School Board Work Session | June 10 , 2025

001[Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Woo! Woo! [Music] Good afternoon. Uh, welcome to the P County School Board's work session. We will now call the work session for June 10th, 2025 to order. I would like to thank everyone for being here today. Uh I don't know if you knew this, but every year on the very first uh Saturday in June, uh the Minneapolis community, they come together uh to watch um a huge number two pencil. I don't know if you've se seen this. This is all over the social media right now. Um this large massive pencil and they come together to actually sharpen it. Uh the sculpture uh was shaped in 2022 by Curtis uh Ingulad uh who transformed a 20

002foot tall 32-in diameter wind damaged burr oak uh snag into the lake of the Isisles's best known pencil. And I mean this has been a pilgrimage that I've wanted to do for many years. Uh but it was incredible to see thousands of people uh come watch and witness the sharpening of this large pencil. So all that to say uh the pencil has hope in our extremely digitally saturated uh spaces today. Um and here here it is. The the pencil owner was asked you know why sharpen the pencil is what he was asked and he says there's renewal. There's a promise of it. If you can sharpen it if you can make that dull a pointy tip again you've got a chance to put pencil to paper and start doing whatever you want to do. Um,

003so, uh, one of my favorite quotes is, "A pencil and a dream is all you need." So, um, really thankful that you're here today. Uh, again, thanks to our staff. I see you lined up back there. Um, we have staff on the front row today as well to kick us off. U, appreciate your accessibility to us as we work through our uh, work session today. Uh, I will read out the who are we statement. And this is what it says. It says, "We are the Pole County Leadership Governance Team. If we were to pick one phrase to define us, it would be student centered. Uh 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.

004Um I don't know, put a student in your brain right now and and visually see that. That's why we're here today. So uh the four most important things to our governance team are one operating with integrity. Two, respecting our students, our staff, families, and each other. Establishing a culture where stakeholders feel valued, supported, and have opportunities for personal and professional growth. Supporting an approach of continuous improvement to ensure student outcomes. Um, that's that's the most important things to us. Collectively, we need to work on behalf of the children that we serve and find these avenues of agreement so that we can govern the district in an effective manner. Uh there is no acceptable alternative to that. We will always collaborate in a respectful manner in order to enhance opportunities for each student and staff member.

005We will not disparrage others. Our students will thrive because when we remain committed to that, um we're supporting the whole child. We hope to engage and empower our students and stakeholders to create this community of lifelong learners. Not sure what you all are learning today uh in your brains, but um yeah, that's a good thing. At this time, I would like to turn it over to Superintendent High to lead us in our work session today. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board, members of the staff and community. So, I feel like we have to give the pen equal audience today. So, in 1950, Mr. Marcel Beech invented the big pen and I'll leave it at that. Did it have an eraser? It did not have I love the pencil facts. Our our first topic

006up for today is as uh as you know uh our last meeting was running uh considerably longer and we want to be respectful of our stakeholders of your time as well and that of staff. So I asked our financial ad adviserss to come back today. Um the purpose of the presentation was really to make sure that the board understands the different funding mechanisms available to it when it comes to um capital investments, capital improvements. And so I will turn it over to Miss Jenkins at this time and she will introduce any guests that we have. Good morning. Today we have Laura How who is with PFM, our financial advisors, and she's going she and I are going to talk through um a little bit about our capital projects and our financing options. Um good afternoon.

007Thank you for um having me here today. I know my colleague Brent was here last time and so um we work hand inand to cover the district. Um oh there we go. Um okay so today we're going to go over sort of three main topics. The funding sources that are available for Florida public schools. Um a general overview of the financing process. A little bonds 101 for you. Um and then an overview of the school district's debt outstanding. Um so to start this list here and we're going to go through on the next slides but these are the funding sources available that for for capital for school districts. Um and since we're going to get into details we'll go ahead and skip to the next slide. Um so there's PICO and COODS that are direct

008funds from the state um which provide minimal funds if any specifically for school districts. Some of those funds are directed to charter schools now. Um, so that's not something that we really look at when we're looking at capital needs for the district. Um, the capital outlay millage, which is the 1.5 mills, um, each district may levy up to the full 1.5 mills to fund construction, maintenance, technology, transportation, and make lease payments. Um, this can be through borrowing or on a pay as you go basis. Um, and legally you can levy up to 75% of that 1.5 mil. the 1.125 times. Um, we try to keep school districts under 50%, partially because the credit rating agencies don't look favorable if you go above that. Um, but then also we saw with the downturn in the real

009estate environment back in 2008, we like to make sure there's that extra cushion that you're not bumping up against that 75% um, legal requirement. Um, additional sources that are available that do require a referendum for the voters are short-term millage options. Um, there's a two-year option that's available for operating or capital usage, and then a 4-year that's available for operating. Um, other referendum op options are general obligation bonds, which a handful of districts in the state utilize. Um, and then sales tax revenue bonds, which a good chunk of districts have gone out for that. Um, and then there's the two options under that. the local government infrastructure sir tax that you would share with the county and then the school capital outlay sir tax. So cops are certificates of participation are the most common structure

010that school districts utilize because you do not need a voter referendum for this. This is dollars that are coming in off of your adorum. Um legally, you know, it was said previously that school districts can't use those dollars to issue debt past a year. Um so this structure was created that has been validated by the Supreme Court um that basically the school district enters into a ground lease agreement with the financing corporation that they're leasing to you on an annual basis um these certificates of participation. And so when entering into them, which a school district does have, you're annually appropriating dollars every year to pay for this debt service that covers all of those leases. And it's an all ornone appropriation. So, you can't say, "I'm just going to fund this one school and not

011these other schools." Um, it's all or none, and that's what makes it a stronger security that investors are comfortable investing in to to buy. Um, so this is just more details about all of the documents. There's a whole lot of documents that go into COP's transactions. Um, so we don't need to go through all of that. Um, any questions before we get into the financing process? Nope. Okay. Um, and so this is just a quick overview. Um, you know, we create the plan of finance, draft the legal framework, so all the documents that would be drafted go into the capital markets and then we close and fund the district for the projects that they would need. Um, so in a little bit more detail, we would select the team that's first. So your financial adviser,

012and there's another slide in here that will go through kind of your team. Um, determine the projects and the cost and the timing of when you would need those funds. um the source of repayment. So for the school districts, it's either cops or the sales tax. Um we help utilize the structure um which will show you that as well and the determine the method of sale. We come back to the board for approval um and consideration of those documents enter into the public markets um after obtaining the credit ratings um and then we close and that's when you guys can begin using the funds to build the capital needs around the school district. So the financing members um you'll see up in sort of the tan color those are like your core team. So your

013financial adviser we are fiduciaries to the district. Um you have bond or special tax council as well the school board attorney is involved and disclosure counsel that helps prepare the disclosure documents that are released to investors. Um, and so depending if it's a public offering or a bank loan, you would bring in the green, the money folks, um, either an underwriter or direct provider to the bank. And then depending on the other kind of structures that go into what the financing is, you would have the trustee, potential rating agencies, it's a it's a public issuance, um, credit enhancers if needed, bond insurance, um, a register paying agent if that's necessary, and a verification agents utilized when we do refundings. Um, again, this is just more detailed descriptions that y'all can reference when you go back

014to the core team. Um, and so we will before we get into an overview of the school district, any questions on that? Um, so this is the current debt that's outstanding for Pulk Schools. Um, and so there's three debt that's outstanding under their certificates of participation. Um, you'll see the maturity dates um, in the second to last right hand column. Um, and so the 29Bs are re, you know, expiring in 2026 and the last maturity is out to 2029. Um, and then the sales tax revenue bonds that expire in October of 33, which is with the sunset of the sales tax that's in place right now. Um, and those bonds are callable in 2029. And so that's something that we'll look at as we get closer to that call date if there's opportunity for savings

015on that. Um, the rest of them are not callable at this moment. Um, so the school district's credit ratings, this is just giving you an overview of the historical um, ratings. They do have a very strong issuer rating of A2. The cops are always a notch lower at the A3. Um, and you'll see that back in 2010 it was a double A2 and has notched up. Um, and the halfsent sales tax is at the issuer rating of AA2 as well. This is showing you. So, when we talk about um the coverage, the graphic on the bottom is a debt that's outstanding. Um and we did include the 2022 um issuance of the building tomorrow schools since that is part of the lease payment even though it's not cops. Um that is debt that's you know

016outstanding out there that goes out to 2043. Um and so the red line is showing you that 75% the 1.125 mills. The green line is showing you half. So there's plenty of capacity there for the district. Um and so of the 1.5 mills, you're only currently utilizing 31 mills to pay the debt. Um and that again includes a 2022 issuance since that's part of a payment that needs to be made. Um this slide goes over the sales tax. And so the blue on the bottom is the current debt that's outstanding. It's level across the board for your principal and interest and again expires in 2033. Um the yellow line at top is your sales tax coverage and the gray is your excess available for payo. So the district has very healthy coverage of 4.92 times

017on the sales tax. Um we did just want to highlight over the years that the district has taken opportunities for refundings and more specifically as well um taking the program that was very heavily um variable rate interest rate exposure and fixing all that out. So it's a very conservative program now. Um and so over the the course from 2016 to 2021 has utilized and realized um over 2 million of net present value savings. And this is something like I said we continuously monitor but the sales tax would be the next and that's not for some years to come. Um and I'll let Heather speak to the next two slides. As you all know Josh um MLmore brought our five-year capital plan to you at the last meeting. So, we just wanted to give you a

018couple snapshots of our overview of our projected revenue. We do update this every year. Um, the current projects that we have included. And on the second page, we touch a little bit on deferred maintenance. This is only a piece of what we know so far. We're having a survey done. And as we move forward with our financing options, that's something that we can take into consideration as well, refurbishing some of our older schools. So, we did want to highlight the different methods um available, obviously the PIGO dollars. Um so, that's as the dollars come in, you can utilize them to meet your capital needs. Um so, any new construction and your deferred maintenance. Um the current user bears that cost. So, it's the dollars coming in are paying for the current user that's there. Um,

019a negative to that though is that, you know, project costs can escalate over time, which we've seen significantly since 2020. Um, as opposed to borrowing, so pay as you use, you can do your construction, your deferred maintenance as you need it, so you're not sort of creating that backlog with deferred maintenance. It does spread the cost of capital over time. So all those folks that are going to be in those schools for the next 30 years um would be using that. Obviously a disadvantage of that is that there is interest expense related to this. Um as a verse pays you go there is no interest expense just potential escalation in construction costs. Um so we have been talking with Heather and her team um and so we're here to discuss potentially new money needs um

020of roughly 250 million um 200 million for the Pon Point Siana area high school and 50 million for deferred maintenance. But as Heather had said, you know, with the capital plan and the deferred maintenance needs, this is flexible. Um, and discussions can come up. And we did want to show you a couple different options of structuring this to kind of get you a sense of what we were talking about. Um, all of this in assumes it's paid with fully with the 1.5 mills um, issued as cops. All of them are at 250 million for your project fund. Um, and there's differing final maturity dates. And so I don't know if it's easier to look at the chart or the graphic below. Um, I did want to highlight, so we're looking at potentially, you know, maturities

021in 2035. So 10-year issuance, um, up to 2040 and then 2045, so 20 years out from now. Um, and I know that in the markets people hear about mortgage rates are still at 7% for 30 years. Um, the municipal market is much more advantageous still. And we do have a graphic in here that will show you sort of where interest rates have moved. But did want to highlight from the 10-year structure to the 20-year structure, the true interest cost ranges, what we're estimating in today's market from 3.95% to 4.5%. So still very attractive rates for municipal issuers. Um and so the a couple of the differences here and if we are looking at the graphic at the bottom the brown is all of your current debt outstanding um that goes out to 2043 and we

022have layered on the different um potential series of this for from the 10ear to the 20 year. Um the green line up at the top is 50% of the 1.5 mills. So that's based on your current taxable assessed value, what the state's projecting in your growth over the next five years, and then we level that out. Um, so you'll see that any of these scenarios, we're still well below that 50% of the 1.5 mills. Um, a lot of these kind of layer on top of each other and the biggest difference then in this is your net interest. Um, so the 10-year structure we proposed, which is sort of this tan line, um, that drops off in 2036. So you'll see it levels across is what we call a wrap structure. Um and so it's slightly

023deferred principle on that. It keeps your payments of the interest a little bit lower. So keeps the MADS a touch lower. Um and MADS is maximum annual debt service. And then the principal picks up in big bulks from 29 to 35. Um and so that would result in an estimated millage requirement of your maximum annual debt service of 0.57 of the 1.5 mills. Um the 15-year we do two different structures on that. So wrapped again the same where you're deferring the principal um until 2029 when that debt service drops down significantly. Um and then we also show level. So, where your principal and interest would be level throughout, not taking into account the current debt that's outstanding. Um, and so those are the blue and yellow lines. So, you'll see the yellow line, which is

024level, has your MADS pop up. Um, and the blue line is kind of hidden under the orange down there. And so, it keeps, you know, your debt service payments through 28 a touch lower. Um, and then we did the same for 20-year wrapped and level as well. Um, and so that's the orange line and the red line. So again, you'll see the red is where it's level, so you're paying principal in the starting year, so it's higher, and the orange is a touch lower. Um, all of that to say, the coverages on any of these scenarios are healthy, ranging from um 47 usage of the mill to 62. Um but the bigger in difference then is your net interest in this um which the 20-year wrapped structure is requiring the highest um at 142.7 of

025net interest compared to the 15-year where you would still get the same um millage requirement. You're only paying 98 million in interest. Um there's a lot of different nuances that we can do. We just sort of wanted to show you a couple different scenarios. Um, we like to take into consideration though potential future needs as well. Um, when doing financings. So, we're not just looking at today. We're looking at are there going to be potential borrowing costs? What are the payo needs down the road to make sure there's enough dollars there to fund that? Um, so before I move on from the slide, because I know that was a lot of information, are there any questions? Dr. Allen. Uh, thanks superintendent. I don't know if uh we can wait till the end, but uh just

026to maybe start uh I was looking at page and this would be my interpretation of the graph, but I just want to clarify. So, um and again, I mean, I'm looking at this and obviously strong financial position with the conservative debt management and so again, appreciate that work. Um, am I seeing that the district's only using about 21% of its borrowing capacity? Is that how I would interpret this? Is that um, if I could do the math in my head, but it's.13 of the 1.5 mills. And so you can go up to 1.125 just a little bit smaller than that then. Yes. Okay. All right. And then I guess my question around that was like, how would that compare to other districts around us? And if that's even it varies. It varies. Yeah. Some districts

