Board Regular Meeting - June 23, 2015

001e e e and ladies and gentlemen we are ready to begin this evening's board meeting the school board meeting of June 23rd 2015 is now called to order the time is 6:00 p.m. at this time we request that all electronic devices be turned off or put in the silent mode also we ask that you please refrain from using flash photography um except during the special presentations portion of the meeting of which we have none tonight we would like to take this opportunity to remind members of the public of the district's mission which is to ensure that each student reaches his or her highest personal potential and the district's Vision to be a worldclass school system this evening's agenda includes the invocation the Pledge of Allegiance public comment on agenda items consent action items which include

002one item under executive Services eight items under business and finance 15 items under operations 12 items under teaching and learning one item under unfinished tabled uh business tabled items 10 superintendent recommendations one of which which is good cause Dr Graham would you please provide an explanation for this item the good causes related to the scoring of EOC exams we now have the scores and the impact on our students so I brought a recommendation back related to that as presiding officer I find that there is good cause to add this item to the agenda we have two items for public hearing non-agenda public comment and four items under other business board members is there a motion to adopt the agenda so moved second move by Mrs doer seconded by Mrs fiser all in favor please signify

003by saying I I I motion carries 5 Z Miss L rier will deliver the invocation after which Miss fiser will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please rise for the invocation father I thank you for this wonderful world that you created I thank you for the fact that we know that your image is on each one of us and how great is your grace and mercy I have to think about that as I think about the small little church in Charleston and how they have responded with Grace mercy and forgiveness in the recent attack at their Church may we all be as gracious whenever someone wrongs us father I pray that you would guide this meeting that you would give wisdom and Clarity and thank you Father that we are able to share thoughts

004ideas and learn from each other and I pray that you would give us Direction this evening amen amen please remain standing and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America thank you you may be seated the next item on the agenda is public comment Mr Martin would you please address the agenda item of public comment School Board policy provides the opportunity to address the school board concerning items on the agenda or other subjects relevant to the operation of the school district the opportunity to address the school board concerning items on the agenda occurs at the beginning of the meeting at this time the opportunity to address it issues not on the agenda for this meeting occurs later in the meeting just before board member

005comment if you completed a card and submitted that to me before the meeting began you'll be called in the order of the card submitted with speakers commenting on agenda items called at this time and those commenting on non-agenda items called at the later opportunity if you have not submitted a card but still wish to address the school board this evening the school board chair Miss Morgan will give you an opportunity to indicate that desire when you do so please indicate whether you wish to address an item on the agenda or some other subject you may speak at both opportunities but must limit your comments to a subject for which that public comment opportunity is provided if you comment on an issue not on the agenda during the agenda public comment opportunity you'll be required to

006hold your comments until the non-agenda public comment opportunity if you wish this evening to address an item that is on the public hearing portion of the agenda which includes the adoption of the instruction materials plan that opport opportunity comes during the public hearing ing at the beginning of the public hearing the board chair will uh will provide an opportunity for you to raise your hand to indicate that you wish to address that item at that time you can only address that item during the public hearing not during the other two public common opportunities the board does not respond during public comment time to remarks made by speakers comments concerning items on the agenda may be addressed by the board in their discussion on that agenda item before taking action comments concerning subjects not on the

007agenda may be addressed during board member comment immediately following non-agenda comment speakers are required to confine their remarks to educationally relevant issues attacks on individuals and abusive comments will not be tolerated the speakers persist in violating such rules after receiving a warning from the chair they may be removed from the meeting Miss Morgan I have eight cards this evening yes eight cards this evening two as to agenda and six as to non-agenda items is there anybody on the right side of the auditorium who wishes to address the board that did not fill out a blue card pleas State and it's agenda or non-agenda yes and that is that non agenda or agenda and is it agenda not agenda anyone up yes anyone else on the right yes on agenda I'm sorry Jennifer what is your

008last name thank you and Katherine Chia are you agenda or non- agenda agenda anyone on the left side of the auditorium okay yeah anyone else thank you 18 18 yes would you please call the first card our first speaker Mr George Fox can you hear me okay thank you board um had a chance to get a hold of Miss desim Mor's papers from The Briefing earlier to look at the uh uh tenative budget for next year got three minutes right Mr Martin three minutes yes sir thank you um yeah sure enough the uh roll back rate is going to be in effect down to 5124 sure can't count on that legislature to come through no actually you can't so what I've done is taken some basic quick calculations catching on from the discussion just a

009little while ago and I'm ask Mrs Johnson if you could copy this and make sure everybody gets a copy if you would please um I'll give it to you when I'm done U basically within 5 years with a half sales tax and the debt reduction it can be gone uh last year the county Lee County and their half cent sales tax revenues was right at $68 million it's a shame that the school district didn't participate in that as well and a 1.0 debt millage would generate 68 million based upon property values of 68 little over almost 69 billion in Lee County that'd be 136 million dollar per year with the total uh debt including the three new schools that have been that are being authorized to be built Bonita East in the Middle School approximately

010$600 million could pay the whole thing off in a little over four years and 90 million of that would be paid by tourist visitors and non-residents of Lee County it's a pretty simple plan basically straightforward to the public got a pile of debt it's already been taxed the tax has already been done it's just a matter of sending out the bill that's all you're really doing here it's a very simple St straightforward plan everybody can understand it and the benefits to the students the County residents everyone relieving there is nothing better than than paying off debt it's the best thing also one other thing I noticed during the presentation talk to Amy about it as well got hundred million in debt I mean in uh investments in in stocks Apple Starbucks whatnot I wonder how

011much that's returned and they they're good Investments they've gone up great might be time to cash them out and pay off some debt it's 100 million bucks maybe that you could pay right there why let it go down you know and I'm not sure what the dividends apple pays but or Starbucks but it's not anywhere near what we're paying in interest on the long-term debt of this District so those are two great things to consider I hope the board does and moves and acts immediately on getting this on the agenda and onto the ballot for next year in 2016 and get voters approval thank you very much excuse me for not saying so since we have less than 20 speakers the time per speaker is three minutes the next speaker is Mr Kevin Regal right

012good evening I'm here to discuss the approval of the reappointments for the 2015 2016 school year hopefully I can get the message out a little better now I only had a minute last time uh the superintendent and I have had some good meetings about this um I just have some really deep concerns and I wanted to bring it up now since it's going to be uh voted on at this meeting uh the first person th I brought this up before it's the person who received the DUI conviction we know that he had a minor in the car at the time we know when he was convicted he was told not to drive by order of a judge for 6 months yet he still drove the athletes around you have to understand the judge looks at

013the person and says do you understand your rights you're being revoked you're licensed for six months yes so when he goes ahead and drives athletes around and puts them In Harm's Way that's on him that's step one okay he was on his 90-day probationary period when this occurred yet he continues to get reappointed time after time okay the person I'm objecting to one of which is Lehi Senior High School teacher John soak I know the superintendent and I have talked and I said listen to the public it looks like since his father was a teacher in the district for 30 years many of which under your leadership it looks like he's being given special favors and it's just not fair that we let all these other teachers go during their probationary period but we allow

014this one not to I keep getting asked what is your beef with him nothing we just need to be fair we need to be Equitable and we need to treat every single person the same way with our eyes closed that's what anybody would expect uh the next person has been accused of bullying by teachers and parents and students uh I hear on the side his investigation was not legit and he was protected I know for a fact that a racist video was shown to his assistant principls during a staff meeting called the Ben show it's a racist football video which demeans African-Americans Jewish people and Asian people and he found it to be hilarious he hired his nephew 3 years ago in a show of nepotism although other applicants were more qualified including former superintendent

015Mr Browder when his nephew certification ran out he still allowed his nephew to illegally hire coaches and drive athletes home from football practice he is embroiled in a controversy regarding graffiti in this year's yearbook he's made egregious errors in judgment as relates to the camoland NHS situation so the person I object to for rehire is Fort Meyers principal Dave L Roa how much time do I have sir 25 seconds 25 seconds well I guess I will end it there thank you for listening those are all the cards as to agenda speakers okay Bob Valenta please thank you uh item six C approval for a bid for fresh produce for $2 and5 million for 86 or 88,000 students is about 16 cents per day per student that's pretty cheap or we're not really feeding them that

016much fresh vegetables and I know that goes against you know my normal that schools really shouldn't be in the business of feeding kids and I still believe that but that aside if we're going to feed them why are we only feeding them 16 cents worth of fresh vegetables and probably a couple of dollars worth of junk food so that's that's one thing the other thing is you've got uh unfinished business 5A and it kind of ties in with is that 6f and G which is yet more bus Parts and Repair I can't I've lost count of how many meetings we've actually voted on and approved bids for bus parts and service I would think that we would just do that once a year and yet I'm going to go back through all the agendas and

017I'm going to find probably over a dozen I mean I can think of the last four or five meetings where we've had something to do with buses and parts for vehicles are we trying to snow the public and not let them see the big figure all at once and we're just trying to peac meil it I'm just I'm asking thank you Mary SoDo oh okay next is approval of action items in the agenda under consent board members are there any agenda items you wish to pull for discussion I have no pulls sorry I have no pools I have none Mr dver I have none rier pools and I have none is there a motion to approve the agenda's consent action items so moved moved by Mrs doer seconded by Mrs fisher fisher all in favor

018I I I motion carries 5 Z Dr Graham do you wish to acknowledge uh any appointments yes I'd like to uh recognize uh Tracy zenani finally learned how to say her name and Tracy is moving from the River Hall Elementary assistant principal to harns Marsh principal her first principal ship so welcome and Rhonda Amaya who has been the assistant principal at Ty Elementary and and one of her many claims to fame is uh the Dual language program that she has overseen um and gotten going so well at Ty Elementary uh she's been an advocate for the El population for quite some time she is going to uh become the principal of Ty Elementary and seretta Ralph who has been our director of Elementary uh curriculum and staff development for the past year is going to

019take on the role of the assistant superintendent for teaching and learning seretta was a superintendent for eight years in Kentucky and then moved down here and decided to come work with us last year and has been a has been a gift to our team and she's now going to take on this new responsibility as assistant principal assistant principal sorry assistant assist surprise uh assistant superintendent for uh teaching and [Applause] learning okay we have a motion uh made of the June 29th meeting would you please read it under unfinished table I got it I just need to make it big enough to read it got new glasses and I'm not sure I recommend board approval to renew bid number B1 14718 JM for Navar International OEM Parts awarded to Wallace International Truck Inc for the first

