Volusia County School Board Meeting 12⧸12⧸23

001e it's christmasle oh here we go good afternoon good evening afternoon it's still afternoon yeah it is good afternoon welcome to the Valia County Schoolboard meeting today is Tuesday December the 12th 2023 and the time is 4:38 p.m. so for those of you that have tuned in at home we apologize for starting 8 minutes late but we were trying to get everyone seated here in the boardroom so that we could go ahead and start we have some wonderful recognitions that are going to take place um in just a little while but at this time in just a moment I'm going to ask all of you to please stand with me and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance in the national anthem the Pledge of Allegiance is going to be presented by Westside Elementary the

002national anthem is going to be by Hinson middle following the Pledge of Allegiance and national anthem we will have a moment of silence and reflection thank you hello I'm Dwayne Copeland principal of Westside Elementary I'm here with Miss Thomas's third grade class they will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of alce to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all best hello my name is Mr Gaskill and this is the Hinson middle school Advanced band and we proudly present the national anthem thank [Music] you [Music] la [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] thank you and you may be seated it's my pleasure to welcome all of you that are here in the boardroom with us and

003those of you listening at home I'm going to take a moment to introduce everyone that's up here at the front with me on my far left I have Mr Carl persus representing District 4 next to Mr persus I have Miss Jesse Thompson representing District 3 next Miss Thompson is Mr Aaron wolf who is our Schoolboard attorney over on my far right I have Miss Celeste Gilmore our agency clerk next to miss Gilmore is Mr Ruben clone representing District 5 next to Mr cologne is Mrs Anita Bernett our vice chair representing District Two then to my immediate right is Dr Carmen Balaban our superintendent and I am Jamie Haynes and I am your chair this year and I represent district one items for approval on this agenda this evening are items 1.03 2.02 4.01 7.02 18

004.01 through 18.06 throughout the evening we have public participation times we will have public participation for any items that on the consent agenda and you can fill out a card they have cards available over here if someone will raise their hand so they know who to come to then we also have a public participation time that will start at 6: p.m or shortly thereafter for items of general interest pertaining to public education in valua County at that time a total of up to 15 minutes will be provided for public comment then time will be provided for public comment on any action item before a board vote is called on that item and this evening we have six action items then time will be provided at the end of the meeting for public comment for items

005of general interest pertaining to public education in vucha County before items from the board superintendent or attorney are up for discussion announcement or approval each speaker that fills out a card will have a total of three minutes to speak please respect the time clock this is the area right here where the podium is that's where you'll speak from and there are time clocks that you can see from that um space Also only during public input time there are no signs placards or other visual forms of communication 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 privilege to address the board if this rule is violated members of the audience

006should be courteous to all speakers and shall refrain from making audible comments or applauding during public input time during public input time you can give a thumbs up or you can do jazz hands now with that being said during our recognition time tonight which will happen prior to any public input we welcome you clapping for the people that are being recognized because there are students staff and community members that have gone above and beyond and accomplished things and we are here to honor them this evening our district vision statement um is to create lifelong Learners prepared for an Ever Changing Global society and at this time I welcome any board member who would like to make some comments before we move move on into the rest of the agenda Mrs brunette thank you if you

007can see me um but uh first off let's say congratulations to those Mainland bucks few Buccaneers here in in the house so that was great and and um I'm sorry I couldn't be with you to celebrate the next day but um I know it was wonderful and we were all cheering them on for here from here so so happy to see that for them and then um thank you to everybody for the world showcased I went I think most of us went that night and um it looked like it was a great turnout and all the students were so engaged I stopped by many of tables and talked to them and everybody was definitely trying to sell me on their program I almost want to go back to high school so thank you Mrs Thompson

008yes so congratulations again to Mainland that was huge um I would just like to say I know we've had a lot of schools do community events for the holidays and it's been so great to see all the community involvement that we've had um in new samna beach we had our Christmas parade and I don't know how many of you saw it on social media but our transportation department in southeast fuia decorated the school bus and the they spent their own time and money and made it look like Reindeer and the front looked like Rudolph it had a nose that glowed the whole thing lit up it was amazing looking so thank you for inviting me to be part of that and thank you for putting all that extra work in because I know there's so

009much time in each day and they work so hard um I'd also like to just mention we have uh Miss Hopkins retiring from Sweetwater and I know she's been there a while and she's done some great things and we're going to miss her but I hear that we have some great things coming up and I just like to thank all of our schools have been doing toy drives for all of our kids in the community because I know that's huge especially now in the economy we're in so thank you all the students the staff Administration who's put that all together I know you've done some hard work and hopefully get to rest over the next couple weeks thank you thank you Mr cologne and so as you all have stated there's lots of Performing Arts

010uh events going on at all our schools including some tonight which who knows we may get out of here before 7 pm tonight may be able to make it to some of those and so uh I want to give a shout out to uh Deltona High that's a little bit further back uh they did their job in career fair that was uh very well attended lots of folks there um moving up a little bit here basket Brigade have you been here since Thanksgiving no we have not so the Valia basket Brigade was incredible and so shout out to Amy Hall and her committee uh Amy of course is near and dear to all of our hearts uh they collected lots and lots and lots of thousands of boxes over 5,000 boxes which translates to more

011than one one meal obviously per box so I think it was like 25,000 meals or something like that but our schools played an integral part of that I know all of our schools also participated in that uh with walls and walls of boxes uh of food contributed along with gift cards Etc had the honor of uh having lunch at high Banks which was during Thanksgiving uh sponsored by my dear friends at Advent health and so it was such a good time to see the amazing things that they're doing at high banks for our students they just love on these kids and so what what normally we would look and say you know it's an alternative school setting uh you know these kids you know may have done something that they weren't proud about and we

012weren't proud of but the reality is having spent the time with them and and seeing how they're being loved on over there was just great I'm sure Jamie will talk about the amazing Miss lamir and the Macy's day parade and and that go righte oh light up Enterprise light up Enterprise was amazing and so they uh it's a annual event I missed probably the one before this because they said they did do one after covid but hundreds of families out there and they actually had snow or soap or it was a mess it was Florida snow we'll call it and uh pin Ridge had their Christmas showcase how about those bucks just saying that was awesome sorry I'm glad you went first and I think that's it for me so it's been a very very

013busy two weeks and the next week is incredibly busy and then I hope everyone can get some downtime I know I plan on doing that so thank you Mr persus thank you madam chair uh yeah I just want to say since the last time we had a Schoolboard meeting I was able to get to a lot of my schools and I went there to visit uh to see their uh representative for the teacher of the year and just wanted went into their rooms and uh thank thank them and uh con congratulated them actually and also uh teachers of the year and then also the Orman Beach Chamber of Commerce does a teacher of the quarter so I was back around to uh to also extend my congratulations to those amazing teachers we have such a

014phenomenal teaching staff throughout our school district uh and you really just want to wish everyone a very happy holiday season and a very safe and prosperous and healthy New Year back to you madam chair thank you so um there are a lot of wonderful things going on out at our schools and we haven't been here since before Thanksgiving but I did I started my crew 37 years ago as a teacher at Enterprise Elementary and I don't know how many people know this but Enterprise Elementary has always taught the children from the Florida United Methodist Children's Home because it sits just very close you could walk from the school over to the um Florida United Methodist Children's Home so I had the honor to go and attend their Christmas performance and I want you to pause

015for a moment and think about this when you have events at your school parents fill your cafeterias and your auditoriums the children that live there they don't have parents to come out and so I have to give a shout out to all of the community members um there were you know city council members from DeBerry and Delona and everything they all came out for that event to be able to clap and cheer for those kids in that audience because just as every other child deserves somebody there to clap for them those kids deserved it and they did a great job this year they performed the Christmas carol and um it was a wonderful experience and I was happy to be there some other things going on um in District One Taylor held their college and

016career day and they had I believe 40 some different people that came out to share careers that are local to the area and um colleges and how to get in and what I heard repeatedly from the people because I just like to thank everyone that comes out and does one of these things they were so appreciative of how well behaved the students were they're like they walked up to our table they introduced themselves they had questions and so you know a big shout out because Taylor Middle High really prepared the students for that event um spelling bees have started I'm I don't know how many other board members have already but I did do my first one which was out at mcginness elementary which I love spelling bees I love going out and judging spelling

017bees and encouraging those kids that are trying to be better spellers because that's important um especially since technology came along and we like put letters out to stand for all of these words in this unique shorthand that we have going on but also I stopped by George Marks for their vehicle day and um there were some interesting Vehicles out there now I fortunately got there that in time that the big truck with the ladder I didn't have to go up on it they asked me if I wanted to and I said no I won't but later that day I also um got a chance to talk to our futures tomorrow's leaders and so that's our 40 High School juniors that are in that program here in the boardroom and I was so impressed with that