027that carry really high debt, others that are are pretty low. We are one of the lowest. Yeah. Okay. Good to know. So we normally see with um districts that are starting to grow is when we have these discussions, right? Because the the needs are sort of building and so that's why we take into future considerations um absolutely to try and manage that to keep it as low as possible. Okay. So then that 50 U million is based on you know if we look at that matrix right so the upper portion of that matrix was our half cent sales tax so the deferred maintenance is where the 50 is coming so the 200 seemed it increased a bit right because I think we were at 180 something and so I wonder where the 200 number came

028from these are estimates estimates numbers because I was going to make sure we commented on that I I will assure you that our deferred maintenance will be significantly higher than $50 million Um, if I recall correctly, we've already received a completed report, initial report from one school and it's already at $6 million for that school alone. So, multiply that across the district, 131 schools. We're going to have some significant deferred maintenance. However, the board will manage that as we bring the deferred maintenance and we begin to rank prioritize roofing, HVAC, plumbing. That's those are the conversations we will have through workshops and and board meetings. Um so that number will move and I think just for for argument sake to allow them to show you the impact they use these rounded numbers just to show

029you because part of this too is even with a new high school I think it's important to note I've spoken with staff and there's you know there's there's three different options really available to us to pay just to simplify the entire process. Could you pay the entire school with impact fees? Yes, the money's there. But then you're house rich in cash poor. I always use that analogy. Um, can you split fund that by using impact fees and a and a combination of of borrowing? Yes. Can you borrow? Yes. So, I think what will come before the board is when we get start moving in that direction, fin for the finance aspect, you'll see each one of those options before you and what the long-term and short-term implications are for us. Um so good but it

030is nice to know we we are in a very good spot as far as our borrowing opportunities um compared to other districts especially large urban districts. Mhm. All right. And I mean I I think uh you know obviously you know the question of property values and sales tax revenues does that have any bearing or impact? But I think the question too is you know um moving forward um the timeline. What are you thinking? Um, I will have to defer to staff on that. Mr. Pittz or Miss Jenkins, when are we bringing a finance recommendation or options before the board for the new high school in particular? Well, right now we just wanted to um give the board some different options and find out what your direction is and then we'll meet with facilities and determine

031a timeline and come back to you to make a plan. And to answer your question, our property taxes are up 6% this year. Yeah. Okay. I think that's all I So I I will come back to your question in a moment. Yeah. Um I want to make sure I get Mr. Sharpless's question. So Mr. Sharpless. Um so I was uh thing on check. Check. Okay. Um I I was wondering on the different revenue sources you sales tax, you talk about uh the coops and that different things. I was I was wondering on our go back to page 19 on our sales tax summary. um the chart there, you know, there's we have excess and then we have a little bit above that to where the sales tax coverage is. Do we ever use that sales

032tax uh revenue there to help pay off some of our coops to put us in a better position to be able to borrow more potentially or what do we what do we use that for other than just construction or are we just using that for construction? We are just using sales tax is used for construction and some technology needs. We had a sales tax bond and we use the proceeds from the sales tax revenue to pay on that bond as well. Okay. Um we have local capital improvement that we use for school buses um some different projects and payment for our cops. We also use impact fees to pay on the cops as well. The reason I asked I I've heard that um that sales tax bonds generally have lower interest rates than coops do.

033So, I was wondering if there's a way that we can take advantage of that and if we can use more the sales tax bonds to potentially pay off the coop to help save us money in the long run. So, because the sales tax or the rated the same as the issuer rating, which is a notch higher than the cops, it does price slightly lower. Um, we say about 10 basis points, so.1% um lower than what the cops would. So, if you're looking at 350 for cops, it would be 340ish, we say, for sales tax. Um, one of the things with the sales tax is it does sunset in 2033. Um, and so you could only issue debt out until that point. Um, there's also the ability to issue certificates of participation and use impact fees

034and sales tax depending on what was in the referendum to allow for those dollars. um if it's to finance projects that are being financed under under the cops to use that to pay. So I know that wouldn't address then the potential lower interest cost. Um but it would allow more flexibility to go out past 2033. And so that's really the the limiting factor on us using a a sales tax bond then it would be that that 2033 date. Correct. Okay. which we can look at that as well um and make sure that the projects that are being financed or authorized under that referendum um and confirm that as well. I appreciate it. Just trying to get the best bang for our buck. That's all. And our taxpayers. So, yes, absolutely, Mr. Keys. Yeah. And thank

035you, Mr. Shar. That was going to be my next point is what the language of that referendum said and how we were allowed to use those. Um you know, 10 bips while substantial in the larger amounts of principle is significant. I think in the grand scheme of things is not that big of a deal based on the term of what we're we're going out for. So that was my main concern and thank you for asking that question again, Mr. Sharpless, cuz my my thing was what does the language say and what can we use it for and and I while I definitely appreciate the savings um we want to make sure that we're also planning for long-term what we're doing as well. There are no further questions. I'll come back to Dr. Allen's question. Um,

036Miss Jenkins, I'd like you to go ahead subsequent to this meeting, provide me with a timeline in which I will I can guarantee the board that they will see the various options before them. I don't know that the board's in a position to make a decision today on what options to pursue. I think um from my perspective, I'd like the board to see all three options that I've laid out. you know, paying with impact fees, borrowing, split funding it, um, and then show them what the cost impact would be over time as well. I think they need to see every option and what the competitive rates are because it's my understanding if that still holds true that if we pay at least 50% of the high school cost, for example, using impact fees, and we

037go out to borrow the rest, we will get a much more competitive interest rate on that reduced amount than we would if we went out for the 200 million. And I could be wrong on that, but I believe that's what was shared with me previously. So, I'd like to be able to bring that back to the board for them to review. Yes, sir. One of the other reasons we wanted to um show you part of the capital plan is because with the deferred maintenance, we have an option to borrow a little bit to help with that as well. And if we have upcoming K8s, elementarymentaries, all those pieces can fit together and we could pay cash for the high school or part of the high school. we can look at what we'll need to build

038other schools, work with Mr. Fix and his department, and then take our deferred maintenance into consideration so that we only have to do this once. So, July 10th. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. There are no further questions. I know you had one more slide up, Mr. Keys. That was an interesting point you brought up, Miss Jenkins, as far as the opportunity to finance some of that deferred maintenance out. My only concern on that would be segregating on those things what we are considering financing and that we are not seeking long-term debt on an asset that is not that it's useful lifespan is below what that debt is. That's the only thing that I would I mean I'm I'm sure we're doing that but as I look at that out is if we're going to go financing

039deferred maintenance that we're not um the useful lifespan of HVAC units 10 years we're not financed for 20 which I know you guys know that but I just wanted to make that aware that's all that we properly segregate out those things if we're going to go seek out financing that these are the ones that we're financing out deferred maintenance on I guess so that is something that we we do take into consideration um and you'll see on this slide the average life that goes across for the debt from this um which is from six years up to almost 13 years um and so there is you know that is something that we do take into consideration um in the structuring. Thank you. Thank and just the last slide to go over was to just kind

040of give you a current snapshot of where current market rates are in the municipal market. Um and so what we price off of is called the B valve AAA geo curve. Um, and the graphic on the left hand side shows you the yellow dotted was where we were a year ago. So, we were at that inverted yield curve. Um, where the one year was higher than the 10-year. Um, and you'll see that the current line is blue. And so, between the current one week and one month ago, it's kind of all right on top of each other. Um, and so rates have risen on the longer end out 30 years, but have declined on the front end compared to where they were a year ago. And the graphic on the right shows you um where

041we were a year ago and the light blue and the dark blue where we currently are and then that range of where they've been over 10 years. Um and so the bottom of that range was kind of where we were in 2020. Really awesome time um to borrow, but we're still under where we, you know, the 10-year averages like I said. Um the rates are still attractive. It's not like what you're hearing in the news for a mortgage rate. That was all. So, thank you. Thank you. Well, members, I'm going to ask that we skip to item number three. I'll come back to Aramark. Um, I may need to adjust that. we're we're dealing with an issue and I I'll apprise the board here momentarily. Um so the next item before the board is proposed

042rule development for schoolboard policies. Good afternoon everyone or give me one second. Okay. Um so today we have a total of 13 policies that we're bringing before you. Um the first three as you'll see are really like the same policy. It's just um split up in the different HR groups. And these are all going to be based on like the 2024 legislative sessions. So nothing that just happened. We we don't have those yet. We'll have those like probably towards the end of summer, start of the school year. So, we're still finishing up what happened all this past school year. So, the first three policies are um all related to military leave. So, it's our 1430.07, 3430.07, and 4430.07. And this is related to Senate Bill 818. And it just um it changes the pay pays

043employees um for the first 30 days for those that are um on military duty for 90 days. So previously it it paid for anybody that was on military leave and now the statute says for 90 days. If they're on leave for I mean not on leave on duty, military duty for 90 days then we can pay them for um 30 consecutive days. Policy 2623 is our student assessment policy. And this one is more um Nola presented it as a technical change. It there's a a couple citations that are changed in there and then they updated a few um words that were lowercase that really needed to be capital. And the only reason I I brought it to work session is because a couple of those changes changed the letter S and superintendent from lowercase to

044capital. And that does change the designation because a capital S for superintendent means superintendent or designate which is what we try to include in most of our policies unless there's something specific that only the superintendent can do. Um for whatever reason when this policy was originally written it might have been a typo or something where it was the lowercase S but it really should be the capital S. So I I didn't want to put that on technical just because it does change um the designation for that policy 55112 is entrance requirements and this is um just cleaning up this policy to so it can mirror statute. So, it takes out a sentence that says um this is all based on um kindergarten entrance. And so, it changes it from it used to say public or

045non-public school and now it just says satisfactory completion of an appropriate kindergarten program. And then it also removes the language that states home education is not an option. Policy 5225 is absences for religious holidays. And this policy is just updated. In the past, all of the religious holidays that were listed were broken down by month. Um, but as you know, some holidays, the month changes year to year, like Easter, sometimes in March, sometimes it's in April. So instead of having to update this policy every year, Niola just took out the dates and just listed the religious holidays that fall under that. Do we have any questions so far on any of those, Mr. Sharpless? on the last policy 5225. I'm assuming these this list of religious holidays is from state statute. Is that where we're

046coming from? Yes. And it's the same list that was in that's always been in there. It's just it took out all the months and just made the list of policies. But yes, these aren't um holidays that we create. This isn't a list that we created. Thank you. Is that it for that? Okay. So, we will move on to policy 5460, which is graduation requirements. Um, and then also the next policy 5465. Um, they both have some of the same language changes based on um the GED. And it allows students that are 16 or older are now allowed to take the GED if they've filed a formal um declaration of intent to terminate school enrollment as opposed to previously where they had to wait for um approval of an underage waiver application. It also puts a

047requirement for school boards um to notify the candidate of all adult, secondary, and post-secondary options available to them and let um also tell them what the requirements and um eligibility requirements are for those programs. And then there's also some language in there about um the Florida Seal of Fine Arts. That's a um Florida rule 6A-1.09952. So very similar in 5465 um as far as the requirements for GED and those students that are that have reached the age of 16. Policy 5500 is our student conduct policy and it's revised to change the threshold um for petty active misconduct from 350 to 750 um because 750 is what's considered a felony. And this um is also already in the updated version of our student code of conduct that um Brett Butler presented to you guys I think

048at the last work session. And then policy we have a couple facilities policies. Policy 7100 facilities planning and this is based off of Florida statute 1013.385. And it just um where you it listed out previously all the different um specific areas for flexibility, it now just provides like a general statement to summarize those. And then policy 7101, the building permits and code enforcement office. It removes an outdated reference to a 2010 Florida building code. It adds another legal reference to Florida statute. um identifies the statutory responsibilities of the building code administrator and then it updates the citation to the state requirements for educational facilities. Do you have questions on any of those policies? Seeing none. Okay. And then our final two policies, these um were recommended by um schoolboard member Wyatt who worked with um

049John Murphy and Basel and Dunlap to add language to policy 5335, care of students with chronic health conditions, and policy 8510, our wellness policy. And it just um incorporates language allowing students to bring their own lunch to school with certain restrictions. Do you have any questions about those policies? Seeing none. And then that is all I have for you today. So um all of these policies um you'll be here tonight. Yes. Okay. Um and um Mr. Crawford will ask for authority to advertise a public hearing so we can have the public hearing at the next um scheduled board meeting in July. That is July 29th. July 10th. I don't know why I keep saying the 10th. Did I say the 10th? No, ma'am. I did. Oh, okay. Okay. For some reason, it's stuck in my

050mind. Oh, okay. It's cuz today is June 10th. Yeah. Whatever. Okay. Yeah. July 29th. July 29th. I apologize. Thank you, M. Board members, we're going to pull um the error item um and bring it back, but I will go ahead and provide you with a quick summary. The Aramark item before you is going to request and you'll see the cost analysis for a one-year, two-year, and three-year extension on the Aramark contract. Um, we are currently recommending a two-year contract extension. That item will then subsequently go out for bid or go under review. Um, but the district does require some additional time. You will find cost savings in both the year 2 and year three contract. However, we are deferring to the year two and I'll be happy to address this with any board members further,

051but this item will be coming back to you. Unfortunately, um we're we're dealing with an issue. So, I'm going to go ahead and pull that item and allow it to come forward at a later date. Um next item is going to be the school allocation review. And so, Mr. Fout, Miss Jenkins, and others are here. Board members, um you received background information. Um back in 2022, 2023, the board reviewed the school allocation model. It was approved with changes and revisions so that we would go ahead and implement that for the 23 or 22 23 23 24 school years. It has not been changed since that time. And over those three years, these last three years, we've been slowly transitioning to sitebased budgeting. Um board members asked um that we go ahead and provide a summary.

