School Board Action Meeting: November 16, 2021

001good evening ladies and gentlemen we are ready to begin this evening's board meeting we would like to take this opportunity to remind the members of the public of the district's mission which is to ensure that each student achieves his or her highest personal potential and the district's vision to be a world-class school system prior to the start of this evening's meeting we have been enjoying music from the cape coral high school jazz band under the direction of eduardo ortega the pieces performed were thriller computer and bossa if you would like to hear more of the cape jazz band their winter concert will take place on december 9th at cape coral high school please join me again in giving the student performers a round of applause at this time we will take a brief pause to

002clear the performance area yes it is i'm trying to yeah it's not seeing logged in i'm going to come back said log out good evening it is my pleasure to welcome you to the november 16th 2021 school board meeting the time is 6 05 pm and this meeting is called to order pursuant to florida statute 1001.371 the superintendent acts as the chairman until the organization of the board has been completed at this time we also request all electronic devices be turned off or put in the silent mode also we ask that you please refrain from using flash photography except during the special presentations portion of the meeting we would like to take this opportunity to remind the members of the public of the district's mission which is to ensure that each student achieves his or

003her highest personal potential and the district's vision to be a world-class school system attorney duque bruno please be advised that pursuant to board policy 1.11 subsection 2c members may participate and vote by use of an interactive video and or telephone system to allow a physically absent member of the board to attend the meeting in those instances where the board member is confined to home or hospital due to illness or accident thus board member patricka may vote by phone tonight as is the custom of the board we will begin the meeting with a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance led by mrs gwinnettigens please stand for a moment of silence thank you miss kittens please remain standing introducing nick cadet who is presenting the national colors for our pledge of allegiance tonight is

004lieutenant colonel retired matthew mount senior army instructor from east lee county high school go jags lieutenant colonel mount served over 24 years in the national guard army reserve and active army reserve in numerous assignments of increasing responsibility he retired as the assistant professor of military science at vanderbilt university this is lieutenant colonel mount's second year as jrotc senior army instructor in the district thank you and thank you for your service after high school i pray that allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one god god indivisible with liberty and justice for all please be seated as i stated earlier according to florida statutes i will act as chairman until the organization of the board takes place before continuing the meeting as is the tradition

005we present a plaque to the outgoing chairman in this case ms debbie jordan in appreciation for your service for the last year and we are starting a new tradition to thank our outgoing vice chair in this case miss betsy vaughn in appreciation for your service last year as well ms vaughn thank you both for your service i will open and close the nominations for chairman and vice chairman each will then be followed by a vote i will then make a recommendation for the establishment of dates and times for the board's schedule schedule of regular school board meetings attorney dupuy bruno please explain the nomination and voting process thank you dr savage in the nomination and voting process the board will follow the laws mandating open governance in addition school board policy provides that the board

006follow robert's rules of order thus the nomination and voting process is as follows the superintendent will call for nominations for the position of chairman of the board please wait until you are recognized by the superintendent once all of the nominations have been received he will close the nominations and the board secretary will take a roll call vote the vote will be taken in the order that the nominations were received each member will signify their vote by stating i or nay yes or no is also acceptable we will continue this process until a nominee receives a majority vote of the board nominations do not require a second once the chairman has been elected we will move forward with the same process for the vice chair position thank you attorney david bruno please wait until i call

007upon you before providing your nomination i will now accept nominations for chairman of the board for the coming year ms gittins the superintendent i would like to nominate miss melisa giovanelli ms gittins nominates melisa giovannelli miss jordan i would like to nominate myself for a second term miss jordan nominates herself do we have any other nominations seeing none hearing them sorry ms vaughn first i nominate kathleen morgan thank you miss vaughn nominates kathleen morgan miss patricka did you wish to weigh in i'm good now thank you seeing no more nominations i will close nominations at this time mrs thomas not during a pre-re-org i'm sorry pursuant to the statute that does not happen you do not have an opportunity to speak during a pre-re-org i'm sorry excuse me you're mr you are out of order

008you're out of order i'm sorry there is no action vote on this public comment should be justified i'm sorry dr savage maybe we have a five minute recess please at this time we are resuming the school board meeting we have received our nominations and now we will proceed with our roll call vote mrs thomas please take a roll call vote beginning with the first nomination was for melissa givenelli first nomination is for mr giovannelli miss fisher how do you vote yes ms patricka no thank you miss jordan hey miss kittens yes miss vaughn day and miss morgan nay dr savage there is not a majority we will now move to the next nomination of mr debbie jordan mrs thomas please take a roll call vote donation for miss debbie jordan miss fisher how do you

009vote hi miss giovannelli aye miss patricka no thank you miss jordan i miss kittens no miss bond nay miss morgan nay doctor savage there is not a majority we will now move forward to the nomination of miss morgan the nomination for miss morgan miss fisher how do you vote miss giovanelli miss patricka yes please miss jordan nay yes miss morgan yay so dr savage the two individuals who have the highest vote count will be miss jordan and miss morgan we will go ahead and move forward with those two again with another round of voting so we will begin with miss jordan nomination for miss jordan miss fisher how do you vote aye ms giovanelli aye ms patricka no thank you miss jordan i miss kittens no miss vaughn no miss morgan no not a majority

010we will now move forward with ms morgan nomination for miss morgan miss fisher how do you vote no miss giovanelli no yes miss morgan yes there is not a majority we will do it again mr jordan we'll begin with miss jordan dr savage nomination for miss jordan miss fisher aye ms giovanelli yes miss patricka no thank you miss jordan hi miss gittins i'm sorry no miss vaughn no miss morgan nay we will now move forward to miss morgan nomination for miss morgan miss fisher how do you vote no miss giovannelli no miss patricka yes please miss jordan nay miss kittens miss bond yes miss morgan yes we're going to do it again it's jordan nomination for ms jordan yes miss schaefer can i have another tally please i'm probably going to need some more start

011with miss jordan nomination for miss jordan miss fisher hi miss giovannelli yes ms patricka no thank you miss jordan aye ms kittens yes miss bond no miss morgan yes dr savage we do have a majority at this point and the new chairman of the board is miss debbie jordan thank you is 5-2 thank you attorney depuy bruno i will now accept nominations for vice chairman of the board for the coming year please wait to be recognized ms vaughan i nominate melissa giovanelli miss giovanelli and i would nominate gwen gittins and you can take my name off thank you i'm sorry pardon i'm she's declining declining the nomination do i have any other nominations miss fisher well i've missed fisher first and then then you miss patricka sure yeah i'll nominate kathleen morgan and i decline

012miss patricka nomination i nominate miss fisher do i have any other nominations all right at this time nominations are now closed mrs thomas please take a roll call vote the first nomination is ms giddens nomination for miss gittins miss fisher how do you vote nay miss giovanelli yes miss patricka no thank you miss jordan nay miss gittins yes miss vaughn yes miss morgan name nomination for miss fisher miss fisher how do you vote aye ms giovannelli miss patricka yes please miss jordan yes miss kittens no miss vaughn no mr morgan yes dr savage from of a vote of four to three miss fisher is the new vice chair thank you attorney dupuy bruno congratulations to ms debbie jordan and miss mary fisher thank you miss jordan you are not you're no longer the outgoing chairman

013you are continuing in your role as chair so would you like to say anything before i turn the gavel back over to you after completing your first term i would just like to say well i have wrote something down for if i wasn't here but in the past year i have been honored and privileged to serve everyone on this board and all of you in the district parents our students our staff all of you i will continue to do that i will be present as i always have been i will continue to do that i will continue to serve i also will ask my colleagues to let's continue the work that we've been doing we have a lot to to get done and i just really appreciate each and every one of you and respect

014all of you and thank you i now turn the meeting over to the chairman of the board ms debbie jordan thank you okay thank you the remainder of this evening's agenda includes public comment consent action items which includes one item under board office one item under executive services five items under academic services five items under business services two items under human resources seven items under operations as well as four items under other business board members is there a motion to adopt the agenda i'll move to adopt the agenda as printed okay i am going to backtrack because we did not so i'm taking that back please i had the wrong script we are approving the savage that was you okay right here's one right here okay the approval of establish you're gonna do this one

015though yeah and then i'm gonna say that okay the next item in the organization of the board is just establish dates and times for the schedule of the regular school board meetings for the issuing year dr savage do you have a recommendation yes i do madam chair approval of the calendar establishing meeting dates and times for the regular school board meetings for the period january 2022 through december 2022 as presented thank you board members is there a motion to approve the motion i'll move to adopt the proposed school board meeting calendar thank you miss fisher a second please a second morgan thank you miss morgan is there any discussion hey all those in favor please signify by saying aye or is it on there okay thank you miss patricka how do you vote i voted

016yes please miss thomas if you could tell me because like oh i can see it thank you 7-0 motion carries the next is the remainder of the evening's agenda which i've already stated and i will ask board members is there a motion to adopt the agenda i'll move to adopt the agenda as printed thank you mr fisher and may i have a second please oh second morgan thank you miss morgan and please record your vote 7-0 the motion carries thank you this evening this evening student representative is alison bruno chair of the district student advisory committee allison is a junior at north fort myers high school she is actively involved in her community and her school serving as the president of her class in the student government vice chair of the cape coral city youth

017council and the president of lead like a woman club she participates in local athletic playing athletics playing for cape carl fast pitch softball as well as lady red night softball at her school ellie works for academic enrichment taking cambridge ace and ap courses maintaining an unweighted 4.0 gpa after high school allison hopes to study veterinarian medicine and pursues her dreams of fostering a positive and healthy florida ecosystem welcome allison thank you for being here and her parents told us not to say that they're here in the room just saying they're only sitting in the front room just saying next on the agenda is public comment miss dupay 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

018concerning 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 the rules concerning public comment are posted 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 manner 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 timber

019during the public comment period is prohibited speakers who failed 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 for board policy 1.11 and may be removed from the chambers there will be a one warning we will we will take recesses as necessary if there is not decorum in the chambers please remember that it is unlawful and a second degree misdemeanor to knowingly disrupt or interfere with the school board meeting per board policy 1.11 the time per speaker is 3 minutes if there are 20 2 minutes if there are 30 and 1 minute if there are 31 or more the maximum time allotted for public comment is one hour sixty speakers you will find a countdown on the big

020screen 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 you five speakers at a time please follow the staff's direction madam chair there are 24 speakers today and the time for each is three minutes thank you please make sure you have completed a public comment card if you intend to provide public comment the card is a public record identifying those who speak and providing contact information to staff for follow-up the cards are located with the staff in the hallway in addition if there is not decorum during this meeting i will call for a five minute recess we will continue to recess this meeting as needed increasing five minutes each time members of the diocese when

021a recess is called i ask that you leave the chamber of course it goes without saying that during the recess board members will not discuss any matters that is pending on the agenda or will come before this body to avoid sunshine violations i will reiterate what ms dapri bruno just said and that it is unlawful for any second-degree misdemeanor to knowingly disrupt or interfere with a school board meeting we would appreciate it if you would state your name prior to making a comment is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the board who has not filled out a comment card please raise your hand is there anyone who did not fill out a common card okay mrs dupree brno please proceed with public comments thank you and it's actually 23 speakers madam chair

022and it's two minutes per speaker thank you board secretary two minutes per speaker thank you will the following individuals please line up robert roper denise maestrom keith olsen heather boyle jan m is robert roper also known as ward cleaver i'd like to do a book review today the bluest eye written by tony morrison the book portrays scenes of racism prejudice sexually explicit descriptions of rape and incest very disturbing language and homosexuality one school english teacher said they like to teach this book because the students think it's a cultural studies course this is the problem the method you just want to make sure your microphone is working because you went out there for a minute spot me about five seconds here the book portrays blacks as oppressed and whites as oppressors if you've studied critical race

