School Board Action Meeting: October 6, 2020

001good evening ladies and gentlemen we are ready to begin this evening's board meeting the board meeting of october 6 2020 is now called to order the time is 6 pm at this time we request that all electronic devices be put in the silent mode also we ask that you please refrain from using flash photography we would like to take this opportunity to remind the members of the public of the district's mission which is to ensure that each student achieves his or her highest personal potential and of the district's vision to be a world-class school system this evening's agenda includes the invocation the pledge of allegiance one acknowledgement public comment consent action items which include five items under executive services of which one is for good cause please pardon the interruption i'm just waiting for dr

002adkins dr atkins can you please provide an explanation for the good cause item yes thank you madam chair it was an opportunity that came to us to be able to provide these scholarships for students to get daycare it was something that came to us just very very recently we wanted to make sure that we got that to the board as soon as we possibly can that's why it's coming tonight good calls thank you as presiding officer i find there is good cause to add this one item to the agenda also on the agenda are three items under academic services three under business services two items under human resources one item under information systems 15 items under operations two items under reading of resolutions one item under attorney's recommendations as well as six items for public

003hearing also four items under other business board members is there a motion to adopt the agenda i hope that we adopt the agenda as written moved by miss patricka and second miss jordan thank you please record your vote board members i haven't joined i have not joined you there i don't know oh all right this evening mrs gittins will deliver the invocation after which miss giovannelli will lead us in the pledge of allegiance the oh are you ready yes mrs kittens please invite your guests to deliver the invocation at this time and audience please rise for the invocation the invocation this evening will be presented by reverend james c gibbons of mount olive ame church 2754 orange street in fort myers their motto is the church that cares and reverend givens is known as the

004builder of churches and the fisher of men we welcome reverend james givens thank you sister let us pray oh god i will help in ages past i hope for years to come our shelter from the stormy blast our eternal home father god become this evening asking your bountiful blessings upon our school administrators and this school board meeting we pray oh god that you will continue to give them the insight and the understanding that this work is about you and not about us we know god that if you lead and you guide us we will be able to do your will your way we pray oh god that the school administrators will be granted the wisdom knowledge understanding integrity a sense of humor patience and understanding that they will do what has been given their hands

005we pray o god that you will bless them with strong support from parents from teachers and the community and the lee counties we pray oh god that you will continue to remind them that with you all things are possible but without you nothing so god we pray that you will enable and empower our administrators to act as encouragers for our teachers parents and students and we pray oh god that you will continue to bless them that all they do they will do it in a approachable matter a friendly matter and a professional matter god we pray that you will continue to speak to each heart continue to speak to each mind that will speak tonight that they will hear you rather than their own agenda that all things will work together for those of us

006who love you o god so god we pray that you will continue to make them aware that being a school administrator can be a difficult job but we know if you will lean they lean on you and trust in you all things will come together so we pray now tonight that the words of their mouths and the meditation of their hearts will be acceptable and we pray oh god that you accept our prayers this evening as an expression of our gratefulness to you and to them for their dedication in making our school a central and vital part of our community this reacts in the blessed name of jesus christ we pray amen just lead us in pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states for which it stands one nation under god

007indivisible with liberty and justice please be seated the character word for october is respect the quote is there is no respect for others without humility in one's self henry frederick emil the design you see displayed on the screen was created by cadence fort a rising 10th grade student at estero high school the next item on the agenda is public comment mrs dupree bruno please address the item of public comment thank you madam chair school board policy provides the opportunity at this point in the meeting to address the board concerning any matter on this meeting's agenda or any other matter relevant to the operation of the school district if you completed a blue card please put it in the basket provided at the back of the room if you need a blue card they are located

008in the hallway outside of the board room the rules concerning public comment are posted at the back of the room public comment will be made from the central microphone in the back of the room please be advised that the board does not respond during public comment to remarks made by speakers at the end of the public comment period the board chair mrs fisher will address concerns or the assignment of any concerns or requests to the superintendent we encourage each speaker to wear a mask during public comment we would ask that you use the sanitization supplies which are provided near the microphone after you speak for the benefit of the next speaker speakers and those attending the meeting are expected to act in a respectful manner the purpose of public comment is to provide feedback on

009school district issues personal attacks on individuals or abusive language are prohibited in addition clapping hissing and booing are prohibited speakers who fail to follow proper decorum in the chambers will be ruled out of order any speaker continuing with such remarks will be required to relinquish the microphone per board policy 1.11 for board policy 1.11 the time per speaker is three minutes if there are twenty speakers two minutes if there are thirty speakers and one minute if there are thirty one speakers or more per board policy one point eleven the maximum time allotted for public comment is one hour you will find a comp down on the big screens and the front of the room once your time has elapsed the microphone will automatically shut off please state your name prior to making your comment please

010stay six feet apart while in the public comment queue madam chair there are 38 speakers that wish to address the board this evening thank you attorney bruno is there anyone in the audience who has not completed a blue card and wishes to speak please state your name and complete a blue card for the attorney thank you okay attorney bruno please call the first speaker thank you madam chair will crystal verve please come forward to the microphone hi i'm crystal rivet i want to start off by reading something from the cdc website real quick obesity is a common serious and costly chronic disease having obesity puts people at risk for many other serious chronic diseases and increases the risk of severe illness from covet 19. the cdc also goes on to state parents guardians and teachers

011can help children maintain a healthy weight by helping them develop healthy eating habits and eliminating calorie-rich temptations it also goes on to recommend to limit sugary drinks and limit consumption of sugar and saturated fat this piece of paper was brought home in my daughter's backpack today from school krispy kreme doughnuts for sale fifth grade is selling it one dozen donuts for ten dollars today you guys are voting on policy 1.181 which will which is the emergency requirement thank you reminder we do have 38 speakers so per board policy it's one minute miss brenda clarence clanc clance please step forward miss brenda clance please step forward is it clark i couldn't read it thank you and brenda clark as far as the protective gear policy you're voting on today along with the mass mandate is ineffective

012there's no state mandate we're in phase three of reopening and on september 24th desantis had three highly credentialed doctors from stanford stating that mass do not limit the spread of the virus but creates social strife and that he's lifting restrictions and penalties for violations however you guys decide you want to double down i filed a discrimination complaint with the office of civil rights as the schools denied my medical exemption for my daughter for wearing a mask i seem to remember the board said that there was a discrimination policy no person shall be excluded from participation well my daughter has to do home connect because she's not allowed in school so i'm in no way blaming the teachers but home connect is no way to educate children so basically you're saying if you have thank you

013miss clark mr daniel weiberg hi i'm here to talk about the lgbt month and also repair some of these but sir please state your name i'm sorry daniel wieberg thank you i just think that's the topic that should be discussed at the family dinner table and not so much at the schools i have a number of concerns over it where number one we're at schools what are we sacrificing in education to go down this path to should we probably spend more time recognizing how we are all americans and how we all pledge allegiance to the flag united under god or do you continue to go on the path of segregating ourselves from each other that's all i wanted you guys to think about when you pass on your vote and make your vote on this

014thing thank you thank you mr weiberg miss tara jenner tara jenner just so you know many of you don't know in this room i am a licensed attorney though retired out of the state of texas and i'm also a cognitive skills trainer for children with learning disabilities and challenges plessy versus ferguson was a united states supreme court case that was subsequently struck down by brown versus board of education specifically because separate was not considered equal and frankly that's what we're dealing with in our school district here by separating children out of the more brick and mortar schools and forcing them to do lee connect and online there are many kids with disabilities that do not fare well with an online environment and most of those kids also do not fare well with a mask because

015they have auditory problems or sensory issues ptsd and other issues you are doing this community a disservice by overreaching and overstepping your authority as educators and getting into the realm of that of the parents and parental rights for them to deal directly with the health care issues of their child thank you miss jenna winnie harrison no clapping please winnie harrison my name is winnie harrison and i've spoken before and i really don't know what's left to say about why there shouldn't be a permanent mass mandate parents have been telling you for weeks that they don't want them at all and you ignore them over something that affects their children i know the science isn't there to support it and anyone on this board who thinks it that it does hasn't done the research you're in

016charge of education not of inventing medical policies based on nothing and making medical decisions for families and mask wearing is a medical decision i strongly believe it is harmful to the children physically emotionally and developmentally and if i just think it's just ignorance of the facts to promote these damaging policies that are not based on science and it has no place in the education of children you'd be doing a huge disservice to these children to even consider this and i would ask that you would vote against it thank you thank you miss harrison mercedes harry hi thank you i am mercedes price harry i have two children in the schools in the public school system i am an advocate for public schools my son came home from school sick because of the mask i took

017him to the doctor and the doctor said we tested him for cove but he didn't have it because he was nauseous had a raging headache and she said she sees about 20 of these kids a day that's what dr d alessandro said to me when i took my kids to ppc we were really reluctant to send the kids to school because of the choppy science that comes with the masks and what we've heard over the last few months but my kids need normalcy my kids want to be with their friends they want normalcy our kids should never ever remember what our country and our elected officials have done in regard to our liberties when it comes to covet 19. so i hope that you will consider parental freedom and allow us to decide if we

018want our children to wear masks or not thank you for your time thank you miss harry brenda burnell brenda burnell please no clapping hi my name is brenda bernad and i'm here representing more than 600 parents that we're not agreeing again will not agree that you teaching or that you even mention it in that public school about lgbt agenda or whatever you want to call for orchids we're not agreeing we are more than 600 parents they're not speak perfect in english as me but we're not agreed that you can approve lgbt teaching in public school thank you thank you miss burnell we're going to remove individuals if we continue to have clapping we want to hear all of your statements and your comments the board wants to consider that but we need to do it

019in an orderly fashion please susan cantalupo this is psychologically traumatizing for all of the kids they're having anxiety sleep problems behavioral disorders and germaphobia we may start seeing an increase in domestic violence isolation and deprivation mandatory face masks in school are a major threat to their development it ignores the essential needs of the growing child the well-being of children and young people is highly dependent on emotional attachment to others the face mask requirement makes school a threatening and unsafe environment where emotional closeness becomes difficult educating the kids on this as you've called it is called coercion the only sensible measure to prevent serious illness and mortality caused by covid19 is to isolate individual teachers and individual children at increased risk the risk assessment is not the task of the ministry of the education but the

020task of thank you courtney staley good evening i'm here as both an educator within the district and also a mother of three that attend i stand in adamant opposition to policy 1.181 and our current forced mass mandate i've watched since this illness began you shift to overstep over overstep you do not represent us all there will never be a time where the school system knows better than my family's medical professionals it is not up to us to decide we are not medical professionals we are education professionals i oppose this policy and any other that allows the school board or anybody else in the school system to make medical decisions for any student i also want you to keep in mind that this is an election year for some of you pamela vasquez hi my name

