meat on the bone than this and maybe that's intentional I don't know if you want
151to or could perhaps reference the grading guidelines when this is rolling out but we just need to be consistent we need to be clear and we need to provide Clarity to the end user which is going to be our instructional personnel thank you Dr bagelman thank you madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of The Proposal amendments to school board policy 309 homework you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion to approve policy 309 homework move approval of policy 309. homework thank you Mr persis do I have a second I second that motion thank you Mrs Thompson any discussion I I would yeah I would just say to um to Dr balgovin uh um the point Miss Albert made about in in consistency uh that we used to Jamie when
152you and I were there um there were guidelines say primary children should not have more than 15 minutes of homework it should not be more than have to be every day but if you're going to do it it shouldn't be I think we spell out it should only be to read for re to reinforce and enhance you know it shouldn't be busy work it shouldn't be punishment and I think we We spelled that out and then other guidelines for fourth and fifth grade shouldn't exceed 30 minutes I think it was 25 you know just certain things like that that principals can put in their handbook in their faculty hand handbooks just to have some some District guidance something like that I'm I'm Jamie you know what I'm referring to okay and Mrs Burnett thank you
153I was just going to comment on Mrs Albert's um comment as well and I was going to say make it a procedure not necessarily build a policy around it yes all right so we are working on that as a matter of fact Dr Hazel has convened a team and they they already started working on this for next year so Dr Hazel I know in your next communication you'll be sharing more with the review president but it's basically to have the consistency yeah in in the waiting how we're awaiting the assignments we talked about this in our one-on-one you know the different categories remember we talked about this yeah and also attaching some some procedures yeah and I remember you know in in Middle School in secondary school we would get together the math the science
154list and say okay look everybody can't give homework 30 minutes there's six of you that's three hours of homework you've just assigned to a student so let's let's figure this out and so you know if we wouldn't figure it out yeah yeah because I'm a proponent of no homework I'm being honest I mean I feel like if they have been in school all day and applied themselves all day especially Elementary let them go home and be a you know be a kid and play and middle school they probably need to go home by the time they you know and have some down time or play in sports or whatever so I'm you know I've always said the the best thing you could do for elementary is just have them read I mean read a book
155that's it okay so you've heard the recommendation we Mr persis made the motion Miss Thompson seconded all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 19.07 adoption of school board policy for 10 duties of instructional personnel Council I'll go and Madam chair and board members item number 19.07 request the board's adoption of policy 410 duties of instructional Personnel the board will recall that this was approved for publication of amendments at the March 28th meeting it was published in accordance of Florida statute the publication period has now expired it is right for adoption Dr bhagavan and chair board members I recommend the adoption of proposed amendments to school board policy 410 duties of instructional personnel thank you you've heard the recommendation from the superintendent do
156I have a motion to approve policy 410. move to approve thank you Mrs Burnett thank you Mr cologne any discussion all right then I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving policy duties of instructional Personnel please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we're now moving on Dr bagelman to item 19.08 adoption of school board policy 412 employee Personnel files thank you madam chair Council thank you board members this item 19.08 requests the adoption of previously advertised amendments to policy 412 concerning maintenance of employee Personnel files the statutory period for publication has expired it is right for adoption Dr bockerman Madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of The Proposal amendments to school board policy 412 employee Personnel files all right do I have a motion I am motion to
157approve the adoption of school board policy for 12 employee Personnel files thank you Mrs Thompson do I have a second second thank you Mr persis any discussion okay then we'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving policy 4-1 412 employee Personnel files please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 19.09 adoption of school board policy 413 unfair Labor practice charges general counsel Adam superintendent Madam chair and board members item 19.09 requests the board's approval to adopt amendments to school board policy 413 concerning unfair of Labor practice charges again this is a policy that the board approved amending amending adoption or amending a advertisement of those amendments back in March the policy has been advertised for the required statutory period and is now ripe for
158adoption Dr Bachmann and chair board members I recommend the adoption of The Proposal amendments to school board policy 413 on Fair Labor practices charges thank you you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion motion to approve second thank you Mr Clem thank you Mr persis any discussion all right then we'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving policy 413 unfair Labor practice charges please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 19.10 adoption of school board policy 414 liability of board members and managerial employees general counsel thank you board members item 19.10 request the board's adoption of amendments to school board policy 414 liability of board members and managerial employees again this policy has been advertised for the requisite statutory period
159and Stan's ready right for adoption Dr Bachman Madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of the proposed amendments to school board policy 414 liability of school board members and managerial employees you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion move to approve thank you Mrs Burnett do we have a second thank you Mr cologne any discussion then all those in favor of policy 414 liability of board members and managerial employees please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we are now up to item 19.11 adoption of school board policy 416 screening selection and appointment of school-based instructional administrative personnel Channel Council board members item 19.11 request adoption of school board policy Forge 16 as amended uh at the March 28th meeting that policy amendment was advertised for the required statutory
160period and has been that period has expired it stands right for adoption at this time Tobacco Man and I'm chair board members I recommend the adoption of the proposed amendments to school board policy 416 screening selection and appointment of school-based instructional administrative personnel Ford you've heard the superintendent's recommendation do I have a motion to approve policy 416. we'll move adoption of school board policy 416. thank you Mr persis do I have a second I second that motion thank you Mrs Thompson any discussion then we'll call for a vote all those in favor of approving policy for 16 screen selection and appointment of school board instructional administrative Personnel please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we're now moving on to item 19.12 adoption of school board policy 424 legal responsibility for civil or criminal
161actions general counsel thank you item 19.12 request adoption of school board policy 424 as amended March the 28th the required statutory period for advertising of those amendments has been completed and expired the policy stance ready for adoption at this time superintendent Madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of The Proposal amendments the school board policy 424 legal responsibility for civil or criminal actions board members you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent is there any discussion all right do I have a motion to approve motion to approve policy 424 is presented thank you Mr Clement do I have a second oh second thank you Mrs Burnett we'll call for the vote all those in favor please say aye any opposed it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 19.13 adoption of school board
162policy 503 optional face coverings general counsel thank you board members item 19.13 request adoption of amendments to board policy 503 optional face coverings the statutory period for advertisement of those amendments was accomplished and expired the policy as amended stance ready for adoption superintendent Madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of The Proposal amendments to school board policy 503 optional face coverings you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion a motion to approve the adoption of school board policy 503 optional face coverings thank you Miss Thompson do I have a second thank you Mr persis any discussion and then I'll call for the vote all those in favor please say aye aye opposed a passage unanimously we are now moving on to item 19.14 adoption of school board policy 516 archives
163and Records Management program general counsel thank you board members item 19.14 request the school board's adoption of amendments to policy 516 archives and record management program the in accordance with the board's authorization of the March 28 2023 meeting the amendments were advertised the advertising period has expired and the policy now stands ready for adoption at this time superintendent Madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of The Proposal amendments the scoreboard scoreboard policy 516 archives and record management program all right you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion to approve School Board policy 516. motion to approve thank you Mr cologne do I have a second a second thank you Mrs Burnett any discussion and we'll call for the vote all those in favor of school board policy 516 archives and