023theory this will sound familiar to you one teacher protested the fact that parents had the books removed from the school library saying i'm upset that they and hurt that they the parents cannot trust what we as teachers know is what is best for our students there's no way to share the graphic sexual nature of this book without using the words the author uses it will be highly offensive as a listener i just can't do that this book even includes descriptions of pedophilia which i will quote directly from page 118 why do i have to die the little girls are the only things i'll miss you know when i touch their little blank and bite them just a little i feel it's a friendly bite i didn't want to kiss their mouths or sleep in their

024bed or take their child bride from my own playful i felt and friendly not like the newspaper said not like the people whispered two of them doreen and sugar bay they came together i gave them mints and money and they ate ice cream with their legs wide open while i played with them it's like a party this book can be found in eight high school libraries in lee county at island coast there are 28 of these books that tells me that there's a teacher using this in the classroom this is totally unacceptable my name is keith olsen two weeks ago at board meeting i spoke on the draft for 1.111 public comments and i noticed that there was no draft available for tonight's meeting and that there were distinct differences for the rules under public

025comments so i'm not sure if that was voted on or just slipped in but i do have some comments about it i agree with deleting the comment at the very top of 1.111 that the board recommend welcomes public comment because as i mentioned two weeks ago i think that is absolutely not true that they're tolerated and perhaps perhaps some comments are welcomed if they tend to be positive enough so i commend you on your honesty the contact information that we put on the cards should be absolutely voluntary i don't know if well in in the written struck instructions for tonight there was no mention of the digital contact a countdown clock but you are using it i'm glad in the written statement it was that the parliamentarian would nudge us verbally as we reach toward

026the end of our comments i think that's completely inappropriate so i'm glad you're not doing what your policy says you would do i disagree continuing that we should not allow us to give yield time to somebody else i think we absolutely should i'm most concerned about your limitation of anything that would be a negative kind of a comment free speech means that we get to verbally vocally and non-vocally say we approve and also verbally vocally and non-vocally say we disapprove and it doesn't seem like you're allowing that denise nystrom board member 3 is scheduled to attend the national school boards conference in california our taxpayer money should not support organizations that equate vocal parents to domestic terrorists board member three may support their ideology but the community does not board number three used her status

027to defame a community member at the last action meeting when she read an opinion piece that was full of lies although directing different district staff is something that she's not supposed to do she directed district staff to give her opinion to the news stations newspaper and social media outlets this is an abuse of power these actions put the district in the position of being sued and she can be sued personally too and i hope she is there is a motion on the floor to have board member three investigated by the governor are you sweeping that under the carpet for months the public has asked for proof that the k-8 school in estero needs to be built after we file the civil rights complaint the board is discussing this yesterday board members asked questions about the

028amount of money that has been spent on quadruple a the same concern was not shown when you were voting to purchase nine million dollars in steel when mrs gittins was asking for proof that the building was warranted false information about student population and the money spent on the k-8 building was provided by administrators at yesterday's meeting and given to the news student growth numbers were based on inappropriately approximate student enrollment and not on factual data which was available per mr rittenbacher's chart at least 12 million dollars has been spent on land plans and steel policy one one one was created to silence the public we were told not to clap yet at the last board meeting board member three's family clapped and so did board member one that's disgusting clapping after defaming a private citizen

029is unacceptable heather boyle in regards to the large amount of employees since the school district has recently lost do we realize that since just the october 5th meeting the board has approved personnel changes to include 231 resignations 83 with certificates and 148 support staff after the meeting about 6 weeks is pretty heartbreaking these are people who deserve better and our students depend on at a recent meeting mr dodig was asked about exit interviews when employees leave his response was that they are optional and done via email why really is my only question regarding that why are they optional exit interviews should be required on the last day of employment conducted in person by someone from hr these exit interviews should be reviewed to see where you can do better turnover especially if these rates cost

030the district so much time and money to recruit and train new employees yesterday mr dodeck mentioned a recent hiring event which is fantastic since i imagine you have a ton of open positions to fill but it really does no good if we are not actively recognizing and fixing what's broken i believe ms fisher asked about the types of incentives that are being offered to current employees i hope you realize it's not always monetary incentives that keep employees at their core they just want to be heard and appreciated i recently read an article that stated 50 percent of the reason that people will stay with their current employers are recognition of work and a great relationship with their managers you don't always need pay or to wait for collective bargaining agreements to value your employees you

031just need the right people in place you don't need managers and supervisors you need leaders which is a very different thing leaders who want to invest in and help their people grow if you don't have these people in place then maybe you need some changes in that area top employees need to be identified and engaged with once someone decides to start looking your odds of keeping them are extremely low leadership needs to be effectively trained now to engage with staff so although i have before you speak ma'am with the following individuals please line up jen wata mar perez christopher mancilla amanda evans jackie hi thank you my name is jan first i want to thank the board for everything that you do i know it's not an easy job and i'm always excited to see

032a student representative here i think it's great we need you are tomorrow's leaders thank you for being here we're here to serve students that's our job it's a great privilege and responsibility i just feel like i want to thank teachers and for everything they've done covet's been very hard on everyone and i think i don't think you can say thank you enough and i think that's what we ask of our kids so i just want to say it one more time i want to speak in support of bus drivers i want to speak in support of bus drivers the thing that they've asked for and i from my small exchanges here is respect i want to speak in support of respect for bus drivers they also serve our kids and our community i want to

033speak in support of naacp's plea to draw maps that represent our children of color and specifically the school board members must listen serve and advocate for the individual needs of children and parents in the district that they were sworn to represent the board has an opportunity to draw districts centering racial equality and ensuring youth in lee county are treated fairly and given opportunities they deserve to succeed in school i think we always need to stand up for our people and children of color that is again a privilege and a responsibility i want to thank you for your continued standing up to harassment and intimidation in the school board meetings because we don't accept it from our kids and our students thank you very much jennifer wada lee county activist i really didn't prepare anything tonight

034i really wasn't expecting to speak but i feel like i have to and besides i am hard of hearing just in case you all forgot so i will speak have to speak a little loud sorry but i have been deemed deaf by the doctor just in case y'all forgot from last meeting okay so we have talked about some things about the other day my son comes home and i'm starting to get involved with them because of what's been happening the last few years again i've been retired now for a few years so i'm going to be more involved and i'm going to have people awake to what you all have done okay this is a board that consistently wastes our money to our taxpayers money i forgot a couple years ago i was floored and

035just disappointed about what i saw on the news about the last superintendent this last superintendent took our grade level down from an a to a b and you all decide to give them a ten thousand dollar race i could not believe this who does this really just who does this that's all i got to say and you all expect to be reelected well i'm sorry but i will stand on every street corner to make sure the people the public will know what you have done to our children in the last 10 years and i'm going to go back to my child what has happened i asked him how school was you know what he says to me a teacher mentioned marriage to him marriage that's right marriage what the heck what's going on with math

036reading and arithmetic but no marriage instead and i said to my son i said what did she say oh well she says how bad marriage is how bad marriage is i'm like wow this is something else folks this is what's going on in our school instead of teaching our reading writing and under the text because i'd like to know how you're going to get our grade level back up students are dropping out teachers are dropping out for god sakes people you need to wake up just like we are going to wake up thank you good evening my name amanda evans the bus operator automatic i'm sorry they're going to fix the microphone for you do you need to finish your comment just hold on they'll fix the mic for you can you hear me now

037yes okay my name amanda evans of us must operate out leonard and i'm the new spout president hello my name is mark perez and i'm here today with the hopes of shedding light on a matter that the district has overlooked for far too long the inequalities young women face in our district's high schools i have recently started a petition to change our district's undress dress code policies now having garnered over 3500 signatures from students parents and staff alike i believe this warrants rightful discussion a dress code for students is necessary but the way our policies are currently written and enforced leaves much room for improvement the current dress code policy focuses on limiting distractions in our learning environment claiming that personal appearance shall not detract from the educational process however the distraction that is created

038by a student showing their shoulders is far lesser than that distraction that is created by pulling that student out of class over 70 percent of dress coded students in florida high schools are females making it difficult for us to have those equal growth opportunities that our male counterparts have with our dress code now our body shapes and sizes determine whether our clothing is appropriate or not leaving which should be clearly and objectively dictated in our dress codes open to the interpretation of each school's administration causing many female students to feel ashamed and objectified by their school staff and teachers a female student from lehigh high school was recently dress coded for wearing shorts that went down to her mid thigh when her male friend complained that he was wearing the same leg shorts he was

039met with i can't dress code boys for that though with all these issues in mind i propose a dress code for lee county high schools that is similar to that of st john's which recently changed its dress code policies their new gender their new dress code policy is gender neutral and is being enforced in a matter that focuses on positive guidance it states all clothing must cover areas from one armpit to the other down to the mid thigh tops must always have shoulder straps i want to thank you and i hope that the voices of over 3 500 people do not go unnoticed thank you will the following individuals please line up christy divijelli stephanie hoffman amy blakely ali lock and stephanie house and this is a reminder please no clapping during public comment because

040if we clap after every comment we'll be here for a long long time so please no clapping feel free to do your hand signs hello everyone i'm christopher mancia and i am a sophomore at a current league county high school i am here in support of my dear friend mark press about the dress code change personally as a male i can tell that i have had no problems with females like however they want to dress that's fine with me like i've had i've never considered them distracting or anything that has affected my academics or anything that i've done while participating in school i believe that yes that schools are over exaggerating that oh females if they're showing their shoulders or their ankles or any almost revealing part of the body is considered a distraction or

041something inappropriate i feel that's just over exaggerated i believe that high school should be a time when students should be able to enjoy their last years of being a freedom being a child like i'm i'm sorry of being children preparing themselves for the real world and real world and not having to deal with problems like oh you're going to get a dress code just because your shoulders showing your shoulders like i believe that is very exaggerating that should not be happening i also propose that the police county school board should work on creating a gender mutual dress code this i believe this will help many students in our in our high schools across the county and yes thank you ali lock just to push again to please ask the district to conduct in-person exit interviews

042with teachers we just recently lost two more at my school in the last week one is supposed to be leaving next week after break and the other is retiring in january and these two teachers were admired by students so i would love for you to be able to find out why those teachers are leaving and what we can do to keep them a exit interview should not be conducted via email because like most district things that come in email is viewed as optional and really not important but when you require or you ask the staff member personally to complete an exit interview to ask them why they're leaving i feel like they will be more inclined to answer you honestly because then they have no retaliation from anywhere so please think about revising that and

043conduct in-person exit interviews for teachers thank you christie tv jilly on behalf of my daughter thank you for listening according to her they're eating like royalty so again thank you for that policy 1.111 needs to go don't there's nothing more that needs to be said about that i don't think we should have anyone currently employed as an administrator that cannot step into every role in the department they oversee especially our bus drivers it was mentioned in yesterday's workshop that all of the 19 or so admins and transportation have the certifications and or qualifications necessary to fill in when a driver is out sick however i spoke to the bus drivers and it was determined that was a lie according to the real heroes in transportation only four admins have the qualifications necessary to fill in

044when you have driver shortages but only two of them are actually willing to do it to step up and actually help out when that happens so i'd like to know what the real number of transportation admins is as of today of them how many of them can actually get into a bus today and drive it if necessary to what's the status of the time clocks in the transportation area have they been turned back on yet are they readily available to the drivers when they need to clock in and then dr savage said something on board meeting public comments he said quote unquote in my mind i try to filter it almost as if there's a curtain here or two-way glass we where where we are here within the bubble and people can see us as

045an opportunity for open government so they can see what's going on there's a clarity of it but in my mind i viewed it that way so i can focus on you board members and individuals and keep my blinders on about work and not so much about whatever's out there so are you saying that you sit up there and just shut us out the whole time looking all concerned with that with your face and it's not really genuine because that's what it sounds like thank you good evening stephanie hoffman the parent of two children in the school district and i had prepared me remarks but with the children here today that were asking for an amendment to the dress code policy i would just like to spend my time supporting what they have to say as

