School Board Meeting | February 22, 2022

001[Music] some of my troubles of not being the best teacher i could be with maybe planning or lesson plans all these things for me is almost like i guess a lot of nba players they call it like a revenge tour where they go against their whole team but for me yeah like i'm coming back um my comeback tour but for me it was just to come back and continue to improve my craft like you said uh you know although we're here and we're talking about our journey we're still very new and every day a matter of fact i'm still learning something new the district 5 school-related employee of the year from rochelle school of the arts tiffany barion my motto is student first athlete second cause i've been in these shoes before and i know

002what it takes now that i'm older and mature so i just try to instill in them that it's fun to be a kid it's fun to go to school it's fun to be around your family the sports is just an extra tool just like the love on them just be a good mentor and instill leadership life lessons something that they could take with them the rest of their life she instills grades first before the actual sport she instills family before the kid you know she tries to get that mentality of like it's not just about you it's about your last name not your first name and i think that's really something that maybe they're not used to hearing they're all about me me me and she's like no step step back it's about your family

003it's about your grades and then it's about what you want to do and what you want to accomplish coach tiffany is a really great part of our school she is a tremendous asset at our pe department in our library in our cafeteria she just gets all over the campus and she helps us in so many places she always does it with a smile on her face and she's always willing to help out and if she has to step into a classroom to assist she is welcomed by the kids and everybody's always so glad to see her she's a good person overall and she makes me feel good about myself she makes me want to try harder stuff like that she really encourages me to do my best and do better at things she's a really

004good person and i love her personally i really do she's a very important person to me i want them to remember me as she's tough but is out of love they know behind his mouth when it's time to get serious when i go coach mo emo i'm serious because i know what it takes and just that just take that is out of love and one day down the road you understand and you'll come back and say because of coach tiffany this is why [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

005attendants 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 licensing 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

006respectful 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 there was a veteran teacher and she kept saying you need to write this grant you need to write this grant you're already doing the things in your classroom you can just get the money to do it because we normally just pay for it out of pocket teachers are really good at using their own money whether it's a good thing or a bad thing but just you do it you just like type up the word and what is the worst thing they're going to say no exactly [Music] the district 4 teacher of the

007year from karen m siegel academy ashley brennan every student is so different and you know a lot of our students are non-verbal so we have to find different ways in order to get them to communicate so i mean here when you give a lesson it's so much more than just teaching the standards obviously that's very very important but that's just the tip of the iceberg we incorporate communication social emotional strategies and also just learning how to handle emotions everything here is about incorporating all of those things so we can get them to be as independent as possible ashley is a tremendous resource for all of our teachers here and for me specifically she's been wonderful because she's somebody that i can go to and i know that when i ask her a question she's always

008going to come back with an answer even if she doesn't have the answer right away that's what i like about her when we first met her i remember interviewing her we just felt that kind to heart that she had from the very beginning and once you put her in the room with the students she immediately just lights up it's not something that you can fake the students know if you're not being authentic with them and that's why they're so drawn to her it brings joy to our classrooms when she comes in she's always happy when we need something she's johnny on the spot right there to bring us what we need um or to lend a hand and her enthusiasm is contagious i like she's sweetheart congratulations i love you i think it's unfortunate that

009a lot of our students can sometimes hear that they can't do something just because of their disability but that's so far from the truth if anyone spent any time at all with these students they would know how capable they are so it's very important that special education gets put to the forefront because these students are amazing they can do anything that a gen ed student can we just have to find the way to help them get there you have to own who you are you have to own your feelings and when our feelings situations get the best of us we're not realizing what we're portraying right right because you're deep in that emotion yes right and you're it's very real whatever experience is fueling that and then what what experiences that are we creating for

010our students who are experiencing us acting out like that [Music] if you had joined me in standing for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance and would bishop willie mincy come to give our invocation kind father in jesus name we are so thankful for the gift of this another day lord jesus you have been so good to us and you're good to us right now thank you oh god for the privilege to be gathered together in this room tonight thank you oh god for this board thank you my superintendent thank you for his staff thank you oh god for every teacher every principal every parent every lunchroom worker every bus driver everyone that make up this district we thank you for them we thank you for all of the students and all of their families

011lord jesus christ look upon us tonight we come seeking you for help for you told us in all our ways to acknowledge you and you would direct our path i pray oh god for this board that the decisions that will be made will be a blessing to our children and our children's children be with us tonight and be with us in all that we do and let everything bring glory and honor and praise to your wonderful name we ask these blessings tonight in the name of us lord and savior jesus christ we pray amen and could i have cohen booth come and lead us in the pledge of allegiance with liberty and justice for all you may be seated except for cohen not so fast i told you you were going to get to hang

012out with us for a little bit all right cohen so how old are you oh jen you're 10 and what grade are you in fifth and where do you go to school trasling elementary very nice all right and what do you want to be when you grow up csi nice very cool i see in this that you love building stem kits and robotics with your dad that is awesome so do you have people here with you tonight yeah yes who's here with you my mom and my principal your mom and your principal can they stand up and you introduce them to us awesome thank you guys so much for being here all right cohen last question what's your favorite subject in school math awesome well thank you so much for leading us in the pledge

013tonight and you can go back and sit down [Applause] all right our first action item is to accept the school board agenda superintendent high do we have any revisions no madam chair there are no revisions i think are we did bella cedar get moved i apologize bella city got moved from consent to action thank you so that is now q4 i believe correct all right and i will hear a motion in a second for approving the school board agenda second any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries right on our next order of business is special recognitions superintendent hide would you like to lead us through special recognitions yes ma'am madam chair members of the board members of community staff it's my pleasure this evening

014first i'd like to begin by asking school board member dr william allen to step down to assist us with special recognitions this evening simultaneously i'd like to ask for miss susan copeland the executive director for the polk education foundation to also come forward for donor recognition good evening everyone tonight i have with me nick plott from tico energy he is their external affairs manager i'm sure most everyone knows him on the board tico has been a long time partner of the school district they've sponsored our about face and our teacher of the year which now is our inspire awards for at least my tenure with the foundation which has been 25 years and i'm sure it started even before that i would be willing to bet that they also partner with individual schools and other

015departments so i know they do things in the community for the education foundation tico energy has sponsored our stepping out for education program since it started 11 years ago and i hope every time you see nick you will encourage him to be a celebrity dancer because i keep asking and asking and he said one day he will so just help me with that please and they also continually sponsor our take take stock and children golf tournament which as you all know is a great investment because the monies are all matched nick also serves his time on the pef board after opening a check in the mail just today the total given for all programs that i've mentioned over the last two decades is just over a hundred and sixty five thousand dollars so two words

016apply for that two words come to mind for me when i think of tico it is generous and consistent as you heard they've been with the school district and the education foundation a very very long time so i brought nick here tonight to thank him publicly and to have him presented with a certificate of thank you so appreciation thank you for allowing us to be here thank you [Applause] and now at this time i'd like to ask direct communications director jason geary to please come he will assist us in recognizing our longest serving employees from the inspire awards thank you school board members for allowing me to present the longevity awards to two outstanding employees each of these young ladies has devoted more than four decades of their lives to polk county public schools catherine

017mack is the longest serving teacher of the year among this year's inspire award nominees ms mack has served 42 years with polk county public schools and is the teacher of the year at crystal lake elementary she is knowledgeable passionate caring and a servant leader to her students and peers on any given day you can find miss mack helping fellow teachers learn new strategies and best practices so they can improve their classroom instruction she frequently meets with parents to update them on their child's progress she is willing to stay past school hours to accommodate a parent's work schedule because she knows that fostering positive relationships with students families promotes success there is no limit to what she will do to help a child succeed she lives by the phrase by any means necessary and is committed

018to her school's mission and vision that every child matters and can succeed betty goldwyer is the longest-serving school-related employee for this year's inspire award honorees ms goldwyer has worked for polk county public schools for 41 years as an ese para educator at southwest middle she always strives to provide students with the support and resources they need to be successful in the classroom no matter what tasks or assignments she is given ms goldwyer commits herself to doing her best and focuses on helping students reach their full potential whether assisting with small group instruction working one-on-one with a struggling reader or assisting students with disabilities or collaborating with teachers to determine strategies and resources that may benefit a student's learning she is always willing to help it is my pleasure to present miss mack and miss goldwire

019tonight with commemorative clocks as a token of our appreciation for all of their hard work and commitment to polk county's students i would also like to give them a chance to say a few words if you don't mind thank you miss mac thank you very much for this recognition i've taught a long time because i love what i do and actually i have no plans to retire anytime soon so i'm in it for a lot longer i hope [Applause] good afternoon i just want to say i am honored to receive this award and i counted the honor and a privilege to have served our school our community because of what was instead me and i just want to share what i have learned [Applause] at this time i'd like to ask dr joshua lutz assistant

020superintendent for learning support to come forward to recognize our outstanding educator in education and rehabilitation of the blind and visually impaired good evening everyone bobby you come on up you have any family here with you the vision team division team raise your hands here's your support [Applause] i want to highlight this by telling you all that i had to find out that bobby received this award from one of her co-workers because she was so humble that she didn't even tell me about it and one of her co-workers had to email me and like to read you that email the email says dr lutz i know that you like to hear of the great things that the ese staff and polk are doing and i wanted to share this news with you roberta bobby daley lead

021teacher of students with visual impairments was named the outstanding educator for the florida association for education and rehabilitation of the blind and visually impaired that is a long name she was given the award via a virtual meeting during their conclusion ceremonies she was nominated by the florida instructional materials center for the great work that she does for our students throughout the school system and through the lighthouse for the blind one quote from a member says bobby has spent her entire professional career working with and supporting students with visual impairments she has been a leader in the field in both the school system and with the lighthouse she has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of all of her students as well as the teachers that she works with and supports as a co-worker and most

022recent teacher in this program i would also like to add that bobby has been and is the best support to our team her knowledge of the vision department is our greatest asset as she is always up to date on state county and even individual school rules she does all of our initial evaluations and is the primary contact for our program it is such an honor to be able to work with her and i hope that her receiving this award brings to light that the esc staff and pope go above and beyond to serve the students in our county congratulations bobby [Applause] i just want to say um thank you for recognizing me this is my 28th year in polk and i've served my whole career in vision and we have a wonderful vision team um

023we do we're very different we're like the low low prevalence in the district but um we love our students and vision okay you guys stand up back there all the vision people [Applause] we're missing a couple but just thank you so much for the recognition i appreciate it very much bobby i don't know if you remember i do okay you i had the pleasure and honor of teaching one of uh vision student uh i won't say her name but god i learned so much from you and her and i believe she's a teacher now is she not um well she was a um she has two master's degrees and she was the assistive technology um person at a community college in ohio for a while but she's back here now but got it yeah it

024was awesome very successful girl yeah she's hard yeah okay thank you thank you thank you at this time i'd like to ask jeffrey hancock senior director of k-12 science to please come forward to present the guy harvey ocean foundation recognition and jeff please explain a little bit about the program if you don't mind i'm going to let miss bergnis do that here for a second i i just want to say cohen um science fair sixth grade finally we're good um don't worry about the math stuff i want to thank uh first of all miss uh wickman and ms fogle they're my curriculum specialists they're the ones that make this really happen i just give them a way to go and then figure out the way to make things happen so i want to introduce miss

025betty bergnis she is our partner with the guy harvey ocean foundation and she will explain what that is and what we are presenting aboard with tonight good evening madam chair distinguished board members and superintendent hyde my name is betty bergness and i'm the director of education for the guy harvey ocean foundation the guy harvey ocean foundation is a non-profit organization that conducts scientific research and hosts educational programs aimed at conserving the marine environment we are dedicated to research education and conservation to help ensure that future generations can enjoy and benefit from a naturally balanced ocean ecosystem the guy harvey ocean foundation is thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with your school district we are offering environmental curriculum and the support for your teachers dr harvey is committed to providing school districts with high quality

026marine science and environmental science curriculum as well as teacher experiences so they can share and inspire their students we have had a wonderful experience working with your curriculum department and your teachers to show our appreciation for our partnership we would like to present polk county public schools with this framed guy harvey lithograph you could put it somewhere in your building so everybody could see it we look for thank you and we look forward to continuing to support your school district as we dive into the future thank you [Applause] uh i just want to say the betty did a wonderful job she came out and trained our marine science teachers for high school we had relatively little curriculum for them to use because there's just not a lot out there so the guy harvey foundation has

027voluntarily given us that curriculum which we have now trained all of our marine science teachers and uh we had an awesome opportunity with betty and mr harvey's daughter that was also a part of that training so it was pretty amazing pretty good stuff we got going on thank you for allowing us to do that thank you at this time with chandra hall the senior director for equity and diversity come forward for black history month recognition and also with school board member lori cunningham please read the proclamation proclamation school board of polk county bartow florida whereas february black history month is a time to set aside to celebrate the immeasurable contributions of african-american citizens and their roles in shaping american history whereas polk county public schools continue to acknowledge and celebrate no matter the month the

028many contributions and sacrifices made by african-americans of the past and present while inspiring students and staff to create historical moments for our future and whereas polk county public schools serve over 107 000 students and employ over 13 000 employees we recognize that african american students make up 20 percent and employs 17 percent of our population respectively and they are making contributions toward history today tomorrow and whereas the polk county school district continues to educate produce and celebrate african-american educators educational leaders doctors lawyers engineers soldiers artists and many others who have demonstrated extraordinary courage talent and service to our schools as well as our community and our nation and whereas now therefore be it resolved by the school board of polk county florida that we designate and close out the month of february as black history

029month so thank you to the board superintendent hyde and all of our panel list in their respective places um as we close out black history month i'm so respectfully and humbly reminded that black history month is also american history month all right thank you to all those that take the opportunity to offer all of our staff and students mirrors and windows when i say mirrors and windows that's given us an opportunity to see ourselves in the history in the lives of others as well as see others so diversity makes us so very rich as a community and a nation and for that i'm forever grateful and i'm sure you all are too i would like to take this time to present the proclamation to mr j.j corbett mr corbett is a representation of black history

