001[Music] is hmm i know you needed to walk around that's right oh yeah yes sir hold a piece of church um i wonder um okay yes oh uh yes very nice yes amazing is jesus all right hmm officers this um okay good evening and welcome to this thursday october 8th 2020 meeting of the saint tammany parish public school board and actually the first time in history of the school system that we are broadcasting live tonight and we will continue to broadcast live for the rem of our board meetings any public meetings will now be broadcast live over youtube so i want to thank uh mr jabia he and i spoke on friday about this and he reached out to dr menard who is the head of our channel 13 program channel 13 team the folks
002in the the booth back there and dr bernard and her team turn this round quickly and so we are thanks to them and their hard work we are live tonight for the first time and we'll continue to be live uh from now on so at this point i would like to ask mrs coakley to call the roll mr nation here mr green mrs heintz mr durman mr luke mr harold here mrs richardson here mr winkler mrs drucker here mr benton court mrs lamey mr jersey here mr bro here mr kuzan here mrs page here thank you mrs coakley with everyone please stand for the invocation and pledge of allegiance led by mrs page let us pray lord i pray you be with us tonight i pray you guide and direct us with all the decisions
003that we need to make in christ's name amen i pledge allegiance 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 thank you mrs page are there any visitors in the audience that board members would like to recognize oh mr green i'd like to uh recognize that we we introduced a bunch of visitors last week and we failed to mention someone who had served our school board in the past mr robert broome he is uh the best thing i can tell you about mr broome is i've been to every board meeting for the past three years or so prior to my being elected and i've never not seen him at one and so he is an attentive
004taxpayer and constituent for this saint tammany parish and we appreciate you being here again sir thank you mr green mr bettencourt thank you mr nation also in our audience today we have a former board member and a former uh president of our board ms robin mullet thank you mr bettencourt mr kuzan thank you i'd like to introduce a former board member from district 4 team mr anthony alfred and also paris councilman the staffer this year good to see you mr alfred anyone else all right not seeing anyone we'll move on now to uh item 2a national school lunch week october 12th through the 16th of 2020 and the chair recognizes mr kosay thank you board president nation uh interim superintendent javia board members and audience in 1946 president harry s truman signed the national school
005lunch act this was a direct result of men unable to pass the physical when drafted for service during world war ii congress passed the act as a matter of national security to safeguard the health and well-being of our nation's children in 1962 president john f kennedy created national school lunch week a week-long celebration of the school lunch program national school lunch week will be celebrated october the 12th through the 16th the theme is now playing school lunch we plan to share the best real images of today's lunch fresh fruits and vegetables whole grains and milk and smiling students i would also like to thank food service director supervisor ms jenny motz and the entire food service staff for their hard work and dedication mr mike winkler will now read the resolution recognizing national school lunch
006week in st timothy parish public schools all right the chair recognizes the gentleman from pearl river mr winkler thank you mr kosei whereas the week of october 12th to the 16th 2020 has been named national school lunch week and whereas now playing school lunch is the theme of this year's school lunch celebration and whereas the national school lunch program is dedicated to the health and well-being of our nation's children and to serve our country for 74 years through advanced practices and nutrition education and whereas the cafeteria staff across saint tammany parish public school system serve approximately nine thousand eight hundred breakfasts and two twenty three thousand five hundred lunches every day whereas many parents grandparents school board members state and local officials will be visiting our schools during this special week and now therefore be
007it resolved that the saint tammany school board publicly thanks the student nutrition advisory council miss jenny montz supervisor of school food services and her staff and the school food service managers and technicians at each school for providing an excellent school food service program for our school system be it further resolve that this resolution be spread upon the official minutes of this board with copies being sent to each school principal student nutrition advisory council and cafeteria staff and ms muntz and her staff as testimonial of this board's recognition of their outstanding endeavors and i can tell you that um please go out and visit these these cafeterias those uh managers would love to see you thank you mr kosei do you uh is that emotion from you mr sir unanimous second all right without objection there's
008unanimous second any discussion or questions from the board are there any questions or comments from members of the public all right the floor is now open to vote and the motion is adopted unanimously okay mr cossay school bus owners operators and bus attendants appreciation week october 19th through the 23rd 2020. thank you mr nation it's my honor to report excellence in professionalism which exists within the transportation department i want to thank transportation director george bode and the transportation department staff their hard work and dedication got an incredible support service to our excellent school district in society there is a long list of unsung heroes who go unnot unnoticed on a day-to-day basis the establishment of the school bus safety and school bus operators and attendance appreciation week which is october the 19th through the 23rd
009recognizes those individuals who ensure the safe transportation of thousands of children to school and back each day transportation employees have an incredible task they consist of driving large vehicles managing their precious cargo our students while following safety precautions for an uneventful journey our operators and attendants remain dedicated and diligent to their responsibilities this significant week will promote school bus safety awareness and education including practiced evacuation exercises the schools are eager to design and implement activities to enhance student understanding and convey appreciation to transportation employees servicing them please help us celebrate by honoring our school bus employees with a simple expression of thanks and appreciation it is my privilege to recognize mr mike durman who will read our transportation resolution all right the chair recognizes the gentleman from covington mr berman thank you both mr nation
010and mr kosay i do offer up this resolution as follows whereas school buses cover more than 29 000 miles daily in saint tammany parish transporting public and non-public students and have an excellent safety record and whereas this position positions of school bus operator and school bus attendant require tremendous responsibility as they are required to safely operate in traffic maintain order on the bus and in the event of emergency are looked upon for leadership and guidance and whereas the st tammany parish school board is dedicated to the safety of our students and drivers on school buses and whereas primary primary factors primary factors for excellence safety record of the st tammany parish buses can be attributed to the dedicated school bus operators and attendants who spend considerable time and energy in ongoing training to maintain skills
011and keep current knowledge of laws and safety procedures as well as careful bus maintenance and thorough inspections and whereas the school bus operators and attendants are a critical part of the public education system by making our schools accessible to all students throughout st tammany parish now therefore be it resolved that the members of the saint community parish school board hereby acknowledge and applaud the everyday efforts of all school bus operators and school bus attendants in the school system and proclaimed the week of october 19 through the 23rd of 2020 as the st tammany parish school bus safety and school bus operators and school bus attendance appreciation week be it further resolved that this resolution be spread upon the official minutes of this board with a copy being sent to all schools within saint tammany within
012the school system i'm sorry deposed as a sign of appreciation to all school bus operators and school bus attendants and i so moved all right mr german makes a motion to adopt the resolution i would entertain a unanimous second without a all right without objection unanimous second any comments or questions from board members i got one comment i just want to say thank god i wasn't doing the red ribbon week that's a tongue twister when you get into that one very good thank you mr durman all right seeing no further comments from board members or any comments or questions from members of the public not seeing any the floor is open to vote and that resolution is adopted unanimously moving on to item c red ribbon week october 26-30 2020 again recognized mr kosay thank
013you mr nation this year's theme for red ribbon week october 26 through october 30th reads be happy be brave be drug free since it's beginning in 1985 red ribbon week has touched the lives of millions of people around the world red ribbon week began in response to the 1985 murder of dea agent enrique camarina in honor of agent camarina's memory in his battle against illegal drugs friends and neighbors began to wear red badges parents formed coalitions to battle drugs and embrace camerina's belief that one person can make a difference the red ribbon was adopted as a symbol of camarina's memory today the red ribbon serves as a catalyst to mobilize communities to educate youth and encourage participation in drug prevention activities in saint tammany alone pride distributes over thirty thousand red ribbon wristbands to students
014and adults in our community our goal is to reach as many youth and their families as possible with our message i want to thank ms bentley logan pride's executive administrator and their staff for pride's work and dedication to the students of saint tammany parish a special thanks to mr jeff polito i would ask mr polito to stand please and be recognized he is also fountain blue high school's talented theater teacher who is also a facilitator of pride in our system and we thank you mr polito [Applause] it is my pleasure to ask mr james bro to read the resolution for red ribbon week and the chair recognizes the gentleman from slidell mr mr brode whereas the st tammany parish school board values the health and safety of all students families and citizens of the parish
015and whereas the national red ribbon campaign will be celebrated in every community in america with students teachers faculty and staff committing to healthy drug-free lifestyles and whereas the mission of pride is to assist in the healthy drug-free development of youth and families by providing leadership training family life skills education and prevention programs and whereas the school board acknowledges the contributions made by the members of pride and express expresses its gratitude for this organization's long-standing support of students and schools now therefore be it resolved that this board does hereby proclaim the week of october 26th through 30th 2020 to be red ribbon week in all public schools in saint tammany parish with the theme of be happy be brave be drug-free furthermore be it resolved that this resolution be spread upon the official minutes of this
016board and a copy of this resolution be sent to pride and posted at each st tammany parish public school as an indication of this board's declaration of red ribbon week and its acknowledgement of the valuable contributions made by pride isil move thank you mr broad entertaining unanimous second all right without objection is the unanimous second any comments or questions from board members any comments or questions from members of the public not seeing any the floor is open to vote and that emotion is adopted unanimously thank you mr kosei we move on now to public comments and beginning with our five-minute public comment section we have 10 folks signed up tonight for public comments remember up for five public comments for five minutes uh mr koh say we'll be our time keeper and we do ask
017that you keep uh because we have so many we do we're gonna ask that you keep strictly to the to the five minutes uh and first up is mr vincent nguyen candidate for district attorney welcome mr winn thank y'all very much and i'll see if i can get through this i've been talking all day so my voice is a little hoarse um thank you very much to the board for letting me come to interim superintendent jabia again my name is vincent nguyen i'm 48 i am a product of mandeville high school i actually went to mandeville high school and graduated there in 1989 i'm very proud of that a lot of folks think i went to saint paul's but that's just not true i went to manville high school as i said i grew up
018in mandeville graduated from mandeville had the pleasure of going to lsu i'm sure some of you have seen my signs purple and gold they're all over the place and so uh graduated from lsu went on to loyola and upon graduating for loyola i had the unique opportunity in 1997 to start at the da's office back then the da's office did not really hire folks straight out of law school typically they took three or four or five years of experience before they would hire somebody and i guess i impressed somebody at the office and they gave me the opportunity to actually start there and so i started at the da's office and was there for about a year and was given the unique opportunity again to move up and take over the misdemeanor division i handled
019about 65 people under me at that time i was at the ripe old age of 24 and so for me it was a huge undertaking i enjoyed it i loved it i did that for over eight years and when i left the da's off in 2005 i then started a firm and i've been practicing for about 16 years now and i do civil work as well as criminal defense work i have 23 years of experience in that courthouse saint tammany in washington parish obviously we do other things i go to federal court as well i'm a trial lawyer when i say trial lawyer i try cases all the time that is what i think i bring to the table as a candidate for d.a i have that experience necessary to not only know how to
020try cases but also to deal with the various entities in that system think about it you have to deal with the sheriff's office you have to deal with the clerk's office you have to deal with the judges i've been around these people my entire career so i think i bring that to the table one of the other things that i've been saying on the campaign trail is access well what does that mean think about it the district attorney's job is truly i hate to say that but you don't try cases you don't really handle your administration your job is to actually meet with who the public the people sitting behind us they want access to their district attorney look we have four offices in this district one in slidell one in bogalusa and we have
