School Board Briefing Meeting: January 10, 2023

001good afternoon everyone today is Tuesday January 9th and the time is 1 pm has the front lobby been cleared foreign School Board briefing meeting welcome I hope everyone's had a happy New Year before we proceed does the superintendent have any comments in regards to the agenda no sir okay thank you we have four items today I want to remind board members for protocol each board member should strive for four minutes for their initial comments two minutes for follow-up and a total of 10 minutes so let's proceed to item number one construction change order by director Rickenbacker good afternoon sir good afternoon board members Dr Bernier and Esquire Bruno this is your November of 2022 change order report is required by Statute as you can see in the initial cover page for that reporting month we

002had zero direct material purchases we had non-direct material purchases of 717.69 and we had a contingency adjustment balance of seven thousand seven hundred and ninety five dollars the backup sheet to indicate all of these changes is attached the first envirus struct LLC this was a return back to the district of 29 333.74 unused project funds DEC Construction Group for Mariner Middle School this was a reduction in Return of GMP funds back to The District in the amount of 6704.97 next was in virus struct which was Orangewood Elementary food service project a reduction in Return of unused project funds in the amount of 40 000 823.71 tobler oek joint venture Franklin Parks Elementary portable staging campus this was a return back to the district of an allowance from the GMP of forty thousand five dollars Gulf

003Pointe construction Veterans Park County for the Arts their single point entry this was a reduction in their contract value returned to the district of 2 850.27 and last you have Vantage Construction Group Transportation each dispatch building this is a zero dollar change this is a Time extension due to schedule delays due to fpnl providing power to the site and material delays now they're the original contract was to be December 1 for substantial completion of 2022 the superintendent is executing this change order which would have brought it to January 5th of 2023 fpnl has just recently mid-December gotten the power turned on to that facility so we're putting in the carpeting the finishes and the painting so there is an upcoming change order zero dollar for a Time extension to bring it to January 31st of

0042023 for substantial completion so I just wanted to make you aware that there is another time extension and that was predominantly due to the lack of power from fpnl they just were booked providing Services throughout the community and last but not least contingency adjustments we had tobler oek joint venture Franklin Park's rebuild portable staging we transferred a GMP allowance of 19 995 dollars back into the district contingency that is so that we could engage with mobile modular for the least Portables to be moved they work with us they don't work with contractors so we took the money back out of the GMP from the contractor took it in our house and ordered a purchase order how to have those Portables moved and then also tobler joint venture LLC Franklin Park staging campus this was a

005deduction from our contingency in the project of 12 200 unknown utilities on that site we had to deflect utilities underneath to avoid some existing drainage piping on that product so that was an unforeseen condition that wasn't detailed and that's what contingency supports and that's it any questions Mr superintendent do you have any further information for us in regards to this no sir okay so any board members does anyone have any comment or questions okay thank you director rickenbacher and thank you for your team's hard work I appreciate it thank you have a great thank you okay moving on to item number two School cash software discussion by director Gatewood Mr chair well Mr Gatewood brings the presentation forward for all of you this is school cash software this is specifically to help our school bookkeepers

006deal with internal accounts our Manatee software which you'll see in the presentation which our bookkeepers currently use dates itself all the way back to being a Dos software it has been need of serious upgrade for a long period of time not only for the ease of use but for better reporting and for us to be able to see not only across each individual school but then to Garner District level reporting Mr Gatewood has worked very hard with not only internal stakeholders but the actual bookkeepers themselves and looking at this opportunity this item will come to you as a recommendation in a foreseeable board meeting Mr Gatewood good afternoon Mr Gatewood can I just interrupt you for a second will you take one of those microphones closer to you and make sure that the red button

007is on foreign so internal funds are all the funds that are collected at the school level fundraisers field trips athletic events things like that donations made directly to the schools we currently have internal funds at 92 locations we do about 27 million dollars a receded in annually through internal funds at the school level across the 92 locations like Dr Bernier said the current software we're using Manatee we've been using for over 25 years and it's now there's been very little change unlike most technology Manatee hasn't changed very much over the 25 years so now it's become outdated when software becomes outdated it becomes vulnerable for system failures and poses a risk you know security risks to the district which we're trying to you know avoid that foreign the software we're looking at is school cash

008School cash is a company that exclusively works with K-12 school districts they have over 25 years of experience they're currently in over 17 500 schools across North America they do about three billion dollars in receipts per year and currently in the State of Florida orange Palm Beach and Collier County all-u School cash here's a side-by-side comparison on the left we have the screenshot of Manatee accounting software our typical dots-based software on the right we have the new school cache which has the different you know drop downs and options that we're more accustomed to you know with current technology some of the benefits of implementing School cash we're going to have improved communication the software communicates with Focus so parents will be able to receive notifications through school cash directly to the parents for upcoming events

009and activities and parents will also have the ability or the option that they would like to pay for those events field trips classroom supplies and things like that online we've had a lot of parents asking for that option there's going to be increased efficiencies whenever you pay for things online you're going to reduce the cash handling and manual processes so things will be expedited a little faster for the bookkeepers Kev group provides eight one-hour sessions of training for our bookkeepers that breaks down the different sections of the software so we'll be able to have support from the company directly for our bookkeepers online as well as we're going to do some in-house training with them as well it integrates with PeopleSoft which allows us to have one vendor database across the district instead of each

010school that currently has a separate Manatee vendor database all the transactions will be able to view them here at the district office in real time instead of having to wait for the bookkeepers to send us their monthly disk to be able to update what we have here on file we'll be able to look at it on time which is going to increase the documentation is going to be available to us a lot more timely there's also going to be the increased security because the software is supported and updated regularly by the Kev group instead of the unsupported software like we have now here's a brief implementation timeline of you know how we think this process would work from the kickoff meeting meeting with Department staff or District staff they have promotional material that will be

011able to send to parents like through Focus to let them know about this new Option and ability for them to pay for things online as well as we'll have school training and then we'll do the launch but most important they're going to give us ongoing training for both the district people for the bookkeepers as well as if parents are at home trying to make payments online and having an issue they have a 24 7 support line for parents as well the normal implementation time is about 12 to 14 weeks so we'd like to get it started relatively soon though so that we can have all of our 92 locations on board up and running by the time we start the FY 24 school year in July foreign did anyone have any questions or the superintendent

012comments I don't have any further comments Mr chair thank you do any board mom members have any comments or questions go ahead Ms juvenile thank you I love it I see the need I wish we'd have done this sooner so I just want to thank you for all your efforts and work on this is great it's something that was much needed thank you're very welcome Miss Jordan I was going to say the same thing and I know that just being able to for parents and families to be able to go in and work on that which I thought before I don't know if there's been years ago that you could go actually go in there and pay for your child's lunch in the program that we already have or was that when my kids were

013in school and they changed something I don't know how long ago that was that is a that's an additional historic piece of software from what the manatee system does for a bookkeeper that was a particular piece of software specifically designed for school lunch program one thing that this will not replace currently that we that we do have is what we use to do athletic events one of the reasons while this has the cape potentially has the capability FHSAA utilizes the program we utilize not only for our local events but for their state events so we are going Mr Greenwood was really really Gatewood was really good about getting to our athletic director having that conversation with him and making sure that we understood where our lines for our bookkeepers would begin and end and additionally

014for athletics as well so to those Sports parents who may be out listening we want you to know that you'll still be purchasing your tickets and event tickets through that other system no but I really do appreciate this because I do believe that it streamlines it and brings it all together as one so thank you very much for it you're very welcome any other questions comments yeah I agree with my fellow board members on this thank you especially since the last time I regularly used MS-DOS I believe was the 1990s so this is a much needed Improvement so good job so thank you Mr Gatewood I appreciate it okay next up on the agenda is item three Bright Futures and I believe it will be Dr Spiro and his team will be presenting foreign can

015I introduce yes as the team comes up to do the presentation you have at the podium currently you have Dr Matthew K Candace Alvarado and Lori Brooks Dr K is the director of accountability research and assessment Candace is the director of tech of teaching and learning and Lori is the director of School counseling and Mental Health Mr Spiro is in the audience and available if we need him this is actually a board request this actually request came prior to Hurricane Ian for us to talk a little bit about Bright Futures some of the rules that exist Around Bright Futures as well as some of the rules that are changing or have changed as we are seniors work to qualify for their bright future scholarship turn it over to the team thank you very much is

016that better okay wonderful thank you thank you Dr Bernier and we welcome the opportunity to present to you this afternoon on the topic of Bright Futures on behalf of academic services and Dr Spiro today we're going to start with an overview of the bright future scholarship which is a lottery funded scholarship to reward Florida high school graduates specifically for high academic achievement there are some initial eligibility requirements these are really the core requirements for our students obviously to be a Florida resident and also a U.S citizen or eligible non-citizen which is determined by our post-secondary institutions the students are required to complete a short but specific application called the Florida financial aid application during their senior year of high school this would be in addition to the federal application for student aid or the FAFSA

017and then earn their Florida high school diploma from a Florida public high school there are opportunities for home school students and students that earn their GED of course our focus with being in public high schools is on the eligibility of our high school students students also must not have been found guilty of or pled no contest to a felony charge they need to be accepted by and enroll as a degree of certificate seeking student at an eligible Florida public or independent post-secondary institution they have five years after high school graduation within which to do so and then they are required to enroll in at least six non-remedial semester hours or the equivalent if the school offers quarter or clock hours per term at that post-secondary Institution there are four award levels for this scholarship and

018we're going to start with the most rigorous level the Florida academic Scholars award or what we will probably reference as FAS today for the rest of this presentation and that award has the highest academic standards and also provides students 100 percent of the cost of tuition at a Florida Public post-secondary School the Florida Medallion or FMS Florida Medallion Scholars award provides 75 percent of tuition at a four-year University Public University and a hundred percent of tuition at a two-year public college for example a student that decides they would like to start at Florida Southwestern State College for the first two years would have a hundred percent of their tuition paid and then when they matriculate to let's say Florida State go Knowles sorry I had to say that then they would have 75 percent of

019their third and fourth year at Florida State covered towards their baccalaureate degree for the tuition at a State University the third program is the Florida gold seal Cape Scholars Program this is a program that is targeted to students that may want to pursue a technical certificate or an Associate in Science degree it's a highly specific degree enrollment program and that is determined as far as the financial coverage annually per credit hour to complete that program and the fourth Bright Futures award is the Florida gold seal vocational Scholars or gsv and again highly specific and determined as far as Financial coverage annually per credit hour because that program also similar to the cape Scholars is specific to a an associate and science degree or a technical certificate program so just to summarize as we move forward

020FAS and FMS are our most commonly earned thresholds because students and even though they're the most rigorous to attain this provides students the ability to attend with these tuition coverages anywhere in the State of Florida as long as it's a public Institution the gold seal Cape Scholars and also vocational those are more specific programs that a student would have to strategically prepare for to use them just for those programs so they're not as common so let's talk about qualifications so we're back to the first two on that last Slide the FAS and the FMS so academic and Medallion Scholars and the alignment of criteria is very close first the first column is aligned with State University system admission so as you know our students that would like to go to a State University are required

