001good afternoon everyone today is Tuesday the 25th and the time is 101. has the lot been cleared yes are we good on the lobby has the lobby been cleared we good Chief thank you we are here today for our school board briefing meeting today however we're going to enter a five minute recess we'll come back at 106. thank you foreign didn't tell his mom but I was hoping that it's welcome back everyone it's 106. thank you everyone so we're going to proceed with our school board briefing meeting today does the superintendent have any changes or comments no changes well actually a change Mr chair we're going to move the final presentation listed as number four the independent sales tax or text oversight committee we're going to move that up to agenda item number one due
002to the chairman of that committee's schedule today the other piece is I would like to as the board members are aware I'd like to make the community and other people aware that we had to make a change in tonight's agenda during the past six months the school district of Lee County has been working alongside the Fort Myers Beach Citizens Business Leaders Town officials and the mayor as we plan the best way path and as we plan the best path forward for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School the districts has been negotiating an interlocal agreement with the town of Fort Myers Beach that was to be brought forth at the direction of the board at the same time that you asked me to bring forward a decision to move forward on the building unfortunately that Ila was
003received yesterday and there's still now an additional need for a more in-depth review and additional negotiations based upon new language that's been added to the Ila therefore the previously posted item on tonight's agenda will need to be pulled because the board asked me to be sure we brought the decision moving forward along with the Ila the district will continue to negotiate in good faith with the town of Fort Myers Beach and we believe that they are in that same position with us we will bring forward an Ila to a future board meeting in May this will ensure that not only the school board has enough time to review the documents so that you can make the most informed decision possible but it also gives the public the opportunity to thoroughly review those items in a
004true seven-day posting so our recommendation at this time is and we are moving forward on the agenda tonight with the chair's permission we'll be pulling the item for Fort Myers Beach Elementary so thank you thank you for the update Mr superintendent okay we're going to proceed to we're going to start with item four then we'll be preceded at that point by item one item four is the independent sales third tax oversight committee and director Malay welcome thank you I'd like to introduce isoc chair Mr Steve Shimp who will be delivering the isoc presentation to the board today I need to be personal armor it's been years since you coached my kids at tennis so as as mentioned by Susan I'm chairman of the independent sales surtax oversight committee and here to give you the annual
005report on that particular aspect of the district we'll be going over a little bit of history as to the committee a little bit of as to what the voters approved when they approved it now five years ago an overview of the construction and renovation projects a look at additional sales tax funded projects which are significant Beyond renovation and new construction an overview of the compliance requirements some information as to what kind of community community communication and engagement has been done to date and also a recommendation as to what we see in the future with regard to community communication for that after that I'll open it up for questions and hopefully Susan will help me along the way if I can't handle one we'll let her do it and the isoc committee is proposed of what
006are considered quote qualified community members they have an experienced background broad across the community there are a number of business people we have people who have an accounting background thankfully we have employees who have retired from the district so that they have us they can give us a perspective into the operations of the district we have some people who are rooted predominantly in government in their background but we cover a wide gamut of background types we're also diverse we represent the various Community sides of our community where there are 15 members and two alternates all of us are residents of Lee County we serve as volunteers with no compensation we cannot be a current District employee we must be approved by the school board and we do serve in staggering terms of two and four
007years and the alternate members don't have voting rights they do attend the meetings but don't have voting rights the sales tax results to date have brought 385 385 million dollars into the district has been received since March of 2023 there have been expended funds of 2. or 261 million and the split between those two numbers are predominantly dealing with timing and the time that it takes to field the project and of course expend the funds accomplish the work and expend the funds there are four authorized spending categories in the enabling call legislation or approval by the voters that is Construction safety maintenance Capital maintenance not the normal day-to-day maintenance and Technology so far we've created 3.7 000 new member seats new student seats across the district so we've seeded more than 3 700 people in
008New and new construction 100 percent of our schools have received support and if you go on the isoc and the sales tax website you can actually click on a school there and see specifically what has been done in that particular School location a significant number of schools have been touched by security measures in particular the construction and renovation projects as I said the 3700 seats create seats created represent about three percent of an increase in District seating capacity we've had seven major projects completed or Gateway High School and Lehigh Acres Middle under construction and I'll have a hard time pronouncing it a man is here and I'm sure I have that wrong Elementary is under construction currently we've completed two major renovation projects Lehigh senior high school and James Stevens Pre-K and we have three
009significant remodels in process Franklin Park Fort Myers Technical and Riverdale High School so that there's a lot happening from the sales tax dollars that would not otherwise be happening our safety upgrades have exceeded 81 million dollars since we've started expending funds they are considerable they include routing of people in and out for safety reasons communication and improvements with our law enforcement community communication improvements within the school a number of safety things we've provided 22 000 Chromebooks during covid so that students that when we were remote for the three-month period students would have access and have their own Chromebook we have provided 73 000 Chromebooks in what we call the refresh program which takes the old ones that may not be working properly and retires them and make sure that the students have current technology we've
010installed classroom interactive video panels throughout the district and audio amplification systems that have helped considerably in the instructional process there are multiple unseen capital projects that are replacing parts of our school that need it new air conditioning systems that lead to more efficiency roofs that need replacement window systems that are being upgraded to be hardened schools flooring that's being replaced an electrical switch gear those five areas are the most significant but there are about 20 areas of Capital Improvements that have made been made throughout the district some of them are real obvious it's not real obvious when you replace electrical switch gear that's 32 years old and you can no longer get parts for though so that some of some of these significant expenses are occurring within the district and they're quite as visible to
011the public in terms of compliance with the referendum requirements our committee is very much aware of the four areas that we have to expend the funds or the district has to expend the funds Within at every meeting the question is asked are the projects that are being paid for with this in compliance with what the voters voted for and is the finance report accurate as much as we can tell from the reporting I would tell you that our members take this process very seriously there are questions that come up and they get answered sometimes they need to be researched but you have a curious group of taxpayers looking out for the taxpayers dollar in terms of communication and Community engagement the district predominantly has handled this to date media press release of course on the
012projects that are underway are an ongoing effort their social media that constantly updates us to the most recent project started and completed and we have videos that go out on this under social media as to what's going on in the district the website if you have not visited it please do there are a number of buttons that give a taxpayer an opportunity to look into and see the things that are that are going on as relates to their sales tax we have engaged and the district has initiated an economic impact study on the economic impact of the sales tax legislation that has been essentially completed is now within the district and being reviewed for comment we our committee has not yet seen it we're looking forward to it we think that the impact of the
013half cent sales tax will be considerable in terms of economic activity and last but not least our committee has has worked with a subcommittee for communication purposes over the last six to eight months kind of got off track by Ian if there's anyone who didn't get off track by him please raise your hand everybody got off track by you and we hope to launch it in the fall of last year put that on hold when the en crisis came aboard but we have we have our committee members have assembled a presentation that would offer to the public a view of what we are doing as a district with a half cent sales tax we've identified organizations that we would roll that out to and we're prepared to do that those presentations will be part of