046a parent of both a girl and a boy i have to say that the dress code policy is completely in equally applied to both girls and boys with my daughter we have to go buy your new clothes every year with my son he can wear whatever he wants because nobody's going to question his basketball shorts and t-shirt my daughter she can't wear what i'm wearing right now which i wear to cord which is a tank top but if she goes if she shows up at school in this she would be sent home she also can't wear clothes with any visible rips in them even if she doesn't have any clean clothes to wear and this year at her middle school she was told that she's not allowed to wear a hoodie even though if the

047hood is down meaning that we had to go buy her new clothing when it got cold because we weren't informed of that policy before the school year started i believe that it's time for us to update these policies and the inequal way that they're applied and definitely look into adopting a gender neutral dress code policy thank you will the following individuals please line up winnie harrison melissa hatter marina da silva gabriel da silva mary beth ocean good evening just some of the key words that were just spoken before i got up here kind of pulls together some of the things i wanted to say dressing up masking putting clothes on the way you appear when you come out kind of brings it all together for me right here i just took some notes that i

048was going to bring before you and it just kind of brings my whole subject into tomb i watched the meeting you had yesterday regarding the school tax and building the new school in estero and when i saw that i wanted to know why and then when i got your numbers from mr rittenbach i saw the figures from the last census that said why you have a great need in the east district for more schooling for more building for more more concrete to be poor but even then they told you take those funds even if you don't build a new school which you might not be able to right away reinvest build up something that's already being broken down you ever heard of that many what's already broken right here right there in the east district

049if you can't build new fix what's broken what one person said why would you want to work in a broken down building maybe that's why some of your employees are leaving why would you want to go into a place that doesn't have air conditioning fix what's already broken why are you losing some of your employees they don't want to work there the children fix that clothing issue invest take those masks off and go into the public and let them see you see what your code says that you swore to do hi i'm melissa hatter district 3 board member who made racially charged statements about students had a family member yet again come sing her praises while simultaneously insulting many community members with her measly salary reference lee county per capita income in 2019 was thirty

050three thousand five hundred forty three dollars in cyprus lake high school had 21 students classified as homeless in 2019. imagine how the board's measly salary could have changed the lives of those children if you divide that salary by the meetings on tonight's agenda schedule that's two thousand two hundred thirty six dollars and fifty cents per meeting meetings which this member frequently is absent from leaves early or sets heart stop times for other members have walked out of meetings because they don't like their topics the board attorney continues to enforce unconstitutional policy c ison versus madison local school district july 2021 after the meeting where board district 3 had a tirade went on a tirade there was applause yet no word of reprimand the very next day just hours later when district two's board member was

051applauded a member of the community was called out by name scolded and given a warning our constitutional rights are not to be selectively protected and that is what continues happening is jordan those investigations have still not happened like you said they did you said you were going to make a statement to correct that i'm winnie harrison i originally had this written about the public comment policy first i imagine most people come here with concerns they want addressed rather than to give praise so here's a thought instead of limiting the time given for public comment or the number of people allowed to speak or moving public comment until after the meeting is adjourned which makes zero sense to any rational person why not give people less to complain about stop treating parents and taxpayers as the

052enemy searching them reprimanding them for showing emotion about their children and snarling things such as we don't allow hacking here instead take positive action on their concerns make it so they don't want to come back and even more upset you know do your jobs and if it is too difficult to digest any more information after a certain period of time quote unquote as one board member was recently quoted as saying in a newspaper article then perhaps look for another job that isn't so mentally taxing rather than having speakers sacrifice their rightful time and along the lines of how parents and taxpayers are treated what the heck was that dragging somebody out it's come to that is this a prison people get searched they get treated very poorly and i just can't understand it that was

053one of your employers that you had dragged out we paid you just disgusting shame on you hi my name is marina la silva i'm here to speak in favor of jacqueline paris and when i was i was shocked when i first heard everything they said about jacqueline i served a serious trauma at my previous school sophomore myers high school this school treat me very badly and my parents they didn't have any help because they don't speak english at all and but when jacqueline started to help us and this cronus was now involved in this case and she was helping my parents were treated very differently and the school started to take the problem in another way and jacqueline was a very important piece to help me and my family to do everything to go through

054everything this jacqueline is a great woman who has helped many girls who have been abused like me i was i will always be grateful to her for everything she did for me and my family she knew all the ways to help me and the only thing she has ever wanted was help me and other girls i don't know where my case and where i would be right now without her thank you very much well the following individuals please line up iris ramirez jacqueline perez ariana perez mary hartley and will tina harris also line up please hello my name is gabriel lazul i'm the brother of the previous speaker marina de silva jacqueline has helped us in a way that no one else could she was a great help to the case of my sister who

055was abused in her previous school and they were trying to cover that and not make it public she was oppressed by other kids and the school did nothing about it and when they we went to confront them they wanted to kick us out of the school now i do not know if the board knew about that but nothing was done and without jacqueline like my sister said i do not know where we would have been now and after jaclyn got into the case i can say that they were scared of her they fear what what what she could do that they are trying to shut people who can speak down that they don't want us to come looking on what they are doing on what we were going through because they want to keep a

056low profile without for the public and shut people who have mind their own mind down and that's what i think they are trying to do with jacqueline she's a great woman and like my sister said i don't know where would we would have been without her she has helped many other girls who have been going to the same thing and honestly shame on you good evening i'm mary beth ocean from estero i would like to request that the district 3 board member resign her position on this lee county board as well as her position as president of the florida school board association palm beach county has withdrawn their membership from the association until which time their elected president resigns the shenanigans double talk and inflammatory remarks while on this board are unacceptable by this elected

057official the future school in estero needs to be stopped florida doe would not approve this school because you have not proved there is a sufficient need it would be a calamity for you to continue to support the construction when you know that the doe would not just because you have a half a penny sales tax monies doesn't mean that you should discard the criteria used to determine the viability for a school you are getting the tax dollars from the very constituents who oppose the school location for valid regions reasons which have been ignored for the last 14 months we were against the school have proven that the traffic report used was invalid as it was based on the traffic trends during the covet pandemic when the state was shut down the student growth rate was

058based on invalid data as well it would be a hypocrisy to call this future school a neighborhood school as it sits in the midst of a community composed mostly of retirees so what is the solution work with the estero village to devise a plan that requires large developments proper land for future schools that's what we need east of 175 i-75 on corkscrew we need the developers to pitch in and give to estero proffer land for a school this is what used to be done in the past so let's make this the future one that makes sense for a sterile village not a plan that will screw up the wonderful village with a traffic nightmare you go on ms patricka district 3. i also wanted to bring up a lot of people may not know that

059in loudoun county virginia a young man who was allowed to use the girls bathrooms has been accused by two girls for rape and sexual harassment and i don't know how many he's done that too that we don't know about and this will continue to escalate if we continue to allow boys to use girls bathrooms you know it's just ridiculous they didn't want it they tried to cover it up it's big mess loud and county you guys can look it up and i also have other concerns like the word progressive what is it personal passionate progressive is on the i guess the i don't know the key words morals of lee county district that has got to go and hopefully the new incoming board will get rid of that like what does that even mean now

060if you look up the word progressive today it means left-wing socialist marxist democrat a lot of things that are political we should not we might as well have said democrat party you know so that needs to go and that's going to be part of what we are going to be interviewing new board members about including losing all the bigotry stop i'm finding out kids in the lower income districts are being discriminated against why are they in substandard schools and trailers and also crt and anything you know arose by any other name is being taught let's get rid of bigotry let's get rid of race fading let's focus on teaching children not sexual excuse me ma'am could you please just state your name please ramirez thank you good evening board i felt the need to come

061out and straighten out the most despicable blatant lies spewed from the mouth of a board member here at the last board meeting let me clarify the first lie that was repeated not only by her but by several of your district employees over and over again that i have sued the school district unsuccessfully i've never sued the school district directly but guess what i'm going to sue you now this deranged board member also stated that i had one ocr case that i was successful with she was wrong i have six the first one helped knock nancy graham straight into retirement and establish the bullying guidelines and internet access for reporting bullying it involved the training of over 12 000 employees the second one was a 504 violation that made the district almost lose 11 million dollars

062the third one was with the naacp which you all signed i gave them all the evidence they needed and the other three were very well recognized in the news which were with students i'm under the weather i have asthma so please allow me a little bit of extra time i have never sent any messages to this board members children or filmed them you see the problem here is you have a mentally unstable narcissistic sociopathic liar that doesn't even know when she's lying but the truth is here the actual victim is my daughter who was a victim of a brutal attack in one of your schools several years ago and it wasn't even bullying it was a sick predatorial child who hunted her down ripped hair out of her head made threats of killing her and

063brutalized her in a band closet and chris patricka took advantage of this situation to call my child a liar over and over and over again that is despicable all the comments that she makes she's making references to my child and i found it disgusting that this board would actually have a member who represents bullying and would applaud the disgusting behavior of that family time is up thank you no clapping please just a reminder no clapping please my name is ariana perez and i am reading a speech on behalf of my aunt kiara perez who couldn't be here today i'm speaking in response to comments made by a school board member about my mother jacqueline perez my mother is a strong and successful advocate for children parents and employees at the school district and has been

064for several years it was difficult to see the lies directed at my mother by this school board member during my mother's campaign i watched this board member undermine my sister and the assault my sister experienced while she was in a lee county school by calling my sister a liar i watched this board member insult my mother's appearance as we waive signs for the campaign she and her family hurled vile comments at my family and i during the campaign she is a bully i believe she is an uncaring and careless person who is unfit to be a leader my mother is the true mama bear not only for her own children but for all the hundreds of children she has helped there are bullying laws and places at the school district because of my mother's advocacy

065it's disheartening to see a bully on the board i implore this board member to stop the lies and step down so a true leader can make a positive difference hi i'm mary hartley and i am here i was listening to everything i was not even going to speak tonight about the business i feel horrible for these buses since i've been here i've only been here about five six months and i've heard buster like people who drive the buses complain about it now i'm hearing shortages as a matter of fact this morning i had my kids come back the bus the sub bus came early so my kids did not make the bus so what i did was drive down my street pick up all the other kids who would have otherwise missed school today and

066i drove them to school you're welcome and also dress code i didn't know there was dress code i didn't know how strict the dress code here is one thing i will say no spandex for girls my boys we came from illinois and they thought it was so disgusting looking at girls butts working walking up the stairs some of them more underwear some didn't it was very inappropriate but they were allowed spandex please no spandex here according to the and then back to the busing you guys need to do better about treating your busters better you guys gotta pay them more do something i mean i've heard busting people talk about how they get up at 4 30 in the morning get to hit their bus at five they pick up kids at six and you

067know the one thing i tell my kids you just respect them you pick up the trash you help out and you be respectful as all kids should do and be towards the blessing busters so with that have a good night thank you guys i'll let you guys get them there safely good evening hi my name is tina harris and i come just to give a prime example thank you ma'am for your comments tonight because we are the head drivers are the hands and feet of education and you cannot do nothing without your hands or feet you cannot move and i just wanted to give a prime example of what my one of my co-workers julie experienced today from horne's marshmallow she had to go to use the restroom and the teacher told her she couldn't

068use it and she said i have to go and the teacher she said well you can't go she so she went on she's i'm going to go she said well she said you want me to use the bathroom on myself and the teacher said yes this is what we experience are drivers each and every day we are getting so disrespectful and just like she was like she was saying she's a female dog no disrespect to your dog in here man but you know but that is what a prime example what each and every driver experience each and every day we are your hands and we are your feet we are the heartbeat of this educational system and we want you to treat us with respect most of our with our health master our children mask

