Volusia County School Board Meeting - Workshop⧸Work Session 01⧸13⧸2026

001and get started. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence and reflection. >> To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. >> Whoa. 2026. We made it. Isn't that crazy? Welcome everyone who is here in the a Hey, how's it going? Here in the audience this wonderful afternoon. I'd like to take the opportunity to introduce my amazing colleagues who are here with us today. We're going to start on the right today. So, we'll start with Miss Celeste Gilmore, who is our amazing agency clerk. Next to Miss Gilmore, we have Mrs. Jesse Thompson, representative for district three. Next to Miss Jesse Thompson, we have Miss Jamie Haynes, representative for district

0021. Next to uh Miss Jamie Haynes, we have Dr. Carmen Balgaban, National Superintendent of the Year, two times recognized 2026 woman of the year. Uh, over to the left we have Miss Donna Brosmer, District 4. Next to Miss Brosmer, we have Mrs. Christa Goodrich, vice chair, District 2. Next to Miss Goodrich, we have Mr. Gilbert Evans, school board attorney. And myself, my name is Ruben Colona, and I am the uh, selected person to be the chair this year. And so uh representing district 5, first item on our agenda is a report from general counsel 2.01, Dr. Balgabin. >> Thank you, chair. Uh good evening, good afternoon everyone. I would like to ask our uh general counsel and board attorney Dr. Evans along with Miss Patty Core to join. Miss Patty Core, if you can join

003us, please. They have a short presentation ready for us regarding some of the proposed policy updates. [clears throat] Uh good afternoon uh Mr. Chair uh members of the board to our superintendent. We have a few policies here to discuss with you today and discuss with you some recommended changes to current policies and we do have one new policy. Three of the policies uh have very minor changes to them and I will begin with policy 305 which is an instructional policy and it's entitled physical education. Uh the two material changes to this policy is um it references the sunshine state standards for physical education. We no longer use those and now we use the next generation sunshine state standards and we had to also change the statutory reference from one from 1012.012 to 103455. So that's

004the minor change to this particular policy. Yes. And if you have any questions. >> Yes. And this policy was last updated. Physical education was last updated in 2009. >> So we'll bring it here for these corrections. >> Thank you board. Does anybody have any questions on this policy? If there are none, my understanding is these will come back uh this evening for advertisement. >> Correct. Yes. >> Okay. And so now is the time to bring up any thoughts, feelings, concerns, or changes. >> Uh Miss Haynes, >> I I just want to say thank you because we've been trying to clean up policies ever since we discovered that they were back in the 1970s. [laughter] I I know that we got to the year 2000. So, thank you. Um, it may seem minor, but just going

005through all of them and, you know, making sure that there's still legislative law and what is it and all that does take time. So, thank you, >> Miss Haynes and board. I do plan to bring before you next month a procedure on how we're going to go about moving forward revising and update and changing our policies. And as she just stated, Miss Haynes, we have several policies that have not been looked at for the last 20 years. So, we're going to bring a methodology by which we're going to review them and ask for your approval next month. Second policy we want to bring before you is policy 809. It's the school advisory council policy. This policy had not been reviewed since uh September 2008. And in this particular policy there was just a couple of

006just changes uh grammatical changes spelling changes noted students not in the possessive case there um whereby should be one word and then on the second page we don't use the sunshine state standards we use the Florida best standards which are benchmarks for excellent student thinking and those are the changes that we've made to this policy. Thank you board. Does anybody have any questions? >> I do have a question. So, as the standards change, we're going to have to continue to make these edits. Would it not be best to put language in there that will reflect whatever the approved state uh standards are rather than naming the specific standard so that it is always in compliance. >> That's a great idea. That's a great idea. So just have it more generic and make sure we comply.

007>> DOE standards at which point then we wouldn't have to continue. I mean, don't get me wrong, I and and we'll talk in a little bit about some of the ideas for the policy revisions and looking at, but I think that that will always keep us current from year to year. Uh, if we choose to adopt like a two-year cycle for review of policies, etc., which we'll talk about in a little bit. Um, and we have in a forthcoming meeting. Um, that would take that part out of it. So thoughts everyone because I know we've >> that makes sense. Uh Miss Thompson. >> No, I was just going to say also being fiscally responsible that makes sense because every time we have to redo these policies, we have to put them out for advertisement and

008that costs money. So I think that'd be a great idea moving forward. >> Mr. Chair, I douly noted and we will make note of that. Thank you, Miss Haynes. >> So um I want to check on one thing. Didn't the last legislative cycle though say that we now could post them on our website for part of the advertising and that we no longer had to advertise with a newspaper? Am I correct? >> I believe that the policies >> because they have >> the policies still have to go into the [clears throat] newspaper. >> Yeah, I thought it was the county agendas and yeah, policies still have to go into the newspaper. Yeah, >> there was discussion with that with the legislators because of the sheer cost and sometimes you've just gotten it changed and then

009they for example like House Bill one, if we had to write a policy about House Bill one, then they immediately amended it the next year. So then you would have had to change it and run it back through the newspaper at at cost. Could someone just check into that just to verify because there was there was a piece where they said like at the county level the county could put it on their website but then we said well we don't necess we can't necessarily post our stuff on their website you know can the school system have it. Um, and my other thing was, but I did hear you say something about it when I had originally pushed this is I don't ever want, you know, I don't want 10 years from now a board to

010come in and be in the situation where we were in where there were a lot of policies from the 70s, 80s, 90s, you know, well, look, even now, even the ones the first two you've talked about today, nobody on this board was here when those were adopted or updated. and we just should never be running that many years behind on not updating. So, I'm not opposed to like a generic piece, but I don't want it to be left and then someone's caught not updating policies because that is one of our primary responsibilities. >> Agreed. Agreed. And I think there's probably been since Sunshine State standards, there's probably been two or three different ones in between. And so clearly I mean even something as blatant as that didn't really stick out to the point where somebody

011would have brought that forward. So great. So uh any other questions on policy 809? >> Very good. All right. And the other policy with uh minor changes is policy 718, the um school district's promotion and public [snorts] relations policy. And the one change there it just had not been reviewed. um since 2006 as well. And the one thing there is the word fundraising and that was it for that particular policy. >> Thank you board. Does anybody have any questions on this policy? >> Miss Haynes, >> I have a statement. When I first read the title on this one, if you'd have said, "What do you think this is about?" This is not what I would have expected to be in the narrative. I I I just don't feel like the title and what it's actually

012about go together, but that's my opinion. >> Any suggestions for title revisions? I don't >> this policy kind of talks about how the superintendent could use certain funds for certain >> Right. But >> fundraising. >> You first read school district promotion >> sounds. Huh? >> That sounds like promoting. >> Yes. It's almost as if like promotion of students >> marketing >> and then you read public relations >> finance >> and then you read the word public relations and that says like communication or something. So when you read what's actually in it, >> school district marketing, >> marketing, right? Or I'd even go marketing and fundraising, you know, because >> it's a big piece of your your marketing and you're collecting funds or resources >> for to use >> school district marketing and fundraising. >> Okay.

