001good evening ladies and gentlemen we are ready to begin this evening's board meeting sergeant-at-arms or designate has the front lobby be been intended to ensure Public Access thank you the school board meeting of October 18 2022 is now called to order the time is 6 pm 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 in the district's vision to be a world-class school system this evening agenda includes moment of silence Pledge of Allegiance one item under other business public comments consent action items which include four items under Board office three items under academic Services five items under Business Services four of which are good cause Dr Bernier please provide an explanation for
002these four items Madam chair thank you for the opportunity members of the board board secretary would you please make sure this statement is recorded So it's properly reflected in the minutes per board policy 6.076 M as in Mary on September 23 2022 Governor DeSantis issued executive order 22-218 declaring a state of emergency as the result of tropical depression 9 which later became hurricane Ian the order allowed for political subdivisions such as the school district to waive procedures and formalities pertaining to the suspension of competitive solicitation process following local procurement Contracting policies entering into contracts and other matters the order expires within 60 days of its issuance which would be November 22nd 2022. based on the guidance and the strengthening of the storm I issued a school closure Declaration on September 26th based upon the declared
003state of emergency for Lee County Schools pursuant to policy 1.18 further on September 28 2022 I declared a state of emergency due to Hurricane Ian pursuant to board policy 1.18 which invoked board policy 6.076 M as in Mary lifting the competitive solicitation process as I found there was an immediate danger to public health safety welfare and the possibility of other substantial loss to the school district which required emergency action hurricane Ian made landfall as a count of four category 4 hurricane it sustained winds of approximately of 150 150 miles per hour the storm caused catastrophic storm surge and wind damage in Lee County that significantly impacted our community it affected the normal operations of the school district and left numerous District properties and Facilities significantly damaged thus to a falled regular competitive award procedures would
004have caused a delay detrimental to the public interest as a result the district took immediate steps to maximize its ability to receive insurance and FEMA reimbursement and to begin the remediation and stabilization process of our schools so we could reopen as quickly as possible number one the district entered into agreement with Imperium Consulting Group LLC on September 27th for FEMA Insurance consulting services this firm will help maximize our insurance and FEMA reimbursements on October 6th the district 2022 the district entered into an agreement with TBN LLC doing business as Servpro of Central Street Saint Peterborough St Petersburg Florida to help stabilize our schools that were used as shelters and to prepare our kitchens for the reopening of schools on October 6 2022 the district awarded RFQ number 22-743-1 ta to cotton commercial USA Inc Lemoine
005Disaster Recovery LLC and Royal plus to provide remediation and stabilization through temporary repairs to different facil District facilities that were significantly impacted by the storm on October 14th the district awarded RFQ number 22-7432ta to Acom AECOM Technical Services Inc for program management oversight of the temporary emergency remediation and stabilization of our certain facilities on October 15th I rescinded the emergency Powers returning them back to the board for your governance as statutorily intended I would like to thank this board for your trust you have placed in this Administration to take the immediate steps necessary to reopen our schools and attempt to return this District to its normal operations thank you as presiding officer I find there is good cause to add these items to the agenda one item under Human Resources one item under Information Systems
00614 items under operations and four items under other business board members is there a motion to adopt the agenda I move we adapt the agenda has given thank you Miss kittens may I have a second I'll second it thank you Miss Vaughn it has been moved by Miss kittens and seconded by Miss Vaughn please record your vote motion carries seven two zero Miss Fisher will lead us in a moment of silence after which Miss Morgan will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance Miss Fisher please lead us in a moment of silence please rise foreign father we lift up to you all victims of natural disasters and those responding with Aid and assistance please help those who have lost loved ones homes and belongings to heal and rebuild grant us strength fortitude patience compassion and
007insight as we move forward with opening our schools to create a sense of normalcy and support for the future of our students families colleagues and our community we ask this in your name amen at this time let us remember Marvin Getz our longtime advocate for professional substitute teachers more than a career War veteran and friend of Education passed on October 8 13th at age of 88 he will be buried at Sarasota Memorial Gardens thank you Miss Morgan will you lead us in the pledge and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you please recede Madam chair I believe Ms Fisher's vote says nay and not yes Roman could you please tell me what the could you please tell me what the I cannot
008see the vote foreign no it's six one Miss Fisher did you vote no today no I voted yay so can you make a correction on that please thank you yay and Ladies If you if we will please remember when we do speak push that button so that way everyone's able to to hear us okay thank you the next item on the agenda is the superintendent's comments reports regarding the aftermath of hurricane Ian the school district of Lee County continues to be committed to reopening schools in a safe sensitive and effective manner it is our top priority Dr Bernier can you please provide an update regarding the regarding hurricane and its aftermath thank you Madam president members of the board this needs to come up on my computer screen for me to be able to do
009that aspect of it but I would like to thank you for this opportunity to the community our apologies this will become a regular item in every standard board Action meeting so I just want you to be aware that this is the opportunity where I can insert a situational update what we're dealing with and how we're dealing with it will also be a regular situational update at boardworks sessions as necessary all items that we will talk about today including supporting documents will be uploaded to board docs and we are going to make a repository potentially on our website as well for individuals to get the information that they feel they need regarding how we have operated and how we have reopened so I'll ask Michael who's driving to go to the next slide the purpose of
010these will always be to provide action steps and timeline information related to school damage our remediation efforts and reopening update we are working very very hard and we will release a temporary timeline or a working timeline this evening which is up to four current Pages beginning on September 23rd when we began to meet with the central leadership about the tropical depression and then we continued all the way through until its current dates of today there are still Avenues and methods which need to be amended and provided today's opportunity I will not read the entire timeline I will stand in instead summarize the Thursday before the event we were already operating as an Emergency Operations Center here at the school district at least twice a day we worked very very hard to make sure that we
011were prepared for the storm we have supplied our when we identified our shelters we worked hard to make sure that we were prepared and for their activation with five days of food and water our shelter principals were conversed with our principals were told and given Direction about how to close down their buildings and we made it clear that was very likely we were going to be open on Monday we had consulted with the Emergency Operations Center of the county they did not expect to request Sheltering on Monday we looked at Tuesday's weather and we suspected that by Tuesday morning we would still have a window to bring young people to school but we were making the assumption that the winds Rose we would not have an opportunity to get them back home about that same
012time a decision was made to make sure that we knew our shelters were going to need to be activated on Tuesday the 27th and we began the process to activate those shelters and stood them up at one point while there were 15 in the county we had 12 total operating within the school district we also set up our radio communication protocols we knew that at some point we might lose water telephone and electricity so we established our two-way communication process via emergency radios and we were prepared and took those home with us on Monday night whenever you're working in an EOC you're working the current problem you're facing and the next step and then the step after that so despite the fact that we were standing up for shelters and approaching storm we were already
013discussing what would occur during the storm how would we stay in contact with each other and then how we would immediately reassume and reassemble as quickly as we could back at the Emergency Operations Center located on our on our T's we were already also pushing on our facilities and maintenance department to be thinking about what we would need immediately following the storm in order to make those processes and begin that conversation so we know Ian makes landfall on Wednesday September 28th the executive director of safety is already embedded embedded down at the EOC during Hurricane Ian and we had massive power outages connectivity was lost and we had to boil water nose many of us took showers in very interesting places including our pools if we had them but we tried to stay as clean
014as possible as we reported every day and very important that post Ian that you understand that we were still in the Sheltering business we were very heavily involved with making sure we were supporting the public and making sure that those individuals in our shelters continue to receive Food water in the necessary care many of you know that Ray Ray V pardorff opened as a special needs shelter we were supplying at that point and making sure at the EOC level that we were providing not only help and support in terms of food and water but we're also providing the necessary fuel to run all the generators in order to keep those people as comfortable as possible that same day the following day I had an opportunity to take a helicopter ride of the gift of mosquito
015control with myself the superintendent of Education or the commissioner of education is more commonly known and the lieutenant governor it was our first opportunity for me to see coming out of the same cave many of us came out of those were our homes we had no connectivity we had no television radio was informative but did not give you the visual picture that I was able to receive with the help of mosquito mosquito control we did get have a meeting that afternoon here at elpec it was an opportunity it was voluntary in nature for our principals to come in sit in those seats that you're seated in this evening and we talked about how we would begin the pathway forward we had about 45 of our principals here the rest were attending on zoom and other
016links if they had the connectivity and we began to began to work on our postee and Recovery efforts Michael I'm not going to read all of these we've already talked about a number of them but we did open 12 Shelter sites we stayed in that process for a long period of time the Sunday following this on the Saturday following the storm I was able to enlist the help of the support of the sheriff's office we had three helicopter opportunities one at a time to go out to our Island schools to look at Pine Island to look at Sanibel and to look at Fort Myers Beach Elementary we were lucky enough to be able to bring our principals with us to those buildings so that they would have an opportunity to assess their buildings like the
017other principals who had that opportunity as well Department of Education offered us the help and assistant of Dr Michael grego he's former superintendent Pinellas and he arrived Monday morning we were working with Miami we were working with lots of other school districts but most of all I'd like to Credit Bay County and Bill hutzfel superintendent there he had provided us information the day after the storm as to how Bay County reacted when Michael moved directly into them that advice still to this day bill is on a call with me fairly regularly because while we talk about what we've been able to accomplish to this date I will share with you and all the community watching we have reached what I would call a false Finish Line the idea that all of our school buildings on
018Friday will be back open and our students will be back in school and those who do not have a building will be in Virtual instruction is just the beginning of this process Irma was a 50 million dollar impact to our school system I'll repeat it thank you Amy for spending so much time with me yesterday Dr demore sorry thank you Dr de Morris for spending so much time with me yesterday and helping me to understand the difference between the two it was a 50 million dollar impact to our school district you were going to need an ad zero to those numbers we are looking at buildings that have been significantly damaged and the aspect of potentially spending up to 500 million dollars or more is a reality just to return them back to their prior
019state that does not include building three additional school buildings in May and I want to stress to those communities of Sanibel Fort Myers Beach and cafaretta that may have been damaged Beyond repair we still have more evaluations to do on those buildings as well so we add our so we did have along with our principles we took out to their Island schools we did have our principals begin their low medium and high assessments and again some people have I think misunderstood what I said we did that with the watchful eye of public Educators we are not building experts we walked in we looked around seemed dry seemed clean seemed like it was okay and we quickly tried to assess our buildings on a low medium and high impact but then we had to go far
020beyond that we had a look for the visible damage whether there's any water intrusion that's what our principles were able to kind of look for us and see we categorized those low schools began to mobilize to begin cleanup once the all clear was given some people have said why didn't we get started sooner we needed to make sure the tree branches weren't wrapped in a power line as we all know there can be horrible tragic deaths following a storm by getting out there too early our medium and high schools were prioritized for prioritized for professional assessments and the scope of work was established to begin the procurement process which we read into the record tonight we began to establish our connections with insurance and FEMA we were acquired emergency requests for crotes RFQ for remediation
