001[Music] what's that good evening I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone in the audience um everyone's present tonight thanks for being here uh the board the superintendent and I we pleased that you're here um in essence we're here to celebrate achievement we're going to review some information tonight we're going to make some policy decisions related to the effective operation of the pole County school board so I would like to call the February 27th 2024 regular work or regular Schoolboard meeting to order now if we could all please rise I would like to ask Mrs Fields to give give our convocation and if you can remain standing after that for our Pledge of Allegiance we have come this far by faith leaning on you Lord trusting in your holy word and you have never
002failed us yet and father we thank you for this day we thank you for life we thank you for help and we thank you for strength we thank you Lord that we are vertical and not horizontal we just thank you you are so good father we pray that you would bless this board meeting and that you would bless those that are here to be celebrated we thank you for them we thank you for their work in the community we thank you for their families for everyone that's assembled here today we say thank you we say bless them Lord God bless their families we pray for our students weay we pray for our employees we pray pray for our board members and we pray for our community we just pray for everyone that's impacting anybody's life
003and father we just thank you again for your blessings and we want to be mindful Lord that no matter what decision we make tonight we hope and pray that they're going to be for the benefit of those that we serve and we're going to be mindful to give you all the honor you're going to get all the glory and you know you're going to get all the praise we ask all these things in your son's name we pray amen amen amen uh so at this time I would like to invite cler Rodriguez to lead us in the pledge of aliance my name is cler I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God in divis with liberty and justice for
004all all right so if you could all please have a seat and we have a special guest tonight we're gonna hear from Mr cler Rodriguez here and as we get going if it's possible could you introduce who you are and a little bit about yourself my name is cler I am n years old I am in third grade wow that's amazing so Mr cluster I I hear that you have some guests with you tonight if you can introduce your guest I am here with my mom Dad and brothers my teachers are Miss Hancock and Miss KK this is amazing [Applause] indeed that is amazing all right he's got a lot more to say to us tonight so this is awesome okay so tell us a little bit about your favorite subject my favorite things about
005school are PE working and learning new vocabulary on my iPad and going to kindergarten for whole group time wow wow um so there's something about technology too can you share your interest with us I use an iPad with touch chat to communicate wow and then some of your interest I like to play with my brothers talk on my communication device and eat Oreos whoa all right this is pretty amazing um okay so when you grow up what is it that you would like to do when I grow up I would like to teach kids how to use a head pointer to talk like I do wow this is amazing um so superintendent Hyde I know that uh you've you've planned something as a gift tonight and uh if you could maybe draw attention to that
006yes sir so I apparently owe it to clester I had the pleasure of meeting him his teachers there's a long story behind this because without this device this young man had been non-verbal for a very long time and as soon as we were able to provide him with this level of Technology his vocabulary just absolutely exploded and he has an amazing smile he beat me at arm wrestling and so I understand that he loves Oreos and so my concession after you beat me at arm wrestling is we have a nice gift for you someone has a bag and we're going to present that to you and you do have to share is that is far too many Oreos for one person to eat that's amazing I don't want to rematch I want rematch do it
007right now right [Laughter] now that is awesome wrestle this is great I want rematch arm wrestle arm wrestle Mr Hyde nice I I will come visit you in your classroom we can do it privately how about that but cler and his teachers too I I want to commend them because what they not only during my last visit there they they brought obviously this young man to our attention and what a fabulous experience in interaction I had with him and his classmates but as a result of their advocacy we're looking at additional opportunities for us to provide adaptive technology for our students um to make sure that it's current one of the problems you have with adaptive technology is once you procure it you know six months later there's a new device and a better device
008that allows them to actually speak faster and with eye recognition and other opportunities but they also brought to my attention this the the current condition or the non-existing condition of our adaptive PE equipment and so as a result of their advocacy we are installing uh a specialized playground on that campus for those students and so I just want to say thank you to all of you very nice so uh Mrs McLoud I want to recognize principal McLoud if you can just stand as well um appreciate your leadership on that campus as well and thanks for the parents and fam for being here tonight you all y KK thank you did you have anything else as token um cluster oh wow wow yes ma'am oh man that is awesome yeah thank you cler wow this is
009Fields goodbye [Laughter] great job thank you wow this is great can we give him a round of applause please wow hope you have a great rest of the year cluster all right so board members we're going to now move to the acceptance of the Schoolboard agenda uh the first item tonight obviously is to accept that um superintendent Hyde are there any revisions to the agenda as printed item K number two administrative and instructional Personnel actions there was an attachment that was updated item K4 District Staffing updates attachments were added item M4 Amendment Learning Resource Center for p County Incorporated ESC public item was added item P2 half cent sales tax oversight committee appoint T an item was added that concludes any revisions thank you superintendent all right thank you thank you thank you all right
010board members so at this time I'll entertain a motion to accept uh the agenda for February 27th 2024 with the noted revisions do I have a motion and a second so mov all right very good thank you so Miss Cunningham made the motion and Miss Wyatt seconded so the motion on the floor is to accept the February 27th 2024 school board agenda as printed all those in favor signify by saying I I I all those opposed and that motion carries uh next up we have new administrators superintendent Hyde would you lead us through that thank you Mr chair members of the board members of community and staff thank you for being here this evening first up we have Jessica magnamar director for Recruitment and teacher engagements being promoted to senior director of personnel hello just
011about a year ago I stood in this exact same spot and was super excited to be the director of Recruitment and teacher engagement and now I'm here today honored to be the senior director of personnel um I'm am super excited for the position I'm honored to have been chosen um I know it's a big job but I'm up for the challenge um I want to say thank you to each of you for having the confidence in me to be able to carry forth the the role of the job um and also to my folks in HR if it weren't for them I wouldn't be here I wouldn't have the confidence and the support that I'm going to need moving forward um and I'm just really excited to be in P County Public Schools and um
012to see what the future holds for us all right very good next up is neiles Caro principal at wiita Elementary is now being promoted to acting senior director for Esau good evening good evening first I'd like to thank our heavenly father because without him nothing in life is possible thank you Mom for giving me those experiences throughout my life then I'd like to thank the school board thank you all very much Mr Hyde Mr Green I appreciate you guys considering me for this position I would also like to thank my esil family who has greeted me with open arms and let me tell you that's always the hardest part of being a leader is being accepted by your team and that happened quite quickly so very excited that I have been support me then I
013want to thank all of those amazing leaders who have inspired me to be where I'm at today and I would like to name a few Miss strong Miss Townley Miss Nave Mr mcen and somebody else is here today Miss Julie Grace can you wave she's still here there you go thank you very much for inspiring me always to be the best that I can be I also want to thank my family I have my husband here if he can wave and Abraham for always supporting me through the good and the bad you know this is a tough job sometimes and he always accepts me with open arms and sometimes that's all you need is a big hug thank you papa and then I have my daughter who has the same passion for children that I
014have she is a first grade teacher at Willow Oak and hopefully one day She'll follow in her mama's footsteps my mom is also here she has she's been the one that's kind of set um this walk in life for me she's always said to reach for the stars and um because of her I'm here she has um I'm a first generation graduate and with that said it's been a struggle but if you look at life you know and just continue to persevere you succeed and people will find the the best in you and I think that's what H what's happened to me because I never expected to be here today but I am and I'm very grateful and very honored and with um I'd like to wrap it up by saying that I have an
015amazing team and we're looking forward to doing awesome things here in po County this year um and we're going to do it with a lot of passion a lot of love and we're going to do it for students so thank you very much for this opportunity and I promise we're going to work hard have a good day great pictures we want to bring your family down or anybody else that's with you as well if we could next up we have Douglas Harwell head of programs from Davenport High School is now being promoted to acting senior director for facilities and operations I just want to thank you for the opportunity I look forward to serving in this capacity uh for those who don't know I was a non-degree teacher I was hired back in 1995 is
016my 27th year in education uh in 2014 I finished my bachelor's degree uh thanks to my wife and her encouragement um but I uh have then pursued the administration uh position of that as over those years but over 27 years there's so many people I'd like to thank and I don't want to take the time to do that right now and I know you got a busy evening but uh I just want to thank you for the opportunity I promise to serve as best I can thanks Doug not with us this evening is Lauren Dukakis assistant principal at lofman Oaks Elementary being promoted to acting principal at Floral Avenue Elementary next is Mr Alfredo Gonzalez trst for esol services being promoted to assistant director for for Esau good evening everyone and thank you very much
017for this opportunity to continue serving our pop County and population appreciate it thank you thank you next is Shayla consent y school-based math coach at laughman Oaks Elementary being promoted to acting assistant principal at Laughlin Oaks Elementary good evening evening I stand before you today with a M gratitude I am truly honored and humbled to be presented as the acting assistant principal for law hman Oaks Elementary School this position has been a goal of mine for many years so it is it is not only an honor but also extremely fulfilling to me both personally and professionally I want to thank God and my two wonderful parents Wanda and Lewis for their continuous guidance support and encouragement I want to thank my husband Arby and our three children Jeremiah Abigail and Matthew for being my motivation
018in my professional journey and finally I would like to thank my phenomenal principal Sarah stoker for her unwar unaringa for being a kind committed principal who I am blessed and proud to work alongside thank you thank you congratulations [Applause] nice awesome so yeah well done congratulations the final administrator be recognized this evening is also not in attendance but we don't want to not recognize Mr Joseph Santiago administrative assistant at Ridge Community High School being promoted to acting assistant principal at Boon Middle School Mr chair that concludes administrative appointments great thank you superintendent um moving down we are now at the special recognitions item so superintendent would you actually lead us uh through our special recognitions yes sir at this time Mr Justin sharpless will step down for this evening special recognitions I'd also like to
019invite Dr Adrien Anthony senior director of equity and divver diversity to please come forward for the recognition of our Martin Luther King Jr essay contest winners triumphant Tuesday I am Dr Adrian Anthony senior director of equity and diversity management and I have coner Adams my senior analyst I would like to bring greetings to the superintendent the school board chair and to each and every school board member here for your hard work and dedication to the many citizens of Pop County and your commitment to transforming the lives of our most precious Treasures our students with that same Spirit of Excellence we would like toor honor this historical black history month and give homage to the many people who sacrificed their resources and lives for American Liberty given such a rich history we would like to honor
020our Poke County School District students who are here today who wrote lifechanging essays inspired by the legendary Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr this year's theme was building communities to transform unjust systems now the way we're going to run it is I'm going to name the third place second and first place winners and then we get to first place the first place winners are here we'll have our parents and principes and teachers come down to take a photo so let's get ready to rock and roll so our 23rd annual ESS challenge contest winners are in third place for elementary school grades K one and two in third place deore Jr first grader from Madela Elementary School and the principal's here too second place Alejandro pratz a second grader from Citrus Ridge Civics Academy and First
021Place Savannah Slama she's a first grader from Winston Academy of engineering come on down for all right thank you sir all right for elementary schools grade three for and five our third place winner is McKenzie Dean a fourth grader from the Dr Anie Roberts Elementary School our second place winner is Marissa fry a fourth grader from the Dr NY Roberts Elementary School and we'll bring it home our first place winner is Leanne Duval a fourth grader from the Dr inie Roberts Elementary School [Applause] and for Middle School sixth seventh and eighth grade in third place we have Karina Lopez Gomez an eighth grader from Dennison middle school and in second place we have Colin swabi at sixth grader from Discovery Academy of Lake Alfred and in first place we have Simi Odin seventh grader from
022Davenport School ofart hearts come on [Applause] S now for high school thank you now for high school in third place we have darari Curry a senior at poke State Lakeland Gateway and in second place we have Alana kums a freshman at poke pre-collegiate Academy and in first place we have Jaden chinson a junior from Davenport high school and I will be in that area uh next week so I will take it to them Unfortunately they can't make it so thank you a round of applause for everyone and moreover I would like to say thank you to all of the PO County employees who support supported all the events from Martin Luther King parades to all the Black History Month events uh we truly appreciate your service and volunteering and also to the leadership that's here
023and those that are online we want to say thank you for your tenacity every day keeping the dream alive thank you so much next I'd like to invite Miss Susan copelan executive director for the pulk Education Foundation to please come forward to present the scholarship donor recognition evening school board members superintendent get to do one of my favorite things this evening I get to invite or introduce a new stakeholder uh Sun Coast Credit Union and the Sun Coast Foundation have been part of PT County public schools for many years now they have a relatively new executive director and Courtney Barry is here with me this evening a year now it's been two little over a year and um I remember when sunos came into PT County and they jumped right in they had a meeting