014what we're asking you to take action on today last and not least in terms of communication and Community engagement if you look at what's on the slide there's a little blurb here that gets inserted in the various Sports programs as we field things and there are a list of things that have happened in the individual school that someone might be visiting at that time so we're doing the best we can to communicate to the public that their dollars are being spent on the things that they voted to spend them on I believe it's pretty apparent as you visit our schools and you start to see things that are new and fresh this fall and our recommendation is that you would come aboard in endorsing this effort we're looking at fielding ISAC committee members going to
015various service organizations and partners of the district along with people from staff and obviously school board members are welcome to join us we would we would give the presentation to the Hispanic chamber to start with Kiwanis clubs the National panhellenic Council rotary clubs and the foundation for public schools and I think we agreed Susan with the Horizon Council potentially being one that's not listed here but we would take that presentation out I personally hope to get some feedback from the early ones do you want to know more or did we Overkill it in terms of the information but basically Express to the public particularly those people that are in a service organizations as to what we're doing and where their dollar is going with that I'd open it up Chris I don't know sorry about
016Dr Berner if you have comments and board discussion and if I can answer questions I'll be more than happy to Mr chair my comments will be brief except to thank Mr shim for his service as well as the entire committee the committee has turned over slightly with the new board members I believe you have people with great experience this is a difficult committee to seat because of the technical knowledge needed to review purchases on other things and yet we can't have active vendors who are participating in our construction program share the opportunity to also oversee construction so it's a it's a delicate balance which I think you have done a great job by your appointments and continuing to move forward clearly our half penny sales is still good for a number of a number of
017years but we do still have more work to go work to do Lee County continues to be one of the exceptions in the State of Florida with continued growth we are one of the few counties that is still seeing significant increase in the number of students and families and we still have an amazing amount of vacant property east of 75 live so we're going to consent continue to see develop to the East and to the north east as we get up closer to our neighboring County to the north so really appreciate this opportunity I think what we're doing to get the information out has been good to this point but I also think there's an opportunity now to really be getting to engage the public well in advance of this coming up for any type
018of renewal I'll turn it over to the chairman Vice chair for comments and board discussion thank you board members we have any questions or comments Mr persons oh as the Ian impacted the sales tax revenues there has when that question came up at our last meeting there have been no sales tax funded expended in dealing with the en problems that we've had specifically of the revenues I'm sure they went down a little bit but now with all the construction are they going up some you mean the revenues from them fights both ways armor the when you have something occurring you know I was in the industry as you know when you have something occur like an Ian there's a lot of economic activity that occurs in the rebuilding effort and it offsets to a significant
019extent the lack of economic activity from the destroyed facilities and the people who have lost employment we have seen that the sales tax revenue that's come into the district has consistently either kept pace or slightly been ahead of what the projections were so we've been able to continue to do what's what's going out running parallel to that the supply chain problems that preceded the storm and the labor difficulties that are a current event have increased prices of things the district it through the capital planning process not our committee is the one that deals with the prioritization of what the funds will be expended for it's important to note that we are in the business of looking at whether on behalf of the taxpayer the money's being spent as it was intended to be spent with
020by what they're passed but not prioritizing the projects amongst themselves thank you that answered my question thank you for being here and for your comprehensive presentation looking at slide three where it talks about qualified community members you kind of smiled and went over that super quickly but you are an example of other individuals in the community that populate this committee that you bring automatic credibility to this report because of your reputation in this committee I'm sorry in this community and because you are a community leader you and others on the committee it's very important when you stand in front of this board and you say all of the expenditures have been in accordance with what the voters approved people believe that because you said it and I'm grateful for your work and your willingness to
021volunteer here I am also really excited at the prospect of you and others on the committee going out to the public to these service organizations and talking about what you've learned and again bringing that credibility even further Beyond The Boardroom and Beyond the committee so I'm I mean that's that's a suggestion you said if we approve it you have my 100 approval on that and I'm grateful thank you I would tell you with regard to us stating that the expenditures have been in accordance it's conceivable that in a detailed audit there will be something that has been paid for with sales tax dollars that doesn't fall within the four parameters I mean I would tell you that with when you start spending 270 million dollars on various projects that probably is somewhere in there we
022have not been able to find it but you know it really is to the best of our ability I have had one-on-one meetings with staff people and raised areas myself where I had concern you know let's be careful and make sure we don't get over here because that's maintenance that's not Capital maintenance projects they're very much aware of it that interaction has been going on is it perfect I don't think anybody on our committee would say it's absolutely Flawless bring in a thousand Auditors and you'll find nothing but I would say loud and clear you will find nothing of substance now for your service can you just for the Public's sake can you just tell what you do I think that's really important miss Patricia brought up a little retired guy I never years ago
023I started a company here in town called Owen Ames Kimball we built numerous schools in Lake County I retired at the end of 2007 sold my stock in the company so that I had no financial interest I was a part-time employee 309 on for the for the calendar year 10 they asked me to come on Mondays because people apparently thought I was still doing something so I did that at the end of 2010 my compensation totally stopped from the company and I have no financial interest but of course a strong construction background I continue to do work in the industry as an expert in various legal matters and I'm excited that I'm on my last case at this point and hopefully it will wind up soon it happens to be very large but I'm still
024working in that regard thank you so much well we're also hiring on operations a chief of operations I didn't know if you have a spare moment thank you know I'm going from here to my church at six o'clock to give a report for as I'm chairman of our senior pastor nominating committee and I appreciate the suggestion but I've got God's plenty to do so thank you has been recruited anything else okay Mr ship thank you for the presentation thank you for you and your committee members the service for our community I appreciate that thank you we're hopefully we're doing a good job for you folks we think we're doing a good job we're working at it so thank you very good next up on the agenda is item number one construction change order Report with
025Mr Rickenbacker thank you I think that's it good afternoon board members Dr benir Esquire De Pere Bruno this is your report track Capital change order report for February 2023. as you'll notice on the first slide it's just a brief overview we had direct material purchases change orders in the amount of 489 312.52 cents with tax savings returned to The District in the amount of twenty seven thousand seven hundred twenty dollars and fifty two cents non-direct material purchases in the amount of forty seven thousand eight eighty one dollars and sixty five cents all of which was returned to the district and we had zero contingency adjustments to report if you go to the following backup sheet what you'll notice is we have five change odors all of these are deductive change orders which are project savings
026that are returned to the district coffers and on the top sheet you'll see a direct material purchase that was for Fort Myers High School that is all of the welding laboratory exhaust hoods that we direct purchase and receive the tax savings so 27 000 was returned back to the district any questions Mr superintendent you have anything to add no sir board members questions or comments okay thank you Mr Rickenbacker thank you have a good day moving on to item number two France Law Group litigation presentation foreign good afternoon members of the board my name is William shinoff I'm an attorney with the France Law Group out of California I want to start off with a little bit of background about myself and then I'll get into this litigation so prior to joining the France Law
027Group I practice strictly education law representing a majority of the school districts in Southern California as their general counsel and also acting as litigation counsel I then moved over to the France Law Group three years ago where I had our public entity practice representing public entities but on the plaintiff side three years ago I began the litigation specifically representing school districts against Jewel and Altria dealing with the youth vaping epidemic and I represented almost a thousand school districts across the country in that case which ended up being about 70 percent of the public entities involved in that litigation which in December we had some success and we are currently actually in trial against Altria during the time prior to joining the France Law Group and while I've been in France Law Group I've been investigating