020renewal period of July 1st 2015 through June 30th 2016 at the estimated annual expenditure of $1,500,000 pursuant to the same terms and conditions as previously approved by the board approval authorizes the superintendent to execute all related documents board memb you've heard the superintendent's recommendation the action was postponed until this meeting the me motion is now on the floor is there any discussion seeing none all of those in favor please signify by saying I I I motion carries 5 Z superintendent's recommendations I recommend the school board amend its action taken at the April 28 2015 regular school board meeting to exclude the results of the EOC assessments from the student grade calculation using such results only for Diagnostic purposes by limiting the scope of the action to only include the EOC results that will be delayed

021which are those for Algebra 1 Algebra 2 and geometry is there a motion to approve so moved by Mrs Fischer second seconded by Miss La Rivier discussion Miss F make a motion um I I know that we're in receipt of a a letter of response from the commissioner of Education um responding to the letter that we had Mr toy would delivered to the governor and um she explains that um you know that we are in violation of the law and that uh since we have the uh results back on the um Civics history and biology that we uh would not be granted waiver at this time and and um my discussion is that since I made my part of the decision based on the information that we had at the time which was that we

022would not be receiving any of the results until fall or December of the year so um I would be willing to consider uh changing my vote on those three exams that we already do have the results on thank you other comments this doer well I was looking for this the um information that was sent to us by the superintendent um and I am trying to pull it up but it's not coming it's searching um okay um when the super when you know when we first had this information um and we said that the information would not be forthcoming until December I think that was the reason and the rationale for making that motion and for us us actually all supporting that um since that time the students have taken the test and um these are

023the results out of the 5,595 students who took the biology test 94% would have no grade change as a as a response to that this being counted as 30% out of the 3,00 , 690 students who took the US History te test 91% of those students also would not be affected in any way um so I guess my question to you um and then there's also the 95.7% of the students out of the 6,217 students um who took the Civics would have no grade change as well are we going to do anything with the consideration of those are we GNA analyze those percentages of students it would be 6% for the biology it would be approximately 9% for the US history and about 4% for the Civics are we going to look at those students

024to ensure that their grade would not be a the the percentages you read either their grade doesn't change or it increases es um the rest those smaller percentages there may be a grade change but no one no one is failing and no one is going to be kept from graduating okay all right all right thank you other comment Mr dber well we're talking about 307 students 335 and 267 which is a total of 99 students the original letter and again you know we received back back from the Department of Education a response we have not heard back from the governor um but the Department of Education basically said you know here's the rule and all it's going to count 30% for all the six oh but then we screwed up and now only three are

025going to count so you know it's they make excuses and and their excuse is okay our excuse is not um but based on the information the fact that they didn't give us the information in a timely manner um we made a ision so the the letter what we written what we wrote to this to the governor was look for all the ones that we we count everything that we that we got the that we had the information on the the but for us to go back on our word on the ones that we already had it's going to harm them whether they fail them or not it's going to harm them we said we don't want to count that so I would like to make a motion to amend the superintendent recommendation that we count

026all the grades that it makes has no effect or it's positive effect and the 307 the 335 and the 267 we don't count because that's what we gave our word that's what we did our test and that's what happened and if the state says we need to test it again it all goes back to look you weren't perfect you know you you didn't tell us the information you thought you were being crafty by not giving us any response so that people wouldn't they didn't trust us that people would Christmas tree the tests and so in lie of that they didn't they weren't forth with with the information saying and you will get tests back in a timely manner because of their less than cander and the way they handled it I believe at this point

027we would have to going back on our word we're detrimentally impacting students and so you know based upon the information I stand by what we did and I I would like to make the recommendation that we count all the students that have either no impact or a positive impact but the ones the 307 335 and 267 that we report to the state these are numbers that we will not be counting this year based upon the evidence the based upon our information that we had at the time we made the decision and you have made a motion is there a second I will second it for discussion okay um so what you're basically did you read the letter that we got from um oh Pam Stewart this afternoon and let me just insert if I may

028if you would indulge me Mrs doer I did get a call from Pam Stewart this afternoon uh it was a voicemail but essentially she she said that she had spoken to the governor and she was speaking for the Governor I I did not know she was going to send a letter she basically called to say that um she had spoken to the governor he was busy he hadn't had time to respond but essentially the position was that the three uh tests would be it would be it would stand as as as it was there would be no change so I just wanted to make that clear okay Mrs doer because basically the last um statement sums it all up and I had uh when I read the letter in fact I received the letter A

029little after 5:00 um I made the assumption that she was speaking on behalf of the governor not knowing that you had had a phone call but the last Senate says um we will be working to make sure flaughter students are not over tested however there is no basis in supporting a waiver of the 30% grade requirement so in other words what they're saying is that there is nothing that they're not going to even consider the requests that we made which I think we made that what about two or three weeks ago is that correct um and so that was the reason and rationale for me asking all of those questions to you Dr Graham um because I am perfectly comfortable with the vote that I made however you know it to be in compliance and

030to try to play nice and the scene um with the powers that be from Tallahassee um if I if you are telling me that no student is going to be harmed as a result of the fact that they took that test I guess that's the piece of information that I need in order to be able to support the amendment that was made by Mr Tober the smaller percentages their grade will lower but it will be for instance someone may have gotten an a have an A and with the 30% in it would drop to a b but what I said earlier no one is going to fail no one no one was credited with less than the equivalent of a c on the eoc's so there's nothing that's none of none of those calculations um

031will bring anybody to an F so what you're saying is that that none of the students failed the test correct as a result of the cut scores that were applied cut scores that were applied and and the the other thing I will say is that these percentages um are are much higher than they were last year and so last year there were many more students whose grades were lowered as a result of the eoc's Miss L rier and I just want to make sure I heard correctly so the lowest scores there was nothing lower than a c that any of the students received based on the cut scores that were applied yes other discuss I'm going to ask you all to please be quiet while we have our conversation thank you um other discussion so

032we have a motion uh to amend the superintendent's motion which is to your would you mind restating that please Mr toy to count all the test scores that either stayed the same or or moved a grade upward but all the ones that that dropped that that that that hurt our that hurt our students to not count the to not count the grades that will hurt our students okay I'm going to ask you Mr uh Martin if you would please talk about um the difference between the First Amendment and the Second Amendment in terms of board liability and superintendent liability okay well with the two options that you have discussed at this point if um if your decision was to um basically reverse the prior action or or maintain the action only as to the math

033eoc's it would appear that by taking that action that you would then come in compliance with law and in that context the uh the risk that you would eliminate is the risk of penalties from the state um from the legislature or from the Department of Education um the risk that you would maintain because well the risk that you would maintain in that decision is is one that has been discussed before that uh students took this test uh with an understanding or at least a representation from the school board based on the school board's action that the results of the tests would not be used in the calculation of the grade um if they're now used in the calculation of the grade and uh I understand from Dr Graham's explanation there would not result in any

034student failing but it would potentially result in a lower grade and I guess a lower grade point average um so you could potentially face some there is some risk there based upon um students taking certain action based on Reliance on the the board's action and um incurring some detriment as a result the option that you presented with been presented with through the amendment uh would appear to eliminate the second risk that I just spoke about with respect to uh injury to students because it would not result in any students having their grades lowered uh yet it would not bring you into perfect compliance with law um because the statute does require that those three tests the results of those three eoc's be included in the calculation of the grades so you would maintain the risk

035uh potentially of penalties being imposed by Department of Education thank you Mrs Fischer yes and and further after that then um Mr Martin when you say penalties could you define that give me just a second excuse me Florida statute provides a process by which the State Board of Education uh can review uh the actions of an individual school board and if they believe that the individual school board has failed to comply with law or state board rule uh give notice to that school board and if they fail to come into compliance within a certain amount of time uh the potential penalties are to withhold the transfer of State funds state discretionary funds discretionary Lottery funds or any other funds specified as eligible for this Purpose By the legislature declare the school district ineligible for competitive

036grants is the other potential penalty to be imposed okay thank you Mr toyer Mr Martin if they were to withhold funds would we have standing in federal court to uh to withstand that to to sue the Department of Education based upon their conduct and and have standing to pursue that if there was in fact a withholding of funding yes I think there would be some some basis I I wouldn't suggest federal court but there would be some basis to file legal action to determine determine the rights of the Schoolboard with respect to that issue based upon the deprivation of that funding would that be administrative then it could potentially I think that is one option as through an administrative hearing I think a declaratory action in a local state Circuit Court could also be a

037potential action um those are opinions I have no authority to rely on with respect to that issue other board questions comments Mr toyer board it all it all goes down to you know what what do we stand for you know we I'm not saying I don't purport to want to break the law and I don't think we defiantly broke the law nor did we intend to break the law with the intent of defying the Florida statute um the house bill was was enacted the Department of Education had weeks upon which to give us inform inform to be able for us to make our best judgment they failed to do that for them now to come back and say well it doesn't matter the fact that we dropped the ball and we kicked the can down

038the road for all this time you guys still should have just you know once we finally got our act together and retroactively said well these are the rules you guys needed to fall into compliance I don't know if if push comes to shove at this point you know is that a hill that you think an election year that the governor wants to die on I don't know if the public scrutiny you know we offered them a solution to to keep to hold our all of our kids harmless to get out of the situation which you know we didn't create this testing debacle we didn't put these information out there and and fail to give us the proper edicts upon which to comply we did what with the best interest of the of the children I

039stand by that because I think we did what was prudent for us now to change and put children In Harm's Way just because the state tells us we don't how bad we we screwed it up the law is the law I don't think that's the way this board should should should take its fall and I think at least at this point you know make the point to the state look we're not say we're not defying defying you for the sake of defying or we're not defying you because we didn't want to make the test had you done what you should have done all this wouldn't this argument wouldn't even be taking place or this discussion wouldn't take place but the fact that we were forced to make a decision um albeit you know in retrospect

