001good evening ladies and gentlemen could everyone please take their seats we are ready to begin this evening's board meeting the school board meeting of september 21st 2021 is now called to order the time is we would like to take this opportunity to remind the members of the public of the district's mission which is to ensure that each student achieves his or her highest personal potential and the district vision to be a world-class school system this evening's agenda includes invocation pledge of allegiance recognition public comments consent action items which include one item under board office two items under academic services three items under business services two items under human resources eight items under operations and four items under other business board members is there a motion to adopt the agenda i'll move to adopt the agenda
002as published thank you mr fisher i'll second okay miss morgan it was moved by mrs fisher seconded by miss morgan and please record your vote i didn't get the vote sorry affirmative it's not coming up on yours let me reboot i'm affirmative though and said she doesn't have hers but she's yay so ms thomas do we have everybody's yes okay 7-0 motion passes yes thank you miss tom miss giovanelli will introduce her guests for the invocation after which miss fisher will introduce the candidate to lead us in the pledge of allegiance mr givenelli please introduce your guest thank you sam killman is the lead pastor at redeemer church in the cypress lake neighborhood of fort myers he graduated high school in the class of 2009 and attended college at the university of mobile as well
003as luther rice college in in seminary he has served in vocational ministry for the last 15 years as one of the few born and raised in fort myers salmon has a pride and love for the city he met his wife bethany here and both of their sons were born here lee county is home for the kelman family and they like it that way more importantly sam loves jesus and wants his life to be used by god to help people come to a saving relationship with jesus as well the mission of the redeemer church where sam pastors is to love god love people and make disciples a task sam takes personally and seriously it is an honor to serve the people of lee county through the gospel ministry entrusted to him please stand and let us
004welcome sam kellman for the invocation for this evening welcome pastor killman thank you very much will you bow your heads in prayer with me our gracious heavenly father god we come to you tonight first to thank you for your goodness and grace for the mercy that you grant each of us every day we thank you for the free gift of salvation in jesus christ and his death on the cross for our sins we thank you for your faithfulness to us even when we are rebellious towards you i pray god that you would convict us in our hearts of any sin present in our lives may we confess it and trust you may we recognize the freedom found in a relationship with you and god in this time as this meeting begins i ask that you
005would grant your wisdom and discernment i thank you for those whom you have put in place to participate in this body of educators and for the sometimes difficult decisions they face again lord we ask you for to help us let us not do what we feel is right in our own eyes as your people did so long ago but lord rather we pray and we depend solely to on you to lead us and guide us to do what is right and good i thank you again for the leadership represented here i pray you would protect them and grant them health i pray you would bless them and their families lord continue to use them as they lead to help form our schools and shape our students so they may grow up to participate in this
006world with knowledge and confidence as well as endurance and gentleness and patience and truth we thank you lord be with us now in jesus holy and precious name i pray amen mrs fisher please introduce the candidate for the pledge yes thank you the cadet presenting the national colors tonight will be introduced by command sergeant major mariano alvarez army instructor at bonita springs high school command sergeant major alvarez retired from active army service in 2018 after 30 years of distinguished service he completed seven deployments in support of combat operations in iraq afghanistan and saudi arabia he was awarded both the legion of merit and the bronze star medal this is command sergeant major alvarez's second year of teaching jrotc in the school district of lee county welcome sergeant alvarez thank you ma'am the national colors of
007our place of allegiance tonight will be presented by cadet colonel brandon wiscinski who is the highest ranking cadet and commander of the jrotc brigade she superbly leads by example while providing direction for an organization of over 400 jarrod city cadets cathedralskin is also a commander of the drill team and a member of the district champion drone team despite rigorous academic and work schedules she maintains a 4.27 gpa after high school category plans to attend the culinary institute of america to pursue a career as a chef and ultimately owning a business please join me in saying the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the power before which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all please be seated i would like to
008invite mr carl burnside principal at dunbar high school to please join the recognized employees at the lectern the school district of lee county is proud to announce the recognition of dunbar high school employees action actions in emergencies a recent emergency situation at dunbar high school required the quick thinking and swift action of several employees which resulted in the survival of a student teacher jill clausing acted activated the emergency respond school resource officer david sanchez and david wood of fort myers police department assist the situation called 9-1-1 began cpr and called for the aed to be brought to the classroom which ultimately needed to be used to revive the students both officers along with coach sammy brown and ese para para professional are you and i apologize if i misspell say in your name aisa lee
009followed cpr protocols emts arrived and transported the patient to the hospital the hospital medical team later stated that thanks to the quick actions of the dumber high school team the student survived the school wow the school board and the superintendent are pleased to recognize the following and if you will go to over here to mr burnside sro david wood and just stay up there so we get all of you up here together jill closing coach sammy brown aisli and unfortunately sro davis sanchez would not could not attend this evening but we need to give him a hand as well thank you all one more you guys wrong thank you at this time and thank you for being here and if you want to say we'd love to have you if you don't i we understand
010as well so just letting you know that okay just giving you the opt out thank you so much again public com next on the agenda is public comment mr preety bruno please address the item of public comments thank you madam chair school board policy provides the opportunity at this point in the meeting to address the board concerning any matter on this meeting's agenda or any other matter relevant to the operation of the school district if you completed a public comment card please put it in the basket provided at the back of the room if you need a public comment card they are provided by our staff located in the hallway outside of the board room the rules concerning public comment are posted and will be made from the microphone in the back please be advised
011that the board will not respond during public comment to remarks made by speakers speakers and those attending the meeting are expected to act in a respectful manner the purpose of public comment is to provide feedback on district issues personal attacks on individuals or abusive language are prohibited in addition clapping hissing and booing unreasonably loud and or offensive language swearing cursing or display of temper are prohibited speakers may not address board members by name and personal attacks against individual board members the board as a whole the superintendent our district staff are prohibited there is a proper way to do that pursuant to board policy 1.11 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 for board
012policy 1.11 and may be removed from the chambers there will be a one warning and we ask that you govern yourself accordingly we will take recesses as necessary if there is not decorum in the chambers please remember that it is unlawful in a second degree misdemeanor to knowingly disrupt or interfere with the school board meeting for board policy 1.11 the time for speaker is 3 minutes if there are 20 2 minutes if there are 30 and one minute if there are 31 speakers or more the maximum time allowed for public comment is one hour 60 speakers you will find a countdown on the big screen in the front of the room once your time has elapsed the microphone will automatically shut off we encourage you to address the board as whole versus individual board members
013as they act as a collective board please state your name when you approach the microphone and i will call you five names five speakers at a time please follow the staff's direction in lining up madam chair we have 22 speakers this evening and that will be two minutes per speaker thank you madam chair we have one individual that i'm going to request an accommodation for board policy 1.11 subsection which is an individual with disability they will require five minutes please thank you please make sure to have your to have completed a public comment card if you intend to provide public comment the card is a public record identifying those who speak and providing contact information to staff for follow-up the cards are located with the staff in the hallway david newlin as the executive director
014of safety and security or your designee for this meeting and future meetings i ask that you assist the chair and parliamentarian in providing warnings to members of the public and removing individuals for violation of board policy 1.11 in addition if there is not decorum during this meeting i will call for a five-minute recess we will continue to recess this meeting as needed increasing five minutes each time members of the diocese when a recess is called i ask that you leave the chambers of course it goes without saying the door during the recess board members will not discuss any matters that is pending on the agenda or will come before this body to avoid any sunshine violation i reiterate what mr bruno just said and that it is unlawful and the second degree misdemeanor to knowledge
015disrupt or interfere with a school board meeting we would appreciate it if you would state your name and whether you live in lee county and you don't have to say that state your name please that's what we need you we would ask for you to do please prior to making your comments and mr pre-bruno can you please proceed with the public comments thank you madam chair well the following individuals please line up linda carter denise nystrom alli lock christy divijelli edward dress and our first speaker the first speaker will require five minutes madam chair please thank you hello and good evening dr savage and members of the lee county school board my name is linda carter i am a substitute slash guest teacher and have been with the lee county school district since 2006. i
016would like to speak on why the mask is required when i do teach i will have to use my toba dynavox augmentative and alternative communication known as sec software to teach class just as i am doing to communicate with you dr savage and the board tonight on the 10th of august my personal care assistant was infected by a student that came home from school with cove at 19. she was with me for three days before she knew she had covered 19. she was tested on the 14th and on the 16th was notified that she was positive i was without her assistance for over 14 days till she was retested and the test came back negative during the time she was in quarantine i was tested multiple times to confirm that i was negative to covet
