001good evening robert roper just one second let's make sure that the time there you go the i was trying to get a couple seconds it remains a portion of the draft equity guide that falls far short of complying with the parental rights and education law it's found at the bottom of page six under the title sharing information regarding sexuality and or gender identity it says if a student is requesting accommodations based on their sexual orientation and or gender identity the student will be referred to the school counselor the school counselor will let the student know that they are required to involve the parent and will work with the student through that process earlier today ms patricka had a line of questioning that was very similar to the line of questioning i had in a meeting
002with miss bruno mr bradley and mr hudak last december i had to go back to listen to what was said today the timestamp is two hours 31 minutes and 30 seconds where mr bradley's answering miss patricka who asked are we as a district meaning mr bradley believe that a student is in real danger of abuse concerning their gender identity mr bradley's response was it's found on page seven i just read it to you if we believe pause more than just a hunch some real belief that a student is going to be subjected to abuse neglect or abandonment we are required to protect that child no the district is not required to protect that child that is the state's job as an emt and even as a pastor i'm required immediately to report via the most
003expeditious means anything of this nature anything less than that response by the district is unlawful and more importantly not in the best interest of the student there seems to be some disconnect between the responses i get from the board attorney and now the law and soon to be policy 2.062 the district needs to craft a carefully worded statement it's necessary to eliminate all loopholes to protect children to protect well-meaning staff from violating the law i really like the verbiage that's found in policy proposed policy 2.062 the draft on pages are on line 65-69 it basically quotes the law parents will be notified if there is a change in their child services or monitoring related to their mental health emotional health physical health or well-being it goes on from there but i ask you please this
004sounds eerily familiar to what we've been doing since december and it has to stop thank you good i've been looking through all the policies that you all have and i sat through a number of the hours meetings here for the workshop as well as listened online and i have to say that there are a couple policies i have some significant issues with and since i'm limited in time i'm going to limit them three the proposed policy zero one six nine point one public comment is even more restrictive than the current policy that we have under the new policy public comment will be decreased from 60 minutes to 30 minutes yet each person would get three minutes but that means a total of 10 people would be allowed to speak prior to any decision making process
005yeah you throw us a bone and you let us talk at the end of the meeting but basically this tells me you guys really don't want to listen to what we have to say i'm also a little bit concerned about the fact that you're going to be required that we're going to be giving our address that's private information and it does not need to be disclosed proposed policy 1030.01 states that the superintendent may suspend any policy in case of an emergency it seems like one heck of a catch-all that will allow anything to be done by the superintendent including possibly mandatory masking social distancing vaccination or anything else this is worse than the board policy 1.181 which we got rid of that dealt with ppe and this particular policy needs to seriously be revisited and
006considered very carefully by the board before you give carte blanche to the superintendent not to mention if the superintendent ends up being elected and you have even less authority and control over them finally the policy dealing with the board reorg and information dealing with who the chairperson is and designating the chairperson is the presiding officer is very concerning to me as you all know i have a lawsuit against the district on this very matter the presiding officer is identified as the chairperson they're granted a number of items including the ability to hold and call for emergency and special meetings on their own while the rest of the board is required to have a majority they are allowed to act as a pseudo-parliamentarian designate agenda items the type of meetings in which those items will be
007assigned and also to allocate and designate who would be able to be in different organizational status and meetings this is very different from a ministerial act which would include designating a board member to attend a meeting as a liaison and not as a voting member i would specifically state that in my opinion these are action items and therefore there should be the opportunity after nomination for the public to make comment regarding the proposed chairpersons and i see absolutely no reason why that should not be allowed unless you have something to hide thank you very much thank you good evening i'm shirley chapman and first of all i want to say i was excited about seeing all of the new teachers today as they came in i mean i was excited and looking at a diverse
008group and i'm just expecting great things this school term coming up now the appointments of dr cupid mccoy and mr ramirez represents a major step forward for the school district of lee county the naacp is excited to see their experience and expertise that work here in our community they not only connect with diverse aspects of our community but they possess the skills to take our district to the next level the next positive level the naacp is proud to support them along with the school district in their work i have a motto and it fits now and that's anything worth doing is worth doing well so the naacp believes that lee's school district is headed in the right direction doing things well thank you good evening good evening everyone i'd just like to respectfully request that
009dr banier and the board consider some creative ways for the district to reach out to the public when they're trying to advertise for people to participate in surveys or sit on committees if there could be possibly a menu on the website with a list of all the different options and you could opt in for different things that you'd want like maybe they don't want board meetings and agendas but maybe they would want to be notified about a lot of the other activities and as far as surveys and participating in surveys so i just request that would be something that communications committee would consider and i was looking through the updated policy 2.0621 and this has probably been in the previous policy and i just never noticed it but since i was reading this one from
010start to finish i did and it was regarding charter school students virtual school full-time students and homeschool students and i kept reading it and it said okay these kids are in these alternate methods of education but then they get to come back and take advantage and not that i would want to deny any child an opportunity for extracurricular activities but they're allowed to come back and either do extracurricular activities at the school they would be assigned to or a school of their choice now that's that's wonderful in theory but as a taxpayer money is being taken out of the school district budget for those kids to go to a charter school so the district is losing that money but then the kids are coming back into the school system the public school system to use
