Volusia County School Board Meeting 3⧸8⧸2022

001two minutes before we get started thank you it you good afternoon everyone thank you for joining us today at the volusia county school board meeting today is tuesday march 8th 2022 it is our regular business meeting at 4 30 p.m at 4 30 3 p.m and so we'll go ahead and get started please stand for the pledge of the united states of america and to the republic for which it is once again welcome to school board meeting and it is a pleasure to have you here with us today so we'll go ahead and make some introductions we'll start on the right hand side this time around we'll start with our agency clerk mitch miss aaron levin next to miss levin we have school board member district two mrs anita mrs anita burnett next to miss

002burnett we have mrs jamie haynes vice chairman of the year for district one next to vice chairman woman and i'm not sure what the right nice job proper nice chair chair we have superintendent dr scott fritz over to our left we will start with mr purses representative for district four next to mr persis we have mrs linda cuthbert representative for district three next to ms cuthbert we have mr ted doran our school board attorney and i am reuben colon i have the pleasure and honor of serving as the chair this year items for approval on this agenda will be 1.03 3.01 6.02 and 17.2 there will be several opportunities for public participation that includes before voting on the consent agenda at six o'clock we will have a time certain of 15 minutes for public comment

003as it pertains to the general education of volusia county time will be allotted for public comment before any vote is called by the board and in addition to that any additional cards at the end of the meeting will be heard for public comment for items pertaining to general education in volusia county item 1.02 district vision statement and board member comments it is at this time that we go around and share everything that has happened or try to remember everything that has happened uh since the last time we met so we will start with mrs haynes you're first on there yeah well thank you good mix it up mr champ mix it up so um this is national breakfast week and i've already been out serving breakfast and one of the neat things today is that

004the deland police chief and the deland fire department chief actually also joined me at deland high this morning so i thought that was neat and i don't know if other schools are doing this but deland high they're giving kids tickets if they come in to get their breakfast and they're doing a drawing and each day there's different prizes and today if you came in and had breakfast you got your tickets and you could earn two ten dollar gift cards to chick-fil-a so i thought you get free breakfast and you might be the winner but this is the first time though that i've actually served breakfast at a school where some of the culinary students came and also volunteered this morning and so two of the young ladies from the culinary program came and actually also

005helped serve and i guess they've been doing this because they want to also give back and i thought that was really a neat thing yesterday i did a middle school i will say deland high's breakfast this morning looked outstanding so hats off to all the people in schoolway cafe that are out there and working hard every day to feed our kids thank you wonderful thank you miss cuthbert um not only did i serve breakfast yesterday but also a lot of readings going on especially the african read-in at terry t small it was delightful i do want to publicly apologize for spilling coffee on their media center carpet it's i think i made a lot of other people comfortable because they too have made probably made that mistake so it's always nice when someone who's not

006supposed to do it does it anyway but it's um it's always wonderful for me especially to have spent my life at the secondary level to visit elementary schools and also i was got i had a blast at coronado elementary who had an artist's night and even the guest artist i marvel i i cannot draw one bit ask me to arrange a shelf no problem but i cannot put one up nor can i draw one so i marvel at the talent so many of our students have i wish i had in my whole body what so many of them have in their tiny little fingers but otherwise it's been a very eventful week it's going to be even more eventful coming up as the new quarter comes in i wish everyone a fantastic thrill to the

007end of the quarter which is in two days we have spring break and then back for the long stretch to the end of the year already so happy spring break everyone thanks brunette thank you so um i was able to attend the uh teacher of the year event emory riddle as well as miss cuthbert and it was very nice and and futures always does such a great job of making sure that people are recognized in many many ways because um you're not always able to make one event so they make many opportunities and while not many people were able to attend it was still nice to see and they did a great job and i want to give a shout out to ms schultz too i was able to attend the family night for the

008first one in a while and it was it was very well attended i know i got there a little bit late um virtually but um it seemed like there was a lot of participation and i'm sure that um we'll have more of those to come so thank you and your team for that mr chair sure um i also want to do a shout out because we were at the women's basketball game to dr barrio who was also yes they're with us who kept us all company he was quite the hot date that night put me in coach so thank you he was certainly surrounded by a lot of women and he was all ours mr purses hey uh thank you mr chair i'm sure you all had fun at the basketball game i had a

009good time i was at cherty small reading to students i think it was the end of february fourth fourth grade class great great class there and i'll tell you there's a buzz at terry t small about the new school i was asked three times you know i'm like whoa i'm just here to read you know but anyway yes so they're they're excited they know that they know that something good is going to be happening and then that following monday i was at palm terrace um for an event there but ended up eating some great fried fried chicken so so that was always good and invite me to your school if you're having fried chicken i'm i am i am there and uh lastly i was judging a science fair at tomoka elementary and that was

010kind of special because i used to be the principal there and two of the other judgers were former teachers that i was were there when i was there so it was great for us to catch up too so yeah it's great being in any of our schools there's so many great people that you meet and super teachers and just a lot of fun learning go going on the children are always wonderful so uh i always enjoy it thank you mr chair thank you dr fritz i have nothing sir all right and so i want to bring up first of all shout out to deltona high they had their 5k the health academy put on this is the color run is what it was was and so that was very well attended i had the pleasure

011of joining at the science olympiad i think that's where i was you know what it's called and let's just say that there were schools from all over the state even as far as pensacola down south and in the middle school category uh first place team from galaxy middle second place team from galaxy middle uh let me guess and third place team from galaxy middle [Applause] in the high school category i think the land in spruce creek placed i believe that's what it was and then there was a school from outside of the area congratulations to them too and then pine ridge there is something great happening at pine ridge with the arts and i know we talked about the arts last time but their bandwidth got full straight superiors going to state so it is

012super exciting as that is just amazing it's an area where i think we have lots of opportunity at least in my side of town and i'm really excited about that because i think that that's just the start of what's to come the band there and i'm not just saying that because you're here doc the band there is just amazing so i'm super excited about that and that is all that i have thank you mr doran anything yeah you didn't see me coming did you all right next up we have our approval of the minutes for meetings from february 22nd board members you've received the minutes for review are there any changes or objections otherwise i'll entertain a motion to accept the minutes move approval second motion's been made by mr person seconded by ms cuthbert

013any other discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay all right next item 2.01 mr superintendent are there any agenda changes to the agenda before i present it to the board for approval no sir all right thank you next up approval of the agenda board members you've heard the proposed agenda and have seen it from the superintendent are there any proposed changes to the agenda by any board member all right hearing none do we have a motion to approve the agenda as presented move to approve second motion has been properly made by mrs burnett seconded by mrs haynes i'm going fast i know we're trying we're going to make it out of here all right and uh any other further discussion hearing none all those in favor say

014aye aye all those opposed saying all right next item up really really exciting one uh 3.01 administrative appointments dr fritz this time i'd like to ask adrian palmer to come forward as adrian makes her way here you'll know that board members as i shared with you we had an assistant principal vacancy at pine ridge high school due to a retirement went through a amazing interview process last week and i'm going to tell you that miss palmer will be my recommendation let me let me share with you a little bit about her she earned her bachelor's degree from missouri state then she earned her master's degree from missouri baptist university and her educational specialist from nova southeastern she began in volusia county schools in 2012 at heritage middle school she's also been a teacher on assignment

