OCPS | 2024-02-27 School Board Meeting

001good evening everyone and welcome to the Orange County school board's regular meeting scheduled for today Tuesday February 27th of 2024 thank you all so much for joining us is it hard to believe that we are like almost a quarter of the way through through this Century I just thought I would point that out I isn't that yeah did I what did I make anybody feel old yeah okay a little bit as a reminder the board members will not be engaging in outside electronic or digital communication so that they can which they said we weren't born at the start of century no unfortunately I won't tell you how much of the last century I occupied but anyway we will not be communicating via our iPads laptops phones during the meeting so that we can pay attention

002to the issues before us and the celebrations we're about to enjoy I also want to take just a moment before we join in a moment of silence I want to take a moment to recognize a former member of our school board chair Linda Southerland she passed away on Sunday I don't know how many of you all may have been coming to these Chambers for many years I know I've been coming to these Chambers since the mid1 1990s and that was when Linda southernland was on the board so she's one of the first school board members I met and just on a personal note one of the things she was actually one of the first people in elected office that I ever met and I didn't have a real good feeling about people in elected office

003I think most people don't because everything you know about them is pretty much what you read on the news and that's frequently not good but what I found when I met Linda and frankly the other Schoolboard members is that she was 100% in it for the kids zero for her 100% for the kids and it really started to change the way I thought about elected officials in general that you need to give them a chance to prove whether they're good or they not and we have our City Commissioner here another person who I know to be incredibly honorable and self-sacrificing and always looking out for others so I wanted to just pay a tribute to her she served from 1990 to 2002 she was an advocate for Early Childhood issues she focused her energies on

004laws affecting the welfare of our children in 2001 she became the executive director of The Healthy Start Coalition of Orange County A Healthy Start makes such a difference in our community and through her efforts she ensured pregnant women had access to care and she worked to improve maternal and infant Health Linda was also the founder of the Early Learning Coalition and started the foundation for early childhood development she was also president of the State School Board Association and the Orange County Council of ptas we certainly appreciate all that Linda did she lived a very valuable and very productive and positive life and so as I stand to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by I mean moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance I know my heart and my prayers will go

005out to her family and her friends and all of us in this room who enjoyed the honor and joy of knowing her and I'm sure yours well as well if you'll join us and now for the pledge i p aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right most of our board members are present all but member Felder I believe member Felder is joining us by phone let me just take a moment out to see if we have member Felder on the line member Felder you with us no okay David would you let me know if she joins us so that I can make sure the minutes reflect her presence and call on

006her appropriately thank you before we get into the business before the board I'd also like to recognize member casor denl can you please tell us a little bit about the two exemplary Community Partners that are joining us today yes thank you madam chair so we are so fortunate to have such great great Partners in Orange County and especially when they both are doing such great things for the town of Eatonville and for Hungerford Elementary so first over the years ocps has teamed up with multiple companies and nonprofits to in innovative ways to help students from their early years to their college Years our Tangelo Park program has drawn national attention that spurred the wraparound Approach at the ocps ace or academic center for excellence and in my district travel and Leisure company and Orange Blossom

007Family Health have both stepped up to help Target our Learners at Hungerford Hungerford is located in the historic town of Eatonville the oldest black Incorporated Municipal municipality in the United States 86% of the families at Hungerford are experiencing poverty the travel and Leisure charitable Foundation was established 3 years ago and focuses on making a difference in the community ities where people vacation and live do we have pictures of them there we go you can see it at the beginning of of each school year the hotel and vacation company provides the students and teachers with back to school supplies the staff also tutors third and fifth grade students every Tuesday and Thursday volunteers donate their time and Necessities to monthly parent activities like the father and daughter dance literacy night Muffins with Mom and other events

008and in November travel and Leisure donates Thanksgiving turkeys to our families and collects toys for our students during the holiday season and that's not all one of the end of the school year highlights for our fifth graders is the annual career day at travel and leisures corporate headquarters at Windom Grand Orlando resort Bonnet Creek during the field trip our students have the opport opportunity to learn about the hospitality industry from this travel leader and that's not all the travel and leader charitable Foundation is generously providing funds to implement an early childhood education program for two and three-year-old children at Hungerford Elementary for free for parents beginning with the 2024 25 school year the organization's nearly $3,000 contribution will provide the curriculum the training staff salaries School Renovations and a playground the funding will also be

009made through the foundation for ocps and I love this part there's even more if Hungerford elementary students live in Eatonville and graduate from Edgewater Evans or Waka high schools then they are eligible for the travel and Leisure Eatonville scholarship program that program provides financial support toward College tuition books or housing thank thank you so much travel and leisures board leadership and staff for investing your time and energy in our students Futures and if you all would stand up we have Kim Marshall and Marla tishi Simmon Reed John Munos and tia Pendleton and it's the Goldstein gold smith Steve gold smith sorry and if I appreciate all you've done I want to give you a round of applause thank you so much and if one of you would like to come up to the podium for

010some remarks that would be great thank you I want to thank member Castro Dental for all the great work she's been doing with us in this program and I also want to thank chairwoman Jacobs for having us today and all of the school board members I'm really proud to represent our roughly 19 ,500 Associates globally and of course our travel and travel and membership Foundation board who are all here today that you just introduced they've done a lot of hard work to get us to this point and as as you mentioned member Castor Dental the travel Leisure charitable Foundation was established in 2021 and we're proud of where we've been so far and where we're going and this next step as far as what we're doing with the early childhood education is really the next

011step in addition to the Edenville Scholarship Foundation that we started and so we're excited about that and I also want to mention that we've really been partnering closely with Hunger with the Hungerford principal Leticia Harris who's here today as well and principal Harris and her outstanding team at Hungerford have been amazing to work with and they're so responsive and so fast we were amazed that we already got to this point we just started talking about the early childhood education program with M Castor Dental and principal Harris several months ago literally I think it was about three and a half months ago and we're literally already at this point and ready to go and we're building our program for August so super excited for everything and for the partnership and we just want to thank you

012all for that thank you great can we have you all come up for a picture at the front with Eden and the principal too right do we have everybody what why is why is Steve not coming up I I saw member Castor denl give you a direction sir thank you all oh that's okay I'm glad you went down there thank you yes okay so we're not done yet with Hungerford so Hungerford families that's for sure I know so they are also getting help with addressing student Dental needs thanks to Orange Blossom Family Health the medical group has been providing behavioral dental and medical services to the central Florida Community for nearly 20 years the organization also has a Pediatric Healthcare in the Paramore community at the ocps academic center for excellence since November the Orange

013Blossom Family Health dental team has been visiting Hungerford Elementary in its mobile Dental Care vehicle or bus I like it the dental bus the dental staff has been providing our students with complimentary services including oral examinations x-rays cleanings topical fluoride and sealant thank you so much or orange blossom Health family health for helping our students develop good dental habits that go beyond having Bright Smiles and they will they come out twice a year and they meet all students at the school so thank you so much for providing that and can I have you all stand up we have thank you we have commissioner barari Burns we have Rosalinda gimenez and Sandra mcleland and there was one more that I no the photographer she's Fant thank you all so much and if one of you would

014like to make some comments at the podium commissioner great welcome commissioner well good evening Madam chair superintendent Vasquez first I'd like to say thank you for this recognition but also I'd like to just say thank you for the long-term partnership that we've enjoyed with ocps as you mentioned we are fortunate to be the community the healthcare partner for the Community Partnership schools at five ocps schools now we're adding Hungerford so thank you for that opportunity and at Orange Blossom Family Health we provide medical dental Mental Health Pharmacy services to people who are uninsured underinsured or may be experiencing homelessness so the opportunity to partner with you all just further enhances our mission because we set out to ensure that everyone in our community has access to to Quality healthc Care Services with me I have

015our director of or health services and she's going to talk just briefly about what we are doing over at Hungerford hi well as Miss Mrs CER said we are committed to care for the kids in Hungerford and oops and yeah providing you say everything x-rays exam seant fluoride the that doesn't stop right there we're going to continue the care because first it's assessment and then you know we have to fix any Decay or anything refer to our one of our sites and like you said twice a year but it's going to be more yeah thank you so much can are you done yeah I was just going to say thank you and I just have to give a shout out to Dr Williams I think we both have each other on speed di yes she

016always answers my call and I'm it's a pleasure to answer your call when when you all need help so I just want to remind you that Orange Blossom Family Health is here to care for you and your children so thank you for the opportunity thank you can we also get a picture up front with you good job Frank yes oh yes I know thank you and before you all leave I just want to take a moment you've thanked us for for the partnership the reality is we could not do what we do every day for our kids if it weren't for the Partnerships that we enjoy what you do for our students from from healthc care to scholarships is life-changing without question and the schools that you work with Hungerford in particular you are going

017to change the trajectory not just for our children today but generations and generations to come and for me I hope for you that's as awe inspiring as it is for each one of us so thank you so much and let me take a moment to see member Felder I believe has joined us member Felder are you with us yes good evening yes and I'm so grateful for commissioner Burns he's my City Commissioner so I'm so grateful that's a wonderful Endeavor and thank you so very much for your partnership thank you thank you so much thank you member Felder and good evening ladies good evening member Felder all right please member gester Deno all right thank you I just wanted to say thank you so much for your generosity and none of that could have happened

018without the help with of Dr Bridget Williams yes she's pivotal thank you that's all I want to see her phone because there are so many people that she has on speed dial that it's it's it's got to be a bank of phones yeah it really is amazing she is one of our greatest Jewels so thank you for pointing that out all right we're going to move on to celebrate if we have any newly appointed administrators superintendent Madam chair we do not have any newly appointed administrators this evening well you guys are going to miss out now no no because now we're going to have we are going to have students from is it winter park yes Winter Park and I'm really beginning to enjoy our meetings more and more with the introduction of our student

019advisory committee and all or counsel and all that comes with it so Dr Vasquez do you want to invite your guests yes I would well you know what let me do this because that's so that's not I don't want to make this difficult for guy Swanson okay so let me call on guy swon who's the president who is standing in for the president Nate hay of of the Orange County Association of school administ administrators so that he can speak because if I were you I'd want to go first I'm glad to go whenever stay with us okay guy good to have you with us good to be here again hello chair Jacob superintendent Vasquez and board members my name is gu swon I am president-elect of okasa the Orange County Association of school administrators and

020it is my honor to represent our 320 members tonight at the last board meeting o president Nate Haye described the many challenges school-based leadership faces and their effects on our families after his speech board member casor denel asked for examples of what we could do differently president hay is taking that task to our Castle members to find items and redundancies that could be reduced or eliminated to help our school-based administrators while he is gathering that information I want to share with you something that each of you here could do starting today to highlight what that is I want to share a conversation the okasa executive board members had with Dr armer just a few weeks ago the topic was about the walkthrough weapon screening and we were having a robust discussion about the positives the

