OCPS | 2025-05-06 School Board Work Session

001good morning and welcome to the Orange County School Board's work session which has been scheduled today, Tuesday, May 6, 2025, for the purpose of discussing common final exams and progress monitoring activities and JIC code of student conduct. The public will not have an opportunity to participate in this work session to provide public comment because this is not a regularly scheduled schoolboard meeting. No action will be taken and there will be no open public comment period in which the public normally addresses the school board on relevant topics that are related to the work of the board. Thank you so much for being here with us this morning. I am I believe we have vice chair Bird, member Salamanca, member Ferrant, member Douglas, member Vanos, member Felder are all here in present. We have member Gallo on

002the line. Member Gallo, are you there? Yes, good afternoon. Good afternoon. And Chair Jacobs is absent today. As a reminder, board members will not be engaging in outside electronic or digital communication during the meeting so that we can focus on the matters immediately before us. To my fellow board members and district staff when speaking, please make sure that your microphone is turned on and that you speak directly into it so our YouTube and Orange TV viewers can hear you clearly. And again, thank you for participating in today's meeting. We're going to start with a moment of silence and then the pledge of allegiance. Now for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and

003justice for all. Okay, I am going to turn it over to Dr. Vasquez. thank you, Madame Vice Chair. this afternoon we are going to begin with our first presentation on common final exams and progress monitoring activities. the board has had some discussions around CFS common final exams as well as progress monitoring activities question related to is this too much is this contributing to too much testing? Why do we have to do it? what's the difference between them. So, we're hoping that today's presentation is going to clear up some of the misconceptions and as well as give us direction should the board look to make any changes. our we have a wonderful team here. I'm so excited to see them. They are all under the direction of Dr. Border, our strategic officer, and I will let

004him introd begin and introduce his team. Thank you, Dr. Vasquez. Good afternoon, Vice Chair Bird, members of the board. Excited to share information with you today, relative common final exams and progress monitoring activities. Have an incredible support team here that I work alongside each day to share with you today. Our senior executive director Sasser, senior director Allen, and director Librisat. So, I'm going to turn it over to Ben and Casey to take us through the presentation. Thanks again for your time. Great. Thank you, Dr. Border. Okay. In this presentation, we will be will provide information about the district's progress monitoring activities, PMAs, and common final exams, CFES. We will begin by reviewing the statutory context and history for how these programs developed, then look at each one individually. We will conclude with a discussion about

005the advantages to our current approach. Let's start by discussing the statutory rationale behind our current PMA and CF assessment programs. Passed in 2011, the Student Success Act amended several state statutes related to assessment and evaluation. Section 108.22 of the Florida statutes was updated to require that by the 2014-15 school year, school districts must administer assessments for every course offered in the district. This assessment requirement was the catalyst for the common final exam project. Before the spring 2015 administration, the state lifted the requirement for course specific assessments. This change led to the cancellation of all elementary CFEs except for fifth grade specials and K5 therapy courses. Because the obligation to measure student performance for all grades and subjects remained in place, the CFES continued in OCPS. Specifically, although the district developed and district selected end of

006course assessment requirement under 108.22 lost effect in 2015, districts were still required to measure student learning growth and achievement for all grades and subjects, including those not assessed by statewide assessments. These requirements are outlined in section 1012.34 of the Florida statutes. During the same year, 2015, the state also amended its approach to measuring student performance to include achievement. Florida statutes require that one-third of instructional and administrator evaluations be based on data and indicators of student performance, such as student learning growth. To meet this requirement for courses that don't have a state or national assessment, results from common final exams are factored into teacher evaluations. For the 2223 school year, for example, over 4,700 teachers received at least a portion of their student learning growth rating through a common final exam. Just briefly also in February

007of 2024, OCPS conducted a survey to gather feedback from instructional personnel who taught at least one CF course during the 2324 school year. Teachers were asked to choose between two methods for calculating the student learning growth component of their annual evaluations. The first option was to continue using CF scores for their annual evaluation and the second option was to adopt a relication methodology where statewide or national English language arts or mathematics assessment scores for their students would be used for their evaluation. For example, for grade five music teachers using the relication method, the Florida assessment of student thinking or fast ELA assessment scores would be used in their SLG calculation. The results of the survey show that 59% of respondents preferred the current approach using CFES with only 24% favoring the relication of state or

008national assessments. The Florida State Board of Education has provided additional rules that clarify the requirements for district instructional personnel and school administrators for their evaluations. They provide formulas for state value added modeling calculations for English language arts, mathematics, and algebra 1. And these models inform those that OCPS uses to measure student growth. Florida's school improvement system established in statute and rule is a statewide network of strategic support differentiated by need according to school grade and federal accountability outcomes. State Board Rule 6A-1.099811 establishes differentiated intervention and support strategies and reporting requirements to review and monitor student performance for deficient and failing schools. This rule references that progress monitoring should include the continuous review of assessments that inform educators about ongoing student progress for mastery of Florida's grade level standards in mathematics, English language arts, science, and

009social studies. A district that has schools identified by the state for support to improve student performance must implement support and improvement strategies that include using formative and summitative assessments that are aligned to the state's academic standards. PMA outcomes can help schools monitor performance at the school and subgroup levels to help meet this requirement. because they provide data throughout the year. Progress monitoring activities can be used to monitor student progress as well in multiple subject areas. This can be helpful for tracking students who are below proficient. According to section 108.25 25 of Florida statutes. Each student who does not achieve a level three or above on the statewide standardized English language arts assessment, the statewide standardized mathematics assessment, or the algebra 1 EOCC assessment must be evaluated to determine the nature of the students difficulty, the

010areas of academic need, and strategies for providing academic supports to improve the students performance. Additionally, the statute requires a schoolwide system of progress monitoring for students who are not meeting the school district or state requirements for satisfactory performance in English language arts and mathematics. It's important to note that the state does not offer progress monitoring assessments like the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking for Algebra 1 or geometry courses. The Florida Department of Education verifies that districts meet certain requirements through the annual school improvement assurances. Districts with schools meeting certain requirements, such as earning a school grade of a D or an F, or schools that have a significant gap in achievement on statewide standardized assessments by one or more student subgroups, must have an approved school improvement plan with strategies for monitoring and improving results.

011The school improvement plan must include a description of how ongoing monitoring will impact student achievement outcomes for each area of focus. So, I'll now turn the presentation to Casey to talk about the structure of progress monitoring activities and common final exams. Thanks, Ben. Let's move on to progress monitoring activities or PMAs. PMAs are focused on instruction and align to standards assessed by the state. The primary purpose of the PMAs is to inform instruction through actionable data. PMA should not be used for grading purposes. The district's curriculum and digital learning department hosts professional learning or facilitated planning days in response to each PMA to help teachers take action on available data. OCPS provides several resources for teachers to learn more about PMAs. When viewing this document, each of the buttons above is a clickable link, but

012I'll give a quick preview of what you'll find on each site. Our PMA site contains information about managing assessments, including scripts and reference documents. The next button takes us to the distractor rationale, which gives teachers a clear idea of the skill or content being assessed, the associated misconception for each wrong answer item, and it's tied to OCPS curriculum documents known as curriculum resource materials or CRM. This valuable information allows teachers to differentiate focused instructions based on student needs and plan for how best to readress the topic in the future. The PMA report site contains information about PMA outcomes, links to reports, and information about how to access access the information in performance matters. The final button takes us to our turnkey presentations page, which houses ready-made presentations that school staff can use to present information

013about PMAs to others. Part of this turnkey includes PMA family reports, as well as additional information that schools can use to send PMA student data home to families. Templates are provided in English, Spanish, Haitian, Creole, and Portuguese. PMAs are administered in subjects that are assessed through a state end of course exam or the statewide science assessment. Algebra 1, geometry, civics, US history, and biology assess content from the current year. Grade 5 science measures content from grades three, four, and five to mirror the scope of the state assessment. Similarly, grades six, seven, and eight science PMAs include some content from throughout middle school science courses. We received a request from curriculum and digital learning based on teacher feedback to add PMAs for grade six and grade seven science. Since the grade 8 assessment is a cumulative

014exam covering standards for grades six, seven, and eight, the PMAs allow for progress monitoring of those standards across years and give teachers timely data to address student learning needs, fill gaps in understanding, and facilitate remediation opportunities. Students take the PMAs three times a year. Having district-wide testing windows is part of a standardized administration. They help to ensure that all students take the activity at around the same time, which is crucial for comparing results across different schools and classrooms. This allows us to identify bright spots, areas of concern, and adjust instructional supports as needed. The PMAs are administered online and accommodations are available for all students with IEP and 504 plans. This includes platform-based accommodations like texttospech and paperbased accommodations like large print or braille. The development administration of PMAs are secure meaning the specific questions

015are not shared with teachers, students or parents but remain secure to ensure clean data and the ability to analyze item level data to strengthen the test each year. The PMA development process involves many different groups of staff. The assessment team analyzes results from prior assessments to identify the tests and questions that need the most attention, and they facilitate the writing sessions. Content leaders from curriculum and digital learning create the blueprint to ensure the activities alignment to state standards and to the OCPS scope and sequence and curriculum documents. They also attend and support the facilitation of the summer writing sessions. After being selected through the nomination process, OCPS teachers participate as the main item writers and reviewers. As all participants are involved in a whole group review process where each item is reviewed for standard alignment,

016complexity and difficulty distribution, bias and sensitivity issues, spelling and grammar, and other key factors to ensure a fair and balanced assessment. Once the itemw writing team finalizes the activity, it goes through three additional rounds of review at the district level before being published for administration. Okay, let's move on to our common final exams. You'll notice many similarities between CFS and PMAs. the PMAs we just discussed. One major difference is that CFS are only administered at the end of a course. CFS are designed as summitive assessments. This means they are used to evaluate student mastery of the priority standards taught throughout a course. CFS serve as students final exams, removing the burden of creating these final exams from individual teachers, streamlining the assessment process. OCPS provides several resources for teachers and test coordinators to learn more

017about CFS. When viewing this document, each of the buttons above is a clickable link, but I'll provide a quick overview of what you will see on the next few slides. The CF IMS site is a SharePoint site where teachers can go to find important documents related to the final exams administered. The second button takes you to the CF outline site, which includes the outline themselves, along with guidance documents to help teachers understand how to interpret the CF outlines. These documents show the standards that are included on the assessment, the number of questions aligned to those standards, and annotations that clarify the scope of how the standard is represented. Rubrics and checklists are also posted for those courses with CF performance assessments. The 2425 assessment crosswalk provides a list of courses taught in OCPS and the

018assessment to which they are tied. And the final button takes you to the CF administration guide, which is modeled after the FDOE's assessment manuals and includes all required security forms and scripts used for CFS. CFS are implemented across a wide range of subjects and grade levels. For grade five, CFS are created for specialists courses including art, music, health, PE, and world languages. CFS are also created for K5 ESC therapy courses. At the middle and high school levels, CFS are developed for all courses that do not have a state or national standardized assessment. This ensures consistent and reliable evaluation across all subject areas. All students who are enrolled in a course associated with the CF are required to take the assessment, which creates consistent data collection and evaluation across all students in those courses. In alignment

019with the district's student progression plan, CF constitutes 20% of the students final grades in secondary classes only. Teachers work together at each school to determine how to convert score outcomes on the CF to the grades they enter. Elementary CFS are not used in course grades. As discussed on a prior slide, a complete list of the courses in their associated assessment is available on the 2425 assessment crosswalk. The assessment department publishes this document every year and works with labor relations to notify teachers of the crosswalk at the beginning of each school year. And to give you an idea of the scale and importance of this effort, the assessment department manages approximately 970 CFS representing about 1,140 courses across both the semester 1 and spring CF administrations. CFS use two test designs, multiple choice and rubric or

020checklist. The selection of which test type is used to use as a decision made by test writers when they create the assessment. The decision is often made in collaboration with content experts from the curriculum and digital learning department when applicable. Our test writers possess deep knowledge of the specific content areas and pedagogical best practices and carefully consider the nature of the course material, the priority standards, the learning objectives, and the most appropriate methods for evaluating student mastery. The time required for grading performance tasks versus multiple choice tests is also discussed. As with PMAs, test windows are part of a standardized administration for CFS. As these are designed to replace a teacher's final exam, they are administered at the very end of each semester with a special administration window aligned to senior schedules. The semester 1

021CF administration is taken by students enrolled in semester 1 half-year courses. Students take CFS in the spring for four-year courses or halfyear semester 2 courses. The assessment department works to ensure that both computer-based and paper-based accommodations are available to all students with documented IEP and plans. CFS are secure high stakes assessments, so the specific questions are not shared with teachers, students, or parents. This ensures that no student or staff receives an unfair advantage from the assessment and the content remains secure, providing clean, comparable data for students and staff. This also provides a strong foundation to strengthen the test each year. Teachers are able to access information about the assessed standard through the test outlines and assessment content is aligned to standards assigned to each course by the state. The development process for CFS involves teachers

