OCPS | 2025-02-25 School Board Meeting

001and welcome to the Orange County school board's regular meeting scheduled for Tuesday February 25th 2025 thank you all so much for being with us tonight I'll do a quick roll call before we get started Vice chair bird present member salamona member Douglas present member salaman present thank you member Gallow good evening member Vanos present member Felder present and member for member of front with us online good evening good evening thanks for attending as a reminder board members will not be engaging in outside electronic or digital communication during the meeting so that we can focus our full attention on the matters before us to my fellow board members District staff and members of the public when speaking please make sure your microphone is turned on and speak directly into it so our YouTube and orange TV

002viewers can hear you clearly again thank you for participating we are going to begin in just a minute with a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance but before doing so I do want to mention two very sad announcements we were saddened to learn recently of the passing of sen Senator Geraldine Thompson on February 13th followed by the loss of Bobby beagles 3 days later as we stand and we bow our heads for a moment of silence please join us in keeping their families in your thoughts and prayers and now for the pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all as I mentioned Senator Gerald Dean Thompson was a lioness of the

003local black community a former ocps teacher she was a lifetime educator and historian she not only founded a museum here in Paramore she ensured that students learned living history from their forebears I had the joy and the pleasure and the privilege of knowing her personally in all my time and office and I can't tell you what an impactful woman she was and a woman who never never took no for an answer we have lost a giant and she leaves a huge void in our community and it's up to each and every one of us to be part of filling that void with that let me call on member Felder to read a resolution and on behalf of the school board thank you chair Jacobs just before I read the resolution I too would like to

004share some personal Reflections about Senator Geraldine Thompson I remember years and years ago Senator Thompson is not from Orlando but she found herself concerned about the history of blacks who lived in Orlando so she would come to my house and sit with my mother for hours to talk about some of the accomplishments of black people and she pinned it in a book she saw the need to take Dr Welles who was a former physician in Orlando on sth Street to take his house and to change into some type of Museum because they own what they the quarterback club and I remember when I was 8 years old my mom and dad took me to the quarterback club and I had my first Martini I don't drink because of that cuz I can't get the taste

005of that hard whatever I can't drink with that but I I'm so grateful for Senator Thompson because she got all this information together and she saw the need to have a museum about black or Orlon here and not even being from here and she worked at Valencia after she left ocps and started the first black Advisory board at Valencia she said they needed to have for Community awareness they needed to have a black Advisory Board she was really as you said chair Jacobs she was a Trailblazer in a real way and I'm just so you know in awe of the fact a person is not even from Orlando and saw the need to talk about some of the accomplishments of of black people and she was my personal friend in a lot of ways so

006I'm just so I'm saddened but she you know one of the representativ of the state said well how are you all going to replace Geraldine and she said not one person can do it there'll be many people to have to do the job that Senator Thompson has done during her State as as a state and representative and Senator so with that being said let me share our resolution to honor Gerald Dean Senator Geraldine Thompson whereas Senator Geraldine Thompson was a dedicated public servant who represented Western Orange County in both the Florida House and Senate beginning in 2006 and whereas Geraldine Thompson was born in New Orleans Louisiana and moved to Florida in 1955 and whereas she worked as a teacher for Orange County Public Schools for six years before becoming an administrator at Valencia Community

007College for 24 years and whereas she founded the wells built Museum of African-American history and culture preserving important stories and memorabilia of the civil rights movement and African art and whereas Thompson wrote the Orlando book in the Black American series recounting 150 years of black history in the city and whereas she was a strong advocate for education and a devoted wife mother grandmother and great grandmother whose wisdom and compassion shaped lives in the community and across the state and whereas Orange County Public Schools and the entire Central Florida Community mourn the loss of Senator Geraldine Thompson who passed away on Thursday Fe February 13 now therefore the school board of Orange County Florida does hereby acknowledge and declare that Geraldine Thompson will be remembered as a beacon for education and civil rights and her contributions

008have and will continue to help our students and the community in the future adopted by the school board of Orange County Florida in Orlando Florida on this 25th day of February 2025 our chair Teresa Jacob School Board of Orange County thank you thank you member Felder thank you for those heartfelt words I know we all mourn her loss and as I said we also pray for her family and her close friends and for our whole community of course Douglas you're recognized yes I just would like to say at the beginning of my campaign I received a phone call from Geraldine Thompson telling me that she support she supported me and she also gave me some advice to who I should be reaching to to be able to get a little bit more campaign funds and

009then she really assured me that she will be by my side if I needed to So yeah thank you thank you well I think you can still count on her to be by yourself yes thank you all right and I would like to share a little bit about Bobby beagles and I'm sure some of my fellow board members will as well Bobby is just this was just this amazing amazing man who worked with ocps to promote agricultural education for four decades he was intrical in the creation of our special Hearts farm and the Falcon friends farm his family couldn't join us here tonight because they are mourning and celebrating his life as we speak for those of us who have had an opportunity to work with Bobby I was talking to his wife this morning

010and Bobby was like one of those people just bigger than life you know so full of energy and in addition to the energy he was so full of spunk I just can't find another way to describe Bobby other than spunk and like Senator Thompson Bobby did not take no for an answer I couldn't help but reflect on the fact that while God called him home I'm not sure that heaven knows what they got themselves into CU Bobby is one of those people who takes charge and he's he's just an incredible spirit and he will be missed by me and so many other people so let me read this resolution in honor of Bobby beagles whereas Bobby beagles was born April 6th 1942 in Samson Alabama and raised in Florida and whereas he developed a love

011of Agriculture early in life and raised a cattle and raised cattle on a ranch in Christmas Florida with his family including Vicki his wife of 57 years whereas Bobby has been a strong Advocate and partner with Orange County Public Schools for more than 40 years significantly contributing to the success of Future Farmers of America in 4 AG programs at both the county and state levels whereas he served as the executive director of the Orange County Farm Bureau demonstrating exceptional leadership and commitment to the agricultural community and whereas Bobby was inducted into the Florida 4 Hall of Fame in 2019 for his contributions dating back to 1983 and whereas he routinely lobbied on behalf of Orange County Public School students and agricultural programs at the state level and was instrumental in the establishment and success of

012special Hearts form Farm ensuring students of varying abilities have access to valuable agricultural education and whereas Bobby has generously donated time resources and expertise to judge contest secure donations and sponsorships for student livestock auctions and Mentor agricultural students and whereas the friend's farm at East River High School would not exist without Bobby and his wife securing funding and providing Hands-On support to bring the project to life and whereas Orange County Public Schools in the entire Central Florida Community mourn the loss of Bobby Bagles who passed away on Sunday February 16th 2025 now therefore the school board of Orange County does hereby acknowledge and declare that Bobby Bagels will always be remembered as a much love champion of AG agricultural con education and his contributions have left an impact that will benefit students for generations to

013come adopted by the school board of Orange County Florida in Orlando Florida on this 25th day of February 2025 let me call on member Gallow thank you madam chair today was a hard day Bobby Bobby was a good man and this you could see a picture of his sweet wife Vicki up on the screen now CU Bobby didn't do anything alone any in every Endeavor he took every time he reached out and he helped a school with no ocps Vicki was involved as well whether she was a willing partner or not she was involved I was fortunate enough to work I actually met Bobby before I got into into office when I was campaigning in 2018 and we live he lives just not far from where I live out in East East Orange He had

014a small cattle ranch out in Christmas and he was just a great man he often reminded me so much of my dad just cuz he liked to hunt he liked to fish he loved the outdoors he just loved old Florida and every time I called to talk to him and I'd get Vicky Vicky bil he's out just recently he's out he's out mending the fences Angie he's out Ming the fences can I have the cattle get away he's outm the fences when we built Falcon and friends farm which is at East River High School we were trying for several years to get money from the legislator legislators allocated to us so that we could build the barn and that never came to fruition so Bobby went to the farm bureau with who he was the

015executive director at the time and he convinced them to give us $75,000 to build this Barn if the then superintendent Jenkins would agree to match it what she did and what that farm does is exposes our students with unique abilities to animals to harvesting to Growing to planting and there's another one special Hearts farm that we actually emulated cuz special heart Farm came came first I can't say enough good things about this man in fact one of the pictures you see that we're cutting we're cutting the ribbon to the barn and Bobby's looking at me cuz he's going girl what's your problem why can't you cut the ribbon cuz my scissors wouldn't cut he was just a good man who did awful lot of good things for ocps who supported AG like nobody's business I

016would call a principal and I would and we would be short at a teacher a teachers are short to come by so if anybody out out there wishes to be an act teacher let us know cuz we're always looking for good act teachers but I'd call and I say oh you guys don't have an act teacher you know when Bobby finds out Bobby's not gonna be happy about that and they'll be like don't tell Bobby give me a minute let let me call Danny let me call Danny let me find an EG teacher and we always did and it's in large part because of Bobby and Danny and the great CTE team that we have so much agriculture in our schools and so much ffas they were they were really important to Bobby and he

017did everything he could to support it he will be forever profoundly missed it was a shock to all of us when we found out on Monday that he had passed away he was so vibrant and so strong I just it just everybody that I've talked to was like not Bobby my husband included him when I told him he's like not Bobby and I said I know Bobby so he will be missed we know he's he's up in heaven and he's guiding the cattle up there and he's taking control of things so I just want to say how much I will miss him and how much I appreciate him and Vicky for everything they've done for ocps I do want to take a moment of privilege to read something from member Pam gold she was on

018the board prior and her and Bobby were extremely close they worked together to build the special Hearts farm and this is what she has to say it was my absolute honor to have Bobby beagles as an adviser and partner in service during my tenure on School Board Bobby beagles was a standard bearer of service he let nothing stand in his way when it came to serving children community and advancing the agricultural industry it is because of Bobby inviting me to walk the special Hearts Farm model at Dr Phillips high that we were able to expand that program and the opportunity for lifelong farming job jobs for our ESC students thank you to the school board for honoring this great man today and I also o want to know that they showed one of the pictures

019of the special Hearts Farm we actually gave that picture with all the students and staff signing it and presented it to Bobby and at the viewing today at the memorial they had that picture up with the flowers to Showcase all of his good work on behalf of every student with uni abilities because that's the man that he is and that's the man that he showed every single one of us every day that he was and I hope one day I could be as great as he is thank you thank you m Gallow Vice chair bird thank you I'm just going to Echo what member Gallow said this is such a Prof profound loss for our community and I was thinking about I've been thinking about him a lot this week but I was thinking about

020how one of the first times I met him was when I was also running back in and we just you know you just loved the man he's he's so passionate about what he believed in and I will never forget every time we were at an event usually like maybe a fundraising event for special Hearts Farm or at the Farm Bureau or whenever he spoke about special Hearts farm and if you all are not familiar with special Hearts farm and what they do you really should find out because it is a magical magical place and it's one of my favorite places to go visit in district 7 he every time he speaks or spoke about special Hearts farm he would tear up and start crying the strong cattl man would start crying he loved those those

021kids he loved the work that was being done there and none of it would have happened without his support and the same thing with our farm over at East River he was passionate about giving our students with unique abilities a place to go every day to feel purpose to have a job to do to to continue the love of animals and farming so you know there's not much more to say he was such a phenomenal person and I'm really struck at how we have lost three just industry pillars in our to our community in recent months including Harris Rosen and Geraldine and now Bobby these people spent their lives dedicated to their community and making their Community a better place and they are all three tremendous examples to all of us to hopefully do the

022same thing and to never stop fighting for our community so just wanted to say that thank you thank you Vice chair member Felder thank you chair they say it happens in threes so I don't know when I decided to run in 2020 I don't know how you got my number Bobby beagles called me and said to me you need to meet with me I said okay who are you he said I'm Bobby beagles and I'm we going to meet at this catfish place in the pop I said oh God and so he said somebody else want to meet with me too but I need to meet with you and so the meeting was supposed to be like 20 or 30 minutes but I'm taking a meeting lasted two hours and let me tell you H

023he we talked to about everything under the sun and what he was to me this woman running who was going to at that time be the only black person on the board cuz cat Gordon was the only one and then Katie Adams was the only one and he shared some nuggets with me that gave me strength and to let me understand and know that he said look I'm going show you how how to navigate through this listen I told his wife today I appreciated him so much and the things he shared with me and how you do what you need to do and how you get things done and the fact that he said listen I'm a farmer he said and I I didn't have that much appreciation cuz I thought Alex Smith was crazy

024Dr pH with all these cows and chickens and everything and then I met meet Bobby beagles and he and Al were friend I said oh this is where Alex gets all this from so I began to have a real appreciation for animals and and the farm and then when I saw one of my students a couple of my students from Edgewater who were now at special Hearts farm and they saw me and they began to talk to me and I saw what it did to them and how this special Hearts Farm is something else and that was his heart and as board member bird said if you have never visited the one that Maxi Elementary and out east you should go and see how our children function and what they do what these animals do

025for them so I'm I'm so grateful for Bobby beagles because he shared some things with me and he said if you ever need me I'm a phone call away just call me and I was he knew more about me than I knew about about myself in terms of running for this office this seat so he will be sorely sorely missed and I don't know like they said about replacing Geraldine I don't know who would love Agriculture and for agriculture to be in the schools like Bobby did I pray that God will send us somebody that would be as dedicated and that would love what we do in our schools and our children and he is going to be again sorely missed thank you for this time thank you member Felder well he was also strategic