01719. i'm writing you to hope and strongly request that you do not reverse the decision of mask wearing in the lee county schools if you do reverse your decision and you then make it unsafe for teachers and guest teachers to teach when i take my next teaching assignment i will have to go to my assignment with as close to a biohazard suit with face shield and ventilator for my required days of teaching to keep myself safe if the lee county school district will not continue to make a safe working environment for teachers and teaching staff i have no choice but to protect myself the best that i can during the day and besides i use a power chair to carry my ventilator and oxygen with me at all times and also to get me around
018also my chair does not work on stairs or in stairwells i was online viewing the last few board meetings and was thoroughly disgusted by the attitudes of the parents thinking about nothing but their children having to wear masks in school and saying that mask don't do a thing to stop kovacs 19 and also individuals from the audience lacking common sense and then endangering them and others if their children come home from school with covet 19 i agree that parents to have rights with their children but parents do not have the right to help spread coveted 19 to students teachers substitute slash as teachers bus drivers and staff because their children are not wearing a mask and social distancing from others by their way of thinking by not wearing a mask they are now legally authorized
019to infect in and slash or endanger teachers guest teachers school staff bus drivers and anyone else they feel free to do so while spreading covet 19 and giving others severe medical issues to them and then possibly end up in the hospital i see you for their possible last time on this planet we have i will have to wear as near to a biohazard suit as possible to teach class all these individuals can incur lifelong medical issues that will cost an unknown amount of money that the individual will have to pay co-pays for an illness that was given to them by a student at school because they was not wearing a mask and maintaining social distancing lee county school district teachers guest teachers and staff won't be safe knowing that they could get coded 19 by
020working in unsafe working condition lee county school district has had a bus driver die along with other school members over in the miami area four teachers in our school staff died just before school started from covid19 if masks are not worn all employees of the lee county school district are entitled to a safe working environment in closing substitute slash guest teachers do not get health benefits that the teachers do and while the teachers were out and classrooms closing the substitute slash guest teachers took on at a great risk to themselves continued to fill in for teachers take on consolidated classrooms and instruct the students of the lee county school district thank you good evening my name is ali lock you have effectively created a divide in our school district you've pit everyone against each other
021teachers students parents administrators there are many reports from schools all over the county where teachers are passing out masks at the door despite the option for parent opt-out physically putting them on children that walk in without one threatening to tape their masks above their noses asking students if their parents have signed the op dot forms which we are not allowed to do and threatening to write referrals for students that do not put one on students are teasing other students in school for not wearing a mask is this really the public education we want to provide for our children a certain board member said that she wouldn't sign an mou unless vaccinated teachers were incentivized for being vaccinated and unvaccinated teachers were penalized for being unvaccinated she didn't agree with the fact that unvaccinated teachers get
022paid for having to quarantine when they're exposed to positive cases and believes that only vaccinated teachers should be paid during quarantine that is blatant discrimination just like it would be discriminatory if teachers that were under a certain weight would be incentivized for being healthy this same board member has repeatedly addressed dr savage as a child in front of public board meetings and would like to remove him as superintendent i have a better suggestion why doesn't the board the board members who are willing to listen to their constituents and follow the law get the rogue board member out miss kittens you mentioned that you're not one board in the animals no no no personal names please remember mention that thank you next speaker please denise nystrom let me tell you what tonight is really about everything
023that you're looking at right now it's a television show if you spend a lot of time at these board meetings you will understand the motives of each one of these board members this is clickbait fake news and i can see this set up a mile away these board me members are going to try to tell you that dr savage has been affected ineffective or lacks transparency not true they lack transparency and don't like that they are losing control that is why i had to file an ethics complaint against district 3 board member who tries to sabotage the superintendent at every board meet meeting to make him look bad that same board member who said please please please help our children by masking them was maskless on beach talk radio and at a football game when
024she could have had coveted and i have the pictures dr savage has brought more ethics and integrity to this district in 10 weeks than they've had in the past five years if these board members are unhappy they should resign they did not like that dr savage lifted the mask mandate even though he had no choice per federal law and the board policy 1.181 he had the right to and dr savage if these people put you in a bad position that's unethical and you have to sue them please call me as a character witness it's my stream edward grass public comments so serves no purpose if it falls on deaf ears attention and energy should be redirected for instance letters of communication from richard corcoran governor desantis representative spencer roach representative bayern donalds byron donalds they
025do get your attention i watch and i observe i know malfeasance when i witness it i record and report it i call out lies which are meant to purposely misdirect the district and the public i can advise citizens of lee county taxpayers parents and voters of such unprofessional behavior stop your search for a new board superintendent keep dr savage by november 2022 the school board will have four new members they will have different ideas about what kind of superintendent they want to work with stop this wasteful search save the taxpayers the cost of terminating a new superintendent's contract but focus on important things like crt rewriting history sexually re-educating our children and protecting the rights of the district's eight or nine transgender students christine divajilli so i have a couple of things tonight let's talk
026about parents rights for a minute here because we seem to keep forgetting that you know parents have those so we've talked we heard a few things mentioned already and i'm only you know the third speaker we heard that opt-outs are not currently being honored well we've heard that children are being isolated in classrooms we've heard that masks are physically being put on children's faces i spent about 15 minutes on the phone with the mom right before i came in here tonight in between meetings because her daughter her daughter was bullied at her elementary school six-year-old little girl her daughter was bullied because she chose not to wear a mask and bullied so much so that she was then she came home crying to her mom and her mom was then bullied by the administration at
027that school and told that she needed to obtain a medical exemption for her child and get 504 services for her child so she this mom and she was also told she was not allowed to bring her child back to school until those measures were met six-year-old little girl so mom went out mom got the doctor's note gave the doctor's note to the teachers gary sent it to so sent it in with them to with her to school and was not told until her daughter came home from school in tears that her daughter was put placed in the back of the classroom at a table all by herself with a partition put around her she wasn't allowed to sit with any other kids in her classroom wasn't allowed to talk to any of the other kids
028she was put in isolation under advisement from that principle y'all got to get it together there is no standard in this district and if you can't get control of your administrators well then none of you should be sitting up there not a single one of you we should not have to feel bullied by administrators thank you will the following individuals please line up keith cindy bonier elizabeth valley gavin smith chanelle smith my name is keith i came here tonight because i wanted to speak very strongly in favor of dr savage during the last 10 weeks i've seen a real difference from the superintendent in terms of clarity in terms of honesty in terms of integrity and in terms of seeking real straightforward and consistent communication with parents and board that is in contrast to what
029i've observed from the board itself not from everyone on the board but certainly significant numbers in particular a board member a member sitting under the seal has been sly has sideswiped the other board members and the superintendent in public meetings has engaged in passive aggressive jabs and been completely undermining of other board members and the superintendent i am very concerned also about other two members sitting under the seal rudely talking while people are other other people are talking and trying to make sincere points thereby obviously not listening or caring about public comment now we're going to be approaching some really important and sensitive issues like the teaching of illegal rather illegal teaching of crt and dealing with a complete distortion of healthy sexual human development we're going to need honesty we're going to need clarity
030we're going to need respect which i hear the board talking a lot about but some of you not engaging thank you thank you honorable chair for your commitment to protecting schools the community and for giving me a chance to speak at today's meeting my name is gavin smith i am an ib freshman at cape high and i have a chronic illness called cystic fibrosis that affects my lungs i am immunocompromised and but can't affect attend virtual school because i'll lose my seat as an iv student graduating the ib program has been my dream since fifth grade and i attend mariner middle i attended mariner middle because of their ib program i am risking my health every day to go to school in order to work towards my goal of getting an iba diploma i don't
031feel protected by the people who could which is why i want a masked mandate between my therapy respiratory therapy every day to model un i take care of my health and my future we need this mask mandate not just to protect myself but to protect all the teachers my fellow peers the janitors lunch ladies and all the other unsung staff members who aid in the effort to educate kids thank you for your time hi my name is chanel smith i am a mother to a 214 year old boys in the school district this is my first time at a meeting like this i and i honestly did not want to go having heard what i've heard thus far tonight i'm very glad that i did i know that myself and several other parents that i
