001[Music] good afternoon I will now call this work session for October 24th 2023 to order and I'll start by reading our who are we statement we are the P County leadership governance team if we were to pick one phrase to Define us it would be student- centered because when we come together to work we lean on our diverse backgrounds and experiences to ensure that our decisions are focused on providing a highquality education for all students the four most important things to our governance team are operating with Integrity respecting our students staff families and each other establishing a culture where our stakeholders feel valued supported and have opportunities for personal and professional growth and supporting an approach of continuous Improvement to ensure student outcomes collectively we need to work on behalf of the children we serve
002and find Avenues of agreement so that we can govern The District in an effective manner there is no acceptable alternative we will always collaborate in a respectful manner in order to enhance opportunities for each student and staff member we will not disparage others our students will Thrive because we will remain committed to supporting the whole child we hope to engage and Empower our students and stakeholders to create a community of lifelong Learners and with that I will turn it over to superintendent Hyde good afternoon Madam chair members of the board staff and community members thank you for being here today at this time we'll begin the workshop and the first item before us is Crystal's World of Dance partnership with po County Public Schools and I invite Crystal Davis founder and artistic director to join
003us at the podium good afternoon good afternoon here Crystal's World of Dance uh this year we are celebrating 20 years of dance right here in P County uh we started in 2003 over on Lake Parker Avenue in Lakeland Florida we are located at 801 North Massachusetts Avenue we currently serve 147 students and we have a dance program and a cheerleading uh program that we have at our um at our Center we have our students trained on the dance floor and the life education and remaining the Forefront of our mission we prepare our students for Success at Crystal's word of dance we have a multitude of programs uh project Camp is our nonprofit organization our sister program that focus on team pregnancy prevention and we also have a summer camp that provides scholarships for all of
004our students at participate in our program we have our after school program we pick up currently we pick up at 14 schools in the City of Lakeland and we provide scholarships uh we have right now of our 147 students we have over 50 students that are receiving some sort of scholarship for our program the majority of our students that receive scholarships for our programs do come through our after school program for our Dance Program every student that comes in through our after school program they are offered four classes uh ballet tap Jazz and African dance they have those dance classes weekly for one hour when they enter the center they come in we do homework first and then we have our dance classes and they receive a snack before going home our hours of operation
005are right after school until 5:45 6:00 p.m. when parents come to pick up our evening program starts at 5:30 and that is a different type of program where parents register and they bring their child in where and they have um their dance classes for an hour at a time we do have a summer camp um our summer camp we serve as students from VPK through uh grade nine last year our summer camp we had 63 students that was our fifth year offering a summer camp it is an all day summer camp it's an 8-week um program and we we dance every day but on top of dance we take field trips throughout the community and we have a talent show at the end of our uh summer camp to kind of show the parents what
006the students been working on all all day in our care our summer camp hours are 7:30 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. our model at Crystal word to Dan is in increasing confidence while developing skills through dance I should have mentioned that earlier we have 14 staff at Crystals World of Dance this comprises of uh dance teachers as well as after care teachers um we have homework helpers and we have tutors we also have one office manager all of our staff have been trained um either have come through our program we have seven students that teach for us that are students at Harrison School of the Arts and some of them have come through our program and graduated from college returned back home and came back to Lakeland and our are serving as dance teachers and we're
007very excited for that um we do offer community service opportunities to students that are um have an outs background most of our students come from haon School of the Arts and they can do up to 30 hours of community service through our nonprofit um every month and we do do that program year round at Crystal word dance we have two shows every year we have a nutcracker that is held in December it is called the crystal Nutcracker and that is our annual community show that we have at the Poke theater downtown Lakeland and then we have a end of the year show early May um around June all of our students participate in those performances and we have one big performance that includes our after school students as well as our evening students and um
008how we have these these uh performances and these recitals it's through a lot of fundraising we do a lot of fundraising all year round obviously to pay for costuming and stage props and things of that nature most of all of our scholarships are also funded through fundraising um and a few small grants that were receive receive for the program all like I said every single student that comes into our student our studio has the opportunity to participate in the performance our after school program provides our after school pickup from the school homework assistance um tutoring we do offer tutoring and dance classes we talked about the ballet class and the Jazz class those classes are mandatory for all of our students those classes do teach the discipline of dance and we um pride oursel in
009our program with our ballet students we have students in our program that matriculate through our program um and end up going to Harrison we do have students that are at the relle school of the arts that um come to our program for after school so we are very prideful that we have students that do make it through the process to get into Harrison School for the Arts and I'm very proud of that for our students are you looking for an educational and engaging after school program for your child at Crystal's World of Dance we provide pickup from numerous schools throughout Lakeland for grades VPK through 8th once you register we handle the rest we're open Monday through Friday with care provided on teacher work days and early release days in a safe environment surrounded by
010caring staff who have a desire to help your child grow each day in addition to a designated time and space for homework which includes Wi-Fi access for our students your child will also participate in ballet and jazz dance classes at no additional fee so what are you waiting for call us now if you have questions or visit crystals worldofdance.com to register your child today does anyone have any questions about Crystal's World of Dance Miss Miss Miller hi thanks for sharing that with us today I was most impressed at your program because I watched the students online and I know a couple of your students that even when you plan the summer um Adventures for them they're always like the crews they were still dancing so you give them opportunities not just in Lakeland but they
011have other places to go and and and learn from other dancers around and to add to their experience and I just think that's so great and I know this is a great need in our community for more after school care um giving these kinds of experiences children so thank you for what you do and I feel like you you're close to outgrowing your facility just by the looks of things um so are you are you in the plans of of expanding or do you know what that looks like in the future yes um actually we opened a second location um in June and it's right around the corner from our current location we are um in plans we do have a three three-year plan with hopes to open one facility um that's big enough um
012almost like a you know a garage type gym type um facility that we can have space to have classrooms for the after school students is as well as a studio space in a little area where they can have their their snacks and their lunches so yes and for our spring break trips every year this year we're actually celebrating our 20th um trip we've traveled to places from cruises we've been on seven cruises we've been to the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles California um we've been to New York to the Broadway Dance Center and we fundraised to make this happen for the for the students that sign up to go that's a great life experience for those kids I can't imagine being that age and being able to go to the Deb Allen Studios
013um so please make sure that our staff is aware of your fundraiser so we can help promote that thank you thank you Miss Fields hey I'm good how are you good I just want to thank you for your work I want to thank your team for their work it's a heavy lift and we know the value and the importance of it and you know whatever we can do to help we always are just one call away and congratul ations for your your expansion and I know that there are great things that will continue to come from your program thank you you're welcome there are no further questions or comments thank you so much thank you thank you I am now going to present to you on the Lakeland Police Athletic League so introduce myself again
014my name is Crystal Davis and I'm coming to you as a Treasurer and a member of the Lakeland police department where I oversee the uh programs for the police Police Athletic League Lakeland pal Lakeland PO is a 501c3 it was actually founded in New York in 1914 and here in Lakeland in 1993 we just celebrated our anniversary um for our Charter here in Lake L Florida um Lakeland pal is a venture between the City of Lakeland and the Lakeland Police Department local community businesses um Community leaders and members of the community it is a m the mission of the Lakeland pal to promote positive interaction between the youth in the community and the Lakeland Police Department using educational and recreational activities directed through a variety of Youth programming in 2019 the decision was made to
015transfer Lakeland pal from the parks and rec division to the Lakeland police department since that time we recruited new staff members we recruited a new board of directors we familiarized new staff to the program requirements and we worked on rebranding and promoting our po programs to familiarize new staff to budgets and fundraising um goals here you will see our pal staff there is a team of six we have um a lieutenant um Parker we have a sergeant Rex and then we have two program coordinators who are uh police officers sworn police officers there's a Sil a civilian program coordinator and then myself as a juvenile liaison and then we have our po board of directors here so why choose pal many children live in the neighborhoods threatened by gangs drugs violence poverty and with no
016connection and or respect for law enforcement studies show that students who are engaged with law enforcement officers and other adult mentors are less likely to become involved with these types of crimes pal strives to reduce the negative influences that impact Youth and replace it with positive influences at pal we have some defining moments um life is full with many difficult decisions and sometimes one decision can redirect the entire course of a young child's life our past our pile staff and volunteers strive to instill a set of core values which embody our youth to make the correct decision at times that are most defining in their life at pal our number one Focus are the children everything is all about the children it is important to us that we recruit staff members coaches and volunteers who
017want to make a difference in each child's life to take advantage of every interaction with the youth involved with our programs through mentorship instill life skills and life lessons at every opportunity and consistently we're reminded some children are not taught basic life skills such as hygiene manners cooking or ethical behaviors so that's what we do at pal so benefits for youth that participate in our program um the guidance of dedicated coaches mentors and volunteers who are committed to the philosophy of building a brighter future for the Youth of our community here in Lakeland interaction with positive role models who instill good health habits sportsmanship Civic standards values and ethics and social leadership skills and youth for the our community programs our programs provide leadership opportunities for youth to be a part of the process of
018establishing positive relations with law enforcement while also allowing them to have a voice to be heard all let's talk about our Lakeland po programs we have um quite a few programs right now we have football um and that is for ages 4 to 14 as well as cheerleading we have a fishing program that serves children's ages 7 to 17 our archery program serves children 7 to 17 we have a Summer Academy for students ages 13 through 18 we have a mentoring weekly mentoring group that meets um for anyone that's aged 13 to 18 and then we have a mobile Outreach that is for um any ages that's when we go out into the communities with our pal buses and trailers and we Mentor the kids in their communities where they live our archery program is
019designed for ages 4 to 17 it helps with physical development it teaches a growth mindset and they learn how to attach their selfworth and performance and it improves Focus patience and self-motivation it boosts self-confidence by by combining physical and mental skills we have started our first our Ary program um you know in partnership with the school board and that is an after school um program that we're doing at Socrum Elementary School and this is going to be our second school year doing that program our fishing program is designed for children ages 7 to 17 the benefits of that it teaches youth about conservation and a love for nature it teaches patience and it teaches being present how to relax and enjoy nature and take every experience as it comes our football program teaches discipline teamwork
020commitment um preservation goal setting and how to deal with failures as well as success and how to uh focus on time management that's a big one that we focus on our cheerleading program it develops a sense of body awareness it teaches teamwork and commitment teach teaches goal setting dedication how to be a positive role model and how to trust our mentoring program focuses on positive youth interaction instilling good habits Civic standards social and Leadership skills to youth in our community also we focus on um in our sessions teaching life skills and teaching discipline manners and social skills that improve communication our mobile Outreach is designed to expose um the power programs to segments of the community who might not know about the program expose the power programs all of the programs such as the archery
021fishing and mentoring um and we go out into the communities we set up uh last week we were at Bonnet Springs Park and we just set up and tell people about our program and set up games for kids where they can come out and and interact with the law enforcement officers and and have a great time our summer Academy it teaches the import importance of life skills communication skills um we do take the students on college tours and um hopefully next summer we will be partnering with the Trades Academy that you heard about a few weeks ago that is our goal um to bring that program and partner it with our po program we have um a new thing that we do at pal we we are taking all of our students that graduate and
022we are just trying to set them up for Success we bring them in and we have a assembly at the police department they're given a certificate and a small little token of appreciation like a book scholarship that they can use for whatever college that they are planning to attend we have a current officer her name is Andrea Smith that was part of the pal program prog here and it's always good to have um those officers to be able to come back and talk to the kids or to even see these officers um working that were a product of the program and this is Officer Andrea Smith pal is funded through fundraisers City sponsor grants um and corporate sponsorships does anyone have any questions about pal the Police Athletic League Mr sharpless um first I just
023got to say thank you to uh to Lakeland Police Department um as well as Lakeland PO for doing this I think it's critical uh especially at Young ages for uh children to have positive interactions with police um you know helps to build a greater community um I I'm I'm really uh interested in the mobile Outreach piece I think that's pretty great to go out there into the community and um I was just curious if you could if you my only question I have other than saying thank you is did have you seen increased participation rates because of the mobile and your other programs because of the mobile Outreach yes yes because the perception has been that pal is known for the football and cheerleading so for instance when we were out at Binet Springs we
024were passing out fires about our archery and our fishing program and people didn't know about that program so we pass out fires and they sure were there at the building that next Monday you know to sign up so yes yes sir excellent just thank you s sincerely Miss Fields another good presentation Miss Crystal um and the work that pal uh do in the community is uh just amazing and I think the thing that really needs to be uh emphasized is the volunteerism that you guys have cuz uh the coaches and a lot of the folks in the community uh they are really trying to uh invest back into our young people and so uh we just want to thank the volunteers that you all have and you're right most people do associate you with football
025and cheerleading as a matter of fact one of my daughters used to be on one of the cheerleading teams and I know that um Jaylen Glover who is a graduate of L Gibson High School who's now playing for Utah uh was uh very instrumental and benefited a lot from pal and he talked about that the impact that P had on his life and his coaches so the work is probably sometimes uh you feel like it's not worth it uh and it's a hard push but you guys are doing an amazing job for our community and I would just say keep it moving and and uh and keep it going thank you you're welcome Mr Niti I concur with what my uh two fellow board members said uh you're doing just a super job looks like
026you're two for two bat in a thousand um keep it up um everything you do is uh touching these children and making them aware that we love them absolutely and the uh The Great Frederick Douglas he had a quote it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men and you are you're doing that so God bless keep up a good work thank you Miss Cunningham thank you Mr superintendent and I too just want to say thank you um I live in Lake Wales so I've been actively involved for many years with the pal the Lake Wales pal group there um and I know that they have changed so many children's lives um so I just want to say on behalf of the kids whose lives you've touched thank you cuz sometimes they
027just need somebody to reach out to and through the football that's what I've been involv cheerleading and so forth um and the other stuff that you do these kids find a place to belong and often times if I can find a place to belong that I'm comfortable I'll be able to do better and look to those mentors and improve my life going forward and it's obvious that you've done that so thank you so much to you and all the other pal organizations um throughout the county we appreciate what you do thank you thank you very much there are no further questions or comments thank you at this time I'd like to bring up torsa Cunningham director for magnet schools who's here to have a conversation with the board provide you with a magnet school assistance
028program Grant update good afternoon as Mr hi just stated my name is Tasha Cunningham and I currently have the privilege of serving as a director of magnet schools and one of my primary um functions is to oversee the implementation of map this is new for me so bear with me what what do I push oh okay um so as we know the implementation of msap is from October 2022 to September of 2027 the schools that are participating are Blake Academy bethon Academy Daniel Jenkins Academy Garner Academy and Stevens Academy the purpose of msap is to increase parental choice and add opportunities for voluntary segregation improve academic performance and promote the capacity of the staff to infuse Innovative educational methods and practices that that promote diversity equity and academic success so I'd like to provide you
029with a few of our program update some of the things that we've been able to do so far in msap um Roosevelt Blake Academy um we're going to expand the agricultureal program and the school is very excited about that we're going to um assist in purchasing a greenhouse C CD and agriculture at Blake Academy will support transition for those students um transitioning to tarck and also attract more diverse students we've been very busy this summer um with learning so some of our learning opportunities um Blake Academy beun and Daniel Jenkins all completed the in initial Cambridge train training and in the summer they became registered Cambridge schools Blake Academy Garner Academy Stevens and bethon Academy also participated in a three-day project-based learning um pbl is a way of focusing students learning and uh through the
030exploration of real world problems and Creative Solutions um we also had bethon Academy and Garner Academy participate in Kagan training that focused on strategies for our elll students integrating um science technology engineering and Mathematics in their classrooms and also collaborative structures Stevens Academy had the opportunity to participate in international IB um International Balor or IB training for um primary years program and they also participated in unit development we recently had our first evaluation and our schools did very very well in the evaluation um we are also on track to meet our outlined um goals and our implementation plan that we submitted to the um us doe for our instructional supports we currently have courses that we have developed veled and placed in schooly that will help to integrate our magnet themes and our Florida um
031standards along with um considering our learning arcs and those other things that we have in place in our schools one of the things that has been recommended for us is a teacher is an position upgrade from teacher resource specialist or trst to curriculum specialist so we currently have five magnet schools that are participating in this grant we have three themes one of the themes is stem one is IB three are Cambridge the objectives um that we're required to meet under the performance measures requires us to increase student Proficiency in reading math and science also requires the creation of interdisciplinary units for grades K through five sorry K through 8 because some of our schools are 68 and K8 and also create professional development um opportunities to improve instructional practices so that's a lot of heavy
032lifting that um we will need to do um in a conference with our federal msap coordinator it was recommended that we we we upgrade the position from trst to curriculum specialist to help support that work so when we think about the biggest differences between a trst and the curriculum specialist so some of the essential functions of our trst is basically to provide support to our teachers coordinate programs assist with attractors but with the curriculum specialist a curriculum specialist will help to ensure the integration of the magnet theme as well as the Florida benchmarks because we want them to to go together seamlessly and not appear like we're doing two separate things at some of our schools and as I previously mentioned two of our schools are in schools of transformation so we know how important
033it is to make sure that those students are achieving um academically with the curriculum specialist we would be able to develop and Implement and Design curriculum as well as professional learning opportunities based on the needs of the school um identify strengths and weaknesses and programs and develop solutions to those um weaknesses our curriculum Specialists will also help and supervising and analyzing student performance through site visits and lastly I'd like to share these two um pictures with you these two photos are of training that we did we like I said earlier we had the three-day training these are teachers at Garner Garner had over 40 teachers to attend the pbl training and what we see right now happening at at Garner is the implementation of pbl they've had family stem nights under the the direction of
034Miss Blackman they have implemented um pbl seamlessly in their curriculum their early release days are also designated as their stem days so all students get the opportunity to participate in stem are there any questions there are Miss Miller hi I don't know that we've had um a chance to meet but I appreciate you that was a great explanation of what's going on I want to First say visiting Blake I got to meet the coach that was really into the a um unit or trying to help with a and spending their own time there working on that so I'm really excited to see that we're going to expand that for those students because I think they they were in need of something and and that will be um I think new for a lot of the