022from all over the district. When t taking the number of CFS and the number of OCPS teachers into account, this becomes a large-scale project. to manage it. CF writing sessions occur in a large venue such as a ballroom or high school media center where anywhere from 30 to 100 teachers are writing at one time in a collaborative setting. Some years require more staff than others, such as when new courses are added to the district's course code directory or when the state makes changes to course standards. The assessment department requests principal recommendations for the CF writing sessions through deputy superintendent memos. Teachers may also complete an interest form if they would like to participate in the process. We sent information to principles and teachers earlier this spring. The assessment department provides principles with the opportunity to

023review the list of teachers identified to participate in CF writing and provide feedback. One key feature of the district's development process is that OCPS teachers are the content experts. Over the years, thousands of teachers have participated in the CF creation and revision process. And I'm gonna have Ben take over to wrap up our final session. Great. Thank you. And now we'll discuss the advantages of creating our assessments locally. By creating our own products, we have greater control over the quality and maximum flex flexibility to adapt our assessments to match today's fast-paced, quick changing educational landscape. The OCPS assessment development cycle guides the creation of common final exams and progress monitoring activities. It is a comprehensive process that addresses assessment creation, publication, administration, and revision. It is similar to the assessment development cycles used across the

024industry. Most CFS and PMAs are written and revised in the summer. This includes reviewing priority standards for CFS and test blueprints for PMAs, then developing items as needed. Once items are developed, they go through a series of review steps. This involves verifying the items against the test blueprint and making any edits needed. Items are then loaded into assessment shells, which are then reviewed again and copy edited for content. This is also where PMAs get reviewed for potentially concerning content. Once assessments are reviewed, they are published in performance matters and through hard copy for students with accommodations. Students then take the assessments as we discussed in previous sections of this presentation. Once we receive the data, different teams conduct analysis to determine next steps. These can include analyzing from an instructional perspective to understand how students

025are performing and what strategies might be needed to improve outcomes. and it can also include operational analysis to understand item and test quality. These analyses are used to identify potential revisions across both assessment programs. After the initial development cycle, the process tends to move faster since we focus on revising existing items and tests instead of writing brand new assessments. Writing our own assessments affords the district several advantages. The first part of the assessment writing process emphasizes alignment of the assessment to specific standards. Our writing teams use state standards and district curriculum resource materials to create assessments that are aligned with the material students learn in class. CFS and PMAs provide information specific to the content that students learn in OCPS. In many courses, there are too many standards to measure on one assessment. Writing teams

026work to prioritize the most important standards in each course. This leads to assessments that can measure students depth of understanding on these priority standards. By creating assessments from the district office, teachers have a consistent assessment with everyone else teaching the same course. Our assessments remove potential variability in assessments across schools. This aligns with other efforts in the district to establish one common approach or one OCPS. Using the same assessments across the district provides a large data set that we can use to analyze outcomes and refine the tests themselves. Statistical values such as Chromebox alpha, p value, and item discrimination help future assessment writing teams identify assessments and items that may need revision. Finally, PMAs and CFS are both written by OCPS teachers and supported by district content specialists. This process empowers teachers while also providing

027them with a paid professional learning opportunity to learn about assessment writing and collaborate with others to deepen their understanding of standards and content. This helps build networks of teachers, especially for those who are the only person in their building who teach a specific course. After our assessment writing sessions, we ask participants to provide us with feedback. Here are some of the comments summer session writers left on their PD evaluation forms. Collaborating with other teachers of the same subject area opens up opportunities for students to learn in a different way other than just your own. That was from a secondary science teacher. A secondary social studies teacher said they will be bringing back content items and specifications, which is from the CF blueprint, back to her PLC. While an elementary art teacher described how this training

028strengthened standardsbased instruction. A secondary ELA teacher said, "By having clear, objective data, I am able to better differentiate to close student learning gaps." Pas specifically help support the district's PLC model and address the four key questions. What do we want students to learn? How will we know if they've learned? What will we do if they don't learn? And what will we do if they already know it? At this time, I'll turn the presentation back to Dr. Vasquez for any questions. Thank you, Ben. I see you kept your statistics in the presentation. So appreciative of that. Always like the flashback to my stats class in grad school. great job. Really, really appreciate the expertise. just a little bit of history. for some of our board members who may not have been here, several years ago, there

029was concern from the board that there was too much testing and actually did away with all of the progress monitoring activities. and they weren't PMAs, but they were our benchmark assessments. and that really was a detriment to the students and to the district because we could no longer monitor. We had more schools that did poorly and we could not react because we didn't have the data. the state's change in assessment tools with the fast assessment really has helped us eliminate some of the progress monitoring tools for ELA and mathematics because we have a tool that gives us information at the beginning of the year, the middle and then at the end. So that has been extremely helpful. the teacher the feedback we've received is that it does help drive instruction and so the PMAs that

030currently exist are outside of the courses at the fast test in ELA and mathematics. Additionally, we surveyed our teachers a few years ago again in response to the board's concern about too much testing and can the teachers sorry if the teachers would be willing to take the school on the either ELA or math assessment in lie of us administering additional tests for those subject areas that were not covered. And at that time the majority of the teachers did not want to relinquish their BAM score l because that ultimately that's where it lands to another test on another subject area. We have again reached out, I believe, or in the process of reaching out to the classroom teachers association to survey the teachers again, the membership to see if that sentiment has changed. we have absolutely

031no issue. In fact, I'm sure the team right there would be thrilled if they did not have to worry about the CFS and we just use the state assessments to determine the VAM scores and align with what's in state statute. But at at this point, we're still relying on the feedback that we received from the teachers a few years ago. So now we are open to questions and comments related to this topic and look for any direction you may be providing us. Thank you superintendent. we have board member Gallo on the line that would like to ask a question. Thank you madam chairs. So I have a few questions. I would like to know first off in regards to the PMA and I think that you answered this question which was very beneficial. we use

032that information not only to inform the PLC's but also to use the information to let parents know where their students are and to help improve student outcomes. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay. I have less of a problem with the PMAs than I really do with the CFS and I've been a vocal opposition of CFAs since I've got on the board. And my biggest issue with it is a word that was used during the presentation which called the CF's high stakes testing. I'm not a fan of high stakes testing and the fact that we are doing high stakes testing on students really for the sole reason of evaluating our teacher is disappointing to me because I feel like that time could be better used to continue our children learning to to continue the learning

033process. I hear from parents all the time that they're going to pick their kids up early or they're not going to school, especially in middle school and high school because of the testing block and what happens at schools when we have to go to like block scheduling that some schools do and essentially some students are sitting in in cafeterias or sitting in the gym for long amounts of times while others are being tested. so I'd like if you could to speak of that when I'm done with my questions, like what typically happens when all this testing is going on. and then I was looking at the minutes that Dr. borders than us in the testing schedule. And it looks like what we knew to be true in fifth grade and eighth grade really have a

034substantial amount of testing and the minutes that are reflected in the assessment calendar do not even include the PMAs and the CFS and because they are high stakes and they have to be administered the way that we would administer the fast. Does that shut down learning more often in our school year? I guess is my question. And then finally, I know that it was really popular with our teachers when we asked them about CFS, but I would be interested to know if at the time if we knew that using CFS or going to getting away from CFS and using other methods of testing that we already have like the fast testing to evaluate teachers. When we pulled the data on CFS versus the alternate testing we would use or not alternate but the fast testing

03553 teachers would have gone down in their rating but 168 teachers would have gone up. So I'm curious to know if we presented that information to the union and to the teachers if we would get different results on the survey. I'm just really concerned about the amount of time that our kids spend testing. I talked to a teacher last week and we were talking about charter schools and at this particular school kids were leaving to go to a nearby charter. That's great. And then I asked a question, why is that? Why do you think they're leaving our school? And he said that parents are fed up with all this testing. They're just fed up with the testing and the loss that of instruction that comes with the testing. So I understand the PMAs and I

036understand that they probably have been replaced. They replace the I Ready in allowing us to determine how a student is learning and that information is beneficial. But I'm still not seeing the connection of the CFS with our strategic plan or how it informs instruction or improves student outcomes. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair May. Thank you, Member Galloway. Yes, Superintendent. Okay. So, first I want to make it perfectly clear that we do not have an issue doing away with CFS and using the assessments that we have. This has been done because of feedback that was received by teachers a few years ago and even prior to that. For example, you may have had an art teacher that did very well and the school maybe didn't perform as well in reading and they felt that their score

037was impacted because the reading ability versus the content the child had learned in art were not the same. So, we do not have an issue not doing CFS. as I mentioned the and Rob stepped out, but I believe if they have not, they were going to reach out to Mr. McCracken to gather that feedback again. and we can use that to make a decision. The board can say just don't do the CFS. use the assessments that we have. but I do know it was a huge concern for the teachers. at the at especially at some of the schools that struggle with some of the scores. To another question board member Gallow had, yes, the schedule changes it changes at elementary, middle, and high school because of accommodations that have to be made the number of

038proctors that are needed. And so that happens during the CFES. If of course we eliminated the CFS, that would be reduced significantly because then we would only be looking at the state assessments, the AP IB and ACE assessments that would contribute to the teachers score. Madam Chair, may I? Yes, you may. thank you, Dr. Vasquez. And I and I want buy in from the teachers. I don't want to push anything out there that they don't want. They already have enough on their plate, but I would like to revisit it, as you mentioned, with with Mr. McCracken and see if we're still in the same place regarding the CFS. I understand that if we could get rid of them tomorrow, we would. And I'm hoping that we can find a way to do that just to

039eliminate some of the time spent testing testing our students. Other than that, I just want to say this was a great presentation. I learned so much and I appreciate the team taking so much time to walk me through it when we did our one-on-one last week. And I would also argue that we should be teaching literacy in every facet of the school. like we should continue that learning process even when they're in art. So if you have a great art teacher, I would hope that art teacher is incorporating literacy or math within their art and it's just a continuation of learning that happens throughout the day. Thank you. Thank you, Member Gallow. member Ferrant. Thank you, Madam Chair, vice chair. so my question was just on the FAM scores. Could we elaborate a little more

040on that? I feel like I have not heard that statement before and maybe I have and I'm just missed it but could somebody just kind of explain it a little bit. The FAM scores. Is that what they're called? VAM. Okay. I wrote FAM. So, yep. So, just as a brief description of VAM because it would be a it's a much larger topic that we could go into and we'd be happy to provide more information. VAM stands for value added modeling. It's a family of statistical models that are used to identify what is a teacher's contribution to a student's performance changes. So it uses a variety of controls to look at school level factors, teacher level factors, student level factors and try to to parse out what contribution an individual teacher had to a specific student's

041growth. And there are there's a state VAM model. I think that's the part of the presentation where we referenced state VAM. there are defined attributes and characteristics of state VAM models and then we also run our own VAM modeling for SLG calculations that largely mirror the state VAM with a couple of adjustments. So we're using common final exams whereas the state VAM is using the state assessments for English language arts mathematics and algebra one. Okay. And so a follow up on that if so just so I am clear then so if a teacher is not in those three criteria for the state for instance with the so it's English math or science if or no algebra yes then how would they don't receive that score then so they would not receive a state VAM rating

042but they do receive a student learning growth they receive for their purpose of their teacher evaluation based off of their CF, they do receive a rating based off of that CF subject. So that CF helps cover all of those teachers who are not in one of those state assessed subject areas. And then so are we doing CFS on top of like so say is okay are we doing are we doubling up on testing on any or it's just to kind of cover for like we talked about the PE correct teacher art teacher it's it's a wide variety of subjects and teachers so 970 exams across over 1100 subjects but no they do not double up so for example there's not a fourth grade ELA CF that doesn't exist because we have the state assessment data

043that we can use for that purpose. Okay, that makes sense. I think that was it. I again also wanted to just say thank you so much for the information and I thought it was really helpful. I agree. I think all of us would love to see less testing. I definitely agree with the what member Gallo said. I saw it firsthand with my own kids where if if their class wasn't testing, but they had to be stuck in a class for two hours because somebody else's class is testing. maybe, you know, there's something we could do to make it a little more like worth a child's while to like come to school during those time periods. Or maybe we could try to I'm I know everybody's tried to think of everything, but if there's a way

044to maybe u put our minds together to think of a better way that we could provide the testing but not at the detriment of kids maybe who aren't testing at that same time where they could still continue with their classes and those kids are just being pulled out for the testing. I don't know how we would do that, but that's that's on you. to it. Thank you, member Fant. Member Douglas, I just want to say thank you so much for your presentation. I appreciate that. I just want to speak from the teachers perspective just coming out of the classroom about five months, six months ago. I just wanted to express my frustration in testing because we had test we had instruction time from September to December and then in December the kids were not coming

