OCPS | 2025-06-10 School Board Work Session

001good morning everyone. And let me just remind everybody and remind myself to turn your phones on to silent and welcome to Orange County School Board's work session which has been scheduled for today, Tuesday, June 10th, 2025 for the purpose of discussing policy JIC which is this code of student conduct. The public will not have an opportunity to participate in this work session by providing public comment because this is not a regularly scheduled schoolboard meeting and no action will be taken and there will be no I just said that. and we also won't take general public comments but we will of course later on this afternoon. Thank you all that are here in the room joining us and anyone who is on the line. Thank you as well. And now let me call on the superintendent

002to lead us. Pardon me. And we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance. Okay. No, we can do the pledge of allegiance. And good. Thank you. Too many meetings already this morning. thank you, Madam Chair. this morning our team is bringing bringing back to the board revisions to our code of conduct. The comments that were received at the previous work session were incorporated into the changes that will be presented this morning. I'm going to turn it over to the team to review the proposed changes. and then we'll be able to open it up for any comments or questions the board may have. Good morning, chair, school board members, Dr. Vasquez. We're here today to to discuss restitution and acts of hate. So at the last work session restitution was added to a level two offense and

003it was also added to level three and four and acts of hate was added to level three and level four. So on page 15. All right. On page 15, restitution level two is a disary response again is also you go to your pages are different. Can you move the I know it's difficult. if you can move the mic a little closer, which I know is difficult because you I'm sorry have a notebook in front of you, but the mic is so sensitive. Thank you. Go to acts of hate. Stop there. All right. We also added acts of hate. It's going to be a level three HH. an act or intented act to cause physical injury, emotional suffering or property damage when the victim is selected by the perpetrator based upon hostility to the race, color,

004religion, age, sex, natural origin, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, language spoken or homeless status of the victim. victim through intimidation, harassment, racial, ethnic slurs, vandalism, force, or threat of force. And that's our level three definition for acts of hate. And again, we added restitution as a disciplinary offense, a disary response, I'm sorry. to level three. We're going to move on to level four. Can you can you roll up the slide just a minute? or down, whichever way. Yeah. Okay. No, that was I just wanted to see the parking at the same time. Oh, sorry. And go back to the previous slide. Yeah. Thanks, Okay. And then we're going to move on to level four acts of hate, which is the same definition as the level three, but we added

005the word repeated. So the first time it would be a level three and the second time it will be a level four. Also, before it's determined to be a three or four, all acts of hate offenses, they must consult with OCPS legal services before moving forward and the consequences for level three. Level three consequences. So, our disciplineary responses did not change. It's the same. The disciplinary responses did not change for a level three. Okay. The only thing that was added for a disc response was the restitution. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Go to the restitution definition. Okay, it's on page 52 active. And in the parent student section notification we added it used to be acts of hate me I'm sorry hate speech hate speech now it's acts of hate pursuant to schoolboard policy

006JB equal opport equal educational opportunity all students attending school in OCPS should be treated according to a unitary code which applies equally regardless of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, genetic identity or expression, language spoken, homelessness, or any other u reason prohibited by law. And then we added an act of hate occurs when a student intentionally selects the victim because of any protected characteristics characteristics identified in policy JB. An act of hate can be found on the basis of speech, including but not limited to threats and harassment, on the basis of conduct, including but not limited to battery or fighting, or on the basis of damage to property, including but not limited to theft and destruction of property, vandalism. All charges under the category of an act

007of hate must be reviewed with the OCPS Office of Legal Services for compliance with the law. And then we also added a definition for restitution. Next page. All right. If a student takes or damages school property or the property of others, they may be required to pay restitution to the victim or OCPS. This obligation will remain on the students discipline record until the restitution is paid in full. Payment plans or alternative forms of restitution can be arranged with the school principal. All right. Feedback from board members. I'm sorry. Member Ferrant. Thank you, Madam Chair. thank you so much for going over these different areas. So, just a couple questions. if we want to just stay here on page 54, the question I would have with the restitution, how will that be enforced if so it

008says like we may require if we may then how many kids would say well I can't I can't pay it. So levels one, two, and three is left up to the principles. It's schoolbased decision. is I'm really not sure and I think that was part of the problem. We used to have restitution in our code and we removed it during the 2014 2015 school year because we had discussion and just like you're saying it was hard to determine how you was going to keep track of who was going to pay and if kids could afford to pay. So, we felt like it wasn't fair, but then how do we hold kids responsible because it we they shouldn't be damaging our facilities. and if you know, we look back at the Tik Tok trend where they

009were the devious lick and pulling out the bathroom sinks and destroying the bathrooms and then it's just sort of a slap on the wrist. you know, at what point do we say enough is enough? So, it depends on the dollar amount because during that Tik Tok challenge, a lot of those damages rose to the value of a level four and kids received a level four offense. We didn't charge restitution, but they did receive a consequence. Okay. Madam Madam Chair, Dr. Bask. Yeah, thank you. so the issue with restitution lies in the ability for the family to be able to pay. That is why at the last work session the board asked or an alternative form of restitution can be arranged. That could be that there's afterchool community service. It could be that they stay and

010tutor, you know, children for a certain amount of time. And so it's not the board did not want to limit it to just the dollar amount because there are some families that may not be able to afford to pay that. And that's why we added that last section, alternative forms of restitution. But it is going to be left up to the school to determine, you know, what that's going to be. We certainly can provide guidance, but that was part of the determination when this was asked to be added to the code. Perfect. which I agree with. I think that's a great plan. I wonder could we maybe reward then just the part where it says they may be required to pay restitution. Could we say they will be required to either pay restitution or somehow

011word that where it's restitution is required whether you're paying or it's an alternative form and then down below it says payment plans or alternative forms. Let me go to the superintendent. The reason we're not putting it as a definitive because there's always a chance and I'll give an example. Maybe it's a student with a disability that doesn't understand the consequence or it's part of their disability. And so this gives us the flexibility to look at those cases that have certain elements of it that would preclude the child from having to pay restitution. Okay. Okay. f just a follow up on that question then I'll go to member vanos. But in other areas of the discipline co code where we use the term m may or I mean shall that same exception would always apply even

012when we have the word shall. Correct. It depends on what the statute says related to the offense. Okay. So for some that it is required that you do X Y and Z. for example with the level four consequence you have to have a suspension for a period of time. So that's a shallow. But in other areas, you have the flexibility to be able to work the consequences to what best meets the need of the school and of the particular situation. Okay. So in the case of SHA where there's a statutory consequence, if you have a student and the behavior is determined to be a result of their disability, that shall still applies. Well, when so if you commit a level four offense and you u are assumed a disability, you do have the suspension. It

013may be for a shortened period of time, but there is a suspension that takes place. Okay. Okay. yes, thank you. And then on page 20 when we're talking about acts of hate, I'm just curious the statement of emotional suffering. I feel like this could become an issue. because anybody could say that they are emotionally suffering based on anyone's they may have given them a facial expression or said something that to them they feel it's emotional suffering but it wasn't spoken out of that you know out of hate. so at what point are we I feel like this is you know I know member Salamanca has mentioned this before but this is a slippery slope. I think we do have to kind of keep this very concise. this is extremely broad in my opinion and I

014think I think we need to to look into the acts of hate more. I like having this here. and I know we've discussed it before where you know in in the case that we had earlier in the year which really brought this to light we were able to use vandalism as one of the consequ you know the disciplinary code. However, we could use vandalism plus the acts of hate because it was a u more of an act of hate. And but if we start going down the slippery slope of emotional suffering, to me, I think this needs to be more of a blatant act of of hate, not just somebody saying, "I feel I'm getting emotional suffering because I'm sitting next to a kid who thinks differently than me and it makes me feel uncomfortable,

015so I feel it's an act of hate." That's where I think we need to as a board really discuss this and kind of see can we make this a little more concise. Dr. Basque. So, please correct me if I'm wrong. lots going on these days, but there's another version. Correct. We were going to have a discussion about whether to include this or not. Isn't that correct? That's correct. Okay. There's a different version of the code. Sorry, get close. There's a different version of the code in which we removed acts of hate completely because under assessor every most offenses can have a as Mr. Pomerani has explained before a heightened if you will cesor has where you can attach a acts of hate to per se like a vandalism which will take it to another level.

016Can you explain that more? Because so for instance when this student that we had seen previously with the Israeli flag and had you know marked it up and vandalized it. I don't believe any of that was like an act of hate attached to that. No because I'll let Mr. Pomerani speak on that one. Mr. Pomearini. Thank you Madam Chair. Sorry. still getting over whatever it was that I've had for two weeks. So, I know I've had the Zpack. Don't worry about it. No, with respect to the acts of hate, this was not a an act of hate or hate speech under our code because what we determined is the child was engaged in his right to free speech to comment on matters of political concern, i.e. the conflict that's going on in Israel between the

017Hamas and the Israeli government. So, we did not, this child did not have an enhancement for his penalty because that's what acts of hate or hate speech in the criminal code. It's an enhancement on the underlying criminal offense. So, if it was vandalism and it was the person was targeted because they were Jewish or because they were African-American or or whatever it is, it would enhance the penalty up one level in the criminal code. With respect to our code of conduct, it is something that we didn't have a particular offense for previously. We had hate speech within the code, but we did not have it in the levels of offenses that we have now. So, the board asked, can we add it in on the level of offenses now? The last time we had the

018discussion, it was, wow, this is a very, very slippery slope as in this situation. How would we handle it? And so what we did is we drafted language that sort of tracked the acts or the criminal enhancement from the criminal code, but we also put in there the must consult with OCPS legal services because to your point member Ferrron to the extent that it doesn't rise to the level of being actual acts of hate, we want to make sure and it encompasses a kid's right to free speech. We want to make sure that we take care of that and we don't charge this offense. As I said the last time with you all when it comes to our office, we are going to heir on the side of the kids first amendment rights and only

019if it is eminently eminently clear that this constitutes an act of hate would we sign off on saying okay go ahead and charge under this particular provision. So using the example that you just raised with the Israeli flag, even under this language, in my view, it wouldn't have gotten there because this child was engaged in political speech and commenting on Israel's conduct of its war with Hamas. So we wouldn't have charged that kid with an act of hate, but we did charge the child with vandalism under the code. So that's the hard part. And so this is everybody's look of perplexion is what we saw last time which is why what we were doing here is bringing it back. We have two options. One with this language, one without this language. So the board has

020to decide are we going to have this in the code and we discuss things like we can have it in the code as deterrent. If kids think that they may get charged with this and they may get a bigger penalty coming out of it, it may act as it a deterrent. But the board's going to have to decide, is this something we want in the code? Is it worth the trouble of having in the code? Because inevitably, if we charge somebody with an act of hate, that's going to be a very, very high-profile thing. Folks are going to contest it. It's probably going to come to you all, especially on the level four version of it, and it's going to be a very, very difficult thing to administer. But if the board wants it, that's

021obviously you all are the policy makers and you make that determination. But we have to the second version without this language. If the board says, you know what, our code works as is. We don't want to deal with the first amendment issues and the potential issues coming out of it. Let's just leave the code as is without this language. That's what we're here to decide. And we didn't have two of our members last time and we have all of our members now. So the reason why we're bringing it back is so you all can have a full consideration of this and make the determination which way you want to go. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I'll go to member Vanos for my benefit. I know I wasn't here. Who else wasn't here? Okay. Okay,

022that's right. Okay, got it. Thank you, member Bennis. Thank you, Madam Thank you, Madam Chair. I Okay, so I'll keep on this topic since we're here now. And John, Mr. Palmerini, I know I asked you this question the very first time we talked about this, and I apologize. I just don't remember the answer. Can we Is it a possibility that we just use acts of hate as a enhancer to punishment rather than creating a you know a separate offense and I know I asked this and I just can't remember what you said. I believe my answer was yes. You can use it as an enhancement to rather than having it as a separate provision in the code. You can do that if the board wants to do that. Okay, if I may jump in. So

