001e I got chocolate for stress oh that is so sh come on lot of loveing good afternoon welcome to the valuch County school board meeting today is Tuesday February 13th 2024 at 4:36 p.m. I see a lot of new faces out here um today and we love it when we see new faces I do want to just remind everybody though real quickly please silence your cell phones so if you haven't please do that in just a moment I'm going to ask that you join me soon as we get all these little ones seated that's why we're here they're our special guest in just a moment I'm going to ask you to join me by standing for the Pledge of Allegiance and national anthem Citrus Grove Elementary is going to present our Pledge of Allegiance this
002evening and mcginness Elementary is going the staff from mcginness elementary is going to do our national anthem following the Pledge of Allegiance in the national anthem I'd ask that you remain standing for a moment of silence and reflection so at this time please stand and join [Music] me good afternoon Schoolboard my name is Jennifer Williams I'm the proud principal of Citrus Grove Elementary this is Angela young our media specialist and this is our school's morning news crew they do the Pledge of Allegiance for our entire School each and every day Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all hi I'm Casey white I'm a pair professional at mcginness elementary oh can you see by the dawn
003early light what so proudly we ha at the Twilight last gleaming whose briad stripes and bright stars through the peress fight or for the rorts we watched were so gallent streaming and the rockets R glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there oh say us that Star Spangled Banner yet way for the land of the free and the home of the brave thank you you may be seated we want to welcome all of you that are here in the boardroom with us anyone in the Overflow area and those watching at home I'd like to take a moment to introduce the individuals that are here with me on my far left we have Mr Carl persus representing District Four then we have Miss Jesse Thompson representing District
004three this is Mr Aaron wolf our school board attorney over on my far right we have Miss Celeste Gilmore our agency clerk next to her is Mr Ruben cologne representing District 5 then Mrs Anita Bernett who is our vice chair representing District Two we have our superintendent Dr Carmen Balaban and I am Jamie Haynes your chair this year representing District One items for approval on this agenda are items 1.03 2.02 4.01 7.02 and 17.01 through 17.7 public participation times you may fill out a green card if you wish to speak on any item that's located on the consent agenda and you will have three minutes we also have a time at 6:00 p.m. where if you have filled out a yellow card for items of general interest pertaining to public education in valou County a
005total of up to 15 minutes will be provided for public comment at this time time will also be provided for public comment on any action item those are the items that start at 17.01 and go through 17.07% on any of those items time is also provided at the end of the meeting for public comment for items of general interest pertaining to public education in Valia County before items from the board superintendent or attorney are open for discussion announcement or approval so just to be clear green is for anything we're voting on consent or actionable yellow is anything G pertaining to general education in Valia County each speaker for any part of the public input we'll have a total of three minutes to speak please respect the time clock which you'll be able to see from
006the podium when you speak during public input and this is only for public input time no signs placards or other visual forms of communication are authorized except as part of an individual speaker's presentation speakers shall not engage in personal attacks abusive language or other conduct which interferes with the meeting the chair has the right to terminate any speaker's privileges to address the board if this rule is violated members of the audience should be courteous to all speakers and shall refrain from making audible comments or applauding during public input time to with that being said we always start our meeting off with a recognition piece where we recognize students teachers staff and community members during our recognitions or any of our administrative appointments we encourage you to go ahead and applaud and clap for the people
007that are being recognized for the wonderful things that they've done we are now at item 1.02 1.02 is our district vision statement and board member comments our district vision statement is to create lifelong Learners prepared for an everchanging Global society and we will start with Mrs Bernett on comments thank you so it's been three weeks since we were here last that extra week adds a lot of uh opportunities for us but back to the beginning we did a the vcpa did the reflections um Awards and that's always a very nice event because we get to recognize the uh the artistic talents of our students so thank you to VCC PTA for honoring that and for all the uh Educators who who help put that together as well and the parents and the students and then
008um I want to thank the uh Community for attending the rezoning meetings I know we've all been attending them so we um definitely listened to your input and I know that uh the team that was there brought those back to share with us and um lastly we had last week the um the school counselors celebration and there was many of counselors there that we got to celebrate and I don't want to call names out and forget someone but we had a good time and it was nice to see them honored so thank you thank you Mrs Thompson thank you mam chair and so we've had as Mrs brunette said a lot going on the past couple weeks I just wanted to highlight um our arts department here at Valia County Schools we've had a lot
009of events going on I took my two uh my six-year-old and my nine-year-old to the Valia students create up in orand and it was really cool because they had art from all levels you know kindergarten all the way up to your seniors and my son who's six was walking around he's learning how to read so he reads names and butchers half of them but he saw a name that he knew it turned out to be a little girl his class and he was so excited then he was like you know how do I get up here and it really inspired him to want to do something I think so often our kids Express themselves through the art that they create and I just love that I mean there's a whole Showcase of all these art
010events for our students going on right now in Bela County so I encourage everyone to go out there and even if you don't have a student participating just to see what our students are doing because some of those Works were absolutely phenomenal fantastic artists so thank you thank you Mr persus thank you madam chair as we know uh this month is Black History uh month and I attended an event uh I guess it was a week ago ago or 10 days ago in the Midtown Community uh area where about four years ago they created a a uh a street Banner series uh and they honor uh local uh um uh black leaders who uh they really they're all deceased now but but they they hang banners for these people right down on uh ISB to
011Nova Road and then over to Martin Luther King uh junior Boulevard and there's just a few of them uh they usually they they recognize I think 18 or 19 every year but I just want to call call out a few one because he was like a favorite of mine was uh Ed Ed Ed Charles uh Ed Charles was born in day Daytona Beach and he played for the Miracle Mets the New York Mets in 1969 when when they won the world the World Series just an awesome just an awesome guy um another one I wanted to mention was uh Freddy Moore Freddy Moore was a uh actually a a school Lua County School District uh uh senior staff member uh she she worked in HR she was she was awesome uh another one was uh
012William Prince he was a math mathematics professor at Edward Edward Waters College but he was actually called back here to teach higher level math courses at what was then Daytona High School which was later renamed Campbell Street High School uh just an amazing guy he was born in 1884 and he was just such an incredible guy here's a one that I think many people know his name was Ralph Robinson uh he he was a a served as a long-term C custodian in the Valia County School System primarily at Campbell get get this Campbell Elementary School and uh he was more than that he was just one of only three black men that worked at at at the school he later became a mentor he was a basketball coach Community activist uh co-founded the neighborhood Basketball
013Association to Mentor uh as he grew older and The Testament to his enduring Legacy was the gymnasium at the Dickerson Community Center where he worked and mentored was named in his honor by the Daytona Beach City Commission in 2002 Netty Ryan God I remember her because she worked at uh Campbell she worked at um uh Campbell uh where else did she work oh Terry T small and at Holly Hill Jor high and she was the media specialist and I was working then when she was and she was just awesome awesome lady another lady Peggy Wesley who you remember Jamie uh she was the head of the elementary division here for many many years and man you did not mess with her and I I was a principal just beginning principal then she kept me in
014her place and the in in in in my in my place and lastly um Janice Wilson uh and I remember her family talking about her this is great she was a longtime educator here and as as her family says she taught at Spruce Creek High School Atlantic High School Mainland High School and one long year at Silver Sands medal that's the way they said it so you know I'm just saying it the way it the way it it was told anyway just a super event and I just love the way the city of day of Daytona Beach uh has been doing this now for four for four years awesome thank you Mr cologne so I'm a little behind you all because I wasn't here last meeting uh thank you to everyone who made it possible
015for me to attend virtually uh teacher of the year event was amazing I know you guys talked about it the last time but I want to again thank Chad and Jerry I was in my hotel room watching every second of it so uh just a great production shout out to Deltona High 99.7 graduation rate when uh I came on the board that was 76% and so uh really proud of that work uh that's being done there we also had our Pidge cheerleaders went to States and placed fifth place uh and so we're really excited and that's our competition cheer which is just now getting back to uh happening our FFA chapter at pineridge also uh won second place in uh two out of five categories so we're super proud of them belona high FFA also
016won first place for educational research so that was uh super exciting there um I want to thank the City of Deltona you know I know Delan does it and I don't know what other cities do it but in case you all didn't know they do the Superstar student of the month and so every month they honor the students at each of our schools who are nominated as the Superstar students so shout out to the City of Deltona for always supporting our schools the counselor's event was amazing probably the highlight of my last three weeks was Matilda at delt on a high how those kids remember all those lines and songs and it's just amazing to me I mean it's super long too but those kids put on a heck of a production there and Jamie
017I'm gonna steal your thunder on one uh shout out to Advent Health who donated uh nearly $25,000 worth of office furniture to Blue Lake uh so uh again like to thank the CEO at at Advent Health the land and then Dr B I'm not going to take away that Thunder from you and I think that is it for me thank you thank you so I'll just add on a few additional things that have happened because we did have a little bit more time off um I will say that just recently um to add to the teacher of the year our um teacher of the year the winner and I I was thinking you were going to do this one we were just out at Champion element I took up so much time on my other
018one we were just out at Champion Elementary on Friday where she was presented with the car that she will drive this year as the teacher of the year you see her personality and how she came out to the Courtyard she came out to the courtyard and all the kids were seated around the courtyard and before she ever came up to speak she went around and high-fived all the kids okay like she interacted with all the students and that right there tells you what type of teacher she is because she included them in the event that was happening and so that was just a wonderful event to see her get that car also since we've been at since the last time um we had our employee talent show I don't know if a lot of you
019realize this but we have a lot of Talent Mr persus and I were there of our employees here in valuch county and they performed at the Athens theater since we were here last time and this was the second year in a row that they've done this and I look look forward to attending because it's so neat to see the talents that they bring and you know the music's great some of them that the lady that does the singing bowls you know and things like that but I have to say that um the ending um show part the group that got up there and danced and sang did a fabulous job and they did several different songs which I was impressed by you know they worked all day and here they are doing this we also
020finished up um in January for the most part our reading books out at schools and then we had our choice Fair here on the West side of the county we held it at the center at Deltona where parents could come and learn about all of our elementary and middle schools if you missed that or if you're listening at home you know pay attention for next year because the choice fair is great because the schools come out and they decorate a table and they're there to answer any questions you might have to tell you what's going on now one highlight and Miss Thompson and her two little ones joined me for for this was at Mainland High we did our science fair awards for our middle and high school students do you realize that community members
021donated $6,000 worth of money for awards for our kids in the middle and high school that won the science Awards and if I get it correct we have 13 of them going on to State and we have one project going on to the international level and I have to tell you Brilliant Minds were in that room that night not only were they brilliant I was just amazed at they were dressed you know like to come up on that stage and receive those Awards and some of the titles of their projects I'm like I would have to sit down and talk to them and then I finally found out why I'm never asked to judge the middle and high which is perfectly fine with me they asked people that actually are professors or have degrees in
022those fields to do the judging that makes sense um the other thing um I know Miss Thompson and Dr bamman and I and some of the District staff were there we um helped kick off the uncf um piece that we do for with a breakfast because you don't realize so many of the employees in Valia County donate to the United Negro College Fund every year to be able to make a difference for our students that are selecting to go on to a college and the young lady that spoke this year her message was power powerful because not only was she the first one coming to college she then helped pave the way for her younger sister who's now joined her to be at College also and when you hear those stories and she actually wants
023to teach for um um teach Across America like that's her next step and I was like well okay we want you in Valia County like could we hire you right now today to teach um a few other things we I did attend the ES family event we held an ESC family event at University High for any parent that has a student for any reason that you're looking for additional resources assistance wanting to understand the transition from elementary to Middle to high how do you get high school diploma things like that that was held at University High and it was on a Saturday there's one coming in April for the east side of the county so if you missed out you can go join the one on the east side of the county but I will
024tell you the ESC team did a great job they also served them lunch that day there was no cost for any parent to come to get resources and help and that was a great event and then I'll close it up with saying um it's always great to be out at our schools and I got to participate again this year I love when I get invited to this for the elementary National Honor Society at Freedom Elementary we had 40 students in fourth and fifth grade this year inducted into the national Elementary Honor Society and what a great celebration to see those kids and what I really liked is some of the kids that have gone on to the Middle School came back to assist with a ceremony this year and you know that just tells you
025how excited they were about that they were in the National honest society and they came back to assist but we will now move on into our agenda and so the first thing is item one 1.03 approval of the minutes board members you've had an opportunity to review the minutes do I have someone that would like to make a motion to approve the minutes from the January 23rd regular session board meeting move approval of the minutes from the January 23rd board meeting thank you Mr persus do I have a second I'll second that motion thank you Mrs Thompson any discussion all right you've heard the motion in the second all those in favor please please say I I any opposed it passes unanimously we are now at item 2.01 agenda changes superintendent Dr balaman are there
026any agenda changes before the agenda is presented to the board for approval yes Madam chair I would like to remove item 17.04 which is the adoption of the proposed transfer of the Alternative Program from riverv viiew Learning Center to the Oola Elementary campus and place that for the February 27 2024 board meeting agenda all right are there any other items that's it all right so at this time you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent she wishes to remove item 17.04 which she is removing from this meeting but moving it to the February 27th 2024 board meeting do I have someone that would like to make a motion for the removal of item 17.04 move to approve as amended thank you who seconded it thank you Mr cologne all right any discussion on the removal of
027that item from the agenda all right no no discussion all right then I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving the amended agenda by removing item 17.04 please say I I any opposed okay it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 3.01 announcements by Dr balaman thank you Madame chair board members members of the audience and those of you tuning in from home thank you for doing so um Mr pores you started by by sharing a little bit in regard to our black history month and the entire month we're celebrating black history our schools are celebrating through many many uh festivals activities and lessons on topics that honors the contribution of our Trailblazers Nationwide in this country as it pertains to the work that they have done and as we
028know in our own backyard here but um Dr Mary bethon cookman you know her contribution we see and we experience that day after day um and our current and future generation they do um you look at Jackie Robinson and so many others but also we have so many Local Heroes that they are shaping our current and future generation as well and I want to give a shout out to so many teachers we have that are serving in this field thank you those of you support staff you're also heroes so thank you for your contribution on a daily basis and let's continue to celebrate these Trailblazers also February is the month for CTE Career Technical Education Month and um there's so much that we've been doing I want to share with you that we have met
029I have personally met with several of our CTE teachers to do a listen and learn from with them but also we um Dr Kristen Pierce she met with a few many of our CTE teachers to also do that listen and learn is there there's no voice behind this correct so you're just watching this while I speak to you um couple things want you to know um just to share with you some highlights we've taken everything that that has been shared with us from our CT teachers and for this month what we're doing is three things enhancing strengthening and building RCT programs and I'm going to going to tell you a little bit about that and what that means but before we do that I want to share with you that just some highlights currently we
030have over 92 programs in our County in our schools and we're growing 32 of our program of study are in 14 of our middle schools and 55 programs of study and 21ms they're across our 10 high schools now there are over 60 middle to high school care Pathways in our school and as you know we have done that ver vertical articulation between middle school and high school so we don't have to wait until our students get to high schools to begin these pathway they start very early um for 2122 we had 2,675 students passed their CTE their industry C certification exam this last year we had 4,776 students um pass their industry C exams there are 70 industry certification offered in our middle and high schools and we have a 62% increase in the number
031of students tested from 2122 to 2223 so more Pathways more students in those Pathways more students are being tested and more students are sh showing that they have learned and obtained those skills to become ready they are ready for our Workforce Now let me share with you and this is new so I shared with you that for 2425 we're looking at enhancing strengthening and building if I were to share with you all the enhancements that are taking place it will probably take another 30 minutes and I know we that's not your desire at this point in time but so we're going to front load this slowly but surely I want to share with you some new programs ories that will be in our high schools for next year and I see some our principles are
032already smiling because they're getting some of them um Atlantic high school they're going to get the new digital design program there and the new game and simulation acmy and many many enhancements and strengthening that will take be taking place there the land high school they're going to receive the new promotional Enterprise program also the new culinary arts academy and many many enhancements and um strengthening that will be taking place there as well Deltona High School they're going to have the welding technology program and equipment to go with that and the new culinary arts academy Mainland High School they're getting a new Criminal Justice Academy Academy new samna Beach High a new marketing Academy Pine Ridge a finance Academy an Enterprise uh promotional Enterprise program and the Cyber Security Academy seab breze High School the new
033Agri Agri Technology Academy so it's going to be an academy now um Mr parsus from a program to an academy so that's a program they have it's a program yes the status of Academy um Spruce Greek High School the new digital video program and also new promot promotional Enterprise Academy Taylor Middle High they're going to be receiving the new a new welding technology program and equipment to go with with that program and also the new Allied Health assisting Academy for University High School the new teaching program a new engineering Academy and a new digital design Academy and so many more enhancements that slowly but surely we're going to be front loading that for our parents and our students to be become aware and that's that thank you Dr bman this time we're moving on to
034item 4.01 administrative appointments and transfers Dr Babin yes Madam chair and board members we do have um I would like to ask Miss Johnson Kung to join us so to share with you a little bit about Mr Kung he's got a Bachelor's degree from the University of uh of of Florida a master's degree from the American College of Education Indianapolis Indiana certifications in the following areas at leadership chemistry General Science physics experience with VCS since 2015 started as a teacher at cample middle teacher at Atlantic High currently a teacher and assignment at Southwestern middle 2023 aspiring leaders Academy graduate and with your approval here board I will recommending Johnson to be the new assistant principal of T small Elementary and if you approve the effective start date will be February 14 early morning early early
035morning it's great okay I have something to say I hate to lose you from Southwestern but I never stand in the way of anyone and um I was excited when they did call and tell me that you were they were going to um ask you to go to t t small after your interviews and so here's the one thing that when you look at your resume and all of the things you've done the piece that you still need is where you're going you need Elementary exper experience because I think everyone should be well-rounded and t t small to this day holds a special place in my heart because I spent a lot of years there with Miss Betty Powers when she was the principal and she was a phenomenal principal so I am excited to
036hear that you are going to go to t t small now we still have to vote yeah but the fact that you stepped up to take on a new adventure and with your secondary experience that you're willing to Branch out to Elementary trust me it will give you a full perspective then for wherever and whenever you decide to follow onto a principal pathway this piece will help you okay so board members do I have someone that like to make a motion I move to approve thank you Mrs second thank you Mr persus any further discussion okay then we're going to call for the vote all those in favor please say I I any oppos it passes unanimously [Music] [Applause] congratulations now now it's your turn thank you everyone I I truly appreciate this next step
037in my career I've had a lot of wonderful mentors and leaders in my career and even before my career started and I am so excited to make them proud and make you all proud as well as I follow in their footsteps okay congratulations all right so he's your only one he's my only one at this time please come forward do you have any family or members here with you please bring them because now we'll find you some it's okay principal Happ that's good thank you Ruben see see all right I'll see you all right at this time we are moving on to the recognition piece which I think all of us thoroughly enjoy it's a wonderful opportunity to recognize as I said staff students and community members so Dr balabin thank you madam chair board
038members we know how important character is it's one of those uh skills that that many of us are born with so it's always a treat to be able to recognize our a staff member but also a student that embodies those qualities on a monthly basis because we want to make sure that everybody understands that that what makes a community great sometimes it's those traits that you may not see innately or in front of someone as soon as they they they they they stand up or they're in front of you but as they start in interacting and engaging with the work that we do so these members have engaged with the work that we do and these traits have become very noticeable I'm going to ask Miss principal reer to join us because this month uh
039chair Miss Laura come on yeah join us over here actually I'm going to let Miss reer share a little bit about this teature be my pleasure thank you so much for this opportunity Madam chair board members and Dr balabin um Miss Gil has been a faithful servant of Lucia County schools for 30 years 30 [Applause] years and at Woodward for most of that time as a special education teacher she exemplifies honesty integrity and compassion in her inter interactions with students staff everyone that she comes into contact with and over the years she has consistently held her students accountable for their actions fostering trust through open communication and follow through as an advocate for her students in the ve mile classroom currently Mrs Gil fights for their rights and ensures they receive the support that they
040need each and every day and juggles multiple grade levels and a lot of preps every day and she does it with a smile on her face with joy in her heart and she is truly someone that is a partner with each and every one of her family members she is somebody that our teachers and staff look up to and I have personally grown as a leader um just being near her for the past year and a half and she is retiring at the end of this year of fortunately but we we know that her next chapter is going to be absolutely amazing with her three grandchildren and whatever life holds in store for her after this we appreciate her and I thank you Miss [Music] Gil it so happens that the student winner for honesty
041is also from Woodward so you want to share with us a little bit regarding Andrew Milton the our fourth grader absolutely Andrew if you can look behind me you can see he's come he he's from a very large family he's one of five children and uh he's from what I've gathered already he is a wonderful brother and he is a wonderful student he's somebody that truly is um the epitome of Integrity of empathy he's someone that people trust and certainly his um teachers are very fond of him they believe in him he's someone that is a true role model for his classmates to follow um just a great overall student and a very fine dresser I might add y so I have to share this he's he's a only a fourth grader and this is
