School Board Meeting | October 24, 2023

001good evening I'd like to invite you to please stand for the invocation and the pledge and I would like to invite demetric down to say the Pledge for us or say say the invocation for us truth will be evident um and that you would just have your way in this me give us wisdom far beyond our years give us a heart of understanding and eyes to see what needs to be seen and uh may you just get the honor and the glory in this and again just peace and joy may it be the thing and we'll be careful to give you glory for that in Jesus name amen amen amen and now I'd like to invite mcken Hut to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United

002States of America and to the Republic with rigid stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all you may be seated not you McKenna I have some questions for you can you come you can go back to the microphone we got to make sure everybody can hear your answers all right McKenna so what grade are you in Fifth Fifth and where do you go to school Fross proof Ben Hill Griffin Junior Elementary nice and you even got the whole name in there that's impressive so I hear that you have some things you like to do in your free time what do you like to do in your free time I like to ride my four-wheeler and ride my bike yeah do you do anything on the stage you acting or singing yes

003I act and I do Chorus at my school your Showmanship shows I think you have the biggest smile of anyone who's ever led us in the Pledge of Allegiance thank you so you are you have a lot of siblings how many siblings do you have I have six six and you're the oldest I'm the youngest the youngest man how is it having that many big brothers and sisters it's kind of exotic it's a good way to describe it I like it awesome so what is your favorite subject in school math math very nice and now you have some people here to support you who's here with you tonight my mom my dad and my principal nice can you guys stand up for us mom dad and principal awesome well thank you all so much for

004bringing McKenna McKenna thank you for leading Us in the pledge tonight we hope you have an awesome school year one more thing before you go what do you want to be when you grow up I want to be a teacher nice all right well I think superintendent Hyde may have some paperwork for you to sign before we leave so um your contract starts in 2040 um but well we hope you come right back here to P County to teach amen Men Thank you thank you all right that doesn't make you feel good all right I'll Now call this meeting to order and our first order of business is to accept the Schoolboard agenda superintendent high do we have any revisions Madam chair uh there are two changes on this evening's meum item H2 K5 Varsity

005Tutors online tutoring platform for the 2324 school year has been removed it will come back in November um item Q2 policy updates policy 3121.01b removed along with the attachments at this time thank you I'll now hear a motion to accept the agenda as revised so moved second Miss Cunningham and Dr Allen any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed and the motion carries superintendent Hyde um let hand it over to you for special recognitions yes ma'am at this time I'd like to invite School Board member Miss Kay fields to step down for this evening's special recog recognitions at this time I'd like to ask Nancy pury senior coordin for visual arts to come forward and recognize the tax collector's office which has a check presentation to the

006school board from the kids tag art program and this is an odity because usually the tax office is accepting checks not giving checks so good evening good evening it's a pleasure and honor to be here today again uh as most of you know each year we come and uh and are quite grateful to The Honorable Joe tedar our text collector who has a a longstanding signature program in our schools to bring funds into Visual Arts programs and at this point and I'm going to brag uh where did he go he's over here $2 million over the past 17 years we're actually in so this is an amazing program for those of you that may not be familiar this is a a tag program for students in fifth grade and it has expanded and been added

007to a little bit each year we added a superintendent award a couple of years ago and before that a teachers award so the teachers our our teachers who were artists design a tag and get an award so he's he brings in more and more every year and so without further Ado The Honorable Joe tedar good evening thank you so much for letting me have a few minutes of your time you have a a really jam-packed agenda and so I don't want to take up too much of your time but as Nancy pury said this program has been in existence for over 18 years and uh this program started when I would do the Great American Teach in I'd walk out the door and say what am I going to talk to a bunch of fourth

008or fifth graders about to make the task lifter's office seem interesting so I would take all these tags with me the specialty tags and say hey here's the manate tag here's the simal tag here's the cater tag guess what this stuff goes to and they would all guess and then a few weeks later I would always get thank you letters from these children and they would do their thank you letters by drawing their own tags and I thought how neat is this for them to express their thans and express their creativity using art and so we said why don't we figure out some way that we can come up with this program and put it in the school system and actually raise money for the Arts Elementary Arts programs and I come here today because

009none of this would have been possible without the school board the superintendent the amazing Fine Arts people in the school board The Unbelievable art teachers and our artists the students that I it was just an idea that we had it were these people that really made this happen and we're so grateful this is a very healthy program every year we add more and more sponsors this past year we added the department of um Citrus as a sponsor and First tag agency a private group there in Lakeland we have several different sponsors over 20 different sponsors and our main sponsor being uh every year Southern Homes of Pop County and they put $25,000 into this program and as Nancy said this program has spread started here in pop County but a spread across the State of

010Florida Statewide over $2 million rais for the Elementary art programs for Poke County alone over $600,000 and this year every single art teacher will receive almost $700 to spend in their classroom to in addition to the money that you guys invest in the classroom so I just want to come here to thank you uh thank you for your support thank you for not only your support by allowing to be here but every one of you come to the programs that we have every year every one of you are there to celebrate with those children when we do that in the spring with their artwork and I'm extremely grateful to that a few years ago we started a little contest amongst you to see who which district sold which district the schools in that District sold

011the most tax and I will say that Sarah Beth Wyatt has won many years Sarah you're getting a little excited way too soon we we we we grab the award from s Beth so that we can issue the the traveling award to who won it this year and actually District Seven Lisa Miller has won this year so Lisa I know I've won it every year I would like a recount that I would love to get a picture with uh member fields and uh of our big check that we bring you every year and so everybody that's supposed to be part that picture come that's awesome congratulations he's quick to say great job at this time I'd like to invite Janette Crowley director of strategic planning and Partnerships to come forward to recognize the focused on

012Excellence winners within the clerical par educator and administrative positions good evening Madame chair school board members and superintendent Hyde and our community uh we're excited to continue highlighting the important contributions that P County Public School Employees make for our students through the focus on Excellence employee recognition campaign this campaign honors staff members from different employee groups who might get overlooked amidst the hustle of keeping one of the nation's 30th largest school districts running efficiently each quarter the program will recognize a select group of employees through a nomination and committee process 10 employees are selected as winners and will receive priv prizes from our generous sponsors as well as attend a special appreciation luncheon and be honored at a Schoolboard meeting they will also be highlighted on the district's social media channels website and internal and

013external newsletters as we go into our fourth year of the program we certainly have seen it grow tremendously and we continue to make a positive additions to enhance the program for example we've increased the number of winners selected from 5 to 10 employees per quarter given us a total of four employees recognized in highlighted each year we began hosting our appreciation luncheons at the club at Eaglebrook we've added additional sponsors to support the program we've offered exclusive pcps logoed gift items and incentives but the most important benefit is bringing encouragement and appreciation to our employees and impacting their lives in a positive way way I'd like to read a testimonial from one of our past winners Daniel Smith who is a carpenter in our maintenance um Department he said I think it's awesome what you're

014doing through the focus on Excellence program you are exposing people that do good and not many people do that these days I'm not great with technology or social media however people are coming out of the woodwork texting and calling me telling me congratulations thank you again also from one of our te teachers she said I went to my teacher box at school today and found a focus on Excellence award package thank you you have no idea what this means to re mean to me right now it's been a really hard year and it's getting harder I really appreciate the encouragement I'd like to highlight our sponsors because without the sponsors the program would not be possible either so we have International Diamond Center idx formerly image Depot Express Mid Florida Credit Union public supermarkets Inc

015signed gypsies handed massage facial spa Chick-fil-A BTO location ad Morgan Compass Mortgage CPS investment advisors Dixie Southern Industrial Inc Lakeland leads and the club at Eagle Brook I can't tell you how appreciative we are of our business partners who constantly support the work of our school district and who have graciously come alongside us making this campaign successful due to their support we can give every pcps employee who is nominated through this program a special gift as well as recognize our winners so now speaking of our winners I'd love to share with you um what they love most about their job in working for p County Public Schools so as I call your name please come forward to receive your recognition and your gift bag tamama Kelly who's a parent educator at mberry Middle School [Applause]

016I want everybody to hear what tamama said so she said she loves to work with children because she wants to have a positive impact on the lives of the children build relationships with children and fellow caretakers and have the opportunity to grow she chose to work with P County because they believe in students first leave no child behind every day is filled with Adventures nothing matches the energy of a child's enthusiasm for life and eagerness to learn she finds herself engaging in different tasks and activities every day also each child she works with will have different strengths personalities and perspectives so we want to thank you Miss Kelly for all you do for p County Public [Applause] Schools our next winner is Barbara Raco who is a par educator at L lman Oaks Elementary she

017could not be with us tonight but her principal Miss stoker is here so can you please come up so what M Raco says that she loves most about working for p County Public Schools is the students the joy of seeing that they understand what you teach them and the look on their faces saying I get it now also the people that she works with are truly amazing and caring individuals so you want to say congratulations to M Raco [Applause] thank you Miss St stoker for being here Rachel McDow Personnel assistant to in Recruitment and [Applause] engagement Rachel says it's an honor and blessing to provide support for her Recruitment and teacher engagement team members as they work tirelessly to recruit and encourage incredible teachers and staff who are impacting Children and Families all around P

018County thank you so much for all you do and the impact that you [Applause] make next we have Alice Stinson who is principal secretary at South Point Elementary Alice says there are so many reasons to love her job she loves greeting and welcoming students and parents with a friendly smile she's always smiling a smile always makes someone's day a little brighter she also enjoys assisting the staff at beautiful South Point Elementary being part of the newest School in P county has been both challenging and exciting whether it be something big or small she loves to help in any way that she can she's also thrilled to work for p County public schools because she's dedicated and committed to the educational and overall success of our students she strives to have a positive impact on the

019students lives and the community at South Point Elementary [Applause] congratulations Sabrina reel administrative secretary in preschool [Applause] programs Sabrina says what do I not love about my job since moving into the Early Childhood Department with Early Childhood is her passion she has felt this sense of belonging and her team is amazing to work with she enjoys helping people and feeling like she's contributing to the bigger purpose she loves working somewhere where you feel appreciated and are encouraged to succeed congratulations Millie Millie Flores is a Millie you got a fan club here uh Millie is a regist at Horizon Elementary and she will say what her husband says all the time she loves her job she says she's a 53 year old woman with five girls and what she always taught them was that it does

020not matter what you do always do your best so every day she wakes up and tries to overcome her own expectations she says working for pul County public schools has given her the opportunity to grow and do what she does best serve the community she looks forward to many more years working for p County Public Schools [Applause] congratulations Autumn Ashley administrative secretary in facilities and operations Autumn has shown that students are first in her book she answers the phone for facilities and multiple times a day will receive a phone call from a parent needing Direction she doesn't matter what particular time or what the parent called for they have several questions Autumn always makes sure she fully understands what the parent needs and she go she's very professional goes out of her way to try

021to answer the question get back with her get back with the parent that's calling um she takes information down she um goes to other departments she basically tries to find the best answer to get back to the parent so that we can give the best customer service we want to thank you for what you do and say congratulations [Applause] autumn Dr nikesha Leatherwood principal at Citrus [Applause] Ridge principal at Citrus Ridge at Civics Academy what Dr Leatherwood loves most about her role is the ability to create an atmosphere where students and staff want to be the Principal ship is beautiful responsibility she truly loves her school and feels that it's a better place because it's under her leadership she takes honor and pride in showing up daily for her school Community she gets to be

022the principal she wished she had growing up [Applause] congratulations Alex mccluck principal at Lewis Anna Woodburry Elementary Mr mccluck says our career allows us to impact the community by supporting families and providing students with the tools they need to thrive in their future his favorite aspect of his job is promoting Student Success and inspiring students and his staff to achieve their potential as a principal of an elementary school many of our students exhibit a general excitement of about what opportunities exist for them in the future he feels that his responsibility is to Foster that excitement and provide structures at the school to promote quality instruction he's enjoyed the opportunities that P County public schools has provided and relished his time serving the different communities he looks forward to many more years serving this wonderful district

023and hopes to continue his journey of growth alongside his students congratulations stepen kpp assistant principal at Chain of Lakes [Music] [Applause] Elementary the thing that Mr KP loves most about his job as an administrator for p County Public Schools is the people he loves working with amazing staff of hardworking individuals the STA the school staff collaborate uh together to provide students in the community quality instruction while focusing on campus safety and support for their peers our teachers work hard to support each other and strive to meet all students needs including both remediation and acceleration our families are engaged and we have high turnouts at family events the families in our community are very supportive of our schools and pto's incentives of creating a fun and engaging education for students and making our staff truly feel

024the appreciation and the respect the job deserves finally he loves serving the students at the school education is our students future as well as our community's future it is an honor to be able to serve in this endeavor congratulations Mr Club like to say congratulations again to all of our winners we appreciate everything you do do we want to do one group photo at the end here Mr Club one group photo r photo okay you're still down [Applause] in closing I just want to say Empower each of you winners and everybody listening and all our staff to continue being the amazing leaders you are and Pay It Forward by nominating another pcps employee during the year our nomination window for our second group of employees is currently open and will close on October 29th and

