001Good morning and welcome to the Orange County School Board's rule development workshop which has been scheduled today, Tuesday, July 8th, 2025. This rule development workshop has been scheduled for the purpose of discussing policy BEDH, public input at schoolboard meetings. Policy KCE, ethics and lobbying policy. Policy JCA, assignment of students to school. policy J, student progression plan. During this rule development workshop, the school board welcomes public comment on the proposed changes to the aforementioned school board policies. However, because this is not a regularly scheduled board meeting, there will be no non-aggenda period during which the public would normally be able to address the school board on other topics. Should you wish to address the school board on other topics, please do so at the next regularly scheduled schoolboard open public comment period. Thank you so much
002again for being with us this morning. I believe we have we should have Chair Jacobs and member Felder on the line. Do we have Chair Jacobs only? Hi Chair Jacobs. Yes. Good morning. Good morning. And I believe member Felder will be arriving late. All the other board members are here. She's not here. She was going to call in, but she's not on the line. He said, "As a reminder, board members will not be engaging in outside electronic or digital communication during the meeting so we can focus on the matters immediately before us. To my fellow board members and district staff, when speaking, please make sure that the microphone is turned on and you speak directly into it so that our YouTube and Orange TV viewers can hear you clearly. Again, thank you for participating or
003attending today's meeting. We are going to start with a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance. And now the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, I believe we are going to start with BEDH public input at schoolboard meetings. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Vasquez. thank you, Madame Vice Chair. the board has had a series of meetings to discuss this particular policy. Mr. Paul Marini, our general counsel, will be presenting to the board what we believe to be all of the recommendations and changes the board has asked us to do with the policy. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr.
004Palm Marie. Thank you Madam Superintendent, members of the board, good morning. this is as the superintendent has said we've had multiple work sessions for the benefit of the public on policy beedh. We met on February 13th and May 8th. We have worked through on the language. I'm going to go over briefly through the language. as you all may know on last last week July 1st I sent you all an email summarizing the changes to all of the policies we'll be discussing today. I'm going to be reading from that. most of the changes in BEDH are to conform our policy to the pilot program that we have had on public speakers for the last year or so. we changed public input period to open com public comment and we had defined the agenda public comment period
005to be comments made by the public during the regular board meeting. So you'll see those changes all throughout. you will see that the open public comment period, which is the four o'clock meeting we normally have before board meetings, will last 45 minutes and it will begin 1 hour prior to the regularly scheduled board meeting. members of the public who want to submit comments will be able to email comments for board consideration by 5:00 p.m. the day before the board meeting. has to allow you all to receive the comments and process them before you have the meeting the next day. we then codify the previous practice that we have to allow the CTA president, the OESPA president and the Okasa representative to speak during the regular board meeting for 3 minutes. we place limits on the
006number of speakers consistent with our pilot program which is if we have between one and 10 speakers they will get three minutes a piece. If we have between 11 and 20 speakers they will get two minutes a piece and if we have 21 plus speakers they will get one minute a piece. with respect to the signin system the sign-in system for speaker sign up for open public comment or agenda public comment by utilizing the system set up by the superintendent and her staff. As you all know we have an electronic system that allows folks to sign up for meetings before the meeting or they can do it at a certain period before open public comment or before the board meeting itself. and then with respect to relevant topics, we put in there, of course, that
007one of the topics that we don't allow during open public comment, it's, pending litigation. We did that. that was been our practice. We're just codifying it to make it clear. then these two provisions are meant to address the Moms for Liberty versus Bvard County Public public schools case. we're not going to allow comments about the behavior and performance of individual employees and we're not going to allow comments about the behavior and academic performance of individual students. That avoids the situation where we have employees that just get blasted in a public meeting and criticized. Of course, that will also mean that employees will not be praised during that period either because we have to treat comments for employees and against employees in the same manner. So, it would just eliminate that alto together. and then with
008respect to the code of civility, we say speakers will abide with the code of civility to the extent the code of civility does not conflict with the right of the speaker to express their viewpoints consistent with current federal law. That's just to ensure that folks have their first amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. And the rest of these changes. Oh, number 10. This was discussed at the last meeting. except for sections reserved for the media, members of the public. Public will sit in available seats in the boardroom and may not stand or congregate in the back of the board chambers. And with respect, likewise, members of the public shall not congregate in the lobby outside the board chambers unless to do so by district staff as part of staging for entry
