001welcome to the Orange County School Board we ask for the courtesy of the board members staff and those that are participating telephonically that you please silence your cell phones good evening and welcome to the Orange County board's regularly meeting scheduled for Tuesday December 12th 2023 thank you so much for being with us tonight board members are intendance chair Jacobs could not be with us today as a reminder board members will not be engaging an outside electronic or digital communication during the meeting so we can focus on the matters immediately before us to my fellow board members District staff and members of the public when speaking please make sure your microphone is turned on and speak directly into it so our YouTube and orange TV viewers can hear you clearly again thank you so much for
002participating in or attending tonight's meeting now we're going to stand for the moment of of Silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance now for the pledge IED to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stand one nation under God individual liberty and justice for all good evening and thank you for joining us once again for tonight's Schoolboard meeting we have four exceptional recognitions before we discuss tonight's order of business first I would like to recognize ocps is partnership with Rollins College Pathways to teaching program for the past four years this unique cohort-based program has been providing ocps pair of professionals with an opportunity to receive their bachelor's of Arts in elementary education or a master's of Arts in teaching from Rollins College tonight we're recognizing the third
003cohort of students who recently completed the pathways to teaching program Rob Bigler our chief of staff can you tell us more about this wonderful program that's making teaching dreams come true thank you Vice chair Gallow I'd be happy to tonight I am excited the to celebrate the third cohort of students who have graduated from the Rollins College Pathways to teaching program to the graduates you have worked so hard to meet your goals and become ocps teachers you've also balanced working full-time at ocps taking college courses at night participating in group projects and studying during the weekend you persevered and we all proud of your success the pathways to teaching program helps our PA professionals Advance their careers by giving them the opportunity to earn an elementary and education degree the program also helps ocps as
004we work to address the Statewide teacher shortage the state approved curriculum prepares graduates for Florida teacher certification by providing high quality instruction and offering small class sizes as PA professionals you have an invaluable front row seat to observe and participate in effective teaching you manage behaviors help set classroom expectations and assist students one-on-one with your combination of classroom experience in coursework and education you will hit the ground running as teachers that's because you know exactly what effective classroom instruction looks like I encourage you well let me go back to this a little bit when we had dinner Saturday several of you mentioned the email that sparked your interest that you got from the from the district to do this so I encourage you as you find yourselves in new roles or new schools to look
005out for pair of professionals who may want to follow a similar path I look forward to returning in 2024 with a new cohort and hope to see more of our dedicated PA professionals find ways to grow within ocps I'd also like to thank Rollins College for their partnership and support along with Bonnie tley our director of talent acquisition and Kim wood senior administrator of instructional recruitment Bonnie and Kim have made sure that our pair professionals have the tools they need to be successful during and after they complete the program let's learn more about Rollins College Pathway to teaching program by watching this video which features cohort one graduate marabel doe who is Cypress Creek High's reading intensive reading instructor hi my name is Mary Belo a recent graduate of the Rollins Pathways to teaching program
006I was one of 14 par professionals from Orange County Public Schools to enroll at Rollins in a unique program designed to help support staff become teachers I am a mother of two who was working two jobs but wanted to be a teacher as long as I can remember the ability to take classes in the evening made it as easy as possible possible Rollins offers full and part-time options that give working professionals like me a chance to achieve our goals this exciting partnership with ocps provides the opportunity for support staff to pursue a bachelor's and Elementary education or a master of arts in teaching and helps address the Statewide teacher shortage the pathways to teaching program offers several benefits for students who are working in a tile one school with with a previously earned associates degree
007from an accredited institution these benefits include a computer and textbooks for each candidate during the program and a substitute teacher covered by Title One during both internships if the candidate Works in a title one school candidates will also receive $1,000 annual scholarship from Rollins I can't believe that I'm standing in my very own classroom and making a difference in my community and so can you Rollins offers Florida department of Education approved programs in elementary and secondary education at both the bachelor's and master degree levels thanks to my education at Rollins I have achieved my dream of being a teacher that's a great story and we hope all of our coort grads will have their own success stories in the years to come I would like to invite coort three grad Ashley Nelson to the podium
008Ashley is an exceptional educ an exceptional student education program assistant at colar elementary which I might add is one of my favorite schools since I was principal there before Alie can you say a few words about Rollins College teaching program to you CH Jacobs Vice chair Gallow superintendent Basquez District Six board member Castor denl and fellow Schoolboard members thank you for allowing me the time to speak and share my experiences in the pathways to teaching program at Rollins College when I was asked to speak at tonight's Schoolboard meeting I was honored and immediately terrified but I remember the phrase that has gotten me through the last few years I can do hard things I want to thank my family and friends for their support I could not have worked full-time and gone to school full
009time without them cheering me on along the way when I think back to the beginning of this journey I think about why I applied for Rollins College in the first place two very special ladies in my life Cammy and Erica encouraged me to not only apply for Rollins College but to switch schools so I could do the pathways to teaching program doing this meant I had to leave these wonderful ladies and the comfort of a school that I loved working at but I remembered I do hard things I can't thank these ladies enough for pushing me to become the teacher they always knew I could be the pathways program was anything but easy there were many nights that I struggled and thought to myself would it be easier to just stay a parah I can
010just skip this assignment and get a BRC why am I draining myself to do this but that little voice in my head said no you do hard things it's not easier to quit it's not worth getting a b or c I am draining myself because this is worth it becoming a teacher in graduating from this program was worth it I want to thank my classmates and congratulate them we did it we got through this together and we did hard things we have become more than just classmates in some ways we have become family and insanely crazy family but a family I wouldn't change for the world I want to thank winch County Public Schools and the education department at Rollins College for not only for allowing not only me but the rest of my cohort
011and cohorts to come the opportunity to work and get our teaching degree this was one of the best experiences I have done and I could not be more grateful special thanks to Winter Park High School special education department for guiding me along the way and colar Elementary for giving me the opportunity to work with them and learn from a great staff I would also like to thank Miss Y at Ridgewood Park Elementary for bringing me on as the newest kindergarten teacher I can't wait to be a Ridgewood tiger I want to leave you all with one thing if you ever think that you can't do something or that you don't have time or it might be hard remember that you too can do hard things thank you thank you Ashley it's now my pleasure to
012to welcome Rollins College's vice president of academic Affairs and provos Dr Donald Davidson to the podium to briefly speak on the program and introduce our coort 3 members good evening and thank you for inviting me here on this very celebratory occasion the stories we just heard are very inspiring and I think they point to the power of Education I first want to just say a couple of words of say a few words of thanks and then I have a few words that I would like to direct to our graduates first on behalf of President Cornwell and myself greetings to Vice chair Gallow to superintendent Vasquez school board members and also please extend our warm regards to chair Jacobs I also wish to Express rollin's gratitude for the support Partnership of Orange County Public Schools excuse
013me we are grateful for the collaboration that we engage in with the district and especially with Dr Bridget Williams Kimberly Gilbert Kim woods and Bonnie T Foley additionally we appreciate each of the school board members and their support for our students who have been working as par professionals and program assistants in their schools finally I want to acknowledge and thank Dr Angela Griner of Rollins College for her leadership of the pathways to teaching program to date the pathways to teaching program has graduated its first three cohorts 40 students all of whom have received employment in instructional positions in Orange County Public Schools across cohorts 3 to5 or excuse me across current enrollment in the program totals 48 students across cohorts 3 to 5 cohort 5 which will begin classes in fall which began classes in
014Fall 2023 has 21 enroll leads and we are looking forward to welcoming the six cohort in the fall of 2024 these students our students offer rich perspectives experiences and distinctive knowledge they are culturally and linguistically diverse they represent a wide range of racial cultural ethnic and linguistic backgrounds that are often times under rep underrepresented in the educational field more than 30% of the programs enrollment speak first languages other than English the following is the racial breakdown of the program's current enrollment 27% white 35% black African-American 35% Hispanic Latino Latina 3% Asian the quality of the pair of Professionals in our program is also marked by their concentrated work in high need settings the majority work in Title One schools 40% work with exceptional student populations and students with profound learning needs 21 students and graduates
015are members of the international society and education Capa delap p and the majority of our program graduates are graduating with honors we remain grateful for Orange County Public Schools continued partnership particularly with our students Rollins College remains committed to students in this program I wish to say a few words directly to our graduates you have accomplished much in now you are able to offer much to your students some of you might be first generation College you will be teaching students whose parents some of many students whose parents are not College my parents wonderful people were of modest means I attended a very average high school and a very average Elementary School Mobility meant joining a labor union a becoming a police officer a firefighter all honorable and important jobs I actually joined the Teamsters Union
016for four years but a teacher in high school encouraged me to go to college which was transformational I was introduced to the world of ideas I had never heard of or thought about I Read Literature philosopher and theologians who turned my ideas and simple assumptions upside down my world became actually uncomfortable and that is because diverse ideas are new and but at the same time liberating and energizing you are entering the teaching profession at a time of great Challenge and need remember that you are joining a noble profession you have our profound respect and gratitude you have this ability to turn the world of your students upside down by encouraging them to think about ideas exposing them to books and the empowerment provided by learning and quite simply by reassuring them to continue to learn
017you have the opportunity to transform your students lives by encouraging them to continue to learn and teaching them how to think critically further your experiences and background backgrounds enables you to reach some of the most high need yet equally deserving students in our community some of your students will come from impoverished contexts the first language for some will be other than English and some will not have a consistent home address I encourage you to share with your students your desire to learn that you've demonstrated through this program and the power of what they can achieve I along with President Cornwell The deans the faculty and trustees of Rollins College applaud and celebrate you and your accomplish lishments I sincerely congratulate you thank you very much you ready you stand here okay I'm Ser oh okay
018I will call the graduates as they receive their stalls Jen Baldwin Jessica Fernandez Chang I hope there's not a tusk CA vixama Alma Martinez Kim wi Jen Baldwin Maria claudo Natalie deller Alia Farley Bianca Gardone Melinda gerardi Megan Travis Erica Knight Charlotte pagels Ashley Nelson Ila Richardson Stephanie Westerman oh your friends your friends if you can't see over your friend just slide down a little bit BR we can't see you if you have a doctorate you're in the front that's how it goes good good look right toward me everybody look happy hold on for the cell phones good good good stay there hold on one second back here that side and then just give a hearty wave hang on let me do this first thank you thank you rob Dr Davidson and the HR team
019your commitment ensures that ocps employees oh thank you a wait quick pause hang on oh this is so sweet thank you oh my god oh thank you I know we should be giving you presents oh thank you oh look at here they're very nice nice I are pretty so beautiful your commitment ensures that ocps employees have successful experience during and after they finish the program congratulations to our grads and current participants in the pathways to teaching program we look forward to seeing how you will make a difference in a classroom and Lead all of our students to success congratulations and really we're so proud of all of you we really are so thank you for all the time that you took out of your families away from home doing what you normally do and then
020working so hard to become a teacher it it means the world it's going to mean the world to the students it means the world to the board and we're just so thankful for you and for this program and now Dr Castro Dental would like to say a few words yes thank you madam chair and congratul ations I was lucky enough to attend a dinner this weekend with the graduates at Rollins and I learned so much about their their stories and their inspiration and met family members who are fully supportive of them and what a unique experience you've had I think I shared with some of you that I when I got my degree in education my group that I was with we were I was in Tennessee and everyone went in different directions and here
021you have your cohort that's still going to be here at ocps and that group is powerful and I'm glad to see that you all are so close and you've got your group chats and you're all going to join the teachers union and but this is such a winwin win for everybody and especially our students and this program The Way It Is structured I'm not sure how it came about Bridget Bridget Bridget Williams I think you have found a formula that so many colleges of Education are looking for at a time when our colleges of Education are closing or the colleges are becoming a smaller department or they just offer some classes in education now here here is a robust way to really bring people who have talent and heart and are willing to work hard
022together and I just think this is amazing so thank you Rollins For All You've Done all the professors adjunct everybody who's there and I want to implore the graduates one more time to maintain your Tuesday and Thursday evenings as your own do not fill it up with work after hours there will never you'll never be done with the work that needs to be done so protect that time go do something with your family your friends sleep watch TV do whatever you need to protect it or you won't get it back but thank you so much and I look forward to seeing you all out in the schools congratulations now we have a Schoolboard Spotlight that I would like to share with you each month a Schoolboard member honors an exceptional employee in their District these
023employees have shown great dedication and contributed to the success of our students in major ways we are grateful for every one of our hardworking staff members and this is one more way we are pleased to honor them i' like to invite member gold who represents District 4 to tell us about the ocps staff member she has selected for her school board Spotlight thank you chair I appreciate that you know it's very exciting to be welcoming brand new you're not really new Educators because many of you have been in our system but going to a whole new level to also help me honor somebody who who's been on this path for a long time and impacted many many students in including a couple of my own who were in his purview many many years ago and
024I can say before I was a school board member and after I was a school board member he put up with me so that was a really good thing but I it's my pleasure to recognize Olympia's lead school counselor August parate who has worked yes Mr parate really represents some of the most special people and kind of stands at the top of that mountain of those special people they are the ones who day in and day out help the kids who are stressing about where they're going in the future and the kids who might not quite know where they want to go in the future and help him along that path I have personally had the privilege of witnessing him help encourage support and provide academic and Life Counseling to many many students he his
025main goal has always been to have students who really understand what career paths are open to them and the ability and the steps to pursue it he has influenced supported encouraged and really inspired many valid dictorian saluted torians a lot of the Apex students that will now be Cambridge I guess going forward numerous super Scholars have benefited from his guidance he stays in touch with those students and Mr parate has always always always gone the extra mile to make it possible possible for every child to be successful in whatever they want to pursue so congratulations Mr parate for empowering and ensuring Olympia students have a career path and a positive Future No Matter What they decide to do and I have a couple of small items I'd like to present to you first is a