035students to be able to be exposed to the agricultural um jobs and other things that are available I know as a young child I I wasn't exposed to a and I think doing it in elementary is a great way to get the kids excited um I like that you talked about diversity especially a Garner as a new magnet our past hasn't shown us uh hasn't shown that we have been our magnets have now always been welcome to all Learners and I think this training not only with elll but ESC Learners will give them an opportunity to retain students that in the past may have been sent to other schools based on the programming needs um helping teachers learn to diversify instruction is going to help those students even in the IB and Cambridge programs who
036may learn differently and I don't want those kids to fall through the cracks because they might need supports um so as the board member who always is here talking about the kids who need supports I would like to see us maintain our numbers and our magnets and even maybe increase them but we're going to have to provide supports to the teachers and not and able to do that and I you know that's you just don't throw everybody in without helping support so um I like that youve provided those trainings and we'll continue to do so so thanks for your presentation today Mr sharpless I'm going to Echo a lot of what uh board member Miller mentioned I too am really excited about the greenhouse um you know as a as someone who's taught agriculture here
037in our our um our school district I think it's welcomed at uh Blake Academy it's going to be something great for those students to get their hands dirty and Hands-On learning um taking some of those signs Concepts and actually bringing them to life you know um but also I I just want to make the point that I think it's really important that we're continuing to uh to push uh our magnet programs like you said and and improve them because we're in a state of competition now um especially with hb1 passing last year so we have to make sure that we're continually offering a premium product to our students or we won't we won't have them anymore so thank you for what you do um I appreciate it and thank you for the training um as
038well so to come I'm looking forward to it thank you Dr Allen so again just U reiterating that that we really appreciate the update and as as we look at those acceleration opportunities we we see that as an area um that we can really um benefit from um from a long-term standpoint I think this is a great vision uh to create these feeder patterns um so I'm I'm really excited about that I was just on campus at tenar Rock just recently and was walking through the hallway and saw the pictures on the wall of um you know our 3de initiatives there at tener Rock but also the picture of the Cambridge um just struck me so I I stopped and I looked at the picture for a moment and I'm looking at it right now
039on my phone and to see um there's probably 80 people 80 students 80 of our students uh in that Cambridge program at ten Rock and if we look at our accelerated programs Cambridge has had that steady uh in line so the fact that we're building some of these feeder patterns to help benefit that uh is very exciting so I just think the the work that's happening on Blake um Academy is doing great they're doing great work as well um I think there was a podcasting station there that I stumbled upon as always roaming the hallways um some 3D printers um and these were all new initiatives and thanks to Principal Brown and um you know she's got that background with Winston that she's bringing into her role uh as principal at Blake Academy as well
040so I appreciate the update and the great work Miss Fields thank you for the update and I really embrace the purpose uh especially when when you say opportunities for voluntary desegregation and improve academic performance and promote the capacity of the staff to infuse Innovative educational methods and practices that promote diversity equity and academic success and that's what it's all about so my question to you and and I agree with you wholeheartly that it's a heavy lift and I know that you're um proposing one upgrade if you get to a place where you need additional support I would imagine you would come back with justification for that because we want all of these schools all of the participating schools to be successful and make sure that they have the resources that's needed yes ma' thank you
041you're welcome there are no further questions and comments thank you okay thank you thank you next item board members I'm excited about I'm inviting Miss Anne Everett up to the podium um she was tasked as well as others with putting together today's presentation based off a concept I'd already discussed with you at a previous meeting so here it is in its not in its final version but to provide you with an additional update um so Miss Everett I will turn it over to you the concepts of late start Andor early release thank you Mr Hyde um so as Mr Hy stated um this Topic's been broached just a little bit and we're going to start with a little bit of math and so this is an math not Joe math so bear with me a
042little bit but just a little bit of background to make sure that you kind of see the the method behind the madness in calculating six periods out of seven which you'll see here in just a minute so you all know that we collect money through FTE or full-time equivalent and a full FTE is earned through a student attending at least 1500 minutes of instruction every single week and so that's 500 minutes of um a day so you can kind of see the math there, 1500 minutes a week 25 hours per week and that's how we earn a full FTE for our students in high schools we actually provide more instruction than we earn FTE for so in our schools we offer seven periods but if every class were 50 minutes long then we actually earn
043a full FTE for that student through six class periods that seventh period is actually offered at the expense of the district because we've had a great opportunity to provide extra resources for our students either for remediation or for acceleration um and we have so many different opportunities for kids to take advantage of that so then we were tasked with let's look and see are we providing opportunities for all kids that make sense does it make sense for every student to attend school all seven periods of every single day through K through 12 so we have a committee and they got together and they kind of looked at some different ideas and basically they've come up with the proposal to recommend that for qu qualified eligible Juniors and seniors that they Pro be provided that opportunity
044to attend six of seven class periods a day and that would allow them to either arrive second period and attend through the seventh period of the day or perhaps they go ahead and and show up first period and then they can early leave at the end of sixth period and so that's kind of the idea requirements for participation um we want students to be eligible but we also need to make sure that we're preparing them for whatever they have in mind of what comes next for them and of course of course graduation has to be priority number one so looking at some of the requirements for participation that the committee came up with they need to have a 2.0 in their core coursework they need to have satisfied all of their assessment requirements for graduation
045that's their grade 10 Ela assessment as well as their algebra EOC um assessment they need to have met their acceleration point for school grade and District grade purposes right um they need to maintain satisfactory attendance by Schoolboard policy and that includes arriving to school on time if would be a privilege to come to school second period not have that first but you have to be there on time for that second period class right so making sure that they don't have excessive Tardes to that second period if they're a late start student um they need to have no more than a need for 12 credits if they're a senior or or I'm sorry 12 credits um if they're a junior or six credits if they're a senior and that's because they only have opportunities for that
046many courses left right and then they need to still be enrolled in ela and math each semester or each school year per our um student course student progression plan um one of the things we want to be very mindful of is the advising requirement for families that when they ask to do this are we covering all of those potential consequences that come with this decision good and bad right we don't want unintended consequences that had been planned on we have a similar process in place that our schools are super familiar with when it comes to students who want to leave early prior to their eighth semester we have a lot of students that choose to exit after seven semesters and we have students that choose to exit after their sixth semesters and they go through
047a rigorous advisement um program and application and so this will mirror that process to make sure that we are um exploring all of those different pieces um and you'll see some of the considerations for that parent application it is still in development but again it will follow the one that we have for early graduation and be quite similar to that next steps include getting it into our student progression plan in time for spring scheduling as you know our 2324 goes um for board approval tonight so we didn't want to get in the middle of that because of the public hearings so after um tonight assume that that is approved then we'll go ahead and move forward with language we'll bring that proposed language back to you hopefully in November and in time for that 2425
048SP so that schools can plan and students can plan as well any questions so be before I I start asking for questions just to provide a little bit more background to why I tasked the staff with doing this um this provides several opportunities not only for our students and a great deal of encouragement for students because again they have to maintain a passing GPA of a minimum of a c in their core academic areas one of the initial recommendations that came before across my desk was they had to have a 2.5 GPA and with all due respect earning an A in PE but earning an F in your e English language arts class should not qualify you for this program and so we we did find it further we moved it back to a 2.0
049for core academic areas they must be on track you did hear Miss Everett comment though that they had to make sure that they're passing their eoc's and their requirements for graduation however students also have alternatives to those assessments so they can earn a concordance score through the ACT SAT and now the CLT once the state finalizes that and provides us with that direction and so there are other opportunities so even though a student may not have passed the algebra course or their e course they can still participate in this so long as they can demonstrate they've earned that concordant passing score so this is not arguably exclude students it creates a great deal of flexibility again as I mentioned this is a big incentive for students I previously used this program in my last school
050district to a high level of success many of our students for example may have Athletics may have other responsibilities in the morning that allows them to come to school an hour later for a lot of our students as well who are seeking employment after school internships and those types of things the early dismissal option becomes far more attractive to them I did have the opportunity yesterday to have a conversation with the Civics Academy over at Ridge Community High School and I mentioned early late start early release to them and they were incredibly excited they are actually willing to come to an upcoming board me meeting to actually say how excited they are about this option the seniors are angry because they would not get an opportunity to take part in this but I also want
051to be very honest with you as I was last time when I brought this topic up it also serves the district's interest as we continue to struggle with hiring and filling vacancies as P County Public Schools continues to grow and we're seeing this as not a p County issue a national Trend how are we being creative to address the issues of ensuring we have enough classroom sections and qualified teachers for all of our students well if you take into consideration they took several schools and went through the calculation for those schools and found that 3 to 500 students will easily qualify for this at some of our largest high schools that is over 10 sections that we can free up in an existing teacher schedule that will allow us to do two things reduce overall
052class sizes at the same time we can offer other electives or we can or we can ensure that those teachers can be flexed into a different prep where we may have a vacancy and the students cannot currently be served or May served by a long-term sub or a substitute until we can find a highly qualified certified teacher so it does serve the district's interest as well I want to be completely honest and transparent about that but it does absolutely benefit our students and their families as well and so I saw that Miss Cunningham was first or is that Miss Fields I don't know if that was a hold over from the last one miss Fields no I'm I have mine but Miss Cunningham can go first Miss Cunningham super uh my question is you mentioned
053that there was a committee I I'd like to know who was on the committee or do you have a list or is it something you just want send me I can absolutely send it um we had representation from a 612 and then from a 912 school I believe it was Frost Proof um George Jenkins our chief of staff I can send you the whole list if you would absolutely and and most importantly were there any students on the committee we did not have any students because this is proposed so at this point now we're going to go back and solicit additional feedback from all of the different high schools they are aware that we're doing it have had opportunity to ask questions but we'll actually kind of once we have the draft language out we'll
054we'll put it out for feedback and let me just say this coming from an arts background you know places like and I'm just going to say Harrison a lot of times the kids if they're in the upcoming performance whether it's visual performing arts or whatever need to stay after so there needs to be something in there built in superintendent Hyde to make certain that if the classes end and they're out on that last period that they have permission to be on campus that's a whole Todo with some of the schools with busing and so forth I just want to ensure the safety of the kids that need to stay whether it's you know football practice at Lakeland High School let's say or it's Harrison because of an upcoming you know musical um rehearsal that those
055kids can stay and be safe at school for that hour whether it's you know study time or whatever um so please be sure to contact some of those folks around the county to be sure that we're not just looking at the massive group of ordinary high schools because we have at least one um with Harrison that works very differently than most and I want to be sure that they're going to be taken care of and that they have the ability to take that hour off whether it's to go get lunch food what ever and then be allowed back but for those that don't have transportation that rely solely on the buses that they could stay there in a safe room or someplace to study I just been there done that and it's it's a it's
056a concern but to be clear those students would not qualify then because the purpose of this is they either come to school late or they leave campus early the the example you just said was you're looking for more of a tutoring center we would not allow students let me let me explain okay we would not allow students to Simply leave grab food and then come back to school they have with their parents permission yes scheduled for an abbreviated day we would not have supervision available for them so that's why it's important that this is a parental consent and a student interest driven this is not going to be required of students this is voluntarily so even if a student meets all the criteria they're not required to do this but no ma'am we would not
057have supervision available for these individuals to come back on campus because you could have up to 500 kids who who qualify for this at each campus correct we would not have the Staffing to address this the whole point was to free up those staff to teach other sections that are required so those students would have to leave campus and then could return now on a caseby casee basis there may be a teacher under a specific example that you used yes we've got an upcoming musical could that student use some additional audition in practicing time if they work that out with the teacher that's a different conversation sois is so unique the need to clarify that that's why saying please keep it in mind been there done that and their schedule's insane uh normally so I'm
058just saying as you I will say we do have situations now we're sometimes an OJT student right and the schools are fantastic about making those individual um exceptions and making sure that we are providing appropriate services to those students whatever that may look like and sometimes that's volunteer hours or that sort of thing and I know Harrison um just in a very brief cursory conversation because they have additional electives required in their major these kids will probably not be able to participate they won't they won't have time to not take that extra sure that everybody's looked at equitably that's all I'm ask abolutely yes ma'am thank you very much that's all I had Dr Allen thanks for the presentation I I was curious if you see any um any Innovation or ideas for example could
059could we use that first period or that 7eventh period in the future to maybe offer an extra dual enrollment course or anything like that to it provides yeah to your point I think it provides a lot of flexibility right so if you have fewer students on campus it allows for some of that creative scheduling as well um I'm also you know thinking about when the time change happens you know I believe it's out there that we got to change start time right that will also allow students who need to go to work to be able to actually get to work at a at an hour that makes sense for them um site based scheduling or site based budgeting rather that right that's going to free up potentially some some creative solution solutions to different things
060offer that up and I can tell you as a student um I went to school that actually started at 9: because we only had one high school in the entire County in in Northern Virginia and actually took an early bird chemistry class right because that allowed me to leave early and I went to work after my sixth classes so I think there's a lot of flexibility and as we have these situations pop up I'm excited to see how we can meet the needs of students and it's the idea of meeting the different needs of different students than just offering a one- siiz fits-all so I think it provides a lot of opportunities for things we haven't even maybe thought of yet for sure and I'm sorry if I didn't say that as clearly earlier that
061was the intent was that those sections become available that doesn't become planning time where're their teacher planning time is already covered that becomes a free period that we can reassign that teacher to any various number of interests or needs it could be again a new elective it could be dual enrollment it could be something else um and that's where we have to work in tandem with the schools in particular Miss Everett raises a very valid point based off the conversations I've been having with students around this topic and others especially that of the school starttime change that will have to happen a year and a half from now um if that goes through I would be surprised if we didn't see the vast majority of students not taking advantage if the board were to approve
062this of the of the early release many of the students are expressing concern that pushing back the high school start time prohibits them or pushes back their abil to work by two hours a day and that 10 hours over the course of a 5day work week is impactful to them because many of them are providing income for their household or contributing to household or they have other interests and needs they're saving up for college or other things so you know I think that you would see this creates some flexibility in that scenario for us as well but it is something we want to go into carefully and make sure but to your point it frees up 10 sections so essentially two full-time teachers are easily freed up that we would not have to allocate an
063FTE for so now we could actually fulfill 10 additional sections of instruction and I think that creates a lot of flexibility again while overall decreasing class sizes which would be a big win for our teachers as well and something that they've been clamoring for for a long time and that goes back you know I as I had asked for that data on you know how many of our teachers have Masters or doctorate and so forth you know I think there's what 2400 2500 that have master so um being able to lots of potential yes tap into that and potential for additional programs as well right how exciting would it be to be able to add a program because of free ofice section correct all right great thank you Miss Miller hello thanks I think the
064most important part of this presentation is when you talk about student advising requirements but training for the high school principls assistant principles and counselors um unfortunately it's not consistent through our district information given from those three titles um it depends what school you go to and what they've been experienced with you know with at the school that is going to be I think the Catalyst of this working or not um not only the quality of training but maybe where they go for information and how they get it to students because I know I'll hear from parents that say I was told this or I never got this information and I want to be able to direct them back to the actual training that was given um so I would like to learn more about that
065um once this is implemented how we're training it and we're messaging this to people um you know you have to be very careful how we message it so it doesn't look like we're trying to throw kids out of school um because that is not the intent and I think this could be used in our favor but it's going to like everything we do in this size of District it's going to be how it rolls out so thank you thank you Mr sharpless so um when you go go back to the requirements of participation the last bullet point is they must provide their own transportation um and so the first thing I that makes I start think thinking about is what kind of potential impact will this have on Transportation um we already have a driver
066shortage bus driver shortage right now um and we have to fill with you know sub kind of you know contract out this might help solve solve this issue um you know if we have less 500 students that are having to drive themselves to school versus you know our buses having to pick them up that's you know for one high school that could be a huge impact to think about districtwide so I was just curious um what what do you know maybe you or superintendent Hyde or maybe even Mr Davis whoever wants to answer this but what kind of potential impact do you think there's going to be or could you just give your your opinion on the impact this could have on our school district on Transportation in particular with with a current Junior in
067my household I will tell you that not many Juniors and seniors ride the school bus it it they either ride with friends or they're D self-driving um for for those that can't drive they again they tend to carpool with friends um however even for those who don't have their own transportation it's important for us to point out there are other options available to them including car pooling with a with a friend but also Citrus connection Citrus connection has stops in proximity to all of our high schools and so that would become an opportunity for us to make sure that we're messaging that so that students would not necessarily have to be excluded from this because they don't own a car I mean we don't want that to become the barer to them being able to
068participate in something like this so Citrus connection has been a great partner for our district um through the years and would continue to be very supportive and we would just have to work with them um to provide advanced notice to make sure that they have routing times that would be conducive for our high schoolers who were trying to leave campus it doesn't make sense to release them an hour early but know that the bus does the Citrus connection bus doesn't come for another hour and 45 minutes we would have to work with them to coordinate that and that's why a lot of this is based off of your feedback um but I would work with I can work with Mr Davis to PLL for our high schools how many classified Juniors and seniors ride there
069is a percentage but it's just I don't think it's a very large number however it does create an opportunity and and this is where the district advisory committee and parents and the board will have to weigh in over the next six months as I bring to you recommendations and proposals for school start times the district advisory committee is currently being tasked Mr Davis and his team are providing them with information so that they can do an analysis of how we conduct transportation and that they'll make recommendations to me to bring back to you and then we'll take those out to families and and staff to get feedback on even if it's 10 or 15% of the ridership which is not a big percentage that creates an opportunity that let's say the recommendation was we want
070to bus elementary and middle school students together so that we don't have to start any school before 8:00 a.m. that creates space face an opportunity because we may need fewer buses at high school we can shift those buses to the elementary middle route so to your point I think it will be part of a solution long term to some of our transportation needs but we're going to have to be very creative in how we approach this so it's there is an impact I just don't know that it'll be as significant as we initially think but we're happy to provide those numbers to you by the next meeting so thank you and as with all teenagers where there is a will there's a way correct Miss it thank you I'm excited for this proposal um and
