001good afternoon board thank you for having us here today to go over this important information following the one-year anniversary of the impact of hurricane Ian first we're all in this together and as we attempted to list all of the major players who came forward and supported our district our students our community the list was long and we feared we might not get everyone on it so our intent there is to absolutely recognize all of our Community Partners and other agencies that supported our recovery and the consultants in particular that were brought on specifically for this initiative were AECOM and answer advisory Services who have helped in the project management area with our maintenance teams the Imperium Consulting Group who have helped with our insurance recovery and FEMA claims and I'd be remiss if I didn't
002mention Mr Jeff Wagner who was brought on to help lead our recovery efforts so those were key Consultants there are many those are the most notable and I just wanted to recognize them Dr B I just want you to just and we're not going to go down the list but we all know how deeply we indebted we are to our local legislative delegation in their help and support but also the work of Governor DeSantis and the first lady related not only to them signing the legislation that our legislators passed but also the hard work of the first lady related to recovery and dollars that were sent to our foundation in order to help individuals recover you know it the interesting part of this is It's All About a partnership it's all about the opportunity to
003take care of each other and in the course of This Disaster and in this in this event we found out more about our family and our friends and I think we weren't even sure I think one of the best lines I heard at the the various events on Thursday was strangers became neighbors neighbors became friends and the same thing occurred for us with our local school districts and school districts from across this state in our local school boards as well I know school board members reached out to all of you as well again we fear greatly that we have left somebody out of a list lists like this are dangerous we have please email me directly and we will make sure the next time we do this that we include other individuals as well but
004just really wanted to take the opportunity to just look at the different organizations that are here I don't know where we would be without the Florida Department of Emergency Management our foundation and within the list just goes on and on and on the United Way it's you know while not everybody's name specifically we tried to create large buckets where people would know who they are and that they belong they belong on this list and how appreciative we are of their support okay today's agenda we're going to go through the physical damages and Recovery that we've realized the financial impact in our recovery from that and have a focus on our people our emotional and mental health and how we're recovering from that as well this presentation was advertised a week ago in advance of this
005meeting we had some big news come in so over the weekend we updated the slides with the little yellow icon so anywhere you see that's a news to share and we're excited to share it with you yeah okay okay so I wanted to take a second to introduce those presenting with me Dr Tony Dent McNair is the assistant director of maintenance services good afternoon Mr Joseph mascali and you guys something to turn your red buttons on there from Imperium Consulting Group push and hold yep thanks Susan Joseph muscali with Imperium and Kip Nelson also with Imperium Susan and board all right so we'll jump right in to the physical damages and recovery and Dr Tony Dent McNair will lead that in discussion thank you Susan good afternoon in celebration of the one year anniversary of
006hurricane Ian and its recovery efforts as it relates to the damages sustained I am pleased to share an overview of the progress made during the last year as well as discuss our continued steps as we move forward to 100 completion of this effort a total of 2 317 service requests were submitted due to Hurricane Ian damage as of September 22nd when this data was submitted we had completed a total of 1 713 repairs throughout the district leaving 604 currently in progress as advancements are being made daily however I am happy to report that as of last Friday September 29th an additional 11 repair requests were completed thus reducing the total number of outstanding repair items to 593. this means that we have now completed over 74 percent of all hurricane Ian related repairs eight sites
007are a hundred percent complete with an additional four sites at 90 percent or higher the diagram in the lower right hand corner provides an interesting view of the quantity of damage sustained at each campus and amount of work currently in progress the larger circles represent campuses with larger repair Scopes like you can see Sanibel there off on the island to your left and the smaller circles represent sites with lesser damage similar to this dashboard which represents comprehensive damages like dashboards for each school have also been created and are distributed to each School bi-monthly hurricane damage was sustained in some measure throughout all district sites the most commonly affected areas and thus the majority of our recovery effort has been directed towards the restoration of Campus roofs drywall flooring ceiling tiles canopies sun shades athletic fields
008and fencing although prioritization of securing building envelopes restoring interior learning environments and guaranteeing student safety has been Paramount all hurricane damages have been captured at this point and assigned to vendors for completion we are managing these repairs with a goal of full completion by the end of 2023 with the exception of the replacement of the new Hector a kafarata Jr as a K-8 and some roof repairs which have been initiated but due to longer processes and material lead times may not yet be completed by our goal knowing that post-covered material procurement and vendor bandwidth had become more challenging we proactively implemented additional processes to secure piggyback contracts and utilize subcontractors and hard bids to expand capacity and help in order to help mitigate those foreseeable issues and keep all projects on track the data that
009you see on this bar graph separates the hurricane related repair work by area of concern blue represents the percentage of work across the district that has been completed in that area orange signifies that work is currently in progress meaning work crews are actively on-site conducting their repairs the red outlines at the tops of each column signifies those projects that are still in the pre-construction phase examples in this classroom in this classification include projects where engineering reports still might be finalized materials could be on order walkway covers are being fabricated but not yet installed Etc this top percentage does not mean that work has not yet started but signifies that preliminary work is still being accomplished in preparation for the Active installation work to come I am proud to report that our highest completion rates do
010correspond to our commitment to prioritize comfortable and safe learning environments with the top four being in the areas of Interiors electrical HVAC and Exteriors I know I did mention that securing the building envelope has been of the highest priority so you may be wondering why the completion rate for roof repairs is so much lower than those of similar concern these are complex Roofing projects and have been approached through a multi-phased process first we provided temporary repairs to our damaged roofs to stop any potential water intrusion and to secure our envelopes until the full extent of the damages could be captured and then reported then to ensure compliance and best method for roof repair we utilize District contracted Architects and Engineers to provide expert advisement as the course of action and recommended remedy for reconstruction or
011replacement or those roofs any firm involvement for roof repairs though does take a little more time than direct repairs in that multiple studies are conducted best methods for Replacements are researched new drawings and specifications are written Etc I am happy to report that while drawings and specs typically take about a year to complete though we have successfully achieved a three-week turnaround for these materials in efforts to help expedite these actual repairs and although mitigative efforts were implemented supply chain issues for roofing materials still have been a factor contributing to the extension of time needed to complete these these repairs so depending upon the materials needed ETA for supplies has been running between 6 to 24 weeks with the longer lead times typically being for Metals for fabrication of roof panels gutters fish and the like
012so for purposes of the presented bar graph while the blue denotes the 50 percent of roof work that has been completed and 16 percent are actively being repaired the 27 percent in the Box above is indicative of the current design phase or pre-construction status it does not mean that they've not yet to begin any work on these projects the same holds true for all the other categories listed of all of our campuses the most severely impacted sites were Hector a cafarata junior Elementary School Fort Myers Beach Elementary School and the Sanibel School Hector cafarata was damaged Beyond repair due to the roof material being blown off from the structure which allowed water to infiltrate the entirety of the building causing catastrophic losses to building Interiors Utility Systems and furnishings Fort Myers Beach Elementary also sustained
013cataclysmic damages resulting from severe Coastal water flooding throughout the lower one-story buildings of the school the Sanibel School similarly flooded and sustained extensive damages due to the cascading effects of the moisture from the standing water engineering assessments and Community input plans to restore replace all three campuses were enacted in response to the growing capacity in the west Zone as well as the now current need to permanently house the students at the former Hector a caperata elementary school the decision was made to build an existing K-8 Prototype at a separate district-owned location in order to appropriately address both issues this new replacement facility will be built with the plan to open in 2025 for the start of the FY 26 school year at Fort Myers Beach Elementary School all of the Interior contents utilities and mechanical
014equipment in the one-story buildings were in disrepair due to the significant water intrusion and were demolished the historic two-story building however has been remediated and is currently being renovated with construction scheduled for completion next month so that's exciting the Sanibel school though significantly damaged was found to be structurally sound with most of the major utilities intact as such the school was remediated in all interior Furnishings restored thus allowing the students to return to their classrooms earlier this year these next couple of slides give examples of some of the great work accomplished by the maintenance department as well as the hurricane recovery team throughout this past year so I want to give them a great kudos for all the work that they've been doing one of the most highly damaged roofs was what you see in
015the picture here was located at Calusa Middle School this modified bitterman roof was damaged all the way down to its substrate but I am happy to share however that this replacement was recently completed almost a full month ahead of schedule additional examples of completed repairs shown include the replacement of approximately ten thousand square feet of flooring at Fort Myers Technical Center and the replacement of the shared gym floor at Lexington Middle School and the Waxahachie Recreation Center complete with the newly painted Lynx mascot shown in the photo are the actual phys Ed teachers kissing the floor happy that they can now utilize the gym for their classes and ball games thank you Susan for taking that picture as we look forward towards the finish line of complete recovery we will continue to strategically manage project
