School Board Workshop: April 14, 2026

001Good afternoon, everyone. It's Tuesday, April 14th, 2026. This is a school board workshop and the time is exactly 1:00. Sergeant-at-Arms, has the front lobby been attend attended to? Yes. Thank you, Chief. Dr. Colon is unavailable today and instead will please welcome Deputy Superintendent Dr. Ken Savage. Dr. Savage, there are 13 items on the agenda this afternoon. The first one is construction change order reports for February 2026, then safety third quarter, then the district advisory committee report, the policy review briefing and first reading, the academic update, summer programs, learning and AI student rollout. I'm waiting for this AI student rollout, by the way. Budget overview, student advisory update mental health, organizational changes public briefing, job descriptions, FSBA advocacy committee positions for 2026-2027 for liaison and an alternate, employment contract for school board attorney Robert Dodig, public

002comment and then the good of the order and other business. For board protocol, each board member should aim for 4 minutes for initial comments and two for follow-up for a total of 10 minutes for each each and every question. Agenda items. First, we have construction change order reports for February 2026 presented by Tina Selcock and Melissa Rivera. Good afternoon, board members, board attorney Mr. Robert Dodig, and Deputy Superintendent Dr. Ken Savage. Today, I'm presenting the February 2026 change order report, which includes three categories, direct material purchases, non-direct material purchases, and contingency adjustments. Direct material purchases total the amount of $647,213.37 with $36,053.91 in tax savings being returned to the district. These uh DMPs are for the flooring at the Cypress Lake Middle School rebuild project. Second, we have the non-direct material purchases. They have a

003net total of $9,213.14. This includes $16,450 for added tax strips at the Hector A. Cafferata Junior K-8, $135,196.26 for direct material purchase reconciliation for the Lehigh High School re-roof project, and a credit of $142,438.12 in owner savings being returned to the district from the Harnes Marsh Elementary Middle Traffic Improvement project. Lastly, we have the contingency adjustments, which total $66,502.61. These are due for unforeseen conditions at the Spring Creek Elementary HVAC renovation project. This concludes the change order report. If you have any questions, also attached is the sheet that better explains the differences in the totals. Do you have any questions? Dr. Savage, any questions? I don't, but do our board members have any questions today? Board members? Look, great job. Looks like no questions. >> Thank you. Okay, moving right along. Next, we have the

004safety update for the third quarter presented by Dave Nullen and Lisa Barnes. Good afternoon, board members, Deputy Superintendent Mr. Savage, and board attorney Mr. Dodig. This afternoon, I'm going to be updating you on the third quarter inspection results. I am from the Office of Safe Schools. I am required by Florida statute to present this information to you. So, this quarter, we had 39 schools that were inspected and of those 39, 35 Excuse me, 35 passed with no issues and only four had a documented deficiency. So, of those deficiencies, which would be the next. Of those deficiencies, we had two issues this time. We had some doors propped open during instructional time and we also had some issues where when the inspectors come in, they get a binder from the front desk or from the front

005office, and not all the required documentation was in there. So, I worked with all the principals, got everything corrected. I submitted the plans, the corrective action plans to the Office of Safe Schools. They've accepted my plans and so we're good for right now. So, statistically, we had 33% of our schools this quarter and of those, 90% passed with no deficiencies. Are there any questions? Dr. Savage. >> I yeah, I don't have any of this time, but we stand ready to assist with board member questions. Ms. Jordan Ali. Thank you for that and thank you for the updates. Um my only question is really I I seem I see that we continually the door seems to be propped up and that seems to be the like habitual offender, right? So um is there anything we can

006do? I I think cuz I think it's just somebody probably goes out to go to the bathroom and then doesn't pull it or you like is it a door So there's a couple different issues there. So for example, um at one of the schools this time it was the auditorium that was propped open and if there's instructional time going on, it has to be secured. Um so since the school what you know, there was different people in and out, the school wasn't sure. They had a big sign printed next to the door, do not prop open. Um and so the schools know this. Um there was some testing recently. The a teacher thought be quieter if we kept the door propped open. We've addressed that We've addressed that issue. We've addressed So it's a myriad

007of issues. Um and just sometimes people don't think and so we just have to keep on them with that. That's all. Okay, any other questions board? Ms. Jordan. Thank you. Can you tell me um how do we prioritize which uh schools are um being visited each quarter? >> So the state calls me at the end of the week and they say these are the schools that we went to and these are the results. We have no idea when they're coming or who what school they're going to be at. Okay. And then is there a um as far as threat management uh team training, we make sure that that everyone is current on that. >> Yes. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. I Oh, go ahead. But Ms. Jordan maybe think. So how often

008do they come? So they're required to be once every 3 years. So they're always going to different They're not just in Lee County. So they're all between I think um but by Bradenton all the way to the East Coast. Um so I just don't know when or how they're coming. I feel like they come often though. We have a lot of schools, so they're here a lot. >> That's a good That's a good thing. We want them to come often. >> I I do think it is too. I just I wanted it's not just by chance like once every 3 years. They're here often. >> They come right and there's no say. So for example, when they went to the island school, which was way out there, um there was nobody there except for an

009SRO. They were all on a field trip. So they don't call ahead. They had to reschedule. So you know, we just we don't know when they're coming or or anything like that. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Will you mention the island school or plug in for the island school? I was just there last week and their security was outstanding. The SRO was outstanding. And uh Awesome. >> even know if they were expecting us when we pulled up, but anyway, just plug in for the island school. >> That's what we wanted to hear. >> Okay. Thank you much. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda, item number three, we have the District Advisory Committee report presented by Mr. Timothy Tyler. Good afternoon board members. Deputy Superintendent Dr. Savage Is Mike's not Your Mike's microphone's not

010on yet. Could you put the main mic on in the back if anybody's back there? Mr. Tyler, is it on red? I don't know. No. Can you hear me now? Yes. >> Yeah, you got Great. Now we'll start again. Good afternoon board members. Deputy Superintendent Dr. Savage and Mr. Robert Dodich. This afternoon as I said, my name is Tim Tyler. I am the chair of the District Advisory Council. This afternoon, I will provide a summary of our February 25th and March 25th DAC meetings. Highlighting the the distinct priorities, stakeholder engagement, and federal funding input. And the outcome of the information or the information we were given about the ESC cluster model. During the February 25th meeting, the council focused on district priorities, stakeholder engagement, and federal funding alignment. Board member Debbie Jordan shared updates from

011the school the Florida School Boards Association along with insights from her her school visits across the district. Superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin outlined five district priorities. School safety, student achievement, addressing teacher vacancies, teacher retention, and maximizing instructional time. And she said we are looking forward to as long as she can show up seeing her again this next meeting. The district also highlighted the Innovation to Excellence campaign, which college career opportunities, and career pathways. Supported by community outreach and parent testimonials. Additionally, DAC members provided stakeholder input on the federal grant funding priorities from title one through title four. With a timeline that included feedback in February, budgeting in March, and application development in April and May is what we were told. While February focused on planning and alignment, in March meeting focused on information of a major

012district initiative. During our March 25th meeting, the council received a presentation on the ESC cluster model transformation. A district initiative aimed to improve student outcomes and operational efficiency. The cluster model centralized services into specialized sites. To address achievement gaps, staffing, and inefficiency efficient resource distribution. So being able to use our resources properly is what we were told. So if we have a piece of equipment that students need in one one area, but it's only being utilized by those students, the cluster model, way it was explained to us, is going to combine all that so we can we can properly utilize all the equipment that the school board and the school uses for our special students. Programs are organized in the central centers of excellence, which we really which we had a lot of questions about,

013including life skills, social communication, behavioral support, and the transition program for students who want to delay the graduation between the ages of 18 and 22. We were told that the information of the cluster model will take over take place over the next 2 years is what we talked about. The this model is designed to increase access to services, improve class staff collaboration, enabling a classroom who now has one or at least what was explained to us has one teacher and that teacher is out sick, we have more than one teacher in a ESC room that is all inclusive. Now the schools don't have to worry about trying to find coverage for that classroom. There will be another teacher in there and there will be other um paras in there also cuz there will be you

014have more than one teacher, you're going to have more than one para in that classroom, enabling it to be a little easier on the schools instead of schools scrambling trying to find subs or having to move teachers around to cover these classrooms. Um we are also told it is going to save money by reducing travel time by some of our specialists that have to go see all our different ESC inclusion students. Which we we thought that was a very good idea. And better um resource um allocation and use usage. DAC members raised concerns regarding teacher input, parent input, class sizes, and student transportation. Their main our main concern was that the teachers and the parents were not consulted before this decision was made. The district emphasized that the decision will remain student center and IEP

015driven. With ongoing feedback and adjustments throughout the information, they said they will reach back to DAC next January and let us know how the progress is going from the time it's been implemented in August to January. The District Advisory Council continues to support district initiatives while emphasizing importance of communication, transparency, and stakeholder engagement. While March introduced major information initiatives. Thank you for your time. And your continued commit- commitment to students, staff, and the community. I'm happy to answer any question you guys have. Dr. Savage, any questions? I just really appreciation and and gratitude for the advice that our DAC is able to give. That's one of the the great moments that we have for our through our board and district to get feedback from a vast diverse group of folks because it includes parents, community

016members, business leaders, school-based staff at different levels. Just it provides a great microcosm of the entire district. And so we really appreciate the work of the DAC. We always appreciate the organized feedback both both in in person but also in writing that you produce for us so we can thematically analyze what's been done. So just thankfulness there and then just excited to hear any board member follow up on that. Board members? I Yes. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tyler, for everything. I did have a follow-up because I know there was a few pieces where you kind of highlighted that was the way it was explained to us. And I just want to make sure for the cluster model because it is kind of a big initiative that's being rolled out. Was there any other

017questions that came out of the advisory that you guys still need kind of resources on or clarity on as this progresses into the next school or something that Now, the biggest the biggest concern that our parents and our our members had was just that they were like, "Why were we not considered? Why were not Why would Why didn't the district come to us to talk to us about this?" Because their biggest Actually, their biggest concern was that you're going to have a student who's an ESE inclusion student and you'll have their sibling who is a not is just a regular ed and they're getting separated. We were told that parents are being work The district is working with the parents on making sure that we can try to keep the the siblings together. And that

018we said that transportation's already work reaching out to the parents of students affected and that the school principals, not only of the the current school the students at, but also the the future school the student will be going to has already reached out to that to those parents to talk to them about the transition. Okay. Um thank you for that cuz I know specifically the transportation and the sibling thing was a was a question that I had. Um so I'm glad that that was something that was at least >> Yeah, that's that's one of the biggest things that the parents brought up was that, "Hey, what's going to go on? I have a student who is ESE inclusive, but I also have a gen ed student. So what is the plans? >> Yeah. So is

019there anything else that we can do to help? As of right now, we'll see how the information goes. And I'm sure there will be more, especially when it comes to January and we get the feedback back from the commit- from the main committee from ESE saying how it's actually working out. Is it working out the way we planned it or are there hiccups? Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Ms. Jordan. Ms. Jordan. I I just want to say thank you, Mr. Tyler. You run a great meeting. And this particular meeting, there were so many people who engaged in the communication, which was really great to to actually hear that. But their concern was, as Mr. Tyler mentioned, about the busing and what happens to my other child. And not only that, it's the the fact that

020they felt that they were not heard because they did not know. No one came out and said, "This is what we're looking at doing." And they did not engage the community as such as as written here. That was a huge factor for many of them. And even our the teachers who are like, "Okay, what's going to happen to us?" So there was a lot of concerns through this whole thing. Ms. Gulan her team did a great job in explaining They did. >> to them. And I feel like I got more out of that meeting than the workshop actually in what they were asking because we had so much communication and back and forth conversation with everyone. But there's a lot of unanswered questions that they're still waiting to to hear back to see, you know,

021what is what is this going to look like for them. So I I just really want to thank you for that. And I and I know that the the DAC was waiting to get response back from We did get response back as far as >> to them. Yeah, we did get response back from several things we asked for for from the school board. We did get the schools that are going to go into the cluster model and what schools are not. We also got your workshop notes. And then we also requested as DAC to receive the letter that had been sent out to different people throughout the district, state, and and and states around talking about what the school district is doing. And we did receive everything we asked for we did receive. Sorry. So

022the the letter that on Mr. Tyler is speaking about is the the one that we had sent out with the, you know, the postcard, the letter, and who exactly is receiving those letters, why are why are they receiving That's That's a big question we had, too. Thank you. And to that cuz I know part of our conversation when the workshop happened that after the workshop the next day, those immediately impacted in the upcoming school year were receiving the communication. And then the following scope of that phase two would get that communication later on because they're in the next school year. So I know that that letter specifically is what you're talking about. But from now until January is a big time. So I just want to make sure there's anything in the meantime even before

023school enrollment if there's anything that the district can provide your group to work out to your schools or to your families, just let us know. I will. We will. We'll reach out to you guys. >> Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Okay, any other questions for the board? Okay, Mr. Tyler, thank you very much. >> Thank you, sir. Okay, next we have the policy review briefing and first reading presented by Robert Dodig and Benita Brophy. Wait for Benita to get seated quick. All righty. Good afternoon. Ms. Brophy and I are here today to brief the board on 19 amended or revised policies. As I've discussed with you individually, several of the amendments are related to two main topics, the changes in structure with the legal department and the fact that the district now has an elected superintendent

024and not an appointed one, which has led to us removing the policies related to an appointed superintendent. We are here to answer any questions that you may have. Ms. Fisher. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Dodig, can we go to policy 3120.04, please? Yes. Guest teachers? Yes. You just passed it, Ben. Right there. 3120.04. Perfect. Okay. Mr. Dodig, is there any thing in the language that would currently impact any contracts we have, like for example, Kelly Services within that policy? No, and thank you for that question. As you all know, we do contract with Kelly Services to provide our guest teacher services. In fact, the items that are in green that have been added or suggested or recommended by NEOLA are things that Kelly Services already does for the district. So thank you for that question. Thank

025you, Mr. Dodig. Next up, can we review policy 8325, receipt of legal documents, please? And this is I I know it's outlined in here, but just kind of maybe a general explanation of how the free flow of information will work. For example, documents that go to the chief staff attorney versus documents that are served upon the board. Just if you can kind of explain that a little bit. >> Sure. So great question. Currently, we're all considered essentially one office. Obviously, the structure is changing with the chief staff attorney coming on board. And currently, the subpoenas for records and things like that are addressed by the para- one of the paralegals in our office. That person will be under the supervision of the chief staff attorney. So that's why the language in here is addressed that

026way. All lawsuits served on the board are accepted by my office, the board attorney's office, and we will continue to work that way. So the incoming chief staff attorney, when that person arrives, obviously one of the first things to do is to coordinate with all of our staff how we're going to undergo those things. And as it says in here, right before the actions litigation against the school board paragraph, the chief staff attorney and board attorney shall develop administrative procedures to implement this policy. So that'll be one of the first things that we do. And of course, I have experiences that as the previous staff attorney when we had a board attorney. So, thanks for the question. Thank you, Attorney Dodek, for the explanation. That's all I have at the moment, Chair. Thank you. Okay,

027any other questions? Okay, everything done. Thank you very much. >> We will bring these forward on May 12th to the action meeting. Thank you, Board. Thank you, Benny. Okay, thank you. Okay, next on the agenda, we have the academic update, summer programs, learning and AI student rollout. Dr. Shaker. Good afternoon. Um I'm Dr. Nathan Shaker alongside Dwayne Alton, our Chief Information Officer, and we're here to present our district strategy for AI integration, as well as some information about our 2026 summer programs. Today, we will cover three main topics, our current and future AI plans, our comprehensive summer program offerings, and we want to share some detailed information about our revamped third-grade reading summer school, uh which we will call Lit Camp. Uh our strategy our AI strategy is grounded in the US Department of Labor's

