001Good evening and welcome to the Orange County School Board's regular meeting scheduled for today, Tuesday, June 10th, 2025. Thank you all so much for being here. we have h a wonderful start of our meeting with a lot of fun recognitions. As a reminder to board members will not be engaging in outside electronic or digital communication during the meeting so that we can focus our full attention on each of you. to my fellow board members, district staff, and members of the public, when speaking, please speak directly into your microphone, and obviously make sure it's turned on. our microphones are very sensitive, but we want to make sure that anybody is tuning in on on YouTube TV now or later also has an opportunity to share in the celebration. We will pause now for a moment of
002silence followed by the pledge of allegiance. And now for the pledge. I aliance 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. Dr. Vasquez, before we begin our recognitions, do we have any changes to the agenda? No, Madam Chair, there are no changes to the agenda. Thank you. seeing as there's no changes to the agenda, is there a motion to approve the agenda as posted? Motion by member Gallo. Is there a second? Second by member Douglas. All in favor, please say I. I. Opposed. The motion carries unanimously. Good evening. It's that time of our meeting where we recognize special achievements of our students, our staff, and our volunteers. Due to the recent end of the school
003year, we have an overflowing list of honores, which is incredible, a great problem to have. But to make things run a little more smoothly, we're going to have two groups. This will ensure that everyone is given the time and attention they deserve as well as a seat. The first group includes awards and achievements by outstanding students, staff and volunteers. And then we will dismiss that group and their honores so that their guest for our sports honores can join us. So when we get to that point, I'll let you know. We want everybody to exit there. They'll come in. We've done this before. It's a lot easier than graduations, trust me. So again, thanks for taking the time out of your summer to come and be here for those of you that we're recognizing and for
004your friends and family and staff. We appreciate every one of you being here and we always get excited about the opportunities to celebrate the great people that have such a profound impact here in Orange County Public Schools. So with that, let's start by honoring a dual language magnet student from Hunter Creek Middle School. She used her creative and artistic skills to show her pride for her school. And I'd like to give Greg Moody an opportunity. He's executive leader for school choice and Michelle Thomas, director of school choice to introduce the winner who will then come to the front. Yes, Mr. Moody. Welcome, sir. Thank you, Madame Chair. superintendent, board members. I don't believe Allison, our Hunters Creek student yet. I was informed she has not arrived yet, but the Hunter Creek coordinator is here. Miss
005Jolie. Miss Jolie, if you could stand. Do, Madame Chair, would you what what is your pleasure? Would you like to move on to the next one and maybe give Allison a minute to show up and then Absolutely. Let's Let's do this. Let's move on to the next one and we'll give her until we're done with this program to show up. So, if anybody has an opportunity to reach out to her to make sure she's doing well and give us an idea if she'll be here, but we certainly want to wait as long as we can for her. She may be stuck in traffic. Thank you, ma'am. And thank you for that flexibility. So, I'd like to introduce part of our magnet team. We're small, but we're mighty. Michelle Thomas is our director of magnets and
006we have our senior administrator Heather Rodriguez. I'll ask that if he would we'll go to Orlando gifted in the school of excellence. Madam chair and I'll let Michelle Miss Thomas come present that award and give some information about Orlando gifted when in the MSA magnet schools of America award. Thank you. and then we'll move on to the others. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Miss Michelle Thomas. Michelle, welcome. Thank you. The award earned by Orlando Gifted Academy is presented by Magnet Schools of America to Magnet Schools, demonstrating the highest level of achievement. Recipients demonstrate academic excellence, innovation, diversity efforts, and community involvement. Principal Magcguire and his team have created a family atmosphere where creative, unique students can grow, question, and thrive. Principal Magcguire is here to represent his school. Mr. Maguire, if you wouldn't mind, come
007on up to the front. Dr. Alex. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Oh, okay. Yes. Good. Big smile. Big smile again. Every group gets applause. One more. Thank you. Okay. We also had four magnet programs earned the magnet schools of America school choice school of distinction award. You want to tell us a little more about that? Yes, ma'am. We also congratulate Tildenville Elementary School dual language magnet principal Alvarez Boone High School's criminal justice law and finance pro magnet principal majesty Dr. Phillips High School center of international studies magnet principal Ramsey and University's high school international balorate program magnet principal aut each of their programs received the magnet schools of distinction award magnet schools of America's second highest honor. Congratulations to all of our recognized schools for their outstanding commitment to educational excellence, innovation, and inclusivity. Your
008success represents the best of our OCPS magnet schools. Madame chair and school board members, thank you for your continued support to our magnet programs. Thank you. All right. Can we get our representatives from Tildenville from Boone? Dr. Phillips and University. How are you? Congrats. Congratulations. Congratulations. Great job. Congratulations. Great job. Wonderful. That's fine. We rules. And just adjust your jacket. There we go. Good. Look toward me. Look happy. And on three. Good. One, two, and three. Stay there. Look. Look super happy. And my assistant. Good. Thank you. Well, that's Julian's name. Dominguez. See? See if the girls here our recognized schools e excellent magnet schools are one of the things that sets OCPS apart and you're helping provide and prove to our families that choice is alive and well here in Orange County Public Schools.
009So we appreciate that. next I want to move on to Pardon me. Oh, you're not done. our here she is not I oh don't that's okay. Jolene I don't know if they've walked in the door but Allison has has not come yet but we can go over her award that she received if you would like and Jolene Dominguez from Hunters Creek Middle School can represent the student if you would like. Oh okay. Okay that'd be fine. Thank you. Thank you. so do we know that she's not coming or Jolene she can have a backup? Her mom's typing. Okay, her mom's typing her right now. Texting her right now. Well, like I said, oh, Allison is sick, so she will not be attending. So, if Jolene could represent the school and accept the award on her
010behalf. Okay. And I know we had the poster up earlier, but just to kind of go over the award and what the award the recipient received, we are proud to announce that Allison Ramos Gomez of Hunters Creek Middle School has been named the Magnet Schools of America District Poster Contest of Orange County Public Schools. The n the national initiative encourages students to showcase and promote magnet schools as a part of the annual celebration of the National Magnet Schools Month in February. Allison's poster creatively illustrates her interpretation of what Hunters Creek Middle School's magnet program represents. We congratulate Allison on this well-deserved achievement and commend her rep for representing our district with pride. Congratulations, Alsa. I appreciate that. represent. Okay. And before we before we move on to a special recognition from member Salamanca, I do
011want to recognize two people in the audience. actually I probably recognize a lot more than two of you all but I do want to take a minute to recognize our representative and you had reminded me that she's here. Joanna Lopez. Yeah. Representative Lopez, it's wonderful to have you here. We'll be anxious to see who you're here to celebrate, so you'll let us know. And also a good friend and former member of the county commission that served alongside me and had an incredible relationship with her and thrilled to have her here today. And that is Miss Victoria Ciplin. And like the representative, I'm anxious to see who you're here to support. I wouldn't be surprised if it's your two sons, but I don't see them. So, you graduated from college. H from college already. I remember
012it wasn't that long ago that you were here and we were celebrating their athletic accomplishments as well. So, okay, let's move on. we have recognitions from board members who weren't able to make our special recognition meeting in April. And so first I'd like to invite district 2 school board member Maria Salamanca to tell us about the people she has selected to recognize this evening. H well you know this is the best time to talk about and brag about District 2. and I think Representative Lopez is here. If I want to just I want to just clarify that she's here for district 2. Is that right? Thumbs up so we don't break the quum. Okay. so yes, just to answer your question, but I am so excited, to do my recognition because obviously I love my
013district and I am just so proud of everything we do in district 2 where the dreams come true. oh, it's getting longer. you're you're going to find a theme in my recognitions. and it's a theme that I have been talking about a lot this year, which is there are some teachers and staff that just go above and beyond. where there's not really a way to thank them enough. and we definitely know that we do not pay them enough. And so that I want to take every opportunity to recognize them as well as be able to highlight those that go above and beyond without necessarily us being able to match that. And I hope that we as we continue to have conversations recognize some of some of these teachers that really go the extra mile. So,
014first, I'd like to recognize, Guadalupe Arment, an extraordinary and dedicated teacher at Colonial High School. Miss Armentos, can you please come out front just so before we get a picture? Guadalupra serves as an incredible bridge for her students and their families. She is a name that comes up over and over again in the Hispanic community, in the colonial community. She is, as many I know you're a teacher, but when I talk to parents and students, you are a guidance counselor. You tell them about college. You tell them about career. You lead the Hispanic Honor Society. You have multiple community outreach events. You hold events for the Hispanic Heritage Month. You work with a bunch of outreach facilities in your community. And you just show up and your name every time I talk to parents to
015students always comes up on how you help them navigate this very difficult education system. And whether it is that these families need help with a path to citizenship and you also direct them to that or they want to celebrate Hispanic heritage, you're always there to empower and to guide them. you adjust your schedule constantly to dedicate more time and support to those in need in Colonial High School. You are truly a source of immense pride for our community, for our school, and I just wanted to say thank you so much for how much you go above and beyond. So thank you. Thank you so much. No, we we don't mind. I think we insist. Oh, that's so awesome. You can set up a little bit. Congratulations. A little something. Are these your daughters? No, they're
016my students. Members of the Hispanic Honor Society. So, thank you for They're her babies. Nice to meet you, too. Lovely to meet you. Wonderful. That's so sweet. Well, I thought it was great that you brought your daughters with you, but it's kind of greater actually that you brought your students. So, thank you for that. I mean, that's just how you know that the kind of work she does that students show up to recognize her and you all are very lucky to have this incredible educator on your side. second, I'd like to celebrate another amazing educator who wears many hats, if not multiple at the same time. Mr. Joel Atkins, an outstanding teacher, leader, and truly exceptional human being, from Lake High School. His impact reaches far beyond the classroom. He's a connector. He's a motivator.
017He's an anchor for everyone around him who's ever worked with him. What makes Joe so unique is the incredible perspective that he brings to education. It is shaped by a life of service before he entered the field. It's truly remarkable to think that the man who now teaches, guides, and mentors our students every day also served our country as a member of the US Army for over 12 years. The depth of experience and service shines through everything he does, including how he runs all his clubs. He doesn't just teach, he inspires. It is a name that every time I talk to my fellows and to my students and to the visits that I do at Lake Nona High School, his name comes up if not him running around. students trust him because he sees and
018honors who they are. They respect him because of his authenticity and his strength. He's taught across multiple grade levels, content areas over the past 17 years, and he's just demonstrated how versatile and his unwavering commitment to education. He's taken on significant leadership roles. He serves as the SGA sponsor. He teaches leadership courses. This past year, he transformed SGAA into a truly studentled organization. He also took on your book. Is that right? This year he has supported SGA efforts in providing Thanksgiving meals for thousands of families and toys for ch children in Christmas time. And as principal Nikki Campbell has shared, she's really witnessed true student leadership take shape under his guidance for the first time in years in Lake Nona. He's a senior class sponsor which takes an enormous amount of responsibility that he carries
019with grace and excellence and orchestrates what was you know I don't know if folks heard about it but Lake Nona graduation was,56 seniors and I believe graduation got done in right two hours. Was that right? Yes. So I we all shook, 156 hands in less than two hours. But for folks in the audience, I mean, this is a quite an accomplishment to run a graduation in this way. And it was seamless. it was executed thoughtfully. I think the students and the family all said it was one of the most incredible graduations there. So Joel, you lead with relationship. You get things done. You do whatever it takes. You put students first. You're kind. You bring strength to your team every day. so thank you so much for the incredible impact and I really appreciate it.
020I'm so lucky to have you in district 2. Come on up. Yes. Congratulations. I like that shirt. So, well, yes. Thank you. Good smile. One more. No sparkly shoes. My boss. Oh, wow. Yes. All right. I mean, district two. Look at that. Wow. All right. Last but not least, really it really I'm I'm so excited for Mr. Clarence Williams, a cornerstone of the math department at Odyssey Middle and a true example of excellence. Can you come up front as well? Let me tell you a little bit about Mr. Williams. So, what's the letters that we do, the impact letters where we like deliver seniors? so I had heard his name before, but this year I got the the honor to deliver him a letter from a senior, I believe a university, high school she was
021at. She was graduating top of her class, but I guess during her time in middle school, she had struggled with math and she had really hard time. Mr. Williams had created this program for students that were struggling with with math and is it the NASA like something? Yeah, it was it called the calculus project and he invited these students who perhaps were having a hard time in math and convinced them that they were the right ones for the calculus project and completely changed the student's mind about her love for math and that is what she's going to be studying from college onward. And so she wrote this beautiful letter about how you completely changed how she thought about education on the scary topic of of math. And it was also during this visit that I
022found out from other staff that you drive from Leland every single day to Odyssey. And that's that's that's far from where? From where? From Leland. Dand. Maybe it's my immigrant. It's my accent. The land. The land. The land. The land. The land. The land. Not the county. The land. It's the land. D E L E N D. I apolog Honestly, it's more impressive. Let's keep it as Land. Yeah, it's more impressive. They don't have to know. but it doesn't matter. It's far. Do we How far is that? If not now, we got to prove ourselves. I was thinking it was another country. at least 45 without traffic if not more. And so, but you do this and you've done this for years. You've been at Odyssey for how many years? A lot. Oh, a test.
