001good evening I want to thank superintendent Jenkins and chairman sublet and the Orange County school board for the opportunity to serve on the faith-based council and to share our condolences today on behalf of Killarney Baptist Church and principal Kelly Stein King and the Killarney elementary school family with whom we are partners in education I want to express our deepest condolences to the students faculty staff and the families of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School on February the 14th was shocked and horror we watched the news reports of the senseless and barbaric murder of 17 innocent students and the injuries to so many more we know that this is a devastating beyond what we can imagine and the pain and the hurt runs so deep we are thinking of you today and every day and praying that
002God will give you strength healing and peace we thank God for the way that you the community and people all across America have rallied together to give you support we rejoice to see the heart and soul of your school community displayed as your hockey team showed grit and determination and dedicating themselves to winning the state championship this past weekend the spirit displayed through them will encourage all of you as you come together this week to love and support one another we also want to commit ourselves along with you in making a difference in fighting against these kinds of atrocities that cut short the lives of our youth and inflict devastating wounds not just physically but also emotionally and psychologically the individual who committed this horrendous crime and others like him should never have access to
003the weapon he used preventing this kind of access and taking steps through law enforcement legislation and better mental health care are essential and working to prevent future tragedies as Christians we believe there are additional measures that must be taken there are social and cultural factors that will make a difference we seem to be living in a time of increased division where so many people are stirring up bitterness and strife there's a culture of anger and vengeance that continually lashes out verbally and too many times physically against others Jesus taught us to love our neighbors the second great command after loving God is love your neighbor as yourself and Jesus not only taught us to love our neighbors but also to love our enemies he said but to you who are willing to listen I say
004love your enemies do good to those who hate you bless those who curse you and pray for those who hurt you as we turn away from vengeance and all forms of animosity and violence and embrace the love that transcends differences and overcomes evil the love that Jesus displayed when he sacrificed his own life for us we will experience a new generation of peace love and harmony god bless you and may his peace and protection be with you thank you I'm often asked what are words of comfort that I as a rabbi or member of clergy can be shared with families and times of tragedy and in those moments I am eternally grateful for the fact that Jewish tradition offers an actual formula of what you're supposed to say and I say it now hamako munich
005i met him potosi are availa Tionne viewers shall i'm which is the prayer that God grant comfort and consolation to those in mourning amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem because it offers an opportunity to say something that you have said before and something that unfortunately we know we will say again that we pray that we as victims and as mourner as all of us in this moment our gifted with comfort and consolation amongst all those who mourn and all those who suffer I am glad for the fact that I as a person of faith do not have to come up with some sort of magical words because none exists there are no words to bring back the 17 lives that were taken there are no words to bring back the innocence that the children
006in our community and our state and our country no longer have as they continue to be subjected not just to violence but to the reality that violence in their schools and in so many other places is part of their daily lives there are no words but in these moments when we pray for comfort and consolation I am reminded that in moments like this it's not just for the mourners in Parkland although of course we pray for them but it's for ourselves that we too should find comfort and consolation but also that comfort and consolation comes first and foremost from whatever it is that we believe in but also comes from each other that in moments like this I am grateful for the fact that as a faith-based Advisory Council we know each other already as
007we remember from the experience of the pulse shooting when it came time to gas as different members of different faiths and non faiths it wasn't unusual faces around the table it wasn't new experiences to have conversations it was people whom we had talked to before whom we had laughed with before whom we had celebrated with before which made the experience of leaning on that person to look to in comfort all the more comforting and so in this moment as we pray for comfort and consolation for all the mourners and for ourselves I am grateful for those relationships I am grateful for those people whom I know whom I have celebrated with whom I have laughed with and whom I cry with as well and we pray that all those in parkland all those who have
008suffered these kinds of atrocious acts in the past have such foundations within their community that they can lean on just as we'd leaned on each other because we are all mourners we all need comfort and consolation amongst each other we look to the heavens but we look to each other to find it Thank You rabbi Skolnick and pastor may for those words of comfort and consolation at this time I'm going to ask everybody in the audience to please stand and join us in a moment of silence as we read aloud the names of the victims and after which we will dim the lights and light the candles in a moment of memoriam for those victims as well let us remember Alyssa al-hadith Martine Duque Ariano Nicholas dois ray Jaime Guttenberg Luke Hoyer Cara Lauren Gena
009Mont Alto Joaquin Oliver Elena petty meadow Hellena Ramsay Alex Shaktar Carmen centrum Peter Wang Scott Michael Aaron Feist and Christopher Hickson if you have please do I need a bucket we Richard stands one nation indivisible energy interest I want to thank again the members of the Freedom High School chorus for that beautiful rendition and for joining us in this memorial members of the audience I want to thank you for joining us in this memorial as well and I particularly want to thank pastor Mayhew and grab ice cold Inc for coming tonight to speak with us as well pardon me and also our entire members of our faith council could they stand as well because I'm sorry I feared that well thank you for coming down as well tonight you know I feel like I should
010say that we try very very hard and it's a passion of the superintendent but over this entire board as well to involve our faith-based community in in our in our schools because we think that they are an incredibly productive guiding force for our community's children so thank you a gentleman for what you do for our youth and for our families in our community at this time I do want to say one other thing it was alluded to a little bit earlier there has been a national walkout day that's been called for March 14th and we anticipate that thousands of students throughout the country will be walking out we in Orange County Public Schools and I feel like this needs to be said we had Orange County Public Schools we've decided to embrace that not for
011any political statement purposes I think that's very very important for me to say a school board chairman but out of respect for the victims of parkland and we anticipated not only what thousands of students be participating in that as they should be including my own daughter and my own son who are high school students who made it clear to me that they wanted to participate but also hundreds of our teachers wish to participate as well as a sign of respect to the victims of that shooting so on March 14th we have sent out their word to all of our school principals under the auspices of the superintendent to structure those moments of silence 17 minutes of silence for each of the victims on March 14th and each school can do it as they see fit
012through their student government associations and I think that's very important I want to thank you for that dr. Jenkins because we are deferring to the youth of our of our community and how they organized that particular memorial on their campus on March 14th so with that I'm going to turn it over to dr. Jenkins we are now going to proceed with the business of our school board and the topic tonight is school safety and security after which we will have a number of speakers and I'll make an announcement when that time comes dr. Jenkins thank you chairman members of the board let me certainly add a personal note to my personal friend Bob Runcie in Broward County and for all that they are going through there are certainly our hearts our minds our thoughts and
013prayers are with them as well I also want to thank this community for how once again you have proven how you care for the children of this district and how we have had nothing but support from business partners from our wonderful faith counsel certainly condolences to the Imam who was not able to be here but we've just experienced such tremendous support from this community on behalf of our children and we appreciate that I also want to make known that we thank and appreciate every suggestion every concern every email we have been collating those and gathering them our chief operating officer Roberto Pacheco has actually been collating those we've actually had our first conference call with our consultants we don't take anyone's thoughts ideas concerns lightly I want to reassure the public of that and that
014our student and staff safety our school safety are our number one priority secondly just like to note that we are held to certain confidentiality around some of our security plans and so when you hear the presentation I don't want you to be sadly disappointed please understand that by statute we are able to hold some information from public consumption as an added measure of security and then thirdly I think it's important to note that Orange County Public Schools this board has actually committed to safety concerns since some time ago back in 2014 when we first had consultants look at our school safety they have dedicated resources including the establishment of our own police force while it is certainly not as large as sheriff Demings force we are proud of what we have assembled here because they
015are coordinators with all of our law enforcement agencies and Orange County Public Schools and so for our presentation tonight I want to give the public some assurance that we do have both local talent available and national resources that we depend on let me tell you about our own chief Bryan Holmes I want you to know he served over 26 years for Cocoa Beach Police Department the last six years he was Chief of Police during his law enforcement career he provide he was provided opportunities to serve in several investigative and leadership positions after retiring he took a job with a nationwide private security firm as a director of quality assurance he's had opportunities to travel the country conducting reviews of branch business practices certain various acting leadership roles which gave him experiences with security teams and
016security systems at nationally recognized private sector companies his master's degree is from UCF in criminal justice he graduated from the FBI National Academy graduated from Brevard County police academy and has also been an enlisted member of the US Coast Guard for four years I give his background during his presentation he will mention the rest of our force because I want this community to know that the school board invested in some talent to help bring great reassurance to our efforts around school safety with that if you would chief Holmes thank you dr. Jenkins good evening mr. chairman board members back in 2014 a school safety consulting firm conducted a district-wide safety security and emergency management assessment and response several changes implemented to improve Orange County Public Schools overall emergency preparedness and security Pro fall in addition
017to the assessment we maintain and dr. Jenkins just alluded to it expertise in-house regarding safety and security issues by staying up-to-date on emergency and security management procedures and continually engaging outside experts as needed the goal is to have a comprehensive and I'm going to say this word multi-layered security in all of our campuses now we talked about confidential confidentiality requirements per Florida statute 119 decimal zero seven one all records information photographs audio and visual presentations schematic diagrams survey surveys recommendations or consultations or portions thereof relating directly to the physical security of the facility or revealing security systems are exempt from public record these include threat assessments conducted by any agency or any private entity threat response pent plans emergency evacuation plans sheltering arrangements or manuals for security personnel emergency equipment or security training a security