164Records Management program please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 19.15 adoption of school board policy 807 public notification for review of Student Records general counsel thank you board members item 19.15 request the board's adoption of amendments to school board policy 807 public notification for review of Student Records in accordance with the board's Direction at the March 28 2023 Meeting those advertisements those amendments were advertised the advertising period accomplished and expired in the policy now stands ready for adoption superintendent Madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of The Proposal amendments the scoreboard policy 807 public notification for a review of Student Records board members you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion to approve policy 807. move approval I'm Madam chair of
165school board policy 807. thank you Mr persis do I have a second that motion thank you Mrs Thompson any discussion okay then we'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving policy 807 public notification for a review of Student Records please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we are now on to item 19.16 adoption of school board policy 808 foreign exchange programs general counsel thank you board members item 19.16 requests approval of the amendments to school board policy 808 foreign exchange programs as directed at the March 28th board meeting the amendments were advertised the advertising period accomplished and has expired the policy now stands ready for adoption as amended superintendent Madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of The Proposal amendments the school board policy 808 foreign exchange programs you've
166heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion to approve policy 808 move to approve thank you Mrs Burnett do I have a second second thank you Mr persis is there any discussion all right I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving the policy 808 for an exchange programs please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 19.17 adoption of school board policy 320 media selection of print and non-print materials at this time I have several cards for public input so we're going to move into the public input piece for this first will be Mrs Sheila Butchart followed by Miss Christine Serie A welcome good evening school board members Dr Palvin are members of the audience I'm here to add some perspective to
167the ongoing discussion regarding School Board policy 320. I'm disappointed in myself that at 65 years old I finally realized that educating our children has become a political issue maybe it's always has been and I'm just naive enough to think that teaching kids creating critical thinkers and lifelong Learners was above politics our children are watching what we do with this policy I need you to see that some of those students and how changing this policy will affect them in the books that they are allowed to select I'm proud of the transgender to student who comes to the media center at lunch every day I'm proud of the students that tell me they're scared to be on campus but feel safe in the media center I'm proud of the students who've stood before this group to tell
168their thoughts on books and I'm proud of the student who has never been a reader but that I've been able to help them relate to book characters that represented them I'm proud of the students who read books that sometimes help them escape to other places just like I did as a poor kid growing up I'm thankful as a student myself I had three strong Librarians and two Christian parents allowed me to expand my horizons even if they questioned the content of what I was reading but they still allowed me to read it to discuss the variety of topics and ideas with them and with my teachers so that I could grow up to be a contributing member of society I'm very sad that the basic ideas on which our country was founded could be taken
169away by some members of our community just because we're too afraid to stand up to the political agendas of others I believe parents have the right to make educational decisions for their students but I do not believe that any one political group or any one parent has the right to do that for all students in Volusia County the world is watching Florida I've been contacted by many people in other states and asked what the heck is going on here and I realize that the current policy needs revisions to meet the changes in the law but we do not need to follow it but we do not follow it on this recent challenges so it doesn't give me any hope that we'll follow anything you decide tonight because we didn't follow it on what we did
170have that we'd had for over 30 years I do recognize that you as a school board must obey the law but some of the additions with some of the additions but will that law even stand up I myself have been contacted to be a plaintiff and challenging the law I agree with Mr cologne when he stayed at a few school board meetings ago that no matter what we do tonight this isn't over you'll be addressing it again I ask you to do what is right for children and not be swayed have courage take a stand don't let the politics happen in our state stop you from doing what is right for the silent majority of parents and families in the communities that you serve for those parents who live in those areas and they elected
171you and our children are watching you I cannot tell you how many high school kids have said to me we're going to vote and change this again I implore you to please stand in your stand for what is right and vote no for the revisions that have been made to policy 320. thank you um next is Miss Christine Serie A followed by Beth Fogel Miller good evening board chairwoman Dr balgobin and Christine Serie A of course you know I'm going to come up here and ask you and urge you please please please do not accept the advertised changes to policy 320 tonight the way the current policy is written meets all requirements of the law the advertised changes are not necessary and in my opinion they were not thoroughly vetted in fact this policy was
172taken out of order in your revision process it was last revised in 2018. there are two things in particular that are highly concerning first adding the verbiage regarding obscene materials and reminding the Educators that any person violating these statutes commits a felony of the third degree these footnotes take up almost an entire Page by themselves the purpose of this agenda of this Edition is to intimidate staff no other policy spells out criminal charges this will cause a direct chilling effect causing your employees to make misguided and harmful decisions out of fear it was set at one meeting that you put this in so that it's easy for people to find what is not allowed but if that's the case are you agreeable to adding it to the end of the policy or maybe even hyperlinking
173it so that it's not the majority the first thing that you see second giving the authority to the principal alone to remove materials they deem violation of Florida law puts them in a very dangerous position at the March 28th meeting where you discuss this Miss Burnett suggested you word it something like upon review a principle May decline the purchase of materials he or she deems in violation of Florida law a small change of words from remove to decline purchase is very powerful if the true intention of this Edition is for principals to understand that they are the ultimate decision maker then decline the purchase meets that goal without feeling as invasive as the word removes words are powerful thing and a small change like decline the purchase shows good faith now there's also current legislation
174sitting on the governor's desk waiting for his signature that will require you to modify policy 320. the way it's advertised the way it's written now so I urge you to vote no on policy 320 tonight take the time to please do it right by involving the experts and all stakeholders by revising your policy 320. thank you thank you next up is Miss Beth Vogel Miller followed by Karen Clark Madam chair superintendent board members other concerned citizen staff you all know the drill I'm Reverend Beth fogelmiller I'm a DeLand native and English major from Stetson and a retired United Methodist Pastor no Bible stories tonight although you did listen well before I've attended several of these meetings I've been trying to learn the processes I have tried to follow the changes learned how to navigate the
175website trying to understand the purposes and their impacts intentional and unintentional and I've heard a lot presented frankly the tone in the direction worries me I suspect it worries you too I hope it worries you too um some folks speak of teachers and media Specialists and staff as if they're not already doing their best to educate children and help them grow there they are I've been many of their pastors they deserve more respect and appreciation I also can't tell if we're solving a real problem a data-driven data defined problem or a hypothetical or anecdotal one the solution seems to cause more trouble than it eliminates the impact of it I suspect exceeds the intention I think we have good processes of course we have to follow the law however the previous speaker was spot on
176when she talked about how scary it is when it's that daunting and talks about felonies use the processes we have improve them if need be perhaps through the procedural changes update the policy as needed but modestly the committee review process does work the opting out process does work I really disagree with opting in I think having principles work in partnership with the Committees makes good sense and it's a little scary to put them in a position of the sole decision making of no yeah as a pastor folks hardly ever asked me to tell them uncomfortable truth they rarely asked for that yet often later would thank me because I had asked a question or told a story raised an issue that was uncomfortable we talk about growing pains and it reminds us that growth does
177cause discomfort not just for the students but for us as well so I encourage us to be as modest as pot as possible edit as needed and let the children and the youth read broadly and check our spelling in a C1 it talks about a complier I think it means compiler authors compilers and editors although frankly the irony of using complier there was somewhat amusing when I looked it up by Google and it's a person or group that complies let's let's do better than that thank you thank you next up is Miss Karen Clark good evening hello everybody that's here and the people that are watching us on the web um the book policy that should stand as it's been advertised I know that your lawyers the County lawyers have looked into it so whatever
