School Board Work Session | January 27, 2026

001You told me to slam it. Good afternoon and welcome to the Poke County School Board's work session. We will now call the work session for January 27th, 2026 to order. Thank you to our staff who are available and accessible to help address any questions. As a board, we strive to work with you to ensure that we achieve our mission to provide a highquality education for all students. I would like to start by reading our who are we statement. We are the Poke County Leadership Governance Team. If we were to pick one phrase to define us, it would be student centered. Because when we come together to work, we lean on our diverse backgrounds and experiences to ensure that our decisions are focused on providing a highquality education for all students. The four most important things

002to our governance team are operating with integrity, respecting our students, staff, families, and each other, establishing a culture where stakeholders feel valued, supported, and have opportunities for personal and professional growth, and supporting an approach of continuous improvement to ensure student outcomes. Collectively, we need to work on behalf of the children we serve and find avenues of agreement so that we can govern the district in an effective manner. There is no acceptable alternative. We will always collaborate in a respectful manner in order to enhance opportunities for each student and staff member. We will not disparage others. Our students will thrive because we will remain committed to supporting the whole child. We hope to engage and empower our students and stakeholders to create a community of lifelong learners. At this time, I would like to turn it

003over to Superintendent Hyde to lead us in our work session today. >> Good morning or good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board, members of staff and committee. Thank you for being here today. Uh we have several items on today's superintendence report and a handful of items under new business for the board to have further discussion on. At this time we we will begin with our internal funds audit discussion. Um I'd like to invite Miss Carol Matthews and Lauren Hinton to the microphone to share those outcomes. >> Good afternoon. We are joined today by Jennifer Christensen with Carrie Ram who will present the results of the internal funds audit. Many of you know Jennifer and her firm have conducted this audit for our district for more than a decade and we appreciate the continuity and

004expertise that they bring. I'm pleased to report that this year's audit results are are encouraging overall with trends indicating a decrease in findings across our schools. I want to acknowledge the outstanding work of our accounting team, Lauren Hinton and Earl Morris, for their comprehensive revision of the internal accounts manual. This was a major undertaking and their efforts addressed an area that had previously been noted as a deficiency in past audits. So, at this time, I will turn it over to Miss Christensen to walk us through the audit report. >> Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. >> Good afternoon. >> Will my presentation appear on the screen to go through? >> Okay. >> Thanks, John. >> And oh, sorry. I guess I have to. Okay. Thank you. So, um I'm just going to go over briefly the

005financial statements for the internal funds and then um go over the audit process that we went through and then um some of the details on what we call the school level recommendations that we have and then our district-wide recommendations. So looking at the financial statements and again um to just kind of remind everybody the internal funds that is one fund of the district that includes the student activity accounts and so those are your prom tickets um football tickets your fundraisers and so this is money that's raised by the students and um within each school. And so if you look at the financial statements you'll see we um the total assets were about 15.8 8 million and that's made up of um primarily $15 million of that is cash and investments and then we have a

006little bit of inventory. Schools may have uniforms or school stores and um and then we had liabilities of about $759,000. um half of that is uh amounts that are just owed to vendors and then the other half are just amounts owed to other funds and that's just due to the transfers in between um the internal fund and the other district's funds. And so you could see the total additions would be similar to what you know you like total revenue for the funds and that was $15.7 million for the year and then the deductions or the expenditures were $14 million. So um you can see compared to the prior year it it is growing and that is a trend we normally see in internal funds. We just want to make sure that the district and everyone

007keeps an eye on um these funds we want to raise um the the money that's raised we want to spend it in the same year because the um the state law says that the students that raise it the money should be should benefit them. So that's something just to keep an eye on. um 15 million um may seem like a large number, but you have to keep in mind that you have to split that up among every school, you know, every school has a different amount in the district. And then within each school, every club has an account, every team, every sports team has an account. So, um so then it starts to get a little smaller by account, but we do want the schools to encourage them to spend the money um in the

008year that that they raise it. For um our audit report, we had an unmodified report. So that's a clean audit opinion. We um did have two adjustments. They're actually related to each other. So it's almost like one adjustment. We just separated them out and it's just to record the allowance for doubtful accounts. Um that's something that each year we record that based off of the numbers and the estimates that the district gives us. So it's really more of like a district proposed adjustment. And so um the amount of receivables um did go down this year for the um career centers. We um in the past they were starting to build a little bit but they they did go down this year. And then we had two what we call past adjustments. These are items that

009we came across during the audit that are small um in material in nature. So we don't actually um post them. We don't the financial statements do not reflect these adjustments, but we do have to accumulate them and provide them to the district at the end of the audit to make sure they agree that they're immaterial. And it was just um the inventory. Schools normally will inventory their yearbooks, but we look at yearbooks from prior years of having little to um no market value. So, we normally write them down because very um seldom are yearbooks sold. It happens sometimes, but it's usually maybe, you know, a couple of yearbooks. So, that's why we um we record um an adjustment to reduce those. And then um as far as sensitive footnotes in the internal funds, we really

010didn't have any um footnotes that are highly sensitive, but um we do note in there the investments. If there were any concentrations in one type of investment, we would have to disclose that. And um we didn't have any such concentrations this year. Next with the audit process, um, a couple things that we're required to communicate with you if we come across them. If we had any disagreements with management, which we did not have any, um, any significant difficulties, again, we we didn't have any. Um, if we were aware of the district consulting with outside accountants on any type of technical issue, we would need to bring that to your attention, but we're not aware of any type of um, consultations. And then if we came across any fraud or illegal acts during our processes and

011we did not come across any of those during our audit. So you know good news nothing to report on that front on any of those. Our um internal funds audit um consists of we do an audit of the financial statements. So we're testing all the all the numbers in the financial statements but then a larger part of our audit is doing compliance testing. and that really does take um a full team effort with a lot of different um departments at the school district. So, I always like to kind of put this in to give a little bit of acknowledgement for um you know, we work with Carol and her internal audit team. We work um with Lauren and Earl with the accounting team. And in fact, we come out here to do the compliance testing

012part. We do it on site and um and we pretty much ask for a million things while we're here. and and they always provide the information. They provide it pretty timely. So, we do appreciate that. We also reach out to the schools um several times during the audits. At the beginning during the summer, we reach out and we ask for certain information. Um, we do our compliance testing and then we have a report of what we call school findings that we then have an exit conference with every financial secretary and principal where we go over the report with them, go over the findings and then if they have any additional information they want to provide to us or um if there's anything maybe that we that we weren't aware of with the information we had,

013they'll bring it to our attention at that point and then they provide us with responses for all of those school level findings for us to had in our report. So, we also appreciate the work that they do and um if you can imagine, we're reaching out to schools in some departments. So, we may have about 130 that we're reaching out to. They all um provide us with the information we need. Um a few we might have to follow up with, but um on a on a large scale, they all all are very um responsive to our requests. So, we do appreciate that. I mentioned before we do the compliance testing. We do compliance testing on 100% of the schools and departments. Um anyone who had activity in their internal fund for the year we um

014we do testing and so you could see listed there some of the different areas um that we test on. And again we test all of these areas for every school um each year. So I think that's really um a good thing to have that consistency among all schools so that they know that every year they are going to be audited their internal funds. So now um as Carol had mentioned earlier, you could see the trend here of the average findings per school and um normally I can see a tr a trend among all my school districts. And so of course when when COVID hit all the findings went down because all the activity went down and then we saw a slow rise and you could see that over the last few years on yours. Um

015but this year I have not been able to to find a trend among my school districts. I have some school districts where their findings um continued to increase and then I have like PK County schools where their average findings decreased. And so um at this point I think everything has kind of um normalized from COVID and we've been back to full activity for a couple years. So um so my um so any instance it it's going to appear as a finding. So you could see here we have about 83% of schools that had two one you know two or less findings and last year that was about 81%. So there there was a increase in the number of schools that had um less findings and then um last year five or more I wrote it

016down five or more we had four this year four schools and last year I believe it was seven I'm trying to oh actually it was 12 we had 12 findings 12 schools last year that had five or more findings. So you could see that is a a huge decrease um this year. Here are some of the more common findings we had or the five most common. So um I just wanted to kind of show for the first one there were um fundraiser um reports that either weren't submitted at all or they just weren't submitted timely. And there were 22 instances. Last year there were 33. Um, the next one has to do with dispersements not being approved ahead of time. We had 20 this year. We had 27 last year. So, um, I have some

017subsequent slides that are going to show the trends on the, um, the more common findings over the last three years. But, um, but I just wanted to show you the the fundraising activity um, forms not approved, not approved timely. We had, um, 17 last year, 16 this year. So, you could see there are findings that are definitely going down, those more common findings. So, um, so it I think really pays off to focus on some of those and make sure that again communicating with the schools what the different policies and procedures are. I'm not going to go through each of these, but I just wanted to show you like a a graphical representation of some of the common findings we had. And you can see the bar on the bottom, the dark blue is two

018years ago, the light blue is last year, and then the orange is um this year. So you can see that um a lot of these findings have um have gone down um over the over the years. Um and I kind of already went through some of these numbers. Um some of these findings I think I look at there's going to be processes and procedures where there are forms that need to be completed. they need to be completed by a certain time frame and maybe they're late and then there and so you have those findings that are more procedural and there are reasons for for those rules but when I compare it to rules like um dispersements not being approved ahead of time to me th those are the ones that are maybe um a little

019more risk risky than a form being um turned in a week late and so um so the second one on here the dispersements's not approved prior to the good or service being purchased. So basically something's being ordered at a school, but the principal or at least there was not written evidence that the principal approved it ahead of time. And so um so that's one that we'll see later. We did um classify that as a deficiency because there were 20 schools um that had that comment. And so we just recommend that that training be reiterated to the schools that you know um sometimes the schools may say oh well no they I was verbally told that I can purchase it but you know the auditors always like to see everything in writing you know even if

020it's an email or anything to to show that it had been approved ahead of time. So um so that's one that we did um include as a deficiency. This slide is just to show the findings that had the largest reduction from the year before. Um I do think as auditors we always report which is what we need to do. We report everything that we see that wasn't done you know according to process procedures but there's also another side of it of all the all the improvements we see. And so I like to always point that out too to see that you know we do have a lot of findings where the numbers have have gone down quite a bit. And um and I'll mention later on in my presentation one of the findings that that

021decreased um the most. And so um here I I already mentioned the deficiency that we reported was that we had the 20 instances of the um purchases being made prior to it being approved by the principal. Um but we did not have any material weaknesses in internal control that we were required to communicate. So nothing um it's uh when we have internal control um findings that we have to report the most severe would be a material weakness. then we have a significant deficiency and then the bottom is a deficiency that doesn't isn't required to be um written to um you know written in our report. It's more of a you know this is something we came across that we thought maybe you want to want to kind of keep an eye on. Improvement points are

022then just items we came across that we said hey we have some recommendations here. They're not necessarily deficiencies or findings but it's something we we think it's important to to look at. And so we did have an improvement point for um on the IT side to complete a disaster recovery test um annually and um their response is that they're working on getting a new um test done you know getting it online and so um so they are in the process of of working on that. And then um the comment that we had last year we had a deficiency about deficit balances. So we had um 68 different accounts. So that could be a football account at one school, it could be a third grade account at another school and 68 of them had negative balances

023at the end of the year. So um I know this is something that that the um accounting department was all over and they said we are going to monitor this throughout the year. We are going to reach out to schools to make sure they don't overspend any accounts. And this year we had five um which was which is probably the the um least amount that I've ever seen you know with in the 10 years that we've audited Pulk. So um that is nice as an auditor to see that when we when we talk to the district that they respond and that you can see the the difference in the findings. So um again I I think that's great. I think this has been a very good um audit this year. And are there any questions

024or comments or anything? Yes, >> members, I'm going to jump in real quick um before I start responding to those of you who have asked ask a question or make a comment. So on the the second to last slide or third to last slide when we talk about the no material weaknesses were were noted, I want to go ahead and outline for you procedurally what we're doing and I need to provide an explanation as far as the improvement point. um in particular the goods or services being ordered prior to the principal's approval. So now we have taken additional steps. We have a very thorough approval process. But what we have found is sometimes our vendors are just assuming that because they're being they're in the process of trying to get a purchase order or go

025through the process for approval. They're shipping items before the approval is made. We are now instituting a process where all of our vendors will receive an annual notice to tell them that that is not a practice we will tolerate and that should that continue, we will discontinue partnering with them. Um because it does create a potential exposure and ultimately if they ship a product and then we deny that purchase for obvious reasons, potentially for any number of reasons, we don't want to be on the hook for those products and having to ship them back. The second one is the disaster recovery failover test. So I did ask the IT department because this is the second year that we had had that recommendation or that improvement point identified. So this year in particular, it's due to

026the SAP rollover that the problem is if they were to do a failover test, it would adversely impact our data. And so they wanted to protect that. I have a full explanation. I will forward that to the board so that you see all the points that it identified as to why. Um, and so that was an that was an intentional decision on our part and arguably a good one. However, we will make sure we're in compliance with that every year moving forward. And again, kudos to Miss Matthews and and Lauren Hinton and a team on reducing the overall number of deficit balances. But of the five largest areas, four of those are all related to fundraising or special activities. And so it's clear that we need to do some additional training. The benefit is, as

027they pointed out, and I don't know how many of you caught it, they looked at everyone. So, we know exactly which schools had these findings. So, it's I don't have to put out a memo or retrain the entirety of the district. I can actually target those individual schools and the staff involved so we can make sure that they're familiar with all the processes. Um and then prior to making them attend additional training, we will look specifically at the example that was shared, which is was it that it wasn't completed or was it that it was done beyond the deadline. Deadlines are something we can address very quickly with staff um and our administrators, but I want to make sure that we're differentiating between a deadline issue or a procedural error. Um I well, and I

028guess you could argue that both are procedural errors. However, one I feel is far more impactful or has a greater potential for impact adverse impact on the district than the other. So, Mr. Sharpless, I first just want to say that it's very important um that we do these uh internal funds audits. Um I think it's important for our taxpayers to know and our community to know whenever they give a donation to our schools that it's uh properly being handled. So, um, want to thank you for doing this audit of our audit, um, and what you do. I I first just want to make a a a comment, then I have a question. And I'm not sure if this question is to superintendent. Hi, Miss Matthews, or you. Y'all can figure it out when I ask

029it. Um, first I just want to make the comment that it really as a board member, as a board chair, um, it makes me uh, happy to notice that, um, we're making corrections based on these previous reports. Uh, when you see how much that the deficit balance uh, have have decreased because of that. Um, that's that's huge, right? And so I think that's something to be applauded. Um, my question is uh, about two different ones. Um the first one um is about uh let's see here. Oh, when the reports aren't uh submitted on a timely manner, whether that's the annual reports, the specific fundraising reports, and I'm talking about specifically from the outside organizations like the PTAs, like the booster clubs, whatever. What kind of enforcement mechanism do we have to require them to submit

030them on time? And again, I don't know like if if they're habitual offenders, like how do we how do we deal with that? >> Miss Matthews owns half of it. I own the other half. >> Okay. >> I have one other question after that. So, >> it's challenging. I mean, because we are dealing with outside organizations. We hold the principal responsible for collecting those and she's the one that would get the finding in the or he would get the finding in the audit report, but she's working with volunteers, you know, and and those people a lot of times you'll have a a board of directors and then their kids graduate, they move on, didn't turn in the annual financial report and then it's like, you know, really challenging to get that. We do have a

031deadline of August 1st and it's to be submitted to my office. And so we track all those on a spreadsheet that we've received and ones we're expecting and we send out reminders, you know, please get this in, please get this in. And so we do pretty good. Um I think that number was not, you know, astronomical or anything. Um yeah I don't know beyond that is the reminder the reminder and the finding you know okay >> we we we involve the uh regional so that they can also you know talk with the schools and and kind of stay on them to get to get them but it's really the onus I think of the outside organizations I think our schools definitely don't want a finding and they work to get those in but because of

032those reasons that I mentioned mentioned it can be challenging sometimes and in this time we had a couple that had ceased to be in existence. They went inactive but sometimes they don't think that oh well I've got to do closeout records so I need to close the bank account. I need to transfer that money to the school that it was supporting and I need to file that paperwork to show that I did that. And so sometimes it's a case like that. We had two where there is a finding and then we as an internal audit department followed up even after Jennifer and her team and after the audit was done we followed up and just said hey you know you can't leave this just hanging and then they were able to provide us with those

033closing documents and so we were able to like mark them off our spreadsheet so we're not bugging them next year for them. And >> so the second part of that is obviously on my side of the house which is the accountability piece. And so as Miss Matthews points out, parent or volunteer organizations and PTO and PTA are largely excluded from us anyways. Um because they audit independently if I recall correctly. Um the consequences or the accountability our side really is holding the school leadership and school staff responsible. As Miss Matthews I think is actually a great example. If you have a club or an organization or something that basically closes, they do have to close out their balances. But that should not solely be a responsibility on our finance and auditing team to catch that.