021challenges and the negatives of the pilot I won't share what he said with me mostly because I haven't asked him if I could share the conversation but I do want to share with you my reaction I said to him I want to thank you Dr armer the words you said to me to us right here here in this meeting make me feel more heard more seen and more valued as a school leader than I've ever felt in my all of my Collective 27 years in education Dr armers do you see us as principles as people and that is important I said the feeling of validation I have right now is worth more than any raise or any bonus that anyone could ever be given not that I don't like having the raise or the bonus

022just want to point that out you won't turn it down no not at all in all sincerity that one moment of being seen and heard in that meeting lifted so much weight off of my shoulders regardless of the topic I encourage the board members and ocps Leadership to lift weight off of our school-based leader Shoulders by hearing and sincerely listening to our concerns listen to us as professionals listen to us as people who have families this is what my members need and it costs nothing it's one thing to say that we do it and it's another thing entirely to do it by asking tough questions start with how does your job affect you and your health how has your job affected your family is the work sustainable at this level what has to change each

023of youve been so present at our schools for concerts events celebrations and have visited great classrooms I encourage you to meet with your principles and assistant principles and ask the questions that will lead to a heavy weight being lifted off of their shoulders thank you for listening well thank you so much wow okay Dr armer I don't know what you said but great job thank you great job not surprising but great job Dr Vasquez you want to introduce your next guest yes it's my pleasure to introduce to you members of my superintendent's advisory committee from the great Winter Park High School today we have the following individuals who will be speaking to us we have Jackson crat Kaylee Bellamy Sam bbom and Kate Finn Rock would finrock Finn frock thank you would you come to

024the podium and go wild cats thank you Dr Vasquez good evening parents faculty members Orange County residents and Schoolboard members I'm Sam bbom and I'm a senior at Winter Park High School I'm cie bman a junior president of our school's black student union and a student body representative of our SGA I'm Kate F frock and I'm a senior and the student body president excuse me we're honored to be here tonight thank you for providing us the opportunity to speak about Winter Park High School and everything we've done to improve our campus climate this year before we get started our school mascot has something he wants to show everyone please welcome winter Park's nationally ranked dance team the roar hit it Willie was fabulous great job very impressive so much to our dance team and really

025the Wildcat for that amazing performance this year we wanted to highlight our student athletes and performers every Thursday before big game or concert our Student Government hangs posters all around campus cheering them on and boosting attendance and then up there we have what our game of the week kind of looks like in order to alleviate students frustrations regarding the cell phone policy we introduce board games at lunch from yacht SE to twister students are able to have fun and socialize without a screen one of our big themes was how we could increase inclusivity throughout the school so we have reinvented spirit weeks we still of course have things for homecoming and prom and other school events but now we also have cultural Spirit weeks as you'll see on the screen our Multicultural Society hosted a

026Hispanic heritage spear week consisting of Latin music during lunch here students of all backgrounds dance together sing sing together rejoicing in Latin culture additionally our school's black student union also held a spirit week of its own increasing awareness of Black Culture there was recently an exhibit at lunch with music and displays about black history history as students we have a commitment to making sure that our efforts reach groups all over campus in this spirit I would like to welcome a student representative of our best buddies program Anthony figero okay okay then thank you thank you thank you very much hello my name is Anthony I love best buties because they feel the best bities ever thep of living has awesome sports like B basketball Co and bowling I feel sassy because I can attend my

027friends in many places I also love dring off a spirit D during homecoming week my day was hero day go wild cats you thank you Anthony for that amazing message welc I love best but sorry okay so one of our newest initiatives is Victory Club a central for an organization that highlights 10 different local nonprofits each year and awards them grants for their work as students we presented on behalf of the nonprofits and our student body voted for the recipient of our own Grant this is one way we have fostered student connections to the surrounding Community our three goals for this year have been to address inclusivity our surrounding community and our Student Admin relations regarding the last one we have introduced Cool Cats of the month once a month our faculty award w a

028handful of hardworking Wild Cats the cool cat of the month award it's a great way to connect our students and school leaders additionally later in the spring we will be hosting a Student Admin dodgeball game as a fundraiser for a youth movement against Alzheimer's Club over the last seven months we've been hard at work in Winter Park strengthening our unique Wildcat Community thank you for your time today Dr Vasquez and the rest of the Orange County School Board for the opportunity to share our efforts in the month of February we are crowning our newest School Cool Cats of the month to celebrate we got everyone their very own crowns we thank I and we got sass oh wait there they're personalized oh they're personalized oh oh oh okay hang on oh think that's for Bridget

029oh here we go here's Karen's here's yours Karen here's Melissa's here's superintendent Vasquez and viy someone's got mine this is Vicky elain's come up we can figure out later I just want to put it sit down know I'm really the only number one Maria we were sticking to time I wore mine on there we go said for wow it and Sh like Mar every in sign of compass of Happ Mar I am of words to describe awesome still here yeah yeah they that was that was amazing that was really good that made me want to cry I know can we do one and one like crowns yeah okay do you not like your crown Karen he's got one oh oh go ahead put that on dark right turn sideways so shingle turn sideways Coral people

030you know that getting close make sure you leave a window for everybody dancers you're super flexible come around the front so that we're not spread out there we go and hold on we'll make sure that we see everybody good an adult shingle too perfect and if you have a big head with large ears you're probably blocking the board members why you why you speak on me like I'm sorry sir I didn't see you there there we go good good look toward me and on three good one two we good everybody Smiles look how happy pause up just kidding good look happy and on three good one two and three stay there look happy one more excellent one without the crowns I all right good same thing blah blah blah look toward me look happy no

031crowns good stay there one more pause up for the wild cat there we go nice nice thank you but the good job will get yeah can we keep the student council for just another minute or two if you would thank you okay and maybe the dance coach I think we already lost her okay let me call on first member Fant thank you I just wanted to say how amazing this is I just absolutely love this whole time where we get to see students here from you thank you for sharing I love your initiatives I love what you've been doing I really to just build that school culture and make school a place where kids want to be love the ideas that you had at lunch I know the cell phone policy was not a huge

032fan favorite always you know so I think that was an excellent idea and really getting kids to just intermate Le and hang out and still have fun at lunchtime so thank you an absolutely phenomenal job I think it just goes to show how amazing our arts program and all those types of things are in Orange County thank you again thank you member front member Castor Dan thank you madam chair I am so proud of Winter Park thank you so much for all you do and Sam and Kate if you wouldn't mind standing up for a second because this is a joy for me because Sam I've known you since you were in preschool Kate since you were in kindergarten and so it is such a pleasure to see you all at this stage you're so

033mature and Polished and so was every student that came here the dance team was on point and you could hear them working so hard up here too the chorus at one point I couldn't differentiate any voice and other times I could hear every single voice it was so beautiful and then our quartet in the in the lobby they were enter they're playing as people were entering it was so beautiful and they had to leave because they have a concert tonight so they are one after another but I really loved what you're doing as member Fant said with the games at lunchtime and your goals of diversity and inclusion and thank you for bringing Anthony from the best buddies to speak that was really important love that this is just this was such a great sampling

034and there's Anthony in the back thank you Anthony that was great and it was such a great sampling of what Winter Park off offers and it we would not have seen these students perform this way if it wasn't for the teachers who invest in their students and develop those talents and the administration who is always there helping to coordinate every detail of the school so thank you so much I appreciate that and for the new mascot I love that Willie the wild cat it's a beautiful costume I love it and thank you for all you do too Jackson right is that Jackson in there thank you all right thank you so much thank you there's a principal too thank member Salam monka thank you I Echo everything that was set up here that was so

035I love this time in our meetings I also just can appreciate how much you all love your school it shows and thank you for for sharing that with us and that chorus was beautiful I would love to get an invite to the next concert I seriously not your Schoolboard member but I would definitely show up that was incredible so thank you all for for coming and being here with us today superintendent watch it I just want to say thank you for your leadership there's so much that's on you as students and for you to take on the role as part of not just the superintendent advisory Council but the leadership that you demonstrate at your school what we saw tonight the inclusivity the joy the fun the support from the teachers your principal and parents

036in the community I am just so grateful and hopeful of what your future is going to bring you so thank you for com out tonight not done member bird almost I'll be fast because everybody already said everything I was going to say but I did just want to say that even though I'm not your board member I am a little partial because my father graduated from Winter Park High School in 1959 and I have an ornament on my Christmas tree this is Winter Park High School class of 1959 so you know I you know I love it he had he I have his letter from playing football from his letterman jacket so he was a football player baseball player and a god basketball player yeah all three but anyway so I love Winter Park High

037School as well just for that reason but you guys did an amazing job tonight and again thank you for your leadership and for everything you're doing for your school thank you thank you member Vice chair thank you madam chair I was your Schoolboard member for four years I just want to point that out I know that Karen likes to claim you but I just had to throw that out there and I enjoyed every single minute of being your school board member and I just want to I say hi to Matt and just tell you y'all bring me joy that's it y'all just bring me so much joy it's so good to see so well spoken students who are doing great things in our school so we appreciate you and thanks for bringing us joy thank

038you member Gallow and I am your school board member I forgot about that yes yeah I'm everybody's School Board member I'm actually I'm everybody's fan y all were you all are phenomenal I just I can't wait to see where they are I want to see you in five years I want to see you in 10 years and I want to see what you do what you do with your life because you're always doing so much and we've had a lot of shoutouts to the choir they were phenomenal I wish I had seen the quartet I'm darn I got here too early that'll teach me to be on time but also I wanted to give a shout out to the dance team I you guys know me when there's a performance I want to be on

039that side so I can see and they were you missed it I know they must have looked good here from here but they're they're just out of this world and I also want to thank all the support that they get from their their principal their teachers and a special shout out to their dance coach so we were talking earlier about how many people come to support ocps you might not know it but their dance coach Addie Tims is was the one of the dancers with Lindsay Sterling for 10 years she was traveling with her and she gave that up to come home and to coach Winter Park so that's pretty amazing so when I watched them and if you if you haven't seen Lindsay Sterling you got to to YouTube I mean how she plays

040the violin and dances and the choreography is just it's just out of this world and as I was watching the girls out here I was like the young women out here I was I could see all of that coming together so just really cool anyway congratulations thank you for coming we love you guys all right we have several proclamations but let me start by asking if Elaine Judy athletic trainer at Winter Park High School this is Winter Park all night long will come forward and read the proclamation for the national athletic training month in Orange County Public Schools welcome thank you and thank you for recognizing us I know Dr AR Brewster we've worked closely with him in the past year and on behalf of all the athletic trainers in the County I'm honored to

041be here to do this Proclamation whereas athletic trainers are licensed health care providers in the State of Florida and whereas athletic trainers are competent in developing implementing policies and procedures that protect the safety and well-being of student athletes and those who are physically active and whereas athletic trainers promote healthy lifestyle behaviors and injury prevention through Effective Education communication to enhance Wellness minimize the risk of injury and illness and whereas athletic trainers are trained in the emergency care of injuries during athletic events and physical activities and whereas athletic trainers integrate best practices in the immediate and emergency care of individuals for optimal outcomes and whereas athletic trainers are skilled in the evaluation and diagnosis of injuries and illnesses by implementing systemic evidence-based examinations and assessments to formulate a clinical diagnosis and determine a plan of care