023again for Cessor does have hate crime related. It states that all cessor is incidents motivated all or in part by hostility to the victim's real or perceived race, religion, color, sexual orientation, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, political beliefs, marital status, age, social and family background, linguistic preference or mental physical disability are required to be reported as hate crime related. Okay. So like what does that mean? So it's it's we reported under cessor but does are you saying that precludes us from using it as an enhancement to No. So Cessor requires if it meets that definition CSER requires us to report it as being hate crime related which means we can give the enhanced penalty for it. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, I'm just still still learning. I appreciate that. Thank member Vanis follow. I just have one

024more one more question and this is related again to page 54 to the restitution part and I'll just say I would like to explore maybe using the acts of hate as enhancement to the to the I'm just curious what the rest of the board members say. So, but yeah, ready to move on to this other question. okay. So, for restitution, so last time we talked about this, I guess my question is when you when you say payment plans or alternative forms of restitution, is that including does that still only relate to property damage or or Yeah. Does that still only relate to offenses relating to property damage? And and here's what I'm I'm asking. So, I'm looking at the I don't know who pulled the research about other counties code of student conduct and how

025they use restitution, but for example, in Duval County, they include they say restitution is defined as a restoring of something lost or stolen to its proper owner. in restorative justice, this is used with the referred student making amends with the victim of their behavior. And so I'm And so I'm just wondering if we are limiting restitution to only property damage or we are kind of looking at this as a bigger restorative justice issue. I you know personally I would like to see consequences more related to the offense. so that's why I'm asking this question. Does that make sense? When you say more related to the offense, do you mean you think Duval's language is better language? Well, well, I think it's more inclusive. So, here we're just allowing restitution as a consequence for damage to

026property, but what I'm asking is, can restitution be used as a consequence for other behaviors that are not related to property damage? So if you are referring to the language in Duval, so it says that restitution is used with. So in that case, they're doing a restorative justice and they're also having the student pay restitution. So it's two different things. So they're having the student do both. Okay. But I guess what I'm asking is I mean there are other counties, for example, where they're using restitution, but it's not just for property damage. Hillsboro uses it for dispute or or horse play. You know, I guess what I'm asking is are we just limiting that? Are we just limiting restitution to damage to property as we have it in the code now? No. That would be

027up to you guys on whether you want to limit it to just the damage and property. But as it is in the code that we presented that's before you it's used it can be used in any of the offenses level one through three. Dr. Basia and maybe it's someplace else and I don't remember but the way it's stated here it references damage right takes or damages school property or the property of others. So it according to this I'm interpreting that it is just for property. Is there some place else where we No. So yeah. So that is correct. I'm sorry. So the way it's written here it would apply Yes, you're correct. It would apply only to those situations regarding theft. So that's where the takes comes from and then if a student damages another

028student's property or OCBS property. So if they steal something and it's not returned then they would pay restitution that would be even if they steal something from OCPS or another student. Got it. Okay. Thank you. I I if we are going to have this in here I would like to expand it so that it is not just limited to damage to school property the property of others. So it incorporates the concept of restorative justice. Exactly. Yes. So we already have restorative justice in our code under the different offenses and as we explained last time restitution it exel itself is monetary. So that's why we defined it. So that's why it would only relate to theft or damage to property because restitution as it is defined and as it is seeing in a legal concept applies

029to a monetary dam a monetary amount. Okay. And then just so okay as long as that is an option for the other and including for level four offenses restorative justice is a con is an option. No, not for not for level four. No, could you scroll up because it's restorative practices is right above restitution. There you go. Thank you. as as a possible as a suggestion for one way of making sure that's clear. The language says that there may there may be and then we say payment or alternative forms of restitution that perhaps to I'm not saying everybody's going to vote for it but as a way of addressing that it could say as an alternative form of restitution restorative justice practices could I mean there's other forms But that could be part of it

030and just specifically state that would be an approach. Your thoughts, Dr. Thank you. All right. So, let's It's a Okay. So, the for the level four offenses, right, which is what we're having a conversation. Can you scroll so we can see what the items there are? because I do believe restorative justice is already included in there to be able to be used either in conjunction with other consequences there or maybe it's a standalone because there's specific circumstances surrounding an offense there. Okay. So, just to recap so we're all on the same page, when we're looking at restitution in the con in the code of conduct, we really are talking about the legal definition that refers to money that is a result of damage to property. So, a child could commit a level four offense, be

031sent to an alternative site, and in addition to that, if they damaged property, could also then have to do restitution for what they damaged. Correct. And I think that may answer the question that's on the table. when you look at restorative practices as it relates to restitution that gives us the opportunity to look at restitution for offenses that it's not easy to quantify what the cost of restitution is because it's it's not quantifiable. and so I think that answers your question and takes into account what you're asking. If we need to further clarify or give further direction in our in the handbook where we talk about the offenses, we can we can do that, but it's already in there. Okay, I think that answers my question. I'll I'll doodle on that. Thank you so much.

032All right. Thank you, Member Vanos. I tell you what, I'm queued up, but I think I have kind of lost my train of thought. I think just my input on this before we move on is that I understand the first amendment right issue. I really don't agree with it, but I mean I just think in the school setting I affecting somebody emotionally in our schools, whether you feel like it's a freedom of speech thing or not, I still feel like it's just not appropriate for kids to be allowed to do that. But I understand it's it's still a legal decision. And that's why I think that the language in here covers that very well. And I think again I think it works as a deterrent, but it doesn't allow us to prohibit someone's freedom of

033speech and it leaves the general counsel in charge of making that determination. And I think that's highly appropriate. So I like the language. it's a little thing and I think it's probably it says when the victim okay probably is fine but there could be multiple victims and I would think in most cases there will be if it's really thought to be well I guess a hate crime could be against one person but Huh. Yeah. Pardon me. Victim or victims. Yeah. You can add an s in parentheses. Yeah. Yeah, cuz I just I do tend to think that this to rise to a hate crime, it's this more generic thing. It's not one person versus another. It's one person versus, as we talk, religion and all these other things. So, if we could put that s

034in. I would appreciate that. And if I think of what else was on my mind, I'll come back. Member Bird. Thank you. Thank you, chair. just to continue on this discussion, Mr. Palmerini. So, well, first I want to say I agree with possibly taking it out of the offenses and adding it in that section that it is that if it's found to be an act of hate, then it enhances the consequence. So, I agree with that. But let me just ask another question about this. so it's to determine that something is an act of hate. It is based on the and I know we had this discussion, so forgive me if we're repeating, but it's based on the offender's intention. What we what we think the offender's intention is, not the consequence of what they

035did to the people around them. it is selection of the victim on the basis of a protected characteristic. So let me use the example from the Florida Supreme Court case that decided it. It was a fight during which the two persons that were fighting the one who was hitting the other one referred to the other one as a Jew lawyer. He didn't seek out the person because the person was Jewish, but during the course of the offense, he was using the slurs of Jew lawyer against him. Florida Supreme Court says that doesn't qualify for the penalty enhancement because they weren't target he wasn't targeted because he was Jewish. It just happened to be something that was said during the midst of the fight. Now, if he knew that the person was a Jewish lawyer and

036went out purposely trying to attack him because he was a Jewish lawyer, that would qualify for the penalty enhancement under it. So, you would have to have some proof that the child targeted the other child, knew the other child was some protected characteristic, and went after them because of that. It wouldn't be during the heat of a of a fight or something like that, they utter something like that. that would not qualify under the case law. Okay. So, the writing of newspaper, school newspaper articles that are offensive to an entire group, religious group, if they are written under the basis of this is political speech, then that doesn't matter. It's not considered. So that's an entirely different question that implicates the right of free press under the first amendment. So under our under the United

037States Supreme Court rules or cases the Kmmyer case because we run our student publications we have the right to determine what goes in or does not go in the student publication. To use the example that you're probably thinking of, we probably should have exercised better editorial control as administrative staff before allowing that to go in to say, okay, we have one point of view here. Obviously, we should probably have the other counterpoint view here. or maybe this isn't appropriate and we don't want to get into this because anybody looking at our student newspaper would reasonably think that we're giving it our impromater to use the word in the case or our approval. Right? So that's a different scenario for publication in a student newspaper than we would be dealing with here. Okay. Okay. Well, that

038answers it. It just it's such a difficult thing because I had conversations about this last issue that we had with the flag with with rabbis and people in the community that were extremely offended that thought it absolutely was an act of hate towards their community and thought we were absolutely wrong in saying it wasn't. So, it's a it's definitely a difficult a difficult thing to deal with, but I think doing an enhancement is probably the best way to go and yeah, it's challenging for sure. Madam Chair, right? Yes. So, I think I've had this discussion with all of you, but just to make sure it worth it that it bears repeating on that flag. It said, "For they were the peacekeepers." That was written in there. That when when we were reading that, and it

039wasn't just me in my office. I basically had all of our lawyers look at it. That was commentary that we thought that was directed at Israel's conduct in its war with Hamas and how it's operating. And that is something something that is clearly the topic of conversation in you know in the international community within America. You know how is Israel conducting its war? Is it doing things that you know don't do enough to protect civilians as part of its as part of its war effort? That's different to me than if you know if they had written on top of the flag all Jews must die. That's a completely different analysis and that's what the difference was when we were looking at that all Jews must die clearly to me is an act of hate right

040for they were the peacekeepers that is commentary on Israel's occup or conduct of its war and that's why that was the distinction that we drew as you see that is a very difficult distinction difficult line to draw and depending on where you fall on that side of the issue you could think, "Oh, no, they're clearly wrong. That's an act of hate. Why can't they see it?" But the other side of the issue can say, "No, that's clearly right. We have the political right to make a statement about how Israel conducts the war." That's the level of analysis that my office will have to undertake if you all adopt this as either an enhancement to the penalty or have it as a separate provision of the code. So, those are the difficult questions we'll have to

041answer. Now, my office will answer it and we'll do our level best. Sometimes you all will agree with our assessments. Sometimes you will not. But that is that is the difficulty and you know it could open us up to first amendment you know challenges just being transparent. If somebody doesn't like a determination we make saying it's an act of hate. They'll say no I have a first amendment right to make the statement and you know we could be in litigation over it. So you all have to go into that with eyes wide open about the potential problems that this language can cause. But if you all say this is what we want you to do, my office will make the constitutional analysis. We'll go through it. We'll explain it to the board as to why

042we either made the decision that it is an act of hate or it isn't. One more question. Okay. So if if for this particular case we the law enforcement was there law enforcement made the decision it was not an activate if if the law enforcement had decided that it was then they could have charged. Right. Okay. So, is it possible for us to put in our code if law enforcement determine it is an act of hate, then we you could, but let me give you some potential difficulties with it, right? law enforcement could write a report that says, "We think this should be get this should get the enhancement to the to the charge, right?" That has to go to the state attorney and make a determination. And the state attorney then has to determine

043whether or not he or she can prove that, you know, that hate speech enhancement, they could prove it without beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's a high standard to prove. And so they could say, you know what, while we think we're 75% sure that it was hate speech, we're not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, we don't know that a jury could find it beyond a reasonable doubt. So, we're not going to engage in the enhancement. So, now I have gotten a, you know, recommendation from law enforcement that this should be get the hate crime enhancement that the state attorney does not in fact adopt. So now we have charged this child with an enhancement under our code based upon a charge that ultimately the state attorney didn't think they had enough evidence to prosecute. That

044is a very difficult thing to sustain. Okay. So that's not helpful. That was my question. If that would be helpful to your team, but that's not okay. well then I as a I feel like it's an important thing to have in our code in today's world. you know, we're seeing more and more things that are that are bad, that are hurt hurtful. There's a lot there's an increase in hate speech going on. And so I think it's important for us to have something in our code about it. So, I am I understand it's going to make your job a little harder and but I think that it's important. So, I'm all in favor of having it in there. Thank you, Member Bird. Member Salamanca. thank you, John. So, just clarification, acts of hate. So, hate