021is pamela vazquez i'm here to talk about the lgbtqia plus history month proposal that was taken off for voting today i'd like to point out that people within our community are at higher risk of suicide and that is a huge issue here and it is not helpful in a system meant to educate to take away even the choice to bring about a month of just education on a subject that could really mean a lot the choice of life or death for some people that's wrong it's not correct here and as was mentioned earlier this is an election year and the people in opposition to this are not the only ones watching you they're not we want to protect our children education does not harm them as you all know since you are here in this

022room so i implore you to look into this more please thank you stevie stalker my name is stevie stocker i had a longer speech plan but obviously this has been cut down a little bit can you hear me better now i'm okay thank you very much i think you can hear me if i lean a little bit closer though so in consideration of national bullying prevention month you must also include the history of all who have been bullied solely for who they choose to love and how they present themselves to the world in a 2017 study it was found that u.s high school students who identify as part of the lgbtq community were more susceptible to bullying on school property at a rate of 33 percent online and a rate of 27.1 comparing to their

023peers at 17.1 and 13.3 respectively it is also found that lgbtq students who are more likely to than their heterosexual bully peers to not go to school because of safety concerns if we are going to provide the best community and the best education for our students we need to remember this when we vote on this today thank you aj cranford hello thank you i come to you as a former student of the lee county school district and also as the current president of pride cape coral it is to my understanding that a local organization by the name of the active citizen together spearheaded a strong opposition to this addendum and it is also my understanding a current sitting board member is a part of that organization earlier today i found out that active citizens together

024as an upcoming drag queen bingo fundraiser at the standard on october 15th which knowing how you shut down this initiative today is important to me you support the community when it benefits you but risk the lives health and education of at-risk youth when it does not directly help your platform with that being said i was one of those children who was relentlessly bullied and tried to take my life multiple times and if it wasn't for people in this room like mary fisher who was my guidance counselor in high school i would not be standing here today thank you so much i just want to remind everyone about the decorum in the chambers for both sides for everyone who wants to speak the board does want to hear you but we need to be respectful of

025all speakers and we need to make sure that we follow the decorum or members individuals will be asked to leave the chambers so please we do want to hear from you daniella died my name is danielle adai and i actually am a co-founder of active citizens together and i would like to clear the record and just say that we are for equality we are for education we are for the community and for the people we do have a drag queen bingo coming up on october 15th if you'd like to join us at the standard to support our organization and for this specific thing we are going to celebrate people we have been celebrating people we are not against community we are about looking at the root of the problem which is bullying we are about

026the problem we would strongly support the school to reallocate the funds that they have to their educational system for mental health awareness for any kind of organization that you want to put to teach acceptance as a whole it's not about being black it's not about who you are sexually orientated with it is not about who you have as family members it is not about anything else it is about being true to who you are and i fully 100 support that it doesn't have to be something that is labeled thank you zeintek hi my name is victoria zeintech i am a teacher career changer i never thought that this job was going to be so hard last year and then this year it has been a whole other level of what can you do with this

027so the policy to include a hazmat suit is actually blowing my mind that i would come to school for six hundred dollars a week in a cat hazmat suit i am teaching to kids online and in person with a smile and a mask every day frustrated because i can't understand the children and i have to give accommodations to students at home online which is impossible to be honest i have some kids that are still learning phonics in fourth grade and i have to fill the gaps feed those children what they need and teach to the higher also lgbt i get it's i'm not against it but i don't have enough time to teach reading these kids are behind they need a whole year just to read just for ela that's the only way we're going

028to get it thank you jamie merchant jamie merchant hello my name is jamie merchant and i am not in favor of policy 1.181 there is currently a 99.997 percent chance of all of our students ages 0 to 19 surviving the virus even if their teachers got it there's a 99.4 chance that they would survive the virus so i'm you know it's survivable they're gonna get it they're gonna live and i'm just not in favor of you telling me what to put on my child's face it's their body it's their choice you don't get to tell me what to do with my kid thanks john starr hello my name is john stark i'm against the lbgq month i don't think that's appropriate for our children to be understood trying to understand those types of things and

029i think it's a little more advanced for them to understand i think it's something that the parents should talk to the kids about and i mean that's that's very important they could be even more confused i know it's a sensitive topic but it's also very sensitive to our family thank you mr corey die oh i'm sticky i think your floor is sticky i want to thank you guys i'll address real fast we already know my opposition to the mask mandate we've already gone through it i have an active lawsuit along with other parents against you guys i think it's ironic you want to keep going forward with this costing the district how much money because we will sue you so you're it's already there it's already in court to address whoever wanted to point out

030active citizens together we do hey as adults we can go out and have fun i don't i'm not prejudiced i'm not selective about what somebody's orientation is and what their their personal choice is i don't talk to you about what i do with my wife i don't need you to talk to me about what you do with your boyfriend talking to my kids about anything like that is just completely absurd and it's perverted hands down perverted teaching little kids about boys touching boys kissing boys they don't even know how to kiss a girl yet so like let's restrict all of that thank you mr dye at this point i believe at this point that all of the individuals who have chosen not to wear a mask have spoken so we would ask you to go

031back to the room reserved for you please my name is lisa cohen and i should be at my son's t-ball game but instead i'm here having a fight with you when i know you're not going to listen to anybody here god forbid we do that right now you've got everybody fully segregated we're not moving backwards at all are we now you have an entire room of people that hate us because we're not wearing a mask my son and my husband were just attacked in a grocery store the other day because of this mentality with a 99.9998 survival rate this is outrageous all you do is promote fear or you promo or you or you pervert minds one or the other teach our children how to think not what to think i'm sick and tired of

032you ladies and gentlemen at this time will mary alborn please come forward hello thank you for the time given here to address a very important subject that concerns many of us especially me i conducted the lgbtq history month i've conducted research recently on how children are physically emotionally and spiritually damaged by the influence an affirmation of the lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer agenda it is to this issue i address my concern incorporating this agenda into the school curriculum by designating october's lgbtq history month would be a disaster most parents believe homosexuality and transcend transgender transgenderization or deviant sexual lifestyles and affirming them and allowing their influence as harmful to their child's overwhelm over overall well-being excuse me as a christian we believe in the word of god thank you ma'am thank you jason bachmann

033thank you good evening my name is jason beckman i'm a lee county resident and a board member with southwest florida pride our organization plans the annual pride festival in fort myers each year i was disappointed by the decision to pull the resolution for lgbt history month this resolution would have sent a powerful message that the lives of lgbt people including lgbt young people have value and worth so often the stories of lgbt people in our society overlook and ignore visibility is important this is how we break down the barriers of prejudice in our society as someone who is openly gay i can't tell you what this would have meant for me when i was in school to know that i had the support of my school leaders when i felt i did not belong when

034i felt alone and i thought i had nobody to turn to lgbt students educators and families in the school district need to know that they have your support what are the options you are willing to take going forward from here nick bond good evening my name is nick bone i'm a parent of two students in elementary school here in lee county i also graduated from esto high school along with fgcu i'm kind of pissed off i'm really sick of a hypocrisy i'm really sick of my kids coming up from school crying 38 people touch the pen in the lobby you cough you touch your mask you touch the doorknob you pass it to the next person it's a cold cut it out open the damn schools look if you're upset and you think you're scared

035and you want to stay home lee homeconnect is an option for you i want my kids to go to a normal school i can teach them math i can teach them science i don't need you but i do need my kids to learn how to be socialized so they can go to university one day so they can perform at a job they need to meet other kids for that so take the masks off their face open the playgrounds we can have football games we can't have a playground come on thank you don pierce my name is dawn pierce not to disappoint i'm a total different subject than everybody's been talking about tonight i just wanted to give my endorsement for the last meeting when we had some parents talk negatively about our principal angela rolls

036at cyprus high school i want to talk about how she is supportive to our students how she's turned that high school into one of the highest rated and most asked for high schools in lee county some of the parents who had issues with this also had issues with some of the funds that the school had purchased through the booster club i also want to say that those parents actually made a purchase for five thousand six hundred and thirty dollars that was not approved so i feel that they are kind of going against our school and we just want to make sure that the support for angela rose is there thank you kelly heyman hi my name is kelly heyman i am a product of lee county schools i actually am a cypress lake panther and

037i'm also here to talk to you in the support of what's going on at cypress lake high school angela rolls is in wonderful wonderful principal and she has always been a professional empathetic and an ex expeditious with resolving our concerns my husband and i have three children that have attended cypress high school one is two have graduated and one is currently there she also expects that behavior from her teachers her teachers and her students are happy they wanted to return to school and of the percentage that wanted that came back to school cyprus like high school had the largest amount that returned to school mrs rolls is the a soft-spoken wonderful teacher wonderful teacher and principal shavon chester good evening everyone my name is siobhan chester and i serve on the advisory council in the

038board of the dr ella piper senior center for social services we're just here tonight to talk to the lee county school district about our foster grandparent program the foster grandparent program serves the lee county public school district by putting seniors into the classrooms to help the teachers and to help the students better acclimate themselves we've got some testimonials and things like this for the school board members i don't know who i'm allowed to give this to or if i'm allowed to give this to anyone we had a wonderful meeting with adam malloy the community engagement coordinator and we were talking to him about the many many years the foster grandparent program has been in existence and we wanted the opportunity to come to the school board and let our school board members know about our

039foster grandparent program thank you to dr adkins in the amazing work that you guys do god bless you sandra neal dr atkins madam chair my name is sandra neal i'm the foster grandparent at the james stevens international academy but i'm here to represent all the grandparents and all the elementary schools in lee county the grandparent program is a very vital program to the system i have a letter here the grandparent program at ella piper is beneficial for our students they help with the mentoring of the students the tutoring of the students they show love and affection to the students and it helps a lot of the seniors that are single they keep their mentality going so what i'm asking today that the board approved for all of the grandparents to return to the classroom please

040vote yes aluna good evening i'm nida illinois executive director of the dr patrick center for social services i am here to speak about our foster girlfriend program and our volunteers they really want to go back to school we have been in this league country school for 30 years our one over 100 volunteers are spending 105 000 hours in lee county school providing that mentoring and tutoring to children with special needs while impact some of the impacts are not quantified i'll just tell you a brief story about our foster grandma who was asked to mentor this little child this kindergarten doesn't want to go to school he was she was sitting on the floor she said i don't want to sit on the chair foster grandma said okay if you don't want to sit on the

041chair i'll sit on the floor with you but condition you have to help me pick you up pick me up after the school thank you melissa rose my name is melissa i am part of the hispanic community as well we do not believe in that any lgbtqrs tuv should be taught in any of our schools for any of our students if that is the case that you better have much about our lord jesus christ our lord and savior do you understand and i'm a nurse that is my trade nas don't work n95 or n100 mass is the only thing that works for any virus if you have any problems look at the nih if you don't believe me research for yourself stop being a tool stop trying to control people that's what this is none

042of this works for a virus look at health psy the size of this respiratory virus you will know that none of these mass work stop being controlling of any of our students any of our teachers that's what you're doing barry fulmer thank you the president got from a virus he wasn't wearing a mask and he probably exposed many many other people to it i think that says it well i didn't come here to speak about that issue though i'm straight and i want to speak about in support of the resolution that you pulled i don't know why you pulled the resolution on lgbt history month but i think a lot of the expressions that have been made here however in good faith and ever much a lot of these people believe in what they're saying