071I think it's already been touched on a little bit but especially with school start times changing um looking at even this giving the option that students could go in and work a shift before school starts especially if they're not starting till 9:00 and don't have to be there till 10: um but I do hope too that we'll look at seeing how we can advocate for because there are work La child labor laws that are specifically revolving around our current School times um and making sure that as school times change that we're advocating to make sure that those labor laws change in accordance with the school start time so that our students can still um have those opportunities but I know we've been doing this for quite some time with our dual enrollment classes where students
072can leave early or come late um do we have any idea how many of our students in those Juniors or seniors are taking advantage of being able to come a period late or leave early because they're taking dual enrollment it it just depends on whether the we haven't pulled those numbers but we could because we now offer so many dual enr on our campuses there are are actually fewer that are coming late and leaving early because of off-campus dual enrollment um but we can certainly find that information out for you because my question with that would just be if there if I'm a student that is taking a dual enrollment class on pulk State campus so I'm already leaving a period early for that could I still take advantage of this program and come a
073period later is that would that is it one or the other the way that the FTE works is that student needs to be schedule for six periods so as long as that dual enrollment is one of those six then it's yeah but if the DU enrollments on one of our college campuses it's it doesn't make any difference it's still a course in their schedule so they have to have six correct to be fully funded M and Miss Fields okay so I had several questions uh you answered one the why and I had the same question that Miss Cunningham had as it relates to the committee members I would like to know who that who those members are and I would it'd be interesting to know how many students actually are transport by bus because everybody
074doesn't have a vehicle uh and every parent is not in a place where they want their children to be catch and R with others and I'm sure you all know why uh why that's the case and um I'd be interested in knowing at the end of the day who's going to uh Shepherd this uh within the schools and how much of an added uh level of work would that be for them and what's the timeline and miss Miss Miller wanted to know about how you going to roll it out I'm interested in knowing that too how that's going to be uh rolled out and one of the things that I think is very important is uh we need to be able to attract these students and uh we need to make sure that if they're
075going to be leaving school at the end of the day as best we can I know that we're not the parent but we still want to make sure that those kids are in a safe environment and they're not going and doing things that's going to eventually harm them um and and and Har others and not to say that that's going to happen but I think all those things need to be uh taken in consideration yes ma'am and I will say we also do that with our students who actually graduate early even though they're not our responsibility at that point we do have those conversations when you're leaving midyear or even an entire year early what is the plan right there has to be some plan it's not just to be finished and walk out the
076door so yeah that would carry over um but I've made notes to be able to answer that at a future session thank you yes ma'am thank you Miss Everett there's no further questions board members we'll take your comments and your questions into consideration and bring you back some responses in November before we bring this back probably in December for a final vote and or at least direction from the board as to next steps for proceeding at this time I'd like to bring Miss Candy Amato forward for Berkeley accelerated Middle School charter contract modification good afternoon have a another easy contract modification for you so Berkeley accelerated middle is adding a DBA a doing business as they're not changing their corporate name they're just adding a DBA so the contract modification just reflects that addition and
077that's it Mr M I see no questions or comments thank you very much thank you next item Mr Davis Mr Chad Davis staff attorneys to the superintendent's office is here to do a brief summary of a title 9 presentation based off the board's questions and request at the last meeting I'm sorry thank you hi good afternoon um thank you for this opportunity to go over the the title 9 policy with you I just wanted to make sure uh since this is a brand new policy that everybody is clear on what this policy does and more importantly what it does not do uh just to clarify any any concerns that may be lingering before we approve it at the um December board meeting so first of all a little overview on what Title 9 is uh
078Title 9 was a federal law that was enacted by Congress in 1972 uh it was part of the higher education amendments added to the uh 1964 Civil Rights Act it regulated it's regulated and enforced by the office for civil rights under the US Department of Education and what it does it prohibits discrimination based on sex in all education institutions receiving Federal funding and it is popularly known for protecting women's sports so uh let's go ahead and take a look exactly what Title 9 is this is all Title 9 is this language no person in the United States shall on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance that's all it is so where do
079we get our Title Nine obligations there are a few sources of of course uh court cases federal and state courts will weigh in and determine how title N9 should be applied uh some state laws will be enacted that will determine how schools within those States uh you know enact their um non-discrimination uh practices but then we also have two forms from the office of civil right uh we get guidance documents those come in question and answers or dear colleague letters and then we also get office of civil rights regulations now I want to focus on those last two and explain exactly what these are uh you get your guidance documents and your regulations guidance documents are not law they are guidelines uh they come they they are suggested guidance drawing on past office of civil
080rights findings and and from case law from some courts uh some of the examples I I've listed there uh you have the revised sexual harassment guidance you have a dear colleague letter a coup and then three q&as the ones you see next uh 2011 and 2014 that say archived um those were where subsequent presidential administrations with new uh you know heads of their Department of Education they archived those letters from previous administrations making them no longer valid so what you get are you get guidance you have an Administration that'll say this is how we're going to start um applying our obligations and then others will come along and say no we're not going to do it that way so those they are strong guidance they often come with some sort of a financial incentive or
081burden if you don't follow them but they don't have the same weight of law that the regulations do regulations coming from the office of civil rights are administrative law they follow the administrative procedures act and most noticeably we've only had two instances of regulations that have come since Title 9 was passed that's the 1975 Title 9 regulations which enacted Title 9 initially and then in 2020 we got a whole new set of Title 9 regulations and that is where today's policy actually came from those regulations so we are actually uh working on a policy based on law not based on any of the guidance letters or any of the stuff that you might see in the news that keeps coming up so the 2020 Title 9 regulations what they protect against discriminatory conduct related specifically
082to sexual harassment the Reg ation they Define sexual harassment and they create the formal grievance process uh the title 9 regulations they apply to all persons in the school district conduct between students conduct between employees and employees the grievance process is not the same as law enforcement let me get this clear sometimes and you can see this in the higher education context sometimes the behavior doesn't rise maybe to the level of a crime but it is still something inappropriate we're going to to investigate to try to protect everybody to make sure that they have full access to the programs so the grievance process for Title 9 we're looking in to see what kind of behavior that was inappropriate that would have violated Title 9 but there could also be a subsequent criminal component to an
083investigation that is also happening and in the K through 12 context most of the time there will be a criminal investigation involved because you're dealing with minors most of the time except for when it's employees and employees so now I'm going to if you have open the policy draft um that's on the agenda I'm going to walk through the different sections I'm not going to read all of this the PowerPoint is a great outline for you if you want to just see what the policy does uh but I I don't want to get too far in the weeds here if you have questions please stop and ask any questions but I want to walk through what each section of our our policy is going to do uh the introduction section this explains our commitment to
084following Title 9 it also commits that we will provide remedies to sexual harassment violations responding in a manner that is not deliberately indifferent I highlight that deliberately indifferent is a legal term of art that's what the US Supreme Court filed in gser uh for establishing District liability uh the district actually can be sued for liability if someone is a victim of sexual harassment if we took a position of deliberate indifference I again relate to the higher education context you can imagine you know a lot of this came from uh instances on campuses where higher education was not reporting crimes or they weren't reporting instances and they took a position of deliberate indifference um and that's what that's what that term is meant to to uh um prevent from happening ways that we show we're not
085deliberately indifferent one is by adopting this policy which we are required to by law but it shows that we are following the policy with the grievance process another is the training that we are going going through uh I and Dr Anthony and his analysts caner Adams are all going through the title 9 training um he's going to be our coordinator I'll get to that in a second but we are going through the training process to make sure we are doing this properly we've contracted with a group called IC institutional compliance Solutions and then we will be providing this training as well to other District employees to make sure they are aware especially on mandatory reporting requirements uh the coverage this does limit the coverage uh to just sexual harassment again um well when we get
086to the end I'll talk a little bit about the title of this policy and how that might have caused some confusion this policy does deal with sexual harassment that happens within our education programs and activities and is committed by member of the district Community or a third party um I do want to point out there in case you're wondering it says accept outside US Geographic boundaries even if it occurred within one of our programs that is simply because the Title Nine being a federal law does not have Juris addiction outside of our boundaries uh that does not mean that we would still not be uh enforcing our student code of conduct or any other uh disciplinary measure if something were to happen in one of our programs outside of the boundaries it just means the
087title 9 grievance process would not apply the definitions I do want to highlight the three sexual harassment definitions they are very narrowly defined you have quidd proquo uh sexual harassment which is unwelcome conduct in exchange for an aid benefit service you have hostile environment harassment which is unwelcome conduct so severe pervasive and objectively offensive that a person is effectively denied access to a district program or activity and then you have sexual assault I will let you read those definitions in case you're wondering where those came from uh they come from the federal clear Act of 1990 which originally applied to colleges and universities uh then it has a whole bunch of other definitions there again I want to point out sexual harassment is based on Behavior so that is what this policy is dealing with
088his behavior uh next we have the title N9 coordinator we've identified our title n coordinator that's Dr Anthony um this explains what they do they report directly to the superintendent except for when the superintendent is the respondent then we have the grievance process uh I do want to point out the first thing we do with the grievance process before we actually begin going through the formal grievance process we provide any supportive measures uh to the students involved and those are non-punitive non-disciplinary and do not unreasonably burden the other party we're basically basically looking for ways to make sure that the alleged conduct does not happen again while we investigate uh the process will determine responsibility uh for sexual harassment but then the board you all will provide the remedies there are certain individuals involved in
089the grievance process we have investigators decision makers Appel up members and informal resolution facilitators all of those are coordinated by the title 9 coordinator and all will be receiv received receiving the training through our IC uh program once the reports are made they can they are made to the title 9 coordinator uh now a report of sexual discrimination and harassment is not the same thing as the formal complaint the reports may be made in person by mail telephone email or online reporting form the online reporting form will be on our website it is not live yet simply because you have not passed this policy yet uh but the report may be an when we get to the formal complaints formal complaints may not be anonymous but a formal complaint may be filed by the title
0909 coordinator who would sign it so the victim or whoever is alleging it actually be a third party who would be making that allegation would still be anonymous if they filed through the um through the form and the title n coordinator believed that there is enough evidence to pursue uh there there are timelines here you see within two dis business days of receipt uh the title n coordinator contacts a complainant or the parent and guardian to discuss supportive measures during this time uh the superintendent May remove a student from programs or activities on an emergency basis uh you can see there what that would constitute and the student May challenge that removal and also employee respondents they may be placed on administrative leave during this process now we get to the formal complaint uh the
091formal complaint is a signed document it's filed by either the complainant or the parent and guardian or the title n coordinator uh and then then that shows you how it can be filed uh this now triggers the grievance process there is a timeline uh there it is expected within 60 days excluding scheduled breaks that the whole process from start to finish including the appeal process would be complete um there informal resolutions are also part of this uh informal resolutions would include mediation or anything else to try to find a resolution um in in lie of going through the whole process but they may not be used to unduly delay the grievance process now when we get to the here's a little bit more about the the timeline and once we get the notice of allegations
092um you can see what the coordinator must provide to all the parties about the allegations when we get to a dismissal of a formal complaint if there is informal resolution or the complaint decides not to pursue this um they they may you know dismiss it except uh let me make sure that's on this slide um no we'll get to that in a second uh you can see here how if they dismiss it um we can still investigate the the alleged Behavior Uh that doesn't stop us from still looking into it even if we think that there's still something there um okay what I wanted to make sure I highlighted at the very bottom of this one though informal resolution and dismissal it may not be done if the complainant is a student and the respondant
093is an adult or when the allegation is between students so we cannot be asking students to give up their rights to this full investigation um and in in exchange for some form of an informal resolution uh we if it's a minor we're still going to continue this process from start to finish any questions so far I know I'm going through this very quickly Mr Davis I'm actually going to add something here for a second so board members understand that the way this policy is currently written is is incredibly well done um I have as a superintendent been put in a position when we have student on student allegations of sexual misconduct and or harassment only to have the victim not be willing to pursue an issue what this would allow us to do is continue
094the investigation even without the victim's essential participation and we could take action if need be um I will tell you it is incredibly frustrating to be in a position like mine knowing that there were several things that took place and you have no authority to transfer a student or to suspend or to expel a student for behavior that was well known but the victims in this case two victims parents refused to do it because they didn't want this reputation being linked to their child and and that's a shame that the victim is further victimized because now they have to continue to attend school with somebody who may or may not have attacked them so this the policy does allow us to continue the investigation even in the absence of that support um which is incredibly
095beneficial to us now obviously we would do so incredibly carefully and in collaboration with law enforcement and with others um but it's it's important to know that your policy or the recommend recommended policy is much stronger than policies I've seen elsewhere so I saw Miss Cunningham and then I heard Miss Fields okay so when you were going through it I know it's quick but I noticed you said up in further slides I don't know which one that if the person if the title one what's the name Title Nine coordinator deems that what he or she has received may not bear any witness it he may not make it go forward I have an issue with that is there someplace that that person whether it's a student staff member administrator whatever make sure I think there
096should be almost two different people one person who's your Title Nine coordinator and then somebody that he or she can go to for a second opinion and say here's what I received I'm not sure this merits but what do you think I I'm concerned that it's on one person's back to make that decision if it goes forward that's what I thought I heard you say earlier am I correct so um the dismissal I just backed it up to uh how that when they the formal complaint shall be dismissed if it does not constitute sexual harassment as defined by the policy so there would be a decision there okay um and I believe the the you know the the appeals process we haven't gotten to yet but they they could appeal that um okay and then
097uh as far as may be dismissed if the complaintant May dismiss it if it's adult on adult yeah I understand that no but I'm talking about one person having the ultimate say whether or not this particular particular complaint moves forward I just think it should be that coordinator plus another person before you dismiss it I'd like someone a second set of eyes I know you said that person reports to superintendent Hy I just think that conversation needs to be had okay I I can do some research and see how if other schools have been able to if they do anything like that um this is such a highly defined process from the law so that's kind of what we're going with but I I can look into it and see if that's uh if that's
098possible somehow or even internally if we can just sure and when we get to the appeals process as well I do believe they could appeal the decision if it gets dropped if they wanted to continue um having that investigation arguably that that point could be addressed procedurally it does not need to be addressed in policy perfect that's what it could be addressed procedurally to say that and and I can tell you that the behavior to date exhibited by both Dr Adrien Anthony and his predecessor Shandra Hall has always to include Mr Bridges Andor others before they arrive at a decision now Mr Davis is also available okay so they always work in tandem but that can be codified in the procedures doesn't necessarily have to be codified in the I would appreciate that abely thank
099you so much and I can't imagine from uh working with Dr Anthony so far that we do anything except I understand but again I don't write policy and I don't put procedures in place for the current person in that job sure okay we have to do it globally cuz that person may move on to different and a new person come in and I think when we set policy and procedures it needs to be ongoing not looking at who's currently in that position that's why I said absolutely him or her so I would appreciate that tweet thank you Miss Fields uh my question is similar to Miss Cunningham um I didn't bring my notes I left my my binder at home uh but I remember vividly reading the decision maker will the decision maker will a
100decision maker so I want to know who are the decision makers so we we don't have those folks lined up yet uh once we have the policy in place we'll be putting together all the people uh the decision maker is a specific person who is um identified to go through the training uh and they get certified to be a decision maker um same with the investigator the investigator the decision maker and the coordinator all have to go through very specific training on um on how to do their jobs with Title 9 uh so I imagine those folks uh we they may be in conjunction with people we already have in HR that are already doing some of these things but they have not been identified yet well superintendent high I would really like to know
101who those decision makers are because as I said when I read that policy it was like they they ultimately it's them and I'm want to make sure yeah procedurally so there's a lot of places in here where I think my example of you know when we differentiate between policy and procedure the policy provides the broader overview of what the expectation is procedure is the step-by-step part so as something as simple as the grievance process you know the grievance process here is basically on you know on one of our slides nine of 19 it's summarized by what eight bullets um but that needs to be fully drafted and scripted and so that's where the procedure guide comes into play and we've talked about developing procedure guides for all of these policies so that would the committee
102structure for review would be identified there we would name individuals we would have named positions because it's a procedure manual it have to be updated every time you had a change in the employee so it makes more sense to say a senior director the superintendent the board attorney the superintendent's office attorney so we could list all those out so that we can ensure that the right people are part of the decision making in that regard please also keep in mind that regardless of the committee structure anyone who's a complaintant has the ability to appeal that decision as as Mr Davis just highlighted so even if that committee felt no there's not enough here to justify a sexual harassment claim they can still appeal that process and we would have to honor that appeal so um
103I would tell you that historically over the last two and a half years um I would tell you we we typically air on the side of caution um I've not seen things simply summarily summarily dismissed um for lack of evidence and I think that's because they do their due diligence and they ensure a lot of questions are asked we look for a lot lot of information evidence um because there are decisions here that ultimately could result in a student being expelled charged criminally um including staff being charged criminally or being loss of employment so there is a lot of due diligence that goes into this so absolutely I hear the board loud and clear we'll make sure that these issues are addressed in the procedure guide that goes along with this thank you yes ma'am
104okay moving forward um so now we go through the investigation process of the formal complaint uh the the burden and proof will be on the district and not the parties to provide uh the evidence uh the standard appr proof is clear and convincing evidence which is going to be a bit higher than the preponderance of the evidence parties will have the right to have witnesses evidence and others presence uh present during the proceeding they also may have advisers with them who do not have to be attorneys but they can have someone with them helping them through it all and then ultimately whoops ultimately what what is happening uh is the title title N9 coordinator will be determining responsibility uh they will be uh the title N9 coordinator who appoints the decision maker who cannot be
105the same person or as the title n coordinator or the investigator um will the investigator sends a report to the decision maker the decision maker will then hear from the parties and then issue a decision of responsibility um at that point uh you know remedies will be recommended and uh the superintendent will bring it uh to the board for action and then the appeals process would kick in both parties have the right to appeal uh the determination responsibility or dismissal of a formal complaint and then there are bases on on how they um on on how they would Appeal on what they would Appeal on and you can read through those um there are things on here including whether any of the parties have a conflict of interest uh which by the way when I
