School Board Meeting | April 26, 2022

001[Music] sorry just look at me and go okay i said do i have it all i and again know is different of course the best part of all this is her trips to your trust me i'm with you yep me too who me i already joined as long as you joined me i did yep good evening if i could have bruce say good evening thank you how cheerful if i could please have bruce saban come to the front to lead us in our invocation and if everyone could stand okay pray with me god we are gathered together at a meeting of our school board to do the good work of united in our community and administering our public school system for the common good society is a gift you have given to all people whatever

002their culture or their government or their particular time and place and in our contemporary democratic republic we are blessed with public schools that offer the chance for any child in our community to receive a free and appropriate education according to their individual need and abilities society including our schools are gifts from you but they are gifts we must protect and build they are gifts that must be passed on from one generation to the next and from one school board meeting to the next so we ask for your blessing on this meeting tonight that you would give us wisdom and understanding and that you would give us a vision for the important role our public schools play in the common good of us all and we ask your blessing so that our schools can help each

003individual student flourish and thereby lead to the flourishing of our entire community amen and if i could now have marcus walker come to the front to lead us in the pledge whenever you're ready i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all you may be seated not you marcus you may not be seated so can you tell us a little bit about yourself so let's start what grade are you in i'm in fifth grade in fifth grade and what school do you go to dundee elementary academy very nice and i see here that you're a safety patrol yes what do you do as a safety patrol um i do bus duty in the

004morning and afternoons very nice make sure all of the younger students are safely getting to their classrooms yes awesome and so i hear that you are a student ambassador for superintendent hyde's tour so you got to spend some time with superintendent hyde yes i did what do you think how's he doing um good good all right got a couple more days there we go well so what do you want to be when you grow up um what i want to be when i grow up i either want to like learn more of music like a musician or like more with animals very nice so i have two questions for you then what is your favorite instrument and what is your favorite animal my favorite instrument is drums very nice and my favorite animal is a

005goat very nice awesome well thank you so much for coming and leading us in the pledge tonight do you have any special guests here with you yes i have my mom you can stand up i have my dad hi dad i have my principal dr tatum our assistant principal miss crossfit who is currently watching on the live stream very nice well hello mrs crossfit and thank you for being an assistant principal at dundee elementary academy so thank you again so much for coming and you can go sit down now thank you [Applause] all right we will now call this school board meeting to order for april 26 2022 and can i get a motion to accept the agenda sorry do we have any revisions to the to the agenda superintendent hide madam chair there are

006three updates to i apologize wrong document sorry three revisions to the board meeting on item l3 administrative and instructional personnel items there was an updated attachment item q4 naming of bartow high school field within the bartow stadium to be called john and terry frost family field at bartow memorial stadium that's a very long name now there was an added attachment for justification for that recommendation and then item r1 public review for mathematics instructional materials there were some item items added and we will address that item i believe later unless mr wilson would like me to address that topic now preemptively yeah that's fine please do so it's important to note that this evening up for a discussion or on the board agenda is approval for public review of our math adopted materials it's important for

007the community to note that the only materials that will be currently available for review are those that were approved by the state of florida even though the same publisher may have been denied approval for different grade levels each publisher has been provided with an update or specific feedback as to why their product was denied what caused concern within the department those publishers now are going into a revision period where they can resubmit their materials for subsequent approval so at this time again the only materials that will be available for public review will be those that met state of florida requirements and have been certified as approved to move forward if and when those other materials are approved we will bring those forward for public review as well if not and we do not find that

008they are going to be successfully addressed then we will bring new items before the board mr wilson and madam chair will be voting on this tonight as well we will be vote for our for the math books for the math hooks we will just be voting to advertise that we will have a meeting at a later date i want to clarify that when we do vote we will only be voting on those materials that have been approved by the state of florida correct any other revisions no ma'am i don't care that's that concludes the revisions and i will hear a motion to accept the agenda with the revisions that superintendent i just read so moved second mr wilson with the motion and miss miller with the second any discussion all those in favor please signify

009by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries and we will now move into the special recognition portion of our meeting superintendent hyde if you could begin our special recognitions madam chair members of the board members of the community and staff thank you for being here this evening first i'd like to ask sherry scott director for student services to please come forward for the child abuse prevention month recognition also will miss fortney please step forward for recognitions and will school board member dr william allen please read the proclamation proclamation school board of polk county bartow florida whereas florida is committed to improving the lives of all floridians and securing a better future for the citizens of the state and whereas children who have adverse childhood experiences are at a higher risk of short and

010long-term physical psychological and behavioral challenges that can impact the individual child and the greater community and whereas parents and caregivers who have resources and support are better equipped to give their children safe and nurturing experiences and whereas children have better mental health physical health and academic success when they're raised in a safe stable and nurturing environment and whereas the florida department of children family secretary has a vision for holistic services by integrating systems and services and whereas the state of florida has established hope florida a pathway to prosperity a personalized approach to helping families overcome barriers to self-sufficiency through community collaboration and whereas floridians can call eight five zero three zero zero hope to speak with a care navigator for support to develop a plan to achieve economic self-sufficiency referrals to local partners and help

011identifying goals and barriers in their lives and whereas during the month of april prevent child abuse florida in collaboration with the governor's office of adoption and child protection the florida department of children and families and the ounce of prevention prevention fund of florida implements pinwheels for prevention a statewide coordinated campaign to raise awareness of child abuse prevention efforts by teaching about healthy child development and positive parenting practices and establishing circle of parents peer support groups and now therefore be it resolved the school board of polk county hereby proclaim april 2022 as child abuse prevention month madam chair board members mr superintendent it is my pleasure to introduce our community partners from heartland for children we have with us tonight lisa myers who is the education specialist at heartland for children and miss andrea hagen who

012is the director for the community partnership school at crystal lake elementary who will be making a brief statement good evening madam chair school school members superintendent hyde and esteemed guests thank you for proclaiming april is child abuse prevention month we appreciate the involvement of polk county school board in the puma for prevention campaign each year we know that many cities schools and county municipalities are displaying pinwheels and talking about what we can all do to strengthen families and keep children safe pinwheels for prevention uses a simple child's toy a blue and silver pinwheel to remind us of happy healthy childhoods that all children deserve and that we all have a role in playing in keeping children safe to better understand how we best serve and support our children and families here's a breakdown of local

013data for our tri-county area the total number of children with open child welfare cases for polk highlands and hardy county as of march 27 2022 was 2038 children the total number of children removed from homes in the tri-county area due to abuse or neglect in the fiscal year 2021 was 678. the total number of children removed from homes in the tri-county area due to abuse and neglect this fiscal year alone is 474. the total number of traditional foster homes in the tri-county area is 212. specific to polk county numbers the total number of children with open welfare cases is 1588. the total number of traditional foster homes in polk county is 196. we have a great need for foster homes and our goal is to license 75 more foster homes to serve these children last

014year we had about 175 children who were adopted and were planning to meet that number again this year please consider visiting our adoption gallery on heartland for children's website for more information during the month of april we encourage you to display pinwheels and share information with others through conversation and social media we ask that you wear the pinwheel lapel pin that you've been provided today to help spread awareness we want our community to understand that together we can have a huge impact on positive impact on children in our county i would like to take a brief moment to ask all those that are here in support of child abuse prevention in the gallery to please stand [Applause] again thank you for your commitment to children and families throughout polk county thank you next i'd like

015to ask donica dockery executive director of kids need both inc to please come forward for the parental alienation awareness month proclamation and with school board member ms k fields please read the proclamation aloud thank you proclamation school board of polk county barcelo florida whereas alienating behaviors are often found in high conflict divorce and custody situations often causing mental and emotional anguish to children whereas parental alienation is defined as behaviors whether verbal or non-verbal by a parent or other individual that causes a child to be mentally manipulated or bullied into believing a sincerely loving parent it should be feared hated disrespected and or avoided and whereas this is considered a serious form of psychological abuse and it deprives children of the right to be loved by and show love for both their parents and extended families

016and whereas the age study which predicts lifelong outcomes on polk county children's impacted by adverse childhood experiences using a 10 point scale identifies alienated children as having at least two of those 10 points contributing to traumatic events in a child's life and whereas individuals with aces are 12 times more likely to suffer well into adulthood from alcoholism depression drug abuse multiple marriages shortened lifespan and 1200 percent more likely to attempt suicide thereby impacting polk county's future generations and whereas with awareness comes education understanding and the power to stop the abuse of innocent children caught in the crossfire of the people they love as polk county residents and stakeholders become increasingly aware and educated about the problem more people can help to prevent it and whereas do the voice of kids need both inc and our

017hope for four families partners based in florida we ongoingly seek new and substantial ways to empower florida families to choose a future of harmony and sustainability that interrupts detrimental generational outcomes now therefore be it resolved the school board of polk county hereby proclaim april 2022 as parental alienation awareness month congratulations thank you so much [Applause] i've been doing this for 20 years and it just it warms my heart because i was a teacher in the school system here and um that you all have recognized this in this year we've we have grown by leaps and bounds we have uh we have joined 45 other organizations nation uh globally that's four continents that's 25 countries in our fight because children who go through the battle of their parents and are with are not allowed to love

018both parents and when there's loving and willing parents available it it affects people globally it's just not it's not an american phenomenon in the last couple of years i was able to launch a net a platform community called hope for families and we have sev uh 11 partners with us on this platform and what is it it's the it's the only online social learning community platform exclusively for professionals empowering parents and families to thrive so um and in this last year this year would be considered kind of the year of the father because there are two bills actually one just got signed for fathers to encourage them to be involved in their children's lives and there's another one for parents who want to be involved both parents that want to be involved we are in

019we are hoping that the 50 50 presumed equal shared parenting bill gets passed so that both parents are on an evil even playing field so that they can be involved in their child's life so um we've made a lot of headway there was 20 years ago people didn't know what this term parental alienation was and people people know it now and and it's for the best interest of children to have to be able to love both parents and for both parents to to who want to be involved in their child's life to do so thank you very much at this time with susan copeland executive director of the polk education foundation please come forward for donor recognition thank you for allowing us to be here so tonight i've invited kelly williams puccio to be with

020us she is the executive director of public supermarkets charities and public supermarkets charities has been a uh supporter of the foundation and our entire school district for a very long time but i can tell you since 2007 public supermarkets charities has donated almost 310 000 to the foundation so that averages out to be about twenty thousand dollars for the last fifteen years foundation programs they have supported have been our tate stock and children program are stepping out for education program teacher-to-teacher connection our free teacher market the hall of fame and the inspire awards public supermarkets charity has also supported district programs that run through the foundation and those include things such as the spelling bee esol kids tag art minority achievement silver garland migrant services kitty christmas elementary and secondary science and parent engagement so

021they have their hands in a lot of things through us i know there's other entities in our district that also receive funding so i would venture to say that 310 could possibly be a half million dollars i don't know every one of what everyone else has done but i can tell you what we have done and it's been a lot of support you see their name everywhere we go so they're very active in our community so public supermarket and public super public supermarkets and public supermarkets charities are two different entities but i couldn't stand before you tonight and not also add that public supermarkets has given us 1241 20 gift cards so if you do that quick math that's about 24 000 dollars in cards so we've used them to give to brand new teachers

022this school year we use them at our free teacher market we've given them to volunteers we will be using them next week at the um during teacher appreciation week so lots and lots of things are being done again by that publix family i've had the pleasure of working with kelly for the last few years and i would just really like to thank public supermarkets charities the whole publix family for everything they do and anywhere you go in our community you're going to see them as well so when we talk about all in and invested in a community public supermarkets charity certainly is and when i talk to colleagues around the state and they find out i'm from polk county and they say oh public supermarkets headquarters is in in your county uh you're so lucky

023and i just look at them and smile and say yes we are so i just would like to thank kelly and the charities and i have miss fortney giving you a certificate of that appreciation [Applause] i i would just like to on behalf of publix charities thank the school board the superintendent the poke education foundation for all the hard work you all do with the school children in polk county we're just happy that we can be a small part of that i personally am a big supporter of public education all four of my daughters have graduated from polk county schools one of them is getting her master's degree on friday i'm very excited and my oldest grandson is starting kindergarten in the fall so we'll be around for a long time we appreciate all you

024do thank you as i say you might just stay there miss copeland miss copeland will now the executive director for polk education foundation will introduce to take stock in children luminary award all right so since i was going to be here tonight i took the opportunity to stay just a couple more minutes and introduce my two state take stock and children program staff cheryl errington is our college success coach and cara franklin so shira cheryl and kara she is in charge of doing mentor matches and we serve between 105 to 125 students every year you all have heard me talk about they all have a florida prepaid waiting for them when they graduate and since it's grant funded so their salaries are paid through this grant we have to do a lot of fundraising that

