School Board Work Session | April 8, 2025

001[Music] [Applause] and [Applause] [Music] stand. Amen. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] voice of Oh my god. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Oh [Music] [Applause] In the presence of the lamb. Holy Ghost. [Music] as [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] of the Are you going to come down? [Music] Good morning out there and welcome to the P County School Board's work session. Uh we will now call the work session for April 8th, 2025 to order. I would like to thank everyone for uh being here today. Thanks to our staff. I see you all trickling in. I appreciate your presence with us today as we work through uh some items. Appreciate your accessibility. Uh we're humbled to serve alongside you and the most highly educated and dedicated workforce in the nation. I wanted to say a big

002congratulations to Walter Clayton Jr. and the Gators last night. I think Florida becomes the first D1 school with three national championships in football and men's basketball. So, pretty exciting. Hopefully, everybody's wide awake. I mean, if you stayed up last night and watched, but uh pretty big thing to celebrate for sure in the state of Florida. Uh so, I'd like to start by reading our who are we statement and it states this. We are the Pole County leadership governance team. If we were to pick one phrase to define us, it would be student centered because when we come together to work, we lean on our diverse backgrounds uh and our experiences to ensure that our decisions are focused on providing a highquality education for all students. And the four most important things uh to our governance

003team would be number one operating with integrity. Two respecting our students, our staff, our families and each other. Number three, establishing a culture where stakeholders feel valued. Um, you're supported and have opportunities for personal and professional growth. Number four, supporting an approach of continuous improvement to ensure student outcomes. And then collectively, uh, we need to work on behalf of all the children that we serve and find these avenues of agreement that, uh, so we can govern the district in an effective manner. There's no acceptable alternative to that. So, we're going to always collaborate uh in a respectful manner in order to enhance the opportunities for each student and our staff members. Uh we're not going to disparrage others. We're not going to disparrage each other. Our students will thrive because when we remain committed to

004supporting the whole child, that's going to happen. So, we hope to engage and empower our students and our stakeholders to create this community of lifelong learners. So, at this time, I would like to hand it over to Superintendent to lead us through our work session today. Superintendent. Sir, good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board, staff, committee members. Thank you for being here. Um, we have several items before you this morning. Um, many are not going to require much lengthy conversation, but two will. Um, the first one, uh, ladies and gentlemen, is the Mclofflin PreK award. Um, so you were copied on correspondence, uh, recently, and so you know the process that I've previously outlaid for how we were going to secure a provider. And so, um, I I'm pleased to announce that we are

005tentatively awarding that location and site opportunity to the YMCA of West Central Florida. And Chantel's here with us today. She wants to come down and join us at the podium and say a few words. Um, there's no vote before the board this week or by April 22nd because we will now begin the process of contract negotiations and finalizing all of those things. Um, anytime we have a shared facilities use agreement, um, we will, again, like I said, work through the fine details of that. Um, but I wanted to invite Chantel here this morning to at least be able to meet the board and be able to speak to you um, and give you an opportunity to put a face with the name. So, good morning, ma'am. Good morning. Uh, my name is Shantel Rubes and

006I, um, have the pleasure of serving the YMCA as the chief strategy officer. Um, just wanted to say thank you this morning for this opportunity. Uh, we appreciate the board's trust in the YMCA and uh, we are committed to uh, to early childhood and uh, the success of this program and um, we look forward to uh, this great partnership. And so, Mr. Murphy, I'll work with you and your team to identify who you'd like to be the lead um, so that we can begin the contract development and contract negotiations. Um board members, we're not starting completely from scratch. We will typically take an existing blank charter school agreement and modify it as needed so that we can make sure we're addressing all of the questions or concerns. Um just again to provide you some asurances,

007they have to use Raptor. They stay on our video monitoring system. We will continue to take care of the facility. Um these are typical agreements that we've entered into in the past and will continue to. Some of them are statutoily enforced. um and others are just a matter of being a good partner. So, we are excited. We're thrilled that you applied. All three providers were exceptional. Um but the YMCA stood out for several reasons, existing partnerships, but also the ability to scale, right? And the ability to implement uh very quickly um and a strong reputation within the community with many of our families. So, Chantel, thank you and congratulations again. Thank you so much. And I know Miss Wyatt just joined us, but she was on the interview panel and I just want to make

008sure I give her a moment to get settled. We can actually come back. So, Miss Wyatt, we just talked about the prek award. So, if you want to have comments later, I just want to make sure you had that opportunity. Um, oh, Miss Wyatt, thank you. Um, yes, we are so excited that you all applied, Chantel. The, like Superintendent Hyde said, all three applicants were incredible, but you really rose to the top. Um, the existing partnerships, the opportunity to scale, and really just the willingness to what does the district need, um, is an approach that I think we're not used to always getting, but is very exciting to have truly collaborative partners that want to help meet the needs of our students and our demographic as a whole. So, thank you for for stepping up,

009and we're excited to partner with you. Thank you, Miss White. Next item up, board members, we have a discussion about between a school board of PK County and McKil Academy for Kingsford Elementary School. And we have Mr. McLemore, director for facilities and planning here. We also have uh Miss Candy Amato, senior director for charter schools. So, I will turn it over to them. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Uh before you this morning is just a brief summary of of a memorandum of understanding. Uh the schools of McKill Academy have uh um approached the Pulk County School District and they have expressed interest in Kingsford Elementary. For those of you who are not quite familiar with where it is located, Kingsford is located uh southwest of uh the intersection of Highway 60 and

010South Florida Avenue uh near the uh town of Malberry. In terms of a quick summary, uh the property in question sit sits at just over 18 1.5 acres in terms of development jurisdiction. doesn't necessarily fall within the city of limits of Malberry. It still resides in technically an unincorporated Pulk County. The campus itself uh is comprised of four buildings. Building one and two being constructed in 1961. They pretty much serve as your admin classrooms and your kitchen and dining areas. Building three being a small storage facility uh like 170 square ft. And then building four being a covered play area in the rear of the campus that was constructed in 2001. All all totaled uh the campus as it is currently laid out and as the rooms are designed it can accommodate 442 students as

011it is right now based off of the state requirements of educational facilities which pretty much governs hey this is the size of the room this is how many students it could uh support in total uh buildings it encompasses just uh around 53 and a half thousand square feet in terms of theou itself uh what thisou is really going to provide is it will provide the schools of McKill Academy a 180day due diligence period and right of entry so they can continue to explore their due diligence uh visit the site get hands on and eyes on as to the condition and it it'll help with their decision-m process in terms of uh ne next action um thisou will be coming back to you April 22nd for official uh adoption and action for theou to go into

012effect pending your questions Miss Miller, this might be a superintendent question because I'm not sure if it's for um Mr. McLemore or for Candy. Thank you for joining us, Miss Amato. Um I just have a question. This is great for a school that um definitely wants and needs to expand. My question is in the past um when we've done expansions on prop on the school building that we owned um we also had an agreement that the entrance um demographic of that school would look more like the neighborhood it was around. Is that going to be something that continues on a new campus? Is this an additional school? Is are they going to be closing another campus? I just have questions about this. This is not an expansion. This is a relocation. They are closing their

013Lakeland site. Sorry. So they're they are they would be expanding they would be adding a new campus which would if it models their current that that hang on that's not what we discussed. So I just want to be transparent because when this conversation first occurred and they can come to the podium that my understanding was that they needed this site because they were looking to relocate. Now, they may be expanding because this site allows for additional students, but I'd like some clarification because that was the understanding I had and it will impact this agreement. I will turn it over to Mr. Black, the executive director of the schools of Mackiel. Good morning. Good morning. I think we crossed wires, superintendent, because we had a the discussion um was that I was looking for property for

014South Mackle. We we have a need to move our South McKill campus. So we were having multiple discussions at the same time when I kind of jokingly asked you, did you have any property that you would like to donate to Mackielle? And at that moment um because I was interested in the Yates Road property. I know you have 120 acres there, but I also was semi-kitting uh about you donating to McKielle. However, that is when the Kingsford conversation occurred. um because you did have an empty school building. We are interested in that building, but for expansion purposes, um we investigated uh and full disclosure, we investigated perhaps moving South McKill there, but there are not enough buildable acres uh for the board. South McKI houses 1,200 students. Um, we have semi, you know, explored perhaps

015moving to the Kingsford campus, our South McKill students. It's quite frankly just not big enough. Um, there's not enough buildable property. I think uh my facilities head um said it's it's maybe 10 11 acres that's actually buildable, including the campus that's already that sits on that campus. So, the existing buildings. Thank you for clarifying. Sure. I appreciate that. Miss Amato, if you'll come back. Go ahead, Miss Miller. Mr. Black, if you'll Mr. Black, if you'll just stay stay up there just in case there's other questions. No. Um, thank you. And Mr. Black, it's been a long time. Um, you toured me the school as soon as I was elected back in 2018. And, you know, I have friends that work there and attend there. Um, it's a it's a very successful school system. My question

016I think is in the past I deal with a lot of families who either start at McKill and council out due to the needs that they have either academically and in the past we've always talked about if there was room you know we want these units we want to help more students we would need room to do that so is that something envisioned of mackil of expanding who they're servicing at your campuses if you can if you expand to a larger campus but you just explained that this one's not large enough okay it's not large enough for us to relocate an existing campus. Okay. But I do believe their intent would be to honor the the current population in that area. Absolutely. I need that. That's what I need to hear. Mr. Black, I'm just

017very honest. Like we've had the conversation about the numbers at um at McKill and I think the words were we used to take more of the north side, but that's you know, and so I I would like to know that before we do this, this is not a charter thing. Look at our magnets. I can we can have this conversation all day long about who we serve, but I want it but the neighborhoods want to know that they have a chance to be um if they if they um apply that they have a chance to get into the schools. And I know at one time you had described that the way the district pulls um like the list that we do per quadrant but you didn't have that technology to do that. Um and I

018don't know that you've invested in that since 2018. So, I just want to know. So, we don't talk about pulling from different quadrants to make sure the representation looks like our county. At least looking at the neighborhood it sits in. I think that's important to the community. So, I just didn't know what your vision was on that. And I we could have we could have had coffee over this, but it's nice to see you today. You still can. Okay. Um, so I just want to talk about your vision of serving the community of Kingsford. Um, so like all of our campuses, um, we can't zone. The only one that we will quote unquote say zone is the high school. Uh and that was an agreement we made with the school board um to allow those

019students who lived in the neighborhoods that surround our high school campus to attend to get in when they apply. Um we cannot do it with our startup charters unless that's changed in some manner, but it has not. Uh we'd love for it to by the way. Um, but we can't change who applies or say, you know, you must live in with this within this area. But we are certainly going to open it up to the families of Malberry. The we're going to open up to everyone uh just like we've always done. And um and we'll run the lottery just like we always have. It's it's random chance to get in. As you may be aware, we typically run an open enrollment every single year. We wipe out the list in November. We start all over

020again in December and typically we get 3,00 to 3500 applicants every year for what basically amounts to 350 open seats. So you know it's basically for every seat open it's 10 people apply. Um I think we've come very far since I've been the director of the McKill schools in increasing that diversity. I don't believe we count I would hate to find out that we are counseling children out of our schools. Um I believe we've stopped that flow for whether it's a discipline reason, whether it's for academic reasons. Um, and so I know we'll do the right thing by the community of Malberry, um, and give them the opportunity, and it is our intent that once they complete Kingsford, uh, for lack of a better name at this point in time, um, they will come to

021our high school. We have open seats in seventh grade, usually between 80 and 90 every single year. It's a good fit. It's a perfect size school, and I do want to give you credit for making improvements. Um, in the time that I've been on the board seeing students with disabilities, um, I think we have a long way to go, but I think you've made improvements. I know you don't serve kids on access curriculum, but students I've helped, um, I've helped understand the model, um, have had success there if it was the right support system that was implemented. So, I do that. I look forward I look forward to increasing the supports and if we need to help provide those supports to you or your school or your staff, I know that Mr. Amato would be

022grateful um for us to be able to do that for you. But thank you for coming today. I appreciate it. Miss White, thank you. Is there anything that's currently on the Kingsford campus? I know at one point we had talked about Boys and Girls Club and some other organizations looking to locate there. There is not. The only thing that Kingsford was being considered for was an emergency red cross shelter post storm. Okay. Um in case there was a need for sheltering. Um we've kind of uh we've used Kingsford and other sites intermittently as needed over the last four years. But no, ma'am, there's nothing nothing programmatic there at this time. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Miss Fields, my question was similar to Miss Wyatt, but I wanted to know what is the process if someone was

023interested in in uh pursuing the uh the Kingsville property. I mean, how do we go about determining who gets first grabs at it? The first notification would be give would be given or the first option would be given to the individual group that notified us first of that of set interest. Then from there, the rest of it is largely laid out by statute and and board and uh state board rule as far as availability of existing schools that are underutilized for charter conversion and or charter utilization. Um so we don't advertise that per se. Um had we not had an interest um we have evaluated that building on several occasions because I would have liked to have brought it back into into use um as an early learning center as another opportunity. Um but the

024cost effectiveness for us to do that was too high and um so when Mackielle expressed an interest again they they formalized their interest in the letter and that's what gave them priority. There were several interested parties in that campus and we apprised those parties that should mackle ultimately decline that site their interest in that site and pursuing that site then it would go to the next group that had indicated an interest. Thank you for clarifying that. And so my next question is that since there seemed to have been some confusion on expansion uh versus uh a new uh location, are you still in support of this? I am. I am. It's a quality program. And in statutoily, even if I were opposed, I I can't be opposed. But that's not the case here. I just

025wanted to make sure that I wasn't misunderstanding because I know I had a conversation with the board chair during agenda review and that was my understanding at the time. But I have to also acknowledge that they're going to have conversations outside of me and I just hadn't had an opportunity to catch up with Miss Amato and get the full update. Um so I I am still in support. I I'd like to see that facility utilized. Um that community is going to grow quite frankly and it could it could serve us well. Thank you. And then my last thing is similar to uh what Miss Miller said, making sure that there's uh equal representation of the families in the uh community. Yeah. based off those community. Yes, ma'am. Based off those comments this morning, I'll be

026happy to follow up Mr. Black and see what we can do um to specifically address that. I think he outlined the process in which they follow. But I think Miss Miller's question is a little bit deeper, which is and it's something that our own magnet schools and we struggle with from time to time is at what point does a student's disability essentially exclude them or preclude them from participating in a program to the fullest extent possible. It never should, but we have to make sure then that the resources and supports are put in place for that. We have to encourage administrators and staff to be receptive of that as well. So that's a training and a communication issue, but I think um that's worth well worth a followup. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And we definitely

027agree on the special needs because it is a concern. You know that. Yes, ma'am. Yes. Thank you, Dr. Allen. Thank you, Superintendent. Yeah. I mean, I I just want to commend you, Superintendent, for just um being open to this conversation, and I I appreciate that um you have been supportive of choice along the way. Um, you know, and I think it coupling right next to school capacity discussion, which is our next agenda item, is important as well to put in the full context of PK County and where we're at. Um, this is mostly an inspection only, right? And I'm just curious, um, you know, at what point will we get the true vision, what you're thinking, uh, Mr. Black with this and so forth. Um, but do we have like any updates along the way

028that you are foreseeing like any checkpoints within this 100 day period? Yeah, I can I can work with Mr. Amato, Mr. Black and his team and Mr. McLemore to develop a timeline of not necessarily deliverables. I like the way you phrased the checkpoints um to make sure that we're making progress towards this um and ensuring I know that Mr. Black and his team have visited the site on multiple occasions um so that they can start making sure that they're bringing in their architect engineers to inspect that facility, determine to the extent to which we've already predetermined certain repairs that would need to be addressed. And so obviously they need to take that into consideration um as they look at their bottom line to ensure that it, you know, the ROI is there for them, right,

029as far as an investment of their capital outlay and and any other efforts that they put forward financially. So we can definitely provide you with a list of and a timeline. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you, Superintendent. Welcome. I see no further questions or comments. Thank you both. Board members, the next item is a capacity discussion. This this is going to be a reoccurring topic over the next few meetings, especially workshops. Um, and should time avail itself in our not this Thursday, but an upcoming retreat, I I'm I definitely think it's a conversation worth having. Today, I'm going to talk with you briefly about portables. Um, Miss Wyatt and others have reached out to me because of school capacity issues. Many of you have concerns about school capacity issues. I know Miss Miller is working