021one franklinton i am committed a hundred percent to going back to those offices so that the people of the community have access to their d8 they don't have that right now and so i'm going to bring that to that office i'm committed to that that is tremendous i think for our community i hear it everywhere in our community they want to touch their d.a why think about it criminal cases affect lives it affects people they want an opportunity to actually speak with their district attorney and have a chance to present their case doesn't mean you always get to make a decision to help them but at least they feel like they have that opportunity law enforcement what do i mean by law enforcement it would be shocking to let you know that law enforcement's relationship
022with the district attorney is almost acrimonious right now there is no communication with the da's office currently i know that may seem shocking but there is not there are several problems in there one of the issues is screening and the fact that the da's office has taken it on itself to actually screen the cases and as a result it takes a long time for that particular case to work itself through the system it's called horizontal screening it's what the current administration uses it doesn't work think about it if you have a case that you're trying to screen meaning figure out if there's a charge there and you have to work that case to 100 percent completion think about what happens if the law enforcement's out there working these cases 60 70 100 hours and they
023finally screen that case and decide they're going to dismiss it that is a tremendous amount of time that we've wasted where people the law enforcement community could be out in the community doing work and so we've got to fix that my plan is simple vertical screening what does that mean from the day that that case gets into the district attorney's office that d.a and his investigator take that case so if you know immediately hey it's not a good case we may not take that case or instead of saying hey one two and three counts we're gonna only take the first count and not the other two you can make that decision and so you streamline that process look i'm a criminal defense lawyer it takes seven or eight months to get a case right now
024into that system seven or eight months that's entirely too long it has created a tremendous backlog and so we've got to work better with our law enforcement community so that they have more input and look we got to get law enforcement into the courtroom there is no law enforcement currently going to court right now i'll tell you a quick story i tried a case about a month or so ago i had two law enforcement officers these guys have known very very well and as a result of uh having tried the case for about six hours that's it asked the gentleman to suspend yeah that's five minutes no thank y'all again just real quick though as a result well if no we'll ask you to suspend because it is five minutes we've got a lot of
025folks so okay thank you sir thank you appreciate your time all right mr alford uh our good friend uh former board member and uh former parish councilman is here to speak on the on equity policy thank you uh mr nation and members of the board mine board member dennis oh the cavalry's coming i think so we will we won't hold that but mr kosey reset his clock for him mr jabbie over there messing with [Laughter] i'm waiting for breakfast that's right i'm not gonna that's a stunt he would pull mr alfred i'm not gonna hold that against you all right we were talking to you about you in your backswing so go ahead yeah well thank you very much it's it's always a privilege to appear before my board and i have a lot of
026respect for the board members as i've served on the board too i'm thinking of back to 1960 when i first became a teacher in saint tammany and excuse me if i get a little emotional but that's 60 years ago and during that time things were quite a bit different when i first started trying to get a job in the school system i wasn't successful my father was a pretty good guy in the community and as a result of him talking to a school board member two of them in fact i got a job they didn't worry about my credentials what i was what i was qualified in only a telephone call from a board member to uh to the superintendent and he said this alfred boy i need a job give him a job and
027i got the job they didn't ask me anything about my qualifications my qualifications at that time was a degree in english and social studies and i became a teacher and that's the point that one of the point that i'm trying to make tonight is important that we are judged by our credentials as to what we have and uh 60 years ago in thinking about a race ethnic policy racism was running rampant in our school system at that time and equity was just an afterthought we had to endure those things back in the day but thank god we were able to to survive each time i come before the board since for the last two months i spoke in favor of a race ethnic policy that could be the elephant in the room the race part
028with all the crazinesses we have going on in our country sometimes there's a drawback when you talk about race ethnic in our school system but be that as it may i have struggled even to come before the board meeting tonight because some would say they're going to do what they want to do anyway but each time i've appeared before the board two things that i have stressed in this policy one a pilot this is a policy of fairness fairness with the tenets of fairness and impartiality i love my system and i want my system to be better i want the system to treat everybody with the same respect in the system regardless of who you are or what race or ethnicity that you come from so that's the those two tenets that i spoke that
029policy is nothing but a policy of fairness we all have we go to church on sundays and think about thank god for all of this and we come on thursdays and we vote down fairness this is a pilot that's all the uh ethnic maybe most system i've researched since the last two months i've done more research on this for the last two months i've looked into this i've gone to different school systems all over the country i've talked to my daughter who has a big school over in waukegan illinois and other folks most school systems have policies that respect race equity and i don't see why i love my system and i want my school system to come into the to the farm to have a system that respects everybody it's nothing but a system
030of fairness that you can treat everybody in your system with fairness regardless if it is a student a special needs student or if a person seeking employment that's all this policy is but what happened the president of the school board said that if you we would pass this policy it would dismantle the school system and i told him he knows me and i know him and my word was it's ludicrous for the school board member to say something like that and i pray i ask again that that you would look back again you said a committee you'd form a committee that's not going to work a committee is just going to get the same thing are you afraid to get an outside consultant to come in and evaluate the school system a person that is
031has expertise a person that has expertise in doing that that's all i ask thank you mister not a board member said anything mr your president said the school system mister the gentleman will suspend you the gentleman will suspend good night good gentlemen we'll suspend thank you uh next up is miss cheryl ebanks google classroom hi my name is cheryl ebanks and i have three children in our school systems thank you for allowing me to be here this evening please know that it is not my intention to cause more stress to anyone i am simply saying that the plan of action right now in our schools is not working we need to adapt and we need to adapt quickly our children's education their future and mental health are at stake i understand that these are unprecedented
032times and there is no book for this and i know that there is always a learning curve when something new is introduced however there is a huge gap in communication and i'm not sure where it lies some teachers are assigning massive amounts of school work that is physically impossible for our students to complete i was told that they are to assign 30 minutes of work per class on the days that the students are not at school i am telling you this is not the case students are constantly glued to the chromebooks they are stalking google classroom because they are afraid an assignment is going to be posted and they will miss it students are working frantically over the weekend to turn in all of their assignments to only have more work given to them on
033a friday or saturday and it's due sunday by midnight it is in my opinion that our students are not being educated or they are having to educate themselves it appears that the students are doing a lot of busy work and they're not learning this of course is affecting our students gpa mainly high school students i know personally i need my student to get every dollar of scholarship that he can get i'm being told to contact the teachers is this all on the teachers do they really want to assign this much work or is it just a pass the buck type of situation and if it is all on the teachers why are they not being held accountable they are y'all employees they should report to y'all this is a problem the problems that the students
034are facing today with the chromebooks are they're not user friendly it appears that there was no education handed down to the students when they were issued some teachers don't even know how to use these some teachers don't even have the classroom open because they don't know how sometimes you can log into it sometimes you can't they're slow there are glitches sometimes the documents don't open correctly sometimes it deletes the student's assignment when they try to submit it causing the student have to do the assignment completely over again this is very time consuming it has taken students much longer to complete assignment if a student has a question they have to email their teacher this takes time why are they not being flexible with the assignments teachers also need to have a backup plan for when
035there are internet issues at school at least two times so far this year my students have been to school and the internet has been down so teachers posted their assignments to be done at home before midnight on that same day this is unacceptable students have extracurricular activities jobs etc why is no one talking to our students where are our counselors these children have never lived through anything like this they're coming back to school after a pandemic and now all of a sudden they're being bombarded with massive amounts of school work these students are struggling these children are stressed out they're not sleeping they're not eating they're crying completely melting down is no one concerned about our children's mental health this is where we are thank you miss ebanks thank you next up is miss kristen
036carvajal carvajal welcome uh and you are here to speak on the high school hybrid program correct google classroom as well okay and you certainly if you so choose you may take your mask off if you like thank you thank you i am here tonight to discuss many concerns with this hybrid schedule for high school students i understand that this pandemic was not something anyone was prepared for but as a parent nurse and an online graduate student i am very disappointed in the lack of preparedness for virtual learning in a more efficient manner by the st tammany parish school board you had five months and from the looks of it it was thrown together in the matter of weeks i have talked personally to teachers whom i know will not come out and state how they
037feel that this has been thrown together this school system is failing our kids and depriving them of a proper education they are having to teach themselves in most classes my husband has had to leave his employment due um excuse me to make sure that our son is learning the information that is provided teachers are being overworked and having to respond to students and parents late in the evening students cannot get a timely response if they have questions about materials being learned because teachers are busy with another group of students um therefore making that day much longer for school work to be completed a child should not have to sit in front of a computer for 11 to 12 hours a day trying to figure things out the google classroom is again not user friendly information
038for a class has to be searched in different areas there is inconsistency with teachers and how their google classroom is set up so the in the calendar is not in sync with the class grid as well so something could be easily missed i implore you to go and maneuver through these chromebooks through the eyes of the students to understand the frustration of students teachers and parents i have met with my son's school principal counselors teachers and have spoke to members of some central office about my concerns in a meeting just today about one thing we talked about was geometry as an example of one of those concerns some of the work that is turned in is only his answers are given so the actual work is not even having to be shown um how can
039his learning ability be known just off of an answer the response i received was this was to prepare him for leap well those leap grades those leap scores grade the school i think that learning the information is is and should be a first priority the basis actually for my meeting was to discuss virtual learning and how it was not effective for my child and felt like we were rushed and not fully understood the mental health issues i am encountering as a nurse and personally experience as a parent is disheartening we are in phase three and i hope that the system is trying to find a way quickly to get these students back into school there has been a forty percent increase into the suicide hotline since covid started how many of them are kids is
040not currently known that will be later on to determine but i do know that i have seen the increases children in the emergency room and in the outpatient psychiatric setting please help our children not fall through the cracks and be a leading example to other school systems in keeping education a priority i know google classroom will be the new norm and hope that these concerns will be further investigated um i do want to also add you know this chromebook these kids are having to take pictures uh record video if they're in van look at different videos on the you know on another internet the chromebooks are not even made to do those things so they're asked to do on other equipment that they may or may not have i've also seen where my son had
041an assignment put up at 2 30 on a friday and was due on a sunday if he hadn't have looked or we hadn't looked it would not have been done it's clearly unacceptable we can get the kids back into school with masks on the teachers in a better place the kids can be in a better place this is mentally hurting our children and you're going to lose them through the system thank you thank you mrs carver hall um next up is miss sherry cultura couture sheer knight okay moving on uh miss judith e champagne here to speak on equity so last week you voted against the equity resolution and one of the reasons you gave was concerns about the cost the cost of hiring one person to gather the data analyze it to see how