034The school knows that that's no longer functioning. They then have some responsibility to communicate that. So, and then ultimately, and I think this is the question you were trying you were getting at, which is if we have repeated offenses on behalf of a booster, it will go away. we have the ability to say we're simply not going to support this any longer and either the school have to assume that responsibility or task or we're going to require that booster club to completely restructure and retrain because we can't simply keep exposing the district or the school to those issues. >> Absolutely. Thank you. My other question, um I noticed uh when we looked for at the big pie chart, right, um slide, uh most of our schools only have very few findings, if any, but there's

035uh there's four of them that had five or more, right? So there's only a handful of them that are, you know, may need some additional training. I was wondering, do we So what and you said those are targeted now because we know which ones those are. Superintendent Hyde, do are we going to like follow up with additional training for those schools? How does that how does that work? >> Yeah. So, from our perspective, we'll look at each instance of why they had a finding in particular because the school that had one finding, again, if it's a timeline issue, that's different than a non-compliance with procedural expectations. So, we'll define those, triage those, tier them accordingly, and address those to go through. But yes, we will target every school on that list to define or determine

036to what extent there's retraining required, cross trainining required. Um, and some of these may occur simply because of illness, because of the timeline in which something was submitted, and then we go on a break for a holiday. I mean, there's a lot of things that can come into play. So, again, I don't want to simply say that we're going to be punitive and and responsive to this without having first gone through and make sure we work with Carol and her team to identify which schools most need support or retraining on this topic. >> Excellent. Thank you. Sometimes that will trigger an internal audit. If we follow up with the findings and if we see there were 500 missing tickets, tickets or cash, >> we'll follow up with that school and do our own detailed audit,

037maybe go out to the school or whatever it takes. Um, so that's another way that we follow up. >> Excellent. So the the point is community, you're listening right now, understand that we take this very seriously and uh we are certainly asking questions. So, but overall it's a great report. So, thank you. That's all I have. >> Mr. Keys, >> I won't be nearly as long. So, u as as someone who served on the um internal audit and finance committee for gosh, M. Matthews, it's like six years and chair of it for three of those. I will tell you that um it's stated that these are a lot of these are third party outside um and are volunteers, right? So, this is constantly a moving target. We're talking about folks that are here today and

038gone tomorrow. Um, I'll give you a perfect example of that. We're having a discussion our at our house that our daughter is in eighth grade and what is my wife's responsibilities after our child goes to high school and leaves middle school. So those those come up. So we're it's a constantly moving target and where we do the best we can with it. I think the nature of that is we're always going to find findings. And that leads to my next comment. Um, just amazed by slide 12, right? Slide 12 was those the latest findings and the over year-over-year and the reductions we've seen that actually I'm sorry it was the one above that you're showing on the screen not common findings but the one latest largest reduction that one so if we look at that

039and and Mr. sharply spoke to especially the one with the deficit account balances as a banker I cringe when I see that and notice those reduced to five so there is oversight there we are look we are looking at these these schools and these outside parties but imagine too on that number we said that we analyze 147 of those 147 were touched that's a bunch of schools we can't look at all 147 all the time but we spot check enough to where we're going to see these findings um and I'm rambling now but again I think the the biggest part was we're seeing a reduction in all these but we're never going to see it go away totally. So, great job at doing those. And um probably my last comment on those and and in

040those individuals that serve in those roles, these third parties, these booster clubs, I would venture to say and Miss Matthews, you can comment on that because you speak to these folks. Um would assume that a lot of them are not financial professionals. They're volunteers that said, "Hey, we don't have anybody. Will you raise your hand?" Yeah, I'll do it. we're not actually, you know, we're not seeing a lot of CPAs or, you know, bankers in those positions handling these booster funds. So, all in all, I think you guys do a great job. Um, we're we're seeing those um findings go down, right? Um, but I want to to those maybe listening in saying they're never going to constantly go away because it's it's a moving target. So, Mr. Christen, thank you for your presentation. Great

041job, Miss Matthews. Thank you for explanation. Miss Fields. >> Thank you. I would just say I remember when and the when is very long um when there were many findings and I remember when training was put in place uh to make sure that those findings decreased and the work is being done. It's being shown. So I want to commend everybody, all of the staff, all of the leaders in the various departments of the u urgency that they have seen to correct whatever needed to be corrected and it's never going to be 100%. We can work towards that. Uh but it's much much better. So I just wanted to commend you all for that. I think the only question that I have is are we still having someone to go to the various uh locations to

042get deposits? Is that still being done? >> Yes, ma'am. We uh contract with an armored car service and they go to each school and pick up their their funds for deposit. >> I just wanted to make sure that it was still being continued. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Great job. >> And Dr. Allen. >> All right. Thank you, Superintendent. Y'all continue that conversation as well and um in gratitude as well to our staff for the work on this. Uh definitely a heavy lift. Uh the 100% testing is a significant uh element to this report as well. So, Miss uh Christensen, thank you for the the update here as well. I can reflect back to that recent phone call with you and um just those those hard questions and uh that you were asking of uh

043of us as well. So, I think at the beginning our chair read out our who are we statement and the number one um item is operating with integrity. So, that's our goal and uh this is a part of that process. So, thank you um for that external oversight and lens into uh what we're doing here. I think transitioning to two questions. One, superintendent alluded to it. Um, Chair Sharpless was hitting it a little bit as well and that would be my second question to Miss Matthews, but first of all, I appreciate the uh noting of the trends, right? And uh comparing to other school districts as well, but is there a particular trend that you think we should be aware of that maybe didn't hit a material weakness uh in essence, but something in this

044past uh evaluation that maybe we should just consider? Well, I think um other than, you know, I had mentioned the um the one item that we saw with the purchases, you know, that that they should, you know, be aware of, but I I don't think there was anything else that came across. I mentioned like normally with my other school districts, I can kind of see everybody's on the same trend each year. This was the first year where everybody kind of went in different directions. And so um so we're um we normally have seen trends just because you know based on it just depends like the year that um when you don't have schools going to the bank anymore to deposit money then you're going to see that findings going to go go away. Um so

045sometimes there's changes in rules that may affect the number of findings but we didn't have anything like that this year that was significant. So um so again you know I I feel like at PK County schools it was a very positive thing. there was nothing that raised my um attention as you know something to communicate with the with the district. Um so so I think again it's it is that training and I I think it's it's you know coming along where it it's starting to you know it sometimes takes a little while for it to um for to see the effects of it but I think we're starting to see that here. So, um, no, nothing else that came came to mind during the audit that I communicated or wanted to communicate. So, >> excellent.

046Thank you. So, then that second question was for Miss Matthews. Superintendent um touched on it a bit um to address um some of the issues that um we noted here. Um but any district-wide recommendations that you think um as relates to maybe a brush up on a board policy or anything like that that you can see of benefit? Well, training is always very critical and I know that the accounting staff, Lauren and and Earl, uh, developed a schooly course that was required for schools to take on internal funds. And we've had discussions about maybe bringing back the live um, classes as well because we used to have like a halfday workshop where the secretaries would come. principles were invited as well and so much of what they learned is from each other. So I think

047there was probably value in that. So that would be my only comment that um I think that we might want to consider doing that just to kind of add to the schooly course and just be another format for training because training I think is the the key here. >> All right. Indeed. Uh great report. So, this says a lot about the work that's being done at the district level as well. So, thank you. >> Thank you, >> superintendent. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. I see no further questions or comments. Thank you both very much. >> Board members, the next four items belong to Mr. McLemore. Um, the next item up is the interlocal agreement between the school board of Pulk County and PK County for sidewalks. Board members, just a little bit

048of history here. Um, and several of you have been on the board, so you may recall this. This was a multi-year agreement that we had with this with the county where we contributed a quarter million dollars each year to help um fund additional sidewalk installation. Well, we've reached the end of that contract. Um, and while I know the topic of property taxes has is circulating and our municipalities are are sharing concerns as are is our county as far as the potential impact on them. this is not funded from that. So they would have a funding mechanism moving forward and I'll let Mr. McLemore and the team discuss that with you further. >> Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board, superintendent. Uh as the superintendent has already laid out, um what is before you this

049afternoon is a request to actually renew an existing mut uh interlocal agreement that has existed between the board of county commissioners and the school board itself in which uh the county would retain $250,000 in educational impact fees uh for the use uh really earmarked for sidewalks. And even within that opice of sidewalks, this agreement lays out, okay, well, these sidewalks must be located within a 2-m radius of schools. So, it's not like these funds are being thrown in sidewalks that really do not benefit and aren't tied to the schools themselves. Um, so again, educational impact fees. These are not coming from property taxes or excuse me, sales tax revenues. Uh, they're coming straight from educational impact fees. And just a refresher, educational impact fees are they come from new growth, new residential growth. So, um,

050and just really lastly, uh, so how the BOCC or the county, uh, operates, how they decide where sidewalks go, the sidewalk does have a standing committee, the sidewalk advisory committee that's chaired by Jay Jarvis, which who is the director for roads and drainage. Uh, the school district does have a representative on that uh, committee, uh, Mr. Don Stevens. uh they do meet and um I just uh the uh images that are in the slide are just representative of some of their reports and committee briefings that they receive. So they do do a lot of due diligence and analysis of recommending uh or identifying projects but also prioritizing those projects. Uh with that I stand by for any of the questions. >> Miss White, >> thank you. Um I know this came up several years ago

051and I I'm fully in support of building more sidewalks. Um, you know, one of the things that keeps coming up with Pulk Vision within the pedestrian and bike cycle safety team is that we don't have enough sidewalks, especially in your schools. I'm just curious, how much sidewalk can $250,000 buy? >> So, that is a great question >> because it doesn't seem like it's nearly enough. >> 250 ft. >> Okay. >> It depends on existing conditions, how much improvements need to be made. Uh some of the other uses for uh this fund here is in addition to just the material support if u say there there isn't enough rightway there's not enough room so uh these funds could also help be go uh go towards uh property acquisition to make sure we there is space for

052the sidewalk itself uh but to answer your question I mean it depends on price commodity points um averaging anywhere between 45 to $92 per linear foot and that's a 5 foot wide 4in thick uh sidewalk that meets county standards. >> Okay. So, it my only question is that at some point we may need to look at is that a reasonable amount? Do we need to I mean obviously inflation has hit us rapidly over the past 10 20 years since this was last looked at. So, is that still the same amount that we should be doing as we did in previous years? >> Um I haven't heard any uh >> okay >> inputs from the county side of it. Uh the county funds again the majority of the sidewalk uh through their um through their fund

053accounts. >> Thank you. >> There are no further questions or com Oh, Dr. Allen. >> Thanks, Superintendent. Uh just to continue on that conversation. So, you know, in the write up here in the description of this item, just noted the um the original document that this is sort of uh an addendum to that was produced, you know, in 10 years ago, right? And it says that there's a renewal in March. So this is just the Can you explain like this isn't the full document because that interlocal agreement is a pretty extensive document. Um so it's just is this just one element of that and then are we going to discuss the broader the broader uh agreement? >> So I think we're mixing two two different uh documents. So I think you may be referencing the

054interlocal agreement for school facility planning which is concurrency and >> correct >> future school sighting. This is something this is an interlocal agreement more of a mutual agreement between two political agencies. >> Yep. Okay. >> But yes to answer your question the interlocal agreement is being updated. We're we're meeting with our stakeholders with the cities and the county where it's just a lot to chug through. >> Indeed. So, it was good to have Sarah Beth ask that question first because I know that's top of mind to her as well. So, thank you. No further questions or comments. The next item we have, board members, is the amendment to the installation of a wall at the sheriff's central district command. Board had previously approved this, but this is a requested amendment to that approval. Mr. McLemore.

055So, the tenant, the Pulk County Sheriff's Office, they are requesting an amendment to what was already approved by this board uh based off of further analysis on site. Um, and let me re rehash this a little bit. Uh, the P County Sheriff's Office, we they lease a piece of property from us from Westwood Middle School. Uh the property is located in the southwest corner and because of a recent uh residential development that has taken place just due west as you can see from the site plan that's been inlaid here. Uh that residential development is a multi-story development. You're talking three stories. Uh and so uh the sheriff's office uh by conducting their threat assessment and analysis uh they've identified a possible risk here. And to mitigate that risk, they've uh proposed constructing an actual uh

056solid wall here really to provide screen uh to the rear of their u uh complex there. Uh again, uh based off of additional um on-site meetings and discussions, uh they wanted to make an amendment to further lengthen how uh far to the east along the rear part of their property the wall will expand. Uh and they're requesting to extend it. I think it's another 137 uh linear feet. This project is being paid entirely by the Pulk County Sheriff's Office. The school board is not funding this. Uh they are just adhering to the terms as required by the tenant that any physical construction or modification to the site, they have to first uh seek official um approval through the school board. >> Your questions, >> Miss Miller, >> thank you. This might be a um I

057was looking out the odyssey who's here. This might be a question for one of our sheriffs in the room or the superintendent. Um, this was done in in good faith and it's a great service for that area of Westwood and Inwood. Um, I went to Westwood. My grandmother lived on 28th Street and I know the community is changing and needed that support there. So, I think it's not only generous but a great collaborative effort that we've done um with the sheriff's office. I'm assuming that, you know, we could do more collaborative efforts in the future if any of if any they have any sites that are available for us to to work with. But I'm interested in how much we vol we have um we have volunteers or does Westwood because it's such a great

058school that needs that kind of support. Is there anything that we do not including that building but with the personnel that run out of that office to help support Westwood? Is there any have we made any relationships there with that sheriff's office staff with Westwood? Captain Shay, I'm talking I'm looking at you. >> It's just a great location. I wish we had more substations in other areas of um higher need that would benefit from building relationships with staff in your uniform. >> Yes, I would obviously we implore the uh the deputies and the staff that work out of that building to engage the students, especially while they're out there um during recess and everything else to let them know like as our program that we put out in the community, deputies are your friends. We

059want to make sure that those kids are engaging with us and that they know that we're their friends and they can approach us with information. Do I know of anything specific? No. But I have worked out of that office and I know that I would engage the kids while they're out there. So, I'm sure it's still being done. It's something that we make sure is a part of that because I mean the fence is no taller than some of the kids that go to school there. though that on the back side >> and I I mean if we had all captain shayes then the world would be a better place. Um as we change leadership there because the leadership is moving on um I just want to make sure they know because your building could

060be there but there could be a silent wall where they're not sure what they can do as far as communication. But I think we're missing an opportunity with that school and those students if we don't try to collaborate and we can implore them but I bet if you implored them they'd be more implored that if than if I implored them. I will be happy to express that for you. Yes, ma'am. >> Mr. Sharpless. >> I just want to say I think uh you know I think it's when the school board approved this back in the day. I think it was uh a very wise move. When you talk about having a substation directly next to a school site, you want to improve uh response time. I mean, you just hop over the fence, right? And

061so, um I'm with you, board member Miller. If we could see more of these kind of partnerships in some of our schools, I think it would be a great thing. No question, just comment. >> No further questions or comments. >> Board members, the next item up is the corrective deed and resolution with Hayne City for the Massie right Massie road right ofway dedication. >> And so, board this afternoon, uh, council will correct me here. Uh this is really uh this matter is being brought back uh to help correct uh scrier error that was made on the original uh recorded um legal description and ordinance uh resolution. Uh there was an incorrect legal description uh contained in the attached exhibits uh when this went to go and be recorded by the city of Hayes City that