009into the boardroom. As you know, we sometimes have multiple groups of folks who are coming in for recognitions. We'll have the first group come in. We'll get them out and then we'll stage the other folks in the lobby and then they can come in. So those are the changes on beedh. Thank you, Mr. Pomearini. Do we have any members of the public? I checked the system previously before I got up there. There was no members of the public that have registered to speak. Okay. we have member Gallo Cutin. Good morning. Thank you, Madam Chair. just a quick question. I know that we discussed this I think the last time we were reviewing this policy when we were adding the people that could speak to us if they choose like the CTA and OASPA. at the
010at the time I had asked about the PTA because we're we're getting the student representation, we're getting the you both unions and we're hearing from the our administrators on what's going well with them, you know, what they're seeing in the schools, but I feel like we're missing that parent input. And so I didn't know if we could, and they don't have to come. they I'm sure they wouldn't be able to come every board meeting, but it would be great if we could add that PTA voice because we do have Orange County PTA and it would be kind of nice if we invited them, you know, three minutes to kind of discuss what parents are seeing and experience in our schools. May I Madam Chair? So I have no issue with with doing that from you
011know from that my perspective. The only thing is we're at the rule development workshop stage. So I can't make a substantive change to the policy at this stage unless you know it was in response to a public comment which I do not have here. So to the So we Go ahead. I'm sorry. Okay. So we're at the this is the rule development on Yes, this is rule development. That's correct. So just throwing this out as an example. If, for example, we had at the final adoption meeting somebody that came to speak to advocate for the addition of the parent teacher association, we could then make the change to the policy at that particular meeting. I'm just throwing that out there as an option. Perfect. Thank you so much. Yep. Thank you. superintendent. Yeah. and to
012add to that, if we don't receive any public comment, we could just amend it after that and then bring it back to the board. So we have a pathway to get there if not when this is adopted or shortly after that. Madam Chair, I have a follow-up question. Yes. If we were to receive an email prior to that board meeting, would that suffice or do they have to be here in person? No, that would suffice. Thank you. member Vanos, I was just going to suggest just affirmatively reaching out to Orange County PTA and just inviting them to come and speak during public comment this year and if it's something that they regularly show up to and they're interested in you know giving information then we could consider it at the next year as well. That's
013it. Perfect. All right. Any other comments? We're good. Okay then. and I'm assuming I have consensus to move this to advance to for final adoption. I believe so. Yeah. Thank you. Policy KCE, ethics and lobbying is next. Dr. Vasquez. general counsel will also present this policy has a significant changes from its original form mostly alignment with statute. and so I believe that this will also capture comments we received from the boards. Mr. Paul Marini. thank you madam superintendent. That is correct. We met with you all and had a rule devel or work sessions on February 13th and May 8th. we took extensive comments. We made extensive changes based on your comments. most of this is as the superintendent said designed to just track state law. just going through it briefly. gifts of course shall be
014con defined consistent with applicable law. gratuitous meals that was the provision that we didn't allow meals if they were more than $5. We have taken that out alto together. gift law will be applicable to procurement officials or reporting of individuals with respect to, you know, meals that may cost more than $100 because that's the applicable limit for reporting individuals and procurement employees. So, if they get a meal of more than $100, they would have to report that under state law, which they would have to do anyway. So, but we're making gifts applicable. Gratuitous meals are being eliminated under the policy. we changed in lobbying staff member with contracting authority to reporting individual that's the folks who have to report that do file a report with the commission on ethics the form one those folks have
015to do. So that's who a reporting individual is. principles of professional conduct. We obviously just changed the citation to be the correct citation. Procurement official is made procurement employee. that's how it's defined in state law. Reporting individual, that's the definition taken straight out of state law. staff members with contracting authority has been taken out. school board has been taken out. Obviously, you all know who you are. specification meetings. We're just changing procurement services. We're reflecting the correct name of the department. everybody knows who the superintendent is. That's one person. So, we didn't think there was need for a definition. gratuitous meals that has been eliminated altogether. we have gifts and certain travel restrictions that have remained in prohibitions of gifts on of influence from business associates, business entities, lobbyists or principles. This is a cotification