025we will be recognizing employees within the uh positions of Transportation School nutrition and non-classroom teachers thank you so much for your time thank [Applause] you but wait that's not all the next two recognitions are incredibly special we will honor our nominees for this year's principal of the year and assistant principal of the year I'd like to call forward Miss Beth Nave our regional assistant superintendent for the South K8 region it looks like Miss Tracy Collins is joining her and Dr Ben Henry is also joining her Miss Nave will take a brief moment to explain how our nominees were selected out of all of our outstanding School administrators she will then call each nominee to the front of the auditorium where they will receive a trophy and stand together for a group photo after the group

026photo I will announce who will receive another Trophy and the winner will be invited to share some thoughts the principal and assistant principal of the Year winners will also be recognized at the pulp County Public Schools Inspire Awards on THS Thursday November 9th at the RP funding Center this event will also feature the naming of P County teacher and school related employees of the year we will start things off this evening with our nominees for assistant principal of the year and then proceed to principal of the Year miss Nave the floor is yours thank you good evening chairman Wyatt and honorable board members and superintendent Hyde on behalf of the division of schools Deputy superintendent green and the regional assistant superintendents we would like to share our new way of selecting our P County Public

027Schools principal and assistant principal of the year in the past we named One winner for each category however this new process allows us to honor more leaders by naming Regional finalists all regions chose one leader as a finalist based off student outcome data School climate and culture and overall instructional leadership skills all finalists were announced in front of their respective peers during the September principal and AP meetings once chosen finalists were asked to submit answers to two essay questions little homework form the regional team met and reviewed the responses and selected an overall finalist which was then submitted to Mr Green and Mr Hyde for approval the winner of each category will represent P County schools for the Florida Department of education's principal and assistant principal of the Year tonight is about publicly recognizing and

028celebrating all of these amazing and talented leaders and to announce a winner P County Public Schools is honored to have each one of you leading our schools and representing this fantastic profession we would also like to thank Lake Alfred poly Tech Academy for Designing and creating our trophies along with Jason Gary and his team we will first begin with our assistant principles as I call your name please come forward to receive your trophy and remain standing up front representing the central region Eagle Lake Elementary Miss Heather Lynn from the high school Region mberry High School Gian monachelli from the northwest region representing Dixie Land Elementary Craig hilgenberg from the Northeast region representing lman Oaks Elementary Lauren gakis and it's always the best in the South the South Region representing genan Odell Senator Jamie yoast all

029right Mr Hyde at this time would you please announce the winner for the AP of the Year we're gonna create some tension here in the room real quick oh my god do we want a drum roll be able to take their photo in peace um clearly we're we're absolutely thrilled by your nomination I mean you exemp you exemplary leaders in our school buildings each of you was nominated for very real reasons and those that we are very proud of the work that you do each day this is one of the most difficult things for me to do is just announce one of you um as the finalist but in reality you're all incredibly um amazing administrators and we're blessed to have you leading in our schools but I do have to select one of you

030and so at this time I will announce that Mr xan monelli assistant principal for mbery high is our assistant principal every year and let me give you a little bit of background in Mr monacelli he is laser focused on helping students at mbery high school graduate through his efforts the school has put systems in place to provide additional support for our migrant students English language Learners and students with disabilities his leadership has produced outstanding results in his school's overall graduation rates and in addition he has worked hard to make sure students have a plan for Life After High School he is partnering with the local Hispanic Bar Association and he has developed a summer internship programs for students he has also created more opportunities for students to explore college and Technical School options he is

031always searching for innovative solutions which makes him an ideal candidate for assistant principal of the year please join me again in congratulating Mr moneli Mr monelli you're welcome to go to the microphone if you have a few words well thank you thank you so much superintendent for those kind words uh thank you so much to miss Collings for dominating me and for the support that the school board has provided us as well thank you to the district leadership for the support that you provide us each and every day um I am honored I am humble with this opportunity to represent U mulbury High School my mbery high school Mike mbery Community uh represent po County Schools as well in this capacity I um you know this is going to serve as a reminder every day

032to continue to push for excellence uh within my school within our school um I am very honored again thank you um I do want to say that this this job is difficult those of you that have been in our shoes any job in education is difficult uh there are many challenges days and and some days that make you question why we're in this profession but you know over 17 years of experience working in in po County by the way all of my my years have been here I have to say that um I found and easy solution to that problem and those days that you're blue um I go out in the hallway and I interact with the students or I go in the launch room when I I you know I see the students

033socializing or I go in the classroom I see the students learning sharing and uh that that you know fixes the problem that reminds you why we're doing what we're doing it's it's it's about the kids it's not about us it's not about the recognition although I appreciate it it's really about the progress that your our students are making it's about supporting teachers I do want to thank my family uh my wife and three beautiful children um you know I get up every day trying to be the best I can to you know for them I do want to thank uh my wonderful principal Michael Young one of the best out there he has guided me for since 2011 13 years I've been learning from him with him um and I do want to thank my

034admin team they're wonderful I could not do my job without them uh Miss Dixon Mr Murdoch I also want to thank my teachers really it any success that our schools have you know earn over the years is because of them they're in the trenches teaching hundreds of students every day and they they make it happen for us thank you is your family here this evening they are not I I have uh three kids one is 10 one is nine and one is one and a half so my wife is home with all all three yes a busy house if we be we would be more than happy to host you and your family at an UPC coming board meeting so we can get a family photo of you so thank you thank you for that

035superintendent thank you I appreciate it thank [Applause] you Miss Nave you can see why it was a difficult decision when we have such high caliber leaders all right for our principles at thank you our principles representing central region Elbert Elementary Miss Alex wise [Applause] representing the high school region Ridge Community High School Miss Angie Clark representing Northwest region SRM Elementary Jonna jiak representing the Northeast region Lake Marian Creek Middle School Miss Wanda [Music] Aon representing the South Region mulbury Middle School Cindy [Applause] celos Mr Hyde at this time will you please announce the winner for the principal of the Year oh next year I'm not doing this I had I had one child for a reason so I would not have to answer who's your favorite I know can you imagine reading the essays I

036all jokes aside this group of Administrators standing before us today are absolutely exceptional and I could I could I could talk at length about each of you each of you clearly stands out for various reasons but all of you are truly dedicated to our students and and it's my pleasure to work with you each and every day um but one of them does have to be selected as I said before and this year's winner is let's do a let's do a drum roll please the winner is Miss Wanda Aon [Music] l [Applause] Miss pante is a veteran administrator known for her compassion and ability to get results when we moved her to Lake Maran Creek Middle School this past year the school has already benefited from her knowledge and expertise her new approach to student

037discipline and staff training has contributed to a positive School environment as well as improved student academic performance she's also started a successful food pantry that now serves about 100 families she understands students challenges and that meeting their basic needs is vital to their success in school it's that kind of heart and insight that makes her our pcps principal of the [Music] [Applause] year are you sure you want me to talk board superintendent thank you so much for this wonderful recognition of the hard work that everyone here that works for pop County puts in on a daily basis this job is one of the most rewarding and it could be annoying at the same time but it's one of the most rewarding jobs um you can have uh being a career changer I came into education

038by accident I started as a parah and here I am almost 20 years later so there is room for growth if you put in the hard work but it's not about the accolades it's about being a servant leader and it's about having a passion for the job and I am so honored to be here with these amazing principles assistant principles and um I'm just very happy and I'll continue to put in the good work until the good Lord tells me it's time so thank you very much and um it's time for me to go party now oh and my husband who's my husband and my Handler Edward Ortiz um can we please have your family join you for a photo yes and my cousin Esperanza De Jesus who um you can see we're not shy

039people we're not shy folk um and but they've always been here from day one and I truly appreciate all the sacrifices my husband has made with all the crazy hours and all just the craziness that I come at a moment's notice and he's always willing there to support me and um again thank you thank [Applause] you yes ma'am I will make that happen for you thank you Miss Nave Madam chair that concludes recognition for this evening thank you superintendent [Applause] Hyde thank you superintendent Hyde the next item on our agenda is public comments for agenda items and I'm going to let everybody that's leaving leave before I say anything else give a minute all right can we have the lights back on oh hey Miss Collins can you turn the lights back on thanks all

040right so next is public comments for items on the agenda to be voted upon as adopted at the start of the meeting before we begin I'd like to again welcome the public and go over our public comment process and opportunities for this evening we will have three opportunities for public comment the first will be for items on this evening's agenda to be voted upon as always during this time comments will be limited to to those items on the agenda the second will be for our P during our public hearing portion of the agenda and then at the end of the meeting we will also have an additional opportunity for public comment on items that are not on this evening's agenda to register to speak community members must fill out a speaker card in the lobby

041prior to the meeting all speakers will be given three minutes the light will turn yellow when you have one minute left and you will hear a beep when your time has concluded all comments should be directed to myself as the board chair as a reminder public comments are an opportunity for us to hear your thoughts and comments on an item this is not a question and answer session however if you're seeking additional information I encourage you to contact us out contact us or the superintendent's office outside of board meetings and we would be happy to have deeper conversations before we begin there's a red line on the floor over here so if you are on deck if you can go and stand that red line that way you are right in the queue right by

042the microphone so first we will start with Stephanie Yokum and then on Deck we have Glenda white right I'm Stephanie yokam uh HK Education Association president uh tonight you are voting on item P4 our paa salary contracts for our teachers par Educators and our secretary clerical units as you vote to ratify the 3pa contracts tonight I want to thank our three bargaining units for their participation in this collective bargaining process these salary Agreements are their proposals that came to fruition in these contracts before you they told their Union that their priorities are to break up the experience compression that our state has forced on us over the last few years through direct legislation dictating how we must spend salaries uh salary money for teachers and by underfunding our District through our per student funding allocations

043that forced us to compress our support staff salary pay grades as the minimum wage moved to at least $1 an hour last year the state did not allocate the necessary funding to give all support staff the same raise last year these salary agreements begin that decompression that keeps our employee and it keeps our employee health insurance at Z premium with all other premiums and deductibles staying the same with co-pays actually decreasing to $35 if their provider is a highly qualified provider with our embold health plan breaking up the compression and moving staff down their schedules to ensure our veteran staff are seeing the types of raises that our base salaries have seen over the last few years will not happen overnight because it didn't this didn't occur overnight our district cannot rely on the State

044of Florida to do right by our students in this district with the appropriate funding to provide our students with the highquality free public education that our state constitution mandates over the last few decades our state has demonstrated this der elective duty to our public schools and our communities that have that and they have no interest in upholding this constitutionally mandated responsibility to fund one free quality Public School System we need our school board to put a millage referendum on the November 2024 ballot for salaries so we can compete with surrounding counties who either have a millage referendum currently or Coastal properties that increase their local property tax contrib contributions po County Public Schools must act now to ensure a millage referendum is on the November 2024 ballot to retain quality staff and pulk versus staff

045leaving to work in other surrounding districts where they are paid more to our bargaining unit employees that are not yet a member of their Union we ask that you join so that the contracts we've bargained over the last almost 50 years remain in place we must maintain our voice your voice as we collectively negotiate our wages hours and working conditions with our employers you this board individually we are nothing but a whisper but together we can move mountains our bargaining units ratified their respective contracts at 95% for the teacher contract and 98% for both parent and secretary contracts and we urge a yes vote from this board tonight thank you thank you Miss Yokum next up is Glinda white and on Deck is Royal Brown good evening I'm Glenda white a Winter Haven resident um

046I want to thank you first for removing the varsity tutoring program from the consent agenda it's a great opportunity for board members to study data connected to this program consider the value of the 6.6 million in in proposed spending and research other more effective and less expensive method that's not currently an agenda item I'm sorry excuse me just wanted to thank you okay consent agenda H subject three addresses an ongoing Grant to help migrant Farm Workers develop their careers I provided you an article discussing some of the costs of illegal aliens in the US for years American citizens have endured the cost of supporting illegals this grant is another way to extract money from US citizens to fund people from other nations the description portion of this item States These funds be used for lawfully

047admitted and then includes a long list of those who get into our nation what is the definition of lawfully admitted we all know that anyone who steps foot over our border is now admitted with no vetting there is no definition of Legally admitted anymore they may have paperwork but how do we verify validity proper Health screenings that their kids are even theirs they receive billions in benefits meant for US citizens and we should not be paying for their expenses NOS make bills ions bringing migrants to the US they should be paying for or sharing with employers the cost of Health Care private education legal expenses food clothing and all others with private funding not taxpayer dollars many women and children are horribly victimized on their way to the United States by Predators 85,000 children have

048disappeared after crossing our border if our practices in encourage illegal Crossing of our border we consent and contribute to horrible victimization and slavery of multiple thousands the P County School District is rated 60th out of 67 in the state why do you not petition lawmakers to require non-citizens to take on their own costs or go to one of the charitable organizations to pay for them the pul school board must focus on providing excellent education for citizens of P County and easing teacher burdens this grant money comes from the sweat of P citizens and uses resources meant for them on non-citizens helping others outside of our basic focus is a good thing but if we don't take care of ourselves first we will not be able to take care of others please do not accept this

049grant thank you thank you Miss White Mr Brown and on Deck is Robert Goodman good afternoon I'm Royal Brown III and I reside in Winter Haven I'm here to address concerns regarding consent agenda H item three for migrant Farm Workers I noted in the agenda in the agenda the criteria for this education is lawfully admitted but no definition of this phrase is provided we have millions of people entering our nation unlawfully they not required to go through a vetting process prescribed by existing immigration laws but rather are simply allowed into our country let go bust flown to cities across the United States without notice there's no doubt many migrants are good people who are here to work and support their families however there are also large numbers of criminals and potential terrorists who enter as