030right here in our community he has made immeasurable contributions not only in our community but nationwide he started i wouldn't say he started but started from being an education an educator a school board member and most importantly he served in the u.s army and i got to get this right y'all might have to help me on this one he's served in the 555th entry infantry yeah also known as the triple nickel um in world war ii mr corbett we pay tribute and we honor you today and i would like to present this proclamation to you thank you you're welcome would you like to say a few words again i want to thank you for this honor so often they ask me j.j how did you make it this far i tell him not what i

031did it's not the prayers that my mother did it's not the prayers from the church but it was that man looked like was always beside me looked like he had nails in his hand before and spikes in his feet that's why i think i'm still here thank you again for the honor i appreciate it remember [Applause] mr corbett is one of my heroes and i get so emotional when i see him because i know that he made it possible for me and others to be where we are today and i can't thank him enough and i'm so happy that he's been honored during black history month and hopefully we've got some young people in the audience that can see doesn't matter where you come from as long as you know where you're going and mr

032corbett definitely knows where he's going and we were just so thankful that we saw fit to recognize him so mr corbett you are my hero and i love you very much and we thank you for everything that you have done and will continue to do for our community thank you and last but certainly not least with dr lakira nottage senior coordinator for 6 through 12 counseling services and dedras gaggs senior coordinator for k-8 counseling services please come forward for national school counseling week week recognition proclamation whereas school counselors are employed in public and private schools to help students reach their full potential and whereas school counselors are actively committed to helping students explore their abilities strengths interests and talents as these traits relate to career awareness and development and whereas school counselors help parents focus

033on ways to further the educational personal and social growth of their children and whereas school counselors work with teachers and other educators to help students explore their potential and set realistic goals for themselves and whereas school counselors seek to identify and utilize community resources that can enhance and complement comprehensive school counseling programs and help students become productive members of society and whereas comprehensive developmental school counseling programs are considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school therefore we the polk county school board do hereby proclaim february 7th through 11th as national school counseling week [Applause] thank you all so much it's such an honor and a privilege to be here with all of you all you've supported school counselors we love our school counselors they're awesome i

034mean they are awesome and we celebrated school counseling last week a lot of schools did a lot of things but the reason i'm here i wanted to go over the program of study of school counselors because you know we we talk about school counselors we see school counselors but do we really know what they've studied in their program of study now i have a folder for each one of y'all and i've used usf not because i am biased towards that both of my girls went to florida state i went to kentucky then they went to ucf my daughters and i went to usf where my ad leadership so i it's just a very and it it just had a better layout okay so on here and i'm not going to go through all of these

035but look how many classes are in school counseling there's 63 hours it's a very challenging program 63 and of all of those classes only two are not related to counseling so our counselors they love to help their students they love to work with their parents and so much the schools love them we had four that was nominated for teacher of the year we had nancy reynolds from floral avenue we had sarah that was yours and then you also had beth rowell uh that's yours and then william we had two from yours we had jenny aranda and amy from medela and then we had amy benningfield which is one of laquari had two i had to from the school of arts harrison school of arts so i have just given you all a little bit of

036what school counselors do not only do we help with all of the crisis we're the first line of defense at that school for kids and i can tell you i have been a counselor 33 years in polk county i love my job but school counselor the school the students need someone there at the school that they can talk to we work with anxiety we work with test taking strategies we work with all of those skills that students need with the mental wellness but we also work on those soft skills i read that the uh fortune 500 companies and forbes you know the kids are graduating but they're sending them back because they don't have those soft skills they don't know how to get along they don't know how to finish the job they don't know

037how to problem solve so counselors are also teaching that and we're teaching careers academic achievement and personal social so we love it and laquaria thank you good evening and thank you to all of the board members and superintendent high for taking the time to recognize the hard work of our school counselors here in polk county public schools we currently have approximately 70 elementary school counselors and about 150 secondary school counselors that we serve many people are familiar with the term guidance counselor however the american school counselor association has advocated to change that name to school counselor many people don't know the difference between a guidance counselor and a school counselor the name change represents a more accurate reflection of this unique role the evolution from guidance counselor to school counselor highlights the transition from being

038reactive and isolated professionals to being proactive data-driven leaders that collaboratively support the school's mission and vision school counselors impact student success by providing equitable services for all students in the areas of academic achievement personal development and college and career preparation speaking of college and career preparation you all are invited on march 10th to our district's first annual college and career fair we normally have a college fair this year we will be incorporating careers into that fair for all of our students and families monique byrd is here she will be taking the lead on that project also veronica kirby serves in our department here at the district office and on behalf of our department we want to say thank you school counselors have been affectionately referred to as the heartbeat of the school that's because we're

039not just cafeteria monitors we're not just schedule changers but we are life changers thank you on behalf of polk county public schools the school counseling department and all of our elementary and school counselors in secondary schools let me say one more thing laquarianon and veronica are on the floor to school board association we love counseling so much you know so we're trying to help in that and we have a great leader and everett she's stand up anne she didn't she said i don't want to steal y'all's thunder she is wonderful she helps us with everything that we need and thank you for being a great boss don't we have two award winners thank you so much i appreciate it thank you thank you [Applause] madam chair that concludes special recognitions for today's meeting thank you

040and i do think we wanted to make one more special recognition because our special recognitions coordinator is celebrating her birthday today so marissa green will you please stand up and give us a wave happy birthday all right the next item on our agenda is public comments for items on the agenda 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 two opportunities for public comment the first will be for the items on this evening's agenda to be voted upon at the end of the meeting we will have an additional opportunity for public comment items that are not on this evening's agenda to register to speak community members must fill out a speaker

041card 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 all comments should be directed to myself as the board chair as a reminder public comments are an opportunity for us to hear your thoughts and comments 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 be happy to have deeper conversations and first will be royal brown the third and on deck is glenda white good evening my name is royal brown iii i live at 38 51 gaines drive winter

042haven and i'm president of the winter haven 912 group i spoke about the i'm here to speak about nearpod the 860 thousand dollar software program on tonight's agenda is item nine or q p excuse me consent agenda i spoke about the critical race theory and surrogates embedded in near pod at the school board meeting on december 14th and have watched the videos of the two january work sessions where it was discussed in great detail including the 45-minute segment on the january the 11th the near part of executives assured you that mapping out of crt to meet state standards would be done and that all material provided at its core was vetted and filtered to ensure no embedded crt superintendent hyde stated that we will then own the responsibility of training and ensuring the staff understand

043what the limitations are for the curriculum and what is not i reviewed the posted description of nearpod under the agenda item details on your website and looked at the sales order i found no words guaranteeing that nearpod would not contain critical race theory or its surrogates of a different name i called and talked to mr hancock and asked him if there were any written policy that guarantees there will be no material within nearpod that facilitates the teaching and learning of critical race theory or its surrogates his reply was there was no written policy but they follow a protocol to ensure programs are aligned with state standards for teaching and learning they haven't seen anything in nearpod that doesn't allow to allow its use we discussed the nearpod app icivix and he mentioned it was the

044gold standard for teaching civics approved by the fdoe to that let me remind all that governor desantis vetoed a bill sb 146 which included active civics as a way to insert critical race theory into curriculum it was designed to forward civic literacy education which in fact was a stealth effort to gain course credit for student political protests and lobbying invariably for leftist causes and would have easily allowed crt to creep into the education system so folks my bottom line is this nearpod can be used as a portal of to criminal race theory and surrogates if you choose to purchase it therefore i strongly recommend you write and publish a clearly worded policy that nearpod will not be used to teach or learn about critical race theory or its facsimile surrogates like learning for justice tolerance

045learning and active civics we the public stakeholders including parents and grandparents of children enrolled in pcsd and others concerned with public education would appreciate such a guarantee in writing thank you glenda white and on deck is elizabeth ramussen and i'm so sorry i mispronounced your name good evening my name is glenda white i'm a winter heaven haven resident regarding consent agenda k item p i believe that's right i appreciate polk county schools installing air purifiers in the classrooms the cost seems prohibitive at fourteen hundred dollars per classroom however after researching what the system is capable of i see it will likely destroy black mold and other harmful airborne problems if we happen to have another pandemic we won't need to close down our schools wear mass and other nonsense that did more harm than good

046regarding consent agenda queue items two and three i'm concerned about the approval of nearpod software although the cost per student isn't prohibitive when compared with the service period there's no guarantee that services won't be extended which would result in high costs for polk county schools but more importantly we've seen no written policy on oversight should crt be infused into learning curriculum through nearpod the board should not approve this software until we have such writing in place and easily viewed by the public i'm also concerned about the purchase of legends of learning software which is item three i understand the software is currently in use but i went to the company website and the parent company to research and couldn't find actual curriculum info without signing up i went to their leadership tab and found that

047many educational board members are directly connected to china originator and spreader of covid and at least one board member who specializes in crt teaching methods until we can see in writing that there has not been nor will there be any crt material in use within this software and a written oversight policy the board should reject this purchase the board should also provide learning outcomes from use of this software before purchasing it again regarding consent agenda item in and one i questioned the extension of the meta source services program the fact that the coveted pandemic is over and the cdc admitted that testing does not work and cannot detect covet from the common cold makes these services obsolete use this funding to assist kids to undo the psychological damage done to them by unnecessary restrictions forced

048on them during the pandemic i commend the school board and mr hyde for pulling 16 books in question off library shelves while they are under review i have submitted to board members reports on seven of these books from the florida citizens alliance each of these books openly violates florida law protecting children pornography and inappropriate materials should you read these reports you will not find them pleasant reading you should permanently remove these from polk county school libraries immediately you and all citizens may obtain the full pornography report at the florida citizens alliance website thank you thank you elizabeth rasmussen and then on deck is bobby d's and i'm so sorry elizabeth i keep butchering your last name it's okay it's elizabeth rasmussen um but thank you chairwoman wyatt and school board members have i hope you're

049having a good evening so far my name is elizabeth rasmussen and i'm a high school social studies teacher in the international baccalaureate program at bartow high school i'm also a phd candidate in curriculum instruction with a concentration in social science education at the university of south florida i know the district has made a pledge to transition to one-to-one electronic devices over the next school year i'm extremely excited about this transition as will help polk county students have better access to the digital tools they need to succeed in college and careers in the 21st century over my 14 years in education i have utilized a vast number of strategies and tools to help promote student engagement one of these resources that has become integral to my instruction is the web software program near pod i first

050discovered nearpod around three years ago in one of my doctoral classes on educational technology where i was gifted a near pod instructional account since that time i have used it for countless lessons in order to promote student engagement nearpod is the very definition of effective formative assessment it allows students to complete many assessments and for teachers to give the same time feedback it's also creative and fun students can explore the remains of the berlin wall through a virtual reality tour collaborate with each other on a writing prompt in real time or even use their artistic talent to draw a response to a lesson the possibilities for interactive learning and formative assessment are endless with a program like nearpod i urge the board to pass the funding for this educational software program so all educators in

051polk county will have access to it if anyone on the board has any questions about nearpod i'd be happy to answer them to the best of my ability thank you next up is bobby d's next up is bobby dees and on deck is marilyn taylor hi my name is bobby dees tonight i'd like to address a couple of concerns regarding the use of funding for metasource i am recommending that you not approve the use of these funds for the following reasons first the coveted pandemic is over there is no longer need for these services it has already been proven that children were never at risk from coven and the cdc has already admitted that their tests do not work excuse me if you are speaking over the speaker we will have you removed from the

052room please allow the speaker at the mic time to talk thank you you may continue please add 10 seconds to the clock these tests have never been able to determine covet from the common flu there is no longer a mask or vaccine mandate in the state of florida these funds are better used elsewhere in areas where our schools or children were affected by the pandemic the psychological damage that was done to our kids by the isolation the lack of social interaction can never be measured i heartily recommend that the school system spend resources directly addressing these issues and help our kids get back to a more normal state of mind the damage done to our children by government mandates that should never have under captain is immeasurable additionally regarding learning support i want to thank

053the school board for pulling 16 books from the shelves of polk school libraries to review them i have reviewed five of the florida citizens alliance reports from this list and have supplied each of you with a copy of the report you will find upon review of these reports that there are clear violations of the statutes regarding protecting children from pornography please prepare yourself to be shocked upon reviewing these reports i encourage and ask you to remove these and the other books on the list from polk school library shelves they all contain clear violations of florida law as listed on the front page of every report they are obviously harmful to our children i encourage you to go to the florida citizens alliance website to review this entire report and read the intensive information and passages

054from every book they have reviewed and found to be harmful to our kids please protect our kids and save them from further psychological damage review these books and begin reviewing more of these books there are plenty of excellent books available that can address every subject without sexualizing and harming our kids and personally i'd like to add if you read this book the holy bible you'd understand why we have laws that protect our kids from this sort of thing thank you up next is marilyn tyler sorry taylor and on deck is susan jameson miss taylor good evening can can you hear me yes good evening my name is marilyn taylor i am a retired professor and attorney i have doctorates in spanish and law i taught political science law spanish justice studies i'm not here to

055impress you but i just want you to know my background i was delighted to hear the proclamation on black history month that's what the near pod curriculum begins with and i hope that everyone takes seriously the content of that and also the statement that was made that black history is american history as a people from my generation began with a really misguided view of history happy slaves equal opportunity for all i would refer you if you're not familiar this was a shocker for me there's a wonderful book called lies my teacher told me everything your american history textbooks got wrong by james lowen for an eye-opening view of what the distorted and uncomfortable truth hidden in traditional american history textbooks as i used to teach in my classes america at its inception was truly a

056country of equality a bastion of freedom for white property owning males fortunately our notion of equality has evolved and the teaching of history needs to reflect that evolution not to be a whitewashed version of the truth we need to inform the students of this generation about the injustices of their forebearers otherwise those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it i know the law and i know that the nearpods software's design has the intention to get it right i am here to support knowledge and the full and complete exposure to diverse cultures and vantage points for our students as with the case of the nearpod software the right to maintain books on all subjects is critical to a free society book banning frankly summons up the salem witch trials i hope that