016implementation prioritizing the protection and restoration of the student learning environment Roofing projects will also remain a priority and due to their complexity are the last major construction trade needed to restore District buildings to pre-storm conditions to keep stakeholders informed of our progress we will continue to provide weekly schedules for the major repair work at the high impacted schools and offer completion rate statuses for each school's physical damage we will also continue to collaborate with school administrators and building supervisors to ensure that each service request submitted has been successfully completed and we will maintain our supportive business services and Imperium with data collection and Reporting process to Aid in our FEMA and insurance reimbursement initiatives I thank you and with that I will turn this over to Joseph mascali to discuss the financial impact and Recovery
017thank you Dr Tony Susan Dr Bernier and the board for having us here this afternoon it's crazy to think that we last spoke with you all in December and I have the pleasure of beginning the recovery update on the financial side where we are a year from the event when we last met with you all in December we outlined the stage for this recovery effort and we coined the acronym of smart our goal was to be Strategic Mission oriented accurate resilient And Timely and I'll think you'll see that the efforts from The District Maintenance operation construction the hurricaneian recovery team the Consultants Dr Bernier the Department of Education in the state some of the folks that we thanked earlier in the presentation we were on track and we are consistent with the goal and objective
018that we outline for you in December on the slide before you'll see our financial losses This is Our rough order of magnitude back in October of last year we put forth an estimate of loss which at the time there were a number of items and categories that were to be determined we just didn't know what the impacts were going to be today we have a little bit more visibility into where we are I will tell you that these numbers do change we are constantly evaluating this especially as the district continues to make decisions operationally with respect to its recovery back in December we were anticipating a loss around 303 million dollars of total Financial impacts for the district today we're a little bit less than that at 277 million dollars and I'll explain some of
019the decisions that have been made in accordance with our goal of being smart with this recovery effort that has changed some of those numbers and why the main factors for reducing this rough order of magnitude is the district's response to the emergency remediation efforts to mitigate further damage it's easy to look back a year later and sometimes forget those decisions that were made early on by the district but the district was extraordinarily proactive in its decision making which not only got the students and the community back into the schools but also reduced our overall impacts and mitigated further damage the district has also as it is has a has it always been committed to local vendors decided to rely on its trusted local vendors that it's been working with and partnering for a number of
020years to perform those repairs which greatly reduced the cost for the district the district also mobilized a small army to perform the repairs as well immediately following the event again Bringing Down the costs and in some cases our estimates were just not in accordance with the actual expenses that have been incurred to date the major categories of loss that make up are now refined a rough order of magnitude of 277 million dollars pertains to property damage roughly 142 million the hector cafarata rebuild going from a K-5 through to a K-8 facility the financial losses that were suffered by the district as a result of the event contents vehicles and equipment and then the temporary facility also at Hector cafarata to you know resume normal operations as best as we could for the students of Hector
021cafarata next slide please this slide has a lot of detail on it so I'm going to try to explain it as simply as possible and if there are any questions I'll take those after the presentation this is our current projection of funding this is our layer cake graph as we call it this is adjusted in accordance with the rough order of magnitude and it gives some visibility to the district as to where we're anticipating costs to fall whether that be costs that the district will ultimately be responsible FEMA the state or our insurance carrier so I'll walk you through the list accordingly so there are some expenses that are simply not covered in the insurance policy or reimbursable under the FEMA public assistance program these are your tax revenue losses we did submit a claim
022up to the policy limit for tax revenue loss under the insurance policy and that is going to be part of the next Advance payment which I'll talk about out in a later slide and then we as a district made the decision to expand the footprint for Hector cafarata so again thinking about Mission oriented recovery the district saw an opportunity to take the Hector cafarata and expand it to be more conducive to its overall mission and its student body so there are some out-of-pocket Investments by the district with respect to this recovery we did receive a capital appropriation of 17 and a half million dollars from the state you will hear the state in a number of different layers of this chart they have been an unbelievable supporter of the school district they have allocated 17.5
023million dollars for non-fema related hurricane Ian Capital expenses so this is truly a creative to the recovery the county has reimbursed the district over 1.2 million dollars with respect to the emergency shelter operations this is new for the district previously for Hurricane Irma this was not something that was reimbursed so credit to Dr Bernier and the executive team for establishing very strong communication lines with the county to recover some of those expenses that were incurred the state typically will pay for half of the cost share burden following a major disaster where there's FEMA Public Assistance eligibility for This Disaster they're actually going to assume the entire cost share they passed the sb4 waiver program so that we have adjusted our calculations here showing again another investment by the state that light orange layer pertains to
024what we are anticipating FEMA to be to pay us based upon our current rough order of magnitude FEMA is typically the payer of Last Resort first comes insurance which I'll get to next and right now the current cost share is 75 cents on the dollar we are anticipating that to increase to 90 cents on the dollar which will just change the proration between the states layer and FEMA's layer as Dr Bernier announced earlier in the presentation last Friday we got notice of an award again from the state through the legislative Appropriations program or lap the district was awarded 51 million dollars which is tied for the highest allocation for this program the state set aside 350 million dollars for public entities impacted from hurricanes Ian and Nicole in the district was tied for the longest
025largest allocation of 51 million dollars and this award is essentially in advance on what the state anticipates FEMA to pay us now it's not the entirety of this FEMA layer but it's a start in a forward Direction the state has acknowledged that permanent work projects weren't moving through the FEMA cues as fast as they would have liked it to like them to see it so they decided to make an investment in the district submitted over 140 47 applications totaling 147 million dollars of requests and again we received 51 million dollars to help Finance the permanent repair projects that again have already started as Dr Tony outlined the last two layers are our insurance we continue to anticipate policy limits with respect to our commercial insurance policy that's 75 million dollars and we're slowly completing the
026nfip claim for our flooded campuses those being Fort Myers Beach Sanibel and Lexington Middle School and we're just waiting on a final few checks and to date we've collected 4.4 million dollars next slide please so cash flow overview this chart is really designed to show how from a funding perspective as we communicate in December our challenge is to try to keep Pace with the district right the district is moving forward with its repair and with its recovery and our goal is to try to make sure that the funds are coming in slowly behind the repair efforts to date we've received over 135 million dollars of committed funds I have already touched on some of these entities that have provided some funding commitments those being Insurance FEMA the county the capital appropriation by the state and
027this recent Award of 51 million dollars so in total 135 million dollars has been funded inside of a year of this recovery effort what have we received what's in the bank account in total we've received 56.8 million dollars a combination of insurance FEMA and again reimbursement from the county and what is the district encumbered what is it spent the district to date has encumbered a hundred million dollars with respect to its repair in this recovery so in terms of funding committed we have about a 35 million dollar windfall that we would will anticipate collecting a majority of that inside of this calendar year what have we expended as of this report we've expended 53.8 million meaning that the cash that we've received in our accounts at 56.8 million dollars has yielded a 3 million dollar
028windfall so inside of a year we've been able to to keep Pace with the district I can't promise that forever but so far so good and we're making sure that our team is constantly looking at opportunities to maintain that pace with the district next slide please so I'm going to touch on the insurance claim status and then I'll I'll turn it over to Mr Nelson who will go through the FEMA update but with respect to the insurance claim as I mentioned there are really two silos for the insurance claim recovery our flood insurance and our commercial property insurance as I mentioned with the nfip we are almost complete with our flood claims we're just waiting on a few checks so that should be resolved in the next 60 to 90 days on our property insurance
029side where we have 75 million dollars of limits we've received to date 40.3 million dollars of payments we are anticipating another 9.7 to be paid inside of this calendar year we will be through the first two layers of the policy so 50 million dollars and we continue to work with the insurance adjuster and his team on the final 25 million dollar layer overall it's been a very extraordinary effort in inspecting over a thousand buildings at 88 campuses we've been working extraordinarily close with the insurance adjustment team and our adjuster Rick Mullen and his building Consultants JS held we've collaborated with them to develop an appropriate rough order of magnitude with respect to your insurance claim so that the market your 14 inch insurance carriers are aware of this loss in the magnitude and the attention
030that they need to give the district with respect to its recovery and we continue to work with them to Advocate on the district's behalf to make sure that we're synchronized with respect to the damages so that we're all on the same page with respect to the district's loss and this collaborative relationship continues we meet bi-weekly and we're very much in touch to move this project forward for the district's recovery effort and with that I'll turn it over to Kip Nelson to talk about the FEMA claim status thank you thank you Joe as you can see on the slide FEMA likes to organize their projects and funding recovery program through their own administrative process it is administratively intense but it is navigable they have defined damage to the district in 1046 different sites slightly differently defined