050well these criminal illegal aliens bring with them trafficking rapes murders drugs gangs and potential terrorism that is very costly to taxpayers pop County and Florida are not exempt from the actions of these unvetted aliens in fact last year and this year so far this year the US Customs and Border Patrol has reported over 100,000 illegal aliens have entered Florida I provided several articles depicting some of the consequences of allowing illegal aliens into our nation in Florida without vetting my concern for this $352,000 state Grant is if we taxpayers are paying for the education of possible illegals who have not been vetted rather than using our tax dollars to ensure the citizens in pop County have provided excellent adult education citizens would need adult education need should come first I recommend that poke County Public School

051dist District staff and School Board review the definition and the meaning of lawfully admitted and verify that those migrant farmer Farm Workers who wish to use these Services fully meet that criteria thank you thank you Mr Brown Robert Goodman and on Deck is Matthew groski hello on my card I said I was going to talk about two of the consent agenda items I'm actually going to address a third one just briefly when Miss Yokum was here she said that we needed to put something to raise the millage rate I just want to really I mean in a time where there's economic hardship going on in our country and fam families are trying to figure out how to put food on the table that is not the time to raise taxes and I'll just leave that

052at that also P3 is inserting a lot of new library books in the system I'm sure all of you got a few emails from me yesterday with the content of some books in P County um I hope that you've taken time to read the content it is not catcher in the Ry or Huckleberry fin this is graphic that is straight up pornography and I do have copies if anyone is unsure of the book issue I have copies of of what's in P County Libraries I can hand out to people we need 60 days to review these books I mean there's a lot of books it's going to be hard to do in 60 days but I don't know how you can just say we're going to accept new books when we have problems in the

053system the citizens deserve a chance to have a say in that and I ask that you remove that from the consent agenda and push it back 60 days so that we can have a chance to examine those books finally consent agenda L is for gaggle.net I don't know if you know this but gagle is the leader in keystroke monitoring and and of school children and it is a concern for security and privacy everywhere if a student links their computer with their phone not only can gagle see everything they look up it can see all their texts with their parents um I know we have a contract with them I would ask that you revisit that that's all thank you I'm so sorry gr graholski as soon as I said it I knew it was the

054wrong almost every meeting it's okay it's okay I get it's not it's not on is going to be Sarah gun hello today I'm here to speak on agenda item P3 the library book list for our public schools in my senior year of high school in 2022 I was granted the privilege to serve as a TA in the George shenin Media Center in that experience I was able to see a safe space for all children including marginalized communities people of color everything I was able to see the beauties of our media center and how great all literature is including the controversial ones that year the attempted burning of our texts were proposed throughout our entire County I saw that and I knew that I had to step up I defended the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly

055Close I saw the values of that book the concepts of grief compassion and love ingrained in that text I did not learn about 91 just through the documentaries shown at my public high schools my middle schools I heard about through my relative that saw the attack on the Pentagon and also that book and that book showed to me that we can all unite as a community and as a nation in my senior year I felt grief I felt immense grief two students at our high schools in pole County that I were able to know through many other students their let students read about how to deal with grief let them read how to deal with compassion do not let them face it alone and these texts help these students they help them identify grief how

056to identify compassion in our communities and while dealing with all this grief I decide that I need to strive to be better and to help the people that helped me in those media centers after reading the book Their Eyes Were Watching God In My High School AP English course I was able to learn about Edenville the institutional racism that that Community has faced how their lyy rates are nearly in the single digits now I'm assum at Rollins College and I was able to walk in the first juneth parade in Edenville one of the first black communities in America I march with their mayor their state representative their Congressman I have learned so much through these books about compassion leadership and tranquility tranquility that our communities need keep what we have promote what we have that's

057what matters the most s our stents thank you thank you Sarah gun in on Deck is Kindra doer hello my name is Sarah gun and I am a senior at Harrison school for the visual arts I'm here today because I want to speak on agenda item P3 the library book list for our school I heavily relied on my school's library system for reading material reading provided a necessary escape from the struggles I faced a specific I book I enjoyed that I read in my AP language class was A Thousand Splendid Sons by Ken hini I enjoyed the perspective told by a woman which is rare in a third world country because it opened my eyes to what life can be outside of the United States this was crucial for me to help understand and form

058of different World Views I hope that you keep what is currently in our schools they're important and mean a lot to us students please fight for students don't censor them thank you for your time thank you HRA stalker and then on Deck is Bobby de hello my name is Kendra stalker and I'm currently a senior at Lakeland High School I'm here today because I want to speak on agenda it agenda item P3 the library book list for our schools I wholeheartedly oppose any form of book bands I like many other people my age really enjoy reading it is a gateway for creativity and abstract thinking a portal to an unknown world with freedom to explore it in my own mind some of my favorite books I have read have been reviewed to be or straightup

059banned in the United States some of these titles have or I have read include the perks of bingo Wallflower by Steven chaboki last night at the telegraph club by Melinda low and ironically Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury most of the books to be banned contain themes of love acceptance tolerance and friendship to these VAR themes are important to teach our young children and adults with without them there would be no empathy in the world no sense of community or Compassion or no growth in our everchanging society sorry Banning books only makes learning more inaccessible producing ignorant people who can easily be controlled and manipulated on a whim I first read The Perks of Being a Wallflower in my freshman year of high school I was quite shy awkward anxiety ridden and frankly sad coming out

060of the pandemic into real school again just like Charlie at one point I felt like I couldn't have or make genuine connections due to the separation of myself from the world around me it reminded me that I'm capable of loving others and being loved myself that life does get better in a time where I ultimately did not think it would and I saw myself in Charlie struggles it remains one of my favorite stories to this day in for good reason also last night of the telegraph Club is another book I enjoy it helped teach me that as a young queer person there is Acceptance in this world I can find community in a seat full of bigots and I can push Society societal barriers and break Norms surrounding sexuality and gender it was a positive

061representation when my anxiety was actively being challenged by inflammatory and discriminatory laws both novels have have sincerely changed my life for the better and I am certain others feel the same lastly I just wanted to mention Fahrenheit 451 their society made made keeping books illegal kept citizens distracted through entertaining media and people were taught that books were confusing and full of meaningless facts Etc as you may or should know doesn't this sound a little familiar distracting citizens with various other forms of Highly entertaining media telling students that our books are full of meaningless or untrue facts all under the guise of protecting us correct me if I'm wrong but last time I checked you're not our parents they are the ones who should decide what media they want their children to consume not the government

062who vowed to care and uphold its citizens rights and values that in the end only wants to act in its own self-interest it's almost like it's preferred that we're ignorant don't know our history correctly and aren't capable of complex and intelligent thought that's what it seems like from the actions taken in the last couple years and my grandma my grandmother has always told me actions speak louder than words please trust me when I tell you books are not what you need protecting children from thank you thank you Bobby de and on Deck is Pamela Barnes hi my name is Bobby de I live in Winter Haven Florida I'm speaking on consent agenda H subject four Grant award Farm Workers Career Development I have a problem with this subject where it states wioa Workforce Innovation opportunities

063funds shall be available to lawfully admitted permanent resident aliens refugees and ases providing funds for Education expenses and tuition assistance for eligible students you cannot Define legal entry into the US the Biden Administration declares migrants legal when they cross the border it's common knowledge that they are not getting vetted how do we know the immigrants mentioned in this subject were actually vetted we don't know but they are receiving benefits like housing food and clothing education and job training at taxpayers expense all the while there are American citizens that need these same benefits the money being used here should go towards improving the education and performance standards of children and P County the school board is failing our kids student performance levels have dropped from 57th place to 60th out of 67 counties in Florida they

064can't read very well and they can't make change for a dollar I stress importance of improving their skills and academics and the hiring of qualified teachers that believe in teaching the skills they need in life to make it in this world and not socialist woke ideologies this is what works this is your job there are NGS non-government organizations like Catholic Charities that have assumed the role of sponsors for migrants and getting paid to do this then we take over the people who want them here should pay for it so why are we paying for it let the NOS do it the law doesn't say we have to pursue federal grants to do it the migrant children coming into our Public School Systems speak don't speak English which makes it harder for them to get educated

065and takes more time and more teachers and staff and money to do it resulting in a negative impact on our student performance ratio the school board should stay in its own lane and educate citizens of Pop County thank you next is Pamela Barnes and on Deck is javanna cillo good evening school board members my name is Pamela Barnes and I'm the media specialist at Boswell Elementary School I have been a Poke County teacher for 32 years and over 20 of those years have been spent as a media specialist tonight I'm here to urge you to approve the purchase of library books on the agenda for our school libraries the orders you have represent hours of work on the parts of our media specialist with the help of our district Media Services before we decide on

066a book we look at the needs of our libraries the wants of our students and the age appropriateness of those books we have a selection policy plan in place that we adhere to and we also present these titles to our library committee then to our school principal and finally submit them to you many many hours are involved in this process we have had State training and in service training to make knowledgeable appropriate choices for these purchases not to mention all the on on the on on the job experience we have please do not let a minority influence your decision for on the majority tonight approve the book orders for us thank you javanna cillo and on Deck is Donna Hager hi yes my name is javana I am here to speak on agenda P3 I'm

067here to address some concerns on the book of the Sun and her flowers um this book has been removed from bravar County Hernando County and Mar Maran County and I will be reading from page 40 um just a brief excerpt of what's written here hold on just a second we just need to can you tell us what school this is being adopted from what school it's being adopted from it's is it on the list to be adopted today um I don't know okay if it it's not an agenda item so I can move your card to the after to the end of the meeting okay it's not an agenda P3 this is not it no ma'am okay all right sorry about that I will call you back up in a little bit all right Donna

068Hagar is next and then Anita carsson is on Deck I'm also here to talk about agenda uh P3 and I'm not sure if mine is on the list I know it's in some of the libr that one's not on the list tonight but it is in some of our libraries correct but it is not on the agenda for tonight so you can speak on it at the end of the meeting if you would like and I will put your card for the end of the meeting and then Anita Carson um thank you so much so looking at I'm here to speak about P3 I'm not reading from a specific book I'm talking about just in general the adoption of the library materials um I really appreciate Pamela coming and talking about the immense work that

069goes into selecting materials for our students um the work is selected by people who have master's degrees in media and Library Sciences it is people who work in our schools every day who care about our kids who work with our kids work with parents and do the best they possibly can to bring amazing material materials to our students with that we also need to make sure that all of the books that we are bringing into these schools as a whole not talking about any individual book making sure that those books are inclusive of the backgrounds of the students that we have in this County we have large groups of Black and Hispanic students who should be able to see themselves in the books that we are getting so should their students that are not that

070be able to see the lives of other people lgbtq students should be able to see them mes and their families in these books and people who aren't lgbtq need to be able to grow empathy in that space by reading about them we need people from every marginalized group to see themselves and to be represented for people who are not in those groups because we have to grow empathy and compassion we can see right now that we have people today talking about removing Grant supports for migrant students I have been giving hundreds of dollars a year to our migrant students sorry this really pissed me off I donated toothbrushes toothpaste and blankets to our new charter school for migrant students and we have people here talking about them being rapist and we just let that go

071that's who we're talking about trying to ban books so please keep that in mind when you're thinking about that all of our kids and these are children deserve respect dignity and support in our schools even our migrant and immigrant students thank you thank you miss that will conclude our public comment on agenda items and next we will go to approval of the minutes so we have four sets of minutes to approve this evening the first will be for September 5th work session and I will now seek a motion to approve the minutes of the September 5th 2023 work session meeting so moved second Miss Cunningham and Mr sharpless any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed and the motion carries next will be our minutes from the

072September 5th 2023 Schoolboard meeting and I'll seek a motion to approve the minutes from the September 5th 2023 Schoolboard meeting so so moved Mr sharpless and Miss Miller any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed and the motion carries the third set of minutes is for the September 26 work session I'll seek a motion to approve the minutes from the September 26 2023 work session second Miss fields and Mr sharpless any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed and the motion carries the last set of minutes will be from the October 10th 2023 work session so move second Dr Allen and Miss Cunningham any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I any

073opposed and the motion carries next will be our consent agenda I'll seek a motion to approve the October 24th 2023 consent agenda so moved second Miss fields and Miss Miller any discussion I I miss Miller just want to recognize on the consent agenda we have the um let me look to see don't go anywhere slipped away this is where we're approving PK State College that we discussed earlier is that true it went away where'd it go chairman Wyatt you want an item number the item number because we have the provos here so I was just going to recognized that the board was supporting O2 02 PK State College Collegiate High School charter contract modification that was a very small discussion candy and M was so excited that we didn't have a 100 questions for her

074but I appreciate Dr Bratton and the audience here to support that school and I think everyone here was in support of that I'm also very much in support of all of our children whether the Federal requirement tells us to do it or it's because it's the right thing to do so I appreciate the speakers that came today thank you thank you Miss Miller Dr Allen yeah I just want to speak to L1 and superintendent I don't if you maybe want to speak to this um but I've interacted with the the the representative from gagle many times at our Florida School Board Association um conferences and then just wanted to verify and Wes could speak to this as well but um gagle is not being invasive in um student technology from a privacy standpoint uh my