021and stabilization we are in that first stage of recovery the first stage is to make sure that we seal envelopes as I talked about last week we make sure that the envelope the walls the roof the windows the doorways prevent any additional water intrusion these are not permanent fixes on some of our buildings right now they are fixes that will get us through these next several days while we begin to look now to look for the organizations and the local contractors who can come in and help us rebuild our school buildings we filed FEMA claims for public assistance we had on-site meetings with FEMA the Department of Emergency Management as well as our district team we kept a Cadence of two times a day every morning every night we went through what we needed to
022be doing what we needed to do next what needed to be discussed offline between the two phone calls so that on the second phone call which was really a radio call still at this point and we did it's a running joke with us now we had to teach radio etiquette we had all forgotten how not to step on each other on a radio call and we had to learn our way through that but we began to maintenance we began the mobilization of our maintenance department to the low impact schools we began to remediate and stabilize our schools categorized in the medium and high impact with awarded contractors cotton is one of them Royal plus is another and Lemoine is the third safety criteria were established to determine schools Readiness to reopen we just didn't want
023to go in and do what I refer to as a sniff test we wanted to make sure we had legitimate set of criteria by which to adjust and make sure that our schools were safe to open we acted verification of schools based upon safety criteria as they were as the criteria were met to reopen all of our school sites keep in mind we are still working primarily in the dark without television and still without water I don't want it lost looking back thinking that somehow we were down at the EOC and every night we went home to buildings that were turned on our homes were still dark our water was not fit to drink and our schools weren't on our schools did not they had to have power so while we were doing some of
024this remediation we were doing it by flashlight as we started to get into the remediation of our vendors that's how power got turned on we went to the EOC we prioritized our school buildings we worked with the Department of Education they took a list from us every night of what was on and what was off and they helped Florida Power and Light and the other electric company prioritize those buildings and slowly but surely we saw them all come on I had a conversation with a mom from North today why did it take North so long North was one of the last buildings we could establish legitimate power with it was almost the very last one and it also connects to Tropical Isles across the street they had a pipe where wires ran it was underground
025every time we cleared the water the water came back no one at the electric company was willing to turn that on until such time as we can control the water and that's what took North and therefore all the assessments and all that remediation even though Dr Diggs has been had been through our building we still needed to get additional people in there so I just remind you again of the safety criteria reliable Power and Water assessed by professionals building envelopes sealed HVAC fire alarm intercom clear of debris food service and yes indoor quality let me talk just briefly about it India air quality there is no standard for indoor air quality in any Florida statute so people have asked me what was the indoor air quality the day before Ian I don't know I do
026know that in some school buildings they took significant impact from water sea water and everything else that came with the additional water that came into the building I know that when you remediate that we have to ensure that water and mold and other things are not growing I know they use a industrial hygienist at this point was the best way to go about that go about that work and it's something we should continue to do in any maintenance project for instance in this room if two and a half months from now we spring a roof leak and this room gets filled with water and we come in and remediate it we dry it out we get a Servpro they come in and suck it all out and make it dry we should do an indoor
027air quality test in this facility to ensure that repair has been done to a specific standard most of what we were waiting on in the last several days was our contractors our contractors in order to turn a building back to us have to have an indoor air quality test if they don't have one they're liable and they're accountable for turning over an unhealthy building they won't do it I couldn't do it either in the buildings that we were remediating as well so reopening of schools we are very pleased to announce that all 88 schools will return with students and teachers by this Friday now you're going to have to do some math with me here so I'm I'm not the best math teacher in the world but though I can get through some remedial remediary
028remedial arithmetic I can't pronounce anything anymore but I can say remedial 83 school facilities have been cleared to open 13 opened on Monday 16 opened today 48 schools will open tomorrow three schools on Thursday and three on Friday those are all of our facilities that we can open are open Diplomat in Lexington students will begin their FLVS curriculum beginning on October 21st on October 20th they will have reunification days both as either bake both at Ida Baker and Cypress Lake so you're wondering 83.88 where are the five right you have caffaretta you have Sanibel you have Fort Myers Beach all of those students and their teachers are partnered with another school and those students will return to their education but not in their school facility additionally Diplomat in Lexington are the other two we do
029believe we can have those remediated and potentially reopened by October 31st so in that Gap is why we've chosen to use the Florida virtual curriculum in order to assist those students to make sure over this short period of time between now and the 31st they have an opportunity to continue to learn with their teachers that curriculum again will be taught by their teachers if they're in sixth grade with Mrs Jones in mathematics they will have Mrs Jones as their mathematics teacher using the Florida virtual curriculum nutrition services we wanted to give you an update our kitchen people not only during the storm After the Storm but during the storm were amazing they inventoried the kitchens they transferred ordered and stocked food and drinks and supplies to support the opening of 12 shelters and continued to
030keep them open they created a rotating schedule for their staff we had other districts then respond mostly Broward County specifically for this need where they sent additional shelter teams later in the process to give our tired people some time and help begin to clear the school buildings the district warehouse managed special emergency orders and delivered all the food we staffed 12 kitchens both during and after the event and we served approximately 35 000 meals at the shelters during the Sheltering we partnered with vendors to clean the kitchen's post event we re-inventoried ordered in stock kitchens in order to get ready for school openings so one of the safety checklist items was would we have food to serve to our children and the answer is yes in terms of the reopening over the last two days
031on October 17 13 schools reopened and about 82 percent of our students came back to school on October 18th 29 schools were open the additional 16 and the attendance Rose to 90.9 percent staff in attendance on October 13th our teachers and our support professionals that's talc in the talc column and spout support Professionals in the next one you'll see their percentages rising from 85 percent on October 13th to 94 today and you'll see spout rising from 85.71 to 91.15 percent that's an amazing Return of the staff and it shows you the dedication of our employees our bus drivers and bus attendants are also on the rise from 81 on October 17th and now to 83 today and 82 percent of bus attendance slightly down to 80 percent today I will share with you before I
032go on if you go back on Mike please Dr Mr Ramirez I want to caution everybody Transportation wasn't exactly the highlight of the school district of Lee County's operations prior to Ian it is going to be increasingly more difficult when we move from 29 schools to 48 and we moved from 48 to others there's still debris we've asked for all of our bus stops to be prioritized by the debris cleanup the state has been working with us to get it done but it appears there's more debris than there are people I encourage parents to look at where their child's bus stop is if you do not believe it's safe do not Place Your Child In Harm's Way we have time to get that cleaned up school will still be there and if you desperately need
033them to go to school and you feel it's not safe you are always welcome although it's not always feasible but you are always welcome to drive your child to the school building or to organize with a neighbor or organize with other members of your neighborhood if you're going to the same schools we have to ensure that our student safety again remains one of our top priorities today board members may have heard about Heights Elementary Heights Elementary did experience some problems today on its first day with teachers everything was running in Heights we wouldn't have opened the school building without it the HVAC ran while the contractors were in there today the HVAC decided like sometimes hvacs decide to do to stop working we dispatched a crew we were able to get the air conditioning back
034up but that was about 1 30 today and the administration made a decision based upon the temperatures Rising the in the in in the school building to allow their teachers to go home we that air is now on 24 hours a day and will remain that way in the intercom system is being troubleshot because that worked also I just remind people that water and salt water and Rain are very unforgiving to anything electrical and while they are working currently we will have just like on any given day when we lose air in a school building we will have air conditioning potentially go down you could say it's a result of the storm you could also say it's the result of just doing business in 83 School sites not everything works on any given day and
035but we will be and are prepared to respond and I believe those are all my items that I wanted to go over today again we are working as hard as we possibly can and we will make sure that the students get the best they can get right now in terms of reunifying with their faculties and their teachers making sure that we begin the process of re-educating them and helping them back to a sense of normalcy in their buildings had a great opportunity on Monday to be in several sites along with members of my team who had some more site visits I've known our team had more site visits today teachers staff students are happy to be back and we're glad for them to be back but again I remind everyone the aesthetic value of certain
036schools has been impacted and these fixes are temporary in nature the permanent fix is phase two we have remediated we have stabilized we have built up the services necessary for a safe opening and now the difficulty will be returning them back to their former state that means re-roofing that means new windows in some cases it means significant amount of carpet and tile those things are not necessary to have school those things aren't necessary for children and families to be more comfortable in their location and we will get started on that work in earnest lastly I would just like to take a point of personal privilege of I can make can Madame chair there's an individual that we brought in last Saturday a week ago Saturday he is the former Chief facilities and construction officer for
037the Clark County School District he no longer works for the Clark County School District he is in his own industry in his own private area but I called Jeff the day after the storm actually Saturday two days after the storm and said to him I really could use you're an operations guy you understand facilities construction maintenance and you know not only where I'm going to be but where I'm going to have to go I don't need you to come in and replace a team I need you to work with the Frederick crosses the Scott rickenbackers The Barber sedanios and help help them and be that Synergy for us to bring their voice to the cabinet table and the reopening in the Emergency Operations Center Jeff answered that call and I would just like to introduce
038Jeff Wagner to the community just ask him to stand and wave this is Jeff Wagner our new CEO currently I would appreciate anybody trying I do believe it will be a losing effort but I'm going to ask people to try he cannot stay he is Nevada born and bred that's where he lives that's where he grew up but we're all taking the opportunity trying to convince him to stay just a little bit longer than probably he wants to but he left his wife and his dog and he will be here for a while we're hoping somewhere between four to six months depending on whether I can keep him entertained that long and if that's the case then we'll be able to continue with a great CEO who can help this team because I will tell
039you the operations team has done great work all Jeff has helped do is better help orchestrate it and we thank him for his leadership as well as like I said Frederick Ross Barbara Sedano Scott Rickenbacker and the people they represent down the chain because they do amazing work as well so that's our update for this evening I'd be open to any questions are there any questions that you all have regarding okay Miss kittens thank you I have two quick ones one you mentioned 500 million I believe it is as somewhat of the cost at this point we know that's not in stone do we know and this is probably something you can say later on the percentage that we might be able to recoup from FEMA or is any of that something that we can
040recoup from FEMA I can tell you that we are working day and night to ensure that what we expend based upon our Imperium who is our consultant to help us through the FEMA process our insurance company and working with our contractors we are trying to do everything the right way there have been a lot of lessons learned from Irma that we are applying in this process but I wouldn't want to give you anything of an order of magnitude of what it would cost to repair yet there's still a lot of assessment that needs to occur to determine what those final costs will be and then on top of it you have to make sure that we're dotting all our eyes and Crossing all our T's as well as you well know in order to make
041sure we work with FEMA but FEMA is here with us they converse with us our team has already been in touch with them and our Consultants have been working with them and we're making sure we're our following female guidance to make sure that we are in the best position possible for every dollar that we are eligible for to receive am I correct in sane because a lot of people have been asking about how much how much is it costing and all and I explained it to someone that like individual homes that were destroyed or damaged many people sitting out there still don't know the extent of that damage or the extent of what their insurance companies going to pay so we are in somewhat of the same situation until we can see all of the