042children are getting access within the system but today you're going to pass for funding totaling in the millions of dollars for football fields so i hope this does not reflect how you're prioritizing children's welfare within the system but tonight i'm not speaking to a system i'm speaking to you each as individuals okay as individuals god loves you each so much that he wants you to know that as you do unto the least of those you do unto him as you do unto the least not the ones from the two parent homes not the ones who have the best and most involved parents but no as you do unto the least you do unto him so are we going to respond to christ and say give him the ben carson quote let him know we don't
043play into victimhood so we don't see disadvantages are we going to respond to him and say well look it's just too costly and it doesn't fit into our system standards to meet the needs of the least who is christ talking about when he says the least in that passage who's he talking about the hungry the thirsty the naked those who are imprisoned those who are sick what do they all have in common two things they're often disregarded by society because they don't fit into the system standards of being of getting assistance um the system that was thoroughly outlined by mr nation in his defense of it last week we understand they don't fit into the system standards but christ is requiring us to meet their needs the second thing they have in common is they
044each have an immediate need that god is not only expecting us but requiring us to meet so i asked you if you're working against equity equity whose job is to seek out the disadvantaged to meet their needs if you're working against that how are you treating the least thank you miss champagne next up is miss marie wade who is here to speak on school board transparency is mrs wade here tonight okay not seeing miss wade we'll move on to miss kathleen connino who's here to speak on concerns so y'all are going to be looking at the committee putting the committee for equity and i just want to say one i sent you an email with a bunch of data that i requested for public records just so you would have the data for each school
045and please consider putting a parent of a child with a disability on their hair i think it would go a long way in helping and the other thing is the packet that i gave you talks about the restraint and seclusion numbers and there's it's like a 37 page but i just gave you all st tammany's um but for example restraint seclusion restraint would be a hold on a child with a disability for greater than five minutes so most schools or a lot of schools have under five st tammany parish covington elementary school has 74 incidents which is 12 children fifth ward junior high had 13 incidents with three children pontchartrain elementary school had 28 incidents with only three children riverside elementary 15 restraints with only two children and i say that to point out that
046restraint and seclusion is i don't have a whole thing i might have given it to one of them i had something typed there we go so it's to address challenging behaviors that are often actually due to a lot the child's inability to communicate clearly and so it comes out in behaviors seclusion restraint though for those children is traumatizing it affects the children's brain development and behavior restraint seclusion places the child at a greater risk for experiencing abuse and neglect associated trauma even if no physical injury is sustained children especially those with intellectual developmental delay are at risk for trauma temptation and re being re-traumatized during all the use of the seclusion and restraint and research confirms that seclusion and restraint practices increase the behavior rather than decrease the challenging behaviors and it does not calm
047the child when a teacher and a staff member responds to the child's challenging behavior with seclusion and restraint you're actually teaching that child to use physical force to communicate seclusion and restraint practices decrease the child's ability to learn self-control it destroys the trust and relationship between the child and the provider and it can cause a child to resent the teacher and staff members when used in school settings seclusion and restraint practices can even have a negative impact on the child's education learning teachers need training and de-escalation and trauma-informed care no child can learn if they don't feel safe teachers must learn how to replace these practices with effective non-traumatizing practices and just i ask that you please at least do the committee if not more but the data is already there and you just have
048to look at it so thank you for your time thank you miss canino next up is mrs karen vander to speak on new resolution welcome mrs vander thank you good evening thank you again for this opportunity to speak i am karen vander as he said representing the for the good of slidell education action team i think we all can agree that emotions were high last week which demonstrates the passion each of us have for the well-being of our children and employees of this school system i'd like to first thank mr kuzan for taking a bold action and trying to get the board to address equity in our school system by asking that an external consultant be hired to look to help us look at the data although unsuccessful in getting the motion passed i appreciate
049mr bettencourt and mr durman for offering an alternate process that will start the discussions on the concerns that many of us have about the inequities that currently exist since last week our team has spoken to many parents teachers and other employees who have concerns about the intent of the committee and if the school board is really committed to making the necessary changes to bring about positive change with that said we are asking the school board to fully to be fully transparent throughout this process it would be great if a written charter and desired expectations of the committee are drafted and published for the committee to see along with a status report at the committee as a whole meeting each month in addition the education action team is asking that mr nation recuse himself from any
050of the activities related to the committee we also would like you to consider having ms richardson represent the board on that committee and also have at least two people from our team on the committee as we were the ones who championed this issue on behalf of the community it is important that the committee review data as it relates to student achievement student classroom placement special education particularly students with disabilities advanced programs such as gifted and talented and ap and honor classes discipline and hiring and promotion practices to fully understand the disparities the data should be presented in an objective way that a comparison can be made between all schools as well as between schools on the east side and the west side of the parish it is also important to address the fear of retaliation
051amongst parents and employees who feel they cannot speak up it is vital that we are provided a safe that we they are provided a safe space to speak up about the inequities that exist and we don't believe this is possible if it is led by someone within the school system the fear is deeply rooted as i close i will say we are hopeful we are hopeful that you have heard our plea we are hopeful that you will keep an open mind throughout this process and we are hopeful you will do what's best for all children not some thank you thank you mrs vander next up is miss coco darrow who is here to speak on concerns welcome ms darrow um the u.s department of education's website has an entire page on it dedicated to defining
052equity it addresses disparities in students including minorities and low-income students it's been up for years and i doubt that the us department of education has goals to tear the system down lsu has an office of diversity equity and inclusion the university of louisiana at lafayette has an office for campus diversity lafayette president dr joseph savoie has released a statement recently urging every member of the campus community to answer the call for racial equity and social justice ul even has a strategic plan for inclusive excellence it's been implemented since last fall i emailed you all links i think earlier today so you can read more about those efforts so the department of education university of louisiana lsu and thousands of other educational institutions are addressing equity this is less a case of tearing down the system
053and more of a case of the train has left the station i hope you're on it we're talking about our kids and our teachers let's not be the last in line to offer this progress as to the yet to be crafted equity committee i would also like to reiterate um my request for mr nation to recuse himself due to an obvious bias against equity and his unfortunate statements last week i am not yet pessimistic about this commit committee though i'm quite excited about its creation i do however worry that this resolution to form a committee is lip service and a way of making it seem like you're amenable to confronting inequities in our school system when in fact you don't i hope that i'm wrong i look forward to being wrong about that to have
054a real conversation in order to truly make progress this working group must be filled with people who believe in its purpose it can only be filled with people who can fully support its mission it cannot be a trojan horse i and many others would like to see our school district match the commendable pursuits of ul and lsu we can follow in their footsteps i would also like to recommend shelter richardson to head that committee or be on that committee because she showed an understanding of these concepts and a passion to work for these solutions it needs to be filled with parents and educators and be a platform for our voices the actions you as a board take today to form this group will testify to whether you produce meaningful actions or empty bureaucratic promises old
055problems need new solutions and we need to make those solutions together um i have enough time so i'm going to say more um the virtual school i my daughter's in virtual school i think they were speaking to issues of maybe older children mine's in fourth grade but um i will say that the virtual school presents an emergent example of exactly why an equity committee would be helpful the chromebooks which are woefully late and to my knowledge uh the virtual school is last on the priority list of dispersal of these chromebooks why some parents are at home with two or three kids juggling in these screen times um this is not an equitable application of resources additionally no one's talked about this but it's been confirmed by somebody that i've talked to that the teachers have
056like over 200 students this is not a case of teachers teaching our children this is a case of like she said we had months to to find a solution and then we hastily did this and now teachers are trying to clean up the mess and i'm telling you right now it is parents sitting there teaching their kids for hours that was not we said we were going to be learning t coaches okay it's it's it's just it didn't work it's a mess thank you thank you miss daryl we move on now to our three-minute public comments and we have uh six folks uh i believed yep uh signed up for that we'll begin first with miss haley jean escamilla welcome my name is haley jane escamilla i am currently a 10th grader at north shore
057high school as you can plainly see and i am not in compliance with the tammany school pair tammany school dress code this is for three major reasons i have a right to freedom expression i have a right to my religious freedom and my effort to self-care due to my medical diagnosis of body dysmorphia i applied for a waiver and the school board lawyers acknowledged that i have a right to dye my hair but i am now being ordered to cover my head also a violation of the school dress code if i do not wear something like a hijab i will eventually be expelled from school i have been out of school for a month and every time i have asked why the rule exists i am told it's just how it's always been if the
058concern is that i will be a distraction then i have two questions first how distracting will it be to have a student sitting in class with their head covered second how is allowing me a waiver for one dress code policy by requiring me to violate another dress code policy reasonable while you consider these questions also think about the major the message superintendent jabia's actions send to students it is a message that a parish has our best interest at the center of their actions or is it a clear message that being an individual and advocating for your self-rights learning to appreciate the rights my father has fought for in the military will be met with threats of punishment and arbitrary flexes of power i am not hurting anybody i deserve the right and respect i we
059do not live in saudi arabia my hair is an extension of my identity and i will not be ashamed of it we i will not cover my head like some kind of threat or embarrassment to the school community because i will not comply to these actions of my principle and those of the acting superintendents are not teaching me anything they are simply punishments because they cannot force me to hide away i am asking the school board and the committee to act in the best interest of students i do not permit our rights and our identities to be threatened or attacked i do not allow them to be stripped away thank you for your time thank you miss escamilla uh next up is roelle escamilla jr welcome thank you good evening everyone um as my daughter
060just said she applied for a waiver for an exemption to the school board stress code policy in respect to her hair and i'd like to talk to you about that process that she went through um so when she applied for the waiver she gave a statement just like what she gave to you and that statement and that waiver weren't sent to special education teachers to find out how the enforcement of the dress code would impact her body dysmorphia disorder it wasn't sent to a group of teachers to talk about how allowing her to keep her hair the color it is might might or might not disrupt the classroom environment it wasn't sent to a group of parents to find out how her keeping her hair the color it is might impact their children's self-identities it
061was sent to the lawyer to find out what legally the school could get away with it was sent to the lawyer to find out if she had a right to freely exercise what she perceives as her religious beliefs and her need to advocate for herself because of her diagnosis and the lawyer i love lawyers i respect lawyers if without lawyers we would only have used car salesman jokes right i love lawyers but the reality is lawyers do not consider the best interests of students they consider the law and so the lawyer said yes you have this right she has the right to dye her hair but you might try making her cover her head and i was on board with the policy to begin with blue hair i was a teacher yeah that might distract
062some students i don't think it's a big enough deal to cause the school system to collapse or need to bring in lawyers to have a conversation about it but i was on board with it but the second this system decides to treat our female students as if somehow they should cover themselves like we live in saudi arabia or pakistan or afghanistan now we have a problem i'm a u.s marine and i fought for the right for my daughter to have religious freedom to have freedom of expression to advocate for herself and when a lawyer tells the superintendent that he can try to make my daughter cover her head so that she doesn't have free expression we have a flaw in the system a lawyer should not made that determination groups of teachers parents this board
