School Board Action Meeting 1⧸25⧸22

001good afternoon ladies and gentlemen we are ready to begin this the this evening's board meeting the school board meeting of january 25th 2022 is now called to order the time is we would like to take this opportunity to remind the members of the public of the district's mission which is to ensure that each student achieves his or her highest personal potential and the district's vision to be a world-class school system miss kittens will be joining this meeting by phone miss kittens are you here thank you miss dupree bruno please address board policy one point one one two see thank you madam chair pursuant to board policy one point eleven subsection two c miss kittens is allowed to participate and to vote by phone due to her particular circumstances which meets the requirements of 2c thank

002you this evening's agenda includes the invocation presentation of colors and pledge of allegiance public comments consent action items which include two items under board office which one is good costs as the chair the one good cause item is approval of the final three interview candidates for the superintendent's search as follows christopher christopher bornier randy mullerwein michael ramirez as president as presiding officer i find there is good cause to add this one item to the agenda eight items under academic services four items under business services six items under human resources one item under information systems 12 items under operations which what is good cause dr savage please provide an explanation for this one item yes madam chair this item was added because of the need for water pressure in fort myers the city of fort myers

003it's extremely critical right now we need to get this proof so the city can begin to work on the two wells that they are placing on our property to alleviate some of those water pressure issues that not only the district but the community are facing thank you as presiding officer i find there is good cause to add this one item to the agenda one item under lee county school board leasing corporation one item under attorney's recommendation which is good cause miss dupree bruno please provide an explanation for this one thank you madam chair as part of an ongoing process board policies are reviewed to determine if changes need to be recommended to the school board for approval modification or deletion given the law that was passed in november twenty twenty one which prohibits mass mandates

004by school boards and school districts florida statute one thousand two point twenty subsection three n board policy one point one eight one is no longer legally valid and must be removed thank you as presiding officer i find there is good cause to add this one item to the agenda and four items under other business board members is there a motion to adopt the agenda miss vaughn i moved to a job to adopt the agenda thank you miss vaughn in a second please miss morgan yes thank you and please record your vote can you thank you i wasn't sure if you were able to do my computer so thank you miss kittens okay seven zero motion carries miss fisher will lead us in the invocation after which ms giovannelli will lead us in the presentation of

005the colors and the pledge of allegiance ms fisher please lead us in the invocation at this time thank you please your eyes lord we thank you for this opportunity to meet here this evening and ask you to bless all here present we ask that you bestow upon this board the wisdom understanding and desire to come together and make decisions that will benefit our students please guide the superintendent and his staff as they perform the daily tasks required to keep us informed and our students and staff inspired and safe please look upon us and grant all that we need to guide our students in these times of change and challenge for this and your many blessings we thank you amen amen mr evanelli yes introducing the cadet who is presenting the national colors for our pledge

006of allegiance tonight is first sergeant anthony garris army instructor from gateway high school first sergeant garris served 29 years in the army in numerous assignments and ret and retired as the first sergeant of the army reserve training center at fort knox this is the first sergeant garrus's eighth year in the jrotc instructor and his and his second year in lee county thank you for your service sir hi mark thank you presented in national colors tonight is cadet kayla cabrera the cadet commander of gateway high school jrtc program cadet cabrera is the school's first ever battalion commander and has done an outstanding job creating the culture of the new program cadet cabrera is active in all aspects of jrotc she is a captain of the raider mix team and the jrotc academic bowl team she also

007was the driving force behind the school's first ever toy drive at christmas that supported local elementary schools cadet cabrera is at the top of her class at gateway and is enrolled in the school of cambridge program please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation liberty and justice for all please be seated miss fisher yes thank you this evening student representative from the district student advisory committee is aubrey duncan a 7th grader at challenger middle school aubry likes to spread kindness every day by sharing a kind note with teachers around her school aubry also runs a lemonade stand and a kindness cart which has been featured on nbc 2 news to date aubrey

008has raised and donated over a thousand dollars to local animal rescues as a profound animal lover she herself has 15 rabbits four cats three birds two guinea pigs a fish and a horse aubrey is a member of the national honor junior honor society and student council member at her school she has volunteered at community cooperative to feed the homeless helped collect canned goods for harry chapin food bank and led her student council in the making of holiday cards for troops overseas in the future aubry would like to attend mariner high school to obtain the veterinary tech certification and later on hopes to become a veterinarian welcome aubrey thank you miss fisher and we will be hearing from aubrey later in the meeting the next on the agenda is public comments mr paree bruno please address

009the item of public comments school board policy provides the opportunity at this point in the meeting to address the board concerning any matter on this meeting's agenda or any other matter relevant to the operation of the school district if you completed a public comment card please put it in the basket provided if you need a public comment card they are provided by our staff located in the hallway the rules concerning public comment are posted and will be made from the microphone in the back please be advised that the board will not respond during public comment to remarks made by speakers speakers and those attending the meeting are expected to act in a respectful manner the purpose of public comment is to provide feedback on school district issues abusive language is prohibited in addition clapping hissing

010and booing unreasonably loud and or offensive language swearing cursing or a display of temper during public comment is prohibited speakers who fail to follow proper decorum in the chambers will be ruled out of order any speaker continuing with such remarks will be required to relinquish the microphone for board policy 1.11 and may be removed from the chambers there will be one warning and we ask that you govern yourself accordingly we will take recesses as necessary if there is not decorum in the chambers please remember that it is unlawful and a second-degree misdemeanor to knowingly disrupt or interfere with the school board meeting for board policy 1.11 the time per speaker is 3 minutes if there are 20 speakers 2 minutes if there are thirty and one minute if there are thirty one speakers or more

011the maximum time allotted for public comment is one hour sixty speakers you will find a countdown on the big screens in the front of the room once your time has elapsed the microphone will automatically shut off please state your name when you approach the microphone i will call you five speakers at a time please follow staff's direction madam chair there are 13 speakers for this evening thank you please make sure you have completed a public comment card if you intend to provide public comments the card is a public record identifying those who speak and providing contact information to staff for follow-up the cards are located in the with staff in the hallway i wanted to see if they were inside or outside so i apologize oh inside in addition there if there is not decorum

012during this meeting i will call for a five-minute recess we will continue to recess this meeting as needed increasing five minutes each time members of the diocese when a recess is called i ask that you leave the chamber of course it goes without saying that during the recess board members will not discuss any matters that is pending on the agenda or will come before this body to avoid any sunshine violation i will reiterate what mr bruno just said in that it is unlawful and a second degree misdemeanor to knowingly disrupt or interfere with school board meeting we would appreciate it if you would state your name prior to making your comment is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the board but did not fill out a comment card please raise your hand

013okay is there anyone who has not filled out a comment card okay cnn mr preeber will you please begin thank you madam chair for the following individuals please line up randy scott amy b karen g sharon mcgill denise nystrom good evening mr scott and the time mr pre-bronic and it'll be up on the screen yes good evening as i was sitting here i was thinking of layla aiken you remember about this time a couple years ago she was run over at her bus stop on a corner which the board has done nothing about removing bus stops from corners i'd like to talk about lee ratner from lehigh acres lee ratner started his business finding a load of bananas that were soon to be unripe and he bought it from the truck driver for 250 dollars