025goes with it but these two ladies make it all happen and i can tell you that we've been very fortunate the last two years for the program to receive the luminary and the gold award from the state agency of take stock and children so the luminary award is given to programs that earn a hundred percent on an assessment that's called the balance score sheet so it's like report cards that we know and it shows how each program is doing as far as mentor matches students entered into the program making the scholarship matches there's all goals and objectives that we have to meet so they have done all of that and earned the luminary award for the last three years in a row so there's 33 programs in the state so that's probably about half or

026so that received that so i think that's a big deal in three years in a row i think is wonderful so due to karen cheryl's work they also received the gold award which is what every program wants to hear because that means the next year you'll receive 100 of your funding so funding is a big deal as we know um got to have people to make things happen so i just really appreciate all they do mostly to help the students who they're helping to graduate and then just to make polk county proud so i didn't have a certificate of them but i had them bring their awards because i thought i'd look really good in a picture and i just wanted to thank them and congratulate them on all the hard work they do [Applause]

027thank you very much ms copeland at this time i'd like to bring dr deborah hudson principal of mclaughlin middle and middle and fine arts academy excuse me to come forward to introduce the duke energy donation hello on behalf of our sga president sean who had family business out of town i'm here to represent mclaughlin's sga mclaughlin students and staff have a goal to become a model school for our district duke energy has joined to make our dream a reality these funds will be used to support the district's missions to put students first duke energy thank you for helping by providing us with the funds we needed to help improve mclaughlin our students will greatly benefit from additional equipment and academic support both of which are necessary for our success in the near and distant future

028we look forward to a mutually beneficial partnership between your company and our school as we work together on projects and programs to express our gratitude we the students of mclaughlin would like to present duke energy with an art piece to honor their contributions to the school shout out to our amazing phoenix and artist aristelli soto for using the skills she learned in our fine arts academy to create this piece with this partnership between duke and mclaughlin we're able to reach goals that were previously unreachable thank you again for supporting our school and our goal to be the best for our students together and ignited by fire we rise higher now we will have words from mrs laquita senior vice president of duke energy good evening thank you so i think i just got a promotion

029but i'm vice president of operations at duke energy but um thank you madam chair superintendent hyde the school board members and also the mclaughlin family we are just excited to be able to partnership to bring exposure to the our polk county students about all of the careers in the utility industry there are so many utility careers out there from line workers engineers call center representatives and so we are just excited to be able to foster this great collaboration with magoffin and the duke energy family thanks all of you and i would just like to turn it over to dr hudson at this time thank you the great students have said enough so i just want to say thank you for the 50 000 donation which is the start of many more great things to come

030at mclaughlin so cheers to the mclaughlin family thank you so dr hudson you're actually on recognition twice so rather than have you return back to the audience i'll go ahead and bring you up now so again at this time i'd like to ask dr debra hudson principal mclaughlin middle school and fine and performing arts academy to please come forward in recognition of a recent vehicle donation um good afternoon ladies and gentlemen my name is chair sashay lammy and i am a seventh grade student at mclaughlin middle school and fine arts academy before before i continue i want to say thanks to all of our lovely teachers who are here with us representing our school it is moments like these where we can really see how much student how much support and community we have at

031our school and in this district another example of that support came to our district from an incredible donor they heard about our school and all of our amazing things were doing and wanted to help us continue wanting to help us continue to expand our community the gift that they gave us was not small either in the worlds of you know in the words of well-loved oprah you get a car you get a car you get a car you get a car you get a car you could be a car you get a car you all get cars i'm just kidding only the district got a car from our amazing donor is oprah here luckily for our school the district is allowing mclaughlin to use that car and even paying teachers to drive it this is

032very generous this is a very generous donation and will help our and we'll help our school to continue to do amazing things while i would love to thank this donor in person i guess i'm going to have to rely on you guys to do it dinner is sitting somewhere in the audience and would like to stay anonymous if y'all would like if y'all will allow me to give a moment we're going to take the church real quick so so we could thank them everybody turn to our neighbor and repeat after me everybody say neighbor thank you for the amazing donation to the school system thank you for the amazing donation but seriously i am so grateful for the donation of this car and the district for their support you have lifted stress from our teachers

033with their charitable donation and fitting with your terrible and fitting donations in honor of you and your charitable donation we will be we will display this painting by eighth grade phoenix kayleigh shep sheppard in in honor of our school it is being presented by fellow eighth grader in phoenix arizoto this amazing painting this amani painting also held by our amazing art teacher mr jones [Applause] thank you [Applause] there we go great job [Applause] and last but certainly not least at this time i would like to invite regional superintendent of high schools mr john hill to please come forward to introduce senior army lieutenant colonel sean phelps who was recently recognized as the jrrtc instructor of the year good evening madam chair superintendent hyde our distinguished board members the jrotc instructor of the year award was

034established three years ago sergeant first class brian johnson was the recipient for the first two years this award gives us an opportunity to acknowledge the outstanding instructors who lead our cadets they instill self-confidence self-discipline and leadership values in our cadets that will serve them well throughout their lives tonight we have lieutenant colonel phelps here he leads our instructors and oversees the recognition it is with my honor and privilege to ask lieutenant colonel phelps to step forward and tell you about this year's nominee this year was our most competitive year in the three years that we've held this we had three outstanding nominees this year our winner this year was responsible for planning resourcing and conducting rifle training for over 300 cadets during the jrotc cadet leadership camp last summer he also ran the polk county

035area rifle competitions and the district rifle meet that determine who qualifies for the state championships he led his rifle team at summerlin last year to the state championship and also a second place finish at the army national grtc championships and fifth place in the all-service national jrtc championships he is a consummate professional who works hard to support the grtc students of not only his school but also the county and his community he also supports his community as the liaison with the polk county sheriff's charities and mulberry high school which raises over one hundred thousand dollars for the community i present to you the 2021-2022 polk county instructor of the year sergeant first class retired stephen beck of mulberry high school so for his recognition he gets a couple little tokens here the the first one

036is a polk county instructor of the year certificate uh signed by uh superintendent hyde and myself and the second is this uh nice little trophy for his desk with the us army logo on it and it says uh first class retired stephen beck mulberry high school army jrotc polk county school district jrtc instructor of the year for the 2021-22 school year [Applause] i didn't really prepare anything but as colonel phelps said it was a very high honor to get this award and i just like to say that every instructor in this county is definitely deserving of this award because i've worked with every one of them and our job doesn't stop at two o'clock in the afternoon it's really just beginning because that's where all the extracurricular activities and the nights and the weekends and

037the overnight camps so thank you [Applause] should have advocated for that indoor range sir madam chair members of the board that concludes recognition events for this evening thank you superintendent hyde next on the agenda is the public comments for items on the agenda to be voted upon as adopted at the start of this meeting before we begin i would like to welcome the public and go over our public comment process and opportunities for this evening we will have three opportunities for public comment this evening the first will be for items on this evening its agenda to be voted upon the second will be during the public hearing for for public hearing topics and at the end of the meeting we will have an additional opportunity for public comment on items that are not on this

038evening's agenda for a vote to register to speak community members must have filled out a speaker card in the lobby prior to the meeting all speakers will be given three minutes the clock will give you a warning sound when you have one minute left and when you have 30 seconds left please give your name for the record and all comments should be directed to myself as the board chair as a reminder public comment comments are an opportunity for us to hear your thoughts and comments this is not a question and answer session however if you are seeking additional information i encourage you to contact any of us or the superintendent's office outside of board meetings and we would have be happy to have deeper conversation in reviewing the cards for the agenda items most of

039them are about the child abuse proclamation which is not an agenda item that we will be voting upon so those items are we are happy to hear comments on it i think it's i'm excited that we had um our child abuse prevention proclamation earlier and i'm thrilled that there's so many of you that are supportive of it and interested in that but we will we will be having those comments at the end of the meeting because we are not voting on that this evening so the next item on our agenda will be approval of the minutes our first set of minutes will be the minutes from march 8 2022 school board meeting and i will seek a motion and a second so moved second mr wilson with the motion and dr alan seconded any discussion

040all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries the second set of minutes will be for the march 8 2022 work session and i'll seek a motion in a second so moved second mrs mrs miller made the motion and miss fortney made the second any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries our final set of minutes for this evening will be to approve the minutes of the april 12 2022 work session i'll hear a motion in a second so second believe that was dr alan and mr wilson any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries next we will have the approval of the consent agenda and i'll hear

041a motion and a second move approval second i have miss fields and miss fortney any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye any opposed and the motion carries mr high do we have new administrators you would like to introduce yes ma'am i'm not sure how many are in the audience there are three administrators first is ms jenna short hr manager with griffin resources llc she is a new hire to polk county public schools and will be serving as the director of personnel for human resource services and if you can come on down i apologize if he didn't give you a heads up that you'd get to speak so i just wanted to say thank you to mr warren and uh miss dole for um trust me with this opportunity i

042look forward to leading the personnel department and i am truly grateful that i get to work side by side miss dole during this transition um and i will definitely have big shoes to fill but i'm looking forward to the challenge and leading the personnel department thank you thank you do you have a family with you here this evening i do would you like to recognize them as well yes my family is all the way in the back my husband and two children um eleven-year-old and eight-year-old back there to support thank you to them as well because they will be congratulations you will not see your mom between the months of june and july as we go through higher education so just be aware of that yes yes thank you for sharing her with us next

043i do not believe miss mckenzie is in the audience but victoria mckenzie the regional assistant director with florida department of education and bureau of school improvement has a long tenure here in polk county public schools serving as an ela support role and most recently she was promoted by the department at this time we are bringing her on board we are on boarding her with polk county public schools as a senior director for k-12 literacy i did ask if she would be present this evening she indicated she would not unfortunately and then lastly is miss ann everett miss anna everett currently serves as the senior director for k-12 literacy and she'll be making a lateral move to senior director for the office of acceleration and innovation but i do not believe she's with us at this

044point either those are the three new administrators at this time madam chair members of the board thank you mr hyde all right and next on our agenda will be our action items so the first action item is cue one summer the motion to approve summerlin academy's naming of multi-purpose room in honor of jordan j corbett and i will second i have a motion from miss fortney and then a second from miss fields miss fortney did you want to say a couple words yes i've had the honor of being around j.j corbett and his family and there's nobody more deserving um and i know miss fields brought this up uh quite a few months ago i would love to move on and and name a a school after him i just i'm gonna say that i

045think he has earned that honor as a fire jumper so uh i appreciate his family and uh i learned so much from him every time i sit by him thank you miss fortney any other discussion all right all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries and i believe mr corbett is with us this evening did i see him come in earlier can can we get him up and see if he'd like to say a few words and at least get a picture please support me fortney do you want to go down for a picture since it's from school sorry i'm gonna say it earlier thank you for being here tonight i wanted to give you an opportunity to say a couple words if you'd like to thank

046you first of all i want to thank you for the honor that given to me i hope that through my life i've lived the kind of life that deserved this i'm not sure that i do but i hope that as life continues i'll continue to be service of service to people again i want to thank the board for what you're doing thank you well thank you for all that you've done for us and miss emily ann do you want to come up for a picture as well okay sounds good i apologize dr downing i didn't see you standing in the back all right here we are again mr corbett i need to take this off thank you guys [Applause] right and next on the agenda we have our charter school projected enrollment for 2022 2023

047and motion to approve the projected enrollment increase as recommended is that hold on just a second wes is that correct that we can just we don't need to do them individually correct we do i believe we missed navigator academy unless i i'm sorry you're correct first we will have navigator academy leadership contract modification a motion to approve the navigator academy's contract modification and i'll hear a motion so moved second believe i heard miss miller and miss fields any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries now we will hear the charter school projected enrollment for 2022-2023 mr bridges do we need to vote on those individually or can we vote on them as a group unless someone unless someone wishes to pull one for a separate

048vote you can do them all together so i'll seek a motion to approve the projected enrollment increase for 2022-2023 school year as presented so move second mr wilson and dr alan any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries all right and last on our action item will be the naming of bartow high school field within football within the football stadium to john and terry frost family field at bartow memorial stadium i will hear a motion for that so motion to move to name after mr and mrs frost thank you miss fortney and a second second dr alan and miss fortney would you like to make some comments since this is also your school i actually got the pleasure of teaching with miss frost when i

049was at bartow high school and they have done so much for bartow high school you can't even list it all and i applaud bartow high for wanting to honor that great bartow family i i just can't say enough thank you miss forney any further discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye any opposed and the motion carries and is the frost family here this evening no they are not yes ma'am will you just say your name for the record miss clemens will you just say your name for the record hello everyone i'm emmeline clemens principal at bartow high school and i just want to say a few words about the frost family miss fortney's done a great job of already uh describing to you the kind of people that they are and i

