School Board Briefing Meeting: July 26, 2022

001good afternoon ladies and gentlemen today is july 26th and it's 104 pm and we are here for the purpose of a briefing meeting we have a full agenda today and i'll begin by asking dr bernier if he has anything madam chair members of the board i do not have anything to say other than to thank you for your time and effort yesterday yesterday was a very full day both in the morning with policies and then in the afternoon with our own board workshop this is another full day we did make the change in the agenda as you requested we pulled the naviance presentation that presentation is being developed for all of you as a voice over presentation to go to you through email so that you can have the same presentation without having to be

002physically present and then what we will do as i promised we will recycle on the 16th i'm sorry the 11th the 11th of august we in that briefing we will do a shorter briefing so that we can still take public comment on the naviance application so be looking for that link i spoke with the members of the academic services they believe they can have that link and information to you by friday so you'll have that information before you go into your weekend thank you madam chair for the opportunity thank you okay first on the agenda is a report from our audit committee i'll just digress for one minute and give miss patricka a chance to explain her attendance here today yeah i've got a four o'clock card stop to fulfill a family obligation so if

003i get up and leave it for i'm not being rude and i'm not being rude to the public if you want to make comment i have to leave i do have an obligation thank you're welcome okay and our presenters today are matt blondell from rsm weiss campbell rsm paul cohen committee chair and jeff davis committee member would you like to come are you going there are they going up there are you more comfortable on the side there or do you want to come to the podium both are available yeah no mr cohen up there so that way you have space you can go right on the other side on the inside so all of you can be there then the whole team can sit there yeah i'll be together thank you okay thank you for

004your time security did you check the lobby to make sure everyone's cleared are there any people in the lobby securely are there any people in the lobby no okay thank you welcome again thank you for your time i'm hoping that the board members were provided with a memo that was put together identifying the rationale behind the recommendation coming from the audit committee so i'm not going to spend a lot of time going through the details of that document set the record straight because at the prior board meeting that i listened in on there was some concern about the role of the audit committee we are here strictly to make recommendations to the board we do not dictate what the audit plan will be we are making a recommendation as to audits that we believe are

005higher risk to the district and we have to supply proper support and documentation of those recommendations the school board ultimately has the ability to agree with our recommendation disagree modify whatever the school board so chooses and that's why we are here today with representatives of rsm to answer any and all questions that the board members have relating to the rationale behind the audits that we're recommending from the committee that the board consider having performed during the course of the following year thank you mr cohen with that said i'm going to leave it to rsm good afternoon my name is matt pondell i'm a internal audit director with rsm thank you for having us here today as mr cohen stated we've reviewed the risk assessment with the audit committee i understand that they have recommended which

006our risk assessment included top 10 items as we discussed with the committee during their meeting you know it was it was on their recommendation to make to the board which items to pursue for the next coming audit cycle i understand that they've recommended four and of course you know they're within the top ten that we had recommended and certainly agree with you know their their rationale and understanding of what they've presented to the board great thank you with that said the four recommended audits that we have brought before the board are cyber threat intelligence have sent sales tax cert tax compliance contract compliance and purchasing cards and the rationale as i said was contained within the memorandum that was provided to the board in july we are here to answer any as i said any

007and all questions you have relating to rationale as to why those four audits were deemed to be higher risk than the other six in the top ten and the other several hundred of potential risks that the school district potentially could have but again we rely on the expertise of rsm they've done multiple school districts understand where the risk components lie the committee felt confident and comfortable with the top ten of the of rsm we did out of a couple of other areas that we feel that should be pursued down the road but these four that we're recommending we find to be the four highest of the risk categories within the district's risk exposure thank you for that mr cohen board members any questions comments discussion regarding the four priorities for high risk priorities miss vaughn

008okay first of all i would like to welcome matt back to to our boardroom and rsm in the past i personally always found that rsm was a great firm to work with and again i'm really glad to see you guys back with us mr cohen can you elaborate a little bit about the reasoning behind it was the half cent sales tax could you repeat exactly the half cent sales tax what absolutely i think it would probably be best served if it came from rsm because okay exactly yeah exactly what we're doing with it sure so the the goal of that review would be to analyze the information that the district employees are providing to the independent oversight committee over the surtax to validate that the information that they're providing to that committee is complete and

009accurate and timely to allow the committee to make informed decisions so it's really it's it's it's auditing the process of of how that committee obtains the information that they receive from the district to make sure that it's complete and accurate information so they can make the best informed decision okay and obviously i'm not an expert but that doesn't sound like it's a really really long process to analyze that how how long is this going to take and i mean that committee meets quarterly and so you know to see this as one of the four when i can see some other things that perhaps are more pressing or higher on at least my scale could you elaborate a little bit on on your process of looking at that and how long that's going to take sure

010so it's it is a fairly quick audit process but some of our other school districts what we do is we actually the like you said the committees are typically they meet quarterly and then for some of our other audit committees we do audits of the information they provide to the committee on twice a year and so it's more of like a recurring audit that we do at some other school districts which is again at the request of those boards and audit committees that we were looking at that information on a recurring basis but it's a fairly to your point it is a quicker audit okay yeah that's that's what i was interested in on what all was actually being or could be done and the fact that committee meets quarterly she's okay so twice twice

011a year so i'm assuming that at this point that's not like the major you're not doing one thing at a time you're working on i mean you're not just working on this one and then the next they're ongoing things from the other well we certainly look at the process to understand the controls that the district has in place to make sure that the information that they're providing to the committee is accurate and complete and so forth and we would certainly do like i said when we do our ongoing testing we're looking at our or have those controls changed if there are any allocations for things like staff time labor things like that how is that process managed how are the procurements managed to make sure that they're in compliance with statute you know specifically for

012funds that are being used from the surtax and then and then we do procedures on the data itself that actually makes its way through and i did not ask my question well when i at all i understood i didn't ask it well so in other words you're not just working on we have a list of four one thing at a time we have ongoing audits on other areas at the same at the same time right and what i really want to know what what audit right now is taking up most of your time and is going to be the longest i have a guess on this but i just wanted to make sure sure so the way that you know internally we've kind of thought through i know the audit committee has presented a preference

013order for the audits these conceivably some of them like the half cent surtax could be going on at the same time as one of the other audits but you know with our typical audit plans we usually plan them out to start you know about once a quarter to kind of go throughout the year to just have you know to reduce audit fatigue on certain individuals especially if two audits might have two stakeholders you know where we're taking a lot of their time if we're doing two audits at once but in this case i think you know what's been what's been presented is really kind of a first a first pass at the half cent surtax process and if obviously if there were any concerns that came out of that you know it could conceivably go

014into a recurring item or if if there are no concerns i you know i could see that it could just be a once and then move on okay thank you miss morgan yeah so my question is about the cyber threat intelligence dr bernier did we has this been recently audited board member morgan i'm sorry i'm pausing because i'm trying to go back through my knowledge of all the audits that have been done specifically when it comes to half penny no no i'm talking about the cyber threat we have just done an exit interview within the last five hours regarding cyber security in rit department that information will be i've shared that private and confidential information so far only with kathy dupuy bruno because some of the areas that we are looking to protect come under

015a protected set of information we are prepared to put a public statement forward regarding the audit but specifically some of the cyber security measures that we would take would not be for public consumption so the short answer to your question is yes we have just done an exit meeting there's other information that still has to be uploaded into the audit report before it's final including some management responses as to how we proceed to deal with the recommendations that the audit made for it and cyber security so the reason for my question is that is this our number one priority to put our itnis staff through another audit that's that's my first question and then my second question about it would be you talk about revisiting it periodically what do you mean by periodically do you

016believe that this needs to be audited every year is this something that you would audit based on something that happens in the international world of cyber security whatever i mean just like to know a little bit more about how you how you plan to do these audits yes ma'am so i will speak as as well as i can about the cyber threat intelligence it's a team of specialists from rsm that actually executes those and the work with the ongoing or the recently exit meeting completed audit that we are just finishing at their to to your first point about the timing i there are at the risk of divulging too much information there are certain things that i believe management is intending to do that would certainly impact the timing could impact the timing of the

017cyber threat intelligence program development and so i think certain consideration does have to be given there to where the district is in those in those efforts before this can begin okay so i think that's a great point okay thank you that answers the question okay thank you what members any other questions miss patricka so that was actually my question we share brain miss morgan because i thought i remembered somewhere in the recesses of my brain this audit already having occurred i'm very encouraged to hear that particular attention will be paid to the confidentiality of the outcomes of that audit because i'm not sure that we've always given that the attention that it deserves so i appreciate that and if i may through the chair direct a question to mr cohen were you aware that we

018had just done an audit when when you made when the committee made this recommendation yes we were but our understanding is that it was more of a general information technology audit with pieces of that audit covering cyber security this one is a very in-depth cyber security audit so it's very focused the other one is a more general audit of the information technology environment so that's why we felt a deeper dive into cyber security is something that we should be considering we also did take into account the weight that's going to be borne by staff and having yet another audit performed of that area but unfortunately as everybody has seen in the media everybody is under cyber attack and no the more controls that you could have in place not saying that it would eliminate it

019but it could hopefully curtail the extent of any potential exposure that the district would have so if i may ask dr bernier what's your sense with regard to the timing of this in regards to the timing i think there is some flexibility from rsm's point of view as to how we adjust this as a priority i think to mr cohen's point while you can never be 100 sure in the cyber security world that you have all of the holes plugged as a non-technical term you have to do everything possible in order to ensure that you know that you're attempting to do all that you can without getting too deep into the recommendations that were made there is some there are some general recommendations made from the audit that we just had a sort of an

020exit meeting about before management responds to those recommendations but there are some very specific cyber securities there as well and i think you would want to give the team some time to make sure they have made those adjustments and then take the deeper dive into i.t i agree with mr cohen and rsm this is an area that has to be consistently monitored this is an ever-changing framework it there are people up right now somewhere in the world figuring out a way past your data systems and we need to be doing everything humanly possible to do that but again with with just not even officially closing the audit yet but just having an exit meeting i think the it team could use some time to implement especially in the area that mr cohen is driving home

021a very salient point and then have rsm in their ability to prioritize these all these audits make the determination of when they feel would be best to come back they've been working very closely with the it team and i think rsm has some some viewpoints on this matter as well so is it the expectation that the board is going to approve an order in which these audits take place i suspected that rsm would have some form of recommendation today for you as one of their other employees that they would make a recommendation based upon the audit committee's four hot topics for big issues and i agree with mr cohen again that there are other items on this list and i think ms vaughn just mentioned it as well there are items on the other items

022on this list that have merit and value but if we look at the four we need to make some i think there should be a recommendation moving forward is this where we should start and where particularly some of these places and these topics fit within a larger auditing framework both for rsm for us as well as all the other work that they're doing for other clients and other organizations thank you thank you miss jordan hi matt thanks for being here glad to see you and mr cohen thank you for being here this evening this evening i'm already here tonight today i really appreciate you all when miss vaughn had asked that question you only do one audit at a time and then that's completed then you start the other one you're not doing it together

023you're not doing two at the same time or three at the same time you finish one and then you move on to the next one so not correct so our recommendation which we're prepared to to kind of go over the timeline with the board today would be would basically be not necessarily to start one and then finish it before the next one gets started but to start to start them staggered and then one may be in reporting phase while the next one is just kicking off right and so forth so that it's it's not necessarily a clean break between one beginning and one ending but that there's to right to get through them all in in a period of time right so i think our recommendation considering the discussions that we've had today would be

024to start with the with the with the going in the order that the audit committee recommended them but with considering the timing of the i.t like we just spoke would be to start with half cent since it was second on their list and i think we could be prepared to start that in late august or september if if that was when the board wanted us to get started which would look at you know probably like a december finish and then maybe kicking off contract compliance in november right before that one fully concludes which would probably be a january february ending date and then starting p-cards in february and then and then the the cyber threat intelligence in january sorry i went in a little bit out of order there but in january and then starting