042damage and get everything you know assessed that we will not have those figures am I correct in saying that I think you're very correct in saying that we are in the same position as most homeowners are we know we've sustained damage we know it's significant but we do not yet have hard figures on what the cost to repair nor what our insurance company will specifically pay in these cases and the last question and I had and we talked about the bus drivers I think it was on slide 12 but what was the percentage I know we were down on bus drivers before Ian do we have that figure as to what percentage we had prior to so let's let's not confuse two different percentages one is a percentage that is currently reporting that is not
043all of our current staff that is that's the percentage of our current staff on top of that we were still missing bus drivers before Ian we are still missing that group of bus drivers and we are slightly down on staff I could get an average daily rate of attendance out of the bus drivers prior to Ian and make sure that's reported back to you okay and thank you very much that's it anyone Miss Patrica so this is probably a question for the second leg of the relay you're talking about a false false Finish Line so I'm thinking of it as a relay school calendar I'm getting a lot of questions from parents regarding the school calendar whether hurricane makeup days are now required attendance days and at what point do you think we'll begin discussions
044with the state regarding forgiveness forgiveness of days we have already opened the dialogue regarding the state regarding forgiveness days Rob dotik is ours already convened the calendar committee along with unions I did ask yesterday thanks Rob days blend folks they really do if it hadn't been for a board meeting I don't know that it was Tuesday night Rob is reaching back out to some of our parental members of that committee to make sure they see the recommendation and we will be ready to bring forth a calendar committee recommendation early next week great two more questions please reaching out has there been any consideration of reaching out to school communities where we have significantly lower student attendance we are already doing that so there while I report the overall figure those figures can rise as high
045as 99 of our students attending in a particular building to as low as 64 percent in those areas where we have a 64 attendance rate right now the academic Services team is hard at work with that principal trying to find out where our students have gone where they are and what we can do to help them get back to school okay and my third question is do you have an Heim in the might be able to with some certainty estimate the number of students and staff lost to the storm meaning lost to other districts they left and they're not coming back yes as we start to get information from other school districts they will call they will ask for cumulative files they'll ask for other information that we have provided we still have it there
046are some school buildings clearly on the islands that suffered significant damage when the process of recovering those cumulative files now but they will be very likely very stuck together but we will Salvage what we can that will give us one opportunity but I also think we are in a stabilization phase with our staff and with our students and I would suspect that it'll be another two weeks before we have a sense of who's coming who may still become who's coming to school who still may be coming and will start to get that feeling and Cadence of who's leaving who's requesting records to be sent to Orlando or to Fort Lauderdale Palm Beach and County and we'll start to be able to track our students that we are potentially could lose all right and my last
047one is a com to describe not only your presentation tonight but all of the work that went into you being able to give that presentation to the public I know it's not just you I know it's an entire team but really it the buck stops with you so while you'll always receive the criticisms you should also receive the praise this has been an exceptional effort by you and your team and I'm very very grateful thank you well I appreciate it board member chica but I will tell you that every good leader defers to his team when things go well it's always a team when things don't go well the leader steps up and says that's my fault I'll make the difference so I appreciate that though because they deserve to hear it thank you Miss
048David Ellie and then Miss Fisher thank you so much for that information because that was information that I had actually personally called for a special meeting and that was part of the information you gave today was the meeting I mean the information that was needed to get out to the community because I was getting a lot of phone calls and people driving by the school saying that I see nothing wrong with the school and why can't we open well there I can't give you an exact reason why that particular school is not open because I didn't really have the information I you know that they needed needed and the you know the correct answer to give to them so it put me in a little bit of an awkward position many for many days so
049that was why I just wanted to get the community the information out to the community on where we're at where we're at I was wanting a PowerPoint at least with the nine you know in the nine items that needed to be cleared before each school could open and you know just what was checked off and where where it stood but but I really want to thank you for and you and your staff for the information tonight because it was important it gives a lot of people at ease but the reason why I was asking for it like for Saturday or Sunday or Friday or whatever was because people were trying to make plans to what to do with their children because many have gone back to work and didn't know someone were taking their children
050to work with them and it wasn't take your children to work day but and some of them were anyways so but just really thank you for that I do have a couple questions one is to piggyback off of Miss patricus which what was on my list was the calendar because I've had staff come to me about the calendar they say I started on Monday or I started on on Tuesday and some some of my you know colleagues and friends are other schools are starting on Friday you know where does that leave the calendar in you know is school going to end on the same day those things are the unknown to the to the staff and them trying to figure out how is that going to really play out with with number one bargaining and
051then and then their contracts because they're contracted to work x amount of days and that kind of thing the second thing is some of them are telling me well I'm going to be meeting with the adjuster you know I've got an appointment next week or FEMA next week and you know am I going to have that Grace and freedom to be able to you know an understanding to be able to have those appointments and you know leave now my classroom and deal with that during the day so you don't have to answer that now you can address that but that was one of the things the second thing was regarding communication my own daughter complained about all the emails so we amazingly enough you get over you get you're damned if you do and you're
052damned if you don't you over communicate or you under communicate and they were getting 13 to 15 emails a day different piece you know different schools being released I think one at the end of the day because everybody's working they're saying we can't read all these emails we're all worried about you know when is it my school is it my school you know it was just all that information and confusion for people and I think one simple email at the end of the day these are the schools gonna start back on an expectation you know expectation for the reunification you know and that kind of thing would have been a little either on staff actually my concern as well so I just wanted to give you that it was positive and negative criticism because I
053mean like I said you can't win with over communicating for me and then I would love to have the Powerpoints that we're given today because I like to be able to re reread it and if if that could be something the Powerpoints have been very helpful and I think that was all my questions but I just wanted to address those thank you thank you the calendar again we are in the process we are the unions are at the table helping us with that we have hurricane days built into the schedule I we do not suspect that we will have to go longer we have our statutory requirement for so many hours it's been looked at by our internal team we have to make a recommendation send it to the state make sure the chancellor and
054the commissioner have an opportunity to review it make sure that we're doing our calculations correctly some more to come on that as to when people started and when people didn't we will work with the unions to make some determinations to how flexible they want us to be but I think every day that there's an opportunity for children to learn right now considering that what they've been through during what I would refer to as the pandemic years and now another disruption to them the opportunity for them to continue to be taught will be incredibly important a point well taken on the number of emails the number of videos It's a very fine line to figure out where to walk where not to walk you just for me I just had a feeling a couple of days
055I was like I just got to sit down in front of a camera and tell people I just need your patience for a couple of days I remember that Thursday video just saying give me just the weekend we are going to see a big change you're going to see things start to materialize and here we are you know 20 days 20 days past storm and technically if you want to consider all of our schools being open on Monday which really isn't true we're 14 days we're 14 days missed that's the same situation that this District was in with Irma and Irma was a big hurricane don't get me wrong but it didn't do what Ian did so we're 26 days in Emergency Operations we are still in Emergency Operations we are still making those same
056phone calls and meetings two days two times per day we are 14 days past storm we're we're 20 days past storm and we are 14 days of Miss school and this by the end of this week we will have all of our students back in an educational environment waiting on two more buildings to finish remediation so we're very excited about where the progress we've made and I do appreciate the feed again the feedback on the communication piece because you are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place too much is too much too little is really bad so if I was going to make an error I'd want to err on telling people too much information additionally yes the Powerpoints will be available not only to you as board members but to the
057public and we'll be putting in some additional documents including our working timeline so that you can see on each day what we were up to what we were working on so that you can help us when we get to the point where we're going to have an after action review that would be an opportunity for us to look at Lessons Learned and I'm excited about that opportunity as well but that will be weeks ahead because we have a lot of work to do and I hate to call it a false Finish Line really what I should say is it's in phases safety and Remediation getting schools back open was phase one phase two is about fixing and returning buildings back to their prior state and then phase three is the long term as we think
058about new builds or gutting buildings and starting over on the interiors and those will have to be engagement Community Communications with all of you and with the communities that have been impacted and we have some we potentially have some difficult decisions ahead of us the new flood line is probably going to be 12 to 15 feet out on the outer Islands building a building at 15 feet in the air I haven't quite figured how to do that yet I'm not saying we won't I'm just saying it's a challenge but this whole process has been a challenge and we just overcome one at a time go ahead Miss Juvenile and real quick I also wanted to give kudos to Mariner High School because they actually put out on their web website the whole their whole reunification
059timeline and what was going on with their school and what was cleared and that was the information that was that was everybody was that was all they were wanting and I really thought it was it was wonderful and so I printed it because I don't think everybody did that and I just thought that they should get acknowledged for doing that because I think it's really good that they were able to do that and show their their students and staff and as well as the parents you know what was going on in their process so I thought that was really good and then one of the things I want to thank you as well because it was brought up to me about all the debris out there and you know the bus stops and safety because
060that's been our number one priority and why the schools haven't opened is regarding safety and that makes it alone unsafe the all the debris but that is somewhat out of our control and so I would recommend that parents recognize what's safe for their child and make that determination because ultimately it's up to the parent is you know making that determination we can only do what we are able to do so thank you so that Grace and compassion also extends to that individual you talked about who needs to meet an adjuster we've been very very clear with our principles and our building supervisors and our staff supervisors here in this building and the other buildings we own that as individuals need to make appointments with insurance adjusters FEMA and other people they are to be allowed
061to go do that's how people are able to come back with a senate a set and a peace of mind so that's the message and if you hear anything to the contrary you're all very good about communicating with me so I will make sure that we address those on a case-by-case basis thank you very much this Miss Fisher and then miss Vaughn thank you so this is a time of incredible challenge for so many of our community you're talking about communication the only communication I have had to date is intimate in texts and phone calls I have no internet TV any of that so I haven't seen a lot of the communication except by text and by coming in here to access the internet I want to I want to use the word incredible because
062I said it's an incredible Challenge and the work that has been done by the superintendent and his staff is incredible in incredible work incredible dedication incredible accomplishments I mean I think that having US Open our schools and have such a wonderful response from our staff and our students is incredible under the circumstances my neighborhood's still full of debris so you know I think different places look differently but there is a lot to handle and I appreciate the compassion and the consideration for our staff to follow up and take care of their needs and I also want to say to all you guys who have been working 24 7. I know you've had losses and challenges of your own and yet you have been front and center and really done again an incredible job and I