015at deltona high school in debary she's been a program specialist for students with disabilities as well and i believe she was our top one of our top five teachers of the year so very very proud of her she will take on the role as approved by this board as the assistant principal for curriculum at pine ridge with an effective date of eight hours from now oh god she is my recommendation wonderful board you've heard the recommendation of the superintendent do we have a motion i make the motion and do we have a second a second i'm sorry you're good motion's been properly made by miss haynes seconded by miss cuthbert any discussion so this is just to be clear this is your her first assistant principal yes administrative job yes and she's entering it right

016at spring break and everything else hey i'm excited i know you are well i do have a comment i'm really excited for miss palmer uh when i first came on the board i had a young lady reach out to me and say sir i'd like to interview you to find out what you do on the board and what you don't do and we sat down and we had a great conversation at deltona high um and i i knew at that time that she'd be going somewhere and then subsequently there after she became the teacher of the year one of the five finalists and so i think i believed in her probably a little bit more than she did but i am super excited to see you here today and uh i'm super excited that we

017are going to be taking this vote any other discussion yes so i'll never forget when we did come to your classroom to name you as one of the five finalists and everyone was saying all of the wonderful things about you but the greatest thing was one of her students said so can i talk about her now and say how wonderful she was and that's when you know about her and what a great impact she made now i will say i'm a little jealous that i'm having to give her up um she's coming back home but we do this quite often but she's done a fabulous job at debary elementary and i think she's made a lot of friends there and i know that they're already going to miss her but i couldn't be prouder and

018so yes you might be going over to pine ridge but um you know maybe at some point you know in the future you'll want to come back over but if not i'll come see you there so thank you wonderful any further discussion all right hearing none we'll call for the vote all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay congratulations thank you very much hold on you're not leaving without a speech so i did prepare something else i think i know it's rather long too mr chair it's less than two minutes i promise that's okay we're moving fast today i just wanted to let everyone know how honored i am to be named the assistant principal over curriculum at pine ridge high school i've been very fortunate through my career in volusia

019county to have amazing mentors that i look up to that i got to work beside learn from and just be shaped by two of those mentors that i want to speak of tonight is carolyn carbonell and mike mcauliffe carolyn i want to thank you for believing in me from day one at the job fair nine years ago when walking me through atlantic high school for coaching me allowing me to grow in this profession by challenging me to always be my best to mike mcauliffe thank you for always having an open door policy as a leader having honest conversations with me as i sometimes needed them and teaching me that we have 365 opportunities every year to make it happen to my husband for always supporting me with love strength encouragement for always supporting my dreams

020and being my number one cheerleader in closing i want to thank volusia county schools for always allowing me to grow as an educator for providing opportunities within our county for training such as the administrative toa program or programs such as volusia leads which inspires teacher leaders to uplift and inspire other colleagues as well as in our schools but throughout the county and continuous professional development opportunities to make us stronger together more well-rounded educators and leaders thank you to the board thank you to dr fritz to our chairman mr colon and the board thank you thank you and so if you'll join us up here for a picture that would be we'll awesome it up here right here you're both here come on where's mike i should wear pants tonight perfect congratulations [Applause] [Music] all right

021that's always exciting next item up on the agenda 4.01 recognition of our cte teachers of the year dr fritz i got to tell you one of the most fun events i've had all year was going to the cte teacher of the year dinner uh that we held at the berry country club not too long ago i think it was like a week and a half two weeks ago um cte teachers really cut loose after hours it was a lot of fun we had a good time um but the conversation was very rich and i'm going to tell you they all are so extremely complementary of all the other teachers in the programs and i i think why this is so important is because the area of cte is truly what this board said our strategic

022plan would be about about igniting passions yeah and so i'm going to ask marie custille to come forward we do have a very special presentation of a teacher that was honored that evening and i think we have a few of them here welcome back i know i know i can't get enough um so we did we had an awesome cte month which was the month of february we would like to start our presentation with a short video that our awesome communications department put together as a little recap i like how it puts you straight into the field of digital media editing and they really put a lot on you so it gives you sort of a sense of what the real world would be like it makes me feel secure about how i'm going to

023leave high school and i can actually get a job right in the hospitals when i leave high school to learn things here that's that's going to help me for the future is amazing i see the academy of law and government giving me a four year leg up on any other person going into the same profession as me so when i learned about all the hands-on experiences that you could gain in law that i knew was gonna be the right academy academy is very demanding and it's demanding for a reason because it's trying to set you up for your future and if you're looking to go into the medical field the medical field isn't easy it's gonna have a lot of difficulties and hardships with it so this academy is just gonna be a stepping stone

024for you to help i really enjoyed meeting people who had the same passion as i did we got to work together and we genuinely got the experience to know what it's like to work in a team environment [Music] that's awesome thank you so like dr fritz said last month at the end of the month we had our cte teacher of the year event and awarded our new winner so i'd like to take a moment to tell you about our 12 nominees this year they are an excellent representation of what amazing cte programs we offer in our district from health to culinary to early childhood and aquaculture our teachers have a combined 152 years of teaching experience and as many of you know teaching is often a second career for a lot of our cte teachers

025among our finalists are a former big four accounting firm accountant a collegiate athletic trainer and a navy veteran so as varied as their experiences in life and education are the common theme of why they chose this profession was evident in their applications when asked why do you teach cte responses were i love having the opportunity to ignite a passion in a student they didn't know was there it's rewarding to engage students as they build their skills through hands-on learning and now i get to be the teacher i wish i had so not all of our finals are here tonight but i would like to recognize them by name just the same so we have natalie nutson from atlantic high school she's an aquaculture teacher tara gardner mainland high school digital design dana luff new smyrna

026high school culinary nancy paris ormond beach middle school orientation 2 careers kelly lemon sea breeze high school allied health heather cobb spruce creek high school finance mike hackley silver sands middle school technology education tammy collins taylor middle high school digital design and maureen mack who was actually our overall winner at university high school from engineering she was hoping to be here tonight but she is a little under the weather so our three nominees or our three winners from our schools that are here tonight are sandy rider from deland high school she's an early childhood education teacher sandy jordan gowell from deltona middle school she's a culinary teacher and matt milazzo from deltona high school he's a promotional developer and if we could just take a quick picture and that's it thank you guys great thank

027you you all will join us up here everybody that's right everyone can look right here one two three perfect congratulations [Applause] thank you all right next item on the agenda is one that i am personally really excited about 4.02 which is recognition of the project search program dr fritz boy am i excited about this one i'm asking amanda to come forward we got some friends in the audience on this one let me share a little bit about this because this is such an amazing program that we have decided to replicate this in-house in volusia county this is for our esc students between the ages of 18 and 21 and it gives them an internship experience out in our community doing real jobs and not only doing real jobs but being hired into those positions and

028i see a couple of our friends out there from the corporate world once you meet this guy he's a friend for life wg thank you for being here just truly amazing at halifax and and kim fulter that's also here kim good to see you thank you very much for being here and i i don't know if tori smith is here is tori here she's she's not here okay and she is our traffic our manager over at the food court at embry riddle um but let me say this and i'm going to turn it over to you but um had the opportunity to spend a day um looking at our students and and this is one that understand board that we are doing and investing and we should we have students that are going to go

029through our own student nutrition services with training we're always in need of employees we're going to be working in our custodial departments our maintenance departments to replicate this and john guthrie is helping organize a event in april where we can do a luncheon and bring other businesses forward to learn about hiring our students and what's so cool about this the number one thing that every supervisor out there said to me these kids are reliable and show up to work every day now which employer wouldn't want that so i'll turn it over to you amanda thank you chairman colon dr fritz and school board with me today i have our coordinator for our transition programs in volusia county schools kathy golotti she's going to help me as we go through this presentation but before we start

