001good morning to this is the Orange County school board's work session which has been scheduled for today Tuesday February 20th 2024 for the purpose of discussing the following spring rezonings a relief Elementary School 130 D E-2 two targeted rezonings in the apopa and oakd areas and one technical Elementary rezoning from Dillard Elementary School to Prairie Lakes Elementary School library media selection process JJ OA School field trips and excursions jic code of student conduct for 20242 year and a brief overview of that IA student progression plan the public will not have an opportunity to participate in this work session to provide public comment because this is not a regularly scheduled school board meeting no action will be taken and there will be no open public comment in which the public would normally address the school board
002however before we take any action on any of the items we're discussing there will be a public meeting where the board will have an opportunity to provide input board members are in attending in person with the exception of member Felder who is participating by pH phone and so let me just call on you real quickly member Felder just to confirm that you're with us I just talked to her a second ago I know she's morning I'm here thank you also want to remind the public that board members will not be engaging in outside electronic or digital Communications during the meeting so that we can focus on the business before the board today to my fellow board members District staff and others when speaking please make sure your microphone is turned on and speak directly into
003it so our YouTube and orange TV viewers can hear you clearly we are going to begin with a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and I invite you to join us and now for the pledge pledge alance 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 Dr Vasquez I'm going to turn the meeting over to you at this point Thank you madam chair we will begin our busy morning with a presentation from student enrollment related to Spring resoning the relief Elementary School site 130 E-2 two targeted rezonings in the Apopka area and oakd areas and then a technical resoning for Dillard Elementary School to Prairie Lake Elementary School our presenters this
004morning will be Stacy Neil Thomas Moore and re ranada parabit perits I'm so sorry I buted your last name Miss Miss Neil good morning Dr Vasquez and school board members first I would like to introduce the rest of the staff that sent attendance senior administrators Amy McCormick and Dr Andy Westerman the office of student enrollment is bringing forth some rezonings for 2024 we have a technical resoning and it is located in aoi Winter Garten and it is called the aoi Crown Point plan and unit development alignment a reminder technical rezonings do not involve any children we are moving land at this time I'm sorry you might want to clarify that so technical rezonings do not involve children unlike targets targeted rezonings and relief schools so right now we're just aligning an area of dirt so
005it is just land that we are putting into a zone or removing out of a zone for any public who might be watching we do believe we are capable of magic and miracles here in Orange County Public Schools with what we do with our students every day but we actually do not believe that we can move land we do move the boundaries around the land the land stays there correct anyway I'm sorry for the levity you're right you're right thank you go ahead we are bringing forth two targeted rezonings one in a popka and it does involve middle schools pedmont lakes and aapka and to keep consistent feeder patterns the high schools or Waka and aapka high schools there there is a targeted we are calling Millennia Gardens option also so we have one relief
006School 130 E2 in the Lake Nona area providing relief to Laurette Park Elementary the next is the resoning timeline on February 12 2024 student enrollment held a community meeting here in the rblc at 6:00 p.m. and no members of the community attended today we are participating in the school board work session March 26th will be the school board rule development workshop and on April 9th is the public hearing at the completion of the resoning and if all if approved all Technical and targeted rezonings will commence August 2024 the relief School 130 E2 will commence for August 2025 now Rea rata will walk everyone through the rezonings good morning I'm ranata paropa and I will be presenting the proposed resoning today our first resoning is technical resoning oo Crown Point plant unit development alignment let's take
007a look at the map the red lines represent current elementary zones the hashed area is the Pud property that is located within two elementary school zones Prairie Lake and Dillard Street the area to be res is in yellow the area in pink is an adjacent property which is aoi high school property both areas are currently zoned for prair Lake Elementary Zone if approved the targeted area and the adjacent property will be moved from prair Lake to Dillard Street Elementary Zone this will allow the entire development to be zoned for the same school there are currently no ocps elementary students residing there the targeted area is expected to generate 40 Elementary students and there's the blueprint of the development where you can see the West Orange Trail dividing the property if this Orizon is approved this
008is how the zones are going to look the purple area is the prair lake Zone and the green area is the dard street Zone this resoning will commence in August we have not received any input from the community as of yet and this concludes my presentation for aoi crowno planed unit development alignment Dr Vin any board members have questions on this item all right we are we're pausing for anybody watching pausing for just a moment because this presentation and the other presentations on rezonings are not posted on board docs right now and which is not some sort of a serious violation but I know that we have at least one board member who's not present doesn't have access to the presentation and there may be members of the public that would want to see it
009including that's actually something I rely on so that if I need to go back to a slide while you're talking so we're just that's that's the reason for the path all right Dr VES gu I think the presentation on the first item is finished and we have no comments from board members just in case you have any that you want to add okay all right let me also I believe this is in member gold is this in your District I believe no I'm sorry thank you that line is still a bit foggy thank you member it's mine and I don't have anything to say just because I approve with I mean you're you're fine with us moving forward with this for advertising purposes for the next meeting all right thank you all right back our
010next resoning is targeted resoning pedmont Lakes Middle School and a pop Middle School align adjustment the green lines on the map represent current middle school zones the targeted area is in yellow it is currently zoned for pedmont Lakes Middle School there are 21 ocps middle school students residing in this area if this resoning is approved this is how the zones are going to look in Green apopa Middle School and purple pedmont likes Middle School this resoning will commence in August 2024 the targeted area is currently zoned for pedmont and there there's 21 ocps middle school students the next slide represents a demographic overview of the resoning the First Column shows the name of the school involved in the resoning with the school's permanent program capacity a popka middle school with 1, 76 capacity and pedmont
011lakes with 9911 the next column displays student enrollment captured on October 16 2023 with perent breakdown for rent ethnicity white black and other and non-hispanic and Hispanic for Apopka 9002 9912 enrollment 66% white 27 black and seven other 40 48% non-h Hispanic and 52% Hispanic for pedmont Lakes 916 enrollment 69% white 35 black and six other 51% non-hh Hispanic and 49 Hispanic the third column displays the current number of students residing in each Zone there are, 147 students in a popka Zone and 1,64 in pedmont Lakes Zone the next column shows how many students will be residing in each Zone if this resoning takes place aopa Middle School 1, 168 students with 68% white 25% black 7% other 52% non-hispanic and 48% Hispanic the projected number of students attending a popka in 2024 will be
012between 880 and 900 students for pedmont Lakes the numbers are as follow 1,40 three students with 61% white 32% black and 7% other and 53% non-h Hispanic and 47% Hispanic there are between 875 and 8995 students projected to attend pedmont lakes in August 2024 if this resoning takes place the next column is Farms free introduced MIRS the current percent for Apopka is 56% % and the proposed is also 56 for pedmont Lake 61% current and 61% proposed ESC exceptional student education is 14% current and proposed for a popka and pedmont likes as well elll English language Learners are 9% current and proposed for apopa and 8 and 9% for pedm mod Lakes we have not received input from the community and this concludes my presentation for the targeted resoning of pedmont Lakes Middle School and
013AA Middle School adjustment Dr V all right thank you member bir you recognized thank you chair so I want to just discuss this rezoning targeted rezoning because I think it brings up a really interesting conversation for the board to have and the reason is because it's it kind of forces us to look at two of our biggest issues and kind of decide what we think our bigger issues our busing problems or our overcrowding in schools they're both pretty big issues this zoning this targeted resoning came about from parents from these this communities reaching out to me because can you go to the next map the next one please if you look at the where it's at you see apka Middle School is right next to this community right there to the left and Pont Lakes
014Middle School is all the way down there to the South so these kids from this neighborhood could walk to that to Apopka middle school but instead they're busted all the way down to peont Lakes they reached out to me because the bus is late every day their kids are missing first period they don't understand why they can't just walk to the middle school near their house okay which we hear a lot so that's why I had the team pull this up and to do this targeted resoning look at it and see what would be the result the issue is not really with the middle schools the issue now would be with the high schools which is the next targeted resoning we're going to see and what that will do is these kids that if we
015move them to a popka middle school they will we will then want them to feed into a poka high school because all those kids from apka middle go to aapka high school and now they're zoned for Waka High School which is all the way South like the Pont Lakes is they will still have to be busted but the issue is the overcrowding at a poka high school papka high school is about 200 students over capacity right now well Kiva High School is about 700 under capacity so staff is of course concerned about you know putting potentially 20 right now there's about 20 high school students in this area 20 kids in a school that's already overcrowded for the high school and it makes sense I get it I understand the concern my first my first
016instinct though is that it is a bigger we have a plan for that we have relief property we have a plan to build a relief high school at some point we do not have a plan in the near future for a busing problem so my bigger concern as a board member is making sure that we are able to transport our kids to from school and that they're not missing important instructional time and so that this is kind of where this is at we don't it is what it is it's there is the problem with the high school and there is some concern about moving forward with this targeted resoning but I'm very very interested to hear from the board and I think it's an important discussion as we look for Solutions with our transportation problem
017and I've talked to Stacy about this and the team that you know one of the those Solutions is weworking some zoning so that kids can go to schools that are closer so we can maybe eliminate some busing routes which this will do but that opens up a whole another ball of wax with you know our schools and how they're demographically lined up and other things so in the overcrowding so I think it's an interesting resoning I think that it's warrants a conversation I don't really know where to move from here so that's why I'd like to hear from our board thank you member bird and thank yeah thank you for bringing that to our attention for discussion there's there's one other element there's the busing there's the overcrowding and then this may be the sacred
018cow I'm not sure but there's also the feeder pattern and I understand why each one of those is really important and I understand why we try to honor that feeder pattern so that our middle schoolers when they transition they're still there's still a group of students that they're very familiar with but if we didn't have the feeder pattern situation here we wouldn't be worried about the overcrowding or the busing we'd be able to make that decision that supports both so I just want to put that on the table as we're as we're discussing this my initial thought was I think the answer my initial thought and I'm reinking this as we're as as I'm talking but that it may depend on the magnit ude of the different problems so for a school that is grossly
019overcrowded and for a student population that we might be keeping or moving that is a significant enough population that it really is going to put enormous pressure on the ability for that school to operate and for those students to have seats and facilities and lunch at a reasonable time so I think all of those things factor into which is more important and if busing if we weren't in the situation we're in right now with not being able to find bus drivers then this would be if you asked me that question three years ago I would say overcrowding Trump busing but so I think it's the answer for me is going to be a whole lot of it depends but I really appreciate you you know drilling down critically thinking about this and then putting it
020to the board in a way that we can have a good policy discussion so thank you for that now having not given a whole lot of of constructive input other than it depends on how critical those situations are let me go to member gold so I can continue to ponder this member gold thank you member bird for bringing this forward I think in this one situation because it's it's one class I it makes a lot of sense I wish that we had the high schools on the map that would have been helpful is to have those on the map if you have them okay but but with the overlay so that we see both get so where's the Middle School in relationship to those right I you don't have one with the with both on
021it okay that's fine that's fine I it and the point there being and thank you staff for for showing that I can see that they're kind of close by flash memory I think this is a work session onto itself this there's a lot of opportunity and there's even feeder patterns that make sense but to to only discuss this I think it's absolutely worthy of discussion I think it makes sense there's a couple of places I know we could move in my community on on something like this and I think gain support with the right education but there's elements that we need to look at it's not just where the schools are but what the schools offer and I'm going to say something completely radical should we even open up more of a absolute abolute open
022choice between schools so that if even if capacity is an issue and and that would be a massive survey but to see where it falls not to go ahead and do it but to see where it falls because if we have schools that aren't offering program that are of value to the students in that Community we need to relook at it and so I think where we can do this and it absolutely Mak sense you know in in my hood if it's 20 more here or 20 more there kind of doesn't make a difference it's they're still full but I would like to look at the entire map see where there is opportunity see where it would align how many buses it would save and then what programmatically and where is it weak that we
023don't have people choosing to go to those schools because I think we have proven with a few of our magnets that it's not about where the school is located socioeconomically it's about the robustness of the programming within the school so that those are my comments all right member forant thank you I think it this is great great topic U member bird and I think if you've had Parents come to you with this concern I do think in this instant in this scenario I would definitely go with moving them because the parents are coming they're voicing the concern my thoughts would be if I'm the parent my kid is not even getting to school on time I have no I don't have the ability to drive them I'm going to find a new school and I'm
024going to pull them so that would be the thing for me is that I would want to make sure that we're doing what we can to help support the parents so in this instant I think we rezone it makes sense it's right there next to the school but I do think I also would be in favor of having a different work session where we talk about our schools there's quite a few that I can think of where parents are not going to their local school they're busing out to or not busing excuse me driving their kids over to a magnet school because they like that style or what that school has to offer and then their local Community neighborhood School suffers because they are lacking the children so I think it would be two way
025for me I'm I'm totally in favor of this but at the same point I would like to come back for a separate work session to speak about how we can help eliminate the bus the burden with you know so many bus routes and whatnot yeah thank you member front Vice chair thank you madam chair I agree about the separate work session I think we've had briefly had this conversation before where we're going to have to take a hard look at some of our schools that are underc capacity and where we move forward because we do have a busing shortage we have choice we have a lot of choice that we didn't have two years ago and I have no doubt that choice is going to impact our schools here in Orange County I think even
026more next year than this year because it was so new a lot of people didn't know about it there wasn't a lot of opportunity for private schools to pop up or even for those pod type schools to pop up which are becoming popular with parents and I think we're going to see more of a movement towards that so when we look at a poka high school and we look at those 28 students I'm not at all concerned about putting those 28 students students over in a poka High cuz we very we really could lose 50200 students out of poka next year we don't know what's going to happen with that school we don't know what's going to happen with enrollment and it's difficult to determine until we get into the school year but I'm confident
027with all of the choice that is now available to our parents that we are going to see a decline in enrollment that we haven't seen prior and we've got to take that into our thought processes as we move forward and we absolutely have to look at schools that are underc capacity and see what we can do so as I mentioned I am in favor of that of of discussing that here at the board table because we have to be financially responsible with the dollars that we're given I'm also a big supporter of feeder schools it is really difficult for a student to be in a middle school and when you're in middle school and you make friends to be separated from those friends when you go to high school is extremely difficult so I support
028keeping as many students together as as possible thank you great thank you superintendent you're recognized am I on thank you madam chair cabinet had extensive discussion on this topic and it is one that has pros and cons one of the greatest concerns is that we were taking students from an school that is under enrolled at the high school to a school that's overc capacity the other issue and concern was that there's neighborhoods to the left and right that could make the same argument about transportation and movement and so where do you draw the line and continue to take students from a school that is under enrolled into a school that is already over capacity we do need to look at the transportation issue to see how many of those students truly have been impacted by
029late buses that data hasn't come to us yet but I wanted you to hear the well we don't know it's a lot no I'm not no I'm speaking about this particular this particular resoning and the impact it would have on the high school that is already under enrolled that has programs there and the ability for the neighboring the other neighborhoods to make the same request I can definitely see the need for a work session because there's I know when you brought it up I'm looking at it for the first time thinking about these and I my brain which always tries to figure out what could go wrong to play kind of Devil's Advocate was coming up with an number of things superintendent has raised some other things I'm sure this has been looked at but
030with regard to what we do on this particular one again I don't I do not mean to be insulting but but I need to ask did we can you put back up the Middle School the map did we look at other areas that are closer to pedmont lakes and see if there are students that we could move in to pedmont Lakes to offset this change I'm sorry you want students to move out of pedmont lakes into aapka no I'm looking at other students that are in scho it's the high school not the Middle School yes I know but if the feeder patterns are the same where they student stents that we could move into Waka that are in aapka that aren't in this targeted area but are someplace else that are closer that need to
031be busted regardless we spent some time last year looking at you know I'm a little concerned with the volume in the room in general it might just okay can you hear me now okay that's so much thank you so we spent some time last year looking at the whole stretch of areas that are very close to that was closer to wava into wava right and when we looked at this and looked at all of the data we realized when these attendance owns were created they were created in in an effort to create an opportunity to provide diversity at our schools and now when when you do when you do that you're going to reverse that opportunity to create diversity and so it's it's going it could create a big negative both for the elementary and
032the middle if we were to do that yeah the numbers worked as far as capacity and everything but that was big con thank you thank you yeah that's that was exactly the question I was not about the diversity but about where the lines are I was trying to articulate thanks for understanding and saying it so much better than I did and again another layer of issues that aren't readily apparent when you just look at this map a couple of other thoughts going back to the superintendent's comments I think additional information that we would need to consider would be the magnitude as we just discussed of the overcrowding the plan for a new a re expansion or replacement or you know additional school how soon that would come and I think we also need to remember