013So then do we need both? >> I I think so. >> We Well, we can look. What what did you suggest, Mr. Chair? >> Uh, school raising. >> School raising. >> No, school >> school district marketing and I suggested public relations is what I had said, but if somebody wants to amend that title, I'm good with that. Um, Miss Haynes, Miss Goodrich. >> Yeah, I would say marketing. Fun. I think fundraising is a separate function than marketing. So, I would separate the two even. >> Okay. So, we hear school district marketing. >> Yeah. Okay, we'll make a note of that. Um, >> anybody opposed to that? Do we have consensus? >> Is that good, Jesse? >> Good, good, good, good. Beautiful. >> So, we'll make that change and we'll have it ready for tonight for

014adoption. >> Wonderful. >> For advertisement. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> We're just going to call it school district marketing. >> Marketing. Yes. >> Does that align with what you were thinking? >> I just the title didn't. It needed to be something else. I felt it didn't match. What >> sounds good. Okay, we'll note that change for this evening. Uh the next policy is uh policy 418. And policy 418, uh this one had not been revised since 2002. And this is a personnel policy and its standards of conduct. And we've added some language to this particular policy. and Heidi Crims, one of our staff attorneys, is going to come and present this policy. >> Good afternoon. >> Can pull the microphone down so that they can hear you. Thank you. >> For this uh policy, like

015Dr. Evans mentioned, this one has not been updated since 2002. Uh there was language that was added uh basically to address how employees uh may access um sensitive and confidential information and how they would handle it moving forward. And this there was also an update to the Florida statutes as to the right of the board to adjust rules. Um and that was updated. All right, Miss Goodrich, >> can I presume this is what we're going to use to replace the NDAs? >> Yeah, it's I the NDAs were um sunsetted already and this is just going to basically um how the employees handle any confidential or sensitive information. Um, and there will be procedures that are done managerally to identify um because it will be by statute uh the definitions. >> Cool. I'm glad that it's

016written out. I'm glad that it's changed the so good to see this. >> Thank you, Miss Prosper. >> Couple of questions. That was actually going to be one of mine. So, thank you very much. Uh, so at at what point were the NDA sun sunseted? Uh the NDAs were son said it I think before in December. >> In December were the people who signed them notified that that they were not >> they were all notified. >> Okay. Yes. >> Thank you. I'm happy to know that. Um and I had understood also that this that the purpose of this language was to kind of accommodate the concerns that the NDA was intended to address. Uh I would just like to um add a phrase in the first line uh because u my primary concern with the

017NDAs was the expansion of the definition of what is confidential. So in the first line I'd like for it to say employees may access sensitive and confidential information as defined by state and federal law. So that we know >> he's referencing first line and the red line >> the first line of the of the red line. Correct. >> Other than that um I have I have no changes or questions. >> You said as defined by >> as defined by state and federal law and that way if state and federal law changes we don't have to do anything different either. >> Thank you Miss Browser. Do we have uh any thoughts on that, >> Miss Goodrich? >> I'm fine with it. That's my thought on it. >> No, that sounds fine. It'll keep us from having

018to update things if definitions do change at the state and federal level. >> So, Miss Haynes, >> I need to verify something. We handle a lot of sensitive data about students. that ha can't go out lots of times in request. It has to be redacted. You can't, you know, you can't just share with the public a child's IEP. You can't share anything about their health. You can't release their social security number. There there is a long list of what you can't. And at the same time, even just because you work for the school system, that doesn't if you if you're not in a situation where you're the teacher that actually needs to meet the goals of the IEP or you're the nurse or the principal that need to know about the child's health. You know,

019to this day, you still can't release. Um, and granted it was very very sensitive when it all came out and people were trying to figure it out, but you can't release if a child has AIDS. Okay? You can't do that. And at the same time, if you are not in a situation where you would need to know that or care for the child, it can't be released to just every anybody and everybody. My biggest thing is is number one, first and foremost, always protecting our students to ensure that information that should be protected for them is not released in any way, shape or form. Um, such as someone having access to it that shouldn't have access and then they repeat that information out in the public setting or discuss it on a school campus or

020things like that. So I just want to ensure that if we put all state and federal that we are not in any way at all leaving out because school systems are different because of what we handle. You know just as even medical you know like the hospital has to handle very sensitive data at times but there's companies and places out there that the data they have on their employees and things like that it's not confidential. There's nothing about it that's confidential. So, I want to ensure that we're not going to be risking or leaving open a door for interpretation for someone to share information that is sensitive. And I do believe that there may be a risk of the interpretation um part only because within the statutes and regulations there is a hierarchy of information.

021And a perfect example would be maybe our safety and security department. The information that they have is sensitive information handled um among staff and then the schools but it is not technically labeled confidential but it is exempt from public records laws. We couldn't release that information. So then it technically would fall under um a confidential or sensitive nature. So if we put in specifics, that's why it's not defined here. And I the thought was that it would be handled procedurally within each department um and at the school level because it's going what's confidential and sensitive is going to mean something different to each department and how it's handled. There are of course fura that says black and white this is what is confidential. But when you get into some of the minutia details of other

022information, especially when we get into Florida's public records laws and so forth, it um can get kind of muddy. >> So my question with that edit is, is there a definition for state and national? Because we can say sensitive information is defined by state and national, but does that even exist? In my understanding, the states typically broad. So it's they don't usually get into the details. So you would need in order to put that statement in there, we would have to define what statute or law it is reflecting to that has a list of things that are considered sensitive and confidential, which is what you're which is what you're referring to. So, I guess my question, and I mean it sounds like a takeaway, uh, is if that even exists because if it's broad, then

023it's not going to accomplish what we're setting out to accomplish because and everything with the state is broad. They don't ever define a thing. Um, and so I guess that's a question for the legal folks. And I would agree with you that it is very broad and sometimes it takes the three of us talking about um what the statute says, so to speak. Um and to get a clear understanding and interpretation, the the laws are definitely not as black and white as hope. >> Yeah. and and and and you know and and and to your point if let's say there was something going on at a school right and at the moment the principal deems that because it's still under investigation or whatever the case may be would say you know it's between the administrators

024let's just say I'm using hypothetical does a state and federal law say that they shouldn't I don't know I don't know if it goes as far as to define that that in that instance could be considered sensitive information given the context and so if we just leave it to state and federal I don't know that first of all I'm pretty sure state and f I'm just having do done this long enough I think state and federal is going to not have much and so we're going to be left where you know if if it's a sensitive topic at the time for what it is then we're going to be in trouble. Miss Prosmer, >> there is a difference between what is legally confidential and what might be considered sensitive. Um, I [clears throat] excuse me.

025I would guess that uh what is considered sensitive might be uh situational uh or determined by the location, the circumstances and that sort of thing. But we do have very specific laws that govern what is confidential. And we are not given the authority outside the legislature. We are not given the authority to redefine what is considered confidential and therefore not a matter of public record. That's the distinction that I'm trying to make sure that we stay with. everything that goes beyond that, interpretations and rules that may uh create gray areas. And I realize that this is not a black and white thing, but there has to be a standard. And the standard is whatever the state has defined as confidential, which means that is not a matter of public record and must not be disclosed

026publicly. and the feds have their own list of what is confidential and must not be disclosed. And and so that's my only purpose in wanting this established as our as our baseline. U that's not to say there aren't going to be changes along the way or modifications or interpretations, but we have to have a baseline and we have to be we have to know what that baseline is. And for me, um, stating it as state and federal law establishes that baseline. >> We're confidential. >> Yes. >> Okay. Uh, Miss Haynes, >> because another thing that's happened since all of that was written even years ago, is safety and security has totally changed on our campuses. And it started here in Florida with what happened at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas. And it used to be we made

027our safety and security plans available for parents to even know, you know, what we were going to do on campuses. They knew when we were going to have drills. They knew when, you know, they they had maps of the layouts of our school campuses. And we no longer now release any of that. But where does that fall right now? You know, under state, is that confidential now? Have they added it to the list or have they not added it to the list? Because as far as safety and security goes, we're told you can't hand over a map of a campus and you can't hand over the plans of like if you do a lockdown, this is what's going to happen. So that that's where I'm at because sometimes the law keeps up with it and