032know don't want to come to meetings in public and we don't want to you know we don't want to risk our health we don't want to be out you know and you know around people who don't want to wear masks and all the all of those other things but those people go unheard because of that so i decided to come today and i just want to implore you please to to reconsider the mass mandate and the opt out yes parents have rights we absolutely do one of the biggest rights we should have is to be able to send our children to school and know that they are safe and not have to worry if they're going to come home sick and infect the rest of the family gavin is my son he was diagnosed at
03311 months old with cystic fibrosis and ever since that time he spends a minimum of two hours every day doing respiratory therapy just so that he can you know add some hours or years or whatever on to his life so and he's just one example of many students with similar issues or other issues that's all i have well the following individuals please line up francis haas tara jenner don armstrong valerie robert roper hello i am dr cindy banye and i am here as a parent and resident of lee county and parent to two children in the school district and one child with a history of health problems that is not yet old enough to go to school i want to thank you gavin for bravely speaking here and your mom too i know it takes
034a lot of courage to come out and face down people who are bullying you to speak the truth for those of us who need to be careful about our health but i appreciate that and i want to give my appreciation to all of the board members and school administrators who work hard every day doing the best that they can for our kids and our schools i believe that we should have a mask mandate i applauded the early efforts in instituting a mass mandate and was very disappointed in the rollback of that mass mandate which leaves open the availability for students to not wear masks and be unchecked in that way in the schools it's kind of unbelievable here that we have to have parents coming and talking about the life of their child while some
035people are boohooing about children having to wear masks or being sad because they must be separated because their parents have told them they don't have to care about the life of the students in their class or their teachers and i think that's sad for everyone but frankly the choice is obvious when it comes to the life of saving even one child we should do that we should have a mass mandate reinstituted in our schools i implore you to reconsider your position on this and have a full mass mandate reinstituted in lee county schools for our kids my name is elizabeth valley and i am a grandparent of three kids in the lee county district and i first want to tell all of you board members that i appreciate you i appreciate the position you're in
036to care for and protect our kids and make decisions that affect all of them i applaud you for your courage and i'm very aware that some of you have faced a lot of scares even death threats in this situation so thank you for being here for our kids when covet first hit as you can imagine we were really taken aback as a family we lost some extended family members and some close friends to family members in those beginning months but more than that we were affected as a family because we have a child who has lived with a lung disease for his whole life he does multiple respiratory therapies a day and we're always on the lookout for things that a lot of families take for granted so finding out that covid was a respiratory
037illness and then seeing everything that happened we made the decision the first year to keep them home and do virtual school i feel this was socially emotionally and academically damaging for him and his twin brother that are very very bright kids i wanted them to be able to experience being with friends and having a normal childhood we also live with the fact that whatever any of us are exposed to we would bring home to gavin and so we care about all of our kids and their future and the one thing that i want to be able to hand to them is to hand them a world where we care about one another where we look out for each other's needs that is how these boys are that's how gavin is and his twin brother we're
038extremely proud of them as human beings we owe it to them and all the kids everyone's children everyone's families to keep them safe we owe them that in the school you know sending them out to school to be next speaker please my name is francis haas i am a parent of two current and one former lee county school district students could you speak into the microphone please thank you my name is francis haas i am the parent of two current and one former lee county school district student and i am a health care provider who has worked in a covert unit for the bulk of the last 18 months i've seen the devastation of this disease caused by the coven 19 virus i'm here in support of mass mandates and other protocols that can help
039prevent the spread of cobit 19 in the schools i'm here today primarily to speak about my brother-in-law whaley tate last time i was up here i said that he was in the emergency department cape coral hospital well it turns out he has been on a ventilator for the last 13 days and did i mention that he is a teacher here in the lee county school district he started showing symptoms two weeks after the beginning of the school year and now he has a very poor prognosis this disease doesn't discriminate and it is devastating to everybody it affects i've like i said i've worked in the colby unit for the bulk of the last year and a half and my brother-in-law being sick has has made it that much works it is a political issue we
040can say that oh it's a disease but it's turned into a political issue and it takes bravery and we need bravery from the board the superintendent and all of the administrators to implement and enforce strict regulations thank you next speaker please good evening for the record my name is don armstrong proud parent of two juniors that go to north fort myers high school so a couple things i want to talk to you about tonight first thing florida statue 286.011 it says public meetings to be open to the public at all times all is the key word there at the last meeting when you had the budget meeting the door was locked no one could get in after it started at the meeting before that you had a workshop the door was locked no one could
041get in clearly that's against violation so i also have about three more florida statutes that you're in clear violation of i've agreed to talk to miss broon board attorney tomorrow and try to reach out to her and discuss them but the other thing i do want to talk to you about is first i want to compliment our superintendent i've heard just recently that he has actually offered to increase our bus driver's salary to increase our teacher salary and finally bring them up where they need to be and it's about time these people work hard and put a lot into it and for the board members that i hear that want to get rid of him are you kidding me even i've had some issues but we know that he's working through it these issues that's
042going on right now that he's finding wasn't created last week last month it was created a couple of years ago and then going on it's going to take them time to get to it so in the words that i've heard up here several times staying on lane tara jenner c.s lewis in god in the dark essays on theology making modern theology spoke directly to the current situation facing us regarding masks and vaccines and i quote of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive it would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy bodies the robert baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep his cupidity may at some point be satiated but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without
043end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience they may be more likely to go to heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a hell of earth this very kindness stings with intolerable insult to be quote cured against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as a disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will to be classified with infants imbeciles and domestic animals secondly i would like to share a moment of historical significance in our great nation which addresses this concern of discrimination tomorrow september 22nd marks the 159 anniversary of abraham lincoln's preliminary emancipation proclamation in which he declared that as of january 1st 1863 all slaves in states and
044rebellion against the union shall be then henceforth and forever free let's celebrate this tomorrow and every day and not discriminate between those who mask and those who do not mask as there is not much difference between that and what was done because of the color of skin thank you well the following individuals please line up stephanie hoffman marsha ellis robert daniels laurie fahey my name is failing when the superintendent made a decision to enforce a mask mandate without an opt-out option the school board didn't get to vote and weren't even concerned they didn't have an input now that the superintendent decided to follow governor desantis's law it's unfair that the school board didn't get a chance to vote the school board is clearly trying to sabotage the superintendent that has done more good for the
045district in 10 weeks than we have seen in a long time the school board as a whole has a political agenda that has nothing to do with mitigation measures it's about power and control if my children did get covered i would make sure we properly quarantined ourselves and not attended a football game my children will never wear a mask again and i will make sure of that my children will never be vaccinated and i will make sure of that we will vote you out robert roper also known as ward cleaver earlier this year during the summer before school started the board decided it would be appropriate to remove a controversial poster provided by equality florida from the student code of conduct the question is now what are the policies they're nowhere to be found one
046policy that was removed with the poster was allowing boys and girls restrooms which incidentally was denied by the board the whole time one policy that we know is still in effect today is allowing boys in girls restrooms the question remains months later what are the formal policies concerning the items removed from the code of conduct where are they written how can they be obtained why are the policies hidden it seems quite disingenuous to have removed the poster with the objectionable content publicly yet allowing the same policies to be carried out privately hello my name is marcia ellis i'm going to be working backwards off of my list tonight so i'm going to be counting down in opposite order third teachers are concerned about disinformation among staff and this information creates hostility when it's not confronted
047directly as spreading of disinformation begins to be litigated in an effort to counter disinformation that should happen in our workforce this is necessary because clarity is needed to provide guidance to staff to protect the morale and community cohesiveness second teachers are reporting that quarantining has radically changed the past couple of weeks and that many have concerns that contact tracing is not timely and a robust effort is not mounted consistently or transparently and now first first not masking is an endangerment this endangerment is amplified for kids staff and family members with health conditions that are or who are not eligible for vaccination comorbidity is increased among exceptional learners now there's an open investigation of civil rights violations via the federal department of ed kovitz spreading without mass mitigation further increases school-based cases putting esc teachers in