043just shows the ignorance that exists on that issue how many of people how many of you people know who kathy lee bates was i bet almost none of you know who she was she wrote america the beautiful she was a professor at wellesley college she was gay live with her partner until her partner died in the early 1900s aaron copeland dean of american music he was gay rock hudson very famous actor he was gay but i can go on and on this is why we crystal law enforcement going to keep decorum in the chambers please crystal cyclon to keep decorum in the chambers please good evening my name is crystal siskcon i am the vice president of the lgbtq caucus for lee county and i'm also a volunteer i currently am serving my second second

044term on the equity and diversity action committee for lee county schools many of us in the community were very excited to learn the board was planning a vote on a resolution to recognize october as lgbtq history i have seen significant changes and strides in recent years to address equality issues within our district to ensure safety and dignity for all of our students faculty and staff i want to publicly acknowledge this i want to thank in particular betsy vaughn debbie jordan and mary fisher for their efforts and support of initiatives this district has undertaken to promote a safe and healthy environment for our students we thank you i was disappointed after watching the workshop on october 5th that the decision to pull the resolution for history month thank you ma'am carolyn gullett hi my name is

045carolyn galette and thank you and i honor the board i appeal to your heart to do what is best for our children and their well-being let me be clear no matter what a child identifies himself as i along with many others will always love cherish and honor them no one has the right to mistreat our children it is unfortunate that we have children dwelling in environments of neglect and abuse from either parents relatives friends or guardians as a result we have children that are traumatized confused about who they are angry depressed and at times blaming or hating themselves many now are experienced post-traumatic stress disorder i was one of those children who was abused by two women if it had not been for a godly praying woman introducing me to a loving heavenly father i

046would not be enjoying 42 years of marriage to the same man two sons and two grandchildren please do not highlight and remind them of the trauma they experience as a result of being raped or sexually violated by people who know they know are strangers brian thank you ma'am ryan dalton sorry i'm gonna assume that's me ryan deaton deaton thank you so i want to first start just by thanking the board for serving our community i've lived here since my parents moved me here when i was eight in 1977 and i really honor you for your service to our community i sincerely feel for you that you've had to endure some of the way that the opinions were expressed with hatred and it's my desire not to do that i do want to thank you for

047tabling the resolution concerning lgbt month thank you very much i am a strong belief that those type of things should be reserved for parents to train their children and to send them to places where there are shared values i also mrs fisher was very moved by the young man's report of how you impacted his life and helped to save his life that moves me very much because every life is valuable and i want to thank you for that also thank you board for your commitment to a code of conduct for students that will address bullying and harassment which is very important my concern with the rewording of policy 4.14 thank you sir graham lynch i'm graham lynch and i believe all children should be loved and protected therefore i'm in heavy favor for the anti-bullying

048month you already have but this idea of an entire month dedicated to lgbt is a dangerous idea to dance around christian watson a gay political writer argued that these kind of history programs do more damage than good he also said this violates the freedom of many religious people does lee county have a jewish heritage month a catholic month or a month recognizing the most persecuted faith community in the entire world which is the christian faith community no they don't but why do you have the responsibility for promoting an entire month to celebrate sexuality or sexual identity when did sexual identity become such an educational endeavor that is my responsibility as a mother and the job of a parent to decide when and how to address that and what would you do with the teachers who

049believe this would violate their religion ma'am diana what diana what my name is diana watt and i have a son who's had 51 operations and lives in a wheelchair he's not represented on that lovely thing up there i hope someday he is he doesn't get a month he never got a month he got bullied all the way through school teach kindness teach kindness every single day teach kindness for white kids for black kids for straight kids for gay kids for kids in wheelchairs and cleft palates whatever it is teach kindness that's all you need it's all you need oh and mass don't work i was in the military thank you gloria escobar gloria escobar linda milligan thank you for this opportunity to address you all i just believe that we live in the united states

050of america and as so there are freedoms that are ours by the constitution i also believe that you guys are serving the community the best that you can and i appreciate that but to be involved in places that families should be involved in to get yourself involved in that i do not believe that's your position as a school board and i believe that people have a right to make their decisions for themselves that's what freedom means and that's what the united states of america is about alanis garcia hello everyone my name is alanis garcia in this room today i've been called a pervert and a sexual deviant so as my child i find it ironic that on the month of boiling bullying that the school board has had to push down teaching about lgbt because

051of bullies or i would call them so mr garcia are you waiting for me to say don't use that word again no i'm taking a breath most of this opposition not all is based on religion the same religion also has adherents who believe that the earth is flat that viruses aren't real that vaccines don't work and that the moon landing is a hoax if we go down this road are we going to push listen to them when they argue for that we are not based on the bible we are based on science and science says all of those including gay people and animals are real thank you debbie objertel it's kind of short for me and i lift it up my name is deborah abjardl and i want to thank you for the opportunity to

052speak i'm a retiree of the lee county school district i've lived here 31 years and i've raised two sons here in this school district and i'm here concerning the lgbt october month or whatever they want to call it my biggest concern is first of all i want to apologize to anybody that ever had to go through being teased bullied or whatever i understand that you know you can see how tall i am when i grew up in the 50s and the 60s you know my height wasn't you know wasn't a cool thing back then either and i was teased a lot but i think like the young lady said here about teaching about kindness and all those other things those are things that we need to do but i think we need to stay focused

053on education i think when we start veering off into things that are not educated thank you kimberly bria kimberly bria breya my apologies if i'm mispronouncing your name i'm sorry it happens a lot it's okay my name is kimberly brea i was born and raised here i am a mother and also a paraprofessional i'm here in regards to the lgbt history month i would hope that you would reconsider to those opposing it i'm sorry you don't agree with it but we're here and including us in you know the educational system takes absolutely nothing away from you just as we have incorporated a black history month having an lgbt history month would take absolutely nothing away it just shows that you know you don't hate us what would be wrong with that why would that be

054a bad thing i would like you to think about that arlene goldberg good evening my name is arden goldberg and i am an lgbt activist in our community i co-co-founded visuality which is an lgbt program here in lee county i understand voting i understand voting on the lgbtq history month proclamation was pulled from today's agenda lgbt history month was nationally established in 1994 by a missouri history high school teacher the teacher was teaching about the holocaust and told his class he could have been killed to being gay had he lived during that time he was gay i have heard some ask why is there a special moment to celebrate lgbt history he had considered a marginal group just like those who suffered discrimination due to their race we also suffered some discrimination our high schools

055have gay straight alliances and some don't i am requesting that the school board please reconsider voting thank you ma'am brenda cooner good evening thank you very much board i'm a licensed clinical social worker i've worked in lee county schools for the last 11 years working for a private organization i work in the homes and in the schools i work with hundreds of students my observation is that the students that i'm working with are in great need of additional classroom time many of them study are i'm sorry many of them are struggling in core academic subjects more time is needed in to deal with their education and that the october lgbtq month needs to be reserved for the parents and guardians and not in involved in the school system thank you very much todd trumax all

056right i'm todd trulax i'm a parent of an lgbtq daughter who's a student at fgcu and as a her advocate anybody who picks with my daughter picks with me and i'm 250 six two and a half don't mess with me don't mess with my daughter you want to see the claws come out pick up my little girl i'm married in italian i'm so happy you got national diet american heritage month all right that's great news that was so easy for you to do fighting bullying that's a good thing too who can argue with that i love the talk about kindness we need more of that but if you don't stand up for the lgbtq community the same way i do for my little girl i'll be very disappointed in you and i vote i hope

057three of you ladies get elected i want to help three get elected again i miss betsy i don't know where she's at greg you guys are doing a great job otherwise love you much danielle hagman i would like to say hello and thank you and introduce myself i've actually never been to one of these before some of you may recognize me some of you may not i have lived here my whole life barring two years when i moved in with my dad because i was kicked out of my home for being or thinking that i was a lesbian spoiler alert i am i spent a very large chunk of my teenage years in early adulthood trying to pretend i was someone i wasn't and as you see back there i have two lovely daughters from

058that point in time where i was trying to pretend like i was someone i wasn't i cannot stress to you guys the importance of inclusion and diversity it's not going to kill anybody to include something here or there in a month's time about people who are different than yourselves take the otherness out of it when you take the otherness out of it removes the fear there's no reason to be scared there's no reason to have hatred for other people and yes kindness is important but teaching kindness arbitrarily thank you madam chair the last two speakers rachel brown hello so maybe i can clarify about the lgbtq thing they're not trying to teach people how to be gay or to be gay they're just teaching people about the history that lgbtq plus people have faced and

059so i think that's important and an important part of history about the masks we have prevented 200 000 covid cases in the us because of mass mandates on may 22nd and so the evidence is there the cdc recommends mass mandates and it so ecloped is spread by water droplets and naturally when you speak louder you protect more water droplets and when you are close to people you project more water droplets so naturally if you wear a mask you will prevent that and if you want evidence go on the cdc website and i think it was a 19 decline from math scoring evidence so there's that thank you lorena gomez good night my name is lorena gomez i want to start by saying thank you to all of you i know you guys are trying to

060do the best for our school we're praying for you every saturday night we get together we pray for our superintendent may god bless you i'm here to ask if you guys can vote for no for the lgbt whatever that's called we are against that we believe if you want to think about that if you want to celebrate that keep it in your house keep it in your life keep it in your family dumb and sure don't show it in public i represent 120 youth and more than 120 kids that we are against that we don't want that i want to go to school to learn about science math how to be educated in the things that are that have to i have to learn in life i don't want to be surrounded by those ideas

061or people what they believe or think again please consider voting against lgbt thank you thank you madam chair that was for all of the speakers for this evening thank you very much that was a long list so we appreciate all of those who came to speak to share their opinions and ideas we are listening to everyone i want to say for the record that the lgbtq history month has been pulled from the agenda and will not be entertained at this time the next thing is the masks we work closely with our local department of health with the cdc and we are not making medical decisions unilaterally we work closely with our medical experts and our local medical providers i want to thank the lady that said teach kindness that's so simple sometimes it's so simple

062it's too simple we really want you to know that our goal is to have every child meet their maximum potential as a school counselor in this district for over 30 years i worked with many many people who are either lgbt or q and had many students who had gender identity issues and other things going on in their lives what we are doing with our what we were doing with the resolution was trying to let you know that in this district we have worked with equality florida and we have put together with the help of our equity and diversity department and our equity and diversity committee ways that we can help people who are struggling with issues or things that are interfering with their ability to be ready to learn and we are trying to teach

063our staff and our community that there are ways to treat people which include being kind and not judgmental there was no there is no curriculum to teach people how to be gay or lesbian and we what we were doing was to educate support and provide resources to promote a safe learning environment for all students and families and that it was really as simple as that so please rest assured that we are not trying to get into your home business but remember your children come to us most of their waking hours and we take the responsibility very seriously and we want we love and protect your children we want you to be aware of that obviously you trust us enough to send them to school and while they're there we have to make that environment the

