001good evening ladies and gentlemen we are ready to begin this evening's board meeting school board meeting of february 22nd is now called to order the time is 601 and i'm going to just drop protocols for this evening we have a guest tonight a student guest and i'm gonna have him read this bill that i would be reading because today we really don't have a lot for our student to be reading so i'm gonna share with him this evening please prior to the start of this evening's meeting we have been enjoying music from the north fort myers brass cornet this select group of musical students is under the direction of sarah johnson and have received superior ratings at the district solo and ambassador festival if you would like to see more performances by this group they
002will be performing live at this year's lee county schools arts walk on friday march 4th please give this amazing group of students another round of applause at this time we will take a brief pause so that the performers can clear their area thank you so much again and thank you for being the first ones back after the holidays we appreciate you the agenda five items under academic services three items under business services two items under human res resources two items under information systems and ten items under operations and four items under other business board members is there a motion to adopt the agenda i'll move to adopt the agenda as printed thank you miss fisher i'll second it thank you miss fawn it has been moved by mrs fisher and seconded by ms vaughn please
003record your vote it's coming up now and miss roman i don't believe i'm going to be able to see that so if you could oh thank you that didn't come up yes okay motion passes 7-0 you have to love technology so sorry about the delays miss juvenelli will lead us in the invocation after which miss vaughn will lead us in the presentation colors and the pledge of allegiance miss giovannelli please introduce your guest for the invocation yes please rise russell howard is the lead pastor of the mcgregor baptist church born in jacksonville beach florida he is the middle of three sons of mr mrs eb howard both of whom will are still living and healthy he married his homegirl hometown girl the former gayle white on october 22 1983 and they are proud parents of
004two sons after graduating first in his class at valdosta state university now the university of dalston georgia in the spring of 1983 reverend russell howard entered the mid mid-america baptist the theological seminary in memphis tennessee he graduated with seminary school with the master of divinity and at christmas time in 1986. for nearly 14 years he has served as the lead pastor translating his vision and direction to all staff and lay leadership of the 6 000 member church please welcome reverend russell howard lord we are so grateful for the opportunity to and to exercise this responsibility to which you have called this board my prayer for them i suppose especially this evening because here we are but beyond this evening and all that they aspire to accomplish that they would would first feel the weight of
005making decisions that impact the lives of nearly a hundred thousand students with the stated goal their stated goal that those students would arrive at their highest potential that is a magnificently large scale aspiration but lord may they also see the worth of impacting those lives from the from the pinnacle of policy to the intimacy of connection as teachers and students establish those mentoring relationships that will impact and be remembered up to a lifetime and then lord may they preside with wisdom over this magnificent school system may they understand that all authority on this earth is derived from the ultimate authority of heaven and may they own that stewardship with both the gravity and the grace that it demands lord i thank you as a citizen of lee county for those who among us are willing
006to step into these significant seats bear this significant weight accomplish this significant worth and seek this wisdom may they know that they are supported by the prayers of your people as they serve in jesus name i pray amen god bless y'all thank y'all miss vaughn yes introducing the cadet who is presenting the national colors for our pledge of allegiance tonight is lieutenant colonel mario a johnson senior army instructor from island coast high school lieutenant colonel mario johnson served 24 years in the army in numerous assignments and retired as the professor of military science the rot department our i'm sorry rotc department head for the university of central florida this is lieutenant colonel's seventh year as a jrotc instructor in the district welcome and thank you for your service thank you presenting the colors tonight is
007cadet bryce davis the cadet commander of the island coast high school junior rotc cadet davis played an instrumental part in island coast raider mail team winning the district championship and placing third overall in florida state championship he is actively involved in all junior ltc teams and is currently the commander of the robotics team competing at the district level cadet davis is committed to enlist in the united states army as an engineer please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you please be seated this evening student representative is karsten branch carson is a senior at cypress lake high school he is actively involved
008in his school serving as the vice president of the senior class student government and has previously participated as part of his school's lacrosse team he attends all the extra extra curriculum events including events off campus carson enjoys volunteering at gladiola's food pantry during his elementary years he during his elementary years he began employment in april 2020 at cypress cove retirement home and has been employed at the same job for two years after high school carsten plans to complete the police academy and pursue his dreams of becoming a resource officer at cypress lake high school through the lee county sheriff's department please welcome karsten we now have a special 15-minute presentation to the board pursuant to board policy 1.11 welcome mr roper presentation i'm altitudinally challenged i'm sorry mr roper yes if you would come up
009to the front please okay sorry mr neely i just because he's presenting i'd rather him be up here so we can thank you and this will be a 15 minute presentation can you hear me okay yes yes very good thank you do i wait for the time or yeah okay my name is robert roper i'm with operation millstone let me begin by asking a question is there a void or lack of supply of good books within the litter with literary value that are not objectionable books like the tuttle twins kids book series books that teach morality and character building now that was a rhetorical question because i typed in my google search engine this morning book series that teach good morals in eight point four or in point eight four seconds there were four billion
010three hundred and thirty million hits there's no shortage of good books that are available to the school districts my wife and i and the grandparents read to our children from before they were born and well after they could read on their own they loved it and we loved it we read books like the secret three but we would probably never read a book like worm loves worm a book about gay marriage because the content was not appropriate in our home and we consider that subject would not have been age appropriate for our children we read horton hears a who a great book that builds character the value of keeping your word but we would have passed on and tango makes three a book about two male penguins hatching an egg and raising a little girl
011penguin because they were not right for our family they may be fine for other families and i stand to protect the rights of those families to read that material to their own children and discuss those sensitive topics in their own home but these are not books or conversations that are appropriate for all children in the public setting no one here is advocating banning these books putting the power in the hands of the parent to decide is what we want a book in the hands of an adult can be taught any way the adult chooses worm loves worm can be taught in one classroom the teacher could hold up the book and say this is the world we live in today students get on with the program in the very next classroom another teacher could hold
012up the same book and say this is an example of the evils of our world today that's the problems with school teaching world views if ward cleaver wants to read to his children a book titled e is for ethics he does not need the school system correcting him with the book called the gay bc's all sides should be able to agree that the book in the hands of a parent in the presence of their own children is powerful it's pure the same book taught in the classroom can be indoctrination it can be political you see it's not the book that's the problem or missing the whole thing it's not even the content it's the venue these books do not belong in a public school library or classroom they belong in the hands of a loving
013and caring parent that knows their child the maturity of their child and what that child needs operations millstone's mission is to protect childhood innocence i think we can all agree that's not a bad thing in fact you already do that you do not provide a sampling of various types of tobacco products to students so they can be educated on the addictive nature of nicotine you do not provide samples of the various types of alcohol beer and wine to students in order for them to experience it because they're going to be exposed to it later in life or in college you don't provide the drugs found on college campuses crack meth marijuana prescription medications so that they can prepare for college life yet in the media center you feel the need to provide a sampling of
014violence premeditated murder teen suicide material that teaches children to hate themselves based on the color of their skin incest masturbation pedophilia underage sex anal and oral sex cruelty to animals and sex with animals you might be tempted to point out that reading about something and actually experience it are two different things on that topic you would be totally wrong the consumption of pornography including written material of an illicit sexual nature presented to a child in their developmental years has been scientifically proven to be very harmful look it up yourself look at the scientific proof from medical professionals the national institute for health the national library of medicine the american psychological association the list goes on in fact you would be hard-pressed to find a legitimate and i emphasize legitimate source that would stand behind the
015introduction of sexual content in the pre-teen or teen years if a student were to put the words of the contents of some of these books into their assigned laptop or media computer search engine it would immediately be blocked and the student may even be visited by law enforcement if he typed in something about killing a teacher why would you freely give access to the same material in print to a student that you just blocked on the internet it makes no sense for a child up through teen years reading graphic or sexually explicit material actually rewrites their brain it rewires it did you hear me that is why we have the best selling books on the market today called every man's battle how to beat sexual addictions and or diction addictions to pornography when children are
016exposed to sexually explicit content studies prove that they withdraw from their parents your basic sexual predator and pedophile they know this and they employ this every day are the schools contributing to the fact that florida ranks number three in the nation for trafficking of minors in the sex trade sometimes what is presented in the classroom goes far beyond education operation millstone has no desire whatsoever to ban a single book let me say that again we do not advocate for book banning i think we can agree that not all reading material is appropriate for all ages we did not accuse you of book banning or censorship when you removed this book it's perfectly normal written for 10 year olds it contained information content subject matter and illustrations that were inappropriate for that age level by the
017way can i bring to your attention that you have the companion book to it's not the stork but it's written for four-year-olds and it has pictures of naked people in it and a man and a woman in a bed written for four-year-olds this is not censorship on your part or mind when you take action to protect children and parents rights one of the desires of operation millstone is the freedom of choice i think we can agree that freedom for a parent to raise their own children is foundational in our nation true freedom will include good options for both sides all parents all students i think you would agree that all parents regardless of their political or religious affiliation have the right to raise their own children in the way that is compatible with their own
018lifestyles including directing the school what their child will be reading and what they're taught can we agree that the district's destiny opt-out program is not the solution the destiny program does not even come close to meeting the requirements of the law by the way speaking of the law can we agree that because the law may allow certain content to be taught does not mean the content is required to be taught by law the reason the destiny program cannot work in its current form is the district does not know what books they have nor do they know where they're located on january 11th i asked five school board members to follow up on books that were clearly inappropriate content they were in middle schools ages 10 to 14. to mrs jordan's credit she was the only
019one that followed up with me concerning the book titled more happy than not miss jordan your report uncovered two additional books that my report did not have which source is true it's the same source which fact is true operation millstone did a public records request for a book titled the kite runner previously i was i was told there was four copies and two schools the second time i asked the same question from the same source i got 24 copies in 15 schools which set of facts is true at the last action meeting some very brave students faced the giant and read objectionable materials directly from the pages of selected books immediately after those presentations a reporter for wink news was told by an official of the district that those books did not exist in lee
020county public schools which fact is correct it's the same source in the same meeting the board chair proudly said we don't have fifty shades of grey not something to brag about we don't have i am jazz but you didn't even know that you had the companion book being jazz my life as a transgender teen in five middle schools across the county if a parent cannot know how can they use the destiny program to guard their children one way would be to make this program work would be for the district to be transparent and list all the books paper or digital in the media center or in the classroom on a website in real time for all taxpayers so parents can actually see what books the child's have child has access to i submit to you
021had the district been transparent five or six years ago when we made these original requests we wouldn't be having this conversation today did you know that a number of neighboring school districts right here in southwest florida have very few of these books in fact one district has none i think it's glades county here's an amazing fact education still takes place at those schools and kids are receiving high school diplomas most parents consider their child to be a gift from god the district no doubt can see the value of educating these children but many overlook that is that outside the family setting children are a very lucrative commodity i could show you example after example of toy manufacturers pro produce producers of drinks cereals shoe sales clothing there's gold in them there are hills the world