028sometimes the law doesn't. There are state and federal laws that are just as old as some of what our policies have been that say, okay, they have a list from 15 years ago of what was confidential versus what's confidential now. So, I I hear you and I'm all about having a basis, but if somebody goes and reads just that list and says, "Okay, in that list, it doesn't have this." So, I as a teacher, I can hand out a map of my school. >> And to your point, Miss Haynes, to answer that question as far as >> [clears throat] >> um the Marjorie Stoneman and so forth, it does in the statute, it does not say that it is confidential and it is a public records exemption um for releasing it. So, it would not

029fall under the definition of confidential. And so that's why um as defined by Florida statutes and federal regulations would be problematic if that's how we're defining confidential >> and we clone >> can I put in >> Miss Thompson next? >> Yeah, >> Miss Thompson. >> Yes. Thank you. And so is there any way we could get even maybe attached to this the definition of confidential that we are using maybe the state's definition because sensitive is on here too and sensitive and confidential are two different things but they're both addressed with this policy but I think we do need a definition of confidential just in case anything were to happen. Someone said well it says confidential but that's not how I interpret confidential. So without a definition or clear base point it's kind of not open

030to interpretation but you see where I'm going with that. And that's one reason why when you look at the policy, it's usually very general and not very specific. And the specificity usually comes when you look at the the application and the um procedure. The procedure for the policy usually defines what is specifically confidential or sensitive information. act and statute will have its own definition. And without an exhaustive list of every type of information that we could come in contact with at the school, it would be impossible to list a specific definition for confidential. >> Thank you, Miss Brosma. I think we're arguing two completely opposite points of view because by in my mind by saying state and federal law we're encompassing whatever the law is at that time and that includes public records exemptions they

031are part of the law too. The very reason we don't list what is confidential is because that list changes. But whatever at the time that we're applying that policy, whatever the law is at that time is what is applicable to that moment. Uh so we don't it's just like in the in the previous uh policy we were talking about where you make the the wording general so that you don't have to keep updating it as the law changes and exemptions are added to the public records laws and things like that that is part of state and federal law. So in my mind this um allows a a broad interpretation of the policy. And to to Mrs. Hayne's point about um safety and security. I find that to be really interesting because I know when when

032I was working in Denver, uh there was a a bill that was introduced that was that was intended to require maps of every water system in the state. Uh how it worked, where uh where it was located, where the pipelines were. And we in the water uh lobby corps were saying we can't do that >> because every time we expose all of those details about our infrastructure, we announce to the public where we're vulnerable. >> Yes. >> And and so I completely understand that approach to this concern. But that's why um if the statute allows or requires us to divulge information that jeopardizes um our safety and security, then we need to change the statute. But my my point is still keep it broad and whatever is in the law becomes our our baseline, including

033the exemptions. >> Well, and and I don't disagree with your position on I think it's good. I'm just saying we have to define it. So if you're going to say based on the law, there has to be a statute attached which is going to further defi. It can't just say be state and federal law. >> Well, there are statutes. >> So that that's what I'm I'm and that's my point in asking them. The same way we refer to different statutes is refer to what is the and so and I don't know that they can pull that today. uh which is which means we're on the right track here. Um but if that's what we're going to be used to define confidential, it's got to be based on law. Uh Miss Haynes, so my question is

034is if everybody will look at the second paragraph in red and read what it says and think about what we're saying. So it says failure to comply with these requirements constitutes a violation of this schoolboard policy and may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment and then it goes on from there. So when we're when we're saying our employees and our staff and our teachers and by the way I think it also means us as board members when we're saying so this is what we're going to follow and it's not clear what's confidential or what is exempt you know because they've exempted that piece or whatever. You know, someone could say, "Well, I read your policy, but I didn't know that that was wrong to do, or you know, you didn't

035tell me I couldn't release that or share that information or whatever." And and I and we're talking about we'll take someone's job away. And so when we're going to terminate someone, we need to make sure that prior to that termination piece, they understood, you know, that we have something to back the termination piece up with because I guess I've read um there's a current bill in the House and a current bill in the Senate and I apologize if I read it incorrectly, but it absolut that schoolboard members though um could actually have access to anything including information that is confidential or exempt from the public. And I struggle with that because I really don't know, okay, why would I need access to information that's confidential? You know, as a schoolboard member, my responsibility here is

036to be a member of one of five, to vote on policies, to vote on expenditures that are over $50,000, you know, to hire a superintendent, to evaluate a superintendent. And so I was kind of I I've been talking I have a schoolboard chat group. I've said this forever. Started in COVID and um it's only got it's not every district, but it's 20ome of them. and it has one person per district on that. And somebody actually posted the first house bill and said, "Hey everybody, read this and you know, what are your thoughts on it?" And I don't vote with them on their boards or you know, whatever. But I personally do not want the responsibility nor would there be ever be a need that I can see that I would need to know about something

037that is confidential or something that should be excluded you know is protected to be excluded because why would you open it up to one more person I don't need to know about a child's health you know if that's confidential I don't need to know. I'm I'm serious. For years, it's been the principal is the only person on a campus that knows if a child has AIDS to this day. I don't ever need to know that. That's not it's not anything I should have access to. So, that's something I'm going to be talking about when I'm in Tallahassee later this week. I'm sorry, but we're no different than everybody else and we should not have access to that type of read something about a but board member should supersede or something, I don't know, and have

038access to this stuff. I don't I don't agree with that. I mean, if if it's what what if it's one of my grandchildren, okay? And where he goes to school, somebody on a board can choose to have access that's confidential information about him. I I don't agree with that. I can't even believe we've got something we're looking at like that. But if you know m chair uh miss haynes that's why in this policy it also we're recommending language discussions involving sensitive end of the first paragraph that's in red discussions involving sensitive or confidential information be should be restricted to individuals whose job functions require access to that information. So just because you are employed by the school district doesn't mean that you automatically get access to sensitive or confidential information. Your job needs to require

039it. That's what we're proposing. >> Thank you. >> So here is an incident and I'm not going to name any of the people involved here in Valuchia County Schools where teachers lots of times can access the stu they should be able to absolutely access their students records what they need to educate the child. Okay. But if they or another employee on campus start accessing students information that they are not in direct contact with on a daily basis because and it's an incident that's happened here because I'm trying to find out who has the highest GPA and who's in the running for validictorian and saludiatoran. that gets that shouldn't happen. Okay? I mean, I've told you guys how I feel. I actually feel that when it comes to that, if I'm an algebra 2 teacher, I

040should know what I need to know, but I don't even I shouldn't know that child's GPA and know where they're at ranking in their classroom. Okay? because we've had incidents blow up on campuses where somebody's accessed it and then kids have gone and said, "So, hey, you're in this spot, um, but we're going to take you out of it." I mean, none of that is appropriate. Okay? Or that parents that are employed are using it to leverage where their child will be. that to me but nowhere does it say right that that's a confidential piece but I've told you guys I think only the principal should have access to that information and I can address that specific point because that does fall under furpa >> and for legitimate educational purpose is um how it's defined

041as who would have access to that information. So in that instance um that we could conceivably say would be a violation of this policy and as to making sure that the employees know um what is confidential, what is sensitive, how it applies to them, that's all going to be part of the procedures that are put in place and also ongoing um annual training uh for the employees so that they know because accounting thing, so to speak, does not necessarily need to understand um the confidential nature of FURPA um and so forth. So, we're going to tailor it to the needs of the department. >> Thank you, Miss Goodrich. >> So, my issue with identifying certain statutes is like if we say, okay, this pertains to statute 102.22, 22 statutes change and get amended and repealed