178is being presented you know legally would be fine and that's just what I want to say you've already put the money into it thank you all right that is all the public input I have at this time on item 19.17 for policy 320 media selection of print and non-print materials Dr balcabin yeah Madam chair I would like to ask Mr pendley and Dr Hazel to present this item thank you Dr belgaum Madam chair and board members item 19.17 requests the board's adoption of advertised amendments to school board policy 320 media selection of print and non-print materials in accordance with the board's Direction at workshop and at the board meeting on March 28th the proposed amendments were Incorporated and were advertised in accordance with after 120 Florida Statutes the advertising period has been accomplished and has
179now expired the policy stands ready for adoption thank you superintendent Madam chair board members I recommend the adoption of the proposed amendments the school board policy 320 meet a selection of print and non-print materials thank you you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion to approve policy 320 uh Madam chair I may ask a question to Mr penley after the motion after the motion arguably don't have a second there's no money well I mean well my oh wait let's go back do I have a motion to approve policy 320. yeah you want to just to get it out there so we can start talk about it anyway yeah yes I move approval of uh policy 320. thank you Mr persis do I have a second I'll second that thank you Mrs
180Burnett all right now we are open for discussion and Mr persis uh what my question is is uh um the the legislative session just ended and there are some changes um to this whole issue and uh so what I what I wanted to ask you is is if we adopt this policy that's in front of us will we have to come back in a month and change it again that's what I didn't I mean because if if you think or if you're not sure I'd rather just table it and come back in a month and As I understood ever changes we have to do I understand the question yeah as I understand the legislation in 2023 there were reporting requirements uh beginning at section two D2D sub paragraph three the upshot of which requires an
181annually beginning on June 30th the school district must submit to the commissioner of Education report that identifies each material for which the school district received an objection pursuant to subparagraph A2 for the school year and the specific objection there too each material that was removed or discontinued as a result of an objection the grade level and course for which are removed or discontinued material was used as applicable the department shall publish and regularly update a list of materials that were removed or discontinued as a result of an objection and disseminate the list to school districts for consideration in their selection procedures so as I read the Amendments the the effect does not change what is in our proposed amendments to 320. okay so then just to be clear if we adopted this policy we would
182not be in conflict with the law as its about to be changed no sir in fact what we have done in here specifically aligns with statutory requirement okay then Mr penley could you I I guess I'm starting it now I guess uh I'm looking at the part where it I don't know what pages is uh page three uh it starts with the heading instructional policies up at the top and in in red there's a line that says upon review a principle are you with me I'm with okay upon review a principal may direct the removal of material he she deems in violation of Florida law uh would would you clarify what that prepositional phrase means right there upon review as we've mentioned before article 3 responsibility for selection of material in policy 320 as it
183existed and has not been changed reads a school media school media staff shall in accordance with school board policy and District procedures coordinate the selection of educational materials principal Consulting with the media specialist is responsible for the final evaluation and selection of materials for the school's Media Center upon review and as I recall the board's Collective wisdom and direction we were referring to the requirement that the principal Consulting with the media specialist in the selection process of materials May redirect removal of material he she deems in violation of Florida law right so upon review it's your understanding that that meant that the principle and the media Specialists would get together and decide As I understood the board's Direction it is that Consulting process in initial media selection between the principal and the media specialist that
184is already in policy would be in furtherance of any principle removing items of material he he or she deems in violation of Florida law right uh so Madam chair here's where I'm a little fuzzy okay and if I'm the only one then that's okay but I I just I think you have to look at this if you read the first sentence of that it says school media staff shell and School Board policy so forth in District procedures coordinate the selection of educational materials my understanding is when when the media specialists let's say at the start of the year or in the summer when they are deciding which books to buy that they have a committee and that committee uh with the media Specialists they decide which books to buy and the they give that list
185of materials those recommendations to the principal who must approve that purchase right so the principle is involved in that selection uh so when I read upon review on the other way a principal may direct their removal I thought that review was that same process that it was a review with that media specialist and the media advisory committee or a committee you know just it wasn't just the principle and the media specialist I thought it was it involved more people than that okay so help me out with this so first of all let's look at what the title is of this section okay because I understand so you have to look at the title of the section the title of the section is responsibility for selection of materials all right this is not a challenge process
186this is not where a book is challenged so the way I read it and even that night when we went through the workshop pieces the school media staff shell in accordance with school board policy and District procedures coordinate the selection of educational materials and part of our school board or the district procedures are that they will have a media committee okay and they will determine what type of books they need you know what you know whether they're in a certain genre or a category or you know books are worn out that kids want and then they will put that together okay following the law for what you're allowed to purchase and then the principal will Consulting with the media specialist is responsible for the final evaluation of selection of materials for the school's Media Center
187so upon review a pencil may direct the removal of material off of what they're being given I mean so if you're the if you're the principal and Mr clones your media specialist and the rest of us are the committee we've sat down and done the work Mr clone brings the list to you all right you're going to review it and if you find something on that list upon review that you deem is in violation of the law because you're the one that has to put your signature on it right okay to make the purchase then you're going to remember I mean you're going to have discussion with the media specialist but you're not going to sign that to purchase that list of books if you find something there that shouldn't be there right right right
188so I mean I understand that part that's what it says because I think this is getting confused with if when somebody makes a challenge and challenge materials is a whole other section it's section five foreign because even one at least one of the speakers at the last board meeting said here's the process you know the media center determines where do we need books what books are we weeding out what do we need to bring in they you have they have a media selection committee which is made up of a variety of people including parents they sat down they you know because they have X number of dollars to spend and they select the books that they're going to and they should be selecting them based on what the law says okay and the interesting thing
189about this policy is it was first written in 1974. I mean there's only been a few updates along the way to it and typically that's when something you know in the changes and so then once they've got the list compiled that person's going to bring it to you because the media specialist can't sign it for the order the media committee can't sign up for the order the bookkeeper can't sign it one of your APS can't sign off on it right you're the person responsible for the school you're the person that's going to submit it for the funds to be used and so if you go through the list and deem that I mean you're going to have a discussion with them and say I see that this is in violation of the law but ultimately
190I'm not going to sign something if it's breaking the law well yeah you're you're exactly right and I think you have just clarified it for me because I was confusing uh whatever section I was on with uh section five right so section five is is really that's the challenge he's gotten on campus that someone thinks is a problem because maybe you're new to that school and maybe somebody didn't do their due diligence prior to you coming and there's something on that campus that made it past it that is breaking the law because the other way is if I was involved with the purchase of it and I said it was okay to purchase and then someone comes back and says I don't like this book well I've already been there I've already said yes to
191this to this book right but on the other hand if I'm new to the school as a principal I had nothing to do with purchasing that book and a parent comes in and she challenges it then I would certainly you would go to want to go through the review you would go to go through Section Five and start start the process and convene the committee and go through all of us all of those steps yes all right I just wanted to make sure I was interpreting it correctly you have to look at what sections wrong all right look at this section so Carl interestingly your your recollection is not much different than my own because I remember us saying that the principal could make that decision as we praised and mentioned others had already pulled