069us master children come on the bus one feet away and sickly church especially now all these drools and spit and everything and clothes especially now but our money step forward for us because it's it's time out it's time for the disrespect even though you do not respect my position but do not do not disrespect us we are your hands we are your feet and we're here to help you but do not don't disrespect us we are not dogs literally not dogs fair that concludes public comment first of all i would really like to thank each and every one of you for coming here today it's someone did make a comment about that we really didn't want you to be here we didn't want to hear what you have to say we do want you here

070we do want to hear what you have to say i know i do and i appreciate each and every one of you coming miss hatter i do owe you an apology i did miss speak and i told you i would say that out loud when i spoke about the investigations that were completed by the organization that we had hired those were the ones that were approved by the board at that time and yes there were two that were not in that so i did want to say that you did not misspeak i misspoke when i generalized it miss harris well miss evans welcome congratulations we're glad that you have stepped up i am sure that they're all happy that you have stepped up and you will be supporting our drivers and bus drivers you're right

071you're more than the feet and the what is it the hands and the feet your the hands the feet the heart your everything you pick those kids up in the morning you make sure that they get to school i know that you've been taking on extra stops because my grandkids are part of those that are getting home three hours late because of everything that you are having to do and i am so sorry if you are being disrespected because nobody deserves that nobody and dr savage i seen you over there taking notes and that's something we have to make sure that we are reiterating to everyone not just our schools our parents everyone needs to make sure that we are respecting each and every one you can't yeah i'm sorry ms harris we can't have

072conversations but we can talk offline okay because they're here thank you and again we did get the n95 masks for you all so they have them they have been ordered they are there if you need them and i did ask the question about who how many administrators how many people can drive the bus and i we were all ready to get our license but nobody wants us behind a bus but i do want to thank you again each everyone you oh and miss miss is it mara that the regarding the dress code you have the perfect person right here miss ellison she's a student advisory president and this would be a great topic to bring to them and to have that conversation so she's here she's heard what you all have to say and so

073this is a start so thank you all for doing that and we will move on excuse me the next is the approval of the action items in the agenda under consent the documentation for action items listed under consent is made available to board members seven business days prior to the board meeting we are expected to review 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 been also briefed or workshopped 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 table items portion of the agenda miss fisher i have no polls this evening mr evanelli i have none miss patricka no thank

074you miss kittens no miss bond i have no pulls miss morgan i have none and i have not is there a motion to approve the agenda's consent action items can i'll move to approve the action items agenda thank you mr fisher may i have a second please morgan will second thank you miss morgan please record your vote seven zero motion carries dr savage please you read your oh wait a second where am i here dr savage please introduce any administrators in attendance with new assignments that were approved under the consent agenda be my pleasure madam chair first i'd like to recognize the return of frederick ross this time as operations executive director operational planning and project management i'd also like to acknowledge a wilderly's cologne health services from our school nurse to an assistant director

075of health services and last but not least i have kevin calvi a staffing and talent management from human resources information systems coordinator to assistant director staffing and talent management well congratulation each one of you and i have to say congratulations i've met your daughter as you know and she wanted to make sure that i seen her mother i was in our little walk at veterans no yeah veterans and she said my mom is going to come to the district please tell her hi for me so how are you so congratulations we are if you'd like to stay we'd welcome you but you are welcome too and welcome back mr ross at this time the we are at board members comments and i'm going to start with miss fisher and chair yes i have a question

076on unfinished business oh yes tabled items there's nothing listed in in the agenda and i know we do to prove the agenda but either here or in my board member comments i'm going to bring forth the letter that we put aside in part because since i'm the liaison to edac they have requested that and i also personally feel that it's something unfinished here so what what's your preference on this that i wait or that this should go at this point under wouldn't it be under tabled items unfinished business it's not a tabled item it is you have a report to give to the board from edax so when it's your board member comment you can give your report i just wanted to make sure that i put it in the right spot so i know

077it wasn't tabled but unfinished so that's that's what i needed to know thank you thank you okay i'm sorry miss fisher thank you first of all thank you to all the people in the public our constituents who come to share their information their feelings their thoughts we are listening and we do care we care deeply about the students and this community so thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to share that with us i will especially thank the bus drivers we could not we wouldn't have any kids in school if we didn't have you guys and we appreciate you and i understand that superintendent savage will be communicating with everyone at the schools to let them know that we expect for everyone in this district to be treated with respect we

078do have a statement of non-discrimination policy and we need to honor that so thank you i want to also thank all staff for all the work that they're doing and to wish you all a happy thanksgiving and hope that you have a restful peaceful week as we take a little break i want to recognize all of my board members for participating in a very intense training this past week and to work on on our governance issues i want to also appreciate debbie jordan who is a returning chair and she did a very good job under a very difficult circumstances an unusual year and she held it together treated the public and all of us with respect so i want to really appreciate that and thank her and with that godspeed thank you thank you mr

079ivanelli well i was gonna ask for you to come back to me but no i haven't all right what about the student that's why we're making her stay here she's staying with us okay okay or do you want to go now i whenever you are we're gonna keep you here okay we're keeping it okay miss morgan let's see first of all i want to emphasize what ms fisher said and i also want to thank attorney dupuis bruno for the members of the public who weren't aware we've put in somewhere between 30 and 40 hours of intensive board development over the last week and a half we recognize that we're not meeting your expectations and we are working very hard to tackle some of our personal and our personal whatever issues and work together as a

080board team this would not have happened without attorney dupuis bruno i honestly entered this process with trepidation as i think my colleagues did i feel very confident going forward that this board will move from its storming stage of board development to a more normal stage and i hope that you all appreciate are able to appreciate how hard we really are working to address your concerns about the quality of our work i also want to thank the teachers and bus drivers you know it's thank you and i don't know how else to say it i mean i don't know what else to do we are very concerned about the conditions in which our teachers are teaching our classroom professionals are working our bus drivers everybody's working under tremendous stress we don't have enough staff we don't

081have enough bus drivers times are very difficult for a lot of people we're asking an awful lot and i know that people feel under appreciated and honestly sitting here at the board table i don't know how to say or do anything that will reassure you that we really appreciate you we appreciate what you do for our children i know the community appreciates you so thank you and the only other comment i will make and i'll make it very brief we did have construction advisory i am very excited because two two of the committee members are seriously interested in bringing forward new ideas for zeo energy energy efficient sustainable electrical power so the committee has is engaging in some of this work exploring it they've asked for more information from the two board members who presented

082and we will be continuing the conversation and if it's fruitful i think we will see them engaging with staff and perhaps with our delegation so those are my comments thank you thank you okay miss patricka thank you matt asked allison to refresh my recollection on her last name bernard bruno yes ma'am excellent okay ms bruno i'd like to address you through the chair it's really hard for me to believe that you're only a junior i've known you for several years now and your maturity and presence are really just not in line with your age you are incredibly composed and knowledgeable and i believe you're a born leader i want to encourage you to keep up the good work and please stay in touch with the board when you matriculate from the district so that we

083can all follow what i believe will be your inevitable successes do we have a deal you have it thank you so much thank you and i want to restrict my agreement with ms fisher that we appreciate all the people who attend board meetings and provide public comments i also know that there is so much information associated with the district that it's sometimes difficult to keep it all straight in excuse me in that spirit i would like to correct some inaccuracies from public comment this evening the first is to address fsba's status with nsba the florida school boards association long-range planning committee voted unanimously yesterday to recommend to the fsba board of directors that we allow fsba's nsba membership to lapse i want to remind you all that we have not paid dues at all this

084year and that decision was made in june long before the nsba letter was sent to president biden the long-range planning committee further unanimously voted to recommend to the fsc fsba board of directors at the fsda become one of 10 state association founding members of a new national association for school board members so long as the new association has a focus on urban education issues madam chair can i ask my colleagues at this time if anybody has any questions regarding our fsba status with nsba are there any questions that you all have no ma'am okay thank you there was some discussion about school grades under dr adkins who became the superintendent in 2015 when the district grade was a b also at that time in 2015 we had 23 d.a schools as a reminder d.a schools

085are those that are graded a deer at f by the state of florida when dr adkins retired in 2021 our district grade was a b and we had zero d.a schools also i think that it was mentioned tonight that dr savage said that all transportation transportation administrators hold cdl licenses i may have heard this incorrectly but i don't believe that was what he said i was calling into that meeting so i may have heard him incorrectly if i may through the chair ask dr savage to repeat what he said about the qualifications for transportation admins to you know allow them to fill in for bus drivers please dr savage because i know you had said that you didn't you were not you did not have that information right i did not make the comment specifically

086you relied i think was mr dodig who is available and again we wanted to make sure whatever he cited was confirmed i think he was speaking specifically of supervisors such as route supervisors he was pretty clear that the senior administrator upped the directory level up they were not they were not those folks that they were speaking of so we'll make sure to get the exact information of who carries cdls and put that in the way the weekly board update so it is exact yeah i believe that's correct i appreciate that clarification manager i have two more items if i may trico go ahead thank you i'd like to remind the public that dr james adams was shot to death in his office the safety measures that we are adopting have been proven to be necessary

087if we have these safety measures in place in 1994 it is very likely that dr james adams would likely have been safe from harm madam chair i'd like you to please add the topic of renaming the lee county public education center the dr james adams education center to our parking lot list of potential workshop topics okay and finally regarding our district logo personal passionate and progressive the political definition of progressive is different from the meaning attributed by this non-partisan school board it means that we are always progressing or moving forward those are my comments thank you thank you miss patricka mr chivanelli it is your turn i still would like to wait miss gittins has a motion that she wanted to present tonight so i would rather wait because that determines what i'm going to

088do okay thank you miss kittens yes i have a couple of comments thank you sorry no that's why i was trying to get everything out because i thought you had something i do yes like i said yesterday i would bring it a couple of comments first of all two speakers mentioned the exit interviews one of the things that i had discussed when i first got on the board and asked for information about was exit interviews i asked it several times because i feel it is very very important it was important then and it's important now i'll take this down while i speak and my comment three years ago was if we don't talk to the people that are leaving how do we improve how do we really know what it is that caused them to

089leave and i totally agree with you about doing something on paper is intimidating because if you are moving to another position and are concerned that may in some way affect you moving to a new position that could be intimidating so i totally agree with that i think exit interviews should be done in person the data should be kept strictly so that we know which areas which schools which departments which supervisors which whatever have the most turnover and be able to handle it accordingly miss evans i congratulate you and i congratulate all of you for having a new representative of spouk that is representative of what you guys need i hope that is the case and when we talk about the unions in talc and spout when i was a teacher i know we talked a

090lot about who is representing us and we need to make sure that whoever it is someone that we have confidence and trust in miss house you kind of led into my statement about reinvesting in the district and i thank you for those words when we spoke yesterday about quadruple a and the amount of money that we've already spent and potentially we're going to spend spend at least 100 million dollars my i think it was mr rickenbacker made the comment that 15 million dollars it would take 15 million dollars to extend a school and he said anywhere from two to four hundred seats so if you divide that 15 million into the 100 million you've got over 2 000 seats that would be added just by taking away the portables and adding an extension to a

091building just saying another thought for that hundred million would be and i know it's different funding sources but it can be arranged we could for two hundred and forty thousand dollars just two hundred and forty thousand we can provide in four of our most needed middle schools two full-time subs 240 000 from now until next june just 240 000 i've talked to some of the principals about this and they're looking they were looking at how they can take it out of their their funds or whatever and i said why we can't find 240 000 and let me explain what it's for we have coaches and teachers and all the staff and everybody is covering classes covering classes so we talk about the achievement gap if if we don't have the math coach in there helping