040would have been a different decision that doesn't give us I don't think the latitude to put children In Harm's Way so that's what I'm just imploring the board to just consider to to stand on you know a small hill saying look we're not trying to to do anything wrong other than you know if they you know if they want to sensor us for 900 kids that's 1% of our student population you know I think that at the end of the day it's it's worth a censure or whatever they may you know when they if they if continue to push or we take it down that road um but I don't believe they're going to punish the entire District I don't believe they're going to you know do something that's going to look uh venomously wrong

041in the sense of of of doing this because we went there with good intentions we approached them with remorse we tried to solve the situation by going there in person uh you know it's not an issue of you know it's not a battle we want to fight we just want to get this thing moved and moveed ahead so you know I think if we continue with our stance um we keep without protecting kids and I think for us to roll over just because um it's the easier way to go the path of less resistance but we only harm a few kids I I just don't think that's the message that we want to send Mrs doer thank you um I will be supporting Mr Toy's motion um because the evening that we voted on this

042I think it was back in April um and at that time um it was Tuesday night I believe before the EOC were to begin the next day we gave our word I think to parents and to students and I think students were well aware of what was taking place and if we can't um if our students cannot depend on us to do what we're going what we say we're going to do then we're not worth much so I'm going to have to support this just one point of clarification some had already taken the E the majority took it after that vote but some had already taken it well I think the ones to make make it perfectly clear we're talking about the ones that took it after the day that we took the vote because

043those are the students that would would be affected my what the decision was made here at this table that is what you are yeah and I guess the question I have for you Dr Graham is of these percentages you know I I don't want to harm the ones that deally detrimentally relied the ones that if if they're somewhere in this group that were actually before we took the test I I don't know if that's really you know that's a whole I mean that's I don't think the numbers are going to be any any relevancy yet because like you said majority suggesting that I just wanted to be clear clarify other comment yes I have another question for um Mr Martin Excuse me um with with the um the sanctions or the um withholding of funds

044and and making us ineligible for grant funding is there any other sanction that would happen like would people lose their licenses or teaching certificates or is that not implied in the statute that's not addressed in the statute there are other rules with respect to um actions taken against an individual educator C certificate um that's not addressed in this particular their statute so then if there was a decision made solely by board members which was not um in support of the recommendation of the superintendent then for instance the superintendent or people administering the test would not be at risk of losing their license I can't answer that question there are Provisions certainly that require employees of the school district to comply with law how how the state would address those issues in terms of an individual

045certificate if their employer their school board directed them to take the action I I cannot say I I would I would certainly Venture a advice that the fact that it was done in compliance with the direction from the school board would be a mitigating factor in any consideration of discipline but I I can't give you any guarantee in that respect of course thank you any other discussion seeing none all in favor of the motion say I I I opposed I motion fails 2 three so now we revert to the original motion is there discussion on the original motion seeing none all in favor of let's restate the motion please I recommend the school board amend its action taken at the April 28th 2015 regular school board meeting to exclude the results of the EOC assessments

046from the student grade calculation using such results only for Diagnostic purposes by limiting the scope of the action to only include the EOC results that will be delayed which are those for Algebra 1 Algebra 2 and geometry thank you all in favor of the motion please say I I I opposed I motion passes 32 Dr grah would you please read your next uh recommendation approval to adopt the USDA Community eligibility provision for schools that meet the program qualifications and District parameters for the 20156 school year at no cost to the district approval authorizes the superintendent to execute all related documents board members you've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion to approve so moved by Miss moved by Miss fiser seconded by Miss L Rivier any discussion seeing none all in favor please signify

047by saying I I motion carries 5 Z approval to renew bid number B1 37134 BC for fresh produce awarded to Sun Fresh Produce Inc for the final renewal period of July 1 2015 through June 30th 2016 or until New bids are received and awarded at the estimated annual expenditure of $2,500,000 pursuant to the same terms and conditions as previously approved by the board approval authorizes the superintendent to execute all related documents board members you've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion to approve some moved second move by Mrs do you're seconded by Mr toyer discussion saying none all in favor please signify by saying I I I carries 5 Z approval to re renew bid number b147 one88 ta an annual bid for snack products with us food Inc for the first renewal period

048of July 29th 2015 through July 28th 2016 at the estimated annual expenditure $500,000 pursuant to the same terms and conditions as previously approved by the board approval authorizes the superintendent to execute all related documents is board members you've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion to approve so moved second Mrs doer seconded by Miss L rier any discussion seeing none all in favor please signify by saying I I motion carries 5 approval to piggyback Coler County schools 71-1 sl15 for commodity processing Services awarded to multiple vendors for the period of June 23rd 2015 through May 31st 2016 at the estimated expenditure of $500,000 with an option to cancel if deemed to be in the best interest of the district approval authorizes the superintendent to execute all related documents board members you've heard the superintendent's

049recommendation is there a motion to approve so moved move by Mrs doer second second by Miss L Rivier discussion all in favor please signify by saying I I motion carries 5 Z approval to piggyback Bard County Schoolboard bid number 14b 064 Dr OEM bus parts and accessories discount catalog bid awarded to multiple vendors for the period of August 12th 2015 through August 11th 2016 at the estimated expenditure of $500,000 with an option to cancel if deemed to be in the best interest of the district approval authorizes the superintendent to execute all related documents you've heard the superintendent's recommend a is there a motion to approve so moved second moved by Mrs fiser seconded by Mrs doer any discussion Mrs fer uh Mrs doer well I have to agree with the um public comment that was

050made regarding this item we seem to have uh repeated um recommendations for transportation bus parts accessories and so forth um I I have to agree with the fact that which should be a one-time thing and maybe one Amendment budget amendment during the year but this is repeated so can you tell us why I I think part of it is that different different companies get different contracts and the terms of the contract so for instance this one goes from August 12th to August 11th some of the others started in June so I think it's about timing I am going to ask that um Dr Atkins collect for for your information I'm also going to ask him to talk to uh Mr Valenta to we'll list them for you so you can but I think it's mostly

051about timing of contracts at this point and I think one of the things that might be beneficial as well is the total cost that we've had in board recommendations for parts and yes that's what I'll have Dr Adon put together other discussion all in favor please signify by saying I I I motion carries 5 Zer approval to piggyback CER County School District bid number 74-14 for AC parts equipment and supplies awarded to Johnstone Supply Naples Armature Works Tropic Supply and United Refrigeration for the period of July 1st 2015 through June 30th 2016 at the estimated annual expenditure of $900,000 with an option to cancel if deemed to be in the best interest of the district approval authorizes the superintendent to execute all documents you've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion to approve so

052moved second by Miss fiser seconded by Mrs doer any discussion seeing none all in favor please signify by saying I I I motion carries 5 Z approval of the agreement with the Tri County apprenticeship Academy to initiate and continue the F funding of the apprenticeship program for the 20156 school year and an estimated amount of $ 52,6 4479 approval authorizes the superintendent to execute any related documents board members you've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion to approve sir so moved second second Mrs fiser seconded by Mrs doer discussion all in favor please signify by saying I I I carries 5 Z approval of the renewal contracts for occupational therapy physical therapy and physical therapy assistance and authorization for the superintendent to execute related documents and authorize the expenditure of an estimated total cost

053of $900,000 effective July 1st 2015 through June 30th 2016 approval authorizes the superintendent to Ute all related documents board members you've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion to approve so moved by Mrs doer seconded by Miss La Rivier any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I I carries 5 Z approval of contracts for speech language occupational therapy and Physical Therapy Services with Sol and health Inc Community rehab associate Inc speech Rehab Services LLC BCA speech Center LLC and Elite DNA therap services at an estimated expenditure of $9 million for the period of July 1st 2015 through June 30 2016 approval authorizes the superintendent to execute all related documents heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion to approve so moved second move by Miss fiser seconded by Mrs do

054your discussion all in favor please signify by saying I I motion carries 5 Dr Graham would you please present your recommendations for this evening's public hearing items we have Southwest Florida don't we what do we have one more Southwest Florida College that's Public public heing I'm sorry public hearing approval of contract extension for Florida Southwestern State College for Florida Southwestern Collegiate High School Lee a 912 grade school covering a term from July 1 2015 to August 31st the board conduct a public hearing on all objections received concerning the board adopted instructional materials for the 201516 instructional materials plan we will now recess the regular school board meeting and open the public hearing at this time the public hearing this evening is to consider the approval of Contra contract extension for Florida Southwestern State College for

055Florida Southwestern Collegiate High School Lee and approval to hear objections to uh instructional materials adopted and confirm previously adopted instructional materials plan at this time the public will be invited to speak on these two items the time allowed for comment is 3 minutes is there anyone on the right side of the auditorium who wishes to address the board we start in the first row and I'm just going to have you come up in order by r I did email everybody on the board unfortunately I got one back refused concerning the books that we'll be using for 2015 um I did ask for a meeting with one of the board members and I did get the email today that you're willing to meet me next week it's kind of uh after the fact the books are

056inappropriate my concerns are religion being T in public schools that is not the place for religion religion belongs in the Church of your faith or at home parents to be teaching I saw a 38 page in the world history for sixth grade that's all about Islam and Islam culture which is not factual yet I see nothing for our constitution our Bill of Rights or the Federalist paper I don't see our history being taught to our children I find that disgraceful that we would approve a book that's not teaching our children our history our culture how we became America so I'm I do object to those books I was flawed by the health book it's disgusting it's pornography my CH my granddaughter will be opting out of that that it will not happen I hope to

057God you all took my email to heart and read these books looked them over and really are evaluating what we're shoving down the throats of our children thank you next I am Chris quacken Bush we talked about the law tonight lots of times but what about the law 103.4 I the one that says that history should be factual and not constructed and it it gives us careful guidelines on what we will teach and what we do not teach why are we accepting a book by peon PLC a British company that has four pages and I want to leave this with the board tonight these are four pages of lawsuits that have been won uh by people in this country against Pearson for uh unfactual textbooks for errors in testing for errors and teaching for many

058different kinds of things contractual infractions Pearson is a notorious violator of the law and yet you are spending $9 million of our precious taxpayer money precious education money on a company that is trash that is a law violator and you're talking about laws all the time trying to be very careful about not violating laws we're violating laws every day that our kids are are reading out of many that that apus history book that I brought to your attention over a year ago and you have ignored the law you have ignored our children they're learning things like George Washington was anything but a man of the people that Ronald Reagan was a liar that Jefferson had slaves he was terrible that all of our great Heroes were bad this is wrong people what law are you