026because I first met him when I was running for office so thought I was special but now I see yes a trend absolutely let me recognize Dr Vasquez our superintendent thank you madam chair I just want to Echo the same sentiments from the various board members we truly have lost two champions in our community who fought hard for our children and who were always willing to lend a hand in whatever way possible and I know our hearts are heavy as we mourn both Geraldine and Bobby thank you thank you all right Dr vasus do you regarding the agenda are there any changes to the agenda published no Madam chair there are no changes all right with there being no changes is there a motion to adopt the agenda motion by Vice chair is there a

027second second by member salamona all in favor please say I opposed oh I'm sorry member for are you with us yes I okay and you're in favor of the agenda yeah thank you mer motion carries unanimously all right we have some very special recognitions to share with you this evening before our border of business begins so first like to invite Vice chair bird to tell us about an honory whose planned recognition in October was derailed by herane Milton yes thank you thank you chair so when I was asked to think of some community members that are making differences in our schools I thought why not look at parents who are still involved in our school even though their kids have graduated that's pretty unique right we have quite a few of them that remain dedicated

028and I want to share one with you the first one tonight with you I'm honored to acknowledge a COI High School volunteer Moses Lugo who has remained a big part of night Nation even after his son graduated three years ago Moses can you please stand up yay he is so vital to ooi high school he is secured several Banner sponsorships for aoi high school's baseball team and dedicates his time to student athletes at football games and Cross Country meets even when he has to be there at 5:30 a.m. his support goes even further he manages multiple social media fan pages for the school's athletic teams as well Moses's dedication to koi high is truly inspiring we are deeply grateful for his contributions he truly loves aoi and we truly love him thank you for everything

029that you do for AO and we'd love to have you come up for a picture I'm G to go yeah why don't you that do that come on guys 10 pretend pretend you like me come on of course the principal of thank you let's get warm okay so to con continue I've got our PTSA member Sharon cider she has also continued to support aoi high school after the graduation of of her children Sharon can you please stand so we can recognize you in the past she has coordinated so that more than 100 students PTSA Volunteers in a AI High School staff can attend rally in tally rally to tally each year this is a three-day field trip to the state capital to experience Florida government at work during the legislative session in January this provides

030Ides our students with invaluable leadership and educational opportunities I've gotten to work with Sharon who actually we just met face to face tonight but we've been email buddies for years who has requested Schoolboard funds to help secure the bus transportation for this event so the kids can go up there so I've been super excited to be able to help her with that Sharon we really thank you for your commitment to K high school and to the student students into making this opportunity become available to them because as I told you earlier this is life-changing some of these kids are going to be our Future Leaders because of these trips so thank you for that why don't you come up for a picture as well thank you would it be easier for you oh probably okay

031I'm almost done I promise you know how it is once I get started bragging okay so we're going to move to Apopka high school now because I have to tell you about these two incredible volunteers that we have at apka High School I am delighted to recognize the Apopka High School Marching Band volunteers Joe Chandler and Carl Rita can you both stand for us and look they're even Dawning their AP poopah High shirts I love it for countless years these two gentlemen have developed Logistics so that the blue Darter band can move in style and I thought we have a p there it is that is big blue the band semi which was crafted with the these gentleman's expertise and guidance to transp transport more than 200 students to events Carl and Joe have also

032secured the community secured the community sponsors to fund the cab to transport the semis trailers at the University of Florida's annual Gator band day both men spend nearly 24 hours with the marching band they help provide what can be a life-changing experience for those students they truly represent the spirit of community in teamwork and I'm so grateful for their support as I know that our band director who's down there Mr Langford and principal Heins do as well so Carl and Joe come on up for a picture good good do you want in the back did you want to take the picture anyone else missing come on in thank you to each of you for making such a difference in district 7 next we would like to recognize a real life superhero Vice chair it is

033your night go ahead can you tell us a little more it is District 7's night apparently it is my pleasure to share this with everyone I'd like to recognize wolflake El wolflake Middle School sorry sixth grade Dean Julius Franklin who is a real life superhero Dean Franklin please please rise so last month seventh grade student Daniel cabara was choking on a water bottle cap in his classroom he went into the bathroom and tried to cough out the bottle cap Dean Franklin heard the Frantic call on the radio and quickly jumped into action he successfully dislodged the bottle cap that was stuck in Daniel's throat by administering the heck remover thankfully Daniel is feeling much better and I think is he with us tonight no he couldn't make it oh but he's feeling much better we

034are so incredibly thankful for you and your heroism real life hero thank thank you so much Dean thank you would you like to come up and we have principal hop there as well you to come down for this no I can just jump over back upair I'm sorry what did I do okay okay Dean Franklin thank you so much you know I just put a plug in while we're waiting for Vice chair to come back for those of you who haven't taken the CPR class and gotten certified and learned the hemlick maneuver this is one way we can all be a hero when we're in the right place at the right time but only if we have the right skills thank you so much for investing your time in being prepared to save lives as

035you did in this case it's got to be rewarding and we need a lot of people like you everybody that touches children should be certified every single person so thank you back to you oh you have a little oh okay so each month I said it's it's Vice chair birds not month but day each month a school board member honors an employee in their District these employees have shown except exceptional dedication and contributed to the success of our students we're grateful for every single one of our devoted staff members and this is just one more way that we're pleased to honor them Vice chair yes okay I promise this will be my last one for district 7 tonight but this one I am so excited about we are going to recognize tonight A KO High

036School music teacher Bernard hendris W and we are there he is right there and we are recognizing him because he was one of 25 semifinalists along with Freedom High School music teacher Michael Antman for the 2025 Grammy music educator award but it gets even better because as you can see he was one of the 10 he was chosen for one of the 10 finalists for the award from across the country there he is wow so super excited for him presented annually the recording Academy and the Grammy Museum from the from them they award honors Educators who have made a significant and Lasting contribution to music education and demonstrate a deep commitment to top-notch music education in schools both hen both of Hendrick's parents were musicians and he has fond memories of listening to his Jazz

037records when he was a child after Bernie earned his bachelor's of Art Arts and Music education from FAMU in 1997 I knew that one was going to get a cheer he began his teaching career and helped grow the music program from 120 to 400 students at Robinswood middle school now there's something pretty significant here because the principal there at the time was our very own Dr Bridget Williams who is now our Deputy superintendent for executive services but but my script here says that in 2005 Hendrick was stolen stolen away by another principal Maria Sal look I've learned from you Dr Michael armster who was at the time opening a COI High School and he stole Bernie and she's still bitter about it she is she is she is so from one Deputy superintendent to another

038deputy superintendent okay there's got to be something about you all right but Ser now you know why we're on opposite sides of the diet see Bernie it's all because of you it's all because of you at a KO Hendrick builds the music program he built the music program from the ground up he's also by the way the president-elect of the Florida music Education Association this coming year so we're proud of him about that even though Mr Hendrick wasn't chosen for this year's Grammy he is a winner in our eyes for the way he inspires the musicians of tomorrow and even though he didn't win an official Grammy I have a little Grammy for you Bridget would steal from others this was payback oh yeah exactly go down take picture oh come on loser too much

039love going on it I've got some suggestions too much a hold congratul congratulations crazy oh my God H so good about yeah I know right yeah whoa all right now would like to invite somebody else to brag about their District I would like to invite member Stephanie Vanos who represents district 6 to tell us about the retired ocps staff member she has selected for her school board Spotlight thank you chair Jacobs I'd like to honor retired Captain Ron Beasley who was inducted into the Florida veterans hall of fame for his lifetime contribution to society and the State of Florida earlier this month Captain Beasley can you please stand so we can recognize you going to brag about you for a little bit I'm captain Beasley retired from the Navy in 2000 after serving 23 years

040in the military he coordinated with former District 5 board member cat Gordon to start the first Jun Junior Roc program at meadowwoods middle in 2004 Captain Beasley also taught our Junior Roc students at Evans High for 13 years before retiring in 2016 he provides provided students with an opportunity to meet former US representative vald demings at the capital and visit Washington DC in March of 2015 Captain Beasley also has helped to ensure Junior ROTC students continue to excel After High School so I want to give an example he helped Evans High Alum Ricky sing earn his acceptance into the US Naval Academy and Ricky is majoring in nuclear engineering and has a 4.0 GPA all right board member Felder is disputing which high school he went toes high school okay Captain Beasley thank you so

041much for helping our students reach for the stars please come forward to have your photo taken with the school board all right when you come forward you're going to have to settle the dispute up here which which school did you go to Rick Ricky District p with the tal res what he both of the schools have some B yeah congratulations Captain Beasley and thank you we are so proud of our Junior RTC programs and our students that participated in it so thank you for your role in their success and now I'd like to recognize eight seniors from Apopka Dr Phillips Evans and Jones High School for receiving the alpha F Alpha scholarships during the Martin Luther King Jr commemorative luncheon I'd now like to invite henin Johnson Education Foundation president Lawrence Davis to the podium

042to tell us more about why our students were chosen for these wonderful scholarships welcome good evening everyone good evening thank you first of all for having me here on behalf of the brothers of alpha F Alpha fraternity and the henin Johnson Education Foundation with thrilled that you are recognizing these young people who are outstanding students and the GPA range from 3.5 to 4.5 so just a tremendous amount of talent we have over here in these young people and we couldn't be more proud of them we're just grateful that we could be a small part of helping them to move around and continue their education as they graduate from high school thank you okay all right if we could get you I'm sorry go ahead you want me to bring up each I sure do okay

043all right very good so we first want to recognize our drum major Scholastic achiever who's Olivia aasta our stem Wilkerson scholarship recipient Nyla Payne other Wilkerson scholarship fund stem scholarship recipient is Farah Budram our MLK leadership scholarship recipient Zara Patterson our next leadership scholarship recipient Marvin mon Monier our change agent scholarship recipient Jamay Alfonso community service scholarship recipient Amir Tahir community service scholarship recipient Jo Wes Brewer be the best you can be scholarship recipient Sydney Jackson a spot yes of are there others you'd like to bring up is your fat Brothers you want to bring up Sir any fet brothers you want to bring up just okay yes come up here yeah oh he wants you to use his phone to take a picture yes we'll do both good big smile big smile again hold

044on Happy perfect my assistant you got one in the back or two yes assistance did you to use your you have anyone else parents any parents come on princip the party y' come on princi come on come on it in come on guys C good big smile big smile again this is how I get paid thank you come on everybody come on come on up grab grab a child come on come on make it work come on come on you got to be bold here search yourself can't see her the little one no no no no we're going to make sure we can see her please for me don't look at my crew good stay there hold on big smile cellone Trio one more yes it all right congratulations congratulations so so congrat congratulations so

045proud of you guys congratulations good J we're great kids thank you so much for honoring our students okay student student sorry seniors we look forward to seeing what amazing things you accomplish in the future and we are so appreciative to the foundation and the president Lawrence Davis for honoring our students all right next we are going to move on to another recognition our very own superintendent Dr Maria Vasquez was presented with the 2025 MLK drum major award for civic affairs this award has been you can clap this award was presented for nearly 40 years kind of sounds like a long time doesn't it yeah it is a long time for nearly 40 years to a local person that is making a difference in Central Florida what a special honor several of our board members and

046cabinet leaders were there to join Dr Vasquez Dr Vasquez do you want to share anything with us about the event I was incredibly humble to have even been nominated so I'm very thankful to the organization but more importantly for all that you're doing for our students the scholarships are phenomenal but the mentoring those relationships that you're building it's it's so critical to their success and so thank you so much for the recognition I know that there are so many that are deserving of that thank you Dr vascas yeah yeah come on one more feure come on let's get close thank you all right before before we move over recognitions let me check with the superintendent to see if we have any newly appointed administers administrators to recognize no Madam chair we do not okay okay

047so those of you were here for recognitions and celebrations you're welcome to stay with us the rest of the night but this is also your opportunity to sneak out before we begin the business portion of the meeting all right this portion of the meeting we set aside so that we can hear Council reports and reports from our both our CTA our classroom teacher Association OA and okasa so at this point let me call on president Ron Pard of the Orange County Education support professionals Association Mr Pard always wonderful to have you with us actually I really didn't plan on speaking tonight but I do want to tell you I was pleased to see board member Salam Monica and Dr Bass squares at the love the bus in Lake Nona compound today it was really nice

048for our transportation people to see that you all care enough to just step in and say hi I saw some smiling faces so really that's mainly it I didn't have any comments to make all righty thank you Mr poer just want to check in Mr McCracken don't want to put you on the spot do you have anything you want to offer how about Dr Anna Diaz is she there you are Dr Anna Diaz is the executive director of the Orange County Association School administrators wonderful to see I'm going to work on this it takes a second but be patient okay come on you know I'm not sure if I really have a pulse sometimes it's perfect it's wonderful to be here with you especially after all that energy you feel with recognition so good evening

049chair Jacobs board members superintendent Vasquez Deputy superintendent armer staff and community members I'm Dr Anna Diaz and I'm here to speak on behalf of the Orange County Association of school administrators I come before you not only as oka's executive director but as someone who has lived and understands school choice in ocps for over 30 years I served this community as a parent a teacher school-based administrator and a district leader I have firsthand knowledge of the power of choice in shaping opportunities for students in the '90s now that's the 20th century I was part of the parent L effort for the public charter conversion of then the Windy Ridge Elementary School to Ka while it was not approved the movement inspired the expansion of school choice across Orange County Public Schools I helped also develop dual