023First, we don't know where you're from. Ah, it's true. but you know this student just talked about and there's so many teachers who said you are such a positive impact in the love for teaching and how you raise the bar for your peers on that extra step that it takes to to just show up every day for the silly dad jokes that came up a lot for encouraging good choices for being easygoing but at the same time having high expectations of your students and never giving up on them. You offer tutoring outside of class. You do it before. You do it after. You have this unparalleled dedication of of what it means beyond just test scores, but really teaching your students the value of mastering the content and and understanding that. So, you know, Principal
024Nina, who nurse here, says, "You just have an outstanding not just performance and dedication, but a really deep understanding of what it means to teach algebra in a way that every student, regardless of level, can love it. you're patient, you're wise, you're calm, and everybody says that you're a great advice giver as well." That came up as a constant thread. So thank you so much for for your exceptional contribution to our students for your constant driving from very far far far away. We want to say where Leland that's not it's my accent. I'm an immigrant. Yeah, sure. Don't pick on. so thank you so much and I just wanna I appreciate she did say I That's really far away cuz it's not in Florida. Okay, sound like my wife. Good, good, good. Big smile. Look
025happy. Good. One, two, and three. Stay there. One more. Look super happy. Perfect. Thank you. Y'all y'all couldn't hear it, but his wife walked up and said, "You talking about my husband?" I think maybe he leaves it all on the field, so to speak. Okay. Member Bird, do you have anything you wanted to say? Member B. I just wanted to say Dr. Arm Brewster, being an educator, it's a beautiful thing, isn't it? I tell you what, I you know, I've I just I love hearing these stories about our teachers and our educators and they're just they're so phenomenal and so many of them are doing so many amazing things for our kids every single day. So, thank you, Member Salaka, for recognizing three fantastic educators tonight. Thank you, Vice Chair. So, next I'd like to
026invite school board member Angie Gallo who represents district 1 to tell us about the group she has selected for recognition. Member Gallo, you're recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that. before I get into acknowledging these wonderful partners that we have in District 1, I would like to point out that Mr. Atkins was my daughter's fifth grade teacher in district 1 and he was at East River High School for many many years. even before Miss Campbell was the or did you bring him over? Nikki brought him over. So Nikki brought him over. So he was at East River prior to her taking him over to Lake Nona. So I just wanted I know you like to point out the great things in District 2, but half the great things that happen in District 2 come
027from District One. I'm just saying. But now they're in district two. And just for the record, whether they were in district one or district two or any other district in between, they're all in the district. Mine. So I thought we had a great show. Thank you. I have yet to win an award here. They always go to one of the chair always gets I never get I know. You never get anything. I never get an award. You guys don't share it with me. always get ignored. It's not fair. that's cuz you beat us all because you have all the schools. You would always be the winner. nice try. Today I have the honor of recognizing a group from University Carolina Methodist Church who have a special partnership with Bonyville Elementary. And I just want to
028say that without these partnerships, without these people that care so much for OCPS schools, that care so much for our students and are willing to give up their personal and free time to come into our schools to make a difference, we wouldn't be where we are today. We wouldn't see the increases that we were seeing this year in our reading scores. And all of the data looks really good. and it's in large part due to the time and the talent that you give our schools. And for that alone, we're so appreciative. I just I can't say that enough. but I would like to recognize our dedicated reading buddies. Please come to the front. Elaine Meyers, positive power club volunteer. Cindy Marino, classroom volunteer, and clothing closet volunteers. Jim Yiddi, he's the lead volunteer along with
029Nancy Williams, Helen Bodner, Elizabeth Hughes, Karen Ozelinks, and if I mispronounced your name, I'm so sorry. And I'll give you a chance to correct it. And Carol Lud Ludwasher, I think I butchered that. I'm sorry. Did I? Luter. Luter. Thank you. Luter. I was this close. These generous church members provide assistant that assistance that goes well beyond our students material needs. The entire partnership started with a conversation between executive pastor Chris Acres and the principal at Bonnieville. That led to the creation of a clothing shelf which turned into a closet which turned into entire room all to help students in need. But this partnership goes even further. This the church routinely hosts an annual fifth grade celebration marking the end of the school year. And these special volunteers in front of me go above and
030beyond as reading buddies to the students of Bonnieville Elementary. They dedicate their time to sit down one-on-one with students each week during the school year. This helps their reading skills and comprehension grow. For these children, many of whom come from challenging circumstances, this connection makes a world of difference. The students look forward to their time with their reading buddies. They say it makes reading fun. It is the key to unlocking a lifelong love for learning. Third service was recognized statewide when University Caroline was named business partner of the year by the Florida Department of Education. We are so grateful to them and I want to say that they do University of Carolon does a lot of great work at Bonnieville. When my kids many years ago were at East Lake Elementary when we opened that
031school, they were that church was instrumental in getting us backpacks and being involved in our school. And when they opened up, they have an entertainment center in the back where East Lake holds a fifth grade party every year. And they've been gracious enough to let us hold it there. They even for several years paid for the buses so that we could get our fifth grade fifth graders to that facility. So when I say they go beyond and above, it's not just for Bonnieville. They care about every student and every school that is close in their proximity and they've just I don't even know that they realize the difference that they've made for our students and our teachers and our staff. And so for that, we are just so very grateful for them. So let's give
032them a huge round of applause. I'm sorry. Thank you so much for everything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, my your hands Yeah, it's cold in here. It's happening this week and I made them volunteer at it when they were younger or they're old. Caroline app. If one opens, we all open. Good. Ready? Look happy. And on three. Good. One, two, and three. Stay there. One more. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Member Gallo, thank you so much. And reading is such a fundamentally important thing to our students. I think you hit the nail on the head and I just I can't help but think if every school had this kind of volunteerism and mentorship what a difference it would make. So thank you very much and being recognized now statewide is really
033really impressive. Okay. So, this concludes the first portion of our recognitions. Honores and your guests, we're going to ask it unless you're here to recognize somebody else, then by all means stay put. But if you're not, we're going to ask you to exit through the back door of the back of the room. And then we will bring in the next group through the side door. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. He feel me? We apologize that you had to wait a few minutes, but we consider ourselves pretty blessed this evening that we have so many recognitions that we couldn't fit everybody in the room at the same time. I'm going
034to ask this. if you possibly can stay with us until the end of this awards ceremony, it won't take that long, but we'd like for everyone who's being recognized, whether you're at the beginning or the end, to share the same level of of recognition. So, with that said, for our recognition finale, we have student athletes from six high schools here tonight. They've won state championships in soccer, track and field, tennis, volleyball, and weightlifting. So, let me welcome to the podium Lonnie Flores, director of athletics and wellness services. Mr. Flores, could you please share a great deal more about our athletes and their accomplishments? Good evening, board Jared Jacobs, school board members, and superintendent Dr. Vasquez. It is my pleasure to be here tonight to do our final recognition of our athletics teams. the first team
035I'd like to recognize is the Timber Creek boys volleyball team. If the team and coaches could please come up front while we recognize your accomplishments. Coach, coach, come. There you go. The Timber Creek boys volleyball team was named the state 3A academic champions with a team GPA of 3.61. Wow. Wow. They were one of only 30 other schools in the state of Florida in this classification who had a combined GPA of at least 3.0. I know this may seem common place for our athletes to earn this award, but is very difficult to achieve and speaks volumes to to the fact that OCPS truly focuses on student first and athlete second. At this time, I would like to recognize the students, coaches, and staff of Timber Creek High School. The principal for Timber Creek High School
036is Mr. Mark Wasco. The athletic director for Timber Creek High School is Mr. Jim Priest. And at this time, I would like to pass the microphone to Miss Jodie Van Arum to introduce her athletes. Thank you. Thank you. Alex Martinez, 12th grade. Batter Casma, 11th grade. Waqin Castanada, 9th grade. Diego Galan Reyes, 12th grade. Jack Bilman, 12th grade. Andrew Harris, 10th grade. Coach Juan Caro, Coach Zavier Richardson. Congratulations you guys. Happy two more happy. Congratulations. Thank you. It is now with great pleasure that we move on to the Lake Nona portion of these recognitions. As I am sure that these students and student athletes and coaches are proud Lions. In order to save time and not introduce them after each award, I would like to first thank principal for Lake Nona High School, Miss Nikki
037Campbell, and the athletic director for Lake Nona High School, Brandon Joseph. The first group I'd like to recognize and coaches, if you can come up to the front, Coach Jones, Coach Cely, and Coach Beard, if you can come on up to the front. Since 1992, the Florida Dairy Farmers High School Sports Awards Program, which recognizes all 30 FHSA sanctioned and recognized sports, has honored more than 5,000 of the state's top student athletes and coaches. Today, we have the opportunity to recognize three coaches from Lake Nona High School. Girls golf coach Shaa Jones was the Florida dairy farmers 3A coach of the year. Boys soccer coach Anton Cely was a Florida Dairy Farmers 7A coach of the year. And finally, boys tennis coach Tom Beard was a Florida dairy farmer's 4A coach of the year. Congratulations,
038coaches, on your prestigious award and earning such a great season for Lake Nona High School. But you live in district one. Wow. Word. Happy. As I mentioned before, our next group we will recognize is Lake Nona Golf. Alexandria, if you could come up to the front while I recognize your accomplishments. Wow. Yeah. Lake Nona High School girls golf player Andrea I'm sorry, Alexandria Snyder was selected as a Florida dairy farmer's 3A girls golfer of the year for the state of Florida. Alexandria is a member of the Lake Nona High School 2024 state champion girls golf team. She is also a member of the Florida State Golf Associations team Florida. In addition, she is a member of the 2024 South America Champion Provin Junior National Team and Alexandria is the 2024 FHSA 3A individual state champion.
039Alexandria Snider is a freshman at the school and is looking forward to continued success in her high school career. She's a freshman. Oh my gosh. You have to be in the picture. Nikki Nikki, congratulations. Alexandra, the next group we're going to recognize is the Lake Nona girls tennis team. If I can have Aspen and Gabriella, if you could come to the front so I can recognize your accomplishments. Unfortunately, Gabriella was not able to be here, but I will still recognize her accomplishments. Aspen and Gabriella were the Lake Nona doubles team who won the FHSA 3A doubles state championship. After leading the Lake Nona girls tennis team to the state runner-up finish the day before, Aspen and Gabby returned the following day to stake their claim as state champions. They beat Deral Academy 6362. I would
040like to give an additional congratulations to Gabriella, even though she's not able to be here today. This is the second year in a row that she has won the double state championship for Lake Nona High School. Congratulations. Tom, the final Lake Nona team we're going to recognize tonight is a Lake Nona boys tennis team. If you can come up front to be recognized. The Lake Nona boys tennis team won the FHSA state 3A championship. The boys did not drop a single match through the regional round of the state tournament, winning 40 in the regional quarterfinals, regional semifinals, in the regional finals. Against Winter Haven in the state quarterfinals, they won 4-2. In the state semifinal, they returned to form, winning four to zero against Cypress Bay High School. The state final was a grueling match
041against number one seed Dural Academy that came down to a final pairing. Lake Nona was able to outlast their opponent to a 4 to3 win. At this time, I would like Coach Beard to be able to introduce his team. But before I give him the mic, I would like I would be remissed if I did not take this opportunity to thank Coach Beard in person. We talk each and every year, but wanted to state publicly that he goes above and beyond to ensure our student athletes in OCPS get to play at the USA during the season. For some of our student athletes, this opportunity and memory will last a lifetime. Your efforts is truly appreciated, Tom. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. I was told just to read names, but I do have to
042say our team GPA was a 356. I just want to share that too. So, not as good, but pretty good. So, obviously Aspen, I want to acknowledge who was here already who she got acknowledged of the boys that are here today. Malhar Patel is a senior. Juan Orta, who won the third and final match to win the state championship, is a junior. Kuda VJ is a junior. Dvok Mandla is a junior. Don Vinsa is a 10th grader. Xander Clarkson is a senior going to the Air Force Academy next year. Shri Jen Ganta is a senior. He won his freshman year as a state champ and a senior as a state champ. Nice bookends. And Venet is a 10th grader as well. So, thank you guys. One, two, and three. Big smile again. It's okay to
043smile. There we go. Perfect. Thank you. So, I guess we realized I was serious about the Lake Nona portion. They did really well here in the spring. Yeah. We were just talking about a popka and how they always seem to dominate, but remember Salamanca like Nona has given everybody a run for their money right now, huh? Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much for for this. I really for this award to me. no, no, but okay. the you know we in district 2 have a lot of new schools upand cominging schools and sports programs and so we you know when we football season comes around I never hear the end of it from over there from that side and although you know we did win the competition this year against member Gallo she had to wear
044a tail she lost the football challenge I had to wear a tail. and he had no quarterback. Congrat. Oh, that's right. Timber Creek's here. There we go. Apologies to the poor kid playing quarterback that night. We Yeah, Timber Creek did not have a quarterback or the backup to the quarterback if I recall. it doesn't matter. We won. I It's just It comes down to who wins. And so, I want to say congratulations to y'all won. I know your coaches do such hard work all the time traveling with you, going all places, getting you access to USA. but you all have fun in it and I think that's the every time I go to your matches. You all love what you do. You do it because you love it, not because anyone's forcing you to do
045it and that's what makes your team and team so incredible. So congratulations and I love to hear so many sophomores and juniors there which means hopefully we'll be back again next year. and thank you for making District 2 and OCPS proud that included everything. But, I proudly accept this award on behalf of just slightly short of that. Back to you, Mr. Yes, ma'am. the next team and coaches I would like to recognize and ask you to please come up front is the Winter Park boys volleyball team. The Winter Park boys volleyball team won the FHSA 3A state championship. They won the state semifinal game over Horizon in straight sets, three to nothing. They won the finals game over Southwest Miami in straight sets 3 to zero. This is the school's third state championship in boys
046volleyball. They are back-to back state champions and this is also their third state title in four years. Winter Park is now tied for the most all-time team championship championships in boys volleyball in the state of Florida with Bishop Moore High School. At this time, I would like to recognize the students, coaches, and staff of Winter Park High School. Unfortunately, Coach Day was not able to be here today, but we are honored to have Mr. Jeff Sharp, the assistant principal for Winter Park High School, and Mr. Jonath Jonathan Couch, who's going to introduce the players. All right. just to follow up on that, these boys didn't drop a set from districts, regionals, or states the entire time. Tristan Gutan, 12th grade. Kase Leaporte, 10th grade. Jamie Sardi, 11th grade. Gabriel Ao, 11th grade. And Caleb Cow,
0479th grade. Thank you. Okay, we're good. Big smile again. Hold on. One more. Look happy. Perfect. Thank you. Congratulations. I just thought one To close our recognitions, we have three individual state champions. The first one is from Cypress Tree Cypress Creek Track. Alandre, if you could come up to the front so I can recognize your accomplishments. We have the opportunity this evening to recognize the accomplishments of a female track athlete from Cypress Creek High School. Alandre is the 4A state champion in the 400 meter hurdles. She ran an impressive time of 58.98 seconds. That time is ranked number five in the US in 400 meter hurdles. This also capped an undefeated 2025 season for Alandre in the 4 400 meter hurdles. Congratulations. At this time, I would like to recognize the staff. I would like
048to recognize the staff. that is the principal Marisol Mendes and the athletic director James Washington. Awesome. Congratulations. The next individual is E East River weightlifting champion Brian Kachuku. If I can have the coach come on up to receive this in Brian's honor. Brian is the 3A Olympic state champion in the 238 pound weight class. Ryan took last year's state final setback into a driving force behind his success this season. His relentless hard work and effort and powerful leadership inspired everyone around him. His total lifting totals were as follows. Snatch 260 lbs. Clean and jerk 320 lbs. At this time, I would like for the principal, Miss Becky Watson, and the athletic director, Miss Britney Scott, to come up so we can take a photo. Big smile. Big smile again. One more. Perfect. Congratulations. Awesome. Congratulations.