042and whereas athletic trainers are educated and trained in the use of therapeutic interventions that facilitate the rehabilitation of injuries that occur during athletic competition and physical activity with the goal of achieving an Optimal Performance level and whereas all student athletes who participate in school-based athletic activities deserve to have quality health care for injuries that may occur during athletic competitions and practices now therefore the school board of Orange County Florida does hereby Proclaim March 2024 as National athletic training month in Orange County Public Schools thank you and before we lose you I think we have a number of other you and other folks from Winter Park that are still in the room with us am I right why don't youall come forward it Frank I want to get a picture with the rest of the winter

043park team because without yall our kids are wonderful but they wouldn't be where they are without all of you so it's wonderful to have you with us stand yes definely absolutely even got they're professional look toward me look happy and on three good one two and three stay there one more and you guys want to do a dance number or sing thank you all right we are also proclaiming March as National social work month in Orange County Public Schools and we're proclaiming March 2024 as purchasing month in Orange County Public Schools and we're proclaiming March 2024 as arts in our schools month in Orange County Public Schools next I would like to turn the floor over to Dr Vasquez for our strategic Plan update thank you madam chair after all those great performances and seeing

044our students seems like a little bit of a lull in the agenda but I know Mr Moody and his team will get us energized as we've spoken before chronic absenteeism is a problem that is grappling the entire country and Orange County is not immune last year we had close to 30% of our students that were chronically absent absent 20 or more days if you're not in school you're you can't learn and we know that the socialization that takes place in school also contributes to a child's well-being with those alarming statistics our team was able to put their heads together and provide us a plan to begin to address this problem that is plaguing our schools and so this afternoon Mr Moody and his team will be sharing with you some of the strategies and some

045of the data that we are grappling with Mr Moody thank you superintendent Vasquez I promis to be exciting but I won't be as riveting as the as moving as the course was tonight but I promise to keep you entertained all right good evening thank you Madame chair before I begin let me introduce Amana Levi was a member of her team and I'd also like to thank I'm sure she's watching tonight Alicia Leonard who's also helped quite a bit with this team in the effort of chronic absenteeism so with that good evening Madam chair board members superintendent it is my pleasure to present an update on chronic absenteeism and our plan for the 2023 24 school year when we last presented on ocps chronic absenteeism that was in September we shared that ocps had a 2

04627.6 percentage rate for the 2122 school year since we last presented Florida doe published the 2223 rates I'm pleased to announce ocps chronic absentee rate dropped to 23.7% again this percentage includes students who missed 21 days or more of school although this is good news we understand we still have a lot to do back in September I mentioned we were working on a few reports that would help schools in The District track chronic absenteeism I'd like to take a minute to share a few ocps reports that are now available a dashboard to monitor attendance counts is now available to schools this dashboard provides up-to-date information on absences the chart on the screen is an example of that report of that dashboard in this chart we are comparing the absence counts for the school year 2122

04722 23 and this current year 23 24 the green repres the green bar represents students with less than 10 absences the yellow bar represents students with 10 to 19 absences orange 20 to 29 absences light red 30 to 39 and dark red 40 or more absences this report can be filtered for district level cadr for district District level cadres and school level data if a school drills down through the data table the administrator can see a list of students who are in each absence band we can select an individual student to obtain detailed information this chart is an example of the level of detail we can see on an individual student this is a student's average daily attendance for the last 3 years let's take a closer look at this student information we can can

048see this student's average daily rate of attendance for the 2122 school year was 97% for the 2223 school year the student's average daily rate of attendance dropped to 92% and so far for this year this child's rate of attendance is 76% a school will be able to use its information to identify students who are in need of intervention or assistance another report on the dashboard that is available will show us absence bands by grade levels again green depict students with less than 10 yellow 10 to 19 orange 20 to 29 30 to 39 is light red and dark red is 40 or more this chart suggests we need to look at look into why some grade levels have a greater percentage of students with 10 or more absences in addition to creating reports the team

049has been very busy with additional measures some of the additional measures taken this year include increasing communication with principls and school leaders and principal leaders increasing collaboration with social workers for attendance interventions and increasing communication and awareness with parents we recently surveyed schools that reduced their rate of chronic absenteeism by 10% percentage points of more from the 2122 to the 2223 school year they shared what they are doing to help reduce absences measures include having the social worker and attendance clerk work closely together creating an environment where students want to be in school connecting with families if a student is out two or more days a week including absences and conversations in professional learning communities building relationships with students consistently sending truancy warning letters home offering incentives for improved attendance convening the child of the

050attendance child study team when needed when needed utilizing treny intervention flowchart developed by the team this year and I go off script and I would say I'd be remissed if I didn't add the another example of what is working in schools would be what we witnessed here tonight with Winter Park High School additional work is needed to understand what is being done at the school level to reduce chronic absenteeism next steps our work is not done next steps include continuing training for attendance clerks registers and attendance Deans expand in the use of available technology replica in successful practices practices that I just mentioned assist in schools with utilizing new data reports to develop action plans to reduce chronic absenteeism let's get into it off the screen and into real life if you will and survey

051and chronically absent students this survey is currently being developed and will be sent to targeted students in March superintendent thank you Mr Moody and Dr Levi for the information that's presented tonight I do want to highlight that having the data available so that schools can drill down and analyze patterns is it the beginning of the day is it certain periods of the day is helping hone in on the interventions that are working surely we're we're happy with what we have done but know that we have a long road ahead of us when you still see the rate of students that are absent 21 more days and now Madam chair turn it over to the board for discussion thank you superintendent Vice chair Gallow thank you madam chair first off thank you for this great presentation

052it's such important work that we're doing when we're talking about chronic absenteeism what it is especially the education part educating parents when you look at the graphs it's prek and 12 like those are those are the two worst grades for attendance so clearly in Pre okay it's it's parents and in 12th grade kids are just ready to move on I I do have a couple of questions and and I think you're absolutely right I think kids that feel engaged and feel connected want to come to school and it's up to us as a school board to make sure that there's a sense of value at their school that they're being challenged enough that we're offering programs that they desire that they want to be in school learning but but I'm as we move forward I

053would like to challenge the district to really kind of dial down because I don't think that the average daily attendance gives us a really true picture of what's happening because you have students that if they're missing every first period and that first period is you know statistics or algebra or even Ela it's a class that they need to be in to study we're not capturing that because we're not dialing out dialing it down to periods and then I was just part of a chronic ISM webinar that the Florida grade level reading did and they're showing us they're saying that the department of UC education as of June of 2023 so that our absenteeism was 39% and that was on the Florida Department of Education so those numbers are kind of different from our number so

054I'd like and not this evening but if you could just get back to me and give me an explanation on why the Department of Education is showing something different than what we're showing and that leads me to my next point I really thought there would be some legislation around chronic absenteeism from the legislature this time because the way that the Department of Education collects the data really isn't it's not accurate data or fluid data because every District does it differently so every District collects the data differently and within some districts each School collects the data differently so the information that the Department of Education is collecting isn't comparing oranges to oranges it's comparing orang to Apples to grapefruit to whatever to strawberries so I'm really hoping next legislative session that they'll really Define what attendance

055is and that they'll Define chronic absenteeism because Florida is one of the only states that those two things aren't defined in statute thank you again great points member gold yeah thank you for highlighting this because this is a CommunityWide support issue we need all the help we can get but it does start from internal a couple of questions Mr Moody does this include or where does this include kids who may have dropped out of high school so do we know out of these numbers not only the kids that are absent but we've just lost because we know we lost quite a few after covid and some have not come back so this would not include specifically kids that have dropped out this does include what we call kids who were expected to show up and

056did not some of those absences we call them dnes did not enter it does include them because they have accured so many absences so until such time but no it does not include per se kids who have dropped out okay so whether they dropped out between school years or maybe in the middle of the year just didn't come back they may not be or they would be counted if they dropped out in the middle of the year would they be counted in that 40 plus group yes if they dropped down yes they are so our data includes active and inactive students okay that means kids that have been dropped out so that in a sense yes if they were in school at any time during this year our data will include that yes so at

057that conference that member Gallow got that information one of the sessions I sat in on was really kids who would traditionally be remediated that just stopped coming because they weren't engaged and some of the alternative programs and Pathways that re-engaged them and got them to the level and now with our new legislation that's coming on we may be able to pathway them to an education that gives them a great high-paying job career but teaches them through interest rather than just through remediation so could you address what we're looking at for plans with that so let me before I do that let me add an interest in fact that I for the survey that we're developing I went to positive Pathways to kind of test the survey for a group of students who have 21 or

058more absences there since it's one of my schools and I had a Frank conversation well they were Frank they'll tell you like it is yeah they were Frank conversation with about 12 kids at different ages there at positive Pathways and one of the questions that I have on the survey is you know what can we do to help you right is it a different setting alternative type setting is it a different time of school what what would be beneficial how can we help you get to school what what interests you so that's on the survey but I tell you what 11 out of the thoroughly rated positive Pathways and what what's happening in that alternative setting in that alternative environment a smaller environment an environment that everybody knows your name right one of the questions

059was you know who knows you're absent well every teacher on that campus knows that Johnny's absent right and they'll tell you so I think alternative I think we'll get Gan some information about alternative Pathways from that survey and what might interest kids yeah and physically we probably can't create small schools everywhere but we can create schools within schools right so we can create a CTE based course that has those Core Curriculum embedded into it so rather than pull out remediation they are actually doing something that's engaging and fun and they're learning at the same time right so the more we can incorporate that and maybe pull kids back into the interest of school because my kids were very focused on you know Apex or band or Arts and so they didn't know everybody in the

0603000 school but they knew everybody within their interest within that school and if they didn't show up we'd get calls at the house like is you know Greg okay and sometimes he was yeah so yeah so I think I think the more we can build from relevancy to especially this large percentage of kids that are on the fence because I would bet if you could break this survey out in this way it would be really interesting to see in the particularly the high schoolers that 60 58 and 53% why they enjoy school and then the 25 and you know below why they don't and if if I may add Madam chair is that is the plan too even after the survey is given is to go out and have focus groups with students in high

061school also middle school as well this survey is going to focus 9th through 12th we'll expand later but I think what I learned from the focus group at positive Pathways was so valuable and it you know we have so many kids that I call the silent majority right who are going to school every day or not going to school every day and nobody notices but they just you know they're the silent ones that nobody catches I think we have so many of them that I'd like to capture what they're thinking so that's the plan for before the end of the year all right thank you member Salam monka thank you chair I love that we have dashboards now you can't really change something you can't see so it is incredible that your team has spent

062all this time developing this because you know it helps our principal leaders it helps our principles it helps us to be able to see what this data looks like and how what makes sense what doesn't make sense so I I definitely am very happy to see that we're doing this and these dashboards seem like they hopefully will make a big difference I guess for some of the things you said you were doing you mentioned a use of Technology like what what are we using great question so one of the interest in pieces of technology that schools are using now is talking points it's it's a phone messaging system that we've had this year and schools have taken it some of the schools have taken it upon themselves to for teachers to use that way of