025p cards in february and the reason that those would really be concurrent would be because it's two totally separate teams from rsm also from the district that would be you know responding to requests or or anything related to both those audits great thank you and then also i know ms patrick had mentioned before you do anything you sent us the contract that's signed and then you begin right and the contract that's understood yes and the contract would lay out approximate start times like we've done in the past and end times that way that's communicated up front everybody's on the same page in terms of you know what the timing would be perfect thank you so much appreciate it thank you miss vaughn yeah i wanted to make a comment on on the i.t audit if

026no i.t is certainly not a strong suit with me i realized that every day in the news as dr bernier said there is something different going on so my view of it is if i were on that team instead of looking at an audit as some people here on the dais seem to think that it would be just a burden so to speak i would see it just the opposite because i know the professionals that we have on that team certainly you know with with the fast pace of everything plus the fast pace of us as a school and all the other services that it has to provide to us to keep us to keep us running as a school district that they would actually welcome another set of eyes another set of professionals because

027certainly again if it were me on that team my greatest nightmare would be that something was missed and something that just came up was missed and you know thank you to another set of eyes and professionals that are doing this again not to be a burden but to be of service to all of us so that's that's my take on it a little different from what i heard from colleagues great thank you any other questions do you have more to present at this point nothing from rsm to ad unless you guys had any questions okay as i was looking at the cyber threat intelligence program development rationale it seemed to me that you were taking some more a closer look at the priority intelligence requirements and the cyber threat intelligence needs in order to prevent

028being you know being threatened being i'm losing the word and i'm sorry okay yeah well i guess that's a simple way of saying it yeah so was that it as opposed to the audit that was done in it recently admittedly this is a bit outside of my wheelhouse as well but yes as as we've kind of discussed so far what we're just wrapping up now was more of a broad look this is a much deeper dive into a specific area that's what it looks like thank you very much can answer to your question there are three levels that you can pursue in information technology you have the general information technology where it's distribution of computers landlines etc you have the cyber security and then you have the most in-depth which is what's called a penetration

029test where they actually do try to truly penetrate the system and find the gaps within the system obviously that's the most highly confidential report that will be generated and that is one where you have to have a specific expertise in order to perform that type of audit there are not a lot of people who have that explicit expertise who can do so and that would be something that would be very eye-opening it's eye-opening even to the federal government when they have penetration tests done that they realize that they had gaps and we're talking experts in those capacities overseeing the information technology structure so that's why there were actually three different levels we did not feel at this time that we wanted to recommend the performance of a penetration test that's a very detailed and very

030invasive type of audit and especially since processes are now going to be put into place right pursuant to the information technology audit we felt that the order would be going through the three different phases with the penetration test most likely going to be a recommendation for the 2023-2024 audit plan thank you for that explanation and that was the word i was looking for penetration okay thank you any other comments then i guess and we have no other questions at this time can i get clarification because i think you're going to ask me to work with rsm and mr cohen the audit committee so i if i'm not mistaken some of our next steps are to meet with rsm devise a specific standard beginning with the half penny sales still making sure that we do i

031t but beginning it in january which gives them time to implement the recommendations made in this audit that is completing currently so the audit committee gets their priority items still dealt with this fiscal year maybe not in 23 as i think the committee hoped to do it in the fall first thing out of the gate but give that it team time to implement what they want move from to move from half penny sales into contracts start i t and then finish with p cards i think that's the order i heard and that would allow us then to then put contracts together and get them to the board and that and i'll leave it at that yes okay because rsm will put the sows together for us and send those based on what their work will

032be am i correct matt yes yeah yeah and then then they send that to us to be brought up to the board so we will be able to agree upon that i want to make sure we're clarifying that because sometimes i think we pass information we're not always clear about how information passes from rsm to the board in some cases which led to some of the confusion the information was being passed from rsm to the audit committee and i think we've cleared up the staff members obligation to then ensure that's been shared with the board but can we clarify how this scope of work sow clarifying with you that's what you meant and that's how will that sow come from rsm to the board so that the board members and the public are aware it

033well in the past it had gone to kathy dupree bruno the attorney she looked it over and then it comes back to us and miss de prieburta was gonna in the past that's how we've done it the sow is drafted by rsm we review it kind of go back and forth a little bit and then eventually does come to the board for review and then approval and if i may in response to what the superintendent brought out the only component to the sow that the audit committee should have any position on would be related to the scope of audit if we feel that the scope is deficient in any way shape or form or most likely not going to happen but potentially overkill that would be an ability for us to come back to the

034board and recommend that the scope either be enhanced or reduced and obviously we will have a strong recommendation with support behind it as to why we feel that the scope needs to be modified but that would be the only component we will never touch hours that's up to the board we'll never touch the feed to be charged by rsm it is strictly the scope and whether or not we feel it's sufficient or deficient excellent thank you for that we really appreciate that input and thank you rsm for your work and for being back with us we do appreciate that so seeing no other questions thank you for being here did you have anything further dr bernie no i just appreciate rsm mr cohen the other members of the audit committee had the opportunity to participate

035for the first time as a non-voting member and sit in their last meeting they are a very diligent group very focused on ensuring that their recommendations to the they make to the board come from a position of great seriousness they are all business committee and i appreciate that about them and i think we have an upcoming meeting at least potentially with rsm regarding the it audit again there will be some needs for some shade regarding some of the topics but look forward to participating that with you and continuing to work with the community and thank you for the ability to clarify process i just want to make sure that somebody on your behalf which is me has an eye on making sure these documents are processing and getting to the right people at the right

036time so thank you very much for that opportunity madam chair and thank you dr bernier okay thank you very much we appreciate you being here thank you thank you next on the agenda is a change order memo and we have mr scott rickenbacker here today good afternoon good afternoon everyone let's see thank you gentlemen for the board presentation here there we go good afternoon board member scott rickenbacker director of construction superintendent paneer mr way bruno this is your june 2022 change order update is required by statute on the cover sheet you'll know this is just a recap of all the things on the second sheet you had 1.3 million dollars in direct material purchase change orders in the june reporting period and tax savings of seventy seven thousand dollars non-direct material purchases of forty thousand

037dollars with an amount returned to the district of forty thousand nine four four contingency adjustments were 96 799. on the secondary supplemental sheet it gives you a breakdown of what all of these dmps change orders and contingency adjustments were for are there any questions good members i don't think we have any questions mr rickenbacker thank you very much you all have a great day thank you thank you next on the agenda is lamp name-changing briefing and presenting today we have mr clayton simmons and mary grace roma the director of the early childhood learning center right change all right good afternoon board members dr bernier and attorney dupree bruno i'm clayton simmons executive director for school development and mary grace romo with early childhood director of early childhood and we are here to brief you on

038the name change process for the lee adolescent mothers program otherwise known as lamp lamp is a state required teen parenting program that provides educational health and social services to teen parents and their children since we now have teen fathers participating the current name is no longer representative of the program so school board policy 9.10 provides the opportunity to choose a name that reflects all of our students who need the services provided in the teen parenting program as they enter parenthood and also work to complete their education there is a change a name change process which includes a forming a diverse committee seeking public input briefing the board and finally voting for a new name i will now turn it over to mary grace who will brief you on where we are in the process as

039you can see we have a diverse group that has provided valuable input throughout this process they include three community members one parent representative one student four school employees one state specialist and one district representative the committee is halfway through the name change process the communications department issued a press release and name suggestion survey a second survey was published to increase the amount of participation the ad hoc committee reviewed the suggestions and selected four names to bring to the board for this initial briefing the top named suggestions are in alphabetical order lead teen parent program parent education program student education parent program and young parent education program after today's briefing a new press release and survey will be released the public will be asked to rank the four names presented today in order of preference the

040committee will meet to examine the rankings and the board will be briefed on august 16th with the ranking results and a recommendation from the committee and now i'd like to turn it over to dr bernier for questions and comments thank you mary grace and dr simmons we appreciate your work in this area foreigners i really don't have anything to add pretty straightforward presentation and look forward to hearing your discussion and providing direction for the team to go out and finalize the name change for our one of our best programs in in the county great thank you board members any questions or comments okay i have a one question i see we have one student representative on the committee was their interaction with more students regarding the name change and did they have much input yes

041thank you there was interaction with the students who attend the lamp program and there were task forces that got together they did look at different name suggestions they gave preferences they talked about what certain acronyms might mean or not mean and their preferences for those things great thank you miss jordan thank you for asking that i was wondering that as well because when i'm looking at this i could not even imagine one student coming up with any of these names so i actually went past this didn't even realize that they were the names i had to go back when they said four names because it just didn't i guess i don't look at it as a program even though it is a program i'm thinking that it is a school in itself so i just

042i was just curious about the students participation because i know most of those people that were listed on there so thank you great thank you anyone else miss bond well i know you described the process and the voting frankly to me the one parent education program that just doesn't sound like a real viable choice because you know for for people that are looking at this for a first time i'm thinking like parent university and it just obviously the young people at what will what is now lamp are parents or parents to be but anyway hopefully other people will see that and i think that's probably the pep acronym for that that sold that one but i just see it as a really confusing choice for the program and school that will be associated with it

043frankly but the others are all good and viable choices what what what did the kids like the most well the students were very clear that they did not want the program to be named tap what they did like as mrs vaughn hit on was pep they did like that and they liked step the student education program which they would call step student great thank you very much i guess we have no further questions or comments and thank you for presenting this and the powerpoint was excellent thank you thank you very much thank you thank you okay now moving right along we have policy review pre-briefing and we have attorney dupree bruno and tammy scott coordinator for mtss in attendance thank you madam chair going to wait for them to go ahead and load up the

044first one while they're loading it up good afternoon board members and dr bernier joining me today is tammy scott coordinator mtss in attendance ms scott is a member of the neola project team for the district and serves as the liaison for academic services board members yesterday you experienced your first workshop with neola this will be the review process for each set of policies as we move forward with the neola policy conversion the first workshop of each month will be dedicated to policy review and will be similar to what you experienced yesterday once the bylaws are completed hopefully by august 11th you will then be reviewing policies that have been vetted by staff for your consideration niola will be at those workshops to help facilitate the discussion and answer questions we anticipate 60 plus policies coming

045before you each month in order for us to meet our goal of full policy adoption by may 2023 during this process the public will have an opportunity to forward emails as to their thoughts about certain policies or make comments at action meetings the goal is for the bulk of the new policies to go to first reading in april may and second reading in may 2023 for final adoption the public will have an opportunity to speak at that time as well there are certain policies that will come before you for more immediate adoption because we do not believe it is prudent to wait until may 2023 those policies will primarily be focused on laws enacted by the 2022 legislative session today there are six of those policies that we are bringing forward to you for a

046pre-brief and anticipated first and second reading in august or september as follows proposed revisions to our current board policy 1.27 non-discrimination which adds specific statutory language from house bill 7 proposed revisions to our current board policy 2.062 parents bill of rights which adds specific statutory language from house bill 1557 newly created board policy 2.0621 student and parents rights to be in compliance with house bill 1557 and other laws newly created board policy 2.0622 student parent complaints to be in compliance with house bill 1557 newly created board policy 3.041 curriculum development to be in compliance with various laws and newly created board policy 3.051 program of instruction to be in compliance with both house bill 7 and house bill 1557 and other laws there are other policies forthcoming from the 2022 legislative session some that will

047include additional provisions from house bill 1557 such as parental consent or declination opt-in opt-out to health services and screenings and parental access to student records house bill 1557 the parental rights and education act and house bill 7 the individual freedoms act are bills that elicit passionate responses from their supporters and detractors the district is aware that both of these laws are currently being challenged in court notwithstanding as of july 1st they are the law in the state of florida we are keenly aware that some stakeholders believe that the laws do not go far enough and some are gravely concerned about the impact of the laws on various issues relating to students staff teaching and learning in order to safeguard legal compliance in the implementation of these policies and related administration processes the district will abide

048by the laws all laws to include house bill 7 house bill 1557 the parents bill of rights and other state laws of equity and non-discrimination federal civil rights laws not least of which is the 14th amendment of the united states constitution that assures equal protection of the laws to its citizenry with that said at this time board members are there any questions on the proposed revisions to our current board policy 1.27 non-discrimination board members miss morgan yeah so this is a lot to read and i'm not sure that i comprehended everything so my questions well maybe anyway on 1.27 i'm reading the nondiscrimination for the collectively bargained negotiated agreements etc but i see no reference to the student code of conduct and the student code of conduct also has a statement of non-discrimination i believe