050language programs at the elementary level when I was principal of what is today Roberto Clemente Middle School later as principal of University High School I was part of a team that founded the IB Program despite doubts that we would ever succeed these experiences taught me something very important bold IDE when combined with collaboration and thoughtful policy can transform education and expand opportunity that is why okasa is eager to continue the conversation you're having on policy jca assignment of students to schools we're fortunate to have a superintendent who understands Choice having served as the principal of Wendy Ridge Ka her experience and her expertise in this space is invaluable and will work work to refine and strengthen your approach your recent work session on policy jca underscored the importance of expanding and refining school choice policies

051to meet the needs of students and families some of the priorities that emerged included ensuring schools remain diverse expanding access to Transportation Solutions streamlining enrollment enhancing marketing efforts and ensuring family stability by keeping siblings together while these discussions bring new opportunities we must also be mindful of policy changes that could impact school culture and Expectations by maintaining clear expectations for attendance behavior and academic success to uphold strong learning environments and preserving principal ability to roke transfers when necessary while ensuring policy language is clear consistently and fairly appli apped across all schools this is an exciting time and we want you to know that you can count on okasa to participate in this conversation thank you all right we are on to celebrations observation for those of you who are not aware all proclamations were adopted

052by vote of the board on August 27th of 2024 board meeting and celebrations and obser I'm sorry the 20 August 27th 2024 board meeting the list will remain on the agenda for the entire school year next up is our strategic Plan update is that correct no we do not have we do okay I don't know this looks rather ominous you marching up with that big old suitcase followed by all right I don't know if that was you or me but we're getting there Dr Bor are you recognized all right good evening chair Jacobs members of the board superintendent and Vasquez excited to be here tonight and appreciate the opportunity to share information about a new tool that is currently available for our district and school leaders incredible team of individuals led by Dr Jennifer Sasser

053Ben Allen Heather krider Deborah ISO and several others worked thanks to do some Partnerships with it and superintendent we're able to work within our system and develop an interactive accountability denominator report aimed at saving the valuable resource of time for our administrators and teachers so to hear more about that tonight I'm going to turn it over to Ben Allen thank you Dr border and it's a pleasure to be here this evening this evening I'll be presenting on an exciting product that the research measurement and strategy office has put together there we go that better thank you we want to be able to hear you okay now we should be able to hear you all right is that better for the volume great oh I didn't do that I did not do that now this is

054turning into a game all right so the research measurement and strategy office has put together a tool for our school and District leaders as Dr border mentioned before describing that product I briefly want to reintroduce you to the office and how our teams function and work together our office is composed of four different teams assessment accountability research and strategic Improvement these groups all help develop the information that we provide the assessment Department manages the administration of international national state and District assessments sound practices around assessment development and administration give us valid and reliable information this department also works with school staff to promote data and assessment literacy the accountability Department processes student data including assessment data to meet various reporting needs these departments Department reports are the starting place for conversations about progress monitoring within

055state and federal accountability Frameworks the research Department shares data with external researchers conducts internal analyses and evaluates programs this longer view helps contextualize our outcomes within larger educational trends across time and the Strategic Improvement team supports School Improvement planning and helps principles use the team's developed resources this team creates a strong connection point with school leaders to help them leverage the available information research measurement and strategy has identified two Focus areas to support the district's vision and Mission our efforts around building capacity include learning new information developing skills and applying resources to improve professional practice to inform action we seek to provide district and school Leaders with the guidance and insight they need as they consider options and make decisions I'm proud and fortunate to be able to work with this team of people who

056are all committed to innovating on behalf of the district students and staff you'll see in the next several slides how our approach to building capacity and informing action has come to life one of the key functions of our office is to provide schools with information about student progress within state and federal accountability Frameworks this is something that our accountability department has done for many years our appro approach to providing this information though has had some drawbacks first school staff need to sort through and assemble data points from multiple files to understand which students need support throughout the year second finding insights from our current Excel reports takes time and expertise third time spent collecting and organizing data does not return value until it informs conversations around Student Success in short for leaders to take action

057based on our data they had to invest substantial time to process their data reports and they had to repeat this work each time a new report came out here's an example of the accountability report we have historically provided to schools each school would receive a spreadsheet like the one shown about about several times a year the file contains anywhere between 85 and 150 Columns of data that staff would have to scroll through and filter to get what they were looking for many schools would also take this report and add additional columns such as schedule information District staff also use these files and they can be quite long the typical length is around 200,000 rows for a district file and the amount of data can cause the report to load and run slowly to help address

058the problems we saw a cross- departmental team from the research measurement and strategy office developed a new approach for schools to access the data and their accountability denominator report we created a data structure that powers this report through Microsoft sof's Power Platform and created interactive visualizations using powerbi the district's its team provided access to these robust tools and we worked with a small group of school and District leaders to test different approaches and gather feedback along the way all of this has led to a tool that helps bring data to life and lets principles find hidden insight into what they might not have otherwise seen the report is currently accessible to the following groups including members of the superintendent cabinet staff in the chief academic office as is identified by the Cao staff in the

059research measurement and strategy office executive leaders principal leaders Cadre senior administrators principles and assistant principles and the last two can only see the data relative to their schools whereas all of the others are district level Charter School principles are also able to see this report and their data is included in the information the report is organized like a funnel that starts with the overview data and moves to specific student information this allows leaders to look for Trends and then follow up with specific groups of students or even individual students we're using screenshots for the rest of these demonstrations because the report contains identifiable student information that we cannot share publicly we've redacted any student identifying information throughout the presentation the first page of the report provides information that people can use to make sense of

060the report it shows a general timeline for when information is updated and in the upper right corner it shows the date when the current information was reported in the case that we're looking at tonight the report we were looking at was updated on December 19th 2024 we also have a space for staff to provide feedback this will let us know what features are most helpful and what we should consider for future development we have committed to making only Minor Adjustments to this product for the remainder of the 2425 school year so that the tool won't change midyear as people are learning how to use it this is the overview page of the report it provides a graphic display of outcomes from the four state assessed subject areas English language arts mathematics science and social studies

061the report shows charts for the various assessments that students take throughout the year at the top users can quickly see the number of students included in the data set and how many students are included in each of the school grade accountability components District users can click at the top of the screen to select specific cadr they can also click in the school dropdown to select one or more schools on the left side of the report staff can select a student filter menu this will open a panel on the left side of the screen in this panel the report can be filtered through several areas of Interest filtering by teacher gives School leaders new functionality they can select specific teachers or groups of teachers to see just results for those teachers they can also filter by

062course code if they want want to see how students enrolled in specific courses are progressing under the student filter section there are many options for narrowing the scope of the report users can select by the every student succeeds act or Essa subgroup which is important for federal accountability outcomes report users can also filter for students enrolled in courses with State and of course assessments or by students who have already met graduation assessment requirements for grade 10 English language arts and Algebra 1 this means that a student who has scored a level three or higher on the fast grade 10 Ela assessment or Algebra 1 and of course assessment or that they have earned a concordant or comparative score as defined by the state the report can also be filtered by specific student groups of Interest

063these groups help schools identify students who might fall under specific sets of accountability rules based on their enrollment and demographic information two groups that our teams frequently receive questions about are English language Learners with a date of entry into a US School within the last two years and students who are tied back from alternative UC education sites or ES centers Ells with less than 2 years who are not included are not included in some accountability components and students who are tied back are included in a School's grade even though they may not attend the school the filter panel also includes toggle boxes to select students who meet the inclusion rules for specific school grade accountability components under the state accountability model closing the student filter panel returns us to the overview page one helpful feature

064of this report is that the graphs include tool tips this allows users to hover over specific bars of interest to receive more information in this case I'm hovering over the purple level five bar for grade three Ela achievement on the Florida assessment of student thinking progress monitoring to assessment this tells me that there are 1,37 students or approximately 8.5% of the assessed students who performed at this level I can click on that same bar and the rest of the report will filter down to just those students after clicking on this bar the rest of the page has recalculated to only include that group one of the most powerful features of powerbi is the ability to drill into more detail taking the group of students that I already selected those grade three students who scored at

065a level five on their fast pm2 assessments I can rightclick on the total number of students and select the drill through to see the student list this brings up a new page with detailed a detailed sheet of student data again parts of this image are redacted because it contains contains identifiable student information such as their student number name and Home Room in this report each row represents one student report users can use the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen to move across the rows and see additional information for example scrolling to the right shows me the scale scores and achievement levels for each of the selected students I can also see how close students are to meeting their achievement and learning gains Targets this information can help School staff identify groups of students

066who are demonstrating early indications of achievement or learning gains and would benefit from enrichment or those who would benefit from specific interventions such as small group instruction pullout instruction tutoring or targeted content reviews I could also export this report as an Excel file if I wanted to do any further processing work this report lets me drill through the data one more time just as before I rightclick on a student row and select drill through to individual student detail this brings us to the most granular level of information the page you see here shows information for one student whose name and teachers have been obscured from this screen I can see the accountability components in which the student is currently included I can also see the students demographic subgroup information and whether they fall into any

067areas of special interest from an accountability perspective in the bottom left I see a summary of the assessment outcomes and points to Target for ELA and Mathematics on the right right I can see the student schedule the teachers names have been been redacted again to protect anonymity in this meeting but the users of this report would be able to see all of that information to get back to the beginning I C I click the arrow in the upper left of the screen this will take me back one level into the student list page and again I can click the arrow in the upper left to go to the highest level of the report which will take me back to the overview page and we're now back at the overview page which is the most zoomed

068out level of this report there are several advantages to building this report within the district first we own the data and the products we do not have to rely on a third party for this report to exist in its current form second we can adapt and customize this report on our own schedule thirdparty vendors frequently have their own schedules for maintaining systems and products and we don't always have control in those circumstances third we can build multiple products from the same sets of data rather than engaging in separate projects to create similar reports we can use the same infrastructure to create new reports for different audiences I'll now turn the presentation to Heather krier principal on assignment and the research measurement and strategy office to discuss the training and roll out for District staff and

069principles good evening our team worked to provide differen iated training to Executive leaders principal leaders Cadre senior administrators principes and assistant principles throughout the months of December and January during each training session leaders received a companion guide with links to all resources and Communications about the tool the training provided guided support with learning to navigate the tool and opportunities for school-based scenario exploration to understand the impact of the data visualization at the end of each training session we captured Reflections and feedback from the attendees among the many strong positive responses we have received this slide contains a sample of themes that are coming out from school and District leaders who have participated in our training things like this report will make it easier and more efficient to drill down to specific student supports that are

070needed quick easy access to student groups and implementing in interventions based on current data this is a GameChanger it will expedite the data analysis and allow us to be more responsive to supports and interventions it is reducing the work I'm doing formatting and sorting the data and it is not overwhelming because it visually lays everything out you can drill drill through to find student data and schedules our report was launched for district and school-based users on December 5th 2024 for the most recent 30 days ending on February uary 11th we received 735 unique viewers who have opened the report a total of 6,692 times with a total of over 22,000 page views this suggests that people are returning to the report multiple times and clicking between pages to drill deeper into the data I will

071now turn back over to Ben so that he can finish this up for this year we do not plan to make major changes to the report if needed we may make small changes that don't impact the overall layout or function we're collecting feedback through a link in the report to know what features school and District leaders find most beneficial research measurement and strategy will evaluate those requests and make updates to the report in summer 2025 and we will also continue adding users to this tool which will happen methodically so we can ensure people are trained at the school and that we have system capacity to maintain the tool thank you for allowing us to present this exciting Tool at this time I'll yield the presentation back to Dr Vasquez for any comments or discussion thank

072you Ben and the team this really has been received with great positive feedback this of course board is in response to some of the feedback we've received from Mr McCracken classroom Teachers Association our advisory councils that with request for data and trying to help take things off of teachers plates as it relates to data I know the team is already working and I probably shouldn't be saying this but I started so I will the team is already working on enhancing the reports based on feedback that they've received we're so thankful that you were able to put this together in such a very short period of time and now we're ready to take any questions or comments from the board all right let me hear first from U member Gallow M Gallow you're recognized thank you

073madam chair and thank you to Dr Border's entire team for all the work that went into implementing this putting it together Gathering all the data making it look pretty and then making it look useful I mentioned our call it reminds me a lot of the portal that the Department of Education uses when you can look up school grades and you can really dial in to demographics and really kind of get a sense of where that school or where that district is doing well or where they may fall short what I love about this is that we've been asking superintendent Vasquez to take stuff off teachers plate for a very long time and when she did her round taes this is one of the items that kept popping up and popping up popping up that teachers

074were spending a lot of time giving data to administrators when the data was really they could find as well so I'm super excited about this I love that our administrators are enjoying it that they're using it I hope the usage continues to go up and I look forward to you coming back to us and tell us how much time we've saved teachers so that they could do the important work of educating our students so thank you thank you very much for all this and I just love that four Circle moment I have to point that out I love that we asked we heard we did and now we're showing you what we' done so I just wanted to point that out I love that thank you well said member Gallow member Vanos thank you so

075much Shar and thank you again for taking the time to do this I really I actually was at visiting with the principal and she was one of the pilot schools and she just shared how much she is really enjoying this program and how much just it is making data analysis so much easier for her I and I'm also glad that we're taking some you know giving some time back to teachers taking the soft their plates you know I do have to say I will always say that our students are more than data point so I just want to make sure that because we have the measuring tool doesn't mean that we're you know putting more of a focus on that we're making sure that we're looking at the whole child and not just the DAT