063communication to parents directly hey I'm I see that Johnny missed two days everything okay and the parent it also has the ability to translate so if I'm an English speaker and I know Mom is a Spanish speaker it will translate automatically to Mom's Heritage language and when she responds it translated back to me in in English so that's one tool that several schools are using that they've found to be helpful yes that's great I think some some schools used to use the remind app so it sounds like this is the new better improved version of of that so that's great to hear but I do I do Echo a little bit of two things being especially for the high school very important which is the feeling of belonging and that feeling of relevancy for our

064students they're just going to disengage later on I think I spent a lot of time with our students over the summer and learning about my two high schools and their behaviors and just trying to get into their day-to-day and one of the things I also realized was you know High School is also the time when they start taking those summer jobs and they start thinking about making their own money and for some of them it is very difficult to you know make money during the summer and then you go back to school and you don't make money anymore and you're like okay well what am I doing what why am I doing this for no money type of of and not saying that's the right mindset but that's kind of what the students are thinking

065especially once they start making some so and many of them also just don't have a choice but to support families and be part of of of working and bringing home support and so I also I talked to the superintendent about this and one of the interesting data points that I would love for us to collect if possible somehow would be just an understanding of which of our students are working I think right now we were to say how many in across our high schools what students are working or or have summer jobs I don't think we have a good sense because when I think about what are the reason a student drops out I can think you know money could be one of those and we have alternative Pathways for making good money better money

066during high school and after high school and so even if we have that set of students and information about them and we can redirect them to say hey stick with us and there's a better outcome through CT or alternative Pathways where you can also you know get out of school and make a living wage I think it would be really helpful to have that data and for us to that and also just like understanding what you know where where are these students going but my guess is a big percentage of them are going to the workforce but maybe not maybe they're going somewhere else so I would love to just have a better understanding of that but thank you for for this work I think we're going to learn a l thank you member Salam

067monka member forant thank you and thank you all for this is amazing I agree that having graphs and seeing it in person and being able to see what exactly we're looking at at all my school visits this has kind of come up with all the principles and things that they're dealing with and depending on the school the area the two the schools that I visited recently have a high percentage of what they call MVP kids which it's like our homeless population kids who don't have a steady place where they're living all the time and so there's a lot of In-N-Out with them and so is there a way also for us to see maybe in that sense of okay are these our MVP kids or what percentage of of of that population is struggling with

068making sure that they're at school are we able to access like our each of our schools or is that something we just request to you all I can we can break down because we have MV MVP and Skyward a designation of MVP and Skyward and I can not me but I can ask somebody to match that against the students with 21 or more absences yeah that's something we can do and I'll get that to everybody and then as far as this the graphing and being able to see the data I love prek all the way through 12th did you say that we can we can get this type of like just overall for each of our schools is that yes yes a school can a school can drill a school has their own dashboard they

069can't see districtwide okay they can see their own are you asking School Board member am I able to see that just so I can kind of see if there's certain schools that maybe I need to we can get you your schools perfect that'd be amazing absolutely do we have schools that are doing amazing and that are have having less of an issue with AB absenteeism or is this sort of across the board every school so I haven't that's a great question I haven't really looked at that lately to see which schools have made you know I have a list of schools that have made a an improvement from the year before to last year and I when I surveyed them I have that list of of schools that's from the doe information I can get

070that to you I'll find that email I'll get that to you but I'll also look at the current data to see what we have see just to see if maybe there's anything that they're doing that we could Implement elsewhere to this morning I was at the Junior Achievement a big presentation at Oakridge it was amazing but even seeing things like that within our high schools I know they go into Elementary Middle High School where they're for anybody who doesn't understand what Junior Achievement is they're basically taking the workforce our school district and the and the schools the students and kind of combining all of it and helping kids to while they're learning English and math and all the different subject areas it all boils down to like how that can help you in the workforce

071and combining it all and so I think a lot of times these students especially in the high school by the time you get to 9th grade I mean unless it's just my kid they're they're like okay how how much longer do we have of this and a lot of it they're not seeing the bigger picture and kind of be feeling frustrated and I feel like the Junior Achievement although nothing is like a you know a cure all but programs like that if that's something that we could try to implement in more of our high schools or see if that's something that principles would be excited about even Middle School things like that so thank you thank you member for member bird thank you chair and thank you Mr Moody for the presentation for your team

072on all this hard work it's it's really this is such a multifaceted problem that I it's you know I'm I'm watching I'm reading this like slide that says what what is working and there's just so many things that come flooding to my mind but one thing you know I mean we've talked about it over and over is creating an environment where students want to be in school and I really as we've said be many times I think that is key but I also think that it's it's not just the acceptance and the engagement but it's also like what member G talked about the engagement and the program and why they're going to school and seeing the why and member Fant talked about Junior Achievement and I was just looking at some of their results from

073the 3de programs and the high schools that have that program and the absenteeism is significantly lower and to kids that are in that program as opposed to the rest of that school's population and it's just in CTE same thing so it just it and the same thing with kids though that are involved in you know arts and drama and you know if they have something that they are want to go to school they have something they have to get to school for because they're a part of something it makes a difference then they go if they don't and if they're the invisible ones like what you were talking about it doesn't really matter right so to them they think it doesn't really matter so I think it's so important I also think that a big

074big part of this is the reading level of these kids kids that are reading below low grade level and I know I was talking to one of my High School principles that expressed to me that is one of their biggest challenges are the kids that come into ninth grade that are reading so far below grade level that it's just a constant constant catchup and trying to get them to where they can you know pass the test to graduate and nobody wants to go to school to do that every day I mean so I really think that all the work we're doing towards early literacy and those changes that we're making I've been talking to the superintendent about you know seeing what we can do to test all of our second graders that are reading below

075grade level to find out if they have learning disabilities reading disabilities I think all of these things that we can be putting in action earlier we can get these kids reading at grade level it makes a huge difference on how well they do later on in school so I think that's key and I also I love what member salamak was talking about with kids that are working I think that is a really big issue in some of our schools especially a lot of our tital one schools my High School principles have told me that they had struggles getting kids to come back after covid because the families really needed them to work right so I would love for us to explore more alternative type scheduling and I think years ago we used to do this

076where kids would just go half days and then they would work and yeah and there's you know we have like Randall Academy that's what they do there they go to school and take their classes in the morning at Randall construction and then they work at Randall and turning and they get paid and that prr program had 100% graduation rate so I think that you know there's a lot of time and you know kids have to take a lot of electives and it's just I don't know I feel like there's a lot of kids that would really just rather go for a few hours get the core classes done and then get out of there and go do whatever it is that you know make the money they need for their families and if that's the

077only way we can keep them in in school and get them to finish then I think that we really have to explore those possibilities and the last thing is you know helping parents I spoke about this last time I think there's probably a large number of parents that just when their kids get older they just don't know how to handle issues anxiety depression getting their kids out of bed to go to school and I was thinking you had said that some of them were doing sending out doing phone calls if they've missed like two more days I'm wondering if Mary Bridges is going to probably roll her eyes at me but maybe we can create something that almost like the way I'm envisioning almost like a help desk phone bank for parents that they could

078call or even an online something I don't know somewhere where they could call if they're having this issue and I'm wondering if maybe it could be triggered when a student has missed two or three days send a little invite through talking points hey are you struggling getting your child to school you know click here or whatever to get some help with that I really think there's a lot of parents that just need help this is a hard time to be raising kids there's a lot of things in the world that are difficult and challenging so I think the more we can help our parents help our kids the better off they'll be thank you Mr Moody you recognized thank you madam chair just a couple of responses so at this point in time I'd be

079remiss if I didn't put a Shameless plugin for our school to work programs within alternative Ed Simon Youth Academy Universal Ed kids can go to school half day on universal property and then go to work half day at Universal great opportunity there Goodwill's been a partner for 25 years the school on their site is Project Compass same thing go to school half day and go to work half day not just at Goodwill but other sites as well and Randall Academy so if kids want to learn construction trade not just swinging a hammer or behind the scenes as well bookkeeping CAD drawn welding they can join Randall Academy so I would welcome any any public viewing at this point to give us a call and we can give them a tour of our alternative Ed sites

080school to work sites and speaking of parents needing help member bird as a suggestion of this board last time I was spoke up here and U made mention of the rooc calls that go home that seemed a little cold and scripted and harsh I softened it up a little bit and I was able to get some feedback one one in particular I got I provided my email address on the email and response so parents could respond and one of the questions I asked what do you need how can we help you get your kid in school right what do you need from us how can we help you and I got a couple respon got a couple emails got quite a few actually next time I'll learn to use a generic email address one box

081instead of my own but and just that member bird one parent said I've been trying to get my kid to school I need help he's you know I can't get him up I need help and yes we were able to channel that direct that to social worker Lisa coffey's group social workers and the school principal and we're able to get that parent some help so that's the softer side of this some good that is coming out of this is we're learning you know it's just not telling me telling them to get their kids in school it's how can we help you because you know a lot of people just need help you're right one last question for you and thank you for the presentation all the great work the data that you're able to collect

082and the and the way you've displayed it is very helpful for us and I know it is for you and your team when you talked about the surveys and you may have covered this already but looking at the individualizing nature of the data your ability to zero in on specific students when you do the survey will it be identified to no okay no not this one yeah so for the first round talking to several different people different departments we decided to do an anonymous survey first yeah to see what we get but the plan is to do another at at the right time and try to get specific student information so that we can identify right and can match it up with exactly if you have a student that's attending school and they give you

083feedback on what it would take for them to attend school obviously it's a lot less helpful than when you have a student with chronic absenteeism so that's why I was kind of hoping that identification would be there and not for the purpose of doing anything other than trying to find the most effective means of helping our kids feel like being at school is the right place for them to be so again thank you this is really really important work I'm I'm really anxious to hear if anybody can make sense of the distinction between the data that Vice chair mentioned and the data that we're receiving because that was very very different Vice chair I was just going to say I sent what I was taking it off of I sent to Dr Vasquez and to

084to you Mr Moody to look at just so that you could see where I drew that information perfect and we get our data from U Florida doe after survey five what's posted on okay on U doe website all right thank you I'm glad to look at it absolutely thank you okay thank you all right Dr Vasquez we are on to the agenda are there any changes to the agenda no Madam chair there are no changes to the agenda okay with that I will entertain a motion to adopt the agenda as posted so moved motion by the Vice chair second second by member bird all in favor please say I oppose member member Felder are you with us I'm sure am you know member F I'm sure okay I still have Mr Moody here okay member

085Felder I love love your vote and then I apologize I wanted to call on you to see if you had any questions or comments from Mr Moody so I'm bring him back up to the podium but while we're on this vote are you in support yes I am thank you Mr Moody is at the podium for any questions or comments you have for him well you know I've talked to Mr Moody quite often because I got my starred sort of in alternative a with Williams and I that the little rare Schoolhouse say now the V I think we just lost you I don't know if you can hear me but mids sentence it just cut out do we think we still do we have her on the line still still appears to be member Felder