063thank you for that this is just the beginning I wouldn't call it you know a false Finish Line but it's just the beginning of a long process so we want to keep our kids safe together and moving forward and this is what it takes coming together as a community and doing that so thank you very much for all that you've done and thank you to my colleagues for all they've done also thank you Miss Fisher Miss Vaughn thanks I have a question about funding and then a comment it seems well let me let me start with with the state we have the federal funds from from FEMA are there any state funds that are going to be released to the counties that have been declared emergency areas I don't have a definitive answer for that
064so we haven't been given any information that the state is going to we have not received any information I am been in touch with local delegation as you all know we had a football game Friday night and the commissioner of Education invited some of the local delegation there there was a huddle in the tent in a conversation with the superintendent talking about the magnitude of this impact to our school district and our District's ability to return schools just to their previous state the conversation was well listened to I'm going to continue to work with the elected delegation from this community and asking them to understand the impact of our school buildings by our offering them opportunities like I offer to all of you and we'll continue to offer all of you I'll sneak this in
065this coming Thursday I would like the opportunity if you would like we'll set up an opportunity for you to meet me at Lexington I think that's a good building to start with and then we'll move up through cafaretta to Diplomat it was another heavily impacted building one's water right that's Lexington the other one's wind and then we'll have an opportunity maybe to go over look at Gulf Elementary and Gulf Middle it's amazing to me how two buildings can be on the same section of piece of property and being impacted so differently so have any of the members of our local delegation toured any of our damaged schools yes General Parsons had an opportunity to tour Lexington last week I believe if I'm getting my days correct and she's the only one so far we've reached
066out to the delegation today my understanding is more of them are interested in coming to look at our facilities when they're clean and they don't dirty their shoes all right this morning I try to catch these things sometimes I'm in another room but that the board of County Commissioners has released a sum of money or emergency did anybody else here that or is that on there was there was a sum of money announced that the board of County Commissioners are releasing and I obviously I didn't get that much information but I know I heard that and so you heard it too I'm seeing somebody else nodding did you hear two Miss kittens if I may yes I did hear it that they took out I don't know if it was a loan or something or
067an event whatever yeah so that they could do certain things and one of the things was to pay the overtime for the staff that worked so it was right but yeah and I'm not I'm but we were just talking about debris and we have of course Cape Coral is a city but we have many areas that are unincorporated Lee County and what I'm wondering is if the board of County Commissioners are getting involved with adding their the power of their equipment to debris removal when it comes to debris removal I can tell you that the coordination out of the Emergency Operations Center which is the center for all of Lee County that includes all the local municipalities I can't tell tell you how many County Commissioners how many mayors how many other individuals who are
068elected officials have been in that facility to drive all the resources to doing this they are working as diligently as they can they have worked and managed as much material as they can get out to make those cleanups I certainly can get with David Newlin and because he still sits at the Emergency Operations Center I can ask him to look into what you're asking about County funding but I have not seen anything I did not catch that news report so in other words and I have no idea how this works so the emergency preparedness or the emergency EOC is a compilation of a group of our is that how it works it's a it's an amazing collection of everything from the school system to local County governments to hospitals to Medicals to the Red Cross
069to people who are just there to do Logistics work to people who ensure that the list of logistics work gets done it is an amazing operation and when you embed yourself in it and give of your own resources like shelters and give of your own resources like lcec staging out at Sanibel school with a 10 for the men and ladies who are doing all the power work out on Sanibel Island a place to store their equipment on the soccer and County Soccer field behind it those types of things are noticed and then in return when we ask to prioritize things like bus stops and other things or school Power getting turned back on they knew in order for us to help stand back up this community and that EOC is well coordinated and really is
070a shining light in this County of how in the middle of a crisis it doesn't matter what municipality you're from it's about all the residents of Lee County okay and thank you for that because I didn't exactly how that works it sounds to me like it should be a feature on all the news channels or maybe I missed it if it was or in the News Press or just to kind of explain all of that because that's how I would hope that everything would work thank you so much for the presentation today with such such a detailed timeline I pretty much you know I think all of us on the board pretty much knew this knew the steps except to see it all in a row like that and like oh yeah they did that
071and oh I didn't realize that what I'm what I'm hopeful about is that all of the members of the community that like three days after the hurricane we're wondering why aren't the schools open yet and what's wrong with these teachers that are saying they're not ready to go back yet I hope everybody is through listening to this and looking at that timeline and understanding that everything we're doing was so that the children would come back to Safe schools and that the teachers and everybody else who entered those schools would come back to Safe schools this is if you haven't figured it out already I know you have such a complex so many moving Parts such a complexity in in doing this and it is I think what Ward was incredible all of those words take
072incredible and the thesaurus and add throw it out there 20 more words an amazing job and everybody was putting in pretty much 24 7. I very very impressed with with the work ethic on that so thank you to all of you who put in time on on this and I know many of you had your own difficulties with your with your home situation and I hope everybody is well what's normal anymore so thank you to all thank you Miss Vaughn Miss Morgan did you have any comments the board said everything thank you and I the only thing that I want to really say thank you so much I as I said before I witnessed this being down at the EOC watching Everybody 24 7 and I've even had people say oh you don't have a
073plan this is our plan right here and I thank you for that and I think the people that we have Mr Ramirez who has gone through other tragedy you brought your experience Dr Bernier you brought your experience and collectively with everyone else we made this happen so thank you that's all I have to say please just a couple words to close first and foremost to the public thank you for the opportunity to do this prior to public comment I know that you're here because you have things you want to share but you know this is the place where I can put it and I know I'm standing between you and your opportunity to speak and I want to recognize and thank you for your patience I also want to clear up that there's very specific
074rules within standards regarding mold I may have said mold instead of IAQ so I want to go back and remember that say there's no CDC recommendation there's no State recommendation that buildings be regularly tested for indoor air quality we do however anytime we do a remediation have a responsibility to our students and our employees to make sure that they're not coming back into an unsafe unsafe area and in a lot of cases right now it's our remediators some of those large companies I mentioned that are making sure and have made sure that our buildings are safe one quick update I have been provided via email the building release for Heights I'm going to send that to all of you so that you know exactly where Heights was when we said it was okay to open
075so that you have that information and you can see the safety checklist all that Mr Ramirez is going to work late into the evening I'm sure posting additional documents for the community so that you guys can begin to see some of our work and I want to just make a appeal to three communities the caparetta Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach you may feel like we have left you out of this process we have not you have always been on our minds you will remain on our minds and now as we move into this process by which we get our students back into school and have found homes community of learner homes for your children now our opportunity is to engage about what we do with the future of those sites so I look forward to
076that I'll add those to my community engagement entry plan they were never On It originally but we'll add those as an opportunity for neighborhood dialogues and a chance for us to have those ongoing conversations about what the desires of this community are last but not least I'm just going to say it again and probably we'll say it again tonight in my final comments tomorrow is a big lift for us we're going from 29 to almost 50 schools we will buses will be late they will be late they may there will be Transportation issues tomorrow I am not somebody said the schools are safe and this and we have a good plan moving forward with safety what I did say very beginning this will not be a perfect plan there will be situations where we'll have
077to work through those those situations and those concerns but we will continue to work through them so just wanted to make sure the staff the board of the public and staff were aware French thank you Miss kittens I just had I just had one last thing to say I think part of the confusion and communication was people didn't know where to look for what and I spoke with the superintendent about this before in retrospect if we had had an alphabetical list of the schools like a spreadsheet that would say if it was low medium or high the percent of returning staff where they were on the nine point scale and some idea of opening whether that's TBD to be determined or whatever because the comments that I got you would get a list today and
078you're looking down that list if it was just one list in Alpha order you could look for your school be able to find it very quickly and see what state it was in just a suggestion thank you can thank you and I and I know Mr Ramirez put us a list together that's one continuous list so thank you for that the next on the agenda is public comment Mr pree Bruno please address the public comment I have an item thank you very much Madam chair School Board policy provides the opportunity at this point in the meeting to address the board concerning any matter on this meeting's agenda or any other matter relevant to the operation of the school district if you completed a public comment card please put it in the basket provided if you
079need a public comment card they are provided by our staff the rules concerning public comment are posted in and will be made from the podium in the front of the center aisle 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 common is to provide feedback on School District issues abusive language which is prohibited in addition to clapping hissing and booing unreasonably loud and or offensive language swearing cursing or display of temper during the public comment time is prohibited speakers who fail to follow Prophet 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
0801.11 and may be removed from the chambers for board policy 1.11 the time for speakers three minutes if there are 20 two minutes if there are 30 and one minute if there are 31 speakers or more the maximum time allowed it for public comment is 1 hour 60 speakers you will find a countdown on the big screens in the front of the room once your time has elapsed the microphone will automatically shut off please state your name when you approach the microphone I will call your names five speakers at a time please follow staff's Direction when lining up Madam chair there are 12 speakers that wish to address the board this evening thank you three minutes for speaker thank you please make sure you have completed a public comment card if you intend to provide
081public comment the card is a public record identifying those who speak and providing contact information to the staff or follow-up the cards are located with the staff in the front is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the board but did not fill out a comment card please raise your hand Bruno please pursue a public comment thank you madam chair with the following individuals please line up Robert Roper Mike love Bobby de Lisandro Sharon McGill Keith Olsen foreign Roper I had decided After the Storm not to give any public comment that was against the district while you were in recovery mode however I got an email today just today potentially falls into the category of abuse of power on August 29th I filed a public records request in accordance with acceptable laws in
082accordance with the applicable laws of the State of Florida it was a routine request and it was awarded in the exact same way of all my requests previously it was about getting information on books in The District Libraries everything in my request was exactly the same wording as all the other requests in the past I paid as little as 71 cents per book and as much as a dollar five per book and every one time questioned any of these charges I paid without hesitation the amount that was requested in the past although on two occasions the check were lost one resulting in cancellation of my request since each request is based on a different number of books I simply estimated myself calculating the cost per book requested the hourly rate is always 21 dollars an
083hour the only thing that can vary is the time to research the estimated time to amount for the request that I've just put in results in a charge of three dollars and five cents per book requested instead of paying 73 dollars I will be signing a check first thing in the morning for 315 dollars I've asked for clarification of this numerous times on why the increase I've copied staff on the email so that it could be resolved without public comment this has been going on since August 29th the Optics of this are not good I'm not requesting information on classic literature or books it appears that you know are you afraid you have a book that doesn't comply with the new laws concerning media material are you afraid that some books on my request will
