OCPS | 2026-03-24 School Board Work Session

001Well, good morning everyone and welcome to the school board's work session which is scheduled for today, Tuesday, March 24th, 2026 for the purpose of discussing a survey community feedback summary. I'm sorry, an AI survey, community feedback summary, AI policy, a legislative update, JIC, student code of conduct, conduct and space utilization update. We have a lot on our plate. let me just before we get started, let me check and see. I believe member Ferrant may be joining us by phone. Do we have member Fant on the line? Yes. Hello. Oh, hello. Thank you for joining us. Okay. as many of you probably know, the public will not have an opportunity to give input during this work session because this is one not a regularly scheduled schoolboard meeting and no action will be taken. So, for those

002of you who may have joined us that are not part of the team, we still welcome you and are glad to have you here and always glad to have people interested in what is happening in Orange County Public Schools. Quick roll call. Member Douglas, member Salamanca, member Vanos, member Gallo here, member Felder is joining us momentarily and member Bird is unable to be with us and as I just checked, member Ferrant is on the line with us. As a reminder, board members will not be, this is a reminder to us as much as you all, we will not be engaging in outside electronics or digital communication during the meeting so that we can focus our full attention on the issues before us. And to my fellow board members and district staff, when speaking into the

003microphone, please make sure it is turned on and speak directly into it so our YouTube and Orange TV viewers can hear you clearly. All right, we will now begin our meeting with a moment of silence and then I'll invite you to join us in the pledge of allegiance. And now for the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. John, I Mr. Pomearini, I did notice a comma here. Which is unusual for you. Yeah. Yes. This hearkens back to our pledge. Yeah. I Yes, I did pause because normally everybody else pauses. I try to stay along with the flow, but I will I will now do it. Will you

004go with me? Because I did not p pause and it felt Yes. For those of you who may be wondering what in the world we're talking about, we had a debate for which Mr. Palm Marini and I and who else? I think it might have been member Felder and I were in the right even though we were not in the majority. And that is the pledge of allegiance. Whether the sentence one nation under God is all one sentence or is there a comma? So yes, generally speaking, it seems that most people feel like there's a need to break there. I think it's like a poem kind of thing, but it's not one nation under God. It is actually one nation under God. and so that is the purpose of this discussion about is there or

005is there not a comma. Okay. And if anybody wants to weigh in on this, I am taking emails. We have not sent out a survey on it, but I am interested in whether or not you agree with the correct pronunciation of the Yes, Madam Chair. For the record, 4 USC section 4 of the United States Code does say it is one nation under God with no comma in between. So according to the federal statute, there is no comma. You're wrong. I just quote the statute. Thank you. Of course I'm right. Yes. Of course I'm right. Member Douglas goes, "You're right." Like it's a big surprise. Whoa. One right for Jacobs. okay. Let's begin with well, Dr. Vasquez, let's start with you. thank you, Madam Chair. we do have quite a lot on our plate this

006morning, but I'm very excited that our chief information officer Mr. Maurice Dragon is going to be doing two of the presentations all focused on AI, a very hot topic. first we will begin with the survey feedback that we received. we wanted to ensure that we had stakeholder feedback as we are developing this policy that is going to impact all of us and so we will begin with our team sharing the results of that feedback. Mr. Dragon. Thank you. Good morning, Superintendent Vasquez, Chair Jacobs, and members of the school board. Today, we will review the summary of the community feedback received on the AI survey recently shared with our parents. The family survey on artificial intelligence in our school district was developed through a cross divisional process. This effort included input and collaboration from the division

007of learning, the division of strategy, ESSE administrators, members of the AI working group, the parent engagement office, and our principal leaders. The survey questions were intentionally selected and refined to focus on areas where parent feedback would not only be gathered, but meaningfully inform and shape the district work on artificial intelligence. Moving forward, an open text option was also provided for parents to share their overall thoughts on the use of AI. A total of 5,892 responses were received across 26 sites. For the purposes of this survey, certain campuses were counted separately when applicable. For example, when a Park High School 9th grade center and main campuses were recorded as two distinct sites. While not every participant answered every question, the majority of responses came from the elementary level, representing approximately 56% of the total responses. Middle

008and K8 schools accounted for 21% of responses, and high school represented 22%. To begin the analysis of the responses provided by parents, all 5,892 responses were downloaded and added to Google Notebook LM. Google Notebook LM was chosen specifically because while it uses AI, it is not a large language model or a large language LLM system that uses information from the general internet to attempt to answer your question. Google Notebook LM uses retrieval augmented generation or RA for short. Google defines retrieval augmented generation as an AI framework that combines the strengths of traditional information retrieval systems such as search and databases with the capabilities of generative large language models. Google notebook LM is not Chat GPC, Claude, Grock or even Google Gemini AI. It works on a completely different architecture and produces results that are grounded

009or tied to the content that was added to the notebook. Along with the survey results from parents, resources previously curated from the artificial intelligence and OCPS site were also added to the Google notebook. These resources provided an important connection point to evaluate if the content already developed by the district met the needs reflected by parents in their survey responses. Multiple comparison and summary reports were generated through Google notebookmate the survey responses. The output of each comparison was compared to the direct information obtained from reading every response provided. Throughout this process, AI was never the sole evaluation tool. Every response or data point provided was compared back to the source material. Individual survey responses were downloaded from thought exchange and aligned to the schools identified for each respondent. Responses were reviewed and consolidated into a matter

010master data set using Google Sheets. A second data set was developed listing each school, its physical address, and the corresponding schoolboard member district. Information was compiled through research supported by Google Gemini AI and refined through multiple review cycles to ensure accuracy. The two data sets were joined in Google Sheets to connect each response to the appropriate school, geographic location, and board member district. Google Gemini AI in canvas mode was then used to support validation and organization of these connections. AI tools were then used to generate an interactive map displaying survey responses for each questions. Results can be viewed by school level, individual school, and board member district. This approach highlights trends by grade level and provides each board member with direct visibility into feedback from families for their district. On the screen, I'm going to

011show just very quickly the site that was developed using the survey and the survey responses. On the left hand side, it has a drop-down for each of the survey questions. And in the center, it represents the overall responses that were received for each of the survey questions. The site can be filtered by a specific level such as elementary, middle K8 or above. And any board member can select their name and it will filter the site by that board member's the schools that responded for that specific board member. In any area where a number is seen that is just showing where there are more there are schools when you click that can be zoomed in. The colors represent whether it's elementary, middle or high school. And if you click on a specific school site it will

012then give you specific to the question that's selected the responses for that specific school site. Okay. So as you we are going through the survey results here, you can also review them specific to your school sites that you have. All right, I'll go back here. If I can interrupt for just a minute. Yes, this is really neat. Yeah, this is super cool. So thank you. I just Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. You're doing a I was going to wait and say this, but great job. I mean, you and right seat, right person. you're just doing a phenomenal job both from a technical standpoint, you know, as a manager, culture. Anyway, just couldn't I couldn't be more pleased and I don't say it often. Yeah, he's very modest. we a few of us just participated in

013a national convening. I think there were over 80 school districts represented. and the sponsor of the event came up and personally said that he is the top CIO that they have worked with. That is just so cool. Yeah. Yeah. He's he's very humble. Yeah. So I know we have a long meeting ahead of us, but his background his background for the benefit of the public. so one of our I'm going to let you share the specifics, but believe it or not, number one, he is an OCPS teacher. Started out as a primary teacher. Maurice, were you also a student in OCPS? Yes. Yes, I attended Lancaster Elementary, Walker Middle School in Oakidge High School. And then I taught first grade sheltered instruction at Sadler Elementary for eight and a half years. Wow. Yeah. That's just

014Yeah. Yeah. And he's always had a knack with computers. I mean, that's one of the things that made him stand out when he was a teacher. I believe he was using iPads with his students before it was a thing here. and then he moved into the district office in the teaching and learning division. and so his background blends both the expertise with technology systems and structures with the practicality of having done it as a classroom teacher understands curriculum and instruction and I know a little bit about that industry and people in that industry and to be honest if you weren't like born and raised and grew up through the technical side of things It's generally there's a an expectation that you won't be successful and I just I just think it's just cool to have

015you as just you know breaking that stereotype model. So anyway, so enough I'll let you go back to your presentation. I've always wanted to say this and I just couldn't resist. Thank you. so around 26% of survey respondents indicated their child has an IEP, EP or section 504 plan. Based on the survey data, open text responses and the direct review of the feedback provided. Their feedback regarding AI can be summarized into the following benefits and concerns. Initial feedback shows that parents of students with IEPs are already independently using AI at home to provide additional support and fill in gaps in their child's understanding. Overall, 12.6% of survey respondents selected support for students with disabilities or learning activities as the most important bene potential benefit of AI. Parents specifically noted in Open Tech responses that AI

016could help overcome exceptional student education difficulties and support specific development areas such as speech, language, reading, occupational therapy, and behavior. Parents also express hope for tools that assist the learning process and provide accommodations without hindering a child's independence. A high concern raised by parents is the disconnect between daily accommodation accommodations and standardized testing. Parents worry that if students rely on AI tools for support during their regular coursework, they will be at a disadvantage when they are not permitted to use those same AI tools during state testing. There are also concerns that the district might use AI as a rationale to reduce human resources. Parents shared they do not want ESSE and similar students to receive their support only from AI programs. According to the survey's multiplechoice responses, approximately 85% of participants reported they have a

017general understanding of AI technology. This level of familiarity remains consistent when responses are filtered by elementary, middle, high school, and career and technical education levels. However, there is important context behind these high familiarity rates. A review of the open-ended responses suggests that many parents are referencing their familiarity with commercial or workplace AI tools rather than the AI applications used in education. Parents commonly noted experience with open access chat bots that can generate answers or write essays as well as AI tools integrated into their professional environments. At the same time, perceptions of AI in the workplace are mixed with concerns about required use, job displacement, and broader workforce impacts shaping how some parents view the technology overall. Several parents who in indicated they were not familiar with AI clarified that their responses reflected uncertainty about how

018the district specifically plans to use AI and which tools will be implemented. For example, one parent shared, "This question cannot be properly answered by parents because we don't know what type or how AI will be utilized. You must first explain how AI will be incorporated in order to get an accurate response. Another parent noted, "If you could please give provide samples of what AI will you will be using, that would be helpful." These comments suggest that actual familiarity with AI may be higher than the reported 85% with some parents disqu distinguishing between general AI exposure and understanding of district specific applications. The survey also highlighted a clear opportunity for parent education. While many parents are familiar with AI outside of school, they recognize that district approved tools may have different safeguards, training, and functionality. Reflecting

019this, parents expressed strong interest in learning more about the district's approach. When asked which parent academy workshops they would most like they were most likely to attend, the most selected option, 30.1% of respondents, was school policies. how our district is handling AI. This indicates that although parents are generally aware of AI, they're seeking clarity and reassurance about how the district will implement and regulate its use in a safe and responsible way. The potential benefit of AI most frequently identified by parents center on individual academic support and preparation for the future. According to the survey data, the top benefits include improved access to tutoring and academic support. Many parents see AI as a valuable resource for providing additional explanations, tutoring, or practice when a teacher or parent is not immediately available. They view it as a

020way to help address learning gaps or reinforce challenging CA concepts. Parents recognize AI's ability to adapt to a student's pace and learning style, offering differentiated support that may not always be possible in a traditional classroom setting. A significant number of parents acknowledge that AI is now embedded in the modern workforce. They believe students must learn to use AI ethically, responsibly, and effectively in order to remain competitive in college and career pathways. Families of students with IEPs or five 504 plans noted they are already using AI tools at home to provide targeted accommodations and reinforce learning. These parents often see AI as a bridge to sub to support access and independence. At the same time, parents express substantial concerns, many of which relate to cognitive, social, and ethical implications of using AI. The most frequently cited

021concerns include reduced critical thinking and problem solving. The most significant concern the most significant concern parent repeatedly expressed fear that AI could quote do the thinking for students potentially weakening the development of foundational skills, creativity, and independent thought. Many parents feel students already experience high levels of screen time and worry that AI could further crunch that AI could become a crutch rather than a meaningful instructional tool. Parents voiced concern that students may bypass learning process by using AI to generate completed assignments instead of engaging in authentic learning. and the open text feedback frequently reference AI hallucinations, bias, the risk of presenting inaccurate or unvetted information as fact. Parents express concerns about how technology companies collect, store, and use student data, particularly in relation to corporate surveillance and long-term data usage. There was also strong consensus

022that AI should never replace face-to-face instruction. Parents emphasized the importance of human relationships, emotional connection, and social development that occur between teachers and students. Further, a further reoccurring theme in the qualitative responses was concern about the energy and water consumption required to power AI data centers. Some parents question whether the environmental costs outweigh the educational benefits. Based on the survey data and the district's internal review, parents report greater comfort when AI is used with teachers or adult guidance than when students use it independently. When combining responses of uncomfortable and very uncomfortable, 40.1% of parents indicated discomfort with AI use under teacher guidance. That figure increases to 48.3% when AI is used independently. When analyzed by grade level, clear differences emerge. At the elementary level, 48% of responding parents reported discomfort when AI use even with

023AIUS, even when guided by a teacher. That number rises to 53.8% for independent AI use. Open text feedback from elementary parents consistently emphasize the importance of students developing foundational thinking, creativity, problem solving, and social skills before relying on AI. Many express a preference for limiting AI use during the early years while core skills are being established. At the middle school level, comfort begins to rise incrementally by high school. 67% of 67% of parents indicated they feel ne either neutral comfortable or very comfortable with students using AI with guidance and 63% express the same feeling with independent AI use. When comfort level responses are compared with responses to the question about the appropriate grade level for AI access, a pattern emerges. Overall, 74.5% of respondents identify high school as the appropriate time for students to have

024access to AI. When considered alongside open text comments, this reinforces the view that elementary school is a period for building foundational skills during which many parents re prefer AI use to be limited. As students move into middle and high school and closer to graduation, additional considerations, including college readiness and workforce preparation, begin to shape parent perspective. In discussions related to high school, college, and the workforce, parent feedback reflects a strong consensus that AI is an unavoidable part of the future. Although opinions are mixed regarding its impact on higher education, several key themes emerge. Many parents view AI literacy as an essential skill for their children's future careers. Parents noted that AI is already widely used in corporate environments. They reference its use in preparing presentations, drafting reports, analyzing data, and even supporting aspects of the

025hiring process. A reoccurring sentiment is that AI is inev inevitable and students must learn to understand both its strengths and limitations to remain competitive. Parents express concern that students who do not learn how to use AI effectively may be at a disadvantage compared to peers who can leverage it to increase efficiency and productivity. Overall, the data reflects a developmental perspective, greater caution in the early grades, growing acceptance in secondary school, and a strong recognition that AI literacy will be critical for college and career readiness. Based on the survey data, parent feedback reveals a complex mix of apprehension and pragmatic acceptance regarding how AI is used both by students and teachers. First, parent feedback on student use of AI in and outside of school. Survey data indicates that while only 8% of parents are aware of

026their child using AI at school, 39% reported their child using it outside of school and 53.6% of parents either were not aware or were not sure if their child is using AI. This highlights the need for parental training around AI as the majority of student a AI usage may be happening at home. In the openext area of the survey, parents also share concerns around teacher use of AI. Parents are highly concerned that teachers might use AI as a substitute for active teaching. They strongly emphasized they send their children to school for human interaction, social cues, and emotional connection. Several parents also pointed out a perceived hypocrisy when students are penalized for using AI, but teachers are actively using it to create assignments and grade students work. Parents are also worried about teachers relying on flawed

027AI detection software to grade or check work, which has led to students being wrongfully accused of cheating. While parents oppose AI fully teaching the class, some do see the benefit if teachers use AI as a back-end administrative tool to reduce busy work, diversify lesson plans, or create extra practice tests, providing it frees up the teachers time to connect more deeply with students. Finally, the district survey gauged parental interests by asking which OCPS parent academy resources or workshops they would most like they would be most likely to attend. The responses indicate a strong desire for transparency regarding school rules, future career preparation, and safe home usage. Parents express concern around inconsistent policies applied teachertoteer on the use of AI in the classroom. The most requested topic is learning exactly how the district is handling and regulating

028AI. Parents also want to know how to prepare their children for future careers and teach them necessary technology technical skills such as prompt engineering for an AIdriven world. Parents express interest in learning how to properly use AI as a tutor to help their children with schoolwork without crossing the line into cheating. There is also high interest in learning how to protect student privacy, spot defakes, and set up parental controls on AI platforms. Finally, parents express interest interest in guidance on how to talk to their children about algorithmic bias, misinformation, and the appropriate ethical usage of AI. Some parents are specifically interested in learning about AI tools designed to help and support neurodeivergent learners. Based on the feed on parent feedback and the discussion from the schoolboard today, our next step is to finalize the draft

029AI policy that the board will review. As highlighted earlier, district policies on AI represent the area where parents are seeking the greatest clarity. At this time, I will turn the presentation over to the superintendent for comments and questions from the school board and further discussion. thank you, Maurice. And I also want to give thanks to Michelle Negron who facilitated the survey process. We really received tremendous feedback for the survey and I was pleased to see as well that most of the respondents aligned what the teachers were saying, parents and some of the comments that we've heard from the board. The challenge will be that AI is integrated into so much of what we already use day-to-day. most if not all of our intervention programs have some type of AI. testing that is done has AI

030as a part of it. And so we are interested in hearing the board's thoughts on the survey. that will hopefully then inform the policy that we are drafting in for the district. Okay. thank you Dr. Boy that's that's a that's a heavy lift on that one. but this is a great place to begin the conversation. So, one of the one of the questions that I have, I think what I'm like most intrigued about it, the feedback that we got from parents across the board, like you said, is really consistent with I think so much of what we're talking about, what we're thinking about. But the input from parents about what they would like to know is I think it's invaluable. The question is how best and I know you asked the question how best do

031we provide that and I mean it's it's pretty rich in depth of what they'd like to know. So any thoughts that you all have had around what that form is or perhaps it's multiple form formats which makes sense to me because different parents are going to access are going to be more comfortable accessing things different ways but what what's your thought at this point of proiding the kind of information that they're looking for? So in after our meeting in December and the board shared in the meeting in December that introducing AI to parents and educating parents around AI inside of our district was an important step for us to take. Initial steps were already taken with the OCPS parent academy and that department to provide three parentmies for parents to attend. They were all currently

032virtual. So two parent academy virtual sessions already at held and then a lunch and learn session on Facebook was also held. And so those were initial introduction sessions for AI based upon the feedback that we've received here. The next step is to pro collaborating with parent academy to look at the different avenues they already use to engage with with with parents and see th if those would be appropriate avenues to use whether it is virtual or if it is potentially face toface to provide additional training for parents. Okay. And there's a lot of different topics covered under that. I'm I'm hoping that as you put something out that you give parents if they are not interested in everything but there's a particular area a particular question that we give them a way to just kind

033of zero in on that topic kind of like you do on a YouTube video where you say go to you know line such and such or point such and such. Anyway, I just Okay, let me move on to U member Felder. Oh, okay. How's that for timing? absolutely. Do I have any other board members? Somebody better because we've got some really important questions to answer and member Gallo and then we'll go to member Salamanca then member Douglas. Member Gallo. Thank you, Madam Chair. and thank you for this presentation. And I think this was a perfect example of what I AI can do and the productivity it could provide in a corporate structure in a world where you are looking to disagregate information, analyze the data and then put it together for a presentation. I think

034that this is where AI excels. I'm not surprised about like 48% of or 56% of parents are not sure or don't know if their children are using AI. I'm sure if we pulled the students, they would tell you that number would probably be closer to 75%. I do think that the parents are spot on. like I with some of their with some of their concerns regarding AI. I agree with them when we look at elementary what that appropriate use of AI should be or not be. I think more and more research is coming forward that is really kind of showing us the harms of students being on computers too long, especially in elementary when you're learning those core that core learning, right? Your core math and reading. where in middle school later in middle school

035maybe look at it but it's just lately I don't know if it's my logorithms or what it is but I'm just been inundated with a lot of research about the harms of screens you know Sweden and all these countries that are backing away the link to you know the correlation versus causation of onetoone devices and then acade academic gains and there's a lot of research that shows countries and states that went to that one to one device did see sharp declines in academic gains. And if we look at like the NAPE data, if memory serves me correctly, you know, it usually appears like our fourth grade does well and then eighth grade does well in some subjects, but they usually there's a sharp decline in math and English and our fourth grade nape if I'm

036correct. Like it's usually lower. And I always wondered why like why is that data lower? And I'm I'm now starting to question is it is it due to the onetoone device? Like are we seeing those declines not because of an external interference but maybe it's an internal interference. So just something to think about as we look and we and we create an AI policy because I think you're right AI is the future of the workforce. I saw an article recently that said that by 2030 our jobs, you know, landscape is going to be vastly different than it looks today. And it will be incorporated AI. But be able to use AI effectively, you've got to be able to think critically. You've got to be able to use prompts and the correct prompts when you're prompting

037it in the information that gives back. You've got to have the ability to analyze that data. You do have to look for hallucinations unless you're using Notebook LM. like there's so much to consider and there are some harms with AI with students that we have to discuss and we have to address and we have to put guard rails in even from an education perspective between parents and students and I think we saw that in the survey like you saw a discrepancy between what parents know which is not unusual I didn't think my parents knew anything even when I was in high school you know so it's we've got a lot of education and a lot of training I think to do to prepare our students but I have a couple questions. and I'm just curious

038because I've looked this up so I I know the answer. But when we talk about AI literacy or or if we how would we define AI literate that like we discussed in this survey being AI literate. Explain to me what the definition of AI literate or AI literacy would look like. Certainly. and what I'm actually going to bring onto the screen here. So as part of the work completed by the AI working group and including the feedback we've received from stakeholders this is one of the questions that we did try we did try to tackle which is how would we as a how would we define AI literacy and it's the knowledge skills and mindsets necessary to understand how AI works how do you evaluate his output and how do you use AI respons AI

039responsibly As we worked as a AI working group, we also developed a document that attempts to define AI literacy at multiple levels. Because AI not only applies inside of the classroom, both at the elementary and secondary level, but also with teachers and with district leadership. And so we do have a draft document that gives an overall statement on AI literacy, but also we did we do have a document that then tries to go in for each area and then define AI literacy specific to that area. Okay. Yeah. And I think I think the biggest part, you know, my biggest takeaway from like AI literacy when I was reading about it was that I think responsibly is the key word. Like we need we need students and parents need to know the value of AI and

040the harms of AI because they both exist. And so we've just got to be cognizant and when we craft policy, we really've got to keep those things top of mind. I agree that AI is not going anywhere. I think that AI can be appropriate in certain learning environments, but it has to be after the critical thinking skills have been developed. It has to be after the students have the knowledge to know whether AI is giving a good input or I mean a good output or a bad output because I you I use AI a lot in the things that I do, but I have the knowledge to say that's incorrect. can you site your source because I don't believe that's right and then it'll either pop up and say, "Yeah, you're correct. I was wrong."