033that at some point if Orange County takes off the shelf the order implementing the charter Amendment yes which I hope won't be abated forever the decisions we make here may also have implications for the ability of jurisdictions to provide housing necessary for our students so a lot of variables definitely a work session but we need a decision for what we might do moving forward at this point and we generally look to the District representative and in this particular case I am really glad I'm not her so member bird we're going to go to member Salamanca General Council back to Vice chair and then we'll come back to you M salaman yes this is just to say that I also would support a working session to talk about zoning I think as as my area grows
034a lot I find myself bumping into Old zones and kind of asking the question of why it's that way and what like what can we do to to rethink it and we have gone back I think the team has been great about rethinking what do we go back in question that was done before my time for sure but I think there's just a larger question on on zoning that I would be very supportive of having as a working session thank you I it's been brought to my attention that it's probably not the general councel who wants to speak thought that was a little unusual but we're always member Felder you are queued up next yes oh you want me to talk now yes ma'am okay yes thank you member bird for bringing up that concern
035about the possibility well we do need probably another work session to discuss this because even though we're not talking about it but we do have schools who are under populated and I'm specifically looking at Jones and then we l and then later on when I met with Miss Neil and her her group we talked about some elementary schools in my district they were having some issues but about the busing also with that I don't know superintendent BAS as what we can do because that is a concern because the buses I mean they're doing the best that they can do but when you do have that situation I even though in my debilitation right now I've gotten calls from District regarding the buses being laid and all of that but I think because we have we
036have to just really work extra hard to keep the bus drivers that we have and do whatever is necessary to to make sure that they stay so that we can you know improve better with that because I we haven't talked about it but I think in my district is growing but there is no more room really to build schools so we're going to have some serious issues you know not soon we'll have some issues but yes I just wanted to say to you all that I'm in agreement with perhaps that we do need another session to talk about this and have some time to put our minds and our brains together to see how we can work this out because it's it's it is a serious issue I just wanted to mention that thank you
037so much for the opportunity to speak thank you thank you member Felder we appreciate your input Vice chair thank you madam chair so I have a question well my initial statement was going to be it's 28 children and I don't know that 28 students is impactful to a Popco or Waka in either direction but my overall question is mber bird mentioned that we were looking to we have a solution for the overcrowd of a popka and then the superintendent mentioned that we have a capacity of 700 more students at Waka so instead of looking to build a relief or a poka why aren't we looking at targeted resoning between wuka and Apopka why would we build a new building when we have a high school so close that is so under capacity I think that
038may go back to I'm sorry superintendent do you want to respond I apologize as each of you can attest rezoning is both a difficult and emotional process and absolutely our team can look at that and we have had discussions about what do we do where we have overcrowding in certain areas primarily the outskirts of our of our County and then in our under enrolled schools and what you have mentioned board member Gallow is something that our team has looked at and can certainly come back to the board with some of those recommendations but again I know that would be an emotional resoning individuals that currently attend a poka as with so many of our high schools our schools have grown accustomed to the school its Traditions but we do have to have an honest transparent
039conversation about how we are looking at not just the numbers and I believe it might have been Tommy that mentioned it but the actual makeup of the school because in some instances when you may when you draw the lines it can drastically change the makeup of one school from what it currently is to what it will be based on the resoning and that is one thing that our team tries very hard to do is make sure that we balance out the demographics the students need so that not one school is dealing with more than than another but we can certainly bring it back to you thank you Vice chair back to you anything further all right member bird just for your benefit Dr CER denl wants to be recognized next then myself then member gold
040and I'm only saying that in case you feel like you're on the on the spot to provide guidance so but we do want to hear from you if you want to speak now you're queued up you want to hear from everybody else okay member CER denl thank you madam chair and thank you member bird for bringing this up and thank you to the staff for all you've done for this presentation I know this one when we discussed it I could see how difficult all of the balancing all of the factors is and you've done a wonderful job as for looking at Future issues with transportation and resoning it can become very overwhelming if we're looking at the whole District it may be better if we prioritize areas where we have transportation issues first and just
041kind of look at different areas where we can make a difference sooner than later I am all in favor of trying to save money and time with our transportation issue and for the rezoning for capacity like member bird mentioned we have a plan for that or maybe it was member Gallow but transportation is something that we really do have to continue to work on so I think this 3D chess that you all are so good at balancing all the different factors at once and seeing it from so many different angles I think that this is a huge effort but we can't be overwhelmed by it I think looking at some of our maybe developing a matrix of developing or identifying which ones are priorities would be a way to digest this thank you thank you
042m CER d just a quick comment on the issue of desegregation or diversity I I'm trying to remember the term that this unitary status again we're like prew workshopping the next Workshop during this Workshop but one of the things that I've been a little concerned about from the outside not understanding exactly what that was going to mean and now that I'm sitting here on the inside I see that there's value to the district and to our district equals students when I say District I don't mean as an organization separate because we don't exist separate from serving our students but having been the first class in junior high school what they called it back then to integrate into what was then an almost entirely African-American Junior High School I can tell you the tremendous advantage that
043I think my class My Generation experienced from that what I would call mandatory integration a cultural shift that like hardly anything else could have done because you were taking students at an age where they're so much more open-minded and putting them together and I have friends my same age that have the same experience where they couldn't relate at all to somebody who looks different from them and then suddenly they were playing football and with people and they were a team and all those barriers that had existed in my family's generation were gone in mine and it was entirely because of that single effort of bringing people closer together and so any thing that takes us in a direction of more separateness concerns me I think we're seeing enough of that in society right this minute
044and I've lived long enough to see how far we've come most of you all haven't but I've seen what and I haven't seen far enough back to know how really horrible things were but I've seen so much positivity and I just don't want us to lose sight of that as we try to make sure that we're efficient with the use of dollars which I totally appreciate as well but cultural changes of the magnitude we've had in the past I just don't I don't want to lose them member gold so thank you U chair for that and you know that's why just looking at this issue from a logistical point of view is not enough if we have capacity at Waka High School what other programat components can we put in there Transportation Logistics is going
045to be a huge future career opportunity here manufacturing is already a huge opportunity semiconductors is a huge opportunity people will want to go there of all ethnicities and cultural backgrounds if the programming is there so I think we really need to re-evaluate how we approach approach Choice the way we've done it for the last 50 years is no longer the way we can do it going forward it the market is completely open and we have to provide solid choice and we have to make it easy to see what those choices are on our websites and in our cataloges so it all ties together on how we can become efficient but first what do we want to offer the students because if there's good offering they will come they will come we saw that with Bay
046Meadows that all the people wanted to go to the the shiny and I don't have as much diversity in right around that school but all the people wanted to go to the new shiny schools until we put Steam into Bay Meadows and now there's a waiting list for that school from all over so and the same with Oakridge that with those financial programs and the ja program went in there phenomenal so we just I think need to learn from our successes of the past but we have to have all the data in front of us as we as we move this forward so when we do Workshop it the academic opportunities there's no reason not to have coexistence and maybe even expand on the AGR technology because that's still a huge IND indry in the
047apapa Waka area you know what else can we bring to that is maybe it's robotics because so much of that is done through Robotics and coding I just think we we need to get on equal footing with the knowledge that's out there with the staff and then really look at this from the opportunity standpoint not necessarily the problem standpoint thank you member G member bird member salamona is after you thank you chair and I want to thank my board members that I can appreciate everything that youve said and chair I absolutely appreciate your comments about where we are and what we've done and how far we've come as far as desegregating our schools and we don't want to make any steps backwards but this is where I want to leave kind of two thoughts here
048and it was something that superintendent said as well is that we want to make sure that opportunity is available to all the kids we don't want to make changes where opportunity for certain schools may not be there and you kind of said many of the same things but opportunity is lacking in in my opinion when kids are not getting to school on time when they're missing instructional time when they are spending two hours a day waiting for transportation that's time they could be spending doing other things that's lacking opportunity as well and I also feel like we are in a much different situation now than we were many years ago because of all the choices member Gallow said we have our schools are wide open I mean there is a immense amount of choice so
049that opens up the demographics of a school it's not just who lives right around the school anymore it's anybody can come to these schools for these programs and W Kiva has you know as an agroscience a great agroscience magnet has the culinary magnet program is looking at a few other academic and a few other programs for next year so there's a lot of opportunity there and I think that it's probably a matter of advertising more and that kind of thing we have talked about the reasonings and the concern of course as as Tommy said is the is what it would do to the demographic makeup of the school but I just feel like in today's in today's situation where we're at that we really have to make some of those some decisions and I'm glad
050that the board is open to having a workshop about this and talking about it because I think that you know with no end in sight to magically solve our bus driver shortage I think we have to kind of make tough decisions and rethink things a little bit so I would like to go ahead and move keep moving this forward because I would like for to I think you guys go back out right for community again or is there is this we already did commity we already did the community meeting the next meetings are the rural development and public hearing and we have not received any input from the community with regards to this resoning okay were the maps okay to be fair though were the maps placed on before the community meeting of the rezoning
051or did it does it just like what does the advertisement says it just says it's a targeted rezoning for a poka middle and poka and pedmont correct so advertisement goes out newspaper and board docs and then we do a connect orange to the affected parents so they were notified and we do not release or advertise anything until after the community meeting it appears on our resoning website the next morning morning okay so my concern there is that I had a parent reach out and say you know this resoning is this our neighborhood like she wanted to know before she made a trip down here you know it's it's a long drive so I think that it might be helpful I think we would get better results now because they know that this is their neighborhood
052they've seen the maps the maps weren't up before the meeting so I think I'd like to move forward because I think it warrants more discussion so yeah thank you member bird member Salam Mona yeah I I just want to Echo the importance of like overlaying some of this zoning with how we as a district and how our schools stay competitive in the market CU I think you know I have Colonial High School is one of my high schools right and Colonial was one of the first ones that had the cambrid program and that made it very appealing very competitive and it was something that the colonial really benefited from but now all of our schools have that right and so when I think about how to support my high schools and how to have the
053community be excited about them regardless of the demographics regardless of of that grid sometimes it I think it's it's just a much larger conversation to have on how we evaluate the landscape at the large macro level see where our which school we find have great programs or or lack programs right I have the other high school is Lia High School which is a massive School create a lot of opportunities but it doesn't have a magnet it doesn't have a particular CT or like thing it's known for quite yet because it's so new and so it's just interesting at least in my district to see how even two different high schools can can kind of need that higher level of strategic guidance on where we're heading long term and you know our principles have a lot
054on their play so yes they do a lot to think about that but I do think that as a board it's it's our role to think long term about the district about how we compete with tax dollars now that we really are in a free market of competition and so I I do you know just doubling down on I think it's just a larger more important conversation strategically for this district for us to get staff and the super superintendent input and to have that I think it's a tough conversation to have I think that it's going to be definitely difficult but I think it's it's almost existential for a district of our size in this state in the time today of of choice to to have this conversation so thank you wow okay thank you
055member Salam monka that just oh I'm sorry sorry superintendent she's cute do you want to speak now you can speak now go ahead oh yeah no you're you're you're I okay so normally I just call on everybody as and as they're queued up unless I get kind of the signal from the superintendent that she needs to jump in then and I always then defer to her so if you do okay definitely need new microphones cuz I can't see the light I know no just before you make a decision I'd like to make comments absolutely so one one of the comments I do want to make because we use the word choice a lot and it sounds like it means everybody has a choice or at least everybody has an equal opportunity to apply for that
056choice but since we don't provide transportation there is not really the equity and choice that I think we or the public sometimes Associates with that word and that's one of the things that I struggle with when I think about our magnet schools and I understand the advantage of putting magnets in different places but I think for me I'm I'm always cognizant of the fact that if a student does not have the ability if they don't have a parent with the ability to drive them to school they don't have that choice and the student who doesn't have a parent that can drive them to school also has a lot of other things that aren't happening at home I don't mean they don't have a loving parent at home but the ability of a family that doesn't
057have that either time or Transportation likely has other ramifications on that student's ability to be able to come to school equally prepared and so when member Salam Mona when you were talking about competing what was going through my mind was that we need to be thinking about what's best for our students who can't move but your comments also have me thinking about what I see the trend being in the state and that trend is going to move us further and further away from where I want to see us and so that's why I'm just really struggling with how much we should be what I believe is best for us and how much that might push others or the state might allow other students to opt out so it's just a really difficult kind of Quagmire
058to be in yep so anyway always appreciate everybody's feedback on this very thought-provoking we have member Fant member G and we are definitely again superintendent if you okay you're good okay member Fant member gold and then superintendent thank you chair Just one thought on that aspect of just trying to make our schools I think what everybody what i' what I'm hearing is that everyone wants to make sure that those neighborhood schools have something that's attractive that's not just a basic school and then we have a sprinkling of a magnet program schools throughout the district and I think when we have neighborhood schools that have either the stem program or steam whatever we are calling it these days and whatever programs we can get into those schools that really make them different even a leader in
059me program in an elementary school can make all the difference and so I think that's from My Lens if I'm looking at it like that you have a parent maybe who can't afford to drive their kid or whatnot but if they see that their neighborhood school has a phenomenal offering the other parents also who are driving every day over to a magnet program may think twice and say you know what I'd rather just have my kid right here with their neighborhood school they're going to school with the kid across the street it's more of that old you know old school Hometown feel and I think that's what we need to get back to no matter what happens at the state level if we're making sure that our schools are phenomenal and really offer a wide
060variety or even if it's one thing that they do amazingly well I think it will attract the families and want them to come to the schools great thank you great feedback member G so thank you chair and I know we're probably getting more in the nitty-gritty without all of the data but you know transportation is also not one way there are other communities that partner with their public transportation especially for their high school students so I think all of this needs to be put into a more robust datadriven conversation before we limit any ideas about how far and wide we can make choices in our community choice schools in our community thanks all right member or superintendent thank you madam chair my recommendation is that you wait on moving this forward that we bring back
061to the board additional data and it can be after the work session we're try and schedule the conversation sooner my concern is not with this particular resoning it's the impact it will have on the high school since all of the students that are zoned for a popid would go to a popka high school and that really is the main concern staff has when we're taking students from an already under enrolled high school and putting it into a school that is already over capacity so that's that's my recommendation thank you thank you Dr Vasquez okay we need some direction from the board at this point we have recommendation from the district member that we proceed forward and a recommendation from the superintendent as I understand it that we pause and have more data and come back
062and review this with the goal the time frame being that this option could move forward for the next school year that there will be time to do that yeah yes we can we can put the work session together or even send the information to the board with regards to the transportation the demograph we want to look at the impact demographics has on the on the high school we are working on a couple of things with bus drivers which we may be able to announce next week and if that was the concern the families had was with rations to the buses that might be that might shed new light on the problem but again my concern is the impact this will have on W Kiva high school and additional drain of students at that school and
063if you look at the map the neighborhoods with this particular neighborhood there are other neighborhoods adjacent that would then probably ask for a rezoning as well and that would be a much greater impact and I would struggle if we approve one because of Transportation why would you then not approve the others so my thoughts because of the situation we had I believe it was last year District 4 I'm trying to remember summer Lakes was it we perhaps got ahead of our El I want to I yeah I think that would be a good way of saying it the public was under the impression that the targeted res zoning that they wanted was moving forward and then when we got to the point of decision making the recommendation not I don't think staff changed but but
064the recommendation changed and of the district member changed and that created a lot of disappointment by members of the public that thought the targeted Community was moving forward this is what I remember I may not have it exactly right but after that experience I would prefer if there are reservations that if there's an opportunity to make sure we have all the information that would be my preference especially when I think back of that particular experience do you want to have further comment or if not I'm going to yeah I just wanted to clarify there was there were with that particular resoning I know staff contributed to some possible miscommunication that was shared with Community it nothing was done nothing was done you know intentionally but we were trying to communicate and that information didn't get
065out the way it should have I just want to make sure that's clear yeah thank you I yeah I'm I'm not I'm not trying to I'm I'm trying not to be critical I know there was nothing intentional I just know looking back on it I thought it's a shame that we got as far as we got and led the public to believe they were on a path and then change gears if we're if we're not real comfortable that we have all the information I would prefer that we slow down and try to get more comfortable not that we make a final decision until we hear from the public but at least that we're on the same page in terms of the facts and the issues member Gallow thank you madam chair I understand and I