050really just i wrote a um sort of a summary for all of you so you could have an idea of all the things over the years that they've done but i want to just read the last paragraph john and terry frost have helped us build a diverse community of learners with their support we have the perfect blend of community involvement necessary to create a rich environment on our school campus bartow high school is better because of the frost family generations of students are the true benefactors of their generosity it is impossible to list the numerous opportunities the frost family has provided for our students and their contributions to our school community and as i've shared with you guys of all the years i've been at bartow high 19 years they were there way before me

051and they've done some great things for our kids miss frost was a teacher she mentors our students who are in danger of not graduating taught english 4 with us and we're just so thankful for them as a family professionally personally they care about people and although they're not here tonight one of the things we will be doing you guys all know we're under construction and as we finish up getting our field back in order with our track we've had to use that for our bus ramp and we finish up our field house we'll be doing a celebration ribbon cutting to honor them so thank you very much thank you so much miss clements [Applause] next we will have our public hearing do i need to call the public hearing to order mr bridges we will

052call our public hearing to order the first item will be r-1 code of con student code of conduct student conduct for 2022-2023 school year and i do not have any public comment cards for this item the motion will be to approve the code of conduct for the 2022-2023 school year i'll hear a motion i move to approve the code of conduct thank you miss miller second and miss fields with the second any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries the next item for our public hearing will be the public review for math instructional materials and as superintendent hyde mentioned at the beginning of the meeting this will be to advertise that we will be advertising the instructional materials work group recommendations for a future public

053hearing in the madam jared the the florida law on this is a little different than it is from other public hearings and so tonight will be the opportunity for members of the public to come and have input on the on the recommendations but the actual vote will be taken at a subsequent school board meeting pursuant to florida law correct and i have one card for that and that is paul hatfield paul if you'll come on down and as you're coming down i'll just review the public hearing blurb we will now begin with public comments portion for public hearing on r2 advertisements for public review of math curriculum for those who have registered just as before all speakers will be given three minutes the clock will give you a warning sound when you have one minutes

054left and when you have 30 seconds left and if you could just say your name for the record sure paul hatfield i am a polk county resident i've heard that many of you have faith and you exercise your faith in approving and putting in these books and the math books part of it math books in fact have some racial stuff in it what does race have to do with reading and writing and arithmetic one plus one how do you get race out of that how do you get race out of that whose math whose faith are you using because the faith that i know of the god of our fathers the god of our of abraham the god of our country the god of our in fact founding fathers did not exercise that faith his

055faith in fact was a faith of love that we may come to the lord jesus christ as our personal savior that we may know him not to exercise race not to insert doctrine not to insert the ideology that is liberally being taught to our students but in fact the faith that comes from his word mathematics has nothing to do with race mathematics has nothing to do with indoctrinating our students mathematics has to teach our students how to think what to think no how to think how to add one plus one how to divide recently students graduate students were asked what is seven times seven one student wouldn't take a guess at it i don't know a graduate i don't know one was asked again what is 7 times 7 the graduate said 40 i don't

056know i think that's 40. our math level of learning in polk county is very very low but simply because we're graded on the curve it all looks good it all looks great and that's a shame that's a shame that's something that each one of you should be striving for and each one of you should be bowing down in prayer for to strive to get better not passing on for social passing not passing on and saying okay it's all right it's okay you can go on many of our you know what you can go up to a a clerk at a store and they can't count change what part of that did you have i got 30 seconds and i'm going to say it's a shame that our students don't know anymore what they do they

057can't read they can't comprehend they don't know how to get out into the workforce and they in fact are being indoctrinated they're being taught junk sexual junk that has nothing to do with math reading writing thank you and i will now hear a motion from the board [Applause] thank you miss miller in a second circuit miss fields any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries we'll now have the superintendent's report yes ma'am madam chair first and foremost i'd like to point to you that the fine arts cookies donated in front of you for tag art recognition were donated by ridge tech culinary class and the fine arts department so they put those together it's a very nice thing that they did very very pleased that

058joe teder continues to honor and recognize our student artwork for inclusion in florida tags um and so they announced not only the superintendent's choice but the tag choice um and i was very appreciative he listed my choice first but both students and i'll be visiting unfortunately i wasn't able to be at that event because there's always conflicting events but i will be visiting that school and taking both those students a small token of our appreciation in the next week or so ms winchester coordinates my schedule and does an amazing job of juggling all those opportunities for me i'd also like to recognize summerlin academy summerlin put on their sophomore event it's an evening where sophomores participate in a formal dining experience each one of us was assigned to a table with multiple students the juniors

059and seniors actually serve throughout the event and they do this intentionally because they want to expose their sophomores to proper etiquette proper manners and those types of opportunities but also to get them to engage with strangers at the table and kudos to the team who put the event together they haven't been able to successfully host this event in almost two years because of covid but they provided every table with seed questions i won't share again where the seed questions came from american doll but they led to some really good conversations at our table and i was very impressed by all the young students that we my wife and i were able to join that evening i know dr alan was there i know others may have been there i'm sorry but it was a fantastic

060event kudos to them and i'm proud to be able to work with the school as you know aramark makes a donation to my office to use throughout the year to sponsor different events and activities and i'm pleased to share that i will be sponsoring the summerlin event for their current juniors and seniors who missed this opportunity um so they're coordinating something for them special and i'm very pleased to be working with them on that i also want to point out and said send a huge shout out to polk city elementary school and that entire community i had the fortune of attending uh with two of my board members miss lisa miller and ms sarah fortney the cake sale that took place last friday i was warned that there were two gentlemen in the audience both

061were wearing light blue caps and i was forewarned that if either one of them begins nodding to quickly bow out of the auction because i could not compete those board members i think you've learned i'm up to the challenge but the money that started to get thrown around in that room got even scared me off i was very pleased to be able to purchase several cakes all of us donated to a charitable cause it was really interesting that people were spending upwards of five six hundred dollars on a cake that they immediately donated back to have cut and shared with the entire uh group that was in attendance it was a fantastic event it's a fundraiser that's been in existence at that school miss miller remind me 93 years 93 years and and i will

062tell you we definitely left on a it was sugar overload i'd also like to give a shout out to dixieland elementary school as i visit schools teachers often times seek the opportunity knowing i have i was a science teacher in my background to invite me back they were in the middle of their unit on where they were showing students talking about animal husbandry and raising chickens and so they had their eggs in the incubator the eggs hatched i had a chance to go back see the chicks talk with the students then read some books to them and it was a fantastic experience and it brought you know warmed my heart as a science teacher i did ask them what they do with the chicks and the donor takes them back so it's not something that

063the school has to find a house a home for but agriculture is something that we will be focusing on in our elementary school settings because there's a lot to be learned there not only is it a strong part of polk county's history and heritage but there's a lot that can be learned by students about how to care for small animals and to take you know to take that seriously we learn how to be more empathetic we learn how to be responsible and those students were truly excited lincoln academy same thing lincoln academy held it's an ib school they had their ib capstone experience for their elementary students and for the young man who who left who said the pledge and said he likes goats i had the pleasure of host of holding a goat and

064my picture is circulating all over social media now of me with that goat but it was a fantastic event those students went to various stations they spent 15 minutes minimally at each station and learned everything about aquaculture horticulture farming and it was an amazing investment on behalf of our community miss fields was there and i know we all had a great opportunity and great time and supported in those activities sun and fun fantastic event i was running late law enforcement did tell me at one point just drive on the sidewalk mr hyde we've got your back and i said oh no not in polk county i learned that lesson someone's going to get a picture of me driving on a sidewalk and put it in the paper so i sat in traffic and they were

065very accommodating to my schedule when i got there because the reason i was running i was trying to get there quickly was they were interviewing me live on the radio for sun and fun and a broadcast so they were able to accommodate my schedule and replace me with someone else and i took their spot but what a phenomenal event if you've never been to sun and fun i find it hard to believe that any polk county resident has never been to that event but what it you know i grew up in the aviation industry my father was in the air force stepfather was an air force recon and and i was very you know my father again owned an aviation supply company growing up and we provided parts for everything from 707s to 777s and

066you know so i grew up around that industry but it was so impressive to watch our students perform the way they do the campus literally shuts down for a week to allow those students come back and they volunteer and it's essentially their spring break and they're provided alternative assignments but what a fabulous job that's done there and i know it generates a lot of revenue for us but we had great weather and it was just amazing to see the turnout that we had last a couple last things lake gibson legacy leaders i had the pleasure of attending that this morning so lake gibson high school has a special event where those seniors get to come up get an additional cordage for prior to graduation be recognized but they also get to share their name what

067college university or branch of the armed services they'll be going into or their employer and then if they're going off to college what their field of study will be i did make a job offer to someone today who said they're going into education i said you are guaranteed a job in four years when you graduate come back to polk i have a feeling we'll have a vacancy that we can fill with that individual but i will tell you what an impressive event there were fields of study that those students were saying they were going into that made me truly envious i feel like i have to go back to college just to compete with them because they're aspiring to some amazing things the only feedback i could give ryan the principal was it really should

068be what we start their freshman year with that as every student walks through the door and if you think about and again i make these sports analogies understanding it's not as equitable for everyone but you think about notre dame in schools where you walk through the tunnel and you tap the ceiling or you tap the ball and it has a special connotation but every freshman should have to walk onto a high school campus and touch the door as they walk in and announce what they're going to do in four years or what they think they're going to do in four years establish that commitment right then and there and move it forward but i wanted to say thank you to lake gibson for inviting me out and miss miller was able to join me there

069last couple things i had the pleasure of attending florence villa and speaking at their event what a fabulous event that they held great fundraiser so they can continue to provide supports for economic development within the community it's a long-standing partnership we have with them so i was very pleased to be in attendance and share some comments with the audience and then lastly prom is ending we're wrapping up prom season uh thankfully i know a lot of our high school principals are really thrilled once you get prom behind you and then we're focusing on graduation and we were able to satisfy a lot of issues with graduation this year by working directly with rp funding center to get some additional flexibility with tickets and so we're really excited about that as well so that concludes um

070majority of my comments with the exception of the last which is the next work session and board meeting will be held on may 10 2022 the work session will begin at 12 30 p.m and the board meeting will begin at 5 pm both meetings will be held at the jim miles professional development center located at 4270 wallace road in lakeland that concludes the superintendent's report thank you superintendent hyde and i believe we have no attorneys report and no internal auditor's report so we will now go to board reports dr allen thank you madam chair i'll pick you back on a couple of those events that superintendent hyde mentioned uh the first one being prom so that that actually took place in our household that was a little scary but as my 17 year old went

071off for her prom date but it is an exciting time actually as we wrap up and get close to the end of the year the you mentioned the summerlin event i know uh board member fortney and miller you were present in audience as well and for me as a you know barely graduating bartow high school in 1992 that's 30 years ago and then later in life had an opportunity to pursue higher ed at the age of 22 i remember very well her name was blackie scott and she visited us probably my sophomore year to teach proper etiquette and there i was as a 22 year old bartow boy trying to understand you know how you work from outside in and all the silverware and so forth and that night at summerlin we're sitting there my

072wife and i and we've got four gentlemen and they were so professional and like you mentioned the conversation was incredible and we we also had the opportunity to hear from the chief of police from bartow and i remember very very well he talked about his experiences growing up in cuba and he talked a lot about opportunity and drive and it was really neat to hear the students at our table uh talk about those two concepts and um pretty excited about the opportunities that were ahead of them and the drive that was present at that table a pretty cool evening really appreciative of the invite to that and then speaking of about the sun and fun had an opportunity to be on the tarmac and major general actually flew down to commission our graduates into the

073military so to be a part of that was really incredible as well huge celebration right on the tarmac and sending our students off and to have that caliber of the individual lead them and that was pretty cool um i know we've all talked a lot about cambridge and that program and really excited about seeing it move over to tennerock as well had a couple board members as well we were on the tour nikki jordan invited us over and that is just an incredible program as well and i was looking at the website there and and this was all in our materials as we went through that tour but some of the college admittances from our cambridge students right and i'll just list a couple of them here georgetown university embry riddle florida a m flagler

074harvard university of cal university of central florida and so and i can go on and on it's such an extensive list we have some amazing programs models and our students are doing some incredible things and we have to tell our story and you know had an opportunity actually to be at the table with miss fields as well this week and telling our story was done so well by dr richardson at rw blake academy and it's 30 years that that organization that that school's been in existence and was really neat to hear the the story of the name of r.w blake and that's her on the cover of the bulletin and what was unique is you know obviously we had some incredible string performances we had a steel drum performance we had some spoken word uh