076data point Point but I will say that again the principal that I spoke to really really appreciated it did want to ask if guidance counselors will ultimately have access to this information and so thanks board member V Vanos for the question so our plan next is to begin rolling out to teacher groups we want to do it methodically so that we can make sure as we eventually get to teachers that the system can sustain as we get 14,000 users into the system and it remains efficient so next we are going to look at different teacher groups to begin rolling it out and we've talked about teacher leaders guidance counselors Staffing Specialists curriculum resource teachers literacy coaches and so we welcome that feedback great thank you member Salam monka yeah I just want to Echo that

077thank you so much for all that your team done and we had such a good conversation just appreciating also the before this data and platform was done and how difficult it was kind of sorting through this large amount of data and I think years ago it wasn't I think we had different platform as well and it sounds like we're kind of moving back again into that direction and I know I'm hearing from administrators that were maybe in this pilot program just how much easier it is for them to like understand some of these numbers without it taking an enormous amount of time so I really appreciate this is kind of hopefully the reason why we have a large District we benefit from scale and volume is to have a team as dedicated as you all

078with your skill set of being able to build something like this so that it's not happening decentralized at each of the schools in different ways so thank you for the work on this and I'm I'm excited to continue getting feedback and seeing how this works out thank you thank you member salaman let me check in on member forant member forant are you with us yes Madam chair can you hear me okay yes we can hear you very well thank you okay wonderful I just wanted to say I am thrilled about this new roll out I was at a few schools this past week and just talking with administrators and teachers and they are very very excited about this new system and I think it's going to really help us a narrow in and see how

079we can really dial in and help individual children well I totally agree I'm not about you know I'm just focusing on you know maybe testing and all that kind of things but I think seeing the data and seeing the gaps U ways that we can really support our kids I think this is just going to be an incredible tool and like the others have said this is really a way to help take some weight off of the teacher shoulders where they're not having to spend so much time digging through all of the data but our team wow exceptional job in what they've been able to create so really really thrilled and excited to see this roll out thank you member foron member Douglas I just want to say thank you so much for this for

080this tool that you have created I just do appreciate that it's a inside work and we do not have to rely on a third party thank you so much for the brain right that you guys have thank you and I appreciate the fact also that you take a load of the teachers and it's wonderful that you support that teacher those teachers in that regard thank you so much thank you member Douglas well I think everybody said everything but everybody hasn't almost everybody has said it so I'll say actually remember Douglas hit the points exactly I mean number one saving our teachers time so that they can spend their time where it counts but secondly besides it's being an incredible tool it's amazing that we have the team inhouse that can build this and I shouldn't

081be surprised because my interactions with each one of you has has always just overwhelmed me with just how talented you are but this has blown me away just totally blown me away so and you all know how much I love data and digging and I don't have time for it anymore which is probably a really good thing but it's super cool that it's there so anyway good job and I'm sure in the end you saved us not only saved us money from not having to go to an outside vendor but you it's something that works for us and we don't have to figure out how to adapt it and how to pay to adapt it and so just good job all the way around and superintendent once again congratulations she' done a phenomenal job and

082putting together a phenomenal team so all right with that we're going to release you guys and move on to our next item which is the oh I'm sorry remember Vanos I see I'm sorry no I just chimed in at the last minute I just have one question will parents have access to this data for their student no so no they will not miss vonos yeah this will we'll go to the teacher level okay that's our plans at this time could a parent request it through like a public records request or it's just not accessible to them I would I mean I'll I'll defer but I think that if a parent wanted that they have this inform I mean they have the state information through the progress monitoring system but teachers will have access to it

083and so if a teacher wanted to provide a parent or a school administrator wanted to provide a parent individual student data you know that could be possible but again we're hoping to take things off of of their plates so this is a formative tool that could be utilized at conferences and things like that when you're thinking of a student coming in for a meeting with a staffing specialist and teachers all giving feedback this kind of tool could could also help facilitate such meetings thank you Dr Vasquez I was going to say U that parents have access to their child's individual data whether it's the state assessment progress monitor data or if they are on an intervention program it's just not all located in one one place right thank you're done yes thanks this time you're

084officially done appreciate it all right next is the consent agenda Mr pomerini do we have any speakers on the consent agenda no Madam chair all right if there are no questions or comments from board members I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda no moved motion by member Vanos second second by member salaman all in favor please say I member Fant I motion carries unanimously and just a minute if you would please all right we are on nonconsent item 7 1701 request approval of the recommendation for renewal of the charter school contract with UCP Bales Community Academy charter for five years and Mr pomerini let me start with you do we have any speakers no Madam chair okay then Mr Moody I will go to you if you could present this to the board

085thank you madam chair first I'd like to introduce our Mighty Charter team Dr Kia Scott Gina Dole and Margaret Elmo will be presenting 1701 and 1702 this evening I'll turn it over to Dr Scott senior director of of Charter Schools school choice to present K and while you're coming forward just let me double check do we have any speakers on 1702 no Madam chair all right so we can open both of those at the same time good evening Madam chair board members superintendent bqu as I bring to you before you item 1701 on the recommendation for renewal of the charter school for UCP bailes Academy United Cal poliy of Central Florida Inc doing business as UCP bailes a Community Academy Charter School opened in August of 2020 following approval of the Orange County School Board

086the school is located at 4780 data Court in Orlando Florida UCP baal's Community Academy charter serves approximately 451 students kindergarten through grade 8 a renewal site team comprised of school choice services staff and District Personnel conducted a renewal site visit on January 9th 2025 during the visit the team interviewed members of the governing board teachers parents and other stakeholders in addition documentation of the school's records for the past 5 years was reviewed regarding critical performance areas which include educational performance financial performance organizational performance and future planning upon conclusion of the renewal process it was the recommendation of the committee and the senior director of school choice services that UCP bailes Community Academy charter be granted a renewal of their Charter contract for further consideration school choice services staff recommends a 5-year renewal of the contract

087to be negotiated between staff and the charter school governing board using the Florida standard model Charter renewal contract Madam chair thank you any questions or comments from board members member Vanos you recognized thank you madam chair when you did the tour of the charter were there any deficiencies that you noted during the visit and well prior to and during the visit there was some issues and concerns with the exceptional student education monitoring as well as the esol elll monitoring that was noted so I can go if you need any further information on that I can give it to you that would be great thank you all right any other questions member Vanos so with ESC monitoring we found it was a couple of information that was noted and keep in mind that you know our

088small team we do utilize the ocps district offices so ESC has a team that does support the charter schools UCP Bales Academy is its own local Education Agency so we do not interact as far as support and monitoring to the extent that we do with the traditional Charter Schools but we do keep an eye on them some of the things that were noted as far as compliance was that all documents did not have meeting participant signatures in the files some meeting notices were required two days two ways before with 10day notice that was not completed and prior written notices needed to have more Det detail as to why the district was proposing to refuse certain services or or provide interventions the verification of plan distribution should always be signed and that was found that was

089not always done in that particular case regarding esol UCP bails does provide services I don't want you to think that they are not providing services but because they have adopted to utilize the ocps elll plan some of the pro monitoring and evaluation pieces were not done within our system which is called elevation so that information was missing from that system which is making it difficult to kind of monitor it since we have met with them they have been in contact with our Esau contact there's there staff there specialist that supports the school and they are on track to make sure that is done in the future okay thank you you noted that they were an Lea what does that mean local Education Agency so charter schools have the opportunity to become their own Lea which

090basically gives them the opportunity to have all of the federal funds directly come to them so whereas FTE passes through the district which it still does in their case any grants and federal funds will go directly to the school which gives them more autonomy thank you for that have there been any issues with their finances in the past not at all not at all okay thank you and then just a question what would be is 5 years the could we just renew for a year to make sure that they're following up on these services or is you know how could we do that if we want to make sure that our the students are getting the services that they need in I think the last legislative session or the one prior to that it was

091noted that statute requires a minimal renewal of 5 years okay so even if they have you know students are maybe not going to services that they need they the renewal cannot be less than 5 years according to a state statute but doesn't preclude you from as a school board you still have the authority to to go and it doesn't mean because you're given five years doesn't mean that you operate for five years if any deficiency come up you have the right for have to have us go in and do a deep dive so I don't want you to think just because you signed you know stamp 5 years that means it's an automatic okay and then what would it take let's just say in a year you in like what would it take to actually

092revoke the renewal it would take a lot statute really does not in order to basically close a school you have to have two a double F in this case the school does not receive a grade they give a school Improvement rating you would have to have poor financials or be in a financial deteriorating condition or you have to have severe health and safety conditions in the school and those would be the means for closure okay so it's pretty hard to revoke Charter status yes under State Statute thank you thank you member Vanos member Gallow thank you madam chair I just want to First commend Mr Moody and his staff for all the work that they do Dr Scott is in Charters and her all day long like that's what they do and I've I've ran

093into at several different Charters that I have I have visited and we're very fortunate here in Orange County to have such great relationships with our Charters I will tell you talking to other school districts even school districts that you think there wouldn't be issues with their Charters there is issues with their Charters so we're very fortunate to have such a great team that does such a wonderful job not only building those relationships but ensuring that our Charters are operating efficiently and making sure that they're serving the students that they house so we appreciate you for that's really all I have I think what member Vanos was referring to with the financials was a couple years ago we did have a discussion as a board I'm sorry where there was some issues but it was I

094think related to Medicaid or how they were billing and so we did have a conversation on that and I think that time we only renewed them for a year because we were allowed to they fixed the problems and then we came back and we renewed them for I believe five we did did you want I wasn't understanding I was thinking as far as their monthly an annual audit so if you want me to give more information but I support the renewal thank you thank you me member Vanos any follow up on that yeah sure if you could just give a quick update I'd appreciate that and the reason I ask is because they are their own Lea so funds the district doesn't have the same oversight over the funding that they're getting so you know

095my question what my question really is you know if that's ever been if there's ever been any issues with that so Financial as far as their compliance and in them holding their required balance and Reserve no at the time it was roughly 5 years ago there was an audit roughly a sampling of roughly 20 students per location just looking at the matrices for ESC and it was found that some were inflated and it did result in the school having to pay back some funding thank you all right that can I'm sorry you need a vote is there a motion to approve the request for motion to move forward with 1701 by member Gallow is there a second second by Vice chair bird all in favor please say I member Fant I I heard an I

096heard something else I'm hoping everything's okay out there Mo motion carries unanimously all right we are on 1702 request approval of the recommendation for the renewal of Charter School contract with Renaissance Charter school at Golden Rod for 15 years Dr vascos I'll turn it back over to Mr Moody to present to the board and Dr Scott will walk us through it all right thank you Renaissance Charter school Inc doing business as Renaissance Charter school at Golden Rod began operation in July of 2015 as an Orange County Public Charter School following the approval of the Orange County School Board School is located at 604 South Golden Rod Road and it serves approximately 1,89 students in grades K through 8 a renewal site team comprised of school choice services staff and District Personnel conducted a renewal site

097visit on January the 17th during the visit the team interviewed members of the governing board teachers parents and other stakeholders in addition documentation of the school's records for the past five years was reviewed regarding critical P performance areas which include educational performance financial performance organizational performance and future planning upon conclusion of the renewal process it was the recommendation of the committee and the senior director of school choice services that Renaissance Charter school at Golden Rod be granted a renewal of their Charter School contract for further consideration the school choice services staff recommends a 15-year renewal to of the contract to be negotiated between staff and the charter school governing board using the standard model Charter renewal contract developed by the Florida Department of Education Madam chair thank you any members of the board have any

098questions all right no questions I'll entertain a motion to move forward or not with 1702 motion to move forward motion by member Salam Anka is there a second a second second by member Felder all in favor please say I member front I thank you motion carries unanimously all right we are on item 1703 request approval of siga health and life insurance company to provide third party medical administrative services for the district Mr palmerini do we have anyone who's come to speak to the board on 1703 yes Madam chair we have three speakers okay all right let's for those of you who wish to speak the I'm sorry can I just go on record as voting in the affirmative for The Last Action I was did you walk out I did I am so sorry thank

099you very much I didn't even realize you weren't there thank you for clarifying that oh well that didn't sound good we missed you darly though the things nearly fell apart okay okay for those of you who in are going to speak the comments that I made before I don't even think I need to repeat with this group but each of you has three minutes and do you have an order for me yes Madam chair first speaker is Philip Barbaro and then Kimberly funderberg and Beth Smith all right thank you welcome thank you good evening Madam chair members of the board and superintendent Vas thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening my name is Phil Barbaro I'm the president of United healthc Care's public sector and labor business I here today to address a

100crucial decision before the board regarding the selection of your future healthc care plan partner the decision will significantly impact your employees their families and the students in this District I urge the board to reconsider the recommendation that has been presented and examine the following the district's Health Plan is currently facing a deficit of approximately $65 million which begs the question whether this is a direct reflection on your incumbent vendor historical performance without a change this deficit is unlikely to be resolved this deficit represents a material opportunity cost to the district it hinders the district's ability to provide stable Health Care coverage to your employees and their families but it also impacts your ability to hire more teachers reduce class sizes and enhance curriculum for your students alternatively United Healthcare is offering a claim cost guarantee