192some books uh proactively working with whoever they made that decision that was the context of the conversation over the weekend I had a lot I did a lot of research on this and if that premise was true and I'm going trying to jog the conversation the line right before that says the principle Consulting with the media specialist is responsible for the final evaluation and selection of materials for the school's media center period yeah so that it's not quite how I remember the conversation because what was just described as what that says so you wouldn't have had to put that on there so I asked the question what statute law administrative code did some researching where does it say that the principle may direct the removal because removal of material is you've already got it and
193now you're getting rid of it that's what we were talking about that day because I remember specific examples where I said I didn't want a principle to necessarily do this on their own and then get beat up over that I'd rather it take on the process for the challenge so I don't I did not find and I was digging deep arguably this statement digs further than any law right now on the books or requirements it is in my opinion an invitation it is not supported by law this is us doing it which we can but there is no law statute anything that requires that so that's number one number two there was I will say there was a presentation by Doe that was done where that was added to one of the slides but again
194that's not law and that's not necessarily you know we don't necessarily follow a PowerPoint presentation if they want to put that in law they have every opportunity to do so I am extremely surprised that they didn't but that's that the other part and and Mr pendley while I agree with you that this is um and mind you session just ended I would like to see those components as part of the policy because you can only hold people accountable to things that are in policy and so if we want our uh principals and schools to understand what they're responsible for reporting to and timelines and all that in accordance to the law I do feel that it should be in the policy and spelled out the same way we spelled out the other concerns um my
195last thought is I I sort of agree on the having the language and and don't get me wrong I'm all about having uh the footnotes because I believe that even though these laws were in the policy we didn't add any more laws we didn't add any more rules we didn't add anything all we did was spell it out I do think it is not even consistent with the rest of our policies and so I think we should drop all of that red writing as far as the law two footnotes which would go at the end all together like it's kind of awkward and I went through a bunch of our other policies and um you know they're all all the statutes are usually mentioned at the end at the end um and so I think
196I mean aside from you know the concerns that have been brought up aesthetically it just doesn't um that sounds horrible but I do believe that it should be in there because I don't think anybody's going to go looking for a statute to read it and find out what it means I know I never did that until I started digging into this um and so those are those are my thoughts again I I would hate you know they always say that the first ones through the door are the bloodiest and I would really hate to have a rule or a policy that is far more reaching than the states opening us up for potential exposure that's quite frankly unnecessary thank you Mrs Thompson so first and foremost I love that we've been discussing this for months
197because prior to this I know there are students who probably didn't go in the library and I think the bigger issue that we haven't talked about is how many students can't read so I would love to see board meetings packed with people that are this passionate about teaching kids how to read and mentoring and volunteering and actually getting them to read books that being said we have our young adult sections in the library this isn't huge life-altering changes to this policy there's a lot of people that will not like books that aren't able to come into the schools and frankly somewhere along the line an expert did let something into a school that didn't align with the curriculum and that's why we're here now and I think we will keep a better eye on what
198comes in and out of our schools because it's not a public library open to the public it is our school library here to educate our children based on the curriculums that we have so for those reasons I will be supporting voting this how it is and getting in line and we can move on with the rest of our lives and hopefully focus on actually educating kids and teaching them how to read thank you Miss Thompson here's what frustrates me tonight I I too agree we're here to teach children how to read we're here to teach the academic standards that are set forth and approved by the state but what really bothers me about this is there's been a lot of misinformation spread out there I mean when I have a first grade teacher call me
199and say so you're removing Dr Seuss I'd like someone to tell me one time during this entire process that anyone said we were removing Dr Seuss I have teachers saying oh I have to take all my books home out of my classroom I'd like to know one time when anyone sitting up here said teachers had to remove their books from their classrooms I've heard oh we can't read Ruby Bridges I'd like to know when we said you couldn't read Ruby Bridges all right so my frustration tonight is this I naively a year ago sat here and believed that there would be not a single book found in any Library Public School library in Volusia County that would contain sexually explicit material I spent my life teaching in classrooms everything from pre-k through 12th grade yes
200I do believe if you as a parent want your child to read sexually explicit material you have that right but you have the right where you can oversee and make that selection okay I believe having unfettered access to children who are not adults yet and without their parents knowing what they have access to that's why there are laws this policy started in 1974. the laws that are tapped in this policy are not the new laws they are the laws that we have been following under so where I'm at tonight is the only changes made to this policy and I want to be clear on this when it said committee and it didn't signify school-based we added the word school-based so that people knew that the challenge if the challenge was made at the school that
201the first committee put together is a school-based committee because it didn't say the word school-based it just said committee where it goes to the district committee we added the word District twice I believe so that you understood that became the district committee we all talked about what Sac committees are made up of our Sac committees have to have 51 percent or more of the committee has to be parents that's been in place I don't know I think since we started the sac process I mean yeah how many years ago 91 yeah yeah so since night you know 1990 1991 parents have had to make up 51 or more of our school Sac teams so why why can't parents like why would we not follow the same committee makeup at this level okay this doesn't have
202to be an us against them this doesn't have to be about politics okay this is about making sure that we are following the law and why is okay and you just said once again though put it in the footnotes it is in the footnotes no I said put the footnotes in the foot put it at the end all right notes that's a whole different thing like it's footnotes are at the bottom of every page yes right and it's in the footnotes right now it's at the bottom of every page you want the law just totally moved to the back of the page or the last page the last page huh normally then so going back if you look at all our other policies all our statutes and everything are at the bottom of this well
203it still is on this one if you go to the one the change and it tells you every year it's been updated and every year that we've adopted it so I mean even when someone spoke last time they said the principle is the final approval on the list of books being purchased so is the principal got the final list of approval or does the principal not have the final list of approval I mean that's what it always has said yeah I I mean tell me Carl you were the principal yeah absolutely are you giving your approval away to someone else it comes in and it's a recommendation from the committee and you sign off on it when you sign off on it you're giving your approval yeah I mean when I worked in federal programs
204and grants I was the first line of a signature that had to you know sign off for that money in federal programs and grants to be spent I didn't give my approval away to anyone else but I also knew by making that signature what I was being held responsible for I was being held responsible to follow the federal laws and that if something's going to happen they weren't going back to the school-based person that turned in the purchase order they were coming to me and it's no different than us sitting here anything that hits the fifty thousand dollar threshold we have to sign off on I mean we have to give approval so they're not going back to Dr Johnson you know who put it up they're coming here to us because we don't give
205Dr Johnson you know we don't give our approval away to him to say sure Dr Johnson just go sign spend whatever amount you want because there's a law yeah that says we have to do it here's where I'm at there's going to be some new laws signed in it looks like there's going to have to be some procedures changed but what is here what's heartbreaking to me is that people didn't even know what the law said I mean if you think about it I was responsible as a classroom teacher to know what curriculum and standards I was supposed to be teaching and what I wasn't supposed to be teaching I mean I didn't have a choice to say hey I really though like this standard that's in fifth grade so I'm going to bring it