042what it says here that his classmates when they were interviewed they said that he's trustworthy and a loyal friend someone who always keeps his word oh that's powerful yeah that's pretty he's an amazing young man so at this time we love to have Miss skill and also Andrew and whoever's here with them come forward for photos okay thank you we have a few more you g to do them separately conratulations TR this must be the family [Music] love you y y congratulations I miss we are now at 5.02 Dr balaman for recognitions of Staff with Transportation yes ma'am thank you uh Madam chair board members it is with great pleasure and honor a true hero this evening Marilyn Lopez Peralta where is she let me see where you are stand my dear stand she's one
043of our bus operators and recently I I think you caught a glimpse she was featured uh she was interviewed and let me tell you how incredible she is because I immediately got a call also from one of our board members when she saw the story she was transporting students home and she had to pull the bus over and we know what it is to drive a bus with elementary students right but she had to pull the bus over to address the situation upon turning around and going back to her seat she noticed that there was a young man on the bus that was struggling and his face was discolored so you're driving you have a bus filled with elementary students and you notice this quickly she pulled the bus over and and she performed the
044heick maneuver on this student until there was a piece of candy that was stuck in his throat and it dislodged him to the point that he was not breathing anymore and she brought pretty much brought oxygen back to that student which is life back to that student um I know they the the story was incredible if you saw it with the interview that was done but you know this is what it all takes a family coming together and going above and beyond just above and beyond but thank you for being so quick so responsive and taking the safety of all students including that in your hands at that day and time so thank you so very [Applause] much [Music] we have we have her family here but also we have our area manager previous because
045now he's in another department Mr Smith if you will join us the director for transportation Kelly Butler area manager is here and the new director uh for transportation Dr Olen no all right that's fine come on over now represent come on Carol come on [Applause] wish ah she wishes that [Music] to hey sunshine how are yous now we're moving on to item 5.03 our Sunshine State Scholars Dr baman thank you madam chair it is with great honor that I present our Sunshine State scholar program winners uh these students have demonstrated except exemplary stem high school programmatic studies and some of the sponsors for this program that we have to do a shout out and a thank you to it's LED Martin AT&T universal of Orlando SeaWorld I'm ask I'm going to ask now that our
046Sunshine State Scholars Sonia tro from Atlantic High School Noah isacon from the land high and Cameron Lou from Spruce Greek High please come up with your principle so that we may honor you [Applause] yatul conratulations that no [Music] yeah get in the back get in behind your kids [Music] conratulations in here there you go Jason I got one for you all right Dr Babin we are now moving on to item 5.04 recognition of some students that are state champions so I think we have some VIP in the house the buck are in the house um as you know I still I can still vividly see the last three minutes of that play and I know exactly where I was okay but I'm going to tell you that it's so incredible to see that Coach Travis
047Roland right he was a student there played the last time they won but also it's like this generational thing going on we've got director Terry Anthony principal Joe castelli and they're all here to celebrate officially there's more celebration to come by the way way but this was mainland's high first football championship in two decades [Applause] um last time that they won the Bucks won was when coach Roland was part of the winning team that year and he will tell you every time he sees that um he was a player and also the athletic director Terry Anthony is he here oh my goodness you put him to work he was the coach um additionally eight of the 15 current coaches at mland high school are mland graduates nice so that buck pride is always there as
048we know right Never Dies Never Dies I want to give them a round of applause I don't know if your state champion rings have arrived yet I don't know but that's going to be another celebration but i' like for um to ask coach Roland to come on up I think you you probably have some words that you would like to share with your team and principal [Applause] castelli ran is back here Miss Roland where are you Rosie oh the proud mama come on come [Applause] on you know we know he's good because of part of your coaching also miss Rand she beat I know this is a very proud moment very proud for the community at large well thank you for letting us uh just share the moment with uh our board and you uh
049superintendent balabin uh it is an uh a very special uh moment for us for the school um all Kudos goes to our coaching staff and our players you look at our players right here um I'm going to name so we have Dave David Hall Philip Moore Tyrie Witherspoon right Skyler Summers Christian and Jaden long these guys it's it's one thing as principal you you can celebrate a big win like this you can celebrate a state championship which is rare in itself but to have a group of young men that are uh student athletes right they they're leaders on our campus they really are and anything that the school the school culture anything that's responsible for just the great thing that we have called Buck Pride look at these guys right here they're responsible for it
050that they're team captains but they are School captains they really are and to a person to thank for that though is really the leadership of who's sitting right here beside me and that's Travis Roland uh because what he has developed and the time he's been here at Mainland and the culture he has built and just what he provides the school not only as a football coach but as a stellar teacher um I I couldn't be a more Prime principal than I am it it's just an amazing thing to um witness every single day I say prime example of Local Heroes good evening everyone uh thank you guys for having us here we definitely appreciate it I think uh the biggest thing for me is is understanding what Valia County Schools have done for me for
051myself um obviously my mother and father have a great role to play in the in the person I am today you know but to see I was telling the guys about Coach Rod like he's coach Rod to me he's Mr Smith to you guys but that's coach Rod to me and you I just kind of that you see what can be accomplished when you come from valua County schools and you can be proud of being a valua County School's product and so that's been one big thing for us I think the support of everyone U we felt throughout this time and we appreciate it we're grateful forward and thankful for it you know we had a lot of young men who had some things going on today you I know a lot of people want
052to see our kicker uh Mr getman he he had some prior engagements today and couldn't be here but you know he he definitely he's a man of very few words but he wanted to make sure he said thank you um our Harvard our Harvard S no longer commit Harvard s Madden sanago has had attract me today as well as him you know man a few words but wanted to make sure he said thank you and and grateful for the opportunity for our program to be uh uh put on the stage and you know again I'll say you know we're thankful for it we're appreciative for it we hope that we we made you all proud of what we're doing you know as we always say say it's it's never about you know I get a
053lot of the the lore because I'm the head coach but it's as I always say it's about our family and forget about me I love you it's never about me I've got some great kids great coaches that I work with and and so thankful and you know thankful to everyone in this room for you know allowing my mother to come home and be retired and and be able to come get her back and she's you know she she's never been one of of of seeking attention if you ever want to watch her uh kind of awkwardly um steal some attention when she came to one of my interviews after the game she was apologizing as she was in tears because she was so proud and so that was a great moment that I think I'll
054have forever but we're again we're thankful and hopefully we get to see you continue we love to see you guys come out to the game so you guys can kind of see the kids in their in their atmosphere in their element they would love to see you kind of in a different setting as well so thank you again um from M Buck Pride Never [Music] [Applause] Dies this one um Daniel moved it last time I just didn't know if it was gonna be in the way lost [Music] are we good you're fine that's right you stay there right next to miss there we go and then you Ser there we go [Applause] a did you graduate any Pride Never Dies consent all right at this time we're moving on to item 6.01 public participation concerning
055items on the consent agenda please remember that board members do not respond during public input time I have at this moment two cards are there any more cards okay huh I can't hear what she said you don't want to speak we're doing consent oh okay I'm doing green consent cards all right we have two cards for items that are on the consent agenda board members the first one will be for item 12.01 is job additions and revisions and that will be Miss Elizabeth Albert then miss Albert you will stay up here for item 12.02 which is the revised 2425 school calendar so miss Albert you have three minutes for each item apologize I step up with the new policy when we're of someone else the individual wants to Anonymous and we're reading of someone else
056what is the procedure for that I was trying to get clarification this Mr penley here well you can well we'll figure it out because neither both of these cards you're not presenting correct this is something different that's why I was okay all right so we're going to start with item 12.01 and you'll have three minutes and then we'll have item 12.02 welcome all right good evening Madam chair members of the board superintendent Dr Balaban and members of the audience I'm speaking to you tonight regarding the proposed job description for the facilitator VPK position so every decision has a consequence and your decisions reveal your priorities you have before you tonight a proposed job description that will disrupt the program that creates the foundation of learning for our youngest citizens it will remove the most critical
057and important factor in the educational success of our children we all in this room will agree that having a highly qualified certificated educator or teacher in the classroom results in the successful outcomes for the students your plan will remove the certificated teacher from VPK our VPK teachers have provided academic foundations for years this is one of the very successful programs that valua County Schools currently employs and this is why parents select the VCS VPK programs in lie of private daycare or VPK providers my question to you is how have and how Have you communicated this to parents because I know that until we met with folks this had not been communicated to our teachers nor to our support professionals so I'm going to shift gears for a second here and I want to bring you
058um some information that has recently occurred uh yesterday I sent an email which included a demand to bargain uh to the superintendent and we are looking at formalized procedures around this proposed uh change if you are to vote to implement it tonight uh this proposal will create an erosion in the instructional bargaining unit for which we cannot allow to happen um you are asking par professionals to assume the role of a teacher with the same expectations and the same responsibilities yet you will pay them a fraction of the salary that is currently eared earned by instructional Personnel doing the same work how much support will you provide these PA of professionals we know that currently in our district we are struggling to support certificated Educators who are in their classrooms right now and this position
059will create another subgroup or category responsible for student learning who will need to be supported is there a plan for that so my question to you is is this the best move is this how we want to start the foundations for learning learning for our youngest citizens in belua County we have conversations all the time about graduation outcomes what we need to do for students to get them across the stage um and there are plans for those those children so my question to you is do you want to start them out strong or do you want to compromise an already successful program and just so you know there's a saying if it ain't broke don't fix it thank you thank you now item 12.02 the calendar for 2425 good evening Madam chair members of the
060school board superintendent Dr Balaban members of the audience so I come before you tonight to speak about uh the proposed school calendar for 24 20 2024 2025 so the committee convened last week I believe it was and we had a discussion around how to fix the error that was not caught by anyone on the committee last year we I we understand mistakes happen and we need to fix it but the reason I'm before you tonight is I want you to take a look at the attachment on this agenda item I have the calendar printed here you should have it available to you if you notice the fix all for the employee day is to add another day during pre-planning week the committee was in agreement with that so that that is what it is but
061what I want to bring before you tonight is if you notice the day has been added on Monday and right now Monday is identified as the full day of professional learning that usually happens in September so I want you to think about a few things here because the committee conversation did not result in placing the PD day on a Monday so let's just take one step back and let's think about what this is going to look like come August the 5th if this is where the day needs to be recouped so be it but can you imagine coming to work on your first day after being out for your vacation and wham bam full day of professional learning you don't get to re um reestablish those relationships with your colleagues typically we know the first
062day back is a celebration with a breakfast and everybody getting together and and setting the tone for the rest of the year uh later in the agenda you're going to talk about the massive amount of rezoning that we're considering to do if you stop for a minute and you think about the disruption and the movement that is going to occur with all of the rezoning that means teachers and support professionals are going to be moving schools it is a struggle in the best of times to transfer schools even when you start back on a Tuesday if we come back and Monday is a full day of PD and we have teachers who are changing schools that means they're now working during their summer hours unpaid in a time when they're supposed to be disconnecting and
063resting for what's to come um I I would really ask you to take a look at that PD move it to Wednesday perhaps if it has to be on that week like I said leave it there but move it to Wednesday don't make it the first day back um there's never enough time to do what needs to be done before students arrive um imagine again if you're unpacking and trying to get your room ready meet the teacher is on Friday or Meet the Parents is on Friday that's not going to work so start the year off right start the year off considering the needs of your faculty and staff and start the year off showing compassion and Grace for those who will spend the next 10 months educating the children of County Schools thank you
064thank you are there any other green cards all right thank you so we're moving on to item 7.01 removal of any items from the consent agenda Dr bman are you removing any items from the consent agenda yes Madam chair um I would like to remove item 10.03 which is the financial statement to be brought back to the next next board meeting okay board members are there any items you wish to remove for discussion off of um the consent agenda yes ma'am I'd like to move 11.03 out of consent agenda for consideration on its own 11.03 yeah the focus Erp all right any other items I have a question about 12.02 okay you want anything else uh 12.01 persus 12.01 and you're you're already pulling 12.02 she has a question about it okay so Dr baman
065is removing 10.03 to bring back at the end for the February 27th is that correct correct yes m Mr clone you just have a you are you wanting to remove it yeah to vote as separate yes huh yes okay you want it as a separate vote Yes ma'am for this evening right yes ma'am all right Miss Bernette you want it as a separate Vote or you just want to discuss it um I I'd like to discuss it and then if we need to remove it for a separate vote we can but I I just have some questions first but I don't know what that will lead to okay and Mr persus a separate you want a separate vote okay then why don't we make all three separate votes is that good yep all right then
066I need someone to make a motion to approve the a the consent agenda for this evening by and within that it will be amended we will be removing item 10.03 which will come back on February rary 27th we are removing item 11.03 12.01 and 12.02 which will be discussed as soon as we approve this agenda and they will then be voted on a separate items this evening is everyone clear on that all right do I have someone that will make a motion to approve that yeah move to approve the am as um amended okay do I have a second second all right any further discussion all those in favor of the amended agenda please say I I any opposed all right then we will move forward and we will start with item 11.03 Dr Dr
067H Chief technology officer will join us supp boort the reason I asked to remove this as we know historically this has been a hot topic of discussion uh in our school district and so I wanted to um seeing the first of all the dollar amount on this and secondly uh the impact that this is going to have I wanted to uh be clear and also uh remind the public of the steps that have been taken to come to this conclusion uh for this Erp I've submitted some questions to Dr C and so um please feel free to uh fill us in Dr if you can respond to the questions State the questions and respond to them publicly well do good evening Madame chair board I'm Matt Chief technology officer I did receive the questions I
068have grouped my answer in answers into four areas first about the process uh it was a very deliberate process it went for over a year it's very collaborative we met many times with all divisions and all departments to create the RFP to make sure we were asking for the right thing and then when the RFP was evaluated we had a committee a evaluation Committee of nine members uh they represented three different four different areas uh purchasing Finance HR and its uh that evaluation committee narrowed six down to three uh we also visited sites reference dist District sites in person we were looking for a very purpose-built for K12 education Erp system so we wanted to only visit school districts who were being considered as one of those top three possibilities and then when we tabulated
069and voted it was a unanimous decision to choose Focus as our new Erp so that's number one number two is uh the critical need currently we have two Erp systems Oracle and Cross Point that are uh serving the current Erp function uh not doing so so well as you heard in the audit results earlier today during the workshop uh many situations are due to inefficiencies in our manual processes because we don't have an Erp that can handle automation of those functions so we need to get to that point uh Cross Point is a company that has gone out of business many years ago there no vendor support for it so that is a a critical vulnerability of ours so we have a critical need to change our Erp and move to a modern one modernizing
070our Erp and this is point number three creates many different efficiencies uh focus is a completely different type of programming than our old erps it has flexibility it can integrate with many systems and we currently use it use it as our student information system so that creates another opportunity for integration it also means we have some familiarity with our technical staff with focused software in general it takes five current third-party systems and eventually lets those be retired and folded into the focus Erp itself and of course it takes two systems and puts them into one comprehensive system finally number four other focused districts uh we're not the only District we're not the First District uh to use Focus as an Erp uh there are others in other states and in Florida uh there is pelis
071County for example who has just a year ago started implementation of Erp as their uh as a focus as their Erp uh which is very advantageous for us because they run into many of the roadblocks first and then when it comes long for us uh many of the bugs have already been worked out only a year ago so it's very fresh information that's relevant for us uh there are other districts who have also recently implemented that we're learning from as well those are the answers to my four questions do you have any other concerns or questions you'd like to ask I do not and I just want to point out that we workshopped this in depth uh few weeks ago months ago or at least uh months ago and so again I appreciate uh you
072sharing that and Madam chair if if you see it fit or the superintendent has a recommendation I'll be happy to make the motion to support this yes Madam chair I recommend that item 11.03 the our Focus enterprise resource planning Erp system for approval so moved do we have a second I'll second that motion okay so Mr cologne has made the motion Mrs Thompson has seconded any further discussion okay then all the I'll call for the vote all those in favor please say I I I any opposed it passes unanimously thank you Dr K thank you we're going to go ahead and do item 12.02 which is U Mrs Brett's item which is the school calendar thank you um yes Dr Hazel or Deputy for operations you you have 12.01 and 12.02 you want to do
0731202 first I'd like to do first and Mr Mark Wes so I I know the calendar is always so much fun to do my favorite and I'm sure you have all agreeing on that committee um but were there any other opportunities for a different date other than the a yeah just to thank you just to clarify uh what was just discussed at the calendar committee we did have one student day to make up um and that so the professional development day was determined to be the least disruptive for students um now moving that day um TR before this plan the pr uh pre-planning began on the 6th so that was the 6th 7th 8th and 9th the only slot in that week was Monday we did discuss um although I emphasized to the committee several
074times of course Miss Morman is the facilitator but just to be clear this is a vote on the student calendar um not the work calendar and so when we talk about the work day we can certainly move that PD day outside of this vote to a different day I do want to point out um and when the work calendar is brought for you for a vote you'll you'll see that um after we've had discussions for where that PD day what day would be most appropriate it wouldn't change much for our teachers other than one day they're going to be engaged in professional development and four days is a is our typical pre-planning so how we order those days Beyond this is is perfectly fine however um Wednesday is the curriculum day that's the day that
075our curriculum Department um typically offers their professional development they've reached out they have contracted sites to have that um space as a premium that day not that it can't be changed if that's determined to be the best course of action but that has already occurred now and on Fridays I just want to remind everybody Fridays are meet the teacher remember those days I sure do and um so that as a tradition to would be also be a little disruptive to have it on those days and and that was discussed but this is the student calendar that we're discussing now the work calendar will come at a later okay later time and so I so as as long as we're clear and the Miss Albert um understands too that the PD can be moved yeah that
076was explained several times at the calendar committe okay all right so I'd like to make a recommendation and I already know that Wednesdays have been booked that are a premium for all the curriculum people so my recommendation is if we allow them to come back on campus on Monday and they have their normal welcome back day you know starting you know get in their room breakfast lunches whatever they do could we make this professional learning day on Tuesday the curriculum day on Wednesday and then they have Thursday to finish getting their rooms set up and ready for Friday for meet the teacher I we can certainly absolutely bring that back as a point for discussion um and we'll probably reach out to get some inut from some teachers as well and bring that as a
077recommendation when we bring the work calendar I don't I can tell you from years of experience on the calendar committee there's probably no solution that makes everyone happy but but we'll certainly bring that information forward okay because I did ask some questions you know when it came about that you had to add a day because we were a short of student day and my understanding was though that they did want to end by May 30th no one wanted to go into June correct correct they didn't want to shorten any of the other holidays to put the day in that's correct okay so I just want to be clear when this comes before the board there is an large committee that has already worked this out and made the decisions on this and um we none
078of us sit on the calendar committee we just vote on what you bring forward all right any further discussion uh that was I had raised a question too on that one and that was the the same thing I wanted to uh suggest that we move the PD dat from Monday to Tuesday because that's the only other good day right every other day is there's something more more important that needs to be done so yeah thank you I'm good okay so Dr B would you like to make a recommendation on the C so let me he let me make sure I understand this I will make a recommendation because it doesn't change in terms of the days it's just the order and that's what you're asking for our team to go we're approving the student calendar
079the student calendar we're approving the student calendar okay so uh board I recommended the approval of the revised 2024 202's school calendar for students I do I have a recommendation to approve we have to approve second Mrs Bernett Mr persus any further discussion yes I just have one question have we the supervisor of elections have they reached out to us to use our schools as precincts again and is that reflected in this calendar so they have she has reached out to us and um there are three elections this cycle one being coming up very soon and then two um obviously the in August and then in November and because they wanted consistency in space um they have elected to use other locations besides our schools okay yeah very good that was my question all right
080any other discussion okay then we'll call we have a motion in a second we'll call for a vote all those in favor of approving the 2024 the revised 2425 School Calendar please say I I any opposed it passes unanimously all right we are now moving on to item 12.01 job description Mr persus thank you madam chair I was uh thought it would be important for U HR to identify exactly what type of certification a VPK teer would need if we voted for this policy thank you Mr psus um chairman and um superintendent board thank you for allowing us to bring this job description to you this evening um and it's in an effort to actually explore Staffing model that will address the ongoing challenges that we have uh in maintaining while maintaining the quality of
081education and support for our students we've actually researched some other District districts who um use a little different model than we do for our VPK our goal is to enhance our Workforce and provide additional resources to ensure the success of our educational programs including at VPK this position will be utilized in lie of VPK teachers in the pure VPK classrooms that do not require the a teacher certification by the state um if we decide to move forward with the implementation of hiring facilitators with a Child Development Associates to support our teams is crucial to emphasize that this does not imply any job losses for our current staff members and this is going to occur through attrition so we've actually since this is a bargained position we have brought this before um the view at the
082table back in May and actually formerly passed it across the table during bargaining and um we've also had further follow-up conversations as recently as February the 5th discussed moving forward with this position so we feel like at this point uh this is going to be a beneficial position and give us options um for that program in VPK can can you explain how many U hours is required to get the Edda so in in actually it's it's an associates degree so it is like a a 60-hour degree um with six credit hours in early childhood education or Child Development any other questions Mr versus no I I typically uh do not like when we have people in front of children that aren't fully certified in that particular course this is a little different um my understanding