026little commemorative for this occasion and then you know it's all about the tools yes congratulations huh congratulations Mr PR and thank you for empowering and ensuring Olympia High students have a career path before they graduate did did you get did we get a picture yes Frank got it okay awesome next I would like to acknowledge five ocps media Specialists who have gone the distance at their elementary and middle schools they all received the 2020 2023 Florida Power Library School award at the Florida Association for media and education conference in November the Florida Power Library schools program recognizes exceptional School library programs in the Sunshine State media Specialists are crucial at our schools and make learning more engaging and enjoyable for our students I am proud of these five women for receiving an award for developing
027outstanding library programs that are fully integrated into their school's curriculum as part of the award selection process their programs were measured in six areas instruction curriculum and assessment support Resource Management program Administration environment and advocacy the award is sponsored by the Florida Association of Supervisors of media in partnership with the office of library media services within the Florida Department of Education congratulations Kar Sally Ride and weard elementary schools and Meadow Woods and Roberto Clementi midle middle schools you have joined an elite group that includes only six other ocps schools that have received this prestigious distinction in the past I'd now like to invite instructional technology and library media director Allison Kibby to tell us more about our media Specialists good evening we chair Gallow Schoolboard members and Dr Vasquez it's nice to see you for
028something fun not such a stressful Schoolboard policy writing session so we are really thrilled to be here with you this evening celebrating the very well-deserved recognition of these outstanding media Specialists around this time last year each media specialist with us here today submitted their intent to partake in the Florida Power Library School application process which takes months to go through and requires the completion of stakeholder survey developing an Evidence Rich portfolio reflecting on their professional practice and interviews with evaluators to help you get a better sense of what makes these media specialists in their Media Center program so outstanding I'd like to just take a few moments to highlight just one component of each media specialist portfolio and it was very difficult to choose just one for each of them Mrs Daniels at Sally Ride
029Elementary School sets the bar high for what the partnership between classroom teachers and media specialist could and should look like by attending weekly planning meetings to see how she can support teachers as they teach reading and inquiry in all content areas Mrs Kara at winguard elementary school creates memorable experiences for her students through book tastings she turns the media center into an Italian restaurant and allows students to sample different genres to expand their palette and share their Reflections using technology Mrs gutch at colar elementary school and teachers and staff members in the media center through a book recommendation display teachers and staff members select books they love to read they place a special bookmark with their face on it in the book and then they add it to the display the dis the display helps
030students see that everyone at Karne is a reader Mrs LeBron fosa at Roberto Clemente Middle School ensures that the media center is accessible to all students by pushing into ESC and Esau classes she not only teaches students how to use the media Center's many resources but most importantly helps students find the book for them turning reluctant readers into readers and finally Mrs gendler at meadowwoods Middle School implemented the one book One Tribe program to support literacy and promote reading across the content areas this schoolwide novel study involved all students reading the book concealed by Christina Diaz Gonzalez and featured guest readers including Schoolboard members and superintendent pasz the Met home cated in an author visit where each student received a signed copy by the author and this is just a glimpse into the amazing work
031that our media Specialists do daily to ensure that students have a promising and successful future and if any of you ever ever ever need some joy in your life I assure you that you can find it in their media centers and to our principls that are here this evening thank you for empowering your media Specialists and trusting them to foster a love of reading and learning in your students and to our media specialists congratulations and thank you for all you do we are so proud of you thank you Allison for all that you do to support our media Specialists kudos to our media specialist for receiving this well-deserved award and now let's CL let's give him another hand now we would like to invite the media specialist up front for a picture please don't be
032shy here we go come on down come on yes great job guys great job yeah thank you for all that you do so clever so clever they're coming congratulations wait wait wait wait well congrats thank you for all that y'all do thank you so much member front you're recognized thank you I just want to say congratulations I know this really is such a task to get this award and so very very proud of each of you I am so excited I absolutely love reading and I know I'm always stickler on you know looking through our libraries and whatnot but I want to make sure that kids are getting awesome books and books where they can just come alive and get into an adventure and I love that you are helping our students even I know
033there's one that they discussed and that when they the kids come in you make sure that if they say I don't like reading you say well you just haven't found the right book yet and so I love that thank you so much for what you're doing I know Sally Ride weard and Meadowwood middle are my schools in District 3 so proud of you I've been in those schools seeing what you're doing it really and truly is above and beyond so great job great job thank you so much last but certainly not least I would now like to acknowledge the 2023 2024 Phoenix Foundation of Central Florida morning glow teacher impact Grant award recipients that's a mouthful the organization collaborates with the foundation for Orange County Public Schools and provides performing art Arts Impact grants to
034ocps teachers so they can purchase equipment materials and supply and rep repair broken equipment this year the Phoenix Foundation of Central Florida provided our foundation with $150,000 grant that will benefit 16 teachers I would like to invite the Phoenix Foundation of central Florida's social media manager Abigail lefit to tell us more about the Grant and this year's recipients hi thank you the Phoenix Foundation started in 2012 with student scholarships helping students who were pursuing a degree in Performing Arts students who were members of the lgbtq plus community and students who had lost one or both of their parents in 2018 we were able to expand to start these morning glow teacher grants specifically we were working with Performing Arts teachers in bevard County this is our first year working with ocps and we are so
035happy to be here we'd specifically like to thank Scott Evans for helping us feel so welcomed we want to thank the foundation for ocps you guys have been absolutely wonderful to work with and it is because of you that we've been able to honor these teachers and award them for their hard work we will be here through 2024 calendar year so reapply tell your friends to apply we want to continue to be able to fund you our founder likes to say that we have the easy job we get to just write the checks you guys do the hard work of impacting students every single day and helping to change lives so we are so thankful that we get to do what we do because you guys do the hard work so thank you thank you
036to the Phoenix Foundation of Central Florida for helping our teachers provide our students with enrich enriching experiences congratulations to our Performing Arts teachers re for receiving the morning glow teacher impact Grant award and helping our students bring the Arts to life on stage we so appreciate you and your partnership with Orange County Public Schools it's so appreciated is Mr Evans is he here got stand up and wave yeah he's amazing and he's done so much for the Arts thank you and thank you so much we appreciate it I don't I don't think so are they coming up it's not there okay we need the F the Phoenix the 16 Performing Arts teachers Phoenix Foundation of Central Florida members Mrs P paza Mrs Pagan and the school board we're all going to take a picture we're
037here obviously so we don't need to come up and Scott and Scott Evans it was in red this is great did we announce I think we would all yes if we don't have a if we'll do that if they don't have names the only adult okay okay perfect perfect yeah it's a little tough heavy over there congratulations all right you're distracting him he's got to look at the picture I don't know there's talk congratulations congratulations awesome thank you Dr Vasquez you're recognized so I'd like to actually name the school so we can recogn you know who was receiving the award we have from we have Arbor Ridge K8 School Rebecca Jernigan and Susan Watford yay Bridgewater Middle School we have Daniel G Cordo I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name Daniel from Colonial high school
038we have Amy Hesco from Freedom High School we have Suzanne vaset from haasi elementary school Megan melier from Lake comoo School Christine cooh from Legacy Middle School Jasmine Henry from lockheart middle school we have Taylor coffin and Anna Molinari from Millennia Elementary School we have Darius Langston from okoi high school Nate Caldwell from pedmont Lakes Middle School Julie Simmons Roberto Clement Middle School is represented by Madison igis from Robinswood Middle School Ashley Hankerson and last but certainly not least from Wolf Lake Middle School Andrea Phillips U member G you're recognized I can never let a moment where we're highlighting the importance of Arts go by you know some children some people are lucky to kind of find their path theirselves and their voice on their own but often times it's a it's an arts program
039that unveils the gifts that they have and allows them really to kind of figure out who they are and what they can do so thank you to the Phoenix foundation and thank you to all of you amazing Arts teachers who work so well within your schools and with your colleagues to make your programs fly congratulations thank you member gold we're going to take just a small recess for those of you who came to be honored tonight we were so happy to see you we congratulate you are more than welcome to stay for the business portion of the meeting if not you are you are free to leave and have the rest of your evening back congrat ulations again and thank you so much for coming out to Orange County Public Schools soon n he n
040all right we're going to start in 10 seconds all right welcome back welcome back to our the Orange County Public Schools regularly scheduled board meeting Dr Vasquez okay here we go do we have any newly appointed administrators to present tonight oh yes we do Madam chair we have two newly appointed administrators and I think this is the first time where we have had two from the very same school at the same evening and so we are so excited first I would like to congratulate Mr John Miller who is the new principal at Meadowbrook Middle thank you all so short and sweet the work that we do as Educators is difficult but not impossible as educational leaders we create create enriching and diverse Pathways that lead our students to success I'm truly honored and Overjoyed for
041this principal appointment to support teachers advocate for Student Success and to partner with our local community would like to thank Dr vquest Dr AR Brewster School transformation officer executive leader Mr Bond principal leaders Miss flues Dr wendam and I want to thank the metal Brook leadership team teachers staff and students also want to extend my gratitude to my beautiful daughters Jessica Robin and Jordan Rose lastly I'd like to extend a heartfelt appreciation to my amazing wife Dr Edna Jones Miller who is my major supporter for the work that I do and inspiring change in others again thank you for this amazing privilege to be named principal of metal Brook Middle School where we exceed every expectation with Excellence thank you and I am happy to announce that Pamela Tarpley is the new assistant principal at
042metal Brook metal Legacy is not what I did for myself it is what I'm doing for the Next Generation I grateful to be chosen to serve students at a different capacity student staff and Community thank you to my husband to my parents and my children for their love prayers and their unrelenting encouragement to the board members I am grateful for your appointment to this position of assistant principal thank you to Executive leader Mr Bon principal leader Miss Flores and Dr wendam for your ongoing support Mr John Miller thank you for being a phenomenal School leader and a boss I would like to mention a few of my past Mentor principles Sandra Pipkin lukisha Miller Kenisha Williams and Tamara Baker Drayton who I'm grateful for their friendship and mentorship thank you for entrusting me to to
043promote a legacy of Excellence congratulations at this time I would like to call Ron Pard president of the orange education support professionals Association to the podium all right tell me what am I doing here oh well this is your opportunity to speak before the board oh okay if you have some if you have something that you would like us to know yes so in our absence this to CH Jacobs all of you school board members Dr vasqu our superintendent you all are our employers I'm elated that for a lack of a better word classified employee spoke up with a 98.5% yes vote to ratify that contract this was epic it sends a message to you all which was the message that I've heard in the many school visits that I've had in the past months
044or in the Saturday meetings that I've had in my office the people needed raises I want to thank Melissa Fifer Herman who is my executive director of my union and the hardworking OA bargaining team for what they did here and as I recognize them I would like to take a point of personal privilege to recognize the managers who made up your bargaining team especially Leanne Blackmore of Labor Relations I want want to go on record as saying that I asked Miss Blackmore to return to the bargaining table because my team said it was time when the classified staff tells me it's time it's time the result speak for itself in my travels this last month or so I've had the privilege to meet and to speak to as well as to listen to some of
045the best people I ever met in my life what they do for the children the students of ocps school is phenomenal whether they are union members or not I truly respect each and every one of you all thank you for supporting me as the president of your union thank you thank you Mr Pard and we so appreciate you thank you for all that you do I should have mentioned that this is this is the district Association and Council reports so I could have mentioned that before I called up Mr Pard then he would have known why he was being called the podium next next I would like to call Clinton McCracken president of the Orange County classroom Teachers Association to the podium thank you good evening Vice chair Gallow members of the board and Dr
046Vasquez thanks for having me here today to share our Union comments as you know we've had a form available to our instructional Personnel for for a while to share both concerns and positive feedback about our schools administrators and the district I've shared those initial results with you and invited the board to visit some of the schools mentioned thank you to members Castor Dental and Gallow for the visits we've had so far and thank you to those who have scheduled future ones I think at this point we have visits scheduled for almost everyone I think these visits have been really informative to see how things are going and I'm happy many of our teachers have been able to voice their concerns with you during these visits and about the workload and the current climate at some
047of our schools in addition to the feedback form we recently asked teachers to share their holid their ocps holiday wish list with us and I'll deliver the rest of them when we get them sometime next week but I wanted to share a few of them here I wish to have the proper class size less paperwork so I don't have to take at home I wish for more respect from parents and society and State legisl ERS I wish for more autonomy I want teachers to have the resources we need to teach our students I wish I could afford to buy a house I wish for a livable wage so that I don't have to work more than one job and I can spend more time with my family I wish for affordable health care I wish
048to be able to buy gifts for my boys and not to have to to skip a bill payment to do it and the last one that I'll share today I wish that I was trusted to do my job instead of being micromanaged thank you to the teachers who've sent these in your heartfelt wishes mean a lot and say a lot as you all have acknowledged in previous board meetings the demands on our Educators have increased each year I've discussed this with do Dr Vasquez and Dr armster but it's crucial to emphasize here I ask that you continue exploring every Avenue to make this job more manageable for our teachers this pertains not only to the workload but also to fostering positive relationships between teachers and administration many of our teachers are struggling and my hope
049is that we can help improve things so that they will be able to retain that we'll be able to retain these valuable members of our ocps family lastly I extend warm wish wishes for a joyful holiday season to each of you and to all our teachers their families all of our administrators education support staff professionals and our entire Central Florida Community may this festive season bring moments of Joy connection with your loved ones and Rejuvenation thank you and happy holidays thank you Clinton we appreciate you happy holidays to you as well and your family next I would like to call Nate Haye president of the Orange County Association of school administrators to the podium welcome thank you good evening superintendent Dr Vasquez and Orange County public school board members I first want to say thank
050you for addressing Administration compensation tonight it means a lot to us so but tonight I want to discuss our assistant principles we've had quite a few new new assistant principles join our ranks this year and many of them have decided to join okasa which we are very thankful for when these assistant principles decided to become an administrator their hourly rate of pay in many cases has decreased substantially in some cases as much as $12 an hour I recently took a survey of our membership and 75% of the members who took the survey said that they made less money as an AP than they did in their previous instructional role the only increase in pay is due to the time worked instead of working 10 months they are 12-month employees instead of 7 and 1 half