052Board members, what you've received, and we are not going to go slide by slide through all of the schools. Um really the intent today is to go ahead and show you and be able to explain that as you look at the allocation models um for sitebased budgeting. Um again it's been a three-year transition. We started with a very small cadre in the first year and those were voluntary. Um and then based off lessons learned with them, feedback we received, we expanded it into year two which was about almost triple the size the initial group and then for this year we transitioned the remaining schools for the 2526 school year for budgeting purposes. Everyone is fully trained on sitebased budgeting. It's not a singular training. there are multiple sessions and then in fact they actually have

053to pass a test um to be able to be afforded the option of sitebased budgeting. Um there are a lot of options and a lot of improvements and it's been very well received by the majority of our building administrators simply because it does give them more local control and flexibility over their budgeting. But sitebased budgeting does adhere very closely, if not entirely, to our funding mechanism and and to how we fund schools for certain positions. There are always exceptions and I'll address those here in a moment. But as I pointed out, everyone goes through training. Everyone has to pass the assessment in order to make those things uh done. So if you look for example on on this next slide when we talk about considerations um board members what you'll find I apologize I'm trying

054to get back to my version of it budgets that you'll see here do not reflect federally funded allocations in their entirety. Um it's important to compare the budget in addition to the unit changes. So when you look at the next some of these next slides and you see that a school lost the position that does not necessarily mean that that employee was fully displaced. So you can't just count the number of positions that were changed because they may have current employees that they then reassigned into existing vacancies. And so, um, it has allowed us to basically start to address and I'll be able to provide the board with an update as to how many long-term and even short-term positions were able to be filled with existing staff through the reallocation model. As we talk through

055some of the examples, the importance here again because it's a it's a very complicated uh page that we gave you here and it's actually comprised of multiple Excel spreadsheets. This is not done on one spreadsheet, not on one screenshot. The most one of the most important is up in the upper right hand corner and it's called the percentage of funds spent per school. And what you'll see there is how much that school is allocated each year at or above their FTE allocation. What they generate by virtue of the students enrolled on their campus. In particular, in this example, what you see here is that that school for the 23 school year, 24 school year was funded 28 almost 30% above and beyond what it would typically generate based solely on its student allocations. Subsequent to

056that, um, board members asked as they started to look at this, because you've had this information for some time now, um, asked, well, why are some schools green? So when you look in the upper left hand corner, you see the status of the school and it is a dashboard. So it's red, yellow, green. And so some asked, well, why is the school red or why is the school still yellow if we're going through the allocation model? And you received a subsequent attachment that gave you the explanation for each and every school if it was red or yellow. And primarily for many of those schools, what we found is that based off the allocation model that some of those schools based off their enrollment did not meet what would typically generate those positions, but by virtue

057of the allocation model, they're guaranteed those positions. So if you didn't meet a certain threshold, we still gave you the position by virtue of the allocation requirement. So you are funded above and beyond the money that you would generate based off your student enrollment. In other instances because of the specificity of need based off programs for example we have a lot of specialty programs CFAA summerland and others IB we do staff we do provide additional funding for in many instances and in some cases schools have been awarded additional positions based off their appeal. For example, if a school and there is an elementary school um that was two students shy of meeting the allocation model requirement for a dean to be on their campus. I allocated the dean because at some point those students are

058likely to show up but respectfully they're close enough to that bubble that I want to make sure that the school has the resources that they need in order to be successful. What the allocation model also prevents is the elimination of programs. There are requirements written explicitly throughout the allocation model that require schools to maintain all program options. For example, art, music, PE, those types of things. You can't eliminate those. You can reduce the staff allocation, the number of individuals in those positions, but you cannot eliminate the program option in its entirety. Now, obviously, schools do not eliminate positions if they still need those positions for scheduling. But what this allows for, for example, we've had schools that have, for example, 225 or 250 students enlisted in ROC and they had four ROC instructors. They don't

059need four ROC instructors. So, the school decided to go ahead and cash in two of those positions, support those 250 students as they should through the allocation of two um ROC instructors and then they redistributed those staff elsewhere. Right? In those cases in ROC, they may be placed at another school, but they also may have been retained within the school and filled a social studies position, a history position, or something else based off their area of certification. So that's I wanted to make sure I gave you a little bit of background um as we go in. I see Miss Wyatt. Miss Wyatt. Mine was an airmark question so we Okay. Yes, ma'am. Miss Miller, thanks for answering my questions. Um I don't know if my microphone Oh, thank you for answering my questions before today's

060meeting, but I do want to just reiterate that sitebased budgeting um in the past if you can talk about the phrase the dollar follows the child a little bit only because um we've had a legislator that that used it a lot and when you have children who need supports whether it's gifted or students who need support services on the ESSE spectrum um I think parents are concerned that units being cut, meaning does affect the programming. Um, so that's one thing. Two, the high school you're referring to is not my high school, but I received several phone calls about it. Um, and I think that to reassure staff and families again on the programming side because when we made that cut, they did change some programming and it and the optics is it was changed because

061of budget cuts like maybe things they participated in. And I think we want to keep the fidelity of these programs, making these conservative and very needed changes to how we budget them. So, a little bit about how programming should not change, whether it's support services. Um, and I know at the end it's it's really site based and the principal can decide. Um, and the final thing is messaging. This is great. And I don't know if our principles needed more help with messaging this, but I think a lot of what we faced um with lots of inquiries from the public could have been buffered with messaging either from us or the principles on how this was going to work. So there's three at one time. Is that okay to do three at one time? To do

062three what at? To three different I caught two, but I'll I'll I'll address the two that I did and please remind me if I missed the third. Thank you. So the first one was the the dollars following the students and that's true to a certain extent depending on a child's matrix of service depending on how they're a way they receive additional funding. Some services in particular those students with IEPs do receive additional funding that will follow them in the form of a full-time parah a part-time parah full-time nursing um those types of things. However, we do by virtue of consolidating those students within spec specific programs help cover the overall costs for that program and it and a student's overall needs and functions. When we start talking about gifted instruction, um as as I shared

063with board members previously, we receive an additional waiting for students who are identified as gifted. It's approximately $900. That funding, there is a hold back for the district because there are district staff who support gifted instruction. However, those dollars are allocated directly to the schools minus that hold back. So the schools can then again through by virtue of sightbased budgeting can make decisions how to best support students. Um as to your question, I think I got your third one now. I think your second question was communication. Um, I only received concerns about one school in particular and it was one of our performing arts schools. And the reality of it was it was not proper I I would I would argue it was not properly communicated by the administration. The administration worked quickly to send

064out communication to its parents and community members and to faculty. But when you have a school, that school in particular was funded close to a million dollars. They were overbudgeted every year in additional revenue. And as a school district, part of our responsibility is not only providing supports for students and ensuring we're supporting programs, but it's also about being fiduciary, our fiduciary responsibility. And so if every school has allocated additional funding above and beyond what their students generate at some point, we are partially responsible. And I've shared with the board before, we are overstaffed in many areas. It's just a matter of where the students are located. So by going back to the allocation model and seeing how students are generated and then being respectful of the programmatic needs. So no schools were adversely impacted

065and no schools lost program options for students. What they lost was certain class ratios in the one school in particular. What was never communicated publicly was that some of those classes had seven students in them. And that's not fair or equitable for everyone else. And so every student still has access to dance, to music, to art, to everything else that they've always had, but there's a reduced overall number of staff. Part of this historically developed because of the way we have supported and launched magnet schools and academy programs. We've always in the past and we still do to a certain extent provided attractor units. So, in order for a program to be successful in launching a program, whether it's IB, whether it's any type of career teched academy or STEM Academy, it's going to require

066additional staff because you don't want to diminish or adversely impact the current staffing allocation as you launch this new program. So, we've always allocated additional staff. What we changed four years ago and what we've been communicating ever since then to our building administrators and to others is that schools have three years. So if a new program launches at a school and we provide those additional allocations, they have three schools to market that c and and create a campaign around that because they need to offset it with new enrollment. the district cannot continue to just keep supporting programs simply because they exist especially when enrollment doesn't justify or offset that operating cost. So with respect to that we've been very very in in intentional in how we manage that but we have provided our administrators as

067I said part of the training is how to communicate this and we have had some instances where it's been poorly communicated and you're you're absolutely right um and there was one instance where there was an error in the initial prek uh calculation but that was corrected within 24 48 hours and so we were able to address that with that particular school. Um, but I I would argue at sometimes too, Miss Miller and board members, I think there's some intentionality in the way people communicate things, even if it's trying to do it ambiguously because it benefits them to a certain degree or a certain extent. Um, it's also easy to blame the district, the big evil district for all these things versus taking ownership and responsibility. The fact that if you want to be autonomous, with

068autonomy comes responsibility. you you can't be completely autonomous with your allocation and your budgeting and not take some responsibility for having to make tough decisions about how to support students. I shared with you an example previously where a school made a decision to cut a guidance counselor versus eliminating a different position and and arguably a position that may not have been needed. but they made a decision and that was more in my opinion was more based off interpersonal relationships and friendships versus what's always in the best interest of our students. And so I I do think at times, Miss Miller, there is a mixed message out there. I do believe sometimes it's intentional, but I it's definitely an area we can continue to support our administrators in to help make sure we we explain these

069things thoroughly. That's pretty good. I do um I mean remembering all that was good. So, I do want to say that just for people who've been in the district a long time, I think sometimes life experiences makes people more critical of of um certain processes. I just want to confirm publicly that as sitebased budgets happen and principles are given that autonomy on their with their budgets that there is a checks and balances. So we do not end up again pulling school budgets and watching dollars that should go to ESC students or even gifted students um run to third grade and elementary because there and I get it. I get the pressure and that's what happened before. People make the decisions based on what they're given. Not that they're trying to, you know, cause harm or

070distress. Um, but it did and it and it it took a lot of us and Wes could share the legal aspect of what we dealt with because we weren't able to provide services. So, I'm assuming that the regionals have been trained to to double and and triple check budgets. Um, and I just want to confirm that yes, the the high school that was mentioned espec especially like those specific I don't want to call them there are electives. you know, if you had a if you had a program going where the kids did summer opportunities, they had all these things and we cut the staff back, it may change what the program looks like, it it just may be offered differently than what the families were used to. And I think that was some of that

071messaging piece. And my last is I know our principles have a their background is education. Very few of them are marketers. And I and I do we give them tools to do that? Is there training available for them? um the is the expectation explicitly given to them? Um because in the past we've lost programming because it wasn't well attended but after lots of money was spent and I don't want to do that again. I don't want to spend money on programs that will go away in three years because we didn't the principles were not marketing the programs. So, I can say that I personally have messaged this every year for four years, multiple times a year to our building administrators when I've spoken to them about the fact that their allocations um I've I've had

072to deal I'm not going to throw school names out there, but I've had to speak with multiple school principles to say you were told you were supported. You were told you be given an extra timeline to go out market and recruit and you're choosing not to do it. And as a result, I can't keep funding positions just simply because they've always existed. But but we have to take some ownership as a district because that's what we've always allowed. And we're still supporting the programs. There is no change to programs um right now across the district and we've addressed a number of disparities. As a result, I also want to provide an assurance to Miss Miller's point that no, there are safeguards within the budget that do not allow funded positions specifically for certain student populations

073to be cashed in and then converted for other areas. We do not allow that. That's also why in in intentionally exceptional student education funding is viewed outside of the traditional allocation model and reviewed. So, the thorough review process is this. The principal looks at it, the region, they submit it to the regionals, the regionals look at it, district staff look at it, deputy superintendent staff look at it, I look at it. It typically comes to me when especially when there's a request for additional allocations or exclusions or exceptions that people are looking for, which I'm fine and happy to do. Sometimes I have to say no, sometimes I say yes. But sometimes it results in actually a more collaborative conversation with the building leader. So when a school says to me, "Mr. Hyde, we really

074want an extra media parah because we use that media parah sometimes during uh for school safety reasons. They help us unlock the gates. They help us do certain things." Well, then I go back to staff and I'm like, well, if they really need security, why can't we give them another guardian or why can't we give them a security officer versus giving them a media pair? let the job duties and responsibilities reflect the actual role the person's in and let's get away from just keeping positions just to keep them in our budgets. So I think that's important too. Um part of what the district if you some of you who are on the board those of you who are on the board when we went through the last iteration of this will recall that there was

075also some things that were allowed to take place. So, for example, if the district historically prior to the change, if we allocated a 10-month assistant principal to a school, the school had the right to convert it to a 12-month and then the district would have to pay the difference. Well, that doesn't make any sense because otherwise we would have allocated a 12-month assistant principal from the get-go. Um, we addressed that two different ways. We eliminated that option, but we also went to 12-month assistant principles for certain areas because we saw that they were extending their contracts for 11 month and even a 12-month. But I do want to provide those asurances. And I think in particular the early adopters have been really good to Miss Miller's question about helping other peers with communication, with problem

076solving, how to convey this to staff, how to convey this to parents. Um, and I think overall when we look at the fiscal health of the district, it's going to it's going to continue to improve as a result. I but I also want to provide again and reassure everyone and state it probably for the 10th time this morning, this afternoon, there are exceptions. There are always exceptions and we're while while the policy and the procedures for allocations are written in black and white, it's a lot of gray because we do want to take into consideration the specificity of a school's needs or student needs to make sure that those schools are receiving the funds to adequately and appropriately support their programs. Again, hence the reason why so many schools are listed who get additional funding

077above and beyond what they typically generate. So, I still think we show a lot of that um and we're meeting those expectations. So, thank you, Miss Miller. Mr. Sharpless. Wow, a lot of good information. Um, a lot of questions. U just to clarify things like that. Um, first thing that comes to mind is, you know, I mentioned this in our um in one of our retreats, but um I'm not sure. Well, I can tell you I we're not adequately funded on on um on our students. First of all, that's just a blanket statement. Number one, you have a regular FTE, but then if a student is on a certain level in the matrix, they're not funded additionally, even though they need more supports, right, until they get to another certain level. So, I don't want

078to get into all the details with that. My point is I feel like there's, you know, I represent one school in particular that has a high level of ESSE population that doesn't score high enough on their matrix to to generate the additional funding, but yet um it's I don't think it's fair to treat them as a as regular ed students either because there's additional supports needed. Um, but that's really a problem at the state level and the funding. That's not really something we can control at the district level. So, I just want to blanketly say that out there first. Um, I know in previous um when I was a teacher, CTE students, they had additional waiting on the funding mechanism. Is that still the case? Do our CTE students generate addition additional FTE So CTE

079students get um cape funding. They still Yes, we still receive a So is that reflected at all in the allocation model? So do our CTE students No, we have not changed the way that we're doing that. We're still going to give them their CAPE funds as normal as as we have in the past. Okay. Based on their that's outside of this. Yes. But in the past the FTE wasn't it wasn't cape it was the FTE was there was a higher waiting for CTE students than there was for nonct students we received additional FTE for them passing the test okay so only for the test so only for C uh certification exams interesting that that that change happened I was just curious that's why I wanted to make sure I understood that um question superintendent on

080the we still are You this I'm I'm a little confused. I just want some clarity. So you said programs will not be cut, but we are allowing principles to make programmatic decisions still. Correct. No, not if the program is explicit to that school. Absolutely not. Like or or say elective decisions. Let's say um a school has an art art program, a I don't know a business program, multiple different electives with one teacher. And the allocation model doesn't allow for enough of those units. We are allowing principles to cut a pro um I say program, I don't mean like an IB. I'm talking about like an elective program. We are allowing them to to cut those. Right. It depends on the elective. Okay. So, no, you may not cut art, you may not cut music, you

081may not cut PE. I'm I'm just wonder like and because at a high school, it's not a it's not much of a problem at the elementary level. When you get to high school level, there's a lot of times a lot of electives and I especially I represent schools that have a I mean, there are a lot of them are 6 through 12s. They don't have as many, you know, student population to to drive that FTE. So, I'm wondering will it inhibit programs when it comes like will principles be able to go? I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to move us away from the word programs in this instance and start saying electives courses courses okay so yes there is force choice that's a reality that we deal with every year now what effective

082schools do and what we will continue to coach schools on is if you don't have enough students so typically to justify a class section to run you're looking for at least 15 to 20 students to justify running a course in your overall allocation you may not be able to offer that course this year because the students may not have some of the prerequisite knowledge, but that doesn't mean you don't offer that course in series the second year. So, it builds, right? So, as you plan out your course sequence, you're not just planning for year one, you're planning over the course, the entirety of that student cohort being on your campus. That's the best way to plan out your So what it happens if a program does not have the enrollment to justify an FTE for

083a for or sorry an a unit for a teacher? Does that program then get eliminated? I no single class generates revenue to cover a teacher. So that's why I'm saying it's it's a hard question to answer. I know where you're going. I think the best way to answer this is yes, there are tough choices that schools are going to have to make that instead of offering 15 elective choices, we can only offer 10. That's my point. That's the reality. But schools have to make those decisions and we're empowering them to do that based off student interest, student need, and programmatic alignment. So, if you're offering electives or courses outside of core programs, let's and let's use something like an academy or career teched or or let's talk about one of our academic programs like IB

084or or ACE. They have to honor those first and then they can go outside of that. But again, the the intention there and the hope would be that that school is planning over multiple years. So, you may not be able to offer all 15 electives this year, right? But next year you can bring some of those back into rotation and you're rotating certain electives in and out every other year is typically how it can function. Um if that program or excuse me if that course or sequence of courses is essential to the program then again that's where some exceptions come in and they can request that. But the reality of it is no, there is forced choice as a result of sightbased budgeting because there's again there's only so much allocation as you pointed out.