021to complete core credits and those are listed in that First Column and those are the 16 core credits for sus admissions to a State University and they like they align then with the Bright Futures requirements for those credits we have a slight differential then however in the grade point average threshold that is required and this is a delineation that we're very careful with our students and families to articulate because this is not their cumulative High School grade point average it is specific grade point average weighted grade point average to these 16 credits so for the Florida academic scholar the 100 percent tuition scholarship students are required in those 16 core to have a 3.5 cumulative GPA they are then required to earn on the SAT or act you can see that the graduating classes are

022a little bit different because this updates annually in State Statute some years we have no changes others we have a quite significant change but this year's graduates for 22-23 are required to score a 29 composite on the act and a 1330 on the SAT you'll notice our current Juniors who will graduate next year still must earn a 29 on the act however their sat has increased by 10 points and they are required to earn a 1340. so as we're and we'll talk through advising in a little bit and how we advise our students but we're consistently leaning them into this from eighth grade forward because they need to be aware of the requirements and then also how they may update year by year in addition all of these Awards have either a volunteer service hour

023or a paid work hour component and you can see that a hundred hours of either one is required for the top award the difference between that and the Medallion is The Medallion requires not the 3.5 cumulative GPA but a 3.0 and then the test score thresholds are a little bit different and then the volunteer service hours are a little bit different so we talked about some major changes that can occur from year to year and this year in the last legislative session and took effect July 1 of 2022 the Florida State Legislature added that students May submit instead of only volunteer service hours they can submit a hundred paid work hours as well which for our students really gave them some welcome relief when you come after a pandemic and also now our hurricane situation

024even before hurricane Ian many of our students work and they were unable to submit the paid work hours and now they may the only caveat to that new requirement is that the state has delineated in statute that it must be one or the other so students are unable to combine volunteer service hours and paid work hours and submit like 50 and 50. they have to accumulate the thresholds of one or the other many of our students will accumulate both anyway there are other ways to qualify so we talked about Florida academic scholar and Medallion the grade point averages are always required however there are some excusals from the test score thresholds and you'll see those in Blue on this slide any student that is a National Merit finalist or scholar National Hispanic recognition program or

025most common for us they receive the Cambridge Ace diploma or the IB or International Baccalaureate diploma those are students that will Auto qualify for the high the highest Award of Florida academic scholar if they have met the volunteer service hours or paid work hours for those so that is still a requirement and then also if they don't complete a hundred volunteer service hours and they happen to be an IB diploma recipient and they only did 75 they would get the second award the Florida medallion built into some of our programs such as IB are those Cass hours the community action and service work hours so they have a hundred hours or more anyway but our IBN Ace diploma recipients tend to qualify for this scholarship at a high level they do have to do those

026hours and then in addition we have had National Merit finalists and Scholars and National Hispanic recognition program students likewise we have some students that will complete the ace curriculum or the IB curriculum and unfortunately while rare but it does happen they may not earn the IB or Ace diploma they did earn the standard diploma and those students still may qualify but you'll notice on those last rows that all of the criteria must be met in those cases so we've talked about Florida academic scholar Florida Medallion scholar again more of our two most common programs of the four and when when we train our counselors in College and Career Specialists and talk with parents and students we really want to remind them though there are two other very worthy programs that may require some more specificity

027and planning for students but definitely there are students that can really benefit from these programs the newest of the four programs is the cape Scholars Program that really rewards students if they earn a minimum of five post-secondary credit hours through Cape industry certifications as you're likely aware there's a large focus on our students graduating high school with industry certifications so there are students that will get those five but they'll earn those five post-secondary credit hours and those will articulate for college credit and then they need to complete only the 30 service Us hours or the hundred paid work hours again this program is for students that want to go into a technical program or an applied science program so a lot of our students will aim for The Medallion or the academic scholar if they're

028not sure of what their future will hold we do have some students that say no I definitely am going with this program and this is my plan and we really want to make sure that our schools are educated on this opportunity so we directly connect students to this funding source the gold seal similar program as we stated to Cape Scholars but that's a little bit different as well Cape Scholars was the industry certification that matriculates for five college credit hours in this case students need to strategically plan for and take three full high school credits in a CTE or Career and Technical education program our career and tech ed teachers are familiar because of the efforts of Rita Davis in how many which courses are progressive and qualify students because they have to take three

029specific courses in a progression during high school they have to earn a 3.5 unweighted grade point average in those three Progressive career Ed courses and also earn a 3.0 weighted grade point average in their core courses or non-elective High School courses now the testing thresholds but that's the next slide that's perfect they need 30 service hours and the thresholds are highly specific you can see the ACT SAT and now we're allowed to use the pert test for just the specific scholarship level and it's not going to be a composite score now students need to score specific sub-test thresholds definitely achievable but it is a different type of advising than when we're talking sat act and pert okay and again just as with the gold seal Cape Scholars The Vocational Scholars may be used for these

030specific three post-secondary degree programs so looking at that then and all of the pieces of information that Miss Brooks just went over it's a lot of information to digest it takes our district our counselors and our college career Specialists and our Community Partners at the foundation leading families through this process because as Laurie mentioned this is merit-based so we want to make sure students apply and go all the way through but when we point families back to where can we find this information we point them back to this website here that's also linked in the presentation it has all of the information from the eligibility requirements to scholarship information in addition to the Flyers which we promote and we push out and then some additional resources so these four chapters that we've outlined here are

031the four areas in which we really utilize with our families going back to you'll notice up there chapter 3 is about renewal eligibility but we really focus on the other four with our students getting them to understand the requirements and then and how to apply so as a district then what do we do to help communicate this and what supports are we providing out there as you heard Miss Brooks mentioned and I've mentioned once the College and Career Specialists are key in this process so our counselors focus in on all of the advising pieces making sure students understand those requirements but our college career Specialists one of their primary roles is to ensure that students are applying so they understand how to take all the paperwork all the way through and that they're not missing

032these components so while the College and Career Specialists have many other responsibilities this is one of their primary focuses and it's how they work in partnership with our counselors another piece of it is as Miss Brooks mentioned on slide 10 we noticed there were other ways to qualify that eliminates those act and sat so we've gone to work on curriculum expansion to ensuring that all of our high schools have an advanced diploma opportunity Unity because as we heard mentioned if a student earns the ace diploma or the IB diploma they are able to waive that ACT SAT score as long as they meet the volunteer hours up until the last year only eight of our high schools had four four had the ace diploma and four had the IB diploma we can now say all

03315 of our high schools have an advanced diploma pathway which opens up the doors for our students to earn Bright Futures in another another piece that we've looked at is that opportunity for students to have additional days where they can take ACT SAT on our campuses but it counts for college for portable so we have an added additional opportunities testing wise on our campuses where they are college reportable act and SAT scores previously we've spent a lot of time doing our non-college reportable school days for students that have not met their graduation requirements but also looking at supporting students and getting Bright Futures we've added College reportable days as well I can't say enough about the foundation and our partnership for our financial aid nights they really work with each individual High School to help

034families understand FAFSA all the documentation that's needed walking them all the way through ensuring that they complete that application process there and especially this year many of our schools were scheduled for their financial aid nights during the hurricane they have been able to reschedule all of those and they've almost completed all of them there's multiple opportunities for families to engage either at the school for these nights at the foundation or virtually as well so the foundation is a big partner for us in our financial aid nights in addition Miss Lori Brooks every year annually trains our counselors and our college career Specialists on these rules you heard her say that there are updates that are made legislatively so it's not a here's what it looks like now and we move forward every year training is

035held with our counselors and college career Specialists to make sure we know exactly what those requirements are a new addition that kicked off this previous summer was our national development program and this takes a look at 10th grade students and their PSAT scores and provide them the opportunity to work with a highly certified teacher in the area we started with mathematics on how to build their act and essay T scores those students this past summer sat for their PSAT this year's 11th graders which would open the door for National Merit so while we don't have data on that yet of how those students did we are looking forward to getting those results we will be expanding this as well this spring to open up to additional grade levels outside of 10th grade Naviance is a

036new addition for us this school year we have been working this first semester to get all of our data inputted for our secondary students but this will allow our counselors and our college career Specialists to be able to do all of that planning that we heard Miss Brooks talk about it's a One-Stop shop for not only the students but also their families so they can begin looking at how do I qualify move forward for scholarships and then also colleges and then finally is just our student and Family Resources where can we point them back to so while we always start with the schools their counselors the college career Specialists we also point them back to that website that we had on the previous slide because that really has everything in one place for them and

037one thing we wanted to be to be able to provide was a snapshot of how Florida Bright Futures demonstrates within our district within a particular graduating cohort so what you see up here is a series of layered bar graphs demonstrating the different types of Florida Bright Futures attainment for last year's graduating seniors for 15 or 15 high schools and when I started 15 high schools what I mean is 14 traditional brick and mortar high schools we actually have 15 but Gateway High School did not have a graduating cohort yet so that's excluded from here as well as Lee County virtual franchise so those are 15 schools included in this particular graphic and on the far left what you'll see is in the orange layers the orange layers are a demonstration of the four different types

038of awards that Miss Brooks reviewed the FAS which is in the darkest color Florida academic Scholars that's the 100 tuition scholarship the FMS or Medallion Scholars which is the 75 tuition scholarship and then the other two are the gold seal Cape award and the gold seal vocational Awards so those are the four layers of attainment of the bright future scholarship again in the Orange is for our entire District's graduation cohort last year so you can see approximately or I should say just less than 15 percent of our students last year that graduated achieved one of these recognitions and just under 10 of the graduating seniors achieved the 100 Florida academic Scholars recognition when we stratify that by school type in this case one of the things Miss Brooks mentioned was there are different criteria in

039which you can achieve the Florida Bright Futures scholarships particularly the FAS and FMS 100 and the 75 the primary way is through an SAT score which continues to escalate 1330 then 1340. these are to be objective are rigorous bars to meet there in the mid 80th percentiles of achievement an alternative Pathway to achieving the FAS or FMS is through diploma attainment particularly in Ace or IB diploma so stratified here on the second and third layered bar graph are the achievement of these award distinctions based on students enrolled in a school with one or the other diploma type pathway at this time there were four schools that had a Cambridge diploma pathway for the seniors for four years and Forest schools had an IB diploma and you can see there's a strong association between increased achievement

040of these award recognitions and presence in a school that offers these types of deployment Pathways that there is of course this is one graduating cohort there can be noise we're talking about you know a couple hundred students here but the relationship between these two types of schools compared to the other seven on the furthest right and the diploma the lack of a diploma pathway for ibrace the data is substantial so these are these tie back not only to slide 10 where Miss Brooks mentioned the alternatives to achieving the FAS or FMS but also to what Miss elevator just referred to in a previous slide about the increased curriculum offerings and how that is one approach in which students now can take opportunities to have more I should say more opportunities sorry to achieve one of

041these scholarship distinctions okay we'll turn it over to superintendent's comments and board member questions and discussion thank you thank you to the team very comprehensive report appreciate your delving not into not only how you get the scholarship but what our numbers look like in our past graduation cohorts would like to take the opportunity for the board to begin their discussion regarding these particular opportunities that our young people have and know that the team seated at the diocese along with me will be happy to handle whatever questions you may have thank you Mr superintendent do we have any board comments or questions Mr persons I just had one question how do we compare to other districts as far as the or do you all have that information sorry I apologize actually we do not have that

042information I can request if the state has that what we have access to through the Oxford office of student financial assistance which runs Bright Futures our interface allows us to pull school by school statistics and our district statistics while we lack that we can certainly ask if they have that available to us thank you Ms Patricia so I've got several you can cut me off and then come back to me please so at the very beginning think first of all thank you for this I learned a lot and my daughter is a freshman in college so me learning a lot as a parent that just went through this I think speaks volumes to maybe some more efforts in terms of getting parents to understand what this is all about you talked about public school homeschool