049and i'm just wondering if it ought to be included here if it fits to the board's discretion and well we can add the student code of conduct we would have to vet that also through neola but we i don't see any reason why we could not add student code tammy do you see any reason okay thank you miss vaughn yeah a question on that i basically don't oppose it but since the code of conduct essentially changes every year or every other year is that something that we should keep in mind in terms of the policy we can add language that just basically references the student code of conduct so as it changes we don't have to change this policy it's the student code of conduct that will change okay so it wouldn't be like yeah

050a particular year even though the codes do significantly change yes okay thank you any other questions or comments on 1.27 board members miss miss kittens the only thing that i would say is for purposes of everyone understanding what we're doing here is taking the law as it is and applying a policy as to how we will follow the law and that's all that this is we are not adding or detracting from the law we cannot do that it's the law and as you can see everything is referred to a particular law or statute it's i guess you know basically i'm saying we if it says fs76.10 we have to follow ff76.10 regardless of how we individually may feel about fs 76.10 we raise our hand at the beginning of our terms and say we will

051follow the law and my statement and i've said this before that if there are things that people disagree with then it's at a higher level than this level to change fs now that's basically what i have to say about it thank you miss kittens miss jordan if i may so mr bruno the red is what you're is the addition to because the other stuff is not stroked out so that still remains correct okay so all of that we have the body at the top that specifies every single person as far as the non-discrimination that stays there and then this is just an addition correct okay thank you thank you so we will move this policy to the first reading the next policy is a revision to board policy 2.062 the parents bill of rights what

052is in red is what has been added and this is as a result of house bill 1557 florida statute 1001.42 subsection 8c miss patricka yes i'm wondering whether wherever the word parent appears in a policy if we could add guardian as well because i think this applies to parents and guardians and some kids bristle at the notion of a guardian being referred to as a parent so we can definitely that's a good point tammy can add that i do want to point out that when we finish our neola conversion and we have our definitions parent will be defined and that will be included but for this purpose we can add guardian and if we could just sort of keep an eye on that as we move through all of our policies and ensuring that parent

053and or guardian is included there that would be appreciated please and thank you i mean you know some people don't really never mind i'll just i'll stop there miss kittens then miss jordan okay so i have a question on the 2.062 the red is what i mean this is specifically the bill of parents bill of rights and what we are adding in the red and i don't know if we can put that up oh it is up on the screen so what we are adding is just how we will not interpret because that's the wrong word we don't have to interpret it we just have to do it exactly correct so i'm this is just basically saying what we will do to follow the law so last year the legislature enacted chapter 1014 which is

054the parents bill of rights and the board adopted this policy as a result of that legislative change this year pursuant to 1001.42 subsection 8c which is house bill 1557 there are some things that we felt was necessary to add into our parents bill of rights which is what is in the red for example on line 65 which is subsection c we completely added the notification of parents to parents of any services or monitoring changes of a student's health etc this is specifically coming from the new legislation so that's just in addition based on the legislation i guess what i'm saying on the beginning of this like the first few lines five through seven or whatever it's it's just kind of our preamble in other words if if we didn't put that first part in red

055it would just be 1014 and 100.42 without our portion in the beginning is that correct it is definitely a preamble but it is a preamble that comes again directly from house bill 1557 that is language from the bill okay thank you i miss jordan i was just going to to say that i agree with miss patrick regarding the parent guardian because we have many children who have guardians their grandparents or aunts uncles someone else taking care of them versus a parent and so to make it so we'll make a recommendation to the district's neola project team that whenever that word parent will put a parenthesis there that includes all legal guardians etc so that for from now on for every policy thank you thank you okay any other comments okay moving right along in this

056policy at this point we'll move forward to its first reading next is board policy 2.0621 and this policy is a very comprehensive policy of many many laws we bring this forward to the board and this is the policy and you will see this there are some policies bless you thank you there are some policies that are adding to our current policies there are some policies that we're adopting completely new from neola and it's new to neola as well and then there are some policies that neola has had in existence but because of legislative changes they had to change certain things in their policies well this is one of those policies this policy pretty much has the kitchen sink of every single right that a student may have we're bringing forward it to you today because

057it also includes very specific language in terms of house bill 1557 attorney bruno miss kittens so okay this neola has had to adopt this because of the changes in the laws can you and i'm sorry your name again was okay so thank you for being here tammy my question is how many doesn't have to be exactly specific but how many other districts i know quite a few districts in the state of florida have services of niola to do their policies and so how many of them that are your clients are affected by these particular changes that we are doing so so when yellow comes back we can get the exact number but if i remember correctly it's over 30 districts in the state if not more in the state so i don't have the exact

058number but they have told us that number repeatedly i just have not i got a lot of stuff on my mind so i didn't retain that number but it's over 30 if i remember correctly so quite a bit of districts used neola and it's not only in the state of florida neola is throughout the united states so they service other states as well with this service but this particular parent's bill of rights is florida though so yes so in the state of florida what do we have 60 some districts so half or so of the districts are using the services of neola with the same verbiage yes pretty much i mean you may have have a district that may change a word here or there some districts may not adopt a particular policy but for

059the most part everyone is relying on niola for the most of the legal vetting and then they come back just like what they did with you yesterday come back to the board and have a discussion or on their legal teams once they are establishedly neola customers will review the new additions to the policies any other questions or comments miss miss morgan i'm sorry yeah so section attendance section a which are lines 62 through 66. i don't think that reads very well since we're putting process in these documents which i think is great but i'm trying to understand how a student can file a notice of intent that has to be signed by the parent but the parent has the right to be notified of the receipt of the student's intent so that suggests that the

060student can independent of parents notify the district so that's not clear to me thank you for your question miss morgan our process has it outlined in regards to if students age 16 or above and along with the parent so well i just clarify you can work on the word smith i think it needs to be clarified in policy because that's what people tend to start with rather than the procedure absolutely a couple more thank you for being patient everybody okay i didn't understand so student records lines 451 to 454 i did not understand that i don't know whether it's a grammatical sentence structure i just somehow i read this and i don't understand what it's what it's trying to say it's a the right to challenge and hearing and right of privacy what is right

061to challenge and hearing mean hold on miss morgan i'm looking at yeah that's actually line yeah 451 452 access and right to challenge and hearing of right of privacy in the education records for records so this so this is relating to ferpa sometimes what happens is a lot of times with custody cases where one parent is saying that i have custody the other parent doesn't have custody who gets access to the records this is what this particular paragraph is referring to and trying to discuss we can clarify the language but that's really what it is it's basically saying that each parent has equal access to the records can waive access they can challenge who can review the records they have the right to privacy et cetera that's what this is referring to and i understand

062that what i don't understand is the right to challenge and hearing what that means and request a hearing if there will be the process in which we would follow if the parent was yeah so that just needs to be the words the wordsmith a little bit and i think i have one more student accountability and school improvement rating reports line 479 yes parents of public school students are entitled to an easy report card or if applicable schools improvement rating in the school's accountability report including the school financial report financial report those types of reports are all act accessible through our website for parents the financial reports and everything high school the district's financial reports it says the school financial report on that i think that's something that we're going to have to go back to

063the team with academic services and review this language just to verify in terms of school or district i'm i'm wondering if it has something to do with the internal accounts too that schools may hold so i think we need a little bit more information on that one okay and i've thank you for indulging me bored i have one more question lines 613 614 sex offenses including rape sexual assault or sexual misconduct with a student by school personnel what about another student can you please repeat the line which one yeah it's lines 613-614 and it's talking about notification to parents of unlawful acts that occur on school grounds it refers to sex offenses by school personnel but it doesn't mention sex offenses by other students so that's a very good point there is very specific statute

064that addresses sex offenses by school personnel i will look into whether or not we can add students there is a way for parents to be able to get information with regards to anything that happens to their child at school i do know that this language is statutory but let me look into whether or not can add students to that as well thank you for indulging me those are my questions thank you for your feedback okay i'm going back up to line 78. and to me the wordsmithing is a little awkward when it says parents have the option option to comply with school attendance laws by attending someone could take that and just kind of run with it in other words i can or i don't have to comply with school attendance laws so maybe that

065part could be reworded you know as as as parents must apply or comply with the school attendance laws this may be done and i'm just speaking off top of my head but does that make sense do you understand yeah we can correct that it's referring to attendance we can either go to public school private right but we can correct that to make that clear i and i understand what it's saying but it could be misconstrued that they don't necessarily have to comply it's just a nitpicky thing though thank you and i was planning to send you my scribner's comments separately via email copy the board yes and miss scott as well please any other questions or comments on any of policy two point zero six point two point zero six two one miss miss kenton's

066chair attorney bruno this is first reading when is the second no this is not first reading this is a pre-break so that the board has an opportunity to give us exactly what you have given us today the feedback so we can go back to our team and review the policy once more and then as well as talk to neola about some of these changes and then we will have first reading most likely will be in august and then we will have second reading following that and when is the public involved in those particular readings so the first reading will be at a briefing so the public will be able to provide comments at that point and then the second reading of course will be at an action meeting it will be a public hearing and

067the public will be able to provide comment the public has access to this on board docs they can review it and they can always send an email if they have any questions or concerns okay thank you thank you okay i think we're good here thank you we'll move forward with this to first reading with the corrections the next one that we have is board policy 2.0622 and this policy is directly from house bill 1557 i'm sorry miss morgan has her hand up miss morgan yeah so since we are putting process in in these these policies and obviously process was put in by the legislature line 26 or 25 and 26 this process must be complete within seven calendar days of receipt of the parent's written complaint that is the process of the principal meeting with

068the parent i do believe that we should that the principal should be recording the results of the meeting i don't think that should be left open very good appointments morgan there is a process document that the administrators will have that coincides with this that's a little bit more specific in terms of from that point that you actually get that complaint from the parent all the way to the very end so there is more specificity i understand that but when a parent's looking at this policy they don't see that there there's going to be a written documentation of their complaint and i don't think we should ignore that just because it's in the protocol okay so we'll bring that back to the team okay thank you any any other comments or questions on .0622 if there's

069no comments then i have one quick one if i may yes miss kittens on d so the is there a process paper that goes with this or this is it in other words because it pretty much lays out when the parent notifies the principal then the superintendent the designee and boom boom boom boom down the line and if not resolved by the district the parent may seek other remedies is there a process document or is this considered the process no this is the policy the overarching that codifies the law in our board policy and then there is a process document for the administration to use that go step by step in terms of how this is going to be handled at the school site when is it brought up to the district level etc is

070there a reference to that process document that if i were a parent and i got to this point and i wanted to know what happens next or what's going to happen is there a reference to that i could say okay they're going to do this this and this is a public record somewhere so i can tell you that as this process document is being developed and worked on we have a draft that there has been discussions about when to send a letter to the parent et cetera so at some point the parent will know that i mean the statute requires us to advise the parent in terms of what is happening if we do not advise the parent within a certain time frame it gets escalated up to the district level and we have an

071obligation to advise the parent to either explain or resolve the situation or there's a statement that we have to provide in terms of why this was not resolved so there is this policy is overarching and there is a process document that is more explicit in terms of how this will run through the district system i guess too what i'm saying if i were a parent and i was deciding whether to move further to make a complaint or to follow up on a complaint that i made it my next step could be determined on if i sit and look and see there's 50 more things that have to happen i may choose another route so that's why i'm saying to have it clearly in there that if you know make a complaint this is what's going

072to go forward from that and i'm not sure how to put it in there but you understand mine i do this is something that we can bring back to the team to discuss further okay thank you ms getting for the comment yes thank you miss jordan thank you i was keep re-reading these over and over again and i see on within regards to parents concern and complaints so if i'm a parent and i call and give my complaint over the phone it doesn't count or i mean so a lot of people don't want to email or they don't want to put some things in writing but they prefer to have that conversation of their concerns and the issues that they're having because they can express themselves better that way so where does that lie because

073it looks like it's a statute so we can bring this back to the team to discuss further but i will say that this is a formal process that's outlined in the statute that requires certain things and this process also creates a cause of action and either the parent can request an injunction or it can go to a special magistrate and those rules just came out for the special magistrate in the department of education so i would recommend that you not make a phone call if you're going to go through this and you want it to to go through the formal process it should be in writing if you if it's if you've already made a couple of phone calls and things have not resolved then this is when this comes in where you formally put

