School Board Briefing Meeting: October 17, 2023

001good afternoon everyone today is Tuesday October 17th and the time is 1 p.m. has the front lobby been cleared sir thank you we're here today for a school board briefing meeting today welcome at this time does the superintendent have any changes or any questions or comments in regards to the agenda no changes Mr chair thank you we have eight items today on the agenda per board per board protocol each member should strive for four minutes for initial comment two minutes for followup for a total of 10 minutes at this time we're going to proceed to item B1 construction change order with Mr rickenbacher good afternoon board members Dr bener Esquire de Bruno this is your August 2023 change order report to the board is required by statute on the very first page as you will

002see we have direct material purchases in the amount of 2,543 1856 with tax returned on tax savings to the district District of $141,800 186 here we go on the backup sheet you will see that at this particular month the all of the direct material change orders are listed predominantly for the Riverdale High School project and the prek Edition at G Weaver hips as well as the Franken Park Elementary School rebuild below that you will see the change order reporting we had three change orders this work this month of August Palm exceptional School the single point entry what you are seeing now is a no dollar increase change order which extended the substantial completion to September 1st 2023 I would like to give you a heads up that the next reporting for September will be extending

003that to October 4th due to the long lead activities for the metal storefront system on that we're we're having a hard time getting materials now through the marketplace so we have extended it at no additional cost to the district the next item under the Trafalger Middle School freezer cools cooler replacement this was substantially completed there were three drains that we were unable to get in the market place those will be done over the Christmas break and that will complete that project but it is substantially complete and being used the last is for horn Marsh Middle School freezer cooler replacement we have met substantial completion in that proc project is currently in the punch list phase and we had no contingency adjustments to report this time your next meeting will probably be a double month where

004you will get September and October reported to you at the next briefing are there any questions Mr rickenbacher real quick I forgot to note two administrative notes Mr persons is on the phone as well for this meeting he is so if he has any questions I'll ask him the second thing is an administrative matter I realized if there's an issue for both both now and tonight if I do have to leave the Das for any moment I'm going to designate member juvenile to take over the meeting so we have any board comments or questions at this moment in regards to Mr rickenbacher with the construction change order report anything to add Mr superintendent no sir thank you Mr thank you have a good day you moving on to item B2 Lighthouse with attorney depri Bruno

005it's thank you Mr chairman if you give us 10 more seconds to get situated of course thank you we will begin chairpersons can you hear us by the way yes I can thank you thanks all right thank you for the time board members playing musical chairs today good afternoon board members Dr berer staff and members of the public today the office of legal services will present on Lighthouse joining me in this presentation our assistant school board attorneys Corey Huffman corus MacIntosh and Shaya zupki the agenda for today's presentation includes the public whistleblower act Florida statute 112. 3187 the applicable board policies Lighthouse what and who is it the lifespan of a complaint and the lighthouse process good afternoon to get a better understanding of the process we want to start off with discussing the Florida

006whistleblower act and this act specifically protects government employees who bring issues in a good Faith manner under protected disclosures it further prohibits agencies including public schools from retaliating against such employees who make protected disclosures who then is a whistleblower the statute also gives us that definition of who is considered a whistleblower who is protected under the statute it defines that a whistleblower is one who discloses protected information of their own valtion in a written and signed complaint given to the appropriate Authority and that could include the person's direct supervisor within the district it also includes anyone who is asked to participate in an investigation hearing or inquiry relating to such an investigation after a protected disclosure is made and someone who refused to take part in a prohibited adverse action once a protected disclosure is

007made by a whistleblower it then protects that whistleblower from an agency retaliating against that person protected disclosures are violations of laws or rules that create and present a substantial risk and specific danger to the Public's health safety or welfare it could also include Acts or suspected acts of gross mismanagement which is a continuous pattern of managerial abuses wrongful or arbitrary and capricious actions or fraudulent or criminal conduct which may have a substantial adverse economic impact it would include malfeasance and misfeasance malfeasance being the wrongful or unjust doing of some ACT which the doer had no right to perform or which has stipulated by contract not to do so whereas Miss Vance is not doing a lawful act in a proper manner or omitting to do it as it should have been done other protected disclosures

008would include discl closures relating to gross waste of public funds such as waste fraud or abuse suspected or actual Medicaid fraud or abuse and gross neglect of Duty by an officer the act as I mentioned earlier prohibits then an agency acting in retaliation against that employee and those retaliation efforts could look like dismissing disciplining or taking any other adverse Personnel action against an employee who's made a disclosure taking an adverse action that affects the rights or interest of a person in retaliation for the person's disclosure of information that can look like placing this employee in a different office location or substandard position after they made a disclosure an act of retaliation by an employer could then create a further investigation into the agency regarding that retaliation which could then put that agency at liability for

009addition consequences if there is a finding that there was retaliation against a whistleblower who made protected disclosures those remedies could include and those adverse actions for the agency who made those retaliating actions could include reinstatement of that employee which would include being placed in the same position and include full fringe benefits and seniority rights as appropriate includes compensation if appropriate for lost wages benefits or other loss remuneration caused by the adverse action which would go all the way back to when that adverse action took place so if an investigation took multiple years to conclude and that reinstatement is made there could be compensation all the way back from the time that the investigation started years earlier which could be a hefty fee for the district payment of reasonable costs including attorney's fees and the issuance

010of an injunction from the court the school board H the school board has implemented many policies that cover the expectations of the school board and state and federal regulations through these policies the school board supports and endorses a speakup listenup c work culture the bylaws under 0125 and the Schoolboard policies 121 0.01 321 0.01 421 0.01 6910 and 910 provide definitions regarding the policies regarding ethics and The Whistleblower act these definitions provide information on who is considered a covered individual self-reporting and mandated reporting prohibited acts and examples of institutional privileges for personal gain the policies require an annual notice training and professional development to All District employees as an expectation the board requires all of its employees to be honest and ethical in their conduct and to comply with applicable state and federal law and

011board policies and administrative procedures The Whistleblower the whistleblowers act under Florida statute 112. 3187 is recovered is covered under Schoolboard policies 3211 4 and 4211 these policies outline the definitions of who is covered what is considered a reportable offense and what is protected the purpose of these policies is to protect an employee making such a report from discipline retaliation or reprisal for making such reports as long as the employee made a reasonable and goodfaith effort to determine the accuracy of the information report reported any violation or suspected violation that creates a substantial or specific danger to the Public's health safety and Welfare should be reported furthermore any act or suspected Act of gross mismanagement malfeasance misfeasance gross waste of public funds Medicaid fraud or abuse or gross neglect of Duty must be reported it is

012the duty of the employe who is aware of the conduct to bring this to the attention of their immediate supervisor if the supervisor is not responsive or it is their behavior or it is their behavior that is being questioned it should be reported to the superintendent Schoolboard policy 74401 8 and 8701 provide the process for reporting suspected or or so suspected waste fraud or abuse under these policies waste is defined as an intentional or inten unintentional thoughtless or careless expenditure consumption mismanagement or squandering of resources owned or operated by the school district of Lee County to either harm or to the detriment of the district fraud is the intentional deception perpetrated by an individual or entity by knowingly making a false statement of fact which results in the benefit to the individual or entity which

013causes detriment to the district abuse is the intentional destruction diversion manipulation misapplication or improper use of the district's assets and resources violating the district's in internal rules regulations policies or procedures or it's the extravagant or excessive use of the district's assets and resources so as to abuse one's position or Authority employees may also seek The Whistleblower protection with claims of waste Fraud and Abuse they are considered a protected disclosure all protected disclosures may be reported in accordance with board policy and through the district's reporting mechanism Lighthouse thank you attorney zki so the board hired so what and who is Lighthouse the board hired a third party called light house as the outside whistleblower hotline vendor over the course of time legal began to administer The Whistleblower hotline legal adopted the term Lighthouse to be the

014generic umbrella over non-employee discipline investigations and statutorily protected whistleblower complaints Lighthouse is essential to the speak up listen up work culture that the board desires and provides an Avenue for protected disclosure relating to policy violations way Fraud and Abuse and legal compliance without fear of retaliation although we get a variety of complaints Through The Whistleblower hotline it is important to note that Lighthouse Is Not Human Resources it is not employee relations it is not an Avenue to handle all complaints it is not Professional Standards or employee discipline however we do not ignore any complaint that comes to the Wiis blore hotline when we get reports that do not fall under the Public whistleblow Act they are sent to the appropriate Department for handling whbg complaints Excuse Me Maybe received by Lighthouse from governmental agencies the

015school board the superintendent or the Department of Professional stand standards or via email sent to Lighthouse Le schools.net at civil rights Equity Le schools.net or through phone calls made to The Whistleblower hotline to increase accessibility and minimize OB obstacles to Lighthouse The Whistleblower hotline has been has numbers for speakers of English Spanish and French there are also Provisions for speakers for other languages upon requests the school board has set forth a non-discrimination policy wherein there is no tolerance for discrimination based on race color ethnicity national origin sex sexual orientation or any other protected class of individuals under law whle boil complaints involving a violation of this policy should be submitted on an equity complaint for which can be found at the website provided here once a complaint is received within Lighthouse it will be reviewed

016by Legal Services it will be reviewed for legal sufficiency prior to being referred to the appropriate Department investigator or agency a whistle be complaint submitted to an immediate supervisor shall be forwarded to the chief of the department or the superintendent whichever is appropriate under the circumstances any complaint protected from disclosure should be forwarded to the legal office of legal services to coordinate the investigation at that point the office of legal services will make the determination as to the appropriate investigator of the whistle Boro complaint to be conducted to be conducted by the investigators at either a site base central office the office of legal services or a third-party external investigator local law enforcement or other government agencies it is very important that during these public whistleblower investigations confidentiality is maintained confidential confidentiality is legally required

017for the complainant and for the investigation itself the confidentiality requirement is not just required by Statute but it is needed to maintain the integrity and Independence of the investigative process it also preserves the two process rights of the complainant and the individual who is subject of the complaint the goal of any investigation is to render an impartial independent finding based on evidence any interference with an investigation especially one that is based on a breach of confidentiality degrades the process confidentiality is required until the investigation ceases to be active an investigation ceases to be active when a final decision is rendered it is very important to bear in mind that willfully and knowingly disclosing investigative information on records is in violation of the public whistleblower Act and it is a misdemeanor in the first degree which

018may render a sentence of imprisonment not exceeding one year and or a fine of $1,000 distri STP that would be responsible for conducting investigations have been advised of the following tips one document document document we've emphasized put emphasis placed on the necessity to record and document as much as possible in that it helps us on the back and of what we do two determine who and what in this case who was involved and what physical evidence is there number three interviews they were advised to start with the complainant and finish with the subject of the complaint also there are to document the steps that were taken in their investigation and then review the evidence in order to make a determination once a determination has been made by the investigation based on the evidence the written

019findings are made to Lighthouse wherein the determination is made as to the allegation and the complaint to be either substantiated or unsubstantiated Lighthouse then advises the following individuals of the followings the board and the superintendent The Whistleblower or the person that made the complaint Professional Standards or contract discipline review committing whichever may be applicable the board and the superintendent will ensure that corrective actions are made and staff training provided accordingly in summary the lighthouse process was created by the board and implemented by the office of Legal Services as a vehicle to put into practice the speakup listenup culture that this board implemented in January of this year and to provide a vehicle for constituents and staff to bring forward issues that they see throughout the district that may require further investigation which could include protected

020disclosures under the Florida whistleblowers act once that complaint is received by ligh house it is reviewed by the office of Legal Services as Lighthouse for legal sufficiency it is then referred to the appropriate Department investigator or Outside Agency who then investigates the claims that were brought under the complaint once that investigation has been completed the agency department or investigator that handled the investigation will render their findings and provide an outcome to Lighthouse Lighthouse then forwards that information back to this board the superintendent the complainant and Professional Standards or other agencies as necessary if there are any corrective actions that are necessary they will be implemented by the superintendent or the board thank you team at this time board members we look forward to your discussion and any questions you may have thank you attorney to

021pre Bruno before we begin is there any comments from Dr berer at this point Thank you Mr chair no just to just an opportunity to just thank the legal team this is an amazing team of lawyers who worked very very hard and diligently to help support the work of staff and superintendent Lighthouse is just one piece of what they do as an opportunity to recognize them for their efforts and look forward to your discussion about Lighthouse and what we're doing along with this to create the culture that the board expects and wants our employees to experience you board member comments questions misss Morgan the Schoolboard attorney and I have had a conversations over the past I'm going to say year or so most recently just this past week in reference to the contract disciplinary Review

022Committee report on Fresh Air Solutions my questions have always had to do with how do we how do we know the outcomes I mean initially this particular investigation was going to be reported in a one-on-one and yet this investigation has been going on for 6 years I think the public is entitled to know the outcome of this in talking to the Schoolboard attorney we couldn't quite figure out a way that made sense to convey in a way what the outcomes are of various investigations regardless of who the invest who what the inquiry was to whom it was directed Etc but how do we know we have we have no reporting mechanism at this point from the office of Legal Services about anything that is really coming before them unless they talk to us about it

023in a one-on-one and I just don't see any transparency in the case where there have been public inquiries that have been investigated that you know we're basically telling the public we're doing our job when it comes to allegations of waste fraud abuse allegations of misconduct ethical professional whatever so I suggest to her when we talked about it and I think corus was on the call also that I just bring it up to the board and say do you all have an expectation that we would have some sort of reporting mechanism from the office of Legal Services regarding investigations and outcomes and what should be made transparent to the public so I just throw that out to you thank you Miss juvenile thank thank you U Miss Morgan that's a great Point I would be curious

024to know what other districts do in this same situation I think that there's a lot to learn here this was definitely a learning U moment and a teachable moment and you know we can do all this but what is the outcome what is the endgame and what is the plan I think we do a lot of talking and very little action and we are held accountable and the community expects us to make it make decisions as a board and determine what we plan on doing with the information that we receive on any investigation thank you m Jordan I don't believe that we should that every complaint that comes through needs to be spoken about up here because a lot of times it can be dealt with and it really doesn't have I just don't think

025that's something that has to come before us at the at the Das here I mean we do get the information when we're speaking on the one-on ones but I guess when you come to like for instance this one particular case that Miss Morgan was speaking about that has been an ongoing conversation at the dis so in with regards to that one I believe that when we do come to a solution or to clarify what is taking place that probably should come here so that way it can be told that it has been resolved so that people do know and we can move on with whatever we need to do Miss Morgan yeah I'm not saying that we need to discuss it at the board table I'm I'm saying that as a board we have an