066hear the concerns of the superintendent but what is before us right now is just the students which the board member in that area has recommended that we move forward and her knowing her area the best because that's her area I trust her judgment so I would be in favor of moving it forward if that's what member bird would like to happen unless she's changed her mind so I'd like to hear from Member bird member bird I don't have a problem getting more information as long as it's not out of the possibility of still after we get that information moving it forward for next school year if if we deem so appropriate at that point okay and that I remember bird I've been on the same page that's why it was important to clarify we can
067do this in a timely fashion anybody disagree member Fant I just wanted to say if there's a way too to make sure that as member berd had mentioned that the communication to that neighborhood and to those families is done in a way that isn't just the newspaper cuz I don't read the newspaper and Bard dos most people don't know what bardocks is so something that's maybe a little more direct to those those families Madam chair May I'm sorry superintendent please yeah so there were connect oranges that were sent to every family member that was impacted so they got a phone call that said there's a resoning that will impact your area and an email so but we can we can certainly push out maybe more of that communication and schools too and I know the
068schools as well okay thank you one of the other things we might want to discuss during that work session is our communication approach when we're looking at targeted res zonings now that you just mentioned that because I know that came up with that other community and when the superintendent mentions there may be other areas around this targeted area that would say what I want to do that too they wouldn't be in the school that would be impacted by The increased population and they wouldn't be in the targeted area so they wouldn't get notice of either one of those but it may ultimately impact our decision-making if we knew that there were other communities in the area that would say me too for understandable reasons so again I don't have it's not clear in my mind
069what the best communication distribution area is but I think it's worthy of some additional thought Miss Neil yeah Insight okay no you look like look like you were maybe okay thank you all right I think we have I think you have Direction superintendent yes ma'am and we are we'll have dates before the end of today so we can put them on the calendar wonderful okay next Dr Vasquez we'll continue with the resoning presentation sorry I'm just so I'm just so used to it like everything goes to you before it go that we can go faster okay the next resoning is Millennial Gardens option the purpose of this resoning is to reduce current and future over enrollment at Millennia Gardians the red lines on the map represent current Elementary School boundary lines the following schools are
070included in this resoning Millennia Gardens Elementary Palmetto Elementary Sadler Elementary pinlock elementary and Lancaster Elementary the new zones are in color on the map Millennial gardiens is in yellow Palmetto is in Orange Sadler is in blue pinlock is in green and Lancaster is in purple each proposed zone is accommodated by a text box with the following information name of the school permanent program capacity proposed number of students in in the new Zone and projected number of students to attend the school in August of 2024 for example Millennial Gardens permanent program capacity is 7:30 the proposed number of students residing in the new zone is 748 and the projected number of students to attend Millennia gardens in August of 2024 is between 700 and 720 I will give you a moment to review the map and
071there is the demographic breakdown for each school please take a moment to review the numbers if approved this resoning would commence in August of 2024 and we have not received any input from the community as of yet this concludes my presentation for Millenia gance option Dr vasas all right board members member for I have just one school in this rezone but just from my conversation with our amazing staff really what you guys do is feels like a puzzle work and you're trying to get everything to fit perfectly but from from the conversation that I had I feel like the new lines all make sense as if you look at the Palm Meadow like in the middle for instance if you notice how like the new color of it is now at the bottom it's just
072a straight line on oakd and before the old line kind of jetted up into that neighborhood cutting out through apartments and houses and so as this area is grown it just needs to be kind of more of a clean cut those kids from again talking in pal Meadows at the at on that bottom line on Oak Ridge the way it's zoned right now those kids are having to walk across oakd road which is super busy so this is Elementary school kids having to walk across to go to I believe they were zon for Saddler so now with the new resoning it would just be right there in their neighborhood and they walk right down a neighborhood road to get to their school so from just what we've discussed I'm completely in favor with the entire
073thing I think it lines everything up a lot better and it keeps things well organized and all the you kind of checked off everything along the way so I would be in favor thank you Vice chair thank you madam chair I had extensive questions for our team regarding these rezonings just because of the schools impacted and we had a lengthy conversations about these maps and I think that they've done a really good job of maintaining the Integrity for each school and ensuring that there is representation from all demographics so I'm very comfortable moving this forward and i' just like to congratulate the staff for such a great job thank you Vice chair any other comments from board members any any board members have any reservations about moving this forward to the next step all right
074next our last resoning is a relief school for Laur Park Elementary School 130 E2 before we move on to the options Tommy will Orient you with the growth map for the Lake Nona area Okay this is very similar to the maps that we showed from the previous rezonings from last year the colored areas are the projects in our residential database that are either planned plating or underway so we are in the southeast part of the county and this has been a fast growing area for a while with about 12,000 new students in the past 15 years the district has has built eight new releas schools so far in that same time frame in addition we have a new Middle School and High School opening this August so today we're going to discuss Elementary School 130
075which is in the South Lake Nona area South Lake Nona is undergoing construction of about 1,600 units in the Eastern section the Western portion is going to start in a year or so with about 25 00 additional new units new residential construction is occurring at a rate of about 150 to 200 new homes a year right now in that area in addition we do have some anticipated residential construction in the South part of the Eagle Creek Zone this is an area not within the Eagle Creek community but within the attendance zone of the Eagle Creek Elementary School putting this area in the new school could potentially relieve Eagle Creek from it future overcrowding okay and this is our option one Laurette Park Elementary is the only School involved in this option the new zones are
076in color Laurette Park is like pinkish salmon and the new school is in yellow the dividing line follows the newly established zone for the new Middle School 129 mse2 each proposed zone is accompanied by a text box with the following information name of the school permanent program capacity proposed number of students in the new Zone and projected number of students to attend the school in August of 2025 when the new school opens for example Laurette Park's permanent program capacity is 791 the proposed number of students residing in the new zone is 953 and the projected number of students to attend Laurette Park in August of 2025 is between 860 and 880 please take a moment to review the map and there is the demographic breakdown for the for each Zone and option two option two
077includes two schools Laurette Park and Eagle Creek Elementary School Zone the new zones are in color laurat park is in Salmon Eagle Creek is in green and the new school is in yellow no current Eagles Creek students are affected by this option the southern part of the igu creek zone is being moved to the new Zone please take a moment to review the map and there's the demographic breakdown for option two and we have both options next to each other so you can see the difference between option one and two and the options overview and if approved this resoning would commence in August 2025 we have not received any input from the community yet this concludes my presentation for the relief School of E2 question from Member gold I'm not used to numbers like this
078so on the 130 it says 245 when you're opening but the program capacity is 791 but we only project up to 500 students will ultimately be in the school or what what's that are we locked in in at that no we're not locked in it's a growing area so that the whole Eastern Area is just finishing out and then we have another 2third to go we anticipate that whole area of South Lake Nona is going to fill up that school okay so this is only to 2025 we think it's going to get into that area but you it will be at the 791 or Beyond at some point correct correct that's all I wanted clarification the and I can give you a estimate so we have it's going to be at its capacity by 2029
079okay thank you all right any other comments questions suggestions member Salam Mona you're recognized ah this area is really lovely to work with this is this is one of the ones that as we were talking about the tough calls you make now and then in like five 10 years someone else sits in this seat and it's like what happened if you go to option two can gra the map the yellow here right so the problem is Eagle Creek Elementary is over capacity and even in the projections it's over capacity so option two gets this new school to give some relief to that right but you're going to have some people that go to Eagle Creek live in Eagle Creek community who will not be going to Eagle Creek Elementary School and these are folks who
080haven't you know that's that part has not been developed yet those folks don't live there yet so it's one that in five years someone's going to look at me and be like what did you do but and there's you know because of where the new school is and it all has to do with where be place the schools as well we don't have control over that this is our friends to have a stock right so I I'm I'm actually really interested in in hearing from the community on this one on those options because I think so can I clarify a few things yeah all right so that area clap Sims Duda wrote no one lives south of that right now no right now right right now and you know you and I don't think that's
081considered part of the Eagle Creek community it's the community there is a section that is being built in the South part of the Eagle Creek community right now that is north of that yellow that's and you can see kind of the roadscape there but so it's right at that line then so and that's yeah and that's north of that line okay so what's going to is that homes that Apartments like do we have a sense of what that's going to be what it's going to be south of the line yeah it's I can get you details it's I believe they're town homes there is a there's a big development in Ula County called Southern Oaks that is getting ready to start off this is the northern tip of that big development right that's the county
082line right there yeah yeah so I believe there's I believe a portion is town homes and do we have a sense East no west of 130 right there if that's going to be developed obviously I know all of the AR yes it's all going to be west west of 130 is all going to be developed and that's another is that going to be residential or is that going to be similar to like the it's going to be there's other things in there too but it's 1,600 units it's going to be built west of 130 all right so it's like the fiveyear projections it makes sense to pull from that yellow line potentially but then after that it might start looking funky again once it's overcrowded in 1:30 yeah it the idea is that when that
083whole thing gets built it'll fill 130 and more but I hear what you're saying we will see you know some of the know a lot of it depends on the product that is being created you know some some of the homes are very expensive expensive in that area some some may or may not create students I think we're I think we're going to be close to just filling the school so do you see because with this option Eagle Creek 2025 is at 870 to 890 130 right no obviously that's still being built so it's not a capacity but we expect that to hit capacity and then Lowa Park Elementary is also going to be pushing up on 2025 capacity right we're going to be at 880 right so both both of the both Laurette Park
084and Eagle Creek are going to be in the upper 800s and love or limitations as you know are from geography yeah yeah this is this is just going to be a tough five years onward okay thank you for for sharing this I know we're we're working with like we said with really tough geography numbers demographics here and this is a really rapidly growing area and so we just we just have to work with the community and hearing them out and understanding what what this is going to look like as well with with some of the community leaders there so thank you for for pulling these Maps I also played around with the numbers and this is actually the best we actually can do just it is what it is yeah yeah yeah I think I
085think too because I'm worried that just the 2025 projections are low as is so I prefer to do option two in this case yeah all right Dr Dr Vasquez I just had a question and Tommy this may be something has to come back have we looked at property to the west of lman area yes thank you I was trying to think of what that line even as far as Lake Nona Boulevard is that an area and I know the cost is high but that may help I know they're looking at property that is in the portion in the area between laurat Park Elementary School and downtown Lake Nona I know that has being pursued because of the the new highrises that are being built in that section I don't know if any in South Lake
086know that we're looking at I we don't may be an area that we want to look at and I believe down at that line they're building a church or the property is right at the right at Nar toy and Boggy Creek at least the sign is up all right consensus go ahead I'm sorry remember Sal Mona yeah so my recommendation would be option two because I think it gives us more Regal room and ensures that the new Elementary School can kind of have room to grow without putting too much pressure in an Eagle Creek Elementary but I agree with Dr because my question is I do see the need of another elementary school out in that area based on these numbers and I think it's going to get tougher because they're they're just building like
087crazy out there and they're building up a lot and so yeah I would I would want to sit down and talk a bit more about which if there are properties out there what we can do because we're going to need one more elementary school thank you all right thank you all any objections or concerns of moving forward at this point okay Dr Vasquez we're good team we're good okay all right let's take up then the next item on the agenda which is library media selection process yeah thank you all so much I know all the work that goes into it if it can be mind-numbing to the board members and I can't even imagine what it's like trying to put this information together from their standpoint and the recommendations okay de I'm or do we
088need to oh okay Dr Vasquez is this one going to take the longest yes do you want to take a short break yeah let's take a short break hey yeah oh oh yeah yeah oh he he oh a n a n n n n n yeah oh he ah a n oh la ah a n n oh oh n n yeah oh h ooh o oh o w oh a a pap oh a be oh a oh oh oh oh oh come n n I all right Dr vasque has I just as soon as I thought I had everybody back I've got all but member gold here but I know she'll be right back so we'll turn the table to you thank you madam chair the next part of our meeting is going to look
089at the revision of our book selection process as you know we've been on this journey for over a year although we received guidance from the state and training from the state there was a great deal of angst amongst our media Specialists our principles and our staff that the guidance itself did not provide enough specificity after after going through a few rounds of book reviews we also reached out to our neighboring districts and other large districts to see how they went about to the review process we've found some very interesting things for example there are some districts that have not yet begun the review of the classroom Library materials because they're still dealing with some of the challenges that they've received for other books in their Media Center but we hope that what we bring to
090you will provide a bit more clarity to our staff and allow us to remove books that do not comply with the law but provide an ample a number of resources to our students that reflects our community and their schools so having said that I going to turn it over to Dr Russo who will begin the presentation and walk us through it along with Kibby good morning afternoon oh yeah look at that good afternoon chair Jacobs board members Dr Vasquez the focus of today's work session is to provide you with an update about the library media selection process as it applies to the media center Collections and classroom libraries Mr David can is it possible to turn the sound up in the room I was having problems earlier today and these mics if you're not practically
091touching them don't pick up real well so we can hear you but I'm not sure everybody else can pick it up okay thank you all right we'll begin today's work session by discussing Media Center collections collection development involves core practices including selection acquisition and weeding during the past few school years media Specialists have made a concerted effort to improve the quality of media center collections through these core practices much like teaching there is an art and science to the professional practice of selecting and acquiring books for the media center collection as media Specialists curate their collections they must consider the needs and interests of students the school's current curriculum and standards while also accounting for any unique courses such as those for culinary Veterinary or law programs media Specialists must also seek stakeholder input including
092input from parents and read professional reviews for titles they've selected most critically media Specialists must acquire the selected books using their limited available funding our districtwide media center collection includes more than 2.2 million print books and resources this includes nearly 40,000 new print books acquired between August and January of this school year it is estimated that media Specialists will acquire at least an additional 40,000 new print and ebooks by the end of the school year thanks to sr3 funding allocated for collection development weeding is a data weeding is a data driven effort typically led by media Specialists collaborating with clerks and volunteers if available the purpose of weeding is to remove titles that no longer serve the needs and interests of students or no longer enhance the overall value of the collection weeding is important
093in helping media Specialists accomplish collection development goals especially when taking a data-driven approach this involves analyzing the types of barcodes used within the collection for example books with barcodes that begin with a letter may be candidates for weeding as these types of barcodes were phased out in 2006 nearly 20 years ago media Specialists also consider the acquisition date and circulation of books for instance if a book was acquired in 2014 and has only been checked out once the book may be a good candidate for weeding of course media Specialists also consider the condition of books themselves a book may have water damage been dogeared one too many times or met the unfortunate fate of meeting a dog's clenches finally a book may be considered for weeding if the content of the book does not align
094with the current Florida Statutes between August and January of this school year media Specialists weeded nearly 118,000 books we have seen an uptick and weeding and overall Improvement in the quality of media center collections this year partly due to more than 20 ocps schools having a media specialist for the first time in at least a school year through weeding efforts one Middle School improved the average age of their collection by three years which is an impressive feat based on the Florida Power Library School awards evaluation rubric the average age of an outstanding collection is within 15 years of the current year our districtwide average goal is 2008 influencing the weeding process by helping us focus on what to weed 59% of the copies weeded since the beginning of the school year were acquired between 2000
095and 2010 and 4% were acquired between 1988 and 1999 long before any of our current students were even born this does not mean that titles written during these periods are of no value as WEA titles are often replaced by fresh copies of a similar topic finally 15% of the copies weed did from our collection were lost meaning they were physically not found during Library inventories for a lost copy weeding simply means deleting the record of that title's copy from the catalog 84% of titles were available for students to check out which means we've made a lot of space for new books and we've made it easier for students to browse the shelves to find their next great read Destiny is our District's Library management system it is used to collect all to catalog all resources
096available for checkout in our traditional Media Center collections media Specialists and clerks use Destiny to circulate books to students and faculty and add to or weed from The Collection as required by the Florida Statutes Destiny is searchable by all stakeholders including members of the public there are several core features Within the destiny platform that media Specialists frequently use to manage Media Center collections while Destiny has made many improvements I'd like to focus on sharing recent updates that allow users to delete individual copies or Wii titles from their collections the top screenshot on the slide shows what the update copy screen looked like previously users would scan the barcode of a copy to be weeded and select go to remove it from the collection if a user did not select the track as weeded box there
097would be no record of the book being removed from the collection on the weeding log with the latest Destiny updates as shown in the bottom screenshot the track is weeded box is now enabled by default although users can still uncheck the box we have communicated with media Specialists about leaving the track is weeded box checked in addition users must complete the required weeding reason field when weeding copies from the media center collection users may also identify one of four options for disposal method for each book they weed weeding reasons include three standard options as set by Destiny and two custom District options as denoted by the as risk the standard weeding reasons include infrequent circulation outdated and poor condition or damaged the district chose to add missign copies which media Specialists would select if the