074it in writing here's what my concern is and that triggers the district in the process and the timelines that is necessary okay so this is where when you're taking the next step not just if you have a concern or if you have a complaint that you want to to share about your child's this really should be for significant issues that are related to house bill 1557 is the way that the legislature wrote it but that's not what this just says parents student parent complaints so that to me is any complaint so we can clarify that we can go back and clarify that thank you miss miss jordan thank you and miss giovanelli just to add to that i think it's best it's always best it's kind of like the golden rule if you have a

075problem try to go to the teacher first try to go and then if that doesn't work then you go to the superintendent excuse me the principal and then you would come to the district i mean and i think most parents do do that and try to get resolution at the at the school that they're having the issue and i think if we just kind of help guide that but i think the principles are going to have to say if you really have an issue that we haven't been able to resolve it has to be in writing to the district as a formal complaint and i think if we communicate that i think the understanding will be there but you know i would always encourage and i try to encourage parents to take you know take

076their take it to the teacher then take it to the principal and because i mean it's just it's kind of the right path you know so i just thought i'd reiterate that thank you that's something thank you mr vanello that's something that we can definitely add and perhaps miss scott we can add that as a couple of first steps to our own process document as well great was kittens and may i just say to miss juvenelli's statement i definitely agree with that because many times we hear things one way from one person and don't look into the situation and find out that it's really something simplistic so thank you for that statement awesome thank you okay so this we will go back to the team work on this and bring any revisions to the first

077reading next is board policy 3.041 curriculum development and this is based on various laws so comments questions board members miss kittens am i missing it or is there a place that says what the process of selecting curriculum i'm sorry that would be a different policy maybe when that one is done it can be cross-referenced to this one so that so that everyone understands how we get the curriculum in the first place thank you okay any other questions or comments so this one will move forward to first reading with no changes and then finally is board policy 3.051 program of instruction based on house bill 7 house bill 1557 and other laws i'm chair yes this morgan yes so line 63 and line 236 both refer to efficient and faithful teaching now i assume that came

078from the statute i have no idea what that means it might be helpful for that to be in the dictionary as well because what does that mean teach efficiently and faithfully and what was the other one you said it appears twice a line 63 and then line 236. thank you and these questions may be a little i don't know okay rhetorical whatever section b talks about under required instruction section b talks about the emphasis on the ten amendments that make up the bill of rights and how the constitution provides the structure of our government i was surprised they didn't include the other the other one amendments and then then the following one the arguments in support of adopting our republican form of government as they are embodied in the most important of the federalist papers

079who decides what's the most important of the federalist papers and that is language directly from the statute i understand that and i don't expect you to correct it i'm just calling it out because i think it speaks for itself it's calling out miss vaughn i'm i'm going to jump out there and say that starting with your question miss morgan line 62 63 this harkens back to scripted curriculum and it harkens back to some things that innovative teachers rail against for the most part if you're teaching efficiently it means that the scope and sequence when you know if you're supposed to spend five days on the second amendment for instance you need to spend that five days not ten days not five minutes but does that does that make sense faithfully i know that i could

080never ever stay with just the little questions in a textbook or suggested things and i think most teachers feel that way especially those us old school teachers that are used to teaching efficiently and faithfully to what we're doing without 40 teacher manuals that you know i've seen miss i see those of us nodding our heads when we had a little tiny one book to make suggestions so this is what i'm re this is how i'm reading it this is how i'm interpreting it and so for everybody out there they're going to be some people that are just thrilled that the teachers who are accused of indoctrination of students have to teach faithfully to these books and people like me who if tallahassee auditors came to see me teach would probably drag me out in chains

081the end that might happen miss kittens but first i know how to follow that but but i will you know when it's funny when you're saying that i can recall in teaching there's curriculum it's do say stand sit sing clap you know all of that the difficulty with that is i'll give you a quick example if i'm teaching about the pyramids in egypt and i've been there and i've ridden a camel up to the pyramids and i take 10 minutes or whatever to describe to the students the sounds the smells and what it looks like to walk up inside of a pyramid and what you see once you get up inside and again like you said if just so happened that administration walked in when i'm talking about the putrid smell around the corner of

082the side of a pyramid and they will look at my checklist as to where i'm supposed to be at 305. are we at that point are we are we saying i can't enrich their learning by talking about my experience because it's not do say do say at 305. and i don't know to pretend that i know i'm putting you on the spot what is your thought of that i mean is it that restricted i don't believe what you're describing is the intent of this piece of legislation i think what you're describing in terms of being able to work an anticipatory set with a group of young people to get them excited about the pyramids to show them pictures of the pyramids to describe the heat and the sand and the and grit camel that you

083wrote it on if that's what you chose to write in on i think is all within that sounds kind of energy amongst young people an anticipatory set for what i'm assuming aligned to the standard of ancient civilizations right that is more important to our instructional leaders and to our teachers to make sure that we're on standard and that we know that we are teaching the standards of instruction i do believe even with these new pieces of legislation there is some academic license how i go about teaching the constitution there's an aspect in here on holocaust instruction there's an aspect of history of the african-american within our culture hispanic american agric contributions to the united states the study of women and their contributions to the united states we have very specific curriculums though in each one

084of our subject areas that align with standards that are expected to be taught how you approach that standard there is still some academic license left there are some areas of communication with our principals and our staff in our plc work where we have to discuss where some new boundaries may lie but there still is avenues with which to make instruction exciting and fun and engaging to our children well and i want to go back because this next question has to do with the last one we talked about but is relevant to this in 3.041 line it starts on seven as the educational leader of the district superintendent shall be responsible to the board for the development and evaluation of curriculum that question is because we have a set standard and clear curriculum that we are

085handed so how do you evaluate evaluating the results of the teaching how do you evaluate the curriculum is that saying you know in league county we've taught it this way and our students have not excelled so we're going to change it do we have the ability to do that and that may be a long-term question that you can look at later and discuss i think i know i don't think it's that difficult of a question i think there are avenues where how we approach the standards outlined by the state will require different curricular material in order to reach those we may be working with a specific reading intervention to your last example where we are not getting the results that we expected the first thing when you adopt a curricula for some curriculum or curricula

086for those types of efforts is you want to look at your outcomes when your outcomes are not what you expect then you go back and look at your inputs and outputs and you look to see whether you're implementing a curriculum with fidelity so that's what it means to evaluate a curriculum are we doing it do we have the right materials are we doing it the right way are we implementing it with fidelity textbook adoption is part of evaluating curriculum materials and curriculum we have a process by which we adopt textbooks and we've outlined that for members of the board and there are parents who serve on those committees so i think it is relying upon the superintendent along with his team i'm not going to settle in on every piece of curriculum we ever adopt

087one-on-one but i will be monitoring what's done in academic services as we move forward to give our teachers the very best resources they deserve in order to meet the standards that they're required to teach so if we are getting curriculum though i'm almost done seriously if we're getting the curriculum based on the vetted list from tallahassee and they say on this list we have vetted these books we've vetted this curriculum this is what you can use we in the district and our district staff decides on off of this list we are choosing this one and as time goes on you see that our kids are not learning as well as we would like so you decide to get something like a reading program resource to help does that then have to go become vetted or

088can we do our resources that we had to enhance learning and education in lee county have to be vetted through the state they don't necessarily have to be vetted through the state but there are state rules regulations in state law that say when adopting curriculum materials they must be research based going any further than that right now would be inappropriate for me because i don't think i have enough of the statutory knowledge but you just can't pick up a curriculum off the street and decide to do it with your kids there there's there's a process by which you must be able i think first and foremost to justify to this board why would we why we would have an expense related to the adoption of curriculum materials and the question you should be asking of

089me is are these things research-based do we know they've been effective in other places if we're outside the primary materials of which the state does help provide direction in terms of adoption thank you what members any of miss patricka i'm not a teacher k-12 but as i read this policy i didn't see it as being any different from the experience my children have had k-12 in the school district i mean you know there there are this is far more detailed than anything we've seen the state require of us before but everything that's listed in here is are things that my students have learned when on the rarican the incredibly rare occasion that a teacher stepped outside of her her limited ability to exercise academic freedom and i want to say it's limited because k-12 it

090is limited and it should be limited higher education you have far more freedom when it comes to the materials you use and how they're presented it should be limited k-12 and the rare occasion that's happened the the teacher was swiftly addressed by the principal and the problem the problem went away so i you know you talked about the constitution the way i read that is that the other amendments do actually impact the structure of our government so they will be discussed and i specifically remember my kids learning these things in their classes so i'm i'm not i'm not alarmed by this i don't i think that i think it's by the state requiring us to adopt this policy i think it's creating an issue that doesn't really exist and we're really just formalizing what we're

091already doing that's my opinion i'm not trying to debate anybody i'm not calling anyone out specifically by name or by board member or by their experience i'm talking about my experience as a parent in our schools thank you miss vaughn yeah what i'm i'm going to say is in all seriousness that yes these are the basics the bare bones and i would also add that these by and large apply to let's say u.s history class but if a student is taking advanced placement american history it's going to be very very different from this so i you know i don't believe that this is taken into consideration because although i have never taught ap american history i'm very aware kind of teamed with people who did and when you go down to section f we are

092being i mean this is being very prescriptive and rather subjective american history shall be viewed as factual okay yeah factual there was a civil there was a civil war or a war between the states there's decision making what you're going to call it there were certain battles and if you're in the south the battles were called one thing in the north they were called another thing there is whether people want to admit it yes there's a factual basis but there is a subjective basis to history as there are subjective basis to whether you read the new york times of the wall street journal you're going to get a story that's that's very different not as constructed shall be viewed as knowable teachable and testable okay what year was the civil war oh 1861 18 who

093started the civil war oh now wait there we have if if you're following what i'm saying this worries me as an educator and i know we don't have anything that we can change here because it's handed to us in statute and i'm not debating the fact that the teachers should be teaching the basics from the textbook but there are so many other things that can be brought in not even paying for something i loved miss kittens yeah the i mean that's that's wonderful and to encourage students to bring in you know oh you know so and so has toured civil war battle fields and what they saw and what was depicted there you know i'm so i just i know this is getting away a little bit a lot from what we're doing with this

094but i just really want to make the public aware that in drafting these policies yes we're we need to follow the law and yes as a district we will follow the law but yes this undermines critical thinking critical reading it undermines the critical reading of primary source documents you know what did jefferson davis say what did abraham lincoln say those are factual but they're going to be real different and so i'm i know i'm getting deep into educational philosophy here but i feel like it behooves us as bored at least behooves me as a member of this board to point out some of the problems and also the fact that these do not they're not going to apply to our advanced courses which are college level courses that's it thank you thank you miss vaughn

095ms kittens okay i want to make a quick comparison if you look at 127 lines 34 and 35 127 34 and 35 it says these are prohibited activities and compelling employees of students to believe that members of a certain race or color national or origin sex or whatever is superior etc etc when you go to 3.051 that we're talking about now lines 111 and 112. 111 talks about instructional materials shall include the contributions of african-american society students shall develop and understand the ramifications of prejudice racism stereotype typing on individual freedoms etc etc so we are saying in one document that this will be taught and in another document you're saying that it will not be taught a certain way yeah especially yes if i may yes good times miss kittens i will advise that the

096statute that you're referencing would be house bill 7 which discusses all of this does have a notation and it is in our board policy 1.27 that these prohibited activities meaning those things that you were referencing earlier should not be construed to exclude discussion of the concepts listed as a larger course of training or instruction provided such training or instruction is given in an objective manner without the endorsement of the concepts so neutrality is what we have been training staff on to be neutral and objective when these things come up thank you and madam madam sheriff there's no more comment i know that we have other things on the agenda yes and i was just going to comment on the time which is 2 44. okay any other comments on on this policy 3.051 can move