086if you can hear me we can't hear you well even if you can't hear me we can't hear you hear something remember Felder I think I heard something or that could have been Greg Moody tapping his pencil all right well jump in if you do hear me and we're talking I'm talking just jump in and we'll cut and go to you and that's the best I can offer right this minute but I really appreciate you participating member Felder I know it's hard to do this remotely but your input is valued all right we have any public comment for this evening no Madam chair all right thank you then the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda motion wow that was like a dead tie

087Mo okay thank you motion by member Gold seconded by member Salamanca all member Feld are you there okay I was going to try to start with her didn't work all in favor please say I member Felder all right let the record show that all members except for member Felder voted in the affirmative and member Felder was not in touch hang on member Felder all right not available for a vote non-consent emergency items nothing 1701 request approval of the recommendation for renewal of the charter school contract Dr Vasquez yes Mr Moody is back with us to share information about our recommendation to renew the contract with work force Advantage Academy for five years Mr Moody thank you twice in one night I feel honored Workforce Advantage Academy Charter High School opened in 2004 as an Orange

088County Public School following approval of the Orange County School Board the school is located at 2210 Rio Grand Avenue Orlando Florida workforce Advantage Academy serves approximately 285 students in grades 11 and 12 a renewal site team comprised of school choice staff and District Personnel conducted a renewal visit on December 19th 2023 three during the visit the team interviewed the governing board teachers parents and other stakeholders in addition documentation of the school's records for the past 5 years was reviewed regarding critical performance areas including educational performance financial performance organizational performance and future planning upon conclusion of the renewal process it was the recommendation of the committee and the senior director of school choice services that Workforce Advantage Academy PR granted a renewal of their Charter School contract for further consideration the school choice services staff recommends

089a 5-year renewal of the contract which will need to be negotiated between staff and Charter School using the model contract developed by the state Madam chair any board members with any questions all right seeing none is there a motion move approval of the recommendation okay thank you member Fant offer the motion second by member gold all in favor please say I member Felder all right let the record show the motion passes with all members of the board voting in the affirmative with the exception of member Fel Felder who was unavailable for the vote all right thank you said yes oh she said yes oh thank you member Felder all right let the record show that member Felder voted in the affirmative all right do we have her on the line does she wish to speak

090okay no okay thank you moving on to information items Dr Vasquez thank you madam chair I will be brief I just have a few updates first we began the weapon screening at our next High School Timber Creek they will have a phased in approach the phase one will be bus bus riders on every other bus it's approximately eight buses phase two will then transition to all bus riders phase three will include bus riders and those students that are entering the campus by by the Performing Arts Center and cafeteria and then the Final Phase will be the full scale project La launch via the three entry points we anticipate that could take up to three weeks but again we're giving schools the flexibility based on the design of the school number of students and Personnel next

091I'd like to give an update on a project we've been working on we know that our media Specialists have had a lot put on them especially with legislation that was enacted requiring them to do review of our books our team has been looking at what can come off of their plate they are also heavily engaged with our devices we've been working with Englewood element El Conway Middle School Oakridge High School Kings Crossing and Hunter Creek Middle on establishing procedures where the media specialist is not as involved in the device management and simply assist with the check-in and the check out but they don't conduct any of the troubleshooting we should finish that project that pilot by before the end of the school year and then hope to put out new recommendations for what our media

092Specialists will be responsible for knowing that the book review process is just enormous and then my last update I mentioned a few board meetings ago that we had a working group that was looking at the teacher valuation again and trying to find ways that we can take some things off of our teachers plate we submit our evaluation process to the Department of Education and it has to meet certain guidelines the committee that was comprised of of teachers District staff and administrators made recommendations that we have submitted to the state they include reducing the number of written action steps within the deliberate practice plan omitting the rating for certain elements within domain 2 and developing a written growth plan and element 39 that's part specific element within that plan and that the overall deliberate practice score

093will be based only on the classroom observation not the portfolio of work that teachers were required to do and it will remain additive to the instructional practice score and so while we wanted to try and do more we do have some constraints based on the state's requirements as soon as we hear back from the Department of Education we'll be able to share that with all of our teachers that's my report Madam chair all right thank you any any questions all right member cast D okay yeah please thank you madam chair I just have a comment thank you Dr Vasquez for continuing to look for ways to lessen the teacher workload and especially in that manner as well their observations and evaluations those are very stressful times and anything we can do to kind of streamline

094that is helpful I really appreciate that and I appreciate that you're submitting these to the department to get the okay and to make sure that we're following all the rules and regulations so that no one is caught up in something you know later on saying your evaluation doesn't count so this is important and I appreciate the continued effort to look at the workload of our teachers thank you Vice chair thank you madam chair I'll just kind of echo what member Castor Dental just mentioned thank you anything that we can take off of our teachers play our assistant principles or anything that we can do to streamline to make our employees jobs easier is always welcome I know the media specialist will appreciate the device coming off their plates because it really does tie down so

095much of their time not to mention they're the ones getting the calls from upset parents when they have to deliver bad news that on top of vetting books and trying to put on Book Fairs and talking to students and being it is a lot so I really appreciate that you know I would be remiss if I if I didn't say this but I would love for the eoc's to go away as we look at evaluation I just I have to throw that out there I 8 fifth if you're a fifth grader or an eighth grader there is so much testing done and most of it's due to the in of course exams that are tied to evaluation and so if there's any way that we could and I'm not against testing or accountability because I

096am I just feel like the teacher should be have flexibility in that EOC and use it but you and I have had this conversation before but I just publicly wanted to say that thank you all right thank you member Gall member gold oh I have to jump on that bandwagon I am all for accountability but what we do for accountability right now really doesn't align with anything that is going to make a difference in the future of our children so you know if we could build points for their exceptional gifts their aptitudes and their interests and we could have them learn the basics I'm not saying Reading Writing arithmetic are out you have to know those things in order to be a good citizen and be have capacity for for building more knowledge but we

097are just not aligned and I just want to support member Galla's request for that and how do we stay within the rules until the rules catch up with the world and take the burden off of the teacher and make sure that we're not incentivizing the wrong wrong things even though that's how it's legislated superintendent you just you're queued up next I'm not putting you on the spot I just want to respond to board member Gallo's comments and we've had these conversations we actually had a system in place where the teachers instead of having the EOC could use the schools overall Ela or math score and there was much consternation amongst teachers who weren't directly teaching that content area and felt that could negatively impact their rating their pay and so we switched from that to

098what we have now that's not to say that we can't continue to come together and look for solutions that would require less testing and be more in line with real world assessments we have more flexibility with eoc's than we do with the state assessment so we will continue to work in that Arena to make it more applicable and less testing all right thank you that was helpful for me to understand a little bit about the history so we did it one way and we had complaints so we're doing it the other way and we have complaints which makes sense I mean you're going we've got 14,000 instructional employees they're going to be different things that work for different people in different classrooms so it makes sense let me call on Mr palmerini good evening members

099of the board couple things briefly first as you all are aware we got the special magistrates report and recommendation on February the 3D and U parties looked at it became pretty evident that there was going to be some need for a legislative body hearing I talked with you all during our meeting on February 14th and the issue be surrounding the procedures and the start time for the hearing got consensus at that meeting for a 9 :30 start time where each party would get 90 minutes to present their case there would be a question and answer session where each board member would have five minutes worth the questioning time each party would get one minute to respond to the questions posed by board members and then the time for discussion and decision can I just interrupt

100for anybody who doesn't listen to the five minute of question time is five minutes per question okay a board member can take 5 minutes to ask questions yes and then we will cycle through and that board member can come back and ask questions again I just didn't want it to sound like board members have a maximum of five minutes oh no and I was going to go through something that would make it clear that it wasn't going to be that so thank you sorry no problem I was in case anybody watching turned off the TV right got it got it so we had set those procedures and we came to consensus for start time at 9:30 on February 22nd the superintendent tendered her rejection of the special magistrates recommendation on the healthc care issue and

101the parties had 20 days to determine whether or not they were going to file rejections the deadline was February 23rd the union did not file any rejections special magistrates recommendations at that time at 6:00 I sent a letter on February 23rd to the union Council and Council for the superintendent Jeff Mandel delineating the procedures I just described to you all I got an email a call from the Union's Council on Friday February 23rd I received an email from Union Council and I do want to go ahead and put it to you all so you can understand what the issue is that I'm getting ready to raise so from the unions Council on Sunday February 25th it is surprising and disconcerting that the board would schedule a 9:30 start time for this public impass hearing it

102is senseless to hold a hearing wherein the board will decide an issue of huge importance for teachers and their families at a time when the teachers will not be able to attend the proceeding occta urges the board to reconsider and schedule this meeting at a time when teachers are out of school and could have the opportunity to be part of the process that greatly affects the rights and their rights and benefits we expect the board to do the right thing PL please let us know and so we convened a conference call at 8:00 on Monday morning between Mark Richard and Lucia Piva Council for CTA Jeff Mandel Council for the superintendent and myself and wherein they put in the request that the hearing the special the legislative body hearing that's currently set for March 5th

103be held at 5:00 as opposed to 9:30 I'm bringing this to you all because I need your direction I've previously gotten a consensus for 9:30 I just did want to go through this so just gaming out the time periods here so if we start at 9:30 probably going to take anywhere from 15 minutes to a half hour to just get through the opening statements and then each party gets 90 minutes so that would be 3 hours so when you game that out it's probably 9:30 to 1:00 we would then probably break from 1: to 2: so we could get lunch lunch would be provided for you all for the for the litigants as well and then we would restart at two for a questioning period given the experience I had with you all and how

104you all ask questions I would probably guesstimate that will last somewhere around at least two hours I'm just being that's a guesstimate obviously you all will control how many questions you ask or not so that would go from 2 to 4: and then you all would start your deliberations I would think that would take anywhere from an hour to hour and a half 2 hours so you're looking 530 or 6 by the time you end if you started at 5: taking the same time periods the presentations would be done at 8:30 assuming you break or not if you don't break and same two hours for questions you're now at 10:30 same hour and a half to two hours for deliberations you're now at 11:30 or midnight you all have said in in discussions with me

105that we went through this two years ago with the legislative body hearing where on January 5th it went from 4: to past midnight and then the two days later on the 7th it went from 3:30 to 9:30 so it was 14 hours worth of hearings on that you all have indicated that going that late was really negatively impacted your decision-making process you were tired doing it and so the earlier in earlier start time was meant to combat against that I'm telling you there's no legal impediment to you all starting at 9:30 you have that absolute right to set that time period as you see fit if you guys want to set a or if you all want to set a different time period other than 9:30 you have the consensus you have the ability to

106do that as well this is purely a board decision I forgot to say the superintendent Council indicated that they are they don't have a position necessarily on what time we start so long as we finish the hearing in one day and the discussion I had with both Council for the union and Mr Mandel was I think it's the board's strong desire to do this in one day we have one issue at issue and so I am coming to you all to bring ca's request that you start later their request is to start at 5: and I wanted to see if the consensus that we had for 9:30 Remains the consensus and I will now turn off the mic and allow you all to discuss thank you thank you Mr pomerini let me start with member