059talking about because the law we have here the Florida state statutes say we should be doing something different so how can you possibly adopt books like this this history book and I have all of the research behind all of the comments that I made here to show the factual inaccuracies of this book if anyone knows anything about Sharia law listen to this one Arab women had no rights before the Advent of sharia law now they're equal because of sharia law tell me do any one of you want to teach your sixth graders something like that did you know that Islam was spread by peace it's a religion of peace they never push their religion on anyone that that's a quote from our book that you're adopting please people can you tell me what logic you're

060using when other books are available that are wonderful books books now the Mason Academy in uh CER county is leading the whole Middle School group a whole Elementary group in their very first year they're using Hillsdale classical books we have those available to us we have other books available to us and you are responsible according to the law SB 864 makes you each one of you board members responsible for the content of the curricul thank you Miss quacken Bush your time is up manam I'm not going to go into all the things that Chris has in her pamphlet that she's going to be giving you um believe me we've worked together to read these books and I attest that everything in that page that she's going to give you is true the smut and pro-islam

061past messages are in the books you are voting on tonight I would remind every one of the board members that when Jesus asks you why you crammed this disgusting garbage down his throat and you reply Lord when did we ever force you to read the terrible indoctrination in these school books he will answer and say to them truly I say to you to the extent that you did it to one of these my brothers of mine even the least of them you did it to me then he will also say to those on his left depart from me accursed ones into the Eternal fire which has been prepared prepared for the devil and his angels I will tell you if Jesus isn't allowed in public schools Islam and Muhammad surely aren't welcome Mark Twain said

062the man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them so why would we use terrible books this makes no sense no amount of smut will be tolerated by good parents and quite frankly you're going to end up with some very expensive class action lawsuits on your hands I do not authorize my taxes to go for that you can pay for the lawsuits out of your own Pockets if this is what passes for education I can tell you we don't need no education we don't need no thought control no dark Islam in the classroom no sexual indoctrination in the Halls hey Nancy leave our kids alone before we proceed let me tell the folks in the back to turn on the microphone please my controls are not working

063this one's not working it is working go ahead it is okay just want to be sure it stays on for you wellow that was a tough one to follow I'm actually the grandmother of sixth grade coming sixth grader please state your name ma'am my name is Marin scado um yeah I read the book okay and I personally will rip that chapter out and burn it I will also take a black marker to every other page that has incorrect information in it and black it out it's not going to happen my granddaughter will not read that that's number one I also read American government okay and had to decide which one was I was I one of them or was I one of them because the books it refers to the Democratic party as us and

064we and the Republican party as the Republicans or them the book was awful I did nights and nights of research that showed where the inconsistencies were it's all in my emails that just all got I didn't receive any responses from any of you so I'm going to I've stopped your time please turn on the microphone how do you turn it on no not you ma'am in the back oh okay I believe it's on now you can proceed okay anyway since we're I'm going to pass the rest of it because yes the health book was porn but then it clo it locked me out after that uh I once before had mentioned something about the Fourth Amendment so normally I talk about the best interest of the children today I'm going to talk about the best

065interest of the parents and the best interest of the parents is the 14th Amendment provides us with the protection against government interference with our fundamental rights and Liberty and for that I am only going to quote case law traxel versus Granville Washington versus glurg Stanley versus Illinois Reno versus Florida Meyers versus uh Nebraska and Pierce Versus Society of the sisters I will file a lawsuit and I will use every one of those and Mr Martin please look those up because the last time you misinterpreted Troxel and you did not read the entire thing because it says that we the parents have the care custody and control of the children and the direction of their education not you uh uh someone anyone else on the right who wishes to address the board yes please come forward

066good evening my name is Betsy vaugh and uh before I start speaking on the subject of Florida health the health book that's being reviewed um I want to say that I am also a parent of an upcoming sixth grader I'm speaking to endorse the adoption of the high school text Florida health and to add my concurrence to the opinions of two of the reviewers that Health including sex education needs to be taught in all Lee County middle schools as well as grades 9 through 12 I would thank you for your politeness schools play a critical role in promoting health and safety of young people and in helping them to EST establish lifelong healthy behaviors accurate Sexual Health instruction at an early age empowers students to improve and maintain their own health and to reduce risking

067behaviors according to a 2013 CDC report 7% of Florida children engage in sexual intercourse before the age of 13 in Lee County according to the Florida Department of Health girls ages 15 to 17 there are 14 births per 1,000 females 9% of these teen moms have repeat births before they are aged 17 in addition the incident of STDs among Lee County teens is higher than the state average in accordance with Florida statute the McGraw Hill text Florida health covers abstinence and no other form of protection or pregnancy prevention methods I agree with two of the reviewers that Lee County has wisely added supplementary information about birth control and methods of guarding against STDs although some contend that sexuality curriculum encourages promiscuous Behavior at a young age actually the opposite is true kids who receive comprehensive

068sex ad in school are more likely to delay sex and to have a deeper understanding of the issues related to sexual violence and consent finally there are those who believe that sex heads is not appropriate for school that your time is up Sean Hartman I actually wasn't going to speak personally I didn't um I haven't actually read what had what these and if everyone is criticizing uh my personal opinion as a younger individual as an individual um who is probably the most recent of the majority of us here out of school um I do believe we do need some sort of comprehensive sexual education I do believe that is important um I don't know exactly what has been read and I'm sure I I I don't know what what there what is deemed so inappropriate

069um but I have a strong concern that it might be an overe exaggeration possibly what I do want to say is this is back uh during the debates you Mr toyer had made a suggestion that I personally support and I think should be an option in terms of all of this which would relieve everyone's Minds let uh there be two versions of sexual education uh in which parents like the ones over here who have a disagreement of it who want to keep it more personable in the home they should be allowed to opt their children out into a much more what they feel would be as a much more appropriate sexual education for their children this will give as U Miss Coto had said back to them I do believe that parents should have the

070penultimate control over how their children learn this type of stuff this is a very sensitive topic um I do personally believe we do need to have some sort of option for a more comprehensive sexual education as Miss Von had said the statistics are there that those with more comprehensive sexual education age appropriate sexual education um have a less likely of of Team pregnancy of STDs I I don't know the exact statistics but I have heard that we have probably one of the highest uh STDs uh STD rates in the state in terms of our County uh so I do support a comprehensive sexual education plan but I do believe parents should have the option to opt themselves out to find a more appropriate method that they feel would be better for their children the I

071think at the end of the day I think the best thing is to figure out what is best uh for parents to decide what is best for their children and I hope you all agree with me thank you else on the right side long um back in April when the school board did rule that the children would be held harmless um initially I wrote and published an article with the fifth column news.com uh praising the school board and I believe I sent each of you a copy of that um as well as our governor um Mr toyer thank you I are you referring to either of the two items for the public hearing yeah there will be another time you can speak to hearing of the public on non-agenda will be after this special hearing

072this special hearing is only on the adoption of the textbooks and on the contract extension you know friends of mine I have been um included on what is in the textbooks this is my daughter over here who is going to be an up and cominging fifth grade grer so um obviously she's going to be affected by those textbooks as well um I do have great concern um having worked in social work for 13 years mostly with children and uh also with the state in various ways um I I feel that what I have seen is pornographic um the the pushing of a religion just anyone in particular is offensive and should be kept separate from State and uh education and if I wanted to um you know give my daughter a religious education I would

073give that myself or um send her to a public school um I you know I I disagree with the fact that um it was only open for a a time period to be uh looked at I wish I would have known back then had I you know been able to take a look at and actually see this material now it's not available for the public to see I'd like to know why not and um you know for definitely in the future I will be paying much more attention to what uh what is being taught um and just for the record I'm sending my daughter next year transferring her to an F school that is rated by uh the county and and that is because of the fact that is my belief that the um schools

074are graded on how well they adhere to the standards and uh this is a stem school and uh I look forward to the future with the stem schools and uh and hopefully doing more independent education than uh cookie cutter Comm and cor thank you uh is there anyone on the left side of the auditorium is it working now okay um my name is Tara Jenner and as many of you know um I do homeschool my children um in that capacity I act as a teacher I have several degrees under my belt and speak multiple languages I love history and I've traveled to Germany Belgium Norway England Spain Venezuela Korea and half a dozen other places where I've lived for over a year I was educated under the British system which was standardized tests after two

075years of training and I did learn American history through the British Pearson is British by the way and um I can tell you it's a totally different kettle of fish my biggest concern with the history text that they have is the distinct lack of source document ation as reference sources anytime I see a textbook that does not have direct source documentation it to me is nothing better than a tabloid that you'd find on the side of a supermarket shelf honestly it is biased but even if it were telling exactly what I believed if it was lock step with my thoughts and lock step with what I know to be factual I would still vly object to it for lack of having Source documents contained in in that particular text itself that is unnecessary in this

076day and age especially with our internet access having hyperlink accesses on the back of the source documents in the textbooks it happens all the time you get books everywhere that have this contained in there it is unnecessary it's unprofessional and it is in my opinion having done a lot of the research also exceedingly inaccurate to boot when it came to the health side of the house I pulled my children I have a sixth grader coming up sixth grader and a going into 11th grade SL dual enrollment category child and I asked my teenager what did she think about this and her comment specifically was Mom can I take bleach and pour it in my head and rinse out my brain after seeing this because once you get this in your head you can't get it

077out this information is way too detailed way too graphic it is not about health it is about sex ual orientation and pushing a particular type of behavior and format I would Hazard a guess that despite the fact that we've heard some wonderful statistics tonight that it's a little bit biased I mean let's be really honest we had one lady who was talking about why this was beneficial and she talked about repeat pregnancies wait a minute obviously they didn't get the message when they went through it firsthand how are they going to get it from the book and I'll be honest I sit and I teach my students and I have a small group group of kids who I actually have the authority to be parent to as well and they Zone in and out when