045speech versus hate crime. Acts of hate. We're saying this is crime. Oh, how like how broad is this right now? So what this is meant to do is it's meant to encompass speech that wouldn't be protected under the first amendment, right? And so not saying it's necessarily criminal. They could be criminal, right? It could be criminal, you know, depending on the nature of the offense, the context of it, but they're not it's not a co-entric circle. there's like some sort of overlap here where you on the ven diagram where you know it could be a crime and it could be an act of hate or it could be separate and distinct. So it really depends once again on the facts and circumstances of each individual case. Yeah, I have a hard time with hate speech

046and I wouldn't want us to be ruling on something wrong hate speech on it. It's it's speech, right? So even just in the past board meeting, right? racial slurs. We had an example that came up on a lacure slur where two board members on this board disagreed if that was a racial slur or not. One of them would have said I could have emotional suffering from this and the other one said no. I find it as a term of endearment. So I have a hard time among community, right? Not in that case. It was contextual, which is one of those things that's like, who are we to rule on this? And my biggest issue with this is, and this is what happened with our past case, you have administrators and teachers make the call of

047this is an enhancement or it's not an enhancement. Then it goes up to legal or it maybe goes to law enforcement. Everybody has a different take on that enhancement and anytime that we undo that enhancement, it's going to come to this board and it's always going to be political because we are explicitly outlining things that will be in this gray line. We're saying race, color, religion, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, language spoken, homelessness. Like the things that are outlined here are controversial on their own. And how someone interprets that, hey, you hit me because of this versus their intention is an awful place to put our administrators. And also, I get our legal team. I understand that our legal team has the capacity to do this, but when I look at every

048law class I was looking up, like UF law for example, there's like four classes on just the first amendment on how to interpret the first amendment. It goes to say there are experts, there's entire Supreme Court justices who just focus their attention on the first amendment because it is so difficult to interpret and it is case by case. It is a how did you say it? What was the intention? Did you do you have a history on your social media of saying this the racial slur and targeting people? Therefore, I can prove targeting like the kind of legal burden that happens in real criminal court to prove acts of hate and speech. It is a really high burden. And if you are on the side where you felt that you had to take in the

049emotional suffering or physical injury, you're going to feel one way and you're going to feel very strongly. And every time that there's some layer of authority, whether it's our legal team or administrators or, you know, the state attorney that suddenly says, "Actually, this does not apply to you." it's going to end up here and it's going to be political and then all of us are going to have to have a statement and all of us are going to have to have a point of view of if it is or it isn't. And so I think we corner ourselves into a really uncomfort like the more we uniquely take this out of the code. We are saying we want to talk about this specific area when it comes to the code of conduct rather than say

050it is vandalism, it is harassment, it is bullying because our code of conduct does address and have consequences for those things. I understand that there are things that can be hurtful but hurtful and emotionally suffering does not automatically mean that it came with the intent of hate speech or a hate act. doesn't mean that I hit you or I bullied you because of your sexual orientation or your sexual identity. You might perceive that I said that to you because of your sexual identity. And there there going to be a lot of cans and worms opened when we say I actually think you said that to me because of one pick go down the line and check mark of why I think you said something to me or why you broke my laptop. And then we

051have to take it case by case. Is that true? Is that not true? Our administrators might I mean we know even with not complicated things like this how many times it get complicated on the code of conduct. But any parent that sees this happened to my kid and that is checked. Undoing that and saying actually no just kidding our legal team determined that case by case actually your kid did not suffer this. It's it's going to be really difficult position for our legal team, for the board. Like these cases are just going to keep happening. I particularly would prefer if we did not have anything related to speech because I think speech is an even bigger slippery slope than a crime. But I still think we're putting a very high legal burden that even legal

052scholars spend case by case debating for hours and I don't know that's our role. I understand the emotional components of it but the reason why these things keeps coming up right now in such a political world is because people do get offended and feel that they are personally targeted because of these things. And many times that is true but many times it's not. Like there are many times where folks have said things to me that I could have interpreted as due to my sexual orientation or my immigrant status or my language spoken, but I don't that's that's a I didn't take it as that. But I could and I could make a whole thing out of it. And some folks are in very different emotional states when some stuff happened to them. And how they

053interpret and process emotional distress is different. so I personally do not want to be in the seat of interpreting this after our legal counsel provides some guidance and it continues to be appealed and it comes to us once again. I do not think I want to be in that role. So I prefer to remove this from the code of conduct. I understand if folks want to keep it as an enhancement, but even an enhancement I find it to be difficult. But that's it. Okay. Thank you members Alamar. Member Ferrant, thank you. that was excellent explanation. I too have some serious concerns. even when we look at the situations that we've dealt with this past year, it's very difficult, but as member Salamanca stated, we live in an offended culture. we have created this culture where

054everyone is offended by everything. you could wear the wrong hat and people are offended and you know walk you know hold the door the wrong way people are offended just it's just a very offended culture and when I look at all the other items there's I cannot tell you how many parents I talk to who say my child has been bullied at school. We made a claim. The claim comes back unfounded. nothing happens to the other child and then their child now has to decide if they want to move schools. If we can't even get that straight, this is going to be just I mean it to me we're doing this to appease the situation that happened which was in my opinion was completely ridiculous. I'm very frustrated that a student would do that at

055school. And I hope that we can create a culture where everyone feels welcome at school and they feel it's a place where they can enjoy coming that they love being there and that you know we aren't taking the issues that are happening outside into the classroom. so to me that's a matter of like just creating a better maybe school culture. but to have acts of hate my biggest angst is the emotional suffering part. because as we discussed it is subjective. I mean I think all of us have dealt with some sort of you know situation where people have been you know attacking. I mean, I've sat here and had people come by the sloos and said ridiculous comments. and I could sit here and say, well, I am receiving emotional suffering. Those are acts of

056hate. Some of it we need to, you know, just say like, I pray for you and you move on with your life. in the in the cases that we've seen now there were consequences and so I think we do need to look back and say you know the consequences that we have we deal with that and then if it is something where we go hey this is I think we need to have maybe the you know the restorative practice then needs to be that's where I think restorative practicing come into play where we say, "Listen, you did this. We want to talk to you about what what you did and how that actually can be interpreted by those around you and by the class of people that you did this, you know, vandalism towards or

057wrote the article towards. Let's think about we have to think about, you know, the golden rule again. Do to others what you would want them to do to you. Would you want somebody to write an article that would you would feel targeted about? Would you want somebody to take a flag that you find pride in and destroy it? so that I think we need to look more at restorative practice and see how we can ensure that students are not just being told, hey, that was wrong, that was vandalism, but or that was wrong. You did this, but how can we kind of just educate them in a sense of you know, just let's try to be kind to the world around us. we can have our own opinions, we can have our own thoughts and

058our free speech, if you will. but also knowing like at what point is it actually causing more harm than good? so I'm I'm in agreement that I think I would remove the acts of hate because after we've looked at it all, I mean again, Mr. for Paul Mareni with the thing with the flag. Say we had had this acts of hate in here, would that have been considered, would they have been issued this? No. Okay. So, done. So, everything that we're going to get before the board that we all feel should be some form of acts of hate, we're going to be told, "Nope, sorry. Legal team has looked it over. Doesn't fit the criteria." And I think when it fits the criteria, it actually is the hate crime, hate speech, which is already something

059that is a criminal offense. So, I mean, I feel like we're doing this to make ourselves feel better. it personally. It's so I'm I'm in agreement then to completely remove it and just make sure that we're doing more restorative practice to to help educate our students and just create a better school climate within within our schools. Okay. Thank you member for member Gallo. Thank you Madam Chair. so one of the questions I was going to ask, Alicia just asked Dr. or Dr. I'm I'm elevating you, John. Mr. Pomerini. He does have a doctor. So I can't call him Dr. Pomearini. Yes. Now it's a jurist doctor, but it is. but that was one of the questions I was going to ask is if this language had been in our code of conduct, would we have

060handled that situation differently? And you clearly said we wouldn't have. how does this language differ from our language around bullying? Like what's the difference between our bullying language and this language? What's do we have like emotional suffering in the bullying? Like what does our bullying language look like? We're pulling it up. But the bullying definitions are generally state statutory driven too. Well, still it's helpful. Yeah. And psychological distress in in our Boolean language. do we don't list bullying in the form of like if we're bullying for religion blah blah like I'm wondering if we could take part of the hate speech and incorporate it into the bullying like so that we're we're we're defining that it's bullying go ahead I think the superintendent so the issue with that is that bullying is repeated, right? It's

061not like a onetime offense. And so that certainly we would be able to include that, but if it's not repeated, it would we would not be able to classify it as bullying. So if it just if it just were to happen one time, we wouldn't consider that. Go ahead. So to answer your question, you could have bullying and it also could be a hate hate crime related. So that's that's part of the enhancements that we're talking about the state allows us to do. So through the investigation, if I bullied you based on your religion or your sexual orientation, then we could say, "Okay, we're gonna check it as bullying, which is going to be the level four offense, but we also would check off that it was hate crime related." It's still repeated, though. If

062it was a one, so if it was a one-time offense, we would deal with it as a harassment. Yes. Go to harassment. All right. Yeah, let's look at harassment because I I agree that I'm not certain that the way we handled the flag situation was strong enough. But I also agree that putting language in that would not have given that incident any more teeth isn't helpful either. So, chair, may I ask another question? Followup, of course. Thank you. so harassment, harassment pertains to if you're harassing somebody based on religion, based on gender identity, based on ethnicity. No. Does that count? Would that be considered harassment or would that be bullying? I mean, if it's just a one-time offense where you are you're insulting or threatening or making fun of somebody due to their ethnicity or

063their gender identity, would that be harassment? That would be harassment. And we will check off one of the other related items. So, it could be harassment and it could be disability related. It could be I'm going to have Miss Haynes maybe read the related items. She has that pulled up. You have it right here. Yeah. No, but I'm asking about a one time like Yes. A one-time harassment could have a related item also. Okay. and then I guess my next question is pertaining to restorative practices. So, what does restorative practice look like in our schools? Because I feel like many, many years ago when we first started talking about restorative justice and we implemented it into our schools, it kind of fell apart. I don't know if it was just we didn't do it with

064fidelity or what happened to it, but I'm not seeing restorative justice or restorative practices in our schools like I used to see when my kids were in school. When I go into schools or when we have conversations, it's rare that anybody brings up restorative practice when I'm looking at the discipline m matrix. It's rare or extremely uncommon for me to see restorative practice as the recommendation for for the offense. So, what does that look like? When would we use it? Is it beneficial? And do we have any data to back it up? So when we look at restorative practice for our level four offenses, we're talking about the counseling sessions that we offer, some of the counseling opportunities that we offer kids as it could be within the school or it could be outside of

065school. For example, we would consider a restorative practice if a kid has sexual harassment and they got a stop and think counseling program or if they are back on track could be considered a restorative practice. Now, when we talk about offenses from levels one through three, I will let Miss Ferno speak on how restorative practice looks at the school level, but when we're talking about our level fours, we're talking about our counseling that the students are receiving. Thank you. Thank you for the question. It is something that we work very hard on in our department and every school does have people trained at restorative practice. is required that we have personnel at every school trained in restorative practices. we do use it quite often with with students. some of the things that came up here

066that we need to be aware of is that it's not required because sometimes the victim would choose not to sit down with their person that they felt harmed them. But we use it as a standard practice when parents and students are willing to come together. It's very effective. We use it sometimes in class meetings. We use it as individual students and sometimes even with adults. And so it's a practice that we have people trained in in every one of our schools. And it is also a disciplinary response in levels one through three. It also is included in four generally less used there because of the sometimes imbalance of power between a victim. they choose not to sit down and have those conversations which is very important because you have to be in order to be