014he turned around and sold it for 1700. that was his first first venture in innovation and creativity and capitalism lee wrightner prattner would be a good name to choose for this school and i think that his efforts at innovation and creativity could inspire a lot of people who would look up his name he's a chicagoan which is close to my heart and he served in the in the military during world war ii lee ratner went ahead and grabbed a hold of a patent for warfarin that wasn't being used and he converted it to take care of rodents and he created decon decon was then sold and after he sold decon he needed a place that places money so he bought the acreage in lehigh acres and he developed the land i think lee ratner would

015be a great choice to inspire children towards innovation and creativity that our capitalist system brings so i would also like to share with you something i heard today in regards to us building a gun range at the technical center i find it interesting that our that the chief of cape coral at the time in 2015 he proposed a new police service unit and in it was a gun range he pushed it but the city council members and cape coral denied him then just as recently as 2019 they sought 500 000 dollars from our state legislature they approved it but when it got to our respectful governor desantis office he vetoed it i would hope that this board starts spending its constitutional money on public education instead of using your facilities as a go through as

016a straw man to pay for parks and estero to pay for ranges in cape coral this is why i struggle with so many people outside of this district because it's become a boondoggle of money taken from the taxpayers i'm asking for you to exercise some discipline and stop spending our money away from public education good evening hello my name is amy and i'm proudly a retired public school teacher i come to support the lee county public schools today our children are our most important asset and we have an obligation to provide them with the best schools possible so that they can grow up to be contributing citizens to our county and or elsewhere that is the job of the public schools and is one of the reasons the united states is a great nation we

017provide a free public school education to every child this is the point of pride for us all it is foundational it is the purpose of the public schools and it's why they were created education for all prior to the pandemic i've volunteered in a school for several years the county has fabulous caring hard-working teachers who go the extra mile every day how can we support them how can we attract new teachers even more important how can we show our veteran teachers they are valued and oh so important to our schools how can we support our bus drivers they do such important work transporting our students school of choice depends on our maintaining a fleet of buses and the staff to drive them providing students with a safe way to get to school finally our school

018board thank you all for your important role as edu in educating the children of lee county setting standards for achievement being accessible to the public working diligently to provide opportunities to receive a high quality education allowing our students to succeed in their career or college and to become contributing citizens i am here because i believe in public education and i want to see it supported thank you will the following individuals please line up christy divijelli heather boyle marsha ellis robert roper jen watta good evening ma'am you may give you may begin the clock will be right up here on the screen for you okay start yes ma'am okay hi my name is sharon mcgill and again thank you for the opportunity to comment tonight and for your service to the community and i would also

019like to thank you for allowing last week miss malay i hope i'm pronouncing her name correctly to give us the information about the 35 million dollar budget item that there seemed to be some confusion about and so she clarified that for us so that we understood that it had nothing to do with fresh produce and our previous supplier and she also mentioned that the current produce vendor was providing stellar service for the district so thank you for her clarifying that information for us moving on after the last meeting on the 11th i checked the books that were assigned to the board members one was beloved which was released in 1987. and then one of the other ones was more happy than not in 2015. the other ones fell sometime in between those years and because

020of the disparity and how old some of these books have been released i started to question what the real motive is behind this what appears to be sweeping book removal campaign that has recently surfaced there seems to be some kind of attempted coordination to remove a wide range of materials covering certain topics by certain groups well-educated trained librarians are the stewards of library information they serve all kids in the community and should not be expected or intimidated into choosing books that only satisfy a particular group of parents or activists libraries are a cornerstone of the school experience and should serve the information needs of all students by providing a wide range of information granted with such a broad spectrum of ideas and information available it will be inevitable someone will encounter resources they believe to

021be offensive or inappropriate and want to protect the children however their rights do not preclude other parents rights and so they have the right and responsibility to monitor their own children but not everybody else's so i propose that if it's a situation with books in the library that the district start a parental supervision library program and parents can opt in to have their children's choices and library books monitored only by the parents that way the parents have rights and thank responsibilities good evening nystrom tonight i want to express my support for the bus drivers in lee county the bus drivers have attended school board meetings for months to tell you that they deserve a raise it appears that it might have fallen on deaf ears but i hope not so i read the transportation contract

022and i realized that they do not have a defined work day yes they get paid for eight hours a day but the workday is not defined in terms of the number of runs they do since they are down 150 bus drivers the school district has saved a lot of money by not hiring additional bus drivers so let's say that for the past five years the bus drivers have done four runs per day and now they're doing six or eight runs a day without extra compensation no wonder they're upset the workday needs to be defined in terms in terms of the number of runs that they are required to do and when they go above and beyond those runs they need to be compensated for them because we the public whose tax dollars ultimately pay their

023salary increases have been asking you to settle with the bus drivers for months please give them the raise they deserve as i remember the years that i was a special education teacher i want to express my support for all teachers and counselors in the district mrs gittins asked a good question during the superintendent interviews what can be done about teacher shortages if the candidates read the teacher's contract they would know that they start at 47 000 a year and then go up by five hundred dollars a year for the next twenty years that's about two dollars and fifty cents a day not even enough to cover a car payment each month if you wanna recruit teachers and retain teachers provide them with annual increases that help them to live in an area where the economy

024far exceeds their salaries thank you good evening hi i want to take a minute and just thank everybody for what they do thank the teachers thank the board i like to say this a lot but it's true we've all been through pandemic for two years now so you know i think it's been hard on everyone i do want to speak clearly to something that was spoken at the last board meeting by someone who gave public comment and i think it needs to be revisited i'm going to read the quote that was from public comment the last meeting this person said a terrorist organization known as blm which has proved to be nothing more than that a terrorist organization known as blm which is black lives matter which is proved to be nothing more than that

025so i'd like to make a couple comments on that first of all if 14 of our 95 000 students are black or african-american and they are he just spoke to thirteen thousand three thousand three hundred students and their families second it's not the job of citizens to designate terrorism to a group it is the job of the fbi it is a job of homeland security this is not only promotes hate but it's just wrong and it's not true i wonder if there are certain instances i think this would be really valuable where the board or the superintendent or the lawyer can fact check or or discount misinformation that could be harmful when it's spoken to the microphone black lives matter facts here's a few for you number one it wasn't just minneapolis and in florida

026it was 2 000 cities and towns it was all 50 states it was 60 countries including ireland and the uk it was all seven continents including antarctica that was black lives matter so for us to allow it to be called a terrorist organization from our microphone in this public school system in lee county is just unacceptable so my request is that there's conversation about that and there's ways to handle things like that one way would be to fact check from the dais but perhaps another way would be to have discussions going into new superintendent hire and have discussions on how to write this into a contract i mentioned last time i gave public comment that there's a lot of information out there and we all agree that some of it's true and some of its

027lies but we seem to disagree on how to tell the difference so i want to bring up again best practice policies which are all over the florida department of education website as a standard and the gold standard that we should refer to unless there's something better but thank you good evening yeah jen wada i'm not sure if you remember me i'm the resident that moved here to an a county school right at school 15 years ago to be turned around to a c rated school i'm sure you now remember me because i'm spreading the word trust me okay i am also here to speak to the public because i am a lee county activist last meeting two weeks ago there was talk about unity okay we all want unity however that's a bit of a