083is that a teacher has to be fully certified in VPK to teach in the summer is that still correct no no sir if it's a full um and we have different VPK programs and we have a prek program as well so our Blended model VPK program they have to have the actual certification for ESC as well they will continue to have to have that to CER our ESC students for what we call the pure VPK programs one that they just need to go for three hours right that that only require that does not require a state certification um that that's actually fulfilled by the CDA and um we've actually researched and other districts actually do this rather successfully through out and we really feel like this is going to be a program that's going to
084actually open opportunities for us to provide more VPK as needed would these teachers Preschool teachers would they have to have an AA degree they would have to have their associates degree that's part of that program yes sir and that's that's actually in the requirements and the qualifications on the job description for that so then wouldn't we be um Mr P able to get these people who have an AA degree in that par program with Daytona State College to several to get their full teaching certificate we possibly would yes sir that that'd be a good track to get them in on so can I give a little history on this all right so we originally started with the the prek ESC Blended model all right where you have a full-time ESC teacher teaching prek that is
085certified to do that and they what we did is we were able to bring in and we started with an employee Blended model where employees could bring their children in so the classroom was made up of the ESC children that were three and four years old that were staffed into that program and then employees could bring their four-year-old in using the VPK voucher and and that is the program how it originally started and it was self- sustaining because the employees then paid the voucher covered the first three hours of instruction and the ESC teacher was already being paid for out of the funds in order to teach the ESC children they put an additional person in there with either a Child Development certificate or an additional parah and we brought the employee children in and
086then the employees paid a wraparound fee all right that's where we were at and at that time we were self- sustaining with the programs that we were doing simal county has been running this model from day one because if you go into the language of what the state requires they require somebody with the CDA in order to be in front of the students that's what's required so simal and years ago I went to simal County I've been there many times about this simal County hires individuals with the CDA they select their curriculum at the district level they have resource teachers which is what they call them at the district level that write all of the lesson plans that go in and model the lessons and all of this and they then also have a sliding
087scale for where parents pay the wraparound fee well what we did in valua County was Title One stepped into starting pure vpks not Blended that were self- sustaining but pure and when they did that they hired certified teachers to go into the pure VPK classrooms they didn't charge any wraparound fee so we've got employees that were charging wraparound fees for and we had a few Community Blended charging wraparound but if you put your child at a title one school you didn't pay anything title one picked up the entire piece what that did which by the way the title one federal law says the money is earned by the children ages 5 to 17 okay EPK so what it did and if Dr o Johnson was sitting here tonight he would tell you what it did
088to him at CH T when we started this our Title One allocations were reduced going to our Title One schools where we're serving the children 5 to 17 because we were diverting the money into the prek program fast forward none of us knew I didn't know until I said in a meeting last spring we added three-year-olds did you realize we started a three-year-old program okay there is no money for three-year-olds the state doesn't offer one penny for three-year-old programs we were upside down last year in the three-year-old program we were taking General funds to support the three-year-old program hence why this past summer some fees started coming in because we've been running these programs at the cost of our other students 5 to 17 and if you go read the state law we've been running
089them with certified teachers I'm not against certified teachers I have a degree in early childhood but we have to look at what are we doing to our five to 17 year olds by continuing to reduce Title One funding to them to continue to keep adding the three adding the four-year old program so we cannot even pay the three-year-old program with title one I'm not sure how we're doing it with four-year-olds I'll be honest with you so there are many counties that if you go look at what they're doing in seminal county has this program in every one of their schools they also have a VPK Center that they've had for a number of years you know I would say go visit it and see what happens there I mean I have visited those classrooms I've
090seen the lessons the curriculum they score very well every year on their test are they there for six hours yes and the parents pay us on a sliding scale the wraparound fee so their units are self- sustaining their units are not taking from Title One funds or other funds in order to run we have a short so every time we open and last year we were opening five more units we take five more certified teachers out of the classrooms where we're required by law to have a certified teacher and we move them to where we're not required to have a certified teacher and we take more money away from our Title One schools thank you uh so was the is the plan to expand the VPK Pro program we this we're always looking at our
091communities and looking at their needs so obviously yes but we want to do it at a at a rate in a way where we're not upside down and and that's where we have been for the past few years yeah well I would I would hope then if we're going to be using this model then we won't be upside down per per class and that we should ex expand this where ever we can because if if we want our community needs it but we need to do it in a way that it's fin if we want to um introduce public schools to parents this is the way to do it because we will have the best prek program anywhere and it's it's let's let the parents see what we can offer in bla County schools and
092then once we have them at three and and four we're likely to have them at five and U uh so um I will vote for it I I I'll vote for it and the other piece I want to share is so last year I got people at the district level to go to simal County yeah and seriously take a look at what they were doing and we came back and they were going to add five more units using Title One funds okay so my suggestion was could we just start with those five new units and go this route because here's the other thing we've got the teacher acmy at our high schools and we even heard last year we actually honored one of the young ladies who came um who had done the project at
093dantai yeah she already had passed and had her CDA piece that would have been a perfect opportunity for us to capture her a few others out of land a few others out of Atlantic to come in to these rooms and my thought is if we get our high school students that already have a passion for this and have already passed their coursework and they have that licensing to come in and start where they're being guided and they have all the materials and the resources My Hope Is they will fall in love with that and number one if they want to stay there that's fine but number two maybe then we can partner with Daytona State as Mr colone and I went to that presentation last March using the State Workforce dollars and these and we
094can help them f finish up their degree the bachelor's degree and they can move into certified teacher so that's what we want yeah I've you know there's a lot of things we can do because we got to figure out how to get teachers in classrooms and I really struggle every time I want to open VPK I want to open three-year-old programs but I can't do it at the expense of a first grade class or a third grade class where I'm taking a certified teacher away where they need one Mr cologne and so I have Early Childhood Program programs at both of my high schools and ironically it's it's it's almost hypocritical because we say we're going to put you through this Academy we're going to put you through this rigorous certification and then we're going
095to prepare you to go work at a private school because you're not good enough for us and so uh currently uh one of my high schools has between 12 and 15 students that graduated with their CDA who spent four years preparing uh for that opportunity who are many of which are enrolled in uh Dayton estate getting their AA and eventually to be a teacher and so I think this is definitely a way to you know show them that we value what they're doing as well because those kids work hard for that certification I mean it's the reason we've got these programs and then we're not we're not employing them so for that reason I am supportive of this any other discussion Dr falman would you like to make a recommendation yeah I recommend the approval
096of job description 12.01 all right do I have someone who'd like to make a motion to approve it move approval thank you Mr persus do I have a second second thank you Mr clone any further discussion then I'll call for the vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed it passes unanimously thank you do we know potentially how many certified teachers this will potentially make available to fill our vacancies and Elementary or we don't know that yet I know we have 27 units um we don't know yet for at this point we're not looking to move any of our teachers out of VPK because we still have needs in VPK it's just from this point forward moving forward if we expand thank you great thank you all right we have reached um
097it is 6:14 I I apologize um we needed to finish that piece but we are going to take a short break um we will reconvene in here at 6:30 pm where we will start with the first part of public of input yellow cards of general interest so at this time we'll reconvene at 6:30 thank you e maybe more I'm just in case you thought nobody remember minutes wait at this time if everyone would take a seat please we'd like to reconvene the meeting what's what she there dinner I know it's time for public input I'd like to remind everyone that during public input we expect you to be courteous of those that are speaking no discussion by anyone in the audience if you agree with someone you're more than happy to do a thumbs up
098if you disagree you can do a thumbs down you can do jazz hands but there is no discussion during this time that way the speaker has the opp opportunity to say what they're going to say for three minutes this time period is for the first five um yellow cards if anyone else wants to fill one out that part will happen a little later this evening um which I'm hoping will not take long to get to um based on the other agenda items that we need to vote on tonight I see a lot of you here in the audience that I know some point in time in my career I I've worked with you hired you to teach a summer program be a pair professional and a lot of you I I have known for many
099years so I want to speak to you for a moment and just remind you of something that I typically don't remind people of when we go to move to public input but I care about every one of you and you make a difference every day so please hear me out on this part when you come up to speak this evening this is being live streamed as well as recorded and when it comes to education we have state and federal laws that we have to follow and I know the bulk of my audience here this evening you teach some of our most special children you teach our ESC kids or your a pair that works with them on a daily basis and I know some days are better than others just as it is for everyone
100and I know that your job is hard what I don't want to see happen this evening we want to hear from you and we want to hear the truth of what is a struggle for you but I don't want you to say anything that would imply that you're not following a state or federal law because believe it or not there's somebody listening that will take that information and they will turn it into a negative way instead of really hearing what's on your heart of what you want to share so I caution you to not make a statement that says I am not going to do this and whatever it's you're not going to do if there's a federal or state law that says You must do it please don't say you're not going to do
101it because as the chair of this school board a week rarely passes that I'm not because I'm the chair I receive all the papers that are served for every lawsuit that is filed against fuchia County schools and I have to bring those in and turn them into the attorney immediately I don't want to see lawsuits come out of tonight I'm trying to protect every one of you and I hope that you hear what I have said because it's nothing I've ever said before and you'll probably not hear me say it again but I think sometimes ether through passion or in the he of a moment we forget how many people are watching and listening and that there are people that don't they want to take something and they want to turn it into a negative
102so we will start with the first five people I will call you in order I will call the first two individuals so that the first individual will come up and you will have three minutes followed by the second individual will be ready then we will go on to the next and we're we going to do five at this time I have all the rest and we will get to you so first up is Miss Wanda Roberts Miss Roberts will you please come forward welcome me yes pull it down thank you a very serious incident occurred at one of our schools when I asked the principal how to remove the opportunity for this type of incident to hopefully never occur again I was referred to you the Valia County school board so here I am I
103need to speak to you about a major safety issue at our schools in reference to the Wednesday early release schedule when children released an hour early this results in the schedule getting crammed at some schools little 5-year-old kindergarteners are placed together in the cafeteria with big 10 11 maybe even 12y old fifth graders when these two groups are in the cafeteria together this means they share the same restrooms who in the world thought this was a good idea I was a I am aware of one case in which a little 5-year-old boy was sexually assaulted and battered two big fifth grade boys in the cafeteria restroom this assault occurred last month on Wednesday early release day an attorney the police and the Department of Children and Families are all involved and I will be emailing
104additional information to you on the other four school days the kindergarteners are the only ones in the cafeteria just as it should be at some schools this overlap of little 5-year-old kindergarteners and big fifth graders sharing the same restrooms may only be 10 minutes but that's a long time in which something can happen and it did set your timers for 10 minutes and do nothing during that time it is a long time on the other four days first graders share the cafeteria and restrooms with fifth graders for 20 minutes these situations can be rectified one solution is to revise the schedule so that there is no overlap of little kindergarteners and big fifth graders another solution is to revise a schedule so that little kindergarteners and little first graders share the cafeteria and restrooms another
105solution which a lot of people support is to eliminate early release days they are so disruptive give the teachers a whole day occasionally so they can truly have time to collaborate and develop professionally more monitors is not a solution everyone who has interviewed agreed that there will never be a sufficient number of monitors for the number of children who are in the cafeteria at one time and where in the world are the security cameras one of our most sacred duties is to protect our children we have all failed to protect our children in this instance it's easy to rectify let's not continue to put our children's safety in Jeopardy the reasons for the system we have in place right now can be discussed until the cows come home but none are really important when it
106pertains to protecting our children thank you to to get Miss Roberts please continue on and she's and miss castal miss castellanus is going to meet with you at the back door okay will you please share any other details with her up next is Miss Jennifer Kelly followed by Miss Sheila Butchart good good evening board members and uh superintendent uh thank you for your conversation during today's workshop on policy 320 um I appreciated a lot of the comment but there was a couple things that I would like to address um it was mentioned about 16 books only being challenged and uh taking up lots of resources and time um it's it's been more than 16 books uh we also had the state list that had 140 something books on it that they've been taking their time
107going through also um I've been very respectful I feel in dealing with the district uh and not overwhelming them because I have hundreds more books that need to be challenged just on the sexually explicit piece I'm the person that made the May meetings that were mentioned earlier and it's not because I'm playing games or taking advantage of the situation I know I'm not listening to usually during public comment or my emails read but I hope you're listening now I had to set those meetings in May because in December which I've already said here I was called by the district and threatened that they would place the books that I objected to for sexually explicit content and pornography back on the Shelf if I didn't move forward with setting the meetings with the principles even though
108there's no time frame in statute or policy to do so I was hoping in that delay that I would get this policy brought back forth because the challenge process is almost unattainable and designed very poorly I wanted it streamlined I had no idea it would take nine months to get to this point you said you didn't want to hear or talk about books being removed anymore I don't either I was hoping this would be done by now but we should absolutely talk about sexually explicit material being removed from our children School libraries it would be helpful to parents and community members of the policy included a few statute updates and changes to the challenge process the reason is parents will go to a policy first before they will go to a statute to find out
109what's going on or what the rules are some of my suggestions are you guys discussed earlier about the magistrate piece I think that would be very helpful to add I also feel it' be helpful to add pieces on um material being read at the microphone and objected and removed and also the five days that were mentioned earlier thank you thank you next up is Miss Sheila Butchart followed by Miss Katherine Peavey welcome good evening Dr Balin school school board members um to who I'm reading for um someone else to for wh to whom it may concern I hope this letter finds you well I'm writing to express my concerns regarding the challenges of exceptional student education teachers face in our district as a new ESC teacher I have observed several issues that I believe warrant
110attention and consideration one of the primary challenges facing ESC teachers is lack of sufficient planning time to adequately prepare for the diverse needs of our students many ese teachers including myself are required to teach multiple grade level simultaneously in addition to fulfilling numerous other responsibilities such as I P progress monitoring and report cards the current workload often exceeds the allotted planning time that has already been given and makes it difficult to achieve the work life balance leading to increased stress and more burnout among Educators furthermore the frequency of testing and monitoring of students particularly those who are significantly below grade level can be overwhelming to both teachers and students the pressure to cons cover extensive material within a restrictive framework can impede me meaning F learning experiences and hinder student progress toward goals as Educators
111we strive to meet the needs of our students but the current demands placed upon us can make this goal increasingly challenging to attain Additionally the accept the expectation of the ese teacher is to complete paperwork outside of the contracted hours without compensation is disheartening despite our dedication and commitment to our students the lack of recognition and support for our efforts from the board can be demor moralizing and particularly for those new to this profession I believe it is imperative to address these challenges to ensure the well-being of both ese Educators and students provide adequate planning time revisiting testing monitoring practices and offering appropriate compensation for additional responsibilities are crucial steps toward fostering a supportive and sustainable work environment for ESC teachers I appreciate your understanding of these concerns and I'm hopeful that we can work
112together to implement positive changes that benefit all members of our educational Community thank you for consideration sincerely concerned ESC educator and I just want to add this is a new teacher that has written this we're trying to retain our teachers and we have a new teacher that's this frustrated she won't stay please think about the points that she has brought up thank you thank you Mrs Katherine Peavey followed by Miss Valerie Jessup welcome morning good evening um good evening Schoolboard members I come here tonight to discuss honesty I want to speak specifically to the support facilitation logs I think there needs to be a review of this legal documentation that your ESC teachers are required to complete and what is and what is not included you see last year I was told I was not
113allowed to include anything in that log except when we serviced our students it makes sense on the surface until the district is under immense scrutiny we have to admit when a teacher is out sick or on personal leave when we're pulled to help with Safety and Security drills when scheduled to administer State Testing to ESC students that receive accommodations in some cases it's been a full four to 10 days sometimes hold the substitute if the students went on a field trip attending IEP meetings attending professional development meetings attending PC meetings all of those are omitted I still have huge huge concerns about this in my opinion my personal opinion I feel like I'm being asked to lie by admitting important information that explains why a student could not be serviced at that time or did
114not meet the minutes for that week lying on purpose or by a mission is still lying it's unethical and morally wrong to do so how can an accurate audit be conducted when all the information is not there when we have an audit and a particular student's minutes are not met it comes back to the ESC teacher to prove their Ence that teacher is then asked to explain why those minutes were not met I personally have not been under that scrutiny some of my co-workers have and it's not been pretty what we ESC teachers have been told to do is to keep our own log to cover ourselves the ESC teacher population knows that they have to protect themselves if there is an issue the district will not protect their teachers but themselves how can you
115Proclaim that we're achieving Excellence together when you're not working working with the ESC teacher population to help alleviate these barriers we continue to tell you we're having difficulties we've had town halls but not much has changed instead we are now being taught how to audit our own selves this is just one more thing placed on our already overflowing plate now if we're out we're supposed to have subs for us and that is awesome and I'm glad that you guys are doing that but what's happening is these Subs are being pulled to sub for classroom teachers so no one's taking or no one's taking the job so now we're in the same situation of the minutes not being met how can you Proclaim that we're achieving Excellence together when it's a one-way conversation I've personally personally
116reached out to the executive ESC director in September but received no response I've reached out to the superintendent in May and received no response while my emails have fallen on deaf ears it just proves that the district is not respectful of its employees enough to answer their emails much less work with us to create solutions to make this a better situation thank you thank you next up is Miss Valerie Jessup welcome thank you good evening Madame chair and board members I'm here as a one-on-one support pair professional and I'm going to speak for myself but I have heard complaints from many other one-on-one support pair professionals the new paperwork we are having to do is absolutely ridiculous the reason most not all oneon-one pairs are with students is because they need extra assistance and they
117need a lot of Hands-On these logs are to be filled out subject by subject daily and turned in Friday every Friday there are times throughout the day I cannot fill out these logs due to high needs the high needs of my student therefore I have to fill it out out later in the day I also find it difficult with all of the filling out because there are times that there are outbursts in my classroom where the students need assistance by someone that is NCI trained and most class rooms only have a few of those um however sorry how are we then supposed to track these logs while these situation while the situations are happening because mind you our day starts with our children and ends with our children we are not provided extra time to
118go and fill out these logs and we have to provide it to the teacher to initial every time that we do an accommodation I would like to know some answers to those questions thank you thank you all right at this time we're going to move on to our board action items where we also do have um green cards do you have any more other than what I have right now okay then we are going to start I have no cards on item 17.01 so Dr vaman would you like to make a recommendation for item 17.01 social studies textbooks yes Madam chair I recommend approval of msa-2 24-14 JD um gallopade textbook adoptions so board members you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent and this is one of the areas that we covered earlier today during
119the workshop do I have someone that will make a motion to approve move to approve thank you Mrs Bernett do I have a second I'll second that motion thank you Mrs Thompson is there any discussion about the social studies textbooks uh Madam chair I thought we had a great discussion earlier today at the workshop concerning all these social studies materials and I certainly want to thank the social studies Department wherever they are and uh great job all right if there's no further discussion then I'll call for a vote on those on this particular item 17.01 all those in favor please say I I I any opposed okay it passes unanimously now we're moving on to item 17.02 but before we vote on that 17.02 is actually the um adoption of proposed amendments to the Zone
120description manual modifying the attendance boundaries of Beachside Elementary Horizon Elementary RJ Long Street Elementary Spruce Creek Elementary Sugar Mill Elementary Sweetwater Elementary and CH T small we have some individuals that would like to speak so each of you will be given three minutes um I will announce the first two and then we will move on from there so the first individual to speak for item 17.02 is Mrs Patricia Drago welcome good evening Madam chair scho bar members superintendent balabin I've been here many many times so uh this is home for me I want to say that I'm speaking tonight for the League of Women Voters of ficia County Education action team and we have sent uh written comments to the board members in advance of this so I'm not going to go over those comments
121but I am going to speak to first of all how long much the League of Women Voters supports valua County Schools County Education and we'll be at the social studies fair this month this is home for us and we have attended many of the meeting I think we've had somebody at almost every single meeting on all of the proposed boundary changes these are our schools this is our community um I want to say that even tonight I've heard how much the the ambitious CH uh challenges that the school district and the board have ahead of us and we are concerned about the the size of the propos proposed changes excuse me I still get nervous um at TT small in particular I will tell you the school itself is under construction it's been my experience
122that often times they can be a lag in construction I also know that moving into a new school can be extremely taxing and challenging for the staff the leader School leadership and the community so we have proposed that you take it in stages and that you get everybody into the school get settled and then the next year bring in all the new students uh just in case the school isn't ready or what have you we're we the league are very concerned at T small and Campbell in particular that you have have some substantial changes we know that at each one of the meetings people have asked questions and the District staff has answered we have this system for support this system for support a lot of resources that will be called upon what we want