026obligation if there are Trends if there are things happening that are coming in through Lighthouse and being Del delated out to staff unless the superintendent at this point unless the superintendent tells us he's taking action with respect to complaints received we would have no way of of knowing so are we doing our duty and then the other thing has to do with the in the past we've had a number of Ethics complaints that have gone to various either state or federal agencies now in some cases we don't know the outcomes but in other cases we do and again I'm not saying that the I'm not asking that these be put up for discussion at the day I'm just saying that we need to know what kinds of allegations are being made so that as an

027oversight board we are asking appropriate questions either of ourselves or the superintendent that's really where I'm coming from Mr superintendent oh sorry not sure exactly where to weigh in here but I'm going to do my very best there are Lighthouse complaints that move directly because they're school-based related or employee related that move directly from the lighthouse complaint directly to me I then do assign them to staff to do the investigation I make sure that I follow with attorney dep Bruno to ensure that I understand we tend to communicate fairly often regarding what the expectations are the I certainly can start adding stuff to my one-on-one for every Lighthouse complaint that I get but I do believe there are some times and I would have to defer to legal counsel especially in the area of vendors

028but also in terms of employees there is some point until we reach a conclusion that we have the responsibility to protect protect the individual but I would defer to legal counsel cuz that's who I go to when I have this question when I get a particular case thank you Mr chairman so one thing that we have to be very care careful with when we're talking about investigations and the various elements of Investigation the I'll just use the example that Mrs Morgan used which was a contractor we call it the cdrc the contractor discipline review team committee that is something that relates to is an outpouring of an investigation so think of it more as Professional Standards I think we have to be very careful when we're dealing with the cdrc or Professional Standards and having

029those discussions on the dasas cuz that does expose us to additional liability and legal exposure for example if a complaint was made by a staff regarding a vendor it went through the cdrc and they found that the vendor actually did something that was incorrect and we have that conversation on the day that will be very problematic exposing us to Legal liability in terms of reputation of the vendor as well as a name clearing hearing may be requested same thing for an employee you don't want to have those discussions on the day either however with that said General investigations that have reached the point that it's a large concerning investigation to the public and that the board is well aware and the board authorized that I can understand why the board may want to have some

030type of report made back to the board because this is something that's definitely in the public interest and the public is aware and then as well what steps have been taken as a result of that investigation I think that would be important as well there are we get so many different levels of complaints I don't know if the board really wants to hear every time a parent calls and says I don't like this particular substitute teacher that was in the classroom I think we need to have some parameters in terms of what types of Investigations that the board wants to be aware every month the board is provided with the number of Lighthouse complaints that were generated the month before it does have the whether it was an HR complaint whether not it was an

031Ethics complaint or a fraud complaint and then now in our one-on ones we are also advising the board if we're seeing Trends the process again it's really up to you know who is investigating I know if it's going to be something that is now done by the Administration we actually have an outcome form that we have asked be completed because we may be audited in terms of our Lighthouse process and the complaints so we have that we' be willing to share those with the board but we need to narrow in terms of what the expectation is for disclosure M Patria thank you so I hear what misss Morgan is saying and I agree with you speak up listen up but then it feels like it goes into a black hole and no one really knows

032what what happened to it and the other thing too is the HR agenda item helps me see Trends and if I'm seeing a whole bunch of teachers or Paras leaving one school then I know to bring that up with the superintendent I independently as a board member get to see that Trend instead of relying on the superintendent to tell me about a trend and so I understand that legal is telling us about Trends but I would I'd prefer to be in a position where I can independently see those Trends and then you know ask questions and I don't know I don't know what that looks like but I agree with you Miss Morgan that I mean I didn't really learn anything new today in terms of what was presented to us in this presentation but

033I would learn a lot if there was some kind of regular reporting mechanism for the board to to view board what if we maybe asked attorney depri Bruno to bring this up as a topic in one of our future one-on-one so we can kind of give some ideas IDE and explore it so I don't know what that mechanism would be either at the moment so I'd prefer to kind of look into it first so everyone on board with that Y is that all right with you attorney de BR bro yes thank you okay chair persons did you have anything to add well can you hear me yes sir absolutely okay thank you I do want to say just for the Public's knowledge that when we get complaints especially on waste Fraud and Abuse and the

034legal team decides that it should be investigated it is sent to the appropriate investigative teams which are usually outside of the district which such as the sheriff's department State Attorney office of Attorney General sometimes all the way up to the federal level and it takes a while for those to come back to us so there is sort of a black hole there even after the invest investigation is totally complete and we shouldn't be commenting on those while they decide if there's any Criminal Intent there that they need to investigate but in the meantime I do want the public to know that when we see something brought to us we take almost immediate action to figure out how did that happen and how can we keep that from happening in the future not in the future

035but the next day even I mean we make adjustments almost immediately throughout the district when something like that happens so well before we get the results we usually are able to stop anything like that from happening again and it's the same thing on the audit findings as soon as they find something they usually make recommendations and we try to do it immediately so it is a long process and it's that time period between when the investigation our investigation is finished and if we send it forward really can drag out until we get a result back even if there A lot of times they take forever to tell us that they're not going to investigate but that's all I had to add thank you chair any other board comments or questions go ahead Miss Patria followed

036by Miss juven I did actually have two questions slide 21 please so Lighthouse reviews the complaint is that correct because what was stated was the legal department reviews the complaint so I will again explain Lighthouse was the original vendor that the board hired to be The Whistleblower vendor right to manage the hotline a complaint is received by them they process the complaint they take all of the information and then they categorize it in terms of what they feel is the vi potential violation a fraud or ethics or HR issue what whatever it is and then they forward that to our database that we manage legal then looks at it to determine legal sufficiency and then forwards it to wherever it needs to go okay and then slide 27 please I can't remember what my question

037was on this but I'm sure it will come back to me I wrote down slide 21 and slide 27 it'll come back to me Miss juvenile okay that I think that's where the it was the same question so the second I'm sorry to interrupt the second box should be review by legal for legal sufficiency so as we indicated we've adopted that term Lighthouse as a generic umbrella for anything that deals with whistleblow complaint or investigation so we just call it Lighthouse even though there is a lighthouse that controls the Whistleblower hotline legal has adopted the term Lighthouse that's confusing to me if we could refer to legal as legal that would help me to understand the various roles so for the vendor versus what legal does versus what the vendor does so the vendor just

038takes the report and sends it off to us for the longest time we've been using that term lighthouse we have an email address that is Lighthouse staff is known to it is used to the word lighthouse we've trained the cabinet about it I mean that's the word that we've always used is Lighthouse okay thank you okay so I think what you're saying about regarding Lighthouse is more like intake the in they're the intake they take it in document that you know you know account accountability to assign it to a whatever and then then they give it to legal and then y'all make a determination where it goes from that point not Lighthouse any longer correct and all they are is an intake I and I want to be very clear the vendor Lighthouse is just

039the Whistleblower hotline so that's only the information that's coming that way however we also receive complaints from other departments we receive complaints from outside of the organization we receive complaints from federal and state a agencies any of those complaints any of that process that's investigative that's what legal refers to as Lighthouse The Whistleblower hotline is just one portion of that process okay so actually I wanted to piggy back off of what Mr persons said I think it's for history-wise it's important to note that initially we weren legal wasn't getting the information from Lighthouse that's why it's kind of a it's technically restructured but not restructured it there was it was getting u bottlenecked in in other departments so this way now y'all strictly get the information and then disseminate where it which way it needs

040to go if it needs to get to the superintendent under investigation for special standards or an outside investigator or it's just a legal a legal issue that you can resolve by just reading the complaint and Okay so the only excuse me m j the only thing I would clarify is that Professional Standards has its own process so complaints with regards to employee discipline goes to Professional Standards waste Fraud and Abuse any other public whistleblower protected disclosure is what comes to Legal acting as Lighthouse thank you for that clarification I think it's it's just I think I think it's finally working so I just want to commend you for that and so I know know it's there's still a lot of questions and things that are unknown but there initially when this was set up it

041wasn't functioning as it was designed and I think that's important that we're trying to now for it to be a well old machine so and then where things go from this point once the in once it's taken into the district and we you know understand the complaint and then the process starts I think it's important that we had this process cuz there wasn't a process process until attorney brunau made that policy and then the policy kind of has been tweaked somewhat as well so it's just the history of it is important to note cuz we're we're still a work in progress with this somewhat and I think it's important for us to know the complaints and we don't need to know every complaint cuz but let's just for an example we get complaints regarding they

042don't like the their lunches that they're receiving at one certain school and let's say there's several complaints about the lunches at that school and I'm just using this as a hypothetical qu you know complaint so the lunch the complaint comes in regarding the lunches at the school and they're cold all the time and so now what we would like to know is okay now the lunches you know we've identified that that yes there there was something wrong whatever and now they've now the lunches are all warm so I mean that's what I think we're trying to understand is what happens with the information that's the complaint that's received and it was founded that the lunches were all cold and now they're all warm you know what I'm saying I think and I'm just using the

043lunch thing because I know kids like to complain about lunch so that's a very good example Miss ja vanelli so now one of the things that we have asked from staff and we've actually created a form and it was a great idea actually from our Deputy superintendent to have a form that we actually whoever is reviewing that issue can actually outline here's the steps here's where we talk who we talk to here's the documents here's the findings here's the outcomes and any next steps so we will now have that documentation we always have requested the outcome and we would get it through an email or something and try to put it in our case management system but now with those documents we can share that with the board okay but that becomes a public record

044as well right yes once the investigation is closed it is a public record yes right cuz I mean what would be concerning is like the complaint about if it was one school that get getting complaints about the lunches being cold you know that when it's habitual more than one you know that would be something that would rise to the level that the board would need to know you know now the now the lunches are all warm you know what I mean like I'm just using an example again but I mean do you because there was you know five complaints about cold lunches that's what I'm saying so from your scenario Miss janelli we get one complaint at one school that the lunch is cold we'll probably send that to the chief so they are aware

045maybe to the food and nutrition manager so they are aware we get and they normally will communicate with the site the school then we get another complaint maybe a third complaint by the time we're getting a fourth or fifth or sixth complaint at this point it's elevated superintendent is aware he's bringing in more people to really figure out what's going on delving deeper so that's usually what the process is if we continue now we're at 15 20 25 complaints at this point we may take it outside and say okay what's going on and another thing that's very important I think for the board to know is because legal is involved legal is not only receiving the complaints that are coming in processing them so they're going to the right individuals we are also if it's

046going outside to a governmental agency or if it's if it is a governmental agency that's looking into something or if it's going to an external investigator we are the contact the main conduit for whatever that information is to make sure that they get what they need for their investigation and then close it out that's part of the process and then certainly it's one of our steps is to make sure that the board is aware superintendent is aware so that you can take any corrective action or any training that may be required sometimes it's training that is required right thank you Miss Jordan thank you not to belabor this but when looking at what Miss Patria has stated and understanding the that the fact that we adopted or legal adopted the name lighthouse it is definitely

047confusing I don't know if we put slash legal because the complaints are re received by Lighthouse and then given to Lighthouse then it's reviewed by Lighthouse then it is Lighthouse the outcome is delivered to Lighthouse and then Lighthouse provides but this is all legal correct so when you're we're talking about the vendor who first receives it who is Lighthouse then sends it to Lighthouse they send so the when the vendor receives it there's a case management system and really the vendor is Centrio you the board is familiar with Centrio and Lighthouse is a subsidiary of Centrio so when the complaint from The Whistleblower hotline please remember we get complaints from all over the place but from the complaint that is coming in from The Whistleblower hotline it is put into a case management system that

048is operated by Centrio they trigger an email to Legal that says and it's actually sent to life house at Le schools.net that says here is a complaint for you to follow up in so yes there is a whistleblower hotline that is the vendor and then everything else that deals with this process that's why we call it so if it makes the board more comfortable that we put whistleblower hotline when we're talking about that vendor I'll be more inclined to do that than to change the broader term of Lighthouse CU everybody's familiar now with Lighthouse yeah I think that just makes more sense because it when you're looking at and you're hearing that Lighthouse has giv it to Lighthouse that's doing this to Lighthouse and just goes on and on it does it takes the legal

049department out of it because they're assuming the people out there possibly would be assuming that Lighthouse is the original Lighthouse whistleblower so I that think she's yeah I think you should that's just my opinion probably make it easier for people to understand it any other comments or questions before I ask my question okay real quick and this is for the public this will be both I believe attorney depri Bruno as well as Dr berer this scenario and I've heard some concerns about this in the past in regards to to Lighthouse let's say a teacher staff has an issue within their school a prohibited act and they report it and their the administration within the school is either how should I say part of the prohibited act or complicit in that in some way can you

050assure the public cuz I know there's concerns that you know the investigative process goes back through the administrators or at least the appearance is given that is could you kind of reassure and explain to the public that please absolutely Mr Fisher so this also goes to miss Gianelli's earlier Point prior to Legal being the receptor of these Lighthouse or public whistleblower complaints that were coming in there was that concern as well is this going to be independently reviewed is there going to be some insurances that I'm not going to be retaliated against because I have made a complaint one of the things that we are very proud of with this new process is the answer is no it's not if if we get a complaint that says I am concerned that my manager my direct

051manager is going to retaliate against me or my manager is going to not take this complaint seriously we escalate it to the right level superintendent will then make sure that it is assigned and taken care care if it's going to be a site-based investigation if we have an investigation that's a little bit more systemwide or very high up in the food chain we may send it outside to an external investigator all of that those investigations are done with integrity and they're done independently to ensure that there is an outcome that people and the public the teachers the staff can have faith in and then it is sent back to Lighthouse which processes it and provides it to the superintendent of the board and on top of that I will say in our policy and pursuant

052to statute if anyone feels that because they have made a protected disclosure that they are being retaliated against they have a time period to again notify either the office of legal services or through Lighthouse at Le schools.net that they feel that they are being retaliated against because we will not support that but this is against the board's policy and we will conduct another investigation based on that retaliation thank you thank you for clarifying that to the public I would just add if I may to specifically to your question if Administration is seen as being I forget the word you used I'm going to say complicit that then separates that individual from being able to conduct any type of investigation at that point as I report it to the deputy superintendent who then works the executive

053director who is now as you realize becoming more a principal supervisor that individual who's the independent person from the school that particular executive director would handle the investigation if something could be turned over if it's teacher to teacher or teacher to parent or a parent to a teacher and the principal or the assistant principle is not named in the lighthouse complaint we would utilize those administrators to conduct that investigation however if somebody was named at a leadership role we would go above that leader to ensure those individuals those particular individuals are conducting the investigation not the leader mentioned in the complaint yeah to the superintendent's point I just want to make sure that staff understands this as well as members of the public lighthouse in terms of the office of Legal Services is committed to