101of -1% for the first year of the contract this guaranteed commitment is expected to save the district $17.8 million in year one of our proposed contract and should erase the district's deficit in less than four years furthermore United healthcare's proposal improves many aspects of coverage for your employees their and their families without any reduction and benefits there would be a minimal employee disruption as our provider Network matches to over 99.5% of providers currently being utilized by your employees and their families today we are matching all four plan designs and our provider networks are more expansive we are also including four additional dedicated full-time employees for the district and Staffing two medical Vans through an expanded partnership with with orange blossom Family Health lastly we are prepared to execute on implementation ensuring Readiness by your April

102open enrollment date and for your October 1st effective date the decision facing the board is crucial if the employee benefit deficit is not addressed it will lead to Serious consequences for the district its students and your employees UHC remains committed to providing a better solution that will lead to lower costs and a better experience for your employees and their families I urge the board to consider the alternative solution with United Healthcare thank you for time and attention and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have thank you any questions from board members I do have one question sure the negative 1% yes that's for one year there was a year one guarantee the projection for the all four years if you run at a normal Trend off of that Savings in year one it

103would achieve a an a reduction to the deficit all right so year one it would be a reduction of 7 14.8 I think you said that's what we are you saying that if you remained at that level we be eliminated four years if we achieve that Savings in year one and then Trend continues to run at a normal rate thereafter it would bu orders of magnitude reduce the deficit by by that $67 million so are you locked in at that ne1 and only increasing by the market trend is that what you're saying that's we're we're locked in for a year one guarantee yeah and then if Trend runs at Market level Trend every year thereafter the impact of the deficit for those subsequent years would reduce the deficit by $67 million over four years but

104I don't think we have a contract commitment from you on that we were asked to provide a year one guarantee the projection the projection in terms of the Savings in year one if you think about like if you if you do think of it as a mortgage interest buy down if you pay an extra payment on your mortgage it reduces your mortgage by x amount of years the savings that you would see in year one if you then apply a rate of trend increase to that Savings in the subsequent years it would reduce your deficit yeah I hear what you're saying what's to prevent you from increasing not not not maintaining that level plus the trend but just recouping what we saved in the first year by by increasing it more than the trend we've

105been we've we've we're we were asked to provide a year one guarantee we have every belief that we would have the ability to run to achieve a trend that is equal to or better than Market Trend if we do that it would result in a reduction to your deficit within four years we don't have a guarantee of that you have every reason to believe it but do we have a guarantee we weren't asked to provide a guarantee for four years all right thank you member Salamanca thank you so I had a question which was more on the coverage itself so when you were talking about the coverage talking about our teachers and staff wouldn't have to change their doctor per se in this case as a part of the analysis we were asked to do

106a provider disruption analysis when we do that we receive 12 full months of claims that includes the provider and a dollar dollar spent visits encounters we match those providers utilized up against our network and on total dollars spent we had a 99.5% match to our Network I would I would also add that there the current plan the surefit plan which is the lowcost solution for those members currently has Network limitations where you need to live within the particular zip code the plan that we're proposing to replace that plan is a Statewide solution and has a total national network access so presumably if you live anywhere within the State of Florida you now have access to that lowest cost option plan got it okay I think that was my question on that and then the last

107one was on implementation so you talked about obviously this deadline is fast approaching and this board has made it a priority to you know put this in into the market and get better pricing that's kind of why we ended up here was part of of our conversations with the Union and so you talked about what was your timeline to implement something like this we're we're more than prepared to achieve the open enrollment deadline of April 1st we've actually already committed some throwaway work in the hopes of winning this contract so we are prepared for open enrollment and we can easily fulfill the October 1st deadline for implementation got it okay and then a little bit more on that trend line so I know you're doing the 1% guarantee and then after that it's to be

108the termined but do you have a sense on the average of What kind of you're seeing across the country of increase sure our self-insured Trend nationally is running on average below 7% and in the State of Florida it's below six got it okay thank you so much thank you member Galla you recognized thank you madam chair I know that you mentioned the 99 I think .5% overlap between Physicians on our current plan and then what United would have specifically for the free plan what's the percentage of overlap on thaton you member Gallo in the analysis for the nhp the sherit was 99% it was 99% 99% based on the claim information that was provided in the an the repricing analysis for January 17th thank you thank you thank you m g one one follow up

109on that you've given us the overlap or based on do you have it based on employees we have it based on counters we have as a part of the negotiation process with Gallagher we did indicate that if the district was able to provide member identifier to the claims we could actually drill down at a member level and identify those members who are disrupted and do a proactive Outreach to those individuals that the other item to point out is that the overall can I stop so you indicated that you would be able to provide that does that mean you didn't get the we weren't provided that information usually and that has nothing to do with the analysis usually member identifier to the to the actual providers utilized is not usually provided as a part of an

110overall analysis that's something that's provided usually during the implementation process so you can get line of sight to those individuals who are potentially disrupted all right thank you and I interrupted you go ahead no and I would say we also provided a network recruitment commitment guarantee so what we had committed that in the event there are any providers that are out of network for us that are in network for the incumbent vendor that we would work with the district to identify those providers and we've made a commitment to put a portion of our fees at risk to make an Outreach to attempt to recruit those providers it's not a guarantee to definitely bring them in there might be some providers who don't meet our credentialing standards some providers who may have retired since that report

111since that provider was utilized but we have made a guaranteed commitment to do an Outreach to recruit those providers ERS to minimize any level of disruption there might be okay so you're not willing to commit that you can bring the retirees back sorry oh the retired providers back no yes okay all right there's no other questions at this time next speaker thank you thank you thank you next speaker is Kimberly funderberg perfect height yes ironic all right well thank you chair Jacob school board members and commissioner Vasquez for the opportunity to speak before you this evening I'm Kim funderberg and I serve as National president for Signa healthc Care's government education and Health Systems business Division and on behalf of Signa Healthcare and my entire team I just want to sincerely thank you for the

112ability to serve ocps and your employees and their families over the past 20 years we certainly are very appreciative of that partnership and now for the recommendation to hopefully continue that partnership we recognize the significance of this decision and appreciate the trust that you have placed in US selecting a healthcare partner is one of the most important choices for an organization and at Signa health care we take this responsibility seriously and are committed as we have shown to being more than just a benefits provider we're strategic partner dedicated to the well-being of ocps employees and their families our expert team certainly understands the unique needs of ocps and we continue to invest in innovative solutions to improve both access to care to drive to drive improved outcomes and to manage cost effectively our collaboration has

113certainly delivered significant measurable results over the past 6 years ocps has saved more than $87 million through Signa healthcare's medical management programs in the last year ocps achieved an 83% gaps in care closure rate ensuring that your employees and their families are getting the health care that they need that necessary treatment and ocps 's 5year average medical trend of 3.6% remains below both our national book of business and competitor Trends the question was posed what is the national trend for United healthc Care to put this on record Signa National trend is 5.5% as proven and validated by Third parties to further enhance access to care and at no additional cost to CPS in 2024 we introduced signal Wellness mobile van it's a dedicated mobile unit that provides on-site biometric screenings skin cancer screenings and personalized

114preventive and chronic disease coaching directly to ocps employees by bringing healthc care services to employees where they work we're removing barriers to preventive care helping them to both better understand and to mitigate their health risks and guiding them towards the right resources to improve their well-being and vitality so through proven cost management strategies value based care Innovations and a deep commitment to ocps we're confident in our ability to continue to serve and deliver those results thank you thank you thank you any any questions no questions we'll take our next speaker I'm sorry member salamona yeah I had a question I mean I'm not sure if which speaker is best to answer so I'll definitely def for to you on that and happy to listen from the next one but my bit was on that Trend

115right so I just want to clarify there wasn't any Trend guarantees from Signa so we can assume or maybe there was I just want to understand that cost difference between that first year and all the other years or assume that's the average as well sure so through this direct negotiation process with Gallagher we did provide indeed a 5-year Trend guarantee in that first year the guarantee is a little over 5% and then in years two is indexed over the prior year and so it was a five d a five-year G guarantee in the first year it's dollar for dooll and then in the second year it's a 2-year indexed payout got her okay and we offered either we did a discount guarantee or a trend guarantee whichever you decide you'd like to take got it

116understood thank you m m salaman all right thank you we'll take our next speaker and Mr paline I it's fine I'll wave my time okay who is our next speaker it was it was Miss Smith it okay sorry I'm sorry come back you recognized okay thank you are there more questions or thank you she's waving her time oh you're waving I'm sorry I thought you said you're waiting for your time and then he said it is your time sorry about that who is our next speaker we still have one more you have no speakers really yes that was it okay that is it Mr pomerini then you're our next speaker thank you madam chair members of the board and just wanted to give a brief overview of how we got here so as you all

117know we originally had a request for proposal that went out it was June of last year and we had responses in July of last year and then we had two separate committee meetings we had an evaluation committee made up of District staff risk management representative from okasa Representatives from CTA representatives from oespa so we had u a meeting on August 2nd to discuss the proposals and what happened coming out of August 2nd meeting was the group said we need to have presentations by both sign and United so on August 2nd we say hey we're setting up presentations for Signa and United August 19th we have those presentations coming from siga and United we have the committee considers it and by a vote of 10 to one coming out of that the recommendation was Sigma so

118the notice of intended decision to recommend Sigma was August 20th August 22nd we get a notice of protest from United Healthcare we received the formal protest on September the 5th we have a protest resolution meeting coming out of it on August or September 16th excuse me and then on September 17th given that we had a formal protest we met in an executive session with the board to get direction with respect to how to deal with that protest what came out of that is we decided to reject all bids within the intent to agree to retain a third-party consultant to evaluate the United Healthcare and signant proposals and to thereafter enter into direct negotiations and I'll talk about direct negotiations in a second so we go ahead and we do that we retain a thirdd party

119consultant the Highland group to to look at these two plans and to evaluate them we notify on October the 7th of both United Healthcare and Signa that we are retain the Highland group and then a couple weeks later on October 21st we get a phone call from United U raising objections with respect to the Highland group so given that and given that the time period was getting greatly compressed to have a decision going on this we got into we got both parties on the phone we had a WebEx with them on November 1st and we said we want you all to give us a list of three Consultants that you both jointly agree on to review the proposals and so when we do that on November 7th we get communication from United Healthcare and siga

120that they jointly agreed that Gallagher who is our existing consultant would review all of these proposals so we go through the process of how to do that and what Gallagher wanted to do and thought was necessary to review these proposals is to do a repricing is to take 12 months worth of claims data the last 12 months we had and to say okay based upon your two plans sign and United how would those be priced so we get the 12 months of claims data from our incumbent provider which was Signa on January the 6th on January the 10th we Gallagher sends those 12 months worth of claims dated to both parties and said you have a week we need your repricing data siga and United on January the 17th provided that repricing data on January

121the 30th we get their Gallagher's pricing analysis for both parties and we analyzed that now I'm going to let you all know you all know this and I think those folks forel Signa and United know this everything that has been submitted with regard to pricing by both parties has been declared proprietary trade secret and information that they do not want disclosed Gallagher also engaged in an analysis of this Gallagher's analysis they told us was proprietary confidential and trade secret so when we go forward the here it's going to be very hard to talk numbers because all of that information has been deemed Pro proprietary trade secret so we get the analysis back we then as staff went to Gallagher and said based upon what we saw in various areas from both parties where we thought

122we could get concessions we asked Gallagher to set up a meeting with both of them and to have negotiations to where we would get the best offer we could possibly get coming out of this because that's the board Wanted coming out of this to get the best deal we could possibly get that's what we were charged with doing so on February the 6th we had Gallagher had Direct negotiations with both siga and United to get their final offers February 7th the next day the both parties had to follow up in writing to confirm those offers February 10th we receive the analysis the trade secret analysis from Gallagher with regard to the offers that were received and then we met met on February 11th in a closed bargaining session with respect with the board to get

123direction and I'll talk about the reason why it was a closed bargaining session and why we thought that was appropriate in just a second we get the direction coming out of that meeting from the board because our joint fringe benefits committee under our contract was having a meeting on February the 24th and the board needed to or that committee and our Representatives on that committee need to have Direction which way we thought we were going with respect to which third party administrator we were going to utilize so February 11th we have the closed session on February the 13th signate United and both C ta and OA were notified that our notice of intended selection was going to be Signa February 24th we had a meeting with the joint fringe benefits Committee in which our folks

124on that committee informed the unions that we intend to stay with signant so couple things that have been raised throughout this process that I think need to be addressed just so we're all clear about it with respect to the Clos session as you all know we have a statute 447 605 subsection 1 that says discussions between the chief executive officer and her representatives and the legislative body relative to collective bargaining shall be closed and exempt from the provisions of 286 the requirement that we notice and have meetings in the sunshine the law is Legion on that we get to have closed bargaining sessions why did we need a closed bargaining session as I said under our contract we have a joint fringe benefits committee and one of the things that the joint fringe benefits committee

125is tasked to do is as follows this is Article 2 Section L1 of the contract in addition The Joint fringe benefits committee will review and recommend changes in thirdparty administrators so the joint Fringe benefit committee needed direction from the sport to determine whether or not we were going to in fact have a change in third party administrators when they had that discussion with both CTA and OAS so there was a necessity to have that meeting closed to get direction from the board additionally quite frankly since everybody declared their numbers trade secret I would I'm not going to advise you to discuss anybody's numbers here because of that Declaration of of it being trade secret and I'll go into why in a second but that fostered a robust discussion as you all know we sat in