123to do is to make sure that everything is firmly in place so that this goes step by step and that it is successful I think that uh schools in general have a lot of challenges I think opening a new school is a particular challenge sometimes combining the school population takes a whole another set of issues to and I'm thinking at that point about TT small and Campbell we also may have challenges because I'm concerned about concentrated ethnicities and socioeconomic needs but the pl the resources are in place let's make sure they're in place ahead of time let's make sure that we do this step by step that the resources are in fact available and that the schools are ready and I'll just close by saying I'm not going to speak on Campbell because you've already
124received our comments I know that having the electives in place at Campbell is going to be critical so we're just saying take it gradually make sure that the resources are there and that everybody can achieve together thank you thank you next up is Miss Cynthia Slater following Miss Cynthia Slater will be Mrs Daisy Grimes is Miss Slater here oh she I know you're Miss Daisy Grimes did Miss Slater leave Miss Slater had to step out for a call that's fine State and she's asked me to come and speak on her behalf if that's permissible with you madam chair thank you Mrs Grimes but I still want my time good after how how many wait how many minutes do you want don't ask her that um M Mrs Slater asked me to say on behalf of
125the NAACP that there is much concern about this potential uh resoning decision that you are going to have to decide tonight or sometimes in the near future we feel that enough uh information has not been discussed as it relates to the amount of students that you intend to move at one time we thep is also concerned that you have not looked at some of the problems that both of these schools as specifically Campbell is experiencing now and we want to know if you are aware that there is some infighting between one of the schools that will be students will be transferred from Holly Hill Middle School to Campbell that there are already some concerns that within the community uh that M that should be discussed we would love neighborhood schools I went to a neighborhood
126school but we know that separate has never been equal and that is truly one of our concerns now with the nacp when you do this it will almost make ttis small and Campbell Middle School segregated again that's much concern if you intend to do this I we feel the NP feels that we need to hold up look at it again and see how we can do this more effectively and is this board ready to make the decision that it will make sure that there is the exray resources that's going to be needed in this school you cannot you cannot treat ttis small and Campbell as you treat pathway Henson or OBM it is two different environments culture difference and student at those schools are different are you ready to deal with that thank you very
127much thank you do you want to come back up to speak a second time Miss Grimes or did you just want to speak once now it's your turn please don't tell Miss Grimes that you you put you put two items so I'm just I did you want to speak just once or twice just one I just want to did I put two no you you put two items together so I just want to speak to one all right thank you very much all right and when Miss Slater comes back in will you let me know okay all right because we'll get her up here so we're gonna move on to Miss Debbie Parker at this time and if Miss Slater's not back in yet then we will move to miss Cassie giner welcome good evening
128everyone thank you for this opportunity and I'm speaking for myself I've attended several rezoning proposal meetings during the last few months I was at a couple at T T small a couple at Campbell I believe one at Silver Sands I noticed that there were a few parents and community members at any of them I was also present at a very large meeting at Mary McLoud bethon cookman college with many area attendees who shared serious concerns many at the groups assembled at each meeting expressed disappointment at the lack of Halifax and Midtown Area Community parent and family involvement in the creation of the proposals that are being voted upon tonight I'm aware and I do trust that valua County Schools made efforts to alert and include area residents but a few sh a few shared some
129interesting ideas to increase contact with and to receive feedback from many of the affected families time as well is needed for this exchange of important ideas a welcoming attitude and more time also it's my belief that title one funding is not adequate financial support for the effects of living in poverty and near poverty it is helpful and thankfully we do have that funding but when a question is asked at evolution a school board meeting or school meeting about providing necessary resources for all these students please stop answering by saying that the Money Follows the students or by referencing TW Title One please instead acknowledge that many of the children affected by these proposed zoning boundaries are not like other children please do not rely and at least it appears that you're relying on Title One
130funds to solve the opposition regarding the TR small and Campbell Elementary Middle School attendance boundaries if the proposals for the t t and Campbell areas are adopted agenda items 1702 and 1703 without adequate representation from the people who live in the Midtown and Halifax areas the board will have made a very unfortunate mistake I'm concerned that valua County might become known for introducing busing that will resegregate and leave lowincome and below poverty level families without access to the high quality education that baloa County reportedly strives to provide to all students please vote no on agenda items 1702 and 1703 or table these agenda items or whatever it takes to decide to start over with the redrawing of the school attendance zones in the h and Midtown areas please include the families represented please ensure that
131all students are offered the opportunity for a high quality education as the valua County School District strategic plan assures us all thank you Mr Parker next up is Miss Cassie goer followed by Lacy McMullen welcome School Board Dr bin um I am a parent of two proud t t Bulldogs um I serve on the school's PTA and sac and at their urging I joined the valua County Council of ptas as the diversity Equity inclusion chair um we live in Midtown Daytona a historically black neighborhood that since integration in the 60s has busted children out to 12 different elementary schools we live next door to bethon cookman University can literally see it out my window and yet my kids were zoned for Pine Trail Elementary in Northern orand um we filled out variance for my girls
132to stay at T te and our family's also planning to fill out a variance for them to stay at Campbell um when my oldest will go there in Fall of 25 um I've been on the PTA my girls are on uh a part of Girls on the Run girls with class we've all been able to take part in our school because we're now at our my girls we my girls are now attending the school that um we live close to um professor and author ibram X Kendy challenges us to integrate resources rather than just integrating bodies um the original busing tried to integrate black children into predominantly white schools but not the other way around that's inequitable um only having programs for Accelerated students like gifted services in schools in Orman or Port Orange is
133not Equitable the perception or reality that Orman or Port Orange schools are better than schools in Daytona Beach or Midtown is not Equitable the board has a chance to correct these in in in equities excuse me I'm so excited for a brand new ter te um and I'm asking for students in the neighborhood to be able to stay there at that school um I want to see that school integrated with the best teachers resources and Community sport supports likewise for Campbell I'd like for our neighborhood kids to be able to stay at that school and again integrate it with teachers resources and staff that want to truly care for the school in the neighborhood um families in Midtown deserve to attend a highquality facility with the best staff within their own neighborhood just like my
134kids have um and I've had the ability to take my kids to school at T with the variance that other parents haven't had the opportunity and I'd like for them to have the same opportunities I've had thank you thank you Miss Lacy McMullen oh I apologize yes all right is Miss Slater back in here all right well then um board members you've heard from the public about items 17.02 and 17.3 but we're going to start with 17.02 first Dr balamin do you have a recommendation H oh there's a presentation I apologize have a presentation Miss Patty core our permanent now Chief Operating Officer with her team they will be joining us I apologize I apologize Miss core no that's okay nobody wants to come up and sit next to you you know Mr Mr Young
135has to come up here with me thank you Mr Young good evening chair Haynes Schoolboard members Dr balab and superintendent um thank you for giving us a few minutes just to give a little bit of background information um one of the things we're really proud about um having been to 17 Community meetings since this process started was exactly what you heard here tonight from public input is how much our community our families our students love their schools that we heard that over and over again how much they love their school their principles their teachers and that was so refreshing my name is Patty core I am the Chief Operating Officer I'm joined by Ron young our director of business and planning and a team of people behind us who I have to take a quick
136second to thank the planning team um who were at every single one of those Community meetings all after hours all in various corners of the district um because they are very dedicated to this process as well so just wanted to give a little bit of background before you guys uh for you to consider before you begin voting um just want to remind everyone who's listening also that besides following State Statute we have to follow something called sref which which stands for state requirements for educational facilities and what a lot of people learned when we did these Community meetings was the school district and the school board doesn't have sole oversight about what we do with our facilities the state determines what buildings are built what buildings are torn down so you can go around the
137district where we've built new schools I'll use Beachside Elementary as an example a beautiful new school and as you're coming up on the beautiful new school the original uh front office is still there because the state did not permit us to tear that down they permitted the other buildings to be demolished but not that building but a beautiful thing happened and as a result of that is Mr um Dr our chief technology officer needed a space for his new division of educational technology that he built when he restructured and that entire team is housed in that building so we can utilize our facilities in different ways we can repurpose them in different ways but the state decides and oversees and tells us what we're allowed to um tear down and rebuild in addition when we
138have a school that's overcrowded which the overcrowding is also governed by sref they will tell us whether we can build a new building or not we would love to build a new building for example at Timber Crest so nobody has to leave Timber Crest because we all know how much everybody loves Timber Crest and that principle is amazing we hear it every day and we agree however we have two schools within a very close proximity less than three miles away that are underutilized and so the utilization you can find it in chapter six of the srf manual that governs how we utilize our facilities and we always want to be fiscally responsible when we have a school at 120% of capacity what that means is we've got more bodies physically in that school every day
139than the school was meant to handle or built to handle and that puts excess wear and tear it causes more um maintenance issues down the road if the cafeteria isn't built for that size we have to regulate that and and it's never an easy thing and it's it's emotional and we understand and part of that and what we've heard over and over is because of how much people love their schools take a quick second to say as you guys know I'm a product of alusia County Schools when I went to elementary school in Deltona it was Enterprise Elementary and I went there for six years K through six loved it I didn't have to live through this but as you know over the years as Deltona grew um my former secretary said that she moved
140three times and to a new school every time because of the resoning as new buildings were built so it is growing pains and we understand that um so as you know this team before I I came to this position but this team was charged with um taking care of some of our overcrowding that was happening across the district we haven't had a reasoning like this in the Deltona area I believe we said since maybe the 90s um so quickly you'll see what's what's happening here as far as sending schools and receiving schools and the reason tur T looks like that is they they are building and getting a brand new school and it's going to be double almost double the capacity of the current school so the concern about um only letting the T students
141go to the brand new school and not do the resoning means we would be at maybe 40% capacity the srf manual says all elementary school should be at 100% meaning if your school is built for 800 you should have 800 students we don't always hit that Mark exactly but we try to come close to hitting that um and that's the same for middle schools and then when you get to high school it's um tiered based on how many students go to the school so this is what you're going to be hearing tonight we're going to be you're going to have five um action items and um you'll be looking at at each of these and this is how this worked out the Holly Hill and the Campbell the only middle schools on here are as
142a result of um if we were to vote if you all vote tonight to return Holly Hill to the K5 which it was originally built for um and we would have to then take the middle school student students and and split them and we use 10th Street um the maps are attached on the board dos um for everybody to see that's happening because that school was built as an elementary we did build a a middle school building on there but it still has an elementary sized cafeteria and media center and the growth there has been tremendous and as you all know as you drive around the county we talk about it all the time there's a new Housing Development going up there are new apartments going up almost everywhere we look we're seeing grow um
143so we did come to the workshops back in 2023 in the summer July and then August 8th we came to the regular school board meetings on October 10th and December 12th as we said we um through through actually snail mail um letters social media School Messengers Etc we put posted out our community meetings locations and um and times all of these started at 5:30 in the very ious areas there were 177 of them some meetings we even after the initial meeting schedule came out we added more because we were were requested to um so we went back to some of the communities more than once um we have parent input forms or Community input forms we had those at every meeting there was a QR code also electronically if we asked people to tell others
144who couldn't come to the community meeting to please go on the website and fill out their concerns and um even something uh one change that we made as a result of our first meeting at Campbell Middle is we did change the South Boundary of Campbell Middle which had gone beyond Bevel Road and we moved it back to Bevel and that means more students going to Silver Sands and about 60 fewer students going to Campbell um so you're going to see um with or you'll know with on the um board dos the the updated capacity um for Campbell changed as a result of sending fewer students there I already mentioned men this I have to say it again one of the feedback we received loudly and clearly was how much students parents community members love their
145schools their teachers their principles we had a lot of thank you for listening we had a lot of comments about we know this is difficult um and and people many people understood but they said we understand but can you move those kids instead of my kids and we we understand that um we wanted you to know about the uh feedback that we received there were three major things if we looked at the feedback as a whole a lot of parents asked well can't my child just age out and what they mean by that is if I'm in second grade instead of being involved in the resoning can I just stay at my school and then new kids can go to the new zoning but the current kids can age out and unfortunately when we're looking
146at the schools that are already over capacity like 123% 117% that would take that could take five or six years to level that um but that is that was one of the major concerns um we do have the variance application process we will say that anybody who is a current fourth grader who's a rising fifth grader is grandfathered in because if you've been at of school K through four we're not going to have you move your last year unless you choose to go with the resoning but if you want to stay you can and their siblings stay for one year with them if they have younger siblings and then for resources and support that that was another very loud we heard very loudly is we want to make sure if we're school that's receiving more
147students that we get the teachers we need to make sure that there's Staffing that comes with that um that the resources are Equitable uh the tutoring programs and things like that remain um for ese to make sure that those those are in place those supports um Staffing and then resource allocation and then one of the other things that bubbled up was a some people said well I used to have transportation and now I won't because I'm within the two two mile non-transport zone or I used to not have to have transportation but now I do to go to my like in the case of Holly Hill a lot of those students didn't qualify for transportation but now they will be busted to either orand or Campbell so those were the um major concerns that and
148then what we did is we also said to um people who had specific um extenuating circumstances health or other reasons to make sure that they put that on their if they apply for the variant to make sure that they delineate that on the variance form so we know and also on their comment forms so we wanted to make sure that uh we gave you that feedback are there any questions for us before you Mr col Mr cologne so I'm confused so I don't necessarily disagree with the grandfathering of the fourth graders but is that something you all are because that's not I mean we've discussed it but is that that something you all are proposing that we do with this change or is that what's been told to the community we were going to do
149no that's what we're doing you don't vote that's operational so you're not voting on that that's what we're doing so if a parent chooses to keep their child at that school they will now have to be responsible for transportation if that need be and we're allowing them to stay going fourth grade to fifth grade correct yeah and then if they have younger siblings they can stay for that additional year year correct do we have that capacity at schools like DeBerry and Timber Crest and all of that to accommodate that and again I'm not unopposed to it and and I appreciate the feedback I just I'm caught a little bit a back because we had discussed that being one of the things the board would consider and now I'm hearing this is what you're proposing so
150I just want to be clear is that what we're proposing that if a family decides that they want to keep their child there for fourth grade going to fifth grade they'll be able to do that and their sibling will be able to stay for up to one year understanding that after that year they're going to be returning to their school that's yeah and that is past practice and that's why that's in place true so when they open all those schools in Delona that was a thing that was offered for when year there will be a few appearance that will take that option but there'll be a lot of parents that won't take that option that was also for the rising eighth graders too right unfortunately no because the proposal is to um oh for lack
151of a better word eliminate the middle school yeah revert Holly Hill back to a K5 so there that right right yeah now if we were just doing a general rezoning of middle schools then yes um right anything else Mr cologne that was it Mr persus um do you have the the number of students for each of these somewhere in your yes I don't have it so I don't know okay I'll make a copy and give it to you do you need it now yeah I was I was just I don't know perhaps we got it at one time but I don't have it does everybody have it how many like you know how many go what I have here is a a document that shows for all of the schools involved the current Los which
152stands for level of service that means what our current capacity is so for example Deber Elementary is currently at 117% meaning they're over what the no I I don't mean that I mean like I'm looking at the proposed School boundary slide and it says for instance it says Campbell the Silver Sands okay so how how many from Campbell are going to Silver okay so from Campbell we have 17 7 students leaving and 323 students coming and the net is 146 so the 322 coming are they they're coming from they're coming from Holly Hill a few from uh Creekside and is it Silver Sands Lisa and Silver Sands because of that boundary change but they're also sending student students to Silver Sands as well right so Campbell is sending students to Silver Sands and and Silver
153Sands is sending students to Campell right so so uh could you tell me specifically how many students yep from Silver Sands are going to Campbell oh he oh how many 32 going from from Silver 32 from Silver Sands to Campbell from Silver Sands to Campbell and Campbell is sending 177 to Silver Sands is that what we said yes that's correct okay can you just fill in the blanks for the rest of them uh Ron all right yes sir there are 34 students from Creek Side to Campbell there are 223 students from Holly Hill to obms 171 students from Holly Hill to Campbell 86 students from obms to Campbell 32 students from Silver Sands to Campbell yeah got it so 171 from Holly Hill to Campbell and then 32 from Silver Sands to Campbell so that's
154uh three 203 new students coming in to Campbell and 177 going out right that is uh a net difference there of 26 verses it's attached to board dos and it gives you the student count right here gotcha gotcha gotcha yeah I'm I'm just trying to judge the impact okay you know to u to Campbell um so it looks like 203 coming in so they would really be 26 new students let's just say 26 students that were W an attending Campbell this year that would be attending Campbell next year maybe this would give you some perspective right now the uh level of service the population at Campbell is at 85% and it would be moving to 97% yeah uh looking here at Silver Sands so Silver Sands is uh gonna be getting 145 new new students
155and Campbell is going to be getting 26 new students so again Silver Sands would go from 113% to 98% yeah um Orman Beach Middle School so it looks like Orman Beach Middle School is getting 223 from Holly Hill and then they're losing oh wait they're losing 86 to Campbell yes sir so that adds the Campbell's total 12 so that's 112 that would take new students at Campbell right so that would take obms from 80% to 95% gotcha cuz uh they're going to gain 223 and lose 86 yep well I think that uh all these points are are well well made about resources uh schools schools can't be staffed just by the number of students that attend the school you know that's what you can't do there's there are different needs at each at each school
156and I think we make a mistake if we just say well this school has a thousand kids therefore they get x amount of teachers next school you know 800 kids you get x amount of teachers you know someone needs to drill down a lot deeper particularly when you're in that trans transition year when you're getting new students new students don't come I mean new students means there's going to be new teachers there too um so it's a it is a major impact on a on a school and uh I don't know we haven't really talked about that here um but I think the points that the parents made um about having the the resources uh is is is critically important now all these middle schools Holly Hill Orman Creekside Silver Sands Campbell um of course
157Holly Hill is it's kind of out of the picture now but it it's a little it it's a little different in that these aren't schools that are currently being built those schools are all already there so we already know what the capacity is we know the we know the classroom space we know all that stuff and um if if it's going to take uh additional resources I think we got to start planning for it you know now I mean we gota we gotta staff up I you know they used to say Jamie oh that school's over staffed well maybe not uh maybe that school has additional needs and so they need additional people so I don't call that overstaffed it may look overstaffed when you compare it on a black and white piece of paper
158but when you really start to know what the needs of the school are uh then you can justify uh putting additional people there uh and and when I say um additional people you know that may mean and another assistant principle it may mean another TOA it may mean a uh maybe an additional classroom teacher or some other sort of resource or ESC teachers guidance counsellors I mean there's there's just there's just more to it than just the coure teacher divided by the number of students and uh uh doesn't look like we're changing any of the principles at those schools at this point I will not be able to sh at the at least at the middle schools I don't I don't see Orman Creekside silver sand and Campbell um I mean are we going to
159have uh have those principles had conversations with us or are they I can address that thank you and so um it's we've been in a kind of hurry up and wait situation so we we've been doing this over the last seven eight months um and so tomorrow actually no in anticipation of tonight one way or the other um once you all vote we have a meeting already on the books for tomorrow I have Rachel Mark um all all of the heads the assistant soups that oversee the schools um and then I have meeting already on the book for Thursday with the principal are affected to start that process but as you know we're beginning to start also the allocation process which we do with all of our schools so HR and Mr cea's team are
160waiting patiently to see also what's going to happen here because they know they have to take this into consideration for the allocation piece so we have um Miss WS with ESC um the assistant soups anything that needs that will come up and then we'll meet with the with the principles for just an we've already been meeting with them but Thursday will be the initial okay for example if it was approved this particular resoning was approved let's talk about needs and wants and then we're going to be meeting with them ongoing in addition to their allocation meetings where the assistant soup or executive director for elementary and the principal sits with the team and that's where they get their initial allocation but then they say I also need and that's where that happens and we do
161that with all of our schools um as you know we have different needs sometimes programs move from one location to another and that changes the needs of the school and we address those all through the allocation process none of that can occur until these decisions are made tonight and then that's when that starts but those meetings are already scheduled as early as tomorrow at 10 10 o'clock or something what the principals talk Thursday is with the principles in the morning um it's 8:15 for elementary and I believe it's 10 for Middle for the Middle School principles well just looking at the middle schools I mean as I wrote down what you said Ron I I got I have 145 the high would be Silver Sands 145 new students followed by obms with 117 followed Last
162by Campbell with 112 so it's not that far off from 112 to 145 so it's not like one middle school is getting you know 300 new students and the others Middle School we're really trying to level and also taking into those new boundaries um the contiguous neighborhoods not splitting neighborhoods um we were just actually at Silver Sands yesterday meeting with the principal in in anticipation of this with some he needs a security fence I had Rod Smith out there with me we need to extend his Security Fence with some different traffic patterns they're going to do in anticipation of this um but he said having Bevel Road as the Border makes sense because currently he has neighborhoods where depending on what side of the street you live on you either go to Silver Sands or