016of Florida law. board members, employees shall not solicit or accept anything of value to the rece including a gift, loan, reward, promise of future employment, favor or service based upon the understanding that the vote, official action or judgment of the board member or OCPS employee would be influenced thereby. That is straight out of state law. You cannot accept anything of value if it's meant to influence your judgment. prohibition of gifts during the no contact period. we have eliminated that because it's in line with state law. There's nothing preventing it in state law. with respect to all employees. Now with respect to procurement individuals or reporting individuals, we don't allow them to accept gifts during the no contact period except for the following instances. If it's a campaign contribution otherwise disclosed on appropriate state forms, we
017could have a reporting individual running for office and they would be allowed to accept campaign contributions. or if it's a donation made or offered to OCPS and accepted by the procurement employee or reporting individual on behalf of OCPS and not for the personal or private use of the procurement employee or the reporting individual. You know, when we get the nice gift baskets from various folks at the holiday time and they're not ex that employee is not accepting it just for them. They put it the food out on the table for anybody in the department to eat. That's what that's meant to encompass. As you can see, the rest of the gratuitous meal and gift provision has been eliminated. procurement employees shall abide by their nigp code of ethics. With respect to gifts, gifts to board
018members, of course, board members shall comply with all applicable provisions of Florida law regarding solicitation, acceptance, and disclosure of any gifts. As you all know, your gift limit is $50. So, that's just a codification of state law. with respect to prohibited payment of travel costs at conferences, trainings, we've eliminated that. lobbying activities. the big thing here is as you all know the forms that had to be filled out under the previous version of the policy. Each lobbyist, business associate, business entity, principal, or vendor engaging in lobbying shall complete and submit to the ethics compliance officer, the district's lobbying lobbyist and vendor reporting form for any meetings or contacts with board members, procurement employees, reporting individuals or their superintendent within 10 days, calendar days of such lobbying contact. That was already in the policy. What has
019been eliminated from the policy is the concominant responsibility for all of you to fill out the forms as well. That has now gone away. It is the lobbyist's responsibility solely to do that. It's not on the board members, the reporting individuals or procurement employees to do so. And then going down here, a lot of these changes are just changes in nomenclature, procurement employees, reporting individuals. prohibit prohibition on campaign contributions during procurement matters. you know, this eliminates the provision of saying that they can't provide campaign contribution during procurement matters when they have an active solicitation. Obviously, they do have a right under state law to make campaign contributions to you all. We did not run want to run a foul of their right to make and their protected speech through the form of political donations to
020make donations to political campaigns. They do have that right under state law and under the first amendment. scrolling down, conflicts of interest. this is straight out of state law. No board members or OCPS employee shall have or hold any employment or contractual relationship with any business entity or agency which is subject to the regulation or is doing business with an agency of which he or she is an officer or employee. You this is basically you can't have a business that does business with OCPS and employees can't do that either. There's state law prohibitions against that. disclosures of potential conflicts in procurement matters by OCPS staff. This just says procurement employees and reporting individuals or the superintendent that has a professional relationship business relationship with any vendor or business entity participating in procurement shall disclose that
021relationship. That's just in compliance with our previous policy and state law product testimonials. As you know, we have gone over this in great detail. This is the provision that basically allows 501c3 entities that are donating us donating us products or services to get testimonials provided certain requirements are met. this pro the the let me try that again in English. The policy states absent the explicit contracted authority to solicit or use testimonials. A vendor shall not use the testimonial of an OCPS employee without the written consent of the ethics compliance officer or the superintendent or designate. The restriction includes testimonials in any form, written or oral or electronic or in any form including but not limited to websites and emails. adding the superintendent in was just a practice that we have had over the years. We're
022codifying it. Any OCPS employee who provided a testimonial to a vendor without the written consent of the ethics compliance officer or superintendent or designate is subject to disciplinary action, including but not limited to dismissal from employment. I can't remember that ever being utilized, but it's there in case we need to do it. And this is the provision I was talking about with the charitable foundations. An OCPS employee may provide product testimonial for any vendor who is a charitable foundation organized under section 501c3 of the Internal Revenue Code which provides the district complimentary goods or services. The following criteria will be utilized for such testimonial. OCPS employees decision to participate in provide a testimonial is entirely voluntary and shall be based on the employees personal experience. OCPS will not be identified by name in any testimonial.