024with us and they said what can we do to help and just about anything we've asked for they have done they've been huge supporters excuse me of our free teacher Market um you will often see pictures on social media of the bright orange bags that teachers use to take everything they need for free home from our Market they've been a support qu of our americ or pul reads reading tutoring program helping struggling kindergarten first second third grade readers become better readers and then have become very actively involved in our grants program so providing funding to schools to do various things and one of the really neat things that they have done over the past few years is provide book vending machines I'm sure you've seen them when you've been out and students love those as
025incentives but what we quickly found was when you ran out of the books you had no more incentives so Sun Coast really has been generous thank you has been very generous in providing funds so that they can keep those vending machines stopped so that they are U making the positive impact that they need to they've also funded this year learning opportunities for students at 31 of our schools through the orchestra music library after school tutoring Bridging the Gap for the lowest cortile in reading and math at jwi School for the Arts they provided funding to replace multiple iMac computers for a television production class to certify students earning industry certifications and funding this year also was used to update appliances related to idur transition class working on Independent Living skills at Lakeland High School so
026during the past few years support like this has totaled just over 172,000 $172,000 additionally they provide two scholarships each years to seniors graduating from P County public high schools so about in the LA last eight years alone they've done over $200,000 of support so I not only wanted to thank them here in front of you this evening but introduce you to Courtney Barry because she's going to be a very good friend to us in P County for a long time we hope so thank you very much thank you Susan and thank you all here in po County schools for welcoming sunos C un into the area as the executive director of the foundation um sunos and all we do we are just we love the community it's a part of our DNA we Empower our
027employees out in the community to volunteer uh we don't don't just donate our funds but we donate our time to the initiatives that you all have in the community and since our foundation was incepted in 1990 we've donated more than $44 million to educational initiative so we are proud to be here and to support you all our Educators and our students for all you do in the community so thank you for having us again we appreciate you at this time I'd like to invite Rob Davis assistant superintendent for Support Services I have one more I have one more good sorry all right uh Nancy dods coming forward and again one of my favorite things to do introducing another partner and Duke Energy and Nancy is their government and community relations manager and has been in
028P County for a very long time which is one of the fun things about working with Nancy because she is local she probably takes a more vested interest in visiting and participating in the work that Duke Energy does within P County Public Schools they've been doing work specifically on the east side of P County since 2006 and this year their grant funding focused on energy or engineering and it benefited four through 12th grade students 14 Schools received grants ranging in amounts from $1,100 to $3,000 Duke Energy projects were diverse in many ways they've students have been studying fabrication of prosthetic hand designing and building underwater rovs ecological systems and biodiversity using drones for mapping renewable energy and more as part of the grant funding schools were also able to participate in engineering focused professional development
029an additional group of 13 teachers came and had training and then they participated in engineering submersibles um training that they took back with the kits to their classrooms so students got to do things like Engineering Process aesthetic Tails rockets and Rovers as well as designing alarm and solar ovens pretty cool stuff Duke enery generously donated $45,000 this school year to make these grants possible then gave an additional $100,000 to mlin middle school so Duke Energy has invested over $725,000 in P County Education since the early 80s excuse me 2000s so again I'd love to thank Duke in energ to thank Nancy and everything that do for they do for our community and for our students we appreciate you very very much and we have a certificate for you as well do you want to say
030anything I'm sorry I cut you off there I just want to say I'm poke proud okay sometimes I'm pul sometimes I'm Pope so um I'm very proud of both and um I just want to say thank you to Susan she is amazing she is the best Steward of our money and she's creative and she does so much for the county and I just want to say thank you you're wonderful we're good okay Mr Rob David assistant superintendent support services please come forward for recognition of love the bus month love the bus it's very bright up here why aren't you working for me there we go it is I'm dangerous especially when it comes to computers so I want to thank you for this opportunity uh to the honorable um board members um our superintendent Mr
031Hyde our general counsel Mr Bridges and our wonderful um Miss Elizabeth and Miss Wendy make everything happen behind the scenes we know what happens we know who does the work so love the bus month is a um opportunity for uh for us to basically recognize the professionals um that dedicate their their life to the safety of of transporting students students to and from um their home so recognition goes a long ways we have Schools students School administrators District administrators superintendents and um school board members by allowing us to do this to recognize those um individuals that that uh make a difference for the close to 50,000 students that we transport on a day-to-day basis not including the field trips the athletic events and numerous other things um just some just some facts and figures for
032po County if we were fully staffed which we will get there soon after uh this board meeting with the raise in starting wages we would have 15 uh 510 buses transporting about 50,000 students to 12 one different schools School sites we have 2,700 bus routes um and 9,200 bus stops we drive approximately 53,000 miles a day um and that's an annual mileage of around 9.6 million that equates to driving around the equator more than two times so there are many hands behind the scene uh and we are all in this together today we have have a few of those hands that are behind the scenes and some of those that are out with the students on the day-to-day basis that we'll introduce shortly so this is where it starts our training department our training and
033recruiting department they're out there knocking on doors going to job fairs going to festivals they're they're out there doing the work um it starts with our leader uh Crystal Robinson who's our train training specialist she um she has a wonderful group of drivers that are all uh trained to evaluate drivers that are are new um and go through a rigorous process um to make sure that before we put them behind the wheel of a school bus they are ready to roll um and Hershel pipkins who is our recruiting specialist uh bringing drivers in and Word of Mouth from any of about anyone in this group if if we have if you have someone that drives a church bus anything we want to we want to talk with them because I said one time if they
034could fog a mirror but I don't mean that um but really truly it is a rewarding job and you'll hear some of that later um so our transportation management team area managers and our routing technicians uh these are some pictures of of them they do a tremendous job day in day out they're taking phone calls from schools parents public um you name it they're also making sure that they're putting the students on the right bus stops um and so on and so forth the routing technicians are in the middle of what we call FTE or uh ffp and they are verifying 50,000 records to make sure that we balance and when we balance we get the full amount of funding that we can get um as a district our dispatchers they are smiling when they
035start their day um we have three dispatchers at one time we had one and they were monitoring seven bands um we added two and then they were monitering nine bands and so we eventually got to three dispatchers who are managing three bands not only are they managing three bands they're also managing telephone uh calls that are coming in um um they start their day by 5:30 a.m. and they end their day after 6:30 p.m. they have a break in between and they're smiling when they come in I gotta go back one oh where did my picture go and they're smiling when they leave we'll put it that way um so here's our division support fuel station attendance couriers um headed by our director Scott Reeves uh his assistant Sheila uh Keith and um the senior
036analyst um Amanda Gregory our fuel station attendants and our Courier Services who make things happen bringing in fuel we're spending we we consume about 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel a day which is mindboggling so these uh gentlemen are out taking those fuel fuel loads in and our and our couriers are doing internal mail external mail anything that you can think of putting in Courier their trans their transporting getting it to the right spot our service centers we have three this is our Barto service center is called the uh John I'm sorry yeah John Sunny pal transportation service center um he was a he was a longtime Transportation professional in the school district and was my mentor's mentor uh who was Fred Murphy um this is our service center to what we commonly call it as
037our tenor rock shop it's right close to tener Rock High School and then this is our service center three which is uh called the Dwayne D Wilson service center and it's located off Mary Campbell uh Sergeant Mary Campbell Way in Lake Wells and these technicians are certified to do doe inspections and make sure that this is the safest means of transportation on um on the ground um it is the school bus is the safest means of ground transportation there is our vehicle services management team headed by Don Stevenson our director he's also a um our district liaison for for the sidewalk in the lighting committee um and our four safety Specialists that do anywhere anything from um looking at loading zones with school administrators how to uh for bus loading zones uh car loading zones
038to working accidents um and everything in between if it hazardous walking they they do it all and they're on call when a bus is on the road we have have buses on the road all hours they're on call if some incident happens or there is an accident uh they go out to it so our Support Services admin team I have to say shaa Lastinger um is amazing she's uh my administrative assistant and uh she's amazing um Mrs Alejandra uh is our receptionist she's filing phone calls in like crazy and the one and Mrs Angela Goddard who is our Network coordinator has really brought brought a um a balance to our our our team with uh technology that we we needed and works very closely with Miss Basco and her team so now let's get to
039Our Stars thing can get tricky goes a lot slower um so here are Our Stars these are our bus drivers bus attendants are some of our bus drivers and bus attendants uh some of our area managers some of our office staff here are our heroes the ones that we are transporting to from school day in day out again look at them they're smiling actually smiling and that's in the morning that's awesome when you have them smiling in the morning we're doing something good again more of our bus drivers and bus attendants and so this is a a great picture to end you know we are on the road before the sun rises and we're off the road after the sun sets um and I'm a and I'm a I'm honored to be able to come
040up here and privileged to be able to um recognize these professionals and thank you for your time I'd like to introduce um the staff members that are here I'd like to introduce NY o uh olens Miss ncy if you'll stand up she's a bus attendant in area 9ine she's been she's been our U with our district for 17 years over 17 years um when asked you know what she loves about her position she said without hesitation the love of the students and the appreciation she feels from them she teaches them manners respect and is very protective over them uh she loves the students as if they were WR uh our Parks clerk Michael Bennett Michael Bennett has been with the school district for 16 years he's one of six Parks clerks who make sure we
041have all of our all of the items that we need um to make sure that the buses are rolling and the support Fleet are rolling um and not sitting um Michael makes sure that he keeps the inventory well stocked Michael enjoys uh his time off the uh school holidays and Grilling out with his family and friends and then Tim our fuel EST station uh attendant Tim uh Baston Bon yeah Bon Tim Tim has been a 30-year um educator he's started in michig Michigan uh spent a lot of time in Georgia was an AP in Georgia if I recall District district leval director um in Georgia and he is now one of our uh service station attendants um he moved to Florida and is continuing to give back to students so we appreciate him very much
042all right unfortunately the vehicle services technician that I was going to recognize um was unable to be here tonight his name was Jeff Green he's been a school district employee for over 32 years this is his last week with us um he is going on to uh to a new chapter in his life he has done um amazing things in our in our um our Auto Body Shop um bus Body Shop painting he's a tremendous painter um and we're he's going to have some we're going to have some tough shoes to fill when when uh Jeff is gone and last but not least bus driver Mrs Shirley Welling Mr Shirley Welling has been with the district as a bus driver for 50 years she started on May 16th um she first began to driver her
043uh so that she could be she could have the same schedule as her two boys she said the money wasn't great but the benefits were um so to supplement her income she opened up an poery shop um and through the years she has seen a lot of changes I can only imagine the changes that you've seen over the years uh she is one of those well I won't say that because we're not there yet um she's working with us on a pilot so I'll say that um she loves working with students um and and after several years they come up and they remember her because she has made an impact on their lives and I'd like to give M Shirley an opportunity to come up and and address the the board if she'd like to
044say any words well there's not much to say this 50 years have really gone my quickly uh I do enjoy my children they're mine I look after them I say they're my children um I have students of mine that I've transported U that come up and they'll say um Do You Remember Me Do you know how many students I've transported over the years and he wasn't a troublemaker there's the first ones that uh you remember or the troublemakers you remember their names and everything like that but it's been very rewarding to me i' would like to thank the school board and all my co-workers for their support and we work well together and um I just it's been a a blessing to me with the children and co-workers and everything and I do appreciate and
045thank God that I am able to serve these children because I do uh drive for Karen seagull which has students like the young man that was here and they can teach him to do things that we don't even think about that we take for granted they these teachers and parents and these Special Needs schools they they have a very blessed job but it's difficult it's very difficult and to work with them and you have children of your own that are um they're they're fine and then you you appreciate your own children more when you work with these children I'd also like to thank my family for supporting me um I was able to stay with my young kids now I have great grands so that are driving riding the buses so but uh i' like