084be found to be unacceptable to some parents are you afraid that some may appear to be indoctrinating or critical race Theory are you concerned that some of these books may be found to be sexually explicit with little or no literary value please tell me how you can justify an increase from 73 dollars to three hundred and fifteen dollars for a request worded identically to all the others and build at the same rate of pay at twenty one dollars an hour I didn't want to speak today I want to let you guys have your time to do what you need to do Dr Bernier you have done it outstanding John my hat is off to you brother my name is Mike love I'm the economic development director for the NAACP approximately three days ago the nwacp
085had an understanding why out of town contractors were used and we understand the temporary nature of the as Dr Bernier said stage one however as we dig through communication and as we communicated with local contractors who were not hired we realize a certain things here in you're in a communication from the procurement Department it says I quote the district has communicated with the awarded firms to encourage a minority and local business utilization and we're saying encourage encourage at this stage of the game when there is a minority participation program what's encouraged you should be telling them what they should do and how they should perform for you also the non-minorities companies that has been doing the same job for for the school district year after year after year why weren't they chosen to do the
086job they could have started the job immediately yet the school board went to an assessment period of one week and then a RFP process of another week that's two weeks delay when you could have used local contractors who who does the same thing year after year for you in the RFP process they were given a list of equipment that they're required to have if you answer truthfully and say you do not possess this equipment your summerly eliminated here's a sentence from the procurement office we submit what you can offer at this time and we will make our decision based on the information received not on your ability and experience to do the work but the list of of equipment that you have that because became a elimination clause for the local contractors I took a
087tour of several sites School sites guess what I found the out-of-state companies were renting equipment from local companies so they said they had equipment that is why they obtained the job but in actuality they don't have the equipment because they have to lease them from the local leasing companies you're paying these companies two to three times the amount you would pay the local companies they brought in their workers they brought in their workers and the hotels the food all of those things you are paying two to three times more the NAACP will work with you and will gladly work with the contractors the local contractors because we believe thank you Mr love thank you thanks thank you Mr love good evening I'm Bobby de la Santo former superintendent right here in Lee County and also
088Cambridge Mass I came tonight for a very special reason and that is to thank our superintendent Dr Vernier and this board for exemplary leadership in a very hard time I also want to thank board members individually and collectively for the support they've given our superintendent last week I think well Dr Denise Carlin this amazing staff brought hundreds of homeless and displaced teachers and bus drivers and cafeteria workers it was the most unbelievable five days or four days of my life they were given food and love and hugs what a wonderful tribute this district is to have done that for their staff you know as a superintendent for many many years there are five things I always look for to look for exemplary leadership one is are you strategic have you ever seen a more strategic
089plan that you had in place very quickly the way that we were able to call people from all around the country to help us thank you for that the second one is courageous you made some courageous decisions superintendent and saying we will not go back until it is safe and that was hard because you were getting a lot of pressure thirdly is collaborative I've never seen such collaborative effort in my life with agencies and organizations working together all for the children and calm this District had a sense of calm which was amazing for this type of thing and finally caring I don't believe I've ever seen such care by all the individuals in this District kudos to this District staff to the principals in their schools I must admit this is a prime example of
090absolutely the reason you must have a seasoned superintendent consider no for elected superintendent thank you very much for your work will the following individuals please line up Lou Navarro Christy divigilli Dr Samuel Stewart Heidi cressenstein Andre Audrey Stewart thank you Miss McGill good evening thank you Sharon McGill I want to start out by thanking Dr Bernier for your leadership and to all of the District employees who are here and you may be watching tonight your dedication and your efforts were extraordinary during this hurricane Ian recovery even though many of you were probably suffering through your own losses and Recovery one of the first things I'd like to ask is I think it was last week's meeting it was brought up about displaced District staff and trying to match them to people in the community who
091would be willing to offer them a room or a part of their house for temporarily and I've heard nothing since then I have no idea and I would have been one of the people who would have been willing to do that but I've heard nothing since then so I just want to bring that up because it sounded like a great idea and Miss kittens you were the one who brought it up and we're following up on it so just wanted to let you know now you all know that I don't typically point out any individual person I usually address my comments to policies and procedures and protocols well I have to make an exception to that tonight there's a person on the board who chose to go on to social media and make comments that
092were totally unprofessional and portrayed divisive behavior during a crisis period when everybody on the board should have been coming together and that was so totally uncalled for and what that did was demean all of the efforts by everybody in the district that was working 24 7 to make sure things were going well and getting the kids back in the classrooms and I'm not going to say the person's name because they're going to know who they are because there's only one person that I saw that did it and it was really I mean I was so appalled that somebody would do that and not take not be able to step up and take responsibility if one of your parents called you with a question and blame somebody else rather than taking responsibility and giving them an
093appropriate answer and so that's that's all I want to say and thank you again and again Dr Bernier is the reason that we appoint a superintendent and not elect them my name is Keith Olson and I'm a resident and I'm a grandparent in in the county Dr Bernay you and your team I am so impressed with handling such a complex job and of course I have no idea of the complexity but what I am aware of is that it takes a tremendous leadership and I thank you for that you said that the plan will not be perfect and therefore I'm sure there will be criticisms and I got a hunch you are enough of a man that you take criticism and that you try to even if it isn't offered positively that you try to
094make it into a positive Edition so I trust that I mentioned that I'm a grandparent I have grandchildren in private schools I have grandchildren in a Christian private schools and I have grandchildren in public school and so I've seen different kinds of responses and the I have a granddaughter in a Christian school and I was talking with her just two days ago and she was telling me that she didn't have any homework well I know my granddaughter well enough to know that might not be just completely true so we talked about it and she said well you see some of the kids don't have homes and so the teachers are not providing homework because that would make them feel really bad so that touched my heart I have a another grandchild who starts school and
095public school tomorrow he's got some special needs and he's got a lot of anxiety about it because of being out of school and you know he's his siblings have started on different days in between and so he's he's got some struggles getting back and so my thought is with the teachers with the teachers aides with the bus drivers with the staff dealing with their own pain and a lot of post-strat post-traumatic stress are then being called upon to be really loving kind attentive responsive to a whole variety of children who carry their own pains into these classrooms and my heart goes out and my respect goes out to to all of the staff as they deal with these little guys and little girls so and those are the little ones I know some of them
096are bigger in high school but but all of them so God bless each of them each of you and just know that there are a lot of prayers that are supporting your efforts foreign my name is Audrey Stewart I am a Sanibel Island resident I am a business owner I am a parent of two children that attend this animal school and I'm also a very active member of this animal School parent teacher Association and for the record I and about 150 other parents like to be over communicated with especially going into phase two last Friday nearly 100 parents of the sample School joined our hastily planned Zoom call to hear the latest news about the short-term plan to get our students back to school we thank Dr Malloy for joining us in that call afterwards
097parents stayed on Zoom to discuss what we as a community see as a vision for the future of the Sanibel School we know at this juncture every step into the future will be tentative and measured we are grateful for the work your team is doing and we are very much and we very much understand the magnitude of the situation we know a Barrier Island School of 300 represents just a minute portion of the hundred thousand students you are trying to accommodate and care for through this crisis as you are aware the Sanibel school is a special place with a rich history and its students parents and Community will always be ready to lead it through good times and bad the school dates back to 1896. it was the first Lee County School to integrate and
098it has educated so many of the founding families of our cherished Island community as such our parents and Community want to be involved and it's cleanup and rebuilding need to be kept in the loop and we have to understand how our Collective resources time talent and treasure can be harnessed to get our children back in the school as soon as humanly possible the parents of the San Diego School are respectfully demanding details and answers but they also stand ready to assist in any way possible thank you I am Heidi from Stein I'm my child attends Sanibel school we I follow up with what Audrey says there's a couple questions that I had being a parent I know that all of us I think are very happy that you chose to keep us all together that
099wasn't an easy just the logistics that went into that keeping us all together but we are happy that you kept us all together a little ways from Sanibel than maybe what we would like and one question I had was is that a temporary temporary spot or will we stay there until the school is reopened that's one question that some parents had another one was there's no after school programs after school care offered at that school I think that I've heard many people talk about putting their kids into another school that has that and I remember at the last board meeting you were talking about the numbers and how many I don't know what the what what the terminology is but like children in the classroom and that was supposed to be happening then we had
100a hurricane and where our school is out so the funding for the school and I remember you saying that they were going to use another day to to count the students does that go a previous time because now we're losing a lot of students because it just doesn't logistically work for parents to send them to the San Carlos elementary school so temporarily until the Sandoval school is rebuilt they're going to put their kids someplace else so with the numbers being down for the Sanibel school at San Carlos Elementary how does that affect the rebuild and is it going to be rebuilt smaller because the numbers are down or I don't know how that works that was the question I had and then like Audrey said we really would like to know the extent of what
101the rebuild means and what is salvageable what's not salvageable and I think that all parents really want to be kept in the loop about that I think that's it thank you good evening everybody Christy dibigelli I'd like to start by thanking you guys for everything you've been doing both individually and together to reopen schools as we work together to bring back some sort of sense of normal to our kids and I just have a few things tonight a few things were brought to my attention number one and I don't care who answers this one why was Randy Weingarten at South Fort Myers High School number two how many GSA clubs in our middle and high schools share the same meeting room space and time with any other after school clubs I was made aware of
102a middle school whose GSA Club shares the same meeting room and time with an anime club apparently it was done this way for students that want to be in the GSA Club but whose parents won't allow them to so they can just tell their parents that they're joining the anime club instead please tell me that I've got all of this all wrong and that this is nothing more than just a dirty lie and we do not have Middle School Club leaders usurping the rights of parents to make decisions for their children thereby violating the parental Bill of Rights and breaking the law my last my last thing that I want to talk about is public records requests so I send a public records request to you guys on of course it zooms in on September
1037th and I said please provide me a list of all School Board advisory committee recommendations and appointments and the name of the board member recommending each appointment for the years 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 and 2022. so I got a response on I don't know on the 13th that says good afternoon we are actively working on your request and have routed routed it to the correct department for fulfillment can you please clarify recommendations so I thought that was an odd question because it was pretty self-explanatory what I was asking for but then the hurricane happened and six days ago you know when I didn't have power in my house I was notified that clarification was not received within 10 days of the clarification request so the my request is now closed but this doesn't preclude
104me from requesting the same information in the future I don't want to have to do that and it's ridiculous that I'm even being asked to I mean a third grader knows what recommendations mean so I think your public records department you know understand full well what it is that I'm requesting so I would really appreciate the answers to those questions and I did this I asked this in a public forum because I would like answers publicly please and thank you well the following individuals please line up Kate Schaefer and Jamie Merchant thank you foreign good evening superintendent board Lou Navara what do you eat ear resident native of Florida never seen a disaster like this in all my 77 years my heart goes out to everybody including the school district a lot of damage out