011our extracurricular activities so there should be some kind of a quid pro quo there that the district and the taxpayers are not responsible for those extra dollars being taken out of the budget and whether it's a fee basis or something like that but you make a choice to home school to charter school or to virtual school and it's like you can't have it both ways you want to take the best of this and the best of that but then it's costing the taxpayers in the district dollars thank you i'm sorry that concludes public comment so is there another person out here do they speak jen jen l ellis there we go hi good evening i'm here as a concerned parent as usual i've been in the school system i moved here 15 years ago because
012it was a rated and my son just graduated from mariner and i'm just tired and i'm exhausted because let me tell you for the last 10 years i have been having to be on top of my children in this school district on top of everything their school work i mean just name it everything okay i'm a very concerned and parent so the last incident was my son is a senior and he is in the cna program at mariner he is going to go on to be a doctor god willing and what happened is that he went through this program and apparently you all made him take the jab in january you know the jab what i'm talking about right the jack okay lee health made him yeah i signed the consent because he really wanted
013to be a cna and start his career okay against my will and besides he just had covered within a couple of months but they didn't care okay so anyway so this is january so now march is coming along and i believe the test is in april and i'm saying to him how's everything going because he's been going back and forth to all these hospitals doing all his clinicals on his own time and his gas time and doing this and that and the other so he says going fine mom going five and then a matter of fact i think he even bought the teacher a present because it was going so well so come april the test i said okay what's going on he says well i've got sad news i said what he says i
014can't take the test i said you have got to be kidding me what is going on okay no i don't want to be involved okay he's been a senior he's almost 18 you know i've been involved all their lives with the school board and lee county i'm tired i'm exhausted okay i'm not getting involved so i said to him what's going on she says well somehow my date of birth got entered incorrectly but the teacher's on top of it she wrote the paperwork and we sent this at least things license in and all this stuff i said okay so guess what graduation is coming and he still is not taking a test for the cna graduation is here oh my god what is going on now oh mom i don't know mom i don't know
015i really don't know i said well you need to find out so he finds out he's on he goes well the teacher's working on it mom i said no that's not acceptable so i said i'm giving you the 24 hours to find out what's going on unless i'm getting involved at this point so now he says oh well the paperwork was never submitted by the teacher okay yeah the paperwork was never submitted by the people this is what they're telling us to test people so now it's it's may you know graduation so we submit the paperwork and they're telling us six weeks six weeks go by and we don't have a test date yet so now they're pushing us off a bus and the teachers know where to be found okay teachers know where to
016pay for them so i'm running out of time but low in the sun i called the principal complain thank you ma'am yeah he's got a test day thank god due to me thank you at madam chair concludes public comment thank you okay well first of all i'd like to thank everyone who came this evening and had some input and shared with us regarding the gray robinson maybe dr bernier you can help me elaborate on that there's two different positions greg robinson is the part who is constantly in up in tallahassee paying attention to all the laws continuously and if you want to elaborate a little bit more on the difference the gray robinson contract is a replacement for specific services that we've had in the past that were no longer available to us and we're
017the will of the board and advice from me that we accept and find outside counsel to help us in the legislative process we establish ourselves with not only our local delegation but also the members across the state gray robinson has a strong and very wide reach within the state of florida they represent several other school districts they look for common themes and they work the tally the tallahassee end of things when legislative is when the legislature is in session they work it very well and they do a very good job to the point of our speaker i do agree with you that eventually there should be a transition between us hiring outside counsel to help us with our lobbying efforts and building an opportunity for our own chief communications and government relations officer to accept
018those responsibilities with the staff that will report to that individual we are just not there yet and the legislative session is upon us i know it seems a long way away when you think about january february but it will be here before we know it and we need to be prepared because currently you as a board do not have a finalized legislative platform so this opportunity with gray robinson was seen as a bridge in order to not only bring up the speed our communications and government relations team which will be brand new to this district and at the same time continue to move the work of the district forward thank you and then there was a comment about the the guide and i actually realized that last week that when someone had called me and
019i was i was literally at home and i was trying to get on that and i could not open all the references i could open up but on board docs but as a individual i could not open up the bottom piece but it i found out that it was because it was not internet it was intranet so it was based into our school that's and that's why the sun is able to get on that referring to all of the guide that we just went through so there's two things about the guide that came up so let's talk about if we can let's talk about both of them one is the links the links will be made active where they can be if not appendices will be added to the document so as that the public
020when they click on the link goes to the appropriate appendices and can see the document the critical component is making sure we are clear and transparent the staff did come across this issue we were unaware that it was basically a lee school at leeschools.net that was driving access to it i certainly didn't log it home log in from home from my gmail account so i was not aware of that as soon as mr bradley and jessica jessica duncan brought that to my attention we have begun to work to make sure that we have a change in a process in order to make all of that content readily available was never our intent as to the other issue about protecting a child and abuse as everybody knows when i everybody should know it if you don't