045to class. One part of the kids were going to this part this one is going to and then you end up in a classroom with three or four kids. What do you want to teach? So it listen at the end of the day what we want to do is to you know instruct our kids to make sure that they have enough information to be tested and we forgot instructional time. We need more instruction and time than the testing time. We need to have those kids in front of us so we can give them the information so that they can be ready to be tested. But if they're not there, you can test all you want. you're not going to get that, you know, that grade that you want because they did not get that information

046that you're looking for. There is no instructional time. We need to really focus, I think the main thing should be focusing on instructional time and then the testing after. I really believe and I agree with member Gallo that too many testing. It's really really frustrating teacher as a teacher. It's just you know you wonder why you here. I mean, I've been proctoring more than I've been in a classroom with all my students. Not right. Okay. So, that's my take on it. Thank you. Thank you, Member Douglas. I'm queued up next and I'm going to kind of I want to kind of explore this idea a little bit more about getting rid of the CFS and what that would look like. I understand what it would look like in elementary school. you'd be asking those specials

047teachers to take the school grades. but I need to understand a little more about secondary. like for example, looking at high schools and all the courses that are not tested, which are quite a lot. how would So the 10th they have like the ELA, it's like 10th grade ELA, correct? So whatever, how would that look as far as would that be like all the teachers in the school or just all the 10th grade teachers would for different courses would receive that score? Like how exactly would that work if say tomorrow we said we're done with CFS? Could you explain? I'm going to let Ben answer because my recollection is that it's the students they teach and their scores. So, it's not the schoolwide, it's whatever students. Oh, they're nodding. I'm like, I can't believe I

048remember this. so they teach, let's say, 200 students. The scores of those 200 students would make up their score. And you can probably explain it much better than I did. I don't know that I can, but I'll I can restate. It's It's very similar. There are a lot of ways that this could be done. So the current approach with SLG takes the students that are in that teacher's class uses their common final exam result and applies that to the teacher's outcome for their student learning growth component of their evaluation. Essentially, we would replace that CF score with another score, whether that's the ELA assessment result from the school or that's the mathematics assessment. It may be the SAT outcome depending on what grade level you're in. So there's high school gets there's a lot of

049nuance in high school as you're pointing out. so which specific assessment goes in there is kind of an open question but that's the general approach of matching a student's results to the teacher that has that student and vice versa matching the students to the teacher to create the overall outcome. Interesting. So yeah that's that do we know are there I mean I don't know what this looks like across the state. Are there districts that are not that just use that kind of data for their teacher growth scores? Yes. Yes. Among the large urban districts, it's kind of split between schools that will apply a methodology similar to what we do versus those that will use something more like that reassignment of scores that you're that we're kind of talking about as that alternative option of

050using a state score. the specifics of those methods can vary and that would be something that we can certainly dig into with the districts because that's the details are where it really gets interesting on this one. Yeah, I would imagine so. And you know, I'm even thinking of kids that are in dual enrollment, you know, for example, taking their English 101, English 102 through Valencia, they're not taking the English or the 10th grade ELA. so then, you know, there's no way to really do that. So, it's interesting, but I am all for exploring it with the teachers union. because we really do at at some point you have to decide what's best for kids. And as member Gallow said, the amount of and member Douglas, the amount of time that these kids are getting, their

051whole schedule is getting disrupted is really an issue. And you know, I was thinking about you said that CFS serve as like the final exam in classes. You know, we've had final exams and classes forever in high school, right? But the whole school didn't shut down when you had your algebra or when you had your whatever algebra 2 final exam. Whereas now it's like the whole school shuts down and you know, for example, my daughter's home today because the algebra and geometry exams are I'm sure your son's home too. But it's h it's literally like one day a week what it seems like that there's some kind of disruption in scheduling where kids are not getting instruction. So, I just feel like we have got to figure explore it, see how we can do it.

052And I'd really like to be kept in the loop on this quickly because if the board needs to make a decision about this, then I think we need to do it because because it is a major concern for not only and for teachers, as you've heard. I mean, I understand they're concerned about their scores, but they're also I do also hear teachers complaining about the same thing, like there's so much interruption in the instruction time. So, I would love to explore that more. okay, and that's all I have. We have member Vanos next. Thank you, Madam Chair. I too support whatever we can do to limit the amount of time that we're spending testing in in our schools. And I also have high schoolers and middle schoolers who tell me that they don't have to

053go to school three days a week because there's testing and they're not doing anything anyway. and I really have no way to verify that. So, so they go, my kids go to school, but but I'm I'm feeling that. And I and I think it really just does contribute to this bigger picture of of absenteeism and like why are we going to school and this is just another example of you know students deciding that they don't need to go to school because it's not important. So I just think that's just a big picture thing to keep in mind. I mean, personally, and I guess this is a question. My guess is I know I probably know the answer to it, but when we're talking about evaluating teachers, like I would love to evaluate teachers based on

054student attendance and how often students show up to their class. is there any way that could be incorporated into teacher evaluations? it looks like general counsel wants to pipe in here, so I'm going to let him take the wheel on that one. Wanting to is a relative term here. honestly, what has happened here, and I've experienced this from the very get-go when Senate Bill 736 came in, the minute that they put the student learning growth portion of the of the teacher evaluation in there and it says you have to measure three years worth of student data. There's really very difficult ways that and it's very hard to do anything other than have some sort of exam tied in to these folks score. Now you I'm married to a fifth grade art teacher, right? She's one

055of the ones who has a CF and she has been worried not at her current school but a previous school she was at. She was worried about reliance upon the scores for English and math because that's not reflective of what she's teaching. Now to your point, she's teaching literacy. She's teaching math concepts in her art class, but she's still not there dayto day in the 90-minute reading block. She's not there for the 45 minutes to an hour that they're teaching math a day. And so she would not be being assessed truly on the performance of her students in her subject matter. So when these tests came in, it was to meet that student growth learning portion of the evaluation. That language is still in there. It is still required to be a third of teacher

056evaluation. And unless and until they pull that out of the teacher evaluation statute, I don't see how we're going to get around having some sort of evaluation. Now, with respect to English and math, I've sent you all the list of the courses that are judged on the value added model. I've just done that for you. That's the statemandated formula. We have to utilize that. Those scores come out of the testing that is statemandated, but the other courses are judged just as much on student growth data. And it's three years worth of data for those students. And I mean, it's one of those things where the superintendent has to determine, frankly, what kind of test best measures that student growth and is it testing the subject matter that teacher has taught all year or is it

057giving them the score for English and math there? And you know, a lot of teachers want to be judged on their own merit, especially since this student learning growth helps determine what kind of performance pay they get. Can I ask a follow-up? What is the differential in pay that they get based on these evaluations? So, under the statute, effective has to be anywhere between 50 and 75% of what we give a highly effective teacher. And is this are like the salary or just saying the bonus or the performance pay? So it's it's the way we do our salary increases is we do all of our teachers are on performance pay. we made we made sure we did that before the law came into effect in 2014 because what the law really was meant to do

058was only give performance pay to those teachers who are annual contract only. But we made our performance salary schedule, our grandfathered salary schedule before the law changed in 2014 to allow all of them to do it. And what that means is we give a certain cost of living adjustment that's across the board to everybody. And then we have to ensure that the total compensation that we give for an effective teacher is between 50 to 75% of what a highly effective teacher does. So, a lot of times when you see when we do raises, it's done to fit into that formula. It's unfortunate we have very little wiggle room on what that formula is because the state has mandated it in statute. Okay. So, can you just give and I and I guess I'm asking because

059it seem well I'm asking two questions. First, it seems that there are lots of things that could impact a teacher's performance pay. Let's just say if they have to show student growth. Well, sometimes it I mean because I've talked to middle school teachers impacted by this, like they could be highly effective one year and just depending on the class they have the next year, they could then be effective. So, you know, I just feel like this isn't really a great way to measure either to be honest, but could you just give me an example of like let's say let's just say you have a seventh grade civics teacher who that may actually be a bad idea, but maybe an eighth grade history teacher who is effective one year and she's highly effective the next year.

060like what would that like can you put a number on that? It's hard to put a number on that because what happens is the way this is done we have we determine the amount of money we have for salary increases any given year. And then what we sort of do is when we make that determination we back into okay based upon the total amount of money we have what would highly effective performance pay be versus effective performance pay be. So, it's a it's hard to say, you know, put a number on it on getting given year because it changes year to year. generally, if I'm remembering back a few years ago, effective pay versus highly effective pay, you're probably looking anywhere between $500 to $1,000 worth of difference depending on the year. And the superintendent

061wants to jump in. I'm asking Jennifer. I think she has it. I don't believe the percent of teachers that go from highly effective to effective every year is very large at all. and I'm wondering if you even have the percentage of those that are highly effective. So we do for looking at the overall rating which is the con that one-third coming from student learning growth plus their speak into the little it's a little okay how about this so the summitive evaluation ratings we have those those percentages this includes the student learning growth that one-third component plus the two/3s from the instructional practice and other factors. so in 2324 we had 93.1% highly effective, 6.8% effective. In 2223 it was 92.4% highly effective and 7.4% effective. so they're generally in that 92 to 93% range for

062the last three years with effect with highly effective and in right around that high six low 7% for effective. And can I add something in on that? When back in the day, we negotiated the cut scores for student learning growth. And those cut scores were done in a way that was the most beneficial that we could be to the teacher. I mean, we made sure that we gave every single benefit of the doubt to get teachers the highest student learning growth cut score that we could, right? We had to make sure that the student learning growth score allowed a teacher to get every one of the four ratings under state law. Highly effective, effective, needs improvement, unsatisfactory. But we did it in such a way that it would be extremely difficult, not impossible, but extremely

063difficult to get an unsatisfactory student growth score. and it tends towards giving the benefit of the doubt so teachers can get a highly effective or an effective student learning growth score. Okay, got it. Thank you. I guess I guess what I would say is I support revisiting this along with members Gallow Douglas and Bird and other other board members. I think I understand there's an evaluation component to it. So, I definitely would like to talk to the CTA. but also just looking at like the actual monetary like difference. You know, yes, we have to follow the law, but I don't know maybe there's just another way we can look at this. So, I do support looking into this because I do think we are spending too much time testing and blocking and it's just too

064much. okay. I had a couple of other questions with regard to the the progress monitoring and I think I asked this but just wanted to clarify if people want a paperbased test can students get that or do they have to have some kind of like IEP or accommodation if they just take a test better on paper can they just request it and get it? Yeah. So the paperbased is available for students with IEPs or 504 plans. And that is similar to the way the state addresses that issue as well. where it's computer-based unless there's an absolute demonstrated need. our fi our PMAs tend to be a little bit more flexible with that. But it does have to be a documented in one of those two types of plans. And for just our purposes, I mean,

065why why is that? If someone just prefers a paper test, why can't they just ask for one? Yeah, board member Vanos, thanks for the question. okay, very good. So, I would add to that to say, I mean, when the student takes the state assessment, we won't be able to do that unless it's one of the provisions that Ben was sharing. So, if we did allow that paper test on the PMA, they're going to have to take the computerized version for the at the end. And so, you know, it's kind of that question of is that gonna inform what they're able to do then on the computer? Because if it's a matter of taking an assessment on a computer, there may be other supports we can provide them to help them feel more comfortable with that.