049Our last recognition is Windimir Track. Christopher, if you could please come up to the front while I recognize your accomplishments. Go on down. Go on down. I know. I can tell. Christopher Bronau is the 4A state champion in the 100 meter dash. He ran this race in a blazing time of 10.34 seconds. It is my honor to introduce his principal, Mr. Andy Levakus, and his athletic director. I think they're here. And his athletic director, Jeremy Campbell. district. She wants you to run fast. Like a 10sec 100 meter dash isn't good enough. Not good enough. Thank you. You want glasses up or Good. Big smile. Big smile again. Stay there. So, just so I know, who were you guys? Mom and dad. All right. So, like child who members are Good. Big smile. Big smile again.
050Thanks, Mom. Chair Jacobs. That concludes our sports champions for the spring of 2025. If you don't mind, I would love to come up and get one last fist bump for the year. bring I don't think I need to tell this group just how important sports are to not just to our athletes, but to their development, to their team spirit, to all the things that they will bring, not just to the classroom and the field, but to life. And the experiences that you are gaining are going to be transformational as you go through life. I know for my own sons that there's so much that they've learned. There's so many times that they will refer back to something that happened on the field that has given them guidance on what to do in real life. And
051that may sound quirky or crazy, but it's the truth. there's also somebody else before I let you all go. There's somebody else in the audience that I was remiss in not introducing sooner. Somebody I would like to recognize and we're honored to have with us and he's also a dear friend. And that is city commissioner Bardi Burns. You're hiding back there, Commissioner. Wonderful to have you in the chambers. For whatever reason, you're here. I'll probably find out sooner or later. Look forward to it. Okay. Don't dismiss. No dismissing. Okay. I wasn't sure. Okay. Thank you. Member Felder, you want to say something first? First of all, good evening everyone and I am just so very proud. I'm just compelled to share this. This is the beauty of public schools. the competitiveness, the opportunity to socialize,
052to do well with other schools, and the students are able to see their accomplishments. Listen, this is why I am a product of public schools. And when I think about all of the accomplishments that our students have made, not only during the spring of the year, but in the fall, not only sports wise, but academic wise, our performing arts programs, our foreign language programs, all of what we do, our IB programs, our magnet programs, the beauty of public schools. And I am so proud of all of you and your accomplishments. Let me tell you something. Thi this day right here will be long remembered in the recesses of your mind. And as you travel and go your ways, those of you that are seniors and it seems like it's going to be hard or difficult,
053I want you to remember this day that you have been given the ability to succeed and you can succeed. We look forward to reading about your accomplishments and seeing the goodness that you're going to bring in this world. And I want to tell you again to the parents, to the teachers, administrators, the coaches, the athletic directors. I want to tell you thank you for pouring into these children. Thank you so much. Okay, in just a minute, I'm going to recognize the superintendent to introduce her appointees. But before I do that, I also noticed we have in the audience Jason Henry, Congressman Scott, Frost, Representative, always pleasant to have you in the chambers and please extend our appreciation for the wonderful work that Congressman Frost does for us here in Central Florida and across the nation.
054Dr. Vasquez. thank you, Madam Chair. and you'll find out shortly why we have all of our wonderful partners and supporters here. so it's my pleasure to welcome the following individuals to the administrative ranks. we have some new assistant principles and then we have some principal assistant principles that are moving into principal positions. So, I'd like to start with Bridget Oleta Anne Brek, who is the assistant principal at Windemir High School, who's going to be the new principal at Hamlin Middle School. Thank you so much. Thank you school board members, Superintendent Vasquez, Deputy Superintendent Arm Brewster, Executive Leader Fritzler, and Principal Leader Gibson for the opportunity to serve at Hamlin Middle School. I want to also thank Jose Martinez, executive leader of the high school office, Kelly Padawana, Cadre 3, principal leader, Mr. Leeus, principal of
055Windmir High School, and Dr. Knight, the current principal of Hamlin Middle School. Your support and guidance have meant so much to me. I truly appreciate the way each of you has helped shape and prepare me for this next chapter. I also want to thank the incredible staff I've had the privilege to work with at Dr. Phillips, Lake Buav Vista, and Windmir. Each of you has played a part in shaping who I am as a leader, and I carry those experiences with me in this new role. To my husband, Frank, thank you for always being my rock and a wavering support system. And to our two kids, Stella and FJ, thank you for your patience, your enthusiasm, and for always being ready to attend every event with a smile. Your love and encouragement mean the world
056to me. Thank you again for the honor of appointing me as principal of Hamlin Middle School. I am excited and committed to serving our students, staff, and community with passion, integrity, and a shared vision for excellence. Thank you. Next we have Fred Korn who is the assistant principal at Jones High School and now is going to be the new principal at Cypress Creek High School. Sorry, I just want to recognize our state champion over there. Thank you school board members, Superintendent Vasquez, Deputy Superintendent Arm Brewster, and staff for the opportunity to join the Cypress Creek High School team. I also thank Mr. Martinez, Miss Chang, Miss Paduano, and Dr. Despensza from the high school office for placing their trust in me. I'd first like to recognize the Great Jones High School, its community, and Principal
057Norwood for taking me in and making me part of the family over the last three years. Most importantly, behind every great man is a greater woman. And there she sits. My wife is here today, and she has been by my side since the beginning of my leadership journey, supporting me through all of my endeavors. I love you, Reagan. I'm elated to serve and support the students, staff, community, and the entire sleuth of Cypress Creek Bears. The positive culture created by our team will leave a lasting impact on student success for years to come. Thank you. Christopher Gomez is going to be the new principal at Millennia Elementary. Good evening. District five. Yes. I made sure that my speech was less than a minute before everyone changed their mind. But I want to begin by thanking
058the school board, Superintendent Vasquez, Deputy Superintendent Arm Brewster, Principal Leader Trevor Hanahan, Principal Pena, and Dr. Jones for this amazing opportunity. To my friends and mentors, thank you for sharing your wisdom, for challenging me, and for being steady voices of encouragement when I needed it the most. Your guidance, leadership, and belief in me have made a lasting impact. You've been pillars in my growth, and I am truly grateful. Thank you to my sister, my motivation. Individually, we made an impact, but together we made history. To my bonus sister, Andrea, thank you so much for being my biggest cheerleader. And to my mother, for always knowing what took me time to see, for your belief, and never giving up in me. Lastly, to my godmother, may she rest in peace, who always said, "Each one has
059their own destiny. Thank you for reminding me that this moment is part of mine, and I'm so grateful." Thank you. Next, we have Shawana Harris, who is coming to us from Marian County Public Schools. We're delighted that you're part of the OCPS family and she will be the new principal at Metro West Elementary. Good evening, Chair Jacobs, Superintendent Dr. Vasquez, Vice Chair Bird, and esteemed board members. It is with immense gratitude and excitement that I stand before you tonight as the newly appointed principal of the magnificent Metro West Elementary School. This moment is truly full circle for me. First, I want to thank Kim Gilbert for initially hiring me and empowering me to lead, create, and innovate. A special thanks to Dr. Margaret Talbert Irving, my relentless mentor and daily inspiration. Her guidance constantly pushes
060me to reach higher and dream bigger. To Dr. Brewster, Dr. Rahheem Jones, and Miss Lakesha Miller, thank you for believing in me for this incredible opportunity and for welcoming me back to our awardwinning district. And to my family, thank you for being my unwavering foundation. Your love and support keep me grounded and focus on what is important. I am truly excited about what lies ahead for Metro West. I am ready to serve, lead, and make a lasting impact on our scholars, staff, and school community. Thank you. Christina Morzac is going to be the new principal at Bay Lake Elementary. Thank you. Good evening. I'd like to thank the board, specifically my board member, Miss Douglas. I'd also like to thank Superintendent Vasquez, Deputy Superintendent Arm Brewster, Dr. Jones, principal leader, my principal leader now, Miss
061Left ASUS, who could not be here tonight, but I am so excited to work with her, but also my previous principal principal leaders, my mentor, principal leader Linla. Thank you so much. My current principal leader, Principal Leader Hankerson, and my previous principal leaders, Principal Leader Smith and Principal Leader Rodriguez, who's here to support me tonight. I am honored for this incredible opportunity. I am honored and excited to join the Bay Lake family, the staff, the students. We are going to have a great year. I would also like to thank my parents who are both retired educators. I'd like to thank my husband, John, and our two boys, Max and Merrick. I'd like to thank my mother-in-law and my family, my nucleus. You guys are my life. You guys are my motivation. And I really appreciate
062this opportunity. Thank you. Amy Michelle Parker is moving from the senior administer administrator for career and technical education to assistant director Orange Technical College West Campus. Yes, thank you guys. thank you school board members. Thank you superintendent Dr. Vasquez. Deputy Superintendent Dr. Armbster, executive leader, director, executive leader, Dr. Grant, senior director, leader, Miss Tingley, senior director, Mr. Widle, and staff for this opportunity. I look forward to working at OTC West campus. I'm truly honored and thrilled to step into the role of assistant director. This milestone wouldn't be possible without the unwavering support of my incredible family, friends, co-workers. Thank you for being with me every step of the way on this journey. Jose Perez Valentine is going to be the new principal at Laurate Park Elementary. Good evening, Chairwoman Teresa Jacobs, Honorable School Board Members,
063OCPS Superintendent Dr. Dr. Maria Vasquez, Deputy Superintendent Dr. Michael Arm Brewster, Executive Elementary School Leader Dr. Raheem Jones, the entire honorable cabinet members that are here as well, the district leadership, and the Laurate Park Elementary community. I want to express my words of gratitude for depositing in me your trust to lead the great Laurat Park Elementary School. I will work very hard to honor the vote of confidence bestowed upon me and I want to thank you all very much. I also wish to thank my previous leaders from all the years that I've been working all my supervisors, my principles, my directors and also my peers for their contribution throughout the years to my professional growth. I want to thank also Mr. William Bond for all of his support throughout the years. Special thank you to
064Dr. Windham. Thank you for your mentorship, for your encouraging words, and for your prayers. Mrs. Flores, thank you also for your insights and support. And to my STO family, thank you for your companionship and your mutual collaboration. And I also want to thank my friend and sister that life gave me as well, Miss Hosaphina Henrii. I will miss you all. And as a special thank you to my lovely and beloved wife, Sen Perez, for her love, her prayers, and for her godly advice. Not a dull moment. And a special thank you to my two children, Adanes and Jose Jr., for inspiring me to continue to grow. Also to my parents for their upbringing and their encouragement. And above all, and I finish with this, I really need to thank and go to my heavenly father
065who through his son Jesus and with his help, I will execute the duties and responsibilities as principal of this great Laurat Park Elementary School with the highest sense of diligence, responsibility, and excellence. Thank you all very much. No pressure, but you know, that's my neighborhood elementary school. I'm two blocks away, so I look forward to seeing the leadership there. next we have Tamala Tannenhill, who is going to be the new principal at Stone Lakes Elementary. Thank you, Chair Jacobs, Superintendent Vasquez, and board members. Thank you for this incredible opportunity to serve as principal at Stone Lakes Elementary. My deepest gratitude goes to God and my family for their unending love and support. Tonight, I'm joined by my husband of nearly 30 years, Scott, my son, Mason, my daughter Whitney, my mother, Alice, and my dear
066friend Tanya. Many more family members are watching virtually, including my daughter Raylin, who is currently serving our country in Korea. I want to acknowledge the Stone Lakes team members here tonight, especially Dr. Rollins. Dr. Rollins, I am profoundly grateful for your leadership and the powerful example you set. As you retire, please know that Stone Lakes's family, students, faculty, staff, and stakeholders are in excellent hands. I am committed to continuing the remarkable culture you've built. It's truly a special place I am blessed to be a part of. And last, but certainly not least, my principal leader, Mindy Smith. Thank you for your invaluable dedication and support to Kadre 10. Gina Worantine will be the new principal at Spring Lake Elementary. Good evening everyone. Thank you school board members, Superintendent Vasquez, Deputy Superintendent Michael Arburster, and staff
067for this opportunity to serve as principal at Spring Lake Elementary. I am honored, excited, and so very proud to be a Blue Jay. Together, I know we will soar. This moment means more to me than words can fully express. While my journey as a leader is still unfolding, it has already been shaped by so many incredible people whose belief in me lit lit the path forward. Dr. Jones, principal leaders Davis Wilson, Dr. Meredith Leftus, Mindy Smith, and Lisha Miller. Thank you. You all have shown me what it truly means to lead with humility, strength, and heart. To the mentors and friends here and afar who have walked beside me, thank you. I want to specifically thank Principal Melissa Sarasi, Principal Daniel Arbles Willis, Lisa Wolf, Stephanie Brooks, and Demetrius McFersonson. You all left a lasting
068mark on my heart and have exemplified what it means to coach with heart, teach with excellence, and lead with grace. To my beautiful family, those who are here, those who are watching from above, you are the reason I stand here today. Your love has been my anchor. To my parents in heaven, I hope every step I take makes you proud. To my children, Lucas and Lucy, your joy, laughter, your hugs at the end of a long day inspire me to be better for the next. And to my incredible husband, CJ, thank you for being my steady hand, my safe place, and my biggest supporter. As I look ahead to the 202526 school year, my heart is full of hope, pride, and excitement. Spring Lake Blue Jays, this is our time. Together we rise. Together we
069soar. And together we will build something extraordinary because we are united for greatness. Thank you. And congratulations. I see Suzanne Knight is here. Andrew, are you here also? Rollins? Yes. Okay. Could would you both please stand? so these they the these are two of our amazing principles. I've known both of them for more than 20 years and they are both retiring and I want to say hey no smiles. No, we're going to miss you. But I do want to personally say thank you so much for your leadership and the impact that you have had at all of the different schools that you have served Orange County. So best of luck. Madam Chair, those are all of our appointments. Wonderful. Take a picture. Yes. Congratulations. Congratulations. So exciting. Great job, guys. Yay. Congratulations. All right. Away.