126that room for hours discussing the numbers that Gallagher in their repricing and how they determined what the numbers actually were and we talked about various things I mean you heard one party reference the trend guarantee up here tonight that was a heavy topic of discussion in that meeting right so the board had a comprehensive discussion gave direction to our bargaining team which way to go but we also need to approve the contract for the third party administrator that had to be done in an open meeting like this that's the requirement of the law so we've done that previously the last time we had a third party administrator contract voted on it was January 8th 2019 we had it on the consent agenda when we awarded Sigma back in 2019 to have the contract so this

127is in the normal standard process that we would go to approve the actual third-party administrator contract right direct negotiations there was questions about why we didn't just go with the RFP and why we didn't redo another RFP and can we actually do direct negotiations so section 10104 Florida statute says the State Board of Education May by rule provide for alternate procedures for school districts for bidding and purchasing in cases where the character of the item requested renders competitive bidding impractical so the State Board of Education has then turned and adopted the rule that says it's 6 A- 1.012 11a the requirements for competitive solicitations for Commodities or contractual services from three or more sources is hereby waved as authorized in section 10104 for the purchase by District school boards of Professional Services which shall include

128without limitation Health Services involving examinations diagnosis treatment prevention medical consultation or Administration obviously we are here on a medical thirdparty administration so we have the right to directly negotiate under the statute this board's policy policy djb also allows for the direct negotiation of services the board or design May approve contracts using direct negotiations where Allowed by law the senior director of procurement services or designity shall maintain adequate do documentation commensurate with the value of the contract reflecting the rationale for using direct negotiations as a procurement method and the basis for determining the results the resulting contract in the best interest of the District of course if it's in excess of $50,000 and this contract certainly is in excess of $50,000 it shall be submitted to the Ford for approval hence why we're sitting here again

129tonight now with respect to trade secrets Florida statute section 11 190715 a trade secret held by an agency is confidential and exempt from section 11907 and from article 24 section one of the Florida Constitution the staff analysis cre in that bill says this bill creates a public records exemption for Trade Secrets held by an agency the public records exemption would apply for those agencies who do not have an agency specific public records exemption for trade secrets so this statute directly brings us into protecting Trade Secrets is designated by the party medical pricing is that a trade secret the courts have said yes case lakew worth surgical center Inc versus Gates 266 Southern 3rd 198 Florida 4th DCA 2019 we agree with the second district that the internal cost structure information including methodologies or formulas used

130to compute pricing and insurance reimbursement rates constitutes trade secret information that should be to protected from disclosure to third parties if obtained through a discovery process so medical information such as this has been held by the courts to be Trade Secrets now I don't cite these next two statutes lightly and I'm not doing it in any way to to threaten anybody but but I need you all to be aware of it when you have these discussions disclosures of Trade Secrets in a public meeting it's a felony section 8154 a person who willingly knowingly without authorization discloses or takes datas programs or supporting documentation that is trade secret or is confidential as provided by law commits an offense against intellectual property and then section 81545 the legislature finds that it's a public necessity that trade secret

131information is defined in Section 8 12081 be expressly made confidential and exempt from public records law because it's a felony to disclose such records so with respect to the discussion the board's going to have tonight we had a lot of discussions in our closed bargaining meeting about pricing and whose prices was better and all of that I'm going to caution you all to not disclose specific numbers I know one party disclosed a specific number they I guess can wave their own Trade Secrets but I'm not going to recommend that you all wave their trade secrets in any way I think the discussion that you all can have is you know we had a comprehensive look at the repricing structure that went on I you know you all asked questions about it and based upon your

132analysis of the repricing that analysis that we got from Gallagher you all thought that the best value for the district was either siga United anything more and obviously you all have the dis discretion to say which one you believe what brought the better value to the district that is the board's decision clearly but anything more discussing specific pricing I'm cautioning you against doing so I'm happy to answer any questions coming out of that and I'm sorry for taking that amount of time but I thought it was necessary all right thank you Mr pomerini member Galler you recognized thank you madam chair so I do have a couple questions in relation to bargaining because this has been been brought up the statute under bargaining that allowed us to go into Clos session to discuss the Trade

133Secrets does there have to be in order for us to go into close session does there have to be something scheduled already in terms of bargaining like we had a closed session on Healthcare we know that it is going to be bargained is the premiums that are going to be bargained but is there any other tenant that has to be met to meet that Clos session so there's a couple things that you need to remember here one we had the joint Fringe benefit committee that was scheduled for February 24th before we had this meeting so we needed to be able to give direction and we're getting very close to the point I think March 15th was our drop drop dead deadline to figure out which one of these two we were going to utilize right

134number one number two anytime that you were doing something to implement a provision of the collective bargaining agreement that you're in and it and if a collective bargaining agreement requires you to have a meeting or to have a a committee meeting with the Union you all can meet in a closed session in order to implement that contract provision to give direction to your bargaining team so I think both of those instances gave us the justification to enter into a closed bargaining meeting now having said that as you correctly identified we are eventually going to have to because fringe benefits opens every year with negotiations we're going to have negotiations with the union with respect to the plan going forward you know things like premiums how much if premiums increase how much are we going to

135cover versus what we're going to ask them to cover you know plan design things things like that are all going to be collectively bargained right but with respect to the choice of the third party administrator you all had to give direction to your joint fringe benefits committee about which one they were going to go with thank you Mr pomerini so is there French benefits committee is that considered a bargaining committee it's a committee that gathers information in order to help make recommendations to the bargaining team now can The Fringe commit benefit committee make decisions in and of itself no it can't but the bargaining team gets recommendations from The Fringe benefit Committee in order to help their work in collective bargaining are these are the is the French benefit committees are they open meetings can

136anybody attend are they under the sunshine I'm pretty sure they're open I'll have to defer to our folks back there but I'm pretty sure that they're open meetings and then in relation to the brick that we initially used and then decided to go into direct negotiations there's no doubt in my mind that we did better by our employees by going into direct negotiations we just we absolutely 100% saved money by by doing direct negotiations but I'm hoping that as we move forward and even when we look at other big contracts like Pharmaceuticals that we really kind of take the rubric that we use out of the equation and something different because that rubric doesn't give a good it's not a good tool to determine best pricing so that would be my recommendation because I believe

137that the even the union we got a letter from the union today it they didn't have a lot of faith in that in the rubric and the validity of it so I would I would challenge us to use something different and figure out a way that we can work with the Union more I know that they're upset that they weren't more involved in the process especially at impass we said that they would be involved in the process I also understand the issue that we have with proprietary information so I don't know how or what that looks like maybe it looks like they sign an NDA but it would be helpful if we did work with them and include them thank you thank you m Gallow I'm up next but I see the superintendent well I'd

138rather hear from you so thank you madam chair so although this process and I'll speak for myself has been painful and you know we've heard from all parties their concerns we have had some lessons learned that we definitely are moving forward and I think one of those Lessons Learned is that when we're dealing with some of contracts the RFP process may not be the best way to go simply because of the expertise that's needed I do want to Echo your comments board member Gallow that we absolutely were able to get much better pricing than what we was were originally presented through the RFP process so we definitely will be taking some of the processes that we used here moving forward with some of the other contracts thank you superintendent I two things I want to

139react member Gallow I think to some of your questions and I think your concern about the process we used and whether I think where you were going is whether some might challenge whether we had the authority to do that I do believe that Mr pini's assessment of the situation is accurate but the other thing that came to mind as I was listening to the discussion is if there is a question that somebody wants to raise either party is equally capable of raising it so I don't I for me I mean I think it's important that we have confidence that we did the right thing in the right way but I don't for me that's not a determinant because this is a huge contract and if somebody wants to challenge it they're going to challenge it

140could be their party the one question that I'm I'm struggling with a little bit is and I can use the negative 1% because United Health has put that out in the public but the that we didn't ask for a commitment Beyond one year can anybody speak to that I yeah I can speak to that and Mr cotus and I were very clear when we went back to Gallagher and without getting into the specifics of what we were offering we wanted to get the best trend guarantee that we could for the entirety of the contract and we told them to shoot for the Moon ask for as much as we possibly could get including you know can we get guarantees for the entirety of the contract well but I ask that because that is something that

141came up in our closed door session I think by several of us several times could we get could we lock that in because no matter what we hear here if we have a guarantee for one year and we don't have a commit that the they're only going to raise it by the trend there's still an uncomfortableness that I think most of the board members had if not all the board members had about what does that mean for two three four and five so I just I want some comfort level here that the that was posed to United Health it was posed are the meetings recorded well that's I'm sorry apparently United saying no that's not the I can tell you that's not the information that Miss cotus and I got from gager okay all right

142member Salam monka I was gonna ask the same I want to Echo member Galla's point on this process has been incredibly frustrating and all of us the priority for us was decreasing the cost and getting the best price we could get by going out the process right the reason why we did this to begin with was concerns about the cost of of healthc care and what it has meant to us every time we've been on bargaining every time we've been in impass and I do believe that because we got away from the general process that we had the initial RFP process to direct negotiation both providers came back with much better numbers than we would have gotten otherwise and so with that I definitely feel very confident that the number that were ending up with

143is much better with either one of them than it would have been with the initial process and so that direct negotiation itself has been definitely frustrating I think it's a lot of of playing telephone and there's a third party there's the board there's a legal council there's the two sides and you know I took one meeting with each Signa and United to kind of hear bit about what they have had in their process and learn from what's what's working what's not got a lot of feedback on procurement which I have communicated with the superintendent as well on probably not the best rubric probably not a super process a lot of learnings for all of us on what this means for procurement moving forward so I do appreciate that this process allowed us to better understand

144ways that we could be better I do appreciate both United in Signal raising kind of yellow flags about what they felt and experience from the other side and so I did I did want to thank both parties for that as chair Jacob said in direct negotiations you can all raise flags and everybody rais Flags for all kinds of things and that was what the appreciated and what not but I did have that same question which was it was my understanding that the only reason we got the oneyear trend which was disclosed by United was that it was just that first year and that kind of all the other years wasn't really on the table and so I don't I still I think I sit here today not quite sure what the truth is so that's

145very frustrating as part of this process but yeah we had a lot of discussion about this thank you m salaman member Vanos thank you madam chair member Salam Mona really just said a lot of what I was going to say so I'll keep it very brief I too had concerns about the process and concerns and concerns about the process were raised to me by both United Healthcare and segna I really appreciate you sharing that and though I am I am thankful from you know from the school the school's perspect from The District's perspective that we have an ultimate savings and that has resulted from the direct negotiation I also think the process itself is important and we are and I raised this before but we are a large school district and it's important that our

146vendors and that our community feel that we are you know conducting our you know conducting these contracts and finding the best price but also doing in a transparent way that people can get behind in support and Trust so I just wanted to share that and Echo some of the comments that were made specifically relating to the process as well thank you member vanis okay so coming back to this one I would say big question mark in my mind but I'm not so sure to be honest with you that it's as big a question when I think through this logically so United Health wants this contract they're putting everything they have on the table but you didn't lock in in that Trend that you were not going to increase you didn't lock that in and you

147didn't because we didn't ask and that's not making sense to me it's I mean I have to figure out who I believe but it doesn't make sense to me that you didn't put it on the table if that's what you meant so it's not on the table and so what also to be honest what also troubles me is for this process to work the negotiation has to take place somewhere once and for all and the negotiation took place with Gallagher as our point and I'll just lay it out there I agreed to take your call and it defies everything I've probably ever done in the 20s something years that I've been in office because I think the process was over and Jose I have such enormous respect for you that is the only reason that

148I took the phone call and the and the reason again is not that I don't want to hear from you but when we establish a process and then you come back and what I was afraid of was you were going to try to renegotiate a better deal and that's just not how this works and it shouldn't work that way and that's not what you did on the phone I'm I you absolutely did not you explained some additional information you didn't try to you know up the ante because I again it's an issue of fairness and trust and we have to be able to trust our healthc care administrator we have to so that's so important and so you I didn't lose any trust in that call the call was great I appreciate that but the

149idea that you didn't put what you just said up there you didn't put that on the table because they didn't ask I just why wouldn't you have put it on the table whether they asked or not nobody asked so you didn't do it they didn't say put your best foot your best offer okay well I would still do it if I was you I'd say this is a negotiated deal I'm going to give everything I got right here that's what I would have done so I'm sorry I'm not in your business but I think you missed an opportunity if that's what you meant it might have changed the outcome the outcome hasn't been decided but quite honestly I was supportive prior to that and right now that has undermined my trust so it was extremely

150close for me it was extremely close but for the record I will be going with Signa member salamona thank you so much chair I will be voting against I get your point on United could have come to the table and given us more than one year at a negative Trend but the reality is and this was disclosed right United is at negative 1% Trend and sigma is at 5.5% Trend that's what they said that's what they told me today so it's from negative to 5.5 positive so I can I I you know I said this in close session I will say here I don't like I don't understand the math where Sigma not having any negative Trend period ends up being better numbers I just I don't I never saw the math I went back

151through it and so as a fiduciary I did not at least from our conversations from my conversations with folks understand how sign know was a better deal for the district and it is unfortunate of course that the union wasn't part of some of these conversations as well but this will ultimately impact folks and so I for me I will be voting against this today for that reason and can't disclose any other numbers of course but yeah that would be why it wasn't close at all to me thank you okay I would agree with you if we knew that it was negative one and it was only going to increase by the trend and we asked that over and over again and we didn't have any assurance and I'm still not sure that I have Assurance