064best we can for them let's see i think there was someone else and yes kids do need more time in the classroom and we are doing the best we can with that and that was why we offered four choices for parents either coming to school face to face wearing a mask at this time home connect virtual school or home school so we did try to accommodate everyone we're all entitled to our differences of opinion that's what makes the world go around and i want to thank our equity and diversity staff for the work that they have done in creating for our kids safe space at school where they will know that they are safe and again thank you for coming to speak and we appreciate you as parents being our partners in your child's education

065okay next on the agenda is approval of consent action items the documentation for action items listed under consent is made available to board members seven business days prior to the board meeting we are expected to review all the material and we have an opportunity to speak with the superintendent with any questions we may have regarding the recommendations some of these items have been 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 under unfinished business tabled portion of the agenda mrs giovannelli i have none miss patricka no thank you miss jordan i have none miss gins i have none ms vaughn i have none and i have none is there a motion to approve the agenda's consent action items this

066evening miss jordan i move to approve the agenda items as listed thank you in a second please miss morgan thank you please record your vote and now we will have the reading of two resolutions the first one is the national hispanic heritage month september 15th through october 15 2020. miss jordan the resolution as stated whereas congress passed public law 100 through 402 in 1988 which amended public law 90-498 which changed national hispanic heritage week to national hispanic heritage month and whereas president ronald reagan authorized an annual proclamation designating the 30-day period of september 15 through october 15th as national hispanic heritage month and whereas we recognize the more than 60 million hispanic americans whose ancestors came from spain mexico the caribbean and central and south america who have made outstanding contributions to our nation and

067whereas the rich cultural tradition of the hispanic american community have made a remarkable impact on america's society and enriched our culture and society and whereas hispanic americans embody the american values and devotion to faith family and hard work and whereas hispanic americans have made countless contributions to the prosperous excuse me of our nation as leaders innovators entrepreneurs and members of our armed forces and whereas the hispanic american community has left an indelible mark on our government culture and economy now therefore be it resolved that the school board of lee county florida hereby proclaims the 30-day period of september 15th through october 15 2020 as national hispanic heritage month hispanic americans a his a history of serving our nation adopted at a regular meeting of the school board of lee county florida this sixth day of

068october 2020. thank you miss jordan when doing business we as a board strive to speak on one accord tonight we will with the unified voice proclaim our commitment to anti-bullying and harassment through a resolution we as a board believe in diversity promote inclusion and encourage equity it is only fitting that as we hold a public hearing on board policy 4.14 anti-bullying and anti-harassment we reaffirm our commitment to the prevention of bullying harassment and any discrimination based on race color ethnicity national origin sexual orientation gender identification or expression disability physical or mental pregnancy marital status age religion military status socioeconomic status linguistic preference genetic information ancestry or any other legally protected category we as a board and a district are committed to ensuring that all of our students reach their highest educational potential regardless of the

069aforementioned differences at this time i'll ask miss patricka to read our resolution on bullying resolution whereas childhood bullying is a significant problem nationwide that can affect all children including those with disabilities and whereas bullying can elicit feelings of loneliness sadness fear and depression and whereas bullying can cause school absenteeism poor academic performance mental and physical stress loss of self-esteem increased anxiety and in some cases school violence and whereas young people say that bullying is one of the biggest problems they face and whereas 41 percent of students report seeing bullying at least once a week or more and whereas bullying negatively affects the victims the bullies and those who witness bullying as well as the school environment as a whole and whereas bullying is a community problem requiring that students teachers parents and other adults work

070together to create a climate that does not tolerate bullying and whereas when adults and children unite to reduce bullying communities will see safer school environments with students achieving at their highest potential now therefore be it resolved that the school board of lee county florida in an effort to encourage the lee county community to work together to raise awareness of the prevalence of bullying and the impact of bullying on all children hereby proclaims the month of october as national bullying prevention month adopted at a regular meeting of the school board of lee county florida this 24th day of september 2020. thank you very much mr trica next on our agenda is attorney's recommendations attorney dupree bruno will you please give us your recommendation for this evening thank you madam chair i'm recommending the adoption of the

071agreement between the school board of lee county and the division of administrative hearings doa to provide administrative law judges based on the provisions of chapter 120 florida statutes applicable to certain proceedings as deemed necessary by the board for a term of one year and will renew automatically the succeeding year one year at a time from the date that it is signed you've heard the attorney's recommendation that the board approved the agreement between the school board of lee county florida and the state of florida division of administrative hearings doa to provide administrative law judges based on the provisions of chapter 20 florida state 120 florida statutes applicable to certain proceedings as deemed necessary by the board for the term of one year and will auditly automatically renew for succeedingly yearly periods one year from the date

072last signed is there a motion to approve miss kittens i make a motion to approve for the approval of the agreement between the school board of lee county florida and the state of florida division of administration state of hearings doa thank you and do we have a second miss jordan thank you any discussion okay then please record your vote function carries unanimously and mr mr yes i did do you want to thank you very much yes miss vaughn thank you very much miss thomas do you have that okay great thank you next on the agenda is public hearings dr atkins please present your recommendations for this evening's public hearing items thank you madam chair we have six for this evening the first is approval to adopt policy 1.181 emergency requirement for protective gear this policy

073is being adopted in compliance with changes in related rules regulations and statutes to adopt best practices and to promote promote transparency accountability health welfare and safety of staff and students the effective date of this adoption shall be october 7 2020. second is approval to adopt policy 1.28 ethics in education 3 approval to adopt policy 1.130 waste fraud and abuse 4 approval to revise policy 4.14 bullying and harassment 5 approval to adopt policy 5.311 and investigation six approval to adopt policy 5.331 whistleblowers protection the aforementioned policies are being adopted in compliance with changes in related rules regulations and statutes to adopt best practices and to promote transparency and accountability the effective date of this adoption shall be october 7th 2020. thank you dr atkins at this time the public will be invited to speak on these

074six items only the time allowed first comments is three minutes if there are twenty speakers two minutes if there are thirty and one minute if there are thirty one speakers or more per board policy the maximum amount allowed for public speaking is one hour please identify the policy you wish to address prior to speaking is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak on these policies madam chair i do believe that there are individuals they are in the other room and they went to go get them okay thank you we'll wait for those okay i will now close this public i'm sorry i will now close this evening's board meeting and open the public hearing my name is victoria zeintech and i just want to elaborate on why i'm not against mass i think

075that it would be nice to have the option when i'm standing in front of the room and i'm talking to children on home connect who can't see me or maybe if a child in the class who i can't understand all the time because they just speak softly or mumble i think that we need to ease up not go harder on this so that is just one reason another is i feel like we're losing a lot with this and every morning my principal who i love is going over wear your mask make sure it's up and you know it's like it's almost like how many more times can we say it for how much longer these kids are like how do you stay sick we stay away like it is just becoming too much emotionally i

076think i don't even know if that's the right word but i think that it's taking on a life of its own and i think we've been together in the same room for so long and we have all been safe and i'm not saying that i want to challenge that i'm saying that we've been in the same room all this time and we are safe and i don't credit the mask for that thank you thank you next speaker please state your name courtney staley again i just wanted to kind of elaborate on the policy 1.181 the medical professionals that you have chosen outside of the cdc in the health department are the same medical professionals that discharged my son from their practice due to him having a medical exemption from vaccines because of kidney abnormalities so

077my faith in the professionals that you have chosen is very minimal considering the fact that they chose bonuses from their insurance program over treating my son he comes home every night almost with a nosebleed sometimes he bleeds in the middle of the night and i don't even know and that's all because of the constant mask usage we had no issues over the summer or any of the time that we are at home and i as an educator i'm wearing these things all day long i'm wearing them now so that i can be here to talk to you but i you know i can tell you that we all experience symptoms of fatigue and constant headaches and nausea from wearing these on a consistent basis and the amount of instructional time that is being lost due

078to all of the measures that are in place some of them yes necessary i understand is so outstanding it's unreal i know that we're here to educate to make sure that these children get what they need and we can't do it we can't do it under the current state it was my understanding that when we all went back that the brick and mortar was going to be the place of normalcy which is so crucial for some of these children we are the rock we are their safe space we are the ones that feed them sometimes close them and now we are the ones that are constantly telling them to put their masks back on put it back on put it back on nope i can't hug you we can't touch you i'm sorry no i

079can't sit next to you it's not normal there's nothing normal about it you have three other modalities that those students or parents that are feeling insecure and unsafe can choose but you have not a single one that is of complete normalcy for them not a single one and i'm not saying that you should completely do away with the mass but it absolutely should have some sort of option or choice thank you thank you next speaker please step forward and state your name hi tara jenner hey listen i was active duty military for 10 years and at one point in time i was going to be stationed in south korea and because of the nuclear threats and concerns with chemical weapons and warfare from the north i was required to wear a gas mask and i

080have exercise induced asthma and i had to go through a full medical board evaluation to ensure that i could actually wear that gas mask without ending up having an asthma attack which would require me to use a nebulizer which would be contraindicated in a chemical environment and i had no problem with it because i was expelling dirty air out of the gas mask not regurgitating it and reinfesting myself with it not too long ago i went into a doctor's office and i was required to wear a mask it took less than two minutes for me to have vision distortion headaches and an inability to be able to even sign my name and i had to sit in the parking lot for over an hour before i could safely drive home five minutes away we sat

081in this back room here as the no maskers and you guys have the audacity to say that you're anti-bullying and you have the audacity to say that hey guess what this is normal i have to walk around with a stupid little badge that says hey can't mask don't ask please be kind disabilities have rights to nobody has a right to know that i have a disability yet i have to walk around doing that all the time now you have kids in our school that are feeling put upon if you can segregate us for a meeting here you can at least separate out some areas of the schools and have no mass zones for kids who need brick and mortar education but cannot wear a mask for either medical reasons or personal choice because to be

082perfectly honest if i didn't have a medical reason not to wear a mask i have an allergic reaction to tyranny and personally you guys are not the health care overseers of the children in the school district if you want to limit and mandate guidelines for your employees that's your prerogative but the students themselves belong to the parents and it should not be a one-size-fits-all approach you should actually have the option of the parent deciding with their own personal health care provider what is the appropriate approach for them i have no objection to people wearing masks i have no objection to people that keep grabbing the lysol wipes here that's their prerogative i have no objection to that but when you enforce masks on other people that's a problem at a bare minimum you should make

083the schools open to those that don't need masks or don't want masks and then you can let those that are so afraid or have other concerns do the online stuff thank you thank you next speaker please my name is daniela dye and i am called i'm here today about the mask mandate we've been watching or present for a majority of the board meetings workshops everything that you guys have going on that's public access i watched yesterday while you guys definitely took a stand against the policy hearing for the lgbt community in which it overstepped it didn't ignore it didn't say that we were not going to see it or that we weren't going to address it you guys actually looked for a resolution and i wanted to say thank you for that i think it's