018group this year because they all came dressed professionally they had great questions um I asked them about you know what were their plans moving forward and they could tell me what it is that they wanted to do so it was a pleasure to spend time with them and then every month there's a d a district advisory council meeting well this month I was actually surprised I learned something that I did not know and Miss Thompson and Mr clone were there with me and we learned about basically an art showing that's been taking place in Daytona that started out small and it's grown and it's it was phenomenal what we learned and I look forward to being able to bring that information to families so that they can participate in it um because the the husband

019and wife that are putting on this production it's just amazing they take local community members from our African-American community and they actually do the art and share their stories and so it's been happening on the east side of the county who knows maybe we can also bring it over to the west side of the county because we need to know about our history and our culture and all of the people that have played a part in Valia County but now I will tell you Friday morning I had the most fun and I know this is crazy but I always whenever I can find a chance I always give a shout out to our schoolway Cafe um workers because our schoolway Cafe workers they make a difference in every child's life that they feed that goes

020through for breakfast lunch after school snack or or supper well I got to go sit on their task force Friday morning and I didn't realize all this extra work so many of them are doing but what they're doing is they bring in new products and they sample them at schools and they let kids rate the products on do they like like this or do they not like this and it has to have a 90% approval rating I believe in order to move on for something that they'll add to the menu so they were reviewing some data of some things they've sampled recently but then there were 10 things they wanted us to taste and I have to tell you some of them were great because that group decides like is it going to go in

021front of the students or not but I had to slip out for a minute and so they handed me this one sample and said no take take it with you because I had to go get on a virtual meeting with um Dr balabin I didn't pay attention to what they said that item was and so I decided to take a bite of it and had a coughing fit for the next 10 minutes so I went back afterwards and said guys they said that was a spicy grilled cheese I said well I guess spicy grilled cheese doesn't work for me because I got the pepper um and they said yeah we decided we're not sampling that at elementary but we're going to probably do it at the high school because the high school kids like that

022but there's just a lot of work that those ladies and gentlemen put in to making sure that we have some great food choices for our students and I appreciate all the time and I like how they put it out there and they listen to students why should we buy a product or put it out there if kids are not going to eat it and um some of them were absolutely delicious and then um I did hit a few of the winter or light up events that are happening out at the schools and I want to say say thank you to all the teachers staff PTA community volunteers that help put those events on and even our rotary one of the rotaries here in Delan set up their Grill at Stark Elementary last Friday and cooked

023hot dogs for all the kids coming in and so as I said earlier today in our Workshop it takes an entire community and when we all work together just think of the difference we can make in the life of a child because the children are our future but I appreciate everything everybody's doing and I hope that every one of you um when the end of the week rolls around or the beginning of next week if you're a 12-month employee I hope that you have an opportunity to go and have a break and spend time with your own family and friends and make memories because that's what it's all about but at this time we're moving on to item 1.03 the approval of the minutes the minutes that we have to approve tonight are from the

024um November 14th Workshop the organizational meeting the regular meeting the leasing Corporation and so do I have a Schoolboard member that would like to make a motion that we approve the four sets of minutes from November 14th I move Madam chair we approve all of the minutes for the meetings you just mentioned thank you Mr persus do I have a second I'll second thank you Mrs Bernett any further discussion all right then I'll call for the vote at this time if you wish to approve all four sets of minutes for the November 14th 2023 meetings please say I I I any opposed okay it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 2.01 for agenda changes Dr Balaban are there any agenda changes es before the agenda is presented to the board for approval

025Madam chair I have no changes at this time all right board you've heard that there are no changes to the agenda at this time do I have someone that'll make a motion to approve the presented agenda motion to ah move to approve the agenda second okay thank you Mrs Bernett thank you Mr cologne any discussion all right then I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda agenda as presented please say I I I any opposed it passes unanimously we are now up to item 3.01 Dr balaman yes Madam chair good afternoon to you and to all of our board members I see so many VCS staff and families here in the audience good afternoon to each and every one of you and those of you listening at home now yesterday

026was a very busy day for all of us here in the educational world in in Florida why because yes you will notice that in our new strategic plan we exist as an organization and I also say that we are fortunate to not just be the number one employer here in vucha County with 8,700 employees but I would say 8,700 dedicated employees that each and every day they have a mission they know what that mission is and they're committed to the overall success of belua County so I'm going to share with you some highlights that we were able to achieve as a team because when you have the right people in your village focusing on the right things and in our in our case the right thing is to ensure our students are successful anything is

027possible and I will start by saying that we have a board here that will always put students first so I'm very grateful for that the second thing is that we have District staff that lays out a Clear Vision but also we have our school-based leadership and their teachers and their staff members every single one of them each and every day day in and day out they are there for students we have organizations that are committed to our vision you know who those they are we have our futurals we have our DC that we meet with on a monthly basis we have all of our partners in education we have our parents that believes in the work that we do and most importantly our most precious asset our students so let me share with you and

028you need your listening ear are we ready ready just with a thumbs up let me see I need an engage audience here all right so let me share with you as you know this is the the Baseline year for the new cut scores but let's talk a little bit about how we have done overall so valua County maintained its B status however the percentage points that we've earned in 2122 was 57% and in 2223 it's 61% just to give you a little bit of perspective if we were still under the old grading uh criteria or guidelines we would be 1% away from being an a district just one good there awesome so that speaks volume again for your level of DED Dedication that you put into the work that we do each and every day

029and guys I know we've had our obstacles and our our our slash challenges but also I will tell you this shows that the work that we've been doing it's the right work now in addition to that a couple other highlights um 54% of our schools earned a rating of either an A or a B 54% and that's a significant increase from where we were before this is perhaps one of the highlights that we should all be very proud of the last time that our district as a whole for traditional schools did not have any D's or FS schools the last time it was in 2008 so 15 years later here we are and I'm proud to announce that in vucha County Public Schools we have no schools designated with a rating or D of a

030d or an [Applause] F that Applause goes to each and every one of you you're the ones that deserve it you've done the work a total of 25 schools earned their school grade by one or more letter rank rankings from the 2122 2 24 in other words they've increased a letter grade or more um our a schools more than doubled we went from seven last year to 17 this [Applause] year so now I we did have board chair Madam chair and board members we did have two schools with an i to uh actually it was tailor Middle High with an i and that's because you need 91 95% of students to be tested and there was one student that they were they couldn't account for so we are going we have a great spirit to

031submit that data and then valua online and that is not something that's that's uncommon okay now Elementary some highlights for our elementary school and by the way our next board meeting we will really celebrate in here with our schools we will invite our schools to be here it will be more in an individualized manner but some just general highlights Elementary Coronado Beach Elementary they've received the highest score of all elementary schools in the central Florida Coalition and and the third highest Elementary School in the entire State of Florida [Applause] [Music] wow bride elementary school they had a two-letter grade increase that went from a d to a b Pride [Applause] Elementary I'm proud to share with with you that no none of our 46 elementary schools zero they declined a letter grade from 2122 to

0322223 there have been no declines for our secondary no middle school either none of our Middle School declined a letter grade from 2122 to 2223 nine of our high schools increased their total percentage points overall volucia County School's graduation rate of 89% is 3% higher than the Central Florida Coalition average of 86 and it's the third highest among all districts within the central Florida Coalition so again we're going to be celebrating more at our next board meeting um I do have to share with you and this is coming I have a principal that made a commitment but this is just to show you the level of commitment and I think it's nine years for nine years he promised his community and staff that he will not shave his beard until their school is an a

033school so for nine years this gentleman has been growing a beard now he will trim it here and there right but the most this is this is something that I found out today is that two of his younger children that he has has never seen him without a beard so I have a video of that but you're going to have to be here for the next board meeting so you can see that and uh we're going to be celebrating more but this again just goes to show the level of dedication that our staff has towards our student and and overall their their success their academic success their social emotional success that's just one example for you um just a couple other things gifted education week as you know it was last week so we celebrated

034quite a bit we have some videos we will show you some of that at our next board meeting but overall all of our families who have really invested in ensuring that their children are receiving and and these services and they're collaborating with us I want to thank our families and I want to thank all of our school-based team because as you know we're committed to that differentiated learning here in valua county in addition to that um High School showcase I know that one of our board members spoke to the High School showcase I want to congratulate all of our high school um our principls their APS their leadership team their teachers their staff members who are there at the Showcase this is our 18th Annual High School showcase so for 18 years we've been doing

035this and if you've never experienced it you need to experience this because we have our students there along with our teachers really showcasing ourmes and our programs and I know that our board members they visit there were several stations um in addition to that we have um last but not least before I show you our dual language video we have our winter break that's coming up so the December the 15th it's an early release day everyone parents remember that please uh which is this coming Friday and the our reading challenge will will will we will initiate it on Friday and it will go on until January 2nd so if um parents please um sign your child up with being stack in our b v portal so you can submit their um learning counts now our