048a substitute teacher capacity this further creates downward stresses on the most vulnerable students a matrix is utilized to determine the level of services to determine funding including staffing are line item adjustments made when ese teachers are not able to do their jobs in my opinion a good ese teacher should insist on providing mandated services to students who are risking their lives to attend school they are the first to feel the impacts and the last to get the services my name is robert daniels i'm a teacher with lee virtual school i've been there for nine years now i received a alarmed message from a co-worker who managed to watch the workshop today about the upcoming opening of our enrollment i was there the summer all this started going down when with the previous superintendent our enrollment
049jumped from 400 students to over 12 000 in the span of three weeks i was one of the teachers who came in without getting paid a week ahead of time before we were even supposed to be there to answer the phone and return the thousands of phone calls of worried and interested parents about this instructional model and i'm not a public speaker so i apologize if my voice is breaking or i'm hard to understand what i do know is that in the aftermath of all of this lee virtual school has experienced a continued swell of interest in our numbers but we've not seen the staff and allotment that we saw last year and even then i spent my time after hours comforting 30-year teachers who were assigned to us i'm prepared to work from a
050computer and a cell phone for 12 hours a day to try to meet their students needs i've had to listen to senior teachers in tears crying brand new teachers in tears crying because of the amount of work they are facing i would ask that before november 8th rolls around whoever it is that's in the decisions of power please come down speak to the leader speak to the virtual school staff and establish a more comprehensive way to prepare students to learn independently at home with the virtual school and with the teacher's assistants so we can do right by the students will the following individuals please line up jamie kirschner doug santini wendy tina harris james lanam my name is stephanie hoffman i am a proud parent of two children in public schools here i've also been
051a resident of lee county for over 15 years i'm here to say thank you to the superintendent and the board this is a non-enviable position that you are in right now thank you for the hard work that you're doing i know that i have sent you some very angry emails i know other people here have definitely sent you some very angry emails thank you for taking the time to respond to each and every one of them with our questions and concerns and thank you for doing your best there is no right answer it's it's hard so thank you just a reminder that we don't want anyone behind the speakers you need to be on the other side of the stanchion please good timing on that one thank you i'm lori fahey and i just had
052to tell you that the quote that comes into my mind every time i walk into this building the last few months is the beatings will continue until morale improves doesn't work that way we are still talking up here when the presenters are able to speak at the lectern we need to be back up there again i've said it before you know it there is no reason to treat us disrespectfully this way we had people standing out in the rain this evening to get into the meeting this is a public building that should not be allowed for us to be segregated away from you elected officials what i actually came here to speak on was about the fsa testing we have had many many students that were forced into taking the fsa retake it should not
053have happened those test scores didn't count last year or the year before my son is here with me this is sam they cut him out last time so i'm bringing him in he graduated without ever generating an fsa score or an fcat score and all of you know that legislation made it possible for these kids to graduate using concordance scores but right now schools are pushing students into remedial reading if they do not have an fsa score this is against the parental rights and it's against policy you shall provide the remediation but parents don't have to take it so i want to make sure that everyone in lee county knows that thank you hi there jamie kirschner i'm here today as a former administrator special education teacher business owner parent and of course a taxpayer
054i'm currently in the role of serving families as an advocate for children with special needs the families of esc students need to have their voices and concerns heard but then acted upon such as the student who has a very high iq but is forced to be in a self-contained classroom because there aren't enough interpreters in our school district so she can attend her gen ed classes no access to captioning either why where is the funding we're asking but we're being ignored i'm here to represent teachers who are being stretched too thin like the teachers of a k-5 classroom with six grade levels fairing disability but hasn't had the proper training where's the funding the public is asked to follow procedures the chain of command the process yet when we ask questions and seek solutions we're
055ignored we want systemic change and we want to work collaboratively how can we do this when there continues to be a pattern of leading by intimidation fear and lack of transparency these parents are becoming so frustrated they hire attorneys advocates and still the districts fights them rather than agree to mediation or changing current practices not in the best interest of a child we don't want to speak at board meetings other than to thank you and praise educators for their services but when our requests are repeatedly ignored such as the public request made on august 1st that all board members were made aware of asking the cost of litigation insurance premiums how much is being spent to fight parents rather than look within our practices at the school district and be proactive versus reactive we met
056with a board member the superintendent's office knows no answers since august 1st why is the money coming in from our esc students with medicaid being funneled into the general education system rather than esc funding why i do thank you for your service really it's a tough position but world-class district takes world-class leaders please follow through with your commitment to serve all students and collaborate with us wiki next speaker please good evening i'm dr doug santini i have been a student a parent a teacher a school principal and a county administrator in lake county school system i saw something on television the other night that i could not believe a person would be dishonest and say the things that he said and that was our superintendent excuse me i'm a role model dr santini we have
057to be very careful in terms of personal attacks criticism let me tell you this is a this is a praise he said on that program that i'm a role model for students and parents and teachers in this district and i will follow the law even if i don't agree with it that's a real un un said thing in our nation today as you know people don't follow the law i don't agree with all the things but i follow it i know a lot of things in this district from being in the district and i know that dr savage is trying to get the district to where it needs to be he is he knows what the problems are give him a chance now i was told a little bit today that there might be a
058board member tonight to say they're going to remove dr savage i took a chance to come here i was in my shorts watching the briefing that would be the biggest mistake this county ever made the man is honest he is true he is one of the best people we've ever had in the school system you might not understand him all the time because he's above me but he is really down to earth and true and he wants to get the system where it needs to be be careful hello my name is wendy and i would love to tell you that i appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight but this is absolutely one of my least favorite things to do i despise public speaking but i made a promise to my brother when we were little
059kids that if anyone ever did anything to harm the other that i would speak out and that i would defend him and so today i stand for my brother i wear my purple heart for my brother and i risk my position as an educator which i love for my brother i'm here for my brother tonight after reporting to work at 6 15 in the morning to take care of other people's children even though my children attend the same school and are put at risk because of a decision that was retracted after being committed to i have heard about honesty and i have heard about commitment and i have heard about responsibility but i know in my classroom when i report there every morning the thing that i make sure my students know is that i
060will follow through if i tell them that i am going to show up at the bus ramp i'm at the bus ramp i'm there with a smile on my face i am loving them with or without a mask on and i am loving them because they need me to and because their families need me too i work very hard every day at what i do and so did my brother and his little girl brought it to his home and he fights for his life today and so today i stand to fight for his regardless of how much i can't stand standing here i wish this was not what i had to do beg you to care thank you again this is a reminder you need to stay on the other side of the stance and
061no one should be standing behind the speaker i didn't want to interrupt you man while you were speaking good evening i'm a bus driver for the district and i've been driving for 17 years and i come to find out we never been in this type of situation before pandemic has never been in this situation before and i stand here with this heavy heart because discussing the issue that's so simple we made it so difficult because the district gave me a duty to make sure each child is taken home and take it safely but it cannot be safe when my life is in danger and another student's endangered because we cannot wear masks and so i truly wear masks in the classrooms and on the bus i truly believe a teacher should have that duty to
062tell a student that they should have their their should be in their classroom with masks because i truly believe my life work is worth something and their life is worth something and and i really i really plead with you today please kick out the political ploys think of life today because our lives matter we've never been in this situation before and you've got to be simple logic we have to work together and working together is mask what protects us you can't let let no one who had never had a science degree never been infectious diseases make this decision for us we need to wear masks and think logically lives is dependent on my life is worth depending on i'm scared to go to work i'm scared to go to work and drive and i have
063to tell a student who don't want to wear a mask where to see it you have to sit to the back because you discriminate no my life worth something in your life worth something every life worth something we need to wear masks thank you good evening my name is james lynum i'm a school bus driver for the district and i think i can speak for a lot of my co-workers and i when i say we could use some more love from the district and also the public from 4 30 in the morning to 6 o'clock at night we're hustling getting kids to and from school safely and i do i love my job i love what i do my babies those are my babies on that bus when they're on there with me we could