057this board will support an open approach to knowledge and reject the dangerously closed-minded approach to banning books as voltaire said i disagree with what you say but will fight to the death your right to say it only in an atmosphere of free exchange of ideas for the future thank you susan jameson susan jamison is up next and then stephanie stidham is on deck hi um i'm a trained mental health therapist and i've also taught language arts and math both in florida and in virginia i've reviewed the near pod system and i'd like to speak about it there are technical issues which probably have caused it to have some lower reviews but these are likely to be worked on right now however when you sift through the reviews the teachers are enthusiastic about it and that's

058all that's that we should listen to with the teachers what i found to be most important is that it's interactive it's very difficult to hold attention to many students so this type of program is important another crucial element is it gives media feedback we need to encourage engage our students and i'm sure that students would be interested in experiences like taking tours of the national parks of visiting other countries and thus expanding their horizons as a therapist i was excited that it addresses social issues such as empathy cyber bullying internet safety social justice some people misconstrue these social skills and respect for all they think it's scary they have these skills have been lumped together and sometimes they're called critical race theory this critical race theory is a talking point of some politicians and of

059some pundits critical race theory is not taught in near pod and is actually not taught in any middle or high school in the country it's a graduate level course it's taught in colleges and in law schools and it's it's taught to examine injustice that's mostly seen in our judicial system another extremely important focus in the airpod is teaching citizenship it's amazing that kids don't understand the workings of our country we need to be informed about our government to hold on to our freedom there's much talk today about freedom people want the freedom to be vaccinated or not the freedom to wear masks or not our country allows freedom but be truly free we need to be informed if we are not we are doomed to repeat histories from our past a mistake that we're talking

060about currently is burning banning some books it's actually taking away our individual freedom if we get informed we know that for instance in 1982 the supreme court in island tree schoon district versus pico thank you ma'am okay sorry thank you stephanie stidham and then on deck is maureen miller my name is stephanie i'm 4243 marquis avenue in mulberry florida i'm a parent here within the district i have three children of elementary and high school ages and i bring to you the concerns of many parents regarding the circumvention of established policy with regards to the removal of books from our library system and the concerning influence on the board by groups with roots in far-right extremism many of whose members do not have school-age children but do have a clear agenda the basis for the removal

061of these books from our libraries and the decrying of nearpod as a tool only to promote crt are not as stated in the interest of protecting our children or promoting freedom and upholding the rule of law but rather the cause of furthering racist and anti-lgbtqia plus agendas and sentiments within our schools and the white washing and sanitizing of our history in the interest of rampant white nationalism many of those against nearpod don't even understand what crt is except for propaganda given to them by these far right extreme groups it's very emotional for me because this is an area that is dangerous these are proto-fascist groups it is only through knowledge that we can prevent violence that we can grow as a society and that our conju our children can grow up intelligent well-rounded empathetic individuals

062who will not repeat the atrocities of the past who will feel safe in their individual identities and will embrace the differences of others rather than attempting to erase them history does not speak well of those who restricted knowledge of those who would ban books or who silence identities nor does it speak well of those that stood aside and made it easy for them to do so the district already has a way for parents to opt out of books that they do not want their children to read in the destiny system they can choose that control over their children what their children are reading and this should be enough we also already have an established protocol for parents to file concerns about books within the library system and i ask that the board uphold that guideline

063that policy and require these groups to bring these petitions to the individual schools and follow that process i also ask the sort the board to consider the source of these ban requests and those that want to stifle knowledge and the reasons they want it stifled i ask that they provide all tools to learn history as it actually happened not as we wish it had and tools like nearpod can only help in that regard thank you maureen miller and on deck is will austin maureen miller my name is maureen miller and i would like to express some concerns about the nearpod software and how it is being mapped to florida requirements uh in a previous meeting one of the first modules one of the school board members was able to access when he was evaluating it

064was in essence promoting crt i found a nearpod blog for educators in using modules for their students the entry i read was helpfully called how to help students determine fake news with suggestions for modules that in itself is rather biased now granted i'm not able to access the modules but i think we can all guess as to what is classified as fake news um there is still some uncertainty as to who is verifying that the software is being mapped to florida requirements and who is verifying that i would encourage a bit more transparency on that process i would also like to mention some of the books in the polk county libraries that are under review i commend you for creating a citizens committee to review the books there have been reports that we are trying

065to ban books not true i am a retired librarian with a masters of library science my parents were high school teachers my father was a professor of educational administration i don't believe in banning books whether it's huck finn and gone with the wind that have been banned in libraries the american libraries association removing laura ingalls wilder's name from a children's award j.k rowling's name being taken off the harry potter books or books that contain detailed sexual descriptions however i also believe that books should be age-appropriate when accessible to children i'm assuming that our libraries don't have hustler or penthouse magazines on the shelves you've got the reports of various of the books they've got passages that would fit well in those magazines again thank you for creating a commission for reviewing the books as i

066mentioned this is not a push to ban books but parents and taxpayers of polk county have the right to know what materials are accessible to their children every media specialist who purchases books makes a decision on what books are banned by not buying them or by restricting their access we are simply asking to be part of that process on both sides of the political spectrum thank you will austin [Applause] will austin is up next and vessel is on deck and i am sorry if i've butchered your name love technology madam chair members of the board superintendent hyde it's an honor to speak to you on this 22nd day of march let the calendar committee know they have some more work to do going forward we'll have to jump directly from january to march you see

067some stakeholders think black history equals crt they want history's glory without its burden a few months ago as the school board recognized our lgbtqia plus students and advisors a group of stakeholders stood up turned their backs and walked out on our students now they want to deprive our students and teachers of resources like near pod and library books because of these same themes and genres see a pattern it's sad that the rank and file think this is grassroots they're being manipulated by wealthy partners and used to read scripts from hate groups turning point usa tells recruiters to quote avoid saying the n word and don't you hate at least not all the time end quote the florida citizens alliance mentioned earlier complains if textbooks have too many scientists of color in them the alliance defending

068freedom wants to criminalize homosexuality and increase discrimination liberty council fought against an anti-lynching bill in 2020 michael flynn suggested to then president trump that he suspend the constitution silence the press and hold a new election under military authority these are the groups that feed ccdf it's difficult for them to claim to defend freedom and love the founding documents while they attack our most marginalized students and deprive them of representation they want to indict dedicated certified passionate professionals if they don't get their way they use religion like they do the constitution it's modern extremism holding a bible upside down the ccdf leadership wants power and schools are low-hanging fruit for that but christianity is revolutionary it casts down the powerful from their thrones lifts up the lowly fills the starving with good things and sends the

069rich away empty my prayer tonight is simply that the bigots learn to love it's more difficult to be an oppressor when you're busy washing feet thank you up next is vessel on deck is james target it's w7 i'm sorry to go away south yes hi my name is ray saldokur i'm a polk county resident i came here before different subjects i think first time i came was for the mass mandate and i was asking you to empower your superintendent to keep the you know be able to give a mandate and and decide what it is right so it is about empowering i want to talk about the near part also a tool you know i was sitting here reading about it in 20 minutes a lot of pros a little bit cons especially technology-wise but

070from what i see it empowers our teachers it empowers our students to learn and some people are afraid from information they don't want people to learn why why are they afraid from information learning my answer control so if somebody doesn't know and cannot separate the truth from false they can be easily manipulated controlled so i came here with you know part of the paul county parents for education supporting our school board because you're trying to do the right thing and common sense and this new part as far as i know is a great tool and our students children educators should be able to use these tools to give the best options to our next generation so they can be more loving sympathetical empathical each other developing a better world and earlier a gentleman with respect

071respectfully hold the bible i think and i have something about the bible i would like to read here a little bit just one second i met i was born in istanbul turkey i was raised as a muslim but i studied i read the bible in english my last year of high school and i remember the star stories you know a lot of stories and i was like oh my god they really like did these and if it continued like say how did they believe in earth was flat why did they judge you know enough a lot of stories so information is power we need to power our students and let's do our best to empower them thank you thank you next up is james taggett and on deck is sarah white yeah hi good evening

072yeah my name is jim taggett i'm a polk county taxpayer and voter okay and we're here tonight we're discussing this near pod system and the fact that critical race theory has metastasized all through it now there was an earlier speaker that made the statement those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it so we'll start with a brief history lesson critical race theory has evolved from critical theory that was one of karl marx's creation read your history folks and uh and that helped the bolsheviks in 1917 take over russia the vostovics were actually the communist party in disguise and that now has evolved into a critical race theory which okay the critical theory actually pit the factory workers against the factory owners now with critical race theory we're pitting little black kids against

073little white kids in order to create chaos like they did in 1917. now some of you all have mentioned uh listed memberships in christian churches so we'll see what jesus has to say about all this we can start with mark chapter 12. and you all heard it love thy neighbor that's in verse 31 he's asked you know he was asked about what's the greatest commandment the first is the love of god with all your heart your soul and your mind the second is to love your neighbor as yourself pitting little children against each other according to skin color does not sound like love your neighbor we can go to matthew chapter 12 verse 16. this is when jesus called the little children to him you've all read that verse in verse six jesus says but

074whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea sounds serious he goes on in verse 10 see that you do not despise one of these little ones for i say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of my father who is in heaven jesus loves the little kids it sounds like they're well protected okay now people in positions of authority this could be your religious leaders your preachers at church your elders teachers school board who direct the teachers okay are held to a higher standard when it comes to judgment let's consider james chapter 3 verse 1. do not become teachers in large numbers

075my brothers for you know we who yeah you know we who are teachers will incur a stricter judgment you all are responsible for what you teach to the students and as school board members you're responsible for what you direct the teachers to teach okay it's on you what the kids you know if you teach the kids to hate each other that's that that's on you and i pray that you just get rid of this in your part it sounds from what i've heard before it sounds like this critical race theory is embedded through it you you're not going to get it out look at a different system there's it's not the only one out there you have other choices thank you thank you up next is sarah white and on deck is bill young hello

076i'm dr sarah white and i live at 753 san rafael street in ponciana i was a school psychologist here several years ago and prior to coming to polk county i worked as a school psychologist and special education administrator in north and south carolina the other part about me that you can tell is that i'm an old lady and i grew up in a segregated south environment i'm the descendant of slave owners i there was a grandfather age person who worked for my grandparents who was the child of a breeder during a period of enslavement and that breeder sired 100 children and i say sired deliberately because at that time that's how blacks were considered they were considered property so at this point first i want to express my appreciation for the school board and for

077the staff of polk county schools for their efforts during these difficult times i wish to add my support for the near pod materials especially those involving civics and social emotional learning the stated goal of the civics program which was developed by former supreme court justice sandra day o'connor is to give students the knowledge and will to participate in our unique experiment in self-government using high-quality non-partisan engaging activities while no program is perfect and i saw a lot of bad wagons go by my career there is an interesting concept mentioned in its material that is to be either a window into the world of others or a mirror that reflects the similarities of yourself and others there are many forces present that wish to divide our community and to sow distrust of our government our schools

078and our churches honestly telling the story of our country acknowledging the worth of all individuals and striving to become a more perfect union is not always as exciting as creating boogie men to gain power over others through fear and manipulation however it is a goal worth pursuing thank you thank you and bill young is last on the dockets good evening my name is bill young i'm a polk county taxpayer and associated with winterhaven 912. and before i start i'd like to say i'm probably not that bright i was brought up in rochester new york but where i was brought up we didn't jeer at people and talk through their speaking first i want to thank ms angela usher for an informative return phone call this morning regarding the uvc upper room disinfectant units the board

079is looking to complete the installation in all classrooms after careful review i believe these units to be a positive addition to the classroom environments i believe these units will lessen the spread of disease and in so doing the board will never again see the need to close schools due to possible illness and end any future talk of mask mandates secondly i want to encourage all board members parents and anyone in the community to go to the florida citizens alliance website and review the well-researched reports on the sixteen books in question that should concern anyone that contain inappropriate illustration regarding sex education i'm reminded of the father when his daughter came home from fifth grade and asked asked where she came from he nervously attempted to explain the birds and the bees when done he asked

080her why she wanted to know her answer because nancy who sits next to me in class is from detroit age-appropriate sex education is needed harmful is not i'm not for banning books i don't think any sensible person is for banning books blanketly but what i would share is is that if books that are intended for teaching are not containing a continuum of age-appropriate teaching but have inside of them sneaking things in that don't belong that are not age-appropriate that we should consider that these are not the right books to use perhaps other books that are of a wiser choice are better to use so to use a boating analysis the rudder is not always to the left or to the right to the porter to the starboard sometimes there's a middle ground that makes sense

081i'm encouraging anybody to look at these books understand what they say and do and then make for your own decision you be the sole judge as to what should be used for books in these cases in these classrooms thank you for your time all right and next on our agenda will be the approval of the minutes we will start with the minutes from january 25th 2022 school board meeting i'll seek a motion in a second move to approve second miss fortney and miss fields any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries right the next set of minutes will be the meeting minutes from january 25th 2022 work session i'll seek a motion second miss fields and miss fortney any discussion seeing none all those in

082favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries and the final set of minutes will be from february 8th 2022 work session i'll seek a motion in a second so move second and i believe that was dr alan and miss fortney all those in any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye any opposed and the motion carries next is the approval of the consent agenda and i will seek a motion in a second remove approval of the consent agenda second miss fields and miss miller any discussion mr wilson thank you madam chair during the work session today i made these comments i want to repeat them here i think mr allen clarified for us that the near pod the nearpod product is a platform it's not it's not

083essentially publishing so it's a platform that supports teaching and and can be manipulated if it need be by our teachers we heard a lot of positive things about this product from our teachers and i think it's clear that it's something that is value to our is a value to our school system and to our teachers and our educators so as i said in the workstation i'll be supporting this uh motion and voting for this thank you thank you mr wilson anyone else miss fields as i said in the work session earlier today i had an opportunity to go to a couple of our schools to see firsthand what new york pot looks like and to see how the students interact with the teachers and i was very surprised at how engaged the students were and