036dual language program this is our last last month we had our ribbon cutting and this is for our expansion as you know we have four dual language programs in our district and two uh Frenchies six total and we're growing but last month we were at Discovery and Freedom Elementary so I want you to see a little bit we have a video of I think 1 minute and 27 seconds that really depicts both of these um ribbon cutting events and we have some of our principles here in the audience so uh Chad are you ready so today we had the wonderful honor of doing the ribbon cutting for the expansion of the Dual language program here in bua County we uh had Parents present at Discovery ele Elementary where we expanded the Dual language to the

037VPK program and also at Freedom Elementary where we started at the kindergarten level these are both Choice programs so proud of uchia County for allowing our families to have these kinds of opportunities where we use language as an enrichment tool and I we promote bilingualism for the students to become bilingual by cultural and also by literate it's to come together and make sure that we have opportunities for our kids right so that they can learn those 21st century skills to be successful so learning a first language a second a third and a fourth should be the norm as so we will be working on that vertical progression to make sure that we have all the all the materials on the curriculum ready as we continue to grow every grade level and we'll be considering adding

038additional schools to The District 1 2 [Applause] [Music] [Applause] CH I couldn't disappoint but at least one video okay and we love that video and we love the Dual language programs so at this time we're moving on to item 4.01 administrative appointments or transfers Dr bovin yes Madam chair we do have one for this evening and so at this time I would like to call Miss Melissa FR to join us um couple things I want to share with you uh about Melissa FR she's earned her bachelor's degree in elementary education from the University of Central Florida University of Central Florida she has a master's degree in Ed leadership from the University of Central Florida um she's certified in Ed leadership exceptional student education eal Endor M K12 reading endorsement K12 she's completed the principal preparation

039program she's a graduate from the 23 principal 2023 principal preparation program in 1999 she began teaching at Pathways Elementary she was a teacher at Holly Hill Middle she was a teacher at tamoka Elementary academic coach at cbes teacher at sebres teacher at Cypress Creek Elementary academic coach at Creekside Middle teacher and assignment and then assistant principal at University High and assistant principal at Mainland High most recently if you approved for my recommendation I am recommending that Melissa FR becomes the next principal at Sweetwater Elementary and again if you approve her start date will be January 2nd 2024 very very early in the morning it will tell you the time Melissa board members you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have someone that would like to make a motion I twin twin Mo all

040want to do it dueling motions I think we defer to Mr person okay I move I move approval of Melissa FR to be the next principal of Sweetwater Elementary School okay and I'll second that motion thank you Mrs Thompson all right so we have approval from Mr persus and a second from Mrs Thompson um is there any discussion you have yes I I have to say just a couple of words uh and then you can say a couple of words but uh I I just want you to know that uh uh Melissa's daughter is in the audience Kendall you're back you're back there with the large camera I'm sure there it is I knew you'd have a large camera and uh a Kendall was uh one of my students at tamoka um I had the

041pleasure and was smart enough to hire Missy at tamoka and uh they are I mean she's just she's just such an amazing person as as as well as a teacher and I just couldn't be happier uh cuz she has uh it it wasn't an e easy path as you could tell by her resume she's been at many many places and I'm sure that has just uh it just goes to show you that with persistence and dedication uh you can accomplish your goals and I know because of the different experiences that you've had you're probably even better e equipped uh for this challenge that you will face and so I just have to say how proud I am of you and I know you're whole fames here here too uh and you have an awesome family

042as as as well and I know they're very proud of you too so congratulations thank you we have Mrs brunette I just want to say and I know I told you personally but um I'm so happy for you congratulations and she's a fellow Buccaneer we both I think we walked the Halls at Mainland together uh maybe a couple years apart but we were there at the same time so I'm so happy for you congratulations thank you and I'd like to say anyone that has that type of a resume with all the places you've served you're more than qualified and prepared for this because you've done you you've started and you've gone all the way up and you're coming back down and so you know better than anybody else what you need to do to prepare

043them to move forward and so we are very excited this evening so hold on for just a minute because we have to vote and then it's going to be your turn um so if there's no further discussion I'm going to call for the vote all those in favor of Melissa FR being the principal at Sweetwater Elementary please say I I any opposed [Applause] congratulations thank you ladies and gentlemen of the school board chairwoman Jamie Haynes Vice chair Anita Bernett Mr Ruben clone Mr Carl perses Miss Jesse Thompson and our superintendent Dr balabin I stand before you today with immense honor and gratitude as I accept the position of Elementary principal at Sweetwater it is with great enthusiasm and a deep sense of responsibility that I embark on this new chapter in my career knowing that

044the education and well-being of our Young Learners will be at the Forefront of my journey first I would like to express my sincere appreciation for your trust and confidence that you have placed in me it will be such a privilege to serve as a leader of such a remarkable School dedicating dedic dedicated to shaping the minds and futures of our students I'm committed to upholding the values and the principles of Sweetwater and what it stands for I want to take a moment and just thank God for giving me the gift of the a passion of loving education and loving I love working with children and with teachers and just the entire educational Arena so I'm just so grateful for this opportunity and I thank him for that and with that in mind I'm very excited

045um to address my new school family is Sweetwater and I want to share with you that I pledge to Foster an environment where all students teachers staff and parents feel safe supported and valued I believe in the power of collaboration and open communication and I am dedicated to building strong relationships within our school Community together we will continue the atmosphere that encourages curiosity and critical thinking and a love for learning I am genuinely thrilled about taking on this leadership role and contributing to the continued success and growth of Sweetwater and its Legacy I'm excited to work alongside a team of Educators who are the heart and soul of Sweetwater their dedication passion and expertise are instrumental in shaping our students lives and fostering a love of lifelong learning to our parents Guardians and Community I

046extend my hands in Partnership your involvement and support are vital in creating a strong homeschool connection that will positively impact our students and their educational journey together we will continue to nurture a community where everyone every voice is heard concerns are addressed and celebrations are shared and speaking of celebrations I have to say h congratulations to Mrs Hopkins and her retirement enjoy every well-deserved and know that I will take care of your babies um I want to thank the following leaders who have shaped me and encouraged me in my journey Anita McDonald was my very first Mentor Carl perses is the very first person that recognized any leadership potential in me thank you very much uh Ruthie labno she took me under her loving Wing um when I was at sebres and started mentoring me

047uh Brandy Hogue is our amazing leader of leaders Mr John Cash and Dr Julian Jones who gave me so many opportunities to grow as a leader and the guidance and the encour all the encouragement in the world and I would not be sitting here if it weren't for those two and then Dr castelli for all the opportunities at my alma Moder Mainland High School and encourage me encouraging me as your tree grows I will forever be grateful thank you so much I have treasured this is the hard I have truly treasured my time at mland High School I love Mainland High School I graduated from there um I love it I will always always be part of Mainland High School and I love the whole entire admin team is here they are the greatest people

048um and we have very very passionate teachers and I'm always going to be there for them and I love our students and they're they're just wonderful um so always be part of Mainland but Pride Never Dies that is for sure um a very heartfelt thank you to my husband Eric for his support for dealing with my passion that poor man hears about every minute the dedication and the very very long hours because I just can't help it I love it um and for being involved he's involved he's not on the side he's he's with me he's involved and he goes to all the activities and then my daughters Crystal Amanda kall Tatiana and Paige thank you so much for your love and support and thank you for being here tonight and to my mom who's

049also here and Doug and Josie and Amber and Annette for being my biggest fans lastly I want to express my utmost appreciation to Dr Rachel Hazel uh Dr VA Dr Barry bario Dr balabin and Mr West and the board for believing in me and entrusting me with this role I am committed to exceeding your expectations and working tirelessly to drive our school forward with your continued guidance and support I am confident that we will achieve more great things together and closing I wholeheartedly accept the position of Elementary School principal at Sweetwater I am excited to embark on this incredible journey devoted to the growth development and success of our students together let us Inspire Empower and shape the leaders of Tomorrow achieving Excellence together thank you and God [Applause] bless [Applause] we're we're GNA get

050a photo with her first and then we will include everyone that's here with her a little heavy [Laughter] on now we bring them all in y okay thank you thank you [Music] are we're waiting for one more [Music] it's um we might have to scoot back a little bit everybody scoot in yeah all right this [Applause] [Music] is we need to Cate absolutely chair she said I can't I can't do that I can't I think you can okay at this time we're moving on to item 5.01 recognition for the schools of character responsibility Dr bovin thank you madam chair board members we know the importance of it of really recognizing not only the heart skills but also the soft skills right because we always say in the business in which we're in we have to