043GED what about private high schools do those kids qualify foreign okay sorry I have microphone nervousness apparently with these new microphones private schools and forgive me for my ignorance my understanding is that there are Pathways for private school students the reason that I'm uncertain exactly how they submit everything and how that is tracked is because we only see and have access to the public school pieces my understanding is yes they do okay on slide eight you talked about the weighted Bright Futures GPA and that was just I think on slide eight for those courses so it's the if you're taking IB English and IB mathematics whatever I be weighted GPA you get is where the how the 3.5 is calculated is that correct okay that is correct they take your 16 core courses and they

044take the best attempts of those 16. therefore students that take additional math maybe they take a fifth or a sixth mathematic course or they take additional science they will take the best performance measures each semester and recalculate that amongst those 16 High School core credits to obtain the appropriate GPA likewise and I neglected to mention earlier Bright Futures will Super score multiple attempts on the SAT and the ACT to achieve the 29 or the 1330 or the 25 or 12 10 respectively so one of the things that I've learned and my daughter learned the hard way is that IB English doesn't necessarily count as your English comp in college so I think she thought okay I've earned these college credits and now I don't have to take English ever again because she hates English but

045she the rude awakening when she stepped on campus so communicating that more clearly with students and parents so that we have more realistic expectations going forward the other piece to this is that this weighted GPA doesn't necessarily mean anything when you get to college so there there was an expectation that you know the higher the GPA the I don't know the more you get in college or something but it really just beyond Bright Futures it just doesn't really mean anything so that was also another surprise in terms of volunteer service hours I've said this before it's it's sad to me that students who don't need to work are no longer encouraged to volunteer they can work instead I wish there was a means test associated with this so that kids who have the means to

046volunteer are required to do that not your issue I understand it's a state issue but one that I wanted to express the gsv is that good for Cape Tech and Fort Myers Tech that one is good for technical colleges including our own locals in addition to the cape Scholars so both of those so are we talking about like auto mechanic welding or is it only specific programs so it's any program that is a career certificate program or an Associate in Science degree program or associate in applied science degree program so yes that was a piece of information that was brand new to me today I'm really excited to know that our kids can can now qualify for this and I would like to think that as we're moving more toward Career and Technical education that

047we would be pushing this more with our students as well I've got a son who I would have been pushing for a higher GPA and pushing more to study for the s.a.t had I known this because that's his goal his goal is to go to Cape or Fort Myers Tech and anyways that was a brand new piece of information for me I quit but my question is how are parents receiving this info are we providing video instruction are we providing checklists again the fact that I just went through this with my daughter and I'll be going through it with two of my sons next year and that I learned something new today it that's concerning to me how early are we letting parents know how early are we letting students know my oldest did most

048of it on her own next year I'm going to be on the phone constantly trying to figure out what to do because my boys aren't going to do anything so this video like sitting here and hearing you teach me is far more effective for me than to get onto a website and try to read it and I understand the resources are out there but perhaps some spoon feeding might be necessary just something to consider because I would consume it better if I was hearing it from you guys obviously I did today so just something to think about maybe make it fun or wear costumes or no I'm just kidding miss Patricia before we get done before we continue I just want to see if any other board members have any comments at the moment and

049then we can come back to you if that's all right Miss Langford Fleming I agree with you Ms patrika that's that's going through all of this especially for somebody like myself who has not had a call has not had a senior yet how are we getting this information and in a very simplistic way to parents across the district whether we make it fun or make it a social hour or whatnot but to try to just simplify this in a way because I know a lot of parents would sit down and help their child if they even knew where to start and like miss Patricia had said The more children you have the better you hopefully get at it but then there's that oldest that missed the boat but so my question is since you can

050start collecting like whether it's taking classes or volunteer hours or working can can we do we break this down in eighth grade as early as eighth grade maybe maybe right at the beginning of their second semester of eighth grade so these parents can start to think about this when they start choosing their child's schedule for their freshman year typically speaking and what I know to be true in every High School is as students enter grade nine we definitely start the advising and the students are coach to begin with the end in mind because what we tell them is you're competing against the best in yourself this is merit-based but you do not have to be the one person that gets the scholarship if you meet the criteria you're funding your way through college in eighth

051grade most of our high schools when they're advising the eighth graders then the counselors meet with the students and parents to choose classes and talk through the opportunities that is part of that process however I think we need to go back and have additional discussions to make sure it's part of the process for every one of our middle schools and so I took notes on that and also the parent communication piece we have had some challenges and how to truly reach every parent and we've talked through our presentations with Naviance about a lot of that improved communication because parents will have it right on their phone they can log in at their Leisure however we can also do push notifications I also understand some of our feedback has been that we push too much to

052parents using the phone and so we I made notes to talk with our High School counseling teams and our assistant principals for curriculum about having a more creative and consistent way to do this across the context of high school so this is definitely a continued conversation from ninth grade all the way through even the commencement ceremonies because believe it or not we still have some students that need to apply and we're hitting commencement and they have five years to trigger the use of this and that's an important piece because we have students that say I'm going out of state or I'm really not interested in post-secondary right now and that is part of our push and we call parents and say it's five minutes of an application can you please help us help Johnny get

053this done because he may change his mind and those and parents are supportive of making sure that this gets checked off the to-do list even if they're not triggering it right now a lot of our students return to it so we wrote down that feedback for parents and students I'll follow up with our middle school teams to make sure that it is consistently part of the advising as they head out of 8th grade into ninth and then we'll get to work on improved parent communication and really breaking it down across every grade level of high school to ensure its continued communication and also that it's a lot of information our counselors in College and Career Specialists have to have all of that in their head along with so many other things and but it's a

054great opportunity so thanks for the feedback I just wanted to just to one more thing on that to add to that is I've got those second language learner families in my mind and while there are so many gifted second language Learners in our district a lot of times their parents are not able to understand all the information so when whenever we are adding these presentations hopefully around the district and around all around the county that we're keeping that you know keeping that group in mind for sure and then my second question was please correct me if I'm wrong but when you go to slide 17 where it shows the ace and the IB programs that third bar graph with the seven schools what what are our plans to be able to increase that because obviously

055we've got students who are you know always wanting to be in certain schools because of those two programs that they offer so what are the plans for the future for these other schools so with the implementation of having an advanced program at all 15 high schools now we'll see this bar graph change over the course of the next three to four years since it's a graduation cohort last year was the first year that we had four additional schools pick up freshmen into an advanced diploma pathway this year we've brought on all so in four years from this graduating cohort we will see all of our schools over to the left hand side we won't have any of our schools sitting over to the right anymore without an advanced program pathway okay that's awesome and thank

056you so much for this presentation very much appreciated so thank you before I return to miss Patrica are there any other questions or comments Miss Jordan thank you I was thank you for the English language Learners I appreciate you saying that every single ninth grader is brought in and have and you have this conversation with all those thousands of kids it's part of their classroom meetings and also when the school counselors in College and Career Specialists go into the scheduled classes so they have large class meetings at the beginning of each year and then also they do push in class what we call classroom guidance and we cover with our freshmen the importance of beginning with the end in mind to include course performance and their selection of rigor but also their performance within that

057rigor and what that GPA looks like so they can graduate on time and plan for their post-secondary world and that also includes the Bright Futures scholarship okay thank you because the way it sounded as if we sit down with each individual child and have this conversation but it's in group settings that is correct as far as the initial information sharing okay at least annually when we have course registration that is another touch point for every student to have this information Around Bright Futures and then very consistently Junior and Senior year because we tend to turn up the heat a lot more to make sure that our students have all the information they need to make timely decisions and take those actions related to their plans after high school it becomes the fabric of what we

058talk about it's very much ingrained in that in our individual conversations with students okay so then I'm just going to go back again with what this Fleming's just said as well those children who may have that language barrier is that then a one-on-one or that child who has an IEP or then we take those kids and separately and help them gather the information it's a lot of individual advising that our school counselors engage in and I do want to mention too that we have our English language learner parent Esau Knights and this is part of their presentations as well from the team we provide and we also are part of those presentations but we provide information as well so that our parents have that in the language that they prefer they get that information as

059well thank you and that is great because I've been on those many times where they do both English and Spanish so thank you for that appreciate it thank you Ms juvenile thank you because y'all asked a lot of questions that I had actually mine was about the communication piece because I had a daughter that graduated in 2017 and she never communicated anything to me about any conversations that happened I think teenagers kind of do that they really don't talk to their parents so I think that we have to we have to take that extra step because some students they just want to go home when school they're in school that's all they're thinking about and once they get home none of the information from school gets to home so I just think we have to

060do better in the communication one of the questions that Miss Fleming asked was you know and what was one of my questions was you know at what stage do we engage because I think that's really vital and critical and we have to keep engaging and it's the families and the parents because they have a they actually have they kind of set the plan sometimes for their their students rather than the students saying you know not all students like know what they want to be when they grow up some of us are still trying to figure that out so even as adults so I mean it's really important that parents are involved and are helping guide their child and I thank you miss Patricia because you just recently went through it and learned and because that

061wasn't like I'm like this could have been in another language for me because I never got any of this information when my daughter was in school so I think it's really important that somehow we're doing better at that communication piece of it and I had one of my notes was the financial night I don't ever remember seeing that happening and my daughter went to Fort Myers High School so I'm not saying that it didn't because I think it's that piece where the student didn't doesn't tell the parent hey tonight's financial aid night you know what I mean because they really don't some of them really don't care you know if it's paid for or not I've kind of got one of those but so or how it's paid for they think you can just draw

062the money out of the bank still so and it's you know it comes very fluid and so and a lot of kids don't have that concept because we don't really teach that in school these days is the financial aspect and what you know budgeting and so forth so I think that's one of the so important and then thank you Mr persons because that was my other question regarding you know where do we how do we compare to the other districts I think that's really important because we want to make sure that we're doing our job as a board that overseeing the graduation and student successes but I guess the key thing is really for me was a communication piece and at what point do we engage so thank you very much the other thing that

063I wanted to bring up was is we have counselors that will have like 600 students it's almost impossible for them to reach each student and help them guide them in their career path or education path or you know because I think my daughter picked her classes and if she would have her choice it would have been art and she wasn't even good in art so I mean it would I kept asking her why are you keep taking art you look at your stuff I mean she wasn't artistic at all but that's my point is students will do things that really isn't in their their career path or their their education path and so parents really need to be involved in so that's my piece of it thank you please proceed to miss Patrica thank you

064I just have three more things have we thought about providing parents with a cost benefit analysis of the cost of tutoring to improve sat or ACT scores versus what they will save in tuition because there's a big difference between that nothing and 75 75 100 and it's worth it to spend if you have the resources it's worth it to spend it for the savings over four years the other thing is tuition does not include fees or important books and that's a huge sticker shock and that's something that we should be communicating with parents as well perhaps as early as the elementary years to help them understand what a 529 plan is and how they can save for that and not be hit with that sticker shock at the end of 12 Years and then finally

