001good evening everyone we're ready to begin this evening's board meeting Sergeant arms has a Lobby been attended to yes thank you chief we request that all electronic devices be turned off or put in silent mode also please refrain from using flash photography except during the special presentations portion of the meeting I'm pleased to welcome you the August 21st 2024 school board meeting and the time is 6:00 p.m. and this meeting is hereby called to order we'd like to take this opportunity to remind members of the public of the district's Mission which is to ensure that each student achieves his or her Highest Potential and the district's Vision which is to be a worldclass school system pursuant to board policy 01641 board member Patria is able to participate by phone and vote this meeting board member
002patrika are you on the line currently we okay so she may appear later on board member Jordan and juvenile will not be joining us evening due to a personal obligation in add in addition Dr Savage is unavailable and instead please give a warm welcome to Doc to Deputy superintendent Dr cubin McCoy on this evening's agenda includes invocation Pledge of Allegiance recognitions public comment consent action items which include one item under Board office one item under executive Services two items under academic Services one item under Business Services two items under Human Resources 10 items under operations one item under public hearing and four items under good of the order other business board members is there a motion to adopt the agenda Mr psons I'll make a motion we adopt the agenda say red okay is there
003a second I'll second move by Mr pson second Miss lford Fleming please record your votes motion carries 40 as is the custom of the board Mr persons will lead us in the invocation followed by which Miss Langford Fleming will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please stand let us pray Lord As We Gather here today for the school board meeting we seek your guidance your wisdom and your blessings grant us the strength to make decisions that prioritize the well-being and education of our students help us to listen attentively to the needs and concerns of parents teachers and the community making choices that will reflect our shared commitment to education we pray for the safety of our students teachers and staff in your name I ask amen amen right now we're moving on the recognitions
004board members please join me in the pit for recognitions is this okay same as before sorry I changed the mic system I just double checking at the 2024 Invention Convention us Nationals held in Michigan from June 5th to June 7th 2024 students from Southwest Florida showcased their remarkable talents we're especially proud to highlight the exceptional achievements of the students from the school district Lee County who received High honors from Dunbar High School Nini Fernando received a third place award for her project titled Baby Beats and from Fort Meers High School darua Sharma who received a third place award an industry award and a patent application award for his project titled transcend traffic intelligence Urban Transportation Revolution darua also won another National stem competition and is one of the only three students from Florida Thea had
005the honor of representing the state at the national stem Festival held in Washington d this past April the school board and the superintendent are pleased to recognize and congratulate Nini Fernando and darua Sharma on their truly worldclass stem accomplishments and thank these students for representing the school district of Lee County so well at this International academic competition congratulations here I saw that yes Miss Danielle nap teaching and learning coordinator is joining me again at the Lector the 69th annual state science and engineering Fair of Florida was held in Lakeland Florida from April 2nd through 4th 2024 among the students from Southwest Florida that participated the following students from Paul Lawrence Dunbar Middle School received High honors Alyssa louu and Andre Sarah both received a second place category award for their project titled green hydrogen the
006school board and superintendent are pleased to recognize and congratulate Miss Lou and Mr Sarah on their truly worldclass stem accomplishments and thank you for representing the school district of lead County so well at this State academic competition congratulations we come on up next item on the agenda is public comment attorney debris Bruno can you please address the item of public comment thank you Mr chairman and good evening School Board policy provides the opportunity at this point in the meeting to address the board concerning any matter on this meeting's agenda or any other matter relevant to the operation of the school district please complete a public comment card and put it in the basket provided if you need a public comment card they are provided by our staff the rules concerning public comment are posted in
007the back and will be made from the podium in the front center aisle please be advised that the board will not respond during public comment to remarks made by speakers concerns will be addressed by the superintendent or staff as necessary and the chair May comment as deemed appropriate at the conclusion of public comment the superintendent or the board attorney may also comment if deemed appropriate the purpose of public comment is to provide feedback on District issues such as duties responsibilities decisions and the general operation of the district the school board is view point neutral during public comment we ask that decorum be kept and respect be shown which is what is expected when a government agency conducts official business therefore abusive language such as cursing insults derogatory language levied against an individual or a class