046to thank my family and my husband for supporting me and um I'm 15 counting I have no intentions of retiring um [Applause] so so we're going to get some pictures real quick but one thing that each of you should have received this is uh something that we gave all of our bus drivers bus attendants and support staff it says You Light Up Our Lives um if it doesn't work it is under warranty so just get it back to me um and uh Happy love the bus month so we' like to get a picture with Miss Shirley by herself right is that way it was and then um and then join her husband can join her and then we'll bring the whole team okay does that sound good so you follow his directions and while they're
047taking pictures I just wanted to say Rob indicated in the beginning go ahead of the presentation um that all the kids are smiling the reason they're smiling is because of of folks like her and our other bus drivers that are the first faces the first people that they see getting on the bus in the morning on their way to school and the last person they see at the end of the day so we are truly blessed and thank you so much bus drivers for all that you do you're amazing people and we love you and appreciate you thank you thank you all we had area managers that came out to support their staff and thank you again for this time to recognize the uh love the bus month thank you all appreciate thank you Mr
048Davis and our last presenter tonight good luck Jessica after that yeah is Miss Jessica Anderson our assistant director for Career Technical education she's coming forward to recognize and honor Agra Fest I was there yesterday good evening I am here to thank both the board and the superintendent for uh supporting Agra Fest this is our year 35 of Agra Fest year 35 years in a row Agra Fest is our um Elementary Outreach we work work with University of Florida IUS extension office in Barto as well as P County Farm Bureau to put this event together with also our Community Partners where we can bring in fourth grade students and educate them about the Commodities and the agricultural industry that are in P County we work with the Florida Forest Service um our local Citrus Growers Mosaic
049comes in and teaches about phosphate um and small farms beef cattle they have six rotations total so we're really excited to have the support of the board and the superintendent to continue this um it's been a long this is day two of agarist it's been a long couple of days but so far after two days we've had 1,129 fourth graders come through Agra Fest and by March 8th next Friday we will have seen over 5,000 fourth graders to at this event so it's 235 classes of students that will come through um and we do offer it as well next Friday we have a private Charter and hes school day to support all types of learning in P County and teach them about agricultural education so just wanted to thank you for your support um switching
050over to my PT County Farm Bureau hat PT County Farm Bureau wanted to thank you from the board as well and so they provided some strawberries and some information about the location and dates in case you want to come and visit so we invite you to come and check out the rotations um we have about 25 5 to 30 bus loads of children that show up every morning at about 9:30 9:45 and then we get them through the three rotations and they're gone by noon so they can get back to school for lunch but if you have some time in the next two weeks we'd love to have you down and check it out so thank you again for your support and we look forward to seeing you so before you try and run off
051yes so you know Jessica and Miss Anderson deserves a lot of credit um she has single-handedly worked with the state of Florida to create an agriculture curriculum at the elementary school level as you know willow oak is our pilot program where they have a greenhouse now but we're expanding that into other schools in fact she can't go anywhere on an elementary campus without a principal chasing her saying we want a on our campus Because it's a great opportunity our children need to learn where their food comes from but they also need to learn and there's a lot of valuable life lessons when children interact with small animals and learn to be responsible learn how to care learn empathy those types of things and so there's a lot of power behind this but Jessica is also
052responsible we had a we had an idea a crazy idea number of years ago um for a property that we own down in Homeland and we now call it the Homeland agriculture project the board's been well aware of this we received State funding to assist us with retrofitting and renovating that site so that we can run field trips throughout the year it is incredibly important as important as it is for us to teach literacy and numeracy and the other skills it's just as important for us to make sure that the children growing up here in PP County also maintain a connection to the history and the Legacy and the future of agroscience and agriculture here in P County and and so for us we're very excited we're excited that the legislature saw value in that
053program and provided the funding for us to renovate the facility um and we are currently underway there's an item before you this evening later on tonight but I wanted to give Jessica a lot of credit because she works incredibly hard to support this process in our school district from from prek to 12th grade and you can't go anywhere and meet her because she's at you know we just finished up the P County Fair where all of our students showed their animals and then on the heels of that she has Agri the the current agriculture um Expo over the next two weeks and then immediately after that she has another event and yet she shows up every day with the same smile on her face she's absolutely amazing she's infectious she has a passion for this
054and because of her and because of people like her she's able to instill that passion in our teachers and our students and that Legacy will be something that she leaves behind that she will be remembered for years to come she has a long time left with us but I just wanted to give Jessica a lot of credit because she is absolutely amazing and we're very fortunate to have her here in P County leading this Initiative for us so thank you Jessica thank you very [Applause] much oh oh yeah well you can take you can take one with just her and then take one with the kids we've got extra film it's digital got to go to the One Hour film that's awesome thank you that concludes special recognitions this evening all right thank you superintendent
055Hyde uh just a quick note thank you to everyone who uh stopped in tonight to take part and uh join us so this is a good time if uh you're not taking part in the rest of the meeting if you want to transition uh now would be a good time to do that if not we will move on to our next item on the agenda which is public comments on agenda items so before we begin that I would like to welcome the public and then go over our public comment process and opportunities for this evening uh basically you'll have three opportunities for public comment the first will be for items on this evening's agenda to be voted upon um as always during this time comments will be limited to those items on the agenda and
056then secondly we do have a public hearing tonight as well so you can then um bring your comments forward in regards to those public hearing topics and then lastly at the end of the meeting we'll have an additional opportunity for public comment on those items that are not on this evening's agenda so to register to speak as always community members you must fill out that speaker card in the lobby prior to the meeting all speakers will be given three minutes of time the light will then turn yellow when you you have one minute left and you'll hear the beep when your time is concluded uh all comments should be directed uh to myself as the board chair as a reminder public comments are an opportunity for us to hear your thoughts and we're here to
057listen and this is not a question and answer time tonight however if you are seeking additional information uh I encourage you to contact us we'll definitely um try to get back to you as quickly as we can or the superintendent's office outside of board meetings we'll be happy to have those deeper conversations as well so um the first person that I would like to call up is Glenda white and if you can come forward you'll have three minutes to speak and then on Deck we have Bobby Dez so if you can start with your name uh and address before you speak for the record and we'll appreciate that Happy Children's week Pok School Board I'm Glen dewight of Winter Haven um I want to discuss um consent agenda H subject one the purchase of the
058tutoring software um I see that taxpayers are purchasing another tutoring program for K grades K5 um first I would I'd like to know how many tutoring programs there are in place at this time for K5 students I'd also like to find out how much the school board is spending in total for these programs and how many kids are participating and what is the cost per child so I hope to seek that information out pretty quick um another question question that I would really like to know about is how are we measuring the effectiveness of the programs um I would request from the board that upon acceptance of this latest tutoring program that the public could receive possibly by attachment um at the first board meeting following the required report to the source of the Grant
059in Tallahassee um something that we can look at how are the kids doing on this program um is this something we want to spend money on for the next year if it's not reaching hopefully a goal that we've set so I'm asking the board to please account for the multiple millions that we're spending for these programs um because we don't know if they're really helping our kids or not but we are putting a lot of money into this um second I'd like to address consent agenda o subject one the purchase of the books um I believe we had another recent large purchase of books in December um I feel like the board has shown that it can't be trusted um as long as illegal and pornographic books are kept in school libraries I believe this
060school board and the super intendent condone their presence and they violate Florida law and they don't fail to inform or they don't inform parents that the books are in po schools so I'm asking the board to please adopt an an opin policy for all books if there is something questionable in a book please let parents out of the dark let them know that these books that may be questionable or illegal are in their school library and give them the chance to um even if they knowingly cons if they are okay with their kids let them knowingly consent it's wrong to keep them in the dark thank you thank you thank you Miss White Mr de you are up and then on Deck we have Jim tacket good evening my name is Bobby de I live
061in winterham Florida and I want to discuss consent agenda o subject one book purchases I'm sad and disappointed to say that our school board has created an atmosphere of dis distrust between themselves and a public that loves and cares for the children of Po County I'm concerned that the book purchases that the school board will surely approve need review by the public it is clear that this school board and left leaning review committees choose to keep books on school library shelves that are not only offensive but harmful to kids not to mention they break Florida law the book red hood for instance which contains a pornographic description of a sexual encounter between a female and a male is currently in the following high schools Davenport hide District 2 Lori Cunningham alendale High District seven Lisa
062Miller Barto High District three Rick NY Frost Booth High District Six Justin sharpas George Jenkins High District three Rick niy a city high District Two Lori Cunningham Lake Gibson District Seven Lisa Miller Lake Region District Six Justin sharpless rid Community High District Two Lor Cunningham tenar Rock High District s Lisa Miller and lastly Winter Haven High District Four Sarah Beth Reynolds thank you for your time thank you sir we have Mr tacket next and then on Deck we have Dolly uh depagter yeah hi good evening yeah my name is Jim taget I'm a pop County resident taxpayer and voter and I'm here to speak on consent agenda o subject one and I'd kind of like to congratulate you all except for I'm leaving Mr ndi and Mr sharpless out of this congratulations because they haven't
063really been here this long it's more for the rest of Y all uh including superintendent Hyde okay you're very close to achieving the distinction of making pop County School schools the worst in the State of Florida there are probably several reasons for it and one is these books uh spending this time and energy and money on these books for example there's uh Jack of hars and other parts which is in Davenport High School tricks which is in Lake Region High School all boys aren't blue which is in hanne City Davenport Kathleen and tenar rock all of these books contain graphic descriptions of homosexual encounters so my question to yall is what do books such as these contribute to the education of our school children it seems to me the money and the time and the
064effort would be better spent elsewhere educating the children okay like Miss Jessica was just here with the agricultural program good place to spend some money uh maybe uh teaching the kids math science you know how to write penmanship things like that uh the uh so anyway you seem to have a mission to getting these books in in out in front of the children and and like I said what what and what purpose it serves uh we just had black history month and they had the children here with their essays for Dr King it's a good thing but I'm wondering how many classes were there on Frederick Douglas bass Reeves Cole and PAW Dr Ben Carson or Clarence Thomas every one of these men came from very humble backgrounds and they Rose to a high level
065of success through their own work effort you know there's no the Frederick Douglas and bass Reeves were born slaves Frederick Douglas escaped twice he was caught once he became advisers to multiple presidents okay uh Dr Ben Carson grew up in the hood he became a world renowned pediatric neurosurgeon you know chew on that that's little children's brains he operated on them he was one of the best in the world okay why not teach the children about that okay what they can achieve with just with their own hard work and their initiative and anyway that's all I got thank you thank you Mr taget Miss dector you're up hello school board members um thank you for allowing me to speak tonight about the book um purchases my name is Dolly dector and since 1999 I have
066been a sales rep and educational consultant for various book companies in other words for 25 years I have sold books to schools libraries and colleges in Florida and Beyond it is my experience that pocon has the most comprehensive book approval process in the state it is multi-layered expansive and quite frankly redundant and time consuming in my opinion it a waste it's a waste of time and resources a waste ex excuse me a waste not because a well vetted book is a waste of time but because the book book lists originate with a qualified educated and well-trained Florida certified media Specialists that alone should be enough but since po county has the multi-layered approval process in place which includes that qualified educated and well trained media Specialists compiling a list using professional reviews industry leveling standards
067and publisher recommendations then a school bus a school-based committee with community members approve the list then the principal approves the list then the district media uh Media Services manager approves the list then you guys the school board approves the list then there's a 30-day cool off period when the public can view and object to anything on the list wow that's a multi-layered and intensive well vetted book list then if a parent objects to any of those well well vetted books they can still opt out of their child reading the book so when you listen to these book challenges challenges today and in future board meetings please remember these books are the most vetted books in the State of Florida that these objections are coming from community members who want their opinion to overrule all the