062has since been resolved and corrected. So this matter just uh seeks to actually correct uh the typos that were contained in the original document. >> Correct. >> I see no further I see no questions or comments. Thank you board members. The next time Mr. Green I'm sorry. Did you want to share anything or you >> I can just Yeah. So, it's it's being brought back on the consent agenda, and that's again the um uh the previous resolution indeed that had uh an incorrect legal description were recorded. So, we need to kind of unravel that, get the correct version approved and and re-recorded. So, that's going to uh be put on the consent agenda this evening. >> But the board had previously approved this. >> Yes. Board members, the next item up is the draft for

063the comprehensive middle school reszoning. Um to let the board members give you a little bit of an update on the elementary. >> Yeah. >> I maybe I did that intentionally, >> but that's okay. Workshop. Today's workshop is brought to you by the letter A. All right. So, the next item is right ofway dedication along Gilbert Street from Pinewood Elementary. >> Good afternoon again, uh, Mr. Chair, members of the board, superintendent. Uh, this item before you this afternoon is, uh, the county seeking a ride ofway dedication, uh, along the frontage of Pinewood Elementary. Uh, what had existed here historically was something called a right-of-way easement. Uh, and typically an easement is not something you necessarily want in terms of a rightway. you would rather it be dedicated uh all outright because think of it in terms

064and specifically for this purpose um for uh right ofway you're talking about ownership who's responsible for what resides within that physical space of an easement whereas right ofway dedication it then is dedicated to the public welfare um or well-being for this case but in this instance uh the county owns Gilbert Street uh it is a county maintained road the county is actually in the process of transferring uh jurisdiction for that uh to Eagle Lake and it was in the process of them getting all the paperwork ready to do the official transfer that it was uh found that hey actually there's a little bit of right-of-way dedication that needs to be accounted for uh and change that rightway easement to a rideway dedication um to account for uh the improvements that the county has made along

065Gilbert Street as well as some existing sidewalk pending your questions. Seeing none, board members, the next item is the draft comprehensive middle school resoning. What I'd like to do is preface the conversation and presentation as staff prepare um with a little bit of clarification. This presentation was amended. Initially, it did have some maps and even there are two middle schools that presently have an MSAP grant um that will extend through 2028 according to staff. And so while we have every intention on bringing um maps and zoning that would reflect magnet school zones for students within proximity to the school. Um and I'm trying to make sure that I don't use a word because there's there's there's a word I used the other day in discussion or with Miss Wyatt that we use differently and I

066don't want to add to the confusion, but essentially there will be an attendance boundary for all of those schools. uh the board will ultimately have an opportunity to decide for both elementary schools and middle schools what percentage of the school's enrollment will come from immediate adjacency to the school whether that's 20% 30% 40% you'll receive those maps. So, for the sake of today's conversation, which was really primarily to highlight the timelines and do some other things, I pulled the maps out uh but again based off discussion with board members and made sure that we would not mislead anyone and put information out there that would later become confusing confusing because we had posted something here. So, board members just keep that in mind as we go through today's presentation. So, I will turn it over

067to staff. Good afternoon. Um I am going to really quick just go over some data with you and then I'm going to let Mr. Coney come up and speak about our next steps um for the ABC. So I know that this slide is again very data heavy. Um this is the results we got with the ABC when I spoke with you guys at the retreat and we were talking about our next meeting with the ABC was going to be to look at all the middle school zones. um together and wow okay I talk with my hands um and um so we did do that at our last meeting and then this is the final data pulled with the most recent numbers when you look at the columns what you're seeing is where it says current

068zoned and then it says new zone and change please keep in mind those numbers especially some of them might give you a heart attack when you see boon these are all the children that live in that zone they don't necess necessarily go to Boone. They don't even necessarily go to one of our schools. They could be a charter school. These are just all the children we're tracking in the zone. So when we reszone, we have to make the note of how many kids totally live in the zone, how many kids were moving out. So that's what you're seeing when you see those numbers. That's why that over towards the other end is the enrolled students. And you'll see that's a totally different number than the zoned students. So, um, but that's what we're keeping track

069of. But I did want to note, it's on here down there. The one thing we don't keep track of is private stu school students and homeschool students. So, the others we have in there, we know the charter, we know the choice out, but we don't know the private and home school. So, but that's what that first column is. When we worked with the ABC, we figured out how many kids were currently in the zone. We figured out how many of those same kids would still be in the new zone and what the change was. When you see also the change in utilization, I just want to remind you we're anticipating just like we are with the high schools with that soft enrollment or a soft roll up. We're anticipating most children are probably going to

070stay, the ones that are already enrolled. So those changes in utilization, it's not going to be, oh, we implement this and boom, we've got this change in utilization. It's going to take a few years to work through the system while the current students come out. Um, and that's really if you guys have any questions for me about the utilization before I hand this over to uh Mr. Coney, please let me know. >> Miss Wyatt, >> um, I guess my question is we don't have included on here any of the 612 schools. >> Correct. So, and um, because we are approving those with the high schools, we're not going to have a different boundary for the middle school portion. So, that's actually part of the high school stuff that we've already gone through and then those

071are set. >> Okay. It would still be helpful to see those numbers on here just for comparison. Um, and also just in looking at where some of those students may or may not be going, >> but um yeah, I mean I have I Superintendent Hyde and I talked at length about the um magnet schools. My question is more for Superintendent Hyde. Can you give us what the two magnet schools are and can we get something with confirmation that they go through 28? Cuz the last >> I'm sending that to you right now. >> The last ones we approved were in 2022 which means they should close in 27. >> So my understanding is they have to go an extension through September 2028. While they do close in 27, we are submitting a no cost extension

072through the end of 28. Um those are Stevens Academy, Garner Academy, Blake Academy, Bthoon Academy, and Daniel Jenkinsmies. >> And you're going to send us also rationale for why why we're extending those >> similar to why we've extended in the past. Either we still have remaining funds that we'd like to continue with those activities or but yes, I can provide that. >> You can send us an explanation. >> Mr. Sharpless, >> I don't know if this is a question for you or for Mr. Coney. I'm not sure and if it is one for somebody else, just tell me. We'll wait. Um but on the next steps, um it mentioned that we're going to use the same PR strategies and communication plan that we did with the high school resoning and I was and I was

073just wondering my question is what did we learn from that uh process and was there anything that we can do to improve um you know our April meetings, our town halls and that kind of stuff? Um, okay. So, it is technically what Mr. Con is going to be speaking to in the next slide. Um, but >> would you like to answer that? >> Okay. >> Um, if you want if nobody else has questions for me, I can hand it over to him. >> M Wallace. >> Okay. Sorry. Sorry. >> Hello. Um, I just want to make sure I was interpreting the data correctly on the chart on slide two where you when we're in the enrolled and utilization, I'm just looking at Boone for example. I'm trying to make sure I understand the difference between

074the 75% versus 99%. Are we saying that's how the utilization would change after the reszone? >> So, um, and that's why it's got the asterisk. So, on Boon on the on the schools, >> I know, sorry I to catch you up. So, the ones that have the double are the ones that have portables or not. >> I see. >> And so, yeah, that first column is telling you what their utilization is with and without portables. And then the second column is telling you what the change would be with and without portables. And obviously our ultimate goal is we're trying to eliminate portables. >> Um we can't just boom take them all out immediately, but that's one of the goals as well. >> And one more followup and I think this is connected to Mrs. Wyatt's

075question is um and thank you for explaining all the nuances of each column is just while looking at Boone um I noticed that there's close to 3,500 students that are potentially eligible to go but we ultimately have 1,260 which is almost onethird of that. So are are we aware and that seems like a a small proportion compared to some of these other ratios. So are we aware why why that um delta is pretty wide compared to some of those other ones? >> So overall our choice out for the district is a 30% kids choice out from their zone. But in areas where we may have more charter schools um in areas where so they may have more choice things like that can affect it. And so Boon is one of those that just has more

076choice out >> all over the place, right, >> than a regular or average. We just have these outliers sometimes and that's one of them. >> Okay. Thank you. Because I was thinking where the ones where there's um some additional students that we could be serving is is thinking about as we reszone is what do we do to make it extra attractive um to to come back to us. So, thank you, >> Mr. Keys. Yeah, I was just going to speak to that too is is having served on that committee for gosh long time on that one too. Um that one in that area you have two choice out middle schools right in that general area and that are very very popular that go out both for a STEM program and arts program. So I was

077going to ask the same question cuz I didn't see those but I thank you for answer and thank you for asking that question because that's when you see that number if you ever walk along Boone too that's a portable city out there. So to see what what would go up to 99% utilization without those. Obviously we want to try to get those to go away, but um and in addition to that, not along the subject line, but how fortunate are we when we built Scenic Terrace that that was a big enough school to incorporate a middle school option and we've seen some of that go there. And so you see that utilization on the same token, you know, on the on the bottom the bottom one there, you know, of current zoned and new zoned

078and an up 86% because that current that wasn't an option before. And that leads me to my question about that. Currently at Alta Vista, we are sixth grade and we're going to be seventh grade and then eighth grade. Is that correct? So we'll see that number rise and with that hopefully the utilization of Boone Middle go down. Is that correct? >> Yes. Okay. Excellent. >> Um, we are we are looking So, yes, Altabista is going to relieve Boone, but keep in mind that 86% is all the way through the eighth grade. >> That's right. Okay. >> So, >> fantastic. Thank you, >> Miss Wyatt. >> Thank you. So, I also had a question on when were the current zoned and new zone numbers pulled um or sorry, the not the current the zoned, the enrolled

079pulled because I had a couple schools that it looks like they may have way more students now than when those numbers were actually pulled. Um so, just want to >> um I just pulled them out of focus like two weeks ago. >> Okay, so they are up to date then. Okay, >> thank you. Um, I will say the current zoned and change zone stuff, we were still working on the FTE numbers. >> Okay. >> But I wanted to give you the enrollment as close as I could, >> but the actual enrollment for that. So, those are students that are sitting in those seats today. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Mr. Coney. >> Good morning. Uh, good afternoon, Superintendent Hyde and board members. Uh Terry Cony, chairperson of the academic boundary committee. Uh before I start

080out with timeline, uh just want to uh remind everybody why why we are doing this. And when we went through this with the high schools, we had several questions that came up. So uh we're doing it because of growth. uh maximize the utilization for the schools and then we want to optimize the uh our transportation uh resources for our students. So, as you look at the timeline, and I think I mentioned this in the last presentation I gave with the high schools, this this just didn't start within the last year uh when both uh board men member Keys and Sharpless, we started the whole high school process. So, this has been going on for a while. Uh new school come, new high school coming up on the east side of the county. uh uh caused

081the whole process to come to to a halt or delayed for a little while until that site uh was finalized and that's been finalized. So we started the process with the high school. So we went through all the numbers with the staff and starting the end of August through September in the first part of October uh we did public presentations uh from Barto High School, Lakeland High School, Win Haven Hayes City and finally Mclofflin. And I'm not sure how staff felt about it. uh we didn't get a lot of uh turnout and we actually had some turnout from both uh middle school and elementary school parents uh because I guess they want to see as their kids moved up where their kids will be going cuz we actually received a comment uh I think it

082was from an elementary parent that they moved to the area where they currently live because of the high school that was assigned to that particular area. So, you have to keep in mind um we're starting at the high school level and going down, but some our residents actually look at it going up. So, you can take a look at the uh red line for the high schools and we got a little bit extended uh because of some delays. So, we're finishing up at least you will approve the high school uh hopefully tonight. Uh we started the middle school process. uh you just saw the numbers and uh hopefully we'll stay close to that timeline and we'll move down to the uh elementary schools. So, how's how's this all working? Uh we we gather the comments

083from the public through survey, we do a PR campaign, and then finally we do the T town hall process. And again uh going back to my experience when my kids were in high in school uh there were more parent participation and engagement from the elementary school that fell off a little bit in in middle school and then fell off a lot in high school. Uh which I think most of you know we probably need more parent involvement at the high school level than at elementary. But that's that's what we probably can foresee as we go through these next town halls. So that may mean that we may have more a little more participation when we talk about the middle schools. We're probably going to have a lot more participation when we talk about the elementary

084schools. So in March, we'll go through the uh PR strategies and uh the timeline for the town halls will be through the month of uh April. You can see the dates, the 9th, 16th, 2020, and the 30th. And uh just like with the high schools, we finalize with a uh virtual presentation, which we did here. And then we will uh in June, uh after staff gets the chance to look at all the uh the information, uh it'll be presented to the work session. Are there any questions? >> Well, thank you for your time. >> Wait, Mr. Sharpless, >> I was just just uh the question that I had posed earlier. What did we learn? Have we learned anything from the first go around in the high school uh as far as our PR strategies, how

085to increase participation? I know you mentioned that just the simple fact of elementary school parents being more involved. I was just wondering if we learned anything through our committee uh to how potentially what why why do you think there was a low participation rate >> and that could also be a question for Mr. McLemore too? >> Uh well again some parents as their kids get older they feel like uh they don't need to be as much engaged. Now as far as the public feedback I'll turn that over to staff. So, I'm I'm going to remind the board, please, to direct questions through the superintendent to direct staff. Um, but you're fine, Mr. McLemore, but specifically, we've addressed this question before. The the high school lack of participation, I think we're assuming that physical bodies present

086in the room means a lack of participation. Please keep in mind that this was well covered by all local media outlets. It was well covered in social media. It was all over our Facebook page. it was well communicated not just by the district but by every single respective school repeatedly about upcoming meetings and those types of things. I think additionally what needs to be factored into this is the tr is the reality that we offer so much school choice and so every time you've looked at data in particular about the high schools that you've seen when 40% of students are not attending their zone school because they're pursuing an option. That's why I don't think parents are having the reaction that some of you may anticipate or or the general public may anticipate because we

087do offer so much choice far more so than than many others. And I think that creates the opportunity, but this was been well communicated. The only thing that we said that I shared at the last meeting when we talked about the middle school and elementary um town halls was that we would increase the number that we there's no way physically that staff can address every single elementary and middle school. But we will make sure to offer multiple options within each region because we want to afford and make sure parents have that voice. Surveying, communication tools, all those things will be utilized again because it has been successful to date. and and I and all I simply asked was just what lessons did we learn? And I think those are all kind of lessons that we

088learned. I don't see why I have to feel like I mean I I can ask a question. I don't understand the problem. >> The staff the questions from the board are supposed to be directed through the superintendent through the >> Okay. My my point is all I wanted to know is what kind of lessons did we learn? So thank you for addressing that. So in in doing a debrief and afteraction review of how the town halls were conducted, we met collectively as a team and we looked over our notes and thought brainstormed how do we think we could make participation better. And a good point was raised on our staff was well what if we've pushed out the start time from 5 to 5:30. This allows parents a little more time to get home from

089work, get the kids settled, and then try to get to a town hall meeting. So, that's something we're looking at addressing and possibly uh adjusting when we do these next rounds of town halls. >> Miss White, >> thank you. Um, and I appreciate the, you know, looking to do our town halls, not just one in each, you know, district because it's it can be a long we're a very large county, so only holding six of them, having one within 30 minutes of you is not necessarily guaranteed. Um, so I'm hopeful that we, especially when we look at South County, we'll look at um, maybe doing one in each of those communities as opposed to having them combined because I know that was um, one of the issues last time is that it's it's a long

090ways when you're you're down there. Um, >> I have a few questions that are more specifically as we're looking forward on the middle school. Um, I sent an I sent a follow-up email just on the um, MSAP and extension and getting more information as to why we're extending, how much money's left. Um, it's still over a year and a half out, so I'm confused as to why we are anticipating not spending it down in time. Um, I currently would not be supportive of extending it because I don't want to get us into a position where we can't properly zone the schools in year one and we're going to have to do a phased in approach to reszoning the middle schools to be able to to partially zone some of those magnet schools, which I think

091is important to be able to launch it all at once. So, if we can't do it all at once in 27, then we may need to push back reszoning until 28. Um, which I know is not the ideal situation because we need to do it sooner rather than later. So, updated information on that, but I wanted to make sure it was on the record here as well because sometimes things get lost in translation. Um, so when can we expect to see the new maps? Because if they're talking about doing the town halls in April and it has to come to us first and February starts on, >> you will start seeing the maps for middle school in particular in February. >> Um, because there's not a lot that has to be done. As I mentioned,