063should have looked at that waiver and determined if it was in the best interest of st county parish schools to force a child to dye their hair back to a natural color in some sort of a practice of what control because what does it hurt for her to have that hair color she's been in school for a month and there have been no riots in the classroom no teachers have not been able to complete their lesson plans the school has not burned down from the roving hordes of children seeking blue hair coloring thank you thank you mr escamilla next up is miss linda luck luggage i know sorry about that i apologize welcome thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight i have worked in this school system for 23 years i have served under
064three superintendents i remember when our school system was at the top and as a teacher i feel the pain and frustration of being 18th in the state after watching the five and a half hours of interviews a clear visionary a clear leader emerged adorable dangerfield i'm proud to have begun my career alongside miss dangerfield at alton elementary miss dangerfield served as a role model for the high expectations of saint tammany parish she was and continues to be available to listen to provide instructional guidance and to sometimes tell you what you don't want to hear in order to guide you back to the needed path for the 20 23 years i've known miss dangerfield she has been a leader a guide and has kept an open door our school system needs a leader that may not
065always tell us what we want to hear but puts us back on the path a path she has clearly envisioned a path that she is tenacious enough to create a path back to the top of the state please make ms durable dangerfield our next superintendent thank you thank you next up is miss april sam's good evening welcome thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight i am april sam's as he said and i was raised here in saint tammany parish i graduated from mandeville high school and went to lsu graduated and moved away for 16 years and i first met miss dorable dangerfield via email from a former classmate chantel smith i was looking to move back to town and i was looking for a teacher's position and she gave me miss dorable
066her email address and that's when i began speaking with her via email didn't know who she was because i was gone for 16 years so i emailed her letting her know my intentions and maybe about 30 minutes later i heard back from her and i was like wait a minute it's it's at night and she's replying and trying to help me get started on my journey to become a teacher in saint tammany parish i thought maybe did she do this for everybody but she really made me feel special i finally met miss dangerfield at the new teachers orientation when i was checking in at the table i said my name and she got up and came around and hugged me and she said you made it you made it welcome to the system and i
067didn't know who she was and i looked at her her badge and it was her and i was so excited that she was genuinely happy for me and she did everything that she could answered all my questions and i know i'm bombarded her all times of the night and she answered every single question that i had to start me on my path as a teacher here at saint in st tammany parish and then she took the microphone and led the new teachers in orientation i was like wow she's over this okay so after orientation she constantly checked on me making sure all of the information received was understandable and i would ask if i had any questions or needed help with anything she answered every question without hesitation and i knew she was one person
068i could go to i didn't know her background in the district however i knew she knew this district forward backwards and forwards again i received emails about the minority teacher workshops from miss dangerfield which was extremely helpful in my journey in this parish when i attended summer institute she was the first person i saw at the door welcoming me in after my first year teaching my principal came to me and encouraged me to begin my journey in um to become administration and administrator and of course i had no idea how to do that so i reached out to ms dangerfield she again showed me and led me to the lead academy and then i realized she's over that too okay she never boasted about her positions in the district i never really asked but i
069could have but i just googled her instead you know that's what we do um and i saw her accolades and accomplishments and i was blown away at everything that she knew miss dangerfield is the candidate for superintendent she will lead this this um parish back to the top and i believe it and i know it so thank you thank you miss sams next up is mr andrew titsworth who's here to speak on equity i i stand here and i see many of you not wearing masks and i applaud you for doing so even though some of you are outside that um you are in that that zone of age but our kids who are not in that zone where 99 percent or more recover with no problems and we wear they wear masks all day
070long the teachers wear masks all day long they're not the teachers and i talked to many of them they're not even able to go next to their children and talk to them and teach them as the father of a hearing impaired child my my daughter relies on reading lips and she's not able to understand what is going on she's being she's being suppressed in her education we need to open up we need to allow our children when they're in class like you some of you all are to not wear masks they're far enough apart and when they go outside the glass they wear them another concern of mine is why aren't all activities equal is football better than someone in the band or in theater is volleyball better all these activities they're able to do
071football their saliva slung around their sweat all kinds of stuff and they're out there playing but our band students can't go out and play and do the things they love our theater students who excel in the arts aren't able to perform i encourage you to re-consider these restrictions you're putting on and allow all all students to be able to do their activities we need equality not just for grace which is so important but we need inequality amongst the students in different activities football is in a hall i know we're here in louisiana many think it is but the arts are so important for the progression of people and progression of these great wonderful children we have please reconsider your policies thank you mr tittsworth and finally uh is mr michael faubocker mr fonmarker and you're
072here to speak on equity policy good evening thank you um i plead ignorance on this topic of uh equity and so i am trying to educate myself on this topic and use logic and reason in my approach to understanding it and assessing equitable solutions i've been in the aerospace and defense business for 40 years now and i my approach to problem solving is use of logic and reason and it's pretty successful so having said that i work with a lot in the department of defense and nasa they have several diversity focused programs such that um they're probably the most diverse population of humans on the planet and the good thing about it is when i work with these folks you don't you don't see black white red or yellow you you see colleagues you see
073friends and that's a a good thing and if this espouses that as a goal then i'll certainly support it but i've read this document a couple times now and uh if you can't convince mike of its basis and you can't have me as an avid supporter then you're gonna have a problem okay so let me just get on with this in my comments uh the policy is there any empirical data that's available that shows the uh the basis and foundation for this document is it available to the public if not can it be posted on your website that would be important for people to have access to uh as far as the racial inequity i take it that there have been complaints filed with the board at school are there have there been lawsuits again
074that's information i'd be interested to know about otherwise i have no basis to assess this other than i listen to people i personally i don't operate that way telling me something is one thing me verifying it is absolutely imperative with me and again this is my ignorant servicing here so i beg your pardon i'm concerned that the policy will just turn into another quota system okay that's my read at this point i i don't know the background i don't know the data i don't know who compiled the data i don't know where it originated from thank you thank you mr popper we might now move on to the approval of minutes for the regular meeting held september the 10th 2020. do i have a motion uh mrs drucker second by mr durman any comments or
075questions from board members any comments or questions from the public the floor is open to vote and the minutes are approved unanimously we move on now to appropriate retirement resolutions for the following certificated personnel subsequent to september 10th 2020 and the chair recognizes mr kosey thank you mr nation these are the appropriate retirement resolutions and following certificated personnel subsequent to the september 10 2020 meeting violet or rentals abita springs elementary 24.97 years all in saint germany parish dr april owens bonnie cole elementary 27.03 years 19.03 years in saint tammany parish melanie seegers lancaster elementary 33.92 years 13.16 years in saint tammany parish and is there a motion to approve mrs heint oh mrs lamey uh moves mr harold seconds any comments or questions from board members so well certainly you're a board member i just
076wanted to say miss reynolds was my son's second grade teacher and it's going to be a big loss for beat elementary she was she did wonderful with them thank you thank you mr harold any comments or questions from the public oh certainly miss lamey i'm happy for retirement but i know she's going to be very much missed too so congratulations dr owens thank you mrs lamey any comments or questions from the public okay the floor is open to vote and those resolutions are agreed to unanimously moving on now to item c appropriate retirement resolutions for the following non-certificated personnel subsequent to september 10 2020 again recognize mr kosay thank you again mr nation again these are the appropriate retirement resolutions on the following non-certificated personnel subsequent to the september 10 2020 meeting michelle s hill
077bonnie cole elementary 12.91 years all in saint tammany parish armenia w burrell fountain blue high 19.42 years all in saint tammany parish darlene g tenet lee road junior high 16.92 years 7.40 years in st timothy parish meredith k ketten ring mandeville junior high 11.88 years all in saint tammany parish and p hoshman pitcher junior high 15.65 years all in saint tammany parish donna or champaign 6th ward elementary 25.54 years all in saint tammany parish donna l johnson sixth ward elementary 29.41 years all in saint tammany parish stanton cape rule transportation center 27.61 years all in saint tammany parish mary h coppola transportation center 10.80 years all in saint tammany parish adrian m garcia transportation center 21.41 years all in saint tammany parish and betty c fusell transportation center 13.33 years all in st tammany parish
078mr kuzan okay mr kuzan uh moves is there a second uh mr broad i saw him first sorry mr button court all those uh any just comments or discussions from board members any comments or discussion by the members of the public not seeing any of them please vote and those resolutions are adopted unanimously thank you mr kosay thank you sir now we move on to item d selection of superintendent or action relative to the procedures to continue the process and uh mr hammond will welcome you back here tonight and the chair will first recognize mrs heinz thank you mr nation on saturday october 3rd we conducted interviews for the superintendent position and it was a long day but it was a great day to listen to all the ideas and applicants that came before us
079with really good information following saturday mr nation and i had a telephone conversation with mr hammonds to have him to fill him in on what had happened with the interview process that had gone smoothly as we had planned from our september 10th meeting and to go over the basics for the next um round of decisions so at this point i would suggest that we proceed with the agenda item to uh which is states selection of superintendent or action relative to procedures to continue the process and you know that would be the board's will our next steps okay so that's where we are thank you mr science chair recognizes mr hammond welcome from baton rouge mr hammond thank you i wonder if you were going to say that uh can i say quickly too that uh
080could we uh keep our friends and colleagues in the lake charles area and our thoughts and prayers tonight i mean what a shame that they would be hit twice in such a short period of time and i know personally i have many friends over there and that our prayers are with that part of the state moving ahead to your superintendent selection there are a number of questions that the board will need to answer tonight i think i had told you the last time i was here what some of those questions would be so hopefully you've had the time to think about some of them but the first question that you need to answer and you can do it by motion approved majority vote of the board is are you ready to select your superintendent tonight
081or alternatively would you prefer a second round of interviews so i would think mr nation that a motion in either of those two directions would be appropriate so that we can decide where we go from there okay thank you mr hammond so the floor is now open for a motion relative um to what mr hammond suggests or of course this just a suggestion by mr hammond so anyone else has a motion relative to how we proceed from here are we ready to select tonight or do make an alternative all right looking to mr durman chair recognizes mr turman thank you mr nation um first i i would like to say that i thought all five candidates had a great interview last saturday and i think we're very lucky that we have such talent within our
082system with that being said i would like to move that we um go to a second round of interviews and i think that would be left up to the board as to you know actually how many that is two three whatever but i i would uh that would be my motion okay there's a motion to move to a second round of interviews uh seconded by mrs trucker now the floor is open for discussion and with chair recognizes mrs page i just have some questions i mean we were here from saturday eight o'clock in the morning until 4 30 in the afternoon and we asked questions regarding mission vision community relations systems management school improvement and personal qualities so i guess i don't know what else we're supposed to ask the candidates i mean we've we've
083studied their resumes we've all studied this week on the on the interviews i know everyone's gone back i just i don't know what else i'm supposed to ask the candidates so that's where i need guidance and direction because i don't know what else i'm supposed to ask i feel like that we need to vote we need to vote and if we do not have a majority of course we will do second interviews of course but i feel like we need to vote okay thank you mrs page oh mrs richardson i would also like to second mr dermott that the five candidates we have inside our district are wonderful candidates but i do have some concerns and i would like to start out by saying that i do applaud the efforts of miss heinz and the