030and we're providing her with some some background on concurrency. Um because the problem with concurrency is if there's space for portables. Concurrency is kind of a fluid issue and a fluid topic. Um we have largely we have a very large footprint of portables on our campuses. So I'm going to talk you through some things here this morning. Um I will provide all this information to you um this afternoon after we conclude. Um, essentially there are three topics related to portables and school capacity that I'd like to have with the board over the next few sessions. The first is um going to be a recommendation from my office that we not add any new portables at this time. Um, and in fact that we consider capping enrollment at schools and and I'll have further com comments

031about that in a moment. The second topic would be developing a timeline to remove excess portables. And I'll explain more of that here in a few moments when I give you the numbers of how many portables we currently have on our campuses. Many of our let me rephrase that. Several of our campuses have large numbers of portables on their campus but do not re utilize those portables because their school their student enrollment is at a point where their main facility sufficiently addresses that enrollment. And so those portables are there. Um, and so again, I'll I'll speak to that further here in a few moments. And then lastly, um, as I mentioned, if there are schools that we are looking at that currently have portables because of their growth, we have to do the ROI and

032the cost analysis to determine um, because many of these portables are aging out, and I'll share that number with you here in a moment. Um, portables can only exist on a campus for a specified period of time, at which point they have to be replaced or demolished. And there are several ways that the district gets rid of portables. Several options available to us. By and large, demolition tends to be the most frequently used because there just isn't a large demand for portables once they exceed 20 or 25 years of age. Um, however, it would appear that this summer there may be a larger interest locally. And um, and I'll cover some costs here with you. for the 2526 school year um coming up. There are 10 schools that have requested additional portables. Now, our team

033doesn't just place portables on a campus without doing the analysis to determine that the need is there. Um but the problem is it's it's twofold. We add portables as a solution, which then means we create student seats. Um, and that flexibility that we've shown over time is fantastic. But many of our schools, as you know, have now exceeded their overall original capacity um, at a much higher level than I think anybody ever anticipated. The amount of acreage that portables take up and then the costs associated with port portables. And I think there's a strong argument to be made at times that you know or a question to be asked which is do portables provide the same type of learning space and learning environment as a traditional classroom that's part of a main building. There are

034obvious concerns with portables you know when it comes to school safety um because they're more accessible um because of their location. But the other one is for tornadoes and hurricanes and things of that nature. We just those are just things to consider. That's always been a consideration with portables. Um, this board's always have to face these issues. Portables are typically a faster solution um to capacity issues, especially when there hasn't been enough impact fees or the justification's not there to build and in times when, you know, capital dollars are tight. It's it is a viable solution, but we've reached a point where we've used it for so long as a stop gap. We we have to start really anal doing the analysis and determining whether or not this is the best option moving forward. Um

035and so the 10 schools that have requested additional portables include Davenport Elementary School. They've requested three additional portables. I'll use that as an example here in a moment. Davenport High Schools requested three portables. Jenkins has requested a portable. Hayne City has requested four. H City High School, excuse me. Horizon's Elementary Schools requested four. Lake Ship has requested one. Malbury High Schools requested two. Sand Hill Elementary's requested one. Spessert Hollands requested three. And Winter Haven High School has requested four additional portables. So, let me go back to Davenport Elementary School and Davenport High. So, Davenport Elementary School. One of the concerns that we have is when we added portables previously, we did a newer version of portables. And now if we add additional portables there, we may not be able to match those. And so you're

036going to have a combination of things. And that's a relatively newer campus that the board had approved significant renovations to in the past. Davenport High School has its growth. Now we will have a solution in the next few years with the new point Sienna area high school. Um but right now if if we're adding portable stat school, we really do need to consider what are the enrollment options and what are the capacity issues that we're dealing with on that campus and other campuses. Um so just to give you a a few a few ideas or a few examples, those same schools, Davenport Elementary School already has four portables on their campus. Davenport High School already has eight C portables on their campus. George Jenkins has 14. Hayne City High School has 35. Horizon's Elementary School

037has 16. Now the 35 for Hay City we created because we were had to build some capacity until such time as the new Point Sienna Area High School can be completed and that school can be reszoned. But Lake Ship has none presently. Malbury Senior High School has none. San Hill Elementary School has 19 portables. Spesser Holland Elementary has two and Winter Haven High School presently has 11. And so you were provided um I want to say a little over a month ago, we forwarded you the fish capacity um Excel spreadsheet. So you have that um and all of this information is contained on there. It tells you what the school's initial enrollment capacity was based off the number of classrooms and then it tells you what their cap present capacity is with uh portables on

038campus. Now, the costs associated with portables, again, because many of our portables are aging out, the purchase cost for a new portable, depending on the model that we procure, is $166,000 per portable. Presently, the lease cost for our schools are is about $23,000 for an individual portable. The installation and relocation is $8,000 to once that portable is installed. Part of the installation process, it goes beyond just placing the portable. It's also the electrical, the plumbing, and the IT connections. That's another $10,000 to to to address those two things. And then when a portable is removed, if it's exceeded its life expectancy or if there's not a demand for it to be or it's too old for us to relocate, there's not a demand for someone else to procure it from us or for us to

039even donate it to them and offset our costs. The demo costs, as I said, are $10,000 per per uh portable. Um, our portable numbers, we have 813 portables presently in PK County Public Schools. Of those we own, 664 and then another 29 are located at district sites. For example, there's a large number of portables here at central office because we've outgrown um many of our office spaces here. Leased portables across the whole district. We lease presently 120 portables. And then portables that are over 20 years old. 245 of our portables exceed 20 years of service and 225 of those are used as classroom spaces according to fish. Some portables are used for storage, some portables are used as office spaces for interventionists, for reading coaches, things of that nature. Um the total number of portables

040between 10 and 19 years old is 419 or approximately 63% of our portable um numbers. And and again, that's something for us to start considering as we look ahead because it's important for us to start positioning ourselves because uh again, capping enrollment doesn't mean that we don't have other solutions. The evaluation would then have to take place. Are we going to accelerate and expedite the development of new schools within that community? or if there's enough acreage on that campus, do we need to begin retrofitting that campus and adding a wing or or another another building onto that campus to help us offset some of those costs? Um because again, the duration of these portables, it's important um for us to understand that it was never intended to be a long-term solution for a school, but

041we now find ourselves in a unique position where growth is our reality, and we're going to have to address that. reszoning schools will only accommodate so much. So when I when I state to the board that one of the recommendations I would make is not adding portables and potentially capping enrollment. There are exceptions. There's a process that can be developed and I have an outline of that that I will share with you um board members and it will so for example let's say I live in the community and I currently have a fourth grader at a school and I would have an incoming kindergartener. that family would get priority enrollment preference right at the school. Um, but it with enrollment capping, no new families would be able to enroll there and then we'd have to

042transport that family to the next closest school. In the data that I will provide you um hopefully in the next day or so, um, Mr. McLemore did a great job of identifying all the feeder schools and he's identified them by school grades. So, we would never recommend capping a school and sending students to a school that's lower performing than their current school, but there are options for families to explore beyond that. Um, so it's it's a difficult decision um and a difficult topic to talk through. You're not deciding anything today. You're not deciding anything in the near future. Um, but it's an ongoing conversation we need to have because at some point I have to provide direction to the facilities team so they can go ahead and pull the trigger on either relocating existing portables

043if that's an option or procuring new portables or leasing new portables. Um, in the case of Hayes City, we lease those portables because we didn't want to purchase those um because we believe we can offset our costs with the construction of a new campus and not have a long-term need. However, based off the timeline, you do reach a point where unless we reszone, unless we start capping enrollment on some of our campuses, then that lease option no longer becomes an ROI for us, becomes a liability for us because the costs associated with the lease will exceed the costs that we would have had we just procured those portables. Um, so I will stop there and answer any questions um that you may have. I see Miss Miller. Thank you. Um, regarding portables, I think this

044has been a long conversation. Um, we had it in 2019 um, when I was told that it is the most cost-effective way for growth. I think we've seen a lot of growth since 2019 and obviously I've never understood the cost um, associated with portables. just seems so expansive. And I also did not understand how many we own because when I met with facilities last week and my schools alone, I thought a majority of ours we are renting, but actually my one elementary school that is very much at capacity um has multiple portables that we own, which is a different um cost narrative and upkeep. Um, I am of course as a an advocate for all students, portables are the last place I want to see kids. I was a senior at Winter Haven. Um, the

045the year the last year before they opened Lake Region when they brought 9th grade and we all went into portables. The whole senior parking lot was portables. It was called portable city. I understand that it's not good for security. Um, we've had elementary schools with our most significant students in in portables, which is not which is not a it's a safety concern. It's not best practice. This district has paid for two studies um totaling almost $300,000 and both studies told us that students with disabilities do not belong in portables. I would like them to stop being housed in portables and that's another different conversation. Um my biggest concern with the portables and closing enrollment is cost. I know when we when I talked about it before it was a factor of busing kids. If George

046Jenkins, which I don't know their capacity or where they're at with, but I was just thinking when you mentioned George Jenkins, if we let's say we close George Jenkins and we're busting students from way out south, even if we bust them into Kathleen or into Lakeland, and I know it would count on numbers, but before we make before we have to make a decision or ask um you know what our next step is, I just would like an kind of an idea of what that would look like, especially in that Hane City area because that's my concern and that's not my district, but that's where there we see the growth the fastest, but also the most rural area and the longest we have to go. So, um it's not good. I mean, it's best practice

047to have students in buildings, all students. It's a better security um additive to have them inside of concrete or brick building with gates. So, that is a forefront of the discussion. But also, I would like to talk about you listed a lot of schools. I would like to talk about at some point um the cost of of this approximate students we'd have to move around. Thank you. Keep in mind too, Miss Miller, that the second option is if you don't cap enrollment and reassign students to the next closest school, that the only other option, and well, you really have two remaining options. You can continue to utilize portables with the understanding that in the next few years, we're going to have to replace a large number of them, over 50% or almost 50% of our

048portables or approaching that 20-year mark or between that 10 and 19 year mark, I should say, for clarification. And then the other option would be if we don't want to do that and I think your point is valid because we would absolutely provide that data as far as anticipated potential costs associated with transportation and rerouting those students is also the reality of fasttracking construction. Um the problem we often face though on these campuses is once your portable footprint because there's a requirement based off the number of feet that have to be available between each portable um for safety reasons and other reasons. Many times the acreage that you would use to install a new wing or new building has now been consumed by portables. So, at some point there has to be an opportunity to

049clear that area and then begin construction on a new project. Um, so there's just things to consider, right? There's there's no great option here. It's just at what point, you know, I wanted to put this before the board because we want to make sure that we're operating as efficiently and as effectively as we can. And and your point's very valid. Now, I think it was my second year um that I was employed here in PK County. We did cap enrollment at schools. I did lock certain schools, high schools in particular in the northeast and prevented any new enrollment and then we transported about 200 almost 300 kids um for example I think from Ridge Community High School uh from Hayne City to Ridge Community High School and then after about a year and a half

050they're kind of their enrollments kind of settled out again because Davenport was picking up more students and so we kind of we were able to unfreeze that school going into the next subsequent year. So there there are options here. Sometimes they're short-term, sometimes they have to be longer term. Um, but in the case where we might have to freeze enrollment um, and let natural attrition take place on a campus um, to free up those portables because then again, you'd have to demo those and then begin construction on a new facility. So, there's a timeline associated with that. So, I just wanted to make sure I started to present the topic and we start to have this conversation. And I'm glad to hear the board uh for existing board members or or board members who were

051here at the time, you'll have some reference point for this, but for others, again, it's a slow conversation cuz I want to make sure we answer all your questions and address all the topics that are in front of us. So, thank you, uh, Miss Wyatt. Thank you. Full disclosure, my watch has alerted me three times that I have a high heart rate. So, this topic clearly is making me a little passionate. Um, especially being in the Winter Haven area. So I am frustrated that whilst resoning isn't the only solution, we were supposed to be rolling out resoning this upcoming year and it has been significantly delayed. So my first question is when are we actually going to get resoning both for high for all three high school, middle and elementary. So if you remember though

052the high school was to come first is still the plan. elementary and middle school would come, but we needed to have a timeline of at least I think when I last spoke with the board um and especially given recent topics about communication and things, we wanted at least one year um for families. Now, we can bring resoning um K through 12 to the board and if we were able to do that um again what the board my understanding of the process is we would provide the board with the recommendations that came from the attendance boundary committee. The board would then say okay out of I'm just going to make up a number. Let's say there were six options that were created. The board approves of three because we have to have a minimum of two

053or three to take to the community. We then have to have community forums and then we bring that information back to the board and then the board ultimately says okay based off what my recommendation would be. Board makes a decision and then we make sure parents know that and give them an adequate timeline in which to prepare for that type of transition. I believe it requires at least a minimum of half of a school year um in order to do that. So, I don't believe that, you know, if we can get those tentative plans options before you um hopefully before summer, then we should be able to start that process and then I'll take direction from the board. If you want to hold to that one-year timeline, fine. If not, we can we can expedite

054it slightly um and communicate that to parents. And just as a clarification, so anybody who's listening and anybody who ends up picking up this topic, um please understand that any recommendation that comes for resoning would have a grandfather option in it for existing families that we would not force families um to move because that's typically what happens in many resoning conversations. But we want a student be able to finish at their current school unless they chose to move to the to the different school. Um, there are concerns at times with siblings. Again, I'll use the example, you got a fourth grader. Um, my school's been reszoned. I want my fourth grader to stay, but now I've got a kindergartener. I would not recommend it to kindergartener being enrolled at that school. I understand the difficulty

055that creates for families, but the reality of it is if you add the kindergartener, now that kindergartener is locked in there for 5 years minimally, and then what happens if there's another sibling coming? So, at some point, you're defeating the purpose of reszoning that school. in in particular for that situation. So I think you handle those in a case- by case basis. Um but that would be still from my office. I would tell you to date that would be my recommendation. It would still be my recommendation moving forward, but obviously the board will give me direction on that. Mr. Mlemore, could you uh what's the timeline that you believe? I know high schools we have some options now that the new high school site has been identified. Um, when can we expect to bring when

056would you we should be able to gather all the documents from and what I'd like to do is reconvene the ABC because there has been some time uh from whence the ABC did already review all the high schools and they've already reviewed all the reszones and we've compiled them all to what that new high school zone map would look like. I would like to reconvene the ABC, have them re reverify it, make sure they're still okay with those options as presented, make sure nothing's changed drastically based off of student enrollments. Um, but then we should be able to have this uh we could start workshops and have that discussion uh probably June, July time frame. Thank you. I'm I 100% think we have to stick to the one year, especially because we do magnet choice

057lottery so early. Um that 6 months doesn't give people truly enough time to to make their decisions when we I mean that essentially would put them having to make that decision before they know where they're zoned. Um my frustration is that we were told we would have these reports two years ago um to be able to start the process earlier. And so if we don't have it approved by August, I think we're pushing ourselves back a full additional year and looking at not being able to implement really until 2728. Um, which is just too late. It's on that note, I can't in good faith close schools in my area when they they have not been reszoned. North Winter Haven, you cannot live in North Winter Haven and be zoned to a school. Elbert will be

058coming back to North Winter Haven this year. I understand. But those students are all being zoned outside of Winter Haven, which means they're being zoned to Lake Alfred. So now we're going to close Lake Lake Alfred because we're busing kids in from Winter Haven. So now I live in Lake Alfred and can't go to the elementary school in my city because you're busing kids in. We have to solve that problem before we start kicking kids out of the school across the street. But the issue largely in Winterhaven is unrelated to that because the board previously adopted and agreed to all the MSAP grant dollars. And so when you moved in that direction, you capped your enrollment options in those schools. And you know, we're at a point now where that's going to have to be

059revisited. And the board's going to again, these are tough choices that you're going to have to make. But in the absence of available seats within a community, we have an obligation through concurrency to move those students to the next lo closest school. So that's going to create issues. Preszoning is not going to solve that issue. Well, resoning can solve those issues with those schools because MSAP no longer applies after their grant is over. So those schools can be partially zoned once the grant is over. Correct. Which is we're going to have to look at doing that in Winter Haven because if not, you can't zone kids. But that's where the board's going to have to make a decision as to how many seats will be available to local students and where's the break point where

060a magnet school is more of an academy model versus a magnet school. Um and again valid points but again the topics that the board's going to have to talk through and make some decisions about. Well I would love to see all of these topics expedited over the summer because this is an issue that's not going away and we've kicked it down the can the can a little too far down the road. Um, my other concern just in looking at the fish capacity that you sent us is that our magnet schools are overwhelmingly seem to be under fish capacity. Are there any opportunities to expand the capacity at some of our magnet schools in their current state? I mean, I'm looking at some of mine that are 69% capacity, 70% capacity with portables or without portables.