075community leaders were present to honor all the great things that have happened over 30 years and then on top of that we had the original principal that started and launched r.w blake academy or blake at that time it was really neat to hear her story as a principal put in the context of what was happening when she started that school as a principal pretty amazing and really excited about that model and would love to see us work to tell a story very similar that to about all of our schools and i'll end on well i think i've got two more items here i've got this list of numbers speaking of numbers as it relates to math and so forth 26 25 14 24 18 36 and a half um 16 38 6 months 25 14

0762 3 weeks these were all numbers that i heard um as i sat at a luncheon that was led by dr kenny hodges the ese senior managers basically a group of occupational therapists physical therapists and district resource coaches that's how many years that they've committed to our organization that that to me was stunning and the longevity and the commitment of those individuals their game plan under dr hodges says this they want to build success exercise teamwork and communicate with our stakeholders and care about those we serve and support all while putting students first so just wanted to recognize that tonight lastly here's a headline looking for an exciting adventure or want to face your fears while giving back to pace polk on friday i get an opportunity to rapple down a 10-story building to really

077support pace center for girls so if you're out and you want to financially support that organization i do have a life insurance policy so i'm okay about you know edging going down those crazy heights but it's really there to help the girls and young women in polk county uh to reach their dreams so that's all i have madam chair thank you thank you dr alan miss cunningham no report this evening thank you miss cunningham and miss fortney uh i would like to start with the passing of a valuable staff member from bartow high school and asked that we keep her family and our thoughts first and foremost big congratulations to all of our retirees up and coming actually april uh is full of appreciation days one of which would be our otp and dr hodges

078as i was there with uh dr alan uh what a what a great place to be around you know that everybody's happy and and they love their job uh we're also going to celebrate uh all right in april we celebrated our school librarians assistant principal week paraprofessional day administrative professional day is tomorrow then comes school principals day in may and i love all my principals and aps uh teacher appreciation of course and then our school uh lunch heroes uh so uh you know i i if i went through every single day that would not be good so i'm just going to do some highlights jj corbett was honored with the media center miss fields uh and mr hyde were there that was an awesome event uh very well done i'd like to congratulate from spessart

079and willow oak our volunteers of the year um yes summerlin military academy i'm so glad you're picking up the slack from juniors and seniors because kovig kept them from having their own summer uh sophomore dining experience thank you and they went ahead and served anyways and the artist trotty i want to thank him and yes captain garcia was awesome too yeah lincoln those were kindergarten that was their capstone kindergarten um farmers market i want to thank them for that sykes did a finally again a community day run by their pto which was very nice the tag art uh man those kids are talented that's all i can say and i so appreciate that partnership um and it was nice to see former students and former parents uh that have grandkids even now doing the same

080the tag art um i have to give a huge shout out to dan talet and a.d lancaster from armada high school dan did the title nine celebration out at joker marchette brought in all of our high school athletes most people have no idea what title ix means but it basically says you cannot discriminate and uh having grown up i was 11 years old when that passed so i understand it exactly auburndale high school did an awesome celebration they did past present and future and the icon coach dunson was there we did the hearth graduation good job uh all those folks involved um and yes dr alan the blake the 30 years i have never been to a nicer celebration really in general even the invitation was gorgeous like the detail was on you know legacy

081um speaking of legacies danny my girl from mulberry high school and works with our farm workers down there did a job fair that was outstanding outstanding had all kinds of contributions and hopefully some you know partnerships and i think i ended up saturday at the new davenport high school auditorium what a beautiful beautiful facility for the elementary showcase they all were awesome kids were great staff was great proven once again the pre-k through 12 public schools just do it better thank you thank you miss fortney mrs fields thank you i i won't cover much because between mr allen and superintendent hyde and miss fortney i think they've covered a lot of the things that i would have but i would say that being able to go to the various events that we have in the

082county really brings back the reason why we serve and being able to see the successful stories that we have before us the testimonies that we see is just amazing um i would say that when we were at blake academy listening to two about the alumni are talking about how they struggled when they were in school and how they didn't think that they could be successful and how the principal would call them into the office and say you know you're going to be successful you're going to be somebody and then coming back and explaining that they are actually they have been successful and because somebody believed in them and so that to me sums it up well and then i wanted to especially thank the community relations department but doing such a great job with mr

083corbett's dedication um they had media there that was great coverage and the community really embraced the dedication of the union academy's media center in honor of mr corbett and when i think about mr corbett i get full so today i was trying not to but i would say mr corbett is 99 years old and he's still driving and he's still walking and if you notice when he came up today he was walking pretty fast so we're just very thankful to have mr corbett around and his uh his his legacy will live forever he's a great man and just just great things going on miss fortney talked about next week being teacher appreciation week so if everybody can remember that and let's embrace our teachers and our staff and then remember that this is testing time

084so there's a lot going on right now so we need to just be uh actually letting everyone know how much we appreciate them for their hard work especially as we get ready to end our school year and i think that's it thank you miss fields and mrs miller thank you madam chair i won't take too much time i just want to say if you've never been in one of our schools to see what we do i invite you i invite you to spend time with our students and to talk to teachers we talk about the events we go to this morning the superintendent and i watched as lake gibson's legacy seniors walked in the building with great cheer and the band playing and they talked about the colleges they were going to the military status

085they had or some of them were even going into the just right into the workforce and the students cheered each and every one of them if it was an ivy league school if they were going to be a plumber we cheered both because both of that is what's needed in this country and in this city if you visit our schools you will see what our teachers are doing you could see what we were doing at summerlin academy teaching the students how to honor each other and honor the practice of servitude and opportunity which was the message that night from the police chief there the polk city event will show you how much the community supports our schools those people have been in these schools they volunteer in the schools and my daughter did go up

086against mr bronson for a carrot cake it cost me 200 but it went to the school and that's what this is about this is about community so i invite you if you've not been in our schools if you've never volunteered to do that this is a perfect opportunity to see what we really do in schools graduations is exactly why i do this job to watch these kids come in and some of them we've seen grow walk across that stage with you know big dreams and they can do it i mean when i tell you what mr mr allen didn't read that list but to know that kids that never had a chance first generation we're sending them to ivy league schools we're sending them to state colleges we're sending them to travis tech we are

087changing this community because we're breaking the cycle of poverty and that is happening every data piece will show you that i need people engaged in our schools so i invite you if you'd like a special tour of a school i'll take you on it i need people volunteering so i appreciate you coming out tonight and i love our schools i love what we're doing this is my favorite time of the year we're not going to list all this stuff i think everybody went through it but this board we show up and i was proud to see those kids and i didn't get to make it to mr corbett's celebration i was speaking to a class at lake gibson high school who want to be preschool teachers so i took a child in with severe disability

088so they could see the difference because that's who they'll have in their classrooms and they had some great questions the kids always have really good questions they're always welcoming to each other today a young man broke down at the front of the at the podium and couldn't get out what he was going to say where he was going and the cheer started from the kids the clapping started from the center of the room to help encourage him to speak and he did it he got out what school he was going to and what he had planned to do and it was it's that's what warms my heart to see how much our kids are encouraging each other and i know as a community it will only make things better for all of us thank you

089madam chair thank you miss miller and mr wilson thank you madam chair i i have no comments but i wouldn't like to request a short recess before we hear public comments please yes sir i will do my report and then we'll have a brief recess before we go into public comment okay and so i have a short report which i thought several of these items would be covered and they weren't um but so i'll start with just a recap because we haven't had a meeting since then that we met with the board of county commissioners the end of march our full board in their full board which was the first time that we had done so since before kovid there's a little discrepancy on when exactly the last time was but we think probably 2015

0902016 and had a really positive conversation just about especially specifically growth we're projected to have 116 000 students in polk county next year which is 6 000 more than we currently have that's how quickly polk county is growing so it's not something that we can do alone in polk county public schools and the county knows that that they're growing for every every family they grow we grow a lot of students too so in working together to make sure that our we're placing schools appropriately there will be a rezoning mechanism that comes into this over the next few years but we had a really positive conversation with the county um then beginning of april we got to have principal for a day in winterhaven so five schools had community partners come in and shadow the principal

091for a day um and the community partners i've talked to several of them over the past few weeks and they learned so much it was just eye-opening one gentleman came in he's like you know i used to work with the lakeland magic and we give students tickets if they read so many books but i learned that it's not helpful to give students tickets because the parents can't get them there and then the parents don't have a ticket that they or they can't afford to buy a ticket so just changing that thought process for some of our community partners is these are what the needs really are and if you want to make an impact ask the principal ask the teachers how you know what are troubleshoot this with me what's some feedback you can give

092me to make it better and make it something that students can access and it was a really productive day i think the the schools were thrilled to be able to show off what they're doing and our community partners learned a lot i quickly want to give a shout out to jeanette crowley she was named the employee coordinator of the year for united way of central florida at our polk county public schools event last week with them and this is she is the employer employee coordinator of the year for the entire county so that's includes publix saddle creek all of the big corporations it was our coordinator from polk county public schools the volunteer of the year for senior high schools came from winterhaven high school which i'm sure none of you are surprised but that

093was miss darcy martin superintendent hyde was with me at that ceremony where she quickly said i have to go back i have kids in my room and they're working on pert testing and i need to get back to them because they're almost done so i know she stole superintendent hideaway for a little bit to show all the cool things that she's doing she is there every single day before students arrive and after most of our staff leave she is the most dedicated volunteer i have ever seen and i just want to give a shout out to her because she's doing some incredible things to make sure that our students graduate and tutoring our students who need help passing fsa or s.a.t to get their diplomas um and then i also just want to give a

094preview that superintendent hyde and i will be speaking at state of the county on thursday morning at 8 am if anybody wants to come join us it will also be live streamed and on pgtv so we will be joining the county commission and the department of health so and we will now take a brief recess and we will be back at 6 37 so 10 minutes [Music] when you build a culture where we're always assessing what you know i want to know what do you know i care about what you know kids are starting to build a culture where they'll walk up to you let me tell you what i know yeah you know and where did you learn that oh i learned that in third period today so they're able to recall because we're

095always questioning what they learned but the core of that comes from common claims [Music] this event is really unique because it's a really special time for us to celebrate new teachers we throw them this party to celebrate them actually making the decision to not only be a teacher but to be a teacher here in polk county public schools we get all dressed up we have a sparkling cider toast at the end we're hearing from our superintendent it's just really great time for teachers to network with each other and then get to experience some local restaurants as well i am incredibly excited about the fact that new teachers get an opportunity and just really feel like they're celebrated i think often times we get into the initial start of school and things are overwhelming and they

096don't really have that opportunity to say hey i'm here i'm officially hired with polk county public schools and i'm a part of the family and so to be able to have that feeling and to be joined by a lot of different individuals in the district it kind of really feels like the support is surrounding them physically and literally so i'm really excited for them just to feel celebrated supported and valued before the start of the year what's really powerful about them getting to make these connections early on is that we know that teachers feel isolated especially new teachers so for them to get the opportunity not only to be able to meet other new teachers but to be able to meet district staff that they are getting to put a face to a name it

097really just makes it all come together for them and let them know you're not in here alone we're here to support you and celebrate you [Music] [Applause] [Music] working for polk county public schools as a bus driver or bus attendant is just a small yet important part of what we do to serve our students we want to thank all the unsung heroes of our driving force our dedicated trainers assist every day with educating new drivers and bus attendants preparing them to be the best they can be trainers shine and assisting new hires to become safe and efficient drivers and they teach bus attendants the essentials of their daily responsibilities it's more than a job our cpr trainers and instructors teach life-saving skills keeping everyone's certification up to date with continual training trainers help with cdl

098licensing making sure candidates know the ins and outs of a bus preparing them to take and pass the commercial driver's license test putting our students safety first is always our top priority the transportation team thanks everyone for their hard work and the dedication that they give to make sure the job is done the training department would not be where we are today if it wasn't for the devotion of our trainers [Music] if you are a dedicated responsible respectful patient person with a positive attitude and a desire to help others succeed then you are exactly who we are looking for in a trainer please contact the training department if you are interested in making a positive difference in someone's life [Music] the pain is there because you're leaving home which is philippines but you don't know

099what's ahead of you which is already the opportunities that you have like i did not see that these people here are so welcoming like really i was really like flabbergasted with all what happened [Music] foreign remember that balloon that you have between your legs interesting i know you hear me if i could have you all please take a seat we're going to readjourn the meeting reconvene the meeting sorry we're not readjoining anything we will now begin our public comments for items not included on this evening's agenda for a vote just as before to register to speak community members must have filled out a speaker card in the lobby prior to the meeting all speakers will be given three minutes the clock will give you a warning sound when you have one minute left and when