064use a raise we get paid the same as amazon drivers if i was an amazon driver i could replace a lost package i can't replace a life that's on my bus that's riding with me so i can say with you some more love and thank you to the handful of administrators that support us we thank you madam chair that concludes public comment thank you well i just want to thank everyone who came here to speak today we do we're here to listen to all of you to hear what you have to say you know sometimes things are difficult and you think that we're not hearing but we are definitely listening to what you are saying and we just appreciate you being here the next on the agenda is the approval of the action items under
065consent the documentations 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 materials and we have an opportunity to speak with the superintendent with any questions we have regarding the recommendations some of these items have also 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 for discussion under the unfinished business table items portion of the agenda mr giavanelli i have one it's the l4 approval to renew itn number n187330ln emergency debris monitoring removal and disposal i'm sorry l2 you said no l4 l4 i apologize thank you ms patricka no thank you ms fisher i have none thank you miss kittens yes
066i have l2 approval ratification agreement to purchase 183.99 acres located 17250 state road 82 in fort myers florida 33913 thank you miss vaughn i have none miss morgan i have none and i have none is there a motion to approve the agenda's cassette action items with the exception of the pulled items l 2 and l 4. miss vaughn i move to accept the consent items with the exception of l 2 and 4. thank you have a second please i'll second thank you miss morgan and would you please record your vote do okay seven zero motion carries okay dr savage please introduce any administrators in attendance with a new assignment that were approved under the consent agenda yeah yes madame sure would be my pleasure first i'd like to recognize miss jamie van cleave challenger middle
067from school intervention support specialist to assistant principal i'd like to also recognize miss denise dr denise fitzpatrick from fort myers middle academy from assistant principal to associate principal and mr william carrick from colusa middle from dean of student discipline and teacher to assistant principal is that it that is all madam chair did you want to introduce mr dodeck because he was not here the other day no i'm going out of protocol but yes i'm certainly willing to acknowledge after have completed his first week on the job and into week two mr robert dodeck our executive director in human resources thank you and i'm going to do a brief pause so if you would like to stay you're welcome to stay otherwise we congratulations and you're welcome to to leave the chamber if you'd like i'll
068rush though they're having their celebration out there okay moving on we have two pool items to address dr savage could you please read your recommendation for pulled item number two i'm just going in order yes madam chair our recommended action is the approval for the ratification of the agreement to purchase 183.99 acres located at 17250 state road 82 in fort myers florida 33913 strap number one three four five two six zero zero dash zero zero zero zero one dot zero zero zero one zero approval authorizes the superintendent to execute all necessary closing documents thank you is there a motion to adopt dr savage's recommendation i move the board approve the superintendent's ratifica ratification recommendation to ratify the agreement to purchase 183.99 acres located at 17250 state road 82 in fort myers florida 33913 thank you
069miss morgan may have a second thank you ms fisher okay so it was moved by miss morgan seconded by mrs fisher and any discussion and i will begin with miss kittens because you brought this up okay there's no doubt that we need property in the east zone there's no doubt that there's extreme overcrowding in the schools in the east zone there's no doubt that many planning decisions do not take that into consideration there is no doubt that prioritizing that need does not seem to be at the top of the list for this district that didn't start today or this week it has been going on for quite some time when you have a student of mine i ran into the other day that said to me their child who is now attending school is attending
070school and one of their classes is in a portable that their parent attended school in i'm just gonna let that marinate a minute when we build and i'm sorry i get maybe someday you'll listen to me when you build a new school and we have four middle schools that are overcrowded with 20 portables you build a brand new school and we don't get not one new seat something is wrong i am not crazy please hold your comment i am not whining i am telling you the truth i went out to the old lehigh acres middle today just to see what's happening nothing's happening they're going to wait until a few months before and they'll slap some paint on it when it should have a new face on it should have a whole bunch of new
071stuff done to it and even the people doing the job have offered and told them these are some things that need to be done and i'm sorry but the main issue was just to get a performing arts center where are our priorities i just i really don't know i don't know what else to say for three years i've been told shut up stay in my lane sit down stop asking questions and i'm still until the day i'm not sitting here i will continue to ask the same questions while you build an 84 million dollar school where you still have not shown and proven to me that you have 117 percent over capacity prove it to me show me the data and until then i will not vote for anything else now i know we need
072this property yes we do but if you watched last week as they showed us the plan this property is not for those four middle schools that have 20 portables it's not it is for the new development on the west side of 82 where over a thousand houses will go it's at the back door of the houses that will be off of aleco road how many of you if anybody lives in lehi are going to send your child across 82 to go to school because i sure wouldn't something is wrong we are building for future development and not for current need and i will say it over and over and over until i'm not sitting here anymore thank you miss kittens is there any other discussion regarding this l2 ms juvenelli so i question just what
073the plan was for this property we really weren't given an answer i understand we need property and i see the value in purchasing this property i know there's a majority of it's going to be wetlands so i know that it's a reasonable price and we do need property so i'm i'm going to support it tonight but i have to agree with miss gittins our priorities are not in order and we really should be doing that first and i'm saddened of what's happening in east lee county and shame on this board we need to be doing better and i'm just as responsible for this as all other six people up here so thank you is there any other discussion and i believe that it was a hundred acres where we were going to have to use
074on this property is my understanding i think they said this morning is wetlands which you can mitigate the wetlands but that'll be very expensive so i'll be curious to see the end results to this i mean but i would like i would like to like i wanted to hear that it would be our next technical college you know area that's one of the needs that's out there but you know we're not planning this you know and i think that we should be playing i should be it should be planned especially for 183 acres thank you miss juventus thank you okay if there is no further discussion i will ask for a hand vote miss it's morgan aye ms kittens nay miss patricka hi mr vanelli aye ms fisher and i so six one motion carries
075okay the next the next item dr savage if you could please read your recommendation for the pulled item l4 please yes madam chair l4 approval to renew itn number n187330ln for emergency debris monitoring removal and disposal awarded to custom tree care incorporated p t law and tractor services incorporated pavement maintenance llc thompson consulting services llc and whit o'brien's llc for the first renewal period of october 23rd 2021 through october 22nd 2022 at the estimated expenditure of 300 thousand dollars 300 000 pursuant to the same terms and conditions as previously approved by the board approval authorized the superintendent to execute all related documents thank you is there a mission to adopt dr savage's recommendation for l4 i'll move should we adopt dr savage's recommendation for l4 approval to renew itn number n18733oln emergency debris removal thank
076you mr fisher i may have a second please miss morgan a second thank you there was a motion recommendation it was moved by mrs fisher seconded by miss morgan and discussion and i will mr giovanelli you brought that up so you will start that would be great so it's not i know this is a renewal contract and i understand that however one of the vendors has been habitual offender in battery on actually twice now on children and so in the past we've not supported a vendor when they were in litigation and i just feel compelled to not vote for and this doesn't there are several vendors here so i just i'm not going to support this evening regarding only particularly one vendor at this time i just it's not the integrity is not there and
077i can't support it however also there was an accusation in an email we received today that one of our board members was part of getting that vendor contract with another with the another city coun a village of estero so i actually would like to know if that is a true allegation and i it really is alarming if that is in fact the truth so or anything remotely close to it so i won't be supporting this this evening only because of one of the one vendor i i'm sorry that there's other vendors lumped in there and maybe they'll utilize them instead and that may be what's going on but we didn't have as a board talk about that like we did with the roofing vendor that was in litigation a few months back so dr savage
078can you respond today well i can first i can at least have i know we have someone from procurement here today ms malay who can talk about what the process is i think speaking to specific allegations i can't speak in confidence with that however just the nature of what this bit is and the multiple vendors involved if there were concerns about any vendor's conduct i think ms malay is going to give us what she can i'll try to fill in whatever else good evening this topic was brought to us previously many months ago and i believe that it was evaluated and brought to the superintendent the prior superintendent for a recommendation after the case was reviewed it was recommended that we could proceed with this based on what the findings of that research were i
079don't have again not intimate knowledge of any of the accusations with respect to the contractual process any time that we engage with a vendor our contractual requirements require background investigations and to disclose if there is a violation of the agreement with the district which would include arrests or convictions so contractually it's incumbent upon the vendor to report and for the district to evaluate we had evaluated previously and the outcome of that evaluation was based on many factors including that the person of interest had not is not someone who ever steps foot on campus to provide services that was the recommendation that was previously bought brought forward of course if the board wants to revisit you know we're always open to doing so and so if i may so if they're if we find truth in
080something like that then we would not use them correct even though we have them on a list we just would not put that give them the jobs correct well there is a process for evaluating just because someone says something or you know it depends on each particular situation needs to be evaluated for you know people get into all different kinds of trouble with the law and some of those may or may not be related to delivery of services to the school district thank you miss vaughn and then ms kittens i'm really glad that ms juvenelli brought this up because i didn't i know without saying who who this vendor is and i know that this vendor has various companies that we use and i specifically remember the discussion now on this vendor the he under