097on then we'll move forward with this yes there weren't any i don't believe changeable comments so we'll move forward as is with the first reading thank you very much board i want to thank ms scott and dr spyro and their team for going through this and putting this together and getting us up and rolling with neola and these very important what we call fire policies thank you tammy thank you yes thank you benny and now we'll move on does anyone need a break move on now to our civil rights and equity guide and presenting for us this afternoon is jessica duncan executive director of student services and chuck bradley director of positive prevention and welcome this afternoon glad to see you so well while we're waiting let me just make a comment i was speaking

098to a constituent the other day amongst the other things we talked about was the work that was done on this particular project and she is very smart and very articulate and is used to throwing punches when it comes to the way the district processes stuff and she said to me i have to tell you that mr chuck bradley did a terrific job conducting the sessions so i just i wanted to pass that on so thank you mr bradley that too me too yes thank my partner here miss duncan as well we tag teamed very beautifully in in leading those and also we want to say thank you to the multitude of people that have been involved in producing this getting this ready goes back to we've been working for more than a year on this

099particular document and i we want to say thank you to mr jarrett eady to miss kathy bruno mr ryan hudak it's christy schroed who is no longer with us in the district and many many others that have helped along this journey including the student services team who helped to facilitate the meetings that were held and have helped with the logistics of this along the way thank you mr bradley so dr bernier members of the school board man of chair we're pleased to bring to you today the sdlc civil rights and equity guide draft this is a final draft version for the year 2223 today's presentation will provide an overview of the major components of the sdlc civil rights and equity guide the legal and policy basis for the guidance the process for development and anticipated

100steps toward completion we included a bit of the compelling why for this document it follows that civil rights guarantee equal opportunities and that to achieve this we as a school district must respond and must ensure that all students are provided equitable access to their education so this guide talks about the application but we want to start with just an overview of the policy so we put up here board policy 1.27 which is our non-discrimination statement with that this guy draws from multiple sources of law that guarantees student and parental rights in education including the u.s u.s constitution we must recognize that all civil rights emanate from the 14th amendment of the u.s constitution which requires the equal protection of the law parents rights which include our district responsibilities to honor parental rights as designated in

101florida statute 1001.42 which was amended by house bill 1557 as well as florida statute 760.10 and 1000.05 which was amended by house bill 7. we also recognize and utilize florida civil rights laws and equity laws as found in our state constitution and statutes so with this triangle here we want to express the importance of the teacher student and parent working together and with house bill 1557 we recognize that parents have a fundamental right to make decisions and be involved in the upbringing of their children so the parents are an integral part of this triangle and we just wanted to give that visual representation with that we'll begin an overview of the sections of the civil rights guide it is organized by federal title laws and other civil rights laws so what we'll do is we'll

102briefly go over each title and give an example and then if you have specific questions from your reading or the documents that you have we can take some time to answer those so the first one we'll be looking at is title ii which is non-discrimination based on religious beliefs and exercise and public accommodation so the educational application one of them is that students may bring personal religious texts to school and read during non-instructional time so this means they can read during lunch if they are in class and they're done with an assignment or test they can read and the same goes for staff who may also bring religious texts and read during their lunch time their breaks title six is a broad equity law which requires non-discrimination based on color race ethnicity and national origin

103and an example of the guidance that's provided in this area includes that students and staff may speak or write in any language dialect when not engaged in instruction or a schoolwork task that requires standard english for title seven non-discrimination and employment which includes a complaint resolution process the educational application would be an employee cannot be hired fired promoted or not promoted disciplined due to race color national origin sex including pregnancy sexual orientation and gender identity and or religion title ix is a another broad equity law that requires non-discrimination based on sex including sexual orientation gender identity and gender expression example of the guidance that is provided here we anticipate that we'll be talking about this particular section most of the afternoon but a particular example is the bullying and harassment and sexual harassment and this

104i hope will answer one of our board members questions that came out bullying and harassment which is bullying harassment targeted towards a person for no other reason is covered under the jeffrey johnston stand up for all students act that is florida statute 1006.147 in the state of florida with a very specific process sexual harassment is covered under title ix and has a again a very specific process for the investigation and the resolution of that complaint and then we go into the americans with disabilities act known as ada so this is the umbrella over both 504 and the individuals with disabilities education act known as idea and with 504 this provides accommodations to students so if they need something like extended time they would have a plan written and they would be provided that time with

105idea one of the applications would be specialized instruction so this might be where a student has an individualized education plan or their iep and in that they might get speech and language therapy occupational therapy physical therapy or some other type of related service we also include several other non-discrimination laws particularly pertaining to employees age discrimination act which requires that we do not discriminate against employees once they hit the age of 40. so i think most of us are protected up here i think speak for yourself the genetic genetic information non-discrimination act which prohibits the use of genetic information to discriminate against a person in employment or health coverage and finally the 14th amendment as we mentioned at the beginning this is the equal protection clause of the u.s constitution which requires us to apply all

106laws equally to all persons i just wanted to share some of the groups that we worked with chuck did give a public thank you source also wanted to just share that one of our community members had talked about the importance of civil discourse and we feel like these meetings were such a great example of people with different views coming together in a positive and productive manner to really increase each other's mutual understanding of how they viewed important topics and i just want to especially note our student group which was phenomenal and we are certain that we saw several future community leaders in that group and their insights and suggestions were just invaluable in fact one of the parts of the document create is the part where if you have a concern or a complaint and

107one of their suggestions was to put a link to that under each section which we did to make that accessible to people who did have a concern so our anticipated next steps for the use of this guide we do have our nuts and bolts meeting that is coming up in just a few days with our administrators we do plan a presentation to our administrators we will also be providing training for all employees on and the district through a video based training program that will be provided to our school equity coordinators they'll be trained in how to implement this guide and to utilize it in their work and we'll also be working with our equity coordinators and school administrators to provide that training to their staff at school throughout the year we anticipate that we'll be

108providing ongoing supports and trainings to these groups and to others and also on-site technical assistance when needed thank you mr bradley mountain chair thank you i had no comments at the beginning because i wanted them to get right to the matter but i do have a couple of points of privilege i'd like to say first of all thank you to chuck and excuse me i'm fighting now i'm fighting something in my throat we just delivered a cough drop i'm jessica duncan their work here has been amazing but i think the other important factor for us to think about and talk about a little bit just briefly is that this is another example of how we can utilize our community and community engagement that list of people that they listed from students all the way through

109to the other organizations some members of the committee are present even here today i can't tell you how much i appreciated the time and the extra effort that you put in not just the two individuals seated in front of us and the staff that they represent but all the individuals who gave up their own time to come in and participate in what was at least initially a difficult process i mean there have been some wounds in this community surrounding some particular issues and the idea of locking everybody into a room again and talking about diversity of opinion and working towards a solution for where we could be now may not have been the most popular suggestion that the new superintendent ever came up with but i thank these two people in particular and the staff

110and the community they represent for taking on the challenge and really working in an open forum and making sure that the issues that we needed to move forward in order to get to a civil rights and equity guide came to fruition let me also be clear and i know this will i've checked it with both chuck and jessica they will not leave over this statement we're not our work is not done with this guy this is a this is an avenue in a manner in means which has to be consistently revisited has to be looked looked at as laws within the land change but i am most proud that this is this is a guide that aligns to the law which is the most important thing we are all responsible for as constitutional officers up

111here but it also responds to the need of a community that a parent has a strong voice in their child's education in their rearing so i appreciate the work and the delicate balance you're making it look very simple this afternoon and i want you to know and understand and respect that all of us up here know how difficult for every member who's present today on this committee who came to this create and helped create this document that nuanced work was more difficult than you're making it look seem at this very moment so i'd be interested in the board's questions and discussions as it relates to the guide and look forward to robust conversation between ourselves our two colleagues and some public comment that i'm sure we'll get at the end of this process thank you

112dr vernier and i'll save my comment for later ms vaughn then miss kittens yeah i just want to add to a little bit to what was already said i was very interested in this topic and so i observed two two of the sessions and when i walked in to the first session and looked around at the community participants i found that i actually knew great majority of them in in in knowing them i had a not really trepidation but i was thinking oh this is going to be fun because i know that it worked out perfectly that there really was a balance of of people on on both sides and i want to reiterate what already was said both miss duncan and mr bradley did an excellent job and i think it helped they provided

113some good snacks that because you know people get a little grouchy when they're hungry and thinking about the time frame that people were meeting a lot of people probably came directly from work and didn't eat or hadn't had dinner so i think good snacks really helps people from getting grouchy and there there was great participation and people were paired at different tables to discuss and there was i didn't see any bruises or blood or anything no every everything really really went very smoothly and i was proud of everybody that was there so if there are any problems with the guide it's not from lack of hard work on on the part of all of the people that participated in organizing this thank you miss vaughn miss kittens well i was fortunate enough to sit in

114like a fly on the wall i didn't participate i know that was hard but and attorney bruno kept looking at me no but it was to me that i was at the last one and it was so funny it was like the last day for seniors in high school and everybody when you said it was done they're all just kind of like okay what do we do now we want more we want to do something else this just couldn't be just the end and that was what was so good about it you know left them wanting to be more involved and wanting to add more to it and when i used to teach high school the first week i was always do a lesson on respect and i'd play the song you know and all

115this stuff and the kids would get into it but we would talk about the word respect and i think the power of what was done in those sessions was a microcosm of what we can do throughout the district to show that a group of people with different beliefs and thoughts and opinions can come together and have respect for each other's opinions and thoughts and beliefs and come out with a product that represents all of them so thank you thank you any other comments or questions miss jordan i would just say i've had a lot of conversation lately about this whole topic but i really want to thank the committee who has that was that are here actually in the audience and that participated and gave of their time to be engaged in this and i

116thank you miss duncan and mr bradley mr edie everyone that was in involved in this and keeping in line with what is best for our students and making sure that we are keeping in mind with our non-discrimination policy and just working off of that so that each and every child knows that they matter that's it great thank you any other comments okay miss patricka then miss giovanelli so i've got several questions and i think that you attempted to answer one of them by referring to title ix but the latest guidance i've seen coming out of the doe on title ix refers to gender-based harassment and it doesn't call it sexual harassment it might seem like a distinction without a difference but if i get notification from my school that my child is engaged in sexual

117harassment that means something very different from my child is engaged in or has been accused of being engaged in gender-based harassment so i wonder whether i could get some clarification as to exactly where in title ix we're finding that sexual harassment includes gender identity sure well the title ix guidance that has been provided through executive order by president biden does include gender identity gender expression sexual orientation under title ix and it follows along the bostock ruling i'll let kathy explain more in more detail if we need to go that further that much further we're applying specifically we're still under the devos regulation on the application of title ix the new proposed guidance for title ix has not gone through rule making and has not become effective at this time it doesn't answer my question i'm

118sorry why are we referring to it as sexual harassment gender-based harassment so right now the actual rule that is in place does talk about gender identity and sexual orientation in january of 2021 in march of 2021 president biden issued two executive orders that were very specific in terms of non-discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and in those executive orders he directed that all of the government agencies go back and look at all of their policies and processes to ensure that they were in compliance the department of education then i believe it was in july of 2021 went ahead and issued their guidance now applying boss stock to title ix so boss duck was the united states supreme court case that's the title vii case so just for the public and everything the board

119members to understand bostock was a united states supreme court case where an individual filed suit claiming discrimination based on gender identity and then the court said no you cannot discriminate based on title seven which is a different title title vii based on sexual orientation or gender identity from that was extrapolated that now this applies to title ix which is our sex discrimination so then by an issued those two executive orders then the department of education applied and said okay we're going to clarify at this point the application based on bostock of title ix ii sexual orientation and gender again based on what the president directed them to do so that's where we are now that and they issued a friendly letter as well to educators to advise them this is how we're going to apply

120and they said that we're going to enforce this in the ocr process if a student is feeling that they are being discriminated based on their sexual orientation or gender identity we are going to enforce this so where we are right now with this is that there is a case that came out in tennessee where 20 states filed a lawsuit basically challenging really the rule making of this particular record or this rule from the department of education so at this point i believe it was about a week and a half ago or so about two weeks ago where that court did rule that they're going to enjoin the application of that department of education's recommendation regarding the application of bostock ii title ix however it does not apply to the state of florida because florida was