085We're not fully funded for our students or adequately funded for our students. So at the end of the day, we can't necessarily be all things to all people, but that's also where school choice comes in. We offer so many opportunities in Pulk County that quite frankly if that school that you're zoned for doesn't offer you what you're looking for, you think your child's most interested or or aligns to their skill set, then you have an opportunity to go someplace else. I I just want I just want to be clear. We are allowing principles the autonomy to not offer certain elective courses. That is correct. Those that are not explicitly required in the allocation model. Yes, sir. It's my la it's my last question and I'll be quiet. Go ahead. We we actually have it to

086where they have to work with their regional on it. So if they're really trying to if they have a program that's not working out for them, they can work with the regional to come up with a plan to move away from that program or come up with a plan to advance that program. Sorry. No, but we're seeing some I'll be honest. We put that in there for them to work with it in the arts. I'll give you some examples. strings string programs are not flourishing in the majority of our elementary schools and so I've I've spoken with Cummings rather than looking to eliminate those what are we doing or what can we do differently now part of the issue as we've talked about before is the large number of students who are statutoily required to

087take an reading intervention or a math intervention or both and then by virtue of the way the master schedule works they're having to forfeit that elective altogether so I think the enrollment in certain instances is artificially created because of that requirement. So we are working on some creative options as to how we can deliver those services to students right by tiering them. So some students may have to go three days a week, other students may only go one or twi once or twice a week, but then they can still get access to their electives and those enrichment opportunities because again we want to support the whole child. So that's a work in progress though because that's going to take some more time in planning. My last question. Yes, sir. Um so if if you know

088we're again giving principles autonomy here um let's say some of those electives aren't being offered because they're not you know we don't have the enrollment for it. How are we dealing with the issue of teacher certification? Are we are we having to move those those uh teachers to different schools or um because a teacher is not going to be certified for every subject. So if they come in and they have to make adjustments um you know how are we dealing with the issue of teacher certification? Are we allowing teachers to teach out out of cert areas? How does all that work? So the answer is yes we do in accordance with what the state currently allows for emergency certifications or teaching out of field for a specified period of time. They are entitled to do

089some of that. However, I think what you're talking more about are displaced teachers. a teacher who for example is being displaced either because the FTE allocation didn't cover that position and then through our collective bargain agreement it outlines the process in which and who gets identified for displacement. HR has already met with all of them and offered them opportunities to go elsewhere and then we then work individually with displaced staff. So for example, the goal is to get you placed to ensure your employment for the next year and you know you have a home from there. teach those staff can also still continue to apply for transfers and other opportunities. In some cases, they may request something closer to home. We try and accommodate that to the extent possible. So, there's a lot of work

090that's done on the HR side, but yes, sir, every single one of those displaced teachers is still employed. None of them are rift. All right. And so, do we have procedurally I know it's not in policy. Um, do we like is this going to cause teachers to have to bounce around more from school to school to school to school or how are we how do we put any we put any safeguards in there about which teachers can be displaced? Um, okay. As I just shared that senior collective bargaining agreement that we have with the union, right? That identifies seniority, those types of issues that are used to identify who on a campus gets displaced. So, for example, if you're losing a third grade teacher, all this is covered in CBA. Yes, sir. All right. Thank

091you, sir. Miss Wyatt, thank you. Um, my first question on slide Oh, they're not numbered. Just after examples where it shows all of the red circles. Can someone explain the anticipated count and where those numbers come from? I thought I understood it, but someone just texted me a question and now I'm secondg guessing my understanding of it. Which one's the anticipated? the in the center middle of the page the units for um fiscal year 25 cost of units. Then we have anticipated count and anticipated cost and then the units for 26 where it breaks it out all the basic teachers ESSE teachers ESC parah oh ant yes ma'am so those would be based off of their projected enrollment okay and that's a historical number we do exclude the co years um Michael Bellows unfortunately he's

092not available but I can get you a more detailed response to that question but anticipated numbers are based off of historical data um and trends as we see them. And so schools will often times feel like, well, I hit my enrollment at day 20, I'll get extra kids. I I can't budget that way. I that's real time budgeting. Um we budget based off of the first 10day count historical data. Um that's the best we can do because that's how we report it to the state as well. So if there's if there's a specific school or instance, I'd be happy to follow, but I'll get you a better answer and send it out to the board. Um, so Mr. Bellis can explain that how he I'll send you a couple specific schools that they were asking

093about. Um, it just there's a couple scenarios where for the most part and rightfully so, you know, there's it was nine SE teachers this year. It's anticipated eight. You've authorized that they can keep the nine because based on student alloc. Go ahead. So the anticipated count is actually based on the staffing plan model. Um what we've done with our old staffing plan is it's a guideline for the schools to use in order to meet what we would have given them in our prior allocation model. So for example units for 25 there were 50 cost of those units are 3.8 million according to our prior staffing plan allocation they would have received 40. they've chosen 42 and then it shows the cost to the right. So, um that gives them a base that when they're reviewing

094their allocations, they have a guide to go by. Okay, I'll send you the couple schools that are cuz for the most part they seem within three or four, which makes total sense. There's a couple schools that are off by dozens, which seems a a little strange. So staff um yeah like one school Barto High School basic teacher units was 104. Their anticipated count is 46 for this year but they were authorized at 100 which if they were at 104 it makes sense that next year they're going to be at 100 but the anticipated count only being 46 seems odd. Go ahead. That I think that's a mistake on that sheet. Okay. I was hoping that but there's it just seems like that's and that one caught my eye. That does not seem right for Barto

095High School. It may be pulling in but it's not it's not accurate either because it's only four positions if I if I'm counting correctly because it says basic teachers units for 25 was 104 units for 26 is 10 is 100 correct. So there's only a difference of four now I the anticipated count though is showing that there the anticipated so that's yeah that's where the question was arising and what I have a feeling is I have a feeling that excluded Barto IB and excluded Summerland. So I I'll have to make sure Mr. bellows double checks these. I apologize. Thank you. Um, and then my second question was more on our attractor units, and I appreciate that, you know, there's some even with the the MSAP grants that we did in the last round, obviously there's,

096I think, four or five schools that are still under those for one or two more years. How are we know we're communicating with the school. Is that something that we can get a list of to have on our radar so that if a school in two years ends up being having four units cut that it's not a surprise to to the board members um would be very helpful I think. Absolutely. We can get you that. Dr. Allen. Thanks, Superintendent. Yeah, I mean going back to the conversation around the arts um high school, I I'm going to always advocate, you know, as you think about how students scaffold up in their abilities as it relates to the arts, you know, especially within higher education, you go to those studio art courses, say their junior, senior year,

097those classroom sizes are going to always be smaller just because uh that's just the way that it works out. So, um I'm going to always advocate. I don't think that you can just put a quantitative, you know, wraparound on that and determine this is the best scenario. I think there's definitely always a qualitative aspect to that. Um, but that's just my um voice around that. I was curious um on the 3% um expected holdback does, uh what happens with that at the end of budget cycle for the school itself? Go ahead, J. So the school is allowed to roll over 25% of what's remaining in the holdback. They are also allowed to use it at any point in time of the year. So if they have an eat on campus that's not covered in their

098budget or a position that they feel like they need, they can tap into their holdback and use it. We also have the hold back there so they don't have to give up positions if for some odd reason they have a drop in FTE. Gotcha. Gotcha. And you know going back to the earlier question I think these were questions that Justin or Mr. Sharpless had presented as it relates to um is it the conference count that we're using right typically? Yeah the conference report numbers that we're using too. We use survey two of the prior year. Okay. because of timing. Um and then we true so we use survey two of the prior year to build. We start building in January. Um and then when we build that um they submit everything around March and then

099when we go into the school year we have our 8th day count true up and then our next funding uh we update it plus or minus based on where a funding falls. Does that answer? Yep. Yep. Yeah. And I I think I've expressed this to superintendent and I think you know some principles longtime principles um understand that you know their allocation um projection is under so then they end up losing units because of that but they know once they get into the start of the school year those projections you know those numbers are going to increase. So and what what happens is based on that seniority aspect they may lose because they have to release you know a young teacher uh in a sense but maybe there was equality there and that you know principal

100really wanted that um teacher to stay but they they lose that unit and then you know two weeks in they hit that number so now they've lost that unit and there's no getting that you know instructor back because they've been placed and so forth. Uh so I know that that's a continual problem that I've heard from with my principles. I don't know if we have a solution for that and I hope we do one day. Um well actually there is and I have brought that before the board not not pretty recently and it's capping enrollment at schools and it's eliminating portables on campuses and phasing them out as quickly as we can because at the end of the day what you're talking about is that variation and and unfortunately capacity has become capacity has become

101a question mark for schools. because our approach has been historically we'll just add some more portables and the schools are asking for more portables. No, we've got to start holding tried and true to our enrollments and say once a school is full, those students cannot attend that school and they're going to have to move to the next closest school where there's a vacancy. Um many districts do that because that's the only way to manage this uh you know long term. And if you're starting to see new growth or turnover in a neighborhood and we're tracking that through Casarda studies or any other study that we're using for student enrollment, then you can have a conversation. Do we need to add a facility um or a building to a current school site um to accommodate for

102that growth? Yes, those that's a different conversation than the way we're approaching it right now. Um, unfortunately, this is probably step one of how do we then as a district begin to control and regulate enrollment numbers so that you don't end up with that fluctuation. I I would argue and Dr. Allen, if you if if any or you or any board member hearing that still today, I'd be somewhat surprised because I thought we've worked through that over the last two years to really address that that I've worked with Mr. Bellows and Miss Jenkins directly to say, "Listen, if we have seen historically that we're underp projecting a school by an average of 50 kids, let's add the 50 kids in now because at 10day count, if I have to move someone out of that building

103because they didn't hit their enrollment, I can do that, too." So there there are opportunities for us to address that differently. So, if you're hearing that from principles, I would just encourage you to have them contact me directly and I'd be happy to revisit their numbers with the team um to make sure that they're getting the funding on the front end because I I share that frustration. I hate when we release someone only to say had I gotten that back, I I could have kept that staff because we're creating vacancies we don't need to create. Um and I I can understand that perspective and frustration from our principles. So, if you're still hearing that, please forward those to me and I'd be happy to address those directly. Yep. And then I was wondering if there

104was like a little threshold in the mist here because you know looking at all these you could see some are 128% some are 130% uh as it relates to uh cost per student. Um it it's a dramatic shift to go from you know 30 38% overage in a sense right in one year. So, I don't know if there was a threshold of like, okay, if you're over a certain percentage, we're gonna siphon that off over a two-year period, or is it just a dramatic? Absolutely. I can give you multiple examples of schools where we're doing that currently or we have done it. Lake Alfred Polytech's a great example. Um, two years ago, Lake Alfred Polytech, I think, was slated to lose 12 or 13 staff, and we we worked with their building principal and the

105school to phase that out over two years. Um, so that they could slowly move staff out and you use some natural attrition with vacancies to address that as well. Um, so yes, we are considerate of that because we don't want to just rip the band-aid off. That's what I'm saying. When sometimes when you look at that column that shows the number of displaced teachers, please don't just count that and say, "Oh, that's how many teachers got moved out of that school." That's not true. They may have internal vacancies that they moved those existing staff into. And so the the number of positions is accurate, but the number of displaced staff is not. So hopefully that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. And last question, do we see any dramatic changes in regards to student counts

106within you know our um different reporting? So would budget decrease for a school um you know at say you know um our different counts that we do because we do the four counts within the school year or do you have a budget that would increase um due to extra enrollment? I I don't know. That was just a random question. We have our initial projection then we adjust it once a year. Okay. Um oh just once a year. Yes. Okay. A dramatic with the exception of a dramatic change. Yes. Got that. Mhm. So if you had an environmental issue where you lost a school like schools districts that lost schools due to hurricanes when you see a drastic increase when you redistribute and reallocate those students yes you may have to make some mid-year adjustments. Um,

107but we try to maintain. Now, for schools that see increasing enrollment, that may be a frustration point. But for schools that see declining enrollment, it's a great it's a lot of grace because we're not pulling money away from them either. So, we create kind of that stability to the extent that we can for them so that they don't have to worry about those constant changes. But if a school were to see a dramatic increase in their enrollment based off whatever reason, um issues in neighboring counties, you know, sudden growth, um I don't know, um people moving into the county unexpectedly, we would be able to accommodate for that because we would be able to report that to the state in an next FTE reporting period and receive that revenue to offset those costs. So, we

108would frontload that, but that's that's very uncommon with the exception of, like I mentioned, an environmental disaster or something to that effect. Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. I see no further questions or comments. Thank you both very much board members. The last item um on the workshop for this morning is the superintendent's cabinet reorganization. I sent the board another email included all the documents for your review. Um we we started this conversation if I recall correctly in April. Um we've had some conversation both publicly. I've provided the updated job descriptions um with your recommended revisions. Um in particular for the chief negotiator, it was changed to chief over labor relations. Um I made some additional edits to to some of the others. Um we have a chief of staff. We have those. Um