008of people are prohibited further personal attacks such as name calling are prohibited in addition clapping hissing booing or a display of temper during public comment is prohibited speakers who fail to follow proper decorum in the chambers will be ruled out of order by the board chair or the parliamentarian any speaker continuing with such remarks will be required to relinquish the microphone for board policy 01691 and may be removed from the chambers by the Sergeant at Arms for board policy 01691 the time per speaker is three if there are 20 2 minutes if there are 30 and 1 minute if there are 31 speakers or more the maximum time allotted for public comment is 1 hour 60 speakers you will find a countdown on the big screen in the front of the room once your time
009has elapsed the microphone will automatically shut off please state your name when you approach the microphone please follow staff's Direction when lining up Mr chairman there are three individuals who would like to address the board this evening four okay sorry four four individuals thank you attorney depri Bruno please ensure you have completed a public comment card to provide public comment this card is a public record identifying those who speak and providing contact information to staff for followup the cards are located with staff in the hallway is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the board but did not fill out a car public comment card please raise your hand okay I'm seeing none at this point attorney debris Bruno please proceed with public comment thank you Mr chairman will the following individuals please
010line up Dr Paula Porter Mar Cox Joanne Thomas Joseph Denise balent good evening Dr Paula Porter Lehigh Acres as many of you know I was a member of edac last year and was involved in teaching graduate students in developing accessible Learning Materials a review of the 2024 25 professional learning catalog only I saw only one course that offered any ADA compliance training and that was creating a da compliant PDFs following the explosive growth of mobile and web-based learning in April 2024 the Department of Justice published updates to title two of the American with Disabilities Act this update requires state and local governments including school districts and higher education institutions to make their websites and mobile apps accessible to people with disabilities the new rules titled non-discrimination on the basis of disability except accessibility of web
011information and services of state and local government entities require that content meet web content accessibility guidelines 2.1 at level AA the deadline for compliance is April 24th 2026 for organizations with 50,000 or more people which of course includes Lee County schools that leaves us about 18 months to make sure mobile and web-based learning materials documents presentations provided to students and public meets this requirement the good news is archive content is not part of the expectations I want to stress this is a very simple and easy fix many folks do not realize that Microsoft Office Adobe products and many other software programs used in schools provide accessibility Checkers already built into their software these Checkers easily ensure that all content meets the wcag standards the tool exists in existing software but it must be live made
012live by the user as one creates a presentation for instance an accessibility Checker window will appear on the right side of the computer screen and will verify that the Educators create accessible presentations and PDFs unfortunately at this time ADA compliance with many presentations in my review has not met the minimum ADA requirements especially for the visual with small fonts and existing font and background colors so with this new compliance we now have the opportunity to jump on and be proactive and keep Lee County Schools acting to meet the goal before the anticipated deadline to benefit the students faculty and the community thank you good evening I'm Marge Cox I live in Bonita spring I'm a retired educator I know you've mentioned before it's hard to get enough teachers to get into all of our classrooms
013as you would like and as a part of the purple group we're always looking for ways that we could help with what you're trying to do one of the things that my high school did when I was in high school which wasn't last year obviously was to do what they call a Cadet teaching program and so as Sen seniors we could spend one hour of our school day in an elementary or middle school classroom I know there are some districts that do an academic Academy where they're taking their local high school students and helping them see the excitement of being a teacher so I just as you're looking at options I understand that's not going to help for this year's need but it's a long-term solution or at least a piece of a solution that
014could help if we can grow our own teachers here and that they would go to to college and come back and serve Lee County schools that could make a difference in the number of teaching positions that are open each year so as you're looking for possibilities and options to get teachers into our classrooms I hope you'll look at some long-term Solutions as well as some short-term Solutions thank you so much for your time this evening pleasant good day my name is Joanne Thomas Joseph I am representing business Community and constituents of the State of Florida and today I'm here to address Health welfare and safety on behalf of our students teachers and all in individuals on a live site part of preparing children and students and others in the educational system is teaching them to
015be in compliance with the laws ordinances policies procedures to be good constituents almost one year ago I sent a ceasing assist to the Lee County School District and many other agencies in regards to violations of the Florida statute 435 and I requested a response and as of today 8:21 2024 I have not received that unfortunately I was unable to attend any other meetings until now so I am requesting please the update on that request the status of the incompliance and the order to cease and assist in my response I thank you all so very much I appreciate what you all doing for the school district I've been a part of the school district personally volunteered more than 2500 hours in addition to my two children who graduated from the Lee County School District also completed