028the matter regarding the harms of social media on our youth and we when we go into cases like this which we handle on contingency fee we do a lot of legal analysis into it looking at the law and then also looking at the facts and what we could present into a case before we go and jump into a venture like this representing public entities while we looked into it there was you know one large hurdle we saw which was the immunity that these social media companies have been using the past 10 years regarding litigation against them specifically they use what's called section 230 of the communication decency act to go and prevent litigation against them the communication decency Act was an Act created by Congress in 1996 to which was to promote the internet to
029go and make sure that they were not going to be constantly sued and we wanted the internet to be built this was before social media companies even existed but they have used that as a shield to protect themselves from liability but over the past two years the appellate courts across the country have taken a different view on these social media companies immunity and so what occurred three months three months ago at this point is the U.S Supreme Court did hear or oral argument about whether social media companies do have immunity but what the immunity is specifically is about is regarding whether you are allowed to sue these companies on content posted by Third parties but what moved this case forward to us now bringing these lawsuits was two things one was regarding the development of
030federal law regarding school districts bringing what we call public nuisance cases which we developed in the jewel litigation we now have very strong law regarding School District standing to bring these cases on behalf of the youth in their Community to protect them two what happened was a whistleblower that came forward from meta So Meta is the parent company to Facebook and Instagram what did what this whistleblower named Francis Hogan came and she went and brought went and disclosed dog internal documents of meta to the Wall Street Journal and Wall Street Journal went and did a full investigation into the company and she went and spoke in front of Congress and what she advised is that these companies while there is a benefit to social media there's no doubt about it there's there is great benefits
031to it for adults but what there is a great harm to the youth through social media and so what she advises that these companies are in the business of addiction the whole way they make money is through making sure that people are on their platform as much as possible that's not only because they get to sell they get to go and sell ads so you're constantly seeing ads on their platforms but also they're collecting your data but what they do know through their own internal documents is the harms that come with social media that comes with the constant use of it and so what what they've advised is that there there is a psychological effect to the social media and whether it's being through the likes that you see you're seeing you're getting the emails
032saying people are liking your messages it's you're getting a dopamine effect in your brain just like with drugs and you're constantly wanting it and needing it but what they also know is that to keep children on their platforms they need to go and push very harmful and divisive content because that is what attracts them to it that's what keeps them on it and what a recent study in 2020 showed was that 74 of Youth are at least using social media three hours a day 24 said that they're using it more than seven hours a day and so what that brings us to is there is now A disruption to the learning environment kids are constantly on their phone whether they're messaging their friends whether they're getting you know harmful messages from each other and as
033I'm traveling the country meeting with boards now what principles whether it's Elementary Middle School or high school what they've advised us is that this is not a weekly issue dealing with social media it's not even a daily issue it's an hourly issue that they're dealing with issues related to social media and so that brings us to the point of well what can we do to make change and what can we do to make sure that these companies are doing the change that's necessary because they've had the opportunity they've been warned they've been sued and they've we've now seen seen change we've now seen the state of Utah they went and created legislation putting now the onus on these companies to protect children we've seen Arkansas do it recently there was a bill that was just
034put forward in California regarding making changes to specifically to protect children at this point because they are not making the change what this whistleblower advises that there are very easy changes that these companies can make but they are putting our children's well-being at the bottom because they want to make sure they're profiting because if they make these changes they will not profit as much so that's what we can do through our litigation is make these changes because legislation is now taking a very long time to develop and while we hope that the legislation will eventually come into place to go Force these companies to make change us as attorneys we can force them to make this change through what we call injunctive relief so that's a federal court order requiring them to to make change
035so specifically in this litigation what we're going to be asking them to is to change their algorithm because right now their algorithm goes and pushes this harmful content onto them and we know they can make the change and that can be done second we want is parental controls because right now the way that these platforms work is we have exactly so we have Snapchat which messages disappear they can be timed they can they can do it and your parents will never know what was being said endured on we want them to go and put parental restrictions in the past two weeks we've been filing these cases now for about a month and a half all of a sudden tick tock goes Facebook now all of a sudden you're now seeing apps little warnings popping up
036hey now we have a parental restriction that's great they're making the change but we want a court order requiring them to to keep this in place we also want there to be the age verification while they say you need to be 13 there's nothing they're doing to actually verify the age and working with the parents because at the end of the day there there should be some parental involvement because they're still minors to go make sure there's age verification and the other portion of what we're trying to do in this case on the non-monetary component is open opening up the lines communication between school districts and these companies because it's every week now at this point you are seeing either there's children committing suicide as a result of things that were put on social media
037you're thinking seeing threats to schools as a result of social media and school districts are contacting these companies never returning excuse me one second can you hold on board attorney so Mr shinoff I know that your slides are not moving oh notice that so I don't know if your intention was to be able to so the board can follow where you are yeah yeah I wasn't sure if you guys were provided a printed copy or anything like that so thank you of course thank you please proceed of course appreciate it so what we're also trying to do is open open up the lines of communication between these companies and the school districts because time and time again we're hearing about school districts contacting these companies to ask them to remove a post because of something
038that harmful that's been put on by one of their students and unfortunately at times it's too late the child has harmed themselves and the content is still up there the other part do is taking threats when there's a threat to a campus obviously every threat we've got to take is to be credible and making sure that these companies are working with the school districts to to handle these threats so that's the non-monetary component so foreign as I did not go based off the slides this is going over a little bit of the facts regarding this case now at the same time that this whistleblower came out in front of Congress the U.S Surgeon General advised that we do have a youth Mental Health crisis at this point in a large part of that Mental Health
039crisis is a result of social media about four months ago the U.S Surgeon General advised that children under the age of 13 should not even be using social media because of how harmful it is now regarding the benefits now we I went over the non-monetary component of what are the benefits for public entities to be involved in this litigation now there is a monetary component so in this case one of our main claims against the company is a public nuisance claim and under the public nuisance claim we have a right to seek what's called abatement funds and what that is legal damages to go and pay to go and fix the harm that these companies have caused now specifically what we're going to be seeking is funding to go and deal with mental health issues
040on campus so be able to go and give funds for school districts to go and increase either school counselors or any other mental health staff provide educate provide further educational opportunities for students security and those are the types of monetary component because we want to hold these companies accountable monetarily instead of relying on taxpayer dollars to fix the problems that they've created so to kind of give you a little background on my firm I wanted to focus on just the past three years some of the successes we've had on going against these companies an unfortunate part of living in California is we do have wildfires and those wildfires unfortunately are also caused by our electrical companies in the past three years we've we represented almost 10 000 individuals against Pacific Gas and Electric we have
041three electrical companies in California Pacific Gas and Electric is one of the largest ones and we recovered almost thirteen and a half billion dollars on behalf of our clients we also at the same day there was wildfires in Southern California which were caused by Southern California Edison that burnt down some very significant portions of Los Angeles and we've recovered in excess of 1.8 billion dollars on behalf of our clients we were also as I said involved with the jewel litigation which which resolved this last December and there are a number of other matters that we've resolved and that's kind of the background of success of going against large corporations in this litigation you know we will be representing over a thousand school districts again in this matter this is not a class action this is