084everything that i heard from the teachers was positive i asked about is it any way for crt to be a part of the curriculum and they said no they had never seen anything that would even imply that and that they control what they're able to allow the students to to use as it relates to neopod they also said that they have to do lesson plans and their administrators have to approve the lesson plan so i am confident that what we're supposed to be teaching our students as it relates to our standards and what they need to have to continue to be engaged is definitely worth the investment and i uh too will be supporting approval of newport thank you miss fields [Applause] any further discussion all right seeing none all those in favor please signify

085by saying aye any opposed and the motion carries superintendent hyde would you like to introduce any of the new administrators madam chair there's one new administrator this evening pending board approval so we will defer their recognition until such time as we address and approve that position for funding thank you so it will take place this evening with board that's i believe coming up next all right so action i first item on the action agenda is the reorganization discussion of school and central office positions we discussed in work session today that we will take these in groups because one of them is here this evening i'm going to go with group 4 first so i will seek a motion to approve group of excuse me group 4 of the reorganization and repurposing of vacant positions second

086i'll make a motion rather which one are we doing for the community liaison i move approval to add the community liaison position second miss fields and miss fortney any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries superintendent hyde would you like to introduce our new community liaison yes ma'am madam chair members of the board members of the staff and community thank you at this time it's my absolute pleasure to please bring up to the microphone miss kylia carswell as our ms carswell is currently the community partnership school director at children's home society of florida she isn't going to be a new hire with polk county public schools and as agreed upon because she is being very respectful and we're very appreciative of this of

087her current employer and her sense of commitment to them as an organization and to their mission she will not have an effective start date until march 14th but we did want to acknowledge her this evening and please if you would say a few words congratulations well first i give honor to god for even being here tonight so i'm grateful that i have this opportunity but thank you superintendent high and board members for this opportunity to serve my county i am a product of polk county schools my son is a product of polk county schools he's now a senior in college himself my daughter is a current product of polk county school she's in elementary school but also i have a ton of supporters here if they could stand and wave there's family members there's my

088sisters my daughter my friends holly my brother there's so many people here that are excited about this opportunity because again i am a product of polk county schools all the way from kindergarten up through high school i went to school in polk county so i am excited about this opportunity to make a difference in my county where i live i have a home here so i am looking forward to the great things that are to come and all the great things that we're going to do together to serve polk county school students and their families thank you congratulations thank you madam chair thank you all right so the next section will start at the beginning of the alphabet so we will do group a which is the facilities group so i'll see a motion to

089approve the reorganization of school and central office positions for group one i'm sorry it's not letters it's numbers group one move approval second miss fields and miss miller any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries right now moving to group two which is director of teen parent program i'll see a motion to approve the reorganization of school and central office positions group two remove approval that we change to senior coordinator team parent to the director of team parent second that was miss fields and mr wilson any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries right group three which includes the hr positions so i'll seek emotion for the approval of reorganization of

090school and central office positions group three move approval of group three second miss cunningham and miss miller i believe any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye i apologize miss fortney had her finger up in group three i just wanna we're adding two certification specialists and two hr specialists that is very very needed down there because of our workload for hr with our almost what 8 000 just teachers so thank you superintendent yes ma'am thank you miss fortney all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries next we will move to group five so i will seek emotion for the recommended action of approving the reorganization of schools and central office positions group five i moved to approve group five a second miss miller

091and miss fields any discussion miss fortney i am so torn on this uh i just want to say that uh i'm going to vote for this because i don't see a better way to fix a problem that's been building for years um than this right here and if it doesn't work i i trust that superintendent will be able to find a plan that does i understand at bartow high school i be i i live in that community and i taught for dr better and it's hard but you know i just feel like this is the best way to go right now so i'm going to be supporting it thank you miss fortney any further discussion mr wilson so we had discussion about this of course during work session and it you know i think the

092the way you find solutions is to have discussions and you talk about things right that's how you find solutions and move things forward so i i don't know if this is an appropriate solution but what i've heard is there's concern about the title and and about the title of head of school so i'm just going to offer this and if it's helpful then wonderful it's not that's okay too what about the title of headmaster would would that be something that would be somewhat more uh definitive i mean more more meet the definition of what we're looking for is this a thought mr wilson we i would have no objection to re-titling a headmaster well miss fields headmaster master to me means a man and i have a problem with headmaster because some of these women

093are not men they're women so i would not be in support of that headmaster thank you is this on headmaster miss fortney uh yeah uh head of school is i think more appropriate that's again having taught at bartow ib it was a school within a school when we started it right and it shared faculty etc and uh it has always worked well together and um so i like head of school miss cunningham thank you um i am not going to be able to support this this evening i've had too many people reach out to me regarding the title and i'm not sure what the title should be but i think i think this deserves an opportunity to go back to the table because from what i understand looking at the job descriptions and so forth

094it implies that the position reports to a principal and or in some form or fashion so i personally would like to see us as mr wilson just indicated the way you correct things and make changes is to go back to the table and have a discussion about it so i would like to see us go back and discuss this further because i don't see us making a decision tonight and then two months from now going whoops shouldn't have been that title now we're going to move it to this i think you take the time up front you get it correct the first time we assign those titles going forward and then you're done and you move on to other things strategic planning and so on and so forth i just don't think the community is

095happy with this and therefore i cannot support it thank you thank you miss cunningham dr alan yeah just even the dialogue here to me status and position tiles are important i think even the consideration of you know headmaster or whatever is demonstrating the position that i'm going to hold on this you know just going back and watching past discussions on this group five i'm just hoping that we can give more attention to it and again i'm coming at it from the perspective of the long-term sustainability of our specialty programs and and it's coming more from a higher head a higher ed perspective where ranks matter meaning instructor assistant associate full professor so when you you become a full professor in in status the thought that you would transition back to an assistant or associate is

096is not common so when i when i think about the future of our specialty programs if there would be a transition at you know that level within our specialty schools if they've been sitting at the principal level and looking at the head of school position i'm not sure that they see that as a lateral or a move up and it and then on top of that we've had precedence at this school in particular one of the specialty programs where that role was a principal position and it was successful so when i'm just pondering those things for the longevity of the school i'm not going to be in support of this initiative tonight miss miller looking at group five you know i don't i'm not as worried about titles i'm not in these positions but you

097know if i'm trying to compare someone who runs an entire program in a building like central florida aerospace academy that's not the same thing as running the small 85 member you know cambridge program at tenorock so i would have liked to see levels with this um even if it's not pay or title i i would you know ap we have different ap levels um this i would have liked to have seen that with this but these aren't in the group i don't consider all of these the same um when i'm looking at them from a leadership perspective if you're if you're in charge of a building and all that encompasses building and staff and support and security that's very different than running a program within a program so i'm not sure i'm comfortable with all

098of them being the same i'm open to suggestions i'm not hardlining any of this so i'm i'm here to listen thank you miss miller i do just want to clarify that tinarock is an assistant principal right not the head of schools because of that number so but even assistant principals if we were to move out and somebody mentioned this earlier made me think of it if we were to move assistant principals and this is a title you're given for eight percent of the population of the school why would you ever go to another school to be i think there needs to be an intermediate why would you ever move to an assistant principal job of a 3000 student high school if you're an assistant principal for a very small percentage of a program i'm missing

099i would like to seen it broken down but that's that's my input thank you miss fortney correct me if i'm wrong because maybe i am missing the point here i thought the point mr hyde was to take assistant principal positions that are schools within a school that are doing the head of school job no matter really the number per se because they're still part of a larger umbrella of a school where they still do launch duty for everybody they still do buses they still they do all the stuff for that school so if there's 2 000 kids they're head of school for the number of kids within their program but they are part of a much bigger system that is correct and and i think that's an important point of clarification and it's been brought

100up a few times if if a principal a sitting principal were to choose to apply to take one of these roles they do so with the full knowledge of the title change the the title and i looked up headmaster and building principle and asked and searched for what the difference is and there is no difference it's just an up it's a semantic issue um but there is a difference between somebody who functions and operates the building in its entirety and someone who is solely there to support a specific program they do not have a budget they do not have they do not write curriculum they do not do any of those things they do not plan the school holistically and that's why the designation of head of schools was brought forward after i brought forward

101an initial recommendation of principle they are solely responsible for that curriculum area but in every other aspect they still function as an assistant principle for the building in its entirety there just aren't enough students to justify that now as i mentioned earlier in workshop there are some good examples because their facility is is actually to a certain extent they're not necessarily co-located summerlin is across the street it's a school unto itself cfaa is a school unto itself essentially completely off campus and then you have a program such as um so the tenoroc program getting back to that program as we shared the recommendation is to move that from an ap 10 month to a 12 month to allow them to actually have the summer for planning purposes and recruitment initiatives that school is about to

102launch the 3de program and they're going to need somebody who can focus programmatically on growing their enrollment and at some point the vast majority of students at that school will be enrolled in this program so the head of schools the way the reason i brought it back forward there are a lot of problems putting two principles in a building we've discussed that at length at previous workshops at the end of the day there's one school boss it's the simplest way for me to to bring it forward none of these let me rephrase that very few so i'll use barto ib as a good example to my knowledge and i may be wrong there isn't a single staff member in barto ib that solely serves ib students in fact most of them are crossing serving both

103both both bartow enrolled students and bartow students taking an ib course and summerlin so it creates an issue potentially where if i don't like the evaluation that i was given from my administrator i can then go and create a conflict with the head with between my head of school and my principal because they're both title principal excuse me i shouldn't have said head of school and principal principal and principal at the end of the day who is ultimately responsible for that employee is it the is it the person who supervises them who has the most class sections within the program whether it's in the main building or in the ib program there were issues that were brought forward when i first brought the recommendation to move them all to principal based off a historical perspective

104right and again i'm going to continue to say we need to find an equitable mechanism to address this moving them to head of schools with a slight salary improvement because they're taking on some additional duties and responsibilities outside of a traditional 12-month assistant principle i felt was well justified but to create and i understand dr allen where you're coming from but there is a difference you're applying for that role with the full understanding that you're going into that role with a different title it still gives them the operational autonomy to run the program they are not going to be given the operational autonomy to run the school and there is a big difference between the two we hire one building principal for a reason we're stuck in this quandary this quagmire excuse me because of

105the history behind it where we did certain things and and now and again the way this was presented to me when i first arrived here was well the decision before you arrived here mr hyde by the board and former superintendent was to create the head of school position or to eliminate the principal position and when i inquired more frequently about well why do you feel you have to have a building principle really the the strongest argument that came forward was well summerlin has it and harrison has it and that's what we used to have i still to date haven't heard a sound reason why it must be a principle other than there's a belief there and i don't disparage or disagree with the history of the program nor its success and i hate to make

106this particularly about ib but this same argument is being applied elsewhere let me give you an example of why barto ib as i shared with the board previously not only has a head of school but they have an assistant principal assigned to the school for 200 and some odd students and yet cambridge who has just as many if not more students only had an assistant 10 month position there was so many inequities in our organization and so really what i'm at the end of the day if the board wants me to come back and you want to pull the item tonight and have further discussion there is no sense of urgency or rush to approve this tonight so if you'd like to have more discussion plea i'm more than happy to do so and i'll

107bring additional i can bring an additional recommendation um forward miss miller brings up a point you know can we trigger it based on enrollment can we i'll explore any option based off the board's direction but i just wanted to again provide an opportunity to clarify why i did not bring the principal back because when i brought it the first time there was reluctance and hesitancy because to move someone and we do have to acknowledge this from either an ap 10 or an ap 12 to a principal it's a significant pay increase and i hate to make it about the dollars but perception becomes reality at times too so i tried to take into consideration all the factors that were shared with me based off your feedback and be considerate of the program needs by moving

108them all to ap12s in a perfect world we wouldn't have ap tens because more often than not we extend the contract to 10 month employees for for an extra month a 30-day contract which essentially is another two months when you think about it and at the end of the day we're really just being more disingenuous than not so i i you i will find a solution for the board as it relates to this and and i'm open to suggestions it's been a great discussion tonight i hear dr alan i hear mr wilson i hear you know miss miss miller and i had a long conversation about this as we often do i know that miss fortney has sat in on meetings with me to talk about this with staff and i i hope everybody understands

109and takes my comments this evening for what they are there is no disrespect intended towards the history the the success or the staff involved i'm simply trying to find the best equitable solution for everyone so we don't find ourselves in this situation again so sorry miss fields and i think that is where we started superintendent high when you came you said there were some inequities and they would be looked at and i think this was a beginning a starting point uh and it's uh a bump up it's not probably where every everyone would want it to be but it's better than it was and one of the things that i hate we don't have is the salary information on here because it's not here to show that all of these positions will get some type

110of uh increase in salary yes people uh so i guess my question to you is are you going to pull this tonight or do you want to have a vote on this tonight well if you vote on the motion mr bridges i'm going to defer to you here sir to vote on emotion and it fails i can still bring the item back in a revised form correct or the board can make a motion a board member can make a motion to table this discussion and bring it back for workshop correct but then it has to come back in the next minute and they could approve it and then and then a month from now you could bring back something new and recommend it and they can approve that so absolutely well to an earlier point

111we won't be doing that miss miller i just have one more point i don't want to delay like eric this isn't my school but central florida aerospace academy i've spent a lot of time at and that and if we're going to talk about if this comes back if we're going to talk about titles head master is used a lot in the private setting and i think like a maybe post-secondary even not post-secondary but multiple alternative kind of settings i like the head of school's title i understand what you're saying and i appreciate what ms sportney explained that even though a program ahead of school is still in charge of all of the other things within that school it has duties with beyond the students they're assigned and that helped me understand it so i you