061Without portables. I mean, their permanent capacity is at 55 60%. They're not capped, so they can hit their capacity. It's a matter of students enrolling um on those campuses. In many instances, there should there's not a waiting list. Um and for schools that don't hit their capacity, their enrollment window for magnet school applications remains open and we address that throughout the year. Um for other schools, once they hit their number, we do have to close it based off of our magnet school choice windows. But for schools that retain or remain have and have available seats, we don't close that historically. I think we may need to look at that data because there's no way that Brighgam doesn't have a waiting list and they're only at 79% capacity. So, and there I mean every year they've

062had some of that could be largely driven based off the grade levels that they're looking at. So, their kindergarten enrollment might be capped because they only have so much space. I don't know. I'd have to look at that a little bit closer. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Allen. Yeah. Thank you, Superintendent. Um, you know, I think instead of peacemealing some of these conversations, it needs to be definitely that holistic perspective. Um, and you know, I'll again state it on record. I'm not in favor of renewing that lease at Hannes City. Um, you know, I I think that timeline we could have moved quicker on that to um address that high school build out there. But that's a whole side conversation. I think in this I went back to as this agenda item came forward. I went

063back to our efficiency audit that we did and these are some of the statements that came out of that efficiency audit that basically students are not efficiently distributed across the district. The inefficient allocation of students to buildings is by far the most significant contributor to the classroom spending deficit. Um, so I appreciate that we're looking at it and um, I'm hoping that just as Miss White said that we can approach an aggressive timeline um, on this. I would be definitely in favor. I'm not sure, you know, why we haven't moved on the resoning yet because I do think as that efficiency audit noted, that's probably the most um, significant savings that we can have within the district. Um it says we estimate that more efficient allocation of students across the district could save um 15

064to20 million um you know pretty quickly. Um I and so I going and looking at that data that you sent us um there's a lot of analysis that can be done with that. I you know I didn't spend a lot of time on it um but I appreciate that. What my question was, you know, the data that you sent us goes and just caps out at 2122 school year. Um, but man, from 2122 school year to now, we've probably experienced the most significant growth. So, I'd love to see the updated data um on that. I'm not sure why it ended at 2122. That spreadsheet that you sent us, what's that? Yeah, maybe forward that. Um, so, okay. So, my question was, um, you know, elementary schools make up the majority of the underutilized campuses is

065what I was looking at. I don't know if that was that's accurate. That's what I was interpreting from the data. Uh, I appreciate the idea of looking at the theater patterns because that was like my very first question. you know, how does student distribution align with the theater patterns and the residential growth that we're experiencing? I think that's a critical question. Um, and then, you know, which underutilized schools are also showing multi-year enrollment declines. Um, you know, I think that's something that we can consider as well. Um, you know, I thought the and you put that in the email. I believe you said 45% of the district schools um are operating at or below 85% capacity. So, I mean, I think there's definitely, you know, significant opportunities for optimization. I think the reasonzoning is definitely

066a part of that conversation. Um, I mean, I think this seems to be probably the the glaring area for efficiency within the district. um and opportunity as well. So I don't just a couple questions that I had there. Thank you, Dr. Hull. Miss Fields, I think the reasoning is uh a lot to chew on and I think that we need to have a time set aside where that's all that we discuss with all of the information, the data that we need in order to make intelligent decisions uh and not rush the process because it's too important. And then at some point in time, I would imagine we're going to have to include all of the surrounding cities and counties because this is all to a part of concurrency. Uh, and we haven't had a meeting

067in a minute with the elected officials in the county. And I believe we're required to do that. I believe I don't I don't know the the the time uh factor involved. Uh I don't think any of us are excited about portables, but we've had to do what we've had to do. I mean, it is what it is. Uh and so now we have to work towards uh the process that you're referencing. But this is a lot to chew on. Um and I I think that if we're going to do it correctly, it just needs to be a a a time set aside when that's all that we discuss is just resulting. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Keys. Oh wow. Well, definitely a lot to chew on here and I will tell you the time that I spent

068prior to joining this board on the attendance boundary committee was definitely a learning process. And I will tell you that um the reason I sneezed earlier and I apologize for that was cuz I'm allergic to the word portables. Having um driven by Hann City High School, I see that every day and then also less than 2 miles from Sand Hill. It is definitely a real concern and I think you know as as we as we look at this resoning will definitely I think alleviate some of this but it's not going to solve the problem in the northeast district with the growth that's there. Um because one of the conversations I had and way back and gosh and and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong Mr. Fix and Mr. I think when we had

069the discussion and that our last meeting of reszoning the high schools um was this is 2025 that was maybe 2023 a April of 2023 and my my question at that point was when are we going to have the point Santa High School online and and the response that I got was 3 to four years. So well gosh in 3 to four years we're going to need two high schools in that area. So I think that you know and and I like what we've said and Miss Fields last saying that we need to have a discussion strictly addressing this issue. I think it is. I think as we do a strategic plan for the district, we need to have a strategic plan longterm. What we're going to do about capacity um and adding portables as while

070it was something that we did at that time um because we're in the need I don't think is a long-term a long-term solution. And that's why I'm I when I see something like happens at Elbert Elementary, right, and that happened at Garner, where we increase density and we build up, I think we really need to to say, what is our long-term plan on using some of the dirt that we have um and moving students around like we're going to do it at Alta Vista and and utilizing the facilities we have, increasing density while we do this because we're going to constantly be chasing our tails on it. So, that was one one point I had. And then, you know, as far as re-evaluating this, and I think we did look at those so long ago

071on the the redistricting the high schools, that that conversation needs to be had and that meeting needs to be had in early June so we can address at the board meeting in June because um waiting till July or even August to have those results and pre presenting is just far too long. And remember that then when we do these things too that not only do we have those meetings, the committee meets, but then it goes to the public as well to get their input on it. So, we're we're further, you know, the more and more we kick this down the road, it goes longer and longer. Um, but but but again, this is not something that we need to, I think, talk about anymore. Other with everything else, we need to have a meeting just

072addressing capacity and and how we're going to plan for that in the future. And and I, for one, like I said, not not a fan of portables and want to see density increased. And I don't know if you guys have have driven through that area too in the Northeast, land is harder and harder to come by. I'm looking for a piece of land to build a house and it's hard for me. So I can't imagine getting a, you know, 50 to 100 acre school site and trying to build on that when it's coming at a premium as well. So we need, again, I'm sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but we have to address this sooner than later. Thank you, Mr. Keys. Miss Wyatt, thank you. Um, and I agree completely with what Mr.

073Keys is saying about speeding up the timeline. Is it possible to have ABC meet in the next month where we can start to to move this down the road to get it done by August or is that just out of the realm of possibilities? We can certainly send out some calendar invites, but much like trying to get a board retreat scheduled. We're dealing with a lot of different schedules. Um or we can just set a schedule and I I can let me work with Mr. McLemore to determine the best option. uh we may not be able to have everyone there, but so long as if we kind of approach it the same way we would a board meeting where I have enough members there um that I can argue that I have a quorum then

074we move forward. I mean that's our schedules, you know, to date. While the board has has stated, you know, made comments about the delays, there's been a lot of moving parts to this and it's not possible to offer you a reasoning option when there's unknown variables that have popped up continuously with new school construction and things of that nature and and pocketed growth. You know, it's or or segmented growth. So, you know, there there's a lot to this. Um, but we'll be happy to see what we can do to expedite. Um, and I will work with Miss Winchester and Miss Vega and we will send out another date for a full day retreat. Um, because this is not if if you want to have an in-depth conversation about this, which I I'm I'm thrilled to

075hear the board wants to to have that, it's not going to be done through a workshop. It can't. there's not sufficient time to address all the intricacies and and and that's why I had planned on bringing you several topics over the next few workshops because I'm not asking you to rush to a decision and I appreciate the timeline that we want to operate under. But I've got to make sure that I bring the entire board along on all the various aspects of this. But it it sounds like you want to retreat. So we'll send out some calendar dates and times and see what we can get. And I the board can give me direction. Do you want every single board member to to be available or is it something where we just as long as

076we have a quorum, we're moving forward? I mean, so because it's your your schedules are difficult, too, respectfully with your with your personal professional obligations. I respect that. Um, and if it means a Saturday, then it means a Saturday. So, um, we'll have to figure it out. But it's going to require a full day. And and it's not full day with, well, I may have to leave early, you know, it's it's a full day. So, and then I will make sure the team has all the topics prepared and that you have all the information ahead of time and if we can create some talking points for you before the meeting just to kind of make sure that everybody understands what they're receiving and we provide you points of contact so you can make phone calls

077because that'll make the best use of our of our retreat so we can address that and and this would fall and it does fall under our current strategic plan. Um so it is actually addressed in our strategic plan under efficient and effective use of our operations and our funding. So um that's again the reason why I'm bringing it before the board because at the end of the day this is not an easy discussion. Reszoning is not easy. School start times are not easy. You know capping school enrollment is not easy. But something has to happen in order to trigger our ability to move forward. Because in the absence of having an honest conversation about capping school enrollment, our only other option then is to expedite the timeline to start construction on new projects. And that's

078going to require a revisit of our half penny sales tax and a prioritization of our impact fees. Um, and and it may require some borrowing on our on our behalf, and we are in a good position for that. So, it's one of those things that you're going to have to understand the financial implications of as well. So, happy to be able to do that. Happy to schedule that for follow-up. Thank you. The other piece of that is making sure that we have public meetings scheduled before we go out for summer so that they know when those are. I understand that those will need to happen over the summer, but we need to be communicating with our families before they've checked out for the school year to make sure that those are scheduled and they know

079where they are. And I don't I think as long as we have a retreat scheduled, I don't know that that has to wait to schedule those until we have exactly what we're going to propose at those public meetings, but I do think we need to get those on the calendar and have them Yeah, I don't know that I can get all those done in the summer. I I don't I think September is a more reasonable timeline. Okay. Um, so then we can't get this staff staff have many of my staff save their vacations for the summer and may or may not be available. They have other commitments, too. So, I I would we'll do our best to provide some summer dates, but I I would I would say that you're probably going to need dates

080to go into August because then the board's going to have to have subsequent conversations. You're going to want to have an opportunity for people to come in and speak to the topic. So, it's it it's I don't think I can get it completed by the end of the summer is what I'm saying. So, but yes, we can we can anticipate and create some some town hall events across the district. Can you send us a realistic timeline because it's sounding like there's no chance of this getting done by August for to be able to roll out for 2627. So, in order to do that to meet that deadline, I will send you two. I will send you one that's very aggressive and seeks to do that and I'll send you another. But I think completing every

081part of it including the requirements that we have this on a board agenda that we have people come and speak. We are limited on a number of meetings that we have um in that regard. So it's it it may be feasible it may not. Let me let me work with the team. That's why I'm asking the question. Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. Thank you Miss Fields. Okay. So for uh for the record, summers summers are my busiest time at Girls Inc. So I want to make sure everybody understand that. Um and I think that we need to agree on a day that all the board members can participate. I think this is important enough for that. And Superintendent Hyde the suggestion of a Saturday is doable for me and uh it is what it is. If

082if we need to meet on a Saturday, we need to look at that calendar and hopefully everybody's calendar will agree to a Saturday, whatever needs to happen. But I think that every board member needs to be present. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Sharpless. Uh, thank you. Um, a lot of thoughts going through my head when we're all discussing. Um, I do want to say that I I concur with board member Fields and board member Keys. I I don't want this to be a rushed process mainly because of our growth. I don't want to have to redo this again, you know, in the near future. I want to get it done. I want to get it done right um and then not have to revisit it. So, for me personally, if it takes a little bit longer to

083get it done right, I'd rather get it done right the first time. Um I understand the issues and you know the efficiency audit obviously shows us like Dr. Allen said that um efficiently distributing our students and re through resoning will give us significant savings. Um in the grand scheme of things when we're talking about I mean it's a bigger picture when we're talking about how can we become more efficient as a district. Um, you know, we've talked about also going out for millillage, showing the the citizens of this county that we are being as efficient as we can with the funds that we have. Redistricting will be a big part of that. I feel um, however, I want to get it done right the first time. That's all I have. Miss Miller. Um I just

084I am and um I concur with the board members that we need to meet sooner than later. If we if we are looking at a referendum, if we're looking at anything at this time in 2026, we're going to have to have this conversation and evening Saturdays we need to make happen. Um and so if we need to meet on a Saturday, I'd rather not rush through a meeting or a work session. Sometimes I feel like I can't get everything out because there's so much on an agenda that we need h we need to have that time. So, I am open as long as I get those Saturday dates pretty soon. I will record them in my calendar. Thank you. Seeing no further questions or comments on that topic. I have direction from the majority of

085the board. Um, we want aggressive timelines. We want to get it right. We're going to get get a uh retreat schedule as soon as possible. Um, and then I will send the board a draft agenda of the various topics. I would ask that the board review that agenda and send it back with any questions if you feel because there are times where I feel that when I send out an agenda the topics make sense to me. Um but you may be like well where are we including XYZ? Um and so please allow me to work with you to make sure that we address all the questions and by developing the agenda it will allow me and to direct staff as to what documents and information we have to start preparing um for that for that

086retreat. So it's going to take us. So please know that there will not be a retreat within the next two weeks um because we're going to have to have that exchange and give you an opportunity to give me feedback. Now we could discuss this further on Thursday um if I can get some a general understanding of the agenda um that we would be discussing during that retreat. So thank you all very much. The next topic u board members there are board committees. So again no action because this is a workshop today. I'm going to be sending the entire board a draft of a new committee that's been proposed. It's actually very timely that we're having this conversation today. When we talk about a retreat, we talk about efficiencies. We talk about the fact that we

087had a private entity conduct an efficiency audit. And that that recommendation or that issue that they identified was just one of many um issues including the fact that we're not adequately funded by the state. It's it's just a reality. and we're going to have a conversation here very soon on at the retreat on Thursday. I'll provide the board with some other financial updates based off the proposed budget um that's being that was submitted by the state. Now, that's that's far from finalized, but there are some significant concerns with the allocations that are being proposed. Um you know, with an emphasis on student safety and student mental and behavioral health, there is no increase in funding in those areas. In fact, special education funding was cut in the proposed budget. There is an overall expected increase

088in the FEFP of $50 per student. But when you look at that versus the additional costs that we as a school district that we you as a board will now have to assume with FRS increases and everything else that goes along with that, that $50 disappears very quickly. Um, and in fact, it's it's going to create some long-term issues for us. the financial forecast for the state um is that you know for this year um you saw um the the Senate proposal uh or the House proposal for budgets um re you know work to address you know or start to address $600 million that they're trying to cut out of the budget. I think I stated that correctly. Um this year there's an anticipated surplus of about $2 billion at the state level, but based

089off information I received yesterday in Tallahassee, um the up two upcoming years will see a $2 billion deficit if they don't start to address their budgeting. Um now a lot of questions arise. How do you have a $5 billion swing in one year from a $2 billion surplus to a $2.9 billion deficit in year two? Um, but I don't think that education is the place where we need to make those types of draconian cuts and and I think it's it's this is going to be the year where we're going to have to be vocal about certain things. So, we'll talk more about this on Thursday during our retreat and then again, I'll make sure it's a reoccurring topic for each of you as we move forward. um because you local effort will only go so

090far and there's a lot of moving parts right now with property taxes and and things of that nature and we still don't have clarity on what potential impact that could have on us in our attempt to run for a millage referendum or a referendum um on property tax. We we don't know. Um, I know that apparently next year there's supposed to be a study conducted, but as we go into 2026, the election year, where we would be allowed to ask our voters to approve a referendum for teacher salary increases, I I I want to make sure that all the effort we put in equates to an opportunity. But if the opportunity is being removed from us, that's not even an option. I don't want to see us invest our time and effort in that area.