065slide 17 is a shock to me and it is an illustration of my own bias I was stunned that 14.6 of our students are qualifying for these scholarships I would have expected the number to be much higher and that's not I'm that is not a criticism as much as it is a self-check for me I expect my students to earn the my children my own children I expect them to earn these scholarships and if they don't there are consequences but it was surprising to me that the number is as low as it is I really thought it would be a lot higher those are my comments sure thank you go ahead Miss juvenile one more thing I'm sorry the website I wouldn't I went and searched you know Bright Futures and it really didn't give

066me any information and then I went and put in FAFSA and it gave me a little bit about that but if you don't know Bright Futures and the information you're not going to search FAFSA so I think that's another critical piece because we do have people that go to our website I personally don't think our website's that user friendly so and getting the information that's needed but that's me so that was the other thing was that our actual website doesn't give the information that I believe should should be out there that could be at the at the touch of their fingers thank you Mr persons as a student is sort of interested in doing this and the parents get on board is it tracked each year I mean do they get a report out that

067your student has 25 hours of volunteer and their grade point average is X right now that's an excellent question we have had to provide through the Bright Futures interface they can log into that and we've we most parents don't so we've provided a hard copy update and that is actually a benefit of Naviance because they will be able to actually go right into that app and see where they are for all of these all of these needs that our students have from searching colleges all the way through scholarship applications including Bright Futures and the criteria for Bright Futures will be at just their fingertips right there so it will actually make things more of a One-Stop app if you will for parents so it will become much easier for them to access it foreign persons

068just answered and got the information out there I wanted to encourage all of us to be reminded of the presentations that went on this fall I think as a note for the team if we could also get a copy of that report in the weekly update that we did on Naviance so that our newest board members could be updated that is to a lot of the points that have been raised here the One-Stop shop and nothing's that no computer systems ever Perfect all right we have access we still have other issues but it does take away some of the translation issues it does provide to Ms givenelli's comments the location to go I also went out to the parent portal I had to find Bright Futures under financial information and if you click and you're

069diligent enough you will find it but I understand that not everybody has that same capability I think so Naviance is one place where we put some of our stock increasing the level of communication is another this team has been vital about looking get the larger picture when it comes to things like FAFSA nights what else we can provide Candace and Clayton Simmons are heavily involved right now in a spring sort of fair related to our high schools so that our parents can instead of having to travel to each individual High School we'll have an opportunity to come down and exercise and see the choice options for the high school level here in this building we have additional announcements coming out about that but they have also begun not just about high school but since we're

070talking with eighth grade students who are primarily making that decision there are going to be areas within the building on that particular day as well where additional services are available to the parents so they can get an idea of what they need to be planning for and what they need to be looking for I think the comments tonight are very good at helping us inform what we do and I would like to also credit our school counselors and our College and Career experts do amazing work there are not enough of them there I don't know that the school district could ever afford enough of them but I think we can also certainly work with our partners across the state to look at what they're willing to report or what they have reported to their boards

071regarding their number of seniors who've qualified so that we can make some comparison data I think that's really important when this presentation came forward and cabinet that was one of the first questions the cabinet team asked of this team was where's our comparison to other school districts so we are working through that process as well so we can have some comparable data for all of you certainly the road to college is a very complicated one so is the road to College and Career and I do think it's worth repeating and reminding parents and for students who may be listening to consistently ask the question of what will apply specifically for me when I go off to college in some cases depending on where you go that English credit does remove your ability to have not

072have to take English again in other cases some of our more prestigious four-year universities are saying to students congratulations we will give you that credit but we will remove it from your electives you will take your core academics with us because we want to be sure when we give you the degree from a particular University we know that your core has been done with the university the best way for a parent or a student who's really seeking to ensure that college credit is accepted is the dual enrollment process when you enroll at an fsw or an FGCU and you graduate with a credit from those universities the university that you go to needs to accept that credit that is the best pathway forward if you're looking to reduce the number of credits that would take

073you to graduate but I think there's lots here I mean I heard also about you know the fact that tuition is one aspect of a college education living there eating there is a whole other aspect and I do appreciate what the state has done for parents to plan as early as when children are born to have some of those issues taken care of and we will continue to look to improve our website Naviance and other avenues by which our parents as early as possible begin to receive this information so they can as best we can adequately plan for when from that young when that young person gets there to that decision point thank you Mr superintendent I really appreciate this presentation not just as a board member but as a parent as well I'm listening

074and gathering information for my kids later on I appreciate that I'm actually going to keep this presentation handy for the future and for others in the community but thank you for your hard work and go ahead Sorry Miss Patrica that's okay I didn't want my comments to come across as being ungrateful for Bright Futures I talk to people in other parts of the country and they are stunned that Florida has this program it is a wonderful program don't get me wrong that's the first thing the second thing is Dr Bernier it's my understanding that college Florida college system credits don't necessarily transfer to the university system but the university system credits do automatically transfer so I just I want to put that caveat out there that an fsw English or some other course isn't necessarily

075going to automatically transfer into the university system that's that's been my experience at FGCU we'll get clarification please if you could that would be great and again you go back to as many of you with more you've talked about your own personal children so I know what happened at another University I will not name it but I know what happened to another University regarding a lot of the advanced placement and other degree program credits we had but I also know that the credit from Valencia College in college algebra was immediately accepted by one of our University Systems so we will continue to work through the Maze of what it means to be both College and Career not just for our students but for our parents because it's a critical it's a critical decision Point that's

076starting to be made earlier and earlier and earlier and we recognize and appreciate your support for helping us think from a parent's perspective grandparents perspective and from a board member's perspective that this is what your constituents talk to you about so we stand at the ready to be able to serve thank you and again thank you for your presentation I appreciate it now we're going to move on to item number four policy review that is a first reading of draft policies I'm going to turn that over to attorney Dupree Bruno good afternoon and thank you Mr chairman today we are joined by Tammy Scott our coordinator of mtss in attendance Jessica Duncan executive director of student services Chuck Bradley is supposed to be here director of positive prevention Candace elevator of teaching and learning Dr

077Bethany Quisenberry director of teaching and learning Lori Hutchin director of teaching and learning and assistant school board attorney Shayna zubke we have eight policies for the board's consideration today this is part of our Neola conversion there are times that we feel policies need to be brought forth prior to the final conversion sometime at the end of this school year and these policies or some of those policies based on some State Board of regulations that came out over the fall the policies are more than what the state board had indicated in its regulations because we are adopting the full Neola policy based on previous laws as well as some laws that came in over the summer at this time I'm going to ask I don't know if Mr Bradley will be joining us if not I'm

078going to ask Jessica Duncan also to join us on this particular discussion the first policy we're going to be reviewing is a designation of bathrooms locker rooms and dressing rooms board policy 2.36 this is as a result of a regulation that came out 6a-10.086 we have had a Unwritten policy but it is implicated in our civil rights and Equity guide with regards to designation of bathrooms and locker rooms and dressing rooms for a very long time this policy just basically codifies that civil rights and Equity guide provision are there any questions from the board and if once those questions are answered then miss Duncan is going to present an update on the equity guide as well as show us a video do we have any questions or comments board members Miss Jordan I guess I

079guess referred to say the equity first because we're stating that this is part of the equity guide and I think that if we're looking at this person then going to the equity guy second looks like we're doing it backwards Okay so we may come back to a question on this afterwards so the equity guide it has not been changed it's the same Equity guide that we've been using but I'll go ahead and pass it to Miss Duncan she can give us an update and then show us the video thank you Jessica good afternoon Mr Bradley is unexpectedly out and he sends his regrets and he was really hoping to join us today I'm going to hold for one moment my apologies I just wanted to double check if Miss Patrica had any questions regards to

0802.36 just wanted to go through all the board members real quick before he proceed sorry about that thank you no I'm in good shape right now okay proceed sorry about that thank you so the equity guide was developed with stakeholder input and the final version after some additional input and updates from the state was put out on our website on September 6th of last year and we also put a brief guide to Title IX on there as well what we have recently done is a short just a brief video that Mr Bradley created to give an overview of the guide and we are planning on also offering some evening training for our staff starting in February so I think at this point we can just show the video and then answer any questions that you

081may have presentation we will overview the new guide and related documents and processes the equity guide is accessible in multiple places on our district website including the student support and administration sections of the employee portal and the parent portal for this overview let's begin with some working definitions civil rights guarantee the equal protection of the law for all regardless of personal characteristics Equity ensures appropriate access to and participation in educational programs and employment individuals may need accommodations or suitable alternatives to ensure equity equity and civil rights ensures that each student has access to a free and appropriate public education and each employee to a workplace without discrimination in addition to civil rights and Equity laws the guidance included complies with applicable federal and state laws as well as school board policies the guide honors both

082the rights of students and parents in the school district of Lee County we recognize that the triangle of Student Success requires trusting relationships and mutual support among students parents and employees the district's non-discrimination policy ensures all students and employees are protected from discrimination in educational programs activities or employment the Civil Rights and Equity guide provides guidance in ensuring that this policy is fully implemented the foundation of the district's non-discrimination policy is found in applicable federal laws the equity guide is organized around these laws including titles 2 6 and 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title IX of the edge Act of 1964 addresses non-discrimination requirements and employment in five categories race color national origin religion and sex Title IX of the educational Amendments of 1972 states that no person shall on the basis

083of sex be excluded from participation in be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any academic extracurricular research occupational Training or other education program or activity three federal laws provide equity for persons with disabilities the Americans with Disabilities Act as a broad law requiring accommodations to public facilities and activities to ensure that persons with disabilities are provided Equitable access Section 504 is more specific to qualifying students with disabilities in educational programs receiving federal funds and the individuals with disabilities Education Act is even more specific to qualifying students with disabilities that require specialized instruction and services the guide includes references to other Equity laws including the Age Discrimination Act which protects employees from workplace discrimination based on age and the genetic information non-discrimination act or Gina which prohibits discrimination in health care coverage

084and employment finally the equity guide references the 14th Amendment of the U.S Constitution that requires the equal protection of the law for all citizens when a student or employee experiences bullying and or harassment they have the right to report it and seek resolution when the complaint includes discrimination and or harassment based on a personal characteristic defined in the district's non-discrimination policy and related civil rights and Equity laws it is considered an equity complaint all complaints of discrimination bullying and or harassment are required to be investigated if the qualifying incident occurred during an education program where activity authorized by the school district of Lee County the district's Complaint Form may be accessed from the non-discrimination policy Link at Lee schools.net thank you so as shared the equity guide the information that we'll be talking about with

085the designation of bathroom and locker rooms the information in our guide is aligned with State guidance and is also aligned with the neoli policy that update that you will be hearing about today thank you Miss Duncan it's also aligned at this time with federal law given the Adams versus St John's case that was released December 30th at this time does the board have any questions with regards to the policy 2.36 can you just briefly if I may through the chair attorney Dupree Bruno talk about atoms in the holding Adams versus St John's is a case from the St John's School District where a student a gender transgender student filed a complaint based on violation of the 14th Amendment equal protection Clause as well as violation of Title IX because they were not allowed to use

086the bathroom that they identified with the school had a similar policy as to what we have and the policy also indicated that the student could request accommodations the school did provide accommodations but that case went to court the lower court did rule in Adam's favor it then went to the 11th circuit which is the federal court of appeals for our jurisdiction initially the 11th circuit did affirm the lower Court's ruling however a request was made for an ombah hearing meaning that all judges were requested to review the matter and that original ruling from the 11th circuit was vacated the court did review everything and have a hearing on it and on December 30th 2023 they issued a ruling in Adams basically finding that the policy of the school district of Saint John's was not in