041Or it'll give me the source. But if you don't have the knowledge like to ask that question, then we're going to have a lot of students believing that everything that comes out of AI is correct. And it just simply it isn't. And I'm reading a book I know Stephanie's read or remember Venos is reading it as well and it's called the digital delusion. And in this book and I've heard this several times before and it's quite frightening to me actually. It says for the first time ever, every generation has been smarter than the generation before it. And that's there's a lot of reasons for that. They're they're spending longer time in school. The rigor is much different. I mean, in elementary school, I was sniffing glue and taking naps. Kinderg kindergarten students, I was I'd

042make those little glue hands. Remember that when you make glue hands? That's what I was doing in kindergarten. I promise you, our kindergarten students are not doing that today. Well, and hopefully not doing it tomorrow. To be honest with you, it never occurred to me. you never meet a glue hand? No, I never heard of a glue hand. Oh my gosh, that was the best thing ever. Okay. Well, I'm a little I'm a little older than you. I think the Gen X the Gen Xers are raising their hands. but you know, the rigor is is stronger in elementary school. begins a lot older, a lot younger. but this generation, the generation behind my generation for the first time in centuries will not be as intelligent as this generation. And there's a lot of research going

043on. But the basic cause is because learning is hard. Like really to learn and to comprehend and to understand, you got to put forth work and you got to put forth effort. and we've created an environment, a digital world that has made it a little bit easier. And so they're not it's not sinking in like they're not learning the skills. And so I just, you know, we need to be cognizant of that as we roll this out and also be cognizant of where the workforce is and the talent that we need to bring to the table for our students to be able to fill that gap in that workforce, right? And it is going to be a huge AI. So I think we've got a huge challenge in front of us because part of me

044is like save the kids guardrail guardrail guardrail because we saw what social media has done to our students and the other part of me is like but we have to be responsible in our approach because this is the future of the workforce and they do need to be educated on it and so what does that look like and how can we do it? So, I'm so glad that's your your problem to figure out with the AI policy, but I do think that this is exciting times and I think if we get this right and we do it well, I think it'll be a game changer. So, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I the the book you mentioned it is I I read the book and it is I think the book has a lot of

045great information around it. you know and I think there's it mentions places such as Sweden that will provide us I think with some helpful information and data as we're looking at how we are implementing AI AI and how we're using devices and technology overall as a district when you look at the steps that Sweden initially took as a as a as a nation around around technology in some ways they took steps beyond we beyond steps that we even took as a as a district. So they had requirements around the use of devices even in prek, even in kids younger than than six years old. And their transition where they had a they have they have a one to they had a onetoone model had many more requirements than what we have where we have devices

046but we don't have devices with some of the same usage requirements that they had around devices. there. They have looked at what they are seeing happening inside of their schools and they've looked at their data. They're making adjustments where they're removing requirements of device usage and younger grade levels. They are making sure that students have access to to instructional materials, paper instructional materials. in many ways there are some of those things that we do also where for example in elementary we provide the paper along with the with the digital digital text. And then as you look further into some of the things that they're doing for example as you get into the older grade levels in their in their system they're looking and they're saying that students need to be biiterate. So they're looking and

047they're saying that students do need to understand how to use technology tools, but they also need to understand, for example, how to read long form content and answer questions about that long form content. And what the research is showing when you look at reading and interacting with long- form content is that a screen that only shows you a little bit of that content and doesn't allow you to ground where you are interacting with that content because it's just scrolling up or down that is done that is more efficient on paper. So there's a lot of things that they're looking at and other places that I think will be helpful in informing both the policy and process of what we're doing here. Thank you for that. And I love I just real quick one. I love

048that your thoughtfulness that for this AI like I just so appreciate all the research that you've done and the knowledge that you have to help guide us through this through this policy. So thank you. Thank you member Gallup. Member Felder. sir Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much. First of all, Maurice, I'm just so I feel like Eddie Murphy on that thing. Hercules. Hercules. Listen, I am so I'm so impressed for lack of a better word. And the chair has so wonderfully expressed the sentiment of this entire board after looking at your opening of your presentation and the thought process that had to have gone into it with you and your team to help us really understand this whole thought ideology behind AI. And I've talked to the superintendent. I talked to her yesterday. So,

049she knows my feelings about AI, but I want to say this and many of you probably were some of you on the board, you may not have been born or you were little, but that was a gentleman by the name of Allan Bloom. He wrote a book entitled The Closing of the American Mind. And he talked his argument was that from the 60s with this whole concentration on culture and race and sex and all of that we had got to a point as intellectuals that we were not engaging encouraging students to deal with critical thinking. And then he also talked about relativism and all of that. But this man wrote this book. It was published in 1987 and here we are in 2026 seeking ways to become even more intellectually competent with the use of

050AI. My concerns are some of the same concerns that some of the parents have and I know that I'm so grateful that you allowed us to hear both sides of it. And I was so grateful when the superintendent shared with me that elementary school has been a the use of it in elementary school has been one of the greater and greatest concerns of parents. And then board member Gallo talked about that also. And I'm I'm I think that I don't know we haven't heard from all the board members, but I believe that we will develop policy that will really be able to police or at least be the watchman on the wall as it relates to how our elementary curriculum works with AI. Because one of the things as I shared on yesterday and I'm

051sharing today, watchmen for educational accomplishment. We are the ones to make sure that our students get the best educational experiences possible and cognitive thinking skills is something that we must never let go of. And my other concern is that as we are monitoring how that has worked that not so much work will be put on teachers to monitor that. I shared and when I was teaching at Edgewater I taught six classes out every day seven five days out the week and a total between 210 225 students. So I taught English three. So I was grading papers. That's the amount of papers that I was grading. you know, the Canvas helped a little bit, but I still had to teach and I still had to individually work with students so they can understand how to really

052comprise a readable essay. So, my point is even if they get AI, it has to be monitored and I'm sure that's going to be some professional development. My suggestion would be that not only for professional development for the teachers involved but the administration too and maybe we fighting with this money not having enough money to do a lot of things but resource people to come in to aid with teachers because what's going to happen if they become overwhelmed AI could be very easily used as an excuse and just do it because a say a child has to do a essay fifth grade and they could speak to the AI and say Look, I need you to write me a essay for a fifth grader. Now, the AI is going to be proficient. But suppose that

053student, the teacher knows the student is not that proficient in writing and subject and verb agreement and dealing with contrast and comparison in a subject matter as they write. So then they look at the paper and the teacher can maybe readily say if they're not tired and they don't mind going through it, that's not your writing. they tired, they don't feel like checking the otherund and three papers they got to check, they gonna let it go. But suppose a student is smart enough to say, "Well, the teacher knows I'm not that good of a writer. So now I'm in fifth grade, but AI, I need you to write me a comprehensive paper like a fourth or third grader would write." So, and then the teacher, okay, yeah, that's the kind of writing. But I'm not

054saying that'll happen, but these are my concern. I'm just trying to tell you what I'm thinking about as a teacher. my and see and I don't think all teachers many teachers would do it that way. I believe they will be diligent in looking at the paperwork because teachers want their students to learn. We want to see progress and we want to know that they know that they know that they have moved from point A to point B to point C. But if they become overwhelmed, and we are, and classes may get crowded because we're having to consolidate schools, we're as a board and a district, we're going to have to be cognizant and extremely empathetic with what teachers are doing because there are several people out there. For the most part, teachers are out there

055because they want to do what they do. They want to make a difference. They see this as their mission, their calling. And at the same time, as a board, as a district, we're going to have to be able to strategically monitor how to corral, for lack of a better word, AI and the use of it. And I'm so grateful that the parents overall have said they have concerns about it doing in elementary as board member Gallow said that this is where the cognitive thinking skills start and we want to make sure they have that and then of course in high school we don't want them to be behind when they go to college and realize some of their counterparts have expert use of AI and they get to college in a in a classroom at

056university and they're lost because they've not had experience with working with it. But and I'll probably come back around again when other concerns come out. But my major concern is that we have to come up with a policy that we can monitor the use of that and we cannot be cavalier LZ fair with how we deal with the governance of the use of AI. and so I just wanted to just share that with you. I'll probably come back around. But we are at an impass and it's interesting and I go back to Alan Bloom's book. That man wrote that book in 1987 and we looking at 2026 and he calls it the closing of the American mind. We cannot be so desperate and thinking that we're really being closed, but we must really reach back

057and keep our major standards at the forefront. We want to establish in our children the ability to critically think on their own because our brain is a computer that God made. Man didn't make this. So I just wanted to share that again. I'm I'm just so proud of what we do as a district and I'm glad the people came to the superintendent and said you were the head and what leading in this technology. I'm so proud of OCPS and what we do and I want to thank you for this work. Thank you so much. Thank you, Member Felder. up next, Member Douglas. Good is that good morning? Good afternoon, everyone. Okay. thank you again for your comprehensive you know, research and survey around AI. You know, I'm just still not very comfortable with AI. I

058think there are so many unknowns around AI and just like member Felder just said we need to to have guard rails around this AI problem. It's not a problem. It's not an issue maybe but it feels like it because we're wondering how we going to use AI with our kids in class. I am a teacher and what really my concern my issue will be that how do we how do AI help boost knowledge? How does he help the performance of our kids? That's one of my issue. The other concern will be how can we really measure AI with the performance of our kids. I'm thinking about plagiarism just like member Felder was saying you know we may not have accurate response or accurate results because of AI if the kids are using it to make

059their writing better or and also it kind of you know doesn't help the creativity for our students you know they become so hooked on AI and AI is going to help us to do this and that we really you know prevent that creativity and the the just like the parents were saying problem solving critical thinking how can we use AI and not really impact all these on our kids that's my main issue and we don't want AI to take over also our productivity later on in life, children, jobs and you know I'm I still have a whole lot of question about AI and it's a little bit scary. I'm just saying a little bit scary. I'm a little bit apprehensive about what can happen with AI not only in our schools but in our society

060and later on. Sure. Yeah, I think you bring up some some really critical questions and concerns that as as you noted were reflected in what stakeholders such as the parents shared inside of inside of the AI survey. And when you look at both those concerns along with the concerns around data privacy and also what's being shared around what is captured in the survey about what students are doing right now and what's captured in I think in for many of us and what we are seeing when we go into in when we talk to talk to students is that the call for policy and the call for guard rails around AI is not necessarily coupled with the introduction of additional AI tools inside of the classroom. And what I basically mean by that is that what

061we're seeing today is that students are already using AI. teachers already using AI. And I'll be very upfront when I initially came into this position and we started seeing the tools that were coming out that were being used. We blocked them and we blocked the vast majority of those tools. We then looked at what was the impact of that block. And so I gave the example to the board before where we blocked chat GPT as a district and we blocked it on our computers. We blocked it on our network. The result of that block is that we had over with using OCPS accounts over 3,000 active accounts using chat GPT, the personal version that trains on our data. And so using strictly a block as the only implementation tool that we had to ensure that

062to try to protect our data actually put us in a worse situation where our data was not being protected. It was actually being now used in in the system in a way that guaranteed that training was taking place. So when we took that move to integrate it now where we said we're going to bring chat GPC and we're going to have a contract with it. That contract ensured that our data is not being used to for training and that we have protections around what's what's being used. So, we've brought in the vast majority and I think we have now the 3,000 accounts or so that were being used with chat GPT before and it's still a piece though where that tool for example is optional to use. It's not a piece where now teachers have

063to use chat GPT to create lessons or with their or with their students. So, I think steps like that are the steps that I think are going to be important to look at. The other thing that's really critical to look at and these are conversations that I know that the cabinet and the superintendent has had is that if we are going to look at any tools to bring in there has to be an academic connection and there the academic connection also has to respect what the community the board and others have shared are the important guard rails that we want. It has been incredibly clear that the important guardrail that we want is that students should not be able to just go into a program and say, "Give me this paper." And it just gives

064them that paper. So, as we're doing evaluation of a tool, if we're doing the evaluation of a tool and the tool does that, that may not be a tool that we bring into our district because it's a tool that does not match what we've shared collectively is an important thing that we think a tools are bringing in should not do because it impacts a student's ability to in to really take part in that cognitive rigor that we want to see. So I completely agree with the with the sentiments that you're sharing and you know I think those sentiments are as we go through this process and get through go through the policy process really will help to frame anything that we are evaluating if there is going to be any kind of expansions of the

065resources that we are using. And we also want to avoid hallucinations that the kids are using facts that are not correct. Sorry. we also want to avoid AI hallucinations where kids are using facts that are not correct, you know, and all this. It's it's really impactful in I mean we really need to find I mean that's that's a great work for you to do and I appreciate everything that you try to do and helping in school. I think the tools the tools really matter. The tool that you're going to use is going to is going to very is going to matter and it's going to have to be a tool that's going to need to be evaluated and can't just be stock in the sense of that it's just something you can just get and

066use. There's going to have to be there's going to have to be steps that are taken to ensure that it's really fitting the needs that we have that we have as a district. I think that the pieces around around that ability to use a tool for cheating is one of those key things that we have we have to look at. When we when the district brought in for example KIGA as a tool that can be used with SAT that was one of the key things we did the technical term for it is red teaming. So what red teaming is basically you go into a system and you say what are some things that kids are likely to do that they're likely to ask inside of the system and you go in and you ask the

067same thing. So it gives you a math problem or SAT a sample SAT problem in K migo and we went in and we tried to ask it to just solve it for us to just give us the answer and it would not. So, it's it's taking steps like that to ensure that we're looking at tools, but we're looking at tools with the insight of it can't be a tool that just is going to bypass the educational process. Thank you. All right. Member Vanos. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for this presentation and for the insight of my fellow board members. I appreciate hearing how you're looking at this as well. and I know we've kind of So, I want to actually start with a question that member Gallo raised, which was how are we

068defining AI literate? And you talked about we talked about how it works, how we evaluate output, and how to use AI responsibly. And I know you've kind of talked around it, but h how would you define using AI responsibly? AI using AI responsibly has to fit in and this is a discussion when we talked about using AI as a both with stakeholders and as a working group is that AI as a tool has to fit within the larger education framework of what we're trying to accomplish whether it's with through our strategic plan or whether it's what a teacher is actually the point of the lesson that's happening inside the classroom. So responsible use of any tool is going to be that tool is not either distracting, degrading or taking away from the actual academic task

069that a student is completing or that is the actual you know intent of of the lesson. Okay. Thank you. So it sounds like the test is almost like a negative like it's not take I guess it's it's not taking away it's not distracting but what what is the positive use of it in an educational setting and I'm not talking about AI literacy yes of course we want our we want our students to understand how AI works generally and all of that but what is actually the positive benefit of using it to teach math, to teach reading, to teach science. I think as you when you look at just the science and the art of teaching overall, any tool that will be applied needs to be a tool that is appropriate for what you're trying to

070teach in in that moment. And just as with any of the anything that you're teaching, there are some math for example that it's appropriate to use manipulatives to help in the teaching that. But there's some math where manipulatives are not appropriate to use that you actually just need to sit down, you need to write write out the problem or write out the proof that you're you're you're doing. And it I think the same thing applies to AI. There's not a general area where you can look and you can say that AI is just appropriate in math or AI is just appropriate in in in reading. The specific areas in these areas. Now starting off first with what was identified by the stakeholders inside of the survey is one it was identified that AI can help

071to fill in the gap when a instruction takes place. A student has a gap in their understanding. And when the student has that gap in their understanding and they have access to the material, but they may not have direct access either to the educator, so they may be at home or even if they have that access, they're still having they're still having issues. AI has the potential to help the student fill in that gap depending on the tool that they're using, right? because it has to be a tool that's not going to be a tool that's just going to pull in random random resources. The second place that it was shared is that AI has that ability to take and to give access to resources at the appropriate grade level for student. You know, if

072a teacher is creating lessons and creating lesson lesson planning and then they know that a teacher may be at a student may be at one grade level that is different from the grade level of another student, they can use AI to create accommodations for that student so that those materials can be at at their at their level. So I think just as with any tool, you know, it's I think it's the example of the of the hammer, the when you use the example of the hammer, we don't want AI to be a hammer where everything is a nail. We want it to be something that when it is used, it's used in a way that makes sense for the teacher. The use cases I've seen so far where I've seen teachers use it is when

073students have a lot of information that information is varied in nature. So they have websites, they have video, they have papers that they're they're going through and now they have to go through and they have to even just figure out if any of that information is relevant to the topic that they're reviewing. Well, now you have a tool that helps you to begin that research process of just determining relevancy inside of what you're using. And that is one of the examples that I've seen where teachers are using AI and the strength that AI provides comparative to just using it to simply solve a math problem or using it to simply write a paper. I don't think those are areas that when I've looked at usage by students or or usage by teachers in their classroom

074that they're looking and they're saying, "Oh, that's an area where I need to apply AI." And I and when they don't see that, they don't they don't use it. Okay. so it sounds like you're looking at AI to kind of fill in gaps at home if you know when students have questions or for differentiated instruction. an easy way for teachers to provide that or the third is and I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly, but to help students identify which resources are relevant and I as I hear that I have some concerns because I actually think that's sort of part of the process is like you know kind of sifting I know you know I think part of the process in in research and learning is sort of like sifting through everything and figuring

075out what is relevant and so to have a external program that kind of determines relevancy for you I think really is missing out on a huge part of the learning process. I understand what you're saying though about gaps at home though it does make me it does raise questions about honestly about access too. not all students have access to electricity at home always. you know internet computers. So I I have do have some some questions about that. Are there is there any research that shows that utilizing AI in school like for students? I'm talking less about teachers but for students that it results in better student outcomes. There is beginning research at the college level that is examining how the use of AI is impacting students and students either whether it is students engagement with

076resources. But that same research is not available at the K12 level because AI is not implemented in any kind of consistent way at the K12 at the K12 level for that research to take to take place. So and I think just in the area of research overall being able to apply it at the at the at the collegiate level is something that is more applicable at this time. So it's just there is not research but also the body of application to actually conduct that research is currently just not present. And I guess I have a concern there that there's really no research showing that this would be helpful to students. Why would we implement something that's not researchbased? And I'm also just not really interested in our schools and our teachers and our students being

077the test subjects for it because I I sort of think that's what is happening as as we introduce AI into schools. What happens is really our students are the test subjects for it. and there's no research showing that it is helpful. So I have real concerns about that. M madam chair may I so I just need to clarify we already have AI in our schools and so I think that what's happened is the exposure and the tools that make use of AI specifically when we're talking about that two what I refer to as two-way communication where kids are enga or we're engaging with a chatbot but right now and for many years we have already been using AI through our intervention programs they have that built in. And so I think the concern that is

078being expressed by stakeholders is where are those limits currently? And to say that you're not going to have any AI use is not practical because it's built into the resources that are being used today. when you Google there's AI. So, I think one of the key points the board's going to have to address is what are those areas where we feel comfortable to continue to engage with tools that use AI and where we are not comfortable engaging. So, I think it's un for us to say we're not using it is false. It's being used every day in our schools and has been. And even in the survey, parents said they found that for tutoring and intervention, it was helpful. And I think you'll have teachers that will also tell you that if you have a

079tool that is able to narrow the resources that are best for a child or adapt to a child as they are getting better or progressing. that saves them time. Are they engaging with the chatbot? No. But there is AI built into the intervention program that adjusts to where what level the child is at and then gives them prompts or gives them problems to work out based on where on what level they're at. And if it's too difficult, then it drops it down. Am I making sense? Right. I get So it sounds like for you're saying for interventions. Well, what I'm saying is that we have tools in our schools where they are using AI. And so for us to say we're not using them is not an accurate statement, right? Do we and I guess

080so I guess that's a question I have. So we're use if we're using them already, do we have data that's showing how they're improving outcomes? So when we look at the places where AI is currently integrated into the resources that we have, we start off first with the resources that have AI integrated into them. So the instructional materials several of the instructional materials that we have where we you know we're talking about things that were approved by the state approved by the board that have AI integrated into them and that we've given to schools to use. We don't currently have a piece where we require teachers to use the math or the science textbook. So that piece to directly look and there's not a piece where we also look and we have a requirement to

081say you must use specifically the adaptive piece of the math in the science textbook or any books that you have. So that's a that's a difficult question to answer because now we're talking about requirements around the use of instructional resources. When we go to the intervention resources that we have and many of those have AI built in because machine learning which is where we have adaptive curriculum that students use that there are places and I know that for example the research accountability team they came by they had a presentation recently where they reviewed some of the resources that we have and they were able to show positive outcomes. Now those outcomes again were not related to specifically AI because the AI is in the background. It was not the point of the resource. Those were

082related to the strength of the instructional material and the practices that were taking place around that instructional material. And for me, when I think about think about resources overall, I'll just be very upfront like that's what I lead with and what I think about I it's very difficult for me when I'm thinking about if a resource is coming across. If it's a resource for math or if it's a resource for for reading, it's about is that resource going to help us with math or reading. It's to me it really is not a question of if if it has AI or if it doesn't have AI. if it has AI or if it doesn't have AI or let's say if it has AI then that's where you can evaluate okay does that integration of AI meet

083within our principles about not letting students just easily get the answer or not letting students cheat and if it meets those meet those principles and if it's something where it's helping students learn because it's a math tool that's supposed to help students learn then I think that makes it much easier to do that evaluative aspect. But I think the to me as I'm and I may be evaluating what you're asking incorrectly to me I don't think any tool that we introduce into education including whether it's a tool that is for photo editing whether it's a tool like like AI or anything else I don't think the tool is ever the focus it is what are we trying to accomplish with students and are we able to accomplish it using this? If we're not able to

084accomplish it using it, we don't we don't use it. But I think what that also points to is that what we're looking to evaluate are not just standalone generalpurpose chat tools, which a lot of times when I hear AI being discussed, that's what's actually being discussed. what's actually being discussed is chat GPT or Grock or all these other tools that really don't have an educational focus. They're just tools that you go out and you can use as a consumer or you can use as a parent or you can use as as whoever you want to be. To me, those aren't those aren't the educational tools that we're talking about when we talk about AI. And those aren't the educational tools that we're looking to evaluate. if we're looking to evaluate and bring in any additional

085ed educational tool we're looking for and we are using tools that help with our strategic plan and that help with what we say we want to accomplish as far as like the academic excellence of students. Okay. I guess as we talk through this like we'll we'll kind of have more more clarity on on what exactly we're looking for. I am wondering just in the presentation you there were some text responses that the respondents provided and I'm just wondering if we can actually read those responses. Certainly. Okay. Thank you. and then what else was I going to ask? Oh, and then I also wanted to point out on one of the pages it when it talks about like what age AI, you know, do you feel comfortable with it being in it, it's broken down by

086grade level. I think it's like I don't remember 6th through 12th grade or something like that. I actually took the survey and you at least on the one that I took like you actually couldn't get out of that question without choosing an option. So, I noticed there's a big jump between 11th and 12th grade. And I don't know if that reflects that people actually believe that or you actually couldn't get out of this page unless you chose one of the options. So, I just wanted to highlight that. Yeah, that was one of the areas that we did when we were creating the survey. And part of it the creation of the survey is we understood there's going to be a broad spectrum of feedback around around AI and the usage of AI. And so we

087wanted to really get something that we could bring back to the board that would be actionable to get to get feedback. So looking at each of the questions for example and it's why I purposely paired it in this way. We also had the open text feedback piece and in the openex feedback piece I believe it was 27% of parents that shared that they did not think there was any appropriate use of AI in education and so that's where we were able to look and look and to say that okay that probably also reflects if we didn't have a place where we were choosing which grade level you can use where probably 27% or so would say we don't think it's appropriate in any grade level at all. So that's where the pairing of that information

088came in together. But we also wanted the information around what is a grade level because that is the piece that we heard from the board and we heard from other stakeholders that AI is not appropriate at every grade level. And so we wanted that feedback as to if it is not appropriate at every grade level, what is the place where if you had to choose because we are we are being asked to choose as a as an institution to look at where we would like to where where we would want to provide guard rails or limit or give additional access where would be the place to to do that. So that's where those two things were brought together. Got it. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. I mean I I do just I don't think

089we necessarily have to increase AIUs at any grade level, but I understand what you're saying. and then the last question that I'll ask right now is you talk a little bit in the presentation about future careers or college readiness. what have your conversations with higher level institutions been on how they are using or not using AI? Their implementation is as varied as in K12. And so what I'm seeing is one we have where at the teacher level some teachers are completely blocking AI inside of their classrooms and saying you cannot use AI and the translation for them is they're basically saying you can't use a computer in my class because that's just the easiest way for me to make sure you're not using it. You can't have access to a computer. Others are looking and

090they're saying, "I know you're going to use it, so you need to provide me with your sources and you also need to provide me with your a transcript of what you put inside of the AI tool." And then the third layer in there is where they're looking and they're saying because I know you're going to use it, I'm actually going to modify my lesson so that my lesson has the assumption built in that you're using AI to help you answer this. So I'm going to provide a variety of pieces where I may have that you're doing some writing but you're also going to have classroom discussion for example inside of inside of inside of the lesson. So there is a split that is that is happening there where there are more and more colleges that

091are applying applying policies themselves around the use the use of AI but is still a piece where at the in individual like in instructor level it is it is very split. I shared previously and you know superintendent shared where I went to the University of California, University of California, Berkeley and it was the CIO of California the University of California Berkeley was sharing that at her school she received information where it was AI is great. It is the future of everything that we're going to do. we should be using wind in every single classroom right away and I have a AI tool that I want the university to use. there was I'm not sure about AI but I know that my students are using it so let's develop further policies and have deep conversations around

092it and there was AI is absolutely destroying the planet Berkeley is a place that believes and has been this center for protection why are we even having this discussion so the split even at the college level even at a place that is seen as a tech forward place like Berkeley is is there and it's something that's replicating all all throughout. Okay. Okay. I mean that's helpful to know that we're not you know it's it's not as though colleges or universities all have you know the same opinion about AI and we're supposed to prepare them for something that they all already have in place. They're sort of struggling with it as the rest of us. So thank you so much. All right. Member Salamanca. Thank you, Chair. and thank you for this very thoughtful presentation. It's

093it's awesome that we were able to get I mean 15,000 responses is some really good data. it's just such a messy conversation for so many reasons. number one, it's obviously I spend a lot of my time in the tech world. that's kind of where my other half of my time goes is investing in tech and spending time being at the edge of all things AI. And what is so interesting about the conversation is I don't know 10 15 years later from the one-on-one devices policy we are at a point where we are getting results on one-on-one device and perhaps it's not so great effectiveness of every kid having a device and the why is really important because I think that the conversation is really messy because our takeaways that then inform our AI commentary are

094based on oneonone devices and tech. And if we don't get the why 101 failed correctly, we're going to get AI wrong. And they're two very different conversations. So one-on-one devices or just in general call it the call it inflection points. There was when everybody got a smartphone in their hands including kids and when everyone got social media that's a Facebook account, an Instagram account. It is clear that there are some serious mental health issues that come with a child having access to social media. And a lot of the research that we're seeing, all of the litigation that we're seeing is Facebook having to answer questions on the damage that social media at a really young age has caused students. Okay. So, there's there's that conversation. I don't think that there's going to be any new

095discoveries that social media benefits the development or mental health or students. Then there is the implementation of one-on-one devices, right? So every school or every student had a tablet or a computer and the reasoning behind this was very well-intentioned, right? It was about accessibility. It was about equity. It was some kids have a computer and internet at home, some kids do not. So we want to give everyone oneonone devices. The intention was amazing. There was a lot of money spent in getting devices into every family and every kid. Now, why did it fail or why is it not as great as it was? Number one, because we handed this in classrooms and students and families, but the implementation was not the same across. Some families would use it. The adherence was not the same. Right?