028AI literacy framework. Uh the framework is very clear that first we build confidence and comfort before we move into the area of strict governance or oversight. To bring our uh our staff up to speed, we have managed various challenges for our teachers to what we are affectionately calling micro-learn uh accessible AI tools. In our first challenge uh that ran from January to spring break, uh 566 teachers completed the AI Ascent Challenge. Uh we've rerun that challenge now, and currently we have 120 doing the second run of the Ascent Challenge, and another 140 that are doing the advanced course, the Alpine Challenge. We have around 100 school administrators who are currently doing the Leadership Peak, which is specifically designed for our school leaders. Uh next year, we are planning to pilot launch a structured 10-week onboarding

029rollout in 8 to 10 high schools, tentatively planned for August to mid-October, and possibly middle schools through late December. And I know I added a lot of qualifying words there. Uh our AI governance team is hard at work every week. We meet on a weekly basis now, talking about the best approach to slowly roll out AI tools to our students. While elementary schools were included in the original plan, our AI governance team recently met just last week and opted to hold on any elementary implementation. Now, we affectionately refer to AI as the easy button, but wrapped in caution tape. And so, uh we're going to be able to uh and just as a a quick note, if you ever needed a picture of an easy button wrapped in caution tape, you just need to go

030to Gemini and type in make an image of an easy button wrapped in caution tape. And you'd have it right away. No more Googling. Um we want our educators truly to view AI as a high-level administrative partner. It provides a blank page solution. AI handles the initial organization and data crunching, leaving the final authority on instructional quality exactly where it belongs, with the teacher. Um for leadership, AI reduces cognitive load by synthesizing data, suggesting immediate differentiation, scaffolding for high-complexity tasks, and provides clarity to even observation notes. For teachers, we have tools like our Benchmark Unpacker Gem, which helps quickly identify exactly how a student's answers uh how student answers may or may not meet the rigor of a state standard. This is just one example of how we can leverage AI in a very positive

031way. Right now, our teachers use documents such as the Big M, our test item speci- specifications from the state, um as well as uh our content benchmarks. We can put those items into what we call a gem. It's kind of a confined version of Gemini, and we can allow our teachers to go in, type in a benchmark, it will read all of those documents for them, and it can give them interpretations like what are look fors that I should have for students, what are uh appropriately challenging questions at at at a inappropriate rigor. And we can slowly start rolling out these tools to our teachers because it can do the initial data crunch and that analysis so that they can focus on planning and building great lessons. Our implementation relies on four principles. First, the

03280/20 rule. Let AI handle the data so that you can focus on quality and feedback. Second, verify facts. AI has a wonderful way of sounding incredibly confident even when it's wrong, and so uh we call that the confirmation bias, and so you always have to be uh the captain of the ship. You always have to be in charge. Third, actively monitor outputs for bias. We know that as AI kind of searches the entirety of the internet, you'd have to be very you have to be very diligent about the direction that it's going, and make sure that you have that 20% control of it. Um and fourth, commit to continuous learning because truly the technology evolves on a weekly basis. The tools that we look at in Gemini and Notebook LM this week are literally updated

033week to week. Just this past 2 weeks, in Gemini, uh you can make a song if you'd like to. You can go in there and you can make a really great 1990s hip-hop 3-minute song related to any topic that you'd like it to do. It does a great folk song as well, and so But again, that was just added about 2 weeks ago. So, we wanted to try it out with you today. So, we have a wonderful helper here today in Ms. Kara Kobel, who's going to help us guide you all through a little AI uh Ascent experiment. So, what we can do right now, if you want to go ahead and open up Google on your uh on your computers, and I'm going to step away from the dais for just a minute to

034help support. Hi, everyone on the panel. Would you please take a moment and go into your email? Go into our email? And what you will see is exactly what our teachers and our leaders see, and you should have seen cuz you should be getting these challenges as well. But you should see an example that we've created that is specifically for board members. So, we've got two different activities for you, and depending on your comfort level, you're welcome to try either, and I also wanted to make sure you had a piece of paper so that you can follow along as well. And within You You see an email? you'll see I've gone ahead and done everything for you. I give gave you a prompt that you can copy and paste, just like I do with the

035teachers so they can see the language to use, and then I also gave you a Google Doc that has all of the examples that we can use since we don't have a really long time. But for the first activity, you'll see it says the pulse check, surveying the peak. So, if the idea is to take some of the load off of you, one of the things we can do is we can actually ask Gemini to look at constituent emails >> Okay. and social media posts. We're having a We're having a problem finding this email. Oh, yeah. Was it out in the email? Yeah, we're looking. I just sent it. Okay, I just sent it. Who's it from? Me. Oh, yeah. It was me. It might not have come from me. I might be blocked cuz

036I sent so many today. I did send it to you, Shaker, though, if you want to Yeah. Did anyone get it to Kim or no, not yet? Okay. It's sent. No, it should be from Kara Kobel. Yes, I got it. See, that's why we do paper, too. And we'll play it by ear. If it doesn't load immediately, we can come back at the end of the at the end of the presentation and make sure to uh allow the to have the experience of working through an AI task. Well, we're going to be patient. We've been looking forward to this all day. Yeah. >> So. I got blocked cuz I sent too many today. Okay. Gemini a little while ago okay we we were in Gemini a little while ago so if you click right here

037Oh look at that look at Gemini down. Okay now Gemini was here somewhere. Unfortunately I'm blocked from sending or I can say what we need. Um but I did when I say printed cuz you should be able to type it in as well and I did actually give you the sample of the Google Doc sheet that has the sample like fake emails on there as well. But the idea behind it is so that you can see that this would be something that you guys could use to help streamline your work. So if you have a series of social media posts where you want to get the gist of what everyone's kind of looking at and create a student forward facing friendly response. It can do that for you and you can review what it says

038make it your own language and save yourself some time. And then if you look at the back I actually created a an activity or current legislation. So July 1st, September 1st and December 1st we have three things that we need to do for legislative compliance. If the third one's really short but the first two are really really long. The second one's 84 pages long. So if you copy and paste all of that into Gemini with the prompt that I gave you that identifies how to shorten it up look at where our compliance is and what we need to do it can create an agenda for you so that you can keep everything on track. So I think the best approach maybe to continue the presentation and we'll come back to it at the end. So

039Cara we'll work on getting it over to maybe Miss Shafer or Miss Latanya and see if they can forward it and we'll come back to the activity at the end of the presentation. >> Yeah of course. Cuz we do have a lot to cover today. >> Okay absolutely. So we wanted to discuss next our summer programming. 2026 our summer ecosystem we are shifting to our 2026 summer ecosystem. We have built a continuum of care. This spans three essential pillars essential remediation to fulfill state mandates tailored care for specialized student populations and our fee-based summer institutes for advanced enrichment. For essential remediation we are running our intensive grade three lit camp face-to-face alongside our secondary credit recovery which operates at a highly focused 1 to 35 ratio. For tailored care we offer virtual self-paced ESOL support

040for K4 ELL students and face-to-face extended year services for our ESE students fractionally known as ESY. At a glance these tables provide a quick logistical snapshot of our programs. Please note that grade three reading reading camp targets level one fast PM3 students without a good cause code and requires full focus attendance tracking. Also middle school ESY students will access services centralized at high school host sites. Our fee-based summer institutes unlock pathways for advanced discovery offering elementary offering offerings include elementary humanities and STEM camp STEM camps like space voyagers middle school tech and engineering including the zombie outbreak survival design and high school programs focused on academics and leadership such as the Raider camp and life skills like drivers education. In addition to our summer offerings we are excited about our summer summit that's coming up

041June 3rd through the 5th. To we have a total of 650 participants already registered and ready to go. We're excited for our daily keynote speakers Brian Mendler on behavioral management Chris Nikech Nikech on neurodiversity and empowerment and Dr. Genie Golden on trauma informed care. They will be our our keynotes for each day of the summit. Now I want to share with you a little bit about lit camp which is our redesigned third grade reading camp. We have some incredible assistants as well who are going to pass out some materials to y'all so you can get a little preview of what lit camp looks like and feels like. It really is a paradigm shift for us. We want to highlight our biggest change. We are trying to reimagine third grade reading camp. We are moving away

042from sterile environments and disconnected worksheets and we are disguising rigorous intervention as an inclusive immersive summer camp experience. We're driving unprecedented student engagement through creating a camp-like atmosphere. Lit camp is powered by the science of reading heavily overlapping foundational skills comprehension and fluency in every lesson. The daily schedule moves from an opening campfire where students set goals for the day to reading power for shared read-alouds and it finishes with what we call bunk time where teachers conduct rapid one-on-one diagnostic checks while students are reading and all of this takes place in the course of a single day. We also integrate the Florida student resiliency wheel directly into the literacy that they're reading rather than isolated behavioral lessons students analyze strengths like friendship and courage as literary themes gathering text evidence from books like Owen and

043Mzee. Think of lit camp as a bridge over the summer slide. The rigorous science of reading acts as the steel cables and the joyful camp environment acts as the wooden planks. Delivers what the state demands in an experience students will be eager to attend. To that end we want to thank you for your time. I'm going to hope you received an email at this point. Did you receive are we still not in any luck with that email communication? I just resent it. All right. We'll still stay optimistic while opening ourselves to questions if there are any questions or comments. Yeah I don't I don't have anything just to again thanks. I'm sorry we didn't get the opportunity to do the live activity with it but it's the prompts and whatnot is if we're able to

044resolve and get it to the board members it's certainly something you could copy paste in the time so you get a chance to actually experience part of what those challenges are like. Other than that just again we stand ready for questions for any of the topics that have been presented today. Mr. Fisher. Thank you Mr. Ribble uh Thank you Dr. Saker. Appreciate this presentation. Question going back to to AI. So you talk about um on slide three about the 10-week onboarding rollout. So can you kind of explain generally when you say turned on what does that mean? Is that going to be you know which I'm assuming but go ahead optional obviously and how does that work with you know depending on the class and the teacher and So as we move to establish our

045pilot locations with high school we're going to decide specific areas. We feel like there needs to be an English class at each of the pilot locations and we're settling on some elective courses. For those courses we would for those schools we would truly turn on the AI tools. Right now our students can't access Gemini or notebook LM. It's blocked within their ecosystem within their their piece. And Dwayne might be able to speak more specifically to it. But as we open up those pilot sites we would enable the students to use the tools while we're providing training and onboarding in the appropriate usage of it. Any other questions from the board? >> Yes. I still had a few if that's all right Mr. >> Okay sure. So is it so who's kind of working with is

046the teacher and somebody else or who is going through the students with the AI usage is my question. So I think we would target specific subject areas. This was the most recent conversation we've had at this kind of weekly cadence. Again English department at South Fort Myers High School for example. We know there's a couple departments that are very eager to begin using it. So Riverdale High School for example their elective area has been hungry to use AI tools for their yearbook and for their visual design. We would just be very specific about the areas that we piloted its usage. Mhm. What I mean by that is is it are the teachers these teachers receiving specific training that they'll then Yes, good question. So, we do have a training that will be part of their

047their their standard kind of safety trainings at the beginning of the year. They're going to take a 30-minute AI awareness training at the beginning of the year. We also will continue to have build capacity through the Ascent challenge through having teachers in each of our buildings who are familiar and comfortable with the tools. One more question, Mr. Rubel, please. If we can go down it's to the summer series on the credit recovery for I think it was Let me see what All right, I'm missing what page that was. Um 15, sorry. Okay. So, for high school when you talk about credit recovery, Dr. Shaker, is that Ingenuity or is it different or is it We run credit recovery through our Ingenuity program, correct. >> Okay, my kind of general question is in regards to Ingenuity

048and talk about some things there's a perception that the kids are kind of just put in a computer and it's kind of they're just pushed through to graduate. Can you kind of dispel some of those myths, please? I think it is a facilitated program because a lot of our credit recovery is is doing different courses while the students are in there. I don't believe that they're pushed through at all. I believe that they're supported in the voyage. Ingenuity is very good at scaffolding. It's very good at building out the background. It's very good at self-directing the students as they move forward. So, it is not the intention at all to just push them forward. They have to hit particular benchmarks. They can test ahead in certain areas. So, if a student sits down to Ingenuity,

049they take a placement test. If that placement test shows mastery in a certain number of benchmarks, it will move them forward in the in the course at a faster rate. Because they've shown mastery and at that point they would complete the rest of the course. Okay, as I said just cuz you know, the perception I saw a bunch of us here is a computer you know, students put in front of a computer they just kind of push it off. They're not getting any actual learning. So, There's an efficiency to to Ingenuity, absolutely. When we when we seek credit recovery. Summer is the last place that we seek credit recovery. We have credit recovery going on in all of our schools every every year. Students can take retake the course live and in person. If they

050need to or they can take that credit recovery during the school year. So, it is it's it's it's going to be facilitated more than it's going to be directly taught. Thank you for the explanation. Thank you, Dr. Shaker, Mr. Rubel. Thank you, Mr. Rubel. It should be there now. No, good. I had to do a lot of work around it. I couldn't email it to you, but I shared it with you. So, you should be able to see the Google Doc that it's in. Did that work? Yes. Okay, can you click it and now you see Excellent. We'll do some questions first. All right. Thank you. Okay, any other questions before we go through the exercise? Mr. Jordan. Thank you. Thank you. Question regarding AI AI, please. >> Yeah. How are we training the teachers

051to distinguish between AI assisted work Mhm. and academic dishonesty? So, our first approach and I'm going to I'm going to offer I'm going to answer it in a big way Okay. before we ever get to something specific. Our teachers need to be confident and comfortable using AI before they get to the point of worrying that it's simply a a tool for cheating. So, our goal right now is to is to teach them to be very confident in in using AI. From there, there are tools there are after market tools that we can provide. We have systems of putting material into AI and it can determine whether or not it is AI. But, I think the ultimate goal, Mr. Jordan, is that we take the path that almost University of Florida has taken which is we

052partner with it. We declare an assignment is either AI assisted or not AI assisted. We kind of reach into it. We understand that this is the future. And and we we work with our students. Every assignment is defaulted to to no use of AI. But, we want our teachers to be confident in even permitting AI for certain functions of writing a paper, completing an assignment, doing research. It's a useful tool for them to have. And I have one more question, please. With the summer program, how are we measuring the bridge effect to ensure students are entering the 2026-2027 um do not have that seasonal learning gaps. How are we doing that that we've closed that? Well, how are we measuring that to make sure that For third grade reading camp particularly? >> Correct. We we

053retest them on the third grade options for promotion throughout the summer, right? So, they can promote based on a concordant score and and um STAR or Amira. So, they'll continue to try and take those tests. Um they can even take PM1 in fourth grade. They can take the initial PM1 in their first year of retention. And if they score above a level one, they can be promoted at that point. But, we would we would judge the success of lit camp based on if we can increase our summer promotions. And I I appreciate it cuz you know, I want to make sure that the kids are learning and that's what's happening. Yeah. I think we're starting >> I appreciate it cuz I want to make sure that you know, we are doing this for a reason

054and that they are getting a benefit out of it and we're not just doing something to do it. So, thank you and thank you for those questions, Mr. Fisher. I appreciate that, too. Thank you. So, question regarding the lit camp. So, the two books that you gave us was one in English and one in Spanish, right? So, this is for third grade. I have to look and see which version it is. I just grabbed some samples to make sure you could see kind of the way that it was structured. They look I So, I think there should be a parent manual that comes home with you as well as a workbook for the students. Family. Mhm. I think more than anything it gives you a sense of the the feel of the program and and

055some of the initiatives that'll be part of it. >> So, so my actually so, my question is really so, you the family so, the these aren't all the same. You just you just gave us what you had. I Is that my understanding? Okay, cuz I wanted to provide you with some samples. So, Got you. Cuz so, this is third but this is third grade, right? I Yes. I got my I got my experts right here. They're saying yes, it is third grade. The third grade so, third grader get this and take this home for the summer. That's part of the materials that they would use. Now, that would be part of the class that they're being taught. It's an in-person third grade reading camp is in person. This is the curriculum that they will use