152I'm hearing that they would have put that in but they weren't asked so we come back to so do we ask now and do we huh huh I don't think it'll be above the average yeah I don't know y yeah I don't know and I don't think that yeah yeah thank you for the record we had a one-day notice in terms of the negotiation session with Gallagher when we went into the negotiation session which I participated in along with my colleague we were instructed to focus on two two things one was the discount guarantee and the other thing was the trend guarantee specific to the trend guarantee what Gallagher instructed us to focus on was two things number one we had provided a trend guarantee rather than putting fees and this is proprietary I'm waving

153the confidentiality of this we had provided a negative 1% Trend guarantee that placed 50% of our fees at risk the initial proposal was to Discount the administrative fees that we were charging upfront and if we met the guarantee of negative one the district would pay us back that year one credit so that you didn't have to hedge on our performance Gallagher asked for us to reverse that and provide the guarantee but only pay out if we missed the guarantee so you would pay the full fee in year one and then if we missed we would pay out that was we were instructed by Gallagher to focus on that we were also instructed by Gallagher to make that year one guarantee more competitive the initial guarantee provided that 50% of fees with a sloped payout so

154if we missed by call it 1% we would pay out I can't remember the exact amount call it 125% of the total fees and it would step up as as we missed more on the trend we came we they we were instructed to focus on making that guarantee more aggressive so we converted that year one guarantee to a dollar for dooll payout what that means is if we missed that negative - 1% we would begin to immediately be paying back the fees so rather than having to wait for us to miss the trend commitment by five or 6% before the district received the full 50% of the fees back the district would be reimbursed on a dollar Ford dooll basis which meant that if you do the math if we missed by anywhere between 2

155to 2 and 1 12% the full value of that 50% would be coming back to the district those are the two things that we were instructed to focus on by Gallagher along with a long list of a number of other things that we had less than 24 hours to respond to there was no request made for us to provide an out-year guarantee the other thing I would just say as well when it comes to Trend we all just live through one of the worst inflationary environment since the late' 70s being able to predict medical Trend three or four or 5 years from now I'm I'm not going to tell you that we can do that what we did not see any value in was trying to provide an index guarantee that was based off of

156however we performed in year one and then indexing off of that because your oute guarantees would be based on your actual year one performance not what you actually guaranteed so our Focus was to put our money where our mouth was in year one you're making a bet on us in year one the last thing I would just say is that the only reason that we ended up in this negotiated direct negotiation and the district saw this additional savings that came through it is because we wanted to earn the right to serve you and your and your employees and their families it's why we protested we did we felt there were irregularities we believe that there was enough of a concern around those irregularities that we entered into a direct negotiation and so it was through

157our direct interest in wanting to point out where there were irregularities and to have transparency and to put a full truthful offer in front of you that resulted in this better outcome for the district your employees and your and their families so I just wanted to clear that up because we were not at any point asked for oute guarantees okay all right any questions no can I have the opportunity to speak yeah just a minute member Gallow did you have a question for okay okay please sorry sorry about that trade secrets yes thank you again for the opportunity so I just wanted to take a step back in the initial RFP process there wasn't a request for a trend guarant at all so to United Credit they put that forth we put forth a discount

158guarantee point two that I will make is that they are their CLA their Trend guarantee is based on their estimation of what our claims are right So based on the information that we had our claims were inflated and so is that NE - 1% what's the basis of it and so you have to do an apples to app comparison they took some of the reporting from the open records and made some assumptions about some of our claims and all of that we did bring that up in in discussion so there was some we believe that they have overstated our claims so that's point two that I will make thirdly we entered into direct negotiations via Gallagher who we both agreed would be you know there would be subjective in the process we always want a

159transparent process we're happy to do RFP we're happy to do direct negotiation we know that we are the better carrier and that we've served your population well so during this direct negotiation process Gallagher said we have been instructed by the board to come back to you are to do this laundry list of things but at the end of the day they want to see the best offer from you we want to see multi-year whatever it takes we want you to put your best foot forward did they say Signa you have to bring a five-year train guarantee absolutely not you know they said they wanted to see multi-year but to the point that you made earlier we wanted to put our money where our mouth was and we put both forth both of those so a

160discount guarantee for 5 years Trend guarantee for 5 years depending upon whatever it is that you wanted to to take and although our Trend guarantee is 5% we know I just told you about your average Trend being 3.6% and then as we are implementing even more innovative solutions we expect for that you know to remain stable and even at that level hang on a minute and our national Trend 5 and a half% you said your trend is what the trend for your particular plan average for the last 5 years has been 3.6% and that's evident and we provide claims reporting on a monthly basis so it's validated through the claims thank you all right thank you Mr pomerini and then member Gallow I was queuing in for member font oh member font thank thank you

161madam chair you can hear me okay yes we can okay so I just wanted to make a statement and just say how really this has been such a difficult process because I think we've heard from our the teachers and everybody that's you know under us so all the employees who are really wanting to have a health care that is Affordable and that works for them and so I will say from my perspective I felt like you know I would listen to one and it sounded amazing but then there was some things that you know lacked and then the next one part would be amazing but then another part would lack and so it's it really does come down to we decide which one is going to be the best for the district I did you

162know I was I was kind of hoping to try something new because I feel like we've we've done the same thing for the last 5 years we were going in the hole in it and you know spending a lot of our money on this health insurance and so I wanted to try something new and so for that reason I will be voting you know not in favor of this tonight I was kind of hoping to try something different although I can definitely see the perspective of the major of the board that's also saying that you know things could maybe not pan out the way that it is looking that or that it seems you know maybe as it's being presented and so it was definitely not an easy decision but I think it's at the

163end of the day I think either one is going to give us you know help our employees have great health care and get the healthcare needs that they that they have and so just wanted to sh share those thoughts thank you thank you thank you member front member Gallow thank you madam chair I just I just want to say I've talked to both parties and I like I mean both companies are great companies I do disagree with member Salamanca I don't I don't think that there was a large gap when you looked at all of the analysis through gallaghar and you went to the back page and you had a comp and it was confusing I actually went back and reviewed the numbers again with Mr pomerini I had some follow-up questions to ask him

164it was very tight like there it was here there but as member front just mentioned it there's stuff with each plan that you're like oh you like this but you don't it was really really really close so I just want to state from my perspective I felt that it was a it was very close and it was a really hard decision to make I thought Gallagher did a really good job of breaking down the information for us in a way that we could understand it we asked more questions of Gallagher when we were in that meeting so I feel like we really did do do diligence in the way that we handled it after talking to both sides I had more questions as I mentioned I went to Mr pomerini I will say that in

165talking to both vendors I didn't learn anything new in those meetings that I didn't already know from the session from Gallagher I may have forgotten where I forgot that half the money was going to come from the Asos and that was clearly in that was in the analysis when I went back and spoke to John I saw that but there was no new information that we gleaned so I just want the public and everybody to know that gallager did a really good job of informing us and I think we were informed on the details of of the direct negotiations so that's it that's just what I wanted to say member Salam Mona thank you chair I think it depended how you did the numbers whether it was best case or worst case and in worst

166case it could be tight in best case it was not tight because you're assuming that folks are kind of showing up at the best they can so those numbers were different I think to the numbers that were just brought up right our trend for CPS sing it has these numbers are 3 something per I don't think it's the best offer if there're averaging at a 5% that Gap to me is just profits or they're averaging it out at some point which is kind of what maybe United will do with the 1% and then bring us back up to the National or state average but that negative 1% on its own was kind of the winning factor for me that I thought was good I also I do think s has been a great partner they've

167worked with us in so many different ways but we've been with them for 20 years and we have seen what the costs have been and so I was also very excited to just try something new and give an opportunity to a large provider who also did provide a really compelling offer and yeah sure the range in worst case scenario was small but in Breco scenario that range was pretty significant so thank you that would be all any further comments discussion from the board members all right we have a motion I'm sorry oh okay I have a motion floor is open for a motion h oh okay yes thank you for recognizing me you're recognizing I move that we stay with the insurance carrier that we've had Signa we have a motion to accept the recommendation

168of our staff a second we have a second by motion I'm Sorry by member Felder second by member bird all in favor show of hands I'm opposed show of hands I am not I am on a fence okay I just I have trouble making a decision and it doesn't happen to me very often but I think this is so important that I'm on the fence I just I need to to to see more I need to understand more I need to how how how beneficial I just want to to make sure that our teachers and our supporting staff are happy okay so that's what I want I want to make sure that it's beneficial to them but I'm still maybe I'm just ignorant one but it's too big for me but I'm on the fence

169okay sorry about that one yeah one thing I need to clarify is you have to vote if this puts your mind at ease I I completely agree it's a very tough decision I'm not I honestly don't think that there's a bad decision from the standpoint of this we are better for the process we've been through member Fon let me ask member Fan's vote member front I think I know the answer I'll be voting in opposition okay opposition okay so right now we have two votes in opposition and we have five votes in favor so if it makes you feel any better it doesn't really matter how you vote in opposition okay all right all right the motion passes by 5 to three all right next item on the agenda we're on to informational items is

170that correct informational items Dr Vasquez yeah thank you madam chair I have just for one announcement due to time an update on our let's read ocps as you know we have been working very very hard in that area board member Gallow even made a plea today at our student Town Hall at East River asking asking the students to please read because I think she stated district one is at the bottom but for our recognition this evening we have the district with the highest participation goes to Schoolboard member Douglas and the district with the increase in participation goes to board member bird so congratulations to both of you everything around here I would like a contest on Study Island on the usage of study island in in all School think I have it on good authority

171I might win so well remember Douglas kept the trophy in her car so luckily she is one of the winners but I'm a little upset that I don't at least get to hold it for five minutes for being most improved but that's okay we'll let it go I will judge to see if I can allow you to have that for five minutes let's see Dr Vasquez does that complete your report all right thank you Mr pomerini just as a reminder members of the board I need the deadline to appoint somebody to the value adjustment board both board member and Alternate and the citizen member and Alternate is coming up we usually do it by resolution at a subsequent board meeting so I would really like to be able to have a resolution on both by

172March 11th yes ma'am let let me clarify so we have value adjustment board yes ma'am and we need a board member and we need alate an alternate alternate yes oh and we need a citizen member when you said citizen member I'm I'm back to thinking it's just a citizen it has to be a citizen member who is owns a business that's correct okay I was like oh I got of course you could jump in yes I would like to nominate Stephanie Vanos we don't need a second but I'll second it yes yeah all right all right she will accept the nomination if there's a I'll second it okay we don't need a second all right well I okay just in case I already I am hyp about it all right I am currently on that

173board so I'm Happ be the alternate okay all right there you go volunte so does everybody agree with member Vanos as the member and member salamona as the as the alternate all in favor please say I hi a member foron are you all right with this yeah all thank you all right so we need we just need a citizen alternate I gave him a citizen but my citizen wasn't a business owner so guys it's I've been trying for yeah okay all right well we still we still need that and do we need an alternate for the citizen member oh my gosh okay all right could I have a question could we could we kind of advertise could we put a post on social media that this that we need a business owner sure for this

174board and explain that might be an option sure we absolutely could do that all right Mary Johnson former city council member and former County Commissioner one of the things she took on as her initiative was to recruit citizens to serve on advisory boards and she really did a great job with that she turned it into a whole event and so just a food for thought for anybody who's like gosh I got nothing to do I want to take on a new project there it is for you okay member Gallow thank you madam chair so I received an email from a teacher at a high school and they were talking about the recent work session we had jca but they reached out to me regarding testing and so when I looked at our website for some

175reason in my brain I had that we had to list all testing not just State Testing but even any District mandated testing had to be on our website that's but maybe that laws changed CU when I went to look on our testing calendar it was all Department of Education it didn't list any of our district test and this particular teacher is a history teacher and they give 10 tests that they their team crafts by the school team they do of course the one EOC test that's done for history for the Statewide end of course exam then they have three districted pmas that they're required to take and one of the issues that I was hearing about these three districted pmas is that they're supposed to be to inform instruction to help with the students be

176where they need to be for the end of course exam so that they do well but what it's turned into is a measure tool that some schools are using to compare their school against other Co schools in kind of demean and berate the teachers and now what we're we're seeing from that is teachers that are really teaching to the district pmas versus like teaching the content and all of that's being lost I was hoping that a we could have a conversation about that b more importantly I was really hoping that the district could provide for the all board members all tests that are given to our students because I know like fifth graders and eighth graders are tested at a much higher level than others in other grades so I would love just for us

177to have a comprehensive list of all of the re the state or the district required tests that we give to our kiddos thank you madam chair yes absolutely we can get that into your inbox by tomorrow our the team that presented for the Strategic plan has that information we can send it to you thank you one of the things I would like to bring up I U regretfully wasn't able to attend the work session on bedh and there I know that the board gave direction to U Mr pomerini to come back with aversion dealing with oh I'm fuzzy right this minute dealing with the board's ability to respond during the public comment meeting and putting it in policy that there wouldn't be any responses to public comments but they might be made at the end

178of the meeting so here's I don't want to get into a debate on it but here's something I do want the board to give some thought to in an example of experiences that I've had in the past is that and of course here these meetings aren't televised the public comment but you can have a room full of people something is said that's not factual if it's District related the superintendent can respond but if it's directed at the board as a whole or any of us individually and it is grossly inaccurate it's you can have a whole audience here that walks away believing something that's not that's not true and the opportunity to respond and rebut happens at the end of the meeting when they're not here that's a group of people it may not be