068layers of professionals and other community members if po Count's mission really is to provide a high quality education for all students it needs to provide books that one appeal to all students two have some books each student can relate to and identify with three expose children to different cultures opinions and P perspectives of the world around them and when you allow children to read a variety of authors genres subjects opinions cultures Styles and perspectives they learn to think critically they learn to evaluate and synthesize all their information to make informed opinions be and become wise citizens so the book list before you thank you so much for being here all right board members that concludes our public comment on agenda items uh now we need to move down uh the list here to approve three
069sets of minutes so you can see the first set of minutes is from the January 23rd 2024 Schoolboard meeting and then the chair will now entertain a motion to accept the January 23rd Schoolboard meeting minutes as written so moved second all right so Miss Cunningham made the motion and Miss Wyatt second it is there any discussion around this all right I'd like to call for a vote those in favor signify by saying I I those opposed that motion carries now the second set amends is for the January 23rd 2024 work session meeting the chair will now entertain a motion to accept those meetings for January 23rd the work session meeting minutes as written do I have a motion and a second moved all right Miss Wyatt made the motion I'm looking for a second and
070Mr sharpless second it any discussion seeing none I will call for a vote those in favor signify by saying I I right those opposed and that motion carries the third set amendment is for the February 13th 20124 work session meeting and the chair now will entertain a motion to accept that February 13th work session meeting minutes as written do I have a motion move and a second second all right Miss Miller made the motion Miss Wyatt made the second any discussion very good seeing none I will call for a vote those in favor signify by saying I I and those opposed and the motion carries okay now we're moving down to our consent agenda and basically the approval of today's cons consent agenda agenda the chair will entertain a motion to accept the February 27th
0712024 consent agenda as printed do I have a motion second and a second so we've got Miss fields that made the motion and Miss Wyatt second it any discussion on our consent agenda very good seeing none I will now call for a vote those in favor Mr chair I apologize earlier today I was asked to have staff here um and since it did come up during public participation um our chief academic officer is also here um he'll come down and address and basically provide you with a summary of what the science of reading literacy and tutoring is the sort program so if you'll pleaseed perfect he or Miss McKenzie please looks like they'll both come good evening good evening good evening um the science of reading and literacy tutoring Grant was a grant that we
072applied for we are amending this on Thursday have an appointment with Federal programs and one of the stipulations of this grant is that curriculum resources and materials necessary to implement explicit and systematic instructional strategies is one of the criteria for what we can use it for so we're working to amend it with the state to be able to better support the interventions that are currently in place in reading for students K five the what we're using the money for for the sore great I'm sorry you go but I feel like I'm leaning over too much for this uh for the sort Grant is not uh like a duplication of through the Varsity Tutors which was approved earlier on this year uh this is to be used for um the intervention within the classrooms we're talking
073about corrective reading reading Mastery and several others that are already in place and then currently being expanded across the School District so again this is not additional layers being added so I appreciate the opportunity to provide that clarification all right very good thank you superintendent any any other questions board members on this while your staff is here our staff all right thank you all so much all right so we do have a motion and second on the floor at this point uh no further discussion as I see in the speakers list I'd like to call for a votee now at this point those in favor favor signify by saying I I I I those opposed and the motion carries all right next we come to our action agenda for this evening and our first item
074on the agenda is P1 which is renaming Sleepy Hill Middle library in honor of an henston as presented during our February 13th work session miss Fields would you like to make a motion on this I would like to make a motion but before I do I would like to read a little bit about Miss Miss tanken um I'm very excited about the opportunity to present to the board uh approval of the naming of the media center in in honor of Miss Anne tankson and to your agenda you have a request from principal Miss D Clark wanting to name the media center in honor of Mrs tanken and this was presented to the sa committee it was a unanimous decision so uh everyone on campus uh they're in agreement with this and um today it's almost
075like a reunion day I see a lot of familiar faces in the audience I see our former superintendent Sherry nickel uh I see Miss Anna De cessary I think Miss Charlene I see Miss Grace I see so many people uh and some I can't see because you're very much hidden but we are so happy that you're here today to miss oh Miss Barnes now I can see you Miss Pat Barnes um we're so happy that you guys are here to celebrate Miss Anne miss an tankson what can we say about you uh Mrs tankson has had a St career while with our school district she has accomplished many things and just want to name a few one of the things that we talked about when we were in work session was that because of Mrs
076tst's vast wealth of knowledge she served as the stable force that directly assisted four superintendents in their transitions that would be Dr Gail McKenzie the late Dr Gail McKenzie uh to Dr Sher nickel who's in the audience today Dr Sher nck to Dr John Stewart Dr John Stewart to Katherine Leroy and Mrs Katherine Leroy to Mrs Jacqueline bird and superintendent H said he felt a little bit uh slighted Miss tanks him because you weren't here when he came okay all right y'all work that out um and then uh from there she served as the associate superintendent school based operations and she was the Weirs with the class Amendment any issues we all know to go to miss an and she could work it out for our good uh she was respected by the by the
077state she was very much involved with the reading plan for the State of Florida and Senior coordinated reading first program principal assistant principal guidance counselor teacher you name it and Miss tanken can claim it and after retirement Miss tanken was approached and agreed to return to the district to serve as a consultant supporting in schools at the elementary middle and high school levels for several years and they kept saying please come back Miss tankson please come back and Miss tsen finally said I'm G to go home and sit on the porch and I guess that's what she's been doing with her husband Mr John so miss hon words cannot express the mag magnitude of thankfulness for your service to our school district what you have done to help mold and shape our students and our
078staff and our families and um uh we're just so thankful for you and Mr John we thank you for allowing her to put in all the extra time and the energy uh then I know sometimes you probably wanted to say uh po County Public Schools go somewhere but you didn't at least we didn't hear it anyway so uh at this point in time I would like to make a motion that we approve the naming of the sleeper Hill Middle School to the an tanken uh media I don't know why I'm saying Middle School uh to the an tanks and media center that is great news thank you Miss Fields very much so we have a motion on the floor could I get a second on that as well all right so miss Wyatt has seconded
079that any other discussion board members really appreciate that presentation Miss Fields thank you for giving that context all right so I'd like to call a vote for this on board members we'll call a vote here and those in favor signify by saying I I I those opposed and that motion carries [Applause] congratulations oh my thank you Miss Fields uh school board members superintendent hayatt uh and principal Clark and everyone else who played a role in this special honor for me I thank you those of you who know me know that I never ever expected to be rewarded rewarded for my work nor my services because I really consider myself a servant leader and that's what servant leaders do they serve so I tell you this was surprise to me uh a big surprise and when
080I walked in and saw everybody that I knew I go well my gosh what is going on so I feel so honored and I'm so appreciative and can I can assure you that I will always find some way to serve because that's what I do thank [Applause] you just just tank take a picture pictures pictures guys know I hate pictures sorry um right here no yeah look good yummy [Applause] well done thanks for your service thanks for your service all right board members we are now moving down to P2 uh this is the half cent sales tax oversight committee appointment uh board members I would like to make a motion that we approve Brian Stevens to the half cent sales tax oversight committee second all right so uh I've made the motion uh to approve
081Brian Stevens and Mr sharet made the second um any discussion and if no discussion I would like to read his bio into a record for us tonight so you should see that attachment there Brian is a lifelong Lakeland resident and a graduate of Harrison Arts Center he grew up as or with an appreciation for our Public Schools both as a student and as a son of a life lifelong ese teacher and facilitator his wife Tiana is a reading and theater teacher at George Jenkins High School and they have five children progressing through our schools right now three in elementary one in middle and one in high school Brian's professional career encompasses leadership roles in the retail financial services and currently the logistics industry he is currently director of Transportation brokerage at Saddle Creek he has
082served our community as a board member with various organizations including platform Art talet House ministries manufacturing and supply chain Alliance of M Florida and Catholic Charities of central Florida serving nine counties he has also served on the school advisory Council for Cleveland Court for several years and previously served as sack for Southwest Middle School so there is your appointee that I'm bringing forward for the half cense sales tax oversight committee um I would like to go ahead and call for a vote on this appointee those in favor signify by saying I I I I and those opposed and the motion carries all right and next we will go into a public hearing I now open the public hearing the first order of businesses any comments on public hearing agenda items we will now begin with
083public comments in that portion of our public hearing for those who have registered and just as before all speakers will begin three minutes to speak uh the light will turn yellow when you have one minute left and you'll hear a beep when your sound is concluded all comment should be directed to myself and uh as the board chair and as a reminder public comments are an opportunity for you to express your thoughts and your comments this is not a question and answer session however if you are seeking additional information again as I mentioned before please reach out to us and the superintendent's office and we'll be happy to further that conversation so at this point the first person I'd like to call up is Pam Barnes so if you can come forward and then on
084Deck we have Robert Goodman and if you could please state your name and address for the record so we have Pam Barnes Robert Goodman and then after that would be Beverly Harley so if you wanted to take your places would be great I thought I was with the other batch so sorry good evening Mr Hyde and board members my name is Pamela Barnes I am the library media specialist at Boswell Elementary School I'm here tonight to urge you to approve the purchase of all library books for the current purchase window as a media specialist I along with my peers have done our due diligence by by following the outline process the district has created and implemented I have chosen books based on my students interest and needs I've read reviews on the books I've met
085with my school committee to discuss the books to go over the interest levels to go over the grade levels of the books I've presented the documents to my principal for his approval also any of these books that are approved tonight the parents will have full access to see these books and opt out before they are ever put on my library shelf in my library the final step is tonight when these books are presented to you my hope is that you will take into consideration all the time the knowledge of over 80 Florida certified educational media specialists in this district and approve the purchases thank you all right Robert Goodman is up and then next we have Beverly Hartley good evening I'm Robert Goodman from Lakeland I wanted to share some deep concerns with policy 2522
086both the existing and proposed policy according to Florida statute 10628 any material used in a school library classroom that is in violation of Florida statute does not meet the criteria to be available in our schools the school district shall discontinue use of material for any grade level or age group for which the content is inappropriate or unsuitable 847121263 abuse uh whether in writing magazine publication motion picture or movie specifically mentioned human genitalia in a state of simulation or arousal masturbation intercourse sodomy conalingus felacio or any excretory function or representation thereof that is all in our schools all of it in the last two years many books have been challenged yet remain available that contain pedophilia rape beastiality graphic detailed writings and sexual intercourse including traditional sex oral and anal to my knowledge the board has
087never made a decision on any book since I've been speaking for you for over two years uh Kimberly Moore from Lakeland now recently wrote an article in which she doxed two ladies who challenged books and she said P County public schools are going to spend $225,000 on book challenges this year uh she said that two ladies challenged at least five books in 10 high school schools um question if a book is challenged if one book is challenged that it's in multiple schools why is that being counted as multiple challenges it's not in other Florida counties um you know how much money it really takes to for the district to solve this problem none all you have to do is when the superintendent gets a challenge if he provided you the language that's in the book
088that is provided with every challenge you could look at it and I'll give you an example of a book that was screened and audited and went through the finest process ever there's a book lucky and it says that's tough to read that's in two of our high schools Lakeland senior and tenaro um um this clearly violates Florida statute and it doesn't have to cost anything if you saw that language that clearly doesn't need you don't need to buy a box of that book and send it to a bunch of review committees you could just remove it please do the right thing it's not all right so next we have Beverly Hartley and on Deck we have Kim Davis so to continue with what robertt was saying um what what does our County do we buy
089those books and we provide them to the the book Review Committee who's on the book Review Committee we have children on those book review committees here we're having uh these book challenges to decide whether a book is appropriate for a child and we have children on them I know this personal because I went to one of the book reviews in mberry and and there sat two children one parent and the rest were staff um the Committees have voted to keep almost every single book that we've challenged okay and that's regardless of what the content was or the state value the statute violations The View review committees are not told what those statutes are and what the uh violations are that parent certainly wasn't uh some teachers have even reviewed extremely graphic books and have refused
090to even check the boxes on the review form so I ask you how many challenge forms have you guys seen have you seen them I have have you asked for them we have we know what's on them we've been to those meetings we've seen them and um we've asked for the copies so why haven't you asked for them if you haven't seen them why haven't you asked for them we stand up here do you think we want to come here board meeting after board meeting and read books like that to you it's horrible let me tell you I've seen the content of multiple books they're not just a couple of little bad words here and there it's filth it is complete and utter filth I'm shocked that the school board that I worked out for