081i think it's under alyssa's law is not allowed to come into our district where there are children however as a you know a slick move i would say this vendor has divided the ownership of his company so that he has 49 percent and either wife girlfriend owns the other half so thank you for bringing it up i will not be supporting this because i think that when we have a vendor that is not allowed on school property around children that's that's a huge problem because does this person not come to inspect the work that his people have done so i will not be supporting this thank you miss kittens can i ask when how long ago was the legal allegation from i believe it was at the beginning of this calendar year okay what was
082that what was the what was the answer i believe that previously this the this topic was brought before staff to for evaluation at the beginning of this calendar year okay so here's why thank you for that answer here's why i will not support it because there are teachers there are staff members that have tried repeatedly to work for this district and in doing a quote unquote background check things that happened 18 to 20 years ago and they were called and told they could not work for this district and they have tried and tried and they said you have to wait a year they waited the year well we can't hire you so if we can hire and pay someone but we can't hire a needed teacher i definitely will not be supporting it thank you
083is mr juvenelli so i just want to be clear he was just recently arrested in the la this past year for another battery not because this came up hit the battery prior where the video was where that we've all seen the video of him kicking someone and knocking him out in the front of their yard that was a year or two ago that was another incident right this is a newer new incident i haven't received any of that information and it that information is evaluated by professional standards and legal and so i know that previously when information was brought forward it was vetted through the different offices within the district and again if the if the school board would like us to reevaluate revisit if there's new information that information should be shared with those
084departments that evaluate those those ethical considerations i'm looking at the a case number and the case number is 21. so yeah okay thank you what's up miss morgan is this time critical no i'll double check i believe we could bring it forward return it to the next agenda so if you would like to pull the item and have a further evaluation the good news is that we have multiple vendors on this the service is provided that in the event of a disaster such as a hurricane this would be the removal of that material so the only time this bid would ever be used would be if there's a major disaster and we hire someone to remove debris based on the need thank you dr savage are you willing to withdraw this item at this time
085and bring it back absolutely more than happy to do so it looks like the renewal date is october 23rd so that does give us sometime our 22nd and so that does give us time for a prior board agenda if there's any modification needed or any additional review that we need to do on this item and again it is just for the emergency removal of debris as well so thank you for mentioning that ms melaye may i ask had her hand up and then because she had not had an opportunity i would like to make a motion that we accept this with the removal of the one name so that it can move on and i that's what i wanted to ask the attorney mr pree bruno is that something that can take possible but i
086would prefer if we pulled it and bring it back and bring it back please bring it back clean so doc just to be clear i don't want to identify the vendor at the death and miss fisher did you have because i have no idea who it is the only other question that i had for miss malay is don't we have other vendors on our list of vendors who could perform that service yes this is a multi-award right thank you okay so as it stands right now dr savage you're going to just pull it for now and then bring it back to us in a clean version or that's correct and do whatever additional looking into this matter that we have to as brought today thank you for that pleasure thank you mr vinelli so based
087on the being withdrawn i do not we do not need to take a vote okay thank you i just want to make sure thank you dr savage okay so the next on the agenda is other business and i'm going to start with miss fisher please oh okay thank you this is miss jubinelli but i'm skipping her because she doesn't like to be first so i'm gonna i'm gonna close this evening by not using the comments i had prepared but to say that i have gratitude to our students our parents our school employees and our community who are supporting one another as we navigate through this challenging time i have something i want to read it's called oh my and the author is unknown one day at a time is all we need to deal with
088we can't go back to yesterday we can't control tomorrow live for today just do your best be grateful love one another make this world a tiny bit better thank you are you is that it you're done thank you that's it thank you miss givenelli okay thank you i just want to make a correction that was earlier today that was mentioned that we had we didn't have a meeting prior to or the superintendent the board did not meet prior to him making a decision to mask mandate with an opt out initially he took he exercised his the policy 1.81 and therefore the board never met and spoke about that so i don't know why it was it's important for some board members to think that we needed to have a meeting to to consult him deciding
089to put the opt out back in based on the law i mean he did it based on the law the first time i had no idea that he was going to do it that way i thought we were going to take a vote by the board and i feel like the superintendent fell on the sword for the board so basically i think that him putting the opt out back in was a choice that he had full authority and within his you know ability as a board member i mean as a school board superintendent he and he following the law is that was his choice and he was allowed to make that choice i don't believe that he was insubordinate any way shape or form but not but by not consulting with me personally in fact
090i found out about it by later in that evening when after he made that decision after he told all the principles and i found out through not even him i got a call from dr carlin which was sufficient adequate of them trying to get the information out to the board members as quick as possible and that's how i felt that went down so i just want to be completely transparent over that how that happened and rolled out because for some reason some people are offended because he didn't ask for permission from them personally the other thing as mr armstrong brought up some facts about and i spoke to the actual our board attorney about the doors being locked and i have a big problem that you have people in in the audience they come for
091a workshop or a briefing and they sit here and then they're made to leave and it could be a quarter till six when they're made to leave to run back out to get back in line to get back you know first to get but come back inside so i just don't think that's being customer courteous and i just don't feel like that's you know that sends a message that we really don't want anybody in here and i don't i completely disagree with that and i'm not going to be supporting of that and i want to talk to this board about changing that because i don't think that if they've been in here and they've already been through the process why should they have to go back out stand in the rain and thunder and lightning
092and risk that because we do know people do get struck in florida by lightning i know it personally so i just don't think that's a risk that i am willing to take and i think they should be able to stay in here now maybe i'm the only one on this board of seven that thinks that and then if that's the case i will understand it's the will of the board that people need to leave and go back outside and go through the process all over again that they went through probably four hours before that now i understand if they leave it's their choice to leave and they have to understand they will have to go back through the process but if they don't leave and they choose to stay they shouldn't have to go back
093through that process am i the only one i want well i guess miss dupree bruno can during a briefing is the same is it the same process as it is in the middle of the afternoon is it the same process as it is for our board meetings at night so the security measures for the action meetings are different than however what i will say is also public comment we want to make sure that everyone has a fair opportunity to be in line for the public comment especially when we have meetings where we have a lot of people coming so that's one of the reasons that we ask people to leave so that we can go ahead and restart that queue and not make it unfair for anyone else who's coming the doors open and we
094do advertise that and it's all over posted on the buildings and everywhere on the website that the doors open for the action meetings in any meeting actually 20 minutes beforehand and then if if i may also if people are if we're not in here having a meeting and we're gone and that would mean a staff member or someone would have to be in here if people are in here that's why everybody's asked to leave so this can be closed up we clear we clear the boardroom okay thank you that's what i wanted to make sure is there anyone else who has any comments or questions or it's gonna be the will of the board i spent my piece i don't want those to be clear so that mr newland and i have proper direction what
095is the board's will keep the same policy that we have now or do you want it to be changed i'm gonna ask about i'm gonna go down the line for keeping it the way it is at this time it has been changed so miss morgan no change this one no change skittens i'm at the will of the board i'm neutral that's patrick no change well i'm still going to ask miss giovannelli the willow board i said that earlier i'll stick with the will of the board but that's not miss fisher hi can we have a comment from mr newland yes and thank you for working so hard to put everything together as well i apologize i had to step outside in the hallway so i want to make sure i heard the topic correctly if
096i recall i think the question was if we have an earlier meeting the question came up was can the whoever's here stay in the room until the next meeting starts at the topic no what well yeah miss giovanelli was wondering if why if you're in here for a meeting earlier why do you have to leave and then i had said is it the same protocol in the afternoon that it is in the evening as well as if people are in here if we're all out of here and people are in here that means that constitutes that we have to have a member of the district in this room because we're not going to leave people just sitting in this room and i'd ask for consistency that you know a lot sometimes earlier meetings the meeting