206down and teach it to first grade that's not my right as a teacher I have to follow the curriculum guidelines that are out there in the standards that are out there that are set by the state I mean there's there's laws every day we have to follow and there are people every day that break a law all right this policy by adding the law into it is just saying here you go here's what it says so that if you quite frankly like if I were you know three years from now if I were asked to serve on a media committee I'm going to want to read the law I mean I was asked one time during the summer Leticia Roman came to me and said I need you to take the title one part C
207migrant Grant Jamie and take the feedback from the state and I need you to correct this Grant and I said well I need to know what the laws the federal laws are for that Grant I mean I'm not going to take on the responsibility of doing something without knowing what I'm expected to do and none of us should do that and we can all make a mistake and when you make a mistake you own up that you made the mistake and you figure out how to correct the problem or come up with a solution so where I stand tonight there's going to be more coming and I'm not probably even going to agree with part of what's coming but it's a whether I agree with it or not it's a law and so I'm going
208to stand by the changes that have been made we need to move forward and here's what we need to focus on that we haven't focused on part of getting them to learn how to read or getting them to be better readers is we got to handle the discipline first on these campuses because the discipline that's happening has got we got to have kids in classrooms not out fighting in the courtyard not vaping in the bathrooms and all of this other stuff because we need them in class so that we can teach them the academic standards they're there for so I at this time do not wish to drag this on any further I realize at some point it's going to come back or the or whatever the changes are are going to go into your
209policies and procedures like I mean your procedures and processes we're the overarching policy I find nothing wrong with the overarching policy and I agree with the changes and if I remember correctly the night we sat here and we hammered out who would be on the Committees we were all I don't think anybody was in this is anybody in disagreement of who's on the Committees okay everybody agrees with the makeup of the Committees because we went with a Sac thing because we went down I mean we went as high as there being 11 or 14 people down to this down to seven so that's where I stand does anybody else have any further discussion um just just because we get emails and so just to get it out there because there seems to be so many
210different answers uh the one question that keeps pop uh cropping up is is uh the issue of um I object to this book I don't want my child to read that book we usually say well no one's going to force your child to read a book that you don't want your child to read um so how does the media specialist know that a parent doesn't want their child to read that book we have a well while Dr verification well Dr Hazel's getting that I will say this that having I be at DeLand High um I was the entire time I've sat in this seat there have been parents that have received the list for IB yeah and have found a book on it I I every year there's been someone that there's a book they
211don't want their child to read and I just refer them right back down to the school because the school knows that if a parent does not approve of one of the books on the reading list then an alternative selection is given and so far I'll be honest with you there's never been a problem I mean no and that's no I've given him an option I agree exactly that's always been done school to school yes but I so miss Haynes is absolutely correct and and just to differentiate though that is if it's required reading in a course you would contact the school and the teacher and and that's more instructional materials but when we're talking about self-selection from a media center um there are three types of access there is unlimited access limited access and um
212no access and parents can make that choice when they select limited access the way it is set up now we can go into individual students and they are marked in focus and desk through our computer system focusing Destiny to um and when they try to check out a book it comes up if if they have that perfect okay so parents are having Choice unlimited access limited access no access I I guess finally I'll just say I I wish we would have spent as much time on discussing how to get children to read or how to teach children to read how to encourage children to read as we have spent trying to figure out which books they shouldn't read great Mr cologne so Mr prayer says I want to make you feel good because the truth
213of the matter is all this is done has created a culture war that has put these books in the cookie jar and now they all want to read these books and find out what's the big deal so that's number one so I just have a just from my understanding so let's be clear so that line where it says the principal may direct the removal of material that is solely on the purchase order nothing to do with the materials that are in their school so a principal will follow the traditional path for um a challenge for a challenge would it be a substantial change if we were to add that as part of a word in there because the word would change the whole thing and so if it truly is in in the process of
214the purchase which is what we're saying it's in that section because the way it sits here right now that's not what it says and I hear what you all are saying I see the intent it's in that section arguably it's kind of repetitive from what's on top of it so I may direct the removal of material he or she from violation from the purchase from being purchased I don't know just something that would specify that that's what that means because it is very yeah I have not had one I mean it's what happens when people read a statement out of context without looking at the entire piece right but if you don't say it you if you don't say it you leave gaps and people are going to fill gaps with negativity and so if
215you don't tell your story somebody else is going to fill in the blanks so there was an email sent out um was it last week to all principals there was but the policy that was attached to that memo was the selection or the qualifications of a media specialist so that's what made me dig I went digging because I wanted to come here today and say hey there's a law that says that the principle is the ultimate and it just doesn't exist so if we're going to specify that this is related to the purchase I could support this policy if we were to add that language to that sentence because then it would be clear right now I don't think it's clear personally you're inferring you're you're taking it that they're going to look at what
216section it's a part of versus straight up and and again if if it's in that section we didn't put it under the section of a challenge it's under the section of purchase of materials no word does it say under a challenge that if a parent comes in and challenges a book that the principal will make just automatically remove it so I'll go a step further a lot of times perception is everything we wouldn't be having this conversation if everybody understood that it was in that section and I'm just saying and so I for me it's still very ambiguous and and I don't think it provides the clarity that we intend it to personally but I'm glad to hear that it's on record that we're meaning this to be solely for the purchase not for any
217other reason Mrs Burnett thank you um a couple things um I took it as because it says upon review and that's we're talking about the selection of the books and then in the memo that was sent out last week it says further it is on page let's see what is this page it's at the bottom of page one under summary of proposed changes further is explicitly stated that School principles are responsible for compliance with school and District procedures for the selection of school library materials so that's where they're selecting it go ahead what I mean the last thing I want to do is not encourage kids to read students to read but we did have books that somehow infiltrated that were questionable um and so we have to start somewhere right and then um Dr
218Hazel I just wanted to ask you about the um the the process you just described how does the parent know where to go in order to do the limited uh or full access there's a um form I don't know it's a Google form Microsoft form on our website that they can fill out we have sent that out several times and publicized it um on our website and through social media and we'll continue to do that and do we do that at the beginning of the year and like it you know and when a new student comes into the school do we make sure that the parent is aware at that point that is going to be part of our process right now we are working with our media Specialists to refine um the the actual
219inputting of we're trying to get it so that we can Mass upload student names into one category rather than um rather than have to go in student by student so as soon as we have that perfected we'll have exact you do and that and whatever works the best for them because obviously I mean our our media Specialists and our Educators they care about the students they want to teach them we know that we know that no one's doubting that and so we want to make it easy on both parties the the school parties and the families to do what's right for their kids that's all I can have any further discussion yeah Madam chair I have to I have to um get back to this because this is how I started in and it gets
220back to where Reuben just said and that is because it's under that section of purchasing the materials then immediately takes a leap to that underlying statement in red that the principal May re remove materials and so how can why would it's it's talking about how you purchase them and then in the same sentence it says well you made you may take it take it off and it's just like well wait a minute why why would that be there uh you know you know what I'm saying this whole world so as a principal are you just going to take the list of the media center specialist hands you and sign it and it says well the principal Consulting is responsible so I mean if to to your point if if what we want to say is