067successful with restorative practice you have to be willing to sit down and address those issues but it is used quite often we do track that data on the referral under the response codes do we see a reduced rate of reoccurrence with restorative practices when used well when it's used well because sometimes used for discipline as a response to referral but sometimes it's used because we see a conflict or hear about a conflict. So, it doesn't always relate to the code of conduct. It doesn't always relate to an offense. And what we find with the data and with talking to our students that when they can come together and verbalize what is what their feelings are it raises that empathy in students because often times students will say, "I didn't know I was being mean or

068I didn't mean to be hurtful." But when they hear it from someone that yes, it was indeed then yes, we cut down on those incidents. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Member Gallo. member Birdie. yeah, thank you. Thank you for that, Miss Ferno, because I know one of my schools, they really focused on that last year or the year before actually. and they saw a great reduction in their referrals and their fights and but they were doing it pre- you know offense and when they immediately when they got conflicts they were bringing kids together and having those discussions. So I I love to hear that they're all doing that. look I think that the board's feelings are moving on this which is fine. I mean, you know, we obviously will go with

069what everybody says, but I still believe that our entire code of conduct is based on makes statements for what the kind of behavior that we expect in our schools. And not all of them are easy to prove. Bullying is not an easy one to prove. I mean like you member Ferrant said, how many times do we hear from parents that my kids being bullied and the school doesn't do anything about it? so bullying is not an easy thing to prove. That doesn't mean we don't have it in our code of conduct that we don't want to see bullying happening happening in our schools. And you know I mean we expect our students to not fight. We expect our students to not to not disrespect teachers. We expect all of these levels of behavior. And I

070believe that we should make a statement in our code of conduct that we expect our students to not target other students based on their religion or their, you know, gender identity or whatever. You know, I think that those are important things for us to say. I think that is what our code is for to outline what we expect in our behavior. So, I'm still I still believe that it needs to be a even if it's just a separate statement that just says maybe it's even talking okay talking about that it's re that we have to report them as cessor can have enhanced legal okay then that's fine as long as I just I don't know I think the fact that it's hard is not an excuse to not have it. But so I thank you

071for pulling it up. If you want to take a minute and look at your screen, we do have it. It's just not a separate item in the code. certainly this is something that when we do the code of conduct review, we can enhance what we say so our students are well aware that this is something that we're not going to tolerate. but it is in it's in the code and I think what is difficult about this particular item is that if a child invokes his freedom of speech which is what what happened recently then it has to be treated as such. all the other situations that we have had and we've had some sadly we have had students that have committed this crime and they have been dealt with but they were not determined to

072I'm sorry I didn't you said something but I don't think you finished your sentence. We have had students students who have committed acts of hate either physically or through speech and they have been dealt with according to the code of conduct. and to my knowledge I could be wrong none invoked freedom of of speech. So this is really the first time in how many years that we have fa been faced with the situation where the act was protected speech but we certainly can enhance our I think it's part of a canvas course at the beginning of the year and every time we review the code that there is an entire section that speaks to this so that students understand that we are going to hold them accountable. Okay. member Douglas. Thank you, member chair. Madam

073Chair, Madam Chair, sorry, I apologize. I do agree with member Salamanca Salamanca about removing the act of hate because I really believe that it's a slippery slope really the interpretation of that could have you know different consequences and could lead to negative outcomes especially in the classroom. We don't need to bring that burden to the principal and to the teachers on top of this because I'm telling you coming from the classroom student will find any you know a any reasons to bring act of hate and it's going to be a really huge problem. So I really do believe that we need to remove that act of hate. Okay. regarding the restitution I have one question. Can could we add that there may be alternative to restitution? Can we add that to your code of conduct?

074And some of the alternative could be community service or any other at the discretion of the counselor. Something that says at the discretion of the counselor. It could be monetary payment you have to pay or you can alternative payments which we could be community service tutoring whatever the counselor think will be needed at that time. Is it possible to add that? So it's a little bit more you know. Thank you. Don't everybody answer at once. we just pulled it up. I want I want to make sure that answers board member Douglas's question. the red the restitution where it says can be arranged I'm sorry could be payment plans or alternative forms of restitution can be arranged with the school principal does that cover it yeah well again I just wanted to have a little bit

075more details on how what could be some of the alternatives so the parents are aware of it community service tutoring etc at the discretion of the counselor and the school principal Yes, we can add that in parenthesis. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Member Douglas. Okay. I may I may be just off track entirely, so bear with me. and bear with this cough. John, you said yours has been hanging around for two weeks. mine's been hanging around for two years. It's called allergies and it's a real pain in the neck. okay. So, sorry. We I guess I got I've got a question for Mr. Palmer. So, we had a situation several years ago where a student referred to something in their graduation speech. I don't remember the specifics, but I remember it really rose to

076a lot of people's attention. and we adapted our practices to now as I recall this speech graduation speech has to be approved ahead of time. Am I correct? So just in the general concept of this freedom of speech I'm trying to understand how I hear what you're saying in terms of a publication because we have ownership if you will of that publication. I don't know how we have own and I I'm not saying I disagree with the approach that we took but I don't I can't reconcile that we have ownership of what that student by virtue of their status that we normally would say if you're this or you're that you get to speak but we get to determine what they say. Can you help me understand the distinction? Yeah. So that unless we just

077got it wrong. No, it the graduation speech is a little bit different. you know, now we have under the under the new statute that came out the one that we just adopted the policy on that says, you know, a speaker's statement at graduation doesn't necessarily imply our endorsement of it. So, that's a completely separate deal. So with respect to speech by students at school, it's it's the Tinker case and it's best to go back to the original principles on this from 1968. So in that case, it was students nonviolently protesting the Vietnam War with a black armband and they got suspended from school for it. And that case went up to the United States Supreme Court and said the Supreme Court said students don't lose their right to free speech when they enter the schoolhouse

078gate. And what the standard is and I have it here. So in order for the state in the person of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than the mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompanies an unpopular viewpoint. Certainly where there is no finding or showing that engaging in the forbidden conduct would materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school, the prohibition cannot be sustained. So applying that language to the situation we had that flag was up for I'm sorry. Yes. Oh, could you Oh, are you going to come back to the speech? Yeah. Okay. You're going to get to that. Okay. Yeah. So applying

079that situation, this case to that situation, that speech, that flag was up for an hour and it did not cause fights. It didn't cause anybody to like, you know, get loud arguments, anything like that. Nothing like that occurred. You know, a couple students saw it, brought it to the attention of the administrator. That did not cause a substantial disruption. And under the Tinker case, when it doesn't cause a substantial disruption, you generally don't get to regulate it that way. So that's the issue we have. Kids have the right to free speech, but if it causes a substantial disruption, so let's say the kid went out and said, "I hate all Jews," in the middle of the courtyard, and all of a sudden you've got a massive fight that breaks out. we could penalize that because

080it did cause a substantial disruption to the operations of the school, but that's generally the test that has to be employed when we're dealing with student speech here is I'm Go ahead. And can you read back? I'm so sorry, but my No, no, absolutely. Do better when I can. So it says in order for the state and the person of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompanies an unpopular viewpoint. The action the action being the prohibition. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. I'm following you now. Certainly where there is no finding and no showing that engaging in the forbidden conduct would materially and substantially interfere with

081the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school. The prohibition cannot be sustained. Prohibition being referring to the prohibiting the speech. Okay. So the point being if you are prohibiting the speech but there is no other ramification that would trigger some other disruption or discipline then you can't prohibit the speech. That's correct. Okay. So with that particular student what did it cause that resulted in us taking away that freedom of speech of other students? It did. No we didn't take away his freedom of speech. What? Well, it said from the not that one because it had been said, but Oh, no, they did. And that student got to that student. So, we did not penalize the student for the content of the speech. What we did penalize the student for was the vandalism

082of the and the destruction of that flag. That's what I'm saying. I forgot about Okay. I'm I am not remembering all real clearly. I thought it was a young woman and I thought it had to do with I'm talking about the speech. Oh, you're talking I'm talking about the speech. I didn't know there was a flag. Back to the flag. No, no, I'm back to the speech. I don't remember the speech having any of those consequences. I think she was actually at the last minute denied the ability and we let her speak here. Yes. But at the same time we then changed the process so that from that point forward the speeches had to be approved which meant that we are preempting freedom of speech when on the previous case we said you're going to

083get to say what you wanted to say because we didn't have a practice in place to approve it. So I get where we can stop somebody from using our newsletter. Right. I do not understand based on what you're telling me about freedom of speech how we can restrict a student's right to say what they want to say unless it results in something after the fact. Help me with that. No, no, graduation the law moved in that general time period too. So you just told us that. So can we still do what we're doing based on where the law so under 102206? So it says the school district shall adopt a policy that establishes a limited public forum for student speakers at any school event at which the student is to speak publicly. So that is

084a graduation. Yes. Limited public forum policy shall require the school district to provide to provide in the form in a manner that does not discriminate against a student's voluntary expression of a religious viewpoint or otherwise permissible subject. Provide a method based on neutral criteria for the selection of student speakers at school events. So and that and for our graduations it's the validictorian saludiator that's neutral right it is yes ensure that a speaker student speaker does not engage in obscene vulgar offensively lewd or indecent speech so we can review prior to to make sure that it's none of those particular things but we can't deny them the ability based on what you said before okay they can have their view yes they can have they can have their view on a particular subject Now, you know,

085obviously what we do when we talk with students who are doing graduation speeches is, hey, remember your audience. This is a celebration of, you know, everybody who's out here graduating. Maybe you want to tailor your message that way. So, we work with the students to make sure that what they're doing is they're remembering why they're there, what the purpose of the speech is for. But if a student really had a strong opinion that I wanted to include something in this speech about some sort of otherwise permissible activity, they get to do it under this statute. Okay, I appreciate that. But does that actually happen? And do the principles know that? Because that to me is I am still stuck in where we were and I hear what you're saying. I don't know that I knew

086that that statute was put in and nor do I know that we now would allow a student to say something. We didn't allow them to say that. So that language that we read from actually is what's in our graduation policy policy. I'll circulate that after we get through here. It's in our graduation policy. So, and it's something that Doc Mr. Martinez and his crew make sure when they're talking with their principles that they are well aware of. So, okay. Okay. Well, that helps me reconcile those two issues. Okay. So, coming back to that couple of different questions. So, one of the things that I've heard by board members and I totally understand the subjectivity of whether something is causing emotional distress or psychological distress or whether or not it was intentional. I think one of

087the things because I'd still like to keep the language in some form is the use of the term intentional, which again is hard to prove, but it shouldn't be that someone did something having no intent to cause this effect. and and it offended somebody, but it wasn't intentional. So I think intentional at the beginning of that obviously makes it much harder to apply but it should be hard to apply because the very act of hate is intentional right I mean you can't unintentionally hate it's so I don't think it's inconsistent to say that if we're going to refer to it as an act of hate it therefore has to be intentional. So anyway, I would suggest that we put intentional if we can keep it. there are things that I can think of. So if

088it was an Israeli flag, I know we talked about this before, but I don't remember the answer. Israeli flag and somebody has peppered it with schwash stickers. It I don't know how anybody could interpret that differently. But if we don't have this, other than the fact that I guess it would be vandalism, that would be the only thing it would be. So if it's swash stickers on an Israeli flag, does that give you a comfort level that would cross the line if we had for for me that would cross the line because of the history of Nazi Germany with respect to Jewish people and the fact that Nazi Germany was responsible for the extermination of 6 million Jewish people. The only way you could look at a Nazi swastika on the Israeli flag is I

089hate Jews and I think they should die. That would be how I would look at it. Likewise, when it's AfricanAmerican History Month, this I'm not going to say what the graphic could be, but it's because it's just too hurtful and too Anyway, but so I think there are symbols that would clearly say this is hate. So, I'll give you the example and this actually went up to the 11th Circuit Confederate flag. the 11th Circuit has said in a decision that you don't have to wait for the substantial to disruption to occur with regard to the Confederate flag because anybody reasonable observer looking at the Confederate flag would predict that it would be disruptive, especially an offensive to the African-American community given what that flag symbolized. Now, that is the outlier case because normally they have