018system plan or portion thereof any privately owned or leased property that might be impacted by something that OCPs could be involved in these are to remain confidential for security purposes and for obvious reasons I think to everybody in this room we're not going to give up the plan and a public records request I'm not required to by law and we're going to stand on that now we're going to talk about security here tonight and an overall kind of general sort of the way and not just reveal everything we've got going on but what we've been doing based on the assessment the areas that were evaluated by the assessment were does facility security staff preparedness traffic safety design criteria and security risk and vulnerability tools areas that were prioritized our organization of safety and security emergency
019preparedness physical school improvements and school design let's talk District Police something I'm rather proud to have been associated with the standing up of a police unit within this organization established in August of 2015 the primary focus is on prevention and early intervention in all aspects of that the role of this of the district police is to act as liaisons with our local agency partners and I'll talk about them in just a little bit provide support to school administrators and I want to assure you our administrators need support particularly in this area the law and the enforcement of the law is very complex do the principals and the APS need to be dealing with that on campus they need law enforcement dealing with law enforcement issues support and vet all security threats I say again support
020and vet all security threats we have some subunits within the district police we have an asset protection unit this is all about the electronic security and the physical security we have a police communication center when I started here we had a control center it was designed for security we now have a law enforcement police communications and I'm very proud to talk about that because I have a great staff and the leadership in that particular unit is impeccable that's not just about talking to the police it's more about interoperability with the police we need to be able to utilize their services we need the able talk to them we need to be able to talk their language it just made sense to convert the entire control center into a police communication Center we also have an
021information analysis unit and in the information analysis unit you can see we really focus on criminal offenses in school based discipline collection we also spend time on criminal intelligence they act as liaisons with the other agencies criminal analysts and then also of they're engaged in social media analytics let me talk about that according to studies an increasing number of threats to schools are being delivered via social media and we know that's true here in Orange County Public Schools while many of these incidents are false several turn out to be credible and pose legitimate concerns district awareness and early intervention could support incident prevention and/or response therefore o CPS adopted a social media awareness program to ensure the continued safety and security of the OS PS community this program only XS is publicly available social media
022post select and trained district police personnel search for any areas of concern about armed self armed violence and mischief to OCPs facilities and our personnel now let me talk about my cops this is my command staff I'm proud to say that they have a hundred and seventy years combined combined years of a law enforcement service many of the career accomplishments just couldn't make it on the page I want to assure you but let me speak to these two of us are former police chiefs two FBI National Academy graduates we have a former Special Response Team commander we have a former such a Florida Metro SWAT team commander we have a former explosive k-9 handler and trainer and we had and how's this for some diversity in the unit a creator and implementer of community engagement
023programs let's talk about our sergeant's I'm proud of them as well the sergeants have a hundred and thirty years combined years of law enforcement service career accomplishments include an administrative sergeant for a Police Commissioner of a major municipal police agency a Violent Crimes Commander a school resource officer community affairs specialist member of the crisis intervention multi-agency team a major crime sergeant in a property crime sergeant I think the critical component to come violent compiling a staff such as this is they're able to liaison effectively they can speak the language of law enforcement when a sergeant shows up on a scene and is dealing with say for example the SROs and the management of the school there are administrators they know what they're talking about they've been there they've done that it's really important to have
024that kind of experience as a liaison for OCPs we also have programs that came out of the assessment that we've implemented I don't think it's any secret that OCPs does weapon screenings in our school we consider this an additional preventative measure a district police conducts weapon screens at a number of times per month utilizing both handheld wands and portable walkthrough metal detectors we do this on a random basis and we do both what we consider a large and a small scale I'm not going to go into details on the small scale but the large scale screening events very similar to a TA stay a tsa line at the airport if you've flown you know what that's all about or a trip to Disney you're going to get your back source before you go in it
025just makes sense in today's world but we do this on it a random basis now previously experts have told us that entry point metal detection similar to what is used in commercial airports would not be most effective for our schools and there's a lot of reasons for that I don't want to go into the details of it because it kind of gives away what we know but random metal detection approach was recommended to us and that is what is implemented here in light of recent incidents we are reviewing this recommendation with the consultant additionally the district continually gathers intelligence from law enforcement and other sources to help keep our schools safe we also have a safety and emergency management team that rolled out of this assessment process as well we're quite proud of them emergency
026management and business continuity is engaged in involved in a daily basis with our staff at schools they put together what's called a comprehensive emergency management plan that's what if we have an emergency we can go to the book I was involved in that and we are quite proud of it we also refer to it as a Kemp we have an emergency procedures manual which we out here at the beginning of the school year we have they are involved in setting up tabletop exercises district-wide emergency response training district incident management team management as well activist salient drills they conduct severe weather drills and notifications and they manage the school emergency emergency kit program fire health and safety as part of the safety and emergency management team they manage our safe walk program if you recall I
027mentioned that you know the pedestrian safety is an issue here and they recommended we do this in the assessment they conduct emergency preparedness drills comprehensive facility inspections and then they also call conduct follow-ups on Health Department inspection reporting let's talk about staff preparedness because they're deeply involved in that they conduct training for our staff we also have Child Study teams we put together safe school plans we have school emergency response teams which we refer to as cert we have a tabletop exercises that are conducted there at the school and there's also facilitated discussions about safety and security issues at the school now in addition to drills schools are required to maintain the following to support their emergency preparedness trained pro grams training school-based staff are trained on school safety measures to include the emergency procedures
028classroom management during these instance can you imagine what it's like in a classroom in the middle of an emergency and then active assailants response what you do if that horrendous situation comes to your school the Child Study team when students make a threat to harm themselves or others protocols are used to determine whether it is a credible threat part of the protocol involves convening a child study team to develop the health safety plan to address the needs of the students save school plans school leadership teams maintain site-specific safe school plans which serve to identify critical functions and resources that are necessary to manage crisis on a campus school emergency response team again the SIRT each school maintains a school emergency response team that is responsible for responding to emergencies during a crisis those staff assigned
029to be part of the cert receive additional training to support their function as emergency team leaders tabletop exercises school emergency response teams are required to conduct an annual discussion based tabletop exercise in which they test their plans and training against an emergency based scenario typically the school resource officer assigned to a school participates in the tabletop exercise and my police commanders have also been involved in facilitating those type of exercises to help make it real last but not least they're engaged and facilitated discussions annually school administrators lead their staff through facilitated training discussions on topics such as again active assailant and school safety these discussions are based on the district's standardized emergency preparedness online training manual manuals and this concludes the presentation members of the board just a couple of comments and then we'll certainly
030listen to your feedback and hear your discussion I wanted to remind you that immediately following the board meeting we will have executive session where we can share further details and specifics about the layers of security in place I would say again at the Chairman so Abele put it earlier we will not publicize either perceived or actual weaknesses because that simply makes our schools Bowl and so you won't hear that kind of detail we will be speaking with you in executive session very pleased at the work that has been done at this boards direction since that review over the past three years we'll give you an update in that meeting I also want you to know that we have reengaged that consulting firm national experts they have been on conference call with mr. Pacheco and staff
031last week and will be engaged further with the district we'll share those details with you as well in executive session and then I wanted to mention certainly you've heard of the governor's plan I know board member Flynn will mention something on the legislative side but I did want to mention that we are pleased that the governor is taking action around gun issues as well as funding for additional SROs in our schools hardening measures and resources to actually help pay for that mental health counselors and coordination between several agencies to make sure communities are covered and so we applaud the governor's being proactive around those issues and as I said board member Flynn can speak to the legislature and then we also wanted to remind folks we have our FAQ s that are posted on our
032website we communicate as often as possible via connect Orange and via social media so folks are familiar with aware of as much as we are able to communicate would ask you to stay in touch with both social media and our website for any updates and then lastly members of the board and chairman I would I would like to re-emphasize how much we appreciate when we saw some activity on social media and we reminded those participants that they were actually sharing information that in some instances was inaccurate but also that put schools unnecessarily at risk they responded immediately and took down some of that information I want to re-emphasize how much we depend on the entire community to help keep our schools our children our staff safe and that if you see something you need to
033say something that's something we keep reminding our students but also we have asked our community do not spread it because sometimes it is a hoax sometimes it is someone foolishly thinking it's comical so we asked folks don't spread it report it and that has been working well amongst our students as well as our parents and community we are all committed to the safety of our children and of our staff our faculty of our schools and together we believe we can continue to try to make sure they are protected with those comments chairman we're happy to hear the board's discussion listen to your comments all right Thank You chief Holmes for your leadership on this issue dr. Jenkins thank you in particular for you and your team for your leadership on this issue before we go