078you're teaching them and they always Zone in at the wrong point they're going to pick up all the wrong pieces of this me information and they're not going to catch the parts that are beneficial I encourage you to not adopt these two texts thank you is there anyone else on the left side of the auditorium please come forward thank you hi am Hall um I'm ex I am my new title is executive pastor at Vineyard Church Fort Meyers being a woman with that title in South Florida is somewhat controversial so I'm no stranger to controversy I will tell you all that I have reviewed two of these textbooks and I would like to urge the board to consider what we're putting in front of our children there are better options I am not a super

079conservative individual but these books are very very scary I went over the health book for hours and iow was floored and I spend a lot of time volunteering with teenagers at all different public and private schools in Lee County and I think we can do better for our children I really do I think there's better options out there thank you is there anyone else who wishes to address the board that hasn't had the opportunity to do so see none I will now close the public hearing and reconvene the regular school board meeting Dr gra would you please restate your recommendations approval of contract extension for Florida Southwestern State College for Florida Southwestern Collegiate High School Lee a 912 grade school covering a term from July 1 2015 to August 31st 2015 you've heard the superintendent's

080recommendation is there a motion to approve so Mo second by uh Mrs fiser seconded by m Rivier any discussion Miss Fisher yes I just have a question about why the extension of the contract is only for a month yeah Mr Martin the um the current contract for this school is a five-year contract which was the the initial contract they were provided after applying for Charter School status we're coming to the end of that contract on June 30th we've been in negotiations uh they've been somewhat of a hard negotiator doing the best they can to protect their interests and we're just not resolved with every issue so this is to extend the current contract for a couple of months until we can resolve the long-term contract thank you out of the discussion seeing none all in

081favor please signify by saying I I I motion carries 5 Z the board conduct a public hearing on all objections received concerning the board adopted instructional materials for the 2015 2016 instructional materials plan after conducting the public hearing I recommend the school board confirm its April 28th 2015 action adopting the proposed instructional materials plan is there a mo you've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion to approve some moved mooved by Mrs doer second seconded by Miss La Rivier discussion Mrs doer I will not be supporting this public hearing this evening as um not only did we have information about the health series and um the supplementary material which I think there's a better place for it to serve serve children than in our Public Schools as far as the world history book I

082think that it is very clear that when you have a book that does not have sources primary sources even secondary sources um I think you have a problem and I cannot support this and since I voted against the entire package back in I I think April when we voted on it um I will vote against the entire package now thank you is La Rivier um the difficulty is that um and this is where I find the difficulty with finding primary and secondary sources for this time period because it takes covers um ancient civilizations through just prior to the Middle Ages so not all of those primary sources are are I hav't found a lot that are readily available so I understand your concerns I also understand concerns about American history the way the social studies

083and the history components are addressed there's we've got American history in fifth grade um American history comes back again in e8th grade American history comes back again in 11th grade world history um and um ancient civilizations begins in sixth grade so they understand the evid the it ties in well with what then happens then for seventh grade when we look at geography and you begin to I'm going to ask you to to please be quiet so that we can hear Miss La rier thank you begin to understand how cultures religions all of those components come together to understand a culture I'm just giving some background piece when you get to world history um in 10th Grade the world history then goes into modern times and that's when they do deal with what happened with Stalin

084and and all of the other components that people want to hear about and and rightly so and we do see more of those in with the exception of the eight and I will agree there are no primary source documents for the um out of many book you know I agree that's a problem with that that book um there's a problem with that book when you look at who the authors are when I look at the authors here all of people have made the comment that this was written by people outside of the United States It's All American Authors they're all researchers some of them are very conservative people I have to look at it in general and say how do I feel about the book in general and I also have to look and see

085what the academic plan and see what exactly is being taught to the students and what's covered there's no way they're going to cover through the whole book in in in the year not to get to the depth and not to do the other components we want the students to be able to do with their critical thinking I've seen um if anybody has a criticism it's been those of the Jewish faith because they have found that there was more attention paid in the past to Christianity and to to Islam and granted we need to make sure that all of those pieces are covered I looked back at the academic uh plan and for exactly how it's scheduled and slotted out there is a total of one to two weeks that deals with um the benefits of

086Christianity and Islam and and things that happen there's world trade that happened during the during those those the the dynasties that took place there there was a lot of positive things that happened during that time I don't see it necessarily as a result of religion I see it as a result of the people in that Society then and at that time it was a very blanket Society there were no dynasties excuse me would you please be quiet thank you um so I spent extensive time and if anybody's going to have a have a problem the one primary source that is in here is the primary source of Paul's missionary journey and his landing on Malta and how he shared Christianity many people would find um problems with that but in reality that's the only primary

087source in there because we can we have the re we have the rewritings we have those those texts that we can go to I look at it all and we need all of the we need all of the faiths we need all of the cultures we need every person for their value and what they can contribute people speak of jihad if somebody's going to be upset about Jihad it's going to be me and my family because our family was affected by Jihad so I know what that's like my family probably is the most gracious family to people regardless of who they are regardless of their culture regardless of their religion it has to go beyond that um so with regard to the world history book I'm going to be in for it I don't find

088I find more in there that's good for resources for our teachers to pull out than that's bad I do disagree with some of the comments with regard to Islam that I don't believe are accurate I think they're trying to in the effort of being neutral they did not give a accurate picture maybe they were thinking about sixth graders um with regard and I have to break it down with regard to the Hope book I will still support it because we have to make sure we're meeting the needs of all students yes every parent has a right to decide whether or not they want their child to have that instruction but I sat down with students because parents asked me to to explain things to their child because they couldn't do it we have to take

089care of those needs sorry I got a little motion other discussion Mr Tober thank you madam chair I I agree with Miss doer I think in the history book is woefully undocumented or unsupported um to say things subjectively um and again it's not even the the amount of the One content over the other but the the the summations and the and the summaries of what they you know what one religion over another religion happens to say and it's and it's subjective in content and and that that's my problem um the health I I opposed the last time it was for a vote um Dr Graham had assured me that they were that the supplements and the book itself the book itself I was pretty much okay with it's a supplements that go I believe Way

090Beyond um and so I I was assured by by Dr Graham that they'd be separate and they weren't um and so I opposed the the it in total and it failed you know and it passed so I I don't support the supplements you know I agree and I've said it numerous times that I wanted it to have the ability I appreciate you know Miss Fischer's position being her extensive uh her health experience that there is a problem in Lee County and I don't want to hide the fact from those issues that we have people that don't have the proper parenting in their homes um but we could easily make it that if you don't fill out you just like they fill out the forms for the for the photography or whatever if you don't fill

091it out means that a parent's not being involved you get the one that that you know teaches the things that you're probably not going to get at home but if you pick if the parent says no I've got it then they should have the supplement that doesn't have it and so you know I I believe we could have we C you know if we if we choose not to pass it today and go back I think we can do it right I don't think you know I just don't think by there's enough uh public comment and there's enough board members here that we're just not doing it right just by you know saying that one size fits all I don't think is a solution and I and I also feel very uh slighted the fact

092that you know despite my my discussions with a superintendent she didn't even you know separate it out and then I believe last time if correct me if I'm wrong but miss doer tried to separate out the motion um to to actually pull those issues out and approve the rest um and that failed but and then later on rever so I didn't even know what it meant you know because we didn't you know we have somebody new it's hard to know all the procedural rules so you know but at that point the vote's been cast so you know Miss La Riviera now's your chance you know you didn't get a chance to stop it back then you can stop it now so you know you can go with uh with myself and Miss doer and say

093I'm not going to prove it now make the superintendent go back pull it out and let's do it right let's pick let's agree there's areas that we all agree on those we can move forward the areas we don't agree on let's work them so that we meet the needs of all of our parents meet the needs of all of our students if there's subject matter that's not right let's take a look at is there other Alternatives that meet that road but for us just to do it you know by somebody's admission on the board when they say well I don't agree with some of it well if you don't agree with it then don't approve it don't just say well the most of it's okay then let's just stop and make it all okay we

094have the right we have the ability to make it all okay and so I I you know and and it may take a little bit extra work I'm willing to do that extra work so I won't be support in this because I don't think we're I don't think that we're we're doing what's right um for our students so other discussion um Mrs doer I'm going to take just a minute to um share with you some of the uh history as far as law law um lawsuits in regard to U Pearson um they have been flooded with lawsuits um back as far as 1998 in 2007 I found this you know how we're all going to um taking tests on computers well um the students were not able to log on they and then when they

095were able to log on they were logged off um in Mississippi um the subcontractor programs correct answers and incorrect resulting in erroneous results for almost four years during which time 126 students flunk the exam due to that wrongly scored items um the Auditors criticized Pearson uh quality control checks and the firm offered $600,000 in scholarships as compensation to those students in Florida um there were tests delivered they were delayed by more than a month and nearly $15 million in fines were imposed and they were paid by Pearson if we're in it to try to make money off them maybe that's what we need to say um in New York in 2013 and I find this um really interesting because New York we know is not known as a conservative State um the new Pearson Common

096Core Tech textbooks are full of Errors including and sample test items test items test items test items that keeps coming up in all of these lawsuits um again in New York another Pearson F was fined 7 $7 million by the state of New York for using its nonprofit Foundation arm to steer business to the firm 2014 Florida the state Commissioner of Education seeks penalties after 26 counties suspended Pearson's new computerized test because server problems prevented students from logging on and froze their screens in New York printing errors resulted in Miss Missing questions and blank pages in Pearson's designed Statewide math assessment in Texas Star test answer sheet shipped to Pearson and they were lost requiring all the students to have to come back in the summer to retake the exam wonder how that would go

097over in Lee County um in 2014 in Virginia era in scoring Pearson's so Civics and economics test questions resulted in 500 change test scores including 224 students moving from failing to passing and that's just a few of them this is not nearly all of them and if that's not enough information there's plenty more out there for you Dr Graham I'm going to ask you if you would please quickly walk through the textbook adoption process who involved uh what our options are with respect to textbooks there was a committee the books were available for people to the public to review from February 13th through let me just start back with this comes from a a list of books approved by the state correct yes they the we we look at Publishers send whatever the state has

098said is uh adoptable in Florida for lack of a better word and then we have committees and we allowed anyone who applied to be on those committees to participate there is training that that the uh those who want to review the books go through because part of what you have to look at is if the materials align with the standards and and how to assess a book The Publishers all come in and give presentations on their texts and they talk about not only content but they also talk about what ancillary materials they offer etc etc and then the Comm committee um met each committee met and we had committees for each each book we had I remember the health was one so they don't meet about all the books they have and they can sign