021as as public educators we are all mandatory there is no question in my mind that the first response from mr bradley or myself or jessica duncan or anyone else would be the first thing we would do is pick up the hotline and dial 96 abuse that's what we do it is a requirement of us and then we deal with the student on the other side i think we have to make sure that and i have made a public promise and a pledge in a private one and what i am so i'm going to have to say happy about is the shift in the state from the time that i was here last where parents were eliminated from this process of helping to understand their student and helping their student move through a crisis or decision
022or whatever words you'd like to place on it the parent now has a right to know this school district this staff will follow the law and parents will be involved in the processes of helping to guide their children we have a responsibility to include you as a partner in this process thank you and then go ahead mr p burno just to add to that when you see neglect abandonment and abuse those are very special words coming from florida chapter 39 which is the abuse neglect abandonment law which is what dr bernier is talking about in terms of being a mandatory reporter so when mr bradley was saying that's what he was referring to and that is what the statute refers to as well that if there is a concern about abandonment abuse neglect you're going
023to report it and that's what they're referring to as the hotline and finally if i may i'd like to thank the speaker for bringing up because when i heard it i interpreted it very differently i interpret it as being a mandatory reporter that other version of what somebody else heard is a valid version i will make sure that is discussed in depth brought forward because we will not eliminate parents from the process of being involved with their child as we educate them in a pre-k through 12 system we will not do it thank you dr bernier and then also dr chapman thank you for your words ms sharon regarding the charter schools the virtual school the home schools as far as the county is concerned all the students are our students they're lee county students
024i don't know dr werner if you have something else to elaborate that on for other than they are all of our students i think that's a great way to start they are all of our students they reside within the county but the state law is very clear with charter school and other private school students that they have the opportunity and specifically to sorry not private school but other public scholarships that those students have a right it's written into statute that those students are eligible to participate in athletics and extracurricular activities back at their zone school or school of choice thank you and then miss jenner if you have your list if you want to email it that'd be great and i believe that miss jen i believe that i seen dr malloy reaching out to
025her so thank you for sharing your comments with us okay so let's see where are we okay so we're going to move on to the approval of the action items under the agent consents the documentation for action items listed under consent is made available to the board members seven business days prior to the board meetings we are expected to review all materials and we have the opportunity to speak with the superintendent with any questions we may have regarding the recommendations some of these items have also been briefed or workshop with the board in advance of appearing on the action agenda board members are there any agenda items you wish to pull for discussion under unfinished business tabled items portion of the agenda miss fisher i have no polls this evening thank you miss giovanelli i
026have none miss patrick no thank you miss kittens i have none thank you thank you miss vaughn i have none thank you miss morgan and i have none thank you and i have none is there a motion to approve the agent agenda consent action items sorry forget that we already have that is there a is there a motion to approve the agenda consent approve the consent agenda as printed thank you miss fisher second and second it by ms kittens thank you and please record your vote thank you 7 00 motion carries thank you dr bernier please introduce any administrators in attendance with new assignments that were approved under the consent agenda the present member of the board would be my pleasure first is a change of assignment to lee hall she will be headed to
027be an assistant principal at gulf elementary school would you stand and be recognized for the transfer or a change in assignment jennifer milton barnes who's the principal at ocamec will be joining the lee virtual school in emerging technology programs as its new principal susan soza will be joining lehigh senior high as an assistant principal and dennis losenberry will be joining oak hammock middle school as an assistant principal the point of personal privilege that makes me smile the intention the intentionality of asking assistant principals while they're involved in the process to come in and speak with me and hearing and knowing their answers now as they stand and be recognized i can't be more impressed with our principal's ability to select from a very distinguished pool and choose the right people for the right schools so
028i don't know if the principles are present but if you are you're doing a great job of choosing your teams i'm very very proud of what you're pulling off two appointments very specific new hires to our school district joining us as the new chief of staff as denise carlin takes an opportunity to move forward in her career as the chief communications and government relations officer thank you denise but a new person joining our team will be michael ramirez and the superintendent's office he'll be joining us as the chief of staff ramirez as a finalist for the superintendency here in lee county that is the same michael ramirez if you are a fan of abraham lincoln at all i suggest you read a book called the team of rivals it's important to have people's other other
029opinions surrounding you as a leader lastly this evening i have an opportunity to introduce jennifer dr jennifer cupid mccoy she will be joining us from orange county public schools in the area of academic services as our new deputy superintendent all the candidates the word that i have for all of you is trust these appointments reflect a huge trust in me as the superintendent and from your school board that you will be responsible and wonderful stewards of the youth that you are in charge of please understand that trust comes willing from them but it is a sense of accountability they also ask you to take away from this room because the work you do is really important to ensure that all of our students are success and reach their highest potentials so thank you and enjoy
030that trust because you need to use it to make a difference in the lives of our children wow we're moving through this okay we are up to board member comments if if there's anybody that anybody that really wants to leave you may do so we can take a two minute break otherwise you can stay here and share with us more congratulations to the families as well yes hey clear the room out okay i am going to start with board member comments with miss fisher thank you first of all i'd like to welcome jennifer cupid mccoy and michael ramirez to the team and to congratulate all the people who just left on their new assignments they went to work i attended the closing ceremony for support our students and i want to congratulate crystal torres nunez