042and deleted all the time. So, I don't think referring to a statute is a good idea. Um and a quick search revealed that Florida does define confidentiality um as anything that information that is exempt from public disclosure under the sunshine law typically involving proprietary business data, personal identifying details, investigatory information, or communications protected by privilege like domestic violence advocacy with special definitions varying by statute. eg trade secrets, financial data, security info, but generally requiring harm to the entity or person if revealed, often needing a court order or specific or specific statutory exemption for protection. So >> I'm good with that. I >> is that I mean I I think that still has quite a bit of subjective nature to it >> and many >> so at the end of the day at the end of

043the day still is under state and federal and it just >> it's broad and I think that's those those specific >> things are what we're all vying for and fighting for here not fighting not fighting but you know what I'm saying um is we're trying to make sure that we're protecting what needs to be protected but not violating sunshine or not hiding information or not keeping something, you know, like that's the goal. So, I think this is broad and and covers it. >> What statute is that? >> It's not a statute. It's a definition. >> Definition. Okay. >> Very good. >> All right. So >> just for clar >> sorry go ahead Miss Brosmer >> uh to that point um there's language just one word that you use in the second paragraph that I think

044might simplify the first paragraph and that is applicable. Uh we don't expect every everyone who contracts with us or everyone who encounters doing business in with any kind of transaction with the school district to know what uh our specific policy is and we should have told them and and all of that stuff. Um we are bound by whatever the applicable law is at that time at the time of that transaction. And so um it's you use it in the second paragraph. It seems to me that it would work just as well also in the first paragraph. >> Yes. >> All right. Any objections to that amendment to this policy? Do we have consensus to add that language >> and that language specifically as defined by applicable state and federal law? >> Yes. >> Beautiful. Good,

045Jamie. Good. All right. I agree. Uh, anything else? >> Okay. All right. We'll move on to the next policy. >> We'll make that change. >> Thank you. >> All right. And then the last policy for discussion today is a new policy and that's policy 616 and it's one of our facilities policies and it's entitled policy on district reimaging and uh Miss Core and Mr. Cash will come and talk us through this policy. >> Thank you. Welcome Chair Cologne, Superintendent Balgabin. So policy 616 is a new policy as Dr. Evans alluded to and you might be wondering why are we creating a new policy on 616. I can tell you that it's been quite some time ago, months and months ago, that the superintendent directed staff based on looking at conditions in legislative changes with uh

046schools of hope uh and collocation in addition to declining enrollment that we needed to have some sort of mechanism in place to uh analyze this kind of information and we currently did not have that in place. So we looked at creating this policy to guide our work so that it would take away any subjectivity and there would be a set of criteria and metrics in place that would guide the work on some of the changes that may have to be forthcoming. So that is the reason for this particular policy. And what it also does is it does something additionally that I didn't realize we did not have in place. But within this policy on reimaging as well and outlining the criteria on our resoning or boundaries, it was not in policy. That is also put

047in this document. So that it is in policy. Uh that is the rationale for this. Uh it's got I know the board has seen this policy. I think it's got some clearly identifiable metrics to allow us to do the way of the work. and then uh the rest of the team is here if need be and we'd be happy to answer any questions as you have your discussion. >> Thank you board. As you know, we had the opportunity to meet with staff this week to review this policy as well and ask any questions that were necessary. Uh does anybody have any questions on this policy? Miss Haynes, >> the only thing I I want to ask when you look at all the other policies we just reviewed, when you look at all the other policies

048we just reviewed, none of them say the word policy. They just say what they are. Does it need to say policy on district since it's going to be a policy or can it just say district reimaging? >> Semantics at the top. I understand what you're saying. I >> I mean, and I double checked. I looked at every other one that we've done and nothing else says policy in front of it. A good catch as usual, Miss Haynes. Got it. >> We'll remove that. >> Thank you. Any other questions? And so I want to thank you because this allows a framework for the work to happen and and allows what we are already doing and what we will be doing uh to be uh established in policy, which you know, I think everybody does it the

049best way they know how. However, I'm grateful that this has come together in writing and into fruition. Um, looking forward. Any other questions, thoughts, feelings, concerns, or edits? Sorry, Jamie. >> I also want to thank you because I know that you've been working on this and we've had many meetings. Um, and I thank all the time that all the people that put into this, um, you know, invited each of us to come and sit down with you and hear how you made the percentages what they were and all of that. And you know, to me, this is so clear like you're you're not and I kept giving feedback every time, you know, that we you invited us to meet with you. And it it's just going to be so much easier. What's strange is I

050live through the whole build Deltona and reszone every year and it was never a big deal. Um, but now things seem to, you know, be a much bigger deal than what they used to because I can tell you of a young lady who now works for Village County Schools that she got reszoned four times in her elementary career because where she lived every time we opened it because we were bu opening schools almost every year at that time. Every time we opened a new school, she happened to be in the part that now got zoned to that new school each time. So, thank you. And I I haven't found any loophole yet that somebody could use to not follow this. But thanks for all the work. >> Very good. Thank you. And we will take

051a five minute stretch break and we'll move on to the next topic. Thank you. You're ready. All right. Welcome back. Thank you so much for that uh your patience. Uh we are going to move on to the next item on the agenda. Dr. Balgabin. >> Thank you, Chair. Um he's already here. I would like to ask our chief uh technology officer, Mr. Dr. Matt and Paul Mzer, is Paul joining you? >> Uh on teams. >> Okay. Paul uh Merur, our director for software and systems department. He is on teams. They're going to provide us today with a um an update as it pertains to our ERP and our ERP implementation. how that's coming along against the established timeline resources that has been allocated and where there are some opportunities and where there are some successes.

052So, and Dr. so that you know, he's part of FETC in Orlando. So, he actually left and travel to come back here for this presentation, but they did a phenomenal job Sunday evening. him and his team, they serve in several um committees there, but also presentations leading some of the work as it pertains to AI in the state of Florida. So, thank you, Dr. >> Wonderful. Thank you. Welcome. >> Thank you, Chair Cologne, members of the board. Uh I am Matt your chief technology officer, and with me today on Teams is director of software and systems, uh a department in the IT division. That's Mr. Paul Mezer. You probably just heard that little beep. that was uh teams joining. Uh also on teams we'll have Martina. Um Martina is a project manager from focus and

053she will probably be in and out possibly. They're doing training right now over in Tampa. So that's why Paul is also over there. They're joining us from Tampa. And then Audrey Delio may end up joining. She's dealing with an emergency right now, but she will join just in case any questions come up she might need to answer. But really the presentation is is all from me. So first uh this aligns to guardrail 3. Of course it's about improving operational efficiency and maximizing resources to support student learning. Now I'll begin with just making sure everybody's grounded in what an ERP is because it is the most complicated piece of software that you'll ever come across in pretty much any organization. Uh even the term ERP is kind of misleading. It's a very strange term. inter enterprise

054resource planning you know you know trying to guess what that really means what it does um it doesn't have much to do with planning uh it is at the e uh enterprise level and it does manage our resources but if I were to rename it I would call it the operational systems software because that's really what it is it runs all of our operational systems like HR finance budgeting and so on is also a very good source of data so when We are running an ERP at its full capability. It is also supposed to be able to provide us with analytics and predictive tools. Uh it's not there yet because we're still in implementation, but that is a future aspiration for the ERP system that we can get good information out of that system. This

055is what our ERP looked like about a year and a half ago. Uh it still kind of looks like this in some areas uh because we are not finished implementing but as you can see this is a very complex chart. Um the blue circle is really where the ERP should be with inside that but you can see there's a lot of pieces outside of the ERP. This is an ERP that has floated aimlessly down a river for many years and picked up a lot of scraps along the way. And so it's been just cobbled together bit by bit over many uh different implementations and it's in a very inefficient ERP. It's actually two ERPs smashed together, Oracle and Cross Point. Uh that is a a very difficult situation to be in when you really have