066because if it's not a 504 or an IEP, we're not going to be able to do it for the formalized assessment. Okay. Thank you for that answer. I know students can choose to opt out of the state testing. Can they also choose to opt out of our Madam Chair? May I? Yep. Yes. No, they may not opt out of state testing. State25 says explicitly they shall participate in all state testing, including progress monitoring. there was actually a case that went up that we were a party to back in 2017 where we were sued to essentially allow students to opt out of state testing and just do the portfolio in third grade so they can get promoted to fourth grade and the courts came back and said no no teach students are not permitted to opt

067out of state testing. So no that is not something they can do. I appreciate that answer, John. okay. I'd like to ask another question about the progress monitoring and I and I think we talked about it when we met. If if teachers have I'm sorry. if teachers have feedback on some of the tests for maybe a question that a student didn't understand or they brought to their attention, you my understanding is that you take that feedback into account and you kind of evaluate that as you're you know going back and rei revising the test. Yes. Is that true? Yes. Yes. So if a question comes up from a student as they're taking the test, generally they would address the person who's administering their test, their teacher or whoever's in in the room at that time

068would raise it to the test coordinator and that comes back to our team to then identify that item for for review as we go forward. We also apply a variety of analyses to look for those types of items in addition to the student feedback. So we take both streams of input. Okay, that's great. Thank you. and then just two other questions and we talked a little bit about this too, but I know you said that the progress monitoring was not intended to be used for grades like to for for the teacher to issue a grade based on it. but but my understanding from our conversation is a teacher could use it for that. They're not prohibited from using it. Is that true? So we strongly recommend that they should not should not be used for

069grades. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. and then the Hold on. Member of an of the superintendent wanted to answer that. So, we I just want to give the flip side because we've had this conversation quite a bit and I am not for them being used as as a grade. However, we have had some situations, some teachers who have made an argument that they use that assessment. So if a child did poorly on a test and they did well on that section on the PMA, they then give them credit. So you know it's how much does that occur and do we take away that opportunity for some children that it could elevate their grade? But we strongly discourage especially because some teachers do not understand how the test is constructed and especially if they use a

070straightforward number. It could be they could get a 55, but 55 is on target. But if they plug in a 55, a 55 is an F. And so we could go further and say that there it's not allowed. we have not given that little window where teachers are using it to help students build up their grade. Thank you. That makes sense. and then the last thing I just wanted to ask was I really we talked a little bit about how much it might Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for the presentation. And I we talked a little bit about how much it may might cost if we had sort of outsourced the building of the test to some other like vendor and some other company. And I just

071want to say I really appreciate that you have all been able to do it in house. But I was just curious if you could share kind of that those numbers like what just to just to kind of share for the public honestly like what those numbers look like if we had outsourced those to a vendor what we might have spent and what we were able to save by doing all of this work inhouse which I know is not easy. So yeah if you could just share that I'd appreciate it. Yep. So we have a great point of comparison from the last few years actually when the state switched to the best standards. we had to change our PMAs for algebra 1 and geometry. So in the year after we ended up paying a vendor to

072provide those assessments for us. and for the cost of those two assessments, algebra 1 and geometry, in fiscal year 23 it was about $270,000 for those assessments. And in fiscal year 24, it was about $29,000 for those assessments. There were some implementation costs in the first year there. When we compare that to our most recent year for summer assessment writing for common final exams and PMAs for all of it when they're written within the district, that cost last summer was about $275,000. So the price of the two assessments from the vendor was approximately the same as when we write all of the assessments ourself. I just think that's a huge really important point to point out. So thank you for sharing that. Thank you again. Thank you member Vanos. general counsel you're queued in. Is

073that for member Gallo? Okay. Member Gallo. Thank you Madam Chair. I just wanted to comment a little bit further. I understand that with the 33% being tied in the legislature and that tied to student outcomes for our teachers evaluation, that makes it difficult and I understand teachers wanting to own their own score, but not every district does it the way that we do it. I think more districts that use the fast testing versus using their own individual tests than don't. I think we're in the minority in the way that we use CFS for the evaluation of teachers. And I still go back to when we pulled the numbers that 168 teachers would have had a higher rating. And in John, Mr. Pomearine already told us that we're very lenient and give the benefit of the

074doubt to the teacher when it comes to those evaluation scores based on student outcomes. I think there's an argument to be made that I don't think that there would be a huge shift. If anything, I think more teachers would go up in rating versus down in rating. So, I just want to reiterate that. Thank you. Thank you, member Gallo. And I am queued in again for that exact reason. I was when general counsel spoke about the cut scores and to benefit the teachers greatly and so few students or so few teachers qualify for effective or lower with those scores. I would imagine switching to the school as member Gello said like a schoolwide score or based on certain tests or if we just got rid of the CFS that would have any much greater negative

075effect on most teachers. and I think that's a really important point to to think about when we're looking at this. also yeah never mind I don't even talk about that. do we have any idea? I know you said obviously going out it costs money, but do we have any idea on what the annual cost is associated with the CF development, what we spend paying teachers, what we spend for staff. I would love to know that because I think that's a really important part of this discussion as well as we look for our budget cost next year. Yes. So, it's going to be similar to the number that I was citing earlier. That's our CF PMA writing costs. The majority of that is incurred in the summer when writing almost all of the writing happens. And

076it's important to note that almost all of that is going directly back to teachers in the form of stipens. So it's not it's not flowing out to another party. so we're looking at from the summer of 2024 275,000. 2023 was 247,000. There was some ESER funding in here as well that was offsetting some of these. 247,000 in the year before, 234,000 in 2021, 225,000 in 2020. So it's kind of in that mid200s range. Great. Thank you very much. member Salamanca. thank you. I guess one of I kind of echo member G's point on I think one of the biggest costs is really loss of time because like we said we are kind of unique compared to other districts where we take the extra time with the extra testing for this reason and I don't know

077that we're getting any benefit in terms of outcomes or anything from the students perspective because you know we do have such high percentage I think every time I've talked to student groups and town halls with students. They always kind of talk about how the CFS are so much easier and it's feel like a bit more of like a busy work setup sometimes in certain classes compared to other tests they take and they're just like why are we even taking this? And I don't I like I don't like I think I don't fully see if it makes sense to have so much redundancy. trying to say we want less testing and we want to prioritize the students and their time and how much effort it's taking and days out of class. Like obviously I think this

078absolutely falls within staff discretion of how we think about testing, but I don't know what benefit we're getting from CFS. I think that's that's the one I'm I'm struggling with. aside from maybe a few of the teachers we're talking about or I think that's the one area where would be like do we have a very strong argument of why we still are in the minority of this of the districts compared to others in the state. So we're doing the true I don't believe there's very many other districts that do the CFS to the extent that we do. and it is being done because it was voiced by the teachers that was their preference. So certainly and I don't know if there's others that are wanting to speak. I'm just wanting to get an idea. Is

079the board asking that we collaborate with CTA? And we and we not Rob is nodding. So we are asking them to survey teachers and see what the preference is. And if it what and if it does not change, are you fine than leaving as is the question? I'm on Q right now, so I'm happy to answer for now. I've I've heard from every bargaining session how much they want less testing and how much time is being wasted on all this stuff. So, I think I hear that more than I ever hear a proc from the teachers I've spoken to. And obviously, I will I'm happy to spend time with Clinton in the union on hearing the argument for it if that's still their stance from whatever it was many years ago. But I would want

080us to at least talk about it. if if the goal is to save time and have less testing, which I think is for the benefit of students, then I don't know why we're not having the conversation at the very least. in terms of the ultimate decision, I think again this is what we have staff and superintendent for. It's my understanding this is within the management part of not the governance part but I defer to council on how how much we can pull on that. Go ahead council. you're correct. This would ultimately be an operational decision the superintendent the number and types of testing that generally falls within her bailey wick. Thank you. I think I think we're understand I think we're clear on how you feel about that member as as most of us do.

081Member Ferrant, my only question would be do you know how many teachers were surveyed and how many teachers actually responded to that survey? because if we're talking about more of like a minority, maybe there is a maybe that is why we're hearing out in the public like out in real life we're hearing one thing and then the survey showing another. Yep. So this was conducted in February of 2024 and the survey went to 477 teachers and 1333 responded. So that's a 38% response rate which is pretty strong for a survey. Yeah. And this was teachers that population was teachers who had a CFE course. So we narrow we didn't survey all teachers. We narrowed it to just those teachers who had a course aligned to a CF for this purpose. And all of those teachers

082responded that they would prefer to have a CF. So the 1333 is the total number of respondents. Of those it was I want to make sure I get the right number. It's on the next page. I think it's 59%. 59% and then 24% who favored the alternative, right? No, I understand. Okay. So, I agree with member Salamanca as well that it is Okay. Personally, I think we test too much and I think there's a lot of wasted time at the end of the year. but again we'll pass it on to our superintendent to make the choice of I think you're that's your overview and then you know whatever we can do as a board to help you. They have reached out Rob Bixer confirmed that we have reached out to Clinton. He is going to

083check with the teachers and the reason we only surveyed the teachers that have a CF is because they're the ones that are impacted, right? We wouldn't survey those that the other assessments make up their score. Got it. Thank you. Is that it? Member FR. Okay. Member Douglas. Yes. Just to respond a little bit about what the superintendent is saying. I understand that the CFA for the teachers that are impacted actually impacts all of us because at the end of the day the te the kids are coming out of other people's room and go to the other rooms. So at the end of the day we all impacted you know I just wanted to make a point of that. and yeah okay whatever I just wanted to say just please do not overlook instructional time please

084do not overlook please that's that's the most important okay we want to educate the kids and we want them to have the most information so that they can take those tests thank you that's all thank you and with that the board is clear and we are done I want to thank you all. Dr. Border, thank you to your team. Thank you for this great information. This was a really important discussion. And I think it's also really important, as I told you in our one-on-one, to let the public know all the reasons why, you know, because most of the time people don't know why we do what we do. And so, this is a really valuable conversation to have when it comes to testing because it's definitely on the forefront of everyone's mind. Thank you for

085all your hard work. Appreciate it. Thanks, Vice Chair Bird and members of the board. Superintendent Vasquez. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Superintendent, we have our next policy. Could we take a five minute break and then come back for policy JIC? I think a 10-minute break is probably more even better. All right. We'll be back in 10 minutes. Thank you. Okay. You win. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Go. Hey. Hey. I'm heat. Hey. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. N. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

086Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, I'm down. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Down. Down. I feel like seriously. Okay, I think we're ready to get back at it. We are working on policy JIC, code of student conduct. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Vasquez. Thank you, ma madam vice chair. so our team has come back after hearing feedback from the board and have made some adjustments some changes to the code. we'll turn it over to Diki Joiner and she will introduce the team and go over the new adjustments to the code. Good afternoon vice chair of board Dr. Vasquez. I have with me here Akivia Haynes our legal representative. So, we're here today to discuss recommendations that was made by some members of the board and we also

087met with elementary, middle, and high school principles and they had some recommendations. So, we're going to start on page 11. On page 11, under level one, we added a one T student parking violation. And this came as a recommendation from the high school principles violation of the OCPS and or school policy regulation rule and or conditions contained in the application for parking. Page 15, level two offenses. We also added a level 2Z for student parking violation, which is the repeated violation from level one of the OCPS in or school policy regulation rule and or conditions contained in the application for parking. This offense should be used for your second or third violation. We also added restitution under our disciplinary responses starting with a level two. Page 20. Page 20. We added a new offense under

088level three. acts of hate. An act or attempt to 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, religion, age, sex, national origin, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, language spoken or homeless status of the victim through intimidation, harassment, racial ethnic slurs, vandalism, force, or the threat of force. This offense must also be vetted through the OCPS legal services before the 3H is issued on the referral. page 21. We also have a level three 3J student parking violation. And again, we've added restitution under the disciplinary responses. Page 29, we've added 4K acts of hate, which is the repeated acts or attempted acts to cause physical injury, emotional suffering or property damage when the victim

089is selected by the perpetrator based upon hostility to the race, color, religion, age, sex, National origin, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, language spoken, or homelessness, homeless status of the victim through intimidation, harassment, racial, ethnic slurs, vandalism, force, or the threat of force. again this must be consulted with our OCPS legal services prior to selecting this as a level four offense. And again we added restitution under the disciplinary responses for level four. Page 48 under dress code number eight. We made a change. clothing must not state, imply or deplet acts of hate. We remove hate speech or imagery targeting groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, or any other protected classes. We have a asterk there. If you go down towards the bottom in red,

090it says clothing that states, implies or depicts acts of hate, imagery targeting around based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, or any of the protected class shall be coded as a level three H three HH I'm sorry, acts of hate. So only number eight will be considered as a level three cuz as you guys know dress code has a particular disciplinary sequence that we follow but we added that particular one to number eight. All right page 51. So in this section four parent and student notification we changed the title from hate speech to acts of hate. Pursuant to board policy JB equal education opportunity. All students attending school in OCPS shall be treated according to a unitary code which applies equally regardless of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, marital

091status, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, genetic identity or expression expression, language spoken, homelessness or any other reason prohibited by law. an act of hate occurs when a student intentionally selects the victim because of any protective characteristics in board policy JB. An act of hate can be found on the basis of speech, including but not limit 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 of hate must be reviewed with the OCPS Office of Legal Services for compliance with law. On page 53 under section four again, parent and student notification. We also gave them a definition for restitution since we added

092restitution back to the actions that they could select. 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 student's discipline record until the restitution is paid in full. Payment plans or alternative forms of restitution can be arranged with the school principal. Dr. Vasquez, that concludes all of our new recommendations. Thank you so much. members of the board, as you can see, significant changes around one of the areas of concern the board had related to acts of hate. And remember, there's like a fine line with what is protected by speech and what we're able to do with the code. So, great job. And now we are open to hear your questions and comments. Thank you,

093Superintendent Member Ferrant. Thank you. And I just want to say thank you so much for listening to the concerns of the public and board members with the acts, you know, adding this acts of hate. I think it is beneficial and your team took everything that was said and kind of ran with it and you did an excellent job. just a quick question that I had on page 48. if I go back to it, as far as clothing, just maybe so that the public would be able to understand better and myself I guess as well, but what does this look like in terms of imagery or the acts of hate targeting based on race, ethnicity, ethn ethnicity, religion, that type of thing. you know if somebody is to where I was at a school the other