099up for the ones they want to meet for and that they're most interested in um and then they they choose which one they believe is best and then that recommendation is brought forward thank you other discussion well may I just say one other thing just um just so there 's no confusion community members can review textbooks whenever they like if they come to the district office the curriculum department will be happy to share with them and and texts are available at school sites and once the books are adopted and in the schools they are available at the school sites but parents have access through parent link to their children's books so there is access at any time it's just that open to the public was during the period when we were trying to determine which

100ones to bring forward for adoption thank you other discussion Mrs Fischer okay y I have a question regarding um the adoption of this these textbooks as a package um if we were to ask for more time to continue review of one of the books how would that impact this tonight the statute uh establishes a process um for for the review and Adoption of instructional materials it requires that after it requires that after you initially adopt an instructional materials plan which you did on April 28th that there be 30 days allowed for uh parental objections to be submitted to those adoped materials and you chosen policy the school board did to make it broader than just parents after that 30-day period passes the statute then requires that you hold this public hearing and adopt the instruction

101materials plan or confirm it make a final decision after you hear the objections within that 30 days okay um so with respect to any of these materials you have to act before the 30 days is up or you would have to start the process all over again okay and then piggy backing on Mrs Morgan's question about about the textbook review um I in addition to the public speakers um I received some emails and um one person um stated that she was um on the committee but she was not allowed to vote her vote couldn't count and she happens to be a health educator so the expectation that was laid out when people volunteered was that they would attend all three sessions if they wanted to vote they could come to any one of them and

102and be part of the conversation but if they weren't at all three they were unable to vote thank you okay thank you for that and and you know in regard to the health um book you know all I can say is um in in my opinion and on behalf of the youth in this County it's too little too late and we should be doing it much sooner than 9 through 12 so um thank you M love rier correct me if I'm wrong um the world history was originally adopted in 2012 yes okay and then um that was and and and you weren't here that um that's that's why of a at staff let me ask the qu I just need ask the questions um so as so for that process and the reason that it

103did not proceed at that time had to do with running out of money because too many other books were being purchased at the same time because we did all of Elementary reading and all of elementary math got it that's what I thought when does the world history come back up for review again for adoption because then that I know it's that right now it's not part of the regular cycle I'm sorry 2018 I'm sorry I know I'm not supposed to be asking but I I need to I apologize um here's my question I want to go with this um is it possible I to to vote to are we Poss is it possible to go ahead and vote for each individual book at this time so we don't do any so if there's something that

104doesn't go through so it doesn't inhibit the purchasing of textbooks for school for the next coming school year yes that would be a motion to divide it can be a motion to divide by separating out one of the texts two of the texts all all into separate votes however you wish to address it then I would like to make an emotion not emotion motion to divide um the um by each textbook and that we vote on each one individually so we have a motion to is there a second second seconded by Mrs fiser discussion okay seeing none all in favor I opposed I I so motion carries 32 so we'll separate them out yes a motion book by book but you you don't need a motion you already have sorry yes they separated into I'm

105not sure how many books there are but however many five parts five five we need five votes so Dr Graham I'll r on you too well and I don't know that I brought the titles with me to be honest if you look back on 97 under the agenda it has all titles okay thank you my computer's Frozen so I can't see the list so I will rely on you you want to look at this over here there's all five of oh okay thank you in fact I might have no I don't have them on the agenda they're not on my heart copy let me [Applause] see 97 on the agenda go back to public hearing the um and the titles on page 97 the actual titles for the book are below thank you Mr Martin

106first one is uh 9912 health and physical education McGraw Hill Florida gleno uh you've heard the superintendent's recommend is there motion to approve the text you have a motion I'm sorry just a discussion just discussion okay discussion on the textbook any more discussion on this textbook seeing none all in just one I'd like to further divide can I further divide this make a motion to further divide the main book from the supplements I I I guess yet the answer is yes are the supplements part of the adoption this the supplement it's could do it when when you did it last time the supplement the supplements were incl it was an option but it was included when they ultimately voted so the answer is yes yes it can be yes it can be divided I move

107to divide the main book from the supplements in this particular topic I will second it for discussion but I am not going to support this or the recommendation because Accord according to people some of the people that I have heard from out of the 68 standards that are supposed to be um taught this book doesn't cover it barely covers less than half of them and also they have in our course they have combined health and PE and there's only a couple of chapters that is devoted to PE and that's not enough of content material for the PE class therefore the entire book I think should be thrown out because they weren't con I think the people were not considering the objective of what the course was and and I think that some of the people

108maybe that would have spoken were not there to speak about that issue so I will not be supporting it okay discussion on the to separate the supplemental book from the regular Health textbook excuse me a motion to divide is not debatable oh it's not okay thank you all right so all in favor I okay I need to opposed oh go ahead I'm sorry this what was it you just said Mr Martin a motion to divide is not debatable you don't have discussion on that issue you go straight to a vote got it thank you that's what I need voting so all in favor of the motion to divide I iOS I okay opposed I motion fails 32 so back to the adoption of the book and the supplement together all in favor well any any

109further yes for discussion because now it's the whole thing you want discussion discussion M Rivier R um and I I also receiv the same letter um regarding the standards and um don't typically and um very few of our teachers for physical education follow a textbook for that piece they're more by this it actually is by the standards and the task it's not when they're in the classroom they need a textbook when it's raining and we have some rain in Florida so they need something for when they're in the classroom all right well I was just reviewing the different standards I was trying to incorporate all of the pieces I see that it could be used because during that time could be when they would take care of the nutrition or the other components that are

110that's being taught in health but hope class is this is Hope inates at all I'm look that's what I'm looking at at their stand standards and what's covered during the in the academic plan Mr toyer um yes thank you based upon the supplements I won't be supporting it but also I think uh it Bears further further negative treatment the fact that Miss doer made that comment that we you know we've had if we're not if it doesn't cover everything I think we can do better so it's all I won't be supporting Miss Fischer it's my understanding that this 912 health and physical education book used for the Hope course occurs one for one year during the uh High School career typically ninth grade am I on target with that it's not used for the whole

111four years corre right okay so um during that nth grade I mean we've had hope in the high schools during that nth grade or whatever year um students are assigned or opt to take it uh and it includes both Health which would be you know nutrition other other healthy lifestyle habits and physical education combined um so it's nothing different than what we've had before you know that kids have been using and the teachers have been using it's not um not a d not a diversion um there are limited chapters on physical education but the physical education part is taken care of more through physical activity than classroom learning so that would explain why that is Miss Fisher no no I'm finished thank you other discussion no all right all in favor I I I opposed

112I okay motion passes 32 my computer's come back so I'm trying to find page 57 9797 912 World Language hoton Mifflin hardcord Spanish 1 through 4 and EMC publishing French 1-4 o Mifflin hardcourt I'm sorry I left hardcourt out discussion all in favor I I I opposed I Mr Tober were you I was for okay motion uh passes 41 secondary math hoton Mifflin hardcour Algebra 1 Algebra 2 and geometry discussion all in favor I opposed I motion passes 41 secondary math sage pre-calculus and math for college readiness discussion all in favor I I opposed I motion passes 41 so social studies Pearson grade 6 world history Advanced and grade 12 US Government honors discussion Mr toyer this one again I just think we can do better other discussion M rier and um Mr Martin if

113we what's the time frame that if we don't choose something then we have to go back to the drawing board with this well you'd have to go back through the whole process which would be an initial adoption uh and then an opportunity for submission of objections to that adoption and then within 30 days later another public hearing such as this so it's a minimum of 60 days but wouldn't work out quite that way because of the scheduling of your board meetings over the last next couple of months yes and um the other question I have is these books were not hard copies the were these were our electronic C help me out I can't remember and that's what I need to clar verify I think some of them were paperbacks but are they some of

114them I thought were available electronically yes so the students will have access to them electronically okay that's what I need to clarification on okay other discussion all in favor I opposed I I okay motion fails four uh4 is that the last textbook y okay the next item on the agenda is non agenda public comment Mr Martin please address the agenda item non-agenda public comment the uh rules that I provided before still apply at this time the subject of comment is limited to items not on the agenda uh the items that are on Public public hearing including the instructional materials option excuse me adoption can only be addressed at that time so you may not address that issue at this time the time allow per speaker is three minutes first speaker is Mr Don Armstrong good

115evening board uh for the record my name is Don Armstrong what I'm going to be talking to you about as teachers but before I start talking about that I want everybody the board Mr Martin the audience everybody watching to think back about the teach that affected your life the reason why I say this cuz I name I can name a few of them from elementary even some of the board members know some of my teachers from Mi you know miss fiser you know Jay Jackson Mr moer Mrs Fields Mrs Haynes even one of my administrators in high school who at the time I thought really didn't care for me much and now I look back and go she was just trying to make me a better man and make me grow up and I actually

116have to thank her actually I'll do it tonight personally thank you Miss doer the reason why I bring this to your attention is I want you guys to think about our teachers that half paycheck that they might be short for whatever reason it was their reason our reason doesn't matter matter at this moment it's communication and we have to learn to be more communication with these teachers our staff they're going to be huren and we need to start looking at different ways that we can help them look I'm a single father I know what's like to live off that salary they struggle they plan and plan and plan and I think we need to start looking at different options even if we have to send out monthly newsletters to remind them what's going on they

117deserve that respect because somewhere down the road even you Dr Graham a teacher impacted your life we have some great teachers here I'm afraid we could lose them because of something like this you know this we're still going through a recession it still hurts them so we need to start looking at as a community as a board what we can do to help our teachers out and to make sure this does doesn't happen again so I asked the board and Dr Graham to please start looking in different ways to make sure this can never happen again to our teachers they deserve it because they're there for our kids it's time that we stand up and we're there for them thank you next speaker is George Fox I'm not talking about Finance y uh but at

118uh but I it did distract me that at the briefing this afternoon because I did have a comment in the regards with the spaghetti strap issue Steve that you know so well um in the policy that the board adopts in this is the one thing I haven't heard about is giving any student out of the code a reasonable chance to get into code I I through all this I mean the girl stood up here and said I would have put a jacket on if someone had given it to me so I think if you do adapt some type of policy that that should be first and foremost because they're only kids after all and they do make mistakes so um that's all I have my only comment for tonight thank you next speaker is Miss