030we have a very nice video for you to watch [Music] [Laughter] [Music] in a cafe i got stock sodas utensils sweet sweeping the floors what this program is is like helping helping interns like myself like trying to find try to find a job in 2016 volusia county schools partnered with halifax health medical center and we established our first project search any students with a disability can attend the program they defer receipt of their diploma which means they graduated they earn their diploma but they can return to volusia county schools for transition and career readiness skills i'm able to be with the patients and i'm able to interact with them and i'm learning job skills hard and soft skills my favorite rotation is the current one i'm in right now is brooks rehab it's my favorite

031i love it the second program is our community-based vocational education program at cedesco on the campus of emory riddle aeronautical university their students participate in training for future careers in volusia county it's hands-on to gain the skills needed for a career our students are dedicated employees they show up to work every day on time eager to work and eager to do a great job i really enjoy joy by taking initiative i love interacting with people i just love it here [Music] you may recognize a few of the students that were on that video behind me and in a little bit we're going to call them up and they have a presentation for you so again this is about our transition to work programs for our students with disabilities in volusia county schools and as i

032go through i think you'll recognize that this touches all five of our goals in our strategic plan project search was developed in 1996 in cincinnati since it has expanded to international sites project search primary objective is to secure competitive employment for people with disabilities the project search transition to work program takes place entirely at the work site it's a total workplace immersion where students gain i should say interns gain not only classroom instruction but career exploration hands-on opportunities as they rotate through various departments at the work site interns participate in a series of three internships while in this program they gain competitive marketable and transferable skills that allow them to maintain competitive employment after they leave volusia county schools in 2016 since we began this program we have since 2016 we have grown to three

033halifax health sites the host business has to provide us with a classroom for our students to begin their day with their teacher and an employment advisor our student interns do not report to their zone school at all they gain transportation either either private transportation or they use votran gold to arrive at work on time very important and as dr fritz said um every student is always on time it's one of the perks that a lot of times they're early jalen often gets there very early you saw him on the video he loves his job if you couldn't tell from the video we do follow the school calendar halifax provides each student or each intern a voucher for lunch so they're able to eat there on site like i mentioned earlier there is a one hour

034of classroom instruction with their teacher and their employment advisor before they head out into the work site where they go through a series of three nine week long rotations they work side by side with a halifax health employee as well as having that employment advisor right there with them and as you can see here again there's jayla loving his job dr fritz got to meet him he and um dr baldwin when when we went out since the inception in 2016 we have gained 90 jobs for our students with disabilities after going through project certainties wow and i went a little too fast i wanted you to notice one of one of the students here all the way to the far right during project search she obtained her phlebotomist certification awesome amazing amazing work that happens

035i don't know since i forgot to do it i'm going to zoom past it how did it end no no i apologize here we go okay we also want to recognize a program that students have the opportunity after they defer their diploma you have several opportunities things that you can choose from during your iep meeting project search is just one of those opportunities some students may not be ready to head to halifax and start those intense internships so we have a step before that and it is our community-based vocational education program that is run through cedesco at emory riddle aeronautical at emory riddle our students are exposed to various job skills they gain skills in communication how to work on a team how to be a member of a group to gain a certain goal

036that they have they obviously work on self-advocacy skills they also learn to make decisions on their own they don't always have to go to a supervisor and they even work on their resumes and add the job skills that they've gained through this opportunity now these students do report to school they go to their their home school first and they receive each student is different through their iep they do different things in the morning but then as a group they travel on the school bus to emory riddle where they have their employment advisors paraprofessionals oftentimes teachers with them as well we have six high schools that are participating right now in cedesco obviously we're pushing to to make that all of our high schools but it's ebb and flow sometimes you have students that are ready

037to go into cbve sometimes they're ready to go to project search so right now we do have six high schools and already this year this school year we've employed seven students at cedesco just after doing their internship since august this school year so that's also very exciting seven kids in in just a few months so at cedesco our students rotate through various sites they could be dishwashers they could be a dietary aid starbucks is on campus there as well as chick-fil-a and cadoba it's a mexican restaurant we actually saw students of ours working at each of those restaurants we have a student at the starbucks who is a barista i don't know about you but i can't keep a frappuccino straight from a latte so i have no idea but she loves it does a

038great job and actually has gained a paid employment there wow as i mentioned earlier dr fritz and dr belgium were able to go out and witness firsthand the skills and the self-confidence that our students gain by being in this program even though they go to school first they are still you know our students in the morning but when they get there they are employees of sudesco um i hope she can make it here and so that we can introduce her they emory riddle loves the students that are out there they want every student possible to come out and to learn through their program now before we recognize these adults that we're bragging on we have some of our interns here and so i'm going to let ms golotti introduce them one at a time and

039they're going to come up and share with you their experiences thank you so much for this opportunity i'm always so proud when i get to highlight these programs and our wonderful interns they are amazing they i cannot say enough wonderful things about them but the first intern was an intern at our project search at deltona site she graduated 2021 from the program so first up i would like to bring up taylor mac and along with her i'd like to bring up karen hook the instructor at the program and amber lieber the employment advisor [Applause] good afternoon everyone my name is taylor mack i am speaking on behalf of people at project search project search is a great place that there is that is there for you to make sure that you find a job and

040be successful in life project search helped me find a job that i felt comfortable with and loved which is a good thing to have and be part of adulthood project search is a great experience that i had and loved it was helpful trusting and understanding the job coaches and teachers and doctors and nurses even security guards are all great people that guided me to help me find a job that i still have to this day miss karen and miss amber were great job coaches for me if it wasn't for them i wouldn't be the person that i am today and i wouldn't have found a job if not for them so thank you miss karen and ms amber were teaching me important things that i needed to know like tips for a job interview what

041what to do and what not to do when you have a job interview sometimes having or finding a job can be rough but hey it's okay if the job you applied for went with another candidate for the job and apply for another and another until you find when you love effect if at first you don't succeed try try again my experience and time at project search really was a great time for me especially for some people with disabilities and those on the spectrum can even get jobs too and for me i never let my disability get the best of me because it's been a part of who i am we have the ability and capability to make a difference all because of the great people that helped me work my way to the top to

042help them find me a great hard-working job thank you taylor we have a certificate taylor we have a certificate for you [Applause] let's uh do a picture if we could and if her her team could come up for the picture that'd be great you want to do that now yeah [Applause] thank you look right here one two and three perfect congratulations [Applause] all right it's not over we have a few more miss galotti our next intern that i would like to introduce is charisse davis she was a former mainland high school student she is a current intern of project search at halifax medical center at daytona with her is patty schneider the instructor for the program [Applause] you on the video welcome hi my name is charis davis i graduated from mainland high school in

0432021 i'm currently interning at halifax in daytona where i'm learning job skills wonderful great job skills that's going to take me a long way and i'm grateful that i'm here and found my way here because without this i would be home without a job and i just thankful for this and i'm going to tell you guys a little bit about my rotation my rotations i have completed i completed the cafe i was responsible for the utensils making sure the dining room was okay and my second rotation that i completed was the brooks rehab making sure that the all the items were sanitized well for the next patient to use after the patient have used them as well going around into the patient's room and stocking their gloves and sending sanding cloths as well going around