051hours they're 8 hours now instead of getting paid for their master's degree specialist degree doctorate degree they did nothing instead of getting a paid stip in for working after hours at sport events on curriculum riding teams sponsoring clubs tutoring being a team leader late bus Duty summer school club sponsor Saturday school Sesser planning days athletic coaching facility SP supervisor for weekdays and weekends SGA sponsor now they just get their base salary is this Fair we're able to pay instructional staff members these additional paid opportunities why administrators is excluded most ocps employees are salaried employees so why in certain circumstances does one group get additional pay opportunities but others do not as a leader I want to provide my students with as many opportunities as possible so they can grow and develop into successful citizens and
052have a prom promising future at times the obstacle is who's willing to stay my teachers are tired and my classified staff would have to volunteer their time so who takes on those extra responsibilities assistant principles and principles they take the time away from their family to meet the needs of the students they serve time and time again and this takes a toll over over time causing some to leave the profession and we have enough vacancies when surveying our membership I asked on average how many hours a week do you work 9% of members said 40 to 50 hours per week 45% said 51 to 60 hours per week 30 said 61 to 70 hours a week at least 16% working over 71 hours per week we only get paid for working 40 hours so why
053not allow administrators to get the same type of stiens when they are working past the 40 hours or when they go above and beyond by opening schools up on Saturday for facility rentals like churches stay until midnight for sporting events and so much more if the money is there for salaried instruction staff which are a much greater number than administrators then it should also be there for administrators who have families to feed as well the saying is you don't get into education for the money the question I have is why not why is that acceptable why have the most important we have the most important job there is and it's important to advocate for what our occupation deserves respect in a pace scale that shows that we matter I became a teacher and administrator to
054make a difference but the job is not the same job that I signed up for 20 years ago it's changed drastically in just the Last 5 Years teachers and administrators are leaving because it has become too much I don't have time to share the comments of Administrators throughout our district but the matter of compensation shows the value we see in the position we love what we do but it takes a toll this is a job and expectations and requirements continue to rise but so should the compensation for the time that we spend doing what is best for our family for our students and staff thank you for your time thank you member CER gent recognized thank you madam chair Mr hay before you leave I'd be interested to see some of the results of your
055survey since we try to understand what's happening with the teacher workload there may be a direct connection with the principal workload so I'm happy to look at that as well if you're willing to share some of those concerns that they have just email it my way thank you thank you member CER Dental if you could share that with the entire board I'm sure everybody up here on the de would like to see that information so thank you thank you please all right we're going to move on to something that's very fun I would like to call on Dr Vasquez to introduce Jones High School students from her superintendent student advisory Council thank you and we actually have a special treat as well not only do we have members from the student advisory Council but we
056also have members of the choir that will have a short performance after the members from the student advisory Council have a chance to speak to us so I'd like to introduce Ariel Moore Taylor Rees demaya Patterson and edto tjo from Jones High School welcome greetings to The Honorable Vicky Elaine fers Jones High School alumni School Board member of District 5 where the talent resides the diva and also to our amazing super attendant school board members and everyone under the sound of my voice I am Taylor Reese the proud senior class president of the great Jones High School greetings I am Ariel Moore the 87th Miss Jones High School greetings I am erberto Treo Mr IB of the great Jones High School greetings I am Demay Patterson the junior class Treasurer at the great Jones High
057School and we oh and we are here to present the changes that we are implementing at our school when thinking of the best ways to impact our school school spirit instantly came to mind we want the entire school to fill the energy of positive support throughout their peers and as students leaders of the great Jones High School we decided to conduct a survey throughout our classmates we wanted to know what could we do better and how we could make our classmates feel like they belong and when we got those answers back we seen that our school spirit was just not up to par we absolutely could not take that lightly we knew we had to change our approach especially since we're standing on the shoulders of extraordinary alumni you see the grey Jones High School
058has been around since 1895 and our alumni base is really strong and involved so after speaking with our principal and informing him of our findings the Jones High School Pet Squad was started together we decided that dressing according to a theme during games all led by students for students and supporting students was an excellent way to show school spirit we want everyone to appear as a unit and let others know that at the great Jones High School we bring unity and another big change that we wanted to implement throughout our school was student involvement so our solution to that was our club rush we have our club Rush every 9 weeks and we just we just introduced a new program our ballet program this brings engagement within the student environment and a sense of and
059allows the students to have a sense of belonging when when you feel like you belong and that you are needed you can't help but belong social media is one of the most reliable ways to get this information out not only are we able to reach the students but we are also able to reach their parents as well making sure that everyone is well informed and another good way that we like to spread the word is through Flyers we all know that everyone's not invested into social media so we posted Flyers around our academic building library and cafeteria and so much more areas around our campus and with that being said we would like to thank you all for listening to the changes that we have implemented throughout our school as honorary Tigers you all should
060know that is all about respect responsibility and accountability resp having said that remember our is the great Jes high school we are achieving Excellence together nicely done good job thank you that's fabulous come on I know I'm excited as the choirs coming up I'd like to let you know who is here performing with us we have Gary Curry Jr Keana Smith de quavian Austin Elia Watson ulia Street Alana Lan Rihanna Johnson G Woodward Yan Tam Myers and taan Tillman chist Christ to every night oh ISR and childly his tend and SLE Heaven sleep heaven night holyy night and childly so tend and SLE SLE s night holy night night f sh our days be Mary and may all Christmas it be baby that Crown is to live forab make sure so make sure you can
061see my lens first and then we'll we'll respect the cell phone people you guys can be in the back you're not going to we want to make sure we see him anybody else that's it all right good up the lens big smile hold on let's do that again look happy thank you phenomenal thank you that was that was beautiful absolutely beautiful thank you the Jones High School that was amazing and Dr Vasquez I neglected to recognize their chorus teacher Mr Davies who does an amazing job thank you for all you're doing for our students thank you that was a great way to kick off the holidays we have some proclamations this evening however one of the proc our first proclam Proclamation is we're declaring January 2024 as National human trafficking prevention month in Orange County
062Public Schools we're actually waiting on our speaker to arrive to read the proclamation so we're going to push that down till she gets here so our next Proclamation is Proclaim National train month in Orange County Public Schools and then next we have a strategic Plan update Career and Technical education update so I would like to invite Miss Grant to the podium welcome thank you Dr Vasquez I had known I was coming behind Jones I would have called in sick so good afternoon School Board Vice chair school board members Dr Vasquez and Dr Dar Brewster I great I am grateful for the opportunity to serve as executive leader for Career and Technical education and I appreciate this opportunity to give you a Career and Technical education update what will help if I turn on the thing
063you right CT is dedicated to the mission of Orange County Public Schools as we are ensuring students parents and the community as we are ensuring that the students parents and the community are aware of our viable CTE Pathways at ocps as a part of Dr vasquez's reimagining initiatives in the next 5 years we will focus on increasing student enrollment and Industry certification attainment we will strengthen collaboration amongst all stakeholders and enhance business and involvement and advisory committees with the support of industry and all stakeholders we will expand work-based learning increase student engagement and increase career awareness this slide reflects CT enrollment for the past 5 years as you can see we have over 56,000 students in secondary CTE which surpassed the enrollment prior to co over the F and over 5,000 students in CTE dual
064enrollment which again surpassed the enrollment prior to co our adult education enrollment is not quite where where it was prior to co and our adult General enrollment is well below where we were prior to co the unemployment rate is low and we see the trend of when unemployment is low or adult enrollment is low We are continuing to expand our reach into the community by providing in ag we are developing a 5-year plan to ensure that all high school students have access to the following career clusters on their high school campus agriculture architecture construction Andor manufacturing arts and AV Andor Information Technology Andor business engineering Health Science hospitality and tourism this side reflects industry certifications earned over the past 5 years over the next 5 years we plan to increase industry certifications yearly by supporting
065teachers with professional development and hosting learning camps in the summer the adult industry certification reported is low due to the students having to take their exams with a third party we have identified this as an issue and we have a p a plan in place to capture the industry certifications from students before they graduate CTE Prides itself on collaboration and we have extended the collaboration model to secondary CTE this summer we sent over 30 CTE secondary PLC leads to training these teams have been collaborating monthly to establish common lessons and assessments they have also implemented a peer-to-peer mentoring system currently we have over 100 Affiliated Partners such as Advent Health cfhla Central Florida Fair Farm Bureau fin frog LED Martin the manufacturing association hayatt Mart Marriott and Rosen as we grow it is important to
066have the support of business partners we are expanding our reach to major companies that can employ and support multiple career clusters for example government agencies employ people in all of our career clusters therefore we are being deliberate with our approach to build relationships with government agencies the same is true with Hospital Systems the great Orlando Airport Authority hotel chains and financial institutions Orange County government and Career Source has been excellent Partners through both of these organizations we were able to provide over 500 students with some type of work-based learning experience some examples are internships CTE learning camps and Wednesday career Express programs by increasing our Partnerships we will be able to expand our work based learning programs Agri agriculture is our shining model as we have a plethora of student engagement activities through FFA some
067engagement activities are the state and Central Florida Fair compan competitions the FFA Capital day and the premier agriculture career experience some of our other student engagement activities include the Digital Media Expo construction career day registered apprenticeship showcase biomed challenge manufacturing Expo and it Expo we have also includ included industry networking tours and events such as inspiring Innovation pitchfest and startup showcase so far this semester we have hosted over 47 student engagement events with over 3,700 students in attendance 685 were middle school students and 3,37 were high school students the legislators have put some incentives in place to strengthen participation in ctsos which stands for Career and Technical student organizations which I will tell you a little about later but as we grow we anticipate we anticipate participation in our Career and Technical student organizations to
068increase we have seen a great increase in participation this year and we're also hosting fbl regions where that was yesterday and we're also going to host the skills competition at our South Campus fun fact the legislation pass the bill that will help support FFA membership for all students we have a deliberate plan outlined to reach students and parents at the middle school level it is a all Hands-On deck approach we will utilize career Specialists resource teachers administrators and all staff to increase CT awareness across the district in addition we are conducting a comprehensive program alignment of CTE programs from middle school to high school transition that's it for the update but I'd like to share some legislative changes I am excited that the FTE weighted was increased from 0.988 to 1.72 for high school Career
069and Technical courses we will also receive an additional 0.08 FTE we for career dual enrollment courses where students earn an a we will also receive an additional FTE of 0.3 for students completing at least three courses and an industry certification and a single CTE program hence the reason it is important for us to encourage and support the retention of students in CTE programs we are excited that the 9 through 12 CTE courses will meet the Practical Arts requirement in addition students will earn credit for participating in Career and Technical organizations the ones on slide 13 although we have hosted career faires in the past it is now required that we host annual Career Fairs for juniors and seniors and CTE is working with student services and will host the career fairs at each of its
070Tech campuses in the spring Senate Bill 240 also changed the number of years we can use to certify a teacher from 6 years to 3 years this will allow us to employ welders after they have three years of exp experience instead of them having to have a bachelor's degree this bill will also allow us to give teachers professional learning points for student for participating in student and career technical activities and now I'd like to give you an update on our buildings so for our main campus phase one is complete phase two is estimated to be complete in Fall of 2024 I would like to also mention that the main campus is celebrating its 90th year anniversary we had our groundbreaking of our East Campus on November the 8th and the campus is estimated to be
071complete in the spring of 2025 and we are so excited that our West Campus is near in completion it is estimated to be complete by fall of 2024 currently we are in the design phase for our new South Campus which is estimated to be complete in Fall of 202 27 we have two small satellite sites Apopka and Edenville aapka is a small one room Schoolhouse we opened the Apopka site this semester and is currently serving about 25 students and is growing daily our Eatonville site is in its final stage of construction the campus is estimated to be complete and early spring of 2024 this concludes my pres presentation and I want to thank you for your attention and I also want to thank you the great CTE team who showed up today and I would
072turn it over to Dr Vasquez thank you Rosa I do want to commend you your leadership and the incredible work that your team continues to do you know the pandemic really set us back in some areas but right now we can see how far we have come and how our students are benefiting from all of those different opportunities I am just so excited to continue to see the growth and opportunities for our students and so board members we're ready for any questions or comments that you might have thank you Dr Vasquez member G great presentation always one of my favorite updates of the entire year thank you very much and I love it when you all come branded so we are close to a dream I've had for the last 10 and a half years
073to almost have every child graduate with a certification in something we are so close and that is thanks to the hard work of this team here many who have been on board since Dr AR Brewster took the brains of CTE and Rosa was a big part of that all the way through so congratulations on that I'm I'm really thrilled to hear about pushing even more down into middle schools and that exposure let's use technology wherever we can to bring the opportunities into the classroom as as soon as possible and I would even say and I know this is hard but maybe some of your students do teach in day because they and I know some do but if even the high schoolers if we could get them to go to a class in middle school
074because that's someone they can relate to right away right and they and they get to see it and whether they're choosing welding or Hospitality or a medical pathway or cyber security and modeling and simulation the plethora of opportunities still is isn't known far and wide and that's our biggest challenge it's not the quality of the programs it's not what happens once kids are connected in there because they get it I was privileged enough I guess about three weeks ago but I think it was before Thanksgiving break that you were doing The Apprentice journeymap and again another favorite day and to see in the pouring rain over 500 students come from all of the high schol schools plus an additional amount from all the tech schools to really get an opportunity for on the job training
075and it was so cool to hear these robust very mature conversations about their career paths and what opportunities there are for them within each company and they were drilling some of the companies like if I come in this one what what are those opportunities that I'm going to have I mean they were really impressive not not only the kids but all the companies that were there space Florida I brought the new curriculum outlines to the superintendent today in fact but space Florida has really done a nice job now and I know that our team's involved in that but however we can lift that up across our campuses because all of those certifications lead to a range of jobs they've been branded into space Florida whether you're talking about manufacturing or engineering or HVAC energy all