100you have 30 seconds left please note that although the board although the board encourages community participation no immediate action will be taken on items presented during the this public comment portion of the meeting if follow-up board action is required then the matter may be placed on the on an agenda at a subsequent meeting in accordance with school board policy our first speaker will be kathy bucklew and on deck will be glenda white greetings hi there i have a great idea for abu abuse child abuse prevention month i'm kathy buckley and i am a member of library book review committee one i unequivocally disagree with almost every committee recommendation the reason child abuse my evaluation remarks i hope you read they represent over a thousand polk residents many of whom belong to ccdf usa i'm sure

101there are more than just them but we collectively want to ask a few hypothetical questions to the school board about child abuse and exposing children to obscene book content 19 minutes has some of the most graphic erotic and descriptive sex scenes that it are totally indistinguishable from pornography using language reserved for movies rated nc-17 is that okay with you does that not cross the line the kite runner has a graphic scene of forced sodomy on a minor it is replete with the detestable cultural practice of enslaving young boys for sexual pleasure i was physically sick reading this and the book got worse a member of my committee quit after reading this book and had to see a counselor doesn't this cross the line you want our teenagers to read this imagine traumatizing a 15 year

102old now is that child abuse the bluest eye which you'll have next on your list has two pages of disgustingly details of a father's lust sexual arousal and ultimate rape of his own daughter and a member of our committee said it was beautifully written really where is the line what would you want your own daughter to read about his father that she's supposed to trust and love raping her i don't think you can tell me where the line is because we've crossed it long ago this is not a first amendment issue but a child protection issue these are just a few of the examples where we cross florida statutes and we hold the school board responsible now according to florida statute 10640 subsection 4 it says you are responsible for all material made available to

103students to ensure that it is free of pornography material prohibited under obscenity laws suited to students needs and their ability to comprehend at grade level and age appropriate we don't need to be hypersexualizing our little children that's abuse and let's let's prevent child abuse in our schools even if it's at the hands of library books masquerading as literary masterpieces my idea take the books out of the libraries for minors thank you miss buckley miss white [Applause] glinda white and on deck will be will wood and you can hand those to miss a vet good evening everyone my name is glenda white i live in winterhaven and i want to applaud and support the resolution in support of childhood prevention month in support of your effort i'm presenting over 1100 petitions from people across polk county

104asking you to please remove the 16 books currently interviewed under review by the two committees florida statutes 847.0 and .001 protect children from exposure to pornographic or inappropriate materials by groomers and or sexual predators disgustingly our school libraries and textbooks make available and actually present such material to our children in clear violation of florida law statute 847.012 b defines such material any book pamphlet magazine printed matter however produced or sound recording that contains any matter defined in 847.001 explicit and detailed verbal descriptions or narrative accounts of sexual excitement or sexual conduct and that is harmful to minors statute 847.001 part 6 reads harmful to minors means any reproduction imitation characterization description exhibition presentation or representation of whatever kind or form depicting nudity sexual conduct or sexual excitement when it predominantly appeals to appreciate shameful or

105morbid interest is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material or conduct for minors and taken as a whole is without serious literary artistic political or scientific value for minors statute 1006.34 part 4 adds this includes instructional material containing pornography or otherwise prohibited by 847.012 and may not be used or made available with any public school books such as the bluest eye that depict the rape of an 11 year old girl by an adult male or the kite runner which depicts the rape of a young boy by an adult male and other information in these books promotes sexual activities or portrayals not allowed by florida law for availability to children these books are clearly abusive to children offering or making available the books on

106this list according to the statutes i cited are a third degree felony and can be punished by up to five years and or a five thousand dollar fine per occurrence should this board elect to keep any of these books in the polk public school libraries i will lodge a complaint with the polk sheriff's office and the polk state attorney thank you will wood you are welcome to stand in applause at the end but we're not doing this [Applause] please hold your applause till the end of public comment will wood and then on deck will be liz suits my name is will wood live in polk county florida third generation air force thanks for those kind words about your veterans quite frankly i'm shocked that i had to do this report this is one of our

107books that's on the shelves i don't know you're here to present to the school board please face the school board talking to them thank you i don't know all the protocols but uh again so what i'm trying to get at here is i appreciate all of what you guys have done i'm my both my parents were also teachers in polk county i realize all the sacrifice you guys make for the children what i'm worried about is some of this content that you guys can see right here in one of your books i mean i didn't even go over any of the verbage this is just simply the pictures and um it's endorsed one of the authors is endorsed by planned parenthood and i'm not sure how much you know about planned parenthood but margaret sanger

108she was a notorious racist she made very stunning comments about about black people oriental people people of different races and backgrounds one of them was saying that they're secretly trying to eliminate the black race that's why about 80 percent of planned parenthood is located in in places that are predominantly black or hispanic or so on the first one was in harlem new york okay and this is racist she she supported the nazi party 42 percent of black babies are killed every year in abortion approximately and uh this is a globalist elitist agenda that's being carried out not by your average white person in america or anywhere around the world but it's being carried out by some of the eugenics eugenicist elitists around the world these would include people like bill and melinda gates their their

109foundation in fact bill bills gates father rand planned parenthood for a while people like ted turner who was the founder of cnn warren buffett prince charles prince phillip the carnegie foundation the rockefeller foundation the rothschild foundation klaus schwab of the world economic forum he's making big news lately his little understudy yuval noah harari who wants to get under our skin he wants to turn us into transhumanists he says god jesus christ raising being raised from the dead is fake news and that we will become gods don't worry about the god in the clouds he said worry about the icloud and these are just some of their crazy beliefs that they believe unfortunately they run much of the world and i don't believe in child abuse i'm trying to save my children from these nut cases

110that are running the world right now they've deviated from a proper world view the bible says by one blood god created all the nations of the earth therefore we all have value in god's sight so let's stand up as polk county i believe none of our values align with these nonsensical people that are running our world and have puppets like joe biden and many of the other world leaders thank you mr wood liz suits and on deck is patricia inglis [Applause] if you could just say your name for the record please um hi i'm a resident of polk county sorry i'm a resident at polk county and a mom of many school-aged children i really love that you're advocating um child abuse prevention month and as many people here have said that there are some

111harmful material in our schools and i'm concerned about it there is a progressively dark trend for literature aimed at our children that is increasingly explicit profane and sexual many of the books that contain themes far too heavy for children to bear are sitting on this on the shelves of our school libraries i'm here today to plead with you to put the children's best interest back to the front and center and not the interest of lewd authors with goals of grooming our children into shameful acts you are not sitting there to protect authors or even yourselves i have deep concerns from my kids futures the cause of the fall of rome sexual immorality it also led to the downfall of greece egypt and babylon and it might be the downfall of our country if we are

112not vigilant to protect our children they call them the formative years for a reason my desire is for those in our school systems to exercise better taste when selecting literature it seems there's been a flight from beauty as the philosopher scrutin says and a desire to spoil it i was going to read an example from this book but there's children in the room i honestly i can't bring myself to do that so it's about bestiality and i anyway uh good taste matters especially in books meant for kids moms or norms are created through through these books detailing these horrific acts often normalizes them to kids and teenagers are all about finding those norms and adhering to them choose books that have stood the test of time and transcended generations because they hold both wisdom and

113beauty it is also important to note the statutes that it's a felony of the third degree like someone else said it's not only immoral it's illegal think about the passages in this book if you've read beloved just read those passages and apply the statutes to what is depicted in this book does it violate those statutes i would say yes a children's book reviewer guerdin says this about these dark types of literature is that they lack this transforming and uplifting quality they take difficult subjects and wallow in them in a gluttonous way they show an orgystic lack of restraint that is the mark of bad taste we can do so much better for our children when it comes time to shop for books let me leave you with the words of paul from philippians 4 8

114whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things thank you patricia inglis [Applause] patricia inglis and on deck is pam loose hi my name is patricia inglis i'm a polk county resident i just wanted to talk about these 16 books the issue here is not simply whether the 16 books are in questions should be on the shelves of our schools overall the issue is at hand is who has the final authority on decisions about our minor children's education is it the parents or the educational establishment our the former virginia governor terry mcauliffe he said the quiet part out loud when he said i don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach and now

115i feel like our current committees that have looked at these bush books are telling us we don't think parents should be telling the schools what books should be in the libraries however all of florida's state statutes regarding obscenity are based on the 1973 supreme court ruling which clearly establishes quote community standards quote are the yad stick by which our obscenity is to be measured the florida statutes use the phrase quote prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material or conduct for minors that's the prevailing standards of the adult community as a whole not the prevailing standards of academics and district personnel experts that's why legally parents not the education establishment must have the final say in what materials are considered to be age-appropriate for their minor children

116it is therefore of deep concern how very little input parents were given on the committees which reviewed these books the committees were composed overwhelmedly of district personnel and those parents and community members on the committees that found found they were treated rudely and their opinions were glibly dismissed when they objected to contact in the content in the books these committees did not meet the requirement of determining the prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole parents naturally have deep and serious concerns about what their minor children are exposed to when they send them to publicly funded schools in a sense these schools have been granted a sacred trust this is a place where above all others trust should never be broken our schools should be for learning and preparing students for a bright future

117not for not providing children with access to sexually inappropriate content behind their parents back i'm sure you're all aware that if these books go to the shelves this will go to the courts and according to florida's statute each quote each district school school board is responsible for the content of all materials used in the classroom or otherwise made available to students be very aware that the responsibility for this pornographic content will being made being made available to minors will rest squarely upon you thank you thank you pam loose and on deck will be emmett eugene purvis good evening i'm pam loose can you hear me okay there we go they'll adjust the mic as you talk okay first i want to say thank you to mr wilson for your comments this afternoon in your statement

118um you're absolutely correct this never has been about banning books it's about age appropriateness i had the opportunity to visit with sheriff judd a few weeks ago and in our conversation we talked about this situation and he told me that his recommendation would be that the books be put behind the librarian's desk and the where the parent could request to check out the books as a parent we do place boundaries around our children's activities according to our values and our beliefs there are things we do not allow them to do because we are the parents i was once the youth director at a church in las vegas and i used to tell my young people to be very cautious about what you watch read or listen to your brain is a recorder once you have

119seen or heard something it is forever you cannot unsee or unhear it ask doctors children are going through puberty much younger than in the past why i've read some research documents which speak to early exposure to sexual material turning on a part of the brain that would normally turn on at the time of natural puberty i've attended or listened to the the book reviews and one of the comments i heard over and over again is that most of these books have been checked out a few times or not at all the point is that they can be checked out and they can be taken to a table and read by a child without ever even being checked out what you see or hear is forever let me tell you a different story my granddaughter recently

120picked up a book in her classroom that had a picture in it of a naked grandmother i looked up the book and it was rated as being for middle schoolers but it was in a second grade classroom we have to be the guardians of our children's hearts and minds as much as possible board members today i heard mr bridges say that this is not something that you will necessarily vote on that at least three of you need to ask for this to be an agenda item for you to vote on you're the elected members of the community and the community deserves to know where you stand so please take that on and i want to tell you i am so thankful for the foster children and abused children recognition tonight i was one of each

121i can't unsee or unhear or unexperience the things i did as a child and we need to protect our children [Music] emmett purvis and on deck is linda kitsch emmett purvis i think emmitt purvis linda kitch is on deck i apologize emmett purvis 655 east stewart street in bartow what i have to say tonight is i'm disappointed if you look around this room and everybody here was gone what would happen there would be a void of leadership mr superintendent keep our kids out of the gutter linda kitsch and then on deck will be richard miller my name is linda moore kitsch i was born in the winter haven hospital i was raised here in winter haven i graduated from winterhaven high school i went to polk junior college when it was out at the air

122base and um i have returned i well i grew up and i um became very interested in insurance and contract law i advanced my life a lot because of my parents because of my community because of my schools my teachers and the people that cared and loved about me or loved me i'm sorry i have a respiratory infection my mouth's really dry too so um but i have been sitting in school board meetings for a year and i'm ashamed of my community and i'm ashamed of what i hear my uncle was assistant superintendent of schools they've been principals teachers my husband worked with emotionally disturbed children i was a state farm agent in california i have one son that's a teacher two daughter in law daughters-in-laws that are teachers the things that i hear from

123teachers about schools and children is absolutely disgusting we need to be able to work in an area where we love cherish and admire children we need to teach them how to be the best they can be in every single thing that they do the stuff that i heard tonight about the abused children i have never heard anything better if our schools and our school boards and our teachers could live that every day every child that graduates from school would not be subject to criminality or to do a lot of the things that kids are doing today children have an innate ability to learn if they have the right guidance and they have the right people to mentor them and to help them to be the best that they can do every single day of their