121not a party to the action and in the memorandum that was issued by the tennessee court it indicated that it would not apply this nationwide it would only apply it to the states that were parties to the action so i know all that but but what i'm not hearing is where in the law sexual harassment is defined to include gender identity harassment on the basis of gender identity i just i again it may seem semantic but but legally they are two different things and as a parent getting a call from a principal who says your child has been accused of sexual harassment that's different from your child has been accused of harassment on the basis of gender identity there's a big difference between those two and so as we look at the guide on page

122six i think it talks about bullying and harassment but investigating for sexual harassment when a child is bullying another student on the basis of gender identity so we should be investigating for harassment period right and that's what title ix be quiet now it is i mean we regardless we should be investigating the going back to your original question in terms of gender identity that is specifically coming from the boss stock decision and then that was applied as i said three executive orders by biden and then the department of education adopted it specifically adopted it and made a ruling so if you even go on the department of education's website right now that's what it talks about sexual orientation and gender identity so why are we calling it sexual harassment so if i could jump in

123for just a minute title nine does include again it's very broad in any kind of discrimination or harassment based on sex and so anything that falls under that umbrella comes under title ix or possible title nine right there is a threshold and so it does include egregious sexual harassment that the type that would run even into a criminal charge when it falls into that arena it's still under title ix but it may go into a legal arena for pursued by law enforcement etc the type that we're dealing with in our schools can run the gamut from slurs that are of a sexual nature thrown at a student it can include such things as an appropriate touch or inappropriate suggestion for sexual favor when we find it so offensive that a reasonable person would see it

124as offensive then it would fall under title ix for the investigation model and the guidance that is provided here is to distinguish between the two models that we investigate under we have a bullying and harassment investigation model we have a title ix investigation model i maybe i can get with somebody offline because my the question that i have in my mind has not been answered by the statements that have been made here today just i don't i don't understand why we're calling it sexual harassment but i don't want to blame the point here in front of everybody just one question can you show me tell me again where because i'm trying to make it six where it talks about bullying and harassment which block are you looking at i don't know it's block one block

125one continued over to this oh okay thank you very much i see thank you okay do you want me to continue or do you want to move on to somebody else madam chair you may continue okay so for names and pronouns i think i'm still on page six of the on the guide i'm not on the presentation staff just gave page six names and pronouns students under 18 need parental permission correct okay correct and then moving on what is a consistently asserted gender identity for staff i know what i know the answer but is legal documentation required for that and if not that seems to be inconsistent with the guidance that we have for title 7 section the title 7 section on page 5. that section talks about the court when you legally change your

126name in court where the section on page six just talks about the use of names and pronouns not necessarily with a legal change through a court system okay so we're we are not requiring a legal change for staff to refer to them by names other than the one that's on their application or any of that we can we're just allowing the consistent asserted gender identity why is there that why why is that not consistent there are two different things one is when a person has an affirmation that they choose to use but they're not making a legal change on documents and then there might come a point where that person that wants to legally change their name and then they do that through the court system but there are individuals who are going to use

127in a firm name who don't make a legal name change so there's two different ways that they can do they can use in informally a name or a pronoun that as they're affirmed that with their consistently inserted gender identity or they can make a legal change of name through the court system okay and that's that's adults right that's our employees okay and then gsa's are we allowing the creation of gsas at every level of education i know the answer is no for elementary but middle and high it's my understanding that we have to allow the creation of a gsa at a middle school because they offer high school level classes right wherever we allow student interest clubs to be created then we must allow for gsas to be created at those schools so that's in

128our secondary schools middle and high so if we have a chess club in elementary school usually that's going to be staff led okay and what about k-8s our k-8 schools operate as elementary middle so this would apply to the middle school students within a k-8 okay page seven privacy under title nine what if a parent asks and i don't really know what that means i'm going to go back and look at page seven so basically if a student discloses to a staff member their sexual orientation gender identity staff member will let the students know at that time that if your parent okay ask me i'm i will have to inform them okay thank you i i can if i met him chair just to add to that it's not only if if they ask me

129if there is a change in the service or monitoring of the student that affects their physical health mental health well-being emotional health parents will be notified yeah we just did that in the previous right i just wanted to make sure this is clear i do have a question about restrooms and locker rooms but i'll leave that for later for proms and dances can we add that the active gender support plan has to be signed yes we can add that thank you and what are we doing if a gender support plan is not signed by a parent or a guardian then it would not be implemented we would not be providing accommodations on campus but we would also balance that with non-discrimination for the student what does that mean it means we will not discriminate against

130the student right on campus okay well we wouldn't be doing that anyways right may i continue or do you wanna what if you can why don't you finish okay and then i was just gonna say are we gonna i had comments about prom are we gonna how are we organizing this okay well until now there hasn't been very much but if you since we i'm happy to wait i just yeah because i heard miss patrick talk about it is that okay with you then if miss vaughn gives her the chair yeah okay okay we're on proms and dances yeah my comment here is and i know this is not going to be popular but i'm going to say it anyway students desiring to run for prom king or queen when not consistent with their birth

131sex must have an active gender support plan i'm picking on homecoming and prom king or queen i find electing a king and queen to be extremely outdated and sexist i was looking online just a few minutes ago and i see that there are a number of colleges that have moved away from that and there are high schools that are also now what do they do in lieu of that there there's some there's some things instead of using gender specific titles such as king and queen they use titles perhaps such as royalty or they drop a king and a queen and just have a general homecoming court which i know traditionally the court is every they have the prince and the princess and you know i know in in in the south especially with the parade

132of light and all and all of that the idea of having little princes and princesses and kings and i you know it's fine for like disney princess whatever but by the time you become a young adult in high school i you know i would actually say that we should consider as a district and maybe some of the schools have done that getting rid of the sexist titles such as king queen prince princess and i'm not sure that this whole sentence and i know we can't do that here and now but this whole sentence students desiring to run for prom king or queen it's sort of clashing with with the whole idea i'm just curious what my board colleagues feel about this i know i'm on the liberal end of the spectrum but i find it

133very outdated i find it sexist and i find it not in keeping with what we're saying about prom's dances and that would also be homecoming which of course has a dance so this was actually brought up by the student group as well and i think these are one of the things when we talk about our ongoing work and we weren't at a point with that group to move forward but when we talk to the principals we are going to recommend that they start looking at those things and then as we continue that work might it be something that we look at district wide yes but it was actually the student brought up the same suggestion of using a term like this yeah okay and let me ask what from the prince since you've already discussed

134this in you know some length anyway with principals and students what seemed to be the yeah you know the other the other thing with this of course is the popularity contest and all of that but i'm not even looking at that because it will still be a popularity contest just what what seemed to be is it so deeply embedded that people are including students like no we have to we're a crown you know or what what have you found in in speaking with i don't know that we found any one thing but the students did go back and forth within their group about the importance of those roles in the court and the need for inclusiveness so there wasn't any definitive action or understanding they just put it out there as something they'd like to

135think more about and i think that's something as we continue this work that we need to keep on our radar our student group was one of the ones that we met with more recently so it didn't come up with the principal group so we'll bring this back around to the principles on thursday and then continue start that continuation of that discussion well and as i said i know that this can't be decided right here and now but what we are looking at is the verbiage and personally i'm not sure that you know the sentence students desiring under proms and dances and whether that sentence needs to even be there that's that's what i'm one of them for thought one of the things we just wanted to make sure is in this particular situation as is

136written now that there's not a circumstance where a student is put up for a king or queen where they are essentially outed or not in agreement or they don't have their plan so we wanted to protect against that as well to be frank i can see where some mean kid would try to out somebody by suggesting a shy young man in the class be put up for queen but that should never be publicized and that person has to accept it you can't just because kids in high school are mean and you can't just put people up like i mean i can i can see people doing something like that and they have it has to be accepted so with all due respect that's my opinion on it and you know personally since you are asking

137about the verbiage this would be something that i personally don't think needs to be here and that's all i have to say about that section thank you okay miss patrick you want to continue yeah so as we first of all i haven't said thank you i know you guys have put a tremendous amount of work in this and i will tell you that when i read this i felt so much better than where we were before because of the level of parental involvement and parental permission now needed that being said and this is not a question that i sent to the superintendent ahead of time are we still in a position as a district where if we meaning you in your professional judgment believe that a child is in real danger of abuse by their

138parents should they go home and reveal this information to their parent are we in a position where we can act on behalf of that student to protect that student yeah yes and that is included it's actually on page seven under the privacy block where if if we believe and we have more than just a hunch but we have some real belief that the student is going to be subjected to abuse neglect or abandonment we're required to protect that child all right because i know that i know that's a that's a real life issue for our kids and i want to make sure that's protected sorry yeah i think thank you madam chair if i can just add to that as well house bill 1557 is very explicit about that as well it says that you

139do have district the responsibility to advise the parent however if you suspect that there's abuse neglect you must contact the authority so it's in that bill as well right good and you know my son going to you and saying my mom's going to kill me if i tell her that's not real okay all right turning to the gender support plan form it states and i quote if the parents guardians are not aware and or supportive of the student's gender status how will home school communications be handled i'm not clear on how we can have a gender support plan form it's not signed by a parent and how that is not already being communicated at home and again this is an older form gender spectrum several years ago okay so we can certainly update but as

140as the family works through the form they may not answer some of the questions as well only answer the parts that are pertinent to that particular situation all right but there's not going to be a circumstance unless it's one of abuse where this gender form is being worked on with school staff and a student without the parent being aware unless there's a custodial situation through a court that indicated like that and then in that case that they would just go past that part understood okay and i think i've already asked this gender affirming name form nickname form both have to be signed by the parent correct and then did you see my note about the opt-out for health instruction and how difficult that language was to understand i read it five times and i was

141still like what does we'll this mean gillum folks to take a look at all right and then you saw my comment about the glossary as well and that's that's a scribner's thing i'd like to go back and allow people a second round because i want to talk about locker rooms and bathrooms and that's going to take some time okay board members any other questions or comments right now miss giovanelli and i'm sorry so i don't have a lot actually but one of the things i did notice is the hope scholarship i don't see a link there or anything for parents to be able to access that i talk to a lot of parents that nobody mentions the hope scholarship to them one within the last 24 hours so i don't understand how that what happens

142and that communication is not conveyed back to the parent but i think that's really important because our first avenue would be to move them to one of our public schools before going to a private school or or them asking for that help and the parent i just spoke to was unaware of it completely so but this has been a while that this has been an issue not this is not something that just happened recently so i would like to see a link or something to that giving them more information i realize that you have the information here but maybe a link for the actually application maybe and what that what the hell scholarship actually affords them if they were to try to go to a private school especially i think that's probably the real question

143of the day because that seems to be a disconnect there not everybody seems to accept it or they're they're full and they don't want to have to deal with that i don't really understand that red tape there it seems to have to add a link to the main webpage for help scholarship and on that page parents can find information about how it works and which schools participate that would be awesome one of the other things that i was curious do you anticipate doing this same process again next year because who knows the law could change again because it seems to be a moving target and so well i think one of the things both jessica and i and we shared this with dr bernier yesterday that we thoroughly enjoyed working with our community we have

144bonded and we actually were kind of sad not to have another meeting so i actually would anticipate that we will probably come back and revisit and invite our community to come back and re-engage i like that answer so thank you and that's really all i have from the moment really was just the hope scholarship portion of it because i mean there's people think it's just one way but it could be in i mean there's other schools in lee county cresswell is one of them that would take a very diverse child and of you know and they have those students and that excel there so i would never want to i would want to have the opportunity for both for any student period so thank you great thank you miss giovanelli any other comments or questions

145before i revisit miss patricka okay miss patricka bathrooms all right so i don't need to ask the question because i know the answer if we have a student who is a biological female who identifies as a male and wants to use the boys bathroom or locker room the this the legal interpretation or the legal position of this district is that we will work with them on a case-by-case basis and we will encourage the use of a neutral facility but if the child and the parent insist upon use of the bathroom that or in locker room that coincides with their gender identity we have to allow them to use that facility is that an accurate statement ms bruno mr bradley so it's a it's a difficult statement because the way where we are with the law