022knows it but do you do you know that planned parenthood's new cash cow is providing gender altering drugs that have to be taken for a lifetime and by far their biggest market is age 12 years old kids are business do you think the explosion of gender surgery clinics across the nation is because they just want to be nice to kids no follow the money it is political also organizations like human rights campaign equality florida cecus the trevor project various unions so this goes on and on these organizations need children to continue to exist these are political pacts not educators yet we have allowed their influence to enter the school in the media centers i'm just one person you have 13 000 employees if i have to point out to you that you have the companion
023book to i am jazz and didn't know it and that you have a companion book that's perfectly normal and didn't know it the system is broken i'm going to quote a good friend of mine that wrote this book stores pick and choose which books they want to sell public libraries pick and choose which books to stock publishers pick and choose which books to print putting a book in or taking it out of the lee county school system is no different there is a difference between choice and censorship people can write what they want we have the right to decide whether we want to read it there's also a difference between liberty and licentiousness liberty is the right to do good licentiousness is the thought that it's okay to do whatever you want taking these books
024out is defending liberty plain and simple if a parent wants their children to read these books they can do it outside the school system not in members of the community clergy parents local organizations even children have given public comment and ask you to take action i have personally heard from teachers staff media professionals all folks that are not particularly thrilled about this all eyes are on you i'm asking you to do what more than one district in florida has done quarantine these books immediately until they can be determined to be appropriate convene a citizens group that would include not just school district employees but constituents from the community including various organizations including those who deal with youth clergy parents concerned citizens immediately pass a motion to restrict the re-entering of these materials without a proper
025and timely public advertisement of the intent to put these books back in that were removed establish a way to keep the books out to begin with my prayer is that you do the right thing because it's the right thing not because you're reacting to public comment either for or against i want to thank you for the privilege to speak to you on an extended period of time 15 minutes was not nearly long enough but i appreciate you bearing with me on this thank you thank you mr rooper i'm sorry i'm sorry there's no clapping thank you all right enforcement chair so the clapping role is with regards to public comment so when there's clapping during public comment that's that's that's where this is a presentation this was a presentation the next item on the agenda
026is public comments mr pre-bruno please address the item of public comment thank you madam chair school board policy provides the opportunity at this point in the meeting to address the board concerning any matter on this meeting's agenda or any other matter relevant to the operation of the school district if you completed a public comment card please put it in the basket provided in the back if you need a public comment card they are provided by our staff located in the hallway outside of the boardroom the rules concerning public comment are posted in and will be made from the microphone in the back of the room please be advised that the board will not respond during public comment to remarks made by speakers speakers and those attending the meeting are expected to act in a respectful
027manner the purpose of public comment is to provide feedback on school district issues abusive language is prohibited in addition clapping hissing and booing unreasonably loud and or offensive language swearing cursing or display of temper during the public comment time is prohibited speakers who fail to follow proper decorum in the chambers will be ruled out of order any speaker continuing with such remarks will be required to relinquish the microphone per board policy 1.11 and may be removed from the chambers there will be one warning and we ask that you govern yourself accordingly we will take recesses as necessary if there is not decorum in the chambers please remember that it is unlawful in a second-degree misdemeanor to knowingly disrupt or interfere with the school board meeting for board policy 1.11 the time per speaker is 3
028minutes if there are 20 speakers 2 minutes if there are 30 speakers and 1 minute if there are 31 speakers or more the maximum time allotted for public comment is one hour 60 speakers you'll find a countdown on the big screen in the front of the room once your time has elapsed the microphone will automatically shut off please state your name when you approach the microphone i will call your names five speakers at a time please follow the staff's direction when lining up madam chair there are 25 speakers that wish to address the board this evening okay i have 26. well one of them that was listed on here was mr roper with his special presentation so it's 25. thank you please make sure you have completed a public comment card if you intend to
029provide public comment this card is a public record identifying those who speak and providing contact information for staff for follow-up the cards are located with staff in here is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the board but did not fill out a comment card please raise your hand is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak that did not fill out a card i'm going to say it one more time is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the board but did not fill out a comment card cnn mr pre bruno please proceed thank you will the following individuals please line up dr edward drast shelley k tsc sharon mcgill lynette lobby okay well the following individuals please line up susan lorraine margiela mary ellen and barbara point of
030order what is the number and the amount of time it's going to be three minutes what is the number of speakers we have above 20 it was two no no it's 20 to 30. i'm sorry yeah 22. wait a minute hold on let me look at my chichi sorry i did it's two minutes it's two minutes per speaker thank you dr edward drast i want to thank pastor roper for an excellent comprehensive presentation he should be speaking for all the ministers in this community on this subject he is the only one that stepped forward at this point this material is something that needs to be addressed i would like to speak regarding one of the issues a book called the bluest eye by tony morrison it has been added to university reading list for college
031consumption it has not received any awards page 162. the confused mixtures of his memories of pauline who was a young girl and the doing of a wild and forbidden thing excited him and a bold of desire ran down his genitals giving it length and softening the lips of his anus surrounding all of this lust was a border of politeness he wanted to f her tenderly but tenderness would not hold the tightness of her privates was more than he could bear his soul seemed to slip down in his guts and fly out into her and the gigantic thrust he made in her provoked the only sound so when the child regained consciousness she was lying on the kitchen floor under a heavy quilt trying to connect the pain between her legs with the face of her
032mother looming over her yes i'm going to interrupt you for a second excuse me dr dress i'm going to interrupt you for a second so here's the thing some of these books are in high schools so we know those are kids who are going to be 13 14 15 16 17 year olds we may have some seven or eight year olds watching this meeting so i'm going to ask because i know they're not reading blue as i so i'm going to ask you to please be careful with the comments that you're going to be making and understand that we may have younger children who are watching these meetings with their parents please you have the ability to block this if it's inappropriate and if you block this from from their view what about the students
033who are consuming these materials these are all issues we've dealt with we're talking about mental health and the students ask yourself if this contributes to their good mental health and to the reduction in sexual assaults and rapes in this county thank you hello my name is sharon mcgill and since this is public schools week i thought the first thing i wanted to do and thought it was very important was to thank all the individuals in our district who show up every day and are responsible for providing students with a safe educational environment where they can prosper and grow without all of you public education would not exist at a briefing today from the curriculum committee they showed specifically two different ways that parents can challenge materials if they want for their child one was a
034destiny program and the other is a challenge form that can be filled out by any individual parent or a community member to challenge any kind of curriculum of book materials used in a curriculum in the classroom or in the library so there are options for parental rights and even operation millstone says what is objectionable to me may not be to you and so it's the parents responsibility to make that choice for each of their children not for a special interest group or other parents to make that decision for every child all 95 000 of them in the district because whatever your values are my kids don't need to be indoctrinated with your values either and by taking books out of the library and not making them available is indoctrination on your part which is a
035term that operation millstone and other conservative christians like to use so i would just like to say thank you again for the board and all the school employees in the district beloved by tony morrison so could you please state your name mary ellen thank you thank you they were young and so sick with the absence of women they had taken to calves yet they let the iron-eyed girl be so she could choose in spite of the fact that each one would have beaten the others too much to have her it took her a year to choose a long tough year of thrashing on palettes eaten up with dreams of her a year of yearning when rape seemed the solitary gift of life all in their twenties minus women effing cows dreaming of rape thrashing on
036pallids rubbing their thighs and wanting for the new girl by the certainty of giving her his sex paul d dropped 25 years from his recent memory a stair step before him was baby suggs replacement the new girl they dreamed of at night and effed cows for at dawn while waiting for her to choose the jumps man we're gonna we're gonna do this again if this is something that a seven-year-old can't hear then i'm gonna ask you to please not read it excuse me a seven-year-old's parent can take him away from the live feed the jump thought paul d from calf to a girl wasn't all that mighty not the leap hallie believed it would be and taking her in corn rather than her quarters a yard away from the cabins of others was had lost
037out was a gesture of tenderness hallie wanted privacy for her and got public display who could miss a ripple in a cornfield on a quake cloudless day he 6-0 and both of paul sat under brother pouring water from a gourd over their heads and through ice steaming with well water they watch the confusion of tassels in the field below i'm sorry we're going to go ahead and take a five minute recess and we'll return and as we are taking that recess you are reminded we will not be speaking on anything pertaining to what the board would be voting on so please if you will we'll be back in five minutes begin our meeting again and i just want to just make a statement before we start we know that there may be some children under
038age children perhaps who are watching and i just want to put a disclaimer out there for parents to please use their use your own judgment on what your children are watching because some of these books are intended for high school and i just want to make sure that is understood so if we could miss mary ellen and miss roman if you'll do her time please page 107 108 breakfast want some breakfast yes sir hungry yes sir here you go occasionally a kneeling man chose gunshot in his head as the price maybe of taking a bit of foreskin with him to jesus paul d did not know that then he was looking at his palsy hands smelling the guard listening to his soft grunt so like the doves as he stood before the man kneeling in
039mist on his right convinced he was next paul d wretched vomiting up nothing at all an observing guard smashed his shoulder with the rifle and the engaged one decided to skip the new man for the time being lest his pants and shoes good evening the kite runner by khaled hosseini he handed the cigarette to the guy next to him made a circle with the thumb and index finger of one hand poke the middle finger of his other hand through the circle post poked it in and out in and out i knew your mother did you know that i knew her real good i took her from behind by that creek over there the soldiers laughed one of them made a squealing sound i told hazan to keep walking what a tight little sugary c-u-n-t she
040had the soldier was saying shaking hands with all the others grinning page 75 to 76 i want all of you weaklings to do is hold him down can you manage that wally and kamal nodded they looked relieved asaf knelt behind hassan put his hands on hassan's hips and lifted his bare buttocks he kept one hand on hassan's back and undid his own belt buckle with his free hand he unzipped his jeans dropped his underwear he positioned himself behind hassan hassan didn't struggle he didn't even whimper he moved his head slightly and caught and i caught a glimpse of his face saw the resignation in it was a look i had never seen before it was a look of the lamb i've got 30 seconds left if you think that this is appropriate even in high
041school you gotta be crazy this is for parents to expose their kids to or let them read in a public library you let this in a public school even for high school oh my gosh dreaming in cuban by christina garcia could you please state your name lorraine margulies thank you lourdes's mouth and tongue were like mouths and tongues of a dozen experienced women rufino's body ached from the exertions his joints swelled like an arthritis he begged his wife for a few nights peace but lourdes's appeals only became more urgent her glossy black eyes were more important lourdes was reaching through rafino for something he could not give her she wasn't sure what the other soldier held lourdes's down as his partner took a knife from his holster carefully he sliced lourdes's writing pants off to
042her knees and ties them over her mouth he cut through her blouse without dislodging a single button and slither bra and panties in two then he placed the knife across her belly and raped her felicia told him how she'd left high school and answered an ad for an international escorts in the newspaper a prim woman with bob's hair and a throaty french accent asked felicia to remove her shoes and knee socks then made a note in her calf skin ledger she asked felicia to unbutton her blouse felicia's nipple tightened as she did so she knew her breasts were admired by the boys in santa teresa del mar finally madame trubeau insisted that felicia remove her skirt and panties walk the french woman ordered felicia felt her ample dimpled behind quake seductively as she moved your
043buttocks are too large for europe madame vibo told her but for here they will do 80. hugo and felicia stripped in their room dissolving easily into one another and made love against the white washed walls hugo bit felicia's breasts and lifts purplish bands of bruises on her upper thighs next speaker please my name is barbara thank you tricks by ellen hopkins i totally wanted to pop your cherry you were my first virgin and you'll probably be my last because sorry but virgin sex isn't very good so we'll both find your sponsor some old viagra stiff queen hopeful that buying a drink means buying a lay they were thick as flies but paige wants even more did you use your mouth your eyes lit up is she waiting for a blow-by-blow description i pretended he is