056two programs that are not ever built to be running with another one of their same type. Oracle is supposed to run just as itself as an ERP and so is Cross Point. uh but we decided long ago that we could not get either one of them to do everything we needed them to do. So we meshed them together and stitched them together and that's very hard to maintain. Uh because if one for example Oracle um changes their software, updates their software, it can break all the connections to the other one. And and remember this is a software that we can never stop use stop use of, right? We can't just say well let's just stop for a few months and let's get this right. this train is always on the tracks, always moving. So if

057there's something wrong with the train, you fix it while it's moving. Uh so that also adds complexity to the ERP. It's not something we can turn off at any given time because then people wouldn't get paid. We wouldn't have budgets. We wouldn't be hiring people. And we can't ever stop doing those things. So what are we trying to do? We're trying to take that diagram you saw a moment ago and simplify it. We're trying to bring more things into that blue circle. Those are 17 focus ERP modules or think of them as 17 software programs that are all operational in nature that all need to work together. So the first one was to bring cross point or also called terms into the ERP the focus ERP system. We have done that. Crossoint is no longer

058an operational ERP in Valuchia County schools. That's a very good thing for a couple of reasons. one cross point or terms has not existed as a company for many many years. That's a very fragile place to be. You know, if something goes wrong, you cannot call anyone. There's no one who knows it. So, we were running it all on our own. A dead software that had no support of any sort, no updates, no security updates, you know, like old green screen kind of stuff that that you hope will stay running. So we were no longer needing to hope that it just keeps running. We turned it off last July and we have been on it ever since. Uh the new ERP that is. We do still have cross point only for one big purpose right

059now and that's historical records. Uh there are times where we may have to look up something you know from many years ago that happened in crossoint that we did not bring into the new ERP. So we still have it for a little bit longer but it's really just running you know by itself. it's not operational at this at this time. The gray box is five new connections to software that we cannot bring into the ERP. Uh these are software systems that we we have consolidated many software systems into the ERP, but these are the five we decided not to consolidate into the ERP. There's various reasons for that. Sometimes it's because they do something just so much better than the ERP would be able to do it that it wouldn't make sense to go from

060a, you know, a good functional software to one that didn't have that capability. So, for example, Bank of America does our transactions through the bank and the bank requires that. So, you know, we're going to use their software obviously. So those connect to AIM which is for operations uh smartfind express which is our substitute system prime benefits bank of America and class link. Those are the five connections that we have to make integrations with. That's kind of like saying I want to teach this person that speaks Japanese to to learn to talk to somebody who speaks English. And uh you have to build that that translation between them. We had a lot of trouble, as you may have heard, you know, last semester with Smartfind Express, the substitute system, trying to get those two systems

061to talk to each other. We eventually did get there. Uh, a couple months back, we were able to finally solve that problem, and those two systems are now talking to each other back and forth. But that's not a problem that you can just buy an off-the-shelf kind of canned solution for. That's something you have to develop in-house with your partner Focus until you finally get it right. And remember I said that train never stops moving. So just because we needed to fix this system didn't mean we didn't have substitutes to place. So we had to have manual systems going on in the at the same time as we created the automated systems in the ERP which again adds complexity to it. The orange box is what we're mainly working on now bringing in Oracle and

062the finance and budget modules into the blue circle. Right now we are running in parallel with Oracle meaning that the focus finance pieces are running but they're running in something called a sandbox uh like a a test environment something that's not real but it has same data so that we can see how it works with our current Oracle system that is currently functioning as the main uh finance piece of the ERP. When we come to April we we plan on switching over. So when April comes, we will then turn off Oracle and go to the focus ERP assuming all parallel testings come out properly. If they don't, we would have to delay that. But there are a number of tests and a number of tests that have already occurred that will happen between now and

063April to make sure that we are ready to do that and that things will function as planned. And then lastly, time clock plus. We also plan on bringing that in along with some other small in-house programs that we've created over the years such as e portal um and that is the last piece actually time clock plus we've already brought half of it in but only the h hourly part not the salaried part and we're really not in a hurry to get that one done it can wait for the other more important pieces so that's why it's on the last last bit there so when it's all said and done we're hoping for an ERP that looks more like this one Here uh you can see that blue circle in the middle that think of that

064as the centralized processing database the ERP brain and then it has all of its tentacles and there are 17 of those and those are all the subprograms that are connected together by the ERP. The gray ones are the ones that are not inside the ERP but we have to create an integration or a translation program so that we can talk back and forth between those gray programs that I mentioned uh earlier. So where are we in our implementation? This is a simplified timeline. Uh the timelines we actually use are Gant charts and they're very complex and long and they're about every single little project. So it would take me like a whole day to go through all the Gant charts with you. But this simplified timeline here shows you that we're about uh 75% of

065the way through the implementation. And you can see that that one hiker at the top there with the the ponytail. That's Audrey Delio helping her staff up the hill there. Um she really does lead a lot of the efforts as the manager of the business applications team in IT. When you see two of the bars overlapping and they're colored, so the the colored parts are overlapping. For example, HR systems and cross point being yellow till July and then you see HR systems on focus ERP in green and then in July the yellow drops off. That's when the parallel testing stopped. So that yellow and green was parallel from March to July 2025 and then we decided it was time to go live in July and then uh HR was on focus only not on cross

066point. So as you can see right now, Oracle and Focus are running in parallel in the blue and the pink lines until April. All right, so we move on. Um, let me explain a little bit about what I mean by this metaphor. Uh, RAP is going through sea trials. So you know that the US Navy has the best nuclear engineers in the business when it comes to creating nuclear submarines. you know, they're paid well. Big money goes to these projects. They're really important that they get it right. So, they do their best in dry dock to create a nuclear submarine, but they know no matter how much they test that submarine out in dry dock, no matter how much effort they put into it, that something's not going to be quite right, that there will

067be something that they can't foresee that will go wrong that they need to find and then fix. So they put their submarines through something called sea trials where they basically take the new submarine and put it through a number of tests out in the water, you know, in real sailing conditions to see if all the systems work as planned. And always always they find something that didn't go right that they need to fix while they're sailing along. Now the sailors of a submarine and sea trials have it a little easier than we have it because they have one submarine to deal with. We have two ERPs that we are converting over Cross Point and Oracle [laughter] and they do not have to conduct war operations with their submarine when it's in sea trials where we

068do have to continue to pay people. We do have to continue to operate a a functional ERP while we also create and test one. So that creates a lot of of barriers to doing things fast. You have to be careful when you're running the ERP that's the old one and making the new one and testing out that new one all simultaneously. It also creates staff problems. There's only so many Audrey delios in the world and I can't split all of their functions too much or they can't get any one thing done. So sometimes I have to say that part can wait. This part is the part that's most important. Let's concentrate here. However, there is one part that is the hardest of the 17 modules because it comes up every 15 days. Uh many of

069our other modules are not quite as demanding, but the payroll module has to constantly be helped and tended to every 15 days it comes up. Um so you have to stop what you're doing and get that one going and then come back to the other ERP implementation pieces as you can uh as payroll is paid. Another complication with payroll is that payroll is constantly changing. No one payroll cycle is just, you know, standard. Like we constantly feel like there's something new that is going on in payroll. We just had a meeting the other day a few days back about the current challenges in payroll when it comes to raises and backay. There are many parameters that are not in the software because they're valu parameters or they're recent parameters. For instance, the legislature recently required