105there I really can't think of anything else the worst thing that could happen other than this is an errant rocket from Russia or North Korea that drops a nuke on our heads this was a disaster believe me I wanted to say a few things I wanted to bring up Dr Marvin gets he was a good friend he always had school at heart he taught at Cape high he did have a doctorate he was not a he was a humble man and I just wanted to say I know how we'd start doing eulogies and oh what a great guy and this and that and the other that happened when my wife passed away but then everybody you know they come out of the woodwork and then they go away I'd like to see a real eulogy
106a real memory Marvin wanted to see a pay raise for the substitutes and he always worked tirelessly we wanted Social Security instead of bancor which is bogus because you all don't want to pay the seven and a half percent side of your Social Security but yet you board members get that all you got a lot of perks there you know I know so I kind of resented that but his last words to me were Lou you're a good friend and then he passed away about two days later but we won't go into that other than to say if you do want to donate a tree to Israel I have the information that's what I and my son have done now I hope we're still working toward the sixty thousand pay raise for the teachers Etc
107I don't think this should take our minds off of correcting the serious educational problem with personnel half a cent sales tax I'm glad you're doing FEMA because that tax is not to repair the hurricane damage don't forget that we're remembering it I also wanted to say I think Gwen Gittens here needs some respect I understand there was a board member who is not sworn in he was telling everybody what he could do I didn't think that was very smart we have to respect all of you whether you like me or vice versa so you are in here till November thank you Mr Navarro next speaker please good evening my name is Kate Shafer I'm a resident of Sanibel Island and have a kindergartner and a second grader at the Sanibel School my family is active
108at the school I serve on the Sanibel School fund and I'm here this evening on behalf of other parents of the Sanibel School first thank you for the progress you have made in getting our kids back to school this week we all understand you were faced with this enormous task while addressing your own challenges and losses After the Storm we're grateful you were able to keep our kids together at the San Carlos Park Elementary School and understand a warm welcome awaits them on Thursday we're so very grateful for that the parents of the Sandoval School are prepared to do whatever we can to bring back the Sandoval School we are organizing relief team committees to advance the efforts to reopen the Sanibel School to form a to form a direct line of communication with you
109and your team we are creating a school district liaison committee this evening we respectfully request information and transparency as we move forward specifically updates on the assessment of the school buildings we understand cotton GDs has done an assessment of the Sanibel school buildings we respectfully request the result of that assessment as soon as it is available whether Sanibel is a restoration or a rebuild we request timelines for each step so that we can hold your team and the vendors involved accountable opportunities for volunteers to join the effort to restore or rebuild the Sanibel School and avenues for the professionals and our school family to work on this project in conjunction with the school district fourth and finally a clearly defined communication process with regular updates whether that is through the liaison committee or directly to
110the Sandoval parents we are ready to assist your efforts with the Sanibel School in any way possible we look forward to getting through this process working collaboratively with you so that Sanibel and the entire Lee County School District can come out the other side of This Disaster stronger and better thank you I'm Jamie Merchant I foreign your comment Miss Vaughn about the legislators not getting their shoes dirty I have seen them out there every single day since the storm hit one legislator literally has nothing left to his name because he lost everything of that storm and he still spent the first 10 days with his constituents and people in the community cleaning out their homes and assisting them and feeding them before he even touched his own so I'm pretty upset about that it's unprofessional
111of you it's rude and inconsiderate my name is Sam Stewart and as many of you know I've been a superintendent for over 35 years in another state New Jersey I've been an executive superintendent for five years I've seen many superintendents at work and so I'm here first of all just to say wow what a demonstration of talent of organizational ability and compassion and that's come through the to your senior citizens here and I really appreciate that and I'm glad that I could be here and join this course of Celebration because this is just wonderful also the board members I have to compliment you I know the four months you looked I know you had to look across the country you did your research and here's the result so that's number one the second point I
112want to make is and I've talked to you about this before there's a very dangerous I think referendum it's the last on the ballad and it asks that we have a partisan elected superintendent in this County now I've said before that will change the focus from teaching and learning to elections and fundraising thanks about think about it for a minute a politician elected owes allegiance to the party and what does any politician do day one once he's elected it's fundraising and so you have all the construction work you've talked about all the contractors the vendors who want work and who oh you know you put a little extra in you'll get attention and what about teachers who want a promotion or parents who might be interested in a special program or teacher remember those cheerleading
113problems we have every spring how much would you give to expect to be on the cheerleading squad and thank you vote no oh I had five and I had more time to go I cut it short anyway thank you for listening I got excited about it's very very important thank you Mrs Stewart Madam chair that concludes Madam chair that concludes public comment okay well thank you all very much for being here this evening and speaking to us I guess I'm going to start with the Sanibel schools actually a lot of my family members had have gone there to that school my children's all my children's families have been there on that island I know how special that school has always been to them so I hear what you're saying and I believe that's when Dr
114Bernier was speaking on the communication and the boots on the ground and all of that and I think I'm going to let you yes more than happy to responding and thanks to the Sanibel Community I'm sorry that I could not be available that Friday I think I got that message that Friday morning and I was headed to the EOC call and at that point we still had a lot of work to get to the point we're at today I asked Adam to join I was glad he was my eyes and ears on that conversation and I love how you put it in in the most polite terms and I've never heard the word demand gets said as nicely as it was to me and what I'd like to think is I know there's a very
115clear Community expectation and not just for Sanibel but also for cafaretta and also for Fort Myers Beach so as we begin to look at next week and beginning in Earnest we will begin to interact we have information regarding your school building that our contractor finally was able to get over we had significant issues I'm not making excuses just stating facts we had significant issues getting in the queue to go across the island because there were so many other things the island needed we thought it schools should be the number one priority but there were some other things like Power and Water for its residents that seemed to be a great priority the causeway now getting into a condition where we can utilize it will help remediators on the ground we will get some building reports
116out of that we will share them that's one of the things I was talking that Mr Ramirez will start to share so that we're being public facing and transparent regarding our progress on our buildings you know there's there's some difficult decisions so you know is it a rebuild is a gut and a rebuild is it a rebuild and then there is some some other discussions I think we should have not necessarily in this big of a public forum but we should have that opportunity to sit and Converse about what your thoughts and expectations are what are our thoughts and expectations are and then think about what's a reasonable set of timelines moving forward because like I said Irma was a 50 million dollar impact cost estimates without even getting into your situations with the school
117buildings that are in are in need of some really extra attention Diplomat in Lexington I don't want to lose focus on those two there's a reason why those students are not starting until October 31st we have no place to put them in their buildings still need a ton of work but we have to really sit down we have to figure out what the pathway forward is for this organization not just in the immediate and the temporary remediation but to as another gentleman spoke about what that looks like for local contractors moving forward as we come back and we rebuild and we think about our building program in the long term lots of conversation again as I told you in the Emergency Operations process we're working definitely on the current problem we're working on the next
118set of issues related to how we continue to help support these schools and keep them moving forward and then we start thinking about what temporary means what temporary long term means and then what does long term look like and when those are going to have to be painstakingly thought out rather than just guesses at a dartboard because we want to make sure that what we're sharing is accurate and that it's we're capable of it and not just us but the contractors will hire to do that work so I do appreciate the Sanibel school's presence today I thank you for your patience you have been including tonight and I hear you loud and clear that myself and my team are going to have to put some groups together start engaging with you Fort Myers Beach caparetta
119Elementary community so that we can start making just some decisions together as we attempt to move forward so I appreciate that and Dr Bernier was maybe I'm mistaken but was there not conversation regarding looking at seeing how we can work with Aftercare before care in one of our conversations we've had many conversations about before and after care that's the first time I've heard that comment about Aftercare I swatched my team scribble madly and I know they will be looking into the particular situation but again we have to have staff in order to be able to do that I mean there's I don't want to make an open promise at a meeting but we will look into what we can do to help extend hours for our families as best we can in the situations that
120they currently find themselves in thank you I just remembered that we were having conversations there's a lot of conversations happening so I just wanted to put that out there I know there was a Mr Navarro that we understand and as Ms Fisher has stated for Mr Getz it is a great loss and thank you for bringing that up again this evening there was also a comment about the housing that is still going on I know Miss kittens had mentioned that the other day I know that I had spoken to Mr Edie about that two days ago to send the there's a on the website there's a place where anybody can go on and offer a room to our housing so maybe we can put that out there better you know so people will know that
121because I know a few people who have actually gone on that site to offer a room for you know some of our staff and employees let's see as far as and I don't know with the the NAACP I don't know if Miss Dr Bernier or Miss Kathy Dupree Bruno because I know there was a conversation regarding this so there was a conversation we did have a meeting with the NAACP it was the remediation and stabilization that is going on now is temporary before we start the permanent projects there is some additional information that I will share with the NAACP but we did have a conversation and we will continue to have that conversation thank you I just wanted to make sure that it was understood that there was conversation happening and then with the there
122was two comments regarding public records requests so I think that we have to address that so thank you be happy to address it in both cases I've made note of who's making the request I do think it would be inappropriate for someone to come back after 10 days of electricity and find out that their request had to be sent over or started over that does not have to be the case we will move forward on those and I will have somebody investigate the other particular case to find out why the change in cost what's going on what's transpiring and we will get you some answers I will get with the public records department and make sure that we're clear and either communicate to you directly to both of you directly or to through staff but
123I will make sure that I'm copied on any response that you receive thank you and then of course the Middle School clubs Etc I yeah I think I'm going to have to ask some people offline to find out exactly what's going on but there will be never any intent on my part to circumvent the parent Rights bill you've all been very very clear with me and me in return and the importance of parents being involved their children and children's lives and the decisions they make I would never want anybody to provide a situation there where there was some for folding over but I have to do more investigation into that and make some determinations about what school we're talking about but I'm sure I'll be able to get that information and I know one of
124my staff will talk to you as well so we'll get it okay and then the last thing was I know Mr Olson had mentioned the post stress but I believe that's what the reunification is for is to have teachers come in and speak on what their experiences are what has transpired in their lives and then next with the families coming in and did you want to elaborate a little bit on that one too sure we tend to talk about this as you know I and sometimes I refer to them with all of you as boxes we talk about the school buildings but the school buildings are so much more than four walls and a roof and a set of Windows they are about people there are people who educate there are support professionals who help
125support there are cafeteria workers who feed our children and see that as their lives work there are custodians who keep buildings clean and and livable for the people who come every single day and just to have a reunification with your staff and then to have a reunification with the parents who come to some form of open house is a great step but this is what I mean about that idea of it is just phase one of a process just having those days are Monumental but how we continue to support those young people those faculty moving forward you know we have over 200 teachers that have identified as as homeless or impacted by the storm where they can't live we have matched them with vouchers from the County FEMA is in the process of acquiring travel