051be models and examples for our students and necessar it's not necessarily sometimes what you say but what you do and how you enact on those principles on a daily basis um so on a monthly basis we pick a top a a a theme and our theme this month is responsibility and we always recognize a staff member and a student that exhibits those respon those character traits so the winner for this month her name is Miss Emily nagdi she's a fifth grade teacher at mckennis [Music] [Applause] elementary so let me share with you a little bit about what sets her apart um truly what her team has shared is that she has an incredible level of dedication and when it comes to instilling respons responsibility in her students it's day in and day out she's in

052action and I see in the back they're they're they're shaking their head like she um organized volunteer opportunities such as the 5K events um she ensures students learn the value of being involved with their Community um she promotes responsibility not only for her class but the entire school and she's here also joining with her principal uh Miss Mall is kamacho so if you don't mind come up briefly because we received so many applications and this is the winner here miss nagdi so share with us a little bit with Alis Miss kamacho so Emily truly epitomizes the character trait of responsibility at mckennis elementary but I think more importantly she empowers her students to do the same not only her fifth grade students stud but the entire run Club um by um she creates uh Behavior

053contracts for students who need that academic contracts with students really making sure that they again take responsibility for their own learning and for their own actions so she truly um exemplifies this character trait and we are super proud of her over at mckinness and I will tell you that actually the last time I visited uh mckinness I ended I was in your classroom so I I I will I concur with everything that that that's been stated here and I can understand why you were chosen we would like to take a picture with you back here and we do have something for you yes so come on forward and if there's anyone here with her please come forward [Applause] too [Music] h [Music] me now have the students yes I have the students so you ready

054for this Madam chair board members yes our winner is a sixth grade student from new samna Beach Middle School and the Winner's name is Addison Clark Addison [Applause] Clark Clark you're so beautiful you're welcome her teacher said that they are amazed by the amount of of responsibility she shows daily she's so helpful and knows how to get things done Addison is the first one to get her work in and then works with others to create a positive collaboration on assignments she's a role model for others of her age thank you Addison for all that you do to promote responsibility and she is here with her principal I Believe Miss Rebecca Porter yes here she is and we have a certificate for her but miss Porter anything you like to share about Miss Addison I just

055want to say that when we were talking about choosing a student this this month and going over what the theme was going to be she was the first name that came up all of her teachers nominated her our office staff and this is her first year at newart Beach Middle School so she hasn't been there very long so she has has made quite quite a name for herself so I just want to congratulate her and thank you all for um having her here today absolutely your parents are in the audience right aen oh I see the proud parents and all right you ready chair we're gonna take a picture with Addison and we have a certificate for [Applause] her [Music] and conratulations [Applause] we're now moving on to item five .02 recognition of Staff the

056its cyber security team Dr alabin yes Madam chair this is our last recognition oh no sorry our second to last um but we have Dr here and Dr actually I'm I'm gonna ask Dr to come up quickly as you know when it comes to our it Department we have a group of truly dedicated highly skilled professionals they work tirelessly behind the scenes day in and day out and sometimes we don't even know about what they're doing but they're behind scenes really protecting the work that we're doing and I would like for Dr to share a little bit about some of the things that these gentlemen's Michael Owens Bobby Bennett Frank Dunn Karen Donahue and Bill steel has done for us that maybe a lot of us didn't know uh would the five please stand up

057just uh yes thank you [Applause] so to tell you a little bit about why they're being recognized today um It's actually kind of taking a risk to recognize them because you don't want to challenge anybody out there uh but I have a lot of faith in these five and and many others that help them on the sides as well we've gone through the beginning of school and the first semester and technology has been pretty smooth but you may not realize how many times a day we get attacked and when we get attacked it's up to these five to make sure nobody else finds out to make sure that just things keep running smoothly they've had attacks like one's called dos which tries to take down our website uh we get attacked by fishing email attacks

058all the time there's malware viruses ransomware all kinds of things that come at us all the time we have a lot of defenses built in but it takes some humans behind those defenses to make sure that they keep protecting us each semester so that nobody notices now today they're being noticed and they're kind of shy about that I don't think they liked it at first when I told them they were going to be recognized but they deserve some credit for keeping us safe I agree y can can you come up please we have some certificates to acknowledge the work that you've been doing you're doing okay give me a hug how are you sir nice to see [Music] you good see you now we're moving on to item 5.03 recognition of staff for the aspiring

059leaders Academy Dr balamin Madam chair this is the last recognition and for anyone standing we have seats now that are clear if you'd like to move on up so I would like to ask Miss Brandy hog um who is our leadership development coordinator along with Mr Wes I see him carrying some a box there who her chief of HR they're going to share with you a little bit reg uh as it pertains to our our aspiring leaders Academy we have 13 amazing individuals that will be recognized tonight and miss hog you're going to tell us a little bit about it thank you good evening chairwoman Haynes Schoolboard members and superintendent Balaban thank you for the opportunity to recognize the most recent graduates of our aspiring leaders Academy I'd also like to thank the many principles

060that are joining us this evening to support the participants from their schools the aspiring leaders Academy is a a one-year professional Learning Academy for instructional Personnel currently certified in Ed leadership and interested in pursuing an administrative position within the next two years the academy aims to grow and develop leadership skills to better prepare individuals for school leadership positions while creating a strong leadership pipeline we began the inspiring leaders Academy with our first cohort as a result of the Strategic plan in January 2022 the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and we continue to see a high demand for enrollment into the program the data is also very encouraging and indicates that the aspiring leaders leaders Academy is effectively supporting succession planning in our district between cohort 1 and cohort 2 we have enrolled 53 participants while

061enrolled in the academy or within one school year of completing the the academy 12 participants have transitioned into administrative TOA positions six participants have been appointed as assistant principles and three participants are serving in District leadership positions I'm excited and encouraged about the future of VCS knowing these individuals will be leading the way it is my honor to present to you the Aspire aspiring leaders Academy graduates from cohort 2 participants when your name is called please come forward to receive your certificate from Mr West and to shake board members hands please stand along the side of the wall until all names have been called and a final group picture will be taken Terry Comer Beachside elementary [Applause] teacher Kristen Dunbar Stanton University High School [Applause] teacher Dr Shira Elliot District ESC [Applause] TOA Amy Irvin

062fuchia online [Music] [Applause] specialist Hernandez gar Discovery Elementary [Applause] TOA Christina morero pineridge High School teacher Brandy Meadows Deltona High School testing [Applause] coordinator Jennifer Mills Campbell Middle School counselor [Applause] Yoder Milton Terry T small Elementary academic [Applause] coach although she has had a family emergency I do want to recognize Tamara Payne from sees high school as an academic coach also not able to attend this evening is tishan Roger from Holly Hill um ESC [Applause] teacher Jerry Simon George Marx Elementary ESC [Applause] teacher last but not least Misty Weise University High School ESC [Applause] teacher congratulations to cohort number three of the aspiring leaders [Applause] Academy do you want us [Music] to element cut down get them all come on Mike oh there's more Mike are all the principl up here I don't think so

063no hold on they're not all here Mike let's let's go between this little window here there you are there's every everybody this smile every okay thank [Applause] you congratulations it's a lot of work hey good job with Campell by the way just saying now everybody's F right all right we can rock and roll for break oh [Laughter] let's go we finish thise we getting out of here are as everyone is exiting um The Boardroom we're going to take a short recess we will return to the boardroom at 6:00 pm to move right into the first public comment section thank you e uh oh you're we're gonna we'll start okay welcome back it is 6: PM and at this time we're going to go ahead and move right into um public input following public input we

064will move into the consent agenda items so just um in the event you want to speak about anything that's on the consent agenda because there are 53 items tonight please get a card filled out because that will be the next part um I'm going to read all three names in the order I've received them in so that the first person can go ahead and come forward you'll have three minutes to speak then the second person will be ready and then the third person um our first Speaker tonight for public input is Miss Jennifer Kelly followed by Miss Debbie Parker followed by Miss Sheila zinerman welcome good evening board members chair Haynes and superintendent balabin I'd like to speak to you all tonight concerning policy 320 since the last state legislative session came to a close

065in July we have requested several times for policy 320 to be placed on the agenda and brought up to date with current law the first request came from anah Hannah this past May seven months ago in addition to our request Mr cologne stated during the March 28th meeting that this policy would need to be readdressed in July after the new laws would be signed in by the governor Miss Thompson stated in another meeting that she wanted to see it come back before the board in June my last request was in an email sent to All board members the superintendent Deputy superintendent Dr rabinsky and Mr penley on November 16th almost a month ago and still it hasn't made it onto the agenda not only does the policy need to be updated to reflect current law

066the challenge process needs to be changed to be more us user friendly for example the policy states when the title is challenged it must be challenged individually at each school where the book is located Common Sense tells me if the book is inappropriate or illegal at one high school it's inappropriate or illegal at all district high schools same for middle and elementary levels attempting book challenges using the current policy would take years wasting time and resources not just mine but the principles media specialist and the District staff as we all know I have several books currently challenged for pornography and or sexually explicit content I have communicated with the district that I am waiting to move forward with the process until the policy has been streamlined to be more userfriendly nowhere in the state statute