031and jared edie for the job that they've done in providing those kids with an amazing summer experience preparing them for the workforce sunday we were at miss jordan and i were at the big backpack event sponsored by the multicultural society and there were thousands of backpacks and bags of groceries provided to our community members music played and it was a wonderful event and i thank the multicultural society for their many years of providing that opportunity i attended a meet and greet for the new administration at trafalgar middle and they did an awesome job in showcasing and had a wonderful turnout and i just want to thank all of our hard-working staff members who continue to keep the ball rolling every day and dr carlin i'll look for you in communications thank you very much nelly
032thank you first of all i'd just like to welcome dr ramirez and dr cuban mccoy because i'm a very excited i thought i think it speaks volumes that dr bernier can bring someone on that was i guess a rival at least a an opponent i'll just say but and i think that actually speaks volumes for both of you as professionals and i commend you both for that and i'm excited for your leadership because that just it speaks volumes that you can do that and come together and for the best interests of the district and that's what i see that as being that kind of relationship and partnership and i support this these changes or these new buyers because i think it's important for a superintendent to have someone that he feels confident and surrounding him
033and has confidentiality and trust is very important for him to have that and i respect that and dr carlin i'm excited to see you in communications because the need is great there so i appreciate you stepping up and able to do that that speaks volumes as well so i'm all excited because august 10th is around the corner for everyone and i want the students first day and staff the first day of school to be the best and so i'm excited and i pray that all the buses are working inoperable and we have all the employees there for that because that's going to be the challenge and so i'm praying dearly that all works out great with that plan and if not parents and students please be patient because i know that the bus drivers are
034doing the best that they can do with the what they're able to do so i just i'm hopeful is what i am i'm very hopeful i that's really all i have other than i'm excited for a new school year so welcome everybody thank you thank you mr evanelli miss retrica so i think you can hear this seven times dr cupid mccoy and dr ramirez i'm really really really excited for what you bring to this community i think that dr bernier you are surrounding yourself with highly qualified accomplished education innovators and i think that you will challenge the status quo and bring fresh ideas so that we can better serve our students i look forward to the coming months and years understanding that you are rising stars who are on borrowed time and so i invite
035everyone to really maximize the time i want to say that a nice way just sort of maximize the talent that we have in the district for the period of time that we have you i really do see the next two years as being very exciting given the team that you're surrounding yourself with dr bernier so i thank you for that and to to sort of add to what ms giovannelli said i have never understood why presidential candidates don't appoint their runner-up in the primary as their vice president it just seems like makes sense and you always have the full breadth of talent that we're the finalists on your team so maybe you should run for president dr bernier happy where i'm at in terms of my activities ms morgan if you don't mind i'll talk
036about the fhsaa board meeting please where we had discussed two issues it was a special board meeting we discussed the youth behavior survey ms fisher that i know you provided yes you provided some good feedback on that we have decided not to do a resolution because there was not unanimous board approval for a resolution however executive director i'm sorry she's now the ceo ceo andrea messina of fsba has written a letter asking for us to be able to continue in that and have a voice at the table for any new survey that would be created by the doe and sent out so when i say us i mean fsba and i wanted you to be aware of that also we had an update from an attorney hired by fsba regarding the constitutionality of the 12-year
037term limits and that attorney's opinion is that it is constitutional and no challenge can be made until eight years from now basically is what was said at that meeting because there is no harm to any individual right now with the law having been passed so as it stands that was basically the advice that we got in addition through my membership on the fhsaa board i did attend the national on the nfhs conference national federation of high school athletic associations conference in san antonio in texas i have not yet had an opportunity to provide you with my written notes because i've been on vacation but i will get them to the board i wanted to highlight a couple of important things the first is several states are working with their state does to provide classes in
038their high schools for students to become officials we are facing an official shortage across the state and across the country and by offering these classes we sort of make a dent in that shortage of officials in allowing high school kids who become certified to referee at middle school and perhaps freshmen and jv games so i thought that was interesting i do have to follow up with fhsaa before i bring any kind of proposal to the board but i wanted to let you know that was an exciting thing that i learned and i think a great opportunity for our kids the other thing that was really interesting that was discussed was nil name image and likeness that's now being utilized at the ncaa level and a couple of states have passed a couple of state associations
039have passed regulations surrounding that the common theme for those states is that no student is allowed to capitalize on his or her name image and likeness while wearing a school jersey or while referencing the state association so for instance a kid can say i am the florida state golf champion but a child could not say i am the fhsaa florida state golf champion likewise a child could wear school colors and say i'm the star of the basketball team but could not say i'm the star of the mariner high school basketball team wearing a mariner jersey so i'm not yet sure what what route the fhsaa is going to take i don't know if the state is going to dictate what we do there or if fhsaa is going to be permitted to make those regulations
040but i'm also going to have some conversations with dave larosa about that and it's just an exciting sort of new area for our students and we want to make sure we protect them and we provide them with the opportunities that are due to them through these changes that have occurred in the law and finally from the conference was title nine i think we all know that this is the 50-year anniversary of title ix and i have been receiving bi-weekly or every three weeks emails from nfhs throughout this entire year and i haven't paid much attention to them to be honest with you the emails have highlighted various girls and women in sports and the accomplishments that they've had and i just i just haven't paid that much attention to it i mean i you know
041i read them but it didn't really move me but when i was at that conference boy oh boy was i moved you all know that i was an athlete i was a four sport athlete in high school i was a college athlete and i never really fully grasped the foundation that was laid by the women that came before me in sport until i was at that conference and jackie joyner kersey was one of our speakers and to hear her talk about the struggles that she had early in her career and there was a video from who was the tennis player billy i mean why did she choose tennis she chose tennis because it was an acceptable sport for girls she probably could have been one of the best basketball players on the planet but she