126trailers we had a meeting yesterday afternoon at 3 P.M at the EOC with the EOC directors and County government John Talmadge has been incredibly supportive from the county level to help support our teachers with options and our support professionals with affordable options at this point because if we can't keep them here they have a professional shingle they can take somewhere else Any teacher in this community is potentially a hire somewhere else so we have to try to do everything humanly possible we've reached out through our faith-based community I'd like to thank if I may I know we're not supposed to call people by name but I would like to thank an individual in the audience who was my first reach out to the ministries of this community and that just initial opportunity to have a
127thought partner to think about how can we mobilize our faith-based community to help supporting this was an amazing amazing window of what led to a meeting a day later with members of the board as well as our other members of our community to help support our our faculties and staff and our support professionals we are underway and if you have interest in housing a family or housing an individual and especially if you're open to pets and animals because that's another piece to this people did not leave their dogs and cats behind they took them with them they're members of their family so it's it can be more complicated than we even hope but I appreciate the faith-based community our own Community internally is Lee County Schools identifying extra bedrooms in their own homes this community
128that has reached out and if you need to speak to people I don't know what Adam Malloy has left for bandwidth but between Adam Malloy and Jared Eady we are doing everything humanly possible to connect our teachers and our staff with a situation that will allow them to continue to stay and continue the great work they do every day in their classroom thank you for that I appreciate that and with that we're going to move on to our the next item which is the approval of action items the documentation for the action items listed under consent is made available to the board members seven business days prior to the board meeting we are expected to review all the materials and we have an opportunity to speak with the superintendent with any questions we may have
129regarding 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 Ms Fisher I have no pools this evening thank you Mr aveneli I have none thank you Miss Patrica thank you Miss kittens no thank you Miss Vaughn no polls thank you Miss Morgan I have none thank you thank you and I have none is there a motion to approve the agenda consent items I'll move to approve the con consent agenda as printed thank you Miss Fisher may I have a second thank you Miss Morgan so it has been a motion by Miss Fisher seconded by Miss Morgan and please record your
130vote foreign are we waiting for others oh okay 7-0 motion carries thank you okay so then next on the agenda item is members comments I will start with Miss Morgan thank you if you are ready I am ready thank you I just wanted to make a comment about item l11 phase one pre-construction budget estimate for Bonita Springs Elementary School for the record I want to make it clear that this is to remediate problems at the school the remediation will not impact in any way future opportunities to develop the campus to meet the needs of the community thank you those are my comments thank you Miss Morgan Miss Vaughn well I'm glad that Miss Fisher brought up Dr Marvin Gantz I had a note to myself to mention him and of course his his friend Lou
131Navara also mentioned him he was I'm not sure how many years that he was president of the let's see if I get this right president of the Lee County Association of professional substitute teachers I tried to find some reference to it and the best I could do is at least 10 years at least and probably more than than that he stepped away from the position at the end of 2019 at age 86 and the man never stopped coming to these meetings to advocate for substitute teachers and the earliest reference I could I could find online was from 10 years earlier he was the president of the group then and there was a national let's see a national substitute Alliance seventh annual conference at FGCU that year and Dr Getz was the conference chairman of that
132so that just cemented for me the dedication that he had to substitute teachers or guest teachers and I'm not real clear on exactly all that he did previously you could nod your head in this Fisher wasn't he an administrator and yeah yeah I met him quite a few years ago and so I'm dimly remembering the discussion that we had but this is a man who truly devoted his entire life to education and on all different levels recognizing the importance of Our Guest teachers in the school district yesterday I went by the foundation for Lee County Public Schools I had gone through closets and dresser drawers and some other places digging out gently used clothing that I was going to to donate brought it by and I had been in in the interim between when I
133retired from teaching and before I ran for school board for a couple years I was a volunteer there and I always loved organizing there and I was so impressed with the outpouring of the community in donations at the foundation I didn't even go to the what they refer to as the basement it's at separate building which house different categories but I decided oh I'm just gonna stay and I stayed for a couple more a couple hours and helped hang up clothing and sort school supplies and talking to them they have gotten I think over 200 like 200 emails behind in all the people reaching out not just this community but it's it's like everywhere else just reaching out to the foundation while I was there I started talking to a couple ladies who were teachers
134and they were looking at the school supply supplies now neither one had fortunately lost their home but one was from Hector cafarata and the other was from Sanibel School and so we talked for a while and I just want to mention one more time something that I've advocated for since our first post in meeting if possible if at all possible it would be so meaningful Dr Bernier you've heard me say this before you know what I'm going to say to allow the teachers that would like to to somehow just go into their classrooms again those of you know I know I'm like a broken record on on this but but I think truly those who have not been a career teacher and not had all of these things not you know I've alluded to files
135and those are important paper files obviously would be gone but all the other things that we have things that we used for our lessons little things and the one lady said to me because I didn't wear a badge I just went in there to donate and she said and I introduced myself to somebody and she said oh yeah I recognized you and I said oh I'm so sorry about you know your classroom and Dr Rooney she brought up the sombrero and that to me if you don't remember that story I think it's a become like a classic symbol especially to those teachers who lost everything when Dr Bernier told the story of going into a room in a destroyed school and they're up high on a shelf was this those Sombrero a little straw Sombrero
136that had survived when so many other things like guests and things thrown around the room and so you know with so many other things going on with with teachers who literally are mourning the loss of their things in the classroom the lady from Hector cafarata said when I was asking her about it she said I had books from my childhood and she looked to be I don't know maybe 55 or 60 years old I had books from my childhood in that classroom then I brought and I would read stories from my childhood books and they were in my classroom so it's it's those kinds of things that maybe don't have monetary value and there are some things I've got a lot of monetary value that are just so meaningful finding that one little thing what
137I do want to mention is there's so many places that we can donate if we want to donate financially I know the collaboratory has a good local is a good local Source however if you want to be sure that the money isn't just Lee County which is great in itself but our schools and I believe you can even designate a school that you want the money to go to you just go to the foundation for Lee County Public Schools and so I would recommend that as as another source and I know they're doing their their keeping I guess you could almost call it an open house for school professionals that have to show their ID and they can come in and it's not just clothing adult clothing but for children I think they have some
138toys they have craft supplies pens pencils all the typical supplies so I'm just going to reiterate that if you want your donations and financial or things that you buy or things that you have in your home to go directly to our schools I would consider foundation for elite Public Schools so thank you thank you Miss Vaughn and thank you for that reminder to the foundation Miss kittens please okay thank you on the housing just an update there was a Survey Monkey that was prepared to be able to match if you have room for one person or a family or whatever so the Survey Monkey was done and the committee had decided to start with the faith-based group and to put that out to them and in partnership with the collaboratory the survey is going directly
139to the collaboratory they will they also have the list of the need of staff and therefore they're able to to match people up I don't know yet if they put the survey out for everyone in the public yet I know they did it this weekend for at churches and faith-based but I'm sure we'll make sure that gets out there to the public and what you do is fill out the Survey Monkey then the collaboratory someone will contact you to see what your availability is and match it to one of our staff and like the superintendent said we're also you know working with the county on providing housing and all that so there's a huge effort going on but we'll make sure that it gets out to everybody the survey so once you do that you
140know you'll hear from the collaboratory not from the district as to next steps so I wanted to mention that and also say thank you so much to the collaboratory you mentioned them already and they are doing a yeoman's job in helping us through some of these things as well I visited the Tice elementary school on Monday they were one of the first ones to open up and we continue to hear the word reunification but visiting that school on Monday they had no need to reunify because they are so unified 24 7. they provide breakfast lunch and dinner to their students all year because their students are that much in need they the principal Miss Trent was saying you can look out be out behind the school and see some of the trailers that were that
141were was housing for some of our students and they have partnered with United Way and Harry Chapin and providing food and all sorts of resources for those families to be able to have food it's it's one of those schools like we mentioned when we don't have school how do those children eat and that is a prime example and they continued throughout they you know helped clean up they helped support all of their children that are there and the kids are so happy when I walked in they were you know reading stories and Miss Trent said she told her staff she says okay today I don't want to see any academics and they were all kind of like well are you sure you're not coming in with a clipboard or you know checking on us with
142you know academic things and she said no today we just love on them we just welcome them back so there I my hats off to them they are such a family and so caring for those students and I'm sure that's just one example people I know there are many other schools out there that are doing a yeoman's job at that as well but having been there and seen what they do and how they care for our students your children are in very good Hands in Lee County schools because there are staff that really really cares not just whether they learn reading write writing and arithmetic but how they are feeling and that they're feeling loved and cared for I do want to mention there is an organization called kindly and it I was contacted by
143someone today at by the person that runs it and they're based in Cape Coral and they do random acts of kindness so I'm throwing this out there for the superintendent to whatever they were featured on a couple of national TV shows and I'll read what she says we know the community has been hit hard by Hurricane Ian and we've been pitching in by helping local organizations with crucial supplies we also have a campaign called generous graffiti where we donate and paint murals for non-profits or other organizations we've done murals for Hope Clubhouse shell factory Etc and we would like to offer a couple of murals for local schools that are rebuilding or that have had significant damage we are open to this project as soon as possible and I have her information and superintendent I
144will pass it on I think that would be a fabulous thing to do to take them up on this opportunity and one last thing you all know that I'm I sit on the board for the YMCA and we received this letter from a fourth grader and I think she goes I think it's in maybe in Charlotte County but the Toledo Blade Elementary I'm not sure where it is but the teacher asked the question to write who they thought was helpful after the hurricane and so Chloe fourth grader says in my opinion the YMCA had been the most helpful after the hurricane they were providing food for workers and families that lost everything giving donations to people and I also they helped parents who had to work they definitely were a help and thank you and
145I only read it to to help you understand we talk about mental health of students oh they're they are very aware they see what we're doing and they see what we're not doing and they make up their own opinions so thank you so much for all that have done all that you have done in these few weeks thank you Miss kittens this is Patrica please thank you so I don't know whether the word is anxiety or dread when I think about the amount of money that we approve tonight for Hurricane remediation and repairs and we are only just beginning I am confident Dr Bernier FMA through the chair that you are you and your staff are doing everything you can do to ensure full reimbursement by Insurance Grants and then FEMA I am very grateful
146well before I get to my gratitude I mean 50 million for Irma and then I can't even say the number out loud you want us to add a zero to that for this that's I don't have words I really don't it's a potential figure I understand but I do believe it's conservatively somewhere in the middle between the low and the high I will tell you and as well as all the board members that I've asked Amy dust more Dr Des Moore members of her team next Wednesday during the regular scheduled work session we'd like to come in and do a financial look at where we are what we have what's in capital outlay what's already been accounted for because we will have we potentially will have to make some decisions about how we move forward