084very important i liked the way that everything happened we identified what the problem was and we rectified it with a resolution to review it later the mass mandate is a permanent policy it's a ppe so i won't call it the math mandate i apologize but it is a personal protective equipment policy for permanency and it's not okay we are not here because we're not going to school we're not here for your guys direction and how to proceed with our health care a safe environment is not just one that's completely sterile it's completely opposite of that we need to sit there and look at all different factors we need to look at the effects that it's having on people's mental state it's been mentioned before domestic abuse it's been mentioned before on the adverse health effects

085that it has on children the fact that there hasn't been a choice for teachers that you basically make them sign a gag order to be able to continue to teach for this school year the fact that they don't have a choice to sit there and make a decision for themselves the schools put a what is it called i cannot think of the word i apologize but you put a metric you put a metric and decided who was going to stay home based on that metric and not who was going to decide they wanted to take on the risk and responsibility for themselves that takes the choice away and that's not okay this policy that's going to be permanent can be picked at the drop of a dime essentially anything can be constituted emergency if you

086have people on your side that are going to say what you want them to lee county the lee health has actually been on the news quite a few times they've been brought up on investigation because they've been over exaggerating their covid numbers in order to get additional finances they've been brought under investigation for that and they are a key component in your decision making process and i think that should be evaluated island coast pediatric i have copies of letters from several parents that last year they actually actually it was 2017. january 1st 2017 they completely eliminated any parent in their facility that did not choose to vaccinate or that was on an elected schedule or requested information to postpone it or had a medical exemption these are the people that you are having dictate your

087procedures and your policies and it's been brought up before you do not have a diverse group of information and you guys need to reevaluate that before you make a decision today thank you thank you next speaker please i just want to say that please state your name ma'am my name is susan and i've been here to several meetings and i'll be to more of them but you know i wanted my son to come with me he's in high school and he said that he last night he said he was going to come and then today he said no i can't go he says if anybody sees me on tv or on youtube they're going to call me a and you know he has had an absolutely terrible experience in the lee county school district it's

088this has been hell he was he went to one school was and was beaten up i saw the video six or seven seconds of some kid on top of him pummeling him no teacher taking the kid off of my son yeah no teacher it was another kid that took them off i asked them for a bullying report they said oh we don't have any bullying reports so i drove all the way here to this building to get a bullying report nothing happened from it there was no help they said that he had to advocate for himself as an esc student he had to advocate for himself and in order to get some counseling at school that's how they dealt with it then we went to another school trafalgar middle and kids were verbally abusing him

089to the point that i filed a bullying report but i pulled him from school i said you know what i have no no trust in the school system and i called the superintendent many times left messages and i got no return phone calls back at all didn't have the money for an attorney so you know what i did i pulled it from the school system first for a semester and i tried to homeschool i ended up having a child eloped from my house day after day after day because he wasn't around any kids so then i had to worry about my kid on the run i'm chasing him on my on my bicycle by by foot in my car so that the police wouldn't see this crazy mother like looking for her kid this was

090a full semester and i spoke with you mary fisher several times on the phone you were running some kind of an anti-bullying thing my mother spoke with you and i said please bring it to my son's school i was in tears i got nowhere i hold you all accountable for having a horrible school system my son is traumatized and now you want to put these masks on kids forever thank god he's got two more years of this horseshit that's what it is this is terrible and you should all be ashamed he has had the worst time in school thank you and he's a good kid that deserves more next speaker please my name is winnie harrison and i'd like to read a letter from a high school student student says wearing a mask in school

091is making me tired and unable to think clearly i can't breathe normally whether it's a paper or cloth mask it doesn't matter in basketball class we can't even use the locker room to suit up and have to wear our regular clothes it's ridiculous why would you want to make our lives miserable during our formative years in your school system i'm required to wear a mask for eight hours every day including time on the bus the ear loops are irritating and uncomfortable i just want to get my education and wish lee county school district would set a better example for other counties to follow our governor has opened up the state to phase three and your plan is not in the student's best interest we are the healthy ones it's clear that healthy children living through

092covet 19 standardly heal without complications and that they subsequently contribute to the protection of their fellow human beings by increased herd immunity thank you thank you next speaker corey i'll say right now i know i give you guys a really hard time for what i'm opposed to and you know that's democracy right that's the beauty of it i do want to commend you guys yesterday i sat in the meeting your workshop and i did actually request to speak which i was told there is no public speaking at a workshop which i do believe violates sunshine long but we'll deal with that otherwise i did i did really want to just stand up and say and commend you guys in watching it you guys you guys exercise democracy you did what leaders do right i definitely

093want to think i know i can't identify you personally but you did an amazing job at hey look no this is these are the rules of the game that we agreed to and that we're going to play by right or wrong it's tough i know it put you guys in a hard position to have to question some of the special interests that brought this forward and blindsided you guys on the past topic of history but it was beautiful to watch you guys do that's that's what leaders do you hash it out you fight you go back and forth and this is what democracy looks like is that's what leadership sometimes looks like sometimes it's ugly for you guys sometimes democracy here is ugly the people have a role or the authority to question you that's

094that's that's the way democracy is you know let's let's just try to play it maybe in a fair game we don't publicly bash right even though tons of people know our organization or us as a group we've never picked you apart personally or bashed you in the public and because all of this should be fair game so i'm gonna request like even tonight i asked for a printout of the full agenda i did not get it i requested to personally record this meeting on my own camera which falls under the sunshine law i'm sure mrs bruno can can attest to that the public can't be denied the right to unintrusively video any public meeting but i was kicked out and prevented from recording like all of these games this tug of war that we go

095back and forth like yeah let's let's pick and choose what we're going to fight because we'll see you in court we'll continue to add to the case every time you guys violate these rules and it just grows you're already close to spending a half a million dollars defending your your stance in this situation and i'll spend two percent of that thank you next speaker my name is nicholas bone i wanted to first take a moment to apologize i want to work with you not against you and i hope that a little bit earlier when i spoke it was clear how frustrated i am with the situation i've spoken directly to a couple of you and i was more than disappointed i'm i'm sure i'll take that to the ballot box but right now i'm i

096want to address one specific thing that you guys are doing wrong you claim that the guidance is going to follow the cdc guidelines which have not been updated since august 11th that's like what three four months ago nothing's changed how about the fact that the journal of american medicine ophthalmology department the leader of whom the editor of whom works at johns hopkins found out that covent is transmissible through the eyes like most common colds so we're wearing a mask for no reason because the kids touch a surface with the virus on it and they touch their eyes shocker they also the cdc guidelines also recommend things that you're not following if you're six feet apart you don't have to wear a mask if you're outside you don't have to wear a mask my kid can't

097go to recess and play on the playground sunshine the best disinfectant but they can't go outside and get some they're having pe in the classroom wearing masks in a cohort look up the cdc guidelines for school reopening plans the ones that you guys say you're following they recommend if you don't if you can't wear a mask put kids in a cohort my kids stay in a classroom with 12 students tops one teacher 12 students they don't need to have a mask on their face and they don't need to come home crying and they don't have to fight me every morning that they don't want to go to school you did that you're wrong if you don't think so come to my kid's school i'll sit there and i'll show you at the open house actually

098shared this story with one of the board members who's a little bit more receptive to my position at the open house for my kids school i had a teacher in tears and she said if one of your kids is crying and i give them a hug i might get fired let me tell you this those black lives matter protests are going to be nothing compared to what you'll see if you fire a teacher over something so ridiculous i am not happy with the way this is being handled you have not presented us with options if a student and their family and their physician decide that there's too much risk in a public school environment they have the option of lee home connect you did a great job putting that together in such a short period

099of time by the way i was impressed going back to brick and mortar school is supposed to be a return to normalcy let's get started in that direction when are we going to change thank you next speaker lisa cohen i'm not sorry my son has been on the floor crying while doing home connect he is five years old since the day he was born the pediatricians have been telling us two hours a day of screen time it started out for kindergarten with six hours on a computer for a little boy that wants to go and play and move around but he also wants to breathe and i want him to breathe have you guys seen those masks when those kids are coming home parents have been posting pictures of them they're disgusting that's okay though

100right somebody just mentioned about the about how colds go through your eyes so i can see that the goggles are coming next now and i'm hearing about this recommended that as long as the cdc recommends and or requires but recommends is what you love recommends because you know that she's never gonna not recommend our children wearing face masks it's your plan choking hazards a child almost choked on an eraser and the teacher didn't even know because he had a mask on we are talking about kindergarten kids first graders second graders third graders they put stuff in their mouth all the time they're as disgusting as they come my son has a speech problem he reads lips he can't see his teacher's lips if he if they're wearing a mask i've heard about these clear ones

101oh and on the speech last year the beginning of the school year we signed up for him to be able to go into the lee county school speech program still no phone call i read lips i think a lot of us read lips this is none of this is normal but let's talk about normal for 41 seconds cnn on september 30th put out a paper call and they've quoted in here try to take part in one fact things are most likely never going back to normal the sooner we come to terms with this that this is the new normal i need you to do something right for a change please care about our children please care about their future you quote science until we talk about the life inside the womb pick one thank you

102next speaker hi my name is rayna pine i am new to lee county this is my daughter's first year in sorry second year in lee county schools and i'm just here because i want to echo what everyone else is saying about the masks on our children with the recent ruling from governor desantis obviously he's sitting with top professionals from sanford medical school in hartford they are talking about the overwhelming evidence-based conclusions that masks are not healthy for our children especially be wearing six plus hours a day so i'm asking you please to reconsider voting and let it be optional my daughter cannot learn with the connect system at home or in a virtual environment she needs in-person learning she also has a mask exemption which has been denied by her school so although her mommy

103and her doctor have both told her that it is not in her best interest to be wearing a mask her teacher and her school is overriding that and i do not have an option to take her out of school right now i am working on that and if you do not vote and change this mask mandate unfortunately i will be forced to pull my daughter out of lee county schools as soon as possible i will make sure i remember every single one of your names when i get up at that ballot when i start voting and i'm gonna start getting more and overwhelmed and get involved as a parent because this is absolutely ridiculous we need to have a choice for our children and i don't know maybe you guys can help me explain to

104my daughter when she says well mommy how come if you tell me my doctor tell me that i should not be wearing a mask you're making me wear a mask to go to school and i tell her mommy's going tonight to fight for you i'm going to tell them that you shouldn't be wearing a mask and if anything happens to my child while she is sitting in school with a mask on against my wishes and against her doctor's medical orders that are in writing that have been submitted to the school then we'll be adding to the lawsuits and i'd also like to know what is lee county going to do with all these lawsuits that are being placed on them is it really worth it why not just make it voluntary if people have a

105choice they can choose to wear a mask if that makes them feel safe to do so i am not fully against mass i have one here with me tonight and i do want to speak in my last 30 seconds about bullying because i came here to talk about the mass mandate i didn't come here to talk about bullying but guess what when i walked in and i didn't have a mask on right away because there was not a soul to be seen so i was not within six feet of anyone i was told to go into that other room over there because that's where the people like me go without a mask and i've got one right in here so you go for bullion thank you for your time thank you any more speakers okay