109and so I I'm I left it on the workshop just to be able to address any remaining questions you may have. Um back to Mr. Sharpless's point because I do want to have this on public record. It is not a cost to the district. In fact, considering the savings that we had through programmatic reductions and those administrative positions that were cashed in, this this actually provides a quite a substantive return to the district in revenue even with these cost offsets the average cost. So, and we also operated within the district stipulation. So, if someone's moving into a new role, then their salary moved commensurate to that. You received an analysis of that this morning. Um, however, if they stayed within their current title, our policy allows for up to a 5% increase based off new

110duties and responsibilities. So, you also have that in an Excel spreadsheet I provided for you. In total, that came out to less than $76,000 to make those position change adjustments for those individuals. Um, and then again, I believe if I remember correctly, we had $457,000 in savings through cashed in positions, administrative vacancies to offset that cost. So, I I feel that we're in a good place. I feel that this is in the best interest of the district uh moving forward. It allows me to reorg. It allows me to continue to focus on succession leadership opportunities um to move individuals and create new opportunities for professional personal growth. Um, and so I I I'm open to the board any questions or comments that you may have. Mr. Sharpless, I first thing I want to say, thank

111you for uh showing us how we're actually saving the district money and um which in turn saves the taxpayers money with this reorg. Um I think that's important. I appreciate you taking that step to show that to us. Um definitely uh something that is important to me. Um I uh also appreciate the the Excel spreadsheet this morning that showed uh each individual change and who is in that position and all that kind of stuff which would help. Um I the only question I have is um you know well I got a statement and a question. My statement is at the end of the day, yes, we are a board, but you but you are this the CEO of the district and we have to give you autonomy to yes, of course, we have to approve

112it, but at the end of the day, whether this succeeds or fails is on you and then we have to hold you accountable to that, right? And so, um, you know, I think the first time you've done a reorg and in and your your cabinet and everything since you've gotten here, I think as a board, we should allow that. And and it saves the district money. Um, my only question is, have you looked into are these for these different positions, are we are we creating, and I've asked this many times, are we creating salaries that are competitive with neighboring districts with are are we are we where we need to be now for these salaries and um for these specific positions, the increases are do you look at other districts? Like, how did you justify

113in your own mind? Okay, I'm trying to get inside the psyche of superintendent Hyde. How did we decide to which positions need to be increased? Uh, now that kind of stuff. Can you kind of just explain that a little bit? So, the the increases in particular for those that receive 5% because they're assuming no duties and responsibilities. Okay. Right. um lateral moves received no change outside of you know certain positions received no change um because I operated within what our salary ranges are. I did not benchmark this against other school districts. I think that's a different conversation for us to have. Okay. And I know it's one that the board has has engaged with me on previously. Um and maybe at like a retreat. Yes, sir. And I think that's a topic we can address

114um with a topic that we're going to discuss later today. Um when we talk about potential revenue sources to provide for salary adjustments, I think your administrative costs could be included in there um for a potential revenue source um to make us more competitive. But right now, what what this reflects and the intention behind this was to show you where they would crosswalk to, but also to show how it's being done fairly for the majority of these positions in there's only two instances in here where it exceeds 5% and that's because they're moving from a lower level position to a chief level position. And so that's justified as far as being within the pay grade for that level um and their appropriate step. Um so I appreciate your comments. I do try and make sure

115that I operate with a high level of transparency. Drew and I had a conversation this morning. You know, it's it's it's I I in in 11 years as a superintendent, I think Miss Wyatt was the first board member I ever said, "This is not your purview, too." And she very quickly corrected me on that and the board took action on its own. I I it's just not how I operate, you know, and so I'd rather be transparent with the board and with others. I could take the position to say, well, you know, I am the CEO of the district and this is what I need and this is what I want. But the truth of the matter is I want to address your questions and concerns. And I think I've faithfully done that throughout the

116process as even though it drags it out a bit and that's okay. But I I just wanted to make sure we had the opportunity to discuss this again today. And and much to your point, you're absolutely right. If this reorg in any way creates a deficit in the district, I own it and and I recognize that. That's why there was a great deal of thought and planning with other individuals. This is not just Mr. Hyde's plan. This is talking with our our outgoing deputy. This is, you know, what's being recommended and it's the right staff at the right time to do the work to maintain what we're currently doing, but also to take us into the near future. I am really excited because seldom do districts find themselves in a position where you can truly

117create succession leadership opportunities. And for us in particular, there are multiple individuals in here that are going to allow us to do that. It'll also help me evolve certain departments. You know, many of us have talked about frustrations with certain departments or concerns that you hear from certain departments. This is going to allow me to address those in a much more quick efficient manner. Um, and I I'm very confident that what we're going to be able to do. Um, so please, you know, absolutely the accountability is there. I appreciate the support. I see no further questions or comments on that item. Um, Mr. Chair, I will turn it over to you, sir. That concludes the superintendent's report. All right. Thank you, Superintendent. It is now 2:00. Uh, we are actually ahead of schedule, probably because

118we dropped that one agenda item. Um, do y'all uh want to take a little short recess? All right, let's do that. We'll do a six minute recess. Recess. That'll put us back at uh 210. Oops. Does that sound good? All right. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Good afternoon. I'd like to call this meeting back to order. Hopefully, you had um a good break. It was a little bit more than six minutes, so I apologize. All right. Uh board members, we are now looking uh at D1, which is the board meeting agenda for tonight. So, you should have your agenda open and we'll go through section by section and see if you have any questions or comments along the way. So, sections A

119through F. Um, I believe Miss Wyatt, you'll be down for recognitions today. And, uh, our guest is Miss Karina Keys, a third grader from Davenport School of the Arts. So excited to have her in the boardroom. So sections A through F. All right. Gotcha. All right. Now moving down to sections G through J. G through J. Miss Miller, you are recognized. Excuse me while I adjust the microphone. Um, there was one on the consent that I would Hold on. Don't lose me. You might have to come back. G through J. Um, you think I would make better notes? Hold on one second. Oh, it's actually K. So, would you like me to wait or anything? We'll move right. I don't see any other comments. So, we're going to actually look at K through M now.

120So, Miss Miller, you were recognized. Um, can we just I would The five-year capital plan's a big deal. I I mean, I think we should pull it off a consent, but that's my opinion. I think we should have that where we can vote on it as its own. All right. So, we will move nine K9 to our action agenda for tonight. All right. We are now moving to sections I don't see any other comments and we are moving to sections N through S on the consent N through S. Okay. And that takes us to our action agenda for tonight. And Miss White, you're recognized. Thank you. it. Superintendent Hay brought to my attention earlier, one of my sales tax committee appointees has served two terms. We have talked about as we're updating the charter that

121they would be allowed to serve subsequent terms. However, we have not voted on the new rules for the committee. So he recommended either doing it with the caveat that it would take effect as soon as we change the committee sheets charge sheets or that we can I can hold it till July. So whichever is I I see the will I see the attorney nodding so I'm assuming uh standby appropriate and it is how do I turn this? Oh no I'm on anyway. There we go. Mr. Crawford, you're recognized. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. No, that absolutely either one of those two alternatives is fine. Um certainly if you want to go ahead and take board action to take on the nominee this evening, uh uh subject to a caveat, that's

122perfectly fine. If you instead desire you want to hold it and wait for that to take place, either one of those those two procedures gets the job done. Um you know, my suggestion would be to go ahead and take action tonight if there's no disagreement. Uh but that's that's certainly up to the will of the board. All right. Thank you, Mr. Crawford. You're welcome. Any uh any board member comments on this? I I do know that we we had a reschedule on the um meeting. So um there's a meeting coming up in two weeks approximately. So do you expect him to attend that meeting? I am sure he is so excited to be able to serve on that committee again that I am sure he will be there with bells on. Indeed. And uh he's

123a great board member and a great community leader for sure. Uh Mr. Mr. Keys, you're recognized. I was just going to say I side with Mr. Crawford saying that I think that we'd take action tonight. Let's not push the can down the road if we understanding that the it's going to be updated. So, okay. I I was curious because, you know, I was looking at the charge sheet on the half cent sales tax. There's 21 members, right? Yes, sir. Yeah. I'm wondering. So, one of the attendance looks like for all 21 members is I there is a followup. One of the recommendations in talking with council u what you'll see is some uh change to every charge sheet um where now only 40% of the members must be in attendance to be to constitute a

124quorum that has been the standing policy in a finance committee. However, we're going to apply that across the board because that's what has ultimately led to lastm minute cancellations or having frequent cancellations of committee meetings and that plus the variation in in membership as low as seven all the way up to 21 um you know it it does create a hardship. So rather than trying to find a different workaround it made sense to go ahead and apply that rule um to constitute the quorum and then from there um I will work with Mr. Murphy, Mr. Crawford to develop um additional language with them will allow just as board members have used as you've adopted a policy where so long as there's a physical quorum that other members can participate and vote so long as they're

125traveling for board business or they have an emergency and since you've approved that we can then by virtue extend that to the committees. So that will be coming before you at the next July meeting. It's not the 10th, it's the 29th. Yep. All right. Very good. Uh, and then thinking through, uh, I noticed that Miss Wyatt's doing the ABC appointee as well. When is that meeting scheduled? Superintendent. Are you They just had one. No, they it was rescheduled because of quum. Oh, the quorum. Yeah. Yeah, but if you give me 30 seconds, I can. And it' be nice to know are we are all appointees in place per district and have they been communicated with if that's something that we can look at, Miss Linda? the next ABC committee meeting is on the 17th. They

126had rescheduled the one that was um originally scheduled in May for the 17th due to um quorum and the holiday weekend. So 17th of June. Yes. All right. So that's our action agenda for tonight. Any other comments, board members? Very good. And then we do have a public hearing tonight for our code of student conduct. So, we'll move into our public hearing to see if we have any feedback from our public and then we'll go from there to our superintendent report. Do you have something for us tonight, superintendent? Yes, sir. All right. And then we'll transition to Mr. Crawford. I think we do have two items. Yes. That we will need to vote on as a board as well. And then our auditor's report. uh no um physical appearance um at the podium here, but

127we have received quite a few uh reports and I'll I'll note those that we've received via email uh since our last meeting. All right. And then we'll wrap with our comments and public comments. Any other questions on the Okay, Mr. Crawford, you are recognized. No, I'm good. Thank you. You're good? I'm good. Thank you. All right. Very good. All right. That will now uh move us back to our work session to finish up and wrap up our agenda for today. So we are now moving to old business which is E1 entitled job description and the evaluation instrument. Um so if you want to pull that agenda item up and we'll just keep that conversation going around this one. Uh I would just say during our last board retreat um we did unravel that timeline for

128the job description and evaluation and here it's before you today uh Miss Evette had provided the breakdown of job functions as it related to the job description to you on May 8th. Uh along with that superintendent Hyde sent the prior evaluation instrument that was used um and he sent that via April 30th via email. if you need to see that or reference that that is attached here as well. Um let's see and then there should be the other instrument that was approved last July that's there as well. Okay. So that's before you for discussion and it is it is not on the action agenda for tonight. So, if this is something that we need to change or modify, um, that would be a recommendation from you all. All right. And Miss Wyatt, you are recognized.

129Thank you. And just confirming on the item for today, in case anyone else is struggling with it, the prior assess the prior evaluation form and the current, the titles are switched. So, they are both there, but they are titled backwards. So, I apologize for my my confusion previously. Um, so I went through and I know Miss Vegas sent us her the job description outlined of what um with bullet points underneath of what those things meant to her, which I think was very very helpful for me in kind of where our breakdown in communication was for some items. Um, and I want to thank Superintendent Hyde again for um, suggesting that because I do think that's where the majority of the breakdown is is just definitions. So, I don't I went through and have kind of

130six areas where I think there's specific things that I would be looking for as as an admin that I have written down, but they said not to share it before today. So, I can certainly have this printed off so that we can um pass a pass a copy around, but mine were under communication and responsiveness, ensuring that the mail that we get in the office is gets to us in a timely manner. Um the the two that came in that were in our boxes today, we did get earlier, but especially with end of the year, we had several things that by the time I got to the district office, it happened two days ago. Um so, I don't know if we need to put in a timeline of it should be scanned to us within

13124 or 48 hours or it should be mailed within three three business days. I don't know what those timelines are, but I think that would be a helpful standard to set. Um, and then also anytime there's parent and community communication received in the office, if it's directed out to one of to staff or if it's directed out to someone, if it's for one of our schools, that board member should be copied on it. Um because there's nothing better than running into someone at Publix that said, "Oh, I I talked to your office." And not having any idea what they talked about. Um then for board member support and onboarding, one of the things that we used to do when new board members came on is there was a sheet that had dietary restrictions, preferences on

132do you want things in print, do you want things digitally, do you want me to help with your calendar, do you want me that had kind of the basic what do you expect checklist. I would love to see us bring that back so that it's just available for each board member. Um that way as we're having conferences signed up for as they're preparing, you know, there's I I joke with Superintendent Hyde, please don't give me a stack of papers because you've just killed a tree because it's going to end up in the front seat of my car and then it's going to end up in a trash can two weeks from now when my husband gets in my car to go to church. Um so just to have those preferences for each board member so

133that we're doing things efficiently. Um the next section was calendar and event coordination. This has been a big one as of late and I think probably because many of us are going to many more events than we did during COVID. Um but following up on RSVPs needed for invitations. Oftentimes we'll get you know I know we got one while we were sitting here today. United Way that's not until October. I'm hopeful I can make it but I don't know what October looks like at this very moment. So if there is an RSVP deadline following up with us before that deadline to say hey don't forget you got this. are you able to attend um for any of those types of events that are are forthcoming? Um additionally, when we have RSVPd for events that are

134not, you know, our one-on-one school visits, but that are more global, for example, the safety school safety guard event, following up that week of to say, "Hey, just want I have four board members RSVPd. just want to make sure that this is still happening, that it's still at this location, um, and that we have all of the proper information before we show up places that we're there by ourselves or just with each other. Um, and then researching and forecasting annual events. We have several that hap we know happen every year. He hearth about phase volunteer of the year. But making sure that if we haven't received those dates by the start of the calendar year that we have those so that we're not scheduling meetings according meetings or other events in place of those. Um

135for agenda and meeting management making sure that after reorganization that information goes out to all staff including committee assignments and introducing the new chair. that has somehow gotten lost over the year but used to come from our office. So just a general Dr. Allen was elected as chair, Mr. Sharpless was elected as vice chair. These are the new committee appointments if you need to contact any of them so the staff knows. Um collaborating with departments to send welcome emails to our our appointments. So we're doing several today making sure that they are connected with someone that's it's not you know great you're on this committee and where are you going? Um, and then ensuring that all required attachments are included for any board items on the agendas. Um, I promise I have two very quick