023No individual OCPS school will be identified by name or likeness. No filming will take place on OCPS property. No use of OCPS district logos or individual school logos. OCPS employees who provide testimonials will be identified by first name, position, and school type. We give the example there, Susan, interventionist elementary school. No quantitative data will be included in any testimonial unless the data is approved by the district's research management and strategy director. That's to ensure that any claims about gains for various products actually reflect what was actual the actual gains made by students. the vendor shall submit all testimonials secured from OCPS employees to the ethics compliance officer, the superintendent or designate for review prior to use or publication in any form. Such review shall be limited to ensuring compliance with the requirements listed above. You're
024not identifying the school by name. You're not identifying where the employee works, etc., etc. duties of the ethics compliance officer. A lot of these provisions are remaining the same. we're just eliminating and cleaning up terminology. avoiding or terminating contracts for lobbying during the no contact period. Again, these are taken out especially due to first amendment concerns with respect to folks not being able to engage in their first amendment right to petition the government to advocate on positions for their behalf. So, we've eliminating the provision that allows for terminating a contract for lobbying during the no contact period. outside employment of OCPS employee. this just changes code of ethics for the principles of professional conduct for the education profession in Florida. As I've explained to you, we're not eliminating reference to the code of ethics. The
025code of ethics was actually subsumed into the principles of professional conduct for the education profession in Florida by the Florida Department of Education probably 12 or so years ago. So we're just reflecting its proper name. We're still adhering to the code of ethics. It's just within the principles of professional conduct. once again just terminology changes to make sure we're consistent with our definitions and we have reached the end of the policy. Thank you Mr. Palmerini. I have a quick question about the testimonials. we don't have board members in there. should we or should we not or does it matter board members? We what is your opinion on that? We purposely most of this policy with respect to prohibitions is directed more at OCPS employees rather than board members. Board members have the right to to
026engage in in you know speech that reflects their positions on certain things. So, we kept board members out of this pro particular provision. you know, I'm always hesitant to tell you all you can't speak on matters that are within your purview as board members because you have a first amendment right to do so. but you know it to the extent you're having concerns you want to engage in product testimonials you know I do think that you know just discussions with the superintendent and her staff because hey I want to do this testimonial they the superintendent and her staff may have hey I'm great with that or hey we've had a problem over here just you know I would advise that but at the end of the day you all are public officials with the right
027to engage in speech. Got it. Perfect. And I forgot to ask, we don't have any public wishing to speak. Correct. No, ma'am. Okay. is there any other further comment by board members? I think we have consensus to move it forward. All right. Looks that way. All right. Very good. And next, I'm going to turn it over to Greg Greg Moody and Alivia Haynes on my staff. We're going to go over policy JCA. And at the end, I have something to address with you all in the policym process that may make it even easier. So Oh, well we'd love to hear that. Perfect. All right, we're going to move on to policy JCA, assignment of students to school as the next team moves in. Dr. Vasquez. thank you. this policy has also been through some review
028based on board member feedback. the team has gone back made some changes and I believe this also captures the thoughts of the board at our last work session. So I'm going to turn it over to Miss Haynes. Sure. Good morning school board members. so since the last work session, we haven't made any changes to the policy. We presented the changes that are outlined in here at the last work session, but if you would like, we can go over those again. I'll look to the board. Board, do you wish to have them go over the changes that were made? If the there aren't any new changes, do we just want to All right, so we're good. we don't have any public comment for this one either, Mr. Palmarini. No, yeah, sorry. That's okay. okay. So, since
029there's no public comment and looks like we don't have any board member, I think we have consensus to move ahead with this one, too. Thank you. Perfect. Easy peasy. How about that? Wow. Sometimes we can surprise them. 4.04 policy IA student progression plan. It looks like we have our two staff members moving up. Dr. Vasquez. Yeah, this is a long one. This is our student progression plan that we review each and every year. typically there are changes that occur based on legislation as well as feedback that's been received throughout the year. So I'm going to turn it over to Miss Capesky who will be presenting alongside Mary Bridges. Thank you Dr. Vasquez. Good morning board. good to see everyone today. I know Dr. Vasquez said that this is a long policy, but we are only