221a principal is not bound by that recommendation of the committee or a principal may decide not to purchase the books recommended by that committee you know I mean if if that's what we mean here then that's that's all true I mean that's that's fine but this says may direct the re removal how can you remove something that hasn't even been purchased yet I mean why why would you see what I'm saying how the sentence the entire section yeah so the part of reading a single sentence no but the principle it says Consulting is responsible for the final evaluation and selection of materials Mr penley please then it jumps right into but at the same time a principal May what like the principal may decide to purchase it and then when the book comes in then
222principal may decide to take it off I mean I mean I don't know it's I don't know either it's in the wrong section or it doesn't need to be there Madam chair it's my legal opinion that the way the Florida statute that authorizes immediate the selection of media material which is 1006 28 the way that it is structured sets up responsibilities and duties and legal obligations of three distinct entities number one the school board that's section two number two the superintendent that's section three and number four is the school principal under section 4 of 1006 28 the school principal has the following duties for the management and care of materials at the school section F reads selection of library media center materials selection not purchase not not anything else selection school principals are responsible for
223overseeing compliance with school district procedures for selecting School library media center materials at the school to which they are assigned that is the statutory authorization that requires it's not a maybe if he likes to she likes to it's a requirement of Statute that they are responsible for the selection of the meeting materials in the media center if that doesn't include the right to remove it the obligation the statutory obligation to make sure that those materials are in compliance with state law I don't know what else does so so I uh so then after you just said said that I'm not even sure why why we added that sentence right because I think we're in compliance with the law question that the board members were asking at the time when we when the board directed the
224language to be inserted there was can he remove it or she remove it because there were principles that stated do I have the right when my media specialist brings me forth the list I mean I was called and asked that that I can say I'm not going to approve for the purchase of one or more of the materials on this list here's my thing I just don't know how huh yeah I I would say yes in that purchasing process the principal could say you know I don't agree I think it's in violation of the law you know but I think once it's already purchased and it's on the Shelf yeah but there's a whole section just saying a principle can't just yeah I'm just gonna go look through the library here and find a book
225and say I don't think this book should be here I think it's kind of too late for that but I will also say that people reached out to me and said okay they were given information that oh only a parent could challenge a book well no there's been some schools where teachers have challenged books and somebody tried to say well teacher can't challenge a book okay why right I mean a Community member can challenge a book a teacher can challenge a book challenge a book everybody could challenge a book if you read what the law says and there's even a part where you can reach the point where you have to hire a hearing officer that may not be an employee or an agent of the school district that makes a final decision yeah you're
226welcome if it goes to that level all right Mr Mr persis anything else Mr cologne so would it be a substantial change to add from being purchased to the end of that is that a substantial change since it's in that section as under chapter 120 any alteration of the language as a material change you can change typos you can change the order of the the footnotes to endnotes I don't think that that is a violation but any substantive change the length of the text would require reauthorization but it's under that section of being oh so can we say from being selected that substantial change since it's under the section of book selection any textual change would have to be advertised and you're saying this policy does not have to come back to us at any
227point anytime soon given the changes okay first of all we don't know what the actual changes are going to be you can't hold up a policy that we've already advertised I want to get it right okay but you can't hold up a policy that's already been advertised on the basis of we think there's going to be some law change because when the if if and when there's a new law or a new piece to a law or an amendment to a law there is a process like it doesn't even come into play until after it's signed until after we get to the new part of the year and after they give us the guidance on what it means because sometimes when it's written we don't even know what it means yeah he'll he 'll he
228maybe maybe procedurally maybe the only thing they may change are procedural things that won't even change under the policy it'll be a procedure that has to be changed on what they do in the school we never I mean when those books come out with all the stuff it's just a question like this huh it was just a question any other questions any other discussion let me ask you this Dr velgeman if a principal took if a principal took a book off out of this out of the circulation did it would would it be possible for for you of me for you to direct principles that without anybody challenging it just the principle just took a book off off the shelf checked it out um would would you would you would you become aware of that
229would you be would there be a way where you could say because it says he or she deems in violation of Florida law well he or she may be in incorrect that it is not in violation of Florida law Mr Parsons I'm trying to approve this policy I understand let me let me try to help um currently and and this is something that with if this your desire out we will be very clear in enunciating and sending them this message once again in writing to all of our principles but currently if there is a book that is in clear violation of the law the way it works right now is that the principle has to send the name of that book to our current media um District media person in addition to Dr Hazel for
230review to confirm now that that is that is something that it's known but I would be more than happy to send out a clear communication in the frame of a memorandum to all principles letting them know that if they think there is a book in violation of the law right to submit that that title to us that works Dr Hazel no you're correct the only thing I would add to that is and we've discussed this at the board meeting prior weeding is a regular part of what all our media Specialists and our principals work together to do and those are also reported and interact good and that has to do with not necessarily books that violate the law but condition can we even be a part of that on an annual basis due to your
231point there is a weeding process that takes place at the school where they look at the number of checkouts how long it's you know that you know what I'm talking about yeah so um yeah we can definitely add that and be clear Dr Hazel please make a notation to have that memorandum drafted with Mr pendley we will show to the board and send it out all right any further discussion we have a motion and we have a second if there's no further discussion then we're ready to call for a vote all those in favor of approving policy 320 media selection of print and non-print materials please say aye aye any opposed it passes four to one we are now move do we need a break okay we need a quick break that's what they've asked
232for and then we will come back to do item 19.18 superintendents welcome back we are moving on to the final item for approval this evening it is item 19.18 superintendent's evaluation tool this will be presented by Dr Rachel Hazel the deputy superintendent of operations and student services yay good evening again Madam chair Dr belgabin and school board members during the time between the workshop and our school board meeting Terry and I compiled all of the edits and feedback that you gave us during the workshop and the final tool is presented for your approval all right so for the second thank you so Mr persis has made a move a demotion to approve the superintendent's evaluation tool for the 2022-2023 school year Mr cologne has seconded any discussion I just for the record want to say
233that we discussed this thoroughly during the workshop where we were able to ask questions and provide input Etc and we are grateful for the folks who quickly compiled this and um as Mr pendley would say this has been Julia advertise don't do we forgot right it's right right I like that word right for adoption and Madam chair let the record show uh we um will this down to seven pages the initial one was 21. yes pages and uh yeah manageable all right any other discussion that I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving the superintendent's evaluation tool for the 2022-2023 school year please say aye aye any opposed it passes unanimously we have one more piece of public input before we do comments and so it's Miss Karen Clark again hello everybody
234it's a nice quick evening um one thing is I'd like to know what ability does a teacher have with these uncontrollable student behaviors that they may one child May disrupt the whole class and you have so many minutes in each period and you spend in 10 minutes where you're not allowed to call a cop to arrest them or go somewhere else what maybe that's one of the reasons why teachers don't want to teach anymore because the government the local government doesn't have your backs is that something that a school board can look into no that's pretty bad well if somebody sends me an email to say what to do because people out here we can start the ball rolling to get the teachers protected you know that's one thing and um I Heard the words
235banned to see the signs outside with schools abandoning it's not being banned or burned it's just going to go into the public library age-appropriate books in the library that's one of my things it doesn't pertain to anything but that's about it good night thank you all right one final thing I do need to bring up before we just go into General comments so we have approved um Dr balkowan's evaluation form the other person that we have to evaluate is our school board attorney Mr Aaron Wolfe we have the um we have the evaluation document that we created last year and we've already used that document um I personally would like to suggest that we use the same document that we used last year at least four of us have already used it and because we