044and let his hands explore the rounds of breast move in tighter and tighter orbits and now fingers circled the heart center nubs raised like it's cold in here down my shorts in a single swift motion he is on me in me humiliating me in every way next book is 13 reasons why by jay asher hannah took off her shirt and let justin put his hands up her bra she came over to my table at lunch whispered the proposition in my ear and i had a heart on for the rest of the day i've had my ass grabbed before no big deal oh my god she screamed he's cramming his dick and his pants don't worry mrs crimson i thought no boy boys in here no alcohol no drugs no fun your top three things to
045do on weekends which is funny because whoever designed the list forgot to mention drinking and sex which would have been the most accurate response for most of our student body will the following individuals line up please tara jenner ian rankin amy keith olsen marsha ellis tara jenner i was planning on reading out of the next book and giving you the page numbers and the details bluntly i read these last night and it was difficult to sleep because here's one of the things that i looked at i'm a lawyer from another state i'm retired and when i look at the miller test which you guys went over sort of vaguely this afternoon you mentioned three components of that test and i was totally shocked when i realized that you missed a big component and that's the
046department of justice in november of 2021 said that there was actually only a two-pronged test when you're dealing with children and that the threshold was way lower than it was for adults i noticed that there were a lot of people in this room that are squeamish about what was read and i hear the board members squirming up there and the board attorney and the chairperson holding us hostage here for five minutes at a time saying we need to have a recess because you don't like what's being said at that microphone let me tell you something parents at home in front of their tv have a lot more control over their children than what they do when those children are sitting in a library unattended and unsupervised and have access to this type of material they
047can remove their children from their tvs a whole lot easier than they can eliminate access to these books from their children in the school district because they don't know what's in the libraries and if they don't know what's there they don't know what to remove their children from or to remove from their access so i will go on record right now for everyone who follows me anyone who's online right now if you've got minor children in the room or this subject matters a problem remove your kids now that's your right ian rankin i'll read from another stellar author sloppy firsts by megan mccafferty scotty is the most self-censoring foul mouth i know like every other jock he worships opie and anthony the afternoon talk radio duo and misogynistic masterminds behind whip them out wednesdays female
048motorists are encouraged to titty flash any male driver with a wow sign on his car and guess what's in my pants a female caller rubs a phone against her most private of aerials and male contestants try to guess whether she's sporting a brillo a triangle a hitler or a wood floor rob's recent claim to fame is that he celebrated an away game victory by persuading a freshman cheerleader to hide under his seagull's varsity jacket and suck him off in the back seat of the bus go and he says i can't think of one way to make it even better and then he slowly walks over to me cups my totally zit-free face in his hands and ever so gently kisses me on the lips we break away for a brief moment look each other in
049the eyes and smile we start kissing again but with more passion then we rumble onto the gymnastic mat that is conveniently laying on the floor and have the sweetest sexual experience ever to occur within the hallowed halls of pineville high pierre i've always admired your ability to fill out a pair of tidy whiteness and i'll never forget the night i found the night night i found the night i found out that you know your way around a clitoris so you in my wettest wildest dreams i felt his mouth on mine we were kissing kissing him didn't make my skin crawl i liked it next speaker please hi i'm keith olsen i'm reading also from the bluest eye by tony morrison he could have been an active homosexual but lacked the courage bestiality did not occur
050to him and sodomy was quite out of the question for did not experience sustained erections but could not endure the thought of somebody else's and besides the one thing that disgusted him more than entering and caressing a woman was caressing and being caressed by a man his intentions therefore gradually settled on those humans whose bodies were least offensive children he further limited his interest to little girls why do i have to die the little girls the little girls are the only things i'll miss do you know that when i touched their sturdy little tits and bit them just a little i felt like i was being friendly i didn't want to kiss their mouths or sleep in the bed with them or take a child bride from my own playful i felt and friendly not
051like the newspapers said not like the people whispered and they didn't mind at all not at all remember how so many of them came back no one of them would ever try to understand no one would ever try to understand that if i'd been hurting them would they have come back no one would have even tried to understand that two of them did come back i gave them mints money and they'd eat ice cream with their legs wide open and i played with them it was like a party there wasn't any filth and there wasn't any odor and there wasn't any groaning just the light white laughter of the little girls and me with little girls it's all clean good and friendly betsy vaughn said in an earlier meeting that we need good luck next
052speaker please hello my name is amy we are all here because we care thank you to the school board members for your dedicated work for our community particularly in these politically polarized times to the parents in the room i thank you for your interest in public schools and the willingness to be involved at the district level and to the teachers in the room and in the district thank you we know you care thank you for starting your day with a smile every day even when you are feeling unappreciated thank you for working through your lunch and thank you for having to wait hours to go to the bathroom thank you for revising tomorrow's plan in your head while you're cooking dinner thank you for another evening of grading papers and another weekend doing report cards
053we know that you do it because you care and please know that you are appreciated a few weeks ago a parent had her two children read from books trying to elicit shock in an attempt to have the books banned from the district i've thought about this many times and wondered how this mother rationalized using her children as pawns i can only hope she's discussed the literature with each child and talked about its value in their family and its role in their world this is one of many jobs of parents it is not the job of parents to select books for the schools a parent's job is to make the best decisions for their child or children it is the school district's job to make decisions that are best for the children for all children because
054they are because our community benefits from our students growing up and to be contributing citizens this is why all taxpayers contribute to the schools and not just parents alone schools belong to the public and decisions should be made by professionals hired by the district using established policies schools are important to the staff and to the teachers administrators to the parents the school board and the community as a whole we are all here because we care good evening marcia ellis sex determination is the best known characteristic most influenced by environmental factors the incubation temperature of eggs fully determines whether or not an alligator hatchling will be male or female today i want to talk about gender fluidity endocrine disrupting chemicals are playing havoc with human sexual and reproductive development phthalates dioxins and others are everywhere they're
055found in plastics for food preparation ingredients in hygiene products coatings flame retarders stain resistance plumbing flooring air fresheners cleaning products medical equipment pest herb fungicides and more in humans both sexual development and the brain develop primarily during the first trimester of pregnancy increasing numbers of children are born with intersex variation lower infertility and ambiguous genitalia and this is happening all over the world edcs cause a cascade of lifelong effects for both male and females changes in the distance from the anus to the genitalia is a biomarker for what chemical influences a fetus has been exposed to and what the future holds for that person's reproductive health and fertility during pregnancy female is the default sex unless certain hormones masculinized the reproductive organs in the brain yes masculinize the brain behaviorally edcs blunt measurable brain related
056sex differences such as language acquisition sexuality rides on a spectrum that is at least in part shaped by environmental factors chiefly chemical exposures in the womb bodies of both sexes contain hormones please continue to support all children in their full spectrum of sexuality showing common sense next speaker please if you would just once your time is up if you could please allow the next speaker to come in is there no one back there i can't see okay ian rankin amy he's already been sorry amy's been it's april hoover yes denise nystrom stephanie huffman jen wada mark gillespie this april is up next hi my name is april hoover i'm district 3. i would like to read the definition of porn from the american heritage dictionary of the english language it is lurid or sensational material
057often used in combination i'd like to read from the kite runner by khalid hosseini nor do they know that she will give him or her body sparingly and partially he must enter her surreptitiously lifting the hem of her nightgown only to hear her navel only to her navel he must rest his weight on his elbows when they make love ostensibly to avoid hurting her breast but actually to keep her from having to touch or feel too much of him while he moves inside her that she will remain dry between her legs she hates the clucking sound they make when she is moist when she senses some spasm about to grip him she will make rapid movements with her hips press her fingernails into his back suck in her breath and pretend she is having an
058orgasm she might wonder again for the 600th time what it would be like to have that feeling while her husband's p-e-n-i-s is inside her the closest thing to it was the time she was walking down the street and her napkin slipped free of her sanitary belt it moved gently between her legs as she walked gently ever so gently and then a slight distinctly delicious sensation collected in her crotch as the delight grew she had to stop in the street hold her thighs together to contain it that must be what it's like she thinks but it never happens i would just like to say if anyone remotely thinks this is appropriate for children of any age we have serious problems thank you denise snystrom yes we all do care all of us care and the truth
059does matter and i'm going to read what i read earlier today i've been attending these meetings for almost a year now and it's a big concern to me that when you look at the makeup of committees there will be one parent member or one community member and what that means is that none of our collective voices the people that are here today on all sides really get heard or really are able to sit opposite from one another and work through our cultures and our values and our differences to come to some kind of a resolution what is best for all of our children and i am requesting the same thing now that i requested earlier today and that is to convene a committee a committee that is comprised of at least 50 percent parent and
060community members via a lottery system so that people are not hand picked accordingly and let us sit down and reach a resolution that works for all of us because we all care and the truth matters good evening stephanie hoffman i'm sorry i didn't bring any books to read to you next time i'll check some out from the library for reading time i'm here to talk about mr grant and say i appreciate him for being here today because i've seen him at board meetings bringing him bringing issues about the bathrooms in cypress lake high school and showing how the government process actually works this is the messy process of government where we all yell and saber rattle and then come together eventually in some sort of consensus that not everybody completely likes i was an instructor
061at the public service academy many years ago and you're going to be an asset to that academy thank you very much for for being present and committing to lee county unfortunately i actually no i'm going to keep it positive i was able to watch the school board workshop that took place on february 7th and i commend the board for your commitment to retaining quality educate educators i know that several of the teachers in this district not several a large a large percentage of the teachers in this district have advanced degrees masters and phds it's important that we retain these quality teachers that use best practices in their classroom i wish i could know as much as many of they do about how to teach unfortunately i was not that good of a teacher i was
062merely a jd teaching about the law these the things that parents face today in the class that teachers face today in the classrooms with the challenges that are presented before the board each board meeting should show why it's necessary to retain these quality teachers that we still have in the district thank you clark gillespie cape coral florida to be honest i'm a little stunned at the way that we've been handling this book issue yeah there's the destiny program there's also a process paper the issue that is blatant in front of us is the process paper is turned in there is a nameless faceless group of people who use subjective material to determine whether or not the material in question should stay in the school system public is never made aware of that and because of
063that is why you are being presented tonight with the excerpts from the books the sad part is we're we're using laws to determine whether or not we can keep the material instead of looking at whether we should keep the material there is no law that says we can't keep this material our insistence as a school system of keeping the material speaks volumes as to the kind of society that we are trying to desperately create our motto is personal passionate and progressive so for this evening i'm going to redefine that we are showing everyone that we are socially progressive we are most certainly passionate in exposing our students to as much immorality as possible to shape them as personally as we possibly can well the following individuals please line up amanda evans jamie miller joe phillips
064christy divijelli iris ramirez jacqueline perez and crystal siskan hello i want to again thank the board and everyone who's worked through this pandemic to serve our kids and that's a big number of people so i want to make a quick reference to the fact that yes we do all care about our kids and if we're going to find solutions it's a good idea to remember to find something we have in common and people really all do care about the kids we really need to work towards solutions we are capable we are smart we are resourceful but creating more problems bigger problems different problems restating the problem isn't really working towards solutions so that's i'd like to give that as food for thought i did suggest a solution at the last board meeting of an opt-in