042what's called a mass action so we will be filing individual actions on behalf of every school district they will there is already what's called a multi-district litigation that's been Consolidated in the Northern District of California where all the school districts cases will be in the next I'd say nine months there will be a selection of what we call Bellwether school districts which will be the first six school districts to try their cases we will be going and determining which districts We Believe are the best to go and represent that normally we try to have large small and medium-sized school districts to provide a good representative model and so dependent on what where your district is regarding whether you're a Bellwether or non-belwether I will be determined on how much work your staff will have to
043do and we leave that up to our clients regarding whether what role you'd like to play I should have said no chairman go ahead I have a question for you attorney Juan are you involved in any of those Bellwether cases and two are you involved in the multi-district action that's pending in Northern California at this time so first yes I do the first trial that's going on right now that's not my client in the future kit trials I will those will be one of my clients has been selected now regarding the current multi-district litigation in San Francisco yes I do I already have about a little over 80 clients in that litigation that we've already filed for thank you yes and so at that point once there is a selection we would go and let's
044say if your District was selected to be one of the Bellwether trials we would go back to you and to decide whether benefits of being it and what it would look like if that would be something that your District would be interested in being involved in so that so that's regarding the time consumption so if you're a non-belwether it's going to be strictly to go and complete a discovery questionnaire which should take up to 10 hours completing that and that would be the staff involvement in this case regarding the cost to the district so we work on this on a contingency fee basis so there is no Financial Risk for the district to be involved in the case because if there is no financial recovery the district will pay no fees and no costs and
045then all as well we also do this on a reduced contingency fee because normally the standard in the industry is 40 percent of the recovery for my public entity practice we do it at 25 percent no matter how long the litigation will take so with that being said I wanted to open up to any questions thank you Mr shinoff I'm going to ask Mr superintendent if he has any questions or comments Then followed by Madame board attorney before we go to the board members please Mr Vice chair I don't have any questions at this time Jen the likelihood I know you've talked about the 25 contingency fee what is the likelihood of the Court ordering additional attorneys fees yeah so what there could be at that point is there's also what's called a common benefit
046fund fee that and that is not an attorney fee it's to reimburse the timing costs for the belt the Bellwether work so the example that I like to use when I'm talking about this is so for the jewel litigation there ended up being a court-ordered common benefit fee of seven percent and so that was to reimburse the 10 plus million dollars in costs that was expended by the six school districts that were litigating the case so that does occur and that's also another reason why we do it at a reduced rate so you're still below the what could be the normal 40 and that can also include for expenses correct yeah and normally just due to the amount of districts I represent it ends up being less than three percent and have they just Bell
047whether states are or districts are no no that will not occur for I'd say probably another six to nine months okay thank you okay board members questions or comments okay do you mind if I ask a question or comment if anyone doesn't have anything else so thank you for your presentation Mr shinoff I know we're pre-litigation kind of at this point so be careful what I ask so I agree social media companies obviously there there is a lot of harm that has been done and has you know it has occurred obviously a lot of things going on you talked about magnetisms you talked about parental controls you talked about age verification which is great but I mean there's there's ways around that obviously so you brought up content my question is from a mechanism standpoint
048what can really be held accountable to these social media companies what can actually be accomplished because you can you can try to get money out of them you said to send a message you can send a message talk about parental controls but what else because you keep talking about content so and obviously there's a component also of parent and personal responsibility to that so if you could answer that question please yeah so what we're trying to do is to make sure that there's filters in place so if if when you're going and signing up and you're advising you're you're under a certain age or if you're in a certain age range that the content is goes to that age range that we're not going and pushing the harmful and divisive content because that's what that
049is what's keeping them on and that's what the studies show of what's keeping them on so if we can go and make sure that they're they're changing that and so whether that be so the best example that they gave in what this whistleblower advised is with Instagram so if you're a woman or a young female and you're you're on Instagram you're gonna go and be shown in images regarding body images and again going to compare yourself and be invited to groups regarding body image and so that was part of what they're advising is that they know that's something that's psychologically they've gone and studied and they've said well that's going to attract that age range that's what's going to keep them on their platform but at the same time we know there's a negative effect
050that to that because there's that there's going to be the compare comparing and going people liking and people going to do that so if we can go and change force them to change the algorithm to make sure that they're not going and targeting those youths because they know of the harm to it then we can do that and that's what the court order if we can get that will enforce to make sure they're doing it and then we will have experts in place who can advise on here's what here's what we can do to go and change it to make sure that we're dealing with the mental health component as well as the benefit of the social media as well because they're not going to be going away thank you any other questions or comments
051no I do but Mr Schiff could you please forward all of the school districts that you represented in the jewel case yeah and have you represented a school district that is close to 100 000 students yes if you could send that I would appreciate that as well as any districts in the State of Florida yeah absolutely thank you I and just to kind of to let you know already in this litigation there I do represent already three different school districts in the State of Florida so there's Volusia Okeechobee and Sumter so there I already do represent three three school districts in in the State of Florida in this and just to also let you know the defendants in this case are not only meta it's also Tick Tock Snapchat and YouTube because we're trying to
052because this case is a case of dealing with a K-12 issue for sure Mr chairman if I can ask another question those three districts that you represent are they part of the multi-district complaint that was filed yeah so we're we're filing each cases complaints filed individually we've already filed last week for evolution are they part of the case that's pending in Northern California at this time yeah all the cases are there's a direct filing order so we've we file every case directly into the Northern District of California thank you Miss Patrica if I may Mr chair direct a question to attorney Dupree Bruno what are our next steps here as a board please well first what I would like to know from the board is whether or not you have any interest in even moving
053forward with participating in any type of class action suit or mass action suit relating to social media so that's that's really the direction that I need from the board so on those lines I just I find this to be a much more difficult case to prove than Jewel because we had the nicotine or cigarette litigation prior to that so we had that as a precedent there is no precedent here and it from what I understand there is no precedent in here and isn't isn't there some parental responsibility here that really would make it difficult to prove that they've done anything wrong because parents are giving their kids devices at the age of eight and not supervising them for example am I crazy or no I know you don't want to answer that question but no
054I mean I do think that is definitely a valid defense for the social media Outlets to be able to utilize I certainly agree with that I would defer to Mr Schiff in terms of what is the legal theory that you would utilize to be able to succeed on a particular action like this given the question that we know that in the tobacco cases and which was very similar to the dual cases that is different but I also heard you say something that occurred in the last three months in terms of Supreme Court decision so if you can explore that a little bit for my board members I would appreciate it yeah so I appreciate you bringing that up because what this case is it is a semi-product liability case because we're not we're not suing
055and that's that brings to the issue of the immunity of the Supreme Court no matter what the Supreme Court decides whether these companies do have immunity or not that immunity is strictly for a third party content we're not suing them for third-party content we're suing them for their conduct they're they're addictive algorithm their product and so that what we're claiming is similar to The Jewel into the tobacco that they've created a very harmful addictive product they're failing to warn about the harms of their product they're not putting the steps in place to go and make it safe for the Youth and they're not doing any warnings so that is our preced into our case our precedent is opioids tobacco Jewel that is the president of our case because we're the way we framed it so