028joke right now because of what has gone on for the last several years and evens more so recently with letting your own political views get in the way of our children example elfie oaks we all know what's been happening this has been said many times all because of us reject of a post on facebook miss patricia and bruno decided to take it to the board to cancel their contract with results and a bunch of millions of extras dollars spent on food which could have been hired for to get your teachers back that left because of your ridiculous shenanigans okay so let's talk about unity okay so now they decide to cancel him which is another big no-no because they didn't even take it to the public comment which is now a violation of the sunshine

029laws okay of course again now our children are suffering also i want to mention not only we want unity but we also want the crt the sexual explicit illustrations that support the transgender the lbgq and pornographies in our books okay great job board okay yeah that's why i want to bring that up i want to thank the board for that i want to thank the board for those textbooks okay this has been going on for years i want to thank them for those sexual explicit illustrations in our textbooks okay speaking of our children and the food okay i have two children in high school right now two years ago they've stopped eating your food because you caused them diarrhea that's what i said diarrhea okay first of all my kids have not gone to the

030bathroom since they were elementary children in fifth grade because of the bathroom situations that you people have not done anything about you're letting people walk in wherever they want to walk and my kids are scared not only have they held their pee since elementary school they are now holding their diarrhea okay they cannot eat your food i have to send them with food with because they have diarrhea and they come home and they run right to the bathroom with the squirts that's right i said the squirts okay how do you people feel about hearing about that okay because of all this and i'm so glad this is an election year because all eyes will be on those four seats okay as we all i can do as i suggest to you is to going forward

031because all eyes will be on you to do this thing for our children and perhaps there will be unity thank you my name is robert roper good evening my name is robert roper this book it's perfectly normal i personally sat across the table with six of the seven board members and the other one by phone and you saw this book with your own eyes most of you handled it and looked at the contents that was over a year ago this month it was finally removed it's out praise god but it took over a year shame today today you had the first reading of proposed board policy 4.221 suicide prevention i regret that i was unable to attend the briefing in person due to other commitments according to your own website suicide is the third leading

032cause of death in youth and in lgbtq individuals two to three times more likely to attempt suicide if i would have been in your briefing today i would have presented this book to you titled 13 reasons why by jay asher it's a novel totally dedicated to suicide there are 98 copies of this book in lee county schools 16 at south fort myers 18 in bonita this indicates to me that it's probably being required reading by a teacher suicide is a complex and personal issues i do not know anyone that is trained and skilled enough to tackle this problem from a classroom setting this is one problem that should be left to the parents and professionals not the schools many in mental health care claim that this book could prompt troubled young people to copy the

033suicide its central character hannah baker 13 reasons why can be found in numerous middle schools across the county ages starting at 10 years old and the success academy you remind you might remember that's where you can also find the book killing mr griffin a book about kidnapping and killing a teacher suicide and murder at a school that serves kids that are already in trouble it has been a full two weeks since i requested five of you to do your job to protect children in the areas that you were elected to serve the response has been totally underwhelming at best great titles like sloppy first and two boys kissing can still be checked out in an attempt to address the accusation that i'm advocating for censorship allow me to point out it is a fact that

034the district uses chromebooks and issues them to the students pornography and others undesirable sites and books are censored by the district it is well known fact that if a student brings pornography or inappropriate literature into the school it will be confiscated that is censorship someone is censoring materials i would ask you by what standard because it is not by the standard of the parents to the seven elected officials and the superintendent i ask you to lead follow or get out of the way good evening heather boyle in reference to the new mental health policies 4.221 and 4.222 there are a ton of concern i'm wondering if the school district is so concerned about mental health why are they having books such as 13 reason why in the library about suicide as pastor oprah just said

035there are currently 98 books copies of this book in different schools multiple middle and high schools including success academy this novel is about suicide it follows a high school girl who kills herself after creating a series of tapes for her classmates to play after her death she gave the tapes to people who influenced her decision critics say that this book romanticizes suicide some would argue that suicide is a very real threat to our young people and therefore books like this are needed others would say books like this can lead to suicide i will leave you to make up your own mind about that a colorado community ordered librarians to temporarily stop circulating the book after seven students killed themselves there is no direct evidence that any of the students who killed themselves were inspired by

036the series of this book is proven that the teenage brain has yet to be developed maturely to see the long-term results of different decisions which is why teens are typically impulsive and willing to take risks that you and i would not and make poor decisions dr helen raynor a psychiatrist specializing in children adolescent mental health says dramatic and detailed portrayals of suicide needlessly put vulnerable young people at risk of copycat behavior as they see how to carry out harmful or potentially fatal acts this would be better introduced when a person is an adult and can understand suicide as a permanent solution to a temporary problem this should never be an option at local schools if parents are so interested in their children reading it they can go to the library or purchase the book themselves

037good evening christy diva jelly it's freezing in here today yeah last meeting you guys sweat us out of here and today it's like in antarctica okay first i'd like to comment on f1 which is the travel to the fsba legislature day so i would love to support this if it were not going if you guys were not going through the fsba i'd be happy happy to support it and would have nothing to say about it but since you are going with the fsba and i do not support i do not support them i do not support f1 f2 final three interview candidates you know i was reading on on wink news last night and somebody mentioned it in the board meeting today i'm just very curious why wink news gave us information on the three

038finalists before you ever even took consensus today i don't know how that happened i don't know if that was like a mishap on the district's part or if that had something to do with wink and they were just you know preemptive or i don't i don't know what that was but i'd love an explanation to that next one is h8 the approval of the amendment to the fiscal year 22 idea part b entitlement grant my only issue with this one is that it is its purpose which is to correct a budget account line oversight in the original project application that's a very large correction just saying the next one in regards to super search what can we do to fix the current teacher shortages you can hire randy mahlerwein the only candidate who has extensive

039experience in professional development which is what we are desperately desperately lacking in this school district what else oh policy 1.181 rarely do i ever thank miss bruno for things but thank you for finally putting this on the agenda and getting this removed the next one would be oh yeah i thank you whoever put the time clocks back in the transportation area i appreciate that the what do i have next oh yeah so i am one of the parent reps on the community committee for the superintendent search and i am still waiting on my invitation to attend the little get together with the potential candidates then the last thing i would have to say is that we are in an election season see we are in an election year and parents are greater than politics and

040that's all i'd like to say well the following individuals please line up tara jenner jacqueline perez kathy stout good evening you may begin hi my name is marsha ellis and i would like to begin today by speaking to the power of unity because eventually everyone has to come together and we are stronger through discourse we may not agree on every topic but we become better we become smarter by sharing ideas that come from different places if we become an echo chamber then our community suffers and our intellect suffers and we don't reach that consensus that our community so desperately needs i believe in creating solutions and as a former teacher i understand that many teachers feel demoralized and they feel demoralized for a variety of reasons they're covering classes for instance because some of their