070Excited to have you. Thank you. I like how we threw God in there, too. My kids not going to want to go to his office. Great. Great. God bless you. before we release everybody, I just have a personal question. there's somebody out this way that keeps holding up this little bitty priceless baby. Who is this? And how old is this little thing? Ah, okay. I know. And I didn't even know it. Like, there hasn't been a peep. Oh. Oh my gosh. There hasn't been a peep and I got a peep. That's so precious. Okay. Talking to me. Anyway, I just saw I just saw you raising the baby up and I'm like, we haven't even heard from this little thing. So, thanks for sharing. Okay. This has been wonderful. Thank you all for being here.
071Thank you all for staying to recognize all the accomplishments. We're so proud of our new appointments and just looking forward to the world of change you're going to bring about. you're already walking into great schools, but what our principles do, what our assistant principles do is just amazing. So, God bless, good luck, and you got a team here that's got your back as well. Thank you. Okay. now you can go out any door you want cuz nobody else is going to rush in. I can do the rabbit ears as well. Yeah, that was his son cuz I won the Yeah. Hey, Frank. Oh, when you get done, that is amazing. His speed. Oh my god. 30. So, is that for mom or is that for you? Yeah, for mom. Oh my gosh. Okay, guys. Oh
072my gosh. All right. Got everybody but your son. Oh my gosh. I want to see a video of money. Like I want to see one of his races. YouTube him. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. I mean that is foul but I enjoy it. pretty much everybody. Let's see. Yeah. Yeah. All right. folks in the back, we're going to start in about 15 seconds. All right, everybody. We are back in session. And let me begin by asking Mr. Pard, president of the Orange Education Support Professional Association, if he would come forward. I think he has a few words to share with us. Always wonderful to have you with us. Even better when we get to hear from you. Well, good to see you. Good to see you all. Much respect. sometime I want to
073speak by the whole room full of I want to I'm proud of them too you know but anyway I didn't have much to say I wanted to thank you all for some of the initiatives that I've participated with with Dr. Williams the housing initiatives and stuff like that to be a school district that cares about their employees as such a difficult time as we're going through right now but I do appreciate that. All right, that's really it. A thank you. And you know how much we appreciate you and your leadership and how much you care for the employees and how hard you work on behalf of them. So, thank you. We're your team is really fortunate to have you. Okay, we will move on to do we haven't voted on the consent agenda. I'm sorry.
074proclamation. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. let me first announce that all proclamations were adopted by a vote of the board during the August 7th, 2024 board meeting as designations, celebrations, and observations. And that list will remain on the agenda for the entire school year. But at this time, I would like to call on more board member Gallo to read a special proclamation in honor of Pulse Remembrance Day. I do. Thank you, Madam Chair. I heard sorry I was in the back. And then I heard you mention the proclamation. I'm like, oh, that's me. so I will read the proclamation. Pulse Remembrance Day, June 12th, 2025. Whereas on June 12th, 2016, our community was forever changed by the tragic events at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where 49 innocent lives were taken and many others
075were injured in one of the deadliest mass shootings in US history. And whereas the pulse tragedy deeply impacted the LGBTQ plus and broader Orlando communities and continues to resonate across our schools, neighborhoods, and hearts. And whereas Orange County Public Schools stands united in honoring the memory of those lost, supporting the survivors, and recognizing the resilience and compassion that emerged in the aftermath. And whereas the school board and district leadership recognize Pulse's Remembrance Day and continue to affirm the importance of acknowledging June 12th as a day of solemn reflection and unity. Now therefore, be it resolved that the school board of Orange County Public Schools does hereby proclaim June 12th, 2025 as Pulse Remembrance Day in Orange County Public Schools and encourages all community members to pause in remembrance, engage in acts of kindness, and reaffirm
076our collective commitment to creating a safe, inclusive, and compassionate environment for all. Adopted this 10th day of June, 2025. You're welcome. All right. Thank you again for bringing that forward so that we can publicly acknowledge it. And now we have a strategic plan update. Is that correct? We do. Okay. thank you, Madam Chair. I am so pleased to be able to share with you the progress that Dr. Williams has been able to make on our initiative of attainable workforce housing. as you know when Dr. Williams is given a task no one nothing stands in her way. she has far exceeded my expectations of how much she would be able to accomplish through the tremendous support we have from our elected officials as well as the incredible partners we have that really understand the crisis around
077housing here and how much this is helping to benefit our employees. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Williams. Good evening, Chair Jacobs, board members, and Superintendent Vasquest. I would pro I will provide an update on attainable, affordable workforce housing options and opportunities for Orange County public schools employees. The goal and desire is to continue to work closely alongside our community leaders, partners, private, and public entities. The focus remains and will continue to remain on providing attainable workforce housing for OCPS employees. Members of the workforce advisory board, board members, and OCPS staff participated in proactive and insightful tours of various mixeduse housing sites from downtown Orlando to Apopka and Sanford, Florida. The purpose of the tour or our tours was to spend time looking at various and different types of
078mixeduse attainable affordable housing models. The group had the opportunity to tour Wellington Park, a multifamily affordable workforce housing complex that was designed, built, and is managed by Windover Housing Partner. The tour was arranged by the CEO of Windover, Jonathan Wolf, along with Victoria Cipelin, that is with us this evening, and she is the vice president. Their dedication to this project and others is truly inspiring. Victoria Sipin, like I said earlier, is with us this evening and thank you for working with us and being just another great partner with Orange County Public Schools. And the CEO and managing partner of One-Stop Housing, Mark Vangro, also provided the group with a tour of the newly furnished apartment complex. This site used to be the old Ambassador Hotel that was back in the day. Over time, the hotel
079became rundown and One-stop Housing stepped in and with assistance from the city of Orlando purchased the property. Onetop Housing completely transformed it and it is now known as Palm Gardens Apartments. In fact, Mark and the crew are with us this evening. We bought everybody today. In working with our legal team, we've been looking at various sites or properties owned by OCPS where we could possibly build in the future with support from private and public entities such as the city of Orlando, Universal Studios, OneTop Housing, and Windover our very own housing complex. What do you think about that? One potential one potential site is the old Catalina Elementary School property. I met with the HOA president that is with us today, Susan. And I would like to say thank you because she also asked if I
080would meet with the entire aisles of Catalina HOA. I thought I was going to speak with nine people. I think 50 people showed up. So I thought something was wrong. But let me tell you and city commissioner Bari Burns was also there and he spoke in favor of this partnership and they are extremely excited about this possibility. Guys, they're waiting for us. As I mentioned earlier, we're focusing on exploring options that can help provide attainable workforce housing for our employees. It's exciting to note that this board this board has approved agreements that will offer priority access consideration to Orange County public school employees. Working together with community leaders and stakeholders on this initiative has and will continue to make a significant impact on being able to provide options for housing for our employees is needed.
081The board has approved agreements. This board has approved agreements with privatelyowned apartment complexes. They own the land. They own the property. This is their apartments. These agreements are set aides for OCPS employees. Currently, these agreements span from downtown Orlando to Apopka to Universal Studios near the Orange County Convention Center and one site is near Oakidge High School. The enclave at Canopy Park is on the board waiting for your approval. And in fact, Mayor Demings mentioned this at the state of the county on Friday. He bragged about this, but we're getting the set aides if approved. I would like to highlight one site, Catch Light Crossings, that is being designed and developed by Windover Housing Partners Victoria in partnership with with Universal Studios. This housing complex, listen to this, as I mentioned earlier, was developed by
082Universal and Windover Housing, will offer 1,000 units or apartments, tuitionfree preschool, healthc care offices, rental space, bike and walking paths, a community garden. Phase one will open in 2026. What an what a great partnership. Thank you, Victoria. Thank you also to Mark Ma Vandra. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on May 28th to celebrate our first priority access to housing agreement with one-stop housing. This event marked a significant milestone for us and showcase the before and after transformation of one of our housing initiatives. Now, a major step forward today in the push to provide more affordable housing in Orlando for teachers and school employees. Mayor Buddy Dyer and other city leaders cut the ribbon this morning on the Palm Gardens Orlando Apartments, a former hotel that's now home to 150 newly renovated units. The apartments
083sit just off Colonial Drive, west of downtown. The city of Orlando partnered with One-Stop Housing and several community organizations to turn what used to be the blighted Ambassador Hotel into a safe, long-term housing option. So, this is really a feel-good day. this is a public private partnership that converted an old decrepit crimeridden hotel motel into 150 affordable units that are being made available to teachers and custodians that work in schools. Most of these units are reserved for people making 80% or less of the area median income and 15 units are dedicated to permanent supportive housing. Also, thank you to our advisory board for their input and feedback. We have a few members that are with us also. as you mentioned, you have Jason Henry, Congressman Frost assistant, we have a principal with us today. So,
084we have some of the board members that really have been working with us, going on the tours and assisting us and have assisted us through this process. Next steps. What are next steps? Thank you for allowing me to share this update on where we are with attainable, affordable workforce housing for OCPS employees. We will continue to work with our community leaders and look for all opportunities and options. Also, we will continue to work with private and public entities with providing priority access agreements are set aids for our employees throughout the city and the county. Oh, this is just the beginning. Lastly, we will continue to work with our legal team, John Pomearini and company on looking at property owned by OCPS for future use. And to this board, thank you for your support. Thank you
085for the kind words. And we're just getting started. Thank you. I'd like to thank the team. I'd like to thank everybody that has been with us since 5:00 and superintendent. We have a little token, a surprise for a couple of folks that u Mark have moved into will be moving into Palm Gardens in August. So, they're here with us. Ladies, would you Cara Jones and Tangela Smith Carla Jones is actually works in our maintenance department. she's one of our janitors. Tender Smith works actually works for FNS. And if you don't mind, where's Scott? I would like to thank the foundation. If you if you don't mind, what's inside of that envelope is for you. It's $500 gift card to help you as you're moving in to the apartment to get towels, whatever you need. But
086thank you to the foundation for making that happen. Thank you. and God bless. Thank you. Preacher with everybody. Please. Come on guys. Scott's name was mentioned in the You say it. Great to see you. Great to see you. Hello there. Thank you so much. Great to see you. Thank you for supporting all the work so much. So good to see you again. Thank you so much for everything you're doing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. That's really great. you sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good job. Thank you so much, sir. Welcome home. Right. Pick your favorite person to stand next to. Anybody smile? Big smile again. Look happy on three. One, two, and three. Super happy.
087Excellent. Thank you. Yeah. Did you want to say anything? Oh, yeah. They want to say something. Okay. Commission, to all of you that have had a role to play in this and especially our superintendent who has dreamed of this and pushed for this for many years before she became superintendent and to our chief collaborator, Bridget Williams. And again, to every one of you who's played any role in this, we're so grateful. And as you said, this is just the beginning. I hope that Orange County becomes the model for the country for how we care for our teachers. The state may not be giving us the funds that we need to pay them the salary that they're owed, but we can do what we can do to make the burden a little less heavy. So, I
088think that's extremely important and we're just so grateful to each of you that's helping make that a reality. Thank you. Okay, you can go if you want. This will be your opportunity. Oh, wait, wait. I am so sorry. No, hang on. Everybody, everybody wants to speak. Thank you guys. Okay, let's start with member Gallo. I don't know what I was thinking like. Thank you, Madam Chair. and thank you, Dr. Williams. I want to go on record that Dr. Williams said that because this endeavor is so close to her heart, she's going to stay with OCPS for another 10 years. She wants to see it through fruition and I member Salamanca can back me up. So, we're just so thrilled for her dedication. in all seriousness, I want to say that this is truly a collaboration
089and a team effort because not one dollar not one dollar from OCPS was spent on on any of this housing at most. We do wave our impact fees so that they could build these houses affordably and offer them up to our staff and it's a huge difference. I wish we didn't need it for our teachers and staff. I wish the funding was there that we could pay them what they deserve so that they could afford to live, work, and play in Orange County. Unfortunately, that's not where we are. And the average salary that a teacher makes or an educational professional makes just isn't enough to be able to purchase a home or even rent in in the economy that we're in currently in. So, this is so important to our community. what it's a game
090changer. What it's going to do to help us retain to help us provide houses that people feel secure in and they feel safe in and they feel valued. is just so important and so I'm so thankful for everybody everybody that's doing this endeavor. I'm excited to see what we do with Catalina. I can't wait to get that off the ground and started. I know that we have some wonderful partners that are going to help us with that and we're so appreciative. One-stop housing, everybody. I just want to say thank you. And it truly takes a village to do this. So now if we could work on free daycare for our staff, we'll be in great shape. But thank you all so much. It's so appreciated. Thank you. All right, Member Vanos. Yes. Thank you. First
091of all, thank you so much to the group that has worked so hard on this. And of course, thank you to Dr. Williams, who I always say is my real boss. Anytime I get a text from her, I'm like, "Oh, hold on, hold on." so thank you. You really are responsible for building this coalition. Nothing gets nothing gets done when we, you know, are working in our own silo, but you really have built a coalition, and that's what has enabled this to be successful. So, and I know that all of the partners have also provided those connections and provided those relationships and worked hard to do that. So, thank you so much. and I echo a lot of what what member Galla said. It's unfortunate that we have to provide housing for our educators. and
092please know that though we will work to provide more housing for educators wherever we can make this work, it doesn't mean that we are going to stop fighting for for more funding and to ensure that we can pay our teachers better. It's we can do both. we can help provide more affordable housing and work for to you know advocate for more funding for educators. and again I just want to say how important this is and how much we value our workforce. and it's it's for young employees. I know there's some interns who are taking taking being able to take part in this. there are some of our employees who are just going through a transitional time and they need this to help them kind of turn things around to get back on their feet. and
093also just again just really really appreciate the work that's been done. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. member Far, just wanted to say thank you like everyone else, but thank you for your leadership and really taking charge and you know I think something like this really does show our employees that we care and we're going to try everything that we can. sometimes them things are not you know within our power. we do everything we can with what we have, but if there's stuff we can do to go above and beyond like what you've done, really the amount of work I've seen you do over the last year to really make this dream come to life. I just applaud you and just publicly want to thank you for what you've done and I think it's
094going to be an incredible blessing to our employees and community. So thank you again, Dr. Williams. member Felder. Thank you so much. I first want to just thank God for the leadership of OCPS, Dr. Vasquez having the vision and the wherewithal to engage Dr. Bridget Williams on every step. I remember when she called me, says Vicki, I want you to go to this. I said, "Thing is hot." She says, "I know." She says, "Come, come. I want you to see what we're doing." And this is what we're doing in Catalina. And I'm engaged Bari. I want to thank my current city commissioner, Commissioner Bari Burns, and my former county commissioner, Victoria, Commissioner Victoria Sipin, and of course, Jason has been on both ends. I let me tell you something. this collaboration and it's in my
095district the where we first started with district five where the talent resides. Listen, I am so grateful that as a board, as an organization, that we have the wherewithal and the compassion to understand what is really needed because you know, life comes at you fast and I I used to when she started talking about I'm like, how are we going to provide housing? How are we going to do this? But it is, you know, it just takes a mustard seed, you know, I'm telling you, and those trees that when mustard seeds grow are huge and give great shade. But I'm so I'm so proud of what we're doing. And I just believe that we, as board member Gallo said, this is a game changer. Let me tell you something. People are going to take notice.