075understanding is that gagle uh only engages with our Microsoft teams and our uh Office 360 suite and monitoring those aspects and I just wanted to clarify in that if you can speak to that that is that is am I is it on you're on thank you um that is correct what gagle does is actually provides a safety net for students so if they begin to search um for topics and things that as it relates to self Haring behaviors or threats to others it notifies us and notifies the family um so we can take appropriate action so gagle does not seek nor do we collect data on student keystrokes um nor do we have any intent nor have we ever asked to download or or retain content data as it relates to text messages um specifically

076I don't believe that our devices have the ability to hotspot through a cell phone device because it would require them to continue to go back through our filter um so miss Pasco just walked in so I'll go ahead and let her finish up with the explanation hi how is everybody great so I was in the hallway we have quite a few people here so can you repeat the question so I make sure I answer it appropriately so yeah just in uh public comment on agenda items uh this one in particular as relates to gaggle yes and just wanted to verify that gagle's only monitoring um within our Microsoft Suites and Microsoft teams uh the Office 360 it's not um moving from those platforms to be invasive in a student's um personal device that is correct

077so let's take a step back and look at it this way we offer every student a pulk county email just like at work I have my personal email and I my I have my work email and I have my personal email and all of us in places of work keep those things bit separate we do the same thing at P County and we are monitoring the P County email and we give every student a device and we're monitoring that email that they are putting on our device we also teach students at the beginning of the year through the Flight Academy how they can appropriately use their digital tools and what we can see so we tell them that we are monitoring that through Gaggle we are not monitoring keystrokes that we are not doing what

078Gaggle does and I believe Jill see more in safe schools has some information that they could share with that is we do monitor when people are using students are using digital tools to cry out for help and we put in appropriate supports that need to be done I can talk with Mr Hyde and we can present some of that later but that is that's really the purpose of Gaggle the purpose of Gaggle is not to be onerous into invasive of someone's privacy so it's monitoring our school email address that is given to students and they are educated on what we can see and what they should do with that we're not monitoring personal email addresses it's also important to note that they are required to sign the DPA the data Privacy Act agreement just like

079every other one of our software contracted supports that is correct and so that that is required under Florida statute for the sole purpose of protecting student privacy and data so um gagle would have to abide by that and we have a signed agreement with them at this time yes additionally gagle does quite a bit of redacting so this is not something that anybody's in and looking at and looking at things to violate anyone's privacy through there does that answer the question I would also point out this is functionality that we have to have from somewhere you know it's that is correct this is this is this is a this is a risk and a growing risk this is functionality that we just cannot exist without that is correct yes thank you Miss Pasco you're welcome

080Dr Allen did you have yeah one more thing uh on P3 obviously we've heard some public comment on this and you know I I would like to hear superintendent if you can maybe speak to um I do see that all this is coming through the fet um application in regards to the PDF and the list of these um I know we're doing a lot to offer uh enhanced parental controls in a sense by adopting Insignia um which is our library management tool which is different but there's been a commitment that by the end of this school year those features would be in place if you can give me an update on that that that is the update by the end of the school year additional features and enhancements so right now we do have to

081restrict um and limit parent choice to multiple times throughout the year because that way we're able to catalog and collect that data and ensure the that that student and the media center specialist is adhering to those requests on behalf of the parent um however as we move forward that will be an ongoing process that will allow for frequent revisions Andor modifications by parents or Guardians um to date we've had fewer than a 100 parents participate and select or opt out of certain materials for their children all of these materials I do want to speak to the process and and our our employee did a fabulous job speaking to it earlier but all of these are peer-reviewed all of these also have ensured that they comply with the state of Florida requirements I think anyone would

082be hard challenged to find a book on here that's even on a some list that may be floating around as far as books that could potentially be challenged there's a great deal of effort that's put into these to ensure that these are your appropriate materials these are also a and developmentally appropriate there are only certain bandwidths that are allowed of reading materials within each School level and so again the team has put an incredible amount of effort in here principles have to sign off on it at the end before it becomes to you in accordance with Florida statute we're bringing these before you as well and should a family member have a concern with one of these books or the contents Within These materials they can opt their child out because these will be updated

083so if the board does adopt and does agree to approve the purchase of these materials they they will then be incorporated into our online system and we will notify parents at each respective school that additional materials have been uploaded we'll provide them the list and they can go back through and select if there's any materials they don't want their children to have access to so we go well beyond what the what the state of Florida requires yep and I know that I'm asking that our software can um can do that right you can okay because we are transitioning between the two platforms as we discussed previous all right thank you any other questions Mr n so that my understanding is then so if one week two weeks two months go down the line we find

084that we were given some improper information we can always make a change can't we then that's not going to happen what's going to happen is somebody could find a book on here that they personally object to there will be nothing in here that we're recommending to the board for approval tonight that does not align with Florida Statutes and Ord stateboard rule so I want to make that clear because that's there's no one's intentionally trying to mislead anyone so I want to make sure we're clear about that however with respect to parental Choice as we've demonstrated repeatedly whether it's human growth and development whether it's books we are open to parents and Guardians making whatever consent informed decisions they choose to make they could have a religious objection to a book it does not have to

085mean that they objected a book because it's pornographic because of other issues they may have personal reasons that they're objecting to a book they may have a religious objection they may have a political objection that we're not in the business of of filtering and Mon and monitoring that we're in the business of providing parents with options and that's what we do so if we go three months later and they find a book and again on the list that they take issue with they're more than welcome to opt their child out of that or challenge the book in accordance with board policy Andor procedures thank you superintendent Hyde Miss fields I just kind of wanted to reiterate what superintendent H just said if you look at the description it pretty much defines what uh we're specific

086about and making sure that the areas of pornography and prohibited materials harmful to minor suited to student needs and appropriate for the grade level and age group is required by Statute one 6.40 and there are a lot of other factors um making sure that the book is AE appropriate and uh making sure that we're in compliance with the state laws and uh one of the uh media specialist who just spoke gave a very detailed uh analysis of how the process works and how much work in time and energy is placed in it I think she did a great job with it and so I I think that we have to trust the process and believe that everything is in place and if it's not superintendent Hy would be the one that we'll have to hold

087accountable for that all right thank you Miss for if the board has an interest Miss Stacy Davis who supervises and oversees this process is available if there's any additional questions or you'd like further clarification on the process in which these lists that are before you were developed any further questions from the board I don't have any questions but if she would like to add something I think it' be nice if if she would like to certainly good evening um so as our media specialist just said our media Specialists do all go through state required training um that is an annual process so they will all go through um the same training they listened to last year but it'll be um their certification for this year on January 10th um but they all currently have certification

088that's required by the state statute additionally um we have a selection criteria that goes beyond what other districts have um elementary students um we use a Renaissance rating system so think AR Renaissance star um they can have elg mg so lower grade and middle grade for elementary up to mg plus which is up through eighth grade um has been approved by age appropriate um by Renaissance for mg+ and then up to ug or ya for high school um we no longer let high schools purchase what would have previously considered adult material so that's our selection criteria as the media specialist explained to you earlier um they also have their own collection development action plan for the school and those will shortly be added to each me media web page um and so how that comes

089along is they look at the demographics of their school which is quite interesting because our department also does the collection development action plans for 30 plus School staff with media Paras that cannot create their own orders it's really interesting when you look at the demographics of our schools um and then you start to align their collection for the media center to that um as Miss Carson said earlier taking into account our African-American population Hispanic population Asian making sure that those books are represented so the med media specialist then um they take time to do that as well um so they have taken a lot of time between the state training and our district training to make sure that these books are age appropriate based on collection development needs based on students um that have made

090requests teachers have made request and also aligning those collections to the standards and they really make sure that the collections are diverse again as as superintendent High pointed out um we have the parent opt out so if a parent decides that that book is not appropriate then they are C welcome to opt their child out um I would also like to add a little bit of extra information about Insignia we're off to a great start with Insignia um it is different I I liken it to you had a new car and you knew where everything was in your old car and now we're trying to figure out where it is in our new car we're getting there it's working great um and we look forward to being able to utilize it to its full extent

091so how that will look is that by this time next year if we don't have to wait to import orders parents if we add let's say say we ordered this time we can import those order Mark records when they come and the parent would get a notification by email if if they've registered with their parent portal account we're still working on getting those numbers up too if we have the parent email they would get an email that says new books have been added to your child's collection would you like to view them and they have the opportunity to opt out currently we have two safeguards in Insignia if a child has an opt out so if the parent has an opt out there is a restricted title list which the media Specialist or media can

092view that it also pops up automatically so if a student has an opt out when they come to check out a book if it's been opted out by the parent it alerts the media staff member that there is an opt out in place for that um so I just wanted to explain that there's two extra safeguards for that um so I hope that explains a little bit of the process and where we're headed with Insignia any other questions yeah I've got one Mr n if we have to stop the video feed because the content is against the FCC and YouTube decency standard s how can we offer it to our minor children in our libraries got a question for Miss Davis that's a procedural question um we've addressed this with the board I've provided you

093with that information we can't control what the YouTube standards are anyone can stand here and read a book They're entitled and they empowered to do so however there are standards for our YouTube and our ability to produce and publish our our Schoolboard meetings that we also have to conform to we don't create that standard we abide by that standard and that's not a question for Miss Davis thank you Miss Davis I one question so the the title if I select on an individual title will I as a parent can I hit a radio button and say I want that title to be opted out for my child currently you can in the parent opt out right so when all those titles are available you can select it then and then once we fully integrate with

094Insignia with that then they will be able to see all the titles in their child school and off the out great thank you thank you seeing no other discussion we had a motion and a second for the consent agenda all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed and the motion carries six to one new administrator superintendent Hyde would you like to introduce us yes ma'am Madam chair members of the board members of community and staff it's my pleasure this evening first and foremost we will introduce to you again Miss Nicole pennet senior director for school transformation is now being brought before you and we have a special guest I see she's being promoted to acting Regional assistant superintendent Miss Bennett thank you very much I'm so excited um for this opportunity

095and to continue the work that is happening especially in the PK trans formation office I'm so happy to have Miss Barnes here with me as well I have big shoes to fill but with her support I know the work will continue I also have my loving husband here as well Charles who listens to everything that I have to say [Laughter] uh so um but no I just really appreciate this I love what I do each and every day um and the work that's happening and the administrators that I work with the teachers and ultimately the impact it has on our kids here in po County Public Schools thank you we get you down for a picture with your family come on down Miss Barnes we knew you couldn't stay away longer hello you look relaxed

096and rested next up we have Miss Tammy fens principal at kbi Academy of Design and Engineering who's being promoted to acting senior director for school Improvement good evening superintendent Hyde and distinguished school board members I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to support the students and staff of P County schools in 1992 a long time ago I began my career as a third grade teacher at a brand new school called lofman Oaks Elementary over the years I've had many opportunities to learn and grow as an educator for p County schools and I've been thankful for every one of them I've always been passionate about making a difference in improving student outcomes as I step into this new role as acting senior director I will continue to make this goal a priority I'd like to

097thank Mr Green for his leadership and vision for improving student outcomes and including me in this important work I'd like to thank my school family the staff of kbi Academy of Design and Engineering for believing in me the mission and vision of our school and the students for the last nine years their dedication perseverance and belief in the power of yet has made a difference in the climate and culture and the continuous increase in student performance at code academy I know they will continue continue to improve student outcomes under the direction of the new leadership I'd like to recognize my children Carly and Jack two teacher children who spent more time at school waiting on their mother than any two children should I love you both very much I would be remiss if I did

098not thank my husband Tim who has been a constant support throughout my career he has always understood that my work was important moving my classrooms hauling Cubbies up flights of stairs before elevator planting plants painting hallways installing frames pressure washing attending weekend events there isn't anything that he was not willing to do to help again thank you for this opportunity to serve the students and staff of P County Schools congratulations M thank you next up is Rob laach director for business process support promoted to senior director for business process support good evening everyone good evening sir nice to be here it's an honor to be here with you this evening and for this wonderful opportunity I would like to personally thank the board Mr Hyde uh Mr Pitts if he's in the house Miss Jenkins

099if she's in the house uh Miss Pasco if she's here there she is um and of course my team the business process support team um last but certainly not least I want to thank the most understanding person uh that I've ever met who gracious graciously tolerates my long days away the love of my life Tatiana who unfortunately could not be here with us tonight but um I thank each of you again and please have a good evening thank you congratulations next up we have Sid Le senior manager for eers being promoted to director over eers good evening sir congratulations thank you very much I wanted to uh thank the board and Mr Hyde and Miss Pasco uh for the support and uh of the promotion and uh I look forward to the many years of

100service and and continued service with the school board and I want to thank my wife Cheryl for her support as well thank you fantastic good move Miss Erica Morse acting director for Community as Community liaison is being promoted to full director of community liaison hi good evening I'm so honored grateful and humbled to be here tonight I'm so excited to serve the community that gave so much to me and shaped my formidable years to be able to support All southp County Schools is a blessing but to be able to support my hometown is truly an honor and I look forward to ensuring that my territory is served to the best of my ability I'd like to extend thanks to those who have supported me in my educational Journey I'd like to thank Mr Ty Bruno