106it will now close this public hearing and reconvene the regular school board meeting of october 6 2020. at this time dr atkins please restate your recommendations for this evening's public hearing items number one thank you madam chair approval to adopt policy 1.181 emergency requirement for protective gear this policy is being adopted in compliance with changes in related rules regulations and statutes to adopt best practices and to promote transparency accountability health welfare and safety of staff and students the effective date of the adoption shall be october 7 2020. thank you dr atkins board members is there a motion to approve board members is there a motion to improve mrs morgan i move i move we approve the adoption of policy 1.181 emergency requirement for protective gear thank you second please board members miss jordan seconded by

107mrs jordan annie discussion miss kittens i would just like to first of all thank you all for coming and voicing your opinions and as someone who has this is my first opportunity being a public figure and i have seen the good and bad and the ugly of it at this point but i guess that's what we signed up for but i would like to just read a portion of 1.181 and ask the superintendent a question afterwards if in the we gotta go again could you wait until we get to the other room yes sir the in 1.181 lines 14 through 16 it says the procedures or guidelines shall expire as soon as federal centers of disease control the state of florida department of health and or local officials advise the protective gear is no longer

108recommended or required we heard a lot about the governor taking away the mass mandate for restaurants and superintendent i know though that we did look into how that affected the schools and there was some information about that nothing was changing as far as the school am i am i correct yes at this point in time yes so the governor's mandate has to do with restaurants and restaurant workers but not with schools so according to we have to have guidelines to do everything we do we can't just make it up as we go and we are never going to please all the people all the time but in following some guidelines and our guideline is that if the cdc if the florida department of health or local health officials say that we need our recommend and

109or require we have to follow some guidelines i just i don't i don't think that anyone likes to wear a mask they're uncomfortable and they're hot but i personally have looked at the list of schools where we have had positive cases and think if we had not had somewhat of a mass mandate that probably would have been a lot worse and that's my opinion not trying to overstep anybody's bounds as to what you need to or want to do with your child but as an organization as the governance team we have to follow some rules and so that's what i have to say about it thank you thank you any other discussion board members ms giovanelli yes i'm hoping they can hear in the other room finale can you move your i'm okay i'm trying

110to i'm hoping they can hear in the other room i just want to say that i will not be supporting this mask mandate tonight or a perfect protective gear i want to thank everybody that came to speak tonight i respect everyone's opinions and their right to have those beliefs and but my granddaughter also has had nosebleeds recently and it's from wearing the mask it is my fear that the damage of wearing the mask is doing more damage to the students i don't think the risk is worth it i am concerned because we are we are picking certain things from the cdc guidelines and not all of them and that is you know it's to me it needs to be all or nothing why are we just picking one thing we're not taking temperatures but that's

111still part of it i go places and then they take my temperature and i wear my mask i'm going to respect the rules of the places that i want to go to if i want to go shopping and i have to wear a mask that's what i'll do and i respect that i don't think we need a policy in place to mandate that and require that i think the children are not are i'm not the ones getting sick it's the adults and the adults need to be leading by example and we're in the mask and you've got teachers that are not wearing the mask and the students are so i think it's really important to know that we have to do we have to respect everyone's rights and so that's what i am going to

112do tonight i'm going to respect those silent majority and i will be voting no thank you thank you any of the discussion board members miss jordan thank you i wanted to make one correction it was not hospitality they still are required it was he was opening the opening up to phase three which allows more people to go into the restaurants or bars but it wasn't stating that they did not have to wear masks and based on that too we and i appreciate everybody coming here and speaking you know on their how they feel and about their children and their families and i appreciate the teachers doing the jobs that you are doing i know it's really difficult i know that firsthand and it is hard and it's hard for you to try to take care

113of the kids that are on the other side of the screen and trying to let them see and hear what you're saying and turning around and doing all that i see that every day so i really do appreciate and i hear what you're saying but on the other hand too we have 95 000 students and we have to you know make sure that everybody is protected and nowhere in here does it state the word permanent is not in here and so i made sure i read that a couple more times to make sure that what i was reading was what i was seeing but i just want to make sure that we every everywhere i go if i go to the grocery store whatever that may look like if there's a sign that says i

114have to wear a mask to come into their establishment that's what we do and i just think that we have to have the rules and right now nobody you know nobody knows what's going on it's still unprecedented regardless if the governor opened up you know the state for you know to phase three we still have to err on the side of caution i believe so as it stands right now i have to support this because i have to worry about the 95 96 000 kids and families that we have thank you any other comments madam chair just i just want to provide a little bit of clarity one of the things i think that's important is that the public understands as i know you do that we are in constant conversation with our local department

115of health while all of this other is important in the cdc that these at the end of the day are local decisions and we as i've said before repeatedly we are not medical professionals i do not pretend to be a medical professional therefore we reach out to our local health professionals for guidance in this area and the guiding one here that we probably rely on the very most is our local department of health so when it comes to masks mandates and a lot of the guidelines that we've provided they provide that input to us and that again is conversation that goes on all the time you know so mass and when it will be safe in their opinion in terms of when we can relax that standard believe me we will move in that direction

116there's i think i don't think anybody enjoys wearing this we do it because we're trying to keep our students and our staff safe as you've said but just an example you know i had a conversation today with with some of our chiefs and one of the things that we're going to be looking at i think was addressed tonight is just the playground issue you know that is something you know children outside we do believe that is something worth taking another look at and that's what we're doing is taking a look at can we work in cohorts and get our kids back out on the playground just a discussion was having being had today the athletic events you know we have moved i think in a in a more positive direction continue to as we re-evaluate

117how this disease spreads how how well our protective measures are working what we're able to do so we've loosened up those guidelines and we continue to to review and we'll make changes so the concern that this is permanent i don't think any of us at all desire that i don't want to believe in the new normal i just don't because you know the face-to-face education that our children have become accustomed to is really as good as lee home connect can be it certainly also has a lot of limitations and i think that you know we moving in the direction of face-to-face is something we want to to do so i just want i say that all just to assure people that this is something where we all desire to move in a direction with our

118partners as soon as we feel that we are able to we will do so expeditiously thank you superintendent atkins any other comments okay and i just wanted to say that i will support this evening especially since it says when the district is confronted with a health emergency that's when this is in effect and there is no word about permanency so it is in case of emergency only and i think that although i would like to see the home connect kids have a period of time when they can go outside their homes some of them think they can't and i think that is part of some of the recommendations the outside the sunshine and especially in this area that would probably be very beneficial for a number of reasons including the social emotional piece so i

119will be supporting this evening i just wanted to add a little bit to what dr atkins had said in terms of on the policy is very clear and has an automatic expiration so it is not a permanent policy as soon as the local health officials or the cdc or the florida department of health gives the go to this will automatically expire it is built into the policy so i want to make sure everybody understands that there is an expiration thank you and i just wanted to add one more thing and looking at the phase three particulars businesses should still maintain sanitation practices and remove frequent touch items which they are and businesses can still require customers to wear masks but there is no consequence for that anymore there's no fights or penalties so i you

120know i believe that we need to as my great-granddaughter would say maintain our social distancing so i think that we've had a good discussion about this and at this time then if ole miss vaughn miss vaughn are you still with us yeah oh yes did you have any comments on no i did not okay thank you then at this at this time board members please record your vote thank you miss vaughn i'm trying to okay yes six to one thank you one of your grandfathers is in my class not at all she's out of home not wearing a mac you're deciding for me and i'm doing a damn good job okay the next recommendation superintendent atkins second recommendation is approval to adopt policy 1.28 ethics and education okay you've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there

121a motion to approve ms morgan i move we adopt policy 1.28 ethics and education thank you and second and second seconded by board members mr evanelli thank you very much any discussion miss vaughn any discussion no thank you okay then board members please record your vote i vote yes thank you okay i think i hear miss patricka she won her says not president vote so i guess she walked out of that vote okay and so it is six to one thank you okay next recommendation approval to adopt policy one point three zero waste fraud and abuse excuse me madam chair i'm sorry madam chair i think the last vote it wouldn't be six to one it's six to zero and there's the person who was not present to vote i'm sorry 6-0 i apologize thank

122you okay you've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion to approve ms kittens i move that we accept policy 1.30 waste fraud and abuse as stated in the agenda thank you in second please board members miss morgan ii thank you very much any discussion okay seeing none board members please record your vote and miss vaughn i vote yes thank you okay unanimous thank you dr atkins number four approval to revise policy 4.14 bullying and harassment okay board members is there a motion miss kittens i move that we accept policy 4.14 bullying her and harassment as stated okay and a second board member i second it melisa thank you miss giovanelli okay any discussion and seeing none please record your vote thank you miss vaughn okay unanimous thank you very much and next recommendation recommendation

123approval to adopt policy 5.311 discipline and investigation okay you've heard the superintendent's recommendation to adopt policy 5.311 discipline and investigation is there a motion thank you miss jordan i move to approve to adopt policy 5.311 discipline and investigation thank you do i have a second board members thank you miss kittens okay any discussion okay please record your vote and miss vaughn it's unanimous madam chair finally it's unanimous thank you very much miss thomas okay and superintendent atkins final recommendation approval to adopt policy 5.331 whistleblowers protection board members is there a motion to approve miss giovannelli i move to adopt policy 5.331 whistleblowers protection thank you and the second board members second miss debbie jordan thank you any discussion no i just would like to say that we have had multiple multiple conversations on all of

124these so and just so people know that's why we may not have anything to share right thank you yes this is the final reading and the public hearing thank you okay no discussion then record your vote and once again ms vaughn okay and i thank you very much and thank you miss thomas okay great next on the agenda is board members comments and reports ms giovanelli thank you i actually have one message for dr atkins i received a couple phone calls regarding tickets for the dunbar football game apparently the football team gets a private link and they gave that out and then the guest team is unable to purchase tickets because it's sold out before the this is just what i'm getting you know second hand from somebody that tried several people that tried to

125buy tickets but apparently some of the students were able to buy 10 tickets at one time instead of the minimum of two so if you could look into that i will and see how we can correct that from happening at future football games i don't know ticketing process but i think we want to make sure that the visiting team is able to attend so okay so we'll do that certainly thank you yeah thank you i just wanted to bring up have a little discussion regarding why i voted the way i did tonight yesterday one of my fellow board members said that making policy and setting policy is one of the most important things that we do as an elected officials and i thought about that statement a lot last night and that's why i voted

126about the policy 1.181 which i voted a no tonight it's because i was concerned for me for many reasons the board did not initiate this policy we did not write it and we nor do we hear about it and intended and unintended causes from medical professionals and we never gave that directive to dr atkins to mandate the mass so i think it's important that as elected officials it's that we have those discussions and when setting policies and this was not something that we did so i think that you know that's really important for me because we have to listen to our community that elected us here and put us here and so it's i'm not opposed to i'm not anti-mass of any sort i said that earlier and i want to be real clear about