146right it's very unsettled at this time we do not have clear guidance from the 11th circuit regarding what to do about youth using a particular bathroom there's just at this point the case that did have a ruling on it i believe it was in 2021 adams versus st john's has been vacated and we're waiting for the result of that hearing what we have now is the grim versus gloucester case which went up to the united states supreme court and in that case it was a virginia case fourth circuit that case basically stood for the proposition that a transgender youth who was insistent consistent persistent could use the bathroom that they identified with from a gender perspective that case went to united states supreme court the court declined to rule on it so that is really

147the federal law that we have now until another circuit decides to move forward or the 11 in terms of being persuasive it is persuasive from a federal law standpoint and then the only other thing that we have is the department of education's guidance so that's the basis that if a student requests to be able to use a bathroom and let's make sure that it's very very clear it is not a student that one day decides i'm going to use the girl's bathroom this would be a student who has recommend who has requested accommodations through a gender support plan that has been signed off by the parent this student has exemplified insistent consistent persistent gender identity and they are requesting that accommodation so based on where we are right now with the law case-by-case spaces encourage

148a neutral bathroom but if they insist that will be the bathroom that is used okay and that's the completely separate question the st john's case from the 11th circuit was vacated does that mean that the district court case is precedent well it was vacated so it's not necessarily precedent because the 11th circuit originally affirmed it and then the 11th circuit say no we're changing our mind and we're completely vacating and we're going to go ahead and we rule on it through an ombud hearing with all the justices so at this point that is the case that's out there so you could make an argument that is persuasive and unprecedented i would be careful to do that because i know very well that the 11th circuit is rehearing this so that's that would be my position

149okay so i think you all know based on the conversations we've had here at the table that this issue specifically with regard to locker rooms makes me very very very uncomfortable as a parent i want to start by saying that i completely accept transgender individuals for who they are it is a real medical diagnosis and our children are entitled to every accommodation every reasonable and appropriate accommodation that we can provide to them this is not my comments are not a rejection of the diagnosis or the our children's circumstances that are real but i do believe that accommodations for adults and children are different and i think that gender transgender bathroom and locker room use for adults is different for adults than it is for children i think that we as board members have a unique

150responsibility particularly when it comes to students to preserve students privacy and to me that means protecting a student from being in a position where they have to expose themselves to other students who who don't match them biologically or be exposed to students who don't match them biologically i just it's it's a it's a feeling that i have deep in in my core and it's it's what i genuinely believe i think as board members we have to protect all students that includes transgender students and it includes students who want privacy from that from that exposure and from having to expose i also think that i think that a lot of the interpretation of the law that's going on is wrong you guys talk about title seven it makes my head want to pop off title seven

151is not title nine title seven was an employment context that contemplated how adults should behave it had nothing to do with intimate facilities like bathrooms and locker rooms title ix specifically addresses children and it specifically addresses intimate facilities and at the time that law was passed no one in the legislature was talking about transgender gender identity gender dysphoria being included in the definition of sex i genuinely believe that this supreme court will not define sex to include gender identity i believe this supreme court is a strict constructionist court that will send it back to the legislature for the legislature to make that decision all of that being said i think we as a board are powerless to do anything about it right now i wanted to suggest i wanted to coming into today i wanted

152to suggest that we pass a policy regarding bathroom and locker room use but i don't think we can do that under the law i think that i think that other districts are already in that case and i think that it would be a waste of taxpayer resources for us to engage in a lawsuit that's already being decided by our courts so what can we do while these cases are being decided to protect all students not just transgender students but all students and i spoke briefly with dr bernier about architectural changes in our buildings and i'm not just talking about the new buildings we're building i'm talking about not barriers dividers in our locker rooms i've spoken with all of my kids who have been in various locker rooms throughout the district they all change in

153open rooms i'd like to see barriers placed in those rooms if the board agrees as a retrofitting measure obviously based on cost i mean you know i would ask you to come back with costs see if there are piggybacks out there that we can utilize and the other thing that could cut down on quite a bit of this is making sure that we're not penalizing kids who don't dress out for pe like i know my son is in pe and he has to dress and if he doesn't dress for pe he gets knocked down in his grade well there's no reason why he can't play basketball in his jeans if he's uncomfortable changing in the locker room and the same is true for weight lifting or any of those activities that require dressing out the

154other thing is i've i've spoken with colleagues across the state and what i'm suggesting here is widely accepted as best practice there is no appetite by other districts to engage in a lawsuit or policy making all legal advice and all professional advice all best practices are wait until this plays out in the courts but in the meantime what you can do is you can seek to retrofit your locker rooms and i would suggest that would be at the middle and high school level those are my comments for now thank you miss giovanelli so that was kind of something i brought up a while back you know when we're building schools why aren't we looking into that a little bit of a change but have we engaged any of our students to see what they're comfortable

155with and like because i was thinking do we need to retrofit a whole locker room or do we just need to have a room designated area that you know separate bathroom and a changing area for just one person at a time and they take turns you know what is the real need is it are we needing it for 10 students are we just needing it for one or two you know because not necessarily transgender would decide to use that private bathroom or a locker you know area to change it could be anyone i remember i hated dressing out so i understand you know where you know privacy at a middle school age or in high school age could be is very important to some students so i think it's something we need to engage our

156students and see exactly what the need is if there's there's no law that's gonna that makes us not do it or stops us from doing it i think and it's just it's kind of like thinking out of the box and thinking ahead and planning and we don't need a law to tell us to do that i think we could do that on our own and accommodate students for what whatever reason it could it doesn't have to be you know a a gender issue actually thank you thank you miss jordan i just thank you for bringing that up because i know for first hand from my kids and my grandkids now they do not want to ever be dressed because my middle schooler just came and said do you know they wanted me to get dressed

157in front of all these other girls and they're all girls but to her she was uncomfortable with doing that so yes you know she was given accommodations to go into a bathroom so it is about accommodating all of our kids and so i really appreciate you bringing that up it is it is about the kids miss kittens the attorney go ahead miss games if you have a comment then i have no it's different so god so attorney bruno i'm sure the superintendent also has a comment on this as well there's nothing in the law that says we can't do that right right there's nothing absolutely nothing in the law that prevents us from having privacy barriers or having bathrooms that are gen you know anybody can use the bathroom it doesn't matter what your gender

158is etc absolutely nothing but i do want to just make sure that it's clear i just want to make sure that it's clear where we are with the law at this time with regards to youth using transgender youth using the bathroom the 11th i can't predict what the united states supreme court is going to do or the florida supreme court's going to do what the 11th circuit is going to do i have a sense based on what the judges are in terms of the conservative or not conservative but we cannot predict so as you were saying we do need to allow some of these cases to go through the process and there are cases out there but as it stands right now where we are with the law florida is very difficult because the one

159case has been vacated even though we have the one order but it's been vacated and the united states supreme court did not choose to assist us by accepting grim to give us some guidance to give us a review they did not choose to do that so they actually allowed that case to be law in the fourth circuit which is like what four plus states that is the law and that is the federal law as it stands when you're trying to figure out where the court's going to go so it is a little difficult it's murky i don't want to confuse anything with regards to the law i just wanted to explain it and i know the superintendent has additional comments what i'm assuming the superintendent has additional comments passing the potato here i'm gonna reserve

160my comments until until the discussion is over okay okay can i jump in for just a minute i just wanted to address miss givenelli and ms patricka that our guidance does include at the request of any student a gender-neutral single-stall private restroom locker room may be provided but cannot be required general gender-neutral single-stall private restroom locker room options do not require parent permission as they are available to all students yes thank you okay miss kittens okay my question is about the gender support plan and i was looking at it and it is from genderspectrum.org so it was an already available form what vetting did we do have we adopted it did we adapt it before we adopted it or and does it suffice legally in our situation is that clear it's clear before you ask

161may i miss fisher i'm sorry back yes okay so before you answer that can you please because i know it was revised in 2019 so this thing has been here for and i think mrs fisher was aware of it like for many many years so i just wanted to add that little and that and actually if i may that's one of the reasons since the law is as of 22 how does it reflect everything we need to reflect and once again i'll respond to kind of several of those questions first there was never a formal adoption it was recommended as a best practice document and it was provided through several groups through the florida department of education that this was a tool that could be used in helping to support persons regarding their gender identity

162as i mentioned previously to mr patrick's question we would be happy to go back through the document and make sure that it is aligned to the current state laws of florida and with that then should it also be vetted like by the group that looked at everything else i mean i just i'm just making wanting to make sure that it fits with the law and it fits with what the community saw already was it something that you did go over and the training and what was the response so we did share the document we didn't go over the document like line by line or do a deep dive into it that's something we can do with future work the things to point out with this document that are important it is individualized is confidential it

163stays with the school counselor a student is not required to have this is for a student who wants accommodations and at that point we work with them and facilitate a conversation with the family and help them through that and it highlights and makes a priority confidentiality privacy and safety and everything in the plan looks at the students through that lens of confidentiality privacy and safety so a suggestion at the top where it says confidential an asterisk and at the bottom of the page in reference to the portion of the law that says you know when parents have to be notified and all that just having the fs whatever it is just so that we know what what confidential means because just sitting there by itself it could have a lot of interpretation and miss kittens

164excuse me attorney bruno has comment yes i do so house bill 1557 does talk about support plans and what it specifically says is that we cannot adopt processes or support plans that prohibit the school district from discussing changes services on the monitoring of students based on their health i'm sorry their physical health their mental health their emotional health and their well-being so long as we are making sure that parents are involved and that they know when services which the gender support plan would be services are being rendered or being monitored then the parents have to know and that will be in compliance with house bill 1557. so one of the things that jumps out at me in the first block the question sex assigned it bur and what what would trigger asking a student that

165information or getting that information or whatever if you know they come dressed differently than they did yesterday or last week or what what besides this form i hope you're asking that question the sex assigned at first yeah well that would be part of their their their record we would have that information already that's provided on enrollment ms kittens if i'm understanding the question correctly you would like to know at what point does this form start to get filled out beginning with that first question sex assigned at birth and is it generated by the student so staff the question really to you is how does this form come out of a drawer or out of a computer fill that for what purpose so how does this become you know from a conceptual idea of filling out

166a gender equity plan to actually somebody sitting down can you give us the scenario in which this form would be put into use a student goes to their school counselor and says they want to talk about their gender identity they have questions they want to talk through some things the school counselor talks to them and at some point in that conversation or maybe the next conversation the student says these are the pronouns that i go by and i would like everybody to use these these pronouns at that point the school counselor would share that they are welcome to use those in the schools with their their friends but if the adults in the school are going to use those then that has to be part of their plan with this plan not every part is

167going to be applicable to every student and it's not like you have to fill out each section to go to the next but they would talk about this plan to the student so that would be the process in every school now what the plan looks like might be individualized but at that point when the student asks for accommodations they would be it is also possible to have a scenario where a parent came in with their child correct and engaged with an administrator or a school counselor or another member of the staff asking for this plan to come as well and let us be clear for the public in the first scenario you just described where a student is self-identifying at what point is the parent involved before the form begins to be completed right right

168from that very first meeting there would be a student would be informed that to really complete this plan it would require the involvement of the parent and there would be encouragement on how would we make that happen so if that is where the student wants to go then it would be a conversation about how is that how are we going to get your parent involved and if i may a third possibility is a bullying situation in which the administrators and guidance counselors are involved and it comes down to why was the bullying and it had to do you know with this topic so therefore that's another thing that could trigger it but then in that case would the student have to say yes i'm being bullied and yes i'd like to have a plan yes

169so at that point because the bullying would be handled through bullying harassment we have students that are bullied for their actual and perceived sexual or gender identity sexual orientation gender identity so that's handled separately but if out of that a student then says i do want accommodations on campus then we would start to head into this process i think where it gets a little sticky for parents and united you know where i'm going with this that if it's a bullying situation and the students are called in and it's unearthed that this is the reason for the bullying parents will probably ask were they encouraged in order to stop the bullying to have a gender support plan i just kind of feel like that may be a question and i don't know if we have an

170answer for it now but i could see everyone i have a basic answer which is we as a school district we're a public school district we're neither here to prohibit nor promote and so in that case we're not going to encourage the student to have a gender support plan unless they feel the need to have one we're going to we would want the student to bring that forth and or the parent to bring that forth and then work with both student and parent but in that conversation about the bullying somewhere along the line there is we can do this we can do this we can do this you think you can part of those could also be part of the bullying plan so the bullying investigation also results in a plan if there's determined to