091We may have to invest it elsewhere. So it it's a it's a much larger conversation moving forward. But this topic and again this is related to that committee. So part of when you have a tax referendum, we're required to develop a committee of of that includes district staff but largely includes people from the private sector, right? It's going to include many of our community based leaders like we did when during the first efficiency audit. Mr. Sharpless participated in that and so did others. I know Dr. Allen participated in several meetings and and visits with them. But we did we tapped into 35 of our wellestablished community leaders because they're good problem solvers, you know, and if if the district has a budget issue, are we not approaching that issue? Because this is, you know, using

092that old mentality, this is how we've always done it. Um, and it always works out in our favor, but we wanted to bring new people to the table with new ideas and different problem solving strategies and techniques. And lo and behold, we kind of all figured out that the district operates pretty efficiently. Um, but there are obviously areas to improve, but moving forward with a potential referendum on the on on the horizon. We will be required to have a committee, a standing committee. And so, there was a proposal that came forward. I've drafted a committee structure. I'd be happy to send it to you. No discussion required other than your thoughts on that. But, um, I really wanted to get at the heart of our committees. We've been trying I've been trying to have a

093conversation with the board about committee structures. each of you has expressed concerns or provided comments. Um I have provided you I believe existing board members, newer board members, you may not have received it as frequently if my memory serves correctly. I think I've provided copies of the committee structures at least three times over the last year. Um so so really just some simple questions I'd like to have discussion and get feedback from the board here today. Number one, do the committee charges still make sense? Essentially, the charge of the committee is the function of the committee and what it's supposed to do. Does the committee structure still make sense? We have very different committee structures across each committee. Um, and so if you'd like to see more uniformity, happy to work with to start developing

094that. If the board is comfortable with the current um structure in each one of those areas, that's fine, too. Again, my my goal is to make sure that moving forward, our committees reflect what this board's interest and needs are. Lastly, uh or not, I shouldn't say lastly, terms of service. Reappoints are a big topic. Each one of our committees has somewhat different terms or length of a term of service. And then the reappoint process does vary in many of our committees. Some are automatic renewals. Some require, you know, a board members to a board member to make a motion for that person to stay on the board or the committee if it's not a board committee because there are committees that are non-board driven. Um, for example, there's superintendent committees, what's going to be the

095process moving forward with that? So, I just wanted to open it up for conversation. Um, and so once I get your feedback and get your thoughts on this, and this is also included on our Thursday agenda for the retreat. So if we need to have further discussion there that's fine but I wanted to get your initial thoughts and opinions here today. So if you want if we could start with the formation of a new committee I will forward that new committee structure to the whole board um so that you have that and then again we can discuss that committee itself um on Thursday the specifics surrounding that committee but I'd like to get your general thoughts and reflections on the need of that committee and how you'd like to see appointments and things go for

096that. So, I I'll I'll open it up. I see we have speakers. Um, Miss Wyatt, you just want the new committee first and then if we could start with the new committee first, just just for note-taking purposes. No, I love the idea of establishing it as a standing committee. Um, I think we had, you know, why reinvent the wheel? We've done something very similar. I think we can look at that as a starting point of who served on that committee. I believe there was a point an appointment from each of the board members at the time. Um, I think that's a great starting point to look for that as opposed to trying to reinvent the wheel and get all new people. Um, obviously some of the the those people that served before have either retired

097or are moving on, so looking to fill um some of those vacancies, but I think overwhelmingly um being able to use that as a starting point is would be helpful. Thank you, Miss Miller. I think the long conversation on Thursday about how the organizational piece of how we structure committees is important, but I do agree that the template of what we've done um as far as the committee you just mentioned is what we should repeat and just making sure that every all seven of us have a voice to that committee. Um I met them once and I didn't even I was meeting new people um that I didn't know that I thought were very qualified. I hope they're all still willing to serve, but if not, um, definitely having someone appoint very qualified people into

098that position. But overall of our as far as our committees and how they've been every year it seems to be different. I think it's going to be good on Thursday to have the organizational piece put in of how they're structured, how they report, how they're listed, because I know when I put people on committees, the feedback um is more organizational than it is the quality of the committee. They're good people serving. We just need to help them um have confidence in how and how we use those committees. Thank you, Mr. Keys. So, I'm very excited about this and you know, I think we need to keep in mind, you know, we know we've done this before, but but looking outside of I think who we appoint into what the committee is and what they specialize

099in and who we draw from that. So, it's fine to have and I think each board member has expressed they want to have a voice in appointing those to the committee, but also we need to look outside the box too, I think, on these and work with our partners as relate to that. So when we're talking about budget and finance, you know, it'd be helpful, I think, to have somebody from the tax collector's office, Joe Ted's office, somebody to have from the comproller, county controllers's office to say, "Hey, these are the things." And they can add some some some benefit to those. So how they're structured as far as appointment is very important. And then to the general, I guess, subject of committees and and how they're structured and and what their charges. I think

100my biggest bugaboo has been on structuring that because of seeing the different ways. You know, there was there's one committee out there, we'll name no names, that it seems like the um you're on there until you either resign or you pass away. Um and it's in perpetuity, but there's another one. It's a it's a three-year term, right? And then you're a year. So, I I don't know if this is the military and me coming out or or corporate world, but I think there needs to be some continuity between all of these. We need to have a standard, right, for any committees. Appointment is one thing, right? Um, and how they're appointed and who appoints those. But I think as far as terms of service to those committee members, I think they should probably be similar

101because that's something that can follow through to each committee as far as terms of how long you serve. And that appointment again is a different issue. How they're appointed and because each committee to what they address is unique. But as far as the structure of of these individuals, I I I worry about it and and and I say it because those committee members that we appoint and we ask these qualified individuals to serve um they can get burned out, you know, and when does this end? So, I think having some rotation there is good, but um excited about this new one and I think that's something we I'm excited to talk about on Thursday in greater detail. Okay, Miss Fields. Thank you. I won't be at the meeting on Thursday. I I already told you

102all that. Um I think that the board needs to have a voice as it relates to this new committee that's being formed. Uh and as it relates to the existing committees, I think that it depends on the committee as to whether or not um it needs to be a term uh limit set on it. Uh, I think that it's very difficult to get people to want to serve and if they get on and they get excited. I know there's one gentleman that had has been dying to get back on the sales tax committee. He's from uh Miss Wyatt's uh district and so if they have an interest and that they're doing well, then I think we need to try to keep them on as long as they are viable. Uh but that's just my take.

103Miss White, are you ready for all committees feedback? Yes, ma'am. Okay, please. Um, my biggest concern with the committees that we have standing is their lack of continuity, but their lack of communication for meeting schedules. The meeting schedules need to be set at the beginning of the year and those dates should be published and should not change unless there's somebody dying in the hospital, having a baby, bleeding. I mean they're they seem to be very in flux um and not you know I have committee members regularly that say you know I I don't know when our next meeting is or I don't you know I thought we met quarterly but I guess we're meeting or I thought we met monthly but now we're meeting quarterly. So I think keeping to a consistent pattern. I don't

104think it necessarily has to be the same consistent pattern for every committee. I don't know that there's a reason for the audit committee to meet monthly. ABC probably should be meeting monthly for the next year or so while we go through resoning. Um, so I think it really depends on the committee for the frequency that they meet. Um, but I think a standard for communication for this is the deadline when all meeting dates will be set for the next year so that people can plan their lives. I know that attendance has been an issue at several of our committees, but I think that that is a lack of calendar invites and a lack of getting the meeting dates out. Um because I think for most of us, our appointees are people that typically show up

105um as long as it's on their calendar and it's, you know, we want to continue to appoint strong candidates. Um but we also don't want to waste their time where they get burned out. Um as far as the terms of service, I think as long as they can be reappointed, um Miss Fields, I know exactly who you're talking about because every time I see him, he asks if his time is up and he can serve again. Um, but I think as long as they are interested in continuing to serve, being able to reappoint them would be great. But the, as um, Mr. Keys indicated, those committees that just automatically reappoint, we should probably look at. Um, Mr. Keys, you did fail to mention that you can run for school board and get elected, and that's

106also a way to get off of that committee. So, I'm glad you were successful in that. Um, but I think that making sure that they're all a little more streamlined in that regard. um keeping them individual to meet the needs of the particular topic um but making sure that they're streamlined as we present them. Okay, Mr. Keys. Yeah, just to clarify and thank you uh Miss Fields and Mr. Wyatt. I I I agree as far as reappointing those. I just wanted to make sure that there were uniform terms in there, whether it be two years, three years, whatever the appointment is. I don't have an issue at all with somebody being reappointed. Just that there is for those that maybe don't want to be yeah I want opportunity to say hey when is the endgame

107you know here and I don't because I don't as we as we ask people to serve I don't want them to feel like it never ends right that they have an opportunity of hey I've done this so for instance you know the you know audit and finance it's three-year term right you can see the light at the end of the tunnel not in a bad way I'm sorry I see you out there but but you know hey I' I've made this obligation for this long and I'm excited about doing this again so I I'll agree to that term again but just that there is sign some uniformity across these committees, you know, whether they're all two years, three years, one year, but to look at those and at least reappoint is not an issue, but

108that there's some kind of language in there saying this is what the terms are for. So that's all Dr. Allen. Yeah, a fruitful conversation. I think, you know, even reflecting on like the Pulk Education Foundation, you know, they have their own bylaws and so forth. So, you know, when they go through their um you know, re-evaluation of those bylaws and so forth to make sure it's congruent to, you know, the needs of us as well, um you know, I think that one we only get to serve one-year terms as board members, right? And you know, maybe you get to attend maybe one two meetings within within the year just the way that the the meeting schedule played out. Uh but I think collectively um as we look at all the committees, I think communication's key.

109You know, I think there's uh we've had concerns that, hey, how do we get access to meeting minutes and and some of those things? I think it'd be beneficial to have um a repository of minutes, right? Making sure that minutes are being collected for all meetings and they're accessible in the same spot. Uh even to a point where maybe those minutes are actually brought to the board uh on a quarterly basis. You know, that they're all collected, brought to us in in a work session. and we can look at the minutes and then we approve the minutes or something um or just uh as a point of information as well um would be something that I think would be beneficial. Okay, Miss Miller. Thanks, Dr. Allen. That reminded me on Thursday, I mean, we should

110have this information collected, but are we going to have the bylaws of different committees? because I know you had mentioned PF and when I was on the board there was I served two terms because we didn't have someone to volunteer or write that down in their um on their list but I know having conversation with board members now and even that one that meets only four times a year it didn't seem like it was long enough so they may want to look at that again but on Thursday do we have those bylaw I don't know who else has bylaws and who else we set I was not planning on bringing any of those to the board on Thursday okay the only committees that I currently had an interest in getting direction on from the board

111were the board committees um and which do not to my knowledge have necessarily have bylaws. Um, so I can see um, but at the end of the day that that's that's a that was a completely separate topic in my mind because I want more consistency with these and and as was mentioned with minutes, I don't know that anywhere in the charge it's ever been understood that they had to provide monthly minutes or submit those to the board. um their meeting schedules. I disagree um philosophically that we should have different meeting schedules for different committees. I think the board on Thursday, we need to have a conversation about what's the minimum expectation of the number of meetings a committee should have to be effective. I don't think two or four is an effective way to manage.

112I think it should be a minimum of six. That's my personal opinion as a superintendent based off my past experiences. Um, I think we need to have a conversation as to whether or not committees are required to have a quorum because, you know, as many of you have expressed and Mr. Keys, Mr. Sharpless have served on committees where at the last minute, literally at the last minute, we're having to cancel meetings because a quorum can't be met. And I think we need to reconsider that and simply say if the meeting's been established, if we're not notified within 72 hours that we won't have a quorum, that we're going to move forward with that meeting. Um, we have an obligation to bring information to the other members before a decision can be arrived at. Right? No

113vote will take place necessarily. But I think in order to maintain the continuity and the progress of those committees, the conversation needs to s be around how do we make sure the meetings continue to be held and and I think Miss Wyatt, much to your point. Um, you know, we can establish what the calendar is going to be because not all committees need to happen during each same months because it stretches staff's thin uh potentially, but there may be other opportunities for us. We can definitely develop that. But I'd like to start with the conversation about how many meetings minimally should a committee have um in order for you to get those that information. And we are exploring tools that would better capture minutes rather than relying because I know there's been comments and concerns

114about meeting minutes. You know, how detailed some of you expect much more detail in a meeting minutes than others. In in many instances, for example, in a board meeting, the minutes we collect are not it's not a transcribe. It's not a transcript of the meeting. It's a summary of the actions taken by the board. There's not a lot of information in there, but if the board wants information at a deeper level, then we need to talk about that on Thursday. I think these are really good points, right? And so it's helping me prepare for Thursday so we can have this conversation and I can start to iron these things out and then I can come back to the board with revised charters for each committee working with each respective charter uh committee lead on on

115the district side to make sure it conforms with their process and their needs. Um I I'll for example, you know, the budget finance committee, their committee meetings are going to be largely driven based off of new budget information and it could be timeline based off of, you know, assessments, you know, release of information from the state, those kinds of things. So there should be flexibility, but I think we should establish a minimum number of meetings. And again, I think we need to establish a minimum expectation for minutes. what what is it you're really looking for when we say we want minutes so that I can make sure we can meet that and again as I said we're looking at different tools that may allow us just to basically capture that and then essentially I think

116in a perfect world if we can get an AI tool that will capture the meetings and not only transcribe the whole meeting but then give you a summary of the meeting then I think that's that's an easy way for us to and then populate that and drop that into the folder for the board on committees potentially through board docs or or some other similar function that you're already familiar with. So, um, I hear everything you guys are saying. So, thank you very much for the feedback today. I I appreciate that you've mentioned separating the two. I I think my biggest, um, concern for Thursday was that organizational piece for all of them. So, if we need to have that, um, conversation then, you know, the expectation, and you're right, minutes shouldn't be a transcription. It

117should be of actions voted on, but that might not be enough information for the board. So maybe there's an expectation that we set that the that the board um member needs to bring back that report, you know, bring back a summary or whatever during work session um so people are up to date, but making sure that they're attended by board members as well. Um it's unfortunate when I hear that we have committees with board assigned um that then they they can't make it. It just puts that burden on that committee, the outside group, which is not our internal committees. So, I think having the organizational discussion on Thursday will help resolve m multiple, but I I appreciate that you've kind of separated them. I had them all together. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Mrs. Wyatt, thank

118you. I just wanted to echo what Dr. Allen said earlier. I love the idea of bringing it um of putting it on our work session agenda under information items um head start which I think they're required to by law but they do a really great job of having an update for us every month that's just a helpful snapshot of where they are and what that committee is doing and so I think that would be great to have for just as they're available um to have them as backup information. Thank you very much. Thank you board members. I appreciate the conversation and clarity. So, they'll help us on Thursday and then hopefully our conversation on Thursday would result in me bringing something formal to you on the 22nd. Um, and we'll workshop it potentially bring it

119back to back unless the board has discomfort with that. Um, but I think we'll have enough conversation on Thursday. Miss Miss Fields, I will be certain to schedule time to speak with you and meet with you so that we're not rushing anything at all. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. All right. Next topic before the board is the introduction to design firm and elementary prototype. Um as you know we were talking about growth today. We're talking about portables and a need for projects. Um and Miss Maner um had approached me and we have been exploring a prototype. And so to benefit the board, I asked her to go ahead and come today and do a presentation, a short presentation about why we use prototypes, what's the background behind it, and then what the current process is moving

120forward for us to identify an elementary/K8 prototype. So, Miss Baner, how do I get mine? Oh, good morning. board members and superintendent height. Thank you for that introduction. I'll just jump right into what is a prototype. So a prototype is a school design where plans have been reused and is built on more than one site. Now they it could it's similar but it could be modified because of site and um program. Are school districts allowed to reuse building plans? Um, yes. And we're and we're supported by the Florida State Legislature. They in fact wrote a couple that addresses prototype um FS 235.0155 subset one prototype designs. that it's the intent of the legislature to provide school prototype designs for all new public schools. And in addition, FS 1013.37 subset 2 subset A gives the district

121um board and co Florida College Board may reuse prototype plans on another site. Why use prototype design? There are many advantages. First and foremost, potential for cost savings. Um, through reuse, we can learn from our mistakes and do better on the next one. Um, let's see. Frequent repetition helps uh shorten the time frame. the ability to standardize and uh standardize material and equipment specifications. Uh develops internal expertise both for the school district and for contractors and again um diminishes errors. And going back to uh adding another um plus to this using qualified selection using a qualificationbased selection process and not a low bid process. PCPS educational specifications are used to figure out spaces and square footage quality in the future builds due to lessons learned from past prototype projects. Time is saved because the selection

122process for design professional can be waved. Use of pro prototypical designs are best suited for large school districts such as ours such as PCPS. Where to use prototypes? New high schools, middle schools, K8s, elementary schools. uh new campuses, modernization, single buildings as gymnasiums, cafeteria, media and classroom additions. And on that I will introduce our way of getting to the prototype so that we can build quickly as it sounds like you want us to build. Um Mr. John Kiddwell. Yep. Thanks, Py. Good morning, everyone. Morning. My name is John Kiddwell. Um I'm a principal with Heapner Architects. Uh we actually have worked with Pulk County before. It's we were a continuing services. We've done things like, you know, bus coverings and stuff like that, but uh we never had the opportunity to do a a new