106interviewed for this job one of the things I was being considered for was to be Title 9 coordinator until we realize digging into the law that that would automatically set up a conflict of interests since I represent the superintendent in the district um anytime someone doesn't like what I come up with they would just assume I was biased and trying to protect the district so uh anyways yeah so then here you have the rest of the appeals process um the decision maker for the appeal and importantly enough cannot be the same person that made the decision early on uh so that's almost a separate uh proceeding that goes through just to make sure we have some due process uh there's a statement here on retaliation and determination regarding responsibility um you can see through everything
107that has to be included in that determination there has to be a written determination it has to provide all this information to make sure the parties are very clear as to what the the investigation and the decision was and then that brings me to the end that that walked us through the whole policy but I want to back up now to the title of the policy because that seemed to be a point of confusion uh the proposed title we got from Neola and that some other districts also use is non-discrimination on the basis of sex and education programs and activities which is pretty much the name of Title 9 uh other examples of title n policies in other districts in Miami day they call their's discrimination and harassment complaint procedures Hillsboro calls their's complaint procedures
108related to alleged discrimination and or harassment and employment bravard anti-harassment compliance officers complaint investigation procedures and Orange County calls there's Title 9 SE ual harassment complaint and investigation procedures those I think are all way more appropriate titles for what this actual policy is um they because this policy addresses very specifically sexual harassment Behavior and the investigation process that goes along with it that was fast uh I know I I whipped through a lot of that but are there any other questions see Miss Cunningham thank you um I like orange counties I think that's short sweetened to the point it's the complaint and it's the procedures for investigating I don't are we looking for I don't know what everybody else thinks but just looking at all those it seems like Hillsboro is pretty long bravard anti
109that's no I mean it's just for what it's worth I I like orange counties thank you yeah so this this uh policy um tonight Mr Bridges will be requesting permission to do a public notice for it so we still time if you wanted to update that uh if it was you know your will or you could even I guess do that at the board meeting vote on it or Davis I would just direct you to find one that you feel is appropriate and bring it back to the board as part of the policy adoption okay I'd be happy to do because the title we did talk about this I brought it up as well the title does not match the policy sure and and I think it's it's quite honestly it's conf it conflates two
110issues and so it's important for us to make sure the title reflects what's I I agree we do have many other policies are anti-bullying policy and others that deal more with harassment or you discrimination I guess corre as opposed to this very narrow definition of sexual harassment um I actually also prefer orange counties as well so I we'll update that sure thank you three you too Mr Davis I see no further questions or comments keep it simple that's right until the point thank you sir I'm going to come back board members let me ask this do do we need a break I see multiple heads nodding um so I'm going to I'm going to stall creatively so that the IT team can build up here so we can go to Break um it is 2:00
111on the nose we will come back at 2:15 please thank you listen [Music] my name is Paul Peterson I an art teacher at Southwest Middle School and for the past 5 years or so we've been making skateboards in my [Music] class I remember the P County Schoolboard mission statement a few years ago talked about rigor and relevance and what I found in 20 years of teaching that the kids are learning all these skills but they're not able to apply them in a relevant way to where they are right now so by making the skateboards they're able to incorporate the math science and Artistry of taking a raw material to a finished product that they can go out and actually physically use at Southwest Middle School in Lakeland Florida art teacher Paul Peterson dives into the
112art of fusing academics with Woodworking and design resparking vocational and academic skills that had previously faded there's always a beginning to any Endeavor and Mr Peterson started less than 5 years ago in 2014 Lakeland was a sponsor City for inos skate and that year we hooked up with creative skate. org and we made about 50 skateboards [Music] with the will and a way to do so Peterson regularly involves his students in the physical process of making skateboards making it a fun and educational experience for everyone I'm work with the kids and we design what kind of skate they want to ride for the type of riding they want to do and we get Baltic Birch ply which is a hardwood that's cut down to a 16th of an inch and we layer nine layers of
113them together in a 12 ton hydraulic press all right I need your help guys cuz you always every time you glue something you got to do sound effects and since we're on film ready oh the takes a very thin relatively flimsy piece of wood and allows us to put Curves in it and by layering so many layers together it'll support the weight of a full grown adult while standardized testing in future Readiness have become a dominant focus in schools today Mr Peterson's vocational involvement gives light to the dynamic importance of applying Real World Knowledge his methods raise the standards for student achievement and Still's fundamental basics of History Math Science and even economics I want to keep making them because I want to keep writing them honestly it's just a fun thing to do it
114gets a lot of students really interested in my subject matter rather than just getting put in an art class that I may or may not be too interested in at this age a lot of my students are less concerned about the classics the Greeks and Renaissance but you talk skateboards hot rods and graffiti they're loving it and they're learning the same skills with a perspective color shading and so on and once I get them hooked then I can bring in a little bit more of the history of where all these skills came [Music] from this is my board I painted it with zombies probably took me about a week or two to paint this this one right here is one of my favorites her name is Taylor Haynes she did this I believe her sixth
115grade going into her 7th grade year so she is about 12 when she painted this skateboard once the kids finish designing cutting and painting their board into a final product they finally get to experience what it's like writing something entirely of their own creation we kind of have like a freedom to do kind of whatever we want on the boards of course you're not painting on paper or drawing on paper it's a little different and if you know how you can write it and kind of be proud of what you've done what I found with my students is it really seems to empower them to go out and earn the money to participate in the program themselves rather than asking mom and dad and the beauty of it is no to skateboard are exactly alike
116they work collaboratively in groups discovering their own talents intelligence and self-confidence all vital ingredients to building a better future of Role Models one skateboard at a [Music] time [Music] the starts right [Music] now [Music] are we ready yep good afternoon welcome back everyone at this time I'd like to introduce major Jill Seymour um with po County Sheriff's Office and our school safe schools team um who's here to talk about the Florida Department of education's fsat report for 2023 2024 good afternoon um um as you all know I was promoted back in February to Major we have a new captain his name is Ryan Shay and he is your District safety specialist um he is out right now on FMLA so he will be presenting to you next month on that annual report the booklet that
117you received in the past um so he'll give the big presentation on the annual report next month but I'm going to let Tracy go over the fsat because we have to report back to the state good afternoon sir I'm lieutenant Tracy Smith of the P County Sheriff's Office safe schools this information contained in this District best best practices assessment and school security risk assessment are confidential and not open to public record I will give you a summary of both those reports as required by the state statute the objective of the best practices assessment is to demonstrate to the superintendent and board that school security risk assessments were completed on each school campus by October 1st which is required by State Statute all risk assessments were reviewed individually by a member from the office of saf
118schools for accuracy by summary we will address the efforts of the pole County Public Schools as it relates to compliance with the Margery stowman Douglas Public Safety High School school safety act its commission and best practices related to School Safety and Security my summary will identify strategies and activities that we have implemented to ensure we are improving School Safety and Security and progressing in that area some positive School measures that we have in place the office of safe School SCH met with every school principal to ensure all schools are completing All State requirements and understood questions in compliance with visits from the doe we implemented stationary metal detectors at all middle and high schools 100% complete on perimeter fencing conducted all emergency drills required by the state statute last year promoted the fortify Florida app
119as required by Statute the Panic alert system was utilized and tested to comply with the 911 standards every member of the threat assessment team were SE stag trained and by January 1st 2024 of this year the new Florida model will come in effect and every everybody in law enforcement has been trained so far the school staff are being trained up through uh December 31st and that'll all be done uh we completed installation of room numbers classroom door handles were installed said that they remain locked at all times unless open with a key we continue to educate students and parents of social media and the consequences that come from post or making threats based on the results of the assessment there are additional steps that should be considered one is the use of RFID for Access
120by staff and faculty at all Sites that's having a badge to be able to get in consider first aid stop the bleed training kits for all schools currently we use Ashy and we're looking at stop the bleed we need to continue our physical improvements with secure vegetables we need to create a maintenance plan for our technology that we are upgrading such as cameras and digital intercom systems the installation of impact resistance and one-day wind window film at schools we're reviewing that right now as well expansion of amplifier bdas at locations that experience radio failures for the radios that aren't working in the schools the amplifiers need to be put in those schools so they can we can communicate and implementation of fixed Panic alarms the fiscal impacts to the district are estimated ated at Charters
121$4 46,6 radio repeaters $963,000 metal detectors $1,174 security cameras $212,800 and $43 based on our assessment those are some of the steps that we should continue or initiate going forward with our safety and security measures in our schools any questions yes ma'am okay so here's my question I know that we've done some of this already is this cost estimates that you gave us today to complete the work because some of that without getting specific has been done in different places help me yes it is taking place but those cost estimates are to finish the work that's what I'm asking and that we're currently doing like the BDA amplifiers we are already in the process I think we have done you got the spreadsheet there are nine that have been completed and I think we have
122five left sure I I'm GL it's fine but yes yes so this is to compl the work okay thank you that was my question I see there further questions or comments thank you thank you thank you thank you next up we have Anne Pasco assistant superintendent for Information Systems and Technology who's here to provide some information about Fort neack or I keep wanting to say forty Knack but it just doesn't sound right yeah well I don't have the time I when I retire I'm going to specialize in helping people develop names that make sense ah good afternoon how are you s be employed and on that uh I'm happy that I get to go after safe schools because the Forin act implementation as we have discussed somewhat previously and talking about cyber security helps us
123maintain our Network and ensure that we can keep it up and running many of those things that we just talked about with safe schools live on the network and if we're going to take the time to install them we want them to be and we want them to work well so unfortunately as we know in today's digital learning age we have quite a few issues with cyber security we have fishing scams we have ransomware we have things of that nature and our job as a district is to make sure that we have our systems up and running for Learning and to keep our business functioning so that we can provide all of those opportunities for our staff and our students when they are needed to be so what a knack is is a network app
124Access Control does quite a few things it basically controls who can get onto our Network so it controls the corporate users in our environment that means any students teachers staff guest logging in essentially just like a school security officer would say who are you before you come into the building we're doing the same thing who are you before you come on our Network we also are controlling access to the applications and resources on the network so anytime you talk about security and digital learning one of the things that people are doing in fishing or ransomware is they're trying to get into your network and putting something called a bad actor onto the network that Waits dormant until it thinks nobody's looking and then it attacks this system helps prevent some of that it makes sure
125that we can set policies for our contractors our guests any known people who are coming on site we set a policy for them that says this is what you can access and this is what you cannot which is important for all of the things that you all are trying to decide both as a school board and as employees and as students there's lots of new Innovative things that you're trying to implement we want to make sure we provide the right access for the right people and that helps keeps our Network safe it also helps us segment things into job functions so each of us have a different function um I believe we just talked about Mr Davis and Mr Hyde and looking at how you deal with Title 9 is the same thing when you
126look at digital learning my role should give me certain access to different information and we can design that based upon this solution we put systems in place that will detect unusual activity on our Network so that's what you're looking for in a Cyber attack anything unusual anything different and it would be very difficult and cost prohibitive for us to employ that many people because we'd have to be 24/7 so this lets us do that it also automates an incident response so as soon as we get an alert that we have an incident coming in we can immediately automate our response which helps us reduce what kind of downtime we might enact or in have what kind of downtime we might have uh for us to deal with coming back up and then it helps us
127generates reports and insights so we can see people who are trying to get in and then we can identify that and we can address that with education if it happens to be employees who made a decision that probably wasn't in the best interest for the network or helps us contact uh safe schools if we have another issue that we need to address Mr Hyde that's the end of my presentation I'm not sure what questions we might have yeah and I'll I'll filter if we need to go to closed we have a closed session available thank you sir I see no questions or comments perfect thank you thank you Miss Pasco board members there was an item on here um should either item number seven or number eight require us to go to close session uh
128for the purposes of you discussing anything related to school safety or safety of our it Network um we do not need that at this time so moving on under budget and Staffing uh the next item I'll invite Mr pittz chief of staff and Mr Warren associate superintendent over human resources to join us at the podium um they're here to speak with you about the paa collective bargain agreement settlement that we're proposing and recommending to the board I am pleased to share that pea overwhelmingly ratified the contract on Friday and sent us those results for each of their respective groups Miss Yokum just walked in and missed me saying that Miss Yokum I was just explaining that pea members overwhelmingly ratified or or voted um to recommend the contract before the board today um I did
129have the opportunity come on down I did have the opportunity to address a few questions that came before me um from one of one of the board members and so I'll go ahead and provide a few of those responses is here why is the item coming back to back typically depending on the timeline in which the contract is finalized we do attempt to bring the item to you as quickly as possible the goal as always is to bring a ratified contract and or excuse me to get approval for a ratified contract so that payroll can process all the payments to all employee groups affected by this contract prior to the winter holiday break and so this would guarantee this timeline if approved by the board it would guarantee that we would be allowed to address
130and have an adequate timeline for payroll we were a few months delayed we intentionally did not try and finish and that's going to sound awkward negotiations at immediately at the start of the school year we did that last year as you recall and that created an incredible hardship at the start of the school year on our on our processing team as far as payroll and then it led to several um errors when it came to paying our employees and so this year we committed to providing a more appropriate timeline Miss pasco's team is responsible for all the programming that goes in behind the scenes of an approved contract and then ultimately it resides with payroll to ensure that it gets processed in a timely manner so we we do anticipate that with board approval it
131would allow us to move forward and process those payments um prior to winter break uh additionally I was asked the question um there was language in the contract as it relates to a requirement that um should the STA statute or rule change and it would impact our contract language that we would have up to 10 days in which to sit sound and bargain my explanation again to that is to date we've not had a conflict as it relates to that is in essence what it is it's a protection for our employees I take no I have no issue with the language because essentially all it does we would never and we would not put ourselves in a position where we would violate statutory requirements however in the instance where our Collective bargain agreement now has
132a contradiction in statute or rule we would be required to sit down with paa and its bargaining team to discuss the impact to its employees and has provide if nothing else at least an explanation and address any questions or concerns that there may be um finally there was a um there were a few other questions that were a little bit more specific about the data and the analytics as I shared they're overwhelmingly ratif they overwhelmingly voted to ratify the contract in all three um of their employee groups and so this contract is here before you um and I'll go ahead and turn it over to Mr pittz Mr Warren and I believe Miss Yokum has some comments as well Mr pits yeah good afternoon board members um it's a heavy lift um on both negotiating
133teams I think we probably have close to 50 50 60 folks uh that participate in this process um and I really like to thank Miss Pasco she's been very helpful uh this year uh Miss jenkin's team and uh Mr Warren Mr Warren does such a great job leading this process and I'm going to let him uh give an executive summary uh to you this afternoon thank you thank you very much if you want to follow along board members I'm going to go through with you the executive summary that I believe is uh posted in there uh for you electronically the superintendent and District staff are pleased to recommend approval of the attached Collective baining agreements for teachers par Educators and educational support Personnel we have signed tenative agreements pending the ratification of the three paa
134employee groups now since this has been presented to you it has been put out for a vote and has unanimously passed uh in the teacher group there were 2,296 folks that responded with yes and 109 no so that means that we had 95.5% as yes in the parag group there were 467 yes and nine no for a 98.1% approval rating and in the ESP group 254 replying yes and five of no for a 98.1% uh passing the results of the October 20th 23 employee ra ification vote will be provided is has been provided to you and um the representation of the total groups is 8,814 employees roughly 6,795 teachers 1,475 parent Educators and 544 educational support Personnel the parties agreed to bifurcate the 2324 negotiations and on February 23 the board approved the ratified tenative
135agreements for the non-monetary contract language in the interim subcommittees addressed support staff salary compression and job description revisions meeting on seven occasions during May through August part two of our negotiations resumed in May of 23 and the agenda included the 23 and 24 calendar year self-funded Health Plan the 2324 teacher perah and ESP salaries and supplements along with several other contractual issues affecting the district's budget after after eight meetings on October 5th we came to a settlement in negotiations the proposed tenative agreements and if you hear us refer to them as Tas uh for the three employee groups revised contract language for 2324 salaries and supplements the term of the three contracts ends on June 30th of 26 with salaries to be negotiated annually for instructional Personnel the teacher salary agreement includes the January 11th
1362022 board approved Esser relief monies of $1,000 supplement it's in its third and final year and the proposed tenative agreements for the three employee groups Revis several contract articles of interest to both parties and those have been attached for your review and otherwise following Union ratification and school board approval the attached Tas or tenative agreements um sour adjustments will become effective retroactive to July 1 of 2023 now the contract languages the the actual language pieces will be effective as of October 25th uh the day following the approval the teacher 2324 salary schedules or appendix B section 102.2 two of Florida Statutes require us us to have two salary schedules so teachers who are holding a continuing contract or PSC contract remain on the grandfathered sour schedule all other teachers we refer to as annual contract
137or propotion probationary contract regardless of their date or hire are statutorily placed on the payer for performance salary schedule when they become teachers teachers will advance salary levels based on years of experience to expound salary compression at the beginning of the schedules veteran teachers will see multiple salary level advancements one of our priorities when we came together was to try to reduce that that that that those years of experience where we had some in some places 0 to 21 years was our very first first band so we've tried to break up and begin to put some levels in there to work on minimizing uh compression in our groups the performance pay schedule base level for teachers 10-month 196 day contract without any prior instructional experience retains the Statewide goal of 475 above the base salary
138level 150 has been added to every level our most experienced teachers that work the 10-month contract holding either a continuing contract or PSC contract and that are at the top level of the grandfathered salary schedule will advance Seven Levels this advancement results in a change of annual base salary from 65850 to 681 149 and that's a $2,299 increase we are also excited this year we pulled out a Dean supplement that's typically found in appendix C and we developed a a new Dean salary schedule so the settlement marks the creation of a new grandfathered and pay for performance Dean salary schedule that reflects the $2,500 Dean supplement in the base salary and that should assist those employees relative to tax benefits and how those that supplement is uh taxed the teacher supplement salary schedule for 2324
139appendix C that is attached for your review the district has committed to uh publish a supplement pay schedule annually by September 30th uh so teacher groups will know when supplements will be paid we have a lot of them as outlined in appendix C and also as as uh codified through many of our M us and our grant funding opportunities Mentor teachers will receive their regular hourly rate of pay for mentoring services and many clarifications were added to the athletic supplement section along with new sports the settlement adds various supplements for athletics and clubs including a new translation services supplement at $20 an hour you'll notice the next summary is for ESP and Paris it's been it's been summarized together employees will advance from one to three salary levels based on related work experience to expand