101Mr Brett Butler Miss Tracy Collins Mr Dan talbet Miss Beth Nave Mr Wayne Green and superintendent Hyde I'd also like to thank my family and friends for their love and encouragement lastly I'd like to thank my team they've embraced me and now are my family Dr Steve Warner Betsy Cleveland kylia Carswell REO Coyle are an incredible force and I cannot express my gratitude to each of them for their support and guidance I'm elated and truly thankful to be a part of their team and to be able to serve all the students of South Pole County thank you thank you come on on down for a photo next up we have Hugo pascoa senior manager of systems Network promoted to director of systems Networks good evening members of the board superintendent H um I'd like to

102thank everyone for your support and um Miss Pasco and um my team who works day in and day out uh to do all the great work that we do thank you very much and um also want to thank my wife and my daughter who are here with me today um and uh with all the support that they give me at home as well thank you congratulations joining us next is Miss tamaa Lucas acting assistant director of exceptional student education being promoted to assistant director of exceptional student education good evening good evening um I just want to say thank you to the board and my interview panel for the opportunity for advancement and giving me this chance to keep doing the work for our exceptional student education department it is my passion um I also want

103to thank my husband and the rest of my family I have a lot of family out here tonight supporting me so um a lot of love thank you [Applause] congratulations let's get the whole family down so we can get some pictures that's awesome fantastic next up we have Earl acting assistant director for finance being promoted to assistant director for finance next we have Joshua is it WBA wall Mr Gary is calling the hall let's find next up we have Byron Morrison acting principal on assignment being promoted to principal on assignment all right good evening everybody evening sir um pleasure to be here board director superintendent Hyde uh I appreciate this opportunity um to be part of the transformation office um I do believe there's a lot lot of great work Happening Here in P County

104um and I'm excited to be a part of that great work um I work with some great people um my new Regional assistant superintendent Miss benett um has been amazing as well as uh the other regionals and Senior directors so we've had a great time um thus far uh being out in schools and just doing the great work um I want to give a special thanks to my wife Lauren um who's here tonight um she got a job which allowed us to actually move to this area so she kind of paved the way for all of this and of course I have my kids here as well who uh kind of give me that motivation to put my best foot forward whenever I'm supporting schools or any of the administrators in the building so thank

105you congratulations thank you who do I have here next is Michael Wright assistant principal at kbi Academy of Design and Engineering being promoted to acting principal at kbi Academy for design and Engineering good evening super superintendent Hyde U members of the board I'd like to thank my family and friends for being here tonight um it's very special to get to have them here um I also want to take a moment to take to thank Miss Tammy fens um my former principal mentor and friend um when I joined on board about seven years ago at KI Academy as the assistant principal I didn't know what I was getting myself into but she took me under her wing and she taught me the ropes and she gave me everything I need to be ready for what is

106about to come um I'd like to thank uh Miss Kendrick for also being super supportive in my new role and making sure that all ducks are in a row and ready to go um but I'd also like to say when you hear CBI a lot of people have a stigma about what it used to be kbi Academy is a miracle Center kbi Academy is a place where things happen on the daily that a lot of people don't see or take the time to see I really want to knowled that because I've been able to see my son go from kindergarten all the way through fifth grade now at Blake Academy as an assistant principal I'm watching my daughter now as the acting principal in third grade and I pray to God I get this year

107make it all the way through fifth I wouldn't have faith in the school if my children weren't there and my children wouldn't be at a better school it's incredible the things that are happening but you got to take the time to look miracles every day working with Children of poverty and showing what the difference an adult who believes can do I'd like to thank you all please take the time to come out and visit us we'd appreciate it if you did that's why you were picked yes sir congratulations here she is and last but certainly not least Miss Alba Gonzalez colon acting assistant principal at Boon Middle School is being promoted to assistant principal at Boon middle school thank you congrat congratulations thank you want noes good evening everybody I want to thank Paul County

108Public Schools Mr Hyde Dr Henry and mrst for this opportunity I definitely want to thank my family for the support all the time Mr Dr Henry Liv I'm super excited to serve the teachers and the students in my community thank you so much amazing congratulations thank you madam chair that concludes new administrators for this evening thank you so much superintendent Hyde she can do that again so pretty the next item on our agenda is our action agenda so P1 is our school Improvement plan and I will now seek a motion to approve the school Improvement plan for 2023 2024 so moved second Miss Cunningham and Dr Allen any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed and the motion carries next is item P2 tenro high school and

109Southeastern University facility upgrade and we'll seek a motion to approve the tenro high school and Southeastern University facility upgrade so moved and that was Mr sharpless and Miss Fields any discussion seeing n done all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed and the motion carries next is going to be action agenda P3 and I will seek a motion to approve the library books list for elementary schools K8 schools middle schools middle senior high schools and high schools move approval Miss field sorry Miss fields and Miss Miller any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed opposed Mr Noti so the motion passes six to one next is going to be action agenda P4 which is the settlement of the 2023 2024 contract negotiations with

110pea I'll seek a motion to approve the attached collectively bargain teacher par educator and educational support clerical personel signed tenative agreements following ratification by the three pea employee groups so moved second Miss Cunningham and Mr Niti any discussion Miss Fields I want to commend uh everyone that was involved in negotia and coming up with a I think a a good start with some of the issues that we tried to uh address the compression for the veteran teachers and and making sure that all the different classes are represented I would like to say that we have had discussion in the past about a millage rate specifically to deal with the salaries and I think one of the things that we have to make sure of is that it's a good time and that we have everything

111in place to pursue that I I understand the value of it uh and I am definitely looking forward to having conversation when it's appropriate thank you Miss Fields Mr Niti I would also agree with that and I'm looking forward to uh get those teachers that are in the middle of the uh pack some extra money because they're probably could go somewhere else and make some more money but uh we I'm I'm so happy they're staying here and uh hopefully soon we can uh reward them and all the teachers I know are doing a fabulous job so thank you for being for here for us thank you Mr Niti Miss Cunningham thank you madam chair I too want to state that um I'm very grateful uh to the team that worked on coming up with this

112proposal I know Miss yok U Mr pittz uh Mr Warren um of course superintendent Hyde um it's been an amazing group working tirelessly um to make this happen because as I said earlier in work session you know sometimes the old saying is you got to put your money where your mouth is and we constantly applaud our teachers thank our teachers show appreciation like you saw tonight but the bottom line is with the world the way it is and the economy um folks need extra dollars in their pocket to be able to you know help their families um and be able to move forward and we all recognize that and I'm so grateful um that we can't got to this point and I just want to Echo thank you um on behalf of most importantly our

113students if we take care of our teachers and we take care of our bus drivers and we take care of our Paras you know what in the bottom line is our students get the most rigorous and relevant education and there's nothing else that we could hope for so thank you to everyone who impacted this decision um and I'm very proud that we're to this point tonight thank you madam chair thank you Miss Cunningham seeing no further discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed and the motion [Music] [Applause] carries and I will now close this meeting to open the public hearing and the first order of business is any speakers we do not have any speakers registered to speak on our public hearing so our first item will be

114q1 and I'll seek a motion to approve the to approve a public hearing on the 2023 2024 student progression plan for purposes of board approval move to approve second any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed and the motion carries next will be item q1 sorry item Q2 for policy updates we have two policy Updates this evening the first I'll seek a motion to approve policy 1111 designation of new position move approval second Miss fields and Miss Miller any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed and the motion carries next policy we'll I'll seek a motion to approve policy 5330 use of medications move to approve second Miss Miller and Miss Fields any discussion seeing none all

115those in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed and the motion carries I'll now close this public hearing and reopen our school board meeting next up is our superintendent report superintendent Hyde ma'am Madam chair before I I give the information about our next upcoming meeting I do want to congratulate the amazing students and staff at Ridge Community High School as you know we recently had the opportunity to host our Commissioner of Education um as he came here to talk specifically to our students and the secretary of the Florida Lottery system who came to visit with students and continued to share information about the Florida bright future scholarships for which there are now four opportunities for students to get free money for college and I'm very excited in fact that two of them

116are trades vocational Slants um and opportunities for our students and so they're truly the State of Florida is truly honoring its commitment to provide opportunities for all students regarding regardless of what path they may be pursuing college or career Readiness um so it was it was an excellent opportunity the students there were absolutely amazing um into to the fact to the point that our commissioner made several comments to that end and is he's looking forward to returning to visit that school and some of our others they were very pleased with the facility they were very pleased again with the way the students interacted with them that is one of our Civics Academy Schools and so I had the opportunity to go visit just yesterday with the civics class um and answer questions for them about

117civic responsibility and Leadership and my role and and the board's role and how do we work out you know perview in certain instances um but they were fully engaged very excited and we have now connected them I Believe Miss Dodge has left for the evening but I had the opportunity they're planning a trip to Tallahassee so I've connected them to miss Dodge so that she can facilitate getting them in to meet with some of our our legislators um in that setting and get to learn more about our our system and get more involved in local government and efforts but amazing group of students and an amazing team uh Miss Clark and her team deserve a lot of credit they were given as you know we don't get very much notice so the Friday before the

118event we were told are you interested in hosting this event I of course said yes we're interested let me call Miss Clark and see if she's interested I gave her first right of refusal she said no we'll be honored to do it and she was able to get student permission slips and everything done very quickly we had about 300 students in the audience it was well attended and a great event so I I wanted to make sure I highlighted that we had our first also barbecue competition this last weekend I'm not going to say anything else in case Mr sharpless or somebody else I want to steal your thunder um but in the superintendent report we have a lot of things going on as you know wrapping up homecoming events and other things going on

119in the school district that you know and I look forward over the next few months now that the first quarter is ended we will be bringing the academy Improvement plans forward for you so you can see what the goals and initiatives are there to further their experiences and opportunities for our students um because we've made great significant progress in those areas but I also look forward to the opportunity now that the first quarter is over to start bringing more students in for academic and other recognition because we we are committed to that and I'd love to see as many students here tonight if not twice as many as we've had administrators and other people here this evening for recognition so it's a great opportunity for us because there's some amazing things going on in P

120County Public Schools so the next work session and board meeting will be held on November 14th 2023 the work session will begin at 12:30 p.m. and the board meeting will begin at 5:00 pm the meetings will be held at the district office located at 1915 South Floral Avenue here in Barto thank you madam chair thank you superintendent Hyde next is our attorney's report Mr Bridges mad chair I have three items for the board tonight the first is a recommendation to approve a a proposed attorney client engagement agreement with Wagstaff and Cardell and co-counsel Curt mcon and Han arendel Harrison sale and Beasley Allen Crow methin poris and miles and goza and honald these are law firms that are representing school districts across the country and mass Tor litigation against various social media entities in connection

121with pursuit of claims for damages associated with use of social media by students it's on a contingency fee basis there's no cost to the district and um you we we'll engage in if if it is approved we'll engage in Discovery provide that information to them um at this point it appears that about half the school districts in Florida have have joined litigation EI this this one or similar and as well as school districts across the country it is similar in its in its scope and in the nature of the litigation to the L to the lawsuit the the district joined having to do with vaping and and with the jewel is the defendant which was successfully prosecuted by by the same group of attorneys so um for your for your consideration I would recommend approval

122of that thank you Mr Bridges I'll now seek a motion to approve the proposed attorney client engagement agreement to provide legal services in connection with the pursuit of claims for damages associated with social media and litigation Mo approval Miss Cunningham and Mr sharpless any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed I that was a i yes you agree not oppose correct I oppose actually you oppose okay so we have it carries six to one thank you ma'am the second item that we have uh this evening is you recall that um the board previously approved settlement of of claims pursuant to the litigation that I mentioned earlier against Jewel and various um vaping entities and that that was a mass toward litigation brought by the same group

123of attorneys we just mentioned and the school district share in that settlement was a nice seven figure sum uh at that time they indicated that there was the possibility of of additional funds uh once they performed some housekeeping and and as long as they had a sufficient number of the of the plaintiffs who approved it in timely fashion which they did and they have now offered an additional amount of $752,500 that litigation and I would recommend that you approve that settlement as proposed thank you Mr Bridges I'll seek a motion to accept the proposed Global government entity settlement agreement with Altria Group Incorporated Philip moris USA Incorporated Altria Client Services LLC Altria Enterprises llcf and Altria Group Distribution Company for the gross amount of $752,500 costs and to authorize the board chair and superintendent of

124schools and the general councel to execute all documents incident to the settlement of this case who Moved second Miss fields and Miss Miller any discussion I have something Miss Fields I don't really want to discussion but I just want to U have superintendent hi to kind of say very quickly how those dollars will be used please are you going to propose Miss field you want me on the record multiple times as it relates to this so for the jewel settlement there are two areas that we will expend fun funding on number one is obviously educational support anti- tobacco anti- vaping campaigns in our schools in addition to that the majority or the bulk of those will go into Vape detection devices in our Middle School and High School restrooms um so we can help defay

125those issues as well thank you yes ma'am any further discussion or make Mr Hy go on the record all right seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed please signify by saying nay and the motion carries thank you ma'am the third and final item that I have for you this evening is a request for authority to advertise a public hearing to be held on December 12th 2023 during the regularly scheduled board meeting for policy updates including I'm going to run run down the list very quickly 2266 non-discrimination on the basis of sex and education programs and activities 5136 Wireless communication devices 7544 use of social media 1120 employment of Administrators 3120 employment of instructional staff 4120 employment of support staff 1112 1.01 background screening and employment history checks 3121