123build from scratch. Um about 4 months ago or so, it was right around Christmas, uh we got a call and Peggy asked us to do a test fit on a couple of sites. So, uh we took uh one of our schools and uh uh one of the properties she needed help with was Alta Vista. Like I said, I'm with Heapner Architects. We're a 12person firm out of Tampa. Uh we primarily do education work and that's all we do. uh it's probably 95% of our work. Um we've been in business for over 30 years and uh we do all types of uh education all the way from uh colleges, universities, private schools, and obviously K through 8 and 12. Uh that's me on the right. Peter Heapner is my partner. Um we've been working together since

124I got out of school at UF. Go Gators. Uh this is our team. Uh we have a lot of uh outstanding people that specialize in certain areas. We can cover anything from acoustical design, interior design, uh 3D modeling and animation, uh detailing, envelope, whatever the case may be, we have somebody in the office that can handle it. Oh, and here they all are. Master planning is one of them, too. Uh like I said, 90% of our work is with school districts. Uh we've done work in almost a dozen districts around uh all the way down to Okachobee and uh up north to the panhandle even. Uh over the past 30 years, we've done 16 new elementary schools. Uh some of these are the prototypes that I'll be presenting today. And the uh it's a way

125to get cost-effective design. That's kind of our hallmark. Um designing schools that are not only uh beneficial for students education um but are durable, less maintenance, and they win design awards. Okay. Prototype design. This uh school that we're presenting, we actually started the first one in 2007. It was Jesse P. Miller Elementary School in Manatee County. Uh it had 830 students. It was a brick school and uh and they loved that school. Uh then in 2015 we did one in Hillsboro. Then we did one again in Manatee County at Harvey. Uh we did a K through8 conversion of it in Pasco County last year. And right now we're working on two in Marian County that are currently under construction. This one is Jesse P. Miller. You can kind of see the sketch that it started

126out with. Um we took a basically a double loaded corridor and widened the ends which created some opportunities for the school. There's the aerial of it. It's got an admin at the front with media on top. The classrooms are in the middle and then the food service and cafeteria are at the end along with the music and art programs. Uh then we you're going to see a little bit of a evolution when we did Jack Lamb. Uh this one is in Hillsboro County. Same same kind of floor plan, but the the ability of this school to almost take on any aesthetic that we want. We fitted into different developments that were all brick. This one was a little more modern. they wanted this. Um, and it also is extremely efficient on tight sights because it's

127it's fairly compact. Uh, this is looking down the hallway. Actually, one of the nice things about this school is you can see from one end to the other in the corridor. Um, there's no there's nowhere to hide. uh there's there's uh supervision is very easy and because it has one main front door and one in the back it is very easily secured. Uh the media centers are often times places where we like to bring in our interiors folks and uh create those special places for kids to read. Uh this is again a little bit different aesthetic. This one used metal panels and some split face. And then we got Harvey, which this one was an all brick cavity school. Um, Manatee County has some different requirements. Um, the mechanical system is actually a fourpipe system.

128Um, with chillers, not a lot of people use that. Um, but that's what they like to do. Uh, the media center in this one. Oh, here's the admin. Actually, I'm going to back up one. See the front door there? That is where the kids would come in in the morning when they're being dropped off. But after school starts, the doors are locked and all access has to come through the admin, which is this space. So, everybody would get buzzed in and then you would have to get buzzed in again to get access through that back door um to to get access to the classrooms. the corridors. Remember I said we we widened out those corridors at the end to give some opportunities for the school. Um, one of the nice things about this is they

129can use this area for breakout if they need to bring a a student out of a classroom, uh, have a place to have a a quiet conversation with them. And I've actually seen groups of classrooms come out here in these wider hallways and do projects together. One time they were making a map that was as big as this whole corridor and then each kid would go stand in the state where they were born. It was pretty interesting. So I'm I'm going to jump in here. Sure. Um so board members just just to kind of cap summarize the purpose behind today is you're you're soon going to get a recommendation that the board adopt a prototype model for elementary andor elementary KA facilities. One of the nice things in the presentation is essentially what you see

130is a similar building with a different facade or some tweaks and revisions to it. And that is the beauty of the prototype model. Our board has used prototypes. The school district has used prototypes in the past. Many of our high schools for example have a similar footprint. The land at times um will dictate placement or slight modifications. The nice thing about these is we could add a third floor if we needed to if the if the acreage was too tight. Um it can be flexed to be utilized simply as an elementary school or a K8 expansion if needed. And so the point today is to let you at least start to again for newer board members. I wanted to make sure that we address the the topic of prototypes. You understand statutoily why we're allowed

131to do it. um what benefits we typically will derive because there are cost savings that come with this because your materials acquisition uh speed each time that prototype is built. It gets faster. Um they've worked through any issues in the engineering specifications, architectural needs, any revisions or tweaks we've had to make. Um because sometimes um and I studied architecture for a very brief period of time, so please no offense to our presenter. Um, sometimes what we put on paper that looks absolutely amazing can be difficult to pull off in in implementation. Um, although it's gotten much better. They work handinhand with with our builders. Um, so I just want to make sure that you understood the context of today that this was the reason for our prototype discussion was again to provide you that background

132with an understanding that you're going to see this again on April 22nd with an actual recommendation that we move forward with the adoption of a prototype because we will be having to build several new elementary schools in the next 5 to 10 years. And so it's important for us to get a model that works for us. Um, you'll be able to provide input. We get input from our schools as far as space utilization. Um they've talked about the fact, you know, and architecture for schools has has changed and it constantly evolves based off new evolving, you know, pedigogy and strategies to provide students with spaces outside of a traditional classroom space for collaboration and independent study that are comfortable areas. You know, there's these are some great opportunities for us to explore. So, I wanted

133to at least provide some additional context. So, um board members, if you scroll through, you see different designs, but if you look at the main photo of each one of the designs that they've shared with you today, essentially it's it's it's very close to being the same building just with a different facade or some tweaks and variations to out buildings and other things that they may have incorporated. So, from there, I'd like to go ahead and see since we have Peggy and we have him here with us to see if you have any questions about the process. um or what you might be seeing or any interests that you have that you'd like to make sure that our education spaces may have. Now, if you don't if you don't have those today, that's fine. We'll

134have this conversation again on the 22nd. We will workshop it and it will come on the board meeting because I always like to provide you with more opportunities to think, be able to ask your questions, and then be able to make a decision that evening if you feel comfortable doing so. So, Miss Miller, hello. Thanks for um being here today to answer a few of our questions. Um I think you know in the past I thought we kind of had that if some you look at some of our high schools it kind of looked the same. I think cost effective wise talking to builders if they have this upfront it seems to be they can plan for us um a lot easier. I think my only input I have little input. One is universal design.

135Like the worst thing to do is to go back to a structure and decide that it's not working for students of all abilities. So when you talk about counter heights and door openings and all that beyond ADA um univers universal design is something that we've done nationally for a long time. It's it's slowly making our way um into PK County um at the city level when we talk about designing buildings. So I just want to make sure that's in the forefront of people's mind. You will have children in wheelchairs. You will have children um who need to access things differently and we need to make things available to them. So we're not going in we've had to go in and add ramps. we've had to go in and, you know, fix things that were just

136old and designed way before that was even looked at. So, I think that's important. Um, technology, you know, I shouldn't be in a high school where I or any school, elementary school, where I can't access um technology and a lot of it's because the age of our building. So, just I think technology and design um is what I would say. I love the the bigger spaces. I've noticed that at Malbury High School, they have similar space and I've seen teachers use it and bring students out into that area, which I think is very important. Um, it's exciting. I know that my district has a lot of very old schools that will be very jealous of all these wonderful new buildings, but I can't wait to see them for our students. We talk about being competitive.

137It's not just competitive in curriculum, it's competitive in what we can provide them in their in their places of study. So, I'm looking forward to seeing these models. Thank you, Mr. Sharpless. Uh before I get the comments to you, sir, I just have a question for the superintendent. So on the 22nd when we go to the, you know, you workshop it and bring it back to a a vote. Um are we going to be voting on hiring the firm or what prototype we're selecting? Uh it's both. Both. Okay. Now, the prototype will be in flux because we can finalize that with additional feedback from the board, but that would be the recommendation at this time. Is that is that accurate, Miss Maner? and board members. And I I would like to turn it back over

138um since Mr. Tropolis, I see you're the last one with questions. Um I wanted you at least if you look at slides uh 49, beginning on slide 49, that's the proposal that will come before you. Um, starting on slide 4950 through 53, it shows basically the plot plan of an aerial view I should say, excuse me, of Alta Vista and how they would propose to locate that building that you've seen kind of duplicated here throughout the various slides and various school districts onto that property. So, Mr. Sharpless, if you had questions for the gentleman, I want to make sure you get an opportunity before I I turn it back over to him. Yes. Um, so I'm curious when whenever you're going to design prototypes, um, do you work with the office of educational facilities at

139the Florida Department of Education? Uh, it depends on the district. Okay. Um, for some of the smaller districts, that's really their only avenue to get um, uh, code review and things like that with SREF and things like that. Um, most districts kind of have their own authority having jurisdiction. They have their own fire marshal. They have their own SREF experts. Um, and uh, but we've done both. Actually, one of our new Pasco uh, jobs, we sent that to DOE at their request for their review. I don't know if you know Don Whitehead um, up at the up at DOE um, just for some review and some input because their staff was a little stressed. Understood. Um cuz one thing that's going to be important for me is uh is right sizing. Making sure we have

140efficiently use our our spaces. Uh not only do we have the night the nice spaces but then how are we right sizing them. So um I would I would like to have any kind of prototype uh be reviewed by them you know the office of educational facilities uh just to make sure that it's hitting all the standards in addition to our own great staff here. That's just my personal uh opinion. So Okay. Yeah. I'm I'm sure we speak for the entire board, but I just me. All right. Go ahead, sir. Um, so what you see in front of you now is uh the prototype design laid out at the Alta Vista site. Uh, we we did a few different schemes. This one seemed to be the most efficient use of the site. uh combining that

141with keeping the existing building 9 and 7 for an early childhood development uh campus which was expressed to us. Uh it keeps all of the access to the northwest uh but for both buses and parents. No no more access off of uh what is it? Scenic highway to the south. Right now there's a few curb cuts and I'm guessing they're using them, but we kept all the traffic off of that. Um cuz apparently that's getting to be a fairly fairly busy road. Um one of the one of the interesting challenges of this site, and you can't really tell it from this aerial, but that southeast corner is quite a bit higher if you know the site. Um, so by pushing the site a little bit further or the building a little bit further to the

142west, we were able to get the drive in there and we'll have a step down whether that's a combination of uh ramps, steps or retaining walls or something like that. Uh we do have a civil engineer on board and he said that that can be easily worked out with the grade change there. Um there's ample room for retention, um playgrounds, uh and uh activities. Uh the building building 9 was set aside for that uh early childhood development, but building 7, I mean, if you did a castali on it, you could probably figure out a way to take it down. Uh the only reason I would look into that is if you really wanted more parking for events. You know, parent teacher conference night programs in the cafeteria. Those are always big stressors on parking for

143elementary schools. Um so it does have a lot of staff parking. Uh but the visitor parking could be expanded. We could get we could get more of that if we need to. That's and that's just a process of working through with Peggy's group to make sure that we're getting what the district wants. But there are options there for that. Mr. Keys. Yeah. on on this particular one as I'm intimately familiar with it as I drive past it at least four times a day would be as we talk about access to and from and anticipating a design um that we're doing some very in-depth traffic studies on these because um scenic highway um is an issue but I think more when you're coming in in 544 coming up through there and then the access behind where

144a lot of that traffic is coming from so where a lot of that kind of bottlenecks now is if you're heading north on Scenic Highway and they're turning left onto that drive in the back, which it backs up and just lines there. Um, and you'll you'll see on any given day when you go by there, folks are doing what they're not supposed to do and trying to access areas that they shouldn't have access to off the road. And as much so as now there's staff at the front of the school standing in front of the gate say, you know, you shall not pass kind of a deal. But um it it's I I think that when we look at these designs and and it's so important to me is pulling traffic off of these major

145roads um and making sure we have the space um but we're doing we're designing you know enough to where we have the capacity for the future. But to me I think my big thing is in the design is making sure we have ample traffic studies on that because that's a mess in the morning. Um and it's going to that's going to be a key issue I think for me and and looking at those. So, okay, Dr. Allen. Yeah, you know, speaking of parking, I mean, that's definitely something that we continually work through across the district, um, especially in District 1 and, you know, we've made some strides with um, Philip O'Brien recently and so forth and expanding parking there. So, comparatively, and you know, parking lots are not cheap when it um, dealing with asphalt.

146Um, how many stalls do we have currently at this uh, site? And then how does that compare to I think Willow Oak would have been our last uh elementary. Um so just capaci you know capacity variation um or comparison I guess the capacity of Willow Oak compared to how many stalls we have there. Um but how many stalls here do we have? Um right now there's about uh 35 to 40 visitor spaces. Uh there's about 180 or so staff. Um and then a few for the kitchen staff and that sort of thing in the back. Yeah. Formula that you use typically with based on size. B it it usually goes based on the number of student stations because student stations will give you how many faculty are going to be on the site. It's an

147statement. It it is. There's there's a formula for it. Yep. Okay. Thank you. But I've often found and other districts have found and you have too that the SREF standard is probably a little short. Yeah, more is better. Indeed, Miss White. Thank you. I was really impressed going through your PowerPoint that you built Jack, our Lamb for $16 million and then realized it was in 2015. That seems much more appropriate for 2015 than than today. Um, I think, you know, one of the most critical things for wherever the school is going is, as um, Mr. Keys mentioned, the the traffic and not necessarily a current traffic study because I don't think that's going to um, include the thousand vehicles that are now all of the sudden on that road picking up students on a daily

148basis. Um but making sure that no matter what the current traffic study says that we're bringing those cars in off the road for um for pickup and drop off because that is um I think we've learned learned lots of lessons on roads that were very low density a decade ago that we get phone calls now pretty much daily because they are no longer low density. So um so making sure that no matter where the school is that we're bringing that completely off the the rightway. Yeah. And in in terms of cost, I mean, you saw the Jack Ram one, but the elementary X and W ones, uh those are real-time numbers. We have current GMPS that are under construction in Maring County. Uh one of them was 45 and one was 47. Had some different

149site characteristics. Um so those are those are pretty accurate numbers for a similar size school. Thank you. And I'll ask the question since it's been asked of me. At what point do Well, let me rephrase this. Mr. Fix, Miss Banier, Dave, we need you don't have to come at the microphone. It's just a statement. We need to make sure that we bring back the color palette to the board for any exterior colors, please. Um, just so they can kind of get a sense of what's what they're what the community may may see. Um, and I know you guys work very closely with the school and the community, but I want to make sure that at some point we're bringing back those color selections for the board. And that includes, you know, the the the finishes

150inside the classrooms, you know, or in the in the media centers with the carpet squares and things like that that we now utilize that lets us be a little bit more vibrant. And so, Mr. Fix, so if I I might make a suggestion, um, some districts they'll have maybe four or or maybe six. They'll have um standard packages packages. Okay. And what they'll say is here are the colors to choose from. And that will also include even the furniture um that goes with that. And it can be different themes. It can be a modern theme or it can be a colonial theme or whatever. But these are packages that other districts use as well as colors. So that we can bring that that selection to the board and say, "Hey, here's the selections. How do

151you feel about these?" Then if the board is okay with those pallets, then we can say to if there's an opportunity to um include the administration, if it's a rebuild, say here are the approved pallet choices of the board, you're allowed to work within select within those. Well, and then there's to for board members, it's not just a matter of community, you know, perspective because sometimes the colors can be a little bit brighter than they expected. Um, I can't help but laugh about this topic, but think about cost efficiencies. If the board does go down this road and we adopt four to six packages, then for example, these are carpet squares. It's not just regular carpet that we lay out. And the benefit of that is you can pop up a bad tile if it's

152got a stain, a rip, or a burn mark or whatever the issues are and just replace it. Same with floor tiles. What allow us to do is is reserve a stock, right, that we could have on hand. um because these change, right? And so over time it would make sense for us to have more consistency. It's the whole point behind having a prototype school. Then we should have prototype finishes that go along with that. So it it's while while initiated the conversation makes me chuckle, the it is an important topic and and it's something that we want to make sure that our schools conform and blend into our communities to the fullest extent possible. And and that's the one thing I think, you know, for those of you long-standing board members, you've done very well.