044with the activity card seeing what they would like while they're there and that was a pleasure because i'm interacting with the patients and everything and what i also want to talk about is i'm going into patient transport for my third rotation and i think i will enjoy it really much because i'm helping people get to their destination and that's all about people helping people comes first you know and it's they're basically depend on us you know to get to their destination and everything so you know i'm glad to be a part of this community you know this company and and expand my opportunities and learn all the opportunities as well and i learned so much here i really did important job skills to help me get a job and that's [Applause] wow thank you right

045here one two and three perfect congratulations [Applause] our final intern that i would like to introduce is a former new smyrna beach um high school graduate he is seabree sorry sorry sorry he is currently at the halifax site at port orange kobe euler and with him we have kristen bennett the instructor for the program he did watch you ready hello everybody how are you guys hello i am coming in i am 18 years old i graduated from series high in 2021 now i am excited about being a project search intern at halifax hospital wound this is this is me working when i was coming back that's me working don't think soon that's me this is me working and here's it's my favorite huh here i am taking the dining room dining room trash and also

046sucks cinnamon cola carmen and chips and here's me working on dietary and working there for my rotation is better for me i take it in a trash can that that blasts me this is me cleaning the tables i also clean the chairs and booths i keep it all extra clean and here's me cleaning the tables i do the drinks i enjoyed the shares and i didn't boost and this is me working unlike everybody i work with teamwork it's happening together when you get the job done this is me one week in the internet that are fun to work with and here's me with them helping them together that's what i work with here i am pushing the patient food training card i take it to this room and scrub all the trays this prepares them

047for cleaning and there's me working pushing the twice right now cleaning this is me okay this is me cleaning the coat uh count i love my job and here's me cleaning the cart when i'm done the other work rotation i had was sales clerk a head effect too soon i swept clean windows put stuck out and help customers and work hard in order to help people first access is awesome and here's me cleaning the windows and window sales you know every part of my job and the last one in class i i learned common interview questions job skills and time management we learn some skills like work communication my language and my content sometimes you play games it is fun learning and here's me working on the papers any questions [Applause] congratulations man congratulations right

048right one two three [Music] [Applause] of course none of this would be possible without our partners right so we have them with us and we want to recognize them we have a certificate for them as well i'm going to let ms gallaudet introduce our yes tonight jeff feasel the ceo of fox hospital could not attend but again without him this program would have never existed so i'd like to recognize him next we have kim fulcher she is the executive director and chief human resource officer for halifax hospital medical center can please stand and of course we have wg watts who is the um manager for the volunteer services coordinator so wg [Applause] good afternoon i'd just like to say thank you to the volusia county school board for allowing project search and dr fritz at

049halifax hospital um halifax health actually i've been in human resources for 29 years and done a lot of things with team members over the years but this is probably one of the most inspirational things that we've ever done and and they are wonderful and we um so treasure them in their internship at halifax health so thank you so much for allowing us all the instructors and of course the students we're so proud of all of you thank you [Applause] and we also have to recognize tory smith i'm sure she got stuck in the bike week traffic and couldn't get here but tori smith is the manager for cedesco at riddle an outstanding business community member so we have to recognize her thank you and as dr fritz alluded to we do have a volus volusia

050search coming soon we've actually started those iep meetings and we are helping students begin internships immediately we're starting i believe some started this week we have a big group starting when we get back from spring break so we will be in the schoolway cafe we will be in the custodial department and we are already working with facilities and maintenance so i look forward to having pitchers and students to present to you after we get that up and running any questions about our programs so for those of you who can't see all the eyes in the room i can tell you there's not a drive there may be one dry eye in the whole room we're very proud of our students and and i want to say thank you to halifax health and mr jeff feazel

051for supporting this program um it's it's amazing it's it's why we're here every one of us yeah yeah they're all high school graduates moving on to to career ready positions that's wonderful and it is available to every student with a disability so we're not talking you know those exceptionalities that you may think about that defer their diploma any student with a disability can defer their diploma and come back we're having real conversations with our administration to make sure we're offering this to more and more students even those mild students who do not have a plan for after graduation if we know we have those students who i don't think they're going to go to college we're not sure what have a conversation with that student their parent they can defer their diploma and we can

052after a successful internship either project search or at cedesco or at volusia county schools we can get them employed so we're really hoping that our parents are listening and we'll defer those diplomas come back and and we can give them those skills that they need to be employed great mr awesome thank you thank you thank you as an employee at halifax i'm very happy to see all these people here and and i can tell you firsthand what a benefit um all the employees at project search have been at halifax and i see them working hard every day so thank you all thank you you really do help us out thank you and make patience days better mr purses well said uh miss burnett i didn't know whether kim whether you wanted to say say anything

053about this young man sitting right up here he is he is like wg man and he is there all the time doing everything all right miss haynes i'm coming to you i saw you tearing up too i didn't want to cry this is probably one of the very best things that we could ever do because it makes sure that we're meeting the needs of every single student because every student in volusia county deserves the very best education so they can find the path that they want to follow and be happy and all three of you here tonight that came up and spoke and shared your story i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart because we are so proud of you and you're doing a wonderful job thank you dr fritz anything

054you want to say just i'm very proud of not only our young people and what they're doing i look forward to their futures i'm proud of the partnerships hopefully we can expand that um there certainly is a need uh as i met with kathy and the team three years ago this was on the this was our plan and so i want to thank all of you for being committed to making this happen uh you are there every day uh some of the most dedicated educators we got so i appreciate you thank you very good thank you all right we'll move on to move on to the consent agenda item 6.01 superintendent are there any items that you'd like removed or any amendments to the consent agenda no sir board members are there any items that

055you all would like to remove for further discussion i have a question about one item but if you want to remove it and for discussion it's fine we can ask a question that's fine uh anybody else have any nope so just one go ahead ms haynes which is the one that you have a question about um it's actually item 8.01 the one about the training that we're going to be doing for middle school so miss core is headed this way so you know that i'm very very pleased about middle school like i we've got to we have to do something at middle school and i've been out telling parents what we're going to be doing which i think is helping to calm some of them but when we had our one-on-one and you shared this

056with me the biggest thing about this was that we're bringing it to volus county so that we don't have to send teachers away so since then i've heard that we are sending some groups away so i apologize that i hadn't been able to get with you but do we have teachers that are leaving the state for this training also we um not for this training it's the leadership training piece that's not coming with this nuts and bolts training the nuts and bolts training is for classroom teachers we have one school that's using title money to send i think a group maybe 15 including administrators and the lead teachers and they're going to the leadership strand which is when you go to the conference um in oklahoma with jack and his team it's it runs two

057days before the rest the nuts and bolts symposium so it's a separate conference sim especially or built specifically for the leadership part of how to lead the team that's not part of the normal nuts and bolts okay so that's the only school that i know is southwestern that's going okay i didn't say which one oh i'm sorry that's okay um so would the other 13 middle schools not need the leadership training it's not that they wouldn't need it we were i was going to try to go as well and we were going to bring it back so kind of like a train the trainer model so i know jaquise is going um and i was going to try to go as well but i haven't been able to vet that yet so that we can

058at least bring that information back to the rest of the schools and the rest of the principles is there a way to bring that training here for the because if we've only got one school going out for it and it's a component that um you know goes along with this is there a way to bring that here so that the other 13 schools have that opportunity i can inquire it would be two additional days beyond the two that are already there okay so i can inquire okay to see that that was just my question because i thought this was i thought this was the whole encompassing piece and i had asked you even in our one-on-one where we going to be able to get everyone trained and um it depends on whether or not teachers