056whether the Supreme Court decides they have immunity or not we still believe they're going to argue it they're going to use it a defense they're going to use the parents as a defense they use parents as a defense too in Jewel they said parents should have been responsible for making sure their children were not using vaping devices as well we expect them to use that but that is going to be the argument of of it that they have created a harmful product they're failing to warn and that they are responsible as a result of that explain to the board what is their exposure should they not be successful or should they decide to move this forward what is it that the board can expect and what is it that the board can expect if we
057lose what what's the exposure there's no Financial exposure to the district so if so and that's the way our contracts rates completely contingency the exposure is on my firm for putting all up all the fees and all the costs that there is we end up there we end up spending all this money and time and there's no Financial award at the end the only risk to the district is the time is the time of the staff so if you're a non-belwether case is the time of completing the discovery questionnaire Gathering the documents and then there is no reward so there is there is no Expo Financial exposure to the district I forgot what I was going to ask but I'll remember and I'll come back if you could come back to me Mr chair please
058thank you go ahead Ms juvenile thank you I just have a couple questions and this may be really kind of for the board as well I mean is it our role to get involved in something like this when I think there's some legislation in Florida right now where the governor is trying to stop I think I think maybe Tick Tock or something going on during the school day that we could that's what our purview is that's what you know I want to say our jurisdiction you know parents really are the ones that I kind of agree with Miss Patrica on that so I mean I'm just trying to figure out is this our role as a board to get involved in something like this and what would even if you're successful then I think we
059would benefit regardless right I mean so what's the upside of that is that we would we would get I guess monetary money for being involved in the in the suit so that's what I was trying to figure out what's the upside for us thank you of course so you have to understand we're going against four or five of the largest companies in the world and for us to show the Nationwide impact that these companies are having we need school districts across the country to show the harm and it's not just a couple school districts in California or a couple other school districts that we're trying to show that this is a nationwide harm and that's and that's where every District's involvement who can be involved is important because you all play a role to share
060the story of what of what your campuses are experiencing because we can't share the story without districts we can't show the evidence without the districts and that's why whether you're a hundred person School District to an over 100 000 School person School District we're trying to show the impact in it not being a regional Regional issue or anything like that and that's the importance you play and also the importances of public entities then the public entities are the ones that can help create this change while our hope is legislation will happen public entities through these causes of action we can go and get the injunctive relief and that's that's the other important aspect of this litigation and the role that school districts play in this in and absolutely we want to also provide you the
061financial resources as part of this litigation to go and deal with the issues as a result because you know as my 10 plus years of experience knowing how you know the financial abilities of districts to go and try to find resources to go make changes is not as easy to go and move money from one place to another when trying to deal with certain issues so I think I understand so it's basically being unified and Power in numbers and the value in that all right so thank you absolutely Mr persons yeah boy I understand it sort of also answer your question is the financial reward you're sort of targeting maybe more social workers things that would definitely help our district you know that the money could be used just as Jules is going to be
062used for different things reward so there is an upside more than just the legislation type thing which would be a help whether we're in it or not but for that reason I'm leaning to going forward Miss Patrica yeah so it this is doesn't really have anything to do with my decision but this is federal court right federal court right yes and is that contributory or comparative negligence jurisdiction I'm going to defer that to Mr Schiff because it's California law yeah so normally normally they use because it's going to be in California they'll use California law which is comparative the downside if we're not out of pocket I mean I do think parents have a responsibility but if it can get us resources to improve Mental Health Services for kids I would assume that's what we're
063going for right absolutely I mean we need that help without social media so yeah that's that's my feedback thank you okay any other questions Langford Fleming I just want to go on record first of all thank you for the presentation and now that you guys have asked so many great questions I think we all understand a little bit more as to why you're here and why you're asking of us and to make this more of a unified effort Across the Nation me being a mother of three children I know the Battle of social media unfortunately even when I'm in schools I still see children with earbuds in their ear walking through heads always down not communicating I always say I'm so glad I grew up in the 70s and 80s and did not have to
064grow up with social media so I don't have the I didn't have the pressures that I feel like these kids have and the anxiety that they're having with social media I do completely believe that there is an algorithm targeting not just children but adults also so with that being said if there is no financial gain I am willing to fight for the minds and the hearts of the children of Lee County when it comes to this particular topic but like Mrs Patrica has said a few times up here we need parent family buy-in too our responsibility is the seven and a half hours a day out of the school day that the district or the school board can be responsible for it we need the help of families too so I think that's something that
065we need to just put out there and I know the struggle like I said I'm I'm a mom of of three children and it's it's easy to forget your child is on the phone and it's easy to forget to check it but so I just wanted to go on record that I if there's no Financial Risk I don't see a burden on the school district other than it to help us in the future so thank you Miss Jordan I would just like to say thank you as well and I would also suggest that we look into it this further thank you that Mr pre-burn I would thank you okay any other questions or comments okay so going forward it seems we do not have an objection to moving forward with a further discussion that would
066not be at least and I'll confer this with the board attorney not tied to this particular Law Firm just looking at this subject matter going forward if I'm correct Madam Ford attorney thank you that's what I needed thank you very much thank you sir thank you thank you Mr chairman may we have a five-minute recess please yes we'll take a five minute recess we'll return at 206 pm thank you okay sorry about that we're at 209 right now we've discussed something briefly my apologies we're going to begin to restart the meeting at and we're at public comment item C if Madame board attorney can handle that I think we have one Guardian oh item number three on the agenda my apologies so it's let's proceed to item number three which is policy briefing on the
067guardian program in regards policy 2.113 the first reading that will be of Mr Ramirez and Chief Newland my apologies on this proceeding Mr Vice chair before my team begins I just want to take the opportunity to remind the public that we are in the process of developing a guardian program for the school district of Lee County based upon the resolution that you passed asking me to move forward in in taking a look at what it would take and how we would go about devising a policy and then from the policy go ahead and establish the procedures and the expectations of the program Chief Newlin and Mr Ramirez have been truly the point people for this project I also want to thank you for the opportunity to put the survey out to solicit some information from
068our current employees as to who might want to be a participant thank you for that opportunity to do that before this briefing because if we continue down this path we're going to need a set of volunteers that are ready to enter into the sheriff's training program however we will not move into that until we have adopted all the correct policies and procedures surrounding that so just want to thank you and I just for the public edification I wanted them to understand if they'd heard about a survey that we were just simply surveying for interest at this time and the team is going to work today on the policy on a first read with all of you thank you Mr superintendent real quick before you proceed I also remind our my fellow board members and myself
069we obviously this is Safety and Security so we need to all be careful in our comments and questions for certain things so thank you good afternoon board members before I start and talk about the guardian policy I do want to point out we have a couple guests here today from the sheriff's office I'm going to I'm working with on the guardian program on the policy Commander Paul Cummings and Captain Scott Griffith they were here came here today just to be here listen to the comments and again they've been working with us almost day to day since you gave the approval to work with the sheriff's office I didn't want to start on the guardian policy if you look at page one I want to cover a couple things before we answer any questions if you
070look at the definition on page one you'll see school safety Specialists I just want to point out by Statute that's actually that's actually Who I Am by the statute even though I'm the executive director that's my title by this by safe schools going down to school safety Specialists on page one that's covered from one to two that's going to cover most your areas as far as responsibilities it comes in for me as in regards to Guardian program however I do want to go to number two on page two there's line 55 and 56 it talks about an agreement that the Guardians will sign when issued equipment and accepting all procedures and applicable procedures and responsibilities so we talk about specifics as far as what the guardian and how he or she will carry their weapon