136sections left. Um, for budget and travel oversight, and these are kind of new since the job description has come in, including travel on board agendas before the trip if it's over $500 per new state statute, um, or at the next meeting if it's emergent travel and not a board meeting in time. but then also providing quarterly updates as we transition to having our individual professional development membership budget so that we know as board members it's December and you've spent half your budget or this is just to so that we can kind of plan. Um, and then the last one in professional development. I think several of the items that um I know I've worked with Miss Vegon and and had Ann help me with um are really Microsoft related, especially with calendar and email and

137I know we've talked a lot about using SharePoint more. Um, so I would love to recommend um doing a Microsoft suite training as part of the professional development this year. And those are my elaborations for All right. Thank you, Miss Wyatt. And Miss Miller, you're recognized. Thank you. I'm I'm not sure how we're going to get this onto an agenda that has to be approved tonight, but I'm going to go through what I have and I can share as well. Um I did learn a lot which I think is helpful um with the explanations. I'm going to try to do this in orderly fashion so it doesn't sound like it all bleeds together. The one thing that was on the job description but not on the executive breakdown is the coordinating payroll and other related

138activities for school board and staff. And that's a job of our this office inputting leave time for staff that are not our staff from around the around the um district which has been done. But if we're going to do that, if we're going to continue that process, and I'm okay with it, I don't I mean I we need to decide if that's part of our job, our staff's job, and it might be to carry over if someone's absent that we're like the the fill-in role for that, but it needs to be described in the procedural manual. Um I'm not sure why it wasn't. Everything else has been greatly detailed, but that wasn't detailed. So, if we're going if we're going to have our staff member input others staff's leave time that are not employed by

139us or within the board office, it needs to be explic explicitly defined in that procedures manual that we're working on. Um, a couple of things this was great a lot a very um there were multiple things that were duplicated like so we're having to on the explanation. I think my biggest my biggest frustration has been similar to the reminders. Um we need that weekly reminder. Without it, things are happening with events. Um and calendar notices that are being missed. Um maybe they're not looked at the week before. And so I myself have had more than one occasion within days of an event that's scheduled on my calendar. Things have changed and it's disruptive. not only for me which I'm pretty flexible but it's disruptive for people who are involved in the events. So I think

140that you know implementing a reminder service for the calendar the events on the calendar and determining which calendar we should follow. The reason I have so many duplicates on my calendar is because I follow Lisa Miller calendar. I follow the schoolboard calendar. I follow the district events calendar. that's not necessary if you're trained in Outlook um that you would need to have those events on three different calendars and if you do have them the person the calendar doesn't have to we don't have to I shouldn't have to follow multiple calendars so I don't miss anything but it's also very labor intensive to duplicate things to seven different calendars um so I think an Outlook training um which is part of the Microsoft training that needs to take place would help resolve a lot of the

141frustration with the calendars. It's stated that research and is done to give polic research and answer questions on policies for staff from our office. I'm not sure if we should be answering policies, our staff should be or if it should just be directed to our policy staff. Um, so that was my question there. And I might not understand how that was written, but I think policy questions should go to uh Teresa's office who handles policy andor um Mr. Davis. Same with asking for contracts. That's very legal intensive work and I just want to make sure that's not being placed on on our office or our staff. Um notes and minutes taken during the work sessions. I've never received notes taken from the work session. So, if that's something we're going to require of our staff,

142I think that we should be copied on on the note takingaking um so we can assure that it cap and capture encapsulates everything that was discussed. Um I appreciate board books and binders being mailed out. I know I don't require that, but I do sometimes require things being being um pr printed, but now that our great IT staff has given me the ability to print from this computer, I'm going to require less of that. So that was good that was listed um independently analyzes reports independently re which I don't you know and agenda materials I just want to make sure that we are providing enough support so people analyzing reports have that background um I do think that the biggest the biggest thing that stood out was when you look at the job description it

143talks about um workoft you know um tech the tech side of Word and Excel and Outlook and PowerPoint executive assistant in our office should be should be trained in all of those and she may they may be but they may need to update those trainings depending on what we're we're requiring of them but if they're going to be analyzing creating reports I think Microsoft is a great training that should be added or required in this job um I know that tracking things um is important important like I may have received two emails in six months of people calling in the office for district 7 but I know other boards in other districts where they're um their office does track the calls so if they're getting a lot of transportation calls the board can be made

144aware of that or you know and so we're not in public in a public forum and asked about a topic that we may not know about that's been reported to our office. I think we should track those incoming calls subject matter-wise. I, you know, I don't need the details, but you know, tracking what's coming in and reporting it to the board member that's assigned to that area, I think is important. As far as our mail, I've asked multiple times to scan mail because it was the easiest way to get it in the past. those requests were not responded to. But I do have mail coming in courier to my home, which is an expense, but I but if that is the best way for me to get it because I'm not driving an hour to

145Barto three times a week, um I would like for it to come in a timely manner. I do have a couple of things from May that could have been couriered. they're not important, but if we're in if it's once again, if we have a process to follow with that procedural guide, whoever sits in this seat will be able to um follow it and not have to be frustrated with with the requirements that are asked. Um I think this was great to to list all of these things. I know we're in a pinch with time with July having our next meeting. So, I don't know how, unless we talk to the attorney, um, based on today, what we can do with the time frame we're given, which is tonight's board meeting. I I'll need more information

146from you. What what are you what are you interested in taking action on just to add those items to the list? We've talked about in the retreat that items should be the job we our staff is working on a procedural manual. I know that. Yes. And so in order for that to be done, I guess it we it needs to follow a job description and the job description needs to be updated. Sure. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's it's really the pleasure of the board how you see fit in instructing your employee what you want to do is my best advice on that. If uh if there's if there's a consensus that appears out of the work session, wonderful. You know, my understanding is that the that that item has been already tasked, I believe. Am

147I not wrong to the to to your your folks? So, so that if it needs to be added into the job description to to make that happen, sure, we can make you can make formal amendments to your job description tonight if that if that's something that this the majority of the board wants to do. Um, you know, I think that's really kind of where we're at, Mr. Chairman, on on on board member Miller's question. So, we probably need to have more discussion before before I can give you an idea of where I think you need to head with it. And I think it leads partly to there's an evaluation timeline and based on you know a current evaluation trying to change something before um an evaluation takes place. Yes. So that may be a a

148that's another it's certainly something else you want to keep in mind for sure. Absolutely. And I and I guess that's part partial part of why we have this item here. Let me let me reserve my thoughts for you until I hear the remainder of where where we're going with it. if that help if that helps. So, Miss Miller, anything else at this point? No, I'm looking at the rest of the board to decide if they are willing to look at this job description and what their recommendations are. Yeah, Mr. Sharpless, you're recognized. Yeah, I don't I don't think anything that was mentioned here was certainly um out of the realm of of what I think the scope of the job should be. I mean, I don't think anything was inappropriate. Um, you know, I I

149would tend to agree that we probably shouldn't with board member Miller's point, our staff shouldn't be processing payroll for other departments. Um, so I would agree with that, but every everything I think was reasonable that was brought up. I don't see an issue. I wouldn't have a problem with any of that stuff. I mean, as long as it's clear and it's in the job description, I think I think it's fair game. Thank you, Mr. Sharpless and Mr. Keys. I'm going to agree. I think that all the points that were brought up are valid. I think that if as long as there's a consensus amongst the group that's here, um, you know, we have a kind of a clear path. But again, we have a timeline where if that's what the JD is, the JD needs

150to be finalized as an instrumentation to be able to do an evaluation from. The JD should match the evaluation. So if we're under a time constraint to make that sure make sure make sure that happens so we could do an evaluation in a timely manner time is of the essence I says but I don't think anything was out of line from the suggestions were made by both board member Wyatt and board member Miller. Thank you Mr. Keys. Yeah and I'll give you know my opinion here too. I mean I thought reasonable things that were brought forward. But I think my question at at this point would be are these things because in essence we're adding like task as it relates to some of those abstract words right that are in the job description. So are

151we as a board wanting to add more abstract language to the job description or just say hey these are the expectations we have as far as the task um to be attached to these individual categories within the job description. I don't know if you want to maybe bring some clarity uh to that, Mr. Crawford. Sure. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So that my my thoughts on that are uh twofold. One, you can certainly if there is a broad-based task that you can think of that encapsulates the information that we've talked about, absolutely add that to the job description. No, no questions asked. You can also if if you're concerned that there are items that that are that may not be that you want to make sure are captured by what's already in the

152job description, you can add lines to the JD that say, you know, for the avoidance of doubt or for clarity, the following tasks are part of this job uh uh concept. So that language can be added for sure. Uh, it's really just your direction that we need in order to make that happen. All right. Thank you, sir. Miss Wyatt, you're recognized. Thank you. I have a couple thoughts that may be helpful with this. I don't I am not opposed to I mean, I think all of the points that I brought up are very much fall under one of the categories that currently exist. Um, but I would like if we're not incorporating them specifically into the job description that this becomes part of her personnel file just in that we've had this conversation and that

153these things are included under that. Um, and then if we need to bring them back in the job description at a later date, we can. But at least so there's a record of this was addressed. Um, is my first item. And then as far as the evaluation goes, the evaluation that I know we're using this year because it's what we approved last July really does not align to the things that are in the current job description. I don't know that the previous one aligns perfectly either. Um, but could we take what the current job description is and make each one of those the each bullet point? these are the items that she's rated on the same I can't remember if it's a one to four scale or a one to five scale. Um and that

154that becomes the evaluation tool. Um I don't know that we have to have a physical copy of it before to approve today other than or if we can just say that the the evaluation will be based on the job description. Each of those bullet points will be a line item evaluated. I just it's it's concerning that the evaluation tool and the job description don't match because then right what are you thank you Travis that's that's how my my internal base looks like um so those are my two thoughts on that so is is this something Mr. offered uh maybe some thoughts on you or maybe direct this towards a superintendent. Can we have an evaluation instrument created that's going to match the job description? I I certainly think that that's doable. Um you know, if

155that's what if that's the direction the board wants to head in, we can draft a document for you that looks very similar to what the bulletoint list is that has the main topic following items. rank this, you know, either on the individual item or rank it as a category altogether. Um, either one of those would be fine. You know, re really ultimately at the end of the day, the more precision you can give and the more, you know, feedback you can give to your employee, the better, I would think. Uh, so I don't think that'd be too difficult for us to to create a instrument that matches the job description. Um, and if if you would like for our office to take the lead on that, we can certainly, however, whatever the board's direction is

156on that. All right. And if the board has a direction that you would prefer, uh, now would be a time to speak to that. Uh, Miss Miller, you're recognized. I appreciate, Mr. Crawford. Um, with your input today. Sure. Um, we've this has been a long conversation that you are helping resolve, which I appreciate that. The two things I think that need to be changed on this job description possibly now because our timeline is so close. Like you said, a lot of these are administrative tasks. But the two things that I noticed that were most um that stood out the most was one of coordinating payroll and other related activities for the schoolboard and staff. Certainly, I think it should read for the school board um or the schoolboard office. that maybe that's how how I

157interpreted it was the schoolboard office because that could involve other staff members that were potentially in the school board, right? But not and staff as of outside of our No, no, that would be soundly within Superintendent Hyde's discretion, right? And that currently exists. So I think that and staff should be removed from the job description. And then in the back when we talk about technology, I appreciate uh an historic um 25 years experience with the PCPS I think is historic knowledge of of the campus and of the people here. We are we need a Microsoft someone trained in this position that is Microsoft user friendly user ready like whether what what all that looks like with all of the all of those things. First, it's part or Microsoft Office is part of what we all

158use. It's um Outlook especially and I think that should be a minimum requirement. Not that it not that people may not have some basic training but we provide that for them so they don't so they have all the tools at their usage. Those are the two things that I think stand out. Everything else falls under the bullet points. It's just task related. Sure. Thank you. So Mr. Crawford, I don't know if you're hearing this. Um, is this something that needs to be um amended and brought as an action item tonight? Tell me what your what your done deadline is. Excuse me. Tell me what your deadline is currently for the evaluation. Is it end of the fiscal year? Is that the idea? The concept would be done by June 30. Yep. Yeah. I I think

159we can, you know, that that's a very tight timeline for me to turn something around. Indeed. Yeah. Um but I think if the you know I I have two thoughts one I can simply take the consensus of of what's happened here and make something um you know it is going to fall upon you by statute to take formal action which you can't do here if you want to adjust the JD. So, I'm not sure we can do that unless you want to put an action item on tonight. That So, I I you know, I I leave that to you guys. What I It'd be very tough for us to be able to turn that around before 5:00 p.m. Yeah. Yeah. Superintendent and I I know Superintendent, you're there. Um and I just add to this

160a a little bit as well. I in fielding phone calls from um Miss Msina at the FSBA, you know, her recommendation and this job description is, you know, and per statute, and you can maybe contribute to this as well, um the obligation of who reports to us, the board, right? Yes. By state statute would be what? Who who reports to you? You have you you have the superintendent, your attorney, and then if you employed staff, your staff. That's right. Well, or I would say the auditor. Those are really the three by obligation under state statute. And her recommendation was um based on, you know, other school districts as well is that that person reports to the superintendent and the board. And I I think that that does bring some um concern because like if we

161have issues well let's just say for the for example the employee wants to file a grievance right do they file the grievance with the chair no it does it doesn't work that way right so I think we have some loopholes um that we need to fill collectively um that have been brought up as an issue these are difficult issues I I will you know and and my experience obviously is with municipalities primarily but I will say that one of the most difficult questions they have is the clerk and who the clerk reports to and and that's exactly what you brought up today whether that's to the manager or the board directly. Exactly, Mr. Chairman. Difficult difficult concepts. Yep. Uh superintendent, thanks for your patience. You're recognized. So So just a few things. Um, number one,

162I if the board wants to take action tonight, which they could, to make a determination that the employee will basically be loaned out of my office to the board. I am open and receptive to that with the understanding that I will contribute to the evaluation. So my evaluation will count as just as much as all the other seven board members because every complaint and issue is going to come to me to deal with. I'm just be honest. Um and then secondarily either the chair or the co-chair must be present during the evaluation review because it won't just be handed to me to meet with an employee. Um so I I'm very much open to that. I think those are reasonable expectations. Um, as it relates to the job description, I would suggest the board can't

163take from my perspective, and again, you have an attorney for a reason. I don't think you can make take action on a job description tonight because it's not drafted. It's not even that's my main concern. I'd have to step out and make that happen. Correct. Or the evaluation. I don't think there's any way to do that in less than two hours, quite frankly. Not not capture all of your concerns adequately or all of the Let me rephrase that. They were not concerns. there areas that you'd like to see explicitly stated within the job description. I think that's a better way to say it. And in your evaluation instrument. So I think what's reasonable is that you have it done and we bring it at the July 29th board meeting for re final review and approval.