070that uh everyone that gets performance pay have two years of experience. That's a brand new thing that just hit. And so that means that we have to somehow figure out how do we sort all of our employees that have two years experience so that they then qualify for the next parameter, which is their score on performance pay. This all has to be automated. We can't go through each of our 8,000 plus employees accounts one at a time. That wouldn't work. It would take a year to do that with many staff members. So somehow we have to automate it in a way where we won't see each individual outcome but we can somehow test it to see if it did actually accurately calculate across those thousands and thousands of accounts. And that's only that parameter. There

071are many other parameters such as making sure that new hires are at $50,000 base salary. But after they get their 1.5% raise and is that a cola raise and then do we do a performance pay raise and then do we make sure about that um that qualification of two years? Are they the right group that we're talking about like that's instructional that's not non-bargaining. So you can see how like this gets pretty complicated through like a flowchart of how do we find all these things and automate them. The software is not built to do all of them. So to do it fast but do it accurately is our challenge. So what projects have been accomplished so far? Well, we've migrated 5.8 5.7 terabytes of HR data. That's a huge amount of data. Uh we have

0723.3 terabytes of finance data that we also have recently completed migrating. uh just the data migration alone is a huge task because you have to first clean up the data before you bring the data over. You don't want to bring up dirty data from 20 years back that has a lot of mistakes and strange things in it that you don't want messing up your new ERP. So you first get it scrubbed and then bring it over and then you try to make sure that every piece that was brought over was brought over in the way you hope it was supposed to be brought over. Um there are hundreds of parameters that come with this data. One of them, you might remember, did not bring over correctly, and that was the payment for supplements. It was

073brought over with a little writer on it that was supposed to say taxable, but it came over for some people, not all, but some as non-t taxed. And then we found that when people got their paychecks and we went in tried to find out what the problem was and found that that data migration had not brought that particular out of hundreds of types of data that particular one did not come over properly which is fixed now what you saw a moment ago was a scrolling list and you'll see a number of those scrolling lists as I go through these slides. The reason I'm showing you a scrolling list as opposed to like going through each one of these is because we just really don't have the kind of time it would take to go through

074each one of these. Each one of these is a project in itself in implementing the ERP. And these are all the ones that have been completed in the year and a half that we've been working on it so far. You'll also notice though that some of them are in black and some of them are in red. Very few of them are in red, but some are. The red ones are the ones that we had the most trouble with. When I say most trouble, that could mean a lot of things. That could mean that we didn't know what the problem was. Like we couldn't figure out at first why this wasn't working. And we had to bring in programmers and consultants and try to figure out what is actually wrong with this. Why will it not

075work properly? And then we finally figured it out and reprogram the software and then it finally worked. It could be that um we had trouble with a vendor like for example Smartfind Express. uh the the vendor on that side really wanted to have nothing to do with integrating it with focus. They said that is all on you. You know, we're not going to do that. You know, we that is not our problem. So sometimes something that we assume is going to be a little easier like oh they'll help us out with this. They end up not helping us out with that and it delays the program or causes problems. Uh we've also had problems with focus themselves where sometimes we need something fixed and then we go to them and they say ah sorry we

076can't be with you for a couple weeks because we're with Penllis this week and they have a problem you know before you and then we have to put that engineer on Penllis and then they'll get to you. So that delays us. But the good news is everything that you see in red is a past problem. Those are not current problems. Those are problems that did hamper our um progress over the last year and a half or the last semester, but they have all been solved. I just want to bring them up because they're probably ones you have heard of before uh but you know didn't necessarily know that there were all these black ones that kind of flew under the radar that worked perfectly fine and you never really heard about. All right. Um I

077didn't talk about let's see what projects are left to do. So that was this slide here. So we have six months left on our two-year implementation and you see there are a few more scrolling projects for that as well. So we do have a good hunk of work left. You know 25% of the ERP implementation is still a large hunk of of ERP implementation. Uh the board docs handouts you have have these projects in PDF form. So they're not scrolling, you know, like they are right now on my screen. All right. Now, I want to emphasize that even though I gave you these scrolling lists, it's really a lot more detailed than that when we look at them weekly as we go through various meetings with the implementation teams. They're on charts that kind of

078look like this. This is just a screen screenshot of one of the very many ERP Gant charts that we have. Uh they are nested. So, there's projects within projects. They have deadlines on them. They have durations of how long it's supposed to take, percentage of completion, who actually is responsible for it, and so on. And we go through these Gant charts every single week for every one of those black projects that you saw scrolling by uh on the previous slides. We're tracking 115 focus ERP support request tickets each um at the current moment. And so what that means is um when we ask focus for assistance and you you know you have probably heard us say before we're going to have to ask focus to help us with that. Right now we are asking focus

079to help us with 115 things at the moment that we are all tracking. How is that going? And you might say oh my gosh 115 that's a lot of problems. Well it's pretty typical for a ERP implementation. It doesn't surprise me because there are so many things going on simultaneously. There's probably a thousand different things that we could be talking about, but 115 of them are the ones that we really need any help with with uh focus. This is a very wordy slide and so I'm not going to, you know, read this to you. The point of showing it to you is that this is a new protocol that we just implemented this month called IVNV. Uh IVMV stands for independent verification and validation. So or validation and verification basically it's another step above what

080we've already been doing for quality assurance. So what I did is I said okay you know I I I had a meeting with focus and I said let's look through all of our quality assurance protocols like all the ways we make sure something is working right. We looked through all of them and I noticed that all of them were internals. What I mean by that is the people checking the work were the same people that did the work. So, you know, Audrey checked her own code, Focus checked their own code, and they would they would run through these, and we would check Focus's code, and they would check ours, but we were all people inside the No, like we were in the circle of of solving the problems and making the solutions. And so I

081said, 'You know, I think I would like another layer to this that has nothing to do with hearing the problems or solving them, just test the solution. And so I hired a company or a a person from a company called Robert Half. And that person is now uh tasked with this. It's actually one and a half people. So I have a part-timer and a full-timer. and their main job is to look at these solutions that have been put into place even after like a month or two later and just to see if they're still working as planned and independently from the rest of the team. So if they find something they bring that to our team and say we tried this out and it doesn't seem to be working actually as the as as you

082guys thought and that helps us see things from a different perspective. So they're going to be doing that for the next six months just to add a bit more of a layer. That doesn't mean that nothing will go wrong. It doesn't mean that something won't get by us, but it means that we're checking things as much as we can check them uh to make sure that we get things fixed as quickly as possible. The current implementation team uh is what you can see here. We had 19 members. Uh no, actually it was Yeah, I think I've uh already at No. Yeah, 19 was the old number. So, we've added 1.5 from our side. So now it's 20 and a half and focus has added one. So it's now up to 20. So these are all

083the different types of people that work on the ERP from both our side and from the focus side. Some of these work on it practically full-time. Others it's more like the side job to their real job. you know, because that's the that's the real hard part about implementing an ERP is many of the people that have to be involved with the implementation already have a full workload of what they're currently doing with the current ERP. I'll give you one example. Uh Brian Clem. Brian Clem works in business applications and he is the ERP systems administrator for Oracle. He has to keep Oracle running. Oracle is our current financial system. So he gets tickets every day from schools and departments helping them keep Oracle functioning as it has been for years. But it's a full-time job

084for him to do that. He also needs to be involved in bringing focus on as the finance piece for our ERP because he's the main player with administering the Oracle component. So he has that extra piece that we've loaded onto him. This means many of our our folks haven't taken any days off for a long time. In fact, many of them work over weekends to get this extra part done. Where is the implementation going? As I mentioned before, in April, um we have a go live coming up. So that's the end of this chart here, April 2026 go live. And that's what we're really focused on. Before that, uh last April, we kicked off the project in April of 2025. uh in April 2025 to 2026 we have the data ELT that's extraction and transformation