163Campbell oh yeah well now Beville is a major roadway that can now be that very clear definitive northern border for him Southern border for Campbell and that's what we were trying to do as we looked across the district and we have some students passing four schools and driving on a bus for 45 minutes to go to a school and we're trying to really clean that up as well which I think is fabulous and and and I I don't don't get and Dr balamin you know our goal is and we're very close to being an a district it doesn't behoove us we would never put any child or teachers in a position where we wouldn't give them the resources and the supports they need that is our other than Safety and Security that is our number
164one priority and and Dr balaman is a teaching and learning superintendent and I'm sorry I'm speaking for you but working with her all this time there will be nothing that will stop her from putting the resources where the resources belong to help kids be successful can you share a little bit about the identification of the community center for that will be going into the Campell community and that school you have identified where it will be already and we've hired a director also oh the Community Partnership school yes part so as you as you know we've shared that um we received the Grant from the Children's Home Society in conjunction with UCF and Campbell was awarded the Community Partnership Grant we've already uh the maintenance team is already working on the office it will be on
165the backside of the property because one of the requirements of that is that they have their own access without going through the school and we've identified that spot and what we're looking forward to is we've identified for next year we're only allowed to apply for one per year Holly Hill would be the next school and then the year after that we would like to um have t te apply and we could use that one Community Center because where the new ter te is built from the backside of Campbell you can see the new ter te so that would' be one location to for that whole Community um they've hired the director who's one of our former assistant principals who's ingrained in the community Mr rushing so we're really excited about that so his job now
166with them from now until the school year start starts is to get that Center up and running to be ready to go and that's the partnership that offers tella Health um it helps resume you know job search it helps the community not just the students it's for the families of the students and so that's getting up and running as we speak um I need to correct correct something I just I said earlier Silver Sands 145 obms 137 and then that's right and then Campbell with 112 that that figure is is the same I didn't want Miss Ian AI to be yelling at me anytime soon so uh I hear you okay uh well that's that's the Middle School piece correct and uh uh uh but where it really gets more emotional is with the elementary
167um students now Beachside didn't we just this year bring a bunch of new students in the Beachside this this year right wasn't it this year we added when we opened be yeah when we opened them we added students that were going and I just didn't know which students I mean I hope we didn't send students from Terry T to Beachside and now now we're sending them back to Terry T no we looked at that we did not that's good um so I'm assuming all these like like the lady said the last one of the last people at spoke these people that are going to Cherry te small these are students that I'm assuming live in within a two mile range of cherry T small correct so then they would not be busted and these students
168are obviously all bust previously six different locations yes and when you had Community meetings did you have much of a turnout for from from any of those schools um the biggest turnout we had was from the 32114 rezonings we had a couple on the west side of the county where one or two people showed up so was it as many as we would have liked no but was it bigger than the others yes okay and again when you just say you're G to take so many students because of where they live and you're going to go to Cherry T small has anyone done the analysis of like for instance you're taking well I don't know how many students you're taking let's say you're taking 25 students from Long Street is it you know do you
169know how many of those students are ese or have special needs and yes the um proposed list um Lisa and her team have pulled and already sent to the principles um so they would know who they were coming and that has all their demographic information in there so then when you meet with the principls the princip you all will know because you know principles don't like surprises so um you got to be forthright if you're if you're sending it may sound like oh you're you're only getting 25 new kids yes but 10 of 10 of them are are are ESC students with high special needs that could be two more teachers right there right and and special programs for ese if there you know some of our special programs are only located in certain schools
170not every school has every so say multiv so Henson is the hub for multi in that area so if a student is is received a letter because they live in one of these areas they're not going to go to say Campbell or Orman if they're in a multi and that program's not there so those students still remain where they currently okay go based on their program I think I've I've said my piece on it I just I just want to make sure that we're not hiding anything from the principles that they know exactly what the needs are going to be of these of of these children and as has been said so many times ear that we have the resources there for them all right thank you Mr CSUS Dr baman please yeah so I
171love all the questions that you asked because you were wearing your principal hat um couple things as you know this is being brought forward here for a recommendation tonight so any type of planning that we have in place had to take place in a soft way because once this is a approve that's when we can do a hard roll out but a couple of things you know that we have a very comprehensive research evaluation and accountability data dashboard comprehensive probably one of the best that we've seen in a long time and uh so our team on our data uh um Warehouse in our data warehouse for every single Learner in vucha County doesn't matter if it's pre k to 12th we have them in our data dashboard and it has their historical data historical from
172an academic standpoint but also their early warning indicators attendance um suspensions Trends in terms of the suspensions what type of services they're receiving whether their ESC Esau um 504 plan all that is there at a fingertip so a couple things if this is approved here um we want to ensure that every single learner is getting the best comprehensive Service as the whole learner meaning academic and social emotional so a couple things will take place I have already had discussion with our student services division which they have looked at all of the early warning indicators meaning behavior supports that will be needed academic supports that would that would be needed for every single student that are going incoming or outgoing students now in addition to that I've met also with our principls from our principal Council
173and we've had this discussion in terms of the steps that will take place so a couple things we want to make sure that the support mechanisms we're putting in place not only from District to school but it goes all the way to the classroom level what does that mean it means that we're going to have several meetings set up which is those U outgoing incoming principles will'll be meeting with each other in addition with our team so that they can see the students that are leaving XYZ school to XYZ School what have been their needs what is it that have worked for these students what type of training will be needed for our teachers at those schools that will be impacted with with the incoming students but also what needs to take place at the
174classroom level so for example we've talked about our schedules and the dedicated time that will be in those schedules where teachers will have circles if it's it's if it's elementary students or designated time for that type of collaboration to take take place among the students at the classroom level as well so trainings for teachers making sure that at the students at the classroom level that they designated time for those collaborations to take place between students who've been there and students that are incoming to to that school um in addition to the budget allocation process which Patty spoke a little bit about the way we do it here Mr pores for the past few years and it's been even refined even further now every single school the principal their AP and our entire team from every
175division they meet and they look at how many students will be will be serviced at that school and they look at the General Ed program they look at the ESC programs they look at the esol programs and any additional um programs such asies or programs that are there through CTE for those schools we look at classroom teacher but we look at a whole lot more than that we look at what's needed to support those programs what is needed to support those students and that's the type of discussion that takes place and then we look at guaranteed funding that comes through BSA basic you know the base student allocation process and then we look at the other Grand opportunities also that exist and how we're going to be designating those funds to support that school student
176uh school as a whole I think those are um those are comforting words and that's that's great and and it's good that you said that I I think that'll help a lot of parents just one last thing Madame chair we have about 400 students at Holly Hill right now uh six through 8 what about those teachers who obviously will not be at Holly Hill next year probably because they're only certified in secondary do will they have the first choice on where they get to go uh yes the HR division actually has a list of their certification and they will you want to share a little bit Mark of what you guys have done in a soft level soft because nothing has well I mean we need to be concerned I'm sure they're they're worried now
177I mean kind of like the the rugs been pulled out from under them and um thank you for bringing that up we we actually uh Dr Hazel and I went out and met with that te the the group of teachers from Hol Hill um yes one of the things that we had reassured them was is that they will be um first of all nobody going to lose their job okay um second of all we're going to have a place for them and they're going to be um allowed to select as part of that process prior to the actual displacement process that we go through for the other teachers so they will give a preference of where they will be allowed to go that's great thank you thank you one of the things we wanted to
178mention also was from the feedback we received um when we were at the one of the meetings that t was that there and I think someone mentioned it tonight that the gifted programs were housed in Orman and Port Orange so we already have uh a commitment and that's going on the allocation process that we'll be bringing the full-time gifted program to TT small so the students in that area that we're being busted out for the gifted program won't have to be Mrs Bernett thank you so um Patty thank you and the team for all this and I was at the Terry te meetings and I was at the Campbell meetings and I was at the Silver Sands meeting meetings and so I think that that you guys have done a very good job with addressing
179that issue I do understand some of the input that um that we've heard you know could have done a better job I mean every day we could do oh if if you don't wake up every day thinking you can do a better job about something then we all have to re-evaluate some of our actions but so with all that being said I'm hearing that the state's not going to allow us to to bring in only a few students they want us to the way way it's approved is we're bringing these students all in is right if we didn't if we're talking about trt specifically right now um if we didn't bring those students in we would only be at 48% of capacity and according to the srf manual we're required to be at 100 or
180as close to 100% as possible even bringing them in we're still only at 80 or 87 so so that that suggestion while it was good it's not it's not going to be viable um and and I know that the community in in the Terry T area small area and the Campbell Community they want to make sure their bigger issue is will we be giving them resources and as Miss Grim said this evening there's some already infighting um between some students that that are going to be coming together and maybe something that we need to look at is is not just educational resources but security resources and so I trust that Dr B has that under control and we'll be looking at that um as we move forward uh we we're going to add the gifted
181program at ter te and I know that there's some families that are very excited about that um again I think we just have to reemphasize that we are going to make it a a 100% effort or more to get the resources to these schools because that is their that is their fear they're not going to get the resources um they're going to have a beautiful new school and I think that that's so wonderful they deserve a new school over there um Miss Powers was was promised that years ago and and I hope that she um comes to visit that on the opening day so um I think that we just need to look at that with the comments that were made about making sure um some communication I think that even though we haven't made
182those to this point that as we move move forward getting some communication out in those venues um that were suggested at the last meeting um as far as getting to know your neighbor um there were a lot of great suggestions and that those can be done prior to us getting the new school open and maybe having some Community neighborhood opportunities to meet and greet that's great um and part of the plan that we're going over with the principals um is there we always do a a welcome like in Middle School we always do six upcoming sixth grade thing in the spring and then we do the web program in the summer well all of the schools are going to be doing um welcome tours information meet your staff meet your new principal all this spring
183um for anybody who's receiving any students so even uh Silver Sands who's receiving students that weren't there previously will have an event like that and welcome in these new families so they can meet the principal and the other administrators and whichever teachers can be there so that's something we plan on doing this spring at at all of these locations as well okay and and hopefully we can hear some from the community um about maybe some opportunities they want to help sponsor so thank you to Mr persa's point I just want to be accurate I put my finger down on the wrong line instead of 87% if this resoning is approved it's actually 80% 80 and and I didn't put my glasses on so I apologize and not only that but one of the one of
184the at the earlier meetings one of the concerns was that that we were putting too many kids into Campbell and we we listened and we tailed that back so I think we did do some as much as we could with that I I I hear we cannot change you know the opening it is going to open the the way it's presented here so um with not not uh piece you know small correct that's correct so anyway thank you so much Mr cologne so when we first started this conversation my very first uh request and I can remember exactly where I was when I was talking to Dr B and Mr Johnson was about the educational impact of these transfers I didn't really uh care about the number of students versus what is the educational impact
185going to be are these students overachieving where they are and they're coming back home and or are they underachieving is this going to stump uh any growth that t t has done by you know bringing these students back there what what what does that look like and I'll never forget looking at Julio who's not here today looking at Julio and saying you know we need to figure out who are these students what are their needs where are they um so that we can determine what the supports will be needed in order for them to be successful I go back even further in my mind when we first started talking about rebuilding t t there was no funding for t t t t was not even a part part of the tax incentive and one of
186the things that our board uh who at the time if I'm correct was chaired by uh Miss idaite um we made a promise to the community that we would bring those children back home that we felt as a board that it was wrong that we were telling these children that the school in your community is not good enough and that we're going to put you in a bus to go to 87 different schools and so all along as we have celebrated these Milestones including the building of ter that was the purpose was to bring these students back home so you know you you you can't celebrate yay we're getting a new school and then be upset that the school is going to house however many students the state requires it to house and so again
187these are questions that I've asked and I know as a result of these questions they built a dashboard they got that information I've spoken to the principal at ter T because I have the same exact concerns I want to make sure they get the help that they need and I've been very very verbal about that but for anyone who feels this is a bait and switch no this was the plan because as a board we felt it was wrong that these kids were being told the school in your community is not good enough enough so much so that we made a what is it 40 plus million doll investment in building the school when that money wasn't even planned for we're at 55 million $55 million and so this doesn't come out of an out
188of a desire to mess up a community doesn't come out of a desire to no it comes out of a desire to make that Community better so much so that we made that investment because I can tell you there was no plans for that school to be built and so this was the plan all along yes I agree with everyone we need to make sure these supports are in place I am concerned you know as I've seen in the past where we close a program at one school and hope that the teachers go with them and then they find other spots and then that school struggles so I think we may need to get creative to entice folks to want to go I mean this is change change is not comfortable and so um I
189think we're going to need to get creative to make folks want to go to follow those students because the reality is we have vacancies all over the place that are maybe a little bit easier and so um just like you Mr pers is you know and I know they created a dashboard and the principal at T did reassure me that she's already seen which are the students who I mean we're talking a while back so you know which were the students that were proposed at the time and so I know those conversations have taken place because that was important to me thank you thank you what's the timeline on Cherry T the the new construction it's going is it good it'll open for next week open in be it'll be finished by June the teachers
190can move in in July Pro completion date they just told us was um June 18th is the projected fingers cross right awes can do a walk through to wrap yes yes we can set that up to wrap this part up this evening I do want to make sure that those that are here with us and those that are listening at home or that will go back to this this is this is not a process that just took place this year okay we started this discussion when Ida Wright was still on the board all right and because I know I I can remember the night I brought it up because I had had the honor and privilege with with working with Miss Betty powers and she had been promised for the longest time that there would
191be a brand new school in that community and she thought she would have it before she retired well she's been retired how many years now and the bottom line is whatever happened before decisions were made to bust those children out of that Community some of them 45 to 50 minute bus rides away all right and and so I need people to understand this is not a discussion that's just taking place tonight it's not even just a discussion that's taken place this year this discussion has taken place for almost six years okay to get to this point in this boardroom to provide the students that live in that Community not only with a brand new elementary school it is going to be the most expensive Elementary School ever built in volia County and probably no other
192Elementary School for the next 10 years after it is going to meet that price I will be very honest with you all right but in addition to that I need I worked in federal programs prior to taking this position and I think sometimes people don't understand federal dollars and what they do basically at the district level the money that comes in from the state lays the First Foundation of funding that goes out to all schools so that First Foundation of funding that goes out of General funds that the state comes out and says there'll be you know X number of dollars per student that goes to every that goes out to the schools for every single child the next layer that happens for children is for every ese child there's additional funding that comes through
193Ida the federal and the State dollars for children based on a matrix of where they are on their ESC but when you come to Title One funding Title One funding are for the schools that meet the title one criteria that and so by law any school that is 75% or higher must receive Title One funds those funds do not go to a school that is non-title one I need all of you to understand this especially those that are listening if you didn't know this all these kids in that Community qualified for pretty much free lunch possibly reduce lunch okay they were all bust out of their Community to non-title one schools which meant they were sent to schools where the extra funding did not go with them because we based the title one funding on
194schoolwide not on targeted assisted so when we took these children out of this community we took away their opportunities for tutoring we took away their opportunities for other to have additional like academic coaches intervention teachers all of those things because those teachers aren't at Pine Trail because no title $1 dollars go to Pine Trail or to Pathways or to prison okay by bringing these children back to this community we're bringing them back to the resources that were actually taken away from them when they were bust out of this community they're coming back to a community where they can stay after school or come in early and get their additional tutoring funds and they can do it because they live across the street they don't have to have somebody come 45 minutes and pick them up
195one way and 45 minutes back we're bringing back the ability for them to have academic coaches that are in those rooms working with those teachers intervention teachers in the areas of reading math and science because those are the title One funds are not only used for the additional staff support they're used for additional resources materials and that makes a world of difference and ultimately what we're doing here is we're fulfilling a promise that was made to a principal who gave her life to those kids and the promise was not fulfilled my goal is that this school opens and that we have Betty powers and we have Dr Earl Johnson there to see the results of things that they worked on because you know what they did to try to make a difference for the children
196that were busted out of there their teachers at T T small for many years went into the little Community Center places and they provided tutoring on the weekends for those kids that got busted out to help meet those needs so I just need people to know we're bringing these kids home to their community which is where they should be because guess what we sent them out for elementary then we brought them back for Middle did that make any sense like it's all about kids being able to play together and build relationships and so we are they're getting the Taj Mahal of elementary schools I I anybody that's getting an elementary school build after this please do not look at T te you're not going to have a t te small okay this is for that
197Community but if you really want to make a difference we've talked about this for six years this is the final piece tonight I'd like to ask for those of you that you know showed up now where were you six years ago when we started talking about it where were you when we talked about the the boundaries and the zones and bringing the children back I just don't know why you'd show up now I want to I really want to appreciate the mom that came that has her kids at T te because she's on target with where she's at and she knew how to get a variance so her kids didn't get shipped out somewhere else and so TR has a piece in my heart it'll always have a piece in my heart but I will
198tell you the best thing is the principle that there is there right now when Miss Betty Powers was the principal she was a second grade teacher and she's there leading that school and Miss Joy Boyd Walker is going to do the right thing by those children she's already doing it and we are fortunate to have her there and we named a new assistant principal here tonight that is going to do a great job in that community and so what I need is I need the community to get behind supporting you can mentor you can volunteer whatever be that extra support at that school and make a difference because those kids deserve every one of us championing them on but they also deserve every one of the resources they could have had they didn't have because
199we shipped them out and that's all I have to say about that this evening Dr B do you have a recommendation yes ma'am I do um I recommend adoption of the amendments to the Zone description manual to monify the attendance zones for Beachside Elementary Horizon Elementary RJ Long Street Elementary Spruce Greek Elementary sugar Mills Elementary Sweet Water Elementary and T small Elementary in the 2425 school year you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have someone that would like to make a motion move to approve thank you Mrs Bernett do I have a second second thank you Mr cologne any further discussion I'll say something yes um I do not think Miss Walker is afraid to ask for help nor do I think she's afraid to let you know if she needs it that's
200right with you all right any other discussion uh Madam chair I was thinking that the uh uh when you were talking I think we cded this Mr colog you correct me if I'm wrong I think it was the summer of 2020 and uh you know covid was in and we discovered U forget the lady's name that was our CFO remember huh de Deb Deb yeah how quickly anyway um and we were talking about it and we said what I mean Ida brought it brought it up well she she had brought it up and then we discovered that we had money in our local Capital Outlet tax so we didn't take it from our sales tax because we had already bunched that up remember and was just like well we got 40 million or something here
201that we can use and kind of took took off from from from that but uh yeah uh just just thank thank you to all the people though that that that came out and gave us input just want I mean I just hope you know that it didn't fall on deaf ears up here yeah all right anyone else I'm going to call for the vote all those in favor of approving item 17.02 which the adop is the adoption of proposed amendments to the zoning description manual for all of these schools which will bring our kids back home to T T and Campbell please say I I anyone nay okay it passed unanimously all right we are moving right along to item 17.3 Dr bamum which is the adoption of the proposed conversion of Holly Hill School
202from a K8 to a K5 school and amending the Zone description manual for that thank you madam chair um I recommend conversion of Holly Hill School from a K8 to a K5 school and amending the description manual to modify the attendance zones for cample Middle Creekside Middle Silver Sands Middle and Orman Beach Middle for the 2425 school year I don't know if there's somebody that wants to speak on it I have some public input oh okay all right by any chance did Miss Slater come back in because she had both items on her original card card okay then I do have two individuals that want to speak on 17703 so it's first Miss LC Lucy desmore followed by Miss Daisy Grimes so miss desmore will you please come forward thank you um school board members
203actually the other one you've already passed but I am going to speak and address that so my question is that uh um ongoing Community Center that you're speaking about is that going to be reoccurring first of all it's going to be onetime Grant or is it taking place continuously for the students at tur and Campbell so it's it's a five-year grant that has been approved so for the next five years so it it's automatically it it it will renew for the following five years from each year and my other question is the items that you've all spoke about tonight all the wonderful resources and all of this where is this in writing do you all have that in writing so that the public have it in writing and when you're providing the nice uh after
204school let's do a meet and greet you need to get principles and people out off of those campuses go walking into the actual Community if they don't come to you are you going are you going to them I hope you are going to them if you're not then you're doing an injustice and my other question is we're simply moving that's fine we're moving students over to segregation you take the other students and say we're sending this group from uh Pathways back over to Campbell or back over to tr we all we all go ahead and tell it like it is we know what that means and we'll take the ones out of Creek Side they're black and move them back over to Titi no problem but keep your word and have the resources there and