0161,200 hours Plus at the time of their High School graduation so I'm a very concerned parent I'm a very concerned business person doing business and also in addition to that I also did ask the school district to respond to the Dei diversity inclusion diversity equity and inclusion I have been a business person vendor for the school district since 1997 and we are falling short on diversity equity and inclusion in our system that is a big concern for me and other members of the community and here today I am asking one more time to please give me a response in the Quest that we asked regarding the violations of Dei thank you all very much I appreciate the work that you all are doing and have a blessed day hello thank you for having me my
017name is Denise balant I'm here again to try to see if I can get my longevity pay I'm out on medical and the only excuse I've heard is that you didn't get a paycheck so they didn't pay me for my longevity pay and if there's someone that I could speak to about this in person because I can't get a hold of a lot of people anybody they're just telling me you didn't get paid so you didn't get your longevity because I've been out but they really owe me for 22 23 that I did work and that's where I'm at and I appreciate your time thank you who's public comment thank you attorney depri Bruno Dr Cupid McCoy or attorney depre Bruno is there anything you wish to address in regards to public comment no thank
018you nothing at this time Mr chairman if I may I would like to address Dr Paula Porter thank you very much for bringing that up because I've been at your edac meetings where you have brought that up multiple times the district is looking into that to make sure that we are in compliance by 2026 and you will note in our new civil rights and Equity guide as well that we've added language that we must be ADA Compliant so we're well aware and we are working towards that goal and I believe our websites are already on board it's our presentations that we're working on so thank you for that Miss Joseph the school district is in receipt of your correspondence and as we stated before the district is in compliance with Florida statute 435 as of
019January 2025 we'll be moving forward to the Clearing House with AA which is what is required for a background screening so at this point we are in compliance and that's really that's the position of the school board thank you thank you attorney de Bri Bruno I want to thank everyone for their public comments tonight we truly appreciate up here at this moment we're going to move on to approval of action items in the agenda under consent the documentation for Action items listed under consent is made available to board members seven business days prior to the board meeting we are expected to review all the material and we have an opportunity to speak with the superintendent with any questions we may have regarding the recommendations some of these items have also been briefed or workshop with
020the board in advance of appearing on the action agenda board members are there any agenda items you wish to PLL for discussion first off Miss patrique are you on the line I'll come back then Mr persons I have none Miss Langford Fleming I have none M Morgan I have none and I have none just want to check one more time Miss Patria okay are you unable to hear me oh yeah now I can hear you miss patrika okay very good I did respond the first time I don't know why you couldn't hear me I have no plls thank you sir thank you okay at this moment is there a motion motion to approve the consent action items under the agenda I move to approve tonight's consent items is there a second oh second Morgan okay
021moved by Miss Langford Fleming seconded by Miss Morgan please record your vote I an I so motion passes 4 Zer oh oh sorry 5 Z my apologies Miss Patria 5 Z second that's okay okay out of sight out of mind I understand at this moment Dr C M cor do you have any administrators and attendance that you wish to address chair fer I certainly do I'm pleased to announce that we do have five new administrators tonight and this was accomplished through the consent agenda vote that occurred a minute ago so I'd like to introduce them because I think they're all here I'd like to begin with Miss Jill Cunningham who is a former Dean at rayy pot off and she's now the new assistant principal at Early Childhood Learning Center please stand next we have
022Mary Ellen sedo she's the former Dean at Edinson par Park and she is now the new assistant principal at Edgewood Academy also with us is Mr Timothy doti teacher at estera high school and he's now the assistant principal at estera High School we also have Mr Matthew wilky he's a former teacher at Skyline and he's remaining at Skyline Elementary as the new assistant principal and last but not least we have Miss Ellie Ooa she's a former teacher at DJJ and she's the new assistant principal at Veterans Park Academy for the Arts as is the custom of our board in superintendent I'd like to say we are thrilled to have you join the leadership ranks this is not a task or a responsibility that should be taken lightly but is one that should be taken with
023great care as we strive to achieve our District's mission to become a worldclass school system so the support system you have with you tonight is just a part of your team your families your friends and your larger Network are there to guide you along this journey it's not going to be an easy one but it's going to be a rewarding and fulfilling one for all of our students in the school district of Lee County so I thank you for taking on this challenge G to ech Echo Dr ke McCoy congratulations everyone I'm wishing you a a great rest of your school year and please if you want to you may leave at this point if you want in this portion of the meeting thank you let's take a quick 30 seconds while they clear e