153You've made sure that the aesthetic of the school honors the history of that building and the needs and the aesthetic within the community. I think you we've done a really good job of that over the years. Um, and we have some amazing architectural examples um here, Barto Elementary School, Davenport Elementary School, and others where you don't have something that's just just awkwardly stands out. I think you've done a really good job of trying to to find those opportunities. So, thank you. Um, and I see no further questions or comments. Press my button. Go ahead, Miss W. I was just going to say I love that idea, especially for the elementary K8. My only concern would be when we get to the high school level, I would assume that like purple would not be one of

154those color palettes and I would never want to tell Tenok that they can't use purple for their their fixtures. Um, but definitely for the elementary and and KA levels, I think. But so most of the things colors that they get and you know this anybody who you know a home the same pattern for example in the in these carpet tiles exists um like ours has kind of a striping to it but it exists in probably 50 different color palettes. So I don't think to your point that we would end up being so restrictive for a high school that they can't have the color pattern that matches their mascot and those No, we would have that flexibility within that. Absolutely. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Anything else, sir? Well, on that same topic, a lot of districts

155have started moving away from waxing VCT and going with no wax products. There are options out there. Um, but we have uh a lot of experience in what's appropriate where. A lot of people go with LVT. Um, not appropriate in a cafeteria, not appropriate in a classroom. Uh, but in a corridor, perfectly fine. Anything that just stands up to foot traffic. anywhere where there's tables that might slide or kids kick their feet back and forth with sand on them, that wear layer will be gone and you can't fix it. At least with VCT, you can just rewax it, strip it and wax it. Um uh but we do we have researched other options and uh we can go over that with Peggy's team during design and see what your preferences are. And there's there's options

156like epoxy floor and we've done polish staining, you know, there are options as an old school principal. the non-waxed non- gloss floors. While they it's a it it saves a lot of time and money on maintenance and cleaning and stripping and waxing and and utilization of those things. I hate to say it as an old school principal. I like to shine off of a waxed floor. Well, because every everybody relates shiny equals clean. Clean. Correct. Whether it is or not is another story, but shiny is clean. That is correct. So, all right. Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate your time. Yep. Thank you team. Board members, we have one remaining topic on the uh workshop for this morning. I will invite Miss uh Jennifer Rouse, senior director of professional development to please come down.

157Um we have some good news to share with the board. So, and then Miss Miller did ask me to make sure I got one of her questions on the record even though she had to leave for of prior commitment. Good morning, honorable board chair, honorable board members, and superintendent Hyde. Thank you for a few minutes this morning to give a brief overview of our autism. Miss Rouse, I'm so sorry. I meant to ask this before you began. U board members, would you like to take a short break after this you transition to your attorney topic? Um, and the only reason I have to ask that is I have to give notice to the people behind the scenes who operate the technology and make sure they're prepared for that. So, I'm I'm sure they've heard us.

158So, Miss Rouse, I apologize for any disruption. Um, good morning. So, um, I also have colleagues here, Dr. Bruno, director of ESC, Tammy Williams, assistant superintendent of learning support, um, with us to answer any questions at the end that the board may have specific to exceptional student education programs. Um, Dr. Tilman from Fiddlers was unavailable to be with us, um, today, but she has had great input into today's presentation. So, the district began offering this endorsement program back in 2020, and the program is good for a 5-year window, and the DOE is now requiring us to submit a review, an update, and another approval for the next 5-year window. So, that's why I'm here today um to share with you the program and and what it entails and the outcomes we've had so far. Um

159and of course with the recommendation that we would approve the renewal. Why this program matters? Um there has been an increase in the prevalence of children with autism spectrum disorder which then of course puts a demand for more services within the schools and the state has identified ASD as a high demand teacher needs area specifically ESSE and critical shortage area. Um so that means we need uh we have a growing need for more teachers to be trained to serve these learners. The program's purpose is it increases the level of knowledge and expertise of the educators working with students diagnosed with ASD. It raises awareness of their unique needs and challenges and it ensures uh appropriate implementation of strategies that better support this type of learner. And it helps the district develop a pool of qualified

160personnel also um that have this specialized focus. This is for teachers who have a bachelor's or higher degree also with a certification in except in any area of exceptional student education. They can seek this endorsement through the courses provided by the district instead of having to seek these opportunities through a university. And they actually do allow some pair professionals who are interested and if there's available seats to participate as well. The program consists of three courses or modules. They're extremely rigorous. So there are 80 inservice points each um which is a lot of hours and time of learning and implementation. So you can see there the three names of the courses. Each course does include um field experience meaning that there's activities embedded where the teachers go into their classrooms, they practice those strategies with

161students and then they self-reflect on what impact did that have on my students? They are running in cohorts. So ideally, if we started course one together, we could go through all three courses together as a cohort, which is actually super supportive to a learner because you have colleagues to to study with and compare with and and and that kind of thing. These are statewide courses and um they are offered through fiddlers, the Florida diagnostic learning resource systems, free of charge to the district and to teachers. and they um offer a blended learning model which is conducive to a lot of learners. So there's one live virtual orientation, there's two live virtual sessions and then the rest is asynchronous. So it's self-paced. They can work on it at will. The core competencies and topics you can

162see here, it's really um helping educators understand the characteristics of students with autism. um assessments for them, behavior intervention plans, the augmentative alternative communication strategies, assist technology tools, and it helps them with transition planning and collaborating with families embedded in there as well. Um there's a lot of videos, case studies, glossery of terms, and each module comes with guided notes for the teacher. So, a lot of rich resources in this professional learning It is aligned to state standards. It does meet rule 6A-6.401796. It does support our Florida educator accomplished practices. It's aligned to our professional learning protocols and it is tied to four of our district strategic goals. Upon completion, an educator actually earns an ASD endorsement on their teaching certificate. Um the program facilitators gather participant feedback through survey through surveys, excuse me. Instructional

163application, student impact is tracked by the instructors. Um and then there's an annual review and program revision based on data. So up to this point, Fiddler's um has had 452 educators participate in the endorsement program. Some of the benefits is it does build in-house expertise. It's cost-effective. It's scalable. It supports inclusive learning. And it improves instructional outcomes for students with ASD. And we know many times the strategies educators learn in courses such as this are actually good for a lot of students. So it it really helps impact more than just students with ASD. So that is a brief overview. Um what questions may you have? Miss Rouse, the question Miss Miller asked me to make sure we asked was are we providing any incentives or do teachers in any way get an incentive or derive

164an incentive by pursuing this? Currently at this time there is not an a monetary incentive anything like that. But I I do know um I've spoke with Miss Williams that the opportunity in another district is maybe like a a track system of where there is incentive pay for staff that have that. So it could be something we could explore. So something to be discussed with PA. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you, Miss Fields. You may have already uh answered it, but I'm just curious. Do we have any ideas to how many uh how many folks would be would be interested in participating in this program? I don't know currently the interest. I just know over the last five years, Dr. Tilman shared they've had 450 to educators from Pulk participate. So it seems a large amount. Yeah,

165it seems like it's well attended. Um and they're finding value in it. So typically in professional learning, it's word of mouth. You know, am I going to dedicate this many hours of my life to this? And to have that many people do that means they're finding value in it. Well, there's a tremendous need as you said when you started your presentation and my question is and you might not be able to answer it today. Is there a piece in the training that u centers around uh family engagement and working with with families and parents? Yes, ma'am. There is a component within the course. I'm not I'm not sure which one of the three courses, but that is a component in collaborating with families, making those plans for transition for students and so forth. And is

166there also a piece in the uh curriculum, and you might not know this either, that um helps to um educate uh folks that might not really have a good understanding of the importance of being friendly to autistic kids and families. I don't I don't know if that's a good way to say it. I understand what you're asking. There is a a focus on one of the modules here about communication. So I have I have Dr. Bruno here. She might be able to speak a little bit more detail to that, Miss Fields, because she's participated in the endorsement program and earned that endorsement herself. So if it's okay, I'd like to defer to her to provide what she may know around that. So yes, there is um an entire section where you talk about user friendly

167terms, you talk about how to engage students. It's a great a great unit for building resources. As a teacher, you would have a lot of opportunity to speak with a lot of parents. Um, but it really builds the how to and what to for not just ASD students, but students that have those characteristics that might not be labeled as such. Well, I think this is excellent. Yes. And thank you all for bringing it forward. Thank you, Mr. Rouse. Remind me, what's the crosswalk between a college credit hour and hours for a um inservice? Um a college course typically is uh threehour college courses, how they're labeled. So, we give them 60 inservice points. So, 60. So, arguably 250 inservice total hours here. So you're looking at four college courses. Yes. It's very rigorous and in

168fact Dr. Bruno was sharing with me when we were planning that it's mass it's felt like master level courses. Yeah. So and this will be a conversation for Mr. Pittz, Mr. Warren and I to have is to, you know, to to try and address Miss Miller's question. Is there something within our current salary schedule where we could give credit for that for those 240 hours? Again, I'm just speaking off the cuff. um that's when I get myself in trouble. But you know, but it's bachelor's plus 15, bachelor's plus 30, those kinds of things. And if this equated to that and could contribute to that, there may be a way for us within our current structure to incentivize staff to pursue this. So what we may have to do because it's not 15 total college credit

169hours, there there may be a way for us to enhance this program a little bit further with with, you know, actual work in a classroom where we documented their internship or their application of this. I don't know. We can talk through this, but just kind of brainstorming how do we get them to that point where it could be something of creditable service to a certain extent for lack of a better phrase. So this is where the money people in the back of the room start to get really nervous. Shut up, Mr. Hyde. So thank you though. It's exciting anytime we can provide these types of opportunities and it it's it is one of the nice things in in Florida that they will allow us from time to time to submit a proposal to do professional

170development to support our staff's needs at the local level. was some reading endorsement, Esau endorsement, those types of things. It's it's important for us to have that because we can provide more in time real time service for our staff and it's it's so thank you. I I know how hard you and the team worked on this. So, thank you all three of you. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. Allen, just in case. Yeah, I mean just I ditto owe that. I appreciate the presentation. Um very organized, just a clear plan. Um, and you know, obviously addressing the need is important just for someone in the classroom, uh, at college level and working with accommodations and so forth. Uh, man, I wish I had access to, you know, this type of professional development. So, well done

171and I appreciate the vision for it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are no further comments or questions, Mr. Chair. That concludes the superintendent's report of today's workshop. Um there's an information item there on there for the board's consideration and as we discussed if the board would like you can take your recess at this time. Thank you superintendent. So yeah let's uh recess to 11:30. That'll give uh Mr. Thomas an opportunity to transition as well. So we will now at this point go into recess. Thank you. [Music] Heat. Heat. Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hallelujah. Heat. [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hallelujah. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] 40 years old. Good

172afternoon and welcome back to this work session on April 8th, 2025. Uh we are uh happy to be moving through another step in the process and we do have Mr. Thomas with us to lead us through um our master schedule and our upcoming interview process. So, Mr. Thomas, thanks for being with us today and thanks for the work that you're doing with us. Uh and I will now pass it over to you. Thank you, Dr. Allen. It's a pleasure to be with you yet. I think we're still this morning somewhere along the line here. But um I know as we were discussing when I was here last and you had selected your finalist um u a couple things that we had discussed were number one finalizing the interview schedule the on-site interview schedule which we've

173prepared as a draft and then also um there was a desire to originally do some prioritization of your proposed questions for the candidates uh during the day of the interview but then subsequently Dr. Allen had reached out to me and indicated there was a desire to maybe try to do that this morning. So, we can we can certainly make that take place as well. Um, just as a quick update, I know I've spoken to a couple of you as we've we've either spoken in the hall or through phone calls. Um, when we last left, we ended up with five candidates that you had selected as finalist. Um, and I mentioned to you at during that meeting, I said, don't be bashful about that. Try not to get too many, but also don't get too few

174because sometimes we lose candidates for a variety of reasons. And so, uh, unfortunately, we lost two candidates. U Mr. Brody uh had indicated shortly after he is selected. He was very appreciative of the opportunity to be selected and honored, but there were some changes going in in the internal workplace within his operation over in the city of Tampa. And he just said it's just not the time for me to be able to leave at this point. So, there's nothing I could do to try to to uh keep him in the pool, but he was very appreciative and honored to be selected. And then just last weekend, I'd received a phone call from uh Mr. Ray Pool, one of your other finalists who was up in the uh Duval Jacksonville area and um he indicated that

175he was going to have to withdraw. We played some tag and finally got a chance to to catch up yesterday. Um I I've got about a 50 I was telling Caroline, I've got about a 50% batting average and trying to get candidates to withdraw or I can try to keep them in the pool if there's something we can do to make an adjustment or whatever the case was. But as I've mentioned in my email that went to you, uh there was some changes in his wife's employment situation um that necessitated her to stay in the Jacksonville Duval County area. And they also had a a relocation issue involving his mother, elderly mother. And so uh those are two items I could not um I could not talk him through to be able to keep him

176in the pool. So as a result, we are left with three finalists at this point. Uh we've made a quick adjustment in the schedule to accommodate that uh coupled with some feedback that I had received from u Dr. Allan earlier in terms of some adjustments. So, what I want to do is just quickly first just walk you through the schedule so everybody's comfortable with it in case there's some adjustments we need to make or anyone wants to switch any spots or something of that nature. Uh then after that then I'd like to do um I've gotten feedback from one of your board members. So, uh Miss Miller who had to leave in terms of her prioritized questions and we'll work our way through that. So, so uh you've got the schedule in front of you

177at this point. This is the revised schedule. Um what we've factored into is a u a 20 minute uh in order to kind of accommodate everyone's schedule on the start time. My understanding is you wanted to actually convene a board meeting uh at the beginning of this process and then recess. So uh we've got that schedule from 9:00 to 9:10 uh just to go through the process and then you'll you'll break off into your one-on-one sessions. Um you'll see that we've accommodated everybody in this this outlook or this process, but it is helpful to me. I did not know I I was given the window between about 9:00 and about 1:00 to accommodate everybody's schedule. So that's how we worked our way down to it. I am indiscriminate as it relates to who has the

178first slots from 9:10 to to 10:10 and who has the second slots from 10:25 to um 11:25 and then the third slots from 11:40 to 12:40. So if there's a desire to make a switch in that arena, that would be helpful to know. If everything's good, then we'll just leave it as is. But we can certainly move that if if there's any interest in making those adjustments. So I'll I'll stop there first and see if everybody's okay with what we've assigned you to. Yeah. The the only thing Okay. Um stand by. I'll just to make sure that we have a quorum when we um you know convene at 9:00. So if we could have one at least one board member that would commit to be with us at 9:00. You can see um that we

179move right into the interviews at 910. There's three of us that will be doing that. So, we just need one more that would volunteer. Thank you, Mr. Keys. And that'll allow us to have quorum. He's already there. Okay. I'll be there. I'll be there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm saying. Okay. So, I'll be there. Perfect. And I don't So, you have you would need Wyatt Sharpless or or Fields be part of it. All right. I'll be there. Thank you. I did not have the room location. I assume um that that's been established. I know that the the group interviews are taking place the next day. So, I assumed it might be there, but I didn't want to make that that assumption. Um, so is there a room assigned for where you're going to convene your meeting?