034to board comments we do have four speakers I'm just going to remind the audience that please work with me on this do not point out any specific perceived security fillings at a specific school if you or do if you do that the irony of that is you're actually endangering the children in that school by doing that so please work with me if you want to address general issues you know say for example your issue as metal detectors and you want to say I wish we had metal detectors at every school that's fair game but don't come in and say hey at XYZ school the front door security buzzer hasn't been working for the last year and a half and we wish you'd get it fixed because by doing that you're simply endangering the children at
035school tell us tell the administration tell the principal get on us if we don't follow up on those complaints I can assure you we will but don't yell it to the entire world from that electorate up there so our first speaker and I'll take them in this order Miss Julie Sadler then mrs. phyllis mills and miss judy hayes and then miss angie gallo and then we'll go to board discussion each speaker you'll have three minutes to address the board on the issue of school safety and security if you could please start with your name and your address welcome Miss Adler I'd like to say my name is Julie Sadler you said high dress I believe one one three four three Fenimore court Windermere Florida three four seven eight six I'd like to come here on
036behalf of the schools first of all I'd like to say thank you I've always been an advocate of the community as you each are probably aware have been here to help get schools built I've been a sac remember president of elementary middle high school sit for 10 years I've been your sac officer pretty much on every one of those schools so I'm very involved in the community I wanted to come to you and let you know that social media has very much riled me up recently after the Parkland incident our Hertz broke I have an eighth grader I have a senior it's close to my heart there's a point where parents get upset they get panicked I'm in an area where we've been through three lock downs some parents have pulled their kids because they've
037been under desk for five and six hours and to be honest with you one had a panic attack and just couldn't handle it she's not there anymore she's homeschooled when I see the comments on Facebook kind of see the alarm and as much as I love my school that I helped get in the area unfortunately it's on a main road and every little thing that happens turns into a big mountain and out of a molehill it's huge police are there helicopters flying 15,000 people are notified within 1 minute it is not my job I do not work for OCPs but I have tried very much to stop the comments and tell people to please remain calm and we have the safest district we have attention or children are safe but it's very difficult to calm
038people one of my mom's left Newton Columbine this is very dear to her heart she couldn't be here today but she will be there Thursday so that is what is passionate to me I decided I had to do something as always I email Pam Gould and said I need you I need you the school board to show up to our community we are in a state of panic I cannot handle seven different facebook pages and every 500 emails right now and when I try and defend what's going on I'm getting told to calm down my views aside when I'm merely trying to say just wait and let the school board come to our defense and give us answers thank goodness Pam Gould has worked with me and we have worked very hard to get a
039meeting in progress this Thursday 6:30 Windermere High for all of district 4 and I've got OCPs you guys are coming to represent and I would ask that each one of you sitting here tonight please come because I need your help and this isn't a West Orlando thing it's an entire state of Florida thing and nation you each should be there supporting your district our plan is to have the sheriff OCPs clergy in the community and I would really love to invite all of those faith-based that are here please to come you're all welcome I'd love to have all of you here a student panel I think what we've lost sight in the debate of discussions and what's going on other students and their feelings we're gonna hear from them three things I'd like to address
040quickly speak now you tell us to speak now I have a threat at eight o'clock at night I had nowhere to send it i forward it to my principals phone not all of us have that many an action plan in place we need phone numbers to call we need a Thursday your substitutes they're not trained on these drills I know you can't always look at that but please may add that and lastly the governor action we're in support but I just worried that it takes funding for our relief schools and lastly I would like to just show you and I'm sorry for time we've created this website for mothers for move now and in his mother's opposing violence and education so we're not going to stand on gun control but we're gonna stand on no
041more violence and hopefully the whole community goes together and we go to Tallahassee and we all work together for solutions mental health and counseling for our kids thank you thank you Miss Adler our next speaker is Miss Phyllis Mills miss Mills welcome thank you half of our CTA I believe right I'm here speaking for Wendy normal I'm Phyllis Mills I live at 40:24 McGuire Boulevard apartment 1301 Orlando Florida three to eight oh three and I'm going to read her statement it is surreal that we are now talking about arming teachers as a way to protect students from being shot in our schools teachers do not want to be armed with guns teachers want to be armed with schools that have enough social workers psychologists and counselors they want to be armed with small class sizes
042so they can build relationships with every student teachers want teachers want student success they want to be armed with enough planning time so they have time to spend with their own children and families how is it that some legislators who cannot find the funds to pay teacher to professional salary or probably fund our public schools can find the money to buy them guns and bullets or maybe they will expect teachers to buy their own just like their provides supplies for their students teachers are not even trusted to have a seat at the table when making decisions about public education and their own profession but now certain lawmakers trust them to carry guns teachers signed up to teach not to be law enforcement officers just a thought that anyone thinks it's okay to shove one more
043unwelcome responsibility on teachers is infuriating does anyone really believe teachers should be expected to shoot down a disturbed person with a gun or assault rifle without endangering students who are caught in the crossfire no teachers signed up to be a sharpshooter or a killer we already have seen teachers leaving the profession record numbers expect more to leave if this policy is enacted I certainly would never work in school where teachers are armed guns have no place in our schools assault rifles have no place in our society there are weapons of war we need to look the source of the problem the problem is guns in our society's obsession with guns we cannot allow the killing of innocent children to become the new normal for our country it is not normal that we keep putting band-aids
044on the problem instead of eliminating the root cause I urge our school board members to reject the idea of arming teachers with guns and support legislation requiring sensible gun reform measures including a ban of all assault weapons thank you thank you miss Mills our next speaker is Miss Judy Hayes miss Hayes welcome good start with your address please lower it really short sure play with my toy fancy and elated thank you very much ladies and gentlemen of the board my name is Judy Hays my address is 561 Copley Lane Orlando 3-2 806 I am here today as a parent and as an advocate I have two young sons who attend a an elementary school in Orange County Public Schools which is doing a fantastic job of safety and security and we appreciate that I am
045happy to follow the two ladies who went before me who said almost everything that I have to say but I did want to add a few thoughts to that I just recently read that Senate bill 7:02 six has passed the Rules Committee and is moving on to appropriations that bill which actually appropriations may have ruled on it in the interim I can't speak to that but that rule does include a Marshall program wherein school districts would be offered the opportunity to opt into a program that allows them to arm their teachers and to have a designated Marshall I find this idea preposterous I'm heartened to hear that in the comments that were made before me and from the law enforcement officer there was literally no discussion of arming teachers it does not belong in this
046context in this conversation I find it uniquely preposterous I thought that was common sense I thought that was a commonly held belief I was disheartened to find that is not the case and that there are certain fringe elements to our society who find that not only a valid and rational and tenable position but a desirable one and these are the voices to whom we should not give credence we may as well be discussing where Santa Clause files his homestead exemption as far as I'm concerned this is a preposterous idea and the news I've seen it referred to frequently as a colossal stupid idea I tend to agree with that I appreciate that OCPs appears not to be entertaining this notion as a community member I would like to hear unequivocally forcefully and soon from the
047school board that this is not something that we will be entertaining our teachers can't give our children a Tylenol they shouldn't be required to take up arms to protect them I there are so many things that can go wrong it is dangerous it only adds to the peril of sending our children to school if there are going to be guns in the classroom I can't believe we're even having this discussion in 2018 it is patently ridiculous I appreciate that the board's general sentiment appears to be not giving oxygen to this idea I believe I personally as a parent would appreciate hearing that more forcefully unequivocally going forward just that we the answer is not more guns in the classroom that doesn't resolve anything thank you very much thank you miss Hayes our next speaker is
048Missy ng gala Miss gala welcome you could start with your address when you have a moment good evening my name is Angie gallo my address is one four eight four two Bonnie bridge Drive Orlando Florida three to eight to six I was actually going to talk about something different this evening but I decided to change a little bit most of you on the board know that I am the Florida PTA legislative chair and as such I have had a unique perspective on what's happened in parkland we've been involved individuals in rallies we've been down in Broward County we've been with these children's we've attended funerals I personally was in Tallahassee last week when we held the vigil and then attended the rally and I got the pleasure of meeting these children these children from Parkland
049these hearts broken children I held them why they cried I looked them in the eye as they looked at us as adults and they said we failed we failed us their exact words where you failed us and I looked back at them and I didn't know what to say because they're right we failed on so many levels we failed to protect them we failed to keep them safe and it stuck me it just it hurts me to the core so I just want to share that with you I know that you guys felt the same way that I do but I want to share my experiences in Tallahassee and what it felt like up there I also had the privilege of attending the workshop for Governor Scott and what I will say about these children
050is how courageous they are smart they are how articulate they are and I have no doubt in my mind that these kids will be able to do something that all of us as advocates in this room have never been able to do and that is changed gun legislation in Tallahassee I believe that felt my heart we don't know what that looks like right now Tallahassee's playing games but there was a lot of recommendations that came out of the workshop and because our faith in Tallahassee is low at the moment it's gonna be incumbent upon school boards across the state to institute some of these ideas and to bring them to fruition and one of the things from the workshop from a student and the student did most of talking was Hugh and he was a
051liaison to the Broward School Board so I would encourage us to get that I don't know if we have one I don't believe what that we do but if we could Institute and get a student as a liaison to the school board I think that would be so beneficial because they can bring so much knowledge and information to the school board at any rate he's suggestion was he wants to see drills he said that kids didn't know what to do they didn't know what to do in this situation they want more drill so the kids know what to do parents are screaming for drills they want to know that their kids understand and know what to do when they come to these type of situations he actually mentioned metal detectors I know it was brought