087violation of the equal protection Clause of the 14th Amendment nor was it a violation of Title IX do you have anything further miss Patricia yeah if I recall correctly and Adams there there was not an actual policy as much as it was a practice that was one of the things that the court originally sort of criticized right well one of the things that the court when evaluating atoms not a formal policy but there was a practice and evaluating one of the things that the court was examining was how much review that the district had in this practice so yes and so when you say our policy you mean the one that we're about to adopt correct and I and which will be a formal policy right I believe that the adoption of is that 2.36

088strengthens us and provides us with a greater defense against any any challenges that might come our way because it takes away that criticism from the court that there was no policy in place so I'm I'm encouraged that the board is considering this policy today thank you that's that's one good point Mr chica also there's been some requests to make sure that it is clear for the public for constituents for parents so that's another reason why it's being brought forth as a formal policy to the board real quick I just want to interject that just for the members of the public that we are not voting on this policy today we're just going to the first reading of it go ahead Miss Jordan Mr pray Bruno I think you stated December 2023 was that no December

0892022 2022 December 30th 2022 my recollection is correct but it was at the end of December in 2022. okay thank you very recent and then also with this that doesn't any of our students any child can request I don't care who you are can request if they want accommodations any child that's the protection to ensure the safety of all of our students any student has an opportunity to request an accommodation thank you any further comment and questions on 2.36 from the board Mr persons yeah I just want to be on record as saying I think having the policy is definitely the way to go not having like a best practices or whatever you want to call it before that so thank you at this time Mr chairman if the board can please give direction whether

090or not they want this policy to move forward to Second reading okay let's ask I guess yes or no if we want to move forward for a second reading on this do we have yeah let's do show of hands okay thank you I would like to proceed thank you the next thank you very much Miss Duncan the next policy that we have for the board's consideration is the selection of instructional materials board policy 2.18 I'm going to ask that Miss elevato Miss Hutchin and Miss Quisenberry please join us for this discussion this policy as the board knows we're going through our Meola conversion and there are a lot of policies that we're reviewing certain policies kind of float to the top because there's been some regulations or some changes and this is one of the

091policies that has floated to the top that we feel should be considered by the board and not wait till our full meal of conversion in the spring we also provided some process documents along with this policy so that the board can see how this policy will actually be implemented at this time are there any questions with regards to the policy itself it does incorporate all of the new laws as well as the most recent regulations from the State Board of Education board members any questions or comments at this moment on 2.18 Miss Jordan thank you Mr prob ate sure because when we were prior to the new board we were making sure that everything was per statute so this is what we're doing right now we are just adhering to what the statute or the

092new statute is correct correct and what we're doing every policy that's before the board today is based on some change in the State Board of Education regulations and they also incorporate any new statutes that are up to date with statutes and laws thank you I just wanted to make sure that was clear thank you I believe did Miss Morgan ever hand up go ahead Miss Morgan October's I was looking I'm not this is really a process question but it's not referenced in policy or in the process documents that accompany this but where is it stated how vendors are selected are they do we bring in all the vendors approved by the state is there a local culling a state recommendations there's just there's reference to vendors but there's no reference to how the vendors are

093selected yeah thank you Miss Morgan I'm going to ask for would you be referencing there's no line that's why I asked the question yeah so it's Miss elevator Miss Hutchin and Miss Quisenberry can go through those process documents I think that will help answer the question absolutely and I'm just a question if we're regarding the ones for textbook selection so our core instructional materials that we follow the state's adoption cycle every year previously we bring in all of the Publishers who get put out on the state's list so the first document that's in there that would be a process document is the Publisher's presentation but that is directly off of the state's bid list so a textbook publisher has to bid to this state that they have materials that meet the state standards and benchmarks

094we take that list and that's how we bring them in for presentations and going through our textbook adoption process and I understand all that the question was are you calling any out are you bringing in a hundred percent so there's no preview done by staff okay 100 okay and I have a question line 276. the superintendent shall approve purchases of instructional materials my question is if we have an elected superintendent and the committee makes a recommendation about instructional materials and the superintendent wants to override that where are we is that a legitimate question it is a legitimate question because they're elected or Not Elected the statute dictates and advises what's everybody's responsibilities but clearly there's going to be a change when you have an elected superintendent that is not appointed you know does not report

095to the board and will be able is a constitutional officer with its own with his or her own purview so yes that's a very good question the policy does say that the superintendent is responsible for the purchasing process most likely the elected superintendent will be responsible for the purchasing process but the school board is the one that will approve the textbook adoption so I guess really I'm just asking is there any way we can Harden yes or make it clear that the board still has the authority based on the recommendation of staff to override the recommendation of the superintendent I'm going to have to review that Miss Morgan and just double check with the statute we can I mean it's very clear that the board is the one who will make the final textbook adoption

096it is your statutory obligation I have to look in terms of the purchasing power which would normally fall under the superintendent because this is different than our regular procurement process so okay and then I just have a trivial question line 303 the principal May permit vendors to demonstrate I don't think the principles when I looked at the process document it has nothing to do with the principle so I was just curious unless it's yeah I think they're looking at it is that instructional materials this says the principal might prevent vendors to demonstrate and show only that equipment and instructional materials that may be used and they're talking about vendors and I assume this refers to the selection process and it makes reference to a principal permitting vendors which suggests that they're in the schools as

097opposed to the process being in the district so I mean it's it's a small point but it can create confusion you guys see what I okay so I think this is something that we can go back to the team and review and discuss further yeah okay thank you those are my questions thank you go ahead miss Patricia might not be referring to like Seven Habits of Highly Effective help me with that guy's name cubby thank you so each School approves different things and sometimes you have vendors at schools for not necessarily district-wide curriculum but school-based programs and curriculum that's when I read it that was what I thought that could be okay we just read it differently no other questions or comments at this time if Miss Hutchin Mr elevator and Miss Quisenberry want to

098review the actual process documents for the board I apologize we were having a sidewalk conversation about your question are we pulling up the process document thank you okay so this process document is in response to HB 1467 so many of the processes that are in this document the school district of Lee County were already implementing but it has been updated to reflect new legislative requirements so the first of those requirements is step one the bill required the doe to develop an online training program for any Personnel that has a part of purchasing the School District Library materials and so the Florida Florida do we had until January 1st of 2023 to push out that training they just recently made that training available and we have began to complete that training in the curriculum department and

099then we'll work through for this to be the first part of of our process to ensure that all of those Personnel in the schools have completed this training each year our schools complete a collection development analysis for their school media center as part of that process schools run the collection analysis report through Destiny would you just explain what that is yes I will that is a great question because I actually had to ask that same question because when my person would bring that to me it was already complete so what that does is it runs through all of the materials that are in the media center through Destiny and then it takes into account like AR levels the time that the books have been checked out how long has it been since the book has

100been checked out it also goes through the Dewey Decimal System of how many books you have available for each of those genres and so then it creates a report based off of all of those pieces so for example in the elementary schools we really utilize that report for if we are short for different levels for our students in accelerated reading and then that prompts us to be able to order additional materials you're welcome I apologize thank you using that report then they determined those areas of concern and or need and then at that time they would also take into consideration teacher recommendations or often we have students that request materials for our Media Center Schools follow the district's reading guidelines to remove any materials based on age-appropriateness and they will also utilize the determinations from

101The Challenge to media and instructional committee and then schools will remove any of those books that need to be removed from the shelf and then also go into the destiny system to remove those from that database schools create curate resources based on needs to purchase additional books for their media centers and the school district of Lee County has approved vendors that we utilize for this process schools contact that approved vendor they share that analysis data and then the vendor creates a proposal that they then send back to the school for what books they are suggesting for them to order so then the next step in the process is that there's a committee review since posting this we did update this header but wanted to ensure that we were sharing the one that was published to

102the website but this section has been updated to say school committee review we wanted to be sure to delineate between the two processes that there is instructional materials textbook adoption but this is all about school-based media purchases so this is a school committee so once the school curates sees what they need then it's the job of the school committee to determine those books that are going to be purchased it's been outlined here that the committee needs to be made up of a media Specialist or literacy coach so not all of our schools are going to have a media specialist but all of our schools do have a literacy coach so ensuring if we go back to the very first step that Dr Quisenberry spoke about there's training that is required which is new so if

103the school doesn't have that media specialist the literacy coach will receive that training in addition on this committee we have to have the administrator who oversees textbook and media part of this new legislative piece is that the principal is signing off so there needs to be an admin who is overseeing every single book that is being placed into the media so they need to be part of this committee from the beginning not at the end but from the beginning of the process in addition if there's not that media specialist we have that certified literacy coach but we would like to have the media paraprofessional in our schools we have somebody inside of the media that helps this will be a change though for some of our schools where it's student checkout systems where a student

104may walk in and they scan their folder scan their ID and it automatically allows checkouts so this will be a shift that we are proposing this is draft process right now to align with the policy changes in addition as we're looking at our processes having a parent representative on this committee as well purchases typically go before our sac and PTO we're asking for a member of the sac PTO or PTA to be part of the selection process from the beginning that way when it goes before the sac PTO PTA there is somebody who is sat on that committee as well therefore it has a full view picture of all of our stakeholders in there we also need for all of the agendas to be dated and minutes to be kept so when you're looking at

105these resources who was involved same processes and procedures for following timelines and collecting of minutes in case we need to go back at any point in time from there the school committee is going to review the materials that they're looking to purchase in the same way that policy outlines so we're looking at developmental appropriateness we're looking at reading level we also need to be looking at book reviews this bullet point here we've always had book reviews but what we have learned from the state in the last two months is that they need to be peer reviewed so while there's a lot of websites out there in which give us a lot of information around books the state has said these have to be professional peer reviewed so we've added that to that content appropriateness you'll

106notice in parentheses it says interest level each book comes with an interest level so that is there so that is very much so if I use my student myself his ability to read is much above the grade level that he is in however some of the content in which he could read and comprehend is not appropriate for the age he is so this is where that interest level comes into play there and then of course we have our state statute so one of our pieces is that we have got to make sure that the statute 1006.40 where we have our three-point Miller test is really clearly identified and we will need to be doing training with our schools so they are used to what this says and what they're evaluating once they've gone through they're

107going to remove any of the books from that curated list that don't meet the guidelines as outlined in Step nine so going back to what Dr Quisenberry they have that list that's been curated they take it through the process with the school committee they remove any books that they feel like do not meet and they bring a list before their Sac or PTO for approval once they have that approval from the parent organization it then moves to the principal that principle is the final person at the school level who would be signing off on these materials a piece of Statute that's new though says the approval of all materials for a school must be certified by an individual who holds the media center certification most of our schools do not have an individual that has

108that certification so what we've elected to do our proposed process is the principal signs off that these are the materials they would like to purchase and we have already been trying this out with some of our elementary schools right now is that list of books goes into PeopleSoft and then it comes to the curriculum Department the curriculum Department reviews the books and our certified individual signs off of those pieces so it's the additional layer that's in there but it's to ensure that we're meeting those components of the new state statute if for some reason there's a book on there that the is not approved at the district level it will get push pushed back and PeopleSoft with a note of why the committee will need to take it back at the school level and adjust