180Before we go there and board chair, if you mind, um, I think it would be helpful if we had four. Well, obviously we have to have four for a quorum. And I don't know that board member ni was about. Okay. All right. So, don't the only thing I'm going to say is is maybe because I again I don't know if board member Noly will be there and I don't know what if board member Miller is down there because of something that that's a conflict for her. I I just assigned those slots. I just would say maybe put Mr. Noly in that last spot down there just switch with Miller. Okay. Justify that he's going to be attending. We have not. And so I'm I'm just saying in in in case Okay. uh you know I

181would I would like to have that time there. If he's there then he'll absolutely do it. Yeah. And I'll add to that there has been communication with him. Uh so we've been you know discussing accommodation for that space and so forth for him to be there. Um so I'll just make sure again that there's 100% um that he would be there. Um but yes, he has been uh communicated with along the way. Yeah. But I would I would think about that and that for that 9:00 keys on there for that that we re switch that out. Mhm. Yeah. And so if we could have perhaps a understanding today that there will be four board members who would be willing to be there at 9:00 switching out. Um uh okay that that would help. That would

182be three board members. Um and Mr. Sharp has already come in. Okay. So, one of you then will not be doing something for about an hour. That's fine. Okay. Okay. I'll be there. I'll bring my laptop. Great. Okay. Just as long as we understood that. I didn't want a board member to be there and and and not be participating in the question sessions right away. Yeah. Indeed. So, just to clarify, Miss Fields, um you Okay. So, Mr. Thomas, if we can switch out uh Miss Fields and her time slots for Mr. Nol's time slots with Fields. Okay, gotcha. And then Mr. Sharpless has committed to be with us that morning as well. So that would give us the quorum needed. And my my only other thought would be potentially to put switch Lisa and then

183Rick's new spot. So that way Rick's on his own. Yeah, that would make sense. Mhm. Which Miller where she's It put her to where Mr. Noly would where Miss Field's position is. So that's right. That's right. So Mr. Noly would go down to where Miss Miller is currently. Correct. Miss Fields would move up to where Mr. Noly was. Right. And Mr. Noly would go down to where Miss Miller was and Miss Miller. So it would be at there would be board member Wyatt Sharpless and Miller starting at 10:25 and Miller at 10:25. Right. Noli is going to start at 11:40. Correct. We also should probably just get clarification a couple days before because lunch may be able to start earlier if he's unable to join. Um, okay. NI that's 1140 and then the balance will

184be at the 910. Okay. And I think the anticipation is that once the board members go off into their room to do the one-on- ons when they conclude with their one-on ones, they will be happy to they'll be free to go. Um, we will during the board meeting, we will not know what what I think the recommendation has talked with the board is that you'll open the meeting at 9:00 10-minute introductory session to go through the normal and then you'll recess the meeting until the following morning at 9:00. And so each board member will then go to their respective rooms. Candidates will be cycled through and then when you're done with your interviews, the board members would be free to leave. Mhm. Yeah. I don't think the board members are going to be participating in

185the lunchon that's planned. That was going to be my other question. I know when you and I had chatted about that, Dr. I didn't know what your what your thoughts were with uh Mr. Murphy on that point. So, uh I've I've seen it done both ways, but I'm going to defer to the attorney. Yeah. And I mean, you can speak to this. I mean, this is an informal context and the the intent um was to make sure that our candidates did have an opportunity to engage with the superintendent and his staff just in more of an informal setting um rather than that formalized forum that was proposed, right? So, um you know, if board members, if you so wish to stay for lunch, you can. I mean, it's it's going to be open for you

186to participate as well. Yeah. I I think the only qualification I would add to that is that it would be not a meeting for purposes of the sunshine process. So, we would want to social, you know, we'd want to engage in um if you if a board member wanted to have lunch, um more than one board member wanted to have lunch that we just be mindful of that because the optics on that could look like it's a continuation of the meeting. And so I just I I get a little bit um I get particular about that kind of stuff when I'm advising my public the public, you know, bodies that are subject to sunshine law. Is anyone planning to go up to that lunch? I I thought that that was intended to be an opportunity

187without us there. Right. That's what I Well, that's my understanding, but it I'm indiscriminate on that one as well. I have done this with countless other cities and counties and public bodies. Sometimes they have it's it's meant to be very informal. It's really a chance for interaction and just to get a chance to meet such it's very similar to a meet and greet. Although you'll be breaking bread literally over lunch. Um but um it's it's really your call. I just need to know whether board members would likely be participating or not just so I can finalize things on the agenda. Okay. Any other board members plan to participate in lunch? Okay. All right. We'll just leave it as is then. Leave it as is with the administration. I think Mr. Murphy is probably happy with

188that decision. Well, the board can do whatever what it wishes to do, but it's probably Yeah. Yeah. Understood. Okay. All right. And then So, let me navigate your Oh, jeez. Here we go again with the I Is it just me or is this happen a lot with the uh I can't seem to get the Oh, there it is. Okay, it's now woken up again. Well, there we go. Um, where's my IT person? I can't seem to. It's frozen. Need to show the second half of the screen here. Just trying to scroll it up. Oh, okay. Here. I guess I couldn't get the mouse to move. There we go. If you scroll down to that, that's good. Excellent. Very good. Thank you. Um, okay. So, um, as I said, the first day is is really a

189chance to to engage with the individuals, have a chance for the candidates to meet with superintendent and and his staff. Um, the second day then is what I understand to be a reconvening then of the meeting that started the day before. Um, and then we've outlined 90minute sessions uh in the order that I've just proposed here uh with the three candidates with a a quick break in between to give you a chance for restrooms or whatever just to clear your head as you're stepping from one candidate to the next. And once again, that 90 minutes is anticipated to encapsulate about 60 minutes of a traditional interview process with Q&A. Um, and then we've asked each of the candidates to prepare a very brief 10-minute kind of TED talk, if you will, about the challenges and

190opportunities so that you can see how they would present information in a relatively concise timetable. Uh, we won't ask any questions during that period because it's intended to be a timed exercise, but afterwards there may be questions on that as well. So, if you figure 60 minutes for the interview, 10 minutes for the the PowerPoint, uh that's at 70 minutes, and that gives you 20 minutes for, you know, Q&A and back and forth that may take place or follow-up information that would happen. Whether you take all 90 minutes really depends on how quickly and how concise the responses are, how many additional follow-up questions you might have. I have traditionally found that 60 minutes is too short with my boards and 2 hours is too long, and 90 minutes just seems to be the right

191the right window of time. So, it's meant so that nobody feels rushed, but don't feel compelled that if somebody responds quickly and you're able to finish it up before the 90 minutes, that's okay as well. So, um, and then normally what we do at that point is you recess after the each interview, I normally just have a quick debrief with each of the candidates. Um, so we can release them from the process. And then at the end of this, um, what is now scheduled to be around 3:00 is an opportunity for you to talk. U probably take some public comment as we talked about before. at the end you'll be able to to uh because there's official action of the board and you can have some conversation at that point if you are so inclined

192to narrow down to a particular candidate. Uh if so um we can start negotiations but I also know I think there's another board meeting scheduled the following week as I recall or a workshop or a board meeting um the following Tuesday. So um we'll kind of wait to see what that looks like most of the time with three candidates. hopefully you reached a consensus of where you want to go. Uh and then we can talk about the negotiation process and what that looks and feels like and try to get that all buttoned up as quickly as possible so that we could have an action item for you for the the following meeting. So that's the schedule. Let me stop there before we talk about questions uh particular proposed questions for the interview sessions. All right,

193Miss Wyatt, you're recognized. Thank you. I was just curious about the presentation is the the presentation is something they've already been asked to put together. Are they okay? Yes. Um yes. Uh and it's it's it's meant to be a very short PowerPoint. Um as I say, no more than 10 minutes. And the we use that for a lot of positions like this where there was likely to be some public speaking or assembly of information in a public gathering. Um it's a it's an assessment to really determine how they do their skills. the topic isn't as important to me as being able to to take a to do what we've asked them to do in a relatively short period of time and how they convey their their thoughts. Okay. Thank you. I don't have those yet.

194We normally give the up until the date of ask our candidates have a lot of work to do and we give them up until the first day of the process and they'll give it to me on a data stick. I'll make sure it all works and work with your tech folks that it all be loaded. My my question was more just whether or not they had already been given that assignment. I don't know that that's something that I would have requested just because I've been in those interviews before and I feel like the 10 minutes would be better spent on asking them questions than a presentation that I couldn't tell you the last time our attorney did a presentation at a a board meeting or to any of us. But that was just my thoughts

195on it. But if they've already been asked to do it, I don't want to tell them never mind. Okay. As I say, my sense is most of the time from public bodies, I think you're going to find 90 minutes gives you plenty of plenty of opportunity. Plus, you've got the additional 20 minutes um on the one-on-one sessions that you can ask questions that you may not want to necessarily propose in a in a public session as well. Thank you. Okay. All right. Any other questions, board members, at this point? I will revise the agenda uh accordingly and then um as we move into this next section, we will then send back to you and and the team um a link to download a briefing book which will have each of the candidates cover. It'll have

196the the uh the the the the material that's been assembled in terms of what the position is all about, the recruitment material. It will have a um each candidates's cover letter, resume, questionnaire response, their written firstear game plan, uh and then the actual questions that you're going to be talking about here shortly for each of the candidates. Um so that you'll have everything in one spot. You that's downloadable if you want to print a hard copy or if you just want to use electronic version on an iPad or a computer, that's totally up to you. But that will all be assembled in one spot for you, including the master interview schedule, so you know what's going on from there. And if you can include the video responses in that as well. I I did go

197back and look at those. They they're still active. I think I went just as recently as yesterday. Um this morning, I don't think I will have to. Normally those video interviews have a a deadline, but I if desired, I can work with our team to reactivate that deadline through the interview process so that in case you want to continue to redo that before you actually meet with the candidates next week again. Perfect. Thank you. That video and I assume the way we've normally done that the links we provided before work, but since that was several weeks ago, would you rather me just also reinclude when we send you the links to the briefing books? Would you like me to just re reattach the links to the video interview so that you've got everything in one

198email? I appreciate that. That's I get lots of different emails so it's probably easier for keeping in one spot. Okay. With briefing books. Mr. Thomas, could you include me as well in that? Certainly. By all means. Excellent. Okay. All right. So the other thing that we wanted to go through today um is a review of the proposed questions um that you could use for your public interview sessions on the second day of the interviews. Uh what we've given you is a list of uh well more than I think well close to 100 questions that you could potentially select from. Um and the way we normally do this is to have each of you just kind of circle your top. you're going to get around 10 to 15 questions based upon the the length of a

199response from the candidate, but 10 to 15 is a good set of questions to kind of have in the bank. And there may be some others that you might want to keep in there just in case you're running ahead of schedule or something of that nature, you'd like to ask a few more. And so, normally the easiest way I found to prioritize with the board is have each of you just select your first 10 or 15 questions that you'd like um in the in this background. Hopefully, you've had a chance to do that before today. And then I just kind of ask what are your what are your questions? and then uh which by number so we don't have to go through the individual questions per se. I'll tally them up and the ones that

200have the majority of votes of either five or seven or six or whatever kind of naturally get us to the list. Um then we'll count kind of where we are at there. If we're at that 10 or 15 number, that's great. Um and then there may also be other questions. These are kind of standardized questions that I've given you that I think kind of capture the the um the style and the background and the experience and the legal expertise that they may bring to the table. But there may be other questions that you've got that haven't been proposed from from by me. And so the thought was if if any of you have those, we could kind of talk through that and I can help craft the questions and incorporate those into the list that

201you'll be working from uh for your master interview schedules and your master interview questions for each of the candidates. So um I did as noted um board member Miller was going to have to leave. She did send me her questions. So I've already identified her top I think there were 14 or 15 that she had gave. So, I've already marked those. So, if everybody's comfortable with that, I'm I'm more than glad to just go board member by board member if you can just give me the numbers that you've the number of the questions that you've selected and I'll I'll just tally them and we'll figure out where that shakes out as a priority. All right. Very good. I will just go down roll call this out. So, Mr. Keys, we'll start with you and just

202go down by district number. So, Mr. Keys, you're recognized. All right. So I had two 4 23 excuse me 30 23 I'm sorry. Um uh so 20 23 was one or not correct 23. Okay, next one. 30 30 [Music] 41 and then I remember there was one day in here. Bear with me for a second. 59 and 64. Excellent. Oh, and there's one more. I'm sorry. 72. Sorry. 72. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Keys. Miss Wyatt, you're recognized. I'm gonna need just a minute. All right. Electronically, I thought, but Okay, if anyone else is in a place you All right, Miss Fields, you're recognized. Okay. 36 39 56 58 [Music] 77 and 78. That should give me 15. I had more, but I stopped at 15. I I I will take more if you

203have more. That's okay. If you have a few other ones, you know, I said 10 or 15, but I'll take whatever you've got. It gives me a sense of kind of where people were at. If you have a few other ones, Miss Fields. Okay. So, I'll add You ready? Yep. Seven. Seven. 14. 38 47 [Music] 54 and tell me when you want me to stop? I I will I'll I'll take whatever you if you have others that's fine as well, you know. All right. [Music] 84 87 Okay. And that's it. All right. Okay. Okay. We'll come back to Miss Wyatt. Not ready yet. Not sure where that's coming from. Oh, yeah. Siri's talking to somebody. All right. So, I'll go ahead and I've got 10. Sure. Okay. um identified great set of questions too by

204the way and it gives us an opportunity to maybe hit some of these questions in our one-on-one as well uh if if we don't do them in this more of this formal context. Uh 7 28 25 28 31 55 62 74 I'm sorry 5562 Mhm. 74 75 and 78. Oh, would you give me those last three again? 70 70 74 75 and 78. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. All right, Mr. Sharpless is recognized. 38 36 386 38 and then we're going into the 50s. So, yeah. Okay, I'm with you. and then I'm going to the 70s. 74. Gotcha. 76. 77. And And my last one is 89. Excellent. Thank you. And Miss Wyatt, you're recognized. Thank you. I did have one additional question that I don't think is necessarily asked, but I think is relevant with

205our current legal landscape. Um, but to tell us about a time when legal advice or interpretation did not align when you're with your personal beliefs and how you approached it. I can if I can come back to that just so yeah, I can try to capture this so I know where we're at. But yes, certainly we can work that one in. So I had and I have more than 15 but I have 12 27 31 40 47 74 81 85 and 86. Okay. All right. So, tally some things here. Okay, let's get this Okay, I've got 12 questions that have three or more. Start with those. Let me give you the ones that you've got at least prioritized by three of you or more. That would be question number seven. Question number 12. Number 21.

206Number 31. 36. 38. 39. Um 78. All right. So that would be 12. And assuming we're going to ask um maybe an introductory one of either number one or number two or number three, one of those would probably be um you have a preference on one, two or three just as an opening question for the the candidate to kind of settle into their chair. Can you give us those again, please? Oh, certainly. Uh okay, one more time. Okay. Um, so the numbers that had three or more responses by board members were number 7, 12, 21, 31, 36, 38, 39, 55, 56. 59, 74, and 78. With regards to your previous question on an introductory, my preference would be two on that. Same. Number two, what was the question, please? Um, so we've got 12. would

207like to have at least 15 or so that you're all comfortable with and then there may be some others that we might want to be adding as well. So typically one of the top the one of the first three questions would normally be asked just to let the candidate kind of settle in. So is there a preference? I'm hearing a couple of you said number two. Is there a preference? You comfortable with adding that one to the list? Yeah, I'm comfortable with you. Okay. And then typically at the end, so that gets you um to 13. At the end, we normally want to um I would go to one of the closing questions, either 90 or 91. Uh is there a preference on either one of those? 90 for me. I would lean towards 91.

208And I'm looking at John more than if they ask us questions. How do you feel about that? Yeah, I and I' I've sort of given some thought to this. I think my my and of course I defer to the experts here on the recruitment process. However, my general sense is that the board when it's interviewing in this process should be as uniform and as um the same, if you will, for each candidate. And it's best to to not entertain or allow additional follow-up questions. So, not that there's anything wrong with these at all. They're all great questions, but I would tend to lean towards 91 because that doesn't open up questions that may or some of the candidates may ask, some may not. I you know, it's just just an observation on my part. Um

209it's certainly up to the board as to how you view this. this is your process. But I do think that um just in general from a from a recruitment standpoint or from a HR standpoint, I'd like for this to be as uniform as possible in the public setting. Um your private questions of course you can tailor to whatever you deem is appropriate for the circumstances, but that would just be my input. Well, and my thought would even be if if we want to open them up to kind of talk about anything they haven't already talked about, just, you know, is there anything that you haven't had the opportunity to share that you'd like to or something to that effect? Um, I would like to know why they they think they're the best candidate, but I

210just worry about them asking us questions in public. Would that be classified as closing arguments if you want it to be? Of course. Certainly closing statement if not maybe not an argument. I don't know that. you have to argue that and I don't know if they get a closing statement in addition to these questions too that I would if you're going to do 91 that would be a closing statement. I I utmost respect for for Mr. Murphy and the process. We've we've done it both ways. The fact that you are going to be having one-on-one sessions if there's something that they would like to ask of you. Um all I strive is that um it is a two-way process. The you are evaluating these candidates as much as these candidates are evaluating this is the

211right spot. And so I always like to build in an opportunity to make sure they've asked questions that as they've done research and they get a chance to mingle with you either individually or collectively that they have that chance to do it so that there's no kind of unanswered when they're done with their interview, they've kind of they've got a full understanding of what this place is all about and feel comfortable about it. So that's why I like to give them the opportunity to ask them. If you'd rather do that in the one-on-one sessions, I'm totally comfortable with that. I do like uh an opportunity for a candidate to kind of make a closing statement. Whether it's word exactly like this or any last comments about why they're interested in the position, I'm totally open

212to it, but it gives a nice close to the the process. Okay. I was going to say that I think that uh 90 is very important, but I was going to suggest that we do it when we have our private uh conversation with them, but for me that's very important. I can carry you. Okay. All right. So, gives you 14 questions. Is that good? Uh yeah, but there may be some others that you might want to ask. I know that um one of your colleagues had raised one. So we're going to go with 91 then as a closing question. Okay. Um now the other piece that I want to just comment on as well that Mr. Murphy had said, um, there may be you you've got a body of questions that you're going to be