096So you could have an amazing program like maybe an I Ready or what was the one before I ready that some people like some people hated. Remind me again. I Ready. Okay. So there was I Ready. Right. So some teachers would use it, some teachers wouldn't, some parents loved it, some kids loved it. And so what ended up happening was that everybody had one-on-one devices. Everyone had a choice of what type of software to use, how to implement it, how to adhere to it, and what data we were tracking or not tracking. So what ended up being is a simple question such as do we have any proof that this software works that this online program works that one oni oneonone devices work we can't get an answer to because we have terrible outcome data

097because we had terrible adherence and we had terrible implementation this is not just OCPS I'm talking education K through 12 in the country and so what one like if I were to go back and say what was one of the biggest mistakes education had was if you cannot implement something well robustly and measurably accurately and I know the word mandate triggers people but mandate something you will not know if it works and so we there might be incredible ad tech programs out there that do work in some settings and some other and we won't know because we just don't have the right ecosystem to test it out and we're not either mandating or having a strong implementation or adherence process And that's why every time we bring up to this board, here's a new program

098or a new technology, is it working or not working? That data is so difficult. And I know that the superintendent and our team has our strategy office has been working really hard on giving us real data on what is effective or not in our classrooms. But that is a one of the real reasons why one-on-one devices failed in the classroom. The second thing was students had a smartphone at home with their parents and what they were experiencing on Facebook and on their phones was so different from what they were experiencing in the classroom. I mean the stuff in the classroom even on a one-on-one device it was old, it was antiquated, it was poorly implemented, it was boring. And when they went home and they had games and they had YouTube and they had social

099media, there was this huge gap on what they were experiencing outside and inside the classroom. And students long term, including during COVID years, and we're still recovering from this, are completely disengaged from the education system. They don't think it's helpful. They don't find it valuable because they think it's such a gap between what they're experiencing in the real world and online on their phones from what they experience in the classrooms. And that's that's perception whether it's true or not or accurate or not. That is what it is. I have so there's the conversation of what worked and didn't work with oneonone devices with edtech with all this stuff. I don't think we it's one big conversation. I think we have to disagregate it and then have some takeaways to then inform the conversation on AI

100because they're not the same. But AI has the promise of doing things that apparently has never really truly been possible. Right? So the same issues we had with one-on-one devices and AI on deep work and spending time developing the critical math and reading skills that you need before you can use the tools or before you use the calculator. Like I'm fully on board with our parents on elementary school. when you're building foundational skills on math or literacy, it doesn't make sense to have that because you have to build your own like brain architecture before you can then build on top of it. But AI everything that ed reasons why edtech has struggled in the past is it's impossible to do personalized learning, right? It's one teacher, 20 kids. So you can't have 25 different tracks.

101That's one of the reasons that we hear this all the time from teachers. The best teachers say, "If we could, I would have a portfoliun classroom and each of my kids would have a portfolio like education. It's impossible. It doesn't scale 1 to 30, 1 to 25." AI, it's actually really good at this. That's probably one of the benefits. Not saying we should do it, but that is the reality that it has. So, personalized learning, academic support, filling in the gaps, right? That's something we've heard of. We know that some of the achievement gaps come from a teacher has to move the classroom. you have x amount of time, you missed the lesson, you didn't get it, you it didn't quite make sense, it's really hard. You either have some intervention or you're just kind

102of out of luck. And so you have some kids that continue to fall behind year after year. AI addresses a lot of these gaps and a lot of the tools say that's why I think parents and I'm so impressed with kind of how parents are thinking about this because they're very advanced. I would say they know their students and where their gaps are, right? So, academic support being number one is very clear to me. Personalized learning support number two and preparation for future careers. And I think this is a place where if public education does not catch up or address this, we're going to have a really hard time staying even more right. So, if if I have voucher money and I can spend all my voucher money hiring a consultant to build my kid

103an agent to teach them math and reading and science at the high school level. I mean, this is someone who's an expert at AI and in a couple hours can build me an agent for a couple thousand dollars. my kid does not need to come to school for academic support because your average AI agent on math, reading, and science is at the graduate level of an ed university. If you fully know how to program an AI and create an agent, that person or that agent can speak to you at all levels all the way to a graduate level of college. Where does it break in math? It breaks at proofs, but it's really good at calculus. It's really good at statistics. If you're gonna become a proof mathematician, then yeah, AI breaks. But it is

104really high up there. I mean, years of professional academic support that our teachers would need to have to be caught up to that level. And so if I'm a parent and I see that our education system is saying no AI and I can use my own money or voucher money to then use all kinds of enrichment, I would do it because I believe that if I can get all of my teachers to be graduate level teachers for an agent, then I would do that and then I'll have my kids have social emotional support and academics in school, after school, sports. And so I think like it is it is truly existential. I don't think I've seen a technology that is as existential to K-12 education as AI is today because it is really really good.

105And I highly encourage folks to look up a report by Anthropic. It's called labor market impacts of AI. Anthropic is one of the big LLMs and it has this really really cool graph that talks about you know all these AI companies are trying to track the impact of AI on the labor force and it basically measures what is the theoretical capability of AI across different things. So compute, math, business, finance, architecture, like at its full potential and usage, how good is it in different careers and then it's also mapping across all the usage around the world of what people in those professions are using it for and what is the gap between its theoretical capacity and what people today are currently using it for. And that gap is huge. I mean it's like 70 to

10680% of what today the average person in business, math, architecture using it for versus what its true potential is. And that's in people that this is happening in corporate world. This is happening at higher education. And so one of the things that is scary is that if you have a group or population or corporate or folks who lean into this heavily and figure it out and education doesn't it becomes really difficult for our parents to choose a system that is opting out of the reality of the future of this economy. I'm not saying I have the right answers and I think this is a conversation that's going to be many years over the way that one-on-one devices was. But what I would say is that our takeaways from one-on-one devices and from education has to

107be separated from AI because the reasons why that failed and why teachers maybe didn't like it or why students liked it or didn't like it is very different and the mental health consequences of smartphones and more particularly specifically of social media are not the same as that with AI. AI has its own scary mental health stuff. if you want to get down rabbit holes going into AI companions and how kids are befriending or dating these AI things. So it get really really scary for sure and that conversation is not as out there in the world but the promise of education on being personalized on filling gaps on all this stuff is really possible. So I would be supportive of us really exploring what does that look like at high school level. I'm not supportive of

108having AI in elementary school level. I think it's really important that our staff and teachers have AI literacy more so than our students. Our students, trust me, they're learning all on their own outside of the classroom. Our students do not want to sit in a Canvas course teaching them how to use AI. That's not where they're going to learn it. It just isn't. I like we should have safety and best practices and how to use AI, how not to, of course, but I really have concerns that our staff and teachers need to be caught up to the reality of the economic impact that this could have on everybody's job. And education is probably one of the highest and most vulnerable in terms of occupations. It's finance. It's office and admin support. It's legal. Sorry, John,

109but it's true. So, those are my high level thoughts. I know, Maurice, we're just kicking off this conversation. I always encourage everyone on the board and staff to go to the ASU GSV conference in San Diego, which is coming up in April. I won't be there this year, but that's kind of where some of these really important conversations happen. and I think I'm just I'm glad our parents are keeping an eye on. I would say what they expect of us is to prepare our students for the world that's ahead of them and we have to meet them and shutting down AI is probably not the right answer. but thank you. Thank you, member Salo. well, thank you. All right. I think we have member Ferrant on the line. I Yes, Madam Chair, can you hear

110me? Okay. Yes, we can. Thank you. Perfect. thank you. And I know this has been kind of a long discussion already and I echo a lot of the thoughts and concerns of the other board members. really when I look at AI, this is one of the big reasons we you know since the beginning I've really loved trade schools and have encouraged students to look at trade school options. as we're seeing in the workforce a lot of the AI is taking out many jobs like future jobs but what it will not ever take out is our plumbers, electricians, builders, nail techs, aestheticians, nurses, you name it. but the for that reason I think we need, you know, as a district, I love that we've been really helping our students to see that there it isn't just

111about getting a four-year degree at a college, but really looking to see, you know, what can you do with your hands? How can you work, how can you put in the hard work and see the results? and so I think as we see AI evolving students even are starting to see that this could you know take out those future jobs. but I also you know the other concerns you know I echo a lot of the concerns as many parents. I believe there are wise ways to use AI in the classroom but it can't be you know the supplemental teacher instruction. it can't replicate, you know, critical thinking for our students. Those are the things that when I talk with parents, that's what their main concern is. you know as we look at some of the

112ways that we're using AI in the classroom as far as you know the like you type in Google search and Google is using AI or the different forms of I know some of our ELLL learners or English language learners are using different technology that helps you know progress them as they're you know the what they're using you know the whatever the supplement is that they're using helps to see how you know how they need to advance in their English etc. Anyways but it will be imperative for us to set boundaries and teach our students staff and families how to use AI properly and then the harms of AI. I know it was already brought up the hallucinations and I think for any parent that might be listening and is curious what that really means is

113really just when AI generates fake information, false information, you know, half fact, half false, and considers it as, you know, as you're reading it, it looks like it's truth. and so those are the things that I think as parents we're really wanting to make sure that students are understanding, how are we factchecking, how are we looking this up? and we those are, you know, as we're looking at policy, I think as a board, we really need to make sure that we're setting clear boundaries and standards of what would be acceptable and what would not be. parents I think resoundingly have said that in elementary age it doesn't seem appropriate. I agree to the extent that you know some of the again like the English language learner programs that we have use AI to help listen

114to the student and then see how can it continue to give them content that will help them learn English as a second language. I think those are helpful tools. but again, in the classroom to just take over supplement, you know, take over instruction or for teachers to just use it as their guiding tool. those are the things that I would not want. I'm excited to see how this progresses and to really work with the board to create these boundaries. but those are the main things for me is to you know at what you know what level are we allowing it in and then being very clear with parents when AI is used. So let's say a student is using the ELLL supplemental you know teachings the programs if you will then the parents are informed

115this is powered by AI and maybe that one isn't. I believe it is, but if there's others that are powered by AI and then explaining to the parent how it is powered by AI and how it actually is helping the student and really being transparent with parents so that they feel comfortable because I agree we can't eliminate it completely. but yet there are many different boundaries that need to go in place and then also how is how are we protecting student data? so those are just my thoughts. I don't really have any questions at this point. I think everybody's really asked some great things and the discussion has been very robust. So I'm excited to continue listening and seeing how we can we can do this in the future. Thank Thank you, member front. I

116have member Gallo. I think that's from before. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Member Gallo. No. Well, I have member Gallo and then member Banos. And I was thinking that maybe those Yeah, that maybe it was We're back. Okay, we're back. Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. Gallow, that was not a subtle like Yeah, member Gallo. I was just asking when when we're going to break for lunch cuz I'm starving. Really? When you stop asking questions. Fair point. Fair point, chair. Is that really your question? No. Okay. but I am funny. so I just I agree with with member Salamanca. We do need to differentiate like we can't lump AI in with all edtech or with onetoone devices or with social medias because it is its own separate entity and it's it you know it's I think AI

117is what the internet was to me when I was in college when you know you had those dot matrix printers and you were just learning the internet and you were you no longer had to go to the library to used the cards to do research you it was a little easier. I mean when I look at a I think that's it's going to help it's going to be a format to help us do our job better and it is separate from onetoone devices or or the other things that you know we'll be discussing this year and but there is some harm there is some harm in AI that only through education can we engage parents and our students and that I think is what Maurice alluded to when you know he talked about AI literacy

118and that AI literacy needs to really be embedded within the policy that we create so that we are creating clear boundaries about what is needed. I did want to circle back. I loved most of what member Salamanca said. This is her field of expertise. what I would need, what information I would need moving forward to really look at I know that the parents said they view it as a way to address learning gaps or reinforce challenging concepts. but I'd like to see the data behind that because there are some research that's out there that says the opposite that, you know, edtech is kind of sold as a bill of goods in some respect and that children aren't learning to comprehend with some of these digital tools as well as they as they are with a

119with a teacher. Because for example, when they in the book when I was when they were doing research, they tested a group of students and one they just had them read, I think, a passage like three times and then they had another group of students read the passage and then there was three quiz questions, recall quiz questions. those that did the recall questions a week down the line had retained the information more than those that just read to comprehend. Even though maybe at the end they were asked questions, but those who actually physically write down and do the recall questions retain that information. Also, when you look at some of these programs that are adaptive and I and I don't doubt that they've had their benefits, they're not a human. And it's like when you're

120a teacher and you're looking you're looking at your kids and you're teaching your kids. I mean, as a substitute teacher, I wasn't a certified teacher, so I don't call myself a teacher, but you can look at children's faces and you know who's comprehending it and you know who's not. You could tell by the look of their faces. You could tell by how they're looking at you. the faces, you can monitor what they're what they're doing on their on the piece of paper. And I don't think that edtech programs can take the place of that. They can't get they just know are you right or are you wrong. and then they're it's going to adapt to whatever that looks like, right? That learning style. So I would really I'm not saying I'm against it. I would

121just really love to look at the research and the data that backs us up. if there's data that shows yes, kids are learning better on this program because it is helping with learning gaps, it is helping them learn the product and it is beneficial, then I'm I am all for it. but I would really really and I know that we do that with every year when we look at return on investment when we do programs like are we seeing the results from those programs and we've eliminated some programs because we did not see we didn't see that the data didn't show us what we wanted it to do and so we did pivot and we move on. So I just when we're looking at personalized learning from a digital standpoint I would really like to

122see what what is the data what does the data show us? Is it really helping that child learn long term? So, you know, a week from now, two weeks from now, will they be able to recall and remember? Did they comprehend? Did they retain that knowledge? Because what I'm reading is it is harder for students to retain the information when it's given digitally. So, those are like some of the conversations that I would like to have. beyond that, I do think that it is here. I mean, it's not going to go anywhere. and I would, you know, if we're really, as we create and go through AI literacy and AI policy and what it looks like, I do think that we should be looking at like AI literacy indicators for the portrait of the graduate.

123I don't think we have that right now, but that might be something that we would want to add to a portrait graduate as we build out programs. Like, what does AI literacy look at? What are our AI literacy goals? Like, what are we trying to accomplish with AI literacy? what are our goals around AI literacy once we create those goals those goals should be embedded in the portrait of a graduate so that it's something that we can measure did we do and achieve our goals so that's something that I would like to see just because I think it would be transparent I think it would help us as we move forward because as we navigate this whole AI world we're going to pivot we're going to make changes some things are going to work some

124things aren't going to work and we're going to have to rely on the research and the data to show us what we've done well and where we need we need to pivot. And so I just I really think that with AI that we're really going to have to lean on the research because every kid does learn differently. You know, you have auditory, you have visual, and I think there's a third one, I can't remember. But research also tells us shows us that in front of a teacher, they can all learn even if they have different learning styles. They can all learn with a teacher because of that personal impact and the ability of a teacher to really kind of diagnose what what a what a student is grasping. And there's something to be said about

125body language. You know, I mean, you a computer can't pick that up, a teacher can, you know, if a child is frustrated, they could pick that up. So, again, you know, I'm excited about what AI means for our students. I do think that we need to be diligent with how we roll it out and we need to be responsible. I do have just a few questions. I'm wondering like when we asked about the on the competitive advantage and it says AI effectively may be at a disadvantage compared to parents express concerns that students who do not learn how to use AI effectively may be at a disadvantage compared to peers who can leverage it to increase efficiency. What a like was there an age that they felt that it was more appropriate or do you

126have an age that you feel is more appropriate for the integration of AI? And then I also and this is just a personal question because I don't know the answer. I'm sure member Salamanca does and maybe some of my other board members, but there is a lot of conversation around the energy and water consumption required to p power AI data centers. I know there were some laws that went through the legislature this year about certain requirements as those data centers come into Florida so that they're handled responsibly and they're environmentally safe. So, if you could just talk a little bit about about that because there is I guess a huge increase in water usage and every time I'm on chat GPT my daughter tells me you know how much water you just wasted. Really? Yes.

127So, beginning first with the competitive the competitive advantage piece that those were comments that were captured in the free tax component of the of the responses while I and definitely as board board member Vanos asked for I'll share the individual responses that were shared by parents. While I can I can share those pieces. Unfortunately, I was not able to in the free text ver in the free text comments link those back to the individual respondents in inside of the report that I have from from thought exchange. I'll go back and continue to look at different ways to to do that, but I wouldn't be able to say, for example, that it was respondents from high schools that mentioned college and career and career and career readiness, but I'll be able to share the actual responses

128responses themselves. specific to the concern around around water, I was looking into the data around that because that was a point that was brought up in in the in the comments from parents. The data on water use is nuanced. And by nuance I basically mean that the comparison that I that that I saw that was helpful for me mentally to consider it is that if you manage imagine a micro that every single home that has a microwave that everyone has a microwave they use it the microwaves have different you know power that they're using and overall microwaves in every single home in the nation are using a lot of power. Now, imagine if we developed a piece where we could have a central microwave that handled the power resources, but everyone could still have the

129microwave in their house. So, you could put your food in, you could start in the microwave, but the power that it drew was not from your specific house or from your specific neighborhood or even state. It just drew the power from wherever that central microwave was located. Now, you could actually have less power being used. It could be actually more efficient than every single person having their individual microwave drawing power. And so, environmentally, there's actual benefit to that, especially from the benefit we're all getting from using a microwave. But for the town that is having that central microwave in that town, they're going to look and they're going to say, "Hey, now we're having to share our power grid with this new microwave company and they're using some of our they're using more of our

130power than our grid was initially set up to do." And it's the same thing with the conversations around water and water use and AI in that the use of water is impacting the towns where the data centers are being built and many of them don't have starting out infrastructure that was initially built to really serve both the community and serve the data center and the usage that's there. Now, it's a split conversation as all these conversations around AI are because there's a there's a piece where you look and you say, "How does AI water usage compare to any other usage? How does it compare with the water that's used?" I saw an example in a YouTube video just two days ago where if you compare the usage of water for AI compared to the usage

131of water for corn that is then used to create fuel that is then just put in vehicles and just burnt. We're talking about a magnitude of difference. And so there's an environmental concern with it for sure. But I do think that you know I've I've heard things like 30 30 AI searches may be equivalent to like a you know a thing of of water or something else like that. So the scale it's not zero. The scale is certainly there. I think the numbers are large when you hear them just hearing the number without any context. But I think within the larger context of how water is used in an environment overall, I think the impact of water for example on just the water we use to water our lawns is greater than the impact of

132the water use with for AI. So thank you. That's that was very helpful information. Thank you. Thank you member Fanos. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for that explanation. Okay. I, you know, I think just sort of synthesizing sort of what I'm thinking after hearing everybody speak, you know, I think, you know, tools, it's been said AI is just a tool, but tools shape outcomes. And so we do have to be extremely aware of what we're doing and what you know and the choices that we're making. And you know every minute that we're spending on AI, every minute that we're spending trying to detect AI, every minute that we're spending trying to detect detect the AI every, you know, it's it's time that we're not spending on something else. And it's also every dollar

133that we spend on AI, you know, whether it's edtech that now incorporates more AI is money that we're not spending on something else. And so I think we I would really like to truly take a look at every single one of those instances in which we are using an AI component in what in our instruction. and just because we're already doing it doesn't mean that we should keep doing it if there's not good evidence to support it. and you know, when we talk about AI, I hear a lot about its potential. But again, potential is not grounded in evidence. It's grounded in faith and desire. And I'm not I'm really not interested in having our students try to figure out what the best use of AI in education is. I would also say that what

134you know whe they're talking about AI or edtech, I would not say it's personalized learning. There's no person. It's individualized learning. And I'm not sure that's the benefit that we're looking for. When we talk about agents teaching students, I can understand that the interest and the desire that is there. But I do think a huge part of learning, it's not just that the teachers can look at the students and read their body language to try to determine whether they're understanding something. There's another relationship between the student and the teacher to where there is like an empathetic relationship that is developed and it helps the students learn when they care about the person they're learning from. and that just cannot be and shouldn't be replicated in an agent in my opinion. and then, you know, finally,

135I'll just say I don't I think that I don't agree that businesses should be driving K12 education. They can be influential. We can listen to what they're saying. For example, businesses are saying students need soft skills and I think we should be working hard to develop those soft skills probably more than we're working hard to develop AI skills. but I don't think that what a business says should be driving what we're doing in K12 education. let's see. You know, and I guess I would just go back to is the way that humans are learning. Has it changed? I'm not sure that it has. I think there are I think the same components that have always existed continue to exist. you know, there there's there needs to be students having the attention span to learn information,

136sort of that memory piece of it, and then the transfer of the skills that they're learning in the classroom to other situations. I'm not sure that's really changed. And so, I know we talk about having to change the way we're teaching, but I'm not really sure that is reflecting any change in the way humans actually learn. Maybe students preferences have changed, but that doesn't their preference doesn't mean they are going to learn better learning in a different way. My one of my kids would prefer to have ice cream every night for dinner, but that's that's just a preference. so I mean those are some of the things I'm thinking about. And you know, also we talk about the workforce. what we're teaching an eighth grader or a ninth grader in terms of technology is like

137technology is going to be way changed by the time they get out and they get enter the workforce and they'll be able to learn those skills that they need for that job when they're when they're at that time. again, I I just I think we're we're putting too much emphasis on things that are not core to the core of what we do, which is teach students to be able to learn a to teach students to be able to use any tool in the future, not a particular tool. It's building that educational endurance that you know, cognitive thinking. that's really what we should be doing so that whatever technology they are experiencing in the future, they're ready and able to learn it. so, so those are just my set of thoughts at the end of this.

138Thank you. There's a couple things I want to Okay, you hear me now? Yep. There are things that a teacher and a human is uniquely incredible at. And AI is nowhere near matching that, right? So AI is really good at individualized pacing just because it can, like we said with APS, an AI can create an IP per student in 10 seconds. It's at at scale and efficiently. It can fill out the forms that it takes teachers hours in minutes. Right? So if AI can fill out IEPS, which is one of the most complicated, high-risisk things to get wrong at efficiency and at scale, it can do individualized personalized learning plans as well. So that is proven. There are many tools out there that any board member here who wishes to sit down with companies that

139can walk them through a demo of how that is being done and other districts are using this technology. It is being done and it's being done well. how we implement it or if we want to implement it or if we want to mandate it or not totally up to us. It's really good at doing things at scale efficiently. It's really good at identifying gaps. So seeing how students interact with softwares and seeing where students are answering things because they get it versus they don't get it. What are teachers uniquely good at? Especially our really really great teachers emotional attunement. That's to member Galla's point, right? reading the room and understanding where emotionally a student is at. Are they hungry and not paying attention? Like are they having some behavioral issues? Like AI is not going

140to do that. Motivation and belonging, right? Motivating a student. Tell them they can do it. Tell them you struggled with this. It was really impressive how you came back and figured it out eventually. Building bond and trust, right? Like research shows that the best teachers build a bond and trust with students that allow them to decrease their stress response and therefore be open to learning. So that's what makes a good teacher student relationship. Moral and ethical guidance. AI has no morality. It you could lead it in whatever way you want. A lot of the programs in education are trying to have some guardrails around that. But a teacher is there to hopefully teach some what's good or bad. But even then we still have a lot of debate about what is good or bad up

141here. And so that's still a human component. mentorship and role modeling, right? All that stuff is things that is a human and a teacher in a room is so important. So I'm not saying teachers are going to go away because of AI. That's not happening anytime soon. But we do track NPS over students and students feeling of belonging. And we're not doing great. So status quo we're not doing great on how our students feel that they are being treated well that teachers are all of their teachers have interest in them in their future in their careers in their belonging our engagement numbers are students engaged with what's being taught in the classroom not very high either so I'm not in defense of the status quo because it's not good and to the point of businesses

142I'm not saying we should do K through2 education to our businesses I don't I'm not saying a business tells me what to teach or what goes on in the classroom. I'm going off of the survey of our parents where it says preparation for the workforce is a top concern from them and one of the reasons why they want AI to be considered. And our parents in Florida now vote with their attendance. Either they send their kids to our schools or they don't. This has nothing to do with having business accountability or business telling us what to do. This has to do with our parents telling us what they need to see from the education system so that they continue to bring their students here. We can choose to listen to them or not. But it

143is something that is very clear from that. I agree that it is AI is just a tool and any tool just as we have up here any tool any program we should measure outcomes. We should have accountability. We should be thoughtful about the adherence of those programs and those technologies. We should be thoughtful about the implementation and where are we implementing it well and not and measuring outcomes fairly and efficiently. But that shouldn't only be for our programs and AI and technology. We need to have accountability and outcomebased monitoring for everything else that goes in this district. And so I'm happy to hold AI to a super high standard on outcomes and accountability and adherence and implementation, but then we need to hold everyone as well accountable. Because if the outcome is having our students

144learn and we're saying there's different ways they could learn and there's different things that we could be doing, then we have to be fair. But we hear from our parents that we need to be thinking differently about AI and its implementation and the future of their students careers and critical thinking. We're hearing from students that the things that humans are uniquely good at emotional tunement, motivation, mentorship, coaching, making me feel bonded, making me have trust, making me feel like I belong in the classroom, that there's an adult that cares about my future. our students, I'm not saying all a lot of our students are answering, that's not what the human in the classroom is doing today. So if the human in the classroom today is not doing the part that the human in the classroom

145is uniquely strong at doing and I can prove that AI is teaching all the way up to graduate math level better than the human, then we have a existential question about where do we have accountability? where do we have resources and what is the best outcome for our students and we can have that conversation here it's a very difficult conversation to have and if we choose not to have it and treat AI the same way we treated different technologies or programs or whatnot we can try this here the implementation is whatever the outcomes are give or take like our parents are going to vote with their student enrollment maybe not today but in two years three years five when they start having alternatives or when charter schools or private schools or AI pop-up schools start