042was sort of pigeonholed into tennis because that was really all that was available to her so i just i think i gained a new appreciation for the women who came before me and provided me with the opportunities that i have i mean women in sports girls in sports it's no-brainer right like obviously we do that but there was a time when it was very controversial and we needed a law to make it happen and the other thing that was really great was to be surrounded by women who are aggressive and outspoken and go-getters and all of the things that you learned to be in sports and i was surrounded by those women and it was sort of a it was sort of a verification that it's okay to be that way so anyways the last
043portion of my comments is to address public comment i think it's important to address misinformation and provide clarity the policy regarding public comment has not yet been discussed by the board it is a policy that was submitted to us by niola as part of a package the board will discuss it and we will either make changes and accept it or we will reject it in favor of the policy we already have in place so i appreciate that the comment however to to imply that in reviewing a policy we are somehow rejecting public comment i think is an unfair characterization at this point in terms of the superintendent having emergency powers are those powers defined anywhere in statute i don't know who i'm directing that question to madam chair yeah i think mr prieberno and i
044do believe that it is part of the if you look at the state statute i think it'll it there is there's a clear it does state what the ruling i don't want to put you on the spot so if you could just get back to us with that i do know that there are some there is some limiting language in the future there is and i don't have that limiting language off the top of my head but i also know that if we need to provide the superintendent with emergency powers in order to protect the health safety and welfare of our students our staff and our community because things do come up where it's impossible for you to gather the board around to make a decision so i'm not concerned about the emergency powers i
045don't think they would be abused and i just wanted to address that attorney dupree bruno are is it permissible for you to update the public regarding the lawsuit filed about the public comment is that something you can update us on the public comment when the board is choosing a chair and vice chair so there there are two cases there was a federal case that was dismissed but i cannot comment on the i don't think it's wise or prudent to comment on the other case okay was the federal case dismissed with or without prejudice there were four accounts in the federal case all dealing with various aspects of first amendment the first two counts were dismissed with prejudice and those were specifically the federal issues and the other two counts were state issues those were dismissed
046without prejudice because the federal court declined to exercise any type of jurisdiction over the state so thank you regarding charter school funding it is a frustration of mine as well frequently and not all charters but some charter schools do not provide mental health services for their students for example and so that charter school will have a child in their care that is experiencing mental health issues call down to the district the district is never going to say no but it is a drain on our resources and it is a conversation that we have frequently at the state level but it is not something we have any control over we do retain i believe five percent of the fefp for the first 250 students in a charter school and that is meant to handle the administrative
047costs of overseeing the charter school and that charter contract it does not touch the actual funding that we provide for those students it is an issue that is recognized and frequently discussed with school board members across the state finally there was a speaker who talked about her active participation participation in her children's education being exhausting and i couldn't agree with her more oh my gosh raising children and providing them quality education is incredibly incredibly exhausting i remember my kids coming home every friday from elementary school with a folder and i had to sign the folder because i had to go through all of the assignments that were in the folder and go through them with my children not to mention the everyday homework and the reading and all of the all of that and i
048thought when they were in elementary that i was laying this great foundation for kids that would be successful later it turns out it's even more time consuming when they're in middle school in high school so i'd like to thank the speaker for being involved in her children's education because her involvement is likely tied to her children's success those are my comments thank you thank you miss patricka miss kittens please okay and i'll start with where miss patricka ended and i appreciate the comment thanking parents for being involved and that yes it does directly help the success of a child however it makes me a little sad when i think about all of the students that do not have that same ability because of their circumstances whether it be you know foster children or with a
049guardian or whatever so we have to always remember them and so you know we thank the parents but i think the cousins and the aunts and the uncles and the grandparents that step in to fill those shoes so thank you for that i wanted to mention too i've heard a couple of times people talking about so much on the agenda and just as a reminder this time of year for one there are a plethora of things on the agenda because we're getting ready to open school for almost 99 what is it 99 900 students and we'll probably be at the 100 soon so at the beginning of the school year there are so many more things that do come up and we haven't had a meeting for several weeks the other thing is we have
050from switching from handling our policies in-house with our attorney and the attorneys and staff that we have switching to neola creates that initial that seems like a mountain of policies and it is because we have now shifted to a company that's helping us to quit get in line quicker with our policies so it seems like there's a whole lot at once but we are at the you know pinnacle of a process to make us a lot more efficient to dr cupid mccoy and dr ramirez people talk about change i look at what the superintendent is doing and how he's setting things up not as change but we're not changing we're moving we're moving forward we're moving upward we're moving into a position that we can definitely help our children achieve their highest potential so welcome
051to your move to help us move further when i let me see what else there was one other thing okay so when i mentioned this earlier today but when i taught especially high school i always started out the first couple weeks talking about respect and like i said we'd sing the song and we dance and we do all kinds of things to get the students initially to understand what respect really is the thing that i want to leave everyone with is that as we start a new school year respect comes when you listen and learn from others and you take what you want leave the rest but listen to what others are saying and you just might learn something and you might you know put aside something and change a little bit as i have