054ensure that these investigations are done independently and with integrity and that if there's any allegations of retaliation we take them seriously so to the superintendent's Point thank you Dr berer and thank you to the legal oh sorry Miss patrika then we got to move on after that yeah I just feel like M Morgan's original question about the investigation that's been going on for 6 years and how to get that information out to the public has not been addressed so how will we go about doing that Mr chairman if I may the investigation I think that the board member Morgan and Patria are referencing the original investigation is a tailor English report and that was the investigation that was all encompassing of certain allegations that were made this report now is public record I have no

055problems with providing the board on the day or in person I think the board already has this investigative report but we have no issues with providing the results of that investigation as well as the steps that the district and the board have taken as a result of that investigation now with regards to more specific inquiries again I caution with regards to Professional Standards and contract displ review Comm committee because there are legal implications that we may not want and I do not want actually it's my recommendation that we do not discuss on the de may I jump in for a second Miss Patria and that's why I was asking on the board before that I'd like this addressed in a one-on-one topic before we get it out here in the Das to go through and

056to give suggestions and ideas as I said I'm not prepared to offer suggestion at this point but thank you anything else okay thank you legal team we got to move on to item B3 audits fraud waste and abuse and that is with clerk KS welcome clerk KS I appreciate you being here I know the board does whenever you're ready please feel free to proceed thank you Mr Vice chair thank you Dr berer and superintend Kathy Bruno I was going to call her superintendent and fellow board members thank you for your time and attention today before we get started with the presentation I would like to recognize a few member of my staff over on your right I have my executive assistant chief administrative officer and two of my Deputy Inspector General officers here to support

057today's presentation and they all had a piece in putting together the presentation today so thank you all for coming today I'm here to talk about aits fraud waste and abuse clerk KS real quick is his mic do I need to start over I can I can do that pretty quickly thank you Mr Vice chair for that reminder superintendent Miss Kathy Bruno fellow board members thank you for your time and attention today my staff is amazing they helped me put together this presentation today we're here to talk about audits fraud waste and abuse and you all may be asking yourself didn't we already have this conversation one time and why are you back in front of me and it's because I consider myself an Engaged member of this Society of the Lee County and I listen

058to your board member or your board meetings and I hear a lot about the words audit and transparency and what local governments can do to ensure that we're doing the right things by the people who put us in these seats and so I received your auditor general report not too long ago and I read that document and I'm I'm here just to have a conversation with you all I want today to be somewhat educational just like your board attorney did walking you through some of those elements and then in the presentation with a concept that I would like this board to consider a starting point I'm not here to tell the board what to do I'm just here as a friendly point of guidance and information so with that said we'll get started with the

059presentation I have two points where I stop where you can just ask me questions because I am going to go over a lot of Nuance details in the presentation but I think it's important not just for this board to understand but also for our community to understand so we're going to talk very very briefly about the audit consultation project which is what brought me here the first time we talked about your workshop and the idea that we had on a partnership together I'm going to talk about the audit universe and specifically my role as County auditor and the two types of Auditors and three statutory definitions of audits which are board attorney quickly went over and then we'll go over that concept that I would like for you all to to think about so the

060partnership opportunity you've already seen most of this information I'm not going to read from that slide but we agreed as two entities to have a audit consultation project where my inspector General's Department would come and do a an internal audit of your internal audit if that makes sense and it was just a a partnership to kind kind of come in and Dot some eyes and cross some tees that was scheduled to begin at some point in 2024 as part of our annual audit plan that doesn't mean that the IG the Inspector General department is not working on it but they have their processes in place so it'll officially kick off at some point in 2022 as part of the audit plan and we did that at no cost to this board it was really just

061a partnership to make sure that we're all doing the great things in the world of audits but today's presentation is in no way shape or form an impact on that I'm not here to ask for a vote I'm not here to ask for an opinion I'm here just to share information and share ideas so as County auditor chapter 11 of Florida Statutes kind of controls that and chapter 11 is given its Authority from the Constitution to to go on a history lesson just cuz we're in a school board building the con Florida Constitution gives the office of clerk five individual responsibilities one of them is County auditor and we are able to do fraud waste and abuse investigations and on top of internal audits but to be clear that are two different functions within my

062Inspector General so when you talk about in internal audit functions you're not necessarily talking about fraud waste and abuse investigations and then that department also does guardianship Audits and investigations for the court system and then they collect audit and enforce all the tourist tax on behalf of the County but we're really here to talk about the first two bullets internal Audits and fraud waste and abuse investigations and you'll see that I have two different seals on the screen here the bottom left is my normal office seal which is very similar to your seal where it's a very non-descript seal and then I have one specific to my Inspector General and that's just to make sure that they have have a little bit more of a buffer of Independence and objectivity to carry out their functions

063because I think I said in my first presentation audits are supposed to be very independent very objective very risk-based and value added and so I want to make sure that's given the separation that it that it deserves so I'm certainly not going to read this you can you can you can read it at your leisure for bedtime story but there are two two separate sections of Statute in chapter 136 that give the county auditor a little bit more Authority in our capacity of internal Auditors and you can see that 131 13601 and 13608 specifically Grant the county auditor access to the funds of the school board and give them the ability to inspect and examine those bank accounts you'll hear more on that later but I want to make sure that this board knew knew

064about this particular statute it was from my research passed by the legislature in 1997 so it's been around for a long time the county auditor function has been heavily litigated in the courts the most famous case is elat of powers in that particular case outlined the clerk's Authority and responsibility to examine the records and accounts of constitutional officers and that was the decided by the Supreme Court back in I think 1977 so these are governing authorities that have existed for decades and that I'm working with my inspector General's Department to support this community in a new and different way so just a sneak peek of our inspector General's Department I showed this as a comparison because although we live in separate worlds my function and your function are relatively the same in the sense that

065we support governing boards we have similar portfolios in the amount of $2 billion we both have internal audit functions we both have legal departments so there's a lot of crossover but I just wanted to give you a sneak peek at what my office has in regards to Inspector General so you can use that for your consideration when building your own internal audit function if you choose to move in that direction so just for that department it's about $1.36 million is the annual budget of that department and that's less than 1% of the County's portfolio so it's a very small footprint for the taxpayers it has two positions with two units with 10 positions and we have four certified investigators that do fraud waste and abuse investigations really the two different shops were like as I

066said before internal audit and fraud waste and abuse each of those units led by the two individuals and about the fourth or fifth row over there and then we are working to expand that unit in a very methodical IAL way we want to make sure as the county is growing and their portfolio expands and that they get money from state and federal entities that the internal audit function keeps Pace with that and so we actually have just recently posted a new contract auditor position in October of this year to make sure that we keep the risk at the same level so as the county is growing we are keeping Pace with that so the risk level stays at a at an equal equilibrium and so overview of audits I'm going to get into the minutia

067here a little bit and try not to to get too much on a grandstanding but there are three different types of audits in Florida statute there is a financial audit an operational audit and a performance audit and why I think that's important is because I've been watching your school board meetings time and time again and I've heard the word forensic audit mentioned a lot in our community and I want to take this moment to tell everybody at home or everybody in our community that a forensic audit is not defined in Florida statute I had a great conversation with your board attorney about this particular line and there is such thing as a forensic accounting but that's really just used in the legal system it's really not a real Concept in the world of audits and

068so when people I I put this slide together on the interest of if we're going to talk about audits because I think it's an important component of our community and important in our lines of work if we're going to talk about the world of audits we need to be talking about the same language we need to be talking about the same words and understand that's our starting point and then we can work together on what it means so Financial operational and performance are the three types of audits that audits do and they're designed to be risk-based they're really just saying this is the world of risk and you kind of focus on how to add value to the entities that do their job and so really we're a support mechanism and so you come into

069a business unit as an e external set of eyes and kind of do one of these three Audits and give them recommendations for them to consider implementing they have the ability to implement them based upon your recommendations or accept that risk and say this is what we have to do right now but at least you've got that third party perspective that has no skin in the game they're they're basically just there saying based upon our review our in I want to say investigation but they do interviews and sample test casings and they put together a really comprehensive look at it and so those recommendations are made with foresight and forethought that it's going to be good for management not as a gotcha or something that's going to put them in a in a place of

070of defensiveness and so over on the right there you can see what an internal Department internal audit Department typically does and they're reviewing internal control systems and policies and procedures and they're doing a whole bunch of stuff just as a an external set of eyes and why that's important is I've heard that there's some confusion about what an internal auditor does and an external auditor and because I've heard people in the in local governments say we're audited all over the place we're audited by everybody and including the clerk's office we are also audited but I wanted to make sure that the scope of what we're talking about with an internal auditor and an external auditor is made very clear because they do two very different things so audits are supported by two different Auditors there's

071an internal audit and an external auditor audits provide an assurance that's a very key word it's not a guarantee Auditors go in to do their work and they come out with a reasonable Assurance based upon what they saw that you have some recommendations to consider that's not a guarantee that everything was working as it was supposed to be and so there's always in my opin opion I put this because I believe this in my core there is always room for an improvement even with the recommendations made by an internal or external auditor so I'm quickly going to go over this Vin diagram because there are some overlap but internal audits are performed by an internal auditor which is technically the person they report to is usually an agency head of sorts they are voluntarily scheduled

072by management and so you get a chance to look at that and go through a process of saying this is when we're going to start this work this is who going to be involved you have there's a high level of involvement with that and then they're going in to look at your internal controls and make recommendations on how to strengthen those internal controls an external auditor is performed by an independent accounting firm they really try to focus on your annual financial statements and they're making sure that you're following generally accepted accounting principles and they're required by Statute everybody in local government is required to have an external auditor and it's involuntary you have to have an auditor they have to come in and do their work they have to issue an opinion statement and this

073is another slide that kind of breaks down that VIN diagram in a in a more detailed fashion but I've highlighted the items in red that I think drive home the point of the differences between an internal auditor and an external auditor and so internal audit think policies procedures compliance maybe some fraud waste and abuse and I'm going to go to the other side of the slide think about an external auditor as your annual financial statements and they're not designed to look for the same things as an internal auditor it's very rare that an external auditor will actually find anything of fraud waste and abuse doesn't mean that they can't because they're still going to be doing their work but it's more likely to be found as an internal auditor going to that second section internal

074Auditors perform performance Audits and so remember those three types operational financial performance the performance and operational are what an internal auditor does and I'm not going to repeat that it's a policy procedure driven on the other side you can see that it's a materiality standard that's a very specific term in the world of audits but you can see that bolded section that external Auditors conduct Financial Audits and so really internal Auditors can do Financial audits but more likely they're going to leave that to an external auditor because that's what they do that's their day-to-day business and vice versa external auditor will look at your policies procedures and training practices but on a on a smaller level than what an internal auditor do because they support each other and last but not least the operational audits

075are laws policies I call those compliance related matters they're coming in to make sure that you're doing what your laws say that you should whereas external Auditors and single audits are looking at the federal funds that you received and just because an external auditor does a single audit and gives you no comments does not necessarily mean that you have no guarantee of of any misdeeds external Auditors are really doing randomized sampling they're really only looking at around 40 to 50% of the transactions and so that's another area where I go 40 to 60% of transactions are not being looked at by an external auditor and so I hope this brings some perspective that when you say yes we're audited that is an accurate statement and these individuals are professionals and they are very good at

076their jobs they're going to come in with a reasonable Assurance that what they looked at and provide you some opinions that doesn't mean we can't do better as leaders of organizations and go okay what else can we do to ensure transparency and promote strong internal controls and train our staff to do the right thing I'm not going to get too much into the fraud waste and abuse investig tigations because your board attorney just went over that but for us particularly specifically as the county auditor when we do this function we have 10 days to determine if the statutory deadline so when someone makes a complaint that 10day period is where a certified Inspector General is doing that review to make sure that the fraud waste and abuse determination is made historically it's pretty difficult to

077meet the stat definition of a fraud Wast and abuse but if it's yes the complaint is launched and they will do their work to make sure the investigation is performed and if the answer is no the complaint is closed and then management is able to use that information as they as they like and it's important to know that investigations operate differently than internal Audits and financial audits whereas all information is confidential and then it's complete Independence and so when someone calls into the Inspector General hotline there is no referral there is no collaboration so to speak the internal or the Inspector General has sole Independence to to do that investigation pursuant to their rules laws regulations and accreditation standards and when we do an investigation at the clerk's office and it does meet the statutory

078definition of Fraud waste and abuse there are three likely outcomes substantiated not substantiated and unfounded and then we put that information on our website so we you can go to to the clerk's website and look at the full report of how the Inspector General operated that specific investigation and then they make it a conclusion at the end of that so I want to stop there I went over a lot of information in a short amount of time does any of the board have any questions or comments for me at this point board member questions comments okay oh miss juvenile for the Public's understanding can you give it a definition I said not definition an example of internal and and external Auditors like an example like we have RSM they're considered RSM right now is your

079is a contracted vendor for you that does some compliance related audit so operational but I come to understand you also have an internal audit function underneath the purview of the superintendent I believe three or four positions in that department but your those individuals RSM and your the positions that report underneath the superintendent are likely doing your when I go back to the three different types of audits they are more than likely doing operational and performance related audits where your external auditor and I don't know who you have as an external audit auditor we have Clifton Allen lson in the at the county level and they come in and do our external Audits and really they're taking your financial statements that you prepare every single year doing random samplings for the transactions that you made throughout

080that year and then testing against it to make sure that you're not falsifying your financial statements so my then my other question is the state does an audit on us would that be considered external right it would depend cuz do you probably have an auditor general at the state level and probably an auditor general at the federal level my whole point is that anybody in the world of audits can do all three they kind of support each other as as a network they will divide and conquer but I'm I'm I'm I would go out in a limb and I would defer probably to the superintendent he's probably well versed in this than I am but I would probably think that the state auditor general or the federal auditor general would probably do a combination of

081all three depending on what they were looking at thank you if I can reply thank you for giving me more credit than I deserved clerk KS there are individuals that audit the auditor general specifically both for the state and the federal level and they usually announce what type of audit they're going to conduct recently we've done an operational audit with the auditor general which you saw the results of We Are in the midst of if if it hasn't wrapped up and I don't believe it has we're in the midst of a financial audit with the auditor general which will take months and because they're doing exactly what you're saying they're they're taking apart a sampling of purchasing looking at whether how we how we did what we did did we follow the correct procedures and

082other and other process that are required by state law so in a sense I and this is where I'll defer back to you clerk you do have an external auditor because that's the individuals who come from the state that's required to come into the district every two years on the third year we're required to hire an outside external auditor to complete that audit and it's gas right gaas based upon based upon the accountability standards yes or the accounting standards my apologies and I believe that's going to be the Department of Financial Services for the three years I guess to the superintendent's point we all all heavily audited in the in the public realm but I want to make sure that we're all at the same point of of knowledge when we're talking about the world