071things they will have that's where the specifics and detail will come into play and that form they sign with the Sheriff's Office if you go down to the end of page two you'll see school Guardians this will again to more of the responsibility and things the Guardians will be responsible to do based on the statute that's covered from page two to page five thank you when you get to page four I do want to point out a couple statutes that when you're reading this it may jump out so on page four number 17 it talks about Florida State Statute 790.174 basically what that means that's a statute that covers safe storage of firearms there is a statute that's a requirement that you could be negligent by not properly storing your Firearms that's what that statute
072covers you go to page five this is when we get into the general procedures a lot of the statues it'll it'll cover under the first one the very bottom page five which is sub subsection a which is under line 215. you'll see a Florida statute 30.15 that space has the power and duties that established the guardian program through the Sheriff's Department that's what that talks about when you look at that statute and then going to the last page or page six of seven a lot of these are the general procedures that reflect on statutes again as far as what are we allowed to do based on statute for example if you look at line 241 which is statute 776.012 that talks about your threat to use Force the response to use Force based on like
073what the guardian can and cannot do so there's some things that we're referencing that by Statute we can and cannot do based on the general procedures and in that case that covers the general part of the policy like I said before you had your definition page you have your part that talks about the responsibility of my position the guardian the guardian themselves their responsibility what they have to meet as far as standards as far as requirements of training and then it gets into the general procedures and statutes that this falls under of the Guardian program itself so I don't want to read the line for line which one of the point I just wanted to point a couple of things out and then I'll stand by for any questions any questions on the policy sorry
074Chief I thought you were at pointing something else out of this Technologies Mr superintendent any comments or questions before we go to board members nothing no sir okay board questions comments Mr persons I've not even working with the sheriff does he come up with a number of hours that he will be requiring our sros or not the sros I'm sorry the Guardians to train I know it's a minimum of a what 140 hours yeah minimum of 144 hours I can tell you that right now we're talking around the area of 100 over 100 well around 160 hours right now so it'll be over the minimum as a again that is a start requirement but there will be ongoing training as well beyond that thank you any other questions or comments Ms patrika I have a
075whole list but you know thank you I will the purpose of that is basically when they go through training as we know part the big part of that's going to be firearm training so if they happen discharged or firearm anywhere but training that must be reported that's that's the intent of that section within that's what it talks about the 72 hours but I can we can look I can make a comment with that of what your the for and we'll look at that afterwards as well okay thank you applications I know the intent of this section was for us to work to put a team together a group or committee to go through the applications obviously make sure that whoever we're choosing to be a guardian applicant both sides will agree with based on what
076we're reviewing for that applicant's background and then obviously the other part would be the final does go to the superintendent we want to make sure whatever we are recommending as the guardian that all parties are agreed agreed to that specific person we can change the worry if it's confusing foreign our campuses real quick and a follow-up on that who would you at that point then that's a that's a really good question who would I would think that I would want some law enforcement expertise involved in making the final decision first first and foremost I don't disqualify any of the opinion regarding the potential of an elected superintendent but I think we also need to be clear and maybe we need to have a briefing regarding what the statutory requirements are for an elected superintendent and
077their relationship to the board that individual who will be duly elected is still in charge of the operational issues of the school district and the board still retains its policy it's it's policy right so this would be the appropriate person to finalize a decision and ensure I think the intent of this final sentence is really important and the other superintendents I've spoken to that have a guardian program that there is a denial that's that can come from the superintendent and that decision is final I think the intent and we can Wordsmith this but I think the intent would be there would be the review of the initial applications the superintendent along with the sheriff's office would make some determinations as to the requirement and the decision to deny would come from the superintendent and that
078decision would be fine so but I think we might need to explore a little bit more as we think about future work sessions we might want to think about or briefings an opportunity for us to really begin to delve into what that looks like for the board and for the individual who may be in this chair in 24 25. I would appreciate that because I see these as different we don't we don't have an agenda item that approves volunteers and this is essentially a volunteer position we don't have a job description where we can put some guardrails in place running for the superintendent can and can't hire I mean we have this policy and that's it so I'm I'm just I'm it feels like free reign not knowing who's going to be sitting in the
079seat that you occupy right now Dr Bernier and this is not about you this is about I know you know this is not about you but I want to say it out loud this is about not having any idea of who's going to be in that seat two years from now four years from now 10 years from now I don't disagree with you but I think there's an opportunity for us just like in the process of refreshing a strategic plan for us to get ahead of this in a planning purpose related to we know something is coming we should be prepared for it I mean I unfortunately know that June is coming meeting with the county in the next couple of weeks to have the discussion about the dreaded h word but it's necessary in
080preparation for a hurricane season we have to be cognizant and be planning ahead we know there's going to be an elected superintendent I think it would behoove us to take some time of our workshops and of our briefing times to have some open discussions about what you see and how you see this moving forward and what the legal implications are for both the board and for the individual who may occupy the seat so I'm happy to do that if that's the board's desire we could seek our internal or external Council to help us have some conversation regarding that I think that's okay whatever racism we have a responsibility I'll stop now Mr chair okay Mr persons oh the way I'm reading it should be the denial of the initial application but this is the initial
081application they still have to go through the whole process of 160 hours and will be certified by the sheriff to actually be a guardian there so I'm not worried about even if someone badly gets picked they won't make it through I can guarantee you that well I do think it's worth me weighing in here to just clarify if we're on the same page the way this policy is written is similar to other school districts who have a guardian in place and that is the superintendent's decision for the denial of an app of initial application is final not appealed upon that denial the person would not proceed into the training this would eliminate them from that from day one so I just want to make sure we're on that same page because yes if somebody was
082approved then yes they still have an immense amount of work to go through and from what I've been able to receive from the Sheriff's Office and through Chief Newland is there's ample opportunity for these people to still not make it because the standard by which they're going to be required is extremely significant so but I do want to make it clear to the public that this particular line would give that decision of a denial that would prevent the person from moving forward okay board mind if I follow up with Miss Patrica is that all right okay understand what you're saying Miss Patrick in regards to that and if my understanding and again from what I'm hearing is Chief the final say overall at the end will be the sheriff's correct he is his program the
083sheriff's yeah their program yes again this the whole intent of this was that as as we go with the applications together but the final say does come with the superintendent oh as far as the app initial application yeah and but that's talking about the final and the reason I say that is I understand what you're saying but the sheriff is also an elected official so the same issue would come about so I mean the resolution is then up to the voters at that point so that's my comments on that anyone have any questions and comments to continue on Miss juvenile well well I agree what Miss I understand what Miss Patrick is saying and I kind of understand her reservations regarding some of this I also understand what you're saying because ultimately we don't get
084involved in the day-to-day business we don't we don't we don't pick coaches we don't pick we're gonna pick who's a guardian this is a voluntary as well as like when people coach or more people are what was it in some of the clubs where they lead the clubs and stuff like that so we don't get involved in that day-to-day business so I caution us because you know we're we do have a definite you know what our roles are as as board members and we need to really think about that and I think we do have to leave it up to the ex experts and I believe that and Trust in that completely and the superintendents may be privy to some information that would ultimately that initial application would be a like a no way but