112know i support the superintendent decision on this and i just would stick with head of schools i think it varies too much and i agree with ms feels there's a lot of women to be empowered and that that might not be taken so well um but i appreciate miss forty bringing that up that really did help me understand what that role would be and i do i do think just looking at this list the person running these independent buildings have done this a long time for less pay and without titles so that's important mr wilson thank you madam chair um i heard ms field's concerns about the term headmaster and i respect that so i'm going to withdraw that um that title it does seem that this is of some concern to to our community

113so you know i'm a big believer in talking and having the discussion and finding a solution um and i understand i understand superintendent's heights concerns about having a second principal on the same campus as well so i think from my perspective it's a matter of finding a title that that folks are comfortable with so i would hope we could we could do that and and for that reason i'm you know what i heard what i heard was if we approve this tonight we're not going to bring it back so in that case i'm going to oppose this simply because i want us to continue to work to find something that's equitable to everyone involved mr bridges if we approve this tonight with the caveat that superintendent hyde will bring us back other recommended titles for

114the position can we approve it tonight and then him still bring back a title change at a later date i believe that would be messy yeah okay my suggestion to you would be that if you're if you're not if you're not prepared to vote for it as is this evening superintendent has offered to bring it back to you at the next meeting that would probably be the cleaner way to do it okay any further discussion is this discussion well i was going to make a motion well we have a motion we have a second emotion and a second on the floor so we need to vote on that motion first before we can maybe i'm missing the point but what is what is it with the title head of school head of school at ib

115at bartow high school that's how they i be at bartow high school i mean it says it in its name and you know head of school is what they are they're the head of ib at bartow high school uh just whatever thank you miss bourtney so we have a motion and a second on the floor is there any further discussion on the motion on the floor seeing none i think we probably need to do a roll call vote district one no district two no district three i want to say no so y'all can keep talking about it district four yay district five yeah district six no district seven i'm going to vote yes and the motion fails miss cunningham did you have another motion that you wanted to propose yes ma'am i would like to

116propose a motion that we give superintendent hyde and staff the opportunity to go back revisit this bring back more information as far as titles as far as salaries all of that and bring it back to us so i would like to table this item is that correct mr bridges vote to table it to our next meeting if we table it we have to pick it up we've already voted right it will be a new item a motion delay on the table is to keep the same item and come back to it next time this motion has failed right now there is no there is no proposition before the school board you you may certainly direct the superintendent to bring back um a new item at the next meeting i already said that so yes sir

117if you'd be so kind superintendent hyde we would appreciate that and if we could have some discussion and work session um prior to the vote in the evening would be terrific yes ma'am all right so are we okay with bringing it back to back if we can have substantial discussion during the work session in march as long as we have it in advance is so as long as we get the information in advance we can bring it back to back i will attempt to now you will get the information hopefully by either the end of this week or early next week thank you all right group six last one i'll hear a motion for to approve the reorganization of school and central office positions for group six which is the adult schools i make a

118motion to approve group six of the adult schools second miss miller and miss cunningham any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries and now moving on to item q2 which is the naming of building 33 at auburndale high school for mr paul greene do i have a motion i moved to name building 3 33 after mr paul green and i i'm excited to have the principal here to share with us second miss miller and miss fortney any discussion miss miller did you want to read i do and mr bruno he's already making his way forward ty bruno principal of auburndale high school is joining us we're um i'm going to read a little bit about mr green paul green if you did if

119you i'm sure everyone has heard of him he's the legend um of auburndale and i'm going to read just my letter that i that i sent actually i'm going to read mr bruno's letter um mr bruno and auburndale high school requested permission to name building 33 the paul green academic building in memory of this great the great man that everyone called the legend paul greene passed away in february due to an unfortunate sickness covid he graduated in 1973 from armadillo high school as an all-american athlete and returned to auburndale in 1978 to teach for 43 years and to coach at his alma mater in 2013 paul greene was inducted into the auburndale high school hall of fame he has touched the lives of many people throughout the armadale community in the classroom and on the

120football field the foundations and legacies that he has instilled on the campus of auburndale high school will definitely live on throughout the auburndale community i am honored and i know the board is honored to have this building named after mr greene and i'm glad mr bruno is here to share my input is that mr green lived next to my sister for a little while not far from the high school so even while i was running for the board i got to meet with him lots to talk about issues and it was always about students he would name the student and and the issue they were dealing with and he had a solution this man was dedicated to kids and he came back out of retirement to help students um and we lost him to covid

121so i can't wait to do this for his family and i'm glad mr bruno is here to talk more about mr green good evening superintendent on the board so first of all growing up in auburndale as a young man attending auburndale high school you always look forward to seeing coach green in the hallways he would speak to every child he'd speak to every student that's just what auburndale high school was about it was about him he did tremendous things throughout our community he during covert times he would take food to families when a lot of things got shut down he would personally go buy food take it different families throughout the auburndale community as well he had that heart of gold and wanting to give back he never missed athletic events he always helped us

122in football games basketball games baseball games he was always there didn't have to be but he wanted to support the students at ahs and he's a legend and so there's no better fitting for us to name our building 33 our 700th building after coach green he was one of the first occupants of the building when it was built he took office in there as well and that's where he stayed at until his passing last year and um you know as an auburndale community we were devastated last year and it took a lot of us to get through it and you know leaning on one another with all the different the parades we did for coach green as well on campus during what was going on with covid i mean also this past saturday had the

123coach green community day in auburndale at the park as well we look forward to honoring him in april when doing the naming of the building as well when his daughter can come back into town and join us as well so i thank you and appreciate everything that you do for us at auburndale thank you so much any further comment from the board i have come in miss fields i knew coach green from church we attended the same church in armando my brother was a pastor there he was a good man a christian man and he is a legend as you just said i remember him vividly riding around on the golf cart uh giving rides just a great man and this is a great honor for him and i'm happy that his family will be

124able to celebrate his legacy in april so make sure that you keep us informed on that date please you will be invited thank you thank you any further discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye any opposed and the motion carries thank you mr bruno thanks ty [Applause] the next item on our agenda is the matter academy davenport charter contract and i will seek a motion to approve the matter academy davenport charter contract motion to approve the contract as written second miss miller and miss fields oh sorry miss cunningham and miss fields i apologize any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed and the motion carries the last item on our action agenda is bellacita elementary middle school edition gymnasium dining room and track and

125i'll seek a motion to approve to create a project to build a middle school addition to include grades six seven and eight gymnasium dining room and track at bellasita elementary with the cost of 22 million dollars approval second miss cunningham and mr wilson any discussion yes miss fields okay i had access to this be placed on the regular agenda and thank you for that uh i had an opportunity to visit the campus last week and thanks to miss usher and to mr duncan for allowing for meeting me there rather and showing me the property and i have nothing against the concept of a kindergarten through a grade school i want to make sure that's understood i do have a concern that there is very little space once the middle school building goes into the area

126where it's designated to go and i've mentioned this to superintendent hyde and uh miss usher did get some information from the architect i would imagine yes ma'am and this the setback was given and i think it was like within 36 feet 36 feet on the um west or east county east side of the campus and it's 42 feet to the north end of the campus and the requirement i think was 26. oh no ma'am 25 25. so that's going to be very tight and so my question to superintendent hyde was how much does it cost to build an elementary school we are spending 22 million dollars on adding a middle school to an existing elementary school how much does it cost to build an elementary school i think we are ready to have property purchase

127do we miss our sure feel please come forward and as she's coming one of the things that miss miller had mentioned some time ago was possibly turning citrus ridge to a middle school and then building the elementary school and that would take care of the whole situation that was a while back i believe miss miller miss usher two questions for you based off miss fields if i may number one do we have do we have property already slated for an elementary school we own an elementary school site and also middle school site at highway 27 and holly tank road up in the northeast area we bought those properties for relief for the elementary schools and middle schools and for growth in the area what's the cost on an elementary school elementary school is about 35

128million the architect gave me a price of 18 million on this middle school edition but because it's impact fee and it takes a process to go through the county it has to go to public hearing and it's it's money that they have for us and um we put it to 22 million so we don't have to go back if we need it any excess money will go on to the new elementary school if we have any left over so it's 18 million for the for the middle school edition and 35 million for a new elementary school but would there be sufficient funds and impact fees to cover a new elementary school in its entirety i'm working with the county right now we just requested 49 million from them and they still have like 20 something

129million so i'm hoping that we'll get to the 35 million soon because the plan is to start the new elementary school 23 d at holly tank road and how we set 27 to provide enrollment relief to loftman horizon and all the growth in that area to accommodate the growth i don't know why we can't push the uh the bill date earlier if the monies are going to be there could we expedite the elementary or middle school campus at this time we can certainly look into that if we won't use the 18 million for the middle school then i can see how much if we add that to the 20-something if we'll have enough for an elementary school the issue um as the board remembers the reason why we recommended the k-8 was because when balasita

130opened in 2021 we took like not 400 students from citrus ridge elementary to bella sita now those students in bellacita will have to go back to citrus ridge and right now citrus ridge is about 87 percent with portables 105 without portables the plan was to have those students matriculate from kindergarten all the way up to eighth grade in two schools because then we will still have the issue with citrus ridge being over enrolled i remember the history of that i do remember that i can't support it i can't support it um out of respect um as i said i have nothing against k-8 but i cannot support putting putting that building on that small piece of property i just can't but i appreciate having a conversation yes ma'am thank you and just just for clarification

131part of the issue with that piece of property is there is no possible expansion even though there's vacant land adjacent to the school that is the polk county osceola county boundary um and i i don't foresee osceola county forfeiting property to polk county to build a school i don't either thank you miss fields dr alan so you know we were looking at the price for the elementary school which was slated at 35 estimation but the price for a middle school average is around 55 million correct so we're looking at 22 million for a middle school which is the current projected budget is 18 we would ask for the 22 in case there's any overruns over and then that would provide enough of a buffer and any subsequent remaining funds would roll into the new elementary

132miss miller i just um the buffers that we have and the contracts and you know the new high school that we have i just want to make sure that we're not when we're approving 22 million some not that our contractors aren't above board but i you know the bill the bidding up and the you know kovids cost 40 million more dollars to build a high school i can't sell that to the community anymore superintended so i need to know that we're not going to exceed what we've uh planned to spend yes ma'am you have that assurance ms usher has done and we are currently in negotiations on several sites and she is holding the line as far as what our expectations and costs are much to the discomfort of some of our partners ms cunningham

133thank you madam chair um i am in support of this this has been something that has been talked about for a while um community has met and had input from the families because the big thing in the northeast area is the growth and i think everybody knows that and we built this school to be able to help with the growth and in order to create the appropriate matriculation from elementary to middle school ms usher came out with this plan and presented it uh we've held meetings up in the area and um those children and families are pretty much counting on us moving forward with this so that all the kids who came from citrus ridge don't have to turn around now and go back to citrus ridge after being relocated once and it may not

134sound like a big deal to those of us that are adults but when you're a child in elementary school and you're trying to you know with everything else going on in the world it's kind of reassuring to stay in your own school so i will be supporting this um vote tonight thank you thank you miss cunningham miss fields i just i had one question so uh superintendent hyde i want to make sure that i'm understanding the amount of money that is budgeted is 22 million and yes ma'am and there is no indication that it's going to go beyond that no ma'am the current proposal estimation is 18 we are securing 22 as a buffer but no ma'am there is no indication at this time that we should see ice with all everything that we currently

135know on within our current parameters if we were to break ground there and find out that there's growing owls on that campus and now we have to relocate barring those types of situations yes ma'am we would stay within budget thank you any further discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying i any a post and the motion carries six to one superintendent hyde we are ready for your superintendent report um so briefly before i begin with just my traditional statement about the next meeting um as has i tried to interject a little bit of of a summary of events and activities that i've been a party to i want to say thank you to our schools today uh steve cochran and the team over at george jenkins hosted uh the first in

136in in a number of years an event at their school where we could highlight all of our nationally certified academy programs so we had school we had school teams from across the state attending got to interact more importantly they got to hear from me but let me take a step back not more importantly they got to hear from me i'm completely irrelevant to that i was there to welcome them to polk county into the school but they got to hear from our kids and i'll tell you that's an impressive group of young men and women um who who are in multiple programs everything from pre-law to our medical program um to our engineering programs and i had the opportunity before anybody showed up to talk with them and hear their stories about the internships that

137they're serving one of our young ladies was one of only three individuals selected in a geico internship she actually works every afternoon and she is about to take her certification exam she's up she's working in payroll right now and i told her that when she passes i have four vacancies in the payroll department we would be more than happy to talk to her about some subsequent employment and just what an amazing impressive group of students so well spoken so articulate so well-versed and with such a passion for their program areas and and really it reiterated and resonated with me that that's sometimes we got to get those kids in front of our eighth graders and our seventh graders because that's the selling point it's great that we advertise and market to families and to parents

138to help them make informed decisions with their children but we've got to engage our middle schoolers more to get them really excited about those programs um so kudos to to steve and his team um also want to give a shout out to susan copeland she will be hosting an event here next on the 4th there is a skeet shooter trap shoot event as a fundraiser for polk education foundation she was kind enough to take my wife myself and my son out to practice i will tell you that no one is in jeopardy based off my marksmanship however my son i will say call of duty in fortnight has definitely paid off he is someone to be reckoned with on the range um but very proud of the fact that susan and her team really strive

139to find creative ways to to raise revenue for our public schools and to support grants and things within our classrooms and so kudos to them and i tell you that young lady she works very very hard and we're very proud of all that she does so i wanted to give a couple brief shout outs today and he already addressed marissa and her birthday so she she's a pleasure to work with happy birthday to her yet again so for the superintendent's report the next work session and board meeting will be held on march 8 2022 the work session will begin at 12 30 p.m the board meeting will begin at 5 p.m work session and board meeting will be held at the gym miles professional development center located at 5204 u.s highway 98 south in lakeland