092the teachers to help the kids to catch up on the math you know because they're covering a class that's an issue and if 240 000 would give four middle schools two permanent subs and i know we have to beat the ground to find them but i bet we could to find two permanent subs for each of those schools that way these teachers wouldn't have to be covering classes the teachers wouldn't be as stressed they could teach what they have to teach and coach what they have to coach we i just i don't know i think we have got to get outside of the box we cannot continue to do things the way we're going i looked at the vacancies for this last week 67. core subjects math english science 67 chord teachers in the east

093zone only and that's not even the others and trust me i'm not blaming somebody i'm saying that whatever we need to do we need to do i have a feeling and i was a teacher and there's always that december flight and people will be there until december it's like i'll hang out till then and then i'm out of here okay so we are going to i spoke to the superintendent about it he says we are aware we need to do something now if we've lost 67 teachers in one area in core subjects how are we bringing those students that have missed all that they have because of covet back up to speed we're looking at an achievement gap that's going to go like this instead of like this if we can't get one of the

094teachers was saying that one of the benefits of having a permanent sub because right now you can have a class of students that see a different teacher every day if their teacher's out for two weeks because it's whoever can cover that class and again not blame we need to stop the blame and just figure what can we do it is a crisis so i wanted to bring that up 240 000 keep that in mind and we'll be bringing it up again and i also want to say i went to pinewoods elementary and south high school and thank you miss gunderson for the wonderful tour i had never been out there i felt like i was going deep into the woods somewhere and then i finally got there beautiful lovely school and the thing that i

095will say to them you know how you visit a school and you'll have one class or a couple students that are a little rambunctious even though you've threatened them teachers if somebody comes in here every single class i went into every single student was on task and involved and paying attention to their teachers the only thing that interrupted them was if as i walked by it wasn't they were distracted they were look what i'm doing let me show you what i'm doing excellent excellent learning is going on there and i thank them and all of the staff and the teachers that work so hard and then i went to south high school mr matthews is the poster child for community partnerships and preparing students for their future i mean if it goes from goats to

096cement whatever your interest is you can find it itself from fire and like i said goats chickens they were measuring and trying to they have been donated an area to build a what's it called that they're i forget the name of they're building a building out back for their aquaponics no no no i forget it's part of their construction thing but anyway they're building the building from the ground up so the kids were standing out there with the little i've always wanted to do this stand in the middle of the road and do you know look through the tripod thing they were doing all of that and learning all types of skills and they were telling us about one student i'm going to try to get her here she had entered high school wanted to

097be a doctor and she ended up going into some form of construction or whatever but she's making mega bucks okay she's doing super super super well so i thank you to the two of them and then finally yesterday our discussion was about quadruple a and i know we will have discussion but i would like to make a motion i move that we suspend the construction plans for quadruple a at this time a second do i have a sec do i have a second yeah i second okay i didn't say it okay discussion miss kittens well since it was my motion i just wanted to say we have all the data the data was out there for seven days everyone has had an opportunity to see it and like i said we have spent what 2.8

098million dollars some of it we will be able to recoup if we stop this project and that was explained yesterday when when the purchase of the steel happened you know several months ago and they did say at the time that if there were any changes we could use it somewhere else also the plans and we talked about that yesterday that the plans can be used somewhere else in the district so someone said to me why aren't you mentioned why didn't you mention east zone because right now it's not about the east zone it's about taking one step at a time let's take this project off the table and really look at prioritizing our resources where can we best use our funds i will be very disappointed if the vote is against it and i will

099be embarrassed for some of my board members because the facts are there the growth is not and we have to do what's right for children so that is my motion thank you miss kittens your emotion you had sent that ahead correct i sent that i sent two emails just let me explain the one email like some other stuff out but you do have the verbiage correct i sent out the verbiage of the motion this afternoon okay i just wanna make sure you have that yeah okay thank you any other discussion juvenelli so i've been compelled to speak about this now following the concerns that not have been addressed by the superintendent i was inundated with a call last night about the general feeling of the lack of transparency and forthcoming with the data regarding estero

100i also want to be clear the need for schools for the foremost is in the east zone not in estero i see that the next need may be in bonita springs but it's not certain it's certainly not estero yesterday the question was asked how many students attending pie woods three were oaks elementary in middle school three and three oaks elementary middle school that are not attending their prox close proximity school what are those numbers that this was never answered the answer was essential to the understanding how the district arrived at the decision to build the new k-8 school in estero it is important to note that numbers provided yesterday was approximate it was only approximate numbers and were significantly higher than the ones presented a month ago by mr rickenbacker for the sake of transparency

101the public needs to know how we got here and they need to be assured it won't happen again how do we do that first we need to we need the real numbers from 2015 to also the district and ford weak news that 3 million had been spent so far toward the building of k-8 estero school the number is not factual it is not factual because there was land purchased on block lane and fees paid to planners architects and pr and approvals for the building of the school on block lane with which the excuse me with which the board voted for then when the building site was switched to three oaks those very planners architects approvals for the building of the school were paid again now twice there was never an actual vote to move from

102the first site to the second this circumvented public comment and input yesterday we learned that four million of the money had been encumbered and they were not sure if the school district was even to get a credit back for the money spent on the steel the purchase of the land for 4 million and payment planners and 4 million another 4 million on this deal that comes to 12 million dollars and for in order to have full transparency to make sure this doesn't happen again the public m and we must gain public trust and we need to have a forensic audit to do that to be conducted by the oig or the florida auditor to determine exactly how much money has been spent to date on the building of the k-8 school in estero since its

103inception from block lane purchased through the present day and how these stu how those student population rates were determined and ask why now has ha why now are we just now looking at this only because we've had a federal federal complaints have been submitted to different federal agencies over the of the very concern so i will be supporting miss kittens motion but i still think that we have to address this much deeper and take a deeper dive on how we got here that's the only way that we're going to have the public trust and be able to move forward truly by moving in that direction thank you thank you mr evanelli any other miss vaughn yes i will be supporting this motion as well we had a lot of conversation about this yesterday and i

104feel that one of the questions that was not answered was how did we get here i mean there's you know there's the very factual well first we were here and then we were there and then but there i had a much deeper meaning to how how did we get here unfortunately and this started in 2017. so that was before a few of us were even on the school board the agreement with the village of estero and to me from day one on on the board there have been more questions than answers and more more things that really especially in retrospect were not i feel were not forthcoming in what you know in in reality and so i would not be i'm you know right now we have this one motion but i would not be

105opposed to taking a look backward to see exactly why you know why it was we bought this land on block lane and then the three oaks property was up for sale and then it wasn't and you know what really motivated all of that and so that's a whole other discussion but i would not be opposed to that discussion as well to see if their were illegal illegal machine machinations that occurred during this time period so i will be supporting this thank you is there any other skins i want to see i will come back to you but i want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to speak miss fisher did you yeah yes thank you so i think that i am supporting this because we know where we are we had that information

106yesterday at the at the workshop so now we need to say where are we going and i would like to see if we can request that staff investigate the potential in transferring the credits to an area of greater need that's imminent now using the plans materials and the services that we have already paid for and transferring that to the next spot that we all agree on and that the public supports so thank you thank you ms patricka i'm sorry miss miss patricka did you have any comments yes if i may through the chair ask dr savage what his recommendation is certainly dr savage if you care to absolutely well the i've heard four so far four board members express an interest in not moving forward construction so you know i just want to preface this

107by saying i work at the will of the board so if the board makes it clearly known that they do not want to proceed with our current with with the phase two to begin that is certainly within the board's discretion and that's why staff presented the options that they did i want to kind of characterize that there's many members of the project team coming out from a variety of perspectives the overwhelming majority opinion was that based on the change in the data the change in the financial relative position of where we are the chain the slowing of growth the diminished numbers of students who are in attendance since the advent of the pandemic and presently in the building that for most reasons it really does not make sense to proceed with the with the phase

108two and it's precisely one of the reasons why the phase construction approach exists so that before you go directly into the next phase without interruption you bring that decision back to the board in the split phase that was a lesson that the prior administration learned through bonita high and implemented and we've continued to try to implement that in this structure so that's the opportunity for that piece now i will tell you that from my perspective there is also some opportunity to continue to move forward if you were to move forward even at an increased cost there aren't that many schools down there you certainly over the life of that school schools aren't built for for one year five years they're built for 50 plus years some of our schools go up to 100 years in

109fact bonita elementary down there is a 100 year old school at least certain parts of that building so having a school down there is certainly a worthy consideration to stay the course the problem is it would be very expensive to do so if you were to continue on that course you're going to pay substantially more than what we've done for our other schools in a situation where we do have such dramatic growth in the east zone and such a need that's already present as evidenced by the portables and that we have so many other critical projects that we want to do i would stand with the team and i would certainly stand with the board that you know this is the time to press the pause button on phase two it's it's that's the most

110judicious thing to do however you know that's something that you know i find myself very conflicted about very important to state that because quite frankly our business is k-12 we're gonna we portables are not the long-term answer down there we have many students in portables i've never been of the mindset that you can only build in one portion of the district at a time that you can build anywhere in the district that you need as long as you have the resources to do it that's why in this most recent capital plan i really wanted to see a substantial amount of growth happening in the east zone but i think if you're putting it you know you want a recommendation i would say weighing all those things and they are all very important valid considerations that

111i would side with the project team that now is not the time to proceed directly into phase two i think we can at least manage our we have no idea what the market conditions will do we have no idea it may get very much more expensive to build so there is no way to wave a you know magic wand or look into a crystal ball and know for certain we have to make the best decision we have with the best data available and unfortunately the data available to us says that this is going to be very expensive and we may not necessarily see the original numbers that they used back when they went for state approvals i know ms ebaus speculated that we would not receive state approval i know it was echoed in public

112comment that is speculation on her part but she is qualified so for her to make that statement means that she knows what kind of considerations go into that so i have to take that professional judgment to say that if we were to do a sponsor and approve it now her estimation is they would not approve it but it is speculation i don't want to i don't want to cite that as if it isn't if it's fact but but that's that's kind of my thinking on the issue and my recommendation for the board thank you miss patricka thank you dr savage separately i use the audit process or i'm sorry the audit of the construction process that was suggested by ms givenelli i do believe and i don't know perhaps staff could check on this i

113do believe we've had enough construction projects since our new process was adopted to justify an audit and to give us enough data to you know make the audit meaningful but i offer to the board consideration of whether this is an audit that should be made as a recommendation from our board auditor that we are about to hire so if we could add that item as a discussion item in the parking lot madam chair please any other comments miss patricka this is a question from the superintendent to provide in an upcoming board update the age of our buildings across the district please assuming that information is readily available yes we can put that in this week's board update all the schools chronologically just bear in mind though for building for some schools like the bonita campus

114while it was built you know 100 years there are multiple buildings on there of varying different ages so you'll get the oldest building the list that's provided specifically has the school and then the year that it was first constructed so we'll provide that list with this week's update thank you miss morgan i have none no did i did you have any comments everybody already commented miss kittens all right yeah yes yes i just wanna make sure i have everybody okay thank you the comment i have i've heard several of my colleagues tonight say how did we get here and the bottom line is that i didn't stay in my lane for two years six one i didn't stay in my lane because i knew that the problems were there and like i said before i

115hope that now you join me in that lane to make sure we look at the specific growth areas in the east south not the east zone as a whole but specific areas of need and i spoke to the superintendent about this that sometimes we just blankly say east zone and we forget the pockets where the necessity really is so that's how we got here thank you okay and then and i'm just gonna chime in as well i believe that we had all the information was given to us the numbers are not there based on our conversation so i will be supporting miss kittens as well and yes miss kittens you have been carrying the torch for this one so if there is no other comments for sure yes i just have one comment kind of

116for the good of the order but at the november second meeting item m9 was pulled it was regarding exhaust fans and i made a recommendation to to to to follow that dr savage pulled the item and miss giovanelli withdrew her madame chair point of order we never stole yes thank you we're still we haven't voted yet i'm sorry no that's okay sorry i'll hold it yeah so that's why if there's no further discussion on this item on this motion i will go ahead and do a handbook i'm sorry okay don't we do public comment on emotion oh we do i'm so sorry anyone here that would like to speak on this please go to the podium dupree bruno do you want how many minutes or so depending on how many people i'm assuming it's going