107salaman thank you so much for that context I I wasn't here last time and so when we were talking about what the start time was going to be like I did want to get a sense of that I've obviously watched the videos as well but it's not super clear what the time is outside in those videos so when I heard the times of you know went 14 hours starting at that time and it went over and I hear some of the concerns we're getting on you know we want to be there and you know teachers and our staff have to work the next day early I think they're hearing from both parties that they want to keep it to one day and seeing how long it takes right I mean that's 14 hours starting at

1084 or 5 p.m does not give us 14 hours to discuss obviously this is one issue instead of four but it's still a very tight timeline I do not want to rush this I also do not want to be tired when I'm making such an important decision I want I think clearer I am better so I personally speak for myself that in the morning when we have working sessions and we have working sessions early as well because that's when we can go on and on and discuss and be thoughtful and learn from each other at 10:00 a.m. is when those working sessions are so I personally still am supportive of keeping it at the time that we suggested which is 9:30 I think it you if our teachers want to attend that's potentially two days

109rather than one day it's potentially staying up till 1:00 a.m. instead of the normal one day work day so I hear that there is concerns for both sides on that so I definitely want to keep it to one day I want to give it as much time as possible as this Board needs I do not want to have time restrictions from you know X time to X time if both sides have said they want it to one day so I do have a preference for keeping it at the 9:30 one question did both sides say they wanted to limit try to limit it to one day I suggested that you know one day for one issue should probably be sufficient and both sides did agree with that assertion member Fant thank you we've had some

110talks and conversations and one of my big concerns was are teachers allowed to come and get in line and voice their thoughts their opinions and share with us and I was told that is not the case that there may be several that come and as part of the deliberations and with that in mind knowing that the teachers would not have that opportunity to speak then whether they are here live in in person or they watch online I feel like they can get the same the same thing will happen whether they're here or not we're here to listen to their representative and the district's representative so with that in mind I think for me I'm I'm would like to still keep it at the 9:30 thank you member for member Gallow thank you madam chair so

111this has been I've been trying to process this and I've been getting emails regarding the teacher's desire to want to to be here in person and they aren't allowed to speak to us because this is a Judicial hearing and we will be live streamed and it will be recorded so everything will be will be available for them to see as member front said but there still is a desire for our teachers to be present and to be allowed so I'm against 5:00 pm only because serving on in the last impass it was it was we were making really important decisions that affected 14,000 lives and it's it's it's never good to be making those at midnight or 1:00 a.m. you just get you just get you can't think but I wouldn't and I said this

112before so this isn't a shock I would not be I would not be opposed to starting at noon and then giving them a chance after work to come to the meeting so that they could see the majority of it but I've voiced my opinion on that prior so I would not be opposed to that and that would still give us time hopefully to be out here by 8:30 or 9 for that process so that's just my opinion I wouldn't be opposed to 12: anytime around there but yeah 5 5:00 p.m. is just too difficult to get through thank you all right all right thank you member Gallow member G I just wanted to highlight something that Council said that we are deliberating on one issue this time because some of the emails I've received today

113are talking about pay the issue that we will be deliberating on in this hearing is for healthc care so I just wanted wanted to clear that up for that and also once again reiterate this is like a quasi it is a quasi judicial hearing so it is like Court where we hear from the representatives of all of the parties not the entire party base I want to make sure that we don't feel rushed and I would prefer that we stick to the n 30 time frame so that we continue to be sustainable all day long and make the best and prudent decisions and ask the best questions we possibly can of all parties without you know getting too tired too hangry to anything so all of all of those things I think are important especially

114having gone through this and similar situations in the past you we want to do what's in the best interest of all the staff and while it is the cta's impath whatever the decisions are affects all 23,000 employees so this is or 25 now so this is very vitally important that we do it in the best manner possible and because not we aren't taking public comment I think the best manner possible is make sure that it's recorded and accessible to everybody all right thank you member Gold Member CER D thank you madam chair and I appreciate the discussion and everyone's rationale and I can see every angle and I wonder if like member Gallow we could just kind of split the baby I hate that saying if we could just I understand the a lengthy process

115it can be and it is difficult to deliberate but I also know that we will come prepared we will know our questions ahead of time we can break for food listening we may not we're listening true I ex we will still come prepared maybe not know all the answers to our questions but we may have questions but that we know of ahead of time but the fact that this is so important to teachers the emails I've gotten indicate that they would like to watch and attend and I understand that perspective of being a part of a process that directly affects you so I totally understand that people would be hesitant to stay so late but I think if we start noon or at 1 that still allows people to come at one point when they're

116done and we will still be in the middle of deliberations and questions and we can still get out by :00 or so I think that to me is a is a good way a good place to land at noon to start thank you thank you member CER D member bird thank you I too understand both sides I understand the teachers wanting to be a part of it we have clarified here is that I have had teachers email me saying that they want to be able to give their testimony and our job is just to listen to the representative of the of both parties you know I lean more towards sticking with the 930 for all the reasons that have been mentioned I think that trying to make these decisions at midnight or 11:00 are very

117difficult and you know I mean I could I could see I can see the noon too but but I do have serious concerns about starting it I definitely can could not see starting it later than that but I think the big the biggest thing is making sure that teachers understand that this is not like a normal board meeting and this is where we're just hearing and I'm I'm appreciative of General Council for sharing the process and what that's going to look like so I'm okay with nine or noon personally all right thank you member bird member Felder meld are you with us remember Felder okay is Dr Williams speaking with her Dr Williams is waiting for a response back to a text she there's obviously technical issues okay all right well we'll hold just a

118minute while we try to obtain her input all right while we're waiting having heard the pros and cons of of both starting at 9: and starting at noon one of I'm inclined to or 9:30 I think we're at 9:30 right I Here's my thought on this if it takes approximately three hours to hear both sides and I agree with you it will take a little time to get started I think most of you have gone back and watched the hearing there was so much time consumed by debating the process and the amount of time there was more time spent on almost on tracking how much time as well that's not really true but there was there was a lot of time consumed that was outside of the scope of what I think we envisioned we

119are trying through limiting the time that board members ask questions and the time for answers to run a tighter meeting and I certainly I'm sure you all did as well read the transcripts from the special magistrate and you didn't you didn't read in there the same kind of debate going on on issues other than the fundamental issues so that can be done it is possible to do that it's my hope that with everybody present in the room rather than virtually that we will get through this much quicker it's would be 40 minutes for each board member to ask one question and it would be actually each of us has five minutes which could be three questions and we're going to get a response which is going to take at least another 10 minutes so one

120round is an hour I would imagine there'll be at least two two rounds so that's 2 hours so 3 and 1/2 hours plus 2 hours were 5 hours when I tack that on to noon that doesn't sound too bad and we could break for lunch and I mean break for dinner so that seems like that could work but one concern I have is that if we have teachers who are coming and they're coming at when school is out they've missed all of the presentation and I think it's important if you're going to observe this process to observe the whole process we've talked about how valuable it is to have members of the public when they come to our meetings see other aspects of our meetings in this particular case I think you can't truly understand

121the pros and cons and until you hear both full presentations so it's it's I it's impossible that they're going to do that they're going to show up and then if I were them I would be showing up thinking I'm going to speak so I am concerned about moving it giving our teachers the false belief that they're going to come afterwards and they're going to speak disappointing them then and they don't have the benefit of being able to watch the whole process because they're coming in at the at the end so for those reasons I think we're better off going with 9:30 recognizing that most of our employees will not be able to watch it real time but it won't that wouldn't change the outcome but they will be able to see the whole process that

122evening or the next day so I think that is the better way to go under the circumstances member Felder do we have feedback from Member Felder so we have it by text her preference is noon noon yes okay so we have at this point one two three four we have one two three so remember bir you on the fence you could go either way okay and I'm two I I can be two votes I have worked very very hard do not be two votes so based on that anybody this is like being a jury here right again we have one two three are firm TW noons I'm four is noon and we have three I mean I'm sorry we have we have four that are 9:30 9:30 9:30 okay if you're 12 so there's four

123for 12 4 for 9:30 you're you're oh wait let Pam share Pam I'm I'm I'm definitely goingon to hear from you please trying to give you give you time to buy time thank you so ladies following the chair's train of thought if and remember while we're hearing impath on the teachers this affects the whole employment block so this affects everybody not just the teachers even though the impath is with the teachers if the teachers come in the middle of a discussion and don't have the background for that discussion how does it help them participate in this process and we cannot start at 5:00 we can't unless we're going to do this over three days at 5:00 and that would be horrific for everyone involved including the teachers so I I would implore you to really

124think about what's in the best interest of making the absolute right decision and keeping the process in a fluid motion forward we all want to do what is right for all of our staff but we have to make sure we're doing it in the right setting at the right time with the right energy M Salam Mona yeah I I I want more time like if I'm going to optimize for something when I'm making a decision on the Healthcare of 25,000 people I want more time to deliberate I want more time to ask questions I understand folks wanting to be here to listen to some of this which they will be able to do and it's still accessible still online it'll be live as well but I don't know if I want that as much as

125I want more time to delibery I if we know we're going to have potentially a hard stop unless we you know at the end decide it's 1:00 a.m. and we want to do more I want to give myself more time so I do I'm optimizing for having a more thoughtful approach and an earlier clear mind above all else for these 25,000 people and I am happy still to obviously we're we're spending a lot of discussion time to like I welcome folks to send you know I can't reply to all these emails but if they have questions if there's things we want us to be thinking about that's their opportunity for them to be heard so email us these questions to help us think through all of this but that will be the opportunity to be

126heard you know you're not going to get to speak during the time together so yeah I would like time to get through all those questions I think that is the most important thing in my perspective so thank you member Gala thank you madam chair and I hear what my fellow board members are saying and I agree that it is we want to be thoughtful and we want to be clear and we want to have time to deliberate and ask questions I still believe as Karen mentioned kind of splitting it down the middle I understand and then that was my question like I was struggling because I thought well teachers they're not allowed to speak they'll just be able to listen they're going to we are recording it will be live streamed all of that is

127in place and yet according to the emails that I received it was still very important that the teachers were in the room it was important for them so that's why I suggested noon just because you are kind of splitting the difference it would give those teachers a chance to come after school I understand that they would miss part of the conversation I'm not as concerned about that because it is taped and it will be recorded they can go back they aren't allowed to speak directly to the board so if there's misinformation they're you know they can go back and look at it on the tapes so I just think because there is a desire for those to come I wouldn't be opposed to noon because it is kind of splitting the difference so I just

128wanted to kind of add that in there thank you thank you member bird I well be let me again I I think having accurate information is extremely important I always feel in this process that something is missing I definitely do from the emails that I'm receiving and regardless of the decision the board makes I want to make sure that our employees have a fair opportunity to understand why we're doing it and I think showing up at the time when you're going to vote is like showing up at Court when the verdict being read if you haven't heard both sides and you haven't had an opportunity to hear the questions and really understand the thought process of board members I don't know how you can have any confidence in the decision that you make regardless of