056for third grade reading. >> So, my question so, yes, third grade reading. So, now in third grade they're already reading let's say I mean, third grade they're why aren't we giving them English? Is like really my question because like the they're learning Spanish, but and they may be you know, multi-language students, but like I think what you're saying is a supplemental material. So, the the Yeah. Well, that's what I'm trying to understand. Remember, I'm not an educator. Mhm. Just to assist assist our families with engaging. It's it's one of the available resources. >> is not Spanish. So, oh, okay. Yeah. Got you. So, that would be for the parents. >> Right. So, our goal would be that >> I'm thinking children. So, that's what I was trying to I get you now. It was trying

057to get me a minute. >> So, for even some of our bilingual parents, we could send them a guide home that would give them support in how to help their student at home. Cuz part of the program is also just to send lots of books home. And we'll you'll you'll definitely see that effort. We want parents reading with their students at home. It's definitely going to help. Right. But, we also want them English. So, I don't So, But, I understand. So, right. No, so I it helps them, but Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, any other questions on this topic before we get to the email? Okay, um I'm I'm locked out here, but um thank you for the presentation. I am so excited to see summer school being taken seriously with intensity and fidelity

058the program can be a huge success. Many of the students that go to summer school, their parents at home don't speak English. And so, it's incredibly difficult when you're with a teacher that's not your normal teacher throughout the year. Mhm. And it's a it's a in your mind a sub your sub teacher. Is is summer school 5 weeks, 6 weeks? It's about 5 weeks, yeah. Um so, I just want to reiterate what I think Mr. Fisher was trying to say earlier about summer school getting rid of the the facade that they sit in front of a computer all for for the 3 hours they're at school, put them on a bus, and that's just not the case. I'm and I just think that's important for the public to hear that this is a true exercise

059that these students are going to make gains. That is the point of this program. So, I applaud you for putting this together. Um My other thing is you know how I'm going to have to say it, Dr. Shaker, cuz we talk about all the time the balance between technology and hands-on and and written exercises. So, I just wanted to also reiterate one more time that while AI has its place and it is a spectacular tool, we have to learn how to use it. I've heard Mr. Chairperson say before um the way that the way that you say it is um people aren't going to not keep their jobs because of AI, it's because they won't know how to use AI. Correct. >> And um and and I think that's an important statement to make um

060even to our students that this is a tool for to help you, but you've got to also do the other hard work and dig in and as long as we're teaching that simultaneously in the classroom, um then it's going to benefit the kids, especially those high schoolers that are getting ready to go into college and they're going to be expected to use it for multiple things, not just write papers. Um and then um the summer seminar, 650 people, where is this held? It's going to be at the Westin this year. Okay. And we invite you to come at any time during the event, June 3rd through the 5th. >> educators that are signed up able to receive CEUs? Will it be professional development? Yeah. >> They'll receive actually 20 points in ESE. So that is

061the that is the recertification requirement every 5 years. >> Yeah. And it can be a major hurdle to recertification sometimes. >> Okay. Awesome. All right, just wanted to make sure. That's all, thanks. Thank you for that, Ms. Fleming. Are we ready to go refer back to the email now? We're going to we're I appreciate the optimism. We're going to make it work. Are you ready for it? Let's do it. Ms. Kobuk, do you want to join us back up there? I'm I'm on it. Yeah, I opened up the email, it's here. I didn't get it. I didn't get that. And then use any of the samples that I created for you for constituent emails or Facebook posts. By the way, it was ChatGPT who I said, I need some examples of constituent emails or Facebook

062posts from Lee County schools. Could you make some for me? So ChatGPT made those three for us. So that you can copy and paste them. And my goal was so that you could see how easy it can be once you have the language and the prompts that you're comfortable with and you can even save a list of them and just reuse them if you're specific enough so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. So I was hoping to make that one specific enough for you. But then also if you're trying to figure out some of the more difficult legislation in terms of when things are required, when we have to have things done by, a list of all the things that you need. You can also click on the Florida Senate bill legislation, copy

063it, throw it into Google Gemini, but be very explicit in your language. If you just ask it to summarize, that's all it will do. And you want it to summarize and then give you deadlines, it will do that, but you have to make sure your language is very very specific. And you can even enumerate like I did and tell it multiple things to do and it'll do it for you. So they send you this email, it says subject or copy and paste that whole email. This? I don't have it. I didn't get it. Actually didn't get me the email. See, I got Jennifer and she said open up this one right here. That's what I did and that's what I got. That's what I'm getting. Can I take your mouse first? >> You sure may.

064Yeah. I'm notorious for that. Cuz I put it in there and I made sure that you were an editor so you can edit it. Cuz the two of I'll come help Yeah, cuz she couldn't send it to me with for some reason, I don't know. Could I make a suggestion in the essence of time? Mhm. Of course. Why don't we schedule one-on-ones with each board member? Love that. >> And we could do a half hour hour training. Me, I'll probably I'll probably take me 2 hours. It depends on what we're doing. Why don't we do a one-on-one schedule for everybody and then we can continue this on and cuz some of us I think we should spend an hour together, Ms. Fleming. >> Okay, that That'd be great. That'd be fine. We are absolutely open

065anytime. Once you feel the spark and magic of AI I Well, this one's what I just what she did send me. So this this is a new one. So hold on, she said refresh. Okay. Okay, perfect. Yeah, okay. No, it was giving me ELA stuff. Oh, weird. Okay. But then when you click on these, those are the sample constituent All right, to that end, board, thank you so much. We apologize for some technical difficulties, but we stand committed to meet with you at any time to really share kind of the magic of what AI can create cuz once we can get past the the fear and nervousness of it, then we can appropriately govern it and so That'd be great. Thank you very much. Question. I had a question. You have another question? Just a

066question. So the in the um weekly updates a while back there were some kind of program like AI thing that we were supposed to be doing or learning with, but I never learned it. So I can read That's the AI Ascent challenge. We can send it out to you. >> would like Yeah, if that's what I wanted Yeah. like a workshop on or like a you know, explanation and I want to play, but I am not sure how. How about that? >> Even better, I believe that Cara had created an Ascent challenge specifically for school board members. And so we'll send that back to y'all and we'll just do some good one-on-one time. It might be easier than this forum and so the public wants to learn about AI, we can teach we can teach

067them as well. So Thank you. Okay, anything else? Okay, thank you, folks. Great job. Thanks for being patient with us. Okay, next on the agenda, budget overview by Kelly Lecter and Sarah Cox. Well, um um Ms. Cox and Ms. Lecter are coming up uh to to present. Just want to kind of give a little kickoff uh if that's okay, Sharon. So uh this is one of the most important budget workshops that we will have all year. Um I know that we are with our board frequently. We set aside a time for you all to continue to always dig into the budget, but I would say this particular budget workshop um in my mind is one of the most critical and for a few reasons that'll come through this presentation, but one of the things that

068we do in in running kind of the business operation of this this district is that we kick off our fiscal year in uh July 1. And so in preparation for that, this really is the perfect one to kind of set the table for that whole year. And right now out in our schools and our departments, our divisions, they're all in the middle of that process as we speak. And so this will give you some insight into the high level, but it very much connects to the day-to-day, moment-by-moment granular detail that we are all living right now in our work. Um so just really huge appreciation of gratitude uh to Ms. Cox and Ms. Lecter who will do this really important work, but I really want to put it for you as board members. This is

069one of the most important workshop topics I think of the day and even of the year uh for you all. So uh with that said, um uh to my colleagues, please take it away. Thank you, Ken. Good afternoon, board members, Dr. Savage and Attorney Dodik. Um so the purpose of today's presentation is to provide a clear look at our current financial landscape. We're going to dive into our fund balance with a specific focus on our daily operating fund and examine our outlook for both the remainder of this fiscal year and fiscal year 27. I want to be direct from the outset. Um the data we're reviewing today shows projected operating deficits for both the current and subsequent years. And while deficit is a heavy word, it is important to view these numbers not just as

070a shortfall, but as a road map. They are a reflection of our internal and external factors that require our pro-proactive attention. And so our goal today is to share with you the why behind the numbers. So we'll start by looking at our general fund ending fund balance history since fiscal year 21. Our fund balance is essentially our savings account and is broken out into four categories. The unassigned, starting from the top, is our most flexible portion of the fund balance as there are hardly any strings attached to what these funds can be used for. We have our assigned fund balance and these are funds that are intended to be spent in the subsequent year. So for example, in fiscal year 25, the assigned fund balance of 9.2 million are purchase orders that rolled from fiscal

071year 25 over to fiscal year 26 in anticipation of paying for the goods and services that were ordered. Our restricted fund balance are simply that. They're funds that must be spent on certain things. This would include uh state categoricals within the Florida education finance program such as mental health and educational enrichment, but it also includes other funding sources that I'll show you um on a slide coming up. And then lastly, we have our non-spendable fund balance and these are funds that we don't have access to as they reflect the amount of purchase inventory we have on hand. An example of that would be the district warehouse where we purchase supplies in bulk for schools and departments. Um but the expense doesn't happen until those supplies are distributed to a school or department. So, essentially, the

072non-spendable portion of the fund balance is inventory assets that we have on hand. So, in fiscal year 25, these four categories of fund balance totaled over 229.6 million. Compared to fiscal year 24, the fund balance of 242.9 million, we saw a $13.3 million decrease in our fund balance with the majority of that decrease being in the unassigned portion of the fund balance. So, I have provided on this slide the financial condition ratio. It's a statewide metric that's used to monitor the fiscal health of school districts. It's calculated by adding the unassigned and assigned portions of the fund balances together and dividing that number by the total general fund revenues for the year. I've also provided here the statewide average financial condition ratio for comparison purposes. You can see that the district's financial condition ratio has

073been higher than the state average. Our financial condition ratio as of the end of fiscal year 25 was 14.24% and if our assigned fund balance, the 9.2 million would have remained in line with prior years around $3 million, our financial condition ratio would have been more around 13.6%. And in my professional opinion, I I want to encourage us not to get hung up on the financial condition ratio. The most significant number is our unassigned fund balance as this is our most flexible pot of funding. And so, if we take a look at the fiscal year 25 ending fund balance, the 229.6 million that you saw on the previous slide, here's how it breaks out. This is an important look as we often consider the general fund in totality as our daily operating fund, but it's

074made up of six individual funds that are reflected here on the slide. So, what this shows us is 185.6 million or 81% of the total 229.6 million ending fund balance for fiscal year 25 was specific to our daily operating fund. So, you know, we often just see that $229 million number, but essentially just for our daily operating fund it's 185.6 million because of these other funds that make up the total general fund ending fund balance. And you can see the Hurricane Ian fund has made up about 17% even in the last prior year given the large influx of cash that we received from the state to help cover the cost of those ongoing repairs. And so, when internal and external stakeholders view our annual budget books or financial reports, especially those mandated by the Florida

075Department of Education, the general fund encompasses all of these funds. And so, what I want us to do is to shift separating out and creating a focus on our true daily operating fund as it's important as we analyze cost reductions and build contingency plans to mitigate our anticipated deficits. So, this slide focuses just on our daily operating fund. We commonly refer to it as fund 10,000. This shows the revenues, expenditures, and fund balance. And to start from the top of the slide, we have our beginning fund balance. We add to that revenue, new revenue, and other revenue sources. The other revenue sources include insurance loss recoveries and a capital transfer. And then we deduct expenditures to get our ending fund balance. For fiscal year 25, our daily operating fund savings account was reduced by 17

076million. This was an intentional effort to reduce our savings account. As you can see, each year since fiscal year 21 it had been growing. And while an increasing fund balance looks good on a balance sheet, a fund balance that grows too large can be a sign of underinvestment in the daily operations. So, one thing to point out is how a transfer from capital has played into our financial picture. Two rows up from the bottom, the row titled expenditures under/over new revenue only looks at new revenue compared to expenditures. So, if we look at just the fiscal year 25 column, our new revenues, all income to the district excluding insurance loss recoveries and the funds transferred from capital, that totaled 1.013 billion. While expenditures totaled 1.053 billion creating a $43.8 million deficit, a transfer from capital

077in the amount of 26.3 million was taken ultimately making that deficit 17.4 million. So, the capital transfer is a strategy and one that we must be intentional for our financial future. The fiscal year 21 through 25 time frame highlights an era of an era of exceptional revenues, not all of which occurred in the general fund, but from which the general fund benefited. During this time, we saw an influx or the world experienced the COVID pandemic and we saw an influx of federal funds within a 3-year period totaling almost $300 million. This relieved the general fund of some expenditures temporarily, but more so created investments in people and programs that were hard to eliminate when the funds dried up. So, in fiscal year 25, some of those people and programs um did shift over to the

078general fund. And another exceptional revenue in the general fund over this time period is property tax. Post-COVID, property values surged and I'll speak to that in more detail in an upcoming slide. Lastly, interest rates have risen significantly over this period of time. Any idle cash the district has is strategically invested it to maximize our resources. We have been a big beneficiary from this receiving over $31 million in interest income in our daily operating fund alone in fiscal year 25. So, all this is said because it is part of our budget story. And to continue that story, this slide presents our financial outlook for the current year. Like the previous slide, we start with our beginning fund balance, adding in projected revenues, subtracting projected expenditures to calculate our ending fund balance which reflects 138.9 million. I

079would be remiss if I was not clear that these numbers, revenues and expenditures, can change. An example of that is recently rising fuel prices. You know, any increase or decrease in revenues or expenditures will change this outlook. So, a critical factor to our revenue picture is the Florida Education Finance Program or the FEFP. So, when we receive the FEFP fourth fourth calculation sometime next month, we do anticipate a reduction. Um so, as most of the recent forecast as of the most recent forecast that outlooks for financial 20 for fiscal year 26, we are anticipating over $92 million deficit as you can see here. Um when we compare new revenues of 1.018 billion to expenditures of 1.11 billion, we are minimizing the shortfall by transferring 46.7 million. I'm sorry. We're transferring 45.4 million from capital to

080make that deficit 46.7 million. So, district practice and historic board desire has been to maintain a 10% unassigned fund balance. And specifically, that is 10% of new revenues which this year equates to almost $102 million. So, with the unassigned fund balance beginning this year at 136.7 million and a forecasted deficit of 46.7 million, there is potential for the unassigned fund balance to fall below 10%. And this is not cause for alarm, but a signal for action that will evolve as we adjust to our new reality of a sustainability mindset rather than a growth mindset. And so, just to compare fiscal year 25 actuals with what we're projecting for fiscal year 26, you can see our new revenues have are anticipated to increase slightly by about 4.6 million, and but our expenditures have increased over $50

081million. Um so again, this this deficit that we're anticipating for next year, we will um offset with an increased transfer from capital funds. And so, the capital transfer is allowable by Florida Statute 1011.71. Um it essentially is transferring revenue from the capital millage fund, not sales tax. It's the local capital uh levy that we have. Um we transfer revenue from the capital millage fund over to the general fund. And the statute is specific on the types of costs that it can cover. So, and and we can charge salaries directly to the capital fund as well and which we do. Um in either case, whether we do a transfer or charge salaries directly to the capital fund, uh there must be documented evidence that such transactions are for capital purposes. And so, when transferring revenue from

082capital to general, the funds can be used to cover things such as property casualty insurance, maintenance personnel, and other types of things. Positions that can be charged directly to capital would include positions such as those in our construction department, certain maintenance and IT positions, and most recently through House Bill 1 in 2024 bus drivers. So, as I mentioned for fiscal year 26, we increased the transfer from capital by $19 million and whether we continue to increase the transfer or charge salaries directly to capital, this creates pressure on the capital plan. So, looking forward to fiscal year 27, utilizing trends from our fiscal year 26 outlook, our prior year financial reports, and economic data, we continue to project a deficit. While we did not receive the FEFP first calculation from the legislator by March 13th, we

083anticipate a slight increase in revenues in our daily operating fund at this time. Given this, we know expenditures cannot remain the same. Um this creates some internal challenges and opportunities as we desire to continue to provide salary increases for staff so that they have a living wage. We also know that there will be a continued reliance on the capital transfer, albeit becoming more intentional about it. And um lastly, a strong focus on maintaining a healthy savings account via our fund balance must be a focus for next year. So, some of the factors or the primary factors that are affecting our fiscal year 27 budget are declining enrollment, the expansion of school choice, which is also playing into the declining enrollment, stabilizing property values, declining interest rates, and inflation. For the last several years, excluding COVID,