090to allow the substantial disruption to occur before you take that act. But the 11th Circuit has blessed preemptive prohibition on the Confederate flag. Okay. so a couple of other thoughts. We've we've talked about how hard it is to prove emotional suffering and how hyper sensitive and I had an example where somebody went to open the door for me. but I got to the door before he did and opened the door and I didn't have any idea that was going to be taken as offensive that I didn't allow this individual to open the door. So I mean that is just like how like I had to you know huh I mean I was like please I never would have done something to offend you. I just used to opening my own door but so yes we

091have a culture of hyper sensitivity. I agree with that. but we also have both in bullying and harassment we have language that would thrilled. Oh thank you. You're welcome. Who's thrilled? Somebody's thrilled. I is thrilled to work with you. Oh, okay. Well, thank you, AI, but you were no help at all on the Israeli flag issue, and you obviously don't know what the red bloody hands mean, so the heck with you. So, okay, I'm sorry, but we you we do use the term em substantial emotional. We use the term psychological and those are hard those are hard to prove and they're very subjective but we have used them in a lot of places and subjective or not subjective we still count that when it comes to bullying. so the idea that we have things in

092the acts of hate that are difficult to distinguish is not unique to any to a lot of things in our code. Dr. Vasquez, so anytime we've included that, it's because it's in in the statute. It's not Okay, that's why we include them. Thank you. But then that brings me back to the point. If Florida statutes can say that we have to consider these things, then why would we be limited by taking it one step further and saying if it's an intentional act of hate against a group of people that it's we can't say that's wrong in in and of itself. It has to trigger something else. And that's one. And again, the I guess the legislature can can preempt freedom of speech. Is that kind of how that works? No. Okay. Okay. So, help me

093out. So, the legislature and the state board of education through the adoption of rules, and this will be funny later tonight, can adopt things that wouldn't necessarily stand up if challenged in court under the First Amendment. Right? You all as public officials have to presume every enactment of the legislature and the state board of education is constitutionally valid until such time as the court's rule that it is invalid. Okay. And we're protected. Yes. From that standpoint because we followed something we accepted as valid. Well, well, it depends on the scenario. Okay. Right. So, it depends on let's and I'm just going to throw it out here because it's the easiest example in the world to do, right? So, we're currently being sued over the book issue along with the state board of education and what

094our defense in that case is we are not substantively defending the law because we weren't responsible for passing it. So we said it is our responsibility under state law to enforce state law as drafted by the legislature. The state's position in the defense of the lawsuit is we are not responsible for this because it's the local school boards who are responsible for enforcing the law. Now you know it's sort of a circular tautology but given you know direction from the state board and the constitution of Florida constitution article 9 section 2 says the state board of education oversees the system of free public schools in the state. So you all don't have the ability to override the state board of education or the legislature when they make a pronouncement. The courts can say the state

095board of education or legislature overstepped their authority under the constitution by adopting a statute, but you all can't presume that the statute's unconstitutional. You have to act in accordance with it or the rules, you have to act in accordance with it until the courts overturn it. Okay. And but isn't a component of that I'm going off of recollection but isn't a component of that not whether or not the law is constitutional but whether or not we're applying it in a constitutional way. So you have put your finger on the is it facially unconstitutional meaning there's no set of circumstances where it could be applied constitutionally or is it unconstitutional as applied in a particular circumstance. Okay. the let's go if we could to the language kind of the overarching language when we were talking about

096creating a culture which I very much agree ideally we would find a way to create a culture but that's a lot easier said than done with 200,000 students but that language about the unitary it was up here a minute ago Dr. ask because you I think directed us to get to that. Do you remember what I'm talking about? It may maybe it wasn't unitary but it was like okay so this is under parent student notification section 4. So when I read this as a parent, it says that pursuant to JB, all students attending school in OCPS shall be treated according to a unitary code which applies equally blah blah blah. I read that and I don't necessarily think that means treated as in treated by each other as opposed to treated by the school. And

097I recognize when I'm seeing this I should be thinking that, but that's when I see that's not what I'm thinking. I don't think it's treated by each other. I feel like it's the school district has the obligation and I'm seeing some nodding of heads that interpreting this the way you're describing its intent. I think we could change this language to make it more clear that all students attending shall be treated by each other shall treat and be treated according to Yeah. I mean I don't know. I just think we could improve on this to make it more clear because even though it makes this statement I mean at the end of the I mean if you take out all the stuff that we wanted to add if you just leave what we have because I

098thought that one of the points was we have this language and it's good enough without the additional language but I not I'm not sure Yeah, I I Yeah, I said treat it and treat, but I So the policy certainly it replicates the language is replicated from our policy JP. But okay, but again it I mean at a minimum changing this language so that everybody who reads it recogizes it's it's not obviously employees should follow this but it is not directed at employees. This is directed at the way students should behave would yeah I don't have the exact language but does that I'm I'm reading it. I'm sorry. So, our policy JB has the language in there that says all students attending the in the Orange County Public School District shall be treated according to a

099unitary code which applies equally regardless of so it's a direct quote coming out of language. What's in the policy there's next is a grievance procedure for anybody who's claiming discrimination any student who is claiming discrimination on one of these bases. Right? JB since it's JB, it's a student centered policy. Now, I'm not going to have to look closer. You know, generally I think it alleges if there's allegations of discrimination by school officials, you know, teachers, support staff, that would be covered by this. I don't know if it's specifically covers student on student. That's what I'm going to have to read a little bit further. Right. And that's that's where I that language doesn't suggest that. On the other hand, when I think about this is the student code of conduct, then it stands to reason

100this is the conduct of students. It's not how I'm treated. It should be about how I treat. and anyway, bottom line is understanding what this is supposed to mean. I think changing this language to make it more clear that it's not the expectation that parents have of the school district but the behavior we expect of our students in school and we did call it based on the underlying strikethrough it did originally say hate speech. Yes. Well, okay. Yeah, I think we discussed that. It's just Okay. Yeah. So, I'll I'll move on because I think I covered I wanted to to get those thoughts out. and I'm sorry for taking so long. Member Vanos. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll I'll actually just stay on policy JB. and I guess my question I guess we're determining whether

101it applies studentto student and so then it we're also determining whether there are consequences to that, right? So can I give you just a basic overview of it? So with respect to student on student discrimination normally you know students don't have authority over other students to like for JB covers institutional discrimination against students right normally students don't have the power of the institution of the district to discriminate against each other but if you go look at policy add or bullying and harassment policy that talks about student on student discrimination So, for example, if you go to policy add, I'm sorry, I'm just pulling it up right now. When it defines bullying, it talks about systematically or chronically inflicting physical hurt, psychological distress on one or more students or OCPS employees. And it talks about it

102further defines unwant and repeat written, verbal or physical behavior including any threatening, insulting or dehumanizing gesture by a student or adult. And then it gives examples of what would consider be considered bullying, teasing, social exclusion, threat, intimidation, stalking, physical violence, theft. And then it says sexual, religious, or racial harassment. So, while it wouldn't necessarily be covered by policy JB, sexual, racial, or religious harassment would be covered under the bullying and harassment policy. That's where you would typically deal with it. Okay. It's just confusing. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I feel like it's just confusing because all these different parts aren't different policies. It's it's sort of like hard to understand how they all work together. It some of this is the vagaries of state law. We are required to adopt

103a bullying and harassment policy and we are required to utilize the language that they utilize with respect to what is defined as bullying and harassment. So we have to do policy ADD separately which we have done but we also want to make sure that the institution itself is not engaged in discrimination. So that's why we've adopted JB. Okay, that makes sense. you know, just going back to the earlier conversation, I'm I'm, you know, kind of along the lines, I would say, with member Jacobs and Chair Jacobs and member Bird. I think I think it's important that we have something in our code to reflect this. And I know we keep talking about the previous incident and h and how this wouldn't have applied to the flag incident, but and even I think the parent who

104came up to talk about it, I mean her main point was just like let's have a conversation, right? I mean even if we're not changing that specific outcome or it wouldn't have changed that specific outcome, it's just it's about a bigger picture and it's about raising awareness about an important issue. and I do understand that the emotional, you know, going back to the trying to determine someone's emotional impact or distress. and I understand that's hard. I also agree that's not a reason, you know, not to do it, especially when we have reasonable fear and psychological distress in our harassment and in our bullying offenses. I do wonder though maybe a way that we could think about this is if we and and Cher Jacobs kind of alluded to this like what we're really focused on

105is the behavior of the perpetrator. So, you know, maybe if we talk about an enhancement or an act that's related to the their intent and we don't even it because really I don't know that it matters what the v you know the the victim is the v they can feel their feelings, right? But really what we're trying to stop is or we're trying to highlight or we're really honestly just trying to educate is, you know, talk about is the intent of the person doing the act. And I'm I'm less concerned about about speech and words and more concerned about offenses that are committed with an intent to focus on a particular person because of the particular class they're in. Intent's always the hardest thing that we have to determine when in in law. So, you

106know, to use an the legal standard that we generally use. There's direct evidence of of intent, which is I hate all Jewish people and that's why I did this. That would be direct evidence because they've said it directly out of their mouth and there's no question as to what the intent is. Then there's the circumstantial evidence. So I heard somebody else talk about how will we determine that? Well, you know, if a kid makes a statement that's against some sort of certain religion, you know, and then, you know, the victim says, "By the way, I'm friends with this person on Instagram or, you know, they're my friend on TikTok, and here's evidence of, you know, anti-, you know, anti-affrican-American, anti-, you know, sexual orientation post that this kid has made." Then you can use that

107evidence as circumstantial evidence of the of the person's intent. That's always the circumstantial evidence one is always the hardest one because they'll come in and say that's not my intent. And so you can say, well, but I have 15 posts where you make anti-, you know, African-American statements or anti-, you know, woman statements here. That pretty much gives us evidence that it that is your intent. It's circumstantial evidence of it. So, it's going to be a case by case. What do I have in the file? What can I think I can comfortably prove under a prepoundonderance of evidence standard, which is what we use in student disciplinary cases to determine whether or not I can show that there's intent there. But it's hard without having evidence in front of me to say, you know, there's

108no hardened bright line rule. Yeah, I mean I get that. I but I think a lot of times and when we are determining discipline in our code I mean it's really it's almost it's often based on circumstantial evidence. It's based on what these students said happened like what their opinion of this event was. So we don't we don't cross-examine people in our discipline code. It's, you know, unless someone admits to something and discloses their intent or discloses that they did, you know, X offense, it's really often circumstantial evidence, right? I disagree with that. I I do think that there are some cases where if it's a he said, she said, and in most of those cases, we give the benefit of the doubt to the students being accused, so they don't even receive the consequence.