065program where parents would be able to opt into a program where their children would not be able or allowed to check out a book without parental consent so that's one idea for a solution so let's try to keep on a solution track would be my hope and my plea so we don't keep creating more solutions which is what we've been doing here tonight i want to mention two a reminder that the board does give comment and it's at the end of this video if you're watching the video it's at the end of public comment and i think it's really valuable it's just detached because it's so much later but i would like to encourage people to watch till the end there are a lot of good answers responses and it's really important i want to
066bring up one more time what i have before which is to remember that when we deal with problems a couple of things number one we're an educational institution education is often the answer number two best practice policies are there for reason they're based on data peer review and expert input thank you dr iris ramirez i chose not to read porn in the presence of a child a boy sitting at the dais it would have been nice if somebody had called his parents during the five minute breaks to let them know what was going on and what was being implanted in his brain tonight and based on the previous speaker yes once again i say all things should be through the eyes of what's best for the children and their academic achievement there is no basis
067no academic value for any of this sexual training children are not sent to public school to have sexual training in various techniques or to be exposed to pedophilia as though that's an okay thing that's a degeneration of our culture when we're not protecting our children and i apologize because i this is not what i was planning on saying tonight i am pleased that though that the board considered this was porn and not appropriate to children i agree it's not appropriate to the young boy child sitting at the front of the deus either so i'm glad you think that this material is rated x or at best rated r and that you want to have parents remove their children from the television set what about the parents who don't know what books their children can pick
068up in any library or in the back of any school room in lee county they don't know what book their child can pick up there and as for removing the book and oh yeah the parents can say i have to approve every book my child removes what about every book the child sees in the school that their little friend shows them that they picked up in the school we have enough garbage and you know sexual training out there in the world we don't need it in the school rooms once again consider the academic needs of the children first smoking joe anger frustration and shame as parents we're angered at how ineffective this current board is frustration we're frustrated that our pleas for you to protect our children and provide an atmosphere that aligns with to
069say the least common decency for all of our children this board is failing our children in a multitude of ways exposing them to inappropriate reading materials feeding them subpar food lacking concern for their nutritional needs from students for some the most beneficial meals were served at school for some the only nourishment they received was at school with blatant disregard you cancelled the oaks farms contract that has proven to be a terrible decision shame we in the community are ashamed that we trusted this board to make proper decisions in the best interest of our future adults for this task in which you have failed i'm angry and personally i'm tired of being angry i've had enough of the frustration i get from watching you look like dashboard bobble heads every time a parent raises concern shame
070i can't change shake the shame that my tax dollars continually invest in this sinking ship floridians won't change we don't want you using our children for your political motivated agenda if you have an ounce of dignity which we know a couple of you do not tender your resignation immediately one last thing we are aware that you employed people to illegally spy on their social media some parents are concerned with retaliation tactics from this board well i'm not one i encourage you to look at my social media send me a friend request i have much more colorful opinions of you that i can express on my platforms faith family in florida i'm smoking joe good evening my name is jamie miller and i am part of the florida citizens alliance kids first team i want to
071make sure it's understood that flca is non-partisan so in no way our are our efforts a means to impose political beliefs on others the mission of flca is to improve florida's k-12 education by uniting and empowering teachers students and parents with that said i do have concerns about the challenge to instructional and or media materials presentation from this afternoon the use of the word purient on the first amendment slide means to encourage excessive interest in sexual matters so in order for material to be obscene and unprotected under the first amendment it must encourage excessive interest in sexual matters i have concerns that most of the books in question are period specifically tony morrison's the bluest eye includes passages about the incest and child rape and is on the american library association's annual list of most
072commonly banned books there are currently 46 copies in eight of your high schools on pages 84 130 147 162 166 and 181 there are graphic passages about sexual encounters with children how does a book like this not encourage excessive interest in sexual matters our initiative isn't about book banning though this is about protecting children from being exposed to harmful materials that their parents are not informed about reminder florida law requires you to protect our children that is not an opinion this presentation was the first time that i heard about the access that i as a parent have to launch pad why provide just an opt-out this process should be opt-in only to protect children from being exposed to explicit materials without parental consent thank you good evening good evening my name is amanda evans support
073personnel associate for lee county i'm the president there there are some concerns in the transportation with the negotiation being cancelled so much we need to settle these contracts because these drivers are leaving we are overworked underpaid we feel unappreciated there is only four months left of school the board and superintendent needs to settle this contract and let's move forward good evening christy diva jelly so i had to think long and hard about what i was going to say when i got up here because i like so many others tonight was going to read from those awful books but then two rows in front of me is this beautiful young girl and i can't bring myself to do that i'm sitting here and i'm staring at this handsome young man and i can't bring myself to
074do that so instead i'm going to ask you again about this locksmith contract because there has been consistent controversy pertaining to this contract and millions of dollars have been spent on labor alone i have a big history invoice right here that has 35 000 per pivot table spreadsheet there are one two three four five five instances where we me my tax dollars everyone's tax dollars in here have paid 35 dollars for a spreadsheet this needs to be pulled and never brought up again this contract should not be up for renewal and this we have five miss juvenelli pointed it out today we have an entire locksmith department why are we paying someone millions of dollars for this please do something about this and do something about the pornography that you are exposing my children to
075thank you very much my name is crystal siscon and this is kind of difficult for me to be here the last time i gave public comment here i was physically accosted in the parking lot and harassed on social media but i wanted to come up and say i worked for the equity and diversity committee for three years on a non-discrimination anti-bullying policy for our students including our lgbtq gender non-conforming students and this year in february the governor took it away and i'm watching the legislation in tallahassee and so i'm standing here saying to you ladies that i actually identify with smoking joe i feel like we as a community didn't trust you to protect our students and when these hard things happen with legislation and it comes down and you are navigating these laws without
076protections for some of our students when you're discussing books separate sexuality and sex when you make these decisions and make sure that you are thinking of all students when you make these decisions and try to navigate a safe space use the best practices because despite the laws like another person here said we still have to make these choices about what is what is right and how do we do that and you all ran for office to protect children don't forget my children are still in school whether the law protects them or not thank you that concludes public comments no we still i'm so sorry good evening board good evening it has again come to my attention that district staff has been monitoring social media pages by utilizing staff in the communications department the district is
077paying staff to infiltrate private facebook groups then they're telling those employees to pose as parents to shift the tone of the public discourse to make the school district look good this is called malfeasance this is an illegal use of government property you also have policies in place that prohibit employees from engaging in this type of activity during work hours yet you have a chief and directors leading the crusade on this one on these emails you will find the names of lauren stilwell irma lancaster rob spickler and others even more interesting is that i have an email where lauren stillwell is telling an employee what to post in a private facebook post called moms of southwest florida i'm certain that the 10 000 plus members of that group would like to know that they are being
078spied on by the lee county school district i have in my possession hundreds and hundreds of emails that prove that the district has been engaging in this type of unethical illegal activity that employees are coerced into doing the bidding of a rogue board member and chief and i'm willing to share this with the community because the community has a right to know what their local school board is engaging in why are these legal activities continuing at the district because of one board member and we all know who that board member is this board member has protected the communications department and they have worked in collusion together even utilizing the vendor priority marketing to help her in her re-election that can also be proved with my emails the department's top administrative employees and patricka utilize its
079resources to gain favors and benefits for their own self-serving interest and even dr savage has questioned ms patrick's ability to effectively lead by sending me private text messages where he stated chris always tries to validate she is right when she was completely wrong she comes from a very biased and close-minded position she tries to corroborate her own position thank you that concludes public comments thank you well i would just like to say thank you all for coming and sharing your point of views with us we are here to hear what you have to say i appreciate the comments regarding this young man who's sitting right here next to us because this is certainly what it's about as well as who we have in our audience as well this evening we're here for all of our
080kids we work to make sure that we strive to make sure that all of our kids are taken care of giving them the tools that they need and there's no one on this board that wants anybody to be hurt at all so i just want to put that out there because when i when i hear that as we're trying to hurt people there's there's no one here that would ever think about that so i just want to put that out there and i and i really appreciate you all coming here and speaking next on the agenda is the approval of the action items and the agenda items under consent the documents for action items listed under consent is made available two board members seven business days prior to the board meeting we are expected to
081review all the materials and we have an opportunity to speak with the superintendent with any questions we may have regarding the recommendations some of these items have also been also been briefed or workshopped with the board in advance of appearing on the action agenda board members are there any items you wish to pull for discussion under unfinished business table items portion of the agenda miss fisher i have no polls this evening thank you thank you miss giovanelli miss patricka no thank you kittens no thank you respawn i have none miss morgan i have none and i have none is there a motion to approve the agenda consent items action items with the exception of pulled item l8 thanks morgan i move we approve this evening's consent agenda with the exception of l-8 i'll sec i'll
082second that thank you mr fisher it was motioned by miss morgan and seconded by mrs fisher and please record your vote hmm okay i don't think it miss roman i don't did it come up it's okay okay seven zero motion carries i did that twice okay and before we move on to the unfinished business dr savage before we asked you to read the your recommendations is there anyone in the audience that we have for yes ma'am we have two administrative appointments today but one of them is in attendance with us today i'd like to recognize miss barbara cedano in maintenance services from assistant director to director of maintenance services those are the only administrators in attendance for this evening thank you so much appreciate that and i apologize that i missed that so dr savage
083we are we have one pulled item to address and if you would please read your recommendation on the pulled item yes madam chair so the item polled is item l8 so the recommended action is to the approval of the estimated expenditure for itn number n19736 9rc for locksmith installation services awarded to big lead builders inc and integrity builders of southwest florida in the amount of 150 000 for the third year of the base contract period of february 22nd 22 through december 9th 2022 pursuant to the same terms and conditions as previously approved by the board approval authorizes superintendent to execute all related documents thank you is there a motion to adopt dr savage's recommendation this one i move to accept dr savage's recommendation thank you and do i have a second please i'll second that
084thank you miss fisher okay well so we have miss vaughan motion from his spawn and seconded by miss fisher is there a discussion and miss giavannelli you are on so thank you and looking at the information provided today which i had asked for in 2019 with the locksmith contract was 48 and that includes materials and costs plus and labor the second year in 20 it was 59 000 and that includes materials cost and labor we have a maintenance department that has four certified locksmiths that could do our work and i'm understanding that this contract is basically for emergency but i don't think we need 150 000 contract i will not support this and i understand the 10 million dollars was to get the prior schools ready for parkland but that wasn't even all the schools
085because bonita was already done but that would be over a thousand dollars a door for actual just actual maintenance or and i say maintenance excuse me installing the new locks on the doors the red locks and getting to be security ready that's a lot of money for just actual labor not even the materials we paid for the materials so again i won't support that this evening because i believe this is actually a waste of our tax dollars thank you do we have any other comments here miss morgan correct me if i'm wrong dr savage but this isn't this isn't an approval of an expenditure this is an approval of an expense allocation in the event the expenditure is required by some action whether it's local or at the state level so we're not approving an
086expenditure per se right it's fair to say that so essentially this 150 000 is up to that amount we do not anticipate using it at all however due to the installation of these that we did kind of go over earlier today if we were to say you know need to make an emergency repair relative to one of these pieces that was installed during this upgrade project which was pretty massive in its scale of course over a lot of using very specific hardware and so forth which those dollar amounts we did given earlier today this would be the bid to use to to accomplish those repairs some of them may even be reimbursed then if like the warranty would cover the parts or the labor but these are the approved vendors that did the installation and