092you're going to get a heat map that shows a 10% radius, a 20% radius, 30% radius, 40% radius. It'll all be overlapping. And then that ultimately will be your the tool that you can use to decide. And that's what we intend to capture. There will not be students that require transportation unless the parents choose to do that because of proximity to the school, but those will be students within that two-m radius. But we want to make sure the numbers align. The other issue just to kind of touch on the MSAP grant while we're looking at the renewal, it could be because the federal deadline is much sooner. It's not at the end of the fiscal year. It's an ongoing and I'd have to get you that information as well. I'll include that. Additionally, um I

093need to make sure that even if we decide the board decides um based off a recommendation from our office to either accept the extension request or to deny the extension request and and return any unspent funds. I need to make sure that that doesn't expose us to funds that have already been spent and that we're not going to have to repay additional dollars. Number one. And then number two, I don't know if there's a timeline post MSAP grant that we must remain in compliance with the the grant outlines before we're allowed to do what we're about to do for other schools that have exited from MSA MSAP grants historically. So there's a little bit more to it. So I just need time with staff. >> Okay. If we could get that information before the next

094work session, absolutely very helpful. >> Absolutely. >> Um >> I don't know what that note to myself was. Um, oh the the last question I had was if so I know you're bringing us the heat map. So after that the maps will come to us based on what heat map we select that will actually have those within that heat. So if we select the 10% anyone within the 10% would be zoned to garner. Correct. It wouldn't be zoned anywhere else. They would be zoned to garner. >> Correct. >> Thank you. >> If it was Yeah. For for Yes. >> For what? Whichever level we've Okay. So it will come to us twice then maps. >> Yes ma'am. And then we'll get the >> parental choice. Correct. And yes, so the heat maps and then we'll

095get the actual maps. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you, >> Miss Wallace. >> Thank you, Mr. Superintendent Commissioner Con. So neat to be able to call you that. Thank you for your service. Thanks to all your colleagues who served and just appreciate that and um knowing that you're involved uh helps me trust trust the process even further. So, thank you. Um, I just wanted to uh make a observation and a comment based on one of the things that a parent shared with you about how they intentionally purchased a home to access a school is that that is a form of school choice. That is that's a means form of school choice, too, because we know there's certain houses in PK County where if they're in one zip code, they're worth something and you could pick

096up that same house and drop it in another uh address and it would be worth something completely different. And oftent times that value is attached to what school it's zoned to. And so um it is national school choice week. And I just wanted to say that um you know I'm glad you guys are looking at and giving us this information so we can understand that there are people who had to make price and had to spend certain amounts of money. Um but that at the end of the day I support robust choice because I never want our public schools to be whose access is for sale to the highest bidder. that it really is that we do allow people who regardless of what address they can or cannot afford that they have multiple options. And

097so I know this is um creating more complications, but it doesn't mean we can't solve them. So, thank you, >> Miss Miller. >> Thank you, Commissioner Coney. I again wanted to congratulate you on your new position and staying involved in our committees even after you're taking on more responsibility. I think that will be part of the messaging. Um, high schools don't usually draw because of the choice and because of how legislation has was made under the Rick Scott administration about uh choosing that high school student or high school for your student that it is much more e it's much more easy for the parents not to have it on the forefront of high school like they would elementary. The main the main comments I heard were from stu parents of students in elementary schools who

098were concerned about magnet zones which are based on your high school zone. And I think that was really the only only concerns we heard back. I think part of our PR effort um like many things even we have community meetings on support services ESC services unless it's happening to you um a lot of people just push it back because their days are are crowded with their schedules and their work and their children. Um, I think it's going to be an ongoing messaging that we have to do. I hope that we can include it and we have already, but to continue include it in our updates, the superintendent's newsletter that goes out. I think it would be helpful to have that newsletter go to our elected officials in the cities who will also get these calls

099sometimes. And in the county, I think we should make their PR teams aware of this information so they have it. as well as uh the realtors and the others. You know, as a licensed broker, that is information that could go permanently on a chamber site and or at least a link um on chamber sites andor the realtor Lakeland Realer Association or Barto Association sites. Um so, it's easily accessible so if someone calls, we can we can refer them over. Um but I appreciate the work done on this and I think it will get unfortunately a little more in the weeds as we go to Middle and Elementary, but in the end, it's going to be better um for our families and for our county. When we talk about choice, we have to mention that we're

100one of maybe any or very few districts that still bus for choice. And that is a hard decision to make as we're currently funded. So, as we make these decisions, unfortunately, people may have to may have less choice if it comes down to providing transportation. But that's why we're working so hard to duplicate programs around the district. I just want I just want people to know that this is going out and if we can um extend those channels, it would just make it easier for everyone. Thank you, >> Miss Fields. >> Thank you. Uh, Superintendent Hyde, I had a question concerning the fund. So, if you can get clarity on that and what happens to the funds if we don't utilize them the the magnet. So, >> yeah. So, any unused funds would have to

101revert back to the federal government. The question though is if we have I don't know if there's a caveat in there because some grants will that if we've not fulfilled the grant obligation are we then responsible to return the entirety of the fund or or a larger portion of the fund. So we just need some time to review the grant application and make some calls to USD and find out what potential implications there would be. And then I'll include as Miss Wyatt requested, we'll include the the remaining fund amount for each one of the schools that would be affected. And >> it's going to be very important. So, thank you for that. Yes, ma'am. >> Uh I agree with Mr. Con about the high school interest for parents would not be as important for high

102schoolers. I remember when my son was in high school, uh he really wanted to be detached from his mom. Um, and so, uh, I think middle school would would draw interest, but elementary for sure. Uh, and I think that from the presentation that the staff did at the retreat, uh, I I don't remember which staff member talked about the the outstanding job that the public relations uh, department did when we were working on the resoning for the high schools. So, I think we just need to continue to use those uh, those uh, techniques and enhance it. And I definitely think that we need to uh transition from 5:00 to maybe 5:30 or 6 because parents are trying to get home and traffic is is is very heavy during that time and I just think we

103need to make it more amanable for them. U those would be my comments. >> Dr. Allen, >> thanks superintendent. Uh just a fruitful conversation. Mr. Con, thank you for being here and your leadership um with our attendance boundary committee uh as well. And I think it's good to put this in that uh broader context as well. Um you know, obviously we're addressing high school resoning tonight. We're we're voting on that as a board. Um and then, you know, if we look around, we're seeing surrounding districts uh openly grapple uh with utilization. You know, Orange County, uh Bvard, um I think even Pineellis addressing uh utilization drops. And you noted it. Um, you know, we're doing this uh in regards to growth and we are blessed uh as a county and across the state as it

104relates to growth. So, you know, so when we think about that, yes, we want the best educational experience for our students. This is all about our students. Um but if you look at the highlight of the state audit findings from last year, I think it's really important to consider and look at um the top 25 school districts with um the highest level of growth in the last 5 years. Um and only focus on the larger districts within that 25. Um Pole County would be the top, right? 13.6 uh percentage growth within the last 5 years. the closest to us being Duval maybe six. Um so in this broader conversation around you know utilization drops we haven't had to deal with that and um you know that's that's a positive thing um right now and so

105I think the work that we're doing is so important because of that as well. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you to the committee. Um and I did have one thought one question. I've you know sent some questions to the superintendent. This was a question that came up in the most recent attendance boundary committee and one I think is foundational for this work as well. Um is how intentionally we are using the boundary adjustments to reduce the reliance on portables. That was a question that came up. Superintendent, you know, really hope that as we're going through this, we have a strategy in place um to effectively reduce um that footprint uh around the district. Um, so I appreciate the wise work that we're doing on this. This is very important work. So,

106thank you. >> Um, m Dr. Allen, we did discuss this briefly uh either during a retreat or during a workshop. I provided the board with all of the analysis on portable utilization. Um, but that's going to be a much larger conversation about enrollment and resoning because while resoning will help us accomplish probably 60 70% of what we're trying to address, the other part's just going to have to require some aggressive and brave decisions by the board. Uh, and I understand the position it puts the board in because we're going to have to cap enrollment at schools. um because our historical solution so if we establish a boundary and given the fact that we haven't touched boundaries in over 10 years um states that this not something that we are that we remain that we adjust

107on an annual basis nor should we because that's very disruptive. But our response then is for a community then that sees growth is we add a bunch of portables to a school and then we end up on the hook for even having to purchase those, lease those and then maintain them. And really what we should do and the recommendations that we will bring before the board to help address this topic moving forward is cap enrollment. And unfortunately when a school hits its enrollment cap that means that student can only attend the next closest school. we then have an obligation to transport that student. But we are going to have to come up with some other solutions uh in addition to that for the board to consider because those are tough decisions have to be made.

108I agree we need to reduce our over footprint on our portables and we have consistently been doing that throughout this year. Any portable that's not being utilized is being removed being disconnected um so that we or or reassigned elsewhere. um the three high schools that have the largest number of portables will be addressed with the opening of a new high school. Um and unfortunately that's just the reality for those areas right now because we don't have any place else to displace those students. Um unless the board um directed me or requested of me to have staff evaluate the possibility of adding additional classroom space on those campus and impermanent facilities. for example, adding a wing, another two-story wing to Ridge, another two-story wing to Hayne City, another two-story wing somewhere at Davenport High School. Those

109are the kinds of things we'd have to talk through um that are alternatives to enrollment cap. But enrollment cap is a strategy that's used by by many districts. Um it it it can be frustrating because if the enrollment cap is met and the student literally lives across the street or moves in over the summer, then they may have to go five, six miles away to attend the next closest school. But it it is a it is a a process that can be managed. Um and that's the only way to truly start to move in that direction to eliminate those portable classrooms. We've talked about this before. I don't believe that they're that they're that they provide the same educational opportunities and experiences to students. Uh especially when we start talking about labs and those types

110of things. So this this is a much bigger conversation moving forward. I do have the data that you requested. Uh staff were able to provide that to me specific to high schools. Um there are two high schools I need to confirm, Tenerock and one other because the number of portables being utilized and number of available portables on the campus for one of the schools does not match. So, I want to go back to staff, confirm those numbers, and then I'll share that with the whole board. >> Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Keys, >> Mr. Con, Commissioner Con, I just wanted to say thank you. There's a lot of information been shared, but um having been in the role that you're in and um knowing the amount of time that it takes, the questions that

111are asked, I just wanted to commend you for always being involved and continue to be involved. And thank you for taking part in this. We appreciate you. There are no further questions or comments. Thank you. >> I just want to make a a a closing comment. Uh I'd like actually like to thank all the uh uh schoolboard members that came out to the uh public town halls. Uh for each public town hall mean there was at least uh one schoolboard member and I think most there are at least at least two. We actually had one elected county official there and uh I I think that made a difference. We we had uh the media especially at the first one and then at a virtual and uh when we when I spoke and gave the numbers

112each slide really showed the importance of the reasonzoning and eliminating the portables. So I think that information got out to the public. uh especially for the schools on the east side of east side of the county to show the numbers or the p percentage of students with and without the portables especially at Hayes City High School. So I think staff did a great job putting all those numbers together and I appreciate the continual working with you and the committee. Thank you. >> Thank you sir. Board members, the next item before you that we'll do a quick presentation on and share on um is procedures regarding travel and expenses. These are administrative procedures. Uh during one of our previous meetings, there was an obvious need for us to clarify procedures related to a policy and that

113policy is policy 6550. And again, it's administrative which covers all of our staff in particular um senior staff and others. But that was done intentionally to make sure that everyone understands explicitly how to do certain things because there are some areas when it comes to travel andor allowances that were unclear and allowed for speculation. And so it's my intent as superintendent to provide those procedures. This is not a board action. This is my action. Um and while I'm not required to disclose those procedures, it is something I do repeatedly for the board. I provide you copies of memos. I provide you copies of technical assistance papers that go out to our staff, our administrators. And so this is a matter of transparency. How it is related to the board was there have been questions about

114inclusion of such practices in the executive assistance handbook, but also in a board handbook. And so that's why this was brought for you. Number one, I'm just I'm sharing with you what I'm sharing with my with our staff as far as expectations from the school district. And then wanted to get some feedback and some conversation going with the board as it relates to do you want to see this amended to reflect the board's needs because there are some things listed here that do not apply to the board. For example, the board does not complete TDAs. Um, but there are some other things in there that the board may wish to go ahead and include in the handbook and in the procedure guide for the executive assistance office. So, I'll open it up for any questions

115or comments. Miss Miller, >> we might have this scheduled already, but I think as Mr. Green and I have kept him busy, unfortunately, um, with trying to define things, we need a retreat. Um, I know we you have a retreat, but when we have time as a board, I would like to request um a few minutes just to talk about the board side of this, which is different than what we're doing today because I don't know if we have a current policy or if the policy needs to be amended for that. This got convoluted and I think that's where a lot of the confusion happened. Um, but I would love along with that budgetary conversation for board members that that be included with travel um so we can best understand best practice and what our

116responsibilities are to the public. Thank you. Miss White, >> thank you. I have one of the things I was going to bring up in board comments today is our policy because I think that our because our the policy that governs board members is different than the policy that covers staff. Um, and some verbiage changes in our policy that may clean things up and make it mirror what state law is. Um, but I think part of that too may need to say in our policy that our um that we are to follow the same guidelines when it comes to booking hotels, things like that as is in process for the rest of the district. Um, and I Mr. Green, I know that you are really good at words smmithing those things and making them legitimate. So

117that is the idea that I would like to put in because I think that it can be as easy as you know this is it needs to follow the same process as we do for the rest of the district that it should be government rates that it should be um for rental cars or for um hotels or anything like that. >> Was that to put it in policy or in your handbook? just to to put it in the handbook, but that in that policy may need to refer to okay >> that we are to follow the same processes as when it comes to booking >> because there's I and I share this with the rest of the board just for background there's a request to for Mr. green and we were discussing it earlier to

118to revisit the the policy I think that was adopted in 2019 2014. Um the concern is a simple edit to that's going to be a two-month timeline because of the requirements for advertisement and public hearing. So thank you for clarifying because it would make more sense for it to refer to the board handbook or procedural guide which we can edit instantaneously does not require that same thing then put it into policy. So, I just want to make sure I caught that correctly. So, thank you. >> Thank you, >> Miss Fields. >> I was just going to say I would think it would need to be in the handbook u and making sure that whatever the requirements are for the general staff that we are also abiding by that and and it's very clear especially for

119new board members. >> Thank you, Mr. Green. Yeah, just to uh reiterate that um the board travel is is based on policy 0147.1. These procedures here are to interpret and provide further guidance on policy 6550. So these procedures are helpful. um they might serve as a foundation for you know future guidance for the for the board members but they're not I think there was confusion because the coincidence of >> me replacing the TDA form with the form that the policy requires they the timing of that kind of coincided and so there was some confusion as to what applies to what um I've already uh asked staff to look at the policy to try to bring it more in line with the statute because the policy right now is a little more restrictive on what it

120requires as far as um approvals for outofcount travel. So they're going to look at that um and and try to bring those in line and then with that they can also um use the existing procedures to pro create a document that would be more helpful for the for the board members and their travel. Right. Thank you. There are no further questions or comments. Next item, board members, we have Florida's future powered by public schools. This is a joint initiative. Um Mr. Gary is has been selected uh I think I shared this with you briefly previously um to help lead this initiative across the state um with several other keys key PIOs from other large districts um and they've worked collaboratively with other smaller districts that and have found that many of them may not have

121the same resources or opportunities. And so the goal here is to continue to reiterate the importance of public schools and to and to celebrate those things and and move away a little bit from the competitive aspect between districts and more of a collaborative effort to continue to support the benefits of what we do each day and how students student outcomes we share in that. Uh so I will turn it over to Mr. Giri for today's brief presentation and discussion. >> Thank you sir. Uh good afternoon school board. I just wanted to go kind of go over an initiative that we're really excited to be a part of. Mr. Hyde gave a very nice overview of this. This is an initiative that we are doing in conjunction with FADS. So, uh just to kind of give