076of those things so I would I would really like to see more of that and then my last thing because I know my time is run out is there a way for us to partner with two sectors on the adult side because I have I'm at an age now where I have a lot of friends who are retiring but they really don't fully want to retire they want to pursue something that they've wanted to do all their life and apply it so that skills-based training that you all offer may be a pathway for someone who's doesn't want to stay in the career that they're in and they have the ability to leave it they'd also make good teachers but they have that opportunity and then not for profits for people who have needed to Res
077skill I know you do a lot of partnering with Career Source but in some with United Way and some of the others but you know Goodwill Salvation Army the Matthews hopes of the world who are really helping people to get that financial literacy and try to to recover from whatever challenges they're having in moving forward I think that's a huge huge huge opportunity we do it but I see that as a big expansion opportunity that could also help with our homeless problem so thank you for all the work that you do thank you member Gold Member salaman thank you Vice shair thank you so much for this presentation I also agree this is one of my favorite of the year just I had a couple of Summer fellows that were high school students that spent
078with me one of them went deep into CTE and I think overwhelmingly some of the stuff I've been hearing from students when I go visit is how many of wish they knew about the opportunities earlier in their past this was before even arriving to nth grade of high school because as they pick their classes as as they plan them out sometimes they miss you know getting on the on certain tracks that require them to do it certain semesters and then it's too late or they get overwhelmed in high school is overwhelming as is and so I'm I'm really excited to hear today that we are looking into going earlier communicating with our students in Middle School just reaching them and building that awareness earlier I agree with member gold that if they can see it
079within other students and what that looks like whether it's the high school students or or folks it just clicks for them in a different way but I think our push into middle school will be huge I'm very supportive of it I'm excited to hear more about it I know that at least in my district there's a very large appetite for students getting more of these skill-based training they're just so entrepreneurial and they just want to be able to make good money even while they're in school and i' I've keep hearing this over and over again but I think that they sometimes get overwhelmed with the opportunities that they have or they just don't hear about it soon enough and I know I think we do a great job of communicating but I think we just
080have to continue pushing and going earlier into Middle School is an exciting way to do about it so I'm very very happy to hear that thank you thank you member Salam monka member bird thank you chair so I will Echo that this is my favorite presentation of the year as well I am so thankful for everything that your leadership that you've brought Rosa thank you for all of your hard work I know how hard you work on all of these programs I have was so excited to see all the CTE staff here tonight I know so many of you and I am so appreciative of the hard work that you put in every day to help our students and I am I'm going to reiterate again what they have said about continuing the Middle School
081reach and publicizing our programs because I even the superintendent and I heard it at one of the town halls in my community a parent saying why don't we have these programs in high schools anymore you know again and so I people still do not know and I you do a great job or your department your employees do a great job of publicizing on your social media some all the terrific things you're doing and I always try to forward them when I can't you know repost them but I would like to see the district post more of those because I think that I follow CTE but I think a lot of parents that are o just ocps parents may not and so they wouldn't see all those great post so I would like to see ocps
082is social media post more of the CTE post that you're doing reposting those also I still want to see something something for our Middle School parents and kids that is black and white these are your pathway choices when you get to high school an academic more academic your IB these are all your options your AP classes these are all your CTE options look at all these cool programs because I will Echo what my Schoolboard members say that's what I hear most from kids is that they just have no idea that some of these options are out there and I don't know how that's getting overlooked I know you're doing a great job of working on that with our with our staff and our schools but as was said once they get into High School sometimes
083it's just too late and they're already and they already get so frustrated in fact today I think this is just going to become more and more important as our universities get harder and harder to get into today FSU released their their class acceptance this year the GPA average GPA was 4.4 GPA acceptance this year you know SAT scores are needed you need upwards of 1,400 now for acceptance University so I think as member Salam Mona said our kids need a way to make a living that's what I hear so much in my community I've got kids that are dropping out of high school because they need to work for their families so this is so vital and so important so I really I really want to just show them in black and white these are
084all your options and even if it's you know paper or electronic I just think we have to do continue to do a better job with that but I was very excited about it and I wanted to really quickly say I appreciate the reputation that our Career and Technical education programs have in the community I hear it all the time in my business chamber meetings in my different advisory councils with different businesses and organizations everyone knows that it is a high class education that students get when they go to your program so I appreciate that and I'm so thankful for it and we are very very lucky in our community thank you thank you thank you member bird member front thank you I'll Echo really what all everybody's saying but could you just repeat one more
085time did you say that every High School will have specific programs yes so we are looking at because we've we've done a some extensive look at the programs we're offering and so we want to make sure that students have choices as come from middle school so that's why we're reaching down to the Middle School my team is out speaking to principles so agriculture architecture construction and or manufacturing because of the cost to Implement some of those programs and so we're going to go with arts and AV information technology or business so they could have all three but they're going to have at least one of them okay and then we'll have engineering health science and hospitality and tourism that is excellent and those will be on on campus on the high school campus that's excellent
086like kudos to you this is exactly what parents are wanting to see it in the schools because many times kids don't necessarily want to leave the school and really give up three periods to go to the get the SE go to the orange Tech and so I think having this is huge so thank you for that I also Echo everything here we really need to make sure that our kids know exactly what is available because I think many including my own kids did not realize the push has been for so long you have to go to a 4-year college and that's your only choice and if you don't want that then you'll just figure something out after school and you're sort of just like okay but kids literally could graduate with a plumbing degre degree
087or electrical degree or whatever that might be and jump right into the workforce making great money and so I think just for kids to know that if that isn't for your degree isn't what you're wanting you can actually go this way and just have that on paper like they're saying something where they can even click on a website and see clearly the pathway do you like this okay go here but I think also having the hands on classes in school where they can try it out and go okay architecture isn't for me but w i really love construction and so they're getting that Hands-On so thank you so much really appreciate each and every one of you thank you for being here and it's been a long meeing so I appreciate you thank thank you
088thank you member Fant member Felder thank you Vice chair first of all I am so very grateful for the work of Rosa and I heard so much about Dr om Brewster before I even met him when I went to the to the center out on oage all the wonderful things that the employee said about Dr U and then he was he came back to the district as our Deputy superintendent when I got elected in November of 2020 the late John Morris God bless his soul 3 days after my election he did a virtual he had a virtual meeting with me and did a tour virtual tour of the Orlando the main campus tech center and I was like is this a hospital he said no this is what your school and I was said my
089school this is what your technical school is going to look like the nursing programs and some of the help and encouragement from Dr Kathy Schuler with Ivy Lane Elementary they the black nurses skill in Orlando they have a little nursing program in Ivy Lane for the fourth and fifth graders and Dr schula invited me to come to that graduation and I was just mesmerized and so I got invited later on the early part of this year to go to orange Tech so I could see the completed nursing program and I shared with them about the Ivy Lane students and they were like okay board member Felder we can arrange a field trip so the kidss in the fourth and fifth grade can come over to Orange Tech and see what they can do as they
090go into the nursing profession you know I'm so excited about what this district is doing with our technical education I it Rivals I can't imagine any other District in the country that Rivals what we do and I think somehow in my earlier time of being on this board I like the second or third largest or something that what we do in the country in terms of how we educate our students in the technical aspect I am so grateful and so so very happy that we are where we are and like so many of my fellow board members have talked about skills you know when you have a skill to do something you can not only have the power to change your ZIP code but you can set your salary cuz this is what you can
091do you need my services and this what you're going to have to pay to get my services and so I I love this I wish there was some kind of way without it being illegal that the board members can have an opportunity to take some classes or something I want to learn cuz I did no well one year year we did allow teachers during the summer to spend two weeks at the technical schools and I learned how to make a garage opener I learned how to do that so I want to learn something something about cars cuz cost too much money to get my car fixed so anyway I want to thank you all for the work the teachers and the support I am so happy about what we are doing in this area and
092I met some troopers from mid Florida and the one here and they are Keepers they are Keepers and I'm so grateful for your dedication to public education and the fact you believe and know that students have the ability to learn and when you have a skill again you can set your price when you have a skill so I'm grateful I'm like you P maybe we could move it into teaching would be something to have a high school student walk in Ivy Lane a walk in EOL a walk in Little River I like the name of that school Little River and talk to the children about this is what I'm doing this is what you can do so thank you all so very much thank you thank you member fer I'm actually queued up next so
093I think my fellow bed our board members have said it all but I want to thank you for this great presentation and for all the hard work that your whole team does and it's so great to see everybody here tonight I got to go on a field trip not too long ago and it was fabulous with with CTE so I appreciate all your hard work I agree with member gold I think teaching I actually said it back in leadership orange the very first class when we got to take a tour of the facility over on oid I said we should be doing teaching because exposure is the key kids need kids don't know what they can be until they're shown what they can be or they want to be till they show what they can
094be and I think and I told Dr Vasquez this I think we should should do fifth grade field trips to our facilities I think I think having the fifth graders starting at fifth grade and taking them to all the possibilities all and letting them tour and get their hands dirty in our CTE facilities will Foster a whole group of new students that would get interested in our programs again you don't know what to be unless you're shown what you can be and so I think that's so important and I think they would get excited and we have so many Learners that learn by touching and engaged and we have so many phenomenal programs that they can be I was I had a meeting this week with with unidos and I was talking to them and
095one of her one of her students her child she was telling me a story about she's in Aeronautics engineering I believe and you know a stage in it just thank you madam adadmin I have a big that are there and we were paid welders and ex expert was other that the community would like us to to have there so I'm very excited about that and I'm excited about just when I've gone and interacted with the different technical colleges that we have and seeing all of the Hands-On activities and the engagement it isn't just for primary grades it is essential to learning to be able to to do work with your hands and create and I appreciate that I know that we're going to have at the Eatonville campus apprenticeships where and I didn't hear much
096about that today but that is a vital way to learn and earn so you go to school two or 3 days a week and then work two or three days a week in what you're learning about and we have those available at all of our campuses and then when member Gallow talked about F fifth grade field trips I used to teach fifth grade and I thought that is a great idea they would love those those going to those actual otc's I used to teach fifth grade and I remember when we took our kids to the 33rd Street jail for a field trip we did we sure did I and I remember the one time that the jail was not aware that my class was coming and I arrived in a little yellow bus with 30
097fifth graders here we are okay so but these would be great opportunities for them instead and then one more thing I don't know if you have or if the district does this but do we track our graduates who have the CTE certificates or different diplomas or areas and those who go on to college or Valencia or orange Tech do we have any kind of data that we're we follow them we have it for our DU that we track to see if they go on or if they go into the workplace back the placement for the dual enrollment student I think that would be if possible I know it's when our students graduate they're no longer obligated to stay in touch with us but it might be worth finding a way to to find out where
098our students are going where they land so that we can talk about how successful are our programs are in getting kids there so but thank you so much for all you do I appreciate it thank you thank you so much Dr Vasquez are we done thank you thank you thank you all right we're going to circle back around thank you so much and thank you all for being here tonight I'm going to circle back to the proclamation so as I mentioned earlier we will be proclaiming January 2024 as National human trafficking prevention month in Orange County Public Schools and I'd like to ask Jan Edward founder of Paving the way to come to the podium and read the proclamation hi hi welcome hi thank you welcome I'm GNA work really hard not to cry so
099thank you I snagged member bird a couple of Fridays ago and gave her a big hug I've been at this for 10 years been knocking on this door for a long time and it's opened and I and the community and the children and my team over there are so very grateful we didn't know where to sit we literally just came from a training so it's empowering to watch a community move in a direction that makes a difference for our kiddos so thank you all right the whole thing I'm going start at the top Orange County Public Schools Proclamation now National human trafficking prevention month January 2024 whereas human trafficking involves the use of force fraud or coercion to obtain some type of Labor or commercial sex act whereas human trafficking is a global problem that
100is affected nearly 30 million people and taken away their safety dignity and Liberty and whereas during the national trafficing human pre prevention month we reaffirm our commitment to ending this inhumane and an immoral practice in all of its forms and whereas we bring perpetrators to Justice we continually pledge to help survivors recover and rebuild their lives and whereas the federal government is working towards combating human trafficking by conducting research to better address its root causes and strengthen survivors access to services including affordable housing and Trauma informed care and whereas human trafficking is a challenge that transcends borders so government agencies have partnered with allies internationally to detect human trafficking connect victims with Supportive Services and strengthen accountability and whereas we all have an important role to play in preventing human trafficking and protecting victims whereas
101together we can combat human trafficking and its cruel consequences by creating a safer Freer and more just world for everyone and continue to ensure that survivors are treated with dignity and respect now therefore the school board of Orange County Florida does hereby Proclaim January 2024 as National human trafficking prevention month in Orange County Public Schools thank you really thank you thank you for being here tonight I have a little token of my appreciation I actually met Jan during a was it a conference it was July it was in July it was in a meeting's commission it was that's right it was a women's Commission on a whole bunch of topics Mary Bridges was there she was on the panel and so was Jan Jan was on the p panel and I was sitting in the
102audience and it was about the time that we were we were talking about the cell phone policy and I was having as most of you I was having a hard time with portions of the cell phone policy really just lunch and I listened to Jan talk and she was actually one that convinced me not only should we ban cell phones from from Bell to Bell but really I don't know that kids need cell phones at all because of what's happening on the cell phone and afterwards there was a little reception and I Mary and Jan and I were talking and that's how all this came to fruition and she told me things that I didn't know and you don't know what you don't know but once you know them you have to do something about