109we typically look for hard and fast evidence, whether that is witness statements. It's actually why we pursue the person that's being accused. Is there anyone you want us to talk to? Is there anything you want us to look into that would prove your innocence? so I don't agree with that statement. I think that there are some that are difficult but most of them are not. Okay. Thank you for that. I guess those are just my comments. I guess I would just say if we're concerned and I hear member Verant and member Salamanca's comments about, you know, hard to determine someone's emotional suffering. but I think that we can focus more on the intent of the person. And I know that is hard too, but I feel like I I think that is doable. And I

110think maybe that's a way we can still recognize that these acts of you know that these acts of hate speech are or acts of hate are not tolerated in our schools and I do think that's important. Thank you member Vanos. Oh, it's me. Oh, I don't know how I got back up. Member Felder up next. I'm sorry. I don't usually I just usually Thank you. I forgot to click myself off. Thank you. Me what an engaging conversation here today. I'd like to thank our Meek and her team and for your work and of course John, you're such an astute Jewish Jewish doctor of law. We thank you. and I'm listening to all of my fellow board members and this you know this is going to take greater discussion and we have deliberated quite a while

111but I do want to say in defense of the restitution policy that this district has adopted and I have to go back to my frame of reference. I have to draw from that as a teacher at Edgewater, it worked very well. it because and you're right in saying that sometimes parents the children that are involved may not want to do that. So we have to have in policy a fresh alternative in the event that they want to do that. But if it is done right, and it was at Edgewater, administration was on board. And when you got the students by themselves, aside from the crowd and so forth, it was the the problem was so minuscule and minute. I mean, they were able to to get along and and do this correctly. I do understand

112the discussion about the language and what is really hate speech and and that again because of our expertise here on this board because we were elected in this position based on the fact that our constituency believe that we had the ability to successfully advocate for them. With that being said, we have clarity, you know, intention and I know you all my fellow board member Maria Salammonica. Salammonica. Yes, I got it right. Salamanca. Yes. Yes. Salamanca, we do we agree to disagree and I appreciate your respect from that end, Maria. about this whole thing about term endurement, but I think if we continue to just divvy on that, we will run oursel in a foxhole. As I said ago, some time ago, and we talked about this, because of the music, because of the colloquialism that

113our students have adapted based on their environment where they are, and you know, it would just we'll be we will be back up here constantly talking about offense. However, I do think that we have to make sure that our students do have the opportunity to practice fair speech. But because we're educators and it is our appointed duty to construct, to instruct and teach, there are certain things we must let them know. You can't do this. This is not the right thing to do. you even though you have the desire to express yourself and we wanted you to have this free speech but there are certain things you can't say you you have to have respect for other people's religious beliefs their sexual orientation and their their racial identity you just have to respect that's the

114thing that defines you as human and growing up into adulthood so it is our duty to teach them because they don't know. We must remind them, this is why we create the policies for them. I'm hoping that as we continue with this deliberation that when we put together the policies that and I think someone mentioned it, I don't know if it was u member Bird that parent somebody about parents making sure that they really understand this language. I think that's what's important. the parents must understand or the legal guardians must understand what we're trying to say to them with regards to the policy that they and their children must follow if they're going to be a part of Orange County Public Schools. It's important that we make that make that clear. I just want to

115ask one question. And I think you probably already talked about and it's probably because of the way it is board member Angie Galla was telling me we this thing on hate acts of hate when you talked about shall be treated according to unitary code which applies equally regardless of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, marital status. Okay. Are we talking about because our children sometimes go to votech schools they're adults there but the children are not married. Is that just a standard thing? Can we stop talking? Mr. Pome. So sometimes we do have emancipated minors who are married under the age of 18. So that would cover this. All right. Thank you. I knew there was an answer. I just wanted to make sure. Okay. Well, I'm I'm I finished. I just wanted to

116express that those points that I made and thank you. Thank you, Member Felder. We have a couple more board members scheduled. I do want to just comment on one thing. we have had a work session where we were missing one board member and we tabled this if you will till the next work session where we were missing another board member that being me. I would encourage the board to try to land the plane. This is only a work session. It's not a final decision, but I would like us to come out of here with some direction, even if it's two directions, so we can move forward. But let me defer to the superintendent on your thoughts on this as to whether or not we should walk out of here with the goal of having another

117work session. Right. Okay. Yeah. thank you, Madam Chair. honestly, I believe we've beat the horse enough and but I want I'm more than welcome to hear other comments. It's clear that there are some board members that believe that without the language, we will not be able to effectively deal with acts of hate. Others believe the language is in there and so after the comments it'd be I would appreciate if we just took a vote or an informal showing yeah reach consensus so that the team can make those final changes. We don't anticipate that there's going to be anything from the state that's going to impact our code so that we can actually have it ready to go before the start of the next school year. So I appreciate you asking us to land the plane.

118All right. Thank you. Member Ferrant. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, can I just add one thing? I'm sorry. Please, Mr. P. Just for the board's awareness, we have a rule development workshop on this policy next Tuesday. Next Tuesday. Thank you. So, we need to have language to have that done. Yes. And I think the word consensus I believe legally is unanimous. Am I right? But that's not how we mean it here. No, no, just general one way or one way or the other what the direction is. All right. Thank you. All right. I'm sorry. Member Fant, you're recognized. Member so I continue to think really from the discussion that we've had. so my vote is to remove it from the code because it's just to me it's there's too much gray area and if

119it is something that would be considered an act of hate under this code it would actually from what I'm hearing would be a hate crime or hate speech according to what Mr. Palmerini has mentioned. And so if that's the case, maybe there could be a statement that says acts of hate that you could be prosecuted by the law under acts of you know or the hate speech, hate crime and kind of define that. but that we don't tolerate acts of of hate and that you will be one of the other cuz bullying, harassment, all the other incidences that we've discussed. I would love to see at the beginning of our code of conduct to have something that says golden rule statement. here in OCPS we strive to do to others as we would have them

120do to us. and that, you know, before you do anything, think to yourself, is this something I would want somebody to do to me? And then move forward. because that really is what we're in the grand scheme. That's what we're all sitting here talking about. What would we want done to us? What would we want? And what do we want to teach our students that when they get out of our school, you know, anything that you're doing, if we're teaching them this and it's in every classroom, the golden rule, you know, the more you push that on kids, the more they go, you know, what is what I'm, you know, maybe they would think twice. so to me, that's even almost restorative practice in itself. that would be my suggestion is to have some sort

121of golden rule statement and really kind of push that and remove the whole acts of hate from the I like it in the section four parents and student notifications acts of hate kind of define that a little better that says you know if you're found to be to have done a hate speech hate crime time that is something that can be prosecuted under the law. and so maybe have it a little more defined there. otherwise I think it can be more confusing and cause more issues with having it within our code. All right. Thank you, Member Fant. just a technical clarification. I think the board knows, but we're not going to actually vote. So giving your opinion on this at this point in time is very helpful. Member Yes, I know it is. Yes. And

122member Salomar. I mean if if the board really wants to have this my main thing would be I would want to see it as an enhancement, not as a whole standalone. I think a whole standalone is a pretty high burden of proof. I know that the definition of bullying and harassment that comes from state is fluffy and gray, which we constantly are frustrated with when the state does fluffy gray policy. So, I don't like to then use that as an excuse of like, well, their stuff is poorly defined, so why don't we also do poorly defined policy? I hate bad policy. I hate policy that is hard to enforce. I hate policy that when it goes down to our principles on our teachers, it's setting us up for more gray zone. So like sure, the

123state is broad in its definition of bullying and harassment. Therefore, we should do broad hate speech and what not and let's see if we are violating constitutional first amendment or not. So I don't have that comfort. I do believe in free speech. I believe that depending on what the issue is and that's what the court case said. John, could you like remember the popular part of it of the that it was like that the two lines on the popular like Yeah. It's like whatever the opinion is popular. Yeah. Students don't lose their right to free speech at the schoolhouse gate and you know something more than a desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompanies an unpopular viewpoint. Yeah. So I believe there's many unpopular opinions depending on what the day is in

124this political world and I think people fall on different parts of a popular or unpopular opinion whether it's Israel and Gaza Palestine even the definition of what you can call it is unpopular or popular. I think to remember Felder's point of belief, right? It all comes down to what I believe and we must teach kids what is good or bad and their belief system is let's say it wasn't an Israeli flag. Let's say it was an LGBTQ flags with blood all over it. And there's people out there that truly believe that is a crime against God or a crime against religion. That is their belief. I am no one to tell them what they should believe. And just because one is more popular or not or one is more acceptable or not, I don't like

125to be in the gray zone. And I think for me when I think of policy and my role is to do policym, not just like I want to teach kids, you know, values because I think that's really hard to put ourselves in. Of course, I want I don't want disruption, right? So I can create a policy that says if you create disruption, there will be consequences to disruption. That is the consequence of something you did. That is a clear policy, right? It's an observable thing. You disrupted or you didn't disrupt. Therefore, I can create a consequence for it. But you hurt someone or your intent was to do something. When in criminal law, like prosecutors spend so much time collecting evidence to prove intention. It's social media history. It's it is witness statements. It is

126all this stuff. I have a hard time saying I'm going to put that burden of the work on teachers and principles to define that this is an act of hate and then if they get it wrong I'm going to put that burden on this board to decide the case by case of is that flag on the LGBTQ popular unpopular hate speech or not hate speech because it depends you can pick right now it could be immigrants immigrants or criminal that's a statement it's free speech is it full of hate because you might hate criminals that you might and you might hate therefore immigrants maybe. I don't want to be in the position to be making those value decisions. So, of course, should we teach people don't do bad things? Of course. And that's why we

127have a code of conduct that explicitly says if you do certain things, there are clear consequences. But to the superintendent's point of view, the more we can stick to policy that is both fact checked and clearly defined and observable to then punish a student because we have proof, that's great. I don't like to be on the state side of thing of like this fluffy definition of gray. Let's just do more of that fluffy definition of gray and figure it out as it comes. So, I just think that just puts us in like a really uncomfortable situation as a board. So, if this board still wants to keep it, that's fine. I'm not for it and if we do keep it my only thing would say can we have it as an adjustment to an observable

128thing. So if a student did create disruption and on top of that it was some form of hate then that is an enhancement to the policy but to the to the consequence but like a standalone acts of hate of speech on the code of conduct I have a lot of discomfort in and I do not feel like it is maybe the state would defend it on first speech. I wouldn't feel comfortable in saying that I am protecting as an elected official the first amendment. I that would be my opinion. All right. let me respond. Let me respond to that because I definitely understand what you're saying about the state creates fuzzy stuff and we complain about it. So, let's not double down on it. as as a parent and a member of the community when

129I see that we have these others but this doesn't rise to that level I don't I don't know that the message to our students to our families is the same when they see these are subjective but this one we're not going to have I gave some thought to your concept of attaching ing it to and was even wondering if there is would be a way to modify this language to say that when it results in one of these which is kind of the same thing as tagging it on to the end, but it's a little more prominent and I could definitely support that. I will say that we're still going to end up in that gray area. Whether we attach it to or we attach those to this the fuzzy gray area that you're concerned

130about will always be an area we're going to wander in, which is true of a lot of our code. So anyway, so you know the so let me hear from we still I still prefer the language that we have here, but I think that there should be consistency between the language we're putting in the actual code and the notification because it is slightly different. kind of says the same. This says it occurs when a student intentionally selects And the language that we're talking about in the code, if you read it carefully, it does it says repeated acts. By the way, it says repeated under the acts of hate when I thought we were talking that bullying requires. Anyway, it says repeated acts or attempted acts to cause. So, when it says to cause that means

131it's intentional. but I had to I had to go back and read that relative to this. So, the language that we have under level four doesn't say repeated. If we add this here, it doesn't say repeated. I'm not saying it needs to be repeated. I just think it should be consistent. I actually don't think it has to be repeated because if it were something so flagrantly obvious to us example being Israeli flag swash sticker, I don't think it has to happen more than once. So I don't think I'd put repeated but I do think I would make that intentional very very prominent because of all the comments that you all have made. We discipline people not for how somebody else feels. We discipline people for what they do. That's the act of discipline. So I

132think that makes a lot of sense. I hope that maybe gets us closer to landing the plane without there being a swing vote. actually we won't have one because we don't have all the board members here. So I don't see anybody else wishing to speak. Member Douglas where you Okay. Yes. Dr. Basquez clarif we need to clarify why it's why one is singular and the other one is not. There is a difference. It's I believe it's because of the level of the offense but Oh okay. Thank you. Thank you. Correct. So there was a level three in which it happens one time and then if it happens again it would be a level four event. Perfect. Then then the only other observation I have was like instead of it saying two, if we could just

133make it more clear that it's intentional, it says it. We can leave it the way it is. It says it. You just have to read it carefully. I didn't read it carefully. Forget I just said that. Okay. Erase the last 30 seconds of the tape. any other board members have comments? Okay. direction moving forward. Member Gallo, your we're keeping this language that we have or we're removing the language. Your thoughts on this? so I understand the concerns surrounding this and I understand board member Salamanca's worried about burdening our teachers and staff with language that is not clear. however, once an incident happens, it's usually reviewed by our discipline team. So really the burden is going to fall more on our discipline team than on our school staff. so I'm kind of struggling here cuz I

134I agree with member Bird's sentiment that we put in the student code of conduct the code of conduct that we expect to see out of our students, our expectations of how they should behave, how they should treat one another. so I'm I'm kind of on the fence. I think that we do need to have something and I'm fine if we want to put it at the top, but there needs to be something in the code of conduct on our expectations and our zero tolerance on the acts of hate. I don't know that was helpful, but that's that's where I am. That was that was kind of helpful. Yeah. member Banos, sorry I feel like I talked a lot, but just I just wanted to be clear. I think that I this is a tough one.