084the the open and transparent method that she's used to present to the board that we guess indeed all agreed upon however upon listening to my constituents reflecting upon my own uh professional experience i would like to ask the board to consider just reopen the job add one more time to see if we can get some national candidates and just hear me out in my role in education i have been considered for a few executive level jobs saint tammany parish made the decision our board made the decision uh because uh i believe to not put any dollars on you know flying candidates in and what have you because we didn't want them to make a vacation out of new orleans in my executive job offers that have been given to me i've been flown out they
085gave me a hotel and they fed me and they did not have to do that but that's what they did and that is part that communicates an investment in me i did not have a mini vacation with my family and give them the bill that would be unethical um but i could then again it's not new orleans i wasn't flown out to california i've been flown out to illinois a few positions actually so with all of that said we have five great internal candidates and i'm not suggesting we dismiss them i am suggesting we this is we take our time we take our time because this is the one and only most important job uh position we as a board will decide upon and we owe it to ourselves to seek out potentially someone from
086the outside who can give us some fresh perspective if we reopen the job ad and we don't get any hits again then i would say fine i'm at peace with that we can table the discussion uh but because it is our one and only most difficult excuse me most important position we as a board will decide upon what is it going to hurt to open it up just a little bit longer and quite frankly if you don't want to invest in someone's vacation to new orleans i i can respect that so i would even suggest if we reopen it we can have we can have that interview the first round of interview for that um you know a nationwide candidate if we get them we could actually do a zoom interview with them and if
087we feel that they are of value we can fly them in and therefore at that point put some skin in the game but there is no reason to rush the system a rush this process and let me just tell you you know i know how i voted i voted yes to the process and i will be honest with you i have thought i have reflected and i've listened to my constituents and every one of these board members are getting the same emails you may not be getting all the calls i'm getting but you're definitely getting some of the emails so i know i know you know what i'm talking about i know you each one of you know our constituents are speaking up so i'm just asking you please extend reopen the job offer and
088just give it a little bit more time that's all thank you mrs richardson mr bettencourt oh sorry you know go ahead mrs lamey mrs lamey mike hello there you are at first i was going to respond to ms page and just say that if we did do second interviews i feel like we could maybe do an executive session and ask specific personal questions instead of just generic every candidate questions maybe verifying something we've heard or been told or something like that um but then to miss richardson um i agree and i know that most of the board is not going to but only my reason for agreeing is because of the emails we've received and the phone calls i feel very comfortable and confident with our candidates extremely i personally feel that if we have
089somebody within our system who has dedicated their life to our system and worked tirelessly and has done a good job they should be promoted just like any organization would do however i also feel that our candidates could stand against anyone else and if we did get people from outside it may just verify to us that what we have is what we need but at the same time it could show us that something out there is totally different so i don't think it would hurt um but i do think it would please a lot of stakeholders in the community thank you mrs lamey mr bettencourt thank you mr nation mr hammond would you mind reiterating what you told us when we first started this process about your perception of how we went about advertising compared to
090a lot of the other uh superintendent openings through the state or whatever through the years i think your advertising was pretty much the same for most of the systems in the state i can't remember mr bettencourt specifically what we were talking about i do i do recall mentioning to you that it's been my experience that sometimes out of state superintendents were not as successful in louisiana as in-state superintendents were i do recall saying that and i don't know whether i even should have made that comment because it's not really a legal comment it's just a personal perception of having you know dealt with a lot of school systems for 40 plus years but with regard to the advertising i think you advertised everywhere that most of the systems in the state of louisiana advertise i
091did i think i remember suggesting perhaps some of the bigger newspapers and i can't remember quite honestly all of the the plate different places that you did advertise initially but uh from from my understanding a recollection of it it was pretty much consistent with what other systems do i seem to recall that you you pointed out that we did maybe more than most of the other job searches or openings that that you you know came to came to your mind well the reason i mentioned that it was simply the fact that under louisiana law you're required to run three advertisements and you did you ran many more than three and so from that perspective you far exceeded the legal requirements with your first round of advertising okay i'm told also that uh maybe now this
092is maybe neither here nor there since 1900 when we had our first superintendent we've never gone outside of our system and then also do you recall 10 years ago did we do a headhunter search for our superintendent because i remember i think we had two out of out of state applicants and then mr folse but do you recall or i don't remember maybe someone else who was around i mean i quite honestly i cannot recall who applied when mr foles got the position i will tell you this i was very surprised that you did not receive any out of state applicants being so close to mississippi in particular most of the systems who have advertised have received applicants from out of state and you advertised more widely than these other systems did and yet did
093not receive applications from out of state so i don't know that it was the quality of the advertisement or just simply the fact that at this point in time there were not any applicants from other states who were interested in applying for this position i don't know i just did you know if i feel that the position in academics were their board recently and they had 14 applicants and i think three of them were from out of state um and that's just for the nakadish which is certainly not nearly the school system of saint tammany yeah would the timing happen to have anything to do with it in your opinion i mean this nationwide school systems have already started and i don't know that our system would necessarily want somebody that would just walk away
094from from their school system you know well and i think that's an excellent question mr bettencourt i can't answer it completely for you but i think it is true that most the time you start your searches in the spring and you do that so that you hope that you can get somebody in in the summer so that they're on board before you open school in the fall and after you've opened school already and then you go to fill the position it does perhaps reduce the size of your field because there are a number of people who would not want to leave their existing situation you know right at the beginning of a school year all right thank you mr hyman you've shown a light on on some of my questions i appreciate that thank you
095mr bettencourt mr winkler yeah okay i came to this systematic from indiana and i started at leroy as a teacher and let me tell you something this system is different these people over here dedicated their life to the system they got people who will back them up if they make a decision bring in somebody from outside who's got their back they're not going to know anybody they're not going to know who's telling them the truth and who is it plus it's going to say that they're they're very good at what they do it's going to take them all year the rest of this year to figure the system out not only that but the public's sitting here telling us hey we got to move we've got some important things to do that need to be
096done now now i can't tell though and i know i know all these people who who were brave enough who wants this job would you want this job under conditions where we're in right now with the public already upset i can't see it so these brave people over here want this job enough to come in on a saturday and to answer 15 questions and backup questions and you think somebody's going to leave a job that they're already in at a school and come here as a school system and if they do like ron said do we want somebody who's going to quit and you also have people who go from system to system and it's a career to insist in the system so that's just a little bit of it but probably the most important
097thing is these people who've had people send us emails about put their lives and that's why they want it because they care about this you're going to find somebody in another state that cares as much as any one of them tell me yes anybody tell me yes no because they don't know we where we are what we're doing it'll take them if we do get them at least a year it took me years to figure i was leeroy for 12 years and i worked myself up to get to know how to you know move around the system it's just because we've got a big system and you got to learn and you got to find out who what people you need to talk to and the public's been coming in here since july and they've
098been speaking to us for what an hour every meeting almost last week was three hours and we're going to oh y'all wait we're going to see if there's anybody out there and some other part that can come satisfy you when they're sitting in right in this room once again who wants this job those five people so i say we give them a chance one of them a chance and i don't think we need to interview them anymore we we we know these people they're in our system we know people who know these people and they got people who back them to do this job so there's there's it's not logical we got to move we've got to vote we should vote tonight if somebody doesn't get eight votes we take this two highs that's my
099and i don't know if you already got a motion but that would be my substitute motion just one second so you're making that as a substitute motion to state your motion yeah there's a motion on the floor to to go to a second round of interviews so state your motion my motion would be vote and if someone gets eight votes they're the superintendent if they no one gets eight votes to take the two top people or three if there's a tie and then we do second round interview okay i'm going to look to and there was a second to that but i'm going to look to mr hammond we've got two attorneys that are in mr hammond and our legal counsel mrs bergeron as as far as i'm concerned that that motion is in order
100but uh well wait just a second mr kuzan i want them is that am i correct yes yes promotion is the substitute motion and substitute are both in order you would vote and substitute first okay and if it failed then you would go back to the original okay so the motion on the floor by mr winkler which is in order i just want to confirm it with mr hammond is that uh rather than going to a second round of interviews which mr durman made the initial motion is that we move that we vote to take a vote tonight and i'm restating the motion so you correct me so if i'm wrong so we take the vote tonight we take a vote tonight if someone receives eight or more votes then they would be elected tonight
101as the superintendent of the saint tammy parish school system if no one receives eight votes then we take the top you said well say if you get you know you get two with uh one with six and two with well no i understand but if nobody gets a majority of the votes how many do you want on the well it could be tricky because one of them might get six and one or two of might get four and then you know the others might get less than that so you might have two people who would be second so i would say you take those two and the first one so the two highest unless there's a tie with the two second okay so if i just if i understand that correctly is that if no
102one receives a majority of the votes then we would take the top three candidates is that how you understood what i think what he said you would take the top two top and if there was a tie for second then you would add it add that person in so it would be top two plus ties maybe say it that way okay is everybody clear on the substitute motion which has been seconded and is in order so again the discussion is on the substitute motion that mr winkler has uh presented so the chair recognizes mrs richardson oh and mr kuzan i'll come to you next it's certainly not for me mr winkler that i am making this request if you suggest that and i believe you are correct the five candidates who have poured themselves into
103our district an entire lifetime what is it to them to wait 30 more days or 60 more days why rush it tonight if you're going to push and settle on just the five the internal and not give it one more shot you should at least have a second round of interviews as miss lammy has suggested to dig deep you make the proposal that no who from out of state would want to come here you're looking at her look at me i came from kansas and i love this parish i don't do everything right and perfect but i'm sure my heart is right my heart is right how many administrators we have one right now sitting at mayfield elementary she's not from here are you telling me she can't love our parish i resent that this
104is a phenomenal parish and the five candidates who are in this audience tonight and the ones that are not i applaud you you are great candidates but i'm asking our board to just take one more shot at the nationwide can a job offer because while we exceeded the requirements we had coveted working against us we have a job ad that by the way that says you have to put you know fit the bill to come here and that for a job at this level there's a lot of people who would love to have a superintendent job it's a huge responsibility but i'm sorry i stand firm we owe it to ourselves and to this constituent to our teachers even to the five candidates to make one last attempt and we hold our heads high after
105that and go for it if we really get nobody i cannot believe the statement that you know that somehow this is for me that i would want to stall this or that somebody from out of state can't possibly love our district i'm sorry but that's just garbage so again i'm asking if you're going to i'm i get it one i'm just one member i i get how the trend goal goes but here's the deal at least consider second round of interviews so that we can do what miss lamy has suggested and dig deeper but i'm asking you to please stall this stall and just go for one more shot push that ad out one more time and maybe put a little skin in the game that says hey we're going to invest in the right