084um the district has seen growth in enrollment year over year. For fiscal year 26, this is the first year outside of COVID that we have seen declining enrollment in a long time. And so, there are varying contributing factors to that, and the expansion of school choice is one of them. For budget planning purposes, we not only look at enrollment, we specifically look at FTE, which is the state's measurement to calculate funding. And this graph, we are looking at unweighted FTE for our district schools only, so this excludes charter schools and family empowerment scholarships. The FTE here represents students in ESE pre-K programs through grades 12. It does not include programs such as Head Start, VPK, or our adult education programs. And so, as I mentioned before, the district typically experiences growth year over year, with

085fiscal year 26 being the first year of decline. And while we projected an increase for fiscal year 27 compared to our FTE um currently in fiscal year 26, we must prepare for not reaching our projection. For context, when the projection portal opens with the Florida Department of Education, typically in January of each year, the state provides us with a few different models they have developed based on our trend data, and we have to accept one. While we saw a dip this year in FTE, our multi-year trend still points toward growth. And so, by accepting the growth model, we ensure that we receive the maximum possible allocation through the FEFP at the start of the year. If those students do not show up, we will have reserves to prepare for the reductions of funds that will

086occur later in the year. This graph shows our total unweighted FTE to include district schools, charter schools, family empowerment scholarships, all of which are funded through the FEFP. For our district schools from fiscal year 22 to fiscal year 26, we gained um 2,984 FTE or a 3.6% increase. For charter schools, they have gained 1,116 FTE or a 9.3% increase. And for family empowerment scholarships, it has increased 8,040 FTE or a 367% increase. So, a portion of students not captured here or through the FEFP are PEP students or they are on a personalized education plan. Um this program is an option under the Florida tax credit scholarship, and again, that is not accounted for in the FEFP. So, as of the '22-'23 school year, which is the most recently published report on the PEP program by

087the Florida Department of Education, there are 1,650 students in Lee County on that program. Um a new scholarship program coming online in January of 2027 is the federal voucher voucher program, and that is known as the federal education freedom tax credit. This is another program that will operate outside of the FEFP and continue to increase school choice for parents. So, shifting to property values, here you can see the school taxable value in the blue bar, and the total assessed value of properties um in which we levy our millages against. The orange line represents the annual percentage increase in the school taxable value. Essentially, what you can see here is that in fiscal year 26, the annual increase returned to pre-COVID levels. Post-COVID, we saw a surge in the housing market with annual increases in the

088school taxable value ranging from 6 to 27%, which has a direct effect on our property tax revenues. We are now seeing the housing market cool down, and based on early indications, we expect any increase to remain relatively flat for fiscal year 27. This is important because in our daily operating fund, property tax revenues make up approximately 62% of the revenue. The last factor I'll discuss with you today that is playing a role into our financial future is interest income. Again, any idle cash that we have is strategically invested to maximize every dollar. Within the last 3 years, the district has seen a significant increase in interest income, with the last year bringing in over $31 million to our general general operating fund. Over the time frame shown in this slide, our interest income to the

089general fund totals over $111 million. The higher interest rates created a windfall of revenue that enhanced our purchasing power. And now that we're seeing interest rates decline, and we have less less cash available to invest um due to our decreasing fund balance, our interest income will normalize and not be as high as we have seen in recent years. And so, as we wrap up today's overview of our general fund and continue our work on developing the fiscal year 27 budget, our primary objective remains the long-term financial resilience of the district. While the economic landscape is evolving, and this requires shifting to a more fiscally disciplined environment, our focus on student achievement and securing our future as an A district remains. So, Mrs. Letcher and I look forward to providing you with the latest updates on

090the development of the fiscal year 27 budget over the next few months leading up to the adoption of the final budget in September. And so, with that, I will turn it over to you with any questions or comments that you may have. Dr. Savage. Yeah, just again, want to thank both of you for presenting the information today. I know it's a lot, and it seems very high level, but just to kind of connect all the dots for a minute, you know, Mrs. Letcher likes to use analogies. She goes, "It's the perfect storm." Um and that perfect storm, for those aren't familiar with the the the movie, you know, the giant wave that kind of that comes, and all these kind of factors come together all at once. For us, you know, it really goes back

091to, as a district, we were in a really unique position to be one of the few districts in Florida that was growing by over 1,000 students every year. It was a great problem to have. Um because we thought, "Wow, this is fantastic. People love our community. They want to keep coming." And we had we couldn't build schools fast enough. And while that was happening, we also then had the pandemic. And even through the pandemic, we still were growing. Through the pandemic and through the for last five consecutive years, we've made unprecedented investments in our people. We pay our people because we recognize how important it is. We saw the housing values climb, so we had also huge in infusion of dollars through the federal stimulus through the pandemic, as a community that was growing, needing

092schools, and so forth. And one of the challenges we dealt with was a a significant increase in um teacher vacancies, where we just, you know, 575 teacher vacancies a year ago. Um and just how significant that was. Unfortunately, the the the next chapter of that story that we've experienced is we have now effectively solved that teacher shortage issue here. And that's an awesome thing. We have had incentives so that even in in some of our schools that historically had, you know, 10 vacancies or more at this time of the year, they now don't. We're down to single digits in in our various regions. And these things get Every month we track them, so it's an incredible thing. We have the like I said, record increases compared to our state. But unfortunately, we have now experienced,

093as many others in of our state have, declining enrollment. Um that is something that is impossible to predict for us of just will it cascade as it has in areas such as Broward, Duval, some of these others that have had to close many many many schools to as they've had that, whether that's through home school, private school, charter school, whatnot. Or will it plateau? Or will it rebound? Will we see more growth? Will we see, you know, for us, for a long time, we were growing in both our charters and our traditional schools. It's impossible for anyone to predict with 100% accuracy exactly what the future holds for us. But what we know is that we have to build a budget under the kind of conservative guardrails and the fiscal discipline that it takes. And

094that means we have a lot of very difficult things. So, on the prior slide that we had, slide 15, it talked about how do we strengthen our school allocations to align with the state funding model. So, it's just really important to be visible, cuz we didn't talk a lot about it here, but it's really important to connect the the high level with the practical side. Uh for our schools, um there our state has a model, and it's it's actually one of the most unique models in the entire country, our state. Uh and it's an equalization model that goes through the FEFP, and it's fascinating. But the way that they designed it was to leverage local property taxes with state funding sources to ensure that no matter where you live in the state of Florida, you

095get a certain level of quality education whether you live in a rural community, whether you live in an urban community or a suburban community, everybody in our state we want to have a quality education. That's really a very unique thing that we do in Florida. Other states, if you live in a high um affluent area, you may end up with you know, a great school system, beautiful buildings and all these other aspects, but maybe in a in a rural community, an agricultural community, you may be struggling in other states, but in our state we set that basic threshold. Beyond that threshold, districts can levy additional discretionary millage um that they have the ability to add and and do and many of our districts in Florida do that as well and that's an additional piece, but

096at least at that basic level, everyone is given a level playing field in that sense. Charter schools just like it, they're given this per student funding basis. In Lee County, through all the federal stimulus and all the things that we had and all the different programs and things that have come, we have invested in our schools well beyond that state funding model. And when you're growing and you had vacancies, you didn't have teaching positions filled, you didn't have people drawing down that payroll. Now we have a situation where we are fully staffed. So when you ask, how is it possible that you can go down? Well, that's because you were budgeted for students that did not show up, you were staffed for students that did not show up and now you have them. And by

097the way, over the last 5 years, you now have people that are being higher paid. So when 80% of your cost organizationally lives in people and in jobs, that's how you end up exactly where we are. So it really is that perfect storm that Ms. Letcher likes to talk about, but right now, all of our folks, all of our divisions and departments, all our schools, they're they're going through that process of having to reconcile those aspects. And so you're going to hear about it if you haven't already, you're hearing about people who are laboring through those. We want to be transparent with our whole community. We we have sent out communications to our staff as well as we go through this process because it's impossible to contain some of what will will get out there

098in terms of rumors and things like that. Um but for us, I wanted to just be again visible and transparent that essentially we were putting about 30 million dollars more beyond what was being generated from the FEFP model for our schools, about 30 million dollars extra into our schools beyond that piece. And when you're trying to match a the way you're being allocated, I mean, you all know and you all understand this, if you want to raise people's salaries, if you're trying to increase, but you don't have additional revenue, if you're not given that substantial increase from a different source, whether that's the state, whether that's additional millage, how would you pay for that? If you want to go on a trip to Europe in your own personal life, what do you have to do

099to do that? If you don't have a new source of revenue, if you have the same job you had, you have to cut costs in other places and so you have to look at all those other things. And so as a district a year ago, we when Dr. Carlin came in, we initiated 5% reinvestments across all of our departments. That presumes that all departments really could handle 5%. Some maybe could have handled more, some could have handled less and so forth. Additionally for this year in the in our our budget team as they work through, they they were able to trim an an additional 6.5 million dollars in preparation for this. And so when you're thinking, well, if you'd done that reinvestment, where is that additional money in the savings bank? Well, it it gets

100reinvested. Gets reinvested into salaries. So when you celebrate the big salary increases we had last year and the year before and the year before that, that's why the money is on it. It's never just sitting there waiting to be spent. It's money that's constantly being reinvested. But as you see, it's a balancing act. So one of the things that we want to try to take advantage of here is that we actually want to deficit spend until we get to the desired threshold that we're trying to get to, which has been set out as 10% that unassigned fund balance that Ms. Cox kind of highlighted, that 10% is so important for us. Now, it is somewhat arbitrary because the emergency level that the state set aside is a 3% fund balance. Below that 3% puts us

101in a state of financial emergency and as a district that becomes something where the state can can and would intervene. But for us, that 10% represents a balancing act of a proper level of reserve because we have emergencies such as Hurricane Ian devastated our community. If we hadn't had fund balance to be able to spend, you just think about those opportunities that we have to be also just changing things such as massive changes in in the overall federal picture can can affect things like interest rates that we've seen. We could have like we had in 2008 to 2012 experienced huge housing bubbles and crashes. Those things give you an opportunity to still run a business at a solvent level and and predict for those things. At the same time, we have been in excess of

102that 10% for quite some time. The challenge of being at the other end of that is that you have folks in labor negotiations who would say, "Why are you sitting all that money? Put that money in your people's pocket. Pay our folks." And that's a valid criticism to say. And so it really becomes you as a governing team, your opportunity to evaluate this type of financial picture and say, "Where do you feel comfortable with the number?" And for us, recommending that, we we do support that 10% threshold that that is where we want to get. So to get to 10%, you actually do have to deficit spend to get to that. Once you're there though, you want to have a long-term plan of stability that you are not piercing below that level or going above

103that level. Hence why this change in methodology, why we want our school-based budgeting to get closer to the exact amount that it's being earned because what that does is it makes you impervious to enrollment changes. If your students go up or down, you naturally reconcile. That means we have fewer kids, we would need fewer people to support those kids and vice versa. If you had an increase, you would have more resources dedicated to that. So it's a very transparent method to do that. For this year, we are also setting aside what we're referring to as a bridge fund because we recognize that having staffed at the levels that we have, which again is no fault of anyone. We had title dollars, we've got federal stimulus, all the things that really kind of created a new

104a new level of expectation. We've done a lot of really unique things. We we moved our athletic directors to administrative. We increased the size of some of those administrative teams. We put literacy coaches, math coaches. We have a literacy coach in every building right now to support our our reading plan for all of it. So you we these are all well-intentioned things. We have wonderful things like arts programs. We have athletic subsidies to We have lots of unique things to support all of our programs and we don't want to see all those things disappear. But what we have to do is figure out from a prioritization standpoint, what are we going to fund and to what magnitude? Because at what level we do those things? Those are the critical decisions that lie ahead that we're

105working and supporting our schools. Right now, our schools are going through their budget process and we just want to surface all this to you and to our public so that folks are aware of what those things are. Fortunately, our principals are are more than equipped to handle the task. Our principal leads, which are very experienced principals who've been through lots of things, whether it was the 2008 to 2012 experience or others, they've had to experience some of these challenging times. I myself, you know, once at a small school had to trim about a million dollars payroll out of out of the school and that was at a small elementary school. So when you experience those things, they become real opportunities to help folks through that process. Additionally to that, we have our associate superintendents, all

106of which are experienced folks and all of which will be able to help our folks as we marshal out the funds that we want to set aside above what's being earned. That said, I would be remiss if I didn't mention again at the central office to visit give some visibility to a big move that we are also making. There was a lot of attention at the federal level when we talked about the DOE effect. That it had kind of a its own popularity to talk about that and some folks were excited, other folks it was pretty horrifying for them. So it's really depending on how you feel about the the terminology. But the the thought process behind the DOE work is really about proving your fiscal stewardship in government. That's the notion that's really behind

107that federal DOE work and it then had migrated to many states including Florida where the state DOE work was really again proving fiscal stewardship. And we as a school district from an administrative standpoint, we take that challenge on. We think that that is a very powerful thing for us to lead and to continue to keep that work, not for attention, but for the the purpose of proving to our taxpayers that every penny we spent, we safeguard because while I'm a I'm a worker in the system, I'm also a parent in the system, I'm also a taxpayer in the system. And so you have to prove that you're spending my money wisely as we are every other person's dollars. So we take that challenge very seriously and this is an opportunity to give visibility to our

108budget that we've never done before. We want you as a board to have it. We want our community have it. We already publish all of our department budgets and what we have for the next year is a department by department review that we'll be securing you're going to hear about it a little bit as as we kind of talk about some of the work ahead where we'll be reviewing every single department, analyzing head count, spend. We're going to be providing quarterly updates to our board on how this work is going, where we are digging into every single department and analyzing the impact that they're having and and the cost that they're incurring. We want to do that visibly, transparently for you and for everyone else so that we know exactly where our money goes. We

109owe it to everyone to do it. So I I know that I I had a lot of extra comments on this, but it's because I didn't want this to land as just a high-level presentation of revenue, expenditures and not connect the dots with the practical reality that we're experiencing right now. Um that said, members, we look forward to questions you have about this process and more information that we can bring based on those questions as well. Um that said, I chair chairman, turn back to you. Yeah, thank you, Dr. Savage for those comments. Board members, any questions or comments? Mr. Persons. I really appreciate it. You know, it's tough when you're going on limited uh information to do your budget right now because the legislature hasn't really come up with a budget. So, we don't

110know for sure. We have an idea approximately. Property values, when does that normally come out? Um by June 1st, we'll get a preliminary estimate from the property appraiser. That'll give you a little better idea. But, we have 12,000 employees. And just a quick uh math, let me see. If every employee got a $1,000 raise, which they would probably say that's not much. That's 12 million. Okay, you know, I have people say give everybody a $10,000 raise and and we'd be right up there. That'd be a $120 million. Not this year, but every year. And we've been giving above normal raises in the state compared to other districts uh for the last 3 years or so. Um So, it it's difficult. I mean, we'll be working on that. Um trying to give as much as we

111can. I appreciate putting it back into the uh into the classroom and into teacher pay. So, keep up the good work. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Jordan. Okay, thank you. I I have two questions, please. Um regarding the budget priorities in the budget overview, um how does the draft align with our current strategic goals? And which departments are seeing the most significant significant shifts in funding for the upcoming year? We don't have the final answer on that yet. You know, we had a proposed reduction to departments and we're still finalizing their budgets. But, once we have that information, we can follow up with you on it. If you could, I would really appreciate that. And then my um my other question is and this is regarding personnel um costs because Dr. Savage um thank you for

112sharing what the information you just shared as well. And again, it's the needs versus the wants. Um the proposed organizational shift including the several new high-level positions, um based on the cost breakdown attachment, what is the total projected physical impact to the general fund will those leadership changes have on us? And if you get those if you could send those, I would appreciate that. Yes, I'm I'm happy to answer that. Now, that'll be actually in our presentation later, but it's attached executive executive content. It's actually the opposite. We'll be donating back about $100,000 and the breakdown of exactly what those are is in your executive content under the org piece for you all as board members. Because we we share the actual savings, we always want you to have the breakdown of those specific positions