12601 background screening and employment history checks 8475 criminal background screening for contractor access 5771 search and seizure 1217 weapons 3217 weapons 4217 weapons 5772 weapons 7217 weapons weapons is a popular topic 2370 educational options 2120 School Improvement 1242 professional learning and 3242 professional learning thank you Mr Bridges now now seek a motion to approve to advertise the public hearing for the policy updates Mr Bridges just read so moved second Miss Cunningham and Miss Fields any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed in the motion carries thank you madam chair thank you Mr Bridges next on our agenda is board member reports and we'll start with district one Dr Allen district one so I do I'm G to start with my pencil stat for you tonight um and

127I was going to say did you know that the average pencil can write about 45,000 words um I shared that stat with my my students today in my principles of game design class and then at that point they started to Banter what the longest words that they could recall that they had memorized growing up so it would write less but um there's your stat for uh today um I mean we've been so busy and so consumed and just reflecting on our work session today I was drawn to um a discussion about um an issue with some some students and whether they should have been placed in the proper course or not um and so I wanted to start my comments off by just saying thanks for the responsiveness and from superintendent Hyde and his team

128on that particular issue but then I was just reflecting back on the last two weeks of maybe several different things um that when a parent brings an issue to me or sends a text message because we are all accessible you can go right on our page you can hit my phone number send me a text or call me it'll come right to my phone uh and then hopefully I can follow up as quickly as possible but when that issue comes forward um and I connect with the superintendent how quickly things happen so uh here's one I I just wanted to say again thank you this came to me from a teacher uh I wanted to say thank you again thank you so much for meeting um with me whether it was Serendipity or intervention I'm

129inclined to think that it was the ladder things started moving along um well we were getting up and running not at all uh there yet but we can work and and we're making art work always the win in my book my students and I thank you um and this was a text message just a quick followup from me hope our district offices reached out and things are moving forward the response I heard from someone yesterday and expecting to hear back from her in the next day or so thank you for getting the ball rolling um we we have a heavy lift here but I just to let you know we are accessible so um grateful to serve in this capacity what a great day to honor and recognize some great things happening in our school

130district and I look forward to seeing that line of students out the door as we recognize the great things that they're doing as well um I probably know all kinds of different events that I've been to U and it can get very very long but um I did have a chance I'm going just end with these two little snid bits had a chance to coach at tenaro not like football coach but academic coaching for a case study uh that involved Bank of America that's a part of our 3de initiative U which is Under the Umbrella of Junior Achievement in P County and it was awesome just to hear these students like Ponder and work through this this Pro it's a pbl which is a problem based learning and within higher education we we use this

131model a lot and to hear students work through this and the initiative was um how do we reduce the amount of email intake within Bank of America by implementing either one two or three and one of them you know was like artificial intelligence the other was the metaverse or the last one was live chat and VOIP um which is um voice uh inter Internet Protocol and just to hear our students work through and discern and bring data and research was so exciting um and then just just yesterday um our students I had a chance again uh to be a part of Entourage of students where we went to the Sheriff's Office and our students then pitched a case to their human resources department and you know here Sheriff Grady did have an opportunity to speak

132with our students um about his early days serving on the ambulance and delivering a six 16y you know as a 16-year-old delivering a baby and he shared that with our students and they're always like what no way um and I I could I can't imagine that but beyond that I I think our Junior Achievement students did an amazing job pitching their problem-based learning uh to the P County Sheriff's Office um human resources department so just a couple highlights um glad to be here Madam chair that's all I have thank you and next we'll go to District Two Miss kenningham thank you m chair in the effort of time tonight um I will hold my comments for our next meeting thank you thank you Miss Cunningham Mr NTI District 3 thank you Madame chair I'm gonna

133cut mine close too uh all the schools I visited U I just saw tremendous things from the teachers teaching students listening faculty members doing what they were supposed to do and uh everybody's working together great and um just super impressive I also attended several sporting events and it was good to see the uh super morale uh even students that weren't even playing uh either you know volleyball or football they're they backing their teams up it's nice to see that Pride on a sad note I attended uh Andreas Martinez's service down there in Fort meat and it's uh it's so sad nine years old he would have been 10 the next Friday and uh it was touching and I I can't think that uh I can't think but think we're in the Middle East right now

134that's probably repeating itself and we need to pray that somehow over that Middle East uh they can find a miracle and get peace and stop this because I feel so bad for those young people those kids over there so uh anyway we're doing a good job keep on working keep on being hard thank you mrri for your work thank you all the people here that put all those things together and and the union for getting together and um God bless you God Bless America and God bless boat County thank you Mr Niti and Miss Fields District 5 I'm going to keep mine short like Miss Cunningham referenced I see there's a lot of speakers which is good U but I I do have a time sensitive uh request uh I am a part of Girls

135Inc which everyone knows which is a United Way agency and we've been very blessed to receive funding from United Way for many many many years and uh I want to thank superintendent Hy for allowing nonprofits to come and to share how we're partnering with each other and one of the neat things about uh United Way that if it's not a United Way agency as long as as long as it is a 501c3 agency you can you can uh make your contributions through United Way for them and so today I'm challenging my board uh peers to if you aren't already given to United Way you all have the form it was given to you you and I am challenging you to uh to make a pledge to United Way they do payroll deduction you can make

136a onetime payment whatever works for you will work for them but this money goes back in the community and it is very well scrutinized and we have to account for every penny that we get and it makes an impact in so many lives and you never know when you might need the service so I'm just U I'm I'm actually going to make a pledge today I'm giving this to uh Janette probably and again I would encourage you all to do the same and I'll wait for next U month to give my other items thank you thank you Miss Fields does our department can we compete for the United Way I'm just curious you know superintendent Hy's Department could win last year I mean feel like we should be able to compete we do have a

137bobblehead Mr sharpless I have a few things um first I I want to congratulate I was on the prize control for district 6 I want to congratulate Kelsey Matthews from Pinewood Elementary for being district 6 teacher of the year and Matthew Browski from Roseville Academy from being for the district six School related employee of the year I look forward to both of them winning at the Inspire Awards because District Six is the best um but in all seriousness congratulations um it's to be recognized by your peers uh is something truly remarkable um superintendent Hy did allude to this but um I appreciate you allowing me to say this um Fort me high school held a barbecue contest uh this past weekend and you know Rick you and I are the new members of the board

138but it seems like we have a little rivalry going on here in the barbecue Department because Fort me your school did win first place grand champion and Roosevelt academy one of my schools got reserved Grand Champion so uh hopefully you know there's going to be multiple barbecue contests throughout the year so um we'll have to see who comes out on top at the end but um also I attended uh mlin Academy of Excellence had um had a reception for the the new Academy they're they're bringing the new Career Academy from Duke Energy the Duke Energy Academy I was there I I want to personally thank Duke Energy for investing in that school um it's you know in in Lake Wales um we need more uh we need more careeres um especially in that energy area

139so I just thank you duke I appreciate it um two other things I started an initiative um this this school year uh my agricultural literacy initiative and to date I've I've been able to read at three of our elementary schools around the district U I've got some more coming up as well so I want to thank Eastside Elementary South Point Elementary and alturus Elementary for having me uh come out and read to your students about agriculture something that I find very important um you know I want our students to realize that milk does not come just come from Publix it actually comes from a cow um but there's a lot of other other other things too um and the last thing is is a very sombering and and serious Point um and on October 14th

140I was given the opportunity um to tour the 1200 building at marjor stowman Douglas High School in Parkland um I'm just curious did any did any other board member was any other board member given that opportunity or able to go no okay well I I would highly suggest if they if they um present it that opportunity is presented to you sorry it's hard I'm trying to fight back some emotions here um to to tour that building it is relatively undisturbed the plan is to demolish it over the summer um it just made some things real you know we we vote on student safety stuff here um as board members this is the kind of stuff that keeps you awake at night as a board member um personally I have three sons I have my wife's

141a teacher my mother's a teacher my father's a teacher my brother's a teacher my mother-in-law's a teacher my father-in-law Works in our uh maintenance department here at the school so I've got my pretty much my entire family is on a school campus every day um and tour that building and to walk over the glass to see blood stains to see what I saw there um that will never go away from my memory um and so when we make decisions on school safety here um that will always be in the back of my mind and so if you fellow board members if you have an opportunity and that's presented to you at all um I would take it because the time's coming short on that um but I mean it's serious and it's something that we

142deal with so I'm just going to end there but um yeah I'll s there thank you Mr sharpless Miss Miller I just have a few things I want to go back to that Project based learning at tenaro 3de sometimes people think it's um a printer and because it is 3D printing but this is not what the program is this is a program that involves the community and needs community support if you're a business owner and would like to get involved in mentoring these students it's a curriculum that goes throughout their day that talks about how to solve problems and we have corporate sponsors that come in and it happen to be Bank of America and I got to see the kids I was able to judge that and it's hard to judge because I think

143they all did a great job but you got to see kids take problems and actually come up with the solutions and they present them back to the company the representatives from Bank of America I saw kids who had never thought about banking didn't even have have an account and didn't know how to open a checking account go from only learning about that all the way to suggesting that they make their apps available for virtual calling because nobody wants to ey chat with people they don't see so it was great to see the kids involved in trying to come up with Solutions and I think that's what it's about for our kids trying to resolve real world issues it gets them excited about learning um I want to mention this Friday at Roosevelt Academy there will

144be a um there'll be a dedication ceremony for the welding program I'm mentioning this it's not my district but the people that made this possible the gaset family I grew up in church with these were good people that left their money to students of P County they didn't have kids of their own but they wanted to make sure education was readily accessible and he U Mr gasset was a welder and and familiar with that and so they're opening the welding the welding program along with the Garcia family which is also related to the gaset they're providing um a $20,000 donation for welding supplies from providing DC welding booth Boo and a $20,000 donation for welding supplies and the gaset are not no longer on Earth to see this but I know their family members are

145and people that knew them growing up I knew how much they cared about the Comm Community knows what this means to them so I'm excited to join that at Roosevelt I'll see out there in district 6 on Friday at 9:00 am you don't need to RSVP if you've known the gaset family or you want to support that welding program you can just um be there at Roosevelt at 9:00 am on Friday I have one other thing to mention we are doing something we've done in the past it's a meet and greet throughout the County it's they're called town halls and it's for our service support service staff so anybody in ESC all of those staff members um and that crosses over to Mental Health and Social Services all of those things will be accessible to

146the community we have a lot of new staff in those areas and in the past we've done this and it was very successful the first one will take place and I think it's actually at Roosevelt something about Roosevelt we're having a lot of activities out there the first one is the 30th at 5:30 and it is at Roosevelt Academy but they will be across they will be across the county so that following week the 30th at 5:30 is at Roosevelt or you can come out Thursday the 2nd November 2nd and that will be at Lake Region and that will be a place for families to come and learn if you have questions or issues with IEPs or support services or you just want to meet who's in charge of that and so you can have

147the create that Foundation that friendship to um you know resolve any issues that may come up throughout the year or make celebrations for things that are occurring with your students you can to our website you can go on all of our social media I've shared it um we'd love to see you at those Town Hall meetings that's what they're for um so please come out to those and I think that's all I have thank you thank you Miss Miller I will reserve my report my only comment will be because I forgot to say it in the work session earlier just a reminder to my colleagues that um we have all of our evaluations to fill out so if you could please have those in by October 31st I would greatly appreciate it um and again

148if you have any issues accessing them please let AET or Linda know and we can work through those we do have a have several um speakers for non-agenda items we've been going for about two and a half hours now do are we o do we need a break or are we okay to keep moving go ahead and start all right we Che a break so all right so we will now begin with our public comments for items not included on this evening's agenda just as before to register to speak community members must have filled out a speaker card in the lobby in the lobby prior to the meeting all speakers will be given three minutes the light will turn yellow when you have one minute left and you will hear a beep when your time

149is concluded please note that although the board encourages Community participation no immediate action will be taken on items presented during this public comment portion of the meeting if follow-up board action is required then the matter may be placed on the agenda at a subse meeting in accordance with Schoolboard policy first on the list is Robert Goodman and on Deck will be royal Brown I want to start off by congratulating two board members board member Wyatt and board member sharpless I understand are parents to new children that as a parent of three that is one of the best things that ever happens to you in your life so congratul rations to both of you I know it's not your first and I believe it is yours so congratulations on that um I do want to thank

150you for the Gaggle clarification I was able to speak to miss Pasco about that and it does make me feel a little better that Gaggle is not being used in our district the way it is in some others so thank you for trying to protect the children and that's what I'm going to talk to about the rest of the time last week I was at the Florida Department of Education state school board meeting and I got a chance to talk talked to several board members uh fdoe officials and Chancellor Burns and I want to share with you some of the information we learned it was validated that all content in the library whether it's a student library or classroom library in a media center is the responsibility of you and the superintendent above all else

151um it was said that all of our books are good under Florida Statutes and state board rule I gave the same packets that I emailed to all of you yesterday to the states Schoolboard members and that was not quite the reaction I got from them I encourage you to read those um it also was said that we have policies and procedures in place first they're not working second these are the procedures or these are the policies these are the procedures and if you look they don't even relate to each other they're totally different um according to the policy there is supposed to be one of you at every book challenge I've monitored all the book challenges for the last year and a half there are no board members but it clearly states in board policy