236spent how many hours in a workshop hammering that document out to what it was but I'd like your feedback because if so then I was going to have Miss Hazel or Dr Hazel send it to us because we're going to have to put it on we're also going to have to complete that one and then put it on an agenda to share because it has to be completed by the end of June mentor and so I do support using the same instrument however I think there may be um as long as we have the opportunity to say not applicable because I know there were things on there previous too that after and I went back and looked at it that may not apply to Mr Wolf but I am okay with using the the tool
237with the understanding that if it is felt that something is no longer applicable to his role example you know keeping us abreast of everything that's happening in Tallahassee well we have we have folks who do that so for me I don't think that would be fair to negatively rate them on that but we'd be able to say just not applicable but otherwise I think the instrument is fine yeah it was pretty good yeah yeah so have her send it to us so do we just want to set a date well Senate and then set a date for when we have to submit it to uh Rachel so she can compile it and then put it on the agenda because in June we only have one meeting we have two okay we have two it should
238be on the first meeting yeah let's do yeah yeah because that gives us time in June um our meetings are the 13th we have a workshop followed by a school board meeting and then we have the 27th and it needs to be complete I mean the latest that we would complete it I mean that we would share it basically would be for the 27th okay so June 1st is that enough time I'm just wondering no Celeste is making notes okay so today is May 9th I actually okay I don't want to pick I don't want to pick a graduation day that we have to have it submitted by because I don't want some I mean I I don't I if we've got if we're going to have it sent to us say tomorrow okay then
239I think we should have it turned in no later than either Thursday May 25th or or Friday May 26th to Rachel because after Memorial Day we're running straight into graduation you mean turn it in if we have any changes no no no completed completed oh completely we get it we complete it or we can do what we did last time we got it we each completed it and then we just brought it into the into the meeting and we each revealed our scores yeah we could do that I mean what do you want to do I'm good with that I signed with that I'll go with that too actually well I I think that be having the ability to compile it gives In fairness to Mr Wolf if there are any concerns to discuss them
240prior to whereas if I show up here with an F on every grade and don't really have the opportunity or you know what I'm saying in the past I'm exaggerating yes sir I'm divorce when the super previous superintendent's evaluations were done everybody would fill out their form and it would actually go to you know someone like Rachel along with the attorney now here we're not going to go to the attorney at the moment because it's his evaluation but it could go to but usually the chair was involved in just going over each item that's the way they used to do it and then they compiled it all and then it was just presented that's fine I mean like I said if you want to do it that way that's cool but I just if you
241want fairness I thought just turning it in and having it compiled again I think where we are today is not where we were a year ago and so um so we could streamline the process if we all completed it turned it in and compile it and Dr Hazel and I sat down if your guys are okay with that and we just can pile it into a single document that comes back out to you to review before we bring it to the board yeah because you know once we submit it back then it's public yeah I'm not sure if that's fair you just put it again before even Aaron sees it I mean I think we should wait it's okay it all it also gives any one of us some time to talk to Aaron privately
242individually I mean so if I'm hearing you correct tomorrow you will each receive in your email the document okay you're going to take how much time do you need to put your information in you said the 25th all right I'm good with the 25th why don't we just bring it back to the board no well they can compile at the board meeting just score it and no because you then it can't be shared with the public the 26 is that Friday if you want to look so we do the 26 then it all gets compiled gets put on the board agenda I don't want a Friday because lo and behold somebody will wait till five o'clock on Friday and and I'm not asking Rachel to compile it over the week right but she has till
243the 13th to bring it back just whenever you say it's ready like I said I don't we we hit graduations and would be a and all of that back to back I just don't want just tell me what I'm good want it tomorrow I'll send it to you all right if they send it out to you tomorrow is everybody good at having it in to Dr Hazel by Thursday May 25th by the end of the business day on Thursday May 25th yes by email yes we're all good yes then do you want it compiled at that point yes okay once it's compiled then do you want the completed document shared with each of you to view yes because it's going to go on the agenda it's going to go on the agenda right but do
244you want to see the compiled document or do you want to wait until we come into the meeting to see it I'd rather see it once it's posted so that we're not necessarily sharing amongst each other I don't know well you can do that because it can be posted you want all right there's two places things can be posted it could be posted an executive set in the executive section where we can all see it and he can see it versus the public section until we get here that day and I just need to know whether it be part of the agenda and just approves and be open I'm hearing you correctly tomorrow each of you will be receive a copy of the evaluation for the school board attorney you will individually evaluate Mr Wolf
245and submit your evaluation to Dr Hazel by the end of the work day on Thursday May 25th yes then all of it will be compiled okay and then once it's compiled it could be posted in executive session to start and like maybe two days worth an executive session or three days worth and then it'll move to the regular where everybody can see it it's fine with me Carl I thought you I thought we wanted to have it finished by the next school board meeting it would be then voted on this this would be June 13th me oh you're gonna do it on June 13th okay I thought you were trying to get it over with no we're gonna We because we need to get hers over with too isn't one of the deadlines to hit
246any of the graduations I don't want deadlines to hit congratulations that's good okay so then we now have Dr balgamins and we've agreed on the tool though are we going to follow the same process that used to be followed where we would each complete it submitted to Dr Hazel and then do the way it used to be it would be the school board chair say Dr Hazel and and Mr Wolf the three of us would get together to do the compilation and put it all into one document to share you you know how it used to be I agree but this time it'll be really easy because you're not averaging you're not scoring you're just yeah just you know what I'm saying it's just speaks okay so now that you have the document for her
247when do you want that to also happen on June 13th that she gets her evaluation we'll call it evaluation day okay so can you have hers completed also by Thursday May 25th at the end of business day yes I could have hers completed tonight I'm 30 minutes do it let's just do it right now I got it right here I think they're I think they're staff that would like to go home okay all right well do you want I mean do you want to complete hers and bring it back on the May 23rd board meeting I could okay I'm okay with that too do it no no you know what no because your agenda conference is when we already did it so it would take it's tomorrow so it would you would have like a
248week because she'd have to post the agenda on Tuesday of next week so I vote we just let's do everybody on the 13th okay sounds good okay so just be clear and and Dr Hazel can send this one electronically to you also so Dr Hazel we're going to have Dr balgeman's tool for her evaluation and Mr Wolf's tool for his evaluation sent to us tomorrow by the end of the business day on Thursday May 25th those will have been emailed back into her and we will compile both and they will be presented on the Tuesday June 13th school board meeting beautiful it's my daughter's birthday action or consent it's presented so it's really nothing we're voting on we don't vote on it do we vote yeah what do we vote on we're putting consent we
249just present not even present it just a presentation presentation or consent it's not board action so we just put in consent under consent we'd have to vote on it why are we going to vote on it everybody submitted I mean we're not going to change that's fine all right so presenting it it's no longer taught me hers is not tied to anything salary bonuses anything they used to I think have to vote on it because it was or if they I don't even think they voted on it it was a mess because half the time the data wasn't even available yeah I believe the policy for the board attorney though says you vote on the first meeting in July as to whether to maintain the right but we just wanted to get the evaluation done
250so yeah there's a vote in July on if we're voting to retain but we're under a three-year contract that was when it was supposed to be an annual contract so I don't know what I mean we'll have to just vote to retain we're not going to break a contract there's no vote and and just the point of clarification we're not really evaluating errands so much as the as the law firm you know what I'm saying no we're evaluating services donating Aaron we're evaluating we're evaluating I know that's how it always ends up mess this up supposedly we yeah you're good we're good yeah we have a contract with the law firm your bottle of water we are evaluating his performance personal performance as our school board attorney I hear you I okay I know all