041colleagues are sick or they're short staffed they may feel demoralized because they don't feel respected by the political climate and they feel like some of these issues are distracting the community and distracting the teachers in the public school system from those kitchen table topics that affect everyone in the community some of these topics like for instance the debate over crt or don't say gay or the individual freedom act that limit the ability of teachers to have conversations about gender or conversations about feminism or racism our teachers feel threatened i know that recently it just came up in this past week that one of the school districts had canceled a contract with a speaker who was simply going to make a presentation about civil rights because they didn't want to get caught up in that turmoil

042and so i feel like that political climate is interfering with the teachers abilities to practice their their profession that concerns me i'm also concerned about those kitchen table issues like affordable housing and fair pay i want to point out that these contracts for teacher salaries are negotiated by unions and that we as a community all of the public sector works through those unions in order to be able to negotiate those fair contracts it concerns me if there is negativity in the community towards collective bargaining that our teachers are guaranteed and that's why i've been very upset about the statement of alfie oak that's he said these corrupt teachers unions are the enemy of our country and our citizens we need to take them down by force all enemies foreign and domestic time for a revolution

043followed by a statement on august 20th in which he said he had 3 200 guns to arm all his employees it is very difficult to negotiate if you live in a community where good evening my name is kathy stout i like to talk about old business and new business but let's start with the old business at our last meeting we did mention about the 35 million dollars that is going to be spent on these refrigerators point of view did you realize that you're going to spend more than 35 million dollars if you install these in our schools you have your electric bills you have the maintenance so they do break down so you're going to waste more taxpayer dollars just so you know that in addition i also mentioned the last meeting that our bathrooms

044and our schools are not clean and with that said i know there's some kids who are coming home and explaining this to the parents why because i have heard it through the grapevine through the kids and the parents reaching out to me just to let you know so i would really think if you're in in such of you know if you're really considering thinking about the safety of the welfare for our children i would think cleaning is the most important key before the kids go back to school during school in school and after school so please take your time and take that 35 million dollars out of that budget and let's get these schools cleaned that's old news part of it another thing i like to mention last week or i'm sorry at the last

045meeting we talked about certain books in our districts i do have a lot of complaints on this due to the fact that we are not educating our children to our best and with that said i really believe that we have it in our hearts and our souls that we want the best for our children do we not question mark because if we did this would never had been a discussion in the first place and the parents wouldn't have to wonder why consistently we are not going back into schools why are we not going back to schools why can't the parents go back to schools this is a big concern of mine parents do very well with teachers the administrators and everybody else who belongs in school now i know for the past years that my

046children have been in school i was always part of their school districts all the time so and it's not just about you know school trips it's about school libraries and participating and doing things in aids of school and you can do it so you know if you're so worried about the budget give the teachers their money and let the parents get back in and let them do it because there's plenty of parents who want to volunteer their time thank you tara jenner waiting for the out there we go tara jenner i've carefully reviewed the superintendent candidates and like many i've written comments to you all in short only one candidate seems to be viable for our district in my humble opinion that's randy miller wine earlier today miss giovanelli connected that he may be too

047nice for our district may i suggest that we need a little more nice here and that he could possibly be the very person who could set a standards that others can strive to achieve he's thoughtful a team player and willing to state when the books when the buck stops here once all is evaluated and a decision is made we need that kind of initial evaluation on issues and then decisiveness once made nice is not synonymous with being a pushover additionally comments made earlier that only mr ramirez is bilingual must have been made based only on his name and the fact that he comes from puerto rico because no one asked any of the candidates that question it's a little presumptuous if you ask me i for example speak spanish english german and italian and then

048learning korean but if you looked at me and looked at my name you would never know that so with interpreters available in fact required i don't see why this is necessarily something that would be a major selling point for him or against the other candidates i'd like full transparency from the board and have disclosure on how each of the board members by name rated the candidates during their workshop it's not to help us rate the superintendent as it is to help us rate you and see what your qualifications are for these candidates we'd like to hold you accountable especially in light of the fact that four of you your seats are up for re-election this year why all the cloak and daggers i'd also like to know when the general meet and greet is going

049to be for the community the website calendar section under the superintendent has been woefully underutilized knowing what's going on has been hit or miss and it's scattered everywhere you say you post this notification but where you posted it seems to be a mystery finally i'd also like to make sure the superintendent candidates are facing the audience and the camera when they're interviewed this was not done during any of the prior events that you've been doing leading up to this and frankly we don't want to see your faces we want to see theirs because their countenance is a player we want to feel included in the process instead of making it feel as though you're just checking a box for that it's also common courtesy i'd also like to note that the press's comment about the

050three candidates seems to be more indicative of what the public sees that your consensus during workshops is a final because i've never seen you ever change your position after hearing public comment you de facto make conclusions at those workshops absent public comment let's put public back in the public schools thank you good evening board this afternoon the board attorney made a comment about an appeal that didn't took place that didn't take place and i'm here to read the filing one four two four two four four five zero e filed on 121 2022 at 2 16 pm notice of appeal notice is given that pursuant to florida rule of appellate procedure 9.110 defendant the school district of lee county florida appeals to the florida district court of appeals second district the order granting in part in

051denying impart plaintiff's motion to compel and for contempt which was rendered on or after january 12th the nature of the p the appeal is an appeal of a final order of contempt which was submitted by the attorneys which are the defendants for the school district by christopher donovan and jim fox how your attorney did not know this i have no idea i spoke to three board members who told me they didn't even know there was an appeal in and the reasoning i believe for the appeal is because judge fuller found that this school district the school board violated florida statute 286.011 illegal polling the court finds that the personal notes of the defendant's chief of staff lawrence stillwell hearing the date and time of thursday june 11 2020 at 8 59 a.m which memorialized the

052individual telephone conversations of the superintendent with each of the seven school board members are akin to minutes documenting what appears to be polling of the school board members so these clandestine meetings that you're having making decisions over contracts individuals and employees needs to stop this has been a consistent occurrence of the school district i'm really bothered to see that in 19 2019 through 2020 the henderson firm was paid four million approximately four million one hundred thousand dollars from a credit card rebate program that did not include checks or other payments made to them and that's only one firm that you utilize to fight parents employees and vendors when you are wrong when vendors are targeted or employees are targeted and parents and children are not and their needs are not being met you decide to

053come at them like a mafia and put all these taxpayers monies into fighting these people instead of mediating and i'm very disappointed that the board is not taking action you know where the problems came from if you look at your federal court documents it specifically says states that on that while patricka counts her email to bruno as a question patricka is known by the other board members to direct district staff to take action pursuant to patricka's own individual will when is this board going to stand up stop the hundreds of thousands of dollars that you are wasting fighting the oaks farms contract when you illegally canceled it and hold her accountable is that it any other yes ma'am thank you okay mr scott thank you for bringing that information to us i had read that

054as well regarding mr ratner so i thank you for that and thank you all for caring about our bus drivers we definitely that is one thing that we are constantly working working on and we all appreciate how hard that the bus drivers and everyone else is working in the district and i'm just going down my list here dr savage can you please respond to the rep because i believe that and i maybe i wrote down the wrong thing about about refrigeration in the schools we were not putting refrigeration into the schools could you please respond on that it was the refrigerations for the food to be held not for the refrigerations at our schools i'd actually have to get a written response to be more specific so it was a in regards to the 32