059sign up right and then i heard that you know there were teachers going out of state and so that's why i just had some confusion yeah and and it is same company but different um difference uh training okay different training thank you any other questions thoughts feelings or concerns all right hearing none do we have a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda approval of the consent agenda do we have a second second all right consent agenda we have a motion and a second any further discussion uh public participation ask for cards do we have any public comment regarding any items on the consent agenda thank you mr scott cleary please come forth you have three minutes to address the board thank you and welcome once again good evening chairman colon board members

060i'm reading a letter to you tonight on 8.01 i'm sorry i couldn't be present to make my own remarks but i'm grateful to mr cleary for reading them mr clone i'm certain you're going to give this your full attention as you do all speakers since your first meeting the ninety eight thousand dollar conference on the consent agenda is disturbing but not unsurprising for an administration that tossed out esc from brewster refurbished the offices for imported senior staff at a still und undisclosed costs something that has been asked about at a board meeting and not followed up on colorado consultant jack beckenmeyer who taught less than 10 years is being contracted to lead a conference in june it will be outside the teacher's contract so they must be paid salary if it's mandatory which comes to

061about a quarter of a million dollars if all attendees are teachers if it's voluntary it'll be about a hundred thousand in stipends the deliverables for the 98 grand are nationally renowned renowned middle school expert consultants will present middle school educators to help improve middle school socially and academically with a focus on teaming they will cover topics such as the adolescent mind teaming strategies engagement strategies and collaborative structures in the middle school classrooms that's it that's the deliverable quote from the contract as a former middle school program administrator for volusia county i can tell you that you have salaried middle school experts on staff who would cost nothing extra to educate teachers and there are and their own educations are more current than his you also have cost-free direct service trainers such as professors from ucf

062through card and wonderful local experts at stetson bcu and dsc who would work at a fraction of the cost of this gentleman with a master's from colorado who hasn't taught in a middle school in decades having him teach fellow teachers is like having someone who moved here to get rich through over development speak as if they represent local parents students and educators it's transparent pathetic and alarmingly out of touch professional development doesn't need to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars elizabeth albert's tried to be part of this conversation and has not been permitted that should tell you a lot i'm pleased at the last meeting mr colon and mrs burnett said that they needed to know more and three of you held fast against an aggressive push to rush into a contract with big holes

063as ms haynes pointed out dig into some of these things being buried in the agendas thank you son k kaminsky thank you all right do we have any more cards all right seeing none we have a motion that was probably made by mr purses seconded by mrs cupper correct all right no further discussion all those in favor say aye aye all right all those opposed say all right consent agenda is approved superintendent's announcements on march 10th this week we have the all-county orchestra showcase at university high school on friday march 11th it is a teacher duty day student holiday spring break begins monday march 14th classes will resume march 21st our next school board meeting will be march 22nd our next board workshop at fourth i'm sorry we got those reversed school board meeting will

064be march 22nd at 7 pm the workshop will be march 22nd at 4 30 pm school library and media month april is april 2022 child abuse prevention month is april 2022 school volunteer appreciation month is april 2022 national assistant principals week is april 4th through the 8th and paraprofessional appreciation day is april 6th and at this time board um i'd like to ask mr persis to step up here please you know we give out service pins for employees that have been in the district for 30 years but seldom do you have them that make it 40. mr persis i'd like to give you a service pen for 40 years of service to volusia county schools [Music] [Applause] [Music] one two and three thank congratulations thank you thank you that's all i have chair all right

065mr board we have 20 minutes between now and public comment we're going to go right to the board action adam let's do it let's do it all right next item on the agenda is going to be 17.01 board action item approval of the salary schedule for 2021 2022. miss schultz do we have any cards for this item no kelly all right okay all right dr fritz all right my mask mr west mr board members as you know we workshopped this item earlier today mr west is coming forward with some recommendations for board action thank you thank you uh good afternoon dr fritz mr colon board members thank you for giving the opportunity to bring before you our proposal for the salary increase for non-bargaining professional technical school-based and district administrators what we have done is

066we put together for you a proposed salary schedule and i know that you haven't had a whole lot of time to look at these but we discussed them quite a bit it's um in essence it is a five percent increase for levels one two and three and our technical non-bargaining employees it's a level uh three percent increase for levels four through eight and a two percent increase for all administrators uh level 9 and above and site based administrators in addition to that it is we have included a proposal for a retention bonus of 500 for any employees in non-bargaining that have five years or more in volusia county schools thank you board and you've heard the recommendation we'll start with mr persis thank you mr chair and i just wanted to to be clear when

067you said levels one two three uh five percent raise that that does include um 11 per hour for which whichever employee was not at 11 per hour correct before that exactly and what you'll notice i think on on the actual sheet that you have there if you'll take a look under the technical salary schedule that's those are the group of employees that we had two groups of employees that were below that it was our deaf interpreters and it was also our edep employees and you'll notice that we raised our deaf interpreters up to eleven dollars an hour and our edep employees um to twelve dollars an hour okay and and everyone else that five percent increase and you're going to increase the hours of the edps and our ede employees we have also talked about

068and increasing their hours from a minimum of two hours to three hours to at least three hours yes sir okay um mr chair i you know i'm i'm happy to go along with this for right now but i i did did like the recommendation i think that we all were kind of leaning toward during the workshop that we have some sort of a study and maybe that could be brought back to us in our april workshop in terms of maybe the superintendent could provide some options for that type of study like what it what you could do internally or what could be done with a consultant you know just give you time to to look and see how that could be done to give us just more in information because i do like what you

069said i think we need to i think you said five year but i'd like to make it almost three here if we could but somewhere three to five years so we can get to where we need to be thank you mr persis i don't see anybody else on the queue if you if you're wanting to i i do have a comment go ahead you know a lot of times we we find ourselves in this position because of timing and failure to make a decision would just prolong this and it's unfortunate that um we couldn't do better right now given the circumstances but i i am proud of the fact that after three years of being here we finally got to the conversation of saying we have to develop a plan yeah um and so i'm

070grateful for all the head nods that we had in order to get that work started and i think it not only involves our not you know our are non-bargaining but it's everybody it's everybody where are where is everybody at where they should they be because what you're gonna find is and like i said we found this in my organization what you're gonna find is the people who were there the longest who have done a lot of the work or the ones that are lowest compensated and i don't think that's the intent or desire of the board so i am grateful with that this is perfect by no means it is very hard to dissect each of this as i said this is you know what was submitted to us is very confusing no fault of

071you because you know we're dealing with layers and layers of many many years of folks who have been here and some people started after before some people started higher started lower and i think that taking a look at every individual not levels not class looking at every individual and see if we are market marketively competitive is going to be key and and i can tell you it's going to take a lot of difficult decision making whether i'm here i'm not doesn't make a difference to me in the sense that we have to do right by employees and this is a three year i'll share with you all like i did you know in my organization we spent a year almost without spending yeah you know we we couldn't say you know we're ordering from office

072depot tell us what kind of coffee you wanted because we realized that it was those expenditures it was you know keeping a lot of inventory and stock that maybe we didn't need uh purchasing things that because we knew we were going to have to spend on bringing these salaries up so we planned on it so i'm excited that we're having this conversation now it's something that's been in my heart for many years it's just the timing has to be right and i am supportive of this however i don't think it's perfect by any means and i look forward to working with dr fritz and mr west and miss hazel as we start to unpack what this means because i i don't know if this has ever been done but i think it's time to uh