031than our own internal processes through the maintenance department and through the hurricane recovery team they have identified roughly 305 projects some small some large and some for both emergency work which is temporary in nature like our temporary facility at Hector cafarata or debris pick up whenever we picked up vegetative debris and trash from sites and then permanent work which is the restoration of facilities and buildings as you can see we've got all types of projects in the permanent work roofing you know all of the types of categories that Dr Tony referred to earlier so far we have received approximately 10.9 million dollars in emergency work funding from FEMA as it's winding its way through the process and we have yet to receive any funding on the permanent work side some of that is due to
032FEMA facing multiple emergencies and disasters throughout the country that has put a strain on their funding mechanism it's referred to as the excuse me as the disaster relief fund so we heard news this morning that due to the continuing resolution that Congress just passed that they are now back to the table and ready to fund projects that were on hold due to that funding restraint for the last couple of months so next slide please so we really look there's some additional funding opportunities besides our two primary funding sources our two primary being the FEMA public assistance program and insurance funding so the first being Hazard mitigation called 406 and FEMA nomenclature doesn't really mean very much but Hazard mitigation is really additional measures to protect your assets from being harmed again in a similar type
033disaster so it's really building back better and protecting the federal investment and the district investment and its assets as Joe alluded to earlier there's support from the state through the legislative Appropriations program which we've recently seen some very good news and success with there is the increased participation from the state in offsetting what they call the cost share so much like insurance has a deductible where they ask you to have some skin in the game FEMA also asks you to have some skin in the game and that's called a cost share that's what does not come from the federal government so the state is supporting us in that non-federal contribution and then finally our team is extensively researching other opportunities through other federal agencies and through private nonprofits to do supplemental funding for other types
034of Damages Beyond just mere physical damages to facilities and structures so next slide please so in addition to the standard FEMA PA program which restores damages from the disaster and insurance which also does the same thing there are two other programs which allow us to build back even better right so there's another mitigation program called the hmgp program which again helps us either build new assets or protect existing assets from future types of harm right and then there is the resilient Lee or cdbgdr that's a long string of letters that people often have a hard time pronouncing or remembering the Lee County Board of County Commissioners has formed a long-term recovery committee they have asked nearly every public entity in the county to participate I know some of you have been asked for input I
035expect over the long term you'll be asked for more input and that will be a deliberative process both of these programs are really just kicking off right so where we have been actively working on negotiating and settling our insurance claim and our FEMA Public Assistance claim these two programs are at their infancy and will continue to develop in the near future so with that a little bit so broadly speaking again our major programs for Recovery funding are insurance and FEMA everywhere program has a different administrative burden but we are identifying milestones in each program in working proactively with the stakeholders in each program to develop a very action-oriented mission-oriented plan and schedule to proactively pursue maximizing funding in each recovery bucket of funding if you will so we have a plan for insurance and FEMA
036we can talk a little bit more about that we've decided we articulated some specific steps here don't want to have to read slides to everybody and board them to death but you see we are moving forward with each program with some alacrity and diligence so with that turn it over to Susan thank you one of the things that we wanted to make sure is that we touched on the personal recovery of our students staff and community and with that our Communications Department led the development of a wonderful document documentary on the hurricane Ian recovery and I hope that you might have had the opportunity to view that in we are not going to show the whole presentation however we did want to show you kind of the trailer for the communications demo so it looks
037like I'm having a problem launching this see I think you have to do control yeah not a shift sorry about that maybe not can I get some help from Communications to Launch okay is sorry about the delay here let's see all right so we could either skip that or give me a minute to pull it up Dr B what's your preference foreign it's really up to the pleasure of the board we can always come back to it if the comms team could be ready on the back side right maybe we could take questions or comments on the great work that this team has pulled together to present so just as a quick Authority so this is one of the heavy lifts that you asked for right you ask for a more full Workshop so you're
038getting it so when we talked in the one-on-ones about I do want some feedback towards the end of this in our next one on one's about the size of this but let me there's a couple things that we need to just say and we need to say publicly first of all I need to thank everyone seated at that table and there are also some individuals seated in seats here Barbara Sedano is here Frederick Ross is here Larry Stevens our new CEO is here they have another part of all of this work and thank you to Susan Malay for recognizing the efforts of Jeff Wagner who came as a personal favor and then unfortunately we eventually had to send him home but we appreciate everybody's effort to get us where we are I think the most
039important thing for us to think about is we're focused on all repairs as you looked at some of the data not all work orders all work orders are the same some are for some very big items and they take longer time to close out some of them are for smaller repairs that are more easily done I think the other thing that I think we need to make sure is that we allow people who are still sitting in a classroom they may be missing a microwave or a stove for their homet class we have not forgotten you there are processes we need to follow as well as a big ticket item such as the teardown of the former Hector cafaretta building we are still waiting for a final sign off we make progress on it about
040every two weeks with FEMA we're getting very very close for their opportunity for you potentially to be out there I believe it was board member Jordan who was involved with a bulldozer or something at Franklin Park Elementary I'm not sure I can promise you that same opportunity at Hector but we keep working through those processes and I think the one thing we heard Thursday and I think what we have to continue to encourage ourselves about is we've made fantastic progress but this is a long term recovery FEMA is the last person who will pay us we still have more work to do with our insurance companies but we will continue to work with FEMA recently more than a week ago we set up a conference call I have to thank not only our local delegation
041but the Florida Department of Ed as well as fdm and then we reached out through our federal senators and congressmen to get FEMA on the phone and not just FEMA on the phone but some really amazing decision makers from FEMA who agreed to a Cadence of meetings so we could continue to work with them the people on the ground here in Lee County working for FEMA have been phenomenal it's when the information disappears into the great bureaucracy that is our world that sometimes we were lacking the next Avenue to get to a decision maker and I have to tell you our federal delegation really stepped up and gave us amazing access so I think Susan's video has been fixed we'll quick little trailer to the video and then an opportunity for you to ask questions
042and we look forward to a deep and Rich discussion when I hear a hurricane Ian I think of resilience schools had so only encourage the community to go out and look at that documentary it's easily found on YouTube I can't tell you how deeply and indebted we are to the entire Communications team and the individuals some of our principals and other community members who participated some of our impacted staff those who ran shelters and other things it really is a great overview of of what we went through and some really candid comments from individuals about what we were trying to do at the time and understand more about our reflection one year later lastly I just need to recognize Adam Wright Adam Wright spearheaded this he is an amazing cinematographer as far as I can
043tell I know they will submit this through whatever Avenues they can because school districts actually compete for Awards this is one of those that will get submitted and I don't think he'll be mad at me but I will say when he comes back and he's due back in a little while his absence is due due to a new addition into his family so if you've been looking for him he's on Dad duty at the moment and he'll be back for his accolades at a later time to the board Mr chair your questions in our and on our responses thank you Dr Bernier comments questions board members Ms Morgan sorry because I've sort of been leaning on Dr Premier to do this because you know it reading the documentation that we get every couple weeks is
044just really difficult to put things in context so I really appreciate this overview which is doing it in chunks that I can absorb and retain so thank you very much for this presentation it was very helpful to me thank you those are my comments thank you others Mr persons filed by Miss Jordan this is for the superintendent or were you able to get any figures how this compared to like Irma the total damages how many schools or anything on those lines I don't have that information yet I've made the request Susan molay however is shaking her head so I will ask Susan if she has that data it had not yet made its way all the way to me yet sir so for Hurricane Irma which was the worst storm in history of Lee County
045to recover from we were devastated with a 30 million dollar loss and then came in and the initial ROM is 300 million luckily it's coming down a little bit to 277 million however for comparison to Irma that gives you yeah basically 10 times so yeah all right thank you Ms Jordan filed by Ms Morgan thank you very much for this and I just wanted some clarification I may have misunderstood what you said Joseph I think it was that made a comment regarding the award of the 51 million dollars is an advancement of what FEMA would be paying it's an investment so is that 51 million is what we would be would have to pay back once FEMA pays on that we are working on getting a funding agreement from the state the intention of it
046was to present what we believe our FEMA claimed to be and for them to advance the funds so we can get work started or reimburse the outflow of cash that the district has already outlaid Okay so we're going to get clarification over the next couple weeks as to what it is but right now it's a zero percent loan by the state and we're anticipating them to just apply reductions and payments that would otherwise come in the future through the state from FEMA okay thank you because I know that when ever when I heard 51 million and a lot of people said oh the state gave us 51 million in actuality it they did give it to us however there are strings tied to that and that's where what I heard that's why I wanted that