140salary compression at the beginning of the schedules veteran employees will see multiple salary level advancement the settlement adds a new translation service supplement at $20 an hour again that goes across all groups and in longevity uh supplements we're increased from 37 to 45 dollar per 5-year increment we also added for par Educators a new lead seedat uh supplement to serve as the credential Department of Children and Families site contact I think it's very important to draw our attention to the chart for the financial impact the teacher impact of the salary uh package is 10,636 418 the par educator is 3,69 668 the ESP is 2,1 14478 so our total uh salary package was 6,467 564 for what I've summarized to you I would be remiss if we didn't also talk about the self-funded employee health
141plan being the amount that uh the contribution has been put forward uh for health benefits being a value of 13, 7424 so our total package across all three groups Insurance included is 29 million 523 99 so I do want Miss Yokum to have a moment to also offer remarks and I wanted to should we take some questions if you have some now or wait till she summarizes I can be flexible in either way why don't we let Miss jok speak because I see no one on the speaker list at this time thank and then this will give them a moment to reflect and gather their thoughts um thank you for this opportunity um both sides have worked really hard um in subcommittees because and just put sitting at tirelessly working at looking at spreadsheets trying
142to pull out um you know what you guys actually did get from the state what what's available what's not available um I think JD and I have probably spent 20 hours together just kneee in spreadsheets um because this work is tedious but it's important um I think that we've had the most money brought to the table this bargain in the last couple of years um which is why we were able to start the decompression um and you'll hear my remark tonight as well um when you are going to be voting on it um you know this is a good start but we also know that our state isn't funding us appropriately um so we are going to have to look at a millage referendum um to be able to compete with our surrounding counties so
143that we can continue to break up the compression uh at the 475 level right now I'm going to say in every public forum I'm in um right now in the 475 level we have 0 to 13 years of teaching experience all collapse in that first pay level we're able to start breaking in up now but it's probably going to take two or three more years to fully break it up to where we're year foryear experience again and our support staff contracts like Mr Warren had said we have a lot of our pay grades that are 0 to 21 years of experience collapsed because as we rolled up and those of you that have been on the board for a while and before Mr Hyde was here our esps our secretary started at 856 an hour
144when when I first became president and our pairs were at 912 an hour we rolled up to $11 an hour hour because that was as the Constitutional Amendment for State minimums rolled up we had to move to 11 but what that did was the state did not appropriately fund everybody to get a $2 raise or a $3 raise and so you saw the compression start in our support staff contracts and then when we had to roll to 15 which was necessary because $111 is deplorable $15 is really not a livable wage right now anyway in Florida with the amount of inflation we're seeing then most other states aren't seeing but I digress on that um you know we had to move up to 15 but again our state did not fund everybody to get a
145$4 an hour raise and so you saw the compression again so that's even going to take a little bit longer to break up and so I know both sides are committed to a framework to break up the compression but we're going to need some help locally to do that most of the other counties that we touch either have Coastal properties that bring in more property value income uh to their school district and or they have a millage referendum and so for us to be able to be competitive In This Very transient State um where people can just go to Hillsboro go to Oola go to Orange go to Lake and just wherever is better at the time um because the state has gotten away from tenure in professional service contracts so there is no loyalty
146to districts anymore it's who can pay more and if they live close to bordering districts that's where they're going to go so we have to take matters into our own hands and make sure that we can not only retain people but or recruit people but retain them um and so we're really proud and and glad that we're here at this point to where employees can start um to get their retro pay and their pay hopefully in their end of November check which is I think where we're on track to still do that so that they get it before the holiday break so thank you yeah thank you um and and Miss jok they may have questions for you to just stay close by board members a couple other just remind there was one other portion
147of the questions I received that I want to go back and make sure I address here um first and foremost I'm really proud of the fact that we maintained a focus and the Integrity of the bargaining process um part of that process was identifying financially what we could afford what is the package we could put forward and maintain an effective fund balance knowing we still have to ratify and settle with asme and our nug group our non-union group and others and so we were able to stay within that and that process really requires PE a to to go back and help determine where to place the dollars because essentially they're giving an allotment of dollars and then they have to figure out with us you know where did those dollars best fit and that's what
148Miss yoken was referring to when she met with Mr fa and the team over multiple days you know for long days as they went through the calculations about how to move certain levels so that we could start to stretch and I know Mr Noy and all of you have talked about compression as a significant concern how do we honor and respect and value our vet and teachers and this is as Miss Yokum stated and you've heard me say this repeatedly this has to be a multi-year process and an approach we could not afford we could never afford even with a referendum to to get our salaries back on track where they should have been uh and that's no one's fault that's just simply how this state structured and how we receive funding and so moving
149forward you know those types of things are really important but again the contractual negotiations went very well um there's always going to be moments of of heated frustration and conflict um but I would say both parties both sides Mi mitigated those issues effectively um and this is a good example sometimes when you go into negotiations other issues are drawn into the negotiation that are that we're taking care of or we're addressing outside employee discipline other concerns grievances all those things kind of carry over from time to time and that's really where that were some of those instances stemmed from it was not because the negotiation itself we ask a lot of tough questions um as does the pea group um of each other and there's a lot of accountability in that room and there's a
150lot of honesty and integrity and Trust in that room and so I'm proud of the fact that we've built that culture and that we adhered to our process that we had defined and I was very proud this year more than than previous years in how the process unfolded and and the manner in which Mr Warren Mr pittz Miss Yokum and her team approached negotiations because that's important you can you can go to war every time if you want but nothing gets accomplished and quite honestly the only thing gets accomplished is employees get deferred compensation because neither one of us or both of us become entrenched in our own ideologies and are unwilling to move and that's not the case here the the last thing I just wanted to share briefly was um I did receive
151some questions asking in the compensation package you know what amount or what percentage went within the band groups of 0 to 5 years 6 to 10 years 11 to 15 years we don't have that calculation I was able to provide relative bandwidths for salary and I'd be happy to share that with the rest of the board but it's going to take us some time to calculate out what percentage of increase did each one of those bandwidths receive and that's how I interpreted the question but I'll follow up with that board member to make sure I understood the question properly so I can get you an appropriate response um but I just wanted to give you a little bit more context there um and speak to the negotiations I think I was at all but two
152um negotiation meetings and so again very proud of the team and the work they were able to accomplish um I see Miss Miller has a question I do um I have a question mainly to how we're going to U message this to staff because that always becomes a lot of questions come with this and I know I don't know if we do that together or separately I also want to say that I appreciate the fact that like a lot of things P County just does this better than most um we have a working relationship with our Union our Union is not the enemy um no matter how many times that gets to get repeated in elections um we have a you know I was taught a long time ago in the corporate world that it
153is your job and responsibility to to have a working relationship with the people that do the business for you and so I'm so proud of the fact that we can do that but I would like to know how this is messaged to staff um to kind of elim you know try to answer the questions before they start rolling in I would I would say that a majority of the messaging is is on pea and we send out to our bargaining team or our bargaining units which are all of the teachers all of the PA Educators all of the secretaries um you know I put out multiple videos um explaining how people would move in different situations really going through how um they need to look at their individual because over the next couple of years
154this is going to be very individualized because to break up compression we can't just have a flat dollar amount to everybody or a flat percent to everybody as we break things up you know now our less experienced folks are going to see less of an increase as our veteran staff who haven't seen the increases that our base have seen are going to start seeing more so that over maybe six years total everybody's at about the same spot you know with the way the state allocated and directed These funds um teachers have 20 plus laws that are governed on how they're paid and that's a problem that's a state problem that's not a p County problem every District in Florida is dealing with that there are over 20 laws that dictate and govern how we pay
155our teachers in the State of Florida it's asinine um but we have to work with that you know with Mr pittz and Mr Warren and their team so that we can flesh out what we can do in the parameters of the law so over the last three years we saw a lot of money added to the base salary because we had to um and now the inverse has to happen for our veteran staff so over a total of about five or six years everyone should see about the same total amount and that's the goal and let me just follow up with that we're going to do something a little new this year um the the pay will not show up until the December 31st paycheck it will not be in the November paycheck one of
156the things we're going to do this year is run a simulation um where folks can see what their salary uh increase is going to be and ask questions on that that'll that'll come uh before the December 31st um paycheck um and so we're really asking employees just to hold off asking questions until we can get that information to them we've learned some really good lessons it's it's actually a very good question because over the years whether it's hurricane pay or it's contract pay we have learned that we have to do we have to overcommunication why they were compensated a certain way and that gets down at the individual level because not all of them may have worked the same number of hours under the same circumstances I know that since we had reached this tentative
157agreement that pea and I had touched base with Miss Yokum recently to say hey I haven't heard anything how's it going you know and and initially when the proposal was rolled out there were a lot of concerns that were raised because people weren't really looking at all the information in its totality so they started going down the route of Hosting you know webinars and recording videos and then as soon as that started to happen all the information really started to get out to miss Miller's point and people started to kind of see wow this is really this is this is effective this is good I think when you look at the voting results you see that reflected there um and so it is a good question about how do you roll this out but in
158every instance and I want to make sure and I'll say it again tonight any employee as Mr pit said we're going to model your paycheck for everyone if you have a question contact us and one on-one someone will walk you through your paycheck because it's amazing how many how few people struggle to look at that paycheck and and it can be quite convoluted when you look at all the deductions and things like that and stiens come into play and all that so sometimes it does take a little bit of a narrative and a conversation to understand the check and and the implications for it um in some instances the pay raise May shift them into a different tax bracket and so all of a sudden it's like wait a second I should be seeing more
159but they don't realize they shifted into a different tax bracket so now this the feds are taking more so there's there's simple nuances like that that many people don't think about so um thank you Miss Miller for the question Mr Niti well I feel the teacher's pain because I taught for 36 and a half years and I I know uh I think every teacher at the last school I was at for 26 years every male teacher had an extra job the whole year practically so I I feel your pain um we don't have a a piece or we don't have a schedule then with what they're going to and what the percentage is to increase on the amount than I know not the percentage so the overall increase was 6% I provided that breakdown to
160the board for each employee yes they know exactly how many levels they're moving okay but as far as it a percentage calculation no sir no okay and then U we can't get it to them faster in this faster like in November no okay all right I know we're handcuff by the state I I I can to be honest with you yes we could but there's going to be a million mistakes and we're going to overpay and underpay and it's not worth it no I just I I know I feel their pain um with well I'm glad glad that you guys worked it out and I hope uh everything goes smoothly and uh for the teacher sake and peris sake and all the people that are employed and uh I just appreciate your time and every
161effort and I know we'll do as much as we can because I know when when I taught over here they're compressing everything and I was shaking my head and go don't do that don't do that it's going to cause people to flip over to Orange hillsbor and everywhere else but uh thank you for the job you guys do and uh appreciate your time and God bless Miss Fields I want to thank you all for the hard work I know it wasn't easy when we ran for reelection that was one of the biggest concerns and I'm happy that it's been addressed but for everybody because we need to bring everybody to a better place so they can live and live comfortably I am very uh thankful that you all are showing the health insurance peace because
162that's important is a benefit for the staff to understand that that is a big uh benefit uh so thank you for doing that and I think we need to do more of that uh when we talk about what the uh salary and the benefits are that we include the health insurance um because there everybody knows this a big piece and there's discussion on what that's going to look like going going forth I I agree with Miss Miller we need to make sure that the message is clear and the message is the same from both groups so uh I'm sure you guys will be getting together and making sure that we're sending the same message out but again uh congratulations and and great job Dr Allen thank you superintendent um so for me I just have
163a couple questions um and you know we we are talking a lot about veteran teachers and I want to make sure that um there's a sense of accountability on that right so um and and that's probably at the heart of you know one of the questions that I sent to superintendent as it relates to um your service right so I I think the first question I want to start with is how do we Define a veteran teacher are we defining a veteran teacher teacher based on years of service um or do we have some other way to to Define that now and the reason I'm asking is because I want to be accountable right so going back to 2021 uh when we went through that special match straight hearing and I understand all the conflict
164around that um but now right this was our year we're saying that we're going to honor veteran teachers so I find it alarming um in a sense that and I know my question came in late um and that's okay here we are voting on this back toback as well um but my question is if we look at this in five-year increments years of service if that's how we're classifying veteran teachers so if I look at say 14% And if and you saw the numbers that I submit it uh superintendent Hyde so tell me if I'm wrong so say 14% of our teachers are in that category of 16 to 20 years um and then 95% approximately in 21 to 25 years of service and so on right because if we look at our Workforce um
165is about 62% of 0 to 15 years right so my question then was to the superintendent um um if I looked at those fiveyear increments what's the percentage of increase that they're receiving um if that's how we're interpreting a veteran teacher because if I'm going to vote on this tonight I want to make sure that um I feel good about saying yes those you know 1% of teachers that have given us 36 to 40 years of service they're going to be a higher percent uh as far as salary increase than you know the teacher gave 16 to 20 that makes sense no I got you um so how the teacher contract is going to be broken up um is like I had said before in right now the first pay level 475 0 to 13
166years of experience are all collaps in that one pay level so we are keeping if they're coming in as a brand new teacher with no experience no outside verified experience they are staying at 475 with zero years of experience one to three years of experience are going to move one level four to five years of experience are going to move two levels 6 to S years of experience are moving three levels 8 to 9 years of experience are moving four levels 10 to 11 years of experience are moving five levels 12 to 13 years of experience are moving six levels and that's all in the first pay level a a on the second pay level a AE and down everybody will move six levels down so that we can start to break that up and
167that was the easiest way because right now our person personel system sap is limited and you guys are moving and migrating to a new system but that takes time too and so it was easier on their end on the logistics side of things we're in pasco's dealing with the it programming and whatnot to break up that first level based on years of experience and then move everybody down where that last band broke up move everybody down six levels uh and on The Grandfather's side they're moving Seven Levels down and so you know veteran teacher usually usually Statewide we say you know it's 10 or more years and so we say that kind of in a loose term that it's people with teaching experience that have been around for 10 or more years that have been
168in the classroom and so but we're breaking those bands down specifically as I had just stated um with knowing the limitations in the programming side of things right now as you all are migrating to a new system MH yeah also Dr Allen in your attachments if you under review back because there were there was a lot in the teacher PDF it was almost a rem of paper I know um if you found appendix B teacher salary schedule it does it starts with a walk across bil level and years of experience for grandfather and it'll walk on over into pay for performance as well so it will show you can see the chart of what she was speaking in in Broad terms about yeah and you know again I I would see the value of demonstrating
169the percentage of the increase um I know 6% collectively that's a positive number number um but I would love to be able to see it broken down by 5-year increments um in years of service I think to me um is a little bit more valuable than just saying 6% collectively um and then you know I I was asking also and if we look at those five-year increments um I would love to be able to see where those supplement pays are as well so you know it's great I love seeing that you know we've got 24 100 of our teachers that are receiving the you know the master typen was which is 3300 because 31 and that held we didn't change that this go round right um but then we have um 122 of our teachers
170that are at a doctorate level and they're receiving 68 I right so where where do those teachers land within years of service so and because when I ask okay what's the average teacher salary the numbers we have currently are just in 10year blocks oo that's hard really hard to gauge um and then also the stack supplements so would love to see that as well so I can really see a good picture of that five-year increment and what that average salary is including stipend um and including those supplementals I'm surprised we don't have that data um well I can explain why we don't have that data it it's not relevant to the salary schedule you could have a fifth year teacher with a doctorate you could have a first year teacher with a doctorate who's going
171to earn that stien it's not relevant to their salary that is a salary supplement and because not everybody gets it it skews the average which is why I gave you a salary average with benefits so I I hear what you're saying but it's the data you're requesting isn't going to reflect what I think it you're looking for which is what's the pay band for the 5year increments and what's the difference in those pay bands so that if we're honoring longevity essentially or or tenure or experience how does that break out and I can provide that I can't provide it in in a in a day's time and you acknowledge that but the Stu the S the stiens and the supplements are not should never be calculated into the base salary because they're year-to year they're
172never guaranted and quite frankly if we found ourselves in a budgetary constraint in the future I would argue the district would probably negotiate stiens and supplements versus trying to do anything with base salary in the future I'm not projecting that I'm just saying it would make sense to me that because those are additional pay and not base pay that's where we'd want to see the impact I'm not saying paa would agree to that I'm just throwing out something you know conceptually we can provide you with the breakdown by 5year increments um and we can show you know and a difference too Dr Allen if you follow me for a second the seven steps that would take place for a veteran teacher with with with years 26 through 30 years of experience is going to be
173vastly different than same seven steps that occur with a teacher who's at years 16 through 20 because just the salary disproportionality in their loan is not going to always be equalized and because we've not had a steady step in lane for a very long time and as was mentioned we ended up consol validating and compressing all the salaries so you had multiple year 10 15E veterans making the same amount of money as firste teachers so that's why it's a multiple year process to get away from that because we're going to leave the base but keep moving experienced teachers along so we can create that space between them based off their years of experience and again obviously through performance pay so it's a complicated it's a complicated process it's it's an interesting question but I would
174just say that the stiens and the supplements may not necessarily impact we don't include those in the salary calculation because those are an addition too um we could I could provide if if it would be an interest to you and the board we could look to see how many stiens are earned within a pay grade but I'd be reluctant to tie it to the salary to show what an increase an employee would earn because again that's so it's so unique to the individual who's receiving it that's my concern with including that but we could definitely show you as a percentage do we see more people in the first 5 to 10 years of of working for us that earn the bulk of stiens I mean we could probably look for something like that that's going
175to take some time though that's going to take a week or so for the team to to calculate out yep and that's why I asked those second I mean I thought the the most important thing for me was I I would love to see the percentage increase of fiveyear incents from 16 years down because then to me I'm saying hey collectively yes um that is we we're honoring our veteran teachers and I will also add like with the most of the supplements in appendix C they could fluctuate year to year because you might be a team leader one year but maybe not the next and so those supplements e and flow depending on the person now with the advanced degrees again one of the 20 plus laws that govern how we pay teachers um this
176is a law that was from 2011 where the grandfathered schedule was able to include their Advanced degrees in their base pay and that's why you see the grandfathered has those lanes because we're required to keep those after 2011 when we no longer could have professional service contract we had to move to a pay for performance across the state and those Advanced degrees could no longer be part of their base salary and so they are um and it it just is what it is um we can work to change those laws which we advocate for um but but the law is the law right now and so that's why you see some of those differences too and to Mr hey's point where that would your actual base pay because of the way we have to pay