140and i'll provide a summary to the board as to the progress for the new for our previous board room my understanding is they'll begin pulling wiring and cabling starting next week however some items are the control panels in particular are still on back order so i'll provide you an updated timeline for when we might be looking to transition back thank you thank you so much and mr bridges thank you madam chair i suspect i've had my savior today thank you mr bridges and i think we will go backwards today so miss miller thanks i'm going to keep this brief i know we have people in the audience are really ready to talk to us next year we're going to have a board team for that that clay shoot i was lucky enough to join the

141lessons and i have bruises to show it but i'm i appreciate all polk education foundation does and making sure that the community knows what we do in the schools or active in our schools so when things do come up it doesn't impede on people that give to the scholarships for those students so i'm proud to be on their board and and i really appreciate all they do i'm going to end my report and pass it along thank you madam chair i think we probably forgot it in um committee appointments this year but i appreciate you self-appointing as social chair for the school board i enjoyed it and i think i've recruited lots of um people to in that clay shoot and if you're in the audience and you shoot clays i'll be happy to i'll

142be happy to hook you up on a team it'll be a great night march 4th in the evening evening clay shoot at that thank you miss miller mr wilson thank you madam chair i do have some comments i made these comments at the work session earlier today but i think it's important to share them again at our last work session not this afternoon but the one prior to that i offered some comments about the book situation and i think it's unfortunate that's characterizes book banning because that's not what it is um i was after that meeting i was criticized for taking those passages that i was concerned about out of context and i thought it was interesting that some of the folks that criticized me for taking those comments out of out of context had

143no problem taking my con my comments out of context and and even misrepresented my comments and i i i think that's unfortunate but i want to clarify what i said at that work session what i suggested was that we have a discussion as a community that we talk about this issue as a community because i think when we do that we have the ability to find a path forward i think when we do that we have the ability to find a solution really to any problem that we face in our school district we have to talk about those things and that's what i proposed and there were many folks who came forward and did offer solutions they engaged in the conversation they engaged in the conversation in a very positive and productive way and and

144i think we have a solution that will be acceptable to most of the members of our community um this has become a national issue and i think it's unfortunate and disappointing that it's being portrayed as book banning related to themes and genres because that's not the case this is a matter of passages passages that are cruel passages that are dehumanizing and passages that traumatize the reality is i can't read those passages in this school board meeting i can't even read them in context because i would be removed from my seat my kids graduated from school here in polk county i would not want them reading those passages now i didn't say that they shouldn't read the books i said i i wouldn't want them reading those particular passages there have been some folks who have

145uh contacted me and said that they found value that they found inspiration that they found these books that the books are that are being quarantined to be a positive influence in their life so we have that that's a very real and a very valid issue but there is a second issue and that is the passages that are dehumanizing and traumatizing to students and to people in general and if we can't separate those two issues if we can't focus on those passages and say and we have we say that we're taking those out of context then all we have left is fighting we can't find a solution forward we can't find a pathway we can't find a solution on the other hand if we understand that they're two separate very separate and distinct and relevant issues

146here then we have the possibility of finding a path forward and finding a solution i think we've already done that i i think that we have a solution that pretty much everyone in our community will agree to i certainly will vote for it as i said earlier i'll defer to the superintendent to bring that forward on his schedule but i just want to say thank you to all the folks who participated in that conversation and offered thoughts and and did so in a productive and positive way to help us find a solution to this very difficult problem because as i've said this afternoon when we talk about things and we have those discussions we can find a path forward for our community and we can find solutions and to me that's preferable to fighting about

147it thank you madam chair thank you mr wilson and miss fields out of respect of the people that's waiting to speak i'm going to not have a report i'll do mines next time thank you miss fields and miss fortney it's harder backwards it is i just want to say to all the teachers and staff that have retired since our last meeting enjoy you've earned it uh our school bus driver appreciation is today um march uh first is going to be our school social workers appreciation day uh i want to give a shout out to john eckman he does the bartow uh adult band if you've never been to a free concert down there they're usually our retired band directors uh and other banned folks that enjoy entertaining the masses we did the a whole bunch

148of stuff which i won't go into but i do want to bring up a couple of things um the history and science fairs thank you playing with the drones was awesome um tiger town did a pancake thing for our early learning coalition that i believe was very successful and then along with another board member interact there's a prom store open it is totally free in the old lakeland square mall feel free to go shop it's for males and females as far as a clothing attire of course there was tons i saw mr j.j corbett here again he was honored at the lb brown celebration as well um the northeast chamber did a really good job with their teacher of the years and school-related employees of the year and i want to give a huge shout

149out to dan talbert he's our athletic director him along with his ads at different schools and erotic construction helped out one of my elementary schools immensely and i want to give them a huge public shout out because that partnership is how we make sure pre-k through 12 public schools just do it better thank you miss fortney miss cunningham no report this evening thank you thank you miss cunningham dr alan thank you madam chair just a few items i just really wanted to just lift up crystal lake elementary this week it's our community partnership school they are right in the middle of their certification process a huge ordeal so many individuals within our community it's a heavy lift so i just wanted to say thanks to miss higgins her leadership the principles we actually had the

150principal of crystal lake elementary here this evening honoring one of their staff members even in the midst of the craziness that they're going through this week and this is a this is an honor really for it to be planted within our community if you don't know much about what a community partnership school is it's a rarity in the state there's not very many so for us to go through the certification process we look forward to hearing great news on the backside of that also i'm just really thinking of jeanette crowley she was the chairperson for the leadership lakeland education day and there were several several board members in participation in that and it was a great day uh it was quite full out there with our future leaders um from around the city and um

151really appreciate her organizing that day they actually drove in in a big yellow bus unload it with all kinds of cheers and quite a bit of energy and then i'm just you know if you if you see me out and about i'm carrying this really large five foot wood cased pencil and i've been roaming around different schools uh and you know bringing lakeland commissioners with me and different community leaders just to honor and to lift up our our staff school-based admins and it's fun going into the classroom seeing all these students who are like what is that large pencil and then i just let them know all you need is a big imagination and a large pencil and you could do anything you want so really enjoyed getting around to our schools even this week

152i think mayor bill mutts has jumped in to visit with us on friday and stephanie madden as well lakeland commissioner um on a more serious note i think you know the the conversation around the books uh and you know we can debate the language around that i would say it's it's healthy it's healthy for us um to discuss it and i'm in favor of that i feel like we do that and we should do that daily um as we think about the touch points of consumption that we have available to us in any form of technology i mean book is uh the book is a form of technology um in a sense so in any form of technology we should be addressing and we we should be vigilant about that um and and i've taken

153a a little different approach on it and i've enjoyed conversing with my my friend group and other individuals that are are reading the books you know and hey good for literacy let's do it let's discuss and think but you know we are adults in the midst of the conversation um so what i've done is i've been pondering the idea of of childhood and what childhood is because that should be a part of the conversation and we we hear tinges of it a bit here and there um when we think about the the language of age appropriateness so i wanted to share um just a little passage from a book that i've been reading by neil postman neil postman started the media ecology program at nyu and the title is of his book is the disappearance

154of childhood and he goes back actually to the middle medieval days to to talk about the disappearance of childhood actually not even existing and he equates the printing press as the proponent of the idea of childhood so he says to a certain extent curiosity comes naturally to the young but its development depends upon a growing awareness of the power of well-ordered questions to expose secrets the world of the known and the not yet known is bridged by wonderment but wonderment happens largely in a situation where the child's world is separate from the adult world where children must seek entry through their questions into the adult world as media merge the two worlds as the tension created by secrets to be unraveled is diminished the calculus of wonderment changes curiosity is replaced by cynicism or even

155worse arrogance we are left with children who rely not on authoritative adults but on news from nowhere we're left with children who are given answers to questions they never asked we are left in short without children so my hopes are that you know we don't overlook the the idea of childhood and what uh is involved in that in the midst of the conversation we are adults um and we do have children around us so within that um you know i i did talk to superintendent hyde i think this is a relevant time uh earlier i just asked a question it came up in work session as well as we think about having access to the control of materials and so forth as related to our destiny system so i was going to ask superintendent if

156you can maybe speak a couple words to that process and what we're thinking certainly so the current process um it is not very difficult to maneuver um so part of what we've been doing is not only internally having discussions but having conversations with destiny themselves based off the comments and the questions that were asked last workshop um when i did the presentation about the committee and structure and this process and so part of what we will do is provide um and develop video series both in multiple languages that will walk parents to how they can access the content and additionally internally we'll be developing an online form that parents can use they'll be required to do it once a year at the beginning of the school year to opt their children out and so they'll

157be able to search by their school to see what media materials are readily available meeting materials do vary by schools so there is unfortunately sadly there's not one comprehensive list to provide everyone because as you saw some of the books that are currently under review in one instance it's only located in one school in the entire school district um so it's really important for us to make sure that it's specific to that school additionally what destiny where we're inquiring of destiny is the ability for them very much like i shared as we go one to one you know in my previous experience we were able to send an automated process through securely which was our third party company that would provide parents with a comprehensive list of everything their child searched for while on a

158district device while going through the district network and so it allowed for conversations to happen at home you know about what their children are looking for and quite honestly that is a shared responsibility in a digital environment with us between us and families and so if we're able to replicate that as far as print content um then yes then there's a lot of questions that surround that but at least we're starting the process to explore that because at the end of the day much as we did with human growth and development there is an aspect of this to just make sure number one our parents are well informed as to what content and materials are readily available and then give them the opportunity to make an informed decision about what content they'd like their child

159to have access to and that's outside of the current discussion about these 16 books but i have no doubt as you know that the original list started at 52 and where we whittled down to 16. but i think quite honestly since this has come about we've received multiple inquiries about other books cat and a hat dr seuss the bible how many schools have the bible in them and why not ban that book and so there's a much larger conversation needs to happen so i think that by creating and i think this gets to mr wilson's point if we can find a way to satisfy the concerns and allow families to make informed decisions then we should pursue that and make it easy for everyone but familiarizing parents and educating them as to the best way

160to approach this is something we're already discussing and i'd be i look forward to bringing that solution to the board in the near future appreciate that and i think it's important for us to be vigilant in that so appreciate it madam chair that's all i have thank you thank you dr alan and i just have two quick things that i wanted to highlight the first is i want to say thank you to state farm they have partnered with several of our schools to do beautification projects so most recently was jewett school of the arts this past friday my kids while kids were out of school they spruced up their entire front yard so there's about 100 plants that they put in they spread new mulch everywhere and it was all state farm employees that did

161this as volunteers they also because they did it as volunteers will get a 500 grant for that school and that they can use as the school sees fit so this is i believe the third or fourth school that they've done and they are ready to do as many as we can get them and as many as days off as we have during the school year so i just want to say thank you to jennifer fasking and her team at state farm that's been coordinating that with dr warner the second is lake gibson high school audio group which is their choral department let me hang out with them on valentine's day to deliver singing telegrams and it is everything that is right in our world getting to watch these teenagers sing love songs or songs of

162friendship to different people throughout the community we got to deliver some thank you we got to deliver some to the district office which was really fun i'm sorry superintendent high that you were on a phone call and did not have time for our love on valentine's day but we'll get you next year um wendy got to join us so i just want to give a huge shout out to miss linhard and the lake gibson high school's audio group because they do a great job and that concludes my report and we will move on to our non-agenda item comments so just as before 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 note that although boards

163the board encourages community participation no immediate action will be taken on items presented during this portion of public comment if follow-up board action is required then the matter may be placed on an agenda at a subsequent meeting in accordance with school board policy so first on deck will be lynn garner sorry reverend lynn garner and then up next will be anna rivera so lynn garner good evening lynn garner from lakeland a high school friend loaned me a book about christine jorgensen the first person i'd ever heard of who had had what was then popularly called a sex change operation i also read in those days a book which i believe i picked up at the local five and dime man child in the promised land by claude brown it was a tough talking autobiographical novel

164about growing up in harlem and a book that had a lasting influence on this suburban white girl both of these books taught me about a world beyond my door and i don't think that either made me any more sinful or corrupted than i had been before man child has been on banned book lists since we're talking books i might as well quote faulkner here the past is never dead it's not even past we all care about our children we want them to grow up to be happy and successful in order to do that however they need to begin to learn about the world outside their doors in an age-appropriate way news flash teachers don't go into the profession because they're eager to make the big bucks nor because they can't wait to corrupt young minds

165they spend long hours learning education techniques and subject matter teachers also have inquisitive minds that want to impart a curious level of learning to their students our children come to us in all shapes and sizes in all colors and gender orientations and sexual identities all children need to know that the body and mind that they are growing into is sacred and okay i'm afraid that some people want to shield children from reality and keep them in an artificial magic kingdom i'm happy that the sexuality education program seems to have come to a successful compromise however that and the book banning not to mention the false narrative of critical race theory have a more ominous agenda i'm deeply concerned about lgbtq children and youth and children and youth of color growing up in a community and

166state that sees them as less than those of us who are white and straight the dog whistle of crt is all about that some would deny that american history has been full of atrocities as well as great steps forward i have five mayflower ancestors three of whom survived the first winter that means that there's a good chance that some of their descendants participated in king phillips war which decimated the native american population of new england also among my ancestors was a slave owner in connecticut another ancestor elizabeth katie stanton was one of the foremost advocates for women's rights in the 19th century and she openly expressed racist sentiments i call these ancestors the saints and the scoundrels the truth is that they and all of us are mostly a little bit of both our children

167need to learn the truth about american history not the lost cause version reading toni morrison is one way to learn these difficult truths banning books stifles minds and impedes our children's ability to cope with a complex world that they will enter thank you up next is anna rivera [Applause] and on deck is nancy simmons i'm anna rivera founder of the puerto rican hispanic chamber of commerce and i was raised in the new york city system educational system and i have something of the books that i was required to read in fahrenheit 451 books were banned in an attempt to keep society happy or so they were told believing that if people did not have to form opinions for themselves there would be less conflict and society would be happier in the years since its publication