113as well. So, if you look under executive content in the item that we have in the workshop, you'll see that breakdown. It'll be there for you. Sorry, item eight? Item eight on today's workshop. Not this because we're not we're not going over that now, but I will be going over that in just a just a little bit. I think we have one other item before that and I'll I'll draw attention to that specifically. Okay, thank you. >> My pleasure. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Anyone else? Any Mr. Chubenko. Thank you so much. So, my one of my questions um is when was the last time we dipped into our capital fund to give to our general fund? Um typically every year. Um if you go back to slide, let me see here. Um Yeah, slide

114>> four? I think five. >> Or five, I'm sorry. It's on slide five. You can see at the very bottom the transfer from capital and the amount that has been taken each year. Um and so, it is important to note though that the transfer does include PECO funds, PECO capital funds for charters. It makes up a portion of that each year. Thank you cuz I think that's really important. Um as well as so, this is actually to the um deputy superintendent. Uh I know that the community is very concerned that the school budgets will actually affect the classrooms and success in the supports in the classroom. How do we make decisions that doesn't affect the classrooms and be transparent and communicate that back out to the community and the staff to feel secure in um

115in their the future of having a job. And how do we instill that the in the community to continue to um have the trust of the community and um secure the jobs in our for our students. Thank you. I'm happy to respond to that. Um so, that's that's a great question. I think and it's the question that I think we have have asked as well and that that's a really big part of what we've tried to address with our our principles as they develop their budgets. So, let me give you an example. Uh when I was a teacher in Gainesville, I I came from about a thousand students school to a thousand students schools as a new administrator. And so, I went from one in Gainesville to one in Lee County. And when I came

116there, I was an administrative intern there, but I was a teacher at that place. I was athletic director there. I I I taught. I was also coach. So, I was very intimate with exactly how the school ran in Gainesville versus here. And they're funded like I mentioned, FFP even then was the same. So, everyone gets that same amount of money. This is how it works. So, in theory, the services that were offered at that school should be somewhat commensurate with the services there. Minus of course the weighted FTE, which is students with exceptionalities and so forth. When I came there at that school, we had a principal secretary who also served as the bookkeeper, who also served as a lead for the information specialist work. And she had basically another a clerk typist essentially equivalent

117position that worked in the guidance area that did the information specialist work. They had two assistant principals like we did you know, and so forth. When I came to Lee County, they had a full-time person doing the information specialist work. A full-time person as a principal secretary and a full-time all at the same level of school. So, just the way they organized their staff was different. Um we had in in in Gainesville a cluster model for our ESC program delivery that that particular school down here, they did not. So, how those things get differentiated, there's a lot of discretion in in how you lead your schools. Things even as simple as the bell schedule can impact those. But, for us what we've noticed is things such as paraprofessionals, things like coaches, literacy coaches, math coaches,

118science coaches. Some of these particular aspects, these are things that folks have to evaluate. What was an earlier conversation we had about the summer program? How do we know it's having the impact we want to have? Well, part of why we've gained visibility into some of the data of our schools is to try to evaluate which teachers are having a really positive impact and how do you know? What's the evidence? So, in theory, when some of the schools have positions that are not instructional that are in their building, but maybe they're not sure that impact, what that's also done inadvertently in some cases is placed folks who are less effective in the classroom. That means I maybe have five math teachers, two of which are career changers and brand new and maybe they're not getting

119the best data with their students yet. But, my math coach is incredible and was maybe my best teacher. So, now I have a difficult decision. Is it more impactful for me to have a math coach or would that person still teach? Or when I was a principal, I had that maybe person who taught half the time and coached. They had those of me. So, these are the types of strategic thoughts that schools will have to balance is how to do that. So, what we're really trying to push our schools to consider is quality over quantity. Cuz as I said before, 80% of the cost lives in people, in positions. When we had 575 vacancies last year at this time, it wasn't that 575 people walked out the door. It was that we had about a

120hundred or less that retired. We did have some who left the area, left to move other states, left to go to other districts, or or left altogether. But, it wasn't 575. That 575 reflected positions that were created because they had resources to create them for whatever strategic vision they had. So, now what the challenge is for schools to contend with and it's it's similar to here at the district, but really at the schools, they have to decide if we're funded exactly like charter schools, exactly like other schools, how are they meeting those needs? And then I have to make the strategic decision of what's the best way to do it. The people who know their people best are those schools. They know their personnel. They know that what people can do. They understand where they

121can realize some of those creative synergies and it's a great way for us to model that fiscal stewardship while still making sure we prioritize student learning at all costs. That means putting our best people in the classrooms wherever possible or leveraging their impact very strategically if that isn't the best strategy for them as some of our schools have done. Thank you for that. So, one one more thing. Um we get accused a lot of times that we have a lot of chiefs at the district and not a lot of Indians. And we lose I don't want to lose our Indians that are in the classroom, ground zero. Um but when I think we have to be very careful and strategic as we um re-prioritize job positions and and and you're re- and you're actually reorganizing

122some of those positions that to do multi-jobs and that we are really talking that and and explaining that to the community because like I said, we are accused of having a lot of chiefs and not a lot of Indians. And so, I think it's really important that we show that continue to value our Indians. Thank you. Yeah, I So, just to to respond to that, I would say just in general administratively, that that is not a new story in terms of you'll even in the school level, you know, how many administrators do you have related to, you know, non-administrative positions. The reality in our organization is that that's a critical part of our budget every year. We are very transparent in showing those different numbers by positions. Every single year we adopt our final budget,

123all our preliminary budgets, it's it's broken down specifically by those units. That obviously changes as you put more schools on the map, you're going to increase those numbers, but if you go down in schools, then you'll decrease those numbers. For us, that is a critical part of building our budget and and asking those very difficult questions of what's the proper level of supervision. It is a constant balancing. Just from a reference standpoint though, the vast majority of our salary it lives in schools. It's out there, directly in the schools. What I think we want to do is maximize the classroom impact because even things that are centralized, for example, buses, they're not in schools. Is that not something that's getting kids to and school every day? For our food nutrition services, they're they're, you know,

124a lot of that budget it's paying for food for kids to eat. Our payroll department, no one in this district gets paid if there aren't people working to get those paychecks issued, right? So, the fact is even when it's not directly in the classroom or directly in the school, all the services that we are designed to produce are designed for the benefit of students, our staff, all those things. Being transparent in that, like one way that we do that, we publish, right now very few do, all of our department budgets. So, if any person out in our community is concerned, they want to know, they can go and look at any department right now on our website. What's that spend? What is that head count? They can see those things right on our website right

125now. That's the type of transparency that we step up to the plate to do because of exactly those things. In every administrative thing we bring forward to you, you'll always see a net reduction. That's why we're doing that. A net reduction for you all so that you can know we're not saying let's spend more money, let's reserve money. Let's have one, let's have one meeting, please. Okay. And that's it. Thank you. One more thing, you just made You just So, one of the budgets I think we really need to look at is the food and nutrition because I can tell you that the students are not eating the food, they're throwing it away. And my granddaughter, every time she sees me, she asks me, she's like, "Mimi, is the food any better?" Because I keep

126taking my lunch. So, I mean, that is a an area that that budget really needs to be looked at because we're the kids are not eating the food. So, that is money being wasted. So, I would love to see that. Yeah, we'll take we'll take that off for for you and put together some information for all of you on that one. Rather than that this probably a little bit off scope for this, but I'll definitely appreciate the the comment. Yeah. Ms. Fisher. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Ribble. Can we go to the slide 11, please? And I know this is a tough answer to this question, it's not just to you, Chief Cox, but I guess, you know, Dr. Savage and the rest of them. How do we do a better job of projecting, and

127I know that's very tough based on some of the data, but is there anything we can do as a district to better project some of our enrollment numbers? Obviously, our third calc is a significant difference, and I know there was a lot of factors that did change things, but based on some of our models, is there any other information, is there anything we can do to to better project that? So, so just real quick on this. So, this FTE projection as as Ms. Cox mentioned earlier, when the state provides a projection, we're going to take the state projection just strictly because from a financial standpoint, that's critical to do that. However, to answer the spirit of your question, which is really understanding we are doing a we have built a new dashboard to essentially track

128all of our enrollment in near real time so that we know who's coming, who's going, where are they going. And then the next question is why are they going? That's really critical to us so that we'll be able to gain insights because it's not one district story, you have different stories all around the district, different strategies to address those things. One thing I do want to highlight for us just it's really important because we've taken a lot of flak of about this and certainly I've even heard about it is related to mailers and things that have gone out. You know, mailers, you know, I've had folks, you know, I think it was folks out in our community said, "Hey, I I don't have any kids in the system and I'm not sure why I got

129this mailer and whatnot." And so, while I don't have all the inner workings of kind of the the piece of it, what I wanted to highlight for folks just at this table and and really out in our community for that storytelling is our district doesn't belong just to our school age families. Our district belongs to our entire community. We want our entire community to understand the benefits of our system. And I think part of the reason why we want the entire community to understand the benefits of our system is the slide that's up on your screen. Because if perceptually people think that it's better to choose home school, virtual school, private school, charter school, or whatever it is, we don't want folks to have misinformation. We want them to understand the real benefits, the amount

130of money we save families every single day with scholarships that our students are earning. I have no problem with families choosing whatever education is best for their child. What I want to be is the best system in town. We want to be the best option and we want to be the best brand, and we want everyone to know about it because we're the future workforce, we're the future everything for this community. That isn't just for our school age families. Whether that came through on those mailers, I think maybe maybe there's something missing there, but it's really important that it isn't just our school age families to enroll, it's about making sure our entire community knows the value we're trying to create for our community. So, just really appreciate the question and that opportunity as well.

131Okay. Thank you. Can we go to page six, please? Slide six, sorry. And this kind of piggybacks off what board member Juvenaly said. Can we get an update at some point of how these transfers from capital are going to affect future our capital plan and capital expenses? A future update on that? Yes, we actually have a capital update I think projected for May. So, good timing on that request. Thank you. Another thing just kind of a couple comments real quick. I appreciate it's obviously something very tough, and I think it kind of goes off what Deputy Superintendent Savage said. You know, there's a lot of factors when we look at obviously, you know, enrollment from people, you know, moving out, property values, things like those, but it also kind of piggybacks off what you're saying.

132Kind of my thought is, you know, we're in a business, we're in the business of educating children, and we need to figure out better ways of doing things so we compete. I don't know about I know most of us up here are competitors, so and I think we need to continue to show that we have the best product, the best way, the best school system, and I think that will also help, you know, perhaps maybe neutralize and increase some of the things going, and I think we continue to need to lead forward with some of these initiatives, and I think some of the things that are happening will will do that, but I'll challenge every one of us, including myself, what can we do to contribute to make this a better system? Um Top of

133that, I'd also say I appreciate the continued focus on reinvestment from district office. Just as I've said before, I would encourage Superintendent Carlin and yourself to continue looking at reinvestment opportunities from the district office, so thank you. Okay. Ms. Following. Speaking of being competitive, I'm about tired of Mr. Fisher taking many of my um comments before I'm I have them all written down over here. So, um and thank you cuz I wrote down mailer, um Dr. Savage, and I too have heard several comments, but I loved what you said that not every family in the district or or every family every family Lee County counts because they all pay our taxes, and they're all living in the amazing place that we call Lee County, and so they are all going to um at some point

134come in contact with our students and our teachers. Whether it's um their their grandchildren's future educators, whether it's their real estate agent one day they're going to have to go buy their retirement home from, those are students that were once in Lee County school system. So, they all are invested in what's going on here at the public school system, but um Mr. Fisher, you hit the nail on the head. We have got to figure we have to be the best. And I am incredibly competitive. Anybody can talk to me for 3 minutes and understand that, but maybe maybe more like 2 minutes, but we have to also provide the best, and we have to set an example of what that looks like. Um I wrote down customer service. Every every person in this district, I

135don't care if it's somebody down here in the district office, um into the very um diligent um people that work in our cafeterias to the person who I had the most amazing experience walking into one of our high schools, and um the front desk person greeted me, looked me in the eye, shook my hand, offered me a glass offered me a bottle of water. He had no idea who I was. He did that with every single person. And all the way from point one to point, you know, 1,001, we those people everybody in this district has to say to themselves, "How would I want to be treated?" And I'm I'm just a big believer in that. Um and being considerate at all times, as as considerate as you can, no matter what, because you don't

136know what's on the other side of that interaction. You don't know what that person is dealing with or what kind of day they've had. Um I'm I'm trying not to go on off on a tangent there. I have a couple of questions though. With this new budget, and I'm not sure who can answer this question, but we have some very um um we have some amazing programs that only the public school can provide our students. IB ACE Cambridge dual enrollment for free. I know there are some private schools that are um advertising that they're doing that, but you have to pay for it. Um Dr. Savage, is are any of those programs going to be hit because of this budget? And I'm talking we have elementary schools that are doing it. We have middle schools

137that have IB and and Cambridge, and we have Can you just talk about that just briefly? >> Yeah. Yeah, no, we're we're those programs are not part of this conversation for us, and and there there's more to it, more in-depth that we can give you in terms of, you know, the way that they're able to earn like our industry certifications and some of our other programs that even can generate um dollars as well. So, no, but I would say just in general more globally every program we offer, we we do want to be mindful of whatever expenses they incur, whether that's Sometimes there's some more efficient ones. You have some that maybe cost less. >> Yep. Um or have, you know, a lot less students maybe getting the certification. So, to say that we'll not

138ever evaluate some of these things, but in terms of this initial if piece of it, that's not really a focus of it. Um but but we're looking at everything. I mean, everything that causes money for us to have to expand, we just have to look through that lens of what's our ROI for this and and then be transparent about that. But in this particular case, no, that's not part of this current presentation or current time period for us. >> Oh, yeah. I just want to make sure that these new allocations that came out to um our staff and and basically our administrators to give to our staff, that those programs weren't taking a hit unless, like you said, they they're not a cost-effective, but with the same outcome of something else. >> Well, and just

139a caveat to that, all of our programs, just because they may be funded beyond their allocation, does not mean that they couldn't potentially fund it within their approach. Like you If example be like an arts teacher, they may have received a 0.5 additional unit for an arts position. That doesn't mean that that can't be an elective offering, but maybe instead of offering a particular type of course otherwise, they would offer that full unit. I mean, you have the ability to do those things, but those are other pieces. The additional the bridge funding is to remind everyone, we did set aside a competitive allocation that schools can apply for. So, if they have a program that's particularly important to them or a strategy that really worked to move the needle for kids in achievement, they will

140bring that forward, and we have every intention of being able to fund some of those very important things, but we want to do it transparently. So, every school knows what they got, what they didn't get, and we want to be transparent about that as opposed to we're going to give this school another $800,000. And there's isn't necessarily a Well, what was the value that created for us? They like for about half of that money was like a small school allocation. About half of the 30 million I referenced was about that. And that had to do with smaller enrollment high schools, middle schools, elementary schools. It just were very small. We We attempted to find a different methodology to hit some of their basic needs. So, that's an attempt to help them, but we didn't do

141it through that same method. So, it's just a different method, um but we will have money set aside to try to help preserve some of our most critical programs, but it's we just want to be transparent about how we're so how we're subsidizing those things. >> Okay, so two things, and I'm going to try really hard not to um stay on this too long, but and please don't feel like I need an answer right now, but I this is the only place I can talk with other board members freely on some concerns that I have had. Um we've had over 200 students since January join our athletic programs in Lee County. Those students are home school students. We're not getting their FTE money. So, therefore, that money that is used for those students is paying

142for our officials, it's paying for our coaches, possibly assistant coaches, it's paying for their uniforms, travel, and most importantly the safety at these athletic events. So, I would really like an answer on how are we going to tackle that huge chunk of money that is And and they have a right to to come play sports. I'm I'm not taking that away from them. But in in the in the world we live in right here on slide um that that Mr. Fischer asked earlier, on slide 11 it's something that we really need to consider because to me, if I have my own checking account, every dollar has a name. Um and so, that's a big concern for me because I do see an uptick on this trend. This trend is not going down. It's not plateauing.