146to come up and do solve for what is the strength of AI and what is the strength of the human I it's not unique to OCPS this is a question of K- through2 education and AI and I don't think AI is like all other technologies so it's it's a really difficult conversation but it's one that corporate America is for sure having Right? The Harvard Business School MBA has a 25% unemployment rate because the jobs coming out of the top MBA program in this country are being automated by AI. So if HBS MBAs are asking themselves the question of what am I uniquely good at in this new economy, we have to ask those questions on behalf of our students. And it's very clear that parents are concerned. I mean, I talk to parents all the

147time. or like even if my kid graduates at the top of the class, goes to Harvard, gets an MBA, 25% unemployment rate, that's very difficult as a parent. And our parents are anxious. I hear from them all the time. I'm concerned my kid is entering an economy with not the right skills or I don't know what AI means for them or I don't know what job they're going to have. And I think those are very fair questions. And if you have a kid in elementary school today, you're going to be asking those questions constantly. And so as public dollars continue to be a huge thing in every state, like we're just going to have to have what does it look like for us to really take accountability implementation and adherence of technology very seriously for

148us to actually actually be outcomes focused. Thank you. Whoa. Okay. I am glad I'm not the superintendent. So a little of my nature I think has always been to to play devil's advocate. so if anything I say comes across as disagreeing, it's that's not that's not the intent. One thing we haven't talked about and maybe it's not that big of a deal but it came up under I think questions or concerns was hypocrisy and it comes to my mind because listening to member Salamanca and I think I think we all understand that there are ways that AI can save us a lot of time and that time we can spend doing the things that only we can do. I do want to caveat only we can do when we talk about connecting for not the

149board members but for members of the public who may not be using AI. It is amazing the way it talks to me. Okay. and I mean starting from vision 2050 to issues with my starter for my sourdough bread and everything in between. I had a question yesterday and it was like based on your, you know, meticulous da da da da and it went back to 2050 and it like pulled all this together to tell me based on how thoughtful and insightful and just wonderful I am this would be the answer and I mean very few people are as complimentary to me as AI. So, I just I do think we need to be a little cautious about thinking that connections aren't being made, especially when we hear really really tragic things like you know, a

150a young man who took his life after conversations with AI. Now, another one took his life when a girlfriend talked him into it. But again, I just I I'm just throwing that out there because something I heard about oh about how we make connections and AI does doesn't. So I think we need to be kind of careful also when we're using AI that we're in some way able to make sure that those connections are being made. I have no idea how to do that. I think at some point there will be things built into the guardrails for AI so that you can maybe choose an option that isn't so personal. back to the hypocrisy and I've heard that from students and now having it pop up. the idea that our teachers can use it but

151our students can't and knowing why our teachers can use it and why our students shouldn't in many cases I think is that why is something that we need to be able to respond to and to me it's it's fairly clearcut that there's a difference between when you're in the learning phase and when you're just in the kind of almost robotic doing phase. So, I want to learn how to build a spreadsheet and it's a it's a useful skill to know how to build it and I need to then know what formulas do what and all of those things to have that basic understanding. How does algebra work and why does it work? But once you've mastered those, do you really need to build every spreadsheet? Or is it helpful that you have a tool and

152you tell it three or four things and bada boom, it's there in 30 seconds instead of three and a half hours if you're me and that's a good day. same thing about PowerPoint presentations. I think there's value in learning how to build them because that also helps you know some of the expectations that you can reasonably have. So I think the difference with our students is they really have to they have to have those fundamental skills. I think most parents understand that. But when they're questioning why teachers get to use them, I think it's also important that we can explain what the teachers are using them for and why that makes sense. Which then brings us to what teachers can and should be using them for. And certainly, you know, things like grading, as long

153as there's careful oversight to make sure it's accurate, things that come to mind for me is, you know, for instance, when a student's doing, is getting something wrong on a math test and to be able to see are there reasons the questions the math questions they're getting wrong, is there some commonality in why they're getting it wrong. I mean, I don't know if they still do it, but you know, making the student write out each part of the equation, then you can find which part they're going wrong. So, those types of of uses make a lot of sense and I do think most people when you take a minute to explain that we are using it very limited, but where we're using it, the purpose is to speed up the process. So we make available

154the time that we need in those more important or those areas that students really need that direct contact. measuring outcomes. member Salamanca has addressed has brought this up several times and you also mentioned at one point that in order to measure an outcome successfully, you really need to have consistent 100% mandatory kind of use and I I agree with that too. And I don't know where when I said I would not want to be a superintendent, especially you right this minute. that's a that's a heavy lift, but I think I I agree with all of your suggestions there. Implementing them may be extremely challenging, but it's very hard for us to measure. I'm wondering I mean at some point there will be a lot more information out there that we will not have to develop

155ourselves but in that middle ground area I think cautious is a better approach but I also agree with member Salamanca that we can't be so timid that we're not engag engaged. job market I thought was, you know, also a really good point. I mean, I think we all know that we're worried about the job market, but I'm not a parent right now raising kids and thinking about this. I'm not a student right now trying to figure out, you know, I mean, once upon a time it was why do I need to know calculus, you know, and now it's why do I need to know anything? So, and yeah, and not just because I'm I'm questioning whether I really need to learn. The question is what what what exactly do I need to learn because what

156jobs are going to be out there? and so I think a focus and internal focus on understanding that better. I'm looking forward to I think it was member Salamanca. Member Salamanca. I'm like I used one last. Yeah. no, but there was a good book that I haven't read yet. on it was 2D's digital delusion I think it was and then the other I think you mentioned it the labor the labor force impact whoever brought that up I think that it is really important we keep talking you know about from classroom to career and a a really kind of deep dive into what those careers might look like so that you know we're making a focused attempt to explore and to direct our kids and our parents into fields that we think are viable other than

157plumbing. Although nothing wrong with plumbing, but I mean I other options in addition to plumbing. and the last thing was on the environment. do we think because it is every time I hear the statistics it really frightens me. Do we think Mr. Dragon that there will be that there'll be technology that allows us to use AI without using so much water. And the second is are they can we use I'm assuming we should be able to use salt water and not portable water. So the usage of water and the places where they're building the in the AI factories right now the kind of water that's needed to cool the to cool the cool inside the factories it is it needs to be clean water. So it is in those specific areas competing with Did you

158say it is drinking water? Yeah, it is. It does need to be you want water that where you don't have to do processing afterwards or processing before that water comes in to make sure that there's not any of the leftover like the salt from salt water or things like that. that would then you would have to figure out how to make sure that's not getting caught up in any of the components that you're using. So there certain places inside of the process where you do need to have clean, you know, the same kind of water that is being used for warding lawns or whatever else that you have that same kind of clean clean water that you're using. What's interesting is part of the race that's happening right now is a race to actually take

159data centers off planet for what? Off planet. So there's this whole question around data centers in space. Uhhuh. And the piece around you have much more space overall in space to build. you have much less concern around the power requirements because you're getting power from the sun and so they're looking at alternatives around that. there's a lot of reconsideration that's taking place around nuclear. part of the consideration that's happening there is that when nuclear was first put in place, there were a couple very, you know, dramatic highlighted failures with nuclear. The question has become is it still a technology that requires the same caution that has been put in place with it? And it's it's not clear so far and it's being it's being explored whether or not nuclear is something that can be the

160power generation source and with it being the power generation source can it also help with the water component component of of things and then I think the third part around it overall is this question of us really start starting to really really evaluate and come to a consensus around the impact of the water that we are using. I saw an interesting conversation was taking place around the environment overall and it was a conversation around like CO2 emissions and the conversation was basically that if we simply take CO2 emissions as our as our target and we say we want to reduce that. Well, if you compare them children hospitals emit more CO2 yearly than cruise ships. But if we were talking about what's important to humanity and if we were going to target where we wanted

161to cut CO2 emissions, we wouldn't charge hospitals first because we would look and we would say, you know, there's a societal good there or there's a piece there that we find help helpful. and maybe, you know, there's goods and cruise ships also, but we would make decisions as a society that are deeper in our conversations. So I think that's the other piece with with when we look at the technology overall and when we look at AI overall when so yeah so that's an excellent job and much deeper than I was expecting but as I'm listening to you what comes to mind is you know we're going to have a constituency that cares about this. I mean I'm I'm part of that constituency. I think most of this board is but at the same time this

162is a tool that is being and will be used worldwide and similar to so many things that Dr. Vazquez and I will talk about and she'll remind me that's not our piece of the pie. in that we can't we can't be all things. We could possibly if we had all the money, but we don't. So, in this in this area, I guess in a way this is this is not our lane because we have so little control on the impact either way. I think I still put myself a little at ease believing that there are other technologies that we haven't thought of, dreamed of. And you brought up some I certainly didn't. that will address this problem or the problem will become so unbearable that it'll have to be addressed but I think it's outside

163of again outside of the scope of what we can do. So those those were my thoughts and comments member Felder and then member Gallow. Thank you so much. What a robust discussion we're having. and we do need to have it because this is some serious decisions we have to make as it relates to our governing the use of AI. Something that board member Salom Monica spoke about, but she didn't stay on it long. talked about IEPs and what AI could do. And IEPs can be and is extremely exhausting, lack of a better word, to write them because if you are a teacher and you really are writing them, you can't hurry through a IEP. you I mean and my concern even if AI can assist. It's not emotional. It's not it's it's a computer is

164man-made. I mean it's not I I have concerns. I know maybe in drafting and pulling it together, but a teacher when she writes a IEP, it's direct observation and there's a relationship that the teacher here or she has with the student and familiarity with the students educational past. And so I take caution that a superficial intelligence will write it. Maybe you meant that it could assist with the lining and structure of it, but I've written them and I've observed my teacher friends who were specifically dealing with children with varying abilities having to take two or three days to deal with them. And just as a teacher with maybe a total of 10 kids or eight kids and all of my 200 some kids I taught that's not a lot but when you have to do

165it quarterly and you have to specifically deal with some of their abilities varying abilities it does take time but you want I for one wanted to have my own thoughts about the student because I don't want anybody to do it for me because I'm the one that's teaching. So maybe I'm not understanding now in terms of a structure having me line it up. That could be some help, but I don't need it to do it for me because I'm I'm the teacher. So maybe I did not understand what you were saying with the with the AI. and it can again I'm go back to my previous statement at early on in this discussion. As a board member, I would be very concerned that we govern the structure of how this how AI is going to

166be used by our educators, teachers and administrators and so forth because we cannot leave anything to chance. Teaching alone in this educational environment that we're now in is exhausting in more than one way. It's exhausting. And I don't want to add to the staffing specialists, the district administrators that are here that have to oversee that and the principles administrators. Some schools will not even have they may have a AP or they may not, you know, and or dean or whatever. So, it's it's just a lot. So, I and when you are exhausted and you're tired, human nature would tell you what's the easiest way to get through with this. This is what I'm going to do. I'm just being honest with you. I've been doing 40 years. I know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm

167not lying. You're just going to do the best thing so you can get through with it. And that's not what we want to do. We have to do the best that we can. So as we are in this position ladies and I know we're all this discussion I know people are getting tired but this needs to be discussed thoroughly that we will really consider how we govern and set up policies with this AI because it can work. It can there are a lot of things that it does is so positive. Heck, when I go on Facebook, I use AI, Tik Tok AI, all of that craziness. We do it every day, daily, and it's addictive. It really is. However, when we're dealing with the molding of minds of little ones, it's so important. I had

168a student call me yesterday. I said, "What year did you graduate from Edgewater?" He said, "1 2016." And he was fierce. That's all I'm going to say. He was something else. He had he said, "Miss Feld, I got two degrees. I have a college degree, NBA, and I'm in the army. I'm getting ready to go to Hawaii Friday. I want to see if I can see you." I said, "This week might be hard, baby." Say, "But I" He said, "Your number, I realize is the same, but my number changed." He was my football son. He was something else. And I just had to just breathe. And I said, "Oh my god, I'm so proud of you. I never thought that kid would get to that point because again I was doing different paperwork for him

169and I said I'm I just we talked for an hour a didn't do that. I had to write stuff out about that kid and then he's advanced. I'm just so proud of him. I mean, there's hundreds of students that we probably have through this district that are doing so well, married with two kids and in the armed forces. I say, "You're not going to have to go over and fight." They say, "No, I'm over HR. I'm a I'm I'm I'm a desk person. I got to go fight nobody war. I'm the desk person, but I'm going to Hawaii. Got to be stationed there for three years." So, I'm I was just so excited as I began to look back. So again, I'm hoping that as we begin to set up our policies to deal with

170AI in our educational institutions here that we really Maurice and you help us come up with ways to seriously monitor how it's done and that we will not exhaust even more teachers responsibilities as they fill out IEP. PS and as they teach and as they grade papers. Thank you. Yeah, I think you bring up a couple of really key points and it fits in with even some of the initial discussions we've had when we are talking about evaluating evaluating AI and AI tools. And I think the first piece that it fits into is this general I won't say general is the insight that we have received very clearly from parents through the survey from the board which is that AI should not be introduced for AI's sake that there needs to be some connection with

171the work that we're doing whether it is with students that is educational in nature and it's actually meeting some academic ac academic component that we're trying to meet or with staff that there is an operational component potentially focusing on efficiency if that's the area that we're going to target that we should use in our evaluation of the AI tool. The second piece is this question around just something off the shelf. you know, speaking specifically around IEP, IEPs, for example, a general tool that is not tailored to Florida law or IEPs that is not tailored to the specific recommendations that the district gives around what should be in an IEP. That's a tool that out the box would not really be just appropriate to just take and just say, "Oh, teachers start using this." And it

172would definitely be a tool that we'd want to make sure that we the term that I used before that we red team that we are looking at that tool that we are centrally before you even take it and push it out to everyone just say start using this that you're actually testing it to make sure that the outcomes that provide the baseline help that you're providing for folks actually is there and I think as we go into the policy discussion there's a component in the policy that that in the draft policy that talks about this which is who's the final decider who's the person who at the end is going to say this IEP is good this whatever is being made using the AI tool is good and what we've heard very clearly from all

173the stakeholders is that we still want the person to be that decider the person to say this IEP truly reflects what this child needs and that's the intent of what we need we expect to do with any tool that we're going to use with students or with teachers Thank you. All right. Thank you, Member Felder. Member Gallo. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a quick question. I think it's on page 15. It discusses when combining responses of uncomfortable and very uncomfortable. 40.1% of parents indicated discomfort with AI use under teacher guidance. And then it goes up when it's independent. do we know why? like the context of that or why parents are uncomfortable or very uncomfortable with the use of AI when a teacher is guiding them from what was captured inside of the

174free text free text area. A component of the responses for those who were either comfort uncomfortable or very uncomfortable with AI is one they were just uncomfortable with AI overall no matter who was using it and in what context it was it was being used. The second layer that played into that is if you are going to use it, what are the safeguards that are going to be in place to make sure that we're not shortcircuiting those things that we've talked about that it's not short short circuit circuiting the students learning and that it's not just being used for for cheating. Those made up the biggest areas where there was lack of comfort with it because parents were looking for asurances or they were looking for the actions that teachers in the district were taking

175in the implementation of AI to ensure that their students were still learning what they needed to learn and I think that played a large role in the responses in those areas. Okay. Thank you. So then I would or could I assume that after we create a policy, we put in those guard rails, we ensure that critical thinking is still happening, we address the concerns of the parent that number would go down. Would that be accurate? I think that number is something that we do have to continually track to make sure that it would be impacted by the by the steps that we're taking. And it's as I said from even the creation of the survey the survey was created so that we could it could be actionable and that also that we have an accountability

176pathway that if we say this is a concern for parents we've implemented whatever resources were implemented in this way. I do think there is a pathway here where we go back and we say does this actually meet what you what you're what you're looking at and it's a piece that I'll mention the policy piece also which is that it really is going to require us with any of the tools or the resources we are looking at to implement to number one have have some legitimate checkpoints where we're going back and we're looking and we're saying is this doing what we actually expected to do you know most of the times we do that towards the end of end of the year or the end of the cycle or the end of the of when we've

177you know whatever the contract the contract length is that I think that now brings in part of that discussion o overall because I think has been said here very clearly we have to when we're when we are looking at the resources that we're using the intent can never be we're using this because it allows us to use AI because AI is not the intent of what we have in our strategic plan. It's not the intent of the standards. It's not the intent of anything that we're doing. And so even with the tools that we have right now, when we look at the instructional materials that we have, none of those instructional materials when the committees were looking at them were adopted because the committee said, "Oh, this tool is really good good at AI." We

178looked at it and we said it's a tool that we think will be helpful in helping us teach math or helping us with reading. The AI was just a added added benefit or or compliment. And I think as we continue to go down go down this road and look at any other different tools, I think the why will continue to be incredibly important and checking back in with our constituents will continue to be very important to make sure we're actually meeting their needs. Thank you. And I would be interested in, you know, just continue to pull that thread and ensure that as we move forward that we're kind of gaining the trust of parents to use AI under a teacher's guidance because I just want to make sure is it a distrust of AI, is

179it a distrust of our policies, or is it a distrust of the teachers ability to guide them through AI? So, I guess that those were my questions when I read that. So, thank you very much. All right. Thank you. I'm going to call for a break now before anybody has a opportunity to push their button and Oh, I thought I thought you did just mess with me. I heard a click. but we are going to take a break for lunch. I we're going to try to keep it brief because we still have a lot of ground to cover. So, estimate Dr. fastest on how much time if we could try 15 minutes because we still have a pol AI policy code of conduct legislative update and leasing. Oh, you didn't consider this the AI policy?

180No. But I'm I'm hoping that because there's been such discussion, what you will hear from Mr. dragon around the draft policy captures what you've said and then any additional comments that we need aside from what you've just shared over the last two hours can be incorporated into changes for the policy two hours well but it's it's two I'm sorry three hours yes all All right, let's take a 15minute break. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Hey, Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Oh, hey. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Down. Woo! Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat.

181easy, easy. Heat. Heat. down. Heat. Heat. Heat. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, Heat. I'm heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. -huh. Heat. Heat. N. Repeat. All right, welcome everyone. We're back in session and Dr. Basquez, you're reckoning. thank you, Madam Chair. We are going to continue our conversation around artificial intelligence. We have brought before the board a draft and I stress draft policy and more than anything we wanted you to take a look at it. Give us any additional comments you might have and then we can use that to tweak the draft policy and then bring it back to you again. So, we knew you were having the results of the survey which have informed some

182of the elements we've included in our draft policy. We are going to take into consideration all of the comments that were shared earlier today and then anything else that is added as a u as part of the review of the policy. So, Mr. Dragon. Mhm. Good afternoon, Superintendent Vasquez, Chair Jacobs, and members of the school board. Today, we will review the draft acceptable use of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies policy. The acceptable use of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies draft policy was developed through a cross-divisional process. This effort included input and collaboration from the schoolboard district staff staff the AI working group and community members. Today we will review the creation process and highlight how the input from various stakeholders informed every section of the policy. After today's work session, there will be a rule

183development workshop to review any revisions to the draft policy and that the board would like to make. Border pool for the policy is tenatively scheduled for May 12th, 2026. The development of the draft artificial intelligence policy followed a structured and collaborative process to ensure alignment with the district's mission and strategic priorities. The process began with the formation of an AI working group composed of representatives from within divisions within the district. In addition, some members of the school board identified individuals from outside the organization to participate in the group. These external participants provided provided additional perspective on the policy development process and help ensure that the work remained aligned with the district strategic plan. The guiding principle of the group was that the policy should not focus on artificial techn artificial intelligence as a technology but

184rather on how AI supports and advances the broader goals and work of the district. As the working group began developing recommendations, input was gathered from multiple stakeholders including teachers and parents. Feedback was also collected from members of the schoolboard. This input was reviewed and incorporated into the recommendations to ensure the policy reflected the perspectives and priorities of the OCPS community. All collected materials including stakeholder feedback presentations and YouTube videos of schoolboard meetings on AI were compi were compiled into Google notebook LM. Using this platform, a deep research review was conducted that examined artificial intelligent policies from the 10 largest school districts in the United States, as well as sample AI policies from other school districts in Florida. Noam was then used to analyze and compare these policies. The system identified the major policy areas commonly

185addressed across districts and highlighted key policy statements that appeared consistently across those areas. This analysis was combined with feedback from OCPS leadership, staff, and community members to generate an initial draft policy tailored specifically for Orange County Public Schools. Once the initial draft was created, it was shared with members of the AI working group and other district stakeholders for review. Their feedback was collected and reintroduced into notebook alm to ensure that revisions accurately reflected stakeholder input. The revised draft was then presented to additional leadership groups including the superintendent's cabinet where further feedback was received. This feedback was again incorporated through the same structured review process. Finally, the updated policy draft was compared against the original stakeholder feedback to confirm that the final version reflected the key priorities and concerns identified by each stakeholder group. This iterative

186collaborative approach ensured that the policy the proposed policy was informed by stakeholders, aligned with OCPS strategic goals, and shaped by the voices of the district community. As I just noted, our AI initiatives are tailored to align with the OCPS strategic plan and departmental priorities and not as standalone efforts. The superintendent, as previously highlighted, the operational focus on reducing staff burden through automation is one of the key areas we continue to examine as we explore effective ways to apply AI in our processes. Teacher survey feedback also heavily informed the goal of streamlining operations and personalizing learning. Elementary and middle school teachers reported that AI could significantly save time on administrative tasks, paperwork, forms, and data entry while also helping tailor reading reading levels and providing differentiated personalized support for students. High school teachers echoed this, noting

187AI's usefulness in differentiating content, lesson planning, and alleviating time consuming data tracking. Teachers surveyed also want clear guidelines and human accountability. Elementary teachers emphasize that humans must remain responsible. Quote, "Make sure everyone is using it correctly and still has an opinion. We aren't replacing a teacher or thinking with AI. Middle and high school teachers stated that while AI can assist with certain tasks, the teacher must remain the ultimate filter. The phrase that technology quote enhances human potential rather than replacing it comes directly from the unified statements across educators. Elementary teachers stressed that AI should quote enhance not replace the human element of teaching. why high school teachers or high school educators warned against quote eliminating the human factor while stating firmly it should enhance not replace multiple schoolboard members have also provided feedback on the

188importance of maintaining a human-centric approach when examining the use of AI board members have cautioned against the erosion of critical thinking expressing that quote pedagogy the art of teaching should not could be lost if now prioritize. As one board member emphasized, nothing mechanical could ever take the place of humans and the human touch. Board members also informed the inclusion of hallucinations, asking that we prioritize steps to minimize the hallucinations that might come out of the AI systems used by either our staff or students. While board members also noted that it's mathematically impossible for AI not to hallucinate because of its predictive because it is predictive and not fact-based. The skill of discernment or the ability to identify what is human, accurate and logical was highlight highlighted throughout the policy review process. Teachers and community members

189echoed this concern around hallucinations, calling for source vetting and teachers for calling for source vetting for teachers and students and them learning how to explore AI safely with the least amount of bias. The data privacy and cyber security section of the AI policy was shaped through feedback from multiple stakeholder groups. First, regarding data privacy, protecting student information emerge as one of the most consistent concerns. Board members have emphasized that data privacy must be the district's most critical guard rail, stressing stressing the importance of full compliance at Furpa when handling student records. Board members warned about the risks of using commercial AI tools, noting that when sensitive records such as IEPs or health related information are entered into public AI systems, that information can become permanently incorporated into external systems or the public domain. Teachers across

190grade levels reinforce this point in survey responses, asking for clear dos and don'ts and explicit guidance. Parents also expressed strong concern with a large number identifying data privacy as their top issue related to AI in schools. Feedback supported the requirement to use districtvetted enterprise AI systems. Board members have emphasized the importance of closed looped AI systems that keep district data within OCPS systems rather than feeding public models. Teachers also support this approach requesting a wall garden of approved platforms. so they can confidently use AI tools that are secure and appropriate for the classroom use. Finally, the monitoring provision reflects feedback about maintaining safety and accountability in district digital environments. Parents, for example, express concerned about unsupervised AI interactions and potential exposure to harmful content. Taking together, these perspectives from board leadership, educators, parents, and district,

191and the district technology teams help shape a framework that prioritizes student privacy, responsible technology use, and a secure digital learning environment while allowing staff and students to benefit from AI tools. The guidelines for staff section of the AI policy was informed by extensive feedback from teachers, parents, students, schoolboard leadership, all who emphasize the importance of maintaining professional responsibility, academic integrity, and fairness as AI becomes more common in classrooms. First, regarding professional responsibility, teachers across all grade levels stress that AI outputs must never be used without careful human review. Elementary educators emphasize the need for explicit accuracy checks, explaining that while AI can generate useful practice problems or lesson materials, teachers must review these outputs before sharing them with students. Middle school teachers echoed this point, noting that staff must always verify what AI produces before

192caught using it in instruction. High school teachers also highlighted the need for checks and balances to ensure that AI generated information is accurate and appropriate. Parents raised similar concerns, identifying the reliability and accuracy of AI responses as a major issue. Because AI systems can generate misinformation or biased content, the policy reinforces that educators remain professionally accountable for verifying AI generated materials they use and ensuring they align with state standards and instructional guidelines. Second, the policy language around student monitoring and discipline reflects strong concerns about academic integrity. Teachers in middle and high schools reported that plagiarism and cheating are among their top concerns when discussing AI in the classroom. Parents echo this concern and worry about students using AI to avoid doing their own work. Students themselves acknowledge that AI tools can be easily misused when