119Barbara cosma my name is Barbara cosma I'm a staffing specialist with the district um and I'm speaking about the paycheck issue um I'm aware of the fact that article 1502 um sets the pay delivery um for the initial paycheck of the year and I know that that's a binding contract however I am asking the board to consider looking at um article 1803 which would allow for discussions to amend that portion to consider a stable August 15th paycheck delivery each year uh one of the things I'm sure the board is aware maybe others also is the fact that the legislature um made some changes that caused us to have to make changes of Our Own in our school calendar and the impact um has resulted in a delayed paycheck I've been in this District for eight

120years and I've always received an August 15th paycheck until this year uh one of the things I'm not sure has been taken into consideration is the tax ramifications of the action with the first paycheck coming August 31st that shifts more of our salary for 201516 um school year into the tax year 2016 uh it's my understanding that the leg is lure possibly has rescinded uh the requirement that we start um as late as we have to start this year for the next school year and that we might consider moving back to an earlier start date if that happens again what'll happen is that more income from the 16117 school year will be shifted also into tax year 2016 so for some people that could end up having an impact on such things as their tax

121bracket or the taxability of Social Security as in my case my husband is beg beginning to collect Social Security and um how much uh income U determines how much of that social security check is taxable so there's a tax implication here of Shifting around money that needs to not happen we need a stable predictable calendar year based uh pay delivery system that does not fluctuate um additionally there was another tax implication because of uh not having that August 15th paycheck that meant that we did not have income to cover the pre-tax deductions of premiums and whatnot that would otherwise have been paid from an August 15th uh paycheck last year we received a partial paycheck August 15 2014 but from that the premiums the pre-tax deductions in the after tax deductions for premiums were taken

122from the last August 15th check um in addition to the the financial impact of not only having a delayed paycheck but also having in my case an additional 83 thank you Miss Cosman your time's up mayam next speaker is Mr Kevin regel hello I wanted to discuss the progress or decline in the education of our students under Dr Graham and her administrative team during the First full year with this administration at the helm the data shows shocking declines number one the number of students in Lee County in Reading scoring at grade level or higher was tied for the lowest score spanning the last decade at 59% number two the number of students in math scoring at grade level or higher was the second lowest score over the last decade at 62% number three the writing

123scores dropped again coming in at 55% of students writing on grade level or higher this is the lowest score in Lee County schools in the modern era number four the number of students in science at grade level or higher stayed exactly the same from the year before which was Dr Burke's tenure scores did not increase and as the science exam scores begin to be reported for this year we're soon to see another drop in scores based on those under year two the results are being released this summer number five fifth grade science scores dropped again two percentage points from the previous year we're now two points behind the state average number six eighth grade science test scores dropped a percentage point and we're a point behind the state average number seven high school biology test

124scores dropped a dismal percentage points we are now eight eight percentage points behind the state average number eight 11th grade high school US History exam scores dropped three percentage points we are now six points behind the state average number nine the number of a schools decreased from 38 to 36 we're down 5% in that area number 10 the number of f schools increase from 7 to 10 before the cut scores are shown that's an increase in 4 3% in failing schools in this District number 11 the number of positions in this Administration has increased as has the budget I just noticed Dr Spyro went from 97,000 to 117,000 and got a $20,000 raise unless I'm wrong these results we see do not match the increase in spending in fact we're decreasing and going in the

125opposite direction while we're growing this administrative team despite poor performance these results are unfailing how do we tolerate these results over the last two years thank you for listening next speaker is M Jennifer mcfaden I've been teaching with the school district of Lee County for 12 years and the complicated pay schedule has caused a financial hardship for um me as well as many other employees of the school district and I'm asking that we put an end to all of this um these problems with the pay schedule and just pay everybody now that we're on direct deposit we're able to do this there's no more pay paper checks and we're not bound by the um school schedule as far as uh pay periods and paychecks dates why don't we just pay everybody on the 15th and

126the end of the month and spread it out evenly over the entire calendar year and avoid all of these problems from happening again in the future because this has happened before and um it's really hard for us to get through the summer financially thank you next speaker is Miss Remy Hall even on April 29th every parent with the child enrolled in a class that would be given an EOC was sent an email from the district office stating that the 30% would no longer count M Miss I'm I'm sorry proceed excuse me tonight three of you voted to change your vote I think you guys have made a terrible mistake for Lee County students the data that was discussed here tonight is very hard to understand we were told the Civics information I paid close attention

127to because my daughter took that test we were told the Civics test had a 97% pass rate we we don't even know what that means we are going to see tons of students drop letter grades they may not they may not fail the class but they may go from a honor roll to B honor roll or no honor roll at all our children went into these exams told they would not count I have the email you think that the spaghetti strap issue went National wait on this because I'm telling you guys what you just did to our children tonight I'm I'm appalled last Monday night I was at a meeting at my church and there was a teacher sitting in my group who was so upset she could barely speak the entire meeting I pulled

128her aside afterwards and asked if something was wrong she told me she was faced with cancelling her family vacation due to her paycheck being about $1,000 short what are we doing you guys we are going to put teachers back in the classroom in August worried about paying their bills is that how we want teachers starting kindergarten can you imagine having a room full of kindergarteners worrying if your water is going to be on when you get home that's the situation I'm working with other churches to see how we can provide food to these teachers in August that are going to be short for single parents it's a huge huge problem $1,000 means may not seem much to a lot of us but for some people in our County it is huge I urge you guys

129to act on this tonight for our teachers and I also urge the three of you that rescinded your vote to think long and hard because I promise you this will be national news if you leave it how you just voted those are all the cards Miss Morgan Mary Orthodox who what happened here tonight was a travesty when I came to this board and I give the information about the 30% when you voted out I gave accurate information but don't take my word because I'm uncredible you can go to the Tampa Bay Times go to the archives pull up August 15th and see exactly what Pam Stewart said State messed up now you're letting them bully you and by doing that what example have you just shown our children what have you taught our children I

130can change my mind anytime I feel like if you're not going to be accountable why do those children have to be accountable and it's awful odd it's the same three that ride in the car together to different meetings you can laugh all you want Pam right we did yeah I know you did now I have to ask what Sunshine laws were violated along the way you guys made a decision a statement went across this district and then you resend on your decision oh it's going National and there's going to be a lawsuit the citizens have had enough I think there needs to be a recall on this whole school board now the statistics that came out thank you Kevin I was going to do that how do you sit here and justify renewing a contract

131and giving bonus money to a superintendent that's failing our children you can live with yourself and put your heads down on your pillow at night with a clear conscience two of you were going to make a motion Genie I do commend you for trying to bring a discussion on the contract shame on the rest of you either you guys are not paying attention to what's happening across this District or you really do not care and it tends to the people the ones I'm talking to in the public you don't care you're more worried about what the state thinks well let me explain something to you statutes are not laws people this is a common law state the state is in violation of the Constitution you are in violation of the Constitution by abiding by unjust

132laws and in doing so you are hurting our children and then you're going to sit here and say we care about your children we're here for the best interest of your children you just screwed them royally tonight shame on you I hope you're proud Chris quacken Bush Mary tells it like it is and I must too because it's true thank you jeie for standing up on many occasions now and thank you Steve for backing her up and standing up too and thank you all for voting that terrible book down tonight the sixth grade my world history but I'm sorry we will'll have to agree to disagree after that because playing with Pam Stewart in the sandbox is not as important as keeping promises to our kids and to our parents and to our district over

133and over and over again we feel like wow what did just happen did they go back on themselves again what's going on here we can't trust them at all and as far as the review of Nancy Graham I have never seen a contract renewed for two years beyond the next election without even ever doing a review in public what kind of order of business is that why was it that you didn't have the review information available to all of you board members on that day so that you could discuss it I believe the answer lies with Nancy Graham and her ability to manipulate the agenda along with the board chair so I'm I'm really worried about how this board is run how the district is run and I really wish that we could have a

134real board that makes real decisions with real people in mind thank you Bob Pinda sorry I've had to revise this throughout this meeting because so much has gone on tonight that I couldn't hardly believe my eyes and as a result I really think that we need to put in a full Liquor Bar maybe right back here we could raise some revenue for Mr Fox okay all joking aside um Mrs Graham Parent Link only lets us see what's already in use it has nothing to do with us finding out what our kids are going to be using next year so to say after it's already done and adopted you can go on parently L and see it that's not a credible statement also you've heard me speak to you before about the adoption process I was

135on the Hope process and if you if you remember I only attended for the first 50 minutes because it was mind control it was ridiculous um the the adoption process needs to be changed it's flawed okay and I really urge at least the two members that are willing to do something about something to look into that that adoption process for next year needs to be changed okay I'm very concerned about comments from board member Mary Fischer regarding our red shirts saying that you support the First Amendment but we can't be taken seriously by you because we attack someone personally have you read the first amendment have you read The Federalist Papers have you read the Anti-Federalist papers are you aware that every single solitary Founding Father understood that popular speech needs no protection that it

136is unpopular speech and in fact disparaging speech that specifically needs protection because speech that goes against government officials is in danger of being quashed by tyrannical beings if you seriously think that we shouldn't be taken seriously because we verbally call out for Nancy Grahams or any tyrants removal then you clearly don't don't understand the First Amendment the Bill of Rights the Constitution as a whole or the founding father's reasons for asserting sovereignty of the citizenry over government and if we can agree that you don't understand those things we can then by extension agree that you do not understand your role on this board it is not to be a unit or a team and have 50 votes you're not supposed to be buddies and ride together to a cross state meetings talking with each other

137out of the sight of the sunshine you five and soon to be 7 are supposed to be adversaries to some extent representing the people who elected you not each other I would hope that you would spend more time criticizing your own actions and that of the superintendent than worry about protecting her from the sovereignty of ticked off citizenry if you honestly thought for one second that your words would somehow intimidate the citizens I assure you you misunderstand the citizenry and the founding of this once great nation thank you may scado I don't need to come to these meetings I'm a grandparent I can watch on channel 99 so do you know why I come because I watch your face expressions and I watch the way you interact I can read people before a vote I