205all the stuff that you're talking about tonight put it in writing and go to the places where those children live live and have a little roundabout fun Frolic afternoon or whatever you need to do to get the parents out there because who's discussed with the parents you made all of your wonderful decision do do they know anything and does anyone do they know anything about what took place six years ago because I'm just I'm just hearing about it I don't actually live in the area but I go to church in the area I do a lot of business in the area I'm just the things that started happening from last year to this year year just hearing about it but you've been you've been in discussion for six years they do they know that do
206the actual parents in the Daytona Garden Apartments Caroline Village South Street Pine Heaven do they know anything about what you're doing or are you just pushing something out to them thank you thank you um next up Miss Daisy Grimes welcome back Miss Grimes I did I thought you wanted to speak twice and apologize Mrs Slater is still on that call Madam chair and board members uh I did write something down but you've already voted on the decision about ttis small but let me clarify something we the community was not so upset about TTI Mall idri had talked with us we knew the decision about TT small and we have been working in the community preparing for that with t small but the Campell resting was never on the table and you all have to admit
207that when the TT small decision to make it a neighborhood School Campbell was not because some board members made a DEC decision some years ago to change Holly Hill from K to 5ifth and make it K through e8th and now you decided oh that was not a good idea it does not work you had to make a decision let's be honest with it you had to make a decision because somebody made some bad decisions some time ago and now Campbell is a result of you having to do that let's just put it out like it it is all we're saying now is that you made a decision about t te give us the resources give us the teachers give us everything we need and we as a community will show you we would do our
208part to make sure that our children learn with Campbell we got a lot of problems you're saying that all of this is being done we were out there every day last week because of disruption every day and now you're going to send all these kids over to Campell when they're already having problems with some of them from Holly Hill all I'm saying as a community person with no child in the school system but committed to make sure that kids are educated help us do what we need to do so learning could happen in these classrooms we've got to work with parents students the community and everybody if you're committed to makeing sure that children achieve academically it's your responsibility we voted for for you now we're asking you to do what you were elected to
209do guarantee every child is educated and let's work together to do what we need to do with parents teachers and this community thank you so much thank you sounds good any other cards Danielle all right no okay any discussion board members I'll say something I appreciate you miss Grimes for what you said and I think that that's all of our goal is to um to move forward with that and make sure that those schools have that Dr balabin is committed to that and um I think we hear you about some security concerns and and we've brought that up this evening so I know that you're a strong woman over there and you're going to um you're going to hold some of those kid kids accountable too thank you I'd like to add to that um
210oh actually Mr clone you're there go ahead yes so miss Slater you're absolutely Slater sorry Daisy Miss Grimes you're you're absolutely right in uh in in what you said there's no question about that and uh I've never been to Holly Hill school and I do owe them a visit uh but I do count on my counterparts who are familiar with that community and I recall asking Mr persus is this a good thing for your community because for me I yeah don't know one way or the other and um at the time they explained what the limitations were at Holly Hill Holly Hill and how those students were being underserved uh just because of environment uh and uh at the time Mr pers stated that it was a good thing uh and I remember asking the
211principal uh he was here for nice you know I kind of asked him is this a good thing because I rely on the folks who live in that Community who are directly impacted by this to be the ones to speak for their Community the same way I speak for Deltona Enterprise ostein uh and so um he having heard that from the stakeholders who are in that Community uh I'm supportive of this because uh again who knows your community better than you both you and Miss Bernett so thank you I was going to add something similar to that um because I remember when the I I was not in this position I was actually a teacher when they made the decision to close Holly Hill Middle and to go ahead and build a building at Holly
212Hill Elementary and move the middle school kids over and then when I moved into Federal programs I had to go work with Holly Hill and the piece that hit me right away when I went there and I saw where the middle school kids were is that it was a very small number of students and so therefore they were missing out on a lot of programs and things that should have been made available to them and so it's and it w it was never a this is a real K8 school and this is how we're going to start it and this is how we're going to do it because you know I spent like the ones we saw right I spent time um get when I was getting my undergraduate degree before I started teaching in
213a community in a state that had a lot of K8 schools but they were built as K8 open as K8 and they had all the programs that we have at an elementary or Middle School in a K8 setting so it was a little dis heartening to see that it was just that's not what came to fruition so when this topic came up which yes this hasn't been on the table for six years I think the thing is they've been collecting data of what's happened to the students there um but when it came up and it was talked about you know so if you take I'll use River Springs Middle for example River Springs Middle is our largest El our largest Middle School in Valia County well all the programs that are offered at River Springs
214Middle can't be offered at Holly Hill so to the middle school kids you if you're going to do a K8 you have to have a balance of the number of students in both to be able to offer all of the programs and like I said I'm a supporter of a true K8 so and I too you know when you look at that's your community um that I agreed with you when you said it was time that K8 there was not working and we needed to take the small smaller number of middle school students and put them back into a situation now I take Safety and Security very seriously the two things that get to me before we get to the education piece and people know this is the Safety and Security of all the students
215and staff on campus and the other is that our children need to be fed I 100% am am about feeding kids because kids can't learn if they're not fed so you know I too respect the fact that you know Mr hus you know you brought this up and you spend the most time at Holly Hill and I respect what you did and the data that was collected to show that this needs to move forward but I know that Dr Balan and her team are going to put in what they need to do in order to make sure our children are safe on that campus so any other discussion no my my only thought is uh in regard to what M Grimes was saying and what others have alluded to is it'd be great if because
216these are going to be today's fifth and sixth and seventh graders so the eighth graders are going to go to high school so it's just the fifth the sixth the seventh graders and there are I know student leaders at camble in sixth and seventh grade now and if we could identify principal could identify those student leaders to uh meet during the summer and meet with those Holly Hill students who will be coming in so they can welcome them and get to know them during summertime Community uh events uh that would serve as such a great bridge and and comforting for those students because we all know Middle School's ages is is tough and they have their friends and and so friendships matter a great deal in being accepted into the group matters and so anything
217that we can do and you were a middle school Patty so you know agree yeah and I'm making we have to just do something above and beyond what we wouldn't normally do um to help them I think that would and Miss s if I may quickly I appreciate you mentioning about the uh programs because one of the the things that the middle school students haven't had in many years at Holly Hill is Art and having spent 14 years in the Middle School Division that's one of the highest requested electives by our middle school students especially now and some of the mental health they use art and and that's that's an elective they didn't have space for on the campus or couldn't um provide and when you have you know one Ela one math one science
218and one social studies teacher per grade because the enrollment is so low in the middle division it also makes it difficult for um for some of the challenges that might come up where you might need a different teacher for a student and things like that so thank you for mentioning that bigger band correct chorus correct they just love it and Campbell has Campbell has a band that is phenomenal it's awesome they have one of the best obms those too I mean so yeah all right Dr B you have a recommendation I do um I recomend the conversion of Holly Hill School from a K8 to a K5 school and amending the Zone description manual to modify the attendance zes for cample Middle Creekside Middle Silver Sands Middle Orman Beach Middle for in the 2425 school
219year for the 242 25 school year okay do I have someone that will make a motion to approve move approval thank you Mr persus do I have someone that will second it I'll second thank you Mrs brunette any further discussion then I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving item 17.03.2012 to 1705 the adoption of proposed amendments to the Zone description manual modifying the attendance boundaries of Citrus Grove Elementary and Woodward Elementary and I do have one card you have any others okay at this time public input from Miss Lacy McMullen welcome and I apologized earlier for trying to call you up at the wrong time oh it's fine and if you see me leave after this don't take that as me not caring about the vote I just have a baby
220that desperately needs to go to bed now uh um hello everyone um my name is Lacy McMullen um I'm an attorney by trade and I'm the mother of three my eldest is a kindergartener at Citrus Grove Elementary um I've attended some of the meetings that occurred late last year and I'm thank for the openness and the invitation um to you know for parents to participate in this discussion um and I can appreciate the complex decisions that the board um and the operations team must make to consider the shifting demographics of our community uh and to serve the needs of the children and um the Educators that teach them for this reason I trust that the the board is making the rezoning itself makes the be the greatest Fidelity to the boundaries and is taking a
221good long-term view of what is needed in the long term however in the short and medium term I strongly feel that a global age out policy best protects the interest of the children in the short term par you know specifically those children's who are currently students at Grove Elementary uh data that analyzes student Mobility across schools uh supports a global age out for citrus growth students kids create and need stability especially younger children studies show that children who are forced to change School outside of the normal structure of school Pro progression show statistic statistically significant negative impacts to their English language arts abilities as well as math proficiency there are also documented emotional impacts including increased anxiety social difficulties and issues with in identity and self-esteem these impacts occur across the board but there are
222no doubt more profound for young children who are also also experiencing instability at home Studies have found that changing schools predicts academic and other problems over and above the effects of other family risk and socio economic issues for this reason I believe that an a global age out is the way is the way to move forward with this um proposed rezoning um my understanding looking at the numbers is that Citrus Grove would still experience a reduction of about of a proposed 30 students if this was implemented for the kindergarteners Who start in 2024 2025 which should relieve some of the overc capacity pressure that the students are feeling uh that the the school is feeling um and obviously with with each increasing year that capacity would go down even further uh I think that this
223is the best option and I now I'm not sure if I'm addressing the board or the operations team because I've heard that this is actually an operations decision whoever's decision it is um um I respectfully request that you consider a global age out so that the existing students can remain where they at the school they know and love thank you thank you okay as the board member for um the area in which Citrus Grove sits in what I can say is there was already um area added to the school and so I've said this over and over having lived this with DeBerry Elementary three times even prior to even being on the board when an elementary school hits a certain point such as a thousand kids anything over that's too much I mean I I
224helped open to berry Elementary the first time we went over we went to a thousand or slightly over a thousand manate Cove Elementary and and keep in mind windberry Elementary opened it never from day one served all the kids that lived in DeBry it took the west side of 1792 to DeBry Elementary and the east side of 1792 stated Enterprise okay when DeBry Elementry went over a thousand though the first time we built Manatee Cove in Orange City and we bust kids out of Dey to Orange City the second time that DeBry element went to over a thousand students we put two teachers in every kindergarten through third grade classroom and put 36 children in every classroom and some of you sitting here would go oh my goodness I'll be honest with you that I
225was teaching at that time that part didn't bother me so much because prior to class siiz amendment I had 33 or 36 kindergarteners or first graders by myself and when I taught at the high school level I had 40 to 45 kids in my algebra 1 Algebra 2 and geometry classes by myself okay so I appreciate class siiz Amendment but the second time we doubled all K through three classes and put 36 kids in a room until they could come in with another solution and that was if anybody visited the Barry Elementary which was the first two-story School built in valuch County they had to go in and wear the staircases were on either side of the Elevator Shaft to go to the second floor they had to build new staircases in another location and
226they built 12 classrooms around the Elevator Shaft okay to bring the numbers back down de Elementary is back up over at a thousand or slightly over a thousand right now so we are finally going to move forward if the other proposals go through tonight to even out the schools to be able to build another school into Barry so what's we're facing with Citrus Grove and part of this is a planning and looking at a long-term thing I've got Citrus Grove Woodward and Stark all sitting within a two mile radius or less of each other Stark's getting a brand new school so we're not so I'm forewarning everybody that's listening right now we're not doing Starks resoning right now but Stark's going to be rezoned next year for the following year because they're getting a new
227school but we've got a balance between Citrus Grove and Woodward because the growth that's now happening on the west side of 1792 in Dand is happening on the North End so I where am I G to all those kids moving into communities and homes being built on the North End where am I putting them they've got to come down I can't bring them from the north past two other elementary schools to get them down to Woodward so that's part part of why the rezoning is taking place there and I appreciate you know what everybody's saying but we're talking about two schools that aren't even two miles apart in order to do this resoning and I have a I I did miss one of those meetings because it was held I think while a Florida school
228huh yeah youah I was in tasse that's right but we can't build even another wi okay I'm not I'm not going to ever be in agreement to add a whole another building to citus Grove and and doe to it what's happened to DeBerry okay because it's too big but on top of that we can't even get approval from the state to do that when we are not at capacity at surrounding schools I mean we've got kids that were George Marks that got sent to Citrus Grove for a couple years while we build a new George Marx and then they got sent back to George Marx Highway 11 families that's what happened to those families so what I am promising is at this time if you're at Citrus Grove and you're being rezoned to Woodward you
229will not be rezoned again when the Stark rezoning comes into place so there's just so many pieces and parts in all this and so many laws that we have to follow and what we have to submit to the state for approval and I hear parents and you you're more than welcome to submit for a variance but I need you to know there's so much growth happening on the North End and I'm not busting kids from the north end of D land where it's growing right now or the very south tip of Delon Springs past two or three other schools I'm I I'm not recreating what happened to the kids over at T small or what's happened to the kids in DeBerry when they live in DeBry and they're bust everywhere away from DeBerry so okay
230anybody else Dr bman do you have a recommendation for 17.05 thank you madam chair I recommend adoption of the amendments to the Zone description manual to modify the attendance zones for Citrus Grove Elementary and Woodward Elementary for the 242 five school year all right you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do we have someone that would like to make a motion I'll motion to approve thank you Mrs Thompson do we have a second I'll second thank you Mrs Bernett any further discussion okay then I'll call for the vote all those in favor for item 17.05 the adoption of the proposed amendments to the Zone description that involves Citrus Grove and Woodward Elementary please say I I any opposed okay then it passes unanimously we are now moving on to 17.06 for the um proposed amendment
231changes modifying the boundaries for Deltona Lakes friendship and Timber Crest do I have any more public okay there's no public input on this part thank you madam chair um I recommend adoption of the amendments to the Zone description manual to modify the attendance Zs for Delona Lakes Elementary friendship Elementary and Crest Elementary for the 2425 school year all right you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent oh you just clicked it after I looked away go ahead Mr clone yeah and so I had the pleasure of attending all but one meeting uh because I was out of town uh and uh I was I was there on your behalf you were there on my behalf yes and so I want to thank the the staff who took the time sometimes it was late on on a
232Friday um to uh make these presentations at different schools uh one of the things I pointed out in my community was the last time that we had done any of rezoning was somewhere around 2007 when Pride was built when Pride opened and so it's not something we like to do it's not something we do often uh the path of lease resistance is usually leave it alone at the struggle of somebody else uh and and I'm grateful to my community who uh was receptive to uh the importance of why we're doing it and also uh they were also very understanding of our reasoning uh and so for that reason I will support the recommendation of the superintendent and we'll make a motion to approve thank you thank you Mr clone so Mr clone has made the
233motion for 17 06 do I have a second second thank you Mr persus any further discussion and then I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving action item 17.06 the adoption of proposal amendments to the zone for descriptions for Delona Lakes friendship and Timber crust Elementary please say I I I any opposed it passes unanimously we are now on to 17.7 uh no additional cards Miss Johnson okay so Dr baman yes Madam chair I recommend adoption of amendments The Zone description manual to modify the attendance zones for de Barry Elementary Discovery Elementary Enterprise Elementary and Forest Lake Elementary for the 2425 school year Mr colone so once again I will having been to these meetings and I'll tell you the one at Enterprise was very uh was pretty lit uh and uh
234the community uh clearly had concern and were made uh very much aware and had lots of opinions on the fact that we would be discussing this during this Schoolboard meeting it was made very clear and so I I I would be remiss if I'd say that their absence here today is not because they don't care it's because they do care and they understood that we were just in a bad I mean again not something we do often uh and so uh I think the the variance process is is something that I know the team is really uh involved in right now and in in trying to ensure that as the parent pointed out in some cases um we may be able to minimize some of those impacts um and so again for that reason I
235will support and will make the motion to approve approve 17.07% so anybody that paid attention in December we are looking at we're we're in the exploratory stages of what needs to be done for 49 acres of land in De Barry to be able to build a school in De Barry so we won't be busting those kids out of their Community all right any further discussion all right then I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving 17.07% propos amendments to the Zone description manual modifying the attendance boundaries of DeBerry Elementary Discovery Elementary Enterprise Elementary and Forest Lake Elementary please say I I any opposed it passes unanimously okay at this time we need we will be back in here at 8:50 there's this short recess and any yellow Yow cards anyone that
236wants to speak has to give Miss Johnson their yellow card and we will hear every yellow card that I have in my possession starting at 8:50 thank you e like dark ch welcome back it is 8:54 p.m. we're going to move into the next public participation time so this is your last chance if you wish to fill out a yellow card you must see Miss Johnson otherwise I'm starting with the stack that I have and so I will announce the first two and then we will continue on from there you'll have three minutes for public input please remember if you're in the audience please be respectful of those that will be up here speaking so we are starting the final public input for the evening and the first speaker is Miss Elizabeth Albert followed by
237Miss Serena Shrum I hope I said that correctly and if not you can correct me all right Miss Elizabeth Albert welcome right good evening Madame chair members of the board superintendent Dr balabin members of the audience I'd like to start with a point of clarification please I'd like to Circle back around to the conversation that occurred during the job description uh agenda item uh first of all I want to just point out that during instructional bargaining back in September there was a paper that was passed across it was rejected uh there needs to be a unit clarification done by the public employ employees relation Commission on this new job description that you're creating to determine whether in fact it is going to be classified as support or instructional and as always we know those of
238us that have any kind of experience that bargaining is done in the sunshine bargaining is not done in a conference room somewhere behind closed doors between two people and someone taking notes so with that being said let's move on to a discussion about exceptional student education um very interesting uh series of events tonight folks have waited for a while to come and speak with you and I'm glad we're at that point um I want to point out that this is an evolution that has occurred over the uh over this school year first semester we worked or we attempted to work collaboratively with the district and the ESC Department uh working to find solutions to the issues that were facing our teachers and staff and ultimately our students we worked with or attempted to work with
239the the district on the different forms that were being sent out and asked to be completed without a whole lot of clarification and even now in the second semester we still have schools that don't quite understand how to fill out some of these logs that they've been given um we advocated for and were able to obtain two ese town halls and I thought those went very well I even reported back to you and shared that I thought that the conversation um was great and I was looking forward to some actionable steps however the only action item that that occurred from those Town Halls that we can recog iiz is the reinstatement of the paperwork days and we're very grateful for those but those were U created a year or so ago uh we were told
240that there would potentially be an ESC goal Bank to provide for um folks writing IEPs that would help them with the crafting of the goals to make them more appropriate and and correct but that apparently will not be available until next year so what we're finding here is there's been a lot of talk and a lot of communication but very little actionable steps that's right thank you you know what what I'm going for here um I looked in an accommodations document that I requested uh from Personnel here at the district and was not able to obtain I found it online there's a 69 page ESC accommodations document I got a question for you so if an accommodation that students receive frequently as preferred seating whose preference is it is it the student's preference or is
241it the teacher's preference no one can really answer that question for me if it's a student's pre if it's a teacher's preference and the student complains about where they've been seated now we got potentially an investigation going on for our teachers a lot of problems here we need some help thank you m Albert Miss Serena Shrum okay I'll hold that card the next up will be Miss Amber Antonio followed by Miss ebony Barry welcome thank you good evening board um I'm a first year teacher um overall in valua county and anywhere in the State of Florida and um um I'm an ESC teacher ESC paperwork is a full-time job in addition to my full-time teaching job for less than 50,000 a year I give up nights weekends time from family friends myself for a thankless
242job that doj has made a complete night mayor for this County when is enough enough this has to stop or pay us more in addition to the One D Day a quar are granted which we should be able to do from home to prevent distractions I have personally taken a sick day to complete paperwork which does cut into my time it's unfair and needs to be rectified I'll commit another year to vucha County Schools but if I don't see positive improvements to my workload I'll be forced to look elsewhere my health and happiness deserve better working conditions thank you for your time thank you Miss Antonio next up is Miss ebony Barry followed by Dominica pikney welcome good evening it's 7:00 p.m. again as I walk through the doors of my home I've had to
243say to myself all school year another day this school year with working a second job and not getting paid for my time time my efforts or work ethic this is a day and a week in the shoes of an ESC classroom teacher and a support facilitation teacher why is the district's assumption and expectation for us to complete these duties in one planning period a half an hour from 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and from 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m and feel accomplished and done for the day we have instructional case management and teaching duties that Encompass checking and responding to 20 plus emails per day collaborating with colleagues printing math big idea lessons completing lesson plans prep preparing for two to three grade levels using the bathroom facilitating small group instruction five days per week
244conducting opms and other assessments completing DPP learning Cycles completing vet requirements conducting uploading trans ition assessments preparing giving out rewards incentives for our students preparing and writing IEPs attending eligibility and annual IEP meetings completing and sending emails for IEP confirmation emailing meeting minutes and spin reports filing documents in the cume folder completing Printing and giving out progress monitoring reports I'm not done filling out lesson gain charts filling out SF logs tracking and collecting data on IEP goals collecting data for progress reports preparing math and facilitate facilitate IEP go instruction call parents conduct and complete consultation logs plan and prepare for for small group instruction like Wilson and youly assess and complete PST for LR committee be a testing administrator complete grades do morning Duty and more and please don't be fooled when they tell you