09134 years would allow that type of content that you people that I know or or at least believe to be good people would allow that content for my grandchildren to have access to you are legally held responsible for those statutes the board members not the superintendent he is your employee e not the other way around do your job thank you we have Kim Davis and then Pam loose on Deck hi good morning good evening oh my goodness so um well I want to start by saying I appreciate the book dealer that came and spoke and talked about how amazing our process is here in P County the problem is it's not actually happening I mean how many books have you all read personally how the principle the it goes from this person this and everybody's
092like oh well I trust their judgment I trust their judgment I trust their judgment but nobody's reading the stuff I mean obviously this is not according to State Statute and you would know it if you actually read it and then voted against it we are not Banning books everybody in the world world is free to buy all of the smut they want out of their own pocket not out of taxpayer dollars it's very simple I mean you're not you're not uh putting Playboy in the schools are you or you know what was that book um 50 Shades of Gray I mean no so why are these books in there it doesn't matter if people are having Sixx 50 times or two times it still shouldn't be there so so I'm also here to discuss the
093timeline that is in uh 2522 the wording is horrible it does not laid out proper timelines for people that do go through appeals I'm asking that you um remove the policy vote for um the until you can from the agenda from tonight's agenda so that you can rewrite the wording to make the timeline involved in the appeals Pro process more clear thank you for for your time thank you Miss loose you are next good evening I I feel so incredibly blessed to be here tonight when an tanken was honored um uh Miss tankson and I used to work very closely together and uh did a lot of U boundaries um we even worked on the controlled open enrollment we put the first policy together we worked on that policy and when niola first came here
094I was selected from the facilities division to be the one to review policies for facilities so I'm I'm quite familiar with the policy process and understand it um this policy that you that you have tonight I don't know how well you've read it but I've gone over it quite extensively and it's incomplete it's it's not there's there's still uh some spelling errors in there um there's some other things that need to be really looked at there's uh the the statute State Statute says that the process for book challenges is to be clearly spelled out in the policy it is not clearly spelled out there should be timelines in there someone a lay person should be able to read that and say oh I understand this is what I need to do and it's not that
095way it is still very confusing for a lay person in particular um other thing I want to talk about is that um we we still have boundaries for our children they can't buy a pack of cigarettes until they're 18 they can't buy I'm sorry 21 it's 21 they can't buy alcohol until they're 21 they can't buy a Playboy which let me tell you is tame compared to what we have in our school system if you have not seen them you need to see them it makes me absolutely sick whenever I open one of those books they have to be 18 to buy that now they can buy these books when they're 18 if they want that's fine nobody's trying to ban books we're just trying to protect our children from anything that that we have
096control over what is in front of them and I know I've heard the books compared well you know they've got social media they can see all that they can go see that but you know what if I'm in a boat that's sinking and I have some control and I can plug the holes in that boat for what's in front of me I'm going to try to stop that boat from sinking you may not be able to cover the social media and all of the media and everything else is out there but do what's under your control what you can do um not every kid uh and you know I've heard comments about these books are not being checked out well I can show you that they are being checked out um I can show you
097the evidence if you want to see it and I thank you so much there was um one of our one person I'm sorry my time's up thank you Miss loose all right board members that completes public comment for items within our public hearing so now we're going to now move into uh q1 which is our policy updates we have two replacement policies uh that were brought forward in our December work session and we're going to take these separately so we're going to start with uh policy 2522 challenges to adoption or use of instructional library or reading list materials I'll take a motion to approve it as written all right at this point I'm not uh receiving any motion on this policy and we will just move on I was okay I was do you want
098us if would like to delay it would you like that to be a motion to have a third reading at the next meeting or can we do we need to a motion for that I think at this point stand by Mr Bridges let me in the absence of a motion uh the item would die tonight uh and it can be brought back at any subsequent meeting with any changes that that board members May request or or the staff but as of as of right now that motion that that item is dead for tonight thank you thank you Mr Bridges all right we will now move on then at this point so I'll will take a motion to approve policy 75402 which is web content apps and services this uh one is a revision to incorporate
099statutory updates from uh Senate Bill 258 and then uh House Bill 379 do I have a motion and a second Mo all right Miss Fields has made the motion do I'll do I have a second on that motion second all right Miss Miller has seconded that policy any discussion board members all right seeing none I'm gonna ask a point of clarification here because I don't want there be any further miscommunication about this with the board not taking any action nor has the board provided any additional dire Direction board cannot provide Direction outside of this meeting as a collective group I do not take direction from individuals I take direction from either the majority of the board or the entirety of the board so if the board wants anything to change subsequent to that first policy
100I need to get that direction here this evening if not I will bring it back to a workshop as a new item and the board can Workshop it but then we have to go through two additional readings it it starts all over again it does not go back and we do not assume that we can then have a hearing that same night to approve a policy so I just want to make sure that I'm on the same page with the board based off the conversation earlier today there were no am no amendments to me tonight okay so so stand by uh I do have some comments here so we'll keep moving with this so Mr sharpless you're recognized sure um I was I waited did not bring anything up because there was not a it
101was not on the floor to discuss that's only reason I didn't I did make a few of well I proposed a few amendments today that uh just discussed them during work session um those are I mean are very clear for me I can read though read what what do you need me to do I don't respectfully I need the board to take all right you have put your and I think you have to reiterate them here quite frankly sure but then the board respectfully Mr Bridges please correct me wrong I need to get some conversation amongst the board in a direction or if the board wishes not to address it at this time I am happy to take what was discussed this morning and see about what further revisions but I again it will have
102to go to Workshop it will have to have a second reading and then have to come for a public hearing so I'm just making you aware that you're going to extend the timeline by not providing Direction tonight if you're not comfortable doing that because there isn't an opportunity to have the full discussion fine with that I just want to make sure that there isn't an expectation that everything's going to change in that policy between now and the next meeting because there's been no direction to do so all the board did tonight was refuse to acknowledge the policy and it dies by lack of of a of of emotion if I'm if I miss speaking Mr Bridges please no I believe I believe that is correct I believe that it would probably be the the best
103approach to do as a superintendent is suggested and schedule this for the next work session thrash it out get every suggestion that every everyone on the board wishes to make uh and and do it all publicly where where it can be seen and then we can we once we've done that we can the staff can craft presumably a a draft that will incorporate the items that the majority of the board are interested in and and we can notice that for a first reading and then bring it back into public hearing for adoption perfect thank you thank you Mr Bridges V can I ask all right so I I'm gonna now recognize Miss Wyatt thank you just to be clear so if we're we need to advertise for a public hearing for that should we do
104go ahead and give you authorization for that tonight because if we wait until the March meeting it's only 28 days days between the March meeting and the April meeting uh I can go ahead and get Authority we will not place the notice until the language is but we can do that at the early March workor session but if you need Authority we should probably that that way I can I can go ahead and get it advertised but we we'll do it the advertisement and the and the work session will probably happen on the same day we have the the language has to be complete so but you you want but you can go ahead and get Authority from us yes I I'll go ahead and get get Authority so that so that at such time
105as the language has been finalized we can we can advertise for public he and avoid undo delay thank you thank you Mr Bridges and Miss Fields you're recognized I actually had counsil minds but I just wanted to make sure that superintendent high was good and you have a clear sense of direction CU it's been a little bit confusing yes ma'am we will bring it back to next workshop and take feedback from the board we revised Apollo policy at a subsequent meeting and then in hopefully in the April meeting we can bring it forward for a final vote and public hearing okay thank you thank you ma'am all right thanks Miss Fields so going back at this point we did have a motion on the floor for policy 75402 and did you get that motion record
106it in a second okay so at this point we're going to now call for a vote those in favor signify by saying I I and those opposed and the motion carries all right next we have the attendance boundary committee recommendation for Jamesy Stevens Elementary the recommended action is to approve the attendance boundary committee recommendation for Jamesy Stevens Elementary we had our first reading and now the second um Now we move to the adoption do we have a motion and a second move all right we have Miss Cunningham that made the motion and Mr sharpless made the second um any discussion I don't see anything from any board members I did bring a point of discussion to superintendent Hyde and if you want to maybe address those things that I had um asked in email form
107as it relates to this particular item um just to give you context um my my questions were related to the developments off of Ernie Smith Road and and which is not in the art GIS and I was just curious and um superintend High did follow up and said that there were 92 single family homes going in at the corner of 540 and 98 so I just wanted to as we look at the the options there I'm seeing what the uh the number is for utilization for sper Holland in this transition and I just make sure we were calculating um all that growth and development that's happening as that would feed potentially to sper Holland correct we did at the time we just we just got that information just in time as we started the analysis
108so that development we did account for in the possible options that we were presented okay so how many what's the multifamily um units on the Ernie Smith and then how many households in the erning Smith area do you have that data I will get it to you before the night is out okay great thank you so much all right I see no other points of discussion on this one and I would like to call for a vote those in favor signify by saying I I I those opposed and that motion carries moving on now to the attendance boundary committee recommendation for Fred Garner Elementary this would be Q3 uh the recommendation um is to approve the attendance boundary committee for Fred Garner Elementary do I have a motion and a second so moved Miss Cunningham
109made the motion I need a second second all right Mr sharpless made the second and I'm gonna now move into discussion Miss Wyatt you're recognized thank you and I've mentioned this both as we've work workshopped this during our work sessions and at the first review meeting I will be voting against this um I love Garner Elementary it has nothing to do with the school um however in making it a magnet school with no zoned attendance boundary that means there is now no school in North Winter Haven that has a zoned attendance foundary for elementary you have jwi School of the Arts which is a magnet school Garner right down the road which is a magnet school and then Brigham Academy which is a magnet school they all surround some of our most vulnerable populations um
110in a community that was assured if Garner became a magnet school that there would be a priority Zone um so that students that live in that neighborhood aren't being busted to the other side of the city or even many of them to Auburn Dale or Lake Alfred outside of the Winter Haven area to go to school um I think we have a responsibility to educate these students where they are um and this is as we've added more and more magnet schools the the problem just increases that there are fewer and fewer zoned schools and we we have a responsibility to educate students they have to be zoned somewhere um so as we continue to create magnet schools we're creating a larger issue that they they cannot be zoned to the schools that that are right
111right near their house and they're going to have to be busted outside of the community we know that that parent engagement in increases when you you're closer to your school um when you can ride the bus home when you can walk home that when you're being bused across across town it is it is not good for students it is not good for families um and I will not support this measure thank you Miss Wyatt and Miss Fields you're recognized okay we've had a lot of discussion about this over the last uh few months and superintendent H I would just ask you what happens if we don't approve this I know that some of this is magnified from the uh the magnet school State uh feds and if we don't approve it I guess the question
112is what what are options or do we have any options other than not approving it so at this time if the board were not to approve this we would be in violation of the agreement that we entered into with the federal government as it relates to msap Grant the board his historically has done multiple msap grants this process started even before I was in the district um and so if we were in basically not adhering to the requirements uh of that Grant we would be responsible to return a little over approximately $2 and a half million dollars back to federal government um that does not mean that the stem program could not remain there but we would have to return those dollars at this time and and then thank you for the answer and and
113my my comments then before and now is that we told the community that we were going to have a magnet school at at at gonner and so I'm I'm kind of like in between I understand what you're saying Miss Hyatt Miss Wyatt I understand that but I don't want us to have set to the community and to the parents and to the students that we're going to have this program and then now we snatch it away I I think that's my that's my biggest concern if I may remind though the board we continue to have dialogue with used as it pertains to this and they were receptive to some car vals within that Community it may not necessarily address the full extent of Miss Wyatt's concerns with students who reside with less than two miles