106candidate i don't know that's it thank you mrs richardson more recognized mr kuzan but i'm going to recognize mrs heinz because just in terms of point of information um because all right i'll recognize mr kuzan because he he has been waiting oh thank mr kuzan he yields to mrs heinz i i just wanted to say that i have just reread the vacancy that was posted we don't say in our ad that we're not paying for anyone to come on the first round mr nation did you have any candidates contact you with questions regarding travel expenses no matter just a point of clarification for that right thank you mrs heintz mrs page did you have your hand up okay mr bettencourt thank you oh i'm sorry mr mr kuzam did you well let's let's go back
107to mr kuzlin all right first of all i'm confused and i have some reservations if we're to open it up oh microphone mr kazam okay i'm confused we started a process okay and whatever the process is some people like it some people don't like it and and individually if i was one of the five candidates that's sitting out there right now that did all i did all what they did to to come here on saturday and for i would think well am i not good enough what is it about me that we're opening it up again i don't have no if this board wants to open it up again i'm for that and if this board wants to it want to go to a second interview and interview two or three people i'm for that
108but people if we start on the process let's stick with the process if we're going to be aboard let's say we bring some people in again and then we interview them and we say okay still don't have anybody what are you saying to your five people that that's been in this school system for 25 23 2 years 22 years at least hey whatever this boy desire i'm for that but people whatever the process is let's go through let's let's do what we got to do you know what if we go prolong it for 30 days let's do that if we're going to do it tonight let's do it tonight but let's let's have us a process thank you thank you mr kuzan all right i will recognize mr luke since he hadn't had a chance
109to thank you mr nation um as a as a teacher in this system and principal in this system i worked under lanny my leon outstanding superintendent gail sloan outstanding superintendent trey folce worked as a board member under him all three from where within this system when he was uh applying for superintendent of time we had three other applicants everyone remember right from out of state we paid for them to come down here the biggest system out of those three people was like 3 000 students and we were offering them at the time 38 000 so it wasn't even a question of talking with them but we paid for them to come down here thank you thank you mr luke all right mr durman you haven't spoke has anybody not spoken to this substitute motion yet
110all right um good mr german and then uh miss lainey thank you mr nation um i truly believe the best option and the which gives the board some more insight as to our candidates is to follow the process that we've already voted on at this point we have the option either select a superintendent or go to a second round of interviews with i said two or three i i don't know if i need to say two or three to me that's the next that's the next vote first vote first vote is whether you have another round and then the next question is how many how many okay so i'm just arguing get to the second round right okay all right so thank you so much i'll pull back to two to three we just work
111on going to the second round if if i'm not mistaken the second round of interviews if we notify the candidates that we can ask them questions in an executive session that may be more personal in nature or delicate that the board has that option is that not correct oh that's absolutely correct and one of the things i was going to recommend is since you did the initial interviews all in public session that for the second round of interviews if you have a second round that they would be done some in public and then some in executive session okay and i think that's important to a lot of i think a lot of board members may have some questions that they would like to ask each candidate in private but i also think having a second
112round of questioning and is is more informative to the public to actually depending on what questions or how we structure it to give more insight to the vision or the character how that superintendent would maybe apply or try to invoke change to where we are currently at and how that would actually take place so it could be more direct questions i think from the board is it is that possible oh yeah as a matter of fact that's now you're down to question number uh i'm trying and we're still on number one right and that's question number seven well i'm just trying to verify the importance of a second round of interviews that's what i'm trying to do let me say this mr dermott if i interrupt the last two interviews or or selections that i've
113been involved in in both cases the candidate who was leading after the first round of interviews was not the candidate who was ultimately selected in both instances the second interview changed the minds of many of the board members and if they had not had that second opportunity then i don't think they would have been as fully informed and as fully prepared to make that final decision i'm not i'm not weighing in on this process one way or the other i'm just telling you historically the last two searches that i've been involved in the second round of interviews has has made the day for one candidate or another i appreciate that insight again i'm i'm supporting going to a second round of interviews all right thank you mr thurman roommate so the motion you know substitute
114motion on the floor just to remind us all including me is that we take a vote tonight and we if someone receives a majority vote their elected superintendent if not then we would move to a second round with i believe you said two and maybe if there's a tie then the third okay all right mrs lamia i'm gonna recognize her and then mr bettencourt i um my opinion is less about the process of procedure i tried to be very clear but just the thought that one of the five of you may think that my agreeing or suggesting to open it all has anything to do with any of you i want to say again i will let you would totally understand why i've even said that because i believe in promoting from within i know
115you all i know what you do i just need to say this okay so i need that to be clear to each one of you the next thing i want to say is that is there an opportunity that we could have a conversation i know i mentioned an email we had interviews i actually had to leave early i finished watching the interviews at home is there not a time appropriate for the board to discuss the interviews without saying i'm going to vote for so-and-so i'm gonna vote i know you can't do that stuff but is there not a way to say candidate number one pros and cons like what did you think sharing your thoughts or your like just for us instead of that i mean i i guess i'm new here okay so this
116is my perception in other workplaces as a teacher interviewer for my school the team goes in and we interview and we all get together we look at all the internet all of the applicants and we say okay this person was this that person was that what do you think about this and we we work together and so this process isn't like that am i right well it is and it's not and i'm and i hate to get into a lengthy legal debate of the issue one of the reasons why in the second round of interviews that i always recommend a part executive session is to give you that opportunity you see the second round ordinarily is done at least partially in executive session which gives you the opportunity not to vote back there but to
117express your thoughts and concerns about the candidates and we haven't done it for the first round to my knowledge ever we could not do it tonight because we haven't haven't advertised it properly for that for an executive session for that purpose but again on the next round it will certainly be a part of the process that's right yes sure when there's emotion on the floor of discussion it got to be about the motion thank you okay we can't start everybody talking about different things when there's a motion on the floor we're only supposed to be talking about that motion thanks to the clarification all right so the motion on the floor mr hersey you've not had a chance to speak i don't believe i want to make sure i'm clear on mr winkler's motion that
118we're voting to choose two to go into for no explain it so the the motion on the floor is to vote tonight on one and to to hold a up to hold a vote and then if one of those uh five candidates receive eight or more and receive a majority of this boards then tonight they will be elected as superintendent of the school system if no one receives a majority of the vote then we would take okay certainly the top two and then if there's a tie for well we we need to be clear so i mean because otherwise this will get very confusing very quickly so but that's that's mr mr winkler's motion it's to vote tonight the the gist of it is to vote tonight here in just a moment assuming we agreed
119to this so so remember the motion on the floor is do we take a vote tonight to elect a superintendent mr bro thank you on behalf of my colleagues miss richardson and miss lamey i'd like to put this to rest i am in favor of opening it up and and advertising it it's nothing to say against the five candidates i think they're as as we've all discussed i think they're perfectly fine but i am concerned that we did not get anybody responsing from out of state uh i think canal state candidate you know with all the warts of them having to learn the system and everything someone coming in with with new ideas it's not to say that we're going to hire them we just want to to interview as many people as many good
120candidates as we can so i'm offering a substitute motion to open it up thank you second second vote mr uh president you have a second substitute motion which has been put on the floor now and has been seconded by miss richards so you can't have two substitute motions to the original motion and again they would be voted on in reverse order so your first vote would be on the second substitute motion which was a motion to re-advertise for the position let me just say that if this motion uh does pass will then the staff and i will need some guidance as to where the advertisements are to be run or how they are to be run uh differently than what they were running the first time all right and the actually i'm going to take
121a second in terms of preference the chair will entertain a motion to call the question if you know i mean i think we've discussed we i don't know there's much to be gained by much i think everybody's opinions are clear i mean unless you all feel somebody feels that you know that you can add to this discussion you know those that want to re-advertise have made their positions perfectly clear those that so i it again i'm just entertaining that motion if someone would like to move to to move the question quick question though instead of doing like a sudden death style right like hey we got this we're going to set can we just mr harold i hate to hate to stop you but motion otherwise we're going to be here all night that's the
122point that mr kuzan is making i might have to ask you to suspend for just a second so the motion on the floor the second substitute motion is to to re-advertise and again the chair would entertain moving the question or without objection will move to a vote all right all right mr green uh moves the question is there a second mrs drucker that motion is not debatable so all those in favor of calling the question on the second substitute motion and moving to end debate and move to a vote yes we will have public well it's not debatable the legal legal question on moving the question in this forum i mean is the public the dog it is an action of the board so it wouldn't be the public comment but the public comment would
123be limited to the issue of calling the question right not to the merits that's right of the motion but just to the issue of calling the question right so if if any member of the public would like to stand up and say don't call the question or do call the question then that's that would be the it would not be speaking to the merits of the motion so mrs begay thank you please be seated no no comments from the public all right um all right so all christy do you have it up or okay so the floor is opened uh to vote this is simply to call the question on the second substitute motion on the second substitute motion we're ending debate on the second substitute motion to there's a second substitute motion on the
124floor to re-advertise that was made by mr broad second in my ministry right yeah we're voting to end debate on we're voting voting to end debate on re-advertising so if you'd like to continue to that's just on the second substitute motion you can change your vote who's not mr luke on the second substitute motion we still got to go back to mr winkler's substitute let me see what uh vote because it was to vote on this whether it's to end debate that's what they did right on the all right folks stay with us it's the vote is to end debate we still then once we've called the question then we move straight to the question um all right so the question has been called 12 years three nays zero abstentions so now we're moving to
125vote on the substitute second subject second substitute motion which is was made by mr broad seconded by mrs richardson to reopen i mean to to re-advertise looking to you mr man i would say so it's an accident item of the board my group so now the floor uh is open to the public so if you'd like to speak to now to reopening the motion that's on the floor of re-advertising that's the topic that we're discussing re-advertising and it's we're and it is in our policy bcbi for two minutes and so with uh given tonight's uh this may take a while we're gonna thank you mr nation welcome mrs mullet um robin mullet former school board member residing in covington mr kuzan stated this very well we you have started a process every one of you
126has received the information i know in a timely manner whether they're at a district or in in the school system or whatever this job has been advertised i see a pattern here and it is ex please i'm not trying to be personal with anyone so please know i just see a pattern and it's very disturbing every single time this board has a important and hard decision to make all i see from the outside is back and forth and back and forth and back and forth if our teachers if our principles if you taught our kids to act like this i would it's sick i'm so disappointed you started a process it was done correctly it was done in a timely manner and you have five applicants do you have ten no but you have five
127very highly qualified applicants some i favor more than others but i can tell you you have them they did exactly what you told them to do the same thing when the start of school and i don't mean to be on anyone about this the parents you told them to fill out a form a survey they did it then you hear about it then another group of people start complaining and then there this board needs to move thank you real quick i just want to applaud shelter for standing up for constituents because this has been highly talked about in the community about feeling it's been going too fast like they need to reopen the sorts to get more candidates outside candidates so i can attest to the fact that shelton tammy are speaking to what the