024okay at this time we're going to move on to public hearings Dr cin McCoy please present your recommendations for this evening's public hearing item approval of the revision of the 20 2024 through 2025 2026 exceptional student education policies and procedures the effective date of this adoption shall be August 22nd 2024 thank you we'll now recess the regular school board meeting and open the public hearings the time is 6:28 p.m. as indicated the public hearing this evening is to consider the superintendent's recommendation as previously stated at this time the public will be invited to speak on this one item the time allowed for public comment is 3 minutes is there anyone in the audience who would like to address the board regarding the approval of the revision to the 2023 2024 through 2025 to 2026 exceptional
025student education policies and procedures the effective date of his adoption shall be August 22nd 2024 I am seeing none I will now close the public hearing and reconvene the regular school board meeting of August 21st 2024 the time is 6:29 p.m. Dr cubin McCoy please restate your recommendation for this evening's public hearing item approval of the revision to the 2023 2024 through 2025 2026 exceptional student education policies and procedures the effective date for this adoption shall be August 22nd 2024 board members is there a motion to approve Mr persons I make a motion we approve the exceptional student education policies and procedures for 2023 through 2024 and through 2025 2026 is there a second I'll second Morgan okay moved by Mr persons and second by Miss Morgan does anyone have anything for discussion Miss Patria
026no thank you okay at this point we're going to move forward to a vote so please record your vote motion carries 5 Z Dr cbid McCoy or turne to Bri Bruno is there anything you wish to regard address regarding this public hearing no thank you chair I do not thank you Mr chairman okay thank you at this point we're going to move on to good of the order other business I will start with Miss Patria thank thank you sir I will give my comments when I am in person at our next meeting thanks so much thank you Miss Patria Mr persons I just want to say we it was a great first week of school last week and I get the pleasure of taking my grandson to school each day the one thing I did
027notice though was the drop off lines are extremely long this year so everybody be really careful it seems like more parents are deciding to bring their children to school at least for the first few weeks here so it's not something we can do a lot about but just be careful that's all thank you Mr persons Miss Langford Fleming yes I Echo those comments by chairpersons I have a teenage son that drive so it's important to have those conversations with our students that drive also to school because there are lots of students standing in the dark without traffic lights also just to be aware I did get such a sweet email though that I wanted to share it didn't fall underneath what we necessarily recognize because the instructor doesn't work for Lee County but works with
028Lee County School District so I just wanted to recognize a special person Mrs Ricky Mrs Ricky is the Creator and director ctor of the wings of Hope and panther program at FGCU Miss Ricky's made an impact on many students but I got a very special email from a fourth grade teacher at Heights Elementary that went on and on about the enthusiasm of her students when they are able to take that field trip to FGCU because for many of those fourth and fifth grade students the first time they've even been on a college campus so what a great what a great place to start so I just wanted to recognize Mrs Ricky for her 24 years with the development of that program and then as far as that I mean I would be remissed if I
029didn't mention High School football is well underway as long as well as volleyball and cross country and so many of our extracurricular activities sorry if I think golf maybe I think golf is this time of the year but just wishing our student athletes well and I'll continue to always support our coaches and coaching staff and just thank you for what you do the extra time and commitment to our student athletes I know that the pay is small but the reward is great and the impact that you make on our student athletes is something they'll take with them for years and years so that's all I have thank you Mrs Langford Fleming Miss Morgan I will just say briefly welcome back everyone now that you've got the first week under your belt hopefully you're settled in
030everybody's settled in and ready to rock and roll for the new school here so greetings welcome back that's it thank you thank you Miss Morgan my turn and this has already been sent over to all of you given that we're we are reviewing all of our board advisory committees in January I'll be making a motion and moment regarding edac given the lack of applicants however the intent of my motion is only to suspend edac until January 2025 and not to eliminate edac which will align it with the timing of our other suspended committees so hereby at this moment I move to suspend the equity and diversity committee edac and the related Provisions in board policy 9140 until January 2025 as there are not enough applicants to comply with the committee requirements not in the policy
031do I have a second I'll second thank you Miss Morgan okay move by myself seconded by Miss Morgan at this moment board discussion if there's any Miss Morgan well I was going to ask that the board attorney you know for for purposes of informing the public speak about the history of this particular committee and I my person my question would be even though we don't have enough applicants do we have enough for a quorum not even a quorum okay thank you no I was advised we don't have enough for a quum that's why I made this motion okay oh so I can't I can't address quum we don't have enough to cover the 15 that is required per policy at this time okay so that's that's what the issue is but with regard to the
032history of the committee it does go all the way back to when we received our order relating to unitary school system that dealt with desegregation of schools it was not called EDC at the time we had multiple other committees that were there to be able to Monitor and address those particular issues and advise the board at some point in the early 2000s it was called edac again based on my understanding from the motion that is pending this is not an elimination or removing this particular committee this is a suspension until the board has an opportunity to review all board advisory committees in January of 2025 which is what the plan is so that will be in compliance with this there's no order or anything like that requires us to have this committee at this time