087thusly would be the ones that we'd have to use to have qualified warranty repair this is already utilizing existing budgeted funds within maintenance for anything that they would use as well thank you a pleasure okay is there any other mr chief dally so and i understand that i understand that it's for if it's for emergencies services when and when our four employees cannot get to it but i would be more apt to agree to a 50 000 contract versus 150 000 contract or like 60 even when it was in 2020. so that there's the difference that's a hundred thousand dollars more than i think we should be having a contract for i think we have to have some kind of control over the spending i'd like to see that hundred thousand dollars go towards our
088employees that need it more desperately in the classroom so i will not be supporting it regardless i know that it's not an expenditure but i guarantee you that it will get spent if it's there miss patrick is that is that a different pot of money like that money can't be put in a classroom am i correct this is a capital expenditure a different budget yes that's correct and it would be again we may not spend a penny of it the whole intention is really that we don't anticipate any additional work because these projects were completed however if we did need to do it and we have a number of things like this out there that we have the flexibility then to use the already budgeted funds that we have in maintenance to to accomplish this
089work which then again could be reimbursed by if they were to qualify for for warranty work which because this was a very recent major capital project that we went through that would be certainly something that i would expect if it were a faulty hardware but it would have to qualify and we wouldn't want a school to wait for that work to be accomplished mr giovannelli well no go ahead i'm sorry miss gins yeah well i mean i have a question about so it's money that we are budgeting just in case that we need it and just in case it's not covered by a warranty so this is a this is an estimated expenditure so we're not necessarily saying that we're gonna this isn't setting aside money for that purpose it's authorizing us to use up
090to the amount with this particular set of vendors under this bid the actual budgeted amount is actually a separate complete these use existing budgeted funds in maintenance to do it so we're not asking for you to set aside 150 000 we're saying that we cannot exceed we'd have to come back to the board if for some reason we're to exceed 150 000 with these vendors present to the what's laid out within their bid but but still you mentioned earlier that if if a specific particular lock that cost a whole bunch of money breaks in there's obviously some type of a warranty or whatever on it but if there's not then we can do it and pay these people to fix it under this 150. so my point i agree with miss giovanelli then there's so
091many ifs in it makes me want to think then why not have fifty thousand just in case and you still have to come back to the board if it's over fifty thousand it just requires more oversight which is what our job is i mean that's the way i see it maybe it's simplistic but whatever miss fisher yes so in in reviewing the agenda to prepare for tonight and reading this part and i knew there was discussion about the locksmith but i read the public comment which if i may in invitation to negotiate n197 369 rc is for locksmith installation services this itn was specifically designed for the installation of ada code red locks upgrade at 34 district facilities these projects have been completed and no additional work is expected the maintenance services department keeps this
092itn in place for emergency re-key projects should they occur on december 10 2019 this itn was awarded to bigly builders incorporated and integrity builders of southwest florida for a three-year period beginning december 10 2019 through december 9 2022 with renewal options for three additional one-year periods this is typical of so many of our bids and contracts and so upon the written agreement of the vendors and the district so there would have to be another action before we would even spend the money but we have money in different if i'm understanding correctly in different funds for that reason it's it's budgeted but not necessarily ever expended and that's when we get the budget reports and we get on capital things we get you know money back we often see that so i you know i said
093i didn't have a problem with this because the it's done and the money this is not unusual for us to have money in reserve for follow-up issues so i'm having a hard time understanding the big problem mr evanelli and then miss gins so in 2020 and 20 when this contract was initially initiated they spent well 19 and through 20 though the they spent 48 000 and then 59 000. so i just don't understand why we increased it to 150 000 that is my concern i know that they changed the redlocks they're upgraded to the redlocks and i understand that and i spoke to many building supervisors who had to go in behind this company and fix it fix the locks and they and also our maintenance departments they complained about it and therefore i am
094not just going to be handing out the money like it's halloween so i just can't i can't agree with that and regardless of the fact that i know it's not being spent but when you've when it's 10 million dollars that they received already to not even do the locks correctly the first time and we had to have somebody go in behind them i can assure you they're going to need to do something where's the evidence of that if i may through the chair there the evidence is i spoke to many supervisors building supervisors you could actually call on mr thompson he'll tell you they had to go fix it in our owned our own maintenance department they had to go fix it fix what the locks that weren't done properly the first time by the
095vendor where are you know where where's the evidence where are they telling you what the evidence is okay documented if that were the case it was okay miss kittens my question is miss fisher thank you for reading that but what it says to me if i were the owner of one of these companies and it says it was awarded a hundred and fifty thousand 000 contract in case something happens to me that's just still a lot of money that's just sitting there and how would i if i have that company how do i put that on my books do i put that i have potentially 150 000 how does that work i mean other because otherwise if you have a list of vendors for locks and you've got let's say 50 000 set aside in
096case we need it then you go to one of those people on that vendor list and get them to fix it and you've got the money to do it i don't understand why and how did these two companies get to be the only ones why isn't there a vendor list has it been have they been vetted that they are the preferred vendors how and it's just a lot of questions to me and i understand what ms fisher's saying this is what we've always done but a lot of times what we've always done is not always the best to continue to do and dr savage could you please yeah could you i'm trying to i'll do the best i can and again the experts are actually having to be sitting in here too that they could
097help and i'll tell you from what my best understanding of this is these were the vendors that were awarded this initial bid and worked with specific hardware which again the expenditures of which you have in the table that was sent earlier it covered both the labor cost as well as the material cost the material cost was 5.6 million the labor cost was 4.5 million and that when these were installed with this hardware that part of the approach is that but to be covered by warranty they have to be installed by people who are recognized within this bid and with for that particular hardware so that you can't have a person who's not qualified to make the repair and then get reimbursed for that amount is what i believe that you're essentially these are the ones
098who were picked and so they have to conduct the repairs if they're qualified reimbursements then they can you can be compensated for that if you have like in our case if we just sent our own locksmiths to do it and they weren't qualified for that we could be compensated for the hardware but we wouldn't be reimbursed for the labor installation costs then essentially we'd be taking from the staff that we currently have that are doing day-to-day repairs which again the table reflects the amount of day-to-day repairs they're doing all over the district however this is very specific to this capital project this was an ada code red this was a major upgrade of locks at a very large number of sites as you mentioned in the board item 34 sites if we were to re-key
099an entire building again it would take two it would take our team of locksmiths working on that two to three sites an entire year to do that so it's a huge volume of work that was done you're talking a lot of hardware like they said estimated over 15 000 doors there's just a lot to this frederick barbara i'm just looking if there's anything that i'm not getting correctly on dr savage if you if you could when you were speaking on that so if the experts are not the ones who are doing it the ones who installed it and we do fix that we would default on the warranty well i would say we would potentially lose our opportunity to have it as a qualified reimbursement so that if we just do the repairs because we
100you know for our timeliness so this what this does is prepares so that if there is in fact a qualified reimbursement that the vendor that's approved through this bid is able to do and conduct that actually protects our investment so that we could get that reimbursed that's what this allows for and that's only if it's needed this is an estimated expenditure so it's essentially allowing us to do it with already budgeted funds in the maintenance department for day-to-day locksmiths so they would use those funds under this estimated expenditure to allow us to pay for that out of already budgeted funds not funds that are set aside strictly for this project these are funds that they use for locksmiths for buying hardware and for installation that's what it essentially is this just allows us to work
101with these two vendors specific to these projects that were done to close out that body of work that's my best i can do today and i'm wondering if mr ross if he could if there's anything i have not eliminated yet or explained fully thank you good evening good evening i don't think it's on it's on i think it is good evening frederick ross executive director operations so to try to answer some of the questions this was the result of an rfp process done several years ago so this there were vendors that were submitted had that it was advertised had vendors had the opportunity to submit the value evaluation team the whole procurement process was previously done actually when i was the director of procurement in terms of the product on the projects yes again five
102million dollars from the spreadsheet you can see how much was spent that was the you know the red lock project as dr savage was saying and now we have these locks in place if there were any issues the maintenance and building services i mean being the supervisors building supervisors are the first line of defense always so they're looking at it they're checking the hardware if it's a issue that the vendor needs to be called that's when this vendor is reached out to especially after the project was done if there were any issues you know they were to come and fix those so if there was any reaching out to vendors afterwards to fix things they were to come in and fix it again this is just for again drop down immensely to 150 thousand dollars
103just for additional for emergency work that may come up again we're in maintenance dealing with coveting employees out too so with the small locksmith staff if something were to happen we could easily be down and this is a gives maintenance the ability to still respond to the school needs if something comes up in these areas miss vaughn and then actually the explanation i've just heard from you and from dr savage brings a question to my mind if in fact there were to be an issue with installation which i'm i'm sure had to be warranted under warranty and there was an issue with installation are you saying without the hundred and fifty thousand dollars that were packed that were passing that they wouldn't come back free to fix that's what it sounded like from both of
104you to me which has led me to question what i wasn't questioning before yeah so let me alleviate that no warranty work should be ever be paid for if it's under warranty they come out and fix it free of charge so the installation is warranted as well the product no i'm not talking about we bought the hardware part of this car this is the installation under warranty because i know i've seen in the past what was brought up here by a speaker that at one point locksmiths from maintenance had to go fix upside down and sideway locks and what i'm asking is should there be any other problems with installation is it not under warranty from these companies that's that's my question good evening my name is barbara citino so the answer to your question
105yes so the process is for us that if there is an issue with an existing lock we have to follow protocols which is contacting the supplier for the company they actually send out a representative and further assess the situation to determine is this a faulty product is it a faulty installation however prior to that surprise to get into the supplier point we do have to send our technicians our locksmith in order to be the first line of defense and again for multiple issues just to you know for their says was it what type of defect and in their professional opinion that's what that becomes that first line of communication with that supplier and then from there that's where our warranty information warranty process will kick in does that answer your question well yeah and that's
106how i suspect it that if we said hey your locks that we bought for what was it five and a half million or something like that are faulty i would assume that a representative would come out from the company and say oh no whoever put this in didn't do it right it should have been this this yes and at which case these two vendors who installed it would be called out unless it's one of the locks that had to be reinstalled by our people so yeah i'm sorry but the explanation gave me pause about this whole thing quite frankly so miss vaughn are you clear on that one because i totally understand and i was hoping that what you would say would be yes the workmanship is also under warranty and it didn't it wasn't
107clear from what dr savage said or mr ross said i wasn't clear whether the workmanship was also under warranty i know the locks at that price that we paid have to be yes again we have two lines of defense are our locksmith within the department as well as when they make that first line of communication okay well there no it clarifies it that's that's what i needed answered thank you miss fisher and then miss givenelli well i was going to say first of all this is for the length of the contract which is till december of this year right and can you clarify what mrs giovannelli is talking about that there were r and our independent workers in the maintenance department had to go out and reinstall locks is that documented somewhere i don't have
108i honestly i would have to do a little bit of research on my end and see if that was you know to obtain additional information on that what i would say is that whenever we were when the project was undergoing and there was any you know particular issues that were being experienced yes our staff still had to go to the school and further assess and see what was going on with the situation if if there was an issue that needed to be rectified by the company they were responsible to come back and address those issues again they may have been scenarios where perhaps let's say a teacher was not able to open a door and that was an emergency situation because we have to make sure students are able to enter those classrooms so perhaps