055million there was a comment that was made about us putting refrigerations into the schools i believe it was which was not what we're doing i just would hate to enter anything in the record that's not accurate just on the spot of this piece i just don't want to create a dialogue back and forth i know that miss malay addressed in detail at our most recent meeting where this item was brought up and i'd rather say if there's any substantive elements of what she explained that anyone would want us to to detail if they in some way believe that it's inaccurate i would want them to be very specific about what that is other than just a general dismissal of what our staff took the time to bring to this board and have it recorded rather

056than engage in it during a public comment session that would be my recommendation just so that i don't make any erroneous statements related to that particular piece thank you i appreciate that mr p bruno you were going to state something are you going to say something i'm just going to just clarify with regards to the notice of appeal but i'll wait until you finish or if you want me to do that if you would please all right so i just want to make sure that there's no misinformation a notice of appeal was filed in the brochi versus school board of lee county this is not the contract case that is currently pending in federal court with alfie oaks those are two different cases and we need to be careful that we're not conflating both cases

057because one is a circuit court case and one is a federal case two different cases with two different captions the plaintiff in the circuit court case is brochi not oaks thank you mr preeber for that and since this was brought up in public comment the reason there is the notice of appeal is because of certain things that were in the order that the district does not believe is accurate thank you miss dupree bruno and as far as wink i've heard wink twice we do not control what the news media puts out there so we have no knowledge of why anything was put out there i just wanted to make sure that was clear and as far as our students we do care about what's going on with our students and we want to make sure

058that our students have good meals and my kids are grown they're adults they're in there well they're up there and they've always complained about meals when they were in school they didn't like the best day for them was pizza day the best day for mr vidalia's granddaughter is taco day so our kids not necessarily i mean we follow the guidelines that we that are placed for us but that has been an issue for kids as long as i can remember but we do i work in the cafeteria a lot i see what's going on in our cafeterias i see the food that the kids are getting they're getting a lot of food they're eating their food as well as they bring their food but we provide free redu we provide free lunches for every single

059student in lee county so not only at the school we serve them a lot of them take food home for dinner as well as on the weekends so we are definitely feeding our children thank you for the information about bathrooms the dirtiness or the presumed dirty bathrooms i do see how hard our the janitors and custodians and everyone is working in there the teachers the everybody it's all hands on deck and they are cleaning they're sterilizing everything they are working very hard i'm there i see it and then today i know that a few people had spoke to miss vaughn and a couple other people had spoken to dr savage regarding volunteers we know how important volunteers are in our schools and dr savage you had stated that you were going to bring that to

060the pandemic team to see how we can move that forward so we can get people back in our schools is that correct yes madam chair that's it's it's a balancing act as we talked about earlier in our meetings a balancing act of the risk the additional risks but understanding that if this we've already been through this for two years we're in the height of the next of this most recent surge however we also recognize that the resources for our schools the level of engagement that's something that we'll have to balance and we have been balancing but i'll be bringing that most recent feedback to the pandemic team and i look forward to a to a recommendation thank you i appreciate it okay and moving on the next is the approval of action items and the

061agenda under consent the documents for action items listed under consent is made available to board members seven business days prior to the board meeting we are expected to review all the materials and we have an opportunity to speak with the superintendent with any questions we may have regarding the recommendations some of these items have also been briefed or workshop with the board in advance of appearing on the action agenda board members are there any agenda items you wish to pull for discussion under unfinished business table items portion of this agenda miss fisher i have no pools this evening thank you miss giavadelli i have none thank you miss patricka in a departure from normal protocol i have a question if i may go ahead item p is not part of the consent agenda am i

062correct that's correct okay and i have no polls please and thank you oh wait a second miss dupree bruno item p is part of it correct yeah we start to take a separate motion that's going to require a separate a separate discussion correct thank you okay miss kittens are you still with us miss kittens she's still with us i'm gonna go beyond then miss vaughn i have none miss morgan i have none and i have none is there a motion to approve the agenda's consent action items i'll move that we approve the agenda's consent action items thank you mrs fisher thank you miss morgan motioned by mrs fisher seconded by miss morgan please record your vote okay six zero with miss gittins not present motion carries dr savage please read your recommendations oh i'm so

063sorry i just went beyond that dr savage please introduce thank you any administrators in attendance with a new assignment that were approved under the consent agenda yes madam chair it would be my privilege i'd like to introduce dana philpott from allen park elementary assistant principal to professional development coordinator in the professional development dana thank you congratulations we will not hold you up so if you if you'd like to leave you're welcome to do so and congratulations appreciate it okay at this time we will now recess the regular school board meeting we're going to the lease corp script okay this is the 22 meeting the lee county school board leasing corporation the order of business is as president of the lee county school board leasing corporation i would like to call this meeting of january 25th

0642022 to order the time is 703. this evening's agenda includes public comments to secretary's recommendation other business and adjournment do i hear a motion for adoption of the agenda i move to adopt the agenda thank you and is there a second miss morgan thank you there has been a motion to adopt the agenda by ms vaughn and seconded by miss morgan all those in favor signify by i miss miss morgan aye ms vaughn hi miss miss kittens are you with us yes i'm here can you please tell me if it's are you in favor yeah thank you yes please ms patricka mr vanelli yes and miss fisher yes and yes so seven to zero motion carries okay public comments we'll we will now take public comment mr pree bruno please address the agenda item of

065public comments yes madam chair let me see if there's anyone here for public comment i don't see anybody listed i do have we do have some in there seven so they fill out a card okay is there anyone in the right okay is there anybody on the left side okay if you will please fill out a card and this is for the leasing operation you would like to address the directors regarding any actions proposed to be taken by the lee county school board leasing corporation hi christy divajilli i just want to know i was reading the minutes on the i was reading the minutes on the draft that in the attachment and i just had a really quick question it states that debbie is the debbie was the president last year betsy was the vice

066adkins was the secretary and desmore was the treasurer i just want to know what happened when atkins was no longer so like when he was when he was no longer with us did did savage automatically was he automatically placed as the secretary next or how i just wanted to know how how that worked just a little clarity there that was all thank you do you have you may please good thank you chair jordan earlier i asked a question and i just want to ask it again and i know that you don't answer but i think it is a very relevant question if anybody has any contact knows any of the school board candidates personally through organizations through friends of friends and not school board candidates i'm sorry candidates i'm sorry it's if the questions or

067the comments are based on the leasing corp oh that's okay okay i stand corrected thank you thank you is there anyone else that would like to speak okay cnn we will now move to the secretary's recommendation dr savage approval of the minutes of the last lee county school board lease incorporation meeting held on january 12 2021. thank you directors you have heard the secretary's recommendation to approve the minutes of the last lee county board lease incorporation minutes held on january 12 2021. i will now enter a motion oh this and i this is definitely not correct here we do that is there a motion i'll move that we approve the minutes from the january 12 2021 leasing court meeting thank you can i have a second please follow a second thank you miss morgan is