098copy no longer meets the needs of the collection is age or grade level inappropriate or does not align with current Florida Statutes the district also added redundant which would be used when weeding duplicate copies or when there are too many copies about a topic or theme while the disposal method field is not required media Specialists may choose from three of the four standard disposal methods including discard donation and recycling although Book Sales is a standard option within Destiny we have advised media specialist to refrain from selecting this disposal method since this is not something we do with weeded library media materials weeding progress can be monitored using the weeding report before Destiny's recent improvements if the track is weeded option were left unchecked weeded books would not be included on the weeding report as pictured
099on the slide updated versions of the weeding report identify why a copy was weeded and how it was disposed of next I'd like to focus on sharing classroom Library progress as a reminder we use Beano's classroom Library connector to manage classroom libraries throughout the district teachers submit their classroom library books to bean stock to be reviewed by a certified ocps media specialist all approved books are listed on school media center websites and the list is searchable by stakeholders as required by Florida Statutes all ocps School sites have at least one teacher submitted classroom Library since June media Specialists have collectively reviewed more than 25,000 titles we are halfway through this Herculean effort and have just over 193,000 titles pending review of the more than 215,000 titles that have been reviewed a total of 699 titles
100or less than half of a percent were marked as not approved in the classroom Library connector as of December the most common reasons for a book to be marked as not approved were related to House Bill 1069 meaning books included descriptions or depictions of sexual conduct in addition some of the 699 titles reflected inconsistencies among the Review Committee or included professional titles or misspelled or incorrect titles the not approved data prompted us to re-evaluate the review process moving forward the publisher determined interest level will guide the review process this means that a book with a young adult interest level will be automatically approved for grades 9 through 12 young adult titles could be approved for lower grades depending on the content any titles with a publisher determined audience level of adult may be approved for
101specific grades depending on the content's age and grade level appropriateness the district based media specialist team has applied the revised criteria to 58 titles not approved for classroom libraries and removed from the media center based on this third evaluative review 32 young adult titles are now approved for grades 9 through 12 while two young adult and 24 adult titles remain on the not approved list with more than 190,000 classroom Library titles still pending review media Specialists continue to gather in groups to review as many titles as possible media Specialists are reviewing titles based on their professional setting and as needed are completing additional reviews of any titles marked as not approved based on their professional settings any titles found to be not approved will be reviewed a third time based on a review process involving
102reading the book in its entirety finally I wanted to share a reminder of what information the district must share publicly publicly and where the information can be found while not required the district publishes a list of all reconsideration requests or book challenges on the District library media materials challenges website each school's Destiny Library catalog and classroom Library lists are on school media center websites as require thank you for your time thank you to the team not only for the presentation but I want to also publicly thank you for all the support and guidance you have given out in our schools I know it has been a challenging year as we try to support the media specialists in understanding the new law as you can see we have made some significant revisions to the process and
103have landed up that when a book is to be completely removed that it is based on the reading of the book in its entirety what we found was happening is that either a review from the publisher may have mentioned sexual content but when you went through and looked at what the sexual content it may have been a word it may have been appropriate for that level and so we understand that it is going to continue to take us a bit of time to review all the books I have made it clear that this is not a race that we want to do what's right not only for our students but we want to be in compliance additionally any member of the public any parent who is concerned about a book that's in our media centers
104can go through the reconsideration process that will have the book read its in entirety at the school level and then based on the decision at the school it could move to the district level review board members U this is now your opportunity to give us feedback and if we need to make any additional changes we can do so thank you superintendent member Gallow thank you madam chair so the 699 books that are not were marked not approved based on classroom libraries is that information available to the public and are any of those books still in our library like do children still have access to the 699 titles that were marked not approved through our libraries or have they been removed from librar and classroom libraries that's a great question so no the 699 titles are
105not public on our website we don't have those listed are they still available in the media center aside from the 58 or the 58 that we removed we're now bringing back to the media center so some were removed yes but 699 minus 58 not that fast at math are still there I believe at the end of last year when we had a conversation with the board that we had talked about ensuring that the public was aware of what books were on the non-approved list just for transparency sake so that they knew as a district what we were doing and I was under the impression that was going to happen like by the beginning of the year for those titles so I want information on that but but first so the 26 there's two young adult
106titles not approved 24 adult title titles that are not approved are those listed on our websites and can you tell us what titles those are they are not listed on our website and unfortunately I do not have them memorized I can share that information with you at a later time but I don't have those accessible to me right now sorry and I want before I go any further because I'm going to get very focused on this I thank you so much for everything that yall have done cuz I know you've been working hard I know that this has been a huge burden not on just your department but on our media Specialists and everybody everybody's doing the best job they can I believe that wholeheartedly everybody's doing the best job that we can possibly do
107and I appreciate that so my I guess my question would be for the superintendent would be a why isn't the 699 on the website because I thought we did discuss that and more specifically if we have 26 books that were not approved those should absolutely be available to the public on what we've removed Madam chair so what we agreed to if my recollection is correct is that we would post the ones from the media center because at the time the discussion occurred we had not even started the classroom Library review I'm not saying that's not something we can post but it's going to require additional time for staff to be able to post that and Miss Kibby please correct me if I'm wrong the books that the 20 sum from from the original 69 those
108are still waiting the third review of the committee where they will read the entire book and then determine if they're appropriate or not correct yes and so those are all tied to the classroom Library they are not tied to the media centers we can certainly look at that process but it is going to be time consuming to be able to do that and then if we put it up now now and the committee reads it and determines that they do go back it may cause confusion so if it is the will of the board that we post those that are removed from the classroom libraries that we wait until the full process has occurred before we post that on our website thank you Dr Vasquez I disagree I don't know how to say it other
109than just disagree I think that if we even though the 26 the two young adult titles and the 24 adult titles that have not have been approved even if they haven't gone through the third process because we did have 32 young adult titles that were approved I still think at the at the minimum those 26 should be on our website so people and we could language there that said this is not the final decision they're going to go through a third review before a final determination is made would be adequate enough and would like these sent to me now why we're here can someone send me a list of those 26 why we're at the Das having this conversation so the board can see what books that we're talking about I can see if my
110staff members are available to do that I think they're watching send them a text thank you and I understand that 26 is not a large number based on the 1 point or the 2.2 million books that we have in our in our library liaries and classroom libraries but just for transparency sake I think I will I need to know I want to know what books have been removed as a board member and then the 699 I would and if you can't get it to me today I understand but I would I would like to know out of that 699 are any of those books still in our libraries CU I was under the impression that as we were vetting them through the classroom libraries if they were in our media centers that we weren't necessarily
111pulling them off our media center so they the students still had access to them and then definitely these 20 these 26 that have are not approved I'm assuming if we're saying they're not approved that we're removing them that they've been removed from our media centers until they get that third and final determination so that would be helpful information to have oh the 26 did have that third review so the 26 were reviewed by my team once we were applying the criteria we were not able to read those books an entirety because we did this in a window in January so we did not have the time to read them in its entirety we would like to do that okay and bring some more people on board to help with that process but just from the
112professional reviews that we have access to the publisher summaries that we have access to and just any book data that we have available that's how we determined that they were either approved or not approved but we do want to move forward with reading those books entirely okay and I and I and I appreciate that and I know that's a lot of work so I appreciate y'all but yeah if we could just get that list I go back to I know transparency is causing some issues across the state especially in Escambia and some other counties and I recognize that but I still believe that we have to be as transparent as possible with what's going on even if that's not the final result and I understand that there hasn't been the law is vague in nature
113and I know that when we went to commissioner Diaz and we asked for clarification he told us it's common sense it's clearly not just common sense because we have teachers is a third third degree felony and they're scared we have media spe Specialists that could lose their license and they're scared so it's it's difficult for them to make best choices and I know that they're trying their very best to make best choices when the law is vague and now there's a rule that's going to go after principles and make it punitive for principles if books are removed that shouldn't be removed and we're not sure what books should we should keep and what books we shouldn't so we're all in a kind of a delegate situation where we want to follow the law we want
114to do right we want to our students to have access to books we don't don't want books to be removed that don't need to be removed we want books in in our in our classrooms so thank you're welome I we're all working through this together so thank you of course and one of my staff members is working on something that lists to Dr Brown Canon who can hopefully forward it to you madam chair maam yes I'm just seeking clarification on the comments from board member Gallow so you are requesting that any book that is removed from the classroom Library be posted from the from the beginning and then as the reviews take place they're removed so we're asking our media specialists at the schools to be able to post that information and then through the
115review process they will be able to remove them is that your request well yeah I don't want to I'm not trying to add to work of our already overburdened media specialist but that list is available on beanstack so it wouldn't be difficult for us just to put that on our website saying these are the books that we're reviewing at first glance or were concerns we're going to do a deeper dive it doesn't mean that they'll be removed all together but we're looking at them just to be transparent because still in review they're still in review as member ghoul said because others are talking about it and they're putting the information out there for for district we've reached out in very few districts public in fact I don't think any published classroom Library titles have been
116removed I'm not saying that is the lead that we need to take but there are not districts that we reached out to their publishing books that have been removed from classroom libraries I just want to be clear so that we comply with the request when a book is deemed to be inappropriate for whatever reason at the classroom Library level you would like those book titles published and then a statement that says in review yes and I didn't mean other districts there we have groups here in Orange County that do records request and then they're they're Distributing that information and it's causing confusion amongst our community so I just feel that if we're transparent and we put out there exactly what we're doing that this isn't the endgame it's in review we have reviewed it because
117that's what we're doing I think that would clear up the confusion within our community and it allows the public to understand our processes what we're going through that we're being methodical and thoughtful and dutiful in in following the law as written member font thank you madam chair and thank you team for all of your hard work truly it has been your a pleasure to work with I feel like you guys always are working hard to to do everything with Excellence so I really appreciate it and you're it's you're over that umbrella overarching over every school so I know it's a lot of work that goes into this every your entire presentation was amazing I do agree with member Gallow that was one of my questions was which books were part of that the 24 and
118then two yeah it was 20 26 total and then maybe those 32 young adult titles just so what we can see I think transparency is always what we're what we're going for and I think from the state when they're constantly saying it's common sense it truly is common sense but I'm finding that Common Sense isn't very common anymore and so I think we just need to make sure that when we're looking at books we just are always it's the explicit sexual content and I think as a board this is something that I had requested maybe even when I first got on was just for us to go through and this is maybe even a different time or maybe it's during this work session but where we say things like where you're saying okay the young
119adult if it says young adult then it always goes to high school adult that type of thing but you know we need to look into kind of what is the standard that we're going for and if that's the standard then that's this is we're heading in the right direction then I think we just need to have something where it's more substantial here in Orange County when I look around at all the different counties and what is happening or lack of happening I think we're we are doing an excellent job here in Orange County I think we are we aren't just blatantly removing the dictionary like I've seen in some so my question would be so when we're looking at the young adult for instance you said in here that we're going to be telling the
120media specialist if it says young adult then that would just be for high school not for Middle School unless it was reviewed further and you can see that it was decent because I know my kids have read some that are great books but have that title on them and then adult I think any any book that would be labeled adult needs to be vetted like read through prior to even placing it in in a school just to make sure that content is appropriate as far as being transparent then on the website I agree that I think that for instance so the 699 when we're saying that the titles have been marked as not approved could we say that they've been marked as in under review because saying that they're not approved to me just tells
121the public that we've now removed them we don't approve them and they've been removed but in fact if I'm am I mistaken that the 699 are under review they're not it's not like we've said 699 books are inappropriate and we've removed all of them am I so that I see where I see where your train of thought is with that so the not approved language comes directly from beanock so when we go in and we filter and we're trying to figure out what the status of our books is there's a tab you click on not approved and then you can see what titles are not approved from there so I think that's where we're borrowing that language from but I certainly understand your point with it they're under further review okay and so when we
122when when you're saying it's being clicked as not approved the teacher is doing that or the media specialist over the teacher how does that work so I was more talking about when I was going in and when we were trying to figure out this list and filtering so a teacher themselves if they have submitted a classroom Library they have three tabs pending what titles do you have in your classroom library that have not been reviewed by an ocpf certified media specialist yet approved meaning somebody has looked at this somebody has said it is totally fine for you to have in your classroom and then not approved so the teacher can see the status of every single book in their classroom Library collection okay that makes sense when I was going through the list that is
123the list that was the bean stack list that we were or I think I requested that list I'm pretty sure I have that one unless this is a different one but I've gotten two one is Media centers and then one was like a bean stack list that was published all over seemed like everybody yes happened to get that voice I know what list you're talking about now so it is the same one that were the $6.99 is part of that so A Book Like Charlotte's Web was on that list could you explain to me why a book like that would even get on there as not approved yes so Something's Happened with Charlotte's Web it may have been misspelled or it may have had the wrong author attached to it so there were some books
124on our list of 699 that do reflect some mistakes on our part those were books that we said hey we're not going to touch those and we had fabulous media Specialists working this summer and so I don't mean to be critical of their work at all but you know some mistakes were made in the process and there were some incons consistencies with reviews and how we handled incorrect book information so whether it's the wrong title with the wrong author or the right title wrong author spelled perfectly fine but not attached to the right person who wrote it some professional titles like I'm this is an example but the Art and Science of teaching for example could have potentially been rejected and be on this list so we had some professional teacher titles and then just
125wrong wrong author wrong misspellings that sort of thing that we're on this list of 699 okay perfect that definitely makes me feel way better because I'm trying to understand how they're getting there but erors obviously we're all human and I'm sure after long year and then you've got all summer you're trying to do this again errors are bound to happen so that makes me feel better than just people trying to slide that in there as some sort of propaganda in some way but I appreciate I think the young adult and the adult that idea of trying to vet books in that in that sense I think is a step in the right direction my last thing that I would say I was speaking with a principal at one of my School visits the other day
126and he said what they've began to do and I thought was a great idea so I'd share he their media Specialists decided that before they go ahead and purchase a bundle of books that if if it's a week or two before the purchase is made they print out that list of books that they would like to purchase and they get that out to their sack committee or their PTA and they hand that to them directly so it's not just thrown in a newsletter or you know put on their website and easily missed but sent out to them and they say hey if anybody sees a book on here that maybe we miss that you think maybe isn't appropriate for the kids in our school go ahead and contact me I'd love to listen to your
127reasonings let's talk about that and so they get that kind of done prior to the purchase which I thought was a great idea and of course then to me it always has to go down to is it really it's all about that sexually explicit nature of the that adult content that shouldn't be there so just a thought on that one but I appreciate it and thank you again for all your hard work member cardo thank you madam chair and thank you both for all the work you've you've put into this topic since the summer or last year I have a couple questions on the presentation one is how what's the difference between young adult and adult titles how is that defined yeah so young adult we've done some we've done some extensive research into this
128young adult titles are typically written for an audience of age 14 and above so the characters are often somewhere between 14 and 18 they're in high school they're experiencing things that students who attend our high schools are likely experiencing adult titles are those typically written for an audience of 18 and above adult does not mean adult with like a wink it just means for grown-ups published for an audience for grown-ups so yeah that's where we came to that okay thank you so are you automatically delineating young adult when they're for 14 and up or 14 to 18 are they allowed in our middle schools so that's a great question so if a young adult title so right now what we're doing is if it's a young adult title is something that we have not yet
129reviewed in bean stock in our classroom Library connector we do approve it for grades 9 through 12 however as we're going through and we're reading the reviews for the books we're also considering you know what this book might be perfectly appropriate for students who are in eth grade and up there are several professional journals that are media Specialists have access to and they will often say yes this is a young adult title because that's what the publisher has Det determined but a professional review written by a media specialist somewhere else says that this book might be entirely appropriate for somebody who is 13 or 12 okay thank you another question is some of the language for when you're looking at a book's appropriateness is based on the professional setting what is what do you mean