083of ODS because that doesn't mean that we can't do something better so I hope that answer your question board member janelli okay for Mr persons before we move on do you have any questions or comments oh yes just my understanding because right now we're hiring an external auditor they're putting in bids to do our financials for the two years in between the every third year year that the state does it and so the state's doing it this year and then the next two years will be whoever the board hires and then the state will do it again and then another two years whoever the board hires and so there that's our financial side for external auditing and we don't actually have a firm right now because we're soliciting bids because the state's doing it now

084and the old firm their bid expired the internal auditor again y'all were correct it's RSM and they pick out along with our audit committee they help select the areas to audit each year and the internal auditor I know we're working on that right now possibly moving it out from under the superintendent and putting that positions or those positions under the board because that was recommended by the state so that's just my understanding where we're at right now as far as having you know the financial Auditors the external Auditors and the operations and on the side for the internal Auditors so that's all I just wanted to sort of make sure we're all on the same page on that thank you if there's anyone else if not proceed clerk KS thank you Mr Vice chair and

085so before I get started at this particular slide I want to to underscore the bottom section of this slide this is a concept for the board's consideration I respect the independent decisionmaking powers that this board has this is not for specific ask for today this is really just a concept for your consideration and so I kind of just going to walk you through this concept and then you can decide whether it's valuable to you all or not so I kind of did a a an organizational chart part in the world where the superintendent's office would be a an elected position so this is all under the concept that we all report to the citizens as as public servants and then in the world of audits to consider a multi-layered strategy and I'll walk you through

086that in in just a second but the school board the school board attorney and the superintendent are providing oversight to the operations and then you have a variety of options in the world of audits to give you a multi-leveled approach to that and so when you look at this chart you'll notice that the Lee County clerk's office is on here as a as a potential option for you all if we move in that direction but the table on the left side of the screen is probably a little easier to see than the organizational chart but your internal auditor would do your performance and compliance audits your external auditor will focus on your finan ccial statements I put RSM on here as your special SL complex auditor and then potentially if this board would be so

087inclined under the authority of Inspector General I might be able to provide assistance with fraud wise and abuse investigations and what that really does is give you a multi-layered approach to looking at a $2 billion portfolio and making sure that those entities are providing value in their respective areas of of specialty so and I use RSM as an example they're not here to defend themselves but they I believe do your tax compliance your cyber security and Grant related stuff that's really complex stuff I think RSM provides value doing that work because without an RSM type of vendor to do those really complex type of audits you'd be having your internal auditor doing that or your financial auditor doing that and so that's something for you all to consider but I do think there's some space

088for RSM to continue their work and allowing the internal auditor in this sense the position that would hopefully report to this board later on to focus on the operational and performance types audit so they're not really in the Weeds about the cyber security and tax compliance issues and things like that not to say that you couldn't do that when you're doing your annual risk plan and wanting a an additional set of eyes on something that's important but I think if you were to separate this a tiny bit more I think you'd for for lack of a better word get more bang for your buck with having individual sets of eyes on it so this is what my recommendations are I struggle with the word recommendation because this is your decision to make but I really

089put this together in the sense of making sure that this board has proper checks and balances in place before the election and I don't really like to talk about politics or political roles we're in the world of audits because in my opinion they shouldn't be weaponized they're not gotcha statements they are really just a transparency Tool for the citizens that we serve but you all are going through some massive amounts of change in the next year and I think it's really important to to move quickly on separating that function from the superintendent's office as a checks a pre-m checks and balance to it and then it would also give you the checkbox on the auditor general report because I know that was one of their recommendations to you as well but this would allow us

090some time to to really work together on that change I'm happy to consult wherever the board finds value but would not compromise the audit consultation project I think that's something we all found a value in and we need to let those individuals do their work and then as that progresses or comes to completion because as we said before we don't know how long that audit consultation project will take it could be 3 months could be six months could take longer there's just no way of knowing until they get in there to do their work but that you would all consider a task for the board attorney and me if you would be so inclined on putting together a transition plan with a date so you all can make sure that you have that appropriate checks

091and balance before the new superintendent would take office at some point in early 2025 so the r ization again checks and balances complemented by a variety of internal controls allowing the subject matter experts to focus on what they do really well it sets expectations going into that election not just for this board but anybody who's running for the office of superintendent and then I can still support you separately through that statute of 13601 and 13608 and so I think that working together I think we make a great team I think the community trusts us to do the work that we're that we're doing and I just want to offer my help wherever you all find that it might be necessary but that would be the official end of my presentation today Mr chair thank you

092clerk TN before I proceed the board comment and questions is there any thing from Dr berer at this moment no sir just to just to add that the board has already directed staff to proceed regarding a the hiring of an auditor that would report directly to the board in order to alleviate the finding from the auditor general specifically that members of our auditing team actually report up through Finance in all places I don't know that's ever the appropriate place for an auditing team because of the responsibility of auditing financials of our bookkeepers and other and other materials but the auditor General's opinion was very clear that auditing team needed to come out from underneath the supervision of the superintendent since that was asked of us we are prepared on November 7th to bring forward job

093descriptions organizational charts and other things preparing as you requested I think it was about a month month and a half ago so Dr Savage myself Mr doic have been researching other school districts defining a model and we plan to bring forth a recommendation to all of you in November and then depending on a motion potentially made this evening that would move up our timeline from when we thought we would approve it in December and I sent an email earlier today saying that my staff stands at the ready to adjust based upon any type of vote taken this evening thank you Dr berer board member comments questions M Morgan so first of all I want to thank you because you know I have been thinking about this a lot you've provided some clarity around the various

094components and a structure within which to think about how we proceed and then I would say with respect to the superintendent I think you're absolutely right we need time to think about job descriptions and then you know how that would work into a potential org chart or whatever for this particular function so yeah this has been terrific asset for me personally to have you here and provide your presentation so thank you and thank you all for being here miss Patria thank you for being here the explanations were fantastic I think I remember now why I wanted slide 27 because I knew what your last slide said and I wanted to see where the clerk of courts would fit on slide 27 is there a way that we can pull up slide 27 so that slide

09527 from legal's presentation so that you probably shouldn't trust me with this computer like cuz I will I will play if y'all trust me to figure it out but I don't know which one she's running up okay she's like stop touching things she coming are she are you trusting me cuz I think it's this one one I have nope wrong one see that's it's the one actually just above that it says 2023 1017 Lighthouse oh might right see there was a method to my madness writing down slide 27 so where on which box would you where would you pick up I'm I'm hesitant to to to answer that question board member because I think the board attorney and I would need some time to to dive into this on a personal level board your board

096attorney did share this with me and I also found it to be a little confusing so it was a little comforting to hear your thoughts today I'm not saying this is right or wrong because I don't know your processes and the history so I also learned a lot today but I think we would need some time to put together a plan that makes sure that we're all on the same page and so I don't really I have some ideas on where we could fit in but I think what's important to tell today is that if the clerk was to take over fraud waste and abuse investigations at any point in the future the more than likely it would come through our Inspector General hotline be operated by our team members with very little consultation from

097the board attorney until that investigation was complete and then we would let this board do what they wish with those findings so I hope that was just enough information without giving you a committed idea yeah that was very helpful I appreciate that and I love the idea of moving waste Fraud and Abuse outside of the district entirely I think that it does more more to create a culture of speak up listen up because you don't need to worry about retaliation as much when you're reporting to somebody who's completely independent of everybody associated with the district and that's what your office is yeah and you should you all should really think about your culture in the sense of what actually is fraud waste and abuse because I think a lot of people think they know what

098those are and the statutory definitions are pretty clear and so that may be something for you all to think about how to educate your community and your administrators and teachers about what is fraud waste and abuse that doesn't again mean that you can't do better that just would mean that it's not a fraud waste and abuse investigation and so I think you all are moving in the right direction and I'm happy to help where where you all see fit two more things I love the fact that the public reporting when the investigation is done or when the initial inquiry is closed is automatically public I love that and then the second question would be cost what would any idea what this would cost the district me P me personally without talking with my team of

099of experts because there's pros and cons to a to a cost structure a cost structure removes the theories so you're you're you're buying and paying for a service I guess is the is the point of a cost service where I struggle with that concept is this is my statutory and Constitution Duty the way that I frame it right now is the taxpayers have already paid for this service so why would I turn around and and pay for it what the nuances of that are the fundings streams are different me doing my budget and supporting it for the board of County Commissioners is very different than doing that from your board because you have a very different funding mechanism but if I had to give you an initial inclination I have to get my team of

100experts involved but I would lean towards a no cost structure for the district fabulous those are my again I really I love the idea of giving it to you I'm saying that so that my colleagues on the board can hear where I stand on it I understand a decision won't be made until some point in the future but I want them to know thank you for being here okay chairpersons do you have any comments or questions no no other than thanks for an excellent presentation and I agree with Miss patri giving the waste Fraud and Abuse to keeping it outside the district all together I think is an excellent idea something we need to decide if we're going to do or not do but again thanks for Mr Carn and your whole staff for the

101presentation I think it only made it a little easier for us to understand all the different Audits and roles but also the general public and that was needed I think thank you before I move on Miss juven first of all thank you so much but I told you that a couple a couple days ago when I saw you I was like oh my gosh thank you I actually agree with Miss patri I think taking it outside is important it I think it's going to be a level of comfort for employees it's an it's also a level of comfort for the board to know that it's separate and it's not being controlled by any one individual or an employee or so I really appreciate that I also agree with the reporting that you know the three

102things that you stay if you once that's resolved what were the three things substantiated unsubstantiated and unfounded unfounded yes thank you and I and I want to add I think that's something that we could do with back to your question Miss Morgan so that's I just wanted to throw that out there that on our in on our complaints on the on the regarding lunch rooms or lunch lunches cold lunches thank you so Mr Vice chair I just want to to commend everybody on that Das over there I can remember this conversation being had with the former clerk and that conversation did not go to this well you all are doing a fantastic job and each of you are creating a really valuable Service to your citizens I appreciate you all inviting me into your space

103and giving you not just education but also ideas in your work as as board members hope this is not the last time to be in front of you but again thank you for your time in consideration we appreciate it Oh attorney depri Bruno so one thing that the clerk did request was whether or not there would be direction from the board to start exploring this waste Fraud and Abuse because legal supports this 100% as well so we just need to know if the board is in agreement so that we can start having those discussions I'm just going to keep the board in a good legal stance I've heard very clearly from the board that the board's interested in the expansion of the November 7th presentation to include include this I've already texted Dr Savage we're

104already in the process of changing the organizational charts there is some information left to discuss in terms of fees and fee bases and I know you don't want to get into that today but we can certainly make room for that on a chart and then we're going to have a deeper discussion as to this particular relationship for these particular type of cases so thank you clerk I wanted to just weigh in Mr chair if I couldn't just say thank for clerk KS for coming out again today of course Miss Jordan do you have a question oh I just wanted to add into that I really am waiting to hear to see what happens November 7th thank you very much appreciate you being here also because I really do believe and we've had this conversation for

105years about having our own Inspector General that answers to us which would then tie in with them or whomever we were to use so I just wanted to make sure that we put that back out there as well so thank you is there any disagreement from the board in moving forward with November 7th for fraud waste and abuse in conjunction with the clerk's office do you have your direction board attorney I'm a little confused I thought the November 7th was about the board auditor internal auditor position and the organizational chart are we also I mean it's fine if we want to do maybe I'm getting confused what was your requested for me what I was asking is direction from the board so that the clerk and I can start having the conversation about how to

106transition waste for investigations I was inflating the two my apologies is the board good with that direction yeah okay is that better thank you thank you go I would like to wait till November 7th until we see what that's going to bring us before we decide to move on with that's just my personal opinion I'm just one okay I would support moving forward at this moment we're not voting that's why I was asking if there's any objections Miss Jordan okay one objection noted then so that clerk KS thank you for the presentation thank you for office I appreciate this relationship that we've developed with the board the superintendent the clerks appreciate it and have a good day to thank you all next up is I believe attorney debris Bruno yet again I'll give her a

107moment but we will be doing number item B4 office of Legal Services presentation after this presentation I will probably call a brief recess God thank you thank you Mr chairman good afternoon again board members Dr berer staff and members of the public based on the board's request from last year the office of legal services will now present its annual update joining me in this presentation are assistant Schoolboard attorneys Corey Huffman corus McIntosh Josh and Shaya zki the agenda for today's presentation includes the structure of the office of Legal Services which has not changed how we practice law who is the client general attorney responsibilities across divisions office of Legal Services highlights and board discussion and comments the office of Legal Services is staffed by eight individuals myself Kathy dpri Bruno as a school board attorney

108and general Council assistant school board attorney Corey Huffman who works primarily with academic Services assistant school board attorney corus Macintosh who works primarily with human resources assistant school board attorney Shaina zupki who works primarily with business services and operations although each attorney has their division we often work together and regularly consult with each other we each bring our unique legal backgrounds to the table and are able to compliment each other we have developed a Brain Trust TR way of operating and you will often find us huddled in the Law Library working on the various legal issues affecting the school board and administration this allows us to have a global perspective of the legal issues affecting the board as we do not work in silos but rather as legal think Factory allowing us to consider all

109aspects of an issue and to speak with one voice when opinions are rendered in addition to the attorneys we are also supported by our wonderful Benita broy Who is the paralal to the school board attorney as well as a general paralal and Executive Administrative Assistant the equity and civil rights compliance coordinator is also part of our team as you can see we are short staffed and have been short staffed for several months we anticipate hiring the Executive Administrative Assistant and paralal by the end of the month we are also interviewing for the equity and civil rights compliance coordinator of note we have realized that the Executive Administrative assist assistant assigned to Legal does additional legal and other task above and beyond what is required of an Executive Administrative Assistant specifically pursuant to the job description

110thus in the near future we will be asking the board to Sunset this position in exchange for a legal Administrative Assistant we are currently working with HR in that job description and hope to bring It Forward for your review and hopefully your approval in November as attorneys the office of Legal Services Prides itself in the professionalism we bring to the work that we provide to the district which is why we follow the following principles in how we practice law a global legal representation keeping the needs of the client as our Paramount concern analytical research and continuing continuous monitoring of the legal landscape which includes legislative changes as well as court rulings that may impact the work that we do here at the district committed to ethics integrity and professionalism a proactive versus reactive practice philosophy

111to ensure that issues are being addressed early on before becoming larger issues providing preventative legal advice incorporating risk management which is in conjunction with our proactive practicing philosophy creative problem solving and amicable resolutions as practicable and providing zealous effective and assertive advocacy and representation to protect the interest of our clients when it isn't a continuous professional growth of our staff to keep a breast of changes to the legal and education landscape to ensure that we provide proper and effective legal councel to our clients in the district and have sustained collaboration with our peers across the state who is the client American Bar Association rule 1.13 defines the lawyer client relationship as the lawyer that is employed by an organization represent presents that organization acting through its authoriz duly authorized constituent the lawyer shall explain the