114however right now there's an assurance within that community that everybody who's attending that school is Grand grandfathered in for the entirety of their tenure there for the next five years um additionally we are working continue to work with USC Miss Wyatt's concerns are well expressed and well understood and so we've been in constant conversation with them about how to do this in the future this this is something we need to probably have further discussion about because schoolwide magnet programs are problematic for this very reason students and families can see a school immediately across the street or adjacent to their Community neighborhood but then they don't realize I can't attend there unless I'm accepted into that program we are very fortunate in a number of our schools that because of of the school sizes and based
115off the high Mobility rate at times we T typically have enough space in our schools and there are only a handful of programs that have waiting lists essentially so I think over time we can address this issue I'm still remain hopeful that usad will provide us with some further clarification and I will be happy to bring that back to the next board meeting to provide you with an update as to where we are with our recommendations and requests of the department in creating some flexibility to create a priority attendance zone for students certain students the the purpose of the grant again is to really is to um prevent marginalization of of of certain communities to ensure also that we're increasing the diversity of students in our campuses and so we we hope that magnet schools
116will attract that and that's the purpose that we've been very successful to date as a district with those but this obviously is something we need to continue to have dialogue about because and with our growth this this is an issue that we need to be very cognizant of moving forward so um this that's the status quo is if if we if we don't fulfill the obligations of the grant we are required to refund those dollars um there's no additional penalty beyond that um I think I I'm fearful to a certain extent that it may adversely impact future Grant submissions but we may want to take a different track altogether and not do schoolwide programs in the future we may want to do school within school programs which are not uncommon and we have very much
117like our Academy function within our high schools there are opportunities for for us to do these similar programs and create magnet attractors but on a smaller scale um maybe worth a fur further discussion but I'll be happy to bring you back an update as to our conversations with USC so my last question for right now is so does this have to be approved tonight if we awaiting having conversation with them no ma'am it does there's not an urgency or a timeline right now definitively that the board has to approve it tonight if the board were to reject the zoning that's where the problem becomes but if the board wants to delay this until I can provide an additional update or at least a timeline for in which we expect to receive a final decision from
118used happy to do so if the board wants to take that that move in that direction well that's what I would prefer to do as a board member but I'm only one voice all right Miss Fields um thank you thank you I just have a question we've had this issue in the past with magnets and we've I don't know what the mechanism is but I know at JW the community wanted to see more of their students in those schools so we made a commitment to the kindergarten we did the same thing at Lincoln would consist of majority of the neighborhood or there was a percentage we can Implement something like that can we Implement something like that super didn't hide as my question and I think that's exactly what we're trying to work through with
119uscd because our initial application did not necessarily reflect that um and there is a requirement that you diversify the population that is the whole purpose behind the grant as well as Innovation right and putting best practices in place so that school not only became a magnet school but it's a magnet STEM Academy for our students and communi so um that is what we're working towards though you thank you Miss Miller all right any other discussion board members I don't see anything else on the list here I'd like to call for a vote those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed okay we have two Nays and the motion does carry all right thank you um board members before you work on on these itemsin our public hearing moving down to letter r
120this would be the superintendent's report uh superintendent do you have a report for us tonight I do do I want to touch on a couple things Agra Fest is ongoing this week and next week we heard discussion about that earlier today it's important for us to continue to fulfill the expectations and the Legacy that Agri Agriculture and agroscience has had here in P County driving our economic engine for so many years and and actually we're seeing hopefully a Resurgence in the near future um but our students are excited Agra Fest is a program where students rotate through six stations they do everything from animal husbandry to Citrus to um learning about be keeping and it's and phosphate it's not so much about phosphate as much as the students actually look through a pile and they
121actually identify fossils because there's a lot of those here in Florida for obvious reasons and so it's a really interesting experience our kids get very excited so it is going on for the next two weeks I believe there are calendar invites on your calendar you're not expected to go every day even though it may show up on your calendar every day but if you do get an opportunity I think you'll be very impressed um at the level of Engagement that our students have and the questions they ask um and quite frankly standing there there with Miss Anderson the other day I learned quite quite a few things new things about Citrus um for example that it was the Spaniards that brought Citrus to Florida so many years ago um did not know that um and
122there were some other interesting facts that you learn while you're sitting there with our students and and they are all about it and they have a gentleman there talks about ranching um and the cattle industry here in Florida and he does he he uses his whip they talk about the science behind how the whip works that what is it that actually makes the sound and it's the fact fact it breaks the the speed of sound at the end of the whip um and that's what the crack actually comes from they talk about how they hurt animals why they hurt animals the way they do um and again the econ economics behind it so it's it's a great experience especially on the heels of the pp County Fair um in addition to that you know we're
123very excited about some of our other initiatives that are moving forward um I I had a chance this this afternoon to speak about Homeland the Homeland project with three and a half million dollars of investment and capital provided to us by the Florida legislature to help us launch that we have some additional good news um 3D tenar rock received a private donation of $25 million to help with the facility construction um so we're very excited about that I will not disclose the donor at this time um I believe they've requested to remain somewhat Anonymous at this point but that's an exciting thing to support again that that Biz Town experience that our students and other surrounding counties will have an opportunity to come to for field trips and we're waiting hopefully we'll see some appropriation
124support this year from the legislature um in addition to that so we're really moving in a great Direction with ourmes um excited about the opportunities to bring new job descriptions before the board um so that again our our goal is to address and ensure that we continue to maintain the Integrity of our existing systems and watch them continue to flourish but also keep an eye on the future because the current industries that we support in 10 years may not be the industries that are in high demand as we all know Industries evolve needs evolve skill sets evolve and we want to make sure that our students are at the Forefront of that so again an exciting time to be innovating in in the education sector with so many of our committed business partners had a
125great opportunity recently to to present at a rotary um at excuse me the Lakeland rotary event I was told that they actually carry that designation um had a fantastic time with them great questions that they asked very engaged Community um and again we'll be ramping up superintendent visits across the across the district um as we close to the the fourth quarter here of the school year that's I typically do six to 10 of those towards the end of the year um additionally Dak the district advisory committee will be hosting multiple meetings across the county they're actually now looking to add another another location physical location and then they'd like to add a virtual option as well so we're in discussions about how to support that Dak will be addressing as the board is informed Dak
126will be trying to get feedback from our community specific about school start times uh the legislature passed new new policies that require that high schools cannot start before 8:30 in the morning middle schools cannot start before 8:00 a.m. the problem for our school district again just for your benefit and for that of the community that's listening we require because we run a three- tier system We Run Elementary Middle High Schools obviously not in that order but we need an hour to properly do it with our current equipment and with our current Staffing level we need an hour in between each one of those tiers which means if middle school starts at 8 high schools start at 9 elementary schools either start at 7 or they start at 10 neither one is going to benefit our
127families so what Dak is going to be discussing with them is the option of how are are we okay with busing elementary and middle school students simultaneously we do it successfully now we have multiple K8 buildings and Mr Davis is working to address that it as I shared with the board previously um we were asked by the state of Florida to provide feedback we were one of the pilot districts that they asked for feedback about the financial impact that this would have on our district it's over $19 million in additional equipment to add buses to our Fleet the problem with that right now this has to be implemented in 2026 there isn't enough lead time to make the purchases and get the buses delivered because guess what 66 other counties in the State of Florida
128are all scrambling for buses at the same time we have been raising our our bus driver salaries I'm very proud of that fact we'll continue to see those inch up we're at $18 an hour for a starting salary I think that's fantastic um the goal is to get to 20 but at $18 an hour we still have over 60 vacancies so it it is a legitimate issue for us moving forward how to best address this need so that's part of the superintendent's update just put a few things out there for you and for our community um in the superintendence report the next work session and board meeting will be held on March 26 2024 the work session will begin at 12:30 p.m. and the board meeting will begin at 5: PM excuse me we will
129hold a special work session on March 19th starting at 9:00 a.m. the meetings will be held at the district office located at 1915 South Floral Avenue in Barto and actually this is this SP never mind there's a different work session that's actually off site so that's it sir all right thank you superintendent your passion and Leadership around the district appreciate you uh next we'll move to the attorney's report so Mr Bridge Bridges you're recognized thank you Mr chair ladies and gentlemen I have three items for you this evening Each of which will require action by the school board the first is a request to approve the contract with the division of administrative hearings for the provision of administrative law judges during the upcoming year administrative law judges typically hear employee discipline cases they hear bid
130protest cases they hear due process cases under the idea a variety of other administrative matters that come that come up uh we are required to use them and they they are not free um this is this contract is sort of a unicorn and I gather it's been passed around from Department to department and and as with the other dogs and cats it ended up on my desk so I'm bringing it to you um it is not optional it is and it is a it's an annual contract that will renew automatically which is why you haven't seen one of these in a while it's been renewing automatically in the quietly in the background um but um the i' I've provided for you a proposed Motion in order to to approve this contract all right so at
131this point we have um an opportunity to strike a motion to approve the division of administrative hearings administrative law judge Services contract all right so miss Fields you made the motion and Miss Wyatt second it any discussion board members on this all right very good I'll take a vote those in favor say I I opposed and that motion carries thank you ladies and gentlemen Bridges the second item I have for you is to bring back to you the application of Charter of Navigator Academy of leadership High School Davenport you will recall that um early in in 2023 this entity applied for a for a new Charter School in Davenport to be built on the same campus as their existing school and that application was denied by the school board on several bases but the the
132three big ones were their transportation um provision which essentially they didn't have one their Staffing plan and primarily and and most importantly their budget they had um it was not solvent budget as presented so the school board denied that application and the state Charter appeal commission finally got around to hearing it in December at that time the appeal commission consists of five people uh two that represent school districts two the represent charter schools and one member that is appointed by the commissioner and the commissioner's designate is the tiebreaker uh we we spent candy Amato and I went up and spent a good six hours GR in on this thing with the charter appeals committee and the net result at the end was a split vote two for two against and the Commissioners designate breaking the
133tie and they voted to to to grant their appeal they essentially U the councel and I've cited the the case law that the that the doe general counsel representative raised that essentially said the charter appeals commission may consider information that was not presented to the school board in the application and they proceeded to do that at Great length on Transportation on Staffing and most importantly on budget after after which they they voted um as I mentioned three to2 to Grant the appeal that went to the State Board um let's see in in the middle of January and we got their order um at the end of January and I'm I'm presenting it to you tonight you don't this is another thing that you you don't have a lot of discretion on you you either have
134to appeal that to the district court of appeals as a final order or Grant it and if you if you if you fail to do one of those well let me just read you the relevant position provisions of the statute sponsors shall act upon the decision of the State Board of Education within 30 calendar days after it is received that was January 31 the State Board of education's decision is a final action subject to to judicial review in the district court of appeal a prevailing party May May file an action with the division of administrative hearings to recover reasonable attorney fees and costs so if you peel it and you lose you get to pay their their attorneys a school district that fails to implement the decision affirmed by a district court of appeal shall
135reduce the administrative fees withheld perent to subsection 20 to 1% for all charter schools so there's there's a monetary sanction in there as well you you you may appeal it I I I don't I I I'm not bringing you a recommendation that you do that this process is is another process we talked about today is primarily political it looks like a legal process it is a political process and I I don't see a um a a particular reward in in trying to appeal this to the second district I suspect that it would have the same result that that we received in Tallahassee so um in bottom line is the state the State Board of Education granted their appeal and and sent back the recommended order the final order I'm sorry which I provided to you