068there any discussion sorry can i say something about the people yeah you're going to when it's your turn you're going to speak okay i'm sorry okay is there any discussion no okay so no discussion we will now take a vote by hand miss morgan aye hi swan miss kittens yes please trica miss givenelli aye ms fisher i and i 7-0 motion carries okay directors you have heard the secretary's recommendation and they approved to approve the organization resolution of the lee county school board visa corporation for the election of officers debbie jordan president mary fisher vice president ken a savage secretary amy desimour treasurer man i'm sure just may clarify that's a second that's a second recommendation the first mo the first one you voted that was that was approval of the minutes correct correct this

069one is now the approval of the organizational resolution of the lee county school board leasing corporation and that's this the organizing effort that you just read the recommended offices and the and the folks to hold those offices thank you my pleasure and again we read these verbatim unfortunately so i do apologize for that i will now enter a motion okay so the secretary's recommendation has been moved do i have a motion i'll move that we adopt the secretary's recommendation for the organizational resolution for the lee county school board leasing court thank you mr fisher do i have a second i'll second thank you miss morgan bernie discussion see a new discussion i will now call for the vote by saying i and those opposed like sign miss morgan aye ms wong aye ms kittens bye

070ms patricka yes please miss juvenelli yes miss fisher aye and i 7-0 motion carries we will now move to other business please note that comments may only be made in your capacity as directors and or officers of the corporation are there any comments miss fisher i have none thank you ms giavannelli i have none miss patricka i would just like it if the superintendent or attorney dupree bruno could look into the issue with the change in secretary position midway through the year because we will be coming up on that again that's right just to ensure that we don't have to take official action i don't think we do but i just coming into it next year i'd like it to be clean please and thank you thank you miss kittens i'm sorry pardon me i

071have no comment thank you miss vaughn no comments hey miss morgan i have none dr savage i have no comments and i have none at this point having no other business to come before the board and say and no objections this meeting is adjourned we will at this time reconvene the regular school board meeting of january 25th the next on the agenda is the approval to delete the school board policy 1.181 emergency requirement for protective gear thank you madam chair this is not something that we do often in terms of repealing policy and we do need to move forward with it as if we would with any other rule making process so at this time what i am recommending is that the board approves this to move forward to the first reading and then the

072second reading so we can probably repeal this particular policy thank you have heard the attorney's recommendation that the board approves to delete the school board policy 1.181 emergency requirement for protective gear board members is there a motion to approve i hope that we approve the deletion of school board policy 1.181 as a first reading at this evening's meeting emergency requirement for protective gear is that the appropriate way to state it the only thing is that the first reading has to be at a briefing oh okay so that what i'm asking for is that the board provides us the opportunity to move it to the first reading and then the second reading at the public hearing so okay so i move that we accept it approval to delete school board policy 1.181 to a briefing for

073the first reading thank you thank you do i have a second mr morgan thank you is there any discussion miss kittens yeah thank you okay at this time if you will please record your vote i think you say our vote well it's on here i think madam chair i think there was a question i am so sorry i know i think but the question is pup is there public comment for this so the public will be able to come and comment at the briefing okay and the public will be able to comment at the public hearing that's what we need clarity thank you no thank you i didn't see that thank you thank you miss kittens okay seven zero motion carries just for clarification to miss givenelli and of course the public had an opportunity

074to comment on this particular agenda item at the beginning of the meeting as well it was it was definitely listed on there so thank you for the clarification and thank you for the question miss giovanelli at this time we are at board member comments and so if you don't mind i will have i think i'm gonna have aubrey speak first if that's okay with you all because i know she's really wanted to speak go ahead honey speaking to mike they can hear you i want to say can i say about that you can say you have the floor is your floor right now so if you want to speak on something you go right ahead thank you for the people who like supported the school board and i want to say like the i don't

075know who said about the bathrooms but like i know that janitors like work really really hard and i'm a student so this is kind of odd for me to say but like i think it's us is the student's fault that it's dirty i guess so yeah and we like think the bus drivers so yeah dude do you want to share anything that's going on with schools your dance like you have a dance tomorrow do you want to share it yeah the all county yeah i'm in the all county group so i have i'm going to like the lee high school tomorrow to do that and we're doing a valentine's day dance at my school so that'll be really fun great and do you like i know i'm doing questions and answers here now do you

076like being on the student advisor what how do you feel about being on student advisory i like it because like as a student i get to share my point of view so it's cool that like it's not just like sort of like the higher people i guess it's like what like the students who are in it get to say so yeah great thank you that was great so we now we will move on to the others miss fisher do you have any comments i have no further comments this evening thank you and thank you aubry for being here again this is her second time yes with us yes miss giovanelli okay thank you aubry thank you i actually think you might have a farm at your house i was kind of excited about that i

077so that probably keeps you quite busy doesn't it yeah thank you for sharing that okay so i just have a couple things real quick just some announcements really the edison festival light is the parade will be the night parade is actually february 19th at 7 pm and our schools participate in that so it's it's a very exciting event for lee county also we have the children's junior parade and that's on the 13th and we do and we also have stoptastics that's going to be at the luminary this year in the closest sound that's the new new old hotel and that is on the 12th february 12th so and that's where we have a lot of science fair projects and kids are involved it's a great day for all the lake county schools and the students

078that participate and the families and students that come out for it so i just thought i'd bring that there's also an eventer's fair that's going on and that is gonna that's being done virtually this year this will be the second year in the road that it's been virtual and it's been it's interesting to see the science fair projects virtually and that's something i wanted to talk about and then i'm just going through my notes oh in this there's some books outside if you want on your way out you can pick up regarding the asm festival light it's got some fun little information in there i just want to also ask dr savage if he could look into the books that were given especially the one that was my task but if these books are inappropriate

079for students especially the suicide one that one's really concerning especially after we've talked we've talked about this pretty extensively and how critical it is right now especially because of the pandemic it's very alarming some of these students and just the environment that they're in and trying to you know actually just you know kids have it tough these days just trying to grow up and be young adults in this world that's a little tough so if you could look into those books and i don't know mr ripper if you could send us the full list that you asked and then maybe we can give that over to staff and because that would expedite it expedite it faster than what i can do personally and if i give it to the superintendent his staff can look into

080it more and get to the bottom of it and it's already done okay well thank you and i think that is really it i just wanted to say that real quick i know we've had lots of calls regarding bus issues and we just i just want to express that we love our bus drivers but we've lost a lot of them due to for health reasons for personal reasons and just for we have a staff shortage nationwide and that's one of them right now and i'm sorry i apologize first for students that aren't making it to school and aren't getting home because we are trying to do our best with the personnel that we have everyone works very hard at the district and it's we're lucky that we still have the staff that we do so

081i can commend them for sticking with it because i mean we the shortage of workers throughout the nation is really a crisis so we acknowledge it and we're working really hard to do what's best for our family here at the district thank you thank you mr giovannelli for your words i appreciate that miss patrick yeah unfortunately i'm sorry i have a couple things to say we had a hearing a student hearing earlier today and there was a fact in the back of materials that i wanted to bring to your attention from the time that the incident was reported to a teacher it took three minutes for two aps and an sro to show up in the classroom i thought that was fantastic response time and i thought it was important to bring that to your