052up it's not a feasible plan I've talked to students in our area they don't like the idea either but it was one of the things he mentioned he mentioned SROs he wasn't as our own every school he'd like an SRO for every thousand students he wants to see more mental health counselors and he wants them he wants these guidance counselors and mental health counselors at the high school middle school level and the elementary school level to be able to do their job which is help kids in need that have mental problems and we need a place to report that when we see something say something we need it we need we need a conduit for that and I know that the legislature is working on that and I know we don't know what that looks
053like and as a board you'll have decisions to make as the legislation comes forward but we may have to do it on our own so I just want to share that thank you all right thank you miss Kayla okay I believe that's all for our public comment speakers on this agenda topic tonight so board members all leadoff and I think like all of us I have so much to say so I'm going to talk quickly first of all and foremost I want to think that the taxpayers of Orange County we've made great strides in hardening our schools in the last five years sadly some of those great strides were made as a result of the tragedy that occurred in Sandy Hook in 2012 we would not have the funding to do those security enhancements to
054our facilities were not for the half cent sales tax so thank you to the taxpayers because you've made our security enhancements possible you may have noticed that we no longer build schools or renovate schools with hope and our walkways this was the habit back in the 60s and 50s nowadays all of our schools are fully enclosed with secure limited points of entrance and again we would not have been able to do that word not for the taxpayers secondly I want to say on behalf of this board that we take the safety of your children of my children I have two children in public school myself very very seriously and frankly it's our number one priority whether it's the safety of our children from an active shooter such as that at parkland or Sandy Hook or
055Columbine whether it's getting them to school safely in the morning on our roads through our buses whether it's food safety and all aspects their physical safety their mental health safety we take your safety of our children as our number one priority you will never hear me say and I doubt you will ever hear any member of this board say that we don't have the money to do something that we think is a necessary safety or security measure I cringe when I've heard that from other districts around the country I don't think I've ever heard one of our board members say that I think within reason we will spend what is necessary in order to protect our children and I want to emphasize that I also want to emphasize a mantra that you've heard over and
056over which is see something say something now it's become quite the cliche especially cents of parkland tragedy but one thing I share and I'm always a little hesitant because I'm not sure that I'm as eloquent or articulate as I want to be on it without giving the wrong impression is that any given years every member of this board knows we encounter a number of threats I'm not going to put a number on those threats that frankly many members of the public never know we were made aware of but in almost every situation where we prevent a threat to our schools whether it's our knowledge that a weapon is on that campus our knowledge that a child is threatening other children or teachers our knowledge that there is a rumor going through the school of an
057imminent threat to that school almost without fail it's because a parent or more often a student reported it to administration reported it to their parents and because of that we were able to put a stop to that threat to our students so even though it's become quite the cliche really it has deep intense meeting if you see something we need to let make sure all of our students recognize this please say something because that's how we prevent so many of the threats to or to our students the last thing I want to say on that particular top because to our students this is not a joke and I know that we all know that this in this room but this is not a joke I've been on this board for eight years and in my
058eight years on this board we have expelled I don't want to overstate it for probably seven or eight kids who made threats and without fail when they came to us to appeal that expulsion and they only get to us as a last resort in each instance their plaintive plea coming both from them and from their parents and sometimes either from fellow teachers and parents in the community was it was a joke you don't understand it was a joke I'll give you a concrete example we expelled a kid four years ago this is not a hypothetical this actually happened he was 14 years old and he posted on Facebook I'm a terrorist I'm gonna shoot up by school he posted it to his buddies and on Instagram and Facebook and I'll be very very candid with
059you I actually thought it was a joke he was a good kid he was an honor student but he got expelled and one of the things that I had to sit up here on this Dyess along with my fellow board members and say to his parents and this happened after Sandy Hook is after Sandy Hook we have to take every such threat seriously and could you imagine if we were wrong and it wasn't a joke and we are-- admitted that kid to the school so you know it saddens me and when we have good kids getting in trouble because they say something reckless or irresponsibly on social media we just need to get through to all of our community's children and law enforcement I was on a show this morning this is something that they're
060trying to get out as well they've made a number of arrests or local law enforcement partners in the last two weeks and you we just need all our youth to understand that this is very very serious stuff lastly and then I'm going to turn it over to my fellow board members because my times about expired I just want to say to our student and advocates and to our parent advocates one of the things that bothered me the most was after the tragedy of parkland happened two weeks ago heard policymaker after policymakers stand up and in front of a camera say now it's not the time for this discussion well this is so raw now it's not the time for this discussion about what we need to do in this country well it's such an emotional
061issue now is the time to allow families to grieve and not the time to have this discussion and I disagree and I would ask our advocates out there keep up the pressure because I served in the legislature for eight years and one of the most time-honored strategies of the legislature is to borrow a sports phrase to run out the clock to delay the discussion in the belief that wants the passion and the emotion of that issue passes and the country moves on to another issue everybody will forget about the tragedy that occurred and I hate to say this to y'all but unfortunately that strategy works all too often there was a national discussion about many of these issues after Columbine lasted for 3-4 months and it faded there was an even more intense national discussion
062about many of these issues after Sandy Hook and Newtown Connecticut and after three or four months that faded make no mistake about it there are those who it is their conscious strategy to run out the clock and realize that if they can delay an op you skate for long enough that eventually the national intention will move on to another issue and I feel as passionately as many of those who have been portrayed in the media and the paper or spoken here tonight or many of the thousands upon thousands the students who have spoken out now is the time for us to do something about these issues because if we don't start to take action on these issues we will continue to have sadly these tragedies in our country so thank you for entertaining my thoughts
063I'm going to turn it over now to mrs. Gordon mrs. Gordon Thank You mr. chair I too want to thank dr. Jenkins and her staff for a such a thorough report and we really really appreciate it into chief Bryan home we thank you also and your staff there are several issues that I'm going to bring up I'm not going to I'm going to detail on any particular one but these are issues that I've discussed with the super Dender doing work sessions and with my fellow board members sitting up here and I still have major concerns about it and I've also addressed it with the chief when they present it to the board however I still see that they're issues that still need to be brought before this board and it's based on the makeup and
064the diversity of this district and in reference to to employment of how we hire and who we hire and I think you could you could see that and then take a look at but I do want to say one thing in reference to the statement from the governor finding our school resource officers I've really been this local board with the leadership of our superintendent we've had to make it work and as a chairman stated if it had not been for the taxpayers a lot of things that we've done to make our schools safe but the funding of the schools I was at one of my community meetings last night for a 40% meeting and that came up about how are we going to get the kids and safely and we happen to had one of
065our police officers there from OCPs and it was very energizing so that we could let them know what actually needs to be done and the safety of the school so we are building our schools under the leadership of mr. we're building our schools as safe as we possibly can you cannot regulate a person that is planned and premeditated something that is awfully hard to do I've been a counselor a teacher a librarian an occupational specialist so many things and I've worked with children I'm in a behavior school now where they are sent to us by the courts and for us to even think about the guns don't even let me go there I've been in a school where we lost the principal and it was assistant principal that went to the car got his gun
066came back and shot the principal right in the school so mental health is one thing premeditated murder is another what we let our children do and how we expose them and what comes into our homes is unbelievable I know my kids couldn't bring anything in the house you know nothing the doors could not be closed nobody can be on anything private other than pac-man and that was in private ok and now our kids on everything and I hear teachers say oh it's all right I'm a librarian right now and when I point out this child just violated the school board rule oh that's not bad I let my kids play it's ok if you see something and you don't report it gets worse and worse and worse because we all let them get away with
067it somebody is letting them get away with it these are children they are not on their own they do not have a light bill in their name so they are under your roof there are things that we need to do to make it stronger the Mental Health Council of this board has been very forceful and asking dr. Jenkins we brought that to her attention that we need more mental health counselors and guidance counselors and she is see to it but if the governor is going to be proactive I hope he steps forward because it's about time we've been doing everything building our schools making our schools safe for all everybody but I want you to know I hope that the money is not coming out of the regular school budget the diversity in the team
068still needs to be looked into we just can't sit up here and think because we have experience you're dealing with a whole new group of people look at our age look at our team age and I'm not reflecting on it there are not many teachers left at my age because we're all going out but you got to get what you want to get with it you got to look at it and you have to deal with these children on another level I'm concerned and I did talk with some people about why Edgewood part of my school district and when a garden in Zellwood tangerine and Plymouth I think you've done an outstanding job but if we are functioning at 80 and 90 percent and we don't have all 13 municipalities and unincorporated Orange working with
069us we have schools in Plymouth and tangerine in Zellwood and an Apopka so those are my areas female I'm looking at the female I look at the girls that are getting in trouble now a lot of the girls are getting in trouble and I think that they're things that we need to do about that I'm going to give my point on the guns I teach every day and a behavior school those of us who have guns we have guns but I wouldn't want to bring any gun to a school in which I am teaching it I'm too busy trying to teach and discipline so for the President of the United States to do what he said a pistol-packing teachers if they want to be and everybody ran out and was trying to get trained so
070they can get the extra money or whatever it may be and then you teach under pressure testing itself is coming up and you think that's bad how about those kids that came before us and they were all stressed out because of the f get well the F get didn't go away I have to test March first this week you think I like that I'm going in there no I'm just saying no but I got a do it because I'm a teacher on that staff and I have to give that test and I have to watch those students sit there to take your bread that they want to enough you're talking about stress impression and then I got to think where did I put my gun thank you Miss Robinson thank you I just wanted to