067or policy does it specify a time frame or constraint for setting a school-based meeting after the challenge of a book this morning I was notified by the district that if I didn't move forward with setting meetings with principles by a certain date they would be placed they would place the books I challenged the ones for pornography and sexually explicit content back on the school Library shelves where miners have unfeathered access without parental knowledge or consent I informed them that if they did this they would be absolutely breaking the law HB 1069 lines 310 through 313 books pulled must remain unavailable to students until objection is resolved the district recognized this rule is not in State Statute or policy but they'd be doing it anyway so what I heard was I am bound to follow the

068laws and policies but the school district is not and the school district can add and subtract the policy when it's convenient for their interest I'm sorry I thought the school board created policy at this point I'm just confused the laws are on my side the law is the law not Mr penley's yours or anyone's interpretation of it if you're questioning it call the lawmakers and ask them I did stop placing obstacles in the way please I ask have conversations hold a workshop do whatever you need to do to fix the policy finally I'll remind you all per HB 1069 the school board who is responsible for the content in the books found in the school media center can remove them the inappropriate materials anytime without a challenge lines 318 through 327 Sim seminal County colier

069and India River counties just to name a few discontinued books due to material not being age or developmentally appropriate and no challenge was needed thank you thank you next up is Mrs stebie Parker followed by Miss Sheila zinerman welcome good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and I am speaking for myself I arrived here very unprepared so I hope that I can finish within my allotted three minutes I attended a couple of the recent Town Hall meetings and at those meetings the draft of the valua county strategic plan for 2024 to 2027 was presented to the public in preparation for the meetings a companion of mine asked parents to give her a list of questions and unfortunately 15 questions were not asked so I'd like to mention a few of them read

070parts of a few of them to you now regarding guardrail number three question starts or or there's a statement actually I am concerned about district and principal pressure on the media Specialists just to pull books rather than go through the challenge process guard rail number four this is for priority strategy B uh was the required information on a Florida Department of Education form omitted and do you have public records to verify all 89 titles were properly objected to by a parent or resident through your own 320 policy 320 materials objection policy another one about priority strategy B some of the books being targeted for removal are actually cautionary tals that de deal directly with health standards described in the Strategic plan so it seems as if this is the removal of those books is going

071against that strategy that plan strategy uh B provide all students with challenging learning experience through differentiated instruction claims that way they will use instruction to promote inclusivity maximizing individual growth and achievement question is how will vucha County Schools achieve that goal how ises this targeting and educational censorship of lgbtqia a plus and bipo stories promote inclusivity last one um mentions that 89 books are listed on the Florida Department of Education yearly Library material objection form as of June 30th 2023 most of them lgbtq plus and bipac authors and their stories were objected to belua County must hold itself accountable to all students has vucha County replaced these books with other LGT PQ plus and B titles and authors if not why haven't you I'm just one of many Valia residents that would like clarification on

072the book challenge process as we just heard we're also interested some of us are Al just also interested to know about the 14 books that were challenged just after portions of them were read aloud at the September 6 Schoolboard meeting it's my understanding that the challenges were resolved and all 14 have been removed from Valia County Schools Media Center that I got through email communication with one of the staff Mrs Parker I apologize but your time thank but thank you next up is Mrs Sheila zinerman welcome good evening first I want to thank the board for hosting the town hall I learned something a a matter of fact I learned a few things um prior to the town hall I asked parents and Guardians if they had questions to present to the board the board

073received them on November 9th and um we had 15 responses here are three of them I'm going to be reading uh the questions and also uh how they relate to the uh strategy number one is priority strategy B talks about inclusive instruction which includes Health standards many of these books being targeted for removal are actually cautionary tales that deal directly with standards just as Debbie said how is that not going directly against strategy B number two is potion County School's strategic plan rep repeatedly capitalizes the word all a l l however 89 books are listed on the fdoe yearly Library materials objection form most are LBGTQ and black indigenous people of colors authors and their stories the loose County Schools must hold itself accountable to all students has VCS replaced all those books if not

074why the same as Debbie said strategy this is a third one strategy B uh goal provide all students with challenging learning experience and through differenti struction claims to to promote inclusivity maximizing individual growth and special interest groups from Reading LGBT CL black indigenous and people with colors passages to deliberately trigger a 5day book removal and guardrail 3 Priority strategies claims to Max maximize resources censoring um comes at a financial cost to our districts in addition to the impacts on learning Orange County invested over $400,000 in summer overtime for certified media Specialists to approve books we are in the third year of book Banning with the financial impact of vuch County schools from Merit list book bands and 1069 compliance will this money drain impact the art operational purchasing power of County Schools to cl to

075close I I asked the board these questions on November 9th and haven't received an answer yet from VCS with respect I hope to have the answers for the parents and Guardians before the new year thank you thank you are there any other cards Mrs Johnson all right then at this time we are moving on to item number um 6.01 which is is public participation concerning any items on the consent agenda do we have any public participation for consent agenda thank you then we're moving on to item 7.01 Dr balaman or board members is there any removal of items from the consent agenda Madam chair I do have one change and I'm going to ask Mr West to join us at the DI to speak on the 12-month employee 20 2324 holiday schedule okay is there

076while Mr West is coming forward is there anyone else um um Madam chair yes um I I would just like um someone maybe could give clar clarification uh it's 14.07 4.08 um I just have a question about the change orders for those two change orders at tamoka okay okay we will get those answered for you what was what item number was yours you know7 1408 no I've got his 14 what was your words that he's speaking on um it will be on um the 12month employee 23 24 holiday schedule I know I'm 12.01 huh 12.01 12.01 yeah okay and then I was going to make a comment on item 11.04 um how are you guys okay if we go with them in numerical order yeah okay is there anything else that anyone has okay then

077we'll start with item 11.04 um this is our First Amendment to the um to the valuch County School Board in Vala Sheriff's Office agreement for the additional school resource deputies so I want to thank Dr Balaban and um Mr CE and the team here since we have um as of Friday completed the first half of the school year because they did set aside funding at the beginning of the year for our 60% um cost piece we are going to be able to start in January we're going to be able to start in January with the additional SRO and srds at um the remaining middle schools um seven of them because um we did make the commitment and it was built into the budget the beginning of the year so I just want everyone to hear

078that so thank you absolutely and our principles will be sending out a message to their communities welcome those um officers and making sure that staff is aware of who they are but also most importantly our community okay thank you all right then we're going to move on to item 12.01 which is the approval of the revised 20 2324 holiday calendar for the 12-month employees thank you Miss hes thank you Dr balaman uh the only update that we wanted to make to the calendar and it's really just kind of a a clarification uh was that um during the winter holidays we have actually New Year's Day on Monday the January the 1 then we just are going to identify it as January as New Year's Day so that is the only update that we have to

079the calendar thank you very much thank you Mr persus for bringing that up appk you so yes so it has been updated and each of you received um a a new copy with the that holiday spelled out then we're moving on to 14.07 and 14.8 um 14.07 administrat they're both uh they're both yeah they're both for tamoka hang on I'm looking at because I took notes when I did the thing um these are um good news items most of the most of the time when you see change order you know you go okay you know how much more is this going to cost us a million here a million there all of a sudden it's real money but u in this case yeah this is good news yes because if you look there's 27 items

080under the operations services and facilities and Mr Young will tell me that when he started I is like you're doing well like you're bringing money you know like we're saving money and then he's like oh I'll hit something in a minute where we had to spend it but that's way it always goes Patty core interim Chief Operating Officer and Ron young director director of planning and construction 1407 and 1408 are ODP change orders so that money comes back we purchase those materials directly and we save the tax yeah and it I think it's a total of over a million dollars right yes sir one800 and 1400 something like that 1.2 um and I while we're just speaking about that school um is it wibo who's who's the contractor and uh you know they are I

081drive by it you know probably eight times a day and they are working lights out uh my understanding is they are get this ahead of schedule um yes they are and they they are doing a great job they run a clean site and we have an outstanding project manager up there Sarah Soul she's doing a great job yeah I understand and I mean and they are they are thinking that the teachers will be able to move in in the summer and uh kids could be there in the fall I mean if everything continues to go well but that would be an amazing time timeline that's one year we we like we like these one year timelines oh I mean I'm it's been a long time since we've ever had a time I know I know

082so I just want to thank them and our staff and everybody else but every time I drive by it's a full crew there I mean it is Saturdays too I mean they're just working working working all the time it's great thank you thank you thank you for that thank you yes that was like a $1.2 million savings that was good any other items on the consent agenda okay then at this time I'm going to ask for someone to make a motion to approve the consent agenda as it's listed move to approve thank you Mrs Bernett I need a second I'll second that motion thank you Mrs Thompson any further discussion okay then all those in favor please please say I I I any opposed n all right it does not pass unanimously it passes four