143Students are homeschooling, and then they are joining our athletic programs here in the public school system, and it is not going in the negative. My other um And and then my other question too was I just want to make sure that our ESE our ESOL, our ELL students are not being affected because of a slow decline in our FTE. It's an it's a passion of mine. I've served in that um area when I was a teacher. And um I just I I would challenge the district to make sure that we've got enough bodies in our classroom where there are students that may need that there may need to be a paraprofessional or um some other assistance in the in in the room. So, I will leave it at that, and I'll leave my other questions

144for um another time. Thank you. Okay, any other comments or questions from the board? Okay, thank you very much. Good discussion. Uh while they're leaving and we're getting ready for the next one to come up, I can answer uh Ms. Langford-Fleming, definitely uh you're on you're you are right on the money with the athletics piece, and there will be more information to come on that because you have definitely unveiled something, and there was legislation that actually supported this type of piece, and I will tell you we've got a great plan that'll be coming forward on that that I think will make you really pleased to and it'll be very transparent to the exact what you said. And the second thing just to to bridge that the ESE, ESOL, in our funding our state funding model,

145they actually designate based on the type of needs that students have additional funding. In fact, our most recent FTE in October, we were able to recapture a significant amount because we more properly recorded some of our ESE students and the needs that they had and actually received more revenues for some of those students to match that. So, that's really what it is, and we're just matching the type of matrix of services of what what the student qualifies for with the resources that go with that. So, while I can't say definitively that some schools weren't getting more resources than even what that was, certainly based on our state, there will be equity in that aspect of of the state-defined model for for exceptional students and with ESOL students, those funds are dedicated directly to schools to

146get them. So, it will be in alignment with where everywhere else um gets the same funds. So, great questions. >> Thank you for clarifying, and I I do know that. I just think it needs to be repeated for our public. So, thank you. We can always talk about that piece every time we're up here just to make sure that parents know that there are state laws that protect their children as well. So, thank you for the clarification. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Next, we have the student advisory update. Our topic is mental health presented by Dr. Kolleen Timm and students of the advisory focus group. Dr. Timm. Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity to be here with you again, and I'm going to keep my my remarks very short because these wonderful students are going

147to lead us through the information for this afternoon, but it's a two-part presentation. We're going to take you through what was the summary of what came out of our quarter three student advisory group, and then Ms. Mulhollem, who couldn't be with us because she's wearing a mom hat cheering on her son at his tennis match, but she took uh the lead and started to work with our Safe Promise Clubs to put these thoughts into action. So, I think you're going to be very impressed, and I I know you know what I'm going to say because you're all out in schools continuously, but each time I meet with the student advisory group, I'm so impressed with the thoughts that they share, the insight, and really the wisdom beyond their years. We have some tremendous leaders here

148in Lee County, and and two of them are with me today. So, I'm going to turn it over to them to take you through the presentation. Good afternoon. Just being Good afternoon, chairperson. The chairperson, school board members, deputy superintendent, and district leaders. My name is Sameera Chadyak, a ninth grader at Gateway High School, and I'll be representing the student mental health services advisory group and leadership team. My name is Amaya Thao, represent Holocaust Tower. Okay. And my name is Amaya Thao, ninth grader at North Fort Myers High School, representing the Lee County Students Against Violence Everywhere Leadership Team. The purpose of our advisory group was to gather more information and more student perspectives on what's working currently as of our Lee County district, what needs improvement, and what and to what next steps we may

149consider. To provide a brief overview, there were six student representatives from across the district that were able to participate. These district leaders in attendance were Ms. Brooks, our director of physical and mental health, Ms. Mulhollem, our coordinator of Safe Promise Clubs, Ms. Wenzel, our coordinator of mental health, Ms. Berry, our coordinator for for secondary counseling, and finally Dr. Timm, our executive director academic and student services. Our goal overall was to provide honest feedback on mental health supports and help design improvement strategies. Now Ms. Brooks provided an overview of current district services to ground our conversation. A summary of what we were able to gather. We started off with a list according to awareness and access. There is a clear demand for students that need to know their counselors, but in some instances, students are not

150always aware of their full mental health team that our district has provided. There is a need for clear visibility including posters, team introductions, high traffic spaces, and online platforms. Now, we also gathered that there is a need for staffing and capacity. Our counselors are oftentimes and many times highly valued, but also overextended. Students support multi-role mental health and physical health team to meet student needs. Now, moving on to access for all, this was something that we discussed concerning about the concern for access to services across schools and socioeconomic groups. There was a support for ensuring clubs and activities are inclusive and accessible for all students including disconnected students and students with disabilities or accommodations. Moving on to engagement and effectiveness, wellness Wednesdays, which we are all aware of, are often not taken seriously or may

151feel repetitive. While they are a very great representation of the effort that our district makes, we did want to address the concern that they may be not taken seriously in school grounds. Now, for the Safe Promise activities, students have gathered that we our focus advisory group gathered that students respond well to positive interaction interactive actions like compliment posters or engagement boards. Community and unity was also one of the last things that we discussed. There is a need to reach students who may feel disconnected or unseen. Students want intentional strategies to ensure every student feels welcomed and supported through either volunteering, community events, or within their schools clubs and extracurriculars. Now, I do want to acknowledge that I'm very grateful to be here as a student representative. I think this is a great opportunity and it

152just helps me on my journey to become an advocate. I was able to work with many people and many representatives. And as the leader, I was able to hear many voices and I think that's the most important part of having this opportunity. The ability to hear voices and then stand and represent them and advocate is a beautiful essence in itself and I'm so glad that I get the opportunity to do that here today. And I'm very glad that I was able to gather perspectives on either intimate or personal experiences or just statistics or things that we see in day-to-day life. And with that, I was able we were able to conduct all of this information and be here to properly present them today. So, thank you. Next, I will be talking about the upcoming initiative

153Safe Promise Clubs created which is Strong Minds Safe Schools. Our launch is in May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month. The purpose is to increase student awareness, comfort, and access to mental health support. There will be pre/post student questionnaire which will measure, do you know your counselor? Do you know how to access mental health support? And are you comfortable with asking for help? We created a four-week rollout plan. Um as for week one, we will have a meet your mental health team which will include posters, announcements, and social media graphics introducing the team, office location maps and walk-in instructions, and a speed friending activity at lunch with counselors, social workers, nurses, and admins. During week two week two, which will be a break the stigma, there will be a myth verse fact campaign. Um question

154boxes for student concerns and a district-wide green out day with mental health and suicide prevention resources. Week three will include build um coping skills which will focus on practical tools which include box breathing, grounding, positive talk, and stretch breaks. And a calm corner pop-up with journaling, coloring, and stress relief activities. Week four will look out for yourself and others which will include scenario cards on who to go for specific concerns and a district-wide commitment wall with pledges like check on a friend. As for the implementation and logistics, the student leadership Safe Promise students will lead staff interviews, poster and graphics design, morning announcements, and lunchtime engagement events. Staff partnership will have physical and mental health staff members will review all content especially myth busting and questions. And as for visibility, materials placed in high traffic

155areas like cafeterias, bathrooms, hallways, and media centers and um directly respond to student feedback on improving access. We want to say thank you and we will open the floor for questions. Okay, Dr. Savage. We're ready for questions. >> Okay, board. Miss Fisher. Thank you, Mr. Ruben. Uh thank you both for being here. Thank you for uh participating representing those students. Uh question, among among your group when you're discussing issues mental health, was there anything that you as students felt like maybe the administration of the school district maybe wasn't hearing you all on or something in particular? Or not being addressed? Um I think we were able to gather a lot of feedback, but something that wasn't really well addressed that is still included here. So, obviously it was still addressed. Um was the socioeconomic gap

156for certain schools. Um it is I feel like that's a very transparent issue and it's also very something that we can take into consideration that not many schools are comparable within their activities and their opportunities that they have for building career mostly pri- prioritizing high school since many students that are looking forward to college or certain like career paths, they may lack availability due to their school and their school opportunities. So, that is what I am referring to by socioeconomic gaps. Thank you. Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate it. Okay. Vanessa. Uh thank you for coming and thank you for sharing. You guys did a great job. Um I know wellness Wednesdays was brought up and it's something I hear about from my middle schooler um and kind of where we're going into. What

157is the thought or was there a recommendation of a different approach from from your peers or your groups of how to move forward with that in a better way? So, what we gathered on wellness Wednesday was that instead of prioritizing a more research or informational approach, we want an interactive approach. That is why we incorporated the Safe Promise Club. We gathered statistically and also like as stated personal experiences. I myself as a student can relate. So, wellness Wednesday is very informational, but there there was an approach that we want to aim towards of a more interactive as stated like commu- um boards, posters, and activities as such. So, more of a peer-to-peer versus me just getting information during the news update. Yeah. So, any thoughts about I guess when moving forward or with the clubs

158that are there in order for that peer-to-peer, it would have to be almost be like an after-school club conversation. Cuz there isn't like that time during the day where you could kind of have a breakout to have those conversations for wellness Wednesdays, I guess, right? So, you're saying with the Safe Club, like that's kind of where those conversations would happen peer-to-peer. Is that the thought? And I'll just I'll jump in and add there that um there is a representative group looking at wellness Wednesdays with students and with staff. Um but certainly the the Safe Promise Clubs are interested in that partnership and informing that work. >> one more. Um as far as this rollout for May, which I think is awesome, and there was a a mention of surveys and all those pieces being done.

159Since there's no phones during the day, right? Social media kind of those pieces and information, how would those surveys be distributed? Is it something that's going to be pushed out through like Google Classroom, through Chromebooks? Like how is that information going to be collected from from the students? So, um usually there will be like a grade level Google Classroom. So, students will make the forms and then they will be posted in the grade level Google Classrooms for students to fill out and then um we'll take back the feedback and know what we can change and what we can fix for next time. Awesome. Okay. Thank you. Good job. I just want to say thank you both for being here. Um I really appreciate that this year I feel that the the advisory committee is very

160intentional on what you're looking at and more so to to help, you know, yourselves and your peers. And I had the opportunity to go to the Safe Promise, which I love to go and I go every year. And this year I found it was interesting cuz they did that um the four corners. And when they did that and they spoke about mental health, it's like, is there a person that you feel in your school that you would trust in speaking to? And it was overwhelming they did not feel safe. They did not feel that they had uh someone in the It was kind of It was disheartening to me because I felt like I would not ever want my grandkids or any of you to think that they could not speak to someone in your

161school, but it was overwhelming for that. And then when they even the other one I think was a trusted adult and it was overwhelming that they didn't feel that either. So, it when you participate in this and I always ask them when I'm there, how do you take that back to your school and disseminate the information that you have learned from you know, the safe promise cuz there's everybody from all different counties. I mean, I'm sorry, all different schools. So, you're hearing what everybody else is doing to promote in their schools. You know, so how do you take that back to disseminate the information that you're getting to your peers at your schools? So, as for the four corners activity which you referred to, um a lot of the students felt like they couldn't trust

162or talk to their counselors. And I think one of the main reasons is because they don't really know who their counselors are or know who those people they can talk to are, which is honestly another reason why we created week one of our action plan, which is where they get to meet their counselors and meet those people that they can talk to just so they can feel more comfortable and know that they don't have to express their feelings to a complete stranger and that that person is there and looking out for them. So, you come up with a solution, correct? >> Yeah. Perfect. Thank you, Erin. It's fine. Um thank you, ladies, for being bold and brave to come up here and share this information with us. Um your voices are the strongest, I feel,

163um that we hear throughout um the job that we do up here and the most important, you and your peers. So, um I applaud you on um trying to dig in on a wellness Wednesday. I just had a uh my own son graduated last year and we always talked about wellness Wednesday and always seemed like there was more that could be done of it. Um I don't know if I I don't know if this recommendation helps or not, but I know that several of our elementary and middle schools are participating in the house concept. Um and I'm not so sure that our high schools have picked that up, but um I have a son who participates in a house concept and you're assigned your house your freshman year. And your house is your 10 to

16412 students and those 10 to 12 students you meet with them all four years of high school and you develop a very close-knit group um and it's um it's it's drawn by random so that it's not, you know, your friend group and it um pushes you a little bit outside of your comfort bubble to meet new kids. Um and then at the end of your you know, when you're you're a you're 11th and 12th grade year, you become leaders of that group cuz you're inviting new sophomores and freshmen. And so, I would um encourage you to share that idea with your group and see what other I I would love to hear the feedback of a high schooler. I know it's working really well in our elementary and middle schools. Um just to be able

165to connect with the kids that you may not ever even have had a conversation with. You know, you've got you've got all kinds of kids out there and you have a lot more in common than you than you don't. I can guarantee you that. So, um that was just something that came to mind because he and I were talking about that and he said, "You know, we should really That'd be a great time to do a house day with with kids um in the in their high school. So, um I love the idea of the surveys. I would keep those coming. Um push kids a little to fill them out cuz I feel like that's the biggest problem is you give it to them and then they don't fill it out. So, you want to

166make sure that your peers are all engaged and I just think that this is a tremendous um presentation by both of you. You were obviously incredibly prepared and um thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us. Thank you so much for everything. Yeah. First, I heard of the house group. That's pretty interesting. Okay, you're right. And I'll be I'll be brief, too. Just First of all, thank you, ladies, for participating and being here today. We Actually, we thrive on your feedback. Um it's really beneficial for us. And just I thought since the wellness Wednesdays was something that and I thank you, ladies, down at the other end for talking about it because we've been hearing the input from This goes back before you many years about wellness Wednesdays are not fun. They don't

167like it. So, I don't think we're engaging the students who it's for. So, I think that to the superintendent or deputy superintendent, we have to um help our teachers with that um challenge because I believe that's our students we're not listening to them because they've been saying it for quite some time. This goes way back and and the the complaints about wellness Wednesday that's a waste of time. Um I mean, the kids have the But I love that you made suggestions and so we need to listen to you and then I'm going to really push that we are listening and and know that we hear we're hearing you and you are very the value from what you did with being involved in this is um actually priceless. Thank you. Any other comments from the board?

168Okay, thank you very much. Well done. Appreciate it. Next, we have the organizational changes, the public briefing presented by Dr. Savage. Oh, he's going to be going over to the ladies. Good afternoon, board members. Long time no no chat here. Um while I kind of get rolling, I'm not going to be redundant with uh the overlap of what we've already done. Um and so uh this time around last year around this time frame, we had a lot of substantial changes. Uh this time, we're kind of going much more a lot a lot less is more, just more of refining. Um and so you'll you'll certainly see that as we go through this today. So, first I just wanted to orient to our public goal. Privately, this is where we've been trying to, you know, to

169remember Elaine for Fleming about being competitive. We want to be first place. We're tired of being ninth place. We used to be second place in in the big 10 uh way way back uh when I was a brand new administrator here in Lee County. We were and then and then for some time after that, we were number two in the big 10, if you can believe that. And um we've been on a steady decline since those days. And and so now we're we're ninth out of 10th. We'd love to climb back up the leaderboard to be first place. And so we just kind of want to highlight some some progress we've already made this year. So, you can see the PM1 is when they start. So, it's essentially like the pre- test for the year,

170but we noticed in our grades K through two, which now in our our state we have progress monitoring for that, we've already we're already trending higher in the PM2 for language arts before. So, will we beat the third? It's hard to say. You you never know for sure, but we're already trending in a positive way. Uh we'll find out um in the month of May. Our grades three through five ELA, we we came in and again, we're trending higher than where we were um before a year ago. Um we were at 33% of PM2 mid-mark and now we're up to 39%. So, again, trending higher in grades three through five. Grades six through eight middle school, again, you notice the trend. You're seeing this increase, which we're excited to see that that increase as well.