128community is asking for so i understand it might take longer but i do ask that you consider your constituents thanks thank you all right welcome i'm linda begaye i want to speak that you started the process the response to it was as your usual responses are with qualified people you have a selection to make here you had an open meeting where you made the decision to proceed in the manner of what you have proceeded i have faith in the school board that you established a process you published the process it's a process you've been through previously and to change it at this point would be bad for the board bad for the community and i suggest that you vote against this second amendment and do not vote to advertise more than you've already done thank
129you thank you welcome mr broom i think he was waiting on you mr broom thank you my name is robert berm from slidell and i would like to point out that i don't see how you could fairly do this just think about it for a moment five of your candidates presumably these five will reapply five of your candidates have already had a shot they've already interviewed you will never be able to make it fair to any other new candidates you can't do this and make it fair at least i can't figure out how you're going to do it so that's my comment thank you thank you anyone else i'm not seeing anyone else i'll take all right just to say my word while we mr hammond comes up just speak to the motion i certainly
130would ask the board to reject the notion of re-advertising as it's been said we have five qualified candidates and we need to proceed either with those five qualified candidates and we need any one of those candidates could easily leave this school board school system beginning tomorrow all right not seeing any other comments from the board or cop okay mrs paige well no wait wait thank you sir um i just wanted to let the public know that by calling for the vote this evening i am representing my constituents what they want to do in my district um and i am representing the teachers of what they've told me that they want to do in my district so i am representing all right move on to it just would you please clarify before we cast our votes
131that a yea would be to re-advertise and they would be to not re-advertise couldn't set it better myself as a science so but just uh mrs heist is correct that a yay on this motion is to re-advertise a nay is to not re-advertise and then the motion if the motion is defeated then we move back to mr winkler's motion if the motion is adhered to then we would have to discuss the next steps in that process so all right not seeing other comments the floor is open to vote all right the motion is defeated 12 years i mean excuse me three years 12 nays no abstentions the motion is defeated so we move back now to the original motion i mean the first substitute motion mr bettencourt i think there's a germain to mr winkler's
132uh substitute motion um since finding out that we have the ability to go into executive session with the candidates i wouldn't mind having all five candidates be uh for the second interview thank you mr bettencourt all right um any other comments or questions from board members or the public before opening up to the public for mr winkler's motion which is to take a vote tonight and if any one of those candidates receive a majority votes they're hereby elected as superintendent so mr harrell then miss lightning back to the sudden death question okay instead of going to we either have a superintendent or we're going to second round can we just decide on second round either go to the second round of question or possibly if it's a tie or something you know if it ends
133up being a tie directly out we go to second round just back it up a little bit well that's i mean mr harrell i appreciate what you're saying but there's a motion on the floor so it's up to mr winkler i mean he made a motion and so that motion needs to be [Music] okay well i did recognize mrs lamey so but okay all right so mr winkler moves the the previous question is there a second uh well the motion on the floor is to to call the question so i mean that motion is in order so um second my mrs page and this is moving the previous question on this first substitute motion so that motion is not debatable um if there's members of the public who would like to speak to moving the
134question which simply would be yes call you know vote on move the question or not so all right uh the floor is open to vote to call the in debate and call call for the question on mr winkler's motion all right 14 years one day no abstentions so the question has been called again mr hammond just so that the public's not removed from the process we certainly don't want to do that so at this point do we open it up to public comment or on the mr winkler's motion or is that that time i think you'd go back to public comment i would explain it one more time for the benefit of the public the the motion as i appreciate it by mr winkler would be that you would uh vote if his motion passes
135you would vote tonight each of you would cast one vote for the one applicant you would like to see as your next superintendent if any applicant received eight or more votes that applicant would be selected and this process would be ended alternatively if no candidate received eight votes in under louisiana law requires eight votes to elect a superintendent when you have a board of fifteen if no candidate received eight votes then the candidate who who received the most votes and the candidate who received the second most votes would be uh brought back or being the uh will be brought back for a second round of interviews and if there if there were two candidates who tied for the second most number of votes will then uh those either if it's one person then the finalist
136would be a field of three if it's more than one person then you i would suggest that you would vote to keep it to cap the field to no more than three for your finalist so if you end up for example and i can't do the arithmetic that quickly but let's let's just say it's five to uh you have five to three to three to three to one i think that's 15. and so if you had five to three to three to three and if you took first would be the five and then if you took second you had three of them with three votes that's going to put four of the five into the second round if you want to cap the second round at say three a maximum of three then what you
137would do is you would take the three who finished second and you would have a second ballot and two of those three would move on to the second round of interviews and one of those three would be eliminated so again since you only interviewed five in the first round i would suggest that the second round which should probably not exceed three but of course you have the right to as mr betancourt indicated you have the right to interview them all again if you if you would want to do that so that was my appreciation of mr winkler's motion the only only part i added there mr winkler was the capping it at three and i didn't know whether you wanted to make that uh part of your motion or whether that was just me speaking
138what you described it will work for me okay so be first if you don't if no one receives eight votes whoever got the most and whoever got the second and if there was a tie for second by one person then it would be three people for finals if there's if there's a tie for second by three people then you would take a vote a second vote to decide which two of those three would make the finals so that's the motion that would be on the floor and that would be the motion that would be subject to public discussion at this time okay mrs vander i just want to agree with what mr winkler proposed as the way to go forward i ask that the board vote for that thank you thank you mrs vander anyone
139else all right not not hearing any other public comment yes ma'am yeah business page all right so now uh the motion is on the floor and voting is open to on the submotion to appoint a superintendent or re-interview the two or three highest applicants if there aren't eight votes for the one applicant that's the way but we'll it's way on the thing but we'll go with the way mr winkler said as well so i think that's okay all right the motion carries uh ten yays five days no abstentions so now we are moving to uh into balloting so mrs coakley is going to pass out a ballot this uh so for members of the public we are voting by ballot but this is not a secret ballot per se because once folks vote then i
140will announce uh the votes of each member and confirm confirm that vote once it's done so mr hammond just to be clear we're voting for one is that correct you vote for one and be sure that you do sign your ballot because they will be attached to the minutes they will be public records they'll come to me and i will announce you know the votes and again while you're doing that mr president just let me say for the benefit of the public the reason that we're using this procedure you don't need to phone them is because this allows uh simultaneous voting by all of the board members and uh it prevents a situation where some of the board members get to see the votes of the other board members before they cast their own [Applause]
141right thank you mr cosey for folding those now i just need to unfold them all right and mrs coakley and mrs bergeron i believe are recording these votes is that correct okay all right mr wigler cast his vote for frank jabia mr winkler is that your vote mr winkler cast his vote for frank jabia mr greene cast his vote for frank jabia is that your vote mr green mr green cast his vote for frank javia mrs lamey cast her vote for frank jabia is that your vote mrs lamey okay mrs lamey votes for mr jabia mr luke cast his vote for frank jabia mr loop is that your vote mr luke cast his vote for frank jabia mr harrell cast his vote for mrs lamain mr harrell is that your vote mr harrell cast his
142vote for mrs lemayne mrs heintz cast her vote for mr jabia is that your vote mrs heights mrs heintz votes for mr jabia mr durman cast his vote for mr jabia is that your vote mr durman mr german cast his vote for mr jabia mr hersey cast his vote for mr jabia mr hersey is that your vote correct mr hersey votes for mr jabia mr kuzan cast his vote for mrs dangerfield mr kuzan is that your vote yes mr kuzan cast his vote for mrs dangerfield mr bettencourt cast his vote for mr jabia mr betancourt is that your vote mr bettencourt cast his vote for mr jabia mrs drucker cast her vote for mrs lamain mrs strucker is that your vote mr strucker cast her vote for mrs mrs lemaine mrs page cast her vote
143for mr jabia mrs page is that your vote yes sir mrs page cast her vote for mr jabia mr broad cast his vote for dr robinson mr broad is that your vote mr brode cast his vote for dr robinson and finally uh i vote for mr jabia so mr nation votes for mr jabia mrs coakley will you please uh mrs richardson cast her vote for dr robinson mrs richardson is that your vote all right mr mrs richardson cast uh her vote for dr robinson and thank you mrs richardson i should have asked that are there any other ballots that are outstanding all right the balloting is hereby closed waiting for mrs coakley to if you'll just bring me the uh the sheet or your tally and then i will confirm your tally with mrs bergeron's
144tally okay the two tally sheets agree the tallies uh is as follows mr frank jabia receives 10 votes to be the superintendent of the saint tammany parish public school system dr derose receives zero votes mrs lamain receives two votes mrs robinson receives two votes i'm sorry dr robinson and mrs dangerfield receives one vote so per the motion that was adhered to mr frank jaby is hereby elected by the saint tammany parish school board as the next superintendent of the saint tammany parish school system congratulations mr jabia uh you are now our um our new superintendent please take the podium and congratulations thank you so much i really don't know what to say right now as much as i think we all came here to hear a decision here tonight i don't know that any one
145of us expected to hear our names called at this time but like i told you on saturday i look forward to leading this district it has been my absolute pleasure for 26 plus years to be an educator in this district and a former student in this district and and like i told you i promise to god i will not let you down i'm going to do everything in my power to get us back to where we belong and we all know what needs to be done we're going to work very hard to do that i want to say thank you to my father and my mother who've raised me right and uh held me to a certain standard me more than my brother he's more of a challenge than i am but uh you know
146they i i've been held to a standard way before i became part of anyone's faculty um and and i promise to continue that moving forward i just can't tell you thank you enough for um for allowing me to do this and um i just want to thank everybody that i've worked with i've learned from some great educators along the road mr buckron at slaughterhigh they gave me my first job dr peterson who came to the field house when dr schneider got appointed to fountain blue junior high and said i needed administrative assistant and opened my eyes to not just working with a hundred boys but working with 1500 students and dr peterson changed my life forever when he came to me and asked me to fill in until we didn't have parish wide back then
147until the position was filled so i just want to say thank you and uh i look forward to the challenges i look forward to working with everyone and i look forward to putting saint tania parish back on the map okay thank you all very much [Applause] mr hammond even though he we have elected our next superintendent there's probably a couple of housekeeping matters we need to attend to with the new superintendent if is that correct yes and that's what i was going to say first off i was so disappointed i didn't get to ask my two pages of questions no seriously though thank you all for giving me the opportunity to work with you in this process it's almost complete the next step in the process of course is the negotiation of the contract with
148the new superintendent typically that's done by the president and the vice president meeting with the superintendent elect uh and discussing with him the terms of that contract and then they don't the president and the vice president don't have any authority to agree to anything they just have the authority to try to sit there and negotiate a contract which is brought back to the board for the board to vote on at a subsequent meeting so the next step in the process would be the contract negotiations again typically handled by the president and the vice president unless the board would prefer that someone else be involved in that process in the objection to mr harrell and i'm uh negotiating uh mr jabia's mr frank jamie's contract and then bring it back to the board all right i
149would ask one certainly you could ask any many questions you want you would give us all a copy of what will be presented to mr cavia before you go to them and allow us to review it and you know general idea of so there's some other board members that may have not seen it i don't know sure of what was used in the past give us something and if we had any notes work with that sure absolutely no issues about that and then i would assume that in those contract negotiations mr hammond would be the start date for the new superintendent and and things things of that sort correct and the length of the contract consideration leave automobile uh you know we have in our office prepared boilerplate contracts for um probably i don't know