103them and we're going to and so I'm so thrilled to be working with her I'm so thrilled about the things that we're going going to be doing in Orange County together and I can't wait to see the progress that we do and the lives that we save and the children that we save so I'm so and I have let me I'm G to come down I have a little something for you and you got the proclamation I do I have the proclamation you tell me where to go I'm coachable if nothing else I'm coachable little token of my appreciation so yes okay okay all right thank you righty Dr Vasquez do we oh nope we don't want that Dr Vasquez are there any changes to the agenda yeah item 15.11 has been pulled from the
104agenda it was for the purchase of site the land for site 97 in District 2 the seller has proposed some additional changes within the last 24 hours and our staff needs an opportunity to discuss and review we hope to be able to bring it back at the next board meeting thank you Dr Vasquez I find cause to amend the agenda as requested therefore I will entertain a motion to amend the agenda as requested by the superintendent motion to amend motion by Dr Castro Dental second by member front all in favor I any opposed the motion carries unanimously by everybody present all right we're going to move on to in order to provide governmental transparency as as well as reasonable opportunities for the public to access and participate in the decision-making process there are various methods
105by which the public can provide input to the school board on an agenda item those include coming to speak to the school board in person and via email in advance of the meeting these methods are all published on the district's website and in board dos Mrs inil do we have anyone who has come to speak to the school board on an item on today's agenda no Madam chair we do not thank you you also did not receive any public comment via email for the record wonderful thank you seeing that no one has come to speak we're going to move on to public hearing request approval of revised board policy IAM local school Wellness Dr Vasquez thank you for policy IAM the school local wellness policy it was presented to Cabinet on two OCC the first
106one was October 2nd and then again on November 6th we had a work session on October the 3 we made notification to both CTA and OA on the 8th of November we published it on the 12th of November we had our rule development workshop on the 5th of December and now we are bringing it for final approval to the board at today's board meeting is there any discussion by the board members okay then I need a motion to approve iham local school Wellness a motion made by member bird second second second by member Felder all in favor I any opposed let the record show that it was voted in the affirmative by all board members present all right we're going to now look at approving the revised board policy of JJ extracurricular activities Dr Vasquez
107thank you the extracurricular curricular activities policy was first brought to Cabinet on October the 2nd then then we had a work session with the board on October the 3D based on those revisions it was brought back to Cabinet on November the 6th notification to CTA and OA occurred on November the 11th we published on the 12th of November we had rural development workshop on the 5th of December and we are now bringing it to the board for final approval this evening is there any discussion by the board seeing no discussion I would like to entertain a motion to approve go back board policy JJ extracurricular activities I have a motion from Member gold and a second from Member Frant all in favor any opposed let the record reflect that we voted in the affirmative with
108all board members present and finally our last board policy approval for jfab BB foreign actually that's not true we have one after this jfab BB foreign exchange students Dr Vasquez the policy on foreign exchange students was first brought to cabinet on the 2nd of October work session on the 3r of October revisions were then presented at the November 6th cabinet meeting notification to CTA and OA occurred on the 8th of November we published on the 12th of November we had the rule development workshop on the 5th of December and now we've brought it to the board for final approval at tonight's board meeting is there any discussion by the board members seeing none I'll entertain a motion member front placed a motion I need a second second second by member Salamanca all in favor hi
109any opposed motion carries in the affirmative with all board members present now for our final board policy of the evening request approval of revised board policy JF ABC international student admission Dr Vasquez policy jfab BC was first brought to cabinet on the 2 of October the work session occurred on the 3rd of October based on those revisions was brought back to cabinet on the 6th of November we published notification on the 8th of November and then rural development was on the 5th of December and we are bringing it to the board for final approval at tonight's board meeting thank you Dr Vasquez is there any discussion I will entertain a motion to approve policy jfbc to approve we have a motion to approve by member casor Dental a second we have a second by member
110bird all in favor any opposed motion carries with all board members present in the affirmative thank you very much now we're going to move on to the consent agenda and there were no speakers for the consent agenda Mrs invol thank you I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented by the superintendent Karen C dental moves to approve member front seconds it all in favor say I any opposed motion carries in the affirmative by all board members present all right now we are going to move on to non agenda public comment period this is part of our new pilot program this is the non-agenda agenda public comment period in which we invite the public to provide comment to the school board on items not on the agenda this time is reserved to
111hear about items that are relevant to the work of the school board for those members who have chosen to attend in person to address the school board during the non-agenda public comment period they were directed to fill out a blue speaker request card located in the lobby outside the school board Chambers and turn it in to school board Services representative by 5:15 p.m. we have allocated up to 45 minutes for the non-agenda public comment period so it is possible that not all speakers will have an opportunity to speak Mrs invol do we have any speakers that wish to address the board yes Madam chair you have 12 speaker request cards so under your pilot program this means that each speaker will be given up to two minutes to speak wonderful you said two minutes yep
112okay to our video service I am Michael again on the M for Bo high school over the custodia services I've work for Bo high school for 16 years we here to serve and get the job done we also have fun while we doing the job I love my family here it's my second family outside of my own very good positive attitudes good love good sportsmanship so it's a good place to be from top to bottom the ladies come in while the guys taking the front of Y they do the dusting when they finish the guys go back and we start scrubbing the room getting the room ready for the fun to be returned back inside treat people with respect if you want respect you got to give respect to all so after this we going
113to the gym to start scrubbing and waxing the gym it's a good feeling to know that we know we taking care of the kids and the teachers and the parents our principles and our AP so it's important to me to make sure they look good as well for the community my dad had been in for so long and I asked about the position and he told me to apply and I did and got a call and I've been ever since I want to make sure I make I make him PR like he on retired me so today we surprised the teachers and staff at o high school with what we're calling back to school dream boxes 3 2 1 we partnered with a souls for souls and a gift for teaching and we selected five
114local Orlando high schools to benefit from the dream box it's important for our teachers with st to feel appreciated and I think today went above and beyond that expectation or that goal thank you teachers thank you so much at the coach Foundation we have a mission called dream it real that is around creating opportunities and removing barriers for the next generation of young people who have the courage to dream it real and we know that the next generation's dreams wouldn't be possible without the support that they get from their Educators it is not a secret that sometimes teachers and educators are a little undervalued so feeling like the community is realizing that we are important so it is fantastic to see that they're actually going out there and they're doing their best so they we
115can feel appreciated and have reasons to keep going and keep doing what we do we hope this brightens your day a little bit and gets you off to an amazing school year so thank you for everything you do these young people could never achieve their dreams if it wasn't for you Riverdale Elementary School welcome home 10 months ago this all happened can you believe it 10 months ago and those months were everything wrapped up into one okay they were hard they were amazing good morning welcome they were Bountiful as far as what It produced in our students and teachers so nice to see everybody it helped us create new friends that we didn't have before all these things wrapped up into one thing and what it reminds me everybody here that when bad things happen
116and they always happen good people come together we make it work and then good things happen 3 2 yeah we back home look how beautiful it looks so awesome I can't wait until these students and these parents walk through those doors and just so they enjoy what I did or what we just saw and I it's going to bring so much joy to my heart today was just it was something we're looking forward to too you know something we're anticipating wanting for so long you home I know and we knew this day was going to come okay so that's kind of kept us hopeful and when things got were a little testy here and there and people you know and it just rough we said this timeing we'll we're we're moving home don't worry when
117you can stand back and watch the smiles on their faces as they're carrying their boxes in and unpacking their boxes I just walked over to couple classrooms and the teachers are so grateful and so thankful that's why we do what we do that's why we work for the district I mean to make sure that the students can be in their seats the first day of school and be happy and safe in a clean environment it's really nothing more important than that to us in facilities this is the biggest small District in the nation and when I say that and I say it a lot to people who we're talking is that it's all made up yeah there's a lot of us but but it's all made up of people who know each other and have
118worked together in different capacities over the years and so when something like this happens you know everybody has an educator heart they just want to help they just want to reach out and make sure you're okay and that's what people did hi my name is Pamela Johnson I've been a school bus driver with Orange County Public School almost 30 years we're going to check the bus we check in all the seat belts and everything make for sure they're correct cor me what is your main objective every day here safety makeing sure I get the kids to and from school safe because the parents put them in my hands I'm their mom now dash gauges I check lighting indicators I check fuel gauge windshield wipers heater steering two-way radio hor Works radio is on tablets is
119on okay we're going to start driving we're leaving the compound my day starts at normally between 4: 4:30 in the morning and it ends like 6:30 in the evening I have a break in between that normally starts about 10: to 1:00 my morning run consist of all ESC kids all my stops are door too normally through the school year I'll have like 20 23 slots good morning Delle Delle good morning good morning Miss P you want to say good morning say good morning good morning good morning say Che who's that it's Sam and is she your favorite favorite you never know what the kid has been through that night before so just kindness and caring sometimes a child that's having a bad day you make them have a good day just knowing that you care
120I tell some of my kids or I tell all my kids have a good day but this our future these are the ones that's going to be running things so you just never know so you should never put a child down or anyone down bye sweetie see y'all later have a good day March is arts and our schools month in Orange County but in some ways every month means arts in our schools in Orange County so arts in our schools month is a way to celebrate all the amazing Arts education opportunities that happen throughout our district every day to over 145,000 students the district has reputation for delivering Quality Art and students in the Arts as part of that a lake view middle school or just won the district's art and the capital project meaning
121her artwork is now on display at the state capital but for her the real beauty is what her art has given her art like helps helps me also in real life too like in classes to be more patient and to keep going not to like give up on something like the process to keep moving forward on any given day in the district there are multiple artistic events from theater shows to Gallery exhibits all accessible for you to see through the district's Visual and Performing Arts calendar part of the reason the district has such an emphasis on Arts is that for students artistic expression can be well peaceful it comforts me like it's it makes me more calm it's like a stress relieving and yeah I feel like I personally I just really like art the
122other perk is that in Central Florida the Arts can also mean a job so we know that Arts education in the schools provide students with the opportunity to be competitive in a very robust Arts entertainment industry that's right here in Central Florida and across the country so while we're wrapping up March the official designation of Arts in our schools the real recognition happens every day all year long in classrooms across the district I mean it's amazing what our kids do and that's because they have incredible teachers that guide them through that process of learning about Arts education it's also because we start them in kindergarten so our students are excelling because they have the Arts education all all the way from kindergarten all the way until they graduate available to them and that's why our
123kids do such an incredible job here in Central Florida and Beyond this is the stem spark event at the Rosen Plaza where 130 students from Edgewater Evans and Dr Phillips got to see where a stem career can lead we are here to inspire and excite students about stem careers give them an opportunity to engage and interact with local Professionals in the stem area and students got to meet a who's who of bigname companies all putting stem degrees to use Disney Engineers first robotics EA Sports and others all here to inspire the Next Generation meeting new people and getting firsthand opinions and experience from people who actually work in the field has been helpful and give me advice on what exactly it would look like what I would be doing if I were to get into
124this field but this is more than just coding or engineering there is a bigger lesson being taught to come here and see Disney employees who are females or who are minorities and again they're the ones presenting and they belong in the room they're able to hear their journey and for Edgewater freshman Venus Mahia that is a different kind of spark for me it means there's more hope for other women and let alone minorities like me I'm Hispanic I've heard there's some numbers out there there's very few of us out there to give hope to another Hispanic or black woman as I would be very lovely the clothes you wear can make a difference in your mood that smile says it all right there I like whether it's your everyday style or that perfect prom dress
125everyone deserves to feel that confidence and that's exactly what the team at The Mao Outlets are doing it's what it's all about you know giving kids that confidence and you know making them feel good about who they are giving ocps students and staff a place to get clothes and other essential items so the Mao Outlet is an oncampus shop where students can borrow buy or trade or volunteer their time in exchange for items in the store the sustainable idea was created by a student and came to life last spring the outlet at the colonial High School location was so successful that they've already opened another one at Glenridge Middle School you know this is a way for all students to support the their peers and support their school and sustain something on their own students
126quickly see the positive impact and want to pay it forward by volunteering I've gotten both my Junior and senior PR dress here it was amazing cuz it made me feel really really pretty I've never really been confident about myself at all I would like to be able to to help other people and other girls be able to feel what I feel in their PR dresses local businesses are also jumping on board to help we have one donation bin at our central location we're trying to get another one for our aoy location so at the end of the day everyone is coming together by enjoy to make people feel confident how do you feel one piece of clothing at a time it's just awesome to like feel something that sometimes maybe you don't feel a lot
127and just to have other people make you feel that way is it has no price Taylor mcgaan is a school-based social worker that's her title but her job her passion is offering students a place to be safe it's okay there's always next week too and to be heard you're welcome and the week after that my office serves as a cool down spot and it's also a place for kids to get direct services so if they need counseling or they have some sort of Crisis or they're just needing a checkin my room is this place to go Macwan is at Waka High School 5 days a week offering counseling listening teaching students the tools to cope or overcome the hurdles in their lives students can ask for a past to come and see her just like
128they would the school nurse mental health is Paramount and these kids are struggling I mean I think in general humans all of us are struggling but there is a need to have a mental health professional in every school because we have a lens that your typical School employee does not have it can take a lot of work to get teenagers to open up and in many cases McGowan may be one of the few adults who is listening I feel like and I remind myself that I am a constant and consistent adult for these kids that they may not have at home an adult figure that they can count on and rely on to listen to them unfortunately sometimes these kids don't get that anywhere else but school it takes a special kind of person to
129to do this job one who is always there who is respectful and relatable and when they look back I want them to remember like okay Miss McAllan is always in my corner she was always there helping me get through the day so that's what I remind myself because at the end of the day these kids are going to be adults and when they look back at their High School experience I want it to be a positive one and Macwan says she gives them the tools they need to cope to care to make it not only through high school but through life I can give them the tools to succeed and I can believe in them every step of the way and just allow them to believe that change is possible and that they can be