251right are we clear we're clear all right Dr Hazel you know what you're doing you'll send us reminders friendly friendly reminders gentle gentle reminders okay so now are there any is there any further discussion from board members School Board attorney or the superintendent okay the superintendent has something I do have some really good news to share it actually just came in so College Board National recognition programs just identified today not long ago 226 Volusia County students that have met the criteria of having exceptional achievement on their PSAT and or AP assessments and they are invited to participate in a award that will be for which they will receive their notification in September so we're going to make sure that every single one of our students are part of answer that that three question survey but
252they've met the criteria so this is exceptional great news yes and thanks to the changes in the amendment to the law we've got more kids going to walk across the stage and get a high school diploma yep and that's great news anything else and so as we move into graduation season as you know I'm super excited to have a graduate this year yay and not only from one but we'll be graduating from Daytona State next week as well and so that's super exciting and and I know that it's you know I said this on social media yesterday I'm going to write a book not the kind of book you all are thinking I'm going to write a book and that was just overall arching I looked across the room because nobody told me how amazing
253it feels to see the first group of students and mind you I'm not a teacher to see the first group of students that you watch walk across the stage for high school graduate from college it's like you you were here last year right now that was four years ago okay and so super excited and again shout out to everyone who's helping these celebrations be possible because it is quite the production so I am a proud dad this year and I am grateful to all of those who have provided the gentle reminders and you know who you are yes that's very good anyone else a good week Mr purses yeah um I need to ask Dr balgaman about uh I'm getting these issues brought up to me about bus transportation not getting kids to school but
254bus transportation for sports teams bands it's I talked with Dr Barrio and it seems like it's all over the place some high schools do this some high schools I'm I'm talking high schools now so for example I because you always want to hear an example so for example the football teams everyone seems to transport their football teams on a school bus and that's great but then after after that then it gets really Diversified and so like I have like the Sea Breeze baseball team parents calling me saying how come the Sea Breeze baseball team doesn't get a bus to go to away games isn't it dangerous for 15 16 year olds to be out driving late at night they're not used to driving on the highway then I had the mainland uh band I guess
255who would maybe Anita may know that think they were involved in the competition or going to a thing and they couldn't get there on time and you know so I was just thinking you know so these parents are saying do we have to have a booster club in order to provide transportation and then yeah then I call another principal and he goes well no you know we just pay for it you know we we have the funding and we provide the transportation so then Dr Barrio said it seems to be a cultural thing it's horrible with each high school it's the way they've always done it you know and it's horrible so I will share with you that our student ambassadors oh did bring that up talk about talk about telling it all that they
256did bring that up as one of the topics that we discussed and I will tell you what I know so far and if there is anything more to it please share the uh Dr Johnson so we looked into it at just at the surface level at this point because the team is researching further when it comes to strengths transporting students that are part of like the clubs or you know sports teams so forth and so on every high school has vans but the issue with some of the the high schools is that they don't have someone on staff with a CDL so that's something that we need to work on and then I know Dr Johnson was looking into our transportation for some of the students would you like to share what you've uncovered so
257far but this is something it's one of the topics we're working on okay that's been brought up by our kids no no I'm glad you did because they brought it up I just before next year started if we could yes sir they shared three times this year five topics with us three of them were looking into one of them is is the transportation yeah that'd be fine Matt I'm sure I'd be interested to see each school because we run into the same exact thing yeah one school they do it next one you know every every football game needs a football team yeah but the band is always questionable how the kids get there we have you know this kid rides with that kid and then that kid I mean it's all over the place I'd
258be curious to see each School I mean again I'm one I don't know if there's consensus each school and what each of the clubs clubs sports that are listed in their Title IX so I'm getting specific here that are listed in their school and how they are how they're expected to transport because I think we're going to find quite the inequity and I think we have an opportunity here to get it right I I agree with both of you I think it could be a simple survey that goes out to the predominance high school no but I mean go out to the high school principals and then they list the clubs they have and then do they provide transportation for anyone and if so who do they provide you know or Sports I mean it's
259got to be on a format you collect the data somehow right correct well that's whatever the yeah whatever the superintendent wants to do with that we started this work so yes great um Madam chair and the other one was um uh one of the speakers brought up the necessity isn't that necessary to continue it to have that I ready diagnostic or something test for fourth and fifth grade fourth grade other than third grade Reports look into that so and I'll tell you that yes we will and actually it's something that again we've started there is a reason why this year we had to do it there's a long explanation if you want to sit for another 30 minutes no I don't no I don't but um as we Embark into next year because we would
260already have Baseline data this year with pm1 PM the new assessment then we have Baseline this year we did not so we had to have something to compare to and since I already was in our schools and we did a diagnostic last year did a diagnostic this year so we can do that apple to Apple comparison now moving forward because we have data this year with pm1 you know there's something to compare to to really look and and the other reason why it's because currently with pm1 there's not a way where you can look at the data by skills to see where you need to intervene and remediate and and accelerate I ready the diagnostic does give you the detailed report so we want it to be very strategic this year intentional with our our
261remediation efforts so did I miss anything uh and that was the reason why okay so maybe that could be told or ex absolutely yes sir that's what I was going to say it's obviously I understand it now but when she's brought it up I thought yeah that makes sense like why yeah and I think Dr value worked with the focus schools in particular to help them understand this now that did it get to every classroom maybe not right so absolutely whatever we do moving forward I want to make sure that everybody understands the why so that we know why things were doing certain things okay and last thing Madam chair we got an email from Rose Roland I hope we all did about the code of conduct uh thing and I just didn't want I
262wasn't quite sure uh what she was really that she just wanted us to give her some feedback if we think I can clarify um would you like me to uh yeah yeah okay of course So based on some of the the maybe the increase that you've got this year or questions that you've heard or statements made from parents as it pertains to the discipline code of conduct what are some of the topics that really were very prevalent came to you from parents if you can share that with her because as we're looking into revisions now we will really zoom in into those sections on those topics to really look at it holistically and see if it makes sense or really we need to go further so that when it's presented here we're really attacking those
263I hate to use the word attack but really zooming further into those topics that we have seen that have been um prevalent this year thank you hello and so on that topic as you know there was legislation passed regarding cell phone usage in school during instructional time and so if we can also wrap that into our code of conduct while it's here as we yeah that's then that that's something because I mean and we're gonna have to talk about it because that's you know as much as I would like our code of conduct to be uh more stringent I also understand the limitations on our alternative sites that would have to take in a lot of these students I'll share with you I was at high Banks had a great visit at high Banks last
264week they're doing amazing things there um but their Max is like 80 kids and they're at 88 and they were just getting on the call to find about out about all the new students that were being put up for expulsion and so you kind of have to have the capacity to enforce what you're putting in and you know I was had the pleasure of being on a call with several principals who were working on code of conduct and I asked them would you is it your pleasure to see the Board address this and it was a compliance Nightmare and so their answer was no we have figured it out on our campuses we have figured it out leave it alone don't touch it whatever you do is going to really mess it up because it's
265not going to be unenforceable well now the state has um chimed in on it and I think we're really going to have to look at that because I think that the last version that I saw of that bill it truly empowers the teacher to be the one to this is how you know you're going to run your classroom and you have that right as well as the students right to learn and so it's not just a simple this is our district policy no this is tied to their you know the intent is tied to improve our learning environments so that's going to be a big deal anyone else and I'd like to wish all the mothers though this coming weekend happy Mother's Day yeah we are adjourned