112identity of the client and when the organization's interests are adverse to those of the constituent the florid to Bar rule 4- 1.13 adopts the ABA rule the Flor to Bar also further defines government agency to include that this Duty applies to governmental organizations such as the school district our duly authorized constituents is the school district of Lee County acting through its duly authorized constituents the school board and superintendent the office of legal service office of Legal Services provides legal services to the school board and to the different divisions within the school district and while each attorney in the office of Legal Services Works directly with a specific division we work as a team and provide a holistic approach to our representation to the district and look more at the needs of the divisions and as

113need as needed any attorney within the office of Legal Services is prepared to provide assistance to any division at any time as such we will discuss the roles that are provided for each of the dis each of the different divisions starting with academic services in academic Services the day-to-day work by the assistant Schoolboard attorney consists of providing answers and guidance to principles throughout the district and central office staff on matters regarding custody issues student privacy records requests discipline among other issues facing District staff Legal Services Works closely with the ESC Department regarding legal issues regarding students with special education protections under state and federal law ESC related issues could include representation by the district for for the district with any escd process complaints filed and litigating those issues as necessary Legal Services also represents the

114district at individualized education plan meetings which could include potential manifestation determination review meetings if the student is represented by legal council the office of Legal Services assists the department of student services with discipline related issues for students who have been recommended for alternative assignment or expulsion including ESC considerations students code of conduct issues and Advising the discipline alternative reassignment appeal committee as to any legal issues posed during an appeal to the reassignment to the Success Academy having attended 41 such appeal hearings last school year Legal Services provides guidance and feedback to curriculum and instruction staff especially with recent legislative changes that have required the implementation of new processes for book challenges and the materials that can be found in school libraries and classroom libraries Legal Services provides regular training to District staff and academic services

115including issues relating to nursing staff and student privacy compliance with legislative changes guidance to the ESC prek team and school psychologists further but not exhaustively the office of Legal Services provides guidance and advice to our grants and charter school office and sits as a member of the district threat assessment team and every day brings new issues challenges and questions relating to academic Services I and the office of Legal Services stand ready to assist the staff as they come up legal supports the needs of these business services and oper of of these departments business services and operations in many ways our primary role is to provide legal guidance and assistance regarding the many intricacies that are involved in these Department's daily duties we are proactive in providing updates with the legislative changes guidance on legal questions

116and assistance in applying the law and Schoolboard policies to ensure our procedures are in compliance over the last year we reviewed over 400 contracts of these contracts there were six Charter School renewals three new Charter School contracts over 25 amendments to assist with the hurricane recovery multiple inter agency agreements including the SRO SRO contracts theou for training with the fmpd andus And ilas in regards to the recovery efforts from Hurricane Ian we created new contract templates to increase the efficiency of the review process these include but are not limited to the memorandums of understandings cell tower leases lease technology agreements data security agreements General contracts and amendments and addendums we also reviewed and updated many of our current templates which included the construction management at risk hard bid and other forms used by procurement we

117also assist staff in any of in any contract negotiations that require legal participation specifically when there are outstanding legal questions regarding the contract or the services at issue or if the vendor has involved their legal counsel first and foremost legal serves as the legal advisor to the school board and to leadership as required we render opinions keep the board and staff up to date on the legal landscape and advise on legal exposure in addition legal provides an array of services including being the parliamentarian at every Workshop briefing and Action meeting we also provide parliamentarian services off the de such as assistance with drafting motions and guidance on board protocols we work closely with risk management and claims based in part on claims handling and new legal strategies including being proactive versus reactive we have seen

118our overall general liability exposure come down to include reduc red settlement cost claims also work diligently regarding our workers compensation cases which are also trending downwards in addition legal is authorized to accept Service of New lawsuits as well as supervise monitor litigation on behalf of the school board we will also handle perk matters and Union disputes that go beyond the administrative District level although public records does not lie within the office of Legal Services we continue to meet weekly with public records as it pertains to their legal issues legal reviews and response to investigations by state and federal agencies and as noted earlier we are also now administering the lighthouse process legal continues to present the school board with policies that are required for its effective operation based on laws and regulations last school year

119we were responsible for the policy conversion to Neola and processed nearly 600 new policies we also continue to work with our board advisory committees to ensure compliance with laws such as sunshine and public records law as well as board policy and parliamentary procedure in Human Resources the office of Legal Services acts as the eyes and ears for the district as well as the board for administrative matters involving the District employees in areas involving Equity rights employee misconduct garnishment of wages and collective bargaining in conjunction with investigations conducted by the equity and civil rights compliance coordinator the office of Legal Services provide responsive plead pleadings in cases before the equal OPP equal employment opportunity commission the office of civil rights as well as the public employee relations commission the office of Legal Services works with the

120Department of Professional Standards and enjoy our employee misconduct investigating summaries provided by by Professional Standards are reviewed for legal sufficiency of the evidence and for Just Cause to determine whether there's just cause for disciplinary actions over the past year over 92 cases have been heard in predetermination hearings and outcomes rendered with the outcome review team as an employer the district is required to respond to Silver complaints when the wages of one of its employees are subject to garnishment by a third party creditor in the past year year the office of Legal Services has filed responsive pleadings on behalf of the district and 116 garnishment cases that were filed against District employees and finally legal opinions are rendered daily to District staff regarding compliance issues with Florida Statutes administ of code and Le County School Board

121policies with legislative updates and train it providing as it's needed invest investigations relating to equity towards District employees are conducted by and coordinated by the equity and civil rights coordinators that acts as liaison with outside agencies pertaining to equity and civil rights compliance this person also trains and advises District Personnel on compliance issues we were honored to host the Summer Conference of the Florida school board of attorneys Association here in Lee County on October 25th of 2023 AUST I'm sorry August 25th my apologies and we were graced with a presentation by the superintendent who discussed with the state Schoolboard attorneys the aftermath of hurricane Ian to the district the legal ramifications and the work that was done to help bring the district back together following the storm we were also Grace with the wonderful and

122informative panel discussion by some of our board members in regard to the relationship between the board and the board attorneys office additionally several members of the of the legal team attended the National Council of school attorney spring seminar in partnership with Co with kosa the Council of school attorneys while at the conference Mr pu Bruno co-presented with a fellow Schoolboard attorney who represents Alachua County Legal processed as Miss Bruno had stated over 600 new policies through the Neola policy conversion this was a true partnership between our offices and all the Departments of the district this process strengthened our Pursuit as a district to be an a utmost compliance with our Schoolboard policies legal also organized and co-hosted with the Lee County Bar Association the 2023 circuit and County High School Mock Trial competitions this SP

123spanned over two weekends in February involving six teams from six different schools participating in the county competition and three teams one from Charlotte Collier and Lee County who move forward from their County competitions to the 20th circuit competition we had over 30 local judges and attorneys volunteering to act as scoring and presiding judges during this event in August of 2023 your office of Legal Services was featured in Lee County Bar association's monthly magazine rest justy featuring our school board attorney Kathy Pruno as well as assistant Schoolboard attorneys here thank you team at this time board members we look forward to your discussion and comments we would also appreciate your direction as to whether you believe that another annual presentation will be required for next year thank you attorney debris Bruno comments questions board members okay

124okay Mr persons do you have any questions or comments none thank you I mean I would be in support of having another annual review next year I don't go ahead Miss juvenile I like the in review only because it just keeps everything in the Forefront of what's going on right one of the only things that I would have liked to see too is just like the cost now related to what the team is and what are out Outsourcing and where those expenses and fees are and so forth because we kind of that's one of them that's very important for the community to understand that and that would help us as well cuz we don't have a we really don't can't keep up with it you know and annually would be great I think anybody else

125U Miss Morgan I I agree agree with Miss janelli thank you I would agree as well anything else just want to thank our attorneys for their hard work this year I truly appreciate it and everything that you've accomplished so thank you that's all for on this subject real quick before we take a recess Mr persons has to leave I Believe by 3:00 I just want to ask if there's anything he wanted to address real quick before he leaves or if you had anything else no I'm good and I'll watch the rest of the board meeting on our favorite Channel later thank you now we're going to move into a brief five minute recess thank you everyone okay everyone we're resuming our briefing at 3:2 p.m. next agenda item is item B5 insurance and benefits management

126itns with director doding okay okay can you hear me yeah it was on it wasn't close enough to me I'm here with Michael robishaw the director of insurance benefit insurance and benefits to present the last four itns for this year these are regarding disability insurance dental insurance vision insurance and EAP before I turn it over to Mr robishaw I want to thank him publicly for all of the hard work on the six itns he inherited upon his employment with the district this year I also want to thank the staff of insurance and benefits and procurement for all their help on these projects great work and thank you Michael and with that I'll turn it over to you thank you Mr dodic good afternoon board chairpersons Vice chair Fischer fellow board members board attorney de Bruno

127and superintendent berer again for the record my name is Michael robishaw director of insurance and benefit management and as stated I personally like to thank you for your attention today as I report the findings of the last four of our six ITN we launched earlier this year the school district's current contract we're going to start with disability insurance sorry the the school district's current contract with the standard as our disability insurance carrier has been in effect since April 1st of 2021 our disability insurance is a fully insured benefit in which the employees Bear all the costs employees that work 20 hours or more in a regular position are eligible to enroll in disability insurance and that could be short longterm or they could enroll in both plans currently we have about 4,200 employees that are

128enrolled unique employees that are enrolled in either benefit with the district's current contract with the standard due for renewal on March 31st 20124 we launched the disability ITN back on April 11th of this year to collect proposals to administer our disability insurance proposers were asked to submit bids highlighting costs service capabilities plan design and value added benefits as well as any performance guarantees per board policy and Florida statute a scoring committee was formed to review and score the proposals members from within and outside of our insurance task force made up this committee and again as a reminder for the board the insurance task force committee is an extension of the bargaining group that FOC focuses on benefits and wellness programs offered to our employees and families on July 19th of 2023 the scoring committee reviewed

129and scored the ITN submissions ranking MetLife as their first option to serve as the insurance carrier for our disability insurance the results of the scoring committee were reviewed at the September 7th 2023 Insurance task force meeting the insurance task force supported the results of the scoring committee as was reflected in their meeting minutes the district's contract awarded to Met Life would take effect April 1st 2024 with a base term of 3 years with an option of three one-year renewals this last slide here will discuss some of the highlights of selecting MetLife as our disability insurance carrier as a part of their best and final offer metli delivered competitive premiums paid for by employees who elect these benefits through negotiations we reached an agreement on additional credits to assist with implementation as well as Automation and

130Technology enhancements to improve the process for our employees employees enrolling and disability will see no change to their plan options just that vendor name I'd like to pause now for any comments from the superintendent as well as board discussion I have no comments at this time thank you board member comments or questions oh sorry Miss Juvenile and I'm sorry I don't have I don't have the insurance services so who's the who does presently if it's not met life now who do you have presently the standard oh thank you I was just curious thank you anyone else okay go ahead thank you the next presentation will be on our dental insurance ITN the school the schools the school district's current contract with metti as our dental insurance carrier has been in effect since April 1st of

1312016 our dental insurance is again a fully insured benefit in which the enrolled employee Bears all the cost cost employees who work 20 hours or more in a regular position May enroll in this benefit and they have the option of covering just themselves one or more of their children as well as a legally married spouse as well as a family option approximately 9,300 employees are currently enrolled in dental insurance with the district's current contract with MetLife expiring March 31st of 20124 we launched the dental ITN on April 19th earlier this year to collect proposals to administer our dental insurance proposers were asked to submit bids again highlighting costs different services that they could offer any if any and any plan enhancements Pro board policy again in Florida statute the scoring committee was formed and it

132included again members from within and outside of our insurance task force on July 19th of 2023 the scoring committee reviewed and scored the ITN submissions ranking human as their first option to serve as the insurance carrier for our dental insurance the incumbent metti came in second the scoring committee agreed to invite both carriers back for finalist presentations as well as their best and final offers following the finalist presentations of best and final offers on August 9th 2023 the scoring committee scored in favor of selecting Humana as the district's dental insurance carrier the results of the scoring committee were reviewed at September 7th 2023 Insurance task force meeting once again that task force supported the scoring committee's decision as reflected in their minutes the district's contract with awarded to humano would take effect April 1st of

1332024 with a base term of four years with the option of two 2-year renewals our executive summary on our Dental ITN showcases some of the highlights from that ITN and selecting human as our dental insurance carrier as a part of their best and final offer presentation human reduced the employee premiums throughout the base term as well as during the additional 2-year two the two two-year renewal periods when compared to our current rates human also put guarantees in place that will minimize if any network disruption as our previous dental insurance carrier Humana has experien working with our members and has familiarity with our plans and processes which will Aid in this transition human also guaranteed allowances and credits as well as on-site assistance during open enrollment as needed and an on-site rep to a week throughout

134a minimum their first year of their contract and I would like to pause here again for any comments from the superintendent or any board discussion members of the board Mr chair I don't have any comments board member comments or questions okay proceed thank you our third ITN today will be on our vision insurance School District's current contract with a visus as our vision insurance carrier has been in effect since April 1st of 2015 our vision insurance is a fully insured voluntary benefit in which the employee again Bears all the cost for this benefit employees who work 20 hours or more in a regular position are eligible to enroll Envision insurance and once again they can cover just themselves one or more children as well as a legally married spouse or the entire family approximately 8,100

135employees are currently enrolled in vision insurance with the district's current contract with the visus expiring on March 31st of 2024 we launched the vision insurance ITN on May 10th of 20123 to collect proposals to administer this benefit for us proposers were asked to submit bids highlighting costs plan design network access service capabilities as well as administrative support per board policy and Florida statute the scoring committee was formed and included again members from within and outside of our insurance task force the scoring committee convened on August 1st of 2023 to review and score the ITN submissions and they ranked AIS as their first option to continue to serve as the insurance carrier for a vision insurance the results of the scoring committee were reviewed at the September 7th Insurance task force meeting the task force once

136the insurance task force once again supported the results of this scoring committee as reflected in their meeting minutes the district's contract awarded to a visis would take effect April 1st 2024 with a base term of 4 years with the option of two 2-year renewals this last slide on Vision will highlight some of we'll showcase some of the highlights of remaining with a visus as our vision insurance carrier as a part of their best and final offer Aus guaranteed no rate increase while increasing the in Network contact allowance to $200 annually so there was a plan enhancement there for the employees to get a little bit more money annually for their contact contacts remaining with the visus also ensures consistency for our employees and their families again just to pause for any comments or discussion no