083to one all right we're now moving along to item 18 these are the board action items if there's anyone that wishes to speak on any of the board action items before we vote on them this evening please make sure you fill out a card card do you have any cards at this time okay then we're moving and on to item 18.01 the Strategic plan for the 2024 through 2027 school year Dr balabin thank you madam chair board members as you were part of our Workshop today we had an opportunity with staff to present to you our goal for a strategic plan which for the upcoming year it will be one goal and one goal only and that is that all students will engage in high quality high levels of learning each and every day um

084we do have four guard rails the Ford guard rails is recruit support develop and retain high quality staff provide conditions that enhance student learning improve operational efficiency and maximize resources to support student learning and ensure high quality Community engagement with all stakeholders as you know each and every one of you you here all five of you adopted a goal and worked with our um shareholders which is our goal owner and and staff members to ensure that what we're capturing in terms of units of measures and how we will be um analyzing that data throughout through our progress monitoring and making adjustments that all those pieces and components are in place um as you know also we had several um meetings in our Community to obtain input and those inputs were calibrated and Incorporated in our

085strategic plan so I want to thank Dr Hazel and the entire team for ensuring that those 15 meetings were held that was planned in our community with that said you had a thorough review and you also added some comments or suggestions um which we're taking into consideration so here we are we have a plan ready a living breeding document that will be guiding our work for the 2427 school year 24 through the 27 school year thank you T bman so you've heard the recommendation for the superintendent to approve the 2024 2020 through 2027 strategic plan do I have a motion to approve move approval of the Strategic plan for 2024 through 2027 thank you Mr persus do I have a second I'll second thank you Mrs Bernett is is there any further discussion uh I

086have yes Mr CSUS did you want to say something yeah I just want to say that uh for the sake of the public we did a workshop this thoroughly this afternoon and if anybody has any uh questions or wants to learn more that is available on our YouTube channel but again thank you to Dr balabin your team your staff and uh I I think it goes without mention and we mentioned it very briefly but by using internal resources we probably saved ourself what was $50,000 three years ago is probably $60,000 uh this time around and I think uh that's definitely noteworthy of our commitment to not only uh be uh do a good job for our students but also um highlight the you know somebody said Bia Fort Valia and so um again thank you

087good point Mr persus well said uh well said I I I was just going to say that uh um the last plan um was obviously a good plan too because look at the results that our schools are in uh right now and that was a result of the last plan and so as we just evolve you know we're taking the good from that plan and just moving it forward so uh Ruben said it well I just you know but just giving thanks to everybody that that really takes this seriously and monitors it uh so that we can achieve the goals that we all want thank you thank you both any further discussion okay so we have a motion and we have a second at this time I will call for a vote all those in

088favor of approving the Strategic plan for the 2024 through 2027 school year please say I I I any opposed it passes unanimously then we're moving on now to item 18.02 this is the RFP for the capital outlay funds for an improvement project Dr welcome and good evening Madam chair members of the board superintendent I'm Matt your Chief technology officer of this High achieving School District with a couple of colleagues of mine Dr uh not Dr I Mark West and Todd CE uh there's also members in the audience of the evaluation committee for this uh RFP we have Rob bra and Audrey Delio and Brian CLM right over there Stephanie Workman is over there we have Danny CAD over there and is there any other I think there's another one but she's not here uh craft

089was also all right so we'll begin here uh first off you can see it actually aligns to two different strategic plans the old and the new the one that you just passed first we'll talk about our current Erp architecture uh over the years we've had to put together old and new software and that's made our current architecture very complex uh that makes it over time more and more inefficient and difficult to to maintain because often programming L languages are mixed one system was built say 15 years ago and another one only a couple of years ago under different languages so we have to do Integrations between those and those take a lot of Labor and they make us vulnerable because those can break when something is updated every line you see there just about is

090an integration the middle circle the one in Blue on this complex looking chart here is Oracle and it runs most of the financial parts for example right under it it says AP that's accounts payable for instance uh farther down is general ledger uh all of these are modules there are 17 modules that we're proposing to change 19 in total and then outside of the blue circle you'll see Cross Point uh to the side Cross Point is the HR System it holds the HR records it runs our payroll system so you see a line to payroll cost journals for example and payroll deductions and contributions and so on um and then farther to the bottom left we have uh operations software uh asset works for instance the main point being that this is very complex and

091that in some instances like Crosspoint for example it's obsolete uh Cross Point is a company that no longer exists so we don't get any vendor support for Cross Point if it has trouble we only have a couple of very smart people in the district that still work here that can program in its language so it makes us vulnerable it means that we need to change to a new Erp something more simplified something easier for our staff to learn our last point there you say says difficult for staff to learn and use the current architecture is just kind of daunting for a new staff member to learn all of those various systems and how they work we want to simplify it so that it's uh something more userfriendly and when you start working here it's not

092so scary to learn all of these systems so the SI the uh process that we used was very thorough very collaborative and very transparent uh on the left side there you can see the main sections that was in our RFP the RFP took quite a while to write I'll talk more about the process we use to come up with our RFP in a moment the general goals that you see on the side that what we were trying to accomplish by uh requesting a proposal for New Year P system was we obviously wanted something more modern something with a flexible design that we can integrate other systems into uh we wanted vendor provided implementation services so as Mr cologne said before uh we wanted something that was made by valua for Valia uh not uh a

093third-party consultant you know in the way uh we wanted something purpose-built for large school systems not something that was repurposed from from business but something that actually was built for school districts uh comprehensive as possible uh because we wanted to eliminate expensive thirdparty systems userfriendly for training as I had mentioned before compatibility with other systems that we intended to continue for example our student information system and at a sustainable cost so here's an example of what we did when we were putting together the RFP for this uh we had 23 separate meetings about 19 different modules we needed in our our our ER r p and we found out after all of those meetings that there was 1,819 different functions that all of our stakeholders needed an Erp to accomplish this little table here is

094just a little sliver of the many different spreadsheets we had uh made on all those different functions so as you see the ID number on the left that's the number of the function and it went up to 1,819 so this one was just for payroll for instance the evaluation process was run by the purchasing department uh they put out the request for proposal after it was written by a collaborative group including its and finance and HR and others um once they put it out for publishing we got six back uh those were then vetted further down to three finalists those three finalists were visited uh their references were checked and they had to do two-day demos each so each of the finalists did two days for not just the evaluation committee but also uh guests

095of the evaluation committee people from various departments you know people that really were using the systems on a day-to-day basis they were also in the demos and they gave feedback to their evaluators on those demos uh in-person reference visits were made to each of the three finalists uh school districts in Florida uh those inperson visits were done by members of the evaluation committee and they were also teamed in to the evaluation committee members that weren't able to make it in person so uh those were recorded and we Ed those also as part of the evaluation process as I mentioned before the evaluation committee was made up of a number of different departments myself Mr Wes Mr CE Mr brain Miss Workman Miss craft Mr cassad Miss Delio and Mr CLM and uh after we went

096through all of those pieces that I mentioned before the rubric tabulation and the vote was unanimous uh the unanimous Choice was focus and I'll explain why here in just a moment first the Gap analysis so when we looked at all of the three finalists we wanted to see how comprehensive was their solution no Erp is fully comprehensive they all have their strengths and weaknesses sometimes they can do something but not as well as our current system so all of them had some gaps as Gap anal Anis says but Focus had the least gaps out of the three finalists as you can see there's only two areas that we don't want to switch over to focus uh right now and that's for our applicant tracking and for our benefits those are currently running on two different

097systems called search soft and Prime benefits both are working very well right now uh so we don't see a need to break away from them uh yet one day perhaps Focus will uh improve their functionality in those those two areas and we'll do a new Gap analysis and we might move to focus in years to come but right now we the uh committee decided that that was not a good choice but in the other 17 areas we felt Focus was very robust very strong uh something that we could move to in those 17 other modular areas so why did we choose Focus well Focus was found to be best suited because of that chart you just saw a moment ago uh it has significant experience with fushia County we know them essentially uh we also

098know them because they're our student Information Systems vendor there are Focus internal accounts vendor and there are our inventory system vendor we already use three major pieces of focus software and that experience we've had with that vendor and how they solve problems really did you know influence us some and that we could trust them that they were a partner that that we knew uh came through for us when there was something we we needed them to do since many of our users are currently familiar with Focus software that will also help us in training you know imagine a bookkeeper at a school or a school secretary or something who's been in Focus before and now we ask them to look at a new module in Focus it's not going to have a giant different look