168fahrenheit 451 has occasionally been banned censored or redacted in some schools at the behest of parents or teaching staff either unaware of or indifferent to the inherent irony in censorship the overreaching theme of four fahrenheit 451 explores the struggle between man's desire for knowledge and individuality in a society that expects ignorance and conformity what is the moral of fahrenheit 451 you ask fahrenheit 451 is explicit in its warnings and moral lessons aimed at the present bradbury said it best believed that human society can easily become oppressive and regimented unless it changes its present tendency toward censorship suppression of an individual's init rights now my mother signed off on these books that i had to read and i'm going to age myself this was during 1972 through 1976. and these books were like i just mentioned

169fahrenheit 451 a raisin in the sun the catcher in the rye dairy diary of anne frank to kill a mockingbird adventures of huckabee finn and mind comp i came out all right i think i'm okay and my son was raised in polk county he started in saint anthony's and ended up graduating from harrison and we shared three books together during his high school years that was 1984 the color purple and of course the harry potter series so thank you i think that book banning is um it's ver it's not only bad it's counteractive our children need to learn how to think for themselves and decide as well but as parents we will guide them but we will allow them to be them because once we're gone they're the ones who take over and do what's

170best for their children and the children after that thank you thank you miss simmons nancy simmons and then on deck will be cassie gibson i'm nancy simmons i'm from winterhaven now i want to commend you first before i say anything else i spent the weekend researching school board policies throughout florida and your website is so far superior to any of the others that i tried to navigate at one one uh county i could never get the whole manual it was unbelievable but yours was very easy so thank you for that i'm sure the public likes it um you've got a terrible job right now it's uh worse than usual because there are a lot of people that are mad at government and you're the you're the government sitting in front of them so i'm sorry

171that you're going through this but when i looked at i need you to understand maybe we've all forgotten this that school board policies have the same weight in laws as statutes and when you have a policy you have protection and the better the policy is the better your protection and um there were things that i when i went to look at your policies they seemed sort of generic and vague and then i looked down at the bottom and i saw this word neola and i looked them up and their one-size-fits-all policy people out of pin out of indiana and that's probably the problem so i went through the policy and there are three things that need to be strengthened in it and i've got them written out here that i would like to pass out

172to you one of the things i'm sure miss fields remembers that used to be something in in that policy that said that the principal would pick out the members of the review committees the first of school each year and that saves you a lot of grief because then nobody can come back and say well you picked a policy just because you didn't like me or you didn't like my book no the policy commit the the review committee would have been picked at the beginning of the year and i think that's important to put that back in there and i think it's important for the board because you're the policy people to make everybody follow your policies if you do everything will be much better for you going forward [Applause] so i i just i want

173to say one more thing if you don't follow the policies then other people think they don't have to either and i've already heard the rumor that an employee has removed some more books from a middle school library so um i just beg you please follow your policies thank you thank you miss simmons and if you'd like to hand those to mr bridges he can pass them down to us if you want to hand your papers to mr bridges he can pass them down thank you next is cassie gibson and then on deck is bob nichol cassie gibson all right and next is bob nichol and then on deck will be yanique williams good evening my name is bob nichol i'm with a group called cult parents for education i'm also an esc inclusion teacher at

174boone middle school in haines city in her 1994 book quiet strength rosa parks wrote i had no idea that history was being made i was just tired of giving in here in polk county we are tired of giving in we do not want books to be banned in polk county we want actual american history to be taught in polk county there are things that happened in this country's past that make us feel uncomfortable six-year-old ruby bridges being threatened and heckled all because she wanted to go to school in little rock arkansas addie mae collins cynthia wesley and carol robertson all only 14 years old along with 11 year old sarah collins addie may's little sister all died when they were changing into their choir robes when a bomb exploded at the 16th street baptist church

175in birmingham alabama and perhaps the biggest stain on our history slavery where people were kidnapped from their homes in africa thrown into the bottom of a ship taken halfway across the world to america and forced to work on plantations for no money these events should not be whitewashed they should be taught by teachers in classrooms books should be written about them not banned we should learn from our mistakes so as not to repeat them as tony morrison wrote in her pulitzer prize-winning book beloved which some people want to ban me and you we got more yesterday than anybody we need some kind of tomorrow thank you mr nickel yanique williams and then on deck will be nicole young if you could just say your name for the record i'm yannick williams a literacy teacher and

176jamaican native with the amazing opportunity to be a part of the tpg cultural exchange program for the past six months it has been both an honor and a complete joy to be a part of polk county public schools and more specifically the mclaughlin middle school family if you are here with us from mcafee middle school please stand or wave so we can see you [Applause] the faces present in this room today is only a fraction of the incredible support system we have come to know through our visa sponsors and our school family and for that we are grateful the choice to join the tpg cultural exchange program was an easy decision not only because i would be closer to my own country but also because of the way in which the program was presented to

177me you see this being my second cultural exchange program having spent three years teaching in europe i was quite familiar with being left to my own devices and having to find my own balance in a country where the culture was significantly different and the language barrier was overwhelming however with tpg even before arriving here in the united states i felt cradled protected even because of the frequent check-ins and the supplementary information they provided to make my transition a smooth one our representative elsa drove around polk county all summer long scouting available housing and conversing with owners and managers so we could maximize on lodging accommodations another thing i found extremely considerate was that our insurance took effect the moment we stepped off the airplane and that made me feel safe we were placed in hotels

178upon arrival given a driver who took us to various locations to get work documentation done shopping fingerprinting among other things that would help us get settled additionally we were provided financial supplements to aid us in transitioning if we did not have enough funds this we could repay interest-free over time to not be a burden to us throughout the past months we have been checked in through different mediums and have been engaged in various webinars and meetings from tpg that have not only helped in our transition culturally but also in enhancing various aspects of our teaching life like classroom management and varying teaching skills we were also given various ways to acquire transportation both through a tpg affiliate and other car vendors and financing agencies to be honest the transition to teaching here in polk county

179was not the easiest of processes we had to become familiar with the way of life here and a new way of doing the one job that we had almost perfected back home the truth is that we could not have done it without you or board our school families and the proactive hard working team at cpg thanks to you all we have not only been able to share our culture with the amazing students but we are learning so much from them and we're happy that we can mold them to be positive movers and shakers of the american society thank you thank you [Applause] next is nicole young and on deck is alexandra young nicole young i apologize that's a typo i'm nicole fosmo oh sorry reading interventionist at mclaughlin middle school so it seems tonight's topic

180is diversity diversity is a strength a challenge and important enough to be protected and that's why we're speaking today to protect our teacher exchange program that is a part of our school now not just for our students but for our schools and teachers i cannot speak about all exchange teachers but i can speak about the ones at our school because i have been in their classes i have planned with them and i have seen their impacts firsthand i'm able to do my job to support small group instruction because these fine teachers have filled vacancies at our schools i applaud the foresight and innovation of you the school board members to reach out for that diversity that enriches our district as a whole i have seen mr angel bird miss brown gail and miss williams overcome

181challenges and add to the strength of our school these teachers have made impactful connections that will last for the students the staff and our community these teachers come to school every day and challenge themselves and our students to rise above the obstacles and be the best that you can be they grow their students and make connections with them that go far beyond just the school day each of these teachers have gone to basketball games volleyball games and soccer games for their students not as a teacher obligation but for a ch for a cheering fan and to support them these teachers stay after school to tutor their students because they know they need the support and cheering for their academics too they engage their students to reach them on their level and take the time to

182get to know them to find out what motivates them to work harder they have made those connections with students and these connections have made the students grow these teachers have also made connections with our staff they have overcome obstacles with learning the standards the lesson templates and have synchronized their educational knowledge with our own adding to the accumulation of knowledge within our collaborations making us a stronger team they have each been awarded teacher of the month for their own dedication and contribution school-wide mr angelbert was just recently recognized as a rising star from the district they have provided wonderful food and gifts for the staff to show us appreciation or maybe they're just showing off how good they cook they have made lasting connections to teachers and those connections that made our school grow and

183i am sure that this is just the beginning these teachers live in our communities they have met our students and parents while walking to school and while shopping they support community events and add to the diversity of our county i'm sorry they bring with them the laughter and joy of their culture to ours and they make our community grow these connections and diversity should be protected and grown just as the teachers have become an integral part of our team and have grown us and as you can see mclaughlin has come in full support of them thank you thank you so much [Applause] and next is alexandra young and then on deck will be angel bur mariano good evening superintendent hyde and board members my name is alexandra young i'm a student at mclaughlin middle school

184and fine arts academy i started this year as a seventh grader and it was my first year at mclaughlin it's been an amazing year mrs browngale is my advanced language arts teacher and she is from jamaica mr angeber is my advanced math teacher and he is from the philippines mr anderson keeps all students and his class engaged and focused with standard-based tasks he ties his lessons to real-life experiences that help all students retain learning objectives and achieve academically he is simply an amazing teacher mrs browngale is encouraging and nourishing i look forward to her lessons because she challenges her students as well as shows up and shows us just how much she cares you can always talk to her and i know she will help me resolve any challenges that i may have mrs browngil

185always smiles and says good morning to each student as we enter her class mr angel and miss browngill are both leaders and students trust them to support us in achieving our academic goals i love that they are both very open about their cultures they explain to the class why they decide to leave their homes to teach students in lake wales they are both passionate about teaching students who are just like me they are patient with us and will explain it to us as many times as needed to ensure that we succeed mrs browngale and mr angelberg communicates with my parents so they always know how i how i'm achieving a class they consistently strive to help me perform to my maximum potential mclaughlin is a phenomenal school and we have lots of opportunities under the

186leadership of the administrative team doc hudson is just simply exceptional our school is changing for the better because dr hudson puts the students first and ensures that her decisions are benefiting us the students dr hudson tells us and shows the students and staff how much she cares and we all realize what an amazing job she is doing as i reflect on this school year and all i have learned i realize how lucky i am to have such amazing teachers and staff that care on behalf of the students is staff mclaughlin sean fernandez our student body president and i would like to present you with a small gift thank you all so much [Applause] thank you alexandra and i'm guessing that was shawn that waved to us from the back and handed out our gifts thank

187you as well sean [Applause] [Music] [Applause] angelbert mariano and then it'll be janine brown you have a tough act to follow just so you know good evening school board so to my fellow exchange teachers from my school and from other schools please please sign up to be recognized thank you so [Applause] much i am mr angel bert mariano a cultural exchange teacher from the philippines and i am currently assigned as a seventh grade mathematics teacher at mclaughlin middle school and pirates academy it was my childhood dream to be an educator here in the u.s with the sponsorship of tpg cultural exchange that dream was made into a reality to my visa sponsor mr jataki duma thank you for believing in me that i am capable of being a cultural ambassador for my country to my

188uh to miss elsa johnson and the rest of the tpg team i am forever grateful to your undying help and support thank you for ensuring that i get settled first before starting my teaching journey in the american classroom being an exchange teacher is not easy going out of your comfort zones leaving your family back home to share your passion for teaching and expertise is indeed a big sacrifice but with my burning desire to experience another culture and do my calling from god as an educator i conditioned my mind body and spirit to be strong mclaughlin middle has been my home for a year now and thanks to my dynamic and ever supportive dr debra wright hudson for welcoming me as part of the phoenix family dr hudson thank you for always recognizing my efforts in

189serving our students and thank you for pushing me hard to perform the best i can i am serving almost 70 7th graders each day and i still have a fresh memory of my very first day with them getting their surprise looks and how they warmly welcome me as their new math teacher the excitement that they bring to me every day keeps me motivated to work hard whenever i see their 100 authentic engagement in the class when i deliver my standards-based instruction when i ask them questions that boost their critical thinking and reasoning skills and their math calculations as fast as they can makes me the real winner i always live with the school district slogan which is students first by making sure that my students get what they truly deserve excellent teaching and learning environment

190i am forever indebted to polk county public schools district headed by the action man himself superintendent hyde thank you for having me and the rest of my fellow tpg exchange teachers in your school district this opportunity to serve your school district means a lot to us the other experiences that we will be bringing from this whole journey back to our home countries are something that we will treasure forever thank you thank you [Applause] we have a new name for you now action man thank you i will say i have had the pleasure of observing many of these individuals actually delivering instruction each day so is there a story behind the action man no i i'm just apparently now i need to get up one of those personalized plates absolutely we'll take care of that and

191we have janine brown and then on deck will be joe ellen mcpeek good evening everyone my name is janine browngale from the beautiful island of jamaica i am a literacy teacher here at mclaughlin middle school it was always a dream of mine to return to the us after working here as a teenager during the summer this dream seemed much more impossible after i got married i had my first child however because i believed strongly in getting my desired outcome i decided to take the risk it was a simple formula take the risk and achieve or don't take it and don't achieve when i became aware of the tpg program i immediately started the process i instantly got feedback from them and this made my interest grew deeper because of how swiftly they would respond to

192my messages the process of leaving jamaica was much was smoother than i expected i arrived in january 2021 at this point i still had questions and doubts most of these questions weren't questions that no one else could answer but me janine is this really what you want to do with the support i received from the tpg team my questions and doubts slowly decreased as i mentioned support let me share some of the great support that i received from the program sponsor i was given explicit instructions on where to find my hotel shuttle bus when i first arrived i stayed at my hotel for four nights which was paid by the tpg program during this time i was assigned a driver also by the program who took me to get groceries to open bank accounts and

193also to the district to complete my onboarding process subsequently i arrived at my home school arriving there was nothing short of an amazing experience i felt welcomed the first day i walked into that building after that first week i found my apartment so after getting over one hurdle i met the students the culture shock started here i thought i would have to leave at this point because i said to myself many nights janine are you made for this i questioned myself however as stated earlier tpg was again there for support and they would have webinars to support teachers who needed help my literacy team was also influential in my growth all the kind words and overwhelming support have not gone unnoticed this current school year has been great so far i have seen how my