177people out due to Florida statute yeah so Dr Allen if if if you were to look and for other board members in one of the attachments pea teachers tentative agreement that um Mr Warren was pointing out it starts on page um 43 teacher appendix B we could take that table and calculate and and work to calculate out appr percentage Dr Allen cuz if you look on there um it shows you know how many levels each one of those groups moved we could work backwards from there and determine what percentage of each one of them respectively got and and I'm assuming that what you'd like to see is an upward trajectory where those at the lower end may be getting really 2% plus the 2.6 for insurance which is 4.6 and those at the upper end
178may actually be getting 8% because they got to 2.6 an insurance plus they got a larger disproportionate is that what you're looking for so that way I can know what we can calculate for you okay indeed mhm and we can look at that we can try and calculate that as quickly as possible yep and you know again I I would say thank you for adding the insurance element uh to that it's it's good to see that I I was wondering why that language changed in that and I think the language change was in relation to the insurance committee um and you know my question to superintendent because in the in in theou it noted um six members um from pea would be representative within that committee right so then I wanted to know okay if
179there's a majority of that that's comprising of that committee why did we change the language from will to may as it relates to the committee outcomes yeah I can speak to that one of the priorities that we worked on and talked about we tried to pick up language from the uh act the teacher evaluation advisory committee because that's a subcommittee that works outside they they they work in the details of the teacher evaluation and then they bring these proposals of what that subcommittee has done back to the bargaining table and we don't we don't tease it completely apart we kind of take it at Phase value and and then we look at it they were the experts in field they represented the group on that committee and you move forward so the intent was to
180to replicate that in this in the superintendent's Insurance committee process and so so as management presented that language um it went from the the will toay to ensure that um as whatever proposals or was being brought back from those sick meetings um the bargaining group had they still had that right to bargain and provide feedback for the whole group or otherwise so that that was why that language changed we were really trying to make the process more efficient so so risk management otherwise we wouldn't have to continually unpack what had happened or go back to the larger group back and forth but uh that that was where the language ended when when we te on that okay thank you I think that's all I have at this point superintendent thank you Dr Allan Mr sharpless
181hello first I just want to say thank you all for your collaborative effort um to come to a resolution and um you know our teachers deserve uh and not and also our par Educators and everyone else that's in in this agreement deserve to be paid much more than we can afford I'm first say that um you know one of my priorities uh when I was running for office was to recruit and retain staff um and so one question I have um I understand with the compression we're working on retaining staff um I when it comes to the supplements are we offering any supplement for um for for teachers to or par Educators or anyone to teach in schools that are hard to fill positions is there anything in our contract about that um he curious
182we approach this in several different ways we already have embedded an appendix C uh what is called a critical teacher supplement uh it comes out every year from the Department of Education and defines what those contents are and we remunerate those folks via the amount that's agreed upon in bargaining uh for the supplement for for that particular piece um separate and apart from appendix C and the supplements we also discuss us during the year to address schools turnaround schools and activities at those schools um to try to help with the Recruitment and uh retention of staff there so I think we're trying to hit this in multiple ways um separate and apart from bargaining of what you're seeing here we have multiple Pathways that we're working with toward teacher certification providing Pathways for Paras or
183esps or folks that wish to to get teacher certified and come and teaching some of those hard to fill areas as well okay that was just a concern go ahead we also have a um with the same when time we bargain the critical shortage supplement we also bargained a Title One supplement which is about 94 of our schools um are designated as title one which those also tend to correlate and be the some of the same as our hard to fill schools as well and so those uh teachers get $500 for being at a title one school and support staff get $200 just for working at a title one school and so we've been trying to address those as we move along through supplements as well I I just didn't see uh when I looked
184on I don't see where I can find appendix c um in the attachments so maybe I missed that just so I can see where the supplements were it should be there because we signed off on it um because we did add some supplements for athletics and some clubs um the translation services so it should be in your packet I just overlooked it when I reviewed it it's probably after the teacher appendix B because uh they tend to put them in order yeah the one I saw went from B to D so maybe I'm I'm scrolling through now see if I can find that that that was big question you know I I just want I want to make sure we're able to we're doing what we can to financially incentivize teachers to go teach at
185some of these some of some of are hard to fill schools um so that way we have quality staff thank you Miss Cunningham thank you I just too want to Echo what my colleagues have said that uh this is Yan's work for time patience and dedication on all of your parts um it is so so important as we've always said it's an old cliche but you put your money where your mouth is I mean we sit up here and we praise our teachers and our staff at all levels and there's been years when you know it's been proposed to only do one group of individuals and I don't care for that I think if you're going to address salaries it needs to be done across the board which is what you all have done so
186I'm very grateful to you on behalf of our staff throughout the district um it's amazing uh that we've come this far and I know the compression is still an issue but you got to you got to crawl before you walk you got to walk before you run and I think we're making the right effort in the right areas to move salaries forward the only question I have because a few of you have alluded to it for other districts surrounding Us in different times they're greater than us and different times they're less than us at this point of the juncture since we're looking at salary increases that have been proposed by the end of this year my question is has anyone looked at the surrounding and where are we in that group I would just sorry
187I have that you have that yes ma'am um and I have it I have it before this raise um so for I'd have to go back and I want to verify again and I I can send that to you I used it in our community forums towards the end of the school year um for school based administrators again comparing us against the big seven or or big six large districts we are district largest seventh largest District I canaris amongst that group we are ranked seventh out of seven across the board in admin school-based administrative salaries the only place where we have broken through the top the bottom two and we're ranked fifth is in library media where we're ranked fifth out of seven salaries but for teacher salaries for everyone else's salaries we have consistently
188been ranked seventh out of all seven districts okay but that's for the what I'm asking is more in our area cuz someone said you know for two bucks more I'm going to go over to aola or lake or um orange and Hillsboro tend to be where we lose staff to and aola I'm here okay we can run that analysis I'm just curious I mean now that we're moving our you know our our salaries per se forward what will we look like let's say January 1st with this implementation and then they might be doing the same thing so I it's just be curious to know our seven districts or less there seven I don't know how many Hillsboro touch Us Lake aola how many districts touch us touch us okay so out of those 10 where
189do we fit come January 1st I'd be very curious to know that and I I was going to say I also add um you know because I talked to all of my colleagues across the state um right now there's only about 10 people 10 districts out of 67 that are settled um so we we're very proud to be in that that small group um orange is still at impass their District declared impass on their on their Union um and they're looking at percentage raises but also 60 4% Insurance hike um and so Hillsboro I think settled right after us um I don't have their numbers because I think they settled we settled on Thursday they they settled on that next Monday um but Oola um probably is looking at what we did were able to
190do for our veteran teachers um but it was more in the performance pay vein so not everybody got it and they didn't really address the compression like we were able to do and so we chose to our dollars based on what our bargaining units have told us over the last couple years you know and involving them heavily in the process that decompression of these salaries was their number one priority I understand that totally and so um and so everybody's kind of done a little bit differently but we also are out of the 10 districts that we tou that touch us we're probably the lowest funded P people in the State of Florida of course thank you very much Miss Cunningham if I could just clarify sure um we will it will take us a little
191bit more time to calculate it out based off January 1st it's fine because here's why the archive data at the Department of Education typically lags by over a year so that's where I've done my calculations um salary information is updated I guess once every year um but right now it's lagging data it's not leading data so we would have to physically call and compare contracts but we I'm not trying to make more work I just thought if somebody said hey out of the you know 10 surrounding let's say we're in the top 50% tile or as you just explained we're doing better in some areas and others we still need to work um I'm very proud of you all and all that you're doing cuz we're continuously addressing it and I know it's a lot
192of sleepless night and a lot of tireless efforts on y'all's part and I really appreciate I am certainly not looking for staff to do more work just thought it'd be cool to know hey you know we're we're we're making strides and and it's making a difference and it's visible in our Central Florida area is what I was looking for but see what we can put together just something simple I'm I'm pretty easy thank you so much Mr Niti Mr HDE I wanted to thank you again for your hard work this is probably going to feel like a 50 PB weight off your back when this thing gets ratified um it's just that I remember sitting out well not here but somewhere else and it was the fourth year back in the 80s in fact you
193guys probably weren't born yet but I went four years without without anything and they kept promising us well we're going to Retro that as soon as we apply then my fifth year I heard the same thing again I said that's it Hillsburg County here I come I was here for nine I spent my last 26 and a half over there I love it here I want to keep these awesome teachers that have got experience here I know you're working on it I appreciate it and uh we just got to keep it going forward thank you well and several of you have sent me articles and things saying you know other states and people are really trying to be aggressive on the base salary issue and saying you know I I remember Mr sharpless most recently
194was one sent me an article saying can we match this can we do this and I said unfortunately not without a referendum I mean that's the revenue has to be there yes you could have a one-year spend down and get down below 3% of your fund balance right at the state you know requirement but then what happens the next year when it's compounded by the next raise you just you financially you can't make it so we have to spend wisely and and one of the things I want I want to commend and I really do want to say thank you to paa and to asme and to others because what they've recognized since day one and we met very early about this before negotiations started because I felt it was important we're also short staffed
195so when we got F in financial constraints we did what every responsible School District would do we eliminated vacancies and we started to retract the Staffing allocations and that's what everyone does that way you can keep maintain everybody else employed and just eliminate vacancies cuz no one's arguably harmed in that regard so at the same time we're trying to address salary compression we're trying to get back to the appropriate Staffing level and and I appreciate the fact that everybody who's who's been at the table has been respectful of that process and allowed us if you recall the school allocation model adding counselors to schools costs money which ultimately takes dollars off the table for things like raises and it's been a very good balance and and a balanced approach to that it's a very respectful
196conversation and I I want to say say thank you to miss Yokum and her team and and I've got an amazing team I I will tell you Second To None they do an amazing job in negotiations and uh I I'm very impressed by their skill their aptitude Mr Warren has the patience of Job I just because it can get contentious it can you know and again we have the same interest in mind we want to benefit our employees so that we can have the best possible people standing in front of our kids you're absolutely right Miss Cunningham so so thank you you and I see no further questions or comments thank you all very much Madam chair the only two remaining items for my from my seat is the donation report and we have the
197updated uniform assessment calendar and that's been driven based off changes at the state level so we continue to provide tweaks um to our assessment calendar at the end of this year the good news that I'll announce here and we'll talk about it again hopefully in the near future is at the end of this school year we would have a we will have a much better understanding of what type of data the Statewide assessments can provide us and if we if the team evaluates the the data we're receiving and we feel that it can be impactful to instruction and help inform our instructional decision making at the classroom level then we will start looking for opportunities to reduce other testing and assessments that we do to free up more time for our teachers to focus on
198instruction but we we we've not felt confident after year one of the pilot because there's no learning gains data but once we get through this year we we will feel more confident next year to bring back an assessment calendar that may actually show a reduction in the number of Assessments that we administer so long as we're still getting the same meaningful relevant data for our classroom staff so Madam chair that concludes my portion of the workshop the next item on our agenda the next item on our agenda is to go through the board agenda for this evening so first section sections A or B any questions sections D approval of the minutes under the consent agenda sections F through H seeing none sections I through J Mr sharplus um yeah I remember when we were
199um putting in workshop for the J1 the fiveyear capital Improvement and work plan um one thing I I asked for was um an actual copy of uh what the plan was um right now currently uh what's attached there is the presentation and not the actual plan so um for the public to see the plan that we're actually going to do on consent agenda I would like to see that attached um on J1 the actual plan that we are submitting to the state superintendent hide is that possible before the meeting okay it may be if you recall um Mr Fix was able to address one of the questions one of the reasons it's not finalized is the state has not opened up a certain platform in which we have to report this information um so regardless
200of what misinformation is being shared out in the community um there there are some things that may limit our ability to basically produce the final final plan however I will ask Mr Fix if they're confident in doing that today today Dr Allan well I was just going to say in that conversation as well just in this document I mean we've got several I mean there's like five changes that were added since our last presentation as well um so that would be appreciative is J1 okay to on the consent agenda were you all wanting to move it to the action item for me it's as long as we can I just want to feel comfortable that the public has enough information when we're putting it on a consent agenda okay all right we will get with
201Mr Fix and try to get that information any other questions on I through J right K through l m through o see none we'll move to the action agenda section p in the public hearing section Q Dr Allen just a brief comment um superintendent Hyde on the oh did you you pulled the one policy out is that right or no sir no because not listed in there was earlier so we do have three policies but the PDF for the 3121.01b and December as according to Mr D um these policies here um do not require that delay but I can have him here this evening to explain that as well I know initially that one was there so that one PDF that list pretty much the executive summary has the three so okay thanks for the
202clarification on that one Madam chair I have Mr Fix here if you if we'd like to ask them if they can provide a final plan and if not the reasoning behind it Mr Fix if you'd please come to the podium well I'm sorry madam chair this is yours to direct I apologize did they leave the door unlocked for you this time how kind of them right after that meeting I think it was Wendy got with whomever and and and got that fixed thank you Wendy what we can provide to you all is a sheet that has all the projects listed in the amounts in the various years which is um the sheets that we use to fill out the tenative work plan that goes into ephas the state the state still hasn't opened it yet
203we thought by now for sure it would be opened and part part of the reason we um had this come at this point was because then we'd be able to print that off bring it to you and show you we submit it to the state but they haven't opened that yet so what we can do is we can provide you and I I can have it go print it it's very colorful but it is um I think they're on either legal or Ledger sheets and it has every every project and all the costs in every year all the way across that we then use that to then fill in all of the ephas that we can then bring back and say okay this is what was turned into the state based on the capital plan
204that you approved so you first have to approve a five-year Capital plan that can then be filled out into ephas that is the tentative work plan that then is sent off to this state thank you so to Mr sharpless' early question earlier question does this current attachment reflect the complete Five-Year Plan including errors that were or schools that were left off the list following the last conversation with the board it does and it does so in a very brief userfriendly form that isn't the form so for example if you remember the last time uh Mr mammore had gone in and taken the state's document the ephas printed it out filled out the things that we could fill out uh not taking into account those couple things that brought up that we said hey we want
205to see in the fifth year I think was planning dollars for Crystal Lake and and there was something else that um stau we had agreed and was already there but we had forgot to list it um he printed it off filled out the things we could but there are amounts on the dollar amounts that the state populates that we couldn't change and we brought it to you and said okay here it is this is what it's going to look like but we can't bring you that final version until the state opens it up allows us to enter it in then we can print it off and bring it back to you I don't I I hope that kind of explains it because it is it even as I explain it it sounds a little confusing
206but that's how the state does it I mean I did put mine up my hand up but maybe could you address because we have five additional projects that are here that were not there right when we initially got in the work session can you maybe speak to those briefly then and they're they're um highlighted correct correct oh well let me just briefly say the one the one for example earlier on when I was referencing these sheets that uh would be very detailed they look somewhat similar like this except they'd have a lot more information on them but um so um we're showing um for example in year one The Spook Hill Elementary cafeteria that's ongoing as we're speaking right now the Southwest Middle gym locker rooms so that came to you in the time before
207we first presented the plan it had come to us that the locker rooms were value engineered out of the original Southwest Middle School design and if you recall at that time prices were escalating very rapidly and there was a back and forth between the architect and the Builder and so on that caused that project to delay when I came back to the district it was actually um the regional superintendent Pat Nave or excuse me Beth Nave made me aware of the situation of the locker room and how that had been um value engineered out and said can you take this to the board and ask for this to be added back in well that occurred in the inim of this going on so that you saw that and approved that in a separate item but
208we added it here to show you okay we're including that then the other thing that um and then of course then the year three that Southwest Middle gym locker rooms then in year um four the floral the the planning dollars for floral Elementary then the two things we had talked about and year five Jerry stau middle school edition and then the modernization replacement for Floral Avenue Elementary making sure all that was encapsulated in here all right thank you any other questions [Music] on all right Madam chair Mr Davis also re-entered the room in case there were questions about the policies I think the only question unless others have come up in the past couple minutes the only question was on the um executive summary it included 3121.01b that policy was being updated based on last
209year's legislative session and Miss Dodge had started that process before she left uh that was when it was first brought to you in the meantime a new update came out in July with a bunch of new changes based on the recent session and so niola had already started working on an update on that policy on our old lang our current language not realizing we had another update in the mix so they combin the two into the latest draft that we just brought to you at the last work session so instead of doing two updates of the same policy U we're just going to defer it to the next meeting after we've had the public uh notice um put out and then you'll just get all of the updates in one policy when it comes up
210I think in December thank you Dr Alan yeah so I'm wondering I was going to bring this forward but now that we've pulled this um for tonight superintendent you sent that email back in September I think 22nd when you send it sent it uh in regards to some of the uh initiatives that you're going to bring bring forward as relates to this topic I'm wondering if that can be codified and moved into this policy moving forward when it's come comes back to us as a recommendation yeah we I think we'd have time to do that sure absolutely okay great thank you as long as it's completed by the time we advertise we'll be fine okay Mr Bridges make sure I know that deadline we I want to have a late homework she's not even in
211the room she heard him somehow she heard him any other questions on the agenda up to the public hearing right then we'll have superintendent reports yes ma'am and then Mr Bridges you have your report yes ma'am and if it's all right I'll take take a moment um I have three items tonight one is the routine authority to advertise the upcoming public hearing but there are two other items that that I want to take up uh the first of them you'll recall not too long ago the district participated as a as a plaintiff in a mass tort litigation having to do with with vaping with Jewel and uh it we were invited to do that there were firms that law firms that were working together on that they represented districts all over the all over the
212state and all over the country and as a result of that uh we we were able to participate in the settlement of that to the tune of seven figures um the let's see the second item I have tonight is a followup on that you'll recall when we settled that there was still an item outstanding and that has now been resolved and I'll bring you that recommendation to to to settle that for about 7 $150,000 gross and that will that will complete that matter we've been invited the do the board has been invited to join a another Mass tort litigation that is also headed up by wag step and Cardell The Firm that that coordinated the jewel litigation and this one is targeted at at social media and just in a nutshell real quickly the the
213numbers that they have they have provided IND that about 45% of high school students report using social media daily and about 24% of teens report being online almost constantly uh they classify that in some instances as addictive behavior um they have internal documents indicating that that at least since 2019 meta formerly Facebook has known that 13.5 % of teen girls on Instagram say the platform makes thoughts of suicide and self-injury worse that 177% of teen girl Instagram users say the platform makes eating issues anorexia and bulimia and that sort of thing worse that um that social media in fact Makes Body Image issues worse for one in Three teen girls this is just we're just talking about girls right now and knowing that they set a three-year goal to in increase and create more products