047clarification so thank you for that Ms Morgan yeah and the point I wanted to make piggybacking of what off what chairperson said so it was 30 million 75 percent recovery thus far from Irma 10 times that 300 million the initial cost for or estimate of cost for for Ian and they're talking a 90 recovery potentially because of the work that was done by staff the work that was done by people in the community based on what they learned from Irma you know how to document and then coming in quickly and doing all of the work necessary to get remediation done and prepare things for FEMA on site so just saying that kudos to everyone on staff who was involved in doing the documentary work and then also it since then you know doing the claims
048following up Etc I think that's that's an extraordinary difference so that's my comment thank you Miss Patrica filed by Ms juvenile so I think what we fail to recognize here is that the work that's being done is being done on top of our regular everyday responsibilities and when I say hours I mean yours so I mean that's across the board the people who are sitting here and the people who are in maintenance and the people across the district who have just done work that I'm exhausted hearing about it never mind doing it so my appreciation there really aren't words to express my appreciation thank you very much I think that Irma was a learning experience for us in terms of the bureaucracy that is our federal government you said it's our world it's really our
049government in general I'd like to think that it's not our world but I do have a question slide 16 the cost of Hector cafrata Portables is there any reimbursement for those specifically I didn't see that in there it is it's not specifically called out in this chart but there is reimbursement through the insurance policy and anything not recovered in the insurance policy we'll fall to FEMA all right because I remember when we built that was a huge leap of faith and it was one of the more difficult decisions I had made to fund that not knowing whether that money was going to come back to us you know when you talk about roofs you said it almost apologetically like we still have 27 left to go but as you drive through the community you see
050that there are still a lot of people whose homes don't have a permanent roofs on them so I think that I think that the recovery the speed of the recovery is understandable and actually amazing given the condition that so many people are still in personally in their own personal recovery so don't be apologetic about the work you're doing I appreciate the explanation but it's certainly an apologetic tone was not at all required and then finally Adam Wright you mentioned him and I met with Mr Guzman last week and we talked about Communications and how to better engage families and I can't think of a better way to do it than to make Adam more busy because the things that he puts out are so engaging and people want to watch them and I did see
051this video on our Facebook page and there was not one negative comment how often do you see a post on a public education social media site where there are no negative comments I just think that kind of material hopefully will get our community excuse me get our community more engaged those are my comments thank you Ms juvenile thank you wow I just want to say thank you this is a huge difference from the whole experience with Ian versus Irma and that was one of the so thank you chairpersons for bringing that up because that was one of the things that I was concerned about when do we expect kind of completion of this like I think that I know that it might be it's you know you don't have crystal ball because with FEMA you
052need probably the crystal ball and then a lot more time but anyways I just was curious what when do you think the roof situation is going to be the roofs are all going to be completed and whatnot and I'm just curious so that's a great class of clarification with Gmail let's go down the line I think I think we have some some Target dates regarding the repairs and when we believe things like roofs could be done but I think they're also important for the board to know and for the public to know there are some approaching deadlines regarding FEMA and the work that we're doing in in order to meet those deadlines and ensure that we're in the best possible place for reimbursement so if we can start with facilities and Construction in the work
053orders yes that is correct we are planning and our goal Target date is the end of December for the major roofs to be done there will be some roofs again as I mentioned due to some some issues with etas for material purchase and such like that will linger into the early part of 2024 but we are working to expedite all the repairs as quickly as possible thank you with respect to Insurance our goal as presented is to settle the claim by next summer and with FEMA we've learned through hurricane Irma we this summer had the closeout of the FEMA projects from Hurricane Irma Irma from six years ago and we continue to have projects from Hurricane Irma audited from the state before we receive reimbursement so that's Irma was a six-year recovery and we're very
054hopeful that this will be a shorter recovery so it looks like that to me that's what I see it to be a shorter recovery as well and I actually have to say that I think a lot of it has to do with the leadership of the superintendent and getting the right people here quickly expeditiously and your leadership really I think is proving this just in this presentation so I just want to thank you Dr Bernier thank you anybody else Miss Langford Fleming yeah I just wanted to say thank you again for all your efforts I mean when you go back to the beginning of this presentation you talked about a list and trying to make sure that you got everybody on the list and I think that would almost be impossible because so many people
055came together to make this happen not only in maintenance and in your department Dr Bernier your efforts are incredibly appreciated along with your staff and I would be remiss if I didn't say the efforts of our teachers and our admin trying to get back in their classrooms in 14 days and some of them having wet socky soggy books and maybe a wet rug and they still did it and they and they were like we just want our kids back in our classroom so if we look back from a year from now I just I'm amazed that all that's happened and if you go to slide 21 it talked about resilience and for and the development committee this is what happens when a community comes together and everyone gets their sort of egos out of their
056way and we're all putting our best efforts forward and we're coming together as a team with our County Commissioners and our school board and our superintendents and the other directors I know that the 51 is somewhat of a loan but I am very appreciative of the legislative efforts that were done to be able to get these projects going and done as quickly as possible so the roofs can be done in early 2024 so I just wanted to to put that out there thank you okay I have a question slide 17 please okay thank you I think I and I believe this would be for Imperium I believe I asked this question December we're at for a policy limit 75 million you said we're around 50 million realistically how close do you think we'd get to
057that 75 million all indications with the adjustment team is that we will continue to get towards that limit so we're just taking it layer by layer and our adjuster is working with the insurance Market to make sure that his reports make it through so as we look at each Advance payment that's forthcoming we're already starting on the next payment but right now we continue to hold 75 million dollars in anticipation of reimbursement from the insurance carriers okay thank you the other just comment and I think this came up in regards to FEMA it looks like we had a strong start to it and I kind of tailed off a bit I know things are very unpredictable as Dr Bernier said new guys so do we think we're going to start getting back on the right
058track with FEMA so really the FEMA funding came from one project award so the debris removal initiative in our for our school district exclusively was 20 million dollars 20 million dollars of debris was removed from our property and FEMA has reimbursed us the first half of that so we continue to get work on the reimbursement for the second half and all the other projects which are moving through the FEMA system and so really that 10.9 number is from one project and then a couple hundred thousand from another one so as Dr Bernier alluded to we've had great conversations with FEMA leadership identified a couple of obstacles and were in progress for knocking them down and moving on okay thank you I'm gonna Echo the rest of the board and thank you for everyone in the
059district and our outside parties to the local delegation to the governor thank you for everyone for your help it's appreciate thank you Dr Bernier for your leadership I will make a quick comment you talked about having these briefings and workshops a bit heavier I know I'm on board with that probably need a few more minutes on this one I don't know how my fellow board members feel but I'm I'm good with it so thank you everyone Mr chair can I just say one quick thing and I appreciate all the board members comments directed at me their staff gathered in this room and their staff listening none of this gets done just by one person deeply indebted to the leadership of a chief of staff who at the time said you know what you know what
060we need somebody's got to be a driver we've got to drive and I remember Michael in the conference room telling the team that his personality wasn't going to change he was still going to be a nice person but his role for me was to be The Driver to make sure things got done on and I just watched staff respond but to miss langford's Point none of this gets done without countless other people and just know and we heard it a lot on Thursday you know it's it's a long recovery back but you continue to see on Thursday local state and federal commitment to the when the news cameras go away and and it's one year later there are still some people in very important positions that are still looking out for all of the people
061impacted by Hurricane Ian and thankful to those individuals for their support and yours as well as board members thank you thank you doctor thank you everyone next up on the agenda is item B5 policy review that will be with attorney Dupree Bruno thank you Mr chairman it can be five minute recess please sure let's take a five minute recess thank you do we know if we're live streaming right now oh sorry thank you okay we're resuming the briefing today we are now on to item B5 policy review with attorney Dupree Bruno thank you very much Mr chairman with me today is Miss Benny Brophy and we're going to go through any of the policies that the board would like to review this is your first reading you've already been pre-briefed but there is one policy
062that I do want to bring to the board's attention which is 9140 citizens advisory committees I have attended all of the citizen advisory committee meetings and a common theme has come up with regards to the limit of two absences before you are actually removed from the committee many of the Committees requested that they have the same leniency that the board has to participate in a meeting if they are ill or if they have a family member who's ill or if they are traveling so we would like to recommend that we add that language under membership section d okay board members I know I've encountered this the same in my I'm gonna say CSI I apologize strategic we'll keep it at CSI for a moment I can't remember the new name my apologies what are your