096The city, the state, and other districts are going to take notice. and we have provided an excellent template for others to follow. And I'm so grateful for the collaboration, you know, with Victoria and Ricari with the city and the county and just things that Victoria's moved from the county commission to the real estate and this is such a blessing because people need to feel valued. Doesn't matter where you are, who you are. You need to have some sense of value. And as it I don't know any other board school district that does this. I don't. And Florida is if not the one of the most expensive places to live, but everybody wants to come because it is the sunshine. So, but it's it's expensive. So, I thank you. Thank you so much. tonight. our recipients,
097you're going to have a blessed and wonderful time in your new place, in your new home. I heard you say you just look forward to peace. Baby, you're going to have some peace. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, member Felder, member Salamanca. Thank you. Dr. Williams, what I was I was telling Dr. Bras over here, we should have you present more often. you do. You know what? I'm I'm sold. Yes, I accept. I'm just kidding. This board has been very very supportive, but I two two things come to mind. one was and you know this, you know, my parents were custodial workers when I was growing up for all my K through2 life. And I remember this is obviously in the '9s we I remember exactly that we paid $712 for rent
098for an a one-bedroom apartment that we shared. And back then it felt like that was so much money. And today, I mean, it's like the kind of rent prices that are out there are it's just crazy to think that with the salary my parents would have made back then, we just couldn't do what we did today because just the standards of living, the pricing, everything is up. and I can't imagine that if you know my family was in those conditions today, you know, different time but similar place that we wouldn't have been able to afford a place to to live in. And the work that you're doing is going to make a huge difference for families that like they said need transition time or just support who do great work and love what they do
099and do it with with dignity and with grace, but it's just never going to be enough to to pay these folks what it takes to live in a city like this. the second thing, and I remember this when we went up to New York to the Harlem zone. Obviously, the Harlem Zone, one of the most successful educational projects that took 10, 15 years to see the results of what it was to have this community neighborhood support and improve the schools and the outcomes up to 100% of graduation rates for these students after 10, 15 years, right? and I remember one of the questions I asked was, "What do you wish you knew 101 15 years ago?" that you didn't and you think you made a mistake and they answered housing, right? Because when you improve
100a community, when you educate a community, when you make a community a place that people want to live at, that means that, you know, you have people with highpaying jobs, with careers that are making a lot of money, and success in a community sometimes means that things become unaffordable. And the more successful we are at doing the jobs we do, whether it's education or community building here in Orlando and making this place a place people want to be at, the harder it is going to be to afford this. And you know, this happens in other big cities that we all know. and so I am so grateful that we have your leadership and your foresight you and Dr. Vasquez and the leadership team to do what is hard work to thinking ahead not just a
101few years but decades of what really will move the needle to make this a place people want to live in but also can live in knowing that we don't have a lot of control of how much money we're ever going to get to pay folks to keep up with the standard of living. And so thank you for your leadership, for your vision, for the grace that you do it with and for all the people that you brought together to appreciate. it's hard, you know, it's hard to have a vision, but it's much harder to really execute it and that is what is beautiful about your leadership style. so thank you for your work. we're so lucky to have you. And I was there when Margallo was told that you were staying for another 10 years
102and I was shocked. I don't remember that conversation. I don't remember. No, you know, I didn't say I'm going to record. I did not say that too. I'd like to add one thing. In the Apakka area, two of the apartment complexes, once again, brand new, will have up to four bedrooms, so for families. so, the goal once again, this is just the beginning. I would love to have agreements throughout the city and the county. Can you imagine that? brand new. I think a 10-year project will do it. And on that and on that. Okay. Don't don't step away yet. We have one more. Oh, board member member Douglas. Dr. Williams, I am so, you know, I mean, you're such a leader. Well, thank you. when I grow up, I just want to be just like
103you. I'm just saying just like you. I am amazed of your enthusiasm, your compassion. You took that seed and you brought it to germinate and become a wonderful tree. And I just want to say thank you so much for what you're doing. And on I just also want to say to thank you Commissioner Cip Jason Commissioner Bakari Burns and all the people that put her their hand on the you know on the basket to make this happen. Thank you so much. This is amazing. And just like member Gallo said now we are waiting to have free yeah child care for our people. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you to this board for your support. Thank you. All right. Thank you. You can step down as soon as we get that
104signed commitment. Okay. I think we are ready to move on to the consent agenda. Do we have any members of the public? Do we have any members of the public? U Mr. Palmerino. Okay. No members of the public. If there's not any discussion from board members, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. Mo moved by the vice chair, seconded by my member by member Salamanca. All in favor, please say I. Opposed. Motion carries unanimously. I think we are on to Dr. Vasquez, your superintendent report. Did I miss something? Was it? Hold on. It would not be unusual. I'm on the wrong agenda. Yeah. No, you're you're good. Sorry. My bad. You're on the wrong agenda. You've had a stressful day. Oh, I'm so glad. I was I was afraid you were telling me
105I'm on the wrong agenda, but then I would have been able to say, "Well, that explains it." okay, Dr. Vasquez. Thank you, Madam Chair. first and foremost, I want to say thank you to, you, Chair Jacobs, and the board for such an incredible event yesterday, for the state of the schools. an opportunity for us to truly share what an amazing place Orange County Public Schools is and the value of public education. And so it was great to be able to share all of those great things. For those of you that are watching may not have been able to attend, you can watch that on our YouTube channel and hear about the amazing things here at OCPS. before you move off of that are you just if I could I didn't get a chance to but
106I wanted to thank Scott Jason Lauren their whole team the AVI group I don't remember the lady's name who worked the teleprompter but like she's golden not that everybody back there hasn't been but it's just you know what it's like it's like oh boy is that thing going to keep up anyway that team did a phenomenal job and so I just wanted to acknowledge and appreciate Chris Davis, the principal at Innovation for hosting. It's such a beautiful site. It was great. we are, you know, in the midst of summer planning and many folks think, you know, school's out and that things slow down, but they do not slow down. we are working although we do not have a budget from the state, we are still working on that. and we'll have more information to provide
107to our board regarding where we believe we're going to be as we have had numerous conversations. Salaries for employees is a top priority. I had the opportunity last week to be part of Commissioner Diaz's summit down in Miami and the state board of education also met on that same day. we have shared the link to the meeting that took place and I want to bring to the attention of the board, the section of the state board meeting where Hillsboro County Superintendent was asked to come before the board and speak to several books that the state board believed contain pornography and should not be on on the shelves. as a result of that many of us asked for the lists from the superintendent so that we could cross reference. and while there were over 50 books
108we currently only have 13 of those titles in in our schools. Some of them are under challenge. some of them have had a request for consideration but the person that has asked for that has not followed through and then there are some of the titles that have already been reviewed and are on the shelf. our policy addresses how we deal with book challenges as part of our formal process, but it does not deal with the current situation where the state board has stated that these books contain pornography. And so I am respectfully asking the board that you allow me as superintendent to temporarily remove the books from the shelves. It's summer so we don't have a lot of students that are in our schools. actually it's only the students in summer school. and allow the
109team to revisit our policy and then bring that back to the board so that you can have further conversations around how we can deal with the list of of books that we currently have in in our schools. And so I'll I'll defer to the board either with a nod or consensus if you're if you're fine with that. We will post on our website that they have been temporarily removed. We will also indicate that the reason for that is because of the ruling from the state board of education and then our staff will review it quickly and bring it back to the board. hopefully no later than the end of this month. But and Tasha is looking at me like please don't say that. But we do need to address it very quickly. But if not,
110we will look to bring it to the board in July so that we have revisions to that policy by the time school the school year starts. so Madam Chair, I defer to you to reach consensus. Absolutely. let's we have a couple board members like to speak speak to the issue. Member Bert and then member Gallow. yeah, I have a question for Mr. Palmerini. Mr. Pomearini, when the state board of education gives a direction that opposes a schoolboard policy that we have written. does that trump our policies? So this, excuse me, the state board of education under article 9 section two of the Florida constitution has supervision over the schools the system of free public education in the state. So there's a case school board of Palm Beach County versus Florida Charter Education Foundation. Let me
111read the language. Article four, article 9, section 4B of the Florida Constitution provides that the state board of education shall be a body corporate and have such supervision of the system of free public education as is provided by law. The Florida Constitution therefore creates a hierarchy under which the school board has local control, but the state board supervises the system as a whole. This broader supervisory authority may at times infringe on a school board's local powers, but such infringement is expressly contemplated and in fact encouraged by the very nature of supervision by the Florida Constitution. So under the law, they can in fact override you with respect to of policy that's developed locally under their supervisory responsibility. Thank you. That's what I thought. okay. If what they are directing not only conflicts with our policy
112but also with the law the law that they wrote currently that's in play. we shall still follow their recommendation. Is that not true? School Board of Kier County versus the Florida Department of Education. This was the House Bill 7069 lawsuit. And what that case says is as follows. The doctrine which we recently addressed and which is grounded by the separation of powers recognizes that public officials are obligated to obey the legislaturator's duly enacted statute until the judiciary passes on its constitutionality. Is for this reason that a public official's disagreement with a constitution or statutory duty and the means by which it's to be carried out does not procreate a juditiable controversy or provide occasion to give an advisory opinion. You have to presume whatever the legislature has passed along with what the state board has
113done is constitutional. Okay. Dr. Vasquez, I my recommendation would be to not not even not put on our staff to have to review more of these books. because and this is I think there's already been so much time, so much money wasted on this issue which I still am in 100% agreement that this is not a this is not a serious issue. This is a non-issue that was made an issue because it's political. So, when you look at our circulation rates, I'm sorry, but more than half of our high schools, more than half of their books are never even circulated. So, kids are not check. This is not the danger. This is the danger for our kids. If no one is reading the book, by the way, the anxious generation, you really need to read
114it. If you really want to know what's harming our children, it's the phones that every single one of them are carrying around with them all day long. and what they can access on that phone. Which, by the way, the public libraries allow children to check out online books to read on the library for free. So, every single book that we're all concerned about them reading off their school shelves that they're not checking out, by the way, they can check them out on their books on their phones and read them there. So I think I don't even I don't want to waste any more of our energy and time on this. So the state board of education very clearly last week said that these 57 books are pornographic in their opinion and do not belong on
115school shelves. So, I think that since we are under the direction of the state board of education that we pull these books and we signify on our website why they're pulled because these were ones the state board of education said are pornographic and they don't want them in our schools and then that's it. Be done with it. and every and if they want more books pulled off our shelves, they can continue to tell us that because I don't think that we need to be spending another dime, another minute of staff time on this issue. We have got bigger things to worry about and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of talking about it. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair. Member Gallo. Thank you, Madam Chair. where do I even begin? In 1469, Mr. Pomerini, weren't
116we directed to Sorry, I thought you were going back to your 14. You said, "Where do I begin?" Back back in the old age of 14. I'm like, 69. When I was just a young, I'd be like, really? Whoa. This is going to be a very long conversation. 7. Oh, 1467. I'm sorry. I got it wrong. I wasn't the only one. Okay. Okay. in health bill piece of legislation, weren't we required to create a policy and a review process to review books that are contested? Isn't was that not part of the law? Yes, it absolutely was. So, by the Florida Board of Education dictating that these books be removed, aren't they violating that law because we're not following our process and our policy? No, they don't. That the board of education creates rules. The legislature
117creates laws. So, there's the philosophical answer and then there's the on the boots on the ground answer. So the state board of education is not supposed to contravene by their actions what a state statute says. And so the state statute says we're supposed to have a process by which we judge these books. And one of the things that they do is what is the local community standards because what the community standard in Orange County is going to be different than the community standard in Hendry County versus Escambia County, etc., etc., right? But at the end of the day, the state does have supervisory authority to come in and say, "We think these books in our judgment are pornographic." Now, you know, I've talked with a bunch of you and I just want to be clear.