085there's still going to be an employee of the district and so I think that's important for that to stay in his I think in his wheelhouse if that makes sense that my opinion I think so thank you questions comments anyone else Ms Jordan are we on other questions are we on the same okay well I have to agree with Miss Patrica as well I am very concerned about that also I have quite a few questions as well so again stop me whatever that looks like as far as when I'm looking at the policy I went back and I looked at the old one I took that one all apart then I had to redo the other one so I apologize for that page three and number seven the district will tree all require training hours
086as regular duty hours so I thought when we had spoke about this is this is volunteer but yet we're doing this on a work day where they're being compensated so I was a little bit confused I am misreading that paragraph I think the original intent was based on when we can actually do the training in order to get this completed if they're actually working but can attend the training instead of being at their current position it'd be the same thing wouldn't be at least we're receiving their you know they're not saving the extra income but if they're not working they don't get paid for not they're not they're off they don't get paid for that right so thank you for that I understood that part so if I am I work in this school and
087I'm doing my job so I would how do I do my job at school and then go to this training for 144 hours of training why I'm doing my job at the school and being compensated for the jobs that I'm doing at school as well as being somewhere else I don't know how you how you're in two places at the same time it's it well it's not it wouldn't be easy but based on the timing when the academy would take place it was part of it so timing is very important because originally we look at this as a Summer Academy but also when we look at the applicants that also could be you know based on how many interests we get we but we look at those and vet those of who would have that
088who would be able to do that as well look at the intent was to allow this language would allow for a temporary Duty for an employee in order to attend the training obviously trying to align not knowing what that schedule will be as a as the sheriff develops that schedule that it would allow for just that otherwise we would be limited to the number to the times when employers could actually go for any additional required training so that language would allow for an employee that may be someone not assigned a class and the ability to put in for temporary Duty for that day to attend training to give some flexibility that's that was some of the thought process correct so but in the policy also it states that you have to you cannot miss the
089training so you have to be at these trainings so that would be a consecutive days of training and then so when I'm looking again this is a volunteered plus the 500 stipend so it they are being paid for that and then they are a volunteer paid employee because there are employees and then going from there is where does the liability fall because I don't see any of that in our policy does where does that fall in the for that individual person where does the insurance for for the does our insurance go up for those individual people who are Guardians as well as what else was that so those are those couple questions that we have to get answers to then also on the there was another one there is the one with okay page five
090line 23 that they the Guardians will not they cannot take their the Guardians will not carry issue Firearms off school property but then in the next sentence line 8 189 it says that they keep it at their homes so how do they not take it off the property and then how do they keep it at home it's and then we give them the box to take it home in and leave it in their car so yes we're not in school property obviously they can they can carry their their firearm that's been issued by the Sheriff's Office the idea is when they get into them they leave school properly they can't be not they cannot be wearing that firearm so that's why two things are recommended number one it's got to be properly carried in the
091car we want it locked in the lock box and then when they get home it's got to be probably stored in the home as I referenced earlier by that statue that requires you to properly carry keep your guns safe at your own house okay and they don't want them we don't want them stopping at a 7-Eleven or something with their firearm on them when they leave the school property and then the district provides that box for them it's not technically come any equipment would come through the Sheriff's Office through the air and fires grant program so that's the equipment well I equipment that's a plot that we discuss should be that or reimbursable okay because it does say District like we are providing that so if that's faulty it's somebody can get in that I'm
092just you wanted to bring that up and let's see what the other one was and then line 241 607 and I know these are our volunteer Guardians are Force multiplier for active Shooters but then on line 241 page six it says the guardian pursuant to Florida statute 776.012 a guardian is Justified justifying and using objectively reasonable Force so is that just if they think in breaking up fights or whatever they think has taken place at the school well the statute itself refers to a threat of use of force so I want you to use the force that's appropriate so that the idea is just to Abate the active assailant but it also doesn't want you to use that same type of force and that doesn't meet that same requirement okay I'm sorry that's where they
093go they go through the training so part of the training to go through is use of force training as well so they use proper use of force in other words we don't want them carrying using a firearm and using it improperly on somebody that's not doesn't create a threat as an active assailant which is the purpose of why we're bringing Guardians to our property as a force multiplier yeah but and the reason I was asking because it does just I guess it's my thought that I did not read what the statute was because it just says if president during a physical altercation between individuals so to me that was not a active shooter that's just two kids or whomever fighting and then they would be able to step in if they deemed to do so
094is that yeah I'm sorry so yes there's two parts this one is using proper Force Base they're talking about the activist saying all the other part is the same thing with this is like we do now with our safety security specialist is using the force like if you're going to break up a fight for example as mentioned here it's the appropriate Force required to do that not use your firearm in other words it's that's why the use of forest statute is mentioned in that section and that could be anything from presence to verbal passive active and up real quick Mr superintendent wants to just to try to add and not confuse the situation anymore but this is the same statutory Authority that a principal operates under teachers Deans athletic directors we are allowed to intervene
095with the objectively an objective amount of reasonable Force to protect the safety of our children they this line in the policy provides that same opportunity to a guardian who may be a dean of students or maybe an athletic director right they can still they can still work with their with their student body and their students as they always have the critical component becomes the fact that they have a weapon attached to their hip and they have to be clear and the training revolves around this I'm sorry the training addresses this specifically that it has to be an objectionable it has to be a reasonable amount of force and again to some extent especially with our Educators and certified teachers they don't have to weigh into a fight and risk physical imagery but they should be
096at least asking the children to stop and allow whomever feels like they can get in between our young men or young women to do to have that role this allows the guardian to do that but prevents them from using deadly force to break up a fight okay thank you for that and then I guess there is to me we still have that confusion of the Guardian as an a singular person versus a individual who is there already there at the school doing a job so this person is not going to be standing on the corner of a hallway they're they're still working in the school building and are they underneath of the principal as their leadership during during the day that's correct that's correct yes ma'am okay okay Miss Jordan I'll let you finish up
097on this if there's something okay I was gonna move on and come back if not questions comments from the rest of fellow board members at this point anyone else okay did you have something I've got a whole list okay that's I'm waiting to see if there's anybody else so before I proceed okay go ahead Miss Patrica lime 137 oh I can't remember why I guess I don't know what safety rules and procedures are appointed Guardians to adhere to oh no that was grammar never mind I'll send those separately 139 what does line 139 mean the I think the intent of number 14 was they still have to go with the still of the Bible the policies that they buy buy with now currently it doesn't change anything as mentioned before they're still there are employees
098the school district the policies don't go away so they still have to follow all the policies they currently follow now we can we can and if not we can all add more to that or specific policies if needed I didn't turn my turn my microphone on sorry it just see I mean everybody that works for the district has to follow the policies I didn't know if that meant something different or above and beyond what would normally be the case line 145. I don't know why foreign I think this one was grammar as well never mind I'll send that separately lines 161 through 162. the question I have is here is authorized by District or lcsl the I'm sorry what was the specific question to that one the purpose of organ regards to defendoline from an
099active threat on any District property Guardians are responsible for providing security and Safety Services would like there to be a distinction here I believe Guardians are getting their Authority from the lcso I think the lcso is setting forth what the training requirements are and without the lcso running this program we don't have Guardians in our schools so online with 161 where it says Guardians are not authorized by the district to enforce any laws I would like it to say the district or lcso to enforce any laws it might seem like a stupid distinction without a difference but to me it makes a difference because the lcso is what gives them life and we as a district don't have the ability to tell to have employees enforce laws anyways so I'd like to see that added