094day and they it said proud and then one of the letters was a form of like the Israeli flag would something like that so somebody else sees that and says well that's offensive to me that would not be considered acts of hate correct so this is that is just their exercising their right to free speech could we maybe get an example of when that would be it would have to be in words stating yes general counsel. So the example that I would say is death to the Jews that to me would fall within that kind of pro prohibition on acts of 8. Perfect. That that's that's the example. These are all going to be very context specific. I mean you know and that's why we have it coming to the office of legal services for

095review because it is going to be context specific but that is the quintessential example of something or you know all black people should be lynched. I mean god forbid we ever have something like that would be the kind of thing that would fall within it. But proud with the with the star of David. No. Okay. That would not be. That's what I assumed, but just wanted to double check because I do feel like our students want to you know, everything that you stated, gender, ethnicity, race. kids love to wear their shirts and make their statements or you know, something that makes them proud, whatever it might be. And so I just want to make sure that they are protected under that. I do want to make one quick thing. There's a little typo at the

096very bottom in the tiny red letters. It says gender identity and the second T is an F and it just needs to be changed to a T. which I thought my eyes were going bad, but I'm quite proud of myself on that one. okay. Page 53. 482 at the bottom. decision to identify 40 still down there. Unless that's what we're wanting to say. No. Okay. and then page 53 for restitution. Thank you for adding this. I think this is really important and I think it's really important for students to realize that every everything has a consequence whether good consequence or bad and that we are holding kids accountable for their actions. So really appreciate this. I think it's great and thank you so much again for all your hard work. Thank you member Fer member

097Vanos. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you. You did a great job of of incorporating our comments into that the acts of hate. So, I just want to second that. Thank you so much. My only question, and I apologize if I missed this before, but I the parking violations I it was on 11 and 15 and I just don't remember talking about this before. I'm sorry. What What What are What are you referring to when you're talking about that? or like what what was the issue been that has so in high school sometimes there's not enough parking decals to go around and so kids are not allowed to park on campus but kids do park on p park on campus and so high school principles wanted something in the code that they can refer back

098to if they have to issue a referral. Okay. So it's only if they're not supposed to park on campus but they do park on campus. Yes. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Or any other Thank you, member Vanos. Member Salamonta. and I'll add there for member Vanos. I also hear from some principles that doesn't happen often, but it has happened where a student might let someone else borrow the parking decal and it doesn't match the car of who it is and it's like a safety concern and we take it obviously very seriously and so it's one of those that I've heard from principles that they really appreciate this to be on there and I think obviously the main thing is not to and I this is was going to be my comment on the restitution. I

099don't it's a slippery slope. I don't want this district or any school to become a collections agency. and chasing families for money. Like we talked about this in the context of laptops and what is the right price of restitution for laptops. and so my two general comments with both the parking violations, the restitutions, and the new one, non-hate is definitely want to track and keep an understanding of the numbers and types of violations. I worry with restitutions how many families can or can't afford certain things and what does that mean for them? I'm all for accountability and sometimes it's sometimes some thing happens and things break and that's there's a difference between on purpose and vandalism which we do have vandalism covered in there and so the restitution component to that it's like not just

100the disciplinary action but also the paying back u and so I just I want I want us to be careful so I want to I'm going to be actively tracking kind of how the restitution gets implemented and I think we'll learn. Does he have to be monetary? Does he have to be monetary? Can he be something? Oh, I'm sorry. I just question. Okay. Yeah. So, can you just pull up the restitution? So, folks know what I'm referring to. 53. They're about to pull it up right here. So if a student takes or damages school property, they may be required to pay restitution to the victim or OCPS. So I don't I don't know if we're going to have a cap on this on what kind of property. Like if I break a really expensive something

101for some reason. Am I on the hook for this? Is this up to principal discretion? Like how are we thinking about this? cuz I obviously know there are some families that cannot afford a $300, $400 bill. So, if it comes to just something that's broken at the school, we will have to look at their fixed asset and determine how much it costs at that time to determine restitution. And in student discipline, we are also creating a way to track when the restitution has been met by that student. May I, Madam Chair, vice chair? We also had conversations that if they couldn't afford it, we could look at them doing some community service that would then you would equate it to whatever the cost was so that they're if they can't afford it, then you work

102you, you know, after school picking up trash or or other things. That's great. Yeah. So I think with restit I just want to track this. What I don't want is uneven restitution being applied where some kids get to do the extra hours and some kids get the bill. And so that's just generally me saying that next year I will be asking the question of what did the restitution look like across the district. I just want to always avoid unintended consequences when we add something like this. and may I mad vice chair? Yes. And I understand what you're saying, but in some instances that's that's going to be the case. A family that can't afford it versus a family that can. I think what you're wanting is to make sure that the restitution, whether it's paid

103or an alternative form, is the same. Correct. Okay. Yeah. I'm not against restitution. I think what the implementation of restitution I don't want inequity in that call it so some kids get more community service options some get more so I just it's more of what systems do we have in place for tracking and ensuring that this isn't because I want to have accountability but I also just like I said I don't want a school district to ever be a billing collection agency and having all these bills just laying around. I just don't think that's our job, unfortunately. with the hate components that we added, I obviously I have concerns about this one also being a very slippery slope. So, I'm glad to hear that legal is going to be observing these. when I think about

104base like some of the racial slur language, God knows the stuff that I hear when I walk around high school sometimes. And I just I think that one's one that also I'm sure we'll have a lot more information and maybe data over the next year, but I just want the board to be mindful of of how slippery that can go as well. Thank you. Thank you, Member Salamanca. Member Felder. Thank you. First of all, thank you all for going back to redo some of the things that we had some concerns about. I'm not on. Am I on? Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that you doing that. I didn't have the paper so I'm not sure. Did you all talk about We talked about this a while back, but I just want to make sure I'm

105clear. with the fighting thing. We went through that a long time. I think last year when a kid was involved in an altercation and whether or not they get both get suspended and we I think we suggested that if they put their hand up, if it's a visible way they were trying to keep the person off of them, then that would let us know that's an indication that they were not engaged in the altercation. But if they threw a lick back, then they were. And I'm reason why I'm saying is because I spoke with a well a parent spoke to me about a concern and this is what I said to them. Make sure I've told them the right thing. I say if they threw the lick back then that was a fight. But if

106they were visibly seen to protect themselves or to try to keep the person off of them, then it's it's clear that they were not in an altercation. whether or not they knocked somebody out to try to get to the person where they're attacked. But the the situation would be that they're not involved and we could physically see they were keeping the person off because one of the discussions we had a while back I think we've already fixed it where kids were being bullied. This was some years ago about two two years ago being bullied and we were the board was concerned holistically how children can be protected if they're being bullied if they're there's an onslaught of people coming on and I this is what I said to the parent said to me just recently

107it's Friday if your daughter or your son doesn't retaliate physically then they wouldn't be considered a part of the altercation but just try to protect themselves. I said, "But did they throw the lick back?" They said, "Yeah." I said, "But that's a fight." So I I know it doesn't seem fair. I said, "But that's the fight. I want to make sure I told a person the right thing." Okay. So I code on page 17 under fighting. We list what self-defense looks like. you know, we start off by saying if a student is unable to leave the area of a pending attack, the student may use self-defense. Self-defense is an action taken that is necessary to protect oneself or others from serious body harm. However, the action taken cannot be more forceful than the attack the

108student is trying to stop and the we reference 106.13 of the Florida statute. We also go on to say that self-defense may include asking an adult for help, restraining or blocking the attacker, shielding oneself or others from being hit are pushing to get away from the attacker. However, retaliating by striking or hitting and we give examples such as punching, slapping, kicking a person back or choosing not to leave after you are able to get away may be considered fighting. Yes. So, I told him right. My second point, I just wanted to talk about the on page 48, the clothing that's offensive. And I think it was clear, but I just wanted to express the fact that I'm glad that we addressed that situation with clothing because sometimes as a member Ferrant said that students, you

109know, they like to express their thoughts and how they feel, their passion and the things that they wear, you know, and we want to give them that freedom. But we do have to understand that whatever clothing they decide to wear that the imagery does not reflect something that's racial racially offensive. Let me say that racially offensive. For an example, if you have something I'm black and I'm proud, that's not racially offensive. But if you have something on where you say, you know, kill a particular race or this kind of thing, then that to me is offensive. And I know that we tal I talked about it some while a while ago, but I know it's clear that there was a shirt years ago that students wore at Dr. Phillips. It's a black thing. You won't

110understand. I went through that when we talked about the pre thing, what that meant and how I along with some other teachers wore the same shirt and I explained to administration what that meant. The administrator at the time thought that was offensive, but I explained to her why it is not offensive. You just did not understand the time of history that this shirt was depicting. And when you understand the time frame of history, it's not offensive. It's really a history lesson. That's what it would be. But I'm glad you guys addressed that. And I want to say again that our legal gave a perfect example when you said death to some racial person, you know, Jews or blacks, that kind of stuff. That is racially offensive. So I just wanted to make that point. Okay.

111Thank you. And thank you for your work. Thank you. Thank you, Member Felder. I'm queued next and I just wanted to ask about the restitution again. And by the way, thank you. You guys did do a great job of hearing us and hearing what we were looking for in the changes. I appreciate that so much. and I think you hit it on the head, superintendent, when you said that we will also include acts of service. And it might be it might be beneficial to even have that in there when we talk about restitution either through payment or community service or active service. so that there are those two options. And so I want to it seems like I remember when I was first on the board, we had some students that for a senior prank

112did some graffiti and I believe that those students had to clean and paint their graffiti if I was not mistaken. so you know, I'm thinking oftentimes when things are done to schools that would be a good restitution for sure. I'm thinking specifically of bathrooms when they tear up and destroy bathrooms and make a mess of the bathrooms. and but then I wanted to ask about when we talk about like what happens when a student if a student was to grab something and break it of another students I know with an iPhone that's a whole another story because those are like $1,000. but when that happens is that considered a like any kind of criminal act if they destroy or break someone's property if it's something really valuable like over a certain amount? Yes, it could

113be. Okay. So in that case if it is found to be like a criminal act are they are they required to pay the person back for the cost of that item? How does that work exactly? So that would be determined based on if criminal charges are filed then that will be between the prosecutor and the criminal defense attorney if they are required to pay restitution. Okay. So, I would I would imagine that if something like that happened, that's more private between the parents and what they do privately, not as far as like we wouldn't really be able would we be able to as a school district. Yeah. Put something like that in place if it was something that big of a I'm just trying to understand how this would work when it comes to money.

114I mean, that's the difficult case, quite frankly, is, you know, cell phone that's $1,000. I mean, we could have as a consequence, you know, you're to pay restitution, but I mean, most of the time the criminal courts would take care of that. I mean, and Ali is former state attorney, so she's better positioned than me to to speak on the restitution deals that they make on that. To me, the restitution is more towards damage to school property that we're thinking of here as opposed to, you know, student between between student and student stuff. Okay, that's pay the restitution to victim. Yeah, I I understand that it says victim in there, but most of the time just our imagination was when we were talking about this, it's the exact things that you're talking about. Graffiti to

115the walls, damage to the bathroom, ripping that kind of stuff up. you know, the other in the case that we had that prompted the acts of hate stuff, you know, that could be seen as one for restitution because the flag itself was not, you know, in in any way an exorbitant cost to replace, right? The acts of restitution to a victim when it starts getting up 400, $500, $1,000, especially depending on what school it is, kids may not be able to pay that back. Parents may not be able to pay that back. So there could be alternate things that you have to do to for them to do restitution. Maybe it is, you know, cleaning the school on a Saturday as opposed to paying back a $500 or $1,000 phone. It really I hate giving

116the it depends on the facts and circumstances answer, but it depends on the facts and circumstances. Yeah. And I think the and when you have in there they may be required to pay, I think that leaves it open to, you know, the individual cases. though, so that's good. but I do love that we are open to the community service idea. I am 100% all in favor of that. just saying let's see who is next on our list. Member Douglas. Okay. just wanted to talk about the for example the student that deface the flag for example. What will be restitution? What it's just an example for something like that. What what could happen? We would have to determine the cost to replace the flag. Okay. do we think about because I think we talked about this

117having maybe have a have the students sit down and receive a class a course on Holocaust and all these things. for to be for rest in restitution to make sure that you understand that's not something to do. Yes, general counsel. So that it depends on the nature of the statement that issue that once again is it's going to be part of our review. So it could be appropriate if we determine for example the students out there leading chance death to all Jews and the Holocaust didn't occur that as part of the disciplinary consequences education could be part of it. But if we've determined that what the student was doing was engaging in acts of political speech that's protected under the first amendment, we wouldn't necessarily order that even if the student had an unpopular opinion.