164Workshop it for your review as old business. Vote on it that night. Um because at that point you have plenty of time for us to meet with the employee, review all any potential changes, make sure that everything's in place because no formal evaluation is taking place at that time so quickly into the next fiscal school year. So um that would be my recommendation. It's either that or you're going to have to call a special meeting between now and the end of June to address just that topic. That's the only those are the only two options as I see. Um, but again, I I I always defer to your council. So, no, I I completely agree and I'd have to step out to work on that 100%. And and then try to compress what would take

165over, you know, two to three weeks to get finished in two to three hours. Yeah. It It's a very tight timeline if we're going to take action tonight. Yep. Yeah. Mhm. So, you know, and this would be the will of the board as well, but I mean, obviously, Miss Miller has brought some items forward to be modified as well as um you know, my thoughts on who that individual reports to. I'd like to see that as an addition. Um and then obviously to be discussed as a board and voted upon as a board. Um so, if y'all have any other suggestions of additions that you would like to have, this be something you want to bring forward. Uh, superintendent yourself. I'm sorry. I just needed one more clarification because the the topic of payroll came

166up. Um, historically, this position has done payroll for your employees. Um, while they don't do mine per se, they do do the attorney's uh salary uh um payroll and they do do the auditors. Just for clarification, because if this is going to become a shared responsibility, I want to know are those two still being processed out of your office? and then I'll pick up everyone else or are you assuming that the auditor and the attorney will no longer report through the board office for leave or for payroll? It's not it's not the audit. I'm sorry. It's standby. Uh Miss Miller, you're recognized. I I wanted to leave the school board employees part of the job description and staff their employees. the employees of our employees are not our staff and th that's who should be

167that should be returned back to a supervisory position in the district. I think just in my experience in corporate you wouldn't have cross you wouldn't cross over that supervisory line right of somebody else who has really no there's no accountability checks and balances I think our office should take care of our our our employees but not the employees of our employees does that make sense that's probably not how you describe it but that's how I No clarify that's why I was asking thank you and I think that would be the easiest um thing for them too because then they would have a hierarchy they would you know who the report the report person is and I think I appreciate the superintendent volunteering to be a part of that as the chair suggested um because it's

168twofold you know you have someone he you know that he's going to bring in the chair or the vice chair to sit down on the evaluation but on the flip side of that there's seven individuals that have seven different needs and seven different expectations and there was no reporting mechanism for anyone one of the seven it was either collectively the evaluation is done or it's done you know so it's not I think it would be better representation I appreciate the chair doing uh research on that and I appreciate the superintendent taking on yet another responsibility that truly um as currently described is not his Thank you. Thanks Miss Miller and Miss Whitey you're recognized. Thank you. I just want to clarify we essentially have two options. So the first would be to we could vote

169tonight to allow this position to revert back to the superintendent's office as opposed to being a school board position which then he can update the job description and bring it back to us in July or you didn't like that. Actually, I did. I I felt that was a good suggestion. Well, with our with our communicate, he he would not have to We finish. Yeah, I'm I'm going to let you finish. That's right. So either we could we could vote tonight to have it revert back to the superintendent's office or it could come back in July if it's staying aboard position and we would have the the conversation then about the job description and your evaluation and the evaluation instrument. Yeah. I mean in Mr. Crawford your contribution to that but that would remedy our um

170deadline as well because that would give superintendent's office time to address that in a timely matter. Yeah. Yes, I would agree, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, option option two sounds like where the consensus of the board is headed. Uh I think that's you know not that that in recognition of the superintendent's generous offer as well as to add these items to the to the to the job description in a clarifying context. And I think that can be easily done. I don't think that's too much of an edit. I do think though that the superintendent's discuss or comments are well taken that it's important to make sure that the employees on the same page if there's going to be changes that happen so that when this item comes back July 29 not 10 it will uh um everybody

171everybody has direction and everybody's on rowing in the same same way. That that would be my suggestion Mr. Chairman. So we need to add that to the action item. All right. Anybody else um have feedback? I do see Miss Miller. I just had one other thing. Um and this is where I think I went back and watched the retreats that were available. They they're not all available. And it was interesting to talk about the same thing so many times, but they're actually two items. So, this it seems like there we've there's a resolution of some sort here. The second item which would resolve many of the things that were listed taskwise were was a procedural guide that on May on April 30th was it April 30th we discovered they were in the creation there was

172a create one being created or one being updated some things have happened taskwise that were very significant to my performance in the community and so I requested when will the procedural draft I don't even need the whole thing but I need a draft to to be ready. I was given the date of June 3rd. Then I was given the date of it's not going to be ready. I will notify the chair when it's ready. So chair, I'm asking that you put a hard line on a draft procedures manual so these things don't keep going for months and can you provide that date to us? Yeah. And again, this was a big and I included this in an email uh to Miss Wyatt and other uh board members. to this date. Um I I again I

173don't think that's my responsibility. I would say the board has not really adopted a formal deadline for this completion. Now I do and I think I added to this that this is a very formalized process that should include legal and it should include HR um and it should not be placed solely on Miss Vega. And I had mentioned that to superintendent as well during that um retreat where I said superintendent this is not her sole responsibility to create that procedural guide which I I value it and I think it's important but it should not be placed solely on her. I think there needs to be extra supports around that. So, you know, again, and I don't know if this if we remedy it by placing it um this position into the superintendent's office where he

174can now direct that to happen and have that extra support around it. I think where the frustration has grown January 2024 this started like we need this because things are happening that are at no fault. You know, you always go to the person and you always go to the position and say, "How did we support this position?" They may there may need to be need more supports in place. We are over a year and so as a board and I didn't direct the chair. That was what was given to me by my staff that they were going to give it to the chair for the chair to decide when we would get it. So, as a board, um, I I would like for our board to be vocal on when they would have would want

175to see a draft procedural guide, whether it takes HR involvement, which it was hard. That's where we ran into the brick wall because I'm asking I call HR and ask for help and they said we don't have that. We've never had that. It had always been housed in the office, which technology didn't allow it to stay because when it was housed, it was in paper. And so with all of those factors in play, we as a board need to say when we will see a procedural draft that can be edited and then voted and I don't know that we need to vote on it, but edited and then decided upon. Yep. And see, that's where I think um as a chair I've run into those issues by what you're describing is it's not my purview

176to direct staff, HR staff to help, right? it's my purview to direct superintendent to direct his staff to do that where so that's where I think those gray areas are um by but by placing Miss Vega into his office there can be that stronger direction that way from a board perspective um and you know and I think that even comes to other you know other issues it's not my purview it's not our purview as a board to circumvent superintendent to direct staff to do certain things um so I wanted to value that line in a sense and I think this could remedy that issue. Can we direct the super? Can we that still doesn't give us do we need to wait now until the change is made and then 30 days from now say superintendent

177when will you have a draft? Is that what we're most convenient? I do see superintendent um that wants to speak on this but we do have other people in line. So, Miss Wyatt, if you want to speak, and then we could have superintendent address or Miss Miller's question. I was just going to ask which may be what the superintendent was going to say because sometimes we think alike, not often, but sometimes. Um, but is that something that we can request of if we're making the the motion tonight to move it to his office that that's something that you bring us back on the 29th? It doesn't necessarily have to be the full draft on the 29th, but at least a this is our timeline. This is when it it will be completed by. Yes, ma'am.

178My Yes, ma'am. And or my recommendation was going to be just make a simple motion tonight and establish that as the expected deadline and let the board vote it up or vote it down. But that's those are the two best pathways to do it. Um if if the board takes a vote this evening saying that this will now become a shared um position as we've discussed then and and absolutely the board can give me the directive to make sure that you see a draft of that handbook um with the understanding that it may not have the full vetting of legal and HR or my office. Um and I think everybody understands that when we say draft um and then we'll take feedback and we'll continue to revise it. But those are the two ways that

179I could see it happening. either again vote yes, the position changes, direct me, or you can take a motion, make a motion this evening, vote it up or vote it down as to establishing a deadline of June 29th um for that draft to be provided to you. Thank you. And can we get that added to the action agenda? Thank you. All right. Very good. I don't see any other comments on that. Thank you, board members. Thank you, Superintendent Mr. Crawford and your contributions. We are now moving to E2. Um this is and you want to be with us, superintendent, so don't leave your chair there. Uh this is an important one. Okay. All right. So, you know, we've been at this for a long time and um as recommended by you as well. Uh we

180wanted to get some feedback from uh the superintendent and his staff on uh some possibilities as it relates to the additional millillage. So, if you want to present these concepts and ideas to us, uh, superintendent. Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Board members, standby. Sorry, one one more. Mr. Sharpless wanted to jump in here. I mean, we have a grievance schedule for 3:00. Can we do this after the grievance, please? We have people here. Is that would that be better? I I think it would be to and come back for that way we can have the grievance and then we can finish this after. I mean, yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. That would be my suggestion. Let's go ahead and get the grievance out of the way. All right. So, we'll go ahead

181and recess uh to allow our grievance to establish and get set up and we will rejourn in let's say 10 minutes. Yeah, that's an excellent call. Board members, welcome back. I would like to reconvene this work session on June 10th. It is now 4:15 and we just have a couple more items to move through. So, uh to pick up where we left off, uh the context as it relates to the referendum and I would like to now toss it back to superintendent to lead us through uh the presentation that's noted within that agenda item. Sir, Mr. Chair, members of the board, thank you. Um resuming where we left off, the tax referendum update. Um, you know, I was asked to make sure that we provided you some additional information. So, in this presentation, we will

182address uh presentations aren't pulled up. Do we pull the presentation up? Thanks. So tax referendum, there's two um sections that I will cover with the board. perform uh proposed referendum language and priority expenditures. Starting with proposed language, uh board members, you were provided with a comprehensive list of referendum language from variety of school districts around the state. Um all of whom had successfully either passed or renewed or expanded their current uh referendum. Um so you have two suggestions here. Please know that these suggestions are based off of a pro of language that we found available. We tailored it to PK County Public Schools specifically. Um I gave you two kind of two unique options here somewhat similar obviously um but for you to consider. Now obviously this is pending final legal review recommendation from them

183and also ensuring that the county commissioners would approve it and then ultimately it goes to the elections office to be placed on the ballot. Um so you again you have two suggestions here. Suggestion number one, shall the PK County School District levy an ad valorum operating millage of 1.0 0 mill annually for four fiscal years beginning July 1st, 2027 and ending June 30th, 2031 to provide funding for necessary operating expenses including the recruitment, retention of quality teachers and support staff, expansion of the fine and performing arts programs, enhancement of career and technical education, workforce opportunities, and improvements to school safety and security with funds shared proportionately with public school charters as required by law and expenditures monitored by the IND by an and an independent uh citizens financial oversight committee. Um suggestion two is similarly

184worded. Shallopole County Public School District levy an additional 1.0 O mill in advorum, taxes annually beginning July 1st, 2027 and ending June 30th, 2031 to fund necessary school operational needs, including the recruitment and retention of quality teachers, expansion of career and technical education and workforce development programs, improvements to school safety and security, and preservation and enhancement of fine and performing arts and other educational initiatives with funds shared proportionately with public school charters based on student enrollment and all expenditures overseen by an IND. independent citizens oversight committee. So again, trying to provide you with two um samples to start the discussion around. So because I know the board has stated repeatedly that you'd like to move a little more expediently as it relates to these issues. So let me cover the revenue summary. Um so right

185now our projections indicate that a one millillage advalorum increase would generate anywhere from 72 to $80 million annually. As noted previously, districts across the state have used these funds to help provide direct supports to address salaries, school safety, fine and performing arts programs, career teched, and workforce development initiatives. That does range, and I I actually found a district that actually sets aside 25%, that's Hillsbor County, to do so. Districts have set aside 15 to 20% of the revenue to specifically address areas outside of salaries. My recommendation is 20%. So when you look at the funding allocation, it is recommended that should the voters approve the 1m increase that funds be allocated distributed as follows. As follows 80% used to fund additional compensation for all employees. That would equate to anywhere from 58 to $64 million

186estimated. 20% would be set aside annually to provide funding to support the fine and performing arts, school safety and security, workforce development, and career tech ed education. um that 20% set aside annually would equate to 14 approximately 14 to$16 million each year. Priority expenditures. So we identified these priority expenditures, but the first thing I need to make sure that we address is the portion about recruitment and retention allocation or the funding that would be used for salaries. Under Florida's Public Employee Relations Act, school boards must bargain in good faith with certified unions like the teachers union or support personnel unions for any new revenue such as that generated from a voter approved tax referendum if it's intended to affect staff pay for benefits. So again, based off our review, we would have to bargain the

18780%, not the entirety of the of the referendum. If the board opts to retain 20 and use it for other priorities, the 80% that's directly used for salaries is open for the bargaining. And that's how every school district has addressed it. Even if the referendum states that funds will be used for salaries, implementation will still require bargaining regarding the amounts. In many districts, as you've seen, as you've done your own research and information we've provided you, the amount allocated for salary enhancements for retention and recruitment initiatives has varied from classroom teacher to pared educator to bus driver to various positions around the school districts. Um, you also have to bargain the distribution method. Distribution method could be something as simple as how frequently will we disperse those funds. Will they be spaced evenly across every

188paycheck? Will they be paid out twice annually? Will they be paid out once annually? Um, those are the things that need to be addressed. Eligibility. Who is eligible? So, this becomes a point of concern. So, if you have a mid-year hire that comes in starting January 1st, are they eligible for the entirety of of the bonus or the additional revenue? So these are the things that's why you go to the bargaining table and you work out all of the basically the procedures and policies that we're going to address and ensure that we have all these things in place to address any potential concerns. Um for another example would be what happens if you have a mid-year retirement? Does that person get if we decide that we're going to pay out twice a year? Does that

189person get the entirety of the allocation? These are the things that come up and these are examples I can speak of right off the top of my head simply because we deal with the same thing when school improvement money used to come in with school letter grade money. You end up having to negotiate with your staff how to allocate those funds and in many instances they say well you retired last year you shouldn't get any or you change schools you shouldn't get any money. So you have to kind of work through all these little nuances and is issues. Um eligibility I talked about structure. Is it a flat supplement? Is it going to be a percentage raise? is a performance-based bonus. As a board, you have expressed repeatedly concerns with it being anything considered a

190stipen, which would bring a higher tax burden for the employees. And there are ways to work around those. Negotiations would seek to address whether all employees get the same amount or if it's tiered, whether the funds go into the base salary or recurring supplement, and timelines as I stated for dis dispersement, sorry, fine and performing arts. So again, uh my recommendation would be to ensure that we are holding back some of those dollars to specifically address certain issues and aspects within this. I did not give you dollar amounts. And the reason you're not going to see any dollar amounts is all of this is based upon number one your final review, but number two also the issue that we're currently dealing with as we evaluate all of our campuses for deferred maintenance. So when we