130by that so initially when we began our classroom Library review process we were just happy to have as many media Specialists on board as possible and we assigned them all lists knowing that they are certified for prek through 12 and then maybe 4 hours into the day they were like I don't know that I feel entirely comfortable reviewing these books for a setting that I don't actually work in so for example our elementary school media Specialists were like whoa all these high school books don't know that I feel comfortable reviewing that so we pivoted and we made sure that high school media Specialists are reviewing books submitted to to the high school classroom libraries middle school for middle school and Elementary for elementary so you're reviewing books that you may be familiar with in your
131professional setting okay I see that and then can you describe what the Committees look like how many are in a committee and how do they sign up to be so this is all still a very newly formulated plan and thought we are hoping to have an uneven number so probably three people if possible read the same title and we'd like for those to be those folks to be representative of the grade band that the book was submitted to so for example if it was an adult title submitted to a middle school classroom Library we'd like to have at least one middle school media specialist and at least one high school media specialist and then whoever we can get for that third spot okay a follow-up question to that so if you're reviewing a book for
132the Middle School level and the committee decides that it's not necessarily appropriate for middle school but maybe high school it's not then thrown out it's then maybe the high school is limited to the high school level correct okay thank you I have a couple more questions on the numbers that you posted the let me see what on slide 18 I guess where it has the two numbers that one yeah so classroom libraries by the numbers 215,000 have been reviewed and then the ones that are still pending review 193,000 where are they if they're pending review are they still on the shelves they are still on the shelves and then this is a moving Target so we have folks who have like a few minutes between lunch and they can go in and they can review
133books as they have access our team goes in and does some reviews as they have time as well so this number has fluctuated since then but yes they are on the shelves and then teachers can see and bean Stu anytime they want in real time with the status of their pending books is okay I'm glad to hear that they are not removed during review yes because that would be obviously a lot of books that our kids don't have access to that are totally appropriate okay and then I have another question about the 699 so those 699 have been marked not approved and that's after the second review yes so what we did is we had media special student initial review then as they were reviewing in real time the following week we would figure out
134okay what has been marked is not approved and then we would bring that to the media specialist during the summer and say would you mind as a group re-reviewing the titles that are listed here and then notating whether those should remain as not approved or if they should be moved to approved or restricted to certain grade levels so yeah so they those 699 are not necessarily removed for good they are still under review the they then go to the third level with the three Librarians media specialists corre in our new process yes the new process okay so there's still another another chance for them to remain or whatever the decision decision will be and then I'm going back to that other slide 21 the not approved titles that's it so these are books 58 titles
135that were of that 699 yes correct okay so that number 699 is no not 699 right now 641 it is still 699 because we still want to go through the 26 of the not approved so it is 699 minus so it looks like of those 58 titles that are in the third round right that have gone through this third ground 32 are back will go back on the shelves yes 26 will go through another review correct still okay I'm glad that there is a process that doesn't there's not a knee-jerk reaction to removing a book and that there does have we do have a process in place that is deliberate and allows our media Specialists to read the whole book and determine because because that is so much that's so important to see if there
136is the literary value that overrides what might someone might find offensive whereas others may not but this is I appreciate this process and I know it's lengthy and it's it's burdensome but I at this point I don't see another way to do that because I mean I don't feel like we are I want to be able to protect as many books as we can I don't want to just kind of throw out so many books that we're not being careful so I think this process really helps us do that and I hope that we get to a point where we're just reviewing books that are new that are just published and we can keep up quicker so thank you for that I appreciate it thank you member c d member gold check okay if you
137could go to slide eight please eight eight okay so from 2000 to 2010 before the new legislation we reviewed a whole bunch of books and weeded them through the process you described correct no no re re explain this yes ma'am I can certainly do that so we weed no matter what in our media center collections every single year it's a data driven approach like I said so we look at how many times have books circulated are they great condition are kids reading them are they taking up space that sort of thing so this is data representing the books that we have weeded this school year from August to January from our media center collections like the media center that you can walk into and they do faculty meetings the kids come down to read this
138is not classroom libraries these two things are not related so 59% of the books that were weeded during the school year were initially purchased between 2000 and 2010 that's what this is saying so acquisition is basically like the years that they were purchased thank you for for reframing that for me because I thought I heard that and then my mind kept going back to the graph and changing it okay prior to this year we went through that same process yes did the percentages look much different I'll be very honest I didn't look at the breakdowns of the time period for when we weeded I want to say that I looked at the average number of books that we weeded for the last two school years and it was about 880,000 so this year we've increased
139because like I said we have at least 20 ocps schools that did not previously have a media specialist during at least the previous school year if not longer so we've really seen an increase in in in that work and probably a little extra scrutiny this year and they found books that may have been overlooked in the past in the review possibly I will say that the amount of weeding that we have seen there's been a lot of weeding at the elementary school level not because of the loss whatsoever it's truly just been about I want to make space for things that the kids want to read which is exactly what we would want the media specialist to be doing correct okay so relevant y should always drive you know what we're keeping in our libraries
140is there a place for AI in this review so it's not as strenuous on our staff and then when there are outliers the staff could actually review it because correct me if I'm wrong I know you have a group of of readers but they're re it's not the media Specialists go in and tag a book for review and then you have to review it correct is that what you said so in classroom Library so different setting for classroom Library no you're good you're good I just wanted to make sure I was following the same train as you were so for classroom libraries if a media specialist marks a book as not approved it is something that we can monitor and we are monitoring when I say not approved prek through 12 like it is absolutely
141not approved for any of those grade levels we monitor that and then if they do not approve it that is when we say okay let's take a look at this again we review it and if we feel like you know what we really need to take a deeper look into this that is that one person reviewing it or is it that whole group that reviews that book right now of the 193,000 books that we have we're Gathering media Specialists together so if they're ever uncertain about I'm not sure about this book they have somebody that they can turn to and talk to but they're really individually going through books they're not passing each book around to each group okay so it's still very subjective okay so I would like to find out and maybe we
142need you know our it guy in on this but I think AI is a very good tool to be able to do initial reviews with the algorithms that they're setting forward especially now that we've been through this manual and they really have started to and kudos to you all work out some of those Kinks on those decision factors right as long as you're putting good data in now it would have to be spot checked and especially initially because it's so early but it may take a lot of burden and give people time back because I hate hearing people who are giving up their lunch hour and doing books they already have so much to do and it's already hard to recruit people to this field and then we tell them no you don't even get
143lunch because you need to read a book during it to to review it makes it a little bit more difficult my next question which I didn't really hear you talk about maybe I missed it is there are a lot of books that I read in high school because I was in the college path we used to just call it College path there was locational path and college path like Catch 22 The Scarlet Letter To Kill a Mockingbird I was interested in theater so I read Le Miz I read Gone With the Wind I read Fant of the Opera those all have pretty tough subjects how are we handling the AP and dual enrollment students and giving access to that because if their parents want them in college level courses they should be getting college level
144material all the way through so how how are we handling that so those books for AP CL for AP classes and Cambridge classes are set by the organizations that develop that curriculum so students still have access to those books because they have to have we had any challenged not that I am aware of no not for any of those titles okay let me check my notes but I think that's where those were all my questions yes they were thank you and then may I address your comment about AI your question yes okay you have an answer yeah so my team and I have been very curious about how AI could potentially be helpful to us in this review process and so we've played around with some different options Unfortunately they are just language models and
145so the things that AI spits back at us is pretty much just taking information and regurgitating it from different websites and so it does not help with decision making truly and it doesn't make a decision for you or anything like that so it just spits back information from different sources and we already have that from sources that we know are more credible than where it's coming from in the AI machine if you will okay my suggestion would be we have such a close relationship with the modeling and simulation field that is implementing AI to get their brains around this and also would a partner like an Amazon who you know Aggregates books all day long be able to help with it be especially on the more simple criteria that you're talking about and I'm sure
146you use the technology for this but those adult learning books those books that are broken by developmental age and then maybe even just doing cursory reviews of the of the titles and the book jackets may help speed up the process I'm looking for anything to you all there's I know there's no easy answer but we've got to make it less burdensome we just have to figure out a way to make it less burdensome thanks okay let me let me follow let me follow up on that train of thought first of all on slide 20 it says that we changed our review process and based on publisher determined levels of Interest so if a publisher says the book is young adult it's cleared for 9 through 12 and we will review it to see if it
147might be viable for a younger grade do we review all of them that are young adult yes okay yeah this is a new process to us still so we are still okay going one of the concerns that I have with that is not this is obviously not a field of expertise for me at all but I'm uncomfortable that a publisher can make would make a decision in the best interest of students rather than in the best interest of publishing the book because that's that's where their money comes so and I know there are a lot of rating entities book rating entities which ones of those do we use or do we so let me let me go back one second so in bean stack the only information that we have available to us is the
148title and the author of the book we don't have any other information so as much as I would like to say we know everything about the half a million titles in our classroom libraries we just we don't so we have to do research about what their publisher set interest level is no matter what and so we're already on the website already have that information pulled up so we always go through and we just double check what do the reviews say what is the summary what are the ages that are recommended for we don't have a book rating system that we follow we follow what the professional Journal say there just isn't one to follow I'm sorry say it again so there is no book rating system like there is for like PG-13 movies or anything
149like that there's not that doesn't exist so we look at the professional reviews and what the publisher says about the availability of a book okay I'm I'm going to have to go back and look for the email I received an email from I want to I think it was RJ Mueller and after sitting in one of our meetings he started doing some review on his own of different book rating companies and I recall sending that email on as a suggestion and again I don't remember who I sent it to I'll have to search but getting a response back that's that's something that we use so if we're not I love the idea of AI but I actually wasn't thinking that quite that advanced but I was thinking that there has to be a way that
150we can take this database that we have of all all of these books that we are reviewing and integrate it somehow with these other databases of whichever rating agencies We Believe maybe there's three or four that H are the most credible back to that PG-13 because I think I had written back to Mr Mueller that ideally we will adopt something like the movie ratings where there's a high degree of confidence by the general public back to that issue of sense I'm with most of the board I believe in common sense but my Common Sense might be different from your common sense and we all have you know eight different senses of common sense so it's still subjective but if we relied on an agency entity or several entities that would be a methodology of of
151targeting those books that really need our Focus just superintendent does this ring a bell to you at all Kelly do you okay Kelly is I'm sorry I'm not it does not ring a bell but that doesn't mean that you may not have forwarded it to me but I'll have to staff check on that oh it's called Common Sense Media well I while I was sitting here I Googled and the and the first one that popped up was common sense but I'm actually talking about an email that sent out asking whether we use common sense or something else and if we so you're nod in your head yes so we do yeah so Common Sense Media is a crowdsourced review platform they review TV shows video games movies books it is a parent written parent developed
152resource and so it is something that we look at if we find that the professional reviews and the general book data that we have available to us the summary Etc is inconclusive we will go to those crowdsourced reviews knowing that there's a bias to them because they are written by a certain Organization no I understand and that was just one that Mr Mueller had identified again I'll have to find the email because I did get an email back from somebody in the district I believe I'm going off a recollection that there are a number of them so but we're that's not a tool that we are utilizing as an initial aspect we're going with the Publishers okay so just a point of clarification it's the publisher piece and then also there's periodicals that are written
153that say adult young adult there's different sources so there's multiple sources that they look at beyond the publisher okay right and for all of those for all of the books yes so if so if I wanted to do a review for To Kill a Mocking Bird I would have have lots of information available to me including professional reviews from the school library journal the horn book kirkus book list those are our professional reviews they specialize in publishing reviews for books then if I'm imagining what this page looks like this website that we frequently use if I scroll down I can see what the book summary is like what is this book about the same thing that you would read on the back of a book if you were to go to the bookstore and then
154further I would be able to see the full taxt the thing I keep the thing I'm not sure of when you tell me all that is these are all the things you can do what are they supposed to do once they see publisher 9 through 12 is that like okay need look no further or do you need to look at all of these things they should be looking further and they are looking further okay yes okay terminology I I had the same thoughts on the terminology and I understand that's what beanstack uses but I don't think it's the terminology to me and I think to most people is not approved means rejected as appro ASO as opposed to has not yet been approved but may be approved or may be rejected but I know the
155technically it's technically correct it's not approved but again some body that sees that is more inclined to think it's rejected I think most of us up here saw not approved and it's it's gone its history so I would prefer for our purpose of our communication not what Bean stuck tells us but how we phrase it outwardly thinking is to communicate to find a word that's that better explains so to me it's pending pending still it's still under review under review would be a great way of saying it then it's it's clear it that no decision's been made but it's not just sitting on the shelf being ignored it's being reviewed it might be sitting on the shelf under review but it's under I do I love under review whoever came up I think that was
156Karen good I love under reviewed but so is there there's no reason I no I'm not even going to ask we can use terminology that makes sense to us when we put together either PowerPoint presentations or if we're going to produce a list if we use terminology that people when they see it they'll get it and they won't think that whatever is 193,000 books have been yanked so anyway that would be my suggestion there that's it that was it thank you all thank you thoughts on feed feedback back not that you need it but but if you have it I'm welcome yeah so I think part of the not approved comes from just being very transparent I don't think we ever thought this was going to be so messy I thought this I think we
157all maybe naively thought that this was going to be a little bit more straightforward and that one review would suffice and so if somebody said you know this is not approved that you know we wouldn't keep coming back to it and ni I think it's great that we are because to member cter D's point we want to protect as many books as we can we want our students to have access to books and so for the sake of this presentation I was using language that was consistent with what our teachers and our media Specialists are familiar with but I also see your point very much so that of our 699 that are not approved that we need to find a different way to identify those with something that makes more sense that hey we're going
158to revisit these okay and then even of those we're down to 26 again those have been rejected so or they're still waiting to be read so we have initially gone through our list looked at our resources that we have available to us on my team so like a third of value to review but we have not involved others in fully reading the text to determine if they are going to remain not approved or be approved for certain okay so they're still under review okay all right member salaman thank you chair oh okay I had on my thing to call out the common sense that was the rating system because I remember it because it is a fairly high quality for the times that I've used it but trust you all kind of triangulate between the
159different systems I wanted to double tap on the question on our gifted students some to remember gold who mentioned when I was in elementary school I was also reading High School level so all my books were like the high school level ones does is that still like can our students still access that in today's libraries or how does that flow go like I didn't want to read the fourth grade book I wanted to read the 10th grade book right that's a great question so in teachers classroom libraries they are allowed to have books that go beyond one level above their grade level so if I teach fourth grade I can have books that are approved for fifth grade and up to support any of my gifted students I know that doesn't address a fourth grader
160reading High School books at your level students do have access to inter Library loans and so if the teacher and the media specialist feel very strongly about the student checking out a book from the middle school classroom from from the Middle School library and their parent is in support of that I think those parties can work together to request that book from another campus do we do we currently have that communication with parents where we're saying hey your students reading level could be high school level and you know we I I think these students s defa their cracks I know I just I worry sometimes that who's a student that could read at the high school middle school level whose parents are okay with it but they're only reading a fifth grade book instead of
161a fourth grade at the district level and in my tenure in this role I've never sent a communication like that even before all of these laws I think it's just kind of been an understood practice if the parent has initiated it got it I would love for our district to be a little bit more proactive if we do have students that are testing and that because obviously with parents approval if our students are reading above that I don't see why we would hold them to just one grade level above and I wasn't the only one reading on that there was a bunch group of gifted kids and at McCoy and like George Elementary I went where I think all of us were at the very least reading at eth grade level and this was back
162in fourth and fifth grade so I just want to make sure that through all the cracks of us making sure that we're checking all the boxes we can still appreciate this Nuance so long as our parents are okay with our students having access to these libraries I I'd want all of our Elementary Middle School media centers to have access to certain books that our students could read I think there's nothing more discouraging for a student than when you're bored and if you're forced to read a book and you're not engaged and if I don't have the means to afford a library at home and school is the only Library I have and I'm kind of breezing through these books that's a sure way to lose my interest in education so I really would want to