194students have changed both in their attitude and their behavior this resulted in them making gains in their tests and exams to wrap up i decided to take the risk and achieve all of this would not have been possible without the support of both tpg and my mac family [Applause] thank you next is joellen mcpeek and then on deck is going to be jeannie mccarthy i am so lucky to follow such a wonderful series of amazing young teachers and fashion i'm so glad they're here uh i am here i don't know why i plan anything because i spend the entire meeting writing all over my plan um so i'm going to go with what i originally wrote and maybe stick in a few things here but i'm here tonight to address the steps taken in response

195to a group's threats to lodge charges against our media specialists and teachers claiming distribution of harmful materials beyond the fact that the assertion is baseless there is a specific procedure to follow when books are challenged this group didn't want to take the time and would not have received the exposure they did if the policy had been followed this procedure was ignored and as a result you handed this group control over polk county public schools understand that the books are not the issue this group started with mask then a false narrative teaching critical race theory then they went after our sex ed curriculum where is it going to end if allowed to go unchallenged we will be left with an education system devoid of value a system that is hostile to critical inquiry and dialogue we

196all have a stake in what is happening here and we can no longer let a small but loud group silence our voices and control our schools parents have the right to know and limit their children's choices however no person should have the ability to limit others choices i will leave you with the words of ncte national council teachers of english on the students right to read the right to read like all rights guaranteed or implied within our constitutional tradition can be used wisely or foolishly in many ways education is an effort to improve the quality of choices open to all students but to deny the freedom of choice in fear that it may be unwisely used is to destroy the freedom itself for this reason we respect the right of individuals to be selective in

197their own reading but for the same reason we oppose efforts of individuals or groups to limit the freedom of choice of others or to impose their own standards or taste upon the community at large the right of any individual not just to read but to read whatever he or she wants to read is basic to a democratic society this right is based on an assumption that the educated possess judgment and understanding and can be trusted with the determination of their own actions thank you jeanne mccarthy and on deck is weissel joker i am jeannie mccarthy i am a taxpayer i am a parent and i am also a public school teacher for the last 23 years of my life which couldn't have been spent any other better way um i i hate to follow her

198and then the other group because it's just so amazing to listen to them speak but i do want to talk a little bit about the book situation obviously um i guess the best thing i can do is speak from the heart anytime we try to deny people information the next thing all those people are going to do is try to go and run and get that information throughout my life some of the best and most influential people in my life have been my teachers there have been times when i couldn't speak with my parents there have been times when someone has encouraged me to go trust speak to a trusted adult and that person is always going to be my teacher and i always want my students to feel the same as me so when

199they enter my classroom i'm going to love my children whether they are any color underneath the rainbow and no matter who they choose to love because i am going to teach them no matter what and i am teaching the 21st century learner and the 21st century learner comes in all shapes and sizes and sexual orientation right now this is their present but if we remove everything from the library and from whatever they can read and learn from when they become my age then we are also taking away kind of their history do you see what i mean we can never learn what they went through as any child if we take away our ability to read it and learn from it and guide them through that process as well um i just really um appreciate

200the impetus of the school board and everything that you guys do to help filter this process i really do feel like it is up to the parent as an individual and i am really glad to see that we are going to try to um make that process better so that we don't have to worry about people coming in and voicing their opinions and causing so much chaos but the other thing is is if we let all those other people come in with their intentions then we have to let everybody come in with every intention so i do appreciate everybody's time and thank you have a nice day thank you i'm not even going to attempt it again so if you could say your name and then you get to the dyess and then on deck

201will be jane delph i'm so sorry thank you for the opportunity and in fact i decided to share with my story because this diverse and inclusion and teacher exchange program i'm a turkish-american citizen who moved here 30 years ago and 10 years in new york 20 years in polk county back in turkey in high school i took this exam with couple of my best friends american field services exchange student program this is going back to like 1980s my best friend i gave him a couple of tips if i didn't give him maybe i would be the one but i'm happy for him he got he came to washington dc as an exchange student one year you know he worked there and a lot of his story one of the things growing in turkey you know

202i know america you know country of his uh freedom all the stuff then the news would come in this town in this county these and these books are banned i'm like how can it be why people with friends and in america i can't believe this and i'm like you know wanting to come here which i came i'm the american dream actually after 30 years tax paying resident and citizen i have a two-story house two children two dogs a pool house couple cars living american dream but where am i i'm raising my children in a county trying to ban the books unbelievable what am i gonna do here i am fighting for their right everyone else's right to the freedom and the people who are trying to block user in name freedom fighters and i'm reading

203here in the news really blackmail you know it's a blackmail hannah peterson steve macron come like you know oh you are which one it is florida statute 486 847.012 which involves distribution of harmful materials to miners did really our elected sheriff judge by it did he what did he say about it i mean i know he said hey you're moving him from north but watch out have you don't vote like you voted there water suppression reproductive health separation like what is going on in this country who's gonna stand up there is oops i'm holding the wrong side no matter what we are supporting you school board because as people speaking before me it's the 21st century we need to teach our children accordingly so they can raise their children the next generation so please do

204the right thing and i don't want to read about the bible sections because it's going to be the same thing and again galileo made a mistake thank you thank you jane delph and on deck is joan sprain this is my first time here i don't know any of you i am a grandmother and my name is jane delf i live in winterhaven uh i have a non-verbal four-year-old grandchild and he is signed up with the i e plan to get 30 minutes of the speech language weekly the first half of the year he got it seven times is all so that's 13 missed he only got three sessions of it um so far this year so that's why i'm here because being a non-verbal child he needs this therapy he gets the federal government money

205for this and i'm begging you to look into it so that my grandson can have a chance please yes ma'am dr lutz i just texted him he'll be following you out afterwards to address um also when you were talking about the uh upgrading of the schools if you could add bartow floral to that it could use it could use a nice little update um but that's really all um i'm just concerned because he is getting the federal money for just 30 minutes we do things on our own but that 30 minutes could make a big difference in his life so if you could do that yes ma'am and dr lutz is just behind you and he's going to follow you out and step out and talk with you about that thank you thank you so

206much next is joan sprain and on deck is rochelle greenfield joan sprain looks like she's not here rochelle greenfield rochelle greenfield going twice okay james hopson and then on deck will be justin sharpless good evening madam chair board members superintendent hyde cabinet i just want to introduce myself i'd hate to come after all these guys that gave these wonderful speeches however i know a lot of you already know the changes that's taking place with askme2227. miss burke has had the opportunity to step into a different position to help better our union as a local not only is it going to help us better our union as a local it's going to help other locals to come together as well my name is james hopson and i've been appointed the new president of askme2227. i know

207some of you guys i've already been able to work with i look forward to working with the ones i haven't so with that being said we represent what i feel is the best people on earth the best local the best county in america and uh i don't take that lightly i'm going to do everything i can to stand up to defend them to do what's fair for them and to bargain on their behalf our maintenance workers they're doing amazing work they're keeping everything in spec even in the most rapid growth that we've ever seen in polk county our custodial they're working in unsettling environment selfishly to ensure that our kids have a safe and they have a sterile environment to go to school with every day food nutrition they show up every day and work

208tirelessly to feed our children mechanics they're keeping our wheels rolling they're keeping our buses safe they're keeping all of our employees safe they're keeping the kids safe let's not even think about dispatchers they're working nine bands with two dispatchers with antique equipment they need better systems which i i understand are coming in as we speak but at the same time that doesn't lessen the stress of what they have to deal with on a daily basis with just two people and nine bends so bus drivers last but not least they're responsible for getting our kids to school each and every day so uh for each and every one of these groups they feel like they're overworked underpaid and that they're not represented properly or they're not recognized like they should be so with that being said

209my goal here is to come in unc with our union to bargain through our contract to be able to do everything we can to work with you guys to be able to create a better atmosphere better pay better bargaining agreement and make this place a better place to work and bring more people in and be able to accomplish everything that pope county is trying to accomplish which is to make it the best county in america thank you so much sharpless and on deck is greg guy hello board board members i'm justin sharpless from lake wales i want to thank the board and superintendent hyde for recognizing all of our last month i talk about polk county youth fair recognizing all of our students that participate there it's a very important event for them they work

210hard all year also on the district's facebook page thank you for recognizing the george jenkins barbecue team my little brother is a competitor on the george jenkins barbecue team so it means a lot to me that um that you recognize him and the team they play seventh out of 43 teams and they were competing against adults okay these are high schoolers and they got second place in ribs and if you can tell i i don't miss very many ribs myself um i'm about to have a family feud though because my dad is the construction academy teacher at roosevelt academy and he's going to start a barbecue team up at roosevelt academy so i don't know who i'm going to be able to root for my brother or my dad hopefully they both win also i

211want to just recognize this past tuesday february 15th was national school resource officer appreciation day and i just want to say thank you to all the men and women who are in our uh in our police that take care and keep our schools safe every day for our staff and our students um this month is uh career technical education month february is uh deemed that and so i just have a real brief note here that career technical education is a modern approach to higher education and training and it can accelerate personal and professional successes with little to no barriers to enrollment with 17 career pathways to choose from individuals can acquire the skills needed through real-world hands-on experiences and some of our students that's how they learn best is through hands-on experiences last but not

212least this week february 19th to 26th is national ffa week and as you all know i am a product of polk county ffa i was a county ffa officer and it's something that's um i hold dear to my heart ffa in my opinion is the greatest uh youth organization there is um i have personal bias folks i kind of went through the program um but i know it it helps develop leaders for the future um in our agriculture industry so thank you board members and i just wanted to highlight a few things that um that you guys are highlighting as well as maybe bring some other things onto the table that you might not have okay so thank you very much thank you justin next is greg guy and on deck is reverend eddie lake

213i just came to read a poem i didn't even know you guys were burning books so and i just want to say that's a nice smile i've never seen your smile in person [Laughter] but that is a gubernatorial smile and i'm looking for matches myself if you're in line so just saying uh this is called broken banner it's written by one of my eighth grade students i'm greg guy i teach at the that school which shall not be named citrus ridge civics academy eighth grade broken banter inspired by way i skipped something i got to go back there's a quote by frederick douglass it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men and that inspired this poem broken banter by my student nadia from blowing bubbles to boiling blood one life easier

214than none in these trenches we sing the hymns of our broken banter wishing that our children and their children fall asleep to the sound of their mother singing and not the booming orchestra of gunshots build them strong because by the time this war is over we'll be gone broken far beyond repair we leave our posterity in your career thank you reverend eddie lake okay i we do not have a card for you we have to speak you have to register before the meeting thank you okay the cards didn't come up until 503 i believe is when they picked them up because it was just before the meeting when they brought them to me so i i apologize but we have to register before the meeting next up is karen wetzel welcome and then on deck

215is willy mincy this is good um i am karen wellesley i live in winterhaven and i'm not a teacher um i raise two sons and they're both grown and i have a son or grandson in college graduating this year i ran across a i don't know who wrote it i'm not taking credit for it but it's a letter that's addressed to parents and i would like you just to listen and think about what this letter is saying your child's teacher has reason to be concerned about the appropriateness of what your child is learning outside of school because children spend only about 33 hours out of 160 hour week in school your child's life at home and outside of school has much more influence on the person that your child will grow up to be more

216so than anything that happens in school so that teachers can be more responsive to your child's needs please provide the following for them on a weekly basis a detailed list of television shows that your child watches a complete list of the video games that your child plays a complete list of the social media that your child uses including links to all tick-tock videos an instagram post and a list of their friends on snapchat a list of slang terms including swear words and racial epithets that are used at least once daily in your household a thorough description of how the relationships among the adults in your child's life are displayed in front of your child tallies of the number of times an adult in your household has said something uplifting and motivational to your child i'm

217so proud of you i love you and the number of times an adult in your household has said something judgmental and demotivational you're a disappointment to this family pictures of a quiet space set aside for your child to do their school school work a complete list of the books that you will read to your child or a list that your child will read a detailed list of activities you plan to do daily for the remainder of the year thank you for your ongoing commitment to showing that your love of your child by providing them with the information that they need in order to adequately provide for your child's education this information is vitally important so that they will be sure to follow up with a telephone call or set up a meeting with you at

218the school if they don't receive it this may seem like a lot at first but they sure are it will become a routine after only a few weeks and they really need this transparency to ensure that your child receives the education that they're entitled to we would especially ask the people who come here to spread their fear and shout about their freedom to please remember that we all have freedoms and to allow the teacher and the parents to do their jobs without fear and intimidation thank you thank you [Applause] and last but certainly not least bishop willie mincy i just want to say tonight to uh you miss white thank you for calling us back to the prayer meeting and i want you to ask some of these other preachers too to come because i

219don't want nobody to think i'm the only preacher yes sir we appreciate you being here when our but i'm gonna stick with you until my assignment is over yes i got an assignment and i'm gonna stick with it until it's over uh neopod and 16 books ain't out of trouble that's our cheering problem people don't admit to it they fighting about books and all of that and the superintendent doesn't say what they're gonna do and all that but these young people that tick tock thing they looking at it and and and the next thing don't be fearful don't be fearful you can't you can't be in this battle and be fearful perfect love casted out all fear when y'all go to running scared because of a certain group we're in a messed up world i

220told you all this some time ago how the governor have done everything imaginable and y'all support him but i know who i serve and i know who i worship so that's why i'm worried about that don't worry about that because when the time come according to what i read he put me in up and he take him down so he has a season he has to do what he got to do but the problem is that we as somebody said earlier and which it would be wonderful if we could find a way that we could be mr wilson say they'd come to the table and sit down and talk about the problem because there is a problem and ain't just not got him over 200 years ago we got into this problem and you can't

221erase it you can't ignore it you can't say it'll just go away your children my children all children is gonna find out the real truth eventually from each other as we look around look at somebody's skin look one color and another skin look another color and they come out of the same house questions go to being asked somebody stepped out on the outside and done something tell the truth the truth is the only thing set us free and i just i hate to see that we go round and round in this thing every month about something tell the truth that's all people need to know is the truth then you can get along and move on and get to the place we want to get to and be a successful school district and our children

222will learn and they'll get to get along together if they do get along this old folk don't get along with no further business to come before the board that will adjourn this meeting [Music] do [Music] you