118You received a memorandum from me on the previous two book challenges that we have. I don't view them to be pornographic as the law defines it. However, the state has made that determination. the state has said, "We think these books clearly are pornographic and we think that they should be removed from the shelves." And you know, especially at the end of it where the commissioner referenced the newly created Office of Parental Rights and the Attorney General potentially prosecuting board members andor media specialists criminally for leaving these books on the shelves. Right. that made me very very concerned as your lawyer to say while I disagree with their determination that these books are pornographic as the law defines it, the fact that they have given that direction, I think it would be perilous for this board
119to allow these books to remain on the shelves. I think it would most certainly, you know, result in the superintendent being asked to come to a state board of education meeting to answer as to why when we gave this clear direction in our last meeting, you have allowed these books to remain on the shelves. I think they will give her direction to remove it. And I think that they will refer any board member who directs her to keep the books on the shelves to the office of the attorney general. Now, I want to make something very clear with respect to that. The office of attorney general of the state of Florida generally does not have prosecutorial power in an individual judicial circuit. Like they can't come in and take over the state attorney's role of
120law enforcement within the ninth judicial circuit, but they do have an office of statewide prosecutor. So they can say there is a statewide issue with respect to this and they can authorize prosecutors to conduct enforcement actions in multiple jurisdictions throughout the state. So that is something that they have the authority to do. They haven't done it yet, but I suspect that they would invoke that right to do it. So I agree with you in theory that the state board of education is required to comply with law and they can't enact actions that conflict with the law. But the issue is they do have the supervisory authority. Honestly, I don't see any court overturning their exercise of their supervisory authority here. I don't think you all have the ability to sue in in court under that
121case. I just read from. So I think at the end of the day, if we do anything other than remove these books, we are going to put this board in legal jeopardy. And of course, you all know me. I zealously protect you all from any sort of legal jeopardy. I can't recommend that you keep him on in light of what we saw last week. Thank you, Mr. Pomerini. and it was 1069. So sorry, I just want to correct the that was House Bill 69 that passed. so I watched the video of the board of education and I have to say publicly how disappointed I was in the line of questionings that they were asking and the way that they treated the superintendent from Hillsboro County. One board member suggested removing all media specialists and start
122over with ones that could read. I find that incredibly offensive. Our media specialists are certified. They work hard and they don't deserve that kind of treatment or disrespect from anybody on the state board of education. I just find that I just find that disgusting. I do believe that they're overreaching. I I believe that they're usurping our ability of local control and for us to truly represent our communities. I also think there's an infringement of the First Amendment rights to free speech. so I'm very disturbed by what's happening right now. It's a very slippery slope. But when we decide we don't like something as humans and then we don't let it go through the proper processes that's dictated by our democracy, then we're violating everybody's rights. And what they're doing right now feels like they're violating
123everyone's rights, even the ones that agree with what they're doing and asking us to remove the books. Because today it's books, tomorrow it could be something else. they could be. I mean, it's just an overreach and it's sidelining due process. And whenever we do that, it makes me very uncomfortable and very nervous. And the law stated that we need to review and have a policy. So, I'm wondering if we will be violating the law by not having a review policy to remove these books. but we do need to be transparent in whatever decision is made. You know, we've been on the wrong side of the Department of Education before when we because our community demanded it and we didn't follow along with this the requirement from the Department of Education and our governor. And it
124didn't just affect us. It didn't just affect the board members. some who are no longer sitting up here but affected our whole district staff and team. The retaliation that came down from the Department of Education towards Orange County Public Schools and all the others that they called the dirty dozen not only hurt our district staff with the time and the work that it created for them. But it also harmed our children because we were taking precious time and resources away from what should be on them. what we should what we're here to do is educate kids and ensure that they have a high quality education and it took away from our good work doing that. So I'm I'm fine with rem I'm not fine. Let me let me ref I am not fine but I
125understand that we are have not been given a choice. we will not be allowed to give these books due process and we're going to have to remove them. I do agree with member Bird that this there's been way too much time, way too much money spent on something that very few people are reading. And really at the heart of what's happening to our children really is the internet and our phones and their access to material that they can access anywhere outside of a book. And most of these books that we have upheld, we've upheld because of the literary content and because people need to see themselves in the book. They need to see that other people are just like them if they feel different. And I just it's just such a slippery slope. And I'm
126not certain how we got here. I'm not certain how we get out of it. None of us up here want porn pornography in schools. Let me be very clear. None of us do. But I believe that the majority of us do want due process and a good policy that we took a long time to create has that. So I'm very disappointed. but I will I will confer with I'll confer to our superintendent and if she feels the best thing that we need to do at this point is to remove those books, then I'll agree to it because the last thing that I want is our beloved superintendent who does a fabulous job to be straped. What? I can't even speak. I'm so angry. to be pushed in front of the department or the board of
127education and treated like the Hillsboro superintendent was treated because that was truly awful and no person nor superintendent deserves to be spoken to that way or treated that way. Thank you. Thank you, Ma Galla. I know boy this is a really emotional issue and while 99% of the time I think I share the majority of the board's opinions and positions and I agree with you wholeheartedly on the issue of overreach that you yeah due process I agree with all of that. I think that there's a great deal of inconsistency between the direction that we've received and that you're supposed to look at the entirety of the book and at the same time and which I I frankly don't I you know how I feel about that. I don't support that as a parent. If if
128you have one chapter in the book and I find that it is inappropriate for my kids, I don't say, "Well, let's go ahead and read the whole thing." I just that's not but I have huge problems with the way the state's handled it. our superintendent got a call criticizing us because I think we made media somehow because of some of the books that we had taken off the shelf and that were deemed classics if I'm remembering this right. Okay. No, was somebody I do remember Okay, not us. I do remember Yeah, I remember the state board of ed I won't say names. feeling like school districts were trying to make examples out of them by saying look at this these classics and so there was push back that here's the list that you shouldn't exclude
129but had the same content as the ones that we might must have. So I huge problems with that. I do think that there is a difference when we're talking about where are kids getting their information and saying well they're already getting it off the internet they're getting it off of social media they're getting all the that's where they're getting all the bad stuff so really don't need to worry about what we're putting in the library because they're getting it anywhere I feel that when you are talking about the responsibility that we have to our students and the use of taxpayer dollars to provide content that the community considers to be inappropriate. I also have a huge problem with we're supposed to comply with the community standard. Like that does not make sense because if something
130is harmful to students in one community, it should be harmful anywhere. I mean, something that's harmful in, I don't know, Pasco County, in Orange County, it's not harmful. Does not make sense. It's either harmful or it's not. I don't know how you judge harmful. I think that whole thing of figuring out how to judge harmful is difficult. My standard of pornography, I have read some of our books and I find it I think that's pornography. I mean, I don't know, whoever it was, whatever judge says, when you know it, you see it. or when you see it, you know it. I We all see it and know something different. We legitimately on this board, as much as we respect each other, have different thresholds for what we consider pornography. And so I think it is
131very difficult to have a law that is so vague and wide open to interpretation. But I also I look at the movie theater and kid can't go to an R-rated movie. So there's some sort of consent, right? yes, you can get a library book, but along with that library book, if you're a minor, the parent also has access to knowing exactly what you're reading. And in our public schools right now, that's not the case. That could be a part of the case. I mean, the fact that very few of our kids are reading books still doesn't set with me that then it doesn't matter what's in those books. So, I don't know what my point is other than I want to protect the superintendent. I'm pretty sure we're all in agreement with that. I think
132the only clear way to do that right now is the suggestion that you all have had is to make it clear why we're doing what we're doing. Not that we agree this is the way we should do it, but why we're doing it. And I do have a question on whether or not our committees, our different advisory, whatever they're called, have they have they recommended any books not be put back on the shelf? Have we? I mean, is Allison still here? Allison's coming up. Yeah. Oh gosh. I know. She's Oh my gosh. I know. I She's the She's the I don't know how you're smiling. You only choice, right? we have the Sorry. A recent challenge that we had was the JC Duggard book, the woman who was kidnapped back in the 90s and then
133found back in the early Yeah. A stolen life by JC Duggard. It took me a minute to remember her title. So or the title of the book. On June 6th, the district literacy committee or district literacy council did meet and they did decide to remove that book from circulation due to its content. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. that's all that's all I've got. I we've got most of the board members want to speak. So far we have three I think member Banos did you speak yet? I don't remember. Okay. So we have three of us that are fully in agreement that you need to do what you just suggested and we need to explain it. yeah. So with that, let me call on member Vanos. Dr. I'm sorry. I just I just need to
134clarify So, when board member Bird spoke, she had a twist. She basically was saying, "We just remove them and put the list of the books removed on our website and state the reason why it's been removed." I And I'm fine. I'm fine with that. And I and I believe that the time staff will spend and they will not be reviewing the books because it's been deemed that it's pornographic. My point was, do we want to revisit the policy based on Mr. Pomearini's interpretation? We don't need to because the state board trumps their trumps their own rules. so I want to make sure that we're what what are you asking me to do or what are you giving me permission to do? I think that we're those of us who have spoken are in agreement with
135the suggestion that we do take those off take them out of the libraries and that we put that on our website and explain that. I don't know we've spoken directly to it but I think that we need to still we need to keep the process in place because there will be other challenges and we need to have a way to go through those challenges. I did ask the question about whether any of these committees have recommended that the book be removed because we're picking the committees and if the committees always find everything okay and nothing's not okay, it just there is that, you know, kind of outstanding question. How is are the committees biased in one direction or the other? I think we'd probably know when if if it gets to the board and the
136board turns it down at that point, I think we'd have to take a serious look at who we're putting on the committees. I mean, while I might not agree with the board on where that threshold is, if you will hear what I'm saying. If it gets to the point where five out of seven of us, five out of eight, six out of eight are going that should never have been there, then it's then we'll feel like the state board of education saying that's the line. So until we get there, I think we're probably okay with that question. Thank you so much. Okay, so next up then, member Vanos. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't even know where to start. I guess I'll just start by saying that watching that board of education meeting was it
137was disgusting. It was disturbing. the way that these board members called out our media specialists saying they couldn't read, saying they didn't have a shred of decency. the way that the members said things like, "Why do we need a process? because if we use the process, the books might end up back on the shelves. That's that's the point of a process as you go through it. So basically what they're saying is they don't like the outcome and so they just want to dictate and tell us what to do. I don't think they have authority to do that. I think that we have followed the law from top to bottom. We have followed HB1467. We have followed HB 1069. We have followed Florida statute 106.28. I don't think we have I think we are in compliance
138with the law. And I have real concerns about responding to the threats from this board of education just because they said so. And you know I'll I'll ask the question, have we been asked to remove these books? So if the question is if we have received a letter, we have not. But from the conversations and what was stated at the state board of education and having conversations with other superintendent, yes, the books have been deemed to have pornography. They have stated that they've made it clear that they want them removed. And I interpret it to mean it has pornography. It violates the law. They have to be removed. Thank you for that clarification. you know I think what we see here again and again is we have this overreach of the law which I think
139we all agree has hap most of us agree has happened and then we have people come up and say you know that they fear retaliation they fear the funding will be pulled they fear the students will be hurt that we won't get the grants that we need and it scares people into compliance. And you know just like and I mean the cycle is going to continue because we are never going to be obedient enough. We are never going to be good enough. We are never going to be compliant enough and the goalpost is just going to keep changing in the hopes that we get some money. And I just I'm I'm really struggling to, you know, I mean, what's the point if we're going to have seven people, you know, tell us what pornography is?
140And by the way, the criminal prosecution they threaten is not it's not consistent with the law, right? I mean, statute 847.12 and this goes to your what is harmful to minors. It defines in chapter 847, it defines what is harmful to minors. And in order for a book to be harmful to minors, it has to one predominantly appeal to appearant shameful or morbid interest. Two, be patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to a suitable material and conduct for minors. and three taken as a whole is without serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors. That requires us to look at the piece as a whole. This is in the law that the legislators passed and we are following the law in our process. and so I'm
141I'm I I'm I'm struggling with this. We are in compliance. We are following the law. I feel like the board of education is not following the law. Don't they have an obligation to follow the state law? I don't know. Do they? Do they take an oath? They do. And they are obliged to follow state law. the issue, the heartburn that I got from the House Bill 7069 case that we were all involved in because it was us and I think seven or eight other districts that challenged numerous provisions of House Bill 7069 back when it was passed saying it unconstitutionally assured the right of school districts to control, operate, and supervise public schools under the Constitution, which we have. And the court said those are not justable questions. we can't make a decision on that
142and you public officials don't have standing to bring these cases. You're to presume everything that's passed by the legislature and actions of the state board are constitutional and you can't challenge it. So my heartburner always was, well, if we don't have the standing to say that our right to control, operate, and supervise local schools, we don't have the standing to bring that claim, who does? And does that render the constitutional right basically null and void for us to control, operate, and supervise? But that's what the courts have done. They've said that we have to presume the law is constitutional. We have to follow it until they rule it's unconstitutional from a challenge from some person who has standing, whoever that would be. well I mean I'm also looking at and thank you for that clarification
143John. This is this is difficult like they've made it impossible very difficult to challenge things and I is the right answer that we just step aside and let it go. I don't know. I you know I'm I'm looking at statute you know 106.28. It specifically says that a district school board determines you know whether the material meets the criteria and you know whether the school board shall discontinue the use of the material for the grade level or age group. That is the law says that the school district the sorry the district school board is making that determination. I feel that we are in compliance with the law. I'll let my other board member speak. member Salamanca. yeah. I think, you know, I'm just I don't know where to start, but I'm just like concerned about
144the First Amendment in this country. Feel like I've been talking about the First Amendment all freaking day. And it just depends on where the coin like you can be on the right or you can be on the left, but everyone's fine with violating everyone's first amendment nowadays. And it's just concerning. Just depends how you feel about it. I have such issues with legislating morality and what I think is right and then telling people what is think is right or not and then having other people tell me what they think is right or wrong and then using the law however they want it. I don't I don't want to spend more time on books. I really just don't. And not because I'm rolling over and being okay with losing my power as an elected member. Orlando
145and my district votes differently than the rest of the state. And I truly believe I represent the people that voted for me. I truly believe that the reasons why a lot of these committees vote one direction. It's not because we are biased. That's how people believe that. like I talked to her parents and I'm not getting again any emails from anyone in my community saying that these books are pornographic. I'm an elected representative. that's the way democracy works. Just because we don't agree with what other people's values are doesn't mean you get to then override and legislate your morality on other people. I it doesn't matter to me what other folks on this board think is right or wrong. because I represent my community and so I think it's just hard. I do not see
146any world going up the judicial branch at the state level the administrative level where we are ever going to be taken as the right side of this like I don't see a winning way I don't see us appealing to any body of government of legislation of administrative where we would win this battle in any way shape or form and so you I'm not rolling over and being like, of course, take my elected power away. I just don't I think we have so much bigger issues and such bigger fights that I just don't want to spend more staff time on this. I don't want to spend any more hours on this. If they said that these 50 books are pornographic and you know they decide the definition, they decide what to enforce. They decide the courts.