163spend a little bit more time thinking to how when we think about our gifted students across the district that we are still providing them challenging reading material obviously appropriate but just making sure that it's not just I think when I read some of this on grade level approval I worry that's not not all of our students are grade level so thank you oh and one last thing actually to Angie's point on the books that we publish for transparency of parents I agree that I think we should be transparent I would love to have that list also online I defer to the district and to our media specialist on where is burdensome in the process right like we have a second review we have a third review I care for that list of 26 I think
164once it gets to the end of the process where these numbers hopefully are very small but you know there's been a determination made on this book is not approved and it will not be in our schools I think that's a good place and I would be very supportive to at that point just have it on our websites that these are the list of books that across the district we do not have just for transparency of our parents I completely defer to our media Specialists and your staff to know if there's earlier in the process where we can make that available or not but at the very least I think at that point in the process it's more than reasonable for us to disclose so that's my last thank you thank you member of salaman member
165bird thank you I just need a little bit more clarification about the process because I'm still confused even though I've had it explained to me numerous times it's okay so the classroom teacher puts in her classroom Library they did that over the summer right most of the teachers did in bean stack in bean stack will they put in a title bean stack will automatically come up approved not approved no okay so if the book has previously been reviewed by somebody then yes it will automatically go into the three different columns on their screen approved pending or not approved approved pending or not approved okay and then if it's approved great they put it on the classroom like Library shelf if it's not approved they pull it from their classroom Library shelf correct until it gets
166approved if it's pending they pull it from their Library shelf if it's pending it can be on the Shelf it can be on the Shelf okay so that's where this okay so when we look at number at page 18 that's where 193,000 are titles that teachers have put in but that have not been somewhere reviewed correct okay and then the 699 not approved are the ones that the teachers have gotten a message that says not approved yeah so they will see on their individual teacher dashboard this book is not approved like in the not approved column okay if they have the book if they have the book so those have been pulled out until they're further reviewed okay that's what I thought so then okay the next step in this though when the teachers put
167all this in and it says not approved or pending the school media specialist then is looking at all her teachers at her school all those lists and has to go through and individually approve or not approve books we are using the power of many media Specialists to continue this effort so we have weekly review sessions and so the media Specialists are reviewing the Cat in the Hat one time one media specialist is reviewing the Cat in the Hat and then based on their review are approving it and so every teacher in the county who has the Cat in the Hat will get will see that oh Cat in the Hat has been approved okay thank you that is much clearer okay good because I was like oh my God these po poor school media specials
168are having to like review all of them at their school okay so it's all interl everybody the whole thing is interl it's just 699 that we are that have come up not approved that we're still reviewing and you said some of those could can be and are just like errors too they're not it's not that they're 699 that they're inappropriate right okay correct that is and that goes back to this language of not approved it's yes and that's they're pulled they're not available they're under revie but they're not available they're under review but they're they're off the shelves and that is where the public I think the store news stories we've had that's where they're they're frustrated because it's 699 books that are off the shelves so just a point of clarification the $699 came
169from a records request so it was inside bean stack it was not a cleaned list it what just was as is so then they went back and as was being shared if it was Charlotte's Web and it had the wrong author maybe a media specialist looked at this and said that's not inputed correctly so they put it as non-approved so that's one piece to it the other piece is just as a point of clarification when we're talking about classroom libraries versus Media centers so if it's pending in a classroom it does not mean let's say it's in this review process or it's not approved in a classroom and it's pending other reviews it may still be in the media center or someplace where the student would have access at the school so it does not
170preclude that book from automatically coming out of the media center so that's a piece and that also addresses Miss Salam Mona's point about can I have access to more than a grade level so if the classroom per se I'm a third grader and I only had up to a fourth grade I might be able to go into the media center and find some books that are a little bit more challenging and also the readability of the book maybe at a middle school level but the content may be appropriate for elementary so they might also have some challenging so I just wanted to address those pieces yeah thank you that's a really good point to me because I was going to say that too when I taught first grade I had kids that were reading fifth
171sixth seventh grade level and I would often just utilize the media center obviously so and I talk to my media specialist and this child needs more challenging books and so there's always that option for sure if I didn't have it in my own classroom okay so yeah I would agree about the transparency I think that there's just so much misinformation out with the public that I think that we need to be clear and I think the way we do that is getting our story out and not letting other people get the story out so I would be all in favor of transparency and I would also be in favor of having approved under review and not approved and making sure those books are then processed again but yeah anything we can do to make it
172easier it's better but thank you for clarifying that made it and maybe even we could have a flowchart that shows how this all goes about because there is a lot of confusion I think so you know thank you thank you member bird Vice chair and then member gold thank you madam chair so circling back to the 26 books this will be their fourth review right because they've already they've already underw through reviews this review will be in its entirety it'll be read in its entirety so is there a situation where the books may be deemed appropriate for high school and not any other like could that is that still within the realm of possibility of course yes and so we got the list thank you very much and in looking at the list of books
173that are listed some of them I've read They're they're great books but I'm assuming that probably a parent had like a big stack of books that they didn't need anymore and probably went in the classroom libraries like hey I have these books do you want I'm for your classroom teachers aren't going to turn down books and maybe a Colleen Hoover book got put in with it and teachers are busy and maybe they just put them away because these weren't necessarily books that were ordered by our media Specialists these were books that were found in in our classroom libraries correct corre correct and may have never ever been in our media center okay correct correct okay so I just want to make that for the I want to make that clear for the public who's watching
174because I used to give books to my teachers all the time when my kids are in school most of them were children books maybe in high school I would do more I had series of books that you know that I had I loved her she so I want to make that I just want to make that clear and then I agree with with the board members and the comments they made we do appreciate all the all the work that you've done and I do think that here in Orange County we have been very intentional and methodical with how we look at books and not just Banning books randomly I do want to make sure that we're we're making sure that we are looking at the literary value of the books and ensuring that every book
175possible could stay accessible to our students because I think that's important that they have easy access to to some of this material and I think that's that's really all I have thank you're welcome thank you member gold I wanted to go back to the rating system I understand about the one that may follow kind of the characteristics of what we're looking for but it's kind of an aggregate of I'll call it group think right now but don't we use Lexile framework to like in the elementary school level stuff not for the book review process no Lexile and accelerated reading levels aren't part of that because a reading level doesn't speak to the content of the book the Lexile level doesn't speak to the content of the book it doesn't speak to the topic it doesn't
176speak to the theme it just speaks to the readability of a text but those scores are broken by age not necess necessarily no Oh I thought that they were ability there's correlations between age and the age you might be and the Lexile level that you might be able to read but they're not but there's recommendations by grade I mean I'm looking at the website so there's recommendations by grade in those Lexile levels so what my point is there might be a group of data that we could use for initial review and then look at outliers because when you're looking especially at the elementary school most of those with the Lexile review have gone you know been on Scholastic bookshelves a long time or th those trusted partner places and it is a little bit more
177scientifically based on it the issue still is that the Lexile level and the readability levels they don't speak to the content of the book which is what we are being tasked with making sure is appropriate is age and grade level appropriate for our students what if you could cross reference them between the two sites I think we provided an example during the summer when we did our training with media Specialists and the title is going to escape me so I know that we spoke about I'm just goingon to name an author John Grisham and I hope John Grisham isn't watching this in case I putcher this but in case he is sorry if John Grisham writes books out a sixth grade level and that's the information that we have we're not going and we're looking
178at just the Lexile level we can't approve a John Grisham Book for a sixth grade student because of the content of the book his books deal with crime and murder and that isn't necessarily in in a very detailed way and that's not necessarily something that we would feel comfortable based on professional reviews making accessible to students so solely going based on the Lexile level put okay don't misunderstand me I'm not saying solely but I'm looking for data points to make the review a little bit more data driven still and reduce the burden on our team so if you were to combine Lexile and Common Sense Minds if Common Sense were to pass our review and they get it 98% of the time right with what we decide is that a way to kind of correlate
179data I just say I you know this law really should have been a ratings law just like gpg RX and then the same with games we have the same kind of rating laws but we don't have that so how do we help help create that not just us but with maybe some of our fellow school districts because that's what we need and that's what parents would also understand and the general public would understand because we've lived with that most of our lives so I I want to make it easier instead of harder and I am so grateful for the abundance of caution but I think the abundance of caution doesn't outweigh the time sucking that this takes for 99% of the great books that we have on our shelves so I I just can't move
180off that point without trying to make it simpler because that's what I hear from our staffs and that's what I hear you know I'd like the media Specialists more available I'd like to be able to spend time that's what I hear mad Mester denl thank you thank Madam chair something that we have not talked about in this afternoon is when the books that have been removed or flagged sometimes also overlap with certain subject areas whether it's lgbtq characters or authors or African-American authors and characters again is there a way to quantify the books that are that do end up being unshelved removed from the shelves to see if we are unnecessarily removing a disproportionate a number of books with those types of subjects and authors I'll be very honest we have not done that sort
181of analysis just because of the sheer volume of books that we are having to review okay thank you I would like to ask that when we do have those books that are removed if we could look at at those types of data points and if we are removing an un necessary number of diverse books that we make an extra effort to replace them with other books with those types of characters and experiences and authors thank you thank you thank you member Castro Deno superintendent good time for your name to pop up anyway because the question just came up about oh huh member Felder would like to oh that was member Felder okay member Felder yes good afternoon ladies i' I've been listening to a very engaging debate and conversation about book I guess can you
182hear me absolutely we can okay thank you I guess being a teacher I'm just having flashback about how I would be perhaps behaving or dealing with this whole issue of the book and with our media specialist and the up stream measures that are being taken do they have to do about the books I have a concern and I and I don't think I heard anybody talk about it one of our districts in the state and they have been given their parents have been given permission slips in order for a book written by African-American writers to be read in the classroom and we haven't talked about anything like that but you know and I do understand that teachers do are concerned with the Lexile level with the reading because we need to know what that level
183is when when our students are reading the books because of course it's higher in in in improved their reading however a lot of the books written by African-American writers about the African-American experience it is written at a higher level but it's it the content is just so rich I'm almost reminded of the film American fiction how you know we look at stuff and we really don't it we really don't understand we really try to impress upon an understanding about a culture that we are not familiar with or we misinterpret misunderstand it but I emphasize with what we're trying to do as a board and a district to fall in line with what is required of us on the state level as we look at our books being a daughter of an educator and I have
184several like many libraries in my house of all kinds of books and that I used to teach from and I don't know whether or not they were on the reading level or not I mean on the they probably some of the books I was teaching from probably would have been excommunicated from the area but I just wanted to say that I think this situation that we have found ourselves in is going to take a lot of time and I don't think that we can hurry up with a solution and you probably have kind of hit on that with some of the other comments from other board members but I've been listening and hearing and I just wanted to be able to share my thoughts and my real concern with how we are dealing with the
185books that we read and making sure that we are able to allow our students a very rich literary experience and not at the risk of removing all of these great books and just having the media center specialist just being so overwhelmed with trying to pull the book but I wanted to share that with you and I'm hoping that we don't come to that place of permission steps I don't know whether you've heard that or not but I have and I hope that's not the case with some of the discussion that we're having that we don't go to that place and I just wanted to share that with you that I am concerned about how we're pulling the books and you know and I don't want a lot of stuff to be read either because I
186know some of the stuff is a bit risque and I'm not in favor of that but also there's some people that are very extreme about how we're pulling the books in the content so I just need you to know that I'm very cognizant of that and I am going to be specifically concerned about how we pull books written by African-American writers about the africanamerican experience that's not necessarily precarious but it's an actual experience so I wanted to share that with you as a board member thank you thank you member feler member front thank you madam chair I just wanted to did I hear her correctly that she's worried that teachers would start asking parents for written consent to read African-American books another district oh I was like okay we are not doing that here that
187is not what this is about not at all like we don't need to that's not what's going on here okay I think I had written down it's been while I had just written the whole that idea of the students who are younger wanting a higher level book I like you guys have already clarified that if it they want that in a they can go to the media center I know my kids went to a k through eight and so in fourth grade my daughter was reading the like really fat books and wanting those higher level books so the way the K through 8 was they had like the Middle School school books kind of separated and so in order for her to be able to access those I did have to fill out a form
188that was sent this was what five six years ago so a form was sent home and I just had to give permission but I think the biggest thing is parents for parents to be confident that the books that would be in that middle school section wouldn't contain those sexually explicit the minute by minute content and so think what we're doing here is great I think the Common Sense Media like member salaman had mentioned booklook dorg there's quite a few different groups and I think parents out there who are also trying to vet books to help media specialist to see it really is I do feel like we're playing a game of whack-a-mole and I think this really does need to go either the state or federal level where we have a book rating system like
189we've all been talking about which then goes now it falls on the Publishers that if a publisher were to provide a book that is out of the age range or the rating range for a school than that would be on them I think that would bring a lot of relief as well to the schools they would feel that there's a more of a vetting process as well but I really I appreciate what you're doing all the hard work I also put here do you think we could add a reason next to the different book titles that are under review for instance so I keep going back to the Charlotte's Web because that's in my home Library like we love that book so for for it to say like mistakenly added due to spelling error or
190something where people can go oh okay then well that makes sense or it was you know wrong you know just added by mistake I know we had one where I believe somebody typed a book in that is very explicit just to see okay does it catch every book like how does that work and it caught the book so then it was added as if that book were in the libraries and wasn't in the classroom it was just added because the teacher was just checking the system and so you know as a as I'm looking at that whole 699 book list that one caught my eye and I thought well you got to be kidding this book was in our classrooms but it wasn't and so I think just having that little tab if we are
191publishing that $699 just having something that just shows why I don't know maybe that's a lot more work than we're bargaining for but I agree too that I think if we want to do you know after we do an initial review maybe a second review when it gets to that second or third review then we could start posting those on the district website otherwise we're going to have hundreds of books that are either accidentally there or truly under review that was my thoughts on that thank you that's okay Dr Vasquez Dr V was I tried to recognize you a minute ago and somebody said member Felder wants to speak so I thought you had pressed it for member Felder so help me out because we have a couple more of these who who is pressing
192for member Felder is that GNA be you okay so to come from one of y'all it keeps lighting up over there oh are you turning it off Karen yeah I'm like that's why Dr Williams is putting it off okay well thank you thank you as if I don't as if I don't find this challenging enough all right anyway so superintendent I glossed over you because I thought it was member Felder but it was member Felder and now it's you and take us in for a landing because you're the last one right so at this moment it could change at any second I'll member gasten so just a couple of points again thank you for the feedback and the conversation it is unfortunate I think board member Gallow and a couple of other board members mentioned
193the misinformation and sadly it's it's come from a source and it started with with the 699 and we have been trying to tell our story so we'll continue to be as transparent as possible but when we share our story and others refuse to acknowledge it then it does create a lot of issues as you've heard and as our staff has had been dealing with board member Fon I just want to clarify for the book Charlotte's Web it would just be taken off of the list we wouldn't keep it on there so once the book is deemed to be able to be back on our shelves or accepted it wouldn't be on that list so we wouldn't have to include all that information yes got it great points about the gifted students and I think what
194we another Avenue we can take is talk to our teachers who are teaching our gifted students I know that they have specialized curriculum and many of them have their own books in their classroom libraries and so I would just be interested in knowing if the media Specialists are taking that into account as they are reviewing the books and chair yes you did send an email on Common Sense just to another Maria I know I figured that out that's that's right but but it's but no it's good because I think it'll it adds to but I actually think I think I got an answer that's the weird part so I don't think you got an answer for me so I and Kelly doesn't think so but I recall seeing a response so it wouldn't have come
195from Maria although I have very Vivid and realistic dreams so it could well have been a dream that somebody responded back and said yes we use it was basically along the lines of we use all sorts of different rating agencies and I was like oh good so there we do it and then and then the last point I want to make and again these have been it's been a great conversation at the end of the day our media Specialists are the ones currently on the line unless the legislation changes and then they have company and so what what we do we want to be able to give them confidence that we have their backs that we are making this process a little bit easier and so some of the suggestions that may have been made