073it's time so thank you with that being said did we have a motion well i can make one if you entertain a motion uh sure thank you mr chair so uh make sure i'm saying this correctly mr west so uh i move that we give our non-bargaining em employees uh the following raise amounts uh level ones two and three would get five percent raise um in in that in in of a no employee making less than 11 per hour and levels four five and six seven and eight get a three percent raise and then levels nine and above a two two percent raise and that all employees who have worked with the volusia county school district for five years uh five years or more right i guess would get a uh a a one-time 500

074um stipend retention bonus yes okay retention bonus motions been made by mr persis do we have a second i'll second it motions were made by mr purses seconded by miss burnett miss haines any questions thoughts feelings or concerns um may i sir sherman scupper i want to thank you and the um our treasury department yeah they're printing the money as we said that's good i had to i had to say that because it is a treasure because it's so well guarded um but thank you for bringing all these non-bargaining um figures uh before us it's i think what mr colon was trying to say is we don't want them to be an afterthought that's right that you know as we work with you on both unions we also want to work with them too at

075the same time keep things going as we as we develop it and and i know you don't do that but it's um we just don't want the appearance to the public for that but thank you for all this hard work and i i while you were talking about refiguring and going back and you were talking about all the different positions that had different job experience and degrees and that everybody has a different you know i can't even begin to to even think about the computer program that has to program all this every individual has a different computation so you can do that um kudos to all of our analysts and those people who actually do all that work so thank you and i do have one question when would this take effect okay so we

076will actually make it retro to july one um and then uh work from there so um i'm not going to make my folks work over spring break because i'm just that kind of a nice guy but it will be after spring break that we will we'll look to to put that into effect and then move forward yes ma'am thank you thank you mr west and his team so i have a just a clarifying question because the devil's in the details yes sir what is five years or more defined as we we discussed this a little bit and what we're going to do effective once the vote is taken effective tonight so effective this date anyone who has actually five years or more experience effective march the 8th so we will go back and we will

077track all those records and make sure that anybody who has five years of experience up to march the 8th um we'll receive that retention bonus so yeah so four years and three i'm just want to be clear because we know we've run into this before right is it 60 months is it five years it is five years from the date that they started if they started march the 8th then they're in continuous service correct so anybody employed as of march 8th and forward will receive the 500 service continuous service uh it's a permanent employee yes what defines non-containment we we have that definition very clearly written down you do we do and we will make sure we follow that thank you promotion has been made and seconded and any further discussion hearing none will call

078for the vote all those in favor say aye aye those opposed say nay motion passes thank you that's good news we will have a nine minute break and we will take a public comment at 6 pm thank you all right one minute all right we will reconvene this school board meeting thank you all once again for your patience uh next up we have public comment uh everyone will have three minutes to address the board i will kindly uh thank you when your three minutes are up first up we have miss sheila butchened butchart bacharach oh that's an r okay welcome miss b all right welcome thank you um good evening i'm sheila butchart i'm the view executive vice president for membership i'm reading tonight on behalf of our president elizabeth albert who's currently in tallahassee

079advocating for our members our students in our public schools chairman colon members of the board dr fritz and members of the audience i'd like to begin by sharing some information that is relevant to the expectations of the public on the way businesses conducted in these chambers at the last board meeting an agenda item was advertised to the public as a for discussion however as the discussion progressed a member of the board with the blessing of the school board attorney quickly moved to change this discussion to board action item i would like to remind you that according to volusia county school policy 102 school board agendas after the agenda has been made available change shall be made for only a good cause as determined by the chairman or the vice chair and the pr in the

080chairman's asthma and as stated in the record notification of such change shall be made at the earliest practical time i'd like to thank the chair and other members of the board who adhered to that school board policy and declined to vote although there was significant pressure to do so additionally i'd like to remind you that the employees of the district are watching they are listening to your comments and realizing there is a vast disconnect between the expectations that are placed on them compared to the practices and standards that are applied to others when this takes place it does not bring us together it causes us to create a divide and continues the erosion of trust there are more than four thousand teachers and over eleven thousand support staff who have counted on you to hear

081their voice they are counting on you to stand up for them and knowledge that volusia county is in crisis they're counting on you to stand up for them to take action to fix those problems that are driving the teachers and staff out of loose county schools they're counting on you to stand up for the students in our classrooms who are falling further behind every time a teacher leaves or paraprofessional vacancy goes unfilled they're counting on you to stand up for all educational professors and take deliberate and intentional steps to ensure that the culture of volusia county schools becomes an environment of respect and collaboration instead of the current volatile uncertainty ambiguous state that we're living in educational professionals are leaving volusia county schools at ex exte astonishing rate they're leaving because they're not empowered to

082make decisions that improve the teaching and working conditions that lead to improved student achievement it is your responsibility to hear their voice and ensure that the needs of those working in our district in our schools in our classrooms become the priority because in the end it's the integrity is in the end integrity is choosing courage over comfort be strong and courageous as we are counting on you thank you next up ms kim short welcome mrs short welcome chairman colon board members dr fritz um i wasn't planning on talking about this but i did want to add it to the conversation about the non-bargaining units there is something called a human capital audit and it is a process that a lot of companies go through they take and look at the policies and processes that might

083require attention and they can help with something like finding you know what the market salary is for different level positions you can also task them with looking at maybe our entire cabinet and seeing if all of those positions really are cost effective and you'd be surprised at some of the things that you'll find out that you can cut so that you can fund other things so i think that would be my suggestion uh to start with that entire five-year plan three-year plan whatever you guys decided up here that i do think is a good thing the real thing that i wanted to come tonight to discuss is uh seabreeze high school so i did send the principal of seabreeze high school an email back on february 11th regarding a school-based decision that was made it's

084recently come to my attention that i know that the quarter is closing in two days but the parents of that entire junior class have never been notified that their children lost their teacher i i do believe that school-based decisions are important and because all schools are different and situations create different needs i'm concerned because although i do think that's important that that testing and the pressure that that it puts on our school leadership sometimes they make decisions that aren't in the best interest of all children but are in the interest of maybe one group of children i i think that in this case when you take a teacher away from an entire group of children in the 11th grade and give them to the children in the ninth grade whether it be the case or

085not with 10th grade ela scores being something that we all know you have to pass in order to graduate it looks like that i think that none of none of how this was handled was really in keeping with our strategic plan i i think the communication piece of it is probably still my biggest problem and as board members we have i you have the responsibility to all children and making sure that they all get a quality education and so for those kids right now who are probably not doing very well and i know one who is not doing very well uh and maybe all those parents who maybe they're not even aware of what's going on and why their kids aren't doing well they deserve that communication and i think that some kind of a

086policy needs to get you know be looked at so that that doesn't happen again and so we can protect them thank you mrs short next up commissioner dana mccool mr chairman mr fritz board i'm here to speak to you today and to tell you that when i was 14 years old which is 44 years ago i was beaten on a regular basis and sexually abused by my stepfather repeatedly for a number of years i went in confidence to tell a teacher about this this teacher in turn went and told my parents what i had told them and in turn what i got was more beatings and more abuse you know the story you know the cycle you know how it goes as educators so i'm here to talk to you about 15 hb 1557 today