052been going around and know i'm not going to get political but as i have been going around to many political events and community events there are a lot of people that take one little nugget and they think they have the truth and they run and then they take it to someone else and they think they have the truth and then it's it's spread and spread talk to people if you have an opinion that is that strong talk to someone and find out i have some questions that i want to talk to some of you in the audience about because there's certain things i just don't understand and then maybe i will understand you better and you'll understand me better as we get ready to start school we need to show respect for our teachers our
053administrators parents bus drivers students and our community everybody has to show a little respect to everybody else so my challenge to all of you is in the next couple weeks as we start school at the end of each day ask yourself who did i show respect to today just think of one person and one thing that you did that showed respect to someone and better still is to someone that you don't know show some respect and just think what we'll be teaching our children to grow up and be respectful of each other and of us as well thank you so much and i welcome all of our new teachers that are coming in and coming in tomorrow and our new administrators and like i said we're not changing we're moving and moving up thank you
054very nice thank you miss kittens miss vaughn yeah just a few things since charter schools have have been mentioned i worked for one long terrible year at a charter school when i first moved here and it became immediately apparent that first of all the charter schools don't have to accept everyone and secondly and i was coming from a large high school in suburban dallas and a public high school and we had programs for you know very much like we have programs here in in lee county and the example that was given about mental health and some of the other examples i've heard for instance certain physical disabilities and maybe ell students and various things there are many charter schools that just plain don't offer those services so whereas there are many charter schools that have
055some let's say appealing curriculum when you think about charter schools don't put them up on this big romantic platform like they're the answer to when the government schools are disassembled by some people that would love to see that happen within the next eight to ten years but but please do realize that these schools don't have to accept all the students we take everyone we embrace everyone and if we don't have a program for that particular student we find the program or we make the program so i just want everybody to keep that in in mind okay i was interested in what mrs patricka had to say about her conference because it was in probably my favorite texas city san antonio i hope you got to drink some margaritas and walk on the river walk and
056all of that it's a great city but also because this is another one of my obsessions here here here it is what no not not the margaritas although they're pretty good i believe the fifth don't say a word and anyway what i was actually going to seriously say is that one one of my obsessions that i've mentioned several times to mr larosa is no pass no play texas the home of no pass no play and yes it works i cannot believe that school is going to be starting that teacher my teacher friends are going back to school already i mean i have a few people that i was going to have lunch with and i'm like oh my gosh they're not going to have time for me anymore i'm going to have to find some
057find something else but hopefully this will be the first most the first most that's not grammatically sound but anyway normal year that we've had in a while at least at least i hope so that's that's true and so i'm excited for all of the brand new teachers especially the teachers new to this school district the teachers excited for the teachers that are going back into their classrooms and believe me they didn't spend the summer with their you know at the pool drinking margaritas or whatever a lot of them were in we had many training sessions we had much we had a lot of professional development this summer and i guarantee that it doesn't matter if the teacher has a brand new preparation or the same old same old preparation for five years in a row
058they will have tweaked what they have they will have worked on on new ways to do things and finally i do need to also say that i appreciate what dr chapman said regarding the two upper level administrative appointments dr brunier and i were having a little over a week ago having the usual the one-on-one meeting and i had just said something like he was talking about new appointments so i said you know when we went through that superintendent search there were a lot of people on that list and even people actually that didn't make it as finalists but i said there were a lot of people on that list that i thought were really good and maybe not quite what we wanted for superintendent or or for you know whatever reason but boy there was
059some great people and he said well i want to tell you that michael ramirez you remember him i go yeah and he said well he has accepted a job with our district and one of the reasons that i'm particularly happy besides the fact that you know he was runner-up for sure and i mean there were certain things i think some of us said it's too bad we couldn't clone the two of them and put them together because it was such a hard decision but the thing that i love is we have had a real dearth of high level administrators in this district who are hispanic heritage that has been i remember when i was first on the board and i asked about some of our minorities and oh there's x number and i said yeah
060but are those many of them stock employees are they you know how many of those are administrators and so i commend dr brunir for looking at his rival his opponent whatever you want to put it and so i knew his resume so then dr bernier said well i'm also going to be recommending and he said dr cupid mccoy and i had the audacity to say oh would you send his her resume and he's like why and i said well just because i'm curious and i have to tell you that like dr ramirez i was blown away by your resume i'm like whoa all right you should have been waving that resume out on a flag to show his good judgment so i think we have two excellent candidates i think we have you know we've
061lost some people in administration and you know god speed to them but we move along as as miss skitton said and i'm hoping that by the end of my term which is coming in a few months that i can actually feel that one of the things that i wanted to see in lee county is that we changed the culture and the attitude of well we've always done it this way and the culture and the attitude that just because somebody well they didn't come on the mayflower to lee county but came on whatever boat was sailing down the swanee river or whatever i'm sorry i'm a jersey girl what can i say that itself alone makes you a perfect candidate well i'm so happy to see broadened perspectives and godspeed to all of you thank you