082attention in the event you didn't notice that i didn't report on student advisory ms fisher thank you so much for the opportunity to to go there and to be with the students they discussed the student code of conduct and the feedback they provided was fantastic and ms rodriguez is no longer the staff liaison and ms taylor will be taking over so we go from one incredibly capable wonderful staff member to another one and it shall bring ms taylor will bring a fresh perspective and i know that she'll be fantastic with those kids and what i have to tell you is being in that meeting was like food for the soul for me just being around kids especially at this time was like food for the soul for me but i would like to ask the

083superintendent if we can reinvigorate that committee there were it was it was poorly attended in terms of the number of students so if we could let the principals know how important that committee is to the board and the feedback that we receive hopefully that committee is also obviously important to the superintendent and you know the staff down here in the district the representation that was there was fantastic i just fear that the there's a limited slice of feedback that we're getting and i think that if principles really encourage their kids to show up to those meetings they're more likely to do so thank you for bringing that up one of the candidates who will not be one of our finalists recommended staff discounts public school staff discounts if there's a way for us to institutionalize

084that meaning as an institution we reach out to some of the larger companies in this area and ask them to provide discounts i understand that there are discounts here and there for teachers i'm not sure that it's coordinated at the district i'm not sure every teacher knows where to go to get those discounts but it would be great if every i'm not going to say a specific company but it would be great if teachers knew where they could go for a cheaper hotel stay if they're up in jacksonville for example or a 25 off a fast food meal or whatever you get the point and then finally i want to congratulate our three superintendent finalists i'm going to say them from off the top of my head and see if i say them correctly dr

085bernier dr mollerane my and mr ramirez i'm really excited as we finalize or enter into the final stages of this process and i really do look forward to welcoming them to lee county when people ask me where i live i tell them i live in paradise and they really believe that's the name of the town where i live and i have to explain no it's we live where people save all year to spend one week and this is where we're welcoming these three candidates so i'm sorry to give more comments but i didn't want the night to go without saying those things thank you welcome is that it that's it okay thank you for your comments miss kittens okay i wanted to mention that every year when it's martin luther king's birthday and we have

086the day off and all of that but some of the in fact all of the activities that i participated in this year as in every year remind me of the one thing the word unity and we did our affirmation of unity in our last meeting but those that attended these events such as the breakfast that was held by and i'm going to mess it up but the omicron lamp lambda chapter of the alpha phi alpha fraternity incorporated and every year in brexit you can't help but be inspired for another year to think it's a reminder of what we're all about and i want to congratulate the recipients of the keeper of the dream awards this year if you did not attend i believe it's online that you can look at it and excuse me it

087is a very inspiring thing congratulations as well to the dunbar festival community for the gala that they held on saturday night and congratulations to the recipients of their awards as well and i also attended fgcu multicultural student group and they had a very good dinner and speaker and when i left there i was very inspired that our world is going to be in good hands of young people that are thoughtful that are kind that are loving and they get it and i think that's all of the activities and but i just want to say to my fellow board members go back and watch sometimes some of the some of our meetings just on your own and think about the word unity and that's all i have for tonight thank you and i hope you keep

088warm miss vaughn thank you i have just a few comments and they're based on some things that were said from the deus and in in public speaking one thing is miss patricka mentioned discounts and that's teachers love discounts we all love discounts but if you know if there can be any way that we encourage more discounts that would be great there are some places and sometimes you have to really look but i know when i was teaching i didn't pay like i do now for a barnes noble discount card there was one for for educators i think staples has it there i believe there's some i think i got a discount on a t and t which actually i never changed you know once you have a contract you just keep that old contract and

089some of the things that i took advantage of at the time was because i was a member of talc the teachers union and some of the things are offered through fea or nea so there are some organizations that also offer these but you know sometimes you need to just kind of dig on it okay also from the deus there was a mention about talking to the having the superintendent look into some of the books that mr roper has has mentioned i just want to remind everyone that and we've talked about this numerous times we have a process for this it is not up to the superintendent it is not up to individual media specialists or librarians to take a list of a hundred books and go through everything no this goes out on a particular

090form a committee is formed and we have a process i've been assured that the process is being followed i had just this past week as a matter of fact a constituent was mentioning something about this and i said oh there's a form and if you can't find it i'll send you the link and i sent her the link and she's happy to see it but it's very easy to find i think it's the page that we established quite a few months ago i don't remember exactly when when the parents rights it's it's the page with the parents rights on it and there's a long long list of different pieces of information that the public can access including various forms and so if you go to that page on the website you can find book challenge

091form or something like that and if you can't find it i can send you the link and one final note from public speaking there was a mention about people and i know i was the one that said something about bilingualism today and i certainly would never just looking at a person say oh well that person speaks only english however there was a specific question on the rey and associates application and there was a specific place for languages spoken other than english the of the five there was one person and yes that person happened to have a spanish surname and was born in puerto rico anyway i know at least i did not take it for granted that you know other people because they didn't have spanish surnames they couldn't speak spanish or italian or korean

092or chinese or arabic or whatever languages so i just wanted to point that out because we are here to disperse information as always thank you for to all of you for coming out to speak and those are my comments for this evening thank you miss vaughn appreciate that miss morgan yes so first of all i want to thank everyone who provided input on the superintendent candidates every comment was read by me and i believe it was read by every person sitting here at this table a number well i shouldn't say a number but but some asked questions that i believe will be helpful in the finalist process next week the comments were thoughtful and very very much appreciated some people asked why there were no female candidates and in the pool of the applicant pool

093that brain associates began with 25 percent were female so there were female applicants but they did not move forward because they either did not have the qualifications or the experience or something that we had put in our directive to them in terms of our expectations for qualifications i'm going to say it because i'm all about pre-k registration is open for families who wish to enroll their children in summer voluntary pre-k it's open to students who are five years old by september 1st and have not already accessed a vpk program i want to call attention to some of the items that we approved tonight on the agenda and it has to do with the hard work that our staff is doing to provide partnerships for with opportunities for our students so for example we approved an

094academic affiliation agreement with florida gateway college for dual enrollment opportunities for students in aquaculture and or agriculture technology programs at island coast high school and east lee county high school we approved an academic affiliation agreement with embry riddle gates aerospace institute now that has been in place before but i just want to remind people that there are dual enrollment opportunities for students in aerospace technology programs at bonita springs high school and island coast high school so students who are in middle school and thinking about where they want to go to high school really need to understand that there are some great opportunities for dual enrollment for for children in this community in addition we approved an academic affiliation agreement with genesis care to provide facilities for the clinical preparation of medical assisting students we approved

095an academic affiliation agreement with coral trace health to provide facilities for clinical preparation for the practical nursing and nurse assisting students and finally and this is this is terrific i think some of these are new we approved affiliation agreements with the university of florida new york university university of wisconsin and florida southwest university for placement of student teacher interns with the school district of lee county that is huge we you know our staff is working really hard to expand our exposure to people who are interested in the field of education and are working to attract students who are interested in teaching to the school district so i just wanted to complement staff because it's clear that we are working hard to expand opportunities for our students and also to increase the our workforce so those

096are my comments thank you thank you ms morgan and thank you so much for highlighting that's really important because the work is definitely happening and i think that people a lot of times it's assumed that this is not a nine to five job this is a 24 7 especially even for us we are always working we're always reading we're always trying to make sure that we're looking at the best interest of the children the same with our staff they don't just work nine to five and clock out and go home they're always there trying to figure out what's the next step so thank you very much for for saying that and also i just would like to thank thank our three finalists looking forward to meeting with them and you were speaking about the pre-k