122you the the macro level of what this is. This is the various communications departments throughout the state of Florida are going to be working together on this. So, the various versions of myself and other folks throughout the districts are taking part in a a campaign to celebrate the importance and and the value of of public schools throughout uh the state of Florida. This is a campaign to celebrate good news. It's mainly meant to work together to amplify our message, basically have us rowing in the same direction with the good work that we're already doing. Um, this allowed me to be able to meet my counterparts throughout the state of Florida over in a fall conference with FADS. It was a great experience. We learned a lot from each other. Uh, made great connections and have

123all been working together on this in the months since then. Um, and it was extremely interesting to see various levels of, you know, size of districts. You have large ones, you have small ones. We all kind of face the same kind of challenges and struggles together. And it was interesting to see like how we are uh attacking different problems and we realized we could learn a lot from each other. And that's really what this comes down to. We're doing good work. Let's just do good work together. And the purpose of this again is to amplify good news stories throughout the various districts of of Florida. And it's a high level campaign meant to simply celebrate what our public schools bring and the value that they have in our communities. Um the campaign itself is called

124Florida's future powered by public schools because truly that's what this m this is what this is about. our school system. Many the majority of folks and families choose to be in our public schools because there's there is great value there. And it's an idea to celebrate the programs and all the initiatives, all the different things that we do that help uh bring great uh positive uh stories to our district and allow us to be able to impact the lives of students in a great way. Our target audiences are varied. This includes folks who are already within our schools because we want them to understand that where that where they're at is a great place and be and understand the great things that are there. It's to also reach out to those who aren't in our

125schools to show them what they could have if they are going to have students. Miami Dave brought up a great point and it was a it was a neat idea. They have a a bib program where they have bibs that have their school district on there and they provide them to to new parents to new mothers. they're I mean these are folks who aren't really even thinking about enrolling their kid in a school at all and yet that's one of the free gifts that they get right when they're there. Um there are great ideas to reach those parents that aren't even in the school system. Our um uh we we shared our camp early bird program with with folks there about that's one of the things that we do to try to reach out to

126our incoming kindergarters or folks who've never been in a preschool program. A lot of folks were interested about that. The good news is is in addition to working together on this, we're learning from each other and uh it's really been exciting to be able to work with other districts on that and kind of, you know, get different ideas from each other. The other target audiences mainly one of the a huge one was the student voice because ultimately that is what that's what makes the difference. If you know that a student actually loves the program, the school that's in that's and whatever it is that that lights the fire in them, that's what actually shows the value of our school system. So between that alumni, famous alumni, but even just any anybody who's doing well, that

127shows people that we are preparing them for great futures and it'll help solidify the value that we're bringing. But again, these are all different different groups that we're talking about here. Even community members who don't have children in our schools need to know that we're preparing the uh the police officers, the nurses, the various other folks who are going to provide uh great services to them throughout their throughout their community. We also want to be able to celebrate our educators and school staff, the backbone and the very foundation of what we do, and local businesses and organizations that we work with and that we partner with to help build strong workforces and our elected officials who help the who influence the public and the decisions and policy matters that impact us. We've already begun phase

128one and that has been in this this month. There was a soft roll out this month to begin celebrating um various themes each month. Um and you'll see in a in a moment there is a timeline for different uh that with some with a lot of thought put into the natural occurrences of the school of the school district and the school year. Um the the various school districts are going to be working together on these targeted themes from January through May and we're going to be and we're building out from uh uh June forward also but we'll talk about that in a moment. But the goal is to look at the unparalleled academic and extracurricular activities, opportunities, services, and resources that our uh public schools provide. Um, a huge benefit that a lot of the

129uh TR departments were very interested in and communications department was creating a uh basically a think of it as a community a clearing house of different resources they can use uh various templates and uh uh Canva related um materials that they can use. So flyers, scripts, uh story starters, uh things like that that that even the smaller districts who may not have a full-fledged communications team could easily tap into and they can join into this again to be a part of this statewide campaign. These are some of the for instance, this is these are some of the templates that the flyers that were put together. They're easily uh convertible by all the different districts, especially our smaller districts. they're able to utilize some of these and be able to take part in our campaign if

130they don't have a team that can help help out with it. Here's some more. So, here are the our initial themes. January was the acceleration pathways month. Most districts are kind of like us. Our school choice priority window is open. This is the point where you have uh students that are seeking out programs like IBEC and our dual enrollment and are interested in these different things. This was an opportunity for us to begin. So we've started doing that celebrating our our various acceleration pathways. Uh next month February is going to be STEM CTE and our magnet programs. Again March turn is uh arts sports and school school sponsored extracurricular activities. April is our various student support services. In May because we are graduating that's our chance to be able to celebrate graduations. But this also

131includes more than this than than just high school graduations. This is even uh you know the the various end of the year celebrations that our schools have at the elementary and the middle school level. It's a celebration of you've completed another year and and what have you learned. Phase two is when we're going to be coming up with our topics for July through November. Um July we expect that we're going to be working on our our summer learning opportunities. I mentioned Camp Early Bird obviously we'll focus on that. We'll show showcase what are we doing during the summer to keep kids up to speed and learning. And then August is our back to school will be our back to school theme. The various things that folks need to know and to celebrate the love of

132learning and the getting back in the groove of the school year. The advertising campaign is something that our all the PIOs know that that funds are limited and this is something that fads is exploring whether there's any kind of a resources that could be available for streaming ads and if there was then we find an equitable way to utilize those resources to again have a high level campaign that just celebrates school districts and school public schools throughout the state of Florida. We don't know if that's available yet, but at the same time, FADS is exploring that as an option. Again, phase one is meant to just get us all moving in the same direction, amplifying the same themes. As Mr. Gary pointed out, one of the benefits to having a largecale initiative is that smaller

133districts whose PIO may serve in several different roles and may have competing interests or needs or demands on their time and resources, what they're creating is a repository of graphics of content and where everyone can personalize it to their individual school districts. We will soon have a draft uh website that we will start posting this information to. It'll also be posted on our website, but there's more information coming um so that we can continue to share the good news about PK County Public Schools and public education in general. So, Mr. Sharpless. >> Hey, Mr. Gary. Um I uh you know I I know that the Florida School Board Association was working on a similar initiative uh a year or two ago and I'm I'm thankful that FADS has taken this up as well. Um I

134believe FADS taking it up uh you know certainly and using public uh information officers uh certainly helps make it some you know some more legitimacy behind it. Um just know there is appetite on the f the FSBA side to make sure this is a success. So, I hope FADS can partner uh with us there. Um I I noticed uh you know, one of the things it said here is that um that back on the primary audience has said that it's crucial to include the student voice and I certainly uh agree wholeheartedly with that. I mean, our our motto is students first, right? Um and so I'm just wondering what mechanisms do we have in place to capture that authentic student stories, things like that. Like what are we how how are we going to do

135that? >> I think there's different ways that you could do it. Obviously, we could create videos and we could do we could do promotional um videos that show our students in programs enjoying uh the resources posts on social media as well and even amplifying and showing what what our different schools are doing in terms of celebrations that they do and allowing the students to to be able to express what what is what is it that they like about our schools. That really is the the true proof of it. So, I think it's a combination of using our storytelling abilities to focus on that, not not saying that they're having a great time, but actually letting them say it and bringing them in to do it. >> Thank you, sir. All I have, >> Miss Miller.

136>> Hello, Mr. Gary. Thank you. I am um interested in creating a similar dropbox andor storehouse for our schools. like we have when I text you and say this just happened, you know, we don't have the staff to cover all of these schools and all the many things that are happening. If I'm thinking of other um private companies and private organizations that have either Canva with all the same logos, you know, so we're branding is on we're on brand for everything we're doing. Dropbox for elementary schools to get what's happening. we tell we have great things happening and I know se we're seven different arms to the PR department who try to get out and share with the community what's happening but um I would love to see some and this is just this is

137a tech issue I'm sure it's easy enough to build to have something where schools could drop into what's going on I don't know I don't know how they're currently reaching out to you or if they're just using their own social media and you guys are it looks like you guys pull from what's already posted um it would be great for them to be able to drop stories and photo quality that you can use or whatever your, you know, have your branding needs where they can see that and then drop that into one area box tech, whatever that is. So, you can you can pull them quickly and be able to replicate the stories throughout all of our channels. I just, you know, unless I'm pushing district 7, I have one school, I think every teacher

138has social media and they are doing amazing things, but they have no way to tell their story and they're just telling it to their parents. Um, and in Auburndale, I would love for the whole community to know that because they need to know what's available. So, any ideas you have on that are um, we can have separate meeting talk later. The superintendent can give us all the great things that are happening. I just would like to see I great that we're doing that for the state to tell our story and help these other districts, but I think within this district, we have so many things happening and I'd love to streamline how how we get that to you. >> Very good. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And and to your point, we there are some of

139some of the information that we get is is sort of looking at our school districts, our district school sites and repurposing it and talking with them. And some of them reach out to us and and we work with them on it. So, it's a little bit of both. But I think that's a it's a really nice idea that we're we're it's also really great whenever we see you do a social media post or a school does and you see other schools commenting on the post saying, "What a great idea. We should do that here." I think a lot of that is a sharing of ideas and the more that we work together, the better it benefits us all. But yes, thank you for the idea. There are no further questions or comments. Thank you. >>

140Thank you, sir. Thank you, board. >> This time, Mr. Chair, um audience members, we will need to clear the room for a close session. So, thank you all. We will reconvene afterwards. Heat. Heat. At this time, I would like to call the meeting back to order and turn it over to Superintendent Hyde to finish leading off our work session today. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. >> Mr. Chair, um new business or excuse me, uh superintendent's report has been concluded. There are two items under information items. These are reoccurring items uh for the board's uh background and understanding and then you have the board meeting agenda. So I at this point I will turn it over to you and please feel free to call upon me for the two new business items or any of

141the new business items you need clarification on. Thank you, Superintendent. Board members, if we could at this time, I'd like for us to go over our agenda for this evening's meeting. So, if you can transition right now, give you a second to our board meeting for the agenda. Okay. Um, so with our agenda review, are there any questions on sections A through F? That's the opening items through approval of the consent agenda. What about sections G through K? Seeing none. Sections L through N. All right. How about sections O through T? All right. Uh section U, the action agenda. Are there any questions? Section V, the public hearing. I recognize Dr. Allen. >> Yeah, I'm just going back to you. um was just um and I you know again appreciate all the work that Superintendent

142Hyde uh has done to sort of try to help me um through this process on the land assignment for the BBB high school and Mr. Green. Um you know again I think there's thorough elements to this process but um I I had asked Mr. Green just to give an update on some of the questions I had. And I know superintendent I've um pushed a few questions your way as well just for clarification. Um I'm just trying to work through my seeds of doubt uh on this. So um decision. So I don't know if Mr. Green would be willing to maybe address some of the questions I've had and superintendent if you can as well. >> Pull up my Mr. Superintendent. Would you like me to start? >> Yeah, Mr. Green, if you could, cuz I'm

143looking for my email response to Dr. Allen this today. >> Sure. So, well, let me pull that up because I have it as well. Um, so I think one of maybe both of the questions relate to the 2024 25 work plan. And in that work plan, I I don't have I don't know if the timeline that you sent has u this date, but I believe the work plan came out after the interim agreement was signed, which was in April of 2025. In the work plan, it was a a spreadsheet that one of the line items had to do with the the new school project and there was an estimate for what the price would be and it was north of $200 million. As we know from the interim agreement, the the BAFO best and final

144offer amount is in the $180 million range. So, one of the questions is why is why is there a discrepancy? And I think the answer is um my from best I can tell that work plan was was drafted or the estimates in there those those figures are estimates that predated the interim agreement that has to do with that the discrepancy with the baffo. The other item that's within that same line item has to do with a the design fee, which was in the $5 million range. And um prior to uh that work plan coming out there was there uh the district had engaged Shenkel Schultz to do design work for a project that's was described as C330 which is not the P3 project. It was a different project. So they were engaged to do design

145work for that project. Um, since that time, the P3 is the project that the the district decided to move forward with via the P3 project and the interim agreement. So, one of the questions was um has the was that firm engaged? The answer was yes. Um, but that we didn't follow through with that particular work. there was no design work for that C330 project. Subsequent question is, well, where'd that money go? And I I believe that that line or that amount that was reserved was used for the design of the P3 project. And as it turns out, Fortress retained Shunkle Schultz to do the design work. So that that money was um incorporated into the money is used to pay for that fee. And I just at this point now we're at the uh getting

146toward the end of the design work. We're in phase three, which is the almost 90% done part of the project. I believe next week we'll be getting the final documents from Fortress and they'll be reviewed by the facilities division on you to cross the tees. But um that's where we are with that and I I hope that answers the questions uh that were outstanding. So Dr. Allen had submitted to me a few questions today. I know that one's a reoccurring question which was the board had initially approved the purchase of this property but the the district made a decision not to execute it and and that's the best decision that's the best answer I have at this time because I believe this took place just as I was transitioning. I do recall, and I will

147have to go back and watch the board meeting, but I do recall several board members having concerns about paying full price for a property that included acreage that was deemed swampy, lack I I I'm trying to figure out or or wet um and was unbuildable. Um, and so at that time, you know, while Miss Usher had made the recommendation to purchase that, I believe that ultimately we made a decision not to pursue that because of those concerns and paying full price for land that would never be able to be developed. Some of you were on the board at that time, Miss Wyatt, Miss Miller, Miss Fields, and Dr. Allen. But you recall that we did make an effort here because we even talked about that school becoming an environmental academy and that we could partner

148with the University of Florida and put some decking out there into that marshland wetland area. That was a better phrase, wetland other than swampy. Um, and see if we could include that into some type of STEM academy in conjunction with them. um we started some initial discussions but again the property I I'd have to go back and see when the decision was made not to procure that property. The difficulty of answering that question right now as you are aware I've got two senior admins who are no longer um in their positions right now um and they're dealing with other issues. So I'm going to have to do more hands-on due diligence with the team to dig into that. Dr. Allen and rest of the board members. Um, but I did provide in my update to

149the board that this is a different property. It's the same property but a smaller footprint and that some of that land was excluded. Um, I believe I provided you visuals to show that mapping. And then in addition to that, what staff have shared with me is that at that time when we had made some assumptions about part portions of the property when the due diligence was performed, the it was determined that it was not in the state that we had anticipated that it was buildable property, buildable land. And so those are some of the differences there. Um so I understand very much understand and respect the position um that Dr. Allan has taken that you know we could have bought it cheaper then unfortunately we did not um but I think I think that's the

150best explanation I can provide you at this time I think Mr. Green I will I I'll stop saying I think uh Mr. Green's provided a response as it relates to 5.8 million. There were other questions that board members submitted. Um, one's been a reoccurring question because I think there's this this this myth or assumption out there that shingles got paid for work and then but I think Dr. Allen can attest he even engaged Miss Matthews who did a dive at on your behalf as a board because she reports to you. So there's no undue influence from my office and she was able to confirm that no money had been spent or paid to Shangle Schultz for that first project. Um, so they're now engaged not because the district engaged them, but because Fortress engaged them.

151So I think there's a little bit of maybe question there. And arguably it comes down to if they're provide if if that initial bid was at that $5 million mark. We never engaged. We never paid that. But now that's the same bid they've given to Fortress. I think that's where maybe some of the confusion may be coming. But Dr. rally in my response to you earlier. I said, "Please allow me some time to confirm that and be able to respond." Um, so I believe for the most part that answered the questions Mr. Green was I think those were the questions that we had to answer previously. >> I believe so. Yes. >> Yeah. And I I think it was important to me to think, okay, well, was that 5.8 capital? Was it just a rollover?