150how many hundred superintendents in which we leave out the blanks you know for salary of blank car allowance of blank leave of blank you know and these are the main terms for negotiation the most important part of the contract however is one that we cannot help you with and that's going to be your performance objectives what do you what where do you want to see this superintendent take your system you know what are the what are the objectives that you would like to see him uh reach for the benefit of your system and uh and that's a requirement by state law that is a requirement of state law that performance objectives be incorporated within the contract and those are things that i can i can give the president the vice president samples of what have
151been used in other districts but they're all a little bit unique to individual school systems and so that would be one i would suggest mr president that if any board member has thoughts as to what they would like to see as far as performance objectives i would encourage them to get those thoughts to you or to the vice president so that you can work those into the contract negotiations with mr jabya very good so board members that's our homework for you know uh before we do the contract negotiations is to it's those performance objectives as required by state law well um mr hammonds hammond i we thank you and we uh i guess you are dismissed to uh you can go home now all right thank you and thank you all again for the opportunity
152to work with you i've always enjoyed my opportunities to work with this board and uh i wish you the best of luck thank you mr ambus all right moving on now to approval of recommendations from committee as a whole meeting for business affairs held october 1st 2020 mr green thank you mr nation our first item on that agenda was recommend that we recommend acceptance of the group life plan benefit amendment all right mr green moves that uh the committee moves that we recommend acceptance of the group life plan benefit amendment is there a second second by mrs richardson any discussion by board members regarding the group line planned benefit amendment not hearing any is there any comments or questions from the public not seeing any there so the floor is open to vote and the
153motion is adopted unanimously moving next item mr green thank you mr president our second item from that committee was uh we recommend acceptance of a resolution by mr ron bettencourt is there a second second by mrs trucker any discussion by board members regarding the committee's recommendation not seeing any is there any comments oh sorry mrs richardson mr nation would you be able to articulate how the committee's going to be formed or what do you have a plan or how is that going to be mapped out uh well it's in the resolution yeah we'll get to comments from the public i just want to okay i'm going to table it for now thank you all right thank you any comments from the public mrs vander i had asked earlier and mentioned in my comments about you
154recusing you're recusing yourself from the process i'm i'm asking you now are you willing to recuse yourself from the process the process is established in the in the resolution i've read the resolution unless it's been updated today on the website it does not say anything about that i think at the last meeting it was spoken that the board president and the um the resolution that is currently says and whereas st tammany parish school system administration will establish a committee so the committee will be established by mr jabia okay which one well well if it's up to if it's up to pete it'll be frank but and and i also want to piggyback on what uh miss richardson was asking as far as what are the details what is the scope of the committee it is
155not in the resolution there are no details so i would like us you to explain to the public to us what's going to happen with the committee what's the charter what's the expectations what's the deliverables what's the time frame and and i can understand if you tell me tonight you cannot tell me all of that but we need to have that by the next meeting because we're going to continue to come because we want to hear what's going on with this this is that important so i just ask that you someone add a friendly whatever you need to do to make sure that we are given the information and we stay transparent in the whole process i hope that some board members comment because you tend to not comment and that's that's i mean i
156think you need to have a conversation with us around this thank you mr mrs mr derman thank you mrs bander mr panda thank you i think what it's what my motion was was that mr nation authorized through this resolution the superintendent now whether which mr jabya that may be wants i mean depending on the contract time to establish this committee well i'm sure that all of the board members are going to have some input not that we're in control of that committee but we could probably have some suggestions as to who may be on that committee stakeholders or whatever constituents and and the process by which that's all going to evolve because it's important to us that we have stakeholder input but it's also important that the members themselves kind of distance themselves from that
157process because our vote as a board is going to be on what that committee brings to us to vote on so i'm not saying that board members can't attend the committee but they shouldn't be in the voting process of that committee because the board members then vote when it comes to the board that's the board members opportunity to vote and participate right now when that work committee is there it's for staff members of the public that's the intent and that's what mr jaby yeah whatever and uh we'll work to present to the board and to the public i mean we're not running from it i promise you okay again whatever the board decide if you're saying you don't basically i guess that's to the part about um miss richardson being a part of the committee
158if that's what y'all decide then of course it is what it is richardson is more than welcome to participate i'm just saying from a board member standpoint i don't know that i mean you understand what i'm saying ms richardson that you shouldn't be you know a voting member of that committee to participate in the committee's one thing but to have a voter in that committee is inappropriate because your vote takes place in this boardroom okay so aside from that because that is needed here there you know but the the key piece of it is to make sure that there is a charter someone has to give them the charge and we brought up a lot of things that we would like to see you know looked at in the data and so i do think
159it needs to be defined and so that's really we're going to this week and started collecting data from them specifically for my administrators and and not just stuff that's online just so that i can turn it over to whoever's on the committee so that we have some more real raw stuff so i just wanted to say that only because i haven't spoken with you i want you to know that people are really checking into this and getting information to be assistants even though we're going to be distancing ourselves to an extent all right and then the and the other piece is the retaliation piece we do need to address that some kind of way to get people to be able to speak up because she has a rapport with her constituents but there are others
160that are still concerned it's out there it's real i promise you it's out there thank you mrs vander and just for the members of the public that may not have read the resolution i just am going to highlight this the last whereas just just for the record i mean you can read it but just so that it's clear and whereas the saint tammany parish public school system administration uh which i'm so if this passes i would hear i would authorize will establish the administration will establish a committee comprised of school system employees central office staff community community members and legal representation to review data and make recommendations to the school board that is what's in the in the resolution mr kuzam yeah i'd like to thank you i like to make sure that with this
161resolution that there's transparency at all levels that that the public knows everything that we're doing and that we're going we're going to do it the right way thank you thank you mr kuzan all right any other comments or questions last one put the microphone away mrs richton i just wanted to uh confirm mr german i do a respect and what you said about that and i understand that i also want to thank the two constituents who made the recommendation i start i do want to be involved and i do but i do respect the process in that regard so thank you thank you all right mrs lamy i don't know if it's necessary but i feel it's important as a teacher i think that the retaliation piece is going to be liked very much by
162our new superintendent i don't think people are going to have the same um concerns that they did before all right remember we're speaking to the resolution that's on the floor yes mr mr bettencourt if the public doesn't have a copy of it would you like me to read it to the public no no all right especially want to read it but if y'all if the public needs to hear it no we don't need that all right this yes ma'am welcome hi um so from what i'm understanding mr javia one of them is going to curate this group is this correct i'm just trying that's correct okay um and who will that secure he's curating it he's picking who's on it but who facilitates this group of people in a room well we haven't gotten that
163far yet so that's up to mr javia uh so i mean and i mean we've done this for many many years these these administrative administrative committees i'm sure there's an established process correct mr jabia yes uh so but mr jaby i'm sure i'll be glad to discuss you know those details you know offline or answer any questions you may have about that okay um and what is this the purpose of this group they're going to get together they're going to talk and then they're going to present what to the board what's in the what's in the resolution we're going to make recommendations our group is going to make recommendations or ideas for you guys to vote on is that according to the lance awareness which i just read to review data and make recommendations to
164the school board okay okay um i guess one of my one of my concerns right now is that equity and equity is so controversial right now because we all know um and speaking to what i said before when i spoke up here um i'm really concerned about um i don't know you mr jabya at all i haven't spoken with you at all so this isn't an accusation as much as it is a you know what are your feelings on inequity do you believe it is a thing that exists because my feeling is that you can't have somebody curate a group of people to solve a problem that you don't believe exists and i think as a you know community member i'd be really concerned if that were the case okay thank you yes mr bettencourt
165the resolution shows that equity exists in our system all right thank you mr bancord all right i asked if mr javier this is out of i'm sorry miss daryl that's out of order she should be i can't ask him that okay all right all right thank you all right moving on now if there's not any other questions or comments from the public we'll move to vote and the motion is adopted unanimously all right moving on to uh item c mr green thank you mr president our committee recommends acceptance of the low base bid and alternate number one submitted by smith construction company in the amount of one million six hundred fifty six thousand one hundred sixty dollars for the additions at fifth ward junior high school st tammany parish school board project number one nine
166three zero and iso move yup i'm going to defer to mr defer to mr harrell mr harrell makes that motion and i'll take you take you as a second all right any discussion and miss tipton is here tonight for any questions that the board may have all right there's any questions oh go ahead mr harold one last time i just want to thank all y'all for all his hard work and i know fifth ward really appreciates this thank you thank you thank you mr harold all right any comments or questions for the public all right floor is open to vote and that motion is adopted unanimously item d thank you again mr president our committee recommends acceptance of a project to install artificial turf systems on the football fields at seven high schools and to
167utilize a modified qualifications process to solicit qualifications from the architectural firms previously approved in 2019 for large and small capital improvement projects for the selection of an architect for this project all right mr battencourt uh makes the motion second by mrs page excuse me any comments or questions from board members any comments or questions from the public oh sorry miss i just mrs lamey clarify that this these monies were coming from a construction budget that we couldn't do anything else with so i just wanted to make that clarification thank you mrs lamey mr jabia mr jabia uh yes that is correct for construction purposes only all right thank you miss all right mrs page i also wanted to clarify too that i know a lot of times that they think you know the football field
168and turf and it's just for cosmetic reasons but we have a lot of injuries a lot of injuries from our our football players our soccer teams we have a lot of injuries for students that use the um the the dirt dirt football field so it's really i mean i have i got several phone calls last year during football season and soccer season about the injuries that their students were having and so many students use it at the you know junior high rotc lots and lots of people use our field so it's very critical from a safety standpoint to get to get turf all right thank you mrs page anyone else all right any comments from from the public one more time all right not seeing any we'll vote and that motion is adopted unanimously mr
169green anything else from your committee no mr president that concludes our report all right thank you mr green move on now to announcements by board president i'm going to take liberty to thank yet again dr derose before you leave on thank uh do some thank yous i want to thank first of all mrs heintz for the the hard work she put into to this process for for electing the next superintendent on behalf of all of us mrs heinz uh thank you so much um and then to all five candidates as i said uh publicly uh in an email and as i said uh yesterday to a member of the press i said any one of y'all could have and i believe this could have led this system beginning tomorrow and uh i do mean that
170so we're very blessed here in saint tammany parish because as someone pointed out we've never had a superintendent here that's not been led by someone from the outside but more importantly for me we've never had a superintendent that's not started out as a saint tammany teacher in front of saint tammany children in a saint tammany classroom and there's a lot to be said for that that you have a love and understand all the children of this parish and those in your classroom all right i know mr kuzan is ready to go so i'll [Laughter] all right moving on to to announcement so thank you thank you all so all schools at central office sites are closed tuesday november 3rd for election day the november committee as a whole meetings will be on thursday november 5th
171at 6 pm and the board meeting in november is november 12th at 7 pm in slidell at the brooks educational complex and with no further business to come before the sport i declare the meeting adjourned you