071I agree with everything the two of you have already stated regarding all of this I want to thank the many parents that have reached out to me via email and some via text giving me your suggestions and telling me of things you noticed at your schools I've reported those so if you see other things they see something say something report them to me and I make sure they get to the proper person so I want to thank those that are already doing that and I want to just make sure that everyone understands from my perspective I have no plans for me I do not support arming our teachers I do not think that's the right way to do this and I can only speak for myself up here but I just wanted it to the
072to the parent who got up and spoke and said please give us your full threaded support you have mine I will not will not support arming our teachers that's not going to solve anything the issue is much bigger than that some suggestions that have come in from parents and I want to hear suggestions to some of them are things that really could feasibly be done clear backpacks I mean that would help across the board for all kinds of things I would keep lots of things from being brought onto our campus and along the lines of the random sweats random weapon searches random school visits from someone that say oh CPS employee that's not a police officer so they don't know just to see how the procedures are following you know being done so random visits
073to our schools and I know someone suggested the student liaison dr. Jenkins has a student Advisory Council and she says they meet tomorrow and I had feeling they're going to discuss this very topic because they discuss a lot of hot topics every time so anyway I just I don't have a lot of extra I want to add I'm excited to hear what we are going to talk about upstairs and I do have more conversation for that for in its in executive session but thank you to everybody who is seeing something and saying something you're being heard thank you thank you mrs. Robinson miss covert anchor chair the first thing I want to say to the general public out there is that we hear you that's the safety of our children and our employees and our
074campuses is everything that we are talking about right now I'm proud of the efforts that the district has put out over the last four years I feel like we are miles ahead of some other districts around the state and as was stated earlier that is due to the taxpayers of Orange County and that extra half penny sales tax we've been able to put in a lot of measures that other districts have not been able to and I have an 11 year old daughter that goes to an Orange County public school and I do feel like she's in the safest place she could possibly be during the day that said when you do see something you have to say something and I think that parents we need to and make sure parents know who to say
075something to perhaps we need to put out a connect Edie or a reminder for parents to go through their own administration and that the administration the principals will then go through our chief operating officer and our chief facilities officer I know our chief facilities officer is probably getting inundated with things that need to be done but I think that's probably the chain of command but I think we need to make sure that parents know who to tell when they do see something because everyone's looking for for what what can we do now right now what can we do how can we help and that's something if it's a if it's a lock if it's a fence if it's an idea you know go to your school administrator and let's make sure that administrators know the
076chain of plan to go up and so that we ensure something gets done secondly yes the soup the superintendent does have a student Advisory Council and these these children are brilliant but I would also like to see if we can set up something where whether we participate in her council or we have those students come before us I think it's more important than ever that our students are being heard they're bright and brilliant and sometimes when you need to know how to solve a problem you just have to ask the kids and we talked a little bit about the walkout that's coming up on the 14th when we after the incident in parkland the PTA held a vigil outside the building here and following the vigil a student tapped me on the shoulder and I
077turned around and he said mrs. Cobert you know I'm a I'm a student at Boone high school and on the 14th we want to do this walk out for 17 minutes in remembrance of the 17 students he says what do you think of that and I took a deep breath because I'm a rule follower and I looked at him and I said I think right now your generation needs to be heard by our generation your generation needs to be supported by our generation and if this is what you need to do then I will support you fully in doing that so I need the public to understand they're not making a political statement they need to be heard right now and they do have some of the answers and I will support them in that
078as well on parent talked about the Marshall program and the opportunity to opt in and to arm our teachers the teachers that I talked to they do not want to be armed that is not what their need to they want the people that need to have weapons in our schools are trained law enforcement officers school resource officers and if this goes through the state legislature and passes and it is an option for school districts I for one will stand with several of my fellow school board members and say not here I don't believe that's the answer here in Orange County and I'll stand against that and that I will stand with the Florida PTA with the Florida School Boards Association and with the National Association for school resource officers who all believe that is not
079the way to go the way to go is to have a school resource officer in every school and in our large campuses a school resource officer for every 1000 students or whatever the experts deem is the proper ratio and we need that investment in mental health counseling when we go to our regular business meeting we will be dedicating March as school social worker month and they're the ones who are on the front line and looking for those mental health issues those addiction issues they're on the front lines trying to get students and Families help and they need the resources to do that so I'm going to call on our governor and our legislature to make sure that we have the resources to make that happen thank you thank you I short code word for members
080I have a little bit of queueing problems up here so I've got miss Keadle next then miss school then miss Flynn I think that's the order I miss anybody okay miss Moore okay I'll put you after discipline all right mr. Keadle a lot of what I had to say has been said by my fellow board members but a couple of things number one I do not support arming our teachers that I don't think that solves our problem they have enough to try to do in a day so if the legislature says that we can opt in to do it I'm not interested in that I think when we had the press conference here the day after the tragedy something that sheriff Demings said really stuck with me and it was kind of like at the
081end of the press conference and there was a reporter who kept asking about having more backpack checks and check that backpack before you come into school and sheriff Demings he's like I'm coming to the microphone and he put a plea out to parents that you need to be a parent you're the one who needs to check that backpack before your child walks out of the house in the morning now sometimes they might sneak something in there but if they know mom or dad is looking in that backpack before it walks out the door the likelihood that we're going to have to deal with something as silly as bringing a prescription pill to school or a knife or a weapon if mom and dad you know if the child knows that somebody's gonna look in that
082backpack I think we're gonna solve some of that so I mean that has stayed with me what sheriff Demings said you know some of my fellow board members have talked about that they have children in school well I'm gonna have a grandchild in school in August and I've got three more that are coming and so a lot of this work that I'm doing is to make sure that those schools are safe for my grandchildren just like they were safe for my children when they went to them the superintendent does have her Advisory Board but I also would encourage dr. border and his team to get our youth leaders that we put through our student leadership program last summer we have representatives from every high school through that program and I had an opportunity to sit
083down and talk with them when they got together in January they have great perspective they can help us problem-solve so I would like to see us pull them together to and find out how things are going at their school and what scares them and what we're doing really really well so if there's a way we could get that group together and once again we can't reiterate this enough don't spread it report it if you hear something if you see something report it because that's where we can get ahead of it so if you don't walk away with anything else don't spread it report it thank you mr. Keadle miss Gould first of all I want to thank miss Sadler and miss Duncan burrow who had to leave and the other parents who have really stepped
084forward in my community not just to sit behind a computer and kind of vent and speculate in quarterback but have jumped in with both feet and activated in a very very positive way and that's what we all need to do we need to activate and we need to rally all of that energy in a direction where we can immediately make a difference I really appreciated your comments about that chairman and and not letting the they heat up you know years ago when when my boys were small and they're not small anymore but when they were small we worried about walking to school and stranger danger that's what we were worried about still things to be reckoned with in this day and age but we've accelerated however I do believe that we can get back to
085a level of Community Safety and that feeling that we are truly helping one another and supporting one another and watching out for one another similar to the neighborhood watch concept because the more that we Bend together to do that to really be the community that watches our kids and we hold each other accountable it is hopeful and to that measure I would like to hold our legislative partners accountable you know this year we had an what I deemed to be a very unnecessary millage roll back and that millage rollback took dollars $78 per student lesson funding then then we had in fiscal year 2007-2008 that's not right it's not right it's not right for our teachers and our staffs and it is certainly not right that we have to turn to our community every time
086there is a shortfall to do what is right in our community and we appreciate the taxpayer dollars the taxpayers for investing those dollars and they have paid off dividends with Community Redevelopment fabulous Safe Schools with programs that are getting accolades nationally but that shouldn't just be Orange County it shouldn't be the few counties that can do that should be statewide it should be equitable it should be in every neighborhood and every child should be safe mental health is a huge huge issue and violence and I'm going to echo something that we've heard up here again that takes all of us but it starts with families it starts with parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and neighbors who see kids maybe playing a game that they shouldn't at their neighbor's house because they're too young
087and it's not appropriate for their age those developmental issues are important and we're seeing repercussions from developmental challenges and a lot of youth and we're seeing a rise in violence in a society that's becoming more sophisticated it just doesn't make sense so we've got to look at that I am also not in favor of arming teachers I don't think that is their responsibility I am in favor of SROs but not at the expense of another educational line item we're already anemic and last lastly I know I'm running out of time our community has come together to do a school supply drive for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school we'll be collecting those supplies at a forum that we are holding this Thursday night at Wyndemere High School at 6:30 you can also contact my office
088and drop them here and we'll get them out there if you'd like to drop off supplies if anybody in the community would like to drop off supplies I have folks posted that on my Facebook page to see that kind of supplies that they might need and I am honored to be part of this board who really has been listening to the community and we work as partners thank you thank you mrs. gold miss Flynn Thank You mr. chairman first I want to thank you for organizing the tribute at the beginning of the meeting I thought it was beautiful and I'm very pleased that I was able to participate in it so thank you I have little information I've been sort of going back and forth with Eileen Fernandez who is our one of our legislative