109that might have been a situation where the locksmith from our department may have had to make that adjustment in order to gain entry into that space for that for the staff and the students but that wouldn't mean then that the company wouldn't come back and make right of it yes they were still responsible for for my understanding they were still responsible to come back and follow up on the repairs that needed to be done there and mr deno if that happened would that be documented somewhere we have a work order system so i'm not sure how much details were captured on there i would have to do a little bit of research on that i'm sorry i don't have that information thank you mr evanelli so then what was sixty thousand dollars spent on this
110contract for just for the last seven months that's what did they have to do recently because that's through present from july of last year to to today they've been paid sixty thousand dollars fifty eight thousand dollars all i thought i'm looking so i was just curious what they've had to do which which one okay so there's two things that i combined on that document part of it was stock room inventory costs so if if you're if you have the spreadsheet in front of you the first column is the maintenance services locksmith labor which is our in-house internal staff that has reported time on repairs the secondary column we had combined any materials that we obtained from our stockroom and or that we have purchased you know from an outside vendor let's say it was keys
111because we needed to cut keys for particular spaces so the dollar amount that you're seeing the 58 000 on that last line that's in-house labor as well as potentially some cost for for keys maybe miscellaneous parts that we may have had to buy for other facilities and if you've seen zero dollars on contractor services right but that would that would be our that would be our cost this is going to that's 150 000 to them not the the materials and the cost that materials right and that's the 23 000 that you're talking about breakdown right yes that would be either items that were obtained from our stock room or items that were purchased from from the supplier itself yeah but just to clarify the vendors okay the contracted labor the additional labor that we that
112we have here that's right that's referenced in the third column so that's when these particular two vendors their labor costs their that's that's the cost that went to those specific firms is that correct right just that one year is the only year we haven't we haven't utilized our services after thereafter 34 sites that's the feast that as you saw the cost of the lox the hardware themselves that's in the left and a lot of this is our own in-house fees for our own for the cost of the stock room it's just that one-third column that one small entry from 2021 which was the 34 sites the additional bandwidth of basically additional labor of these two firms to do the installations yeah the four million dollars correct right correct four point five six five million for
113the 34 sites okay okay okay miss kittens just one quick question you mentioned that this had gone out to bid when you were in that position quite a while ago and i keep bringing up the question when we you know enter into this type of thing with a company how often do we re redo that procurement process i mean five six years ago a company may have been able to be the only ones to do this and five or six years later there may be other companies that would be willing and able to do it as well so i don't know how often we look at putting it back out for bid did we just do that with them because they were involved the first time and it kind of makes for a slightly inequitable
114bid situation if there's somebody else that may just have moved into town and opened a locksmith business all right so the contract length is a three-year contract with three one-year renewals and that is the typical best practice in government procurement for our contract lengths it does it gives the ability you know after that three year term if things are not going well to put it on the street if if things change in industry and you know maybe prices have gone down or are there's more more people in the market it does give that opportunity i think ms malay talked about the renewal process and how that is looked at when that does come around but you also have to you know consider the flip side of it redoing bids over and over a year again
115puts a lot of more stress on the on staff on you know getting these done each one of these efforts take evaluation teams with multiple meetings vendors coming in putting doing multiple presentations even to the vendors it has a cost to submitting so you have to find that balance of you know what's the good contract length with when is it good to go back out to the market and then again to mrs mellie's point this morning you know prices are typically going up so when you renew that bid and do it over again your prices will likely be higher so something to consider okay so do we have any other questions call for the vote okay thank you thank you this will be a hand vote thank you so dr savage i'm just going to
116ask you to just restate let your state this again please all right yes madam chair this is for item l8 and the item is l8 subject i'm sorry i'm trying to find the approval of expenditure for itn number n197369rc locksmith installation services thank you okay so i just heard that again so i'm going to start with miss morgan please i miss vaughn nay miss kittens nay miss patricka yes please nay vanelli so four to three motion passes okay next on the agenda we have we have no public hearings we have board member comments and i'm going to start with miss fisher okay well i did give my comments this afternoon at the briefing meeting so i won't reiterate that but i just want to give another shout out and thank you to not only our
117district staff our school staff but our parents and our students thank you and miss giovanelli yes thank you so congratulations mrs denno i just wanted to say that personally and then i really gave all my comments earlier as well i do want to let the parents know that and for those that spoke tonight that we are hearing you i echo some of the things that were said tonight regarding what the parent said about the books i think that we have to look at some of these books that they're saying they're not there that are there and we and i'm i'm putting that back on the superintendent because i don't run the day-to-day business the superintendent does and so i'm going to ask that again i had sent another email because i had asked him to
118look into the books that were in question at an another time so that's where i will do that again publicly again saying that this belongs to curriculum and the superintendent and i will stay on it and because we have to do what's best for kids right so and then my other thing that came up tonight was regarding the communications allegations that were said tonight i would request that the superintendent look into that and because we can't have our staff spying on our community that's their that's not what our the jobs are intended for i don't think that we hire or have a job description of any such thing like that and that would spy on anyone including the community so i have to ask the superintendent to look into that as well and i believe
119there should be an investigation on it because the allegations were very strong mr nelly that's it thank you i'm sorry thank you i was waiting for you i'm sorry it's been a long day thank you ms patricka so i typically don't respond to public comment because i don't think it's appropriate i like to give my reports in the afternoon and i like the chair to address the public but tonight's going to be a little bit different because week after week after week month after month after month i hear the public come and question our teachers and their professionalism and i've had it i have had it i have four children who have been in our schools for 10 years that's four children in different classrooms with different teachers for 10 years one time one time
120i had a student i had a teacher who was teaching from a perspective can we please what is that one time i had a teacher one of my children's teachers was teaching from a perspective was teaching an ideology my child was old enough to address that issue on on my child's own behalf because my child was old enough to do it address it with the teacher when it didn't get where it was supposed to go with the teacher went to the principal and it was taken care of one time in 10 years with four kids when we talk about morality being taught in books we're questioning the science of teaching we're questioning the professionalism of teachers when we talk about schools teaching world views schools don't teach teachers do teachers are professionals there is an
121art and there is a science to teaching i trust our teachers it can be indoctrination when we give children access to to books yeah it could potentially be if you don't trust teachers i trust teachers i trust our teachers tobacco alcohol and drugs are not constitutionally protected books are the first amendment is we have a responsibility to protect every child in this district not push the morality of the views of a segment of parents who apparently want the schools to do it for them the only real question i have here is the accuracy of public records requests dr savage i don't know i mean i heard some discussion in public comment tonight about various answers being received through through public records requests if you could just look into that and provide some kind of a
122report to the board assuming it takes less than an hour and a half i'd really appreciate that the last thing i'll say is you know it's okay to have these books in a public library but not in public school media centers what are media centers except public libraries like i don't understand any of this it makes no sense to me i am a conservative i want to have a say in my children's education and the system we have set up in this district right now protects my rights period i'm sorry i don't i don't usually respond to public comment but sexual training in our schools i mean it's it's gotten to the point where it's absurd those are my comments for this evening oh wait a minute barbara congratulations and you did a fantastic job
123being put you know feet on the fire very first night i'm really really really happy for you and i'm i don't know if i should say this out loud but i'm really happy that a woman is in charge of maintenance that makes me really happy and you deserve it you're not there because you're a woman you just happen to be a woman who's incredibly qualified and the way you present to the board always gives me significant confidence in what's happening down there and i trust you so thank you those are my comments thank you mr chica miss gittins yeah that's still my name i normally write on my paper before i speak let the words in my mouth so that i'm reminded to be mindful of what i say and how i say it tonight
124i'm going to say it out loud let the words in my mouth first i do have to respond to miss patricka i did not get that impression from the audience tonight or any other night what i heard them say what i have heard them say when i've spoken to them one-on-one is not attacking teachers i just i don't know where that came from because they have attacked us they have attacked the superintendent they have attacked academic services the people that have the books there i recall one thing that pastor roper said was or someone mentioned that if kids are able to slip into the library and read these things that was not accusing our teachers per se now do are teachers human beings yes they are and do sometimes maybe their thoughts and feelings that
125are deep down inside bubble out and something they will say in the way they say it yes and can kids like smart like this one figure out oh she doesn't like so and so okay yes it can slip out but our teachers sitting standing up there you shouldn't like so and so you shouldn't do this it's not happening and i did not hear these people say our teachers are terrible i heard them say that the books that we have somehow we need to make sure they're not there if they're in the public library and the parent lets their child go there that's between the parents and the public library but keeping the materials out of their availability while they are with us for seven and a half hours is what i heard anyway i have
126some other things that i want to say there is still confusion i've heard two or three people speak about this and i've heard it outside of this building people are still confused about that 35 million dollars in food storage and i have asked and asked to have it explained clearly and carefully and simply and visually so people understand what we are and are not doing i'm kind of interspersing good and bad in here but do the right thing ceremony is always one of my favorites and the little kids are so cute i sat over on that side there's this little guy that's about this tall so we sat him up on a stool that's over there and he just had a blast just you know he was squirming around and waving to everybody that he
127could and the kids were just awesome so i want to take this two seconds to say to parents thank you to your parents that are out there i thank them every time when i do do the right thing because they wouldn't be sitting up here in our seats if it weren't for the parents that taught them the good things that they do so i want to say that and thank you to sheriff carmine in that program it's a great program as well i want to defend the agenda review and the agenda review was something that i had suggested back in 2019 when i was the chair because of just what happened here today in this action meeting and us going over something that was on the action agenda and if you go back ever since
128we started it there has been much less of the discussion at the action meetings there has been action meetings and we presented and everybody says yeah we've already talked about it we've already got that out there there are times that of course a board member will say no i'm just not going to vote on it that's fine but if you go back a couple years back we'd still be going about polls on the agenda and you all know and understand that the purpose of the agenda review was that there would be no surprises for anybody for us the superintendent for staff they get the questions it's not like we're calling them up okay stand here and we're gonna hit you with a question you have the question before you come up there we still hit
129you a little bit but no but you know what it is we're asking you have an opportunity to come up with the answers just like we're not beating up on teachers we're not beating up on staff we in my opinion what i am trying to do with that agenda review is to ask questions that i don't understand and i know you don't i know you don't because the answers are not out there at the beginning of every agenda vote the chair says we are responsible to read every line of the agenda and we're supposed to know what we're voting on well if i read the line in the agenda and i have a question about it i'm going to ask the question i mean it goes back to it's my lane to ask questions and
130sometimes when i ask them it is for the sake of not you all up here but for them out there who make sure that we are up here i think that and i have seen this happen over the last year or so that many of my co-workers up here have decided we can make it all go away we'll just stop asking questions in the agenda review and that's what they have done there are two of us that ask questions and the other ones i guess you guys have more insight on stuff than i do because there are things i don't understand and i'm going to ask questions so if there's going to be a vote to get rid of agenda review that's fine we'll go back to still asking questions you cannot stop me from