099to it you know it's something they'll be somewhat familiar with uh also Focus use is a very modern three tier architecture system uh with SQL databases basically what I'm trying to say there is there software is modern and we want it to be modern because it needs to last into the future uh some of the older other the other systems that we were looking at the other two finalists their software was not as modern built on older platforms older types of of software languages it's also the last bullet there fairly easy to integrate with other systems remember we are keeping two systems our applicant tracking and our benefits so we don't want that to be a difficult integration and focus is BU built so that it can easily integrate with other systems so now we

100move on to the pricing uh in year one we have our usual annual subscription that we would always have to pay for an ER Erp system and you can see that that goes on for five years and then we have implementation costs of 277,000 we will also have some implementation costs in year two roughly you might think of it as half the year One cost but that could that could be different depending on how much we could accomplish that first year and then the training cost the first year totaling up to $673,500 there'll be other marginal costs here and there but that's the estimate right now I say estimate because we have not gone through the negotiations yet because you have to approve it first so once we've go go through the negotiations we may

101want more training than they're offering or you know there they may adjust a little bit and we'll of course come back to you at that time when we've really done the full negotiations but this is what was in The Proposal questions that is the end of my prop proposal Mr colone so Dr I want to thank you for their time last week I know you took the time to go through a lot of my questions and concerns um the only thing that stuck out to me just a little bit there at the end was that last slide where we're building in the price increase uh for years three four and five I don't want to give them any ideas I'd rather keep it at what is it 359 a year uh and so I know

102you will negotiate that to the best of our ability I'd like to mention one other thing I didn't mention with the negotiations um we did talk with other school districts who have implemented Focus before and uh they do have a very good uh reputation of not billing you until it is fully functional when I mean a module you know so as we Implement modules we're not going to have to pay for them upfront and just hope that everything goes well they first make sure everything's great for a while and then they finally bill you so we have some leverage in other words on them beautiful again thank you and uh I am excited and I appreciate the due diligence of actually going to those school districts uh I think that was uh one of the

103opportunities in the past and so to hear that we were so thorough and actually uh trusted but didn't trust and went and saw it for ourselves and asked the question of those who are doing the work with that product every day that's invaluable so again thank you Mr persus thank you madam chair uh good point Mr cologne um could you put that first slide back back up the very first slide very one that it's complicated oh that one yeah okay right there I when I was looking at this I was thinking back you remember the time when you were in college and you were in your freshman maybe your freshman Math course that was six p.m. to 900 p.m. and you were in the math course and it was like this higher ed Math course

104this was the first day and the professor would throw up a slide like this you're in that crowded Auditorium with 300 people and he's saying now you need to have the background to understand this and if you have questions and cannot figure figure this out for yourself perhaps this course is not for you and you may want to leave now and half the group would leave like immediately like stumbling over each other get out of there that is that is that is priceless that ought to be like framed somewhere oh we will frame it because we'll make a new one one day and we'll we'll put them side by side so you can see I love it I just love it yeah thank you thank you Miss Thompson and kind of time both of your

105comments together I know right now we have this big mess is what it is um and I know that we have to pay different people what is the cost comparison to moving forward with the new program compared to what we're currently paying okay that's a good question I'm going to move to the cost chart here for a moment so there's a number of costs that the first year will be more expensive in total uh than we currently pay because we're going to have to pay for the old system while we stand up the new system right so that's called parallel implementation it's the safest way to do things obv obviously with payroll and things you don't want to take chances um so we still have to pay for the old system but then of course

106as the new one is stood up we can retire the old system and then we'll get some cost Savings in that respect so I'll give you just an example um right now Oracle costs us $711,000 per year in annual renewal and as you saw in that chart it does about half of our Erp functions um so the total cost of this right now is less than $711,000 which is just one system there there are other of those 17 systems that eventually will come off the books I I don't want to raise expectations too high the first year it's going to be expensive the first year because we have two things to buy the new and the old but years two years three all of a sudden those drop off and we're just down to these

107prices that you see here that sounds great looks like Mr Todd CE is happy so thank you very much he's smiling if Todd's smiling we're good Mrs berett thank you actually Miss Thompson I was going to ask the same question so thank you um but I know some of the challenges from before were um with um staff not having a say so thank you for letting them be part of this decision and picking this and and looking at other systems thank you I too want to thank you and I want to thank you for all the questions you've answered for me along the way and um it is nice to see Mr CE smile because anytime we can save money that makes him happy and it makes all of us happy but I do appreciate

108um I want to appreciate the team you know the individuals that are sitting here in the audience with you that you know did a lot of the work and asked a lot of the questions and went out my understanding is and you viewed it in you know being used by other school systems and um I know that it's been a long process but it's something that we all had to go through because you know Cross Point doesn't even exist any longer so you know we are fortunate that we've held it together this long and on the upside we got our money's worth out of Cross Point oh we did yeah we absolutely did um thank and so I do want to thank all of you and so thank you this evening for the presentation so

109board members or Dr bin do you want to make a recommendation Madam chair board members I recommend the appr approval of contract number RFP in-23 d01 kg enterprise resource planning systems okay board members you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have someone that would like to make a motion to approve I motion to approve thank you Mrs Thompson do I 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 please say I I any opposed it passes unanimously congratulations the team thank you now we're moving on to item 18.03 authorization to advertise proposed amendments to policy 208s student con code of conduct and discipline presented by Mr penley yeah Mr penley and um Miss core join Mr pendley just in

110case there are questions regarding anything that's not legal in nature oh no that's I I see Dr Hazel here welcome Mr penley and Dr board members good evening chairman Haynes and superintendent balabin what we are requesting is to advertise a slight change to policy 208 e and s Elementary and secondary uh this is our student code of conduct and this is adding language that would allow us to uh utilize metal detectors um for searches and screenings Mr pendley would you like to share a little bit um the first time that this policy came to the board the request that was made by the board and then showcase that the incorporation of those changes thank you Dr Bago Madam chair board members the item originally came forward under less specific guidelines and procedures for implementation of

111searches and how that would be done so to be in compliance with both Florida and Supreme Court cases uh we modified the language and included those randomization procedures so that the screenings that will be safety uh screenings administrative safety screenings will be conducted uh randomly in uh in compliance with those uh prior precedents in case law you will note those changes being made in both the secondary code of conduct and the Elementary code of conduct 208e and 208s Mr clone so I'll say the same thing I said the last time you know the devil's in the details and so let's make sure that our administrators and mind you we've out of need had to implement some of this uh in our sporting activities and and things like that uh um proms those kinds of things

112for the sake of keeping our students safe and I'll tell you one of the biggest things I hear from my community as as the months have gone you know with some of the uh weapons that have been found is f they it's just it there's a cry for having that additional layer and you know for the record you know this has always been we've always had the ability to do this but I would still encourage in training that um we encourage law enforcement to be called if need be rather than uh pulling out a wand and uh if if that's the case I know that sounds like common sense but uh again that's going to go into the training for the administrators uh so again I'm supportive of this thank you thank you Mr persus

113yeah I am I think we all are very supportive of U of this it's just that uh are we going to do something differently to expedite the people being able to get through and I don't know whether that means we need to have two of them or three of them at the sporting events that's mainly what I'm talking about because it it it it it did make a lot of people mad U they're all for safety but they don't want to get into a game at the second quarter when they were there 45 minutes before the game started that's just way too long so that's just an issue someone needs to yeah address we' had discussion with our Safety Committee which is spearheaded by John Cash um and we did discuss this as you know

114the the the additional um order has arrived and we will have a plan for deployment but training and also for assistance to some of our schools so that has been discussed with the team and that will be part of the roll out thank you thank you any other discussion or questions okay Dr balam you like to make a recommendation yes Madam chair board members I recommend the authority be granted to advertise a propose amendments to school board policy 208s student code of conduct and discipline any um comment cards Mrs Johnson okay then board members you've heard the motion the recommendation of the superintendent do I have a motion to approve the changes to the student code of conduct for elementary and secondary and the small section about searches motion to approve I'll second it thank

115you Mr clone thank you Mr persus if there's no further discussion I'll call for the vote all those in favor please say I I I any opposed it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 18.04 which is adoption of Schoolboard policy 804 District school advisory committee Mr pendley rgc is already there continuing on Dr ban thank you madam chair board members item 18.04 request the board's approval and Adoption of amendments to policy 804 District school advisory currently committee that will be changed to council if the boards uh approves the policy this policy has been workshopped extensively it has been subject to public comment it has been uh read and advertised IED on October 29th and 30th the statutory period for advertising has been accomplished this policy revision stands right for adoption tonight so

116Dr balaman do you have a recommendation I do Madam chair I recommend the adoption of proposed amendments to school board policy 804 District school advisory committee board members you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do I have someone who'd like to 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 any further discussion okay then I'll call for the vote all those in favor please say I I I any opposed it passes unanimously we are now moving on to item 18.05 a real estate purchase Madame chair board members item 18.05 requests the board's cons consideration authorization to enter into a purchase and sale agreement for certain real estate in uh 25 Buckley Drive De Barry Florida this is approximately 48