130that change at tville elementary school in Winter Garden the road to an education is paved in chocolate so much sh we did our fora Turnpike for we were making chocolate roads and stuff how sweet is that to help celebrate and raise awareness about stim related careers Florida's Turnpike Engineers taught fifth graders how to build roads using chocolate as oh my God so we made a chocolate Road and we found out that there are a bunch of other Engineers that help around and built the roads of the turnpike oats sugar and walnuts represented the Aggregates while chocolate stood in as the tar and asphalt the idea is to give students a better understanding of the real life ingredients needed to build Florida's roads both in materials and in people just the introduce them and let them
131know how how what is used for the roads that we use in order to maintain the construction and just give them the knowledge of them may be wanting to do that in the future students also learned about self-driving cars and what it will take to drive that technology into the future honestly I just love the chocolate but the coolest thing I learned is the self driving automated cars especially the one that Google made like 10 years ago cuz it says it's been 10 years I sure we could make a better one the idea is to not only teach kids about how roads are built but perhaps to inspire them to become an engineer but who knows where that road will lead did that kind of open your eyes to maybe wanting to be an engineer
132one day if my WNBA plan does not work third graders at Pinewood Elementary are learning about Black History Month but they're doing it in a different way it made me learn a lot of stuff when I was reading books I didn't know some words but I read it over and over again until I got it the class is working on Black History Month PowerPoints where each student chooses a significant figure from history and researches them for what they call a living Wax Museum and I will be giving you guys a presentation on Dr Martin Luther King Jr so the kids are having a fantastic time making presentations I'm learning about their special person that they had Chosen and then discussing who they chose with other people as well so that we're all collectively learning about
133a whole lot of very important historical black figures students are also celebrating the culture and customs and even dressing the part everybody is wearing a dashiki because we are proud to represent our ancestors we're proud to wear clothes that represents royalty it makes me remember my ancestors it feels like Freedom when I read these but this is about more than just learning it's about being inspired so I can gain the same reputation that Martin Luther King has in this world those are big shoes to fill but these third graders seem ready to take the steps to get there offer Grace when people doesn't deserve it be kind work hard and perhaps that's the biggest lesson here it's not just about history it's also about the future I need them to know that we are standing
134on the shoulder of Giants and what we do going forward is all attributed to the people who came before us so if we hold their values dear to us we can use that to push ourselves and the Next Generation forward Tina bullet has been a school counselor at Cypress Creek High School for 15 years and in that time she's likely helped more than 6,000 students we our students hope and Inspire them to reach their goals by teaching them the skills that they need and giving them the resources necessary to be successful at Cypress Creek school counselors work with students grades 9 through 12 that's 3500 students and with eight counsellors each will help more than 400 students a year so a typical day would involve parent Walkins parent teacher conferences student meetings classroom guidance presentations
135group advice M counseling on College admissions working with students when they have a mental health crisis right now bullet is involved in scheduling when teachers bring their classes in and counselors meet with each student one-on-one we're looking at the courses that they're selecting for the next school year looking at their progress towards graduation and making sure that the classes they're selecting matches their post-secondary plans and some students need much more many of our kids are homeless unaccompanied they experience home violence pregnancy even deportation for us it's important to reach all students so that they have this skills and the resources to reach their goals the school counselor's work it seems is never done and thousands of students later Tina bullet is delighted to have played a role in shaping their future so you're doing a
136lot better this year it's a great when you love your job it's it doesn't seem difficult and then at the end of the day you've know you know you've made a big difference at gotha Middle School it's cool to be kind thank you we are all accepting that we are practicing kindness every day that we are being respectful every day and that we are you know purposefully making decisions based on kindness instead of just going throughout our day the school is going all in when it comes to celebrating random acts of kindness week students are crafting chalk messages of encouragement others leaving kindness notes some even decorating lunch bags showing kindness Can it can really help people if maybe they're struggling maybe something's going on in their lives just showing a little bit of kindness
137can really make them you know feel confident feel good good about themselves for the school it makes sense their motto is be safe be kind it's a great day to be a Grizzly but teachers wanted students to really live that idea our campus and school is really grounded in kindness we do a lot here to try to spread kindness and build a community of love and support So this fits in so well with the goth of culture for the school this is becoming much more than a day or a week to celebrate it's turning into something bigger because kindness spreads try try to make a difference try cuz it really helps helps you feel better that you're helping someone else and it greatly impacts them too it's not every day that a bus load of
138students and teachers from France show up at your school it's a great experience for our student to be here and to maintain the relationship between America and France since George Washington and Lafayette and we are very happy to be here as part of an American French academic and cultural partnership with a high school in Leon France Boon high school students welcomed their pin pal hello 36 students who have spent the last 3 months communicating with them through email or Whatsapp all in each other's native languages but it culminated in a real life meet and greet everything is crazy it's bigger everything the French students were also amazed at the specialty programs that students at Boon High School could take something I've really noticed is how there are special classes which have more practical application so
139like we saw journalism people who were writing things so I found that really interesting and for students at Boon the key takeaway was in realizing that despite navigating each other's language they weren't all that different just watching everyone walk in it was kind of hard to differentiate you know who's French who's American and I think that speaks to the diversity both of America and of France but also just how similar everyone is and for Boon French teacher Dr sfia Mami that's the key lesson it's not just about teaching a language but in truly understanding each other I teach French I teach the French grammar but honestly I teach them to be tolerant accepting to other cultures by I love America and the home of the second annual school spirit run powered by Delta Dental is
140officially in the books with nearly 2,000 participants there was no shortage of spirit as students teachers staff family members friends and even mascots made their way around SeaWorld Orlando to support their schools for one ocps family it was much more than just a race come on Bridget you can do it when she cross that Finish Line it was wow you just did a race good job girl with your school you're a kindergartener way to go oh my goodness girl you did it an early Milestone the SAS worried wouldn't come Bridget didn't learn to walk until 2 weeks after she turned 3 years old she was born with PR willly syndrome and part of that is low tone and so she struggles with gross motor F motor speech all of that Bridget was determined to run
141the kids race With a Little Help from her PE coach she went walked right up to him and just said you know coach a will you run the race with me so I was actually very honored to be able to run the race with Bridget it actually felt special they came and you know she asked me as we're about to get ready to the race she looked looks at me she looks up at me she goes go just throws my hand out of the way she goes I got this you know big smile as she crossed the finish line and knowing that she did it the foundation for ocps decided to make that smile shine a little brighter ready on behalf of the foundation I wanted to give you this very special glow-in-the-dark metal right
142can I put it on you and this is for finishing the kids school spirit run I love that ocps can you know be there for these kids who have some extra needs some special needs that they can make sure that they all get to experience that inclusiveness that they are not pushed aside and that they get to share the same experiences as all of their peers an unforgettable experience for a strong kindergartener who is ready to Take On The World we say my name is Bridget and I can do anything I beat with the anything I am just glad to be part of it you know being able to help as as much as I can for her to like succeed we're so grateful for you know this run and for the foundation for giving
143us those opportunities in Orange County if you want to focus on a career in cooking or perhaps medicine or business well then there's a program for you magnet programs are designed to promote or investigate talents and interests of our students here in the district there are 46 magnet programs that exist inside Orange County schools and three Standalone magnet schools totaling more than 7,000 students the idea is to entice them by focusing on what they're most interested in doing the goal for any magnet schooler program is to provide something special for students in our district it's a wonderful to address the board and speak to us about your concerns we're now going to move on to non-consent item 18.01 request approval of the replication of application for Olympus Academy Charter School Orlando Dr Vasquez thank you
144the board has previously heard from staff from the Olympus Academy Charter School I'm going to turn it over to Mr Moody our executive leader over school choice to share information with the board thank you good evening Madame Vice chair board member superintendent I bring to you for consideration this evening 18.01 request to approve CH a charter school application for Olympus Academy Charter School Orlando Olympus Academy Charter School Orlando is requesting sponsorship for up to 52 students in grades K through 8 the application was submitted on September 22nd 2023 the ocps charter application evaluation process consisted of a thorough review of the application a capacity interview with the board of directors for the proposed charter school held on October 19th and appreci and a presentation by the same board of directors to the ocps school board
145members in a work session held on November 14th 20123 the review of the charter school application consists of Administrators and District staff with experience reviewing Charter School applications as well as expertise in specific areas such as bilingual and exceptional education budget curriculum guidance assessment and accountability reviews were conducted utilizing the Florida Department of Education model Charter School application evaluation instrument based on the complete review process there is sufficient reason to believe that Olympus Academy Charter School Orlando successfully met the requirements of the charter application process outlined in Florida statute 1 100233 the statutes purpose and required application components necessary necessary to properly admin administrator and operate a charter school have been adequately addressed we therefore recommend to you to consider this evening approval of the Charter School application this evening we have Mr Gus pratz
146from Olympus Academy and my Charter School staff here to answer any further questions you might have Madam chair thank you thank you Mrs inal do we have anybody who wishes to speak before the board no we do not thank you member Castor Dental you are recognized thank you madam chair I just want to state that I support moving forward with this Charter School your department did a great job looking into the all the different facets of the application even toward the school that they're replicating and when you brought the different administrative team and teachers forward to share with us everyone on this board gave them so many direct questions and they answered every single one of them the way I would want them to answer a the way a parent would want them to answer
147and I was so pleased to see that it was a an educator run school it did not raise any flags as a as some kind of large corporate charter coming in trying to cut costs and compete necessarily with this public school I think that if anything we could see some of the things that they're doing and maybe that can help give us some ideas of things to take off of our teachers plates so I fully support this charter school that says a lot coming from me thank you thank you member Dr Castor Dental member front I was going to say the same thing it was absolutely exceptional presentation that you came and brought to us and so just thank you to the Future principal I really it is I'm excited I want to come and
148see it when you guys get it open and running and I agree with a member Castor Dental I think we're going to be able to see a lot of things that you're doing and take some get some takeaways from that to see how we can Implement those in our schools really to help our teachers get that workload off and get them back to just getting back to the basics of education so thank you so much and thank you to our school choice team you guys are phenomenal thank you thank you member Fant I'd also like to say thank you to the school choice team they do an excellent job I don't think I've talked to anybody in the school choice area specifically like charter schools that just don't sing our praises and what a good
149job that we do so thank you for that like I I appreciate all the hard work and I know that our charter schools are better off for it for for the work that you put into them and I know that when you come to us and you recommend a school opening is because that school deserves to be open and thank you to the principal or the future principal that's here tonight because he did answer all our questions and they were fabulous and he had some brilliant ideas and I'm excited to see what they do and the students that they teach so is there anyone else who wishes to speak member Felder yes I too was very very pleased with the presentation from the charter school and UHS I had some questions and I of course
150I had have some clarification that it went on to 8th grade but I'm I believe that some of the things that they're doing the Innovations we perhaps can emulate some of that into some of our schools here but I do thank you for the very well put together presentation the verbal present presentation and then a printed presentation looked at the book so wow so thank you all so very much and I along with board members CAD DL and fad I do give my approval of this chart of school thank you thank you member Felder member Salam Mona yes thank you to your team Greg amazing job and it was great to hear from the school themselves that they had a really experience with our district so it's it's always great to hear that and I'm
151I'm I'm excited it's in my district it's in District to you know where the dreams come true so we're excited to I'm excited to have you I'm excited to come visit and yeah I you know I look forward to to getting that invite so I can come and spend some time and I'm just everything that we talked about I appreciate as member cast Nel said it's clear that this is a school by Educators with a lot of love for their students and a lot for education and that shines through so we're lucky to have you and welcome to to the ocps family as well thank you member Salam monka I will entertain a motion h yes to approve the charter yes thank you member Salamanca second member France second of the motion all in favor
152I any opposed let the record reflect that the motion carries in the affirmative with all board members present congratulations and welcome to Orange County Florida we're happy to have you all right we're going to move on now to Dr Vasquez we'll hear from you next thank you I do have a few announcements this evening as part of my update and so first I want to congratulate our own Dr Bridget Williams who is going to be presented The Fanny Lou Hamner award on behalf of the conference of national black churches the chairman Dr Franklin Richardson and the CNBC board of directors will be awarding the this to her at their annual leadership dinner tomorrow evening at 7 so we're so very proud and know how deserving she is of this award next I'd like to give
153an update on our school safety screening pilot the district has purchased school safety screening devices they are a walkth through weapon detection system that's called open gate and they will be used at select high schools the pilot will be implemented in phases so that our high school staff and our students have the support needed to adjust to this new school safety process as many of you may know we have always looked at how we can make our schools a safer place the board has had several conversations regarding screening devices this pilot will allow us to collect data observe the process process and then make decisions about any future implementation the seven high schools that were selected were randomly selected and they are Boon High School Timber Creek High School W Kiva High School Lake Nona
154High School Evans High School Horizon High School and Jones High School we will be providing training to the administrators we have our District staff has visited other districts that have implemented this process we have also communicated to our families that will be impacted and we will continue to communicate as we proceed with this pilot and as I mentioned it will be implemented in phases next I want to just highlight one of the items that were approved this evening on our consent agenda the board has always spoken about sustainability clean energy and how we can do more to promote that and so this evening you approved the Duke clean energy program and this program we will be able to participate in large scale solar energy installations with our utility provider in exchange for future energy credits