089liaisons and it's fast and furious up there I miss gallo I'm sure she can tell us that it is a little bit more information on the money coming for hardening of schools it was the governor who said he thought it should come out of the existing construction capital capital outlay funds but apparently that's not in either of the senator house bill so right now in the Senate bill they've created a grant program that consists of 97 million dollars so I guess the districts would apply for it unless this is what I've gotten so far and that includes the charter school and the house is conferencing in 15 minutes I just wanted to that up and just probably going to give this a little bit more to but in regard to the Marshall program you know
090it said use of law enforcement trained and screen school personnel who function as part of a security team I think one of the bills had that it would be required of a hundred and thirty two hours of weapon training I'm just delivering the news because I have a very much adverse reaction to that you know I don't think our teachers want that I don't think that's their place I don't think you're either or you know I was talking with I'm sure chief you would agree with me there's different levels of expertise even among law enforcement and for somebody to be able to pick through a crowd and get the right person takes quite a bit of training and expertise you know I just even the SWAT team don't go in there guns blazing you know
091so I just wanted to say I two very very concerned about that I wanted to up tail a little bit on something that Miss Kato said is that we do need our parents to help us when we came out with a fencing program at a school that was against the fence that we put up we put it up against where the playground and the car loop and the purpose was so that somebody couldn't have easy access and there was a whole meeting on that at this one particular school and they thought it was horrible and they said their kids thought they were in a prison and they you know they couldn't grasp the security aspect of it when we did the social media monitoring we were criticized of being invasive of privacy when we did
092the police force we got a lot of media about do we need one what are we trying to do we're trying to take over the world here so we need the parents to in the community not just the parents I mean we're all parents community to to help us with this hardening and with these programs because we're doing it in a studied manner we're not doing it at least I haven't seen us do that we're not doing it in a reckless knee-jerk reaction we're trying to build a secure public school system and so I would would ask that our community come along with that be part of it and here what we're trying to say because that's what we're trying to do when we and we didn't just start doing this February 14th we did
093it as we said 2014 when we did that huge study when we had the concept of a police force when we had the review of all of our schools and that review has to continue over and over and over again things change so it's a continual process I think the students and in sort of switch gears a little bit I think the students are going to be able to accomplish what adults couldn't I can't be more impressed and more thrilled with their advocacy I'm going real quick you know it used to be said that young people don't care as much anymore that though you know the kids of the 60s in the early 70s were the last ones who went out there and and shook it up I don't think so anymore I think they've
094been awakened and I'm so glad for it and I and I support that planned walkout in our schools 100% it gives them time to reflect gives them time to honor their fellow students not so far away it gives them a chance to take a stand they are brilliant kids and they need this opportunity and I think you superintendent for agreeing to do that and the Chairman I couldn't be prouder again of this board they need to do it my last my last request chairman is I'd liked for us to write a letter to a superintendent Runcie their board and to the Douglas high admin and students and just doesn't have to be very long just say that we're with you thank you great idea thank you Miss Moore for the audience you realize with sunshine
095rules we literally have tall talk to each other so you say why are they all talking about the same thing so I'm going to endeavor not to be redundant because you all said things very well so I'd look forward to hearing and conducting the assessment and seeing if the if the national experts have any additional information I do not support arming our teachers and hopefully the legislature when the final language comes through that that will be optional very proud of what the students are doing and I wanted to stuff tell what more Mrs Flynn was in terms of advocacy it really has to come from the students and we're seeing the greatest progress on this issue because of the students so we all have to resist a little bit you know we've been up there
096talking about Safe Schools this board has been very proactive and you all mention all the things we've done for years and so we're doing our part the only thing that I'm seeing that I have to report dr. Jenkins back from district 7 is this whole issue surrounding when we have threats and they're not in and they're not deemed credible it seems as if it's hitting a social media in these rants raves and reviews pages and it seems like we could be doing a little bit of work with our parents with if you see something say something but put some meat on the bones as to what that means and that maybe the parents have a little better understanding they're nervous rightfully so I've got my granddaughter going to pre-k next year and so I you
097know it becomes when it's your little babies you think about it again I tried to put myself in their shoes and so with everything that's going on we talked about the students having an out lay a place for them express their anxiety with this walk out on the 14th but the parents are nervous and that's why we're seeing them show it on social media so I think as much as we can as a district to help them to be very very clear on what the procedure and protocol is to report something and them understand why we don't go on Facebook and say that door on the south side is never locked they need to be a little more clear about exactly what they should do with reporting that and not advertising to everyone in the
098world who would hurt their children that the door is unlocked so with that I'm gonna and I know we're going to have another meeting afterwards to get into some of the details and I've appreciated working with all of you on this issue thank you Miss Moore mrs. kettle to ducktail on writing a message to the to the school district many of you who are involved in FSB a worked with Norah Rupert last year Nora is the chairman of the school board and I was talking to executive director Mussina and she said that Nora would love to just get a personal note from us just supporting her and so doesn't have to be long but you can imagine trying to be the chairman of the board in that situation so keep Nora in your thoughts and
099prayers thank you for that suggestion miss Cadle mrs. Gordon yes thank you there was one other point that I did want to make and I still on my way here I heard that the City of Orlando did some voting with their you know in reference to safeties within the community in school I would like for us to take a look at the code of Student Conduct again and if you are in the airport and I know I heard the chairman speak about you know if it was a joke I think all of you know I don't I don't play that because I teach every day it's no such thing as a joke it's no such thing as a joke and he knows that if anybody comes before this board and an our team has shown
100us that they cannot prove otherwise they're really going down and it's just for a period of time until they maybe do not joke again I think I like the word that you use the second time reckless however I'm an adult and if I was reckless on my child who is not an adult my graduating said my grandchild because all my children are now but if my grandchild goes with me to the airport and my grandchild uses certain words which I've heard children use little bad children misbehaving the one kicking your chair on the back cursing you out and the parents sitting there the one you saw on YouTube last week dancing all up in the chair cussing and carrying on and then they said I'll blow up this plane they are gone they are going
101you go in the airport and you use certain words and I think that we're gonna have to go back when I came on this board it was zero tolerance and then everybody said we were just so hard and rough and tough I know that there are certain words that you just have to ban even in some kind of way they banned books but it doesn't do any good because of the literary rights and books that we thought were great books if you go to the band of enntv books you'll say well I read all of those well that doesn't stop you from reading them but I do feel that we do need to go in and strengthen the threats there's no such thing as a joke anymore because we've allowed a lot of kids to
102get off a lot of them didn't even come before this board and those kids went right back into somebody else's school and caused more disturbing and a lot of those children's are on the bully list now because we can turn some kids in on the bully list and I don't know where it goes from there dr. Jenkins but maybe at a another time you could let us know where it goes that I don't know what happened two months against the Tallahassee but those students it's a pattern and I'm looking at the little people that we have we had to lock the library door our doors are always locked anyhow but every now and then we can feel free and open our doors and I too had to be removed today and and they were the
103elementary kids and they mean what they say so we're gonna have to begin to take what they're saying as a threat to somebody's life as a threat to the injury because if we don't stop it now it will not stop and that's why all the bullying start because we let them get away with it and then they start standing up in your face as an adult because I know what we go through and trying to direct our students and redirect them and get them back to their regular school so that they can become save citizens and productive citizens so dr. Jenkins my recommendation to this board I would like for us to pull a section on the code of conduct where we need to look into threats and how they are made we need to
104look at to social media threats any threat causes our staff to lose their focus and they got to go after it when they can be doing something else so it's beginning to be very costly and it's beginning to be unsafe because when our staff is over here a real thing is going on over here and we can't get to it because we are we are not handling it well and one last thought I'm still concerned I know that we meet Edgewood we need winter garden we need Sal wood Christine we need tangerine and we need now I have Edgewood and we are fighting with Edgewood but I'm gonna go back and fight and let them know the importance I guess they said well we don't have the school really in Edgewood that belongs to you
105all you know it's a try to school or whatever but we need every police force of every municipality working with us you can't do it by yourself no way in the world if anything happened in apopka all of those schools in Apopka I've worked at Dream Lake you want to have to head toward Dream Lake and there's a break in that dream like you're headed up that way at night we need all of the forces working together or we're not going to do it and we're gonna lose kids if we don't work as a team thank you so dr. Jenkins I'm asking you to figure out what we need to do as a board to get our municipalities involved all right thank you mrs. Gordon I'll wrap up I'd run out of time earlier we
106do have an executive session after this and I know every board member has a detailed list of more specific suggestions I will say dr. Jenkins one of the general ones that I have is as we do our reassessment I'd really like us to have a thorough reassessment of what I call our campus perimeter security I'm more concerned about that and then I am about actual facility security so our campus perimeter security I'd also like to see us publicize a hotline for threats so folks know where to go and frankly I'd like us to see us do more active shooter drills for all of our students I think it should be an annual or even buying annual exercise twice a year for for all of our kids I know we do it but I think we
107just need to really look at that last thing I had one speakers say that she wanted to hear a clear unequivocal statement I do not support arming our teachers either I think that makes it unanimous I said that in a program this morning that I taped I will say I find it incredibly ironic but not in a humorous way and contradictory that we're doing everything we can to get weapons out of our schools and make sure we don't have weapons in our schools and yet now the national conversation is somehow shifted to putting weapons in the schools and I just don't understand that contradiction at all we already asked too much of our teachers I think the last thing I want is to even implicitly give the impression to our teachers and now we're looking