097may end hour two hours prior to a night meeting so there's nobody in this room i don't think that's safe to keep somebody from the public sit in the room by themselves we like to make sure we always do a walk through the room prior to a meeting that's very consistent all we're asking is we have an advisor advertised doors open 20 minutes until the next meeting so they're welcome to leave they can sit in their car whatever they like to do but yeah i'd like to keep that procedure consistent because the meetings don't end at the same time every time you have an earlier meeting versus the night meeting so again that could be 20 minutes before a late meeting or it could be three hours before a night meeting so that would have
098to create staff having to be in here the whole time thank you mr juvenelli i understand i understand that but most of the times the meetings go past five o'clock and therefore it's i mean the majority of our meetings have been well past five o'clock and it could be 20 minutes till the time i mean they still have to get up and leave when it's 20 till six and they get up and have to leave and go back outside and i mean i just think that's silly to go back outside and start the process all over again so you're saying that and that is still going to stay the same yes and everybody agrees to that wait for miss fisher because she won't have a comment yes thank you mr newland thank you no change
099and i'm sorry miss gaines you have a comment now on this if i may please is there any way to have a time frame that if someone is in 15 minutes before the next meeting starts or whatever because the meeting was late i mean i understand both sides of it but i also understand and i've heard from people that come to speak and they can't get in in time to sign up to speak as well so there's two sides of the story well let me say this that if we go with the proposal that was we're being talked about one of the things i am hearing from the public is if someone is already in here then they're going to get they want to speak and others are outside won't be able to speak because
100others are already in here so they have the advantage going well if i come in earlier meeting i can stay late i can stay and get the later meeting which will be a disadvantage those coming to a later meeting so i'm trying to be consistent as far as best we can for all the public to have a fair chance to speak as the war policy says thank you and i and i agree i think that we need to make sure that we are consistent in what we're doing because this back and forth creates more headaches i believe okay so but my concern is again is safety if you're making them leave and go out in the rain if they don't you know or go to their car in the middle of the rain i mean
101i think that it's i just i don't agree with that but okay thank you me you're out of order excuse me you're out of order it's me you're out of order miss jenner never know that's resolved so i guess that's your next word and miss kirschner just left and i was just gonna say i've seen her emails come through and i afforded them to the superintendent and i wanted to let her know that but she's left so i will make that statement anyways and dr savage you'll follow up on that please yeah the update i received was that ms bowen our ese director has been working with ms kirchner on some the esc related item that was brought up and that dr sparrow's also aware of the issue okay great so i took care of
102that and then and that's it thank you so much i don't i got my list thank you thank you ms patricka so i gave my board report this afternoon but i would like to just remind the board that we're falling off our product protocols we're supposed to inform each other with a memo 24 hours before a pull and that didn't occur tonight those are my comments thank you okay thank you miss kittens yes i apologize for breaking protocol but i did i thought i mentioned it yesterday when i brought it up in a discussion but anyway i just i think if you go back and watch my statement this afternoon about the comments that were made about removing the superintendent i think i said it all then and you can go back and watch it
103was from my heart and from my mind i just feel like we have got to put forth a good effort if we're looking for a superintendent to come and sit in that chair or maybe we're not just i'll let that sit out there i want to always make sure to say to our staff and people working in the schools i watch the bus drivers that stand up there my heart goes out to you i have an issue with the fact that we can't get it across the finish line to give them a raise and i don't know if it's the negotiations that are standing in the way and i wouldn't know about talc and spout because in three years they've only met with me twice and i have requested visits i have requested to be
104on the calendar and i have been denied what the other six members have on a monthly basis last time i spoke to anyone on talc we were here for something and we stood out in the hall and talked for five minutes and at the end of that i was told i'll mark this down as our monthly meeting five minutes in the lobby so i have no idea what talc and spock are doing for you i would suggest that you guys find that out and talk to someone about it because if i had an opportunity i would ask them but they won't meet with me i asked the previous superintendent to make that happen twice they spoke to me so i just want to put that out there and the one time it was so that
105they could fuss with me that i was not going along with something they wanted to do that's not going to happen if it's not right it's not going to happen i have said in the last couple of meetings you know people get up and talk about oh we're going to vote you out please if that's what you want to do that's fine but like i said today until i'm no longer sitting in this chair i will continue to discuss the things that need to be changed and there are things that must be changed in this district and i will say finally in the three years that i've been sitting here thank you dr savage for not once ever saying to me to stay in my lane and shut up thank you miss kittens miss vaughn
106please yes okay i am the board liaison to the edac committee and i believe we were the first of the board advisory committees to to meet i know all the september meetings are going on right now or have have finished as the board liaison my report to edac was regarding the superintendent search talk to them about the information that they could find on the website including the survey and the forums and actually because we were meeting so early i didn't have the total information but i did talk to them about it mrs dupree bruno gave her usual excellent overview of robert's rules everything you ever wanted to know about robert's rules and then some and also talked to them about sunshine and we had presentations mr bradley miss duncan it was a it was a
107virtual meeting it was on zoom we had excellent participation i love the people on edac because they always have something to say however i will have to say that i think we went two hours and 10 minutes so it was it was a long meeting and one one of the things that i do want to mention is miss kathy eva was there talking about the site selection committee and that's really important six people from the dak committee two from each zone and also three from edac and we had no problem having volunteers to to fill for the site selection committee so that's some information for those of you who wonder you know who's on the site selection committee those advisory people are important part of that we also had the student advisory committee meet this
108week it was on zoom and i'll have to say it was very disappointing because we had a very we had very we had great presentation but we really had very few students attending so i think we're going to revisit some things on on that before the next meeting but those those students that were there were great participants but it was a very very small group i also wanted to mention a couple other things that occurred this week and i just want to go through this very very quickly since we've been talking a lot about dr savage and the mass mandate and the his rescinding of the unrestricted mandate a little bit of history on on the week for i believe friday the 10th of september i called for a special meeting and i believe it
109was about 3 30 in the afternoon on of last week and for those of you who don't know there are a couple ways that a special meeting can be called the chair can call for a special meeting if she feels that it's necessary the superintendent can call for a special meeting also individual board members the way i did can call for a special meeting and then what happens is that the board members are polled it may be by our secretaries in the office or in this particular case there was a friday afternoon polling of board members by our board attorney there's some things the reason i'm mentioning this i have two things that surround it that i want to make a point about the first one is that the original poll was for four members
110including myself a yes and two members voted no and so that should have been put in place we should have gone forward with the special meeting then monday rolls around and remember this is the weekend where dr savage made the decision to rescind the mandate that he put forward which was totally as was mentioned earlier totally with within his abilities within within his powers as a superintendent to use one 1.181 that policy and so i it was also since he had put it in an effect it was also within his jurisdiction as as a superintendent to rescind that and i'm not here to talk specifically about that decision but things that revolved around it that i find extremely disturbing so as i was the person that asked for that meeting i emailed our board chair
111and said i would like to know the count and i would like to know who was the person that rece you know changed her vote not that it was going to change anything but it was within my right and so miss jordan did write that to me and gave me a long explanation with excuses and what time things happened and then this and that i won't go into that anymore and i emailed back and i said but you didn't answer my question please tell me the original vote and who got a second reply same thing no answer on that third time i spelled it out very specifically what i wanted to know this was some this was important to me just to know it's like when you take a vote you look who voted for
112who voted against doesn't mean anything in particular unless you know unless the person's maybe running for office or whatever but i just wanted to know third time and i had said i'm only an ass three times did not get an answer i finally contacted our board attorney and got my answer and again i'm not even going to mention who voted which way i'm just going to say i'm and miss jordan knows this and i'm very upset that as a board member i was denied this okay let's segue that into something else mrs patricka sent us a copy today of a letter that she had sent to dr savage and all of us on the board got it's you know it's public information since that has been shared with all of us and in it she
113said that well one of the things it was several paragraphs and she did cite a lot of reasons to keep the mask mandate again i'm not here at this point to talk about mass mandates yes no restricted unrestricted i'm here to talk about the process and how we work as a board and this is very disturbing to me in her letter to dr savage she said one thing that he went ahead without consulting the board that he went ahead without public discussion so obviously the mention of public discussion made it important to mrs patricka interestingly there were a couple other letters that were forwarded to all of us as is part of our protocol where mrs patricka was answering a couple constituents and her answer to both of these constituents who had written to her