155on our utility bills so we're very excited about that parents should have received an employees a survey last week we are on our cell phone policy we will also be issuing surveys to our students we will collect and gather that data and then in January come back to the board sharing that information and then we will have discussions about any changes to our cell phone policy I have we released the November board updates today they were a little late there's really some very important information in there that I need the board to make sure that you review and if you have any questions please make sure to reach out to me next week we will have a very important work session dealing with the sunsetting of Sr funding this has been an incredible resource to
156not only Orange County Public Schools but to other school districts across the country many of the supports and resources that have been helpful in helping us transition back from the pandemic were funded through these dollars at this work session the board will hear about what what we are sunsetting Based on data or replication of resources but more importantly we will begin to have a discussion about those items they're totaling about $27 million 28 million of supports that we believe are critical but we do not have the dollars to sustain and so it will be the initial conversations the board will have they may choose to Sunset all of that all of that all of those programs and supports they may choose to ask us to go back and see if we can find funding I
157do want to make clear that unless there are additional dollars from the state any funding of those supports will come at the expense of cuts to other resources and supports it's going to be a difficult conversation but I want I feel imperative that our public is aware that we're transparent because this will touch every every school that we have in our in our district and finally I am just thrilled that school grades were released yesterday and I am just incredibly thankful to the work of our teachers our principes our support staff both at the school level and at the district level we are celebrating not a single School rated a letter grade of f yes and we only have one school Traditional School with a letter grade of D we are appealing they're very close
158but to go through what we've gone through the struggles both with shortages of Staff both teachers administrators support staff still trying to catch up with the loss learning that our students have experienced and to and a new assessment to be able to say with great pride that we did an amazing job I am so proud and thankful and next year we are going to do even better so I just wanted to end on that note thank you so much to our incredible employees that work each and every day to provide that quality education for our students in each and every classroom thank you Dr Vasquez and I'd also like to thank you and your and your staff for the grades it's a testament to the dedication of your staff and also the programming and how
159well the district spent the dollars the eser dollars which we're going to have to discuss because without that extra dollars without the implementation in programming that worked that helped our kids focusing on student learning our scores could look so much different so thank you thank you to to everybody here tonight we appreciate it member Felder thank you so much when I got the news yeserday yesterday and then I talked with Dr Vasquez and then Dr Bon called me and to confirm what I already heard and the first thing came to my mind was hard work no no okay I won't saying but listen I'm so grateful for the members of District 5 and I'm I'm going to share this when I first came on the board I got voted in on on Tuesday in November
1602020 and Wednesday I got a phone call in my office about a disr disgruntled teacher from a school in my district and what they said to me was that you know all of your schools have fs and I don't even know why you what do you think you're going to do what kind of change think you going to make just very very disgruntled and I talked to him and I said well why don't you help us out and perhaps tutor you know at one of the schools in help I don't have time for that I but I'm just you know very very just disgruntled and from that day on in on the from 2020 from that Wednesday I got that phone call and emails I started praying and I know you know I said God
161is this too hard for District 5 to not ever have have any D's any FS and not only District 5 none of the districts you know all of us did well and so I am so very grateful for the people that worked in stto I know I'm getting trouble calling names but Dr Bon Dr ches wendam because I mean constantly and it wouldn't have been this good without your leadership Dr Vasquez you did the right thing and who you chose in terms of your cabinet and then the cabinet members those persons you chose to be principles all of the principles in District 5 I'm so grateful so thankful there were schools that went from an F to a b one one of my schools hadn't gotten a since 2009 listen this is 2023 I'm so
162grateful for this board this district and all of us all of our schools have been working very very hard but I am so grateful for for District 5 because it's truly the district where the talent resides I'm so happy for all of us and it make it does us well I think we're all women on this board and there's a kind of motherly sort of kind of nurturing spirit we have mothers always see the best in every situation and it was a struggle but God has been good to us and I'm I'm so grateful I'm thankful for the work that this District is doing and has done that's why this next meeting we have is going to be difficult for us but I've already start praying yes so thank you all I thank you all
163for for all of your hard work and thank you Dr Vasquez for getting a cabinet and group of people people that cared about the district and cared about the children let me tell you something I'm so happy I am happy happy happy happy thank you thank you m Felder and I think it's worth noting that this was with a new test and they moved the goal post once again so the scores that you had to get to were higher so this is just a true Testament to our teachers to the hard work to everybody and it's just it's great news Mrs inval do you have a report wonderful mad Madam chair yes just briefly just wanted to point out for the board just so you are aware you know we are in the Florida Schoolboard
164attorneys Association and Miss envol will not want to toot her own horn so I'm going to toot it for her she was named the vice president at our meeting in November so I wanted to congratulate her and it is a credit to Orange County that both the vice president and president position of that organization are held by lawyers on our staff I don't know how this guy got it but I'm the president of the Florida schol Board attorneys Association so I wanted to point out for the record that both the presidency and vice presidency of that organization resides with Orange County it's a credit to this board and the superintendent and the leadership here thank you Mr pomerini for sharing that news with us that's fabulous yes we know that they're in good hands so
165I'd like to take a moment of personal privilege before I call on the other Schoolboard members to talk about policy suggestions I would like to congratulate Dr Vasquez who received the Hispanic chamber of Metro Orlando and prospera's Don kote Excellence award at abcot on Saturday night yes yes yes the award recognizes Hispanic individuals who have demonstrated leadership or made significant contributions to a cause or their Community or a field of work Dr Vasquez was selected for leading the school district as our superintendent and in her other leadership roles throughout her 35-year ocps career as the deputy superintendent Dr Vasquez and her team led ocps as it shifted to distance learning in 2019 and spearheaded the district's August 2020 re-entry plan which ensured our students and staff return to school campuses safely during the covid-19 pandemic
166she is passionate about equity and exess for all ocps students and has dedicated three decades of her professional career to create to creating learning environments where all children feel safe supported and successful Dr Vasquez thank you for all that you do for ocps and congratulations again on your well-deserved award now all right Dr castra Dental you're up all right thank you madam chair so I was thinking about the information that was shared with us with the budget department and the things that we're going to have to look at moving forward without the Sr funding and some of those things that we desperately need and those things are like social workers that we've added to our schools Mental Health Counselors that we've added assistant principles at schools that didn't have them and it's I was thinking
167you know it's not just that we have to make some adjustments here but I started to wonder why so much of our money has to go to so many things that are outside the realm of our mission of course we want to support students but if our goal or or our mission is to educate we should be able to allocate those our dollars to classroom and curriculum and teachers and I think that's that's part of the situation that we're in with our low teacher pay and our we just have so many needs that are not being met outside of our schools and the schools are now responsible for everything else so I'm wondering if there are ways that now that we don't have the federal dollars if there are other resources in the community that
168can help step up to provide those resources cuz it's going to be really we're going to hurt when we have to pull social workers back ones that are working on our attendance issues who are communicating with the families and helping them get their needs met it's just we don't get enough funding from the state to take care of all the needs of our families and that's what we're we're having to do because we're the ones who have to take well our students are the ones who have to take tests and be accountable so I'd like to when we have that conversation about what and where we allocate fewer dollars if we could look at other partners outside of our school district to help meet those needs and going to some of our big corporate partners
169and asking them to give big we can't do it all and even if we were to maintain the same level of funding that we have been getting we still can't do it all we're we're still bleeding teachers and I think we can't just rely on the state they've already put out a budget with only I think 2% increase which we're falling behind again so if anyone has other ideas I know we are fortunate to live in a big County with a lot of generous corporations Partners I think we ask them to to Really dig in dig in their pockets and help us we're it's a crisis level and the state again is not helping us and then I have one more comment and that's about the school visits I'm glad to hear that did you
170already go on one as well today today so I joined Clinton on some school visits last week and it really helps because when you're sitting on the Dias up here making broad policy that applies to 200 how many 10 schools how many do we have 210 and then plus some more it's hard to think down to the classroom level the teacher level about our policies and how we how they affect them and I know that we on the on the board say we support our teachers Let's Help let's let's work on on reducing the workload but my visits again kind of reinforced that it there's more than just the workload that's an issue there's at some of the schools there's still some culture issues relationship issues and one that I always recognize but others don't
171and that's the our test based accountability issue which kind of drives so much of the other things that we see for instance I've have heard from teachers who are so concerned about having to all be on the same lesson at the same time and I understand the this the scope and sequence and how we want kids moving along we don't want them to wait too long and take too long to learn a concept and that's that's all driven by our progress monitoring and these other testing dates and we're always so Bound by these tests still and I know we're celebrating that there weren't we didn't have any FS but I don't celebrate the school grades they change the goalposts every year they make cut scores according to what they want there is no I wish
172we could go back in time and allow our teachers more autonomy even if they're planning with their fellow teachers in a PLC I don't think we need to expect teachers to all be on the same page the same lesson we've got to give them some Grace some freedom to make mistakes some freedom to experiment and create a community in their classrooms and I think some of that test based accountability and that whole infrastructure is we're seeing a negative effects on that so if there's a way that we can see what other school districts are doing to get out from under some of this I think it's worth looking at if there are certain schools with principles who are able to not have this apparatus of just testing and the calendar and the race for Progress
173monitoring if there are ways that we can get out from under it I say we share those best practices and I think then you'll see some reduction in teacher stress again I'm open to coming to more schools talking to more teachers veteran teachers new teachers High School teachers elementary teachers I am here to help while I'm here so thank you thank you I actually toured today with Clinton and we went to two schools and it was it was it was it was good visit we had great visits had great visits I learned a lot I feel like I like I love it for two for two reasons number one it shows Unity that we're collaborating we're listening we're trying to work we're working with the union and we're trying to listen to teachers and I
174felt personally that when I was in a room and I was talking with the teachers I felt that the teachers were able to be more honest with me than maybe if it was just me because Clinton was there and they knew that Clinton has their back so I think that they felt more free to kind of just really be brutally honest with me and I appreciate that because I say this all the time when I meet teachers are going into schools and I love visiting my schools I can't fix what I don't know I can't understand what I don't know so if I don't know it's happening in the school I can't fix it and that's you know had someone come and say I need ban uniforms and our ban blah blah and I'm like
175well I if you don't tell me I don't know I'm let me see what I can do I'll help I'm always happy to help but I just you have to let me know so anyways we had two great visits and I'll happily go on more CU I really enjoy being in my schools I did want to bring up I know that and I've talked to Dr Vasquez about this in relation to the books that have been removed from classroom libraries that are going to be reviewed to possibly be removed from our media centers depending on the content there's there's the lists that have been right now currently removed moved from classroom libraries is like 672 books it's a lot of books and we're going through the process I want to point out that our District
176staff is working tremendously hard this has been a huge burden on on them and our media specialist and they're doing a phenomenal job they're doing the best that they can to try to adhere to a law that is out there and I appreciate them so much what the conversation I had with Dr Vasquez and I did talk to Miss Kibby as well is that we just have to be transparent if a book's not challenged but we're removing it from a classroom library and possibly putting it through the process of reviewing it again to see if we're going to remove it from a media center we have to put it on our website it has to be listed we have to be transparent we have to let our parents and our community know what's happening in
177our schools and I think that if you asked a parent in Orange County right now and said you know we look we removed 672 different books from our classroom libraries I would I think they'd be shocked I know I was shocked when when I when I saw that list and I and we're working the point of this we are working to get it on the website so that we can be transparent because that's that's important we can't we can't fix what we don't know but that's not real really I'm trying to say we need to be transparent because as a community as parents I'm not so certain that y that those who don't know would be very happy with what's going on and you don't know that it's happening so it's just very important that
178our community is aware of what's happening and if they're displeased with what is happening that they have those conversations with their legislators legislators and the lawmakers who are making these decisions on behalf of public schools so I just wanted to point that out there and before I forget in case I don't have the opportunity to speak again I just wanted to say Merry Christmas Happy Holidays happy Hanukkah for all of you it's we have enjoyed this school year all of us that sit up here on the Das we're thankful for all of you and we hope that you have a wonderful peaceful restful prosperous holiday season in New Year and with that I'm going to call on member gold thank you we have a Happy Spirit of the Season I'll CER we have a tremendous
179staff we have a superintendent who has come in and been very thoughtful about reorganizing and I think while it has been bumpy because all reorganizations are I don't know one that isn't and if it's not bumpy you're not doing it right but we're seeing results of that how however we're we're building the same widget in the same box we are not aligned to making our kids successful in the market we are aligned to having them pass fail a test and pushing to Scholastic Success and I'm not downplaying Scholastic Success at all but it's not the end goal the end goal is a fulfill and prosperous life that people can Thrive within which means they have to figure out who they are and then prove how they do it any way that we can work within
180the boundaries of the school system and prepare kids with a portfolio for life and build it more unex integrated experiential learning not a class not a single thing not just a CTE certification but truly blending those core things I think it would make it more fun for the teachers to teach it would make it a more collaborative environment it would make it much more fun for the students and be relevant and engaging but that takes all of us working together and thinking outside the box and not just how we did it yesterday and how we're doing it tomorrow and I mean all of us that means the CTE I mean the CTA it means OA it means our administrators it means all of us and we're having a lot of those discussions in our planning
181sessions and I the superintendent is very Brave and Bold and willing to you know try Innovative programs but a few hundred here you know our work study programs are a perfect example of that we've been doing them for 30 years Universal program Simon they are hugely successful hugely successful those kids find their Niche they get re-engaged they get out there and they go now that's not right for every kid but that's the point is that it kind of takes a little bit of everybody working together and we've got to find ways if we really want to break down walls we got to find ways that the band kid and The Jock and the cerebral kid and the one who has dyslexia actually work together on projects all the time not are in their little silos