109and then resubmit from there that's how those books will get purchased for the school-based media centers and it's really important that last piece because while it will come to the district curriculum Department these are for school-based media materials at the end of every year this brings us right back to circulation updates we are going to repeat this process all over again so this is a yearly process or at any point in which a school is purchasing new materials much the way we have some schools right now purchasing materials it is coming to the curriculum department so we have begun to implement some of these pieces and now Ms hauschen is going to wrap us up with some parental rights components so one of the things that we wanted to ensure was that our parents also

110had more voice and the types of materials that their their children are checking out so what we're proposing is that at the beginning when they do their beginning of the year forms or when a child enters the district for the first time that one of the forms that they receive is a media center access form and so you'll see this is a draft as of now but the parent takes responsibility for outlining to their child how they filled this form out and then the parent can select that the child has full access with no limitations to the media center or they can begin outlining what the restrictions are so we have the genres here of which they can check the genres or we'll have a fillable where they may have an author that they don't

111want their child to have access to or a title of a book or books that they don't want their child to have access to in addition we will allow them to click and see like what books have been challenged and what was the outcome of the books that have been challenged in our district and that's updated all the time and then the parent signs off on that and then the media center or the person in charge of checkout notes any restrictions in Destiny and overdrive so that when the child does try to check the material out it's going to deny them access and so that's something new that we've added to to give parents more voice in addition parents and community members can visit each school's website and they can see what materials are in

112the media center and then they can go through their child's launch pad onto Destiny and they can always review their child's checkout history as well foreign s or updates that you feel we need to make to strengthen the process real quick Mr superintendent did you want to add something just that we had a sidebar there was a question from the board member immediately seated to my left Mr Fisher asked me a question regarding the particular document you were sharing that is not currently included in board docs that's because it's in draft form still contained within the internal workings of the curriculum services department is that correct them are we referencing that Media Center access form the last one that Miss Houchin just went over we're just where does that actually reside and is it I

113know it's in the link but where does it actually reside when you click on it resides it's in a gold doc link as I draft right now anyone has access to the link at this time so it does say draft on it but that link is a live link so you should be able to click on it and that document open thank you ma'am thank you Miss Patrica thank you I love the parent media access form you said just for clarification that it's either one of those back to school forms that we have to fill out at the beginning of the year or when a child first joins the district correct I personally would prefer to to fill it out every year oh it is a yearly form I'm sorry I did fail to mention

114that okay very good thank you go ahead Miss Jordan thank you I love that too because then we're solving our problems or any kind of opportunities right challenges and then also what happens like a no number 11 if there is not a is there a sack I know there's not a PTO or PTA at every single School even though they would love to have them there may not be but it says Sac PTO or PTA or Etc I don't know what except Etc is so what happens then each school is required to at least have a sec at least have one correct okay so I mean we could just say through the sack if you would prefer said that it would be consistent we would just ask for your guidance on that I just wanted

115to get clarification because I know that every school does not even though they wish they would have one you know PTO or PTA they don't have the opportunity to have that I mean they have the opportunity but they don't have the people so I don't know Mississippi Bruno if that's an issue or not really right the statute doesn't say it has to be sex statute says it has to have parent involved in the community in any any shape okay thank you okay miss Patricia and I'll just say my experience has been that the PTO PTA parents are far more involved whereas they kind of sleep through the SAC meeting and get excited about the PTO PTA meeting so I think that allowing that option with the understanding that on every school has PTO PTA I

116think allowing the options is best for schools any other questions or comments at this section so there's one thing I want to bring to the board's attention there is another rule that is going through the State Board of Education rule making process it's a proposed rule 6a.7-0715 which discusses certifications and plans for instructional materials and library media so we will be monitoring that and if need be adjust this policy once more in our process documents once more to ensure compliance any other questions yes Mr persons I'm sorry on the parent that's on the committee who actually chooses that we know where they come from but who actually will choose the representative I'm going to defer that to the team in our mind when we added that in there it would be a volunteer similar to

117at that first SAC meeting where they look for volunteer to be the dish the DAC representative for the school that they would have somebody on the stack PTO PTA that would like to be the parent volunteer so it would land with the principal thank you okay I want to thank the team for this was a lot of hard work and a lot of discussion thank you to Dr Spira Dr Cupid McCoy for bringing this and helping us bring this forward to the board today it was unusual for us to bring processes but we thought it was very important for the board to not only see the policy but also see how that policy would be implemented in the district to ensure compliance with all laws at this time I would ask Mr chairman if the

118board would like for this policy to move forward to Second reading okay if we as a board want to move this forward to a second review of policy 2.18 let's show they have a show of hands we so do chairman thank you team the next policy we have is School Safety and Security and it's really a cluster of three policies School Safety and Security policy 2.11 monitoring Safety and Security of District facilities is not really a change but it just references 2.11 and 2.16 as well as changes through the threat assessment team board policy 2.16 this policy is being brought forth because there were some changes from the legislation last year as well as changes from the State Board of Education we felt that we could no longer wait to bring these policies to the

119boards for consideration even though we were going through the Neola conversion so at this time are there any questions on this policy any questions on this policy Miss Jordan thank you when I was looking at it so on page two it was the assessment team it said staff crossed out attorney was it always the attorney or what was the change the attorney Steph or attorney no we had staff attorney and we don't have a staff attorney okay thank you I just need a clarification on that one any further questions or comments and apologize Miss Jordan what line was that just for clarification we are taking notes for any of those it was 90. thank you on page two and she's on board policy 2.11. you know 2.16 I'm sorry 2.16 I thought you said a

120month I want the wrong one that's okay because we could do the three together because they really do go hand in hand 2.11 2.16 and the other one is very minor it's just changing related policies at the top thank you foreign other questions about 2.11 or 2.16 or 2.14 Mr persons I believe it's F that says they will be safe places will be can be marked will be marked the page one that we were just looking at one to eleven Two Eleven sorry wait no the previous one see here I'm sorry go back to the beginning of the one policy all the way back yes thank you page two on back now he said 2.11 I think he's looking at 2.11 he took yeah 2.11 page two sorry f there you go it says identification

121of safe places and command posts will this be like a just a generic like this is a safe place or will we have placards up for different things you know that might be considered political no this is I know what you're referencing Mr Parsons this is not about safe stickers or anything like that this is something that specifically required by Statute to have a Safety and Security plan and a District Active assailant response plan and that's what this is referencing a safe space if there is an act of assailant thank you that was just a question if Mr Newlin wants to add to that you go with it okay I Believe Miss Morgan any questions yeah thank you Lines 236 to 241 notifying the office of safe schools within 24 hours at safe schools Florida

122Department of education.org of any deficiencies relating to school resource officer coverage I thought school resource officer coverage is not a requirement so I mean we have to have some sort of Safety and Security per person yeah we have to have some sort of presence there whether it be a school officer or a guardian of some type is required so we have to have some type of presence there if one was not to be there so I think what we need to do is we if this is going to be policy we need to make clear that guardians or whomever else it could be security guard if there's yeah there's four different levels that can be considered a presence at a school based on based on the statute but this says specifically I see I see

123what you're saying okay so basically what she's referencing is in 2.11 it specifically references school resource officer and does not give any of the other you know availabilities per statute such as a guardian or somebody else so we'll fix that Miss Morgan thank you was that it's Morgan or do you have something else no I have another one so disorder what is disorderly conduct oh sure it's line 301. 211 still on 211 yes so she's referencing appropriate and effective School discipline policies that prohibit disorderly conduct that's what she's referencing yeah and I realize it's going to be hard to Define but at some point somebody will challenge what disorderly conduct is and I'm you know I just sort of feel like that's something that I will have to double check Miss Morgan to see if

124it's actually defined in our student code of conduct and maybe but I will have to double check that okay and I think yeah one more oh and this is really just for information line 385 you're talking about reporting the number of incidents to the state and when you exceed the state what your requirements are the state actually sets a limit and says we must report everything over that limit instead it's in statute or is it Department of Education or 385 let me look at it yeah in any year where the number of reportable incidents of violent criminal offenses in any school exceeds the threshold number established in state law the superintendent shall convene immediate a meeting etc etc have we always had a threshold number thanks so that is so this is so Miss Morgan

125I just want to make sure I'm looking at the right section are you looking at the paragraph that starts at line 381 yes so this is referencing for the superintendent to have a meeting to address any corrective action is that what you're referencing yes but the question is when did the state start establishing a threshold number at which point the district was obligated to take certain steps or the superintendent was obligated to take certain steps I just I just it's just a matter of curiosity I didn't realize that the state said well you can have incidents up to so many and then when it exceeds that number you've got to do this right I'll have to pull that I believe it was HB if you give me one second if we can come back to

126that question Miss Morgan I will I have to just pull up the statue that's fine those are my questions thank you that's those are my questions on 211. thank you Miss Morgan did I think Miss Patrica had her hand up yeah I was just gonna say I think that the guardian and the security guard and all that falls under the umbrella of safe school officer I think that is the phrase you were looking for oh yes thank you that was my note actually yes any other questions or comments on 2.11 2.16 or 2.14 . I guess there's some redundancy in this between what was the original policy and and the new or amendments to the policy based on on Neola and I just found it confusing and I guess what I can do is just

127send you my notes rather than go through this in the meeting but there is definitely duplication between what was originally in policy and then dropping in the Neola and so I think that needs to be cleaned up I'll get that to you separately and that's my only comment on 216. and I have no comments on 214. it's juvenile I had was regarding the threat assessment team like I didn't see in here how often they meet and that their process actually is that something that we're going to have like because I know we've had some incidents where the threat assessment team really weren't aware of a situation and yet there was a situation that you know was a you know that there was no threat assessment done so that's my concern is I want to how

128are we being proactive and how often are they meeting and you know because I think once they can determine there might be that there's there's a threat and threat being you know a child a child situation but how are they monitoring that how are they making sure that student is receiving resources after they assess the situation I guess does that make sense to miss Gianelli this is a question that I think would be best answered during a board one-on-one so we will schedule that to make sure that those questions are answered for the board okay thank you because that training is really important and that's one of the things that I want to make make that we need to make sure that the training is at every level thank you okay Mr pre Bruno and

129Miss Morgan I'm gonna have to review the rule to be able to pull that citation for you so I will make sure that the board has that by the end of this week otherwise it's fair and I know you're going to send me some information with regards to 2.16 otherwise if there are no other questions or comments I would like to know if the board would like to move forward with these three policies okay board on policies 2.11 2.14 and 2.16 for a raise of hands if we want to move to a second reading we so do thank you thank you Mr Nolan the next policy that we are going to review is Student Records board policy 4.19 are there any questions on that policy any questions or comments on 4.19 oh Miss Morgan again

130I hadn't turned it off I hope you all don't hear me muttering down here so line 539 on Student Records you put in there the fees for this is Trivial but you put in the fees for the records and I think that shouldn't be in policy it should be and somewhere else just because if you change the fees then it has to come before the board is a policy change that you don't it's page 13. line 539. thank you Miss morning and we'll bring that back to the team so that we can discuss that we've heard a process are there questions or comments on 4.19 please go through this foreign another small question line so page 21 line let's say 8.99. your talking about the directory what information can be included in the directory and

131then line I think it's 901 it says designation of directory information shall occur at a regularly scheduled board meeting I don't tell me the lines again please okay the line it's it's 901. it's that paragraph that starts Section 8 directory information but it's line 901 oh yeah foreign I think this is a conversation for the team okay oh another question Let's see we are talking about transfer of Student Records section B and which starts on the line 9 59. and then there's another line 981 to 983 which references the same process but describes it differently so why 981 says within a receipt of a written request from the principal of the receiving School and up online 959 just says receipt now let's see yeah request from the new school or District so to me that's