196today we may hold off as we move forward with the process I can actually see if the rating of young adults an adult works that we may be able to bring that to the first level of review so that media specialists at the middle and the high school level could start with that and then that should lessen the number of books that may pop up and then provide more time for them to engage with students and continue to build that love of reading that I believe all of us here have so again thank you to the team we will go back and make some adjustments and we will bring it back for a final final review and then we'll hope to be able to implement it as soon as possible nice landing wheels back up
197member front heading down the runway is it not it's there we go I'm sorry I had I knew I had one question once you get we're going to hear from Member Gallow and then member Castor denl is going to take us back down for the 26 books I just wanted to clarify are those removed districtwide or is that just in the classrooms districtwide in the classroom libraries and the media centers originally okay and those have been so deemed inappropriate to have for any of our schools or children so not necessarily like okay so for all but we are doing another review sorry on those yes on those was the 26 okay perfect that's it thank you member Gallow buckle your seat thank you mam chair I had a different question but a member of front
198sparked a question the 26 books and you may not know this out the top of your head did those predominantly come from classroom Li because in my mind I'm thinking they came from classroom libraries not the media centers or was it a mixture of classroom libraries and media centers so they were initially so our review really started with everything in the classroom libraries and then anything that was not approved in the classroom Library prek through 12 we did a second review on and so these are all titles that have had a second review and we're kind of at the top of our list and then we remove those from schools that had them in their Media Center collection so some of these books were in fact in the media center of the 26 that have
199been not approved deemed the final review some of them yes so just some of the books have been removed or all the books I don't have the list in front of me but I would need to confirm to give you a solid yes or no okay and then I think Dr Vasquez answered this question but it's going to the policies coming back before us as I mean I'm sure there's going to be changes this legislative session but even prior to that we were going to bring the policy back before the board for a review yes it's on the it's not calendar yet but it will I think we were waiting to see if anything came up U during this legislative session and then do it all at once but the process I think we're able
200but we've started to move on that and hopefully if this works for the remainder of the year we can start the new school year with that initial review at the school level with those ratings the young adult and adult okay cuz I know that there's I think as I mentioned at the top of this policy there there's a rule coming before the board the State Board of Education that will have to be added to our policy if approved so I'll I'll save my comments for when the policy comes back because my biggest issue is that I would love for or I would like for the board to kind of have final final approval of books that are absolutely removed not looking at the ones that we've already removed but moving forward any book that is
201and more of a media centers right books that were ordered by a media specialist and now we're saying no that they shouldn't be there prior to them being removed altogether just so that there could be a conversation so as a board we could look at it and I've said this before but the issue with that is as the law is written even if it does as a board as a as a board member I would never put a book back in that could then jeopardize the certificate of a media specialist so there there's really no reason for the board to review it because it's not our it's not us on the line it's not us that's going to get in trouble it's the actual media Specialist or someone in our District staff and I would
202never want that to happen and we actually had conversations about that because I know that you and I think a couple of other board members had asked that and that's exactly where we landed and even now when we have a media specialist that maybe has a strong belief that this book should be removed and we are overturning it we want to be able to have read the book in its entirety to be able to come back because at the end of the day it is their certificate and how do we how do we deal with that but yes we absolutely I do think out not just posting on our website the books that have been permanently removed K12 but I do believe that we can Institute some process where the board is updated you know
203whether it's monthly similar to what we do with discipline Matrix that you receive that and you know these are the books that based on the review have have been permanently removed that's a great great idea thank you Dr ker D thank you madam chair I want to thank this department for all the work and for explaining things as clearly as you could I know that when that newspaper article came out with all the titles published I was Fielding questions from my family my in-laws from Neighbors everyone wanted to know why are we Banning so many books and their books are like I've read this book I've read that book there's nothing wrong with that book and there are so many I mean it's not just Charlotte's Web obviously to me that was an obvious mistake
204oversight but there are so many on that list I still am still so concerned that our kids don't have access to some of these awesome titles and that is a form of banning books you're preventing kids from reading them so I'm glad that they're in a temporary hold and that we're going to continue to to whittle down that list to get them back on the shelves but this when I was explaining the process to my in-laws and neighbors and folks it really came back to poor legislation that the language in the legislation is so unclear and the guidance just isn't really there forcing our media Specialists and teachers to air on the side of caution and I let them know what was at stake for all of these employees and they understood they're like well
205gosh this is a real mess so I'm glad we're trying to clean it up and I want want to just remember that the purpose of having all these books with different subjects and content and levels of experiences it's so that students can see themselves in these books and also see the experiences of others and sometimes they're it's difficult especially when you get into older grade levels the content is difficult they're challenging not just in readability but in the stories that are told and I don't want to air on the side of protecting our kids so much that they leave our schools so naive that they then become victims of some experience so I just wanted to add that so that we are still advocating for students and reading as much as we are for illicit
206content thank you all right thank you member casor denl we've landed okay let me our next topic should be a little shorter everybody okay right now all right then we will keep moving thank you all so much I think I'm the only person who didn't recognize how ult this job has been for you for our media Specialists for our teachers for everybody involved but thank you very much you light of the number of books just the ones that have been reviewed it is staggering and frankly mindboggling to me how much everyone has gotten through how well it has gone and how few books actually were determined not or possibly not undetermined yet may not under rev under review well I was thinking for a second that 26 was final but it's not final anyway it's
207amazing to me I'm really relieved given all the stories that I've I've heard over this throughout the state o over this last year or so but anyway thanks so much hang in there we appreciate you all very much thank you okay all right we are on IJ OA school trips and excursions and when the team has taken their seats welcome everybody if you all would get do a quick introduction for us and for the public and then I will either turn the floor over to the superintendent or directly to y'all I'm I'm so used with with with Barbara you know was always Barbara St bar so however you want to work it will work it I agree during the same presentation I don't see the reason yeah yeah but I would definitely like for your
208team to introduce because I'm seeing some faces I don't recognize so just so thank you madam chair and as we're transitioning we there's probably some familiar faces and I am going to introduce Josh yes some board members have had what's Joshua's last name yeah that's you okay that's me I don't recognize him at all but I definitely see them apparently my reputation deedes me the person behind the email yeah so before Mr Nan starts U I want to just give a little bit of background as to what we're doing here today it's come to our attention that the policy on school trips and excursions has not been followed and we have a need to make revisions to that policy we also were in the process of revising the policy for other reasons and so this
209policy will actually come to you twice first to address the issue of school excursions on the last two weeks of school which which is an immediate need that needs to be rectified and then we will come back with more changes to the school field trip policy including consolidating because I believe there are five different policies that address School field trips so with that said Josh the floor is yours well that steal some of my thunder Dr bqu good afternoon Cher Jacobs board members superintendent vasqu for your consideration today for today's work session we're going to review revisions to Schoolboard policies OA IIA and jic student code of conduct our agenda today is to cover the cover and review the mentioned policies and next we will lay out a tenative guideline for the policy this will
210be followed by a demonstration of our proposed Provisions for your consideration as it pertains to the specific policy in discussion followed by the next steps of any relevant questions and discussions that you all may have before handing over this presentation to my cohorts I get the opportunity to present revised policy changes to policy IGA which is appropriately titled school trips and excursions as a district we have an immediate need to revise the policy to update and clarify expectations as they relate to all field trips this is highlighted this is highlighted in step one of our process the primary focus on the initial revisions is to remove the prohibition of field trips for the last two weeks of school and update terminology to reflect our current operation and any gr grammatical errors and language that aligns
211with Florida Statutes later this summer we're going to bring this back for a second time as superintendent Vasquez mentioned for a more comprehensive review and that will provide substantial number of revisions to policy IG way and other policies that outline field trips specifically as mentioned in the previous tenative schedule slide our next steps will be to obtain input from the public on March 26 2024 in the rural development Workshop and then go come back to the school board with revisions to permit field trips to last two week of school this of course is necessary because our intent to move for final approval is going to be on the August or April 2nd 2024 board meeting so we can Implement these this by the May 10th prohibition and then our revision team will work on step
212two for your consideration at a later date so bear with me I'm going to bring up the policy this is the proposed Redline changes to Schoolboard policy IGA much of these red lines are terminology changes updated to reflect the division of learning and appropriate clarification to the current operation within our district while we are prepared to discuss grammatical or verbage changes if requested I'm just going to highlight the material additions to to the material additions and revisions of policy IGA notably number five strikes the clause where no field trips will be scheduled on the last two weeks of school we're simply going to make that field trip should always be planned to avoid conflicts with testing schedules and planned events as we move on 6B clarifies expectations of the school permission slips and waivers and
213where they should be retained we are also propos proposing on six C to ensure that we are taking NE necessary precautions with our students and staff as a pertains to Indemnity by adding the verbage risk management shall require insurance and coverage for outof state and international travel seven adds to oh I'm very sorry 6D is also going to strike out process and procedures for high-risk activities as risk management already approves field trips pursu pursuant to this the field trip handbook seven clarifies expectations on field trips while students are within the disciplinary process This was derived from our team with the division of learning and Council finally under extended educational trips and extracurricular we have removed the verbiage where the superintendent's recommendation for approval as this is now going to be handled by the division of
214learning designate that concludes the recommendation for policy IGA I'll be happy to answer any discussions that you guys have at this time thank you so much member CER Den yes thank you madam chair and I appreciate member Gallow for bringing this up and your team for addressing it so quickly thank you superintendent this makes so much sense from a teacher's point of view to have this flexibility and we're not taking away any of the other supervision or or oversight from those trips so they're still just as safe especially when you add the additional Insurance but I appreciate this and I know my former colleagues will too thank you thank you member c d any other I'm surprised there was one question that I thought was going to come up so let me go ahead and
215ask it do you have any idea why that language was in there that's a really good question as far as we can summize this policy has been in place since 2006 on a personal standpoint back then I had more brown hair and less gray hair but from a district standpoint how are your memory cells right now now that's the most important thing because you have to remember back 2006 I didn't I don't die no more so I don't remember but but from a dist District standpoint it was simply the needs of the times I think while we could argue that it was a collective effort I think four departments stand out the divisional learning and its have become more agile and efficient so testing has not been as much of a hurdle senior director wheeler
216and his hardworking team in procurement have secured more Charter vendors and our bus fleet is vastly stronger because of the folks in transportation of course I said the word bus so I am obligated to mention ocps is accepting applications for more busers and this request for this policy revision is a culmination of a lot of hard work from past and present staff behind that sit behind the curtain and creates a lot of great opportunities for our kids all right great thank you so much I ask only partly out of curiosity whenever we make a change it's it's always nice to understand how we got here I found that over and over again I will just think gosh this is definitely what we need to do only to find out we did it and here's why
217that went wrong and so that's why we're here so anyway you know the saying if you don't know your past you're destined to repeat it so thanks for I thought there might have been something to do with when we were doing testing or whatever but I'm I'm glad we where we are where we are I really appreciate the effort I appreciate you for bringing this to our attention because unfortunately I was unaware I think the board was unaware and so if it weren't for you bringing this up we would not we would not be in compliance with our policies which I know is extremely important to you and I appreciate that and I'm glad we were able to get it on the calendar very quickly so we can address it with that anything further I'm
218landing the plane oh I'm sorry but they okay and they're staying oh I'm so sorry I was thinking we were getting I was thought we were getting another team but we're going to keep the same Pilots go ahead nope I will turn this over to cors for policy IIA oh we got next steps we're good no we went we covered everything right we went over that we went over that very good so I'll y yield to policy IIA thank goodness this thing terrifies me so we are getting a new we are getting new pilots this is the opportunity anybody who needs to Bo debard I do too I do too but that's it okay I just got confused because I was sure he wasn't doing the next one but then let's see I think I
219can take it I'm gonna I'm gonna excuse myself it is different I think yeah I think we're in a different order than but I it's it's I think it's fine it would just be good in case we have anybody viewing to let them know we've changed the order so to the public we are we just finished JJ OA we are going to move to IA now in Li of jic and they will will come back to jic all those acronym all those letters mean nothing we're going to the student progression plan which was the last item on our agenda and then we'll take up the code of student conduct all right thank you madam chair this is also a policy that you will see again after the legislative session but the state board released information
220at the end of December I believe was in December no which is causing us to amend our policy for future reference we are making changes to what's in this particular policy so that every time there is a change we don't have to come back to the board necessarily depending on the impact of the changes with that said we have two members of our team Mary Bridges and Sarah kesy both who I know you are very familiar with so Mary I believe you're going to start for us yes thank you superintendent all right this is policy IIA the student progression plan and as the superintendent said we have two steps the first step is that we need to make a revision immediately the focus of this initial proposed revision is to remove the qu crosswalk of
221end of course exam grade percentages for Algebra 1 and geometry the doe created new exams and they provided new scale scores to us in just November therefore a new crosswalk is needed in order to finalize course grades with the eoc's counting as 30% so basically the state provides us with the scale scores but we have to create a crosswalk to turn those into percentages to to add those to the course grade so that we can have a final grade the second revision we want to do a more comprehensive review of this policy and bring forth substantial proposed revisions to include the incorporation of a student progression plan handbook which will be a searchable guide that contains links and all expectations and requirements for students to progress the student progression handbook will be more user friendly
222for parents and legal Guardians and staff than the current version of policy IIA it's there L I'm going to show you just the red line to the crosswalk so basically the current crosswalk was created when we first had Algebra 1 and geometry eoc's and our research at that time research accountability and Grants Department used a procedure to create that crosswalk so because we need to create this crosswalk so that our students can get their final grades this year we chose to use the same research the same way the same process that they used back then to just use these new scale scores to create the percentages the they're in two places in the policy because we have a middle school section and a high school section and we have Algebra 1 and geometry in both
223sections so P 44 so basically we just crossed out the old crosswalk and added the new crosswalk basically each scale score has equivalent percentage grade and we did that for both algebra and geometry St okay so our next steps for this will be obtain input from the public at the March 26 2024 rule development workshop and from the school board on the proposed revisions to remove the former EOC requirements obtain final approval on April 2nd so we can Implement by the end of the year so our students can get fin final course grades then we'll work on step two with additional proposed revisions and the creation of the student progression plan handbook for that step two the timeline would be to create the handbook with searchable online guide with links on April 9th there'd be
224a second work session to report on the progress provide Redline drafts of policy 1A present draft of student progression plan handbook and discuss further input through April and May we'd have individual meetings with the school board on June 18th we'd obtain further input from the public at the rural development workshop and on June 25th the targeted public hearing and final Schoolboard meeting approval are there any questions do we have do we have any questions from board members member bird you recognized thank you chair can you kind of explain the student progression plan handbook this is going to be is it digital is that yes so similar to how we have the code of conduct now where you have kind of online and you have the table of contents maybe you know where you have each
225thing so parent could come legal guardian or staff look at it determine exactly what they're they're looking for click on that and it would go straight to that portion of the handb as opposed to now you look at the progression planning you have to go through the whole there's 120 pages that you have to look through to find okay I love that I think that will be great for parents but I also and I also think that there's we've talked we've had conversations about having this like all in one place place for parents to go right to figure out what options are out there and where what they can do what they can't do and I know that the student progression plan obviously addresses a lot of that so maybe there's a way we can
226incorporate all this in one place where I know that and I have to go back and re I mean I haven't reread the whole student progression plan in a while so I need to go back and look all look all that up but I'm excited by the fact that this is going to be digital because I think that this is kind of getting us in that right track where we need to go where we can make sure kids are aware of everything and parents are aware of all the options out there and make it as easy as it can be to access for them yes and I think the current progression plan is written really in statute language for the most part which is not as easier easy parent friendly so we're really looking at
227how to make sure that we can put information in there that really is helpful to the students and the parents so they understand thank you thank you I'm so happy cuz you know I'm a Schoolboard member so if I have a question I have a lot of people I can go to to ask right as a parent you know I had a question about my daughter two years ago about scheduling and we had to look things up in student progression book and so I but not everybody has those resources obviously so I think however we can make it as easy as we can for parents better and it's better for our kids too right thank you so much thank thank you member bird are there any other questions all right I think we're good thank