117to be less than 20 so it'll be three minutes per person she's just running around this nice room when you can start whenever you'd like denise nystrom it's been eight months this is getting i can't even imagine what it's like to be two years asking these same questions watching everybody sit quietly like they had no idea what it was that we were asking them for never when i worked and ran school districts would i ever have accepted numbers that were approximately approximately could be for the year coming ahead but every year there are charts put together for example the ones that mr rickenbacker put together that say what the actuals are yet even yesterday in the presentation approximate numbers were used and so a percentage that was 112 that could have been 121 gives you

118an additional 200 students in a school and not 100. that's a big difference when you're looking at student population growth and then somebody told the press last night that only 3 million dollars had been spent falls the land on block lane alone was 4 million another 4 million was encumbered for steel there was the planning and preparation that was involved that was almost 4 million that's 12 million there needs to be a forensic audit never again in my in my paradigm from school districts i work in could we ever have gotten away with the smoke and mirrors that have been presented to you from staff accepted by you probably because you know what was going on when we look back we know who was in charge when this whole thing surfaced we know that it

119was atkins who was the superintendent and that it was board member district three that did five talks a day to tell everybody about the half cent sales tax smoke in mirrors that's what we've been fighting for thank you for not staying in your lane dr savage you said on may 4th 2020 at a presentation on video and i'm sorry sir but you need to tell the truth here okay that the growth was not in estero that it was in the eastleigh zone so now let's not talk like the growth suddenly went down it didn't suddenly go down we're just all of a sudden telling a little bit of the truth here all while district member three sat quietly well she could have said why don't i take a ride out to the east zone and

120see what's going on with those kids black and brown that have been learning in portables for 30 years 30. i hypothesize that what happened was really that there were students from san carlos and other places through school choice that were going to the three next speaker thank you public records gives us nothing mr newman if there's any other outbursts this is the first warning while i'm completely happy that it looks like you're going to be pulling this project i'm very concerned on how we got here while we've been advocating for the children in lehi and thank you ms kittens for always staying in the fight even though things look pretty bleak at some times and not having the support of your superintendent or your board members on many occasions thank you there is there is

121a bigger picture here you have a responsibility to us and to the children that millions of dollars have been thrown into the garbage someone needs to be held responsible for this irresponsible acts negligence whether it was on purpose or it was a mistake which i don't believe you have an obligation to investigate how you got here because when scott rickenbacker was speaking yesterday he stated that when it went from block lane and it went over to three oaks you dropped 500 seats that was last year in may it should have been lights going off in your heads how the hell did i miss 500 seats you don't drop 500 seats you know you have a problem at that time so the line needs to stop you need to do a forensic audit on all the

122monies that was paid between block lane and three oaks and then you need to do an audit or an investigation to see how you have these projected numbers in a community that is over 70 of retirees and they're not having babies at 65 years old so the money should have never been put there you know you have many mistakes open it up be transparent for once let's clean the books you say you want to start all over again miss morgan let's do it give us that confidence give us that trust that you guys are finally going to do something for the right reason thank you christie eva jelly so i don't really have a whole lot more to say other than you know what you've already heard here tonight i'm really just standing up here

123you know in support of everything that's been said so far you know we've all paid into a lot of money into these into this half penny sales tax and i think we're all kind of wondering you know what's happening with that what's going to happen with that you know and this the school the quadruplet is very concerning to people not just in district 5 not just in acero it's very concerning to everyone in every district it's concerning to every lee county citizen you know no child in lee county should have to spend a single year in a portable and the fact that we have had generations i want that makes me want to literally cry that we have generations of children and adults that have grown up in portables in lee county if we are

124at all racist that is where it lies that is where it is and you guys right now have a chance to fix that thank you to those of you who spoke up and didn't stop speaking up i know it gets annoying sometimes but when you're the only voice in the room saying the right thing keep saying it the rest of you guys do the right thing it's time for any of you all of you to do something that is worthwhile up there that we the people can sit there and say we appreciate this we're proud of our board i bet it's been a long time since you guys have heard those words we would like to be able to say that thank you good evening once again i'd like to thank gwen gittins as well

125for your constant endeavor to try and make this board accountable all of you all we need to do is work together what we have seen as residents in the audience and parents we have seen you squabbling we have seen you unprepared and this is just unheard of you have the monies right now to do the right thing and you can work with the jurisdictions that's really important when builders go into communities they should be proffering land this should not be part of your agenda your agenda should be protecting the children making sure that they have their needs met this idea that we've spent all this energy on a location when if we had worked with jurisdictions and said hey we're putting in 5 000 units why don't we require the developers who are making quite

126a bit of money require them to settle side land you can pay for it but they need to set the sights if you say you want community schools neighborhood schools do it we will help you that's all you have to do and you know the pleasantries can happen again you can have a good working situation together but i up and i applaud all of those that are present the one that's not present i request that she step down because the shenanigans just keep happening and it's not right okay and we all can see it so i leave you with that good evening and i want to thank you for your time i know that you work hard but we need to work together we should not be adversaries where you build schools we should be

127your supporters good day good evening again i really i don't i don't i'm confused here i don't even understand why there's any question how did you get here you got here because some people weren't paying attention and somebody had to bring it directly to you one of my favorite poetry says when you know better do better and i'm paraphrasing that now it's been brought directly to your attention it's been sat put right in front of you physically literally you know better now you got to do better what should you do now not build another building people want you to you should reinvest in what you already have built i said before this kind of helps you know some people don't want to work in a broke down building some children don't want to go to

128school in a broke down building i never heard of school choice until i moved to south florida when i was going to school up north you went to the school closest to where you live here you go to school choice that means that somebody that lives in fort myers can go to school in lehigh why it's a newer school and they get up to options that other children don't have my children i'm blessed got to go to school in lehigh close to where they live but why should another child that lives in fort myers maybe get the first choice that's not the way because their parents see a better looking building that's not the way it should work but that's what they do improve the way the building looks take those funds and get rid

129of those trailers no better do better hire those teachers you need some more paraprofessionals i was a volunteer at the schools in lehigh i can't volunteer anymore you know why of course because of the pandemic but you can hire paraprofessionals you need to take that money and build it into the buildings physically and literally pay those bus drivers use the funds that you have to do better with what you already have stop talking about brick and mortar and start talking about investing in people thank you is there anyone else that would like to speak see i know other i will go ahead and ask for a hand vote on this miss morgan i miss vaughn sorry my mind hi miss kittens hi this patricka steven ellie aye ms fisher aye and i 7-0 motion passes

130was there anything else no thank you thank you and thank you miss kittens miss vaughn did i come to you yet i don't even know you haven't i have a list of a lot of little things on here first of all i wanted to respond to the couple to the two speakers who maybe they were more than two talking about the resignations and i absolutely share that huge concern i have over and over again actually since the first day i was on the school board said that of course it's important for us to continually recruit but more importantly retention and how do we retain respect first second respect and third respect and because of my teaching background i mainly was focusing on on teachers but that goes for all of our staff members as i've

131been on the board i've become aware of some really horrendous things and lately some of the things i've heard about the terrible disrespect for our bus drivers and actually so many people on on staff so that's a huge concern for me as well i also wanted to respond to the comments on dress code i guess the easiest thing to do would be establish uniform schools throughout however personally i never liked that idea as as a child or even as an adult for my own children i think i had two girls but looking at my grandson and my granddaughter my granddaughter was so excited when she got out of elementary school and could go to a school where she could wear whatever she wanted and my grandson was like kind of whatever yeah all right i'll

132put this on so you know that aside and there's schools of thought on on uniform schools and actually i know a lot of parents that love that idea especially for the younger children i know my daughter did because it takes a lot of the guesswork out for the children getting dressed in the morning plus there's that factor of with the uniformity of what the children are wearing that you know one person is in wearing designer clothes and somebody else doesn't have that kind of kind of money for that so and yes i do believe that the dress codes are unfavorable toward the young ladies and i like the idea that was brought up by a couple people about gender neutral and i know i would like to see take a look at some of the

133schools that use the general the gender neutral and see how that goes so that's something as we move forward with our code of conduct i think we should be taking a look at it's already been mentioned by board colleagues that last week we spent weeks worth at least 40 hours worth of professional board development it was very eye-opening it was it was it was a good experience and i want to echo what mrs morgan said about our board attorney i wasn't real thrilled about it and actually there are a few times when i'm like is it time to go home yet but by and large i'll have to say she did an excellent excellent job and worked way over time in putting together what what she did for all of us i did i guess

134it was yeah a week ago a school that i toured that i'd never been to before was the fort myers middle academy and i can't say enough good things about that school the principal there ms lynn edward has done from what i understand in in getting some background information on the school has done an incredible job of turning things around in the school and establishing establishing apparently discipline and establishing just an a-plus staff i had the opportunity to meet quite a few of the staff members and they were all just excellent excellent people that were very dedicated to the kids and i really felt that all of them had a real calling for for for teaching and you could tell when you walked in the classroom somebody i think miss kittens talked about when you

135go in a school especially when it's a middle school my most horrible grade level to think about and all the kids are well disciplined and respectful and on task it was just a very very rewarding experience the comment about the developers and setting aside land yeah that's i grew up in new jersey now of course we have very they're very high taxes in in new jersey but that's what was done you didn't just plop down hundreds of buildings and not put aside land for parks or schools or even sidewalks i found that pretty shocking the first time i saw the really nice neighborhood my daughter was living in in cape coral very nice houses but there were no sidewalks and that's that's that's a huge safety issue and i'm gonna say take it up with

136the county commission or the municipalities i don't know that much about it but it's been a huge issue with with the county commission anyway that's something that you can look into i like miss getting's idea about permanent subs not sure about the issue of you know how much it would they would be paid but i actually probably at least a month ago talked with both dr savage and i believe dr carlin and dr spyro and talk to them about establishing a new positions kind of somewhere kind of between paraprofessional and teacher because one of the huge problems is of course what's already been brought up about teachers being pulled out of the classroom to cover other people's classrooms but that's costing us way more than having a sub way more because teachers are paid at

137their hourly rate and so if you have to cover all day with teachers paying each that of those teachers their hourly rate it's probably it could be two or three at least two or three times more than it would be for a sub so i'm not going to go into my ideas on that i hadn't heard anything back from those individuals but they said they would be looking into things like that similar to that finally i said that i had something that i needed to bring forward from edac i'm the liaison to the edac committee edac had a presentation from the from the group who presented to us as a board on the various maps they were extremely interested in that a couple of the things came up this afternoon in the briefing first of

138all something that we are going to put on the parking lot the for it's not something that needs to be done right now but the idea of seven single member districts because as edac talked about what was you know the maps that they liked one of the things that was brought up that had been touched on a month before was you know equity and in in terms of diversity and all that goes along with that i don't have time to get into but this is it would be a huge public conversation and there'll be more on on that eventually anyway the thing that edac brought forward and i'm going to to read it me they approved a motion to recommend that the board move forward with disseminating the letter that was drafted and they are

139referring to the letter drafted by the board attorney for the governor and that letter was read to the edac committee at our meeting and so i realized that was actually i made a motion that i guess our last was it our last action meeting i lose track of time or maybe two the last action meeting time flies and it died and i did explain that to edac and i explained that you know it had been brought up discussed and i it wasn't even second it but i feel that it's incumbent on me to bring this back for any further discussion because the committee was very adamant that we should look at it and they were adamant that a letter should be sent so i bring it up now on behalf of the edac committee and