147They elect the court members all the way up to the what is it? Is it 11th? It's 11th, right? 11th district. so I can I can speak out on behalf of those that elected me. I don't think that our literacy committees are biased. I don't think we're stacking them. I believe Orlando voters genuinely do not think that there is pornographic content in our libraries. I do not think this is a top issue for them. It doesn't come up when I go talk to them. I don't want to waste time. and I just don't want to impose my morality on anyone else. And so I just I'm good with removing the books. I also don't think there is a need to revisit the policy because I'm sure that the policy is going to keep moving around
148and I think that a process is good to have. It's scary to see us bypass a process. It's scary for us to not be able to do anything about it. but I also don't I don't think I see any benefit whether it's time, staff, or resources. Everything has a trade-off. And whether the trade-off is who sits in these seats, who our superintendent is, where our staff time goes, where our dollars and budget goes, there's a trade-off. You just don't get both. So, I'm making the trade-off that I don't want to spend any more time on books. So, I'm okay with taking the recommendation of taking the books off. I don't think we need to spend more time the policy. I think the policy follows the law as we all know that the policy follows the
149law. Just because we don't like the outcomes does not mean that the policy or the process is biased. I don't have any reason to believe that the policy is biased. There are times when the books have been rejected. There are times when the books have been limited to just 11th and 12th grade. so I'm think good effort on policy. I think this board has spent a lot of time have been very thoughtful about this policy. And so if if it's pornographic according to them and you know things swing in this country and when things swing the other direction and we decide on some other side what we get to impose there'll be ways to bypass the system and that's a problem in itself. the fact that you're just creating president to bypass processes, community voices,
150local power, first amendment rights just because a couple of folks decide that our media specialists don't know how to read and don't have the right education to make these decisions. So, it it's disturbing. It is worrisome. But ultimately, I have trade-offs to make as an elected official. I don't have endless amount of time So, and I really want our superintendent and staff to be focused on bigger fish to farm. Thank you, Member Salamon. Member Felder. Thank you, Chair. I, too, watched the video and found it quite disturbing. I I definitely would not want our superintendent to be subjected to the kind of questioning that occurred with the Hillsboro county superintendent. And I'm confused even though John has explained about the policy and the process and what legislative laws have been set and then they don't
151want us to follow this whole idea of process. That's confusing to me because when we don't allow align our policy with laws and we get strong criticism and reprimand and sometime we could get removed from if we decide to not do that but here the dichotomy is just phen it's it's amazing the fact that this is what we're dealing with my concern when I when I see what is happening as a a child of the 60s who was born in the 50s and lived and I I will check that frame of reference lived in segregation when there was a strict power and consequences if you did not follow whether the law was humane or not but it was still the law. It reminds me of having freedoms snatched and and my and we the greatest
152form of equity is in public education. That is where you when you where you have it. And I share the sentiments of board members that have spoken especially the fact when member Bird talked about you know in Salommonica Salammonica and Salamanca there you go Salamanca and Gallow talked about we don't need to revisit this thing if whatever if it if we need to just do you know no process ask cuz that's what they say not to do. But I just need to let you know that it's going to be confusion to members of our constituency when we go to try to explain cuz I'm going to talk to them and share with them because this is what they put me in this seat for to advocate and I need to make sure that's why I
153was writing down the statues and in the house bills that because I don't think the majority of the members of our constituency I don't think they really understand what's really happening and what's really going on. And society looks to us as educators because we set the perimeter. We set it. People move in cities based on communities. Communities develop based on the schools where they want their children to go. So we have we're in charge of this precedence that's being set. I am going to do my level best to share with the people who put me in this seat what we are working with and I'm going to encourage people to exercise their right to vote. to exercise their right to want to see and participate in this beautiful thing we call democracy to really see
154how it works and how it's supposed to work. I want I think I can concur chair Jacobs with other board members that we don't I don't want to go back through that process again and I will back the superintendent when she said tempor you know just take everything off. Allison and her group have done a phenomenal job with reviewing books because every week there's somebody talking about the books and we're reading the books. so because there's so many things that we can contribute as an educational entity besides the books. there's just so much we can do and so many things that we can engage our children in as it relates to a rounded educational experience that we're concentrating on minutia. That is what we're doing. And so, board, my fellow board members, I stand in
155support with our superintendent and, doing what we need to do and I was extremely disappointed at that meeting that I saw extremely disappointed. Thank you. Thank you, Member Felder. Member Fant. Thank you, Madam Chair. I watched the video. I watched the meeting of the state board of education with the superintendent in Hillsboro. I've actually been following along with the Hillsboro, what's been happening in Hillsboro for quite some time. And, you know, just watching some of those meetings, it's just interesting to me when we're again talking about other people's children. the books that have been presented and they have they've had people come with even like big posters showing the graphic depictions of sexual acts and the superintendent has sat right there. The board members have all sat right there and said next we don't care
156basically move on. and so at some point, you can't just sit around and act like you're naive to it all. at some point you do get called in. And, that's why I think we need to sit and, you know, look at what we're doing and make wise choices. like the training talks about which every media specialist is supposed to review. All of us have reviewed it. It says the error on the side of caution. It talks about making sure that doesn't have sexual ex explicit material. and yet this board has has continued to allow those types of books in the schools. you know whether you like the content yourself or not that we're talking about children. so things are different when it comes to children. I heard a lot about the you know we take
157we talk about the Miller test which is that the three prongs member Vanos you mentioned it earlier I think it's even in our policy that predominantly appeals to a purant current shameful or morbid interest is patently offensive to the prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole or taken as a whole is without serious literary artistic political or scientific value for minors. but really that Miller test was really meant I believe for more of an adult you know when it comes to adults even in the Ginsburg versus New York case the court rejected Gingsburg argument that New York had deprived minors of their liberty and the court found that it was well within the state's power to protect minors and that just because the material is not classified as obscene to adults. It may
158still be regulated with minors. as a school board member, I too was elected and I believe to protect children and make sure that they have material that is good for their education that coincides with the things that we're teaching and gives them, you know, brings new insight to them. but to expose them to material that you know several have said that you know kids have access to their phones. so as a school board we don't purchase phones for our children. Correct. That's something that parents do. So that is on the parent to regulate what your child is allowed to look at on their phone. some parents have apps on their phone that make sure that kids can't you know, Covenant Eyes or different apps that might be on their phone to make sure their kid
159can't access different materials. some parents might just go in and make sure that there's you know, screen time or they can't have their phone in their room with them at night. and some parents allow it for, you know, whenever they want. That's on the parent. the parent purchases this. So to compare what we're offering children in the library to what a parent provides at home I think is two different things. I also heard again that the public library offers any book free online. So the parent can go with the child get a library card and that's on the parent but with taxpayer money. We should not be purchasing material that discusses explicit sexual content and that is what is in these books. And so from the very beginning when I stood down here as a
160parent and then from being on the board I have advocated for removing sexually explicit content from libraries. not books that share different viewpoints or whatnot, but if it has explicit sexual content, it just shouldn't be in a public school, period, for access for minors. and we all, you know, I get it. I'm like the pretty much only one here that will continually stand strong on that stance. but I think we need to er on the side of caution. We're here to protect and put up firewalls. We have to curate the content and make sure that what's in our schools is acceptable and not harming children. So I think you know removing the books and if the if Tashonda's team would like to just look through them and you know even just see like okay well
161what was it that made this inappropriate? Okay. Well, it has these scenes. Did we have, you know, if there then this the media specialists throughout the district might be able to know like, okay, well, this is more the standard that we're looking at. then they can, you know, use that as they're curating their content in their classrooms. But, I agree. I think we need to get these books out of our school. you know, we can continue to again I've shared booklooks.org, or which now you can find through ratedbooks. I believe it's.com. I'll send that link over to you to Shondaanda and the team. and you guys can look through those if you'd like. But I mean those are rated from five is the worst and like the JC Dugard book is rated a five on
162that. Those shouldn't be in our schools. So those are if we're looking for lists, it's easy to find those if you're looking for them. but I'm I'm thankful that the state board has intervened. because I believe as much as, you know, we want to sit here and say that they're stepping on our toes, I think, you know, if we're not following the law, we're not protecting kids, well, somebody needs to come in and say something. I'd like to know exactly how are they not following the law. So when one of you guys come up again, if you could explain to me you know what is it in the law that they're not following already. It's just a roundabout. But anyways, those are my thoughts. I will continue as a school board member to protect and
163defend our children and make sure that they are protected in all ways and just make sure that we're focused on education and providing an excellent education and just making sure that our schools are an awesome place that people want to come to and aren't leaving to go to private schools where their kids can receive a education where they know they aren't going to be harmed from inappropriate content. All right. Thank you, member. Member Gallo. thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to point out in our decision to remove these books and I agree for this set these set of books that we've been the list that we've been given and the list that will go on the website. I don't think that there's any point to review them because if we review some of them
164have already been reviewed and voted on by this board to retain in our classrooms and we're literally undoing that. We're literally undoing the good work of the district literacy council. We're we're overturning their decisions. We're overturning our own decisions by majority vote. so the public needs to understand that and what we're discussing tonight. And what we're giving consensus to the superintendent to do is to overturn previous decisions. And I'm assuming now that the two books that are scheduled to come before us on July 29th that there will really be no reason for us to read those books. I and I haven't read either of those books. So I'm not going to speak to the content of what's in those books. Although I will say that the district literacy council did vote to retain and we
165were overturning their ruling. and I do I do respect the district literacy council. It was one of the reasons why I voted to retain the books. I believe that it is a solid group of people that do have the best entrance interests of our not our not only our students but the content of the literacy in mind. I did read last night at the Telegraph Club. I would argue with anybody to show me where you think that there's pornography in that book. I mean, I just I read the whole book and I did. I mean, if kissing is pornography, then I guess we all need to go to jail. I don't know. but I just, you know, there was a bill that was circulating this legislative cycle that did kind of do away with the
166Miller test and provided a more strict guidance on books and it failed. It didn't make it through the threshold and it did not make it into law and then the state board of education came up and said, "You will do it or else." It's they didn't even create a rule. Like they didn't even go, that's what's so frustrating to me. They didn't even go through the rule making process because there is a process to rule making. You have to have meetings. You have, you know, I have to invite the public. The public gets to have input. Like there's a process to that just like there's a process to how we go through these books. and they didn't even follow their own process. They didn't even create a rule. They just says you have two weeks
167to do this or the attorney general will threaten legal action. so again, I understand we'll be removing these books. I don't think we need to waste our district staff time on reviewing them because at the end of the day, if they say, "Listen, these should retain in our library. We're not going to retain them. Let's just be honest, we're not going to because the Department of Education and the Board of Education told us we can't." So, I am fine with removing these books. I just wanted to make it very clear that we're overturning our own decisions and the decisions by the district literacy council. I do not think that we need to revisit our policy. I understand what member front said about Hillsboro. We are not Hillsboro in looking at our policy versus theirs. Ours
168is way better. Our process is way better and we wouldn't allow and have removed some of the books that they kept in in their libraries. We said no, that's not okay for our kids. so we've really truly tried to follow the law. I would like to say that in moving forward with any other book that is brought to our attention that we still follow our policy and then it still goes through the literacy council. It still goes through the process and it will still come to the board if there's a disagreement with what the district literacy council has voted on. because I don't want to just I don't want to just throw out any book that somebody says has pornography in it. I think that it should be reviewed and it should be looked at.
169but again with these books, I don't I don't I don't want to waste I don't want to waste Mrs. Kibby's time. She's she's got a baby. She's tired. She's she's she's read a lot of books. and so I'm I'm okay with moving these off onto our website. I do want to be very transparent. I want the community to know why we're doing it. and then moving forward, any other book that has any form of challenge, it goes through the normal process. Thank you. Thank you, Member Gallo. I just want to clarify a couple of things. member Vanos, I think it was member Vanos or member Gallo that read the definition of harmful for students and I think the word was and I think it has to be all three, not or. And I think I
170think I disagree with their definition, but their definition is the law. And so my position on what I think should be in the library would be inconsistent with the law. Doesn't mean that you have to put a book in just because it doesn't meet that. But but when the board is looking at that language and relying on the overall content that is a legal thing to do. so anyway, I had kind of lost track of those three prongs and I appreciate you bringing that up. Again, it doesn't change what my opinion is about what I think I feel like is appropriate to have in our libraries and we all we strongly disagree on that. But, the other thing I do want to clear up and member Salamanca on the bias I'm I'll I'll go back
171and watch what I said, but what I thought I said was not that I believe that we have bias. What I was saying was if this board took this this position and you had a advisory board that was constantly taking a different position and was being picked by a then I might say because we get to pick as opposed to some sort of a random thing that there is possibility that there would be bias not that there is bi biased. So, they didn't want you to walk away thinking that I was accusing anybody in particular of being biased, only that it's a possibility. the pardon me, yeah, of course. And I have to leave. Oh, okay. I have to drive to Tampa and it's storming and I've got to be there for 8 a.m. And
172so, I didn't want to leave without letting you know why that I had I have to leave. But I just want to thank the board for this discussion. we don't always agree, but I appreciate that we're very respectful to one another most of the time. Sometimes we could be. Yeah. and I'm looking at myself. but thank you and I will see you going. Thank you. Definitely. We want you to get there and get saved. Okay. member Gallo, you had the resolution on the federal fund. Oh, so I didn't want her to leave out of here before Oh, yes. Yes. Thank you Mr. Pomearini. So we do have the resolution. I believe everybody received the federal resolution which is just going over the amount of money that we get federally on Medicaid and some other items.