108to them on top of everything else we ask of them now we're looking to them for school security it's just frankly it's crazy and everything that bothers me about it I must I do feel compelled to say this I have two teenager children kids no every kid in that school will know who has a concealed weapons permit who has the weapon every kid in that school know who's packing and the last thing I want is for 3,000 high school students to know which five or six teachers or dozen teachers are packing a weapon that's the last thing I want because if they know that teachers packing a weapon they know where the weapon is so I'm pretty strongly against it as you can tell miss Flynn thank you know I'm not a psychologist and I
109understand the need to be drilled but when we do these active shooter drills for our youngest students we have to have some guidance from counselors and mental health how we do it I remember my son was in preschool and they were doing finger prints well he took it as if I do these fingerprints I'm gonna get stolen and so I think we have to be very very careful about how we present that to our youngest I just wanted to say that all right great board discussion board members so we're now going to move into our the rest of our agenda chief Holmes thank you again for that we'll see you upstairs in a little bit I'm sure we do have we're on now on board members and for those who came down for this part
110of discussion thank you for joining us now's the time to go grab yourself a cup of coffee or an ice-cream whatever your preference be thank you again dr. Jenkins do we have any changes to our agenda this evening no changes chairman okay seeing none we then are on agenda item 3.0 one dr. Jenkins this is approval of the adopting instructional materials as the general public may not be aware we go through a process on an annual basis for adoption of instructional materials they have been workshops they have been discussed previously our teachers play a large role in the selection of our instructional materials this is your second required opportunity for input from the public and then an actual moving for the approval of those materials all right as stated by the superintendent this is something
111we do annually we've already had a public workshop on it so if there seems to be a dearth of comments from members of the board it's because we've already looked at this issue and answered all of our questions I would presume so do I have any members of the public who have come tonight that wish to testify before us on agenda item 3.0 one which is approval of our adopted instructional materials I don't have any speaker cards anybody all right seeing not going to entertain a motion to adopt agenda item 3.0 1 so I moved by mr. Keadle is there a second to that motion seconded by Miss Flynn is there any debate or discussion of that motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay
112show the motion adopted we are now on our consent agenda we do have one speaker on behalf of a very special group of individuals who are with us tonight and who have been so incredibly incredibly patient tonight waiting for this to come up our school social workers and how timely and appropriate it is that we are recognizing them tonight so I'd like to invite up to the lectern miss Carrie Johnston to speak on behalf of our school social workers I don't have to give my address do I you do not as well well you know good on behalf of the OCPs school social workers i would like to thank the school board for recognizing our profession with this proclamation for school social work month I would also like to thank our senior director of student
113services Mary bridges and our director Carl Sousa for this opportunity and their support at this time our department has sent four school social workers to Broward County to assist with the return of the Parkland High School students tomorrow and they are there to help provide crisis counseling and help in any way that they can we are humbly grateful by this bestow moment so thank you today I was asked to speak because I'm not only the president of our County Social Work Association no Sessa but I'm also the president of our state Association FAS SW I would like to address the topic of who are school social workers and what do we do simply put we are many things and do numerous things our profession manifested from the first American woman Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane
114Addams who is known as a mother of Social Work from there our profession blossomed into what it is today with his fundaments remaining strongly rooted in a whole person approach we are mental health counselors assisting schools with student mental health and behavioral concerns positive behavior support consultations as well as individual group and crisis counseling as needed many of us are licensed clinical social workers we are proactive intervening early to remove educational barriers for students who struggle so they may benefit fully from the educational system we are liaisons fostering a safe supportive fair environment while building healthy collaborations between our schools families and the community we are evaluators conducting assessments of individuals families and systems with the goal of improving student social emotional behavioral and academic outcomes we are leaders sending lending to a positive school
115climate while working collaboratively with our schools families community professionals to increase accessibility and effectiveness of services we are advocates helping families to gains access to and effectively use community resources while empowering them to become self-advocates we are change agents identifying areas of needs that are not being addressed and working toward tackling these needs us to improve student outcomes in light of the recent tragedy governor scott created a proposal for school safety which recommends having dedicated mental health counselors available to provide direct counseling services to every student as competent professionals we are ready to assist with the mental health needs of our students and hope to be an essential part of this plan as we continue to work toward keeping students in schools safe thank you again for your acknowledgement to our profession and your time
116miss Johnson can I have all of your colleagues stand up if you're a school social worker Samuel s recognized you please thank you on behalf of the school board tears for your service to both our children and our community and our in our public schools I will say also parenthetically one thing that I think gives many of us up here a little bit of heartburn is and gimme a correction if I'm wrong on the numbers miss Johnson but the National recommendation for mental health counselors in our schools is one for every 250 students yet in the state of Florida and I know that by heart because I've talked about it so much the ratio throughout the state and it's something that we have little to no control over at the local school district level because
117it is funded at the state level as one for every 450 students so when it comes to both mental health counseling and general academic counseling I know that's a separate field from our social workers and our mental health counselors we are woefully understaffed in this state and you know I just hope that eventually folks will wake up and smell the coffee and realize that if we want to prevent tragedy's if we want to promote advancement and and meaningful counseling you've just got to have the resources and the staff so you all are stretched too thin and work too hard and we recognize it we know it gives us it's much Harper or not as much as it gives you all I'm sure but it gives us heartburn as well so thank you for everything you
118all do thank you very much all right war members we also just let me say parenthetically it's also as you've no doubt noticed we're designating March a youth vigil and performing arts month in Orange County Public Schools this board is extremely proud of its arts programs and we have an art program and a music program and all 100 and what are we up to 192 schools I used to say hundred ninety one it climbs every year but I think we're at under 92 even through the depths of the recession we have preserved an art and music program in every one of our schools so something we're very committed to and again Thank You taxpayers of Orange County with the one mill you've made that possible I cannot emphasize that enough if we did not have
119that local option one mill tax we would not have these art and music programs than all of our schools and for any of us who are parents educators grandparents we know how important those programs are frankly from our perspective there has important as math and science programs and in every respect it is also this is a little bit esoteric but actually it's a very important part of our process as purchasing month in Orange County Public Schools mr. Pacheco and I don't know who our procurement replacement is he's now our chief operating officer mr. Pacheco thank you he's can we have them Stanley allow us to recognize them as well thank you gentlemen and lady mr. potchuck well I know I'm not supposed to have our folks yell from the back of the room but I'm
120gonna do it anyway we we bit out approximately how much per year and procurement and purchasing 600 million dollars folks so we are without a doubt everybody else in orange in Central Florida pales in comparison to amount of contracts and the local tax dollars that we put to work in our local communities and these four individuals in their team they make it happen smoothly we've made so many strides in the last eight years I'm so incredibly proud of under the leadership of mr. Pacheco and under your leadership I know this is really getting in the weeds for members of the audience or anybody watching at home but we've effectively I believe because it's been a big issue of mine in this board putting in two evergreen contracts we rebid out everything periodically now makes sure
121that there are no favorite child our children excuse me and that we have intense competition for our services and our supplies that's very very important to us as stewards of taxpayer dollars and we frequently review our procurement practices and I think this speaks volumes years ago we would have the occasional news story about issues when it came to procurement I cannot remember the last time I read or heard or saw in the media a story talking about the procurement practices of Orange County and come well not knock on wood handshake to these folks so that speaks volumes to y'all's work the silence that we have on that topic nowadays so thank you very much mr. Pacheco your entire team thank you chairman yes dr. Jenkins I would just mention Robert Warren burg is the senior
122director now for procurement services Thank You Orenburg thank you all right we now folks can I entertain a motion to adopt a consent agenda it's been moved by mrs. Gordon seconded by mr. Robinson is there any debate or discussion of that motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye aye opposed nay show the consent agenda adopted all right we now have a couple non-consent agenda items 17.0 one dr. Jenkins Thank You chairman we actually have to school naming opportunities for the board to approve initially we will deal with a school I'm waiting for them to move to the podium area superintendent for the north dr. Diaz chairman and board members and superintendent Jenkins it's an honor to present the naming resolution for one three three k-8 in six
123it'll be four Audubon elementary that will return to its original site in Audubon Park and one three three kn6 will be named Audubon Park School thank you if I might in case someone's curious so it did swing from that original site it is going back to that site but we do need to rename it because it is now a k-8 the former name was Audubon Park Elementary School now it will be Audubon Park school like blank nurse school and other k-8 schools chairman mrs. Robinson I believe it's your miss Kadel miss Keadle all right all right I just want to say congratulations to the Falcons they're coming back home they've been gone for a long time but they're coming back to a beautiful brand-new school so and their new principal Trevor Hanahan is here in
124the house tonight whoo-hoo Thank You mr. Hanna Hanna and it is really going to be very exciting for that community to have their beautiful new Cape facility in that neighborhood so you wait long enough you eventually you eventually get it thank you thank you all so much for your support miss Kadel pulling it's so funny because mr. Hanna Hanna and I were talking about how they were going back full circle and you know when when they first came to me a long time ago and said we need to move Audubon Park because we need a swing site for Lake Vaughn because Lake Mont was on 10 acres they couldn't rebuild the school and they had nowhere to put the children and it was maybe a year after Audubon had had like their sixty years celebration