062miss vaughn if we can move on to miss morgan please so i'll pick up where ms vaughn left off and say welcome to texas and michael ramirez these appointments and these positions are exactly what this district needs for a jump shift to a new level of district leadership and student performance i am so excited for students and staff and families in this school district welcome thank you know i like to talk about what's on the agenda that i think is interesting particularly with respect to partnerships so to on tonight's agenda there were three adult and career ed and tech college grants one was the approval of a memorandum of understanding with urban strategies a partnership to provide adult education services to 75 of the 113 adult residents of the edison avenue dunbar neighborhood southwood southward
063village community in addition approval of a of a grant for career dual enrollment articulation between the school board of lee county and the lee technical colleges to enhance learning opportunities for eligible lee county public schools secondary students through the opportunity to enroll in specified post secondary careers career certificate certificate courses at the technical colleges this is a great opportunity for our kids and then finally an approval of the career dual enrollment agreement with charlotte county that will enable our students to clock hours in charlotte's technical college aviation airframe mechanics career certificate program this collaboration gives students especially those in the aerospace technology programs at island coast and bonita springs high school career options enabling them to be career ready and i want to thank rita davis for her update in the board weekly update outlining
064all the work that they are doing to expand learning opportunities for the adult community and and for things like upscale village which which provides an opportunity to be certified in some of the foundational soft skills that employers are looking for in their employees i want to thank the in their in the agenda also we approved the contract with the city of fort myers for services provided by the fort myers police department to support the sro program that is so important to us these sros are they are part of the heart of each school and critical to our ability to identify students in crisis and deprived to well that's it to provide outlets for students in a way that is different than they would find in the classroom so i want to thank them for continuing
065to to be involved in that let's see finally this afternoon after learning the board colleagues had spoken with conflict counsel john quick i also spoke with him not wishing to cross lines while the dupree bruno whistleblower complaint remains open i am tabling my request to visit the board org chart until the whistleblower complaint investigation is completed and those are my comments for this evening thank you thank you it's morgan and mr chico you had one mention of margaritas made me realize that i forgot something from the nfhs conference anyone know how many high school students go on to play in college anyone have any idea number of percentage percentage seven percent say five seven percent of high school athletes go on to play a college sport and i tell you that because this is the
066only opportunity for many of our students to learn the important lessons that come from sport and team play and all of that and are it illustrates for me our highlights for me the importance of the role of our coaches our athletic directors and dave larosa in the lives of our students so i i wanted to highlight that because that was highlighted for me i don't know why marguerite has reminded me of that could i ask mr patrick thank you yes on that you have a question i know long ago in the long ago when i was in texas that the students also had to have a minimal test score like s.a.t or do you know is that still that's still we don't is it is it not i don't know oh you mean to get
067into college oh yeah to get it even as an athlete in college yes and i believe each of our high schools have an ncaa advisor that helps student athletes get to that level i haven't kept up with that but i think that's also something important to point out that you know it's not just because i remember one example of a star athlete back in texas that try as the coaches and everybody else try as they may he just couldn't hit that hit that score and i think that's important to remember that we're not just sending people because they're good athletes and you know give it a year until you flunk out or whatever but that they also have yeah i'm glad that's still being done yeah and i think that the word student athlete has
068the word student first right for a reason student yeah thank you thank you okay pretty much everyone has already stated what what we have done we do have i want to say welcome to jennifer and michael we're really excited i'm very excited about you all being here i cannot wait to get to work with you and as mrs fisher said we gave out at the multicultural event this past weekend it was probably 100 and i don't know how hot it was it was really hot and it was a two-day event one day was filling all the back packs and filling all the bags so that the families would be able to get this and then the next day we were standing out there i was in charge of directing traffic she's great but it gave
069me the opportunity to speak to just about all the cars that came through as i was pulling them all up and i wasn't sure who was more excited if the kids were more excited or their parents were more excited to that school was starting but so it was quite interesting and the kids were really just it was beautiful to see all the kids and they were very happy to receive what they were receiving and the same with the family so i felt that was really good and i know there were many other ones going on around town and still more to come but i just felt that was really important tomorrow is an exciting day because we all have the new teachers we'll be out there waving to our get out there in the sun
070again waving to all the new teachers that are coming in and actually i was at a chamber event this past week and i was speaking to a a woman who had just moved into the area and lo and behold she is one of our new teachers and she's going to be an art teacher and she was so excited about being here and being prepared to start with our children at orangewood so i thought that was great and then august 10th at franklin park they always hold their gentlemen gentlemen it's called gentleman's welcome but everybody's welcome to come it's in the morning and it is it's been going on for years and we just 7 am and everybody comes in and they fist bump all the kids the kids expect people to be there every year
071so if you're not doing anything at seven o'clock in the morning on the 10th franklin park on edison and ford we'd love to have you there bring a uniform we're trying to bring everybody to bring one uniform so that way we can really get a lot of uniforms in there for the kids who are sometimes we have to have some extra ones for them but it's it's always an exciting morning and just seeing their faces it's a great day and then the last thing is that i had an opportunity with the drug coalition and we took a tour of the juvenile assessment center and went through all the processes and on how to how do we help our children and to just to see if they're if they are having issues and keep them out