132important who's authorized to request the records and it should be consistent between the two unless I'm missing something do you see what I'm saying what was the second number the second 981 yeah it's the same thing it's the same thing but it has a different requirement in it yeah and what Mrs Scott was stating was and I have to go back to see if it differentiates because I'm I'm still reading through it but there's different areas where when schools request records they have different requirements of when parents request records and it would deter it would change who is making the request in that process however I'm just letting you know I'm still reading through that to make sure that is the where it's differentiated well it should be clear so that people understand who are

133administrative positions we'll make a note of that to make sure that if there's any that we can clean up any language to make sure it's clear okay and a question about line 944 the district May disclose directory information on former students without student or parental consent to anybody about anything if the parent had already signed off on the directory and said that the student's information is part of the directory yes I mean because that's part of directory information that the parents there's a notice that goes out in the beginning of the year that talks about the directory information I understand but this is former students correct we often get requests for individuals that are 40 45 years old asking us information about their school records first college or career he says and I understand that

134but this says without student or parental consent so if a student's asking for their record essentially they're they're consenting and now I will directly ask Neola in regards to where that specifically comes from okay thank you okay another question line 988 . progress reports to parents report cards may not be withheld for failure to pay any fine fee or an assessment for lost or damaged books now that's under transferring records so you can't prevent the transfer of Records if there's a fee that has not been paid but is that the same for current students yes okay do do we say that anywhere yes it is in policy this specific policy and many of the Neola policies because these were important policies that were provided to us in November that we needed to bring forward to

135you currently so we are kind of doing a little bit of what we would be doing at the end of the school year where we're transitioning all of our policies out and into all of the Neola for this particular policy since it was so lengthy it was best if we moved it into the Neola framework for the entire policy even though it was repetitive in the nature that things were already included in the policy I get it so it's just I just want to clarify that for current students it appears somewhere else absolutely correct in the future and I just want to take a moment Miss Morgan to explain to you why it was important for us to do that with particular policies that are large is in the future when Neola updates their policies

136based on law they will provide us with the whole policy and then they track changes and show us what changes if we don't transition over to the Neola framework we're constantly going to have to go back and review and rewrite so it was kind of like fighting the bullet for this one but I appreciate it at least the opportunity to explain to you why that's fine and then again there's there's another redundant paragraph but what I'll do is I'll I'll just send that on to you we don't need to go over that here those are my questions thank you thank you Miss Morgan Miss Patrica if I may through the chair going back to Ms Morgan's comments on 901 about the directory information the board does approve the student code of conduct each year the

137directory release is part of the student code of conduct however there's not a link to it so maybe we solved that problem by looking at page 16 of the current code of conduct and where it says directory release of information we make that a link okay just an idea and I will write that down for feedback that we will be requesting for the go to conduct soon okay anyone else on 4.19 it's okay Clara so you bring it back to 901. you talked about designation of directory information shall occur at a regularly scheduled board meeting right so if we are approving it as part of the code of conduct ah then that would be now I understand thank you thank you okay thank you everyone attorney Dupree Bruno there are no further questions Mr chairman

138I would ask whether the board would like us to move forward with 4.9 with the caveats from Miss Miss Morgan understand okay do we board do we want to move forward on a second reading of 4.19 please raise your hands we so do thank you the next policy is suicide prevention awareness and screening foreign policy really is an update based on some new state board of Regulation rules that relates to the use of suicide risk assessments including the qualification of individuals permitted to administer such assessments parental notification requirements and additional revisions regarding youth suicide awareness and prevention training as well as some definitions okay board members questions or comments Ms Jordan this the principle is required to make reasonable attempt to notify the student's parents what does a reasonable attempt mean what line please I'm

139sorry line 49. sorry Mr chair I believe when we had this discussion last time in terms of reasonable which was on February of 2022 when this policy came forward Miss Brooks joined us and there is a process document that discusses that a little bit further Miss Jordan so we can during the board one-on-one and go through that process document with Miss Brooks but it's going to be the same standard that was established before but I know I had a problem with that the last time because I need to I need to know that we are going does that look like two times I'm going to call if I don't get you oh well too bad I need to make sure that we do every single thing in our power to make sure before we take

140a child away from the school from their parents and put them somewhere for three days so to me this is really really important to me when I every time I see that it's just it does something so I really want to know what does that look like and then as far as on 30 line 33 only school-based Mental Health Service Providers are they do we have is everyone now trained for that so we have a person because I know we had talked about doing a our own mobile respond team possibly having one as far as are there individuals on the school's mental health Team trained on this instrument absolutely every member of the school's mental health team is trained on this assessment okay so we have one person if I may continue so we have

141one person who is trained to make the decision yes versus the team that we were where's our where does our team lie at where is that at where are we at with our team of the mobile response team and making sure that they're part of that this to me is when I'm looking at this I'm looking at the same thing as looking at the baker acts where do we look at that and say okay it's not just the two of us deciding what's going to take place with this child and he's an officer so he's going to call downtown and go what do you want me to do and they're going to go take the kid so I need to know that we're making every effort to have the team there to look at it

142the principles as well as making sure that we are doing everything in our power to reach a individual who can is it whether it's the guardian whoever that whatever that looks like that we are doing everything in our power yes ma'am Mr chair go ahead Mr superintendent there's two there's kind of two or three issues that put here and Miss Jordan it's it's a great reminder to all of us how fragile our young people are and at the same time how we have resources within our school buildings who can do this work working as a mental health service provider being a licensed mental health therapist provides additional abilities and other professional certifications that Educators do not have I am not Adept as your superintendent nor was I as a school building principal to determine whether

143a Baker Act needed to occur and didn't need to occur whether a student was safe to go back to class whether he was safe to continue with the normal operation of day I needed the help of professionals within the building I hear your questions very clearly I think it'll be a chance for me to work with academic Services go back through student services to Lori Brooks and bring back forth to all of you some of what we have been doing to ensure that students can be assessed by mental health team members when the event occurs as to a law enforcement individual who makes the decision to Baker Act a child at that point your school system loses control of that situation that is an officer operating within the purview of his duties and it would

144be inappropriate inappropriate for our staff principal or otherwise to intervene when I think reasonable and I will make sure that I will continue this process as long as you allow me to sit in this particular chair the reasonable in those cases when an officer takes a student into custody and starts the process to leave the building with the student it is my responsibility at that point to make sure that my only responsibility and my Paramount responsibility is to make contact with that parent or parents to find a guardian so that the first phone call regarding a student being removed from a school does not come from a law enforcement official it comes from a building level principal or his or her designee assistant principal or otherwise so that parent is informed I just that is

145an immediate response when it comes to the mental health health and safety of our children it should be standard operating procedure is it I guarantee it probably not but I know we can work to make sure that it is sorry go ahead oh before law enforcement gets involved I would hope that we have more than one individual person whatever that team is at that school come together before we involve the police because we know once we involve the law enforcement we're done and the kids are gone we will go ahead and grab we're back with student services and Lori Brooks we'll look back at how we now as a district involve our team members in making that decision I'll get back with you in all the board regarding that process and the only other thing

146I would add we also have that policy as you were indicating Miss Jordan 4.222 which specifies involuntary commitments and what can and can't be done so that was already approved by the board this new policy does not negate that other policy okay I understand that but we're still it's still the same basis so if they believe that a child even that other policy Baker Acting because the child is may or may not hurt themselves or an adult or whomever that may be when you're still looking at this it's the same thing it's if they are possibly going to hurt themselves so I just want to make sure that it's the same okay let me move on to miss juvenile I just want to pick I just want to piggyback off of what Miss Jordan's saying

147I what happens when we when it's when the the criteria is not met what are we going to do because we know that we know that it's not it's happened so how do we you know what is the guidelines you know is it calling the parent two or three times I mean at what point if that's not successful then what's the next step and how do we know that those steps are being and that criteria is being followed I think that is the main concern because we're we've had situations that it's happened and we don't and we know that the criteria wasn't met so now what happens when it's not met that is I think that's a superintendent question and go ahead whatever so when we look at board policy 4.222 subsection 6. subsection C1

148is specifically addresses what are the minimums in terms of what the principal has to do make reasonable efforts to communicate with the parent or Guardian upon determining the student is in crisis and likely to cause harm to self or others if the parent or legal guardian does not respond to a phone call the school shall attempt to use at least two other available methods of communication to contact the student's parent guardian or other known emergency contact including but not limited to telephone calls text messages emails and voicemail messages prior to transporting a student for an involuntary commitment document the method and the number of attempts made to contact the student's parent guardian or other non-emergency contact and the outcome of each attempt in the other policy this policy is only specifically based on the regulations

149that just came out that we need to add this information in it anything else Mr juvenile no thank you did you have a question or comment Mr trigger yeah if I made through the chair to Ms Jordan one of the ways that we can address the issue with sros and Baker Acting is to work with them during the next legislative session to perhaps get them on board with seeking funding to have mental health professionals embedded in each of their departments I'm not talking about social workers responding to 9-1-1 calls it's my understanding that law enforcement doesn't like this process any more than you and I like this process they simply don't feel qualified so if they have mental health professionals embedded there who could go through this assessment then it would take the pressure off

150police officers and put the determination in the hands of the professionals who should be making the determination so I see this as an opportunity to partner with area law enforcement agencies and perhaps agencies across the state to seek change in how these determinations are made in law enforcement agencies that's all I have thank you and if I may add as well in the Florida Administrative Code 6a-1.0018 it specifically says and I believe it's subsection 7 D that District school safety Specialists must ensure that each safe school officer in the district that is sworn that is a sworn law enforcement officer has completed Mental Health crisis intervention training through a curriculum developed by a National Organization with expertise in Mental Health crisis intervention and the training must meet the requirements set forth in a particular statute

151so that's also in the code thank you do we have any other questions or comments on 4.221 I this is 0.222 it does have the definition because I know one of your previous questions for the new changes that we're making and Mr CLE Bruno had brought it back to 4.222 we I did pull our mascot pulled up 4.22 where it does define the definition of reasonable attempt and further defines it as in those the different breakdowns so I know it was stated there was a process doc but I just wanted to give you the information so if you wanted to be able to look at that in conjunction because again it is read I don't say we're together but it's still a policy that we have the one thing that Miss Scott and Mr pu

152Bruno and I will be doing is making sure though we take these notes for our conversion when we go to the final conversion to make sure that the things that we've already requested and thoroughly put into these policies especially for the mental health suicide awareness and these style policies to make sure that they are in that we put those important aspects into the Neola if it's missing Miss Jordan thank you and I appreciate that but I just want to make it clear what it to me is reasonable and what to you is reasonable maybe two different things so I like how on the other one it is more stated versus just the general yes yes thank you what we could do team what we could do is just reference 4.222 in that policy Mr pre

153Bruno at this time Mr chairman we would like to know if the board would like us to move forward with board policy four point two two one as revised okay board show a hands if we want to move forward to a second reading on policy 4.221 we sure do thank you and the final policy that we're bringing forward to the board for consideration is board policy 4.28 homeless student policy again this is a conversion to our to Neola this policy was updated also by certain Florida department of education requirements in terms of information that they wanted so that's why this was updated by Neola but again we're adopting the oldest policy are there any questions on this particular policy Miss Morgan line 319 what is the Lea and then I have a more substantive question