135There's a lot of things to think about and I'm thinking about all of them. I think where I'm coming down right now is that we need to have something. And right now I'm probably leaning more towards the enhancement sort of the enhancement of an offense. So that's where I'm leaning. so in doing that, this language could be amended to say an act of hate occurs when a student intentionally selects a victim because of blah blah blah blah blah. And then it would list the types of things that would result from that would already be covered in other areas of the code. Member Bird. So if we took it out of the actual code as an offense and left it here and the notification part as an enhancement then we would we would state that in

136here. So we need to change this language then to say that it would result in a higher level discipline. And we could still keep in the code acts of hate but identif and then we would identify the when it is u destruction of property in the cont. Yes. Yeah. Okay. It would have a standalone place where you would see it, but it would tie back to another discipline. Yes, Dr. Bas. So, I'm very confused. I thought I was on the same page. So, I heard enhancement, but then I heard keep it in the code. So my what I originally thought is that we would not have it as a standalone that we would enhance the language that we have where we have here section 4 to include that if a you know this could this

137would result or would be in effect if you had like another another con. We could specifically list examples of what that would be, but that it would not be part of the code, but that's not that I don't think that's what you just said. So, I want to make sure that we're that is that is what I thought, but then the chair said that we would have it in the code listed. know cuz I actually thought that member Salamanca and I maybe had found a compromise and I knew that I had folks over there that weren't comfortable and we have folks over here just happens to be one side or the other that want it out some want it in. So member go ahead. So maybe if you don't mind, let's first see if we

138if they're in favor of having it as an enhancement, and if we get consensus around that, then we can then we then can look at what that verbiage would be, where it would be placed, so that it's clear because it's two separate things, separate or an enhancement. Mhm. But the separate could be an enhancement because it would only be triggered if it I need to define what separate means that it's not part of the consequences that's currently listed. I don't I'm doing this with my hand to try and have it scroll. So, I guess the question would be, do we want it as an offense, as a level three, or a level four, or we're going to add more to the definition that we have in section four on the parent and student notifications? Member

139Salam. Yeah. So, when I was one, I'm against having it, but if we have it, the way we find the compromise was that enhancement. And when I was thinking about enhancement was at the last meeting John and this is more like the criminal case of enhancement. So in criminal law when someone commits a crime of hurting someone of vandalism or something that's one crime then there is it gets enhanced to a higher penalty perhaps because it has the additional hate component but it's not I guess in this standalone version is like let's say I don't do any of the above like I don't vandalize something I don't bully someone I don't harass someone but I say something or I mean it's it's broad that is considered a act of hate. The question would be is

140that on its own a standalone thing even though they didn't do anything else. Are we good with one? Like the only punish like the only thing they did is just acts of hate. And that's why it is the whole standalone, right? Like right now any of these things can stand on their own and receive consequences. And so what I was saying is I don't like this as a standalone as the only thing to receive a consequence for because I think that in order to have this effectively done, ideally it is already on top of something else that is more observable and proven, right? They vandalize something, they hurt a kid, right? They punched them because of this. So, so my whole thing is on the enhance. I'm saying that we don't want to encourage it.

141So, there should be a more severe punishment if that is the enhancement we agree on, but it would be on top of not a standalone. But, does that make sense on the I don't I don't know how I defer to staff on how that is structured because I don't know that we have enhancements anywhere else in the code of conduct necessarily. So this would be kind of like the first time that we don't have like a standalone but an enhancement but that is a little bit more parallel to it is actually done in the law right and may I suggest like so just as an example we have destruction of property vandalism let's say and a level two is under $100 right so let's say we have somebody who breaks like a I'm just making

142it up like a game or or some sort electronic item that's under $100, but they did it because, hey, this kid's Jewish and I don't like him and I wanted to break his stuff. There is a level three vandalism that usually deals with property that's above $100 but below I think $750. Are you all saying that if you can prove that they broke this kid's electronics cuz the kid was Jewish or African-American to take that level two from a level three? Is that what the is that where the board is? That would be an enhancement. So, I can only speak for where I am. I think you can accomplish the same thing by identifying acts of hate as a separate standalone that I see it. Acts of hate would include the same things that we

143would include for harassment, for vandalism, for all those other things that we were going to make this enhancement. We would say that an act of hate is when and then it would list that the victim is selected based on da da da da da and then it would be all those other things that it has to trigger. So, it would have to result in a destruction of property. It would have to result in a meeting the qualification for harassment. It would have to trigger one of those other but it wouldn't be an add-on perceived that when somebody looks at it, they don't have to like go, "Oh, wait a minute. They actually do care about when this is basically a discrimination." Because that's kind of what we're saying. You have all these violations. This is

144about discrimination and a violation. But when you put discrimination and individual violations, I don't think that strikes me as discriminations is a bad thing as opposed to oh, it's an afterthought. It's about it. It's it's it's about appearance, how people perceive our priorities. And I think our priorities are pretty high when it comes to discrimination above bullying one person versus bullying a whole se sector of bullying is a really hard one but so yeah I'm sorry madam chair so I'm I'm confused and so I just want to back it up a little that my understanding was that we would take it out of the levels, have a separate section that would deline del delineate what the board is asking for with the specific, you know, examples. But now we're back to it would be part

145of one of the levels. So I actually that what you just said that it would be a separate section. What I was hearing was it will fall under whether it's destruction of property. You'd have maybe a level two. But if it meets that it's a discrimination against a segment of our population then it would be a level three. So that there's not a separate it just gets enhancement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is just from my standpoint, it's just about whether you call attention specifically to an act against a segment of our population that triggers something else has its own place in terms of seeing it versus a read the fine print and you'll see that yeah you have you it was destruction of property so it's a two. It's a destruction of property but

146it's against a segment of population it's a three. bullying is a two, but if it's against that, it's a three. So, you can do it that way. And I think that was member Salamanca's suggestion as an enhancement. I'm saying I think you can get to the same place by defining whether we call it a act of hate or discrimination against whatever you want to call it, that it has to trigger one of these other violations. Choose to remove it or just Well, you can remove it. You can put it in as an enhancement and list it each time or you could define it here, but it only is triggered if it hits one of these other areas. Again, it's what I'm arguing is we get to the same outcome. I just think a more prominent

147position is that you see it here. you recognize that it has to also meet the definition of bullying that you got. Anybody got a Yeah. So, and then I will give up after this. Okay. So the last part where you're saying that it has to trigger something else, it wouldn't be possible for us to then code it as acts of hate because if we're saying it meets bullying and then it's hate crime related processor, we're going to have to code it as a bullying offense. Does that make sense? Is there a and that the enhancement would be bullying but it's hate crime related percessor. Okay. So in order for us to does cessor have a definition associated I thought you said it did to hate crime. Yes. Okay. So but you're so the way you

148explained it and yeah correct me if I'm wrong. You're saying that you would like to keep the offense but it would have to trigger for example bullying. Yeah, but if it triggers bullying, then per state statute, we have to code it as bullying. Okay. With a hate crime, we wouldn't be able to code it as the local offense. Okay. But if it's defined as hate crime, you have to code it hate crime. Correct. So if it's bullying and we find that it's because of a protected class, then yes, we would code it as bullying with a hate crime related offense. Okay. Hate crime related. If it's not bullying, it's just hate crime. Do you have to code it as hate crime? So, okay. So, does Cesar have a separate and distinct code for hate crime?

149No. Oh, that's what I'm sorry. I must not ask the question correct. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So, we would either have to code it as our local offense, acts of hate, but if we're saying that no, this is bullying and they were bullied because of based on a protective class per Cessor, we would have to code it as the bullying and not as our local code. One more followup, but Cessor does recognize hate crime. So, they Yes. So, they would have a bullying. you would code it primarily as bullying, but then it would be hate crime related. Okay. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I would be fine with that. member Bird, can I can I ask a question that'll I think clarify maybe. So, so we could take it out as a separate

150offense. But on our referral form, there could be a another box to check hate related. This is hate related. And then in our parent notification is where we say we are required just like we do for the other other cessor things. If a c if a offense is hate related then the it will be reported as right madam chair may I please? We have that already. Yes. Okay. So, I'm going back I'm going back to what is probably not a popular comment, but we're going round and round trying to deal with a situation that was political speech. Okay, that we're there again. And so I just want us to be able to try and land the plane with what you want us to do. We currently do have what board member Bird was describing in

151the and if I'm mistaken, please let me know where we have had situations where there have been hate speech. we've been able to deal with it with the current code of conduct. and I know we've had sadly we've had more than a handful of those situations. So maybe it would help if we could understand better understand from the board what it is that you're wanting us to capture that's currently not in the code. And I think maybe that's where I'm I'm struggling because I think what we have talked about we capture in the code currently. Member Vanos. I am not going to attempt to speak for everyone here. I think what I am trying to capture is drawing attention to the fact that we do not accept, you know, these these offenses that are perpetrated

152based on, you know, one of these these classes that are that we've described in this code like that's I think it's bringing attention that we don't accept this. And so right now, you know, like you said, we have had these issues, but we haven't really drawn attention to them. And so I think we need to make sure that students understand that this is that if you know, if the offense is directed to someone based on the things that we've outlined that there will be enhancement to the consequence that is currently in the code. That's what I am seeking. As long as it's not deemed Excuse me, Madam Chair. As long as it's not deemed political speech. Correct. Okay. So, Dr. B, you say we have that in the code. Where is it in the code?

153Yeah. go ahead. to Mickey, would you So within our offenses, for example, you mentioned destru destruction of property. If we determine that they destru destructed the property based on hate speech, then we could check off. I'm just going to say maybe it was a level three offense. It'll be a level three offense and then it would be hate crime related. So we do have related items. So I'm asking you where is that in the code? The related items are not in the code. Okay. So when you want you want those definitions in the code is what I guess. Well, yeah. The point is if you're saying you're doing something, but I don't see it in the code. I don't understand how you can say you're doing something that's not in the I know what you're

154saying, but I should see that in the code. And okay, we can add those related items. We can add that to the code. Yes, but we've been doing that all along. We've been enhancing the discipline without it being in the code. Well, it's No, no, go ahead. I'm I mean, I think you guys are using the term enhancement. It's not enhancement. is just because hate speech or hate crime is not an offense. But if you determine one of the offenses that's listed in our code is related to hate speech or hate crime, we have to report it to the DOE. And do we have a different consequence? No, we do not have a different consequence. I'm still troubled that we are reporting something to DOE that we haven't defined and we haven't listed. I just

155if we have to report it as hate speech, why is it that in our code we don't explain what that is? It's not even listed. I don't get this. I mean, and what we have under the parent notification doesn't tell me anything close to that. I don't get the feeling that this is about what a student does. It's more about it's the language we picked up about the rights of students in our policy. So when you when a parent looks at their student profile, what they're going to see on their student profile is the offense from our student code of conduct. The related items comes from Cesar. I I understand that. I just if we have to mark it as related item, obviously it's important. I think if it's important enough to be reported, it

156ought to have a place here where you know that is a factor. And it's important to me that is a factor. And I think most of se members pretty well split feels like this is important enough for people to know there is such a thing. And if the consequence is nothing more than it gets reported to the state, I don't even know that if we don't make some changes. Dr. Vasquez and then I'll go to member Salamanca. On the referral, what is it? Because that's what the parent receives. What's on the referral? So on the referral towards the bottom, you have your assessor offenses, the things that must be reported. So on the referral, I'm going to just use a level four. I'm just going to say bullying. If the bullying was determined, it's a