147and still recover at the same time or whether we put our forward plans and all this is dependent upon student enrollment and I think anxiety is a great word notes Here say I look forward to more meetings like the one I had with Susan Malay in our one-on-one where she provided great detail and great information I look forward to more meetings like that in a public setting so you've already promised that to us for next week so I appreciate that thank you I want to address the Sanibel School parents that were here but they're not here but maybe they'll watch later one of the only times you'll see me get emotional is when I talk about my Elementary School experience you guys are sick of hearing me talk about pinewoods I know that our elementary
148schools across the district are amazing but the family experience when you have little ones that an elementary school creates is I mean it just makes or breaks your experience in my opinion in a school district cafarata is a larger school and they definitely deserve our attention and I all three of them deserve our attention I just know that Sanibel being at like 289 and then Fort Myers Beach being at were they at like 80. before Ian makes those environments even smaller even more intimate even more community-like because there's no such thing as a parent that doesn't know like every kid in the building I mean I was at Fort Myers Beach the week before Ian and I met with the entire staff in a room the size of a closet which is so different from
149meeting with the entire staff at a high school right it's just I just I want them to know that I know their schools are a priority for this Administration there is no doubt in my mind every every time I get an update from Dr Bernier he mentions those schools and he mentions Lexington and he mentions Diplomat they are a priority for us and I want to know what the extent of the rebuild will be just as much as those parents do I hope that when you have meetings that we as board members have an opportunity to go in and the here firsthand what their experiences are and what their feedback is because I think that will help us in the decision-making process Marcia Burr I initially gave credit to Shanna Fletcher for going back to
150work the day after the hurricane even though she had lost everything it was Marcia Burr now I have spent some time in Marsha Burr's neighborhood and the entire neighborhood is devastated and the problem for Marcia is she went back to work she didn't pay attention to her home and so by the time she went to pay attention to her home the damage was much more significant than it would have been otherwise why because she wanted to serve the principals and the students in the school district of Lee County so I wanted to make that correction and I wanted you all to know that I was actually referring to Marshall Burr and because of her service her damage was much worse I want to say thank you to representative Jenna persons Malika I'm not sure that
151I'm saying her last name correctly but I think I am I was able to meet with her to discuss some of the difficulties that we're facing and you know with regard to reopening schools obviously we're heading into a week where we're doing the reopening getting kids and staff back it was just so refreshing that she was so fully supportive of what the district is trying to do and fully recognizing the challenges that are in our way and to sort of take that a little bit of a step further I find myself in a very awkward position where I'm not always thrilled with some of the decisions that come out of Tallahassee or the governor's office or the doe the municipalities call it home rule we call it local control at a school board level I'm
152not always thrilled but I have been blown away by the level of support that we have gotten from the Governor from the Department of Education Manny Diaz and from the chancellor Jacob olima I don't have enough good things to say I just I look at this entire system of government differently after having gone through this experience and I do have to say that it's been my experience and my sense that not one person who is in a position to either provide assistance or keep assistance away from this school district has been hesitant to get their their shoes dirty because I've seen them out there boots on the ground doing the work finally my superintendent referendum minute or update or effect of the board meeting what are the four primary legal responsibilities of a parent food
153shelter health care and education right we get arrested if we don't provide those things to our kids I mean there's lots of other responsibilities but these are the legal ones I'm talking about food would you elect the person who decides what your child is going to eat would you elect the person who decides where you and your child are going to live would you elect your child's pediatrician well then why would you even consider electing the superintendent of schools in Lee County those are my comments for this evening thank you thank you Miss patrico Miss juvenile please thank you I'm actually thank you Miss patrico because I was going to bring up our the government resources that we have received here through hurricane Ian because I went through Charlie and I did not get power
154for 17 days Irma was and Irma was 10 days and Wilma was also 10 days so this time it was six days so can I say maybe we learn from the prior hurricanes or is it the government resources been way better than the other other years that's what I'm thinking but so I just thank everybody from Tallahassee down that supported that and put those resources in Lee County because I think that we are in a better position today to open schools sooner than we were with any of those other hurricanes and that's amazing because we had a direct hit so I think that's really speaks volumes I wanted to bring up today this month is pink for for breast cancer awareness and Dr Bernier actually started that but I was gonna I had it on
155my notes and he's wearing the tie to prove it to prove it so I just think that's actually great I wanted I wanted to bring up Dr Marvin Goetz as well he was such a advocate for guest teachers and substitutes because I think that there's he I can't think of how many meetings he would come and advocate for them and that is a lot he's going to be sorely missed it has been missed for really a little while but he's really going to be missed at this point in time I also want to thank the staff that's worked tirelessly to get our schools back open and I actually record time and to make the schools all safe to be open so I recognize and I want them to be recognized that we have saw how
156much time y'all have been putting in to get the schools open and I really appreciate that as well and I just went in with a little bit I'm the one that made social media a comment that and I'm not gonna step down and I apologize if I offended anyone but it wasn't in my intent my intent will always to be to advocate for transparency and I won't be stifled in that advocacy if I can't get the information to people I'm gonna tell them why and I'm going to speak up about it so if I offended anyone at any time my apology is to that but I can't apologize for being an advocate for the people that I'm elected to serve and try to answer the questions best as I can and I won't I won't
157be stifled in that I have the right to speak at any time and I don't expect anyone else and I don't discredit their right to speak or and I respect theirs as well that we do have that right and I will always exercise it thank you and I just want to say that I'm thinking and praying for all those families that have lost everything even though somebody that might think that losing a car was minor that might have been everything to them so I recognize that and know that you're always in my thoughts and prayers and I want to bless everyone in this community and staff with there's always hope and for tomorrow thank you thank you Mr vanelli Miss Fisher please yes thank you Miss giovannelli for that ending yes Dr Bernier has the
158pink tie on and it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month we remember the victims we celebrate the survivors and we offer support to continuing efforts to find a cure the 23rd through the 31st is also Red Ribbon Week the awards were to have been last night but they are now changed to May 3rd 2023. Red Ribbon Week started in 1988 as a symbol of commitment to raise awareness of the killing and destruction caused by drugs in America this year we at the theme is Celebrate life live drug free and the pledge that we're asking the kids to say is we pledge to help others and to stay drug free I am grateful as we all are for the support we've gotten from the government from our neighbors from neighboring counties and States it's been incredible to
159see the people come and work hard and sleep in their trucks and it really has been quite amazing and we are grateful for that and as we continue to come together and support one another as we work together for all of the next steps that we have to come and this is going to be a long process but we will serve those all of our schools all of our staff and all of our families and the community and then again Marvin Goetz was an advocate for education and kids through the vehicle of substitute or guest teachers for many years he was persistent if nothing else he never gave up and he will be missed and I hope that we can remember him in some special way down the road and God bless everyone and as
160we continue the healing process let's make sure that we do take care of one another good night thank you Miss Fisher I would like to thank DJ she had Deputy kovitt from Broward County had brought over Anthem the canine bloodhound who is a comfort dog and he went and visited the schools and it was just nice to to see again how people from all over the state are coming over to assist and Aid and give that Comfort I also want to make sure that we continue to remember all the districts who loaned us their or who volunteered to come over to assist us as well and they had the comfort of the Colusa hotel right down here in the hallway we're going to name ourselves the hotel now so but they were okay with that
161you know they came here to do a job and they did it to make sure that they were helping and getting us ready to open but I also want us to make sure that we're not forgetting that because I am out there every day still you know making sure that the community is healthy and making sure people are fed and when I'm out there we're still there's still so much Devastation out there and we cannot you know in here we don't see it but we have to remember that we still have a lot of our families who are in great needs and we have to keep on praying and wishing the very best for them and doing what we can and I thank all of us all our board members everyone in the district the
162community everyone who has really come out to assist and I just want to thank you for that Miss Supreme Bruno I have none thank you thank you Dr Premier oh and I'm sorry I have one thing tomorrow is Dr bernier's birthday I just had to share that and he loves cheese and he loves cheesecake Justin FYI 78. it could be 29. okay I'm sorry go ahead Dr Bernier you have comments not really anymore you really all have taken a lot of the wind out of my cells regarding I do want to make sure parents understand that we are very cognizant the last week in the last several weeks we're homecoming weeks our schools are working to reschedule those events we want our children to have in our young our older adults to have the same
163experience that they deserve creating information is forthcoming to this community about what to do with first quarter grades board members I'd like you to if you can if on Thursday please join me at 9 A.M in Lexington Middle I'm planning to try to usurp you for about three hours if you can make it to see Lexington to see caparetta to go see diplomat and then probably end the day at golf because again it's amazing to me how disproportionate the impact was in on that same block golf Elementary we were able to renovate and fix or remediate and fix very quickly golf's been a bit more of a battle including one area the school building still cannot be used by its students and that's its gymnasium but we don't need a gym in order to go
164back to school and we'll we'll get that fixed and we'll get that cleaned up for them the pink tie is about my mom my mom is was my mom's succumb to breast cancer the other piece was what I learned from her was grit perseverance and determination so when you thank me for some of the things you're really thanking my mother to that end I picked up a book last night on my bookshelf and I wanted I was using some of this terminology with my cabinet and it's a book about reframing the path to school leadership for those of you in the organization that read it all it's a great book about three four frames of an organization and there's the structural frame that's the way it's designed that's the hierarchy the superintendent down through other
165individuals I hate that word down I like to use the word across and how we're structured there's the human resource frame which is about people and how you accomplish things by building relationships and empowering yourself then there's two issues that I think we're going to have to look at as we move forward because I shared with all of you that when we made a decision to lead and had in a particular direction there would be people no matter what we chose to do whether it was to reopen or remain closed people were not going to like it one way or the other and that's the political frame we always have to keep in mind the politics of what we're deciding and how that's going to play in other people's communities and other people's lives and
166last sometimes it's not really thought about but it celebrates the values and cultures of our community and of our school communities and that is the symbolic frame so if you can keep if we keep those four things in mind as we move forward the political frame the human resource frame the structural frame and the symbolic frame I think we can use our grit and determination and perseverance to plow through what we need to plow through to gather around and reach win wins when we need to reach win wins and we can make great decisions along the way some of which will be gloriously accepted by this community and by ourselves and others which will be a determination of our ability to lead and when we're leading sometimes it's not that you want to make everybody
167mad that's not the point the goal is to make sure that we're leading in a manner in which this community the majority of this community can support so I want to thank you for the support you gave us in the initial weeks post Ian I'm going to thank you again and continue to remind us of the three words in my planner poised patient professional we can keep those things in mind as we interact with each other as we interact between ourselves I think we have a great opportunity to demonstrate to this community what a school district can accomplish when facing very difficult times so thank you very much for your attention this evening thank you for taking care of the issues related to some of the emergency decisions I had to make making them now
168accountable in the record and I'm pleased to announce to the community and to all of you we will resume the normal procurement process and make sure that we are moving forward in those directions thank you thank you and well said next schedule meeting of the board on Wednesday October 26th there will be a board workshop at 12 p.m on Tuesday November 1st there will be a board briefing at 1 pm followed by a regular meeting at 6 pm at this point having no further business to come before this body and say no objections this meeting is adjourned and the time is 8 30. thank you so much