100if I could okay lime 175 self-report what please foreign currently you're currently your board policies require all employees to report certain law enforcement violations and other violations that concur out in the community within the 24 to 48 hour period of time so this is an alignment if if we could if it would help we could align School Board policy and actually use the number of the policy so it becomes clearer as to what they are being required to comply with we'll add that in thank you mine's 185 through 186. my question here is school or District building because I think throughout the policy we refer to the authority of Guardians on District property and here we specifically refer only to a school so should we be consistent and have District building on that line I
101haven't read it again but yeah we'll go through that I see it says school property we'll go through make sure it's all consistent throughout the policy there's no conflict I only have two left or three left line 202 what does this mean foreign let us know something they're involved with it they should not be doing or something they witness I'm sorry I can't hear you so basically it's something that they're not rich they're not responsible for something they're not a guardian obviously have certain responsibilities so they witness or see something they're they're still responsible to report that whether it be to my position the SRO or Administration earlier in the policy this policy speaks to the fact that I appoint a guardian cannot act in a law enforcement manner so the law the guardian May
102suspect that there's a situation or an incident that's occurring in a hallway where a student is Distributing something he or she may feel that it could be drug or other paraphernalia he certainly can use or she could use reasonable Force to stop the student detain the student but he can't or she cannot make an arrest right that would have to be brought to law enforcement specifically I'm sorry so you just said that a guardian could detain the person but could not make an arrest same way as a Dean would we would we would ask the student to come with us we'd collect their backpack we'd walk down to the main office and we turned it over to the dean in the SRO because it's important for the school resource officer to be present when things
103come out of a book bag to ensure a chain of evidence okay and then if I could just my last comment I promise Mr chair going back up to line 89 I hear you I hear what everybody is saying here with regard to the superintendent being the final decision maker but could we as a board put some parameters into the policy that the superintendent would have to follow in the approval or the denial I think I hear what you're saying it's not our job to figure out who the guardian shoulder should not be but it is our job to make sure that we don't have an elected superintendent that's sort of doing this willy-nilly based on a personality contest or based on whatever that elected official brings to the seat so this is our opportunity
104to put those parameters in place I think if we could put some parameters and say you can't deny on the basis of you know blue hair or whatever I don't know what the what the parameters would be but if we could look at other policies across the state and see if they have some parameters in there it would just make me feel a lot better in voting yes on this I want to vote Yes this is an area where I need a little bit more teeth in the policy in order to get me to a yes those are my comments thank you any other questions or comments Miss juvenile would the gun be a part of the threat assessment team for that particular school would they be involved in that so they're aware and apprised
105of you know something that someone you know in the that might be a threat in in part of the process you know process and be a part of the team we haven't discussed it based in our current position as consider volunteers are guarded they may already be on that team but it's something we can look at if they're not part of the team yeah I didn't see that right here we can we can talk about that I mean I think everybody that would be for safety the schools need to be apprised of certain situations and I don't know that we know that's been that's been the issue from the past you know from Parkland and so forth we know that there was evidence prior to so thank you thank you anything else briefly then we
106gotta move on I actually speak the matter out loud so my question is Chief Newlin is since the beginning of this we've not heard from the sheriff and I know you're saying you're working with the sheriff's department this will be I mean he will be responsible for this his office will be responsible for this we and I know we've not yet heard from I have not heard from him that this is good bad indifference or whatever which to me means a great deal because he's the one who's going to have to execute make sure that everything is where it needs to be so in working with this you are working with I know you said the gentleman that you'll be that you are working with right now to do this policy but it just would
107have been really nice to have him say yes I feel this is we're going in the right direction and that this is the safest that we can be for our staff our students for parents for everybody so I just needed to say that so thank you I understand and Beyond the Catholic Commander as well we've been working I work with a larger group at the main office the sheriff's office as well but I'll I'll communicate that thank you Mr Fisher just adding into that Ms Jordan I can tell you the sheriff has made public statements in support of this multiple times so any other questions or comments I know Mr superintendent I believe had one you know I'm no Mr chair I'm good that piece of the conversation just solved that my question okay thank
108you Mr Ramirez thank you I appreciate all your hard work on this thank you to you guys as well as the Lee County Sheriff from Lee County Sheriff's Office for putting the safety of our schools and kids first I really do appreciate that thank you thank you next up is actually public comment now item C so I missed Dupree Bruno could you address public comment please thank you Mr chairman at this time it does not appear that there is any public comment for the briefing today okay moving on to item d board member go to the order and board member comment I will start on the opposite end this time with Miss Langford Fleming I have none Mr persons I haven't had this time Miss Jordan I have none at this time thank you Miss
109Patrica thank you juvenile I have a little bit actually just two things real quick I attended the Shack which is the health I don't even know what it stands for them right off the top of my head but however they had at there as a speaker last week and they gave out cards and I had everyone I had I had I got extra and had it added put on your desk each of your desk and this information that they had was I thought was really important because it it was about it was about what Christian have our last student rep had spoke about and Champion human trafficking and then you know and so I thought it was something that was interesting and they were going to reach out to him and also work on some
110things for the district with this information because they had they had like really good just little cars and stuff that could be taught and brought up in in in classrooms and maybe like at the beginning of this like the announcements in the morning and that kind of thing so that was something that I thought was interesting and how to help kids deal with when they're approached in in different ways because kids sometimes aren't don't have that ability yet to really understand what is happening at the time even if it's you know to do with sexual traffic trafficking and human trafficking and being so I just thought that was important so if y'all could read that I thought it was something good that couldn't come back around at the some point with the district also last
111night curriculum advisory had another meeting our last meeting for the year and it was really interesting I would suggest that y'all watch some of it we had some good speakers again well attended and it was recorded and they really discussed the actual curriculum and instruction for the challenging of the books and in no way is this book Banning but I think the challenge in the process for challenging books is really good that the district worked really hard on and I really appreciate all the work that's done Dr with Dr Spire is Staff because I think everybody was very pleased with it on both sides of the aisle you know in in the process so the process document and I think it'll be coming before us soon so I just wanted to bring that to your
112attention thank you that's all I have thank you thank you thank you Miss juvenile I have no comments Mr superintendent I just have one item for the order I'm sorry I have one item for the good of the order and it's just a request to the board yesterday actually on Friday we received information regarding an amendment to a house bill which will make some potentially if passed make some changes related to our graduation requirements for this year's senior class we have been and will provide you with the information I promised yesterday we will provide you with the information as to how those concordant scores and the changes will positively impact our students how many and what it would do potentially for our graduation rate I also have staff currently get some direction of whether I
113would be able to do that I would be most appreciative thank you Mr superintendent does the board have any objection to the superintendent's suggested course of action just clarify go ahead rep missoulos Amendment yes is that rep mozilla's Amendment yeah yes no objection I appreciate the letter thank you Ms juvenile get a H okay I hope you have your direction Mr superintendent thank you Mr chair I believe I do my team's ready Board of attorney the pre-brino I have none thank you thank you we all have a student performance at 5 45 tonight followed by our Action meeting at six o'clock seeing no other business come before this board this meeting is adjourned at 2 54 pm thank you everyone foreign