173It was in your inbox. So I just want to get consensus that we can move this proclamation forward and share it with our delegation and our state legislature. Anybody disagree? All right. Definitely. Thank you for Yeah. Thanks for bringing that to us and thank you John for reminding us. one closing thought on this. I not frequently, but from time to time I have people that tell me how, oh, this book thing is outrageous and I can't believe what they're doing. And there people that I'm kind of surprised that's what they're saying. just kind of like knowing them and thinking boy if they saw the content and so I have shared a couple of books and explain the value of the books and you know in explaining the value there's like head nodding and then I
174show them the particular text and the response has been you can't be serious that's in your libraries So, I don't know that we can know what the community really thinks because I'm talking to a handful of people and somebody else is, but I don't think there's a real understanding in the community of what is or isn't in our library. yeah. I had one individual who said that he put books in the library that had been taken out of the library, not ours, but I was like, which was scary because you wouldn't want one of our librarians being punished for. But, but anyway, even in talking to him, he felt it was so important to get these books back. And so, I gave him an example of a book and, asked him to read it. and
175afterwards he was like, "Oh my god, okay, that's not the kind of book I was putting back." So, I do think there may be a disconnect. I had this idea, a flash, and very quickly decided it was a really bad idea that maybe communicating with all of our parents and saying, you know, this is what the book is about. This is why it's very valuable. here is the language that is you know is found by some to be and then get feedback. I thought, "Okay, then I'll know. Am I is this a trigger point for folks or not?" But then I realized I we'd be flooded with emails on both sides of it. And but the other thing that went through my mind quite honestly is for the folks who think and feel like I
176do and I don't think I'm way out there that I would hate to see people pulling their kids out of public school because they felt that not just that there were books in the library but losing confidence in a board that doesn't feel the way they do. So, I know that doesn't mean that a lot of people wouldn't keep their kids in, but it is something that does cause me some concern. You're not seeing in the news what's what's in the books because it the news can't say it. So, it's just I'm just sharing that with you all because you may strongly disagree with me, but I do think that there's a sector of our population that's not aware and would be uncomfortable, disillusioned by the content. So, that's my last words on this. Member
177B. I just wanted to come back to the taxpayer dollars. I I think it's very interesting to comment about the taxpayer dollars being spent on these handful of books. that when they've been pulled, we've seen that there's maybe four copies in the district or six copies of this one. It's not a lot of taxpayer dollars relative to the taxpayer dollars that we've wasted on this whole process because of a political an issue that's become a political talking point for people to run for office and use for their political gain. we spent $400,000 the first summer of this bill. This is taxpayer dollars. Money that could be in our operating budget. Money that could be giving raises. Let's think about how much focus we could do on the basics. How much excellent education we could be
178providing. How many more teachers we could have hired with all of the money that has been spent on a handful of books. This is why I don't want to do this anymore because I feel like we have got we are in a crunch for money. If we want to be really honest, we really should be talking about why we are spending so much money on library books that are not in circulation, that are not getting checked out. Let's talk about why we have $25 million I think is the is the number I got from Dorene for staffing which I know we have to have media specialist but it's not just media specialists there's clerks there's all kinds of other positions but also the amount of money that is going into even buying books that are
179sitting on shelves that are not even getting checked out we are talking about making budget cuts to the education of these children yet were willing to spend $400,000 or even giving I don't know what is all going I've asked for the numbers about what is continuing since that first summer what we've spent on this process I don't even know if we could quantify what we spent because so many hours staff hours have gone into this issue but it's just when let's if we really are going to talk about taxpayer dollars Let's talk about really how this has been a huge waste of taxpayer dollars in my opinion. and then I also don't want I also wanted to kind of touch on member Vanis' concern about and I know this is going to be the concern
180of some parents that we are acquiescing to this the state and we are avoiding you know we're rolling over I agree this is not good. This is wrong for us to skip over our policy. It's wrong to overturn all these decisions, but I don't I'm willing to die on hills for kids. I was willing to do it for masks. I was willing to risk being pulled out of office for that issue because that was a life ordeath issue. This one I do not feel that way about. I will stand up when I need to stand up. This one I do not feel like it's necessary and I think it's already been a huge waste of time. Thank you, Member Burke. Ballad points all the way around. Thank you. member Douglas, I too agree with superintendent.
181I mean, at the end of the day, I'm just as tired as my colleagues here talking about these books. talking about this we have we are not taking this issue lightly it's very serious I do not want my kids to read porn pornographic things as well but let's let's face it we have a process in place okay we have expert that read those books and determine if they are pornographic or Not. All right. So, we have a process. We're talking about taxpayer money, but listen, we are trying to give different viewpoints to our kids. We are trying to to make them you know aware of what's going on in the world and different cultures and different viewpoints in the world. Okay. Sometime you may not like it. And the definition of porno pornographic is listen
182I come from France and my view of pornography may not be the same you are yours okay I'm just saying all right truly so we have a you know really broad definition of pornographic and we are wasting time and money in that subject of books books that are maybe four or five books in the library that kids don't even read. Okay, at the end of the day, let's let's face it, okay? We have better issues to deal with than those books that keeps coming over and over again. And let's say the parents have the choice to to decide what the kids should be reading at the end of the day. Okay? It's our it's our right as parents to decide what our kid not the government not the DOE but it's us. Okay. So it's
183us. So if I see a book that I feel like it's not pornographic my child can read it. You should not decide what my child should be reading. All right. So that's we agree with that. All right. Thank you. Thank you member Douglas. member Vanos, and I just remembered we do have we do do we need to make the appointments for Okay, I just I was thinking we were done after that. We have to make the appointments for FSBA. Member Vanos, you're recognized. thank you, Chair. I hear people say that we have a process and we support our process and we believe in our process and we've followed the law to make this process happen. And I agree, we have a process and if there's if there's books on this list that people want to
184object to, then they can object to them and we will follow our process. I'm not taking away the right of anyone to do that. I was also asked how the state board of education is not following the law. So, I just wanted to answer that. the f is statute 106.28. and it talks about instructional materials and materials used in classroom, made available in a school library, or included on a reading list. And it then says, if the district school board finds that the instructional material does not meet the criteria under subp paragraph A or that any other material contains prohibited content under sub subp paragraph B, the school district shall discontinue use of the material for any grade level or age group for which such use is inappropriate or unsuitable. And this to me this
185says that it is the district school board who makes that determination. Now some people you know there I understand that there is an argument that the state board of education has supervisory power. but I think that when we have a specific statute on point to the topic that controls over a general power of of a board. and then the second area where I believe that they are not following the law is Florida statute 847.12. and this is the one I mentioned before where it talks about first of all it says it is unlawful for any person knowingly to sell rent or loan for monetary consideration which doesn't sound like in a school to a minor any picture, photograph, drawing, sculpture, motion picture, film, video cassette or similar visual representation or image of a person or
186portion of the human body which depicts nudity or sexual conduct, sexual excitement, sexual battery, beastiality or fat may I don't even know abuse and which is harmful to minors or and then it goes through B and which is harmful to minors and then it says any person violating any provision of this section is guilty of a felony of the third degree. This is what the state board of education was referring to when it was talking about criminally prosecuting media specialists and schoolboard members. but again there is a requirement that this has to be harmful to minors. The state tried to change the definition of harmful to minors this year through legislation and they failed. So they can't just subvert the law and subvert what they didn't pass legislatively by decreeing it by seven people decreeing
187it in Tallahassee. So that's the answer to that question. and then I would also just, you know, it's been brought up like are we removing books? and we're not hearing about it. And the reality, the reality is we are removing so many books through soft censorship that we don't hear about because media specialists are afraid. And so they're just pulling the books that they see on a list because they're afraid. So we don't hear about it because there it doesn't come to us. It is happening. we are have there are books being removed and when our district literary councils decide to pull a book we it doesn't it can never be appealed to us because the appeals process is asymmetrical right the objector can appeal the re the retention of a book but someone can't
188appeal when it has been pulled so that's why we don't hear about it and then you know I do worry about are I know many of my constituents because I knocked doors for 13 months when I campaigned for this position care deeply about books and they care deeply about access to books and they care deeply about censorship and they care deeply about local control. and then you know the last point that I'd like to make, we're talking about cases. There was actually a case that was just decided a couple days ago in the 11th circuit and this was Judge Walker in Tallahassee and it was talking about the social media ban for minors. and he said in his opinion on page 48 that an established principle in the first amendment context is that enabling individuals
189to voluntarily restrict problematic content at the receiving end is preferred over restricting speech at the source and that it should be about an individualized determination. It says that when children are using social media, it should really be the parents who are restricting their access, not restricting it at the top end. And I feel that this is directly applicable to books. Books for children can be restricted by any parent that wants to, but we shouldn't be restricting books for everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Member Vanos. member Bird, I was just going to request that moving forward when we have challenges that come forward and we have to publish those on our website, I would request that we stop redacting names. I don't know why we're redacting the names. I understand that it's to protect possibly a
190student is what I think I was told. that's a child of a parent that objects to a book, but I don't think that's necessary. So, that was going to be my request. If they're willing to go through the trouble of making us go through the trouble of this, then they should be willing to put their name on it. or to have their name out there for the public to see. And then, but in response to member Vanos, Oh, I lost it. I lost it. Oh well. Do you want me to go again? No, that's okay. That's okay. That's fine. Go ahead. Okay. go back to 1469 or whatever. Okay. you have your answer, Dr. Vasquez. And, John, do you dare to give a I'm sorry, Dr. Vasquez, do you have a couple of other things?
191Actually, no. I think we're good. I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page. We are not going to revise our policy. any further challenges that come before us will continue to follow the process within our policy and we will remove the I believe 13 books that we have and indicate so on our website the reason for the removal. Thank you. I appreciate that. Absolutely. John, I do actually dare very briefly. in the audience, you may have seen Sergio Ruiz. He is our new staff attorney, three for facilities and construction. How are you? Can now he's going to be like, never mind. I've been trying to figure this out the entire meeting. Have you noticed my eye contact with you? I'm like, who is he? What's he doing here? So, I
192just want to let you know about Sergio's credentials. he comes to us, he's been a lawyer since 2017. Is he already signed on? yes, he is. He starts, you all approved, you all approved him tonight on the consent agenda. Sergio went to FAM, I believe it is, law school. He also got two LLMs from the University of Miami. He is board certified in construction law. We are fortunate to get a candidate of his caliber. We are looking forward to him working with our facilities folks. We're going to sit down when he comes on June 16th. We're going to sit down with folks in facilities and we're going to get together and make sure that we're all on the same page. But I wanted to make sure I introduced him. We are thrilled to have him
193and we are looking forward to having him on the team. Wonderful. And that is the end. You passed the the biggest test, right? You sat through this entire meeting. Yes. doesn't have a thing to do with construction. And you hung in there with us. Thank you. We're not going to ask your opinion on on books. Okay. We're not going to ask anybody their opinion on books. We are done with books. Anything else, John? That is it. Thank you. All right. So, what are we going to do with the advocacy committee terms that run from July 1st through you guys with me? If if you're not paying attention, you're about to be nominated. Sounds good. Okay. There. Okay. So, representing your district in statewide advocacy would be members Al Salamanca because she was busy talking. No.
194seriously, we need to we need to make a decision. Member Bird, you got an answer? I've got a nomination. I nominate member Vanos to serve as our advocacy. Yes. Yes. You accept the nomination? I accept. Thank you. Okay. Is there any other nominations? Nominations are closed. Who agrees with this recommendation? Huh? Nomination. Huh? Oh, jeez. We need an alternate. I nominate Douglas. Member of Douglas. What? No, but I went first. So, yeah, she did. She beat me. Nominations are closed. Yes. On a said one name. Okay. Okay. I accept. Okay. Okay. Whatever that is. Oh my god. Oh, this is bad. I thought there were I'm sorry. I thought there were like four. Oh, I thought there were four different things we had to Yay. Oh, man. You just made my day. Okay. any committee
195reports? Anybody have the nerve to try to give a presentation at this point? No. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Go ahead. No, I just wanted to end it on an awesome positive note. I was super excited. I took my discretionary funds and was able to send 33 District 3 teachers to the Read and Write Institute. that's done by the Reed Charitable Foundation. So, these teachers were able to go to a week-long training on the science of reading and stopped in and just checked it out. And I sat through for a couple hours and like it was just so incredible. I mean, I learned so much stuff. really really amazing. every teacher I talked to said, "I wish this was taught in the university when I got my license." when you know going through their their teacher
196training I teachers that told me I've been in teaching for over 20 years and this is fantastic information that hands-on things. what's super exciting is they had it was about five different like giveaway bags that was auctioned off basically not auctioned but they did the little you know like a drawing and so five of the teachers got goodie bags to take into the classroom and hands-on items that they were able to use. and to make this happen, I was also you know, had to make sure that the teachers got a stipen to cover their week, which my discretionary funds did not cover. And so, I reached out to community partners. And so, I just want to say a publicly a huge thank you to Funspot USA who gave an incredible amount. I had to raise
197over $22,000 and so they gave a huge amount of that and just other you know community partners and businesses even just people in the community who support our teachers and making sure that our kids can learn how to read and write and really incredible things that I'm excited for and something I'll continue in the future. So, thank you again for allowing me to do that. Thank you. Thanks for thanks for sharing that with us. That is awesome. And if there's no further business, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Heat. Heat.