124lives and we have the opportunity in polk county to do that for our kids they shouldn't be last we shouldn't have teachers that don't want to work or we shouldn't have substitute teachers that won't go into schools or i shouldn't see ladies in public that have quit teaching school because of the system in winter haven in the abuse that they get in the school system and by the children by the high schoolers so it's it's doable and all of the stuff tonight shows what it can be but we've got to live it thank you thank you miss kitch richard miller and then on deck will be vicki roy hey there y'all i'm richard miller from babson park probably some of you don't know where that is but it's between frost proof and lake wales so

125i want to thank you all for what you do this is not an easy job i've never been a board member before but it's certainly not easier not easy and i want to thank you all for what you do to make our kids have a great time in school while they learn so they can do well when they graduate from school thank you for all of that i'm sure everybody here in this room and online watching will agree that our state obscenity laws are for a reason and that reason is to not harm our children these the children's obscenity law is so that our children are not harmed and we want that to be recognized by all people in this room especially there's harmful words harmful pictures harmful stories in these books that we're talking

126about and we've only picked out 16 of the books that the florida alliance has picked out 70 of those books there's 70 books that are that are recommended to be removed from the library and we're only talking about 16. so we can surely be a good school board and take these out now i have an example for you for why we should take these out i'm sure everybody remembers the student in virginia who did a heinous act on a student uh in this same school and it was just terrible well it was found out about and he was replaced he went actually to another school and he did the same heinous act on another student where do you suppose he was influenced and what do you suppose influenced him to do this heinous act most

127likely it was from a book movie or pictures that he saw sometime growing up and he was probably only what 16 or 18. so we don't want that to happen in polk county if we put these books in our school everybody here will be a party to that heinous act if we have one of our students do that because he read or she read one of those terrible books that we're talking about putting back on our shelves i recommend that we all get together and like somebody said let's vote show everybody where we stand who wants these books in the library and who doesn't i think that's a great idea to vote for that that way the elections are coming up pretty soon and we'll know who stands for the parents and children and who

128does not thank you everybody keep that in mind we don't want anybody thank you mr miller vicki roy and on deck will be james target good evening good evening my my name is vicki i live in lakeland raised uh three children here got two grandkids my concern regards the book review committee and the form used to determine the appropriateness of the books in question this committee is composed predominantly of district personnel who are simply going through the motion of checking boxes on a form the rubric or the form itself has been significantly altered from its original form as well um i won't go over the first five questions but question number six is quite interesting the original rubric stated are questions or questionable elements of this work an integral part of a worthwhile theme message

129or attempt to develop a character it has been altered on the current form to read are questionable elements of this work an important part of the overall development of the story or text yes or no circle question number seven from the original form has been eliminated totally from the present form the question number seven on the original form reads in what way or ways does this work support and promote the educational goals and objectives of the polk county public schools it's not even on the current form regarding these matters the next question on the altered form are concepts presented in a manner appropriate to the ability and maturity of your suggested audience yes or no circle in the original form it states in what way or ways are concepts presented in a manner appropriate to

130the ability and maturity of your suggested audience space allowed to answer the question next question on the altered form non-fiction only does the material contribute to the evolution of ideas on the original form it reads how does the material make a significant contribution to the history of ideas very important be clear for all works on the approved list should meet the criteria for quote unquote classics i just have a question why was the form altered for this matter i would like to know the first five questions are all geared towards what's the adult's perspective it doesn't address children at all these questions have been altered significantly and obviously this form has been altered to achieve a specific result and as such is without merit thank you thank you james taggett and on deck will be

131jane monahan hi my name is jim taggett i'm a polk county resident taxpayer and voter now i'm going to read a few passages from this book here it's called the kite runner it's by khalid hassani this is one of the books that's been mentioned by some of the previous speakers and i'm also going to give fear of warning to any of you all out there with children now would be the time you might want to take your children out into the other room you have had fair warning this is this is graphic i'm going to read his words exactly as written okay and this is anyway uh here let's see let's start uh camille and wally each grabbed an arm twisted and bent at the elbow so hassan's hands were pressed to his back uh

132see stood standing over them this heel of his snow boots crushing the back of hussein's neck your father won't find out asif said there's nothing sinful about teaching a lesson to a disrespectful donkey i don't know wally you muttered suit yourself asif said he turned to camille what about you uh well i just it's just a hazara now a side note okay hazaras are an ethnic minority in afghanistan okay they speak persian okay not pashto they're looked down upon they're like a sub class okay sounds like racism okay anyway fine all i want is your weaklings to hold him down can you manage that while he and camille nodded they looked relieved asif knelt behind hussein put his hands on hussein's hips and lifted his bare buttocks he kept one hand on hussein's neck and

133undid his own belt buckle with his free hand he unzipped his jeans he dropped his underwear he positioned himself behind hussein the saint did not struggle he didn't even whimper he moved his head slightly and caught a glimpse of his face and i caught a glimpse of his face i saw the resignation in it it was a look i had seen before it was the look of a lamb now there's other passages in here there's others describing homosexual rape there's one part later on that's talks about selling young children uh boys and girls they're selling or renting them into the sex slave business okay you're talking about healthy child development what's that doing in the school library healthy jail there's 15 other books like it okay other people here have mentioned uh the legal penalties

134it's a five-year felony distributing that to a minor under the age of 18. five years per count that's five years per book 16 books now let's go to another okay now let's go uh where i lost it okay in the book of uh matthew 18 verse six jesus is talking about the small children and he says but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin it would be better for him to if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the sea i urge you all to vote wisely on these books do some prayer thank you jane monahan and on deck is jonathan elgato jane monaghan and then on deck is jonathan elgato my name is jane monahan and i'm proud to say

135i'm 88 years old probably the oldest person in this room so i want to elaborate a little bit on my background i'm a mother i'm a grandmother i am a great grandmother and i am a great great grandmother i am proud of it and this is trash i haven't seen it all i don't want to see it all but what i've heard i certainly would not want my descendants to be confronted with that i've heard some stories i want to tell you a story this takes me back to my younger years which goes back a few hundred years but i had a sister-in-law she and i were the same age by two months and she had been in the doctor's office and her son was five years old so he sees this book well no

136we're not talking about schools now but she sees this book out on the counter about talking about sex uh to a five-year-old so she went ahead and got it certainly not my way of thinking but she went ahead and got it she read the book and she presented it to her five-year-old some of it was pretty yes oh god pretty it was graphic to a degree and i'll tell you what he did he took his father playboy magazine as a five-year-old and cut out the boobs and put him on the wall above his bed so that is i'm telling you you better watch that's what's gonna happen i thank you for your time thank you jonathan elgato and on deck will be maureen miller good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board thank you for

137your time in today's agenda meeting it was stated that the real issue at hand concerning these books is the appropriateness by age of the book in other words at what age would certain material be appropriate to be more specific at what age do you think this content is appropriate for a month i had fantasized about sage her cute face her muscular athletic body now my mental image of her naked body filled me with horror big hairy balls and an eight inch flat hairy chest and a hairy back later on in the book i kept begging him to stop but he just smiled and said he was going to doesn't like doesn't feel very good does it and and who in this room and on this board has no problem with you inside right now it

138feels bad you can deny it all you want here but it feels bad within your heart you are responsible you are responsible in romans chapter one it describes people that thought they were so smart yet they became fools now i've got a little bit of angst in my voice and you can understand why i'm a father of three boys you feel that awkwardness good in no way shape or form should anybody in the school system be teaching children about sex [Applause] it doesn't matter what i think about it it doesn't matter what you think about it it doesn't matter what anybody out there in the crowd thinks about it the only thing that matters is what god has said in his word and he says that if you twist a child and you make them

139trip into sin you should tie a rope around your neck and jump into the sea it would be better for you to do that so i'm putting you on notice and i speak in proxy of my children and every citizen represented here be warned we are watching we will not longer stand by and let this craziness happen this is bizarro world where are we in our search for knowledge where has our wisdom gone where is it i hope you feel that awkwardness we're watching you maureen miller and on deck will be mildred pagan my 88 year old friend puts me to shame my name is maureen miller and i also would like to address the book section under consideration and the emotional abuse that those materials actually did inflict on a friend of ours i'd

140like to commend mr wilson he has spoken and he has taken quite a bit of abuse and i want to thank him for the abuse he has taken interestingly enough the kite runner a friend of ours who works with my husband at a food bank in haines city was talking with us about the books at 15 when she was a student in haines city she had to read the kite runner when she got to the rape scene she got so upset by reading it that she couldn't finish the book she's now 33 when she looked at that list of books and saw the kite runner she said that it brought back those memories just as vividly and just as upsetting 18 years later as when she first read it with everything our youth have to

141deal with today our books in our school libraries really necessary that can traumatize 15 year olds or six-year-olds or 17-year-olds you heard one of the passages from the book there's another passage where the same man who rapes the little boy talks about raping the mother of one of the boys i won't use the word because of the children here but he says i took her from behind by that creek over there what a tight little sugary c-word she had the child abuse prevention statement noted that children who've had adverse childhood experiences are at higher risk of short-term and long-term challenges that can impact the individual child well at least one polk county student has suffered long-term impact from reading the kite runner we can't protect our children from everything but the district can at least

142remove these books i respectfully request that you do so thank you thank you pagan [Applause] and then on deck will be jonathan freit i'm gonna try to reach so i don't lose track uh my name is mildred pagan i'm not ashamed to tell you my name i am a believer jesus christ i come in behalf of my children my grandchildren and their children and for all the other parents here for their children i'm coming to speak against sexual abuse and grooming into a young children self humiliation okay because when you tell a boy that he's a girl and then he has to take this and that and go get an operation you're getting him to mutilate what god had created him to be at birth same for the female uh one day my my i

143don't know what the teachers need to wake up because what you teach these kids and you're gonna allow them to have this kind of book is gonna confuse a child i was confused because i was raped as a child as a little kid no one protected us back in them days everything was kept under secret and you were afraid to tell your parents because the person would tell the parents well she did something to cause that to come on her so like jonathan read and few other people here read luke 17 it would be better for all of you here to put a little millstone around your neck and jump in the sea if you're going to cause one of these little kids to sin that's what god said that's the book i train my

144kids in the way of the lord the school doesn't have a right to train my kids in the way or any of these other kids we're training our kids this kind of filth that is coming into school is coming against our teaching against god almighty himself and it's by the blood of jesus he's going to answer we are not going to be in america america for long if we keep going this way okay homosexual is wrong sexual abuse is wrong any kind of abuse is wrong here's another one proverbs train up a child in the way they should go and when he is old he will not depart i trained up my kids i'm sure a lot of people here train up their kids and i am a grandma i am a mom i'm an

145aunt and a grandan and i behoove you guys that you need to get on your knees and ask for forgiveness because i'm going to make sure i'm listening to all this i got your name i'm going to make sure you don't get back on the school board because i like to know who's the insanity to approve these books and say these are books for kids to read five years old seven years old and i used to volunteer to deport county school and help kids to learn their abc's they're mad and they're sin and how to add and subtract because some teachers are too lazy to teach them but that's what we are we're sending our kids so they can learn and read and be educated not be groomed for sexual slave okay that's all i've

146got to say and you better behoove jesus jonathan jonathan free and on deck is howard before i start can i ask a question i filled out the i don't remember the colors but one was on the abuse matter and then the other is public comment since the abuse matter has been moved this is both they're they're all right now all right they will only get to speak one time that is correct okay i don't consider that right you changed the thing in the middle uh well thank you for hearing me now i do have a something to say concerning the matter of abuse i'll talk fast maybe i can get them both in abuse is abuse no matter what the age and it's particularly offensive when the abuse is towards a minor towards a child

147several people quoted matthew 18 about the millstone thing you got it we won't repeat it but so my question would be how much abuse is acceptable i think that everybody in the room would say none the comments made in today's proclamations were very powerful education and conversation may be very valuable however normalization is a problem i want to give you an acronym that i hope will stick in everyone's mind the acronym is o tape o tape this acronym represents a very slippery slope this is what happens when we turned a blind eye to issues that we don't agree with yet we allow them to persist we move from something that we object to to begin to tolerate it then from tolerance to acceptance from acceptance to participation and then finally to enjoyment this is the