152that you are to be present at those um It also says that there's supposed to be three parents and five staff members when I pulled the records for Kathleen there were two minor age students and uh there were there was two parents listed so we're not following the guidelines Chancellor Burns also confirmed that a parent or resident who challenges a book does not need to read the entire book the form says that they have to he said that is for data collection only one of the state school board members looked at some of the content and said I wouldn't read more than three pages of this so it's clarification that the whole books do not to be need to be read and I sent you excerpts we also learned that many school districts in the

153state are making it difficult for parents to find the challenge forms on our on their websites and they're making the challenge process cumbersome and hard and they they they discussed that at a board level I don't know if that's the case here I just want you to be aware that that's there also contrary to Media propaganda no book in Florida has been banned no just because it's not available at a school you there are no Brave books in our libraries they're not banned they're just not available to students age appropriate books are not banned okay next is Royal Brown and on Deck is Matthew graholski thank you Mr Brown Matthew graholski all right he's coming around on Deck will be Nancy Willet Angela Michelle Carr 52 Jill gallian 29 an Joseph lar Jr 19 those

154are the names of those murdered in Jacksonville on August the 26 2023 I'm tired I'm tired of these meetings having conversations and dialogue sprinkled with hate you all took an oath to protect kids in this County don't exclude certain ones for being different highlight them listen to them we need to have a return of proclamations an increase of mental health funding clear opposition to kicking out books about black and LGBT history that's what we need remind the community that when you add fuel to the flame you walk out with blood on your hands certain people may dabble in hate and campaign Finance violations of win but we will remember what you did so many students called me after the last meeting I spoke at crying saying that nobody has represented them like that it shouldn't

155be my job to represent them it's yours and the biggest heartbreak from that was telling them that I didn't feel like I fought hard enough but I realized the majority of the board did not listen enough I know which member hugged me thanked me for speaking and which ones did not this County and this country is of the People by the people for the people and we won't forget that people ask me why I sit here and yell at you I don't want to I don't want to be here almost every single Tuesday it's because I hoped that you would listen but you didn't do it we live in the state where to be called a nickname in the classroom you need to get your parents consent but it does not matter if that nickname

156is the fsor in P County let me tell you something the first time you learn and you love a transgender student in the State of Florida is the level of hatred that they have faced and has festered in our hallways yet you haven't condemned it properly you ended it with you enabled it with removing proclamations and now the issue of burning books is back in that full display in this meeting Christ almighty can we have sane and sensible schools again alas we saw the allies of those who murdered those three innocent community members in Jacksonville in the room that very day you vote to strip Pro proclamations they were the same people who rallied in Altamont and M park yet only a small group of you publicly condemn them I want you to condemn all

157of them and on the record and say that the men wearing decorations of swasa saying 1939 were bad people tell me that we deserve that protect trans kids protect black kids protect his fan kids protect gay kids protect migrant kids protect kids For Heaven's Sake thank you Nancy Willet and on Deck is Jonathan algado Miss will my name is Nancy Willet I live in Lake Alfred my comments will be about the book and I will be reading excerpts from the book Push by Sapphire this book has been challenged and it has been removed from at least six counties in Florida it is still in at least two School libraries in P County I'm I'm not going to read but some small excerpts from it it is about a sexually abused teenager I want to say

158one thing about it this book begin as the name of the book is push it became quite famous because a movie was based on some of it the name of the book has been changed actually to Precious in 2009 there was a movie you may be familiar with the name name of that movie was precious it was about a sexually abused teenager but it's a much bigger story than that so I'm only going to read two small excerpts from this book because I think it's very important that this stay out of the high schools most definitely there's more much more but I'm only going to go to this last excerpt because this is important this does not need to be in any school there's much more in this but this particular this does not belong

159in high school libraries um so that's what I wanted to share thank you thank you next up is Jonathan algado and on Deck is Patty Pike good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Jonathan alagado I'm a Lakeland resident um I'm also going to read an excerpt from a book um that has is in currently in four high schools in our County um back to Mr niti's statement I'm sure YouTube will probably censor this they censored me last time um and and we can just all agree as adults you know as sensible people that if if YouTube censors it then what in the world is it doing in the libraries whether the parent wants to opt out or not I mean it's all just it's just it's common sense all right and we're not putting

160on a show whoever's here watching us whatever but you have to you have to look in your heart and look at your sense of morality and when you look in your heart and your sense of morality I want you to ask yourself what is the the the the literary value in statements such as this so I just I mean we we're adults here it's it's very simple I mean we don't have to go through all this rigar roll what literary value does this hold of to any minor in any situation whether opt out process or not I mean my goodness if parents are so interested in their children reading this material let the parent go and buy it you know I I don't feel obligated to pay for some trash like this and it's been

161said that these books you know these these current books I just read they Implement they teach compassion they teach empathy they teach all these you know good things about human characteristics well I present to you one book that that in personifies that shows value and has changed my life as a young man when I was 17 I did 5 years in state prison got out addicted to heroin shooting needles in my arms ended up homeless this one thing this one thing God's word stands true and stands firm and the truth of it is we shall all not just you guys all of us will be judged by his word God bless you thank you next is Patty Pike and on Deck is Jonathan Bush Patty Pike all right Jonathan Bush and then on Deck is

162Kim Davis Hi good evening this is the book breathless by Jennifer nien this is at Barto senior Davenport senior Frost Proof middle senior George W Jenkins senior Ridge Community senior tarok senior Travis technical Winter Haven Senior this book has been challenged and removed in Clay County and as a grown man and as a pastor and as a father I take no pleasure and I'm very discomforted discomforted by reading these words that was very uncomfortable for me to read and you want to talk about protecting our children if you have the authority and you have the power to remove this porn pornographic material from our public School libraries you have a a duty to God Almighty to do so because Romans 13 says that Governors are a minister of God and a terror to evildoers these

163are evildoers and so may God help you to make the right decisions thank you next up is Kim Davis and on Deck is John Lynn I'm also gonna read a very uncomfortable passage from a book called Blue Eyes a very simple name for some very uncomfortable information what in the world how many of your children are going to private school instead of having this crap y'all need to raise the bar just because the state have a has a standard doesn't mean p county has to have the same standard raise it up thank you John Lynn on Deck is George Garner John Lynn from arandale um obviously this book made it through the uh safeguards that you have in place I'll be reading an excerpt from the book almost perfect by Brian catcher this book is

164at hanne City Senor and Lake Gibson Senor this book was challenged and removed in Martin County Florida page 100 and I quote are you hearing what we're saying and these books reside to this day in P County School librar some it it it's shocking question who are the adults in the room you as a school board solely stand between these books remaining or being removed from our P County School libraries you all seven of you who is your constituency that demands that these books remain you obviously fear that constit constituency and it keeps you from being the adults in the room or perhaps your intransigent attitude is politically motivated and produces a reflexive response where you are actually defending the indefensible would your parents have allowed these books in your home as a child I

165dare say not a single one of you would you have allowed these books in your home today I dare say not a single one of you I know the answer to that and so do you there is no way your parents would have done so though so why are you championing this diabolical cause why isn't there a repeated motion on the floor every single board meeting and and a second to discuss the removal of this material so once again I ask what stands between you being one of the adults in the room and making the only responsible decision possible to rid our Pok School youth from having any possible access to this material any parent who believes this material is in the best interest of their children may freely make it a part of their

166home Library the con the do it should not be the taxpayers of P County Visa the P County School Board it's disgusting thank you George Garner yes George Garner and then on Deck is Brenda Su loock I apologize I will I will try to wait thank you uh I am G Garner I'm a chaplain uh US Army retired and uh Lakeland High School class of 64 I ask you to focus on the book sold s so sold by Patricia McCormick this book is at the following senior high schools Davenport Kathleen Ridge Community tener Rock George du Jenkins lelan alale Barto Lake Gibson Lake Region Ridge Community and Frost prooof Middle senior and Travis technical the book has more recently been challenged and removed in clay Martin and manatee counties the book contains explicit aberant sexual

167activities including rape of a minor prostitution and explicit violence the following is a small representative sample from the book page 120 and if I may say as a Chaplain in peace and in combat I've seen all the filth there is to see but when I came home and learned that in my alma m in these schools this is here broke my heart page you as the PO County School Board can remove this book I respectfully ask that you do just that thank you thank you next is Brenda Sul loock and then on Deck is Bernard Wells good evening my name is Brenda sulock I reside in arborelle Florida and I am a retired um prayer professional for 32 years um in um pop County schools and ml mclin Academy of excellent in Lake Wells has

168a book in its Library titled choke that contains objectional sexual activities including bestiality obscene sexual activities explosive sexual nudity profanity alcohol and drug use self harm and abortion and violence this book has been challenged and removed in Clay County I want to read from the book on page I understand that the school board has the authority to remove this book from the library I am respectfully requesting the school board to please remove the book from the public school system our children are our future and their minds should not be corrupted with this content thank you thank you Bernard Wells and on Deck is Eddie Lorenzo greetings to you all my name is Bernard Wells and you'll get a break from the books for a moment since the pop County School Board H Mr H is

169superintendent there has been a pattern of questionable highend practices to upper level positions in the district individuals who have long longevity within the district who are knowledgeable of the district and have qualification and continually are continually Overlook and denied opportunity for job advancement instead individuals are bought in from the outside of the district and intentionally placed to be promoted to a higher pen position even though the majority of them do not have the skill set to carry out the job responsibilities this in turn results in them delegating all of their work to their subordinates that has caused a mass Exodus across the district the learning Support Division has particularly been impacted by these questionable practices in the learning Support Division under the leadership of Tammy Castle Williams that was brought in by superintendent Hyde to

170replace Dr Joshua L it has been reported numerous times since November of 22 that nepu ISM exists within the department and it is apparent that it is still continuing in the form of unethical hiring and promotional practices this r promotion of certain individuals within the department is questionable given the criteria needed to meet the job qualifications and seemingly superintendent Hyde has turned a blind eye many experienced and knowledge of Staff members within the ESC Department have either transferred to positions outside of ESC or left the district altogether in fact over 30 individuals have left the ESC department since this time last year another ongoing issue within the learning support division is that leadership ship has no respect for the time of others they are constantly scheduling last minute meetings to address none emergency issues or

171topics and often time it requires staff to alter their work duties and case load to attend these meetings this is upsetting to parents when their child's meeting has to be cancelled after they have taken off work to attend additionally staff receives email and correspondence after hours and on weekends with work work expectations putting them putting them back on the clock and infringes on their personal time it doesn't allow for people to recoup and get the necessary mental break away from work and causes anxiety and stress leading them leading to health problems the apathetic leadership and the lack of organization skills speaks volumes to the culture that has been bought in that has been created in the learning Support Division board members Mr Hy our ESC babies are waiting what are you going to do about

172it thank you thank you Eddie Lorenzo and on Deck is Donna Hager good evening and thank you for giving me a chance here to speak to you guys I'm here because students are first but also our teachers are first and they are suffer bring in our schools and we here so we could bring School prayers back to our schools because God will protect everybody that is in the schools everybody that had kids in schools I have six grandkids and two kids that are in school right now here in po County and um it's proven that prayers do help we're not talking about religion we're not talking about no different churches it's just getting back to to the basics that they took away from us in 62 when Marilyn decided that her son is not supposed

173to be allowed to listen to God and now he's a pastor and she was cutting to little pieces and by her own group but we want to see if you guys could help us promote School prayers back in school we asking permission so we could go to the teachers and pass the petitions Tallahasse already gave us this they said with one mailing petition before December 31st then next year they'll put it in the ballot to give us the chance of saying if we want School prayers or not and I've been going from Jacksonville all the way down towards Miami promoting this we have ambassadors in all the areas and they out there looking to get petition signed we have here in the centaro PO County Tampa and Oola we have three radio stations that are

174promoting it so somewhere if you guys take it our heart let's protect our kids let's protect our teachers because our teachers are there but remember this not only them are suffer because when something happens to our kids we all suffer so think about that let's do it for the kids let's do it for the teachers and for ourselves so my information I could give you the informations I could give you the a copy of the petition you could study it you could call me anytime I work for him right now anytime sure thank you God bless you all Donna Hager and on Deck is Aaron Fior 10 as an observation sitting and listening to some of the things we've heard from work the books tonight I think some of you were shocked and certainly some

175of you showed great concern on your faces uh I have more than one thing to talk about so I'm going to read my book at the end but what I would like to talk about is that we have a lot of people that come to Schoolboard meetings a lot of us have to sit over here and there are other places you could hold these meetings that would make it much easier everybody could hear you and when people are being recognized you'd have a much bigger group in here clapping for them it it wouldn't take much to go to one of the high schools you could even use their camera crew which would be really neat for them to be able to experience that uh when parents have to take time off from work to come

176to meetings to express their concern it is very difficult if you're trying to support your family and you want to come to a p County Schoolboard meeting back in the 1990s they had Schoolboard meetings at night so people were more allowed to participate as parents without leaving work and I think you should consider that strongly parents should have a right to come and talk to you uh another thing I would like to suggest since our schools get overcrowded as we get more and more people here and on the way to the meeting I counted six new subdivisions we might consider opening at least one school in every city at night so if you work at the hospital a night shift or you work at a convenience store on the night shift your kids could go