245that they just need more training I'm reading endorsed I'm ESC certified I have esol endorsement and I have a master's in social work does it sound like I need more training no I need to stop over servicing students I need one day at least per week to complete documentation and I need a department to show leadership communicate more effectively and prioritize my workload please help us thank you next up Miss Dominic pikney followed by Miss Vanessa price they're not here miss pikney is not here all right are you are you are you Miss price I am okay welcome good evening board members I've been an educator for over 19 years with six here in the county vucha county is losing some of the best teachers and the vacancy list grows each year I don't just
246think this is a Statewide issue it's a real vucha County issue if I I find myself even considering other counties and other careers as well it's not the pay that's motivating me either it's because in the six years I have worked in this County and the the more and more the district has pwed on its Educators with little empathy for our time your recent initiative to focus on Bubble kids or for those of you that don't know what that means kids that help the the district score only confirms that your one and only goal is test scores not what's best for kids you your focus on Bubble kids infuriated me as a teacher because you want me to focus on this small percentage of students solely because they impact the district grade I focus on
247all my students how would parents feel about their child not being your main focus simply because their child is not a bubble kid unless you convince me otherwise I can only conclude that test scores and data are all that matter to this District let me offer a solution get rid of all your unnecessary District tests whether you ask an IB honor student or general population student they will tell you the same thing none of these test scores matter because it's only the big one at the end of the year that counts you want these kids to take to take these tests with Fidelity and to Value the data they don't your Educators repeatedly report that the data is skewed and inaccurate yet that remains your focus my freshmen take four state tests and five district
248tests in English alone State tests take one day but e but District test tests take two to three days if a child has no disabilities I have over 60 students with IEPs 504s and Esau accommodations who require days more at best the district alone is consuming more than 20 instructional hours for nothing more than the collection of data I know what you're going to say it's not just data it's progress monitoring isn't that the job of the classroom teacher trust your Educators let them progress Monitor and Implement interventions please hear me you are testing these kids too much they don't value any of the tests because they are testing every single month you are minimizing the importance of Assessments I think we all know the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over
249again and expecting a different result is that what our district is your goal remains the same and yet you expect teachers to somehow get different results I challenge the district to try something new offer all the VB and WTS as optional allow teachers to assess standards and trust that they are take all this testing away for one year and use State Testing as the only progress monitor platform uh see if students change their attitudes and mindset about testing see what that data says trust your Educators and prioritize all our kids in this County do what's in the best interest of the kids and they may just surprise you in data thank you thank you Miss price next up is Carolina I'm not sure of the last name I apologize what is it enor and then
250following her will be Gina Walker welcome Miss edor oh thank you for this opportunity to speak this evening um I want to address the Madam of chair and also all the other board members here educating students I too was a school principal and a classroom teacher for over 20 years right here in the State of Florida now I have moved on and I am a proud vendor with uchia County I will like you all to take a look at the documents that I have passed around to you I was awarded a contract very happy to get that award from Valia County the award was approximately $250,000 to help keep Valia County Schools uh pressure washed and cleaned as I was excited with this contract I uh eagerly emailed the purchasing department to see what the
251schedule was guess what I wasn't on the the schedule that's right a small business blackowned 100% woman-owned business was not on the schedule to do any of the work in which she was awarded so I would like to alert this board to let them see which rules were broken by Valia County in this contract so if you turn to the first page down number three it says minority and women own business enter prises that they will have an opportunity that's right they would have the first opportunity whenever possible to fulfill a contract if you also move along to the second page your own contract states that disadvantaged businesses disadvantaged businesses will have the maximum opportunity to participate and perform in contracts so a contract that I was awarded I was neither given the opportunity to
252fulfill it nor was I given the opportunity to participate and improve uchia County that's right the children that I've helped educate in the State of Florida I would like to now employ them I want to see valua County grow but I can't do that if your purchasing department will not give me the opportunity after one year of asking to be on the schedule and being denied guess what they did they canell my contract and according to the list here I'm going to skip uh one page and go on for the sake of time I want to go to the very back page where it talks about termination the only way valua County can terminate my contract is if there's no funding or B is if I show that I could not do the job since
253I was not given opportunity how could you cancel my contract this day I have seen a board that I've never seen seen before I've seen a board that seems to love their Community I've watched this chairwoman greet people on out there in the front i' never seen anything like this in my 20 years being educated so now I'm asking this board to give this black woman the opportunity to uh work with this County thank you thank you up next is Miss Gina Walker followed by Mr Charles Langley welcome Miss Walker Dr bin board I'm honored to be able to take just a few minutes tonight to try to share from my heart on behalf of a lot of people and um to give a little light in the most respectful manner that I can because
254I I I just it really matters um I'm a multi teacher and I teach in the Elementary kindergarten first grade and I love my job I've gotten a chance to know many of you and see how hard you work and I'm incredibly impressed but you're not in my classroom every day so I just want to try to help you understand it multi ve kindergarten first grade these are kids a lot of them come intellectually disabled uh label but that's not really who they are or what they are it's just how their testing worked out um a lot of them have autism they don't speak we have 12 in our class nine in diapers they're not social it's tough I love my job I just want to say that again the state gives us a 3:1
255ratio I have two hands but we do it I do it with the help of my Paras super Paras right now one of them was a lawyer in Mexico there Special Needs Moms they work so hard hard all of us are a team of passion even at 3: one this model works but sometimes you get a child that just demands more attention for safety or his own needs or her own needs this is a child that needs a one-on-one adult and rightfully so we have to complete a lot of paperwork and it takes quite a few months to get that done in the past I've been a teacher for several years I've been able to talk to the parents about it and they've been able to reach to outside agencies in our community wonderful groups
256of professionally trained behaviorists they work with a family at home and at school send people right in my classroom and it helps us hold it together this year I was very surprised to learn that every single agency I recommended was full so that puts us in a different environment in my room on top of that I am constantly training New Paris I can't tell you how hard I work enthusiasm you're G to love it you love the kids they come they stay even the two that I have now within the last week have said to me my husband wonders why I don't work at Walmart did you know Aldi is hiring people with no education for 17 an hour my peirs are scratched they're hit they're bruised it a you know they work so hard
257please know that we care and we're doing our best but that's his situation thank you thank you m Walker Mr Charles Langley followed by M Nicole Lashley okay then I have Miss Nicole Lashley followed by Miss Tracy Butler welcome good evening I am actually reading for a person who wants to be anonymous hello I am a support and parallel teacher at one of the local schools here in the area I love teaching ESC and while it has been the hardest job I have had it's also been the most rewarding job I have ever had I love watching the students I work with learn new things and I love seeing them grow as individuals throughout the year however as someone who teaches parallel or Resource as some call it from observations I have made as well
258as progress that they have made I have some concerns moving forward special specifically and foremost the students in the county who are in these classes whether it would be for math or Ela need this program for just beyond sixth grade while my students have made progress in our in general education classrooms for both science and social studies I am concerned at how they are going to make progress in a general education El Ela setting or a general education math setting once they are done in the resource parallel class this year my classroom has become a safe space for my students as they navigate through school they are learning on the gened level but at their pace and on their level they are doing things that general education kids struggle with such as writing sentences or
259learning about adverbs and adjectives the small setting is beneficial for them because they are are getting that one-on-one support with the ESC teacher five days a week that they would otherwise not get if they were in the Jed setting with a support teacher my children in particular struggle with writing essays by having the parallel class they are learning how to write essays and learning how to write complete sentences by taking this type of class away not only are you taking away the extra resource for the students but you are also taking away a safe space that these students need to succeed a lot of my students struggle in their general education classes or they don't feel comfortable talking to their teachers if they are if they have a question so they will come to me
260with questions or problems that they are having I know they will still have this support with their ESC teachers but most es teachers are in the class classrooms with them just two to three times or two to three days a week so it's entirely different is a different relationship that they have with the kids as they also have different priorities to focus on besides just working with students thank you Miss Tracy Butler followed by Al Miss Alexandra Hemi welcome Tracy Butler with the Florida Education Association I too am reading for someone who who was fearful to be here tonight for fear of retaliation um like many of the ESC teachers speaking I share the same concerns I am just I'm going to share two big concerns that might not have been mentioned in detail first
261students with social emotional Behavior Support facilitation minutes on their IEPs are having instruction using an outdated and dull program called skill streaming during their lunch periods ESC teachers are either pushing into the noisy cafeteria embarrassing the ESC students in front of their peers to provide these minutes or they're going outside to picnic tables our ESC students need Lunchtime with their peers to build build social skills and friendships our ESC students should be receiving these intensive supports from real Behavior therapists that can work with them behavior is such a Hot Topic we really should be investing in real Behavior therapists that can actually work with the students to make real changes secondly the whole making up minutes situation causes many more problems students can miss their I AP minutes when they go on field trips or
262go on on to oncampus functions like pep rallies and performances it has been suggested to pull ESC students out of fun events like Field Day in order to meet with meet their IEP minutes ESC teachers also miss I AP minutes due to being in IEP meetings or testing we are stuck between a rock and a hard place we need language in the iips that allows some flexibility for these unique situations in which students could miss their I AP minutes I have also had to go into school sick many times due to the crushing anxiety of having to make up minutes when it's not guaranteed a substitute teacher will even show up it's not a secret that is difficult to find substitute teachers that are willing to take an ese position even if they earn just
263an an extra dollar an hour the majority of substitute teachers are not certified in ese but yet it's okay yet it's okay because all of what seems to matter for the is the Warm Bodies document document that they saw an ESC student to meet the IP needs there is simply not enough time to talk more about the increasing documentation and paperwork issues that we Face who is going to be left to teach our most vulnerable students if we don't make the necessary changes thank you Miss Alexandra Hemi and did Serena Shrum leave okay welcome thank you hello everyone my name is Alexandra Hemi and I'm a par 4 at Chisum Elementary and I've recently been assigned paperwork where I document everything I do for my student for example 8:35 a.m. assisted student in reaching hand
264soap 8:38 a.m. read aloud to student for every line I add my teacher writes her signature on top of her own mountainous paperwork she's reviewing my paperwork and signing it 50 times a week I will remind you that parap Force already submit a Time effort log twice annually as part of a federal audit being a parah is a handson job yet I've been instructed in my training to bring the log with us at all times recording assistance in real time it was stressed in the training not to make it up later or wait for early release Wednesday when the students have left as a result I'm pushing a wheelchair with the log tucked under one arm and my water bottle in the other and we push out of the classroom for hours at a time
265for very ious activities and services if I wasn't an adaptable human being I couldn't do my job but I sense that whoever assigned this paperwork has never done my job either I feel like if nothing is said Paris will continue to see an increase of responsibilities without additional pay thank you thank you no other cards okay so this brings us to the point of um 19. 01 items from board memb superintendent Schoolboard attorney for discussion announcement or approval do I have anyone that wants to start okay then I I'd like to start there's been a lot go on tonight I want to i' I'd like to address a little bit of the ESC piece myself having been a former self-contained ES ESC teacher also having taken um co-taught ESC math at the high school I
266don't know what this new log is that Paras are filling out but here's my first question listening to this young lady who seemed very sincere who was just the last speaker I understand documentation of what they're doing with children why is the teacher being asked to sign each line I I really need to understand understand that because I have heard a few other people um say to me the same thing because and and I'm not and other thing is I'm not sure well unless it's under the Ida piece for the time and effort log um that's a whole another piece and I understand why we have to do that because we're getting federal dollars but I you know I'm all about documentation trust me I've worked hard to figure out what ways to document things
267that worked for me and what maybe worked for me doesn't didn't work for everybody else but I don't understand a log that you're writing each thing down and I I understand what you're writing down but why we're having to stop and have the classroom teacher sign each item and why the classroom teacher couldn't sign the log at the end of the day so if you don't mind yeah yeah and then I'll share with you a couple things that we we are go ahead Miss Wes thank you the support paralog is something that Florida doe is requiring of valuch County Schools this school year as a result of a state complaint that we received we were unable in this particular complaint to prove that a student with disabilities was provided their one-on-one perah one-on-one Paras or
268support Paras are written into an IEP to specifically provide students with that intensive support that they need it could be many many many different things whatever that IEP says that the student needs we have to prove that it was provided as I mentioned there was a complaint there was no log the state said develop a log we developed a log state approved it and we were asked to roll that out so that is why that is new this year so when we developed that log did we submit the log to the state with just having a line for one signature for the day or did we develop it and put these lines like for every line we said someone was I mean let's be honest welcoming the child and two minutes later reading to the
269child and 10 minutes later doing this I mean you you're not only putting an additional burden on and I'm all for the log and and when we go to a one-on-one parah yes that changes things because they've been hired to work specifically with that student okay but did we submit this we did it in conjunction with the state so they did provide us feedback okay as as it was developed and alerted us that the teacher is responsible ultimately in the classroom and must verify that all of the services identified within that IEP were delivered that day I can go back and ask Florida d if they would approve a signature at the end of the day um but that is what they advised us to do when the log was developed and ultimately approved but
270I'm I'm happy to ask if they would accept a signature at the end but that's not what they originally so like I said having taught and I had 13 children for three to five years old when I taught self-contained ESC and I had a parah and I actually okay I'm really dating myself that's back when we still had a little bit of rest time for those kids at one point in the day when rest time was acceptable and I still think rest time should be acceptable for that age group um I personally wrote notes home in note in their notebook like for the parents to say you like here's the things we worked on today or here's what you could work on and all that but if the parah OR at at one point then
271I had two Paras if the par in Paras in my room had to do this log and I had to stop and slide every line trust me they're in the room with me and I see what they're doing so I would have been you know because we would have had a schedule these people have a schedule like they know what they're going to do I would have had no problem signing it at the end of the day that this is what occurred today versus every single line the biggest issue I ever had in federal programs when I went there was basically signing my life away on requisitions so we're stopping teachers from instruction if they got to keep signing these lines unless you're saying okay now stand here and sign them at the end of
272the day well I mean what if 50 50 different things happened on that log and what if they've got three kids in their room that have one-on ones I mean Dr bin you can be upset with me anybody can be upset with me but I'm just looking at the logistic reality of this how about a signature and I'll have to ask doe for that approval because if I'm the teacher and I'm signing it whether I sign it 12 times today and 25 tomorrow or one time I'm signing that that happened so I don't understand the need for signing line by line and so at least that I'll be happy to um send my contacts the requests I'm just I'm just one person that I'm just saying and I'm doing what I'm directed by the Florida
273doe so I will definitely send that request along with the log and ask them and give them a revision to see if they would accept a signature at the end of the day absolutely the other thing so someone this evening spoke about the um okay and I don't remember what words they used I need to probably bring a highlighter so I can highlight it but prior to you being in this position the person that was executive director at that of um ESC prior to you and the assistant director which I'm not going to name their names set right there and we talked about at that time for interim progress reports ESC teachers because we had switch systems were basically given a blank Word document and they had to create their own and I asked specific
274questions about why and why there was not a template which there used to be and why we wouldn't have a drop- down box that would make it simple I know they said the goal thing so here we are and that was prior to the pandemic so we're how many years out why are we why do we still not have a gold Bank okay or something easier for teachers to pull from because even when I wrote lesson plan when I was back in Jad and wrote lesson plans for E esol teacher like for Esau students in my room in my lesson plans we had like a sticker piece and see people are nodding that remember this we had a sticker piece where we could Circle the accommodations we did for our Esau kids or Circle accommodations
275of what we did for our ESC kids I just don't know why with the technology world that we're in right now we wouldn't have something in a drop-down setting where we can Circle what we have done or you know check off what we guys all of these people sitting out here as well as everybody listening the 4,000 and some teachers we have and I've said this before their responsibility is to teach they need the time to teach okay and I'm going to say this again tonight because this was a reoccurring theme through several things tests do not teach children I have said that I don't know how many times and and I know I I get people all upset when I say this teachers providing instruction practice intervention you know remediation enrichment those activities is
276what teaches children constant testing does a test does not teach a child so I just didn't think I'd be sitting here this many years later and we've made it and and I do all right I'm saying this to everybody out there when there's a that's why I said what I said before I started the meeting when there's a state or federal law and it says this is what we're required to do when we don't do it and trust me they come in they come in we've had to pay Esau fines okay one year we had to pay $300 and some, in Esau fines cuz folders they pulled for our Esau students was were not done correctly okay we're in this mess and it's probably not because of anybody currently sitting in this room but we're
277in this mess because somewhere along the way someone didn't do what they needed to do and so here we are because someone didn't do what they needed to do the only way we're going to get out from under this is we all have to work together to do what's required that's the only way we're going to get the Department of Justice off our back but I think we need to work together and I think we have to listen to the people in the field and we have to you've got somebody out there trust me that's probably figured out 10 people have figured out a way to track stuff that one way may work for me and one may work for you but we need to come together and figure this out I'm I'm sorry that
278just is where I'm at tonight go ahead and speak there was a I'll try to hit everything that you brought up um so this isn't because of Department of Justice the documentation that we are required to do is required by idea and and monitored by Florida doe um doj has come in because we were unable to prove that we provided certain services in students IEPs absolutely teaching is critical and is what we are here to do but unless it is documented then we didn't teach it and that is what the state is telling us through several audits that we have recently had you could teach it all day long but unless it's written down on paper that you provided what that students IEP says that they deserve then you never taught it so that's why
279you know we've got to make sure we're tracking gold data we have to make sure if you're a support facilitation teacher you have that log done to show that that you provided those minutes it's got to be um it it needs to be very clear that if a student misses their time because they were out sick or um there's a schoolwide function and nobody res those minutes aren't required to be made up so there is definitely from what I'm hearing tonight some miscommunication at the school level and so I need to continue to work to make sure that that the correct message is is given to the teachers because they are our end users so what is the correct message on that because it's being recorded right now streamlined so that you know we can
280refer people back to the absolutely so ultimately it's an IEP team's decision that if a student misses any of their required minutes during a week if it has a an impact on that student learning then that time has to be made up if no one in that classroom is receiving learning receiving their minutes receiving any education because we're on a field trip today then there's nothing to make up because there was no teaching happening that day if a student or if a teacher is out sick let's say I came to school Monday Tuesday I'm sick I don't come but I'm back Wednesday did me missing that one day of instruction have a dire impact on that student's learning I'm going to say the Professionals in that building would be able to look at that and
281determine if it did have a dire impact on that student learning if it did we would have to make it up I venture to say missing one day 30 minutes of instruction in math is not going to have a dire impact but if we miss 30 minutes every week that would add up and would therefore need to be made up ultimately it's an IEP team's decision as to any minutes that are ultimately missed if the Professionals in that building are uncertain if it had a dire impact on the students learning So when you say it's the I AP committee's decision it's their decision when they're writing the IEP to be able to write in that flexibility or it's their decision if an IEP is reconvened for a Rew reconvene so if a student has missed
282let's say they're supposed to get 250 minutes a week but the student only receive for whatever reason 150 minutes a week for an extended period of time that IEP team may have to come back and say all the evidence shows that this student is progressing well and they only received 50 minutes we need to decide are those 250 minutes really needed or should we only have 150 minutes because look at how well they're doing with this 150 minutes of instruction it's an IEP team decision that involves that parent now if they only received that 150 and they're performing poorly then that IEP team would have to say they missed 100 minutes a week for five weeks we need to come together as a committee to decide how much time is needed to make up that
283instruction that the student missed okay and I hear you on that having were another had it one time overseeing summer programs part of this is contradictory to what you say then when we hit summer programs because I had a hard time when I oversaw summer programs telling a parent that had a child that was in second grade gen Ed that their child was coming to like a summer program like CSI or reading camp or something like that but their ESC child was not coming because it was determined that them not coming for the summer would not impact their learning but yet I don't think I've ever met an ESC child that missing out on the summer wouldn't impact their learning so see how it contradicts to some extent what you're saying but again that's an
284IEP team's decision to discuss that esy and remember esy is not just during the summer we can offer extended school Year all throughout the year so it doesn't necessarily have to wait until June or July for that to occur and that we are trying to become better as a district and offering multiple extended school year type opportunities to our students well I I just would like for people to I think you need to and I talked to Dr B about this have some meetings with some of the people that came to speak maybe some of the individuals that didn't come to speak tonight and I think instead of talking we need to start by listening first hear what they have to say and then come up with a list and what I would encourage anyone
285sitting in this room or those at home listening if there is an issue I always encourage you come with what a solution is or what a suggestion is because if you don't then nine times out of 10 it's not going to be resolved so I will be quiet Mr psus is up next um I see Dr balabin had wanted to speak I can go the on this that's fine that's fine I can go the end uh well thank you for bringing up those points with with ese um yeah okay um the one uh parent that came up or a teacher I'm not sure I think was a teacher um about the early early release schedule remember the conflict with the kid the garden in the fifth grade and the first person first grade and something