148agenda of normalization and the sexualization of minors i hear it said from from time to time we shouldn't over sexualize our children that is an incorrect statement we should not sexualize our children i consider that to be abuse and hopefully none of us would accept any abuse of a minor whether it be physical sexual mental or emotional it seems to be considered that in the current book issues in our county that vulgar perverse violent and sexual content of the books in question is acceptable because what might be considered by some to be quote literary merit do you know the composition of good old-fashioned rat killer 98 percent good old-fashioned wholesome oats and just 2 percent strychnine even just a little bit of poison mixed in with the good stuff is deadly i have one minute

149to address uh the other issue and that would also be uh specifically the books as opposed to abuse but um mr hyde made the recommendation today about a opportunity for parents to be able to select certain books when they register into a particular school i think it's a great step in in the right direction i i don't know that it's quite enough but i am very glad that uh you're moving in the in the right direction with it um there was something said in there that i would that i would challenge and it was to say that the the the participation of parents whether they participate in that opportunity or not would indicate uh the values of parents in our community but yet in the same conversation it was said that it's very very difficult

150uh miss fortney uh explained to this in your many years of of service in the educational system it's very difficult to get parents involved so i don't think that that would be a real good barometer you might actually could flip it around take the books away and see what kind of community response [Music] thank you mr freit howard wimple and on deck will be jan whimple good afternoon my comments are to the board and the superintendent but i know from past and present actions and your attitudes i see that you refuse to listen to reason and you'll do as you please so i'm really speaking to all of the parents and grandparents of polk county who might be listening and watching this video in the hope that they will stand up and stop the destruction

151of our children by the ungodly evil and corruption that has hijacked our education system using the lies of political correctness woke-ism critical race theory transgenderism diversity inclusion equity superintendent reid equity and grooming disguised as health education america was founded as a judeo-christian nation created under a covenant with god to follow his laws and teachings to honor and obey his truth righteousness and morality doing what is right in god's eyes not ours we honored that covenant for over two centuries god blessed us for doing so he increased our bounty our knowledge our power and our strength america became not only the greatest nation in the world but also the best educated unfortunately we have allowed our education system to be taken over by ungodly prideful people who thought they knew better than god and how our

152children should be taught we allowed that to happen as we were too busy to supervise or pay attention to these people with misinformed and unrighteous concepts for over two generations now we have given them unfettered control over the education of our children with disastrous results we now have damaged deviant products of that education system indoctrinating our children every day with their damaged deviant value systems in defiance of all god's covenants and commandments i now ask all parents and grandparents of children polk county to rise up get involved and vote out every one of these school board members who have sanctioned this descent into indecency for the love of your children for the love of your god and for the love of your country we must vote out all these people thank you [Applause] thank you

153mr wimple deviant teachings and restore godly people teaching that which is right in god's eye thank you thank you jan wimple and on deck is sue sisk [Applause] hello hi hello thank you again for allowing me this opportunity to speak and i want to thank you dr allen for the child abuse of prevention month mentioning that and and my uh prayer and hope is that we put our heart where our mouths are that we truly mean that we are going to fight the in child abuse um you've heard said by many in the past that florida law clearly bans pornographic material made available to minors we we've heard the statute statutes 847.0123 84701 106.344 and pornographic material we know is defined by the state as a graphic description of rape child rape sexual encounters explicit

154language detailed verbal descriptions narrative acts you've heard from others before me that these things are all listed in these books that are on board right now about being banned based upon the law the school district is considering these books that should be banned specifically the state law states material cannot be harmful to minors meaning no nudity sexual conduct or sexual excitement it must be suitable material and conduct for minors did you know florida has the third highest rate of sexual trafficking in the united states that's horrible and we want to put these type of books in there to teach more to groom them so we're going to consider these books that are predatory that sexualize that groom our children for child pregnancy pedophilia trafficking and gender confusion these books just lead to emotional and physical

155harm and should not be tolerated i ask you there's images in these books you saw them bring them up we have others are these what you would consider right this is for a 10 year old these are images that are for 10 year olds and where a 10 year old is in an elementary school there's also pre-k and kindergarten and they are allowed to see these books as you heard people talk about that is that really something you say is right do any of you agree that's for a five-year-old a ten-year-old please and then of course you've had others talk about sections in these books the ver the words i'm not going to say them because i'm a parent and a grandparent and there's children here but they have sections in these books they're specifically

156about pedophilia sex how to attract young children adults attracting young children how could you put up with that there there's sections in there about rape child rape explicit language i'm sorry i'm very passionate about this because i think of my children i almost lost when he was born at 27 weeks we had to go through so much to get him and and be able to save him he's 30 now and he put up with this please for the sake of our ban these books from our schools thank you miss wimple seuss sue sisk and on deck is zeta santos all right applause about all of this because when i was given this agenda to read through what's on the books i am a survivor of abuse and rape since i was a child and i

157had to go through a lot of counseling to get my mind straight when i started reading that stuff it sent my whole mind back to my victimization every time these kids that have gone through that read something like that they're being re-victimized that's horrible they're having to relive that whole experience i want you to know that that doesn't need to be in our school i have a granddaughter that came and asked me is there a possibility that she's a boy in a girl's body because she read this book called jazz she read this book it talks about transgender so i told her no honey god doesn't make those kind of mistake you are what god made you you're a beautiful young girl very beautiful young girl and in genesis 27 god created male and female

158that's what he created when he created man there there is no mistake he made no mistake so we talked about that i'm going to remember everybody here i've got the list of people that are up here when it comes time to revoke i'm not putting you back in especially you mr superintendent because you're sitting there smirking and i see in your face okay i'm not voting you in you to me that's a sign of somebody who has a sick mind that would put children through all of this and our children are here to be educated not to be groomed into sexual trafficking so i had to say this and get it off my chest i feel sorry for what's going on here in this county when i first moved to florida years ago it was

159a small god-fearing county i don't see that anymore and we've got to get back to basics so when it comes time to get voted in i want you to know that i'm remembering all of you and i will not be reelecting you thank you next will be bernita lemons bernita lemons next will be bernita lemons and on deck is karen resin bernita lemons yes my name is bernita lemons and i live in lakeland i have raised two daughters in the polk county school system and i now have two grandsons in school here i am here to advocate for them and all of the children over the past two years me and many other parents and grandparents have had our eyes opened to what is happening in our public schools across the country we have all

160witnessed the outrage regarding the masking of our kids and other issues including the subject tonight i had intended to read some of the passages from some of the books being considered by our board whether to allow them to stay in our school libraries i have attended several of the review panel meetings and have actually been very disappointed in what i've heard being discussed i would simply like to ask how many of you have either read the books or even read passages from the books or looked at book titles or front covers of many of these books i am not a book banner nor a book burner as many people have described us i would simply like to state that if any parent would like to buy these books or check them out from our public

161libraries they have that freedom please feel free to read them at home with your own approval my issue besides the legal statute issue is the appropriateness of many of these books being available to minor children my seven-year-old grandson in first grade reads at a third to fourth grade level he is a voracious reader and begs his teacher to check out books beyond his so-called reading level i think it is a wonderful thing to read i would absolutely be crushed if he came upon any of these 16 books on this list opened them up and started reading them i know for a fact his parents would be appalled there are certain subjects that should be discussed with only a parent we all have different values and ways that we want to teach our kids and grandkids

162these books should not be in our school libraries where the parents are unaware of what their child is reading do we not have thousands of other educational interesting fun happy exciting books that they can read why such heavy topics why such mature topics why such topics that clearly do not align with many parents values and spiritual beliefs when our young children ask us where babies come from do we go into explicit detail when a child asks about war abortion slavery fallen political leaders do we not tell them what and how we want them to know and understand like my mom always told me garbage in garbage out why do we need to expose them to these things why can't we protect them until they're older and more mature to process these topics i'm here to

163ask you to please remove these books entirely from our public libraries please cons thank you in advance for doing the right thing karen resin last call karen resin all right next will be bill young and on deck will be deb and i don't have a last name just deb from lakeland bill young thank you good evening my name is bill young and i'm a resident of polk county in lake wales florida i would like to begin by challenging us all through a quote by a man whom i have great respect for dr martin luther king jr said quote we must remember that intelligence intelligence is not enough intelligence plus character that is the goal of true education end quote so the real question regarding this book concern is are we going to put age-appropriate materials

164in front of the children and show both education and character or will we be immature and display behavior i really can't stand virtue signaling which says i care and you don't and do what the loud misleading crowd wants i for one am not perfect however why should that stop us from showing true character and striving to do the responsible thing make no mistake parents are watching one man's opinion and in conclusion i'd like to say my mother was born to a doctor and a nurse that weren't married in 1921 in new york city and when she was a month old she was put in an orphanage and spent the first five years of her life there until she was adopted i had four children two boys two girls that i helped raise my oldest son

165was killed in the marine corps when he was 19 years old praise the lord he was a christian my two daughters i have basically no ability to talk with because they still retain their residence where i grew up in liberal socialist democrat communist new york state every time i try and keep a serious conversation with them about what my grandchildren are going to be exposed to there i get talking points from cnn and msnbc i'd like to say my children live here and that's why i'm concerned and that's why i'm addressing the board i'd like to say that my children and grandchildren are going to be positively affected if the right decisions are made here but i can't but i can say what i stand for what i believe in and i believe that the

166folks that spoke earlier that mentioned that jesus christ is watching he's watching and god will not be mocked i urge you to do the right thing remove these books in question we are again not book burners we're not fools we're not idiots but we do have discernment and i think we need to to teach our children well the things that will bring them up in the things that are going to give them an enriching life and not a life of crime sadness sorrow and destruction thank you for your time good night thank you deb from lakeland and on deck will be robert goodman my name is deb i'm from lakeland i was educated in polk county schools my children were educating polk county schools my grandchildren in polk county schools and my mother was an

167educator in polk county i'm not here to talk about transgender queer non-binary heterosexual transsexual pan-sexual or any other newly defined sexual identity i came here to read from one of the books that had been submitted for review titled 19 minutes and give you my thoughts i want to also remind you that the children depicted in this book as well as the children in our schools who are allowed to read this book are minors i begin matt had already peeled off her clothes now he was leaning over her like a tidal wave pulling down his boxers he sprang free from his boxers and settled between josie's legs hey she said as he tried to push into her aren't you forgetting something oh josie just once i don't want there to be anything between us so now

168we're not only promoting illicit sex on minors but we're promoting unprotected sex on minors so the next verse or next set paragraph josie wanted to ask matt whether it had hurt the first time he had done it too she wondered if it always would hurt maybe pain was the price everyone paid for love she turned her face into matt's shoulder and tried to understand why even with him still inside of her she felt empty if your mental image of this confused empty hurting and vulnerable young teenage girl does not make your heart hurt for you you have a black heart you were selected to protect our children so let's stop playing the part of a naive teenager and recognize this material is being pushed on our children so as to encourage sexual indoctrination and immorality

169well before they are old enough or mature enough to cope with the consequences of their actions for this board to deny that truth does not make it any less the truth it is irrelevant to me whether the material in these books promote heterosexuality homosexuality or transsexuality they are ostensibly pornographic in nature and should never have a place in our media centers i have to believe there are plenty of good quality books available that our children could learn from and enjoy reading that don't promote illicit sex in conclusion i don't care what sexual preference you have or what pronoun you identify with yesterday today or tomorrow this filth has no place in our schools and promoting such filth by this board should be grounds for a number of you to lose the next school board election

170i challenge the parents vote in august vote in november thank you robert goodman and on deck is britney devore hello i'm robert goodman resident of polk county father of three grandfather concerned citizen and disappointed in a lot of you i am i did i am hopeful that we did have a book review we are reviewing the books i've seen what the results are and that people are going to push these books forward i have one book in my hand i'm going to read a little bit from that in a minute if you are a parent with a small children please remove that child from this room now biggest concern is i watched back some of the footage from the original meeting mr bridges presented two slides with the statutes of the state of florida highly

171selective edited i pulled the statutes out he took from one part cut into another left out some very important things a lot of those have already been stated he left out completely left out that it's a third degree felony punishable isn't provided in 775 082 083 and 084 he also said that the books were self-selected only and only available for students to check out from libraries but they are currently on the ap list and they're used in advance accelerated reading programs why are we not being honest when we're talking to the book review committee also ann everett was talking to the to the book review committee and she said that one of the book reviewers had a question are we to look at these books through the eyes of the student that would be affected

172or by the eyes of us as an adult she answered you should look at it through your vision not through the students why would we say that another person brought up the list of the checklist and that some of the questions were eliminated on the original checklist on the rubric it had a choice where you could say a child by age you could say it was available for first through third grade and all the way up to high school and then it had an addition to say adult adult is removed so it's almost leading everyone to say you have to check one of these boxes one of the books is in middle school and high school it's called 19 minutes from the book relaxed matt murmured and then sank his teeth into her shoulder he