193assignments simply require a finished product. Finally, the guidance on AI detection tools reflects a response to stakeholder concerns. Parents, teachers, and school leaders have raised concerns about the reliability of AI detection systems. False positives in AI detection software were frequently cited in the feedback as those to lag authentic student work in addition to sometimes not identifying AI generated work. Because of these limitations, the policy takes a cautious approach. Detection tools may be used as one reference point, but they cannot serve as the sole evidence for disciplinary action. Instead, educators are expected to use data, facts, and multiple forms of evidence when evaluating student work for potential disciplinary action. Together, this feedback shape guidelines that reinforce teacher professionalism, protect academic integrity, ensure that and ensures that disciplinary decisions remain fair and grounded in evidence as AI

194becomes part of the learning environment. The guidelines for students section of the AI policy was shaped by feedback from teachers, parents, students, district leadership, and members of the school board. Across these groups, two major themes consistently emerged. Protecting academic integrity, ensuring that students develop the skills to critically evaluate AI generated information. First, regarding academic integrity, educators and families express strong concern about students using AI to complete assignments without actually engaging in the learning process. High school teachers identify plagiarism and cheating as their top concern, indicating that unauthorized AI use could undermine academic honesty. Elementary educators reinforce this point, noting that submitting AI generated work as one's own should be treated the same as any other form of plagiarism. Schoolboard members echoed these concerns, observing early examples of students simply copying and pasting AI generated responses

195rather than developing their own thinking and writing skills. Parents shared similar worries in the district survey, identifying cheating or misuse of AI as their primary concern. These perspectives collectively inform the policy language that links AI misuse to existing academic academic honesty rules. Second, the policy requires students to verify the accuracy of AI generated outputs reflecting concerns about misinformation and the reliability of AI systems. Teachers and district leaders have emphasized that students must be trained to act as critical thinkers when using AI tools. During district discussions, educators share classroom examples demonstrating how AI can confidently generate incorrect information, reinforcing the idea that students cannot simply trust the output they receive. Schoolboard leadership also highlighted the issue, noting that AI systems can hallucinate or produce answers that sound convincing but are not accurate. Parents raised similar concerns

196in the survey, citing the reliability of AI information as a major issue. As a result, educators stress the importance of teaching students to verify information, evaluate sources, and question AI generated responses rather than accepting them at face value. Taken together, this feedback shaped student guidelines that emphasize two core principles. AI should not wholly replace student work, original student work, and students remain fully responsible for verifying the accuracy and integrity of anything they submit. The policy reinforces that students are thinkers in learning process while AI is a tool that must be used responsibly and critically. The prohibited uses section of the AI policy was developed in response to concerns raised by teachers, parents, schoolboard members, and the district safety team regarding potential harms that could arise from misuse of AI technologies. Across these groups, the feedback

197consistently emphasized the need for clear boundaries to protect students, staff, and the broader school community. First, the prohibition on on harassment and impersonation using synthetic media such as deep fakes or voice cloning reflects growing concern about student safety and digital harassment. Teachers report early examples of students experimenting with AI tools to create manipulated images or voices of classmates and even teachers, raising concerns about cyber bullying and reputational harm. Parents echoed those fears in district surveys, expressing concern about students using AI to generate offensive or misleading content. District safety teams also emphasized the need for safeguards aligned with existing monitoring systems that already work to detect cyber bullying and harmful online behavior. Reviewers of the draft policy recommended that the language in the prohibited uses section specifically target unauthorized or harmful uses recognizing that AI generated

198media may still have legitimate educational or creative applications when used appropriately. Second, the prohibition on copyright infringement reflects ethical and legal concerns raised by both teachers and parents. High school teachers who regularly work with published materials emphasize the need for clear guard rails around copyrighted textbooks, articles, or other intellectual property from being improperly uploaded into AI tools. Parents also raise broader concerns about AI systems being trained on or reproducing the work of creators without permission. As a result, the policy reinforces that AI generated content must still respect existing copyright, trademark, and intellectual property laws. Finally, the language related to using AI as a substitute for emotional support or human companionship was strongly influenced by concerns about student well-being. Schoolboard members share concerns about students forming relationships with AI chatbots or relying on them for emotional

199guidance rather than seeking support from trusted adults or peers. Parents expressed similar anxieties in survey responses, noting fears that children could begin to view AI as a friend or emotional confident. Teachers also observed that excess excessive reliance on AI for conversation, advice, or decisionmaking could reduce meaningful peer interaction and social development. In response, the district's AI working group adopted the guiding principle that AI should be treated as a tool, not a companion, reinforcing the technology should support learning rather than replace human relationships. Together, this stakeholder feedback helped establish clear prohibitions to help protect students from harassment, safeguard intellectual property, and reinforce the importance of maintaining healthy human connections while using AI responsibly in the educational environment. The professional learning provision in the AI policy was shaped by feedback from several key stakeholder groups. Across these

200groups, a consistent message emerged. If AI is going to be used responsibly in schools, staff must receive training in AI literacy, data privacy, and implementation. Schoolboard members emphasized the importance of training focused on data privacy and responsible use. Board members advocated for formal training to prevent staff from unint unintentionally exposing sensitive student information when using AI tools, warning that without clear guidance, aid educators could unknowingly upload protector records such as IEPs or health data or health data into public AI systems. Second, teachers across all grade levels expressed a strong interest for practical hands-on training on integrating AI into instruction. For example, elementary teachers requested training on approved AI tools and guidance on issues such as bias, transparency, and data protection. Middle school teachers requested training on how to recognize bias or misinformation produced by AI

201systems and ask for dedicated time to experiment with these tools in a safe learning environment. High school teachers echoed these concerns, asking how to use AI responsibly and build authentic classroom applications. They also request a training that compares different AI platforms so teachers can better understand which tools are most appropriate for educational use. Parents and guardians also influence this section of the policy. In survey responses, many parents expressed concern about whether educators were adequately prepared to use AI responsibly in the classroom. Parents specifically cited fears about inconsistent implementation across schools and the possibility that AI might replace meaningful learning rather than support it. However, many however many parents also indicated that their concerns could be greatly reduced if teachers received ongoing professional development opportunity. professional learning opportunities and clear guidance on ethical and responsible use.

202Together, this input from board leadership, educators, families, and district administrators help shape the policy's commitment to providing professional learning that equips staff with the knowledge and skills needed to integrate AI safely, ethically, and effectively in support of student learning. Based on the discussion from the schoolboard today, our next step will be to update this draft AI policy. As highlighted earlier, a district policy on AI represents an area where parents are seeking the greatest clarity. The speed in which AI is updated also likely necessitates a consistent review of a policy that it to ensure that the policy reflects the as much as possible up-to-date state of AI and its potential uses in education. At this time, I turn the presentation over to the superintendent for comments and question for the school board. Thank you, Mr. Dragon.

203I know that a lot of time and effort went into drafting the policy incorporating feedback that was received not only by from the survey, but from small group meetings as well as one-on-one conversations. I do want to point out before turning it over to the board for any questions or comments, one thing that Mr. Dragon pointed out is that there will be a need to review this policy probably yearly as we do with the code of conduct as the technology continues to emerge. And so with that, I will turn it over to Madam Chair. All right, Mr. Palmeri. So members of the board, we had this discussion yesterday. You saw in the tenative schedule that there was a rule development workshop put in there. under the policy process we normally have, we don't need to

204have one of those. We can choose to have one if we believe the policy is new, controversial, or might engender a lot of public comment. So that's why we decided to leave it in here. based upon the board's discussion, you all could have discussions about the policies. We could have another work session to discuss the policy and we could that could negate the need for the rule development workshop, but that would be a decision to be made by the board after full discussion. So, I just wanted to get that procedurally out there. No, I appreciate you putting it out there so it's on our minds as well. I have a couple of just I think real easy issues. On slide number five, we use the term artificial intelligence can transform education by personalizing learning. I'm

205not I'm not crazy about the term transform. in part based on the conversations we've had here about I think it was Amber Vanos pointing out that the way the ways people learn and there's there's different ways to teach but the learning process the internalizing of learning I don't think it is necessarily going to be transformed I just think it's an awfully strong word and even if even if you believe it I think it will make it will make parents uncomfortable it makes me a little uncomfortable that we're transforming So anyway, I would look for a softer word. We've had some discussion about what personalized learning means. I'm not I'm not saying I'm uncomfortable, but the board has had conversations. So I would I think it would be worth the board discussing whether that is a

206word we're comfortable with leaving in and what exactly does that mean if we are under B the last the last two words refers to human staff. So, I don't think there's any other type of staff. and I'm I'm personally uncomfortable with referring because I think that means as opposed to technical or I or AI as staff and I just I don't know I just draw a really hard line that staff means human and artificial intelligence is artificial and not staff. So anyway, that's that's again I feel strongly about it, but I'd certainly, you know, what whatever the will of the board is. the last is a more a style or issue and it's on page nine. It's under prohibited uses. So the first prohibited use deep fakes, etc. And that sentence ends with is strictly

207prohibited. Under B under copyright infringement, it ends with is prohibited. And I think John will back me up on this. I'm just like a very literal reader. So when I got to see and I read it, I got to the, you know, using AI chat bots as a substitute for human companionship and it didn't say is prohibited. I would have known that because it's prohibited uses except that I was a little thrown off because A and B said prohibited. So I think my brain was thinking C was going to say prohibited and the fact that it didn't and the other two do just then that gets to that legal issue which wouldn't necessarily apply. But anyway, all of that went into my brain. So if we could either keep prohibited everywhere or eliminate it since

208it's redundant. I don't care which. Just humor me. Okay. No way. Oh, I feel so much better. Okay. All right. With that, let me go. Pretty much the thing is lit up, so I think everybody wants to speak, which is great. Member Gallo. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I agree with you on on that point. It just grammatically like if you're going to you should use the same like I don't know what I'm trying to say but it should the same format for each sentence and so and and there's no like in the middle one it says what the discipline will be and in the other two it doesn't say what the discipline will be. so at the very least I guess maybe refer to co student code of conduct. so I don't have to

209ask that question anymore. So let me on the data privacy and cyber security on page six it talks about staff shall use district vetted secure AI systems that do not use OCPS to train. When we look at data privacy, obviously we don't want them inputting IEPs into, you know, chat GBT to gain answers because that's not that's open AI. So, do we have sources available like this policy could go into effect in three months? Do we have the programs available that they will be able to use when when when doing some of these items that won't be open AI? Like will we have those programs available to them currently available to staff? We have we do have actually based upon the steps taken in in December we do have access to the chat GPT version

210that is for education that when used will not ch will not train on our data. Can you speak a little more? Oh certainly. Yeah. So based upon the approval of the board in this past December, we do have access to chat GPT for education which will not train on our data and will and we'll use our will use our data appropriately. So we have that as a as a tool. We also have access as a district to Google Gemini which leverages and runs on top of our Google workspace and also is bound by the contract that we have with Google that says that they will not train on our data their AI systems. So we have systems today that staff can use that will not train on our data. Thank you. and then going to

211guidelines for staff on on slide seven. Student monitoring and discipline. Teachers shall monitor student student use of AI tools. How are we expecting them to monitor student use of AI tools? the place inside of here where we were trying to to target was language that was similar to language that's inside of the existing I believe around teacher uses of of a of AI but I can definitely circle that as a area that we need to go in and do some further refinement of of that. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, just cuz I'm like if they're using their computer, like when teachers are teaching, they're not always going to notice like what students are using on their on their computer, especially if it's their own computer. Is and this is this is in class, right? This is

212during a school day. We're not monitoring what they do off our premises. Okay. Yeah. And then when we talk about detection tools, do we already have a platform that allows the teachers like a valid platform that would allow the teachers to use it to determine if it's plagiarism? You know, if it's AI fraudulent, is that already in place for the teachers to use? Are they going to be expected to figure that out on their own? the overall challenge that's there is I think the I think just at the initial basis of is there a platform that consistently and we can confidently implement that will detect the use the use of AI that everything that I've researched around that says that is very challenging to identify right now in in any in any area and There

213are some that have higher detection levels than other. Mhm. My and I'll just be very upfront. Part of what I've heard from parents also, but it's also a key concern for me is that's really great if we can get to 90 to 95% being detected. That 5% however represents a child that wrote their own paper and a tool is saying you did not write your paper and then they're being failed by their teacher. And so I think this is one of those areas where it's I don't want to compare it to space travel, but where we have to be really careful because I think the I'm more concerned about the byproduct of telling kids they did not do something that they actually wrote and the academic impact of that. So we don't have a centralized

214tool for that. So, I guess my concern would be is that we're putting something in policy and we're not necessarily giving our teachers the ability to abide by the policy. Like I I mean unless you can help me understand like when I read something and I'm not a teacher, but when I read something like I can tell generally if they used AI just in the way that it's worded, it's got a certain like rhythm to it that you can kind of pick up when you use AI a lot. It'll use certain words like social media post. It'll use certain emojis. Like I mean there's a way that you can kind of look and then determine. But how would a teacher be expected to figure out if something was AI generated or not? Like what what

215would they use or how would they determined that a student did something fraudulent? Like what what is in their tool belt to be able to determine that? Madam Chair, may I Mr. Dragon, correct me if I'm wrong. I think this was more if the teacher is saying that the child's work is not their own and that they've used AI that they would have evidence to be able to to prove or disprove. That was one of the biggest concerns parents had with the survey is that there have been false accusations of students doing work and the teacher saying that it wasn't their own and the parents saying yes my child did do that work. So, if I'm not mistaken from our conversation, I thought that's where reference Yes. And that's where, you know, we can definitely

216do some clean up on the language here to to reflect, but but that's what this is trying to to reflect is that if it's going to be stated that a student did not complete their own work, that determination cannot solely be based on a AI tool saying it and nothing else because AI tools on their own are not consistent enough for it to be the only determining factor. Okay. And I appreciate that explanation, but then I'm thinking that under A, we may need to rewrite that paragraph to make it a little bit more just to clarify it because as I'm reading it, it says employees are responsible for verifying the accuracy and objectivity and appropriateness of any AI generated content before disseminating it. I know, but how is a teacher verifying the accur? Oh, so

217this is their work. Okay, this isn't this. Okay, got it. I misunderstood it. Okay, thank you. Because I just I was I was I was thinking that the staff responsibilities. Okay, so yeah, maybe just clarify that this is their responsibility. That makes so much more sense to me. Okay. So then my questions are good there because it's just their own work. It's not because I really did think that the teacher was going to have to determine if the students work was AI generated and do it for accuracy and I just didn't understand how they were going to do that. I think just a very minor word change in there would probably clarify that. and again the same thing I think under C because I didn't realize that was the purpose either and I think we

218can just add a little bit of language so that we understand what we're talking about. Okay. Yes. Thank you, chair. and then the chair covered slide nine and then so my last question is on slide 10 under professional learning you know which is this I love it the district shall make professional learning focused on AI literacy datab privacy and ethical integration available to staff. Do we know what that looks like or how we'll be you know what platform will we be providing in it and how soon we will be providing it to our teachers. Initially we do have a the curriculum and digital learning team has worked very hard on creating a course on AI on on AI and AI literacy for teachers to use. It is something that is already done. They're already doing

219some pilots with that course coursework today. That being said, it's also very clear from the feedback we've received from teachers that they want beyond just a Canvas course that they want other professional development opportunities. And so as we finalize the components of the the policy, I think the work will also be to ensure that whatever is included or added into the prof professional learning component based upon board feedback and what we've heard from teachers, we make plans around direct face-to-face professional development for staff that will also address that. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Those are my questions, Madam Chair. Thank you, Member Galla. Madam Chair. Yes. So there was a question with regard to theou or what we actually had language added to the last CTA contract which states as follows. If a teacher

220becomes aware of a student's failure to follow instructions or misuse of an AI platform, he or she shall take an action to correct the students non-compliance. If a teacher becomes aware of a student's failure to follow instructions or misuse of an AI platform or he or she does not take action to correct the students non-compliance, the teacher may be subject to disciplinary action. So that's already currently in our collective bargaining agreement. So for example, if you find if you if a student admits to the teacher, yes, I have utilized AI to draft this assignment, they would have to say obviously you can't do that again. they would utilize the provisions in the code of conduct with respect to academic honesty and if they failed to do that then we could take disciplinary action potentially against

221the teacher for their failure to correct that. So that language is already in your CTA contract you thank you member Salamanca. Thank you chair. okay a couple of things. so on page five I guess to the wording I think here I get where the chair is coming from on transforming and just being tense we could just say it has the potential of impacting the system including operations and learning right like just leave it broad on the superintendent kind of you know having a strong focus on thinking about AI in the context of reducing staff half burden through automation as like a core priority one. I think that's key. because a lot of the potential that AI does have is on administr like admin tasks, repetitive tasks, paperwork, all the stuff that really takes up time.

222I would say anything that we implement and flush out of like hey instead of you manually doing this now we want to automate it. I would track like the person that uses the AI, the person that doesn't use the AI and how much time savings we are actually getting if done correctly like as we roll out things. I think we just have to be very thoughtful about, hey, if we're saying we're rolling out this tool or before we roll it out, maybe we're just doing a pilot, if you use this AI thing for IEP admin work versus you don't, let's track how much time it actually saves and it saves if used appropriately as the way it's intended to. So, that would be my one thing on the human staff component. And I and I

223think this definitely gets into the weed to the chair Jacob's comment. I'm guessing we are saying human staff review. So this is part B of page five, right? The final approval. Mhm. All high stakes decisions including student placement, grading, disciplinary actions, and personal shall be made by human staff. We're being explicit on human because we might have platforms that have agents. Like is there reason to be like I'm I get it. Look like I'm I think one of the points that we talked about earlier is any software that the district uses today has likely rolled out AI already within the software. It's not unique to us. It's Salesforce. If an enterprise uses Salesforce, Salesforce now has AI. We know like we all have Facebook or Meta, whatever we call it. There's always an AI bot

224there. Like none of us opted in to have AI as part of the products that we already use, but they have AI. So here I think we're being explicit that a human staff member, not let's say some random software we use has an agent staff has to do it. So I'm okay with keeping the human like explicitly saying there because we just don't know what software that we use out there might start using agents or stuff that it's like the decision we're accountable for is the human decision. Yeah, there was part of the discussion was the fact that, you know, we were hearing around companies actually putting agents in as almost staff, right? And saying that, oh, agents could run certain parts of parts of the operation. And that's where the word human was inserted

225here to basically say that this is a piece where not saying replacement or anything else like that, but if there is going to be an agent that's going to be considered a staff member somewhere down the road, we still want humans to be the final approver. Yeah. So, I'm okay with keeping the human staff component though because I just think that if we just say staff and we have software and agent like it's going to get murky. I think we just have to be explicit. That final approval of all important decisions in the district have to happen by a human. That is much better. The concern I have with human staff is that somebody else who reads this, a parent, teacher, anybody that's not sitting here in this room having that conversation may think that

226we as a board have some confusion of whether AI is staff. Is it our staff? And they think of staff as a person. And I think that they could start wondering, have we crossed over? And no, and I get that. But I'll give you an example. I loved your I loved your language. Let's say we have a software that our bookkeepers use. I don't know whatever the software is. And that software today, I don't know, I'm think like ADP, I don't know, whatever we use for bookkeeping, suddenly rolls out agents that are helping bookkeepers do bookkeeping stuff. Mhm. And let's say the school budget goes through this and these little agents run around and submit a school budget recommendation that there's a recommendation. They were the ones that worked on it. It wasn't humans working

227on it. It goes to the bookkeeper. The bookkeeper, a human staff member is the one that has final approval, right? So that's what we're saying here. That being said, we might not know that there was all these agents that were non-human staff running around doing other stuff if it's part of the software, right? What I like is final appro approval because I think I had kind of the same Oh, final approval shall be made by human staff. Well, then we don't need to say human. Yeah. Just Yeah. If we take the human part out by staff. So, you just want to say by staff. Yeah. Okay, Dr. Vasquez. So, I just wanted us to think about this. One of the concerns both shared shared both by the board and the stakeholders is that human factor.

228And I think this was an attempt to say that although we may be using tools that have AI as part of it, that final decision is one that is going to be made by a human staff. And I do think that as we revisit this policy, if we get to a point where we are using a software that has agents, that may then need to be clarified. for right now the only agents running around are people like real people and so I think it's as we're building that trust with the community and our stakeholders that we have heard them that human element I think is the reason why we have the word human before staff but we will you know adhere to the board's pleasure all right well I'm fine with keeping human but I

229understand what other folks are about I'm not I don't feel strongly on this so I will defer to how the rest of the board feels on it. Well, I think we should look up the definition of staff then because I do think there's a difference between staff and an agent. We're paying staff and go anyway. But we might pay for software that has agents that are there are I mean there are companies that agents are staff. I mean that people are losing their jobs because AI or the agents are now doing the work of a human before. Yeah. okay. So love all the data privacy focus. on that page six when we're saying staff should use district vetted secure AI systems that do not use OCPS data to train public models. This is this implying

230only like they're only supposed to use district vetted? Are we keeping it open? Are there things that we need to be explicit here of like absolutely not? Like in my case, I would say if this is not staff shall only use district vetted secure AI systems and we're leaving the door open for other systems, I would want to then be more explicit about which systems are absolutely prohibited. So in this case, anything that's open source, anything that's like an LLM from China, deepseek, like all that kinds of stuff. Yeah, I would just want to be explicit or we just add the word only. Yeah, we'll go back and reconfigure the language. Yeah, I think it's either or. Either we add only or we're explicit about what's absolutely prohibited. and then I would say anything open

231source is not accepted. okay. okay. Page seven. And this goes to the detection tools because I'm sure this is going to come up again. so I did a little bit of work on this because I really was trying to understand I see on Facebook all the time in the different teacher groups and the different community groups being like this was written by AI. There's communication we send from OCPS that people say we wrote in AI. There is assignments students do that teacher I have gotten emails from parents saying this teacher saying my kid use AI they did not. Like there's a lot of AI accusations getting thrown away. And so I looked at a couple of studies and obviously the turnitin.com was like the software and tool that education used all the time. So turnitin.com's

232accuracy for figuring out plagiarism or it wasn't written by the person that it was written by or something was 93%. Turnitin.com accuracy on actually catching AI is 77%. Yeah. And if you have human plus AI content, turnitin.com's accuracy on predicting is 43%. And so I don't think there's a lot of tools out there that are actually good at catching AI because there's a lot it's hard. It's it's literally called natural language. It means that it speaks the way naturally we all speak. So it's really hard to find it. So, I'm glad that we have this because I think that if you used AI because this tool told me you used AI is used as the sole basis for disciplinary action on our students. I think that's deeply unfair because these tools are very inaccurate. Yeah.