137comments at this time thank you sir board comments or questions please proceed our last ITN I'll present on today was for our employee assistance program The District's current contract with Employee Services LLC for employee assistance program Services has been in effect since April 1st of 2018 the employee assistance program or known as an EAP is an employer paid benefit offering confidential evaluation referral and counseling services available to all employees of the district and members of their household approximately 11,200 employees and their families have access to this benefit with the district's current contract with Employee Services LLC expiring March 31st of 20124 we launched the EAP ITN on May 17th earlier this year to collect proposals to ad administer this benefit proposers were asked to submit bids highlighting plan costs plan design network access and service

138and capabilities as well as administrative support that they can bring again per board policy in Florida statute scoring committee was formed and can included both members from within and outside of the insurance task force the scoring committee met on August 1st to review and score the ITN submissions again ranking Employee Services LLC as their first option to contined to serve as the vendor to administer employee assistance program these results were reviewed at the September 7th Insurance task force meeting and again the insurance task force committee supported the results of this scoring committee as was reflected in their meeting minutes the district's contract awarded to Employee Services LLC will take effect April 1st 2024 with a base term of four years with the option of two 2-year renewals this last slide again while highlight the successes

139we got here from again selecting Employee Services LLC as our administrator of our EAP program as a part of their best and final offer presentation Employee Services LLC reduced the district's paid premium slightly but they also helped us remain consistency with our members so that way accessing this benefit is not going to change over the term of their contract through negotiations we were also able to increase the allotted hours for on-site training as well as critical incident stress management up from 50 to 100 hours annually with the ability to roll over any of these unused hours and brings us to the last slide for any final comments or board discussion board members my only final comments would be to thank director robishaw as well as executive director Mr doic for the work as well as

140the insurance task force incredible amount of work with itns and I think it should just be noted I think Mr robishaw was on board for about 24 hours before we informed him he had all this work to complete he's done great work on behalf of his team and on behalf of the human resource department on behalf of our employees like to thank Mr Mr robishaw for that work thank you board member comments questions Miss patrika followed by Miss Jordan thank you so how does how does the EAP work what do we pay do we pay a premium per employee that has access to it whether they use it or not that's that's correct there's a p PM fee that we pay okay great that was my question my comment is to piggyback on Dr Bernier

141you do a great job I spend my ITF afternoons with you I think I'll see you again tomorrow right they like pop up on my calendar all the time you're smiling cuz I was going to say my challenge for this year is to get you to smile so you're smiling so challenge challenge accepted challenge completed what what you didn't say Dr Bernier about the tremendous work of the insurance task force is that it is a lot of teachers who volunteered during the summer to come in and to vet these ITN and the vendors and to bring forward the recommendations to the board I'm sure I've said that to you before but teachers giving up their time in the summer I think is a big deal and they should be recognized for that I appreciate your

142hard work thank you thank you Miss Jordan thank you I just want to say thank you as well and I noticed that this last one the employee assistant program was the largest by far that being utilized so I really appreciate that the fact that we have offered that and now the hours have been extended so I thank you for that thank you Miss juvenile thank you how long have you been here Mr rashan I started May 1st so I just wanted to say welcome and nothing like throwing you into the fire but thank you I think this is important because I don't really recall having a presentation of the prior and then then the new and maybe I know we don't have insurance changeover often so that might be why but I just I like

143the presentation today just you know some of them stayed the same but some did not and I think that and I love you know the process with the insurance task force they work really hard and they're very Hands-On in there and so I just want to thank you for your work thank you thank you anybody else okay thank you gentlemen for your presentation thank you board next up on the agenda is item B6 Florida safe schools assessment tool and that'll be executive director Newan Mr director nulan finds his presentation just want to remind our board and remind our community of the effort that's being put forth regarding School Safety and Security it is definitely a 1A 1B process with both learn teach and learning as well as school safety it's a comment on where we

144are currently and again prior to the presentation I'll take the liberty of thanking Dave Nan Chief Newan for his for his service not only prior in law enforcement but in this role as our director of safety it's nice to have an individual who understands both the public school perspective as well as the law enforcement aspect and looking forward this presentation an opportunity for you to find out more about what's transpiring and what our reports to the Department of Education and other reporting agencies in the State of Florida looks like Chief thank you good afternoon board members superintendent Dr berer board attorney Kathy dpri Bruno for the record I am Dave nulan executive director of Safety and Security we are here today to go to the results of the Florida safe schools assessment tool for district

145Safety and Security this is completed by all schools and intended to help identify threats vulnerabilities and appropriate safety controls for our schools information contained in Florida safe schools assessment tool fsat is confidential and exempt from RE lease as a public record pursuant to section 119 the fora safe schools assessment tool is an online platform for enhanced risk assessment and domain awareness at the state district and school levels this is managed by the Florida Department of Education fsat has been in operation with us across the state since June of 2014 today at is the primary physical site security assessment tool that is used by school officials at each school district and public school sites the state and conducting security assessments the tool designed to help school officials identify threats vulnerabilities and appropriate safety controls for the

146schools that they supervise and address various levels of security the district must ensure the school security assessments are submitted by into fat by October 1st I'm happy to say that all of our schools completed their ass reports by September 1st so a great job all of our schools getting those done each School District must report to the department by October 15th 15th that all public schools within the school district have completed their school security risk assessment that has been completed they have been notified each school safety specialist must report school security risk assessment findings and School Board actions to the office of safe schools within 30 days after the district school board meets publicly and those recommendations get returned or reported to Safe schools no later than November 1st the district continues to use compliance

147requirements as well as best practices and Safety and Security where that being in the use of new or improved Technologies Hardware building design training other areas especially those related to marjerie stum and Douglas High School Public Safety commission recommendations school safety and security involves everyone in our district from staff to students and must be approached from a wide array of functions and services that we provide some of our best practices this year that we've been working on are security camera upgrades as we've been going into phase two which we go to look into our exterior parking lots also blind spots areas that we enhance our single point of entries that well we put different cameras in so we get a better view of that single point of entry at every school location Access Control this

148is a project will be completed this year as are all our exterior doors and also involves some of our interior doors our BOS security alarm system which is the intrusion alarm system as I mentioned before this also will be a project will be completed this year at all of our schools one of our things we did we provided law enforcement access to school cameras and access control for emergency so in case of exent circumstances or an emergency law enforcement is able to go through our cameras to help get law enforcement to wherever that emergency may be at that time to expedite that process and anything we can do to save time is going to help with anybody that's in danger open gate weapon detection system as you know that was a project we started this

149year this school year we are moving forward it's been a slow roll out we based on the different variables as we applied open gate to our schools and all of our zones based on levels of schools location the design of schools we're working actually this week we started our third deployment with open gate we should be done with our third deployment by the first week of November at that point we will have over at 50 schools they'll have open gate at every entry point at all of all those 50 schools and we will continue to move forward as the year goes through with the goal of every school will have open gate before the school ends the school year ends the guardian program another program we started as well this year it's been very successful

150we have Guardians in various schools as a force multiplier to our school resource officers so again this has been very positive we've had positive return comments from the public from staff we continue to work with our Guardians with Le County Sheriff's Office who put the help put the program together put them through the training that was required so as we move forward we will continue to monitor that program as it evolves and again this is a chance for us to an opportunity as a first time doing this you know where where we go from there so we will continue to monitor that program as we move into the following year our public address intercom system upgrades have been those have been working on as well as we have as you know CICS which is lower

151in the presentation as our Panic alarm system that has connected to our intercom systems so those are things that we are we have enhanced as we've moved forward to help with the Panic alarm system from notification and a in a lockout or could be secure type mode or even u a hold secure vest methodology so as we continue forward with our to harden our schools as I mentioned before it's always about applying layers of security it's not one single thing so as you look at schools it's not just always a maybe a vestle that may fit that school it's based on design so we look at other ways that may make more sense for that school as we move forward so every school we look at we walk through that school with different departments maintenance

152construction our department and kind of figure out what's the best fit for that school for security so as I mentioned it could be a Vestal could be something called a readin readout system it's all based on school design what's the best fit for layers of security law enforcement access to school sites for exent circumstances that's been completed we recognized last year we want to make sure that every single law enforcement officer in Lee County if they had to respond to a school in case of a emergency they had immediate access into that school so that was a project we started last year and I'm I'm happy to say that's been completed so at any time something was to happen an officer can get into the school immediately the also part of that was the installation

153of our interior nox boxes at every School site that's also been completed as you know we have exterior lock knock boxes at our exterior sites at schools for public for law enforcement and for fire but also we want to make sure we have interior nox boxes inside the schools to get into the interior doors that would be secured during an event so as I mentioned before officers have direct access we want to make sure also they can get into the classrooms that they need to under emergency so working with law enforcement we strategically put them in every school at certain locations to make sure it made sense where you put those they so they know where to respond and how to get those keys out those keys are all with a secure system that every

154local dispatch location of law enforcement has those codes they would relay that to law enforcement to get access to the box to get the keys they would need to get into the certain secured areas of the school tool our crg mapping that's something we've always we've been working on for a while we've had that in place already but as we change schools or fish numbers or any type of design or new schools that mapping is also supplied so again we have copies of mapping law enforcement has those also has that mapping as well capabilities so again if they have to respond we they know where they can describe or explain where they're at or where they need to go to depending on what the emergenc is about our reunification plan we have a reunification plan

155we've had one but we've been working on a larger plan for larger events throughout the last year or so we've been working with all of our local law enforcement agencies other local organizations it's been very positive we will almost to the point now we're getting ready to finalize that and that's something we will bring in front to all of you when that's completed obviously enhanced train highlight ability area is as we move forward we have an opportunity to train more with our staff over either whether it be active shooter again reunification threat threat assessments anything that we see we talk about scenarios all the time we do after action debriefings on events that may happen in a school so this is an opportunity we have a lot of time to share so when something was

156to happen like last year we had some swatting calls last year even some events not too long ago we can meet and go over those what happened how can we improve and then we shared those scenarios with other schools as how as far as how to react if they had was to happen in their place as well so we go over certain trainings as well response like I mentioned before so every month we have an opportunity to bring a fresh or a new topic a new safety topic or training to our principles and assistant principles every month something want to bring forward to them as well as I mentioned before CICS that was our a panic alarm system that was implemented a couple years ago We've made some recent changes always looking to improve again

157these are all things we look to at as layers of security not just one single thing but CICS has been very very beneficial been very positive I hear a lot of good feedback from our staff that Carri andix how it's helped out with different scenarios at our school sites our ancillary sites as well so it's been very positive and then as far as our going back to our absat reports as far as we always look for feedback and go work with our schools as far as things that they bring to our attention that we can work on as we move forward we're always looking to help Harden our school sites by different layers or as I mentioned here anchoring or maybe strengthening specific areas it could be adding more fencing it could be constructing or

158maybe enclosing certain walkways based on school design there are some schools to separate them from the front parking lot areas so we are all always looking to add those enhancements to schools every year as they move forward as well again cameras I mentioned before about security cameras continuously we always look for there's blind spots at a certain school we work with our it Department adding those cameras in certain areas that may still be needed as I mentioned also we're always looking to increase those to exterior sites of the schools could be parking lots there are concession stands at certain locations as well so that's on ongoing process and also better Lighting in our parking lots at nighttime so we've talked about that as well working to improve those as we move forward the request for

159additional safety security specialist at certain schools has been a conversation based on again the school size of the school number of students as well and then obviously the continued highlight ability train that we always go through every year train is very important so any time we have an opportunity to do training with our staff we take advantage of that process right now we're going through a process with threat assessments right now we've already going through that training as we speak of course active as as I mentioned reunification any type of issues that come up we've done a lot of training like I said each month right now which has been a great opportunity to go over things that we see and answer questions with our principles and staff of how we can improve certain areas

160answer questions how we can improve proove and I'll stand by for any questions or comments just one additional comment to Chief's hard work in in the work of the staff that he represents the principes assistant principles the staff members and everybody who helps contribute to our school safety as you know last week I sent out a message regarding social media and behavior at schools I want to take the opportunity again to thank our staff our administrators our teachers our support professionals our parents who have had that difficult conversation with their children that there are some behaviors that will land them in more trouble than others and some of them can be change the trajectory of their potential career paths and their trajectory towards being a successful adult a successful adult I'd also like to thank

161our law enforcement parsers as well who take every threat seriously I think as we think about all these improvements it still comes down to one particular item though it's about a culture and a belief that a student feels safe enough to report information to their school to an adult that cares about them for those of us who were part of the listen project and the beginnings of that process it's so important that we listen to our kids and that they have an opportunity to provide information so I'm going to once again reiterate that idea of see something say something and know that we have a responsibility to ensure that information that is shared with us whether it leads to something or not that we follow it up and that we protect the identity and protect

162the information as to who provided it so that we can ensure that we create a culture where students feel safe enough to come forward and provide us the information that we need quite honestly our students know more about what's going on in their school than any one adult ever could they're they're a very connected Network all you have to do is walk up to a bunch of them standing in a corner or in a part of the cafeteria and you'll swear that you had mosquito repellent on because they they separate into various corners but I think it's really important to recognize the passionate leadership that we have at our schools and in our bus transportation yards in our food service areas ad means takes everybody body in order to create a safe environment for our

163children but it also takes our students understanding what their responsibilities are as a Citizens citizen of that community so thanks chief for everything you're doing on the physical side everything you're doing to help with active asant reunification training all that other all those other things and as well as your continued work to ensure that those cultures of safety are being built in our school board members your comments and discussion thank you Mr superintendent board member comment questions Miss Jord followed by Miss lenford Fleming I just want to say thank you I know this is our second time that we've seen this so the first time we had the opportunity to see this and then I know Miss janelli and I had gone to stowman Douglas and did that walk with them and just looking at

164all the mishaps and everything that took place I really truly want to thank you no thank you sorry I just want to say we have a you know we have a great team thank you we have a great team team and and the staff has been great all the schools principals Administration you know when we apply as another layer of security like we did this year with open gate they've been great about working that into their schools working with us even students I got to say have been great about it so and I did want to say that too because that was a you know our kids knowing even though sometimes it's hard for them but knowing what to do is really important so thank you for for that and I know we talked about

165the windows I didn't see that on there but the windows of course we have that the blinds or whatever we want to call those but just knowing and also looked at they had the safe tool where it showed every single school and it showed like Baker a any type of anything that had to do with any of our schools could actually look pull up say dumbar and it would pull up every single thing on our schools as far as safety and everything regarding the students outcomes everything and I know that's coming out it's phase two it's coming out in I think two two weeks but I thought they called it safe School tool not I can't remember the exact name of it but I think that would be it's being utilized for safety as well