129which side of this issue you are and I say sides because we have two sides we have the district with its position on Healthcare and we have the union with its position on Healthcare so District obviously will be seeing this whole thing but our employees if they're showing up at the end they're not likely to see the whole process whereas if they're watching it the next day or on the weekend they will see the whole process that's that's my thought process and my logic behind it member bird or member member Castro denl you're queued up thank you madam chair I think what the teachers are asking is simply to be in the room when it happens to quote Hamilton I think that's important they don't have to give any feedback they don't have to I

130think if we make it clear today what the record will be like we can't we can do our best to present both sides and hope that the facts are laid out and we can hope that everyone listening weighs the facts but I think there is such a sense already that this is set up against them even though I disagree with that I think this would be one more way that they may feel like we're not listening I'm just getting overwhelming emails and requests and people talk to me and they just want to be in the room and I think if we just make that clear that there won't be a time for people to make a comment their presence can make a big difference when they're all sitting in the in the room with red

131shirts on looking at us as we deliberate it does impact our decision making you know so I don't mind having teachers come when they're able to to be a part of the process and I think that's an important part we have an important role but they want to be a part of that process and being in the room I think is significant to them that's all remember Salam Mona yeah I just wna to to member Castro Donald's point the 9:30 we're not saying we don't want teachers in the room I want teachers in the room and whether we start at noon or we start at at 9:30 they were still going to be able to come at the around the same time it doesn't change the time that they can be in the room I

132want teachers to be here I want to hear them it just changes the time of the beginning right so I it's not that I don't want to hear the perspective it's it's I want them to be in the room I will be here when they come in so it's more of I just want additional time to to make a decision but I hear that they it is it is symbolic for them to the be room to hear us and to be part of that process especially towards the end when we are talking about our decisions and how we're thinking about that so I don't think either time prudes teachers from being here when that happens they'll be here when we're wrapping up that time so I don't I guess I don't fully appreciate how starting

133noon versus 9:30 changes there ability to get here at certain times member gold just to follow up that point the only teachers that might be able to be here in any reasonable time would be the high school teachers and that's only if they don't operate clubs or extracurricular or Performing Arts because elementary school gets out later middle school gets out even later so the bulk of them that would be available to come would be after 4:30 or five anyway so I look how long it takes us just to answer this question that it's not going to be done at 5 I wish I it'll be a miracle if it is it's just it's just not we are too thoughtful of a group we want to make sure we look at every which way on things

134we are not precluding participation we are making sure that everything is heard and deliberated on in a reasonable time frame member bird okay so went back and forth as I often do but I think that member gold brings up a good point look at how long this is taking us to make this decision and I am kind of actually shocked that General Council thought that we might be able to get our questions done in two hours I don't know who you're thinking of but that has pretty much never happened in the history of this board so I had I agree that I think this is going to take a lot longer than probably what we're thinking it's going to take even though we only have one issue just because I know the nature of us

135so and I absolutely do not want this to linger past one day I'm already irritated that it's taking us this long and that we're at this point anyway so and that our teachers have not gotten the raises so I want to get this done as fast as we can so I am going to change my vote to 9:30 all right thank you member bird member forant oh no I'm not changing if you change your vote right now no I'm staying at 9:30 but I just wanted to also just encourage everyone to remember that for teachers if you're watching you for those of you who are in the teachers union you have elected representatives to represent you this is the time where you need to trust your representative and then the district has their representative and

136we're here you've elected us to represent you and so all of us this is when you have to just trust that we're going to listen to each side and make sure that we're listening to what is best if you do have a concern you can please email us if it is a copy and paste it's hard to sift through some of those but if you do have a legitimate concern and want to email us now is the time to do that so we can listen to that this is where your voice is heard through those emails and I just I will continue to say 9:30 because as everything has been stated this board takes forever to get through what can feel like maybe the simplest thing and so I think the longer we have for

137the day the very the better and it makes we want to get this done and over with being on this side of this process I'm it's frustrating and I want to get that money into the hands of the teachers and just get move past where we're at and and move forward so 9:30 is where I stay Mr palmerini do we need a vote no I don't think it's a vote I just think it's the consensus of what I've heard up here so I think my amateur math shows five in favor of 930 member Felder indicated to Dr Williams that she was in favor of noon but she'll go with what the majority of the board says okay so I think five is a majority of eight all right all right so that decision is made

138you can relay that to both parties thank you madam chair no exactly Madam chair I just had a couple more items go ahead oh no no no it's really brief we had our Florida Schoolboard attorneys Association Winter meeting here at the school district we hosted attorneys from around the state for our winter conference Mrs enval did a great job setting up the conference and we had approximately 50 attorneys from around the state here to discuss issues over two days so it was a successful conference that we hosted here at the ELC and over at OTC so we wanted to thank our friends at Orange Technical College for making their facility available on on Saturday as well and then finally I was an intern here in 2000 to 2002 so I knew Linda southernland she treated

139me like a human being instead of an intern and she was always took the time to talk to me to talk about her decision-making process what she went through as a board member she was the epitome of what a public official should be and I even remember I've covered her when I was at the newspaper and I remember there was an issue with when we first implemented sap and it was having a hard time getting checks out and she said up here on this Das and said I don't care if I have to hand sign checks all day I will do that to ensure that our people get paid I just thought she was the epitome of class and a wonderful human being who was always kind to everybody and I wanted to make sure

140that I said that because she was always good to me so thank you for giving me that opportunity thank you thank you John and I missed the part about you being an intern so when I walked back in the room and you said she treated you like a human being I was a little worried about why that seems so odd and do we not treat you like a human being went through my mind and then you mention the intern and I'm like okay so I joke around with you a lot and I yeah but I do recognize you're a human being and I value that in you I actually do I I value the fact that you're very conscientious here at work that you're devoted to your family that your wife you bring her up

141so often and you're so proud of her so I love the human being in John I appreciate that and I appreciate all of you I've had to talk about people dying last couple months and it's been very difficult for people who were yeah important to me when I got going and I just yeah it the years go by and this is part of it and it's hard but I wanted to make sure I said things about Linda who was so kind to me and John I meant what I said this morning I she was literally one of the first elected officials I ever met and it changed my whole opinion not that I you know not that I thought everybody was good but I knew some could be and that once I knew some could

142be and that some people ran for office because they cared about others and they wanted to do good was a perspective I wasn't sure really existed until I walked into this building and I met Linda and that whole board was really really good people and anyway so and then she didn't just leave that here I mean everything that she touched and did was devoted towards our youth and our most needy of our youth so really really missed she leaves a void and when a void is left the rest of us need to step up so member bird you want to close us out no no no we have a couple of reports yeah member B please during our public comment we had a parent bring up the death of a student in Oklahoma right it

143was Oklahoma yeah I was having like a mind blink for a minute and I believe leave from all accounts it was a head trauma that an ambulance wasn't called so I just wanted to find out if we have policy for any kind of head injury and calling an ambulance Whenever there is a head injury do we have policy for that can you share that with us yeah we absolutely have a policy on first administering first aid to students it says you will call 911 if there is a life-threatening emergency so that is absolutely required under your policies for any type of life-threatening injuries including head injuries and I thank you for bringing that up I also wanted to point out too that we have the anti-bullying policy the anti-bullying policy applies to our lgbtq students

144if they are getting bullied because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity or expression that is something that we will remediate under our anti-bullying policies it will be investigated and if it's found to have occurred it will be remediated so this is not something that should ever happen with the policies this board has passed thank you John member Fant thank you madam chair I just wanted to voice a concern with our the books I know we had discussed there was 26 that had been reviewed will be pulled off the shelves there was two that recently are they young adult and I believe I don't know within our discussion last week maybe I need to just go back and listen to all of that but with a young adult that if there's a concern they

145look at the reviews and then if they feel it's okay they put it back on the shelves I am I am concerned with that because two of of them that were put back on the shelves The Bluest Eye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower from what I've read and the pages that I've read through on these books it has very disturbing content a lot of sexual content within the books I'm just concerned that someone is going to end up having I don't want repercussions for any of our staff and so I think if something comes to their attention and someone within maybe a media specialist says hey this may have content that goes against State Statute I think we do need to just read through that someone on the staff needs to read through

146that and just ensure that we're doing a thorough review all right thank you member front member Galla superintendent one superintendent yeah please okay yeah thank you member forant and the process is not foolproof anyone still can do a challenge to the book and that will automatically trigger the re the establishing of the school-based literacy committee they will read the book and then make recommendations and it moves up we have so many of the classroom library books that need to be reviewed and this was one way that we could find that was common among some of the other districts provided a bit more structure and still allows for anyone that wants to do a challenge to that partic to any book that may have that label so we felt that was a a compromise Within a

147process that's incredibly complicated okay member Gallow thank you madam chair so I have a couple of things number one is as Pam mentioned earlier her and I attended the kaspa annual conference in Dallas Texas last week and it was such a great conference with such great speakers every time I go to one of their conference I learned so much it's so great to talk with school districts across the country to learn their best practices to see what they're doing in their schools how they're making a difference there was a great presentation and I brought I brought you the flyer it was from maretta Georgia but the gains that they're making in literacy due to the science of reading and training their teachers on OG was it was phenomenal and it wasn't just in reading that

148they were making those gains they were making significant gains far outweighing anybody else in Georgia in math as as well and I know we could use we could use some of those numbers in math here in Orange County so it we had stuff on chronic absenteeism Workforce Development and I went to several classes on the science of reading and I'm just more committed to ever that literacy has to be our top priority is as member bird said earlier everything leads back to literacy chronic gaps in teismo out rates achievement gaps everything leads back to literacy and literacy has to be our number one priority after school safety here in Orange County Schools so I just wanted to mention C but I'm sure that Pam will be will talk about it in more detail I also

149want to say that I went to the Orlando Science school today and I did a tour of the elementary school and the high school they're getting they're I think I put in a proposal to open one in on University Boulevard which is in my district but anyways it was a fabulous School they had ambassadors children students walking me around they were so they were so eloquent and nice and gracious and there's just there's just really a lot of good things happening in that school as far as robotics and the science fair and I would like to challenge the district and our schools to get more involved in the local science fair because ocps didn't have a very strong showing at the science fa that they just had I think this month or last month and

150we would love they would love to be more collaborative with Orange County Public Schools and really involve our middle on high schools in the science fair that's held it's usually it was held at Trinity Prep this year oh and then they gave me the look at these I can share these with the board but they gave me these little the cookies they were sharing I they beautiful no I got yeah yeah I'm not I'm going to leave them and then lastly I wanted to ask the superintendent if she could gather some data around our administrative our principles and APS and the way that we calculate the raise because there was a January 15th I think deadline of 2023 and due to the restructuring of teaching and learning there was many a lot of of our

151employees of our staff that was promoted to either AP or principls and then the raises were based on where they were in January of 2023 and they missed out on the 9% raise and this 9% raise is a historic raise and I'm not I just don't want them to miss out and it's the first time we've done percentages and so if we could just make that information available to the board of of cost wise what would that mean and if we could look at that HR practice and maybe have a discussion around changing the date to a date that's better suited for our emplo employees I would welcome that conversation superintendent please thank you madam chair absolutely we follow the HR guidelines and those are amendable to changes we will come back to the board