127that it's just about the how to support the policy and doing it we you know we put an emergency policy in place and i don't think we should have done that we should have went through the process and i believe we had time to do that earlier over the summer so that is one of the reasons when there when there is a policy or an issue on the board certain members disagree with which happened yesterday we then cater to that one person and i will not you know support this and we and that's what they say i don't i will not support this and then they ask well what needs to change for you to be comfortable for you to change your mind what can we do we make all these suggestions to them and

128cater to that and yesterday one member recessed our meeting so that they could reword something and which was trivial it just it was really ended to be the same thing just rewritten so that's one of the reasons why i didn't want to support this and so and then the chair and the vice chair all allowed this to happen we do not have equity on this board and that's what i really want to point out is when there's an issue inside on something i'm never asked how can i make you understand or make you feel better so you know when i don't always agree with everything so i think these things tonight are really important because we truly have to learn from how do we how to treat one another and strive to do that better

129and each day and had to have equal respect on this board in my opinion the new policy is a failure because we failed to implement it correctly that's really where i was standing is let's make sure that we do it right i really hear from our community the board needs to have a serious conversation about how our role and leadership is and what's taking place as governing body we are the last to know and are given little to say so in the big issues of affecting our staff and our students so i think that we need to make sure that we're respecting each other at the table and then that's i just want to bring that to everybody's attention because i feel like in the past it's not always been that way there's another issue

130regarding testings with the eoc we have to communicate better with our parents and our teachers i've gotten so many calls because of this and emails and texts and i think we're setting our children up for failure because they were forced to take tests the eoc test today and that's set up and that's we need to have a plan in place and we're we're failing as a board to make sure that we have those those in place that our students are successful it's enough with kovid for the last six months that now they're having to retake these eoc exams just out of the blue and parents are like well they have to graduate this is a requirement so i think we just need to be communicate clearly so that our community is not in an uproar

131over testing because we have testing is such a sensitive subject i personally know it felt it as a parent when my high school student struggled with the testing and so i just want to make sure that we are not setting our students up for failure that we are we put a plan in place that's our that is our job to make sure that they that they don't have this high pressure with these high stakes testing and because it in the end it's not gonna the results are not gonna be good for the for our district and our students and i think if we put a plan in place and not set them up for fail failing these eoc exams and they have the proper training and we could set up these tests they could take

132online at home and get extra credit for it we should have a plan in place to be and putting that out there so that the community knows that we have their back we're worried because of the future of the tests that are required by the tallahassee because it affects our grade as a district so i think that i mean with covid and wearing mass requirements it's it's enough stress on our students to have to now they're worrying about these eoc exams so i just want to see if we can have a workshop regarding you know what we can what kind of support we can give the teachers in the classroom to make sure that these kids are successful in these eoc exams and the opportunities and initiatives to do that and we need to be

133innovative in and make sure that our students are set up to be successful even through covid thank you thank you very much miss patricka just couple things quickly i had my first deck meeting as the dak liaison and it was fantastic i think that this virtual thing is really good for participation erica grimm she's a rock star i mean she divvied every dac member up into the rooms and she was patient and she was wonderful and i was in the high school breakout and mike immobile principal ammobile atystero was speaking and you know as we got ready to go back to school it was a lot of logistics it was a lot of thinking about how are we going to do it and what is to be expected and what safety measures are we going

134to have in place and how many kids are going to have in the cafeteria how many lunches are we going to run but hearing mike speak it made me realize his trepidation too you know like i was just thinking about the logistics of it i wasn't thinking about the impact on him as a human being with you know a wife and being concerned about his kids and how relieved he was when schools opened and the kids responded well and things went well and it was just sort of the emotional side of it that really i hadn't thought about until he stated it so clearly fhsaa board meeting last week on the weekend before i can't remember what really impressed by the executive director took a 40 thousand dollar pay cut because of the because of

135the budget and all staff agreed to a pay freeze you know a raise freeze really impressed with that there was some discussion about adding money or adding costs to the state series tickets in order to make up for lost revenue and additional expenses associated with covid but ultimately that would not have helped the budget i did want to mention hispanic heritage month essay contest i believe that this has been sent out to the schools all lee middle and high school students are encouraged to submit an essay before october 15th there are gift card visa gift card prizes and there are two themes and one is my hispanic family and our contributions southwest florida community and the other which i'm trying to get my kids to participate but i haven't been successful so far what woman

136or what person has influenced my views about the importance of diversity and respect for all cultures all students in lee county all students in middle and high school are encouraged to participate in that and finally i want to thank our law enforcement officers tonight tonight's meeting was a little bit more contentious than usual and as always you kept wonderful control and we all felt safe and i really appreciate your service to our community those are my comments thank you thank you miss patricka miss jordan oh my goodness where do i begin i know thank you first i'd like to just address a couple things if at any time that i have ever made you feel different than anyone else i apologize for that because to me i do believe that we need to if the

137majority of us are thinking a certain way or you know we're coming to some kind of conclusion it's good for us to hear what other people feel and have to say so i apologize for that and also with the eeo the end of the testing yeah i've had quite a few as well but i have been able to contact academic services and they were kind enough to contact the parents to give them the other options that they had in order to take those tests because a lot of the kids were having anxiety over that and i know my kids were the same way so i wanted to share that information a lot of the parents that have spoken to me were be were able to be helped just by me contacting the right department and

138i and i my kids the one teacher was in here that is my granddaughter's teacher and it was kind of upset me that she felt that i did not care about what she did or her job i know she does an excellent job and i have sorry i have plenty of grandkids and the choices that their parents made for them whether it's brick and mortar whether it's virtual whether it is home connect that is their decision for their own children and i had to stand by whatever that may be but that still does not eliminate the fact that we do have to worry about all of the children in the in our districts and yes they will be going back to school because it is just harder than what the parents had anticipated so they

139will be back in the brick and mortar schools but i just had to get that out because that was just kind of bothered me and i do want to share that we are still working steadily on franklin park we went to the fort myers city council last night did a presentation they definitely want to partnership we have their partnership as far as the city and the district they were very happy about everything that has taken place within the city dominic gimenelli went with me to help me present and it was very nice to hear how the city appreciated the fact what we were doing for their community and for the students and along with that with franklin park we're working really hard to make sure that we're getting ready for the hopefully the good news

140that we can start rebuilding and having that communication with the surrounding communities and with that and the lgbt community as well i just want to say you know we want to make sure that everybody regardless of who you are or or who you love or anything like that we want to make sure that every child staff everyone feels safe and welcome and that is all i have to say thank you miss jordan miss gins okay first of all i'd like to thank reverend james givens for doing our invocation this evening and just say that if there's any other pastors or chaplains or whatever that are interested you can call the board office and get on the list too in order to do that the i do have to say i agree with miss giovanelli with

141some of her statements and i refer back to the i was privileged to have the opportunity to write the article for the board article for this month and i did write it about grace and compassion and what that means and i do have to say and i've said this over and over again about learning how to communicate and how to get your point across i cringe when there are children in a room when we are not communicating at our best and i'll just i'll just leave that to marinate with everyone it's in school having been a teacher i mean we constantly are telling children and trying to help them learn how to communicate with each other and get over things that they have going between them and teachers work really hard to make that happen

142this is televised and it's there for any and everyone to see and i'll just say i cringe when i hear some of the comments or some of the things that and i know people are deeply emotional and invested in what they have to say but i go back to my venn diagram there's the way i see it the way you see it and somewhere in the middle is the truth and i hope that as an educational organization that we are working more towards getting in that middle every time we make a decision it is just not going to it's not going to fly with this group or this group is thinking it's bad everybody's just not going to get their way all the time you have kids in school and they want to just do

143recess that's why they come but the teacher will say you got to do your math and your science and your reading then we can do recess we as adults i think have to learn that we have to follow some process without some rules or process there is chaos and sometimes those rules are not the things that we want to hear when i'm late going somewhere and the light turns red i don't want to stop but the rule is there and i have to follow it if i want to get there alive and not kill somebody else so just somehow we need to learn the middle of that venn diagram regarding the lgbtq i was thinking to myself this afternoon what what can i say i have gotten so many texts and so many emails and

144so many messages and you know many of them are i'm so disappointed in you that's not why i elected you and that's you know i just don't believe that you turned your back i did not turn my back on anyone and i want to make it clear there's a non-discrimination policy titled two six seven and nine that we have to abide by and if you watch the meeting yesterday my point was let's talk about anti-bullying month which includes everybody that is bullied in any way shape or form that was what i was fighting for and if you look at policy 4.14 it talks about it states sexual religious disability it's all there so we are not negating anyone and as far as that's concerned there is no curriculum i think sometimes people read stuff that's

145just not there and i know there was an issue about the word educate but there is no curriculum and what actually happened is that our equity coordinators our counselors and our principals went through a training to be able to support lgbtq students i and i'll tell you a quick thing i won't take much longer but i can remember just as clearly as if it was yesterday sitting in my classroom after school and a gay student came in in tears and so i just came from behind my desk and we sat there and he talked and we cried because he was so confused he knew what he felt like he wanted to do but there was bullying there was this there was that and even at home and yes he thought about suicide so i've sat

146there and held his hand and talked to him and told him how worthy he was to be who he is so for those that will look at the fact that we did not have that on the agenda tonight it's not a dead topic that resolution if you look at yesterday's meeting we will be having a workshop and we will be discussing it okay i'll lighten up now sac meetings i've been attending some of the sac meetings that are virtually and thanks for that because it makes it a whole lot easier just to tune in i appreciate and thank the parents that are involved that are taking the time to either log on or whatever and it was real interesting i was on one this morning i think it was with hans marsh and the whole

147family was on the zoo meeting for sac and you could tell that the student the young boy had gotten everybody logged in he's telling no dad don't say that now or do this now but it was so neat just to see the family involved in what is happening at the school that child attends and i thank you parents for and administrators for doing that i suck i had my first eye sock meeting and i was absorbing it all and it was very good there i am just so impressed with the members of the isoc committee and i know miss patrick you had a great time working with them because they are also dedicated they are experienced and educated on what it is they're doing and we have a really very good group of isoc and

148i'll go through some of the details later our eastleigh education committee is still meeting once a week and i cannot thank the superintendent dr spyro and dr dussmore enough for taking time out of their busy day and time and all that they have to do just to help us as a community to build and to grow and to become the community that we all want to see and finally guess what the census is not over there is there was a lot of confusion as to it ending september 30th or october 31st and what happened a lot of the people were actually let go the end of september because they thought you know it wasn't going to continue but i just got word yesterday that it's still open so i tell people this it's not over

149till the fat lady sings so if you log on to census 2020 and when you don't see that little box it says start here it's over but until then log on and as soon as as long as it's still there please encourage people to participate in the census it helps all of us in every community and every school and i want to read the last part of my article just very quickly the most pivotal word to explore and the three words with anti-bullying month were kindness acceptance and inclusion the most pivotal word to explore is inclusion to be included is to be equal bullies struggle with feeling not equal to others the true test is not lip service but whether the individual is actually included and accepted inclusion is a conscious desire and effort to