228you guys so much we appreciate it you thank you and now we're going on we're going to move on to I think our final policy of today jic code of student conduct Dr Vasquez thank you yes this is our final policy for this afternoon as you may recall last year when we brought forth the code of conduct before the board there was some angst about the feedback opportunities that we gave our community as well as employees and the board and so this year we've taken a different approach and have not only scheduled individual meetings with the board members to review in in sections the code of conduct but are also incorporating thought exchange into the process as well as our face-to-face opportunities out in the community for today we have dicki Joiner and Karen Ferno
229Sarah you're there too so I'm goingon to say Sarah kesy as well to give a brief overview of where we're heading knowing and acknowledging that there will possibly be changes after the legislative session thank you Dr Vasquez sorry our slideshow went out of order okay good afternoon noon we will make this as quick and painless as possible so policy jic is the actual policy itself that adopts the code of student conduct this year unless there are any legislative update updates we will have very few changes to the policy ex itself but we will have some changes to the code of student Conduct Handbook so as we were just explaining the policy kind of like the legal terms whereas the handbook is more the family oriented student friendly terms so the purpose of today's work session
230is to provide you with a general overview of the revision process and to get your feedback as it in respect to the code of student conduct any big Ideas you have any suggestions you may have for the upcoming year because this is when our Redline process starts so we would love to have your input that way we can take it into consideration when we start doing the red line for the code of student conduct Micky what I what what did help me help me so I'm going to go over next steps right now we're meeting with you guys in our individual meetings where we're discussing level ones and level twos in February and March that's when we will have the community meetings to get input from parents teacher staff and we're going to have the
231meetings at College Park Middle Discovery middle mebrook middle metalwoods middle Pont middle Southwest Middle and there would be a session the next week here at the ELC if we if parents weren't able to attend one of those locations also February March April we will be meeting with principes we will have a thought exchange for families and staff and there will be a survey for students Sarah I'm doing something something I know I'm sorry all right also April 9th is going to be our second work session to report on the progress and discuss further input from the school board April May we will continue with individual meetings with our school board members present at principal's meeting to gather further information we will send our proposed revisions to CTA for review and make any updates resulting from
232the legislative sess session June 18th we will have our rle development together input from the public and from the school board member on their proposed revisions and June 24th is our targeted public hearing and final Schoolboard meeting for approval do some of the big updates yeah you want to tell them you can go ahead okay so just so the board is aware some of the bigger updates that we were thinking about doing for the code of student conduct this year include reorganizing the code so obviously parents if their child does receive discipline for something they're going to want to see the offenses right away that's what they're going to be looking for for that as well as the procedures so we discussed moving that to the front so it's the first thing you see and
233then moving the notifications to the back so everything will still be in there but just reorganizing that so it's more conducive for families when they're looking for information another thing that we discussed is creating a separate Elementary handbook so we would still have our main code to student cont conduct that would be K12 but then there would be an elementary one with child-friendly language throughout it that would reference the main version if that makes sense what there basically we were talked about putting language in there that says if there's a conflict between the elementary one and the K12 the K12 one will control we can also put it appendix or some sort of document at the end that has the actual definitions which would be easy to reference as well we're still kind of kicking
234around ideas but I did want to let you know those are two kind of the big things that we talked about this year and again if you have any input we would love to hear from you as well thank you madam chair Sarah it's good to have you back on stud code of student conduct we missed you it's temporary it's it's just temporary a shcks okay so and we did I know I had my meeting on the level ones and twos and I love making this Cod of student conduct more userfriendly more friendly to students I'm I'm still getting complaints and concerns from parents and teachers about our kiddos in elementary school and the referrals that they receive being not really being conducive to their age or it being development and I understand our need
235to be consistent and I understand that we're Bound by law with some of the way that we code it if something happens because a cessor I get that but I'm just and I know that as a district that we want to be consistent but I'm fearful that we're allowing consistency to be the enemy of common sense and I don't ever want consistency to be the enemy of common sense and I want to make sure that we're we're really looking at those offensive in elementary school and making sure that the referral that the consequence that all of that is really development appropriate I know I just had an incidence at one of my schools it was rectified by Mrs Joiner but it had to go to that level for the parent to get the answers and
236to kind of get it overturned and in the meantime the parent was upset the child was upset so I just really want us to look at those processes and where we can make sure that we're giving the flexibility to the schools especially that the teachers and the principles who know that child the best or know who this was an instance where these two were like best friends and they played together all the time and they just got in a little Ruckus and it turned into level four and those at the school knew that they were friends and there was no ill intent or nobody was trying to hurt somebody it's just kids are kids and they make poor choices sometimes so I just want to ensure that as we have those conversations moving forward with
237level three and level four that we really and I know we've talked about this as a board before especially with our elementary students that we're very careful in with those students and the labels and the referrals that's part of their cume and I get it's just part of their but if it rises to the level cessor it's no longer just part of their cumulative file it's now all of a sudden in a datab b base somewhere up in the state and we never know at what point in time if that could be harmful to the student they want to go into the military or other other fields that might require that level of clearance so and I know that's a conversation for when it comes back but I just wanted to throw that out there
238so you can be thinking of it as we work towards the next code of contact thank you thank you Vice chair member front thank you chair I just wanted to give my feedback as far as the elementary version I think that's a fantastic idea the code of student conduct is massive and it's I'd say most parents don't flip through that on a regular basis but if you're an elementary school student parent and it's a little more user friendly and you can even sit down with your child and go through that U and be able to just say hey this is stuff that would be okay at school and this is stuff that isn't I think that is an excellent idea great job on that one and then I think even your ideas of flipping some
239of the things around and getting it in a different order anything we can do to make it easier for parents that if they need more guidance or they need direction on which way to find information I think that's a great idea so I appreciate that I I'm interested to see what comes down from the state and how this will kind of move forward but I like that we're looking at this a little sooner where last year I feel like we were it was like already beginning to get into the SCH school year and it was I think from the state and whatnot but anyways I'm glad we're kind of taking a look at it now but for now I think everything is looking good thank you thank you member front the only comment just again
240not for now but for our next discussion kind of dovetails on what the vice chair mentioned and this might be something that we can't do but the we work to use children friendly language for elementary which makes sense the terminology that we use for offenses and this will be familiar to to some of you I know was brought to my attention by a parent I think it was like assault and battery or something and I can and it was a second grader and I can understand a parent kind of taking a deep breath and of course I don't know what actually transpired but the question question I had was whether we could use for the purpose not of what we code Esser but how we Define that offense for an elementary school student in terminology
241that seemed more appropriate for an elementary school student I know Sarah I think it's something that you looked at from the feedback that I got on this and so I understand that the offense has to line up with the SR category and we can't change that I just don't know if there's a way of almost having like two names for the offense probably not possible but if I don't throw it out now there's not even you an opportunity really for us to it'll be too late in the process to have any dialogue over whether that's possible now it doesn't necessar I would love your input but it but but you don't if you don't have anything to offer that's okay too but it looks like you're going to go for the mic so go for
242it please well I was just going to say and I'm assuming the input you got was from Dr Brown Canon because she had emailed me that exact question so my thought on it is that if it's a sessor offense I don't know that we can change the name of it because that's what they require the name of it to be and that's how we report it up to this state and so I was concerned with changing the name I'm okay with possibly making it kid-friendly for the definition with a citation to the actual definition in the back like I said or or to the main code because then the parent can still see what that definition is the other concern that I had was if we were to create like say and I'm just coming
243up with with like battery if we said for elementary maybe it was hidden and in the secondary it was battery although that would make more sense to an elementary student because they're going to say well a battery is one of those things you put in a robot or remote control right I mean I have two nine-year-olds so I get it whereas hitting they're like like oh I know what hitting is so I can completely appreciate your input there but my concern again would be from an administrative and procedure standpoint because in Skyward when you enter a discipline offense into Skyward the parent can see it on their side too so we would have to enter it as we would be reporting it to the state and unless we had two completely different Skyward accounts one
244for elementary one for secondary I don't know how that would align and then I would be concerned too with Administration getting confused well which one do I pick do I pick hitting or do I pick battery and then I'm just concerned it'll cause a lot of errors on the internal side with us reporting to the state so I like the idea I just don't know how to get around it just yet and I don't know if that if we can so okay that was really helpful so that answer was relayed through your emails but it's sometimes talking is more effective than emails so I wanted to I wanted to have the opportunity to express what I was wanting and was there another way to do it and I think you just answered my question completely
245the alternative might be for us to find a way when we are communicating with the parent and we're using those words to explain that these are definitions established by the state so that we are not owning accusing their child of assault and battery and then maybe a description of what what actually happened in parenthesis next to it again it's I've been on this board over six five years this is the first time I've heard that so it's not like this is you know some rampant problem that has to be solved but it say one mom I mean my kids when they were in elementary school a couple of them did did some some things I wasn't proud of and I would really have been upset if it had been assault in battery but anyway just
246food for thought well and if I can too the doe actually recently changed some of the terms so like when you say assault and battery we used to have physical attack right which I think parents understood a little bit more yes and then they changed physical attack to simple battery and then we have aggravated battery and I know that Miss Joiner and I as a couple more of us from the district went and met with the do and we like those are pretty intense terms you know for school districts to be implementing and they were changing them to align with State Statute so in criminal law there's simple battery and there's aggravated battery and so that's what they were trying to do yeah but I can completely understand what you're saying because as a parent
247myself I don't want my child to have a battery on their record should they ever unintentionally hit somebody but yeah I understand yeah well and it just makes it makes us look bad that we don't understand this is a second grader yeah and anyway so I just whenever whenever it's something that we don't really relate to to the extent that we can attribute it to the source it's coming from I always feel a little better so yeah so anyway it you look into what you think you can do and then that's one person's opinion we as a board we'll discuss it together okay member Castor Den are you on the same subject if not I'm going to go to general counsel which may be general counsel member Felder member Felder you recognized yes guys hi
248this has been such a healthy conversation but as always we've always had to deal a little longer about the oh what are we talking about Jes so much pain the what are we talking about we're talking about the code of conduct I was just talking about slapping a second grer me it escaped me yes code of conduct and Elementary School children and parents they seem to have a harder time dealing with what we put in place cuz I know I've had some questions asked of me when children get in fight and how how do you not respond back without being accused of being involved in the fight so this particular discussion that we're having is probably going to I don't know may be ongoing for some time because a lot of times parents they really
249don't understand the concept of someone hits their child and not hit them back and what is not hitting back as opposed to protecting yourself but there are some children who have been bullied and they really just don't know how to protect themselves so I just wanted to say to you that I'm listening and some of the comments have been interesting you know and great but I just believe that we're just living in a time everybody's so mad and so angry but we have to do our best as a board and I think we are and Nikki knows that her her team trying to find a happy medium with how we deal with the code of student contact that relate to Children's Behavior that is something that's probably going to be ongoing but I think I
250heard I mentioned something about having a meeting at Southwest or some at one of the schools to give parents and an opportunity to sort of weigh in and what we're doing and as we try to perfect this student code of conduct you know so people can be everybody might not be happy but at least they can be a little bit content with the work that's been put in to do our best to protect our children I just wanted to you know have an opportunity to share my thoughts with you all about that because as other board members have gotten calls I have I'm still getting them you know I had to tell a person I couldn't talk right now cuz I'm on a meeting at the board I'm having a work session so I can't
251talk to you right now but I'm sure it's something you know I don't know it's bad but I want to help but so any who thank you for you know giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts and I am whatever the board decides in terms of you know if you have to vote chair I'm in favor of the how the majority of the board feeli and thank you okay thank you so much member Felder Dr ker denl thank you madam chair I'm wondering this issue has come up in other situations like when we have 5-year-olds accused of sexual battery or things like that are really not appropriate labels for the action that they had so that might be something for our legislative platform to have some discussion with folks and let them know the
252impact you know how that affects our parents and our students and understanding what they did because we don't follow a criminal code in our code of conduct and it might be easier for data collection at the state level but it's inappropriate for our school districts I believe so might be considered that and can I make a comment about s about our work sessions in general or wait till we why don't we wait till we close out on this I think though we are any further comments no Dr Basquez anything else on this subject all right thank you all so much and Dr C D to you on our work yes I was noticing on our work session schedule our lengthy schedule for the next work sessions through June every Tuesday and Thursday is taking but
253that's okay March 7th the topic is our Esser update for our work session and that comes after our hearing with CTA and I wonder if even though that it comes after that if if there is an intention to highlight the effects of the Esser funding and how it's been used to support our employees and the effects of it going away during that work session absolutely well we shared some of that at the first work session so we'll make sure to include some of that in the followup the good news is that we did find some alternative dollars for some of the items the bad news is that not we were not able to find funding for the assistant principles the social workers and for well we were able to find some funding for the social
254workers and for the ESC supports so we're still going to then have conversations with the board about what are the options all right thank you I have an one more question and that's dealing with the work session on March 26 we have one at 10 and then we have a rule development at 5 that same day I was just checking to make sure that was accurate I'll take that one so your board policy JC which is your student attendance areas requires you to have your rule development Workshop after that time I think it says after 4:30 so that's your rezoning okay so there's just two that day just want to double check thank you it's just weird it's on the calendar yes yes yes chair you may follow up can we can we hit new
255microphones by then oh my gosh I'm so frustrated I push it I think it's red then it's not red then it's red it's red now okay if we have to have a meeting which at five which I totally understand that the work session at 10 do yeah what is I know we tend to go longer than you anticipate but I'm hoping that we're really not planning on going from 10: in the morning till 5: so could it be pushed later I think it could be and what is the subject on that so at is my it's on your work session on 326 you have jic threats you have Ika grading systems and you have ocps teacher pipeline I don't know how long each of them is going to take I can tell you the proposed
256revisions to policy jic threats is right now we have our policy says is talks about threat assessment and everything has changed to threat management so it's kind of going to be a red line that's going to track the rule so that should be relatively simple the grading systems proposed changes are relatively simple ocps teacher pipeline I would defer to U Mr Bixler on that but I do think that we could probably move it up we'll leave it in y's hands to look at superintendent have a better idea than any of us and then whatever time you think double it and we'll then we need to start at 8 o'cl I dou it on my calendar okay remember Fon I apologize go ahead you recognized huh oh oh yeah sorry about that work session okay I
257write yeah sometimes I'm in the middle of that just trying to get this button to turn red and then it was like H now what okay all right with with nothing further nothing further superintendent that a no all right meeting is adjourned oh she remembers oh oh un adjourned no to I don't know if you can can you can you gavel back in okay we gavel back in no my question was if I wanted to get something on like to be spoken before the board I've had quite a few parents reach out to me regarding the open enrollment at a school so for instance if their child was got in through open enrollment they don't live in the zoned area but now they're in they were aware that like other siblings may not be able
258to get in but now that those siblings are becoming kindergarteners they would like to get into the the same school as their older child so I'd love to look back at that and like look at that policy see if there's a way for when we allow a child in it's we're allowing the family in and maybe even for a certain time period I don't know how that would work but so from a process standpoint couple of things at the end of most meetings I'm I'm usually but I don't always include the language if there's any policy issues but even if I don't if there's something from a policy level that you want to discuss that you want a work session on anything like that you bring it up then sometimes it might be something that
259one board member is interested in nobody else is interested in it then it doesn't go anywhere that doesn't mean you can't have conversations with the superintendent obviously behind the scenes the other thing I would always recommend is it's helpful to talk to the superintendent first because some of the things that you might think are policy might be able to be addressed at the administrative level level but you've got a pretty good handle on what the policies are so if it's really a policy change that's the best opportunity the best way to bring it up so the superintendent and I decide what goes on the agenda but my input her input into it is all the administrative stuff that we would never know about and then collectively our input is what we hear from you all
260there is also an override process like if the two of us say go pound sand there is a way you guys can get something on the agenda without going you know in spite of us but it's never happened and I'm absolutely convinced that as long as Dr Vasquez and I are both here that's just never going to happen because this is a collegial body and what you want with this C body wants to do as far as you know policy that we're allowed to do we do so does that help okay can I Dr Vasquez yeah I'll have Mr Moody retouch you because we do allow we made actually the board just changed that policy recently and so there might be some nuances to it so we'll have Mr Moody reach out to you and
261then we can determine whether we need to revisit the policy thank you so much that's very helpful absolutely all right meeting is adjourned oo oh oh