085and loading uh October and these are all things that have just you know recently happened gap analysis uh then we have the gap testing so gap analysis is where we see what did we used to do compared to what we're going to do and what is not in there for example that two years experience for payroll for performance pay that's a gap app, right? The new ERP doesn't do that. Um, so we need to develop that in the new ERP. IT configuration and maintenance training is uh last November. Then now we're up to the current month district level user training. So we're training all the finance division right now. That's why many people are over in Tampa at this very moment and from finance and some of my own folks like Paul Mezer. Um they're

086over there getting trained right now by focus in Tampa. Uh then February is a big month for us. That's the parallels. That's where we've basically come to the game. You know, we've done all the practice. We've put the game plan in place and now it's time to see if this thing really functions next to Oracle. So throughout February, we'll be doing various types of functions and tests to see if the new ERP functions as it should compared to what we would have got if we did that in Oracle. If all goes well in April, we will then turn on focus ERP for all our finance and budget modules and we will turn off Oracle. Now uh when I say we will turn off Oracle, there are two pieces that will still go through till July

087and that's the integration with AIM and TransMan. So for transportation and operations. So Oracle will actually still be running for those two groups only for transportation and for operations because they'll still be on their old uh connections to Oracle until we can get them connected over into focus. So you can kind of think of it as phase two is to get focus as our finance ERP in April. Phase 2 A is to bring over the last two parts which is AIM and transm. So our real goal is by the time the fiscal year changes over on July 1 that everything everything is the new ERP and the old ones are just for historical purposes only. So now I want to talk a little bit about our challenges. Uh I mentioned some of them already. For

088example, having to build the new one while the old ones are still running. Uh but there's a few other things I haven't mentioned yet. Customizing. Customizing is very difficult. Uh what happens often with customizing is we will go into a training situation with the people that will be using like finance right now for instance they're being trained up right. So finance could come back from their training and say we don't like this one thing like this part doesn't work the way we like it and this is not how Valuchia does things and we didn't know that until we got trained you know but now that we've been trained we see that we don't like this part and we would like you to change it. Sometimes that's an easy thing. Sometimes we can say, "Oh, we

089can just configure it a little different and it'll do that just fine." Other times that's a major code rewrite that's going to affect many other systems. So it's dangerous to do the change. Uh so sometimes we have to delay them and say, you know, we can't do that until we test that a lot many different ways because that's going to put us behind schedule. Um or it's something that focus is not ready to do right now and don't want to do. So customizations is really a piece by piece challenge that we go through each time it's requested. Um other implementations in the district, there are other software programs that have nothing to do with an ERP. They're like learning software, communication software or something like that. And uh the district wants those implemented. Guess what

090staff does those implementations? The same people that are doing our ERP implementations. So uh that is a big challenge for us as well is that they pull our staff off the ERP implementation to implement other systems that also need their same expertise. So Audrey for example, Audrey Delio is a point person in the ERP implementation, but she would also be need needed for anything else operational in nature. So if somebody wants an operational software, they're going to call Audrey and she may say, "I can't do that today because I'm working on the ERP." So that's a big challenge for us too is to try to do the ERP and still deal with all the other software implementations that the rest of the district uh wants out of its other districts are also implementing focus. First

091it was Penllis, now Bvard is coming on board as well. Uh and Bay is still implementing some parts as well and there could be others. Right. FETC is going on right now and there's a booth there from Focus and they're probably trying to sell another district on their ERP. So, every time I hear of another district coming on board with Focus as an ERP client, it makes me nervous because those people over at Focus are going to be stretched just a little bit thinner and it be a little bit harder to get hold of. Um, so I have had talks with Focus about this about how and so is Dr. Bman with me about how they need to keep our level of support where it needs to be. Even when they bring on new clients,

092they're going to have to hire other staff uh so that we don't drop off in support. But it is a challenge for us. All right. Now, moving on to the costs, cost comparisons. So on the these are two different columns, left and right, two different things. The operating costs, these are yearly annual costs that will happen every year. uh they're just the lensure of the services. So as you can see in the old ERP, it's a longer list because remember I said we're trying to bring more things into the blue circle. We're trying to get rid of some of these side softwares that the ERP could have done. For example, searchoft is no longer a software system in Valuchia County Schools. We now use the ERP's applicant tracking system inside the ERP itself. So you

093can see that when you add up all of those costs of the old ERP, we had about $1.15 million in lensure costs per year. And that's currently happening that this year. That is our cost. But when the ERP is fully implemented, the cost will go down to about $639,000, which is a 44% reduction yearoveryear. Remember, we're saving that every year we move forward. Now, yes, their prices will probably go up some over time, but not drastically. You know, they'll go up by normal inflation, and so would of the other prices. Oracle constantly is increasing their prices by more than inflation. So, I see that as a a major costsaving moving forward, and that's not even talking about all the efficiencies that will come from an ERP from a staff time and labor point of view.

094the implementation costs. Moving on to the right side column, um the last time we finished uh I should say stopped our ERP implementation in 2020, we were only halfway there and we stopped because we were bleeding money and we could not come up with a system that would do the whole thing. So, we finally cut bait and said, "Okay, time to stop just spending all this, you know, ridiculous amount of money on this consultant that doesn't seem to be able to do it, a consultant uh service called Cherry Road, and uh and just sit sit tight with what we've got until we can figure something out." Now, remember, this was also pandemic time, right? So, there were many priorities going on in the district at that time. Um, so we spent about $7.8 8 million

095on a partial implementation that essentially did not get done what it was supposed to get done. Then when I came on board, um it was a prerogative uh given to me that I figure out how to get the ERP back on the tracks and choose uh an ERP through an ERP process. And then we did that, chose focus and uh the implementation costs through July. This is not through current. This is what we um project through all the way this fiscal year will be $684,000 which is a 91% less uh cost than the last implementation. Uh I believe we will be successful. So when July comes and we say okay we finally have a a complete ERP. It doesn't mean it will be perfect. It doesn't mean there won't be still things we need to

096hash out and refine. We'll still have a lot of training to do because it really takes about a whole year before everybody starts to master the the new skills needed and then we really start to pick up the efficiency from the new ERP. So next year is still a year of transition, but that implementation cost will fall off the books and we'll move to just the operating costs and finally have this ERP problem behind us. What are the benefits uh when we're all done? I mentioned many of those. I also want to explain a little bit about the implementation dip that we went through last semester. That's that curve on the right side. Michael Fulen is a educational researcher and he talks about this implementation dip about any largecale change especially technological ones. When we

097have a big technological change, it gets worse before it gets better. It's harder before it's easier. It's more expensive before it's cheaper. That's just how it goes when you first start an ERP. Everybody's confused. They remember the old ways and they don't know if the new ways were going to really work. They have lost confidence because they they themselves feel like they're not as as good at this anymore. Uh they don't know which parts are really in play and which parts are are are on yet. Uh just a lot of confusion, a lot of training has to happen. It takes time to get through all of that. And so that implementation dip kind of hits you and you feel the inefficiency actually and it hurts because you know the ERP is supposed to make things

098better not worse. What I say is trust me have perseverance. We'll get through this and we'll get to a point where it does feel better. But that first semester that we went through it was hard but the submarine didn't sink. We still paid people. We still hired people. We still placed substitutes. We still had a successful semester as a school district and it's only going to get better from here. So now I will take any questions or comments you have. >> Thank you, Miss Haynes. >> So Dr. I just want to make sure that I understood correctly about the, you know, once we get to July and the operating cost piece and everything. Yes. And hello, we're happy to have you here. um we can maintain like we'll keep the historical data from cross point