213asking all the candidates so you can make a fair apples to apples comparison, but a candidate may have something in their background that is different than the other two candidates that you may want to probe on. I think that's a totally appropriate process. Um, or a candidate may respond to something that you feel needs an elaboration that might take you down a little different path as well. I I think this is your time with the the candidates to understand who they are because this is such a critical appointment similar to a superintendent appointment. You've got to feel comfortable with who you're you're you're selecting. My goal is to make sure you at least have a body of questions that are comparable that you can make that comparison, but you're likely to have some oneoffs that

214come forward. Um I will I I'll joke I'll say I will sit in these processes with you uh as I'm sure Mr. Murphy would as well that um I I get to play referee if somebody askked a question that I think might be kind of close to the edge. I would often say before the candidate answers that let me potentially rephrase that to make sure that we're not in an area of concern. I rarely have to do that but I always just like to have an ability so you don't have something that could jeopardize your process going forward. I'm sure that Mr. Murphy would say the same sort of thing. That's good to know and and certainly would be prepared to do that. Just so the board members know, I will be I will not

215be here on that day Wednesday. It'll be my law partner, Drew Crawford. Um what I have another strategic momentum planning session that I have to be at for another person or entity. But in any event, um yeah, that's good to know. Our goal is to keep you out of trouble and and I rarely have every once in a while something comes up and I said, "Let me just rephrase that for you so that we don't have a problem." But at the same token, don't want to harp on that. I mean this is this is a process for the board to get as Mr. Thomas said and and the candidate. It's a it's you're liken it to a bard deer you know as you're impaneling a jury maybe you know it's your only opportunity to get

216to directly speak to that person before you have you know got to make decisions potentially. So that would get us if we added that that would be at 14 questions to your to your point uh Mr. Sharpless. Um, so but I know uh Miss Wyatt had a proposed question. If you if I can take that now and we can make sure we're comfortable with how that the board's comfortable with that. Would you repeat that one again? Absolutely. And mine comes more from anything that we are clearly in a very interesting political and legal environment that um so my question was tell us about a time when legal advice or interpretation did not align with your personal beliefs. How did you approach? You slow that one down one more time just capture. Tell us about a

217time when Tell us about a time when legal advice or interpretation did not align with your personal beliefs and how did you approach the issue? Yeah, I almost feel like that was number seven under judgment which says describe a time when you were faced with the decision you did not want to make. What did you do? I don't know if you find that one to be in alignment to what I think there's a difference in not wanting to make a decision and it going against your core beliefs. Mhm. Cuz there's a lot of I don't want to decide where we're going to dinner. But it's not because I'm opposed to Olive Garden. It's because I just don't want to decide. Could I get the last after personal beliefs and then the last part of that

218question just so I can capture it? How did you approach the issue? I can add ask it in my one-on-one interview. I just think that's really important going forward. Um it's I think honestly one of Wes's greatest strengths is that he on more than one occasion said I don't have a team. I'm I'm here for for what's legally you're allowed to do that. But we're in a political world right now where that is an important quality to find in our attorney. With the with the board's concern, I'm more than that. That's totally appropriate question. I have no concerns the way that's worded. Um if the board's comfortable, we can add that to the list. Yeah, I think it's fine because I think it takes about three or four questions throughout the course of those. Um

219and kind of combines them all together into a concise. I think I like that because there there's a couple of questions on it that touch on it. You know, Mr. Allen said seven, you know, 39. I think it takes a bunch of those and and puts them together. So, I like that question. Yeah. So, I'll I'll word that, put that into the mix of the questions at the appropriate location. Um, and then as as uh Dr. Allen had indicated, I I wanted to give you this sheet because there are questions that maybe only one or two of you selected, but those would be totally appropriate for you to use during your one-on-one sessions or any other ones that aren't necessarily going to be asked in the public in the in the public interviews on day

220two of the opportunities. Ladders. Yeah, twister. I better be prepared for a lips and battle. Are you going to uh revise a list with just the questions for the uh entire board? Yes. Uh that'll be part of the briefing books. Um so at the back, I forget my assistant. She put some reformer at the end, but it'll be under each under each candidate will be these list of proposed prioritized questions. and I'll reshuffle this deck, but you're welcome to keep what I've already given you to use during your one-on ones for any of your other conversations you may want to do. There'll be a little briefing booklet as well about what simple kind of a primer dos and don'ts of interviews um about things you are allowed to ask and things you should stay away

221from. Um, I have to kind of it's the one piece I'm not in obviously your one-on-one session. So, I have to defer to you to try to to uh if you read that primer, it'll keep you out of trouble in terms of the questions that you might pop up that I wouldn't be aware of being asked. This um this is more of a procedural question. So, is are all the questions being asked by the board chair or are we taking individually? Are we asking questions and if so, then how do we select which ones on this list? Thank you for raising that. Nor I normally do this right before we step in the interview to make sure you're prepared. So, I hadn't thought about that. It's a long day of interviews and so my my

222recommendation to you is typically the the chair kind of welcomes the candidate. Um, you know, they'll they'll make their opening, maybe ask the first question or make their comments and then from there I encourage you just to go down down and back across the list because otherwise you're sitting there listening to the same person asking all these questions all day long. Um, so it's up to you if you just want to take them in order or if you all have a personal preference about a particular question. Most of the time what I normally do is advise the candidate. We've got, hey, we've got 15 standard questions. There may be some one-offs that take place. And you also may have some questions about their PowerPoint presentation or or about their their first year game plan that

223might, you know, might be different in one candidate from another candidate. And I want to make sure that's why we give you this 90minute to give you some flexibility because there's there's a likelihood that you may want to probe down a path with a given qu a given candidate that's different than a different than a different candidate. Um but my recommendation is you split those up and you just go up and down the up and down the day. That's what we're going to do right now, right? Aren't we going to decide today who's going to ask which questions? Isn't that isn't that part of exercise? I think it might be a challenge just because they have two board members out. I mean I could roll call it and go down the list. Um, I don't

224know if you all have a preference. Why don't we just do the 14? Yeah, there's two each. One would be Travis and then two, three, four, five, six, seven, and then go. My only reason for bringing that up is I think it's important that the each board member ask the same question to the candidate so that you're not starting each time. Yeah. Yeah. Same same order. Same order. And just And I mean, unless Doug, you feel differently. them. I'll have them. I'm I'm not as concerned about that. I appreciate that that may be a factor. My concern is that if you got let's 16 questions, they're going to be numbered. Um don't overthink it. You know, unless someone's feel really feeling passionate about a particular question, regardless of who ask it, you're going to get

225the answer from the canlet. So, I just say don't overthink it. And if you're comfortable, just work yourself up and down the DAS. That's how most of my clients do it. Yeah. And I I mean, I agree with Miss Fields. I think we can just roll call by number and go down the list of questions. Mhm. Okay. Okay. Uh, good. Well, then I um I have what I think I need. Um, so just to recap, you're going to get a briefing book for me. Uh, a link to a briefing book that will have cover letters, questionnaires, cover letters, resumes, questionnaire responses, firstear game plans, which you've not seen yet. Um, and then the list of prioritized questions. Um, then I'm also going to include I'll reactivate the links to the video interviews in case anybody

226wants to do that. That'll all come to you um in an email. I think that's due to you this Friday as I recall under my schedule. I don't have the schedule right in front of me, but I think it's Friday. Um, and then we will I'll update this. It will include the master schedule which will be updated based on our previous conversations as well. I will physically be on site um during the two-day process. So, I'll play air traffic controller normally as you're doing the one-on- ones between myself and and Caroline or other staff members. We normally just kind of walk around and knock on a door and say kind of five when I knock it's about a five minute window so that you know what that looks like. This is a lot of musical

227chairs on day one and if somebody goes long it tends to push us off into areas. So, we just kind of just we'll work through that so that you can have your time to address that as well. Would you mind also when you give us materials providing us with a tally from today? Um, do you have that the uh the the revised questions? No, no, we we're going to have those, right? We have I I wrote down which ones, but I I'm just curious to go back and look because I guess for all intents and purposes, I not looking into the minds of other board members, but but saying, okay, well, this one was only asked once and then maybe to steer away from that in my personal. So, just you see what I'm saying?

228The tally of what we took today. These are the the lists we gave. Well, now I understand to kind of get the pulse. Yeah, absolutely. I I'll incorporate that in the material that I'll send to you in that email so that you have all that together and then you can figure out if maybe that steers you in your one-on-one questions as well. Absolutely. Okay. Very good. So, from a communication standpoint, when he sends that message to me, I'll make sure that Miss Avet then sends it to the board and then I'll reinforce that with superintendent. We'll just let you know that you've just received a message from Miss Avet. So, we try to get that to you in a timely fashion so you're aware of that sitting in your inbox. And so just so you're

229clear, uh, based on Mr. Keys's question, what I'll do is I I'm I will I'll list the questions that have been identified by at least one or more of you and just say question one, four, but I'm not going to list the ones that weren't weren't asked by anybody or weren't flagged by anybody. Does that make sense? Correct. Okay. I just want to make sure I'm delivering what you're asking for. Okay. All right. We're getting close question. Can I ask a question? Yes. Yes. Um, who prepared this document? I did. Okay. So then you're clear on what this document needs to look. I'll make those changes. Absolutely. Okay. Very good. And then who will prepare the actual agenda that if there is one that will be for the meeting uh both days? You will. Good.

230Okay. So what I would recommend just on that point since that's a piece that's out of my control and this is a public meeting and when you're reconvening in that effort, you normally just say these are estimated start times and finish times. schedules may adjust so that you don't feel like you've got to if you finish up early, you don't have to wait longer to start the certain interview at a certain date time. Uh if you put some language in there to recognize the fluid process of an interview, that that will prevent some delays potentially. Okay. But be to be clear, both meetings will start at 9:00, correct? And they will conclude when they do. Mhm. Um it's anticipated that the Tuesday session will conclude whenever the board members are done with their questions or

231it'll recess at 9:10. Um the second day, Wednesday, that will conclude, you know, estimated. I don't know that we need to get too much too deep into that particularly. Um but that's fine. You do whatever you think is appropriate from that standpoint. We have legally noticed the meetings. That's what I want to make sure that you've appropriate done. It's already been done and so we're good on that end. But are the 3M meeting, we should not start before 3 p.m. if we're having deliberations and going to take a vote of who to potentially look at. I mean, that's up to the board, but this is just a this has not been advertised, right? This is the meeting starts at 9 in the morning that on Wednesday, so the members of the public can be here,

232okay, for the this all going to occur. Well, it's all going to occur there um at the Jim Mile Center and so it will go along however I'm just concerned about making sure that there's an opportunity for the public to make public comment if they choose to do so before we go into that decision. So I would prefer we did advertise a time certain for when that if I can suggest what you do and this is what I was just getting at about the fluidity of an interview process. Some of these may take the full 90 minutes, some may not. And if you lock in a date certain time, you get stuck with maybe having a built-in delay. So, normally what many of my clients and public entities will do to say these are estimated

233times, but they will adjust based upon the start and finish times of the actual candidate interview so that you're not stuck. That's your prerogative. If you want to have a hard start time, that's certainly your call. But I've been where all of a sudden we finished up early and we're waiting for 30 minutes to to set into a session. And and I I just want to be clear, we may be talking about some different things here. There is this there is no required advertised public hearing like for policies like we're going to have a public hearing at 6:00 or as soon thereafter as possible. We have noticed the meetings in accordance with the requirements of the sunshine law. They will commence the time, place, date, etc. The agendas that will be prepared will be similar

234to the agendas that accompany your meetings and they will be special. This is a special meeting so you can vote. Um the board chair knows and we've discussed the fact that before you entertain any uh action you'll solicit comments from those members of the public who are there. Um the process you utilize is they fill out cards and so that same process I believe will be utilized. You'll tell members of the public if you wish to speak uh on this item. This is the only item on the agenda potentially. um they should be given an opportunity and then the board chair will have those cards and you would just then call on them at the appropriate time. Um I think so that's one thing. Then there's also discussion I've had with the superintendent where he's

235coming up with a communications piece for the public that is not in the nature of a legal ad or a legal notice but it's more in the nature of just advising the public. By the way, Tuesday there will be one-on-one sessions with the board members. So, you will not be participating. You know that you're not going to participate in that. On Wednesday, the communication piece could be that the board will entertain public comment later in the day um you know after the interviews have been conducted um to allow the public to participate or comment on you know their three minutes whatever you know they wish to say. So, I think that will be a communications piece that I understand the superintendent is working on with his communication staff. Correct. Well, part of that communications piece

236though when they sign up, they have to give us their card before 5:00 if they want to speak. Okay. We have a time certain of up until this time you can submit a card. So, that's my concern is that if we don't give them a I don't want people that that can't be there all day to not be able to speak because they can't be there at 9:00 a.m. to turn in their card. Does that make sense? Yeah. So, we've got to figure out a a process for that. Board chair, what do you think? What's what do you think is a good solution to that that issue? I I understand it now. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I think when we convene the meeting at 9:00 a.m. um we can make notice of that, but

237again, I can work with the superintendent to make sure the uh PR office would communicate that in some way. Yeah. And then the board chair can entertain comments if you choose to do so. Because again, this is special meeting. So there could be some degree of leeway. Um if there are members here that for whatever reason didn't turn a card in, you know, they could you could in your discretion indeed give that access. I think access is important. I I wouldn't get too bogged down on that. Um perhaps but give airing on the side of giving whoever's in here an opportunity to speak um to the extent they're here to do so. All right. other board members. I don't see any other comments. Two other points that I just wanted to highlight as well. The

238other piece that I've not spoken about yet, but you will receive as part of that email that I'll send to you. Uh there will be links to what are called our stage 2 media searches. This is where we've actually had our personnel that go back and look at all the different stuff that we can find on these candidates in the public domain. Um there'll be an access to link that and each one of those will have a separate report. Um I have not that works is underway. I haven't seen them myself, but many times in public officials, those can be rather lengthy. I don't encourage you to necessarily download those because what that will do, um, they may be several hundred pages long, and you may not want all that. Um, what I will tell

239you is that our team will flag anything that we would call a finding. And a finding is just something that might be more of of a concern as a public body. Uh, whether it's a a lawsuit or something they said or did or anything. I don't we don't you know we just kind of flag those so that you don't feel like you've got to go through 300 pages of newspaper reports or a post of information about topics and many of those will be covering the same topic but they have appeared. So I'm just giving you a heads up you may not not knowing how long these will be but many times they can be three four00 pages you don't necessarily feel compelled. Our staff has gone through them all they've circulated. They'll flag the ones

240that are findings of potential concern but it's certainly available for you to review. But before you hit print, just make sure you know how big of a file that may be. Otherwise, you may be carrying a box around that is unnecessary. Um, and the other piece is the reference checks. We're in the process. We'll be conducting those starting this week. Um, so we'll have that information available as well. So, all that will come to you um with that email that I'll be sending, including the additional information we talked about today. Excellent information. Uh, board members, if you have any other needs, you can send that out to event as well um at this point. So, thank you, Mr. Thomas. appreciate your time being here and just thanks to the candidates uh and all the time

241and effort that they've put in and we look forward to hanging out and maybe playing some board games um during our one-on ones or something, but no, we look forward to the time with you together. So, Mr. Thomas, thank you for your time. Look forward to seeing next week. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, board members, we are now uh moving down to your board comments. If you have any comments, this would now be your time to bring those forward. Mr. Sharpless, you're recognized. I just have to say this because I didn't go to sleep last night till a little late. Uh, congratulations to Poke County Public Schools and Barto High School alumnist Walter Clayton Jr. Uh, and the rest of the Florida Gators men basketball team for the national championship victory last night.

242We're proud of you, Walter. All right. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Sharpless. Miss Wyatt, you're recognized. But did anybody else cry when he said how he wanted to celebrate was go hug his mom? Oh my gosh. Um, yes. So, I just wanted to put a plug in for Junior Achievement. They have a new 3D coordinator, Craig Clevenger. Um, he's an alumni from Lake Region High School and is working with both Lake Region and Tener. They have some upcoming needs for both judges and coaches. Lisa and I have both um done judging and coaching previously and have joked, "Please don't make us judge." Because sometimes the kids cry because they're very passionate about their work. Um but both are great opportunities if you in your personal organizations or um in your friendships or just personally have

243some time to um support JA and their 3D program. They are um especially as we get to the end of the year and calendars are filling up looking for some community support um and I can make sure that that gets circulated um to the board with when those dates are. So, please feel free to share. All right. Thank you, Miss Wyatt. At this point, I don't see any other board member comments. And superintendent, welcome back. So, at this point, this meeting will now be adjourned.