063thoughts fellow board members on making that change anybody against making that change attorney to pre-runo do you have your guidance on that policy thank you and there's one other thing I wanted to bring up to the board it's under construction and the old policy and we kept it in the new policy that was one member of the fire chiefs Association who was going to be appointed I have found out that we actually have never done that so we would like to remove that section from the construction advisory committee from anyone here in that removal Miss Patrica I don't object but I'm looking down it should be strategic planning and accountability below that e okay we'll change that this morning yeah and I have a comment back to it we are in 9140. in my committee
064Finance advisory they actually took a motion and a vote to appeal to the board to go to allow both in person and a hybrid so I just I'm throwing it out there the motion was made a recommendation has been made to the board this doesn't go to staff this comes to us so we can discuss it now while we're doing the policy review or or discuss it at a later time but there was a lot that was said about this a lot of concern about not being able to do one of the both so Mr chairman if I could just to elaborate as to what Miss Morgan said I would appreciate if we have the discussion now so that we can revise if the board wants to revise the policy now currently reads that members
065can meet in person or they can meet virtually there is no hybrid option in that in the policy and I believe that's what Mrs Morgan is asking for they want to be able to meet in person and also virtually for those who want to participate virtually and just to clarify this is separate from what we just did in regards to making hybrid for if you're sick or out of town on business correct yes sir okay comments questions board Miss Jordan the finance committee I served on that and they did have a problem with getting enough people on so it was easier for them when it was a hybrid because of the fact that they could at least make a quorum when they did not have that they were not able to do any business at
066all because of the fact that they did not have enough people but then again what you just said I guess it if we're allowing it for one why would we not allow for them if we're allowing it for somebody who is sick to because that if somebody's sick the staff is going to have to get that together and bring the equipment to even do hybrid or a phone call into that meeting for us to that what we just said it was okay they're gonna have to know in advance to make that all happen so if we're going to do that for them then we should be able to do it for finance it's not just Finance well I'm saying just for anybody okay Mr persons I guess my question is how hard is this on
067the staff to set up a hybrid meeting versus an either or meeting and it's out of my Lane so I don't know the answer that I don't know that setting up a meeting I'm fully virtual face-to-face or hybrid is any more difficult than any other way I think it just it makes it can make it more difficult to know who's going to be attending and how but I don't know that it's any more difficult is that it Mr persons yes okay Ms patrika so having just attended the Alba meeting in a hybrid format I do think there will be some hiccups in the beginning but as long as we have somebody on the on the virtual end who can be communicating directly with a staff member to let them know what's needed virtually to hear
068and to see and all of that I think that once we overcome that initial sort of learning curve I don't think it's an issue at all and I think that anything we can do to encourage participation by our committee members is important so I don't know I'm wondering if we even need a way to fix this might be to take out the part of D there if a member is ill has a family member who's ill or is traveling for business I mean can we just allow anyone to attend hybrid oh no all right I see where you're making the change all committees never mind I take back everything I just said except for I'm in favor of hybrid this is the problem with long meetings you start to make no sense at the end
069okay Miss juvenile followed by Miss Jordan so this came up in Miami and then the other concern that I was thinking is okay so if you're good on now start allow Zoom option I guess right hybrid is going to be Zoom so therefore come public the public also had that same option correct the public is going to be able to jump in on the zoom too right so there's there's a couple of things we're not doing zoom we're doing teams well it's there's a difference because I know that there was at least one committee that had some difficulty with doing the teams meeting so we have to make sure that from a technological standpoint that we can accomplish I'm sure that we can and yes I would agree that if this is going to be
070a hybrid meeting or a virtual meeting then the public needs to be able to have access to participate so that leads me back to then that can be video recorded by someone doing that because those are video at that point so and we were kind of getting away with that and going audio but that late that leads to public options too they can video any of that with with their phone and whatnot so just have to keep that peace in mind is what I'm gonna that's why I'm bringing that up okay up next is Miss Jordan though the only thing I was going to add and this has been goes back three years and I did speak to Mrs Dupree Bruno about it there was a time when I was on edac where a person
071had to leave for work for work duties but wanted to participate so they were able to phone in and be on the phone they would not recorded they were not on Zoom they were on the phone just like a speaker phone and they were able to participate that way and that's been like three or four years ago but I did share that okay up next is Miss Morgan followed by miss Patricia fob I miss juvenile and I and I'm trying to remember how all of these different things work but isn't there a way for people to participate via chat even if they're not visually participating just throwing up so I'm not Miss Morgan are you referring to if there's a virtual meeting for somebody so I do not counsel that members of the board advisory
072committees participate via chat because of sunshine concerns I do have one board that does do that but they have very specific stringent requirements that they utilize to be able to accomplish that and it's it's still not my favorite thing just because of potential Sunshine violations all right next up Miss Patrica yeah it's strategic planning and accountability sorry Miss juvenile so when the there's presentations on the teams you know that accessibility needs to be there on the phone you don't have that you know you're not going to be able to see the presentations you might be able to hear them but you're not gonna be able to see that's the nice thing about the option of hybrid I would say or teams or Zoom whatever you know I know that I was going to give up
073my give my update quickly today but that's the choice they did they chose to do virtual all the meetings for DAC so and then they break out into their separate little yeah rooms and then they come back and that's all done virtually versus and in person they chose not to do in person because they a couple of the people actually said I thought this was only virtually anyways or I wouldn't have signed up so that's just two cents or ten I don't know how anymore it can be inflation thank you real quick do you mind if I ask a question Miss Morgan stay in the room okay just wanted to if somebody could refresh my recollection on this essentially what was the Genesis behind going hybrid because obviously we made that point during the during
074our policy change I don't remember why so I don't know if anyone or attorney Dupree Bruno or any paper on the board so in the discussions with staff and when we're discussing this some felt that it was harder to have the meeting when you have some people on the screen and some people in person I mean sometimes disrupts the flow of the meeting but that was really the Genesis of that okay to the super through the chair to the superintendent perhaps to Mr Gomez it perhaps he should come back and make a recommendation about various way understanding what it is we're trying to accomplish in our committee meetings you know what is the best vehicle for doing this if we want to have a hybrid meeting using teams or Zoom or phone or whatever thank
075you when it comes to communication communication works best face to face face-to-face will always be the best communicate communication because you gauge and are able to see body language response eye contact I the research and science thought science is that is very clear the next although it's uncomfortable sometimes probably the next best is some form of visual that adds both the visual face or person as well as their voice because now you at least still have two of it you may not be able to see hand movement and folding of arms or tapping of fingers but but you see enough to to be able to interact phone is clearly the last one of the last ways a communication is best done and I always add email at the very bottom because email is the way
076you read things and but that's not under a under discussion at the moment because you tend to read Things based on the mood you're in and you add you add feeling into a person's words that may not be there so I think face to face is best hybrid is the next best in participating by phone while I have done that I think the board members are correct if there's presentations going on it's difficult to see difficult to understand but at least you are in attendance of the meeting and it could help with a quorum I will certainly speak to Mr Gomez to make some determinations as to if he has any additional re research related to that but I would defer back that I think what we're really discussing is a legal issue at what
077point do you have the you know to get to gain a quorum is somebody participating via a teams meeting an active member or participant Etc so for board advisory committees the statute was changed and allows for a quorum to be formed even if people are online participating virtually it's different for board members but in terms of board advisory committee said they'd make that allowance Miss Patrica and then Miss Jordan I called Mr Gomez by the last name the wrong last name so I'm really sorry I'm really bad with names and I'm really sorry Jordan thank you again we have to remember too when we're in these meetings because we're all sitting in those meetings so you have a staff member and even in the at the Alva I was there and Mr Ramirez and everybody
078else was jumping up trying to get the the computer to turn around in the right direction so everybody could see and then jump back up turn it around so there's going to have to be that individual that's going to be monitoring the zoom or teams they have to watch that and which direction that they're putting in to accommodate everybody in that room I just so that's probably an extra staff are we now putting that on the person who is the district in the district liaison I'd like to make a just a quick comment I understand how the hybrid's been before and then it's been helpful but me personally I prefer face to face unless it's absolute necessity on that other local governing bodies their committees are generally in person so I don't I could be
079wrong specifically on some of them but you know I would I understand making the accommodation when someone is sick or there's business most of these boards I thought for the presentations that we get the at least some of us get the materials before at least an email or if not maybe we could have that so if somebody does maybe do a call in or something like that so I know my fellow board members think Miss juvenile so I know this wasn't favorable completely but I like that they recorded just the video recording because I could go back and watch it and listen and I could hear everything and I and so if you had the video going someone could still be watching that live oh I know they would kind of they weren't even alive