166yes but I just want to and the best practices and we can have all the best practices in the world but if as long as we adhere to what those are will be good but so that's something we have to constantly remind but thank you very much thank you appreciate it thank you Miss Langford Fleming yeah thank you I appreciate all that you do and I know that you work Way Beyond the hours of your window of time here and that is something that you know we always say that you can't put a price tag on safety but you also can't put a timeline on it either and I was able to visit a couple of high schools this last week we talked a lot about the amount of time and Interruption of some of

167the drills because I know that we discussed how short of a window of time they had to get all of these drills in and as a former educator I know that can be frustrating having to stop your teaching and go outside or po practice a drill but it is so incredibly important like Miss Jordan just said that we have all the best practices in place hopefully we never have have to go there but it's just it's incredibly important that we all know exactly what to do and everyone in the school like superintendent had already said we've got you know you think about just the classroom teacher there's so much more to it physical education standing outside all the way into the cafeteria workers and the bus drivers that are vulnerable on the Bus Loop and

168just for this the sake of the public for them to understand whenever and I know that you've discussed this before but when we are talking about some of these Safety and Security measures there's a reason why we have to be vague about some things so I just wanted to put that out there in the public because I've had several questions about well you know we want to know more about such and such and I think the more that the public feels trusting and that they know that they're sending their children they're going to come home every day because that's how important it is to our school board and our school district I think those question concern will die down a little bit but thank you again for all you do and your staff thank you

169thank you Miss juvell thank you I think this is important to talk about you know it's just safety in the schools and that everything that we're doing and especially with the mar strowman Doug Douglas School Public Safety commission they've implemented a lot of stuff you know and that's why the changes I mean we've learned they've learned so much from the failures of Parkland I was like a Debbie said we were able to tour it on Saturday and it was very interesting very it humbles you it you're it's solemn you know it was totally frozen in time they are not going to I don't think they're going to do anything to it until they take it down during the summer that building 12 will be gone so I think they're trying to for everyone to have

170the opportunity to learn and to know I mean this is something that Coline I don't believe did and other you know nor did Sandy Hook but I think that what they've done is so commendable and amazing because they're wanting to share what happened to them and how to make it better and one of the things I my takeaways that was really cuz I did a round table at the end of the tour and so I wanted to I wanted to bring it up now since I don't I want bring it up my good the order I was going to but what the because there was actual family members that were there that were affected by it one lost her husband one was their daughter one was their son but the re re re re wait

171reification plan is so important they said because what happened was also they kept talking about the students but yet there was families that were affected you it was a husband and all three husbands so somebody's husband so it was it really was hurtful for them because they say students and that was something that they really kind of talked about especially Miss Hixon she was the one that was really strong on talking about it being families that are affected because it was somebody's grandfather or somebody's uncle or somebody's they just kept going you know somebody's cousin somebody it affected so many people so I thought that was really interesting the other thing is they had they name I forget what they called the staff member that actually was that would that was in in the you

172know at the reunification plan or place wherever they went that was they said that was a key role for them to have someone in place that would deal with the families directly and during when they wherever they were at I think it was a hotel or something they said that they in the room with everyone and you that was really hard because they kept going down to where they were the last ones left I don't think they like that I don't know how if you could separate that I don't really know the details of that but that was something that really bothered them because they as parents came in or were notified or how they it came down to the last 17 people and that was really difficult and I don't know how to make

173that better but it's just something to learn and maybe you can inquire and find a little more about how that would process would look exactly but that was my main mind thing and I just wanted to commend that the marger stowman Douglas Public Public Safety Commission because they've really you know they made the changes in Tallahasse happen they lobbied for that and they've really Chang what some of the things they're doing they're going to take it federally and they and a lot of states are wanting that information so Florida is kind of the first to make all these changes in the school system and learn from the failures and that's really what it was about learning from the failures and there were so many and that we can always do better it was said earlier

174today improvements always you know we can always do better and improve one more thing that I wanted to mention that I noticed and I don't know in the training when the teachers go through the training one of the biggest things that I saw is all the desks were so easily accessed to that front door or their or their their door entry to the classroom except for the ones that were what do they call that hard cornered or something yeah hard Corner okay yeah those although the kids didn't fit all of them didn't fit those were the ones that were injured or you know you know hurt so but the ones that could get behind the desk or in that hard Corner they were all saved and so another thing that it was such it's a

175big school that I think there was over 3,000 students the desks were all there there was there was not a room it was so crowded in there there was not another the desks were there were so many desks it was a very crowded classroom that was one thing I and I think that was very difficult for them to that many students to hide so I it really made me think about how tight it was with all the desks in the classroom there would you could have put another desk in a room and that's I thought was interesting as well is that how crowded it was and I know we have schools that are crowded so it was my concern and that was it thank you if I may want respond to the things you had

176brought up so reification on one of them like I mentioned before work on a larger plan so what you've mentioned about some of the things you experienced what happened we've we've taken those experiences we've had those conversations on the plan we're working on right now and we that's why we work with every single law enforcement agency in Lee in Lee County state agencies emergency operation centers other organizations that want to jump in what we're doing with our reunification plan because the idea is we can have if we can develop a countywide plan we're all doing the same thing but when you talk about all the little pieces you need at a reunification site it's a lot so the conversations we're having right now is to make sure we cover all those areas and then we

177practice those areas we set up those areas what are we missing who we who are we not collaborating with when we do a reunification we want to make sure we include all those entities as part of that so that's what we're working on right now is making sure we include all that and then eventually the idea is we actually would set up a reification site and go through that to make sure what are we missing what do we need so and that's kind of what so it's a larger plan that like you brought up before that others unfortunately have learned from that we want to take that and develop from there and move forward the other part too is as far as classrooms go we do have those conversations with schools they've asked us questions

178about those hard corners and we do offer to go out to the school sit and walk through and talk about each location our recommendation working with law enforcement as well what we would bet you know just what our advice what we'd recommend to every school site too so we are doing that as we move forward we have those conversations and that goes with when we have the conversations about the wh ifs the scenarios you know again we always talk about go through your with your staff talk about the what if this was to happen how would you react where would you go what would you do those are important conversations we're having right now based on either past Something's Happened in the past or something we've heard about on the news and I want to

179add to that was the other thing and I wrote it down in my notes and didn't mention it but that was the other that they recommended is to work with the other governments regarding the reunification in you know in other entities and to make it more a countywide situation so thank you because that was one of the big takeaways as well and so you're already doing it so thank you thank you great thank you anybody else okay Chief and actually Miss Jordan and Miss juvell thank you for sharing that experience I look forward to hearing more about that later on it sounded obviously just and from others I heard very intense so thank you for going out there U look forward to hearing more on that Chief thank you for what you and your staff

180do and law enforcement I say that both as a school board member and I tell everyone as a parent too I truly appreciate it and I hear just for example very positive things in the community for me just even from the parents about open gate and things like those and how much you know they feel better knowing those mechanisms in place so I just wanted to thank thank you and your staff for that and the rest of the administrators so thank you thank you sir next up on the agenda is item B7 legislative priorities and that will be with Chief Gomez just a few short days ago you saw for the first time your input and information regarding the legislative platform we've been working since that date and over the weekend to ensure that we

181redeveloped made Corrections and changes this item will come as a good cause item tonight because it's really important that what we take to Tallahassee is an approved platform from this board so we want to ensure that we get one more set of eyes on it if there are any additions or Corrections we can still make them prior to the board meeting and upload the additional docs so I just wanted you to be aware I'll turn it over to Angel Gomez our chief of communications and government relations thank you Mr superintendent good afternoon board members superintendent and School Board counsel I present to you today our updated version of the two-sided one-pager legislative platform from which all of our one pagers ramification from and this one should be should be a reflection of all the and

182by the way thank you about all the great feedback that you provided me at the last meeting during the Workshop so I have updated all of this run it through our lobbyist and Tallahassee to make it to make it on point and here is the product of that of that work so here's our legislative platform no I do not expect you to look at those two sheets of paper that are on the screen and try to make sense of those but we will touch in each one of the sections one at a time in regards to the regulations the umbrella statement actually says and just for the record when I save this item into a PDF it actually cut off the schools too so that's another way it shows in in in over publication but

183over over overall umbrella statement for the regulation is request for all public schools to have the same sory flexibility we created a one pager that consists of all of the all of the ideas that were sent individually but some most of you on the board and also from others in the district and divisions and also from what was suggested by by over obest Dr McDougall and I'll go through so we can see what we have and what will be over one pager first we were asking to provide all schools with the same level of flexibility as high performing districts and Charter Schools then we are asking to ensure that funds follow the student between school choice options in a timely manner to eliminate the cost per student station as this number is no longer realistic

184and fair number for the variance between school districts we're asking to amend Florida stat to 10 12.56 to provide superintendence with the statutory flexibility to determine whether a classroom teacher may be retained for an extended period period if the teacher has not yet passed the general knowledge exam within a 5% passage rate window also to provide the super to provide superintendence with the flexibility necessary to increase teacher compensation based on years of teaching experience to amend Florida statue 10222 1c3 to provide District school boards the flexibility to award Advanced degree supplements to instructional Personnel or School administrators hired on or before July 1st 2011 that's the date after it was changed so on July 1st 2011 regardless of individual's area of certification amend Florida statute 13.43 3 to allow students who have been enrolled and

185follow along with this one this is a very important one who have been enrolled in an English peers of other languages program for less than two school years and have met all requirements for the standard high school diploma except for the passage of the best Algebra 1 EOC assessment requirement to have the same opportunity offered to this to the students not passing the standardized grade 10 English language arts assessment to meet the requirement to pass the Statewide best Algebra 1 EOC assessment by satisfactorily demonstrating great level expectations un formity Assessments in accordance with state board rule as shown on Florida statute 103.4 33 3B and lastly to remove the four-year millage limitation to to allow for the voters the opportunity to supply to support Public School improvements for up to 10 years that's in the

186area of the regulation in the area of increase student achievement support the increase of per student funding by at least 5% from the fiscal year 24 presently 8933 to 9380 in fiscal year 25 the request a specific appropriation for $2.1 million to continue from phase one architectural and engineering and plans phase to phase two actual construction of building toward the expansion of Career and Technical education programs at Cape Coral Technical College Programs planned for the expanded campus which is two additional buildings include automotive services technology Marine SC Mar Marine Service technology HVAC welding technology building traes and nursing another appropriation within within the same area is to request a specific appropriation project of $2.5 million to create a new career in technical education College Annex at a future location in Lee County the funds will

187be based will be used for architectural Design Services engineering plants and other costs associated with preconstruction to build an Annex campus for Fort Meyers technical college career clusters plan for the expanded campus include Transportation distribution and Logistics architecture and construction Health Science hospitality and culinary arts and Manufacturing moving on to safety support support an increase in the safe schools allocation in the Florida education Financial program Finance program to ensure funds are available for student sa safety initiatives we have two Appropriations in this area the first one is to request a specific appropriation project for $500,000 to expand on the success of providing after school activities to ensure students are part of a safe and secure after school environment and the second one is to request a specific appropriation project of $1 million for the acquisition

188of fencing to 45 exterior corridors and premises of Select schools an incident command reunification unit consisting of a vehicle to support continuity of operations on site during and after a critical incident and an enclosed trailer containing materials necessary for the response and safe reunification process for the necessary support post incident in the area of teacher certification and retention we're asking to amend section 101255 B of the Florida statute to exclude School social workers from the instructional staff that must take and pass the professional education exam we're also asking to amend section 121.0 1919 C Florida satue to permit retired teachers and administrators to return to the classroom after 2 months rather than the current requirement of one year post hurricane Ian recovery the district is making great strides with hurricane Ian recovery efforts 75% of

189repairs are complete more than 50 properties actually suffer roof damages which required architect and engineering assessments prior to performing repairs the legislator's action last year to increase continuing contracts thresholds has reduced the length of the procurement lifestyle for roofing projects due to the magnitude of damaged roofs the district is asking to please provide us with a one-year extension to the previously approved legislative action found on Florida statute 287.00 5 2G so that Roofing projects can proceed using prepositioned continuing contracts for the remaining of of our recovery efforts I believe lastly in our sections and our priorities we have the school facilities utilization area and we're asking to please include all prek prek classes and programs in the department of education's doe Florida inventory School house it's the fish calculations to ensure that all students are

190receiving instruction in Florida school districts those who are there are accurately County counted by and receive adequate funding for those services at this time I open to comments from the superintendent and any question that the board may have for the sake of time I'll hold my comments till the end I'll turn it directly to the chair and to board members thank you board member comments questions suggestions Miss patrika I really appreciate the addition of the detail surrounding DG yes ma'am thank you very much for that and also y'all know I can't go to tallah housei but I saw your schedule and that's a heck of a schedule and to me that's a sign of a really good chief of government relations thank in conjunction with a really good lobbyist because when you're lobbying you should

191never have any downtime and you all have no downtime so thank you for that thank you ma'am Miss Jordan thank you for adding Hospitality on to this as well and then a lot of the dgs is what the state will be also out there advocating for as well and I'll go ahead and send that out to you because I just got that so I'll send that as far as the state so thank you though for all of this it's great thank you ma'am Miss juven and thank you for recognizing this deregulation piece of it because I see you put it to the top and and that's interesting because it's because this is something that we've all been talking about for a long time you know just we want it to be the same and fair

192with with the charter schools and other private schools and so forth so they've they made it with the with the voucher so let's turn it back the other way you know and so the expectation is the same for all right a student all means all it doesn't matter where they're going to school so we want the best education for and opportunities for them so thank you for for that because I think that's going to be a and then finding out fsba is doing it too that's exciting to know that we're all going to be talking the same talk there you know thank you thank you anyone else here thank you is and I'll go to the superintendent after this no I'd like to thank Mr Gomez for his hard work related to this he's made

193some significant changes I think that are appropriate one I thank for the board member for recognizing the Dig regulation I think other other than that Monday at cabinet there was a support for moving the increased student funding to the first thing under our student achievement it was third I found some scrier errors I will certainly highlight those and make sure those are corrected before we Post finally this evening but I would like to thank Angel and you know Kim McDougall is always kind of in the background here she's kind of like the little ghost that we own in pay and she's a fabulous fabulous lobbyist and I'm glad that most Mr Gomez and attorney McDougall have a prior professional relationship in in previous districts because that's has sped up the process for not us not

194losing steam moving forward and it is a very full schedule I look forward to seeing all of you in Tallahassee later this week yeah thank you Dr berer thank you Chief Gomez thank you for following up on my asking to move deregulation up so I appreciate that as well as for cap Technical College incorporating The Phase 2 language cuz to make a little bit easier when we're discussing with legislative body up there it's a it's a good list it's a lot of stuff obviously some of our discussions I'm sure things will be paired down we'll have a pretty good idea what they're looking at again I mean right now I know D deregulation is a big thing that the House and Senate are looking at so but thank you for that and I look forward