150share thoughts and knowledge with someone else if we share thoughts and knowledge we are equal thank you thank you miss kittens miss vaughn thank you first i have any quick questions the medical mask waivers are those issued on a school-by-school basis in other words is it a site-based decision or is it something that happens in the district my understanding of that is that when we have a an exemption that's brought forward that the school staff work with our district team to make that exemption so and i'm looking at my staff just to make sure i spoke correctly there i've had some questions about who has the ultimate decision so i'll get you that response i'm not seeing a response from them so okay well if you can get me a response on on that because

151i've had a few people ask me that and be right or wrong the perception that there were different standards depending on what school the student attended so that's why i wanted to know counter those those questions because what we want our school folks to do is if they do not have you know the answer that they need is they contact you know their executive director and then work through you know angela wiff or lauren stillwell to get that response because we want to be consistent and these were fairly recent questions just because tonight but that's i'll keep that in mind okay last night i attended virtually the learning for life awards night and this is my first couple months being the board liaison to the group so i am new to the new to the

152group but i was super impressed with what they did apparently in prior years it's a bigger it's an extravaganza at broadway palm but this was so nicely done they had clay miller as a moderator learning for life is a character education program that has been in lee county schools for 27 years and i've heard nothing but raves about it they gave awards to people the students of different ages they gave awards to counselors teachers and so it was an extremely nice ceremony and i know they are anxious to be able to get into the schools and you know as all of us are to get that quote-unquote normal which may never exactly happen again but it was a very nice it was very nice program and there were some nice rewards and gift cards given

153to various goals okay the next thing is i just wanted to comment on as a school district our role and i think some of the parents who spoke may not be completely thinking about the role of us as a school district you know we are educational professionals who many of many of the people in the school district have sent virtually a lifetime working in in school and i wanted to do a little analogy if you're going to have let's say an hvac system installed in your house yeah you do your homework and you look for a company or or a technician who's very skilled but you hire that person because you trust that person to be skilled and do the job if you need your gallbladder taken out you're going to have a surgeon taking

154care of that operation and you know you're not going to leave directions or stay half away during your surgery to give pointers and so the analogy is i'm hoping that all of our parents can learn to trust a little bit more on decisions that we make as a school board and as a school district that we absolutely have the best intentions for all the children and although yes education in the three r's for this week is our primary job it's not our only job because we need to keep our children safe and as somebody already said we have like 95 000 kids that we have to be thinking about and i've lived through in my in my childhood i remember the school nurse coming in to our and we were inoculated for polio and it

155was 1950s i can't remember what year exactly but this was groundbreaking and for anybody who doesn't know i would ask them to google what an iron lung looks like now i've never had polio but i know of some people who who did and of course president franklin roosevelt had had polio and he became disabled because of it and pretty much we not pretty much we wiped out polio as a child i had the measles and i had the bumps and chicken pox yes today there's vaccines but the thing is and i'm going to make an analogy to the mask the children who have been vaccinated they're not just being protected themselves but they're protecting others because there are a few students or children who cannot for various specialized reasons be vaccinated and if let's say

156an older undocumented child goes to pediatrician's office and there's a young baby there who hasn't been vaccinated yet that becomes a problem and so i see this as the same thing as the math yes there are students who have medical issues or other psychological issues or whatever where they can't wear a mask and that's why i asked the question about mass exemptions or waivers because i'm hopefully we're being very fair in what we do and fairly considering the children that really need to be exempt but unless we have nearly 100 compliance they we're protecting everybody so anyway i know that's a little out there but i wanted to say that and finally i had the opportunity last week to visit a couple schools because i hadn't been out to the schools yet to actually observe

157how the teachers are coping with hybrid classes with social distancing and lehom connect so the first day i went to what i call my school sierra high school where i taught for eight years and observed a couple history classes both teachers were doing hybrid classes both of them were approaching how they did the hybrid classes slightly differently but wow they were doing a great job there were glitches now and then one of the teachers who actually when i was there with a good friend of mine she said oh good thing you weren't here last period because something happened with the quiz she was giving the kids are flexible too and they understand this is the first time around the kids were great they were engaged but the teachers left them they have to juggle when

158they're doing hybrid classes so one thing i'm going to say is i know that high school teachers probably have the highest numbers of hybrid classes and i hope at the quarter when we go into the second quarter there'll be enough of kind of a readjustment that more classes are either total home connect or total state-of-the-art so i wanted to have a very different experience the next day and i went to pinewood and i had said to miss anderson i want to see kindergarteners and i observed a class that was totally face-to-face and i saw another class that was homecoming again unbelievable i just couldn't believe the class i was watching that was home connect those little kids they were so engaged it was amazing the teacher was wonderful you'd get go around and look at

159a few other classes and see how they're handling lunch and various other things and so shout out to the teachers at those two schools the pharaoh and pimwood and also shout out to miss anderson leslie gunderson and mike amabiel and i was particularly impressed with the system that mr amazon said he stole it from the best practices he just did from riverdale and to do so to do the tracking and keep instead of assigning tables they have qr codes and the kids they sit down and they actually log in with these qr codes and so there it is it's recorded where they were sitting for content tracing and i thought wow that's really an amazing innovative way to deal with that so anyway i thoroughly enjoyed and my daughter asked me when i was telling

160her about my trip to sparrow she says oh mom well you're just really really sad too and i have to admit i said no because i've been out now my seventh year and i considered myself to be a decent teacher but wow i don't know that i could keep up with what those teachers were having to do so i just wanted to give kudos to our amazing teachers who if we didn't have teachers we couldn't have school so that's all i wanted to say thank you so much miss vaughn miss morgan for i want to say thank you to everyone who came to speak on the lgbtq referendum and i regret the confusion that our actions taken over the last two days have caused for for people in the community i do believe that every

161single person at this board table wants every child in this school district to feel safe and respected i don't think there's any question i think the confusion comes from the best way to articulate our beliefs and vision and to demonstrate support for these kids and so i have to say that i think our board way of work and work culture sometimes is capricious and it undermines responsible and respectful board engagement on topics of concern to the public and to people in the school district i believe we need to commit to having a thorough meaningful well-considered conversation about social and political topics that are suitable for school board deliberation and action and i don't think we've given ourselves the opportunity to do that and those are my comments for this evening thank you thank you miss

162morgan and i'll be brief i want to begin by making a an acknowledgement florida statute 1003.4205 designates the first two weeks of october first through the 15th as disability history and awareness weeks during this two-week period students may be provided instruction to expand their knowledge understanding and awareness of individuals with disabilities the history of disability and the disability rights movement the lee county school board acknowledges disability history and awareness weeks i would like to also thank everybody who came to speak earlier including the representatives from the ella piper center and our foster grandparents program which has been an amazing support to so many of our schools for so many years and i echo their wish that they can soon return to the schools to care for to mentor and to help our students and that's

163a very important program i want to compliment miss vaughn on her overview of the learning for life program at the virtual awards ceremony last night and i'll echo what she said that the reviews were raving and that people were very happy and it was extremely well done so we continue on the lgbtq issue we continue to work with equality florida safe and healthy schools project we have all board members got a copy of the poster of our school district of lee county non-discrimination policies updated and some best practices and action steps to help people to feel more comfortable and respected and appreciated i do want to mention that nine of our high schools and four of our middle schools do have a an active gay straight alliance club and i thank their sponsors 14 years

164ago when i went to work at ida baker high and i met aj who came to speak tonight he and some of his friends were having some identity issues and some issues with not being not with being accepted by their peers because that was always a given you know the atmosphere there in the climate among the kids was really pretty good but with a lot of the adults including their own parents so sometimes people who are struggling with being who they are need a little bit of additional support and we hope that we were able to provide that for them and i want to thank him for coming to speak tonight and he looks great and i'm glad he's so successful and happy and healthy the other thing i wanted to mention was i sent

165an email on october 1st regarding our student advisory committee so for six years now we have had the student advisory committee and many kids have come and gone some have stayed with us a few have inquired about are we going to start again this year and i just wanted to see if we could get a consensus from board members this evening about re-resurrecting those members who want to stay with us and inviting others to make sure all schools have representation and starting with virtual meetings because i think that'll make it a lot easier especially for our middle school population so then okay looks like it missed vaughn yes i'm i'm good with that i don't think you're going to have to have virtual meetings because think about the number of students that are not going

166face to face and they need an opportunity as well so yeah i will work on pulling that together i know she'll be happy to hear that so thank you for that the drug free coalition on october 22nd is having a candlelight visual to remember those who left us due to substance abuse at jc park and cape coral at 5 30 and the keynote speaker will be judge andrew sweat i want to thank oh miss kittens i did read your article and it was awesome and so thank you for doing that and i really appreciated what you said as you read your last paragraph before and finally i want to say thanks to all the parents all the kids our teachers our support staff and our district staff who are working so hard to pull through

167this very difficult time you're all very much appreciated and i keep you in my prayers stay self safe and healthy and that is my comments for this evening bruno thank you madam chair i have received a lot of questions and concerns about the rule making process and i was asked to address it i'm going to be very very brief there is a statute that we must follow with regard to the rulemaking process florida statute 120.54 and basically what we do in a rulemaking process is we have various workshops when there's a proposal for a new rule and it could take six months it could take three months it just depends on what it is and then at some point we get a good draft that we will present to the board for first reading in

168a briefing and then the second draft as what happened tonight we bring it to the board for a public hearing during the briefing and public hearing this is when the constituents have an opportunity to come and give their position on the particular rule so i wanted to make sure that's clarified it's a usually a 28-day process based on when we provide the notice and there's also an opportunity when there's an emergency for us to enact an emergency rule which circumvents the process however we do need to address why we believe that it is an emergency and miss kittens i really i just have to say i'm gonna take my attorney hat off for a quick second i really like the words kindness acceptance and inclusion thank you very much attorney bruno superintendent atkins just very

169quick just to address one of the board member questions regarding denver high school would yes i believe though the thing that she was describing where you had players potentially forwarding that link out occurred principal burnside jumped right on it spent a lot of time on monday hours literally working to correct that problem and ended up you know restricting players at dunbar to purchasing the two tickets using their student id he then after the event quickly sold out he had his athletic director open up another 50 seats for that and believes that it was at least of the capacity of 600 at least 200 of that went to people in the you know from fort myers high school i believe was the team that we were and i'll we'll put more details out about that but

170and also got a response from miss vaughan's question lengthy won't share it here right now but that will go out in the board update if not sooner and that's all my comments thank you very much dr atkins on monday november 19th no that doesn't sound right on monday october 19th there'll be a board workshop at 1pm also on tuesday october 20th there'll be a board briefing meeting at one as well as an action meeting at six pm at this point having no other business to come before this body and seeing no objection this meeting is adjourned thank you thank you deputies you