118Once again, very fact and circumstance dependent on what we would do in that case. Okay. So, it would just be replacing the flag monetary wise or community. It would depend. So, in the situation that we just dealt with, it was considered that it was protected under political speech. So, there is no consequence other than that. Right. Well, the van correct. So, the vandalism charge then you could be they could deal with that and that could be the form of restoring the flag. But again, we've I've said this and I apologize for repeating myself, but political speech is protected. And if it's deemed that it's political speech, as much as we may disagree or dislike, it is protected. And that's why all of these are going to be vetted through our office of legal services to

119ensure if it is if it meets the criteria for protected speech it is. But if it doesn't then it would fall under one of the other categories of of acts of hate. Yeah. So we can circumvent it by saying okay destroy something that was from the school and he need to pay for it. So entering into the politic political so circumvent is probably not the word I'd use but what I would say here is in that in that particular case there was the vandalism of the flag which is certainly something we could prove. It was something that was prohibited by the code of conduct and we could we can absolutely take action against that. But the political speech aspect of it was the part that was difficult because remember in order to student rights to

120free speech are protected especially if that speech does not cause a substantial disruption. So we could we could discipline the student with respect to the vandalism but not for an act of hate because it was political speech and it didn't cause a substantial disruption. That's the kind of analysis that our office will go into when we look at any one of these situations going forward. So is vend vandalism not part of the act of age? Yes. in that and okay in that particular case just so everybody's clear and I think I said this last time even with the new language we have based upon the nature of the type of speech on the flag it would have still been considered political speech and it wouldn't have been considered an act of hate but we clarified

121language and put offenses into the code that if it was things that we did not think were protected by the first amendment were true acts of hate I go I hate going to this example, but it's the clearest example I can give. If it if it what had been painted on that flag was death to all Jews, that would have been an act of hate that we would have gone at under this particular provision because it would have been targeted. The person would have been targeted because of their religion and their national origin because they came from Israel, not for political speech. But what we had in that case was a political statement. So, I know the distinction's fine and I know that sometimes it looks like lawyers are spinning splitting, you know, hairs on

122a pin head, but that's what the analysis we're going to go through when we look at it. And I just wanted to talk about a act of hate. I don't want to waste your time, but the nword a lot of my kids were coming with the nword in my classroom and for me it was offensive. for them it was just we're saying it you know and that's a slippery slope we're talking about over here and and to me it was offensive and I'm like you don't say that I mean that's the reason why Martin Luther King just fought and not you know to have that respect not saying this kind of but it didn't feel like it was something that was wrong to them they just look at me like I was the the alien

123in a classroom not knowing that's something that was acceptable And I don't know what we can do about that, Miss Vicki. nothing. Okay. All right. So, of Oh my goodness. It's just awful. I mean, to me, it was it's just awful. Thank you. That's all I have to say. Thank you, Member Douglas. Member Salamanca. I think you point out one of the reasons why this is such a problematic thing that we're adding to the to the discipline. I think it's some kids are hearing this at home. They're hearing it in songs. Some are offended by it. Some are not. And we are putting ourselves and John and his ego team on the line to make those decisions of what is hate and what is not. I think that's why it becomes a separate soap because

124you're a lot of the things that we're putting on this hate definition are inherently political. Talking about race, we're talking about gender, we're talking about a lot of things like we are boxing ourselves into political legal decisions. and I leaned on the way of I think everything else in our discipline code catches this. So we have vandalism, we have harassment, we have bullying and those should in effect, which they did in this case with the flag, right? vandalism was the discipline that was issued because otherwise you have to make the call of who is offended about what and is that the right reason to be offended and all of us up here if I give you 10 different cases of a kid saying I'm offended by this would absolutely not agree and like that's why

125it's like a constitutional issue. It's it's I'm having a really hard I know the board is very united on adding this. I am the probably in the minority, if not the only one up here who I'm not in support of adding this to our code of discipline and putting this on staff because I think it puts us it's just a really uncomfortable place. Not because I am for hate speech of course. I just like it to be covered under bullying and vandalism and all these other things. one of the things I wanted to talk about with restitution, John, it was a question for you. If we have vandalism and there is some actual criminal penalty, can we make that exception that if we like if a student has a discipline issue that is going to

126be dealt with a court, we aren't on top of that also getting us doubling down on it. like we have a criminal justice system where people pay for their crime and now we're saying on top of that you're going to pay more through OCPS. So I my preference would be that for a student who commits some discipline violation that puts them into the court system, we exempt that from all the other stuff the way that we do it some could we do that from the restitution component. Go back to the iPhone example of or I don't know the scooters. Scooters are not $3,000, right? Let's say a kid breaks someone else's scooters. Now you're on the hook for $2,000. That could probably go through core. There would be some someone else leading with that. Are

127we as OCPS now as a the bookkeeper of this student paying that student for the scooter? That's what we're putting on there. I'll let Alivia start and then or Miss Haynes, excuse me. I'm sorry. That's okay. And then I'll jump in. So, as a former prosecutor, I will say that a majority of the cases that we have here would not be picked up by the state attorney's office. It's just they're overwhelmed already. And since this is something that's happening at school and the school is do doing their due diligence and disciplining the student through a school, then I don't think that the state attorney will pick up a majority of these cases. Now, for something that is egregious, it's a car. I crash into my friend's car at school in high school parking lot. I

128would say that pro that probably is something that covered that they still probably wouldn't pick up. I think it has to be something like egregious because But are we going to be taking care of a $20,000 bill institutions? But that also would be something that's handled through insurance purposes in that in that situation. If I crash my car into I'm just trying to find a cap. Yeah. Of when is the district going to be like handling bookkeeping? So I do think it's appropriate that let's say we got a you know we issued an order of restitution and we the child comes to us and the parent comes to us and says hey by the way this you know my kid's been charged criminally and the courts ordered us to pay restitution. I think in that

129scenario we would allow the court to handle that and we would step out of it at that particular time. If there's not that scenario, then I do think we have the right to require some sort of restitution. Now, it depends again facts and circumstance what that is, how much it is, are we going to give an alternative to just straight up paying it back? You know, all of that would have to be looked at. And I would suspect that Mickey and her folks would have discussions with those parents if like say we hit them with a restitution of $250. Let's say it's some sort of gaming device, right? And they said, you know what, that would be just we can't do that. I suspect her folks would have the discussion of, okay, there's some alternative

130that we can institute here other than the monetary sanction, but I think that would be the way that would play out. There would be a conversation between the parents if we issued restitution to say, "Yeah, we can afford it. No, we can't afford it." And then we would have discussions. Okay. I'm good with it. I just think that it's it's broad it's broadly language out here that we'll see kind of how it works out over the next year then. Thank you, Member Salamanca. Yeah, maybe one of those things we'll have to see how the first year goes with that. member Vanos. Thank you, Madam Chair. I also wanted to go back to the restitution part. and I think my question is a little bit broader. and if I'm un because I see I'll back up

131a little bit. I see that for level three offenses, we include restorative practices, but for level four offenses, we don't include restorative practices, but we do include restitution. I'm scratching my head a little bit because I kind of feel like restitution would be kind of part of those restorative practices. And I'm I'm just I'm trying to wrap my brain around why like certain offenses were sort of and I support it, by the way. I like the idea of having something that students can do to like make I'm I'm thinking about vandalizing and having to clean off the paint and all and u repaint. I so I like the idea, but I'm I guess what I'm struggling with a little bit is it's really just limiting it to like property damage. But I think there are

132other offenses under level four that would also a good consequence could be restitution or or some sort of restorative practice. So, I'm just I guess I'm just struggling why we're pulling just that piece out for just certain offenses, if that makes sense. so just an FYI, all of our level four offenses are recommendations for expulsions. So, we start there. There are different levels of what the consequences is. So that's why restitution is not included in the level four offenses because it starts the bar starts very high that every level four we have comes with a recommendation of expulsion because those are assessor offenses and that is from the state. Now, we don't always issue expulsions for our level four offenses, but that is where the bar starts. Okay. So, I might be look So, I'm

133looking on page 29. Mhm. And it says level four disciplinary responses. And so, I see restitution there. So Mickey, correct me if I'm wrong. So for the level four, the restitution is only under the district consequence. Is that correct? So Mike can give an example. So you can trans if you damage something. There's some level fours that you may you may get counseling for like we have theft talk. So with theft talk, you may be required to go to counseling and you also may be required to do restitution and then there are some level fours that you are removed from school. So the ones that you're removed from school and maybe sitting upon some pathways, we wouldn't require you to do a restitution. Okay. Okay. Well, I guess what that's kind of my question is

134how do we decide which offenses restitution could apply to? Is this making sense? Anyone else? Okay. And I think if you are applying restitution very very narrowly, it would be about financial reimbursement. But we've the way that we're talking about it up here, it's actually more more broad than that. So that's correct. So I did want to clarify that earlier. Restitution only applies to a monetary offense. So if I damage somebody's property and there's a valuation put on that, then I would pay restitution for that. Restitution would not apply to per say I have on the screen trespass. There's no restitution for that because there's no value put on trespassing. So the restitution that we added would only apply to those offenses where something is damaged or stolen and then we can equate a monetary

135value to those items. Okay. And I that's kind of what I was assuming from reading it. So thank you for clarifying that. I guess I'm just not sure I agree with that. I think because I think there are other offenses that you know I mean I think there are other offenses that could be deserving of a consequence that is not expulsion or could be more of a restorative practice or restitution type consequence. And I guess I just if if these are all level four offenses, I'm just struggling with why we're kind of taking some out. and why we couldn't apply this to more offenses. I would see what you're saying. Maybe for trespass that doesn't lend itself to having this type of consequence, but I could see other offenses where it would. So there like

136Miggy said before, they're level fours come with a recommendation of expulsion. We don't expel everybody for a level four offense. So there are other consequences just like Mickey stated like a level four offense of theft. That student would not be expelled. They would get counseling, some form of counseling. So we do have a practice in place where there are already alternatives in place to expulsion. Does that make sense? I guess what? Okay. Okay. So, I'll give you an example. Let's say someone let's say someone gets a you know, a text that they share that they're not supposed to share. but, you know, maybe there's some kind of or or we could even do like a hate a hate speech. Let's say there's some kind of of a hate speech violation. And maybe kind of going

137to what member Douglas said, you know, maybe a you know, maybe part of the punishment could be that they have to give a presentation on why what they did was harmful or they have to take some kind of a class. I just I guess that's what I'm asking is and if I'm understanding you correctly, maybe what you're saying is that is a possibility. Yes, it's already under level four. Yes, it's there. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. member fat. Okay. Not to bel labor the issue but just for clarity what would be the difference then between harassment and acts of hate because I'm looking at the two and really anything that was in the acts of hate could be part of the harassment. harassment would be have to be multiple times and then after no harassment

138is once bullying is multiple bullying target a certain group has to target a certain group to me there is a very fine line between because we discussed that between harassment and acts of hate I think that goes back to member Salamanca's point where a lot of this falls under something that we already have in place, but there was an ask for us to separate it. So, so can I throw an example in there? So, say it's me and it's, you know, another white person and I'm going at him and I'm harassing him because I just hate him, right? That wouldn't be an act of hate because I wouldn't be targeting that person because of their race, their their sex or any of that. That would just be I don't like that person and I'm harassing

139him. Now, if I targeted member Felder and because because it would be both. It would be it could be, you know, I don't like you because you're black and you're female. That would be an act of hate because I'm choosing her based upon her race and her sex as opposed to me targeting another white male just because I don't like them. That's that would be a differentiation. So if I could follow up a question then I guess for the legal team. Do you feel that us separating this is going to cause more confusion and issues than it would be helpful? So no that's that's a good one. No. I understand there's going to be difficult calls being made, right? Alkeia and I will be having to make very fine razor's edge calls. I'm going to

140tell you right now that when we're making these calls, we're going to defer on being lower level rather than finding acts of hate. It's going to have to be extremely clear for us to make a finding that it's an act of hate. Because to member Salomaka's point, there are lots of free speech, first amendment issues wrapped up in these things potentially. There are things that I can clearly make cases of harassment, of vandalism, of all sorts of offenses under the code. And if I think I can clearly make that and I don't know if I can make an act of hate, we're just going to leave it as we're going to make the cases we can make and leave act of hate for another day because I it's only going to be the very very

141clear cases that you guys are going to see as acts of hate. It's going to be no question about it. You know, there will be none nobody will debate it because it will be that clear. But if it's a close call and especially since we're dealing with children and I'm going to be not in the political sense conservative, but conservative in how I interpret this cuz as you all know with me, my job is to ensure that I don't put you in a scenario where you could potentially be subjected to litigation. So that's always going to be my first call and it's going to be and we're dealing with children. So the only way we're going to find acts of hate is if quite frankly it's extremely clear. And if it's a gray area, we're