233Just because you have a good feeling does not make it right for disciplinary action. And so I'm very supportive of this. The second thing I will say on on the research I did and this is a Stanford and Vanderbilt study. all these detection AI tools are particularly hard on second language learners because they use simple sentences and very kind of specific tenses in writing and second on students with learning disabilities or autism like their their type of communication for second for call ELLs and ESC students they will overwhelmingly be impacted if we allow teachers to use AI detection tools solely as disciplinary action because these students the way they write the way they communicate these AI detection tools flag that at a disproportionate rate as that's AI even if they wrote it themselves and so

234in the context of being fair and equitable with these students I feel very strongly that we do need to have this here there has to be more than one like if you think a student use AI for X assignment, then do a test, an in-person test or CLA or or quiz that tests the exact same knowledge to verify if they know the knowledge or not. Like there's other ways to prove that a student doesn't know something or made it up. I just don't want it to be the sole use of this little tool or even the district tool told us that you cheated, therefore you cheated. I want to be very mindful and I think most of that comes from that. okay. I don't think anybody disagrees with that, right? We just need the language

235a little more clear of Yeah. what it applies to. Yeah. Okay. On guidelines. So, page eight, the AI generation does not mitigate the students responsibility for content submitting. So like are we going to do any guidance on grading policies like like I know that this is a CTA thing like are is like is there a conversation on grading policies for or like recommendations of grades? we can certainly work with CTA on having forums to have discussions related to grading. in the past that has always been a topic where teachers have had that final final decision and we this is a long there's a long history of that and it can happen not just within a school it could happen within a department. I'll cite the example where there is a teacher that counts homework, test,

236and classwork equally and then you have a teacher that only counts the test. So there's there has not been agreement on that, but we certainly can ask to partner with CTA to open up those conversations again and just see where they are. Yeah. I just and I think this comes down to some of the feedback we got from parents and teachers on like the dos and don'ts, right? If a student's using or is allowed to use AI in one classroom but not in another and grading is different, easier or tougher in one class versus like but that currently exists in our schools right now. Correct. Yes. And I think AI might make this even worse. So if we were to open the conversation on consistency of this like I don't it listen if if the

237teachers don't feel strongly about this I feel like it's a bit of a it's going to happen even worse now if some teachers allow it some don't students are incons I think parents are going to find it inconsistent it is and parents have shared that u the issue really lies with strong philosophical differences we have teachers that allow students to make up work. Right. And because they're looking for mastery and there's other teachers that do not. Some believe in extra credit, others do not. So, it's really philosophical in nature. and I think the concern the parents had and I agree that the same student could have multiple teachers where one absolutely, you're able to use it and another teacher says no, they can't. And so we'll we'll reach out. I think it's it's a good

238time to at least see where everybody is on that topic as AI is now more prevalent. and then on the consequences of it, right? So, let's say one teacher allows it. I don't know, let's pick like a middle school student, right? So, they're still learning and figuring stuff out. one teacher allows AI, another one doesn't. student might use AI where they weren't supposed to in one classroom. Like, are the consequences going to be left up to the teacher of like, hey, you shouldn't? Is it code of conduct specific? Like a student uses AI, they are they getting a, hey, I know you're allowed to use it in this class, but not here. Or are they automatically getting a you plagiarized, you're awful, here's a code of conduct? Currently, students follow the processes and procedures for

239each individual teacher. And so I would tell you that as it is right now and the CTA contract specifically identifies a teacher as the sole individual that determines the student's grade. we would definitely need to have conversations around that and work with CTA on just common language. I don't know that we are going to get to a point where everybody we let me give you another example. We currently now have a practice that at the semester I'm sorry at the end of the nine weeks not individual grades but at the end of the nine weeks if a child has failed we give a 59. That's still an F. All right. There are teachers that do not believe in that even though we show the math. So if a child continues to not do the work,

240it'll be an F all the way through. They believe they should get the grade earned. And so it and then you have other teachers that will say, "No, I'm fine 59 because it allows a child to dig themselves out of a hole in case they've had some circumstances." So that same conversation is what happens with AI. There's been even evidence now with is it turnitin.com that is being used where you know there's a certain certain percentage that flags it but there is there's been studies now that even that is not accurate because of of the way that students are are writing and the literature that's out there is very similar. So that's why I think we've pointed to if you that you have to be prepared to demonstrate what your sources are. So where did

241the information come from as as for this work that you've produced? Got it. Yeah. I mean it's it's hard because I think if we're talking about using like a students using AI and some folks consider it plagiarism. Yes. That is a very strong academic term, right? In college you get kicked out in college for plagiarism. Like there's real consequences, right? So if some teachers view it as plagiarism and some teachers are like, "No, it's fine. Like don't do it again." Like if if if there's consistent inconsistent consequences or like I have a hard I'll leave it to the teachers to to maybe make that argument on on themselves like if they think this is a problem or not. I I consider it if it's plagiarism or not. Like it's it's a pretty serious thing. So

242I think there's a bigger code of conduct question here as we land that well. We just have to like you said this is the first year we're discussing this. It'll come back every year probably, but we have to talk about that. if I'm not mistaken, some of the revisions that you will see soon on the code of conduct also reference AI. okay, which leads me to the other side of plagiarism. I think somewhere on here, and I've heard this from parents, I've had people text me about this as well of, teachers being the ones that are copying and pasting AI generated responses and having that as the assignment. So, for this like you know students and parents don't have the detection tools like what like is that professional standards then? So like let's a teacher

243creates an AI assignment. Students are confused by it, fail it, parents are upset that this assignment made no sense. It's clear perhaps the teacher used AI or not like is like is there a process now for that for teachers? Yeah. So we have here like hey you are responsible to verify the accuracy, objectivity and appropriateness of anything you put out there and disseminate to your students. So what if they don't do that well? Is there consequence to them not following that? Because students I think are going to have consequences if they do it. So what is the professional consequence? So anytime there is allegation of misconduct that is referred to the office of professional standards. I will have our team research it. I do not believe that we have had many if any where we

244have had an accusation of a teacher plagiarizing information. I guess that plagiarizing is the definition of plagiarizing is different than hey I created this and I copied and pasted it. Correct. I mean we try to monitor that and that's why we reference materials that we have purchased and our district approved because they do have we have permission to use those and copy them. and even on our curriculum resource materials pages, they have permissions to not manipulate, edit the the texts that are that are there to a certain degree. but we'll we'll look we'll we'll have staff look into that. I know we have policy that addresses that with staff about false falsification, but to be honest with you, I'm not aware where we have brought someone in because they've been accused of falsifying, you know,

245I think it's a gray line, right? Is it really misconduct to copy and paste AI and disseminating like I don't Right. But that's what the parents are saying that if you're holding my child to that standard. Yes. Are you also and that was that was literally some of the comments that came across on the survey. Yeah. I've got that was the hypocrisy in grading and planning, right? Several parents pointed out hypocrisy where students are penalized for using it but teachers are actively using it to create assignments and grade student work. so I think it is happening. I don't know that we're seeing call it the professional standards results of it. I don't know if it's detrimental, but if our teachers doing it and it's not detrimental to education, then why is our students doing it

246detrimental to education? Like if it's a high school level? Yeah, we'll we'll look into it and bring it back to I mean there's just a whole lot there like and I'm going to use terms that are probably antiquated right now, but I mean teacher pay teacher you had Pinterest, you have all sorts of things that are out there that people will will take and manipulate and not not site the source. and so we will we'll go back and review that further because we have not. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I I think if we have guidelines for staff and those guidelines are not followed then the question is you what what happens like do does a parent have any thing they can do specifically because we just got the parent feedback and it's a whole point in

247it. So I do think it's happening. I just don't know if there's an escalation process for it. okay. And then last one is on page nine, part C, human companionship. So, I think here we're talking like the AI companion stuff. I don't know if we need to define it a little bit more of what is the difference between an AI companion versus an AI tutor. And like there's definitions of that, right? Like an AI companion is has emotional memory. as chair Jacob said overly compliments you all the time like there's overly compliment all those things they said were nice and true there are there's certain AI companions operate a little different than call it some of the more other ones and so I mean I think here we might have to flesh out a little

248bit more what is an acceptable AI chatbot or thing versus companion versus not that it just stood out to me as what that is okay that's it. Thank you. Okay. All right. member Vanos. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I did just want to to speak to the difference in my opinion with teachers and students. I mean, I view it as like teachers are teachers are experts that may be able to use a tool, but that doesn't mean that we like therefore like train the students through that tool. Do you know what I mean? Like, do you feel like there's a difference? and okay so I'll just first just first off I know we talk about the policy needing to be reviewed regularly which I definitely agree with and in fact I was just talking to

249a principal who you know he said to the extent we have a policy like it should probably be reviewed quarterly rather than yearly just because the changes are so quick and rapid. I mean I'm going to go back. So, this is before the slides. we're just talking about, you know, you're talking about the guiding principle of the group and it's focused on how AI supports and advances the broader goals and work of the district. This was on page four. Again, I mean, I get where you're going here, but I feel like we don't actually know if AI supports and advances the broader goals. Like, that's kind of the whole point. We don't really know that it advances any of this because we have no evidence to show it. So, I just I just feel like

250it's important to keep pointing that out. okay. Going to the first slide number five. I really appreciate J. Jacob's comment. I really do not like the first sentence at all. about transforming, personalizing learning, and honestly, the more we talk about it, the more I do not believe that this is streamlining literally anything. so I have issue with the whole sentence. and then, okay, I do have a question about on B at the bottom. It talks about all high stakes decisions including X Y and Z. So does that mean that there are other highstakes decisions that are not included in that provision? The attempt in the language here was to give some examples that of of it. But I can I definitely think there there is a discussion point if we're going to say high state

251decisions and we're naming specific examples if there's a piece of just leaving it there or if there's trying to incorporate more or or including but not limited to including but not limited to. Yeah. Did you want the rest of the high Well, it was just a question. I mean yeah like what what else are the are there other high stakes decisions? Yeah, that she understands the sentence. So it's not a matter of changing the sentence. The question is give just while you're talking to us. What are some other examples of high stakes? Yeah, the ones that we have written here are the initial ones where we looked and said these are things that are going to impact the either a student's final grade or where they're going to end up inside of inside of a

252course coursework inside of inside their next year in in school. So the intent was just to give some those initial initial examples. but I do think that's an area we can go back and we can either identify some more included the in not limited to as as Mr. Palmerini shared inside of there. Okay. But it so it sounds though like if someone decide you know if someone someone could advocate that a decision is a high stakes decision that's just not included in here. So I'm just wondering how we would determine that. I guess that's just my question. I'm maybe I'm being too technical but how would that determination be made? because someone could argue, well, I think it's a high stakes decision and this isn't an exclusive list, so I think, you know, a human

253staff or whoever we decide it would be the final decision maker. So, let me punt this to the superintendent. because I hear what you're saying and I suspect that these were the ones that came to mind and there might be others. So, it's all inclusive, but to the point of who makes that call. So, you know, high stakes is a term that can mean different things to different people, especially depending on who the audience is. We attempted to capture those things that we know impact students. So, for example, their grades, promotion, placement in advanced classes, that also would take into account placement of students that have special needs. evaluations. so I don't know that we can have a list that covers everything. I think we can look at the verbiage. and again this was an

254attempt to demonstrate that we believe the human factor should be the one making the most important decisions as opposed to a tool that if you're using AI maybe to sort the class or to decide the grouping of students based you know on a specific skill they could use AI to do that. And someone could argue, well, that is that could be a high stakes decision because that's that's impacting direct instruction. I look at high stakes decision as those things that have a tremendous impact on the child. So whether a child gets promoted or retained or they have access to certain courses or programming, but we'll go back and revisit the language. I don't think we can have an exhaustive list. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Would you Is it that we don't have high

255stakes? I mean I was just asking for h for really I mean you've clarified how you're defining high stakes which I think is helpful and maybe that's maybe just what we need to include into that. So that's yeah understood. okay a little bit further down on that page says that the focus is really on reducing staff burden through automation and so I assume that's kind of giving staff time back. So or no? Yes. Okay. So I'm just wondering are there expectations of what they are supposed to do with the extra time? So that's an interesting question and the reason I say it's an interesting question. I saw a recent I think it was mentioned one of the reports of a study by anthropic where they were talking about employees and where employees are seeing benefits

256from AI. And what one of the things that came through in that study is that it was actually the work that was being completed when the workday was done where a lot of employees they were saying AI is helping to reduce that and they are able to now cook for their family or spend more time with their with with with their with with folks. And so that specific point that's there and it around that time that is saved that time that is saved may not necessarily be just time that is directly in the work hours that's there because we know that there are some things that when you are in this field that you're doing even outside of the reg the regular d the regular day and I think if we can increase sufficiency, give

257some time back, then that now just becomes time that educator has has to use. that they have that they have that time to use that it's not now suddenly time that needs to be repurposed for something else, if that makes sense. That was that was kind of what I was getting at. So I appreciate that answer that it's not we're going to take this time away so you can do something else with it that we're going to tell you what to do. So I appreciate that. okay let's see on the data privacy and cyber security I and I guess the I think the answer is if there like if there has been a violation in the past if there is a violation of this that it would just be a professional conduct investigation or is

258that true? If there is a concern around either data privacy or data protection, we would use the established processes that we have around, you know, references to prof to professional standards to to address those concerns. Ha. Have we seen any of that before? Yes, we have we have had instances where students private information has been shared not necessarily through the use of a AI through conversation primarily. So yes, we do have instances and most of those cases when they're done with professional standards have to be reported to the state especially if it deals with FURPA. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Okay. my next question is on under guidelines for staff. and I'm I'm I'll start with section A when it talks about employees responsible for ver verifying the accuracy, objectivity, and appropriateness of any AI

259generated content. I mean I member Salamanco was kind of asking around this too and I guess my question is are we is this something we're monitoring or we plan to monitor or we just sort of trust that it's happening and that a parent or student catches something if there's a problem like I just how are we going to monitor this? We Maurice I'll I'll just do what we're doing now and then you can add. So this we've just added AI but this is something that we do now regularly. If there is a content that is shared, a movie a book that is not age appropriate, doesn't align, that when we're made aware of it, and many times that happens because the parent has heard from their student or if there's walkthroughs that are taking place

260and there's an administrator that walks in and sees something that's inappropriate. so the only thing we're doing here is we're adding that AI piece and again it's referencing and we need to clean up the language materials that the teacher is using. So if they've created something and they've used AI to create it. We're expecting that it aligns to the standard that it's age appropriate. Right. Okay. And I get that curriculum piece of it because I mean this is honestly when I read appropriateness the first thing that came to my mind was nothing irritates me more than getting an AI drafted email and if I were a parent and I received a if I received that email about a personal matter that my student was experiencing like I would find that inappropriate. So like that so

261that's what I'm wondering if someone is if we care about that I guess is my question. No, I do. I I know what you're saying, but that's not where we were intending to go with this particular piece. And I will tell you that I am sure many people sitting here use AI to respond to emails. sometimes it's because they want it to be professional and they want they want to be unbiased with their response. so I'm just being honest. I know it's not absolutely right. We are that we're going to monitor this is more they've created a figure, let's say some type of figure and they're asking the students maybe to label parts. Is the drawing appropriate? That's that's more of what we are speaking and specifically aligning to standards that we're not introducing materials

262that is not aligned to the standards that not age appropriate. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Thank you. I'll just say I I think it's something we should think about. I think as we think about having a personal connection with people and people wanting to be in our school, I think that is important and I think it doesn't feel good when you don't have a personalized a truly personalized response or interaction with someone. okay. My other question was on C for detection tools. Again, I was talking to a principal about this. the tools that we have I agree that the turn it in it's confusing like even that okay if if it says 80 to 85% does that mean 80 to 85% of the material is problematic does it mean it's 80 to 85% sure that there

263is some problematic you know material like what does that even mean right so I so there are there are issues but you know my my real question is if we're not how is a teacher to determine that Like how is a teacher supposed to prove that a student has used AI? And conversely, I mean, how is a student how is a student not supposed to prove that they haven't used AI? Like what are we looking for? So, I'll give you an example. Maurice probably has a better example. So, let's let's say I have a student that has turned in an essay and I have seen a student's examples of writing in class and it's vastly different. So, I could pull up samples of previous writing where maybe there weren't even five paragraphs and they weren't

264connected. And so I may then to align with this say, you know what, I'd like for you to write for me a five paragraph essay on this topic or elaborate on this. And then you can compare and see well the structure of the sentences, the complexity of the vocabulary, the grammar, all of that does not align with what you have produced. And I think what we're trying to get at, and again, this is based on the feedback that a child may not be accused of cheating, plagiarizing just because they think they have that you would have other evidence, which points to that human factor. that as a teacher if you're giving them an assignment you should be able based on what you have seen in class determine no this is this doesn't align with what

265I've seen and then if they can't produce another sample right there then the teacher has the right to say well based on this and the fact that this couldn't happen I do believe that this is not your work okay so that's how the that's how the determination is made sort of this doesn't look right to me or or how it could be made. Okay, so this doesn't look quite right to me. Come in. I'm going go ahead and sit down here without your computer and write something and then use that as Right. Or you can also, you know, if you think I'm using English because it's easy. But even with mathematics, let's say they've turned in an assignment and it's perfect. They don't have any. I might say to them, okay, I'm going to give

266you this word problem and I want you to solve it for me. And it could be almost verbatim from what you've already given them and they can be able to demonstrate to you. Yes, I can solve it because I know the algorithm. Got it. And so that's really where when we talk about how AI can help or or hinder. There are ways because our teachers are instructing. They are monitoring on a regular basis. And so we just want them to be able to protect the child's rights and the teachers that you just don't blatantly say, "Oh, well that doesn't look like it's something that you've that you've written." Because we do know that unfortunately we do have some biases sometimes against, you know, certain children. And so we may assume they can't, but they really

267they are able to do that. And I think that would satisfy the parents as well that the teacher is saying, "Well, this is a sample of work I have seen in the class. This is what I asked them to do and it in no way does it compare to what they turned in." And I'm just curious, do we know how often that happens? I I do not and so I have not had those types of conversations with teachers recently although at our soup advisory that was a big concern with middle and high a little bit in elementary was the fact that they would use it to cheat. And so I don't know how much of that is evidence-based or it's preconceived that they believe that's what's happening because that's what they're hearing. But I do

268know that as a teacher you can prove or disprove that what the child has turned in is their work. And I liken it to I'm dating myself when we used to do science projects and you know you fifth grade you're doing science projects and they come in with these elaborate you're like okay so tell me about this project. Now, it may be that the parent helped them, but if the child can explain to you what they did, what the outcomes were, then you know that it was something that you know, yes, the parents may have helped put the poster together, but they actually did the assignment. Those parents are the worst. I did not like them because I'm like, my kid did it on their own. I'm not I'm not artistic. Okay. Okay, so that

269kind of Thank you. Okay. And then the next question is under guidelines for students. So when I when I I am I know I missing something because I feel like this is probably the first thing that you would be addressing. I'm just when I read these guidelines, it seems like a student could turn in math homework and cite it and it's not theirs, but that would be okay. We have inside there the component around authorization because what we were trying to capture inside of this is that the when we're looking at the tools that can be used when a student is completing an assignment. Teachers will regularly define and say this can be used on this assignment but it can't be used on on on that one. And so citation alone is not an is

270not enough in in the sense of that if the teacher has given previous discussion and said that this is not allowed to be used then that would not that assignment would not follow what the teacher shared. Okay that helps. but it still it still seems like students could rely on AI for that type of work. And I guess that we're saying that's okay as long as it's not this. So, like when you say authorization is not prohibited, they're just completely not allowed to use AI for any help at all or and I guess I'm asking because we talked earlier about how like if a student doesn't understand something when they get home like the teacher's not there, they could consult like the what you had said or the thought was they could consult AI for

271help on you know homework, but how do you then distinguish that from this. So I do think that and this may there is a relationship inside of the language that's here and I think in some of the proposed language that you'll see come up coming up in the I'm sorry I've got on both sides of me paper shuffling. So if you could pull that closer there is language that's I just really can't do it. I apologize. There's language that's here that is where we mentioned looking at the code of student conduct and there is some proposed language in the code of conduct related to academic honesty that will complement what is here inside of the policy and I think that's where that connection would really be made because you are correct in that there is

272not using AI, there is using AI and then there is gray everything. Yeah. And then it is going to be that piece around what was the definition that was given by the teacher as far as what was appropriate and then was that followed and it matches with any other tool or any other resource that a teacher may instruct a student that they can or they cannot use as part of completing an assignment. Let let me Mr. Pomearini wants to chime in. Mr. Pomearini. So to Mr. Dragon just went where I was getting ready to go. There is a new proposed definition of cheating in the code of conduct and I think it'd be useful to have this context here. What it says is cheating is the repeated willful or deliberate unauthorized use of work of

273another person for academic purposes or unauthorized use of notes or other material in completion of an academic assignment or test. This includes repeated unauthorized use or attempted use of artificial intelligence systems or other resources to generate content as one's solely original work while failing to properly site, disclose, or specify the extent of the resources used. In addition to disciplinary responses, the student may receive no credit for the assignment, test, or exam at the discretion of the teacher. So, this is if you're using AI and you turn it in as your own. If for the example, if the teacher allows the usage of AI, you would have to cite the fact that you in fact utilized AI to research this portion of the of the paper or to help solve this equation in the math class.

274Whatever it is, you would have to site it. And if you failed to site it, that would be covered under the cheating policy in the code of conduct. Of course, if the teacher doesn't allow the usage of AI at all based upon his or her own personal preference, then any use of AI would be cheating with respect to that teacher. Okay. Inconsistent. Okay. I'm I'm almost done. I mean there there's other I'll I'll just keep going through my questions. okay. The professional development for teachers. I'm just curious about the cost and time and how Yeah. And also well that was my second question was also that you know reading this professional learning it sounds like teachers could choose to use AI in the classroom without attending any training. Yeah. We don't have a current mandatory

275required training component. Thanks Maurice. and I think we've had this conversation around other PD the board several years ago not current board had great angst on mandating training and so unless it is something that has been required by the state. So for example, if we are adopting new materials for ELA, we would require that training. The board could deem that this is something you want everyone to have and we would be able to do that. But as a practice, it has always been for the most part voluntary. if they attend during school hours, we pay for the substitute. if they attend on during the summer or on the weekend or after hours. I'm not sure we do much of it after hours. We also I think may pay a small stipen. I know we do

276for the summer and on Saturdays. Yeah. I mean I do have some concerns with this being used and there being no training, but I also have concerns about if we're training on AI, it means we're not training on something else and how those costs are prioritized. So that's just another concern I have. okay and then under prohibited uses going to that section C again which many people have raised you know I see on page nine that you know you talk about excessive reliance on AI for conversation advice or decision-m how do you I guess I'm I'm just unclear about how you what does excessive reliance mean like how are we determining if it's being used as a substitute and these have these questions have been raised I'm just so I'll just add on to really

277the issues that have already been raised I have a lot questions about that. and I think I think that's it for now. Thank you, Amber Douglas. Okay. whoa, it's been a long day. Anyway, I would just go to page page five. and I've just like chair Jacob said about the transform that was trying you know the teacher is me is resurfacing trying to kind of you know what can we replace transform with can can it be facilitate or assist or support instead of transform so that's on page five on page eight I have let me go to page eight on the transform. We did have recommendation from U member Salamanca to use the term impact. Okay. Learning learning and operations. Okay. Whatever you guys choose. I'm trying to find the solution as well. okay. we

278said on B students utilizing authorized AI tool shall verify the accuracy of the output. do they only use citation to verify the accuracy of the or or do can they have other way to verify the output? a video or something different. We're talking about AI. It's something new for everyone really. Nobody really have a solution to AI. Even though they write books, they still don't have. It's not a primary source really per se. It could be because they write it down, but is that the accurate information? We don't know. I mean, it's vast and you know. So I just was wondering is citation the only way they can really verify the output? just food for thought and also can we state possible consequences on this one as well? what did you say? Is that on

279page eight right here? Right. Is that page eight? Yes. can we pos can we state possible consequences if they do something, you know? yeah, it's a code of conduct. Okay. yeah, but my question is that up to the teachers to give it or is it h how do what what type of consequences do they get? Is that up to the teacher to choose the consequence they want to give to the kids? Because that's not consistent. You know, I can believe that if you do something wrong, you have to to take back the course or I can just have a slap on the hand and say you redo the work. So, what exactly what what is the consistency here because we want to be equal for all students. So, why don't we go back to member

280to superintendent on that because the issue of consistency is something you spoke to before. yes. And so that is something that we are we we struggle to find where it is given the fact that we allow teachers some sort some sense of autonomy and so since we are really venturing in uncharted waters I do think it's an opportunity for us to possibly partner with CTA and see if we can't come up with some solutions that may work while still allowing some of that autonomy but also to provide us some consistent because we do know that's that is a concern we're hearing from parents. We're hearing that as a concern from students and teachers and obviously you. So we'll we can broach that conversation. Okay. I think I will be done. I just wanted to make

281a little comment about the 59% that you give to students who I am a teacher and I was in the classroom for 25 years. When you have a student that produced nothing and you have to give it 59% and you see a kid that really try their best but did not reach 60% and you still have to give him 59%. And you're looking at those two students. Let me tell you it's really hard. It's a really really hard decision because then you are you know rewarding the kids that is not doing anything and he still gets 59%. You know we really have to look at that because I don't think it's fair. Well the board could ask us to bring that policy policy back and I I will say that philosophically we just disagree and

282don't don't be offended. my own daughter. No, my own daughter disagrees with me. and I just I just an F is an F. And so I do believe that other child that is struggling, you as the teacher have the ability to give them extra credit, give them additional work to help bring up that grade so that it's not a 59. And the other student who is not doing the work, again, if they're not doing the work and they're getting a 59, they're going to fail and they will fail the entire semester. But if there is a student that maybe had some trauma, is having difficulties at home, maybe they have to take care of younger siblings and can't get to do all the work, you have to look at the student holistically. Correct. Holistically, and

283I agree with you that yeah, 59 is a 59. But I'm telling you, I did not give you a 59 to the student. No. Period. Thank you. I will sleep better tonight. Okay. Member Felder. I was worried about that one student. Thank you, Chair. I just I we probably did it because I really had the question way back, but you know, we go in order. So, just want Do you remember Maurice and maybe a superintendent that teachers had the building? We had we could monitor our students when they were on the computers and if they were on a page or doing something else, we had the ability to shut the computer down, stop it. I wanted to know and then sometimes I would forget that I had shut the child's computer off and they'd be

284in another class and the teacher would have to call me and say, "Miss Felder, could you release the thing?" So with them doing AI not that's not the same type of venue so to speak but will we as teachers have the ability to kind of stop some stuff if they are doing like and I know you probably talked about it just like we were able to do that in this new AI. Is there something the teacher could do within their powers to control that AI better? at least stop them in the process of trying to use if they were working on the essay, they're working on an essay in class and they utilize AI, will the teacher have the ability to deal with stop that? So, can we monitor that? I mean, will the teacher

285be able to monitor that? The specific tool that you're referencing, LA land school air that we have land school. Yeah, that's right. Thank you. L school. So one of the features that actually land school has added to their system that ironically is based on AI is if you place students and you say all students should be on this specific site. Uhhuh. Then you can have land school monitor if a student has left that site on their device and then it would alert the teacher that the student yeah the student is no longer on that site. Now with it may not be that they yeah that's the AI feature that LAN school has inside of it. Now it may not be that they're on an AI site. It just means that they're not on the site

286that you want them to be on. And so that would be one of the tools that we have in place today that teachers use today. That could be a tool that is used as far as just monitoring that students are doing what they were asked to do in as part of the lesson. And it would aid this component of AI, but it's not specific to monitoring if a student is using AI as part of the lesson. Okay. So they if they were using it, they wouldn't come off the site. Right. Right. Right. Is that just So, so that' be kind we'd have to walk teachers would have to walk around and kind of see monitor them that way. You couldn't sit at your desk like you could with land school. Well, land school would alert