173pinned her hands over her head and ground his hips against hers she could feel his erection hot against her stomach it wasn't the way it normally was but josie had to admit it was exciting she couldn't remember ever feeling so heavy as her heart was beating between her legs she clawed at max back to bring him closer yeah he groaned as he pushed her thighs apart then suddenly he was inside of her pumping so hard that she scooted backwards on the carpet burning the backs of her legs weight she said trying to roll away beneath him he put his hand over her mouth and drove harder until josie felt him come seamen sticky and hot pulled on the carpet beneath her matt framed her face with his hands are you going to put your position

174are you going to risk a felony by voting thank you brittany devore and on deck is paul hatfield he was that was for the public hearing good evening i want to speak specifically about the book it's perfectly normal and this is for ages 10 and up specifically in relation to number 12 on the rubric could this work be considered offensive in any way again as the previous person said why is it not offensive to children why are we asked to look through it from the adult perspective rather than the child's perspective so could this work be considered offensive in any way to children because of religion or portrayal of religious practices or ideologies and from the book some people think that masturbation is wrong and harmful and some religions call masturbation a sin but masturbating

175cannot hurt you masturbating is perfectly normal again 10 and older the fact that the author recognizes that masturbation is a religious sin and then demonstrates utter disregard to this belief indicates that this could be offensive because of religious ideologies could this work be considered offensive in any way to children because of sexual behavior boys and girls masturbate a girl rubs her clitoris a boy rubs his penis a person may have a warm good tingly exciting feeling while masturbating this is called having an orgasm some call it coming again 10 years old yes this is offensive to children and should be offensive to us as adults could this work be considered offensive in any way to children because of current behavior people of all ages masturbate babies kids teenagers boys and girls often start to masturbate

176at puberty but many start before after having an orgasm a person usually feels quite content and relaxed some people become sexually excited without masturbating just by looking at sexy pictures aka porn yes it's offensive florida statute 1006.4 includes the use of library books and must be free of pornography and material prohibited under 847.012 which includes any book that contains any matter defined in 847.001 which lists definitions and masturbation is listed twice in two different definitions there at the first committee meeting ann everett said we do ask that we refrain from using explicit language even when referring to the books or the texts in the books and then stacy davis thanked the committee after discussing is perfectly normal by saying you have done a wonderful job keeping the conversation appropriate for recording so the words aren't

177appropriate enough to discuss among adults or appropriate for recording but we ought to let 10 year olds be exposed to it in the public library this can be found in the adult section not in the juvenile or even the young adult section when i googled it you get an explicit content warning i believe the data collected in the review committee appears to be unreliable and invalid it appears the selection for the committee was not intended to get a true sampling of the public but rather a a collection thank you paul hatfields [Applause] well thank you again school board and mr superintendent appreciate it thank you for your time this evening you know my thoughts when i was i've got four boys and i've told them in each when they went out with their group someone

178did things i said uh if it comes to a questionable thing questionable time tell them your dad said no don't do that put her down dad blame dad i was a benchmark for him i was a lawmaker for him you know what you've heard the statutes tonight you've heard the junk that is in these books you've heard the pornographic stuff this book right here talks about suicide condones and promotes suicide the student even goes to the guidance counselor the guidance counselor passes it on and says yeah why not pass it on get on with it get on with your life do you have penthouse in your houses would you allow your kids to let you see look looking at playboy magazine would you allow your grandkids to let you see your neighbors your friends let

179you see looking at playboy magazine or penthouse do you have those in your why would you condone allowing these books to be put in front of elementary kids why why would you do that why would you dirty their minds with this junk we're not talking about banning we're talking about getting the pornography and the junk out of their hands this is what we want this is what we need you know what that's called backbone some of you coming up for election real soon in august you're going to need some backbone and you know what the public wants to see right now is for you to have some backbone to speak up and to take the power back away where it used to be bring the power back to the scope to the school board bring

180the power back and make decisions proper decisions what are you going to do you're going to have backbone i know some of you have some of your grassroots i know some of you say you have faith i don't see it not the faith that i know of not the faith that we know of not the faith our traditional conservative values knows of not the faith that our country was founded on no i don't see it where's the backbone are you going to have backbone you're going to hide you're going to hide continue to hide behind mask continue to hide with your stoic faces continue to hide behind your computers continue to peck on the keyboard so other people are talking is that what you're going to do i know i can see stoic faces you

181don't care it's obvious because you're not acting you can say all you want to say but your actions speak louder than your words and you know what when election time comes not just me but my family my community my church my friends we will not vote for you that's been said over and over thank you jessica plew and on deck is sarah medina [Applause] hello my name is jessica plough i'm here with my son jacob melton we are native polk county floridians i'm a fifth generation jacob attends eighth grade middle school at mclaughlin middle school he is in a self-contained esc class he has autism he was diagnosed at three years old he has seen countless neurologists therapists psychologists i was told he was mentally he would never read or write or have any type

182of independence from me he was severe and capable different multiple times i was told to place him in a home that he needed more than i could give i cannot give up on him ten years ago i moved from a town called juanita to lake wales in search of a community and a school that understands accepts and would help my children what we found was more than that we found unconditional love acceptance we found a family you see at mclaughlin it isn't a job to these teachers it's home they truly care about the children their community and each other i cried the first day i took jacob to mclaughlin because i had finally found a place i trusted for my child the weight had been lifted off my shoulders his teacher pam gary has taught

183my child how to read and write and do his multiplications his class is the first esc class to have a farm and raise animals jacob has been working on his independence he is active in his ffa raising pigs for the polk county youth fair he is active in his special olympics and rides his bike to and from school he competes next month in state special olympics representing polk county his principal dr hudson makes sure that all her kids in this school are included shown love shown support every child has their own obstacle they are dealing with at home they have people in their corner at mclaughlin in their community and understands and they get them if we don't make mclaughlin a high school where will he go frostproof 20 minutes away winter haven 30 minutes

184away or lake wells charter school none of these schools have what mclaughlin have none have what jacob needs they are in his corner no one else says i want to keep jacob in his community i want to keep it where he knows where he is safe and where he feels at home i put it up to you i put everything into you you can either put the weight back on my shoulders or keep it off thank you [Applause] thank you both sarah medina [Applause] sarah medina and on deck will be tristan harbert hi again my name is sarah medina and i'm an 8th grader at mclaughlin middle school mclaughlin is a school that is always doing its best to provide for its teachers and students we can't hear you they will adjust the mic as

185as you speak the amount of love and comfort that is spread within the school and beyond is like no other moving states and getting ready to go to a new school has been such a scary part of my journey in life but mclaughlin has made it so much better i've created so many memories at this school and i'm sad that as an eighth grader this will soon come to an end but i will forever be grateful for the experience that i've be able to have while enrolled mclaughlin middle is always dedicated to making the school a safe and wonderful place not just for students but everyone who steps foot through the door the teachers and staff at mclaughlin are always using their creativity to create new opportunities that expand our school and help it become

186even brighter if you look into the crowd you can see how incredibly proud we are to be here today i'm honored and privileged to speak on behalf of the track team though there are meets currently happening i speak for all of us when i say we wouldn't change a thing about being here today being able to stand here and tell you all how much mclaughlin means to me is very important for example i've been fortunate enough to become a rising student athlete and a leader due to the mentorship of teachers such as miss pawnell mr well mrs dicks mr cuevas and miss lee i've been given so many opportunities to shine many of these teachers aren't even my daily teachers but they still care about my future having teachers be so thoughtful towards me and

187other students is a feeling that everyone would love to have and that i'm especially grateful for my teachers have always been my biggest supporters and as a student athlete that is all i could ask for being able to grow as a person and student with the help of my teachers is what makes mclaughlin special to its students this helps me prepare for my future because i can practice communication skills i regularly help with different events and projects most recently i've assisted with the district job throughout the school by running errands making sure all rooms are set up and ready and organizing materials this may not seem like a big deal but it helped increase my levels of responsibility it also helps me learn respectful communication with teachers administration and even my peers mclaughlin has provided

188the opportunity to grow in a community far more diverse than the one in which i was accustomed i've learned to appreciate students and people of various cultural backgrounds at mclaughlin we often celebrate diversity with appreciation months and events which immerse us all such as our culture around the world night which showcase our tpg teachers from countries such as jamaica and the philippines all in all mclaughlin has been somewhere that is near and dear to my heart i wouldn't have even wished to go to any other school after my move i hope that mclaughlin can continue providing the amazing experience that i have had for students in the far future thank you thank you tristan harbert and on deck is mario clarkson school helps students prepare for the world by teaching them how to socialize and

189solve problems personally i've made many friends to my classes and social events hosted by the school i'm tristan harper and i'm an eighth grader at mclaughlin one of the many events i was able to participate in was the school valentine's dance on the day of the dance students were able to show their style by dressing down participating in a rap battle dancing talking and more another type of event that sets mclaughlin apart from is our squad program everybody at mclaughlin whether an adult or student gets placed in a squad i'm on elpida we get to meet with our squad during homeroom daily throughout the year the squads participate in challenges and competitions to strengthen school unity two times a year we have squad olympics these are field days where squads go head to head in

190different activities such as musical chairs kickball tug of war red light green light and more while it sounds like the competitions would cause separation the day is full of fun and interaction and students still congratulate and cheer for each other at the end of the day but there's more to mclaughlin than just events one type of opportunity is our variety of sports teams including volleyball soccer basketball track and field softball and flag football students can compete as a team against other schools the game the more games the higher the increase in school pride and spirit from students on and off the team another opportunity is the arts program it allows students to explore and discover their interests we have chorus band orchestra are theater itv which films our announcements jazz band rock band guitar dance

191and more they have showcases where they can share their talents with their families and other students as well as occasional performances at games overall i'm very glad that i had the opportunity to attend mclaughlin for my middle school experience and i hope the kids in the future will be able to experience the incredible opportunities and experiences i've been able to have i know where a mclaughlin is concerned there will always be academic and social excellence and i'm excited that for the opportunities i'll have in the future thank you mario clarkson and on deck is donna flores on deck is donna flores you're mario right you're good you're next my name is mario clarkson i am a eighth grade student at mclaughlin there are many things i like about my school including the care the teachers

192show for the students for example when a good kid gets in trouble the teacher talks to the student to make sure they're all right this helps the student feel valued and listened in as a person at our school even when they're having a bad day we have several cool sports such as track softball and flag football just to name a few these give kids something to do after school and place to show their skills that he might not be able to show in class another thing that mclaughlin has after school for students is studying and mentoring groups these help the students who need extra support and practice to be successful in school even students who are already doing well in school can come to twitter and help other students who are struggling and push them

193more towards success we have an amazing support staff um team including vince lee mrs bottoms mr massey and our wonderful principal dr hudson they do so much planning and fundraising and supporting our students so that we can see academically and have fun events such as the 8th grade dance the valentine's dance and swat olympians i know that my teachers and staff putting extra work outside of school to be sure that students have a good and safe experience i know that the adults at mclaughlin care about us and want us to succeed but not just as scholars but as people in general i am glad that i have been able to go to mclaughlin middle and i hope that i'll be there next year thank you mario and last but not least donna flores hi my

194name is donna flores i am a member of the polk county community and this is my daughter leila she is a very proud seventh grader of mclaughlin middle um part of our experience sorry i didn't think i was going to get emotional part of our experience has through the polk county systems has been an interesting one we've had some really low points um she's got excellent capabilities and in our experience with mclaughlin has been able to come through so many different obstacles that were given to her from previous schools the school itself is a school of community of love of support and just positivity every day that these kids walk in is they that they know they have supportive people around them teachers administration other students she was able to go from it's slightly difficult

195to say but kind of abusive situations inside of her educational environment and now she's abe honorable and she is able to host an awesome opportunity within the documentary called my community where she's gotten to know many community members um one of the things that pointed with that is you know she'll come home and she's like oh i got to meet so-and-so today and i was like oh where did you come from that and she's just like oh well you know first of all they're very confident and through her experiences that confidence has just magnified um being able to go from a very humble student shy in the classroom shy to speak to her peers and today she's able to host a documentary with intelligent incredible community members um that's incredible i'm gonna let her say

196a few words but thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to even look at expanding this family they definitely are creating an environment where we need our students today hi my name is leila flores and i am a student at mclaughlin middle i myself have been through a lot of struggles within the education system but at mclaughlin middle i feel as if i feel home i feel as if i am loved i feel as if i am a person there not just somebody that they use to just earn more and more for themselves i feel like they respect me as a person myself and not they don't just care like the principal dr hudson she is a wonderful woman she cares about the student she cares about me she cares about every single

197one and she understands that i am a person too and with no further business to come before the board we will adjourn this meeting [Music] you