157level four, but it was based on hate speech. Hate speech is also checked off as one of those related items on the referral. On the referral. Yes. And how it's reported to the state. It's also reflected that way. Yes. Right. Except that I don't have anything here as a parent that tells me that hate speech is even defined. So I think it should be here if it's getting reported even if nothing else happens. I think it should there should be something that says there is such a thing and here's how it's defined. Mr. Pomearini. So I think the simplest way to do this just is thinking about it. I would in that section on page 54 say couple things. One pursuant to cessor requirements we have to if it is found to be an act

158of hate we have to report it to the Florida Department of Education as required by state board rule. Add that in. number one. Number two, to get the board to where I think you all want to go, to the extent we make a finding that it is an act of hate, it could enhance the penalty, i.e. take a level two to a level three and you and we can even use the vandalism ex example and just have those two sentences. One more sentence. I'm reading that. I still don't know what makes it an act of hate. I know it. You and I know it. that it has to be singling out based on your this that or the other. And I think if we include that, then I go, okay, wait a minute. It can't

159be that this kid hated that kid. It has to like you explained that one situation where he called him whatever a Jew lawyer, right? That's not why he did it. So, I do want to make sure that when somebody reads it, they go, "Oh, it's not hate speech." If it's one person not liking another, it has to be about a segment of our population. So, it and I think the language that says an act of hate occurs when a student intentionally selects the victim because of any protected characteristic. Yes. I think that language is in the revision. So I think that gets you the two things you mentioned and that language and I think we got it covered. Yeah. Now that but the other two sentences if it's found to be an act of hate

160it gets reported to cessor pursuant to state board of education. There's other two sentences and if there is a if there is a penalty that is we determine that the act was an act of hate. We will enhance the consequence from a level two to a level three or what and use that as an example and we'll get where we need to go. Okay. I'm done with that. That's that's okay. Member Salamanca that I feel like we've been talking different languages because this is so when we got the flag example, we got a folder that had the referral in it and it had a check mark that said hate crime and the one of the things that created all the conflict was the fact that then we undid it and therefore the parent, right? And

161this is part of the process, right? which is on the ground who checks that box and then when it goes up the chain of legal and schoolboard that getting unchecked is what creates conflict. Right? So my existing stance is that the existing process we have accounts for the documentation of what this is. What we don't have right now is that we don't have any escalation or enhancement of punishment because of this. So overall, I was saying it's really difficult to define hate speech or hate crime. Therefore, I have a time I have a hard time telling our teachers or parents to check that box, it's just going to create the same thing over and over again of maybe the definition goes up and down. So if we are to still say we want an enhancement,

162we want an increase in consequences of that, then that's when I was saying it should it shouldn't be a standalone. And it should be and the way that it is currently set up as an additional enhancement, whatever additive thing. But I agree with you, we should then just have it here in that form because parents see it in the referral. It's been it's what they've been seeing, right? and I don't know if there's any other thing on there that enhances stuff that is ESS related that we aren't adding on here, but if there is, maybe we should pull it. Mhm. There are a couple of sections that have the little boxes underneath it that you check for that. I can't see. that's so yeah. So my whole thing is I think our current thing addresses

163this. It includes it. The only thing it hasn't addressed in the historical context is the punishment being more because of this. But I think the threshold for defining hate speech and proving it should be high. And I my conflict with the policy is that a teacher or administrator might check that box at the point of something happening and that doesn't make it so. And so I don't know if there's a process question of don't check the box until like maybe there's a recommendation of that checkbox but then it gets down because the minute the parent gets the referral they see that was checked correct whether that is correct or not and that is what ends up creating a lot of procedural that's a very good point. It's really hard for us to undo the checking

164up that box. Well, two things. One, I'd like to know if there's a procedural way because I think that's a really good point. And two, I think in this language that if we also have the caveat that the whole issue of freedom of speech so that people know ahead of time, wait a minute, it's not what I think. There's actually a legal parameter on this would be helpful as well. So, we're not creating the wrong expectations coming into this. Mr. So the whole that sentence about it's going to be reviewed for compliance with law. Yeah. Just being transparent here. I didn't want to suggest potential defenses for students to an act of hate by saying, you know, freedom of speech and that kind of stuff. That's that's why I did it this way. I would

165suggest we keep it this way. Number one. Number two, with respect to the whole process issue, remember the referral is the initiation of the process. We have a whole DTM process where a student can come in, but we notify the parents that, hey, you're entitled to a DTM hearing. You're entitled to present fact and evidence. So, we could have a DTM, and I'm sure Mickey's folks have done this where they present evidence. Hey, this is not a hate crime because A, B, C, and D. And you're like, you're right, it's not. So this is the initial charging document, but at the end of the day, there's a whole factual place where they can argue their evidence and then there's an additional level where they can have an administrative hearing where they can argue their evidence

166and that's what the whole disciplinary process is. So it's less concerning to me from a due process standpoint. I understand the whole, oh god, my kid's just been charged with a hate crime. that would set me off as a parent, but there's multiple choke points within the process that would allow that to fall off if the evidence isn't sufficient. Right. And as the parent of the victim, I don't see that. So, I'm not going, "Whoa, that's what it was. Whoa, they took it away." Yeah. No, I think that's good. Well, are anybody objecting to the direction we're going? Anybody know what it is? I think we do. I think I know what it is. I think John and I and Mel Salamanca think we know what it is. I'm just hoping next week that's we

167all thought we knew what each others were thinking. So, okay. So, let me summarize. Yeah. So, we're going to have the language that we have here on page 52. You know, we have the acts of hate occurs when that language stays in the all charges under the under the category the act of hate must be reviewed for OCPS by the OCPS office of legal services for compliance with law. That stays in. We will add question for you. right now are we under notification to parent? Yes. Yes. As opposed to under the code of student conduct. Yes. That's why I was summarizing where I think we are and then tell me if I'm wrong. Okay. we will add a sentence that says pursuant to cessor we have to if it is determined that it the student

168committed an you know an act of hate and I will certainly draft this much better than I'm saying it right now that has to be noticed to the Florida Department of Education and through cessor pursuant to the state board of education rules if it is found that the student committed an act of hate when committing a penalty or whatever a charge an offense that if they the level will be enhanced from and we'll give the example level two vandalism to level three vandalism we'll add that sentence in and as I understand it the separate offenses under level three and level four that we have currently in there would come out that's my understanding of where we are that last part again oh the level three and where it's acts of hate is listed in level

169three and level four that would come out. Madam Chair, may I may Okay, so we have two versions that we've prepared. We've only looked at one, but the second version just eliminates the separate categoriz categorization. I can't even speak. what is being proposed is that we take that part out and under the section acts of hate we enhance the language in there to describe what's going to happen if you commit another offense and it is deemed to be hate related hate related it will bump it up I mean that's not the legal terminology So it would be spelled out explicitly in that section but it would not have it would not be up in this like in the different levels. Okay. But when I'm looking at the actual violations and the consequences, the consequences are

170greater because if it gets defined as an act of speech, which we're saying elsewhere when we are dealing with the after the offenses, what is it called where it's the consequences the consequences will include that the consequences are going to be elevated if it include if it's deemed to be an act of of hate. So it will be stipulated. We already have it in the referral but in the code of conduct that will also be stipulated. Okay. So, but we have I don't remember if it's here or if it's in that kind of like a spreadsheet says if you do this and it's level three this happens will it be there that it's clear to me that's where the enhancement occurs. So if it's destruction of property and it's a level three, unless it's also

171an act of hate, then it becomes a level four, which is what we're talking about. It's enhancement. But in that spreadsheet thing at table, it's not going to say No. No. But well, if you're saying it's a level three, but it might be a level four, but you don't say why it's a level four. For everything else, we might say it's a one-time thing. It's a repeated thing. It's happened before. or now it's a but when you put when you put the language on the notification of parents because that's in the code of conduct it has put everybody who reads it on notice that if they are found to have committed an act of hate as part of an underlying offense their penalty will be bumped up. You don't need to necessarily have it in

172in every section. Just by including that language within the narrative on page 54, it gets you where you need to go. It serves as notification from from a legal standpoint. There's ways that if you put it in the in the if you had a separate offense in each level, you could do that. Honestly, I think that's going to be more confusing to folks because they're going to see that it's a separate offense. And from what I've heard from the members of the board up here, I'm not necessarily sure that there's consensus to have it be a separate offense. Yeah, I'm actually not talking about that. I'm I wish I had the table in front of me. I'm talking about there's a level three when it happens once. There's a level whatever two when it happens

173once, level three if it happens. Huh? The discipline ladder. Yeah, the discipline ladder. Yeah. And I just don't understand how you can say something's a level three or it's a level four and not say why it became a level four. Just because you're saying whatever it is doesn't matter what it is. No, I Why wouldn't that be in the matrix? Why you're going to pick one of them? Right. So, trespassing. Is that the matrix? Okay. So, you're doing anything in the matrix. Pick anything. Okay. Let's not do trespassing just because that like not the best one. Let's try destruction is the easiest one, I think. Right. Go ahead, Dr. So, on the referral, Uhhuh. we would have vandalism or destruction of property and then there would be the little check mark on the bottom of

174the referral right or isn't that where we have the indication I don't have the referral in front that says hey crime so on the referral it would have that and then when we report it to cessor it would also reflect that correct does that make sense no yeah it does it does I just it seems like Everything else when it goes from a three to a four, there's an explanation of why it went from a three to a four. It would be on the referral. Yes. And then it would also when we report it, it would also be there till I've broken the rule. And I wanted this is so you know before you break the rule what the consequences are. But we're explaining that in the section in the narrative which we can make

175that I mean we could move where that is placed. we can highlight it, bold it, make it bigger. font but that's where we would be explaining that destruction. No, go down. Go down. Okay. Destruction. Willful malicious destruction of board property. breaking or damaging things that belong to the school or someone else. Okay, that's a level three offense. How does it get what's the difference between the level three and the level four? The for destruction of property. It's a the dollar amount. Okay. Okay. So, we tell why it's a four and or it could be a four. Same dollar amount, but hate related. Yeah, it's hate related. Yes. Right. I'm just saying if we're going to tell the dollar amount for three and four, we ought to explain that it could have been a four because

176of maybe that's complicated, but so I think I'll just give up. What I'm understanding is that you just want parents to see that a level three can be enhanced to a level four if it's based on if we determine that it's an act active hate. Correct. Yeah. I want to see it where Okay. It's not. So would it work if we put it in one of these paragraphs here? So this is a level three. Okay. So we can do that. Okay. Yes. What I wanted to say? Yes, we can do that. Perfect. Yes. So, it won't it would it be under a specific offense, but we would say that a level three can be enhanced to a level four if it's determined. Yes. Perfect. Much easier. Very good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, member Bird.

177Sorry I didn't could have shut up. 15 minutes. Okay. Anybody have an a problem with the direction we're going? Yay. Okay. Good. Okay. We have seven minutes for a real development workshop. Dr. Vasquez, I think we're ready to move on. We can Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I think we have the board meeting, but I thought this is Oh, good. Am I wrong? Okay, good. Do you have something else? No. Yes. I'm sorry. I The restitution we didn't come to I can't hear you. I can't hear you. And I restitution. We didn't come to a consensus on Please. Okay. So, yeah, we need we need that. Thank you. She's like, we were there. So close. All right. So, let's go back to restitution. All right. Six minutes. Counting down. I Okay. It's my understanding that we

178want to leave it. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Just like I said before, we just need to add and specify that we have alternatives to that. So I don't know if you already took notes of what I said before. Okay, that perfect. That's thank you so much. Examples. Okay. Okay. Example, that's the one that was either, you know, we could do community services or tutoring or restor. Yeah. Yeah. Alternative. Thank you. Okay. Just write it down. Okay. We got All right. Anything else? Yay. We got five minutes. Anybody want to talk? No. Okay. So, this meeting is now adjourned. We'll see everybody back here at 4:00. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.