287you that this student is no longer on the site that you Oh, they're going to AI. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. It would alert you using AI that they're no longer on the site. Okay. And another thing I wanted to reference I think I don't know whether it was board member Salom Monica but we were talking about we're already using AI about the cut and paste now is was this AI when sometimes we would do progress reports or finally final grades administration would require if a teacher gave a student a D or an F we needed to give a rationale a reason. Now, like I said at Edgewater, the last place I talked, I must have taught about a day between 210 and 225 students. I don't even know if oh 210 to 220 students a day,

288five days. So, who who has the time to think of these creative phrases to say as to why? So, what I would do, I would they had a list. If you gave a student a D or an F, you cut and paste, sleeping too much or too many days, we could do that. Was that AI? Was I utilizing AI then? What was that? I did it. And I know teachers are doing it. Who has time to do all that? I'm just being honest. True confession is good for the soul. Yeah, I was copy and pasting because and if I and of course and in part of that cut and paste, it would say request for conference, teacher conference, I mean student parent conference because I think if you given a student and then the ones

289had A's and B's, I would cut and paste why that thought they had the A's and B's because students alone if parents want to know how well the child is doing and why they got the grade was that A I what was that? I used to do it all the time. What was that? Well, I will say what is making me think of your question and it's not a direct answer but I remember we were having a discussion in a group about you know students going home and they're having their work completed but they didn't do their work. And then someone generally looked and they said, "Sometimes when I went home, my dad would just write my paper for me." And they looked at me and they just said, "Is my dad AI?" And I

290said, well, you know, there I think I think AI is accelerating questions around some practices that have been there that now, you know, we we have harder questions we need to answer around what does authentic feedback look like? What does it look like if you're trying to authentic feedback and authentic feedback at scale? And can these tools help you in drafting that initial piece, but then you are still as we have at the beginning of the policy there, providing that final human touch to ensure that anything that is going out that has your name on it is actually something that reflects your thoughts. Even if AI just helped help. Yeah, it was my thoughts. I just didn't have time to try to creatively think of something different. It was already written out. It was exactly

291how I felt as to why I the student I gave a student the A or the B or the D especially if you're failing a student. I think we should be able to explain to them the parent needs to know what transpired to cause that to happen. And the other thing I do remember thank you for your answer that we used to give them 50%. And at first I used to be upset about that we and I think it's now 59%. But when I thought about it, if a child got a 35 or a 25, no way in the world they would be able to pull that up. And but if it's a 50 or 59, then they could pull it up. And I know it's be some people would be feel like it's so

292unfair because students are working so hard, but I would do like superintendent suggested. I had extra little thing. I said, I need you to do this. So, I want you to pull that 59 up so they could pull it up. But I was in the beginning I felt I didn't like it at all. I think if you did 25% that's what you going to get. But then again, if you empathy steps in after a while, you know, empathy will step in. I said, "Okay, I understand why we're giving them 50%." But I just want to know if I was practicing AI in them last 35 years because that's what you do. Cut and paste. got in place. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you, Member Gallo. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'll be ve

293very quick because I think that we did cover this, but just in case there's some confusion with anybody that is listening, when we were talking about the guidelines for staff, in no way, shape, and form were we saying that they could not use AI to create supplemental materials or to make their job easier. we were just saying that they need to ensure that it was authenticated and it aligned with standards. that it's aligns to the standards and that it's grade appropriate. Correct. And that it's not copyrighted. Yes. Okay. I just want to make sure because like even when I was I was confused because I know teachers are using AI now just like they use other supplemental material. No. And I believe professionally and personally that with proper guidance AI really has the ability to

294transform time for teachers. Not to give them something else to do, but to give them back some time and in some cases be able to do more individualized small work that they would small group work that they would like to be able to do, but because of time and sometimes the span or the gap of knowledge within their classroom, it makes it very difficult. And so we want to encourage I believe we need to encourage that they engage with the tool in a way that's responsible not only so that it becomes a useful tool for them but their students are using it. They may not use it in schools but they're using it outside and it's going to help them then better understand better be able to detect if the students work is authentic or

295not. Yeah, because thank you for clarifying. Yeah. No, thank you. And I because I know that we've had lots of discussions here at the dis about really reducing the burden that is placed on our teachers and AI can be a powerful tool in accomplishing that. So, thank you superintend. Okay. One quick comment. Go ahead. It was a bit on a question on the appropriateness and correctness piece. so a so right now not AI related if an employee or teacher uses Pinterest and disseminates something and it's not inappropriate but it is incorrect. Is there any consequences to that? I would if it is something that we are made aware of then yes the consequence really is redirection or to be able to say did you realize or did I misunderstand I saw this and doesn't appear

296to be accurate so it's really more of a coaching it's not pun punitive in any way or should not be okay and so with AI it will be the same so if they start using AI to create assignments and use them and students on it, but it's incorrect. It'll be more of a coaching. There won't be Yes. I mean, that's really what we always want to try and do. We want and not just with our students, but with our staff as well. Many times they may not even be aware. And so that awareness and hopefully then that opens the door to more conversations and so that they are able to use it in a responsible manner. Yeah. And I get that and I'm supportive of being open-minded. I think it's just a very black and

297white picture when it comes to the students and when they use AI, if it like it's straight to the code of conduct or it's plagiarism, which I get it, they're the students, their job is to learn, the teachers are doing something else, but part of the job is to do the job and that is part of the job is to create the assignments and to make sure the assignments are accurate as well. So, I get the coaching component, but I think I'm just having a hard time with inconsistency, I guess, across the board. And the professional learning part, like you said, a teacher might not know that was incorrect or that the AI operated this way, but I don't like I didn't know or I didn't go to the training feels like not a great

298answer when it's available to them. I know it's not mandated. So at we could as part of pre-planning and we have in other years require and it's not actually this is a training that they have been asking for from the feedback we've received. So we could make it available during pre-planning. It would not be something that consumes a large amount of time but it could be just the beginnings of the training and they are able to take it during that day. I think we have six days of of pre-planning. We may also be able to look if there's any dollars available to pay them the summer if they wanted to come and take AI classes. So, we certainly can look at making it a requirement. I would also hope that our approach with staff is

299how they would approach students that they had that conversation. maybe the child wasn't aware and so the first time is just you know a warning and you know informative then the next time that it happens now maybe there's more more of a consequence same thing with you know an adult as well we would if we consistently have a I'll give an example we're supposed to have doors locked right and we have the state that comes and visits we do impromptu visits so when we go out to a school and there's doors unlocked, the first offense is a conversation. Did you realize your door is not locked? If it happens again with that same staff, then they're refer then they're referred to professional standards and so we can have that same type of escalation as it

300relates to AI with our students and that could be done through the code of conduct. Yeah, I would say that to the degree that maybe as as we start to have AI in our classrooms, in our tools, or some teachers are more for it and some are more against it, maybe we have an escalation with our students that it's a little bit more explicit and consistent on violating the guidelines as we all get used to it. I think in particular given that we are going to have inconsistency in one classroom and one teacher might let you use AI and one might not. And it's not a you use AI 100% of the time to zero. There is the what happens to the student that use AI for 40% of the time. And I think that

301gray zone is where it's going to get messy and complicated. And so to the extent that teachers can be explicit at the beginning of the year, this is what my AI policy is. That would be great. And to the extent that everybody's on the same page of, hey, we're going to coach you through this. The first violation or second violation, it's not going straight. Like what I my biggest concern is because students wording sends us to the code of conduct immediately and the code of conduct has like wording such as plagiarism. Like that takes you to like a very extreme level of a violation. And so a more moderated approach to it is different, right? Like you're not we're not taking our teachers from, hey, you used AI and it was incorrect to immediately you

302plagiarize because that's a that's a different term. and so I don't want to do the like a different approach with students. unless a teacher has explicitly said you're not allowed to use AI in the classroom and then the student knowingly willingly violates that classroom policy then of course that is a code of conduct question and so I think for me the dots that I would love to be better con like connected is the disciplinary consequences or code of conduct approach to students given that we have such inconsistency because we do want to give teacher autonomy That's it. Thank you, Superintendent. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a proposal for the board, given the time and the fact that there are still three other items on the agenda. So, there's a couple of options

303that we have. one being that we reschedule the code of conduct. That is going to be a very lengthy conversation. and we'll look for a date in the next two weeks to be able to reschedule that. but then we also have two other items. We have our legislative update and we have the leasing information for the buildings that currently are going to be vacated due to the school closures. So, we could look at giving Maris time now to do the legislative session update for you and then we end or we can look at starting Thursday a little bit sooner for the close session that we have scheduled. we can maybe take an hour before and do either the legislative or the leasing option and then reschedu the other one. So you've got a couple a

304couple of things to do. Maris is probably going to be about an hour. so if you can hold on till 5:30. and I'm I'm I'm saying Maris his presentation is not an hour. I'm saying the whole thing would be an hour including your comments. I know many of you were up there and are aware of the legislative changes. So, I think that could move pretty quickly. And then we could just do Dr. Border right before the close session on Thursday from 10 to 11 and then move into the close session. It I'll leave it to the board. All right. Let let me let me clarify. Let me make sure I understand this. So obviously we're going to postpone code of conduct. Yes, we could hear the legislative now and come in earlier than the 10:00

305meeting on Thursday. I mean at 10 instead of 11. It's currently on my calendar. It says it at 10. Yeah. Sorry. Yes, you're right. Well, Salamanca's going to be I still think that we could do 10 Yeah. to 11 with let's say leasing and then move into the close session 11 to 1. Okay. And then we would have the legislative after that. No, I think there's conflicts with board member calendars unless you're able to rearrange some things. So, we're going to do legislative right now. It's up to It's up to the board. How long is the presentation? Not the board. The presentation probably 30 minutes. It would be 20 to 30 minutes depending questions and comments. All right, let's go. All right. Thank you. later. Yeah, we'll get you discipline. You guys got the short

306stick by staying here this whole time. No, no, they're actually happy that we're moving it. They're happy we're moving it. I would just You say the time. Yeah. Whenever you're ready. Ready. Whenever I'm ready. Whenever you're ready. All right. good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. Dr. Vasquez, I'm Maris McMiller, senior director of government relations. This will be a very expeditious update on the 2026 regular legislative session, which produce far less policy bills than past sessions. while we are expected to return for extended session again midappril to finalize the budget. Now, these bills represent significant shifts in safety, personnel management, and district operations. It's the goal of government relations to work with all divisions to ensure OCPS is positioned for full compliance as we approach the July 1st effective dates for most of the

307bills presented today. So, there are four sections that we will cover today. Operations and infrastructure where there are four bills. Teaching and learning with student services, there are four bills. Human Resources and Labor, there are six bills. And finally, governance and compliance with seven bills. and then time for your questions. operations and infrastructure. Starting with House Bill 757, school safety. It broadens the safety mandate primarily to our public postsecary education partners. However, crucially for K12 education, it requires us to improve the transfer, disciplinary, and safety records to higher education institutions when our students transition if they have data within the threat bad threat management database. It also mandates that we don't just train staff on safety protocols, but explicitly explain the purpose behind them and how to properly inter implement them to ensure buy in.

308Additionally, and finally, it increases criminal penalties for discharges of firearms within 1,000 ft of a school, providing an extra layer of deterrence for our campuses. Next bill, Senate Bill 824, school district unimproved real property. This bill was run by our delegation member, Senator Trunow. Introduces a new level of transparency for district's real estate holdings across the state. While there may be underlying intentions not expressly presented for now the legislation as is presented is simply an inventory of our holdings by June 30th each year we must submit an inventory of all unimproved property to the DOE including parcel IDs fair market value and other identical pieces of information. This data will be included in a statewide public report that will be initially published in December 2026. that will be published every 3 years thereafter. this will

309require this requires our facilities and real estate teams to maintain highly accurate disagregated data which the DOE is planning to use to produce a state level long range planning report. Senate Bill 1074, the 1 cent piece penny rounding bill, prepares our cafeterias, school stores, or any entities within the district that handles cash transactions for a potential federal halt in penny production. This law authorizes nickel rounding for cash transactions only. It does not change our sales tax obligations or affect electronic payments, but it ensures our point of sale systems remain compliant with state rounding formulas if the penny is phased out. All right. HP 1217 prohibited government policies regulating greenhouse gas emissions. So effectively this bill establishes a statewide preeemption on net zero policies. as a district we are now prohibited from joining or enforcing any

310regional geographic caps on greenhouse gas emissions. So while we continue to focus on energy efficiency for cost savings, we cannot participate in emissions trading programs or carbon assessments that aren't specifically authorized by existing general law. This will now require review of existing contracts and membership associations to ensure that we are not contracted with vendors who support or expend funds to advance or promote these causes. Next, our teaching and learning with student services. Senate bill 178 athletics and public K12 schools. this bill is commonly known as the Teddy Bridgewater Act which arises out of the incident in Miami Dade County Public Schools. it allows for the support of student athletes for allowing head coaches to use up to $15,000 of their personal funds annually for food, transportation, or recovery services for their teams. It requires strict

311oversight in that coaches must get parental consent and report all spending to the FHSAA to ensure these funds are used in good faith and not for prohibited recruiting purposes. Next is HB453 requirements for a standard high school diploma. This is simply a technical change to a law from last session that allows our students with disabilities that they can now fulfill their physical education requirements through a full year of participation in the Special Olympics as outlined in their IEP. HB1 1201, the student health and safety bill simply covers changes to the seizure training. HB1201 expands seizure disorder protections in conjunction with the state department of health. We are now required to train all employees who teach or transport students in seizure response with that training being remaining valid for 5 years. We must also display department

312of health approved seizure response posters in all schools and implement a new medical form for individualized seizure action plans or ISAP plans as they're commonly referred. All right. HP 1279 is the education train. So, just for your information, a train is typically a smorgish board of liked policies from failed bills in a policy area. And you typically see these in education and transportation. So, this bill took preferred provisions from failed education policy bills that the chambers could reconcile and agree upon. So, we'll start. there is some scholarship accountability which would limit scholarship payouts to recipients who now have to be physically located in the state of Florida. Additionally, this bill incentivizes and I got a clarification for the incentives that were $50 per student bonus for teachers of advanced courses or there used to be

313it was $500 for a sitebased now it is both. And so a teacher is eligible for both the however many students pass, they can get that many number of $50 incentives as well as if they're in an eligible school, they can get the $500 sitebased bonus as well. additionally, there is deregulatory language centered on VPK programs and the gold seal quality care program as it relates to kindergarten assessment. that is done to assess the readiness of VPK students for kindergarten. additionally, there are new requirements that were imposed on districts as it relates to educating parents by requir requiring our parent engagement teams to provide more information on virtual school programs and options where it was formerly reserved to just the Florida virtual school. All right. In the career in the CTE space, there are provisions

314that expand Kate programs back to middle school students with a cap of two certificates per year. additionally, the bill makes additional changes to graduation requirements impacting students as follows. Those participating in marching band is expanded for the substitution credit offerings that they can use that credit for both physical education as well as performing arts. lastly, credits in dance can be substituted either for physical education or performing arts but not both. The train continues to the academic office impacts where the state board of education is now required to uniform the GPA scale for honors and accelerated courses throughout the state. last well additionally now title one schools will also be given more flexibility to use title one funds for cutting edge technologies like AI, drones and robotics provided that federal requirements are met first once they've

315expended in compliance with federal requirements. Only then may the funds be spent in conforming to this statutory provision. The last car on this train is for the exceptional student education division, which will have adjustments to make as a portion of what was the IEP bill passed this year. It requires more notification to parents for failure to deliver services under IEPs. but it also grants broader records access to student physician files within statutory time frames. there were other areas covered in this bill. This is not exhaustive for student progress monitoring revisions, epinephrine usage, dual enrollment, just to name a few for your information. Next section, human resources and labor. HB538 expand extracurricular activities. So it expanded student access and portability. So the bill establishes a broad definition of eligible student ensuring that home education charter private

316and virtual student virtual school students have a protected pathway to participate in extracurricular activities. there is a no barrier mandate. So now it's basically open enrollment for extracurricular activities as well as athletics. ex with the exception of the home education standard which is already existing in prior performance mandates between a parent and a school that already exists under law. The one school rule mandate however is to enact it to maintain competitive integrity for students competitive integrity. Students are generally limited to one school per year with a fasttrack 14-day exception for a waiver request for military families, foster youth and families that are experiencing changes and dissolutions of marriage and things of that nature. Additionally, under this bill, there is financial reform and oversight. What will need the immediate attention of this board is that the

317bill it does introduce strict caps and transparency requirements on participation fees. Those fees must be approved by the board and published on the district's website by July the 1st in order for the district to assess fees for participation in extracurricular activities. however those fees schools cannot charge non-enrolled students more than traditional students and there's a hard cap of $400 based on actual costs. Additionally, booster club autonomy. They booster clubs gain the right to supplement the income of coaches and directors if adopted by the board. School districts are prohibited from restricting these funds except for a ban on using them for severance pay. Lastly, the bill creates a formal extracurricular activities administrator role to attract talent. Superintendent may negotiate salaries for for these roles up to the level of the district's highest paid administrator. I guess

318now lastly the as far as it remains for parents transportation of their students. Parents remain 100% responsible for the transportation of non-enrolled students. However, the bill provides specific and indemnification protections during transit to and from sanctioned activities. Next, we have HB561, educator preparation and certification. to help recruit faster, candidates can now apply for eligibility statements while still in their preparation programs from the DOE. It also removes testing barriers for those reinstating expired certificates and provides no cost professional learning points through the David C. Anchen center at USF for those who are trying to renew certifications. HB753, School Counselors. This bill recognizes the unique role of counselors by now requiring that evaluations be based on the Florida school counseling standards and shifting their evaluations to the same requirements as non-instructional personnel. However, it maintains the district's

319flexibility in hiring by providing certain certification exemptions for counseling candidates. HP851 professional learning for instructional and school administrative personnel. It covers the autism spectrum disorder reform efforts. So starting this year, districts are required to provide at least one autism spec autism specific professional learning opportunity annually for all school-based administrators and instructional staff coordinated with our regional center for autism and related disorders or card office. HB 1069 background screenings. We have seen the revisions to this section of law around the AA clearing house for the past three legislative sessions and hopefully have come in for a final landing. But in this bill, we are tightening our athletic safety net. It expands the definition of athletic coaches to now include volunteers, managers, and all applicants have an affirmative duty now to disclose, sealed, or expuned records during

320the screening process. SB 1296, the public employees relations commission bill reforms, labor union regulations. So this is a major shift in labor relations. to remain a certified union, unions must now secure 50% participation rate from the entire bargaining unit. That is those eligible to be within the bargaining class followed by a 51% of those voting yes otherwise perk descertifies the organization as an agent. It also ends direct dues deductions from payroll and allows members to revoke membership at any time in the year amongst other provisions which you'll be provided and have been already provided access to the detailed bill analysis that gives a line by line analysis of this particular law. Additionally, the latter portion of this bill was already enshrined in law, but expanded for the use of a financial emergency to help expedite

321to help expedite the bargaining on TSIA portions of negotiations. Lastly, government governance and compliance HP91 is the 300 candidate qualification. The 365day, excuse me, voter integrity window now establishes that one year a firm one-year requirement for party affiliation prior to the start of the qualifying period. You have to be registered in a particular party or nonpartisan one year from the qualifying date to run for a specific office. It also restricts for the purposes of ensuring ballot clarity and preventing candidates from legally changing their names to a voter friendly or deceptive alias. restrictions on strategic name changes. So unless you are getting married or divorced, you cannot change your name one year prior to running for office. HP 145 claims against the government or otherwise known as sovereign immunity. Excuse me. This bill has sign significant

322fiscal implications. Sovereign immunity caps for individual claims are increasing from $200 to $350,000. For aggregate claims they have risen to $500,000. To balance this, the statute of limitations for most filing for filing most of these claims is being drastically shortened from four years to 18 months, providing the district with quicker legal certainty on matters. A bill that I we followed all year and almost forgot was SB 382. It's gone through an additional name change. Now it's the micromobility device. You may have remembered this as the ebicycles and scooters and that named bill. However, the final outcome of that bill was the speed limits and pedestrian zones. It establishes a mandatory speed limit of 10 mph for ebikes operating on sidewalks or pedestrian designated areas when pedestrians are within 50 ft. additionally, riders must yield the

323right of way to pedestrians on shared path and they have to give an audible signal before passing. It requires lensure, a class a valid driver's license or learner's permit to operate any electronic bicycle that has a speed capable of up to 28 m an hour. creates a noncriminal traffic infraction for knowingly modifying an ebike to increase its motor assisted speed capabilities beyond legal limits. additionally, it creates a task force for the micromobility device safety task force to recommend further safety improvements and other legislative changes to the governor by October of 2026. And now crash data reports will include any incidents or crashes involving ebikes. It also requires updates to driver education examinations to include specific questions on ebike and scooter safety. HB461 Poland locations service polling locations voting volunteering sorry at polling locations. We want

324to ensure encourage civic engagement. HB461 allows high school students to now legally earn community service hours for bright futures or graduation by assisting at polling locations provided they are registered or pre-registered to vote HB 1073 public education or as it's more commonly referred to as school board member bill of rights bill. This bill codifies a bill of rights for you as board members, ensuring free and timely access to district documents. Furthermore, it also defines good calls for rejecting personnel nominations such as credentialed fraud and prohibits the use of NDAs and employment agreements. Also, this bill has a analysis in that link that you've been provided to access some more detailed description of this law as well. HB1407 commencement of civil actions. this coupled with sovereign immunity as we see this change in our legal landscape.

325While the sovereign immunity caps are increasing the window to file most claims has been shortened from 4 years to 18 months with this bill. It revises the filing period specifically for employee employment related lawsuits to a strict one-year or 18month filing deadlines following a complaint. HB1 1471, Systems of Law and Terrorist Organizations. Finally, this is our last bill. This bill prohibits the district from expending public funds on on or contracting with designated terrorist organizations. it also requires the suspension of resources for any student groups found to be promoting such organizations. This will be done through a chief domestic officer that will report violations or designations rather to cabinet who will then make the final determination. and then that list is updated every 5 years. again, if members of the public andor staff have additional questions,

326this is my contact information. we thank those who follow our weekly legislative report, which was distributed weekly. As government never stops, even when it's a shutdown, neither will our report. it will transition to a monthly report covering local, state, and federal electoral politics until the 2027 legislative session commences. We will also be seeking stakeholder impact as we begin now the development for the 2027 legislative platform. And lastly, thank you to those who tuned in to Tallahassee Talks with Mr. Tallahassee. We will be returning in December 2026 after general elections. Madame Superintendent, this concludes my legislative update. Oh, thank you Maris. You know, I got an opportunity to brag on our CIO. I need to also brag on Maris because he did a phenomenal job in Tallahassee with various groups that went up there. He indeed

327was lead lobbyist. he was able to speak various bills was very very informative and not only in Tallahassee but I also received feedback from other board members in other districts who were in DC last week again just praising his professionalism, his expertise and we're very thankful that he was part of that visit. So we do thank you. We know it's a lot of time away from your beautiful family. but I do want you to know how much we appreciate all of your efforts this legislative session. Madam Chair, I turn it over to you. thank you Dr. Vasquez and in spite of the government shutdown based on the heroic work that you've undertaken over this past legislative session, I move that we continue to pay him. Please. There we go. all right. Let me go to

328member Galla. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'll just concur with our superintendent. I heard you did a great job in Washington DC. You were very, very prepared and they were very impressed. So, kudos to you and the hard work that you've done this legislative cycle. It hasn't been easy. especially since we don't have a budget. You got to go back. So, I do my biggest question and you probably can't answer because again we have no budget, but are will any of these be funded mandates or will they all be unfunded mandates? that's yet to be determined. That is such a politically correct answer when we know the answer. okay, going to the first slide on the seven House Bill 757 slide four. Did it does it state like all records is this like discipline records

329that we have to hand over to higher ed? So in discussion this the well the way it reads in the law is that it's anything that's within the threat management database. So this would fall under the district police far as what's ever implemented under the existing school safety law into that system. It would be reported to higher ed. I know this is the intent is to then give access to higher ed our higher ed partners for what is created under this law the armor act which is their version of having the guardian program if they opt into it on college campuses. This was in response to the Florida State University shooting last year on that campus. so it's meant to enhance and basically I guess give that university information for, you know, potential issues that

330could potentially arise with the students that they admit. will they be will they be allowed to deny that? It the bill doesn't speak to the admissions process. It's just that if we if a student applies to that school, we have an affirmative duty now to report anything within our threat management database on that student for the time we had them to that university or college and it does include behavioral any paperwork or documents related to behavior. Well, we're going to we're going to have to review that. Yeah, I know. We're going to have to review that because that that is concerning for especially if all records kids in elementary school and we'll just have to flush that out a little bit. then moving right along. on to the slide 12, student and health and safety

331seizure training. Are they giving us any funds for the to be able to train and for all the posters that we're going to have to put up in our schools? I'm not saying this is a bad idea. It's a fabulous idea. I just want to know are they gonna fund it. Well, there was no appropriation attached to the law, so I can only assume. and then on slide 13, the advanced accelerated supplement. I'm curious because last year, you know, when we went back and forth on will we get AP funding, won't we get AB funding, IB funding, and they were looking to cut it to like 30% of its value, they did put a cap. They put a cap on the amount of money that will go in for AP and IB and ACE and

332dual enrollment. And what we're seeing this year is a higher acceleration of students taking advantage of like AP and IB. And in the past whenever we've had whenever we've accelerated students or students on their own have accelerated, we got more money like we were incentivized to encourage kids to take advantage of dual enrollment or IB or ACE. But it's my understanding now that the pot remains the same. So it's almost like CTE that the pot remains the same and the more kids that take advantage of it, the less money we're going to get per student. Well, so part of that negotiation to that had the level of funding we got in that last legislative session was they made it a categorical. So now the way we have to negotiate for lobby I should say for

333transportation and all the other categoricals within the FFP we now have to lobby for that increase as well. So they maintained the funding for that next year which I think is that's this year but then every year after from now on we have to lobby for any increases in that and it'd be at the discretion of the so as more students take advantage of these great programs that public schools offer less money well we'll get less money per student because the pot remains the same the well this year yes it's undetermined for the future because I think we're already I think more students are already utilizing it than they projected this year. So, we're going to get less money. I'm just trying to point out every single like when we talk about all the money

334that's given away in taxpayer funded vouchers. I'm just I'm I'm trying to I'm hoping that the public is paying attention and understand all of the other unf unfunded mandates that get put into public schools, including charter schools, that other entities aren't required to do, and yet they get the exact same amount of funding as us. so on that same page, so I basically what you're telling me if if they have to be, which I think this is awesome, they have to be in the state of Florida. So there'll be no more RV travels, no more no more people getting vouchers to RV traveling around the country. Not by the letter of this law. You have to be in the state of Florida physically. Yes. and then moving on to 16. I'm trying to do this

335as quickly as possible because I know people want to leave. create a uniform weighted GPA, honors and and articulated accelerated programs. Are they doing that so it'll match de? Like what was the purpose for for creating a I'm not against it. I'm just curious as to why we're creating a weighted GPA and if that was their solution so that students that remain in school can have the same weighted GP as those that are dual enrolled. Well, it was well from the committee weeks remember in the discussion that they had in different committees. part of it was the lack of understanding of how we get you know 5.0 you know GPA and this very wide gap in you know weighted and unweed GPA. It was part of a larger conversation too for portions that failed which

336was to also help to increase the admissions access for students in the state of Florida to get into Florida colleges and universities. So part of this was this portion was a part of a larger package to try to help increase instate students access to higher educa Florida students access to Florida colleges and universities which they do think oh and then also because of the you know conversations about certain students wouldn't take certain courses because the weight of it might lower their GPA. So certain desired courses the legislature preferenced for students to be taken aren't being taken because students with higher GPA won't take them because the weight of it will lower their overall GPA. Yeah. No. Yeah. That's I'm I know I'm thrilled. But that's been a problem for a while. So, I hope that

337when they're doing this, I hope the state board of education also looks at the dual enrollment and the points, the GPA that can be scored in there because it's not exactly a level playing field. So, I hope they look at that so that they can make the playing field more level. and then on page 17, was there did I know that there was a bill about placing cameras in ESC classrooms. Did that fail? It failed. it failed this year, but I can say you can expect to see it again next year. And there was no appropriations attached to that either. I would assume they took it out. It was initially in the house and it was taken out. and it Oh, matter of fact, cuz I we spoke on it and it was told to

338us that districts need to prioritize their funding. This is a school safety matter and so we need to preference our dollars towards making sure that all students especially our most vulnerable students are kept safe. Do you private schools have to ensure that their ESC students are safe? Not from the files that's in front of me. I don't want to put you on. Yes. I'm I'm just giving you what's in the law right now. Expensive. home school. So on I'm I'm I'm moving quickly. page 19. Does that only apply to their home school or can they play sports or extracurricular activities at any school in Orange County? So, the it's a kind of a tiered process. You start with you can go to the school that you school within the district the county which you reside.