214for preens that's the sort of issue that that they're that they're that they're addressing the um they also have statistics showing that 95% of children use YouTube 67% of children use Tik Tok and 59% of perc of children use Snapchat there have been uh surgeon general's advisories uh concerning that um and and now then they raised the issue that social media addiction is a term that's now been coined by researchers and it is in common use and uh they have listed among the consequences of addiction to social media declined academic performance sleep disruption anxiety depression negative impact on real life relationships and social anxiety disorder all of which can have a direct impact on on students in the educational setting the the social media defendants that they have identified thus far are meta including Facebook
215and Instagram Snapchat Tik Tok and Google Google which is of course the host for YouTube they have identified as potential impact on schools the the negative impacts on the educational process uh major distraction for students teachers and administrators drain of resources that have to be diverted to that additional student support service serves to address those issues as they arrive and policing and they've identified economic impact on schools that they wish to pursue um in including hiring extra Personnel to investigate intervene and provide support hiring outside firms to provide education training or counseling and purchasing internet and email monitoring software uh to to monitor for red flags um I can go into it in more detail if if if you wish but suffice to say this is a this is a litigation that they propos to
216represent school districts on a contingency fee basis uh if they don't if they don't recover anything there's no expense to the school boards um they will use a public nuisance litigation model like they did in the juwel litigation um and and it was also used in the 1990 you remember with the original tobacco litigation that um that drove drove Philip Morris down they they will seek past and future expenses for schools dealing with social media use on campus injunctive relief to require social media companies to take affirmative steps to combat teen use and punitive damages uh Financial penalties to punish social media companies for that intentional conduct um so that that is what is proposed so far I think about 30 I'm sorry uh yeah about about 30 districts in Florida have have signed up
217with additional districts likely to come online uh and if you are if you are so inclined I'll bring that to you this afternoon once again there's no no cost I I I view it as a no-risk proposition for the school board I don't know what the outcome in this one might be uh they they indicate potentially that it it could be significantly more than the than the jewel litigation was since it is so pervasive uh but that is um once again it it's it's a it's a no risk effort for the school board uh what we would what we would do is sign up and then we would participate in in U some initial discovery which would probably take an initial investment of of several hours of District time to provide some basic data to
218them and as they analyze that they may have additional uh requests for us and then you they run the litigation and at some point uh they either try the case or they settle the case and U and bring a recommendation or proposal to the school board for settlement so if you are so inclined I will I'll bring you that recommendation this evening and you can authorize us to enter into that litigation the other number two item I had there once again I mentioned earlier the jewel litigation when we resolved that you'll recall there they left open-ended uh a sort of a cleanup U settlement that if if sufficient number of districts uh signed up and settled that there would be additional revenues coming that in fact is transpired and they have recommended that uh to
219us that our our participation in that would be about $750,000 gross before fees and costs and I would recommend to you that you accept that and authorize superintendent myself to complete necessary documents to do that but I'll bring both of those to you at the board for official action thank you Mr Bridges yes ma'am any questions on Mr Bridge's report Miss Fields I had a question on the um the first item W I was looking at the contingency fee agreement and if I'm reading that correctly if uh awards are given the attorney fees is 33% yes ma'am of whatever we yes ma'am the Total Recovery okay and then the other would be dispersed how you the the juwel settlement the second yes it'll be dispersed the same way the first one does it'll go to
220General Revenue whenever the funds come in it it would be dispersed to the districts to go into into General Revenue to be used as the district sees fit okay and then superintendent H I guess at some point in time we would talk about how those dollars that we have been awarded would go back into the uh tobacco The Vaping program or how are we going to do that absolutely so we will begin getting estimates now that we know roughly um how much money we can anticipate and we're getting closer to that settlement agreement um but it would be a combination of both educational programming as we talked about and also anti-vape detection devices in our restrooms and other areas thank you yes ma'am all right seeing no other questions we do not have an auditor
221report today and then we'll have board member comments and public comments before we adjourn any questions on anything from the agenda right seeing none we'll go back to the work session um so under old business we have redistricting we had this conversation um extensively at our last board meeting however uh Mr Bridges was not with us so he um I think got filled in by by many yesterday when he returned um on what was awaiting for him um and I know he had some some comments he wanted to share about it kind of where we are in the process um just as I know we had talked last time a little bit about the timeline for it it um so most districts actually completed this in 2021 and at that point we deferred to doing
222it in 2023 um so there is quite a bit of concern of if we defer again for another two years that um the state is not going to to look kindly on that um but Mr Bridges if you want to go ahead sure I'll just I'll just briefly run down the statutory requirement for you the um LGE statute one1 point 36 talks about District School Board member residents areas and this statute changed a little bit this year um prior to this the end of this year's legislative session redistricting if if you did it it had to take place in an odd numbered year that has now changed and now the requirement is it has to be done no later than 270 days before a general election now there was some debate over what is the
223meaning of general election with respect to school district since school board members are frequently elected in August at the primary election but general election is a term of Art and it refers to the November election so you would take the election date back back out 270 days and that gives you the deadline by which you would you would need to comply with this if you did it in an election year um the chair is correct there was disc disc about this in 2021 and I think just because of the of the timing it was was determined that that um it it would require a race to to the Finish to get it done before the the deadline in 2021 and so it was it it was moved forward what the statute says for for school
224district well first off um the statute addresses um the constitutionally uh constit ed school boards that have a minimum of five members of course ours has seven and there is a a a paragraph in the statute that that speaks directly to boards with seven members for those school districts which have seven district school board members the district may be divided into five District School Board member residence areas with two school board members at large or the district may be divided into seven district school board member residence areas and in Poke County of course you are divided into seven Schoolboard member district residence areas in that case the residence areas shall be numbered 1 to 7 which we do and shall be equal in population as nearly as practicable and now my my recollection is that
225we we haven't done this since about 2012 and there have been some significant growth areas in Poke County since that time and so that our our our member residence areas are no longer as equal as they want once were so it it is something that the board is going to have to address at some point and I know that there are um concerns about the upcoming election and making sure that we do things in a way that is that is fair um but it it is I I do note that the supervisor of elections has made inquiry about the redistricting process and when she did the response was that we were addressing that uh at at this time uh so that that that communication has been made informally it's my understanding that there have also
226been inquiries from the U political parties for the for Poke County asking when it was going to be done the response was that we were working on it at this time so um you politically you I I don't there there's not a there's not a sanction in the statute for what happens if you if you don't do it right now but we do know that that the board member residence areas right now are significantly less equal in population than they were at the time that we redistricted last time and I also note that when when we talk about population we're not talking about the number of students we're not talking about the number of schools we're talking about the number of residents you know the the actual overall population of Po County so that that
227is that is the statutory framework in which you're in which you're operating and I'll leave it to your discussion thank you Mr Bridges yes ma'am um and as everyone recalls from last time there had been a sixth map that was proposed and that is the map that is still being recommended um with the updates from the previous conversation that had been had in September so I will open the floor for discussion um and the plan would be to bring this to the November I believe it's the 14th meeting Miss Cunningham thank you um as I noted last time um I do not support this redistricting at this point in time I think it would be very disrespectful because if we voted in November it becomes effective whatever December January and quite frankly that's 6 months
228from someone qualifying all candidates must qualify in June to run in our primary and general elections so this is a 4year elected term and I just think to give people six months to adapt based on US changing This districting Is Wrong I Don't Care What whose District it is I think that's disrespectful um and so I cannot support it um I feel that and and I spoke to Mr Bridges yesterday um I would be the very first one in August or September let's say after the primary to request that we begin redistricting I am not against the idea yes the Northeast area has exploded so we need to go to that end but to do it now I just feel is disrespective of the community at large and the people who may be considering I
229know some have already come out to campaign and others may not normally in these elections you don't get a lot of people until the first part of the year um at least that's been my experience through the years and I feel that people should have the opportunity um I understand that they want us to redistrict but if you think about it number one we're nonpartisan doesn't matter and number two our districts don't matter it's not like the people in my district only vote in for for me or for each of you we are voted on by an entire County so to make that redistricting today or excuse me in November versus a year from now or seven eight months from now after the election I don't think it makes the difference if this was partisan
230and we were voted on only based on the people in our district I would feel very differently but as such I don't and it is a four-year term so if this was done next year and it's allowed to be done it is not done an odd numbered years any longer they did change that part so I think we have the opportunity in my opinion to do what's right and honor the the district boundaries for the upcoming election that's less than a year away um and again qualifying is in June so that is how I personally feel thank you Miss Miller thanks and I don't know when the last time we did it what time of year that it was done you might know and can remind me um I respect Miss cting Ham's opinion of
231that but I don't know that I would I would delay this only because people can decide up to noon on that Friday to run and if you're going to run for a district this in a county that's over 700,000 people it's probably in your due diligence to start before 6 months ahead of time um I think we've confirmed that anybody that's TR that's listed currently in that election site that we will not redistrict them out because that would not be fair if anybody has filed to run to try you know if we did something that would to harm what they've already started but as long as we're not going to do that I would not I would not um support delaying it so we can have that conversation as a board but I don't know
232that that people that decide to run at the at the 11th Hour on that week um I don't think they would be affected if we waited or not and I think it's so important that we do this it's so delayed and I apologize that it is this delayed because it shouldn't have been thank you thank you Miss Miller any other discussion Mr Niti I think that uh it would have been wiser to do it after the election than last time and um I was led to believe that we had to do it because it's an odd year and then um what yeah and at that time the statute required it to be done in an O an odd year right that changed after this legislative session okay so since it's changed now yeah now the
233only requirement is it cannot be done within the 270 days prior to a general election so if you if you were to wait until next year it would have to wait until after the general election next November I think that would be the best way to do it my two cents is wait till after the next election and then change it thank you Mr Allen Dr Allen yeah I mean this question is for Mr Bridges how does how does it work for a current sitting board member uh if we redistrict your your grandfa you be grand has no impact on current term no impact on current term gotcha Miss Fields I'm I'm listening to everybody's comments and my uh thoughts are it doesn't matter whether or not it's going to impact um a sitting board
234members District to me what matters is that we do what's best for our County um and I don't even have a dog in the fight to be honest with you um but I know that we've had conversation about this for a while uh and so that if we delay we in almost in November now we're talking about how many days after which the general Mr Bridges you said we'd have to you can you can do it immediately following the general you just cannot do it in the two in the N9 month period leading up to the general the 270-day period okay well my uh my belief is um for the majority of the people that are going to see election that they probably already and that they would probably be doing something within the next
235few months if they're going to be planning wisely uh so I don't I don't really uh know how I would vote um on on this today because I see both sides of the equation but at the end of the day I think we have to do uh what's going to be best for the for the for the county and what's going to be the easiest and the best way for us to continue to operate and do business uh if that makes any sense and maybe it doesn't thank you Miss Fields any further discussion my only comments would be that we you know our our seats are up and twoe increments so anyone that's looking in that area that would be redistricted either would have an opportunity to run for a different seat in this year
236or to run in two years for a different seat um but this is supposed to be done in accordance with the census um and by the time that we look to implement it the census will be halfway over into the next one um which I we have a a governor at the moment that's running for president and is known to uh look not kindly on people who aren't following the rules um and I do think that we we are vulnerable in the sense that we have some districts that have 160,000 people living them and some districts that have 70,000 people living in them um which is not an equitable representation of our County in each district um so that is my my biggest concern and waiting to do it Mr sharpless I think this should
237have been done in 2021 um when the census came out in 2020 I think that is a Justified criticism at that time it should have been done I don't know why it wasn't done I wasn't on the board at that time okay um like I said last time as a for as a former candidate current sitting Schoolboard member um I just I would be cons I'm my concern is that you know we're getting close to um when people are some people have already decided to run and i' I mentioned it before I don't I can see I can see both sides of this I just I I I'm just concerned with I'm concerned with first of all the LA the fact this wasn't done in 2021 and second I'm concerned that we're getting closer and
238closer to the end of 2023 um and so if this got brought before us so my question would be when if this current proposed Al or you know map The Proposal number six that we talked about when would that come as a workshop item and then when would it come as a board vote so it it has come as a workshop item a couple times now it would come as a vote in November it was supposed to come as a vote this evening however it was delayed because we wanted to have Mr Bridges here to answer questions before we brought it before the board all right that's my question for now yeah and just so you know it's brought as a as a normal agenda item it doesn't require a 28 day notice uh it
239does the statute requires that you you adopt a resolution that in that includes the the the description of the of the boundaries that it be spread across the minutes that it' be filed with the secretary of state and and doe I'm sorry the supervisor of elections and it's effective immediately and we would then advertise it or publish it uh in the newspaper of record but it would be effective immediately upon vot of the school board thank you Mr Bridges Miss Fields so um my question is are we getting any pressure from the state to do this and uh I don't think if if we are not going against the state statute I don't think the pressure from the state should matter I'm sorry I I think we have to do what's best for our County
240I just want to make sure I'm understanding that yeah I I don't have a sense of pressure from the state I know there have been inquiries from the supervisor of elections and from the local political parties um so it really I think is more of a it's more of a local issue but I'm sure that it is something of which folks are aware in tassy the uh well my my second part of my comments would be put it on the agenda you voted up or you voted down that's what we did with the proclamation that's what we did with the proclamation and some of us were for it most of you all were against it doesn't matter but vote let's put it to vote and stop being back and forth with it we've had enough
241discussion on it I think everybody's opinion matters and we know what that opinion is and I think we just need to make a decision thank you Miss Fields the questions that we've gotten on it have come from legislators and the supervisor of elections office um and their comments on the waiting until giving so many days in advance was well we had 60 less than 60 days before uh our redistricting last year in tasse so that's that's where the questions and the any pressure has come from just so you're aware thank you Miss cunning Miss Cunningham yes thank you um I understand that but I I think what you're hearing is from people that work with you that are on the political side I don't I know none of us have heard that pressure um I
242have called legislators I've called supervisor of elections I they're basically you got to do what you got to do when you got to do it so I think to put that onus on this board at this point in time I don't think is fair I think we are not partisan and again we do not vote in this County by our districts so I Believe As Time ensues we got to choose the high road and do the right thing for our community and I don't think we do this with six months to qualifying for this this coming election I just don't think that's fair and to say that we're getting political pressure I'd like to know who and I'd be happy to give them a call and explain the situation I just don't think it's dire
243to be done right now particularly since the legislature even changed from a doing an odd-numbered year to doing it um when ever you deem necessary of course following statute and the timing um but I just don't think to say that we're getting political pressure I don't know if the rest of the board has but I certainly have not and I want to be on record to say that thank you thank you Miss Cunningham Miss Miller just want to make a comment um it has nothing to do with who's calling who but it has to do with um since this data was a little delayed so I'm assuming that it didn't come to us 2021 early 2021 because cens this data was delayed from the coid um it wasn't that it was I don't know who
244received the request to do that I don't know if it comes from the superintendent's office or directly to the chair but that wasn't a um that was something that was not ignored completely it was a delay and I just think that delay has led into a further delay thank you and I I'd also point out that there are some districts that are easier than others U by by that I don't mean residence area res member residence areas the the entire School District when you have when you have an A a common number of of County Commissioners and school board members typically the County Commission goes through a process and then the school board adopts whatever the County Commission did in Poke County obviously we have a different number of school board members so it has
245to be done has to be done separately but my recollection is the same as as Miss Miller's that that this is something that probably would have been done in in 2021 but for the fact that that Co sort of disrupted a lot of things thank you any further discussion right seeing none um the other item that we have an old business is we discussed superintendent hdes well superintendent hiy contract came up for discussion in his evaluation um so I have copies for everyone both of the most recent um evaluation third party that we had um and of superintendent Hy's contract um and Mr Bridges was also filled in on um the conversation that we had on this topic two weeks ago as well um the one concern being that if we were to hire a
246third party that would reopen superintendent's um contract as that is not something that he has agreed to um and it specifically says in his contract I believe it's on page three um that the evaluation process will be agreed upon between the board and the superintendent yes and and um and I'll be happy to entertain any questions you have I'm I'm not sure I would would address it in terms of of opening or reopening the cont ract I would point out that the school board has a policy on evaluation of the appointed superintendent and the the relevant provision is that the board and superintendent jointly shall at the outset of each evaluation determine the method by which the evaluation shall be conducted and if in fact there's not been a discussion about using a third party
247evaluator then that's not something that has been agreed to and if um if you wish to do that there would need to be a discussion with superintendent that an agreement would need to be reached and after that then that would be considered the outset of the evaluation and it would start so if we're if we're well down the road already and that has not been agreed then it it is not something that I think the board can do unilaterally thank you um and just so you know what you're looking at the um the top page is the actual invoice what was paid which was 12,300 um however this valuation should have been the second half completed between March and may of 2020 um which we did not have in-person meetings during that time um and
248it was put to a halt the full contract would have been for 13,800 again that was 3 years ago um so that's and once again Co disrupted many things yes um but you can also see on um attached in there is the what all was included in that um and then the cost for proposal and breakdown is on page seven Miss Cunningham thank you and uh that was me who brought this up for those that weren't here last time um I just felt that not for the uh qualitative part of the review you know which we are about to embark on here that's due in another week or two um I was talking about the quantitative side which is not coming up right until next year so it will come correct it won't come up
249till next year and we usually have that meeting in January just so we have time to get the data so the the meeting would actually be January of 25 for next so this year's is 23 24 school year by the time we get all of the data we normally have that strategic planning meeting in J scheduled just after the holidays to go over all of the data so that's when we do the the evaluation for that piece okay so what I what I am suggesting and it's Food For Thought nothing has to be decided is that for that qualitative part maybe we look at hiring someone I'm not saying this individual here just in general we threw around a couple different names I just think sometimes it's best to have a third party to analyze