125or 50-year celebration and all of the military people who have retired here in the community there is huge military connections to that 1,500 Falcon Drive address and when we were first talking about it he made me promise that nobody you know 1500 Falcon Drive would always be Audubon Park Elementary or school and so when I would sit in the negotiations I'm like you cannot put a name on the building you can put something on the side but you can't put a name on the building so I'm glad that I'm still on the board when it finally happened and I've been able by this vote to deliver to the retired military in the neighborhood I was good to my word you got your school back so thank you yes mrs. Gordon views I'm confused okay I'm
126just confused on the on the one three three K and North and I'm good then I'm confused on the two old 5k8 Southwest help me out there I know that we're trying to get straight now yes so the seventeen point oh one is the Audubon Park school by Lake Como Kaley caters and both the gates are in district 6 that's the point I'm trying to make keep that on record alright so at this point can I entertain a motion to adopt agenda item 17.1 it's been made it's up to you it's your school I move the adoption of the new name of Audubon Park school for 1 3 3 - k-8 - in - 6 all right thank God we give it a real name yeah let's hear a second to that it's been second
127about Vice Chair Cobra is there any debate or discussion of that motion sing none all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye opposed nay should adopted mr. Monaghan congratulations you have a name dr. Jenkins thank you for putting mr. Hana hand there I can tell you that's a very popular pick for that community and I would be remiss if I didn't say go Crusaders mr. Hana Han well inside joke mr. Han and son just got signed by Holy Cross to play football so congratulations driver alright dr. Jenkins alright the next school we have to deal with the naming for and the very patient group out there waiting in the audience dr. gullet thank you thank you and good evening chairman Sublette members of the board and superintendent Jenkins it is my
128honor to present the naming resolution for 2:05 k-8 sw6 students parents and communities that will be served by 2:05 K sw6 from Dover Shores elementary school Hillcrest elementary school Kaley Lake Como elementary school and Howard middle were provided an opportunity to suggest a school name a survey was created and made available to students at these schools and to parents faculty staff and the community through the school website from February 2nd through February 12th 2018 selections were limited to one per person throughout the duration of the survey window the top responses were Lake Como schools sixty-two percent followed by Kaylie Lake Como school 20% and Bumby school 18 percent thank you alright mrs. Robinson well I it is my privilege to be here tonight as we named this school and it is it's overwhelming which one's
129going to win tonight and it's Lake Como school so we're it's fitting that we're going back to the original site and have the original name Lake Como school under the community right there and the neighborhood is very excited about that and looks like the teachers are too so I just wanted to say that with I let's see asked for it I move the approval of the naming of site 205 k-8 SW 6 to be Lake Como school can I have a second to that motion it's been seconded by Vice Chair Co butters or any debate or discussion of that motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye aye all opposed nay so it adopted unanimously congratulations y'all their fearless leader is here is Sol de antonia smith she
130was the principal at lake como elementary and then she went to the swing site she's that's where everybody here currently is on the swing side at Kaley Lake Como and she's going to be coming back to the k-8 at Lake Como so everybody's moving moving moving so congratulations guys and heavily I don't believe you've chosen a new name I mean mascot that'd still be in the works okay so you'll have to fill me in when you figure that out thanks congratulations so dr. Jenkins I'd like a Miss Smith it's really for you it's just a little bit of a personal plan I know many of our principals do this but when that school gets to a point where we can open it up to the public and invite them in the tour that school I
131really wish we would aggressively do that and pursue that I live in that area and I think folks need to see the inside of that school and see that facility I think it will get them better sneak peek but let's really publicize it thank you all right thank you very much thank you all for coming down and being so patient you picked a heavy night to come to your school night but you picked a very meaningful night so thank you all and you know what is the name of this young man here in the red shirt what is his name hey Mason you deserve an ice cream tonight because you have been a trooper so well-behaved and your mama should be so proud of you we are good job Mason all right board members report
132by school district general council okay board members let's start with the easy one it's that time of the year where I'm gonna request between now and our next really between that next Tuesday see if there's anyone that's interested in serving on the valley adjustment board I just got an email as we were sitting up here this evening that they're looking again their first meeting is June 13th miss Kadel you have served and if you'd like to continue to serve I think the board will you know gladly ask you to continue serving well it's interesting because I'm vice chairman of it so I'm thinking that I probably need to serve until November okay there you go yeah all right so we according to miss Flynn they have never had a vice chairman who was a school
133board member it's almost always County Commissioners yes all right so do we need to do anything now why if I get a brave volunteer to be our alternate I could put those two on the agenda for a next go-around well I really don't think that you're supposed to nominate anyone that comes from the board I'm not but you offered a name in nomination and that generally comes from the board miss Gordon my apologies I was there anyone thank you very much for the words please okay all right so I do need an alternate as well for this or or starter and an alternate however you all want to do this so it sure Oh your selection was a step up to the place they meet at one o'clock in the afternoon over at the County
134Commission comptroller's office and the meeting usually does not last them longer than one hour and it usually is only three to four meetings per year all right miss Cobert has graciously stepped up and agreed to serve as our alternate thank you Miss Gobert thank you we're gonna check with the two citizens to see first of all they're even eligible and if they're not then what what to ask for a citizen in an alternate so last time one of them moved out of the district over the course of the year but I think they're both still in the district so in the county the year before that we had we lost someone on the board at some point so okay so maybe we'll flip their their roles like we've done as well and then we do
135have the school impact fee committee that is assembling and I think miss Kelly's already gone but she has asked that we do need three volunteers for that those are citizen volunteers so we'll be looking for names for that in the next few weeks that's not as Perez pressing or urgent and then last but not least is I did have a meeting yesterday with some of the up development folks for eatonville there is an election on Saturday for mayor so we're gonna sit tight and see what happens in that election on Saturday but after that election I will probably need to sit down with the chair who is your negotiator on these things and figure out where we go from here because I believe they're going to ask for another extension and I would defer to
136see what the town is prepared to do as well as what the board is prepared to do at that point so next board meeting just be be advised that their deadline is March 15th and the next remaining board meeting is March 13th all right mr. Keadle I would like in your report for you to give us options I mean this just it just seems like every time we turn around they want another extension so I'm willing to hear the extension but I want to know too if it's time for us to say enough is enough and we need to move forward with this what do we have to do to do that what are our rights under the contract dirt the agreement we will come back to the next board meeting with that Thank You
137mr. Keadle all right thank you mr. Rodriguez dr. Jenkins superintendents report no further report chairman all right we do have one a legislative report miss Flynn you know I gave a little bit of that report but again I was just going to give a little bit of a rundown on the pills that are in regard to the security and safety now remember the bill that was 70 70 55 I believe they stripped out the Union language somebody miss Kolbert didn't they do that they took it out but there's still the schools of Hope scholarships there's still some other things in there that right yeah so that's still that's still in the mix these security bills or safety bills went through so you've got the house in the Senate and they're pretty much overlap the House
138bill apparently had 20 amendments today and our legislative liaisons are still going through them so at the time they just did what they weren't able to give them to me at passed that committee 1811 the journal highlights of the bills include you know firearm safety increase the minimum wage extend a waiting period ban bump stocks but there there there was no discussion I guess on the ban for assault weapon well without amendment failed they didn't even want to talk about it representative Smith continues to persevere which I give him credit for I mean he does it he's being very forceful with it in regard to school safety it was in regard to improving school security through additional school resources school hardening programs we talked about there was a concern with that funding where it would
139come for from at first the governor had recommended that it come out of capital outlay and that we would use that before any other construction project but apparently now they've got this ninety seven million which doesn't sound like a whole heck of a lot for all the schools but that's just in the House bill the Senate bill hasn't I'm sorry that's in the Senate bill the House bill doesn't happen yet they're probably working on it right now additional mental health funding and then of course the Marshall program which we talked about so all of that is going to be I guess the fireworks will be tomorrow they're being discussed so you might want to check out the Florida channel and check that out or send some whoever's listening to this contact their representatives and Senators
140and tell them what you like and what you don't like okay thank you for that report all right board members any yes mr. Keadle I'm sorry I just want to quickly say thank you tonight we approved the ROTC out at East River High School and that is something that the height that the community asked for from the beginning and so I'm happy that we've been able to provide thank you miss Gould I just wanted to let the community know there is a community action board report attached to the board Docs it has very valuable information on resources available to families and individuals in our community and also some of the progress on people getting jobs and Community Redevelopment and support education programs like after-school programs thank you for serving on that mrs. Gordon did such
141a wonderful job for Deki Philip some big shoes thank you all the time bye thank you now thank you yeah I know what about the adjourn to go upstairs yeah I just want to let everybody know that Miss Cobert miss Gould and I have agreed to be in a lip-sync competition next Wednesday March 7th lip-sync for lungs it's for the Lung Association to raise money so anybody that's just dying to come watch us have a little fun next Wednesday night let us know and support lung cancer I mean the support of Lung Association to fight lung cancer a friend of mine is a very active on that board she's a survivor of lung cancer and I actually this two and a half years ago lost one of my very good friends telling cancer so I've
142been a big supporter of the Lung Association so we're gonna put our lungs to work and we're gonna sing a little actually thank goodness we're gonna lip sync we always think so anyway hope y'all can join us see ya so dr. Jenkins can you help me out here we've gotten wonderful accolades on the district 5 Black History Month recognition event and when are we showing that video do we know mr. Thomas tomorrow night okay I will find that out and Scott should publicize that miss Gordon you mean on our YouTube channel okay well we'll get the details for you after this meeting shows that's that's what I heard from Dylan find out all right we are we meeting in your conference room dr. Jenkins all right I'll see everybody upstairs