339If the school in the county that you reside does not offer or is somehow at capacity you can petition to go to the adjoining counties. So for us be Simola and Oyola or lake that you could go to and then if it if you can't get in there you can petition the organization for whatever athletic or extracurricular organization you're in. ask them where's there a vacancy to try to get in there. If they don't say anything, then you can petition. You can appeal to the FHSAA or the governing organization to basically let you back into the one you originally applied for if they'll give you a waiver to do so. So they it's not just for their home school anymore. So how who it who's going to monitor because let me just throw out a

340scenario. I have and this is happening more and more. So it's not it's a valid it's a valid scenario. I have a son that is playing club ball. He's been playing club we'll say we'll call it baseball. He's been playing baseball club. I've decided to homeschool him because of the club baseball and our need to travel with the club ball. he's not getting a lot of recruiter attention. So now I think I need him to go to high school so maybe he could get some more attention from recruiters from colleges. I'm going and I'm just throw I'm picking this out of the air. I'm going to go to East River because they have the best baseball team and they've won states. So they're going to have more recruiters. Look at that baseball team than anywhere

341else. So I'm going to apply to be at East River even if I'm zoned for Boone. That would be allowed. Yes. How and who's going to monitor that these shenanigans don't happen? So the in terms of moni so the as far as eligibility records those that fall that responsibility falls to the athletic directors and in fact this specifically outlined in the law you see my detailed summary that responsibility let me read this part here the athletic directors are now the central point of responsibility for eligibility records and schools must share these records freely when a student seeks to participate elsewhere. Now, there is also with that a one school rule mandate. So, if you go to East River, shout out to Principal Watson there. if you go to East River for one sport, that's where

342you stay in for the year. unless you get one of those four exceptions, which the district has 14 days to respond to, then you're at East River for that academic year for extracurricular activities. And that's not just athletics here and I'm going somewhere else for speech and debate. No, you're at Ace River for everything. And will it be the ath the AD's responsibility to ensure that their coaches aren't recruiting? Who's going to who's going to ensure that there's not recruiting? Because I know FH you're not allowed to recruit, but how how are we going to prevent recruiting? Well, that I cannot specifically answer to. That wasn't in the letter of the law, so I can't speak to it. Thank you. And then on the educator, John, you're going to be very busy by the educator

343preparation certificate. Can you just explain to me so the renewal of the certificate certification process? So if if they've expired and they've got to renew, they basically are eliminating the passing of the subject the content area test. But did they remove the general knowledge exam or or they would they still be required to take the general knowledge exam? General general knowledge was still required. It was it mentioned in the lines and I was looking that specifically it was the state board has to create some rules for the subject matter areas but for persons who had a certificate prior and it's just expired. I believe from what I read that it was removing the subject matter area. you have to do the general knowledge and then there's some other provisions under the law that you have

344to still conform with and then your certificate could could be reinstated. Well, you could but you can also get a temporary certificate independency too. So they were also expanded for temporary eligibility while they go through that process because usually and Dr. Vasquez can correct me if I'm wrong. It's not usually the content area exam. Teachers have no trouble passing that exam because it's what they teach. They know it inside and out. It's a general knowledge exam that typically prevents teachers from getting a certificate. So, I don't and content I would think would be more important because you want to make sure that you're knowledgeable about the content you're teaching versus a general knowledge exam doesn't align up with with the content area with what you're teaching. So, I'm just curious as to that just seems

345like it should have been reversed in my mind if we really want to recruit and retain teachers. and I am almost done. I promise. So, and this might be in policy, but on page 23 when it talks about it must be coordinated with the district's card office. I'm assuming we'd be working with UCF card on that. Perfect. And on page 28, this still doesn't is still not still doesn't apply to part nonpartisan elections. Correct. It's just partisan elections that you have to be a part of a party a year prior to qualifying. No, this is all this is all elections. What if whether you register NPA Democrat or Republican, you have to whatever you're switching to has to be done one year in advance prior to qualification. So that's that's a change then because right

346now if you are running in a nonpartisan like if you're running for county commission here in Orange County, you could switch your party at any time because it's a nonpartisan election and your and your party isn't listed on the ballot. Yeah. Well, that yes, that is that would be a change then to the law under this law if signed that you can no longer freely switch parties or switch names. yeah, the names I understand. It's just with a with a nonpartisan election, I don't understand. Okay. and then finally, I think Oh, and I'm sure we're not going to get more money for sovereign immunity caps, are we? No, they didn't. No appropriation. That was page 29. And my last question did is for slide 34. Did they give us a list of which terrorist organizations

347that we are not allowed to expend funds on? So there are there aren't well this isn't the law yet. So there's not a list yet and there's not yet a chief domestic officer that has made the determination. So once that and what slide is that again? 34. I want to put it on the screen. So once they Oh, chief of domestic security. That's it. Chief of domestic security. Once that's been appointed, then I assume this list will follow after cabinet confirms who these these organizations are. I will say to your previous question that about the sovereign immunity, it did require though that your vendors if they have to raise their insurance limits up to the limits that we are now at. So, you know, if they call something that's directly related to them, you know,

348their insurance has to pay out first. So, I guess they figure that's the appropriation. You know, get good vendors with good insurance. So because insurance isn't already too high for everybody as it is, right? So let's make it more affordable. All right, that's all the questions I have. Thank you so much, Maris. I appreciate you. Thank you, Member Galla. Member Vanos. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Member Gallo. You asked a lot of my questions, so that's decreased my time, so thank you. question on slide 10 about the coaches and their spending, and how that has to be reported to FHSAA. Is that also reported to the school? Like are we monitoring that as well? Both the school and the district any coaching spending on their athletes? so it well it's required to Yes,

349it was required to be reported to because we when the school does their investigation too. So it would be a violation that be reported to you know professional standards for us. But they it not reporting what you spend is already considered bad faith. so they put that specifically in the law. Failure to report is a bad faith. Spending over the amount is bad faith. That will automatically lean towards you being in violation of this law. Okay. And we're monitoring that. I'm I'm hearing down here, right? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And then on slide 13, and this was already referenced, but I just want to clarify. So despite the auditor general general report on all the committee hearings on all of the problems with this voucher accountability, the only accountability measure that has been adopted is

350you have to operate in the state of Florida. well that the only bipartisan change is that change but there was a bill in the Senate Senate bill either 318 or 320 that passed by Senator Gates for trying to bring accountability based on those audit findings that didn't get one hearing in one committee in the house. And so, based on the speaker's current position, any bill that did not get a hearing, even in this extended session, will not be heard or considered. so it has no chance to become law unless he changes his mind in this, you know, after this holiday season. So, people should remember that when they are voting for their lawmakers. okay. On page 19, we talking this is establishing the extracurricular activities. Is the reverse also true? So if someone wanted to

351participate in an extracurricular or sporting team at like a charter or a voucher school, could they also have that option? it said in the specific details of the analysis I did that if you wanted to go to a private school it had to be negotiated with that with that private school leadership. if but you would have it would have to not be provided within your district. You know where what you're going to partake of couldn't be provided in where you already exist. So it's it's not reciprocal. You'd have to negotiate it with the voucher school for the most part. Yes. I mean, but that's kind of the I mean, it's if it's not offered I mean, if it's offered here, but it's full, then you get the option to go to neighboring districts and then

352have those other levels. But if you go the reverse way if they have the capacity you have you get the right to ask there but if they don't have the capacity you have to negotiate it there too or you can still seek the relief for the appeals that's provided under you would just I guess jump all the way to the ask the high the organization national organization where there's accessibility and then you would still have the relief to appeal to FHSAA as one example to see if they can give you a waiver to get in there or grant you that. But that would be the process. Okay. So there there actually is an appeal process the other way too. Yeah. Pardon me. Wait. So there actually is a process to go the other way. Yes.

353It's supposed to be again it's it's meant to be ex open portability that you can go open enrollment either way. But you know it's not many more ways for when you coming from here going that way. So when you hit there you kind of all automatically oh I guess you do still get the if you if the private school isn't you know open then you could still go to neighboring counties and see if the option is there and then if not again taking that process that was previously outlined. Okay madam chair. Yes. So the legislation, I actually pulled it up. For the purposes of this subsection, any participation by an eligible student at a private school other than the school in which the student is enrolled must be pursuant to an agreement between the private

354school and the student. So if they fail to reach an agreement and it makes sense because how can the state force a private entity to accept the student that they don't want to accept? Okay, so it is one way. Okay, thank you. So I again I do submit that I do have a JD after my name. I am a lawyer, not an attorney. So please refer all legal questions to general counsel. So thank you. Okay, I'm just trying to move on quickly on 530. So on slide when it talks about parent logistics so parents are providing the transportation but the bill provides indemnification protections during transit to and from sanctioned activities. Can you talk about that a little bit? Let me see what's this. What does that mean? Is it Yeah. That's what I'm wondering.

355So if a parent gets in an accident, this is slide 20. So transfer. Okay. So the law specifically and this is lines general counsel. This is lines 496 to 527. It says transportation is the obligation 100% of the parent to a student not enrolled. However, indemnification is provided for students while being transported to and from an activity. I'm guessing well, this would be my assumption is that if there is some somehow an event where there would be transportation then a school district would be have indemnification should any incident occur during that course of travel. But generally the rule is that a parent has to take their child to the activity. But if we were gracious enough to provide a ride, then we're indemnified during that ride. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. Was that right?

356All right. Okay. Thank you. The attorney. He's the attorney. Is that right? Okay. He's the lawyer. The lawyer agrees. Okay. Slide 24. We're And this is the one about the volunteer coaches. Does this does this apply retroactively to volunteer coaches if they're currently working? Do they have to disclose anything? Well, so the way the law reads is no, but I know under the clearing house, I think it's every 5 years or it's a it's you do a renewal. So once you go through the clearing house again, if there was something previously that didn't catch you before it before the clearing house was in existence, it will catch you when you're renewed again and you will be bumped. What this does though, it does allow for it's meant to become an efficiency to not hold up

357athletic coaches. So, if while you're under dependency, you go through a level one screening, but if you have a coach that has already gone through the clearing house, this new coach that's trying to come on can operate under that coach's clearance until their pendency is, you know, fleshed all the way out, but they do still go through the level one clearance to ensure, you know, there's nothing, you know, that would be flagged under those clearance standards. Okay. Thank you so much. That's it. Member Sal Mona. Thank you. Most of my questions have been asked, but I did have one on 20 page 20 or Yeah. So, this administrator salary, the extracurricular activities administrator role. So, this is a new role that was created that is that every school has this role, high schools has this

358role. it's at the discretion of the district that they can choose to create this role. Okay. Yes. So it's a choice. They can't like a Is it a superintendent call? Is this a principal call? Well, ultimately the superintendent has to give the okay. I'm sure they can recommend but it's ultimately at the discretion of the superintendent and then said activities administrator can earn as much as the district's highest paid administrator in this case that would probably be the superintendent. Yeah. So yes just to give intent the legislaturator's intent behind it. Yeah I would love to understand the intent. I'm trying to get to that dur during the committee weeks the there was a presentation by FHSAA and some other organization that presented how Florida falls behind in compensation for coaches and we lose a lot

359of coaches to these other states because they can pay their coaches more in fact and then they talked about how with the amount of hours that coaches pay with the supplements they get in Florida it's it's it's less than the minimum wage age for what they expend personally as well as in time commitments. And so to but it was also talked about the reason why coaches are potentially not getting paid is because they're grouped into the collective bargaining. And so it was the legislaturator's intent to create an option to allow athletic coaches to be separated out at the district's discretion to be able to allow them to yield higher compensation. was the legislaturator's intent when this was included. Now what I do suspect that you know this is this is right now it's optional and

360is to see how it works and I would aim to see that it would probably be something that is brought back and revisited after maybe one to two sessions to see how well it was implemented to see if the organizations that came previously come back to say you know this is not being instituted across the state and then a may as we know in legal terms goes to a shall and then it's forced upon you. Yeah. so Okay, but the Marine I mean Yeah. So, this is at the complete discretion of the superintendent under the statute. It says it's the activity director or sponsor specified by the district school superintendent at the request of the individual. So, the individual can make a request to the superintendent to be designated one of these positions. It's at

361the superintendent's discretion. And then it says to Maris's point, the district school superintendent may negotiate individual compensation in excess of compensation otherwise awardable pursuant to the statute that talks about how we collectively bargain. So superintendent would have to designate the position and then the superintendent would have to voluntarily agree to negotiate higher compensation but they are under no require the superintendent's under no requirement to do either. Got it. But this role is a district level role, a school level role. It's classified administrator. So it doesn't have to be district is just for again with the if you combine the legislaturator's intent, whatever will get them out of collective bargaining to be able to negotiate higher compensation. This comes into a definition of administrative personnel. Under the statute, they define instructional personnel, educational support personnel, administrative

362personnel. This new activities and athletic director positions. Most most of our coaches are teachers and they coach in addition to it, which is why they are then part of instructional, not administrative. So, this would be someone who is not teaching and spending full time in this extracurricular activities administrator. Yes, I it is I would be astounded and it's been a while since I've looked at this. Most of our coaches are teaching class loads. They're not just coaching for of course and then I mean I also read the title is interesting like I read someone's if I saw someone's title saying extracurricular activities administrator I think that's someone who's supporting clubs student activities recruitment for I mean now that we could have fees for you know having external parties come in and use our extracurricular programs

363that are topnotch someone that manages all that. So, but it sounds like the intent was specifically athletics, but is there a definition on just athletics or it really is just anyone that is an extracurricular activities? No, the legislature, the original bill title, I forget the name of it, but it was more clearly defined, but I mean it kind of does succinct to extracurricular activities, but that's their intent. Anything that's an extracurricular activity. so what is that? What type of clubs exist in school now? student government yeah there's I mean there's there's debate there's dance there's there's all kinds of activities all those activities now can have a booster external booster they can also their club director can petition to be put into this again it's at the superintendent's discretion but it's meant to because some

364clubs other than other more than others have more support from national organizations and require a lot of time commitment and they will there will be boosters that will pay and there's no cap on how many of these a district or school can have. Okay. Interesting. All right. Thank you. Member Felder. Thank you chair. I just have two questions. and you've done a very thorough job in giving us explanations of the bills. I just have one question on page 17. so I guess and you probably answer I just want to get some clarity. There to be no cameras and if there were cameras in ESC classes, we'd have to provide the appropriations for that. Is that what you're saying? So that was a that question that came from well that was a separate bill that was

365a ESC class video videos classroom videos just for clarific county schools for three years where they did have video cameras within the CL ESC classroom specifically the ones that had 50% or for ESSE students. It was it's a particular type of class. I forget the name of it. but there was an a bill for that app it had originally had an appropriation to provide some what would have been competitive grant funding effectively cuz it wouldn't it wasn't going to cover any one district entirely that you could apply to get some funds to help for the installation. but that would be bill died separately. This parental rights. Yeah. This parental rights is specifically to the IEP bill which was a separate bill. And in that bill, it was a very extensive, very strict timelines as it

366relates to how you had to deliver I one when IEPS had to be constructed. when they had to be the services had to be delivered and if they weren't delivered, who it was going to even come all the way to the board. They had to be notified when I services weren't delivered. But this is the watered well let me not say watered down. This is the reduced agreed upon provisions from that bill that made it in. So any services not provided you have to you have 10 school days to notify the parent in writing and you have to also in that plan have a time to meet with them and you have to re-re them of these rights. and then they have additional rights by written request they can get any like doctors physicians notes

367from any services that's provided under the IEP within 15 days after the written notice is provided. But the camera I just wrote on that page the camera thing that's just out have any this legis failed this legislative session. Okay. That's really too bad because I just think that sometimes teachers that are in ESC teachers sometimes they up under extreme duress and you know if there's a camera you can see it but then too I know the privacy and it's just a lot. The other thing I want to talk about on page 19 about the extracurricular activities, and I don't know if I talked to you about it, but I did talk to Lonnie, our district athletic director, and I don't know whether or not anything like this has ever been discussed or anything, but a

368lot of our schools that play specifically, I'm looking at the sport of basketball and football, they make it all the way to the state and then they're required with the state competition to play some of these private schools that have the ability or they are able to recruit sometimes in the in the world like get people from Norway and different places like that to play. but we you cannot recruit in the state of Florida from you can't recruitment is not allowed that kind of wild recruitment and my concern is that some of our student some of our schools will probably never obtain a state championship in in those areas because of the competition is just beyond their abilities. Now, with our crew team and our swimming and things of that nature, we here we do

369very very well in polo, water polo because we can do the private teaching and so for the private lessons. So, we're very competitive statewide because we win a lot of of state competitions in those areas with bowling and tennis and things of that nature. I'm looking at football and basketball where when our students have done so well, they get to the state level and they're playing people that like NBA players because they have the private schools who getting some of our money can recruit like that, but then they won't allow us. So, is did that was that ever discussed? not so much as the recruitment aspect, but I will say part of the legislaturator's intent was while they understood that this could potentially create some disparity in terms of for the booster aspect, the booster

370aspect was intended to solve a problem while it also could potentially create one where schools could then be able to get because the the booster funds weren't meant to just go for salary. it was meant to go for a school to be able to purchase additional you know equipment for a particular athletic or activity and so whatever that and it would breed competition. So naturally some schools would probably maybe a higher alumni base or stronger business community ties would probably be on the receiving end of more resources through this through this bill. but it would breed that competition to make public schools competitive without releasing the reigns to say you know you can have just open recruitment. But what did they do? They also opened up enrollment that you could go anywhere you wanted but

371you stick to that one school. So based on what they could see is the investments from you know external partners. If your district participates your program would increase and its visibility and it might draw other people to you know other students to you naturally by through the open enrollment process versus you know poaching people from one district to the next. And I asked that question because in the state of Alabama, they have well their state legislature has stopped the the state competition with the public schools with private schools. If when you get to the state level, you compete with those in the public school arena, those that are in the private and so forth, they compete on a state level with those in the private. We're in Florida especially, you know, yeah, Florida. we have

372to our boys and our girls who have worked very hard and done well to get to that top level. It's very difficult for them to to go further because of the inability of our coaches and so forth to recruit outside. Everybody likes Florida and they specifically like Orlando because we're the city of all the worlds. Disney World, SeaWorld, Epcot World. We got all the worlds here. Everybody like it here. However, it's against that, you know, the law. We cannot do that. But then in some areas in the state of Florida, they do recruit all over the world. And I was just wondering, is there some way that could be petitioned from the state level that I think it's just not fair for the kids to have to work that hard and get to that point?

373We have schools in this district that have gone to state three years in a row and they have not won it. Now, this is my private little member member Felder. I think Mr. Palini has some Oh, I'm sorry. Into that. Yes, ma'am. So if you are a member, private schools and public schools can be members of FHSAA and compete compete in the state series. The same recruiting rules apply to private school members of FHSAA as they do public school members. Now FH recruiting violations are determined by FHSAA. They have all sorts of bylaws. allegations are made and then FHSAA makes a determination as to whether or not recruiting has occurred or not. So folks can make the allegation that there's been recruiting by a private school entity to the FHSAA and then the FHSAA will

374make a determination of yes, we think there was recruiting or no, we don't think there is recruiting. I will tell you given my vast experience with FHSAA over the years, they very rarely find recruiting. Okay. I'm glad you said that because Okay. So, it's just like the person just investigating them their own selves. Okay. That's a So, okay. So, anyway, the way that could be fought again, the board can't fight it. Parents who of of of these children have to be the ones to bring that to to the forefront because even though there's they'll say there's no proof, but I know for a fact some of these people came from places like Denmark. that Denmark is not located in Florida. It's a country. So I, you know. Okay. I'm glad you asked that for me.

375This is foolishness. Thank you so much. Thank you, member Douglas. All right. I just want to say that I'm really glad that they finally have a rule or laws about the scooters and the ebikes. I am I'm happy about that because something needed to be done for sure. We've all experienced it on a road. Those kids are out of control. So I just wanted to ask a question that I wanted to ask about the speed limits in pedestrian zones. what will be the consequences if they because I mean they're talking about mandatory speed limit at 10 miles per hour for ebikes operating on sidewalks and all that. But but but what are the consequences? What what exactly is it $10 you have to pay? Is it something you know concrete where kids know they cannot

376you know? Yeah, it's page 30. I'm sorry. So I don't have what the assessments are as far as the violations of these traffic violation which would be traffic violations. I can get that information to you detailed analysis because that will really put the balance, you know, stable because if it's only $10, the kids won't care. Okay. If it's if it's more than that, it's something, you know, significant that they know they cannot do. I think that will definitely make a difference in our roads. And I know the the safety council that's created under this is meant to examine and provide more teeth to this policy area. because it's a very unique policy area very difficult to regulate because there's the balanced approach to there were concerns about you know not criminalizing students you know prior

377to you know the they get actually onto the road as adults, you know, with their driving record. but then also, you know, that passes to the parents and things of that nature. So that's why they're going to have this council to look into that, but I will get that information to you. I will be looking forward to to seeing that. And also there's one more thing I wanted to say about I'm glad that they require a valid license or or you know learner's permit for those 28 miles per hour. So you know overall I'm very happy that they did something about it. Thank you so much. Yes ma'am. that was it. Member Douglas was the last one on quue. if anyone else have anything else, I'll pass it on to the superintendent to wrap it

378up. Thank you again, Maris. you did a phenomenal job. and we know that your work is not done because we still need a budget. so, thank you. it's been a long day, but I think it's been great conversations and I think one of the things that I value the most is the diversity in opinions and thoughts and because of that we really are able to have policies in place that are the best possible for our students. So we are going to continue this meeting Thursday 10 o'clock sharp. Any takers for nine o'clock? Oh yes. Yeah. Just remember we have also the close session after that and Orlando I mean Advent Health is going to be presenting to you during close session that morning. I know several of us are okay. All right. We'll look for

379you at 10 o'clock sharp. All right. Thank you. for the record. He Heat.