171be bullying okay thank you okay i met miss jordan i just wrote real quick thank you for saying that for the bullying plan because also with harassment and every time there's any kind of issue there is a plan put in place to protect the child correct thank you thank you okay let's change just real quick one of the questions i actually had was regarding clubs and participation i know in the past we've been told that cheerleading is considered really a club not a sport except for riverdale i believe they're the only ones that's a competitive sport and treated as such but yet i see some schools that have males on on some cheerlead you know cheerleaders and but i don't i don't know that all schools are encouraging that or you know and how and

172it's all schools do do it differently even right now still even to to even tryouts that's not the same and even though we were supposed to have it the same and we went through that whole process and that never really came to real fruition how do how are we handling that why isn't that consistent throughout the district and i don't know if that might be a question i don't know that's fair to the gender equity experts that we have in the room as well as the individuals that participated in the in the work that we've been reviewing today it is an issue that i'm more than willing to take up with david larosa and have that conversation with an athletic director for our district talk a little about consistency among schools with the reality of

173cheerleading especially out on the track it has been open to both young men and young ladies no matter how they identify and if you look at collegiate teams yeah there are some really amazing opportunities for young men for scholarships a lot of things so i just young men or i'm not even going to do it so i just i will look into we'll look into that process for consistency i just know not all schools encourage the males to and you know and i really good squads have men on them actually regardless so that's all i just don't see it consistent thank you thank you so madam chair in the sake of time can i just make a couple of comments before you yes potentially close the salary there's another board member i'm just worried about

174miss patricka having to leave at four so when she leaves just ignore her well i won't ignore but i can be done in three minutes for sure what i've heard are several things that i think are a value for us to take away first and foremost i really do appreciate every board member being thankful to this team to the individuals who lie beneath them in the organizational chart who did a lot of the work to helping all the small groups and all the work be done again also to the community that's present for their work in terms of being supportive if we had drawn up a community engagement plan we would have drawn it up to be longer and more in depth but we had a looming due date of school starting to have something

175in place but i again and i appreciate chuck and jessica from their aspect of saying this is not the last time you're going to hear about these issues this is a very fluid situation at the moment there are cases to miss patrick's comment that are further along than anything we could establish or start so it would be wise for us to allow those cases that are further along in the abella world to come to fruition i know our legal team and my two other quasi legal counsels seated over there they have become great stewards of the law i think also i took away both the focus on parental involvement which is very different from where the state was just four years ago when i left state was in a very different place when it regarded

176was when a very different place regarding these issues and i'm happy to see the parental involvement has been brought back into the process because i think parents have a right to be duly informed about some of the decisions that their children are making and if decisions is not the right word i apologize and then finally we have already begun a conversation with scott rickenbacker and the construction group not only for our new construction but also looking at when we renovate i will ask further for us to look at the schools that are not currently on a renovation list and follow through on that ask for what it might cost and then finally i will also spend some time with our curriculum services people who are in charge of physical education and we look at the

177policy for dressing up thank you because there can be some issues and we want to be respectful again of protecting all of our students and that's why i love the title of this guide it's a civil rights and equity guide it's it's it's how we should take care of all children and i appreciate people trying to find a middle ground knowing that we'll move forward based upon case law and other changes to our own status around curriculums and own expectations thank you and before you leave i just wanted to make a couple of comments i wanted to thank you for the presentation which was concise yet comprehensive i think that the community committee was diverse and i heard amazing feedback from some of the members i think the input was good particularly from the students

178and so your little triangle of student success the student teacher and parent that's always been i think our philosophy that parents are our partners in education and as a former school counselor who worked with these issues even before i got on the board 12 years ago when it wasn't a big thing publicly we accommodate for kids and we do take it on a case-by-case basis and whether it's a gender identity issue or another issue that a student has we do provide for kids to have privacy and to be safe and taken care of so thank you for your work and i think this was a great presentation and we're right on time great job so much thank you okay so then next on the agenda of the comments is okay public comment i think it

179is i lost it okay attorney bruno will you please address the issue of public comment thank you madam chair school board policy provides the opportunity at this point in the meeting to address the board concerning any matter on this meeting's agenda if you completed a public comment card please make sure that it has been provided to staff the public comment will be held in the at the podium in the center aisle in the front please be advised that the board will not respond during public comment to remarks made by speakers speakers who fail to follow proper decorum in the chambers will be ruled out of order any speaker continuing with such remarks will be required to relinquish the microphone for board policy 1.11 and may be removed from the chambers there will be one warning

180for board policy 1.11 the time for speakers is three minutes you will find a countdown on the big screen in the front of the room once your time has elapsed the microphone will automatically shut off please state your name when you approach the microphone please follow the staff direction when lining up madam chair there are three speakers which wish to address the board during this briefing thank you is there anyone else in the audience who did not fill out a card would like to speak okay seeing none we please call the first name thank you will the following individuals please line up robert roper sharon mcgill jamie merchant yes and come down to the center aisle at the podium in the front thank you miss merchant stay right where you are that's perfect thank you

181hey my name is robert roper i do also want to commend mr bradley and the whole team they were amazing to work with in fact i was the one that requested a class reunion sometime in the future i thought it was a very good thing contrary to popular reporting in the media there is no registry being assembled it's not possible students have privacy rights that's just not a thing i'm seeing now maybe for the first time the enormity and the complexity of creating policy to comply with the law thank you board and ms bruno for being so diligent in that area concerning the civil rights and equity guide this still needs to be in the student code of conduct i still beg you a one pager that was promised when we had 400 people in

182here we said there would be a one pager there needs to be a one pager that needs to be a policy and then you can link to this 14 or 18 pages whatever it comes out to be it needs to be a policy because it needs to have come before the public to be revised the guidance can be revised by staff at any point in time without public's knowledge of it has to be a policy this guide i believe is too large for a parent to read if you follow all the links in the florida statutes and the titles i just don't think it's reasonable to think that a parent is gonna do all that as far as a persistent consistent transgender male identifying as a female in the females restrooms because that's what they

183want and they get the equity plan of the gender support plan and they get their what they requested that person has that right and i support that person's right however all the other students have a right to have their parents notified that's what's happening because there is an expectation of privacy in the restroom and just because you've granted a right to one person doesn't remove the rights of the others i did provide a comprehensive report on june 30th to this entire guide and to date i haven't really received any feedback 20 seconds left and with all these policies at one time i'll just end it this way it is impossible to get public comment when you have this many policies at one time just impossible there is a glaring problem and i'll get with you

184miss bruno because i think i'm done you mr roper this is fun i like this i can see you all jamie merchant i was chosen to be part of the community feedback for the equity guide and i greatly appreciate that opportunity i learned a lot i know that chuck and jessica worked very hard on this project and still to this day i'm still researching things that i've learned throughout those three days of meetings the topic on abuse you have 96 000 or or more students enrolled in your schools and to assume that any of them are abused without any sort of proof or documentation from the authorities is a stretch and i think to take that to specific to those who are transitioning or want a gender support plan it's not just i always encourage

185parental involvement there should be a guidance counselor on staff that should be trusted to encourage the child to have a conversation with their parent or be that third party with their parent instead of conversations happening behind closed doors because the child has not asked for an accommodation so those are my comments thanks thank you good afternoon good afternoon sharon let me try to take this out sharon mcgill and i was part of the equity guy committee and it was a wonderful group i mean it really was when we broke off into our small groups we would sometimes get off target and start talking about all these different things and either jessica or whoever happened to be at the table with us would always try to circle us back to where we were actually supposed to

186be but it was all good conversation that we were having which was great the only things that i'm concerned about is and this came up in our group with several people is the implementation of all of these policies and that they're consistent across the district by schools by ages because a parent could have a child in one school and they end up having it reinforced a different way than if they're in another school the way it's interpreted by that school's administration which can then be confusing for the parents and not knowing okay what do i do here what do i do there so that was just something that came up was how how is it going to be implemented and will it be implemented consistently the other thing that came up all the time was

187website website website you keep telling us it's on the website but we can't find it i mean it's like going through pages and pages and pages it really has to be a simpler process for people to find that information and then last i think that a lot of these policies protect the students but i think the teachers in some of the cases are left out and how some of these policies like harassment how does the teacher get correct protected from that because a child is very very capable of harassing an adult and so how what's the process and how are the teachers protected from harassment and bullying physically and verbally by students and what's the process with that and then one last thing the teachers are given a personal space in the room which i

188guess is their desk so on their desk they can have personal items nowhere else in the room but on their desks they can have personal items but how are they protected if they have a picture of the two moms or the two dads together on a mug sitting on their desk and a child goes home and says oh did you know what i saw in my teacher's desk today and the teacher can't discuss it with them because that's against the law now so how is the teacher then going to be protected if the parent comes back and complains well my child saw that you had this mug with two moms or two dads on your desk so it's about the teachers and some of these incidents thank you thank you all for participating in the

189committee and for sharing your comments with us and staff will be working on all of that dr bernier do you have any further comments in response just as a quick point related to that our teachers have many of the same protections our human resources department works very closely with our teachers they are well protected as an employment class as well as our classified staff and other employees and additionally i let defer to kathy dupuy bruno if she wants to weigh in but we have tackled that item of pictures and mugs on an individual's desk those are permissible they have the right to have those those things on their desk and believe it or not the law would protect them provided they didn't engage in a proactive or protracted conversation regarding their their relationship it would

190be inappropriate for me to share my relationship with the students i'm responsible for it's just not a topic of conversation it goes back to our idea of teaching the standards we have a lot of room within teaching of standards we don't have a lot of room for deep personal expression regarding that type of issue if i may miss fisher yes please just a couple of things the anti-discrimination policy the anti-bullying harassment policy applies to staff as well so it's not just for students all of the civil rights law apply to staff as well and finally with regards to the picture on the desk the personal item we know that this is allowed because in the response the governor filed a motion to dismiss a case that is pending currently on house bill 1557 and in

191that motion to dismiss made it very clear that having a picture of your spouse on your desk and those types of things are not applicable by the law because they are not a form of instruction so long as there is not instruction that's where the violation of 1557 will take place thank you okay next on the agenda is board comments miss morgan do you have anything right now no share mine this evening thank you thank you miss vaughn nothing to share right now miss kittens i have a couple of things i'll share this evening but this one is kind of a funny for miss giovanelli okay on saturday i participated in a book back giveaway in lehigh and there were costumes and there were different people and someone said oh we don't have anyone to

192wear the taco hat so you will see pictures of me and i entitled myself taco tuesday but it was a tuesday it wasn't it was taco tuesday on saturday was my complete name so i just wanted you to know that we are following through with taco tuesday and also there's a lot of the backpack giveaways happening in the community and i just want to say thank you to all the organizations and companies and all of that saw fit to do that for our students and to help them it takes a village and that was a great part of the village help thank you miss jordan i am good for now thank you okay miss giovanelli i don't have much either other than there's an event this weekend at fort myers middle academy with pick up

193the ball and it's a community involvement event i think it's a it's the it's the first one so i'm i look forward to hearing how well and successful that is i do want to bring up something that came up yesterday at good of the order and i left concerned and we didn't talk about it i don't want to talk about it in depth too much but it was regarding miss morgan's email i actually personally called mr quick and he advised that we wouldn't have any kind of conversation regarding because of the present investigation ongoing investigation with the whistleblower complaint and feel free to contact contact him yourself and maybe get more information from him but it's not recommended that we even have a conversation at this time regarding that so i would i would recommend

194for me at this point i would leave it a status quo until the investigation's resolved and i'm sorry that was regarding what the email that miss morgan sent yesterday oh okay regarding our board attorney okay thank you thank you mr and i'm sorry i am remiss that i was going to bring that up and i totally bullets that listened to everything else today and i had the same conversation with mr quick as well thank you okay i apologize i've totally forgotten and i'll i'll save my comments for later this evening and so attorney bruno i don't have any comments okay and dr bernier okay seeing no further business i'll remind you that at 505 we'll reconvene for the tentative budget and at six o'clock we'll have our action meeting and seeing no further business come

195before this board this meeting is adjourned thank you all for being here you