030going to go over the changes since the work session that we held on June 24th, 2025. and there's only two. So, hopefully this will be a quick one as well. the first change is something that we discussed at the work session. adding in a link to the statewide assessments accommodations guide for ELLL students. So, if you remember, we have this link in the students with disabilities section. we also added it for ELLL students as well. so parents can get that information and then I'll let you present the second one since I was your just the full year. Oh yes. after some discussion by the school board, it was decided that you all would prefer that students who have been homeschooled must complete a final full school year at the student zone school and meet all
031graduation requirements to participate in OCPS graduation activities and receive an OCPS high school diploma. If you'll remember, it did say a semester and you asked to change it to a full school year. And we did have some other requests from the board, but those aren't things that would been would have gone into policy. So, they're things that we're working on over the summer to hopefully get information out to students and parents next year so they have a better understanding of the programs that we do offer. and with that, Dr. Vasquez, that concludes our presentation. Record time. And I apologize. I thought they were going to go over all of the changes, but I'm sure I am sure you're fine with us with the new format. any questions or comments? no. And we have no public
032comment on this one either. Correct. Perfect. yeah, I don't see anybody queued up to speak. I think we are all in agreement that this one is ready to move on. And I am just going to say we are at what time is it? 109 10:49. And we even we even started a few minutes later than that. And we just did rule development for four policies just for the record. We did spend a lot of time. I mean, come on. This is great though. I mean, we spent a lot of time the first time, so we made up for it this time. Yes. And Mr. Pomearini has something he wants to address us with. Yeah. So, and vice chair be before that if you don't mind. Yes, absolutely. Chair Jacobs, this seems to happen with some
033degree of consistency when I'm not present for the meetings. so if you all would like me to participate virtually from here on out, I won't be offended. I'm sure. Yes. Yes. six years of coincidences, but great job, vice chair and board, and I'll see you all in a little bit. All right, we'll see you in a little bit. Okay, thank you, Mr. Pomearini. So, going back through the statutes. I, you know, occasionally do that sometimes just getting ready for these things. Rulem has specific requirements in the statute. One is we have to provide a notice that we're engaging in rulemaking and that has to be noticed between 28 and 90 days before we finally adopt a rule. And then there's something known as a rule development workshop or a hearing in the in the statute.
034And the statute says that we can have hearings or rule development workshops. We may have them and we shall have them if any affected per person requests it. So, under my reading of the statutes, and I'm confirming this, and I'm researching the law just to make sure, I don't necessarily think we have to have these rule development workshops unless some member of the public asks for it. So, we can do work sessions, we can go over the policies, we can get them, then we can advertise them, and then just bring it for final adoption at a board meeting. Now, members of the public can still have the opportunity to speak at the board meeting. but it is an option for you all to kick around of if we don't have to do the rule development
035workshops, and I don't think that we do under my reading of the law, do we want to continue to do this? Because as as you've seen here, I mean, and this is typical of our rule development workshops, we don't have members of the public who comment. So, I don't need a decision right now. I wanted to alert you of it of of my reading of the law that I don't think that they're absolutely necessary and it may be something you all want to have a discussion of whether we want to continue to do or not. We may not need to do it. You all may decide that hey we may need to do a rule development workshop on something that's controversial where members of the public want to come in and comment but on something
036that's not maybe we don't need to do it. I throw that out there just for you all's consideration and you don't need we don't need to have the discussion now but it may be a discussion you all want to have in the future. Got it. Yeah. Thank you. that's interesting. yeah I think that it sounds good at this point. So you know if you we can have this discussion in the future when we have of course more of our board members here but I think it sounds so far it sounds pretty good for sure. Anything to simplify and reduce meetings and reduce our staff's time is we're in favor for. Okay. Is there any further business? This meeting is adjourned. We are going to take a 30 minute break and have the close session. Can
037we do it early or do we need to wait till noon? Okay. Well, how about we aim to start the close session at 11:30? We can do it earlier. just, you know, I think some folks who are not here are coming live, so I didn't know how close they were. The chair is coming in, so I wanted to give her some time to get here. So, why don't we start at 11:30? Perfect. Thank you, Vice Chair. Yes, ma'am. I should be there by shortly after 11. So, even 11:15, if that would help get everybody back to work. Perfect. 11:15. Sounds good. Perfect. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Bye. What time is it? Heat.