171And then lastly, but not least in ELA, grades nine through 10, you'll also notice that increase. And so again, all very positive trends. So, we're not looking to scrap everything. We're just looking to continue to move. What else has changed? Well, our our administrators and our coaches are far more visible in the classrooms than they've been. Um while teaching can sometimes feel like a private act, the reality is it should always be a collaborative endeavor. And so part of we do that is engaging in professional conversation. And so right now, uh this year compared to last year, we've logged over al- almost 14,000 classroom walk-throughs compared to where we were in the prior two years. That's significantly more than those years combined, um which is exciting to see that. Now again, we're we're always in

172trying to improve the quality of that benchmark line walk-through. And and really what those benchmark line logs are looking for is is the rigor of the task matched to the rigor of the benchmark. And that's critical for us to be looking for that so that the work our students are working on is the proper level. What we're also we're seeing is a huge reduction that I mentioned earlier in terms of students that had a TBA as their teacher. This dramatic reduction in that piece throughout the year. And And this is really critical for us because while we've talked about it, it's about quality over quantity now. So, while we have lots of staff here and we're down to those few vacancies, we really want to eliminate where teachers are being taught by a temporary staff

173person, by a person who really that isn't what they want to do all year for the full year. Um and so that's critical as well. So, we've dramatically reduced that from where we were just a couple years ago. The other thing we know is we had our celebrated our record high high school graduation, but we're already trending higher than where we were last year when we hit our record numbers. And so 11 of our 15 traditional high schools are projecting higher already than where they were as well as our chartered alternative, all of which get rolled into our district graduation. So, we really wanted give you that increase. The other piece is, I mentioned earlier, we also want to show what our increases were in terms of our average compensation related to the state FFP

174increases. So, you can see that in in all cases here, we have done very well to keep being as competitive as possible um for from a compensation standpoint in spite of, you know, where where we've been as a state um that we have not seen those big increases coming into our revenue and yet we have continued to do this. And that is why we what drives tension to this critical business problem we talked about earlier. The other thing we mentioned, again, not enrollment, but our unweighted FTE, you can see that that very big stark change um from fiscal year 25 to 26 in terms of the the down uh going down in our FTE, which is critical because that's of course how we're funded. So, this year because of all the progress we're making and

175all the excitement that we have, we're not looking at a major overhaul. We're just looking at minor adjustments. And so, while we have these significant improvements in terms of outcomes, we really want to ensure that we are demonstrating increased fiscal stewardship while still acknowledging that our neighbors to the north and south do not make it easy on us. Charlotte County and Collier very competitive from a compensation standpoint. They of course do levy additional millage and we are trying to be competitive in spite of that. So, we want to try to be better at compensating in spite of the fact that we don't have the same revenue coming in that they do. And that proves that fiscal stewardship if we're able to do that. Things like our incentives that we did that that's that's a a

176way of thinking differently to try to help make sure we're putting students first. Then we talk about you know, how do we also something that we we have to continue to do you've heard it throughout the presentations today our level of engagement with our very diverse community. Are we talking to folks enough? You know, we talked about you heard it through the DAC presentation related to how engaged were our families related to the clustering of ESC. While we know that's a critical business thing and it is actually best practice and it's a great opportunity to be strategic and effective at a cost-effective price point. How are we engaging with that? There is a constant desire as a district when we're tackling these incredibly complex things like the business the budget overview we had earlier. How

177do we make sure that our communication is truly a strategic as it possibly can and how's our engagement more how are we making sure we're reaching more people engaging more people in this and that's something we never want to stop doing and that's our entire community. And then last but not least and this is again a business type of problem so I remember Fisher said earlier trying to run like a business. How can we reduce cost while improving the quality of our services? How can we find a way to get tighter with our belt but provide more value to our customers? These are the four things that we're trying to accomplish with the work that we're doing. We want to our recommended shifts are to organize our school supervision to elevate quality and consistency across

178all of our schools. While certainly all of our schools are different our regions are different the needs of some of our students are different there are certain non-negotiables of quality that we expect and that increases that whether it's our principals we want them to be of a certain level of quality we want all of our leaders to be at a certain level of quality whether that's supervision management or instructional leadership. We we have to have that common standard that high quality teaching at one school is not a completely different definition of high quality learning at another school. It's necessary. Just like member Langford Fleming mentioned earlier about customer service. We can't afford to have one school have an incredibly high quality opinion of customer service and another one not quite there. Just like we would

179never tolerate it for safety. Safety we don't allow one school we will not allow one to be less safe than another. That's why we did our deployment of our of some of our safety protocols for all of our schools. So, it's really about establishing non-negotiables for quality and consistency across our schools. That's one thing we want to organize through recommended shift. The second thing we want to do is share our story of improvement proactively. We are constantly on the defense trying to explain the why behind the what. Well, we're 3 months after implementing the what so we have got to get more proactive. We've got to let people know what our issues are and how we can get better at solving those things the best we possibly can. So, part of our strategies around with

180today's shift is also about that trying to get more of that piece. The third piece is how do we continue to model this fiscal stewardship and we're going to talk a little bit more about that. How are we reviewing every department for efficiency? It's not to say any of our all of our folks come to work to do their level best but we have to prove that ROI not just to our community but to ourselves as business people. How do we have these tough budget conversations if we don't even have an objective way of measuring the impact folks are having. And then last but not least how do we structure our organization to be as lean as possible but still support high performance alignment and genuine clear accountability. So, the first one we want to

181tackle is how we're going to organize our schools and what our recommendation is to elevate that quality. So, first off we are the only one of the big 10 that doesn't presently have the folks who supervise our supervisors of our schools our principal supervisors under a specific lead to help ensure that quality and consistency. We're the only one of the big 10 that doesn't do that. It's something we contemplated a year ago when we did it was but we tried to do it more as a cost savings to not have that. You'll find in different districts it's called everything. Here actually a couple years ago a few years ago with Dr. Bonier he elevated above the chief academic he put a deputy superintendent and it was strictly over academics and no other area. That's because

182it was something that it had started to be deployed across the other big 10. They sometimes referred to as a deputy superintendent or a chief of schools or a deputy superintendent chief of schools both titles. You'll find that across the board where all those folks are getting the direct quality coaching that assistance to ensure that there's a quality standard across all those schools. What this also does is is achieve an executive narrow span of control. So, for those who are unfamiliar with organizational leadership a narrow span of control is the term of art that is used to explain a a proper level of supervision for highly complex type of work. And so, this honors and that's why it's not coincidence that the other big big the other nine of the big 10 do this it's

183strictly a matter of aligning with best practice around a narrow span of control. And that's also something you'll find even in in the business world. Anyone who's worked in you know, Fortune 500 or so forth that you have narrow spans of control for the most complex leadership assignments. It's just the idea that if you spread too thin you're not really giving the quality to the areas which you need. Last but not least on the top row we're just really trying to honor the regional differences because we recognize that our communities are different and they have in some cases different legitimate needs but there have to be non-negotiables because if we want to be an A district we have to have established some of those quality measures that we have across all schools. In the bottom

184row we wanted to be able to then monitor and support to that expectation. So, we want a consistent level of monitoring and support. We also want to make sure that we're achieving more consistent value add across all of our schools. One thing our data our our business intelligence data has revealed to us over the last year is that we have lots of pockets of excellence across all of our schools in isolated classrooms and in some cases grade level teams. But we have very few schools that are adding this type of substantial value add across all grade levels and subject areas. That's an opportunity for us. It means we're doing great things but if we could scale that up across all those schools we could do even better things for all of our kids. You know,

185if if member Chaviano is a great teacher in that team and I'm lucky to get member Chaviano as my teacher I'm in great shape but if I was getting the short straw and got Ken Savage the other teacher in that grade level team who's not nearly as highly impactful those kids are getting fundamentally different outcomes. That's not okay and that's what part of this work is targeted around. The last but not least really addresses that directly. Those school-based PLCs. We think of our schools as our basic operational unit but no more. As we move forward it's the PLC. When you're doing your school visits with Dr. Carl I encourage you to say I'd love to see a PLC in action. That's where the teachers come together and they're really focused on meeting the needs of

186their students. That's where teachers can learn from other teachers. That's our core unit that we have to continue to invest in and the structure allows to do that. The next piece we want to share is our story of improvement proactively. This is something I think you members probably know better than anyone because you're out talking to folks. You're out there having to clear up misconceptions. You get to hear about people who are wondering why we're doing what we're doing or they're upset about big decisions that are being made because we haven't really been able to get our story out there or we haven't anticipated some of the the misinformation that folks may may have. This is a critical aspect because it's very common. First off I want to highlight no one is doing anything wrong

187to that this is a challenge that all large organizations feel but it's something that we recognize in our system as a school district that is particularly with our declining enrollment we can't afford not to be speaking to our entire community in this way. We have to get our story out there. And so, this this structure that we're recommending is not actually a new structure to the school district of Lee County. It's actually a structure we've had before but we're trying to do it at a more limited cost point to what we've done in the past. In the past we had a chief level position supervise these same areas. What we'd like to do is actually reduce that below to a senior director level of role and that's something we're doing at a lower cost point

188and we think we can do it at a lower cost point than what we did before and actually get better outcomes. Next at the bottom we're in a competitive market. I mean that's just the reality. We are no longer in a situation where we are looked at as people just have to come and this is where they get to go. We have got to look at ourselves and aggressively market like a business. We are earning the trust in the the business of our community. And then last but not least we have to demonstrate this ROI both internally and externally to all stakeholder groups. We want everyone to be able to know what's going on for for our district not just the families and the students that engage with our services and our employees. So, we're

189moving on to the the the third area talking about fiscal stewardship. This recommendation is to take what is currently three executive director positions one of which is vacant which we've we've been holding on for that ever since we noticed a declining enrollment since beginning of the year. We also have one director position that that is filled here and we would be transposing these four positions into three positions which would remain one executive director one chief one senior director. We would not be doing any new hires. We would simply be reclassifying existing people. The total net savings returned to the district would be almost $100,000 of positional savings. For the actual breakdown of those, that's included in your board member executive content, so you can see the exact positions and so forth. And again, as I

190mentioned, these are not bringing any new people into the fold. This is just reclassifying existing people that we already have. Um and so that's that's that piece. Um what we would do to just to kind of highlight the executive director position that remains will be leading for us, really on my behalf, some of the most important work in the district in terms of fiscal stewardship. They will be going department by department um with a a third-party team that we've brought because you need in order to do this work, you have to have folks who are IT and have that understanding of how to optimize IT, folks who've done this type of work competitively um uh with other organizations, not just school systems, but but uh districts um and organizations to try to lead this efficiency

191work and basically over the next 8 to 12 months, they will be going every single department um in the district corporate central office side here um and will be reviewing that work. And then we'll be providing quarterly outputs to the board to kind of let us know on how that's going related to analyzing head count, spend and processes uh where we'll be talking about right-sizing where needed. This again, sadly, it's a very difficult thing and we know that it involves people and positions. As I mentioned earlier, 80% of our cost lives in people, so whenever you're talking about trying to find efficiency, you are talking about analyzing positions. Analyzing maybe the management structure, is this the right level of leadership needed for that, is it the right amount of head count, benchmarking against other industries,

192benchmarking against other districts so we know the the head count that other districts have, doing that as transparently as we can, but that is not a fast process, but it's a necessary process. And last but not least, uh we want to basically take our organizational structure to support high performance, alignment, and accountability. What we're trying to do with this approach is to align visually, so our current org chart, if you go to it on our website, is actually very vast. What we really want to try to do is make it more concise and so we visually want to align this more with a model that is exhibited in Miami-Dade, Orange, and Pinellas. And those visual models have actually been included for you. Today's presentation doesn't go over an org chart because it's not really about

193the org chart, it's really about just these few positions today, but just so you know, as we continue to work through that process, the hope is that you'll see uh uh an org chart that's more customer-friendly. So when people try to work with the district, they don't have to take 20 calls just to get to the right person, but to really understand exactly how we're organized. And these uh these districts really have a very efficient way of kind of communicating that and organizing that. The second piece, as I mentioned earlier, we're really trying to narrow our span of control in alignment with higher-performing organizations, not just school systems, which of course all the other nine of the big 10 have that span of control more organized to what we're we're actually trying to replicate, but

194really just in general, high-performing organizations at all um having that span of control that is proper for the level of complexity in these roles. Um and so then the last thing I just want to mention is that substantively, we're just trying to match what the other big 10 do as well in this in this aspect. None of them do it exactly the same way um but but we will now more closely replicate, particularly in our supervision of schools uh with a very similar model to what everyone else will now do that we have not presently done. That said, I know that was quick, but I wanted to go through all that material for you um and I stand ready now for any questions, comments you may have related to the work. Okay, questions from the

195board. Debbie. Thank you. I guess my first question would be you you showed us the savings >> Yes. when you take those down to the 95, what would be our savings if we if we just omitted those Yes. >> and just kept what we have? Right. But then we would experience no savings by by keeping the current people in the current positions that all they have with all the budgeted positions, we would experience no savings at all. Um this is a a return to the district of about 100,000. That's our recommendation is to actually return money to you. We We presently have obviously folks in different jobs presently. So if we were to just I'm I'm sure I'm understanding the question beyond that. So I thought we had one that's been sitting there empty. So

196if that one just disappeared, Well, it's in our budget. That would That would actually be a planned cut of that position. Correct. >> That's not That's not our recommendation today, but if that were the recommendation, then I could uh it's actually in the in the sheet, just look at one of the the positions and that would be uh you'd see what that is. Okay. But then we would achieve none of the objectives that we've talked about here as well. So we would we if you were to look at it strictly as that but from a math problem standpoint, if you look at that same content and you just take one of those positions at the unit value, that would be the cost of just eliminating a position, but you'd again achieve none of these strategic

197objectives that we're we're trying to achieve. Okay, so then my next question uh what we're trying to achieve um to be like the other big 10 districts, but we only do that in certain things. So how do we choose when we want to be like the big 10 districts when it comes to um organizational charts because I know we just had this not that long ago where none of the districts had what we were proposing, but yet we did that and now we're doing because they are doing it. >> Yeah. No, I would so so first up yeah, the great great question. So I would say from my standpoint, I think we always review what other districts do um and then we try to understand the value generates for them. In some cases, we replicate

198them and we do exactly what they do and we have many cases in our district where we actually do what most other districts do, but then we have strategic areas where we vary from that. And that depends on sometimes the leaders, the people we have. Like let me give an example. None of the district the district big 10 have a business intelligence area. That is a one that you only find in very you you don't find in many districts throughout the country, but it's been an incredible value add for us. It's allowed us to have data insights that most other districts don't have anything close to what we now have in terms of data. So that's an example of how we've gone different and we feel that the value's been extraordinary for what that's been

199able to do for us that other districts don't have. And so that's a positive example. We've had other cases where we did like for example, the HR transformation from a few years ago where we did a million-dollar increase. We doubled the size of the directors, we spent a million dollars that there was no clear plan of where that money would come from. And then when Dr. Carl and myself had to come in, we had to at- attack that. We're now at a much lower administrative piece because we we we we erased that that that suggestion of adding a million dollars but not having a million dollars of actual savings. They were saying it was going to come out of anticipated realizations through PeopleSoft optimizations that did not occur. And so I think that's an example

200of when people have plans and they say we're we're going to do this, it's going to cost us a million dollars, trust us, we'll figure out where the money comes from as opposed to we're giving money back and trying to execute those same types of plans. Yeah, and I agree with you. So we learned from that and we moved on and changed what that looks like. So why would we not learn from the one where we're combining again when we know that three times we've tried that and it I really don't think it worked because of the fact that we have two different departments, you have two different expertise but not knowing both of them. Yeah. And that's happened three times already. >> I think it's a great great question. A great question and I

201would say very common and and if you were to look across the districts in Florida, um school districts uh and other entities as well that and so the specific thing that member Jordan is talking about was uh communications and government relations. That those are two areas that in some cases are kind of separate areas, but in in school districts and in many other organizations, they're often under the same umbrella. In fact, they have a professional association that even addresses kind of both professionals through that work in our state. And so it is a very common overlap, particularly in public entities and in school districts. And in our big 10, you do often see that overlap, but not exclusively. There are others where they do keep them completely separate. Um I would say in our particular