136ordering the school board to to approve their application at which time it'll be as if the school board approved it in the first place and we will go negotiate a charter contract but it will include things that were not in the original application it will include things that were that were brought forward in in terms of basically um they they intend to to capitalize on the on the resources of the existing school that was not in the application but that is a the existing school is Cash flush and we've had prior case law that allows charter schools to to share funds between related charter schools so um it is it is brought to you tonight with my recommendation that you go ahead and approve the state board's final order and and Candy Amato and I
137will proceed to negotiate a contract with with the Navigator thank you Mr Bridges so board members I'm looking for a motion to approve the charter application of Navigator Academy of leadership High School Davenport in accordance with the final order of the Florida State Board of Education dated on January 31st 2024 so moved so Mr sharpless had made the motion I'm looking for a second okay Miss Fields has seconded uh any discussion board members Miss Fields you're recognized thank you um chair Allen I read the U information West and thank you for your Insight and it's unfortunate that um sometimes we are thinking one way and it goes another uh but at the end of the to day if I am listening correctly and reading correctly we don't really have a choice in the matter because
138it's either either take it to on appeal to the to the district court of appeals or approve the application tonight right and we know what that looks like yes ma'am thank you thank you Miss Fields Mr sharpless you're recognized I just want to take a point of personal privilege and and thank uh Wes and Candy Amato uh both for their hard work in Tallahassee um you don't always win them but we you certainly tried hard and I appreciate that um and like board member field said our I mean we can try to fight this but I don't see it being favorable for us which is why I made the motion thank you sir and I would I would say that we could win this on the law all day long but on the politics that
139that that's a matter for uh for people up north all right board members so we've got a motion on the floor in a second I'll Now call for a vote on this one so all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed I opposed nay yes okay thank you can here all right anything else yes sir we had one more item from our earlier discussion I would request authority to advertise a public hearing on policy 252 to at such time as the language is is is finally is finalized and made available for publication we will not advertise it for public hearing until that language is ready to be made available to the public but in the interest of having the authority in advance because we'll we'll likely have a tight time schedule to
140get it advertised in to allow 28 days public hearing so i' go ahead and ask for authority to do that tonight and then we'll we'll wait the final l all right so moved good so uh I've got Miss Cunningham that made the motion Miss Wyatt second it right about the same time so thanks for being aggressive y'all uh so at this point uh no discussion I don't see any discussion on the list we'll go ahead and take a vote on this all those in favor signify by saying I I any opposed and that motion carries thank you so much Mr Bridges thank you Mr chair all right next item on our agenda uh moving down is the auditor report and Miss Matthews is out this evening but um as you noted via email you received
141at least six odd reports from Miss Matthews since our last board meeting so if you have any concerns you can address those with her and next we move down to the board members report and what I'd like to do tonight is I'll start actually with the highest district number and then work down from there and that means uh we will start with you miss Miller Alan not really but I will be no thank you very much um I don't want to take up too much time I spend a lot of my days in schools um superintendent and I got to hang out at um the PK State College what do they call that building tenar rock came to present what's the name of the building safety something Center for Public Safety the students at OK
142through their 3de program had to come present their final case Challenge on Home Depot and as usual it was amazing the kids did had to they had to solve the issue of how to attract more people to certain departments because Home Depot's going to do away with so much of inventory and they want to focus on certain areas and we had some great kids show up again and I don't love judging that because I I I used to teach kindergarten and everybody wins um and so it was tough but the kids really showed up and and impressed us as usual you know I went to Harrison to see the behind the scenes tour and I'm also going to be attending this is their spring musical this weekend sorry I'm stealing this from you chair Allan
143um spring musical this weekend is Sister Act and if you haven't seen the preview if you didn't weren't able to do that when they did that earlier it's going to be amazing show Harrison always puts on a good show so we're gonna I'm definitely going to be visiting there this weekend um we have a lot of talent in our district stall does a phenomenal job I took my um I actually met the mayor of Auberndale and we sat and watched James and the Giant Peach at with stall and they did a phenomenal do this this month has been the year of or the month of of theater um I want to recognize Miss Hancock that's still in the audience everybody loves cluster and I can tell you that Medela um she does an amazing job
144I've watched her work in high schools with with uh learning strats kids she has for for 30 years work I know she looks very young for 30 years she's worked for this District in a wide range of roles and she always um takes this these kids in this work home with her she is dedicated to the progress of these students um if you want to see an amazing classroom I'm sure she will give you a tour at Medela if you've not been to our Center Schools there's lot of clusters I'm telling you we have staff very much dedicated to the to the these students and what they're doing the fact that Miss Shirley's been a bus driver for 50 years longer than I've been alive and especially transporting these um students there are people dedicated
145to kids in this district and I just want to say I recognize you I see you the work is difficult these grades these test grades that cluster takes counts against the district counts with the district like any other student and can you imagine the pressure of the staff um trying to make sure that everybody is reaching their need their potential so I'm so happy to know Miss Hancock and I'm surprised you stayed this long so I had to recognize you and I appreciate your work um I want to say again to this community who supports these schools the overwhelmingly majority of this community loves p pulk and what we do and cares about these students the fact that you saw Nancy DOD sit up here and wrote a $100,000 check to one school the fact
146that there's a donor that he won't mention we can all guess um with over $2 million to one school to one program we're doing it right here in P County no matter what about you hear um the people that are involved with our students the people dedicated and spend time with our kids they understand the lift and we appreciate you it this is the time of year where people are stressed out to the Max and we just want to tell you that how much we appreciate you and and we're going to all see you through the end spring break I hopefully As relaxing for many of you willow oak I got to my first visit to Willow Oak was this um last week or so that school is if I tell them not to show
147everybody that school because it's new and those prek units are beautiful I had to sit through an audit a federal audit with our um Head Start in prek and they toured they were here and they toured some of those schools and they were very happy with what they saw um pulk was exceeding expectations um those units were engaged the students were learning um and they were very happy with that so I was glad because I I was sweating that even as a Bo board member for just a few minutes um I want to encourage you to get out this is the season of fundraising for our kids this is the season of theater there's lot to do in P County and I want to celebrate with you with our students thank you thank you Miss
148Miller now to District six that would be Mr sharess um I'm going to keep it relatively short um I'm just going to talk about three things the first uh we already talked about earlier this evening but I was down on the floor for special recognitions for love the bus month um I just want to personally say thank you to each one of our bus drivers out there our bus attendants um everyone who works in that department um you're transporting our most precious resources every day um and you know want to give a shout out real quick to my cousin Kathy who's a bus driver if I don't if I don't do that I might get in trouble but uh anyhow just I went to their um at the beginning of the of the school year
149I went to their um uh professional development they had up there at Davenport High School um and just you can tell they love our students so I personally just want to say thank you to each one of them second thing I want to talk about um last month I attended um a a community meeting at mlof Academy of Excellence uh it was to welcome principal Dr Linda Ray to the school um and man she's contagious with positivity and so um you know one of the things she said is that she wanted to start highlighting the kids that are doing it right and so um you know I just want to thank Dr Ray for stepping up and um becoming principal of the school and the staff for supporting her and the last thing I want
150to talk about superintendent Hyde uh stole a little bit of my thunder but that's okay because he's allowed to um today before okay so our work session started at 12:30 but from 9:30 to 12 I was actually at Agra Fest volunteering as a group leader um and I can tell you the the fourth graders there um you know they were just so excited to be there and learn about agriculture and that makes this a professor's heart really happy okay um I I want to give a shout shout out to the the teachers that I was their group leader for uh for their classes because their students were very well behaved um and I just want to give a shout out to them uh Bennett and Looper from Willow Oak uh Schmidt from frost proof benh
151Hill Griffin ele and uh Davis from Fred Garner Academy just want to say thank you to those teachers specifically for for having well behaved and all the all the students that were there well behaved but I got to have a little more one-on-one time as a group leader for those students um and thank you to pop County Farm Bureau um as well uh as our pop County Public Schools and University of Florida IAS for supporting that endeavor um and I didn't get to do I get didn't get to say anything because I was down there for special recognitions but specifically thank you to Jessica Anderson for all of her hard work in this endeavor that's all I have thank you so much Mr sharpless moving now to District Five that would be Miss Fields thank
152you chair Allan uh superintendent H I want to thank you for the uh nonprofit organizations that you brought before us today helping us to understand uh what's out there and how we can uh benefit uh folks beyond the school district um also want to thank you for bringing cler uh that was very touching uh and it really helps us it helped me to appreciate things that I sometimes take for granted and for those those of you that are here in the audience this is one of the drawings that he did for for for me and everyone has the same thing similar anyway and it's beautiful and I want to say thank you cler you are amazing and you're very creative uh this month is Black History Month and um had an opportunity to uh be
153the guest speaker at the Florida Department of Transportation and it was very uh amazing how so so many people want to know the history and how uh many folks that look like me have been able to overcome a lot of obstacles uh in in in our lifetime I'm not going to tell my story today because it would take too long but I will say that I am from a very small community in mome Mississippi and uh we grew up in the era where we weren't allowed to uh benefit from some of the things that I think now too many of our Our Youth and even adults take for granted like being able to uh to go to McDonald's and get a hamburger and having to go to the uh back door uh or to the
154window the side window to get a hamburger and not even being being able to get a hamburger uh or being able to uh use whatever restroom that we wanted to use uh are having uh to go to a nasty water fountain because the water fountain that we had said that we had to drink from there and can drink from another so these things I think that we sometimes take uh for granted and so the more that we can educate our young people and the more that we can just educate people in general about um the opportunities that we are now afforded that many of us did not have and the lives that many people lost because of of their belief that freedom should be available to any and everybody and then I would say one
155of the things that I said to the uh employees at the Florida Department of Transportation is that we're all God's children and uh and and and we're supposed to love one another and I hope and pray as we get ready to uh enter into another month that we will uh take it upon ourselves to learn some facts about the benefits and the contributors of for Black History Month and Beyond February and then the value of just being kind and just being a a nice and and and uh supportive of of one another uh so that is what I would say all right thank you now we're moving to District Four Miss Wyatt you're recognized thank you Dr Allan um so I have a couple fun things coming up in Winter Haven the first is this
156Saturday is community Fest it is familyfriendly downtown we have several of our schools performing starts at 11:00 a.m. and goes until 4 PM um it's a great opportunity to get um really to see a lot of what's going on with several of our nonprofits in the business Community but a lot of our schools have will have Booth set up there as well um next week get ready guys it is basketball state tournament so Winter Haven High School the girls are in the semifinals and play at 1 pm on Friday the 8th the boys are in the semifinals and play at 300 p.m on Friday the 8th so I will be there I hope to see several of you there um it is a great time superintendent Hyde and I got to sit next to each
157other last year um it is it gets very heated up basketball moves quickly um but so it is we are wishing them the best of luck I know they're they're going to bring the state titles home this year I can feel it in my bones um and then I I did want to hire highlight superintendent Hy already highlighted the doc um Town Halls coming up um please parents and business owners make sure that you're participating in those I don't think you know we talk a lot about how this is going to affect families but I don't know that that businesses totally understand yet how that will affect their Staffing models um when you think high schoolers can't can't be out of school at 2 pm to start a job at at 2:30 or 3 um
158that it really is going to to affect our entire community in in various ways um so making sure that that we're all educated and know how to best prepare for that um and I believe that concludes my report that's why thank you so much from District four now moving to District three Mr Niti uh thank you Dr alen uh we offer a diverse education education experience here in pop County I've attended several U athletic events um games and things and I'd like to give uh good uh super respect for uh Dan Talbot and this his super staff all the things they get to do and it's such a big County and they're driving all over the place but they're doing an awesome job and the and the coaches uh that are working with our students
159and the uh the the fans and the everything's just tremendous and also I've attended U some awesome uh concerts uh it was a string concert U at uh let's see string was at bransom Auditorium it was the All-Star or All County and then I attended at Ridge Community College it was a uh or excuse me Ridge Community High School it was the U the piano concert and so uh Kudos out to Beth Cummings and her staff um also I attended probably the most beautiful celebration of life I've ever seen conducted by one of the faculty members for Ashley Evans down at Fort me and I apologize for missing today's uh work session I was getting a tuneup at uh Moffett and I'll be having about 30 or 40 more so thank you that concludes my