087a lot of people are calling it the don't say gay bill but i'm telling you it's to don't say bill when we are stripping teachers of the ability to take into a child's confidence and protect a child we're putting politics over people and i find it shameful i'm encouraging our educators to please protect these children use your best judgment and i'm asking our legislators to quit legislating protection for our children there are four pages of a bill of rights hb 1557 that talks about the rights of parents but in nowhere does it talk about the rights of the child so i am here to encourage you when you hear something take that child into confidence what happens to these kids if they do not feel like they have someone that they can trust these children

088turn to self-abuse they turn to alcoholism they turn to drugs they turn to promiscuity they they have they are lost when they feel like that anything that they tell their teacher the people that they spend the quality amount of time with when they feel like when they tell their teacher this and the teacher is going to have to go back and tell the very people that are abusing them it's a sad sad day that we're legislating the privacy out of these children feeling protected so i'm begging you educators to remember this when these children these high schoolers they have to come and tell you what is going on no matter what it is do not put legislation over the lives of these children i want to thank who are now deceased miss carolyn stonehouse and

089karen mccarron who are counselors at the school that took me into their confidence and helped me um navigate through that difficult time and and guys i'm telling you right now we cannot do this to our kids i understand what the law says but there is also a moral law here at issue listen to these kids respect their privacy and as much as you can and do not let these kids down this is going to be a hard thing for you guys to navigate your way through so i just ask you teachers and your counselors to remember that when you're dealing with these kids not politics over privacy thank you thank you commissioner mccool next up heather mclean um good evening chairman colon board members and superintendent fritz my name is heather mclean and i'm proud

090to serve the deland lgbtq community as public information officer for the non-profit organization deland pride my wife and i are also parents of a five-year-old our organization is concerned about what kind of effects the proposed parents rights and education bill could have on the vulnerable population of the lgbtq students in our schools this bill proposes to ban discussion of sexuality in grades k-3 and could require schools to notify parents if their child of any age identifies as lgbtq first the idea that the district encourages teaching of lgbtq issues in k-3 in the first place is ludicrous especially when the school board itself who are supposed to represent all people in this community couldn't even agree on a toothless recognition of lgbtq mental health awareness a recognition that required no curriculum no activities and no class

091announcements recently there have been comments attacking the county's lgbtq support guide which has since been removed online the support guide itself stated in response to apparent question aren't our children too young to begin discussion of lgbtq issues quote by addressing lgbtq issues in school we are not talking about sex with your children we are talking about family identity and respect for others our obligation as educators is to confront stereotypes and address inappropriate language to make schools safe and accessible for all students and families these discussions are not about sex or sexual activity or body parts but are about respect for differences when a student calls another another gay as a derogatory term in class what can a teacher do will this be a teaching moment about respecting differences or will teachers be silenced while students

092are bullied when a student says they have gay parents and others have questions what do you think will happen second all the talk about parents rights ignores the constitutionally protected rights of these children of free speech and to be taught in a safe environment lgbtq youth exist in our schools whether they're acknowledged or not and are especially vulnerable we know that lgbtq students are much more likely to experience bullying harassment assault and to commit self-harm and suicide we know that volusia county students experienced experiences at a higher rate than nationally even according to a 2017 district survey and not all parents are accepting of their children studies have shown over and over that parental rejection of lgbtq kids is closely tied with youth homelessness as well as suicide rates these children will lose protections that

093are already in place if educators are required to notify parents when children confide in them or when children wish to share their identities with their peers we must continue to support the freedom and rights of our students including their right to be taught in a safe environment the freedom and rights of parents have been discussed at length in the last two years but those should not come at the expense of the freedom and rights of any of the students in this district we ask that the board supports the lgbtq support guide's continued existence regardless of the outcome of the current bills moving through tallahassee and we ask that the board supports lgbtq students and their families regardless of whether people would rather we didn't exist at all thank you next up mr john navarro welcome

094mr navarro thank you good evening i am a 23-year veteran teacher at volusia county schools and i need your help the bus drivers need your help the cafeteria workers need your help the paraprofessionals need your help what happens is we have tried to contact our state representatives as ms cuthbert has mentioned and many of you have mentioned and it is very difficult it is a struggle uh we work during the time that the uh session is going on and the session ends of course friday and our first day off is monday and i don't like to leave work i just hate to do that i had three years of perfect attendance two my first full year my second full year i had perfect attendance the year before my daughter was born and i missed two

095days so i'm a dedicated teacher so the session happens while we're at school and we're not able to speak to the legislature and i have been struggling to be able to speak to the state legislators what i'm proposing is that it would not violate the sunshine laws if we were able to get a team together of veteran teachers or veteran teacher bus drivers cafeteria workers and a school board member and try to speak to the state legislators on our need for higher pay i think that might be very effective would not violate the sunshine laws and i have gone to tallahassee and 10 years ago and i did take off a couple of days from school for that event i teach american government was a learning experience and the reactions i got in tallahassee were

096kind of odd um i said well we need more money this is before the staffing shortages about 10 years ago and we need more money for volusia county schools and the legislators told me well you're uh we give you plenty of money and your school boards squander it and it's like really and so i that's the reaction we get so those are the reactions we're getting and when we come you know before the school board um we hear you know get more money from tallahassee and we're trying um the evolutionary united educators through them i am able to speak with the legislators but as an individual person it is difficult maybe you have the gravitas maybe you have the mojo maybe you have the secret password to get through but we're trying and i think

097if we have bus drivers cafeteria workers paraprofessionals veteran teachers we can speak to the state legislators and at least get our voice out there because we are struggling to get our voice out there and uh we may not be their priority and i have seen the staffing shortages and i've lived through them for the last few years it used to not be that way thank you mr navarro next up dr jerry pikett welcome dr pikett thank you greatly appreciate it board chairman members of the board community groups business partners superintendent of schools as educators and leaders it is our role to ensure that all kids far and near would benefit from the rewards of a quality education along with a fair opportunity to reach their fullest potential but as leaders it is our civic duty

098to mandate a fair and equal path for everyone i ask the superintendent once again to give these questions concerns and comments close consideration in celebrating vc's most recent graduation rates are we celebrating our ability to utilize course retrieval over quality instruction from a teacher additionally are students really more prepared right now than ever before instructional positions what is your actual plan superintendent national search early college recruiting relocating package for new teachers multiple job fairs but starting salaries for focused teachers only exactly what is the plan continuing on we absolutely need pay increases for our bus drivers prayer professionals cafeteria workers front line workers right away we need to make this a priority i'm also asking the board to review the salaries of the superintendent's top appointments and compare those salaries to the previous position holders

099if we can appoint positions at the highest level 10 15 20 000 plus more than the previous holder why are we not able to provide a groundbreaking increase for our bus drivers paraprofessionals and frontline workers what are your plans to provide incentives to our focus school leaders staff and faculty for turning around struggling schools continuing on what changes will be made to ensure vcs personnel in hiring practices do not discriminate against the rights of individuals competing for available positions at all levels as an advocate for my sons that look exactly like me where is the african-american male leadership on your cabinet to facilitate initiatives to increase the overarched success of these individuals hashtag fire dr fritz how dare you call any parent a bad parent that comment is more disrespectful than opinionated let's go on