080so they would come back on later but you could go back and review it but if they were on the phone then they could I then they could actually vote with the Quorum I don't know I just wanted to have that conversation and bring up that the ability to see what was happening and this to see the actual presentations was really critical for me because I could go back and watch and see what happened in the different meetings the different committees thank you Miss Morgan filed by Mr persons so I'm going to just say that my position is at this point that we eliminate hybrid meetings and we do allow people to participate if they are ill or traveling on business because I really do want to force the issue of People attending in person
081I I it's it's unfortunate with staff essentially you're going to have to have somebody there in case someone has to participate via Zoom is ill or on business for virtually every meeting but my preference would be not to allow hybrid meetings at this point but to allow certain exceptions in terms of personal attendance that's it thank you Mr persons I believe the options aren't exactly those two things because we do allow a committee to do virtual am I correct so if they can do virtual or they can do in person you know what we're really discussing here is hybrid going to be an option and you know each committee will have to decide which one of those three they want to do it's not like they it's going to be an option for them should
082be each committee has the choice of you know in person because some of them really want that virtual and I'm on the construction committee is in person right now that's what they want virtual is the audit committee I believe and then hybrid could be another committee you know I mean but that's what they decide you know well we need to decide here is are we going to give them just two options or three options is what we're deciding how they do the hybrid would they we don't have to decide that today it's just it's we know it's doable so to me it looks like either we add an option of hybrid or we leave it at either virtual or in person and I'm for adding it I think most of them probably don't want to
083do it but that'll be up to the committee themselves thank you chairpersons I think miss Patricia yeah I'll Quorum virtually came from this board and the reason for that is because we had significantly higher participation when we allowed people to participate virtually if we are trying to get parents and families more engaged eliminating hybrid is not the way to do it because at the end of a long day the last thing I want to do it could get in the car and drive down to the district for a meeting so hybrid allows parents who are exhausted after soccer practice and school and making dinner and all of those things to just turn on the computer and they don't even have to be on camera and they can still participate some people feel more comfortable talking
084if you can't see them which gets to Dr bernier's point about perhaps it not being the best form of communication but if we're looking for our community to engage and to provide feedback I believe that the hybrid option is the way to go Miss Jordan okay some of us have already had committee meetings based on what our discussion was Prior and in those meetings we spoke about what did that look like to the meetings to to that committee and I know edac decided that they wanted to be in person so for us now to go back and go oh guess what guys now we decided we're going to add something I just think that we have to stay consistent we can't keep changing our minds on what we want because that we will have to
085go back to those committees and ask them and then again how does that work so every every time there's edac will be on Monday so is a an email sent out to edac on guys you now have an opportunity you can be on hybrid here's your link if you want to be there so now what incentives does that give that person I know personally when I speak to people to be on these committees I tell them exactly what they need to do I tell them that it's x amount of days that they will have to be there in person to be engaged three or four meetings whatever that is and what their what the job description is for the those committees so I know I always have that conversation so the people that I have
086chosen know that they're going to be expected to be there and to participate so I'm just trying to figure out how do we go back now and tell these other committees that now you have another option and what does that look like going forward thank you Miss Jordan actually when I talked to my people I mentioned the same thing so it looks like we have two options up here Miss Morgan Had indicated that we keep as is and Mr persons would like to move forward with a hybrid option so I guess we need to figure out kind of what direction we want to take so I would be supporting Miss Morgan's keeping as is right at the moment who would let's see who would have an objection to that okay okay anybody else do you
087mind if I comment really quickly I just find it I just you know I was just at the I thought committee meeting and while I am actually very privy to how M Ms teams works and how Zoom works it's it's not that difficult you can break off into rooms but then you have to be careful about what you're discussing in rooms so I understand all that but I also understand what I mean me being a working mom if I wasn't on the board and I wanted to be a participant in committee meetings and be a little bit more engaged in my children's education and I lived in St James City and I can't get all the way to the district office but I'm not sick I don't have work I just live an hour away
088and I have two children who need to get to soccer practice I completely understand what you're saying I just think we need to make sure that these people are volunteering their time and we're trying to get more families involved and I think we need to be very careful about drawing this Line in the Sand where it's either in person or you can't participate because I think we're just going to have a really hard time starting to get people to volunteer but I also agree with Dr Bernier yes face to face is always the best form of communication and I think we need to make sure that when we are asking our constituents in the community be a part of this we need to be really clear about we prefer you be at the meetings in
089person so I could I could go either way I hate to get rid of the virtual altogether though and perhaps we need to allow the language to be here and let each committee decide on what they want because there's a board for each committee and let those people decide on me be it Finance or or edac let that board decide what they want to do in their one or two year term Dr Bernier if I may I just think it's really important to remind the board that you when you're considering these options you have a particular group the doc committee that survives on a on a on a virtual model so I think it seems to me if I if I may that having a virtual model or being in person right is where you're
090at you know those are the options the question for you is a hybrid but I think if I want to just settle the people down on the DAC committee who come from everywhere and they have a very effective use I was invited to their meeting the other night to give words of Welcome they have very effective use of of a virtual environment including breakout meeting rooms the whole nine yards they have they've put it in a good spot they've put us in a good spot so I just want to make sure that virtual stays on the table as an opportunity along with face to face thank you Dr Brian here yeah I believe it was we would keep the choice depending on which option it would still be virtual in person or virtual in-person hybrid
091so I think we still need a little bit more and I agree with Miss Fleming each committee would basically have to make that decision for basically the year I would think so everybody knows it's on the committee and we can List It On when they're meeting to what their options are this is this committee is in person you know when the public they know they have to come here this meeting is virtual only and they can tune into that or it could be a hybrid you know I mean that's how I see it happen I don't see like each week all of a sudden oh we're next week we're going to do in person everybody has to be here and then the following month I said week by mid month they say oh we're going
092to do virtual next month yeah I think they need to be consistent you know and I think most of them would be like you say edac would definitely be virtual they're good at it and they want to stay there but turning debris Bruno then we'll get back to I think it was miss Patricia or Miss juvenile sorry yeah so just for clarification the current policy does say that at the beginning at your first meeting you are to decide whether or not you're going to be in person or you're going to have virtual meetings so based on my recollection doc chose to have virtual meetings Finance advisory committee I believe was in person but they're the ones who are asking for the hybrid because they did have some individuals at the first meeting that appeared online
093curriculum advisory is in person continue I'm sorry strategic planning and accountability I believe they chose to be virtual and edac is in person so they've all made a choice it's just that questions have come up with regards to the hybrid I believe Finance was one and there may have been another committee that asked the question the main burning question that they had is if I'm sick if I have a death in the family or there's something going on I'm traveling on business may I still participate because the board now has that more restriction in terms of if you missed two meetings you are removed from the list so that's really what they were asking but to Miss Morgan's Point there were also questions about participating hybrid Miss juvenile no go ahead Miss Morgan oh and
094one of the reasons one of the things that came up in my meeting our meeting Finance advisory there's a woman who actually there were two people who participate from work because they don't get off from work before the meeting starts and they want the opportunity to participate so I just wanted to mention that it's not just about illness and you know out of town on business it's also about I can participate if I can participate from the office so that leads me to be like are we really being inclusive are we being exclusive so I I think that we have to really think about the big picture and we want participation because I know that Dak they took they had to take a couple of those they had to do it a couple times because
095they weren't sure if they were getting you know who wanted to do it there was a strong one in that person you know in person and there was a strong group that wanted it virtual so I just think that I think we just need to be inclusive and so I'm going to support the hybrid I think at this point after the conversation thank you I would say and I agree with what everyone's saying up here it to me it's this is not a I'm easily able to go over to hybrid in this I mean I guess it's already there anyway I don't want to make a big deal out of this so I think I would say at least guidance wise I think attorney to Brooke Bruno do you have your guidance now on this
096or so the language was changed to in-person Virtual or hybrid that's that's what I'm hearing from the board so maybe regarding the hybrid if it's going to be hybrid that we that we you know require a notice a prior a real a good and so that they know that the option or is it just always going to have a zoom link I'm sorry or teams link whatever so what would be the actual you know procedure there you know so it will have to go back to the Committees in October for the Committees to make their final decision as to how they want to proceed I would imagine that many will go ahead and choose hybrid and from there they'll they'll we'll have to just set it up with staff okay I'm just curious thank you