160report Mr n glad you made it thank you thanks thanks for your report as well Miss Cunningham thank you chairman Allen um I just want to remind everybody we're going into Spring Break um so be mindful and careful there's going to be a lot of kids out on streets and playing in the fields and doing fun things um so I want to wish the kids a lot of fun just be careful out there when we're driving um really really careful because the kids are going to be out and about which is what they should be doing instead of on their phon so I think that's great but we have to consider Safety First the other thing I want to do is to wish staff some rest and relaxation um because this is all we get
161and then boom right into those last you know eight weeks before the end of school so um try to get some rest and uh get everything ready to go to give it that final push before the end of the year is up additionally I want to remind parents as well as the kids readers become leaders so this is a great time to check out some books whether it's at your local library or through your library Cooperative we have one of the best here in P County if you have a book that you want to read and it's not at your library you can get it brought to your library through the library Cooperative throughout all of P County I did that with my daughter for years and years and what a great time to get
162caught up on some extra reading um to keep those skills fine-tuned over our spring break and I wish everybody some rest and relaxation and chairman Allen that concludes my report sir Miss Cunningham thank you so much uh I do have just a few reports as well and as typical I do want to start with the idea that um you know we have a chance to serve the most highly educated Workforce in PP County so and we have some great Educators out here thanks for hanging out with us tonight so uh I've been trying to highlight some of our Educators that have pursued um their pH work and completed a a PhD and I asked for their dissertation title and a little bit about their PHD work and the one I was going to highlight tonight
163was uh Dr Bruce Sabin and he teaches and we all know that name U but he teaches at George Jenkins um High School in social studies and the title of his dissertation was a faith-based program evaluation moral development of Seminary students at the Louisiana State Penitentiary um really fascinating title uh you dig in a little bit you did a pretty hefty quantitative study um sort of correlating Myers Briggs uh indicator instruments and this defining issues test two um he really wanted to know what the extent of students in the program and how they develop this moral judgment consistent with program goals a really fascinating study but here he is in in our classroom serving our students so thank you thank you for bringing that experience and that knowledge to our classroom um and then next
164i' like to just highlight a couple you know things along the way School visits I'm right in the middle of that and uh I'm probably scheduled out for the next couple months now to to visit some of our schools in district one uh thanks to the principles for taking time uh to visit with me during that uh to just to walk around campus and you know you pop into these classrooms it's amazing what's happening and then you you build this Heritage as well um for example example I was at Jesse Keane with Dr dentling and um and I shared a post and then there's Betty Fitzgerald that's like oh yeah I know her we work together so and so well miss fistal is like my fifth grade teacher one of my favorite elementary teachers at
165Jamesy Stevens so we've got a long history of great Educators that um have left a legacy on our current Educators which is pretty amazing I do see assistant principle Miss camp out there thanks for being with us um was over at mola and the cafetorium is really coming along nicely uh boy I was at Crystal Lake Elementary the middle Oscar J um Lakeland Highlands uh so many schools um so far and had a chance to make my first official official visit at George Jenkin so um we have some great Educators and just some extremely talented students love popping into the classroom and just seeing what's going on and then speaking of that our most talented um students at Harrison um literally I mean we have people that dve arrive and send their kids from other
166counties to attend Harrison School of the Arts this is the Premier arts school um and had a chance to take part in the red carpet evening um Miss Miller mentioned what's coming up the sisters act um very nice comedy musical I just secure my tickets for Friday night anybody else joining me are you gonna be you're going Saturday all right I'll be there on Friday night so take part in that um then I also wanted to note at the PK Museum of Art is the senior Art Exhibit um and you know if you couple that with the Norman Rockwell exhibition would highly encourage you probably one of the strongest exhibitions at the poker museum of art at Florida Southern College but definitely swing into the senior Art Exhibit and you'll be blown away by the
167the work of our students it's incredible um and then you know I was at BTO High my alma just recently for the all count FCCLA which is the family career and Community leaders of America and actually ran into a parent um that is coming from Hillsboro to send their daughter to Harrison um and they were there and pretty involved um but was intriguing to me was just you know walking around talking with these students that are a part of that all County initiative and you know they they selected a job that they wanted they did all the research and then they went through these mock interviews I mean there were so many different things these Real World skills that they were gaining uh and sharing which is pretty incredible so I just want to say
168thanks to the staff that's really involved in that process and guiding our students and then in conclusion I know I haven't really brought any pencil facts to y'all lately um but I've been holding the um Blackwing matte pencil in my hand and it was one of the first ones to have the um patent on the removable eraser but what's unique about this pencil in particular right it has ridges it's a hexagonal um pencil and a lot of people think well we just did that the hexagonal pencil back in the day when we had slope desk so the pencils wouldn't roll off the desk but Henry Petru who's the greatest pencil historian just passed away last year he taught history of engineering at Duke University um basically said that pencil manufacturers actually went circular because they
169could get about 10% more right out of the wood by going hexagonal rather than round so it's a myth that they were hexagonal just so they wouldn't roll off the desk so I thought that I'd share that fact with you tonight and that is actually all of our comments comments so thanks for sharing your good work around the county all right so the next thing uh we will now transition to our I know he's leaving on that note we got a little bit please do okay so we're going to now move to the public comments um portion of our meeting um at this point so let me get set up for that so the next item on our agenda is public comments addressing items not on our agenda item tonight so thanks for being with
170us this whole evening has been a a full round of of items so as noted earlier to register to speak community members must fill out speaking card in the lobby prior to the meeting all speakers are going to be given three minutes to speak the light will turn yellow when you have one minute left and then you'll hear a beep when the time is concluded please note that although um board encourages Community participation no media action will be taken on the items to presented tonight so um I have a list of individuals who've signed up to speak I'll call your name if you can just come forward and we will be uh glad to hear from you so uh I've got Glenda white I don't see her in the audience uh then I have Victor
171Chandler Victor Chandler all right if you can come forward and then behind that I have Bernard Wells so you'd be on deck and then behind Bernard uh you we would have Alicia mlan so Victor Chandler if you can come uh towards the microphone over on this side and I really appreciate you being here tonight I'm just waiting for them to give out the sheets before I start last time I came before you I told you that uh well provided a document for you to look at that showed that the pay for all of Senior Management increased as a percent far greater than for teachers and that the reason for that was the use of two different type uh methods for calculating arrays for teachers and for Senior Management now uh this change actually occurred over
172decades and not just a single year if you'll look on the page one side of it covers one single year you'll see a 2% raise for both Senior Management and for teachers now for senior management you will notice that every number on the salary schedule increased 20% excuse me 2% the beginning salary increase 2% for all of them maximum the uh average salary increase 2% the cost to hire the same number of Administrators at each level increased by 2% if you look down there for teachers also got a 2% raise the beginning salary for Teacher increase zero and most steps it increased zero the maximum teacher salary increased 1.5% but it took an extra year to get there the average salary of a teacher increased less than 1% The increased cost to hire the same
173number of teachers with the same level of experience increased less than 1% now you might wonder well what happened to the money that was set aside for Teacher raises if you didn't increase it that much well in the spring of the year they would calculate how much was necessary to finish paying off the teachers then the rest of it was called lag factor and put into a fund that you know as lapse Factor now the lag factor and Laps Factor could be used for anything it could be used to create a new senior management position if you wanted to you can finance an increase in a say a a a fringe benefit if you want wanted to now to show you just to get an idea of the difference say uh it hadn't just been
174one year say it was done for 10 years and it was done for the superintendent 2% every year board member Senior Management teachers what would have happened uh the superintendent's pay would have increased 22% board members 22% every one of the single number on the salary schedule of Administrators 22% for teachers beginning salary zero the maximum salary would increase 15% yes sir Mr Chandler thank you for being here thanks for the data st13 also thank you sir and you can uh reach out to us individually it'd be great I appreciate your time yeah all right Mr Wells you're up next and then behind you you'll have Alicia mlan all right very good greetings to each of you my name is Bernard Wells from wner Haven I want to share with you all something that was
175shared with me that makes a whole lot of sense and this is BAS to on what I've seen over the last two years they said that p o k doesn't mean poke it means people of little knowledge when it comes to the ESC leadership it appears to be true since this superintendent has been in position with the help of Lisa Miller Schoolboard member leadership in that particular department has shrunk to an all-time low every person from the assistant superintendent of learnning support Tammy Castle Williams to certain of the senior managers put into position position with minimum knowledge of ESC laws in general has managed to dismantle the entire department causing confusion chaos and hiding behind a bunch of Lies which seems to be a prerequisite for leadership in that department resulting in students not receiving
176their services because it's all about the students Mr Hy Miss Miller this should make you very happy because it appears that that was your intention all along Mr Bernard let's please in your own words board members I'm sorry could we not please uh engage stand by M Miller can we please not address individual board members okay Mr chairman thank you thank you Mr wells in your own words in the superintendent's own words Mr chairman uh he stated that the ESC Department was a toxic environment in need of change that is a very accurate description of the current ESC Department that has been been created up under his leadership the toxicity under his leadership priates throughout the entire District 57 out of 67 District that's nothing to brag about that's nothing to smile about we used
177to be a b District also ESC staff was recently directed to withhold information from parents regarding compensatory Services owed to their children that being said where are the funds that has been allocated uh to provide these Services I asked that same question about speech and language students not receiving Services last year where is that fun maybe it's like what the gentleman just spoke where it's could be allocated to any of the positions that he mentioned the district is hiding the truth to its own advantages I will ask again where is those fund where are those funds the children are waiting also something that has been brought to my attention one of your senior directors of Human Resources Mr Curtis Williams how is it that he can oversee uh anything governing or concerning issues involving the
178ESC Department especially when his wife oversees that department that is a blatant uh conflict Mr Wells thank you so much Alicia mlan you are up next that's my name is m on January 24th 2024 a teacher at BTO High School committed slander against my 14-year-old son she publicly and falsely accused my son of sexual harassment against one of his classmates friend the young lady was sitting in front of my son with her head down on the desk sleeping like this my son touched or flicked her hair and said get up the teacher saw him and told him to stop when he thought the teacher wasn't looking he did it again this time the teacher yelled out loud in front of the class that is sexual harassment my son was inclined to verbally defend not only
179his innocent action but his character in front of the class he was then given a referral on the option of in school suspension or trash detail the teacher told everyone including me that she did not say it was sexual harassment but said that it could be perceived as sex sexual harassment she tried to downplay her statement um she tried to downplay her statement by changing the context I was promised by Administration that this would be investigated they did not respond to my inquiries in a timely manner they ignored my calls and only when I emailed the superintendent Tracy Collins and Mr Hyde um there was a meeting set up and they sent Ty Bruno he promised an investigation a second time through a third party um the investigation concluded and it was determined that this
180teacher did lie she was not honest and my son was telling the truth they refused to tell me what disciplinary action was given to the teacher they violated several ethical codes this teacher is still teaching and she was not suspended and that is extremely concerning I pulled a public records request she had no disciplinary action I'm in the process of directing my complaints to the appropriate people this is why I'm here today I've contacted the Florida Department of Education professional practices Services the Florida Commission of human relations plenty of places I spoke to Brian Warren in HR he was very aggressive and dismissive to the point where I had to disconnect the call he did not do his due diligence he told me because DCF was not getting involved that he had no reason to
181continue DCF doesn't handle that kind of matter they handled the well-being of my child there was no no immediate well-being of my child that had nothing to do with what the teacher did to my child and how she made him feel that day okay um she was dishonest she slandered my child's name because she had no reason other than my son not listening to her the first time I feel like it was racially motivated I have not yet sought legal counsel because my goal is awareness and accountability if it happened to my child I can only imagine how many other kids it happened to when it was swept up under the rug and that's what that is thank you m mlan um superintendent hi is this something we can follow up on tonight okay board
182members um at this point if there's no other um order of business I will say that we are now adjourned thank you