142probably going to heir on the side of giving the kid the benefit of the doubt, not not penalizing them because if there's other areas of the code, we'll penalize them. But that's that's the one that's going to be the most difficult. We'll be able to handle it to your question, Member Fant. will be able to do it but there are fine lines that will have to be drawn. Okay. Thank you. I think that really clears it up for me. So it is it is helpful to be in there in the sense that if there is that one off occasion which I don't think there really has been and even the one that was brought to us you made very clear that is protected under the free speech first amendment. and so I guess having it

143in there, but knowing that for the most part we will be using harassment or something else in the code is helpful. I think for me as well cuz otherwise I just don't want to like have double and then people are trying to figure out what to to put where how to how to handle it. So I appreciate it. Thank you. I'm queued in next and the only reason I queued in is because I was just thinking it's very similar to how legally the law is. I mean, they it's the same thing when someone, you know, attacks someone and when it's based on race, then it's considered a hate crime. It's still the same thing. It's just the law legal or the law decided to make give it a little more punch, right? If you do

144it because of your you're targeting a person's race, ethnic ethnicity, gender, whatever, then you get a little more serious consequence, right? I think it sends a good statement, a good message to our kids as well as we try to continue to, you know, teach them to do better. Right, Madam Chair? Yes. I do think it is worth keeping in here just if only for having it be a deterrent purpose. Mhm. I think it's useful for a child to say, "Oh, if I start making statements that are hateful based upon somebody's, you know, race, that if it makes them think twice about doing it, I do think it's helpful from a deterrent purpose." So, from that standpoint, I think it will be useful. Right. Excellent. Thank you, member Vanos. Thank you. Okay. I for I now

145remember the point that I was trying to make before. So based on what you said that restitution is available for all level four offenses, my comment is then on page 53 when we talk about restitution, it only references damage to school property or property of others. So I think we need to just make sure that that is clear that it's broader than just those offenses. Madame Chair, yes, that's not accurate. It is not available for all offenses. Okay. So I and I think we need to clarify restitution versus an alternative consequence because I think we're language may be causing some confusion. A level four recommendation for expulsion comes to the board and an alternative consequence may be you're going to be going to positive pathways. That's not restitution. That is an alternative consequence to that

146restitution. And please clarify because is monetary for only monetary or theft. If I take something your iPhone, if I just steal it, then I can equate a value to that, a monetary value to that iPhone. And if I damage your iPhone, I can equate a monetary value to that. So restitution only applies to would only apply to our theft offenses and then our like vandabilism offenses where something's being damaged or stolen. Thank you. if we're going in the literal sense. and because in the criminal world, restitution would only apply to a criminal mischief, a theft, a robbery, something like that, where something was taken from the other person that has a monetary value attached to it. Or if I mean, I guess I just thought about it because we won't go there. It's not going

147to apply to that one. I'm not even going to go there. Sorry. I just I thought about something, but we're not we're not going to attach restitution to that. So, we can we can add something in here that clarifies that restitution would only apply to our criminal our vandalism offenses and then also our theft theft sorry offenses. And there are alternatives like restorative practices or something like that we already have in place that would apply to acts of hate or something like that for level threes not level fours. So once they get to level four it's that's yeah that's it. You can't come back from level four. I mean, you go to positive pathways or the others. They've already hopefully hope the goal is to get the counseling and the other things that are in

148place at level two and level three and hopefully never get to the level four. Right. Okay. And so just and I know you've answered this. So they so they would have to pay restitution in addition to being expelled. So, we can go back and revisit that because we probably would not have them play restitution in that case because if they're expelled, they're not here for 180 days. So, we wouldn't say you have to be paying us while you're gone for days. So, we can go back and clarify that for the level four offenses, we would probably remove restitution because again, rest for our level four offenses, you're going to positive pathways or you're out for 180 days for most of them. So, we it would be like a double penalty to also make them pay

149rest restitution in those instances. Okay. Okay. So, you're saying you are going to remove restitution from a level four offense? If that is the Yes, we can go. We can remove it. Okay. I'm I feel like we need a little bit more work on this, but I'm Yeah, thank you. so what superintendent? So I want to go back to how you started this is that you felt that in lie of the more serious consequence of alternative school you wanted to look at restitution. I think that's if I'm wrong, let me know. But I think that was where you were trying to guide us that instead of sending students to an alternative school that we would look at restitution in some way, shape, or form. I think that's something that we can look at. I can

150tell you that for many, if not all of the level many of the level four offenses, that's really not an option. And I think it would also meet with push back at the school level, for example, threats. We've been talking about threats all year, yet we still have children that will post and then they realize it's a joke after students haven't come to school, after law enforcement has had to be engaged. So a parent could argue well let them do restitution instead. And so that's where it's very difficult. What what they try to do is if there's some gray, which is why we centralize discipline, they will look to see can it go to a lower level where the consequence is not as severe. But when you're looking at level four offenses by and far,

151those are your most severe where restitution is probably not where you want to go. Okay. Then I guess what I'm saying is I would I would be in favor of probably removing the restitution from a level four rather than just singling out certain offenses where that can be the punishment. That's what I would be in favor of personally. Thank you for clarifying that. and we can remove it because the two that it would apply to is a very high value. So, for example, our criminal mischief would is damage over $1,000 and the theft statute is the theft offense, sorry, is 750 $750 or more. So, that would be something where it's a very high value. Okay. Thank you. Is that good? Member Vanos, you good? Okay. Member Salamanca. Okay. So, to piggyback on my comment

152again, which is what is the cap of restitution? Because we don't have a cap, but we're saying we don't have restitution on level four and level four has $1,000 and 750 defined. So, is 750 and $1,000 our cap for restitution? No, that is the starting value for those offenses in the level four. But as we stated, we're going to remove it from if I if I have a level three and my restitution is over $1,000. It wouldn't be. So it So sorry for So for a level three, the there's robbery. Oh, wait. No, that's a four. Yeah. So level four has a,000 and 750, right? Like those are the numbers that we have on there. It's the minimum if you go to page 16. So on page for level four it is a minimum. So

153we're going to go to page 16. because in a level three when we talk about caps there's two different dollar amounts. So under a level 3C destruction of property it ranges from anywhere from $100 to $999. Correct for level three. And then when you look at the stealing, then that could be our cap of 749. Okay? But do you get what I'm saying on the caps? So we're saying there's no restitution in level four, but we define there's two numbers in level three. We say there is restitution in level three. Correct. And so if I go up to 999, then I am eligible for restitution. If I go over that, I'm not right. If you go over 9999, now you're at a level four. Okay. So, but it was just in the restitution piece like

154if we have it like am I crazy here? Like So, you want us to look at a cap? I believe that's what you're No, I So, for first of all, this wasn't in here. So, again, we want to say thank you because we're trying We don't want to be overly punitive. Yes. but at the same time we know that for some areas we have constraints by what DOE has told us. So I think what we need to do is go back eliminate from level four and then include the cap of restitution so that if somebody you know buys an exclusive iPhone and it's $3,000 the cap for the restitution is $1,000 or equivalent community service. Yeah. I just if we can cafe because of it's just consistency. I'm trying to create the consistency among the

155amounts and not have cuz it's over a thousand then you're a level four but there's no restitution of level four. So then it's like I'm going to only break expensive iPhones but not the cheap ones cuz I don't have to pay back the other. You know what I'm saying? Like it's just Yeah. But then they could get kicked out of school. But I don't have to pay and my family's not in debt. Yeah. You need to you need to tell us if it's a no or you if we need to bring it back. Go ahead. So, in my opinion, I feel like it would be a no to cap it because we're going to get push back a lot of it because how do we say if if you broke my child's $3,000 iPhone, I'm

156only going to get $1,000 back. But if you break a $500 iPhone, you're going to be fully compensated for that. So we there will be a lot of discrepancy in somebody being fully compensated for Yeah. But as a percentage, not as a total. The So the opposite of that is I break someone's $3,000 phone and I don't have restitution. I don't have to pay anything back because I'm a level four because you're gone or at an alternative school. I won't speak for every family, but from low-income families, sometimes you rather change schools than be on debt for $1,000. So, there is a world I'm just saying. I hear what you're saying. I know that will be the push back, but in ter if the purpose of centralizing the code of conduct is consistency and standardization,

157that's the part where if a $3,000 phone doesn't have restitution, can we come back? Because it's a level four, so yeah, you get kicked out of school, but then a $500 phone does have restitution. We can we can discuss it and come back. Yeah, I just try to for me it's more if if we can make the argument that we're consistent with the numbers that we also provide on there or if we're going to cap the level three restitutions and the level four restit or not. If it's $3,000 Okay. If if you if it's $3,000 I will sue you. But we talked about how if we sue you I'm sorry but you I know but all of us have comments to make on it but you have to queue up for your I'm fine with

158taking a like if you all take a look at it. for me it's less my question is like what is the cap if any at all? And the reason why I want a cap is because I don't know that the school district the principles or schools want to be bookkeeping debt of items between students and families. I like I don't know what is I defer like if there's principles that are happy to keep track of multiple cell phones owing each other maybe. So I definitely I won't speak for them. I don't know what their preference is. the other one is on the hate component. John, are we going to do training on our students for this before we implement this? So, we always have a training component as part of the code of student conduct.

159It's usually done within Can you all hear me? I'm sorry. It's usually done within the first week of school. No, I know for the but I'm like specific to the gray line between hate speech and harassment and all that like that's we're just like there are students out there who do believe saying the n-word is okay. Are we going to tell them suddenly that's no longer okay? Yeah, I think we said that I think trying to come up with examples of training in students is going to be difficult in a way that's not going to cause more questions than it would be answering them. I mean, we would be happy to look and see if there's some clear guidance we can give them, but you know, coming up with examples that would be useful, especially

160the younger grades. Yeah. Not that's going to be the harder part, right? This was just to your point of it's good for deterrence, but you can't deter something you can't define or you're not trained on. No, I I get what you're saying. It's let us think about what we could do to give some sort of meaningful guidance to folks. I'm just curious how when we talk about the code of discipline, which everybody does every year, how that component is going to be talked about, explained, like how does that go down the multiple layer? I trust John and our legal department to make these calls when disciplinary action happens. But as we know with a code of conduct every year, it goes through layers of communicating some of this and it takes us sometimes time to

161get some of the kinks and implementation that area in particular. I I'm just I have some concerns on whether it's training of staff like I just I think we can do some sort of memorandum to the staff and some training on that. just to give them like examples but I'll have to you know think through how to actually do it the examples to actually utilize we'll work that through okay thank you member fant my thoughts were just on the rest restitution I think all of us seem in agreement as from what I can hear with you know if there's vandalism on school property kids are sticking gum under the, you know, in their locker. I don't even know if we have lockers anymore. I feel like I'm aging myself. but, you know, or like they've,

162you know, markered all over the wall and purposefully vandalizing and then they have to come back and they have to wash it and they have to you know, put forth effort to to clean it up and put it back the way that it was. so I think for that part of the resitution, I feel like we're all kind of in agreement, but I do I definitely hear member Salamanca and the concerns of just the consistency and then how do we you know, for instance with the student and the flag. So his flag was you know desecrated and he wanted a new flag and then how do we like how do you force a student to give it so you can't right and you know asking that student to like clean the walls doesn't help the

163student who wants a flag back. So, I do think maybe a little more tweaking on the restitution because as member Solomon was stating, it really is hard for us. I don't think we want to be in a place of, you know, the middleman of telling one family like you're required. We could say we would like you to, you know, a good thing to do would be to purchase a flag, restore that to the person that you ruined their flag. But for us to like require it and then if we're not requiring it, why would we have it in the code of conduct? If that makes sense. Like if we can't actually like force them to then I yeah the accountability then it's sort of like a rule that the kids are just gonna not think

164about like not worry about. Yes, superintendent. So, I'm I'm going to choose my words w carefully because we've been having issues because the board appalled by an act of a child was not happy with the consequence. And now you're trying to add something to the code that really doesn't fix that. There was a question or a comment posed. Didn't we have this in here already? We do. So, we can continue to try and tweak it, but it's going to be messy because we already had consequences in the code to deal with the act. Unfortunately, it was not an act of hate. It was not hate speech. And had it been, I don't think you would be having this conversation. And so, I just worry that you're making all of these changes or trying to in

165an effort to fix something that you can't fix. it was his right whether we agreed with what he said or not. And so I'm going to direct the staff to come back to the board tweaking some of these things that we're still struggling with. And then that'll give the board a little bit of time to just reflect on it because we did have all of this covered through the items we had in our code. And this new addition would not change the consequence the child would have received who vandalize the flag. Can I follow up? Thank you, Superintendent. Yes. so thank you for that. I appreciate it. I was definitely one of those that was a little like, "Oh my gosh, this is crazy." but I agree. So I think if we had to walk