286I'm not I I didn't get that I didn't get I didn't get why that was happening so on on we I had a director speak to I mean there's we have uh you know 70 schools on our early release schedule I don't know you know 45 elementary schools whatever it is no one else is talking about that particular issue I'm not yeah sure if that was just a school scheduling issue or something Miss castalina was that just that particular [Music] school I I didn't hear what she said was that she she said it was just a specific school it's because on I don't because were you whatever I mean were you still the principal when we did early release yeah okay yeah so you know how you condense that day so at that particular school
287it was putting kindergartners and fifth graders at lunch at the same time for an overlapping period and there was a problem that happened in restroom yeah but yeah okay well that should be fixed easily AB absolutely that's okay I just thought it was maybe a districtwide issue all of a sudden so I'm glad to hear that um not glad that it happen but I'm glad to hear that um you know I think as long as we've been sitting here this this year we continue to hear about unnecessary testing frequent testing too much testing all we do is test test test test kids aren't taking test seriously anymore because we're just doing it so much it's like you know why are we doing it so much I mean that's I mean I know there are State
288tests we have to give but it it you know if it was just one teacher saying it once in a while but we don't go through a Schoolboard meeting where we don't hear the same thing and we hear it through our emails it's just and you know what I hear it I've hear it from my daughter whose's child's in Orange County she's saying that's all they do is test your kids in SE second grade he said they just test test test it's like it's like crazy so I I don't know where all the pressure is it's not coming from the bluch County School Board I'll tell you that so I I don't know I don't know where it's coming from but I would love for someone maybe Madam chair at a workshop or someone to
289just say to come and explain to us how many tests were given and why we're giving them I mean I I don't know to me it's great it's I don't know uh the other item I wanted to mention was just uh uh we heard about we we approve the prek teachers having that other program not the you know the two-year like pair thing and so uh I I want to get some clar clarification ation about what is required at Daytona State College to help people with a AA degree a teacher Apprentice program teacher Apprentice we have a workshop that's coming okay uh because I I I just that will be a part of it yeah okay it's a state grant that we were approved for Daytona State in conjunction with VCS thank you thank you
290madam sherff that's thank you Dr B yeah so let's talk a little bit about ESC um I've had several as you guys know I do continuously listen and learns with different areas different departments so a couple things we've done couple things that are in the works um I've met with both of the alternative site the entire uh staff for both sites and we discussed pretty much the students that are going to those sites the services that they're receiving what's what's working what's not and we had like two or three big takeaways that came out from from that session and we've already worked on on those takeaways and we did a training for all of our principles at the last principal meeting one of the big ticket item was the consistency with re-entry meetings and how
291that needed to take place so anyway I'm just putting that to the side but I've been hearing about the logs and I'm one of those individuals when I hear continuously about something I want to see it I want to experience it so I've asked Miss Wes um to come and meet with me a few weeks back because I wanted to see every single log that our teachers are required and our parents are required to complete so she brought me all of the logs for the different programs and I looked at them when I looked at it I will tell you that I saw some of the logs were very simple simple in the aspect that it was probably four boxes that needed to be completed you can put in one box all of the students
292that are receiving that small group instruction I'm talking specifically about General Ed teachers that have ESC students that that inclusion okay very simple to complete I looked at the multi the log that our multi- teers are completing and for students for ASD and I did have some ideas of perhaps how it could be streamlined even further so what I did is that based on what I experienced with with Amanda WS I met with our principal counsel and it was one of the topics that we've discussed as a result of that meeting I Shar with them what I had experienced and what I saw and I asked them what is it that your teachers are experiencing and what is it that they're seeing and we had that dialogue so as a result of that what we
293have done have asked the principles from the principal counsil which they have already given me the names and also they have also volunteered staff members from their schools we have four work sessions that are coming up and in the four work session the whole purpose is looking at these logs and looking to see how we can even streamline it even further for more efficiency moving forward so I believe uh Dr Hazel already has those date our first one is tomorrow tomorrow is the first meeting so that's when the principles from the principal Council along with some of the the staff members that they've recommended that are working in these different programs that we have that will be able to firsthand look at these logs and say these are some recommendations these are some ideas to
294streamline it and make it even more user friendly they're going to make those recommendations we're going to see everything that we can incorporate and then there's three other meetings where we're going to try to fine-tune this if we have to take a particular log to the state for them to look at what our recommendations are we're gonna be doing that so we have four work sessions set up and I didn't know that the one is already tomorrow with that said we also talked about the electronic logs as you guys know we're piloting piloting those in some of our schools and what I heard from the principls and some of our staff members that are using that it appears that at the secondary level the usage of those electronic logs is going much much better than
295what it what's happening at the Elementary level for several factors um being comfortable taking an an iPad or a computer to the classrooms and filling it out on the spot transferability between um the the some of our teachers are using the the logs that we have that are you you handwriting them and then you have to go and transfer it into the electronic logs so that's like a little bit of you know additional time that they're having to spend to trans for so we talked about that also so there are several things are in the work as as it pertains to the log but again I wanted to see the these logs myself so that when I hear of them I can make those connections some of them to be very transparent with you are
296very simple and then there are others that depending on like for example especially for a multi-units there are several groups like we had one teacher that was talking about multi then it becomes a little more of a cumbersome process I can see the opportunity there for streamlining it and make it more efficient um and that's where we are now as you know we're going to work through the Kinks with the electronic logs and that's going to be in all available for all of our teachers moving forward um for the next school year and those are some of the things that I'll be meeting with that group at the end of the the after the fourth workshop and I'll share with the board what are some of the recommendations that they've made that we can incorporate
297so did in looking at the logs did you look at the paral logs oh yes I did I did I did see quite a bit of where signature by you know each accommodation now I will also tell you that some of the logs half right there on the logs on the the top part of the log it it gives you some accommodations that you can say oh this goes for you know I can use this AC it's there it's visible for you all right Mr colog so working in a world where if it's not documented it didn't happen we have what's called charting by exception and what that means is when you have a patient in a hospital um you chart the things that are different in the day what are the things that happened
298that were not normal we don't chart every five minutes that you were sitting in bed comfortably we we chart when you were in pain we chart when we gave you pain medicine we chart those things um just in a few minutes here I've done some research and there are certainly lots of companies out there that have this tracking software many of which play with uh Focus very well it doesn't sound like we're leveraging our our student information system to the Max and so my suggestion would be that you know maybe Focus can help us guide to a you know because again and and this is totally not my world but if a child has preferential seating the only day that child's not going to have preferential seating is the day he's not there otherwise that's
299an accommodation that they typically would provide so to have to document every single day that they got preferential treating seating that's a given so that should probably be and again I'm just speaking outside of my Norm that should be line number one so the only time you would have to chart that is if they didn't get preferential sea and if you didn't do something that day and so focus seems to have the capability to track es minutes uh gened minutes I mean I'm just in a quick search you know there there are various even third-party vendors that work with Focus that have apps that they can uh specifically uh aim at a child and what their accommodations are and be able to do if we discover that what we're being asked to do by the
300state is not reasonable we have no problems going up there and talking to FLD dooe and saying you're killing us look what you're asking us to do a lot of times that's just a matter of getting the chancellor on the line to say this doesn't make sense this is you know cruel and unusual punishment I I mean really this is we have those relationships to be able to do that and still be within accordance with the law it's easy to say well this is what they asked us to do but the thought that we are not leveraging technology and like I said it just hit me a few minutes ago I'm like let me let me go search and so the products are out there and don't get me wrong I've spoken to facilitators who
301some of them say I would love to have an electronic solution and others say I would hate to have an electronic solution specifically because of the Tim stamp they would rather do it at the end of the day and nobody can say you did it at 5 o'clock or maybe we can or do we measure what we call in the hospital pajama time we look and see okay when our doctors are home are they on the computer when they're supposed to be with their families we can determine that we can decide okay how who are the doctors I need to work with to get them more efficient so they're not spending every night after they get home sitting on a computer for three hours so I think from a technological standpoint and like I said
302I've heard both sides from facilitators and teachers you know some say I love my paper I've got my log and this is what I love to do and I would hated it because I guess at one point they did have something electronic and everybody could tell you did it at the end of the week and that wasn't necessarily meeting the expectation of whoever it was at the time so again I've seen both sides of it and unfortunately I don't think we're going to it's like ice cream you're not going to make everybody happy no you got to have glutenfree nutree vanilla ice cream dairy free lactose free I mean right the days of making everybody happy by selling ice cream over and so um but but I think from a technological standpoint the there's Solutions
303out there and is there anything that's perfect probably not but you know I would want to stay as close to focus Foundation as possible and focus will know where to send us they'll know which are the people that work well with them that have this software I mean I looked up one company here they're already in like 12 school districts and this is exact exactly what they do and Dr has already met with Focus regarding this he's had a few meetings already with them yeah I think that will be I mean and again in addressing any unreasonable I have no problem calling the chancellor and saying dude you're killing us and given them the reason why because the reality is we know these folks are hard to hire they're hard to keep they're hard so
304you're killing you you are killing us and I think they'll listen I really truly do but we have to make that case it's awesome that's all I have I have one final thing um had the last board meeting not ended up you know digressing into other things I would have um spoke about it then but as it turns out more things have come up since then so I want everyone sitting here in the audience and those listening at home I need you to clearly understand one very important thing Mr Aaron wolf here is our school board attorney this is the gentleman that represents the five of us sitting here on the school board this is the gentleman that is at every one of our board meetings unless he takes a vacation and sends in a
305partner so at the last board meeting and it's been proceeded on through emails things on Facebook you know documents and everything it has been stated that we the five of us have gone after the union so I want to be very clear when that came up at the last board meeting here's what Mr Wolf did he leaned over to me and if I misspeak please you know correct me and he said what are they talking about did you guys go out and hire outside Council to represent resent you instead of me and I said no sir you're our representative you represent us you're the person that sits in on litigation and things that comes before us that we're involved in because he was just as surprised to some degree as we were a few of
306us I think had a heads up prior to walking into that meeting that the union perk and the district were having conversations so I want to be clear on this not a single one of the five of us were in any of those meetings none of us hired an attorney other than our Schoolboard attorney our Schoolboard attorney was not involved in any of those meetings he knew nothing about it just like I found out I think Sunday before or maybe Monday before we came into that meeting what was happening we those are not decisions that are within our lane our lane is policy approving expenditures $50,000 or more and we pretty much standard Lane when we step out of it sometimes I have to apologize but what's going on right now between the union and
307perk and the district does not involve the five of us up here because we've NE we've never talked to perk we don't submit stuff to perk we don't get stuff back from perk and I I can honestly say this and I won't speak for the other four I didn't even know until the Monday before that anything had been submitted and so the district hired an attorney that we did not know about even so I want to clarify because Miss Albert I'd like to ask you a question did you have I have a question for you did you have any meetings with Mr Aaron wolf representing us so I have I have official documents from Miss Dyson that are submitted on behalf of the Valia County school board I will send you copies of them tomorrow
308I can only interpret the words as they are written to answer your question Mr Wolf and I have never never interacted and he's a fine gentleman I think he would be great to speak with but I have documents Miss Haynes that I will send you tomorrow that have been officially filed with the public employes relations commission that state emphatically Miss Sasha Dyson on behalf of the vuia County School Board and had I had the opportunity to speak with one or several of you perhaps we could have had the conversation but I am just amazed at this conversation right now and so thank you for making that statement because now we know how we might be able to proceed a little bit better but I'll send you those so can you tell us you said your
309attorneys talked to our attorneys our attorney is him and you just said you've never spoken him so who who did who did your attorneys talk to our attorney spoke directly with Miss Dyson okay who again I'm going to remind you on all the documentation that we have received she's claiming to represent the five of you so maybe that Mr wolf maybe you need to look into that because if that's a misrepresentation maybe we need to explore that further as well so what I will say as the chair and I I didn't receive any of this paperwork and when I do have paperwork Del when I have to meet the sheriff's dep Department processors or the private processors almost weekly to take paperwork everything that comes to us in the way of a litigation comes to
310the school board of uchia County okay but I will tell you I personally as the chair did not authorize an attorney to be hired on behalf of the school board nor did any of them because we have an attorney nor did I know I'm I'm speaking for myself they'll have to speak for themselves nor did I know that an attorney had been hired prior to either it was Sunday or Monday before you came and spoke and I'm sure they didn't hire the attorney on the day before before you came to speak she's your contracted attorney who used to work for gray Robinson and there was a meeting not too long ago where there was an agreement to continue that relationship with her new firm out of Tampa but what I find particularly amazing right now
311and it's a little bit perplexing to me in this moment is that an action would be taken using the name of valua County school board and the five of you have no idea that a formal action at the state level with a governing body is has been under way and you don't know anything about it that to me is is I think very concerning I have nothing to hide I'm not saying you do but I find that as when you came and what you've said and what you've continued to say I am clearing it up that it is inaccurate then can you tell me who is who I need to speak with who do I need to speak with about this particular come on up and and let's go let's go ahead and go through
312this please take a seat the school board of uchia County Florida is represented in a matter before the Public Employee Relations Committee by Sasha Dyson and the board did authorize Miss Dyson to file a notice with perk to dispute the issue of when the density was was made the the recertification petition was filed so we voted here in the boardroom no you told me personally perhaps chairman Haynes uh to expedite this meeting perhaps we do this um in another Forum we can't have we don't we don't have private meetings the only time we go into executive session which was like this first thing this morning for litigation and we used a court reporter in there that records every word that will be released once the litigation is but this solved okay and I you know
313I got to just say to you Miss Haynes I appreciate this moment I I don't know where we're going here but you you know me and and we tell the truth that's what we do and so this is um this is let's keep telling the truth well I mean ultimately we are at the top and ultimately I know the district has several attorneys on standby for whatever cases come up but here we are well I think we need to you know clarify this a little bit when you say that uh you told me like you told me at the board meeting or you told me on a telephone call or in a private setting or the superintendent directed and I communicated with each one of you individually discussed with you the ramifications of filing a
314notice to perk concerning the unions resur ification petition each one of you individually told me that you supported filing a notice to perk that the representations in the recertification petition were inaccurate okay and then and then from from from that uh uh explain why it is the school board and not the school district yes sir because there's only one legal entity that is recognized by the Constitution and that is the school board of valua County comma Florida okay so do I mean so I I think I'm I'm understanding so he he called each of us or the superintendent called us I did you you did and called each of us and asked us and each of us said yes and then the next step is to um The Next Step you made was to hire
315the the the attorney yes Miss Dyson has been our labor Council for some number of years and she is on a retainer and was notified that the board's Wishes the superintendent's Wishes the district's wishes were to file a response to the recertification petition to clarify that as of September the 24th 2023 based on Union representations they did not have the required 60% density to be recertified gotcha we were very clear on that well thank you for that clarification because it's very interesting some of the conversations that I've been um that have been shared with me did not articulate those facts so thank you for clarifying that Mr penley so Mr colone having had a a really good conversation with Andrew it's how I came to learn a lot of this and I'll start off by
316saying that was there a union busting Bill the answer is yes was that our school board's decision the answer is no the bill said that the union needed to have 60 % participation 30 days prior to right and so what I said to Mr pendley was well we don't have a choice we have to follow the law if they had it they had it if they didn't they did it yeah it's pretty black and white however my understanding is there's a premise that someone in perk whatever that entity is made a comment had an opinion that diverted from the percentage saying that folks who were paying prior to that year and had that opinion which he eventually got in trouble for at which point rumor has it they're trying to close that loophole so the
317question then becomes for the school district is did the Union have 60% so that's the question if they did then this is an nonissue if they didn't then this is you know clarification will be made so the question I have is based on the letter of the law and the statute did view have 60% but Mr cologne respectfully this is not an issue that involves vucha County school board or valua County School District this is a relationship that public sector unions have with the public employees relation commission there is no policing or oversight or supervis supervisory capacity of the board or the district to intervene and insert themselves in the process that we as a public sector Union engage in with perk so the perk is the ruling body and to your point if I
318can the law went into effect on October the 1 we submitted our documentation on October the 16th and we followed to the tea the guidance that was provided by perk it was provided through a workshop and it was articulated by the chairperson of the committee why would we why would we risk putting ourselves in Jeopardy and V and become vulnerable to any kind of sanction or desertification possibility to our Union we would not we would not and I agree with you and we don't because we no longer have the ability to know what your participation percentage is because the legislature you know did what they did and and again I'm not in favor of it I've always been supportive I I mean it's it's it's it's it's let me let my filter kick in here
319it it's not good but from the district standpoint based on the letter of the law that says you have to have 60% because as you know they're not backing up that statement we know this I didn't know any of this until I had that conversation you know they're they're not going to issue an opinion they're going to sit on it until they pass another law and we're back here again so did view have 60% participation as defined by the statute itself and I don't know that I have no way we have no way of knowing that so when Mr pendley called me I said if the law says what it says then we have to follow the law but that's where you're wrong Mr cologne because there is no process within SB 256 that articulates
320that a school board or a school district has to police or provide oversight to the documents that are submitted on behalf of the Union to perk if perk wants to call that into question they can but now this train has left the station so let's go ahead and follow it through right so our attorneys are working with Miss Dyson there have been many motions filed and let's see where this goes we tell the truth as I've already articulated it doesn't seem like that's a commonality in certain areas but we do tell the truth and we've done everything the way we were supposed to do it based on the guidance that was provided in the window in which we recertified to that point we only had 45% density for our support professionals so we took the
321next step and we filed the necessary documents to call for an election that's what you do if we didn't have the density based on the guidance that was given we already have the forms in the office why wouldn't we have done the same for instructional but when we follow the rules that were given at the time we submitted our documentation accordingly and there is no authority of this body to intervene in that unless it is for the purpose of trying to decertify our Union because that's that's where we're potentially I I think we've been very clear that that's not the case that that sounds really good but that's not the case well but there I did have a a new learning here that each one of you was contacted based on the authorization given by
322the superintendent and the answer was yes go ahead to follow the law no Mr col As I understood it but that's the problem you don't you didn't understand it clearly well that's why I lot of people that have to get with respect Madam chair I believe this is out of order I do too yeah and so not the appropriate Forum to dis to debate a legal contention if as Miss Albert says they made a mistake on their legal analysis then perk won't make that determination that's simply all that this board and this district and this Administration has pointed out to the Public Employee Relations Committee we are the state employer the district the board is the employer we have an obligation to make note to the Public Employee Relations Committee if the Union's own representations
323prove that the legal analysis that they had was incorrect that's all thank you Mr clone are you finished yeah again I think I think you know we we rely on the legal information that we receive I'm not an attorney don't pretend to be one I read the statute I saw what it said was there another opinion later on yeah but by the time I had that conversation this had already gone and mind you I learned about an attorney from Andrew I don't even know who this lady is not saying that she doesn't do business with us I don't know her personally and so with that being said follow the law and go after them are two different things and the result may be feel like the same thing but it's not and I think yes
324we could you guys really it's between the district and I get it we get blamed for everything we get sued for everything but it's not the intent it's not the conversation that was had oh yeah go after no follow the law now was there an opinion after that that came after the law yeah are they trying to close that loophole yeah but that's what we had to go Bas that's what I had to go based off of and so you know again not any one of us specifically said yeah go get them go bust no I don't that's not the case it was if if we need to follow the law and we don't think it you know then we have to do what we have to do now whether you agree with what the
325district has to do not to that's a conversation for another day and and I probably would welcome the chair to have that meeting with Mr penley and let's try to wrap this up you know again if it happened without us and it wasn't an official action because this is official action then maybe we can come to a resolution here it sounds like a big misunderstanding and and I think that it's something that you know Madam chair I I totally trust you to have these conversations and maybe we can come to a resolution understanding each side because that's just not been you know and I and I read the opinion I watched I listened to the thing I get it I just know that as was stated to me perk's not saying anything right now they're
326just kind of so I don't expect you're going to get an opinion one way or the together they're just going to put their tail between their legs and say you know you guys beat it up but if if if there's a way to have this conversation and and and come to the table with the understanding that that wasn't the intent then let's let's find the middle that's just my thought respectfully I'm goingon to go sit down but I do want to just close with this I think I think when you are looking at the situation it perhaps depends depends on which Viewpoint you're looking from kind of like the glass right somebody mentioned a glass the other day I heard you know is the glass half empty or is the glass half full I think
327it depends on if you're pouring or if you're trying to drink it so with that being said I look forward to being able to communicate with you further on this issue thank you Miss Haynes for bringing it up any other discussions then this meeting is adjourned and it is 10:15 p.m.