154lead educational Authority I believe it is that is the organization that is being held responsible for this particular program this is referencing preschool programs that's administered I think I think we should avoid sorry local educational agency oh so it's 319. so I just think we need to avoid initials so that people understand what these things are the other question I have is under homeless children in preschool lines 360 to 364. it talks about the fact that if a child a home a child is enrolled in a pre-k program here and then moves to a program outside the county I'm Sorry Miss Morgan what line again oh I'm sorry 360 to 364. okay thank you so it's essentially saying that we have if we have a homeless child enrolled in a pre-k program here and they

155move to another district and that District doesn't have a pre-k program we are obligated to transport that student from that District back to our pre-k program is that something new I I assume it's in Neola I just so you all understand what I'm asking okay in the board update this week we'll we'll outline in McKinney Bento where that is okay thank you Mr chair it's a way in this is a mckinney-vento issue we would be responsible for if and I will defer fine you would think that the district where the student resides now would be responsible for driving that student to the closest cross street that enters our district we would then meet the student at that location with our bus transportation the student would get off that transportation and then get on ours It's

156Not Unusual in the case of homeless children who leave the district they have a right under McKinney vinto to hold on to their what would what the law sees as their home environment it is on sometimes unusual for parents to go to this extreme but I've seen it exacerbated in other counties where a southern County delivers to a middle County the middle County then picks up drives them all the way across the middle County to deliver them to the county just to their North there are instances where this occurs they are rare but this is in compliance with the mckitty Victor law but thank you to staff for providing some additional reading material for the board members McCarty McKinney Bento okay thank you did you have anything else Miss Morgan no those are my questions

157thank you any other comments or questions okay Miss attorney Dupree Bruno thank you Mr chairman I would like to know if the board would like us to move forward with policy 4.28 okay board on policy 4.28 do we want to move forward to a second reading show of hands we so do thank you Mr chairman I want to thank staff again for bringing these policies forward and we will have additional policies that will be coming before the board we are restarting Neola Neola will be in the district at the end of January to meet with staff and review policies for us to have a Neola Workshop the first Workshop in February thank you staff for your presentation I appreciate it so next up on the agenda is public comment attorney Dupree Bruno please address public

158comment thank you Mr chairman thank you School Board policy provides the opportunity at this point in the meeting to address the board concerning any matter on this meeting's agenda if you completed a public comment card please ensure that it is provided to staff the public comment will be held in the podium at the center aisle and in the front please be advised that the board will not respond during public comment to remarks made by speakers speakers who failed to follow proper decorum in the chambers will be ruled out of order any speaker continuing with such remarks will be required to relinquish the microphone for board policy 1.11 and may be removed from the chambers there will be one warning for board policy 1.11 the time for speakers three minutes you will find a countdown on

159the big screen in the front of the room once your time has elapsed the microphone will automatically shut off please state your name when you approach the microphone I will call you five speakers at a time please follow the staff's direction when lining up Mr chairman there are four speakers that wish to address the board okay is there anyone else in the audience that has not signed up for public comment that would like to make a comment okay we don't see any at this point please proceed attorney Dupree Bruno and call the name thank you Berg shell Crystal ciscon are you gonna put the timer up okay thank you Happy New Year Robert Roper I won't be able to attend the meeting tonight so I needed to come in and make what little come in

160I could this afternoon I provided most of my input on policies and writing to you and I have some more to do but I did want to comment on the Civil Rights and Equity guide specifically page seven about sharing information regarding sexuality within that there is a link to a confidential gender support plan there's a lot of links in that policy by the way that policy fix a road scholar to understand but the gender support plan basically starts off with parent and guardian involvement and it reads Guardians aware of student gender status Yes or No it should stop right there but it goes on to say support level zero being none to 10 being the highest if the support level is low what considerations must be accounted for in the implementing this plan according to

161your own policies parents will be notified if there's a change in agenda in the child's services or monitoring related to their mental health emotional health physical health this seems to be a contradiction where we can rate the support inside the parents involvement personally acquainted with have personal knowledge of no apparent or a child that attempted to commit suicide because it was kept from their parent and we just did a suicide prevention thing if you keep going into the same gender support plan there's a statement that says if the students Guardians are not aware and or supportive of the student's gender status how will the schools Dash home Communications be handled including when the individual staff members need to contact the Guardians if the student is not willing to get the parents involved the student should

162be shut down immediately and not counseled not affirmed nothing should be done that's a violation of your own policy about parental notification this is a kind of a minor point but under other considerations it says are there are there lessons one of them is listed Social Justice units and one is pride events I don't know what any of that has to do with a gender support plan I would ask that if you have volumes of policies to give out for public comment and consumption that you do it more than 24 hours in advance it's extremely difficult to handle the way it was done today thank you good afternoon Sharon McGill and everything I have is regarding policy so I'll try to do a bullet point very quickly on the homeless students I just took a

163little bit of exception to the wording in line 368 through 374 about how it characterized the homeless and reaching out to them and where you would reach out to them and to be a little more cognizant of their feelings and their situations the policy 2.36 designation of bathrooms the only thing I would say on this is that at the end there should be a cross-reference to where parents can find those forms for the gender identity programs if they wanted to participate in that because all it says is by following the appropriate process so what's the process so just to cross-reference that now on the books I guess I got a little confused on this because I was looking at the process documentation and line 11 says after the review process provide a list of the

164parental committees such as such and such for approval books that failed to be approved cannot be purchased after you've gone through all of the reviews and everything you're leaving it up to the PTO to decide whether those book lists are going to get approved or not maybe I missed something here but that's certainly what it makes it sound like in this process documentation see now on the on the school of Safety and Security yeah I'm sure that you don't have time to follow social media but I happen to be a participant in a lot of local groups and whenever there's an active threat and I say threat because so far we haven't had a situation but it turns into Chaos Online you know as soon as the kids know that something's going on everybody comes

165up with their own idea of what's going on and it's all over social media before even some of the parents are notified and there just has to be a way somehow to think out of the box and possibly control that to a certain degree because it really did it does get quite scary and when you have five different versions of what's going on in school and none of them are even correct once the parents find out what's going on so let's see and Student Records I guess there was just one line where I was confused where it says a superintendent can request in writing records to be distributed to state federal and other education foreign my name is Crystal ciscon I wanted to talk to you about the policies that you'll be voting on while

166you're working on writing them I just wanted to give you a little input I feel that equality and human rights are really the ideals of America all people are created equal there are absolutely no distinction of superior inferior among human beings differences of position in an organization are temporary and provisional people who ignore this in their behavior cannot really be called civilized true leadership is fostering Youth and all of you have been called to do that so thank you for being here today I wanted to comment on a couple of things that I heard here today in the meeting for the suicide prevention 45 of lgbtq plus youth seriously considered suicide in the past year 2022 alone one in five transgender and non-binary humans attempted suicide and incidences of violence are much higher rates for

167people of color than their white peers I think that it's also important that you understand that this gender non-discrimination form only children of privilege are signing this form children who can't tell their parents children who have violence at home children who are fear for their life do not sign that form and I think that's something that we need to keep in mind where are What are safe spaces we were talking about safe spaces in this anti-violence thing and having stations with with military type things or weapons I think this is something that really needs to be cleared up for the public because we're very concerned about what is considered disorderly conduct that seems like something that anyone can interpret and I want to talk to you a little bit about Adams versus St John's that

168you've based this decision to move forward on these policies on is in direct conflict with grim versus glockcaster and I don't believe that it will continue I think that it's important that we recognize that things are still changing and that what we should do is try to have compassion and respect for the children who are already in school right now for the policies that are already in place while we wait for the politicians to figure out what they're doing we need to make sure that we're looking at what we're doing in the safest possible ways for these children and it's not blindly jumping into situations and making policies that directly hurt transgender and gender non-conforming children it's waiting to see what's happened it's using your power as a leader to use wisdom these children's lives

169are at stake thank you for your time and I hope I'll see you again and I will send you each an email about each of these points to help you have a further education and I would just like to mention that at Stonewall people were arrested if you think thank you Miss thank you Miss has gone chairman that concludes board I'm sorry public comment thank you thank you everyone for their comments I appreciate that I do want to note that our policy drafts did come out more than 24 hours I can confirm that in advance of this meeting so let's move on to go to the order and board comment I will start opposite with Ms Morgan today actually I do have a good of the order I brought up several meetings ago when we

170were talking about the legal department I did not understand why public records was part of communications and not part of the legal department and it's sort of the conversation sort of stopped there and I would basically like to ask my colleagues if they have the same question or whether I'm I'm alone in asking this organizational question foreign board members wish to comment on Miss Morgan's question I think that it eventually comes back to legal right so I think that it would be a good thing to be part of legal that's patrika I think it's worth exploring and looking at Best Practices from other districts that's juvenile I actually would agree with Miss Patrica I think Communications has not always been the information has not always got got received at legal so I think that I

171don't maybe our the process is an issue so I think we probably need to explore what other districts are doing I think that's a great idea and I mean because we definitely have communication issues and we've had them for if this has been ongoing this just didn't come up yesterday or even a month ago there's been issues that's ongoing with Communications and the process and and the cost I mean it's just it's just been a little I don't know I call it the wild west sometimes with it so I thank you I would be on board looking at what other districts do go ahead Miss Morgan that's it okay thank you Miss Langford Fleming I have nothing today thank you Mr persons nothing at this time Miss Jordan Franklin Park opened this morning I was

172there yesterday and I the families were there and the children were there coming to to find out where their class was going to be at and given lots of hugs to their teachers bless you so I thought that was great and I forgot to mention last time there were some cards on the in the back room here that I laid out the kids from the different elementary schools had wrote thank you cards to us I was regarding the backpacks that they had received so I just if you hadn't had a chance to look at the cards and the artwork the artistic Flair please do so thank you Miss Patrica no thank you Mr chair was juvenile yes I actually I want to add to you the notification I apparently they the I guess people have

173signed up for they get a notification of this of the agenda and it's and they think it and I guess it only get it 24 hours in advance and something I'm not aware of so it's something that maybe the superintendent can kind of more give us more information but but we get I mean the agenda was out over a week ago we actually had a we actually had a meeting on Wednesday last Wednesday that we discussed the agenda so it was out then before that for the workshop so I think that the notification only comes out 24 hours but the actual agenda you will have to go I mean I don't think we send out something when it actually comes out you get it just prior to the actual day of the day before the

174actual meeting I think so if you get clarification on that but I think that there's some kind of notification that people have signed up for and they're not it was only it's only a 24-hour Thing versus though the actual agenda that go that's online on board docs that's over a week ago thank you thank you for that clarification Miss juvenile did you have anything to add to that no just that I'll look into it I think you have the not only board docs notification there's a difference between the agenda being posted and then sometimes what I would refer to as attachment or support material that comes in after the fact that may it may not be the agenda item that it was late but there may be the actual attachment or reference material that could

175added at a different time I will certainly look into this and find out whether it is a process of Staff or whether it's a process of the board docs notification system and then we'll make sure we make appropriate changes where we can and I'll get back with you thank you Mr superintendent I have no comment Mr superintendent do you have any further comment no sir attorney Dupree Bruno no thank you okay thank you we'll have our Action meeting tonight at six o'clock seeing no other business come before this board this meeting is adjourned at 3 44. thank you everyone