166back and say so the restitution for me I think really we I would like for us to you know ask somebody to do you know like at least bring it up like this would be the right thing to do. We can't force you to but this would be the right thing to do and you could guide them to that but then that's not our responsibility. And then restitution for me is really on school property. you've done, you know, you've done some sort of damage that if you did community service for the school, it would benefit the school. Do you see what I'm saying? so in that sense, for restitution, I think I would like to see that happen. and not really be like the middleman in trying to get money from one family to pay

167for something else. Just saying. Okay. And then, as far as the acts of hate, Again, I just want to ask again. So, if it if it is an act of hate, would that not be what was the legal like what was it where there's like an actual like where you'd actually go to the police? So, it's what happens in the criminal context with an act of hate is if the state attorney determines that you targeted the victim solely because of their race, their their sex, national origin, whatever the protected characteristic, they would ask for an enhancement of the sentence. So, if it was a firstdegree misdemeanor, like say battery, it would then go to a thirdderee felony. That's what the difference was. It wasn't it's not an actual charge itself. It's a penalty enhancement in

168the criminal context. So, and those and that's a very fine line in the criminal cases. you know, the cases that you look at is you have to target somebody because of their protected characteristic. If you just happen to say something about in that Florida Supreme Court case, they were two guys were in a fight. And during the fight, they said, you know, I hate you because you're you know, you're a Jew. And the court said, "Well, you didn't target him because you he was a Jew, so therefore you don't have the enhanced penalty." But if they went out and said, "I'm looking for a Jew to actually fight." And then, "Oh, I see you." and then fight that would be targeting and that would be subject to the criminal penalty enhancement. So there are very

169very fine legal lines to be drawn. I don't even know. I feel like I think depending on what the rest of the board feels but if we want to continue with the acts of hate and that is used for the literally like 0.001% 001% of the cases. then we keep that in there and it's it's very like used for the like it has to be very clear. otherwise I do agree we do have things in there the harassment and threat intimidation. so I think the biggest thing for me then would be the restor restitution just that part of like requiring the monetary and more of a guidance of this is best practice would be that you replace this but we can't like we don't do anything we couldn't require it. Okay. okay. I'm queued in

170next and I was just going to say what what member Douglas was saying that you know that then they can go privately and always do a personal lawsuit against another parent. Like as you said, if my child's $3,000 I don't know why anybody would give a child a $3,000 iPhone, but if $3,000 iPhone was purposely stepped on by another child, I would I probably would just take them to court and get to get my $3,000 back and not expect the school to do that. But that's neither here or there. as far as that goes, I also I also was wondering we don't have to always recreate the wheel. I mean, what are other districts doing? Do other districts do restitution? And if they do, how do they do they have limits for the amounts? And,

171you know, how has that worked in other districts? That might be worth looking into. and then I wanted to ask kind of to follow up on what I think member Vanos was trying to get to, was, you know, when someone maybe emotionally hurts another person or even physically hurts another person, we have things in place like we have counseling, we have different, different things. even for the flag thing. We talked that day about, you know, the courses you can take through the Holocaust Center in Mland. having that be one of the things. Do we have when we have a student that's out and we have them like if they're suspended for 10 days or whatever, do we have them do we require a counseling type thing before they h are allowed to come back to

172school? Do we do that at this point? Is that something we could do? And the only reason I'm asking is cuz I'm thinking well I mean I think it would be really valuable to oh I always think when we have to discipline children it's always valuable to try to make them learn something from it. But but I know like even in criminal cases some you have to sometimes part of your consequence is not only the penalties you have to pay or whatever or even jail time. Sometimes it is counseling you know anger management classes, DUI you have to go through you know alcoholism classes and that kind of thing. So is it possible for us to put these counseling things in place for kids and require that they do them? Is that possible? so I

173think we're going to have to go back and research that. typically when they're coming back to their school, let's say from positive pathways or they've been fully excluded, there's a re-entry meeting that takes place and there's conversations around that. But for a student that has just been suspended, no. I'd want to take a look at the numbers. I think that's going to that may pose an added burden on counselors if they have to meet with students that have been suspended and they're coming back. But we can look at numbers, maybe offenses, certain offenses, and see what that would look like. Sorry, I hate to always throw more work on I'm also thinking there's got to be and I'm sure well actually I know that we do use some online resources like when they're in in

174school suspension they have to do some online work. even if it's just like an online course they have to take while they're home and they're suspended and they have to come back and show the certificate that they finished it or something to that effect. I think the more we can do that the better. But we'll we'll look into it. I think you know the followup who's going to check the you know they finished it the certificate. It's a great idea and I think that may deter some behavior. but we just have to weigh what what's the impact on the school because they're the ones that are going to be having to deal with it. I get that. And I know we've got our executive leaders back there that are listening to this going, "Oh boy,

175there they go again. Oh, my principles are going to love this, right? Is that what you guys are thinking? All right, member Felder. Thank you. I think I want to sort of address an elephant that may be sneaking in this room. First of all, I am in full agreement with the consequence that was dealt with with the student about the flag. I saw that as a violation of property and whatever the consequence was that you that the district gave, I was completely all right with that. And it was mentioned, I can't remember which board member mentioned, but you kind of skirted around. And so, let me just address it. the n-word. When black people use that word, it's a term of endearment. Whether or not you accept it or whether or not you like it,

176whether or not you receive it. I'm 68 years old and that's a word that's been around since I can remember how to talk and hear when and John tried to kind of address it when he gave the example. If he had said something to me that was ugly and he did it with intent because I was black and a woman is offensive. And I know when a person says something to me, whether they're black, white, green, polka dot, if they're saying it offensively, I have the discernment to know how you're coming at me and trying to dibble and dabble with that word and moving it out. We're going to run up against a wall. Number one, it's in the lyrics that white children, black children, Spanish children sing. You can't get rid of that. You

177just got to deal with it. Now, we try to, and I think we've done a pretty good job in this district of trying to address hate language, hate crimes. We try to explain to children. We try to allow them listen we want you to have your freedom of speech but because we are a teaching entity. We want you to understand there are consequences when you do certain things and this is what this means when you become an adult. We're hoping that we have shaped your mind and your thinking to do the right thing. Well, sometimes we miss that mark and sometimes your parents miss that mark and you might not move toward the area of understanding that we are hoping that you move. But I think if we allow and the team here and done

178a great job in trying to go back and redo stuff that we say fix and all of this done a great job in in doing that. But I just think that some parts of of of the policies that we put together, we can dig and dig and dig and dig. It's not going to change. It's you can't do anything about it. So what we need to work with what we have I do agree with some of the board members about restitution. I think that when I was a teacher at Edgewater we had something they call restorative justice and it worked sometimes when children you know if you get them by themselves and you talk to them and say now why did you do that? I don't know. I was just had a bad day miss

179yada yada can you all think y'all can get on those kinds of things. I don't think you should automatically every time a child does something wrong just punish punish punish but some behavior deserve punitive look looked at I mean they deserve some consequences because sometimes you don't learn until you get the consequence then it teaches you okay I better not do that anymore let me just give you a simple example when I was about 18 months old when when I first started walking cuz I didn't walk until I was about 17 18 months old. My mother would always tell me not to touch the stove but I was I would always go and touch you know try to touch the stove. So what she did she walked me into the kitchen the we have a

180gas stove and I still have a gas stove. She put my hand on a hot stove and I screamed. I said mommy know you go to jail for that right now. She said no. She put my finger on the stove and I screamed and cried and then she never had a problem with me touching the white stove again. That was punitive because she kept telling me but I wasn't getting the message. So she said, "Okay, here." I didn't do it anymore. So I think guys, I think we're extremely intelligent women up here. I like this board. We have varying personalities and we are we're very expressive. I I enjoy working with this board, but there are certain things that we're not going to change. And what we need to do when the situation occurs, then

181let us address it. But trying to go back and redo something else is going to come up and then we have to go back and revisit it. But I specifically wanted to address the fact that flag situation was extremely touchy and it is always going to be because the world is having some issues, you know. So I think the way that our disciplinary team dealt with it. I was in much agreement. Some people were not. Some of the parents on one of the sides were not. But I think we did the best that we could do with that situation because trust me, trust me, something else more deeper is going to come. So rather than try to pinpoint and nitpick right now, let's deal with what we have. And again, in my final comment, that

182nword, you need to use discretion and discernment. how that is used because kids hear it every day. They hear it in the music. They singing in the music. They dance to the music. But you should have and I'm not saying that I would welcome that kind of comment to me because what listen I deal with my students as teacher to student, not friend to friend. But I tell you, we're going to dig oursel down a rabbit hole trying to deal with that part particular thing because it's not going away. But I do believe that you and I possess the discernment, the clarity to know when someone says something to you, whether or not it is offensive, whether they smile when they say it, whether they silently say it, you know exactly what they mean. And

183I think we need to use that good God-given intelligence that God has given us. Thank you. Thank you, Member Felder. Member Salamanca. It's hard to follow Vicki, but I mean even in this das we have a disagreement of if a word is offensive or not. So we can agree to disagree. Yeah. But and that is that's the point that the fact that different people will be offended by different things and consider certain racial sers hate or not and we're putting it in a code of conduct that is going to be taught layers down and explained to children when this only impacts like we said 0005% of the cases we will ever see. I think we are really opening a can of worms here and we're kind of stepping. We see what's happening in college camp.

184We see how difficult this conversation is. It's a very hard one. It's a very political one because the things that are in that definition are inherently political and we're going to throw ourselves into that and our staff into that because of a case that we wouldn't even be able to change today. And so I I'm good with what the code of conduct used to have. I continue to have serious concerns with that even though I totally understand it was with really good intentions and of course we all feel very uncomfortable with what happened with the student and this family. but I really worry about the implementation costs and if they outweigh the benefit of what we're going to get. I don't think we get the benefit of deterrence if we can't define something. We just

185get the benefit of confusion. We get already even with more simpler things on the code of conduct lack of clarity. We get this all the time where it's like this isn't clear enough. This isn't defined enough. This isn't this like all the time. and parents themselves come to us board members directly saying why is it this definition and not that this one like we are going to self-inflict this one on us and so I would be very supportive if we did not add this and we were just very clear that this is covered within threat intimidation harassment bullying vandalism which are a lot easier to explain I think the hardest thing with hate is you could teach three constitutional legal classes and it all comes down to how do you define and prove the definition

186of intent to and motivated by. So in order for you to charge someone with a hate something crime, hate speech, you have to prove the intent was by or you were motivated by. There's like hours of legal research that go into proving intent and motivation. And we're asking our legal staff, our principles to do this. It just feels unfair and like an overly not on purpose opening of the can of arms of a very political issue. so I still stand by my agreement that I restitution I think we're all on the line, but with that bunch I really I just Yeah. Yeah. I would I would be supportive of removing and sticking to what we already have. I think it has enough teeth. okay. My only concern is we have two board members that are

187not here. I is member Gallo still on the line. She hasn't queued in which is here. Oh, are you here? Okay. Hi, member Gallo. Madam Chair, I've been listening and it we've discussed this thoroughly, so I really have nothing to add. Although I do agree with well, it was just brought up the possibility of pulling it of pulling the whole hate crime, hate speech out, but I was going to say my only hesitation with doing that right now is that two of our board members are not here. But and especially Chair Jacobs as this was something that she felt pretty passionately about. So I would prefer to possibly bring it back again. Do we have time to do that? No, because this has to be done, right? So we have the rule development workshop scheduled.

188I think it's middle of June. we would have to find another work session day later this month in order to do that and we are getting very close to the point in time where everybody's going to be at graduations unavailable all of that I mean that's the reason why we canled the or didn't decide to have the second meeting in in May. So we could or or we could Yeah, we could bring it back. I was trying I was trying to think. I think two days from now is too quick to bring it back to We need to have some time to think about it, right? Because we have several work sessions scheduled. We could add it to one. Correct. Superintendent. Yeah. I mean, as long as the First of all, I agree. I do

189not especially because the chair is not here. This was very important to her. and again, it's I understand the message we're sending about hate, but just listening to almost an hour conversation, we're not landing the plane in that area. so I think we'll look and see if we can add it. come back maybe with two versions of what we can include and then the board can decide. You have some time to think about it. we have some time to go back and revisit. I would like to know what the other districts are doing if that's that was a great great point. How many of them have something specific for a No, we looked you had we Yes, we provided that information before for all of them. Okay. Two had something very minimal. Okay. And nobody

190else had anything. So I so when we come back to the board during the work session, I just want you to include that in there and just say a question was asked about, you know, what other districts have and this was what the research yielded. Good. And then we'll bring it back in time before the rural development, but just know it may add just a couple of hours to your day. We are well aware that most anything that's added to our agendas adds a couple hours. okay. So, I think we're good. I think we have direction. Yes. All right. And with that, that is the end of this work session. Thank you all for hanging in there to all that discussion. Have a great rest of your afternoon. color. Heat up