114to protest the rescinding of the board i'm sorry the rescinding of the mask mandate the unrestricted mask mandate and again i'm not here to talk about mass mandate but how things are done around here which disturbs me and she said first of all i feel like she kind of threw a couple people under the bus in in that reply stating that she had talked to mrs dupree bruno on i believe it was on friday evening or over the weekend and she used the word assured in it she said our attorney assured her that oh it had to be friday because it was when miss patrick was pulled and mr free bruno assured her that dr savage from her discussions with him would not be changing the mandate that he had in place now remember this
115is also the time frame when we went from judge cooper's ruling to the appellate court okay so then dr savage called or either dr savage or dr carlin called all of us at the end of the weekend and gave us the information that dr savage was after consideration was in fact pulling this and again there was a change from when it was first put in following judge cooper's ruling to the appellate court and then i believe it was the next day that there was a federal i might be off on the days but then we have a federal ruling as well but the thing that confuses me is that if it was so important to have a discussion with the public why didn't this board member say yes to a special meeting but she said
116no she was one of the two people that initially said no to that meeting and again this is this is knowledge that's out there it's all in emails and so we've had a lot of discussion today from this deus enough is enough is enough i've had enough over the past almost three years of board manipulations of games of i initially announced that i was going to bring up a motion to censor certain board members but i'm not going to do that since it would probably be nipped in the bud since we have talked about not policing each other so i'm not going to do that but i'm just going to say you know that wonderful presentation that miss dupree bruno gave the edac committee maybe there's some people on this board that need to remember
117a little bit about sunshine and about telling other people oh we've been working on this one because we're not sure we have her vote i don't care if it was a daisy chain that is still a sunshine violation and so i have had the finger pointed at me i can't even tell you how many times i've had complaints waged against me never any findings on it and i for all of you out there you know how i feel about the mess you know how i feel and i think it's that we are not having a mandate but that said i'm not here to talk about that i'm here to talk about how people act on this board and i'm sick and tired of it and the games and the manipulations it must stop thank you
118miss vaughn miss morgan yeah so actually i wasn't going to say anything tonight but i will respond to this let me make it clear i did speak to attorney dupree bruno on that friday she said that there was that somebody had made a motion it wasn't clear to me what the or not emotion someone had asked for a special meeting it wasn't clear to me what the special meeting was about as far as i was concerned nothing had changed and i told her i s with nothing having changed i see no reason to proceed with a special meeting so i'm one of the people who said no because i thought everything was in place and i saw no need to bring the policy back or to bring the decision back i don't remember being polled
119on monday i i know there was another thing on monday but you all recall that i said i think when we ask for special meetings we need to do it in writing and so that the board chair and the superintendent know what the purpose of the request is because i felt through all of these conversations that i wasn't on solid ground with respect to what was the question being asked with with respect to a special meeting so i just i just want to be clear that i was very confused and that's why i asked for clarity moving forward with respect to special meetings and that's that's actually that's my board comment for i think that's yeah that's my board comment for tonight thank you thank you thanks goodness do you have something i just wanted
120to take a second on the comment about a special meeting i did request in writing several times for special meetings and in case you didn't know i do a read receipt and some of you deleted it before you read it on several occasions so i did not want to have the meeting because we already had a meeting scheduled for that tuesday so that was why i opted out at the last minute for that but it's the equity on this board is not there we're just not there we just aren't and i don't know what's going to cause it to happen i don't know if it's conscience or or what but we need to find it thank you and well i guess it's me and i know that thank you miss vaughn for bringing all that
121up and why i don't feel that i have to justify i am going to say that i we received that stuff at 10 something 10 p.m in the evening is when i was getting all the i did not i do not pull anybody that's when i was getting the information and i do apologize that i do have a family that needs to be taken care of so that is going to that will take place so it's not i try to be here in this district every chance and opportunity that i have to be here i never ever neglect my duties nor will i ever do that i don't care what time of day it is what what hour even driving two hours last night i was on the phone trying to work and i was
122still back here for these meetings so i've never missed a meeting i will never miss a meeting no matter what and i did have conversation with the superintendent and i both discussed this we understood what there was a poll we understood there were people who wanted it we understood that it was already for a discussion on the 21st we were speaking on the data and every single thing that we were going to bring forward on the 21st so that everybody was clear on where the district was going we did have i did have conversations with mr pre-bruno to make sure and not only that we have people in our offices who were ill who were not here we were short-handed in there and just trying to get a hold of everyone and have you ever
123tried to call all of you probably not because just trying to get a hold of you took an entire day and then some to even to even get an answer and then we had we redid that whole thing again and it took every minute because people are busy with their lives so we it happened twice that we try to get everybody to contact to get all the information so we could go forward if that was the if that's what the board wanted to do the entire board or the majority so i will never neglect my duties i will always that will be my priority it always has been and it will continue to be so i just wanted to say that clarify something yes please okay perhaps you misunderstood what i said i said that
124you replied to me each time but each time you gave me a long explanation without answering my question and i had a simple question that i made even simpler in request number three i just wanted to know what was the result of the poll who voted which way and who changed her mind that's that's all i wanted to know thank you miss vaughn and you did say that i responded but you said i responded with excuses they were you did but anyway sorry but thank you mr preet bruno i just want to make sure that everybody understands that i'm copied on those emails and there's nothing of substance that they are discussing just trying to get a date and to figure out whether or not they should have a special meeting so i'll make sure
125that's very clear ensure that everyone knows that there's no violation of sunshine the other thing i wanted to share is i'm going to just read this the school board shall one lead with vision by keeping the focus on the future rather than the past or two empower through processes three encourage and listen for the diversity and the views of all in the community four lead strategically five create a clear dis distinction between school board and administrative roles six make decisions based on factual information seven make decisions collectively rather than individually eight govern proactively rather than reactively this is your board policy 1.06 school board's philosophy the school board of lee county governs with an emphasis on its well-defined purpose improved student achievement therefore the school board shall one through eight thank you and dr savage
126before i come to you i just want to say with the bus drivers i really appreciate all that you do and i actually had gone to a meeting where i wind up seeing about 50 of you there so i brought back all the information that was shared because that's what we're to do and i shared it with dr savage so they are definitely aware of things that were concerning so i just wanted to share that information and thank you for getting our children to and from school dr savage thank you madam chair i just want to express my just gratitude to all people out there in the schools working so hard every day it's i know that this is a lot of attention here but i gotta tell you the work that's going on in
127the schools right now the sacrifices that people are having to make just everyone all of our kids out there learning it's it's just a lot of work going out there right now and i just kind of kind of keep my focus on that as much as i possibly can i appreciate the support that folks kind of offered here today in this room but i would say again in my mind it's really not about me this is not a popularity contest this is really about us serving our community so just really appreciate the kind words but at the same time you know my job is not always very popular i have to make decisions and they have to kind of stand for principles and so one of those that i've been very clear and very consistent
128on is trying to act and the best understanding of the law as it is and so that's that's my role as an executive so i do appreciate the kind words but understand that some decisions are going to make people pleased and others are going to make them upset i just want to reiterate to the people who were pleading today through masks and whatnot that we re-implement the mask mandate the mass requirement has been in place since the start of school and it's been in place the entire time the only thing that has changed is the opt-outs when we were given a little bit more latitude that was clear that's when that change occurred and only then while we still have different interpretations based on the doe understanding where we continue to monitor the evolving legal
129situation of what it is and again my job as the executive as it stands right now based on the authority given within these policies is to follow the law that means i have to follow federal law state law and of course our local law so that is that is what i'm doing i'm not trying to make any one group happy that is not my objective it's not a popularity contest again but i do appreciate the kind words that said you know i really encourage everyone to just focus on what we can do for our schools the people working in it our students the families people have been through a lot out in our community anything we can do all of us anyone in this room to to really help enhance the educational process to help
130serve our community by lifting up our young people by lifting up the people who are working with such as our bus drivers our teachers staff in schools that's the challenge i would offer to anyone here there's clearly a lot of passion and commitment in this room among all of us from our respective roles but but if we can come together on one thing i think it's that we all probably really really value our children and that's going to be where i continue to put my focus so thank you very much thank you dr savage the next scheduled meetings of the board on monday october the 4th there will be a board workshop at 1pm on tuesday october the 5th there will be a board briefing at 1 pm followed by an action meeting at 6
131pm at this point having no other business to come before this body and seeing no objections this meeting is adjourned thank you and good night you