152I know you mentioned assistant principles but it would include any employee that falls in that category and we can come back with the number by position the cost and then be happy to listen to the board with recommendations one of the reasons that was put into place was to avoid someone who's been in the position for one year and someone who's just been appointed that they would not have the same salary or that they would jump over someone who is already in in a position maybe for just one or two years I do understand it's a historic raise and I would venture to say probably we're probably not going to see a 9% raise anytime in the near future and so we will certainly come back to the board with that data and have further

153conversations m cter denl is gold you miss gold you SK over P remember gold remember gold I'm okay either way it didn't matter yes and follow up first to the comments that member Galla had this was probably one of the most content Rich conferences with relevant information and really talking about the gap between how we're teaching and what students truly need to have successful Pathways in life and so I'll be sharing I gathered a lot of things and I'll I'll send it to the superintendent and I can certainly have Marilyn send it to some of the board members some of it without hearing the discussion or the presentation may not make a lot of sense but there was some really excellent content on a lot of things including attainable housing and some models that are

154being used in other parts of the country that allow staff to build equity over a 5-year period through their rental payment so it pays and they had a mixed a mixed income plus a mixed residential site so there was multif family housing but they built cottages and the Cottages are deed to the school District use so it was a really really interesting model so there are ways that we can look at that and of course once we're kind of past this immediate issue for our employees if we don't start to attack attainable housing along with some of our other largest employers that in what they're doing we just can't keep people close I have a bus that is taking three hours on Sundays because nobody lives in my community that drives that bus so they

155have to get from one part of town to the other and then start the routes and that's not always easy every day so we just need to look for every possible way to help our emploees I wanted to see if the board might be interested in convening a Communications committee meeting once we're pasted the impath to kind of debrief on some communication strategies going forward and there was also a really cool site again I'll share it with the site in Wyoming where they have an opening page which is one of the most awesome videos I've seen for a school or a school district that just shows all of their capabilities in a very fun fast-paced way with basic information and then you get past that page and you get to the main content of each

156School page and so I'm I would like to maybe discuss some different formatting because we have so much information what could maybe be an opening page that gets refreshed once a year but then beyond that what else can we communicate forward and then you know what do we really need in a strong for lack of better word marketing plan in order to make it easy for our students and our teachers and our parents because all three need to know everything that's in our system and it's impossible to know if you're in one particular area it's just impossible we get the benefit of getting to touch and experience a lot of different aspects of CPS but if I'm only coming to one location to do what I need to do for those students I don't know

157that we've you know just opened up a semiconductor or working on a semiconductor program for our student I don't know that until it's way down the road so I that's something if everybody would like to I can have Marilyn schedule a meeting to to take a look at some of these issues I thank you got a lot of support for that member Castor Den thank you Madame chair I want to change the subject here a bit and talk about a bill that was submitted and passed last legislative session that created a task force to look at an African-American Museum History Museum in the state and their the task force has met U for several months now and they're just creating and coming up with with the concept of what content would they have and how

158much space would a museum need and where would it one be you know the most accessible to people throughout the state and one the most important part is where would it be located and would that place have a significant history so the town of Eatonville would like to submit an application to locate the museum on the Hungerford School property and it sounds like a perfect fit to me and we're hoping that all the pieces will come together we're still waiting for more information from the task force and the application will be due I guess in a next month so we're we're coming up against a deadline but we would like to propose or share more information at the next Schoolboard meeting when we GA when we get more information but we did receive a letter

159from the town asking us to partner with them not just the land but in the creation and allowing the school district to have a role in that Museum and that would provide enriching activities and instruction to our 200,000 students so we have Demetrius Presley is here in the audience today he is the Town Administrator for the town of Eatonville and he has been working together pulling different partners from the Orange County Commission or the mayor and different other Community Partners and would like us to really consider being a partner in this endeavor so we'll you will be getting more information as we gather more thank you very good yeah very exciting member Felder what bill was that M Felder I don't know what bill that was okay okay if if we hear back from her

160before we conclude but I do Bruce Anton okay I do have a follow-up question superintendent on the on the books so my recollection and this wasn't about classroom libraries it was takes us backways to our regular libraries was if a book was flagged or challenged based on pornography rather than some of the other categories that because of the language and the statute being so prohibitive and I think there's even a tie over to another section of the statute which could lend itself to even a criminal violation that we were going to that if the pornography flag was raised we were going to take it off the shelf while evaluating rather than leaving it on so I I got a lot of emails in the last couple days and I'm a bit behind but I it

161was an email I saw today that as I read it books that have been flagged to review for pornography are staying on the classroom Library shelves and so I may have misread that email but I very well could have misread the email but so that was my question if that's the reason not that somebody's challenged it but that our internal team says wait a minute we need to slow down this book we want to read from cover to cover because defining pornography is more complicated than some would think during that period of time does the book go back on the classroom Library shelf or does it stay off until it's been read and a final decision if there's a clear definitive answer to that go first so if you would the statute talks about various

162categories is it pornographic does it depict or describe sexual conduct as defined in the criminal statute unless such material is for a course required and what the statute requires that if it's porog if it's a challenge to have pornography or sexual conduct we have to remove it within 5 days off the shelf with regard until the challenge has gone through the entire process and then once that has gone through the entire process then you know if it's determined to be pornographic or sexual conduct and violation statute it would go off permanently if it's determined not to be it would not be with the I'll turn it over to superintendent with respect to the classroom libraries yeah and the question that I have is if we've talked about if it's challenged and to me if we

163have a media specialist who has said I have concerns I think this is pornographic but you have a team that's looking at it is it going back on the Shelf until such time as it's determined it is or does it come off until it's determined that it isn't is Dr Brown Cannon Dr Brown Canon do you mind I know Kibby is Miss Kibby is not here do you mind coming up I'm going to try and pull up yeah it was Miss kib's email that's what it was in Kibby oh Kibby I thought you said Kitty no no yeah that was the email that I read and I and again I may have misread it but I wanted clarification on it good evening board the email that I sent last evening says the district team will

164acquire a copy of the title and read it in its entirety to consider its literary value as a whole in the context of the Florida statue in school board policy igl no action shall be taken to remove the title from the media center or classroom collections pending the final determination of the district team schools will be notified if a book needs to be physically removed from the classroom Library Andor Media Center collection so as I understand that the book stays in the classroom even if the reason that it's being read is because there's belief that it could be it could contain pornography So currently the book The Medias excuse me the classroom library books that we've identified that could have an issue I think there's 26 titles yes ma'am are currently not on the shelf

165corre and those came from the classroom Library and those will remain off the shelf until they have been read in it in their entirety and then a DEC decision has been rendered currently there's a pause on the review of the classro myber materials because there's so many of them and so there's no other at this time that has been pulled we're in the process of going through and looking at the label and making that determination if it's young adult or adult content but the ones that have been identified those 26 titles are not on the are not on shelves yes ma'am that's correct okay okay it's yeah it I it must be my confusion over the next paragraph but we'll talk about we can talk about that offline okay and I think I heard member

166Felder no I thought I heard yeah hey mber Felder how are you I'm good so I wanted to just comment on the science of reading what member Gallow talked about and I'm hoping that we can really involve ourselves with that endeavor and also with member Fon her concern about the bluest Dy The Bluest die was written by poit surprise winner Tony Marson read the book I've taught the book I've read the book I've taught the book I've read the book I'm hoping that as we look at that is more than just pornography that it's about a young girl who has an insecurity about being colored or black and then she goes and gets yellow Jas in her eyes because she wants her eyes to be blue she wants to have blonde hair so it's love

167deep then and things happen to her she does get abused but I'm just saying a lot of the books written by African-American writers you have to read the book in it's entirety to know really what the hook is what the the whole source of it is so I'm sure that we're going to you know I don't stand in the way of any of the kind of reading critiques that we need to do for the book but The Bluest Eye it's I mean it's fullet surprise one America chose her as a politic Sur priz winner so I'm hoping that we really I know that everybody's doing the due diligence our Librarians media specialist about the books but I just wanted to put that in that was a book that I read and I taught and I

168read and I Tau I just wanted to share that thank you thank you member Felder member Fant as you know the books it this is a I just don't understand how we're trying to it's almost like we're protecting authors and adults more than we're trying to protect children when I'm reading through this book I mean I just it just doesn't even make sense The Bluest Eye for instance on page 149 removing himself from her if you have a child watching I would just advise you to turn this off and this is your warning this is graphic removing himself from her was so painful to him he cut it short and snatched his genitals out of the Dry Harbor of her vagina she appeared to have fainted chly stood up and could see only her grayish

169panties so sad and limped around her ankles again the hatred mixed with tenderness the hatred would not let him pick her up the tenderness forced him to cover her so when the child regained conscious ious so this is a child so we're reading about a so we're asking what nth graders this is in high school was this in Middle School we're asking ninth graders to read a child regain Consciousness she was lying on the kitchen floor under a heavy quilt trying to connect the pain between her legs with the face of her mother looming over her I just don't understand why we're this is just part of it I read through all this book today and just the sadness I would feel first of all this happens in our community absolutely I'm not naive to

170think that but the fact that we're offering this to children that we have teachers teaching this type of content to our children these are minors I just it again I think we need to be very careful what we are doing if we're we're just doing I was reading through the re the reviews that our team is using and the reviews are just very simple terms and I think we need to be reading like I'm on book looks. org this is very easy to to go to and in a matter of time you can read through and actually read from the pages of the book and I think we need to be very very careful I I mean this is graphic if not then we need to sit down as a board and we need to

171say what are we allowing in our what are we allowing because again this is just this is inappropriate content to provide to minor children really without their parents knowledge because the review that they're going to re receive is whatever our media Specialists are getting which is a very G-rated review compared to what is actually in these books superintendent thank you madam chair board member foron I understand your concern and I understand your Viewpoint about that content but there could be others that read that material and do not find it pornographic in in nature and so we will definitely go back based on some of the conversations that we've had here tonight the team can look at the process that we have the intent was to look at the labels that are approved for young adult

172which is a common practice in neighboring districts and then use that as an initial review if someone then media Specialists or parents believes that there's pornog graphic content in there then it could have further review and that's why the 26 books that we've looked at that are po that we posted today are ones that have been identified as having pornographic content and then we'll have that entire reading of the book and then the entire piece will be looked at in its entirety and a decision made as to whether it complies with legislation so we'll we'll we'll take it back but I can tell you that there are some media Specialists that would not take that book off the shelf they would not find that it meets a criteria of pornography and it's and it is

173it may be the board's decision to come together and look at what what the board would like us to see as more specific criteria in that area all right I think I think we've gotten as far as we're going to get tonight on and I think we'll need to think about whether or not the board has the capacity to figure that out and I know it seems I know it seems simple but I have a feeling we'll have multiple opinions probably more than two on this issue on the board yeah about us discussing it or about what is pornography yeah yeah I understand at this at at this at this point our meeting is adjourned