131asking questions if anyone else wants to participate in that and it's interesting that when it first started there were a plethora pages of questions all of a sudden it stopped and it's just me mostly and thank you miss giovanelli for yours so i wanted to put that out there i did not pull l10 tonight and that was about riverdale i discussed it today thanks to the agenda review and got some answers back but the bottom line to that whole project to me is riverdale high school as old as it is has needed repairs and needed fixing for years and years and years and now we have put ourselves due to lack of planning at a point where now we have to spend the money now to get it done do you realize that five years
132ago when it was still old in need of repair if we had done what we should have done we would have saved money i'm done with that one someone mentioned to me about paying our teachers and that they had brought up a suggestion at one point and i'm just throwing this out there i don't know where it is and maybe we can look into it but the fact that in the beginning of the year we budget for a hundred percent staffing in our schools and if we do not staff a hundred percent let's say we staff seventy percent the difference in that money that was budgeted for that staff for that other 30 percent goes into reserve i would like to ask why does that does that still happen and if that's money that's sitting
133there that goes into reserves why not give it to the 70 percent that work there behinds off because we didn't have the other 30 percent just a suggestion throwing it out there i want to thank everyone from rsm and the audit committee members everyone worked really really hard and diligently to get us back into compliance with the audience i mean with the audience with the audit and we are very very close to doing that and thank you to everyone for agreeing couple of things about classes i visited eastlake county high school mr thomas pounds finance class and for many of you that sit in the audience and then stand up there and say we're not teaching basics we're not teaching kids stuff they need to know you need to visit mr pound's finance class when
134kids are sitting there figuring out not if they're going to college but really can they afford it and he says to them you're calculating this as if you don't have a parent with a bankroll that's going to help you and they go into all the details and stuff so know for a fact our kids are learning things that they will need beyond our walls thank you mr pound in your class i want to thank fgcu their multicultural group invited me on saturday to speak at their phenomenal 3d symposium our world is going to be in good hands so adults trust me there's some young people out there that are going to kill it i visited pay school for girls and i thank you for that they were just wonderful and happy and participative and i
135asked one of the leaders when i was there i said do you ever have trouble with girls that really don't want to leave because it is such a microcosm of what all students would want small classes caring teachers just wonderful environment and so hats off to all of you at pace now i keep talking about the crisis that we have with teachers and needing people to sub and i brought it up again today about the part-time sub i really hope we get that off the ground sooner than later and let people start doing it i still have people asking me when can i do that and to put my hat in there first i subbed last week three middle school classes okay so you can clap for me later middle school no you know i'm
136just teasing i'm just teasing the kids were awesome though i was at varsity lakes middle and at harness marsh and the kids were really great it was valentine's day so we shared chocolates i actually got some hearts thank you and in two of the classes we talked about in fur and the statement i want to make is we need to not infer that it's okay not to move quickly and help our teachers we need to get busy and try to help those teachers every minute we waste we lose another teacher or two or three or four and if we can get them help if we can talk about the wonderful things we are doing that we talked about this afternoon that's going to help as well but the three classes that i covered were three
137teachers that did not have to give up their planning and could do their work and it's not that i'm so great but many of you can do that to be there to help those students and to help those teachers i had teachers that came by and said oh thank you for doing that just because they didn't have to if you've ever taught and you'll know this especially if you have a first period class you hide because first period is when people are laid or whatever and you know that phone's going to ring miss kittens can you please cover this class okay so please let's get at least some part-time sub something to do that my last thing is it's black history month this is the last time that we will be convened during black history
138month and why do we honor those who've gone before and sacrificed and marched and prayed and prayed my way to sit here we honor them because they did that i want to thank the lee county voters that elected me to do this job i've fought a good fight i've kept the faith but i'm not finished my course many of us think that when we think about rosa parks that just her singularly you know not giving up her seat on the bus but it's so much bigger than that all the hundreds of people that galvanized together and boycotted those buses they helped each other they walked together they gave each other rides but they did it for a cause and they did it for a purpose of what is right so i want to leave you
139with my thought like martin luther king gave his you know my four little children well i pray that one day the thought of being the first african american to do anything is so far out that nobody even raises an eyebrow because there will be so many first seconds thirds fourth fifths on into ad infinitum and that is the norm when we're all accepted appreciated and welcomed thank you thank you miss kittens miss vaughn please yeah i was going to say miss kittens looks sharp tonight in her in her out in her outfit can i can i say outfit in in what you're wearing tonight no it looks i wish i could carry off i got something i got that because i got it well i thought about it at times but then i thought it
140would just seem very disingenuous to show up do you understand one of the people who look like you in africa too right okay i know i know i know any anyway i was going to mention yeah it is the end of nearing the end it's it's amazing i know february is a little shorter than the other months but they all fly by and i'm not even sure when a couple i think a couple weeks ago and i don't think i mentioned it one one of our own the director of our diversity and equity gave and miss jordan was there too gave an awesome awesome presentation about lee county and the history of segregation desegregation and it's i was i was happy for it i felt like not really the cliffs version because he supplied so
141much information but it makes me want to go and read some more of those books about the history of fort myers because this jersey girl did not grow up in in in that kind of environment and so you know when i first moved here over 16 years ago hearing the history of lee county school district was probably kind of shocking to me but but anyway moving on from from that regretfully because of a family circumstance i could not attend this afternoon's briefing i had just a limited amount of time after i returned home to watch listen to a little bit of it i noted that miss patricka said she was sorry that i wasn't there for the presentation this afternoon and i still have to hear the rest of the board comments because i had
142to leave the house and i was watching on a on something that on on my device that did not have wi-fi or 5g or whatever but i did hear the entire presentation by academic services and my opinion is that this school district is bending over backward is doing a more than adequate job in giving parents choices and options and you know i was also interested in in the statute that was presented because my personal personal feeling is that we have the parents bill of rights and it's really the parents that govern their children the parents or the guardians i know that there are obviously citizens in this county and actually throughout florida and across the u.s that want to take that role and we had a few people that said you know if we're really
143looking at parental rights to me that's something that's always been in my life as as a teacher before i moved here i taught for 24 years in the state of texas now if you want to clone of florida in terms of education and policy and that sort of thing there we go texas and i did experience many instances of book challenges but i will have to say the nature of the challenges were a little bit different than the nature of the challenges here anybody that's been to this meeting you know how progressive i am and i can tell you then all my years of teaching my students never knew what my political feelings were they never knew i was a literature teacher i taught what i felt was the theme the lesson the morality of
144the particular book one of my favorites to teach to seniors was orwell's 1984 and i see so many parallels in today's world with that book but i taught it from orwell's point of view now as a child of the 1950s in elementary school yeah i'm pretty old watching tv shows like roy rogers and and those things in black and white i appreciate the idea of childhood innocence it would be wonderful if we could have that kind of innocence but we don't live in that world anymore where we are in the 21st century 22 years into this century and for those of you who have never actually walked through doesn't even i was mostly in high school but you might be surprised at what the kids know and you might be surprised at what the kids
145feel and a lot of the things that i hear from some of the constituents that are regulars here at the meeting are they you all have the absolute right for your children to say no i don't want this book taught to my child or no i want to opt my child out of the sexuality portion of health education no i don't want my child to hear what was it worm love's worm but i want all of you to consider something i want you to consider the lgbtq community consider the fact that some of the children in those primary grades might have a transgender parent yes a transgender parent i actually know a couple people several that are transgender and have children those children in that classroom might have two moms or two dads what about
146those kids they don't count when it comes to sexuality maybe you might want to also think about children that live in environments that aren't protecting them in any way children who are in the foster care system because they've been removed from abusive or drug addicted parents or they've been trafficked or they've been neglected but unfortunately are still in that home situation situations that you read that i listened to out loud from tony morrison's books and i'm not saying that i would choose to teach those books but those situations brought forward very real issues for the children that she was representing the incest the abuse that those children endured if you want to read a book and this is kind of blending two things together black history month and things that we squirm about try reading
147the narrative of the life of frederick douglass read that read about the sexuality now frederick douglass when he wrote that book i think it was in the 1830s might have been the 1850s somewhere in that well before the civil war he didn't use the word but that's what he was talking about he didn't use some of the words that you find in tony morrison's book but he was talking about it because what he portrays about slavery is brutal just saying and i take a little bit of exception to what my board colleague said because i do hear people slamming teachers indirectly you may say i love teachers and all and yet i've heard people say and i've heard and i've seen in the legislature wanting to put cameras in the classrooms i've actually had constituents
148write to me we own these schools and we have well i don't have time to go into why that's a terrible idea i want to go into the school anytime and make sure and i don't want to notify the teacher i want to make sure that teacher isn't teaching anything bad to my kids yeah i've heard that i want to make sure that the teachers don't aren't indoctrinating my child because as mr rover pointed out one book can be read in two different ways can't it and who's directing that if it is a book taught in the classroom it would be the teacher i trust the teachers i trust their judgments i trust them and if you have any thought that they are not trustworthy that they are not underpaid that they are disrespected by
149a wide variety of people in the community in our legislature then you better take a look at what's being done you better take a look because if you don't look fast you might miss public education going right down the toilet i saw wonderful teachers and many of the board members were at the celebration of the golden apple finalists this past week put on by the wonderful foundation for lip county public schools it was a great publication and i'm doing a great publication it was a great celebration and i'm going to end with a little happy note from me on why the experiences of teaching are priceless but you still need money to pay your bills of the finalists came up to me and said you probably don't remember me but i was a student in
150in your ap class when i was a junior and this goes back gosh probably at least 13 years ago and her last name she married her last name and i kind of remembered a little and this wonderful teacher said miss vaughn i just want to thank you i want to thank you because you are hard on us in that class but what you taught us about writing what you taught me about writing has served me through my career through college through my career so thank you and any of you who've taught and you've had your kids come up and say anything even i mean i have kids from texas that are in their 50s that i still hear from it's priceless but they still need money to pay the bills and that's all i have
151to say thank you miss vaughn i'm going to pass what she's going to pass guess who's permanent is it is your oh she's she's passing otherwise she would if she had something to say she would definitely say she's passing so now but that's thank you for the good of her he's worried about you speaking so guess who's turning it's your turn it's my turn yes okay well can you please say say hi to your mom right i'm gonna say hi to mom hi mom but i don't remember your name but you did a wonderful wonderful job what's your name bryce david can't have conversations with people all right okay well you did a wonderful job just to say the least and congratulations on your promotion especially as a woman my mother she works at home
152depot she's been there for 35 years and she works at the protests and she's a woman and she has to deal with contractors every day so you can only imagine how that goes and you didn't get promoted because you're a woman you got promoted because you know what you're doing and she said that i have a lot of time i usually get like three minutes when i come here so i have a lot to talk about so we're gonna give you five minutes how's that okay well i am i am carson branch a senior at cypress lake high school i'm graduating soon and i will be sad to leave the lee county school district elementary and middle school were rough times for me but luckily enough i had a great so i have a great
153support system from administrators and teachers from administrators and teachers i am very thankful for the administrators and teachers at cypress lake high school especially the principal mrs rolls and mrs vickers they are family members to me she is not only she's not only the principal she's family i have worked hand in hand with administration and staff on projects to improve the school one of my biggest goals was to re-renovate the bathrooms and thank you thank you to the school board for helping me out on that with the administration projects improve the school board my goal my goal is fulfilled thank you to them another project i am working on is with the baseball coach tony fercaro and the building of a new shed for for equipment storage thank you to our local home depot for