099but we're not going to pay we're not going to pay any of those people under the old RP what we've been paying correct >> almost let me explain a little bit crossoint is maintained on a server that's an extremely old type of server and it can't be loaded on a new type that's one of its downfalls that old type of server we have we have to pay a company a special maintenance fee to keep that old kind of server running. Um, and it's about $50,000 a year. So, until we find a way to get everything out of Cross Point in a way that we can access and search it properly, we'll still be paying that. Now, we don't plan on doing that forever. You know, that is a project of ours next year, but we'll

100probably be paying that $50,000 for a little while until we're sure we've got all that historical data. Now speaking of Oracle, uh Oracle we have a contract through July. Okay? So we plan on not renewing Oracle after July. Now this is predicated on everything going as planned. If if there were some issues where we wanted to keep Oracle going a little bit longer because we needed their help a little bit longer, we could pay some more to Oracle, but we wouldn't do a whole year contract with them. That that's $800,000 plus. we would do a monthby-month kind of consulting contract with them. I don't foresee that happening. That's not the plan. Uh but it's a possibility. >> So when you're looking at that slide, can you tell us under the old ERP, you know, is

101there anything else we're going to be keeping for a while or are we going to be removing and I know and I knew search soft was already removed. Are we going to be removing all of those? >> So everything you see under the new ERP is the stuff we are going to keep. So you notice we still have AIM there. We still have Smartfind Express. So those two costs will continue to be paid every year, but those are inside that total of $639,000. >> But the the >> but everything else is going to drop off. >> Okay. But you said you're going to keep Cross Point for a while until you can switch it to a new server. The historical data, >> right? We might figure that out by this summer. I mean, so that

102that's not necessarily going to go through the whole year, >> but all of those and we've already done away with search soft, but all of those other well, we're moving AIM down. >> Some of those are already gone. Okay? >> Like for example, my school bucks, we already don't pay that. Um, we already don't pay time clock or uh school funds online. Those are ones that basically dropped off last summer. >> Okay. So when we look over at the implementation cost and what we were paying Cherry Road along with Oracle, >> we're no longer paying that cost. We have we already dropped that. >> Dropped which >> the under implementation cost when we did from 2017 to 2022, I mean 2020, we were paying Cherry Road like a third party. The last payment to Cherry

103Road uh was in 2023, I think, and it was a settlement payment of around $127,000 of about a $900,000 final bill they had, and we negotiated it down quite a bit to about $100,27. >> So, basically, if we look at this, it's like put an X over what the implementation was costing us. Mhm. >> Put an X over basically almost all of the old ERP. What we're going to be paying this next year as we move into it will be the new ERP piece which is we're keeping those programs right now. Y >> and then the new ongoing focus ERP. >> The implementation part is just this year. So that should drop off next year as well. So then what will we con so will we continue then just for the ne new ERP price

104starting on July 1? >> Yes. As as long as we don't have to do a little bit with that cross point part that I was talking about it'll drop dramatically like we'll be down to the tens of thousands of dollars if anything. And I think when we meet in July, I'd like to make a request that at that point we get just like an update with, okay, here's what we're now down to. like here's what we were paying and here's what we're now down to and this is the savings that we've had because I know it's been a long road and a lot of work and um and I appreciate it but actually we've just been you know we were bleeding money there for a while and you know that when you walked in the

105door and everything and so this is this is wonderful I mean what we were paying Cherry Road was an astronomical amount of money for quite a period of time was. >> So, I would just I'd like to start the year off because that's when we're talking about budgets and things like that in July and you'll know then where you stand and if you're going to have to keep Cross Point going a little longer and all that. I'd just like to see it so that we understand the cost savings we have. >> We'll be ready to go in July with the updated numbers on everything, give you that report. I'd like to mention one thing about Cherry Road. Um, you might recall from when we did the request for proposals for new ERP systems that we

106made a choice at that time to not have an in between consultant between the ERP and us. That means that more of it fell on our shoulders here >> and it also fell more on the vendor's shoulders. Right now there were two players instead of three. Uh, so that does, you know, make it a little harder on us at times, but you can see that 91% savings and our folks understand this ERP like the back of their hand because it it wasn't going through a consultant first. >> Thank you, Miss Thompson. >> Thank you. And thank you to you and your team who've done this because this has been going on for years and it's huge. And >> for our time, >> pretty much the whole time I've been here, this has been going on.

107>> It started before we were on the board. >> Yes. Well, I'm talking about like this new er Dr. And so when you go back to slide seven, to me that is just absolutely beautiful because before, as you showed at the very beginning, it was a hot mess. It really was. There was stuff everywhere. It was a headache to even look at. And now it's just very crystal clear. I hope that anyone watching goes online just looks at it and just soaks in how pretty that is. And thank you for putting that slide in with the old cost versus the new cost because the implementation alone 91% less is remarkable. So thank you so much to you and your team and all the work that you all have done on this. you miss Goodrich >>

108just want to thank you and also say that I hope that any of our stakeholders that are listening um recognize what all is involved in this and one small software implementation can cause issues. So something of this scale, there's going to be stuff that happens along the way and I hope people respond accordingly and understanding that I've sat with you and seen all the different like you are very meticulous about how you guys are doing things and so I just people I hope people are you know forgiving when there's minor hiccups because they're going to happen. That's just part of life. >> Thank you. Anybody else? Dr. B. >> Yes. So to all of your points, I I just have to say going back to what we've experienced before, it's the it's the amount of

109uh in-depth study that took transpire prior to this implementation. And I have to again commend Dr. and the entire team. Audrey is indispensable when it comes to the implementation aspect, but pretty much we were trying to work with something that was not even designed for school districts. So to begin with, that was the issue. But I will tell you that it was over several weeks that Dr. Um, and his team not only studied the needs of our of our district here for each department, but also met with those key players and put a proposal together. What is it that we needed and took that as the criteria in in the selection process, visited districts, looked at what they were implementing, talk I mean a whole indepth process that transpired before they say preparation, right? the

110importance of of being prepared. So, I want to commend you for that. But also, Audrey was sitting in the back and I asked Audrey to come up here because I'm sure you want to say a few words about Audrey, the entire team. But Audrey, go ahead and share with with because I think we need to just recognize her. >> Okay. There are many important people as you saw on that one slide that deal with the ERP right there. Right. Um many important people working in niche areas. you know, they're indispensable, but nobody is as important as Audrey is on this team by far. Um, and I'll tell you a quick little story that kind of just gives you the point. Um, every two weeks, it has a leadership meeting and Audrey is obviously one of

111the leaders in that meeting. And back near Thanksgiving, uh, I started the meeting by asking what everybody was thankful for in terms of their job. like what are you thankful for when it come um comes to you know work life and we got to Audrey and um she said I'm just thankful for my job I love my job you know it's such a great job it's so fulfilling and and we were like wow this like how do we clone this person I had her DNA taken after the meeting but uh she she just works tirelessly with a great attitude um frankly the only complaint I have about Audrey is I wish she would take more time off and not spend her weekends on this project because I I worry about burning her out. That's my

112only complaint about Audrey. >> All right. Well, I think enough said. [clears throat] Audrey sits in her office off to the back of her here and so every so often I walk in there and say, "How's it going?" And uh just like you described, she's always, you know, uh been a glimmer of hope throughout this. And so when you've got folks that you trust doing something, that's important. And so, uh I'm grateful for all of your work, uh as well. All right. Any other questions, thoughts, feelings, or concerns? All right. Hearing none, I believe that was our last item on the agenda. This meeting is adjourned. We will start our schoolboard meeting promptly at 4:30. Thank you. Thank you.