177to school when you're at work and I think if we did that it would save a lot of parents from frustration when they aren't getting enough sleep because they're at work but let let me talk just about the book I brought was identical and I don't have time obviously to read but I want you to know this book is about sexual assault child molestation incest and even a high school student describing how she was going to seduce one of her teachers if that isn't enough to keep it out of our school system it also has drug and alcohol abuse self-destructive behaviors including cutting purging and suicide attempts we don't need our students to that kind of information it's not just a sexual abuse it's everything that's in them thank you thank you and I've had

178a request from a couple of my colleagues that we take a f minute recess um so we are going to do that very quickly um and we will be back at 8:40 we will now reconvene this meeting next is Aaron Fior and on Deck is Deborah finle Mee hold on just a second sorry go ahead I was censored at the last Schoolboard meeting I was muted and blurred when I read an excerpt from a book from the book Red Hood and I'll remind everyone here in case you didn't hear it that that book detailed if the content of a book is not appropriate for YouTube it should not be appropriate for our school library parents have a right to hear the content of these books this school board is here to protect children and you

179are not doing that by providing access to pornographic books in addition parents should know that the process of having a book removed is extensive the average parent is not going to be able to attend a meeting at each indiv idual school for each book to which they object the book I am currently challenging is in 11 schools that's 11 meetings that I would need to attend at 11 different schools in the county many of the meeting times do not work with my schedule and at least two so far are scheduled for the same exact time at different schools parents need to hear this excerpt from the most recent book I read and it's called Juliet takes a breath it's in eight schools in P County you mentioned making sure that books are age appropriate this

180material is not appropriate for any age thank you Deborah finle and on Deck is Joel and MC peek hi good evening my name is Deborah finle I reside in Lakeland Florida Lake Region Senior High has a book titled homebody as a parent you would think that this book would be about a home but it's not and if parents can't read the book that they object to they might allow this book to slip through okay so it's about a collection of poems an illustration about women and Society it contains inappropriate sex ual activities including molestation sexual nudity profanity alternate gender ideologies and cartoon images of a woman's crotch and pubic hair one excerpt that I was um reading through here says you've heard enough of this kind of stuff tonight but I sure would like to

181know if one of you could make a recommendation to remove remove these books from our uh School libraries if one of you tonight could make a recommendation to do so as we said at the start of this speaking portion there are no action items that will be taken based on public I just wanted to probe your mind appreciate your time thank you thank you Joel and MC peek and on Deck is Beverly Harley hi good evening my name is Joel and mCP my pronouns are she her and before I begin with my prepared remarks I wanted to comment earlier tonight we had Joe tedar here with the kids art license plate tag art program and I have my kids who are now 22 and 19 I have their tag Arts hanging on my lanyard and

182I was at a swim meet doing ticket sales and I had these fifth graders who were there watching their siblings swim and they were so excited to see my tags from my kids and when I told them they were my kids I told them how old my kids were they were just so thrilled and they were told me all about their designs as such a great program and it really opens up conversations and I really appreciate that that can continues and supports our schools so that's my little bud sign so otherwi my comments are going to be brief tonight um I come before you because I heard and I see that there is a group of people here reading excerpts from books that are out of context in an attempt to have them removed from

183our libraries as I waited in line tonight to come in I learned some things from overheard conversations most of the people have not read the books in their their entirety and are only reading excerpts that have been prepared for them some of them refus to follow the process to challenge books because it requires them to attend meetings to discuss the books in question and they don't believe that the books will be removed also they seem unaware that there is a process where parents can opt their children out of books they find inappropriate no questions asked I feel confident that any books read from this evening are not part of the curriculum in our classrooms these books are curated for student self- selected reading though um for many years American schools have been pressured to restrict

184and deny access to books deemed objectionable by an individual or group and I beg you to require these individuals to follow the procedure in place and not to bend to the tactics um where they on display to today to circumvent that policy as we've noted in this earlier earlier in the meeting tonight these books currently have a rigorous process that they have to go through to be selected for our media center and I cannot impress on you enough the importance of access to a diverse collection of books thank you thank you miss m Beverly Harley Beverly Hartley and on Deck is Octavio Hernandez well I believe all of you know who I am and um my name is Beverly Harley I'm the mother of three children who have graduated from pul County Schools I'm also

185the grandmother of four who are in P County Schools as well there's two in high school one in middle school one in elementary school I also work for the school board for 34 years I do believe that I have a vested interest in the well-being and the success of the students of Po County there's things that I'd rather be doing tonight than reading pornographic dirty books out loud at a school board meeting however until the school board and the superintendent and the Schoolboard attorneys decide to do the right thing for the students of P County I guess we will continue to bring these books to the attention of the public because you see the public does not understand what's in these books they don't it saddens me beyond words that those of you that I

186know to be good people who love children and love what you do to support them people that I have worked for and with for so many years people I'm still friends with have refused to do the right thing and take these pornographic dirty books off of the shelves of taxpayer funded School libraries I'm reading from an excerpt from the book Jesus land A Memoir of Julia shears this book has been made made available by the P County School Board through taxpayer funds and can be found in the library at Lake Gibson High School it is also found in your new software so apparently it has passed the test it has been challenged and removed in Clay County this is the absur and believe me I do not I do not want to read these words

187at all much less out loud thank you Miss heartley thank you Octavio Hernandez Octavio Hernandez and on Deck is Anita Carson good evening School Board uh my name is Octavio Hernandez I am a teacher at dport high school I am also a parent of two students at po County Schools I am a union representative I'm a union member I am a community U civil rights activist I guess I want to say and I know you guys know that I bring my club over here NOA Americas our American voices and these are students that you know they want to get involved they want to show how to make a difference in the community and sadly I can't bring them right now U Miss Fields you asked me where they've been and because a lot of them

188have to get jobs now the community is hurting ladies and gentlemen we're over here fighting um we have students that have to work to help pay the bills insurances through the roof teachers that have to work two jobs there are so many things that we have to worry about that we have to fix and that's what we should be focusing on I wish that I had 100 parents lined up worried about the buses I wish that I had 100 parents lined up worried about the school lunches I wish I had 100 parents lined up worried about things our teachers are substitutes that have to cover all the other teachers our teachers that have to have two jobs I wish I had 100 parents that were dis active I wish they read the algebra books as

189much as they read these books it is absurd my students know you know what they say Mr Herz thank you for fighting for us now Mr Hyde you said that it's so easy to for come it's 8:30 sir I got to work at I gotta get up at 4:30 in the morning I still got to drive back to Davenport not many teachers out here doing this because it takes a lot of work it takes a lot of effort to come out here and defend my teachers and my students and my community against these kind of things because people don't get involved they listen to the media and they don't listen to the things that are really happening in our community now I would love for you guys to come out we have a great School

190Davenport Mrs Cunningham that's your District I would love for you guys to come out here at our school we have a lovely school we have a lovely facility for you guys to come and host it so our teachers and our community can actually voice of what's going on instead of I can't even have my students listen to this because these people instead of actually talking about sensible ways to get rid of these books I understand they're magnifying the problem by broadcasting and now my students can't watch this how am I supposed to show this they actually did the opposite and I wish all these parents were that interested in everything else in their children's School from the lunches 22-minute lunches to teachers having to cover shifts teachers having to have multiple jobs and we still

191have to get up in the morning and do our job right so I'm not going to sit here and apologize anymore because you know I am an immigrant I did move to this country I know what it feels like and having a representation up here guess what there's no representation of our Hispanic Community here and Mr Hyde you said 50% of our students are Hispanic and yet we don't have one school member that Hispanic out here right and then I have to hear this xenophobia about immigrants and come in here and I just have to say not everyone that works in a farm is an illegal folks they are citizens out there that are getting money and they're going to lose out of money if our school board doesn't accept these funds we need this

192money there are citizens out there not every single person that works in a farm is an illegal immigrant but I want to say this before I go uh just one last thing you know I don't have a lot to gain out here but my students have a lot to lose so I ask that you guys work on the things that are needed thank you thank you Mr Hernandez Anita Carson and on Deck is jelli Martinez um the second time talking tonight I got a little more passionate than I have in years um earlier tonight and I appreciate Octavia for speaking up again for our migrant student population and their families um but the thing that I actually wanted to talk about for this portion of my three minutes is the Title Nine policy that you're

193going to be discussing next board meeting I wanted to go ahead and put my thoughts out there now so that you have them before you're trying to figure out what you want to do um niola recommended your title 9 policy where it particularly enunciated protections for sexual identity and gender expression in your non-isr policy for students you have that enunciated in your non-is policy for staff that's already there it's a specific protection in your contracts that's already in place and specifically said why are we removing it from a title 9 policy when all of your other policies already have those pieces the only thing that title 9 adds is a specific timeline and specific Federal protections for those students if they are harassed or discriminated against based on their sexual orientation and gender identity it

194doesn't align with your policies it goes against what niola is putting forward and the federal Board of Education will be finishing up their rulemaking process by the end of this year that will include those pieces so then you're going to have to go back and revise it anyway so I implore you to go ahead and put that into your title 9 policy there's no reason to take it out not sure why it was taken out in the first place um not sure when we started going against Neola recommendations I've been watching this board for more almost a decade now and we generally follow the Neola pieces because they keep us in line with the law I'm not sure why we're trying to remove pre protections from students and staff against what Neola is recommending so

195I'd like for you to take that into consider consideration as you talk about it thank you thank you jelli Martinez and then on Deck is Dan frge okay um hi my name is jelli Martinez I'm from a resident of Winter Haven um I came here to talk about the concerns of the books um this is actually my first time being at a Schoolboard meeting meeting uh I've heard it a couple times just like zooming through um on video um I worked for 3 years at po County I was at Westwood Middle School um and when I was asked to come here to talk about this like it's really eye openening because I'm only 28 years old and I get I have two kids I have a two-year-old and an eight-year-old and I put them both

196into public or private schools and you know I feel like we live in a bubble so that's why why like just me hearing everyone come in here just to talk about books I know it seems like a minimal thing or to some it's like oh it's just something small as books but the thing is if you think about the bigger picture we're messing with the imaginations of our our youth like we're saying that this is okay to to imagine but then we're blocking the pornography sides on you know on their computers so it just it's like it doesn't make sense to have it in books where you can imagine it but I can't go into the classroom and read it out loud um so you know what he said it was a good point to

197like come up here and come up with ways that can fix this problem or how to open it up to parents who work a 9 to-5 job and then come home and it's like um I have no time for this and that was for me like I worked at a public school but I worked at a middle school and didn't really know that this was an issue and which is weird you know um so yeah I won't I'm not even going to read the exerts because there it is a book um what's it called the book is called Forever by Judy Bloom it has the explicit sexual content talking about the sexual organs and all of that um it is removed from Maran and St John's counties um but we do have it in our

198aldale high schools most of our high schools um and yeah that's all I wanted to say thank you thank you Dan frge and on Deck is Jimmy Smith well I appreciate you hanging around this late hour I've been here four hours myself for my three minutes of time board members are interesting creatures um most of you were elected because you're leaders in your community you've got good reputations your business business men but when we get on a board I've seen that sometimes people morph into into what the board wants them to be and I think that's very sad to see I once stood before the board of the pop Community College many many years ago when it was just a fledgling little Community College because I represented a little Christian School with graduates that weren't

199going to be accepted at Pop Community College uh yet our SAT scores and ACT scores are stellar we had graduates going to accepted at Harvard and Florida University of Florida University state Florida State University so I approached the board and say why why why the discrepancy here why the problem or why the discrimination and without every one of them on that board who would you think would be independent thinking people all went and looked at whom the attorney to see what their answer would be not one of them had the courage to do what was the right thing to do I think that's what where we're at tonight I think you need to have the courage to stand up don't quote me Mr superintendent about state boards and what's qualified and what's appropriate age appropriate

200what nonsense I'm a professional engineer I've got a BS from Purdue University in engineering I've got a master's in a Doctorate in Education earn educ doctorate I'm a professional engineer took me five years of internship to get to that once I took the exam and passed it it's a rigorous course and what I heard here tonight was a lot of backs slapping about what wonderful job poke County's doing and I don't I don't doubt that many of the teachers are very dedicated but this this county is deplorable we're 60 out of 66 in in this state we don't use we don't pre and post test because we don't want to know really what's going on we don't use a national achievement test because we really don't want to compare ourselves with other states no we're

201going to use some Florida achievement tests comparing ourselves with ourselves the Bible says something about that so ref reference to the discussion in hand and I I won't be reading any excerts from porn pornographic books as some have already done I had ask how many pastors were requested to develop those approved lists that you seem to applaud thank you thank you Jimmy Smith and on Deck is joavan cerillo well can't follow that that's for sure um I have nieces and nephews grandchildren that go to these P County Schools I'm not a public speaker I certainly can't deliver like some of the people have here tonight and even if I did read these excerpts I think it just fallen on deaf ears and it makes me wonder how you can keep continue doing your job jobs

202you say you're meeting State Standards what I'd like to know is where are your standards do you have any standards I'm sure you weren't raised being able to read this excuse my French I challenge you to find some standards do what you know is right in your heart thank you for your time thank you and javana cillo think she left all right well seeing no further business to come before the board this meeting is adjourned