152So then it in essence um there's a there's a benefit there because when I look at the work plan and see that 5.8 that landed in that column um you know so my direct question on that was does that 5.8 8 um connect to the 182 BAFO right and is it a part of that 182 BAFO and I think that was the unresolved question um I think the timeline's important as well you know when we we had that it um and their their document you know from Fortress came back to us um you know our request was for us to open the doors at this particular time so then if we juxtapose that in regards to less like our, you know, high school uh approval tonight. You know, those schools that are at major capacity,

153um, man, this this the timeline is detrimental to us. So, I'm not here to be an obstructionist. Um, but I'm here to say that, you know, from a governance standpoint, when we vote on something, it should be executed, right? I think that's an extremely important thing from a fiduciary standpoint. So, um, so I'm not, you know, I just think, um, some of those unresolved questions, especially around cost is important to me as well. So, you know, the 182, uh, is it's a baffo, but it's not our gross maximum because we don't even know what the gross maximum is at this point. So, when I saw the the work plan, I mean, that's a dramatic change as well, right? So, I'm just all those initiatives. So, you know, whether the work plan was um not the

154accurate estimate, that's a, you know, a good question and um you know, I appreciate that. Whether it was not or is a something that could be amended in the future, I'm not sure. Um so, those are really the things I'm I'm sort of not in favor for and I'm not comfortable voting in favor of. not to obstruct the process. I I see the capacity issue and um and we need a high school really bad and uh so yeah, but I I appreciate uh the work that Mr. Green's done and superintendent on this side. >> I could I I commit to doing some more personal due diligence in this regard, but again, as you know, I've got two key senior admins out on leave right now that I've got to work through that, but Mr. McLemore

155has indicated he may have some more to contribute, so I'd like to bring him forward. >> So, Dr. to to your question is we referenced the 5-year work plan. Again, that 5-year work plan um it can be amended and and it will be once the district approves the next installment to the 5-year capital plan. Um and as as as of today, the state we're still waiting on the state to open the portal. So, I literally could submit it even if we wanted to right now, but it will get amended and that will get corrected. So, and when we look at that five-year capital plan, we're looking ahead and trying to project estimated costs. So again, we were projecting higher than what was what was a nice surprise or nice actuality of the Baffo coming in

156under what we projected because again with these high dollar projects, we're we're going to factor in a little bit higher just to be on the safe side. So we're not coming back to back to you for a change order or a price increase. So again, that five-year work plan is really more of a financial planning budgetary document, analysis tool. So related to this as well and I know Mr. Sharpless hasn't indicated a question he may now but Mr. Sharpless has been asking my office and more importantly Miss Baner to make sure that while it's not required, we're not obligated to do this. He has requested that we make sure that we submit those plans to the Florida Department of Education to ensure that we are doing our planning and our design meets all the requirements

157so that we are doing it in the best interest of our community members at the lowest possible price but to get a quality educational environment. And you know, the benefit we always have with the BAFFO, as we've mentioned, is so long as we don't indicate a need for a change, meaning the district doesn't turn around and say, "Well, this room, we've decided to change the academy that's going to go in there, so we're going to request that this be recon reconfigured. Instead of a culinary class, we're going to want it to be an autobay." Um, we would then be on the hook for any re-engineering, redesign, but anything within the scope of work. And so that phase three, I think that's what we call it, the phase three documents I believe have been submitted or

158are scheduled to be submitted. Um those will be reviewed and then that's when they start going back to the value engineering and the board will get a much better final indicator of where we're landing. But we have the same interest and and concern the board has to manage the costs. This was a significant concern when we built Davenport and the board felt that costs had exceeded the initial projections considerably. So we we are committed to making sure that we manage that for our community and for the board. >> Thank you, Superintendent that. >> All right. Is that it? Board member Allen. >> That's all I have. Chair, >> I recognize uh vice chair keys. So along the same items um that being the one we were discussing now you4 agenda item I've heard a lot

159of statements as the conversation has opened up a lot of which concern me two senior admin out I've heard the word difficulty I've heard allowed time I've heard the conversation of being able to do more um I've heard about still doing value engineering to see what the cost would be at the end. So my immediate concern and as a question, I guess this needs to be addressed to Mr. Green is if we have an agenda item for a land assignment, if we engage in that land assignment, where does that leave us? More importantly, number two, if we do not engage in the land assignment, is there is that detrimental to us at this is that point are we under any obligation to execute that land assignment? Is there a timeline? We're saying this has to

160be done at this time because of that. And and here's the reason why. Again, I think I just stated with all of these doubts and questions we have, we're about to engage in a land assignment for a lot of doubts and concerns. And if we're going forward on a process that we're unsure about, I have some some reservations about that. So, specifically, my question is, is there a negative effect to us not executing this land assignment tonight? >> I'll give you two answers. So where where did the timeline come from and the timeline comes from the interimm agreement. So in the interimm agreement um one of the terms is that fortress shall uh assign the land to the board and the the time frame that was put in was within 180 days of the execution

161date of the interim executed in April. 180 days was October. Um, so we're in the window now to assume that assignment or to to follow through that assignment of the land. Um, the other answer to the question is what are we trying to accomplish here? We're trying to build the school. We're trying to open it in August of 2028 in order to open a school by that time period. the facilities folks say we need to break ground in the spring. March, May is our window there. So, we're in January. Um the the land assignment is teed up so we could take the land. Um and the breaking ground needs to happen shortly after the the design phase is done and and we work on our comprehensive agreement. So, I hope that answers the question. It's

162part of it's part of the one of the steps that needs to happen prior to breaking ground in a school getting built. So, no because and then I should have phrased the question more more I guess directly being one who invol is involved in real estate contracts frequently. I guess there are any punitive damages to the district for not engaging in land assignment in a situation where we still have a lot of questions. No, the the there's no penalty right now if the if it's not executed tonight. We're losing time, but um to the extent that there's questions that remain, we I know we've got Mr. Mcmore here to try to answer those questions. I know that a lot of them have come up and I've worked closely with the facilities folks to try to

163get you those answers. So, so you're in a position to make an informed decision tonight. Um but to the extent that we're not able to answer all of them then yeah there's nothing uh punitive at to use your words uh that if it doesn't happen tonight or today um there's some penalty to the board. >> Okay. So that that does answer my question and here's the re again to go back to my original statement. I've heard two senior admin out. I've heard there's difficulty in I've heard that that we have to allow time was mentioned doing more and if if there's any uncertainty we have two responsibilities as a school board policy and we're fiduciary we have a a fiscal responsibility too. So if we're engaging in a project and of the amounts that we've

164now we've said that that 205 was an estimate projected but we had a baffo I believe it was a 182 was the number I heard or 187 I'm not sure on that but to engage in a process where we have an assignment's going to take place on a project we still have questions about if there's no punitive damage. Now I realize that we're losing time right in my mind and we can have you know argue semantics all day long about it but the meeting I was sitting in the original projection we were talking about from attendance boundaries was possibly in August of 26 we hadn't even had the conversation yet now we're in August 28 furthermore to support that narrative you know we think about the neighboring county of OciOla County how many you know

165uh students have we lost of enrollment because there wasn't availability or we were maxed out that have gone over to Oscila County. Real concerns. FTE dollars maybe, you know, I've heard estimates of somewhere near a thousand students potentially. Those are big concerns. The district losing out on it. But again, at a cost of 180 plus million dollars, um, in my mind, although there we can argue that if we're in my mind two years behind, I don't mind if we're a couple more months behind if we know we're making a sound decision on stuff that we still have questions on. Um, and a lot of mine in that being in regards go around to since we've already opened Pandora's box, we've got four appraisals. One at 12.5 million, one at 5 million, one at 6 7.6

166million, one at 1125. On those same appraisals, every single appraisal say that somewhere around 65% are in special flood zone area. A flood zone area is a flood zone area. So, there's some definitions we need to look at. To the east of that area is an area called London Island. The definition of an island is an area of dry, relatively dry land surrounded by water. Okay. To the west of that is the area called Indian Head Swamp. A swamp is poorly drained wetland, fresh or salt water, wooded or grassy, possible covered with water. In every single appraisal, it states that at least 65% of this land is covered in flood zone A. flood zone A. So if we all get the development that's happened in that area, those that are not in a flood zone

167have houses on them. All of them have houses on them. So then I start thinking to myself, if that has happened, why hasn't development occurred in that area over the course of the past 20 years where all those houses are? Probably because it's undesirable land and it's in a flood zone. So if we haven't made that process yet, we haven't gone there yet. I'm just I have real reservations about laying my head on the pillow at night, signing off, not actually signing off, but voting on something that we're still unsure about. And those questions I don't think we've heard and people have, you know, there's represented that this is not an issue. If you look on the search today on FEMA's flood map service, it is still in special flood zone A, right? there are

168two creeks in the area that flows south south into the area where that property is. Right? So again, I know that we're we're kind of halting a process here, but until at least I feel comfortable with it or not me, the whole entire board, there's seven of us, but I can say my stance right now is I've heard so many questions, all words that can be described as doubt on a project. I just I at this point it's gone too long with that and I can't be in support of this at all and I I would even say taking the assignment at this time I think that we really need all these questions answered um with factual data um before I feel comfortable about the project at all at this point or reassessing as there

169are other options that are better in the area. >> So my office's position is that we've answered every question and I'll allow Mr. McLemore to come forward again and address the issue of the flood zone. But I also want to clarify when I mention that I have two senior admin staff, that's an impact on me, not an impact on you. And so we will still meet all of our deadlines and deliverables because we will put together a plan to make sure we backfill for those positions. Mr. fix and others have already taken those steps whether it's we have to contract with an architect unrelated to this to help us with our project management because it's not just the impact is not this project it's every project in the district and all of the things that

170fall under that senior admin but Mr. from McLemore. Others have already stepped up. I feel confident in their ability. What I shared earlier was I need for me to feel comfortable without those two senior admins to tell me about what they find. I want to personally be involved in the process. So, it takes time, but it's time on top of the things that I'm already trying to manage. So, but that's not an excuse, but I just want to provide that comfort to the board that if if we make a commitment on any project, regardless of this one, of any project, the team is going to meet those deadlines. They're going to meet those deliverables and they're going to do it at a high level. But I I'd like to have Mr. McLemore address that cuz

171the flood plane question I don't believe was sent to me. Um I don't know, Mr. Green, if you got that, but um I thought we've answered every question that's been submitted to date, but I'll let Mr. McLemore addressed the flood plane issue. Not trying to convince board members, at the end of the day, you have to vote. But I will say while Mr. Green says there's no penalty, there is going to be a cost penalty if we decide to step away entirely from this project. There are dollars that you've already invested and we've paid out. So, those are things for us to consider and I'll have to get you a sum of what those dollars would be um to date, but I'd have to I need a little bit of time in between meetings to

172do that. >> And and if I may, superintendent, that being said, now we have there is no pun, but that we have engaged or maybe punitive. And if we don't know, then how can we make an informed decision on our process going forward tonight on specifically on the land assignment? I'm not saying on the project total, everybody knows me. your your question was is there a punitive aspect in the contract? But I'm looking at it where basically I hear some of the concerns and if the board says well we just don't want to engage so we're starting a timeline over but there are costs and things that we've expended to date to get to this point. So while there may not be a cost in the contract to walk away the money that we've spent

173to date the staff time and other things that's lost. >> Okay. and and and of those costs and I'm not again I'm not at all suggesting that we're stopping this project particular but if the world ended tomorrow and we said hey we had a hard stop on this are those costs associated not being able to transfer to another project um what are those soft costs are those I mean because if there's soft costs in engineering that can be easily transferred to another project um I'm I'm just saying if we stopped >> the problem we would run into that I perceive right just speaking off the cuff here a bit. I I would like to do a little bit more research. I think we could transfer some of our costs if this were a traditional design

174and build, but because we decided to go the P3 route and engaged with Fortress and then they in turn have hired all their subs. We're not hiring them. I that's my concern is what money's been expended to date. Not that that should justify a decision to to move forward if you're uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, I don't want you to have the belief that there's no money lost in this project because there may be. And so, like I said, give me the time between meetings and I'll get with staff and see what money has been expended and be able to provide that update to you this evening. That being said, and this is me and my unfamiliarity with that, would that be I know I know the response I'm going to get

175on that. Do we need to postpone the land assignment until we get those answers? >> If I can get them for you before this evening. >> I I think we've kicked this can down the road for a while with this topic. Um, but I'd like to let Mr. McLemore address the issue of the flood plane. >> So, board member Keys to your point about flood plane and flood zone A's, uh, to be clear not to go too far in deep with how FEMA assigns um flood zone A's. Um m when FEMA assigns an area to be flood zone A, they have a couple of ways in which they can do this. Flood zone A is just an area that has shown signs that it could potentially be in a flood zone. You have another category

176called flood zone AE. AE means that a study has actually been done and has definitively determined the base flood elevation, that minimum elevation in which a flood water would actually impact uh your gross developable acreage. Now much of point siana before that whole development area was even done you can go back and see historical FEMA flood plane panels much like to what you Mr. keys you referenced and if you go on FEMA's website today you can see there's this thing called flood zone A well much of before pointiana was ever developed that was all flood zone A it took development to do due diligence hydro uh hydros soils analysis and then submit something what is called a letter of map revision or a lomar um to to the to FEMA via the county uh to

177actually definitively show yes we understand FEMA you initially labeled this as a flood zone A however We have additional due diligence and reports that say this is actually an error and those areas can be adjusted. That actually happens more frequently than not. >> So have we done our due diligence to show that that is not the case? Because other that also one of those appraisals said 30 30 acres were in flood zone X, right? And of those studies that says that there's a 26 per chance over the course of 30 years that they would experience that. Again, you know, I I just I want to make sure we're doing the best with what we've got. Um, and and if we can get questions answered, you know, I just and I've said it from since I

178came on the board, I believe in November, this train had already started rolling that direction. But I think that was my statement because and I don't want to speak for everybody else, but this is 5 miles from where I live. I've hunted barefoot in that land for years. It's a swamp. to answer your point in in working with our partners with Fortress and uh Jason Rod Construction um their their subs that they have enlisted uh they will be uh conducting those they will conduct the formal documents to issue that LOMAR request to FEMA to get this remapped because they've already done some of the due diligence for that. Some of that uh comes from soil borings. They've done extensive soil borings on the site itself. So they can already definitively determine where is that base

179water level at when you when you you start drilling into the ground. So some of their findings already came back that yes there's actually this is not as wet as you think it is. Uh and some of those areas that were labeled as a wetland area uh those soil borings and their analysis came back saying actually this is not a true wetland. This is actually old vegetative growth that was piled here from who knows how long. So there there is some due diligence that we already have. There's there is some additional work that has to be done to go up to FEMA to get that flood zone A uh amended. So it there is work still ongoing. >> Okay, that's all the statements I had. >> Thank you, Board Member Keys. Board member Miller, you're

180recognized. >> Thank you. Um thank you for coming and bringing us more information. This I'm not sure why we're just not going to vote this up or down. This has been going on till no for November. When we say we've had a lot of questions, my questions were answered probably late November, early December. Um, I understand flood zones, every everywhere in Florida is a flood zone. There is a 1% chance in a a zone A that there that within that year there will be a flood of some kind. Um, this is not new to us. This process is not new to us. I want to I think we can't have it both ways to where we don't support building portable cities, but we take this long to make a decision. We have to make hard

181decisions. Sometimes they're very difficult. So, I'm asking the board to make a decision and stop kicking this can down the road because it's it's becoming it's just becoming a long drawn process that never should have been. I can tell you that back when um we talked about this was four years ago and Miss Usher was here. I don't want the public to think that's something that that we have done consistently where we have voted on something. I was surprised to find out that the purchase was not made back then, but I also know that what the market looks like and you can have a price for something today and within 30 days it'll look very differently. Um, so once we had discovered that that my first question was when we discovered that the the purchase

182was not made at that time was is there anything else we voted on that hasn't been? And I think that's a communication piece with facilities. I think the communication piece with changing the five-year plan um with facilities has helped, you know, talking about how we'll get information, how will we be alerted to things like that. But as far as mulling this conversation over with with the same questions that you've answered at least twice publicly, I think that we need to have a vote on this tonight and the words need to be I have questions and not we have questions. Thank you. >> Thank you, board member Miller. Now recognize board member Allen. >> Yeah. I you know I appreciate the conversation and I I think communication is critical. I think the surprise to me was