191look at fine and performing arts programs, we may decide that in year one, if the referendum were to pass and be supported by the taxpayers in year one, we're going to address all kils in the district, especially those that are more than 10 years old. I mean, these are the kinds of things that we'll work through as far as rank prioritization. So, no dollar amount is proposed here for that very reason, to allow the board to review the needs and work with us to develop a four-year plan on how we're going to address those things. But I did provide you some generic examples here. Uh, grade level arts enrichment events and activities. We could identify and fund age and developmentally appropriate field trips for elementary and middle school students. At a minimum, these activities would

192target students in grades K 1, 3, 5, 6, and 8. I has been something I've wanted to do for a very long time, especially when we talk about the whole child. What are those exposure opportunities that we have for enrichment for our students? For example, do we believe in kindergarten every student should minimally see a theater performance? Do we believe that every first grader should see an orchestra? Do we believe every third grader should be able to see dance or do a different type of field trip in with environmental science? These are things that we can work through with funding from the referendum. expanding the arts access for K through five develop and and under there we would develop a four-year cycle to ensure that all schools receive funding for music, theater, and dance equipment,

193uniforms, and materials that support performing arts programs. Musical equipment is incredibly expensive. As you pay attention to our expenditures from those areas, a French horn can be $5,000. So it's important for us to recognize that our ability to replace not just repair but replace or as we go into situations where you know a new school always gets new equipment right but what's the plan to replace that 10 15 years down the road there typically isn't one and we do a refresh as we can um and we basically use the existing budget. So this would allow us to do a little bit more to expand those opportunities for our students and our staff. And then lastly, stage, sound, and lighting enhancements. Develop a four-year cycle to address any stage, sound, and lighting needs at all of

194our schools that prioritize schools based off the results of the district-wide deferred maintenance plan. The next area would be school safety, and security. And please note that these are not in any rank priority. Right? Fine arts is not more important than safety. Safety is not any less important than anything else. It's just how they came to my mind as I was putting this together. Um, obviously we would use some funds to continue to expand and support behavioral threat assessments and mental health supports, fund additional staff with training and early intervention um and identification to respond to potential stre threats. Expand access to school-based counselors, psychologists, and social workers. Implement programs like anonymous reporting apps through Fortify Florida and promote digital citizenship facility harding hardening and safety upgrades. We're already making some progress on this, but

195you know, the cost associated with putting the tinting and window film on our campuses. So, to get all schools covered is going to be a long-term cost, but this could be something we could expedite as a result of this funding. Upgrade locking mechanisms to include intruder locks and all classroom doors. Add exter exterior fencing and gate controls for all campuses. Lacking defined perimeter security. Thankfully, we don't have much of any of that, but we do have some opportunities where we could expand our gates and fences. Next would be surveillance cameras systems, replacing outdated or non-functioning cameras with high resolution cloud-based systems. One of the most frequent requests I get, and I think many of you hear this from your principles as you visit schools, is they'd like to add more cameras. I know for a

196fact Mr. Keys and I had this conversation very recently. Um, but we we already spend well above and beyond our safe schools allocation each year just to put SRO and guardians on our campuses. And so this fund these funding would be would go a long way to help offset and ensure that we have these things in place. And then lastly under school safety and security continue to enhance our communication systems. Um, one of the things, lessons we learned very recently, uh, during last year's hurricane season was that if the cellular network goes down, in this case, one of the major cellular networks was not operational here in PK County, our ability to communicate was non-existent. Um and so there are other types of communications, cellularbased and Wi-Fi based um communication devices that we are we're

197purchasing 40 for example for this year but to be able to place one in every school 40 will cover all the district senior admin who respond to hurricanes and all of our shelters would have at least one radio so they're constantly in communication. It's the same device that law enforcement and other agencies use to ensure that they can stay in constant contact with each other. So those are types of things. And then lastly on within there the security camera systems um and I I apologize and I can add it to this um is the software upgrades. Um we've talked about and I've shared with you in the past u there are AI software programs that would help us identify and eliminate human error with reporting potential threats because the camera system would notify law enforcement

198directly and school administrators. Next under workforce development, career teched uh expansion, continue to expand our pathways, build out our careermies in healthcare, construction, cyber security. Um really excited to really focus this too and push it down to middle school. I think we're missing we continue miss an opportunity to get these opportunities and exposure events for our students down in middle school. Develop workforce training labs. This is one of the ways we're currently, as you know, developing a STEM bus in PK County. They'll be able to travel around the school district, especially to our elementary schools. Give our kids some access to additional hands-on STEMbased activities. We could do the same thing with workforce-based um vehicles. Uh paid internships and job coaching. This would allow us to expand these opportunities for our students. um work more

199collaboratively or continue to work collaboratively with our community- based partners, some of whom um can't always afford for an intern, but would love to have one and give the kids the experience within that area. Equipment and facilities. Um this is really about Travis Ridge and our school-based uh programs that constantly need a refresh of their equipment and there's only so much federal funding that's allocated each year, which means that we are constantly having to rank prioritize. But when you look at a large scale program like a Travis or Ridge, ensuring that they have current industry standard equipment is essential because otherwise you're training kids on outdated equipment, outdated skills moving forward. And then lastly, just to make sure that everybody feels comfortable with the process is making sure that we're ensuring oversight and transparency. As

200outlined in the proposed ballot language, these funds will be monitored by the community finance committee. Community Finance Review Committee provides an independent community-based perspective on the district's financial practices. We've already talked about this. You'll be you'll hopefully be taking action on this at the July 29th schoolboard meeting. Um the committee includes 14 members of the committee assigned by the board, two per board member, PCPS staff, including myself or a designate, chief of staff, chief financial officer. The committee will meet minimally once each quarter and as an outcome the committee shall produce a summary of their quarterly review of expenditures and explanation as to any areas in need of further review or revision. So unfortunately as with anything great plans sometimes run into a brick wall because we thought we could put some equipment in a

201particular room but then we realized we don't have the proper uh so the welding great example. You got to make sure you have enough amperage to support a welding program. you've got to make sure that the ducks are there so the air quality can be maintained. So sometimes that infrastructure if it wasn't thought out in advance and and we're pretty good at this. It's a bad example but it's a good example from the perspective of those would restrict or limit or impair our ability to expand a welding program. Right? So the committee will come back and report out okay we had this planned but we're delayed in our timeline because of permitting because of whatever the issues are. equipment delays. A lot of equipment comes from overseas. Manufacturing equipment comes from overseas. We may find

202that there's a delay getting things from Germany or or Japan or wherever the equipment's coming from. Um and in the report um they'll provide a report presented jointly by the committee chair and the chief academic officer at the next schoolboard meeting following a committee's review. So when they meet quarterly, the recommendation would be for them to come and publicly speak and share updates with the board. And then that summary would be posted online and the video would be posted online at a specific website linked to our main page that said, you know, we'd have a hot button there that says go to, you know, the referendum updates, that kind of thing. And that way we can maintain that level of transparency for our stakeholders and build that trust. So board members, that concludes this presentation

203and I see Mr. Sharpless. So um one thing I would like to see added um that I talked about last time to either of the referendums languages is I would like to see something about early learning in there. Um because of the the demand far outs the supply in this county for early learning. um the product we get coming in the kindergarten readiness significantly lower than the state average. So if we could add something like that, that would be my preference um to the list of what's already there. I think all that's good. Um and then I was also wondering um just the suggest the the recommendation is 8020. Um is that is that hard? Is that what you I'm trying to say like is that something that we will discuss as a board or

204do we want to go more or less? That's my current recommendation. I think while I was encouraged that Hillsboro County went to 25%. Mhm. I think that when you actually then do the math because charter schools get their fair a portionment and then you take our 14,000 employees and just do an even distribution, the number starts to drop fairly significantly. So that's why I felt comfortable at the 20. But this is the board's referendum and I take direction from you. No, I No, I was talking about going the opposite way. 80 an 8515 is what I was thinking possibly um just so we can increase that salary a little more. Uh but what would that what would that look like? That 5% difference is it? So 5% of 80 you're looking at what um four

205another four I and I divide that into 14,000. I mean I could do I let me run the math real quick while you're while you're speaking and and because we're just disc we're still workshopping it right so correct there is no vote on this to see so if you could get maybe I think would be good maybe to give us options on what the what different levels would look like you know different spreads so to speak but my my big thing was I would like to see early learning in there as as one of the options or one of the in the proposed language I I defer I'll defer to the board. Okay, Mr. Keys. I was just going to say that um based on the language presented. Suggestion two is my preference on that,

206but I I do agree with Mr. Sharpless that um I don't necessarily want to add too much for the voter to do that, but I think early learning is important. So, if we can make that to where it's easy um to understand and identify, that's good. But again, I think the spirit of what we were trying to do really revolved around all the discussions thus far have been um on more compensation for um our our our educators, right? So, I I'm I'm happy with the 8020 mix. I think that we'll find out um in our I guess broad explanation of the 20%. I think that helps us out a lot. It doesn't it doesn't back us into a corner. Um but those things need to be addressed. You know, school safety and and uh enhancing

207the arts. Um I think these are all important. So I think with that mix is is good. And I'm curious too to see what that although we don't have exact numbers, right? This is not an exact science because we don't know what the funding looks like yet for that. I think what you've done in there in the presentation giving us a range is helpful. Um, you know, and and I guess you were going to I'll pause my comments to use. Looks like you you've got that 5% difference. Let me $300. How much? $300 per employee. Per employee. $300 annually. Yes, sir. Yeah. I'm fine with the 8020. It it it really it's $4,800 it at the 15% and it's 4571 or $4,600. So it's really not even 300. It's a little it's by it's right

208around 260. Yeah. So I I I'm I'm I'm happy with the mix, but again I think I think with the the language on the SE um suggestion too on the language is my preference on that. And then again, if if we could put a little excerpt in there for early childhood education, I think it it it enhances that. And and again, please understand that when I'm doing this math, and I'm saying this more for the people who are watching, we're not assuming that it would just be distributed equitably. And that may be where we land. Who knows with the collective bargaining agreements. Um but just for ease of math, it that's how it would play out. But again, it's very typical for districts to adjust the pay ranges for different employee groups. Thank you, sir.

209I almost did it again, Dr. Allen. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. It's your It's all yours. You're next. You need to hit the button. No, I do. I Do I need to hit it? I don't know. All right, I'm doing it. There you go, sir. All right. Great. Um, no, I appreciate the presentation. Looking at your suggested referendum language, I thought number two, um, would resonate well with our community as far as the order of those items. Um, I I was a little disappointed in not seeing like the 9th through 12th um, and the arts side. Um, would, you know, I I'd hate for us to, you know, leave out that population. I could definitely understand like improving some of those at the K through five level and so forth. Yeah. Um just maybe an opportunity

210to build some growth in in that category. Um yeah, exactly. Is Yep. Must stay by Miss Wyatt. Well, they're the ones with the auditoriums in the theater. I know. I'm with you. So um and I don't know in suggestion two the difference in the language there is in your sequence you say at the very end and other educational initiatives. It might be a little broad and open-ended. Um but I mean it does give flexibility as well. Um but I'm you know I could maybe see that area there being related to early childhood as Mr. Sharpless has mentioned. Um, and just seeing that sequence definitely can see that our community would resonate with that. Um, the 8020 I'm in agreeance with that. The, you know, the possibility of merit-based is something that I would definitely be

211in favor of and absolutely here's a flat, you know, supplement if that's the direction we would be going. Um, but giving an opportunity for some merit-based opportunities I think would be something that would be of value as well. Those are all I have at this point. Thank you, Superintendent. You like me to change to the next speaker, sir? I'm comfortable. Thank you. Miss Wyatt, thank you. Um, I thank you for your team's work on this. Superintendent Hyde, I lean towards for the suggested referendum language suggestion too. I think that I know the answer to this, but is that something that we can we could put in through put out through in city to test like an a to do an AB test for the language? Is that what what I would like to do is

212first run it through council and if they are proving that this language might be something that would fly and could be then yes, we could test that language. Yes, ma'am. I just would I would be interested personally if we were to put out an AB test with suggestion one and suggestion two to see if either had a more positive response than another. Um it just would be interest an interesting case study and what the Yes, ma'am. what would be more favorable with the public and and this is an interesting one because sometimes is more better or is less better? because I feel that as we go out to message this, the more specificity we can give as to how those dollars will be be used, the better it's going to be. But there's no way

213to really incorporate that in here. So, um that's and the other educational initiatives was left in there kind of as a placeholder so you guys could the board could direct, hey, we'd like to add this or delete this or make these changes. So, early childhood seems like it's wellreceived. We can definitely work up some initiatives around that as well. And Mr. Chair, there are no further questions or comments there. Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent. All right, board members. Appreciate your feedback on that and thanks again to the superintendent for bringing that forward to us. um these items that are remaining um as it relates to new business just just to bring that forward as a signpost just to have context that these are action agenda items for tonight if we want to speak to these

214at all. Um I would say that the election of the FSBA district directors is um time based so it does need to be voted upon tonight. Um so board members any other comments feedback on that? Mr. Sharpless you're recognized. chair, what is the recommendation for uh the director and alternate? Yeah, may add the will of the board is there. I've been serving in that capacity. I've um I've found value in it and have enjoyed serving in that capacity, but it's the will of the board at this point for for a recommendation. Okay. Um so we have currently um Miss Fields that serves as the alternate as well. Well, I will just say that hopefully on uh Thursday, I will be sworn in as the new the 2025 2026 FSBA treasurer as an executive officer. I

215will already be on the board of directors. So, I will not um I would not want to serve. You can't serve twice. Not not not two of me. So, y I would not be eligible. And that's a congratulations to you as well for uh securing that position. Thank you. appreciate opportunity to represent us potentially. Potentially potentially have to get voted in Indeed. So, thank you, Mr. Sharpless. All right. I don't see any other comments on that. At this point, we will adjourn and reconvene back at 5:15. I do. We need to make a motion tonight to leave. Are we making the motion to leave it the same or for the board of directors? Okay. I just I mean it's up to up to you as a board. Somebody confirmed with Miss Fields. Yeah, Mrs. Fields.

216I think it'd be We'd have to check with her to see if she wants to remain the old handing it to me. Yeah, that's uh that's the challenge to be able to get in communication with her at this point. Um I can make a phone call here as well attempt and then we can always move to make we can make whatever motion we want to now and then we voting on it tonight. be some some reach out there. Yep. Okay. All right. Any any other comments at this point? We will um go ahead and adjourn our work session, but let's do a 5:15 start for our board meeting tonight. That gives us uh enough time to switch and take care of any other things we need to tie up. Okay. Any other comments? Y'all hear

217about that? Y'all hear that down there? So 5:15 5:15 is when we will begin our meeting tonight. At this point we are now adjourned.