033but the committee is recommended to reconvene once the board has an opportunity to review all of the Committees anything else Miss Morgan no thank you thank you attorney R Bron yeah I just I was hoping we'd be able to move forward with it but at this time I'm hoping we can drum up some more applicants as we get closer to January so at this time I'm also going to invite the public to comment on this item it would be 3 minutes per comment is there anyone in the audience that wishes to address this motion yes Mr chair before you before you move on to public comment may I say something oh sorry MRI that's that's quite all right so just sort of I think it touches on what we were talking about during the briefing
034today with regard to public participation in things that we do at the school district perhaps between now and January January we can find a way to drum up interest to participate in whatever committees you all decide to keep because it's clear that serving on a committee the interest to do so is waning so how can we get our committee I'm sorry our community excited for these what we used to call VIP volunteer positions that's all thank you so much thank you sorry about that Miss Patria okay at this item ma'am if you want to and anyone else in the audience that wishes address this item you'll have three minutes and again it will be public comment only regarding this motion president good day again my name is Joanne Thomas Joseph and I'm here to support
035the EAC as a parent of of this community for 35 years I've been involved in the PTA edac DAC and all the other a couple of the other committees in this school district appointed not only by the governor also by the Lee County Superintendent two of them Dr D Alexandro and Dr Browder on all of these committees and I participated in them in all of them until my children graduated from school the EAC was part of the basis when it was transition to be part of the equity diversity and now it's called Dei diversity equity and inclusion before that it was supposed to be the EAC and that's what we served on that's what we made rules on that's what we people like me investigated information recruit others to become part of the community reason
036I'm not one of the reasons I'm not as active because my children are adults and the second reason now there is no motivation there is no motivation all motivations are focused on growth and people people coming in lack of lack of allowing people who have been living here building this community to be active participant and have the opportunity to serve these the people that we are encouraging they're not coming and serving on the school board they do not have that interest we who had personal interests we are being cast aside and that's one of the reasons so the young lady that just spoke on the thing I second her comments we need to find reasons to motivate people to get get involved again to doing the right thing thank you very much have a blessed
037day thank you for your comments ma'am anything else from anyone up here miss Patria okay no thank you okay at this point this is going to be a roll call vote I will start with Miss Patria yes please Mr psons yes Miss Langford Fleming I okay Miss Morgan I and I an I motion carries 5 thank you everyone real quick I also want to get back to my comments now I was able to like many of you visit the schools around my district I just want to give thanks especially to Mr valard Miss Trent and Mr Cooper I really enjoyed going around with all of them visiting the schools and you know kudos to the West West Depot too as well so had a good time with that I was also able to attend the
038drug-free Lee the annual old ceremony and that was really cool to see so wishing everyone a continued awesome and great time the rest of their school year attorney de Bri Bruno is there anything you wish to address and comment just welcome back to school and everybody hopefully has a wonderful great year thank you Dr CU McCoy thank you chair our vision is to be a world class school system so I'd like to take this opportunity to challenge each of us when I say challenge I do mean each of us being reflective about our respective roles and our contribution to our organization the academic side of the house as well as the operational side of the house need to act what I mean by that is we need to hold ourselves accountable to high expectations and
039we need to hold each other accountable to high expectations that's part of what we need to do so that we work towards achieving our vision we also need to work on our communication internal communication external communication it needs to be accurate it needs to be timely it needs to be consistent it needs to be done regularly and we also need to work on trust building that trust with each other so that it permeates our entire organization it is my responsibility to build that trust not not have the expectation that the person to my right or the person to my left is the individual required to do that it starts with me it is important that we individually and collectively act because we determine the culture of our organization individually and collectively it's important that we
040act because our students are looking at us more than they listen to us and when our behaviors match our words they start to look at us and listen to us and then they too to begin to hold themselves accountable it's a new year it's an opportunity for us as an organization to think about what's necessary for us to be transformative thank you chair thank you Madame Deputy superintendent next scheduled meetings on Thursday September 5th there will be a Schoolboard briefing at 1: p.m. followed by a special meeting at 5:05 p.m. and a school board action meeting at 6: p.m. at this point having no other business to come before this body and seeing no objection this meeting is hereby adjourned the time is 6:44 p.m. have a great evening everyone