183the fact that the K property was not disclosed to us that it was actually a part of the fortress deal. And I mean when that surprise is unveiled I mean there are those seeds of doubt. You know here we vote on it. It's not purchased. We move forward with Fortress because the secondary removes their contract, but it wasn't noted on record that the property that was a part of Fortress and that deal was the property that we had previously voted on. So, I think the surprise and the communication is what's stimulating that doubt for me in particular. But, um, you know, I do want, um, I want to come back to a phone call conversation I had with Mr. Green this morning. I think it is important for me as well and if you could

184allude to it we were you know talking about the process where we are where we are with the comprehensive um plan right so and that's going to give us a sense of knowing what the gross maximum price is right uh and that's important you know I and I think too the surprise too if I want to go back to that as Miss Miller was noting I think it was a surprise that the land assignment was coming back to the district comparative to um say the scenic terrace project um that land that's a part of that is not assigned to the district. So it it's different and I I'm I'm accepting different um because I do think some P3 projects go this way. So I'm just wanting to understand more as well. So why the land

185assignment has to come back to the district rather than being underneath the umbrella of the fortress um you know purchase. But I I think what stuck out to me for Mr. Green uh in our conversation this morning was with the comprehensive um you know solidifying we can still pull back from the project. Is that my understanding how that played out in our conversation this morning? because what I don't want us to do is we go into this, we get to the comprehensive plan and it's like way um more expensive than what we expected in regards to our BAFFO at 182. Um so I I'm just wanting to make sure that there's outs as well. And so when I heard that I'm like, okay, that gives me a little bit more confidence in the process. Um

186but again, I'm still uh unresolved at this point. But >> I'll try to address both of your questions. Um, the first one had to do with why is the district getting the land assigned to it and that's that's just the nature of the the agreement that we signed in this in this particular case. Uh, that's that was how it was structured. Um, versus Scenic Terrace, which was a different deal, a different uh property. Um, as to part two, it really kind of fits in again the the timeline that I created, which is where we are now, where we want to be. And that was I created it for myself to um know what steps were next. So again, if you take the big the big ticket item, we want to try to open a school

187in August of 28. We have to break ground in the spring of this year. Um, so where are we now? We're at we're in January, late January. Um, and the next steps are one of the steps is we have the assignment that's ready to go if the board wishes to proceed with that this evening. Um either way, um we have uh the the design phase, phase three, which is will get us to about the 90% uh percentage point of where we are with almost being complete with the design. Once the design is done, then we have plans and it's all we have left to do is break ground. Um so the the step that is called for in the interim agreement is right it's right around this time period where we're all coming to a

188head on timing. Once the design is complete the parties fortress and the board will negotiate the comprehensive agreement and at that point um the we've already kind of been in negotiations. We've got a draft. We're finalizing some points about uh what we want to keep in what we don't. Um once we finalize that draft, we'll share it with the Fortress folks and we'll get into the nitty-gritty of um really the the final price and that sort of thing. So, um I'm working separately with Brian Williams on that on that piece, but that that's the next step after the design phase, which is um Fortress has said that they're going to get us those documents next week, first week of uh February. Those will go to the facilities department and they'll look it over and again

189review review everything. At that point, we're we're ready to go. We're on time on pace for um finalizing the comprehensive. That hope that answers your question. >> Okay. >> So I I mean I think in that is if that number that gross maximum is you know, outlandishly closer to that, you know, 205 that it's being stated that that was just an estimate. It's not where we're going to be heading. Is there uh the possibility of not moving forward on breaking ground? >> Yeah, I think uh right now the the a number that is in the interimm agreement that the board signed in April is the BAFO, the best and final offer. That was my best recollection 187 million. Um so that's the that's the figure we all have in mind. Um and that's the figure

190that I think facilities is aware of and we've they've had several meetings going line by line of okay if the auditorium is this square footage then we're on track and if we get artificial turf that might be a little bump but that's something we request. So they've gone through that and I believe we're on pace for that staying within that BAFO price. So again, back to your point, what if it ends up being, you know, way off the charts, closer to that 200 million number that was in the 2024, 2025 work plan? Well, at that point, we're going to come back to the board and say, here's the comprehensive. Here's the the number that it's actually going to be. it exceeds the BAFFO by X plus whatever you still want to do the deal and

191um you would have the flexibility to say no that's that's beyond what we anticipated from the from interim. >> All right, thanks for that clarification as well. >> Thank you chair. >> All right, thank you board member Fields. You're recognized. >> Thank you. I agree with the superintendent. We've been kicking this can down the road for a minute. I uh respect the concerns of the board members. So, Superintendent H, my question to you is how much of a impact would it have if we were to remove this item from the agenda and bring it back on the 10th of February since we already are going to be in place for the grievance hearing and work session. >> So, I'm gonna I'm gonna look to Mr. Green and Mr. McLemore and Mr. fix because I don't

192know the specifics of the contractual obligations. So, >> yeah, the the 10th isn't a a meeting, right? I believe the 24th is the next uh board meeting. >> Board meeting. Yes, sir. >> Yeah, that would be when uh the next opportunity to um if we were to postpone that would be the next >> we can have a special call board meeting specifically for that. I'm >> sorry. Yes, we could do that. Is that what's I don't have a calendar in front of me. If that's uh >> 10th. Yeah, that potentially in the 10th. Yes. I thought that was a work session. >> And the reason why I'm saying that is that um I respect the questions and the concerns of the of the board members that have uh expressed that. But I think whatever if

193we're able to have a special call meeting on the 10th and answer all of the concerns and not bring anything new to the table, I think if there's anything that needs to be addressed, it needs to be funneled through the superintendent and those things should be answered beforehand and then we need to either vote it up or we need to vote it down. And that's my take. Thank you, board member Fields. Recognize board member Wallace. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Superintendent, I'll have a question who assigned who you think ought to answer. Um, I'm still trying to under and grasp the full situation given that there's a lot of history there that this was already moving as I joined the board. So, I'm um I'm slightly insecure about what to do because I'm trying to,

194you know, incorporate everybody's feedback and be thoughtful, but at the same time just recognize the reality of me being new to the board. So, two questions, and I'm sorry if they sound really obvious, but for the casual listener um who may be watching this, what are the possible sources or reasons for cost overruns? Right? Like if we're hoping for 180 something and it were to jump to two something and I'm not talking about like Jim what you mentioned about special order changes that we are asking to make it cost more but what are all the various reasons that could it could go over that we're not able to determine at this time and what's the chance of those things happening >> Mr. Fix Mr. Mmore. >> Mhm. >> And I I realize I'm asking a

195broad question, but you know, to the best >> as you're asking the question, I was thinking, oh, I hope the superintendent isn't calling me. No. Um, in times past, we we would have had some supply chain issues. We would have had some issues um with steel and things coming from China. A lot of that has settled down. So, I really don't expect, knock on wood, I don't expect some of those to be the issues. If some of those increases come, I expect that there could be maybe slight ones based on like Mr. Green talked about like, okay, are we going to something extra that we've decided we really do want to have. One of the other things, and I think the superintendent may have talked about this, the other flip side is when we went

196through line by line with them, there were some things that we said, "Oh, no, we don't need that. Take it out and reduce the price, too." >> So, it's been a back and forth on that. And we haven't come to the final number on that yet. Mhm. >> And if I may backtrack a little bit, one of the other reasons the board that you might want to consider getting um control of the property is because if we own the property, then that is going through our building department review. It's going through our architect. It's going through every our own reviews versus if it's going through a local government review instead, which will take a lot longer. school districts have that authority to do that on property that they own. So that's the other advantage of

197having this property under your control. The other thing is is should you decide not to move forward with a P3, but you've purchased a property, you still have that flexibility to come back later and go through our uh typical process that we've used in the past that we call CM at risk to to go ahead and effectuate the building of a high school or whatever you decide to do on that property. So, just some feedback on that. I don't know if I've answered. >> I just didn't know if there was any other possible source of a co a cost increase that we didn't anticipate. So, you mentioned supply chain issues, which I think most folks understand that, but are there any other dynamics that could impact it? >> I mean, yeah, there are um but

198they're like so far out there. So, for example, >> right, >> you could have to walk away from the property once we break ground. All of a sudden, we realize it's a tribal Indian burial ground. Guess what? We're done. Um, so I I think there are a lot of outliers like that, but I the only real reasons that we should see anything cost overruns would be districtdirected changes to the plans, the schemes. We decide to relocate a building, we decide um we've talked about, let me use a better example. We've talked about an employee clinic and looking for a new location. what if we decide, well, we've got the property, we've got the space, let's go ahead and add the employee clinic there. So, those are obvious, right? But that wouldn't be on them because

199that's a change in the original scope of the plan and design. Um if we decided um Miss Wallace or board members that we want to change the quality of an interior um product, tile, paint, um different FFN or increase the capacity. >> Correct. Those would be issues >> that we would typically incur cost. Now, most of the changes and because we're using or piggybacking off of another design, most of those things that we believe would have required a change, they're already aware of and we've already started to identify those prior to all of this so that we we could start in a much better position we were previously. So, I I think those are the biggest areas because as Mr. fix pointed out unfortunately in 2021 2122 we were dealing not only with material shortages

200but we were dealing with uh factories not being able to meet demand. South Point for example was we opened right on the first day of school and it wasn't really ready for staff. We had to actually relocate staff when they returned because the the the the contractor could not procure air conditioning units in time and so they had to bring in one on a trailer to power the school. There were a lot of things like that materials delays but then labor delays were our biggest concerns as well. What we what we learned a lot from and there is a slight difference between two properties as Dr. Allan pointed out between um what we did with building tomorrow schools and what we're doing here and the reasoning, you know, owning the land versus in that position.

201I don't think that came up number one. And number two, because it's a lease, we didn't want to have find ourselves in a position that if we walked away from that facility before we owned it, that now we're the land owner, but now we've got somebody who's built on there. There's a lot of conflict that could arise as a result of that. So I I think I've given you as many examples as I can. There are some unknowns. Um but thankfully we would be protected and isolated from a number of those. >> Great. Thank you. And and then I guess between what we're hoping for and intending to have and when we would know the final number, right, that would be pretty immediately relative to 2028. >> That that is correct. Just as Mi Mr.

202Green said we're we're getting close to that 90% and then we'll be able to come up with that dollar figure. So we're very close to in time frame to knowing that. >> Okay, Mr. Chair, I have another question for um member keys. >> Okay. Okay. >> Um just as this is your district, you know the area. I don't know I actually don't know that area of the county the way I know other areas of the county. Just all your misgivings aside, how is the practicality of the location? Like, you know, if a casual by bystander was walking by and said, "Hey, they're going to build a school right here." You know, what do you feel like as a local, how it would how the community would respond to that? >> I think if you're directing

203that question, there's no technicality behind it, >> but my feeling on it and stated I think from the original what it's not the most favorable site at all. I think that there when we've looked at and just you know like just recently made aware there was a statement made about another piece of land we're considering that there's nothing else out there and lo and behold we were approached by you know folks from municipality that had land available for potentially use other sites. So saying there's not other land out there is an argument was given. But back to your original statement. Um I think there there are better sites still available for this and it is probably one of the I think least favorable areas and location that I can consider being living out there and

204lived out there for quite some time for the location of a high school based on its general location, availability, access to the road, what's already there. I think it's it's not the most favorable site for a high school whether or not it's the issues I've discussed as you know flood issues. I just it's it's not a good area. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Board member Wallace. Are you >> Oh, that's it. Mr. Chair, thank you. >> Thank you. Board member Wyatt, I recognize you. >> Thank you. Um, my comments are similar to Miss Millards and Miss Fields and that we've been talking about this for a really long time and I personally I would like to see it on the agenda to vote tonight, but if there's not a consensus to bring it forward tonight, um,

205I'm okay with moving it to the first week in February. Um, but I think we need to to either vote it up or down and move on because we're going to just keep talking in circles. You done? Are you? >> Yes. >> Thank you, board member Wyatt. Uh, Attorney Green, you're recognized. >> Thanks. I I wanted to just um highlight a few clauses from the interim agreement. That's the it's the current agreement we've all we're all operating under. Um, these are this will kind of bring everything into focus, I think, as far as where we are and what we're trying to still accomplish. So in section uh 2H like hotel the clause reads developer shall assign to the school district the contract for the purchase of the property. The parties will make their best efforts

206to complete the assignment within 180 days of the effective date. So again that was October is when um that sort of clicked into became uh timely. We're now about 3 months after that. So, we're we're in the window. The next important clause um is really kind of where we are as we speak. Um I think as of next week. So, with the submittal of 90% plans, and we're I think we're at like 89% right now. The developer, that's Fortress, shall provide an actual budget for the project based on a stipulated sum for delivery of the completed project, a school board, and project timeline. Um so when that happens in early February um again those plans will go to um the facilities department upon ac upon the school board's acceptance of the 90% plans and pro

207project budget the school board and the developer will in good faith negotiate the terms and conditions of the comprehensive agreement. So kind of goes back to what's that next step? Where are we in the process? Um and it says except as otherwise provided in this agreement the interim any other change to the 90% plans that increases the project budget for the project shall be the responsibility of the developer in the event the comprehensive agreement is not complete and approved by the school board within 90 calendar days from the approval of the project budget. school board and developer will re-evaluate and revise the project budget to reflect market changes, if any, in material labor or other project costs. So, I think that's that's kind of the window we're in right now. It's a it's a lengthy

208interim agreement, but I wanted to just focus in on that specific paragraph because that kind of defines where we are right now and what the next steps are. Right. Thank you, B uh board attorney Green. Um I'll go ahead and put my thoughts in. Um as far as whether this should be voted up or down tonight, um you know, I uh I certainly appreciate listening to all my board members. Um on this board, we have diverse opinions. There are certain things about this that I just don't particularly care for. I don't like the fact that the land uh has to be purchased by us. I don't like that part of the P3. I much rather have the P3 that we don't have to purchase land. It's just part of the package in a BAFO. Um

209I also, you know, as someone who's been out there um frequently going down to Fire Tower Road at the former FFA Leadership Training Center, um I know that area out there can get wet at times. However, we did have a a member of Fortress here state that um it is not on the flood plane. Um, so it gives me some um I'm going to say this gives me some confidence that um that that's the case. And if if we were presented inaccurate information, let's say it turns out to be that uh do we have any legal recourse for that? >> I guess it depends on what what the inaccurate information is. Is it um >> only because I asked this very specific question last time and I was told that it was not in the

210flood plane and I just want to make sure cuz I don't I don't want to buy land that's going to be flooded out. So if that is in fact which I'm not I'm not claiming it is >> but if it does come to fruition that that is not the case then would we have legal recourse against uh uh Fortress for providing us false information? >> That's my question. And I'm not saying that's the case. I mean to the extent there was some you know um fraudulent document submitted. Okay. >> Yes. But if but if this is if the surveys are being done in good faith and there's some uh you know biblical flood or something like that that's unforeseeable you know that that's an act of God that what are you going to do? Um

211and you know these things happen from time to time and uh look around the country and the floods that happen. But but in terms of what due diligence is being conducted right now, I think uh Fortress is they've all but completed it. They've shared those documents with us. We're I think they're in our possession now fully and we're reviewing them and and so um I think >> and and with that I also appreciate the superintendent's uh reassurance um about submitting those plans to the state. That's just something that I'm very passionate about because I want to make sure that we're giving the best ROI for our taxpayers in this county. If we're spending the money, we got to be doing it efficiently. And so I appreciate that commitment to making sure that we're doing this

212through the smart um you know, using smart uh design. Having said all that, we have been talking about this for a long time. We've been talking about for a long time today. Um, for me, I I we needed to have this built years ago, and so delaying it anymore, I'm I'm not certain that I I am in favor of that. Um, just because I would like to see this move forward. Um, so I don't have an issue with voting it up or down tonight. Um, personally, uh, that's just again, every other board member has has stated that they, you know, their feelings on it. Um I again I have heartburn on it but I have more even more heartburn not building a school that we need that's needed. So that's the practicality of it. Um

213I know that's just my two cents. Having said that, is there any more uh discussion on our action agenda? Seeing none. What? Okay. Sure. Oh, wait. One second. Let me All right. You're recognized, Board Member Fields. >> Thank you. I just want to make sure everything is clear here. So, we're going to leave it on the agenda to vote for tonight. Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Board Member Fields. Is there any discussion or questions on uh item V, our public hearing? Seeing none, superintendent, do you have a report for us tonight at our board meeting? >> I will at the board meeting, sir. >> All right. Thank you. Um, next, uh, Mr. Green, it looks like you have something for us in our attorney's report tonight at our board meeting. >> Yes,