097and also the middle schoolers are all the little cards are coming out for middle school for high school everybody's getting excited about where am i going where's my friends going so be watching for those postcards of the schools and take the opportunity to to really look at you know your choices for those different schools as well as making sure that you don't forget to turn in your paperwork because the sooner you get it in the better it is for you and with that mr pretty bruno do you have any comments i just have one thing just to clarify because i know that sometimes because since constituents asked me this question i'm sure they asked the board this question in terms of sunshine and who does it apply to so the sunshine mr preparator is your

098mic on okay thank you is it on can you hear me not really can you put it a little bit higher for me in the back please it should be okay okay sometimes those questions come up in terms of with whom does the sunshine law apply it's really important sometimes you'll see the superint attendant and i are speaking we are not subject to the sunshine law it applies to the public officials so to the seven board members they must make sure that whenever they communicate they do it in the sunshine and staff it's really important for individuals to understand that staff can have individual conversations and briefings with the board there is case law that is very explicit about that any staff member can have conversations with the board and that is allowed by law

099so i just wanted to clarify that because i know that comes up a lot in terms of questions and i have no further comments could you please also clarify though that we as human beings you are allowed to have a conversation about how's your family or anything else that has nothing to do with the work of the board i know that we my instructions at least and my guidance to the board is to err on the side of caution because i am very careful with regards to sunshine violations and i want to make sure that there is never any allegations or accusations however it is very clear in the sunshine law that what they are speaking of is with regards to district business and things that will come before them or foreseeably can come before

100them for vote that is what the sunshine law is about so if you see them laughing with each other on the dais that does not mean that they have violated sunshine because they're allowed to to make a joke or ask how's your daughter doing or what did you have for dinner they're allowed to go have lunch together and say you know so long as they're not talking about district business anything that can come before them or foreseeably can come before them that is what the sunshine law is about it requires that meetings be noticed it requires that it be open and it requires that all of their discussions with regards to district business be done in the open that is sunshine thank you mr prieberno thank you dr savage yes i'm introduced a few comments

101first i just want to thank aubry for making a return visit to seeing us again you know it's easy for us to talk about children to feel like the work of our district is all about children but sometimes children can feel very far away in this setting so it's very important that not only are you here but you're you're visually here but there's something else very unique about aubry that i want to make sure everyone knew is at least who's in attendance who might be watching said aubry and i came to meet virtually through the pandemic i had not met her in person and is really where i heard her unique story of what she did as a as a child in our in our middle schools and trying to lift up other people and

102so i just wanted to highlight for folks that one of the things that aubrey did that was so powerful was she'd leave notes for staff staff who she would come into contact with try to lift up their spirits to just recognize them doing really making contributions and so you know she wasn't being insincere when she talked about custodians bus drivers because those are all the people within the school that she would find a way to acknowledge as a child as a student who really lifted up the culture of her entire middle school and so that's really high the chance and so i personally reached out to her and her teacher who brought aubry to my attention and really was very appreciative of what you were doing the message that i've had to to everyone since

103i've been in this role since the beginning of school year is all about that through this tremendous adversity the thing that really helps us is each other the spirit of being able to lift each other up that is really what can help us get through such a difficult time and what better example than a student who chose to do that for adults who are going through a very difficult time trying to serve all their students so thank you aubry for setting such a profound example for me for inspiring me to to try to lead the school system when i knew that i have students out there like you who give us hope for the present and the future so thank you aubry for your presence today and i'm going to see you tomorrow at the

104all county dance showcase so i'll be there i'll have my two little ones ready to watch you my youngest daughter i know wants to be a dancer she also wants to be a princess and a mermaid so we'll see what wins out on that the other piece of just hope for the future one of the great privilege they had was that marching the march that we went through for dr martin luther king jr and it was amazing to go from the heart of dunbar all the way to centennial park and i felt connected to history throughout this time period it was really invigorating to be able to march alongside so many people with their hymns being sung it was really a powerful thing my father's mother who was a huge huge fan of dr king

105is who's long past but she mart was in the march on washington and so i felt a strange connection over time to her and that work that i hear was doing this in a completely different time period but yet some of the same themes and challenges that they were dealing we're still challenging and taking that mantle today so i think it's really exciting to to celebrate that history i appreciate that being brought up also recognized was we have two women on this governance team who are women of action from the brunson foundation i want to acknowledge miss betsy vaughn and our attorney kathy dupuis bruno and then also just a few questions that we had that were listed one of the issues was about the work perks that we had that we do actually have

106an intranet site to do it i think we could add to that plus our hr area i know has incentives and things like apartment discounts and things like that but we can ask i know they put out a newsletter with those things but trying to get that information out to our teachers we certainly can do a better job of that and oh yes the other comment that was asked a board question earlier was about specifically the volunteers in the schools and so i did get ms stillwell mentioned to me from the pandemic that actually academic volunteers so people who are tutoring in the classrooms providing academic opportunities they have been allowed to go back in school so any educational benefit has been permitted the things that have been that are being reassessed were specifically in

107the area of like people just coming extra bodies on campus to just have lunch visiting a class not providing any educational benefit but really just trying to be there that's that's the additional extras that we will be evaluating but in terms of economic academic benefit rather those things are still permitted and that was i was thank you for sending that information as well yep miss trigger would that include extracurriculars that have an academic benefit like interact and wrote a kids i'm sorry they're like would that include extracurriculars that have a positive academic impact like interact and rhoda kids i the specific programs i'm kind of looking for guides i know some of the academic programs i know that some of them have competitions things where they've been able to earn scholarships i know that those

108things have been permitted those specific programs i'm kind of looking yes i'm seeing a nod from dr spyro so yes thank you dr spyro all right i tried to answer the questions that i heard that i had written down so those are my comments for tonight thank you so much mr prieberno i'm sorry during my comment i forgot to mention one very important thing so i'm going to go back to the boring legal stuff i just want to make sure that it's clear too that there's been allegations with regards to the board and sunshine and those allegations have been reviewed by the state attorney's office who has come back and said that there was no violation of law no criminal violations and no sunshine violation so i wanted to make sure that was very clear

109as well and i can't i want to just piggyback on what dr savage said my grandmother walked marched with dr king both in dc as well as the edmund pettus bridge so it's really important that we always try to remember to unify and remember the sacrifices of those that came before us and for us and to our student here that's what makes me do my job is you and all of our 95 000 kids so on behalf of the attorneys you keep us motivated thank you next scheduled meeting of the board on monday january 31st there will be a school board workshop at 12 30. on tuesday february 1st there will be a school board briefing at 9 00 am any school board special meeting at i'm sorry can can we not speak from can

110you not hear me okay on tuesday february 1st there will be a school board briefing at 9 00 a.m and a school board special meeting at 12 30 p.m on monday february 7th there will be a school board workshop at 1 p.m on tuesday february 8th there will be a school board briefing at 1 an action meeting at 6 p.m at this point having no other business to come before this body and see and no objections this meeting is adjourned thank you so much have a good evening thank you