154helping us out and also donating concrete in the past i am also putting up new paintings around the school with the help of a wonderful staff member miss newton who is also an alumni at cypress lake high school but i must say the most important teachers in my life who have prepared me for my for life my mother oh you're good oh my goodness you're good you can do it deep breath and you can do it's my amazing mother and my idol my granddad my mother is more than a mother she is a she's a life teacher she has guided me through tough situations my grandad has never turned his back on me and my great great grandmother is the number one person in my whole heart she's my neighbor by the way and i'm
155honestly not even going to read this off i just want to say thank you to all the lee county school district staff from paris to bus drivers to security guards to principals who stay after school at after school activities i mean it is so hardened and it's so hard it is it's so difficult i mean and thank you to the subs i have a sub that i love the most mr butler he's the tallest guy in the world but he's always like a ball of joy whenever you meet him i mean he runs into every classroom that they need help in and he's always there he's always there and i want to give a special thank you to miss vickers miss vickers is truly another mother to me we hang out i mean this might
156not be legal or whatever but but what but now out of school and she has i've paid her for suggestions many of times i don't know what to do here she actually wrote this for me there you go and she's the best and i really am really am thankful for cypress lake high school and i hope to mr savage i hope to take a tour with you of cypress lake high school as we were talking about before and i'm just so thankful for you all and with riverdale you were talking about riverdale one of my best friends mariah gillam who's on the volley who's on the softball team she just transferred there and we were talking about riverdale because we were talking about the bathrooms at cypress lake high school and riverdale needs a big
157renovation so also i have a friend that went to fort myers high school the other day for the parade me and my mom attended and she went to go and use the restrooms and they also need to be re-renovated also so i would love if if we could set up a system to where we go around to all schools if it hasn't already been set up to where we go around to all schools and we check what they need building wise especially the older schools because those are our most prized possession ones and i want to thank you all so much for allowing me to come up here and i also want to say something to the public you all do not realize what these ladies and gentlemen go through up here y'all came i
158mean i've been to a lot of past ones and y'all have talked about books and i understand that it is a it is a big issue it's a big topic but they are doing all they can do they are doing they're putting their best foot forward and you also have to realize it's not like these folks up here have went up and physically put a book in the library i'm just saying and i want to thank y'all for having me up here and that's all i have to say thank you that is hope for the future right there and then i gotta follow that no just kidding that's too much right there i just kirsten just really thank you so much for being here i really appreciate you and your words you got me choked
159up still and mom thank you for raising a great son i'm just saying but i've said all my comments today i just it's been a meeting but you can never speak in front of me again that's it i'm done i'm done with you i'm done but yeah so i did mine this morning so i am this afternoon so i'm gonna go to mr pre-bruno do you have any comments information on the letter that was approved under board office item f2 is that going to be signed by all of the board members or is it going to be signed by the chair so the do we have comments on that this is regarding the miss fisher i think we should all sign it yeah agree okay can i get it but the let me sorry the
160letter that was approved was approved as signed by debbie jordan board chair it wasn't approved as being signed with individual names and i specifically asked for that because i know that there are some board members who don't want their name on the letter and i think we should respect that just as a team we should respect that it has the same effect either way we're just not putting individual members of the team in a difficult situation so it's already been approved as signs by the chair may i please let's get this i spoke with the attorney this afternoon prior to it being approved and that was one of the things that i had brought up to instead of having it just from debbie jordan to have it from the school board of lee county to
161me that has more clout than and no offense to you as the chair but if we're trying to make a statement that this is what we believe then why not say it's from the board of the you know school board of lee county but right and i did bring that up prior to the to the vote and i'm sorry i didn't realize i thought it was blank miss patricka but if the letter goes out on board letterhead and it's signed by the board chair that says it's from the school board does it not no attorney to pre-bruno does it not it does say it's from the board chair i'm looking at the letter i did not realize that the one that was uploaded had debbie jordan board chair's name on it because the original draft
162did not have that on there correct and that's the one that i thought was going to be uploaded but this is still a draft and it's completely up to the board as to how they want this signed the content of the letter is what is important that has been approved by the board as to who signs it that's what i want direction from the board thank you so much so if i may again if for the miss okay did you have enough well i just want to say one last thing about it that if if it signed debbie jordan and then our signatures are around it we're saying we approve what debbie jordan says rather than saying that what we as a board say right so this is why we're saying can we approve it
163from it being from the entire board with everybody's signatures on it can we have thumbs up for everybody's signatures on it okay so we have miss dupree bruno you have it's five to two want to live with it and one no thank you and then the only other question i had is who is this letter going to be sent to do we want it to be sent to the i believe it's the president of the senate but i'll double check the title or do we want it just sent to the local delegation local senators our local senators and you want this address mrs patricka i would say to the senate and copy our local delegation both house and senate both house and senate okay does everybody agree with that yes so that they all have
164it that's good confess consensus please consensus please thank you and six to one enjoying the clap okay is was that it mr prabhanil yes thank you dr savage yes madam chair just a few comments first you know hearing you know when when i get to hear from karsten and then again i think of presley last time and when i watched our north fort myers group presenting and doing their their pre music beforehand it gives you such tremendous hope for for all of us you know to know that we're our we're in your hands yeah you are the leaders of tomorrow you're the ones dedicated the kind thoughtful words that you shared i think presley even sent an email after you know had so just this is the type of thing that really inspires me i'll
165say you know i was a french horn player too i didn't want to do that i was forced that was the only instrument that they needed someone to do and i watched the french horn player and the red knights here ahead of time i thought boy he is way better than i ever was i also was thrilled that you mentioned john butler because that is the name of mr butler that substitute that you're talking about he's famous he's a great sub and he's been at cyprus corridor for years and years and years and he is extremely tall that is very true but his height is only exceeded by his heart he is a kind person he's beloved you know to see a substitute in this we don't talk about subs very often but for you
166to shine a light on our substitute teachers especially right now to know that john butler is out there and i haven't seen him in over 10 years but i still remember because he was the most one of the most active subs in our system and just a wonderful man so thank you for shining a light on him you know just the locks project one i know is a lot of conversation day i don't want to delegitimize any of the concerns that were brought up there certainly were lots of issues during a major major capital project like that i remember seeing photos of kind of upside-down locks and some of those issues so i don't want to sweep that under the rug and make it appear that none of those things happen i would just say
167it's a massive massive project and that's why i feel very confident that now we are in very good hands with ms daniel i know she probably had to help clean up a lot of that work at the time just looking forward to the continued investment in in making maintenance the best it can be so congratulations on your appointment also just on the books we certainly will be following up with that academic services i understand they're just i have had a lot of texts going back and forth with them while they're sitting in the audience as well as through the presentation they did today which i thought was excellent one of the big highlights i want to make sure parents who didn't watch that earlier that earlier briefing was that there is the ability to put
168alerts on your in the destiny system so if you're a parent who's been alarmed by any of what you've heard so far you don't want to go through the process of actually challenging a particular book but you're just worried and concerned then you have that ability actually at the ready and if you're not not from the technology feel free to call your child school they'll be happy to assist assist you whether it's your teacher if your elementary or administration at the schools that's just something that is a mechanism that's already in place we'll continue to look at all options to ensure that we can make it the best it can be at the same time the accuracy of the public records request we'll certainly look into that because that is very concerning if the same
169person's receiving multiple conflicting information we'll look into that the 35 million dollars in the food storage just we had asked to have that resent to the board i think back in the end of january we had a visual data visualization to try to make it a picture worth a thousand words but that's that's being sent let us know if that meets your needs if it's easy to use it as a talking piece or not had a lot of conversations coming forward to talk about paying people more settle the contract i think was a specific words board super pay the settle the contract i just want to remind everyone who watches you know that's the board i'm not involved in the bargaining directly that is a bargaining team that does that the board is not involved
170in bargaining directly so you know there are that is a process the interest-based process which we've used for years and years and years the teams come together they're very transparent about what their interests are those are recorded meetings you have the opportunity to view them i encourage you to do it if there's ever any question how that works and what's being debated it's a long process but it can be very worthwhile to study that also something i failed to mention a couple weeks ago fgcu has a really a first of its kind here locally are international fellows so these are these are people who are educators or studying to be educators from other countries and every continent is represented other than australia and then antarctica these are these are students who are international students who
171are here at fgcu and are now working with two of our schools three oaks middle and dunbar high and they each have teachers assigned to them in the ela and the math field so this is really an exciting partnership and the first time it's a huge grant that fgcu worked on to get these students here and it's just a wonderful opportunity for us to get these international students and their broad world views coming from all over and it's amazing the different countries that are represented but they're working with our kids they're exposing our students they're not only are they getting to see an american way of life in our american school system and pushing into our systems and but but they're really able to share some of what they've learned and their their students at
172fgcu at the same time so it's an amazing program it's going on right now as we speak and a pretty exciting thing that i did not mention when it began the other thing i just wanted to mention was that we have we have the distinction of somebody who's really amazing mr jarrett eady who was just recently acknowledged as the person of the year for lee pitts live and this is fun because you know jared is constantly recognizing me he's the 40 under 40. this is lee pitt's life he's the person of the year and ms kittens as well yes specifically first to highlight mr edie that the amazing thing about mr edie on this as far as our particular community is he has had a just a tremendous career service in our community and as
173a young person he's so deeply involved so for him to be leading the work right now during such a difficult time as our director of diversity and inclusion just so thrilled to have his leadership and again i think ms gins needs no introduction here she is at our borders another person mentioned and just the timeliness of that piece so just to highlight our recipients here at the table and then last but not least what the work is all about the teachers at the golden apple finalists i had the chance on friday was not feeling well just like a still little on the weather had my mask on i didn't know how long i'd make it but the most the best part about working with all these teachers was that some of them they were just
174so you would never know a pandemic had happened you'd never know some of the conditions that some of them had gone through and we had community leaders and business owners all these folks out there to support them so it's really an opportunity for all of our community leaders to kind of highlight that the teachers are the focus the teachers and the work they're doing with their kids every day really is such a powerful focus for us to be thinking about and a lot of those teachers were willing to share with me the ugly realities of what they've dealt with so i really appreciated that candor that some of them were just willing to do it so much so that i closed it down i was there i wasn't feeling well but i lasted the entire
175evening and i only got into the parking lot and still had lots of tips on how we can better serve so thank you to those teachers for your service thank you for being candid and honest and helping to push us to be the best we can be and thank you to everyone in the community who's constantly pushing us to be the best we can be then those are my comments for this evening thank you and i did forget something i wanted to congratulate miss barbara i'm really happy for you and i know you're gonna do a great job and i also wanted to thank the young man and i know you spoke on him first time we've ever had someone stay the whole time they usually do the presentation and they're gone so thank you
176so much for being here and thank you for and doing that i like wanted to whisper to the parents you can leave with him if you want to but they stay the whole time we really do appreciate it and thank you for that and i know you're going into the service they said so best wishes for you thank you the next schedule meeting of the board will be a workshop on march 7th at noon a briefing on march 8th at 1 followed by an action meeting at 6 p.m at this point having no further business to come before this body see no objection this meeting is adjourned and the time is 903. have a good you