202case, um you know, our recommendation is that we think that I would argue that we think we can do it at a leaner cost point than what we did before here in this district and we think that it is that we'll have the type of leadership that will actually be able to create value for us as well. And I thank you and I'm just asking because of the fact that we are speaking about money, we're speaking about all the cuts in our schools, the cuts in everything. And again, here we are putting and I do see that there's that number there of our savings, but when you when people see that hierarchy again, Yeah. they there's concerns always. So thank you for asking answering my questions. >> you, ma'am. Okay, any other board comments or

203questions? Last questions. I mean, I I support all this. It's the superintendent's job. She was elected by the people to reorganize. I would only push back if it was costing the district more money. Okay. I do not have I don't think any of us here really have the knowledge that Denise has as far as of the district. We We have a lot of knowledge, but she's been in the organizational part, she's been in all the different divisions. And uh I'd say, you know, until we see something not working, I I'm in strong support of it as long as it's not costing us any more and it's actually saving us money. So I I'm all for reorganization. I've seen it done in many many corporations. I'm sure Bill has, too. Mhm. it works out well. Thank

204you. I'm not doubting um the superintendent. What I am concerned about in my questioning is is the fact that yes, we see a net savings for certain departments, but yet we have DOE, which we just spoke about, that it's going to come in and go through everything, see how much more we can cut. And And that was the question that I had asked asked earlier, where who's getting hit the most with those cuts? And where do we see that? So, hopefully I can get the that respond. >> Yeah, we but so to answer that question directly, we we don't That has That process begins this month where that that with department-by-department review. Up until this point, a year ago we did 5% cuts, which was about $20 million. With the budget department has already preliminarily

205assessed about $6.5 million in reduced spend. Um and that's just the dis- that's just the corporate side of it. I would I would contest that while the DOE will be the that that will be the easy handler name for us to refer to this. This fiscal responsibility mindset, I think will be here for the life of our administration. Um our leaders, we want everyone in our board to be as literate as possible in in our budget. We have to model this every day with our actions and our work and generating ROI. So, I would say while we don't have the answer to which departments will experience the greatest change because they haven't gone through that analysis, that's a very long process, unfortunately, 8 to 12 months is what we're estimating that will take to go

206through every department in the district to do that. We look forward to that work because we think it's the right work. We think it's the right way to balance the budget in a way that we can always defend. But thank you for the question. Thank you. I do support the changes. Um I believe we do need change. We've I feel like that we've been stagnant over the past years that I've been on here. Um we talk we we talk a lot, but we've not we don't really do anything. So, um I'm excited about the changes. And just for the record, I know Broward, they have a communications and government relations. They're a one person does the two jobs. So, um and I believe we had someone that did something similar and um as well. So,

207I I understand that sometimes we make a lot we as re- regime changes, sometimes things change. So, I feel that I'm going to support the superintendent um in these changes and uh I'm excited to see the changes cuz I'm going to That's where I'm going to be holding people accountable for making sure the changes um are uh positive and successful. Um One of the things that I'm kind of excited about that I don't think we've had for a while is a true accountability. And I believe um in the one position, that that accountability is going to The superintendent can't be all of everything. So, I think that that that piece is going to be key um for accountability for those that fall beneath them. So, thank you. Thank you. Ms. Fisher. Thank you, Chair Ribble.

208Um I can agree I support these changes. Um I mean, anything that can obviously help us in uh academics and ensuring that we continue to have an upward climb and be the best, I support that. Obviously again, like Mr. Rubenelli said, accountability. Uh looking at government relations and communications, I know that was brought up and we've had that combined before. And just like anyone else, I had questions, but one of our absolute rockstars in this district has been our government relations department, not only bringing back the district money, but saving us millions through policy changes as well as things in the federal level. So, like we talked about, Dr. Savage, uh uh Board Member Langford Fleming and I talked about we're in a competition right now. And as I said, we want to be able

209to compete the best we can. So, taking those talents from government relations and working strategically our communications is a win for this district. So, I'll support that. Thank you. Okay, any comments from the board? Ms. Shavano. Chavi Honig. Uh thank you, Chair Ribble. Um so, yeah, so I think we kind of touched on changing regime, kind of changing um restructuring and reorging it. And I know I we've touched on this before is when the a new person comes in, they want to make changes, so they have a say. Um and as Mr. Persons said, I don't think there's anyone up here with any more experience or understanding or even background knowledge than Dr. Carline um has of this district. Yes, I've worked in the schools, Ms. Langford Fleming has worked in the schools in one

210capacity, in one area, in in in the education. We haven't been on the different lengths in all the different departments and areas there are in this district, but specifically for me, coming from my background with, you know, marketing and advertising, I think communications has always been like a I don't want to say a thorn in my side, but it's been a huge pain point, I think, for me and even the community in in terms of what is put out there. And I think miscommunication or just misunderstanding or us not even doing a great job of just explaining what it is that we're doing and how we're doing it and how we're getting the information out there. Um we talked about the mailers. We've talked about all these different things that we're trying to do. Um

211and I'm excited that we have this direction with someone as experienced um on the other side of it because there's so many different facets, right? When you're when you're inside here, there's just one view of the district. But this district supports the community and there's so many different views in our community and so many different households and families and who we serve. And so, I think to have an outside perspective coming into this um with an understanding of that they have, I think is exciting. Um I for one am excited, especially um with communications and how we can compete and do a better job telling our story and what it is that we do um and being more proactive in terms of communication. We had Mr. Tyler up here earlier in DAC and talking about

212the ESC cluster model and it what that comes out. And you know, we have the press puts out something before we can even tell our part of the story two days after our workshop. That's frustrating when it's literally our story. Um so, I'm excited and I of course fully support this change specifically and um I don't know. I just I'm excited to see what happens. And of course, it is our job to hold everyone accountable for these changes and that's exactly what I know I will do and I'll speak for everyone else. They're excited to hold everyone accountable for it. So, yes, that's it. Okay, any more Go ahead, Debbie. I just for clarification, this is not about individual people. It's about as Dr. Savage always tells us, the units, which are not people. They're

213units. It's money. So, that's the only reason I'm bringing this up because every time I think about a school trying to cut something or whatever that looks like, their arts program going away, whatever program may go away or we have to fight for, I want to make sure that we have that for as our athletes, whatever that is, we need to make sure that we have that. That's why I bring it up. Okay, any other comments in close? Ms. Fisher. Last one real quick, just going off through Board Member Jordan's comments. And that's why I think it's it's good to show whatever track record these departments had have shown the success sustained success. Okay, moving right along then. Thank you very much for your comments. Next, we have job description presented by Dr. Shanna Johnson.

214Okay, so she's not All right. Good afternoon, board members. Karina Velasquez representing HR while Dr. Johnston is away this afternoon. Welcome um just open up for uh the agenda. We have several job descriptions ready for your review and discussion. Okay, so you're just opening up from the information that we already received from you. Is that correct? All right, any comments on job descriptions? Okay, hearing none. Thank you for your pres- Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Ms. Persons. I I don't have any questions. I just for the public's viewpoint that we did go over these in our one-on-ones, all of us. So, that's probably why we don't have any. And some of us asked some follow-up questions and got a follow-up answer. So, that's that's why for the public's knowledge. Thank you. But for the public's knowledge,

215we all agreed to the job descriptions, so that's why we're not making any comments. So, we do support the job descriptions. Great job putting them together, designing them. And now we got to execute the description and make sure the right person's in the right position. Okay, moving right along. That was Next on the agenda, we have the S- SBA Advocacy Committee positions for '26-'27. And we have Mr. Armor Persons going to comment on that. Is that correct? I will. We we do this on a a regular basis and uh I think it's a great idea um to alternate some different people into these positions. I know I've been on Advocacy one time on a committee position and so, uh I think we should just basically take nominations who would like to do it. Uh, Debbie,

216you're on it right now, correct? >> I am I am the alternate for everybody on this board. Okay. Who's our advocacy right now? Vanessa's. Okay. So, I I just think it's uh a great opportunity to get involved with the FSBA. So, any suggestions or nominations for the the two positions? Why don't we start with the advocacy position? That would start in, I believe, June. >> Yeah. Mhm. Is when it starts. So, we whoever's on it right now, like Vanessa, Yeah. Chaviano, Thank you. will stay on there until June. Okay. Mr. Chair, I would just I would just suggest that you take volunteers. Or volunteers, okay. Yeah, that's fine. Take a form of votes. That's good enough. Mr. Fisher. I was just going to see if the volunteer if Mrs. Chaviano wanted to do it again.

217No, I was going to actually volunteer to do it again, but Okay. So, we have one volunteer, Ms. Jordan. Well, I'll volunteer myself if they're volunteering each other, I'll volunteer myself for one or the other. All right. Mr. Fisher. Well, I'm not volun- Yeah, I don't want it. See, I was volunteering her and she was volunteering herself. He was volunteer holding. Okay. Yeah. I Yeah, I I don't want it, so. Okay, well, we have two volunteers right now. So, I think we should uh So, this is on the agenda tonight. So, we just need to put the names on there. So, it's Ms. Chaviano and the alternate is still Ms. Jordan, is that What? Have we decided that? I I would I think we need to decide who's the going to be the advocacy and

218who's going to be the alternate. The liaison, right? So, um I support um member Chaviano if she'd like to serve in that capacity again. All right. Uh, should we just do a Just take a consensus if there's >> Yeah, consensus. Thumbs up for Ms. Chaviano. Two. We'll go with four. Okay. Okay, Ms. Chaviano has a majority and Ms. Jordan will be the >> I'm used to being the alternate. I'm good. Well, thank you. Thank you. Because I'm going to be there. All right. So, they're staying they're staying the same. Thank you. >> Yeah, staying the same. Okay. No term limits on that position. No, there is, but yeah. In in conclusion, Say that again. In conclusion. Okay. All right. I don't think we need any more comments from the board on that one. Okay, moving

219right along. Next we have the employment contract for school board attorney Robert Dodig, presented by the chair, Armor Persons. Armor. This is actually expected. Uh, I think everybody got a copy of the contract. Um, are there any questions on it? It very much monitors our previous contracts. How about if we make a motion first? Motion be delayed. No, this is discussion. We don't actually vote on that tonight. That's tonight. So, so, anything? Anyone any discussion or I think you did a great job with it. I'm happy. >> Uh, you don't even need to say that. All right. That sounds good. We'll make sure it's on the agenda tonight. And Mr. Rebel, I'll let you make a motion since you started >> doing that. No, he doesn't he doesn't want me to make a motion. He

220said we're just going to put it on the agenda tonight. >> Tonight, tonight. Tonight we'll make the motion. Okay. >> Okay. Thank you. All right, he's holding my motion till tonight. That's good. All right. Next we have public comment, attorney Robert Dodig, please address public comment. It doesn't appear that there is any today. Okay. >> Nobody has signed up. Moving right along. Uh, let's move into for the good of the order comments. Ms. Fisher. Thank you, Chair Rebel. Uh, two things real quick. Uh, FSBA Board of Directors, um, the nominating committee met yesterday and they put forward three new names for the executive committee. So, if you haven't seen it, I would suggest checking your email and there'll be a full vote on that in June at the um summer meeting. Uh, outside of that,

221Drug Free Coalition, I want to remind everyone if they haven't April 29th Collaboratory at 6:30 p.m. will be the the annual awards and I would encourage board members if they're able to go that night. So, just Collaboratory, it's a great experience and really highlights some of the great things, you know, our students, you know, people in our community and services are doing. So, rest of my comment I'll reserve till tonight. Thank you. Ms. Giovanelli. I'll be quick, too. I just wanted to uh talk about real quick the all the It's we're 30 days out from the end of school. So, basically, um, and then we're about to be really busy with graduation. So, I'm just uh excited for teachers are going to start winding down and um excited for them to have the time off

222that they deserve. Um, and the students have time to refresh as well with and with their families and uh have a nice safe summer. But, um, just we want I went all now there's like a lot of plays coming up and um a lot of um Oh gosh, music stuff. There's all kinds of stuff going on. Aladdin Jr. I saw over the weekend. That was unbelievable. I mean, the talent at North Fort Myers High High School was just amazing. Um, the Hall of Fame inductees was fun and I know there's another another Isn't the Rotary dinner coming up, too? Um, so, and then um the Edison Park um had the 100-year anniversary for Rachel at the Well and then they're in 2027. Next year, the Edison Park elementary school it will have a 100-year anniversary

223that's coming up. So, stay tuned, there'll be a some festivities for that. Um, I just think it's really important that uh we talk about our graduations because that's exciting cuz really, I mean, that's almost one of the thing main things that we're up here is is attending our graduations and that's going to be exciting. And then we have the Golden Apple, I think, next Friday. So, um to honor all the teachers that uh that were the finalists as well as the winners. So, I just ex- exciting times and that's all I'm going to I'll leave it at that. Thank you. >> Okay, thank you. Ms. Jordan. I think I spoke enough today, but I would just like to thank um all of the district staff, our teachers, our students, our families, and looking forward to

224graduation and I've attended most of the ones that Ms. Giovanelli had spoke about. And I know North Fort Myers Academy is going to be having their show this week and we need to make sure that we are supporting our schools. Mr. Persons. Rachel at the Well, I'm not saying I had first-hand knowledge, but in the past there'd been bikinis painted on on her. Oh. And soap suds in the Yes. And there was in the fountain there, but again, no first-hand knowledge, I'm sure. But, what I want to say is everybody wear purple tomorrow. Got that out there, okay. That's for military families day, April 15th. So, wear your purple. Thank you. Okay. Ms. Fleming. Thank you. Yes, I've attended a lot of events and that the reason why is because we have so many talented

225students, whether it's in the arts, the athletics, and intellectually in the classroom. There are just so many great things that are going on in the district and I don't think that's highlighted enough. That's the charge I would give our communications team is to make sure that not just our message is clear, but all of the great things that are happening in Lee County School District. We have Yes, we have graduations coming up. That is the end game. That is watching people get across that finish line and that is why we are up here doing what we are doing. It's why I went into education. I also just want to say um congratulations, Mr. Dodig, it's great to have you up here. And thank you for running for helping us in every capacity. I really appreciate

226it. Looking forward to all the other great things that are happening. Just a plug that a lot of our spring athletics are all heading into districts across the district across the districts as well as our performing arts with all of their amazing shows and and musical performances. So, those of you that are trying to get tickets to these concerts that cost like $300 at Hertz Arena, our students are as talented some of those people. So, I would encourage you to get up to Barbara B. Mann and purchase those tickets. Thank you. Ms. Chaviano. Um, I think I'm going to reserve mine for tonight. And I'm going to do the same thing. All right. Moving right along here. Uh, there'll be no student performers tonight. The school the school board action meeting will begin at 6:00

227promptly. At this point, having You forgot you forgot about two people down here at the Oh, I forgot Mr. And I have important things to say. >> Go Oh, go ahead. I I just want to thank you all again for the confidence that you're showing in me and I I it's incredible frankly. So, but I did want to say this after all of the discussion today. I am a product of public schools. And there are four names I'm going to read you. Read Will Wiseman, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen, and Pilot Victor Glover. Those were the four astronauts that just went around the moon. And they are all products of public schools. And that's my simple message today. Thanks. Okay, very good. Doc Savage? Yes, just closing a loop. I it was actually my miss speaking

228earlier during the budget presentation. It was kind of brought to my attention that cuz when you mentioned the advanced programs related to ACE, IB, and so forth, I was thinking high school because that's where I think of them, but we actually have kind of middle and elementary versions that are in some case now they don't earn college credit like the others do. So, they're technically different and so just wanted to be transparent with that that they're part of what gets evaluated. It's not to say they can't have programs. It's just to say it's not a simple above formula allocation anymore, but that's something that is part of that competitive process. So, just didn't want to put misinformation out there for for you all as well. My pleasure. That and that's that was just a business

229item. Okay, let me try this one more time. At this point, having no other business to come before this body and seeing no objection, this meeting is adjourned and the time is 4:05 p.m. Thank you very much.