250the data the information and present it um I'm certainly did not say that if I'm not happy with something superintendent is doing I'll be the first one to call him he will tell you we've had several heated discussions cuz we dis agree on a particular item but we have the flexibility to talk and communicate what I feel and I do that always what I'm saying on the qualitative part um there might be some room for improvement in the way in which we do that I'm just throwing it out here I will not be here in 25 uh but I just want folks to think about it because it's really important that the information that's looked at you have a chance to look at it all and to absorb it and go forward I spoke with
251superintendent after my comments at the last meeting and asked for additional data and he said he would provide that to us um going forward I just want to make sure as we move forward as a board um that that information is always being provided to you and if not that the third party would go hey did we leave it this out or that out or whatever to make sure it's a comprehensive review of data all that to say I'm not looking at fudge and data if you recall when superintendent bird was here I love the format here's what we did you know what we fell short here but here's why here's here's the areas we need to grow and why we need to grow what we're thinking to do I'm not looking for a cart
252blanch we're perfect you know Straight A's across the board that's not reality but I think there needs to be a little bit more of wow we excelled here we're on track here and in this area we need to improve and here are some steps we think as a staff in one year 3 years 5 years that we're going to be able to achieve so that's my only thought I'm just planting seeds at this point in time because I won't be here in 25 thank you madam chair thank you Miss Cunningham any further discussion Mr Niti since I wasn't here for that uh when uh Mr Hyde did his contract um I understand that uh he agreed to it and it was just like the board and him there wasn't a third County party involved then
253was there our attorneys reviewed the attorney's right but there wasn't a third County as far as the uh observation and this report goes correct no so I would think that would be like Changing Horses the middle of stream I don't think that'd be fair right Dr Allen yep so my question as it relates to the data and I'm not sure if this is where you're leaning towards Miss Cunningham um but when is our projected date superintendent Hyde where we're going to actually see that Baseline data um collectively on some of those those targets yes sir so the board received an update from me on the data um last week you received all the data files which included the science data and everything else if the board recalls several months ago I provided you with a
254timeline anticipated timeline for the release of scores so that we could complete the Excel spreadsheet version and you would have all of the data that could not be finalized until January of this year was the rough timeline why State Board of Education just approved the cut scores for reading and Mathematics those scores will now be fin finalized and then we have graduation rate data that will be calculated later on um towards the middle part of the or towards the end of the year end of the calendar year excuse me middle of the school year so you'll get that in comprehensive Excel spreadsheet you know I intentionally made a decision not to send it to you 15 times with updates because at some point the final version gets lost um but I'm happy to provide you
255with the most recent update because remember it's far more definitive than we've ever done before it breaks out by demographic subgroup by Dem by by gender and it goes far beyond just the assessed areas done by the state if you recall we included Cambridge Ace performance industry certifications dual enrollment we included IB so it is a far more comprehensive um document for you to H hold me accountable and hold the district accountable for improvements in those areas I commented earlier you know we had over 1,200 new industry certifications last year alone it excuse the Baseline but that's okay we're still making good progress for our students so I I think if the board looks at that document ultimately to miss Cunningham's earlier point and you feel comprehensively that that reflects what you want to see
256with an explanation need near cells that says which was the intent all along to explain why are we why do we feel we improved why do we feel we're declining what are we doing about it similar to how School Improvement plans are developed this would kind of go back those of you who've been on the board for more than for more than 10 years will recall the diap the district construction and Improvement plan I maybe I didn't get that right Mr Green um but it's how the district was required to respond when you had underperforming areas as well so that's my intent is to approach it from that perspective but January would be the latest um Miss Riley provides me regular updates as far as the timeline and I'd be happy to provide you with
257a draft template I just I've I've been cautious not to send you updates as each piece of information's come along that's why I provided you with a timeline in a prior email I'll re forward that so that you it's at the top of your email inboxes so you can see that and so my question is can we re um open contract conversations at that point uh to me because uh I see that as an opportunity to to look and um maybe consider performance pay metrics in regards to exceeding what some of those um trajectories would be um is my point of discussion as well so we have the opportunity to do that in January you you can voluntarily open anytime you wish you'll recall that uh superintendent originally had I believe a three-year contract and
258and at his first evaluation uh he he forent a an increase and asked for an extension that is essentially opening the contract and the board agreed to that so yes you can voluntarily address voluntarily open any time there yes sir okay the only uh superintendent Hyde would obviously still have to agree to it at that point because the year that he's being evaluated for the next evaluation has already started correct so it would change the change the rules Midway through right but volun requires the agreement of both parties Miss Fields so did we ever set a date for the board retreat I believe it is March 28th I think was the calendar invite that went out yes it looks like there's a calendar invite for March 28th thank you any other questions or concerns right
259well it sounds like the will of the board is to wait and have this conversation after we've seen preliminary data um and go from there as far as having a thirdparty contractor but not to do anything at this point okay getting back to the agenda that concludes everything that is that is on our agenda we do have disciplin this this afternoon um but if we have any updates quickly from any liaison positions or committees that you serve on I would love to hear those Mr Niti I've been thinking um I know we've got a system set up for the review of the books and everything I've got an idea that U well since I can't talk to you know because of the sunshine Rule and thing I I'd sure like to get the board's idea
260of this um we're spending so much time on it and I know it's important I was on vacation last week and I looked at half dozen or so of the books and I was just appalled at them so when books are challenged in the Pope County School System I'd like to see it come directly to the board to review before it goes to any committee that would save their time would also get them time to do what they need to do in their daily lives we are ultimately the ones responsible for the content in all curriculum as well as classroom and media center libraries if we find content content that is harmful or pornographic there's no reason to waste time and taxpayers money we can and we should make sure all content is age appropriate
261I would like to propose that all change in material comes to us first and I just like to hear your opinions on it because I'm just getting blasted for the last two weeks from people all over and and I I respect their opinion because I mean I was I could not believe the books I looked at I'm gonna before I go to the next two thank you Miss gunningham um if you want to comment on this if you want to press your button now or Miss Fields were you you look like you were pressing your button to comment on what Mr Niti just brought up you going say I was just going to say see if anybody wanted to comment on Mr ni's remarks yeah okay Miss Fields I think that we have all gotten
262emails from certain people but I haven't gotten an abundance of them I would say that and I guess my comment would be and superintendent H you can help me with this please we we have a policy in place that uh affords us to have uh input from Community folks as well as staff and the whole nine yards is that correct that is correct in including students where it's appropriate okay so if we were to consider doing this uh we would have to Circle back and create another policy delete the one that we have um or remove that one or revive or whatever and then have a public hearing and then the board would have to devote would have to vote on whether or not they want to make the changes correct me if I'm wrong
263that seem that seems correct okay um my opinion on the matter is why would we not want to have input from the community and input from our staff why would we want to circumvent and basically just say that their opinion does not matter and we're going to make the decisions I I would not be in support of that thank you Miss Fields does anyone else have any discussion on this topic all right it does not appear that anyone else has signed up to his on this topic no next okay um so it does not look like that has the support of the board keeping what we've what we've worked on and what the state has has used as their example um seems to be the the process they would like to use Miss Cunningham thank
264you um I have just two things that I'd like to bring up uh the first is where are we regarding the proposals for the new high school ha City point sien I asked at the last meeting and I thought we had several in support to move forward that the company that has already brought forward a proposal and who built Scenic Terrace and we have a relationship with um built it in 10 months and no additional Finance so I'm trying to understand where we are I thought there'd be at least something today on it I don't see anything I know we've entertained that proposal that came in at the 11th Hour the night at 10:00 they said before our last work session it's still troubling to me that we allowed that I understand superintendent Hyde you
265said you wanted to bring us both that day but what if that party did not come forward the night before you would have only had the one to present to us so I'm just trying to understand why we're not even talking about it today yeah so there again there's still two options though and I think that's the point let me allow me to clarify further um there was no commitment to bring anything today nor was I asked by the board to bring anything I know the question was asked but I provided a timeline a realistic timeline that November would be the earliest that I felt we would have the financial comparisons ready to go and let me explain that regardless of the new property that we became aware of and that we have toured and
266and looked at there's still two proposals before the board there is even with the the P3 group there's the option to procure that land ourselves and still do a design and build traditional approach it does not require and is not contingent upon only doing the program and a project we did previously at Scenic Terrace sure so that's why there's still but we don't have all the final information in the numbers yet and so up until just La the last meeting we were still in conversations with that original group that sent this proposal to get clarification to some of their budget that they had some that they had submitted and so again I want to bring you all the information so you can make and informed this decision moving forward and in that way we can
267go out to the community and make sure we get their input there there's no intentional delay here it's just a matter of making sure that you have all the information because the last thing I want to have happen is we move forward under the assumption that that's the best possible solution for us and it turns out that that's not the case um we get a bid challenge we get something else that occurs and so we need to dot all our eyes and cross all RTS because of the requirements for advertisement and those types of things so that's all that's that's all that's transpired far I am confident by November you will see a recommendation and a final summary that will allow you to review it to ask feedback and questions of the team and then
268no later than December I would expect for the board to make a decision because we only had the one meeting in November right I would expect the board no later than December to be making a decision and providing me a direction based off the recommendation so that's the timeline as I see it again in with with respect to you and your roles I feel feel that I must provide you with all the information that you need to make an informed decision based off of both possible project outcomes and there has been a recent development like I said the P3 proposal came with the parcel of land since that time there's an opportunity for us to do a traditional design and build on that same parcel of land there's a willingness to sell us that parcel
269if we so choose so we Mr pittz has been actively engaged in that conversation I have a meeting as as early as Friday to have follow-up conversation to make with with part of the people from that Development Group to ensure that I have all the information I need to bring to you so you can make an informed decision so would we say that by the next meeting in two weeks in November right isn't it that we we're going to have something before us yes ma'am or even before that we can review and look at to have questions no I will promise you by the next meeting if I can if if I can under promise and overd deliver by getting it to you earlier happy to do so okay that'd be great yes ma'am thank
270you and I have one other item Madam chair um uh I'm very concerned about our middle schools being mandated to move students from pre-algebra to algebra based on student State assessment data um there's been several instances County because I've done a little bit of research where we have taken kids because of this state assessment data and told them you know what you're in pre-algebra today's Friday on Monday 16 of you are moving to algebra what happened to trusting our teachers this has caused a lot of angst around the county in several middle schools some in my district and quite frankly others that are not CU they've reached out to me because of personal relationships that I have with teachers across po County my question is number one why do we do that that makes no
271sense we all know that if that kid doesn't score at the end of the semester 75% or greater to pass algebra guess what happens in January they're put back into pre-algebra why are we setting our students up to fail teachers have asked me I thought your motto was putting put students first are we putting students first with this I'm I I was appall to hear more about it I understand different people have been involved I'm not here to point any fingers it's been done I just want to see going forward and again people have said oh that's cuz the school grade this and that I don't know why we did it I don't understand it if you truly care about your kids you're going to trust that those teachers who meet and say hey this
272kid's got this you know ability this one may not I don't think I would move them that we put our trust in teachers and not just on state assessment data I I can't buy that and I think we just need to step back um and look at that on an individual basis and you don't tell people on Friday guess what Monday you're moving to a different classroom with a different teacher on the Friday of the eighth week of school and the period ends in nine weeks so I'm like really why do we do this so I'm questioning it I'm not expecting an answer here today but I'm expecting staff to maybe relook because that's wrong we're setting our kids up for failure actually I I can provide an answer today okay this is part of
273your approved student progression plan where schools failed to place students properly in the first place on September 7th I provided all of our principles at a principal meeting with the list we run a report every single year to ensure that our students are properly placed in classes at the beginning of the school year there were over 140 students who were not properly placed and so we sent them I provided it on September 7th our student progression plan States what Criterion should be used and teacher input is part of it but it does not override the academic side either it is equal those students were not placed respectfully they were not placed because of teacher recommendations they were placed because somebody who made the master schedule failed to identify those students initially for proper placement you're
274absolutely right I'm only aware of one school where there were 17 students that were asked to move at the 9we period we didn't ask them to do that I asked them to do it all the way back on September 7th at that principal's meeting and to follow up with parents they made a conscious decision the administration at that school made a poor decision to defer it to the end of the 9we period which we don't support and when we became aware of it we became involved so this is absolutely why we do master schedule reviews this is why we provide that data so students are placed into courses that they should be placed into because they deserve the opportunity if a parent doesn't want their child in that course you're Absol Ely right they should
275be given the option however moving them that late is not a requirement we did not mandate that I'm going to make that very clear that was a poor decision by the administration at that school to defer student changes to the end of the nine weeks you have a colleague board member who had to bring to my attention the fact that a student was being placed in the same exact middle school science class that they had taken the year prior why because the school did not adequately look at that child's credits who attended that same school the year prior and placed them into the right like right classroom this is why we provide the master schedule review this is why I provided them with that data set so please we are trying we're not forcing students
276to go into certain classes we are creating the opportunity but again I don't want it misconstrued that a poor decision based at a particular school is reflective of District policy because it's not we did not direct that I did back in September at the start of the school year which would have made more sense delaying it till mid October doesn't make any sense whatsoever and in fact we worked with and Miss fields and others who contact me about these same concerns know that we worked with individual parents I believe that over half the students returned the rest of the students remained we have an incredibly High passing rate in seventh grade algebra for high school algebra our passing rate's 90% or close to it and it's 86 80 88% on average across the years in
277eth grade so we actually have a very good passing rate and our teachers do a good job I don't disagree what they should not have been moved so late but that was not a district directive that was a poor decision we've addressed it with that Administration and ensured that it won't happen again but you know and that's a frustration I have because we missed an opportunity for those students and I agree it's not just about them being delayed nine weeks in the curriculum because I actually think if those students are talented in mathematics we might actually be able to get them to the place they need to be by testing time however to create that schedule change disrupts the rest of their schedule and when students are at a school that has a spec has
278a very specialized area of focus it's not fair to that student to have their schedule disrupted that way so you're you're you are absolutely right Miss Fields Miss Miller and others who have brought similar concerns to my attention absolutely valid and both of them can attest to the fact that we work as expeditiously as we can to correct those mistakes but again I want it stated that is not a district directive that information wasi provided in a timely manner and it points to the fact that we need to do additional training because counselors and others who create the schedules need to know that that data set's available and Miss Everett was the one that was able to pull that for us so that we could see based off test scores based off academic performance where
279should these students be placed this actually started because I attended the instructional review at tenor Rock High School and I was in a classroom where a young man was talking to me who was clearly not in the right classroom and so I asked him to step outside with me and asked him where he attended the school the year prior he was telling me where he went and he told me what courses he said I said why are you in an intensive reading class and he goes I shouldn't be and I pulled him up right there and focus on my phone young man scored a level five in Reading he's not properly placed so we I went right to the guidance counselor from that classroom and said change him today and they did but that got
280me asking questions how many other kids potentially are not placed correctly and we pulled the report and that's what started this dialogue at the beginning of September so it's a longer explanation but I wanted to reassure you we're not pushing this and for those who have said this is for school grades that's the biggest myth ever we want to do it because it's good for kids and the more acceleration we can provide them now the more flexibility they get later on in high school if they want to pursue other options and interests especially if a student is interested in the Performing Arts they now get ant elective versus being stuck in another class so thank you for the opportunity yes and the other thing I just want to say is to make sure that while
281we're looking at State assessment data sometimes the people that work with the kids at the school realize that maybe they can't make that lead and at some point that needs to be respected correct that's what I'm asking yes ma'am and we do that's part of the plan that's part of the placement process thank you yes ma'am that concludes my questions for today thank you thank you Mr Hyde thank you Miss Miller and just a reminder we have discipline before our board no I appreciate that and this is why and I I know it's good to talk publicly so people can know that we're working on things but this is why my phone went um I called M superintendent Hyde right away because this isn't about the district mandating stuff and I'm just going very honest
282I respect principles and what they do but we have not given them the tools or we have not in years past and we have got to catch them up quickly on this master scheduling and the scheduling issue similar student tenac two years ago couldn't get into was never put into AP classes did not have a parent at home to say listen my kid needs to go to these AP classes if a teacher had not stepped in they wouldn't have been given that opportunity I don't know how it's not my business to know how scheduling works but I got the call from a middle school not in my district in district one with the child who had um repeated the same science class she's been in the same science class she was in last year up
283until last week when it was brought to the attention of the District staff who then further reviewed other students were not correctly placed you know I know there's a lot on principles but that is some basic uh management things that they need to work on but I agree just like an IEP meeting the child doesn't have a disability any kind of educational changes should be a team decision we've got too many parent too many students who don't have parents involved so I agree that the teachers need to be able to say this kid could do better but raising expectations is what we should be doing I'm not in disagreement that moving kids out of um the pre-algebra classes if it was done at a correct time early in the year might benefit them we have
284to raise expectations for our kids and that's why those tests were designed um we don't want to put somewhere where they're not able to do the work but if they have they've shown the initiative or they've shown the results that they can do it we need to show give them the opportunity to perform so I think this is about principal trainings and and raising expectations for our kids so I appreciate we've had the public discussion I know we've had it privately um the scheduling issue has to be done in the best interest of of the students at the correct time thank you thank you Miss Miller Miss Fields I know we have discipline I had cleared my uh request and then I had to come back because I wanted to be uh clear and I
285appreciate the uh the the the person who made me aware of the situation in one of the schools in my district but immediately when I called superintendent hi he jumped right on it and he took care of it uh I believe there was 18 students and I I believe maybe half of them decided to go back to preal and others went forth but at least they were given an opportunity so I want to publicly thank uh superintendent H for doing that and we just have to keep doing what we need to do and making sure that our our staff as Miss Miller said have the tools to do what they need to do and the parents have the ability to share their thoughts and their concerns and not be afraid and staff as well thank
286you thank you Miss fields right and seeing no further business to come before the board this meeting is adjourned I will ask that everyone clear the room because we have to have a clear room for discipline hearings