140i would like to hear any comments that the board has are you making a motion okay well the motion would be then that the board moved forward with disseminating i move that the board move forward with disseminating the letter that was drafted by the board attorney to be sent to the governor regarding i think i can't remember the exact was it abuse of power regarding the actions let's just say regarding the actions of board member patricka so this is what they wanted brought forward and again i feel that motion is there a second you have a second i'll second it but i don't know why we're seconding something that we've already voted on i don't that doesn't make sense to me i'm i mean i can i yeah so i actually the letter that was

141drafted by attorney de prix bruno was not was not what we voted on so i did not approve that to go out it needs to and it also needs the board voted on this so this needs to be it was a board decision and it should all have everybody's everybody's name on it that is on the board or come from the attorney that actually you know that the whole that we is exactly what we voted on so that was my concern so i put a call in to also mr quick and mr quick said that the board attorney should be able to write the letter according to the vote and the motion so that's where it stands when i spoke back to attorney dupree bruno she suggested that we have a conflict attorney write the

142letter so that's kind of where it's at at this point we've not give i mean we've given direction by the motion original motion so i don't understand the conflict yes and okay well we have a madam chair if i make yes because you have a motion on the floor and a second so yes please if i may clarify i did explain exactly what you said in your initial comment that my motion was to send it because we couldn't come to an agreement on what the letter should what kind of content should be in the letter and i did bring forward well let's i move that we just send it as written but it but it died and so edak understands that and i just want it to bring up one you know they understand all

143that so they're asking what you're asking us is that what was presented to edac is what they would like to be sent and that is the letter that was written already by attorney dupree bruno exactly and even though you had made the motion and everybody understood that there was no second there would be no conversation that's how that died exactly i just wanted to explain all that what took place miss kittens okay well my thought on the original motion and the original letter would be similar to you know when we're correcting a policy or something a draft is sent out and everybody adds their comments or thoughts to it no one i mean i said some things but i think where we need to be is the motion passed and then just a discussion on

144that i believe it's in our policies that says once a majority of the board votes on something that the rest of the board that was dissenting vote needs to follow the majority of the board that's what we do every time we vote i mean otherwise we would all be going after every vote because it was a 5-2 or a 4-3 and i don't believe that it should be that you can opt out of something that you don't you know we voted and it passed so i think that we should follow our policies and do that and i think if we send it as a draft with the request if anybody has any additional pieces to add to it and then look at the final and as the board not bring it back to the board

145again because it's already been voted on but just add whatever and then the final is done by attorney debris bruno we all see it and rather than having our digital signatures i believe we should have a actual signature just to give it credence and then miss dapri bruno i think i'm going to refer to you because i believe you were instructed to not to ask us for comments and for us to help write this we were you were instructed to write something and to send it we're trying to find the minutes from that meeting if you give me one second i want to find the minute madam chair it was my motion i can speak to that it was basically that she would write the letter there was nothing in there that said we don't

146get to look at it and she just writes it and sends it i mean she is our employee and something that's going out on behalf of the board we should have a say so in so she was clear on what we wanted so that's what she was writing but the motion was quick clear too like i've said before i stated to work with the chair i mean with the attorney to draft to a letter and somehow it got lost in translation and it became just that she would write a letter not that she would write it and just send it i specifically asked to work with her you was getting g specifically asked to work with her that was not part of the motion and but if you look back members didn't excuse me the

147members did not agree upon a member working one single member working with the attorney to write a letter about anybody that's why she was instructed to write the letter and she wrote the letter as per our instructions and that came back to us and then miss vaughn did the emotion it was not second it did not go through miss vaughn had it went to edac ms vaughn is now back again because edek has read the letter and i'm just going okay came back and wrote the letter madam chair may i just say yes then if if that was the process the motion that was on the table was emotion i stated and you moved forward with a vote on a motion that had not been made because my motion stated i would work with the

148attorney somehow in the translation that was moved so there should have been an additional motion mr preeverno okay so the motion that was passed on october 19 2021 pursuant to the minutes was the following to contact the governor regarding a board member's systemic consistent abuse of position and accountability for actions that was the motion that it passed for to and the letter that was drafted was written to the governor but not sent and it was a draft that was sent to all the board members states please be advised that on october 19 2021 the lee county school board voted to request that you investigate and provide guidance on the perception that a board member has systemically and consistently abused her position they are also seeking guidance on how they can hold this member accountable they

149would appreciate you looking into this matter and advising of same if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me so that was the letter that was drafted and sent to the board and at that point if there's anything that the board wants to do with the letter it's up to the board now what i have stated is that i cannot draft and nor would i recommend anybody to draft because you're asking the governor to do an investigation so you ask the governor to do an investigation people are entitled to due process so you allow that process to happen i cannot draft what is i would define as a prosecutorial letter where i'm prosecuting a board member i cannot do that if you want a letter that's a prosecutorial letter where you

150are actually prosecuting one of your board members then i believe you i'm going to request an outside counsel because i believe that will be a little bit that will push me too far in terms of my fiduciary or my ethical obligations to my client thank you miss kittens okay we are not asking to prosecute anyone my concern about the letter is there were no details if i were the governor that received a letter saying look into the situation we think there's something wrong you have to give some type of facts if they are stated for example this situation this situation this situation that was my concern that the letter was just and especially the verbage you know there's a perceived possible whatever but there's no meat in it well i will excuse my skin i

151will say that the letter was not only based on the motion that was actually passed but there was a prior motion and there was a lot of discussion and i'll just give you the example and why i use perception because that was actually part of the discussion the original motion was to contact the governor's office to at least see what recourse we may have and to looking into an abuse of power or what is there anything that could be done i know we can't sanction but what are our possibilities that was the original motion which was with sean and then it was cleaned up with this motion which was to contact the governor regarding a board member's systemic consistent abuse of position and accountability for actions so based on the discussions prior to you know

152during this whole thing about the motions that's why the letter was drafted in the way that it was drafted it completely reflects the motion that was passed by the board now if the board will like some additional facts please tell me what they are and i will tell you if this is something i'm comfortable with adding to the letter so we have still have a motion on the floor and that motion is miss vaughn would you please read and restate let me clarify one other thing because miss giovanelli stated that having this additional motion when there is a motion to draft this letter so let me clarify there is a motion that is out there to draft this letter is properly seconded and it passed now the letter was drafted because you instructed me to

153draft the letter via consensus the letter was drafted the board did not like the letter there was a discussion then miss vaughn made a motion okay let's go ahead and send this letter that was drafted there was no second to that miss vaughan then went to edac and then edak said we edac also was read the minutes from the meeting edac was read the letter that was drafted and then edac instructed ms vonn to come back to the board and advise a recommend to the board that they send the letter that was drafted as it reflected the minutes and that is what the motion is that's right now on an hour thank you thank you for that explanation as well i appreciate that so there is a motion on the floor should i have miss

154vaughan re-state that so just for clarity just for clarity misfund the motion from edac yes just for clarity thank you okay and i do want it to be understood that this was a long conversation at edek and i did explain our normal protocol with this that it was going to be dropped but this is what they wanted me to do and again it's incumbent on me to represent exactly what they wanted me to do so i'm paraphrasing here all right i move i moved that the board moved forward with disseminating the letter that was drafted by the board attorney for to the governor thank you so based on that we've already had discussion i can go ahead and take the vote now no you need public comment where anyone out there care to speak please

155go to the podium and whoever would like to step up first please do so thirsty diva jelly so this is fun we're here talking about this again i don't think oh man i don't want to waste anybody's time but i have a whole three minutes to talk to you guys about what you should have already done like weeks ago this letter needs to go out in the mail it's already been written send it out send something out anything out you know we've sent enough letters to the governor now it's your turn you need to investigate i don't know why we are still sitting here having this same converse i mean i know why i know why but i'm asking you to do better be better send the letter and no more conflicts of interest no

156more i can't do this because it's outside of the purview of that let's just write the letter and send it in the mail i know you're looking at that clock i'm looking at it too i got a whole two minutes left so i hope everybody up here today votes to send some kind of letter to the governor requesting an investigation into board member chris petrikas abuse a position of power of whatever you want to call it and this needs to be taken care of the fact that she's not even here today and i know you guys mentioned it earlier i do not remember what it was but like that's even super suspect as well like why she's not here and we've talked about so many issues pertaining to this one particular board member so i

157don't want to sit up here and do and just waste everyone's time like some others tonight which i've rather enjoyed but please do the right thing guys like we just did something really awesome by choosing to stop you know the construction of quadruple aaa do something else that's awesome right now give us the real reason to go home and not like regret coming here tonight so thank you very very much for your time thank you for all the hard work that you do put in i know you get a lot of crap for missile all the time and i will not apologize for that crap i will instead thank you for putting up with it and ask you to do the right thing tonight have a good night okay and please just remember we are

158only speaking on this one topic thank you yeah it's not it's not directed to you i'm just reminding because we have other people coming denise nystrom at the end of that board meeting attorney bruno was i guess directed to write this letter the letter there was nothing mentioned during that time that we were asking the governor how we should go about investigating her that line does not belong in the letter two weeks later at a follow-up meeting she said she felt uncomfortable writing this letter if that's the case then that letter needed to be handed off to a different attorney because there was a motion that passed four to two it was proof that letter was approved and to do anything less than what was expected is inappropriate now i know some of you feel

159sorry for board member three i guess i don't because when somebody does the things that she does they have to be held accountable for their actions if it was your child you'd make them be accountable for his or her actions well she's caused a lot of this and it's taken years to get here you want to do her a favor make her be accountable for her actions if you're all going to change and you're all going to start to work with us better then she either needs to be able to do the same thing or she needs to go keith olsen the letter that was requested as i understood it was going to be kind of impactful really stressing some specific issues that miss patricka has been involved in over the last years to send

160a completely generic letter which i see this as falls way short of that purpose however if the board cannot agree with the attorney to send a more specific detailed letter that really says what the problem is rather than just vague descriptive terms then i would suggest the board go ahead and send this vague letter if that's all that the attorney feels that she can do without putting herself in some kind of libelous case or going beyond what she's comfortable doing then each of you can send your own letters with your specific issues and request that the governor or that the governor's staff create a file in order to implement a realistic investigation do act in the best way you can describing as specifically as you can what it is that you want investigated and then

161each person put in their letters and we as the public are putting in our letters and all of it can go into this file that really more than just kind of suggests that perhaps the governor might do something or advise you on what you can do which all that does is repeats the same situation and we go on and on again and i think we're all pretty tired of it ah i am but then i'm only here once about twice a week or twice a month i mean you must be exhausted from it as bird members and there are so many other issues that we have to deal with so let's move on get it done and we and the public can help as well okay is there any other comments seeing no other comments

162i am going to go ahead and call for the vote this thank you i need to i believe with the advice of attorney debris bruno that i need to abstain and this is my oral statement that there's a conflict of interest if i participate in this vote yes you made your statement that there's a conflict of interest and you're going to abstain from the vote and you'll fill out the appropriate paperwork to attach to the minutes perfect thank you and i'm checking just to make sure we restate the motion to make sure everybody has it's a motion for the board to move forward with disseminating the letter that was drafted by the board attorney to the governor that is correct what edek had stated and we are not having any more conversation we are on

163to a vote now so i'm going to do a hand vote mr patrick is not voting miss morgan no miss vaughn yes miss kittens yes mr ivanelli yes miss fisher no and yes and now miss vaughan do you have any other i know that was it now i would like clarification from the board so that was ford board going to send this on their letterhead with their signature or do they want it as drafted 4-2 as drafted per the what they stated it's on letterhead say it again put it on the board's letterhead or do you want it to come from is that what miss vaughn sorry ms kittens i'm trying to clarify for the attorney so we can move on and have allison speak i think what our the vote represents what edek wants