100to the vcs strategic plan who actually wrote the plan what was the cost of the plan and finally what was your pay bonus for the plan information superintendent we're just asking you to do right for everyone we do not want or need handouts just do what is fair for all the people and everyone will compete for the opportunities that are available thank you thank you dr pikett and last but not least mr scott cleary hello again mr chairman welcome and this is me this time unscripted and surprising you look like you so i'm glad it's you it's good thanks good evening board members superintendent mr doran i i was reflecting on something i didn't really know what i was going to say tonight but i'm looking around and the first time i spoke in front

101of this board the only person sitting here was mr doran and over the years i've encouraged the board to do things or not to do things and sometimes very vigorously but at the end of the day be it dr smith or tom russell who is always tom at the end of the meeting it was how are you how are the kids how's your school that was leadership and there was a sense of consensus that happened in years past i don't see that anymore all i see is acrimony and a lot of it particularly in the last year and a half two years we need to move beyond the acrimony there are going to be some decisions that are going to be contentious whether or not to extend a contract the elections in august and november

102but other than that we should really silo those issues and start pulling back together i had an interesting conversation during the break with someone who i disagree with a lot on but i found i agreed with a lot as well we've lost that ability to talk about what we agree with and that will take leadership to recover that that's been lost it's gone i don't see an easy return to it but we really have to return to it otherwise we're going to be doing a major disservice to our students and the community as a whole i just want you to think about this and see where it takes you in the days and weeks ahead have a good night thank you mr clear all right next item is items from the board superintendent so the

103super superintendent attorney for discussion uh do you all want to queue up or we'll go around the room mr purchase nothing mr mr scott anxious to get out okay i gotcha i just wanted to thank all the speakers who came today i'm sure this board will do the best we can with a lot of the legislative difficulties that are ahead of us i'm wearing the colors of ukraine tonight a freedom needs to be identified by many people and the ukrainians right now are just showing exactly what democracy is all about and how precious it all is i'm i'm of russian descent but it's also ukrainian descent and today my grandfather's born city is in belarus so i was raised with that eastern europe eastern asia that way western asia eastern european and thought and i

104we had russian orthodox priests in our family i had an uncle i had to call him father tony never uncle and so it's the rich history 22 years ago my husband and i during spring break went to russia we were in moscow we lit candles for our family members we visited the kremlin we visited a brand new mcdonald's that was in town but we only had the visa to stay in moscow it was the first time and this was only 22 years ago i saw a gentleman at the kremlin on the outside with the jacket like what mr cologne has honor you had no tie on sorry i made it public but hit the wind open up his jacket and there was a strap with a gun underneath his jacket i'd never seen that before

105i saw traffic lights with soldiers with caps and long coats with a rifle strapped over their shoulder you didn't dare cross them and yet their sidewalks were crumbling we were told we needed to wear real hard sold shoes because it was so difficult to travel cars were parked everywhere it was an experience i'll never ever ever forget i saw pornography out in the open i saw children very young carrying vodka bottles there is very i mean their restrictions are almost nil except freedom of speech and freedom of expression so i'm very celebrating today our ability to have public participation and not for people to be retaliated against as i walk out the door so let's think and celebrate the gifts that we have and the blessings that we have and the country in which we

106live in and let's not forget how blessed we are thank you miss burnett thank you um so i when miss short was speaking she talked about the student and the uh teacher situation at seabreeze and so i just think it's a good idea for us to reflect and look and see if we do have a policy about that um and and to make sure that we are communicating appropriately because if it were my child and that was a situation i would not be very happy so i just wanted to think about if we can think about that and if mr pendley can look and see if we have a policy for such uh movement if we can address that if not if we don't have one maybe we can address that and the other thing

107i want to talk about was is we have an important decision coming up next our next meeting that we have and i mentioned that it was very important that we have an evaluation for dr fritz i think that we owe him that and i know that we're not going to have time to do that um but what i've done is and i asked aaron to copy get make copies i'm going to go through and using this tool that we all agreed upon at a workshop i'm going to do an evaluation and while i know that we don't have all the data that we need i think it's the fair thing to do the community said they like the strategic plan this follows a strategic plan um and and it'll give us a good idea a

108good a good guide a good baseline and like they do take stocks in school we'll do a take stock on on this with using this tool it'll also kind of keep us focused where we won't be spending too much time on one subject and we can address everything that we need to address so i've made copyright actually aaron make copies for everybody if you'd like one i think she can pass those out but that is my plan and i know spring break is coming up so everybody enjoy all right um so to add on to um what mrs burnett said it first and i think carl and linda would probably agree with me i know that in my entire teaching career there was a year i changed grade levels um because there was a first

109grade class that needed some stability but it was kind of it was awkward the way it happened i had to go out of town for a funeral and i returned and the principal called me in and said i need you to leave your third grade class and i need you to go to first grade and i said what happened you know like to my third graders like not follow and they said no your third graders were beautifully they're well trained they know what to do but we've got a first grade class that's not had any stability and first graders that haven't had stability don't know how to sit in chairs okay they sit under tables and desks and everything else so i was given two days to make a move but and at that time

110dave fisher was my principal and what i will say though is he communicated beautifully he communicated with all of the parents in the third grade classroom that i was leaving and he communicated with all the first grade parents where i was going and he shared why it was happening and what what needed to happen so throughout my entire career any time a move has happened or a change has had to be made or even if a teacher you know is going to have to go out for an extended period of time i've always worked with great administrators who have always communicated that because i say all the time children will be most successful no matter what age they are if we communicate and we build strong bridges with their parents and so that we have

111their parent parent support because i think i think sometimes we don't give parents the credit that they deserve parents are understanding if we communicate with them so it's a little heartbreaking to me to hear that you know we took it the 11th graders lost their teacher and the ninth graders got it and i think we could all probably justify why the ninth graders needed their teacher just like that year i moved from third to first um but we probably wouldn't be in this situation had we communicated well but beyond that i'm looking forward to the rest of the week i know some of us are still going to head out and see our maintenance and facilities workers and and i i had a fun time with yours yesterday morning they were a great group and

112we're serving breakfast this week and schools have wonderful activities going on you know heading into the spring break week and so i want to wish every one of you as well as everyone listening all of our students you know our parents our teachers and staff i hope everyone even if all you do is um you know i hear netflix isn't a popular thing for a lot of people or go to the beach visit your grandchildren or you know your children i hope everyone has a wonderful spring break and they get some rest and relaxation and they're ready to come back for the final quarter thank you thank you mr darn if you're going to watch something 1883. okay watch that show i'm serious it is the best one season and there is no second season

113that i have ever seen zyphon and it will just take a lot of winning where is it fantastic where is it 1883 paramount but it's movies streaming streaming streaming um along the lines of miss burnett uh ms comfort has asked me to send out a little stack of papers so i'll send that on to youtube similar to your concept code let's look at the old document thank you dr fritz well it is spring break time um i'd like to wish everybody a a phenomenal spring break and thank all those that do everything from classes classroom teachers to our paras to our bus drivers i would like to take the opportunity to thank my leaders at run our schools and that run our departments and especially my cabinet it takes guts to be a leader you

114don't always make the right decision but you're willing to stand up and do it this cabinet has worked tirelessly there have been so many accomplishments i'm so very proud of each and every one of you i really want you to take some time next week i want you to take some time and relax and and enjoy yourself and and get ready for the final push you do it every day and you never ask for that help you never ask for thank yous you just do it so i thank you very much for what you do and enjoy next week chair thank you with that being said we will adjourn this meeting thank you and everyone have a safe spring break it is 6 30.