097thank you is everyone ready to move on to the other policies thank you for the discussion do you want me to just ask if there's any policies in particular so I'm going to ask board members or any particular policies you want attorney debris Bruno on the board to address this moment Miss Patrica yes for the discretionary compensation for elected superintendent there's still a word missing in that last sentence so the change on that policy is reflected on the screen to make sure we were in compliance if you remember attorney dietzen said that we needed to be careful with the language because of FRS requirements so we changed it to supplement is that what you're referencing miss Patricia now that is not what what I saw in that's not what's in board docs so that's what
098you have up there is not what I saw in preparation for today's meeting it's always this language okay with you foreign yeah yeah and then the other change was in due consideration for into consideration of talc and spouse that's in the second paragraph thank you I'm not I'm not sure that makes sense I don't understand what that means so there was some discussion by board members regarding consideration of talc and spalk when raising salary and normally the admin administrative salary schedule follows whatever occurs with talcan spouse so in order to try to address that concern in recognizing that it does follow talking about it just says in due consideration the administrative salary schedule May receive from time to time in due consideration of talcan spouse which is always considered any comments on this language is
099the board supportive of the due consideration of talcan spalk in there I don't really think it needs a b in there because that is the way it is period for me I was going to say the same I don't I don't see it needing in there but Mr juvenile and you were here and I brought this up before but there was a time when administrative salaries were increased before spout can talk and Mr chair and that's interrupt the board member I as long as this was sort of a line and language issue I felt comfortable sitting but if we're going to get and I'm just sorry to interrupt but if it's going to get into a deeper conversation I just think it's wise that I just step aside and allow Mr Ramirez to take my
100seat during this part of the board policy review thank you thank you I'll come back and so for me this was about recognizing our spouse and talc and knowing to give them a comfort level of that salary increases won't happen and that's the reason why bringing it up it's just it's it's just a reminder let's not forget them because I feel like sometimes they feel they're forgotten and our actions have seemed to be that they've been forgotten so I think it's important to have them in there thank you on that language this person well I just have a question exactly how this works I mean the way I'm reading it if the highest salary let's just say it's two hundred thousand where does the superintendent start at it just says it has to be no
101less than 200 but what is it is it 2 000 I mean 200 000 one penny I mean I mean we need to sort of decide I think something where people can figure out what the salary is one dollar more or something I mean I just think for clarity we need to do something there and the other looks like it will never be more than supplement is this discretionary vote the board may increase the superintendent's base with a supplement at a rate of oh it doesn't say a rate I'm sorry it's a cross through my mistake so anyway I just thought the base salary should be a number and it could change because we don't know what the highest paid employee will be at any one moment but it is maybe we should put in
102there a dollar more or rather than always more or a thousand more I don't know I mean something that makes sense for someone running I was kind of thinking based on our last discussions I mean I would in agreement with having a dollar more I kind of thought that's where we were right I just think it should be in there is all I'm saying Lord I feel about that Miss Patrica as it's written does the board have this is a question for the board attorney through the chair if I may does the board have the ability to determine what that means should our highest paid employees start to make 250 000 does the board look at the policy and decide okay it's 250 000 and one dollar like how how would that play out in
103the scenario Mr person's just provided please I think it's exactly what you said so the way that it is currently written it gives a lot of leeway to the board to make that determination at the time it's usually better to be as specific as you possibly can be but this is what the board wanted from our last discussion to give you that leeway and that's the point the flexibility is exactly what what I've been trying to provide to Future boards through the wording here so I'm I'm comfortable with it as is and I understand if I may while we're here I understand what Ms giovannelli is saying about talcons back I don't necessarily recall history the same way she does but I do understand that talcan spalc need need consideration it's just so in-artfully worded
104that I'm not sure it makes sense in there so I'll go with the will of the board on the talking spout language and it's nobody's fault that it's an aren't fully worded it just is I can't think of a better way to say it Mr persons I still understand opponent X gets elected what is his salary or her salary do we decide that when they're sworn in and say okay now we're going to vote on your salary it's going to be one dollar more or it's going to be 50 000 whatever I don't I mean I feel very strange being in that spot to do that I mean I think we need to have a firm starting point you know I mean even if you want to say equal to the highest employee you know
105but whatever we need to do I feel we need to do something so that person knows at a minimum you know they know they're going to make more but they should know what they're making you know and then if we want to give a supplement or whatever that's I'm all for that I like that idea that we can raise it but I think there should be something firm okay let me real quick go back because we have a couple competing points first I think let's address the due consideration of talc and spouse I'm going to ask who on the board objects to having that language I will be objecting yeah okay so then that's going to stay in there yeah in regards to that it looks like we have it was okay next up let's
106address the salary part let's go does anybody object to then having an amount let's say a dollar more in regards to the salary for the superintendent defined in this policy who would be objecting to that okay miss Patricia I'm not sure I object I just I'm not sure why it's necessary what is the dollar amount the superintendent is making that's what the first sentence tells us the first sentence tells us what the salary is and then the second paragraph tells us that if that salary is below the highest paid employee then the superintendent shall not make less than that and then the board has the discretion to determine what above that highest paid employee the superintendent should get so I don't think anybody throwing their hat into the ring for this job doesn't know what
107they'll be making thank you one of the things I had suggested before was having some kind of annual I want to be careful of my wording salary review do we want to maybe put that in there that would address that maybe we could have it set I would say election time or reorg or after I mean but I don't know anyone have any thoughts on that there's something in there last last sentence it's in there the time for it any given fiscal year but the time well yeah that's what I was asking so if you look at paragraph number three that's the one that's specifically talking about initial compensation may be made either on the anniversary date of election or other special circumstances occur because it's a May in there that's why I was addressing
108that Miss juvenile filed by Miss Langford Fleming so statutorily they get an increase we never know what that is that's done by the state so or you know Tallahassee so that is an automatic we have no control over that so I'm not I mean I guess the I like what it said about the election date you know that's going to be after the what's the stat what tallahassee's already determined so that won't change until the following so because it was it just came out recently so what was that August so it'll be already you know that anniversary date is a given from I like it thank you Miss Langford Fleming I that's a great Point Miss Gianelli but like our attorney has recommended I think if we can get this as specific as possible it
109would be helpful and I like Mr Fisher's suggestion of taking May out so I'm not sure if we can if you know if elections in November and the salary schedule comes out in August like you had stated Miss Gianelli that's it would be hard to nail down an actual date or or are we able to do that so if you want to put a particular month like September by September the board will designate the particular salary I mean you can do that if you want to I'm in favor of being as specific as possible so anyone else be in favor of putting a date meaning a month I guess in for this policy my question I think Mr persons was talking about is right now the shall not make less will trigger right now just
110because of it's 190 000 and we're at 205 is our salary schedule I think so where it may not be true in the future but so it's like for Fleming Mr persons anyone else interested in having a date in there okay I would be I guess that's that's not a majority at that point in regards so that's out then okay I'll ask oh go ahead Mr persons I'll just say I mean I can live with this I just was trying to foresee some problems further down the road you know it's to me it's just sort of ambiguous that's all and again like you say I like specific specific is better that's all so I can live with it so let me ask this who would be opposed to moving forward with this policy in its
111current language okay I think we can move on to the next reading then at this point with that so any other board members have policies they wish to pull out to discuss right now Miss Morgan I just want to make a comment there is a difference between what's in yeah it raises the concern are there other differences that we're not seeing in these policies so to answer that question Miss Morgan no there is not so we had one-on-ones on Friday so the discretionary policy that was uploaded on board docs was the one that we had previously approved but then we had our one-on-ones on Friday there were changes and that's the one that's up there but there are no other policies like that thank you good question Mr vanelli but the public has the old
112one like us right so how do we how do we I think they we kind of probably need both so the public will be able to see because this is an open briefing so as we're discussing and making changes to the policy the public is able to come in and have that discussion as well and then of course when he goes to Second reading it will be a public hearing and the public will also have an opportunity to provide comment thank you okay any comments any other policies we want discussed okay is this board ready to move forward with the remaining policies into a second reading no objection all right Miss Jordan I just want to make sure if I may Mr private 24 10.1 is nowhere the mental health policy no that has been
113removed you will have another batch of policies which are pre-brief on October 17th thank you and we most likely will be keeping most of the language of our current mental health policy 4.22 and then adding whatever that statutory change so but that will be coming on October 17th thank you to second reading on October 17th for public hearing thank you board thank you thank you next up will be public comment item C1 and whenever turning debris Bruno is ready to address public comment proceed please thank you Mr chairman I do believe that there is one individual that I like to speak so I'll go ahead and advise the board School Board policy provides the opportunity at this point in the meeting to address the board concerning any matter on this meeting's agenda if you completed