164the main thing is they wanted the letter sent right but under whose signature do you want it sent under that was not a discussion so this is what i want clarification from the board under whose signature is this letter going to be sent well it's misgetting the emotion it was a motion it was passed by a majority of the board all of the board members need to abide by that and what i was trying to ask is if we can even say in a ps or whatever that other board members will be sending their information as necessary if they want to but i don't want to start a whole motion so that's fine no but my question is this going to be on the board's letterhead with all seven signatures on the letter it's a

165past motion by a majority of the board so a majority of the board has spoken according to policy it goes out from the board well we have had letters that are sent under the signature of the board under the signature of the chair so i need even under the signature of the attorney so i need direction i understand that it was passed by the majority of the board but i want clarification as to if the board can just advise me under whose signature is this letter going to go out is it all seven is it the chair how how is this going to go that's what i want to make sure when other information goes out like this from even when i was cheering we sent stuff to fldoe each board member's name was on

166that letter all right is that the consensus of the board that all mr van alley what were you gonna say sure well i'm just i we just need to get this done and miss fisher i saw your hand i thought the motion from edac through miss vaughn was to send the letter as it exists right so that's my opinion so how how does it exist right at this moment oh it's it's under my friend yeah the draft has the attorney on behalf of the board the senate i don't think we need to put her in that position to send a letter like it's from the attorney it's from us it is from the board it's from the board in a majority vote why should her name be on there the man makes a suggestion that

167it'd be sent through the board chair fine is that okay i would like to send it edac has asked for it so we need to send it we've made the motion we have approved the motion and now we are going back again we just need to do this but i would like my name on it put her names on it then who would like their like the names on it's not a question it's a policy it's okay what was the policy number miss kittens never mind miss jordan we can go on i'll just send mine by myself there's not a policy that says when you're sending a letter how the letter the policy is that when a vote is made everyone has to agree i've been told that so many times the board has made

168a decision you have to go along the board has made a decision the letter's going to go out letter's going out the only question is under what signature so i my recommendation would be sent through the chair i don't think that's powerful enough but whatever the board of proofs yeah i just need direction i just need you guys to tell me what to do i need direction please it's going to go out tomorrow i just need direction how you want it to go they all want everybody well certain ones want their names on it ms madam chair can you take a poll please the question is this under the attorney with all seven or through the chair please mrs morgan chair miss vaughn through the chair miss kittens no miss jaminelli through the chair miss

169fisher in the chair i'll be more than happy miss vaughan do you have anything no i'm i'm done okay thank you allison just for clarification at this point this letter is going to go out tomorrow through the chair signature that resolves the motion that was outstanding in terms of sending out the letter so that resolves all of that's correct thank you mr preever now i didn't you know i didn't do my are you serious well i am going to skip you for right now because i'm going to go to allison i think it's like time for her to get ready for school no just kidding thank you for being here allison i'm so grateful to you and i apologize that it's been this long for you so please your comments honey for this evening i

170guess i would like to begin with just commending the most important people in the room and that is of course our transportation staff and our educators you guys are the heart and soul of our school system and as a student i can't commend you enough and i can't thank you enough you deserve the utmost respect and gratitude so i would just first like to direct my attention to you because you deserve everything and more so that's i'm just gonna leave it at that i would like to thank the board for giving me this opportunity to be here i would like to thank i know miss perez has since left but her her speech about the dress code and equality has really spoken to me and i hearing her speak has really kind of given me

171hope for the future i not just because of you know hope for what lee county can be not just because of what it was or what it is but what it should be in our future generations just make me so proud every day i see in school students becoming stronger and more empowered leaders and her talking about equality as a woman really inspired me to a greater extent and i can't wait to see what she accomplishes later on in life and i know that we're going to be hearing more from her so i just would like to congratulate miss jordan on your re-election i'd like to congratulate miss fisher on her vice chair election i would like to thank you guys once again for this opportunity and it's it's been a wonderful night we appreciate

172you and we appreciate your role on student advisory as well you are a great leader and we really do appreciate that thank you so now before mischievounelli goes are you okay to stay a little bit longer or oh yes you can okay is that okay mischief and ellie okay i'll be quick so i want to thank the bus drivers tonight i know most of them have gone because they have to get up very early in the mornings but i just want to thank you for being feeling empowered and being here because we do need you and we are listening and we hear you and that leads me to and i also want to thank miss or congratulate ms evans for the spout being the new spout president i'm very excited for you guys for that

173but one of the one something that came up this is for the superintendent that came up yesterday was that we spent this money for m95 mass and tonight there were several bus drivers and not one of them not one had an m95 mask so i find that very interesting that we bought these masks and they don't have them so i would like to know why and i would like to make sure they get those masks that we purchased because it cost i think two hundred thousand dollars more that we increased to get to have those mass so i find that really enlightening so and this and then second i want to get back a little bit and i know i don't want to beat this dead horse but i do want to remind people because

174i was sitting here and i was reminiscing about the quadruple a school but if we remember we had a new school built in bonita that was underutilized when it was finished so this is not really the first time that we're building a school in estero that's underutilized and has issues i commend this board for pulling it at this time and but i think we should we've got we went too far again because the school should have been built i mean bonita should have been waited and we should have been building in gateway because it's it was full at capacity before the first day of school there was no openings for that for that school because i had people contacting me trying to get in gateway so that right there in itself is pretty a good

175description of what is happening and what has happened and we have to be do better so and then i also i had a little bit more regarding the estero school and i think it's really important that we really represent the public because we have a duty to and our responsibility to protect the children and the and the public i cringe when i hear others say we have a duty to protect the district especially when there is a waste and misuse of tax dollars and that's clearly what this is we are we are forgetting our oath and our role as elected officials and i sure hope that we can do better i'm not going to make this mo make a motion but i do want to make i'm gonna i'm telling you now that i'm making

176this motion after i'm gonna make this motion after we have our board workshop but i was prepared tonight because i think we need to have a forensic audit conducted by the oig or the florida auditor general to determine exactly how much money has been spent to date on the building k8 yeah a school in astero since it's a inception from the block lane purchase through the present day that is something i'm going to be bringing back up i'm not bringing it up tonight but i will be ringing that up when we have our workshop or our briefing on this because we want to have a deeper dive and i'm prepared that we need to seriously do that so that is where i'm going to leave that this evening that is all i have i spoke

177earlier on everything that i about the school at fort myers high going to the london parade in 2023 and they're going to be fundraising so i would like the community to support them i just want to tell staff to have a great thanksgiving and a blessed one and enjoy their time off next week thank you thank you and i will be very brief as well many of us have already spoken about the intensive training that we have gone through last week which i thought was very beneficial to us and everybody keeps multiple people tonight that says you know be better be better and so that is our goal is to be better to be the best us that we can possibly be for the district and thank you to miss dupreeh bruno again that was

178you did an amazing job and i got a lot out of that i did have the opportunity as well as part of this we went and visited school so i went and i revisited two of two of the schools that i often visit veterans out in lehigh and pelican so i went from one end of the town to the other which a lot of us had to do that on that particular day and we all really enjoyed the kids and i just really want to thank the staff for being here all day and night appreciate all of you our bus drivers of course i always appreciate them i appreciate everyone food and beverage everyone in our district and i just am wishing all of you a and your families a very happy thanksgiving for all

179of you to be safe and just have some down time i'm looking forward to my family and moving on i have miss dupree bruno do you have any thing oh miss fisher did i miss you yes thank you so just very briefly on november 2nd i made a motion to adopt item m9 that was then later pulled by dr savage and so for the record i would like to withdraw that formal motion now because it's here can she please repeat what it was there was a motion at the last meeting it was item and nine it was with regards to exhaust fans and there was a little confusion because miss giovanelli was going to do a motion and miss giovanelli withdrew her motion but miss fisher was the original motion maker so she did not

180withdraw her motion so we're just cleaning that up for the record because it was pulled by dr savage okay thank you so much for cleaning that up mr prieburno do you have any comments no i am hoping that this team will continue to move forward and take the steps that it began and i will be working on board policy 1.111 or perhaps 1.11 so i'm still working on that and hopefully will be something that both the board and the public feel is fair and that their rights are heard and at the same time allows the board to conduct its business so this is still a work in progress it will i'm going to work on it and i want to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving and happy thanksgivings to our wonderful audience that comes and

181keeps us on our toes and thank you very much thank you dr savage yes manager just a few quick comments one just want to make sure we properly construe the public peace of what was stated so one of the things that i want to make sure i clarified for those who weren't here to hear it i didn't go back to watch the tape on this one things we've done is we've shifted our board workshops briefings so we can look at each other as a board we can work together look each other in the face so we don't just face each other in here and what i was speculating on was the configuration of this room is set up very much as an auditorium so it almost creates this concept as if we're there's a show

182and we're we're the main event and the reality is that's not what it is really at all the intention is for government to function this is a governmental entity and so by if operating the way we do the idea is to be transparent the idea is to be able to have opportunities for the public to have input but do it in an orderly fashion so the work of this very important business that we run here for the benefit of children can conduct itself and so sometimes it's very important to understand what are those moments where the public gives input but that it's not a dialogue it's not a back and forth that there should be no showmanship it's not really done for that piece at all so all the comments i made were just strictly

183to try to identify that when we're sitting there working together looking at each other focusing the issues that the intent is really not to focus on viewers who may be sitting there watching us conduct the business so i just want to clarify that right out of the gate but i also just want to kind of echo the comment that we are very grateful to have people who are interested in what we're doing people who who not just show up but people who read the items who ask clarifying questions who reach out to our board members who engage that is a powerful thing we're also very grateful to have employees show up and talk about the concerns that they have you know one of the things that was on our list was just the staffing shortage

184you know it is evident to us that we have staffing shortages in almost every employee group across the district so while we've heard from bus drivers and we always focus on our teachers as well we're experiencing this with cafeteria food service workers our custodians our support staff we're experiencing shortages across the entire district and it's it's a significant challenge and it's not one that just lee county is facing it's very important that people also understand we are not alone in this struggle this is something that's facing not even just our country it's all across the country but even the world we're seeing this in the country there were districts such as in denver and seattle that experienced closures due to staffing shortages so this is a very powerful time and i think we're we're all

185ears in terms of any of those pieces in terms of constantly trying to figure out what we can do to help people right now through this very difficult moment also just on the on the construction project there's multiple references of whether it's a board auditor whether it's an independent review oig we fully welcome anything that we that the board deems appropriate to really look into any of the aspects of this most recent quadruple a you know obviously it's predates because way back to 2016 and before so there's just a lot of opportunity to dig that apart but i'll say we did put forward a lot of the documents from just the past year very transparently put that into the board document for monday's meeting where the board had a lot of conversation so for folks

186who want to look at the data who want to see visuals all those things they're there for you to unpack and look at and we're happy to continue to unpack that so the very last thing i just have to acknowledge is that thanksgiving is selfishly my favorite holiday it's the one i look forward to more than any other number one because of food i love food they love to eat and number two because of family i love spending time with family there's it's but but most importantly the thing that really makes it my favorite holiday is because of the gratitude if there's one word that i think means more to me than anything else in terms of the way that i want to live life in terms of the way i want to lead in

187terms of the way i feel about this district it's about gratitude we're so grateful to all of the people in that work in this district we have over 12 000 employees each and every one of them we could not run this organization without their contributions we could not do it without them so to all of our staff who are out there working very hard who are asked to do so much more because of these staffing shortages again i've said it many times throughout this year but i'm going to say it again today from the bottom of my heart thank you for the sacrifices you make for our children thank you so much for all that the service you provide is tremendous our bus drivers all those folks the teachers everyone that's out there working your

188jobs are very vital to us thank you for your contributions and those are my comments for tonight thank you the next special meetings of the board on monday december 6th there will be a board workshop at 1pm also on tuesday december the 7th there will be a board briefing meeting at 1pm as well as an action meeting at six at this point having no other business to come before this body and see a new objection this meeting is adjourned you