182and sit next to each other in class and have to be quiet learn what they're learning and then spit it back to to pass a test I'm I'm happy we got great grades I'm happy we're figuring it out that way but at the end of the day we still have a mass of children who even go to the other side of college and don't know what they want to do unless they were one of the lucky ones to discover through our programming or through outside the school system that they wanted to be an engineer Dr o welder an auto mechanic into Hospitality culinary program whatever it is but it's it's not the majority of our kids I you know when I try to ask I get tired by the third or fourth graduation but I
183try to ask what are you doing next I don't know going to college then what I don't know and I love it when the line backs up because then I can have conversations with them but you know we obviously we have to F follow the state obviously we have to to figure out how to be successful as a district cuz that's how our money comes comes to us very sadly cuz it is not aligned industry the state's doing little tiny things as we heard today through the CTE to improve that transition but they're not being bold about it they are not and we need bold action so wherever we can be bold and wherever this board can support being bold to really prepare kids to know who they are and what they can do the
184day they walk across that stage we need to try to do and support all of our Educators in doing it so again I'll reiterate what Angie said I hope you all have a joyful and relaxing and moments of Peace because I think that's the thing that we all need the most right now I highly recommend don't listening to the news from November from Thanksgiving until after January 3rd it gives my brain such a rest and it gives my spirit such a lift I share that with all of you if things happen you need to know about they make their way to you but have a wonderful holiday season thank you member Gold Member front thank you I just wanted to share really quick I did a cool little I did the thought exchange if you're
185not familiar we've been doing that now in the district really great way to get just response from people so I did one with our teachers in prek through 2 grade I really wanted to hear from the teachers in District three just to hear how they feel the new focus on early literacy is going and also just checked like how long have you been a teacher in that grade how long have you been a teacher in or what grade are you teaching those types of things have you gone through the ocps early literacy training that type of thing I just wanted to hear from them see what they think and I was a little disappointed I it got sent out to like 300 some teachers and only 35 replied it was two weeks and so I
186want to encourage teachers if you do get a thought exchange especially from a board member I'd love for you to to jump in it takes literally like a matter of three minutes to to fill it out and just share your thoughts I'm going to just share the top two and I think they're really great yes it says we are getting back to basics and teaching kids how to read foundational skills are so crucial That's so exciting to me so I feel like teachers really are from the teachers on this as well as teachers when I'm out in the schools I will take you up on that Clinton to visit schools with you because I think you're right if you're there it may be a different dialogue but I absolutely love going to schools I'm there
187at least once a week and one of my schools and visiting talking with teachers and many of the early like the prek through 2 grade are saying how awesome the new focus is another thing that they were saying is there's a huge struggle right now with students who are coming in who do not who do not speak the language and so they do not speak English and so for them they're struggling to Now teach these kids English as well as how to read in English and so I think just kind of seeing what we can do to help support those those teachers with that but I have I forwarded you this little summary if any of the board members are interested I could send it to Deborah and it's pretty cool the other one just
188on the books really I the 672 is that the list that we were sent of all the books that have been removed or where did you get that number just curious I got the list from is that the one from it on it was Florida it was Florida Freedom to read it was a tweet and it was through a records request so I did verify that it was a correct list with okay so probably from Miss Allison k and I believe a vast majority of those books if I'm not mistaken were removed because they are old or there's not an interest from students no those books had been weeding out so the list that I got the books that were old and born and not viewed were weeded out as were the books that were
189really more teacher books than student books so those books were weeded out from the list that I saw an addition so there's an additional 67 I'd love to know so if if that is a list that we've given out if I could get that unless it's the same one that I got from Miss Allison but I would like to see that as well just to go through that and see if there's a way that we can I think just the checks and balances so we could definitely swing one side really far one side where we are allowing any book and every book and then we can swing another side where now we're restricting every single book and trying to be so extra careful that kids don't have any books so we really need to find
190that happy medium where we're looking at the books we're seeing okay what is being removed let's go through it again and that's checks and balances so we can't be living in a state of fear and removing every single book I saw one was the book of the I can't stand the book but it's the one with a little boy and he's like he runs naked down the street you guys know which one I'm talking about little yes I don't know why he no David the whole thing drives me nuts but it's just I it only drives me nuts because the way the mom like the way it's worded it's like I don't like the book but a book like that shouldn't be remove because the kid doesn't have is like running down the street with
191his butt showing like it's not it's in the context and so I think those are the things that if we want to as a board if we want to figure that out I don't know if we need a work session to to speak on that and kind of figure that out yes get theate Dr Vasquez I think wants to share something now yeah okay so I think just for that I think if we could have a work session just to kind of get on the same page and see what exactly are we looking for for me it is sexually explicit content and it's been that way since the beginning and so I think just getting on the same page on that it would be awesome just to make sure that parents know on any side
192of the aisle that we are we just want kids to get an awesome education and have quality content in our schools thank you thank you member Dr ker Dental yes thank you madam chair I also wanted to ask about the book list that you're referring to stefana do you know what can I ask her to come to to the podium to find out about the number of books that we have pulled she might know you're a board member if You' like to invite I would like to invite stefana up to the podium if you wouldn't mind to see I know that you kind of keep a database so the list that is provided is the current list of books that were marked as na not approved for any grade K through prek through 12 in
193beanstack that review is ongoing they haven't made their way through everything and I did my best to go through and remove the books that were removed or marked na for beanstack that were you know specific for teachers books I even went through and if it was a K8 book that maybe they put the series title in you know not correctly I took that one off the list so it went from a list of about a th000 or so books down to about 600 70 and you know we know that those books currently are not allowed in classroom libraries and because the definition of a library media center is the same for Media Center as the same for classroom Library if you're marking a book not appropriate or not available in a classroom library then you
194really shouldn't be offering it in a media center as well because it has the same legal definition now so what is to come is whatever ends up in the final decision as na for K through 12 classroom libraries it will eventually trickle over to your media centers and anything with any bit of sexual conduct in it because of the Diaz memo that was sent on 1013 and interpretation of the law it is not appropriate you know because because our objection criteria is being understood to be curation criteria even though there is a part of the law that says sexual conduct can be available where it is age and developmentally appropriate but that's not the standard that we as a district have taken or a def an interpretation that we've taken so far okay so the
195books that member Galla was talking about that are have been pulled they are under review still yes and we don't know when they will be actually reviewed and deemed eligible for our shelves yeah yes superintendent thank you there there's a sh there's an issue of just volume how many books and so media Specialists are the ones that review the book and yes the verbiage in the training says something to the effect if you have doubt you should or air on the side of caution so many media Specialists take that to heart and so some of the books have been removed that and I don't know what the titles are because I haven't seen the entire list the team is working through the review process and so they have PRI are prioritizing the books that first
196of all have been removed K12 because there may be some that were in a kindergarten for example I know Animal Farm was found in a kindergarten classroom Library it's not appropriate for it to be in there so they are prioritizing those that have been removed K K12 that they're not they are perceived not to be readable at any of those levels and then there will be a second review that is done by by groups of media Specialists but but you understand there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books and they also have you know another job that they're doing at the same time so it is going to take time the staff is in January Destiny will have the capability so that anyone can see the book removal and the reason why Miss farell was
197accurate in stating that there were some books that were removed because they were like teacher handbooks or teacher resource books that were in and those were removed some were errors like they put the wrong title in and there even though they were told don't reject it just because the title is wrong some media Specialists rejected it so the team is working on going through that we did talk that we will probably try and come back sometime in January February to give feedback we've talked to our media Specialists and have gotten feedback from them on the process so that the board can then have a discussion I do know in talking with other superintendents when we were in Tampa you know so in some districts small even like H not half but a lot of the
198titles that we have in our libraries are not in their libraries they are also all outing that the their media Specialists are airing on the side of caution and so trying to ask for you know clarification and what are the things to do but they also know that if there is a challenge it's the media specialist C certificate that is in in Jeopardy and honestly that's what media Specialists are telling us if we're if we're not sure that's what they're telling us to do air on the side of caution so we will come back sometime maybe late January February give you an update but those books are in quue to be to have a second review but that's not going to happen within the next couple of weeks it's going to take time okay thank
199you can I follow up absolutely so I understand when member fance says she's a she's a stickler for types of books in the library but and I understand your concern but my concern is that the over censorship that's created by airing on the side of caution is when the media Specialists air on the side of fear and it's not they should they should air on the side of fear well they are afraid of losing their license and their livelihood so it's a great fear they we've seen the state come after individual teachers even in Orange County so that's not that's not normal usually we would deal with that within our own County Alice and Kibby would deal with the media specialist you know it wouldn't go all the way to the Department of Education where
200the whole weight of the state is there to shine a bright light on you and ruin your reputation and you're take away your license so that's where the fear is they're airing on the side of losing their license and they're being so extreme that they're removing books like no David I mean there's so many books that do not fit the bill but they're airing on the side of caution which is that's actually a scary phrase for a lot of people it's it's a threat it's a threatening phrase for a lot of people so it's not just a matter of cleaning up our bookshelves it's it's so much more and it's creating this culture of fear within our media specialists and even teachers who just want to have a library in their classroom so that kids
201have access and again it's not inconsistent with the parents Bill of Rights parents can still decide if they don't want their child to check out a certain book we do not have to go overboard or Force our media Specialists to go overboard in removing so many books they don't have time to get to them so they're pulling them they're they're in a pile of we'll get to it later and in the meantime no one can read those books that's the problem with all of this censorship it's it's just it's not worth it's not worth it so you may have found a book or two that are offensive but in the meantime look at all the chaos that has been created it's not worth it anyway thank you thank you member Castro Dental member salanka I
202mean just yeah briefly on this topic it's there is fear on this for obvious reasons as member Castell did and I think we just have to continue prioritizing making sure that we have transparency for our parents in our community guidelines for our media specialists and that we ask for clarification where clarification is needed in the coming year I'm hoping that out of those 600 books we could really decrease that number because it is unfortunate and there is a over correction happening and I understand why our media specialist do it but it is unfortunate that it falls on on the district but it is what we have to do it's for the district to then sort that out just it's it is a lot of chaos the thing I originally pressed my button for was on
203Town Hall meetings so we've been having with the superintendent and different Schoolboard members back to town hall meetings where we have the opportunity for parents and students and staff to come out and ask questions of the superintendent and if the scooper members there as well on any topic that is relevant and those have been really helpful I know that they're going to continue into the new year I had one already at Colonial high school we had great attendance so did University High School oh I don't know if Dr Williams has any videos or pictures on which Shan had more attendance to the trophies we had a band a band we had a band I can show but you know we we're getting competitive out here with our attendance to our town hall meetings and Lake
204Nona high school is going to be having one I think we ended up at February 1st 2nd one of those two but it is a great opportunity I just want to highlight for our staff and our principes and parents that this is a good chance to get to talk to us and discuss in a community and hear from Dr Basquez on like the many conversations and topics that are very relevant to our school community so that has been great and then I I was I did want to double tap on member Golds comment on you know after I fish have been on the board for a year and it has been a lot of bumps ups and downs but I think one of the my takeaways from this first year has continued to be the
205importance of making sure students are not just test ready but life ready and career ready and having skills and an understand in of what the world looks like after K through 12 whether they're college or not College Bound and so that is an area that I will continue to spend a lot more time in all things CT and Beyond and how to work with our students to just open their eyes on this and so I'm excited to to spend more time on that next year counting yeah you got it thank you thank you member Salamanca member front in the plane please yes I'm landing the plane but I do have to just say one thing to member casor Dental this book issue started when things went unchecked and books just came flooding into our media
206centers many of them the media Specialists had no idea they were coming in because they're being sent in by the distributors or whatever we won't go into all of that but honestly when I came here two years ago and I stood before you with this stack of books that were full of sexual content this is like we're talking 20 30 fword I mean major cussing in the books it is unfortunate that this school board that was on here two years ago and watch me as I would come we had people come and read them parents coming to say hey my child was given this book to do a book report and it was graphic sexual content not like he was on top of her or this and that it was he unzipped his pants this
207is exactly what's going on this is he's on this is going into there I mean it is like graphic depictions and I think it's funny that you think this is funny you sit here and smirk while people's young children even 11year olds have access had access because many of these have been removed thankfully but had access to books with graphic sexual content if parents are that adamant about their children having access to this type of books please by all means it's on Amazon they're at your local public library these are not banned books this is a public school again and so if you all and member Castor Dental if you're so frustrated with the state having their nose in your stuff maybe you should have been doing your job and making sure that these books
208were not in the libraries but instead you sat here and you allowed them and you pushed back and you said no gender queer needs to remain on the shelves and our children need to have access to sold and push push is a rated our movie but we had it in our schools for kids to have access to graphic depictions graphic novels with actual drawings of people having sex I it is absolutely ridiculous and so if you're so frustrated I would look back at yourself and say why didn't I make a difference back then but instead you wanted to sweep it under the rug and it went up to the state and now we have the state on top of it and this ma'am needs to be removed please and thank you she has been barking
209at me the entire time that I speak that is inappropriate but I just want to say that and we need to focus on education and that is the job of our schools our school district should be focused on education not on promoting and pushing sexual content in our p in in our media centers there are plenty of amazing books plenty of amazing books that we can have in our schools and so I'm done all right please we're Landing This Plane we're we're we have no further business before us this meeting's adjourned hey heyy yeah oh oh oh oh yeah yeah yeah l n