138see one look at the other just now with the comments I seen one look at the other as you can tell I'm making eye contact with you like a puppet with a string that's exactly what I see when I come here it's almost entertaining because I already know you rubber stamped everything before we got here that was very clear and evident so I don't need to be sitting here and neither to anybody else that's the reason why we haven't packed your room we don't need to we' seen it firsthand you ran in the election on lies and we fell for your lies we will not make that mistake again we will not and yes what Chris said about playing nice in a sandbox Mr Morton you basically threatened our teachers tonight by saying if they

139didn't comply that there could be some kind of a problem again bullying but yet we have a zero tolerance here don't forget okay our kids can't do anything without being written up how would you like it if we started writing new people up oh that's right that's why we have the ethics commissions so that we can write you up Kathleen chia Jennifer Long speaking earlier um I have uh couple published articles concerning Lee County School Board in particular and I believe I emailed um each and every one of you a copy of uh my recent one in April when you had passed um holding the the children you know and the 30% harmless well now here sits my child in the audience watching you go back and forth like a repeat of last fall and

140looking like a bunch of liars and a bunch of Hypocrites and somebody again that has let her down and and this is just more child abuse happening over again thank you Mr toyer for being the only one to respond to my email and also for your motion this evening um it seems that you're one of a majority in uh um a very big Monopoly going on right here Sia hello my name is s SAS and you probably wondering what I just said what I just said is the name of a child who is so loved by his parents that they gave him a long name including all of the things that had a long life because they wish the very best for their child it comes from a Korean folk tale I'm saying this for

141two reasons first I wanted to illustrate the value parents place on their children the parents grandparents neighbors and community members who come here to speak feel just as strongly about the children in our school district such secondly I wanted to emphasize the fact that many people who come here feel that they may as well be speaking in Korean for all the attention you pay to what we say at the last board meeting many people spoke out against the automatic extension of superintendent Graham's contract my mom even commented that even if you liked the superintendent and wanted to keep her in position you should renegotiate the contract rather than just automatically extend it because the terms are not in the best interest of the children the schools the taxpayers or the community as a whole not

142only didn't you listen to those of those of us who spoke you didn't even give Miss doer the opportunity to speak and basically told her to shut up by not seconding her motion to discuss the contract given the sunshine laws that was the only opportunity to miss for Miss doer had to discuss the position on the matter with the other board members you must be really scared if you don't even give the matter of open debate I don't expect you to agree with everything that the people have to say after all there's usually more than one position mentioned however failure to at least listen and weigh the comments of those who elect you and refusal to even consider each other's opinion is in my mind the height of arrogance thank you terara Jenner out of

143the mouths of babes I'm very concerned by the 3-2 vote tonight regarding the eoc's with the exception of Mr Tober and Miss doger I would say that the board has shown a very distinct lack of Integrity something that's regularly highlighted on these screens as the word of the week and Mr Martin you've again shown your bias and your legal advice offered to the board let me be perfectly clear Mr Martin failed to explicitly State a very real risk that the school district is facing because if your vote tonight by counting the eoc's for 30% of the grade when it was explicitly stated that this would not happen you all run the risk of a class action lawsuit brought by those whose grades will be lowered as a result of a quote reasonable Reliance upon the

144school board's April vote I can all but guarantee that a class action lawsuit will occur on the other hand threats that the state would withhold finances or have any direct impact on our school district frankly would be Hollow at best because they're not going to do anything this far out or this close to an election and especially when it could harm and impact our students it is a political hot potato for them to deal with it especially given their inaction and their misstep on this whole matter this would be tied up in the courts for decades while they try to recover that money from our school district or withhold it from our school district I strongly suggest that you bring this issue back to a vote now that the very real risk of a class

145action lawsuit is known by you I am not a health care I'm a healthc care attorney I'm not licensed in the State of Florida but I'm sure that if you uh have a conversation with somebody who can talk to you about this thing called reasonable Reliance to your detriment and understand that there are serious risks that you're going to be facing here and you weigh those reasonably you might want to reconsider this vote you've done it in the past and it would be nice to see a reconsideration go the right way this time additionally I'm going to encourage you again I've mentioned this before and I believe it might have been Mr Tober that hinted at it previously but I'm also going to encourage you to bring a motion or whatever you might need to

146do in order to move the seating arrangement between these two so that they're on opposite ends of the this dis so that their conversations come through the microphone for everyone to hear not just those in the audience but those you those of you on the board because he's your attorney he's your legal counsel and it really smacks of an appearance of impropriety and a failure for him to comply with what his fiduciary duty is to you thank you very much that concludes non- aggenda public comment board member comments Miss fiser I have no comments right now thank you Mrs doer I I am going to make a couple of comments um in fact um I'm sure that all of you have received the same emails that I have about um the pay checks as far

147as our teachers and the um lack of communication or lack of they got the communication but due to the time that it went in maybe they didn't see the communication I had a meeting with Dr Graham a year ago this past June and I met with I brought in a company that what they do is they partner with districts and they give loans to employees of school districts um Public Service employees police um firemen just because you have it have a job they give you um they give you an automatic loan no questions asked um I believe that the um I want to say that the superintendent I called her about this the other night after I had had a few phone calls from some teachers and I told them that I would call the

148superintendent and see if there was something that we could do because our teachers deserve better than what they're getting and the fact that we communicated with them during a time of year when they've got so much on their plate um I I can understand why they might miss reading a newsletter um and like I I expressed to the superintendent maybe we need to send out something that says alert alert alert or something you know that really grabs somebody's attention because um the fact that I know if the teachers had known there was something in that newsletter that affected their paycheck they would have read it um I'm glad that we are going to do something that will provide some relief however I am suggesting that we go beyond that that um I have had conversations

149here at this table in fact I believe one of the um speakers tonight spoke to this one of the teachers spoke to the fact that you know divide our pay up so that we will know exactly what we're going to get every year no matter what happens with the legislature in changing the in changing the um the the calendar are telling you when you have to change the calendar I've said it again and I'm going to say it again we need to look at at taking a teacher's salary and dividing it into 26 paychecks and pay them its automatic deposit and they will know what their pay is going to be all during the year and um I would say that this is something that in the future we need to look at before teachers

150are affected by this as I said last year I predicted that we were going to have this situation I sat right here in this building with the superintendent and I think we had two or three staff members in there I'm not sure how many staff members we had some people from also um representatives from I know we're here from tal I don't remember spal had anybody or not I'd have to go back on and look at my my uh calendar to see who I was in that meeting but I said we are going to have a situation next summer because of the time frame of teachers being out and the calendar blah blah blah and unfortunately I was hoping that my prediction would be wrong but it was actually it came to pass and so

151here we are and our teachers are are um skipping vacations trying to get refunds on flights because they don't know how they're going to pay their mortgages and everything else so it's our responsibility to do something about that Mr toyer um I I was going to have none the only thing I I have to do is um one of the speakers made a comment and I have to agree with her I apologize publicly to miss doer um even though I wasn't going to support her motion on uh for the superintendent for different reasons than people would expect um I should have afforded her the professional courtesy of given her the opportunity to speak and for that I apologize um and I have nothing else here and I apologize for the giggle with regarding to the

152writing together because we were just discussing that this afterno afternoon and how we need to make sure we get all of our vehicles here at the district to where they are actually drivable so that we can drive up separately the intent and the Heart of people when the three of us when we rode together to CMI was because we wanted to save money um and believe it or not we discussed other things besides besides anything that would be in the sunshine lesson learned we shouldn't have done it there was nothing that was I you know and I can give you I kept pretty good track of what we discussed because I had I wanted to be prepared just in case so lesson learned lesson learned we won't be doing it again um payroll I understand

153uh I every time the new calendar would come out each year I would look to find out what day do I start back to school and if I and I would automatically start trying to plan and work it out because it always varied this was back many years ago and those who have been hired and working within recent years have seen that okay we did have an earlier start dating people usually did have a paycheck by the 15th um that hasn't always been the case several years ago um when Dr Browder was here we all submitting ideas and ways to save money one of the ways that I suggested of saving money was to instead of giving teachers the lump payment sum was to just go ahead and keep the money into that interest bearing

154account and just pay it out twice a month throughout the year um I believe that um it's something that I don't know whether it would happen within T negotiations or how that would transpire but I do I and I hope that with tal negotiations they will be looking at uh 2 for pay period um so that it's incremented throughout the the year appropriately so you know how to plan and um I just hope people use wisdom if they take out any loans or other pieces to find make sure you're choosing things that will be the most advantageous to you and your family okay you done okay and and I have no comment Mr Martin none this evening thank you gr I just want to share that the pay schedule is negotiable and that uh Dr

155Atkins has already been in conversation with tal leadership also uh the uh the uh two credit unions and we've shared this with anybody that's contacted us have specific opport unities just for teachers and School District employees as well as um there's a contract sitting on my desk uh to sign that is another company that offers those services with payroll deduction um opportunities it is not our business to um promote or tell people how to manage their finances but uh it is an opportunity to uh have another option for those that believe there's an issue the issue this year is that because teachers are coming back later they will arrive on August 17th which means they miss the August 15th pay uh also we there we have we have several options and and we can pay

156them all year we can pay them when they work and then they get it all and then there's nothing in the summer and uh this year's Schedule H has been a challenge uh Dr desmore and I have already spoken about about that paay schedule even though it's out there about making it somehow more um I don't want to say accessible because it's accessible but we want to do it more often and so we've already worked through what that will look like next year uh so but nobody's been shorted money there were many many sample runs done to be sure of that and um the one person that was insistent that she had been shorted was never willing to give her his name so we couldn't check that one but we as a result of that

157concern there were multiple samples run and every time the dollars came out correctly I think the other thing that complicated issues was that benefits had to be taken out because again because of the timing in August and so that perhaps people weren't expecting that if they had not reviewed the schedule so we are working to U Get rid of any of those types of situations for the future again thank you for allowing me to lead this District the next schedule meetings of the board are on Tuesday July 28th when there's a special school board meeting at 2m followed by a board briefing special school board meeting for public hearing to adopt the fiscal year 16 tenative budget at 5:05 p.m. and a six and a school board Action meeting at 6 pm at this point

158having no other business to come before this body I will entertain a motion for adjournment so moved Mrs Doer second second by Mrs fiser all in favor I e e