214I'll be presenting that later. >> All right. Thank you. Uh then after that we will uh wrap up with our our personal comments and then of course public comment um at our uh board meeting tonight. Are there any other questions at all on the agenda for the board meeting tonight? Nope. Seeing none, we can go back to our work session. So, if we can everyone transition back in board docs to our work session. Um, >> new business. >> We are in our new business. Um, superintendent, would you like to address uh G1 and G2, the name changes? >> Certainly. Uh, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Um, so we have a naming convention and we have a procedure and policy for naming new schools and those types of things or renaming or naming a a

215facility within a school that has to be done through the school advisory council. But in this situation, the traditional naming conventions do not apply. These schools are being renamed because the the students that they serve was changed. So referring to Bellisa as Bellisa Elementary when it's a K8 school no longer applies. um referring to um Alta Vista which has now been converted to a K8 as an elementary school no longer applies. So those are the two new business items on there for the board. Just wanted to make sure I provided an explanation as to why it didn't go through a traditional naming process where we would reconvene and and that's intended if we were going to change the name from an existing name or a non-existent name to something the community and students and others

216give us input on. you've been through that process with the exception of Miss Wallace, but you'll get an opportunity in the near future. Um, but this is just again naming renaming the school to include K8 instead of just elementary in both cases. >> Thank you, Superintendent. Um, is there any questions for the superintendent on that on those items? >> No. Okay. Now, we're going to go to G3. Uh this is an item that I uh asked to add on to our new business. Um a discussion on the Northeast Pulk uh growth. Um you know I so this is multiple times now. I mean we we just talked about it for a while today. Plus there's multiple properties we've been talking about. I know my time on the attendance boundary committee. Uh we've always talked about

217how much the northeast is growing and I think everyone in Pulk County um if you've driven you know just last week when I went to Tallahassee I drove north from my home in South Lake Wales to I4 uh and all the way up and I can tell you it's a lot of congestion in Northeast Pulk and I think everyone can understand that u because of the growth and so um what I uh would like to see and I'm just one board member so why I'm bringing it forward board to the the um to the board for discussion. I would like to have a uh presentation. Um you know, I I went and I talked to um because in a Okay, let me go back. In a previous um work session or retreat, I can't remember

218what it was at a retreat. Okay. at one of our board retreats. Um, Superintendent Hyde mentioned that uh he had talked to uh some individuals about the growth in the Northeast. Um, and so I went and talked to them as well, right? I wanted to understand it better because I want I want to be the best board member I can be. Um, and so, uh, you know, having a conversation with them, I felt like that's something the board needs to hear about. You know, what is the projected growth, where is the areas, right? All that kind of stuff. So we can be, you know, again, and in we're just talking about a new high school now, but there's going to be more new schools that have to be built up there, right? And so, um,

219I would like to bring in, uh, those individuals, uh, for a just a a work session agenda item to discuss the growth in Northeast Pulk County. And so I wanted to see if my fellow board members were interested in entertaining that uh, that kind of presentation to our board. And with that, uh, board member Miller, you are recognized. >> Thanks, um, Chair Sharpless. I think it's important that we have that information. Um, I don't know who the individuals are. In the past, we've heard from county officials, and I think as long as it's working with the relationships that we have to make sure that we're hearing um for the people that are at the forefront of that, whether you bring in the county to do a dual session with um the count the pulks economic

220development council, whether you bring in the county that talks the people over the land there and zoning. Um it would be great to see what they do. I don't I'm not sure who the individuals, but I think it's great that you're having the conversation. I'm not sure who you're requesting. Okay. Well, I can uh I can tell you the uh the group that I talked to is the is the Cassidy group. Uh they're a large developer in that area because I wanted to know boots on the ground, but I certainly um you know am open to having the county come in and have discussion. I I just want to understand it better and they because I just want to make sure I'm making the best decisions. Um, and so they um they are that's just

221I just wanted to bring it forward so we could see if that was an appetite of the board. >> I appreciate you bringing it forward. I I think the only thing that'll happen or you would feedback would come from the community is if we allow one one group or one developer, then we would have to do multiple developers and I'm not sure that we have time for that. But I do think having the county come in who works a lot with Cassidy as well as others that they may able to give a broad perspective of what's happening um not only in the I think the northeast area is obviously the biggest growth but maybe a quick review of what you know how the census showed the movement that direction and and what they're planning to

222do even with infrastructure and roadways. So I think it would be a great topic. I would just be cautious of um of the time we all lot to one group and not another because we'll then get the requests from multiple I'm sure. >> Yes, superintendent. >> And I know you have other board members and I'm not trying to but I am but I I I want to clarify though because in the retreat while Miss Miller is correct, we work directly with the county and our team meets with them monthly. they work through these things. The reason there was a recommendation to talk to someone who may have more information is certain individuals know where properties exist and they're anticipating development that hasn't yet been disclosed to the county. So I but I think to Miss

223Miller's point, we need to bring in a group to have a conversation. My strong suggestion would be we do that in a workshop or a board retreat. Um because then it does not the concern is obviously that we don't want to give the impression that a developer or group is driving a board decision in the future about where to put schools. But I do think you need to be aware and that's why I initially brought it to the board as a consideration. But I'd like to bring the county in as well because they are our formal partners. We have repeatedly asked for our annual interlocal agreement meeting. I reached out again recently and asked for it. Um, and they're working towards trying to secure a date and a time because we haven't had one in

224four years, uh, three years, and it it's definitely time for us to reconvene and make sure that you're hearing from them. We're hearing and then I think it's really important to bring in those people who are in the know or have their ear to the ground as to where other potential developments are going to be. And and I think that's I can't say I think I know that's why I recommended it in the first place. So, I just wanted to provide some clarification because Miss Wallace was not privy to that conversation previously. >> Thank you, Superintendent. Um, board member Miller, are you still are you? Oh, >> I'm Thank you. I'm finished. Thank you. >> Thank you. Board member Miller, I recognize board member keys. >> So, I was just going to echo what uh

225Mrs. Miller said and Superintendent Hyde that, you know, I I was also going to say I think we bring in multiple viewpoints of that. I think probably we're we need to count is wonderful um possible developers who are prominent in the area but also consider municipalities city you know city of Davenport city of Hay city if we're talking about the northeast those are the two high volume growth areas is H city and Davenport and maybe having them you know not not nec not necessarily present but there to be able to provide input should we have questions because as we have questions arise something may be more you know to them being in city limits because a lot of these potential growth, you know, growth, the power line road area that's within city limits of Hayes

226City that they may be able to provide some insight that perhaps the county doesn't have. >> Thank you, board member Keys. Board member Fields, you are now recognized. >> Thank you. I just was going to say what Superintendent H said about we've been trying to have a concurrency uh meeting for a long long time and I think we just need to uh stress the urgency of the meeting and it needs to be countywide and have everyone to the table with the county being the the main uh presenter I would think as it has been in the past. >> Thank you board member Fields. Board member Wyatt, you are now recognized. >> Thank you. And I'm looking at Josh. I'm not asking him any questions, but I'm looking at him because their department shared a really

227great tool. Um, as we are getting ready to go through the high school resoning process that shows where all of the growth that we know about, and I don't know if you all have had a chance to delve into it. I don't know if it's been shared with Miss Wallace, but could we have that I'm directing this at you, Superintendent H. Could we have them reshare that with us? Um because I think that's a really helpful to tool >> to um Superintendent Heides point. While we don't necessarily know where growth is coming as far as meeting with the developers, is that something that they would be willing to share in a public meeting or would it be better for our staff to meet with a group a smaller group of developers? I think got a

228reach. >> I just feel like if I'm have a industry secret, I'm not going to go on >> into a public meeting and say it out loud. >> Yeah. I don't know that we're going to ask them to disclose what their immediate plans may be because they're they're finalizing contracts or doing those things, but I think they have a better view of the landscape, the potential impact. And if we asked them to present it from that perspective, um I think that would be fairly significant for the board to take into consideration because all along I think the concern is that and I'm not I'm going to say disconnect, but it's not the right word. I'm I'm apparently struggling for words today. um the county only knows what the county knows >> with what's been submitted,

229what's being approved, and and I think we're seeing more and more contentious meetings happening. So now the developers may be a little bit more reluctant to keep rolling forward with projects, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be paying attention to potential impact and as we make decisions. So, as far as your question about a public meeting, it probably would make more sense again to do it in a retreat or to do it at a workshop, but we can work with them and based off their willingness to say, "We're not asking you to disclose anything specific, but what do you see? What's on the horizon? What's out there? How many properties out there are currently even in being anticipated for home sites? And what type of home sites?" I I think that does give us a

230little bit more insight and information that we may not otherwise get through our conversations with the county or municipalities, but we want to talk with them and make sure they feel comfortable sharing and give them the context that we're not asking them to say, you know, in the next 18 months, give us a list of all your development plans. I don't think they're going to disclose that. But >> well, I don't and that's why I say I don't, you know, I would be interested in hearing from them and their comfort level of is it something that you would rather do a round table with our planning and facility staff and and some of your senior admin or is it something that they want to do with the full board? >> I I think Mr. Sharpless

231has had an initial conversation with them. Um he asked to bring this forward. I asked him if we could put it under new business for this sole purpose of the board, have some discussion. I think you benefit more from having a conversation with you directly and then if we have anything if we want to meet with them prior to the meeting um to just kind of clarify what's going to be shared what can be disclosed what shouldn't be disclosed um happy to do that and I just think we're just looking for some direction from the collective board as to what do you believe what would you like next steps to be >> thank you I would just ask that any that we open it up to any of the developers in that area that are

232interested and willing to participate. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um I just want to be very clear. It's not my goal to give any single developer any kind of um preferential treatment. That's just the one I got to meet with because that's the one I had more of a relationship with. I would be very very open to having as many that come in as possible. I just want to learn. I want to I want to be able to make better decisions. Um, and I think potentially having I think board member Keys talking about some municipalities up there. I think that could that could certainly add in the county certainly could add um a more robust look at it. So, Superintendent Hide, I think we you've gotten enough direction from here saying that we want to have

233something right and um you know with your be able being able to put it on a future workshop. I think >> let me let me work up a potential agenda. Okay. there. I'll share it with you because and Mr. Green and then share it with the board because I I have a feeling to have a meaningful dialogue, we're going to have to do it over a few meetings. Whereas a retreat does give us a little bit more flexibility and we could host a retreat here for the convenience of the community. Um, but let's let's let me see what information I can gather and plan for and then make sure that the topics that I fishbone out in the agenda are the ones that you're most interested in as a group. Once I get that feedback

234then we can determine one meeting, two meetings or can we get it done in a singular workshop. I think that's the important part. So I clearly have received feedback that yes it's an interest of the collective board. >> Well and I would just uh one more thing to add from my from my perspective. I think this is uh a conversation that should be had sooner rather than later. So if we can uh prioritize this, I would appreciate it. I just I'm I'm I'm getting nervous on how much growth's happening from just for me driving there. Um and so I appreciate that. Thank you, Superintendent. >> Yes, sir. >> Um board members, um I'm going to ask if uh a point of privilege. Um if board member Wyatt could uh possibly give her item for board

235update before, um uh G4 uh and then we can get into the the G4 item. Okay. So, board member Wyatt. >> Oh, wait, wait. You have Wait, sorry. You have another question. I didn't see that. Board member Wallace, you're recognized. >> All right. Really quick, I just wanted to say as someone who was born and raised in Barto, I have geographic bias to the west side of the county. My understanding in terms of my knowledge base, my understanding is the east side of the county has transformed over the last 30 years by percentage more than any other part of the county. So, I totally support educating us. And given that our office is here in BTO, probably the furthest away point other than Bradley Junction, I just wanted to say I support that and and

236appreciate any efforts to bring us up to speed on an area that probably has transformed more than any other in the county, relatively speaking. Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. That's all. >> Thank you, Bo Member Wallace. I'm sorry I did not see >> That's okay. I'm sorry to hold up. >> No, it's all good. So, board member Wyatt, you are now recognized. >> Thank you so much, and I apologize because I'm going to have to step away for just a few moments. Um, but I spoke with um, Mr. Green over the weekend about um, the travel policy that went out partially because I'm trying to understand how did we get so far from the state statute. Um, it sounds like when we updated ours in 2019 that we updated it to become more restrictive than

237the state statute. So, it currently as state statute if it's over $500, so if we're going to a conference, we have to notice that and get um, board approval. the way that we have written it into our policy. If we are leaving the county, we have to get board approval. Um so for things like if we're going to do a site visit of Bistown, if we're going to a CF um Central Florida Schoolboard Association meeting in Orlando, you know, for some of us that live closer to one county line than the other, it's quicker for me to get to Ocola County than it is for me to get to Frost Proof. So it seems a little silly that for a meeting at at the county line that we would have to notice it. Um that's

238not in state statute. So, I had asked Mr. Green to look at revising that, but I wanted to make the full board aware and make sure there were no other comments or concerns about that as as his team is is looking into that. >> Okay, I appreciate it. That was the only thing that I had for today, but wanted to make sure I got it out before I had to step away. So, thank you. >> Thank you, board member Wyatt. Um, now we're going to go to G4 board member Pecards. And I would like to uh recognize Superintendent Hyde to for that discussion. >> So board members, there have been requests from a handful of you as it relates to being issued PE cards. Um and I know that interim council had given some advice

239previously. Um I will tell you that Mr. Green and I have spoken about it. Um I I can give him more time to do more research if you like, but there is nothing in statute or rule that prohibits a board member from having a PC card. The only thing that does stipulate though is that should you accept the responsibility of a PC card, you must go through the annual training and you must comply with all the requirements um for receipts and those types of things as you do now already for your existing travel. Some of you find great flexibility with being issued a PC card. Some of you have basically found yourselves stuck um and you need to extend, you need to do those things. And so there's a benefit potentially to you having those.

240So, just wanted to put it out there because I have been it was a request of the board of board members to bring this topic back up. It's not an all ornone. If none of you decide to take a PC card, there's really not a vote. It's it's it's an option. I want to make sure all the board members were aware of. If you'd like to be issued a PC card, we'll have to schedule that. Schedule the training and then make sure that you're in compliance each year with the training requirements. Out outside of that, you are not obligated to receive a PCR. Um, so I just that was the item that was the request. So I just want to make sure and and I'll look to Mr. Green unless if there's anything that conflicts

241with that or contradicts what I've shared. But um I believe that's the summary um of that topic. >> You're recognized Mr. Green. >> Yeah, I recall doing some research on this and that that's a good summary. I can share what I found with you just so you can see the authorities out there and what the you know what the options are for you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Follow up with you. >> Any board member questions? >> All right. Seeing none, we're now to uh board member comments. These are comments from your committees or anything else that is needing to be discussed right now. Is there any board member comments? Mr. >> Chair, if I may, just for one quick moment. >> Yes, sir. You're recognized. >> Just just simply so I can make

242sure that the media team is aware following board comments before we adjourn, we do have a close session for student discipline. So we will need to clear out the room. But for everybody who's in attendance, there'll be no action to follow. So Mr. Chair. >> All right. Thank you, Superintendent. Uh board members, uh do you have any comments now about any of your committee assignments or anything? Uh, seeing none this work session. >> Oh, okay. Board member Miller, you are recognized. >> Sorry for the delay. Chair, we almost had that done. Shay, I saw you standing up. >> I had the gavl in my hand. >> Save the dates. We'll go out soon. This is for staff, probably superintendent, too. No, he already knows. But for the board, um, we will be groundbreaking the Barnett

243Discovery Center at Tener on March 30th at 11:00 a.m. So, I would love for everyone to be there. Um, and you will get a formal invite, but I know calendars go quickly, so I wanted to let you know now. Thank you. >> Thank you, Board Member Miller. Board member Keys, you're recognized. >> Do we get to wear Do we get to wear a special hat? >> There might be There might be a construction hat just for you. >> All right. Right. Board member keys, are you done? Okay. Are there any other board member comments? Seeing none, this work session is adjourned.