072of there you know that's something that we do not want them there but it was quite eye-opening and i'm just excited the school is getting started and thank you all ladies for being here tonight and dr bernier for all the good work and miss patrick you have another thing can we get a uniform and or could we write a check to the school and tell them it's for a uniform well so what they're what they are asking is that you bring a uniform of any size because the children are all different sizes oh where do you buy a uniform okay at any store walmart's great for having them yes what are their colors their colors are tan blue red can blue red i mean they can wear anything yes they can switch pants shorts dresses
073whatever size you bring i'm sure that a child will would love that and madam chair are they going to be in their new location no they'll be at edison and ford and that does not take place until later in the year but that's what we're going to start them off at okay but yes love to see everybody there and moving on to mr preet bruno thank you madam chair i also want to welcome dr cupid mccoy and dr ramirez to the district looking forward to working with you and in addition miss patricka you had asked a question about the emergency powers that's something i'm gonna have to research a little bit more i can tell you that there's two areas in the law that i've been able to find so far one is with regards
074to procurement and then 1001.43 is the board's general powers which says that the board can create policies regarding emergencies in first aid i just want to check to make sure there's nothing else in the statute that i'm missing but that's what i've been able to find thus far and can you refresh our recollection regarding the limiting language that's in that policy we discussed policy just when you update the board if you could include that language please and thank you what i'd like to do is when we have our following workshop with neola which will be august 11th we'll be going through the other half of those policies that will be one of them we can have that discussion all right thank you oh that's right please so no i just want to make a comment
075on that in march 13th jumps out at me 2021 with covid and we had extensive discussions about the emergency powers and mr quick was involved with that as well so he may be able to give you some assistance because of kovid it was a big discussion yeah there was a couple of things because during that time period we actually had executive orders coming from the governor that was impactful that was part of that whole process and then of course we have our own board policy 1.18 which is our emergency powers policy for the superintendent so all of that kind of conflated together right thank you is that is that all for you miss dupri bruno yes ma'am thank you thank you dr vernier i'm going to put a little bit of spin on the thank
076yous i'd like to thank the board the appointments tonight not only of the other administrators but of two very critical components to the team surrounding me moving forward i really appreciate your diligence in trusting me just like i explained to all the administrators in the room this is a symbol of trust for them to go out into their communities into their respective schools and do the right thing by our children and by the families we serve so it's not lost on me that this is also another semblance of trust in me that i'm making good decisions and bringing you quality candidates which is all that i ever heard right from the very beginning if i bring the right candidates it moving through the formality of an appointment makes it much easier i want to just
077express that i have confidence in the entire staff we have some really amazing people here who spend a lot of late hours jessica duncan i will remember your name forever i promise i've already sent you a text of apology we have amazing people here in the school district and we have amazing alignment to our core values what we've talked about is sort of a lack of the organization always behaving with those core values at its very heart in order to create the outcomes we're looking for and i know with the two executive appointments and the rest of the executive team that's already on board we're going to be able to do great work i want to just make note it was a nice visit and a nice opportunity for cape coral high school to shine
078with the governor's visit on farm tech and our farm tech program appreciate that opportunity to highlight a great high school and a great high school program we'll tell you that over the last week i've spent two opportunities with our newest teachers i was there at their kickoff at paul lawrence dunbar middle school and then today i rolled by one more time because it was kind of their graduation i will tell you the most amazing experience mr dodig was watching them walk from the caloosahatchee room up out of the building to go get lunch i started counting and i'm just so thankful for the recruitment effort because without them i think we'd have probably doubled the amount of vacancies that we currently have and we're still short teachers but the work and the energy in those
079rooms today especially upon graduation was really great also had an opportunity to see some of our experienced teachers and those teachers in support today and support roles they were down in the river room as well and i just want to give a shout out to helen martin and the professional development team i don't know that helen is here tonight but she and her team have worked all summer long whether it's summer sizzle or sizzling summer series or whether it's just everything else we've done in order to get teachers onboarded and make them feel comfortable finally i just want to recognize i had a great opportunity a week ago to be in orlando for the florida teacher of the year gala allison kerner from harness marsh which is our teacher of the year was there along
080with her husband andy i suspect they are probably still in the outer banks with their only child which is their dog also as a middle school teacher she does amazing work and really deserve the honor and a chance to be recognized they were actually embedded for an entire week up there with the department of education i guess what she referred to it as filling her tool box so she felt like she has more tools to come back to the school district it was a clay county 7th grade teacher melissa mars that is the 2023 teacher of the year and you'll start to see her in the florida school boards association meetings and the other places that our teachers of the year for the state of florida go out and travel and then finally i can't
081wait for tomorrow it is a well-oiled machine around here i was driving back in from somewhere today and the banner was already going up welcoming our new teachers prepare to melt so we'll just do our very best to make sure we're all stay hydrated keep an eye on each other tomorrow and thank you for the point of privilege to allow our cfo to be home during that period of time that's where she needs to be right now so appreciate that and thank you again looking forward to the process as we get into new to all of our teachers returning next week and then our students returning on the 10th thank you thank you okay the next special meeting of the board is on thursday august 11th there will be a board workshop at 12 p.m
082on tuesday august 16th there will be a board briefing at 1pm followed by an action meeting at six on wednesday august 24th there will be a board workshop at 12 00 p.m and on tuesday august 30th there will be a board briefing at 1 followed by an action meeting at making sure there's no other meetings okay and at this point say no other business but to come before this body this meeting is adjourned and the time is records you