195to seeing the rest of your work up there the rest of the week so thank you excited to go we're ready for you so we'll meet you there I'll be leaving soon after this meeting so thank you thank you okay next up is item B8 policy review and this will be attorney depri Bruno are you up to you yet sorry I figured it's your third time moving over seat miss juven this is actually is for the superintendent at this point we will get the priority list and all they'll have we'll have copies of all that with us right yes yeah I'm going to make sure 100% correct yes ma'am just want to reminder and I have good walking shoes Cool com thank you Mr chairman I need the log in it okay board members are

196there any questions or concerns with regard to the policies board Miss Jordan thank you it's regarding the policy number 2410 01 mental health and well-being so okay shall I yes please okay thank you so on definitions and I we have that reasonable attempt as well but again what happens and the reason I'm bringing this up because an incident just happened this past week where a child was Baker acted and everybody witnessed this because it was during the time of drop off at at a school so in light of that I had multiple parents call to find out what the heck is happening at the school and from my understanding the parent did not understand the language so she was not a she was a non English-speaking parents so when we're saying are they using the

197tool that we have in order to reach the parents because and I know this because of the fact that some of my employees they do not understand what I'm saying they'll say yes to me unless I literally show them so I just want to make sure that when we're saying that they're being reach and they're doing everything to in order to get them what are we doing for those parents who do not speak English so I had an opportunity to speak to Miss Lori Brooks on this particular issue and she advised that they utilize individuals at the school site that speaks the language to help translate if needed and then if they are not there is nobody available then they will use the language line and it's my understanding that a memo was sent to

198staff with regards to the language line and that you can use it to be able to communicate with those who do not speak English okay and well I thank you CU I know that I had this discussion with you prior and then also this the mobile crisis response team and I know we went into this in depth but to me I never feel that it's enough depth the mobile crisis which is Jay the mobile crisis team which Pro which provides immediate intensive assessments what does that mean immediate because I know for a fact that immediate if it is 4:00 or when school is ending they may not be any were to be found so how are we're putting this on here we need to make sure that we're guaranteeing that this will be taken place

199so Miss Jordan that will be something to defer to Miss Brooks I know she wanted to be here today but she was not available so perhaps we can have her for the first reading or maybe during a one-on-one we can discuss that a little bit more or I don't know if the superintendent may have an answer actually no I think was just going to offer the services of our mental health Team I know my the mobile crisis response team is available I think potentially language such as immediate could be something that we would want to consider whether that word is an appropriate definition for the amount of time specifically they can respond because if they are tied up in other places they the response will not be immediate but I think more importantly we should

200qualify with our with our staff and bring back a recommendation to the board with a policy change and we'll make sure we follow follow up thank you and I'm just bringing this up for that for that reason intervention for C again must seek assistance from the mobile crisis response team where where are you I'm on C under Intervention number five intervention C and it says must seek assistance from mobile we have a mobile Crist response team in here a lot but are they capable of doing what we are saying that they are doing because I know for a fact from past experience that this did not happen and again if we're putting this in here as our policy we need to make sure that we can adhere to what we are saying we are doing

201so that again is number five intervention C it's under for deescalation yes ma'am I see it and then under 6B before the principal contacts Law Enforcement Officers the principal must verify the school has used the de deescalation strategies so again now we're pulling that principle and we need to make sure that is exactly what's taking place that the principal because it states the principal is that person that is doing this and again that's on number six B and I will tell you that site that I seen that they looked up for me when I was at stowman Douglas it showed that our Baker Acts were up for Lee County I just wanted to put that out there and I think that's that's it but I just want to make sure that whatever we're putting on

202these that we are making sure that we are doing our due diligence and making sure that we are not you know having a Elementary child or whatever that looks like going through this cuz that's not what we're there to make sure that these kids are in school and we're they're learning yes ma'am thank you thank you Miss Jordan anybody else have any comments questions or requested changes at this moment okay are we ready to move forward board then to a first briefing taking the count Miss Jordan's comments turning to pre Bruno thank you very much Mr chairman thank you next up will be item C1 which will be public comment which Mr chairman I do not have anybody listed for public comment for the briefing okay I do not see anyone for public comment either

203so next up at this point we'll be moving on to good to the order and board comment so I will start on the far end with Miss Morgan please well let's see I did and you and I were at the same event as was Miss Patria the culinary event at shangar law oh and Miss jenley was there also was outstanding the comment I would make about it is that I think everybody should make smaller portions just like Estero high school did it was terrific for those who did oh and Debbie was there yeah so yeah it was it was great to see the kids so it involved in what they were doing and happy to talk about the fact that they had all started at 7:00 a.m. some had done their prep and their cooking

204even before the day of the event so and it was I thought fairly well attended but I I do wish that more members of the public had been aware of the event and had the opportunity to see the kids and their excitement about showing the public how they have practiced and learned their their culinary skills so I will in addition to that I will say that you know me I'm always about Partnerships and I feel just very strongly that there are a lot of things that we're trying to accomplish in this District particularly pre- and post C K12 so we had our collaboratory future makers update today and there were just a couple of things I wanted to mention from that the family literacy group is doing a pilot at Ty Elementary so all of

205these projects are small but they involve PE working with groups from outside the school district so that is and I don't know who the partners are I didn't get get the notes for that but but they're doing a an elementary school pilot where students and parents are going to be reading this ESO es esol students and parents will be reading the same book and we'll be talking about the book and then they will take the book home so that's just the sort of thing that we're trying to do to to help the Esau students and their families boys and Girls Club and the YMCA are working on they're they're already working with our kids after school but now they're working on the data elements identifying and compiling data on how these programs are making a

206difference in terms of student achievement in in key areas College and Career and Kelly's going to have Kelly thol is going to have to report on this they are doing a College and Career week February 5th through 9th that is geared has different programs for kids in 8th grade kids in 10th Grade and kids for Junior and Senior High School all across the district so 8th grade is really to introduce kids to careers 10th grade is to say these are the opportunities that you have to develop credentials in the district and then 11th and 12th grade employment opportunities so they're really digging into and going younger with respect to getting career and Tech going earlier grade level learning they are they have met with Jennifer cup and McCoy and they're trying to figure out what

207to do and they're going to have one pilot project two Volunteers in second grade how can volunteers from the community make a difference in second grade literacy so they're going to start with one school and working with Jennifer Cupid McCoy They're going to come up with some specific goals and they're hoping to start in I think January Early Learning is still going through a transition they're really not doing much I just bring this up because I think when we're out in the community and we're talking to these groups we're we interacting with these groups that are supporting the different programs rather that's early childhood in in school literacy or after you know after school or College and Career we ought to acknowledge and encourage people to get involved with future makers because future makers really

208is going to be the Hub of they're the they're the conveners of the working groups that are trying to tackle this some of these problems on the community's behalf but but of spe having a particularly important impact on what we're doing school so just wanted to bring that up and that's my report thank you thank you Miss Morgan Miss Langford Fleming I have nothing Miss Jordan I'll say most mine for tonight but I just want to say Miss Morgan thank you for bringing that up about the tacos and that East Lee actually took first first and second place and Aero took third but the kids the excitement of the kids it was just phenomenal to see how excited they were to to just be a part of that day that was really great thank you

209Miss Patria so I'm going to give my report now so you don't have to listen to me tonight so I've done a few School visits principal Cooper out at Bonita Elementary first thank you to Dr Bernier and his staff for using what's that silver tape called duct tape duct tape to make the campus nicer more welcoming for the families and the students that attend that school while balancing the cost of that against the potential outcome of castaldi I know that's a hard balance but that's that's a school I'd be proud to some my kids to today so thank you for that and Mr Cooper dozens and dozens and dozens of children walked up to that man and hugged him or hugged his knee depending on how tall they were while he was there clearly he

210loves on those kids and has a staff that does the same Three Oaks principal Walker I think the best way to describe him is surprisingly self-possessed like I wasn't expecting that level of confidence in a seconde principal but he knows his community he knows his kids and he is all about the rules and the families I hear I hear nothing from the families and I live in a community where I will hear it if they're not liking it so that's good the tacos I voted for the winning team since I've been in the South I've tried new foods I tried Brits thank you shrimp and Brits which I had never had in my whole life until like two years ago I will never eat biscuits and gravy but apparently I had pork rinds for the

211first time did which is a southern it's not a Southern food but it's very popular in the South and it was the crunch of the pork rind that put the eastley county tacos up on top for me so that taco thing was super fun the kids were awesome and then finally ITF Insurance task force I've got another meeting with them tomorrow to talk about health insurance premiums I believe what employees will be playing paying versus what the employer we the board pay I do have to raise publicly a concern that I have brought up to Dr Bernier in the past that we are moving very very very far away from the interest based bargaining process we in ITF correct me if I'm wrong we're supposed to use interest based bargaining and then if we can't

212all get to a thumbs up not that I'm leaon so I don't thumb anything but I'm there to to report back to you if we can't all get to a thumbs up then we go to a straight vote we were pretty quickly out of the gate not and when I say we I don't necessarily mean the administration but we were pretty quickly moving away from the interest based bargaining process if we if if we want to do traditional bargaining in this District that's fine but I don't know that we can enter into another negotiation process without a refresher for all sides as to what interest based bargaining means what the expectations are and then some real guardrails as to what's going to happen if we or if either side moves away from interest based bargaining

213because it's a different approach traditional bargaining is a completely different approach and I believe that one side or the other is at a disadvantage if if we're not both engaged in interest based bargaining am I making sense yes ma'am I don't want to lay blame I don't want to publicly call anybody out but I'm not I'm not I wasn't worried about your staff in that room let's put it that way I believe that we should like you are reexamining Master board training and thank you for that for me because I've never been through it so this will be my first opportunity to sit with you as we go through that I think it's important to refresh and continue to develop skills so if you believe that a refresh regarding one in space bargaining is but

214remember there is one in between or actually one slightly above as well depending on who you speak to there's the traditional style but there's also collaborative bargaining but we have chosen in the school district move forward an interest based bargaining so I will work with the chief of staff and the Executive Director of Human Resources to have some conversations about who might be able to ensure that before our bargaining units get back together that we're refreshed or dare I say even recertified if that's even the case to ensure that we are we're clear on what the ground rules are that was a request that came up previous board meeting as well so thank you for continuing to act with that sentiment excellent those are my comments thank you thank you Miss Patria Miss juven and

215I'll just be quick too I just said a couple things I just wanted to we were most of us were in attendance yesterday at the Cape Coral Tech 30th Anniversary that was that was exciting because they actually talked about their their their oh yes the possib expansion of the campus and that is really exciting the growth there and the possibility of now utilizing the hector cafeta campus which is right next door they kind of Switched gears from when they moved to the other to the temporary site right now so I thought that was exciting news because you got we got to see it firstand and to see the staff that had been there almost 30 years and so forth that was exciting and then I actually this morning I was at Edison Park's little book

216fair with doing helping with that and then tomorrow I go back with my grandson to have lunch with him and do the buy his books actually I think he has a list but anyways one of the questions I actually have that came up someone asked me about this is regarding this is for the superintendent eser funds because we know what the future is not sustainable for the Esser fund so what actually is the plan I was curious on how many positions was created for the SR fund with Esser funds and at 100% And then 50% and then what how does that impact those teachers or actually employees really and you don't have to answer this right away but I would would I am curious because I'm just trying to think how are you going to

217sustain this with the fact you know with the factor of next year's what you know what are these teachers expecting their you know expectations and what you know what they'll be doing will their positions change you know and then how does that impact the students because we I don't know how many actually were created with the S funds positions for that but I mean what happens to those positions and where you know I so I have a lot of questions surrounding that and I can put it in an email but I just thought I would ask because I think you might give me more information that I even no but or understand but the timeliness of this request is once again dead on you asked about a month and a half ago for us to

218prepare an Esser presentation that presentation is scheduled for a workshop in November it will give you the entire overview of the three phases of Esser how we utilize those monies the number of people that or the number of positions that are there I can assure you that before this school year started those individuals funded by Sr dollars completely were notified that they were Grant funded position in the grant funding would run out we are based upon a conversation at cabinet we expect that we're going to take an additional additional action to reinform those people in January so that they're 100% sure that they need to be looking either for district position because we are not going to be able to solve to to necessarily save all of those positions that Esser had paid for however

219let's keep in mind Esser funded a lot of positions but we are not able to fill all of those positions so you'll also see some figures which we asked to go back and make sure that they're correct so I'm not going to repeat them here but we ask them to go back and make sure that those figures are correct for the cost if we were to absorb all of those employees what it would take out of our general fund and other funding in order to do that so the presentation is on the way okay great well I will wait for that a briefing then you don't have to you answered every pretty much so I'll wait for that so that was good thank you so much that's it thank you thank you Miss juven Elli

220I'll split my comments between now tonight first I went last week to my drug free Lee Coalition meeting I wanted to thank Dr berer and Dr tomasheski for helping out trying to get some participation in in one of the plays that they end up doing for the drug house Odyssey so I appreciate that so and I'll also be asking about in my motion tonight for Red Ribbon Week I'll be discussing that later tonight I also went to CSI I had last week and that was that was a really fun one because it was kind of an overview of the data and Dr Savage did a great job it was kind of a lot like a retreat he put up the data in different places and some of the principles and had them go around and

221Mark with different colored stickers so it reminded me a little bit of our process actually so kind of and what their priorities of stuff they'd like to to look at so that was that was fascinating so looking back in some of my CSI notes the top vote getter was retention I know they looked at assuming I can read my own handwriting I apologize kpi 5.1 and 5.2 I believe but I'll ask Dr Savage later to to follow up on that but they had there were some great discussions just you know looking at you know I mean everything from teacher turnover to Block Sing verse current scheduling coaching mentorship opportunities so it was it was a really really interesting discussion I really appreciate just being able to sit back and listen to all the people in

222that one that was a that was probably one of my best CSI ones so far so last thing I want to thank Dr berer and especially Dr cupin McCoy out there I was able to take some time last week with the academic Services team and go around so I have a lot of people thank thank you first off to Student Services team to the Esau team to the accountability team the Athletics team professional development team principal supervisor team curriculum team Grant and Charter Schools team adult and Career Education team student enrollment team and ESC team sorry I had to make sure I got to all those but it was a very fascinating look and understanding what's going on in this district and we have some fantastic people and I really just got to sit back

223and listen to to what's going on so I really appreciate that and thank you Dr berer and Dr cubid McCoy for setting that up so that's all my comments at the moment Dr berer none at this time sir okay attorney to pre Bruno no comment thank you Mr chair okay thank you we will have a student performance at 5:45 p.m. followed by our Action meeting at 6:00 seeing no other business come before this board this meeting is adjourned at 4:25 thank you everyone