117Acres at a purchase price of $4.72 five million for educational purposes uh and expansion in the South DeBerry and western part of the county we have received Madam chair just add to that that we have received appropriate independ appraisals that have exceeded the proposed purchase price thank you Mr penley um Dr Bachman Madam chair board members I Rec I recommend approval of the contract for the purchase of property located at 25 Buckley Drive the Barry Florida 32713 and 761 South Charles R be Boulevard DeBerry Florida 32713 I do have one more thing before we move to motion Madam chair the uh uh it will be necessary that the board if it's its pleasure to authorize the chair to execute this contract effective December the 19th okay all right board members you've heard the recommendation of

118the superintendent um is there a motion to approve Madam chair on your behalf I will gladly make the motion because you didn't pass the gavel which I'm surprised but I will gladly make the motion uh to uh purchase this property for the expansion of educational facilities in the what do you call it Southwest South DeBerry western part of the county very western part of the county thank you Mr col you can second the motion chair without passing the Gap you can you can I'd like to Second the um is there any discussion all right on behalf of all of the students that live in DeBerry I'd like to say this has taken an awful long time it was one of the first items I brought up back in 2018 when I was Seated on the

119board that how do we have a community that has I don't know I think they're probably up to 26 or 27,000 people um where just a city over in Dand we have just above 30,000 and Dand has a high school two middle schools and six elementary schools and DeBerry has a single Elementary School and nothing else and with the continued growth that's taking place there I want to thank everyone that worked diligently on what almost seemed seemed like an impossible task to find any property left in that Community to build on so thank you to everyone that worked on this so that we could find a piece of property to put in that Community all right so at this time we will if there's no further discussion we will call for a vote all those

120in favor of approving the real estate purchase um in DeBerry Florida please say I I I any opposed it passes unanimously thank you hey thank [Applause] you all right we are now moving on to item 18.06 proposed School attendance boundary changes for DeBerry Elementary Discovery Elementary Enterprise Elementary and Forest Lake Elementary School um I see Miss Patty core coming forward and I'll go ahead and start by saying um Mr clone you asked when we were doing the rezoning meetings that this area be looked at and then you tossed it my way and so um I'm grateful what we're looking at um this evening is the outcome of a lot of work um to bring some of our schools that were under capacity up to capacity and find um a place to put more students where

121we're already already overcrowded and we've run out of space to put them and so I see we have Miss Patty core Mr Ron young and I'm not gonna say it the right way um huh Lisa deina deina yeah here with us so thank you madam chair board memb superintendent balaman um we are happy to bring this back tonight we brought it originally in October and we were asked to take a look at some of the numbers and level it out a little bit more so at this point I will turn it over to Mr Young our director of uh planning and construction who will go through the PowerPoint evening Madam chair board members Dr balaman this presentation aligns with our strategic goals goal number one high quality instruction goal number two high quality staff goal

122number three safe and supportive environment goal number four resource and operational process goal number five communic ation and Community engagement this proposed attendance boundary change affects DeBry Enterprise Forest Lake and Discovery comments from the board at in October we had concerns on um increasing the number of students at Enterprise by I believe it was 54 students and we wanted additional level of service additional students at Forest Lake Elementary the way we accomplished that is that the two this area and and yeah thank you it's hard to do with my left hand the green hashed areas represent 169 students and those were proposing that they would go from De to Enterprise to not raise the numbers at Enterprise where it causes a a problem at Enterprise we were asked to take a look at what we

123could move around so what we looked at and what we're proposing is that the lake Gleason area and the blue hash that's all down to Clover Leaf that uh which represents 109 n students would come off of Enterprise and go to Discovery and then to increase Forest Lake bring up their losos uh level of service we're proposing that 88 students in the pink hashed area 88 students from Discovery to Forest Lake and that would change our level of service at DeBerry from 117% to 108% at Enterprise from 94% to 89% at Forest Lake from 65% to 92% and at Discovery from 88% to 91% and that is our proposal for the debber area yes so what we're asking is that we would be able to go forward and have the community meetings and bring back

124feedback from the community thank you um and if we all recall you know we've learned a lot um through this process that when or if we feel we ever need to build something the state looks at the surrounding area and you can't have schools that are underc capacity because they'll say no you can just Zone you don't need to build or you don't need to add on you can Zone kids to the schools that are under capacity so Forest Lake was sitting um significantly under capacity and that is one of the schools that Mr Young and myself and a team visited and we walked through and we looked at all of like the ESC classrooms and the space they were taking up and things like this and Forest Lake um along with vucha pines and

125de Elementary were all built at the same time so I mean they those schools are in great condition and things like that and so if you you really look at this what we're also trying to do is no different than what we're doing at T te where we're trying to get kids that live across the street or in that Community back into their Zone school instead of busing them you know 30 and 40 minutes away um and so that was what we spent a lot of time on was taking the time to look at where kids lived and putting them you know so that we can move forward as the growth continues so I want to thank everyone that worked hard on this so Dr bamin you have a recommendation I do have a recommendation

126share I recommend approval to Pro proceed with Community meetings to discuss the proposed School attendance boundaries for the Barry Elementary Discovery Elementary Enterprise Elementary and Forest Lake Elementary for the 20 2024 2025 school year before we move forward Mr clone has something he'd like to say I will gladly make that motion however the only thing I would ask is that as we plan the community meetings we give at least 14 days notice to families I know we're on a tight time frame but I think that's the right thing to do I know we were a little bit tight the last time and also I'd like to even if we have one big joint meeting to give parents from uh Timber Crest and uh Delona Lakes Elementary the opportunity to come in as well even if

127it's a joint meeting at one place um if you all see that as being fit I'd appreciate that but let's uh I I I don't know if it's a good idea to send this out right before the holidays uh although it will move quickly uh but I I want to make sure we give enough time thank you sir and and I heard that um before so we already have a hold on all of the schools um for the dates we just were waiting for tonight and the approval um Miss Johnson's going to help us send that out and I think we'll do both I think we need to send it before and WR when we return so people will have plenty of notice um we also already have a date um set aside for another

128Timber Crest Deltona Lakes um friendship meeting and another one for Citrus Grove Woodward because I know you all were not able to make some of those so we have those dates all in January our goal is by the end of January to have finished all the community meetings so we can come back and see you in February great thank you Mr persus I think think you just answered my question I I I was going to ask if if at all possible could it come before the board uh before the spring spring break I think we have a meeting March 12th or the end of February I mean I say that just not for us but to give parents ample time to organize and figure out how they're gonna uh adapt to their new school and

129the transportation and so forth thank you you is that a second Mr persus was that a second oh yes oh good okay so all right was in there somewhere I was babbling around Mr colog has made the motion and Mr persus is second I have um I just have one comment to I know you appears you've already selected the dates and you're going to send them out I hope somebody looked at our calendars please because there is just a couple days right in the middle of January that we will be in hassie meeting with legislators so I just that's all I'm asking Miss cor send it to the secretary for the board and have them look at it I'll do that before have her before we send it out please butel let me ask you

130this January okay I'm good at the beginning so we'll talk okay okay all right well we have a motion by Mr colone and a second by Mr persus is there any further discussion I have one question Patty real quick um when's the last time we did major rezoning in Deltona area major major so like this oh no probably the last time school was built last time a new school opened way overdue yeah for major yeah so the last time a school was opened there it was Pride so that's and we so huh hang on I got the book no it may have been built after the book b was yeah the book was only to 2000 oh the book in the book the book is only I know and Pride's been open Pride was open

131after that yeah time to write a new book Barry de Barry valua Pines and Forest Lake were in the were in the book but Pride was Pride was the last one and it's not in the book because it's less than 20 years where's Cliff we need Cliff to write us a new book I keep saying if someone would just take the book and and start where it was left off we really need to add it and if we did it digitally each year they could just update what was needed don't get this please your summer project chadt may be able to help us with that this book is history I mean and it's and it it tells the whole story of what happened in this with the schools in valuch County so okay all right

132any other questions then I'm going to call for the vote all those in favor of the um resoning piece for Discovery Enterprise and Forest Lake and DeBerry please say I I I any opposed it passes unanimously thank you all right then we are moving on now is there any cards for public participation Mrs core Mrs Johnson is there any cards Republican participation okay then we are up to item 20.01 for board members do I have any board members that wish to bring up something make a comment Merry Christmas thank you all right then that's what I'm gonna say we wish every one of you a Merry Christmas a happy New Year please spend time doing something for yourself and spend time with the people in your lives that are important and make memories and we

133thank you for a wonderful end of the 2023 school year and we look forward to seeing all of you when we return in 2024 and our meeting is adjourned at 7:03