179a huge group of people but there's also times and we've all experienced this where somebody comes to a meeting with the intent of agitating and they bring the media with them and now you have a full-blown story that collectively or individually we don't get to respond to and silence is seen as admission you have the media you have these attacks and we all just sit there like you know we're not going to speak we're not going to reply I think it's the wrong approach to have it locked into a policy that in order to reply one of you replies and now as the chair I have to call you out out of order so member Gallow thank you madam chair I was the one who brought brought it up so I didn't get that I

180mean I know where it ended but I didn't have time to watch the whole thing okay no no worries so my point of of bringing that up was just to ensure it wasn't that as a chair you can never comment back if you hear something that was erroneous and I don't believe that moving forward that was going to be put in policy CU we already do have a policy that states we're going to end 4:45 we're going to start our regular business meeting at 5: right what I was what I was concerned about and I'm as guilty I will admit it I like to talk and I and you're very very gracious when we when we buzz in during pre- agenda you want everybody to hear what we have to say and I appreciate that

181but sometimes that leads to Us ending late starting our board meetings late and I was just trying to curtail that I just I want to make sure that we're starting our board meetings at 5:00 because we usually have a group of people waiting for us so my intent on that really was just from 4: to 4:45 anything after that we're going into our own time knowing that we've got to start that meeting right at 5 5:00 p.m. and just be respectful let's myself included shut my trap and let's get our meeting started at 5:00 so that was my thought process okay and again this is going to come back so Mr palmerini his team is drafting some something what I was hoping to get out of this conversation is at least direction to him to

182give us some options so that we're not locked into language that we then have to come back and start the process over not being any language okay yeah because I think what we can do is have a practice and an understanding and honestly for the six years I've been on this board it has rarely happened that anybody other than me responds and I generally don't unless it's something that I know the whole board I know how everybody feels and it's kind of safe to assure people this last meeting was very unusual and it was with students and it was very emotional and each one of you wanted to respond which I totally understand and one of the problems is if member Gallow responds everybody then you know member Vanos is sitting there well if I

183don't respond they're going to think I don't care and so each one of us understandably right well because if you don't so if nobody speaks and it's just as it's usually been me saying on behalf of the board then I let you all off but as soon as somebody else does on especially on something like that where it's just gut-wrenching for these kids that I totally get that but that's very unusual so anyway that was the one thing I wanted I just picture the media one of you guys has been accused of something and you're just sitting there like oh well and no and I agree with that I mean we can sing and dance till 4:45 if we want to if we have time I just again my only impetus for doing that was

184just ending just really I don't care if we go up to 458 just as long as we're starting our business meetings at 5 so the other two things I'll say on that and then and then we'll adjourn the meeting but one you all were all here almost all of you were here at 4: and that was wonderful and but unusual but if everybody gets here at 4 if everybody gets here at 4 and we either take no break and go straight in or we did like today where we had 15 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever and then we're all back here so today I was like I'm starting this meeting at 5: if I'm the last person I'm the only person sitting here I am starting this meeting at 5: I watched that meeting

185we're starting at 5: but but the other thing I kept track of today because I was telling Mr pal Marini that when when we decide we have 16 people give them two minutes a piece is I know it takes time in between that so to and I told them let's assume it's 30 seconds and let's add that in so that we kind of had a framework and so I'll go back but I literally tracked you know the minutes the seconds between and it is a it's a pretty significant amount of time from the time somebody walks away and if I'm having to say your time is up your time is up that adds a few more and then the next person gets up there so what you will see as we adhere to that is

186that then I might be cutting people shorter than you think in the amount of time in order to bring us in by that deadline okay all right but I appreciated the discussion and hopefully we'll get back on track thank youall all right anything forther member Vanos and then member Felder thank you madam chair I just wanted to follow up on some of the public comments we had today because I was following the new policy and didn't want to bring it up at the time the first one was and this may be a question for you Mr palmerini sorry someone one of the people who spoke during public comment brought up the question of having a student sit as representative on the school board and I remember when this conversation last happened and then I'm just

187again I was in a different role so I just don't know what whatever happened with that conversation is it possible that we can make this happen so may I Madam chair absolutely you recogn so yes it can happen usually it would have to be done by some sort of policy so we would have to bring that forward what I've seen around the state is that folks have boards have have a student member for the purpose of maybe giving a student report on something or sitting there and maybe reacting in certain instances when it's you know the issue centered on a student things like student disciplinary cases employee disciplinary cases they ask the student member to leave because they don't want them to deal with that's something that we can do and if you all are

188asking for that to come back at a rule development or at a work session to discuss I'll be more than happy to to work up some language if that's the board's direction thank you I personally would support it and be curious if anyone else does but you can put me on record as supporting to have a student on our on our board member salaman yeah I've I've said this before but I would also be supportive in having that conversation member Felder I think yours is probably on something else I'll just okay oh go ahead go ahead member Feld you recognized okay okay I'm sorry member member Fel finish on this comment oh you're not done sorry thank you I will be quick there was something brought up also during public comment about the driver's license

189being required to pick up a student so I just wanted to double check with you on that question I'm going to defer to the superintendent on that one and I've actually asked staff my understanding is that it is a driver's license or an official ID that is required U but we can certainly put out information to schools reminding them that it is either or perfect thank you I just wanted to make sure the third thing was the there was a comment about the the district literary Council the committee meetings on the books and I and my guess is that the meeting is sort of in the meeting's notice on the website would it be possible to put it on the dashboard where sort of all of the objections are contained or is that not possible

190all of our public meetings are noticed to that particular the area we can I'm looking to Dr Brown Canon but I'm sure we can add a statement under the comments where we have listed the board the books that are under review that the date of the meeting so we'll look at that to see if that's a possibility to put something there or even a maybe a link that takes them to that okay I think that'd be really helpful just to keep it all in one place and then the last thing I wanted to bring up was a someone had submitted this comment but they weren't actually here maybe this is just my district I have been getting a lot of emails and conversations with parents about scooters and bikes on streets and on sidewalks and

191Walkers not feeling safe and I'm just wondering and I can see it so I'm just wondering if there's anything we can do to enforce some safety rules or if we have any authority to enforce any of this or really what we can do if anything as a school district I'll give the non-legal response and then our attorney will so we currently do have things in place around safety we also have is it safer walk week where we also highlight safety if you're walking to school or or doing Scooters or a bicycle but we do not have the authority to police the sidewalks and the streets as I think we've mentioned we're not even allowed if there isn't a crossing guard to have an employee act as a substitute but I will defer to general counsel

192what she said well that's not the answer I wanted okay I I just I just want to raise this I don't know if we can work with our local law enforcement or I I worry and I know exactly what road they're talking about the two roads that are in my district I worry about people backing out of driveways not seeing kids they are zooming down sidewalks or zooming down streets and I it's just really dangerous and if there's you know if there's anything we can do if we could just make that a priority thank you I'm trying to think of the organization there's actually an organization around public awareness around safe walk something or another they would be excellent because the dynamic is just totally different with the bikes and the risk is so much

193higher and they go so fast and like you said it's not just running over pedestrians it's people backing out of their driveway and they don't expect something that fast so we need to maybe reach out to them I'll just have to remember who they are and I'm let me go to member I just cheated let me go to member Felder and I'll come back to you member Felder goad okay I was going to say quickly we when we were at East River we met a gentleman that was over the teen safety Drive teen safety I think it was the seat belt maybe but it's a club so I'm wondering if maybe U Mr Martinez there he is hello maybe we can just put the fers out and see what clubs are out there and maybe

194we could task the clubs to to help educate students police so we're still on this subject member Salam Mona yeah I was actually I talked to the superintendent about this because Lake Nona in my neighborhood we're seeing this a lot scooters in particular it is so dangerous it is getting completely out of control that I was going to have a meeting with Commissioners to get us like how can we get align and then there are two or three organizations that are about student safety always wear your seab B which started a boon which is now also just in the East we have a couple folks that are like safe so I wanted to PO do actually a community meeting with my commissioner and some of these organizations about safety and have the parents talk about

195this and the commissioner see how much of an issue it is because it really is and we are very limited in our power well that's excellent and that might give just your initiative if you can report back I think that will give us some ideas of how we can do this at District stay tuned huh stay tuned we will stay tuned okay member Madam chair may I respond to and board member Vanos we do have the team that is going out to the location that you identified around primr area close to the 408 and I think Buck Minister was the other one so Mr peku and his team are going out they'll do a safety evaluation and then report back and actually what I that was a different that was a different issue what I

196was actually referring to is Karin and Winter Park Road they have both they have both okay now member Felder okay well I did want to say something to what you brought up first chairperson about sometimes we do have open mic and sometimes the situations are so dire and I know you know we do seem to take up time but I think we probably are intelligent enough to kind of know when we need to land the plane so that we can move on and really start board meeting at the time that member Gallow is saying that we should start at 5: cuz some things come up we have to address immediately because as chairperson said there are lies sometimes we need to correct it and it see the room is not that crowded now you know

197so we need to address it sometimes at that point but now can I talk about my wonderfulness yes talk your Wonder well Jones High School I think Victor has some pictures they sent J Jerry Dem said 71 I said please don't show 71 pictures but anyway we celebrated 130 years being in existence thank you yes Saturday so listen we are the only red dominant black school in the State of Florida that has has 130 years and one of two in the whole country that has been in existence that long and I just want to say that I grew up in this district and of course I graduated from Jones but I just appreciate The District in terms of how things have changed the way we look right now baby when I was coming up this

198was not have been a woman superintendent all women board no ma'am no ma'am no ma'am it would not have occurred and so I just I remember when we were graduating my senior in 1974 before most of you up here were even thought of I remember my classmates we had 289 students in the class and they said God we the smallest class with that many people I said you know what y'all there's going to come a time that children are going to come to Jones High don't worry we will we will exist here here it is I celebrated 50 years coming out of my high school reunion this last year was 50 years and n a school has been standing 130 years that's the grace of God that is just the fight and I and I'll

199say this my senior year they tried to close the school in' 69 but in 19 19 7374 which was when I was a senior I remember walking out of Jones High School and Wilbert es scary was a principal and we walked to Tampa Avenue where the school board was housed of course it's huge now we were housed right next to Rock Lake and I remember walking in there and telling the people in charge that we would refuse to go back to school because you're not going to shut down Jones happened again in the 80s but here now it's 2020 five and the school is yet standing have we have IB program out there nursing program it's flourishing it's doing so much now and I'm just so excited I wanted to share that with the district

200that 100 130 years y'all that is something else so thank you for allowing me to share this and I'm going to Love Jones High it is in District 5 where the talent resid so I'm excited and thank you for allowing me and you see jar demmings who's A Jones High graduate and myself Jones High graduate so thank you all so much for this time is everybody there Jones High graduate well no it was the time all of the black elected officials at the time were Jones High graduat we only have Jared demings myself and commissioner barari burns the three of us are Jones High graduates yeah thank you thank you so much and the superintendent wanted to come but she was ill very ill this weekend she couldn't make it so I'm just so glad

201that we had a good showing and it was a wonderful time guys it was a wonderful time thank you very good all right member Douglas just want to say congratulations to Jones High School I'm glad that you're still in existence truly I just wanted to come back to the safety of our children in the schools talking about those ebikes okay this they are very dangerous because after you know when you don't pedal it and they reach a 20 miles an hour you cannot have control of those things so the kids are going really fast and they have trouble stopping so what can we do to I mean can we send a message to the parents and let them know of the dangers of the scooters so they're aware because you know we buy to our

202for our kids we're not aware of what's going on until somebody tells us you know the facts about what this instrument or is about thank you so much Dr vascos I think we can put our heads together and come up with some ways that we can share some of those concerns Scott howt may even be thinking of a like a Monday's with Maria episode to high light safety and maybe we have someone from our safety department that is on as a guest so we'll certainly put our heads together Salam monka maybe you know so District Two where the dreams come true has been doing great thank you One winners for the spe run I mean we just had the most number right Eagle Creek Elementary just killing it amazing how many people were out there

203number two Lake Nona High School was the state champs in boy soccer against the one and only Timber Creek High School district one I went to Timber Creek so I really H I really want to be district one with not Timber Creek from time to time but it is what it is we were the Champs for the state so I'm excited for them to come you know District 2 is not the strongest with sports because unlike Vicki's 100 plus years high schools were new out there so we are still building our programs but we did beat Timber cre and Gallow sorry about that yeah that's it that's all I have to say thank you so much all right for indulging me all right that concludes our comments for tonight on the well one thing on

204the issue of a student representative I think I would like to hear from the superintendent not right this minute please I mean I don't mean please but I mean I wouldn't expect you to but if you could to give some thought to what you think might that might look like cuz I just have so many it sounds like a great idea but I just have so many questions in my mind about it like always The Devil's Advocate so yeah I would look forward to after you've had some time to contemplate yeah absolutely I think it's a great concept I think we can accomplish it in a couple of different ways I do know that I have spoken with some super superintendent that have a member some voting some non-voting and there's some things that you

205need to consider but I do believe there's a way for us to have that representation that doesn't necessarily have a voting member on on the board so I'll come back next week next board meeting yeah I think I would I would have serious concerns about voting because I'm you have to be elected in in opinion to have a vote so but a voice and a vote are different things and I actually have to remember how to get a hold of him but a student representative in I think it was Miami D County had come up and we met and so he would be a great person to talk to as well because they had a positive experience and really interesting young man he's going to UCF right now so I should be able to track

206him down remember Douglas I think did you have anything else all right meeting is now adjourned thank