114a public comment card please provide it to staff the public comic will be held at the podium in the center aisle and then the front please be advised that the board will not respond during public comment to remarks made by speakers however at the conclusion of public comment the chair or the superintendent May respond speakers who fail to follow proper decorum in the chambers will be ruled out of order any speaker continuing with such remarks will be required to relinquish the microphone for board policy 1.11 and may be removed from the chambers there will be one warning per board policy 1.11 the time for speakers three minutes you will find a countdown on the big screen in the front of the room once your time has elapsed the microphone will automatically shut off I'm the
115only person I believe that we have Mr chairman is Jamie Merchant okay just to confirm there's nobody else in the room that I see that wants to give public comment that is not signed up saying none please proceed attorney debris Bruno Ms Merchant please come forward though because the policies that I have a question about weren't even discussed but there were on board docs attached to today's agenda so it can if they weren't discussed am I even allowed to any any item that is on the agenda for the briefing you may discuss them okay perfect just wanted to make sure so you didn't have to tell me to stop talking okay thank you Jamie Merchant policies 2520 25 21 and 25 22 I believe I was researching in in curious about the relationship between the
116district and the American Library Association so I went on to board docs and just searched American Library Association and these three policies came up but I don't see a reference like that just flat out says American Library Association just like in policy 2.18 but it was just pointed out to me that in one of the process documents the Ala is considered a source for book reviews and in my honest opinion I believe we need to separate ourselves from this organization the president of the Ala is a self-proclaimed Marxist and the organization itself has a history of promoting explicit LGBT materials and drag queen story hours their destructive agenda harms children by undermining parental authority over the last three years the State of Florida has passed many laws that remove CRT agenda a socialist agenda from
117curriculum as well as limiting classroom discussion in gender identity or sexual orientation by empowering parents and putting them in the driver's seat when it comes to their children's education the State of Florida has made it very clear that we object to everything the Ala and its current president stands for and they should no longer be considered a reliable source to our instructional materials and or Media Center books and then I had a question about I don't recall the policy the committee policy is there a reason why we're limiting it to one committee per person or per member I mean I'm in a song greedy for like 0.5 seconds but I was on quack and Doc last year I learned so much and I had a blast and now I don't believe there was any sort
118of conflict of interest in serving on both of those committees at least to my knowledge and no one's said that there has been so I don't believe there actually is but I also don't believe that there are hundreds of people lining up to serve on these committees either so I feel like if there is somebody who is willing to stand up and serve let them and I forgot my last point but I think I saw red so never mind thank you thank you for your comments Ms Merchant Dr Bernier do you have any follow-up at this time I can follow up on one of the questions as to how the policies were authored I would have to defer to someone else but specifically we're using ala when we were when we do book reviews for
119the media center there is some use of an ala platform but we also use kirkus k-i-r-k-u-s book list and the school library Journal we also use common sense media which is not a professional Journal but as a crowdsourced review which is recommended by the state in its media training so we are using items not solely any one item we're using multiple items with which to conduct the book review so in order that we're as fair and as partial as possible as to the language of the policy I would have to get back to unless there's someone else who can weigh in with regards to ELA and I'm not sure how when you search if you put American Library Association because libraries in it perhaps that will come up but there is no reference specifically of
120ala to the policy itself those would be in any attached or processed documents thank you that concludes public comment at this point we're going to move on to board comment and go to the order I will start with Miss juvenile I have done nothing thank you Miss Patrica no thank you Ms Jordan I have nothing at this time thank you Mr persons yes I just won a report I went to the audit committee and they've already had done their reorganization so they already elected their chairman and all that so they actually got down to work RSM was there they did a presentation and they will be coming before us shortly the audit committee what they're recommending to audit this year construction they did the organization meeting and as you all have been to those committee
121meetings that's basically all they do that night so there's nothing really to report there they didn't do any business to speak of other like their chairman Ms Langford Fleming yes I don't need to update you on the eye sock because they did a great job there but I was able to sit in on the health advisory I made some notes I'm not sure if many of you board members know that we have an amazing organization that's partnering with our district and they are basically building these amazing Gardens at so many of our schools and I learned so much from a health advisory that what a what an outstanding group of people they there are over 50 Gardens now in the school district last year alone I was blown away by this 7 500 pounds of
122vegetables were utilized in our cafeterias said I thought that was great mark your calendars for October 14th if you want to help with the Garden being built at the or at least the beginning phases of it at Heights Elementary Sprouts the new grocery store that came into our County donated twenty five thousand dollars to help fund these Gardens in our schools and then of the third thing that I would like to talk about is they're doing Farmer Market Fridays at some of the schools thought that was really awesome so these kids can take home vegetables also home for the weekend and then there's this amazing digital magazine that is a nationwide magazine and only 20 districts were chosen to participate in this magazine and each page is a it's a QR code in local or
123not local farms around the country but what schools are partnering with them and our Island Coast High School made the magazine so I was just going to give a shout out on that and that is all I have from Health advisory Ms Morgan oh oh Miss Jordan thank you for telling me that I heard all about that through Alicia Roy and I was just wondering because I promised her and I forgot that I would ask so thank you for reminding me that I would ask if they would be able to come and do a presentation because of all the stuff that has taken place and we have not heard from them for quite some time so that would be maybe a superintendent that'd be a great Workshop I agree thank you I'll work with Dr
124Savage again it's scheduled Ms Morgan let's see policy Council the enrollment and Head Start is 666 out of 720 eligible seats so obviously we have more seats than we have students in them I'll get back to that in a minute Early Head Start 88 out of 88. Child Care partnership 67 out of 72. Early Head Start and child care partnership expect to fill their vacancies the problem with head start is we are short due to lack of teachers and support staff in those classrooms so we have classrooms and we have teachers or seats but we don't have teachers James Stevens has room for one more classroom Bonita and Lehigh have openings for one classroom each so that's that's policy Council and you know what we pay Early Childhood people and what we expect of them
125that there's a significant disconnect and that's not our problem that is a Statewide problem and a national problem Finance advisory other than the motion that they made and approved I basically reviewed the basic budget numbers for the 2324 budget Ms Letcher will be presenting the budget at the October meeting I like to comment about the district reporters in the in the a board member update because I learn a lot and I just want to call out some things that I thought were particularly interesting the island Coast High School students tour of Charlotte technical College's Aviation program for potential dual enrollment the high performance of adult Esau students at our Goodwill location and the Esau student who secured employment with Heights Elementary as instructional support I wouldn't have known about these things if it hadn't appeared
126in the board member update and I like to be able to you know talk to people about the kinds of things that are happening so thank you to you and the ese report on planning sessions for teachers and the parent positive responses to ese support in the parent advisory meetings again I think we're making an improvement in terms of accessibility and content that is important to those those families and then impossible prevention the update on the PBIS tier one booster training I'm glad we continue to participate in that I look forward to the day when everybody is on the PBS program I guess I'll congratulate the nursing instructor also at Fort Myers in Cape Coral Technical College she was just one of just 15 Advanced degree nursing students Nationwide to be awarded a Scholars nursing
127education scholarship so I think that's fantastic and congratulations to the talc negotiating team well done I haven't had a chance to watch the meeting but I am excited that we have a tentative agreement and I'm especially pleased that there is also an agreement to continue discussions regarding a longer student day as part of the next negotiation so those are my comments for now thank you thank you Miss Morgan did what oh miss juvenile sorry I thought you were pointing at Dr Bernier no my apologies I did I was gonna just I didn't update on we had Dak meeting last week and all they did was pick their their chair and vice chair and secretary but and they and they decided to have it all virtual so I think I said that earlier but I just
128thought I better kind of touch since the others did too I better jump back on there on that thank you that's it thank you piggyback thank you for talking about the gardens Miss Langford Fleming it's something my son actually went through that program at one of the pilot schools around here it was a fantastic thing I'm glad to hear that they're they're doing more with that I think it's great for our community and our school district so real quick I attended the Strategic plan accountability committee most of it was just the reorganization of it they did ask as many other committees and did make a motion asking for what we just did in regards to the being unable to attend policy so we've cleared that up besides that there was a quick introduction to our
129draft strategic Plan update and it seemed to go over very well with them outside of that I will hold the rest of my comments for tonight thank you Dr Bernier nothing for goodly order attorney to pre Bruno I have nothing thank you thank you okay at this moment there will be a student performance tonight at 5 45 PM followed by our Action meeting at six o'clock seeing the other business to come for this board this meeting is adjourned at 4 13 pm thank you everyone thank you